Speaking from the heart ( hope it won't backfire )... ❤️
- I happen to be able to get a degree in Mechanical Engineering.
- Serve many clients and companies during what is now my 8th year working as web developer.
I am far from your best ever (Google, Meta, Deep Mind etc) friendly developer.
But I do believe that I left no company, team, or client dissatisfied with my work and results.
I acknowledge the fact that I must and can be better tho.Here comes the meaty part, you ready? 🥩
I am suspected to have dyscalculia, something that has been a challenge for me since forever.
Things I find difficult on a day to day basis:
- Analog clock, I have to multiply 9 * 5, recognise that clock hand MUST be before the number and only then I can tell the time, takes around 30s.
- I know only half of multiplication table, rest I calculate from the known one by doing subtraction.
- I have insane amount of anxiety (shame) when I have to do math in public setting.
- Oh many other issues as well with both my native language and second one where I mix similar words. (Then vs Than just one example)
- I don't know the date of birth of my family members (my mom yes, as she was born on 8th of March) 🌹
- I missed important doctor appointments many times as I confused the dates.
etc
You might assume (rightfully so) that I will not be a decent developer, however, I might not be the most talented out there, but I am focused and I work work work....
I use calendar for everything, task manager for absolutely everything (I would literally put task "think about how you can solve <insert problem>"). I never missed a single meeting as again thank God we have calendars.
I recognise that I have to do more to be the average at best, but I do very often perform above expectations. There is no feedback from my line managers that was ever concern about my professionalism, my skills and my results in a negative way. As a matter of fact, most of the time I am being told to take a step back, not to push that hard, not to over achieve as I tend to experience burnouts.
Why am I talking about this now?
Because I am angry, sad, frustrated and hurt by in which direction our industry is going, it has been in a downfall for some time already, which is weird because with all the super cool stuff we are building with the AI you would assume the opposite.
I am seeing a massive trend of companies who are as a first interview doing IQ tests. To make it even worse, test is not your typical IQ test, it is based in quick math, testing your so called "numerical thinking" that one people like me have a huge problem with.
So yes I failed one, more then one...
I won't fail any moving forward, as, well, I won't be taking any. 🙅♂️
Questions I have for our industry?
- What happen with inclusivity efforts?
What happen with diversity (neurodiversity in this case) efforts?
Were they ever genuine?