2025: A Turning Point from Slow Steps to Clear Action

Hey,

Hope you're doing well on this last day of 2025.

This is the last post of the year, and I wanted to take a moment to look back. It's the third year I've been writing this kind of post, following 2024: Reflections on a Year of Change and What Comes Next and Récap 2023 (only available in French). I find them important for at least two reasons:

1. When you work on long-term goals, it's easy to lose track of the progress you've made and everything you've accomplished. You always want to do more. Taking the time to record the journey helps you see all the progress made in a single year.
2. From time to time, I love going back to these posts to see how my goals, my hopes, and my desires have evolved over time.

Before jumping into the details, I want to talk about numbers. I love numbers because they can give an overview of the year at a glance.

• 20 posts written, including this one. This is a new post every 2.7 weeks.
• 1 series of 5 posts about AI agents and an MCP server. Fewer series than last year, but it's so much work, and I've been busy giving talks.
• 19 talks given at 11 different events (6 conferences and 5 meetups). The talk "La réactivité et les signaux : démystifions la magie du frontend" (Reactivity and Signals: Demystifying the Frontend’s Magic) has been given 8 times this year.
• 9 cities visited for conferences and meetups: Paris, Bagneux, Rennes, Nantes, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Lyon, Dijon, and Strasbourg.
• +1,000 people attended my talks this year, with a peak of +200 people for my talk at Devoxx France about Reactivity and Signals.
• +711 euros spent on trains and hotels for meetups and conferences. I was honestly expecting way more. This represents +3,000 km, +35 hours of train (without delays), and 9 nights in hotels.
• 1,518 followers on X at the end of 2025 and 8,153 posts shared.
• 1,800 followers on LinkedIn at the end of 2025. Compared to last year, with a growth of 63.7%, this is more than 700 new followers this year. I've reached +34,000 members for a total of +182,000 impressions over 124 posts. I definitely wrote a lot on LinkedIn this year.
• +240 followers on Twitch for +140 hours of live streaming. It's just for fun, but I really enjoy it. I'll continue in 2026 for sure.
• +1,600 hours spent on VS Code, with a peak of 14 hours and 1 minute on January 24, 2025 (which is way too much to have a healthy life). This represents an average of 4.4 hours per day, 7 days a week.
• 143 reactions and 45 comments on my posts on soubiran.dev.
• 25 different pastries created. More about it in 2026.

That's a lot of numbers for a single year. In hindsight, it's amazing how much is possible to achieve in just 12 months.

Back to 2025 Goals ​

So many things happened in 2025. From changing jobs to giving talks, I haven't stopped for a second. Sometimes, I went too fast and too far.

Last year, I bought the course Three.js Journey. I really wanted to learn 3D, but I never found the time to do it. Maybe in 2026. My talks for Vue.js Amsterdam weren't accepted, but I submitted new ones this year. This is the fourth time. Fingers crossed for 2026. Finally, I didn't take the time to learn more about infrastructure. However, I started a project moving in this direction. More about it in the coming months.

As every year, a lot of unexpected things happened. I think it's important to embrace them and to adapt the roadmap as you go.

• I have discovered a passion for baking. Every weekend, I try a new recipe, buy new equipment and new books. This keeps me away from screens and coding. It also gave me the opportunity to bake for Jordan, a close friend's birthday, and for Thanksgiving with amazing people. My colleagues really appreciate it, as I often bring pastries on Mondays.

• I met amazing people, new friends, with whom I'm building projects, conferences, and discovering new things. Putting humans at the center of everything, creating moments together, has become really important to me.

With a group of friends, we started playing darts regularly. From a simple game of darts, it's truly amazing how many things can happen, from playing with unknown people to meet new friends, and create memorable moments together.

Life Changes ​

In December 2024, I started a new job within a company called MaiaSpace. MaiaSpace is building a space launcher called Maia. I was working as a software engineer in the avionics team, building tools to automate some of the work done by engineers. I met truly amazing people and learned a lot. It was an incredible opportunity that ended a year later.

After weeks of thinking, I decided to leave MaiaSpace to join a new company called Takiam. It's a consulting firm specializing in Java and infrastructure. This is a big change for me, as I know nothing about Java, so I have everything to learn. This is a really long-term investment, but I believe that learning Java will open many doors. Currently, it's just a lot of work. But getting out of the comfort zone is the only way to grow.

This job change also involves moving to a new home, closer to the office and my friends. In January 2026, I'll move to a new apartment, closer to Paris. It's smaller than the current one, but it's way more practical for my daily life. Less time commuting means more time for myself and my projects.

In April 2025, I started the first stream of the year. While I was in Switzerland, I started streaming on Twitch, but a performance issue with my hardware stopped me after a few streams. After buying a new computer, the streams were back. It was still heavily experimental, as I'm really trying to find my style in this format. Since September, I haven't been very active. Conferences took up a lot of my time, and issues at work made it hard to find the motivation to stream. In 2026, I should be more consistent, because I've automated a lot of things.

Speaking of automation, I'm revamping my entire content creation workflow to automate as much as possible. AI will be used for boring tasks, never for creative ones. These changes should reduce the time spent creating content, allowing me to focus on what matters most.

Organizing things well is so hard.

Meetups and Conferences ​

In my last year recap, I said:

I really hope this year will be as rich as 2024

My hope has been more than fulfilled. With 19 talks given in 2025, compared to 6 in 2024, and 1 in 2023, this year has been intense. Really intense.

19 talks at 11 different events means that I spoke almost every five weeks. It's a lot, and I never imagined reaching this number so quickly. The growth is honestly crazy, and I secretly hope to slow it down in 2026 to find a better balance. Keeping the same pace in 2026 would mean giving more than 30 talks, which is honestly impossible.

The year started with Devoxx France in April, where I had the opportunity to give two talks: "La réactivité et les signaux : démystifions la magie du frontend" (Reactivity and Signals: Demystifying the Frontend’s Magic) and "En JavaScript, il y a un paquet pour tout... et souvent pour rien" (In JavaScript, There’s a Package for Everything… and Often for Nothing). For a conference of this size, with more than 4,500 attendees and only 281 talks accepted from more than 1,100 submissions, it's really an honor to be selected twice.

These two talks were submitted before Christmas 2024, but I only received the acceptance in February 2025. After that, I started working hard to prepare them. It took me two months to have something ready. Understanding Alien Signals took a lot of time, and to make it understandable for a large audience, I had to be truly creative. Today I'm really proud of the result, and the overall feedback for both talks has been really positive.

Two weeks later, I was at MiXiT in Lyon to also give two talks. During this conference, I met a lot of new and amazing people. I really appreciated the smaller size of the conference compared to Devoxx France. It's easier to connect with people, and there is less stress when going to see talks. Will I have a seat? For the anecdote, to have a seat at Devoxx France for the keynotes, I had to arrive 1 hour before the start. I thought it was the same for MiXiT, so I arrived 45 minutes before the start. Completely unnecessary, because everyone could enter the main room without any problem.

Then, in June, I went to Rennes for the BreizhCamp. I think you can guess what happened: I gave two talks again, the same ones as at Devoxx France and MiXiT. You might wonder why I give the same talks again and again. After spending two months preparing them, you want to give them as much as possible, to reach the largest audience possible. Also, reusing the same talks allows me to improve both the content and the delivery. I'm now comfortable with them, and I can really enjoy giving them. The first time, it's more stress than pleasure.

After the summer break, and up to December, I went from one conference to another.

• DevFest Nantes, October 17, 2025, where I gave my talk on JavaScript packages. This conference is the largest DevFest in Europe. The party was really pleasant, and the closing keynote, an improvisational theatre performance, was really exceptional (and so original). This could be my favorite conference of the year.
• BDX I/O, November 7, 2025, where I gave my two talks. The conference was really well organized, and the venue was superb. I took the opportunity to visit the NuxtLabs office in Bordeaux and meet Sébastien and Benjamin.
• DevFest Toulouse, November 13, 2025, where I gave my talk on reactivity and signals for the seventh time this year. The speaker dinner was really exceptional. We were in a superb restaurant in the city center.
• DevFest Dijon, December 5, 2025, where I gave my talk on reactivity and signals for the eighth time this year. The speaker gift was so nice: a bag with local products from Dijon and the region.

The speaker world is quite small, and you often meet the same people again and again. This alleviated the loneliness I felt in 2023 when I gave my first talk at Devoxx France.

Before and in between these conferences, I gave several talks at meetups in Paris and Strasbourg. Yes, I went and came back to Strasbourg just for an evening talk. Unreasonable, but fun.

• Paris TypeScript, January 21, 2025, Devins full-stack avec TypeScript
• Node.js Paris, March 5, 2025, Vous n'avez pas besoin de ces nouvelles API Node.js
• HumanTalks Paris, April 8, 2025, Ship Nuxt apps that scale.
• HumanTalks Paris, September 9, 2025, Inalia: Un Anneau pour les gouverner tous
• Node.js Paris, September 17, 2025, Inalia: Un Anneau pour les gouverner tous
• Paris TypeScript, October 14, 2025, La réactivité et les signaux : démystifions la magie du frontend
• StrasbourgJS, October 21, 2025, La réactivité et les signaux : démystifions la magie du frontend
• Paris TypeScript, December 9, 2025, En JavaScript, il y a un paquet pour tout... et souvent pour rien

I really enjoyed giving talks at meetups. The atmosphere is way more relaxed than at conferences, and it's easier to interact with the audience. But make no mistake: it can be more stressful, because the audience is really close to you, and you can easily see them.

This was an exceptional year for talks and conferences, surpassing all my expectations. Thank you to all the people I met and all the organizers who trusted me to give talks at their events.

Find all my talks on my talks page. I added a map showing all the places where I gave talks since 2023 and some statistics about my talks. You can find the slides on talks.

I'm not receiving any compensation for my talks. All the trips, hotels, and time spent preparing them are at my own expense. I do it because I love sharing my knowledge and experiences with the community. However, it's not viable in the long term. If you want to support me, consider becoming a sponsor on GitHub Sponsors.

Open Source Journey ​

This year, I mainly contributed to Nuxt UI. Nuxt UI is my go-to component library, whether I'm building a Nuxt or a Vue application. I use it for all my projects. As I needed to deeply dive into it to maintain a fork, I know it very well now. So each time I found an issue or a way to improve it, I submitted a pull request.

I also created a Markdown Exit plugin that leverages its async capabilities to automatically optimize images and generate blurhash placeholders. You can find it on markdown-exit-image. I also created a VitePress plugin to automatically generate OG images. You can find it on vitepress-plugin-og.

I continued to build Inalia. I really hope to open a public beta in the first half of 2026, but there is still a lot of work to do, and other projects are taking up my time.

Throughout the year, I also continued to maintain other open source projects like Nuxt Authorization, and most of my projects are open source. You can find all my open source projects on my GitHub profile.

I've started using AI a lot to write code. GitHub Copilot Agent from the web UI is really powerful, and I'm using it daily. Whenever I have an idea, wherever I am, I open the mobile app, write a short prompt, and start an agent. At the end of the day, I review the generated PRs, make adjustments, and merge them. This has really improved my productivity, allowing me to focus on more complex tasks.

Content Creation and Writing ​

This year, I wrote 20 posts and one series. To give you an idea, a single post takes me between 5 and 10 hours to write. But counting hours doesn't make sense for an activity as important as writing. Writing helps me to clarify my thoughts, free my mind, and grow my knowledge. I highly recommend it to everyone, and I won't stop doing it. However, I have an important rule: I only write when I have something to share. This means I don't follow a writing schedule.

This year, I wrote technical posts about JavaScript, Vite, Markdown It, and Laravel:

• Laravel and Vite: A Love Story Ruined with Cross-Origin
• Fusion or the Art of Writing PHP Into a Vue SFC Components
• A Journey to Craft Interactive UI Experiences with Dialogs
• A Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server for My Website
• Using Pinia Colada in Modals Without Spoiling the UX
• Erase CLS by Automatically Optimizing Images with Vite
• Markdown Exit Breaks the Rules With Async Rendering

I also wrote posts about my journey as a speaker:

• Beyond the Tech: People Who Made Devoxx France 2025 Special
• The Conference for Ethics and Diversity in Tech: MiXiT 2025
• BreizhCamp 2025: My First Time in Brittany as a Speaker
• My Adventure to Nantes for Europe's Largest DevFest
• Twice in One Day: Speaking at BDX I/O 2025 in Bordeaux

And I also wrote a bit more personal posts about me and my life:

• Being lost. An essay to find myself within uncertainty.
• Software Engineering: A Human Journey Before Anything Else
• Want to Contribute to Open Source? You’re Doing It Wrong

All of them are posts I would have loved to read when I started my journey as a developer. Being a software engineer isn't just about code; it's not always easy, and when it's also a passion, it can become overwhelming. Sharing my experiences and thoughts helps me first, and I hope it helps other people too.

I also refactored the backend of this website to handle the future websites I'm building. This also unlocked new features that should arrive in 2026. However, it will take time, because I will have to migrate this website from VitePress to pure Vite with Vue. That's a lot of work, and I already migrated it last year when moving from a custom UI to a rewritten Nuxt UI version. Being able to migrate instead of rewriting from scratch is something I'm really proud of. It shows that things are evolving without breaking the continuity.

What Comes Next ​

As you see, 2025 has been a significant year. I'm really proud of everything I achieved, but I finished the year really tired.

However, I have a lot of exciting plans for 2026, so slowing down isn't in my plans. Don't worry, I've learned to understand my limits, and I'm able to reduce the pace when needed. Burning out isn't an option either.

First, Hugo. Hugo is someone I've only talked to online. We share the same passion for web development, open source, and Nuxt, and when he started sharing content on X, I was so curious about his work. He has a unique approach to beauty, using animation, transitions, and elegant assets that I found really inspiring. He brought something new to my feed. Now, he is working for Vercel from London. So, I'm planning to visit him. In 2026, I want to go to London, meet him, and explore the city a bit.

Speaking of going abroad, I want to attend more European and maybe even international conferences. I want to continue to explore these amazing events, meet passionate people, and share my love for web development. I already have a few conferences in mind where I want to submit talks. I've already submitted to Vue.js Amsterdam and MadVue. I should take some courses to improve my English speaking skills.

I wrote two new talks during the last month of 2025. For now, I plan to present them mainly in France, as I did this year. One of them is about Vite plugins, written differently from any talk you've seen before. I won't spoil the surprise, but if I can make it work, it will be a lot of fun to attend and present. The second one is co-written with a friend, Julie, whom I really appreciate. I'm really excited about this new talk. It's the first time I've written a talk with someone else. We don't have the same background, and it's a topic I haven't completely mastered. This collaboration is a real challenge. It's way more than just a talk. It consumes a lot of time and takes us out of our comfort zone, but I strongly believe it will be worth it. The current state is really promising.

Apart from that, I want to continue writing as I have for two years now. Writing helps me to clarify my thoughts, share my experiences, and dive into topics I thought I mastered but that always have more to reveal. I want to keep pushing my boundaries and exploring new ideas through my writing. I also want to continue streaming on Twitch. Since September, I haven't had much time, but I hope that will change in 2026.

For my content, I will continue to write about JavaScript and Laravel, but I'll have to start writing more about Java, as my new job is mainly focused on it. I'm not completely sure how I'll do it, as I'm also building a new website that serves as a second brain. You can expect more information about it in the coming months. A few weeks ago, I shared on X another website I'm building to track my infrastructure. It's still in its early days, but I hope to share more about it as soon as possible. This requires me to write a lot, and writing takes time, so I won't give a date, but expect it before summer 2026.

As AI takes more and more space in my daily life, I've accepted that I can delegate some tasks to it. But there's a red line I won't cross: I will keep writing all my posts by myself, and I'll never use AI to generate content for me. If that were to happen, I would just stop working in tech and start a whole new career. This is non-negotiable for me, both personally and professionally. I am also strongly opposed to anyone doing the opposite.

Baking will be part of 2026. It's so good to make things with my hands, away from screens. Sharing it with someone is also an amazing activity. Highly recommended.

All of this is the main plan for 2026. But as change is the only constant, unexpected things will happen, and I'll adapt accordingly.

This was an amazing year. 2026 will be even better.

Take care of yourself, spend time with your loved ones, live life to the fullest, and happy new year! 🫶