The Virtual Coffee Podcast

In this episode of the podcast, we talk to Courtney Landau, a software engineer currently working at an early-stage startup in the Education Technology space. We talked about her experience with being quiet in tech with the constant push for self-marketing and how she learns new things. We also dive into her experience as a mentor, speaker, lightning talk team member, and the other roles she's played as part of Virtual Coffee.

Sponsor Virtual Coffee!

Your support is incredibly valuable to us. Direct financial support will help us to continue serving the Virtual Coffee community.

Please visit our sponsorship page on GitHub for more information - you can evensponsor an episode of the podcast!

Virtual Coffee:

• Virtual Coffee: virtualcoffee.io
• Podcast Contact: [email protected]
• Bekah: dev.to/bekahhw, Twitter:https://twitter.com/bekahhw, Instagram:bekahhw
• Dan: dtott.com, Twitter:@danieltott

In this episode of the podcast, we talk to Tom Cudd, a systems architect and 20-year veteran in technology. We talked about his experiences with DevOps and how it has changed over the years, about psychological safety: what it means to Tom, and how important it is to build in to your team and workflows, and about the dangers of "hero culture" in the workplace.

Sponsor Virtual Coffee!

Your support is incredibly valuable to us. Direct financial support will help us to continue serving the Virtual Coffee community.

Please visit our sponsorship page on GitHub for more information - you can evensponsor an episode of the podcast!

Virtual Coffee:

• Virtual Coffee: virtualcoffee.io
• Podcast Contact: [email protected]
• Bekah: dev.to/bekahhw, Twitter:https://twitter.com/bekahhw, Instagram:bekahhw
• Dan: dtott.com, Twitter:@danieltott

In this episode of the podcast, we talk to Debra-Kaye Elliott, a self-taught frontend developer making her way through Frontend Masters Web Development Bootcamp, about what it's like to be on the self-taught developer journey, how she navigates imposter syndrome, and the lessons she's learned a long the way. She talks about the impact of being able to learn with support, choosing the resources that work best for you, and how blogging has been a part of her journey.

Debra-Kaye Elliott is a Front End Developer going through a bootcamp, who's adding community-learning to her learning process. She's a career changer from the administrative field and always wanted to be in tech.

Sponsor Virtual Coffee!

Your support is incredibly valuable to us. Direct financial support will help us to continue serving the Virtual Coffee community.

Please visit our sponsorship page on GitHub for more information - you can evensponsor an episode of the podcast!

Virtual Coffee:

• Virtual Coffee: virtualcoffee.io
• Podcast Contact: [email protected]
• Bekah: dev.to/bekahhw, Twitter:https://twitter.com/bekahhw, Instagram:bekahhw
• Dan: dtott.com, Twitter:@danieltott

In this episode, Dan and Bekah talk to Glen McCallum, a Software engineer from Victoria, Canada who manages a team of 8 engineers for the 2nd largest independent book distributor in the US, about his unexpected career journey, the hard decisions he's had to make, and using open-source software with his artificial pancreas. Glen also talks about his near-death experience in his first IT job and the decision to move from Independent Contributor to Management.

Glen McCallum is a Software engineer from Victoria, Canada. For the past 7 years he's been doing backend development in C# and SQL. Earlier, he did projects in Java and Rails. He's always learning, currently exploring big data with hadoop, python, and spark. Day-to-day he manages a team of 8 engineers for the 2nd largest independent book distributor in the United States.

Sponsor Virtual Coffee!

Your support is incredibly valuable to us. Direct financial support will help us to continue serving the Virtual Coffee community.

Please visit our sponsorship page on GitHub for more information - you can evensponsor an episode of the podcast!

Virtual Coffee:

• Virtual Coffee: virtualcoffee.io
• Podcast Contact: [email protected]
• Bekah: dev.to/bekahhw, Twitter:https://twitter.com/bekahhw, Instagram:bekahhw
• Dan: dtott.com, Twitter:@danieltott

In this episode of the podcast, Dan and Bekah talk with Lucia Cercie, a Software Engineer, mom, and Arizona transplant, about the importance of having a growth-mindset, asking questions, and pair programming. We also talk about the power of community and feeling comfortable asking questions and asking for help. When she's not coding, Lucia likes to make her baby laugh.

Lucia Cerchie is a software engineer from Phoenix, AZ. She spends a lot of time orbiting outside her comfort zone and when she's not coding, she likes to make her baby laugh.

Sponsor Virtual Coffee!

Your support is incredibly valuable to us. Direct financial support will help us to continue serving the Virtual Coffee community.

Please visit our sponsorship page on GitHub for more information - you can evensponsor an episode of the podcast!

Virtual Coffee:

• Virtual Coffee: virtualcoffee.io
• Podcast Contact: [email protected]
• Bekah: dev.to/bekahhw, Twitter:https://twitter.com/bekahhw, Instagram:bekahhw
• Dan: dtott.com, Twitter:@danieltott

In this episode of the Virtual Coffee podcast, Dan and Bekah talk to Gant Laborde, an owner of Infinite Red, mentor, adjunct professor, published author, and award-winning speaker, about overcoming challenges, being authentic, and finding your voice. They share some of the struggles they've faced, talk about how practice can lead to growth, and the importance of recognizing your body's signals in the process.

Sponsor Virtual Coffee!

Your support is incredibly valuable to us. Direct financial support will help us to continue serving the Virtual Coffee community.

Please visit our sponsorship page on GitHub for more information - you can evensponsor an episode of the podcast!

Virtual Coffee:

• Virtual Coffee: virtualcoffee.io
• Podcast Contact: [email protected]
• Bekah: dev.to/bekahhw, Twitter:https://twitter.com/bekahhw, Instagram:bekahhw
• Dan: dtott.com, Twitter:@danieltott

In this episode of the podcast, Dan and Bekah switch things up. Since it's last episode of season one, they share a bit about their origin stories, when their paths connected, and how that led to where Virtual Coffee is today. They talk about the challenges of the last year, how Virtual Coffee has been a light during dark times, and how growing can be painful, but also the process that allows you to become more than you could've imagined. And they also drop some of their favorite Virtual Coffee moments of the last year.

Sponsor Virtual Coffee!

Your support is incredibly valuable to us. Direct financial support will help us to continue serving the Virtual Coffee community.

Please visit our sponsorship page on GitHub for more information - you can evensponsor an episode of the podcast!

Virtual Coffee:

• Virtual Coffee: virtualcoffee.io
• Podcast Contact: [email protected]
• Bekah: dev.to/bekahhw, Twitter:https://twitter.com/bekahhw, Instagram:bekahhw
• Dan: dtott.com, Twitter:@danieltott

In this episode, Dan and Bekah talk to Kirk Shillingford, a software developer (and Community Maintainer at Virtual Coffee), who has been "haphazardly writing code for about seven years," about the importance of making mistakes and the growth that comes with it. We also talk about empathy being a key indicator of a senior developer and the importance of having a supportive community.

Sponsor Virtual Coffee!

Your support is incredibly valuable to us. Direct financial support will help us to continue serving the Virtual Coffee community.

Please visit our sponsorship page on GitHub for more information - you can evensponsor an episode of the podcast!

Virtual Coffee:

• Virtual Coffee: virtualcoffee.io
• Podcast Contact: [email protected]
• Bekah: dev.to/bekahhw, Twitter:https://twitter.com/bekahhw, Instagram:bekahhw
• Dan: dtott.com, Twitter:@danieltott

In this episode, we talk to Colleen Schnettler about the challenges of being a woman in the workplace, the benefits of working for yourself, and building her own SaaS business. Colleen is a Ruby on Rails consultant, who recently launched her first product--simple file upload--a career changer, and a mom. Colleen talks about how difficult it is to learn to code; it will take time and commitment, but when you get there, it will all be worth it.

Sponsor Virtual Coffee!

Your support is incredibly valuable to us. Direct financial support will help us to continue serving the Virtual Coffee community.

Please visit our sponsorship page on GitHub for more information - you can evensponsor an episode of the podcast!

Virtual Coffee:

• Virtual Coffee: virtualcoffee.io
• Podcast Contact: [email protected]
• Bekah: dev.to/bekahhw, Twitter:https://twitter.com/bekahhw, Instagram:bekahhw
• Dan: dtott.com, Twitter:@danieltott

In this episode, we talk to Drew Clements about the challenges junior developers face, learning through building Protege.dev, and the importance of community support. Drew is a career transitioner, father of two, and full-time developer who spends his spare time building Protege.dev, the platform curated with remote jobs for junior developers. We also talk about approaches to problem-solving, when to ask questions, and using live-streaming as an accountability tool.

Sponsor Virtual Coffee!

Your support is incredibly valuable to us. Direct financial support will help us to continue serving the Virtual Coffee community.

Please visit our sponsorship page on GitHub for more information - you can evensponsor an episode of the podcast!

Virtual Coffee:

• Virtual Coffee: virtualcoffee.io
• Podcast Contact: [email protected]
• Bekah: dev.to/bekahhw, Twitter:https://twitter.com/bekahhw, Instagram:bekahhw
• Dan: dtott.com, Twitter:@danieltott