Software Developers Journey

Melanie's love for web development started in 1997 (not with Dreamweaver) and followed her to 2022, where she is pushing the state of Accessibility. We brushed over her childhood, spoke about her time as an Intelligence Analyst in the Navy, and saw how she slowly but surely built her skills. We talked about disabilities, reframing Accessibility for UX, we discussed improving the web, and how every one of us developers has a role to play.

Here are the links from the show:

• https://www.twitter.com/a11yMel
• https://github.com/melsumner
• https://a11y-intro.com/
• https://a11y-automation.dev/
• https://pleasefunda11y.com/

Credits

• Cover Heliotrope by Blue Dot Sessions is licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
• Your host is Timothée (Tim) Bourguignon, more about him at timbourguignon.fr.
• Gift the podcast a rating on one of the significant platforms https://devjourney.info/subscribe

Support the show

Bill placed the start of their journey at three different places. In their childhood, thanks to a geeky dad. Then right after college when they started working as a web developer. And finally, in 2020, when they embraced the fractional CTO idea. We dug into the fractional CTO business idea, the heuristics helping them decide to take on a project, and how to make it successful with different clients. 
 
Here are the links from the show:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/billboulden
• https://www.twitter.com/downupright
• https://www.billboulden.com
• https://www.helloaudio.fm

Credits

• Cover Heliotrope by Blue Dot Sessions is licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
• Your host is Timothée (Tim) Bourguignon, more about him at timbourguignon.fr.
• Gift the podcast a rating on one of the significant platforms https://devjourney.info/subscribe

Support the show

Jenn first took us back in her studies, discovering FORTRAN and MATLAB and hating every minute of it. Fast forward a few years, she found she was missing the visual aspect of programming, and as soon as she put a finger into web development, off, she went. We spoke about her first jobs, good and bad managers. We spoke about transitioning from small to big to small companies. We discussed the advantages of a strong product company. And we finally talked about engineering management and how Jenn became a manager and reflected upon her former experiences.

Here are the links from the show:

• https://www.twitter.com/mybluewristband
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferewong/
• https://www.mochimachine.com/
• https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/five-questions-with-jennifer-wong/

Credits

• Cover Heliotrope by Blue Dot Sessions is licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
• Your host is Timothée (Tim) Bourguignon, more about him at timbourguignon.fr.
• Gift the podcast a rating on one of the significant platforms https://devjourney.info/subscribe

Support the show

Katerina placed the start of her journey in her studies when she found where she belonged. She spoke about her first job and how it set up the rest of her career. It led her toward freelancing and then creating her company Adeva. We spoke about how Katerina grew into her CEO role and remains grounded in tech. We talked about remote work and making connections in a remote world. 

Here are the links from the show:

• https://www.twitter.com/ktrajchevska
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/trajchevska/
• https://adevait.com/

Credits

• Cover Heliotrope by Blue Dot Sessions is licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
• Your host is Timothée (Tim) Bourguignon, more about him at timbourguignon.fr.
• Gift the podcast a rating on one of the significant platforms https://devjourney.info/subscribe

Support the show

Jonah started by telling us about her family and how she juggled her studies and put food on the table for her three siblings. We then discussed how she moved to Sweden and how her micro-manager of a boss led her to burnout. We then moved to her next and current job, which looks like the opposite, and touched on being led, freedom, learning, communities, teaching, public speaking, being an MVP and Microsoft Trainer, and writing a book.
 
Here are the links from the show:

• https://www.twitter.com/cjkodare
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonahandersson
• https://www.jonahandersson.tech
• https://www.meetup.com/azureusergroupsundsvallsverige
• https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/learning-microsoft-azure/9781098113315/

Credits

• Cover Heliotrope by Blue Dot Sessions is licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
• Your host is Timothée (Tim) Bourguignon, more about him at timbourguignon.fr.
• Gift the podcast a rating on one of the significant platforms https://devjourney.info/subscribe

Support the show

Max took us back to his childhood, at 6, when he got his first BBC-Micro computer. We spoke about learning BASIC and C++, using manuals and documentation instead of Stackoverflow, and how he studied chemistry. Max talked about depression, how he started working in open-source, and how alternating between open-source and paying gigs set him up for working on tea.xyz nowadays. We finished brushing over tea's innovation and why you should look into it.

Here are the links from the show:

• https://www.twitter.com/mxcl
• https://github.com/mxcl
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/mxcl/
• https://tea.xyz/
• https://tea.xyz/white-paper/
• https://amarok.kde.org/
• https://github.com/mxcl/PromiseKit
• https://xkcd.com/2347/

Credits

• Cover Heliotrope by Blue Dot Sessions is licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
• Your host is Timothée (Tim) Bourguignon, more about him at timbourguignon.fr.
• Gift the podcast a rating on one of the significant platforms https://devjourney.info/subscribe

Support the show

Grant told us about his childhood and how he ended up doing an internship at 12, programming Flash animations. But what could have been a straight line toward software engineering took a long detour of 20 years. After years of fighting with alcohol and drug abuse, Grant embraced the career of Substance Abuse Counselor, helping teenagers like he used to be. We then discussed why and how he decided to return to tech after almost 20 years. We talked about learning, becoming competent, figuring it out, teaching, building some expertise or pigeonholing yourself, and finally, using your unfair advantage.

Here are the links from the show:

• https://www.twitter.com/GrantGlidewell
• https://grantglidewell.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/grant-glidewell/
• https://blogwell.io/
• https://twitter.com/theFnCall
• https://twitter.com/heyAustinGIl
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTUuyVBYiopWoTEJu6ptDbg

Credits

• Cover Heliotrope by Blue Dot Sessions is licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
• Your host is Timothée (Tim) Bourguignon, more about him at timbourguignon.fr.
• Gift the podcast a rating on one of the significant platforms https://devjourney.info/subscribe

Support the show

Adi took us on a journey of following learning opportunities. From a machine learning research project in college to learning about distributed systems and big data. We explored how she approached joining Microsoft and creating a scalable network of colleagues while continuing to share her knowledge and learning in the open.

Here are the links from the show:

• https://www.twitter.com/AdiPolak
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/polak-adi/
• https://linktr.ee/adipolak
• Adi's Book https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/machine-learning-with/9781098106812/
• DE Community https://dataengineers-group.slack.com/join/shared_invite/zt-u5dpkqwh-UdlIEDdrYQYrw3jVf2JKmA#/shared-invite/email

Credits

• Cover Heliotrope by Blue Dot Sessions is licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
• Your host is Timothée (Tim) Bourguignon, more about him at timbourguignon.fr.
• Gift the podcast a rating on one of the significant platforms https://devjourney.info/subscribe

Support the show

Marcy told us about her photojournalism studies and how they led her to web development. We soon bifurcated into accessibility and remained there until the end. We discussed what it means to create accessible websites, the no-brainers and low-hanging fruits, why investing in accessibility early on in our projects are essential, and where to learn more about it.

Here are the links from the show:

• https://www.twitter.com/marcysutton
• http://marcysutton.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcysutton
• Marcy's course: https://testingaccessibility.com/
• Axe DevTools: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/axe-devtools-web-accessib/lhdoppojpmngadmnindnejefpokejbdd
• https://accessibilityinsights.io/

Credits

• Cover Heliotrope by Blue Dot Sessions is licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
• Your host is Timothée (Tim) Bourguignon, more about him at timbourguignon.fr.
• Gift the podcast a rating on one of the significant platforms https://devjourney.info/subscribe

Support the show

Sergey's story started with circumventing the  BIOS passwords his Dad put on their family computer. Fast forward a few years, we dug deep into Sergey's P.hD, research, academia, assistant professor position, cryptography, the blockchain, taking a risk, failing, the startups he founded, and his back and forth between the industry and the academia.

Here are the links from the show:

• https://www.twitter.com/sergey_nog
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/sergegorbunov
• https://axelar.network/careers
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Rackoff
• https://people.csail.mit.edu/vinodv/
• https://twitter.com/yorgosv_
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribute-based_encryption

Credits

• Cover Heliotrope by Blue Dot Sessions is licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
• Your host is Timothée (Tim) Bourguignon, more about him at timbourguignon.fr.
• Gift the podcast a rating on one of the significant platforms https://devjourney.info/subscribe

Support the show