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A Day in the Life of a Developer with Myles Young
14:45 with TreehouseLearn what it’s like to work as a full stack engineer from Treehouse graduate turned engineer, Myles. Myles discusses his day to day tasks as a full stack engineer, what it’s like to work on a team, and how to maintain motivation for the long haul.
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Well hello treehouse festival.
0:01
I'm Dr. Tony de Santo and director
of learning here at treehouse, and
0:04
I'll be your cohost actually for
this week.
0:08
It is my pleasure to
introduce our next guest.
0:11
He is a young, junior engineer at
a company here in Atlanta Georgia.
0:15
In his role he is responsible for
enhancing user payment experience,
0:21
squashing bugs, [INAUDIBLE] please
welcome Myles Young to the stage.
0:27
>> My name is Myles Young.
0:33
I'm a full stack developer
over in Atlanta, Georgia.
0:34
I've been doing this for about a year now.
0:37
And it's been a great experience so far.
0:39
I'm just tell you a little
bit of information about me.
0:42
I'm a son of a friend, so
many boyfriend a brother.
0:44
I'm a bit younger than most people.
0:49
I'm 21 years old, so my favorite TV
shows are Drake and Josh and Spongebob.
0:50
[LAUGH] Yeah,
I'm always trying to learn something new,
0:55
just to be better than yesterday.
0:58
I'm constantly focused on that end-goal.
1:00
So, you can call me weird, but
that's just how I do things.
1:03
[LAUGH] So, Just a little background
about how I actually began coding.
1:08
I used to be a full time student taking
12 credit hours like in college.
1:13
I was a part time manager at
a fortune 500 company and
1:18
I take it on treehouse as an extra
initiative to try and better myself.
1:22
So if you wanna talk about no time to
breathe, I'm the right guy to talk to.
1:26
So when I went through the tech degree
program with treehouse, it took a lot
1:32
of studying and consistency just to be
able to make it through that program.
1:38
Because for a person like me
who barely has time for much,
1:43
I had to make sure that I was getting
in these hours of studying and
1:47
working and asking for help.
1:52
And the value that I got out of that,
was very critical in remaining
1:55
consistent with asking for help and
also providing help to others.
1:59
Cuz if you can explain something
to someone else it helps to
2:04
solidify that understanding
in your own mind.
2:08
So, as far as working goes,
I was working very constantly
2:12
just like your air
conditioning in the summer.
2:16
[LAUGH] So, what is a full stack engineer?
2:20
That is someone who performs back end and
front end related code.
2:24
And the difference between the two
is front end is what the user is
2:30
going to see, like if I apply animation
on the page like that's front end.
2:34
Back end is how I could get some
specific user data from our database
2:39
to show up on the screen,
is that communication between the two.
2:43
I've been doing this for about a year
now and it's been a great experience.
2:48
Really, really great experience.
2:53
I do all types of things nowadays,
2:54
like I perform experiments to
just test out new features.
2:57
Like let's see how users respond
to something in particular.
3:02
I'll do some bug fixes.
3:06
Currently for the company I work for I'm
in the payments, section, payments team.
3:09
And there's a lot of high intensity
work over there, trust me.
3:15
And also just working
collaboratively with my team to
3:20
help deliver solutions for
the complex business problems.
3:24
So, what's dev life actually like, though?
3:29
That's simple, you just stare
at code all day, end of story.
3:33
[LAUGH] I'm joking, I do a lot of cool
things besides just coding, sometimes.
3:39
When you're a developer,
3:46
sometimes you can be placed in that
kind of a high stress environment.
3:48
So, to be able to unwind, you just go
have some fun like go go ride a bike,
3:52
go play some pool with somebody or
like ping pong.
3:57
Just go hang out with your
friends like during break.
4:00
And these things are really
beneficial to helping,
4:03
like keep you focused on the goal.
4:08
But when I'm not having fun, I do have
some day to day activities though.
4:11
So, I work on a scrum team.
4:16
Where we have an agile methodology for
just completing a decent,
4:18
planned amount of work and a quick time.
4:24
So the sprint would be like two weeks,
okay?
4:28
And we have standup meetings,
4:30
which is just a daily update about your
progress like, what did you do yesterday?
4:32
What did you do today and
do you have any blockers?
4:37
Is there a way that we can help you?
4:41
And we're having meetings constantly.
4:44
And these meetings could be on how
do we implement a solution for
4:45
this user facing problem or what type
of features are we trying to implement?
4:50
And things of that nature.
4:56
And if anybody's ever used GitHub before,
4:58
then you may be familiar with PR reviews,
also known as pull requests.
5:01
And this is just you paying attention
to what your peers are coding,
5:06
what they're trying to
implement in the code base.
5:11
And you're gonna take a look
at what they have and
5:15
make sure that we could safely merge that
into the code base without any problems.
5:18
So this is one of the main things
I do every day, it's PR reviews.
5:22
And it's very valuable because it helps
you to understand other people's code and
5:27
other areas of code that you
may not have seen before.
5:32
And it's so
critical that you ask questions.
5:36
Ask questions a lot, collaborate with
your peers, they have a wealth of
5:39
knowledge in their head, and
they will share it with you gladly, right?
5:44
And just another thing that I
do on a daily basis is we're
5:48
working to solve problems.
5:52
You should think of coding
almost as like solving puzzles.
5:54
Most of the time, there's something
that will be presented to you and
6:00
you'll have to figure it out.
6:04
And, it's great when you could
collaborate with your team just to
6:06
understand the puzzle as a whole and
6:11
then figure out the individual
pieces on how to form it together.
6:13
And just a quick overview
about what Scrum Agile is,
6:18
because most of you when you
get to a software tech company.
6:24
They'll probably be using Scrum and
Agile methods.
6:31
And Scrum is just a framework for
having meetings with your team,
6:34
you'll have something like
a project manager, product manager.
6:38
You'll have your engineers and
people who actually run the meetings.
6:43
And all of us work together to
describe what is the problem.
6:47
What are we trying to do?
6:53
How will we do it?
6:55
When will it be done?
6:57
And things of that nature.
6:58
And Agile is just a method
of getting things done.
7:00
And we wanna be fast,
that's why it's called agile.
7:07
So, there are also challenges
that you face as a developer.
7:12
There're also solutions.
7:18
So, one thing that you could be
commonly faced with are deadlines.
7:19
We may have this marketing deadline
that we've promised to people.
7:24
We wanna make sure that we meet that so
sometimes,
7:28
you could feel a bit of a time crunch.
7:32
So, prioritization of work becomes
very crucial in that moment.
7:35
Because you don't wanna spend too much
time doing one thing where you could be
7:39
focusing your attention on something else.
7:44
So you wanna make sure you're
divvying up your time fairly well,
7:47
to make sure that you could get
the things done that you need to do.
7:50
And communication is so critical in
the workplace when you work with the team.
7:53
Everybody should be in the loop
about what's going on, you shouldn't
7:59
just be out here just slapping code out
in the app and nobody knows about it.
8:04
So, making sure that you can
effectively communicate what you're
8:09
doing to your team is not only just
appreciated, but it's more than necessary.
8:14
And, I'm sure all of us have
felt like this before, but
8:21
how in the world do I even do this?
8:25
You've given me some tasks I've never
even seen this before, how do I do it?
8:28
You should take on the mindset of, okay,
8:34
I've never done this before, but
I can do it, I definitely can do it.
8:38
It's gonna take me
analyzing the situation,
8:44
trying to run through the code
to see if I can understand it.
8:48
Speaking to people if I
do not understand it.
8:52
And then at some point, after you've
combined these methods together.
8:56
You could end up coming up with the
solution a lot faster than you normally
9:02
would just working by yourself.
9:06
So, if you don't know how to do something,
it's totally fine.
9:07
It's always like,
9:10
not too hard to figure out once you've
just put in some thought process to it.
9:12
And write, write your stuff down,
9:18
it helps out a lot to put your
thoughts in front of you.
9:20
So how do you actually stay relevant?
9:23
You got the job down, but
how do you stay relevant?
9:26
How do you keep growing?
9:29
As a software engineer, I think all of us
would agree that to be in this profession,
9:31
you should always seek
to continue learning.
9:39
Learning is inevitable in this profession.
9:43
And you just have to get used
to not knowing everything, but
9:48
seeking to know the things that you don't,
I hope that makes sense.
9:52
Stay motivated, stay motivated.
9:57
Sometimes I may feel down in the dumps,
but
10:01
I could look to some of the senior
engineers on my team or
10:04
just the people who I helped
to take care of my life.
10:09
I could look to them and
10:13
I could stay motivated just
to continue pushing forward.
10:14
And it helps out a lot to have motivation,
because if you don't have a why,
10:18
behind something,
like what's the point, all right?
10:22
So you should always understand
the why behind anything that you do.
10:26
Asking questions, this is a no brainer,
you, if you think you know everything
10:33
you don't, you should ask questions
to figure out what you don't know.
10:39
It'll be so beneficial to you, I promise.
10:43
I don't really teach people how to code
but I can if they ask me questions.
10:47
And that's the same thing when I asked
other people, I ask them questions so
10:54
they could teach me stuff.
10:57
So it's always a constant exchange of
knowledge as it is really beautiful.
10:58
And look for opportunities to be lazy
like dude, what are you talking about?
11:03
You just told us you work hard,
you ask a lot of questions,
11:10
this that the third,
what are you talking about lazy?
11:13
This is what I mean, if there's something
that's already been implemented before.
11:17
You'd be better off just using that and
11:23
maybe making like a couple tweaks here and
there.
11:25
But you want to be as efficient
as possible by just taking
11:27
what already exists and
just re-implementing it.
11:31
And if you have to reinvent the wheel,
then you do so,
11:34
in a dynamic type of manner.
11:38
So quick example, if I had a function,
it adds two numbers together.
11:40
One way that isn't as very efficient,
I could just do function add.
11:47
And then it'll just take
numbers one plus two equals and
11:53
they'll return the result three.
11:56
It'll do that every time.
11:58
But if you want to be more efficient and
have it reusable over time,
12:00
then you put some parameters
in that function.
12:05
So it's like, we're gonna return
the sum of number one parameter one and
12:08
number two, that you can add anything.
12:14
You've put up the work beforehand, so
you don't really have to do it later.
12:17
That's the gist of lazy coding,
that's the gist of it, in time.
12:26
You just wanna make sure that you
spend your time to really make sure
12:32
that you're spending it the way
that will help you in the future.
12:39
You are what you do in your spare time,
that's the bottom of the line.
12:45
So just make sure that you
really take your time seriously,
12:51
it's one of the most
important resources we have.
12:57
And I saw a question from
someone earlier that said,
13:02
did you ever think about tech as
a career when you were younger?
13:05
It's funny that you mentioned that.
13:09
I actually used to think
I was gonna be a doctor,
13:12
I was gonna be an anaesthesiologist.
13:14
[LAUGH] And
I get into school I didn't even like that,
13:16
I didn't even like that
type of curriculum.
13:19
I knew that wasn't gonna be the life for
me.
13:22
So, you can always change, but
I feel like coding was definitely
13:25
a great opportunity for
me after I started really diving into it.
13:31
Shout out to treehouse for that too.
13:36
I got another question.
13:39
Are most dev jobs strict
in time utilization,
13:41
like taking breaks, time tracking, etc.
13:46
I can't speak for every organization,
but I know that where I am,
13:52
things are a bit less strict.
13:57
And some of my colleagues,
they work in places like Microsoft, and
13:59
they're not super strict on time or
anything.
14:03
It's more of can you do work?
14:06
Can you get it done in
a reasonable amount of time.
14:08
And, if you can do that, you go do
whatever you want, it's not a big deal.
14:14
Just make sure you're
around to be spoken to.
14:19
But wow, I just wanna say I feel so
14:23
blessed to be able to
speak to you all today.
14:26
I hope what I've said that hopefully
just stick with you in the future.
14:29
I'm about to log off right now, but
14:35
much love to you all I
appreciate you very much.
14:37
Thank you for listening.
14:40
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