We're Emma Bostian, Sidney Buckner, Kelly Vaughn, and Ali Spittel - four seasoned software developers working in different sectors. Since there's a major lack of technical podcasts out there, we've decided to start one. Just kidding -- there's already a ton! But, we wanted to add our voices to the space and share our experiences and advice. We'll have great discussions around how to start coding, the hot technologies right now, how to get your first developer job, and more! Check out our website!
Junior to Senior Developer: Career Progression for Programmers
What’s the difference between a junior and senior developer? While there’s no distinct measure from one title to the next, you can measure your progress in three areas: knowledge, coding, and communication. This week on the podcast we’re doing a deep dive into the progression from junior to senior dev. Shownotes 02:19 The use of "engineer" in titles 04:43 What levels are there for developers? 08:24 The importance of job titles 11:22 Does years of experience matter? 17:17 What knowledge should you have at each level? 27:57 What communication skills should you have at each level? 30:17 How do you know you're ready to be a senior developer? 32:05 Tips for becoming senior 33:33 Shoutouts Transcript Here is the transcript for this week's episode.
Get A < Head > Start With HTML
Today we’re talking about everyone’s favorite programming language: HTML! Hypertext Markup Language is the structure of a web page and while it’s not necessarily the hardest syntax to learn, it’s vital to your web applications. Show Notes 01:20 What is HTML? 06:44 How did we learn HTML? 09:54 Elements 12:10 Attributes 21:59 Formatting 27:17 Semantic elements 33:04 Styles 38:28 CORS 44:57 Shoutouts Resources CSS episode CORS HTML & CSS Book Egghead Transcript Here is the transcript for this week's episode.
The Traveling Dev: Move and Work Anywhere
Have you ever dreamed about selling everything you owned and moving across the world to begin a new life? In this episode we’re chatting with Rachel Nabors, an American abroad on the React Core team in London. We’ll chat about the pros and cons of moving abroad as well as the logistics. Let’s get started! Show Notes 01:25 Our experiences moving 06:44 Immigrant vs. Expat vs. Digital Nomad 11:04 Pros of moving abroad 35:21 Cons of moving abroad 53:57 Logistics of moving abroad 01:02:39 Questions to ask 01:07:48 Shoutouts Resources Rachel's Twitter Animation at Work Lingoda Deepl.com Rosetta Stone DuoLingo Babbel The Culture Map Ali's Accountant LinkedIn XING Transcript Here is the transcript for this week's episode.
How the Internet Works
There’s a classic interview question: what happens when you type a URL into the browser? To answer this question, we need to explore how the internet works. In this episode, our first of season 4, we’ll dive into URLs, DNS, basic networking, and how the browser works. Show Notes 02:08 Life updates! 04:19 How much do we know about the internet? 06:11 Servers 12:08 DNS lookup 19:04 Request/Response Cycle 27:48 TCP/IP 28:46 The browser 33:13 Internet history 36:09 Shoutouts Resources How the internet works Systems Design Episode Put vs. Post How the Browser Works Transcript Here is the transcript for this week's episode.
Systems Design
Systems design interviews are becoming more and more prevalent and can indicate your ability to work with complex systems. Many engineers struggle with the systems design interviews as a result of their inexperience developing large-scale systems. Today we’ll teach you some of the foundational elements of systems design so you can nail your next interview. Show Notes 01:30 What is systems design 07:20 Key characteristics of a distributed system 13:24 Load balancing 17:48 Caching 31:05 Data partitioning 35:24 SQL vs. NoSQL 46:50 How to learn systems design 48:00 Shoutouts Resources Educative.io course Free Code Camp article Algo Expert Course Tobias VanSchneider Dev April Fools How Stack Overflow Caches Transcript Here is the transcript for this week's episode.
Testing 101
Have you ever written code to add a new feature that ended up breaking an existing feature? Or, have you ever written code that works in one scenario but breaks in a bunch of others? I think we can all admit to this as developers! Well, this is where testing shines -- we write code to test our other code so we immediately get warned if our code breaks something else! OR doesn’t work in every scenario. In this episode, we’ll talk about a bunch of types of testing and why they’re helpful. Let’s dive in. Show Notes 01:39 What is our experience with testing? 05:12 What types of code do you write tests for normally? 06:38 What different types of testing are there? 14:26 Why is testing important? 18:50 TDD vs adding tests after 23:33 What types of tools can you use? Resources Angie Jones Test Automation University Kent C. Dodds Testing JavaScript Knowing what to test Types of Testing Transcript Here is the transcript for this week's episode.
Mobile Development
One niche in development that we have no experience with is building mobile apps. Luckily, today we have an expert to teach us all about it: Timirah James who is the founder of TechniGal LA and a developer evangelist. Show Notes 02:00 - Can you tell us a bit about yourself? 05:20 - What was your path to becoming a developer? 18:00 - What’s your day-to-day like? 21:00 - What technologies does an iOS dev work with? 33:19 - How do you get your app accepted into the App Store? 40:22 - What is the interview process like for an iOS developer? 50:50 - Shoutouts Resources Timirah's Twitter TechniGal_LA Timirah's Website Timirah's LinkedIn Stanford free 101 mobile dev course React Native Flutter Dart Objective C Swift XCode Sublime Text Apple Developer Program Apple Design Guidelines The Courage To Be Disliked Web monetization API Transcript Here is the transcript for this week's episode.
Micro-Interactions & Animation Libraries
Micro-interactions are small animations that delight our users and they are changing the way we design and build our applications. Micro-interactions have many benefits like enhancing perceived performance, indicating state change, and drawing users’ attention to something on the page. Today we’ll dive into micro-interactions and the animation libraries you can use to build them. Show Notes 02:25 - What are micro-interactions? 05:48 - Why are they important? 10:55 - How do we build one? 29:07 - Animation libraries 33:16 - Shoutouts Resources CSS Animation Libraries Eli Fitch’s Perceived Performance UI Movement Bad UI Ladybug Performance Scott Tolinski React Spring Course Sarah Drasner Hover.css Greensock React Spring Framer Motion Anime.js Velocity Three.js Mo.js Humble PI Bon Appetit Test Kitchen Transcript Here is the transcript for this week's episode.
Hiring a Diverse Workforce
We’ve talked a lot about interviewing and getting hired in tech from the engineering perspective, and today we’re going to build on that. We have a special guest, Hilliary Turnipseed, the founder of Hill Street Strategies to talk about hiring from the recruiting perspective. She specializes in hiring and maintaining diverse teams. We also want to give a big shoutout to Black Girls Code, if you're able to, please donate! Show Notes 01:13 - Tell us about yourself! 08:37 - Tell us about Hill Street Strategies 23:12 - What advice would you give to someone who is looking to get their first role in tech? 35:09 - You focus a lot on hiring a diverse tech workforce, what advice would you give to a company trying to diversify their hiring? 42:42 - You are super involved with the DC tech community, why is that involvement so important to you? 48:48 - Where can people find you online? 50:06 - Shoutouts Resources from Hilliary Mental Health Rise by Jasmin Pierre & Jonathan Thompson Aweh Support Founder Mental Wealth Workplace Culture Work Bravely Empower Work Allyship Reads White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack The Memo: What Women of Color Need to Know to Secure a Seat at the Table Support Black-Owned Businesses In Common Job Boards Diversify Tech Women2 Books The Memo Resilient Management Hilliary's Contact Info Hilliary's website Hilliary's LinkedIn Hilliary's Twitter Mentioned in the Episode Human Design Chart Basic Concepts Explained of 4 Types Transcript
Black Lives Matter
Shortly after midnight on March 13, 2020, Louisville police entered the apartment of Breonna Taylor and Kenneth Walker using a battering ram to force open the door. Breonna Taylor was shot at least eight times and pronounced dead at the scene. No drugs were found in the apartment. June 5th would have been Breonna’s 27th birthday. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was murdered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes while he was handcuffed face down in the street. And for the past week and a half protest have been held throughout the world demanding justice for not just George Floyd, but all Black people murdered from police brutality. Police brutality is not new. It has been happening for many years as the result of systemic racism, and it must be stopped. Too many Black lives have been stolen at the hands of white police officers who walk away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Today we’re joined by Jocelyn Harper, host of the Git Cute Podcast to discuss the Black Lives Matter movement and to learn more about how you can get involved.
Outliers
For the month of May we read "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell. "Outliers" examines the factors which contribute to high-levels of success and while we often attribute success to circumstance today we’ll discuss our thoughts to see if we agree. Show notes 1:08 - What does it mean to be successful? 6:12 - How does privilege play into success? 22:12 - Practical intelligence versus analytical intelligence 30:52 - Our thoughts on the book Resources Outliers Nader Dabit's tweet Goodreads Group The Culture Map Open Book Commerce Tea Dave Ramsey Transcript We provide transcripts for all of our episodes. You can find them here!
Networking
Today we're talking about routing and switching, starting with layer 1 of the OSI model. Let's dig in. JUST KIDDING I know nothing about that kind of networking, but we ARE talking about networking today! Networking is a great opportunity to meet new people in the same industry, learn new skills, and develop your career. This week we’re talking all things networking: why we network, how to network, and what to do if you’re really not that into networking. Let’s jump in!
Building Developer Communities
Developer community is centered around the idea of nurturing and amplifying community voices within a company and the head of developer community is responsible for leading this effort. Today we’re joined by Kim Maida, Head of Developer Relations and Community at Gatsby. We’ll discuss what her job entails, the ins and outs of developer advocacy, advice for someone looking to get into this field, and more. Show notes 2:34 - Can you tell us a bit about yourself? 3:27 - What does it mean to be the head of developer relations and community? 6:38 - What is devrel/dev advocacy? 10:45 - Do the skills vary between these 4 roles? What do you need to know? 13:25 - How can you build empathy into your content? 16:40 - Do you need to be a software engineer first? 19:32 - What is your advice for someone looking to get into your field? 24:55 - What’s your advice for becoming a better dev advocate? 29:56 - Where do you see the field going in the near future? How does the current COVID situation impact your day to day? 36:33 - Shoutouts Resources Gatsby Auth0 Kim’s twitter Compassionate coding April Wensel technicalinterviews.dev Transcript We provide transcripts for all of our episodes. You can find them here!
Level up with JavaScript
JavaScript is notorious for being one of the most popular, yet also one of the most despised programming languages to learn, so today we’re covering some of the intermediate and advanced JavaScript concepts! We’ll discuss convoluted topics like generators, prototypal inheritance, and the rendering engine. Knowing intermediate JavaScript concepts like the call stack, context, scope, the prototype chain, higher order functions, async programming, and the event loop is invaluable and will help with learning frameworks. The fundamentals won't change even if the ecosystem does. Show notes 03:24 - Functional Programming vs OOP 06:28 - Prototypal inheritance 20:34 - Higher order functions 25:54 - Callback functions 27:10 - Closures 27:46 - Scope + Context 31:12 - Iterators & Generators 34:26 - Rendering engine 37:54 - Call Stack 40:33 - Event loop 43:39 - Throttle and debounce 46:21 - Asynchronous programming 52:09 - Hoisting 54:44 - Primitive vs reference 56:59 - Debugging 58:48 - Shoutouts Resources Functional Programming vs OOP Lydia Halle’s blog post on the prototype chain Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby Ali's What is Functional Programming? What Tamagotchis Can Teach You About ES6 Generators - Jenn Creighton CodeNewbie: How do Browsers Work? What the heck is the event loop anyway? - Philip Roberts Throttling and debouncing Debugging Episode
Advice to our Past Selves
Welcome to season 3 of the LB podcast. This season we’ll cover topics ranging from advanced JavaScript to networking. We’ll chat about Git & GitHub, making money outside your 9-5 job, and many more topics. For our first episode of this new season, we’ll be reminiscing about our coding history and discussing some advice we wished we had when learning to code ranging from asking more questions to negotiating job offers. Show notes 01:50 - Our stories 09:29 - Find a community 10:43 - Take breaks - you don’t have to code all the time 13:36 - Ask questions 16:50 - Overcome imposter syndrome 18:09 - Sharing your learning journey can help not only yourself but others too 20:24 - Surround yourself with people who support you 21:33 - Don’t get stuck in the cycle of tutorials 23:28 - Get comfortable with being uncomfortable 25:02 - Ask for feedback early and often 26:23 - Stop being such a perfectionist 28:06 - Document your learning journey 30:00 - Learn how to Google 31:45 - Different ways to learn 32:32 - Try to be honest w/ ur manager 34:42 - Celebrate your small wins 35:20 - Interview to challenge yourself 36:54 - Talk to people who have your dream job 38:04 - Negotiate offers 40:20 - You can be a people person in tech 41:40 - Don’t fall into shiny object syndrome 42:21 - You belong in the industry Resources Learning How to Learn episode Byteconf React Keynote FreeCodeCamp Moving Past Tutorials Cacher Stay Home Take Care Transcript We provide transcripts for all of our episodes. You can find them here!