DEV Community: Sarah

Takeaways From My First Developer Job

Sarah — Sat, 19 Dec 2020 21:36:56 +0000

I graduated from a Software Engineering bootcamp (Flatiron School) a year ago after deciding to take the leap of a career change from Digital Marketing / E-Commerce. After 6 months of searching for my first developer job, countless applications, rounds of interviews and brain busting code challenges - oh, and waves of imposter syndrome - I finally landed a job as a Web Developer for a digital agency here in Toronto. Fast forward 3 months these are my main takeaways:

Make Sure It's a Good Fit (On Both Ends)

What are you looking for? What's important to you? Is it the kind of product you're working on, the company culture, the mentorship or learning aspect within the job. Make sure the role (and most importantly, the company) isn't just a place you can sell yourself as a good fit for them, they need to be a good fit for you too. You'll end up spending a lot of your time at work - it's got to be a place that works for you!

Try To figure Sh*t Out - But Don't Take Too Much Time

As a newbie - It's intimidating to ask for help. We never want to look like we don't know what we're doing, but at the same time, not knowing is part of the process to learn. So I believe it's important to take a stab at things you've never tried. Work with technologies you haven't learned. Don't feel stupid for not understanding how to do something you've never done, but don't let that same thing scare you from diving in. At the same time, know when you've hit your limit and ask for help sooner than later. I like to give myself around 30 mins or so to see some progress, if I am a step closer within 30 mins I'll add more time. But if I haven't made any progress I'll ask a senior developer for help. Usually (in my experience at least) they've been great with answering questions and making sure I understand.

Find a Mentor / Senior Dev Who Can Help Guide You

Connect with someone(s) who can be your go-to when you need help. Maybe they become your work mentor, or just someone you've grown to feel safe and comfortable with when asking for help. I was lucky to have connected with a couple developers at my first job who did exactly this.

Continue to Learn Yourself and Evaluate Your Needs (Personal / Career)

One thing I knew while in bootcamp was that I leaned more towards front end development. Although I did learn front and backend, and in my first developer job I was working with db's, I knew that wasn't what I really wanted to do. It's important to recognize your change and growth, take a step back and see how you've evolved and re-evaluate your situation and whether or not it continues to meet your needs on all levels. If you've learned you enjoy something, what can you do to be involved with that more? Or vice versa. Your happiness is important for your well-being so it's important to do little check-ins with yourself as needed. Doing this check-in with myself is how I've learned that a) Front End Development is where my interest truly is, b) My current work environment didn't offer me the kind of opportunity I needed for career growth. I had to make a change!

What Now?

With all this being said, I'm sure there are tons more takeaways others can share of their first dev job experience, but these were the top of the list for me. So you may be wondering, what now? Well - I've actually recently accepted a job offer for my second dev role! 🎉🍾 I'll be joining a marketing automation consultancy (also in Toronto) as a Front End Developer / Art Director next week! And as I continue through this journey, as my career grows, as I learn more about myself and where I want to go - I'll continue to visit these takeaways (and more!) to ensure that where I am is aligned with who I am and where I aim to go (and grow). So I guess you can say that is my one main key takeaway:

The Only Thing Constant is Change

As you grow in your career or with anything in life I think it's important to take a timeout to re-evaluate where you are and if you still feel that you are fulfilling your purpose and needs. We're constantly growing and changing, and what has worked for us a year ago may not be what works for us today. This is something I practice with different areas in my life as part of my "mental health check" routine. Money is great, a job title is great, but does it bring you happiness? Your happiness is what should be valued the most.

Week 1: My First Project Build Since Bootcamp

Sarah — Wed, 20 May 2020 02:18:09 +0000

This is the first blog post of a series of posts as I document my first project build since graduating from bootcamp. I'm also considering creating a YouTube channel as a secondary platform for documenting my experience - so stay tuned for that!

Week 1

Initial meeting
The Set-up
[STUCK] Workflow

Initial Meeting

My first meeting with my mentor went great! We chatted a bit before on LinkedIn, so it was a pretty comfortable conversation. He introduced himself a bit more, as did I - then we discussed my goals and created a plan. He set up a shared workspace in Notion to track our workflow, the foundations of a real world developer, and my career path. So far, so good!

The Set-up

This caught me off guard, but in a good way - in our first meeting we started the project set-up! This included creating a new Rails app, naming the app (Pineappler! See image below for how the name was chosen), designing a logo, setting up the repo as well as the initial schema. He also created some issues as the first set of tasks I would need to complete before our next meeting (which I unfortunately didn't complete, but I'm working on it for week 2's post!). This included installing Devise, setting up Postgres, and the functionality for users to create a task.

[STUCK] Workflow

This is where I had issues, and you'd think it would be easy to understand but I found it very confusing. May it be my lack of experience working with an app build (that isn't a school project), feeling overwhelmed, or imposter syndrome paying yet another unwanted visit - the workflow blocked my progress.

GitHub Issues - for some reason it made sense to me to complete issues in order (#1, #2, #3 etc.) which is what caused the bulk of confusion because one issue would be dependant on another. I never had to deal with this before, since with my school projects I would build one feature at a time / one branch at a time. Now that I think about it, I think being overwhelmed was a huge factor to this.

Lesson: Take a minute to draw out your thought process, what logically makes sense to you is probably the right way to go. When all fails, remember - It's okay to ask for help! I reached out to a few dev friends and my mentor who quickly clarified everything.

Learnings

To keep this short and sweet, these were my key takeaways after my first week working on this app:

Add the issue number (#1, #2 etc.) to your commits related to that issue - this creates a link to the issue, so it's easy for contributors to locate.
Don't be afraid of mistakes - I accidentally merged a pull request I didn't mean to. It happens! Know that making mistakes is part of the learning process, and anything (hopefully) can be fixed.
No question is a stupid question - but with that being said, take notes! Keep track of the questions you're asking to prevent re-asking the same things, and to have a go-to manual of your "what the hell?!" moments.
Branch -> Pull Request -> Merge (Always!)

Week 2 goals

I'll be starting off with these 2 goals, but more will be defined in my next meeting with my mentor:

Complete the existing issues (install devise, define schema, users to create tasks)
Deploy (AWS Elastic Beanstalk)

Committing to Sharing My Learnings

Sarah — Mon, 18 May 2020 03:01:14 +0000

I've recently connected with a mentor who will be my partner in crime as I work towards building my first fully functional web application. I've built a few apps for school (Flatiron School), but with those, my focus was more so hitting project requirements than anything else. With this project build, I'll be working on integration's I've had no previous experience with so as terrifying as it is, it's super exciting! What better way to learn than to do, right?

After our first meeting he broke down a list of everything we will implement, and just from that conversation I already know I'll come out of this a better developer. So with that, I wanted to commit to sharing my learnings on a weekly basis. My goal here is to write a blog post at the end of each week sharing anything from code to concepts, to frustrations, and of course - wins!

The main reasons why I've decided to do this are:

accountability
teaching what I learn
watching my progress

It Will Keep Me Accountable

I'll be more aware of the details of what I learn, so I have something (hopefully) interesting to share. Each week I'll be sure to try to learn something new. Which shouldn't be hard, since there's so much to learn!

Reiterating and Teaching

One great way to learn is to teach. So if there's a concept I struggle with, I'm hoping that having to write about it would help me better understand it.

Watching My Progress / Remembering Wins

Sometimes, as developers we get caught up with the negatives. Not understanding, struggling to learn, not feeling like you're making progress. So having ongoing weekly documentation gives me the opportunity to look back at prior weeks and see how much I've grown.

This weekend marks the end of my first week. But I didn't want to write my first blog about it until sharing the reasoning behind why I'm doing this. I'll publish my week 1 blog post tomorrow, and if you come across it - I hope you learn something new!

Getting Over the Fear of Looking Stupid

Sarah — Wed, 13 May 2020 12:24:17 +0000

If current me could go back in time and give past me some advice on learning how to code it would be this - "Get over the fear of looking stupid!"

Asking questions or being afraid to vocalize when you don't understand a concept is a huge barrier to learning. Although it seems easy enough, the fear of being judged is overpowering. This is a huge problem for code newbies and anyone breaking into tech, and to be honest - it's it's a problem I'm just starting to feel comfortable overcoming.

Recently I've been working with a new mentor who is guiding me through building an application that includes the foundations of real-world developer experience. From authentication, to asset management, to webhook integration - it's a lot! And although I am a bootcamp graduate and confident that with his support I will be able to accomplish this, it's pretty scary.

Imposter syndrome sees this as the perfect opportunity to attack! "You'll never be able to do this", "You'll look stupid asking that question", "He'll figure out you have no clue what you're doing", and worst.. "You're not even close to being ready". But what did I do? Fight back! Imposter syndrome is something we will all deal with, but if something scares us we should push towards it rather than run away - that's growth!

Yesterday, my mentor and I had a quick but equally helpful meeting. I was nervous to ask questions that I thought would make me look stupid. But, I'm in a great opportunity to learn with an experienced developer who is taking the time to show me the ropes. So I'd be missing out if I didn't push myself to become comfortable with being uncomfortable. I think that's something we all need to keep in mind:

discomfort = growth

So keep asking those questions, accepting uncertainty, making mistakes and learning from them. Get over the fear of looking stupid! Programming is not easy, and asking questions doesn't make you stupid!

For anyone who is reading this and is in the position where you are guiding or mentoring someone who is early in their learning, please remember to have patience and make it a safe space for us juniors to learn. I tweeted this the other day after meeting with my mentor (who has been amazing!) and wanted to share it since it's relevant:

Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash

You've got space for one more sticker. This one!

Sarah — Mon, 04 May 2020 02:30:09 +0000

It's a known fact that developers love stickers, I mean come on - it just makes sense. When it comes to conferences, you'd be lying if you said you didn't get excited at the thought of getting your hands on some cool little stickers. Yes, there are developers who prefer to have a laptop with a clean slate, but even if you're one of those people I'm sure you have a few (or more than a few!) laying around or stuck on other objects.

Stickers are more than just an added punch of color, they're a way of expressing yourself! They're like little badges of pride showcasing your accomplishments and what you've learned. They speak on your beliefs, on causes you support, on conferences you've been to.. on who YOU are as a person!

Yesterday on Twitter I shared a picture of a sticker a friend gave me and wow, was I surprised with how much love it got!

Over 780 retweets, 3.6k likes, and so many supportive messages from developers from all over wanting to add it to their collection. Not only that, they wanted to order multiple to share with friends and within their communities - I absolutely loved that! Sooo, we had to make it happen!

I spoke to my friend (Danielle) and she spoke to her friend (the designer of this incredible sticker! - Graham) to get the ball rolling.

A couple hours later...

Baaam! 💥 They're available on Redbubble! Not only that, all profits will be donated to TransTech Social Enterprises!

So like the title of this blog post says, you've got room for one more sticker. This one! Show your support, while supporting a great cause.

If you do make a purchase, please be sure to share pics of your laptop (or wherever you choose to stick them!) with us! We'd love to see!

Thank you! ❤️

Photo by imgix on Unsplash

Can you become a developer on a team with no devs?

Sarah — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 17:31:26 +0000

Is it possible to become a developer on a team with no devs? To create a role for yourself in a company that normally outsources their development work? On top of this - what defines a 'developer'? It may be imposter syndrome, or the fact that I've never actually had a job title as a developer that makes me wonder all these things - but then again, does a title define who you are?

I ask these questions because it's the current situation I am in. I work in e-commerce as a digital marketing specialist for a startup I love, with core values I believe in. We're a small team, starting to expand and up to date our app and web development has been outsourced. But just because that's what has been done, doesn't mean there isn't an opportunity... right?

Let me explain a bit more..

The 'role' at a startup

If you've worked at a startup before you know that the job description doesn't define your responsibilities. That's actually what I love about startups. You have the ability to touch all areas of the business, learn what you love and don't love, be creative and really create your role the way you want it to be. And because I've been transparent from the very start, sharing my passion for code, my technical skills and my career goals I've been lucky to immediately be thrown into owning the website more heavily than other team members. This includes any front-end changes, building responsive landing pages, collaborating with the existing outsourced web developer, A/B testing, customization etc. I am coding everyday, although it's mainly HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and isn't really to the extent of what I want to be working on, it's a step closer - so I am grateful.

The transition - is it doable?

I feel like I've been doing everything right. Taking on more of the responsibilities I'm interested in, being transparent and open, and continuing my learning on the side (or as much as I am able to during these trying times 🙃). To add on to this, I've kept open communication with my manager about transitioning into a web developer role. But, is this really doable?

My questions are:

How do you become a developer without a dev team? Especially as a junior where mentorship is an important factor.
What will I work on? Does working mainly on a Shopify site, editing themes, coding in HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Liquid qualify me as a developer? Would I be one? Am I already one?
Is this a good first step into my career change?
How can I ensure I get the most out of this opportunity? Or is this an opportunity worth pushing for?

I've read somewhere a while ago that you should take every opportunity that you're faced with, as you'll never know what it could be unless you try. So I'm moving forward with that in mind - there may be no actual team right now, but we are rapidly growing, and who knows what will come in the future?

I'd love to hear any thoughts! If you've been in a similar situation, or your outlook in general? What defines a developer? Can I really become a developer in a team with no devs?

Feel free to comment below, or connect with me on Twitter - DM's are open!

Thanks in advance!

What's your 'breaking into tech' pandemic plan?

Sarah — Mon, 20 Apr 2020 02:33:12 +0000

Breaking into tech is hard enough, and adding a global pandemic to the equation doesn't make it any easier. If you're a career changer, or a code newbie trying to land your first dev job (like myself!), I'm sure you're feeling the impact.

I started my job search in February, and made some good progress. Sure, I didn't land a job from the interviews I had, but I made some great connections, gained some knowledge and practice, and came pretty close making it through to a final round for a Software Developer role. Some may say these were failures, but I see them as wins. I was able to get my feet wet and work towards building my confidence. Like they say, each rejection gets you one step closer to that yes.

Times have definitely changed from February to March/April. I'm not hearing back from many jobs I've applied to (not even rejections) and barely seeing new job postings, it's been rough. I've noticed a few tweets about 'levelling up your skills' during this time, but I personally think that's easier said than done. Productivity has dropped, responsibilities have changed, priorities shifted. There's a lot to consider when the world is on an indefinite timeout, but your life isn't.

I pride myself on being a pretty productive and focused individual, but I'll be honest - the last week has been rough, and weekends rougher. I continue to stay positive, and have learned that...

And when plans change, you need to adapt and roll with the punches.

Re-evaluating to understand what works and what doesn't work is key for any plan. For myself, I use this in my strategies from studying, to organization, to my job search. So what's my plan you ask? Here are a few tweaks I've made to hopefully help me break into tech while the world has shut down.

The Plan

Networking: Continuing to network and attend virtual meetups. When I say networking, I don't just mean strictly job related. I truly believe in building real relationships with people. You never know where a conversation will lead!
Follow-ups: I'm reaching out to companies that I've had conversations with before, or have caught my eye and introducing myself to see if there are any possible fits for their needs and what I can offer. If this doesn't lead to anything now, it possibly can in the future. You never know til you try!
Skills: Like I mentioned above, productivity clearly has dropped - so I'm working more so on improving and learning what I can without being too hard on myself. Understanding and remembering that any progress made IS progress. I'm not pressuring myself to learn a new skill, I'm more so ensuring that I am continuing to learn. Some days I won't want to code, so I'll read articles/blogs or even browse through relevant twitter threads.
Leverage current situation: I'm grateful that during this pandemic I am lucky to have a job at an amazing company with a great team. I mentioned earlier that I'm a career changer - I'm moving from E-Commerce/Digital Marketing to Web Development. I was still a Flatiron School student when I started my current job and have been very transparent with my career goals. My interest in web development and coding is no surprise, so I've been leveraging my current situation to involve more development work hoping to transition into a web dev role. If I do, great! If not, I am still actively practising my skills at work so that's added progress.

I know that my plan (version 1!) won't work for everyone, but maybe it will? Or parts of it at least - but that's the purpose of this blog post. I wanted to share where I'm at and learn more about what others are doing. If what you're doing is working for you, maybe it'll work for me too?

So with that being said, how are you staying focused on your end goal when curve balls are being thrown left, right and center? What is your 'breaking into tech' pandemic plan?

Photo by Emma Matthews Digital Content Production on Unsplash

Celebrate your wins, especially the small ones

Sarah — Mon, 13 Apr 2020 01:06:05 +0000

It's a tough time for everyone right now, as much as we try to push through it's understandable to feel like you've fallen out of routine or lost focus on your goals. I myself can relate to this completely, and from tweets I've seen and conversations I've had with other devs, I know it's more common than we think.

That's why now more than ever it's important to continue to celebrate your wins. You may not finish that project, or land that job (just yet!), but the small wins towards the big picture will help.

If you follow me on Twitter (@heysarahpaz), you'll know that I've been pretty transparent about my struggle getting back on track with my regular routine. My mornings used to start at 6am, a study session before work, midday workout, then study at night before repeating the next day. But recently I've been rolling out of bed at 8:20am, feeling exhausted, mentally drained, and having trouble staying focused. I'm still studying and trying to stick to my study schedule I've created for myself (I talk about it in my blog post Setting Smart Goals - Do They Really Work? ), but I know I'm not hitting my full potential.

One thing I'm finding helpful is to add learning related notes in my gratitude journal. I started using one as February to keep me in a positive mindset and improve my personal happiness. What I do is end off each day noting 5 things I am grateful for, mostly they've been personal but within the last few weeks I've made sure to add small notes on what I've learned. Trying to refocus my goals, and not let the decrease in productivity take over. The purpose is to remind myself of the milestones I'm hitting. Even though I'm not completing the larger vision of the goals I've originally set for myself, I'm accepting that I am still making progress and as small as these steps are they are worth celebrating.

A couple recent examples include:

Having a mentor who is easy to talk to and makes me feel comfortable asking questions
Being able to code daily for work even though I'm not in a dev role (yet!)
Connecting with other great people in tech through weekly Zoom happy hours
Learning about redux-logger
Learning more about Sass variables

Another small thing I've started as of 2 weeks ago was logging down what I've learned each day in a daily planner, highlighting days where I feel most accomplished. I plan to revisit this on a bi-weekly basis as a reminder of my growth. I hope this will be helpful especially now, when days have blurred and time has no meaning.

The point I'm trying to make here is that we should continue to celebrate our wins, especially at times like these when you may be feeling like you haven't had any. Trust me, you have! As small as they may be, they are worth celebrating. I'm hoping that these small efforts will help me get back to my normal routine, stay positive and of course not forget all the progress that I am making. If you're currently continuing to celebrate your wins 👏 👏 👏! Let me know what your weekly wins were, and how you're keeping track. If you haven't been, take a moment to think back at the past week - I can guarantee there are a few wins worth celebrating!

Photo by Randalyn Hill on Unsplash

Why Writing Blog Posts Sucks (and doesn't suck!)

Sarah — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 00:24:31 +0000

When I started my career transition I knew there were certain things I would have to do to leverage myself. Becoming part of the Twitter community was one thing, being involved locally was another, and of course writing blog posts. But writing blog posts isn't easy. Each time I think about writing a technical blog post 3 things cross my mind:

Does this make sense?
What will people think?
Who cares what a code newbie has to say? What do I know right?

This brings me to explaining (from a career changer / code newbie perspective), why writing blog posts sucks - but also, the importance of hitting 'publish' even when you're too terrified to do so.

Ugh, Blog Posts!

I think as someone early in my career (or career change) it's common to wonder if what I'm writing makes sense. I haven't written many technical blog posts for this reason, it's still a very scary hurdle to jump. A lot of research goes into what I want to write, and the fear of being judged for not using the most efficient or clean code gives me anxiety. I know this is a common feeling (or I hope it isn't just me lol), but like they say, anything worthwhile doesn't come easy. So It's just like the fear of a technical interview, or pair programming. The more often you do it, the more comfortable you'll be. Some wise words my mentor shared with me in regards to blogging really helped me feel more confident. He says that even though there are others more experienced than me, there are also others who are earlier on or who have gone through the same process as I did (career changer who went through a bootcamp program), and they'd like to hear my perspective as it's more relatable. So try to keep that in mind when you're blogging - there are so many different paths to tech, everyone has an audience.

The Positive Side

Yes, of course - there is a positive side through the fear of publishing a blog post! I can only speak for myself, but the main benefits I get include:

Learning something new: Be open to comments and the feedback people share! A lot of times I'll learn something new from what someone has shared with me. Usually others will share additional resources, and I'll gain a new perspective.
Connecting with other devs: Just like Twitter, you can build relationships with other devs through blogging. If you share your blog post on other platforms as well, you'll be surprised how much reach it can get and how many people you can meet because of it.
Opportunities: I've written a posts on my job hunt (Junior dev on the job hunt) and shared it on Twitter and I was surprised to see that it was retweeted over 100 times! This resulting in few recruiters reaching out to me, and others willing to help. So really, you never know what opportunities will come from writing a simple blog post. 😄

How to Make the Process Less Terrifying

Now that I've discussed why blog posts suck (but not really, just the fear of writing them is what sucks lol 😆). I wanted to quickly share how to make the process less terrifying. Mindset is key! Remember, there are so many paths to tech and your perspective can (and will!) be helpful to someone. Don't compare your journey or opinions to others who are more senior or experienced. Change your mindset from feeling like your opinion doesn't matter, to knowing that your opinion is something that someone else out there wants to hear and will find helpful. Stay open-minded as well! Be open to learning from feedback you will receive, but also do not take anything personally if someone shares something negative (because this does happen sometimes). Take everything as part of your growth process, and stay positive.

To end off, when you're reading blog posts remember to be respectful! Share constructive feedback when asked, and do not reply in a way that would discourage someone. Make a positive impact in the dev community - be that person who will help others grow, not dim their light. We all start somewhere!

Photo by Lauren Mancke on Unsplash

Setting Smart Goals - Do They Really Work?

Sarah — Sun, 29 Mar 2020 22:40:35 +0000

In my last blog post I talked about learning to learn, and how we've been trained more so to learn for a short term goal (pass a test), vs learning for the long term goal of retaining information.

I wanted to expand on this topic of learning and personal development with a focus on goals. Setting goals isn't something new to us, we've all done it, and with as many goals as we've accomplished I'm sure we've all had a few slip through the cracks. So do you ever think back and try to understand why?

A big factor to achieving a goal is to ensure that you create realistic and attainable tasks towards that goal. Be as specific as you can and add in as many details as possible to help build these tasks into habits. Yesterday, while going through the Learning to Learn course I've discussed in my last blog "Why Do You Learn?" I had a little refresher on a goal setting technique called S.M.A.R.T goals.

If you haven't heard of this before, here's a quick diagram explaining what each letter represents:

Photo from Kazoohr

And although I have known about S.M.A.R.T goals, I haven't really implemented it when setting my own goals - not sure why, but that changed yesterday!

Setting My S.M.A.R.T Goal

My main goal right now is to land my first dev job. But of course, with knowing what we know about the importance of details within a goal, I had to elaborate on that a bit more.

S - Specific

Land my first dev job by July 24th (My XXth Birthday) 🍰

I've broken down this goal into various tasks:

Study React - 3x a week (2hrs a day)
Write a blog post - 1x week (Publish on Sundays)
Build personal website - work on this 2x week (2hrs a day)
Build a small feature - work on this 2x week (1hr a day)

M - Measurable

Adding small feature builds (React, HTML, CSS, JS) as sub-tasks to my goal measures how I'm retaining the information I study. Ensuring I understand and am actively practising what I learn to solidify my knowledge.

A - Attainable

Each task is attainable because I have access to the information needed to achieve them. I've broken down study sessions into smaller more realistic goals (2hrs a day vs studying until my eyes give in), and am practising spaced repetition by spreading out study sessions with different methods of learning. I also have an amazing mentor who I'll discuss my S.M.A.R.T goal with, and am sure he'll be a huge resource as well. 🙏

R - Relevant

All pieces are relevant because they work towards improving my skills + knowledge, building my personal brand as well as my community presence.

Study + feature builds = skills
Blog post = community presence + reiterating knowledge
Personal website = skills + personal branding

T - Timely

3 month goal with bi-weekly re-evaluations to make adjustments as needed. Life happens, situations change, and I need to be able to adapt to those changes. Setting up frequent check-ins with myself on my progress and how things are going, and making changes as needed is another step closer to success.

Will This Work?

Today is my first day following this new structure, and so far all is good! It's only day one, and Sunday's are my "lighter" days so it doesn't really say much, but I do feel more confident knowing that everything is organized with purpose. I've even color coordinated each sub-task on my whiteboard calendar. 😄

Next steps, well - I guess time will tell. I'll write a follow up blog post in 2 weeks with an update. What worked, what didn't worked, what I changed. One thing I know I'll have to remind myself is that changing goals doesn't mean I'm failing them, it just means I'm adapting as best I can to ensure I stay on track. Gotta keep a positive mindset, always!

If you've got any goal setting tip/techniques that have worked for you, please share! Of even if they haven't worked, I'd like to hear about them too. Learning what doesn't work is just as important as what does work!

Photo by Social.Cut on Unsplash

Why Do You Learn?

Sarah — Sun, 22 Mar 2020 22:51:38 +0000

Like many of us, I've drowned in resources to learn new skills or improve existing ones. From Udemy, to documentation, to YouTube. But with all the resources out there, it makes me think - how much are you retaining, revisiting, or actually absorbing?

I ask this because for myself, a college and bootcamp (Flatiron School) graduate, I found that I struggled a lot with retaining what I've been taught. Specifically with bootcamp, learning and grasping programming concepts definitely was something I struggled with (and still do!). The usual action taken from this is to keep studying and practising, so that's what I did. Like they say, "Practice makes perfect".

Currently I've got 9 Udemy courses (2 complete), I've joined the Zero to Mastery Academy, connected with an amazing mentor, purchased helpful books (The Well-Grounded Rubyist, Eloquent JavaScript), and I feel like I'm doing everything I should be - but I still have trouble. I get it, programming isn't easy, imposter syndrome is real, and I'm not the only person who feels this way and is taking all these measures to improve.

So why is learning such a struggle? I'll admit, I've improved my learning techniques since being a Flatiron School student. They really do a great job at teaching how to learn, understand your thought process, and dig for solutions 🙌. But what I've learned recently through the Learning to Learn - Efficient Learning course on the Zero to Mastery platform is that since childhood we've been trained to learn to pass, not to understand. This really set off a 💡 in my head. Wow - it's true, all these years the goal has been to learn to get a good grade, but what happens after that grade? Most of what I've learned in college or high school died after passing a course I crammed for the night before. I find that (for myself at least) understanding how I've been learning for all these years is the first step to improving how I learn moving forward. Now I'm able to identify whether or not I understand a concept, or if I'm just trying to race to the end goal (finish a project, finish a course etc.). Learning to unlearn, and improving how we do learn is truly an important factor. An article that's shared in this course called The Lesson to Unlearn really made this clear for me, so I wanted to share it. It is a bit of a read, but it's a great one - so if you don't have time to read it all now, be sure to bookmark it!

Also - I was just recently recommended this book called Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware which focuses on learning how we learn, with concepts you can apply to get better at whatever you do. I just ordered it on Amazon yesterday, so no feedback yet - but I'd be happy to share some insights once I start reading it.

Before I end this blog post, I wanted to ask you - "Why Do You Learn?" And I don't mean it in a sense of learning new skills etc. But more so, how are you justifying your learning experience? Are you understanding concepts? Are you learning to pass a course? Are you absorbing what you learn, and if so how do you measure your learning?

Photo by Avel Chuklanov on Unsplash

Junior dev on the job hunt!

Sarah — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 16:03:22 +0000

I know that having an elevator pitch is important. A quick 30 second sell of yourself highlighting what you bring to the table, who you are, and pretty much "why you". In the craziness of my job hunt for a Junior Dev role, I've worked on tweaking my elevator pitch over and over to not only show who I am, but how I would be a good fit for the job and company I'm applying for.

Being a career changer shifting from e-commerce + marketing to web development I make sure to mention not only my technical skills gained through bootcamp but also the transferable skills and soft skills I've developed over the years.

So first things first, let me share everything I'm doing to put myself out there.

Meetups
Coffee meetings with industry professionals
Customizing cover letters per job application
Community involvement (Twitter, local groups, mentoring etc.)
Conferences
Working with a mentor
Practice, practice, practice! (ongoing studying and side projects)

I know that landing the first job is the toughest (or so I've been told), and that it's more of a numbers game. Getting one person to believe in you, and have that one "yes" is really all it takes. It's the hoops you need to jump through to getting that yes that's the hard part.

The reason for this blog post is pretty much trying to find out what has worked for others in terms of selling themselves and landing their first tech role. I'm looking for gaps in my methods so I know what I can improve to better leverage myself when applying for jobs.

If anyone is willing to share their stories / advice with me, please comment or reach out (@heysarahpaz), or if you know of any Junior Dev roles right now (that possibly hasn't made it to a job board yet) please let me know!

Lastly, a blog post reaching out for advice and sharing my job hunt wouldn't be complete without adding my own pitch and experience 😅.

My background is in marketing and e-commerce. I've worked in e-commerce for over 5 years, and I'm currently a Digital Marketing Specialist for a fitness startup in Toronto. Just over a year ago I started my career transition into software development and graduated from a bootcamp for Software Engineering / Full Stack Web Development. I've worked with various e-commerce platforms like BigCommerce, Shopify, Groupby and Magento, and marketing tools such as Klaviyo, GA and Justuno. Development wise, I have experience with HTML, CSS, jQuery, JavaScript, React and Ruby. With working at startups I've learned the importance of team collaboration and how to adapt quickly, and with marketing and e-commerce I've learned how to identify opportunities to improve the user experience. I'm excited to bring those learnings into my next career, contributing towards the bigger picture and being part of a team making a positive impact.

If reading this made a 💡 go off and you're thinking I'd be a good fit for X role at X company, please reach out ➡️ www.sarahpaz.ca!

Thanks!