Who Am I?

My name is Adam Kalinowski, I am a software engineer at Legal Automation Systems. I like to call myself stupid; and I like that when I am corrected.

When I started college I was adamant on never writing a single line of code. I wanted to be A theoretical physicist. I wanted to write on a whiteboard and teach maths in front of a lecture hall. I wanted to give talks on my discoveries and be the best physicist in the world. I cannot tell you how many times that I was at least going to have to learn python even if I was going to be a theoretical physicist. I told them that I would never, EVER write a single line of code. Why? Because beneath me. I could do it without writing a single line of code.

Looking back: I don’t think there has ever been a belief that I had held that I am happier for being wrong about, because two years later after I was able to go back to school with my own car at the University of South Florida, I started taking a class called: Astrophysics Lab. Part of the course was that i had to submit python scripts to run simulations. Slowly I got better at python, I started coming up with neat tricks and solving algorithms without knowing that they were already solved. I started trying to get better programming to impress this one girl in my class that I had a crush on. (We are now engaged!) I don’t think that that was where I fell in love with software. No. That came some time mid semester.

Getting the Itch

I started work with a research group working on absorption in Metal Organic Framework Simulations, or MOFS for short. I started writing code in C, and started writing parallelized code to run on GPUs on the server. And this was a lot of fun. I had the ability to work on a codebase, yet something more Important happened then. I started write code in vim.

I became obsessed with writing everything in vim. Rewriting my class notes for home in Vim. Writing latex documents for homework in Vim. I even installed Arch Linux through ssh and configured the laptop through vim on an ssh client. I loved everything about the modal nature of it that a little green monster was growing in the back of my skull. Adam Kalinowski, The Physicist, became a Software Engineer.

And then I graduated in the spring of 2019. And I started looking for Physics jobs to get out of my parents house and try my hand at life. I was surprised to find out that there were not very many jobs for a fresh grad with a bachelor of science degree in physics. I know shocker right? So, while I started tutoring sat students, I started to teach my self more software engineering concepts. And working through the book: Computational Physics: Mark Newman. And i worked through the entire book and would sometimes post my answers to Github. But it made me understand why I was not getting a job in physics. I was not passionate about physics any more. I was only interested in becoming a Software Engineer. So when the pandemic hit and everything was remote. I started learning Django, React, Html, css, SQL, The whole thing, and I started getting far more interviews with companies. Yet, I was unable to show why I should be hired. And it was because I was not able to sell myself.

Becoming a Salesman for myself

As a physics major turned software engineer, being a public speaker has never been my strong suit. I could really only tell a story when I was trying to write one. And being an interviewee was even a harder prospect for me. I was not someone who was able to brag about myself. I had confidence issues for my entire life and bragging about myself felt unjust. I was raised to be humble. And that made me dread trying to sell myself as better than anyone else because I thought I was just a beginner with no experience. I had imposter syndrome.

So I did the only thing that I could do. I asked someone what I should do. I asked my parents, and my girlfriend (now fiancee), and there was just one thing that stood out. My fiancee and mom told me that I should just be myself, and my Dad told me the quote at the top of this page

If you want to people to think you are the smartest in the room; make everyone else in the feel smarter. If you want everyone to think you are dumb; make them feel dumb.

There was something about that quote that resonated with me. My late grandfather Zdzislaw Szewczyk, my dad would always said that he could make anyone feel smart. And if I wanted to someone to put me on their team, I should try to show them that I would need to show the interviewer not some polished version of myself. I had to make them see that I could be a team player that would make them proud.

So, when I interviewed at Legal Automation Systems, I shot my shot and decided to sell who I was. I knocked out the phone interview easy as pie. I knew how to do the coding project as if it was second nature. And when the in-person interview came along, I defended the project and had a blast with the team.

The Waiting Game

One day went by and I was working a 4 shift as a tutor, and then an 8 hour shift as a home help aide. No call. Next day a twelve hour shift with a 98 year old man named Jack Herman. I told him what was happening, and to be honest with you I had know idea if he was listening. Yet this time he was lucid and told me that he was sure that I was going to get the job. a couple more days of 12 hour shifts with Jack and I was starting to loose hope. Infact, I was scheduling a call with another interviewer. I got out of a 4 hour shift with tutoring, and then was running home for lunch before I had to get to another 12 hour shift with Jack and he had been particularly bad that week. And the interview that i was supposed to have the next day was postponned.

I got a phone call and was about ready to bite off the head of who ever called. I did not even read the call ID. I was such a zombie that I answered the phone with “What’s up”. Brett my interviewer from Legal Automation Systems, called to offer me the job. I nearly broke down in tears: I was now a Software Engineer!

Where Am I at now

After working as a Software Engineer for nearly 4 years at this point, I have developed a metric ton of skills. I have developed micro services in Dotnet, wrote lamda functions in python, worked on two Machine Learning models, with a third on the way, I wrote internal tools in Rust and Golang, and developed a Dotnet plugin for Neovim all to make my life a little easier. I am the Devops guy now at Legal Automation Systems, and have been working to move all our repositories to Gitlab to automat ci/cd. We just had a major release on our eFileMadeEasy site that was pushed with the new workflow. And the site didn’t even go down!

I have worked in Linux, Macos, and Windows throughout this time and have had the time of my life doing it. You need me to write a docker container to deploy a cluster of it on ECS? Child’s play. You want me to write a small Linux server for a service? I have the perfect solution. We need to research how to create a mobile app for analytics? I am your man.

Needless to say that I have grown into a developer that I thought was out of reach for me. And yet, there is so much for me to still do. But, now I can be reassured. I am a Software Engineer. And I am so happy that I was wrong about.

If you want to see more of me, checkout my posts. Thanks!