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Last year, I mentored a few students who are learning coding to become a software engineer from non-traditional backgrounds. Rather than encouraging them to lee
by songzme 6y ago
Last year, I mentored a few students who are learning coding to become a software engineer from non-traditional backgrounds. Rather than encouraging them to leetcode and practice for interviews, I taught them software engineering practices and mentored them to build c0d3.com together as a team. c0d3.com will be a free learning site where other students like them can learn coding and then help improve the site. As a senior engineer, I made sure to not write any code myself and focused on helping them with code reviews, architecture questions, and holding sprint meetings every Monday at 9:30pm. We document our daily sprint updates here: https://github.com/garageScript/c0d3-app/wiki/Sprint-H1-2020 https://github.com/garageScript/c0d3-app/wiki/Sprint-H1-2020
To get beta users for our app, we started a free coding group at our local libraries and got a few dozen active users: https://www.meetup.com/San-Jose-C0D3/ https://www.meetup.com/San-Jose-C0D3/
I am pretty happy with the outcome and the code quality. The students wrote unit tests with every pull request, listened to feedback, and achieved 100% code coverage in the codebase. Now, after some user feedback and iterations we are ready to give a preview of what we worked on. Any feature suggestions / feedback will become learning opportunities for the next generation of students.
Last month, a rec opened up on my team and I was able to hire one of these students. If I could hire all of them, I would. If anyone here is hiring, please consider hiring these awesome students who worked hard to make c0d3.com possible (I've listed their code contributions and linkedIn profiles): https://github.com/garageScript/c0d3-app/wiki https://github.com/garageScript/c0d3-app/wiki
- beckingz 6y agoYou built this without writing a single line of code yourself? Awesome work by the team!
- noob101 6y agoExactly! Awesome work :)
- nefitty 6y agoYou said, “ Rather than encouraging them to leetcode and practice for interviews, I taught them software engineering practices...”. How do you square that with the reality that many software jobs have leetcode as a gate to an offer? I find myself stuck at this juncture. I am comfortable with software practices, but the reality of these sorts of interviews has me basically trying to figure out how to “hack” the coding interview portions. It’s somewhat beneficial, in terms of pushing me to improve my solving skills and data structure/algorithmic understanding, but I obviously can’t help feeling that a lot of the time I’m spending is tail-chasing, as a lot of the problems I encounter seem to be very far removed from the reality of day-to-day web development.
- songzme 6y ago"How do you square that with the reality that many software jobs have leetcode as a gate to an offer?" I face the same issue so I'm not sure, I'm hoping HN could help. Personally, I don't want to feed into the whole "just leetcode and get a job mindset" so I'm going to keep my course and follow what I believe in.
- dboreham 6y agoThink of this as a useful filter of job opportunities for you: don't accept any of those jobs.
- frequentnapper 6y agoSame here. I am right now starting to job hunt after a few years, but it's quite daunting. Just opened cracking the coding interview and the book itself recommends starting a year before to practice the problems, build a portfolio, etc.
- rpedela 6y agoThe reality is that you need to practice that stuff in order to get through the first interview or two at many companies. It is most likely helping with web development even if it isn't obvious how. Kinda like how lifting weights and jogging helps someone be better at their favorite sport. Think of it as cross-training.
- nefitty 6y agoI think this is the best frame of mind to keep me pushing forward. Maybe once I’m at the top of the food chain I’ll be able to have some impact on these practices lol Thanks for the advice!
- songzme 6y agomake sure to remember your promises to yourself. Many people get stuck in the fame and glamor and stop giving a shit.
- pdubs1 6y ago
- blastro 6y agoI've saved your Notion curriculum, and intend to run a program like this soon in my local community. Very inspiring project, and awesome end result. Thank you for your contribution to this area.
- manimm 6y agoWhere is the notion curriculum please?
- songzme 6y agohttps://www.c0d3.com/book https://www.c0d3.com/book
- manimm 6y agoThank you and very inspirational!!!!
- tomato2juice 6y agoThank you for sharing that
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y agoFirst off, kudos. I think you are actually making world a better place. I am commenting partially to easily go back to it after work ( this day is a little hectic - sorry for the generic comment ).
- cchen408 6y agoI agree! I haven't met anyone quite like you song :)
- benmw333 6y agoVery cool and congrats!
- brlewis 6y agoThis looks awesome and has certainly piqued my curiosity. How long has the beta group been going? Do you have an idea of retention rate yet? And for those who drop out, why?
- yjhoney 6y agoThis beta group has been going on for a year, early 2019. Our retention rate is really poor, until today's posting about 400 signups and only 8 made it to the end. The current first phase is actually to answer this question: "For the students that complete the whole curriculum, could they contribute to a codebase that users use and follow good coding practices like an engineer would?" The answer is yes, so now we have a happy path. Next phase is to increase this funnel.
- meristem 6y agoI'm curious to learn what you plan to do in order to understand the retention rate issues
- songzme 6y agoWhen students engage with me to ask questions, I usually just ask them directly: "If you decide that this isn't for you, please let me or someone else on the team know before you do so we understand how we can make this a better learning platform for future students"
- meristem 6y agoHave you discovered patterns? I've done some research work on remote learning, so genuinely curious.
- songzme 6y agonot enough engagement. If I reach out to students and engage in conversations with them regularly, they have a higher chance of following through. I start high up in the funnel, to pay utmost attention to students who are at the end (JS6). Then when I have free time, I go down the funnel and pull students up. As I polish the end, I get more and more time to engage with students lower in the funnel. I just reach out and say hi, ask them why they are learning and if they have any questions and concerns.
- r0rshrk 6y agoI have some experience mentoring students through various platforms. How can I help out ?
- cchen408 6y agoCongratulations on the new hire! :) That's a huge step towards your vision.