Junior to Senior with David Guttman

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Technology
**Junior to Senior with David Guttman**

A weekly show for ambitious devs who want to take their career to the next level.

Latest Episodes:

Nick Dies - Co-Founder, Partner, Partnerships Director at Funkhaus Aug 23, 2021

Show notes

Talking Points:

Putting yourself in the user's shoes
Doing your work and asking questions
Interview preparation
Culture fit

Quotable Quotes:

“We don't want somebody that is just a doer without asking questions.” - ND
“I want people to always be wanting to improve themselves and challenge themselves.” - ND
“Be willing to...say, "I think this can be done better", but you don't want to dig in so hard that it becomes negative energy.” - ND
“If I'm looking at developer candidates...I'm looking for…do they care about what we're doing? Are they interested in the work.’” - ND
“[preparing for interviews] Do a deep dive on this company and understand what they're about.” - ND
“Even if they might not have a job posting...reach out and say…”I would love to talk.” - ND
“If you've spent the time to care about the company, there's more conversation [in an interview].” - ND

Notes:

Nick’s Company Site:

funkhaus.us

Nick’s LinkedIn

linkedin.com/in/nicholasdies
Junior to Senior Community
community.juniortosenior.io

David Subar - Chief Product Officer, Chief Technology Officer at Interna Aug 16, 2021

Show notes

Talking Points:

Building products people use
Getting a job you can be great at
Be in places where luck can happen to you
How to know if you are providing value

Quotable Quotes:

“If you're not providing value in your ecosystem, interacting with this person is not a good use of time or money.” - DS
“If you're aligned with your managers, then you'll tend to produce value for them.” - DS
“If you don't fundamentally care about who you serve, you should consider whether that's the job you want.” - DS
“You need to be where luck can happen to you.” - DS
“Is the product, is the team better for me having been here?” - DS
“Constantly refactor. Don't ask for permission to refactor.” - DS
“A good engineer is refactoring a little bit along the way, all the time.” - DS

Notes:

David’s Company

Interna.com
David’s LinkedIn
linkedin.com/in/davidsubar
David’s Twitter
twitter.com/dsubar

Junior to Senior Community
community.juniortosenior.io

Scott Decker - SVP Of Technology, VP of Product Engineering at Nexstar Media Inc. Aug 09, 2021

Show notes

Talking Points:

The different stages of a developer
Thinking about where you want to go
Find what you enjoy doing early in your career
Do you want to be a manager or a single contributor
Learning from costly mistakes

Quotable Quotes:

“Where do you want to go?” - SD
“You want to grow and you want to think, how did they get to where they're at and make that happen.” - SD
“At the earliest start be picky about what you're trying to do.” - SD
“My biggest thing that I can ask you is to be a problem solver.” - SD
“Keep encouraging yourself to take little steps ahead.” - SD
“Your skill level has nothing really to do with your degree.” - SD
"As early as you can try testing your own career with that kind of stuff [being a manager or single contributor], you'll find that way better." - SD

Notes:

Scott’s Halloween Party:

nohomonsterbash.com

Scotts LinkedIn:

linkedin.com/in/decke

Scott’s Email:

sdecker@nextstardigital.com
Junior to Senior Community
community.juniortosenior.io

Tyler Bushnell - CEO at Polycade Aug 02, 2021

Show notes

Talking Points:

Finding missing information quickly
Not needing permission to pursue ideals
Working well with a team
Growing through community
Not just being a pair of hands

Quotable Quotes:

“The worst thing that I think a developer can do is not surround themselves with tons of other developers.” - TB
"It [NodeConf] really got me understanding how other programmers work and what they're doing.” - TB
"To be a good engineer, you always have to be learning." - TB
"Strike a balance, trust yourself. Do what you want and if that fails...try something else again." - TB
"Being around people in your industry...it's gonna help you understand the greater picture." - TB
“If you're always learning then the older you get, the more things you're going to be comfortable with.” - TB
“How to talk to people and meet people, it's totally learnable.” - TB

Notes:
Tyler’s business site:
polycade.com
Tyler’s LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/in/tyler-bushnell
Polycade’s Instagram:
instagram.com/polycade
Junior to Senior Community
community.juniortosenior.io

Drew Baker - Founder, Technical Director at Funkhaus Jul 26, 2021

Show notes

Talking points:

Be creative as a developer
Setting yourself apart
Choosing the right technology
The freedom of JavaScript
Finding your niche
Solve problems that free up time

Quotable Quotes:

“You should probably go down the road of the thing that's going to give you the most return.” - DB
“It's very hard to find someone that can do that [be an illustrator] and also write code.” - DB
“You should really not just reach for the latest and greatest thing because you saw it on hacker news” - DB
“Learn something as deep as you can.” - DB
“If you enjoy the design stuff that I've been talking about then absolutely focus on JavaScript, animations, and CSS.” - DB
“It's very rare that you will change languages in your career” - DB
“So it comes down to, what do you enjoy doing?” - DB

Notes:

Funkhaus website

funkhaus.us

Funkhaus Github

github.com/funkhaus

Drew’s email
drew@funkhaus.us
Junior to Senior Community
community.juniortosenior.io

Jonathan Stark - President at Jonathan Stark Consulting Jul 19, 2021

Show notes

Talking Points:

Making your boss look good
How to use your skills and passions
Knowing the pros & cons of tools
Understanding risk
Focusing on the outcome

Quotable Quotes:

“If you want to advance your career...figure out how to make your boss look good.”
“He [Jonathan’s senior colleague] thought about the outcome. What are you really trying to accomplish here?”
“When...they understand a little bit about business outcomes, I'm like, oh, this person is smart, they get it.”
“The world doesn't owe you a handsome income for engaging in your favorite activities.”
“Back when you had an actual paper book you'd go way deeper into individual things.”
“You keep your eyes on the outcome...then you can get there with minimal detours.”
“...the new shiny tool, you want to talk to your friends about it, but your boss doesn’t care about that.”

Notes:
Jonathan's Twitter

https://twitter.com/jonathanstark
Junior to Senior Community
community.juniortosenior.io

Erick Herring - CTO at Vynyl Jul 12, 2021

Show notes

Talking Points:

The complexity of mentorship
Surround yourself with good people
The hiring process
Kind honesty
Culture fit

Quotable Quotes:

“I think it's much more important that you have a values fit.” - EH
“From a kind place, tell the truth to people.” - EH
“Always think about the client, put yourself in the client's shoes.” - EH
“We're taught that when you're a candidate you can't address certain issues.” - EH
“Judging...the ability to do a job from the interview process is such a tricky proposition.” - EH
“When people are happy, everything is happier.” - EH
“Make sure that you're not feeling things too deeply[in the interview].” - EH

Notes:

Erick’s Twitter

linkedin.com/in/erickherring
CTO at

vynyl.com
Junior to Senior Community
community.juniortosenior.io

Pirijan - Creator of Kinopio.club and co-creator of Glitch.com Jul 05, 2021

Show notes

Talking Points:

Communicating well
The cycle of learning new things
When to prioritize performance
Clean code
Empathy for the user

Quotable Quotes:

“This is a new challenge and it's hard. It becomes a lot shorter. - P
“I think people optimize for what's going to look pretty...vs. what's going to look like a real instrument” - P
“You're still keeping performance in mind, but you're not being hyper about it.” - P
“There's also the speed of how the user perceives it. The perception of speed.” - P
“Sometimes going too hard in the weeds makes code pretty gnarly.” - P
“...if you make something easier, fundamentally you have exponentially more people doing that.” - P
“Kinopio is, I guess, what I like to call a spatial thinking tool for new ideas and hard problems.” - P

Notes:

Pirijan’s Website:
pketh.org

Pirijan’s project:

kinopio.club

Junior to Senior Community
community.juniortosenior.io

Justin Higgins - Founder at 24hourhomepage.com Jun 28, 2021

Show notes

Talking Points:

Watching mentors solve problems
Version control
Humble communication
Self-evaluation
Constrained creativity

Quotable Quotes:

“You have a big story[frequent Git commits]...that’s what gets published, is a story.” - JH
“You can always improve communication.” - JH
“If somebody has that[holier than thou attitude], that would probably be like a big red flag.” - JH
“Nobody knows anything at the start of this stuff, so we all learned.” - JH
“You should know why you're participating in that company, on that project.” - JH
“Every night or every week...ask yourself ‘How am I doing? Where am I going?" - JH
“One week I worked on a Saturday because I felt like I hadn't met a goal...I got chewed out for it in the best way possible.” - JH

Notes:

Justin’s Twitter
https://twitter.com/justinprojects
Justin’s Latest Project
24hourhomepage.com
Junior to Senior Community
community.juniortosenior.io

Erin Mckean - Developer Relations Program Manager at Google Jun 21, 2021

Show notes

Talking Points:

Developer advocacy
Write good documentation
Confusing the solution with the problem
Define clear goals
Learning with joy

Quotable Quotes:

"Does this solve a problem that everybody agrees is an actual problem?" - EM
"Whenever you've run into problems, it's probably a goal problem." - EM
"When you don't know what you want a function to do it can be really hard to write that function." - EM
"A lot of people just don't like to close off possibilities so they want to do everything all at once." - EM
"You can't ever make yourself irreplaceable, you can only make yourself a single point of failure." - EM
"You really have to practice being okay with feeling dumb." - EM
"You should always be looking to figure out how you can bring other people into your circle instead of keeping people out." - EM

Notes:
Erin's Website:

erinmckean.com
Erin's non-profit organization:
wordnik.com

Erin's Twitter:

twitter.com/emckean

Erin's GitHub:

github.com/emckean
Junior to Senior Community
community.juniortosenior.io