So You Want to Work for a Startup?

A brief talk given at CodeFellows (codefellows.org) on my path to becoming a programmer, what it's like to be a Rails developer, and advice I'd have for people getting into the profession.

Transcript

1. March 21, 2013 Code Fellows Code Fellows March 2013 So, You Want to Work for a Startup? Leigh Caplan Onehub github.com/texel @texel 1 Thursday, March 21, 13
2. March 21, 2013 Code Fellows Code Fellows March 2013 About Me • Development Lead @ Onehub • Joined January 2008 • Responsible for front-end & back-end development • Manage staging/deploy process 2 Thursday, March 21, 13
3. March 21, 2013 Code Fellows Code Fellows March 2013 About Onehub • Secure file sharing for business • 3 main Rails applications • Many small supporting apps 3 Thursday, March 21, 13
4. March 21, 2013 Code Fellows Code Fellows March 2013 What would ya say you do here? 4 Thursday, March 21, 13
5. March 21, 2013 Code Fellows Code Fellows March 2013 What would ya say you do here? • Surf Internet, look at cat pictures 5 Thursday, March 21, 13
6. March 21, 2013 Code Fellows Code Fellows March 2013 What would ya say you do here? • Surf Internet, look at cat pictures • Read code, think about bugs • Write code, fix bugs • Write bugs for myself to fix in the future 6 Thursday, March 21, 13
7. March 21, 2013 Code Fellows Code Fellows March 2013 What would ya say you do here? • Even mix of developing new features & doing support/ bug fixes on existing functionality • 60% Ruby, 40% JavaScript • Sometimes, 40% Objective-C • Yes, I know that’s 140% 7 Thursday, March 21, 13
8. March 21, 2013 Code Fellows Code Fellows March 2013 Technologies we use • Ruby on Rails • Sinatra • Backbone.js • SASS/SCSS 8 Thursday, March 21, 13
9. March 21, 2013 Code Fellows Code Fellows March 2013 Technologies we use • MySQL, Redis, Memcache • RabbitMQ • nginx • Cocoa/Objective-C • .Net/C# • etc… 9 Thursday, March 21, 13
10. March 21, 2013 Code Fellows Code Fellows March 2013 Infrastructure/hosting • Amazon AWS, and Heroku where it makes sense • Files hosted on Amazon S3 • PaaS > IaaS > Servers 10 Thursday, March 21, 13
11. March 21, 2013 Code Fellows Code Fellows March 2013 So, how do I know all this stuff ? 11 Thursday, March 21, 13
12. Code Fellows March 2013 12 Thursday, March 21, 13
13. March 21, 2013 Code Fellows Code Fellows March 2013 13 Ignorance mitigation strategies • Stack Overflow • Videos from conferences (ConFreaks) • PeepCode/PragProg • IRC/Mailing lists • Talk to people • Hacker News • Podcasts (The Changelog, The Ruby Show, etc) Thursday, March 21, 13
14. March 21, 2013 Code Fellows Code Fellows March 2013 My path to becoming a programmer • 1995-1998: HTML (barely) • 1998-1999: C (barely) • 2000-2001: PHP (barely) • 2001-2002: Flash/ActionScript (barely) • 2006: Ruby • 2007: Rails, wrote app for Apple Store • 2008: First paying job as a programmer! 14 Thursday, March 21, 13
15. March 21, 2013 Code Fellows Code Fellows March 2013 Important Skills • Ability to ship code • Ability to clearly explain your decisions to others • Basic modern programming concepts Object Oriented Design MVC 15 Thursday, March 21, 13
16. March 21, 2013 Code Fellows Code Fellows March 2013 Stuff that doesn’t hurt • Familiar w/ different programming paradigms Imperative (Ruby, C), Object Oriented (Ruby, Java), Functional (JavaScript, LISP) • Basic SQL skills • Higher-level design skills • Community involvement 16 Thursday, March 21, 13
17. March 21, 2013 Code Fellows Code Fellows March 2013 Software development is a meritocracy • We care what you can do, not what credentials you have • You need a GitHub profile 17 Thursday, March 21, 13
18. March 21, 2013 Code Fellows Code Fellows March 2013 What’s startup life like? • Hard/fun work • Small team • Lots of responsibility • Flat management structure • Perks! Team Lunches CrossFit Snacks Beer/Whiskey 18 Thursday, March 21, 13
19. March 21, 2013 Code Fellows Code Fellows March 2013 Q & A 19 Thursday, March 21, 13