A Guide to The Internet for Junior Developers

This talk covers how to get started with creating an online presence, how to act online, and how to create and consume in a way to promote great results in your career.

Transcript

1. GUIDE TO THE INTERNET FOR JUNIOR DEVELOPERS @SAMJARMAN’S
2. @samjarman WHO AM I? ▸ Sam Jarman ▸ Software Developer at BNZ ▸ @samjarman on the twitters (and everything else) ▸ Blogger, meetup organiser, interviewer, actor… more? ha
3. @samjarman TODAY ▸ Online Presence ▸ Social Media ▸ Blogging/Vlogging/Etc ▸ Purists ▸ Online Drama ▸ Good Engineering
4. ONLINE PRESENCE
5. @samjarman WHY ONLINE PRESENCE ▸ Having an online presence earns you greater respect in your community ▸ Greater respect leads to a better reputation (or “brand”). ▸ A great reputation creates opportunities
6. LUCK IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PREPARATION MEETS OPPORTUNITY Seneca (Roman Philosopher) WHY
7. @samjarman WHY CAREER SUCCESS FORMULA ▸ Learning new tech skills, side projects and practicing at work and at home is preparation ▸ Talking about that work and more online is presence which creates opportunities ▸ Luck will be the result
8. SOCIAL MEDIA
9. @samjarman SOCIAL MEDIA ▸ Use your real name & photo (if comfortable) ▸ Twitter, Linked In, GitHub, Instagram ▸ Aim for same usernames ▸ Be kind and be your best self ▸ Be a voice of positivity ▸ Avoid nuanced topics
10. BLOGGING
11. "BUT SAM! WHAT DO I WRITE ABOUT? I’M A JUNIOR, I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING YET?” You, maybe
12. DOCUMENT, DON’T CREATE JUNIOR DEVELOPER CONTENT STRATEGY
13. @samjarman DOCUMENT, DON’T CREATE ▸ You want to favour documenting your learnings over creating advice or content based on what you’ve learned ▸ Inspired by @garyvee: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=RVKofRN1dyI
14. @samjarman HOW DO I START??? ▸ wordpress.com ▸ medium.com ▸ dev.to ▸ squarespace.com
15. @samjarman WHAT DO I WRITE? ▸ Just write about your experience ▸ “This week, I learned X at work and read about Y at home.” ▸ Copy in links, resources, repos etc and give your reaction to them
16. @samjarman WHY WOULD I DO THIS? ▸ Interesting conversations ▸ Solidify your learning ▸ Employers love it (proof of passion)
17. DISTRIBUTION DOCUMENTING NOT FOR YOU?
18. @samjarman DISTRIBUTION ▸ Find any good links lately? Share them! ▸ Twitter, in blog posts, in a news letter ▸ Subscribe to Hacker News or Reddit (or more) ▸ Consume something, think about it, add to it, pass it on ▸ Win/Win benefit ▸ You learn something, you save others time
19. YOUR AUDIENCE WHO DO I SHOW THIS TO?
20. KEEP IT HUMAN BEEP BEEP BOOP HERE IS MY OPINION
21. @samjarman YOUR AUDIENCE ▸ Just be you ▸ You are the unique bit ▸ Code is code ▸ A blog is you + your topic
22. KEEP IT RESPECTFUL DON’T BE THAT PERSON
23. @samjarman KEEP IT RESPECTFUL ▸ Act just like you do in person ▸ Hard to ‘undo’ on the internet ▸ People/Employers will judge you ▸ Think before you post!
24. PURISTS
26. @samjarman PURISTS UNCLE BOB ▸ Blogs, Produces videos, coaches programmers ▸ Writes often in the best case scenario ▸ Often describes perfect code not pragmatic code ▸ Isn’t terribly clear with this…
28. @samjarman PURISTS PURISM ▸ Easy to write, good flow ▸ Grabs and holds attention more (ads, engagement) ▸ Better blog post titles (above) ▸ Hard to argue against content ▸ I enjoy writing in this style too!
29. @samjarman PURISTS SO… ▸ Don’t be fooled ▸ Take with a grain of salt (or many) ▸ Use what you can and what is pragmatic to do so ▸ Avoid the drama
30. THE DRAMA
31. @samjarman AVOID THE DRAMA ▸ Twitter and the internet has a lot of drama ▸ Arguments over the wrong mediums ▸ Strong opinions ▸ Provocateurs everywhere ▸ Clickbait and shocking things for the sake of it ▸ Things and people trying to get a rise out of you
32. @samjarman AVOID THE DRAMA ▸ Twitter and the internet has a lot of drama ▸ Arguments over the wrong mediums ▸ Strong opinions ▸ Provocateurs everywhere ▸ Clickbait and shocking things for the sake of it ▸ Things and people trying to get a rise out of you JUST DON’T ENGAGE
33. @samjarman DON’T ENGAGE ▸ Better for your brand ▸ Mental health ▸ Use of your time ▸ Often intellectually dishonest ▸ Often bad engineering ▸ Once you recognise this stuff, you can avoid it!
34. GOOD ENGINEERING
36. @samjarman PROBLEM FIRST, THEN CREATE SOLUTIONS ▸ Don’t choose technology based on someone else problem and constraints ▸ Don’t choose technology based on someone else opinion or some thought leaders tweets ▸ Do your own investigations, come to your own conclusions ▸ Understand the problem first, then create solutions
37. @samjarman STOP FLYING TOWARDS THE SHINY THING ▸ New tech comes out all the time ▸ Often a lot of hype around it (real and synthetic) ▸ Read up on it, but don’t drop everything for it ▸ Wisdom is letting it play out for a bit and see how it goes
38. THAT’S IT!
39. @samjarman THANKS! ▸ @samjarman ▸ samjarman.co.nz ▸ Dev Chats (Season 2!)- samjarman.co.nz/chats ▸ Developer Posters - DeveloperPosters.com ▸ GoodWithPixels.com - come work at BNZ!