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Developer on Fire

Episode 226 | Will Gant - Rewards of Mentoring

Apr 17 '17

Guest:

Will Gant talks with Dave Rael about being a seasoned software professional, the value of mentors, proteges, and peers, podcasting, being a leader

Will Gant is a full-stack C#, Javascript, and Delphi developer living in Nashville, TN working for Transformations LLC, as a contractor under Gant Software Systems, and as a partner in an agricultural trading platform called Agulus. He's used .NET since the first public beta and has recently started doing some lower-level work in Delphi, as well as kicking the tires on Dotnet Core. In addition, he's an avid weightlifter, wine-maker, occasional hunter, and terrible with both 9 irons and soldering irons.

Chapters:

1:37 - Dave introduces the show and Will Gant
7:29 - Freedom and security
9:21 - The Complete Developer podcast
14:50 - Will's thoughts and experiences with mentoring newer developers
21:53 - Will's story of failure - losing a job because of an act of conscience, enabling failure by putting something in place that was later misused, suffering hacking
26:01 - Will's success story - software that survived an enormous disaster, becoming a creator of audio content
31:10 - How Will stays current with what he needs to know
33:29 - Will's book recommendations
34:41 - The value of mastermind groups
38:07 - The things that have Will most excited
40:20 - Will's sources of pain and suffering
42:24 - Will's top 3 tips for delivering more value
45:21 - Keeping up with Will

Will's book recommendation:

Will's top 3 tips for delivering more value:

Figure out what you're supposed to do and don't do anything that doesn't provide value
Always work on your skills
Think about your integration points