In week 4, you’ll have a job experience activity with employers. The next two prompts are designed to help you both prepare and reflect on that experience:
Activities: what questions do you have about the activities that a software developer does on a daily basis?
- How many projects are you usually working on at once? Do you generally work on parts/elements of a whole project or work on things from start to product completion?
Environment: what questions do you have about the overall environment and culture of this workplace?
- What is the culture like? How has going remote changed the culture of your company? Are you able to maintain the same level of connection and camaraderie with your coworkers? Have you onboarded new people during remote work and how are they fitting in/adapting to the company's structure/culture/work expectations?
Interactions: what questions do you have about the team at this company? What do you hope to learn during this experience?
- What have been some of the best experiences you've had working with someone where you've made a good connection? Are there specific types of projects that you feel foster more connection with your coworkers, and what are they?
Objects: what questions do you have about the code or the product?
- Sounds like you work on lots of different code bases and products. Is it always different? Or do you find particular kinds of companies tend to reach out to you for help? Is there a common thread between all of your clients?
Users: what questions do you have about how the company interacts with their users?
- As a consulting agency how has covid/being remote effected your work? Is it harder to get a read on clients/users from afar or just challenging in a different way?
Activities: what was engaging to the person/people you met with? It was extremely interesting to watch Mark work. Although he was working in backend technologies that we weren't familiar with, he was using processes we use daily and understand well (testing, fullfilling project tickets and PR requests)
Environment: what did you notice about how they talked about the culture and environment of this company? Generally pretty positive, there were a few critiques but mainly he seemed happy with how things were set up and how they worked for him. As a fully remote company there are unique challeneges in the culture and 'environment' but he seemed perfectly happy with it.
Interactions: what did you notice about your interactions with this person/people? He was kind, respectful of our questions and curiosities. He took the time to walk us through the high level concepts of what he was working on so we could follow along at least a little bit with what he was doing. He was candid and supportive of our journey into tech.
Objects: what did you learn about their approach to code and/or product development? He spoke a lot to the idea that you need to be good at communicating with others. I asked him if there was anything he wished he had focused on more at Turing or something he wish he had learned better before leaving Turing and he said communication without a doubt. I found that very insightful because especially in such a remote-based world communication is going to be absolutely paramount.
Users: what did you learn about their approach to their users? test double's users are other companies as they are a consultancy, so it was interesting to see how they handle that interaction. Its different from a public user/individual user interaction, and their level of interaction with their client company varies from contract to contract.
What are your main takeaways from the shadow? How will you use this information to help you with your job search strategy?
I think my biggest takeaway from the shadow was that I am not actually that far off from being a "real" software developer. I understood the processes he was using, both technically and workflow, even though I didn't know the language he was using. It make me much more confident in my abilities and the fact that I will be hireable as a dev sooner than I thought. So reassuring. I also enjoyed hearing other questions that the rest of the cohort had and took some notes about the way they were asking questions that I felt was helpful as well as the ones that seemed less informational/illicited less of an insightful response from Mark (ie avoiding questions that are very situationally dependent re: clients/users).
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?
Week 3 was pretty productive for me. I felt like we had a lot of work to accomplish (including the PD!) and it felt overwhelming at first, especially with the looming break, but I was very effective if getting up early and starting my morning off right, as well as going to be at a decent hour and closing the computer early as well. I would like to move forward being more effective with my timeblocking.. which will take a bit more planning but i think will be make me much more effective overall.
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?
A reinforcement strategy I might implement is social media time after completely a block of work. I try to limit my time on social media to maintain focus and not waste time, but I do love scrolling through instagram so i may use a 5 or 10 minute reward of social media after successfully completing an efficient and focused time block of work.
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 love visual cues so maybe making a chart on my wall with blocks I can color in when I complete tasks will be beneficial to me.
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?
Remind myself to not be discouraged by breaking the chain. Just jump back in and start fresh!
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?
I will probably partner up with my accountabilibuddy as we have a good relationship and it would be helpful to have someone who knows me a bit better to help keep me accountable.