Meet Rachel Lee Nabors 🇺🇸🇬🇧! They are an award-winning cartoonist who transitioned to become a developer with a passion for teaching the world how to code. Rachel has worked at major tech companies such as Microsoft, AWS, and Meta. At Meta, they were a pivotal contributor to react.dev, the award-winning version of React documentation.

Rachel is also the author of the Tech Career Survival Guide, a series of Substack essays that may or may not become a book. In these essays, they teach readers about emotional resilience, managing change, and the practical aspects of working in tech. In this episode, Rachel will share their secret for landing high-profile tech jobs, as well as advice for owning your non-linear career path, especially if you're a career changer. You will also discover how to deal with a job market where opportunities may seem scarce and what you can do if nobody seems to be hiring. Plus: why you shouldn't email Dan Abramov, who to reach out to instead, and why collecting feedback from people directly is often better than staring at analytics.

🔗 Connect with Rachel

• 🧑‍💼 LinkedIn
• 🌐 Website
• ✉️ The Tech Career Survival Guide
• 🐦 Twitter
• ꩜ Threads
• 🧑‍🚀 GitHub

⏰ Timestamps

• How Rachel became a developer while being a cartoonist (01:29)
• How Rachel handled the career shift into professional development (03:08)
• Code can make things come to life (05:48)
• Very few people are given jobs just because they're popular (09:22)
• Break (11:07)
• How Rachel gets her FAANG roles (12:28)
• What to do if nobody's hiring (14:48)
• How can a new developer create value in the community? (16:28)
• How Alex did the same (18:41)
• Great Recession was tough, but it brought up some great engineering (21:17)
• Increase your chance to get lucky later (25:43)
• What to do if you don't have a linear career path (27:38)
• When changing career paths, it can feel like starting from scratch (31:26)
• Developing expertise is not a good thing! (32:14)
• Are your skills out of date, and how Rachel transferred her old skills into new roles (33:33)
• Barista engineering (36:52)
• Don't be ashamed of your previous work experience, however unrelated (38:40)
• How Rachel adjusts to change and challenges and helps others do the same through The Tech Career Survival Guide (40:56)

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You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

Meet Dominik Piątek 🇵🇱🇬🇧! Dominik moved to the UK from Poland in search of career opportunities. He worked odd jobs, acquired a varied set of skills, and became a partner in a digital agency at the age of 23. That's where he got interested in front-end development, and more than a decade later, Dom is still in London. He's a staff developer who has also led cross-functional teams, worked with complex JavaScript applications and multiple times served as a tech lead.

Dominik interviewed Alex for a job in their previous company. Today, the tables have turned, and Alex interviews Dom. In this episode, you'll learn what Dom looks for in a candidate, what's the difference between a senior developer and a tech lead, and whether or not whiteboard interviews can actually be useful. Dominik also talks about company values and explains the notion of a culture fit once and for all. You'll find out if the hiring processes are getting better, what are the current interview trends, and how different companies optimize their interviews so that they select just the candidates that are right for them.

🔗 Connect with Dominik

• 👨🏻‍💼 LinkedIn
• 🌐 Website
• 👨‍🚀 GitHub

⏰ Timestamps

• In an interview, you only get one shot (01:34)
• Sometimes you get nervous, but sometimes you're too relaxed (02:45)
• How Dominik became a developer (04:19)
• Why Dominik left Poland (05:21)
• "This is not like C!" (06:56)
• It's going to take five years to become comfortable with coding (11:26)
• Don't be buzzwordy! (12:13)
• Community break with Jan the Producer (15:50)
• What do companies want to see in a beginner developer (19:39)
• If your PR gets destroyed, don't be emotional (23:49)
• What's a culture fit? (24:39)
• Can you codify culture? (26:34)
• A lot of time, values are aspirational (28:13)
• Why do people tend to hire people like themselves? (29:12)
• Should you vibe with your job interview? (30:38)
• Is your ability to interview more important than your coding skills? (32:54)
• Are whiteboard interviews a culture test? (34:15)
• Who needs whiteboarding as a skill? (39:33)
• Do you need computer science fundamentals? (43:54)
• Closing advice: The job market always ebbs and flows, focus on your own growth! (45:31)
• Next week on the show: Rachel Lee Nabors (46:45)

⭐️ Leave a Review

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

Meet Ian Douglas 🇺🇸🇨🇦! Developer, DevRel, Tech Educator, Career Coach, and author of The Tech Interview Guide, Ian Douglas, has been coding professionally since 1996. During that time, he worked at seventeen different companies! So, he probably knows a thing or two about how to transition companies in the most productive and secure way.

Whether you're a new or more experienced developer, sooner or later, the time will come to change companies. How can you be sure it's time to quit your job? How do you hand in your notice, and what do you even write in a resignation letter? Why is a manager who gets surprised by your leaving the company probably not a good manager? How do you hand off your projects, and when do you tell your coworkers you're moving on from the company? When should you publicize your new role on LinkedIn, why do some recruiters hit you up 90 days after you've changed jobs, and ultimately, how should you navigate all this in today's job market?

If you need help moving on from your role - or at least renegotiating it, listen to this episode!

🔗 Connect with Ian

• 👨🏻‍💼 LinkedIn
• 🌐 Website
• 🐦 Twitter

⏰ Timestamps

• Alex changed jobs recently! (01:58)
• "The first thing you really need to understand is why you want to leave the company" (03:16)
• Have a direction in mind (05:02)
• It takes six to twelve months to hit your stride at a new job (07:13)
• With all the info you have currently, could you see yourself being at the new company for at least two years? (09:29)
• Sometimes the company changes, and that's okay (10:00)
• Should you feel guilty when quitting your job? (10:49)
• What you need to know about notice periods (12:46)
• The risk of resigning (14:42)
• Get all your paperwork signed first (16:34)
• What if your current company wants to keep you? (17:31)
• Even if they manage to keep you, they might not trust in your loyalty (18:59)
• Always communicate with your manager (21:00)
• If you leave a job, it shouldn't really surprise your manager (22:29)
• What if your company can't make the accommodations you need (23:20)
• You need to be able to trust your manager (25:45)
• How to communicate your resignation (26:27)
• How to write your notice letter: it's just a notification email! (28:53)
• Should you tell the team you're quitting (30:21)
• Be prepared to lose access to company stuff (31:31)
• Can you work for a competitor? (32:06)
• Should you tell your current employer about the new company (33:48)
• When should you share the news about your new job on LinkedIn? (37:58)

🧰 Resources Mentioned

• Our previous shows with Ian: An Expert Guide to Technical Interviews, and This Is How You Onboard: Actionable Tips for Developers On a New Job

⭐️ Leave a Review

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.