7.00 AM
I wake up and go for a morning walk around a nearby park to exercise.
8.30 AM
I take the bus to work. I usually listen to podcasts on the way which makes the commute pass by more quickly.
9.00 AM
I arrive at work and order coffee from the in-house barista. Get to my desk and greet my team members as they arrive because I’m usually one of the earliest to come in. I read emails sent from yesterday and Slack messages that need my attention. I review pull requests and update my tickets on the team JIRA board to get me prepared to start the day.
9.30 AM
Our team's designer sent the designs of the new component I am building. I look at the designs and start building the UI part of the component. I will build the logic and state later. Since the design is made up of existing internal library components, I can implement the UI more easily by composing the matching React components. Using Storybook, I can create the UI in isolation from the logic, which allows me to build and display a working version (for testing and demonstration purposes) of the UI before the logic is even implemented.
11.00 AM
Daily standup with my team. Everyone shares what they are going to be working on for the day so for me it is implementing the new component. We also use this time to have a quick catchup about ongoing projects and to ask questions while everyone is present.
11.15 AM
I continue building the component and review a PR someone assigned to me.
12.00 PM
I head over to the dining hall to eat lunch prepared by the in-house chefs. Today we are having Thai Chilli Basil Noodles with a choice of either chicken or tofu.
12.30 PM
I walk to a cafe outside the office with some teammates to buy coffee, get some fresh air, and stretch our legs. These coffee walks are a great time to catch up about non-work related things and for a bit of team bonding.
12.45 PM
I’m back at work building the new component. The UI part of the component is now mostly finished. I have a couple of questions I need to ask the designer so I scheduled a meeting for later. I am now focusing on building the logic supporting the user interacting with the component to persist changes to the backend. I am also updating the state in other parts of the web application.
2.00 PM
I have a meeting with the designer to clarify some questions I have about the component transitions between states. I find these meetings extremely helpful as there is only so much information that can be communicated through a mostly static design. I give a live demonstration of the UI component I built so the designer can see how I’ve implemented the transition between states. We discussed some differences they had envisioned and I noted them down to be fixed.
2.30 PM
It’s time for a 1:1 with my coach. This is time for me to reflect on how I have been doing over the past couple of weeks, and to see how I am doing towards my personal development goals. I also use this time to discuss what my coach can do to support me achieve my goals.
3.00 PM
I incorporate feedback from meeting with the designer into the new component and add some finishing touches and tests. Now that the UI part of the component is finished, I create a pull request and assign a member of my team to review it. I continue working more on the logic part of the component.
5.00 PM
My team member reviewed my UI component pull request and approved it with a couple of minor suggestions. I fix those up and once the CI checks have passed, I merge my code into the master branch.
6.00 PM
Today is our monthly team outing (fully shouldered by Canva) so once everyone finished working, we headed off to a bowling alley. We ordered food and beers, played a couple of rounds, and just had fun after a busy day at work.
10.30 PM
It’s bedtime. I read a bit to relax and unwind.