S3E8: iOS Development and Side Hustles with Janina Kutyn

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Janina Kutyn is an iOS developer. She has previously worked at Apple and now works at ING. She also used to run the geek chic apparel brand Silicon Sweetheart.

After studying computer engineering at college, Janina worked at a couple of mobile agencies in Vancouver and London. She then moved to California to work at Apple. Recently she took some time to travel around Asia before relocating to Amsterdam, where she works at ING.

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In our conversation, Janina talks about her career in iOS development, software engineering interviews, and side hustles. We also hear about her experiences of traveling and relocating around the world. Overall, she inspires us to see the work we do as a series of projects.

This episode was transcribed with the help of an AI transcription tool. Please forgive any typos.

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Laurence Bradford 0:52
Hey listeners, welcome to the Learn to Code With Me podcast. I'm your host Laurence Bradford and I am so excited today to bring on the guests Janina Kutyn. Janina is an iOS developer who previously worked at Apple in the Bay Area. She also used to run this site silicon sweetheart where she designed and sold geek chic apparel. Today Janina lives in Amsterdam working as an iOS developer for IMG. Can you say #girlboss? In our interview, we talked about a range of topics from travel to software engineering interviews to side hustles. Remember, you can get the Show Notes for this episode plus more information about Janina at learntocodewith.me/podcast. If you like the interview, make sure to subscribe on whichever podcast player you listen on. Enjoy. And if you're feeling particularly generous, every view of the show it'd be awesome to enjoy.

Laurence Bradford 1:50
Hey, Janina, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Janina Kutyn 1:52
Thanks so much for having me.

Laurence Bradford 1:54
Could you introduce yourself really quick?

Janina Kutyn 1:56
Sure. So I'm an iOS developer. I do recently moved to Amsterdam from San Francisco. I was working before at Apple and I have now taking up a new job at IMG, which is a big bank here in the Netherlands.

Laurence Bradford 2:10
So cool. I am so excited to ask you all these questions because as well the audience wouldn't know I've actually been following Janina on Instagram for quite some time. And she recently traveled all over the world before relocating to Amsterdam. So we're definitely gonna jump into that. But I want to kind of backtrack a bit and ask you how you first got your start in programming.

Janina Kutyn 2:31
I studied computer engineering, so it's pretty classical way of getting into computer science, I guess. I definitely subscribed to the Moto work smart, not hard. So when I was graduating high school, I thought about what is the degree I can do that would give me a job but then the four years so I thought I'd go into engineering in my university, first year is common for all engineering students. So like a little bit of chemical Engineering, a little bit of structural etc. And I really enjoyed computers. So that's basically how I ended up doing computer engineering.

Laurence Bradford 3:08
Yeah, I wish I had that kind of wisdom in high school to think about to think about what would be the most lucrative and the easiest to get a job. I was more like just interested in not listening to what my parents had to say until until like, a few years later, I was like, Oh, wait, everything my dad said was, was really, um, was great advice. Too bad. I was too stubborn. I was like, 18 to listen. So So okay, so you studied computer engineering to call in college? And like, what was your first tech job after that?

Janina Kutyn 3:39
After that, I got a job at a company called finger fruit studios. That is a mobile agency in Vancouver, which is where I went to university. And I was actually applying as a Java developer. I thought I might get into Android VB because Java is what I studied. All throughout University. So I interviewed as a Java developer got hired as a Java developer. Then my first day at work, they said, You know what, we actually don't need anyone to do Android right now. We're good on that. But we need iOS. So here's iOS programming book. Can you read that? And can you start in about a week actually contributing to code?

Laurence Bradford 4:18
That's like insane. So but so you had a week to learn then like iOS

Janina Kutyn 4:23
A week or two to learn iOS paradigms, and everyone was helping me. But once you kind of have Java or another object oriented language under your belt, it's not as difficult to just learn specific language syntax, because the concepts are all the same underneath.

Laurence Bradford 4:40
Yeah, okay. So that is okay. So you got your for okay, so you were building iOS apps at fingerfood Studios. That was like your first tech job. And what did you do then? After that, did you continue doing iOS as you move into another area?

Janina Kutyn 4:56
I only ever did iOS. After that. I stuck with iOS my entire career. After Vancouver, I moved to London and I worked at a different mobile agency there for two years. And after that, I went to Apple where, surprisingly, they also did iOS.

Laurence Bradford 5:14
Yeah. So that's really cool, though that you stuck with the same thing ever since. So obviously, like you must enjoy it.

Janina Kutyn 5:22
I do and I it is kind of cool. But I do also sometimes feel like I've pigeon holed myself a little bit. I keep wanting to learn a bit of Android or a little bit of more web. And while I can kind of look through Java code, understand what's going on. I'm definitely not an expert. And with having a full time job, I don't always find myself having as much time after work to just tinker around with something else. So if my job has an opportunity for me to learn something because maybe they need me to do some JavaScript or maybe now we're doing swift and Objective C Then, then I get to learn it. But unfortunate otherwise I don't make as much time for it.

Laurence Bradford 6:05
Yeah, I mean, but so being iOS developers, like totally awesome. And you've got into travel like I had no idea before, we have in the call that you also lived in London before working at Apple, which of course is, you know, in San Francisco or, you know, Silicon Valley. And so I kind of want to talk about that. So you're living in London, and then, like, what made you want to work at Apple? And how did you start like interviewing there?

Janina Kutyn 6:29
Well, of course, I always viewed Apple as this sort of incredible company. I love my iPhone. And, but to be honest, I never had the confidence that I might be able to get a job there. And what happened was, I was in London, and I was absolutely loving London. And I had someone messaged me on LinkedIn who said their recruiter from Apple, and asked me if I want to send in my resume. I had immediately assumed it was myself. Friends pranking me because they have pranked me like that before, like, pretending there's the bomb or emailing me or something like that. But at the same time, I thought, okay, I better send in my resume. And turned out to not be my friends pranking me. It turned out to be an apple recruiter. And then she passed my resume on to a few teams. And basically, that's how I ended up working at Apple.

Laurence Bradford 7:23
That's really great. I love I love that with LinkedIn, like, I mean, I know recruiters can be a huge pain in the butt and a lot of like more experienced people will feel that way. But I also love the fact that I can make it so easy to like find a job and at this point in time, you were only working as an iOS developer for like a bit over two years.

Janina Kutyn 7:40
I think at this point, I was coming close to closer to maybe like three and a half years.

Laurence Bradford 7:48
Okay, nice. Nonetheless, that's really cool how you were like living in London and you got contacted by this recruiter all the way you know, in San Francisco.

Janina Kutyn 7:55
Yeah.

Laurence Bradford 7:56
And I imagine where most of the interviews like conducted or Skype unlike the phone?

Janina Kutyn 8:02
So there were a couple of rounds of phone interviews. And after that they flew me out to Cupertino where I had in person interviews.

Laurence Bradford 8:11
And what was that like like interviewing in, in, in house or in Cupertino? At Apple.

Janina Kutyn 8:18
It was intimidating coming in, because I have read online about what these processes are like. But it was also kind of enjoyable, because it was a lot of whiteboarding and, like problem solving together with the interviewers. So I didn't feel like I was just being asked straight up, like technical questions. I feel like they were working on solving the problem with me and like, being really friendly and trying to be really helpful. And having been on the other side. So helping in the interview process at Apple, we would always be just really rooting for the candidate. We really always wanted them to succeed.

Laurence Bradford 8:58
Yeah,I love that. I think that's such a great like mentality to have. And I've been doing not not technical interviews, but interviews a lot recently at my company, or the company I work for not like mine that I own it. And that's something that a lot is coming to mind with, like, how candidates are treated in the process. And I came across a study this is a little bit of a sidebar, but it was how a candidate interview experience at a company like can have pretty much effect. Well, their overall thoughts about a company of course, so like if they have a bad experience interviewing, so maybe they never heard back from the interviewer or, if the in house interview like didn't go well, and they and they like felt like kind of um, I was getting neglected, but they just didn't feel like they're treated well. It'll actually cause them to like, not use the product in the future and even like, tell other people not to use the product. However, if someone doesn't get the job, but they've had a good overall experience, they'll still like support the company. So I just think it's really interesting. And for people who are like conducting interviews like to be really cautious. I've Of course I'm sure Apple obviously is a major tech company has it together to realize that I'm really thinking about, like startups and in other smaller companies out there just trying to, you know, start hiring more and more people.

Janina Kutyn 10:18
Yeah, but I totally know what you mean, actually, not even small companies. I've interviewed with a big company before that. Kind of just after I spend some time on an assignment, they just sort of dropped off the planets. And after I emailed them a couple weeks ago, I just got back an automated message. And I thought, Okay, well, not gonna ever fly this company again. And then a month or maybe two months later, a recruiter from their company emailed me again, maybe for a different position, and I said, Oh, you know, I interviewed in the past, but I didn't have very good experience, to be honest. And then I never heard from them again, either.

Laurence Bradford 10:56
Oh, my goodness, That's so crazy. Yeah. It's it's like Yeah, I've had sort of a similar experience not not where I didn't assignment didn't hear back but I was interviewing and I spent like several I mean not just like researching before the interview and all the prep but actually talking to people like over five hours and then they kind of stopped contacting me for a bit and then finally one day the one the one guy called me and was like, Oh, you're not a good fit for this position. But how about this other person it was like a totally unrelated position. And at that point, I was just like so like you guys haven't even talked to me for like two weeks and I are like a week or however long it was and now you're gonna call me in anyway and I still have this sort of like bad taste in my mouth with nom with that expresses was almost a year ago. So it really can affect things. So anyway, getting getting off topic there a little bit. But so you were at Apple for how long?

Janina Kutyn 11:50
I was there for pretty much exactly two years.

Laurence Bradford 11:53
Okay, nice. And did you enjoy living in San Francisco?

Janina Kutyn 11:58
For the first half a year. California I lived in Mountain View, because was a lot closer to work. And after London I found the suburbs a little bit too quiet for my liking. So then I moved to San Francisco and I enjoyed San Francisco but my entire time I really was missing London and missing Europe and missing opportunities to travel to European cities for weekend getaways. California is fantastic for nature. It has just beautiful forests and like beautiful ocean, but I really enjoy architecture and history. And so I always had the draw to go back to Europe.

Laurence Bradford 12:42
Yeah, I can, I can see that. I mean, especially living like in this stuff going from London to living like in the suburbs would be a lot less exciting. Because London's like such an international like hub. And yeah, it's so easy to get other places from there in the rest of Europe and whatnot. Yeah, so while you were there, I want to touch upon this briefly cuz I think it's really cool. You created this, like cheek clothing, or apparel website, which I know is not up anymore, but it's called silicon sweetheart. Can you just talk about that a little bit?

Janina Kutyn 13:16
Yeah, sure. So silicon sweetheart was a basically geekspeak apparel and items like we had mugs and posters. And the idea was sort of that I was finding a lot of male apparel targeted males in mail sizes with these funny sayings and like nerdy quotes, and a lot of my coworkers were wearing that kind of stuff, but it didn't find as much apparel like that for women that was specifically a more tailored to the female figure also. So that was sort of the idea behind it.

Laurence Bradford 13:55
And this is so unrelated, but it's just something I personally like fascinates me. How did you go from the like design process as in like designing what the shirts would look like and that to actually getting them made.

Janina Kutyn 14:09
So we had a drop shipper that was basically printing them, and they would mail out the items. So because it was such a small business, we didn't want to start by ordering like 100 shirts and then being stuck with like 98. We wanted to do it on a one off basis until figuring out what works and what doesn't. So that's why we use basically a drop shipping company.

Laurence Bradford 14:38
Could you could you explain why drop shipping? Is it like is I feel like it means like they make one for every order something?

Janina Kutyn 14:45
Well, different dropshippers do differently. But basically the idea is that as a retailer, I don't have to keep any stock. The drop shipper has all the inventory and they would mail it out themselves. So so in this case, though, we were also printing items, not just buying them and distributing them. So the specific company that we were working with, they would print the items and then distributed themselves, but they had the full stock of the items that we were. We were putting designs on to.

Laurence Bradford 15:20
So how long did you do that for a while you're just in San Francisco.

Janina Kutyn 15:25
Actually, I think it was a little bit over a year basically from December of 2015. To this February, or I oh, no, sorry. Oh, to this. Yeah, this February actually. Sorry.

Laurence Bradford 15:41
So yes, like a bit over a year then. Yes. Yes. Yes. Got it. And like because I feel like you sort of like will look at you on Instagram and like seeing your LinkedIn all this stuff. I feel like you're stopping silicon sweetheart. kind of went along with your move to Amsterdam, where you live now and working at IMG.

Janina Kutyn 16:00
Yes, definitely so well, I always use silicon sweetheart as a project like just, I'm going to try this and see where it goes. I want to see where I could take it. But I also knew that I didn't want to drag it out indefinitely. So I learned a lot from it. It was really fun, especially at the beginning, I met a few cool people. But it also wasn't really gaining traction as quickly as I wanted to. So I thought, okay, maybe it's time to bring it to a close. And so yeah, for the last few months, I was also in the middle of moving from San Francisco to Amsterdam, starting a brand new job finding new homes, so that kind of seemed like a logical time to bring it to a close.

Laurence Bradford 16:43
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Laurence Bradford 18:54
Yeah, definitely. And I actually really like I really liked that you stopped doing it or that you were like, Okay, this isn't working out or this isn't what I, it's not exactly what I want it to be and how you kind of had in mind like, Oh, I'm just doing this as a project. And you know, sure, maybe if it went really well, you would have continued with it or you're really excited to keep doing it. However, that wasn't the case. And I think for me, it's like hard to quit things. Sometimes I think maybe it's I personally, I'm almost like kind of stubborn, especially once I get really invested in something like I think if it's like an idea I only have been trying to work on for a week like giving it up at that point isn't too difficult. So I am like, tip my hat to you though, because I feel like we need to like declutter things from our lives. Sometimes we give up responsibilities, like I definitely do. I think I have a personal problem with saying yes to too many things.

Janina Kutyn 19:42
I think the challenging thing about stopping it was worrying about how it would seem, I thought or people going to think that I majorly failed or are what is going to be the perception and then I thought doesn't really matter. This is something I'm doing for me and it's like I said it's a project. And if it's time to stop, it's time to stop. And at one of my previous jobs, I had someone who I consider a mentor. And he gave me advice to look at every job that I go into as a project, and to know basically when to move on to a new role or to move on to a different scene within the company. And it becomes very clear when to do so if you treat every job you're working on as a project. So it was the same this basically,

Laurence Bradford 20:28
Yeah, I like that. I like that. I think I talked to a ton of people who've been working at the same job or like at the same position on the same team, whatever, for several years, maybe even more, and they're really unhappy and they want something but it's kind of like, and I can I never really understood until I got my own I got a full time job. So I didn't have a full time job in my life, like a real one until July of this year. But now I can totally understand like that mindset because you I feel like you get So like emotionally invested in, like the people you work with, and like the work you're doing and it is almost like you take it more personally or something or like, oh, if I quit it's going to be or if I try to move to another team, if I try do something else, it could be perceived as personally. So I really like that advice. So it's thinking of it as like a smaller project, not like this huge thing.

Janina Kutyn 21:20
Yeah, it's really hard sometimes to even if you're unhappy with something to actually make the move and go and switch to something. I remember my first job at finger foods. I continued working for them remotely after I moved to London. And it was really challenging for me because I had never worked remotely before. And the time difference made it really difficult. Sometimes if like the build was broken, I had the whole day basically was completely affected by it because I would need to wait for someone to come back online who could help me and I was too impatient. periods the time to sometimes fix things myself. So I became pretty unhappy. I also felt like in the first half a year in London, I basically didn't meet a single new person, because I was just at home working. So I was becoming pretty unhappy. But I did not know how to just quit the job and look for something else, or even just seriously start looking and then quit. And then what ended up happening is they said, okay, we don't need you anymore, as of next week. And that was sort of like a kick in the pants that I needed to just really jumped into action and find something new and something I was would be much happier with.

Laurence Bradford 22:40
Oh, so you moved to London, and you were still working full time remotely for finger foods.

Janina Kutyn 22:46
Yes, it was sort of as it was leaving it was something they proposed, and I thought it was a great idea and it truly was a great opportunity that I'm thankful for because it really helped me in the move from Vancouver to London, like took out a lot of stresses, but the same time just came with a lot of challenges that I did not foresee due to my experience.

Laurence Bradford 23:11
Yeah, I think that's really good advice and something hopefully the listeners can can remember as they make some career decisions and also like things with remote work because while remote work is really awesome, I feel especially when there's such a such a time difference. And when you're working on something so technical, like where you also rely on other people that heavily and the time difference, I could totally see that being an inconvenience.

Janina Kutyn 23:34
Yeah, definitely. And I like to see remote work when it's maybe a day or two but I, I will admit that I started getting not very productive if I have a very long time of remote work by myself.

Laurence Bradford 23:50
Yeah, I used to work. I would go to a co working space still but I was like by myself. It wasn't like I was in an office with people I worked with. But now that I work in an office with Other people at first it wasn't a it was an adjustment without a doubt now i i love it and I can't even imagine like if I if I try to work from home I like miss being in the office and like I'll go to the office even in the snow like I've like trek to the office and Mr. I don't live that far from my office so it's not that bad but yeah I just I feel like I just get way too distracted at home and then I can start to feel lonely like I like now to be around like the other people you know all working and whatnot

Janina Kutyn 24:27
Yeah. One of my biggest issues about working from home is that by end of the day I will have eaten everything there was.

Laurence Bradford 24:34
Yeah, for me it's actually cleaning like or no okay like I'll see something small out of place next thing you know I'm spending like all this time like cleaning like the bathroom or I don't know something and then it's it's like I'm not focusing on work it's like I'm you know, two hours trying to clean the house which isn't completely unproductive, but it's not what I'm supposed to be doing at that time. So you you mentioned, like a little bit about balancing like personal life and work well. You said that when you first moved to London, because you're working so much you weren't, like out meeting other people. And this is something that I didn't even realize I had a problem with. So when I was living in Boston, I worked constantly and I never would, I never really socialized I would not go out with friends. And I would just like work all the time. When I moved to New York, though, that changed because well, I think a few reasons for one being in the workplace with these other people that we had similar interests and whatnot. I had other friends from like college and high school and whatnot that lived in New York that was able to hang out with so I kind of like got a social life again, without even thinking about it. But is there is there like, kind of where this like, what is the like, like striking that between like working towards your goals and like maybe for people learning how to code and are they're spending a ton of time like going through courses and going through books and building projects. And then also like finding time for yourself and like going out and like, you know, actually interacting with people. How, like, I don't know, how do you balance that?

Janina Kutyn 25:59
Huh? That's a good question. I try to when I'm at work, I'm giving it my hundred 50%, my absolute best. And then when I'm at home, I don't think about work at all. I don't have my work email on my phone. I, we have some WhatsApp groups and my current work. So I will check them a little bit. But I'm done with work for the day. So I'm trying not to think about it as much as I possibly can. Of course, if we have a build coming out or something really urgent actually does need my attention, I will make time for it. But when I'm done for the day, I'm done when I'm done for the weekend, I'm done. And in terms of prioritizing other things. I keep a lot of lists of what to do today, what to do for this week, what to do eventually. And so a lot of the projects that I would work on kind of fall more into those and if it's not in priority, and I feel like going out, then I just go out.

Laurence Bradford 26:57
Yeah, I love that. Like the list. I think you said what to day, today this week eventually like the different columns yeah that's really smart yeah I need to I've been not as good with like my personal like to do lists in like project management I used to be really on top of it and now I feel like I have like a bunch of random to do list in like different places like on my work computer notes and then like in Google Keep and then somewhere else and yeah, I like that though. So you Okay, so you recently relocate to Amsterdam, as we I think we were mentioned a few times and you work at IMG, but before you like traveled all over the world. So how did you I guess end up working in IMG, and I assume you had the job before you went to travel or maybe you didn't. And then what was this is like a five part question. But what was relocating to Amsterdam like and how is it been since?

Janina Kutyn 27:47
Okay, so I'll start with the first part of the travel. I've seen all over the world, I went all over Asia. I think it's not even all over Asia, but as much around as I could, and in terms of finding the job at IMG, I came out for interviews to Amsterdam, actually about a year ago now, just to see what's out there. I had secured some interviews, or some in person interviews before coming. So I went through all of those and it was one of them. Then kept in touch with them throughout the summer. And I always told them that I My plan is to move at the beginning of December or others to be in Amsterdam, the beginning of December knowing that I wanted to do a little bit of traveling for about a month before that, and they made it really easy to relocate from one place to another. That's that's basically would be my advice to anyone trying to relocate is to try to find an employer you can work with on a relocation because that just really takes the stress out of it. If someone else is helping you with Your flights and moving over your belongings and starting up so you're just not arriving in a city and you don't know where to go from there.

Laurence Bradford 29:08
Yeah, that's that's awesome advice. And I can't believe that you were talking to them or you went out to interview like a whole year before?

Janina Kutyn 29:14
Well, so it was a year before now. But it was about 10 months before I actually started. And yeah, that's a while. And some companies I spoke to said, well, that's far too long in advance for us, because we might be a completely different company that time. Other companies that felt more stable, and more sure of what they're going to need in about 10 months time, were more open to the idea of waiting that long.

Laurence Bradford 29:42
Yeah, that definitely makes sense. Yeah, I'm thinking about my work at a startup. So it's like 10 months seems like an eternity but for a company that's so stable, like I and Gene has been around for a while and has, you know, priority planning and project planning and all that down to a science I'm sure they could estimate what they needed in 10 months. So yeah, that definitely makes sense. So what is it like living in and living in Amsterdam now?

Janina Kutyn 30:08
I really like Amsterdam. It's so cute. It's such a pretty city, all the canals, it's, it's really just a beautiful place. I really like Dutch people I find them direct, yet friendly. And I really appreciate that about them. What I have found quite challenging that I didn't expect to find challenging is the fact that the dominant language is not one that I speak. So while all the Dutch or majority of them speak English really well, it's, I find it surprisingly. I don't know it's surprisingly confuses me or makes me feel uneasy that when I walk into a shop, I'm greeted first in Dutch and then I always say, Oh, I'm sorry. English Okay, and they respond yes of course for when I call someone on the phone and they say something in Dutch and I don't know they said can you hold on one moment or Yes What can I help you with? Or even even worse or automated systems? So the phone picks up and then I have to press options and then just pressing zero until someone picks up and I didn't expect that to be something that would that I find so challenging but it's really has been and basically I just really need to learn Dutch.

Laurence Bradford 31:33
Oh man yeah, or at least enough Dutch I guess to get by. But I was in Amsterdam, while while ago actually is like eight years ago, but I do remember everyone speaking English there. I was only there for like a short time though. But I do I do remember that but i can i can see how that would be um, yeah, like you should you should be always understand what they're saying. Especially on the phone. That would be frustrating or like, like, I don't know what to do. I feel like I'd be the same way like if I walked into a store and someone is speaking speak to me directly. Be like, Oh, hi, sorry. Like, sorry I speak English.

Janina Kutyn 32:05
Yeah, exactly. I just constantly feel like basically a tourist in the city I'm living in and like when I walk into the grocery store and all the groceries are labeled in Dutch, and, like on my phone, pulling out Google Translate with a camera trying to, like translate what they actually are. I bought some funny groceries, I didn't realize what they were. And like we bought we thought it was chocolate milk, and instead it was some weird chocolates, like putting like things so..

Laurence Bradford 32:36
well, I'm sure you'll I'm sure you'll learn over time, but getting like kind of back, circling back into into programming and whatnot. For people who are learning now, especially on their own. Do you have any advice that you could share?

Janina Kutyn 32:53
Yeah, sure. The biggest thing I always tell people when they asked me is learn theory. Try to Learn theoretical concepts that computer science is based on as much as you can. When I was first starting out I was trying to understand Apple's API is and how to properly use UI kit, etc. And I wasn't giving as much time as much thought to the theoretical concepts. And having after having worked at Apple, when and hearing a lot of discussions in the hallways about specifically more about, like threading and queuing and like rendering and just these really, really specific concepts, it made me realize that I really want to learn more actual computer science rather than a specific language.

Laurence Bradford 33:46
Yeah, I think that's awesome advice. I also think that could be applied like when you when you learn the theoretical concepts, it can come into play no matter what programming language you're using, or like what you're working on. Exactly. So yeah, it's like getting those solid foundations in place.

Janina Kutyn 34:02
Exactly. And when we were interviewing candidates at Apple it was always test of how is their computer science knowledge because the idea that they don't know some API's that wasn't really important because they can learn the language they can learn the all the different functions that's not important. The important thing is whether or not they have a solid grasp of computer science.

Laurence Bradford 34:29
Definitely great advice. Do you have any to that and DVD like books or like courses or anything you can recommend where people can learn some of that stuff?

Janina Kutyn 34:37
No, I just google concepts to be honest. I don't really know. No, I'm sorry. I don't really know any.

Laurence Bradford 34:43
That's fine. No, no worries. I don't know either. I just as I was asking us, like maybe there's a few I know there's, um, like different courses on algorithms. I'm sure like other theories on places like Coursera Free Code Camp, I think has a thing now on algorithms if I'm not mistaken, when I say thing, I mean like a whole like module or whatever you'd like to call it. And then of course, I'm sure there's tons and tons of books that people can get all these different kinds of theoretical concepts. In any case, she needed thank you so much for talking to me today. And where can people find you online?

Janina Kutyn 35:21
I am on LinkedIn. So you can find me Janina Kutyn on LinkedIn, and I'm also on Instagram at Jenny coats like JNI

Laurence Bradford 35:32
Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on.

Janina Kutyn 35:35
Thank you so much for having me.

Laurence Bradford 35:42
I hope you enjoyed our conversation. Again, the Show Notes for this episode can be found at learntocodewith.me/podcast. If you're listening to this episode in the future, simply click the Search icon in the upper navigation and type in Janina's name. It's spelled like J-A-N-I-N-A. And her last name is K-U-T-Y-N. Thanks again for tuning in. And make sure to head on over to my website regardless, learntocodewith.me, where you can find even more awesome code related content, like my 10 Free Tips for Teaching Yourself How to Code. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you next week.

Key takeaways:

  • Learn theoretical computer science concepts rather than just individual languages.
  • Once you have one object-oriented language under your belt, it’s not that hard to learn the syntax of another language, because the concepts are the same.
  • It’s important to recognize when a side project, job, or another aspect of your life isn’t working for you anymore, so you can move on.
  • See every job you start as a project. Doing this will help you notice when it’s time to move onto a new role or team.
  • Remote working is great but it comes with a unique set of challenges.
  • If you want to relocate, find an employer who is willing to work with you on your relocation.

Links and mentions from the episode:

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