From 0 to Eng: Career Growth Tips with Kiel Lewis

[MUSIC] 0:00 Hello everybody we're about to get started on our next session and 0:05 I couldn't be more excited about this. 0:11 Our next speaker is someone that I have so much respect for 0:15 that his photo is literally on my wall. 0:18 I think you'll see, Mr. Kyle Lewis right here. 0:21 [LAUGH] I can't wait for you all to hear from him and learn from him. 0:24 He has just his story so inspiring to me and just honored to to know him. 0:29 So, let me tell you all about him. 0:37 His name is Kyle Lewis. 0:39 He is a software engineer at Mailchimp. 0:40 Kyle was a part of the original Treehouse TalentPath Apprenticeship program. 0:44 Though he had no prior technical or coding experience he has been able to thrive at 0:48 Mailchimp and has recently been promoted to engineer level 2, woo. 0:53 One passionate Kyle's is giving back to others through mentorship or 0:58 teaching, he loves helping others work towards their goals and dreams. 1:02 Everybody I wanna welcome up Kyle. 1:07 >> First and foremost, I just wanna thank everyone for 1:09 coming out to Treehouse Festival today. 1:12 My name is Kyle Lewis and this is from 0 to Eng Career Growth Tips. 1:13 So before we get started, I just kinda wanna give everyone a little background of 1:21 who I am, how I got into the industry. 1:26 What kinda led me to get here. 1:28 And in the meantime, you can kinda read some of these fun facts about me. 1:29 So I wasn't always a software engineer. 1:33 In fact, I wasn't always even in tech. 1:36 Around 2018 I was self-employed. 1:39 Working for myself as an athletic trainer down in Florida doing what I loved, 1:42 teaching youth how to play basketball. 1:48 But unfortunately I wasn't able to make strides in my life or 1:51 in my career that I felt were necessary to help take my family to the next level. 1:56 So around that time I started actively looking for new opportunities, new ways 2:03 to grow, and kinda push myself to be at a different level than I was currently. 2:08 And a friend of mine actually just completed a boot 2:13 camp a few months ago talked to me and said, 2:16 hey, this is something that I think you'll be interested in. 2:19 You should kinda give it a try. 2:24 You kinda have the mind that for people that do software engineering. 2:25 And I said, well, I'm not really sure, 2:29 the only things I knew about software engineering were what I seen on TV. 2:32 So I thought you needed to know a lot of math or you needed to have a computer 2:37 science degree and it couldn't have been further from the truth. 2:42 So he introduced me to Treehouse, I enrolled in the full stack tech degree. 2:47 I believe I started somewhere towards the latter part of 2018. 2:53 Around a year went by, I completed my tech degree and 2:57 I was knocking on the door at Mailchimp. 3:00 And after a year at Mailchimp, I've gone from an Eng 1 to now Eng 2. 3:02 And so this presentation is really just geared at teaching you guys how to 3:08 take some of the things that I learned in my career and apply those in your journey. 3:13 And some of these things will be things that I learned, 3:19 some of these things are things that I picked up on the way. 3:21 But I think all of them can be valuable resources and 3:24 tips for you in your career as you take on this tech journey. 3:28 So just starting out, these are things that I wish I knew or learned along 3:32 the way or just some of the state of mind that I had going through this journey. 3:37 The biggest thing I wanna tell you about is commitment. 3:42 Please make no mistake, this is a commitment, 3:47 you are essentially learning a minimum of one, maybe even more new languages. 3:50 You're going to have to be committed in order to be successful. 3:55 Otherwise this is going to be nothing but a huge, frustrating waste of time. 3:59 So the moment you decide you wanna be an engineer, 4:05 there's several commitments you need to make. 4:07 The big board for me were yourself or your loved ones, 4:09 your time, resources, and your energy. 4:13 You need to make this commitment to your family that you won't 4:16 stop until their lives are impacted for the better. 4:20 And speaking from, [LAUGH] experience it really does. 4:24 You're gonna have to commit time. 4:29 This means that you're gonna miss some events, some gatherings, 4:30 safe to say COVID kinda remove that temptation for a lot of us, but 4:35 you may have to get up early and stay up late to solidify new ideas, new concepts. 4:40 And there's some good news to this is you can work at your own pace without 4:46 deadlines. 4:49 And the bad news is you can work at your own pace without deadlines. 4:50 So in order to make your commitment stronger, I kind of suggest adding self 4:55 imposed deadlines and checkpoints to kinda hold yourself accountable. 5:00 And this will ultimately help you be more successful in the long run. 5:04 And then lastly, I just wanna talk about the financial aspect. 5:07 You've got to commit resources. 5:13 And in a time like this resources can be scarce. 5:15 So please, please don't let money go to waste. 5:18 Let your financial resources be deceived that leads to your development 5:21 as an engineer. 5:26 And ultimately yield the tree of wealth and prosperity. 5:27 So, the first thing I wanna talk about is goal setting. 5:30 Some of us may be familiar with goal setting, some of us may not. 5:36 The acronym for a good goal is is it SMART? 5:40 So S-M-A-R-T. 5:43 And SMART just stands for specific, measurable, 5:45 achievable, relevant, and time bound. 5:49 Those are the five aspects of a good goal. 5:52 And I just wanna run down some questions that you wanna kinda check for 5:55 yourself when setting your goal. 5:59 So when we're trying to see if our goal is specific, right? 6:01 We wanna see what is it I'm trying to do? 6:04 Why is this goal important? 6:07 Who is involved? 6:09 Where is it located? 6:10 Which resources or limits are involved as well? 6:11 When talking about is a goal measurable, we wanna ask these questions like, 6:15 how many? 6:20 How much? 6:21 How will I know when it's accomplished? 6:23 These are all good questions to ask to check if your goal is measurable. 6:25 When talking about the achievable aspect, we wanna usually ask, 6:29 how can I accomplish this goal? 6:33 How realistic is this goal based on other things? 6:35 Then we wanna discuss, is it relevant? 6:39 Does this goal seem worthwhile? 6:42 Is this the right time? 6:45 And then lastly, we wanna ask ourselves is it time bound? 6:47 We wanna know when will it be done? 6:50 What can I do six months from now? 6:53 What can I do six weeks from now? 6:55 What can I do today? 6:57 These are all very important when setting a goal. 6:59 And the smarter your goal is, the more effective it'll be. 7:03 And the more likely we'll be in achieving the goal. 7:07 So this may seem pretty straightforward but 7:11 note taking is very crucial to your journey starting out. 7:14 You're not going to be able to remember everything. 7:19 You're probably not gonna remember half of it when you first go through it. 7:22 So the biggest thing you wanna do is take notes. 7:25 And organization is very key. 7:28 Organized means taking notes actually helps with the syntax and the vocabulary. 7:31 So I'm a big fan of note taking. 7:35 And I'm also a big fan of using Google Sheets to take those notes. 7:38 I think that helps me to stay organized. 7:42 But there's so many other nice note taking apps that you can choose from whatever you 7:44 know you feel most comfortable with. 7:49 When you take your notes, the first 24 hours are absolutely crucial. 7:51 Studies have shown there's a 70% increase in 7:56 retention when going over your notes in the first 24 hours. 8:00 So, once you take those notes, definitely take the time to go through immediately. 8:04 Don't put it off till later cuz you most likely will look already lost your biggest 8:08 window to remember those things. 8:13 Studies have also shown that handwritten notes are also shown to be the most 8:15 effective at retention. 8:19 So, for me, I suggested note taking flow would absolutely be handwriting 8:20 those notes, for the first step to make sure that we retain as much as we can. 8:26 Then go over those notes to increase our retention. 8:31 And then finally digitize those notes for organization and 8:34 a final pass over of your notes. 8:37 Practice makes perfect, wrong, like practice makes better. 8:39 No one's gonna be perfect especially not in this industry. 8:45 So, practice makes you better. 8:48 And the goal with practice is to be as intentional and as deliberate as possible. 8:50 Be critical of yourself when practicing, right? 8:55 Don't let yourself slide, hold yourself accountable, and be honest because those 8:58 are ultimately what are gonna make you better in the long run. 9:02 It may require more effort and work upfront but 9:06 it will make the journey a lot smoother on the back end. 9:08 Practice greatly increases your likelihood to remember new information. 9:12 So practicing this, like practice solving problems, 9:16 the things that you'll see on Treehouse, those help you to increase your ability to 9:19 transfer those practice skills to new and more complex problems. 9:24 So we wanna do these things, we don't wanna skip the practice problems because 9:28 these are actually gonna make us better for what we face in the real world. 9:33 Focus on areas that you just learned because this is gonna help 9:37 you to retain this information better. 9:41 My biggest suggestion or something that I like to do was create your own problems. 9:46 I created problems for myself when I would go over stuff. 9:53 I am a huge basketball fan, so I built a stat tracker for my favorite NBA players. 9:54 Doing things that interest you will ultimately help you to 9:59 become more passionate about what you're working on. 10:02 And then lastly, we wanna work in practice because it helps us with automaticity. 10:05 And automaticity is just the more we do something, 10:11 the more our brains kind of auto pilot it, and so we've become so 10:15 good at it that we don't need to require as much mental strain to do it. 10:19 And then that allows us to kind of free up mental capacity to do more complex, 10:24 bigger, and challenging problems. 10:29 And then I just wanna leave you with this quote from Tim Duncan, good, better, best, 10:32 never let it rest until you're good is better and your better is best. 10:36 I think that applies so well when we talk about practice. 10:41 So the biggest thing here is like you can't learn everything in this industry. 10:47 It's crazy, there's gonna be so much coming at you from the moment you start, 10:51 that I developed a rule of three in my journey. 10:55 And I think that this is something that a lot of early devs 10:57 should probably take on in their journey. 11:02 There's gonna be so many terms, so many concepts, and 11:05 new thoughts that you're not going to be able to remember them all, you're not 11:08 gonna be able to take notes and retain that information as much as possible. 11:12 So I wanna let you know, 11:17 just focus on the things that kind of seem to keep popping up. 11:18 Like if you hear it more than three times or three or 11:22 more times, it's probably important for where you are currently in your journey. 11:25 I'm not saying that the other information is not important. 11:30 But the things you hear the most are probably what's important for 11:33 where you are at this point in time in your journey. 11:36 And you can kind of allow the other things to fall by the wayside or 11:38 be forgotten to be revisited later on once you get there. 11:43 I think this is very important. 11:47 Like say you're a new engine, you're just starting out, 11:49 the most important things are learning the fundamentals. 11:51 What is a variable? 11:54 How do I create a loop? 11:56 What is a function? 11:59 These are very important things for new devs, as you progress, 12:00 learning things like maybe data structures or algorithms or recursion, 12:03 like those are things that you can learn later in your journey. 12:08 So if you hear it early on, you can kinda just put it to the wayside, 12:11 know that you'll revisit it later and it'll be easier for 12:15 you to focus on the things that are most important. 12:18 I wanna tell you that these are some of the things that I thought engineers should 12:22 learn sooner than later. 12:27 And I kinda crowdsourced this information from some of my other dev friends. 12:28 And I thought, what are some things that we wish we knew? 12:34 Just starting out, right? 12:38 For me, I think the biggest thing was becoming familiar with GitHub. 12:39 For another engineer and it was debugging, like these things are crucial. 12:44 Once you get on the job site, GitHub is important. 12:49 GitHub Git utilizing the terminal, 12:52 the terminal those three things go hand in hand. 12:54 You're gonna have to use those things day in and day out on the job debugging, 12:57 you're gonna have to do that day in and day out. 13:01 Once you find bugs in your code or you run into errors, 13:03 debugging is going to speed up your ability to solve or find those errors. 13:07 So You want to work on these things sooner than later. 13:13 I know for a fact me personally, I put debugging on the back burner and 13:16 that wish I hadn't. 13:19 But at the time, it just, it didn't seem relevant and 13:21 I just didn't quite understand. 13:24 How to operate, you know, debugging tools. 13:26 But once I got on the job site and I had someone to kind of help me 13:29 learn how to debug properly, it changed the way that I that I coded. 13:32 So these are some things that I think early dev should definitely take the time 13:36 to learn and another one is a firm understanding of Op Op principles and 13:41 What OOP principles are is just object oriented principles. 13:46 If you're not familiar with them, the four principles are obstruction, 13:51 polymorphism, inheritance and encapsulation. 13:55 So if this is something that you need to know, definitely take the time and 13:58 energy to focus on it sooner than later. 14:03 You don't wanna have to go and revisit these things. 14:06 Once you get on the job site. 14:08 So here are some things that I think would be valuable during your journey. 14:11 These are things that I think engineers should do a lot more once they 14:16 get on site. 14:20 A big thing is to feed off of feedback. 14:22 For us as engineers feedback is data. 14:25 Feedback is direct insight to where you are and 14:28 where you stand with those your peers and your your managers. 14:31 This allows us to work towards improving our negatives while continuing to display 14:35 our positives. 14:40 seeking feedback is only going to make you a better engineer and 14:42 we just have to be open to constructive criticisms. 14:45 I ask that you seek feedback for people that are currently in roles that 14:48 you're in, or roles that you want to be in. 14:53 Because this will allow you to know what skill sets you need. 14:56 And you can begin working on those sooner than later. 15:00 I know not everyone will be comfortable seeking out feedback. 15:03 So my suggestion is to utilize Google Forms. 15:07 To solicit anonymous feedback from, from sorry, from your peers, and 15:11 your managers and this will kinda help you to become more comfortable but 15:15 this will also allow them to feel more comfortable giving you unbiased feedback. 15:19 The big thing here, this is a major key, right? 15:27 Mentorship and 15:29 I'm pretty sure this came up in some of the other discussions already this week. 15:30 But mentorship is key. 15:35 This is our rule of three right here in play. 15:37 Mentorship is key. 15:40 This is something that I think every engineer should actively seek, 15:41 both In their development, and when they get on job site, 15:45 these are your mentors like great human resource. 15:49 This person will be able to help you overcome, you know, 15:53 challenges whether they be technical, personal, or career. 15:56 These are people that you can kind of lean on for advice and 16:00 they can kind of help you open your eyes. 16:03 To maybe new and different career paths that you may not have thought about. 16:05 They provide tremendous value. 16:10 They're gonna speed up your learning curve, and ultimately help you to be more 16:12 successful because a good mentor, their goal is to help you to succeed. 16:17 But I also say it goes both ways. 16:21 Not only seek being a mentor, but Actively looking to mentor someone else, 16:24 because there's going to be other people that are coming behind you 16:29 starting you know at zero and don't want to help lead them and guide them. 16:34 And being a mentor actually helps you as well. 16:39 Because if you're mentoring somebody, then you get a chance to revisit material, 16:42 you get the chance to solidify it and 16:46 being a teacher ultimately makes you a better engineer. 16:48 So, I suggest not only trying to find a mentor But trying to mentor others and 16:51 give back and share that knowledge that you've learned to help speed up 16:56 someone else's learning curve and help them to change their life. 17:01 This one closed mouths don't get fed, right? 17:08 All I'm saying here is ask questions. 17:11 Please ask questions. 17:14 This is a job where it is encouraged. 17:15 You are encouraged to ask questions. 17:17 Do not be afraid. 17:19 I do have some do's and don'ts about asking questions that I picked up along 17:20 the way either things that I was doing and figured out what I needed to change or 17:24 things that I've seen, 17:29 that were more effective in getting the result that people want it. 17:30 So, when you ask questions, definitely ask questions to seek clarification. 17:35 Be specific when asking these questions. 17:39 And before asking questions, utilize all the resources that are available to you. 17:42 And if you don't have any resources or you're not aware of what resources 17:47 are available to you, I'll give you a list of resources right now. 17:50 Some of those resources are Google MDN Stack Overflow, 17:54 W three schools, job resources. 17:59 So once you get on site job resources, or squad engineers, or 18:02 feature owning engineers, these last three or more so for once you're on site. 18:06 And then some tips on how to ask questions. 18:13 Like do not just say I need help. 18:16 You can't expect someone to kind of just help you and 18:18 you don't give them any kind of background as to what it is you're working on or 18:22 how to assist you in the best way possible. 18:27 You want to. 18:30 Let people know what you're doing and how they can help you. 18:31 So, when you do ask questions, ask these questions to gain a deeper understanding. 18:34 Ask to find out about use cases, situations, 18:39 why one method is better than the other. 18:43 Tell engineers where you're stuck or tell other people where you're stuck and 18:46 What the objective is, what you've tried and the outcomes of those of what you've 18:51 tried, and then finally use precise terminology. 18:56 So this really comes down to how good is your vocabulary. 19:00 The more you know the terms, the more accurately you'll be able to convey What 19:04 it is that you're trying to ask and this will ultimately help the other people to 19:08 get up to speed and assist you in a much quicker manner. 19:13 Our achievements, I suggest having an achievements dock right. 19:20 The achievements dock is. 19:24 Just a document that you list out, screenshots or 19:27 praises that you've received from managers, team leads, other engineers etc. 19:30 The reason I say have this document is both for personal and career reasons. 19:35 You want to have this doc for personal reasons, 19:41 because this job is kind of up and down Sometimes you're going to feel like you're 19:44 the best engineer there is other times you're going to feel kind of inadequate. 19:49 Like you don't measure up. 19:53 So. 19:55 Having this document is kind of a good way to ground yourself and bring you back 19:56 to that middle ground where you're like, yes, I've accomplished things. 20:00 I'm an accomplished engineer, I can do these things and 20:04 here's a list of what I've done so far. 20:07 And these are things that I'm good at. 20:10 But on the flip side, you also need it for a career reasons. 20:12 You want to be able to accurately tell your managers, 20:15 I've done this, this, and this. 20:20 And this is a reason why I deserve a promotion or a bonus or a pay raise. 20:22 At the end of the day, when it comes to those three things, 20:29 you may have to be your biggest advocate. 20:32 And these achievements doc will ultimately be something that you 20:34 can point to quickly and accurately and say, hey, I've done X, Y and Z. 20:38 I've worked on this feature, I've accomplished this and 20:43 these are the reasons why I feel I deserve a promotion, a pay raise or a bonus. 20:47 And keeping track of this will make it a lot easier to refer to those things when 20:53 that time comes. 20:57 And ultimately this will only help you in your long run. 20:59 [LAUGH] So, yeah this next slide may not be well received. 21:05 In our industry, we hear about it a lot and 21:09 I'm kind of playing devil's advocate here. 21:13 But I think it's something that needs to be said early on in your journey so 21:17 that you don't use this as a crutch. 21:23 And so I'm just going to say it. 21:26 Imposter syndrome is an illusion. 21:28 Some people may agree some, people may disagree. 21:32 The reality though is perception does not always equal reality. 21:35 Just to kind of give you a personal experience. 21:39 When I got on the job site, I felt like I wasn't doing everything that I could, or 21:43 my work wasn't up to par with some of the other engineers who had come in with me. 21:48 And this really played a big factor on how I felt in the workplace and 21:54 how I perceived my work and how I felt others perceived my work. 21:59 But the reality couldn't have been further from the truth. 22:04 My managers, my team leads, and my squad engineers, they all felt that 22:07 I was exemplifying just what I needed to do from an engineer standpoint and more. 22:12 And so coming in, people will tell you, imposter syndrome is real. 22:18 Be on the lookout for imposter syndrome. 22:22 But the reality a lot of times is very much the opposite. 22:25 What's really happening is we are uncomfortable. 22:28 We're in a situation that's new and foreign to us and so this creates doubts. 22:32 We're also showing people what we've worked on and 22:37 sometimes we can be self conscious of the things we're working on. 22:40 The reality is our mind is lying, and 22:43 it's trying to find ways to kind of psych you out. 22:46 So don't compare yourself or your journey to anyone else's. 22:49 You don't know how they arrived there. 22:53 They don't know how you arrived there. 22:54 The reality I mean, the main focus is that you are all there and 22:56 you're all working towards one common goal. 22:59 Just become good at recognizing these feelings and 23:01 these thoughts when they're creeping in. 23:04 And then you can kind of go back and refer to that achievements doc that I mentioned, 23:06 to kind of ground yourself back in reality and 23:10 help you remember that you are an accomplished engineer. 23:13 And these are some of the things that you've been successful with. 23:16 I just wanna share with you this slide 0.5% of the world. 23:19 You may not know this, but you're already in a rare group. 23:25 As of 2016, 23:28 this was the estimated percentage of people that knew how to code in the world. 23:29 Not just the US, not just your country, the world. 23:35 So don't forget that you know more than 99.5% of the world. 23:40 Do not let imposter syndrome creep in and take that away from you. 23:45 Just push through those doubts, cast them aside, and continue to hone your craft. 23:49 Don't let your mind talk you out of what you want. 23:54 And then lastly, I just wanna share some resources with you all that I picked up 23:58 along the way that I think will be helpful in your journey. 24:03 So there are several resources here. 24:08 On the left side, there's things that I think are useful for 24:09 the devs when they're learning either in their journey or as they're progressing. 24:14 And then on the right side, I think these are things that people will 24:20 think are useful for when they're looking for an interview. 24:23 These are ways to prepare for interviews. 24:27 So on the left side you have Flexbox Froggy and Flexbox Zombies. 24:29 I've done both of them. 24:33 When you're doing front end work or CSS work, these are crucial. 24:35 I think at this time right now, Flexbox and 24:40 Grid are actually the most used for front end layouts. 24:44 So learning Flexbox either through Flexbox Zombies or 24:48 Flexbox Froggy is crucial and they're both free resources. 24:52 Code sandbox is also pretty awesome because when you wanna build something 24:56 quickly but you don't wanna have to go through the work of setting it up. 25:01 You can just rely on code sandbox to create like this virtual dev and 25:05 you can create things much quicker and much simpler with just having to write 25:09 the code and not having to worry about all the extra stuff. 25:13 For people that are trying to learn how to use their terminal or 25:17 getting more accustomed to using Git, there's Explain shell and Shit Git. 25:21 Both of these break it down so that it's a lot easier for 25:27 you to understand what the sometimes vague commands can mean, and 25:31 they show you how to put those together and utilize those. 25:36 Also, there's You Don't Know JS or YDKJS. 25:41 This is a series by Kyle Simpson on JavaScript. 25:44 So anyone that's doing JavaScript, you can go to his GitHub there. 25:48 And it has all the books for free and you can read through those and 25:52 kind of use those to kind of coincide with your tech degree or 25:56 whatever it is you're learning through Treehouse. 25:59 If you're learning JavaScript, these are good books to kind of use and 26:03 refer to whenever you have questions. 26:06 On the right side, we have Pramp. 26:09 Pramp is a interviewing platform where it's kind of cool. 26:11 You schedule an interview session with someone else and 26:16 I think Pramp provides the questions for you. 26:20 And you each kind of take turns interviewing each other. 26:24 And at the end, you kind of let the other person know how they did, 26:26 where they can improve on. 26:30 I think it's pretty cool. 26:32 It changes the way that you prepare for interviews and it kind of gets you used 26:33 to speaking to someone face to face or now screen to screen. 26:37 But then you have LeetCode and CodeWars, both of these are pretty much the same. 26:41 They're both free. 26:45 I believe they both have paid tiers if you want to pay for them, but 26:46 you can start with the free tier early on. 26:50 They both give you problems from a range of easy to hard, 26:53 and the more you do them, you'll find the easier they get. 26:57 But they are very good resources when preparing for an interview. 27:02 And then lastly, there's InterviewCake. 27:06 This one was actually told to me by a fellow dev who just landed a role at 27:08 Netflix. 27:13 I personally have not used this one. 27:14 This one is a paid service. 27:16 But if you're getting ready for an interview and you wanna kind of get ready 27:18 for that next level and you feel like paying for something. 27:22 InterviewCake I hear is a very good resource to use when getting 27:25 ready for jobs. 27:29 And with that, this concludes from 0 to Eng career growth tips. 27:31 I just want to thank everyone for taking the time to be here with me today and 27:35 I look forward to hearing and answering any questions. 27:39 I'm hoping to find a junior front end developer role next year. 27:44 The idea of applying for junior roles seems so daunting. 27:47 Any tips on how to approach the job search? 27:51 Yeah, when getting ready for a job search as a junior eng, 27:56 please the first thing is don't psych yourself up. 27:59 If you feel ready to search for a job, then you're ready. 28:02 But try to take a couple months to go to some of these resources that I mentioned 28:05 either Pramp, LeetCode, CodeWars, maybe even InterviewCake. 28:11 And get familiar with going through the problems because that is 28:16 ultimately a big portion of the interview process. 28:20 Some jobs are gonna wanna know if you fit the culture, 28:25 that's another task in itself. 28:28 But understanding how to do the technical part is usually where I hear a lot of 28:30 engineers fail. 28:34 So take a month or two to really go through those technical problems, 28:35 get comfortable going through them. 28:39 And once you're comfortable, just reach out to companies, apply for every role. 28:42 Worst case scenario is you gain more experience going through the technical 28:47 interview process or the interviewing process in general. 28:50 And best case scenario, you're gonna have some offers lined up and 28:54 you can kind of weed through those and decide which ones are a best fit for you. 28:58 From Jason, do you need to be comfortable using command line with Git or 29:02 is knowing how to use GitHub enough? 29:06 That's a tough question. 29:11 I think either one is fine, but when you get on the job site, you may need to have 29:13 more familiarity with Git, because you're going to have to do things like rebasing. 29:18 You're gonna have to do things like pushing and pulling branches to and 29:23 from GitHub. 29:28 So you wanna have some experience going into it. 29:28 Personally, I had very little and 29:31 so Git terminology and Git commands, they can get kind of confusing. 29:34 Because they can very vague and another tip is kind of develop aliases. 29:38 If you're not familiar what aliases are, google those. 29:45 Those can kind of make using Git commands a little bit easier in your terminal. 29:47 So yeah, I would say just know both of them or be familiar with both of them. 29:52 Because your goal is gonna ultimately be to push and pull from GitHub, 29:57 pull down other engineers' branches to review their PRs. 30:02 And you wanna be able to do those as seamlessly as possible. 30:06 From Mohammed, how do I find a good mentor? 30:11 That's a good question. 30:14 Mentors, well, there's one thing that I would suggest which we 30:15 can't do anymore would be meetup. 30:20 That would be a good way to meet people. 30:23 But since COVID, it's kind of hard to meet people in person. 30:25 Another suggestion would be used platforms like Twitter or Reddit. 30:29 You can actively find people. 30:35 There's literally a forum on Reddit for people that are looking to either be 30:36 mentored or mentor people in software engineering. 30:41 So I think Reddit is a good place to start. 30:45 You can actively find other people in the tech industry on Twitter, 30:47 that's a good place to look. 30:51 I think the biggest thing is to find someone that is doing what you wanna do, 30:52 reach out to them, let them know that you admire what they're doing, 30:57 that you're interested in getting to where they are. 31:02 And you'll find a lot of times that people are really more than willing to help other 31:06 people succeed. 31:10 Whether it be passing down resources or passing down the knowledge that they have, 31:11 because ultimately we just wanna see more people get into their industry. 31:15 From Janell, and I'm sorry if I mispronounced that. 31:22 But was Treehouse the only resource you use to land your dev job? 31:26 No, I utilized a lot of things. 31:31 So I'm the type of person that I like to revisit material over and over. 31:34 So if I landed on Treehouse, I would then go through freeCodeCamp, 31:40 like I kind of juggled going back and forth between Treehouse and freeCodeCamp. 31:44 Because I felt like if I did it on Treehouse, 31:49 they would have the information but in a different way on freeCodeCamp. 31:52 And so going through both of those really helped me. 31:57 What else did I use? 32:01 I purchased like a web dev course and went through that. 32:02 I just kind of got as much information from as many different people as possible, 32:07 because I felt the more that I saw the information, the quicker I would absorb 32:12 the information and become familiar with terms and things of that nature. 32:17 So you don't have to only use Treehouse. 32:22 It's kind of like your life development, 32:25 like when you're growing up you you receive input from so 32:28 many different people that help inspire you and make you the person that you are. 32:31 I think the same thing can be done with your tech journey, 32:36 is just take in as much information, good information 32:41 from as many different good resources as possible. 32:46 From Quinn, what are the best tips for those who are on the self-taught route? 32:51 Self-taught route, I think the biggest tip I can give to someone who is 32:57 self-teaching is you've got to hold yourself accountable, right? 33:02 There's no one to kind of be there to provide oversight, 33:07 to stay on you to make sure that you've done x, y, and z. 33:11 So you have got to stay on yourself. 33:16 You've got to lay out a game plan and 33:18 a strategy on how you're gonna attack your growth. 33:21 You wanna make sure that you know where you wanna be in one month, 33:25 you know where you wanna be in one year. 33:30 And you just kinda wanna take it one day at a time, one week at a time, but 33:32 continuously check and make sure that you're progressing to your liking. 33:37 And so stay on top of yourself and hold yourself accountable. 33:43 I think that's the biggest thing for someone that's self-taught. 33:47 From Shara, how long did it take for 33:52 JavaScript fundamentals to feel automatic for you? 33:54 How many hours a day did you typically practice coding during that time? 33:58 I'm so what's this? 34:03 2020, so it's been two years now, I still don't feel like they're automatic. 34:04 Some things are like creating a function or variable, the very fundamentals, 34:09 but things like syntax sometimes still slipped my mind each and every day. 34:14 And then I get them crossed with React cuz that's something that I'm 34:19 currently learning is React, and so I can kinda criss-cross syntax there. 34:23 But I practiced during my initial journey to get to a job site, 34:27 I practiced every day from 7 to 12 or 8 to 12, 34:33 depending on the day and what my family had to do. 34:37 But I practice probably four to five hours everyday, 34:42 because I did have the time to do it. 34:47 And so I took that time and I really just focused and 34:51 used that time until my brain just felt like it was on overload. 34:54 And after it was on overload I stepped away. 34:57 So I think practicing a lot is a good thing. 35:00 But also knowing when to step away is also just as important because our brains, 35:03 like I said, can only handle so much. 35:07 And you have to kind of step away and 35:09 allow that information to really just be digested mentally. 35:11 And then you can kinda come back the next day and you'll see that it's sunk in and 35:14 you know more than you thought you knew when you went to sleep. 35:18 For Madeline, what NBA team do you cheer for? 35:23 Haha, that's a good question. 35:26 I cheer for the Lakers, but not because I'm a Laker fan, because I'm a LeBron fan. 35:28 I've been a LeBron fan for a long time. 35:34 If I had to pick an actual team, it would be the Bulls, and 35:36 that's because I grew up watching Jordan. 35:41 From Yusuf, how can one best prepare for 35:45 a take-home quiz questions before interviewing? 35:48 Honestly, Yusuf, I'm gonna say I do not know the answer to that question. 35:53 I've never actually had the opportunity to do take home quizzes. 35:58 So my biggest advice again would just be go through Prem, Vcode, and 36:03 Codeverse, and just get familiar with receiving these technical questions. 36:08 I assume if you're doing it at home, they're gonna give you a certain amount of 36:14 time to go over the material and to show that you know what it is they're asking. 36:18 But I can't give you a great answer on that because I've personally never 36:23 done it. 36:28 And I do apologize. 36:29 From Jesus, as a new dev, how can one be more of an asset within a team? 36:32 And again, what's your favorite NBA team? 36:39 I did answer that one. 36:41 But how can you be more of an asset within the team? 36:42 Starting out, I think the biggest things you can do are actively ask questions 36:46 when you don't understand, 36:50 because the faster you get up to speed the faster you're able to help the team. 36:52 Go through PRs, because helping to improve PRs 36:57 helps other devs move through their work faster. 37:02 What else do I think you can do to become an asset? 37:09 Just work on your tickets or your code. 37:12 And don't be afraid to reach out when you get stuck. 37:15 It's okay to get stuck when you're just starting out. 37:19 They're expecting you to need help. 37:21 So don't be afraid to ask for it because as long as you get the work done in 37:24 a timely manner, that's what they wanna see. 37:28 They don't want you to hide that you're stuck because ultimately that's 37:31 gonna delay how much you get done, and that's going to set back yourself. 37:36 But not only yourself is gonna set back the team. 37:41 From Kenny, what tips do you have for 37:47 an aspiring freelance full-stack developer? 37:50 Tips, let's see, for a full-stack developer, 37:55 if you're doing freelance, right? 37:58 My biggest tip would be put yourself out there, offer to do work for 38:00 as many people as you can. 38:05 Starting out, you may not command the top dollar, but 38:08 every time you do a project every time you do work, you're gaining experience. 38:11 And you wanna put yourself in as many places to gain experience as possible. 38:16 The more experience you get, ultimately will lead to how much you'll be able to 38:20 command, how much dollar you'll be able to command. 38:24 So gaining experience is crucial for 38:27 you as a freelance developer if that's your goal. 38:29 Put yourself out there, offer to do work maybe for free like some family, but 38:32 for others offer to do it for a discount or 38:37 lower than what your imagined rate would be. 38:40 Your goal right now is just to secure as much work as possible, 38:43 to gain as much experience as possible. 38:46 And then when you look back, you'll have a portfolio or 38:48 a body of work that you can kinda point to when other people inquire about your work. 38:51 And then you can say, okay, I've done x, y, and z, I know this stack, 38:56 I know this stack, I'm familiar with this language, and I can create this. 39:00 So it's gonna cost you about this much. 39:05 Do you have any recommendations for how or where to organize your achievements? 39:10 This comes back to Google, Google Docs, I try to house as much as I can in Google. 39:15 They make it easy, every document, every slide, every sheet that I do, 39:21 I try to put it in Google because it's an easy to refer to source. 39:26 And so I go back there and I can look at my achievements readily, 39:30 I can share them easily from my computer to my manager's computer. 39:34 I can easily share them with someone else and let them know like here, this is what 39:39 I'm doing, this is something that I think you should probably put together. 39:44 So I tried to use Google as much as possible. 39:49 It just makes it super easy to share information. 39:51 Do you feel like you still need to practice outside work to keep your 39:56 skills up? 40:00 Absolutely, I don't stop practicing. 40:01 I wake up, even right now, I'm on vacation. 40:03 And I wake up in the morning, and I'm working on Epic React, 40:06 and I'm working on Frontend Masters. 40:10 Those are two programs that I'm working on, because personally, 40:13 I want to get better on my frontend work. 40:17 And I wanna get better in React, because both of those areas really excite me, 40:19 and I like the work that I do there. 40:25 So I haven't stopped working since, [COUGH], excuse me, I haven't stopped 40:27 working since the day that I wrote my first hello world in April 2018. 40:32 How do you suggest digitizing our notes? 40:37 I mean, if you can scan them, that's a great way. 40:40 If you have an iPhone, write them out and then scan them, 40:43 that's a nice little shortcut. 40:46 But at the end of the day, going over them one more time doesn't hurt, 40:49 it only helps you. 40:53 So if you write them out, then make a Google Docs sheet, and 40:55 really organize them. 40:57 Cuz sometimes, when we write stuff out, we're writing frantically, 40:58 and we don't have it as clear or as laid out as we possibly could. 41:03 Just take the time when you make your Google Docs to 41:07 really lay it out as neatly as possible. 41:12 You can use a highlighter to highlight things you think are more important. 41:16 So, yeah, that's how I would digitize notes, and that's how I digitize them. 41:18 From Ariel, for you personally, when did you feel ready to apply for jobs? 41:25 Was there a milestone you set or wanted to hit before you started applying? 41:28 So my route was a little bit different. 41:35 I didn't have to go the traditional route. 41:38 I went through Treehouse, but 41:41 I went through a tech degree program that kinda placed me at Mailchimp. 41:43 And I had an unorthodox interview, my interview was three months long. 41:47 But even then, I still didn't feel ready when I arrived. 41:52 I don't think you're ever gonna feel truly ready. 41:56 Once you've done your tech degree, once you've done projects, and 42:00 I think once you complete your tech degree, continue to work on projects. 42:04 Don't think, hey, I'm done with my tech degree, 42:07 I'm done 9 to 11 projects and I'm good. 42:11 No, continue to work on projects, continue to actively seek other things to build. 42:14 Because these are gonna be things that you can show potential employers. 42:20 And they're gonna wanna see what it is you have on your GitHub that you're working on 42:24 currently, or what you've completed. 42:29 And you're gonna wanna be able to show those things as quickly as possible and 42:31 say, hey, I was just doing this last week, not last month. 42:35 So I'm ready to get on the work site and produce. 42:38 So, yeah, I don't think you'll ever feel truly ready. 42:44 But you just have to kinda put yourself out there and apply. 42:46 And receive the feedback that you get from those employers, and 42:53 use that to decide what you need to continue to work on, or if you're ready. 42:57 And you just, maybe you missed it by a little bit, and 43:03 you just need to tweak one or two things. 43:06 Do you use coding personally, if so, and how? 43:12 No, everything that I code right now, so right now I code stuff for my job. 43:16 But when I code in my spare time, I don't really write programs. 43:20 I'm a father, I have three children running around. 43:25 So sometimes I find it hard to just sit down and 43:28 write programs that I think would be awesome to use, or find something to do. 43:30 I usually crank out little small things using CodeSandbox. 43:35 I wrote a Poke-index for Pokemon, just because I remember, 43:40 I used to like Pokemon, my children love Pokemon. 43:44 So I was like, why not make a little Poke-index for them? 43:47 But for the most part, I don't usually code anything for my daily. 43:51 I do want to learn Python, so I can make one of those smart mirrors, or 43:56 is that Raspberry Pi? 44:00 I think that might actually be Raspberry Pi. 44:02 But I wanna make one of those smart mirrors, 44:04 that is on my list of things to do. 44:06 So hopefully, when I get some free time to build one of those, I can. 44:08 From Adriana, which tech degree program did you do? 44:14 I went through a full-stack JavaScript tech degree. 44:16 Patrick, do you code better in the morning, or at night, or 44:23 at any part of the day? 44:26 That is a good question, I think that's that people need to identify about 44:28 themselves as well, when do you do your best work? 44:32 For me personally, I think my mind is more attentive in the morning. 44:36 So that is why my schedule for programming was always 7 to 12, 8 to 12. 44:39 Because after that, I kinda lose interest, and I'd be ready to do something else. 44:45 I wanna go outside and play basketball, or run around with the kids. 44:49 I don't have the mental focus in the evening, I'm tired from the day, and 44:55 I just wanna relax and watch Netflix or something. 44:59 What kind of questions should I ask, if any, while interviewing for 45:08 my first developer role? 45:13 That's a good question, I think things that you should kinda ask or 45:14 wanna know about would be, you wanna know what kind of culture it is. 45:18 You wanna know, do people end up having to take work home, 45:22 are they working even when they're off the clock? 45:26 Just because you're on salary doesn't necessarily mean they stop. 45:29 Some people can take their work home, and that's not something you want, 45:34 that's not a good work-life balance. 45:37 So you wanna know balance, you wanna know the culture. 45:39 You wanna make sure that they're accepting of all peoples, and 45:42 not just a certain group of peoples. 45:45 You wanna make sure that there's maybe employees resources groups. 45:47 If you're a different ethnicity, you wanna have people that kinda look like you, 45:52 that you can kind of bump things off of, or relay information to, 45:58 just to kind of feel more comfortable at times. 46:03 Obviously, you wanna know salary, you want to make sure that compensation. 46:06 You wanna know what your packages look like. 46:10 Is healthcare included, what all is included? 46:13 Do you receive a 401(k), how does that work? 46:16 You wanna know as much about the company as possible, because ultimately, 46:19 this is who you're gonna work for. 46:23 And you wanna make sure that you enjoy the workplace that you're at. 46:25 I'm grateful to say that I do enjoy the workplace that I'm at. 46:29 Are there any Slack communities or affinity groups you 46:37 recommend folks to join for community while on this journey? 46:41 So I'm not a big Slack person. 46:47 Honestly, I use Slack just for the workplace, and after that, 46:50 I really haven't been in Slack much outside of that. 46:55 I just don't like looking at my phone all day, going through messages. 47:00 I think you can find those groups on Twitter and Reddit. 47:04 Again, those are great places to find information, and 47:08 they'll definitely have more information than I will on that subject. 47:12 >> Kyle, thank you so much for dropping so much knowledge. 47:16 >> No problem, Ryan, thank you. 47:20 >> We've got probably time for one more question, if you wanna answer? 47:22 If there's anything you feel like you haven't said. 47:25 >> Yeah, let's see, there's only one more question. 47:29 So it says, can you describe what a healthy engineering team looks like? 47:33 That's a good question, I only know one engineering team, 47:39 cuz I've only been on one team so far. 47:42 >> [LAUGH] >> So I like to think it's a healthy team. 47:44 But in my opinion, a healthy team is what my team does. 47:47 They reach out, they check in on you, not just on what you're working on, 47:52 but to make sure that you're mentally in a good space. 47:57 They're available, and if they're not available, 48:02 they're able to show you the right path, and show you who might be available to 48:05 help you with whatever your question or issue is. 48:09 And ultimately, they're people that just get stuff done, 48:12 they don't point fingers if something goes wrong. 48:16 Everyone's accountable, and we just try to figure out how we can improve. 48:19 What did we do wrong, and 48:23 what we're gonna do to make sure that it doesn't happen next time. 48:24 >> Awesome, thank you so much for taking time. 48:28 You said you're on holiday, so 48:31 are you doing this while you're supposed to be relaxing? 48:32 >> Yeah, yeah, I'm on PTO. 48:35 >> [LAUGH] >> Well, I appreciate your time, 48:36 thank you for being willing to do that. 48:40 >> No, thank you for having me, it was awesome. 48:42 >> And I really meant it when I said I'm truly inspired by what you did. 48:44 You worked so hard to earn this position, and I think you're 48:50 a massive role model to a lot of people, to say, hey, they can do it. 48:54 >> Thank you. >> That's why I really 49:00 respect you for that. 49:01 Everyone, thank you for joining us, thank you for all your comments and questions 49:02 and encouraging words to each other in the chat, we really appreciate it. 49:07 If folks wanna follow you online, what's the best place they can find you? 49:11 And I know you listed it at the very beginning, but 49:15 why don't you remind everybody? 49:17 >> Yeah, I think the biggest space to find me is Twitter, 49:18 my handle is @Hoops2Code, so H-O-O-P-S-2, and then Code. 49:23 >> Hoops2Code, awesome. 49:29 >> Yeah. >> Well, thank you so much, Kyle, 49:31 appreciate it, man. 49:32 No go relax in your PTO, all right? 49:33 >> Yeah, definitely, happy holidays to everyone. 49:35 >> Thank you, and everyone take care, have a good rest of the day. 49:38 Come back tomorrow, we've got more sessions. 49:40 Also, don't forget about networking. 49:42 Just click the button the left of your screen, 49:45 meet some amazing fellow attendees. 49:48 Get to know each other, exchange your details, make things happen. 49:51 So thanks so much for coming, again, thank you, Kyle, I really appreciate you. 49:54 Like I said, I've got Kyle's picture on my wall, that's how much I respect him. 50:00 So everybody take care, have a good day, and we will see you tomorrow, take care. 50:04

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