3 ms·

I'm 41 w/ a degree in CS from UCSD (what was at the time a top 10 CS school), spent about 15 years primarily in enterprise healthcare doing C++/C#, then the las

I'm 41 w/ a degree in CS from UCSD (what was at the time a top 10 CS school), spent about 15 years primarily in enterprise healthcare doing C++/C#, then the last 6 years as a Rails/React/Angular dev. I also helped advise a friend on her path to becoming a dev by way of a coding bootcamp, career advice, etc. I think the author is on point. A high-functioning team should embrace a mentor-mentee approach between their sr. and jr. staff. That doesn't preclude self-learning, it accelerates it. Otherwise you're leaving productivity on the floor, and quite frankly, if your sr. staff isn't adept at doing it they probably are not all that sr (being a sr. dev is alot more than simply being a good coder).

arghIdontwantto 9y ago
Mind sharing your recommendations for your friend? I have a friend in a similar position that asked me for help but I'm a bit at lost on what to recommend her. I've been a professional developer for over 20 years. I honestly don't remember what it is not to know what a for loop is and can't find any decent paths from 'non-developer' to 'junior developer' in an easy to follow manner.
- brandall10 9y ago
  The route taken was: - Do some pro-bono work as an intern of sorts on side of current job for at least a few months - in this case you could help her out with any friends of yours who perhaps have a web consulting business, otherwise go to local meetups and offer her services (just moderate HTML/CSS is fine). Live lean during this time and pocket savings if she doesn't have at least 6 months of cushion + any expenses for a bootcamp. This way she'll have some real-world experience coming out of the bootcamp and some cushion while trying to land her first job. - Find a good bootcamp known to have a decent conversion rate and block out everything else from her life... it can be intense. - Try to find a decent job ASAP after graduation, the initial salary isn't important and (IMO) it's still not a bad idea to do any pro-bono or below market contract work if the experience itself would be esp. good. My friend's first year or so ended up being a mixture of moderately paid and poorly paid contract work. - In the end though, she ended up making $70k w/ great benefits, fully remote in San Diego (roughly equiv to ~$100k in SV) in less than two years from graduation, nearly double what she made at her previous job. With her first year and some 4-5 projects under her belt interviews were considerably easier to get.
  - arghIdontwantto 9y ago
    Thanks. I run a consultancy business and she can intern/learn with me. That isn't the problem. Is actually finding resources for her to start from zero. Where we live there aren't really any bootcamps. Was looking more for information on books or online courses that really do assume zero knowledge from the student. I can try and do it myself (and of course, I'll help when I can) but it is hard to even think of where to start. Should she learn Javascript on an online editor? Install node and try typescript locally? Just install a full version of Visual studio and let her click the buttons until she can understand what is going on? I remember learning how to program by reading the QBasic manual that came with my computer at the time and try to modify some source code (probably Gorila.BAS) but not sure if that is the most efficient way to do it nowadays (and I was young, had all the time in the world, so if it took me 2 months to get a square moving onscreen wasn't a problem).
    - brandall10 9y ago
      I've tried training people in the past who have zero knowledge and it's pretty hit or miss, mostly miss... it really will only work if they are highly self-motivated and find it really interesting, otherwise things start to go downhill quickly when coming to the more difficult material. I initially tried this with her and she ended up getting pretty flustered and annoyed with me when it came to trying to explain how object oriented programming works, so much so that we didn't talk for awhile. And she is an extremely bright person - HS valedictorian, graduated w/ honors from Berkeley with a liberal arts degree. She ended up moving to SV for the bootcamp she did (Coding Dojo). There are some remote ones that I believe are supposed to be good but I wouldn't be able to recommend any in particular. For most people I recommend doing something like this because of the total immersion, access to a variety of fairly strong engineers (the instructors) and other students in the same boat. Aside from that, my friend is a big fan of the Udacity nanodegree programs and has done a couple since her bootcamp to level up her skills and stay sharp. For some basic getting your feet wet right now sorts of things, I am def a big fan of material like Eloquent Javascript, Learn Python the Hard Way, Hartl's Rails Tutorial etc. I would say though the best thing you can do for her right now is to give her tasks that are actually productive or helpful for you and then build on those. Like perhaps you have a bunch of unused css on a project that you want culled, throw her a basics on CSS guide that maybe takes an hour or two to go thru, then create a story for her and walk thru it. Get her familiar with source control, the layout of the project, etc. Getting a sense of accomplishment quickly and repeatedly will help get someone over the initial hump, and will esp. drive them forward when they get stuck.
- Clubber 9y ago
  I learned the most by creating products. Not half ass products that I stopped when I lost interest, but complete, shippable products.

arghIdontwantto 9y ago

Mind sharing your recommendations for your friend? I have a friend in a similar position that asked me for help but I'm a bit at lost on what to recommend her. I've been a professional developer for over 20 years. I honestly don't remember what it is not to know what a for loop is and can't find any decent paths from 'non-developer' to 'junior developer' in an easy to follow manner.

brandall10 9y ago
The route taken was: - Do some pro-bono work as an intern of sorts on side of current job for at least a few months - in this case you could help her out with any friends of yours who perhaps have a web consulting business, otherwise go to local meetups and offer her services (just moderate HTML/CSS is fine). Live lean during this time and pocket savings if she doesn't have at least 6 months of cushion + any expenses for a bootcamp. This way she'll have some real-world experience coming out of the bootcamp and some cushion while trying to land her first job. - Find a good bootcamp known to have a decent conversion rate and block out everything else from her life... it can be intense. - Try to find a decent job ASAP after graduation, the initial salary isn't important and (IMO) it's still not a bad idea to do any pro-bono or below market contract work if the experience itself would be esp. good. My friend's first year or so ended up being a mixture of moderately paid and poorly paid contract work. - In the end though, she ended up making $70k w/ great benefits, fully remote in San Diego (roughly equiv to ~$100k in SV) in less than two years from graduation, nearly double what she made at her previous job. With her first year and some 4-5 projects under her belt interviews were considerably easier to get.
- arghIdontwantto 9y ago
  Thanks. I run a consultancy business and she can intern/learn with me. That isn't the problem. Is actually finding resources for her to start from zero. Where we live there aren't really any bootcamps. Was looking more for information on books or online courses that really do assume zero knowledge from the student. I can try and do it myself (and of course, I'll help when I can) but it is hard to even think of where to start. Should she learn Javascript on an online editor? Install node and try typescript locally? Just install a full version of Visual studio and let her click the buttons until she can understand what is going on? I remember learning how to program by reading the QBasic manual that came with my computer at the time and try to modify some source code (probably Gorila.BAS) but not sure if that is the most efficient way to do it nowadays (and I was young, had all the time in the world, so if it took me 2 months to get a square moving onscreen wasn't a problem).
  - brandall10 9y ago
    I've tried training people in the past who have zero knowledge and it's pretty hit or miss, mostly miss... it really will only work if they are highly self-motivated and find it really interesting, otherwise things start to go downhill quickly when coming to the more difficult material. I initially tried this with her and she ended up getting pretty flustered and annoyed with me when it came to trying to explain how object oriented programming works, so much so that we didn't talk for awhile. And she is an extremely bright person - HS valedictorian, graduated w/ honors from Berkeley with a liberal arts degree. She ended up moving to SV for the bootcamp she did (Coding Dojo). There are some remote ones that I believe are supposed to be good but I wouldn't be able to recommend any in particular. For most people I recommend doing something like this because of the total immersion, access to a variety of fairly strong engineers (the instructors) and other students in the same boat. Aside from that, my friend is a big fan of the Udacity nanodegree programs and has done a couple since her bootcamp to level up her skills and stay sharp. For some basic getting your feet wet right now sorts of things, I am def a big fan of material like Eloquent Javascript, Learn Python the Hard Way, Hartl's Rails Tutorial etc. I would say though the best thing you can do for her right now is to give her tasks that are actually productive or helpful for you and then build on those. Like perhaps you have a bunch of unused css on a project that you want culled, throw her a basics on CSS guide that maybe takes an hour or two to go thru, then create a story for her and walk thru it. Get her familiar with source control, the layout of the project, etc. Getting a sense of accomplishment quickly and repeatedly will help get someone over the initial hump, and will esp. drive them forward when they get stuck.
Clubber 9y ago
I learned the most by creating products. Not half ass products that I stopped when I lost interest, but complete, shippable products.