DEV Community: Matt Upham

Want to get valuable feedback for your tech product? | SurveySparrow

Matt Upham — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 03:19:03 +0000

What is SurveySparrow?

Surveys are important for any business. Whether you're working at a startup, bigger company, or have your own tech product, it's important to get feedback and gain insights from users. Using a survey management software can be really helpful in managing your surveys: from creating surveys from templates to gathering data from results. They also offer 360 assessments, so your organization can track overall performance.

That's where SurveySparrow comes in. It's a full platform that includes:

Survey Software
Survey Chatbots
Audiences
API for Devs
Offline Surveys
Net Promoter Score Software
360 Assesments

Favorite Features

Smart Surveys

These are straight-to-the-point surveys that collect precise and relevant information. These surveys change/adapt to the user who's filling them out, which will help. You can create them with conditions, add custom parameters for tracking, and pipe variables from one question to another.

Integrations, APIs and Webhooks

As a dev, this is what I was really interested in: how can I extend these surveys to work with tools and apps I already use. You can send survey responses via Slack, track data through the Facebook Pixel, and Google Analytics. You can also manage your audience with Mailchimp, link your customers to Salesforce, and add real-time survey data to Google Sheets.

White-label surveys

These allow you to fully customize your surveys. As a developer, you are given near-complete control to customize your surveys with CSS. You can change the survey themes, labels, fonts, and icons to match your use case. You can personalize emails to survey respondents and change the survey URL to a custom domain that suits your brand. They offer Custom SSL, Custom Email Addresses, and SMTP Server options so you can send a large number of emails at once.

Video Surveys

Videos are extremely engaging and are much more effective compared to other types of content. You can add video content almost anywhere (Including uploading it as a background) while creating your survey. You can also mute or loop them, which is helpful!

Chatbot Surveys

These are one of the best features. You can make surveys that act as chatbots, which provide an engaging experience for the user. You can easily create these via an embed code which is automatically generated. You can fully customize these with CSS, personalize the bots to the user, and see all data in real-time.

UI / UX Overview

As a web developer, I really appreciate Clean UI and intuitive UX. SurveySparrow has a great, easy to use, and colorful platform.

This visually appealing page will walk you through all of the steps of creating a survey.

Steps to creating a Survey

Build

Building a survey was also very straightforward. On their platform, you customize each step of their survey in a chronological table. They offer options for Building, Designing, Setting Survey Variables, Languages, and Configuration.

Integrate

This is where you add your integrations, webhooks, and API configuration. They offer plenty of configurations (my preferred ones were Slack, Google Sheets, and Google Analytics). The webhooks allow you to send your survey data to external websites. As a developer, you can send surveys with an API, and also get notified when a user fills out a survey.

You have a lot of options to share your surveys. From here, you can send an email, create a URL, embed in your website or in an email, configure SMS shareable options, and they also provide Mobile SDK and Slack options (newly added).

Results

Here, you can view both reports of your collected data, or the raw responses. You can also create your own custom reports to better segment your survey data.

Overall, it was very easy to create surveys. There were plenty of customization options that allow users to tailor surveys perfectly to their audiences.

Conclusion

Customer research is crucial for any business that wants to be successful. As a software developer, chances are you're working for a company that already collects surveys, or you personally have a product you're selling that you want to do research on. SurveySparrow is an all in one platform that provides the best options for collecting data from your users.

All of the surveys included with SurveySparrow

Smart Surveys

These are surveys that are dynamic and customizable to your user. The questions can be influenced by the user's previous responses, which improves data collection precision.

Video Surveys

Video surveys are extremely effective. Users collect with video more than any other type of content. These will drive more responses / better results.

Recurring Surveys

These are surveys meant to be taken daily, monthly, weekly, or quarterly. SurveySparrow easily replicates these for you to use, instead of having to create each one manually.

White-label Surveys

These surveys allow you to customize everything with your brand logos, styles, assets, and more. They offer a clean experience that fits your brand perfectly.

Conversational Forms

These are engaging surveys that have a "conversational feel" when the user is filling them out. They're personalized to the user and overall provide a better experience.

Embedded Surveys

These can be baked right into your website! Similar to inline embeds, they reduce the number of drop-offs you might have if a customer didn't want to click an external link

Mobile-First Survey

These surveys are best on mobile! They work on phones, tablets, and desktop. Over two-thirds of respondents use mobile devices, which makes these extremely effective.

Secure Surveys

These prevent spam, which can ensure that the data you're getting is valuable. SurveySparrow uses SSL as a security measure with these surveys.

If you're interested in SurveySparrow, make sure to check it out here!

SurveySparrow

(Note: This is an affiliate link, same price for you! I make a small amount of $ to help support this blog!)

Connect Below!

If you found this article helpful or informative, please consider subscribing to my YouTube Channel! I talk about software & technology, overviews of coding problems, and landing jobs in tech!

Also, make sure to check out our Discord community! 5000+ members, mentorship, discussion, and resources for learning to code!

On TikTok, I mainly do quick coding, tech, and productivity tips. Check them out here: TikTok

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Amazon Coding Interview: Robot Return to Origin (LeetCode)

Matt Upham — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 20:00:33 +0000

Why should you practice coding problems?

Want a job at companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and more? Software engineering interviews mainly consist of data structures and algorithm problems.

You need to do a lot of these problems in order to succeed in these interviews. Below I’ll be going through an approach to a popular problem: Robot Return to Origin.

Please consider subscribing on YouTube by clicking here if you find this information useful!

Problem Statement & Approaach

The problem statement is:
“There is a robot starting at position (0, 0), the origin, on a 2D plane. Given a sequence of its moves, judge if this robot ends up at (0, 0) after it completes its moves.

The move sequence is represented by a string, and the character moves[i] represents its ith move. Valid moves are R (right), L (left), U (up), and D (down). If the robot returns to the origin after it finishes all of its moves, return true. Otherwise, return false.”

This basically says a robot will be given a list of moves, and we need to determine if the robot ends at the same point where it started.

If you want a better sense visually of how this is done, check out my in-depth explanation on YouTube below.

LeetCode: Robot Return to Origin (Overview and Solution)

This problem might seem confusing at first, but take note that direction does not matter. We'll be dealing with an X and Y axis. A straightforward approach is to see if X and Y both equal 0 at the end (origin 0,0), since this is where the robot starts.

For Up (+1) and Down (-1), we can add these to a Y variable. For Left (-1) and Right (+1), we can add these to an X variable. Then we can loop through our string of moves, add the resulting move values to our X / Y variables, and compare our outcome to X == 0 and y == 0.

Conclusion

If you found this video useful, please consider subscribing to my YouTube Channel! I talk about software & technology, overviews of coding problems, and landing jobs in tech!

Also, make sure to check out our Discord community! 4700+ members, mentorship, discussion, and resources for learning to code!

On TikTok, I mainly do quick coding, tech and productivity tips. Check them out here: TikTok

Here are the social platforms where we can connect:
YouTube
Discord
TikTok
Twitter
LinkedIn

Thanks for reading, and feel free to DM any questions!

Facebook Coding Interview: Array Partition I (Leetcode)

Matt Upham — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 18:57:43 +0000

Why should you practice coding problems?

Want a job at companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and more? Software engineering interviews mainly consist of data structures and algorithm problems.

You need to do a lot of these problems in order to succeed in these interviews. Below I’ll be going through an approach to a popular problem: Array Partition I.

Please consider subscribing on YouTube by clicking here if you find this information useful!

Problem Statement & Approaach

The problem statement is:
“Given an array of 2n integers, your task is to group these integers into n pairs of integer, say (a1, b1), (a2, b2), ..., (an, bn) which makes the sum of min(ai, bi) for all i from 1 to n as large as possible.”

This basically says group an array of integers into pairs, take the minimum of those pairs, add them up. You should produce the largest sum possible, with these constraints. Below I have a full overview of the problem, with a solution.

If you want a better sense visually of how this is done, check out my in-depth explanation on YouTube below.

LeetCode: Array Partition I (Overview and Solution)

We want to make as many large numbers the minimums, and the general approach is to first sort the array. Once sorted, you’ll notice that we have forced as many large numbers to be the smallest of each pair.

Since we first need to sort the array, then loop through again, our time complexity is O(n log n) time (sorting is O(n log n), looping is O(n), so the sorting overpowers the second loop. Our space complexity is O(1), since we’re sorting in place, and creating a final sum in the end.

Conclusion

If you found this video useful, please consider subscribing to my YouTube Channel! I talk about software & technology, overviews of coding problems, and landing jobs in tech!

Also, make sure to check out our Discord community! 4700+ members, mentorship, discussion, and resources for learning to code!

On TikTok, I mainly do quick coding, tech and productivity tips. Check them out here: TikTok

Here are the social platforms where we can connect:
YouTube
Discord
TikTok
Twitter
LinkedIn

Thanks for reading, and feel free to DM any questions!

Coding a text / iMessage lyric program from the TikTok trend (tutorial)

Matt Upham — Sat, 25 Jul 2020 17:31:09 +0000

Recently there was a trend on TikTok, where people took song lyrics and sent each word via text message to a friend.

I wanted to recreate this, make a fun tutorial for beginners, and show how to approach problems by writing reasoning, researching, writing pseudocoding, and executing.

If you're able to improve this project in any way, such as adding a GUI, linking it up to a lyrics API, or using an SMS API, DM me on Discord or TikTok and I'll feature you in an upcoming video!

I ended up using Python, and have a link to the GitHub repo.

Please consider subscribing by clicking here if you found this information useful!

Coding a text / iMessage lyric program from the TikTok trend (tutorial)

If you found this video useful, please consider subscribing to my YouTube Channel! I talk about software & tech, life in Silicon Valley, landing jobs in tech!

Also, make sure to check out our Discord community! 2500+ members, mentorship, discussion, and resources for learning to code!

Subscribe Here
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TikTok

Discord

Thanks for reading!

How to use Custom React Hooks! (React Form Validation made easy, example)

Matt Upham — Thu, 21 Nov 2019 23:10:00 +0000

Forms are notoriously tedious to create, manage, and validate.

With old school React, you'd have to create classes, and it was challenging to re-use stateful logic.

Thankfully, with custom React hooks, you can reuse all your logic and reduce the amount of lines of code by ~50%!

Here's a straightforward example of how to do form validation with custom hooks!

Please consider subscribing by clicking here if you found this information useful!
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React Hooks Tutorial (Custom Hooks) | Form Validation made easy

React Hooks are a much more concise way of handling stateful logic, and once you'll learn them, you'll be hooked 😜

If you found this video useful, please consider subscribing to my YouTube Channel! I talk about software & tech, life in Silicon Valley, and self-improvement!

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Thanks for reading!

Coding bootcamp grads can't get jobs

Matt Upham — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 22:23:47 +0000

Coding bootcamps - the fast track to success, or a misleading marketing scheme?

Check out this video for more detail:
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Why can't Coding Bootcamp Grads find Jobs?

There are a number of reasons why coding bootcamp grads can't find jobs.

The self-taught / coding bootcamp route is arguably harder to get your first work experience compared to the path of getting a traditional CS degree.

In the video above, I break down the why coding bootcamp grads can't get jobs, what's in their control in the job search, and what's out of their control. Also, I talk about career advice and job search tips!

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Against the odds: His journey into tech after dropping out of college

Matt Upham — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 21:21:05 +0000

Recently I had the change to talk with Joél Ramirez (Joxel) about the challenges he faced getting a software engineering job without a degree.

Instead of finishing his college degree due to some challenges, he chose to make the most of his situation and go all-in by pursuing technology on his own.

Coming from an underprivileged / underrepresented background, it's amazing what he's done against the odds!

Check out this interview with Joxel, here:

What are some challenges you've faced while trying to break into tech?

If you enjoyed this interview, please consider subscribing to my YouTube Channel! I talk about tech, life in Silicon Valley, and self-improvement!

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If you have any questions about my coding bootcamp experience, shoot me a DM on Instagram @mattupham

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How to get your first software engineering job (focus on these crucial steps)

Matt Upham — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 19:16:42 +0000

Getting first software developer job is... extremely challenging.

To be honest, it's harder than actually learning to code.

Many people spend time doing things that are ineffective during the job search (please don't send your resume out 100 times on Indeed, and expect to get a job, there are much better ways).

In this video, I break down the 3 crucial steps of getting your first software engineering job, and also provide tips that make sure you're planning your time effectively.

These are things that:

Keep your resume focused
Help you stand out
Accelerate the process
Handle the onsite effectively

Check out this video for more detail:
Subscribe here!

How to get your first Software Engineering job

The job search doesn't have to be painful!

If you found this video useful, please consider subscribing to my YouTube Channel! I talk about software & tech, life in Silicon Valley, and self-improvement!

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The best learning path for coding - the different routes

Matt Upham — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 19:34:38 +0000

How to Learn to Code (for beginners)

So you want to learn to code or become a software engineer but don't know where to start? Below I'll be breaking down the 3 main ways to learn when you're just getting started.

If you prefer video format, make sure to check out this video below:
Otherwise, continue to the article below.
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The Traditional Path

The first avenue of learning how to code is getting the traditional undergrad degree. You can get any type of tangential tech degree that involves coding (electrical and computer engineering, robotics, etc), but the most straightforward way to becoming a software engineer is to get a computer science degree.

With a traditional degree, you get out of college with a potentially large network of peers that you can keep in contact with throughout your career. This can help you with jobs, advice, and other opportunities. Also, large companies will most likely come to your career fair specifically in order to seek out students for internships. This can increase your chances of getting experience during college, before your first full time job.

A huge drawback is that colleges don't usually teach the most up to date skills. Most computer science degrees are very theory driven, and chances are you won't come out with hot skills like web development, data science, or AI, unless you've done some learning on your own.

The Alternative Program

The second way of learning is by going to a coding bootcamp. This is the avenue that I took after finishing college with an Industrial Engineering. I found that the coding bootcamp really fit my learning style, and was one of the best investments I've ever made in my life thus far. These bootcamps are generally 3 months long, can be competitive to get into, and are generally geared towards people trying to make a career change.

With a coding bootcamp, and major plus is that they're created with small groups of students in mind for the best learning experience. Bootcamps also can iterate much quicker than traditional educational institutions, so they are much more on top of teaching in demand skills in the industry. They provide arguably the best environment to learn how to code as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Coding bootcamps can require a large upfront cost to get into. Less bootcamps in 2019 are offering the model where you pay after getting your first job. These bootcamps also are not certified educational institutions, which could be a turnoff for some. Lastly, you will most likely have to drop everything (including a job) for 3 months in order to go to a bootcamp. While some offer part time remote bootcamps, these can take up to a year to complete. It's much more efficient to do the 80 hour a week, 3-month route.

The fully Self-taught route

The final avenue you can take is the self-taught route.

This route is great because it's free or low cost. There are so many online resources you can use to supplement your teaching. Another thing to consider is that you will need this skill anyway if you pursue this career path. Gone are the days when education is over after you get out of school - you'll need to be consistently learning to stay up with trends and new technology throughout your career.

Some cons of this route are that there is no structure or external pressure provided. You are really on your own. This is potentially the longest of the three avenues to becoming a software engineer. The hardest part is that you "don't know what you don't know", and there's nothing guiding you in the seemingly infinite world of technology. The final and biggest con is the confidence issue. The hardest part of technology (in my opinion) is not the technical aspect, but the confidence part. Imposter syndrome is real, and when it hits, you'll have nobody to talk to or relate to. You'll need to find someone to relate to, whether it's an in-person or online community.

Final Thoughts

Overall, there are many avenues you can pursue depending on your stage and life and financial position. I would recommend for anyone younger to think about getting a college degree or going straight to a coding bootcamp. If you've already pursued a different career path and want to make the switch, start with the self-taught route to see if coding is for you, and then go into a coding bootcamp.

If you already have external mentors or other people who can guide you, go the self-taught route. But you'll need some kind of reference to keep you on course throughout the journey. This is just my advice, but depending on your situation, feel free to do whatever suits your needs, learning styles, etc. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

If you found this video useful, please consider subscribing to my YouTube Channel! I talk about tech, life in Silicon Valley, and self-improvement!

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Thanks for reading!

Modern React interview questions for junior developers

Matt Upham — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 22:13:19 +0000

Here's an example of an interview-style question that's common in junior React frontend interviews.

Mainly, they want you to show that you know the ins and outs of how to work with the framework.

This is a real phone screen question I had when I was interviewing for my first fronted role, including ES6, list mapping, click events, etc.

Also, updated to use React Hooks!

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Modern React interview questions for junior developers

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Coding bootcamps - what they don't tell you

Matt Upham — Mon, 28 Oct 2019 18:31:44 +0000

I went to a coding bootcamp and switched careers into tech. Now I'm a software developer in Silicon Valley (web development). Was my experience worth it?

Popular bootcamps in 2019 are Hack Reactor / Galvanize, General Assembly, Lambda School, Fullstack Academy, and Flatiron School, among many others.

Many focus on web development because it's undertaught in college currently, so there's a high demand in the market.

My coding bootcamp experience truly changed my life for the better, BUT was it completely worth the money? You can definitely go through the same process of learning and getting your first job without a coding bootcamp (online resources like FreeCodeCamp are great)

I break down some common misconceptions about coding bootcamps, and explain why you should / shouldn't go.

Please consider subscribing by clicking here if you found this information useful!
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Coding bootcamps — what are they, are they worth the cost?

What is a coding bootcamp?

Accelerated program to learn software skills
3 months to a year long
Smaller cohorts

Why are bootcamps around?

Current skill gap in the industry
Not everyone can afford to go back to college (although a bootcamp isn’t a replacement)
Very High ROI

Location?

Major Cities
Remote
Occasionally partner with universities

What they don’t tell you:

Bootcamps really don’t teach you much, it’s very self-taught
There aren’t as many open jobs that you think
The statistics are manufactured (they employ bootcamp grads as instructors, they heavily filter in people they think can achieve it with success)
The job search is the hardest part of the bootcamp (seriously, people applied to ~300 jobs each)
Just the beginning, the learning never stops (but that’s the fun part!)
You can do this career transition on your own without a bootcamp

What are your thoughts on coding bootcamps? They definitely have stigmas, but the high-quality ones can also be great resources!

YouTube - Matt Upham

Learning to code? Join our growing Discord community!

If you enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to my YouTube Channel! I talk about tech, life in Silicon Valley, and self-improvement!

5 Reasons why you should NOT go to a coding bootcamp

Matt Upham — Tue, 22 Oct 2019 21:13:27 +0000

I went to a coding bootcamp 2 years ago. From my experience and people I met, these are reasons why someone should NOT go to a coding bootcamp.

Please consider subscribing by clicking here if you found this information useful!
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Check out this video for further detail:

5 Reasons why you should NOT go to a coding bootcamp

You don’t like software and/or technical thinking

coding is not for everyone, it's really painful to do it if you don’t like it
you probably won’t perform well on the job if you don’t enjoy it

Influences from family & friends

do it for the right reasons (money should be a side effect, not a main purpose)
if your parents pay for it, you’ll most likely fail (internal motivation is needed)

You can’t take time off to devote yourself, build habits, handle stress

it really is 80 hours a week (if you do the 3 month programs)
you need to build a solid routine (if you can’t, you’ll fail)
lots of stress, if you don’t cope effectively you’ll fail

It’s really expensive

~$20k+ is a ton of money (yes, not all bootcamps are this expensive, but many are)
no guarantee for a job
job placement stats are bs (they’re usually manufactured / inflated)

You can learn on your own (Seriously)

you can find most of the material online for $50 or for free
FreeCodeCamp, OdinProject has the same and/or more material than the bootcamp
great inexpensive courses on Udemy, Coursera, Frontend Masters, etc

What are your thoughts on coding bootcamps? Yes, they have their flaws, and it’s not for everyone. But the high-quality ones are not completely terrible.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to my YouTube Channel! I talk about tech, life in Silicon Valley, and self-improvement!

Subscribe Here
YouTube - Matt Upham

Learning to code? Join our growing Discord community!

Thanks for reading!

DEV Community: Matt Upham

Want to get valuable feedback for your tech product? | SurveySparrow

What is SurveySparrow?

Favorite Features

Smart Surveys

Integrations, APIs and Webhooks

White-label surveys

Video Surveys

Chatbot Surveys

UI / UX Overview

Steps to creating a Survey

Build

Integrate

Share

Results

Conclusion

All of the surveys included with SurveySparrow

Smart Surveys

Video Surveys

Recurring Surveys

White-label Surveys

Conversational Forms

Embedded Surveys

Mobile-First Survey

Secure Surveys

Connect Below!

Amazon Coding Interview: Robot Return to Origin (LeetCode)

Why should you practice coding problems?

Problem Statement & Approaach

Conclusion

Facebook Coding Interview: Array Partition I (Leetcode)

Why should you practice coding problems?

Problem Statement & Approaach

Conclusion

Coding a text / iMessage lyric program from the TikTok trend (tutorial)

How to use Custom React Hooks! (React Form Validation made easy, example)

Coding bootcamp grads can't get jobs

Against the odds: His journey into tech after dropping out of college

How to get your first software engineering job (focus on these crucial steps)

The best learning path for coding - the different routes

The Traditional Path

The Alternative Program

The fully Self-taught route

Final Thoughts

Modern React interview questions for junior developers

Coding bootcamps - what they don't tell you

What is a coding bootcamp?

Why are bootcamps around?

Location?

What they don’t tell you:

5 Reasons why you should NOT go to a coding bootcamp