I’m leaving my role as a Java Developer Advocate at JetBrains today, Friday 3rd December 2021. I start my next adventure soon, but before I do, I want to recognise those I’ve worked with as well as my achievements!
My Team
First and most importantly, my team. Trisha Gee leads the team and is my sponsor, mentor and friend. I have learned an incredible amount from her, including being kinder to myself and how to prioritise my efforts. Trisha also steered me towards public speaking and has been my biggest cheerleader in that department. Working alongside Trisha has been an incredible opportunity and privilege that I’ll cherish forever.
I can remember being incredibly excited when I first met Mala Gupta. I was totally in awe of her, and I still am. Mala embraced what I brought to the table; the skills and the fears. Mala challenged me on several occasions in the kindest way possible. I’m forever thankful to her for that. It’s because of what Mala has taught me and the feedback she’s given me that I push myself even further out of my comfort zone, repeatedly!
Dalia Abo Sheasha helped me to recognise that it wasn’t just me who struggled with code at times – everyone does. She also taught me how to walk away and come back to something troubling me, something I have often struggled with. Dalia always treated me as her equal on the Java front, despite my lack of real-world experience. She always let me find my own way when we were solving a problem and patiently listened to all my thoughts. Dalia is the reason I’m more confident writing code than I’ve ever been.
The Java community have been incredibly helpful and supportive throughout my time at JetBrains. If you’ve read any of my blogs, watched any of my videos or tuned in to a live stream – thank you!
To those of you who collaborated with me on projects, are lurking in my Twitter inbox, sent me some messages of support and encouragement, gave me a platform, supported me through a new process, offered me opportunities, chatted with me in any number of Slack organisations(!), or connected me with even more amazing people – thank you!
Achievements
I’ve done a lot at JetBrains; here’s a whirlwind tour! Of course, I can’t list everything, but I’ve hand-picked my favourite highlights from my time at JetBrains.
- Straight after I started in August-September I wrote ten blogs for the JetBrains Technology day for Java.
- December is not only Christmas, but I also crafted this 3 Ways to Refactor Your Code in IntelliJ IDEA, one of my favourite blogs. December also was home to this screencast on the New Project Wizard in IntelliJ IDEA – my top-performing video!
- Phew, here comes January! I stepped back from the public content creation and focussed on creating content for the IntelliJ Guide. I also started drafting my new talk Writing Code is Easy, Being a Great Developer is Hard.
- In February, we held our IntelliJ IDEA Conference to celebrate IntelliJ IDEA turning 20!
- July was home to was more talk preparation and conference efforts, including being part of the program committee for Devoxx UK.
- As I look at August I’m reminded that for the past year I’ve produced the vast majority of the tip tweets you see on the IntelliJ IDEA Twitter handle – that’s me!
- In September, I hosted one of our Coffee Club episodes – Staying Ahead of the Curve and I started crafting what has become Helen’s Take On videos.
- I’m not sure what happened in October, but mostly it was more video recording and conferences!
- I spoke at Devoxx UK in early November.
And since then, I’ve been wrapping up my time at JetBrains, culminating in the blog post that you’re now reading!
Summary
I’m very fond of the 16 months I spent at JetBrains, and I’m honoured to have worked with some of the smartest people I know. Beyond my immediate team, I got to work in the broader team full of talented developer advocates who never hesitated to help me or answer my endless questions.
To name check but a few… Marco – thank you for all the Spring and Spring Boot help, I learned so much from you. Paul – thank you for listening to me as I brought the IntelliJ IDEA Guide to life, I could not have done it without you (and I’m sorry for beating on Gatsby so much). Maarten for bailing me out of my Git holes on more than one occasion and generally being an all round sane voice! Rachel for teaching me some fundamentals that had totally passed me by and also for being a lovely friendly person to chat to right from the start. Nafiul for teaching me more about audio than I thought there was to know and demoing it. Shengyou for helping me to understand our broader audiences and for working so tirelessly on translations. Khalid for helping me on my website and co-authoring a blog with me. Matt for being my buddy in the UK when a rant was required about something country-specific! Yann for helping me to understand aspects of the plugin ecosystem. And finally, Hadi, firstly because he’ll be upset if I don’t mention him, but more importantly, for being super supportive at all times. I haven’t name-checked everyone (sorry), but in summary, you’re all awesome and I’ve loved working with you!
It’s been a really enjoyable time, and as I move on to my next adventure, I have great memories of this role and for all those I interacted with directly and indirectly.
