Today marks the one year anniversary of me working as a software engineer. While it doesn’t seem like I started my job all that long ago, it does feel like the event that divides my life into a before and after. I was headed into my senior year of college when I was hired by my current company as an Understudy Software Engineer. I worked 20-25 hours per week while attending school until I graduated this spring and transitioned to a full time Software Engineer. Between last year and now I’ve worked on many projects and hit many milestones, I’ve learned a lot both personally and professionally.

  • I got my first “real” job.
  • I graduated from college.
  • I published a video game.
  • I moved into my first apartment.
  • I ran a marathon.
  • I pretended to grow up.

But the most important thing that has happened is finding a sense of belonging or purpose as a software engineer. My job has been really good about putting trust in me since the beginning and I have gotten to be involved in important team matters. Knowing that people are comfortable to give me tasks and let me do the problem solving has been exciting and makes going into work worthwhile. I’ve learned countless things in the last year but my personal development and finding what I enjoy about developing software has been the most important.