Life After College

@RayNicholus

Marketing Technology

 

Innovative

 

Progressive

@RayNicholus

We're Hiring!

@RayNicholus

Coming Up...

  • Fears
  • College
  • Choices
  • Truths
  • Sleep
  • Standing Out

@RayNicholus

College = Job Prep?

@RayNicholus

Meh?

  • Memorization & wheel-invention?
  • Unrelated requirements?

@RayNicholus

But...

  • Finish what you started
  • Think about problems
  • Work on teams (projects)

@RayNicholus

Choose Your Path

Frontend

  • UX
  • Aesthetics
  • Accessibility
  • Web: HTML/CSS/JS
  • Desktop: depends

Backend

  • DBs
  • Scale
  • APIs
  • C/C++, Java, .NET, JavaScript

Q.A.

  • Not just manual testing
  • Automate for scale

@RayNicholus

Management

Not for everyone

Developer rules don't apply

@RayNicholus

Wear Many Hats

  • Smaller projects/employers
  • May be part of the culture
  • Inevitable

@RayNicholus

Are You Ready?

@RayNicholus

Common Concerns

  • Ability (I suck)
  • Knowledge/memory (I'm forgetful)
  • Landing a job (No one wants me)

@RayNicholus

Getting Paid

  • Trivial: Finding
  • Some Work: Applying
  • Hard: Securing

 

A Career, not a job 

@RayNicholus

The Interview

  • Knowledge questions
  • Problem solving

@RayNicholus

The Interview - Puzzles

 

@RayNicholus

The Interview - Puzzles

You are shrunk to the height of a nickel & your mass is proportionally reduced.  You still have your original density. Then, you are thrown into a blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds.  What do you do?

@RayNicholus

Text

The Interview - Coding Exercises

@RayNicholus

success != canned answers

@RayNicholus

Non-Tech Interview

  • Show your passion
  • Research the company
  • Talk intelligently about the industry
  • Ask questions

@RayNicholus

But I Don't Want a Job!

@RayNicholus

Good luck!

Really want to start your own business?  

 

Don't wait!

@RayNicholus

Sleep is for Quitters

@RayNicholus

9am - 5pm

 

Smart?  That's not enough.

@RayNicholus

A Day In the Life - During the Day

  • Floating between projects
  • Answering questions
  • Continuing education
  • New stuff (innovation)

@RayNicholus

@RayNicholus

A Day in the Life - After Hours

  • Day project overflow
  • Side projects
  • Doing this

@RayNicholus

Burnout

  • It's real
  • Balance is hard, & key
  • Don't be too proud
  • Take a break

@RayNicholus

Question Everything

@RayNicholus

Slow Down

  • Many solutions
  • Which one is best?
  • Thinking / Coding = 3 / 1

@RayNicholus

Be Critical

Even experts aren't perfect

Understand your solution

@RayNicholus

Don't Say No

@RayNicholus

Bad Excuses

  • Never done this
  • No knowledge
  • Bad at this
  • Too busy

@RayNicholus

@RayNicholus

Comfort = Death

  • Constant reinvention
  • Make your life hard
  • Keep up (at least)

@RayNicholus

Stand Out

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."

- Rudyard Kipling

@RayNicholus

@RayNicholus

Action Items

  • Join a meetup group
  • Get involved in a side project
  • Follow other developers on Twitter, GitHub, etc

@RayNicholus

Thank You

Ray Nicholus

Software Developer - Widen

ray@garstasio.com

@RayNicholus

https://github.com/rnicholus

Life After College

By Ray Nicholus

Life After College

...as a developer

  • 2,014