DEV Community: Judit Lehoczki (she/her)

Summary of 2020

Judit Lehoczki (she/her) — Thu, 07 Jan 2021 17:12:27 +0000

I'm not usually one for writing big summaries of the year but this year was a special one for me - despite the pandemic.

My professional life

I am proud to say I have managed to change careers this year! In January I started off with Northcoders' coding bootcamp and in May I landed my very first Software Developer job at BankiFi - entirely remotely. It's a bit of a bummer it's still 100% remote but I'm looking forward to visiting the office at some point in the new year and to finally get to spend some time with my colleagues.

I attended the "Women In Tech Career Summit" online conference in July - as a speaker! I count this as a huge achievement because I am terrified of public speaking and if it wasn't for the lockdown, I don't think I would have said yes. But it was amazing and I'm really grateful to have been given the opportunity.

In September I started volunteering at Code Your Future - a coding school for refugees - where I got the opportunity to help a graduate project team and see them through their graduation. I'm looking forward to continuing on this journey in the next year, hopefully in person.

And finally, I completed Harvard's CS50x introduction to computer science online course just a day ago.

Changing careers was the best decision I have made for a while and I have loved every second of the training, starting my first job and getting involved with all sorts of related activities. I'm really looking forward to learning and progressing further in the new year.

My personal life

We got a dog! Rocket is a black working cocker spaniel who makes us laugh every day. I have never thought I could have so much love for an animal but he's just the most adorable little pup and I can't even remember what life was like without him. We spent over a year debating whether to get a dog or not but having to work from home gave us the opportunity to be able to look after him properly and to put enough time in his training so that when we will be allowed to go back to work, he will be just fine.

Lockdown of course was never going to be great and it definitely took its toll on my social life and occasionally my mental health but considering everything I think I've done pretty well. Being locked up in a house 24/7 with just one person when usually I would be reasonably sociable was always going to be hard but we did well and we managed to support each other with our daily struggles. We managed to squeeze in a couple of camping holidays in the summer and countless dog walks and movie nights. It's not climbing El Teide or cycling in Thailand but still some quality time spent.

There are a good few things I'm very grateful for in lockdown though: working from home gave me so much extra time that I'm really glad I managed to use wisely. I worked out how to use more than one setting on the washing machine and learnt that the world doesn't end if I go a day without showering or even changing out of pyjamas.

On a more serious note, I can't wait to be able to socialise again or going one step further: travel(!) but I really don't think I could have made more out of this year.

Thanks everyone who has been a part of it in any way, all the old friends who stayed in my life and all the new ones I met this year - you know who you are.

I wish you all the very best for the new year! 🥳

Cover Photo Credit: Ava Sol

When Given The Opportunity

Judit Lehoczki (she/her) — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:26:41 +0000

I have started volunteering at CodeYourFuture, an organisation that helps refugees and disadvantaged people to become Software Developers. This is my background and why giving someone a life-changing opportunity is important to me.

I grew up in Budapest, Hungary in a family that I wish I could say was ideal but it wasn't. My mum with severe hearing loss is to date the most loving person I’ve ever known but unfortunately she's also very vulnerable. My father, who I've never known, didn’t want to be part of our life from the day I was born.

My mum with a disability had to look after and provide for me and my elderly grandmother, alone.

The man my mum met when I was six turned out to be an aggressive and abusive person to say the least. Unfortunately he stayed in our life. He wasn’t at home often (only he knows where he spent his late nights) but I remember well how I felt every time I heard the key turn in the lock. I pretty much spent my teens in fear or feeling guilty for my mum and two young sisters when I managed to escape from home.

On top of it, we also struggled with money most of the time.

When Given The Opportunity To Learn

The first thing I'm extremely grateful for in life is Hungary's free education. Fortunately I was good at studying and had good enough grades which made me able to go to a prestigious university for free while also working part-time. I got an Economics degree and started working as a trainee accountant at an international hotel chain.

I got into a whole different world. I worked with people from different countries and Hungarians who studied/lived abroad previously. This was the first time it seemed like a true possibility to go abroad. I couldn't have afforded to take part in expensive student-exchange programs before (Erasmus remained a dream) but I could now get a job and make a living. I wanted to leave Hungary to be away from my stepfather and to be independent. I wanted to leave for better opportunities.

When Given The Opportunity To Work

After applying all across the globe within the hotel chain from Canada to Singapore, I ended up getting a flight for an interview to Scotland. This was my second time on a flight, and the first time ever I travelled alone. I was 24, I haven't seen much of the world before and my English wasn't great. The whole experience was exciting but also nerve-wracking. But I got the job.

My first boss and later mentor was a Pakistani man. He arrived in the UK with poor English and had to climb that ladder from the very bottom. Twenty years later he was working as the Finance Director of a cluster of hotels in Scotland. He saw something in me and he gave me an opportunity.

2010 was the year I moved countries and changed my life. It was hard. I came with my boyfriend at the time so I wasn't alone but it was still very hard leaving my mum and sisters as well as my friends behind. The first couple of months were exciting but then home-sickness kicked in and I was also fighting guilt and I really really missed my friends and family. It was also rainy and cold all the time, I didn't really know anyone and found it hard to make friends. But I did what I was good at and worked hard and learned as much as I could. I also earned enough money to be able to visit home regularly and bring nice presents for my sisters. I was standing on my own feet and although I felt lonely I was free.
In the coming nine years I built a successful career as an accountant and I was earning a salary I'd never known I could.

When You Can Create Your Own Opportunity

After so many years, however, I just had enough of accounting. I wanted to do something different and get into tech but I didn't have the guts to just quit my job. Not having enough savings was not an issue, I had enough saved up to not have to work for a few months. Over the years I had created the opportunity myself to do whatever the hell I wanted but my brain just wasn't wired like that. To consider quitting a well paying job without having a next job secured? It genuinely never even crossed my mind.

When You Have Someone Support You

In 2018 I met my partner. He is a Software Developer and I very quickly started playing with the thought of learning to code. I already wrote a whole other blog about my journey into software development so I won't get into that but what he taught me was to not be afraid to change. It is so important to have someone in your life who supports you all the way (and also tells you when you are being unreasonable). Sometimes that's all you need: encouragement and someone to believe in you - and continuously remind you of that.

This was the first time in my life I quit a job without knowing when and where I'd be earning my next salary and spent a big chunk of money on a coding bootcamp at the beginning of 2020. It wasn't easy but I genuinely loved every second of it. My only regret is that I didn't start it much earlier. In May 2020, two weeks after my graduation I landed my first developer job.

I know that for most people 2020 won't be a year of fond memories but for me it will always be the year when I changed my life - for the second time.

I love doing what I'm doing and I'm so happy I finally made this choice. I am at the beginning of a new career but am ever so eager to learn and progress as fast as I can.

CodeYourFuture

CodeYourFuture is an organisation that helps refugees, asylum seekers, single parents with low income, people struggling with mental health issues, learning or physical disabilities and anyone else experiencing problems getting the education needed to find meaningful work. 71% of the students are refugees or asylum-seekers, 78% of the students are part of BAME communities and 75% live below the poverty line.

The organisation helps them by giving the opportunity to study for free on a full-stack coding course where the students also develop their soft skills. They give financial support on travel cost, internet, childcare, also loan laptops to students where needed and a lot more. They also provide support for graduates by helping them find employment in the tech industry.

The students at the end of the course participate in delivering a real life project that is used by either other charities or CodeYourFuture itself. They gain experience in working as part of a tech squad with a volunteer project manager and a couple of volunteer tech assistants to guide them. My team has just started their final project last weekend and will have 4 weeks in total to deliver a full-stack web application with an SQL database, Express server and React frontend.

The Students

Given that 71% of the students fall into the refugee/asylum-seeker category, I feel it's important to talk about what these terms actually mean.
According to The UN Refugee Agency: "Refugees are people who have fled war, violence, conflict or persecution and have crossed an international border to find safety in another country." An asylum-seeker is a person that has initiated the legal process to be recognised as a refugee but their claim is still in progress.

Part of the reason I wanted to volunteer at CodeYourFuture is because I know how happy my career change makes me and helping to give a similar opportunity to others not so fortunate feels like a duty.

I would like to clarify that I am not a refugee and have no intention of making any comparisons between my experience and theirs. However I do recognise the importance of getting an opportunity and how life-changing it can be.

I found it hard to find my feet in a new country where I had language problems, had no friends and family and I had to start over building my social circle. I found it hard even though it was my decision, I didn't have to move countries.

These people will have gone through a very difficult period of their life which might have caused mental health issues. They might not have social circles to support them with these issues when they arrive. They might struggle with language and cultural differences. They might find it hard to fit in.

Some might have good education but find it hard to get back to work after unwanted long breaks. Some might have family difficulties. Some can't use the skills they learnt due to differences in their field between countries. Some might just have never had the chance to study new skills that the market needs.

Some might just need help with their CV and to improve their interviewing skills.

Some might just need encouragement to learn new skills, be it coding and/or soft skills such as communication and teamwork. Some might just need a little push and to be reminded that they can do it, that they can learn new skills, get a job and change their lives for the better.

They might just need the opportunity to become part of a supportive community where they are understood.

All the above is what CodeYourFuture offers.

If you want to know more, you can read the story of past graduates Mona and Mohammad.

Help If You Can

The organisation has 4 locations in the UK (London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow), also in Rome and in CapeTown.

If you want to volunteer, you don't have to have any coding experience. They are also looking for people to promote the organisation or help with the students' personal development (including improving their English and employability skills) and are ALWAYS looking for more volunteers. You could apply here.
If you are an employer looking for Junior Software Developers, you could consider hiring a graduate.
If you have a spare laptop you don't use, you could donate it to them.
If you can't help with any of the above, you could help by just sharing this blog.

If you got this far - thank you for reading!

Job Hunting Tips For Bootcamp Graduates?

Judit Lehoczki (she/her) — Tue, 09 Jun 2020 21:00:28 +0000

I have been asked to write about my experience of looking for a job as a fresh coding bootcamp graduate in the times of coronavirus and lockdown. I was told that other graduates might be lacking confidence and telling about my tips and tricks might help them.

So what are my tricks? Erm... I don't have any.

How about my tips? Not sure. If I'm honest, I don't feel qualified to claim having any high value tips as if I was someone special because I'm not. I did get a job pretty quickly after my graduation and of course I am very proud of it. Who wouldn't be? But the truth is, a big part of it was down to pure luck.
It's also undebatable however that another part was down to working hard and putting myself out there.

So here are some thoughts that I consider useful and I believe they helped me with my job search and getting hired.

Valuing Yourself

"So you learnt to code in 12 weeks, did you? It must be easy then." - I beg your pardon?!
How long have you been coding for? I know it's not 12 weeks. How much time have you spent learning to code on your own just to get into your course? How many different online resources you looked through, how many hours did you spend googling the answers to the challenges you got stuck on? How many Codewars katas (and the likes of it) have you gone through to just pass the entry challenge to your bootcamp?

I reckon I spent over a year learning before applying to my bootcamp while also holding up a full-time job. I also spent the same year debating whether I was brave enough to take the risk and leave a successful career behind.

Then there was the bootcamp itself. The one I did was 12 weeks of non-stop hard work. Officially full-time: Monday-to-Friday-nine-to-five. Unofficially include the evenings and the weekends as well because I had to catch up on stuff I didn't get straight away on the course over the week. I say, if anything, doing it in such a short time deserves credit, not being looked down on and should definitely be valued. If you made it to graduation - within however many weeks - you should be really proud of yourself!

The one piece of most important advice I can give is to value yourself. Don't think even for a second that you're not good enough or not worthy your first junior role. Changing careers 1) takes guts and 2) is really hard work. Anyone who says otherwise, you don't need them in your life.

Impostor Syndrome

On the same line, we all struggle with impostor syndrome. (This is a good TedTalk on it by Mike Cannon-Brookes, CEO of Atlassian.)

From what I hear, many coders suffer from the same, regardless(!) of the level they are at or the years of experience they have. You have to accept that you'll never know everything. Software development is such a fast moving field to be in, you have to learn new stuff day in and day out. An experienced developer might pick up the new stuff quicker and is used to having to learn all the time but they are not ashamed of googling and so you shouldn't be either. Coding is regularly about getting stuck and knowing how to get unstuck, even for experienced coders. So don't feel too disheartened when the project you're working on is taking a bit (a lot) longer than planned or you don't get something straight away. That doesn't mean you are a bad coder.
Also remember, the fact you got into coding shows that you are willing to continuously learn which is a great and valuable trait to have.

Building Your Portfolio

As part of the pre-course to my bootcamp we had to build our portfolio website before even starting the course. The first draft of mine looked like it was made in the 80s. I wasn't really friends with CSS then (even now we're just about getting on) and it took me ages to build. It was hard work and a lot of frustration...
I'm sure it caused a lot of headaches for other newbies as well and the first attempts ended up looking like crap. But we made them from scratch, did it on our own, we learnt to learn and google.
Once you build your website and keep improving it as you're improving your knowledge and skills, the website itself is your first piece on your portfolio. Make it look great. Make it all about you. Make it tell a story, show your personality. Make it so that you're proud of it.

Then keep going. Every piece of program you build, build it well enough to be worthy for your portfolio and keep extending it. You can include the stuff you build throughout whatever course you're doing and also your pet projects.
You don't know what projects to start? There are tons of ideas and resources, even tutorials. The very first link I found lists things like a Rock, Paper, Scissors game, a calculator, a mobile app just to mention a few. Build something that gets you excited, something you want to build otherwise it's less likely to be fun. It really doesn't matter what it is, what matters is that you'll be learning new tech while building it. The fact these will become new pieces on your portfolio is just a bonus.

On the same note - build things. Watching tutorials and going through online courses and solving algorithm challenges are great but you really learn when you put that new knowledge in use and make something with it.

Social Media Presence

I was already registered on LinkedIN before but very rarely used it. I started browsing around companies fairly early, got a bunch of tech recruiter connection requests and overall just started building a network. It's also a pretty useful resource to new free courses/resources.

I cleared up and restarted my Twitter account where I haven't posted for years and started browsing around tech content that I thought could be interesting. This is how I found the amazing community of #100DaysOfCode which provides such great support. I can definitely recommend it, you soon start connecting with like-minded people with the same coding newbie struggles you have and so on, giving you a psychological boost to keep going.

Building Your Network

After starting to build your network on social media you should try to extend to building it in person - which is a struggle in this current COVID situation but I'm being hopeful that the world will open again eventually.
Attend tech events!
One thing I would definitely do differently is that I would start going to tech events right at the start. Even before starting my bootcamp and definitely throughout the bootcamp and after.
They are usually fun, you learn something new, you meet like-minded people, recruiters(!) and get free pizza.
Currently there are still a lot of events held online (which means no pizza...), check them out on Meetup, Eventbrite and similar sites. You never know who you'll meet.

Writing Blogs (If That's Your Thing)

Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to blog about everything I wanted to but I tried. I wrote a blog about how I got into coding then tried to write one of each block of my bootcamp etc. I know writing is not everyone's cup of tea but I found it useful for three reasons:

1) It was great to summarise each block of my bootcamp. I used it to reflect on how much I actually learnt in a few weeks each time and it was surprising to see how far I'd come. How things I struggled with just a few weeks earlier felt like second nature. It made me feel great about myself and made me feel like I could do much more than I first thought.

2) The first blog I wrote was definitely just for myself to reflect on my career change because it was scary as hell to not have a job after 12 years of non-stop work. My boyfriend however saw the opportunity in encouraging others - potentially other women in their thirties - and nudged me to post it publicly. He was right.
I received a number of supportive comments, people were interested in what I had to say. I even received private messages from women thanking me for sharing about my experience.
My bootcamp also loved that I was writing about them and they kept sharing across their social media platforms which was equally as good of a motivation to continue writing - especially that potential employers would have been reading them as well.

3) So I knew people were reading my blogs, which was really nice, especially when I found out on my job interview that the CEO and COO of the company I ended up working for also took their time to read my blogs. They found them on my website where I also published them alongside my portfolio.
I got the impression that they enjoyed knowing more about me than if we only had our interview call. They got an idea about me as a person and they didn't only get to meet that nervous mess I was on my interview and it also gave us more to talk about. It's also important that these guys were not coders. They could be reading my CV and trying to guess whether stuff listed on my skillset is tech or a cleaning product brand. (Flutter? Express? Dettol?) But blogs about my journey into tech? They found them interesting.

Applying to jobs

Apply to companies you like the sound of, even if they don't currently hire. I found an article that listed the top 100 tech companies of Manchester in alphabetical order. Following that order I checked out their website and, if I liked the sound of one, I sent them a personal email - even if they had no vacancies. In the emails I prompted them to look at my portfolio website, rather than reading through my CV, with the aim to focus them on what apps I have made so far and not that I didn't have years of experience or a fancy CS qualification.
To give you an honest feedback on my experience I will also tell you that I haven't received a lot of responses. But I also only got to 'E' in the alphabet. :)
I still believe that given different circumstances (if I didn't find a job this early) I would have kept applying and could have been in the right place at the right time and emailed the right person. You never know who will read your message and who will like your portfolio or your eagerness to have spent time to contact them.

I have to admit that, since I was lucky finding a job through my bootcamp, I didn't have to keep applying to jobs for too long (hence only 'E' in the alphabet). But in my previous life I always followed the same idea: you have nothing to lose by sending an application.
If you ever question whether it's a good idea to send an application to a specific job - the answer is always yes. Don't let silly thoughts stop you from applying. I ended up applying to companies where I did't really see much chance of getting hired. (Like a Software Engineer role at GitHub.) But the worst that could have happened was getting a rejection. Equally the recruiter/manager who's looking at your application could be also just opening a position/losing a person in a more junior role they haven't advertised yet. You just never know!

The more jobs you apply to the more chance you get to at least attend an interview. If in the end you don't get hired, you still have gained experience and will perform better on a following interview. You will have done an additional tech test, you may have built a new piece for your portfolio. Look at these experiences as a learning curve and not as rejection.

Some people considering it "brave" to send out so many job applications. I don't think there's anything brave about sending an email with an attachment. There's nothing brave about attending an interview either. The brave bit, which you have already done, was to choose a new career.

Cover Photo Credit: Elena Koycheva

Interviewing And Onboarding Remotely To My Very First Software Developer Job

Judit Lehoczki (she/her) — Sat, 16 May 2020 16:59:55 +0000

I am one of those fortunate junior developers who found their first job remotely two weeks after graduating from a coding bootcamp. (Thanks Northcoders!)

Interviewing

Round #1

I had a tech test which was to make a React-Native mobile app that consumes an external API. "Bonus points" for testing and inline validation - they say bonus points, I hear minimal requirement.
I have never used React-Native before and had 3 days to complete the task. I had used React though and also Flutter so at least I had an idea about mobile development. I learnt to use React-Native and learnt to test front-end with Jest and built a Guardian news search app:

I started learning the new tech and making the app with the mindset that I didn't really care if I got the job or not. I would learn some cool stuff that I had wanted to learn anyway and I'd have a new piece on my portfolio. I was very conscious that this was the very first job I applied to in a competitive job market in the middle of this coronavirus and lockdown malarkey.
This approach took a lot of pressure off and in the end I felt confident in my app design, code structure, and test coverage. It made me feel very proud of it and got me to the next stage.

Round #2

I had a webcam interview with the techie people of BankiFi and I had to demo what I made. I answered a bunch of questions about the code and my approach, how I tested, what I tested etc.
I used to think I was a confident interviewee in my previous life as an accountant. I would have known what the interviewer wanted to hear (since I also used to interview), I'd know the technical phrases to use to prove I knew what I was doing. Hell, I understood the questions!
But not this time. This was my first ever tech interview. My first ever tech test. My first ever experience in the real world out there as a future software developer.
I felt confident in my skills and my drive but I didn't know what questions to expect, what to even prepare for. I was madly going through Codewars katas and was terrified of any coding theory questions. Thankfully I got none of that. I built an app in 3 days after all and rightly that was enough to prove my skills.

Round #3

The last round was then another webcam interview with the CEO and the COO of BankiFi.
Big titles sound scary at first, especially for someone like me with 12-years of corporate-bureaucracy-background-baggage. But you know when you chat to someone and it just feels right? That's how it was. Down-to-earth people who are interested in you as a person and you're not just a number, not just a body doing work.

So I got the job.

It was the first job I applied to and man, does it feel like it was the right one! I know I am lucky, fortunate and I am really grateful. I also am acknowledging that I have been working hard as f*ck to get here.

Onboarding

The Friday before starting remotely my Team Lead dropped off my brand new laptop in person(!). We had a super quick, socially distanced encounter, acknowledging we were real people in these unreal circumstances.
With my laptop, I found a little handwritten note that included some login details and overall just welcoming me to the company. I mean WHO DOES THAT?! And why doesn't everyone? After all, it's always the little things.

The Social Aspect Of Starting Remotely

Starting (and working) remotely is not easy. You miss the social interaction, especially at the beginning when you are just getting to know your new colleagues. At BankiFi we have a semi-obligatory 30-minute coffee break on Zoom, EVERY DAY, where it seems that the one great rule is that we don't talk about work. We talk about new recipes, our kid's Zoom birthday party, cycling and much more. Then we continue the good habit with some drinks every Friday afternoon on our On-Nomi call.

A day hasn't passed yet when I didn't have at least 3-4 people (of a team of 8) dropping me a message/call to just check in and see how I was getting on or ask me if I needed anything. More than anything it's weird for them as well to have someone starting remotely who they've never met in person so we're all in the same boat.

After surviving my first week - which was made easy with the support I received - it's safe to say that I already know more about a couple of my colleagues than some past colleagues I had worked with for much longer.

Work Work Work

Day one was just to get familiar with everything. I had a number of calls and video meetings with people, introducing me to the company and the products.
On day two I got my first ticket, wrote my first whole 6 lines of code and made my first pull request (for the non-techie people, ignore this paragraph).
I then spent the rest of the week creating the initial plans and wireframe of what I will be coding and working on in the coming couple of months.

Adapting To A Very Different Company Culture From What I'm Used To

My opinion matters.
That is just as scary as it is exciting but definitely not something I'm used to as a former accountant of big(ish) companies. Having to get creative is not an accountant trait for sure.
When I'm told to go away, plan and pretty much design something on my own it raises some questions for my accountant mind. Where's the person on the top of the chain telling me what to do exactly?
While I'm thrown into the deep end I am also told that I am trusted and if there's any obstacle in my way I am free to say it. I need help? Say it. I need anything I wasn't given? Just bloody say it!

I used to manage people. I was (mid-)management. This should really not be new to me at all. But things just don't work the same way at big organisations where you don't normally have a say.

But let me tell you, it makes me feel free and it makes me feel valued.

I am finally treated like a grown-up.
I start and finish when I feel like, as long as I'm doing work. And man, I want to do work! I don't have a desk-time tracker on my laptop, no one reports me to HR if I log in 2 minutes late, I don't have to clock in and clock out with my fingerprint. (Yup, that's a thing.)

It will definitely take me time to strip off past anxieties of corporate culture but hell, I'm looking forward to it!

Conclusion

Maybe I'm still in this little pink cloud and I'm sure it's not perfect. But it's safe to say I had a perfect first week at a perfectly new career and I am very much looking forward to more to come.

Cover Photo Credit: Danielle MacInnes

My Tips For Working Remotely

Judit Lehoczki (she/her) — Wed, 15 Apr 2020 07:23:49 +0000

Since Coronavirus hit and lockdown started I got stuck working from home - as did many of us. I used to find it hard to work from home as I easily lost focus or got bored. Here are a few things I find useful and help me occasionally even enjoy remote work.

Have A Routine

It's really easy to become one of those who work in pyjamas and don't actually crawl out of bed until 5 minutes before work time. Don't get me wrong, if that floats your boat, go for it but I personally know I am up for a terrible day if that's how it starts.
So I try to keep a routine. I get up at a reasonable time, have a shower and put decent clothes on. I try to act as if I was doing everything the same way as before apart from commuting. I use my "commute time" to read through my social media, talk to my partner (or play Animal Crossing).
I have an hour lunch break at a fixed time - and so do my co-workers so that we are on the same schedule.
I also try to switch off my laptop at the time I am meant to finish as it is just as easy to lose track of time towards the end of the day and get carried away. It's easy to work overtime when you can't even leave the house but it is not good for your mental health to do it all the time.

Mentally Split Your Time

I find that one of the hardest thing in remote working is to separate work time from personal time in my mind because my surroundings don't change. There aren't warm up and wind down times in the day as I would have with commuting so it is important to consciously remind myself to change.
I have an alarm set for half an hour before work time when I will have my coffee and mentally prepare for work. Equally, straight after work I make sure to put my laptop away and go to a different room in the house. (In my case that's leaving the kitchen and jumping in front of the telly.)

Have breaks

Given that I'm working from our kitchen, I easily find myself forgetting to have breaks. I'd be working while the kettle boils and would be snacking and even eating my lunch in front of my screen. So instead I force myself to just walk around the house a bit while the kettle boils, drink my tea and eat my lunch in the living room or in the garden if it's sunny. If you still struggle, try to chat to someone over your phone (away from the laptop screen) for a few minutes - people seem to be having more time and calling more regularly lately anyway. :)

Put Your Thoughts Into Words And Communicate Better

When you work in an office and are having a bad day, everyone can see it even if you don't say a thing. That's gone with remote working. Your colleagues can't see your body language, they can't tell if you're stressing out. You have to say it.
I probably find this the hardest: actively expressing emotions verbally. I easily get frustrated when the people I work with just don't recognise how I'm feeling. When they don't recognise that I feel stressed. But I have to remind myself constantly that they can't see me and they can't tell that I'm stressed unless I tell them. A hard one but worth paying attention to, they will understand because they are going through the same.

Talk To Your Colleagues

Have video chats and talk about the work you're doing and talk about stuff that doesn't relate to work - just as you would in person. Seeing other people on video calls is as close as we can currently get to personal interaction and it is important if you're not used to working remotely. We have the occasional "after work drinks" through Zoom and share our experiences. It's great to get the feedback that we are all in the same boat and have similar struggles.

Use Some Cool Tools

My previous list of useful tools to help remote work needs to be extended.
We are still using VS Code Live Share to pair-code but more or less moved away from Slack for messaging to Discord.
Discord also allows you to share your screen (if you needed to share more than just your VS Code), also works great for conference calls.
Discord has video conference options but I much prefer using Zoom for that because I really like the way it swaps between the screen showing the active user (the one talking) on a bigger screen.
Also, all the above are free to use (at least to the extent we need it).

So this is my list - what would you add?

Cover Photo Credit: Johannes Plenio

Build That Component Tree! a.k.a. The Frontend Block Of My Bootcamp

Judit Lehoczki (she/her) — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 17:19:37 +0000

The Beginning

After fundamentals and backend comes the frontend block to smash.

The first two days are painful. Working with the DOM directly with no helper frameworks is unpleasant to say the least but is necessary. We work on trying to implement a working To Do List then make a form with data validation. Arrrggghh, just take me back to backend!

React

On day three we learn some React and the magic starts again. For someone who's only been coding properly for 6 weeks at this point - the concept is difficult. But once you get it, you can make some pretty cool stuff! I start off pair-coding a calculator and also learn about how to fetch data from an API. It starts getting together in my head how everything we learnt in backend actually relates to what we're doing at the frontend.

My Hangman Game

Over the first weekend I make a working hangman game for International Women's Day, in two languages just to make sure my mum can play it too. This is the first little game I ever make so it fills me with joy and hope that I will enjoy working in the field and that I can actually do it. The creativity in software development is also clearer to me than ever before, the endless possibilities of an app you might want to create is amazing - at least for someone like me who's coming from an accounting background where there isn't much room for creativity (unless you're a bit dodgy. :))

Some More

On week two we explore a few libraries for data visualisation and make an app that gets you the weather information of any chosen cities in the UK and compares the current temperature on some fancy graphs.
We then have a three-days sprint to build a Student Tracker app for Northcoders, my bootcamp. Have four blocks, have the students of said blocks show, be able to graduate them to the next block or make them resit a block. Be able to enroll a new student. And make the thing look pretty!

Prettying things up is hard when you're not confident with your CSS skills so I would really recommend going through Dave Geddes' Flexbox Zombies for anyone who wants to learn more about flexbox, it really is an amazing tool to learn it.

Planning

Given that we are all new to software development we need to be taught the basics too, such as planning. Planning ahead is really hard when it's not that you just don't know how to use some technologies, you also don't know what technologies you'll use. But you can get creative, have a plan and change the plan if really necessary when you get to know more or realise something will not work the way you imagined but don't be scared to imagine.
We get into the habit of drawing a wireframe of our app first (nice time off the screens), all the possible pages/screens our app would have then think through the Component Tree. What links to where, what levels you need to have your states otherwise you'll just end up having to rewrite big chunks of your code.

My News Site

The review of the Frontend block is a week long and the task is to build a frontend to the database and server we built at the Backend block.
Unfortunately this is when coronavirus hits us so the tasks is also to be done remotely.
After a week The Daily News is looking good (but still needs some more work to do). This is my first full stack application that has been built from bottom to top by me alone and the feel of achievement is great!

Cover Photo Credit: Kelly Sikkema

Tools To Help Remote Work

Judit Lehoczki (she/her) — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 11:44:07 +0000

I wanted to share the tools we use currently while working remotely and I also am interested in hearing what others find useful so please share your secrets in the comments. ☺️

I am currently in a bootcamp at Northcoders (Manchester, UK) and so priority is on two things:

To be able to "attend" lectures.
To be able to continue with pair coding.

We had a trial day to test this out on Friday and we used the following.

YouTube Live Stream

Here's a quick video to help you set up your own live stream.

VS Code Live Share

Sharing your workspace with VS Code Live Share is really easy and comes super-handy for pair coding.
My partner created a shared workspace from his computer while we were both able to edit the code.
The Live Share extension marks it clearly where the other person's (or people's) cursor is and you can also have more than two people in the session - which proved to be extremely useful when we needed help from our tutors as they could also join the session.

It also allows you to share your localhost which means I could also see the code running in my own browser which made it possible to view the console/elements etc. for debugging.
A bonus (while I appreciate it's not priority): even though I was looking at my partner's code, on my screen it still appeared with the VS Code theme I used and was used to seeing, regardless of what my partner was using.

Slack

For calling each other we just used Slack which is free if you only have 2 people on the call and allows up to 15 people if you pay for it.

VS Code Live Share Audio

I have also just found an audio extension to VS Code's Live Share which looks great and also free but I have personally not yet tried it.

What tools would you recommend to help remote work?

Cover Photo credit: Fabian Mardi

Nevertheless, My Hangman Game Is Live For International Women's Day!

Judit Lehoczki (she/her) — Sun, 08 Mar 2020 11:55:53 +0000

Since my previous post was taken with such a warm welcome, I prettied up the app in time for International Women's Day. I am not claiming it's the most amazing thing you'll ever see but it's the most amazing thing I have ever coded so far. 😄

It's a themed Hangman game for International Women's Day and is available to play both in English and Hungarian >> HERE <<.

Any constructive feedback is welcome in the comments. Kindly be gentle with criticism, I am very much at the beginning of my coding journey. I just have started to learn React and definitely not friends with CSS yet. 🙃

The repo is public for anyone to look at and use, if anyone wants to contribute to extend it with different languages would be supercool.

Have fun if you give the game a go and here I'm wishing everyone a sunny and happy International Women's Day!

Nevertheless, I Have Just Built My Very Own Hangman Game!

Judit Lehoczki (she/her) — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 20:53:42 +0000

Week #7 On My Bootcamp...

...and I'm making my very own hangman game from scratch with React.

The first time I learnt about React was on Wednesday. (Yes, two days ago.) Now I am spending my Friday night building a Hangman game. (My companion is a bottle of red wine.)
"Get a life!", some would say.
Well, I guess this is my life now and I'm loving it!

It's not pretty but that's alright. It works. And I made it.

I wish all my fellow women readers (and let's not forget about gender minorities) an International Women's Day as happy as I am today. :)

If you want to read my actual story, click here.

P.s. Can you guess what the solution is?

But What On Earth Is A Server? And What Is API?

Judit Lehoczki (she/her) — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 08:56:39 +0000

The second block of my journey is three weeks on Backend.

"What is Backend?" - I hear you ask. "Some servery based stuff that happens in the background but I don't even know what a server is." - I would have answered you three weeks ago.

HTTP Requests

First we learn the basics of how the internet works.

The internet is a global network of computers that works much like the postal system, only at sub-second speeds. Just as the postal service enables people to send one another envelopes containing messages, the internet enables computers to send one another small packets of digital data.

(Thanks BBC.)

Computer #1 sends a request for some data to computer #2 and computer #2 sends a response back.
We learn about http requests and how to make them in Node.js. Once we get familiar with them and just getting a bit more confident, we learn about Express.js which makes things a million times easier.

Have you ever wondered what all that gibberish is in your url with question marks and equal signs? They are queries. And we learn about them too.
(https://dev.to/search?q=banana - the 'q=banana' here)

We also learn about a lot of fancy-sounding things like middleware functions and routers, the model-view-controller a.k.a. MVC pattern. In terms of Javascript, we get to understand and use Promises. A lot.

So we can now send all sorts of requests to servers that we still don't understand but they are good at sending us the stuff we are requesting. We are sending these requests to third-party APIs.

To what?

API

API stands for Application Programming Interface which equally doesn't help to understand what they actually are. I am going to try and explain it through an example of ordering food (in a simplified way).

It's a Sunday evening and I can't bother with cooking. I grab the menu of my favourite pizza place off the fridge and browse through the menu. Medium size pepperoni pizza with extra cheese and a can of drink.

I place my order to the restaurant (send my http request)...
...who will receive my order, step-by-step put it together (make the dough, pre-heat the oven, add the right toppings, add the extra topping, put the pizza in the oven, bake it, box it, get my drink out of the fridge) and send their delivery guy. Boom! I got my pizza (response) within half an hour (in milliseconds).

My boyfriend just gets home and, seeing my happy face, also wants to order a takeaway but he wants to eat Indian. Chicken korma with peshwari naan and some onion bhajis. But how will he know if that's possible to order? He can't look at my menu, that would cause some confusion for sure. He will have to use a different menu.

So an API is like a menu. A computer's API specifies how my computer can interact with it just like a menu tells me what I can order from a restaurant.

With this, I have now explained what a GET request is but there are also other methods such as POST, PUT/PATCH and DELETE which will not fit so well with my food analogy. Posting would be equivalent to something on the line of sending a new ingredient to the kitchen, putting/patching would be to change such ingredient and deleting it would be to make them put it in the bin.
A much more reasonable example is let's say when you send (post) a tweet on twitter which you can edit (put/patch) and also delete.

Databases and SQL

We can also make our own database where we can serve information from (getting to the server bit in a minute). Continuing with our takeaway, it's a bit like opening my own kitchen. I can have all the ingredients waiting to be made into a meal for delivery.

We learn SQL from SQLBolt. It is a language used for creating and managing data held in a (relational) database. "What? Learning another language?" Yes. But it is actually fairly simple (at least at this stage). We also get introduced to Postgres which is a database management system and works pretty well with Node.js. We learn to use Knex.js which is an npm package to make our lives easier. We can now create databases and tables in those databases, and seed them (fill them) with data.

Server

We are finally getting here! It's time to build our own server. But what is a server?

In computing, a server is a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called "clients".

(Thanks Wiki.)

The client is the lazy Sunday takeaway eater who orders from the takeaway place - in this case the one with the kitchen and all the ingredients is me.
Building a server is essentially building the API or creating my food menu.

When making a server, I can serve up either my own data from my database or - this is where it gets pretty cool - I can serve up data from another API!
Imagine another restaurant letting me use their ingredients to make my own food. And it's all cool to do so (I assume within certain rules of copyright).

Let's take this Chuck Norris Database as an example. They store a number of Chuck Norris jokes somewhere in a database. I can send them a GET request as per their API. Let's say I want to get a random Chuck Norris joke. I can use the following endpoint: https://api.icndb.com/jokes/random which will send me back a random joke. This is because they wrote their API in a way that this endpoint will always serve up a random joke. It's on the menu.

This opens a lot of possibilities to gather information from other servers to use on my own app. Think about any app that uses a map - they could use google's map data like magic.

Overall I can say I really enjoyed the backend block and for the first time since I started with coding I actually felt that I was doing something that I might be doing in real life rather than just solving puzzles.

Cover Photo credit: Jesús Terrés

The Start Of My Bootcamp

Judit Lehoczki (she/her) — Sun, 09 Feb 2020 13:30:32 +0000

I was originally going to title this post "First Steps".

Forget about steps.

Starting my bootcamp was more like deep diving into a whirlpool but I couldn't be happier.

Northcoders's bootcamp (a.k.a. The Developer Pathway) is a 4 x 3 weeks course with 4 separate blocks:

Fundamentals
Back End
Front End
Project Phase

This post is on my first impressions on the course and about the Fundamentals block. If you want to know how I got here, please read this.

What Should You Expect?

If you made it to the course it will be no surprise that it isn't easy.

You study hard to get in then you study harder to get through with the view that in the end Northcoders (or yourself) will do their best to get you a job that you actually like.

But how do they do that?

Firstly, they train you to be employable. They train developers that the market needs and they teach you current technologies. They also serve as Recruiters to tech companies across the UK. They have a large number of hiring partners, and a Business Development Team that continues to add more. You learn what these future employers will want you to know and they will get exactly what they need. Everybody wins.

There are also regular visits from these companies who do a little presentation on what they do and you can ask questions to get some insight into what's waiting for you if you were to work for them.

There's also a job board for Northcoders graduates which you will have access to even after graduation. Once a Northcoder, always a Northcoder, building the community.

The Impostor Syndrome

Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which one doubts one's accomplishments and has a persistent internalised fear of being exposed as a "fraud".

(There are also some good videos on this here, here and here.)

I used to be really worried about changing my career. How can I learn something in 12 weeks and actually get a job with it? Am I good enough?
I think the following model works and definitely helps me tackle my fears:

Having to work hard to get in gives you a feel of achievement and makes you appreciate your space on the course.
Being encouraged all the way and seeing other cohorts develop is a great motivator.
Being able to listen to potential future employers give a level of comfort. On one of these talks the presenter told about why they like hiring from Northcoders and he said: "You guys are adults who made an adult decision to invest in yourselves and change your career. You are committed, motivated and you want to do it."

First Impressions

From the first moment you enter the office you are made to feel welcome. Everyone's friendly, the office is modern with free tea and coffee and fresh fruits.

The office is actually an office, it doesn't feel like being in school at all. There's a big open plan office space and two lecture rooms which could be training/meeting rooms at any decent company. From day one you feel like you are in work rather than in school.
The students of all four blocks sit together but in different desk banks - just like different teams of a company. This way you also get to see what other groups are doing - especially if it's something as visual as flying a drone! (I'm not entirely sure what that was all about but it looked fun.)

My Cohort

We are a group as diverse as it can be. Diverse in age, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, gender and probably much more.

On the first day we were given a Student Handbook where Code of Ethics is high on the agenda and puts a big emphasis on the big no-no's of harassment and discrimination. There's also attention and efforts made to accommodate any kinds of special requirements due to pretty much anything. There are three toilets and there's a prayer room. Nuts are banned from the Manchester office because one of the tutors has severe nut allergy. In a ~~nut~~shell: everyone is welcome and encouraged, exactly as it should be!

I personally really enjoy being surrounded by a bunch of intelligent individuals who are all very different and yet we have this one thing in common: our brains are wired similarly and we all think code.

Let's Get To It!

From the 19 people in my cohort 15 of us were new and we had 4 people who were resitting the Fundamentals block. The important info crumb here is that you can resit any of the blocks at no extra charge whether it's for your tutors' recommendation or if you choose to.

It is not lame at all to resit. The pace is as fast as expected from a bootcamp, picking up so much knowledge in 12 weeks is supposed to be difficult. It is also a full-time course (Monday-Friday 8.30-17.00) and many people have other responsibilities, hobbies (or a life?) that will not allow them to do any further studying than these hours and that's okay. All blocks build on each other and this is Fundamentals in the end of the day, it's important to not build on shaky grounds.

How And What Are You Actually Learning?

A normal day starts at 8.30 when you have an hour to work solo on different challenges you are given (or just to revise). Usually from 9.30 you have a lecture until 11.00.

After the lecture you work on related challenges/projects in typically one or two days sprints (or canters as we decided to call them). But what on Earth is a sprint?

According to Agile Alliance, a sprint is "a timebox during which development takes place". In this case you solve as many challenges (solo or in pairs) as you can within a given time. It is however not a race, the aim is not to complete them all but to practise and get a good understanding of all concepts. All this to get used to the idea of Agile Software Development (another good read here).

You have an hour lunch break at 13.00 and then you continue with your challenges/projects. Some afternoons there are hiring partner presentations on the agenda, some Friday afternoons have a Show & Tell session where students can practise their presentation skills for their graduation which is every third Friday. Afternoons are also good to schedule an hour here and there with your mentor.

On the first week you revise some of the basics you learned while doing the pre-courses, like most common array methods, to make sure they are all clear and also learn a bunch of new stuff in the coming week. This includes:

Testing with Mocha, Chai and Sinon's spy - the tutors hammering TDD (test driven development) into us from the very first day.
Pair programming (which I wrote a short blog about).
Scopes, the call stack, command line and Node.js in general.
And you just kept going: closure, recursion, classes and async.

Typically by Thursdays you are craving for the weekend to come and your brain to have a break.

Is it difficult?

The short answer is: yes. But it is a lot of fun!

Some days you feel totally lost and other days really confident. There are a lot of lightbulb moments.
It is important to do your best to not get disheartened too easily and keep it in mind that you will have bad days when things just don't go well. You might wake up with a cold or your kid didn't sleep through the night, your dog chewed your shoe and you miss your bus/train.

It is a very intense course, it is full-time, it is normal to feel down sometimes.

In the meantime the tutors are approachable and friendly, they are there to help. They know what you're going through, they have all been there.
At the start you are expected to try to solve your challenges with no help. When you get stuck, you are encouraged to google (as you would in an actual job). In the end of the day coding is regularly about getting stuck and then getting yourself unstuck and you are mastering both.
However help is there, reaching dead ends regularly is perfectly normal and in these cases you are expected to not waste all day and call for help instead.

Everyone is assigned a mentor who follows them through the 4 blocks (unlike the lecturers who might be different in each block). They are there for you specifically to sit down on a 1 to 1 basis and go through anything you might struggle with.

Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Last Friday I got to see the graduates. As the course is built, there are a graduating cohort every three weeks so it will be fun to see the next few too. In the last block they are split into groups of 4-5 people and they have two weeks to create a new app (web and/or mobile) from scratch and present it on their last day while it's being live streamed and watched by the world (or at least some hiring partners a.k.a. potential employers).

For me - after only three weeks into this - it all seems like dark magic and as if they are lightyears ahead of me. It is hard to believe what we will be able to do in another nine weeks and although I am a nervous presenter, I am really looking forward to doing my project whatever it may be.

Roll on Back End!

Cover Photo credit: Jukan Tateisi

What Did You Learn From Pair Programming

Judit Lehoczki (she/her) — Sat, 08 Feb 2020 21:43:25 +0000

I am three weeks into my coding bootcamp and I was taught about pair programming on day one.

As per Wikipedia, pair programming is

an agile software development technique in which two programmers work together at one workstation. One, the driver, writes code while the other, the observer or navigator, reviews each line of code as it is typed in. The two programmers switch roles frequently,

but I think it is much more: it's a learning tool.

It is no surprise if I say that you learn from partners who are better than you. But you can also learn a huge amount from partners who are maybe a bit less confident.

You learn about the person.
There's something quite intimate in this, you practically learn how the other person's brain works. It is fascinating to see someone else's brain in action and to compare all the different approaches they would take to the same challenge.

You learn to express yourself.
You get better with your tech words, which is really important, instead of pointing and calling things thingies like I used to. "You need to move that thingy over there."
Expressions like declaring variables and passing arguments and invoking functions and it's out of its scope etc. come naturally after only a little while.

You learn to listen and to explain. You learn patience.

You learn about different personalities and how to work with them. You learn to be humble but also to be adamant dependent on what you need to be.

You learn about yourself.

What is your experience in pair programming?