Hey there! It’s been a while since I’ve posted, and I’m finally taking a moment to share where I’m at. Life has been a whirlwind of reflection, curiosity, and the occasional “what am I looking to achieve next?” moment.

I’ve found myself in a place where I’m looking for my next adventure. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this way, and honestly, it’s both terrifying and thrilling. The tech market feels like a mix of “Is this the right move?” and “This could be the break I need.” After staying in one place for a while, it’s hard to jump back into the rhythm of reflecting on my accomplishments, marketing myself, and figuring out how to stay relevant with the ever-changing landscape. But I’m trying — and I’d love your help along the way. (See below how you can help)

Here are a few things, I’m hoping to get accomplished on this break:

Blogging

  • Broadway/Elixir and a POC– A very promising stream processing framework I’ve been meaning to investigate more and write about it.
  • Similarities between Gardening and Software Engineer: On planning, being successful, the risks involved, and potentially how you could succeed
  • LLMs in My Workflow: I’m self-hosting LLMs with Ollama for writing, coding, and even rubber ducking. I plan on sharing my journey with them here. Also I willl reflect on my experience with Github Copliot to generate code.
  • A reflection of Scala: I’ve enjoyed a lot of features in this language.
  • Programming Language Paradigm Evolutions- I want to write about my experience and the patterns I’ve seen over the years. No promises that I won’t say: “back in my day”
  • Self-hosting- I’ve found this space to be very useful and very educational.
  • Securing Docker Container Network Endpoints: Services are being stood up in docker, and they’re leaving their ports needlessly open to the public.
  • Web-serial overview and how it’s used- I’ve seen it do some amazing things in the IOT/ESP32 space

Building

  • Create a few Petshop/pipeline applications with Elixir and Rust
  • Learning Rust- I’m excited to see the function programming influences and a type system. Also seeing this as a successor to C++ in the modern day is exciting. I just did a first application demonstrating Tokio. I like what I’m seeing.
  • Elixir – This looks like an incredible framework to build very resilient systems.
  • I have an interest in creating a data collection and recommendation system with live events (This would involve Elixir/Broadway)

Learning

  • Tensorflow and LLM integrations. – I studied intelligent systems/AI in university, but it’s amazing to see how far things have gotten since 2010. Back in those days face recognition was struggling at 70% and a 2d photo to a proposed 3d landscape was cutting edge. At that time face geometry morphing was a cool proof of concept – before the Face filters fad.
  • Learning more about Ollama and self-hosting models – I currently already have been working with those, and I’ve been interested in how they work.

This is a lot on top of looking for my next adventure. So I’m going to have to prioritize this as we go. (Also practicing on leetcode ofcourse)

How Can I Use Your Help?

This is a lot to juggle — especially with leetcode practice on the side. I’m trying to prioritize, but I’d love your help:

  • Know someone looking for an Staff+ Level JVM Engineer in Chicago or Remote-US? Reach out via LinkedIn (link below) or recommend me to their network. I’m also open to positions that involve Rust/Elixir. I don’t have experience with Rust or Elixir, but I’m a quick learner and have used lanagues similar to them. I’m also open to Golang roles if they project is right.
  • Share this post: If you’re on LinkedIn, Discord, or any tech communities, feel free to post it. Someone out there might be looking for someone like me — or maybe even me!

Use my LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenkhicks/ or the share buttons below.