In this episode we discuss our experience using WordPress, why it might be a good tool for those just starting out with development (or freelancing), and how to learn to this popular skill.

Sharpening the tools: Resources for Flexbox

What the Flexbox (free video course)

Flexbox Cheat Sheet

 

What is WordPress?

WordPress.org is the open-source, customizable Content Management System we focus on in this episode. It is the most popular CMS in the world and is used by nearly 75 million websites, and powers more than 25% of the world’s websites (statistics from Forbes).Wordpress.com is a web hosting service.

Where to learn more about WordPress?

* WordPress.org Documentation

Lynda.com

Digging into WordPress ebook

 

In this episode we’ll be talking about tech conferences, how to plan your schedule to get the most out of the content without getting burned out, strategies for participating in coding workshops, networking tips, and more.

With Music City Tech coming up at the end of May, we thought this would be a good time to talk about our game plan for the conference and share insights that have helped us make the most of tech conferences we’ve attended in the past.

Planning your schedule:

It’s easy to want to attend a session for every slot, but it’s really easy to burn yourself out that way trying to absorb so much varying information in such a short amount of time. I did this in the first couple of conferences I attended and definitely suffered from information overload. Pick a few talks you’re interested in, with some breaks between every couple.

Conferences are great to explore new technologies, languages, etc. that you may not work in everyday. They also make it easy to find people interested in the same things.

Code-alongs/Workshops:

I often find that if I try to code along with someone giving an interactive presentation, I often have to choose between getting the code correct in my editor vs. actually absorbing the concepts the speaker is talking about. So I’ve often opted to just listen and watch.

The speaker often posts links to the working code/demo that I can go look at on my own later with the knowledge I picked up from their talk.

Networking:

Conference environments are some of the most laid-back environments to network and meet other people: everyone is there to learn something and even if you are actively looking for a job, generally that isn’t your main purpose for attending a conference, but it does show potential employers that you’re eager to learn and expand your knowledge and skill set.

Kick-off/wrap up mixers – great laid back environments to chat with conference-goers

Today, we’ll be looking at what it’s like to be a government software developer, and how this area differs from working in the private sector. We’ll touch on differences in work life balance, how branches of government can affect your work, the impact of the things you’re building, and considerations for all your citizen users.

This week we’re excited to welcome not one, but two special guests!

BJ (Beej) Burns is a junior software engineer at the State of TN, and a colleague and mentor of Dave’s. You may know him as co-host of our sibling podcast, “The Complete Developer Podcast”!

Jason Weakley is a graduate of Nashville Software School, and also a software developer for the State. He hosts a meetup group the “State and Local Government Developers Network”.

 

There are lots of industries and workforce segments that need software developers, so we want to start exploring a few different ones and how the work and processes differ from one another. For someone job hunting or thinking about an industry transition, let’s discuss some things to consider about working in a government role.

 

Erin’s first software developer role was with the State of TN as a contractor, in their general “IT department”. Many departments tend to have their own IT/software/etc. departments, but this was like the high-level IT hub of all departments.

She was part of a transition project in which the team was taking ownership over some 80+ applications developed by a third party vendor in which the department decided not to renew a contract with.

The whole team working on this project was brand new (she was one of the first hired onto the team about 2 months after they’d made the decision to not renew the contract and bring everything in house, and they filled the last positions about 2 months or so before the hand-off date).

Each individual was brought on a contractor with the intent to convert once/if they became eligible (certain number of hours worked and if there was an FTE position open).

Public Service vs. Private sector – pros and cons?

Pros:

Job Stability; retiring after 20 years

Flexibility – what kind? work/life balance – work 37.5 hours a week vs. traditional 40

Time off

Benefits

Health insurance (supposedly offers some of the best coverage for the most reasonable price)

Pension Plan (one of the few organization that still offers these)

Student loan forgiveness after 10 years

Cons:

Bureaucracy

Erin – finding the bureaucracy/red tape situation very similar in my current healthcare position. Maybe it has to do with the amount of personal information your organization deals with (PHI for healthcare, criminal records, etc. in government)

Slow salary growth, less competitive (only about 85% max of what you’d earn in the same job in the private sector)

(LCD – workers who do the bare minimum?) (stereotype)

Lots of rules around interactions with vendors, 3rd party companies, etc. They cannot buy you meals or otherwise give you any gifts because for public service people it could be seen as a bribe for policy, even if you aren’t a high-ranking official.

Difference in mission – affecting people’s lives, vs always focusing on profits, bottom-line, etc?

Government departments aims to do well by the people because they are largely funded by taxpayer dollars;

Private sector – people can choose whether or not to pay for the services provided, so the mission is often different; can also aim to help the people at large by expanding the business and number of people they serve

Do you feel like you are making an impact?

Progress often gets caught up and lost in process.

In this episode, we dive a into some code katas and walk through a coding exercise. We’ll talk about sites we like to challenge ourselves with to keep our skills sharp.

What is a code kata? It’s a term for an exercise coined by Dave Thomas (not the Wendy’s guy) in the Pragmatic Programmer. The name kata is a Japanese word referring to the practice of martial arts. Code katas are short coding challenges, typically with a handful of tests to pass, that are a great way to practice.

Challenge websites we’ve used:

Freecodecamp

Codewars

Exercism

Hackerrank

 

For more, look here: https://medium.freecodecamp.org/the-10-most-popular-coding-challenge-websites-of-2016-fb8a5672d22f

 

Now we’re going to walk through a couple exercises together!

Is n divisible by … – from CodeWars

CodeWars Exercise – Step 1:

Capture the first argument passed in using the argument object. Set it to a variable (n).

CodeWars Exercise – Step 2:

In a for loop, iterate through the arguments object which will iterate through all of the parameters being passed in (we don’t know how many that will be, since it’s variable).

 

CodeWars Exercise – Step 3:

Using an if statement and modulo (%), check to see if n is divisible by each argument being passed into the function. If the result is not 0, return false, which breaks the loop and returns false for the whole function.

 

CodeWars Exercise – Step 4:

Return true outside of the for loop if n is divisible by all variables.

 

Keep in mind that there are many different ways to solve this exercise, and I may go back and refactor my solution at some point to make it more concise and use ES6.

 

Find the Longest Word in a String – from freeCodeCamp

freeCodeCamp Exercise – Step 1: Because I want to compare every word, I know I’ll need to iterate through them. The .split() string method can divide a long string into an array of smaller strings. I’m using the space between each word as a delimiter to neatly divide them all up.

freeCodeCamp Exercise – Step 2: I created a placeholder for the longest word length, initialized to zero. Then I’m going to use a .forEach() loop to iterate through one array item at a time, which I’ll refer to as ‘word’ in each iteration.

freeCodeCamp Exercise – Step 3: Now I want to compare each word’s length to my longest value, and if it’s longer, make that the new longest value. So I’m evaluating a conditional statement, and taking a different action depending on the result. There are a couple ways to do this, an “if / else” statement or a ternary operator.

In this episode, we’ll be discussing tips and techniques for utilizing LinkedIn for your job search and continuing to build your network even after you’ve landed a job.

So since LI is a social network, a common question that users grapple with is:

To accept or not to accept (connection requests)?

I would suggest to always try to send a personal note of some sort when sending an invite to connect with someone – where you met, a topic you discusses, etc. Helps people remember you and it gives a personal touch to the invite.

Linkedin’s founder recommends only connecting with people you know IRL, making those connections more valuable & able to recommend / introduce http://www.businessinsider.com/reid-hoffman-how-to-use-linkedin-2017-4

Another school of thought is you should connect with people you don’t know, because of research that acquaintances, not just close friends, are more beneficial in networking. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140506113910-43645946-why-you-should-connect-with-people-you-don-t-know-on-linkedin/

Main sections: summaries, Activity, previous work experience, education, skills endorsements, recommendations, accomplishments, interests, volunteer experience

Pictures – super professional or nah?

Mixed opinions here. Part of it may be because some perceive LinkedIn is becoming the more like Facebook (less professional). My personal opinion (EO) is that it’s fine to show a little personality in your LinkedIn photo, after all the company is hiring a person and not a robot (for now HA!). But don’t make it a picture where people can’t see your face clearly or you’re doing something silly or less than flattering (drinking, etc.).

Writing Summaries

Emphasize your skills and passion for web/software development.

Talk about what got you interested in the first place and the path you’ve taken to get started in the field.

Skill endorsements and recommendations

It’s acceptable to request for others to endorse your skills and write you recommendations. Offer to do the same for them as well.

Let them know which skills you’d like to be endorsed for if they’re willing. Also if you have any work or characteristics you’d like them to emphasize in their recommendation, let them know that as well.

It’s part of your personal branding, so helping others craft how you’d like to be perceived isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I personally don’t think you should write one yourself and send to them to post to your page, because then it isn’t as authentic.

Also, if you want to be endorsed for certain skills over others (development skills over design skills) or if you want a balance of technical skills and soft skills, let people know that too. But make sure the skills you’re requesting to be endorsed for make sense in that the person can actually vouch for those skills.

Dave’s approach to seeking out valuable recommendations

Which sections are most important to recruiters/hiring managers

These will probably differ by industry/field

Skills section, previous work are probably the big two. If you catch their eye with those, they may read your summary.

Education, projects you’ve worked on, and accomplishments are important too. Your profile should be well-rounded and thought-out overall

The headline – inspired by celebrity twitter bios? This is often the first thing people see about you. How do you stand out in 120 characters?! (even less than twitter’s 140)

Publishing content

If you are looking for a job, you should be posting on linkedin more often than other social media R...

In this episode we discuss the impact of learning multiple languages on your career, language families, parallels with learning foreign languages, and specialization v. diversification.

01:26 – Welcome, Will Gant! Will is a host on our sibling podcast, The Complete Developer. He’s been coding since the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was on network television, and he knows a few programming languages we’ve never even heard of.

02:20 – “Sharpening the Tools”

Erin – Learning process and tools for query optimization. Continuing to help with a church WordPress site on the side.

Dave – Diving into Angular 5 for a work related work project.

Will – Spoke at Covalence about overcoming whiteboard interviews.

7:09 – “Opening the Toolbox”

Will has worked with C#, JavaScript, SQL, Visual Basic, Delphi, C, C++, Assembler, Python, Ruby, VBA, FoxPro, Java, R, and more! I think we counted about 27 total?

He is most experienced with C#, JavaScript, Delphi, SQL, Typescript, CSS, SASS, and Powershell.

In Erin’s career she’s worked with JavaScript, C#, Java, SQL. She has also dabbled in Python & Swift. She tries to avoid Java at all costs, if she can help it!

Dave has focused mostly on JavaScript, and decided it was a solid starting point that could cover both front-end and back-end web development (MEAN stack). He played with BASIC as a kid, but doesn’t really remember any of it.

14:50 – Will’s advice would be to specialize, but learn enough about other languages to glean ideas and other approaches.

“You can kinda be middling to okay in a bunch of different languages, but if you really want to … provide overwhelming value, you’ve pretty much have to pick one.”

21:30 – You want to learn your first language really well before you jump into a second. Continually jumping to the next hot thing can stifle your learning.

Sometimes you may find a logical path to your next language, as you’re learning the full stack. In Dave’s case, his study of Angular and Typescript may be a stepping stone to learning C# and other strictly-typed languages.

Complete Developer did an episode on how to approach your second language and discovered some similarities with studying spoken languages. The concept of cognates (similar words in different languages, like the English ‘cold’ to the German ‘kalt’) can also be found in programming language structures and patterns.

Tim Ferris discusses hacks for learning a spoken language quickly.

28:30 – Spoken languages sometimes make assumptions that don’t exist in other languages. There are some parallels here in programming, especially higher-level languages that abstract away some concerns like memory management.

We discuss ‘newer’ experimental languages verses tried and true ‘old’ ones and learning trends from this article Erin brought to the table.

 

Thanks for listening, see you next time!

 

In this episode we explore different types of contract employment and career implications of taking these kinds of roles.

1:27 – “Sharpening the Tools”

Erin – A bit overloaded with learning business and development processes at her new job, and helping out building a website on the side, Erin has dipped her toes into a data analysis course on Treehouse.

Dave – planning a presentation on Selenium, an automation testing tool for browsers, to coworkers.

 

3:49 – “Opening the Toolbox”

4:15 – Types of employment: Freelancers / Consultants / Independent contractors, straight contract, contract to hire, and full-time employment

“Hire a really good accountant, and factor that cost in.”

There’s a lot of things to consider when working for yourself, especially as a 1099 employee and being responsible for withholding your own taxes and paying yourself.

Pros: You can set your own rates, set your own schedule, and have a lot of control over what kind of projects you take on.

Cons: Steady work can be inconsistent if you’re just starting out and depending on the economy and the market.

 

7:48 – Straight Contract

Usually have a set timeline (6 months, 1 year, etc.)

Possibility for extension or conversion but not guaranteed and not usually the intent

Sometimes the situation is an “open-ended” contract

Often a higher hourly rate can be expected, but the employee usually covers their own health benefits and doesn’t typically have PTO or holiday pay

There’s often either a real or perceived divide between contractors and full-time employees, in regards to what contractors do or do not have access to or are included in (trainings, employee events, etc.).

 

14:13 – Contract-to-Hire

Intent to convert the contractor to a full time employee with the company (client) after the specified time period has elapsed (usually 3 months to 1 year) or when other requirements are met (certain number of hours worked, a position opens up, etc.)

Contract period is often used as a trial period for the employer and/or employee to see if the employee is a good fit and vice versa.

Recruiting firms sometimes offer benefits of some sort for the duration of the contract period

Contract hourly rates and conversion rates are often “locked-in” when you’re submitted for a position, which typically leaves little to no room for negotiation for salary, time off, etc. upon conversion to FTE

 

18:37 – Full Time Employment (FTE)

Most traditional style of employment (salaried vs. hourly), and typically the most “secure”

Paid Time Off, holidays pay, health benefits

23:58 – Should YOU take a contract role?

27:32 – More reasons companies offer contract roles

30:18 – Career Builder jobs forecast report – outlook for 2018 hiring trends

32:03 – How contract roles reflect on your resume

 

Thanks for listening, see you next time!

In this episode we explore what it’s like to walk in to a new role as a junior dev and start on the right foot. We’ll touch on making impressions, staying thirsty to learn, navigating the onboarding process, and meeting the team.

We’re excited to introduce our first guest on the show, Josh Kilgore! Josh is a career transitioner, having earned a law degree and working as an attorney for several years, before enrolling in Nashville Software School and diving into a new career in web development.

He recently started his first role as a junior software developer since completing the NSS program.

You can find Josh on LinkedIn and his personal portfolio site is joshkilgore.com.

2:30 – Sharpening the Tools

Erin has been learning technologies and processes at her new job, so self-learning has taken a bit of a back seat. She’s hoping to get back into the iOS Development Track she’s been working through on Treehouse within the next week or so.

Dave attended a unit testing/test driven development training through work.

https://jrsinclair.com/articles/2016/gentle-introduction-to-javascript-tdd-intro/

Josh is sharpening all the tools, learning the technologies and processes at his new job, including test driven development.

8:58 – Opening the Toolbox

So you’ve landed and nailed the interview, and received and accepted the job offer! Congratulations! You’re stepping through the door on your first day….now what do you do?

9:52 – Josh talks a bit about his background on starting his career in law and how he found Nashville Software School and decided to make the transition to software development.

11:27 – “I’m part of the future, writing all these exciting things that are going to help shape the future of our world, and that’s the big draw to it, for me.”

12:50 – “I know everyone says this, but it really does come down to networking and perfect timing, and just putting yourself out there and making all the connections you can.”

13:33 – Josh’s day 1 thoughts on the new job: Awe. Why am I here? Where am I? Being hungry to learn.

15:22 – Erin’s first couple of days on the new job. She got to jump right in and observe the process that happens when a high priority production issue needs to be addressed. Requesting access, training on the application and various processes.

20:54 – “The reason that you or me or anyone is hired anywhere, especially as a junior or a newbie, is because they see potential. They understand that learning is going to take time, and as long as you continue to want to learn, you’ll be okay.”

 

33:53 – “It’s nice to have that connection. And if not a familiar face, at least a shared experience.”

37:07 – “Being able to communicate effectively is a huge part of this job. It’s not just the technical skills, but being able to ask questions and be able to express where any barriers are and that kind of thing.”

 

Takeaways From This Episode

—–

 

Starting a new job can be daunting, especially at the entry or junior level.

Be patient. Learning the business and processes will take time.

Stay hungry to learn, ask questions, make supportive connections at work.

Make sure to set clear goals and expectations from the start with your team and manager.

 

Thanks for listening, see you next time!

—————————R...

In this episode, we discuss our experiences and thoughts about finding a work / life balance in development roles.

0:54 – Sharpening the Tools

Erin is continuing her Treehouse track for iOS development. She’s also earning some WordPress basics, with an eye on helping a local church with their website.

Dave attended a meet-up that took a look into the D3.js library for data visualization.

Jason is continuing his exploration of the Angular framework and starting into using Ionic to be able to use Angular for mobile applications.

4:33 – Opening the Toolbox

We are sad to announce that Jason is stepping down as a regular co-host and contributor. He details the reasons for this decision and his focus at work, leading into our discussion of work/life balance.

6:46 – Sometimes work/life imbalances are self-imposed, sometimes for good reasons.

7:13 – Erin’s Bill Lumbergh impression from Office Space.

13:54 – Work / Life balance is going to fluctuate and may never be a constant, but do you have a healthy balance over the long term?

17:59 – Work / Life balance is an illusion – we discuss popular development blogger John Sonmez’s article about this balance being a mindset. Work is going to take up a huge part of your day, so you should enjoy what you do. If not, you will compartmentalize and begin to think of work as detracting from your life.

Take care of yourself, choose your relationships carefully, and live as much as possible in the present moment, and you’ll find your life doesn’t need “balance”, because you’ll find joy and fulfillment in whatever you are doing.

22:22 – One of the inventor’s of the Scrum process points out that overtime does not equal more productivity.

27:36 – Dave brings up one of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People about the prioritization of work based on an urgency / importance matrix. This is also known as Covey’s time management matrix, or the Eisenhower decision matrix.

30:01 – Does working from home complicate work/life balance? Or make it harder to separate the two?

34:58 – Erin’s Job Search Update

Erin has accepted a new job, and gives us the details and some of her decision making process.

Takeaways From This Episode

—–

Work / life balance isn’t 100% in your control, but you may feel pressure as a junior to tip the scale towards work

Balance isn’t a constant, but a marathon pace

You don’t necessarily want to compartmentalize work

Working from home requires an effort to distinguish between work and home life

 

Thanks for listening, see you next time!

In our first episode of 2018, and in the spirit of New Year’s Resolutions and bettering ourselves, we thought it would make sense to talk about goal planning. While it’s not always specifically tech or development related, it can still be immensely useful in furthering your personal and career growth in the long run.

0:45 – Sharpening the Tools

Erin built an iOS app and loaded it onto her phone. Following a Treehouse tutorial and diving into Swift.

Dave has been experimenting with Firebase’s authentication API.

 

6:09 – Opening the Toolbox

Inspiration from our friend on Slack:

sassy_samurai – “They say announcing a goal in public makes you more likely to work on it and stay focused. So, today I announce my big, hairy, ambitious goal (BHAG). It is to rank in the top 50 of a highly competitive entrance exam in my country for grad school aspirants. Let’s see how it goes. The exam is on Feb the 4th of next year. You get to laugh hard at me if I fail at this.”

8:02 – Our personal goals – ongoing learning, staying organized, projects at work, growing the podcast and engage with our listeners!

So we’ve got some goals, that’s awesome — but what’s next?

12:04 – “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” – Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

14:55 – Applications aren’t built in a day! But what will you do with a whole year?

15:50 – “Begin with the end in mind”, from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, reminding us to start with long term vision and work backwards.

18:42 – MVP Minimum Viable Product

20:01 – Writing down your goal, “putting it out in the universe”, or telling a friend solidifies the goal and makes you more accountable.

20:50 – When we break down our goals into steps, the middle ones are usually the hardest. Defining “Step 2” is the hard work but vital to achieving the goal. “Don’t be like the underpants gnomes.”

25:16 – Setbacks! The loss of a job, unexpected financial changes, can change all of your goal priorities. That’s why frequent review is important (and built into SCRUM).

 

26:43 – SMART Goals:

S – Specific (or Significant).

M – Measurable (or Meaningful).

A – Attainable (or Action-Oriented).

R – Relevant (or Rewarding).

T – Time-bound (or Trackable).

https://www.mindtools.com/page6.html

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_90.htm

29:38 – A Kanban/Trello workflow is a great visual reminder of what’s done and what remains

Trello – create boards, cards/task, checklists, due dates, etc. keep track of everything you need to accomplish for your project.

Google Goals – essentially you can name a goal and say how often you want to work toward the goal and for how long during each session.

For example, Erin has one setup where she wants to work on learning about programming/work on development 3 times a week for one hour.

Caveat: I think currently you can only edit details of these from your phone, as the web app only supports moving the session time, deleting a session, or marking a session as done.

* Have an accountabili-buddy

* Reward yourself! When you complete a manageable piece, reward yourself. This means a little something different to everyone.

* Examples:

* Watch an episode of a series you’ve been watching.

* Buy something from your Amazon list.

* Play video games for a little bit.