Dev Retro 2022: My journey as a freelance developer
I've been programming for about 7 years and this is my first article writing, and hopefully the first of a long series.
Hello devs! 👋
I am a freelance full stack developer and I have been collaborating full time for years for an Italian company: Icona, of which I am part of the development team of one of their products: Acty, an amazing app for remote technical assistance.
Luckily Acty is an innovative product and during my working days it allows me to work with exciting technologies such as:
Javascript
Typescript
React
WebRTC
WebSocket with Socket.io
Node.js
Express
Fastify
Swagger
MongoDB
Redis
Augmented reality
and more...
In this article I won't talk about what I've accomplished in this working year 2022 for Icona, also because I would need a whole book, but about my activities outside the working day.
♦️ Web 3.0
My year 2022 began by studying and deepening everything related to the so-called Web 3.0, in particular, I studied:
Blockchain
Ethereum ecosystem
Smart contracts
Solidity
NFT
I started by taking these 2 courses on Udemy:
Then read this book: Mastering Ethereum: Building Smart Contracts and Dapps.
Both the courses and the book have been excellent resources, many times it is not easy to find good material, but this time I was lucky.
NFT
After that I felt the need to put into practice the concepts learned on a real project, fate has it that a childhood friend called me and told me that he had to create an NFT project on behalf of one of his clients.
I took the opportunity and created the project, with interesting features such as:
Smart contract upgradable
Metadata revealing
Addresses in the white list with different price
Minting web app
Max 4 NFT per wallet
Block public mint
Drops NFT
The project was deployed on the Ethereum main net and the collection is visible on the major Marketplaces such as Opensea: CryptoMadonne, for information about the project: https://cryptomadonne.com
♦️ TopTal
To look for some extra projects I started exploring the various platforms for freelancers such as:
Doing some research, I concluded that the best for me was TopTal. The difference between TopTal and the other platforms is that TopTal has a high barrier to entry, i.e. to join TopTal you must pass a 4-step Screening Process, but then to continue being part of it you must continue to excel. They claim that only 3% of applicants make it through all steps, more info here: https://www.toptal.com/top-3-percent
This could discourage many, but for me, it is a great advantage because, in the other platforms where everyone can enter even without skills, you would find yourself competing with people with little or no experience who obviously can afford to make much lower prices than yours.
So I applied, went through all stages and I passed 🎉
I can confirm that the standards are very high.
The final step was a project to be done in a week. Afterward, during a call with a TopTal expert, the project is evaluated and he makes sure that the project has all the requested features, but also that the code is secure and scalable and that all edge cases are managed correctly.
Now I'm working on my first project with TopTal and for now, I'm really satisfied!
This is my TopTal profile: https://www.toptal.com/resume/manuel-salinardi
♦️ Node.js Certification
I feel that a great way to study a programming language, or framework/library is by getting its official certification, because many times during normal use of it, for example within a project, all its potential is not explored.
Node.js has 2 official certifications:
The first is with a focus on knowledge of Node.js core APIs, which I had taken in 2021.
In 2022 I took the second 🎉 with a focus on knowledge of RESTful Node.js Servers and Services.
In this link, there is my Credly profile with the certifications I have obtained: https://www.credly.com/users/manuel-salinardi/badges
♦️ Blogging
And we have reached the end of this 2022 and the desire to write coding tutorials are starting to grow in me, for various reasons, for example:
Improving my writing
Improving my communication
Learn to write programs with graphs and charts
Learning by teaching and explaining concepts
Start building an online presence
For my new adventure, I have to thank Hashnode, which allows me to start writing articles like this one, only focuses on writing, without dealing with technical stuff, and also encourages me to do it with initiatives like #DevRetro2022
This new blogging challenge bet will be the hardest because I have never written articles or books, and I'm better at coding than I am at English 🤓.
I've always been a big content customer. Content creation is definitely more complex, I hope I can make it and don't give up! 👊
♦️ Goals for 2023
Blogging
The 2 official MongoDB certifications
Study PostgreSQL
Study Web Audio API
Study WebGL
Study WebXR with a focus on AR