I was a staff software engineer (front end lol so take that for what it is) at a medium sized B2B SaaS company that turned into a unicorn during my time there.
I quit in 2019 to start a company. In 2020 my time was split 80/20 between building a company and working alongside brothers and sisters in my local church.
In the past couple of years I’ve degreased kitchens, demolished walls, hauled concrete, done some electrical, metal work, automotive, woodworking, janitorial, hauled bags of salt and piled em up two stories high in a metal warehouse during a thunderstorm. Dirt under your nails work.
Yes 80% of my time was still tech (working on hardware though, which is a nice change) but I wouldn’t give the 20% for the world.
There’s a deep satisfaction in putting forth real effort - mentally and physically with sweat and sometimes blood - doing something that’s taxing, alongside and for the people in your community you know and love.
The things that separate and seem so large - cultural background, socioeconomic status, upbringing - they melt away when you’re in the dirt laboring together.
And I understand that this is coming from a privileged viewpoint. And that I had the choice to take on these things while others don’t. But in a way that makes it more meaningful.
Jesus didn’t have to empty Himself of His power. God Himself chose to humble Himself taking the form of a man and instead of being a ruler over the humanity while He was here, He chose to live among the lowest of the low. To love and care for the folks that society tried to pretend didn’t exist without any gain, self aggrandization, or virtue signaling. To die for us in order that if we turn away from the world and towards Him in faith we would be saved from the sin inside of us that separates us from God and warrants His judgment.
Jesus’ love makes me want to be like Him. I’m nowhere close — often foolish and more often still selfish. But in His presence there’s fullness of joy and an abundance of life that’s only found in sacrificing one’s self to Him.
“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.”
1 Corinthians 1:18-19, 21 ESV
For millenia, multitudes have sacrificed their life to follow Christ. The cost is quite literally one’s entire life.
One explanation could be that millions (billions?) have been deceived over the course of millenia.
Or another could be that since Jesus walked this earth, multitudes have come to the conclusion that Jesus is who He said He is. God Himself.
Many come to the conclusion via teaching. But the Christian walk is not one that is primarily about doctrine.
It’s about being lead subjectively by God Himself. It’s the fact that the Christian’s experience of following Jesus matches the character of God as revealed in the scriptures.
They have seen Him, experientially. And this is why multitudes, starting with the apostles, have lay down their lives proclaiming the good news - that though we have been separated because of the sin in our heart, God has made a way for us to be reconciled back to Him. And the way back to God - the only way - is to take Jesus at His word. To
turn from our self will and to believe in Him.
Edit: removed a typo and added the reason why we need to be reconciled.
I’m thankful for the openness and respectfulness of this discussion.
Prior to my conversion I’d identify myself largely with new age spirituality and stoicism. They were pragmatic in that they seemingly satiated the need for the divine and encouraged behaviors that were productive from a societal perspective.
I was saved in January of 2019. The early days of walking with Christ were beautiful. I sold my most ostentatious worldly possessions, bought a motorcycle, and would ride into the mountains to find a patch of grass and read the Bible to learn more about God.
God is gracious. The more I earnestly sought Him, the more He revealed Himself.
Nowadays, I start my day with prayer and usually a brief study in the Bible. I like to focus on what the passage conveys about God’s character. Afterwards I pray for His guidance as to the tasks to carry out for the day.
I try to pray throughout the day but I’m most deliberate about praying during transitions (ie: from hands on work to taking a meeting)
I end the day with a prayer for wisdom as I open the scriptures again, then finally a prayer of thanksgiving before bed.
I’ve found that Jesus is less about religious tradition and more about understanding who God is and what He has done, what His Will is, and doing it. In the heart of one who truly believes in Christ, this order increases our love and joy in God.
Everything else — church, serving people, acting morally - is downstream from loving God and our neighbor as ourself.
Jesus’ death and resurrection is important because of why He died.
He died for us. We’re born as sinners. We live lives that are offensive to a righteous God.
Though we have the inbuilt desire to be justified, we fall so far below God’s standard there is nothing we can do to be right with God.
But He loved us so much, He decided to send His only Son - Jesus - to live the perfect sinless life that we could not.
Then He sacrificed Himself on our behalf. In believing in Jesus, His righteousness is accounted to us and we are made right with God. The implications of this are incredible but I won’t get into it.
Jesus came to the earth preaching this good news (the gospel). And this news is a good story, but the crux of what makes it true is that He was resurrected by God.
His resurrection validated His claims. Believing in Him has transformed millions of lives because God’s Spirit dwells inside of His people when they believe.
By His Spirit for millennia, starting with His own disciples, people have done tremendous feats and have been willing to die to share this news with the world.
AFAIK other religions requires their followers to sacrifice to their god(s). In Christianity, God sacrificed Himself for us - out of love.
Seems like this is priced for military & contractors.
Genuinely hope they can find success in that niche. Even if their products never compete with the iPhone in ubiquity, having a domestic company with full stack hardware manufacturing experience is a tremendous asset both to the country and to other companies who aspire to bring their own manufacturing stateside.
It changed my heart.
Our actions stream outward from the motivations of our heart.
Prior to turning to God the motivations in my heart were shaped by societal constructs of success as a man. (Ephesians 2:1-3) Particularly influenced via hip-hop, tech, and stoicism.
My actions stemmed from that. I was moderately successful in material terms but the emptiness persisted. Moreover, my actions were hurting relationships I cared about because the motivation of my heart, however outwardly altruistic, ended up being self-centered.
Accepting Jesus as my savior started a change of heart. The motivation in my heart is now loving God and loving my neighbor as I love myself (Mark 12:30-31) and acting accordingly. It's a gradual process and I still have things to work through. But He has helped me overcome materialism, lust, and is (strongly) helping me overcome pride.
I don't want to speak for outside observers, but my dad and many old friends have commented on the change. Walking with the Lord is a completely different life for me. It's freedom.
We were all born spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1-3)
When we're dead spiritually, we're disconnected from the presence of God because of our sins.
Jesus' sacrifice made it possible to be brought back to spiritual life. By believing in Him, He wipes our sins clean. This is what it means to be saved :) (John 3:16)
I can relate to a lot of the things you've stated. I won't get into the specifics but I understand your experience of working at a tech giant.
In my case, I decided to try to "play the game" for a while. After a few years, I realized clout, money, and the things it afforded were ultimately meaningless to me.
Things like mentoring young engineers, hobbies, and organizing local student hackathons definitely took the edge off. But ultimately so much of it, even the things for the community, was ego-driven. Trying to make the world a better place, a lot of the time, is ultimately ego-driven.
I tried many things but only found lasting peace in turning to God. Jesus died for your sins and I can testify that having faith in Him has lead me to a new, more meaningful life.
Life isn't necessarily easier, but every day is imbued with tremendous meaning.
You're clearly thoughtful, probably competent, and without a doubt, the Lord has a plan for your life. You just have to take the first step and accept Him as your savior.
My emails are always open.
Good luck, I am praying that you coming out of this season stronger than before.
I recently switched from Fedora 26 to Windows 10. I've been using WSL for the past 3 days for webdev and so far its been pretty smooth.
Feels pretty similar to doing web with a Macbook Pro. No issues with local servers or anything.
One odd thing is that the Linux home directory is different from your Windows user directory. If you use the terminal from within VSCode this is a none issue since it starts in the project working directory anyway.
Honestly, the thing I miss most from Linux / OS X is the dropdown Quake style terminal. Wish Windows had better terminal emulators.
The motivation was to reduce boilerplate and improve the readability of redux state transformations. I've found that the number of files I need to touch to create an action drastically decreases.
At this point most of my development time is spent either in the module, the handler, or the saga.
The payload typechecking does conform to React's PropType standard though. If you don't want to require React for that to work you can grab a standalone PropType library. There are a few available:
I quit in 2019 to start a company. In 2020 my time was split 80/20 between building a company and working alongside brothers and sisters in my local church.
In the past couple of years I’ve degreased kitchens, demolished walls, hauled concrete, done some electrical, metal work, automotive, woodworking, janitorial, hauled bags of salt and piled em up two stories high in a metal warehouse during a thunderstorm. Dirt under your nails work.
Yes 80% of my time was still tech (working on hardware though, which is a nice change) but I wouldn’t give the 20% for the world.
There’s a deep satisfaction in putting forth real effort - mentally and physically with sweat and sometimes blood - doing something that’s taxing, alongside and for the people in your community you know and love.
The things that separate and seem so large - cultural background, socioeconomic status, upbringing - they melt away when you’re in the dirt laboring together.
And I understand that this is coming from a privileged viewpoint. And that I had the choice to take on these things while others don’t. But in a way that makes it more meaningful.
Jesus didn’t have to empty Himself of His power. God Himself chose to humble Himself taking the form of a man and instead of being a ruler over the humanity while He was here, He chose to live among the lowest of the low. To love and care for the folks that society tried to pretend didn’t exist without any gain, self aggrandization, or virtue signaling. To die for us in order that if we turn away from the world and towards Him in faith we would be saved from the sin inside of us that separates us from God and warrants His judgment.
Jesus’ love makes me want to be like Him. I’m nowhere close — often foolish and more often still selfish. But in His presence there’s fullness of joy and an abundance of life that’s only found in sacrificing one’s self to Him.