Why write this post?

Some people when I made my #introduceyourself post were taken with my job. I'm currently 21 years old and I work as a Software Engineer for a company called Font Awesome. Font Awesome is a company that is parented by Y-Combinator (the same people who parented Twitch & Air BnB) so I understand their interest in the company as I have had that same interest since I started working for Dave & Travis at Fort Awesome two years ago so I figured I'd share a day in my life and give a little bit of insight into what it's like to work at my job!

A quick disclaimer:

I understand that this kind of post is not something that everyone enjoys reading about. I prefer making vlogs over blogs personally but I wanted to give this a try just to see the communities response to it as it seemed like a fun idea that could also provide insight to my life as well as give people something to think about.

A bit of background

I began working for Font Awesome when I was 18 years old and fresh out of high school around the same time I started my first year of college at PSU. I was extremely eager to start the job and very excited as it was my first job that wasn't in retail at Best Buy or Office Max.

When I first started at Font Awesome it was only Dave, Travis, and myself but shortly after we hired a new designer named Brian & a new software engineer named Rob. Everyone is very nice and very helpful to me as I'm the new guy to development.

Also, since I'm still in college & my boss, Travis, values learning highly I am allowed to make my own schedule and determine when I work based on how free I am for the week from college which is a very nice perk to my job.

First thing's first

I go to school on weekdays; however, on weekends I'm free to work as much as I want. With that said I will be writing this from a normal Saturday.

On Saturdays I typically try to wake up around 10:00 am or 11:00 am as it is a weekend so I allow myself to sleep in for a little while. On some Saturdays I have actually slept in until noon or on some occasions as late as 1:00 pm. Who doesn't enjoy sleeping in on their days off? I do try not to sleep in too much or when I do sleep in a lot I like to make that a rare occurrence. Once I wake up and preform my morning rituals I sit down at my desk to begin my work day.

I usually start my day with looking at Steemit to reply to any and all comments I have received before beginning work. Typically while I work I like to play music in the background, listen to a book, or even have a Twitch stream or YouTube video playing quietly to not distract me too much. Most people have to have silence when they work which is understandable but my boss and I are alike when it comes to how we can focus on two things at once and still retain what we are doing in the background while we work. Often times when I go to my boss' house to work with him we will watch Arsenal if they're playing or sometimes we will listen to a podcast together which works well for us because we can focus on work but still retain what the podcast is about.

The Meat & Potatoes of my Day

The main part of my work days (on Saturday) usually consists of a mix of me writing code, testing that code, fixing the broken code, and learning about new code to improve mine.

Being New

Although I've been working for Font Awesome for two years now I'm still very new to software development as a whole with this being my first job and with my main languages I use (Ruby & Elixir) are brand new to me also. I learned Ruby two years ago when I first began my job and I am still learning Elixir and everything it has to offer. With that said I believe that Ruby & Elixir are both very efficient and easy to use languages once you get used to them. If you're looking for a first language to learn to help you get a job or just as a hobby I highly suggest Ruby (if you want to know more about getting started in software development check out my other article on the topic.)

Learning

I work daily building something with code but I always have to be learning in order to keep up to date with languages & tools. Especially for someone like me who is very new to this world and hasn't even taken programming classes in college yet I stress learning in my work. I am currently reading numerous books on Elixir and Phoenix (web framework for Elixir) in order to become more comfortable with the language as a whole as well as teach me better ways to use the language with the framework.

Wrapping Up the Work Day

Typically I will work anywhere between six to eight hours every day of the week including weekends. I'm actually only able to work around 40 hours a week to be paid for but I enjoy working more than 40 hours a week just because I learn so much it's allowing me to level up my skills in software development and I know that will pay off down the road when I'm out of college and I'm very comfortable with the amount of work that I can do.

I usually end work around six or seven at night because I wake up late but after I get off on Saturdays I like to go visit my parents and hang out with them as I don't get to see them much through the week. Usually Saturday nights are the nights I really like to play some Overwatch or PUBG, I don't typically stream my games on Twitch but it's something that I was wanting to get into more. I've wanted to find a time to play video games for a few hours and always get in the habit of streaming it just for fun.

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So there it is my average Saturday! Nothing too interesting but for me it's a great day and I enjoy my job a lot. If you're interested in a career as a Software Engineer leave a comment and I'll reply pretty quick. You can also check out my other article I published a week ago about getting starting in software development!