CodeNewbie

Latest Episodes:

Ep. 9 - How To Build A Product (Poornima Vijayashanker) Nov 09, 2014

Show notes

Building a web product was a lot harder in 2006 than it is now. Poornima Vijayashanker tells us what it was like to code back in those days as founding engineer at Mint, an app that later sold to Intuit for $170 million. Since then, she's been helping people better understand the product development process through her blog and company Femgineer. We talk about what code newbies should think about when building a new app, whether for fun or for profit, and how it takes more than code to make a great product.

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Poornima Vijayashanker

Poornima Vijayashanker is currently the founder at Femgineer, an education startup that empowers engineers, founders, and product leads to transform their ideas into tangible, high-impact products. Poornima has also been a lecturer at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering and an entrepreneur-in-residence at 500 Startups. She was the founding engineer at Mint.com, where she helped build, launch, and scale the product until its acquisition in 2009.

Ep. 8 - From Student Project to Big App (William Jeffries) Nov 03, 2014

Show notes

When William Jeffries had to think of a project to work on as a bootcamp student, he decided to build an app that could detect and report temperatures in apartments when they dropped below a certain degree. His mission was to help people find heat in the winter, and he called it Heat Seek. In a few months, his student project grew past the classroom walls, getting the attention of city officals, entrepreneurs, and citizens excited to help. William tells us how the technology works, how he built the app as he was learning to code himself, and about the mindset that helped him get through the doubts many newbies face.

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William Jeffries

William is a software consultant at Sungard Consulting Services. He is also a yogi, a civic hacker, and a lover of hammocks.

Ep. 7 - Meteor (Ciara Burkett) Oct 26, 2014

Show notes

When Ciara Burkett saw the movie 'Hackers' at age five, she told her mother she wanted to be just that - a hacker. But it wasn't until exploring liberal arts in college that she remembered her early fascination with tech. So she gave finally it a try. Now a Meteor developer and teacher, she tells us about organizing tech meetups, why she loves the beginner-friendly, javascript framework, and shares some of her own struggles learning to code.

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Ciara Burkett

Ciara Burkett is an ambitious Meteor developer and instructor constantly getting herself mixed up in all types of shenanigans. She's also in love with color psychology, typography, and browser gaming!

Ep. 6 - Comics and Code (Rachel Nabors) Oct 20, 2014

Show notes

Rachel Nabors started as a cartoonist. But when she needed jaw surgery and didn't have the health insurance to get it, she decided it was time to get more lucrative skills. Now a cartoonist, developer, and speaker, she tells us about her transition into programming, how to tell stories with code, and what it means to be an interaction developer.

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Rachel Nabors

Rachel Nabors is an interaction developer and award-winning cartoonist, who deftly blends the art of traditional storytelling with digital media to 'tell better stories through code' at her company Tin Magpie.

Ep. 5 - Speaking of Speaking (Marty Haught) Oct 12, 2014

Show notes

Marty Haught, director of Ruby Central, the non-profit that organizes Rails Conf and Ruby Conf has read and reviewed over 1,000 talk proposals, and organize several regional and national conferences for developers. We talk about how to write a great talk proposal, how to make conferences a welcome and inclusive space for all developers, and how to prepare for your next big talk.

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Marty Haught

Entrepreneur, Software Architect/Engineer, Software Conference Organizer, Former Musician and Infantryman, Eagle Scout, Food and Drink Adventurer

Ep. 4 - Wearing All The Hats (Kinsey Ann Durham) Oct 05, 2014

Show notes

Self-taught developer Kinsey Ann Durham didn't stop at learning to code. In two years, she's spoken at tech conferences around the world, started an organization in Kenya to help women entrepreneurs (and of course wrote the software it runs on), and organizes events focused on women in tech in her town in Colorado. We talk about what it was like to give her first tech talk, how to use your coding skills for social good causes, and how she handled someone telling her that she should be a secretary instead. Glad she didn't listen.

Kinsey Ann Durham

Kinsey is a developer at GoSpotCheck and is actively involved with leading WomenWhoCode, Railsbridge. She speaks at conferences around the world, but loves being at home with her dog in Denver, Colorado.