Rachel Feng

6.30 AM

My alarm goes off signalling the start of the day. Time to get ready and hit the road.

My bag, keys and pass are by the door (good job past me), so I grab everything plus a museli bar and I’m off.

With good timing I can beat the traffic into work 😊

7.45 AM

On autopilot, I park my car, drop my bag off at my desk and head to the break room to make myself a coffee. I see a few apples left from the weekly fruit box, so I grab one of those too.

8.00 AM

Having consumed half my coffee on my way back to my desk, I’m a little more awake now so I boot up my laptop and see what’s planned for the day.

First, I check my emails for anything that needs my attention. Company news will be skimmed. Replies and updates about bugfixes or customer support will be flagged to follow up later during the day. Build results will get a closer look since I merged in a new feature yesterday.

Once emails are sorted, I check my calendar for meetings. Today I have a design review for a new feature with my team and a few quick meetings to get caught up for different projects.

Finally, I look at any notes I left myself which would remind me of any tasks I should get done in the morning.

8.20 AM

Focus time. Since the new feature I implemented was in the latest build results, I will need to do a quick integration test to ensure there are no negative impacts to existing functionality. I will be deploying a Virtual Machine with our product pre-installed. This template is automatically updated nightly so developers have a system with the latest updates. When it loads up, I do a quick functional test of what the new feature should do and see if it causes any errors.

Once tested, I can close off the task from our sprint board and pick up a new task. Look like there’s another feature to be implemented. Time to put on some music and get coding.

10.15 AM

We follow Agile methodologies, so same time every day we have a daily stand-up meeting which gives the team a chance to update each other, the scrum master and manager of our progress. A typical flow would be:

• Developers give summary of work done the day before, any current blockages and the plan for the day
• Scrum master provides update on how the team is tracking this sprint (2 week cycles)
• Anyone in the team can give notices or other announcements

My team is pretty good at keeping it under 15 minutes.

10.30 AM

With stand-up done, it’s back to work. Throughout the day, the developers on the team might ping each other for help and to bounce ideas around. Since I’m in the office, colleagues might stop by as well for quick problem solving or general catching up.

12.00 PM

Time for a lunch break!

There is the possibility of a quick session of Dungeons & Dragons if everyone we play with is in the office. This started up recently as a few of the graduates were interested in playing. We end up providing a bit of lunch time entertainment.

1.00 PM

Fed and watered, I return to my desk to glance over the document I prepared for the design review before the presentation to my team. Since this review is just to my team, it’s more informal than if I were to present to other stakeholders. This gives me a chance to ask questions and clarify details as well as receive feedback. Often times I also learn about systems and services I was unaware of which could enhance the design.

2.30 PM

Around this time, I tend to take a short break to get a cup of coffee or hot chocolate to carry me through the rest of the day. This is also when I start writing notes to remind myself where I got up for certain tasks or if there are any items that will need to be chased up for the next week.

4.30 PM

I shut down my laptop and clear my desk for the day. Since I drove in, I would check in with any others leaving at the same time to offer a lift to the station – it’s a 15 minute uphill walk.

Since it’s a Friday, a group of us would be bouldering after work. I’ll check if anyone wants to carpool there as well.

4.45 PM

It’s a short drive to the nearest climbing gym and we’re all excited to socialise and climb for the next couple hours. Snapped this picture as we were leaving, it became a busy night at the gym.

Usually, we would get dinner together before heading our separate ways for the night.

10.00 PM

After a long day, I’m finally home again. I’ll spend a bit of time relaxing, maybe play some video games, before heading to bed.

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