Hear from inspiring developers about how they found meaningful and fulfilling work that that also pays them well. On the #StoriesByScrimba Podcast, you'll hear motivational advice and job-hunting strategies from developers who've been exactly where you are now. We talk to developers about their challenges, learnings, and switching industries in the hopes of inspiring YOU. This is the podcast that provides the inspiration, tools, and roadmaps to move from where you are to work that matters to you and uniquely fits your strengths and talents.
This is How Companies Think About Hiring, with Dominik Piątek
Meet Dominik Piątek 🇵🇱🇬🇧! Dominik moved to the UK from Poland in search of career opportunities. He worked odd jobs, acquired a varied set of skills, and became a partner in a digital agency at the age of 23. That's where he got interested in front-end development, and more than a decade later, Dom is still in London. He's a staff developer who has also led cross-functional teams, worked with complex JavaScript applications and multiple times served as a tech lead.Dominik interviewed Alex for a job in their previous company. Today, the tables have turned, and Alex interviews Dom. In this episode, you'll learn what Dom looks for in a candidate, what's the difference between a senior developer and a tech lead, and whether or not whiteboard interviews can actually be useful. Dominik also talks about company values and explains the notion of a culture fit once and for all. You'll find out if the hiring processes are getting better, what are the current interview trends, and how different companies optimize their interviews so that they select just the candidates that are right for them.🔗 Connect with Dominik👨🏻💼 LinkedIn🌐 Website👨🚀 GitHub⏰ TimestampsIn an interview, you only get one shot (01:34)Sometimes you get nervous, but sometimes you're too relaxed (02:45)How Dominik became a developer (04:19)Why Dominik left Poland (05:21)"This is not like C!" (06:56)It's going to take five years to become comfortable with coding (11:26)Don't be buzzwordy! (12:13)Community break with Jan the Producer (15:50)What do companies want to see in a beginner developer (19:39)If your PR gets destroyed, don't be emotional (23:49)What's a culture fit? (24:39)Can you codify culture? (26:34)A lot of time, values are aspirational (28:13)Why do people tend to hire people like themselves? (29:12)Should you vibe with your job interview? (30:38)Is your ability to interview more important than your coding skills? (32:54)Are whiteboard interviews a culture test? (34:15)Who needs whiteboarding as a skill? (39:33)Do you need computer science fundamentals? (43:54)Closing advice: The job market always ebbs and flows, focus on your own growth! (45:31)Next week on the show: Rachel Lee Nabors (46:45)⭐️ Leave a ReviewIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.
The Safe Exit: How to Quit Your Job the Right Way, with Ian Douglas
🎙 About the episodeMeet Ian Douglas 🇺🇸🇨🇦! Developer, DevRel, Tech Educator, Career Coach, and author of The Tech Interview Guide, Ian Douglas, has been coding professionally since 1996. During that time, he worked at seventeen different companies! So, he probably knows a thing or two about how to transition companies in the most productive and secure way.Whether you're a new or more experienced developer, sooner or later, the time will come to change companies. How can you be sure it's time to quit your job? How do you hand in your notice, and what do you even write in a resignation letter? Why is a manager who gets surprised by your leaving the company probably not a good manager? How do you hand off your projects, and when do you tell your coworkers you're moving on from the company? When should you publicize your new role on LinkedIn, why do some recruiters hit you up 90 days after you've changed jobs, and ultimately, how should you navigate all this in today's job market?If you need help moving on from your role - or at least renegotiating it, listen to this episode!🔗 Connect with Ian👨🏻💼 LinkedIn🌐 Website🐦 Twitter⏰ TimestampsAlex changed jobs recently! (01:58)"The first thing you really need to understand is why you want to leave the company" (03:16)Have a direction in mind (05:02)It takes six to twelve months to hit your stride at a new job (07:13)With all the info you have currently, could you see yourself being at the new company for at least two years? (09:29)Sometimes the company changes, and that's okay (10:00)Should you feel guilty when quitting your job? (10:49)What you need to know about notice periods (12:46)The risk of resigning (14:42)Get all your paperwork signed first (16:34)What if your current company wants to keep you? (17:31)Even if they manage to keep you, they might not trust in your loyalty (18:59)Always communicate with your manager (21:00)If you leave a job, it shouldn't really surprise your manager (22:29)What if your company can't make the accommodations you need (23:20)You need to be able to trust your manager (25:45)How to communicate your resignation (26:27)How to write your notice letter: it's just a notification email! (28:53)Should you tell the team you're quitting (30:21)Be prepared to lose access to company stuff (31:31)Can you work for a competitor? (32:06)Should you tell your current employer about the new company (33:48)When should you share the news about your new job on LinkedIn? (37:58)🧰 Resources MentionedOur previous shows with Ian: An Expert Guide to Technical Interviews, and This Is How You Onboard: Actionable Tips for Developers On a New Job ⭐️ Leave a ReviewIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.
Early WhatsApp Engineer Jean Lee: Keep Trying New Things in Tech!
Meet Jean Lee! She was the nineteenth engineer at WhatsApp (that was even before it got acquired by Facebook!) and then worked at Meta as an engineering manager for six years after the acquisition. She helped set up WhatsApp's London office and also worked on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Her coding journey didn't start there - she discovered tech almost by chance after her family moved to California. She wanted to study art - but after taking art courses at her university, she realized that coding was her thing. She worked at a tiny startup competing with YouTube and a huge corporation, IBM, before she realized which company size suited her best. She became an engineering manager at Meta without ever planning to become one - but when an opportunity arose, she took it. Because how are you ever going to know what you like doing or not if you don't try things? Today, Jean is a cofounder of Exaltitude, providing resources and coaching to software engineers navigating the ever-changing tech landscape and cultivating a community where everyone can grow together.In this episode, Jean shares her best career advice. You'll also find out what it was like to work at WhatsApp during the expansion, why company culture always changes when a company is scaling up, why inclusive hiring practices are important, and what is one thing that juniors never remember they need to do.🔗 Connect with Jean👩💼 Linkedin🌐 Website📹 YouTube🧰 Resources MentionedExaltitudeExaltitude YouTube channel⭐️ Leave a ReviewIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.
How Not to Be Afraid of Git, with O'Reilly Author Anna Skoulikari
✨Use this link for a free month of O'Reilly Learning and read Anna's book and any other resource on the platform! ✨ Meet Anna Skoulikari! She's a UX designer turned front-end developer, senior technical writer, and the author of "Learning Git" - a book published by O'Reilly Media that teaches Git in a simple, visual, and tangible manner so that you can build a solid mental model of how it all works.Anna started teaching Git because she had to understand it herself. It's powerful but not the most user-friendly of tools. Yet, Git is what we all have in common, whether we're working on back-end or front-end development, on Windows or a Mac. Even GitHub's lawyers use Git!If you're learning to code, you probably have many questions. Should you use GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket? What's the difference between a merge request and a pull request? Does it make sense to use Git from your command line, or is a GUI good enough? Where are all those files? And how, for the last time, does any of that work? This episode will help you understand Git and provide you with plenty of practical insights to navigate its complexities effectively.🔗 Connect with Anna👩💼 Linkedin🌐 Website🧰 Resources MentionedUse this link for a free month of O'Reilly Learning!Learning Git⭐️ Leave a ReviewIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.
The (Not so) Hidden Benefits of Talking about Code, with Scrimba Bootcamp Lead Micha
✨Use this link for a 20% discount on the Scrimba bootcamp! ✨ Meet Michaella Rodriguez! If you're already in the Scrimba Discord community, you probably know her. If not, she's a career changer who discovered Scrimba while learning, like many; she was active in the Scrimba community when Guil recruited the first-ever code reviewers for our bootcamp. Now, she's a bootcamp lead at Scrimba. And no, she never thought she would be a coder - but a friend made her try it.Yes, Micha and Alex do talk about the Scrimba bootcamp in this episode. But even if you're not interested in the bootcamp, this interview brings a wealth of information that can help you if you're learning to code. You have probably already heard that trying and teaching somebody else is the best way to solidify your learning. Well, in this episode, you'll find out how to do that as a junior, why you should be able to talk about and explain code, and whether you can bring anything to the table in a discussion or a code review if you're not an expert. Also in this episode: group projects, GIT, accountability, (not) letting yourself slide, and Alex's unorthodox StackOverflow strategy.🔗 Connect with Micha👩💼 Linkedin🐦 Twitter👩🚀 GitHub🤖 michaellala on Scrimba Discord🧰 Resources MentionedUse this link for a 20% discount on the Scrimba bootcamp!Scrimba BootcampFrom Lab Coat to Code: Vanessa's Path from Lab Scientist to Developing Lab SoftwareAnna Skoulikari⭐️ Leave a ReviewIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.
Neurodiversity in Tech and Why We Should Care About It, with Parul Singh
Meet Parul Singh 🇬🇧! Parul is a Tech Careers & Neurodiversity Consultant, ADHD advocate, board member at Manchester Tech Festival, Public Speaker, and a former recruitment marketing partner and tech recruiter. The last time she was on the show, she gave us advice on how to stand out and land a role in tech.Today, we're talking about neurodiversity! What does it mean, why do we need it, why do tech companies seem to attract neurodivergent talent, and how can we create a more inclusive workplace? In this episode, you'll find out why neurodivergent conditions aren't superpowers (but sometimes feel like they are), why some people get diagnosed late, and whether self-diagnosis is valid. Parul is passionate about these topics because of her own lived experience with ADHD and autism, which intersects with her being a woman of color. But even if you're not neurodivergent yourself, chances are you've worked with or managed somebody who is... so tune in!🔗 Connect with Parul👨💼 Linkedin📪 Parul's Dopamine Diaries Newsletter🌐 Linktree🐦 Twitter🧰 Resources MentionedAnnual Report: Diversity in Tech in the UKParul's Dopamine Diaries NewsletterParul's previous interview⭐️ Leave a ReviewIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.
The Only Thing Worth Investing in Is Yourself, with Scrimba Student Özge
Meet Özge Ahras 🇹🇷! Özge studied computer enigneering, but felt her coding skills weren't up to par. She yearned to transition into frontend development and explore cutting-edge technologies, but the company she had spent eight years in was relying on vanilla javascript. Eventually, she discovered Scrimba, back in the day before the Frontend Career Path even existed. Can you imagine?Özge fell in love with Scrimba's pedagogy and enrolled in the Path. But the journey wasn't without its challenges. It took her two and a half years to complete the course, balancing her studies with a demanding full-time job. And in February 2023, a devastating earthquake struck her hometown in southern Turkey. Yet Özge persevered, realizing that the true investment lay in nurturing her own growth and peace of mind.Today, Özge is a front-end developer living in sunny Malta! You'll hear how she picked where she wanted to move and how she went about hunting for jobs, as well as learn one trick that boosted her job application success rate. Özge also shares the details of her interview process (spoiler: there was a bit that was slightly unconventional). This is a story about giving yourself grace and time, staying motivated, and remaining curious!🔗 Connect with Özge👩💼 Linkedin🌐 Portfolio👩🚀 GitHub🧰 Resources MentionedLearn React for free!Scrimba BootcampFrontend Career Path⭐️ Leave a ReviewIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.
How to Figure Out What You Want to Do, with Scrimba Student Amy
Meet Amy Posten 🇺🇸! Amy was a veterinary technician for fifteen years before she decided to switch careers. First, she discovered freeCodeCamp while on maternity leave. Later, she joined a premium bootcamp but didn't feel quite ready to apply for coding jobs afterward, so she turned to Scrimba to polish her skills. Nowadays, she's a front-end engineer and instructor.In this episode, you'll learn how to figure out what kind of job you want and what was a small change in her job-hunting approach that brought Amy immediate results. You'll discover what are the gaps in knowledge one might have after a bootcamp, and how you can make learning to code less lonely. Finally, Amy and Alex discuss generative AI tools and how you can use them in your job hunt.🔗 Connect with Amy👩💼 Linkedin⏰ TimestampsHow Amy became a Veterinary Technician (01:32)Maternity leave on freeCodeCamp, and a career change brought up by the pandemic (04:38)Why Amy likes JavaScript, HTML, and CSS (06:59)Why Amy decided to join a bootcamp (08:56)The importance of getting to connect with people (11:16)Social media break with Jan the Producer (12:43)How to make learning to code less lonely (14:12)Joining a bootcamp is like drinking from a fire hose (16:27)Amy discovered Scrimba through her bootcamp! (18:31)After the bootcamp, Amy also joined the Scrimba bootcamp (19:37)Why Amy decided to start from scratch on Scrimba (21:35)How Amy found her north star and became a teacher (24:48)Amy changed her approach to job applications and got immediate results! (28:26)Amy's reach-out strategy and how she got a job interview at the company she currently works at (31:52)How to figure out what kind of job you want (35:11)Amy's job interview (36:04)How to use AI tools in your job hunt (40:22)🧰 Resources MentionedScrimba podcast: The State of React (and Should You Still Learn It in 2024), with Dev AgrawalScrimba podcast: An expert guide to technical interviews with Ian DouglasScrimba podcast: This Is How You Onboard: Actionable Tips for Developers On a New Job from Ian DouglasLearn React for free!Scrimba BootcampScrimba's Discord community⭐️ Leave a ReviewIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.
Slow Down to Speed Up: Teacher-Turned-Developer Chris on Successful Adult Learning and Landing his Dream Role
Meet Chris Webster 🇬🇧! Chris is a full-stack developer based in Reading. In a past life, he taught Mandarin to both children and adults and obtained a master's degree in education. If you're guessing that this episode is about pedagogy, maintaining your mindset, and learning hacks, you're on the right track.When Chris decided to switch careers, he enrolled in a premium London boot camp. Was it worth the money? Or the time? In this episode, Chris lays out the differences between a boot camp and learning to code by yourself online. He ended up on Scrimba afterward—sometimes even while at work at his first coding job—which helped him land his dream job. But that wasn't the only thing! It's the perseverance, strategies for successful adult learning, and knowing what to look for in the myriad of teaching methods available to us that paved Chris's path to success. In this podcast, you'll learn all about them!🔗 Connect with Chris👨💼 Linkedin🧰 Resources MentionedLearn React for Free! Book: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel KahnemanBook: How to Solve It by George Polya⭐️ Leave a ReviewIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.
The State of React (and Should You Still Learn It in 2024), with Dev Agrawal
Meet Dev Agrawal 🇮🇳🇺🇸! With a name like that, how could he not become a developer? He's a software developer, developer advocate, and content creator. Moreover, he's a React expert deeply ingrained in the React community. That's why we invited him onto the show to shed light on the current state of affairs!You've probably noticed certain discontent surrounding React recently. A basic React app has become significantly more complex. It has been quite some time since there has been a significant update to React, with the recent ones relying heavily on meta-frameworks. And what about the React core team? What's happening there?All of this might sound disheartening. However, we're delving into whether these concerns hold true in this episode. Let's find out together!🔗 Connect with Dev👨💼 Linkedin🌐 Website🐦 Twitter🧰 Resources MentionedNiche Down to Blow Up: Scrimba Student Leo Reveals How to Land an Awesome First Dev Job
Everybody's Doing Their Best... Even Tech Recruiters (and This Is How to Get Their Attention), with Parul Singh
Meet Parul Singh 🇬🇧! Parul is a Tech Careers & Neurodiversity Consultant, ADHD advocate, board member at Manchester Tech Festival, Public Speaker, and a former recruitment marketing partner and tech recruiter. If you're familiar with the topic of neurodiversity in tech, you've probably come across her name. In this episode, we're speaking with Parul because her advice on how to stand out and land a role in tech is anything but ordinary. This episode contains refreshingly unique and honest insights and perspectives on hiring in tech, along with some new job platforms you can use to inspire or recharge your developer job search. Everybody's on LinkedIn, and that can be a blessing and a curse! In this episode, you'll learn about the best alternatives. Standing out as a junior developer can be challenging, but we'll discuss some ideas on how you can do it. What should your CV look like? Do you need a cover letter? To wrap things up, we'll learn from Parul why some recruiters don't advertise the salary range and what you can do when you see a job ad like that!Plus: Why should tech recruiters know how to code, and is JavaScript more similar to a ham or a hamster?🔗 Connect with Parul👨💼 Linkedin🌐 Linktree🐦 Twitter🧰 Resources Mentionedhttps://hackajob.com/https://cord.co/https://www.haystackapp.io/https://otta.com/https://wellfound.com/https://hired.com/⭐️ Leave a ReviewIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.
The Making of an Industry: The Rise of AI Engineering, with Swyx
Meet Shawn Wang (Swyx) 🇺🇸! Swyx is a developer, writer, and startup advisor. If you listen to our show regularly, you know him as the biggest advocate for learning in public! Today, he's the founder of smol.ai and a podcast host and teacher at Latent Space. Last summer, Swyx wrote a blog post titled The Rise of the AI Engineer, which quickly went viral.In this episode, Swyx will revisit that blog post to see if anything changed. You will learn why AI engineers are a thing, the differences between AI and ML engineers, and why the demand for this specialization is larger than the supply. Swyx also reveals what defines an industry (and why it's not only about tools) and gives many good examples of successful products made using existing foundation models. Swyx and Alex also talk about the inner workings of AI and whether it's a good idea to run AI models on your own hardware.🔗 Connect with Swyx👨💼 Linkedin🌐 Website🌐 smol.ai🏫Latent Space🧰 Resources MentionedThe Coding Career Handbook by Swyx (30% discount applied when you use this link)
Passions, Skills, Environment, and Compensation: Career Coach Adam Broda's Framework for Navigating Today's Job Market
🎙 About the episodeMeet Adam Broda 🇺🇸! Adam is a tech lead and career coach who helps career changers break into tech. He did the same - after a decade of working in aerospace engineering at Boeing, Adam now works at Amazon! Through his coaching business, Broda Coaching, Adam aids career transitioners in constructing personalized job search strategies.In this episode, Adam unveils the four pillars of his framework: identifying your passions, skills, desired environment, and needed compensation. Alex and Adam also delve into the current state of the job market: have we moved beyond significant tech layoffs, are return-to-office policies contributing to attrition, and what implications do these factors have for software development jobs? Adam will also tech you about different phases of networking—short-term networking, advocacy networking, and engagement networking—detailing how to navigate each of them and which one is most effective.🔗 Connect with Adam👨💼 Linkedin🌐 Website🧰 Resources MentionedBroda Coaching⭐️ Leave a ReviewIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.
Effective Living for Better Coding: From Retail to Software Engineering with Scrimba Student Cassie
🎙 About the episodeMeet Cassie Lewis 🇺🇸! Cassie has a fine arts degree, which turned out to be too fancy for the real world. After working in different fields, from photography to retail, she got interested in coding - and it turned out to be just the right fit with how her mind works! Cassie is fueled by curiosity, creativity, and challenges. And learning to code alongside a day job was certainly a challenge.Two years into her learning path, Cassie realized she had hit a wall. In an attempt to get unstuck, she joined the Scrimba bootcamp. She also challenged herself to read more non-fiction and embarked on a path toward effective living. In this episode, Cassie explains effective living and how it can make you a more effective coder, too! You'll hear how Cassie defeated burnout, how she approached learning, and how she - only nine months after joining the bootcamp - landed her first dev job. This is a story about setting goals, establishing systems, frictionless networking (even if you don't live in a tech hub), and keeping your plans realistic. But also: this is also a story of creativity and exploration!🔗 Connect with Cassie🧑💼 Linkedin🌐 Website🧰 Resources MentionedScrimba BootcampHow Johnny Learned Angular and Typescript in Three DaysCooking Up a Career Change: Overcoming Burnout and Finding Your Why, with Scrimba Student JimmyEssentialismAtomic Habits⭐️ Leave a ReviewIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.
Who's Afraid of AI Agents? The Future of Automation, with Bob Ziroll
🎙 About the episodeMeet Bob Ziroll 🇺🇸! Bob is Scrimba's Head of Education and one of the Internet's favorite React teachers. His latest course is on AI, but don't worry, there's React... I mean, ReAct in AI as well!In the previous three episodes, we defined an AI engineer and demystified their tools. We explored foundation models and discussed how to personalize them through retrieval augmented generation and fine-tuning. We also delved into various use cases for incorporating AI models into your projects and explored why ChatGPT has brought a fundamental shift in how we perceive AI.Today, Bob will guide us through the realm of AI agents, representing the future of automation. An AI agent is capable of perceiving its environment. What does that mean, and how can one create an AI agent? Also, will they eventually take over the world?Bob will also give us actionable advice on how to stay ahead of the curve in the fast-changing world of AI models, and discuss his vision for the future of AI.Bob's AI agents and automation course is part of Scrimba's brand-new AI path. Let's dive in!This is the final episode of our series on AI engineering, introducing Scrimba's AI Engineer Path. This path is your gateway to unlocking the full potential of AI for your projects. 🔗 Connect with Bob 👨🏼💼 Linkedin 🐦 Twitter 🧰 Resources Mentioned The AI Engineer Path AgentGPT ⭐️ Leave a ReviewIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.