S1E13: Switching Into a Dev Career With a Full-Time Job (and Life) With Brian Jenney

Laurence:
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Learn to Code With Me podcast. I'm your host Laurence Bradford. In today's 13th episode, I have special guest Brian Jenney. Brian has been a long time Learn to Code With Me reader, and I first connected with him back when he started teaching himself how to code. So I was super excited to get him on the show. In less than seven months, Brian made a complete career transition from a career advisor at a community college, to gainfully employed as a web developer.

In our interview, Brian shares exactly how he made the switch in such a short time. All while balancing other responsibilities like raising two children, and having a second job as a Lyft driver. The way that Brian managed his time as he was learning is super impressive. The Show Notes for this episode, plus a full transcript, can be found at learntocodewith.me/13. Enjoy the show!

Hey guys, I'm here today with Brian Jenney. Brian, thanks so much for talking with me.

Brian:
Thanks so much for having me. Pretty excited.

Laurence:
Yeah, me too. So, could you just start off by introducing who you are and what you do?

Brian:
Sure. My name is Brian Jenney and I work as a web developer for Grocery Outlet, which is a chain of grocery stores that stretches from California to the Northwest and even to the East Coast.

Laurence:
Cool. I want to ask you what made you decide to learn how to code, but first, how long have you been at this job right now?

Brian:
This is the third month today.

Laurence:
Oh wow, three months, congratulations.

Brian:
Thank you. Thanks a lot. Quite a trip.

Laurence:
Yeah, so when did you first start learning how to code?

Brian:
Wow, to be honest, last year around May. Yeah, May of last year.

Laurence:
So May 2015.

Brian:
Yeah, I think you're actually one of the first people I ever wrote to. I saw, you're one of the first people I stumbled upon in the development world and emailed you and you actually emailed me back. That was a big deal to me.

Laurence:
I remember speaking with you a while ago. I was telling someone earlier today, "Yeah the guy I'm interviewing later," I didn't remember exactly when it was but I was like, "Yeah, I remember him emailing me when he first started out and it's crazy because now you have a job as a web developer. A full-time job.

Brian:
It's surprising to me still. I'm still, every day is a little bit of a trip walking in. It's a great feeling but it seems surreal sometimes.

Laurence:
Wow. So, what were you doing before?

Brian:
Before, I was working at a community college in the career resource center. I was speaking to students and I was telling students sometimes, "Hey, you should really look into coding." We're in the San Francisco Bay area and I thought, "Man, why aren't more of these young students doing coding? If I was a young student, I'd be doing that." Then I thought, "Wait a second, why don't I just do that? Why am I giving this advice to other people and not following my own advice?"

Laurence:
Yeah, wow. So you were kind of in higher level education?

Brian:
Well, yeah, community college. I mean I was working in the career center, so it wasn't a teaching role, it was a, mostly just kind of coordinating events, helping students with resumes, administrative type of work. It was pretty good, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do. And I didn't really know what I wanted to do at that point.

Laurence:
Okay, so then you began teaching yourself how to code. What did you do at first? What did you try to learn, initially?

Brian:
I think most people went to Codecademy. I had never really been exposed to any code at my job. I think the IT guys showed us some HTML and I thought, "What the heck is this? There's no way I could ever write this stuff." I thought, "That's nuts," you know. The fact that I couldn't do it and didn't know what it was at all, that made me want to learn a lot more. The whole internet's built on this stuff here, this code is behind it. I thought, "Man, it feels like I should know something about it. I use the internet every day."

So Codecademy was the first place to start, and I'd heard of HTML and I thought, HTML, CSS, and then I just chipped away at that little by little. I really got into it, way more than I ever thought I would. I just fell in love with it, it became a hobby. From there, you know, jQuery, and then I started thinking, "What could I build?" I started making really horrendous websites and other horrible Frankenstein-like projects and then kept going from there until I went to a part-time boot camp and just did a ton of studying on my own. Just kept working on JavaScript, framework, Angular, and still learning every day. I learned myself into a job.

Laurence:
Yeah, oh my goodness. So when did you go to the part-time coding bootcamp?

Brian:
That was around August, late August, early September?

Laurence:
August, okay. Was that face to face or in person?

Brian:
It was minimal. It was one of those courses, you really had to make it your own. It was only three hours a week in person. It was a lot of coursework. I got in touch with the mentors all the time from the program. I was constantly calling them up, meeting other people, going to meetups, doing a lot of supplemental education outside the classroom.

They gave me the tools I needed, but I definitely used them and had to learn on my own outside it too. They pointed me in the right direction, which was the most helpful. If not, I think I would have been spinning my wheels, trying to learn every other language I could instead of focusing on some of the basics and how to actually make projects, which was really helpful.

Laurence:
Yeah, wow, I love that you say that. I feel like, me included and people I talk to to this day, try to learn too many things at once instead of getting down the fundamentals. Just really focusing on one thing at a time.

Brian:
Exactly. There's something coming out every other day. There's some framework or something coming out and we're like, "Oh, I should probably learn that." Next thing you know, you kind of know 20 things, but don't
really know one good one.

Laurence:
Yeah, no. Precisely. I think that than can really cause just overwhelm. If you just think of like a foreign language. If you were learning Russian and German and Spanish at once, it would be horrible.

Brian:
That's a good point, that's a great analogy. You would not sound good in any of them.

Laurence:
Yeah, and you'd also just get really frustrated, probably. You'd keep mixing different things up instead of focusing on one and then moving to the next.

Brian:
Exactly. That's why I'm pretty glad I got to just focus, they could point me in the direction and say, "Hey, you know what, let's just make this. Here, build a webpage, you're doing bootstrap and html and css. Or here, let's make a clock using JavaScript," or something like that that kept me on focused and on task.

Laurence:
Yeah, I'm curious. When you were at the part-time boot camp, were you still working full-time at the community college?

Brian:
Oh yeah. I was working full-time. I also drove for Lyft, which is similar to Uber. I also have two kids, so I didn't have a ton of time. But I made time, here and there, I just kind of figured it out. Kids went to sleep, I would do some work here. At work, when I could, I could do some work there. But yeah, a lot of weekends, a lot of nights. I just tried to put in a couple hours a day. I never felt overwhelmed. I never felt like I was just grinding, burning the midnight oil. I would stay up to about 10, 11 at night doing some stuff.

Laurence:
Yeah, I loved that you said that. I think that's such a common question that I get in emails a lot is just about how to find time and when you already have a full-time job and you have this and you have that. If you could, could you share anything that you did, maybe, to make more time in your day? I know you said that you worked at night, but was there anything that you traded off?

Brian:
Totally. I kind of just thought about my schedule in general. I was going through kind of a life change in general at that time. Stopped drinking, I became a vegetarian for a month. I was experimenting with different things I could do in my life to make it better. I thought well, what can I cut out? I noticed I was watching TV a lot, I said, "Man, I just watched six episodes of this show. That's six hours, that's a long time!" I gave up TV for awhile and I just used that time when I would have been watching TV and I thought, "What do I usually do during this time?" I'll play on my phone, or watching TV, or whatever I'm doing. I would use some of that time to code.

I didn't live some sort of monk-type lifestyle. I just did a couple things where I could see an hour or two here that I had and I would take it. Kids went to sleep at eight, maybe instead of watching TV from 8-9 or 10, I'd code for an hour and then play with my phone for an hour and look at gossip mags or something like that, you know?

Laurence:
Yeah, wow. So today, do you watch TV again?

Brian:
Oh yeah.

Laurence:
Yeah, okay, I was curious.

Brian:
I was kind of just playing with different things in my life. I was like, "What can I cut out?" Just started cutting random things out to see what fit and what didn't. Yeah, I have some random shows that I got to watch every week, but I still make time every day to do some coding and I code eight hours every day at work and I still have to go home and play around a little bit with my own projects.

Laurence:
Yeah, well now that you do have this full-time job, you're coding every day regardless. It's a little different, I guess, from when you were learning and still doing the full-time job and other things. Wow. So you were working full-time, you were at this part-time coding bootcamp, you were a Lyft driver, and you have two children as well. And it sounds like they're probably young? Correct?

Brian:
Yes, two and nine.

Laurence:
Oh wow.

Brian:
Yeah, they're both a handful. It sounds like a lot when you say it.

Laurence:
I know, it does.

Brian:
I never felt super overwhelmed. I tried not to, I never put pressure like, "Oh, I've got to finish this project tonight or I better learn this framework by this afternoon." I just, I had fun doing it and I enjoyed doing the coding so I never felt a lot of external pressure to get stuff done in a point of time.

Laurence:
Yeah, so you went to the coding bootcamp. Now I'm curious, when did you start applying to jobs?

Brian:
Probably around month two of that camp. So it was August, September, like right after October. I just started. My mentor said, "Hey man, you know, you should just start." And I thought that, "No way, that's a bad idea. I'm going to get turned down everywhere. Who would want to take me?" But he kept pressuring me and it seemed like, "Well, this guy knows what he's doing and he's done this before." So I said, "Well, this is the reason I'm in here, to take this guy's advice, so let me take his advice."

I did and I was shocked, immediately, that I was getting calls in the first place, with some of the skills I had. And then I started going to interviews and I got more comfortable with interviews and with meeting people and it kind of snowballed from there. I enjoyed the interview process because it taught me a lot about what I did know and what I didn't know. And also it taught me my worst fears didn't come true. My worst fear that I'd get laughed out of the room or somebody would be, "Hey you're not a real coder you charlatan, get out of here!" That never happened, so that was good. It just taught me, "Hey, maybe I can do this."

Laurence:
Yeah. One of the earlier episodes I spoke with someone just about technical interviewing and kind of interviewing in general. Really, when you think about it that way, like what's the worst that can happen. Am I going to die? Will I be in physical pain? No.

Brian:
Exactly.

Laurence:
Even, let's just say someone did laugh at you, or laugh at a person, which I don't think is likely, but when you think of it, is that really so bad? Not really.

Brian:
And also, if a person does, you probably don't want to work for that kind of person.

Laurence:
Yeah, exactly. Yes, that's a bad sign. Not a good sign. Precisely. I don't know if you could remember this, I guess it wasn't very long ago, but do you know how many interviews you went through before you ended up where you are?

Brian:
Yeah, probably around the ten area. Approximately ten.

Laurence:
I bet though, every single time you must have felt more and more comfortable though.

Brian:
Oh yeah, it definitely got to a point where I felt way more comfortable doing the interview. The first couple were super nerve wracking. I didn't know if the person was going to laugh me out of the room, like I said, or just realize immediately that I was not the person. Everybody was respectful. I had an overall very good experience with people. The developers were super nice, that I met. Even when I had a couple jobs that were way out of my league and they kind of pointed me in the right direction what I might want to do to prepare. So everyone was, in general, pretty helpful in my experience.

Laurence:
So, when you were at the, okay you're at the coding bootcamp and you had the mentor, did they help you at all? Like with the technical interviewing or the preparing for the interviews?

Brian:
It was kind of like a group help. I mean we all would kind of share our experiences and they kind of varied so differently that it was kind of hard to get a good grip on what to expect. But yeah, we went over some of the questions that we thought would be typical, especially in the Bay area at the time, JavaScript questions seemed to be really prevalent. So we'd go over things like, what are closures? That's literally the brackets around a function. That's a question they would ask. Sometimes you know how to use JavaScript functionally, but if somebody asks you a question like that it can really throw you for a loop. So we went over things like that. You know, just defining Model-View-Controller architecture. Things like that, kind of questions, they're not functional but they're more theory related. Theoretical type of questions about JavaScript. Those did help out.

Laurence:
Okay, yeah cool. I guess I was just curious like, if you prepared on your own or aside from just learning to code, if you prepared in another way for the interview.

Brian:
Well yeah, you know, working at a career center kind of gave me a nice advantage.

Laurence:
True, right. You're actually very, I'm sure your resume was sparkling compared to other people's?

Brian:
That was a big part of it. Also just the people skills. A lot of times I felt like a couple job interviews I walked into and they said, "Even if you don't know this stuff, we're just looking for a good fit." Having the soft skills is really important too. The thing is, languages change all the time. I mean, you're going to learn something new on your job, I guarantee it. They're going to want somebody they can enjoy being around too and has the skills to interact with other people.

I'd look up the company, go on LinkedIn. I was always on LinkedIn, looking up people and checking out what the overall company culture was. Who I was meeting with, to know about them a little more. I definitely did my research on everybody I met with beforehand and that came in a ton of handy.

Laurence:
Yeah, yes definitely. Everyone listening should definitely do researching companies and researching, if you can, who's going to be interviewing you and yeah, all that stuff that you mentioned.

Brian:
I think, actually you were one of the people that influenced me to get on LinkedIn like I was. I'd never really used LinkedIn, to be totally honest with you.

Laurence:
Oh really? I was going to say though, because as a career, as some kind of career counselor type of person, I would imagine that you would, but, oh wow, that's good to know. Oh yeah, I feel like the insights you can gain on LinkedIn just from research, to me is just insane. I feel like it has so much. You could just go to a company profile and you can see how you're connected. Your second degree connections or who you know that works there now, who you know that used to work there. It's just, it's so helpful.

Kind of circling back to what you said about the soft skills and the personality, and just talking right now, I can tell that you definitely are great with people. You're really outgoing. I think what you said is so true though, because technologies change all the time, but being a person that's easy to work with is something that you can't really train a person to do.

Brian:
Totally right. I mean, so many people I feel like would shoot themselves in the foot sometimes. Either coming in, even the way you, just little things. Dressing the right way, making sure you're kind of clean when you walk in. Just being personal, shaking people's hands, eye contact, little things, these are the things. I did a ton of interview practice with students at the community college and it taught me a lot, too. Looking at what other people did. I'd even get my computer out, look in the monitor, and sometimes answer questions in front of a monitor to see how I looked. Which is kind of weird but it's helpful. It lets you know of any nervous twitches you have and things like that.

Laurence:
Oh wait, when you say in front of a monitor, do you mean in front of a video?

Brian:
Oh yeah, like record yourself or have a friend record you. We did that actually in the bootcamp I was in. A buddy of mine, we recorded each other, saw the kind of nervous twitches we had, little things that you might want to correct or try to change before you go into a real live, for real deal interview.

Laurence:
Yeah, that is such a good tip. I can feel people's pain because I know that watching yourself on video can be really, can be painful sometimes. And hearing yourself talk also and just seeing your body language and whatnot. Yeah, talk about enlightening. You'll see, maybe you touch your hair or maybe you'll say "Um" a lot, or maybe you, you know, do whatever. All these little mannerisms that could mean something.

So, to me, you started applying to full-time jobs pretty soon after you started learning, at least compared to a lot of other people. Do you have any advice for others who maybe have been learning for six months or a year and they're not sure if they're ready yet?

Brian:
Yeah, I totally do. Here it is: apply. I meet a lot of people. Even some of the people from the bootcamp and I know they have the same skills, some were even more skilled than me. I was working with a couple guys from there and I always wondered, "What are you doing? Are you applying?" And he'd say, "Oh, I'm not applying. I'm waiting for this, waiting for some magical, ah ha moment," that just doesn't come.

You're always going to have to learn something. I'm learning stuff all the time now. Everybody I've even known that got a job has to learn on the job. If you wait until you're the master of all these languages, or even one language, you'll be waiting forever. The best advice I can give is just to apply. There's a definite need for developers in general, and you're doing people a favor by contributing, by getting into jobs and achieving much more than you ever could outside of it. So I think it's just really important. If this is what you want to do, and there's a short of developers anyway. You're doing a service to the world and yourself. So I would
totally apply.

Laurence:
So, do you wish you maybe even applied sooner? Do you think it was a good time when you began applying?

Brian:
I think it was a pretty good time. I had some of the basics down. I had made, I have a little portfolio which was helpful, because recruiters want to see portfolios. I had the basics down and I felt like I could, just confident enough. I was really nervous, I didn't, actually I'll take that back. I was not confident enough. I felt totally unconfident, but I still did it. People still called me up and I was truthful about my skills and I was still, received interviews and was meeting with employers. So, it just taught me that wow, I probably could have done it a month earlier, to be honest.

Laurence:
Yeah, wow. I was just kind of counting back in my head. You began applying about six months or so after you started teaching yourself?

Brian:
Yeah, about. I mean, from literally zero to yeah, about five months, yeah you're right. Right at the beginning of month six.

Laurence:
Yeah, I think that's great. I feel like people wait way too long. I always tell this story but I don't think I've mentioned it once yet in the podcast, but I began, my first "job," which was not a full-time job, it was a contract position. But still, I was being paid. I was only teaching myself HTML and CSS for like a month.

Brian:
Wow.

Laurence:
Yeah, and I really did not know that much. I knew the basics when I went in there. Now the things I was doing were not at a super advanced level. If that was the case I wouldn't have gotten the job because again, I'd only been teaching myself HTML and CSS for about a month. Still, having that experience and, I was with people more experienced than I was and I felt like that really allowed me to learn a lot. So, I guess, the thing for me at least, it was starting small and just putting, I really just put myself out there right away. I think people would be very, very surprised.

Brian:
That's awesome. You're also Laurence Bradford, so. That's right. Coding guru.

Laurence:
Thank you, but again, it was not like a full-time job. I think learning only for a month and getting a full-time developer job, especially doing more advanced things, like maybe JavaScript or Ruby on Rails, that would be extremely impressive.

Brian:
That would be. That would be uncanny.

Laurence:
Yeah, I feel like, just a month is just such a short time.

Brian:
That's pretty impressive. You're like the second person. Another guy told me the same thing. A lot of times I think it's the person with the most confidence that gets the job or gets to where they want to be and not always the person with the most skills. If you have both then you're really winning.

Laurence:
Yeah, and again, back to those soft skills that are really important, I think just being able to communicate with people and being easy to be around. I think if I was hiring someone, it doesn't even matter what the job is for, it doesn't have to be tech related, and there were two candidates, and one was more skilled but I didn't really mesh with them, and the other person was not as skilled but had a really great personality and seemed like they'd be very open to learning more, I would definitely choose the person that had the better personality. It's not even something I have to think about, you know?

Brian:
Exactly. I mean no one wants to be, if you're going to spend eight hours a day with this person, you want to be around somebody that's cool. Not a horrible person, for sure.

Laurence:
Yes, precisely. So, I have one last question for you.

Brian:
Sure.

Laurence:
I'm asking this to pretty much everyone. Well, some variation of this question. A person has no technical experience whatsoever, but they want a job in tech. What is one thing that they could do today to take a step in the right direction?

Brian:
Begin building something. I think it's really cool if you just take that first step, which is either getting on Codecademy, which is my advice, is to take the HTML/CSS course. Start with the basics, HTML, CSS, JQuery or JavaScript, and start learning how to build stuff. Once you get the basics down, learn how to do something like build a small site for your brother or mother or friend, whoever. I think the more you build, the more you'll learn.

Just to not be afraid to just get in it. I think it's the most important, just start digging right in. Get on there, fire up a text editor, and start typing in some code. Even if you're not sure what you're doing or what you're building, just start and you'll learn a lot quicker than you think you can. You'll be surprised how far you can come with just some dedication and some time and all the free resources you have online.

Laurence:
Yes. Love that, thank you so much Brian. Where can people find you online?

Brian:
Oh, wow. BriansNotHere on Twitter.

Laurence:
Brian the Code Toad, nice.

Brian:
Yep, that's it.

Laurence:
Alright, well thank you so much, Brian.

Brian:
Thank you so much.

Laurence:
I hope you enjoyed the conversation I had with Brian. Again, the Show Notes for this episode, plus a full transcript can be found at learntocodewith.me/13.

Brian and I spoke a lot about getting a job in tech and the importance of putting yourself out there. Doing things like getting on LinkedIn and applying to jobs. In my opinion, one of the most important things you can do as far as your job search is concerned, is have a personal website, or as I like to call them, a portfolio site. And guess what? You can get started with your portfolio site by signing up for my Free Portfolio Course at learntocodewith.me/freecourse. Inside this free course I'll show you, what makes a great portfolio site, what to include on your site, even if you feel like you have no real work to show, and much more. Again, you can sign up for this totally free course at learntocodewith.me/freecourse.

Thanks so much for tuning into this show, and I'll see you next week on the Learn to Code With Me podcast.