I'm the glitch.com community engineer at fog creek, as well as an artist, writer and troublemaker in jersey city.
My most popular side project is make8bitart.com, which is a free in-browser open web application I built so I could draw pixel art, along with anyone else. Over 1000 visitors daily use it and it's open source!
I'm also an organizer of jerseyscript, co-organizer of brooklyn js. I love community organizing and helping people learn and continue to solve problems with code.
Ask me anything!
Oldest comments (70)
How'd you get into programming/development/coding?
i used to babysit these kids who had a computer and i learned about the internet there and the idea of making a webpage that anyone could see was very exciting. i lied to my stepmother and told her that the AP french class my senior year of high school was full and that i had to take computer science 1 instead because it was the only other option hehehe. and yeah, i wanted to build space ships but ended up going to college for computer science instead and tbqh in retrospect i 1000% made the right choice!
Yes!!! Love the taking control of your class choices, can totally relate.
also love lying to stepmothers!!
What are your thoughts on programming as a more creative process versus problem solving process? I personally have found that it's really both, but would love to hear what you think.
i totally agree - problem solving in itself is a creative process! much like with anything in the world, problems solved with code have many different possible solutions and the creativity is in how you get to those solutions and then how you choose them.
Can you describe the position of community engineer? And what roles did you have before you got to where you are now?
i wrote a lot about this on my blog but the gist of it is that i'm an engineer whose main stakeholder is the community of glitch.com users. we call glitch the friendly community where you can build the app of your dreams and i'm trying to keep it that way by building tools for users to remix, doing outreach and also listening to what the users needs are so we build the best product for everyone!
ooof I've done a lot! before i came to fog creek i was a consultant building javascript and php apps for all sorts of clients, and before that i was a senior front-end engineer at the NBA working mostly on stats.nba.com. before i entered the industry with that gig I was a department administrator in the computer science department at a state university. i advised students, taught java and web development and intro to technology, recruited, and did curriculum design.
Thanks, I wasn't sure if that was a common title or something you rolled yourself. It makes a lot of sense as a key responsibility at a place like Glitch.
i rolled it myself for my role, but there are others who have already been going by that title i've learned. there are also some who have changed their title to community engineer after they read my blog post. i'm sure it's not helping the confusion around what dev rel/evangelism/experience/advocacy is but it works for me :)
You tweet/write/speak a lot about the terrible forms of harassment that you've had to face as a consequence of being outspoken and visible in the tech community. Honestly, how do you deal with this happening all the time? How do you let it not take an emotional or mental toll on you? Particularly when you have folks approach you face to face, like after a conference talk?
+1 Also THANK YOU for speaking out on it!
It's really hard but I honestly thing that my growing up in a very abusive household taught me survival in home and social settings. Like, it still bums me out but the rewards I get for being in the industry - meeting awesome people, solving problems, getting paid to meet awesome people and solve problems - makes it worth it. I feel like I am in a place in my career where I can be loud and obnoxious about the cultural issues in our industry, so it's my responsibility to do that!
Thank you for your answer, and for always speaking out! We're all really grateful to have your (loud) voice 🙂
<3 and i am really grateful to be told that
You do great work
Does your interest in art influence the way you might approach a specific programming project and how so? On the flip side, how has your approach as a programmer influenced the growth and evolution of your art?
i most certainly gravitate towards projects and jobs that are interesting to me - and art is of course one of my biggest loves. i'm v fortunate that the industry is in a place where that intersection of art and code is not only more pervasive but it's also celebrated, so lucky me!
as for my being influenced as a programmer - i'm always learning and refactoring code, and i'm doing the same when it comes to art. recently i have grown a larger interest in the creation of tools to automate my art creation. i did this years ago with creating make8bitart.com and lately i've been designing rulers to help me draw grids for IRL pixel art even quicker for when i just want to do some quick sketches.
At what age did you notice you’re into tech? What cues were there, and what was your first personal project?
i didn't have a computer at home until my sophomore or junior year of high school (so like 2002ish) and my lack of access to tech stifled my interested for some time. i did take computer science my senior year and i was full speed ahead since then.
my first personal project was a weezer fan site i made in geocities. it ended up on the fan page list on weezer.com and forum users called it "pretty good for a geocities site"
you can probably wayback machine it, my yahoo/geocities username was jennlikesweezer :D
Glad you did that course! Thanks Jenn for all your dedication. It helps make the tech world a funnier and a bit less toxic place ❤
For the curious :)
web.archive.org/web/20021129105734...
Niiiiice @jennschiffer . Sadly my first Geocities site is nowhere to be found.
Did you at some point work at the NBA?
i did! i was a senior front-end dev there. i did mostly work on stats.nba.com and special projects that were not under the broadcasting terms of turner broadcasting. i also wrote a lot of php for a digital encyclopedia project they may or may not even be releasing hahah.
What new tech thing are you most excited about?
i'm actually kind of stoked that server side rendering is a thing people are talking about again. coming from php and node and then doing a lot of front-end apps, we've spent a few years pulling everything onto the client side and then were like "wait why are things so slow and big" and are building those frameworks to bring some stuff back down to the server. it's just nice to see conversations about performance lead to architectural changes.
What projects or experiences prepared you to be a community engineer? What was your biggest obstacle? What's been your favorite thing to do at Fog Creek?
i think that being active on social media (ie. twitter) prepared me for connecting to a large user base in tech, which is essential to my current role. doing consulting for a few years has taught me how to work with many different kinds of people - even in different roles like dev, designer, marketing, product, c-level, etc. my biggest obstacle as a woman in tech with a web presence, essentially a requirement for my job, is targeted harassment. i had a really bad time with this once and i had to stay silent about it and it was probably one of the hardest parts of my career.
my favorite thing to do at fog creek is hang out with my coworkers. we're mostly remote but we recently had an off-site, regularly meet weekly on zoom together, and i mentor one of my remote coworkers by working on a cool side project app. it's refreshing how i get to work with all of them even though many of them are not on my team.
What does Fog Creek do best as a company?
i think what fog creek does best as a company is what they've been doing for 17 years - trying to best serve the software development community by designing, building, and selling tools that do just that, which means remembering that software is about the humans that are behind its creation.