Hacking My Tech Career at Hacker School

I attended the Winter 2014 batch of Hacker School to reboot my tech career and meet kindred spirits. It was an awesome way to hack my tech career.

Transcript

1. Hacking My Tech Career at Hacker School Paul-Jean Letourneau Champaign-Urbana CODE TechMix, Sept 18th 2014 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
2. Overview 1. Why I applied to HS 2. Getting into HS 3. Day 0 4. What I worked on 5. Job hunt 6. What I’m doing now
3. Overview 1. Why I applied to HS! 2. Getting into HS 3. Day 0 4. What I worked on 5. Job hunt 6. What I’m doing now
4. Why I applied to HS • Around 2012 got pinged by a FB recruiter • Awesome! FB wants me! • Silicon Valley here I come! ! ! ! !
5. “Data Scientist” • FB: we want “Data Scientists” • Me: I’m a “Data Scientist”! • What IS a Data Scientist?? • Who knows! • But look! I make pretty graphs! ———>
6. Look how pretty!
7. FB interview… EPIC FAIL • FB said “nope you’re not” • I didn’t know open-source tools like R • My statistics were rusty • My algorithms needed work
9. Learn online things! • So I took a bunch of classes online: • statistics! • data analysis! • machine learning! • startup engineering! • data structures!
10. But something was missing … • Learning stuff online was good • But so lonely! • I missed people … • I wanted to learn with other people! • Wasn’t there an internship, or something I could do???
11. This thing called “Hacker School” • My wife remembered reading about this thing called “Hacker School” in Wired or something • Whoa, these people look happy! • The application deadline was … yesterday :( http://archive.wired.com/geekmom/2012/12/hacker-school-experience/
12. Overview 1. Why I applied to Hacker School 2. Applying to Hacker School! 3. Day 0 4. What I worked on 5. Job hunt 6. What I’m doing now
13. Applying to Hacker School • I found out about Hacker School the day after the application deadline, • about Dec 15th 2013 • But luckily they do rolling admissions • So I buckled down and wrote my application in a couple days • I submitted it on Dec 18th
14. Application questions • CracklePop: • For all integers from 1 to 100, print: • “Crackle” if divisible by 3 • “Pop” if divisible by 5 • “CracklePop” if divisible by both 3 and 5
15. Coding project • “Link to a program you’ve written from scratch” • I sent my WordPress client for Mathematica: https://github.com/paul-jean/blog-this
16. Essay questions • “Why do you want to do Hacker School?” • “What would you like to work on at Hacker School?” • “What is the most fascinating thing you’ve learned in the past month?” • “What do you want to be doing in 2 years?”
17. Response • I got an email from Nick (Hacker School CEO) about 2 weeks later, on Dec 28th ——> • He sent a link where I could schedule a 30 min Skype interview with a Hacker School facilitator • I chose Zach ——> • This turned out to be an informal chat
18. Pair programming • Then I scheduled a pair programming session with Dave —> • They asked me to provide some of my own code for us to work on together • The goal was to fix or improve something within 30 min or so
19. Pair programming • I had recently written some Java code for printing a binary tree to a terminal • We worked on generalizing it to multi-digit labels on the nodes https://github.com/paul-jean/code-dojo/tree/master/20131226-array-to-bin-tree
20. Follow-up • Dave said he’d try to get back to me by the end of the day • Let the nail-biting begin • Dave’s email crushed my soul …
21. “I’m super sorry …” Boohoo! … this is definitely a rejection letter
22. No wait! Woohoo! ….
24. • Hacker School was 3 months • That was too long for a leave of absence from Wolfram • So after 7 years I resigned • Kind of terrifying
26. Overview 1. Why I applied to HS 2. Getting into HS 3. Day 0! 4. What I worked on 5. Job hunt 6. What I’m doing now
27. Day 0: meet the space • The Hacker School space is in Lower Manhattan, in SoHo • It’s a big open work space • A row of desks and some meeting rooms • The meeting rooms are named after famous computer scientists • e.g. Lovelace, Babbage, Church, Turing
31. Day 0: meet fellow Hacker Schoolers
32. Day 0: meet the facilitators
33. Day 0: introduction to Hacker School • The facilitators gave us a presentation • They described the parameters of the school ? ? ? ? www.hackerschool.com/about
34. What is Hacker School? • 3 months full-time • free • “writers retreat” for programmers • ~60 people • coding and collaborating ? ? ? ? www.hackerschool.com/about
35. • a “social experiment” • unstructured • self-directed • project-based What is Hacker School? ? ? ? ? www.hackerschool.com/about
36. Hacker School is NOT ? ? ? ? www.hackerschool.com/about • NOT a bootcamp • the stated goal is to learn deeply about what interests you • NOT for learning a specific tool (e.g. Rails)
37. How does Hacker School make $$? ? ? ? ? https://www.hackerschool.com/manual#sec-recruiting • Hacker School is also NOT a nonprofit • Companies pay them to recruit HS graduates • Companies pay them 25% of the first year’s salary
38. How does Hacker School make $$? ? ? ? ? https://www.hackerschool.com/manual#sec-recruiting • During Hacker School, focus on learning what you’re passionate about • After Hacker School is over, they will help you find a job (if you want one)
39. “We don't run Hacker School so we can recruit, we recruit so we can run Hacker School.” https://www.hackerschool.com/manual#sec-recruiting
40. Day 0: the four social rules 1. No feigned surprise 2. No well-actually’s 3. No back-seat driving 4. No subtle-isms ? ? ? ?
41. No feigned surprise • acting surprised when someone says they don’t know something • “What? You don’t know what the stack is?!” • people need to feel comfy saying “I don’t know”
42. No well-actually’s • someone says something that’s almost correct • … and you’re like “well, actually …” • that’s usually more about grandstanding than being precise
43. No back-seat driving • people are having a conversation • and you interject with advice from across the room • more disruptive than helpful
44. No subtle -isms • racism • sexism • homophobia • transphobia • ‘nuff said
45. Day 0: hopes and fears • We all sat in a group and voiced our fears • … and our hopes • The facilitators wrote them down and posted them on the wall for the entire batch ? ? ? ?
46. Day 0: schedule • School in session Mon - Thurs • Mandatory group check-in at 10:30 AM sharp • Check-in groups will rotate every 2 weeks • Tech talk every Monday night • Optional job prep sessions on Fridays ? ? ? ?
47. Day 0: Zulip chat client
48. Overview 1. Why I applied to Hacker School 2. Applying to Hacker School 3. Day 0 4. What I worked on! 5. Job hunt 6. What I’m doing now
49. • Andrea sent a message out on Zulip asking if anyone wanted to work in Scala • Me! • So we paired on a Boggle word puzzle solver
50. http://paul-jean.github.io/2014/05/17/gol-react.html • In the second week, Jake asked me to pair on the Game of Life in Javascript
51. • Later on I asked Mary to help me refactor my Javascript code into a more functional style http://paul-jean.github.io/2014/05/17/gol-react.html
52. • But then Damian offered to pair with me to refactor it again • This time we used D3.js http://paul-jean.github.io/2014/05/17/gol-react.html
53. • BUT then an alum Thomas stopped by the space • He said he’d pair with me on React.js • So we refactored my Game of Life again! Now using React! http://paul-jean.github.io/2014/05/17/gol-react.html
54. • React.js is known for making DOM (browser screen) updates very efficiently • So I wrote a Chrome extension to highlight the updates • Only the cells that change color are updated on each step: http://paul-jean.github.io/2014/05/17/gol-react.html
55. Pure Javascript vs React.js
56. Code all the things! • GOL in HTML5 canvas • GOL in functional Javascript • GOL in D3.js • GOL in React.js • GOL in Clojure / ClojureScript • GOL in Python • chart animations in D3.js • Clojure hackathon • LudumDare game hackathon • Boggle solver in Scala • url shortening server in node.js • Chrome plugin to highlight DOM mutations • mergesort in Javascript • memoization cab driver problem in Javascript • hash table from scratch in Java • phone book app in node.js • file-based prefix tree in node.js • linked list in Javascript https://github.com/paul-jean
58. Other Hacker Schooler’s projects • distributed hash table • video BitTorrent client • interactive fiction game engine for the sega genesis • hopscotch hash table in assembly • radio signal visualizer • panoramic 360 video player for the Oculus Rift • Arduino door lock controller • real-time collaborative coding platform • recursive descent parser • graph database engine • BitTorrent client Go • monadic parser combinators • wifi-enabled remote-controlled car using Arduino
59. Overview 1. Why I applied to Hacker School 2. Applying to Hacker School 3. Day 0 4. What I worked on 5. Job hunt! 6. What I’m doing now
60. Job fair • At the end of the batch, there was a job fair • Companies gave presentations and mingled over drinks ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
61. Job hunt • Sonali gave me personal coaching through the interview process • Her advice was frank, practical, and super-duper valuable! • I interviewed with both HS and non-HS companies ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
62. Overview 1. Why I applied to Hacker School 2. Applying to Hacker School 3. Day 0 4. What I worked on 5. Job hunt 6. What I’m doing now
63. PhotoShelter NYC! • I’m now a Developer at PhotoShelter! • I’m working on front-end web • Mainly Javascript • Working with an in-house MVC framework • Porting view layer to React.js
65. The PhotoShelter family
66. www.hackerschool.com/apply