Celebrating 5 Years at PayPal! 🥳

I firmly believe Health is wealth. A stomach bug took me out for a week. My hyper-functioning self had trouble grasping with the lack of productivity. Then I realized that canceling meetings or moving them out one week wasn’t going to make a difference in the long run. It was important that I stayed authentic in the speed of which I recovered which was definitely slower than I would have liked. For the past 6 months, I realized that I was also involved in 8 projects which was more than what my peers were doing. I do embrace being a hyperachiever, however, it's important for me to practice mindful rest and relaxation. In these moments of rest, I'm able to recharge, think of more creative ideas and think deeper.

Three things that I find fulfilling are 1) Understanding the why behind business, product, and technical requirements. 2) Receiving mentorship and mentoring the next generation of software engineers via 1:1s. 3) Maximizing my time each day via timeboxing. I've started to shape my work days around these because it's quite motivating to learn and share what I've learned. Another portion is if you understand the why, it'll be easier to have a purpose in what you're building along with the sponsorship needed to build a product.

I thought I was inconveniencing the other person or taking time out of the meeting to ask my questions and instead would try to search for the answers within the existing conversations. Now I've gotten more comfortable asking because what I'm curious about is both relevant and there's a high chance someone else will have the same question. I also feel that this has pushed me to have a voice and assert my opinion. By having an opinion, it's challenged me to think more deeply because I have to weigh pros and cons of a tech decision as an example. By also asking more questions with curiosity, I've learned that I can assume a mostly positive outcome and response.

I used to think that I was learning a lot by asking questions about my mentor. Now I'm learning that the more I reveal about my struggles, the more I am able to get help and guidance from my mentors. I'm learning that it's comfortable to give myself the space and vulnerability to share what I'm experiencing in order to figure out how I can take the next step in my career. This year, I've also been trying a couple of new things such as 1) 5-min Daily Gratitude Journal. 2) Daily planner. and 3) Emotions journal. I feel I've been the most consistent with the Daily planner and Emotions journal because they provide the space for me to jot down my tasks for the day as well as how I feel throughout the day.

When reflecting on my 5th year at PayPal, I'm so grateful to be an environment that pushes me to be a better engineer, have a large network of mentors, mentees, and colleagues, and have exciting problems to create solutions for. The icing on the cake is that I have 4 weeks of sabbatical as a 5 year anniversary milestone. I'm planning to go to Seoul, South Korea for dance classes, up my skincare routine, and practice my Korean and Osaka, Japan for food, art, and sightseeing!