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This month at Autodesk was all about pushing boundaries—both in terms of personal growth and exploring new technical horizons. From diving into experimental projects during Hackweek to gaining insights into scalable app architecture, I experienced firsthand the exciting mix of creativity and precision that drives our team. Each challenge, whether hacking on a high-demand feature or navigating complex legacy code, provided lessons in adaptability, collaboration, and the importance of looking beyond immediate needs. Here’s a closer look at how these experiences shaped my journey this month.
Work Summary
Hackweek
This month, a highlight for me was participating in Autodesk's Hackweek, a dedicated period of one week to explore experimental features outside regular project tickets. Working with a team of four, we focused on a highly requested feature that our power users frequently mentioned during customer calls. My primary role involved developing and troubleshooting portions of the feature, which presented a mix of challenges and learning opportunities.
The experience was both inspiring and humbling; while I found my pace slower than anticipated, I witnessed firsthand my more experienced teammates' efficiency in bringing concepts to life rapidly. This period underscored the collaborative spirit and adaptability required in a fast-paced environment, encouraging me to reflect on areas for improvement in my workflow and speed.
Clash Scalability Session
I also attended a Clash Data Scalability session this month, which discussed the app's architecture and expansion plans to accommodate future, larger-scale projects in our app to support more varied customer demands. This session was particularly enlightening because it showcased how Autodesk's development process incorporates forward-thinking at various stages. Each feature and modification is considered in the context of immediate needs and medium and long-term growth, highlighting a new perspective on development that I hadn't fully appreciated before. Observing the thought process that goes into planning years ahead was quite enlightening and highlighted the value of proactive design strategies.
Ticket work, but in more repos
In addition to Hackweek, much of my regular work this month revolved around handling general ticket tasks, which involved interacting with multiple repositories other than the main ACC app to get more familiarity with the libraries that support the main application. This exposure broadened my understanding of how various modules and libraries work together to create a cohesive system. As always, all of the different repositories had different styles and rules of writing code. I particularly enjoyed working with the more modern repositories as they had modern Typescript & IDE feature support which made working with the code easier.
Hard work is slow…
As I took on more challenging tickets, I noticed that the previous rapid pace of moving tickets across the board has slowed down. Tackling these complex issues requires a deeper level of analysis and problem-solving, which, while demanding, is refining my technical skills and approach to troubleshooting. Balancing these more extensive, more intricate tasks with more minor, routine fixes is teaching me the importance of adaptability and time management in an environment where priorities can shift based on project needs.
Technical Skills Developed
One of this month's most intensive parts was exploring legacy JavaScript code, where I frequently encountered partial migrations to TypeScript. Navigating this complex and sometimes fragmented codebase taught me the importance of adaptability and patience in understanding and updating long-standing code. Each section presented different coding standards and styles due to contributions from various developers over time, which initially seemed daunting. However, I gained a newfound appreciation for clear code documentation and versioning practices, as these were invaluable in understanding the rationale behind code structures and functionality.
Reflection and Growth
While Hackweek was an intensive period, it provided invaluable insights into my strengths and improvement areas. My slower pace in specific tasks revealed a gap in my domain-specific knowledge and implementation under time constraints, a skill that will hopefully be developed over time as I work on the codebase more, and have more familiarity with how everything works together. Observing my team's efficiency reinforced the importance of strong foundational knowledge, adaptability, and confidence in one's skills to "make things happen" efficiently. This realization has inspired me to adopt a more proactive approach to honing these aspects.
The Clash Data Scalability session deepened my respect for the intricate, forward-looking planning involved in software development at Autodesk. While immediate fixes are necessary, understanding how decisions impact future scalability and flexibility is equally vital. Balancing these tasks requires careful attention to both current needs and long-term growth.
This month has been transformative, both technically and personally. I am eager to continue learning and evolving within this role, adapting to the unique challenges of a dynamic development environment like Autodesk's.