The year 2022 has been one of the most peaceful years of my life. I achieved a work-life balance to a certain extent by working on my skills, getting back into shape, and having a job change without losing my family time.

Health

One of the goals of 2022 was to get back into shape like I was in 2019. I wasn't strict on it until September but became devoted to it in October. I lost 4 kgs in 3 months. Even though this isn't much, I'm happy that at least I've started my journey to becoming fit. And most importantly, I never fell sick the whole year and never had to visit a doctor for any health issue. I reckon this is one of the notable achievements of 2022.

Professional

In August, I left my job as Senior Technical Lead at Scube where I'd been for almost five years. I enjoyed my time there but felt like I was stagnating.

So I made one of the darest moves of my career. I mailed my resignation without any offers in hand. This might sound ridiculous, but this move gave me an edge over two things

1. 1. Time - Since I was on notice period, I wasn't assigned much work on my company which in turn gave me ample time to prepare for my job interviews
2. 2. Options - Since I was an immediate joiner with 10 years of experience, companies whose interviews I had cleared started offering me competitively to get me onboard.

(Even though it gave me a competitive advantage, I wouldn't recommend this to others as it was very stressful - more on this under Personal)

By September, I joined Ellucian as Principal Software Engineer. I feel super at home in this role. I'm an individual contributor where in I work on proof of concepts without much of a deadline. It's a total blast.

Books

As part of my Goodreads reading challenge to complete at least 15 books in 2022, I've finished 16. You can find the list of books here.

Personal

I generally don't talk about my personal life too much online, but I want to share a few things. During the days of my interview preparation, I was super stressed and self-doubting whether will I be able to secure a job in a good company. But at these difficult times, my wife Soundarya stood by me, kept encouraging me, and made me believe in myself. I'm thankful to her. I'm sure she was the light at the end of the tunnel for me.

One of the primary goals of 2022 was to spend more time with my son Adhiyan. I'm grateful that I witnessed my son's growth as he progressed in all of life's essential milestones. I'm glad I was there for him as he passed each milestone, from rolling over to crawling to standing and walking. Surprisingly, the first word he spoke was Appa(father).

After almost two years, Soundarya, Adhiyan, and I finally managed to travel to a couple of places for the first time. It was heartwarming to catch Adhiyan's reaction to seeing crowds, animals, birds, vehicles, and not to forget foods loaded with sugar. I suppose me and Adhiyan will become great travel mates in the coming days.

Plans for 2023

Same as 2022, I wanted to keep my goals for 2023 very minimal and focused.

1. 1. Work on problem-solving and logical skills
2. 2. Improve my eating habits and reduce my body weight
3. 3. Build at least one Product

Even though I was a bit stressed during the job change, the rest of the year was filled with cherishable moments. I'm happy that 2022 was a year of blessings for my family.

The year 2023 will be the year of focus. I wanted to spend my finite time building a product/brand.

Let's hope 2023 is going to be awesome!

Previous year-end reviews: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018