Gift Egwuenu is a front-end developer passionate about making the web accessible to everyone and advocating building open and inclusive developer communities. She loves sharing her knowledge and does that through content creation on her blog and YouTube channel. She's a Media Developer Expert at Cloudinary, Microsoft MVP, an Auth0 Ambassador, GitHub Star, and a Nuxt.js Ambassador. When she's not coding, you can find me geeking about photography, trying new food recipes, and exploring different ways of creating content that can help people pivot their tech careers.
Mentorship and Collaborations
Hi Subha Chanda , I started out with sharing a lot of what I was doing (Learning In Public). I was not focused on just gaining followers, for me with engagement that you'll get that so being genuine is one hack you can employ in building an online presence. Immediately! As long as you have potential and meet even half of the Job Description. I don't think you should stall because you think you're not qualified. Apply for the job and let them tell you that and you take that as constructive feedback and improve on yourself. Open Source isn't required for a job in tech. I agree is a nice to have and will look good on your resume but don't let anyone tell you otherwise you can decide to contribute or not and you'll still be eligible for a job.
Hi Jatin Rao , I have a video talking about this in more detail but I'll say personal branding is a great thing to consider for any professional career regardless if you're tech or not. It positions you in front of potential employers and allows them to understand your skills and what you bring to the table. Make you stand out from your peers because more people will get to know you for your work. Presents you with opportunities than you can ever imagine (I have seen this first hand) Blogging has done a lot for me and my career as a developer. I can not recommend it more for anyone looking to start. I blog because I want to share something I've learned or some new thing I think others will love to learn. My advice is to keep sharing your knowledge no matter how you think of it. Many people don't write because they think it's too basic or others have written about the same thing. I'll say everyone has something to share and a way of reaching more people is by speaking at conferences. My advice is to find something you're really passionate about and pitch it to a meetup in your community or go big and apply to conferences. My process involves first thinking of a topic, then going on to do more research and come up with an outline then I flesh out the talk before creating the slides... After doing that I practice, practice until I feel very comfortable with the talk.
Hi Bolaji Ayodeji , Sure I'd love to. I feel like a lot of what I do is learning, shipping, refactoring, and shipping :D but happy to share what I've learned since I started creating video content. I create two types of content basically the one where I sit down and talk about a topic and the other kind is technical (doing x with technology) and they both have a different process from start to finish. First, you need to start with a few pieces of equipment and then you're ready :) A youtube channel or twitch A good microphone and camera (nothing too pricey for a start my first videos was shot on my iPhone) Great software for editing ( I use Final Cut Pro but I started with iMovie, ScreenFlow) Then, you need to plan your content, what you want to make videos about is really important to do this first actually because there are so many things you can be interested in but bringing it all together to form a niche and a brand will help you communicate better with your audience. For me, I started out with an idea of wanting to create a youtube channel where I can share video content of tutorials I already create and I also had a couple of more ideas. The first video I posted was even about this so people know what to expect from me. I also have a content calendar/board this helps me save time and gives me a good start for when I want to make new content. I've got a ton of ideas in my backlog soon I can find time to create them but also I treat this like a real project - planning phase, editing, and published phase as you can see from the screenshot below. It's a game-changer!
Hi Corey O'Donnell , That's interesting to hear. Building a personal brand has a ton of benefits and I cannot recommend it enough. I have followed this same route you're currently on for the last 2 years and I have seen a lot of growth in both my technical abilities and Are you familiar with the concept of Learning in Public ? I for sure will recommend you follow that because it does a lot for you and will definitely help you on your journey to building a brand. I also have a video and article I wrote about Personal branding that can give you more insight into how you can grow and expand your brand. Haha, nice one! I'll say everyone should take a day off and sleep, or spend time with family.. a lot of us work all day and have little or no time to rest our nerves.
Hello Karina Khodzhakulieva , I'd say use what's best for the job. I don't use Angular but I can tell you that they're both great choices for building modern web applications and it all goes down to what's fitting for your project or team. I've had a good time working with Vue. I can only say a lot about it and that's not the case for Angular so in order not to be biased, I'll say learn or use what is best for the job.
Hi Sunrit Jana , I'd like to give you advice but I'm not a Python Developer and have little knowledge in this area but what I can do is share with you some resources and people to follow that are great at doing Python-related things :) I'll say following people on twitter that are focused on Python will definitely help. I learned a lot of what I know today from people I follow and engage within the JavaScript community on Twitter. I can recommend @nnja she's amazing! Also, follow blogs, newsletters in the python space I can scout for these and send over to you but it's always great to have a source for learning new things every week and for me, that's developer blogs and newsletters.
I just came out of a job search myself so I know how daunting looking for a new job can get. These are some tips that can help you land a role: Make your resume stand out - tons of people are applying for the same role you apply to and you can imagine how many resume recruiters will have to sort through. Keep this in mind and spending the time to craft a great resume can help you get that first call from the recruiter. When you apply for a role, make a note of why you think you'll like to work at the company and why you're a great fit. This could be something you add to your cover letter or bring up in conversations when you're interviewing. It's always nice to have a personal portfolio or website listing projects you have worked on and information about yourself. There are more tips I've learned from people and applied that have helped me. https://dev.to/emmabostian/5-tips-on-landing-your-first-developer-job-3hc9 https://github.com/cassidoo/getting-a-gig