Year of Code

Back when Adam and I started Pardot in 2007, I spent the entire first year writing code full-time and it was awesome. We were blazing a new trail with SMB marketing automation and adding new functionality every week. As the business grew, my software engineering efforts slowed and I focused my energies on ways to best grow the business. After we sold Pardot, I spent the past two years split between the Atlanta Tech Village and Kevy, trying to get both off the ground. Now that construction has been done at the Village for a couple months, I’ve had the opportunity to jump back in and write some code.

In fact, my goal is to continue writing code part-time throughout 2015 — a year of code. Here are a few ideas on the year of code:

• My target is 500 hours of coding over the course of the year (~10 hours/week), but it’ll ebb and flow based on priorities
• My guess is that it takes 50 – 100 hours to achieve proficiency again
• Most of my skills from 2007 are fairly applicable today, if only rusty
• My effort is focused on non-core or net-new items that aren’t yet customer-facing

Like Allen Nance says in Old Dog, New Tricks, the world is becoming more technical and a deeper understanding is important. I’m looking forward to the year of code.

What else? What are some other thoughts on writing code part-time for a year?