2021 in hindsight - my personal Review
2021 was overall a good year for me. Obviously, there also were some downs, but all in all, I can't complain. Let's take a look.
Side projects
It was the first year where I really got to work on side projects. I began working on tutorials for different technologies at the beginning of the year, but an idea formed in my mind and I just had to try it.
Crypto Trader
I noticed that Cryptocurrencies tend to be more volatile than the general stock market (except stable coins). Furthermore, they are easily tradeable via APIs from different exchanges, e.g. Kraken's REST API. This is not the case for stocks in Germany. This led me to pursue writing an automated crypto trading service to take advantage of the volatility by buying low and selling high.
This obviously did not work as easily as I thought.
Nevertheless I got something out of this project even though it wasn't financial gain. (The service underperforms buy-and-hold tremendously.) I learned a ton. I wrote the service using Deno to write server-side TypeScript. I didn't know a lot of TypeScript when I started - basically just from the Next.js Tutorial.
I began working on the service in April and was completely hooked after 2 days. Quickly I made my first query via the CLI running my deno service. Then I executed the first buy. Then the first sell. Then I needed a place for deployment and set up a $5 DO Droplet as production environment.
The speed of learning during this side project completely blew my mind and I wanted to explore more.
CourseHub
A friend of mine who is pursuing her Ph.D. in Logistics felt the struggle of finding relevant Ph.D. courses and together with a colleague of mine we threw together a team and embraced the challenge.
From May to September we created the concept, built, and launched CourseHub - a platform to easily find and publish PhD-level Courses. Again I learned a ton and experienced the thrill of launching a product. Our stack was Next.js with Prisma as ORM and Postgres as Database technology. We included plausible as GDPR-compliant analytics solution and hosted the database on Heroku.
React-Jobs
In October together with the already mentioned colleague, I began working on React-Jobs. We noticed the React community was lacking a job board and wanted to fill that gap. We implemented Stripe Checkout as a payment solution and an AWS S3 bucket to host company logos. We used MongoDB as database and hosted this on MongoDB Atlas.
Again learning something new. The development speed increased tenfold. Two people discussing uncertainties quickly and using a familiar stack. I am definitely hooked on creating side projects. Working on things you choose to work on makes everything even more fun. And with a little luck, there might result some side income from one of the projects.
We didn't launch publicly yet and are currently in the alpha phase, looking for Devs and companies to check out the side and to provide feedback.
Learning
2021 was the year where I had to complete most of the study load of my Master's Degree. I learned a lot of new concepts in different courses ranging from Modelling Systems over Distributed Systems to Complex Software Architectures. I was able to complete most of the courses with excellent grades and even got to complete a Certification about Software Architecture.
Since October we are in a study project where we get to analyze the market situation, create a concept and implement a prototype of a car finder service. The project team consists of 6 students (3 Marketing students and 3 CS students). I am the technical lead and created the architecture and the technical base for the project. Furthermore, I got to practice leading a software team, which was a real, but fun challenge to me. I had trouble formulating tasks well enough and delegating enough tasks to the other students. But I'm trying to improve here.
Our tech stack for the project was Next.js with TypeScript in the Frontend and ApolloGraphQL with Prisma in the Backend.
Working on the project was a lot of fun and again I learned a lot. We end the project by the middle of January, so the time horizon was quite small (development started at the beginning of December).
Finances
I got a raise effective beginning of 2022 - so that's definitely a success.
Other than that my portfolio for building wealth gained round about 14% in 2021 - time-adjusted this has been round about 24%.
Sports
As beneficial as the Corona Lockdown was for studying, as detrimental it has been for sports at the beginning of the year. I tried my best and teamed up with some friends to train outside with a heavy dumbbell. We resorted to lots of bodyweight movements and dumbbell movements. It was alright, but I pray that there is not another lockdown coming!
After the lockdown, it took me many months to get close to my previous record lifts in Back Squat (110kg / 243lbs) and Deadlift (135kg / 298lbs).
One success was a PR I made - I finally snatched 60kg (135lbs).
Miscellaneous
One of my personal highlights is that I was able to organize a sabbatical for the time after my Master's Degree. I will not have to work for six months starting in 2023! 🎉
Soon I will lay out my goals for 2022 - let's hope for another good year!