Marie Antons: From Chef to Tech

Show Notes:

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Transcript:

Bekah: 00:14

Hello, and welcome to season one, episode two of the virtual coffee podcast. I'm Bekah. And this is a podcast that features members of the virtual coffee community. Virtual coffee is an intimate group of developers at all stages of their coding journey. They're here on this podcast, sharing their stories and what they've learned. And we are here to share it with you here with me. Today is my co-host Dan.

Dan: 00:38

Hey everyone. Um, we have another great episode today. Um, Kirk will be joining us to interview Marie Antones about how she went from being a chef to a junior developer. Marie is from Cedar rapids, Iowa. And she changed careers from the culinary industry to software development in 2020, after living in Bermuda for four years. Um, she's currently a c.net developer, uh, working for a small startup. Um, Marie shared with us, her story, how she's used her past experience as a chef to help understand coding in her own way. She also talked about the challenges of coming into her first job from a bootcamp and what she wishes she would've known before starting that. Marie is one of my favorite people, uh, in virtual coffee. And I was just very glad that she agreed to come and talk with us and, uh, share her story.

Bekah: 01:28

We start every episode of the podcast. Like we start every virtual coffee. We introduce ourselves with our name, where we're from, what we do and a random check-in question. Today's question is what are you most looking forward to today? We hope you enjoyed this episode. Hey, I'm Bekah, I'm a front end developer from a small town in Southeastern Ohio. And what I am most looking forward to today because we are recording on a Friday is the new episode of the Mandalorian.

Dan: 02:09

Hi, I am Dan. I am front end developer from Cleveland, Ohio, and the thing I'm most looking forward to is the lunch I'm going to have after this.

Kirk: 02:20

Hi, I'm Kirk, I'm a.net developer and the Caribbean. The thing I'm most looking forward to today is working on a secret project after work.

Marie: 02:34

Hi, I'm Marie Antones. I am from Cedar rapids, Iowa. I am a junior developer for a small startup called strata folio and the thing I'm most looking forward to. Today is going for a walk on the beach.

Bekah: 02:50

That sounds amazing. We are super happy to have you here with us today, Marie. Thanks so much for agreeing to be on the podcast. Thanks for having me. Yeah. All right, Marie, I think what we wanna start off with is finding out a little bit about your origin story. So you come from a non-traditional path to programming. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got.

Marie: 03:12

Yeah, well, I have had many different paths in my educational background. I first started off with nutrition. I wanted to be a nutritionist, but then I moved around quite a bit. And then I got into kinesiology and then eventually I got into the culinary industry, which I stuck with. Um, and then my husband and I actually moved to Bermuda. He, he got a different promotion for his job. He works for Transamerica. And he was like, oh, Hey, this position opened up in Bermuda. We should go. And I was like, sure, no way we're ever gonna get that, but might as well. And then lo and behold, we were here. I thought there was gonna be like forest, lots of animals, lots of like fruit and tropical stuff, but that was not the case, which. Leads me to kind of where I am now. Bermuda's quite hard for some expats, depending on your industry to have a job without work, permits, visas, all of that. And so I really took a four year vacation basically, where I didn't really have a job. I, I then spent my time volunteering for a international women's club. , which does a lot of like marketing and fundraising for local charities on the island. So I really spent all my time doing that, which that was, that was fun. But then when he got a new position back in Iowa, I was like, perfect. I can get a job thinking I was gonna go back to the culinary industry. And then my main idea was to build a pasta website so I could sell homemade pastas at the local farmer's markets. So like no one sells fresh pasta, homemade, fresh pasta anywhere. So I was like, this would be perfect. No one does it. Like it would be great. So then I was researching how to build a website or to find someone like you guys to build a website for me. And I was. Wow. That's a lot of money that I don't have. So I was like, I'm just gonna do it myself, basically with everything. If I can do it myself, I'm gonna do it myself. Anything from like going to get a manicure. I just watch the lady take notes, go home, buy the stuff, do it myself. save myself some money. But that really led me to finding Delta V code school, which is the bootcamp I attended. And. It was actually right across the street from where I lived. So I was like, this is so perfect. And so my husband told me that, yeah, you could try the first, first class because I'm not a technical person. My background's not technical. I only use a computer when I was on social media or looking at the recipe, but that's about the extent of my te knowledge. So I took it. The first class was just on basic HTML, CSS. They had you build like a 1, 1, 1 page website. It was one, a one day course. I fell in love with it. I was like, wow, this is great. I can make anything I want. like anything. And then I took one or two to really like, make sure. I wanted to do this career path, which it was the same story. Still loved it. Still. We had to do some pre-work on Khan academy. I don't know if you guys have done any Khan academy, but I built this. I spent all week building this little pixelated, Mario with animations. That's awesome. And that's, that's all I could spend my time on. So I was like, if I, if I could get lost spending my time on something, it's definitely worth my time. So that's kind of how I got into software development.

Bekah: 07:19

I have to say, I love so much, um, hearing your story, but also the idea of not having a technical background at all, because I would say like, my background was not technical at all. I taught college English for 10 years and I also was not. building my space pages when I'm working or whatever, you know, um, but I think that it's really good to hear that because I think sometimes people get really nervous about thinking that they can do it. Like, well, I don't have background. Like, I don't know what HTML means. And I think that you don't have to know that. I mean, it's, it's about like, exactly what you're saying. It's about the learning process.

Marie: 08:01

Mm-hmm . One thing that a lot of times in bootcamp they talked about is your previous experience really helps you in software development, because think of a recipe as kind of like building a website, like, oh, I know I need this piece, but what if I don't know how to do this piece? I'll go look it up, go watch a YouTube video. Do all the stuff to like, do a little research or fiddle with it, play around with it experiment. And then eventually you get to a place where you're like comfortable. Oh, I can make cookies now without looking at the recipe, I can make this, I can, I can create a modal. I can do this CSS grid without really having to go to the documentation every single time. Cuz it kind of just practice and. Enjoying the, the process. Yeah, it's awesome.

Dan: 08:51

I could see a lot of like a lot of the thought processes like that are the same. And there's also like with cooking there's language stuff that you need to learn, there's, you know, terminology and everything. Um, there's, there's a lot of like a lot of parallels for sure. I, in the kitchen, when I'm cooking, I'm totally lost all the time and I'm looking up every single word and, you know, doing that same thing. So it's, I can see a lot of, a lot of parallels there. That's.

Kirk: 09:14

So king makes me angry because I want the food to be ready immediately and it is not. And I suppose that is the way my clients feel when they're like, why isn't the code done? Uh, well it takes time to get it right, but I'm hungry now. I will also say when you said like, Knowing what HTL means. I did have to do a quick self check. Like, do I know what HTML means? I text. Okay. I'm cool. but definitely echoing what everyone else is saying. Like at the beginning, there's so much, you don't know. And I feel like software is one of those spaces. Where's almost like immediately obvious how much you don't know, because you're seeing everyone's conversations and you can't follow any of them. And like, I suppose the solution is just like, kinda like put your head down and like focus on what's in front of you, but it's definitely daunting at the beginning. Um, and kind of in the middle, cuz like, I don't know, like it just never stops. Like you'll go online and used to people talk about something, you know, nothing about. And you're like, I really don't know anything.

Marie: 10:18

Yeah. Or that's like even being in the industry for a long time, you could hear something completely new. I think Kirk, when we were pairing the other day for the code challenge, you're like, oh, dot net has so many new cool things. I was like, yeah, I'm guessing most people in.net when something new comes out, they're just like, wow. Or something they haven't worked with before or a section they haven't worked with. It's really hard to know everything. So, yeah. Which is kind of what makes it fun. There's a million new recipes. There's a million. Code things, new new technologies. Yeah.

Bekah: 10:57

I think you need to start a site. That's called code recipes. If there's not one, it would be like, so

Marie: 11:03

perfect. That one would be perfect.

Dan: 11:06

Yeah. Sorry. I was just gonna say no, go ahead. I was just gonna say recipes has become like a language in code documentation that has I found actually to be really, um, really helpful, like cuz cuz people know what it means. Like what a recipe means. Like this is like a, a set of steps and ingredients that you need to. Do this one thing, you know, and it's, it's just like that sort of thought process. I've, I've found to be very level as a, as a consumer of documentation or whatever, you know, it's like a, trying to learn how to do a thing, you know, like here's a recipe for whatever, whatever.

Marie: 11:38

Yeah. Like, like wiring up a mole, like first you do this and then. What would be great. And like a recipe book would be like, oh, here are the problems you could encounter. Mm-hmm and here's how you solve them. Have you checked this?

Bekah: 11:54

That's so awesome. I love that, Marie. I know you have gone through such a journey since I've met you at virtual coffee. You know, I think that you are still in school and then you got your first job. Um, but one of the things I've always been super impressed with is I know that you say that you're a junior developer, but you've never felt like a junior developer when I'm talking to you, you are just very knowledgeable and, um, great at communicating what you're talking about. um, but so it's been great to see that whole journey through virtual coffee. And just out of curiosity, how did you find out about virtual coffee?

Marie: 12:35

I found virtual coffee because. In bootcamp, they were like, oh, networking, networking, networking, which I'm pretty sure. I was the only one who did Twitter at that time. Cuz I only got a Twitter to follow tech people and your name actually popped up as someone to follow Bekah and I saw, oh, she's from Ohio, I'm from Ohio. We're gonna be like the same person. So I followed you and then you kept tweeting about, and I'm like, Hmm, virtual coffee. That seems is weird. And I'm like, I might as well just go. It's just like how I found the women's club. If I hear about it enough, I'll be like, might as well try it out. And so there I was, I'm like, oh, I'm nervous, new people. I'm also not a great public speaker. So I was just nervous in general, but. It's nice seeing people's faces. Everyone had their cameras on. You're like, oh, these are real people. I'm not talking to a wall. They have emotions. And that just makes it more comfortable. And then also the icebreakers that we do, the random questions that also helps because it kind of like lets you know more about the person other than just their tech side. And there's not these barriers of, oh, you have to speak about tech. When you come to virtual coffee. We talk about so many things that it just makes it more personal. And I get to know everyone who comes and you get to know like their story. And it really feels like, oh, we're actually friends. This is like, I'm going to coffee to meet a friend because how many times do you go to a meetup and everyone's silent. No one knows what to talk about. You don't really know how to introduce yourself, even if I've been to say a meetup that I'm consistently at. There's some weird barrier communication barrier or something where you're like, I don't really know this person. And in virtual coffee, that's completely different. Everyone knows everyone's story. Everyone knows your background. Everyone knows what you like, what your strengths are. Like every time I see F sharp, I'm like, where is Kirk at?

Kirk: 14:36

I like a

Marie: 14:37

brain. We all know. Yeah. We all know like about each other. What's which makes it like really great to just come back to. And I think you really get a sense of community with that. I'm

Bekah: 14:49

just gonna start crying over here though. so wonderful.

Marie: 14:54

Thank you. Yeah, but it is great because no other meetup and I go to a lot of meetups because Delta V really like was like, networking is probably the most likely to get you a job. So I'm like, well, looks like I'm going to everything now. So. Out of all my meetups, nothing has ever felt like a solid community. So it's just great.

Kirk: 15:22

Yeah. I really, as somebody who used to go to a lot of meetups, I definitely remember being that guy by like the cheese plate. The only I can think of saying is like, oh, a lot of cheese today. So, you know, like, I don't know what we're supposed to do here until like the main presenter starts stalking. So I'll just try and look. Mm-hmm, intrigued at everything. Um, I do definitely also appreciate that. The conversation, isn't that hard to start here. Like, you know what to do, like there's a nice lead in versus just middle about make friends. It seems like between the ages of four and like 74, we still have the same advice for certain people. Like you just sort of push them in a room and say, go, go be yourself, which is not as helpful. Terrifying.

Bekah: 16:09

I am very much an introvert. So like going to a conference or I've, I've never actually been to a meetup. Um, that's not online, but I, I will just stand by the wall and then like, Try and make eye contact with somebody and hope they're friendly.

Marie: 16:28

I am the same way. And then when they come up to you and talk, you're just like,

Dan: 16:32

I actually have been running the, the Cleveland react meetup. We started like a, I don't know, a year and a half ago or something back when we could see people. Uh, but I was also the same way, like in general, you know, wanting to like, I don't know, just kind of hang back or whatever. And. It was a really hard problem to solve for, you know, as an organizer. And I saw it happening and, you know, didn't know how to fix it, really. Um, having this sort of structure that we have is, I don't know, has been really awesome at virtual coffee. Nice way to solve all

Bekah: 17:04

that. Yeah. I, I was talking to a conference organizer recently about, you know, the, that idea, that same idea, like how do you bring people in? How do you make people feel welcome? And one of the things that he was talking about was when, you know, the people who are there, um, that's how you're able to make the connections and with virtual coffee and having these, you know, frequent coffees, we, we do get to know each other and, um, it makes it easier for all of us to kind of talk to each other about different things. Um, and also I think it provides a really great environment. People at all levels, um, which can be, I think really challenging, but to, you know, feel welcome as a new developer and to feel like you have a place here. If you've been doing this for your whole career is just something that is, I don't know. I really value it about this community. Um, Marie I, one of the questions that I, I love to hear people answer is, um, Finding that transition period from going to bootcamp into your first job and how, how does that play out? So I know for everybody it's different, but it can be really challenging. So can you talk a little bit about that experience and maybe some of the challenges you didn't anticipate?

Marie: 18:36

So I think the biggest challenge with transitioning from bootcamp to my job. I assumed a lot of things would be similar to how we structured, like the code base or laid things out because we did C sharp the last six weeks of bootcamp. And the project I'm on now works as C sharp, but things are completely different how they're laid out, which going into a really huge code base. I didn't really learn how to navigate through. Something with hundreds of files. So I'm also lucky that my instructor, Keith, which you guys have met, he also consults for us. So he is in with me most days, teaching me how to navigate, how to just like go from one part of the project to the next or little tips like, oh, this is like, look, look for this. Or you can tell why this. Which is nice because I'm not sure how other teams are, cuz I only have this experience with a very small team, but I'm guessing on a bigger team you'll you would have someone pairing with you showing you kind of the ropes of, oh, here's the project you might run into this or like here's how we, I personally get from file to file. Um, But I think that was the hardest transition was, wow, this there's a lot of files. This isn't just like 10 files. And then just all of the, the new things of adapting to people you don't know, like, of course, like I've been there since July, whenever you, you start something new or go to a new school or go. Anywhere new you're very like closed off. You don't really wanna tell them like, oh, I'm not really sure about this. You just wing it until you're like, okay, I actually need help now. so it's just like, uh, and then Keith is always like, no, just ask right away. It's just better. Yeah, probably just adapt adapting to new the new code base and new structure. That's not the same as. The day to day bootcamp life.

Bekah: 21:09

Yeah, for sure. I'll echo that as a bootcamp, grad myself. I mean exactly what you're saying. Like you go from working with 10 files and then you're like, what is this even, um, how do these things connect and why and what? Um, and then it is that, that. Time period. You have to figure out how to communicate. And this is why I har on communication being like one of the most important skills all of the time. Um, especially as a new developer, because it's hard, like one, you don't know when to ask, right? Because certainly you need to dig in and you need to learn things yourself. Um, and there's not really a hard and fast role. I know some people say, well, like look at it for 15 minutes and if you don't know, then. Ask, but when you have a huge code base, I think that maybe is not, at least for me, it's not a, a good tool for judging one to ask. If you're going from piece to piece, just trying to track down where all of this stuff is coming from, it's gonna take you longer than 15 minutes and that's still valuable time spent. Um, but it is that like, okay, I need to learn these new things and I need to learn how to communicate with these people. And, and basically, you know, how to trust the people that you're working with. That's super important to, I think, growing as a develop.

Marie: 22:32

Yeah. And trying to, um, kind of make the connection between, oh, let me just look at this file and piece things together and see if I can figure that much out by myself so I can explain kind of where I'm going. Um, I keep mentioning Keith, but he's very big on, you should probably draw it out. Can you just draw it out or explain. Just earlier today, he was like, explain to me what you were trying to do. Mm-hmm because usually that gives you a hint to where you're going in the first place. Yeah. And if you're writing it wrong, then you're like, oh, could you read that code out to me? What is that doing? Oh, that's not even what I said in the first place. So just trying to figuring out how to communicate that way as well, I think is very.

Kirk: 23:19

That, um, that I, I'm starting to think about that concept. I feel like a lot of people, almost everyone from boot camps could probably echo the, I, I had very small projects in boot camp and then IL, they are not so small. Mm-hmm and it sort of makes me wonder if that's there's is there a way to like, work that into curriculums? Like maybe like part of the process, like. This section, we're working on a large established code base where obviously as the bootcamp student, like you're not building it from scratch, but it's like this already exists. And some part of the learning is like, okay, how do you integrate into like an already existing system that feels like something that can be really valuable for people? Or maybe

Marie: 24:09

even like, yeah, I think even just, um, maybe boot camps could. I guess talking from my bootcamp experience, maybe, um, have you tried to work on an open source project? Because even just trying to work through that, because usually those projects are big anyways. Um, like the forum project, there's so many files in that, that, so you could even pair up with another boot grant boot. Person in your class and just try to pair on it, figure it out and walk through it that way.

Dan: 24:53

Yeah. That's interesting. There's a lot of different, like ways to that, that sort of how to make a small change in a large code base, I feel like is an important skill and seems like a solvable one from like a bootcamp's perspective, whether it's open source thing or just like, I dunno, just like they just have a large app that they use, you know, like the open source stuff is, is important and, but it has its own whole set of, you know, Whatever. And then also, if it's not your open source project, then you, you know, have to hope that there's just issues that are appropriate to work on, you know, but yeah, just having some huge app. Yeah. That, and you're like, okay, your next assignment is fix this bug, you know, whatever. But in this huge app, you know, that, that's interesting to think.

Marie: 25:38

I don't know if, uh, bootcamps can pair with like local. I don't know if flat iron has sponsors, but Delta V has sponsors may. Maybe they could for a week out of the, out of the, uh, curriculum pair with those sponsors and have students work on a small feature, like, oh, get to know our, our product. I know a lot of companies are private. but even just like looking, looking at sign some consent form or something, but looking at a large company's code base and being like, oh, maybe partner or pair with one of the employees, because that even will give them an insight to how like day to day jobs are as well.

Bekah: 26:20

Yeah. I think, um, there's a program called collab lab. Um, and they are doing something similar because they're working with a lot of people who, um, Are from nontraditional backgrounds, but they're finding that the issue when they go to interview is, well, you don't have enough experience or you, the way that you talk about code, isn't clear. I mean, a lot of us aren't used to talking about it. If we're coming from nontraditional backgrounds, if you're teaching yourself, who are you talking to about code? If you're in a bootcamp or you're working self-paced, um, remotely, then it's the, it's the same issue. So they pair up teams to work on a project. And I, I don't wanna say exactly what it is cuz I can't remember, but it's a larger project. It helps 'em to develop skills, um, team building communication. They're using GitHub for the project. So really developing a lot of the skills that I think that boot camps miss out on. So that's, you know, certainly helpful. And I think like for me, one of my favorite things that we've done at virtual coffee is the hack Tober Fest initiative. Mm-hmm um, and that was just a really great way to learn about. um, working on different people's projects, how different people communicate, um, how to work with contributors and then just have a wide variety of both, um, open source projects, but support of the community. So, you know, having that there as well was, was really fruitful, um, for me anyway. And I think that, you know, you're definitely on the right track of terms of like, kind of thinking through some of the issues, um, and I love too how you were describing like different how learning a process almost for what you're doing and how you're doing it, um, is, is super valuable too.

Marie: 28:19

Yeah. One thing I liked about Heto Fest is I worked with a lot of people's projects who weren't my language that I was comfortable with. So I'm most comfortable with C. I worked with Kirk quite a bit on his Elm project. And we could talk about like similarities between what I know and what he knows through Elm. I'm like, oh, I like, I can, I can basically understand this or get where this is going. Even though I don't know the language. And this is the first time I've ever worked in Elm before. So it's kind of nice just knowing that, oh, I know the basic core concept of like JavaScript C sharp. HTML all that. And then I could translate it into how to help Kirk with his Elm project, which is nice to know like, oh, or nice to gain experience, knowing like, oh, even though I don't know this language or know this, this project or no, like this library, I know I can at least figure out some pieces to make the connection between what I know. And the new project language or anything new that I might be working on.

Kirk: 29:36

What also Marie did not mention was that while she was pairing with me, we totally found a weird thing that VSCO does. And I had no idea what was going on and I was panicking and I'm like, I've ruined her hack, Tober Fest experience. Everything is terrible now, but she was very, she was very pleasant about it and she told me it was fine. And we eventually figured it. , um, which is one of the fun things about, about pairing, but yeah, I, I do, cuz I remember when we, we spoke about Octoberfest and how we wanted to do it, we spent a lot of time thinking, well, do we wanna reach out to different groups? And should we source like good projects? And then we realized it was so hard to sort of do quality control on like the wider open source universe that. We just, oh, we should probably just like do our own thing at least make sure, like, we have one established project that like, we know will provide like a good experience for people because like we made it and we're the ones maintaining it. Um, and I think that actually turned out pretty well. And then, you know, everybody who participated kind of like fed off each other. So someone had a good read me. I'm like, oh, okay. I'm gonna use a read me like that. Oh, you have good, um, templates. I'll borrow your templates. So. and the projects are still the projects they're still, you know, like unique in different languages and wonderful, but at least the approach and the user friendliness for newer developers was like something we could try and standardize. And I'm, I'm really happy with how that turned out. Um, you know, even, even for me, like, I, I didn't have that much experience contributing to other people's projects before this. Um, it was fun. That was, that was really, that was really cool. And I, I, I also wish, like I'd had more chances to do that way earlier in my career than now. I wish I had just been doing that from the start, cuz that is the majority of people. When you work in software, like you're not fielding up something from scratch, you're working on something already established, right.

Marie: 31:43

One of the aspects of Octoberfest that I really enjoyed was, um, Nick helped me set up, um, forums, project, which you get to learn about how to be taught by someone else, because how many times are you on a new job? And then you have to work with a new developer or a new senior developer, or just someone new on your team. And you have to like try to find a way to. Discuss your problems or like collaborate with them and figure out what they're trying to say. Cuz everyone explains things differently. But I think having virtual coffees hack Octoberfest, we, most of you guys had smaller projects. And that even helps people with an introductory project because it's like, oh, here's my project. I have like five to 10 files, maybe a few more. And then you guys are like, oh no, I'm trying to build this feature in this feature and this feature. So we have quite a bit more code and then you could go to even bigger open source projects like forum and then, and then work. Like my work has. A ton of files. So it's just like more steps, I guess.

Bekah: 33:02

Dot net. Yeah. I wanna touch. Something that you said, um, the ability to be able to dive into code bases with different languages. And one of the things that I heard pretty early on was, well, okay. You learned Ruby in bootcamp and you learned JavaScript, but that doesn't mean that you should limit yourself to applying for jobs with just those languages. And I had heard that, but I didn't. Quite understand it. And I think that you did a really good, I, uh, good job of kind of talking through how that works, because so much of it is the thought process, right? It's problem solving. Yep. Um, and it's just, you know, you have, there are gonna be different terms and there are going to be different patterns with different languages that you have to learn. But essentially, if you have that problem solving down, and if you could do a good analysis of what you're looking at, then, then that does open doors for you to move to projects with different languages or to apply for a much wider variety of positions.

Marie: 34:05

One thing we did at bootcamp at Delvy is we had mock interviews on Fridays. So. um, one of our sponsors actually came into interview us. They, he got a huge like question packet and one of my questions was about a Python dictionary. I don't, I know a little Python, but I don't know Python, but I know C has dictionary. So I explained it. Oh, I'm, I'm not familiar with Python as much as I am C sharp and I know C has dictionaries, then I want to explain how I know dictionaries and I'm like, I'm assuming it's like Python. They might not be exactly the same, but here's what I know about dictionaries, which I think that like, anytime you're in an interview and you don't exactly know, but you've heard something that could tie in. I think that that is just really good. Just to know, oh, you might not know the answer, but if you can make connection to something that, you know, that really will benefit you in the long run and even make you possibly stand out, cuz some people will just say. Sorry. I don't know Python. I can't answer the question, but maybe elaborate a bit more and be like, oh, well, I don't know. However, I am familiar with C sharp and they have have a dictionary and here's how I would use a C sharp dictionary. Python might be similar, but I know I have enough information to. Find out how a Python dictionary works.

Dan: 35:29

I think that's great advice. Just like the, I think the thing that people are looking for when they're hiring, especially, um, you know, earlier career developers is, is not so much the knowledge of everything, but just the ability to maybe connect the dots and willingness to learn. And. Maybe some evidence that they have learned things , you know, and it's like, cause you know, if you're hiring somebody, uh, you know, in a, I don't know, junior or whatever, that sort of role you're expecting them to be learning, you know, I mean expecting everybody to be learning on the job, but you know, I, I think that just great advice is like connecting mm-hmm like going into an interview knowing like, I know I'm not gonna know everything in the world cuz nobody can, you know, but um, the, the like practicing and connecting the. There are questions to your knowledge, you know, uh, is, is like a great, I think that's some great insight.

Marie: 36:22

Yeah.

Bekah: 36:25

Um, one of the things I also wanted to ask, I know, um, it, in tech, there's so much to learn and so much to be excited about, like all the shiny things are out there and like, how do you figure out what you wanna learn next? So I just am curious, you know, what are things that you are interested in learning about in the future and kind of how, how. Or why you decided on those things

Marie: 36:52

right now? I am one of my, uh, tasks or requirements in my contract. When I, when I started work with strata, folio is creating a dashboard using D three JS. So I actually started the interview process with strata folio before I graduated bootcamp. And they told me about this. So I did a bit of research and in our bootcamp we spend a week doing self-learning so teach yourself something new. So I got to play around with it. So I am really trying to learn more D three ass and create more graphs and charts and just really cool things with it. Um, even just trying to do that in my free time, or at least reading about. I don't really have too much free time, but when I do finally get the free time, that's what I would like to work on just to play around with it and see, see some cool things I can do with it. Cause you always on, I think D three has a website called observable, which you can like look at all the different, um, like implementations of, of the library. I think just playing around with it and learning about it is just gonna be fun. That sounds awesome. I was just thinking about like, oh, maybe, maybe I could use one of my cookbooks and like, try to like chart something from a cookbook. Oh, wine regions verse like, oh, this said it could pair with this. This like type of dish or some, some sort of graphic I could make just to be fun or different, I guess. And just to, just to keep learning fun. That's

Dan: 38:47

awesome. D three D three's really cool. There's some really cool stuff. I think you can do with it. I've only like you just scratched the surface of it, but I always keep trying, I'm like, oh wait, let's use that. You know, everyone's like, no, no, it's not. It's not about yet, but.

Marie: 39:03

I'm not, I'm not into like physics or anything like that, but they have that like force mm-hmm force, layout, or force. And so like playing with the bubbles and like pulling the bubbles and yeah, it's really interesting. And I would definitely like playing with that a bit more just to tinker and. Like have fun with it. I guess I'm it's

Bekah: 39:25

on my list too. So we should like get something going so we can all do fun stuff. I feel like there's gotta

Dan: 39:31

be something, something we can put on the website. So on the VC website,

Marie: 39:35

one of, one of my thoughts for next year is Octoberfest, which I know a bunch of people. I just know everyone's gonna love it is creating something for students, for data structures. Because D three uses can use a lot of animations. So like, as you scroll through the page, like maybe like building like link list or going through different, um, data structures and explaining how they work and different problems that go along with them as using D three. And just like, as you scroll through the page, like, oh, this is how you go through a binary tree or reverse a binary tree or anything. It would just be really cool to build something out like that. As you scroll through the page, you just see like the data structures being like built or like going through a array or a multi-dimensional array or something like that would be, I think that would be really fun to do as like a group project. Cuz we do the exorcism or different like advent of code, just like then you would have to like the, the. Code recipes is kind of explaining in more basic terminology, how to work through like data structures or different challenges.

Dan: 40:53

There is somebody's I'm man, there's a woman who has a blog that she does kind of like what you're talking about. And I cannot remember what her name is, but I will, I will send you the link. I'll share the link. As soon as I find it, cause she has done, she's done some they're mostly front end tutorials, I think. But, um, mm-hmm, uses D three and uses animation as you scroll and like all this really cool stuff. I, I haven't, it's spoken me that I can't remember her name, but I will, I will, uh, I will send it to you. And I'll if I remember it, I'll, I'll put in the show notes as well, so yeah.

Marie: 41:25

Yeah. Cuz that, just doing that, like. Is exciting because you get to build something cool. And then you're like learning in the process like, oh, I'm not like awesome at DSAs. But if I get to like fiddle around with something, pick apart something, and then show you this website I built that shows you this cool DSA using D three. It kinda like solidifies your knowledge while keeping totally like how kids play with like fun, like little. Little things and they still learn from it. So

Kirk: 42:00

that's, um, there's another project you might be interested in Marie. Uh, one of the folks in the Elm community, he does touch dreams and he was working on a recipe site for himself in Elm. Yeah. And an interesting thing he was doing was trying to make it so. You could adjust, you could scale recipes. So like there's the way it's in the book, like a slider and like, okay. But what if I actually need more servings?

Marie: 42:30

Um, yeah, like for 10 people or what if I wanna cut it just for date night for 10, instead of having to like

Kirk: 42:36

buy hand, figure out, oh, how do I trim all these ingredients? And he was working on that, and that was really interesting. Because of course, nothing in software is ever easy. Like some things don't scale linearly. So he would end up with weird units, one third of an, a yeah, like 0.01 grams of salt. And it's like, that can't be right. So it was just, it was just like a really interesting problem space that I think he's still working on it. But I'm wondering, I don't know when you mentioned, I feel like we still haven't established by the way, whether you made the fresh plastic site.

Marie: 43:08

Do I made just like the basic like first page, but then from then on, I've just been making other things. So it's kind of hard to get back and careers have shifted now. I'm like, oh, just focusing on software. So maybe in the future, people will get fresh pasta, people need fresh

Kirk: 43:29

pasta. Um, yeah. But yeah, I just, I remember like I would watch him. that was one of the ways like I wanted to learn, not just Elm cuz at that point, like I was pretty familiar with the language, but all the stuff you were talking about, like how to actually set up a project, you know, you know, what, what is his build process? Like? What is his order of operations when he is working on something as somebody who's like been in the industry for a really long time. Um, so that was really fun to watch and even just like how he did his tests and like how he iterated through solutions.

Bekah: 44:05

um, okay. Marie, you talked a little bit about you're working on different things you started with this pasta site. What other fun stuff are you working on?

Marie: 44:16

Currently? I'm working still trying to tidy up some of my projects from boot camp, but, uh, we made this C sharp website called AYQ in and it's just asynchronous. Like adding hotels, deleting ho hotels editing, but I am trying to tidy that up and just like really build it out into like a whole hotel website, which has the backend like administrative section with like permissions and then the actual like hotel site where you can go look at these fake hotel rooms that I'm gonna put up fake hotels. So like a multi-branch hotel. Um, corporation and then every time you click, like, oh, I'm going to go to, well, I'm in Bermuda now. So I'm gonna look at hotels in Bermuda. It'll show these fake hotels I populated or put in the database and then the rooms and, um, prices, amenities, all of that. Just building out that kind of stuff, because I. Right now we do stuff with like permission checks. So just like practicing what I know and I'm learning on the job, but applying it to a different project that I'm working on to kind of like solidify my knowledge, which I'm gonna do it differently in my personal project versus work because my personal project is set up completely different than work. And, um, Yeah, just, just using what I'm learning, like kind of fresh on the job and applying it to my like fun side project that I'm, I guess didn't start as a fun side project, but it's now a fun side project, but kind of just solid solidifying, like what I'm doing. To Ayn, which is gonna be super cool when it comes out. Because I think I'm even gonna add like, maybe not with D three GS, but like putting in, um, on the administrative side, like. Expense reports and salary and payroll and all of that to like have some sort of dashboard to show, oh, you've paid employees this much, but you only made this much or here's where your money's going. Or I, I haven't worked out exactly what I wanna do with it, but it's gonna turn into a whole work in progress. It's like huge, huge project sounds.

Dan: 46:58

Sounds awesome.

Kirk: 46:59

Find someone ambitious, but. Like developers look at their side projects.

Bekah: 47:05

yeah. I also love how you're talking about taking what you are learning at work and applying it to a different project, because that does really help to solidify your knowledge. Cuz sometimes I find that I can do something in one project. And then when I go to transfer to the other project, I'm like, wait, why, what, why isn't this working? Right. And so to ha to be able to. Skills from one and put them into another really does, um, you know, help you to get a well rounded understanding of what you're doing. And I think that's really great advice.

Marie: 47:42

Yeah. And trying to figure out, oh, now these are the differences between my work project and my personal project, because we use old.net and my project is new. The new do net core, I think. Um, so there's just little tiny little differences that you're just gonna do completely differently because there's now new built in features and methods, but just, yeah. Learning to translate something that. Maybe I watched this on a YouTube video or Kirk walked me through this, on his project and he set his, his project up one way because we paired the other day and I was like, oh Kirk, you you're, you're setting your project up this way. And then see him was also there. And she's like, oh, that's not how we set it up. But you also did yours completely different, which worked. And you. There's a million different ways to do the same thing. And it's still right. It still works, but it's just figuring out, oh yeah, I can think about it that way. And it still works. And Kirk explained, oh, I did it because, because this is how I know how to do it. And I was like, oh, I did it because this is how I know how to do it. Yeah. Don't give

Kirk: 48:58

me too much credit and they're completely different. I didn't, because that's, I only know one away. I'm like, well, this is gonna,

Marie: 49:03

yeah, exactly, exactly though. But then you see like, You think of it one way. I think of it this way. They're both right. We both got solutions to work and like, if you see someone's stuff, their code and it's not how you do it, just have them walk you through it and be like, oh yeah, that is how it could work.

Bekah: 49:30

Yeah, I love that so much. And I, uh, with my background being in English, I always like, think about it in terms of literature and writing. And so much of coding is, is you're an author of something that's being written, right. There are different styles and there are different patterns and ways of doing things, um, that give you. Different feels, um, and can provide different things, but there are many valid ways of doing it and also fun. Like if you've ever written with a person, um, if you've collaborated on a project, like there's a negotiation, like it, it has to flow, right? Like it all has to sound the same. And I think too, when you're diving into a new code base, you might have come with. A certain style or even certain bad habits. Right. And then you're working through that like, okay, well, this is, this is the style of this project that I'm working on. And now I need to figure out how to kind of translate that in my brain. And when you're looking at people doing the same thing in multiple different approaches, I think that can also really help you to understand, um, how, how many different methods there are and inform your, your own understanding and style.

Marie: 50:43

Yeah. I, I think like collaborating with people, hearing how they work, seeing how they work and just having all of that knowledge of different ways, even not of the same thing, but like Kirk working on his project, you working on your project and me pairing with Nick on forum, seeing all the different ways you could set projects up, it just helps, you know, that you can adapt. And learn new styles, learn or just read other people's work and understand it can still work, even if it's not exactly how you would set it up.

Bekah: 51:23

Yeah, absolutely. All right, Maria, I wanna thank you so much for being here with us. Uh, this has been a great interview before, uh, we end the episode. I just wanna make sure that I haven't missed anything that you wanna talk about or anything that you'd like to.

Marie: 51:40

No, I think, I think we discussed it a lot. Not really sure what else? That's great.

Bekah: 51:44

I think this has been really fantastic. So thank you so much for being here with us and sharing your story. Um, So where can our listeners find you?

Marie: 51:54

You can find me on Twitter as Marie. Antones my, just my full name or LinkedIn.

Bekah: 52:01

Awesome. Thank you so much. And we'll link those all in the show notes. Um, so thanks again for being here. Thanks for having

Marie: 52:07

me. Thanks Marie. Thanks everybody.

Bekah: 52:12

Thank you for listening to this episode of the virtual coffee podcast. This episode was produced by Dan OT and Bekah OT, Weigel, and edited by Dan OT. If you have any questions or comments, you can hit us up on Twitter at. Virtual coffee IO, or you can email us@podcastvirtualcoffee.io. You can find the show notes@virtualcoffee.io. Plus you can sign up for the newsletter to find out what virtual coffee's been up to.

Dan: 52:40

Please remember to subscribe and leave us a review on apple podcasts or wherever you're getting your podcast. Next week, we have Tori Crawford on the podcast, um, discussing the problems of interviewing, uh, in the tech industry. Thanks so much for listening and we will see you next week.

The Virtual Coffee Podcast is produced by Dan Ott and Bekah Hawrot Weigel and edited by Dan Ott.