About me.

This is who I am.

Hello there, I'm Taj 👋! I'm a 29 year old full stack software engineer/developer/tinkerer with a particular fascination/obsession with the web! I live in the South-East of England (always have) and currently reside in a town called Eastbourne. The sea is a big source of inspiration for me as it represents chaos that can bring peace with the right mindset, a lot like working in high-paced environments!

The stack I currently work with on a regular basis includes:

• C# .NET Core REST APIs
  • These are in the form of micro-services.
• Azure DevOps
  • With the focus on Repos (Git) and Pipelines (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment).
• Azure Cloud
  • With the focus on Web Apps, Front Door, CosmosDB, Application Insights and more.
• Angular 8+ Web Apps

This is what a normal day looks like for me.

It starts with a standup. Dread it. Run from it. Standups still take place every day. At least that's what most people seem to think! I try my best to inject as much fun into the standups as possible, though they are short, because I feel it starts off the day brilliantly. The perks of Agile I suppose!

Then begins the work day proper. I take up a ticket, I work on the ticket. JIRA is slow, but I persevere. My team needs help. That's ok, I've become proficient at parking tickets at good points to pick up later. I help out a team member or two (or three or perhaps everyone all at once) and ensure they're confident about moving forward with what they're working on. Then I move back to my ticket as soon as possible.

Sometimes it's a breeze, sometimes less so. Over time I try to build up a structure of trust and confidence so that everyone is well equipped to do the same. A self-fulfilling prophecy. There's a few knowledge shares and some mentoring to help with that.

And then there's the occasional browser specific bug which makes me want to die.

This happens every day and like a blossoming artificial intelligence I grow both my technical and interpersonal skills.

This is what I like to do.

Do you know anyone who turned a hobby into their job and regretted it? I'm thankfully not one of those people! I still love web development and I have since the moment I first wrote "Hello world!" in notepad. I very much love all aspects of web development from the design to the implementation to the deployment.

When I'm not working I'm fortunate enough to have a flat which I should really be renovating more than I have been... but when I do find the motivation for that, I'm somewhat of a DIY aficionado! Plumbing in particular is something I find captivating, though it's utterly terrifying in most cases...

Other than that, I've become a very casual gamer, playing the least stressful of games on my Nintendo Switch. Games were the original spark for my developer lifestyle so it's something that's very close to my heart. I'll always be impressed by developers creating playable games before digital games and downloadable patches were the norm!

Other than that, it's a pretty humble life I live. I take a long walk daily, try to meet up with friends as much as I can (Covid-19 in mind) and just try to be more aware of my surroundings rather than just coasting through life!

Oh and occasionally I help out a friend by maintaining the software for his photo booth!

This is what I'm good at.

I've worked a few professional jobs now and I have to say that I've amassed quite the wealth of experience from them! The most valuable thing I can get from a job (aside from the means to live a comfortable life) is knowledge. That might sound cliche but I strongly believe that if you make the same mistake twice you're doing something wrong.

With that I find that I really excel in:

• JavaScript
• TypeScript
• CSS
  • And SCSS as a pre-processor
• Webpack
• HTML
  • This shouldn't have its own bullet point, but I try to really focus on semantic markup so that the pages I write are as accessible as possible.

In the past I've had the opportunity to work regularly with these:

• AWS
  • For example, S3, CloudFront, Route53, EC2, IAM, DynamoDB and more.
  • This website is actually hosted on an S3 bucket and served through CloudFront via Route53!
• Jenkins
  • As a continuous integration service
• PHP
  • Both monolithic architecture and some micro-services.
• AngularJS
  • Yes... the original. It was great for the time though!
• jQuery
  • This has followed me everywhere up to now. Not a bad thing, just an interesting observation!
  • Thankfully browser tech and requirements (bye bye Internet Explorer 10 and below) have made this less and less needed.
• Vue.js
  • I really really like this. I wish I got to work with it more. I actually made my website with it (via Nuxt) because I like it so much.

Where the future for me leads.

I've grown into my own as someone who is able to take technical leadership and provide direction. To take business requirements and translate them into technical requirements and back again is something I pride myself in doing! I don't want to write less code, but I think my future lies in being a part of the bigger picture and being able to help steer the ship, as it were, so that it's smooth sailing for everyone involved.

My main drive is to make the web a better place for everybody. For those developing for it. For those testing it. For those actually using it. Everybody deserves to have a good experience.

Would I relocate?

No I don't think so. Unless you pay my mortgage off... then I might consider it.

Would I work in an office again?

Yes, but only if it were as sparse as possible. Quite enjoying not getting ill regularly and not commuting!

Would I work in London?

Yes, absolutely! This has the caveat of a mostly work-from-home environment though, even post-pandemic. I should note that this means 3 days in the office, 2 days out of it. I think this would apply anywhere I go now really.