ABE’S FAQ’S

Abe Johnson

I learned so many lessons and have so much information I want to share with people. I usually get asked the same questions so I figured I’d provide my most FAQs:

“ANY TIPS ON FINDING A JOB IN THE FIELD?”

After spending time speaking to so many recruiters and employees of companies I always ask for general tips for people seeking employment. 90% of the time response I get back can be boiled into one of two camps:

  • Networking is everything! A large percentage of jobs come from what you know in combination with who you know.

  • Build your skills by working on projects! Theoretical knowledge is good, but the more you expose yourself to different coding patterns, workstyles and approaches the faster you will grow.

These conversations have really led me to understanding the true nature of the Software Development field. While programming is a skill that you’re going to have to take solo initiative to achieve your goals, ultimately the work you're doing is going to be so large in scale that it is equally if not more important how you can fit/contribute to a team.

Work in teams to build projects with the pursuit of knowledge and you’ll provide such overwhelming utility anywhere you go the money will chase after you.

“HOW DID YOU GET SO GOOD AT [ X, Y OR Z ]?”

“WHERE DO YOU FIND YOUR RESOURCES?”

We are living in the golden age of the internet! All the information is free or DIRT cheap. There is so much good information the problem is filtering out to get to the information you want.

Like everything else in life starting from 0 is basically impossible; especially if you're thinking about where you're starting from. So the key is to take things 1 step at a time. Start with exploring a topic that interests you. Then once you’ve mastered that skill look to build another skill that branches off from the first one.

So for instance let's say you're looking to learn how to use CSS transitions. You google search and find this article:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/CSS_Transitions/Using_CSS_transitions

Most would skim this article, find the exact snippet they’re looking for and try to inject that code into their project. Depending on your goals there’s nothing wrong with that approach, but I believe life is about the journey and not the destination. When you explore all the nuisances’’ and intricacies of what you are learning you will enable yourself to effortless build polished projects that will bring success to you and your team.

On that page there are tutorials, related topics, limitations and so much more. If that was the first time I was visiting the site I would go to the homepage and bookmark it. Then I would check the related articles and see if any are interesting and bookmark and read those too! Over time you’ll start creating your list of resources that are tailored to your interests and needs.

Each person in tech should have their own specialties and goals in tech so it’s hard to give a list of great general information but here are some good starting nodes for creating your own list of resources.

TECHNICAL:

DESIGN:

GENERAL:

I want to thank my family for continual love & support. There’s no way I could have achieved so much without them.

I want to thank Laurie & Nic for giving me the opportunity to learn and grow my skills. I feel like I've grown in so many ways in the past year and you guys were a consistent stimuli.

I want to thank Andrea Dozier for letting me know about the program and convincing me to sign up. She’s doing amazing work at the Southampton Town Recreation Center http://www.sysinc.org/

Finally I want to thank Ms. Bonnie for granting me and so many others the scholarships to go to this program. The center is always evolving and doing some amazing work it’s very inspiring to see. https://www.bhccrc.org/

And finally, thanks to you, the reader for reading!

-Abe

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BEGINNING A SOFTWARE ENGINEERING CAREER