DEV Community: Erica Tafavoti

Take the 2020 Ruby on Rails Community Survey

Erica Tafavoti — Mon, 11 May 2020 23:12:27 +0000

The Ruby on Rails Community Survey has been collecting data from Rails developers since 2009. By sharing how you use Rails, you help the data we collect become more accurate and meaningful over time.

The survey asks questions like:

How did you learn to code?
How many Rails applications have you contributed to?
How often do you contribute back to open source projects?
Which Ruby gems frustrate you the most? (This is always a fun one.)

We appreciate your contribution to this survey! We had 2,000 completions when the survey last ran in 2018. Can you help us get to 2,500 in 2020? If you work on an engineering team, or participate in any local groups that use Rails, your shares are appreciated.

Take the survey.

Thank you!

Argon Trail: A Pre-RailsConf Hike

Erica Tafavoti — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 00:21:36 +0000

Are you attending RailsConf 2020 in Portland, Oregon? Come join the Planet Argon team on a guided hike to enjoy the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. You can reserve a spot now.

We first took Rails developers on the Argon Trail back in 2013 and we're bringing back the event for RailsConf 2020. Take a break from your laptop, meet fellow Rails developers from around the world, and take in the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. Planet Argon is taking care of your travel to and from the convention center, snacks, water, and maybe a few other surprises.

Questions? Leave me a comment or email events@planetargon.com for info.

Click here to reserve a spot on the bus!

Hope to see you there!

Looking for an open source project that uses Rails + CircleCI

Erica Tafavoti — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 22:59:11 +0000

Seeking: An open-source project built with Rails, using CircleCI, that would be interested in being set up with a dual boot for an upgrade. This setup would be complimentary, to be used in demo content!

The team at Planet Argon is looking for an open source project that uses CircleCI that would be interested in upgrading their application using a dual boot method in the future. You don't have to be ready for an upgrade right now, as this would set you up for success when you decide to upgrade.

Do you know any open source projects that might fit the bill? Have any leads to direct me to? Drop 'em in a reply below!

Thanks!

New Podcast: Maintainable

Erica Tafavoti — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 17:58:30 +0000

I've been doing some behind-the-scenes work on a new podcast about maintainable software, legacy code, and the issues that real engineering teams face every day. It's called Maintainable, and it's hosted by Robby Russell, creator of Oh My Zsh and my teammate at Planet Argon.

There are hundreds (thousands?) of podcasts about tech, so why did we need another one? We're focusing not on what's shiny and new, but instead, are talking with seasoned practitioners that have overcome big challenges to make the most of their existing technology investments. Teams often lean on "the big rewrite" to fix their issues, when really it isn't always the best solution. On Maintainable, we'll have conversations about these decisions and how they affect teams. Here's a little more from the host, Robby, about why we created Maintainable.

I hope you give it a listen, and let me know what you think if you do! And if you know someone who might have an interesting story to tell, send an email to hello@maintainable.fm.

You can listen on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts by searching "Maintainable".

What are Your Tips for Successful Pair Programming Sessions?

Erica Tafavoti — Mon, 25 Feb 2019 22:56:58 +0000

There are so many thoughts and opinions on pair programming out there. But for many companies, pairing is part of the culture and will be around long-term. If you work for one of these companies, what is it about pair programming that makes it so successful? If you pair program, what tips do you have for someone who may be new to it or may feel uncomfortable with the idea?

I'd love to quote your experience in an upcoming blog post on the topic. Leave your tips below to share with others, and I'll get in touch to see if you're up for being quoted (with a link to your social/company name!)

Open Source in the Cannabis Industry

Erica Tafavoti — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 19:33:15 +0000

I work at a dev agency specializing in Ruby on Rails. I've heard from several cannabis companies in the last year or so who have been seeking help on dev projects, specifically Rails/Spree/Solidus. I've been told Shopify and similar out of the box solutions are iffy on cannabis products since it's not legal federally.

So I'm curious for insight on open source's role in the growth of the cannabis industry. Do you work for/with a company in this space? Do you have any thoughts on the industry and its relationship with open source?

Also, a disclaimer: I live in Portland, Oregon, so my area's a bit more in-touch with the cannabis community than other places where it isn't legal yet.

Appreciate any helpful discussion!

5 Ways to Expand Your Developer Recruitment Pool

Erica Tafavoti — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 19:25:47 +0000

You’ve found yourself in a situation where you need to hire web developers at your company. Maybe your team needs to scale up and you find yourself in the position to hire one or two technical staff members to keep up with demand. Or maybe your existing developer quit, and now you need to fill their void to keep up with deadlines.

No matter how you ended up here, there are many ways to get yourself out of this situation and find the right developer to join your team. You share a job posting on Indeed and...crickets.

Where are all the applicants?

With a little bit of effort, you can discover more potential applicants for your technical job posting. The following five tips can help you increase your exposure within your industry and expand your pool of applicants.

Partner with code schools

There may be situations where you need to bring on Junior-level Rails developers. If you have motivated developers with more experience who can mentor and teach younger developers, this is a great option. In an industry teeming with jobs ads containing “Rockstar Developer” or “5+ years experience”, there is absolutely still a place for Junior Rails Developers to contribute to a team.

When you hire junior developers, your more experienced team members can hone their mentorship on communication skills, you’ll likely increase the energy level on your team (those fresh to a field often have the most enthusiasm!) and lessen the clashing that comes with a team of senior devs. I love this write-up on seven reasons companies should be hiring Junior Developers.

For us, partnering with Epicodus, a local Pacific Northwest-based code school, has increased our exposure to new developers and expanded our talent pool. We take part several times a year in their internship program, where we’re matched with students ending their curriculum. We take on interns in pairs but have the chance to interview 6-8 new junior developers throughout the process. Speaking with them helps increase our exposure to those new to the industry.

If you’re in the industry and haven’t become involved with a code school before, I’d encourage you to reach out and connect with the people that lead these programs. They’re often looking for companies to get involved in other ways. Epicodus hosts lunchtime talks with people in the industry. This gives students an opportunity to ask questions to someone in their new field and gives you insight into the upcoming generation of developers.

Mentoring, speaking, helping with mock interviews, or offering to review resumes are other helpful ways to support code schools. The best first step is to contact someone and express interest in helping out – they’ll surely find a way to get you involved!

Hold an active internship or apprenticeship program

Over the last two years, Planet Argon has been making an effort to improve our internship program. With every new intern, we learn a little more about what’s working and what isn’t, and provide many opportunities for our interns to provide feedback along the way. It’s become an important way for us to give back to the developer community.

When you hold an active internship or apprenticeship program, you’re also opening your doors for a wider talent pool in the future. Now, this doesn’t mean you need to hire every intern that comes through your program full-time. We’ve consciously made an effort to not hire our interns (or at least not without a formal application process).

We know that the skill set they learn during their time here will help them in another workplace, and also want to make sure our hiring process is as unbiased as possible.

When we opened up Junior Developer and other Internship postings this fall, we had several applicants for these roles who initially heard about our company through their peers that interned at Planet Argon. If you make an effort to put together a solid internship experience, you’ll benefit from positive word of mouth about your company.

Engage with meetups and local groups

There are tons of technical meetups and events scattered all across the globe. For example, a quick search for “Ruby” on Meetup.com resulted in 892 meetups around the world, with over 700,000 members. If you’re looking to hire Rails developers at any point, making connections at Ruby or Rails-centric meetups will be beneficial long-term. If you hire developers in other areas – like React.js, PHP, or Python, you’ll find tons of groups for those technologies as well.

It’s easy to attend an event as most are open to anyone with interest in the topic who will follow their expected code of conduct. Meetup is a great place to start. When you find an interesting group, join it, and keep an eye out for upcoming panels, happy hours, and networking events. When you attend these events, bring an open mind and be ready to listen.

If you’re part of a company who hires Rails developers, it’s also helpful to get involved in these groups beyond just attending their events. Meetups and niche groups are usually operating on a tiny budget and are always looking for sponsors to help with hosting events, providing food, or other costs associated with the group. There’s often a shortage of speakers and panelists to lead events as well.

We’ve hosted groups like Portland Women in Tech, the Portland Junior Developer Meetup, and Women Who Code at our Portland studio to get involved. We’ve seen the direct impact of hosting these groups, as we’ve had job applicants for our Rails Developer and Front-End Developer jobs who found out about us through these events.

Connect with contract and freelance developers

If you employ developers, it’s handy to have a set of contract and freelance developers in your contact list. This can be helpful if you have an additional project come up that you’re unable to complete without outside help, or if someone approaches you for a developers recommendation in your area of expertise.

It’s also helpful because not every freelancer will freelance forever. We’ve had a few developers on our team that freelanced prior to getting back into a full-time job, and have spoken with many others who have followed the same path.

We have a form on our website for freelance developers to get in touch with us – for future project opportunities we can send their way, and to make connections within the industry. We promote it most often when we’re needing temporary additional bandwidth on our development team. By building that relationship with freelance developers now, it’s helping to increase our pool of applicants for potential future jobs.

Participate in industry Slack groups

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of Slack groups related to the web and software development industries. These include channels dedicated to underrepresented groups in technology, specific frameworks or types of development and even channels for developers in certain cities.

Slack groups are not only excellent for keeping a pulse on the development industry, but also for connecting with other industry people you wouldn’t have otherwise met. Like meetups, there’s a Slack group for every topic. Many organized groups like Women Who Code and local Ruby groups will have a Slack group alongside their in-person meetings for additional communication.

They’re a useful resource for requesting input on a tech-related problem (and giving answers to others questions!), meeting others with a shared interest, and for sharing job opportunities. When we’re hiring for Rails developers, sharing the job in various Ruby and Rails related Slack groups is on our to-do list.

It can be tough to find the right addition to your technical team of developers. But having a broad pool of applicants can make the search a bit easier. Do you have any strategies for expanding your pool of applicants for development roles?

What traits matter the most for Sr. Level Web Developers?

Erica Tafavoti — Fri, 28 Sep 2018 21:36:02 +0000

Do you hire/manage Senior-Level Web Developers? What traits matter the most in who you choose to hire or promote?

I put together a list of responses to this query on a post on my company's blog, but I thought after writing it that I would like to ask here on dev.to as well!

P.S. I'm happy to add any helpful answers to the post with a link back to your site (or careers page if you're hiring!) Just note in your answer if you'd like me to include it.

Ruby on Rails Agencies: How to Vet and Hire One

Erica Tafavoti — Tue, 03 Jul 2018 21:12:57 +0000

There are hundreds of Ruby on Rails agencies out there. If you’re looking to outsource your web app development to one, you’ve likely done your fair share of Googling along the way so far. After a while, they may start to look the same. Every agency has the same type of website – raving testimonials, an impressive list of clients, and maybe a couple of cute dogs on their team page.

I don’t say that to be snarky – I'm part of one of those agencies, too. That’s why I don’t envy anyone responsible for researching and vetting a new development agency for their Ruby on Rails app – it’s a tough job!

I want to provide you some of the insights our team at Planet Argon has learned along the way to help make that job easier. From discussing hundreds of projects over the last 14 years, we’ve learned a lot about what makes for productive conversations with prospective clients. Here’s a helpful guide to researching, vetting, and hiring the best Rails development agency for your project.

Questions to Ask Yourself

Before you schedule any calls with potential Rails agencies, here are a few questions to ask yourself to get your ducks in a row. Knowing these answers about your project will allow you to have productive conversations with the right agencies for your application.

How soon does this project need to get up and running to meet my goals?

Do you have any upcoming deadlines you need to meet that depend on your application? Conferences, project launches, or important meetings? Figure out some rough timelines that you’ll need to meet with this application so you can discuss them with a potential dev partner.

What’s my development budget for this application – and for support and maintenance?

How much can you spend on a development agency for your application? A large portion of the people that contact us about potential development projects have not identified a target budget for their app development. Even having a ballpark budget for the year will be helpful in screening out agencies that aren’t a good fit cost-wise.

What level of communication do I need from a development partner?

Some agencies have instant communication through Slack available for their clients. Others depend on a scheduled conversation. Most exist somewhere in the middle. It’s important that your communication style aligns with whatever agency you choose to partner with. You don’t want to feel left in the dark on progress, but you may not want to get pinged on Slack around the clock, either.

How involved do I want to be in the day-to-day project discussions?

There’s a level of trust that correlates to how available you’ll need to be “in the weeds” on a project with the development agency you choose. If this app is a big part of your day-to-day workload at your company, you’ll be accessible and can guide a team more directly. But if this app is one of a hundred things you juggle in your role, you want a team that’s a little more self-managing.

What’s the state of my app?

If you’re looking for development resources for an existing Rails app, what’s the current state of the app? How is the test coverage? What version of Rails is it running? Is there a long list of bugs? The quality of the application could influence what type of agency you decide to hire. It will also give potential partners a realistic look at your application.

Questions to Ask a Potential Agency

Now that you’ve researched dozens of agencies, you likely have to go through some sort of procurement process to further qualify these teams and eventually choose the right partner. You’ve scheduled a call with a few to see what they’re all about. Now what should you ask them?

What does your timeline for beginning a new project look like?

You likely have internal deadlines you need to meet. You want to choose a development agency who can help you meet them. If you have an aggressive timeline for getting certain development work done, ask potential agencies early how soon they can start.

What are some ballpark project or hourly rates?

You’ll likely see a wide range of cost structures and estimates (especially if you look at offshore vs. onshore development). Some price development per project while others charge an hourly rate. Our best advice here is to try not to get hung up on sticker shock initially. A lower hourly rate doesn’t matter if the team takes twice as long to complete the project as a more expensive team – and they do it half as well.

With that said, you do need to choose an agency that fits your budget, so it’s smart to talk money early in the conversation to avoid wasting your time on a team you can’t realistically afford.

How do you communicate about progress and budget?

Transparency is key in a healthy relationship with your development agency. When we speak with companies that are transitioning away from another development partner, lack of transparency is a common reason they’re exploring new options. When you’re spending thousands of dollars a month with your agency, you deserve to know where your money is going and to see results.

Ask each Rails agency how they communicate about progress on your application. If you need to demonstrate progress on projects to other stakeholders in your company, how would your development team help with that?

If the development agency works on a retainer system, it’s also helpful for you to see how much progress has been made on your monthly budget. This helps you plan for future work and ensures you aren’t wasting money with unused budget. Ask potential agencies how they communicate about budgets with their clients.

What do you think your team does particularly well?

Not every team does every kind of project well. Even agencies who specialize in Ruby on Rails projects have different opinions and preferences on the type of work they do. For example, we don’t typically partner with startups (here’s why) but there are lots of agencies out there that specialize in building MVPs. Our agency loves taking over existing Rails applications, but there are tons of developers out there that shy away from legacy code.

Are your developers on-site, remote, or offshore?

Many “US-based” Rails development agencies outsource their development to other countries to reduce cost. This is helpful if you’re on a tight budget, but also comes with some challenges due to communication latency and accessibility to your dev team. If office hour communication is important, this is something to consider.

Though the industry has come a long way with video conferencing, we’re “old school” in the sense that we understand how valuable facetime can be for developing a good relationship. If a client visits Portland for business or for fun, we want to take them out to lunch. And if we visit a client’s city for the same, we’ll meet up then too. All of our developers are based in our Portland, Oregon office – with the option to work flexibly from home as needed.

Can I talk to a few of your clients?

Don’t hesitate to ask for references from clients! An experienced agency will have references available for you to contact. You’ll have a better idea of how a team works when you speak with the companies that have collaborated with them in the past.

How to Evaluate From Here

Depending on the formality of your procurement process, you may be required to compare a certain number of agencies before making a decision. Or if you’re the decision-maker yourself, you may only really connect with one or two agencies.

We put together a helpful Google sheet template you can download to input the info from each agency. From here, you can weight and rank according to what’s important to you.

Do they seem to get your business and the challenges you face?

We’ve heard from new clients before that one of their biggest fears was wasting time and money with an agency that didn’t understand their business challenges. After one or two conversations with an experienced Rails agency, they should be able to “fill in the blanks” on what you’re looking for in your application. This likely means they can draw similarities from past projects

Do you enjoy communicating with them?

The Rails development agency you choose is (ideally) going to be communicating with you a lot. This doesn’t mean you need to want to grab a beer with them, but some connection goes a long way in getting a partnership off on the right foot. You can evaluate on hard criteria like price, but there is something invaluable about genuinely liking the people you depend on for your application.

Do their values align with yours (and your company’s)?

If you have a set of values you adhere to in your company, it’s helpful to partner with external agencies that share those values. From the agency perspective, we seek out clients that share some of our core values – curiosity, versatility, and dependability, to name a few. A shared core value set doesn’t guarantee a perfect partnership, but it’s a helpful foundation to build one on.

Hiring the right agency for your Ruby on Rails application development is a tough task. But a little bit of planning and asking the right questions can save you time and stress throughout the process.