DEV Community: Tiffany Rossi

Nevertheless, Tiffany Coded in 2022 🚀

Tiffany Rossi — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 14:11:03 +0000

It's been two years since I decided I wanted to learn how to code. My journey didn't go as a stairway, up and straight - instead, I allowed myself to try. I took some laps, went up and down, back and forth. Two years passed and I wanted different things for my career. But this week marks a milestone for me, and the first time I'm reaping what I planted in Tech: I'm starting my first job as a Trainee Java Developer! 🎉🎉🎉

My background is: I loved to blog as a child, learned HTML/CSS over my teen years but had never learned how to code properly. Life brought me to a different path and at the beginning of the pandemic I decided on a career change.
First, I took a few courses on Python, the data science field was really appealing to me at the time. Then, I started my graduation in back-end development, which got me an internship in web development.

Day one in my internship and my boss sent me the React documentation and told me to try it. I didn't know Javascript, so I begged him to allow me to learn it first. He gave me one week and decided I was ready for React. He gave me a solo project to practice, and decided it was turning good enough to become a real project. I spent 4 months in this internship and worked with some MySQL and C# as well. Although I learned a lot, it was very lonely as I didn't have a team or higher level devs to learn from. The requisitions were always vague and I didn't feel like I could ask for help. My boss would take me the whole day to reply: "did you Google it?". Well, of course I did.

I was feeling like I was wasting my time and wasn't learning much, so I resigned.

I decided to step back and learn algorithms and logic, the right way this time. Then Git. I installed Ubuntu on my laptop and learned the Linux command line as well.
Java became an option that I was really digging, so I signed up for a really good platform and started their Java program. I loved coding in Java so I began designing my career plans around it.

While I was learning, I began looking for a new job. As I'm graduating this December, the internship window is closing for me, but I can't rock a junior dev interview yet. I was in this very weird place and my strategy was to shoot my resumé everywhere and go to every interview I could be invited to, even if I didn't want the job. I had to gain experience and confidence, build my storytelling and become a stronger candidate. I had terrible interviews. I had group interviews with men who wouldn't let the few women in there talk. I had amazing women-only group interviews. I had great interviews. I had really great interviews. But I wasn't getting any jobs.

Linkedin showed me this Java Trainee Program for women, which only asked for basic knowledge in programming. The trainees would be hired by the company from day one, be trained for a month and become ready to work. For someone in that weird place I was, this was perfect. I applied, had a phone screening, took a few tests and a group interview. The process was smooth and didn't take any longer than it should. And I got it! I was one of the 30 women who got hired.

I started on Monday and we are still on very basic training, but I'm super excited for my next steps. So, nevertheless, I'm coding in 2022 - and nothing can stop me anymore 🚀

nevertheless, Tiffany coded: 2021 edition

Tiffany Rossi — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 23:38:09 +0000

last week i received my one-year badge on DEV and i realized it's been a whole year since i decided i wanted to learn how to code. my first post here was a #shecoded one, and i love it how my DEV anniversary will always mean a new reflection on my career development and a new post on #shecoded as well.

i like writing long, entertaining stories, but today i'm gonna be quick and do a little throwback.

so, one year ago i...

had just decided i wanted to learn Python
had a career producing videos and digital content
had something deeply missing in my life
was bored to death

and today i am...

studying for a degree as a back-end developer
looking for a full career change - sending my cv to every internship opening i see
overcharged with work-study-housework balance
learning how to cook (very, VERY) quick and healthy meals
lacking sleep and with a deeper coffee addiction (but i quitted smoking, so yay?)

switching careers is never easy - you have ALL the student responsibilities, plus ALL the freelancer worker responsibilities, plus ALL the household responsibilities.

am i exhausted as i have never been? hell yeah.
coding is a major part of my life right now? nope
studying for university sucks all of my time and enerdy? yup
do i want my bed right now? yes please

but nevertheless, i am coding - and i have never been happier :)

The bittersweetness of switching careers when you fought so hard for the one you already have

Tiffany Rossi — Sun, 18 Oct 2020 03:16:21 +0000

I never thought I would ever have such a thing as a "career". I got my first real job at 18, and quickly after that I moved out of home. I tried getting a degree, but I had to choose between that or paying the bills, for my own sanity.

All I had left were unskilled jobs. Telemarketing. Mall stores. Diners. Office assistant. Receptionist. Phone sales for crap people don't wanna buy. I did them all, and for a good while. I eventually managed to get better-paying jobs in tourism, due to being bilingual. I developed high-level customer service skills, and those granted me a decent experience as a premium credit card concierge (yeah, that specific).

Fast forward to February 2017. I was working a good job, the best pay I ever had, and Corporate decided to reduce our office staff to literally only a handful of people. Our manager spent the whole morning firing the team. I packed my desk, smoked a last cigarette in front of the building, called my wife, and took the train home. All in my tears. I got home and began searching for a new job. Still in tears.

Let's say that the job openings I saw that day didn't help with the tears. Nor the ones I saw over the following month. One thing I remember my ex-boss said while firing me was "I think you should keep working on those videos!". My wife and I had created a YouTube channel to talk about random stuff (like everyone was doing back in the day). We recorded from our cellphones and she edited.

But no, this is not a story on how I became a YouTuber or a digital influencer. This is about how I ended up working for them (and how I'm throwing everything away. Spoiler alert).

We decided to try freelance jobs in the audiovisual market. She would do the technical stuff (recording and editing), and I would sell and keep the business running. A friend tagged me in a post looking for video editors, I spoke to them and closed the deal. Our first client!

The first batch of raw files came. And we quickly found out my wife didn't have the time to edit them. She already had a job, I was the unemployed one. So, I naturally decided to learn how to do video editing. She sat with me and showed me Adobe Premiere's interface. The pay was low enough for my beginner skills, so those four raw files were my homework. It took me a whole week, but I did it. The client was happy, and we were together for one year, when I decided I was skilled enough for how much they were able to pay.

In the meantime, my mother-in-law gifted my wife with a 3-month intensive filmmaking course. And my lovely wife would wake up at 6 am, work all day, study at night, come home after 11 pm, and teach me everything she learned, every day. That's how I learned how to be a filmmaker.

We got better clients, a good portfolio, even some nominations in small festivals. She left her job to work with me full time. Our lives got slightly better. And - surprise! I finally had a career!

I won't bother you with the details of an industry that has nothing to do with technology, but trust me: there's nowhere to go from here. I'm frustrated, this is not the highest achievement I want for my career.

And I've been secretly frustrated for a while now. Back in March, I wrote about how I was learning Python and I didn't know what I wanted from that, but was having fun.

Turns out I knew, I just didn't want to say it out loud. I had two little devils, one on each ear (sorry, no angels). "Go and become a professional dev, for f*s sake! You love it since you were 12 and all you say is this is just a hobby. THIS CAN BE YOU CAREER, idiot", yelled the first one. The second one was crying on my shoulder. "After EVERYTHING you did, this is how you end? Throwing everything in the trash? Don't you wanna be a big fancy filmmaker and win an Oscar? Where are your dreams?"

I happen to love a bunch of things. More than loving things, I love making things. And I can be happy when I code the same way I'm happy when I cook. Or when I produce or edit a film. Or when I paint. If I tried woodwork, I know that I would be happy. Making is my passion, and those are mediums - mediums that I do love, too. But mediums. Ways of making things.

Realizing this is both painful and liberating. But it helped me in my decision. Allow me to make a small drum-roll right now.

I'm officially a freshman for a software developer graduation.

Yes. I know. People say you don't need a tech degree to work in tech. It's your portfolio that matters. I know how many times I told myself that. But I'm tired of being self-taught. I learned a second language by myself. I learned a profession by myself. Everything I know I learned by myself. I'm allowed to want a resume that I'm proud of, not one that comes with an explanation.

I sent my application and went to bed with a bittersweet taste in my mouth. I had insomnia that day. But I have to trust my gut. My 29-year-old gut, that has seen a lot and done a lot. This is it. I'm officially switching careers. I'm not a dreamer as I used to be, but I'm excited about the future.

So you have ideas but lack the knowledge to build them? Just f*ing write it down.

Tiffany Rossi — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 22:11:41 +0000

I've had ideas for apps and programs for over a decade now. But I never knew how to code, so I let them vanish from my memory.

Now that I'm finally learning how to code, my brain is boiling with excitement and cool stuff I wanna build. But I don't know how to code a complete application yet.

Discouraging? It doesn't have to be. If you have ideas, you have to write them down. I might be reinventing the wheel here, but since I'm self-taught I never saw anyone talk about it. I was frustrated that I had all those cool ideas and no way to make them happen. If you are a self-taught absolute beginner and is feeling as frustrated as I was, it might be helpful for you.

We'll call it...

Just f*ing write it down

First, you will create the main folder. I highly recommend you use a cloud service like Google Drive or Keep, because inspiration can come whenever, wherever. You might be taking a shower. You might be on the bus during your commute home. You don't wanna have to turn your computer on and sit down every time a new idea pops up.

Then you do whatever folder organization works better with you. I like to create a new folder for each app idea, and then I add images, videos and text files to it. I will have the main text file with the app's flow and add whatever inspiration, tutorial or file that might be useful for my app.

But how do you write code without coding?

I have some ideas I've been trying, so I can find out which one fits me better.

1. Write flowcharts

This can be a little tricky if you are not used to flowcharts. You might get distracted with the tools, but once you get the hang of it you can build some cool stuff. Before I decided to learn Python, I wrote the frontend for my first voice app idea in flowcharts, here's a snippet:

3. Pseudocode

Pseudocode is a very cool method. I'm not very used to it, so I'm copy-pasting from Wikipedia:

Pseudocode is an informal high-level description of the operating principle of a computer program or other algorithm. It uses the structural conventions of a normal programming language, but is intended for human reading rather than machine reading. Pseudocode typically omits details that are essential for machine understanding of the algorithm, such as variable declarations, system-specific code and some subroutines.

If you wanna learn more, there are some¹ guides².

3. Write a list of steps

If you like lists, you could try just writing your steps. It's somewhat close to Pseudocode, but based on your favorite organizational method. This is the way I'm testing now. I'm trying to add some backend to it as well.

It doesn't have to be right, it just have to make sense for you. My previous flowchart would look like that in this method:

1. user: "Alexa, create a list"
2. alexa: (frontend) "What's the name of your list?"
3. user: "{listname}"
4. alexa: (backend) create {listname} as a new [list] to [list database]
          (frontend) "Okay. {listname} was created. What's the first item in your list?"

5. user: "{item #1}"
6. alexa: (backend) adds {item #1} to {listname}
          (frontend) "{item #1} added to {listname}. Say the next item, or say Stop."

(while user keeps saying {itens}, repeat steps 5 and 6)

7. user: "Stop"
8. alexa: (frontend) "Okay. Your list {listname} is ready."
          (backend) quit

If you're already familiar with some code, you could try enhancing your project a little bit closer to actual code, but only if it's not distracting you from the goal of writing a flow for your idea.

user: "Alexa, create a list"
alexa: (frontend) "What's the name of your list?"
user: "{listname}"
alexa: (backend) create {listname} as a new [list] to [list database]
       (frontend) "Okay. {listname} was created. What's the first item in your list?"

while (user: "{item #1}"):
alexa: (backend) adds {item #1} to {listname}
       (frontend) "{item #1} added to {listname}. Say the next item, or say Stop."
       if (user: "Stop"):
            alexa: (frontend) "Okay. Your list {listname} is ready."
                   (backend) quit

And now what?

Now you go back to your tutorials, articles, video classes or whatever method you chose to learn with! Whenever in your learning process you see something that might be helpful to your projects, you go back to that folder. Add links, write notes, ask for help in message boards. When you see it, you'll have enough to make it happen.

Now, my fellow newbies, I want to know: how do you organize yourselves so your super cool ideas won't vanish over time?

I suck at math and learning Python rubbed it in my face

Tiffany Rossi — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 18:22:51 +0000

I've never been good at the exact sciences. I would have the highest grades in Portuguese and English, good grades in History, Geography, and Biology, and the worst grades in Physics, Chemistry, and Math.

But my school divided Math in a lot of different disciplines, and I'll do my best to translate each one of them (I have to do justice to my high grades in English, after all). I had classes of:

Pure Math
Statistics
Financial Math
Mathematical Logic
Geometry
Geometric Drawing

Statistics, Financial, Logic? Straight A's. Geometric Drawing was one of my favorite disciplines, I would love anything that allowed me to draw in class without getting in trouble. I began to understand Geometry once I realized how to "see" the formulas through the shapes, and the Geometric Drawing classes helped me through it.

But Pure Math... It never got into my head. I can make basic math operations quickly in my head, I learned how to use the rule of three and memorized Bhaskara, but that's all.

In Brazil, we like to say we are "exact sciences people" or "human sciences people". It sounds a lot better in Portuguese, I promise. The thing with the self-proclaimed "human sciences people" is that their brains can't do a simple operation without a calculator, like splitting a restaurant bill. So I have always referred to myself as a "human sciences person with a touch of exact sciences".

If you are bad at math and wanna be a programmer, I'm sure you have googled "do I need to be good at math to be a programmer" at least once. The results will tell you "Nah, you just have to be good in logic". Yay, check. Let's do it, let's learn how to code.

If you are poor like me, you then go and find a nice free online course. You hit that play button, the teacher starts talking and you're there, listening carefully and taking notes. I'm getting it! Yay again!

Exercise #1: write a program that adds two numbers. Okay, that's easy. x + y = n. Done.

Exercise #2: write a program that checks if a number is positive or negative. Well, negative numbers are smaller than 0, right? Okay, got it.

Exercise #3: write a program that calculates the body mass index. Is it your weight in kilos divided by your height times your height, right? Let's check Google to make sure of the formula. Okay, it works. Yay, coding is fun!

Exercise #4: write a program that receives n and prints n! (factorial). Wait, what?
(At least I know it's trigonometry in the GIF)

You know when you're in school, the teacher speaks what sounds like gibberish to your ears, the whiteboard is full of numbers and symbols, and you can't help but think "to hell with Math, I'm never going to use that in real life"?

Well, when you're 28 and all your dreams have been shattered for a while now, you'll decide you wanna learn something new. And BAM! That's the moment when you will regret all the Math classes you lost because you were too busy drawing in your notebook.

So far, my experience is that you don't have to know math in order to code. But your learning path will probably be a lot smoother if you don't have to stop everything to research what the hell is this factorial thing and how the hell you apply that so you can finally go back to what you were learning in the first place.

I would love to have a fix for that, but this is a place for self-laughing at my own misery, bad quality GIFs and sharing my experiences while I learn how to code. I don't believe in karma, but maybe it will help me if I give a call to all of my Math teachers and let them know I'm sorry?

Nevertheless, Tiffany WILL code

Tiffany Rossi — Sat, 07 Mar 2020 20:18:22 +0000

I'm just a newbie, but I still wanted to share my story. I'm kinda shy since I'm among all those wonderful women, but there I go.

It all began in 2002. My grandmother decided to buy our family our first computer. I was THRILLED. I grew up so jealous of the rich kids in school who would print their homeworks with all those rainbow WordArts.

So a week before my grandma bought it my friend Carol invited me to hang in the computer area of her English School. I sat next to her and she showed me her blog. I had never heard of those before. I was amazed by all the glittery GIFs, candy dolls, the pink template and her posts about the busy life of a sixth grader.

I spent the entire week talking about how I would have a blog too. The computer arrived and the first thing I did was, guess what? Creating my first blog, of course. I had a lot of blogs. I wanted to customize my templates, so I learned a little HTML. Then I decided I wanted to make layouts from scratch, so I learned a lot more HTML (and Photoshop, too!)

I was a creative and artsy teenager, so my teen years were filled with me designing websites for my little projects. My taste grew up with me and I quickly and thankfully left the pink sparkly aesthetic behind. I learned pixel art, WordPress, CSS and more Photoshop. The most logical next step was to learn programming, I really wanted to learn PHP. My school had a basic IT program, I tried it but the first year was all HTML. I would finish my work in 5 minutes and spend the rest of the day helping out my classmates. I got bored really quickly and left it.

My grandmother always said I should be a programmer. She would buy me tech magazines and was very supportive in her own way. I tried to learn PHP several times, but it required actual sitting down and studying. I've always been a crappy student, but a terrific learner.

School ended and 17-year-old me had to decide what to do with my life. I wanted to be an artist. "Meh, technology is just my hobbie. I can learn code for fun" I thought, and signed up for Arts University.

Well, adult life came. And hit me hard. I got a job in a big bookstore in the mall. I worked Mon-Sun until 10pm, and had to do extra time on holidays. I then left my mother's house and got my own place. Quitting my job wasn't an option, but I couldn't handle college and work. I chose to quit school.

One month after living on my own, I met my first girlfriend and she moved in with me. I won't enter in details, but she was abusive. Mentally, financially... I had to work my ass off in customer service jobs to support us, and I couldn't afford internet or a computer. My hobbies were muted by her anyways, so it's not like it would had made any difference. I was living her life, doing what she liked, being friends to her friends. We were together for four years before she broke up with me.

I'll pause my story to explain myself on why I'm sharing all this intimate stuff. A few paragraphs earlier I said I would learn how to code for fun. Well, fun - or at least my personal views of it - had no more room in my life. I never learned how to code.

She broke up with me and I had a new recepcionist job with a kinda decent pay. Suddenly it was my first time all by myself, getting to know who the adult me really is. Time went by, I met the absolutely incredible woman who is my now wife, we adopted dogs and cats, bought an apartment and built a small company in the filmmaking industry. I didn't go to school for it, but I learned how to edit and produce videos and found out I'm really good in my business. We have an amazing happy life.

Pet tax, of course.

Last year we decided to get our first Alexa device. I loved it. I done lots of research on automation and created a project to make our small apartment smarter. We've been implementing it according to what money allows us to. I really became an automation enthusiast.

But I was quickly frustrated that I couldn't make Alexa do what I wanted it to do. I googled "how to build Alexa skills". Python came up. I googled "how to learn Python". Something clicked. The same click I had when I was 12 and saw a blog for the first time.

I joined Facebook groups and Discord servers for dev women. I found online courses, YouTube videos and all kinds of contents on Python and voice apps. I discovered Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing. I had so much information in front of me that I didn't know how to start. I tried to find a menthor, but nobody was available.

Well, I decided to do it by myself. I gathered all the information I could and designed my own learning path. I just wanted to make Alexa create a custom list of movies I wanted to watch, but ended up with an ambitious studies plan, that began with Computer Science 101 and will end up with AI skills.

Then I sat down and began to study, the way I felt I should do it. I'm studying everyday since, although I never knew how to study. I'm already writing small programs in Python, last week I just learned how to use conditions. I created a GitHub repository and uploaded my first codes, because I'm so proud of them even thought they are so basic. I signed up for an Amazon meetup for women who wanna work with voice.

Do I know what I want for the future? Not yet.
But I know, for sure, that I will code.