Building Dev Skills While Staying at Your Current Job

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Building Dev Skills While Staying at Your Current Job Tips for Career Changers

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Who am I?

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@mirka Lena Morita ● Former designer ● Director for Women Who Code Tokyo ● JavaScript Developer at Automattic

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We’re hiring!

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How I got here

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@mirka Editorial Design UI/UX Design Development 2007 2018 What I was paid to do

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@mirka Editorial Design Development (for fun!) UI/UX Design Development 2007 2018 What I was actually doing

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Let’s talk money

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@mirka Earning power Skill Compensation

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@mirka Earning power Skill Compensation

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@mirka Changing careers Skill & Comp Time Old career

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@mirka Changing careers Skill & Comp Time Old career New career

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@mirka Changing careers Skill & Comp Time Old career New career

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How to transition smoothly?

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Build up as much skill/experience before leaving your old career.

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@mirka Enter at a higher level Skill & Comp Time Old career New career Prepare!

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But how?

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@mirka Learning checklist ● Read books/documentation ● Work through tutorials

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@mirka Learning checklist ● Read books/documentation ● Work through tutorials ● “Real” experience

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@mirka Learning checklist ● Read books/documentation ● Work through tutorials ● “Real” experience What do I build? How do I find the time?

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Solve problems you actually have

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Look for problems in your everyday life (and work!)

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@mirka Everyday problems ● Repetitive actions ● Bad user interfaces ● Mentally-draining tasks

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@mirka Maintenance ● Versioning (git, svn) ● Readable code ● Manageable structure

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Some ideas

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@mirka App scripting ● Google Apps Script ● Excel macros ● Apps you use for work

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@mirka AppleScript or JXA ● Control scriptable Mac applications ● Automate tasks for work

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@mirka Regular Expressions ● Master text manipulation ● Get your job done faster (?<=\.) {2,}(?=[A-Z])

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