Diego Moura is a newer developer who has recently joined the ranks of professional developers. The panel talks to Diego about his career as a fashion designer and how he moved to Canada and go into programming. 

He initially got into digital marketing and figured out that he could modify and manage pages and picked up development as a function of doing UI work on his marketing pages. From there he fell in love with web development.

 

Hey there and welcome to another episode of JavaScript Jabber. This week on our panel we have Dan Shapir.

 

Hi from a warm and sunny Tel Aviv.

 

Steve Edwards.

 

How you doing? Coming from a cooler Portland.

 

AJ O'Neil.

 

Yo yo yo, coming at you from the BEETLES NEST!

 

I don't even know what that means. I'm Charles Max Wood from Top End Devs. And this week we're talking to a special guest, Diego Mora. Diego, do you wanna introduce yourself? Let us know who you are and why we love you so much and are appreciative that you came.

 

and why he's famous.

 

Yeah,

 

That too.

 

thank

 

The fame

 

you

 

goes

 

Charles.

 

without saying.

 

Well, at least

 

Yeah,

 

it is

 

I don't

 

after

 

know about

 

this,

 

that.

 

because then everybody sends them autograph requests for being on this podcast. So anyway, sorry, Diego.

 

No worries, like thank you so much guys. Well, I'm Diego. I'm based in Toronto, Canada, but I'm originally from Sao Paulo, Brazil. And well, I'm a fan. So thank you so much for having me. To me, you are the famous ones here. So it's my pleasure to be here.

 

It's all because of the dad jokes, right?

 

Of course, of course I'm waiting for those.

 

Right?

 

Aren't we all? Aren't we all?

 

Yeah, and well...

 

That did not sound enthused.

 

Boom.

 

Oh, right. So Dan, you put out a tweet looking for people who are new to web development and this is how this came up, right?

 

Yeah, exactly. So quite a while ago, we had several people on our show who are relatively new to web development. We can put in links to those episodes. But it was really interesting conversations, especially given that all of us are kind of old timers in the field and hardly remember how we got in. So I think it's really important to keep a finger on the pulse of how people are getting into the field, especially given that I think something like the median experience of web developers is around three years, so half of us are new. So for that reason, I put out a tweet inviting people or relatively new in the field to come and speak with us and tell us about their experiences and how their background, how they got into it. And Diego was nice enough to apply and to join us. And here he is.

 

Yeah, it's interesting to have this conversation periodically because I remember when I got into development, right? I mean, I had a degree in computer, I guess I still do. I have a degree in computer engineering, but, you know, I worked tech slash customer support for a couple of years and then got a job writing code. And I've talked to other people that they graduate from college and get in, but we're talking to more and more people these days who are sort of self taught, self-made, maybe went through a boot camp or did free code camp. And so it's always interesting to see, you know, where people are coming in, what the challenges are now, right? Because again, the industry has changed enough to where getting your first job today is different

 

you

 

from getting your first job 10 years ago, 20 years ago. So yeah, I'd love to just get a feel for Diego, what your life was like before you got into code. And then we

 

See you

 

can

 

later.

 

talk about how you got into code and then how you became a professional.

 

sure. Yeah, well, I come from like a very different industry. I was a fashion designer for 10 years before making the transition into programming. I have a bachelor in fashion design. And

 

Oh wow.

 

I, yeah, I loved my first career. That's why I guess I did it for 10 years. And by the time I was 26, politically or economically speaking. So I decided to just move to Canada and like experience living abroad because that had always been like a dream of mine. And I came here in Canada. I did like I studied right I did a two-year program at a college here a very broad topic it was just like business management and I more on the business side of things, but still related to fashion and I could not find or my math skills were not up to par to what the industry was requiring at the time. So I went into sort of like digital marketing and I started like my internship in digital marketing and like social media marketing and just doing stuff like that, which kind tech industry, I would say, like with that social media or like building those marketing websites and stuff like that.

 

Interesting. So you're saying that your first encounter with the web and web related stuff actually came from the perspective of digital marketing. So in that context, what kind of jobs were you doing?

 

Well, I think like everything that's related to digital marketing, pretty much I was doing like emails, newsletters in just HTML, or like creating full marketing websites in CMSs like Squarespace or Wix or WordPress, of course. A lot of design work too, right? Because since I had that to just translate that skill into UI design. So I was just doing a lot of sketch, Figma, and just creating those assets for my, at that point, either employers or clients. Because I would do it both from a food time standpoint and a freelance as well.

 

Cool. So given that you were working that part of the industry, and again, given that you, like you said, you kind of had an affinity to it because of your background with fashion and design. What kind of drew you towards the more technical aspect of development? What caused you to start making that transition?

 

Right. When I was on that digital marketing kind of like role, I tried and like really get into the industry and like find a full time job. At that time, I was mostly working with higher education clients. So I

 

Hmm.

 

was like trying to find like that marketing coordinator, just marketing something very late stages of interviewing with some of them, but every time I would get to the end they would give me like this editing, copywriting assignment and as much as my English skills were good, they were not good enough as like somebody that had like English as their native language or like just like better understanding of the language like when it came to grammar and stuff like that me out at that time. I was like, man, like I've invested so much time in trying to make this thing work. And I could just not like cross that threshold, like that English threshold and really make it into the industry.

 

And I think that's a good point.

 

So

 

I think that's a good point.

 

I was like, okay,

 

I think that's a good point.

 

I'm going to

 

I think that's a good point.

 

keep doing whatever

 

I think that's a good point.

 

I'm doing, which

 

I think that's a good point.

 

is like this digital

 

I think that's a good point.

 

marketing stuff.

 

I think that's a good point.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

I think that's a good point.

 

At that time, I was doing

 

I think that's a good point.

 

a lot of

 

I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point.

 

And

 

I think that's a good point.

 

I wanted to be able

 

I think that's a good point.

 

to just like

 

I think that's a good point.

 

provide to my clients

 

I think that's a good point.

 

like a better

 

I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point.

 

experience or

 

I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point.

 

more features

 

I think

 

to their sides, right? And that's when I was like, OK, what do I need to be able to provide this kind of like service and maybe even like charge them a little bit more? Toronto. And I

 

you

 

encountered CSS as an opportunity

 

Thank you.

 

to just like make little tweaks here and there and like make that interface look a little bit better. And

 

Thanks for watching!

 

in the beginning with zero pretension of like becoming anything other than a digital marketeer, right? I would even oh I'm a developer, I'm gonna build you a website. So much was through that, like I was even like mostly doing the copywriting of the website, designing the elements, like choosing the imagery and like that would be like the main service I would provide, right? But little did I know that once I started looking into that stuff, like I would really fall in love with it, which pretty much. I remember watching one course on LinkedIn learning with Jen Simmons, I guess that's her name,

 

Mm-hmm.

 

and her passion talking about HTML, like the very fundamentals of like semantic HTML, was so, I don't know, impressive to me at And from that video, I went to the other, and to the other, and to the other, and to the other. And here I am today, a few videos after.

 

Yeah,

 

So...

 

Jen Simmons actually came from the Drupal world for those. used to see her all the time. And now I just heard her recently on another podcast and she's like working at Apple on the Safari

 

Mm-hmm.

 

browser and

 

Yeah.

 

really trying to drive the Safari browser forward in terms of web standards and CSS and so on. So yeah, she's pretty well known.

 

Yeah, she's definitely

 

Yep.

 

fighting the good fight, which is really an important thing since, as I'd like to point

 

you

 

out every once in a while on iOS, you really don't have a choice. You're always using Safari, even if you're thinking that you're using

 

Mm-hmm.

 

some other browser. And as a result, the better that Safari is, the better it is for everybody.

 

Thanks for watching!

 

Still doesn't overcome the fact that we should have browser choice, but obviously it's better than nothing. And obviously, that's

 

Thanks for

 

not

 

watching!

 

something is going to be deciding on. But going back to the process that you were describing, Diego, so if I follow what you're saying, you kind of got into development through HTML and CSS. Effectively, those were your technical introductions or the first technical aspects of web development that you actually started with. And to be honest, I think that's really a good way to go. if you don't have a software development background, I mean, people that maybe come to web development from back end stuff or just C++ or whatever, embedded systems or whatever, I guess they are intrinsically drawn to JavaScript. But for you, especially coming in with no background in software development and especially with a background in design, that's the perfectly natural way of getting in.

 

Exactly.

 

Thanks for watching!

 

And like you said, it's like it's a match made in heaven, like, because you do have all those design elements to CSS and HTML when you combine both. So it's familiar. It's something that as much as might be a little bit confusing in the beginning, it's it's familiar. So you don't feel as scared. And it drives you to just like try and understand it better. So you read more, you watch more videos. And there's a lot you can do with just HTML and CSS. It's surprising how much you can, I guess, more nowadays with CSS evolving so much in the past few years. But I also think that I got into it at a point where it was like the good time to be getting into it, where you had all those new features coming to

 

Mm-hmm.

 

CSS and HTML.

 

When did this take place more or less? How long ago?

 

It was April 2020. Yeah. Two weeks into the lockdown, actually,

 

Oh wow. Oh

 

that's when I made the decision that after those two weeks within the lockdown had started, I was just looking at the videos. And I was like, man, I like this too much not to really dive because what I thought was like the world is on pause right now. So

 

Uh-huh.

 

it's like I have this time to see if this thing's gonna work or not. So that's that was my goal. I was like okay I have until like this was April 2020 I was like I have until January next year 2021 to have a job in the field. And little did I know year, my goal. So November same year 2020, I got my offer.

 

So before we go into that, a little bit about your learning experience and getting into it. So you're saying you were watching videos online. Was that your primary source of information, video courses that you were watching?

 

Yes, I would say I started pretty much with LinkedIn learning because at

 

Yes.

 

that time I still had like access to the platform due to my studies that I was doing here in Canada. So like as part of like just the package you got from the university, you would get access to LinkedIn and stuff like that because it is a paid platform, right? So I was just lathering. leveraging still having that access. So I consumed like a great part of what they had on HTML and CSS. And from there, I guess, Twitter was also like a great source of like where to go and where to find more resources. Because

 

Mmm.

 

it was locked down, right? So I wasn't like really connecting with I wasn't seeing my friends, I wasn't talking about it with anyone. So Twitter was really my route into understanding and getting to understand the industry pretty much.

 

So how methodical versus haphazard was this process? I mean, like, did you

 

Hey!

 

have more or less of a plan?

 

Thanks for watching!

 

Were you taking like watching videos individually or kind of parts of a course? Were you trying to like doing exercises and projects? Like how methodical were you able to be going about this learning process?

 

At that initial stage, I was very concerned about the fundamentals, because that's one thing I just knew as common sense, that anything to be done properly has to start with the fundamentals. So I would get those courses, because only learning would have the structure of a course on topics. on the title of the course, so Fundamentals of HTML, Fundamentals of Forms in HTML, Fundamentals of CSS. And from there, once I started to feel I had enough knowledge on those fundamentals, I started to look for some exercises on some websites that provide that sort of thing, especially for front-end, like front-end mentor to my now and they had like this very simple exercises like create this card in the middle of the screen and it has a button you know like very simple stuff just like writing the markup writing the CSS you could submit to their platform and they would compare

 

you

 

whatever was your submission to the actual design they had there so it gave you like immediate feedback so you could see where like from the actual design. So it could be, oh, okay, I should have done this or I could have done that better. So that was pretty much how it started. And to better answer your question about the methodology, I think that fundamental part was the most important for me, making sure that I was having that solid base on those topics.

 

It's really great that you had this approach and, how would I say, a methodological approach, like a didactic approach to this because too often I see people like, you know, behaving slightly like mayflies jumping around between stuff and not trying to be really systematic about it. So you said that you were starting with HTML and CSS. to your first job. Did you also start JavaScript or just HTML and CSS at that stage?

 

I think with HTML and CSS, my focus was a month, a month and a half. It is very little time, but it doesn't mean that I stopped ever. Even today, I'm constantly learning new stuff about HTML and CSS. Just recently, I have a thing with HTML Canvas, and I just built everything using HTML5 Canvas

 

you

 

element. But anyway, to deviate from the topic here, JavaScript came in like maybe two months into that process. And it was an awful experience, of course, because I could not learn from those same courses I was doing HTML and CSS. It didn't translate into JavaScript. I would watch it and it would not click. Just because I feel like it takes on the topic until you're able to actually produce something with it as with HTML and CSS. The minute you know one thing, you can apply and you can test and you can see. JavaScript was almost like the determined factor because I remember trying it for a month and not really getting it and being like, okay, that's it. I don't think this is going to work. It was a nice try. And I was ready to give up actually. When somebody messaged me on Twitter, because I probably like went on Twitter and said how frustrated I was. And this person messaged me and sent me a link to this website called Watch and Code. And they said like that they had like a free version of

 

you

 

the program and that I should do it. and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, okay, I mean, I have nothing to lose here. I'm about to, to give up. Why not give this one a try? And that free program was actually like, what clicked for me. I didn't know what they had that was different. Maybe the way they explained that to me sound very that like what I was seeing there I was not seeing anywhere else and it got me back into that let's do this let's

 

Thanks for watching!

 

really try and like figure it out

 

Mm-hmm.

 

I'm totally not surprised by

 

Thanks

 

the

 

for

 

experience

 

watching!

 

that you're describing. I mean, the great thing about HTML and CSS, first of all, even they represent a hurdle. So if somebody

 

Mm-hmm.

 

is coming in with totally no background in anything having to do with computers, you at least had your background from digital marketing, I think, which helped you a lot, for the design stuff, elements that

 

Thanks for watching!

 

are associated with CSS, for example. But even CSS and HTML can be a significant hurdle for somebody with absolutely no background. But at the end of the day, they are declarative. You're kind of saying what you want the thing to be, and the system kind of obliges and does what you're telling it to do, assuming you know what to tell it to do. And that's really different from JavaScript, which is imperative. You kind of have to tell the system how to do the thing that you want to get done, which is like a totally different level of complexity, I think. You guys might agree or disagree with the way that I'm describing it. Yes, AJ.

 

So I agree with the way you're describing

 

Thanks for watching!

 

it, but my experience is completely different because with HTML and CSS, there's no way to know what the outcome is going to be without doing the thing. You don't have, there's not a way to predict this is what's going to happen. You have to guess and check and refresh, guess and check and refresh, guess and check and refresh. With programming, you can know, you can know exactly what's going to happen when the code runs. And so I find that much easier.

 

I agree, but I don't think that it's a contradiction relative to what I said, because coming in this kind of repetitive trial and error, especially in the web environment where a reload is basically an F5 away, is very easy to do. Like you said, you may not know what the CSS is going to do, so you basically just write out the CSS, do an F5, see what happens. And then figure out why it does the thing that it does. And usually, it's not that complicated once you did it a couple of times. And it's more, it's perhaps less understanding and more even rote memory. But that's not a bad thing when you're starting out. With JavaScript, like you said, since you're telling the system what to do, you know what it's going to do. But that's assuming you have the mental model. I remember one of the biggest challenges that I had with my son when he started learning computer science is that I kept telling him to basically, whenever he codes something, before he tries to run it on a computer, try to run it in your head. Execute the statements one at a time. And I would literally sit him down in front of a block of paper and a pen and basically force him to be the computer and it was a really difficult step for him to take. Now once you've done that, once you've like internalized that thing, then I totally agree with you AJ, but that first step is really hard, I think.

 

Yeah, and I think even as an example that I can remember now, I remember when I learned about if statements, and I would go to those CMS websites I was building in, I would be like, when, why, how would I use a if statement here? I could not think of a use case because I was using it totally separated from the rest of the context that if statement would be inserted, right? or the function that I was trying to think of the parts of JavaScript as separated parts that could be used alone. Because I guess what I didn't have is what you're saying, that mental model of

 

Mm-hmm.

 

how everything fits together.

 

Yeah, because the mental model of the web is kind of separate. Again, especially when you're looking at it from the perspective of HTML and CSS, it's really distinct from that mental model of how a computer operates. You know, that

 

Mm-hmm.

 

pipeline of instructions, the CPU, the memory, fetching something

 

Thanks for watching!

 

from memory into the CPU, processing, all this stuff, which is kind of the basic to us. today that we hardly think about it anymore is totally alien to somebody coming in new to the field, especially like Diego, like you did, from the perspective of looking at it as, as you know, through the facade of the webpage.

 

And not to mention the DOM itself, that it's something that like, I feel like many of those fundamental courses don't even like touch, right? Like you have this whole layer that like kind of like wraps everything that it's not spoken about. So only later when you get like start to learn more and more, you go and you, oh, there's like this thing there and I at least for me everything started to make even more sense I wish I knew about it like sooner or like how it behaves sooner and in the process I think it would have helped me just understand some of the concepts better

 

So what

 

Mm-hmm.

 

was the key aha moment that you had about the DOM that you weren't getting before? And this is from when you were learning HTML and CSS, you didn't understand the DOM, is that what you were saying?

 

Um, I just didn't know it was there. I just didn't know it was a thing. Um, and I think like the aha moment was actually when I was doing a course on CSS. And on that course, they actually explained what was the dome. And I think it was like the C dome, which is like this dawn for the CSS part of it.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

CSSOM

 

Um,

 

it's called

 

yeah, it's just as on, correct.

 

Yeah.

 

And then I was like, oh, OK, so these things, they run at their own time, and they get applied at their own time to the page. So it was just me better understanding the order of how things get applied to the page. And even the cascade of CSS made more sense, why something that comes before or after something gets applied differently. And you know.

 

I need to find the link. I'll probably put it in the show notes. I won't even try to search for it now, but there are a couple of great talks, usually fairly long ones, by the way, about how the browser actually works,

 

you

 

the rendering,

 

Mm-hmm.

 

the vent loop and stuff like that. So, you know, even now I occasionally encounter people who are supposedly like already web developers and are working in React or Vue, whatever, but are unfortunately not sufficiently familiar browser actually works and that usually results in crap code. Pardon my French.

 

Ha

 

I think I recently tweeted that if you have inner width and inner height in your JavaScript code, then you're doing it wrong. And that's of course a bit extreme, but that kind of goes to show that people are using the DOM without properly understanding, you know, the whys and what's and the implications and outcomes of what it is that they're doing.

 

And I think to your example, then, it was something to do with trying to create a responsive webpage. So you would try and see what was the size of the screen the user was assessing instead of using a media query

 

eggs.

 

or something that was designed to

 

Exactly,

 

get that

 

exactly.

 

assessment.

 

All too often I see people writing, let's say, React code, where in their component they're basically using, let's say, use effect to hook into the window size event and

 

Thanks for watching!

 

maybe the window scroll event and stuff like that. And then are checking the inner width and inner height and comparing it to various magic numbers according to whatever comes out and that's pretty awful. Again, without

 

Yep.

 

going into the details of why it's awful, trust me on that,

 

Thank

 

it's

 

you.

 

pretty awful. But, and like you said, it should be done with media queries. Ideally, it should be done in CSS completely. If it needs to have associated imperative code, you can still use media queries from within the JavaScript using the APIs, just to throw out one reason, it's because the component will effectively re-render on every minor resize, even those that don't actually even cross the border of where you kind of change the layout and stuff like that. So it's pretty bad. Anyway, going back to the process that you were going through, one question that I have, and again, appreciating the difficulty of the stuff that you were kind of learning for the first time and the roadblocks that I'm sure that you were facing, were you able to get assistance on that? Did you have any form of mentorship? I know that you kind of said that you went out on Twitter when you kind of got stuck. But

 

Thank you.

 

I'm hard pressed to think about Twitter as trustworthy

 

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mentoring. environment slash tool slash whatever.

 

Yeah.

 

So did you have any assistance in this context?

 

Yes, I did. And it was on Twitter, rest assured. I did love to go on Twitter and just see what was going on. But I also believe that it's not source of truth or anything. And Watch and Code was actually the community where I found that support. So after finishing up that free program, they had that free course that basically I It made you build a to-do app. So very simple to-do app, no interface, no CSS at all, just plain JavaScript, all done through the console. Well, at least part of it was through the console. Me through that course, we go to VS Code or like your preferred ID and actually like have files. But like just the concept of like, learning about the console was something that made a huge difference for me in learning JavaScript, right? And that's when I knew that with that community is where I would like to learn it, because I could finally be able to test the JavaScript I was learning. Because with the HTML and CSS, it was very simple. The F5, the refresh, write something, see it happens. With I could type my JavaScript there and log stuff and see what

 

Mm-hmm.

 

it would spit out back to me. So I finished that pre-version of the course. Was amazed that I was able to produce a to-do app or I could see my inputs that I would type in the input field being logged on the console. I could have access to that list

 

you

 

of to-dos. So I subscribed to their premium version and that's where the real learning, I think, began.

 

So and did you said that you got support there like what did they have like a discord or slack or something like that where you were able to go on and and you know ask questions and get advice and and and explanations when you got stuck stuff like that how did it work.

 

Yeah, OK, their system, it probably have changed a lot since I did it. So everything that I'm

 

you

 

going to say here is probably from my experience, I know they have changed. And the time I was there, they have daily accountability meetings every day, 10 AM. Everybody would just jump on a Zoom call. We would have to have submitted our updates from the previous day on Slack. there was a very specific way we should write those updates.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

The person who runs the system, he's very particular about how you write your updates, how you write your questions, how you formulate your questions. And he has a guideline even on how to make questions and how to write updates. And that structured way of learning that was almost like kind of rigid and like imperative worked for me. I really appreciate that kind of structure to learning. And yeah, so it really helped me in that sense. Those accountability meetings were great because not only you could ask your questions but you would hear other people's questions. And when we had time, like the more advanced because it would be people from different levels within the program they offered, right? When we had

 

Mm-hmm.

 

the time, that was like more advanced in the program doing mock interviews with the mentor or like the person who runs the program and just being able to see like how a mock interview was done at the very early stage was like mind-blowing. I was like oh my god do I really want to go through this because like people would be like to the point of like crying in some of those

 

Thanks

 

mock

 

for watching!

 

interviews because so difficult and they were pushed to the limit to explain themselves and sell the code and to make Don't make assumptions, but like test yours. So yeah, that was really an interesting experience

 

Cough.

 

How many hours a day were you spending on this if I may ask?

 

You can and I don't think it was very healthy, but

 

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

 

I was spending like about like, I don't know. 12 to 16 hours a day.

 

Wow.

 

Oh wow.

 

It was pretty much my whole day. Yeah, it was my whole day.

 

And I assume that that kind of worked out for you because like you said, it was during lockdown and you basically had nowhere to go.

 

Exactly. In a way it was like, what else would I be doing? Like anything I could. But one, I was hooked. Like I wasn't like having to push myself to be seated in that chair, like looking at the screen. I wanted to be there. Like

 

Hmm.

 

it was crazy how hooked I was on the on the topic. Like the even the minute I even got more hooked into it because now I knew it was going somewhere. So yeah, it was but to my point about not being very healthy. I think you can still achieve the same result with less hours with more flexibility with better nights of sleep like better meals and just overall better taking care of yourself.

 

And...

 

Sleep

 

Yeah,

 

is overrated.

 

Ha ha ha

 

well,

 

ha!

 

and the thing is is that what I've found is that to a certain extent, because I go through periods like this where I'm just kind of manically working on whatever it is that I'm, you know, that I'm into, right? And, you know, I feel like for some people they feel there's, there's a calling or, you know, some, some feel that this is where they are supposed to be, or this is something they really want. I don't think it's necessarily unhealthy to go through seasons of life where you're pushing beyond sort of what people put out there as a regular capacity, right? Now, if you do it

 

Mm-hmm.

 

for too long

 

Yeah.

 

or you do this to the detriment of other things, then sure, right? But

 

Yeah.

 

I want to just push people to think, okay, look, if I don't have other commitments, right? It was lockdown.

 

Mm-hmm. I did.

 

your life, right? So, I mean, any of, you know, what you're trading off makes sense, right? And so in my situation, you know, I'm 42, I'm married, I have five kids, you know, my oldest is 16 and my youngest is six, and they all need time with me and they all

 

And

 

need

 

they all

 

some

 

need

 

things from

 

something

 

me

 

from

 

beyond

 

you.

 

me showing up to work and paying the bills. And so I can find that balance, but I still may

 

Thank

 

be

 

you.

 

counterbalanced a bit more towards something

 

Thank you.

 

to or feel like I need to go. The flip side is, is there are also trade-offs, right? So you may be trading off, this is gonna take me four months instead of two months if I'm not putting in 16 hours.

 

you

 

And then other things, it's you put in eight hours

 

You can put

 

and

 

in

 

you don't

 

eight hours

 

get

 

and

 

a whole

 

you don't

 

lot

 

get a whole...

 

out of your day beyond the eight hours in some things you do. And so I don't know,

 

I don't

 

I know I'm on

 

know.

 

this

 

I know

 

like

 

I'm on

 

monologue

 

the right

 

but

 

track.

 

I really want people to just think about, you know what, sometimes it's okay to be off balance. as long as you're not making it a lifestyle and if the payoff is worth it.

 

I totally agree

 

Exactly.

 

with what you're saying, Chuck. I do think that you need to kind of take stock. First of all, you kind of need to be aware going in. And then you may need to take stock at

 

Right?

 

certain points throughout, because like you said,

 

Thanks for watching!

 

Chuck, you might assume that you can pull this off, but it turns out that you can't. Or maybe, conversely, maybe you are able to actually put in more hours than

 

Mm-hmm.

 

you thought you could in order to shorten the duration. So you do kind of need to be wary and certainly you need to avoid burnout. And there are also financial considerations, I would assume. I mean,

 

Alright.

 

basically what you're describing Diego is that during that time, you weren't really able to work on anything else. So I guess money was going out, but no money was coming in. That's also something that you definitely need to take into account.

 

Exactly. Yeah, and I also agree with both of you guys, because I knew that was something I was doing for a period of time. Like I said in the beginning, I had that goal of getting a job by January, right? So I was like, counting the months, like I was like, okay, I didn't know how much I needed to know. But I was like, as long as I'm willing to be here learning, I'm gonna be here than what I anticipate that I would need. So I'll just try and get as much as I can. And that's what I did pretty much just like I said. And to your point then on the money thing, I had like just, I was very lucky and very blessed that to have a partner that was working during that period of time. So like he was the sole breadwinner of our household. like something that was difficult to manage during that process because there I was like spending 12 hours in front of the computer, not doing much anything else, like in a way neglecting our relationship. He was like providing and I was just telling him like, believe me, like trust me, it's gonna come out somewhere. Like I'm gonna achieve this goal. I'm gonna any good or if I was just like sitting there but like not learning anything like right he was just like really being patient and like trusting me in that process and thank God everything worked out

 

No.

 

Yeah.

 

because like if it didn't right

 

Yeah, it

 

what

 

seems

 

would

 

that

 

have

 

you

 

happened.

 

were very lucky in that regard.

 

I was,

 

Yeah,

 

yeah.

 

I want to just tap into that for a second too, because I think a lot of times we kind of look at our own journey or the journey that we're embarking on, and we don't account for that, right? So when I went freelance, I'm just going to be really brief on this because I think I've told this story before, I went freelance, my wife freaked out, right? I'd gotten laid off, we had about two months worth of money in the bank, she freaked out. with our money, I'll take a full-time job. But in the meantime, I wanna go freelance. And I got support, right? And that made all the difference. And after a while, I joke about going to get a full-time job and she would say, no, you can't because you're home with the kids when I have to go out and you're this and this and this, right? And so that support paid off. Later on when I was, I had to make a choice between freelancing the podcasts because the podcasts were sucking up on my time. I went to my wife and I expected her to say, with the freelancing because

 

Thanks for watching!

 

it was the responsible, reliable income. And she told me to do what would make me happy. And so, you know, there's a lot to be said for that kind of support that you get, not from the community, but from the people that you spend your life with.

 

Exactly. Exactly. And I think that's also something that people don't talk a lot about in

 

Nie.

 

every web dev career. Because those are the key elements of making that career transition successful or not.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

It doesn't matter how many hours you put in, if you don't have support from your family or you just have to divide your time between learning

 

me.

 

providing that type of attention care, right?

 

And

 

Yeah.

 

Yep.

 

communication is key here because

 

Mm-hmm.

 

so important.

 

both of you described a situation where certainly a degree of trust was required, but you were open and honest about it. You basically said, look, I'm going to try this. This is going to have a certain associated cost, a certain associated risk. Are you in with me? And

 

Thanks, then.

 

it's great that you got that support and that buy-in effectively. that's also something to take into account. You can't just kind of make those decisions on your own disregarding the consequences to those that, you know, those that depend on you or those that live with you.

 

Right.

 

Of course, yeah.

 

So you were saying that you were you first studied HTML and CSS, then you moved on to to JavaScript. And initially, at least it was JavaScript in the console. So it's effectively JavaScript without the DOM. What was kind of the next step after that?

 

Okay, the next step was still, it didn't have the dawn involved because the very first part of that premium version of watch and code was like about reading code. That's another like key aspect of the program which is focused on reading the code more than writing the code. And the very first I think it was at least literally this, spent six hours reading this code base. Even if you don't understand anything, try and recognize the patterns, try and find the common elements in this code base. Does it have repetition or anything? From there, we

 

Before you move on,

 

add-

 

I must interrupt you because we had

 

Sure.

 

an amazing episode about reading source code with Carl Mengazi a while back. It was episode 408. So it's like,

 

Mm-hmm.

 

what, two years ago? And it

 

Yeah, Carl's awesome too.

 

was such a great episode because it exactly kind of described what you were saying in greater detail about how beneficial it is, especially for people coming into the industry to learn by reading code. So I definitely encourage

 

Exactly.

 

our listeners to also listen to that episode if they haven't.

 

Yeah,

 

Yeah, we'll put a link

 

and.

 

in the show notes.

 

Yeah, and well, that reading code part of it was difficult. I mistaken like, I remember it was jQuery code. So like very weird characters, you know, like from me that had just built like that to do app in vanilla JavaScript. And I think it's worth mentioning like, there was no concern about modern JavaScript in that course either. So we were using vars. until like the end of 2020, like where the whole internet was like let const

 

That's okay

 

and...

 

AJ still uses VAR.

 

I know, I know.

 

Hey, VAR works!

 

It worked, it worked. And it like removed that like layer of complexity for me at that initial stage, right? I didn't have to worry about let const, what that meant. Just bark and it worked. Really good. From there, we actually went into, not really the dawn, but TDD. I remember this task that I took almost two months to finish, which was rewrite all array methods as functions with the MDN docs description of it. We would read the MDN docs, requirements of how what of what that function should do and Rewrite those array methods as functions using TBD so we were right like the it should accept an array like object and then implement the code to have that happening

 

Hey, real quick

 

and

 

by TDD, so we can display, explain

 

Oh yeah.

 

acronyms, you're talking test-driven development. Okay.

 

Exactly. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for

 

AKA

 

clarifying that.

 

doing it right.

 

You're right.

 

Oh, sorry, sorry.

 

I agree, although to be fair, to be honest, I can never bring myself to really work like pure TDD. My mind just doesn't

 

Yeah,

 

work like that.

 

I agree. It's

 

Yeah.

 

hard.

 

Well,

 

that.

 

it's great for the classroom when you already know the solutions. It's not real life

 

We're going

 

where...

 

to have...

 

Well, there's a whole rabbit hole we could go down right now,

 

Yeah,

 

but

 

Which...

 

yeah,

 

we

 

yeah.

 

should stay on

 

Let's

 

track,

 

rabbit hole

 

huh? Ha

 

that

 

ha

 

later.

 

ha ha.

 

Yeah, we are... Yeah, I just should say the one thing in an upcoming episode We will have a person that worked with me at Wix called Shia Lynn, an awesome and amazing developer And he's like a TDD purist So I know that some people can work this way Just not me Anyway

 

Yeah,

 

Yeah.

 

Amy

 

moving

 

was a purist

 

on

 

too, if I remember correctly.

 

Yeah, yeah.

 

It takes practice.

 

And

 

Anyway, go ahead.

 

it's worth mentioning that in that context, I was not doing the purest version of TDD, which I am now with a friend, but and that's why I can see the difference. But it was like AJ said, like the classroom context, right? We were just using that to exercise our brains into thinking about requirements, thinking about like, run prematurely. So yeah, I think at that stage, TDD was there more as a learning tool than anything. But I honestly attribute to that exercise of writing those array methods, like my whole learning JavaScript experience pretty much because

 

you

 

I think like I never learned so much so fast.

 

I think that's a great idea. I recall that in my teaching days, I was always kind of drawn to an idea of doing an entire course on teaching programming, just using sorting algorithms.

 

Yeah.

 

So yeah, I really like the concept of working with data in this way as a means to understand requirements, understand what functions are, what they do, how they operate. It's a really cool idea. But moving us along, you're kind of describing that you've ultimately got a job a lot faster than you imagined that you would. Can you describe the process of how that happened?

 

Sure. Around the time that I was finishing the content of the paid program, I was, okay, I finished. Like this program, I think I have some knowledge and let me test it out. Let me try and create a resume and send it out to see if I get anything, right? I wasn't expecting at all to get like anything back. resume. I was like, let's send like, I probably won't receive anything. So I can refactor, like change stuff. And that was not what happened. One day I received a call back. And the recruiter on the other end just like made me a few questions. We had like this 15 minutes, telephone call. And I felt it here in Canada, so I was very excited about it. I'm not sure if on that interview like they gave me much information about what the role was about. I knew it was a developer position but they didn't say much other than that.

 

Before we go there, can you, going back to that process of sending out resumes, how, so

 

Mm-hmm.

 

first of all, so two questions really. First of all, given that you really did not have an experience as a developer, what did you actually put on the resume? So did you put in your general background in like, like you said, like web marketing, your experience with HTML, CSS, like your business degree, stuff like that? So that's

 

Yeah.

 

question number one. Question number two is, who did you send the resume to? I mean, how did you know whom to approach?

 

Right, okay, great questions. The resume itself, it was pretty much what you described. It was just like my previous experience in digital marketing, but I would praise myself under the light of a web developer because I was building websites

 

Mm-hmm.

 

in the end, right? I was doing them like on CMS platforms, but here and there, I did some CSS, you know, like I wrote a lot of HTML. point I don't think I had anything on my projects for clients that had JavaScript, but I have personal projects that I had JavaScript. At that point I had like one application, a full working application, which was a to-do app written in vanilla JavaScript, CSS, and HTML, pretty much. It was really interesting because it was a nested to-do list. So I was that you could have that. And that actually took me a long time to figure out how to do the nasty. I use recursion on the app. I was super excited about it.

 

Well,

 

So,

 

you pass the AJ

 

and.

 

programming like bar. If you

 

Hahaha

 

understand recursion, that means you're a programmer.

 

Pretty

 

Right

 

much, if you can

 

Thanks for watching!

 

do loops and recursion, you're a programmer.

 

Right?

 

Ha!

 

And understand what you're doing, not just copy and paste from stack

 

Yeah.

 

overflow and then modify one of the variables, but if you can write a loop, if you can do some fizz buzz and

 

Yeah.

 

the Fibonacci sequence, you're a programmer.

 

I also had at that time a memoized Fibonacci version. So it was just like.

 

Now you're taking it, you go to bridge too far. You're

 

Hehehe

 

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

 

getting into the weeds.

 

And probably I was doing it right at all, because I remember me thinking, like, should I store the value, like in local storage or something?

 

Mm-hmm.

 

So by that, you see I was doing it wrong. Anyway,

 

I would admit

 

on that

 

it.

 

We

 

resume.

 

have about, just so you know, we have about five minutes and then we've got to get to PICS because I've got

 

Okay,

 

a work

 

cool.

 

meeting.

 

Well, to finish up on that resume thing, so I had my personal projects and that was another big thing for me. All my projects were like mine. I come up with the idea, I came up with the requirements. They were not tutorials. At that time I had done like zero tutorials. I didn't have projects that were from a tutorial. I didn't use Stack Overflow at that time that that watch and code program like kept us in that environment. Everything that we needed was provided there so we wouldn't branch out into other stuff and even if we did he would know that it wasn't the way he

 

Mm.

 

was teaching us to code so he would not allow so yeah.

 

And again, and going back to that resume, so who did you send the resume to? How did you know who to approach and how?

 

Um, I think I just used LinkedIn and I love that like fast send button that they had because I was probably just sending it out to every position that met my resume like 70% because that's something I read somewhere that like if the job requirement meets your skills up to 70%, you should send it out. They put a bunch of stuff there that you won't be doing in real life. And yeah, that's just the

 

I

 

fact.

 

totally agree. In fact, I've heard that one of the challenges facing like, you know, the issue of gender inequality in tech is the fact that women are more likely not to submit unless they meet 100% of their requirements, just because of kind of the way that they've been educated or their, you know, tendencies, whereas men

 

Thanks for watching!

 

even submit even if they meet like 50%.

 

Yeah.

 

But I totally agree that like a seventy seventy to seventy five percent is a good bar Like if you meet it at seventy

 

Yeah.

 

percent go for it. I mean in any way what have you got to lose? But but

 

Exactly,

 

Yeah.

 

please go

 

yeah.

 

on so you said they got at least one of them got back to you. You had a good conversation and

 

And from that, they called me the very next day, wanting to schedule the actual interview with the hiring manager. And I was over the moon. When I met with them, I understand more about the job, which was very much using HTML and CSS. There would not be a lot of programming in the role itself because they had a CMS and what I would be doing, it was just like building websites It would be like a very different website they were used to, much more like modern. So like they were really looking for those CSS skills that at that point I had because I love CSS. So I was like doing crazy stuff with CSS, like animations and like grids. It was, it surprised me that so little people knew about CSS grids or were using CSS grids at that point because they were so easy. I was like, why you guys? struggling with flexbox still or like at least using them combined. But anyway, another determinant factor was my digital marketing background, because that position was within the digital marketing department. So I would not be on a dev team

 

Mm-hmm.

 

or like a tech team, per se. I would be pretty much the only technical guy on my team, you know, like, to come and add that flair to their product, but they didn't have the whole tech infrastructure. That threw me off a little and made me consider if I should go or not. But at that point, I was like, okay, I know that when I have a goal, I can achieve it because I just did that up until now. I'm going to get this job and I'm going to do it again. It's what I just did because Now I just transitioned into a tech team within the same company three weeks ago as a full stack developer.

 

Congratulations!

 

WHA- Ha!

 

And I never had so much programming in my life.

 

So out of curiosity, what tech stack are you guys using, if you can say?

 

Sure, it's TypeScript, Node.js, React. It's a bot, so it has some natural language processing, some machine learning, not that I'm touching on that yet, but yeah, very familiar, Node.js, React, TypeScript.

 

And you were able to learn all this technology on the job. I mean, you know, React in and of itself is a huge undertaking. TypeScript is a pretty big undertaking, understanding this whole static typing thing and the value of it, Node, et cetera. Although

 

Thank

 

Node,

 

you.

 

I assume you kind of had familiarity because of the console development that you did.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

But so

 

Mm-hmm.

 

all this additional learning, is that something you did on the job? Did the job support this learning? How did, how did this happen?

 

So after I finished that vanilla JavaScript program, that was the time I was like, okay, now I'm gonna learn a framework. And the opportunity for me that appeared was to learn Angular with TypeScript. So right after that vanilla JavaScript, I went straight into Angular and TypeScript. It was awful at times, but I really fell in love with Angular. I built three projects in Angular, one even with RxJX because I wanted to learn observables. I don't know why. So when I had to go to React, I was like, oh, React. In comparison to Angular, much less

 

But was this

 

learning

 

learning

 

code.

 

part of the job or were you doing it after

 

Nope.

 

hours after working?

 

Yes, totally. Because I wasn't, I haven't, I, at that point, I did not have reached my goal yet. Like, because my goal was to become a programmer, right? And on the job, I wasn't doing programming. So I would continue to study after work for that one year, one year and a half that I was in that position. So I kept on learning after I got hired. It didn't slow down. It probably, intensified in a

 

And

 

way.

 

that transition that you did was within the same organization, correct?

 

Yes.

 

So basically you came to them and said hey look I'm actually a developer This is what I want to do. This is my

 

you

 

my passion and they said basically, okay go for it

 

I told them on the interview actually, because when they described to me that initial role and it didn't like match what I wanted, I let them know from the get go. I was like, guys, I'm more than happy to come on the team, but you know my goal is this and I'll be looking for it on my day-to-day work. I was able to write some tooling and some report generating tools for the marketing department in OJS up a tier. So it's just like scraping stuff, like grabbing information. So I was able to exercise a little bit of programming on that role, but more as an extra, right? Because it was not part of my job description. So it was just like going that extra mile to educate myself and have some sort of project on a work capacity that I could use for future and it doesn't have like a lot of programming, find opportunities to use programming in it. Like anything you have to do, I guess.

 

And if it doesn't work out, well,

 

Thanks

 

you

 

for

 

know,

 

watching!

 

find somewhere else.

 

Exactly.

 

Well, the other thing is that even if the experience doesn't get you to the place you want to go to, it almost always pays off. You almost always learn something, whether it's, I don't want to work in a place like this, or I don't want to work in a place that has these stability issues that make it so that you can't move into the place you want to be, or I don't like working in this technology. So, yeah, it may not work out the way you want, but you're getting a lot of information about where you want to end up.

 

Yeah,

 

and let

 

because I really,

 

go for it sorry

 

sorry, go ahead. Cause I remember receiving a little bit of backlash from like that community I was in, like as in this is not a programming role. And like we are here because we wanna be programmers. And like, but at that point I was like, okay, money situation is like almost unmanageable anymore. You know, like I'm also at the very limit in my relationship here with my support. So it's like, it's not even like I had an option, but in the end I think I would have taken that choice again for sure.

 

All right, I'm gonna let you guys keep talking in a minute, but I have to jump off for this meeting. So I'm gonna throw my picks in, and then I'm just gonna let the call keep going. I think Steve signed in as a host so he can actually end the call when it's over. But yeah, so my picks this week, I'm gonna throw out a few picks just for fun. So... I think a while back I started picking board games and it was after I went to a conference that I'm now going to volunteer at again this year. It's called Timcon. It's here in Provo, Utah. It's a board game conference. Basically they have like a small expo area of like local game makers. So people who make board games or sell board games or host board game nights or things like that. And then they have a whole bunch of tables with a whole bunch of games that the guy who and other people have brought in to share so you can play them. Where I'm volunteering is over in the corner, the local game store. One of the owners of the game store is a good friend of mine. He, you know, he asked us to volunteer. And so what we do is he picks five of the kind of top games out there right now. And then we get together and start learning how to play them. And then we demonstrate to people how to play them. We had

 

you

 

to do like two, four hour shifts or something and show people how to play these games. And they are, it is way fun. So I'm gonna pick TempCon, and then I'm also gonna pick check and see if there's a board game convention in your area cause they are a blast. So instead of picking a board game, I'm gonna just shout out about that kind of a thing. And then one other thing that I'm working on

 

One of the

 

now

 

things that

 

is

 

I'm

 

I'm

 

working

 

getting ready

 

on now is

 

to

 

the ability

 

launch

 

to

 

the show about careers. And I'm just gonna be hosting it on my own, that I'm going to do is I'm actually going

 

I'm

 

to

 

actually

 

give away

 

going to give

 

a copy

 

away

 

of my

 

a

 

resume.

 

copy of my own.

 

Because I've been talking to a whole bunch of people, and it's very poignant to this, who are

 

who

 

like, well,

 

are

 

how do

 

like,

 

I get

 

well

 

interviews?

 

how do I get into the...

 

I'm not getting interviews. How do I structure things? And so if you jump on,

 

So if you jump on,

 

if you go

 

you're

 

to topendevs.com

 

gonna have a better time.

 

slash resume, people also call

 

Thanks for watching!

 

it the curriculum vitae, the CV. I just want to

 

I

 

use

 

like

 

terms so that people

 

to

 

know

 

talk

 

what I'm

 

about

 

talking about.

 

what we're talking about. You can get a copy of this one.

 

line and how I've structured it. I've been using this basic structure

 

and

 

since

 

the basic

 

I

 

instructions

 

started

 

to

 

programming

 

take part in programming. And

 

and

 

if anybody

 

it has

 

has any questions,

 

gotten

 

please feel

 

me

 

free to

 

more

 

ask. Thank you.

 

interviews

 

Thank you. Thank

 

than

 

you.

 

I can even count. And really what it does is it just makes it really

 

I think

 

clear

 

that's

 

to

 

just

 

people

 

really

 

what

 

clear

 

you've

 

to

 

done,

 

people right now.

 

what your qualifications are and stuff like that. And I want to give it away.

 

I'll also have a look at the show for the show, because I'm going to take it off the

 

I'll also have a link put into the show notes for the show because I'm going to kick it off this week.

 

screen.

 

I'm

 

So, I'm going to start with the show, and then we'll get into the show.

 

not

 

So, I'm going to start with the show, and then we'll get into the show, and then we'll get into the show, and then we'll get into the show, and then we'll get into the show, and then we'll get into the show, and then we'll get into the show, and then we'll get into the show, and then we'll get into the show, and then we'll get into the show, and then we'll get into the show, and then we'll get into the show, and then we'll get into the show, and then we'll get into the show, and then we'll get into the show, and then we'll get into the show, and then we'll get into the show, and then we'll get into

 

sure if I'm going to call it the top end dev show or something like, you know, career command Anyway, so I'll figure that

 

So if you have any questions, please feel free to ask me.

 

out. But in the meantime, if you want that resume,

 

If you want that resume, that's up in the description,

 

yeah topendevs.com

 

up on the graph.

 

resume

 

Resume, it'll give you a time to do it.

 

and yeah, it'll give you a copy and you know,

 

Do it.

 

give you an opportunity maybe to get a walkthrough on how it works and stuff like that. So

 

So,

 

because I have a pretty

 

that

 

Just

 

was

 

specific

 

have

 

method

 

to say

 

the

 

for doing

 

Chuck

 

best

 

the

 

of

 

resume.

 

that

 

the

 

I

 

best

 

just

 

of the

 

went there

 

best.

 

and it's not there yet. So haha

 

Nope, it's not

 

Thank

 

there yet.

 

you.

 

It'll be there when this goes live. So anyway, so

 

Anyways,

 

I'm

 

so

 

going

 

I'm

 

to pick those.

 

gonna

 

And

 

take

 

then

 

a break and

 

my wife and I have

 

my

 

been

 

wife

 

watching

 

has

 

Picard,

 

been watching me work hard.

 

which is the Star Trek spin off on Paramount Plus. And we've been enjoying it. It's been fun to kind of watch them pull all this stuff together. So I'm going to pick that as well.

 

So I'm gonna

 

And

 

take

 

those are

 

that

 

going

 

as well.

 

to be my picks.

 

Sir Patrick Stewart is just such a great actor.

 

He is.

 

His

 

He's

 

legs be above everybody else on the show,

 

Fuck

 

I

 

it.

 

have to say.

 

Yeah, he's fun to watch for sure. All right, well, go ahead and pick up where you left off and do your picks at the end, but I've got to jump off.

 

Bye Chuck.

 

Bye!

 

So I did want to ask you, Diego, about that transition that you made within the organization.

 

Thank

 

First

 

you.

 

of all, it's great that you were upfront with them from the get-go, I think, about your intentions. And I assume that they accepted it since they did hire you. Was there any

 

exact one.

 

promise, or not necessarily promise, but was there any statement on their part that said basically something like, hey, we do also have of our organization and if it works out then maybe you can find your way over to that part or were they more about this is you know this is what we need and it is what it is.

 

I don't remember if it was like stated that they had all the opportunities, but I knew from them being such a big company that transitioning within the company was possible. And actually, just as I talked about it, I remember I think like my very last interview was with the director of the department and I remember she telling me how she had worked in very different the company before she got to that role she was. And I think it was like related to what I said about like wanting to be in that programming role.

 

And how were you able to make that transition? I mean, I assume you basically pushed on them because usually that's the way things happen. I mean, if you just wait for things to happen, very often they just unfortunately don't. So I assume you kind of instigated that change, no?

 

Yes, and it's actually funny because the week I started on my new team, I had an event on my calendar that was start looking for a new position. And the week I started on the new team was the week that I was supposed to start looking for that role. So again, it like went ahead and just like happened even before I had planned for it to happen. So that to say that I wasn't yet looking for that opportunity within the company at that point, but I had a friend who had changed into that team earlier in the year. And she's on the design side, so she was not a developer, but we had a really great relationship. We worked really well together. And she talked about my work on her new team and to her new boss. developer. She recommended me. She gave a recommendation and they interviewed me. They gave me an assignment and I guess they liked what they saw because they hired me. They offered me the position.

 

So when did you start that new position?

 

It was September 8th. Yeah, so yeah, almost a month.

 

Cool.

 

Four days short of

 

And

 

a

 

are you

 

month.

 

having fun so far?

 

Oh my God, so much fun. Like it's, I'm even waiting for it to go a little bit bad because like so far it's been like my dream job. Like for those two years that I've been like learning and working, I've always imagined how it would be to have that programming role and how much fun I would have with it. And that's what I'm living now. Like I really enjoy fixing bugs now. I don't know if I'm gonna do it forever But for now, I'm really

 

Well,

 

enjoying it.

 

I'm a couple of decades in and I'm still having fun, so you know.

 

Yeah.

 

You know, one thing I want to point out is what you just mentioned there about the fact that part of the reason you got the job is because you had somebody recommend you,

 

Mm-hmm.

 

which speaks to, you know, it's, it's a pretty well-known actually, my guess is that a lot of times getting hired isn't so much about what you know is who you know, and

 

Yeah.

 

that can be good or that can be bad, but has somebody who's done some hiring. Uh, you know, I can appreciate that having a known entity or somebody that more volumes about no matter how much you put on a resume. And if

 

Totally.

 

somebody vouches for you and says, hey, this guy's good, not only does he know his stuff, he's a great guy to work with, et cetera.

 

Yeah.

 

Even if they may not have the technical skills, there are some things you can teach and there are some things you can't. And so that speaks to the importance of networking.

 

for sure.

 

I was looking for a job. I had been laid off from a place I'd been for five years just because of financial issues.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

I was looking for a job and I happened to reach out to a buddy of mine from a previous job and he was like, you know what? We got an opening and you'd be a great fit for it. I interviewed and got the job and was there for a while. But even if it's not somebody who's a hiring manager at a company, somebody who can make a reference.

 

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

 

Maybe, a lot of times you could have a company could have positions that aren't publicly posted or they've just opened it up and they haven't posted it yet. You know, a little inside knowledge about positions

 

Yeah.

 

can work. So that's where networking, knowing people and cultivating those types of relationships is

 

Yeah.

 

important. Now, obviously, you don't want to, I don't think you want to give people the impression that you're cultivating their relationships just in case you need a job down the road for a possible job opportunity, but it's a set to call it a side effect or a benefit of cultic mating relationships

 

Yeah, because I think people don't realize, especially like new developers, like looking for that very first job that like, no matter what that job is, it's not going to be like heavily dependent on your technical skills because you are a newbie, like you are learning still. And like, so like your social skills on getting that first job, I think, like, especially if you are self-taught, it's really important. Like how you conduct yourself during the interview process. Showing them that you are willing to learn, that you are willing to work with the team. I think that was also something that really benefited

 

Thanks for watching!

 

me in my process. Because before you have any experience, there is so much you can offer.

 

I have to tell you it never changes. Even years in, even with all the experience, your social skills, your ability to properly get yourself out there and express yourself and make the connections like Steve said, that makes all the difference in the world. And that's true at the beginning and that's true also later on in the career.

 

Yeah. Yeah. I totally do it. So,

 

So just

 

yeah.

 

to summarize, how long did it take you from nothing effectively to getting the quote unquote dream job of a web developer, full stack web developer?

 

I think two years, yeah. April, yeah. Yeah, two years and a few months, I guess. Two and a half years, give or take, yeah.

 

That's pretty amazing, I think.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you account the first world, the first world, it gets like a little bit like too crazy. Like, cause six months, I think it's like, okay, I got very lucky. I don't think that's the norm, you know, like, and then again, that wasn't a programming role per se, right? But it was a dive job. I had, my title was developer, you know, but, that might be like, okay, that's all you need to then go on into that next role, but not really. Because there was a time where I considered leading the company and I tried to put myself out there. And it was great for getting interviews because I had the first developer job, so I had the developer title, so I was getting a lot of interviews. But the minute I would say what my doing that did not involve modern frameworks or sometimes even any programming at all, that's where the call would end. And it would not move past that point. So that's also why I never stopped studying and learning, because I knew I would need to be very skilled to either having to pass an interview, a technical interview, or anything. or just having more power to bargain and say, like, I have all this knowledge, please hire me or something.

 

Steve, I think we do need to move into pics now. So Diego, if people want to get in touch with you and kind of, you know, maybe they're entering the field and they would like your advice or they just really liked your story and want to get in touch with you, what's the best way to connect with you these days?

 

I'm pretty active on Twitter and I think that's the only social media I'm like actually doing right now. So it's underscore Diego Mora M-O-U-R-A on Twitter

 

So no TikTok.

 

and I do have TikTok, but I just watch. I don't post

 

No,

 

anything.

 

I'm kidding.

 

And Twitch, which I'm streaming once a week, very casual streaming with my friend, because we are doing pair programming

 

Oh,

 

on

 

cool.

 

a project. Yeah. And he's the guy who's really into TDD, TDD, whatever that is. It's very slow, I can tell that. It's very slow, but it's really interesting. So we are there like three hours every Monday, like just trying to build this thing and talking about it, I guess. And it's Diego Morat, Dev on Twitch.

 

Cool. So since I jumped in, I'm going to pick the first one to do picks. So AJ, you usually go first. So let's keep the tradition and you go kind of first. Well, after Chuck, but still.

 

Alright, today I've got a really, really good one for you. So if you're into soldering, you know, say for example, you're the kind of guy or gal that's in the garage working on your four wheeler and you're thinking, hmm, maybe I can just get an extension cable and bring my soldering iron over here to get these these two wires to go back together. right over top of the gas tank where I'm going to cause an explosion in my house. And you think, but wouldn't it be great if I could cause that explosion cordless and portable? Well, have I caught the thing for you.

 

Oh good, I've been having this exact same problem. I am so excited.

 

I suspected as much. So there's these super, super expensive $2,000 soldering stations. And pretty much what's interesting about them is software. They have a lot of sensors and detection. They can give a lot of current, so it heats up quickly. Well, somebody has basically taken that $2,000 soldering iron software package, put it on a blue pill microcontroller and in a form factor that you can just slap it on to a rigid or Milwaukee or DeWalt, uh, 18 or 20 volt battery pack. And so you can have portable soldering that's instant on eight seconds to, um, that, to, to being able to melt and, and basically all the bells and whistles of the most expensive soldering station for, uh, uh, about a hundred bucks. And so I haven't got one yet, but I've watched the progress of some of these devices over the past couple of years as people have been trying to figure out how to make really high end soldering irons with the cheap Chinese twenty five dollar basically, you know, pieces that you need to make a soldering station. And I am definitely absolutely going to get this one. I am super stoked about it

 

Good.

 

because because just just the other day wheeler in that exact situation except I took the gas tank off first and I and then I turned it on and ran it for a minute so that all the fuel well you know most almost all the fuel was out before I went and soldered wires on the four-wheeler but anyway so that's that's um that's my big pick today and then let's see um I actually you won't hear this because I don't have the mic selected right now. But there's this thing called audio hijack that I've started using and it allows you audio hijack along

 

Thanks for watching!

 

with loop back. They're both from rogue Amiga allows you to configure your sound devices so that you could have your browser appear as microphone input. So on my streams now, I don't have to listen to the music. Cause I don't actually like listening to music all the time when I'm doing streaming, but people always want to be listening to music while they're watching me stream. So I've actually been able to configure it so that I have the soundboard and the music go through what appears to be a mic input that then goes through the stream. And so this audio hijack allows you to be there by application or by device or create virtual devices. And you can create chains of virtual devices. And you can get, confused, but you can also get your audio to do whatever it is that you want it to do.

 

You know

 

So

 

what you should?

 

there's...

 

I was just saying.

 

When I first started podcasting about 10 years ago, I was using Audio Hijack through Skype, if I remember correctly. That was what I was told to use. That was all I knew. And it worked pretty well. You just had to do a little manual exporting of your audio tracks to whatever you're using to edit, garage band or whatever. But

 

And

 

I remember

 

now they've got

 

using

 

a tool

 

that.

 

for that that's included as the deal bundle. I forget what that tool is called, but they've got something that will allow you to inline edit your soundboard.

 

You know what

 

And

 

you

 

it'll

 

should

 

work with StreamDick.

 

use as background music? I'll tell you what you should use, give it a try, see if it works out for you. It's a Carmina Burana by Orff.

 

Aminah

 

קרמינה בורנה

 

Buona by Orson.

 

Thank you.

 

Yeah, you're going to have to send that to me because I don't know how to spell any of those things. Oh wait, I found it.

 

I told

 

Not

 

you.

 

knowing how to. Okay, I'll give it. But is this, is this um.

 

Check it out, it will make a difference. Ha ha

 

you

 

ha ha

 

Uh,

 

ha ha

 

well, we'll

 

ha

 

see. But is it, is it, uh, freely licensed?

 

It's classical music, so I assume that it is, but I'm

 

Yeah.

 

kind of kidding though. I'm not sure it will actually be the perfect choice for you, but we'll see.

 

I do classical-ish music typically.

 

Okay, give it a whirl and tell me what you think.

 

And one last thing I'm going to pick is boot.dev.

 

It's... it's

 

So

 

not done.

 

I

 

So

 

have

 

I have

 

not really

 

not really

 

gotten

 

gotten

 

beyond code

 

drunk

 

off

 

from

 

the ground.

 

that.

 

It's just turned into a couple of lessons here and there and

 

Thanks for watching!

 

a lot of live streams, but somebody else who started around the same time as me actually has got his crap off the ground and it's called boot.dev and his name is Lane.

 

Thanks for watching!

 

And, uh, I think he's got a really good

 

He's got

 

course

 

a really

 

together

 

good

 

and

 

course

 

he's

 

of

 

got

 

study

 

an approach

 

and he's

 

that

 

got a really good

 

I

 

first

 

is kind

 

in high fatality

 

of the approach

 

and what

 

that I

 

it's

 

wanted

 

like.

 

to take,

 

I

 

which

 

wanted

 

is

 

to take him

 

learning,

 

to.

 

learning So rather than learning HTML and CSS, it takes you into learning quote unquote, backend programming, AKA

 

you

 

just programming first. And then eventually gets around to the front end stuff. But it's more, I think,

 

Thank

 

the appropriate

 

you.

 

foundational approach. Learn how to use the computer, learn how to program, not trying to front end everything and say, okay, we'll use all the most complex frameworks and all of, you know, simple pieces, learn the simple pieces so that by the time you arrive at writing the web application, you actually

 

Well,

 

have the foundational

 

it's

 

principles.

 

kind of like what Diego described with programming in the console,

 

Yeah.

 

I guess.

 

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

 

Yep.

 

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Yep. So anyway, boot.dev. I'm picking it.

 

Steve, do you want to go before me or should I go before you? How do you want to go about it?

 

That's fine, I'll go now.

 

Cool, go for it.

 

So before the high point of the

 

Thanks for watching!

 

episodes with the dad jokes, I do have one interesting pick. It's not something I like, it's just an interesting pick. So I saw an article today on Hacker News and found a new other article that basically the European Union is forcing everybody to use USB-C ports by the end of 2024. So I think one of the main targets there is Apple connections.

 

Because heaven forbid we have a connector that actually works well. We wouldn't want that on phones.

 

Right. And my issue isn't necessarily that, you know, the port types and what works better and what's, you know, older, what's newer and USBC versus Lightning and so on. My issue is that you have government telling industry, you must make this, you have to do this. You know, I'm pretty much anti-EU for a number of reasons, both political and economic.

 

Yeah,

 

And to me, this is just another case

 

I think

 

of

 

in this

 

EU

 

case though,

 

government overreach.

 

I think that in this case it's mostly environmental. They want people to not throw out so much stuff whenever they change phones or whatever.

 

B-E-S.

 

And this is exactly what it's going to create because everybody's going to have to throw away their lightning ports to get something into USB-C.

 

and

 

Now

 

then

 

what

 

the

 

is,

 

USB-C ports are gonna break all the time and they're

 

yeah.

 

gonna...

 

Yeah. So this is something government should stay out of. That's just one man's opinion here. Uh, but it's an interesting article. I have one that's from, uh, Gizmodo that seems to have a pretty thorough description. Uh, so I'll throw that in the show notes. Uh, now for

 

Cough.

 

the Diego, if you, I don't know if you've listened to the podcast, but things that people listen to the podcast just for as my dad jokes. So

 

quote.

 

I'm having trouble finding my mouse here on my computer all of a sudden.

 

Hahaha

 

Is that a bad joke?

 

No, that was a real thing not a dad joke my mouse likes disappear my pointer likes to disappear so Recently, I I lost three fingers on my left hand. I'm left-handed I call myself normal and so I asked my doctor if I would still be able to write with it He said maybe but I wouldn't count on it

 

Oh...

 

Oh,

 

Get it?

 

I

 

Count.

 

actually understood that. I usually don't get the jokes.

 

Let's see. So here's a couple questions. What do you, you know, cow jokes are one of my favorites. But I also, you know, one variation that I found here recently is camel jokes. So what do you call a camel with no humps? Humphrey.

 

Ah...

 

Right?

 

Say it on

 

Grow.

 

gather.

 

Hump free, it's free of humps. Hump free, you gotta think. Little English there, sorry.

 

Yeah, the English barrier.

 

Yes, there you go. Or what do you call a camel with three humps? Pregnant.

 

That's a good one. Yeah.

 

Right. And then my daughter's pet lamb died the other day. The grieving process was delicious.

 

Thanks for watching! Yeah, it kind of reminds it.

 

I actually had that happen to me once. I had a pet chicken that became dinner.

 

Ha ha.

 

Not

 

No,

 

fun.

 

I remember

 

I'm.

 

Was it tasty

 

from Parks

 

though?

 

and Rec where the Ron character says that when he was six he had two pets. I don't recall if it was sheep or like calves. And his dad made him choose which one of them like to slaughter for meat. And he couldn't pick one. So he slaughtered both.

 

Slider

 

And

 

both,

 

they were

 

right?

 

delicious.

 

And they were delicious. So,

 

I bought a rabbit and immediately gave it the name dinner.

 

Ha

 

Hahaha!

 

ha ha ha ha ha

 

And I did eat it that night.

 

Okay, ooo.

 

Ooh!

 

And it gave me a completely new respect for animals in the food chain, because when you are looking at something that you didn't kill properly, and you have to try again,

 

Yeah.

 

and it's trying to jump away with its head falling over to its side.

 

Oh, let's stop it

 

Hahaha!

 

right here

 

Mmm? Yeah!

 

before we lose all our vegetarian audience, please.

 

Yeah.

 

Uh...

 

And I haven't eaten dinner yet either, so please let's refrain from such descriptions.

 

Hehehe

 

Alright,

 

Well,

 

well anyway,

 

anyway,

 

that's-

 

point being, it gives you a great...

 

I'll say I couldn't do that. Let's put it this way.

 

Thank you.

 

Anyway.

 

There's a reason that people prayed over their food. It was a lot more meaningful back when people had to

 

Yeah.

 

acquire their food themselves.

 

Well, you know, as

 

Yeah,

 

Rodney

 

perfect.

 

Dangerfield used to say at our house, we pray after we eat.

 

Hehehe

 

Anyway, that's all I've got, Dan.

 

OK, my turn. I still have to get over AJ's story.

 

Thank you.

 

OK, so I think I actually picked this last time, but it's such a great pick. I'm going to pick it again. So the Web Almanac for 2022 came out. It's this online document, you might say, that kind of takes information from the HTTP archive and the Chrome User Experience Report, both of which Rick Viscome on this show, so I'll probably put

 

COUGH

 

a link to that as well. But it's a great document that kind of gives you a good understanding about the current situation of the web, like anything from silly stuff from the most favorite or least favorite frameworks are more popular or less popular, or what's the state of accessibility on the web right now, and stuff like that. So here are some interesting facts from there. So it turns out that WordPress is still very much a thing. It's such a thing that 35% of the web is built on WordPress. React as the king of the hill of frameworks, can you guess what percentage of the web is actually built on React? Again, we're looking at the websites that are in the Chrome User Experience Report, which means these are websites that people are actually visiting. So I'm not looking in terms of traffic. I'm looking, I'm asking in terms of the number of origins or domains. Use React.

 

I would say 12.

 

12%. You're actually pretty close. The number is actually 9%.

 

I don't know.

 

So compare that to the 35% that is WordPress. But even more amusing, a big reason that React is 9% is actually Wix, because Wix uses React. So every Wix site actually also counts as a React site. And 25% of all React sites are actually Wix sites. So

 

No.

 

yeah, some interesting statistics over there. Anyway, I highly recommend checking out the Web Almanac, really useful and informative. And my second pick is that pick that I pick each and every time. It's the ongoing war in the Ukraine. As I said, I think also last time, it seems that Ukraine is making a lot of headway versus the Russians, which is great on the one hand. But on the other hand, it means that the conflict is still very much ongoing with a lot of pain and suffering, and especially since it seems that the Russians are often retaliating by attacking civilian population centers, which is horrible. And, you know, God forbid that they decide to start using nukes, which, you know, who knows. Anyway, I really, it really breaks my heart, this please do. And those would be my picks for today. And now it's your turn, Diego.

 

Awesome, thank you. Thank you then. Well, I'm going to pick first a resource I sort of. Go back to every time like in just refresh and read again, which is a article. That was written on that community. I was part of watching code and the title is called how to be great

 

COUGH

 

at coding questions so they have like this process for asking coding questions, which is like just understanding how then the go, the coach, the best of your ability and how you should do that. Like clearly describe the problem, how you should do that. And the list goes on and it has like many checks and things that you should be thinking about when making those questions. And one thing I have to say about it is every time I had a question and I followed this process, I found a solution. So in the end, I didn't have to make the question because if you follow the thorough process like reassessing like your question, you end up finding the solution eventually yourself, which was

 

So

 

really

 

we

 

interesting.

 

will put a link to this article, but what was the name of it again?

 

It was how to be great at asking coding questions.

 

Excellent.

 

The second one on the same sort of vibe is also a resource I use a lot and this one is like, it seems simple but it's not and it's Poya's problem solving technique. I don't know much about Poya, I know he was an instructor or like a math instructor were formulated for math, but really you can apply to anything and I think it applies perfectly to programming. Also, I'll send you guys a link because he wrote a book, How to Solve It. You can read the whole book if you want, but there's a PDF on the math.berkeley.edu website, those four principles and it's just like understand the problem, devise a plan, carry out that plan and look back. And that PDF also goes into more details on any of those four topics. My third and final pick, it's not going to be anything as related to programming as the other two is a podcast called, It's a psychotherapy podcast. She's a psychotherapist and she has couples on her show. So it's mainly focused on couples therapy, but like the things like they talk about and the way she approaches like conducting the session with her patients, it's so enlightening. Like every single episode that I watch, I'm like, oh my God, I have that. Oh my God, I have that. a trauma I didn't know I had and now I do. I mean, I'm really into trying to understand myself and identify my issues and how I can improve myself. And I feel like this podcast has helped me identify many of the things I can start working on. And it's interesting. There are interesting stories there. I think everyone can benefit from a little bit of mental health in that sense. And that's it for me.

 

Excellent. So I think, you know, since Chuck, let's wrap it up. Thank you, Diego, for coming on our show. I think it was really excellent. I really enjoyed hearing your story. And, you know, everybody, thank you for joining and bye-bye.

 

Adiós.

 

Bye guys, my pleasure to be here.