Susanna Codes

Achieving the Impossible I can’t do two things. I can’t regulate my nervous system and I can’t ground myself. I can just about do these two things when I’m in the forest. Otherwise it’s just too hard Even though dance is quite grounding (I have barely danced in three weeks due to an ongoing illness and this is torture for me). But  When I see the world as made of love Everything becomes possible Nervous system regulation becomes possible Grounding becomes possible And so I see the world as made of love As what it really is For what it is The rain falling down from the sky is made of love The autumn leaves on the ground shine and radiate with pure love The whole sky is made of love And so  Hello from the midlands

How To Establish Yourself As A Leader (In My Eyes) To me the greatest symptom of a leader is kindness. To lead is to be kind. To lead is to care. To lead is to care about the people in your, well, care. When I think of all of the truly amazing leaders and people I have worked with (although, we are all leaders, in our own ways) I think of this: The selfless times that people have listened to me, far too many to count, listening so much more than they talk and giving me THE GREATEST GIFT YOU CAN EVER GIVE ANYONE IN YOUR LIFE. Their time, energy, listening and caring Being the bigger person - sometimes I can have my little moments - a leader is someone who can see past that and keep on loving and leading with care and grace A leader is someone who is consistent - when I see all of the people who show up for me time and time again my heart is truly moved. A leader is there for you after they promised they will be. A leader is someone who shows up for you time and time again and not just o...

Never Ever Forgetting The Kindness of Others The world is so full of beautiful people. As they say we are all friends. We just haven’t met each other yet. And that is how I live my life. Whoever I am with in this moment is my best friend. That doesn’t mean I’ll always be nice to you. Are you always nice to your best friend? But I can promise you that when I am around you I’ll always be a 100% authentic version of me - and I’ll give you permission to do the same. Too many people have done nice and kind things for me to ever repay. The product director who made sure that the last thing she did before leaving our company was creating an engineering training role for me. The new lead in my team who checks in on me and sees how I am doing. There are too many nice and kind people in the world for me to even imagine. The teammates who help me to find accessibility techniques or rather build on those ones that I have. The people that support me all around Frontend and all around my department...

Summary from Another Magical and Perfect Day I rarely if ever duplicate content from LinkedIn. But just for this once I wrote something so beautiful that I don't want it to get lost like posts on LinkedIn invariably do So please take it and have a summary of one of my magical days And please know that I am so grateful for and have so much love for everyone around me. I wish I could just go and dance tonight but I am still not well enough - I cannot wait to dance again - omg  Another magical day draws to a close and as always I am so grateful for everything. So many things to say and so many highlights, includes: - I really enjoyed blocking out my tasks for today in my calendar - I really enjoyed making up my plan for debugging my ticket - I loved the support that I got when invariably things went wrong - I loved that my Senior got me to look at things and come up with things for myself and to get to the steps to get there for myself instead of just telling me what to do - He also p...

Let Me Never Lose The Sweetness And The Innocence Of My Dream Getting to here was tough. But I will never ever want to lose the gifts it gave me. I never want to lose my beautiful beautiful beautiful dream  Never want to lose the way it feels when  I look at my email signature and it says “Frontend Software Engineer” Never want to lose the way it feels when  I made friends with my colleagues baby and he said “she’s going to be a Frontend software engineer” Never want to forget How being a software engineer Makes me happier than anything else in the world And this is all that I ever wanted I have fallen back in love with my work again God please never take this away from me 

Another Magical Day of Learning I had another beautiful day today. Every day in my life is such a big and beautiful blessing and a gift. I work with such beautiful people every day. Whom I love so much. Every day I am in awe of their kindness and integrity. This morning I wrote out some steps that a Lead taught me on Friday. I still didn’t get them but it was better. Then I met with a Lead from a completely different department to refine some training. It was fantastic cos he was one of my interviewers from 18 months back (I had 6 interviewers in various interviews). It was a full circle moment. Then I paired with a fantastic new Lead in my team and I learned all about React. And so we paired and he reminded me of loads of stuff I had forgotten He reminded me of how the VDom worked etc. And we talked about on change. We implemented a use effect which I hadn’t done in so long and we talked about how on change function is basically just a callback function that gets fired when a componen...

Moving on with the technical stuff I do NOT work outside of hours anymore. That took 5 years to become a thing. I might make a few quick notes or move a calendar event sometimes. Also if I unfortunately get roped into organising a social then I might do one or two things outside of hours.  I am looking forward to the future and to my new technical sessions and to more organisation  And to a greater focus on technical learning with my sessions. I mentioned yesterday that I got two new reflective journals. One is just to scribble up what happened so I did that today retrospectively and it will never be more than a little page The other is meant now for writing up lessons. That is an IN HOURS thing. So I will do it tomorrow morning (Monday). In between my daily planning and my weekly review of my Frontend peers’ tickets (I was meant to start this last week and didn’t, I mean it was my idea, it’s still only an experiment for now). I will write up the lessons from Friday. And then ...

Happy 1000th Blog Post to Susanna Codes - What’s Next? I am a simple woman.  I am going to be honest and straight forward with you. I am excited about my mentoring opportunities  I am excited about one Lead who I work with who has promised to make our sessions purely technical I am excited about another Lead who I work with with who we have agreed the same - both are geniuses - I am sure I will learn loads from them I am excited about a new Lead in my team who says he has some thoughts for me to grow - it’s great to have some new input from someone in my discipline I am excited about working with my manager again when she gets back I am excited about working with my main mentor when she gets back - I have missed them both I have another amazing mentor who has been away and I miss him so much and I can’t wait for him to be back I have a wonderful and really inspirational mentor on my team and I can’t wait to work with her some more at the moment I have a wonderful and inspirati...

"The future looks bright and most importantly the future looks technical - And I mean that is all I ever wanted" If you've made it this far, then this is my 999th blog post. The next one is a big one. I am so happy and grateful for what happened in the last 10 posts. Just in time for my 1000th post, I managed to fall back in love with software engineering again, find my passion, find some hope for the future and find a way to keep on going. This afternoon I did a meditation from my old meditation teacher - I don't attend his meetings or gatherings anymore. I can't explain why. One day he told me wordlessly to move on. The truth is you can build a dependency on or an attachment to your meditation teacher. You can stop looking at the truth and start looking at the teacher instead. And so I left to look at the truth.  I began to dance. I continued software engineering. Sometimes I feel lost. But how could I feel lost? When I need a lesson  It arrives. Like the other ...

Technical/Process sessions Yesterday I felt like as if my life changed forever. It felt like being pulled out of the black dark heavy water. It felt like I had been drowning in ink. It feels like the lights have come on again after a very long dark time. I just feel so much better about everything oh my goodness. I feel like the lights have come on again with my software engineering career, my progress and my learning. I feel like there is hope again for the future.  I feel like we identified the issue. I feel like we diagnosed the cause. I don’t know how we did it but we did. I feel like somewhere between all of the tears.  We managed to diagnose the problem behind all of the other work problems. Why did it take me so long to get here? Who knows.   

"I might as well give music by men a try", part 2 Talking about how I am going with a technical solution You can tell I am completely obsessed with this song by Florence and the Machine. It’s the best song I’ve ever heard. And it’s by Aaron Dessener so it makes sense. He writes all of my favourite music. He is my true favourite artist Yesterday I decided I was going to try again. By cutting through all the bullshit  And focusing on a technical solution.  We spend a lot of time at work trying to resolve things for me trying to make things more accessible trying to clarify things around frameworks and etc But all of this is wonderful and at the same time we have decided it isn’t addressing the real issue. The real issue is that I have loads and loads of knowledge but I don’t have the tools to apply that knowledge. So we are going to be working together on those tools.  One of the many great blessings of my life is the amount of people I have to support me and the amount of ...

I LOVE SOFTWARE ENGINEERING Today I felt something I almost haven’t felt in years. I felt my original love for software engineering. I mean… when I first started oh my god my life was a permanent high and I’ve never been so happy. I was on fire. Constantly. I felt like I had wings with air beneath them. This faded a little after 18 months but when I started at Kraken in April 2024… it came back again. All of the magic. I felt it. That sense of destiny. That sense of purpose. I felt it again. I got myself four journals with the inscription “born to be an engineer” on them.  And I knew it was my destiny. I really felt a lot of magic when I moved to the frontend again this summer. But it wasn’t until today that I finally felt the magic again Oh my God. Higher than the highest high. When I feel my purest love for software engineering… it is like the sweetest and most purest love and fire and passion. I love the wind farms and I love my family and I love my colleagues and friends. And m...

Imagining a better life for myself  I have been through a lot work wise - both since I started my career and over the last two years especially. But now for the first time I can see a way forward. A way forward. One where the work is easier for me to do  And it’s about tools. I have loads of knowledge. I have so so so much software engineering knowledge  And its all been stuck in my head for so many years And I don’t have the tools to apply it as well as I could. And it has been the bane of my existence The pain that caused me to write so many software engineering blogs. But at least today I found a name for it I found a way to diagnose it And so I made a deal with a couple of colleagues and I’m hoping to make a deal with one more. That we will use our sessions together To really focus on the technical stuff To really focus on the technical tools And on building those tools And on using those tools So that I can be Susanna again And log out of work And know that I have do...

Opening my heart to a better future  I am not here to talk about the things I have been through in my life or what I have been through to mean things are a certain way right now. I am here to live a better life for today and plan a better tomorrow. Last night I did one of the most powerful things I have ever done in my life. I went back to some moments in my life And I saw everything as love. I went back into a room I once walked into and I saw the very doorway as love. I saw the counter as love. The books the floors The very dress that I was wearing. I felt the air in the room as love and the very air that I was breathing in as love. I saw any interactions with people as the people just being made out of pure love. I saw the light from the sun that was streaming into the room as made of pure love And then today my life transformed forever I had one of the biggest solutions to one of the greatest and biggest problems in my life And I fell back in love with software (I also made up ...

Tips on Debugging from the Best of the Best of Software Engineers  Today was one of the most important days of my whole software engineering career and maybe even life. For the first time in my life, I felt that someone helped me put a name on an issue I had been experiencing for a long time at work... for years and years actually. It's rare in life to find a moment when someone will actually get you that well and for that I am so grateful. I hope this is the beginning of more and more situations when people actually understand me. Expect a barrage of blog posts. Because my life has changed, and everything in my life has changed for the better  Debugging tips from the pros  Take a step back  Okay then.  Thanks. What's next? Note down the steps for replication Replicate the problem Write a test that fails - once you know it passes you know the bug is fixed So the first part involves identifying the bug and the scope of the bug The second part is this:  Look ...

What My Favourite Two Accessibility Tricks Have In Common I have three top accessibility hacks. One I came up with myself when I was off with stress once and that is my paper planner. I finally found the right one for me and it works really well. But the other two are more in the virtual world. And they both came from the same Lead. I want to decipher what they have in common  As they are the two things that have made me feel the most supported in my life. Ever ever  What are they? Blocking out time to do specific work in my calendar including name and ticket number (and writing out all the details of what I want to do and achieve in this block) and Writing verbose commit messages What do the two have in common? They both force me to write out the ticket number many times  Every time I commit the first thing I do is I write out the branch number and since there are often 3-4 commits per one of my PRs at least then this really helps to consolidate the ticket number in my h...

"Dedicated to all the programmers out there" I don't often do this but I'm going to link back to one of my old blog posts.  Coding mode.   Isn't it just the sweetest thing you have ever seen?  That was one of the best and happiest days of my coding career. Coding represented to me magic like I had never seen. I discovered that playlist because I was watching an episode of Black Mirror where a woman was talking about code. She sounded so magical  I realised that I loved it when I spoke about code as well  I looked up podcasts about coding and instead found the best playlist that I have ever found in my life. Thank you  I still don't understand what is going wrong but as my manager has recently reminded me  Nothing is going wrong  Maybe that is my biggest problem Thinking that something is going wrong  When I am so grateful and so happy to be here  Thank you so much

The dreams I started this blog with The sweet little girl I was. 3 years ago. I walked along the cliffs by the sea back home to Brighton after a day out and to do a walk like that back in those days was amazing and represented true liberation and freedom to me. I stood and looked out at the sea as the sun set. And I came up with a name for my blog. Susanna Codes. Who would have guessed. My constant companion through the chaos. Once upon a time Once upon a time Once upon a time Once upon a time I just wanted to learn JavaScript I just wanted to learn css I just wanted to learn html I didn’t know what an ide was Didn’t know how to run a test Didn’t know that this career can be horrible Didn’t know that this industry can be tough Didn’t know that I would lose my first job a year after finding it. Didn’t know about the challenges I would face in my next job after that Didn’t know Didn’t now Didn’t know Didn’t know Why can somebody not just tell me how to do the thing? I am a pattern spotte...

Something that keeps me going, and even on my toughest days Today was really difficult. I gave a talk and it was great. That went really well. A lot of people couldn’t make it but that created a really nice and relaxed and intimate environment with people and it reduced the pressure on me a lot which was really great too. The rest of the day was really tough though and I did not have a good time So imagine then  When I emailed some screenshots to myself after work and I see it all there. In between a line with my full name on it. In between a line with my company name on it. There it is  “Frontend Software Engineer” This represents so much to me. More than you will ever know. More than you will ever know I worked every day for all of 2024 to get this. Giving up all my evenings and weekends. I fought and fought and fought my way throw a 10 month probation as a backend AI engineer and I ultimately succeeded and thrived in this role but decided it was time to move on To move back...

An Epiphany in the Middle of Mid Night We are drawn towards people who are the opposite of us. Who balance us out in some way. I know I tend to get on well with people who are extremely strong, firm and decisive. I know I am extremely playful, whimsical and fun and I do get overwhelmed very easily. I am extremely efficient and organised (you might not believe it from reading my chaos blog - but actually in my work and planning I am an extremely organised woman and people often say I am one of the most organised people they have ever met! Were you expecting that??!). I work well with people who give extremely clear guidance, draw strong boundaries and are firm in their decisions. Maybe because this is something I struggle with so much. We balance each other out. But I was thinking today about someone I work a lot with. And I thought of their communication style. Strong, clear, firm. No apologies. No justifications. Just clear strong boundaries (over slack). Clear on what they want, what...

Water, part 2 Something compels me to keep on writing and I wish it didn’t. I honestly wish I could switch off. But I can’t. Sometimes, I can’t. And this evening I’m thinking about my bug fix. Yesterday I spent my offline time doing some homework for my outstanding GraphQL tutor. And today I spent most of my time doing a course on incident reporting. So tomorrow is my big day for handling my bug especially as I have a lot of stuff on Friday. (But still lots of time to code).  A senior colleague took me through his approach to the bug fix. It was very useful and helpful. The way you fix bugs is similar to the way you test in frontend. You have to think about what the component does and what it is actually doing. Step by step. What happens? Does it store state? What button becomes enabled or disabled? My plan is to start small tomorrow. Create a new branch.  Then find my code component in a PR I raised 5 months ago as that feels easier than finding it in the repository (which is...

Om Mata Kali Since the day I started coding I’ve had one website I wanted to build. I think it might be time to build it. I don’t know what will happen with it. I don’t know if anyone will ever look at it. I don’t know that anyone will ever use it. But I do know this. Any good teacher will tell you: it is not up to us to decide what happens with the art we create. It is just our job to create it. Which is why I wrote this chaotic blog. Whether anybody reads it or not. Sometimes I have hundreds of readers.  Sometimes I have like three I don’t care I’ve never cared I would write if I had 2 readers or 2 billion That’s not my job. My job is to write whatever comes through me and not to care about who reads it in the end  So happy reading my friends happy reading 

I don’t get people, but I do get electronic music Being autistic in the workplace can be SO EXHAUSTING. I don’t get the feedback loop I need from most people on whether I have upset them or not (as in most people can usually tell from someone’s facial expressions whether or not they have or haven’t upset them) and unless I know someone really well it’s usually hard for me to tell if I have annoyed them.  Even then it’s hard to tell. Nb I usually haven’t annoyed most people. But a neurodivergent childhood is very traumatic you often get into trouble and you don’t know why. And so as an adult that can leave me often feeling like I have upset people. And so anyway After a few days this can pile up and really get exhausting and it usually takes a very regulating incident to bring things back around. Just spare a thought for your autistic colleagues We are exhausted. Constantly trying to read facial expressions. Especially over video calls. This is why I like the music of Jon Hopkins. T...

Missing Home Like My Heart Will Break I come from the forest deep in Luxembourg. I can take you in the woods to the land where the fairies live. Come. You only need to follow me. I can take you to where the light filters through the giant green trees and where purple flowers seem to grow even in the winter all year round I can take you to where the trees will make all of your wishes come true. I can take you to the Triple Goddess Tree. I can take you to the willow deep within the forest. I can take you to where the deer will climb cliffs vertically just for you. I can take you to secret lakes in the woods. I can show you the witches hut that I found once  I can take you to where the tree stabbed me in the ear and imbued me with all of its magic. Nearby there is the field that is made purely of love and I can see it from my bedroom window Oh but don’t you know This whole entire universe is made of nothing but love. My heart is beating and pounding in my chest right now because it is...

Confessions of a neurodivergent powerhouse “  Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don’t you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard.” - Maya Angelou Expect me to be a sweet little girl at your peril. Expect me to appreciate your condescending smiles at your peril. Expect me not to be able to stand up for myself, defend myself or provide for myself at your own risk of looking very silly. I am the last person in the world you should look down on I don’t do being looked down on I am beautiful and powerful and strong and I know it. I am amazing and I bring incredible contributions to the team I work in I build great relationships and I love to uplift the people around me I love myself and I love you too Isn’t that the best combination 

Preparing for a talk on Thursday I am a bit ill. My immune system always struggle this time of year and then is okay for the rest of winter normally. Interesting. I’m giving a talk to my department on Thursday (virtually). I have given a lot of talks  Some people are surprised. But that is what I do. I have given talks to whole companies about neurodiversity. I have spoken at at least 4 tech events.  And I have spoken to my whole company (well whoever was interested so about 150 people) about my problem solving methodologies and the other month I spoke to my department about mindfulness in meetings.  Now I need to talk about accessibility techniques to people. I hope it will help a lot of people. The talk is written  I just need to practise it now 

When I Talk To You, The Wind Farms Are Alive I have stared out to sea a lot the last couple of days. I feel so unbelievably lucky to live near the offshore wind farms. They are my church, my cathedral. They are my ultimate personal cathedral. I just got off the phone with one my my parents and my whole childhood came back. My whole magical childhood in Luxembourg. Night of reading Narnia together in the bunk beds. Nights of stargazing with my dad. We would go and look for Venus together deep in the woods.  This remains one of the most beautiful and amazing gifts I have ever had in my life. Now the village I grew up in is surrounded by wind farms. And I don’t think that that is a coincidence. I love the wind farms so so much And I love my magical childhood and the memories of looking for all of the stars Thank you 

A consciousness first model of the world The world is built on a paradigm of separation.  But we have gotten it wrong. Imagine a world that we had built on the basis of universal oneness. Imagine a world where we cared for everybody as if they were our own selves.  Because they are our own selves. Would you be able to hurt anyone if you really and truly and consciously felt they were your own self? Imagine a world where we knew we were all one. Imagine how we would treat each other. How we could fulfil each other’s needs. We assume that consciousness is generated in the mind as a result of the body. Science has never ever proven this. Where in the mind is consciousness itself, awareness, the very awareness that is seeing the words generated? Have you ever had an experience outside of your awareness? Has your awareness ever come or gone? Has it ever been born or started? What about when you fall asleep?  We say that “I” slept well. Who is the I who slept well? When you go ...

What Dancing Intensely For A Year Has Given Me (And I never ever plan to stop) A year ago this would have seemed impossible. But for the last year I have consistently done 2 2-hour dance classes a week. And I have done several workshops. This is a better and more beautiful perfect life than I ever could have dreamed of. I’m so glad I’m not married or travelling the world or a director or Taylor Swift. All the things I might have wanted. I am so glad to be Susanna because I can be me.  And I can dance. I am so glad about everything that has happened in my life because it led me to here. Where I can dance. Nothing makes me happier than to dance (well expect maybe singing).  Nothing makes me happier than to move. It is truly only the grace of god that means I can dance. For five years after I first discovered my current dance style my seizures were so bad I couldn’t do it. And when they subsided enough last November for me to dance  I thought I’m only going to be able to dan...

“Sometimes, the most unlikely things become important” I had a great chat with a colleague yesterday. Isn’t it amazing how some people can lift you up. I had some really nice messages and posts from colleagues today too. So many beautiful things happened today Something you do for someone especially when you are in a position of power can make their whole day or change their life forever I think the real mark and measure of someone in power is: what do you do with that power? Do you use it to lift people up? Or do you use it to lift yourself up further, but maybe forget about others? Because the mark of who we are Is what we decide to do when we have all the power Is what we decide to do when we think that no one’s watching Is what we decide to do when we have the opportunity to help someone out - and we choose to do so - or not to I guess I would say to the people on the powerful end of the stick How would you feel if it was you And you needed someone to come down to meet you But you ...

Let It Be Home Let it be home. Let it be home. Let it be home. I spoke to someone today about my list of accessibility techniques. It was a lifesaver. I could not process it at all. So by talking to someone about it out loud I could process it. So you see So my list of accessibility techniques was just a list until someone helped me to process it So now I see what the plan for tomorrow is. The plan for tomorrow is: For goodness’s sake why does this have to be so hard. Why does everything have to be so hard  Okay then: Tomorrow I am coding all day hooray Tomorrow I am working on my ticket Tomorrow I need to put some blocks into my calendar Tomorrow I need to put some blocks into my calendar with the ticket number and name and eg with Refactor the parameterised tests Refactor the logic that displays the buttons And then I need to say in that time what I plan to achieve eg “split a test with four parameters into four tests” And then And then And then And then And then I need to break ...

I might as well give music by men a try I tried to nuke my blog. Every time I try to nuke my blog I get a million more ideas.  Here I am then I guess. Just no more overworking or obsessing over my work. This evening is a chaotic evening. I started work late so maybe it’s okay to do one or two things but maybe I should try not to. Here is my evening I wasn’t well enough to dance so Friday I will dance I bit my finger by accident and it hurts and feels weird I need to order a bubble tea for psychological reasons I want to write two to do lists for work  But I should probably rest after hours There is a lot going on and it is really overwhelming I’m trying to remember my accessibility techniques I can’t always remember them I can’t stop listening to “music by men” My sister sent me songs to listen to Edit: p.s. need to make homemade ice cream for reasons only women will understand  Can I help it that I am a chaotic artist. No I can not. I can’t help it Roses from my house in...

Rethinking My Relationship To Alan Turing As everyone will know I always idolised Alan Turing so so so much. And I don't see why not. There's no reason not to, right? This idolisation is what got me through 12 hours of work a day all day every day in 2024. I had to work so hard to fill backend and AI gaps. And as I left my office at 9 pm every day I would play "Alan Turing's Legacy" as I walked down the road off of my phone. And I wouldn't feel bad about missing the summer I can still idolise Alan Turing. But maybe not in the lens of overworking. (And to be honest idolising anyone isn't good). But maybe I can see him as a friend or as a companion on the journey. Because software engineering is still going to be so hard even if I don't overdo it. So seeing him as a friend and a companion on the journey As I stick to my accessibility techniques As I try to navigate my job As I try to just remember what I have to do in the day Maybe that can be enough.