We talk dev bootcamps, how architecture design school is like programming, how sales can help you be a better programmer, and the importance of mentorship.
- The Frontside
- A consultancy specializing in Ember and Rails
- Not just code! Helps larger companies figure out their development workflow
- Runs Ember meetup in Austin
- Created several open source projects like x-select and ember-impagination
- ember-impagination
- Helps with infinite scroll
- Frontside Podcast episode about the technical parts: https://frontsidethepodcast.simplecast.fm/33
- Past life #1: architect
- been a developer for a couple years, a couple careers before that
- architecture design degree from UT
- but oops, no architect jobs in 2008
- What you learn in design school: how to break nebulous problems down into smaller more actionable components
- This is remarkably similar to software development process, minus the syntax
- Phase called “programming"
- A Pattern Language book
- Past life #2: Salesperson
- Everyone should work in sales, for the communication skills
- Your work will not speak for itself: you have to express them
- She’s often asked (as a programmer) to be the communication layer between tech and business
- Talking to customers
- Talk to customers before you build them a solution
- Talk about their motivation and priorities before you talk about the technical details
- Customers usually don’t know what they want! You must draw it out of them.
- Get the first draft from them in writing
- Dissect and categorize requirements, give them priority levels, send it back to them
- Workflow
- Start out with the big picture, then work iteratively building out small pieces of it
- Start with completing one small piece, taking it through the whole process (“tracer bullet”)
- After each piece, re-evaluate big picture plan.
- Road to Dev Career
- Rose to level of connection between devs and business
- Really wanted to have the power to build stuff herself instead of waiting
- Most of dev bootcamp cohort were either entrepreneurs or people in tech who wanted to specialize in programming
- (Jeffrey started in order to program his science machine (and make a math game))
- Dev Bootcamp
- Value is skills + network + stamp of approval
- Community and accountability a big positive
- In first cohort of Maker Square
- Covered a LOT in 10 weeks- Ruby, Rails, Javascript, dev tools
- Training in git and github valuable because you can start in on someone’s development cycle easily
- They’re now doing just Javascript, and sharing curriculum with Hack Reactor
- Turing School (a 9-month bootcamp) has done something similar and split up their Rails/Ember curriculum into two separate courses
- After dev bootcamp you’re hirable, but there’s still a lot to learn.
- Jobs after bootcamp
- Employee #3 at tiny startup
- Was only person working in Ember, so not much mentorship- trial by fire
- Second job at Communication Service for the Deaf
- Good mentoring there, lots of growth
- Now working at The Frontside
- The Frontside (I can personally attest) has excellent mentoring
- “Climbing the mentoring ladder”- need to work side by side with devs who are more senior than you (and willing to teach)
- The Frontside is hiring!!!
- Pre-existing skills are a plus, but culture fit is a must
- Culture: Community, open source, learning, sharing, proactive, fun-loving
- Sponsored by EmberScreencasts.com
