Recapitulation 2025

Posted on: 2025-12-28

I realized that I skipped the recapitulation of 2024 and 2023. The last one was 2022.

Blog Articles and Books

Another year with a lower amount of writing with 22 blog posts. 2024 had 18 and 2023 exactly 25. Far from the average of one per 1.5 per week in the first 7 years. Nonetheless, I continue enjoying the time I spend on the article I am writing.

This year was filled with Python's posts, projects and 3D printing learning.

Built Projects

In 2025, I bought my first 3D printer, a Bambu P1S, and explored parametric design with OnShape. I did a few experiments mixing electronics with the guinea pig water bottle project and the car laps counter.

Technologies

Python

While I mainly work with TypeScript, I am using Python more and more at work and in my side projects. I wrote this year about my thoughts on Python. I enjoy the technology side projects, the Discord bot LLMS, bot features and my retirement simulator. I foresee continuing evolving in the ecosystem. On the contrary, I put a hold on Rust and Go. While Go remains in my backlog and Rust remains interesting, I have to decide where to focus my energy and Python is more in-demand currently.

Open-source projects

Here is a list of all the open-source projects I created or actively contributed to in 2025 that are public (I have a handful of private ones).

Leaving Adobe and Joining Roblox

I left Adobe at the end of 2025. Actually, my family consisting of my wife and children moved from San Jose (California) to Foster City (California). People who know me know that I am someone of action and that I value my time. Thus, moving 15 minutes from my new work was making a lot of sense. We sold our house and we are renting. It makes even more sense since my wife had started a job in the area a few months ago. The commute for her drastically improved going from averaging 90 minutes to also 15 minutes. More time with the family!

My Reasons to Leave Adobe

Adobe is a large company and I was working in a good team of people. Also, I was contributing to one of the products that Adobe is betting on for the long term (Adobe Express). Finally, I had a great manager! However, the engineering mindsets and the processes were having a negative effect on me. I am agile, innovative and like raising the bar (for real!). Too many discussions, too little action, I suddenly felt I was moving slowly. I felt I was more in Slack than in the action. I wanted to feel "alive" and productive again. While I had excellent reviews and good feedback, I decided to join Roblox.

My New Role at Roblox

I joined Roblox as a Principal Software Engineer. Roblox is a small company of about 3,000 employees and my organization has about 400 employees. I am one of the 9 Principal Software Engineers. I work in a team that builds software to make the company more efficient with the use of automation and AI. It is very motivating! People are great and the culture looks very good. There are plenty of opportunities and willingness of the leadership to improve. I am looking forward to seeing if my first month impression remains the same for 2026.

Free Time

I am balancing my free time with three things: playing with my kids, playing video games and programming projects. Since I completed my 800 pages book on system designs, I took a pause on continual improvement in technologies. Non-stop grinding had an impact on my mental health. I keep programming on projects I am passionate about and learning because I desire to. I also spend most of my weekend with the kids. At night, I spend time playing video games. What I found is with the right balance I am more relaxed and sleep a lot better! I feel less grumpy! More positive!

Exercise

2025 was up and down in terms of physical exercise. At Adobe, we had a very good gym on-site. I was going three times then two times. It fluctuated depending on how much I was going to the office. At Roblox, I train at my house about 2-3 times a week but with a lot less equipment. I continue as I believe in being balanced between brain and muscles.

What Next?

AI is disrupting the world. The future is uncertain more than ever. Some past motivations of going deep in specific domains lowered as AI can make many people "good" which for some reason lowers my motivation to spend hundreds of hours learning something. Instead, I am focusing on my happiness and making good use of my experience and knowledge. Especially at work. I also try to enjoy more the time I spend. While I always and will probably always be motivated to work hard on side-projects, I realized that I pushed myself very hard when I was tired or did not want to continue. It led to some exhaustion and dissatisfaction.

Previous Recapitulations

You can see my previous year recapitulation of 2022, 2021, 2020, 2018, and 2017.