Weekly Updates and a Change of Plan (I've Been Hired!)

#webdev #productivity #devjournal

Yep, you heard that correctly, I've officially been hired! When I finished my coding Bootcamp two weeks ago, I did not expect things to happen so quickly. I'm, of course, very happy that they did! I was planning to hold off on saying anything because I know this doesn't happen to most Bootcamp grads this quickly, but with my weekly journals, I always want to come from a place of honesty. Please do not think that this is a normal thing that happens and feel bad if you've been looking for awhile. Yes, I worked my a$$ off to get here, but my niche background and pure luck went a long way as well. You see, I'm now working at a company I am familiar with. I've used their technology in my past career as a teacher and that very much helped get my foot in the door. With this in mind, let's review last week and preview the upcoming week.

Last Week Reflection

I started the week strong with reviewing JavaScript as well as Data Structures and Algorithms using a Udemy class. I did a peer mock interview on interviewing.io and practiced some coding challenges on Code Wars. This plan lasted all of two days as I was able to schedule my first real interview for Wednesday.

Interviewing at my New Company

As I stated in my introduction, I was actually hired on the spot during the interview I had on Wednesday. If you're like me, you like reading about the processes different people go through during these so I will briefly touch on that here. I did not have a Data Structures and Algorithms challenge as I expected based on articles and videos other developers have posted. Instead, it was a mix of a technical and behavioral interview where we went over one of my projects and I was asked questions that pertained to the position I applied to (SQL was a huge part of this particular job since it is mostly focused on Backend). We also discussed how I used their products from a teacher's perspective. Let me tell you this, I GENUINELY loved their products while I was teaching and actively helped other teachers use them. I led trainings in this product. Having a passion for what they do and combining my skills in programming with that unique perspective REALLY helped make me a viable candidate. If you take anything from this and you're a newer developer, take this: find something that makes you unique. Find your niche in the world and use that to help you.

The Rest of the Week

After my interview, I started work on Friday and used that to onboard at my new company. I started to set up my environment on my personal computer while I wait for the one they're sending me. I began to research the stack they use and found some courses that might be helpful to me as I learn these new languages on the job.

Next Week Preparation

This next week will be a very busy one. I plan to finish setting up my environment on Monday and begin with the basics of PHP/MySQL. Fortunately, I have used SQLite before and pick things up relatively quickly so my hope is to have a personal project built with PHP and MySQL by the end of the week. I will be given the documentation for a project they want me to start working on as well so my plan is to hammer out the details on that project and make sure I fully understand what the expectations are so I can begin creating a mockup/model out the database.

If I feel confident and comfortable with the above, my next plan would be to continue with data structures and algorithms practice with JavaScript so I can possibly enter a competition next weekend. I'm very interested in competitive programming and think it might be both a valuable and fun hobby for me to get into.