Learn to Code With Me

As the sixth season of the Learn to Code With Me podcast comes to an end, I share a few updates about what's coming up over the next few months.

Tommy Griffith has been doing search engine optimization for more than 10 years. He was previously managed SEO at PayPal and Airbnb, and now runs ClickMinded, a digital marketing training platform for marketers and entrepreneurs. Tommy started ClickMinded as a side project while working full-time at Airbnb. He grew it until it started generating more revenue than his annual salary. Two years ago, he quit Airbnb to go full-time on it and ran into a number of problems in trying to grow the business from there.

In this episode, we discuss…

• The sacrifices it takes to make a side gig work
• How to get the first customers for your side gig
• The right time to leave your full-time job to go all-in on your side gig

Learn more about Tommy and what we discussed on the Learn to Code With Me website.

Want to land your own technical side gig? Sign up for my free online training, "The Simple 4-Part Framework for Landing Technical Side Gigs".

Safia Abdalla is an open source developer, writer, and a software engineer at Microsoft and she also co-hosts the BookBytes podcast, a fortnightly book club for developers. She's passionate about bringing people together to build great things and using storytelling to share knowledge.

In this episode, we discuss…

• How to get into open source development
• What makes a good open source project to start with
• Whether open source contributions can help you get a job
• How to transition from contributor to maintainer

Learn more about Safia and what we discussed on the Learn to Code With Me website.

Jenn Clevenger is Etsy's Data Engineering Director. In this role, she leads engineering teams in charge of Big Data platforms, Business insights infrastructure and Data Integrations. These teams provide data products and services to internal stakeholders including Analytics, Data Science, Product and Marketing organizations at Etsy.

In this episode, we discuss…

• Job-hunting/career-building when pregnant
• What a day in the life of a data engineering director looks like
• How to create an inclusive workplace and culture
• How to identify inclusive companies when job-hunting

Learn more about Jenn and what we discussed on the Learn to Code With Me website.

Clément Mihailescu enrolled in a coding bootcamp without ever having written a single line of code. Less than six months later, he secured a job at Google as a software engineer. His experience applying for jobs also inspired him to start a side business, helping others practice for the technical interview.

In this episode, we discuss…

• How to land a job at a top tech company
• What it's like working at Google
• How to prepare for a coding interview
• What it's like balancing a side gig and a full-time job

Update (Nov 2019): Laurence mentions in the episode that you can get 30% off AlgoExpert. This has since been reduced to 15%.

Learn more about Clément and what we discussed on the Learn to Code With Me website.

Ina Yulo is the global manager for BrightTALK's FinTech and Women in Business communities. She also advises companies including tech giants and large banks on content marketing. She's on the Women in FinTech Power List, was named a WeAreTheCity Rising Star for 2018, and is both a speaker and a mentor for business owners.

In this episode, we discuss…

• Current innovations in FinTech
• What kinds of jobs are available and what level of tech skills you might need
• Ina's advice for startup founders and women in business

Learn more about Ina and what we discussed on the Learn to Code With Me website.

It can be tough to know if a coding bootcamp is the right investment for you. Before you make that decision, you should weigh all the factors involved and evaluate them in the context of your personality and goals. Here to help explain how to do this is Ruben Harris, CEO of Career Karma, where is empowers people to make their most important career decisions—the first being which coding boot camp is best for them.

In this episode, we discuss…

• The history of bootcamps
• How to know whether attending a bootcamp is the right decision for you
• What happens if you decide you don't want a job in tech afterwards
• How income-share agreements are making bootcamps more financially accessible than ever

Learn more about Ruben and what we discussed on the Learn to Code With Me website.

Thank you to this episode's sponsors, Flatiron School and dotTech Domains.

If you want to work in tech or run your own business, chances are high that you'll be working with data at some point. That means you need to know about data privacy, and it's hard to find someone more knowledgeable and experienced than Sheila FitzPatrick. Sheila is the founder and president of FitzPatrick & Associates, a strategic global data privacy and protection compliance consulting firm.

In this episode, we discuss…

• What developers/tech professionals need to know to make sure that their work follows best practices for data collection and privacy
• The differences between privacy and security
• What counts as personal data, and why it's important to be completely clear on what data you're collecting and why

Learn more about Sheila and what we discussed on the Learn to Code With Me website.

Thank you to this episode's sponsors, Flatiron School and dotTech Domains.

Logan Tran made his tech transition from the music industry about five and a half years ago. He began by self-teaching and building his own projects. He was soon introduced to DevOps through his work and decided to pursue the specialty. Now, he’s in his second DevOps Engineer role at NextCapital.

In this episode, we discuss…

• What DevOps entails, from the culture to the technology to the job market
• How Logan went from the music industry to tech without a college degree
• Why working remotely isn’t all beaches & sunshine
• Advice on deciding between self-teaching or traditional education

Learn more about Logan and what we discussed on the Learn to Code With Me website.

Thank you to this episode’s sponsors, Flatiron School and dotTech Domains.

Christina Gorton is a self-taught creative coder and instructor who works remotely from Costa Rica. She was a stay-at-home mom for 5 years before transitioning into tech, and she landed a junior developer job after just 9 months of learning to code.

In this episode, we discuss...

• How to make time to learn to code as a mom
• What it's like to work remotely
• What creative coding is all about

Learn more about Christina and what we discussed on the Learn to Code With Me website.

Thank you to this episode's sponsors, Flatiron School and TECH Domains.