This post was originally posted on Trunk Club’s tech blog at http://techblog.trunkclub.com/post/25414298215/trunk-club-apprenticeship-week-14.

This week was a little slower. It had to be after the long and intense previous week. I had put in a lot of hours to get Trunkboards released. It was great to get that done but I needed a slower week. I got to spend a little less time coding and a little more time reading, blogging and learning.

Working on Trunkboards also helped me work with the product team and stakeholders. I have always been on the other side of the equation, giving product specifications and instructions to the product team or the tech team. Now I am getting instructions and specifications for the work to be done. The benefit of working in a smaller company (although not too small) is that I can provide a lot of feedback and opinion on the final outcome. I also get to work closely with the stakeholders who are never sitting very far from me.

One achievement that I failed to mentioned last week was getting Devise installed on Trunkboards in just a few hours. Last year, during Code Academy, I tried to get it on my application and couldn’t understand how to make it work. I ended up building my own authentication system. After Code Academy, while I was looking for a job, I tried again on a new application. It was easier but it still felt not flexible enough. So I felt great when last week I got it to work exactly how I wanted it to while spending less than a few hours on it (most of it having fun with CSS styling of the login page). It’s another step that shows me how far I’ve come and how much I’ve learned in the last few months.

Next week: working on a different code base, learning REDIS and hack day – the return!