July Reflection 2025

#reflection

🎒Technical Backpack

This month, I had a thoughtful chat with my manager at Shopify. I asked them a simple question:

What’s one thing you wish you knew earlier in your career?

Their answer wasn’t about specific tools or languages — it was about understanding the context: the purpose behind the system, the trade-offs made along the way, and the people involved. That answer stuck with me. It made me reflect deeply on how I approach learning and growth as a developer.

One truth stands out clearly: change is the only constant. Technology evolves, projects shift, teams reorganize, and even leadership changes. Because of this, the contents of our technical backpack—our skills, knowledge, and habits—must adapt too. Over time, we pack this backpack with tools, concepts, and assumptions. But eventually, it gets heavy. Growth isn’t just about adding more — it’s also about knowing when to reorganize, replace, or remove what no longer serves us.

🧠 Not Just Skills — Context and Judgment

That conversation reminded me that knowing how to write code is only one piece of the puzzle. Just as important is understanding why something was built a certain way, who it serves, and what constraints shaped it. These are the kinds of things you can’t learn from documentation alone.

So this month, I’ve been asking myself: What’s actually worth carrying in my backpack?

🧰 What I Packed This Month

Here are a few things I consciously added:

  • A stronger focus on clarity over cleverness — choosing designs that are boring but reliable.
  • Building an instinct to trace problems deeply, instead of just patching symptoms.
  • Getting better at balancing tradeoffs — knowing when to build something custom and when to lean on well-supported tools.
  • More respect for things I once overlooked, like meaningful commit messages and documenting tricky edge cases.

These aren’t “new technologies,” but they’re just as important for writing maintainable, collaborative software.

🗑️ What I Let Go Of

Just as importantly, I made space by letting go of things that were no longer serving me:

  • The urge to overengineer or abstract too early.
  • The assumption that I always need to prove myself by doing everything from scratch.
  • Old habits that added friction — like relying only on print statements instead of learning better observability tools.

Some of these ideas originated from a beginner’s mindset; others were holdovers from past projects. Either way, it felt good to lighten the load.

🧭 What This Backpack Really Carries

The technical backpack isn’t just a storage space — it’s a reflection of how we think, not just what we know. And every so often, it’s worth opening it up and asking:

  • Does this still serve me?
  • Is there a simpler way to solve this now?
  • Am I carrying this because it’s useful — or just because it’s familiar?

Carrying everything slows you down. The goal isn’t to have the heaviest backpack — it’s to pack wisely for where you’re headed.

🔭 What’s Next

I want to continue this process — not just learning new things, but reflecting on what’s worth keeping. That includes:

  • Reviewing older projects to see if my decisions still hold up.
  • Rethinking the tools I default to and exploring better fits for my current goals.
  • Being more intentional about what I choose to learn and apply.

Because in tech, you’ll never know everything — and that’s okay. What matters is how you carry what you know, and how that helps you continue to grow.

Thank you!

Big thanks for reading! You’re awesome, and I hope this post helped. Until next time!