Hey everyone!
It’s been a long minute since I’ve talked with you all. Life has been very busy but also incredible. I’ll give you the breakdown quickly.
I started working at Tesla Energy a little over 2 years ago as a senior software engineer on the team that builds the Tesla mobile app (the exact one you can find in the App Store) and the back-end cloud services that power it!
I moved to Silicon Valley (from North Bay/San Francisco) for this job. Shortly after I started, I got a bernese mountain dog I named Aspen!
(Side note - I just started an Instagram page for her.)
These two might have something to do with the fact I haven’t emailed in a while! As it turns out, incredible (but good) growth in a short time period requires tremendous sustained focus 🏃🏻
Over the last two years, I’ve been working almost non-stop (80+ hour weeks) on projects that have helped transform the renewable energy landscape. A lot of these have been groundbreaking and redefined what’s possible.
About a year in (and after a lot of blood/sweat), I got promoted to staff software engineer and continued worked across the entire Tesla software stack on these sorts of projects. All along the way, I was fortunate to work with brilliant coworkers.
About 4 months ago, I started surfing and currently go 3 early mornings a week for “dawn patrol” at my local beach breaks. For those of you who know me well, I would often put ocean/surfing imagery in my articles in the past. I also took lessons in Hawaii in 2022 during Covid. Surfing is a skill I’ve long admired.
Since I’ve been learning to surf, I’ve found it’s just about the most difficult skill I’ve ever tried. However, it also has a lot of life lessons (like being prepared to catch the right waves coming your way, being patient, having persistence through fatigue, and much more).
Just a few weeks ago, I made the tough call to turn in notice at Tesla. What’s next, you ask? I have some big plans in the works that I’ve been really excited about for a while. I’m sure I’ll be blogging and writing articles about this (and a lot more) soon.
Until then, life is better than I could have possibly imagined. I owe a lot of debts to a lot of people I’ll never be able to fully repay, but all I can say is thank you for the mentorship and advice so far.
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That’s a pretty great TLDR to catch you up with life.
It also brings me to why I’m emailing you today. I’m restarting my newsletter, tentatively called “Nathan’s Newsletter” until I settle on a new name I like.
I’ll be writing about building in tech, soft skills (like I’ve done on my website before), and life updates.
I’m really happy to have you along for the ride if you choose to stay.
Until we talk next, take good care of yourself.
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Nathan
It’s great to get an update. I’m glad you’re doing well.