In this episode we’re diving deeper into Agile and Scrum, and continuing our exploration of various tech roles. We’ll have a chat with Becca Hiller about what she does as a Scrum Master.

We’re excited to introduce a special guest on this episode: Becca Hiller has worked as a Scrum Master, Agile Coach, Project Manager, and is generally responsible for keeping her teams working smoothly and productively!

So, we recently did an episode about Scrum on Junior Developer Toolbox, and discussed that a lot of companies do Scrum differently. Let’s get ask someone who does this every day! We’ll ask

 

Can you walk us through a typical day?

What drew you to this kind of role?

What kind of education prepared you well for this role?

What’s something you don’t enjoy about your job?

What would you tell someone interested in pursuing this kind of role?

 

Thanks very much to Becca for taking the time to talk with us! She mentioned some excellent resources for learning more about Scrum and Scrum Mastery …

https://www.scrumguides.org/

https://www.scrumalliance.org/get-certified/practitioners/csm-certification

Essential Scrum – by Kenneth Rubin

 

You can reach us at [email protected]

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Today we’ll be talking about Scrum! We explore roles, ceremonies, and more! We’ll discuss the agile manifesto and our experience working with this project management style.

“Sharpening the Tools”

Erin:

I honestly haven’t had a whole lot of time the past few weeks between moving and taking care of house stuff to do a lot of extra learning. But at work I’m going to be presenting to my team this Thursday on Session Management, as that played a huge part in an issue we spent months researching and trying to figure out.

Dave:

Algorithms! At my local meetup group we worked through some of the algorithm challenges as a group. In preparing for that, I revisited some of the FCC challenges I had completed a year or two ago, and tried to see if I could do them more efficiently.

 

“Opening the Toolbox”

What is SCRUM?

SCRUM is usually defined as “An Agile framework of managing a project, usually related to software development”

*Fun Fact about where the name came from. It’s a rugby term and “is used as a metaphor to reflect the degree of cooperation needed to succeed” and to emphasize teamwork. (https://agilecoachjacque.wordpress.com/2012/12/04/why-the-name-scrum/)

 

What is Agile? And how does it related to SCRUM practices?

* Agile Manifesto:

We are uncovering better ways of developing

software by doing it and helping others do it.

Through this work we have come to value:

* Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

* Working software over comprehensive documentation

* Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

* Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on

the right, we value the items on the left more.

http://agilemanifesto.org/

 

SCRUM

Concepts

* Sprints

* Backlog

* User Stories

Roles

* Product Owner

* SCRUM Master

* Team / Developers

Ceremonies

* Sprint planning

* Refinement

* Daily Scrum – standups

* Sprint Review

* Sprint Retrospective

 

Our experience working SCRUM

Erin’s experience:

SCRUM / Waterfall hybrid

Dave’s experience:

Flying by the SCRUM of my pants

“SCRUMbut …”

 

References

==========

http://scrummethodology.com/

http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/agile/scrum

Today we’ll be talking LIVE for our anniversary episode, and leading a discussion with developers about impostor syndrome, and finding ways to contribute to the tech community.

“Sharpening the Tools”

Erin: Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve mentioned an Application Performance Management tool called New Relic on the show that we’ve been working with at work. Last Thursday I gave an overview presentation of what the tools is and some of the different metrics it measures within our applications. This past Thursday I lead an interactive deep dive session into the tool and explained how our team has been using various features and how we use it to debug performance issues we encounter.

Dave: This past week I was asked to be an interviewer, and I’m not used to being on that side of the desk. We are backfilling my old position, so I am there to ask technical questions. I even prepared a whiteboard test, and was second-guessing myself the whole time – was it too hard? Too easy? Did it really help me assess the candidate’s understanding? It was a bit nerve wracking but interesting to be in that role.

 

“Opening the Toolbox”

Episode Outline

===============

* Intro and Overview

* Who we are; recording live and publishing on 9/25/2018

* Where we are: Nashville Software School NSS Alumni Pro Dev Workshop

* Topic Preview – how to overcome impostor syndrome and find your voice as a junior developer.

* Sharpening the Tools

* Erin: New Relic

* Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve mentioned an Application Performance Management tool called New Relic on the show that we’ve been working with at work. Last Thursday I gave an overview presentation of what the tools is and some of the different metrics it measures within our applications. This past Thursday I lead an interactive deep dive session into the tool and explained how our team has been using various features and how we use it to debug performance issues we encounter.

* Dave: giving interview

* *** Does anyone want to share something new they’ve learned?

* Impostor Syndrome

* Listen back to #4

* You’ve heard of it, but what is it really?

* Symptoms

* Everyone Gets It

* You vs. You

* *** How has impostor syndrome manifested for you?

*** What has it prevented you from doing?

* Strategies

* The Artist’s Way (***anyone read it?) – Judge / Fake it Til You Make It

* Radical Hero – fight back! (Luke Solomon)

* *** Have you heard this voice? What did you do?

* Practice! Iterate

* WHAT THE HECK SHOULD I TALK ABOUT???

* Natalie Portman …

* Past experience

* Fresh perspective

* You’re an expert in BEING YOU

* “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” – Dr. Seuss

* Your interests

* Opportunities to speak up / lead / teach

* Contribute ideas at work

* Talk at Meetups

* Present Conferences

* Teach a Class

* Publish a blog

* Online tutorial

* Podcasting!

* *** Can anyone think of other ways to share your voice?

* Fear of public speaking? How to overcome?

* Realize you don’t have to be an expert! Nobody expects you to have all the answers

* *** what’s a library or tool you know how to use? How many people here don’t know that?

* You will learn more by teaching! Solidify your knowledge by presenting it

* Nobody expects you to have all the answers

* Bullet points from David Neals’

* Wrap it up

* Synopsis:

* Combating your inner voice

In this episode we be talking about developing good habits to reduce the health strains of a sedentary career.

“Sharpening the Tools”

—————————

Erin:

We’ve been learning more about New Relic at work. New Relic is the leading Software as a Service (SAAS) provider of Application Performance Management and Monitoring Tools. If your application is running slowly or throwing a lot of errors, New Relic can catch a lot of that and help you know where you need to make improvements. We’re deep diving and learning more about it and we’ll be beginning to train the feature teams on how to use it in the next week or so.

Dave:

Continuing my exploration of game development from the last episode, I found some tutorials about building a clone of old NES type games that I’ve been nerding out about. One in particular showed taking a popular character, and adapting it into creating 16-bit artwork and how to implement them as sprite sheets.

 

“Opening the Toolbox”

————————–

Today we’re talking about taking time for self care when you’re in a tech field. Constant digital connection and complex problem solving – largely in a sedentary environment – can present some unique strains on us as individuals. It’s important to take care of ourselves both at work and at home, mentally and physically, to keep our performance at an optimal level and to avoid burnout.

 

Follow up on healthy working setup?

 

We‘ve touched on some of these ideas before. But personally, this has been important to me as I’ve experienced some issues, just being in my thirties and having a sedentary job …

 

* Health

* General sedentary issues

* Standing desks/desk top converters

* Posture – keyboards and mice

* Take frequent walks

* Exercise

* Creating good habits? Related to goal setting

* Schedule time to exercise

* Find an activity you enjoy (yoga, hiking, biking, walking your dog, etc.); you’ll be more likely to want to go exercise

* Sleep

* Not everyone needs the same amount but you generally know how much you need to function normally the next day.

* Naps are the best

* Coffee power naps?

* Eating Healthy

* Meal Planning

* Meal delivery services (Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, Sun Basket, Home Chef, etc.)

* It’s a mindset/lifestyle shift

* Eye Care

* Night Shift, F.lux, blue light filtering glasses (Felix Gray or you can get them custom made with your prescription through an eye doctor)

* 20/20 rule – every twenty minutes, focus your eyes on something 20+ feet away for 20 seconds.

Disclaimer: I want to note that none of this discussion should take the place of real advice from health care professionals.

 

References

==========

Selfcare.tech

github.com/jwithington/100-days-of-healthing

osmihelp.org

 

You can reach us at [email protected]

Facebook: Junior Developer Toolbox

Twitter: @JrDevToolbox

Instagram: JuniorDeveloperToolbox

We’re excited to introduce a special guest on this episode: Ryan Tanay has background in digital art, networking, and server administration. He is Nashville Software School graduate and now works as a DevOps engineer here in Nashville. We thought he’d be the perfect person to ask, “what is DevOps anyway?”

Sharpening the Tools:

Erin goes down a rabbit hole trying to figure out how to set up SQL Operations Studio and a Docker image of SSMS 2017 on her Mac.

Dave goes down his own rabbit hole playing around with coding a fight emulator based off original Final Fantasy game logic.

Ryan has fun setting up AWS Cloud Formations at work.

 

I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding around what DevOps is, and I think there’s a great deal of variance from company to company. We sit down with Ryan Tanay to explore exactly what he does. Find out why he calls it “the code behind the code.” We’ll also ask:

Were you looking for this type of role specifically, after graduating NSS?

Did you feel your education prepared you well for this type of role?

Can you take us through a typical day as a DevOps engineer?

What technologies do you use?

What allows your team members to help you do you your job effectively?

What would you tell someone interested in learning about or exploring DevOps?

What’s something you wish you knew before starting this role?

Find Ryan on Twitter @ryantanay

Extra Links

Nashville DevOps Meetup:

https://www.meetup.com/NashDevOps/

This is Episode Number 23 “To Bootcamp? Or Not to Bootcamp?”. Today we’ll be talking about advantages and disadvantages of software bootcamp programs and different considerations in your decision on whether a bootcamp program is right for you.

This week on “Sharpening the Tools”

Erin:

Started to go back through the ASP.NET courses on Treehouse and finishing those up. I have Entity Framework and MVC, services, and Authentication topics left.

Dave:

I’ve also been working on an ASP.NET Core tutorial. Windows env setup, etc etc.

 

“Opening the Toolbox” (20 – 30 mins)

===============

Today we’re talking about software bootcamp programs. Weighing their advantages and disadvantages, and discussing considerations you should account for when deciding whether a software bootcamp is the right learning route for you. And if it is, how to decide on one?

Bootcamps:

Pros:

* Structured learning (curriculum)

* In-person help and support from experienced professionals

* Usually less expensive than a 4 year degree and takes less time

* More hands-on app building experience

* Some offer job search support

Cons:

* Can be fast paced and overwhelming for someone just starting out “drinking from a firehose”

* Time off work, or work full time in addition to part-time learning

* Depending on your interests, there may not be a software development program suited for you; many focus on web development, backend, and mobile, but not many offer curriculums for data science, network engineering, security, and the like

* Some companies are still skeptical of the time frame and the juniors devs not having enough experience (only 3 months to 1 year)

Considerations:

* Bootcamps

* generally more hands on application building

* curriculums are updated more frequently to keep up with constantly changing technologies

* CS degree

* more theory, which can potentially help with understanding software architecture, patterns and such

* Cost

* $10,000-$15,000 on average for a 3 month – 1 year program, vs. $25,000+ (conservative estimate) on 4 year CS degree

* Time investment, 3 months, 6 months to 1+ year

* Can you afford to take time off work to devote to learning full time for 3-12 months?

* Are you willing to commit to learning outside of work if you can’t do a full-time program?

* Personal drive and abilities

* Personal learning style

* Online vs. in person

* If you prefer in person support and learning, is there a bootcamp at a location reasonably near you? Are you willing to travel to attend one?

* Learn on your own vs. mentorship and guidance

Bottom line: Ask yourself the hard questions for options in your best interests and do your research.

 

References

==========

Local to Nashville:

Nashville Software School

Covalence

Savvy Coders

 

Online:

Treehouse’s Tech Degree

Flatiron School

Udacity NanoDegree

Thinkful

 

Extra Links

===========

Best Coding Bootcamps of 2018:

https://www.switchup.org/research/best-coding-bootcamps

 

Best Coding Bootcamps of 2017:

In this episode, we discuss how we would approach learning to code if we were starting from the beginning.

“Sharpening the Tools”

————–

Erin:

Been digging into Web and Software Security a little bit more using resources from the OWASP Vulnerabilities Treehouse course I talked about last episode. Learning about Cross-site scripting attacks, how to properly store session information, SQL injection and much more. Security is such a big topic and so important I think it’s a good idea to at least learn some of the basics and best practices to defend against the most common threats.

Dave:

I started a beginner Python tutorial to get familiar with the basic syntax. I’ve been thinking about enrolling in some data analytics classes, and just checking things out a bit. It’s an interesting departure from the C-based style I’m used to!

 

“Opening the Toolbox”

————————–

Today we’re talking about how to get started if you’re beginning to learn to code. We’re taking a look back at our journeys so far, and what if anything we might have done differently. Hopefully this might be helpful for those of you on the fence, or in the “Hello World” stage of your learning.

 

Learning to Code

* Preparing to learn

* Learning how to learn

* Do I really want to do this?

* Tech meetups / other devs

* Informational Interviews

* Shadowing?

* Deciding on educational path

* College

* Bootcamp – next episode, coming soon!

* Self-taught?

* Scheduling time / Setting Realistic Goals https://68.183.27.250/episode-7-goal-setting-like-a-dev/

* Understanding your motivation. Is it realistic?

* Mastering Fundamentals

* Breaking down elements

* Functions, variables, conditionals, loops

* Algorithms, datatypes, control structures

* Programming Paradigms

* Narrowing Focus

* Ease of distraction

* JavaScript fatigue

* Build, build, build!

* Best way to practice and show what you’re learning

* What kind of projects?

 

Extra Links

===========

https://medium.freecodecamp.org/the-main-pillars-of-learning-programming-and-why-beginners-should-master-them-e04245c17c56

https://codeburst.io/fundamentals-of-programming-f804d7cf793e

https://twitter.com/mislav/status/1022058279000842240

 

You can reach us at [email protected]

Facebook: Junior Developer Toolbox

Twitter: @JrDevToolbox

Instagram: JuniorDeveloperToolbox

This week we’re talking about working from home, and discussing the pros and cons of working remotely.

“Sharpening the Tools”

—————————-

Erin:

Finally finished the Angular course I stared on Pluralsight a couple of months ago.

Other miscellaneous courses on Treehouse. Design Fundamentals, OWASP Top 10 Vulnerabilities.

Dave:

Gave a presentation to the freeCodeCamp Nashville meetup on Mobile First. Expanding on my “DevChat” I gave to my work team, and some ideas we explored in the last JDT episode, I presented a slideshow discussing the impact of a mobile first perspective on development projects. It seemed to go over pretty well, and I hope to keep working on my speaking skills with the eventual goal of giving a conference talk.

 

Shout Outs:

Katrina left us a comment on Episode 19, saying:

Hi guys! First off I love your podcast, I’ve been listening to it for a few months and it has helped me feel brave enough to get into a bootcamp and get started my developer career!

I really wanted to make a not about episode 19 where a lack of confidence was cited as a reason why women do not apply to jobs where they don’t meet %100 of the requirements.

I would like to put forth that it may be more of a self-awareness than lack of confidence. A number of studies have shown that men may be more likely to be hired based on potential, whereas women more often need to have the experience already.

It could come down to an issue with hiring status quo rather than from a woman’s confidence in herself. Whatever the case, I sincerely hope more women will apply for stretch positions!

 

https://twitter.com/divinetechygirl/status/1017860182079082501

 

“Opening the Toolbox”

Telecommuting has gained popularity in recent years, with 23% percent of workers doing at least some work remotely in 2015 (was 19% in 2003) – Bureau of Labor Statistics.

 

Work flexibility is in demand from both young people entering the workforce, and older workers deferring or “phasing” retirement.

 

Advantages:

Generally, more productive

Less likely to take time off

Reduce commute costs

Company of pets/animals

Lower/no stress from commuting

Good for the environment

Control over where and when you work

Fewer “just stopping by” distractions

Balanced meal / physical exercise

 

Disadvantages:

Harder to maintain a work/personal boundary

Left out of social activities/lonely

Harder to collaborate

Context of conversations lost over slack / email

Webex/Skype hell …

Security concerns?

Different distractions – kids, pets, deliveries, etc.

 

References

==========

OWASP – Open Web Application Security Project

https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Main_Page

 

Extra Links

===========

https://weworkremotely.com/

https://www.authenticjobs.com/

This week we’re talking about knowing when to apply to a job. Do you need to have all of the experience and listed requirements? How do you know you’re ready?

We’ve all seen job descriptions with a long laundry list of technology requirements. What if you don’t meet all of these? Should you still apply? Is it okay to exaggerate or fudge your experience?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2014/09/22/why-so-many-job-postings-are-so-ridiculous/#17fbf6505ad0

3 Reasons for ridiculous postings

* Inexperience at hiring

* Looking for a unicorn / purple squirrel

* Phantom Posting / just for show

Use your network

70% Rule – Applying when you have the majority of the required skills, but not all. But wait, are women more likely to apply only when they meet 100%?

https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-theyre-100-qualified

Hard requirements vs. wish list

Not all requirements are created equal. If they require security clearance or a specific certification, that might not be as flexible. But if I’m familiar with JavaScript frameworks and they require one I haven’t used, I might be able to cram and know the basics in a matter of weeks.

Certain keywords or factors might prevent you even being considered …

* Is it okay to exaggerate on your application / resume?

* Can you discuss a technology you haven’t used intelligently in an interview?

* Last minute cramming on a skill?

* A recruiter sent me a listing I don’t think I’m qualified for. Maybe they know something I don’t

* Years of experience? How strict of a requirement is this?

“I’ve always thought that years of experience isn’t necessarily a good indicator of seniority. That’s only because you can have 5 years of creating Hello, World and you wouldn’t have nearly the same level of experience as someone who has only 6 months of detailed work on a specific language or framework.”

– gaProgMan (Jamie)

Looking at specific job listings. Would you apply?

Today we’ve got a special episode for our listeners. This past weekend, we attended Music City Tech, which is a 3 day local tech conference in Nashville, held this year at Vanderbilt University. If you’re been tuning into recent episodes, you know we’ve been gearing up for this event for several weeks, and discuss it at length in Episode 16.

The conference was our “sharpening the tools” for this week, as the conference sessions are a great way to explore new topics and skills. Erin, what was your favorite takeaway from the event?

Erin and Dave recap the sessions and lessons that stood out to them the most from the conference.

This week we wanted to bring you some voices, live from the conference of people involved. We spoke with attendees, speakers and crew about their experiences – and wanted to share those with you if you weren’t able to make it out yourselves.

7:37 – Aaron Wilcoxon is a conference attendee we met who was visiting from Maryland

13:34 – Cass Van Gelder is an Agile Coach/Scrum Master in Nashville and led a workshop called Throne of Games: Creating Your Own Agile Games. Cass is on Twitter as @agileismyname_o

19:14 – Rodney Norris is a Nashville developer and conference attendee, who has also been involved with Nodevember, and is a host on the NashDev podcast.

24:02 – Gaines Kergosien has been the director and lead organizer of Music City Code since it first began in 2015. He was gracious enough to sit down with me for a few minutes to talk about what all goes into planning a conference like this.

32:30 – Deanna Vickers has been involved in the planning and production of several local conferences for years, and helped me first get involved years ago. You can read Deanna’s recent LinkedIn post about why volunteering is good for your career!

We hope you enjoyed hearing these snippets from conference attendees, straight from the trenches! If you were able to attend, or have a great conference experience you’d like to share, we’d love to hear from you!

This conference would not have been possible without the hard work of the volunteers, crew members, organizers and sponsors that worked together to make this event flow smoothly. So I want to give a shout out to all of those individuals that made this conference a success.

For more information about Music City Tech, or if you’re interested in volunteering for next year’s conference, you can visit http://musiccitytech.com/ for more information. We also highly encourage you to check out conferences in your area, as a great way to network and get plugged into your local tech community.

39:49 – Erin reveals her big exciting news!