Hacking My Tech Career at Hacker School

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Hacking My Tech Career at Hacker School Paul-Jean Letourneau Champaign-Urbana CODE TechMix, Sept 18th 2014 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

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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

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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

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Why I applied to HS • Around 2012 got pinged by a FB recruiter • Awesome! FB wants me! • Silicon Valley here I come! ! ! ! !

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“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! ———>

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Look how pretty!

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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

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Learn online things! • So I took a bunch of classes online: • statistics! • data analysis! • machine learning! • startup engineering! • data structures!

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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???

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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/

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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?”

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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

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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

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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

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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 …

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“I’m super sorry …” Boohoo! … this is deﬁnitely a rejection letter

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No wait! Woohoo! ….

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• 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

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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

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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

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Day 0: meet fellow Hacker Schoolers

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Day 0: meet the facilitators

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Day 0: introduction to Hacker School • The facilitators gave us a presentation • They described the parameters of the school ? ? ? ? www.hackerschool.com/about

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What is Hacker School? • 3 months full-time • free • “writers retreat” for programmers • ~60 people • coding and collaborating ? ? ? ? www.hackerschool.com/about

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• a “social experiment” • unstructured • self-directed • project-based What is Hacker School? ? ? ? ? www.hackerschool.com/about

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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)

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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

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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)

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“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

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Day 0: the four social rules 1. No feigned surprise 2. No well-actually’s 3. No back-seat driving 4. No subtle-isms ? ? ? ?

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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”

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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

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No back-seat driving • people are having a conversation • and you interject with advice from across the room • more disruptive than helpful

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No subtle -isms • racism • sexism • homophobia • transphobia • ‘nuff said

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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 ? ? ? ?

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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 ? ? ? ?

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Day 0: Zulip chat client

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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

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• 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

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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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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Pure Javascript vs React.js

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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

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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

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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

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Job fair • At the end of the batch, there was a job fair • Companies gave presentations and mingled over drinks ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

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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 ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

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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

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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