The year 2020 was a year of unpredicted event Covid-19. In January, my wife travelled to Toronto for her co-op and I planned to spend my evenings studying algorithms and software engineering concepts alongside full time job.

I planned to complete most of the study-topics in March and completed as planned. In mid-March my office shared guidelines to work from home. My wife was also back from Toronto and started a co-op remotely.

I saved two hours of commute time. My office had layoffs. Some of my teammates were laid off. It was a hard time to see teammates leaving, and I got worried about myself.

I started to spend more time studying software engineering topics. Usually, I develop hobby projects using technologies I do not use as a part of my job. Because of Covid-19, I got much time to work on hobby projects to explore AWS and Azure infrastructures.

Meanwhile, because of layoffs I started preparing for interviews and applied for jobs in June/July. My wife gifted me a LeetCode subscription for interview preparation.

Finally, I received an offer from Microsoft in September and it was the happiest moment for me. I resigned from my job and joined Microsoft in October.

I am interested to learn more about Software Architecture. Luckily, my mentor at my current job is guiding me to read books on topics to achieve my goal.

This year was a year of learning. Important learning for me from this year was to be ready for unplanned events like Covid-19. It taught me the value of time. Using commute time to study had fruitful results.

Even though, 2020 will be remembered as a Covid-19 year, However, this is the year where technology contributed to achieve social communication, healthcare, personal and organizational goals.

Learnings from 2020:-
Do something useful in commute time (prodcast if driving :))
Be in touch with the latest technologies
Be healthy
Blogging is good

In 2021, I will:-
Leave fried food( Now I am 30 :) )
Continue blogging to share my learning
Read more books
Will develop an app