2018 year in review

I've been reading a couple of year in review blog posts these days and I got inspired to write my own. 2018 has been a great year and it's worth looking back and analyzing what made it so great.

speaking

• I was part of a panel for the first time at the Amazon Women Innovation event in London! I got some really touching feedback from some of the attendees after the event and I'm glad I could provide even a little bit of inspiration and insight into a career in tech!
• I ran the third edition of my "Let's build Amazon Video in 2 hours" talk+workshop at the Prime Video offices in Santa Monica, California. It was absolutely amazing to run this for the third time, I had upgraded the slides and the content so much it was eseentially a new workshop around the same theme. The attendees were brilliant, they asked great questions which made me think and it was amazing to see them get what I was explaining and be excited about video 😄
• Technically cheating but, I also mentored someone through giving the same talk, which was really important to me.

travelling

I travelled a lot this year 🛫

• 7 countries (3 of them for the first time)
• 10 new cities (most notably Edinburgh, Bruges, Reykjavik, Santa Monica and Madrid)
• I saw more of my home country and I spent more time than I normally do with my family (which is a win-win)

work

Work has been incredibly rewarding and eventful this year.

• I helped ship Prime Video on some million Comcast devices and I really grew as a result of this project. I was the tech lead for some of the video bits of this and it was truly incredible and satisfying to take this project from zero to a hundred in not that much time and finally see it in the hands of customers.
• I left Amazon 😞😄 to go work for an early stage startup, which was a really big step!
• I met Maisie Williams and shortly after I joined Daisie 🧡. Very excited about the amazing team we have and what we are building. Excited and at the same time terrified about the launch, which can only be a good thing.
• Overall in 2018, I feel like I've become a better engineer and a better leader. I became more mature in my engineering decisions, I started caring more about the business and product impact of the tech, mentoring and helping others and generally trying to be a good example. I can't say if that worked (I'll leave that to you guys), but it's something I am going to keep working on.

health

• this is the one aspect I've been failing on consistently in the last few years and 2018 was no exception. I tried eating healthier, exercising more, walking more, taking the stairs more, but the truth is it wasn't even close to what it should've been. Another improvement point for 2019.

books

I read a lot this year, 11 books (out of 15 planned, don't look at me with those eyes goodreads, I still have 2 and a half days to get this back on track).

• I read more distopias - Handmaid's tale, The heart goes last and Farenheit 451
• I discovered I love Margaret Atwood and I'm planning to make my way through more of her books (yes, I tend to find something I like and obsess over it, I can feel your judgement)
• I discovered Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan (mostly inspired by the TV show in all honesty) so I blame the length of his books for missing the goodreads goal really
• I read and wholeheartedly recommend Disrupted. It was a fun little read and I would not be surprised at knowing how much of that is true.

blog

Let's skip this one and get back to it for the 2019 review, shall we? (at least I deployed this site, that's something ..).

2018 has been great, but I am really looking forward to 2019 and trying to break more boundaries.

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