Hey, I'm Jess!
Here are some things that make me interesting, maybe:
- I am Taiwanese American.
- I like to rock climb.
- I studied piano in college.
- I went on tour with the KIDZ BOP Kids (not as a performer).
- I went to a coding bootcamp.
- I product managed at a nonprofit tech company.
- I co-founded dev.to
- I deal with operations.
- I code, mostly in ruby & JS.
I also kicked off our monthly progress report today, so if there's anything in there I can clarify, ask away!
Oldest comments (118)
Ms. Lee: your website seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular?
Hi, Ben Halpern, thank you for your question. I had to look up the speed of Canadian freight trains. A class 4 train can go up to 60 mph, wow! And if you add on the runaway aspect, that's really quite fast..though not as fast as some high speed passenger trains. Well anyway, I'll interpret this as a compliment, even though I think we'd prefer to go at the speed of runaway passenger trains.
We're popular because of our community. We believe in sharing knowledge and ideas (the most important riches in the world!), and people on dev.to are actually nice and supportive.
That's exactly what I like about this place!
Got a strange feeling of a deja vue. Can't pin it down right now, but I am sure I will... But let's eat that donut first. Or 10. 😉
Biggest Achievement so far ?
Hm, I have a tendency to associate an 'achievement' with a certificate or badge, which I can't say I've really acquired in the last few years aside from graduating from a coding bootcamp.
But something I'm definitely proud of myself for accomplishing this year is venturing into public speaking. I gave my first talk at Write/Speak/Code, an awesome conference for women based in Portland, OR. It was exciting and nerve wracking to talk about dev.to (and your developer identity) in front of a group of incredible women.
Okay, please expand on this one.
I second this.
Welllllll, I was working at KIDZ BOP, the #1 music brand for kids, and they started experimenting with bringing the KB Kids on tour. SOOO, I went to a bunch of cities and a bunch of six flags across America to babysit 5 kids and their parents. Now they've gone world-wide and sell out at venues like house of blues. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Do you think studying piano contributed to your extreme typing speeds?
✔️
Is City Of Saints your ☕️ of choice? /me misses Brooklyn!
I don't drink coffee 😱 !
Wow, you may be the only other dev I know that doesn't!
Were you a groupie for KIDZ BOP? Please explain.
Hahaha, I was a 'PR & Marketing Manager' aka glorified babysitter making sure that they got to point A --> B without injuring themselves or saying something too silly.
Do you prefer top-rope rock climbing, or bouldering? Any tips for someone who likes bouldering but kind of sucks at it (can't get past V1s...bleh)?
OH MY GOSH, YES! Ok. I bouldered for a couple years and couldn't really get past V1s comfortably. I was still terrified of the height and always struggled on the last move -- it was super frustrating and I never ended up climbing consistently because of it.
This past year, I started climbing again...but instead of bouldering, I went for top-roping. I found a buddy in @angaither so she pushes me to climb at least once a week. Top roping has helped me focused on the actual climbing and not the fear. I feel a lot more confident in my technique and I have a much higher level of endurance because the climbs are so much longer.
Now that I'm top-roping consistently, bouldering has become a lot easier and the fear aspect doesn't play as much because those muscles have gotten stronger.
(so the tip is to add some top-roping into your routing!)
That's great advice! Thank you!
KIDZ BOP?! That is awesome. What year was this and how long was the tour!?
How'd you get into climbing rocks?
Hi Jess! What was it like working at a tech nonprofit, and what drew you to that particular company?
I was drawn to DoSomething.org because of the mission: empowering young people to take social action. And with that, the people behind the mission. I was in a place where I had the luxury of choosing where to work and given that option, I wanted to work for an organization that was adding to the world in a positive way.
DS was run like a startup, so it honestly didn't feel that different. Our KPIs were organized around activating young people, and not 'revenue', so that was pretty cool. DS is also well-connected so we were able to pick the brains of a lot of smart people.