Past Life Architect: Lydia Guarino at The Frontside
We talk dev bootcamps, how architecture design school is like programming, how sales can help you be a better programmer, and the importance of mentorship.
This episode was originally posted to real-world-ember.com on Feb 11, 2016. http://www.real-world-ember.com/4
Learn Ember 2 at https://www.emberschool.com
The Frontside - http://frontside.io/
A consultancy specializing in Ember and Rails
Not just code! Helps larger companies figure out their development workflow
Runs Ember meetup in Austin
Created several open source projects like x-select and ember-impagination
ember-impagination
Helps with infinite scroll
Frontside Podcast episode about the technical parts: https://frontsidethepodcast.simplecas...
Past life #1: architect
been a developer for a couple years, a couple careers before that
architecture design degree from UT
but oops, no architect jobs in 2008
What you learn in design school: how to break nebulous problems down into smaller more actionable components
This is remarkably similar to software development process, minus the syntax
Phase called “programming"
A Pattern Language book - http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Languag...
Past life #2: Salesperson
Everyone should work in sales, for the communication skills
Your work will not speak for itself: you have to express them
She’s often asked (as a programmer) to be the communication layer between tech and business
Talking to customers
Talk to customers before you build them a solution
Talk about their motivation and priorities before you talk about the technical details
Customers usually don’t know what they want! You must draw it out of them.
Get the first draft from them in writing
Dissect and categorize requirements, give them priority levels, send it back to them
Workflow
Start out with the big picture, then work iteratively building out small pieces of it
Start with completing one small piece, taking it through the whole process (“tracer bullet”)
After each piece, re-evaluate big picture plan.
Road to Dev Career
Rose to level of connection between devs and business
Really wanted to have the power to build stuff herself instead of waiting
Most of dev bootcamp cohort were either entrepreneurs or people in tech who wanted to specialize in programming
(Jeffrey started in order to program his science machine (and make a math game))
Dev Bootcamp
Value is skills + network + stamp of approval
Community and accountability a big positive
In first cohort of Maker Square
Covered a LOT in 10 weeks- Ruby, Rails, Javascript, dev tools
Training in git and github valuable because you can start in on someone’s development cycle easily
They’re now doing just Javascript, and sharing curriculum with Hack Reactor
Turing School (a 9-month bootcamp) has done something similar and split up their Rails/Ember curriculum into two separate courses
After dev bootcamp you’re hirable, but there’s still a lot to learn.
Jobs after bootcamp
Employee #3 at tiny startup
Was only person working in Ember, so not much mentorship- trial by fire
Second job at Communication Service for the Deaf
Good mentoring there, lots of growth
Now working at The Frontside
The Frontside (I can personally attest) has excellent mentoring
“Climbing the mentoring ladder”- need to work side by side with devs who are more senior than you (and willing to teach)
The Frontside is hiring!!! - http://frontside.io/contact/
Pre-existing skills are a plus, but culture fit is a must
Culture: Community, open source, learning, sharing, proactive, fun-loving
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