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robert-7 merged 4 commits into from
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568d61f
feat: adds ten-months-of-growth blog
robert-7 Jun 17, 2026
21b9294
feat: updates mahjong image
robert-7 Jun 17, 2026
2c4048d
fix: pins specific eslint version, removes fragile deps
robert-7 Jun 17, 2026
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feat: updates eslint version
robert-7 Jun 17, 2026
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11 changes: 2 additions & 9 deletions .pre-commit-config.yaml
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Expand Up @@ -40,20 +40,13 @@ repos:

# JavaScript linting
- repo: https://github.com/pre-commit/mirrors-eslint
rev: v10.2.1
rev: v10.4.1
hooks:
- id: eslint
files: assets/custom/js/.*\.js$
types: [file]
additional_dependencies:
- eslint
- eslint-config-standard
- eslint-plugin-import
- eslint-plugin-node
- eslint-plugin-n
- eslint-plugin-promise
- '@eslint/eslintrc'
- globals
- eslint@10.4.1

# Universal Formatter
- repo: https://github.com/pre-commit/mirrors-prettier
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<title>10 Months of Growth: Projects, Challenges, and My Next Chapter | Robert Lech</title>
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<header>
<p class="eyebrow">Career Growth · Interviews · AI · Cloud Engineering</p>
<h1>10 Months of Growth: Projects, Challenges, and My Next Chapter</h1>
<p>
A retrospective on leaving Index Exchange, navigating technical
interviews, building AI and cloud projects, and preparing for a new
senior backend engineering role.
</p>
<p>By Robert Lech · June 16, 2026 · 5 min read</p>
</header>

<figure class="blog-banner">
<img
src="banner.png"
alt="Banner illustration for '10 Months of Growth', showing a laptop workspace, AI and cloud engineering icons, and a glowing path up a mountain to symbolize career growth, technical interviews, project work, and a new senior backend engineering chapter."
/>
</figure>

<h2>Setting the Stage</h2>

<p>
After more than nine years at Index Exchange, I made the difficult
decision in August 2025 to step away from a company and team that
had shaped much of my professional life. Index was where I grew from
an operations-focused engineer into a senior software engineer,
worked on large-scale production systems, and learned many of the
engineering habits that continue to define how I approach technical
work.
</p>

<p>
Leaving was not a decision I made lightly. After nearly a decade in
one environment, I felt it was time for a reset: to reflect on the
kind of engineer I wanted to become next, to explore new technical
directions, and to rebuild the routines and perspective I wanted to
bring into the next stage of my career. This article discusses how
the next 10 months would be a transformative period for my
professional growth, encompassing a rigorous journey of technical
interviews, hands-on open-source development, and continuous
learning. From navigating challenging technical interviews and
coding assessments, to building practical tools and deepening my
cloud and AI expertise, this journey has been as much about the
process as the outcome. This retrospective covers the lessons learned
from those challenges and the projects that sharpened my skills, and
will intentionally exclude other non-technical, personal moments.
</p>

<h2>A Self-Directed Sabbatical</h2>

<p>
After leaving Index Exchange, I took an intentional period away from
the job market to reflect on my next direction. I explored whether
returning to school to study mathematics was the right path for me,
while also taking an
<a href="https://www.coursera.org/learn/ai-agents-architecture-python">
AI Agents and Agentic AI Architecture in Python
</a>
course and beginning a project around an AI-powered pipeline. The
<a href="https://github.com/robert-7/piano-sheet-music-simplifier">
Piano Sheet Music Simplifier
</a>
is an AI-assisted Python pipeline that analyzes MusicXML, prompts an
OpenAI model to generate a structured simplification plan, validates
that plan, rewrites the MusicXML deterministically, and renders
beginner-friendly piano sheet music. This opportunity gave me space
to reconnect with learning, experiment with new technical ideas, and
better understand the kind of work I wanted to pursue next.
</p>

<h2>The Job Searching Experience</h2>

<p>
After this period, I took some time to focus on myself, my family,
and my friends, while slowly getting back into the job market. I
primarily used Indeed and LinkedIn Learning to discover job
opportunities, both of which were highly effective in generating
responses. To stay organized, I utilized
<a href="https://www.tealhq.com/">Teal</a>
to track all my job applications throughout the entire process. I
used its paid feature to help generate customized resumes for jobs
which, although still a little time-consuming, gave me the
confidence that I was giving my 100% in my first impressions.
</p>

<h3>The Technical Interviews</h3>

<p>
During this journey, I engaged with several companies that tested
different facets of my engineering toolkit:
</p>

<ul>
<li>
<strong>System Design:</strong> Video calls focused on designing
complex APIs, including remote activation systems and safe data
transfer protocols across services.
</li>
<li>
<strong>Coding Challenges:</strong> Live sessions involving
algorithm implementation, like LRU caches, database pagination
design, and various LeetCode-style assessments.
</li>
<li>
<strong>Take-Home Assignments:</strong> Offline projects,
including building a web-scraping application to track real-time
data changes.
</li>
<li>
<strong>Code Review:</strong> Only one code review, which
involved spotting a risky mutation during iteration and explaining
the downstream impact.
</li>
</ul>

<h3>What I Did Well</h3>

<p>
Reflecting on these sessions, I identified several core strengths:
</p>

<ul>
<li>
<strong>High-Level Design:</strong> I successfully applied
resource-focused strategies during API design, tackling problems
at a high level and maintaining a structural approach.
</li>
<li>
<strong>Adaptability:</strong> During offline projects, I tackled
tasks outside my core expertise, such as web-scraping, and
reconstructing deltas.
</li>
<li>
<strong>Diagnostic Skills:</strong> I demonstrated quick
identification of core bugs during code reviews, effectively
spotting logic errors during iteration.
</li>
</ul>

<h3>Areas for Improvement</h3>

<p>
While there were many successes, these experiences highlighted
critical areas for refinement:
</p>

<ul>
<li>
<strong>Technical Detail:</strong> I sometimes get bogged down in
minor details or overlook key stability issues, particularly when
working with external systems in API design.
</li>
<li>
<strong>Articulation:</strong> I need to practice explaining the
"why" and "how" behind code fixes. I found that explaining the
impact of a bug is just as important as identifying it.
</li>
<li>
<strong>Stress Management:</strong> Avoiding panic during live
walkthroughs is critical. Clear communication of thought processes
is essential, even when under pressure. A reminder that there's
always time to think about possible options before confirming that
one option is the way to go forward.
</li>
</ul>

<h2>Technical Growth &amp; Upskilling</h2>

<p>
During the interview prep, I suspected my response rate felt a
little low in the beginning. When asking around, I got feedback that
since I had no public cloud experience, that could be a factor in
determining whether I was "a bit behind on the times". All of this
is covered in my previous blog
<a href="https://robertlech.com/blog/moving-containerized-flask-app-to-aws/">
Moving a Containerized Flask App to AWS
</a>.
In the blog I describe how the lack of experience motivated me to
take the
<a href="https://www.coursera.org/learn/aws-cloud-technical-essentials">
AWS Cloud Technical Essentials
</a>
course offered by Amazon Web Services to fill that gap. Moreover,
to really show some concrete learnings, I then took one of my open
source projects, the
<a href="https://github.com/robert-7/course-enrollment-app">
Course Enrollment App
</a>,
and designed and deployed it onto AWS using ECS Fargate, ALB, ECR,
SSM Parameter Store, GitHub Actions CI/CD, and AWS CDK for
infrastructure as code. This gave me the confidence that I had the
mature experience to design and deploy systems to the cloud.
</p>

<p>
Additionally, to keep my Go programming skills strong as my primary
server-side programming language, I completed the
<a href="https://www.coursera.org/learn/programming-with-golang">
Programming with Golang
</a>
course offered by Edureka.
</p>

<h2>The Next Chapter</h2>

<p>
With all the effort put into this job hunting experience, I am
pleased to announce that I will be joining Achievers as a Senior
Software Engineer (Backend Engineering) starting June 22. After
spending over nine years at Index Exchange, I'm excited for this
next chapter: learning a new product domain, strengthening my
backend, API, and cloud engineering skills, and contributing to data
intelligence systems that help organizations better understand and
improve the employee experience. Although I feel a little nervous
entering a new environment, I trust in my experience that I'll be a
strong individual contributor and a mentor for other more junior
engineers.
</p>

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