Back to coding with Our Time For Tech

My journey in Tech started almost 10 years ago when I got my first web developer position at a digital agency. After a few years working I decided to take a small break, and that small break turned into almost 4 years as a stay-at-home mom.

I always knew sooner or later I would come back so, when I felt it was the right moment to start job-hunting, for a couple of months I used every free minute I had to go over as many freeCodeCamp courses I could and to read as many articles I found and was when I realised I remembered more than I thought.

But I think knowing how to code is not enough anymore. Nowadays it is much more difficult to find a dev position than it was 10 years ago, when it could be done by knowing some HTML, CSS, Javascript or a CMS like WordPress. Also now I'm looking for a more specific role, it needs to be remote, preferably within a team... That's why when I discovered Our Time For Tech (A nonprofit online program that empowers early-career & career-changing Women in Tech) and its codeCollab program I knew it was the final push I needed.

I've been lucky enough to be part of it and I would like to share my journey with you. Over the next 12 weeks we (a group of 5 female coders) with the help of two experienced developers will be building a web app where we not only will develop further our coding skills, but also will learn and develop important ones, like team collaboration and communication, among others.

So, what have I done so far?

As a brief recap, things I (we) have been working on over the last two weeks:

• Setting up the environment. Installing Rails 6, Node, Yarn and Postgresql. Dealing with errors during the installation, like the need of a different Ruby version.
• Learning how to make a pull request. During my previous experience as a developer I never had to used them, and even if I had a good knowledge of git I had forgotten most of it. Also I think back at that time pull requests weren't so widely spread in work environments as they are now, but I can be mistaken on this affirmation.
• Reading a lot about Ruby on Rails as I have never used it before, migrations, SQL commands, CLI commands... Searching and going through technical documentation when I get stuck.

And last, but not least:

• Thinking big: we are not only supposed to implement the tasks we are told, we are in charge of deciding (or trying at least) the best way of doing things, what can and cannot to deliver (find the MVP), collaborating and thinking as a group. (With the proper guidance of course).

This last point was probably the one I was more worried about at the beginning, but now is probably the one that motivates me more. Looking forward to another week of challenges!