- What does a toxic environment look like?
- What were the red flags?
- What do your work days look like?
- How frequently are you here past 5pm?
- On call? Schedule? How does it violate my schedule.
- how are things organized?
- PM? Kanban? Working schedules?
- To echo that. Ask how their user stories are set up and the amount of ‘Delivery Points’ you’re required to fulfill during sprints. So I get 8 points (about 8 days of work) every two weeks. Meetings happen so that accounts for the other 2 workdays Avoid places w/only jr. devs Need someone to lean on
Activities: what questions do you have about the activities that a software developer does on a daily basis?
- What does a typical day look like?
- what does a hard day look like?
- What constitutes a hard day?
- What does a good day look like?
- What part of your work do you most enjoy?
- What do you wish your job afforded you?
- What do you wish you knew before entering a career in software development?
Environment: what questions do you have about the overall environment and culture of this workplace?
- If you went through software dev program, do you find overlap at work?
- Do you find that you're able to find projects and work you enjoy?
- How do you interact with demands of sales/marketing, etc?
Interactions: what questions do you have about the team at this company? What do you hope to learn during this experience?
- How does your team look out for you?
- How do you look out for your team?
- Do you find it to be very collabrative?
- How often do you need to learn new technologies?
- How often do you need to brush up on old knowledge?
- What tools do you use most often?
- What is the collabrative work flow?
- How do you parse out user complaints/bugs, what's the system for catching and addressing that?
- How do you interact with customer service?
Environment: what did you notice about how they talked about the culture and environment of this company?
- Don't shy away from your life pre-turing
- It says something making your way through Turing
- Highlight challenges and how you addressed them
- How would you do things differently
Things went well. Something that was great to hear was this insistence on not settling - don't settle for a company who won't support their workers, who doesn't align with your goals, etc. Also the idea that we don't know everything and that we aren't expected to.
Their approach is very collabrative - project management is a must, and point assignment leaves plenty of room for the given task to be completed. Divide and conquer with different folks with their strengths, which doesn't exclude them from engaging their talents in other areas.
UI/UX decisions are made based on metrics focusing on given user behavior - not based on what one thinks the user wants.
What are your main takeaways from the shadow? How will you use this information to help you with your job search strategy?
That like a lot of things, there's plenty of bullshitting that can occur in the industry. Having skill is important, but not of ultimate importance - you can't do much if you can't work well with others. Don't settle on a job, don't settle for less than you can give or get. Reach out for help and continue to hone your craft. Pair pair pair.
Assess your habits from week 3: how did you spend your time this past week? What was effective in your habits? What could be more effective? What steps will you take to make that happen?
Beating the hell out of this dead horse. Self-care. Despite feeling confident with the material, despite presenting as someone who has his shit together, I landed myself in mid-mod on suboptimal sleep and exited defeated. I have continuously and over time shot myself in the foot, in the same spot, over and over again. This is the week I finally started implementing changes to hold myself accountable, in order to get to bed at a reasonable hour. All the extra studying that I'm doing into the wee hours of the morning are for naught if I can't access them in a sleepy, rest-starved haze.
Implement a reiforcement strategy: to make one of your habits more satisfying, what is a reward you can give yourself immediately after completing the habit? How will this reward encourage you to continue completing that habit?
Hmm. Hard to say with this one. Sleep and rest will be it's own reward. When I get to bed, I tend to try and focus on how it feels good to be in bed on time, and to imagine how it feels when my brain is buzzing with code and all out of sync with my body on those late night coding benders. Goal: 10:30 PM cut off for coding, 12AM cut off for sleep.
Other habits I'd like to incorporate:
- JSfun for 15 minutes when I wake up // I get to drink coffee afterwards
- Exercism for 15 min at the end of the day // Play with my dogs
- Paired work 2x week 20 min // socializing afterwards
- PD job search and network building 20 min 2x/week // stretching
- Review today's material and pre-teach tomorrow's 30 min/day at night (after coding) // a glass of my favorite spirit
What is a habit that you want to make sure to do every day? How could you visually cue yourself to complete it (i.e., moving a paper clip)? How can you visually track it each time you’ve completed it? Could you automate the tracking? How will you do that?
- I was thinking about the Seinfeld calendar X, but maybe filling in each day with three fat different colored markers. Each color representing something - maybe my JSfun, pre/post teaching, exercism
How to get back on track when missing a habit: if you miss a day or two of completing your habit, how will you get yourself going again?
- Reach out to accountability partners. :-D
Pick an accountability partner (your cohort accountabilibuddy, your mentor, a close friend, etc.) and create a habit contract with them. How often will you check in with each other? How will they hold you accountable?
2x/week - I've asked mine to rudely demand I get off the computer if I'm still active at 10:30PM