By Jasna in retrospective —

2026 fall retrospective

I'm a new engineering manager who's traveled the world, and dove in many seas, and I'm tired.

My last retrospective was a little unusual, from January 2026; my more typical retrospective format was last done last year, Oct 25 2025.

Revisiting my long-term plans

Walletburst claims I (and potentially my partner)* have already hit full FIRE... Putting a more conservative annual spend estimate post-mortgage (to account for health insurance), it says I'll reach it next year. Wow.

I'm 36 and will be 37 in late December. Apparently last year I said I wanted to pay our mortgage before I'm 37. I expect to do that in early November. 😁🎉 We'll have paid off our first and only (for a long while, if not forever) house in the DC area within 8.5 years!

I started more granularly tracking our financial health using a Google Sheets template I found from this Reddit post. It was annoying to set up at first, but the monthly updates afterward have been minimal and kinda fun. I see from it that we'll have paid $100k in principal, not counting the other parts of the mortgage payment, this year alone. That's over a fourth of the original price of the house, this year alone. Crazy.

*My partner has said he is not as interested as me in retiring early, could see himself working until at least age 50; but things can change.

What does this mean for my career?

Given these advancements in our financial portfolio, along with other developments in my life, I've been getting obsessed these past months with the real idea of Barista, Coast, or Lean FIRE, consuming countless media and talking eagerly with folks who've already done it at a young (though not as young as me...) age. What my version of FIRE looks like is not set in stone, though.

I also don't want to do it for at least a little while – I'll be taking a 4-week+ sabbatical in February, which I will have earned after staying 5 years at my current employer. I will need to stay at least 6 months after that so I don't have to pay back that time I took off for sabbatical.

Sabbatical plans

After a lot of thinking, I decided to take a fancy 4-week all-inclusive (minus flights) culinary class in Italy! I'll be learning about cheese mongering, pasta making, wine pairing, sauce making, fermenting / preserving, menu designing, prep and execution, and more. I've grown to love food and cooking, and I've always been interested in culture. What better way to join these interests than in an immersive program like a regional cuisine-focused cooking school?

The downside is of course this'll be a long time – though, not the longest... which I hope not to repeat or beat – apart from my partner... I do enjoy travel and want to take advantage of my job's benefits that let me do this as much as possible. I'm sad that it kinda gets in the way with my partner because he's less interested in travel (and can't do it as easily with his job), but I try to balance time away as best I can, and I appreciate that he's always supportive of my adventurous plans.

Highlights

What went well:

What didn't go well:

What went well

Traveled to many new places

In February I made a short trip to New Orleans to see my brother's family and celebrate Mardi Gras.

For my 30 days of remote work this year, from mid-March to early April I spent about 2 weeks in Okinawa, 3 days in Tokyo, and 3 days in Chiba. The trip had a terrible start – my original flight was several delayed and cancelled, and I got a really bad stomach bug; but things ironed out after the ~1 week setback. In Okinawa I dove a lot and got to know a few dive instructors well, especially one who led a small group but mostly interacted with me one day, and then became my private guide for another day. I randomly met an alumna from my small university who graduated the year I was born! I spent precious time with my good friend and her family. I ate a lot of yakitori. 😋

At the end of April I made a short trip to Dublin to meet my parents and brothers' family while my brother attended a conference. There, I visited my company's Dublin office and was reminded what it was like to travel with my parents.

(Right after I got back home, my partner and I hosted my high school friend and her partner, which was quite fun.)

In mid-May, we went back to my hometown for my cousin's college graduation. Then in the beginning of June, we spent ~11 days in South Korea. We did a few food tours in Seoul and Jeju, hiked through a forest and partway up the most important mountain in Jeju, I did a photo shoot, and we splurged at a popular Japanese brand store (Onitsuka Tiger). 😂 I also squeezed in a day of diving while we were in Jeju.

In July, (partly due to sad reasons) I made a short, spontaneous visit to see some friends in Durham.

In August for our 12th anniversary we had a very relaxing domestic excursion in Bucks County, PA, where we booked an AirBnB that had a balcony facing a creek and woods. We would spend lazy mornings having coffee and sitting out there, then during the day/evening play board games, read books, watch a movie at the movie theatre (we saw the Odyssey in IMAX, though not with the "proper" aspect ratio), go shopping, and eat out. It was a lovely escape from home, which had ended up being a place I couldn't fully relax in because of my associations of it with the stresses of work and house chores.

  • At the end of that week, we attended my other cousin's DPT graduation!

In early September, I had 3 day work trip to Brooklyn. Then towards the end of the month I spontaneously visited another friend in Minneapolis overnight because I had some flight credits expiring 😅 and it was well worth the time spent together.

October was especially busy – I had another Brooklyn work trip that I had planned a lot of myself, which was probably a mistake in retrospect (I should've delegated more). Right when I got home Thursday evening, we hosted our best friend from then to Sunday evening. The following Thursday, I was off on a 10-day trip to the Maldives for a volunteer scuba diving excursion. I was on a pretty wobbly liveaboard with 12 other volunteers from around the world, in addition to the ship crew and excursion leaders.

I'm writing this post on the first full day I feel 100% normal after 5-6 days of jetlag, disembarkment syndrome, and a nasty bug of unknown origin.

The remaining currently planned travel for the year, besides to see family for the holidays and my birthday, is to go back to New Orleans with my partner for his work conference. During that time I plan to see my brother's family and take a couple (short) cooking classes. ⭐

Grew a lot personally and professionally because of work

Less than a month after my last regular retrospective post, in mid-November 2025, I officially transitioned from staff engineer (individual contributor) to engineering manager at work.

I originally wasn't going to pursue this track after my very difficult trial run from April to October as a Technical Lead Manager. But some things in October made me change my mind and have hope – I (indirectly) survived needing to let someone go, I (indirectly) hired someone much better, a strong engineer who was on parental leave was coming back, and... I thought to myself that I would probably personally grow a lot as a manager, vs. continuing to be an IC.

I was right! I've personally and professionally become an even better listener, relationship builder, mentor, influencer (not in the social media sense), organizer, and leader. Purely professionally I much better understand how business works and the politics involved in management – though there is always more to uncover each day. I'm better at adapting my language and message depending on who I'm talking to - which level of management or an IC from which team, etc. I've always appreciated my managers in the past, but having become one myself, I appreciate them even more.

Got better at scuba diving

I started diving on a whim in November 2024 while I was walking along a beach in Panglao and saw a sign that I could get certified as a new diver in 3 days. I had no thought to do it long term until a divemaster-in-training told me I should get my next certification ASAP while the things I learned just then were fresh in my mind. I took that advice – but maybe I shouldn't have done it in San Diego, oh well. Almost exactly 2 years later, I've accrued 60 dives from several places: Crystal River FL, San Diego CA, Annapolis MD, Panglao, Bohol Philippines, Jeju South Korea, Okinawa Japan, Hokkaido Japan, Placencia Belize– and now, the Maldives.

I don't know if that rate is fast or slow, but I think pretty good given my home is not a good diving area at all. 😄 I remember being pretty uncertain about how to set up my gear in March 2025 when taking a ReActivate course. Now it's pretty second nature to me. As long as I'm properly weighted, I'm pretty decent at buoyancy control, but I can definitely still improve as noted from my underwater videos. I had a few scares this year – in Okinawa when I thought I lost my guide and I was completely alone in the vast blue of underwater "space" (I wasn't actually; my guide was just filming me from above 🤦‍♀️), and in the Maldives when I got swept away by a strong current. But I've learned a lot from these experiences.

I'm still debating how much I should put into this hobby. A couple people on my last trip were talking me into buying a regulator and BCD – I basically have everything else, but these last two pieces are the biggest items, as they have a high upfront and ongoing cost (in money and maintenance effort), plus take up precious luggage space (and I'm exclusively a travel diver at this time). The argument is I'd get very familiar with the equipment, weight myself better, control myself better, etc. Another person on the same trip has been diving for years and says she hasn't bothered given the tradeoffs, and rentals have been generally fine, just take a little to get used to.

The most popular dives are in the tropics, and I understand why – lots of vibrant life, and most of all comfort underwater compared to cold water. But then traveling to tropical areas is typically a little cumbersome, and I generally don't enjoy the heat outside of the water. I like my light jacket weather.

so many home improvements

New dishwasher (from a 40-year-old one), redesigned half bathroom (from one that came with house), new (plastic-free) coffee maker, new couch (from a cheap 8-year-old one), new garbage disposal (from 8+ year-old one that came with the house), and some smaller things.

What's next? Maybe replace a few more cheap furnitures... If not now, then next year. Also maybe fix our front screen door, redo our closets, figure out why our basement floods once in awhile with a heavy storm...

Generally, though, I'm happy with our home, and how we've been making it our own over the 8.5 years we've lived here.

What didn't go well

I've been pushed to my stress limits with work

Yes, I grew a lot personally and professionally when I transitioned to management. I have been rewarded upfront ($$) for taking this transition. But that growth has come at a very high cost. I hadn't been this chronically stressed in a long time - I would guess the last time was 10 years ago. It got to the point where I started going to therapy in February. Therapy's helped a lot, but I have some toxic habits that are hard to break, and there are external factors too that are out of my control.

Toxic habits: chronically overworking, being consumed with worst-case scenario thoughts when initial things go wrong, ruminating – compounded with a lack of confidence in myself.

Things outside my control: jerks I have to deal with, sudden deadlines, high meeting load (some of this is within my control, but the lower limit to do my job well is unavoidable)

What's causing me stress? There's the usual suspects people mention when moving to management: a rapid increase in meetings, challenges with managing people (up and down the chain), moving away from implementation to influence, etc. What I didn't expect was the frequency of last-minute, high pressure (whether imagined or real) requests and presentations to people who don't really know me but are judging me and have a lot of authority. I'm a planner at my core and hate being surprised or interrupted with emergencies. As such I ensure my team is shielded from that stuff as much as possible (outside of technical incidents) by giving them advanced notice and opportunities to opt out of things. (Maybe I shouldn't sometimes?) But this same professional courtesy is, more often than appropriate, not extended to me or the other line managers. On top of all that, I am uncomfortable with making impactful decisions with imperfect information, but that's a major part of a manager's job (or any leader's job) at its core. And I'm reconciling with the fact that I'm now a real beginner again, as opposed to an expert with 12+ years of experience.

Okay, that last line isn't super fair. It's not like my 12+ years of experience as an IC are completely irrelevant to being a good manager. They're just a prerequisite (or in some ways a "nice to have"), though, and management itself is exercising a totally different set of skills, some of which I've exercised as an IC leader but many of which I haven't.

I've felt myself getting better at this job, slowly, in the past year. But I really wonder how much longer I can last, and if I'll ever get better enough to restore a healthy sense of work-life balance.

stress and weight management challenges

Given that I've been pushed to my stress limits with work, it is not a surprise then that I've struggled a bit with my health, in particular my weight. I've overall gained 3-5 pounds this year, which I know most people won't say is a lot, but it still really bothers me. Not just the pounds themselves, but why – the stress. I eat, and I eat junk, when I'm stressed. And I sometimes I don't get enough sleep, which also affects my metabolism and overall health.

I've generally remained active - running, weight lifting – but there are some days where I just don't have the energy or feel like I don't have the time (but I should) because of work to get my workouts in.

Too much travel?

Looking back at my above travel entry, this year's been a bit intense... I guess not much different from 2025.

Arguably next year has the potential to be more intense in terms of overall travel duration, given my sabbatical as well as an increase in accrued PTO (after 5 years tenure). I need to assess whether it's actually worth spending all my time off on travel, as opposed to just chilling at home or close to home.

Maybe what makes this year feel a little intense in the negative sense is that, perhaps, I've been getting a little jaded with travel. I've gotten myself into a very privileged position where I have plenty of disposable income and time off opportunities to leverage travel. Travel was something I had always wanted to do when I was younger but couldn't to the degree that I do now. Am I just overdoing it? Also, the majority of my travel is time away from my partner, which makes me feel sad and guilty; but I don't necessarily want to travel more with him, either – he's just less interested in it, and we have different ideal travel paces. (I'm a little faster-paced than him.) I've gotten very used to solo traveling, which has been rewarding. I've met so many people I wouldn't be able to meet and done things I wouldn't have been able to do if I were with others. But it can be a little lonely, and I do worry about getting sick or in a bad situation and having to take care of myself, by myself. (Thankfully that hasn't happened yet. 🤞) Taking care of myself when I'm well is totally fine, of course.

I do enjoy these opportunities where I get to meet people and bond with them over an extended time, like my past 3 volunteer experiences. But they can also be socially exhausting, and as close as you get with some people, other bonds can be rather transient and surface-level. The latter is totally ok and doesn't lessen the value of them, but still – these relationships don't compare to the ones I've formed with people over several years.

Granted, I may have some recency bias – this week it really sucked to come home and be sick for awhile, and to have my last trip be stacked close to another trip that accrued time away from my partner - a bit over 2 weeks away this month. And while I did cherish the bonds I formed with other people this past trip, they weren't as deep as the ones I formed on other trips, and I got particularly annoyed at one person...

That said, I had similar feelings of travel fatigue last year, so I vowed to travel less overall and at shorter durations. I think I did the latter, but not so much the former...?

So, maybe I should find opportunities to travel with other good friends, and/or do less overall. Of course there's always a risk of traveling with others – will that experience actually worsen our relationship? 💦 So, choose wisely.

Parting thoughts

For the first time in my career, I truly feel that I'm at the peak of my abilities. I have no desire to get promoted and I don't believe I could be anyway ever again (unless some emergency happens). In some ways this is relieving - for the past 4 years before this year, I felt chronically under-leveled and frustrated (and on the flip side, naturally ambitious).

I never imagined myself being in the life situation I am now – I have way more material power and comforts than I could've conceived when I was a lost, unemployed + fired humanities graduate 14.5 years ago. I make way more than I deserve (which means other people above me make way more than they deserve). I've traveled to 20 countries in my life, many of them in the past few years. I've been happily married for 12 years. I'm about to pay off my house in my mid-30s. (Hope I didn't jinx it.)

I have a lot to be thankful for, but part of me is still sad and anxious, more so than other years. My social media feed has also been feeding me lots of cancer scare stories... I want to live my life to the fullest while making this world a better place, because I don't know how much longer I'll be in this world. But I'm scared to take big chances when I think the backup plan isn't solid... or perhaps when I'm too attached to certain parts of the status quo even when I don't need them.

Let's see where my head's at next retrospective.