Day in the Life
Welcome VMS Students
Itinerary
- Intros
- Tour
- What is Kenzan?
- Products, Culture
- How to become a developer?
- What does a Kenzan front-end dev do?
- Teams, Roles, Process
- Typical Day
- Exercise
Intros
What is Kenzan?
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Ideation, architecture, platform development, UI development, devops, testing, project management
- tl;dr: help communicate information to solve problems
What is Kenzan?
Culture
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Distributed teams
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Other offices in Providence, New York City, Los Angeles. Contractors out of Costa Rica, Brazil, Lithuania, Canada
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Blue Jeans (like FaceTime), Hipchat, Email
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Hack Nights, study group
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Easy button
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- Lunch, A-Basin beach day, bike rides, ping pong, Rockies’ game, coffee-tasting
How to become a dev
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Self-teach
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Pros
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Learn at your own pace, as-needed
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Many low-cost options available
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Cons
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Entirely up to your decisions
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Many low-cost options available. Lots of sifting
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How to become a dev
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Bootcamp
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Pros
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Deep-dive on many topics
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Guided learning on relevant topics
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Cons
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Very fast-paced, not everything will sink in
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Very competitive
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How to become a dev
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College
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Pros
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Well-rounded education, may discover other things that interest you
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Learn how you learn
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Cons
- Not always the most up-to-date information
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How to become a dev
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Any way you go:
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Important to be solid on the basics, need a strong foundation
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Things are constantly changing, always learning - exciting and frustrating at times
- Build (break) things, play, experiment
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What does a Kenzan FED do?
What do I need to know?
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HTML
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Structure, accessibility
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CSS
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Styles (Sass, LESS)
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RWD
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What does a Kenzan FED do?
What can I do with this knowledge?
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Websites, apps
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Native apps, Electron
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IoT
- Examples of each?
What does a Kenzan FED do?
What do I need to know?
JavaScript
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More than just writing functions, it can interact with the DOM and CSSOM to make websites interactive
What does a Kenzan FED do?
What do I need to know?
JavaScript
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Open-source libraries - leverage other people's’ code to make our development cycles faster
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jQuery, AngularJS, React, Lodash
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Node.js/Gulp.js
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Npm, Bower
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AJAX
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Unit, E2E testing
What does a Kenzan FED do?
Roles
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Front-end developer - (mostly) browser-based
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UI: markup/structure, styles, functionality
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Testing
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Roles
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Back-end developer - server-based
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Microservices
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Databases
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Middle: Heavy-lifting, abstracted away from API layer
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Edge: APIs send data from the database to the browser
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Node.js, Java
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Interactive developers - specific to Kenzan
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Both! Though not necessarily on the web, sometimes on SmartTV apps
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Roles
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PMBA
- PM - Facilitates a project’s development, interface between the client and the development team. Making sure it’s done on time and within budget
- BA - Helps the client determine their needs, determines requirements for a project. Ensures the requirements are met.
Roles
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Technical architects
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Develops a plan for implementation of the requirements to be followed by the developers, ensures plan is followed
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Code reviews
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Release management
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Roles
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QA
- Test our sites on all kinds of browsers, machines, and devices, making sure there are no unintended bugs and that the code meets the client’s expectations
Roles
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Copywriters
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They write the copy on the site geared towards the client’s audience
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Technical Writers
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Write how to use the pieces of the software being developed
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Roles
Designers
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They are the ones who come up with the look, feel, and (often) the user experience
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Devops
- When a website is ready to be launched, the devops will facilitate getting the tested code to the server.
Roles
- Designers
- They are the ones who come up with the look, feel, and (often) the user experience
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Devops
- When a website is ready to be launched, the devops will facilitate getting the tested code to the server.
- Help with build environments for testing
Roles
- Marketing, Administrators, HR, etc.
Process
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Requirements gathering - user stories, acceptance criteria.
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Ticket grooming - what stories get done and when
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Sprints
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Planning Poker
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X weeks of development
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X weeks of testing, bug fixes
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Demos
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Deployment
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Retrospective
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Process
Typical Day
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Coffee, check/respond to emails, messages. Prepare for the day
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Scrum - Review, goals, blockers. Kenzan.io
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Work through task list, communicate in Hipchat as needed. Iterative process:
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Work on tickets
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Bug fixes, add new features, cleanup/investigation tasks
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Write tests as needed
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Typical Day
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PR reviews
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Deployment
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Send to QA
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Take another ticket
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Log hours
Exercise
Welcome VMS
By Craig Freeman
Welcome VMS
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