Updates + What I Learned From Learning

For better or for worse, after I was affected by a layoff at Thoughtworks I chose to continue my solo AI development work and operate freelance for the majority of 2025. At that time I moved states and faced some physical health complications as well, delaying the release of my AI chatbot project as well as my return-to-full-time job search.

After the layoff in late 2024 I was devoted full time to ensuring my work continued at the bleeding edge of open source AI-based application and solutions development and design. With the online onslaught of both resources to learn independently and plenty of new and accessible tooling and options for building, this time was (still is!) ripe for a self taught engineer.

My enthusiasm for the technology has also been a setback, however. Putting in 10,000 hours as a solo full stack architectural powerhouse means 10,000 hours of not interviewing for the next job. Audaciously, the original project in question is a solution designed to offload some interview time for me, though the barrier of cost to host in production is quite a doozy while unemployed.

In hindsight, I’ve learned mountains of valuable technical skills and gained experience to serve me well for the rest of my career. I’ve also learned the value of prioritization, tradeoffs and timeboxing, and not only in a development lifecycle sense, but in a larger career planning sense as well.

Exemplary engineering and technical prowess isn’t the end of the road when it comes to a tech career, and working in a technical capacity doesn’t exempt one from the human and communication aspects of career thriving and advancement. While I do work on robots, I am not a robot myself, and in turn am embracing my learnings on the inevitable human aspect of my career.