E4developer, Facebook, chess and life in 2020

It has been a while since I last time wrote a post here, hence I wanted to update you on what is happening with the website (why the lack of activity) and what’s new in my life. And there is plenty!

Joining Facebook

When I wrote my last blog post here (October 2019) I was in a full-on Facebook interview preparation mode. I really enjoyed my time at Scott Logic, but Facebook has been my long time dream and I decided to try to get in one more time.

Multiple hours of leetcode, second reading of Cracking the Code Interview and some serious work with Elements of Programming Interviews in Java I felt ready for the series of interviews that Facebook tests the applicants with. To be fair, writing this blog and working for Scott Logic helped a lot as well.

Interviews went well, I got the offer and I joined Facebook in March 2020. I still can’t quite believe that as this really has been my dream and now it is a reality!

Writing on E4developer.com

With all the interview preparation and how seriously I was taking it, I didn’t really have time for writing anything here- I still had a full-time job after all!

Moving forward I plan to keep writing here, although you will likely see less of Spring and Java, as I have a lot of other technologies to catch up with these days.

What you may start seeing more is articles about my other interests such as IoT (Raspberry Pi), and especially chess which I have been playing quite a lot recently!

Chess, chess, chess…

So, I have been playing a lot of chess recently. Mainly on lichess, where if you are keen you can challenge me one day.

I am having loads of fun learning with chessable as well, which I find much more engaging than written books. It’s basically a website that provides chess learning material, but in an interactive form- highly recommended if you are a more serious player.

I am also thinking of starting a website dedicated to chess, maybe even some chess streaming/videos. I would like to keep content on e4developer mainly developer-oriented, so you probably won’t see any chess-only content here.

2020 – living in an alternative reality

So with all these changes, we also have the current worldwide situation, where we are locked in our homes. If leaving my job and Facebook wasn’t crazy and overwhelming enough, now there is that!

In reality, I am doing quite well, spending much more time with my family, as we are working from home. I am really grateful for that, as I am trying to focus on the positives in this situation. Being a software developer really is a privilege, as we can work from home much easier than most professions out there.

I hope that whoever you are, you can also focus on some positives in this horrible situation.

Thank you!

Thank you for all of you reading my blog. This was a tremendous motivation for the past few years and really gave me the confidence to pursue my dreams and energy to keep getting better. Till the next post!