DEV Community: Anthony Delgado

Best Way to Test Coding Skills During a Job Interview?

Anthony Delgado — Fri, 08 Feb 2019 02:02:08 +0000

According to HackerRank's 2019 Developer Skills Report, hiring managers cite assessing skills as their number one problem when screening tech candidates.

What is the best way to assess coding skills during job interview for a developer candidate?

AI WILL Take Over Most Human Jobs by 2030

Anthony Delgado — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 16:00:07 +0000

Last year the BBC reported that Robot automation will 'take 800 million jobs by 2030'. Lucky for most of the people reading this post, developer jobs are safe for the time being. But what is the world going to look like when most manual jobs are taken by machines? What type of effect will this have on our economy? What will happen to the middle class? Do we need Universal Basic Income?

Over the next five years, we are about to witness the world we live in entirely disrupted by improvements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Children today are growing up with AI assistants in their homes (Google Assistant, Siri and Alexa) -- to the point that you might consider their mere presence an extension of co-parenting. As voice and facial recognition continue to evolve, machine learning algorithms are getting smarter. More and more industries are being influenced by AI, and our society as we know it is transforming.

In this article I take a look at the top 3 industries that will suffer the most significant amount of job lost due to AI and automation technology.

Transportation

The transportation industry looks like it will be the first to be completely disrupted by artificial intelligence. In fact, a lot of the impact of AI is already taking place. Uber and Lyft are both working on self-driving technology. GPS navigation software company Waze (which was acquired by Google in 2013) quietly released a new app called CarPool that converts its 50-plus million users into drivers and allows users to commute to work together for a fee. Waymo (formerly the Google self-driving car project) recently reached 5 million miles driven on public roads.

It seems that Tesla has already beaten most other competitors to market with its autopilot feature. Tesla now has over 300 million miles driven on autopilot, and all Tesla vehicles on the road today are only a software update away from fully autonomous driving capability. Tesla is also looking to disrupt the trucking industry with its new autonomous vehicle called the Semi. Walmart says it's already preordered 15 of Tesla's electric/AI-powered tractor trailers.

It is not a matter of if but when these companies can perfect the technology and cut through government red tape.

Think about how many hours of human productivity can be saved when we put an end to mindless driving and commuting through city traffic?

The automation of the ride-hailing economy is not only going to save society time, but it's also going to reduce the cost of transportation drastically. Soon enough, requesting a self-driving vehicle will cost as much as taking the bus, and driving a car is going to be as antiquated as riding a horse and buggy.

Criminal Justice

The next industry disrupted by artificial intelligence is the criminal justice system. Advancements in facial recognition are making the fingerprint obsolete. Tech startups are using AI to automate legal work. Meanwhile, some courts are already using AI to sentence criminals and determine parole eligibility.

But the criminal justice system is the one area where too much innovation could be a terrible thing for society and lead us into a dystopian future if we are not careful. At this year's SXSW, Elon Musk said, "AI is far more dangerous than nukes. Far. So why do we have no regulatory oversight?"

Without proper government regulations of artificial intelligence and machine learning, we are at risk of major disruptions to our democracy:

• Does the government's use of AI require a warrant to search your online data?

• Can AI be used to listen in on American citizens' phone calls without a warrant?

• How can you subpoena an AI algorithm to testify so you can face your accuser in a court of law?

• How do we handle malpractice when AI recommends improper handling of a legal case?

These are just a few of the legal questions raised when introducing autonomous, decision making technology into our criminal justice system.

One potential solution is to keep these government systems open source so that the code can be scrutinized for built-in biases.

In 2016, software used across the country to predict recidivism of people eligible for parole was found to be biased against African Americans. Unfortunately, when your data is biased, it can create biased algorithms. Keeping this type of software open source would allow the public to inspect and improve the algorithms so that they are fair and balanced.

Advertising

Finally, artificial intelligence is going to take targeted/personalized advertising to a whole other level. If you think the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal was bad, then you have no idea what's in store in the next decade.

Advertisers are already able to predict what types of ads emotionally impact your purchasing behavior. As time goes on, ads are going to continue to become more tailored to the individual. Imagine Amazon's Alexa slipping sponsored messages into a natural conversation or personalized augmented reality billboard ads that know you by name (think Tom Cruise in Minority Report).

Ads are going to continue to become smarter and more embedded in our daily lives thanks to AI. Machine learning algorithms are building personality profiles on every human being. The amount of data collected by advertisers continues to grow. Related product recommendations, search results and social news feed items are all examples of places where advertisers are embedding smart ads that use AI to target you as an individual consumer.

Slowly, these AI algorithms can learn your behavior, and before you know it, they know you better than you know yourself.

Even today, the impact AI is having on our society cannot be ignored. However, if you want to have a competitive edge and you are willing to prepare for these changes now, there is still plenty of time to be ahead of the curve.

How can we stop age discrimination in tech?

Anthony Delgado — Wed, 30 May 2018 05:15:59 +0000

Two weeks ago, I wrote an article here on dev.to called "You're never too old to learn to code" that talked about how I felt there is a bias in tech/startup culture that leans towards a younger crowd. Then just today I was scrolling through my news feed and noticed that Engadget published an article about how workers claimed Intel was getting rid of older staff systematically during layoffs meant to "fuel Intel's evolution."

#1 How can we stop age discrimination in tech?

#2 Do large corporations like Intel have the right to do massive layoffs to older employees in the name of innovation?

Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.

You're never too old to learn to code

Anthony Delgado — Sun, 13 May 2018 14:54:51 +0000

Breaking into tech after 40?

Learning to code can be a daunting task at any age but entering a Coding Bootcamp where the average age range of the students is 18-25 can make an aspiring web developer who is older feel out of place. I attended a Coding Bootcamp at the age of 31, and while I am still technically considered a millennial (And I am super young at heart), even I have felt like there is a bias in tech/startup culture that leans towards a younger crowd. In 2016 the organizers of a hackathon threatened to disqualify our team after 24+ hours of coding for being "too old to compete" even though the only age requirements at the event were that the participants be 18+.

Although you may face some challenges as an adult coder, learning to code can be one of the most rewarding things you can do as a human being, and there is no reason to let societies biases stop you from following your dreams. In this article, we are going to talk about how you can overcome any potential bias and how you probably have a lot more advantages than you think.

Let your work speak for itself

The beautiful thing about tech is that it is a show and prove industry. You don't need a license to pimp out your portfolio or create an epic Chrome extension. Showcase your skills by creating a collection of side projects and demo applications. This is how your creativity can set you apart from the pack, regardless of your age. Let your website/portfolio show your personality and your projects on GitHub; showcase your creativity and problem-solving skills.

Don't wear a suit

Listen, I get it. You want to take your career seriously. But if you walk into an interview wearing a full three-piece suit & meanwhile the person interviewing you is wearing a t-shirt, it is going to get a little bit awkward. I am not saying you have to wear a t-shirt. Do your research and ask the interviewer beforehand what the dress code is when setting up the appointment for an in-person interview.

Leveraging Industry Knowledge

This is a big one. If you have been an investment banker or accountant for the last 20 years and you are just starting a new career in tech at age 45, you might feel as though you have no relevant work experience, but you couldn't be more wrong.

Today, every company is becoming a tech company in some way shape or form. (And the ones who don't evolve are going extinct.) Now more than ever, software developers are in high demand at a wide range of organizations, not only Silicon Valley startups.

If you are coming from a career in another field, consider applying to the tech department in that industry or disrupt that industry in a tech startup that focuses on that vertical. Your domain expertise is super valuable and relevant at this point. At a FinTech startup, the fact that you have 20 years experience in finance AND you know how to code is a HUGE asset that can set you apart from your younger less experienced counterparts.

Project Management

Another advantage to having a wealth of previous job experience is the ability to work with and manage a team of people. If you ever held any managerial role in another industry, I would highly recommend taking a course on SCRUM and learning the fundamental principles of running an Agile Software development team. Your people skills and seniority can be a benefit to an organization looking for a tech team lead where you are skilled at coding but also at managing the timeline and product backlog of a project.

Overcoming Bias

Depending on where you want to apply, there can be varying amounts of age bias. The fact is that Millennials and Gen Z make up for close to 50% of the tech workforce and when you look specifically at Silicon Valley tech startups, that number is even higher. At some companies, the bias might be worse than others, and a lot of it is subliminal and subconscious.

Ageism in the Tech Industry is a real thing, but hopefully, this article provided you with some insights into overcoming age bias and even using your seniority to your advantage.

Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.

RIP jQuery: An alternative for modern browsers

Anthony Delgado — Sun, 15 Apr 2018 15:11:09 +0000

RIP jQuery

Two years ago, at the first ever Code Newbie meetup, I had the chance to meet the creator of jQuery, John Resig. At the time I was really starting to double down on my Full Stack Javascript / MongoDB, React, Node journey, coming from a PHP/MYSQL/jQuery world. It was that night when the creator of jQuery got up on stage and told us that he no longer uses the library he created and instead focuses only on React when I told myself it was time to double down on modern Javascript libraries.

Listen, I love jQuery.

jQuery is great, it has allowed me to create amazing front end project, win hackathons and manipulate the dom to my heart's content. But sometimes you get to the point in a mans life that it is time to move on to bigger and better things. So I took the deep dive into the world of React and Node and I didn't look back. jQuery will always have a special place in my heart.

But jQuery is an old dog in a javascript world full of cheetahs and jaguars. It was created when IE6 was the latest browser and IE7 was the upgrade everyone was waiting for. It was release before Google Chrome was even a thing and Adobe Flash was the primary way people created interactive websites. jQuery was revolutionary for it's time, but it has been over 10 years since it's inception.

Which begs the question....

What if jQuery was written today?

Meet Cash. Today I was viewing the source of a friend of mine and reviewing some code and I came across an interesting Javascript library called Cash. Cash is a super small library built for modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer 9+) that provides jQuery style syntax for manipulating the DOM. Utilizing modern browser features to minimize the codebase, developers can use the familiar chainable $ methods at a fraction of the blot. While Cash does not promise to replicate 100% of the features of traditional jQuery it does come close, covering most day to day use cases such as adding / removing / toggling classes and parsing strings of html.

Learn more about the project here: https://www.npmjs.com/package/cash-dom

Is it time that the $ dollar sign made a come back?

Tools like React and Angular are great for modern web applications but do feel like overkill for simple landing pages.

Let me know what you think in the comments section below.

Adding Emoji ðŸ”¥ to your terminal

Anthony Delgado — Tue, 24 Oct 2017 18:35:14 +0000

If you are staring at a terminal all day coding, it is important to customize and personalize your work environment as much as possible. Besides changing the color of your terminal mac, adding an Emoji (or two) to your terminal is a fun, fast and easy way to customize your setup. In a recent Gist that I created for some members of my dev team I show you just how to do that!

Step 1. Open up your .bash_profile in your favorite text editor.

sublime ~/.bash_profile

Step 1.1 If the file doesn't yet exist you can create it)

cd ~
touch .bash_profile

Step 2 Add this line to the bottom of the file

The \W is the Working directory that you are currently inside of and you can add an unlimited amount of emoji to your terminal after that.

PS1="\W ðŸ”¥ðŸ¦„ "

Step 3 - Save and Exit / Restart Terminal & Enjoy!

The result is something like this.

You can use this generator to fully customize the hell out of your command prompt.

How else do you customize your dev setup?

ðŸ‘‡ Leave your setup hacks in the comment section below. ðŸ‘‡

Happy Hacking!

JavaScript Is Eating The World

Anthony Delgado — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 06:40:25 +0000

Incase you haven't heard the news, JavaScript and NodeJS are single handedly eating the world of software. NodeJS is an Open Source server-side JavaScript environment based on the V8 JS engine found in Google Chrome.Â Once only thought of as "hipster" technology, NodeJS is quickly becoming one of the most commonly used environments for building web applications and is beginning to find its way into the Enterprise.

Below is a list of 5 huge companies who have adopted the popular "hipster" server-side JavaScript engine for use inside high traffic, high profile production projects.

#1 NETFLIX

Nexflix used JavaScript and NodeJS to transform their website into a single page application. Traditionally, Netflix has been an enterprise Java shop, but “as we migrated out of the data center to the cloud we moved to a more service-based architecture,” Trott said.Â The company is in the process of breaking up what used to be a monolithic Java application into a set of smaller services.Â Java still powers the backend of Netflix, but all the stuff that the user sees comes from Node.Â In addition to Node, Netflix is also using ReactJS in their stack.

#2 PAYPAL

PayPal too is moving away from Java and onto JavaScript and NodeJS for use in their web application platform. PayPal began using NodeJS as a prototyping platform and when it proved extremely proficient and they decided try it out in production. Â PayPal's first usage of NodeJS in production wasn’t a minor application; it was their account overview page which is one of the apps most trafficked features. As insurance, the PayPal team simultaneously developed the same "account overview" rebuild using Java and the results proved their hypothesis proved that the JavaScript team was able to build the product both faster and more efficiently. Since this transformation PayPal has since released an Open Source extension for ExpressJS called KrakenJS which can add an extra layer of security and scalability to your NodeJS Server.

#3 UBER

Uber has built its massive driver / rider matching system on Node.js Distributed Web Architecture. Check out the keynote from Uber's Tom Crouche at the Node.js Interactive Conference below. Tom is a senior site reliability engineer and talks about how Node.js is being used at Uber and how future growth requires the community to push the boundaries and expectations for Node.js. Uber’s GitHub page is a good source to also learn more about the company’s most critical systems.

#4 IBM

IBM has also embraced NodeJS as well. Myles Borins from IBM spoke about his experiences during this past NodeJS Interactive conference. Here is what he had to say: "During October of 2015 I was given the task of working on The Canary in the Gold Mine, a smoke testing utility that automates running unit tests of various various modules in the node.js ecosystem. CITGM has been incredibly successful, finding all sorts of regressions across the ecosystem and in node core itself.

#5 MICROSOFT

Even Microsoft has embraced NodeJS, offering direct integrations into their Azure Platform, releasing a wealth of tutorials targeted at Node and they have even announced plans to fork the project and build their own version of Node powered by their Edge Javascript engine instead of Chrome's V8.

28 FREE Ivy League Computer Science Courses

Anthony Delgado — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 06:28:48 +0000

While Ivy League schools offer some of the best technology courses, they are highly selective and extremely hard to get into. On top of that they can also be some of the most expensive schools in the country. But the good news is that all these universities now offer free online courses across a multiple of online learning platforms. Feeling envious or curious about what a top of the line computer science education looks like?

Here are 28 Ivy League courses you can take online right now for free!

Enjoy and happy hacking!

Introduction to Computer Science

Harvard University via edX

★★★★★ (52 ratings)

Algorithms, Part I

Princeton University via Coursera

★★★★☆ (48 ratings)

Machine Learning

Georgia Institute of Technology via Udacity

★★★★★ (4 ratings)

Analysis of Algorithms

Princeton University via Coursera

★★★★★ (4 ratings)

Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies

Princeton University via Coursera

★★★★☆ (10 ratings)

Introduction to Spreadsheets and Models

University of Pennsylvania via Coursera

★★★★★ (3 ratings)

Computer Architecture

Princeton University via Coursera

★★★★★ (4 ratings)

Machine Learning

Brown University via Udacity

★★★★★ (1 rating)

Networks Illustrated: Principles without Calculus

Princeton University via Coursera

★★★★☆ (3 ratings)

Software Defined Networking

Princeton University via Coursera

★★★★☆ (5 ratings)

Machine Learning 1 — Supervised Learning

Brown University via Udacity

★★★★☆ (1 rating)

Machine Learning: Unsupervised Learning

Brown University via Udacity

★★★★☆ (1 rating)

Introduction to Bioconductor: Annotation and Analysis of Genomes and Genomic Assays

Harvard University via edX

★★★★☆ (1 rating)

Statistics and R

Harvard University via edX

★★★★☆ (13 ratings)

Networks: Friends, Money, and Bytes

Princeton University via Coursera

★★★☆☆ (1 rating)

The Computing Technology Inside Your Smartphone

Cornell University via edX

★★★★★ (2 ratings)

Using Python for Research

Harvard University via edX

Case Studies in Functional Genomics

Harvard University via edX

★★★☆☆ (1 rating)

Machine Learning for Data Science and Analytics

Columbia University via edX

★★★☆☆ (15 ratings)

Reinforcement Learning

Brown University via Udacity

★★☆☆☆ (6 ratings)

Enabling Technologies for Data Science and Analytics: The Internet of Things

Columbia University via edX

★☆☆☆☆ (5 ratings)

Statistical Thinking for Data Science and Analytics

Columbia University via edX

★★☆☆☆ (13 ratings)

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Columbia University via edX

★☆☆☆☆ (1 rating)

Machine Learning

Columbia University via edX

Big Data in Education

Columbia University via edX

High-performance Computing for Reproducible Genomics

Harvard University via edX

AP® Computer Science Principles

Harvard University via edX

Animation and CGI Motion

Columbia University via edX

Rutgers Coding Bootcamp Review

Anthony Delgado — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 06:34:04 +0000

In response to some comments I read on reddit here is my honest review of Rutgers Coding Bootcamp from someone who attended the program. I explain how I feel you can be the most successful at Rutgers or any bootcamp for that matter and why I feel most people fail. At Rutgers Coding Bootcamp I was able to teach myself React, MongoDB and NodeJS which I now use in production on a daily basis.

how to teach yourself to code

Anthony Delgado — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 06:25:31 +0000

In this video rant I talk about the some of the top places that you can learn to code and how to better prepare yourself before spending money on a coding bootcamp.

Are coding bootcamps really worth it?

Anthony Delgado — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 06:21:10 +0000

In this rant I explain why I feel that coding bootcamps are not for everyone but can be super worth it for people who are.

Twilio Signal 2017

Anthony Delgado — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 04:04:53 +0000

I had an amazing time this year at the Twilio Signal Developer conference. I travel across the country each and every year to attend the event, and I equate it to a "trip to the motherland" to see my roots in tech. It is awesome to meet so many amazing people from the tech community, learn about all the new product that Twilio and their partners are working on, witness the epic keynotes from Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twilio and the rest of the Twilio team and last but certainly not least, eat, drink, turn up and party at BA$H the "Carnival for Coders" and official afterparty for the conference.

Each and every year Twilio release powerful new APIs at the event and this year was no difference. Here is a recap of some of the awesome new tech that Twilio released this year at Signal:

â˜Žï¸ Phone numbers (beta)

I know what you're thinking, ðŸ˜‚ doesn't Twilio already have phone numbers?

You are correct, but this year they now have Phone Numbers in 70 countries worldwide ðŸŒŽ

ðŸŽ¥ Programmable Video (Leaves Beta and Adds Recording)

Twilio Video is the feature that got me to travel across the country the first time back in 2015 to get an Alpha early access key. Since then the product has matured a lot, they moved from alpha to beta in 2016, acquired WebRTC media server company Kurento and integrated them into the Twilio Video team, and finally this year the product has left beta into a stable release and adds a much coveted feature, Video Recording. You can now record video on Twilio just as easily as they allow you to record

ðŸ•º Channels (developer preview)

Channels lets you send and receive messages on multiple channels with a single Twilio API. Now you can code once and message everywhere, SMS, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, WeChat, Viber and Slack are just a few of the service that you will be able to communicate with as launch.

ðŸ’¬ Hosted SMS (developer preview)

Twilio now allows you to keep your carrier and add SMS as a service to ANY business land line, allowing you to keep the same caller ID that you communicate with you customers over voice, and add SMS, no forwarding or porting of numbers required.

Crazy story, I worked with the inside team at Twilio back in 2015 to enable this feature for a large enterprise customer who had a call center that needed to add fax functionality. At that time it was an undocumented manual processes. Shout out to Yasir Motiwala from Twilio for helping to make that project happen!

ðŸ‘ Proxy (developer preview)

So this is not a data proxy, think of this as a human proxy, when you call your uber driver, or delivery person, you want to be able to call (and text) them back at that same number. It is also nice if the number is local and from an area code that you can recognize so you know to answer the call. Problem is figuring out all of those factors can be hard programmatically, and using personal phone number does not protect the provacy of either party involve. Proxy handles the communication logic to set up intermediate phone numbers for text and voice conversations between two people, so personal phone numbers and user IDs are kept confidential and can even monitor the content of text conversations between two parties by configuring rules for filtering and redacting messages.

If you are building the next Uber for X, you need to be using Proxy.

ðŸ‡ New Add-ons for TaskRouter (beta)

TaskRouter lets you build intelligent real time task routing into your existing application to create smarter workflows with skills based routing. Now, developers can create and publish Add-Ons to this service and publish them on Twilio's awesome marketplace. The showcased two analytics companies that they are launching with for the beta pilot program but I am sure that many more will join them as the service becomes generally available.

ðŸ—£ Speech Recognition (beta)

Twilio has had call transcriptions for a while now, but unfortunately the transcriptions was limited to only happening after the call ended and was bundled with their call recording API. Now, Twilio can convert speech to text in real time and your application can analyze its intent and respond intelligently during any voice call.

ðŸ¤– Understand (coming soon)

Analyze text using natural language understanding and machine learning. I believe that once this feature is released to the public, Twilio will have a HUGE advantage in the space since their model is going to be trained by a wealth of real time call data.

ðŸ‘¾ Functions (beta)

This is a pretty crazy move for Twilio, but it makes a ton of sense. So they released "Functions" which is a way to run Node in the cloud and have it execute and scale on demand. A competitor to things like Amazon's AWS Lambda and Google's Firebase, Twilio's clear advantage is that you can create your Twilio Functions all under one roof. Basically making them a one stop shop for your communications compute. I used it during the conference to setup a webhook for my Twilio SIM card and it was super easy. I can definitely see people using it was long as awareness is raise for the service. The awesome tutorials that they offer should begin to embrace functions was the default and people will use it.

ðŸ–¼ Frame (coming soon)

A new way to prototype Twilio apps using an out of the box, customizable, fluid UI, frame will allow you to get to MVP in no time! I can't wait for this to hit beta in a few months.

ðŸ“Š Voice Insights for Carrier Calls (beta)

New data analytics into all the hops that a call makes on it's way to your users. They are essentially open sourcing the PSTN

ðŸ“ Programmable Fax (Leaves Beta)

Jeff Lawson, the CEO of Twilio was literally signing fax machines at BA$H this year ðŸ˜‚ the company that is leading the end of telephony hardware as we know it, is going after the last piece of antiquated tech in the workplace, the fax machine. Jeff literally played star wars music on stage as he live coded a web app to make 20 fax machine print out graphic of Twilio DOers faces composed from multiple fax rolls of paper. The showman ship was amazing.

ðŸ“± Wireless Global Connectivity (developer preview)

With Global SIM Connectivity you can now use Twilio SIM Cards anywhere in the world! This is a huge deal for IOT because now you can have cellular connected drone, bots and other devices that can literally travel the entire world using Twilio as a super low cost data provider.

Wrap Up

All in all I had an amazing time at Twilio Signal this year, and as I have spoke about plent of times before Twilio has changed my life and I am proud to call myself a Twilio DOER