It’s been a little over 20 months since Taking the Freelance Plunge and it’s still amazing! I have the great privilege to work on different projects and with different clients. The variety is great and interesting.
What’s New?
Website Redesign
Originally, Metillium was my personal tech blog focused on Salesforce and Microsoft items. However, I’ve officially made it my company’s website since that was the long-term goal. This site still uses WordPress but is now hosted on a better platform that makes management easier and the site faster. What do you think of the site?
Passed Salesforce Transition Certification Exams
Originally, I had the Force.com Developer and Advanced Developer certifications but Salesforce decided to replace them with the platform developer I and II and platform app builder certifications. To stay certified, I had to take two transition exams. I passed the Advanced Developer transition exam in November and the other platform app builder in March so I now have the platform developer I and II certs and the platform app builder cert. It was disappointing that I had to pay for the platform app builder transition exam while the advanced developer one was free but at least it was only $100.
1 Year Client Anniversary
This week marks 1 year working with my primary client. These guys are amazing to work with and I’ll keep working with them for as long as possible.
P.S. If you’re reading this, I’d work for you guys for the right offer.
401K Profit Sharing Contribution
Was able to make the maximum 401K profit sharing contribution on top of the regular employee contribution. I love this extra pre-tax allotment.
More & Better Lightning
Salesforce has made Lightning better and it feels like it’s finally maturing with more base components and more styling options. I still wish it was as fast as Classic though but I suspect that’ll never be possible because the UI is generated on the front-end.
Slackforce Has 100 Members
Slackforce officially has just over 100 members now and is slowly growing. If you’d like to join, please Contact Me.
Not So Motivated Becoming an MVP
For a while, I was very motivated to become a Salesforce MVP. However, it’s a lot of effort to become one and stay one so while becoming one would be great, it’s no longer a primary goal.
My greatest fulfillment comes from building great software and helping others. The latter is done by blogging, using Slackforce, social media, and through user groups.
What’s Next?
Starting a Salesforce Developer Group
I applied to start a Salesforce Developer Group in my area. This will let the local developers share and learn from each other as well as build more community. I am really excited for this and hope to get approved soon. More details coming once it’s official.
This will be my primary focus outside of client work. I’ve always wanted to teach at the college level and this will give me a glimpse into that.
More Architect Certifications
Within the next year or two, my goal is to become System & Application Architect certified so I once again am eligible to become a Certified Technical Architect. This will cost at least $2,000, a bunch of study time, and 5 more certifications to pass. I go back-and-forth on wanting to become a CTA and am currently leading towards no.
Getting other non-technical certifications is somewhat appealing because it’ll force me to learn other Salesforce domains. For example, the CPQ and Marketing Cloud certs are interesting.
Paying Down Debt
If all goes as planned, my student loans and our car will be paid off by year end with only our mortgage remaining. With the mortgage’s interest rate being so low, I’ll invest the freed up cash flow.
Potentially Hiring A Junior Developer
I had the great pleasure of being a mentor for a high-school student’s independent study into Software. This student really impressed me and once graduates and has a certain level of technical knowledge, I’ll approach this person to see if they’ll want to work with me. This may take a year or two but would be fun.
How’s your professional aspirations coming?