Dear Me: To a younger, inexperienced me 20 years ago

I graduated high school in 1997, and did a little college here or there. I’ve been a developer since 1999 and shortly after that transitioned into consulting. I’ve been doing this for over 20 years! I feel old.

I am older than many of my colleagues, who I have great respect for, who do amazing work and impress me frequently. I work with teammates who have less than half of my years of experience, and they blow my mind. I have been challenged and grown tremendously working with what other old folks may call “kids”. These people don’t surprise me or scare me, I love the challenge to keep as up to date as I can. I love my job!

I have found my seniority has great value, too. I’ve been through a lot. I’ve seen a lot of challenges my clients have had to deal with. I’ve dealt with a lot of challenging people in my career, both coworkers and clients. I have had great wins and losses throughout it all. I don’t regret it, but if I could do some things better, I would.

As I celebrate my oldness, I want to share what I’ve learned along the way with you, with junior developers, with senior consultants, with anyone willing to learn a little more. We can all learn from one another, I hope to also learn from you. I can’t wait to see what the next 20 years will bring me. Please don’t hesitate to leave comments on my posts as we go!

During 2020, I am aiming to write one blog post a month that shares a piece of what I’ve learned. This won’t be technical, code stuff, but the softer side of work, the people side, the self side. Some of these will be lessons I wish I learned earlier, some will be decisions I made that worked out.

Follow along on my blog at https://davidlozzi.com/2020/01/02/dear-me-to-a-younger-inexperienced-me-20-years-ago/. See you there!