A month in the life of a software engineer | becoming a tech lead again

I want to document this. You know why? It's the first day of my kids new daycare center, dude. Yes, it's like a YouTube video. But I get to document like you know, my first trip in the morning to this daycare center, you know what I mean? And it's fucking snowing. We lost doa, but we're gonna set up some playdates. There's some sad news and a developing story. A daycare center that's been open for 40 years, bro, and they're closing it down. This girl DOA thinks that like Little Caesar's her boyfriend, bro, and she's going to a different daycare center. They're gonna be apart, dude. It's so cold, dude. But I have to say, I have to say this is the last cold of the year. No, if you look at the forecast, it's the last cold, bro. So this is my first choice of the daycare center. I think the more I speak Korean, the more we get pushed out to Korea. Saebon. Oh, it's so sad, dude, not taking him to his regular daycare center. I've been having all this anger in my heart recently, dude. All the people that like never believed in me and shit makes me want to do better like, because they don't believe in me, you know what I mean? I think like my dad, he never saw any potential in me because I was like such a stoner. I was like, I was a piece of shit son, you know what I mean? I mean he never took the time. The only proof he had for me like working was like my grades or like what my teacher said. But he never hung out with me one on one. Really. I don't think he ever saw potential yet. I remember I saw him like when I first started programming maybe a year or two in I had like a job and stuff and I told him, yeah, I changed my career, I'm like a programmer. And he was like, you know, holy. He said that? Yeah. And he's like, yeah, you mean, you mean like a web designer or a graphic designer. But he thought I didn't have that like logical mind or anything. And like sometimes I want to like my dad, but then I have these like weird ass like memories. And there's a lot of other people too that I've been thinking. But I've been, I've been making a hit list, dude. Yeah, the only way I fucking get back at them is just I can succeed. Ask him how old he is. Say Messar. Hey dude, I'm gonna make you some. Have you ever had mashed potatoes? You like mashed potatoes? Yeah, I do. I can make mashed potatoes. Today. Today? Yeah. With gravy. Bye. Bye. My son is asleep now. We had just come back from his new daycare center. But anyways, today I want to reflect on the last month because it was a pivotal moment for me as a developer. I'm sorry for this not being a typical day in the life with the coffee and smoke morning ritual, but I really wanted to put this out there and maybe you could share with me in the comments below. What was the most pivotal moment for you as a programmer? Whether you were just starting out or have been in the game for a long time. Keep going, keep going. Perfect. Stay there. That is a lot of effort, dude. Alright, alright. Later. Jocelyn, my second ever mentee, had just left Korea. Before she left, she gave us a speech of a lifetime. You just can't give up. You just have to go. You have to keep going. You have to keep pushing. It's the passion that keeps you driving forward. She was a reminder that what we are bringing to the tech industry at Leadville actually works for those trying to change careers or break into tech. As a college graduate, and this has given me a resurgence as a programmer that I had lost when I got laid off, which is that I need to start coding again. Hello. Hey, what's up? Hello. How are you? Happy Monday Sunday. Happy Monday. Happy, happy Monday. Minnie's here. Yeah, we're all here together. Did Minnie Send over the GitHub repository for you guys to take a look at about local storage? Hey Mustafa. I missed you last time, bro. Yeah, sorry about that. Oh no, no, no need to be sorry. I just, I missed. We missed you. But William, it's good to see you, bro. All right, next we'll go over the map method. So on top of trying to bring our mentorship program to the next level by providing our mentees with the left fill web dev course, which by the way took Minnie and I 10 hours a day to finish. For two weeks straight, we started something that I never thought I would do again. I'll become a tech lead once again and this time lead a team of young college graduates and junior developers to create a product that would help programmers all around the world unite under one place. Song is here. Gabe is here. Booty's here. And Jocelyn. This is our team. The whole team is here. This is the team. I'll be like a quarterback. XY split from my overview right now, for some reason, I'm seeing Booty and Jocelyn more As the front end and then song and I do it doing mostly back end, but I might pull you into the back end. Okay, that's fine because maybe your computer is turning into a jet engine. I'm. You know, it's getting kind of fun now, right? We have a heart. Damn. We got like, we got. Look at that, dude. This app is my love letter to the Leadville community because you saved my life. My life was saved by the coding back in July of 2024. But it is the community, the people who joined let fill the mentees who really revived my love for programming. So let me introduce you to LET Social. We had just started talking about this app in January, but in February we took action. We grinded every day on top of doing the mentorship program, making the course, helping more guys break into tech. We didn't skip a day. I even started coding at night. Replacing Madden with coding once again, which is very reminiscent of my early days of coding. I truly found my passion again. What's up guys? It's Phil. It's Mindy's birthday in about nine minutes. Thought I'd stay up, do a little bit of coding the code here, working on some simple views. You know, we got the wireframe done, so I gotta pull my weight and do my work that I need to do. So I'm just. Honestly, I'm just staying up because I can say happy birthday to Minnie, but I'll probably get off at 11:59. So then he feels kind of bad about it. Just kidding. All right. But I just work a little bit more. All right, dude. Later. I'm incredibly lucky and grateful to you. In one month, I've done more than I've done in the past six months. And it couldn't be done without my guys. Jocelyn, Gabe, Booty Song, Charlie, Minnie, and the lead fill community. This is just the start. And you'll know we'll get back to the regular program of the show next week. But I just wanted to tell you, if you are stuck right now, whether trying to get your first job in tech, or stuck in a project or even just in life, you feel like you are down and out, then just keep going and think of it as the universe testing you to see if you really want it, if you really deserve it, if you really love what you're doing, if you get through it by not giving up, you will achieve it. Don't be like John Cena who just gave up. Be like the future you who didn't give up so you can look back and tell stories. Of that time, Cena went heel. And the day you made the decision to keep coding. And if I can do it, you can do it, too. Coding saves lives.