Hi! I am a developer at The Washington Post. My team builds tools for the newsroom so that journalists can make articles with rich, engaging content. I work primarily on the front end on JavaScript projects. Originally not a techie, I hold a degree in International Relations and taught myself to code after not finding good work in that field. The journey from relative low technical literacy to full time working developer has been... well, hard and interesting. I have some opinions about it all.
I am an active community organizer including sitting as the current Chair for the DC chapter of ACM, helping organize for DC Tech Meetup, DCFemTech, and producing a podcast called DC Tech Stories - check it out!
Currently I am struggling with burn out, how to level up my coding skills without giving my whole life over to side projects, why as a society, we have such a low level of technical literacy, and how to feel like a competent developer while working in imperfect legacy code. I am excited about the future of news media and technology, my upcoming vacation, and fun web storytelling in general.
Ask me anything!
Top comments (95)
Hi Jessica! Thanks for doing this AMA!
Starting out in tech can be hard, especially if you don't fit into the stereotypical definition of a developer (young man with a degree in computing). Being a women in computing with a non-engineering degree, have you ever felt imposter syndrome? What was the most significant moment you felt out of place?
Any advice on how to get past the feeling that you don't belong?
Good lord imposter syndrome ALL THE TIME. Usually of my own doing however - I have been SUPER fortunate to not have too much shade for being a woman in tech - I have seen it, but not had much directed at me, small things but nothing I cant nip in the bud.
The harder thing is convincing myself that I am not a terrible dev haha - I put A LOT of pressure to know everything, and progress quickly but that is just not the realities of tech. I try to reflect on all the things I HAVE learned to contextualize my own PERSONAL tech journey. That and I have an amazing group of technical women in the DC Tech scene lifting me up which makes a big difference!
Also, I wanted to congratulate you. I saw you were awarded one of DCA's "New Power Women of DC Tech" this year! I swear I'm not stalking you but I recognized you from the event they held earlier in October.
Oh thank you! I have been SO honored this year to be recognized by a few orgs - it makes me feel like I really do belong in tech and people appreciate my work :)
Speaking of the DC tech scene, what's it like? Is it mostly journalism and politics? How's the meetup and/or conference culture from what you know?
Not Jessica but I work as a dev in DC as well. I'm in the political space. There's a ton of consulting jobs in DC for government agencies or third party government service providers. Security is another hot tech industry in the DC area. There are a ton of tech groups here in DC and like Jessica mentioned, there's great opportunities to get into tech from other industries. Organizations like General Assembly, DC Tech, DC Inno are great communities to meet fellow developers and network.
Yeah that makes perfect sense, thanks for the input!
The Tech scene here is actually really varied. Stand outs are journalism, security, government work, but there are lots of startups that are consumer facing, agencies, and design focused places too! Quite a bit bigger tech scene than people give it credit for IMO!
Journalism and Politics are some of the smaller industries for tech in DC in my experience. Government contracting / consulting is a huge industry, but there are also a number of large companies and startups in the commercial space. At this point it's achieved critical mass and the sector continues to expand and get more active.
AWS is in Herndon. AOL is out there too near Dulles. Capital One and a number of others in McLean, VA. Large professional services firms and systems integrators all over the area. Large number of startups, both gov contracting but also security, SaaS, etc. A vibrant meetup scene with something for everyone.
Pick your mission - lots of opportunities.
Thanks for doing this AMA! I also feel your struggles, especially "leveling up coding skills w//o giving your whole life to side projects."
Something I recently realized thanks to @sehurlburt is that it's okay to just learn from the job and not spend all of my time in side projects. That said, I still have some ideas I want to implement and some random "oh, wouldn't it be cool to learn or do
xyz?" and want to follow through on those thoughts.Anyway as a former bootcamper, I'm really grateful for having the chance to go through one. I'm personally not the biggest fan of bootcamps, and I certainly did get what I needed out of it to get a job. I strongly believe that the "getting the job" part was more what I did + lots of luck than the bootcamp itself. What was your path to being a full time developer, and are there any reflections and general thoughts you want to share for anyone else looking to "be a developer?"
Of course! I am happy to share my experiences :)
I am also a bootcamper - but a part time one, not an immersive one. I was working at a foundation doing a bunch of communications stuff, including managing a wordpress site. I learned REALLY quickly that I didn't know how to communicate with developers AND stuff was pretty simple to do my self once I learned - so that started me on learning more about the web and websites. After about 6 months of learning I took a part time General Assembly front end web dev course. After that I loved it so much I decided to try my hand at front end web dev and got a job. It's been ups and downs in web dev ever sense :)
I have mixed feelings about bootcamps. For me, it took my learning over the plateau I was experiencing - I do WAY better with in person learning so it was invaluable to have a teacher and ta's to directly ask questions and work on problems with. GA also has a strong community in DC so the network has helped me get jobs. I DO feel that they over promise - no one is going to be a developer in 10 weeks... BUT you will learn the language and context to take your learning to a new level. I learned how to learn web dev basically. Now I am 3 years in and looking to level up - and unfortunately there does not seem to be a ton of classes for that mid level dev - things like best practices in architecture, building a WHOLE program vs. filling in functions/features - that is a HARD plateau to get over... I do consider myself a developer, since I work in code every day, and you don't need a CS degree to be a programmer, however I do with there was some better resources to get the things you miss out on in a fast paced, focused bootcamp.
Totally agree! I think you articulated some rock solid points like "learning to learn web dev" and how it's hard for mid level devs to learn more (I am definitely not mid level -- ...yet -- but can totally relate to the difficulty of leveling up).
I guess the tried and true way of learning is just to code, build, code side projects, but ugh burnout is too real sometimes.
Do you find that having senior developers around you often helps a lot? Any thoughts on mentorship in general?
I have been SO lucky to have multiple people who have served as mentors - right now I have two amazing senior devs, Andrew Frye and Thomas Lincoln. They are always happy to hep me with ANY issue. One thing I ask of them it to always contextualize the problem they are solving so I can learn to to it myself next time. When I first started out I had an specific mentor - Mitchell Shelton, he was so important to teaching me HOW to be a good mentee - ask direct questions, never lie when you're lost, and never let them 'do it for you'. On top of that my partner is a techie with a CS degree so I get an on demand resource whenever I want (#loveYouBabe). Asking for help, coming with an open mind, and leaving your ego at the door - these things make me a good mentee which I believe helps people want to help me (Plus I'm funny hah)
Hah humor helps 🙃
Great points about being a mentee. Oooooh do I have a lot to learn...
Also, having an on demand resource is so damn helpful! That's great that your partner is available and willing.
We're life partners for that and many other reasons :P shout out to my boo!!
At WaPo it REALLY depends on the team. In my team we actually support quite a few apps, mostly in angular, some using TypeScript, some not... other teams have the ability to choose their own stacks that fit their specific projects. My personal job is 90% JavaScript tho!
What were the 'signals' that made you feel ready to start applying for jobs?
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What's it like working for The Washington Post?! I'm curious about how the culture has evolved over the last few years.
So I have only been at the post since Jan, so can't answer how it's changed over the years but right now it really varies team to team. I have a SUPER awesome team with really nice senior devs and an amazing technical manager so I am pretty happy :) It can be challenging to keep up with all the things here and deal with technical debt but the people make it fun/easy.
Signals for feeling ready? Honestly I was TERRIFIED... I didn't think I was ready but my GA TA, my partner who is a dev, and other people in my life in tech told me just to do it and see what came back. So I build a little portfolio site, made a resume, and started... I had a few REALLY bad interviews, but then a few REALLY good ones too :P
What was the interview process at Washington Post like?
I had an initial chat with people working in the post - I was talking to them already for some of the community organizing stuff that I do when they asked me to sit with a few people re. job. I was not looking at the time but was curious so sat down! After the first convo I talked for about an hour with my current manager and senior dev regarding their projects and culture. I spend about 3 hrs at the offices meeting with various people and chatting code - it was very laid back, more a conversation than a test/interview.
I know SOME teams do code tests/take home exercises but I did not have a specific one other than chatting back and forth about experience and tech
OOH! I'm a GA WDI Grad too! I'm assuming you did your program in DC?
YUP! FEWD 7! ie: mega-fewd hahaha
How does The Washington Post think about web vs native, AMP, Instant Articles, etc? What direction is the organization going with these platforms?
So I am in the odd position of being an internal facing developer so I don't know much about the front facing part of WaPo. My team builds tools for the newsroom. Each team usually has ownership over their own particular section - we have a whole big native team, a team that works on WaPo.com, a team focused on analytics, a paywall team, and if something like Instant Articles becomes popular, either a new team will form, or existing teams will lend out devs (short or long term, it varies). There is a hierarchy structure of upwards reporting from these teams into upper engineering management that drives strategy. Does that kind of answer your question?
Yeah that makes sense. What are some of the problems you're typically working to solve as an internal-facing dev?
Reporters want to make their articles more content more engaging so they use our tools to do things like add user polls or context notes - here is an example: washingtonpost.com/pr/wp/2017/09/1...
My team was part of the collaboration to make a tools for journalists to make context notes attached into their articles - we had to make it look good and work on wapo.com AND make the internal editor easy for journalists to use ;)
How intertwined are the technical and editorial teams?
SO! Engineering had some teams that are very close to the newsroom and many who are not. We also have developers on the editorial side in our graphics dept which work VERY closely on specific projects and stories. Most of the engineers will have some contact with the news room but not editorial or story/content. My team supports tools for the news room so I will occasionally go and help journalists who need help with our tools and our PMs are always working with the newsroom to define and decide features to add into our suite.
That's great to hear. I have some friends in journalism and sometimes the dev team is a silo'd group who don't really care about the editorial side and vice versa.
I think SOME teams for sure are and some aren't - ranges a lot
Hello Jessica! Are you building tools that are only available to WaPo's journalist? What's it like building internal tools compare to other forms of software? What is the release cycle like?
MOST of our tools are internal only. We are working to get some integrated with Arc, the WaPo client platform that is licensed out to other publications. That is kinda a new thing (us having integrated tools) so we are still figuring out how releases will go! Internally, we do springs on one specific goal (ie: redesign of the styles of one specific tool) and will do a release after that and move on to the next... all while supporting bugs for all tools #tiring
Can you expand a little bit on the tools that you and your team create for the newsroom and journalists? Who comes up with the ideas? How long does it typically take to go from idea to execution?
Finally — are there any live examples that you're particularly proud of?
Thanks for doing this AMA!
This is our latest too and I think it is AWESOME: washingtonpost.com/pr/wp/2017/09/1...
I have been here since Jan so I am not a big part of the priority setting for our team. Some of our work are hot fixes and are deployed ALL the time, some take months of prep, planning, and dedicated sprints, I would say a 50/50 mix of those two things.
What's the process for getting a hot fix into production?
Depends on the team and tool (can I copy and past that to every answer hahah). Most of the time it's branch off master, fix bug, deploy to QA/testing site, test again, get your PR approved by whatever teams are involved, deploy to master, deal with the cache :)
Hi Jess! Thanks for sharing DC Tech stuff on Twitter and the DC Tech slack. It's definitely been helpful in joining the community!
What would you say was the toughest aspect of finding your first developer job?
My own fear hahah - I was SO afraid of the code interview and afraid people would just SLAM me for not knowing everything. That happened maybe twice in my 20 ish first interviews.. most people if you go in with honesty and a positive attitude will give that back to you... also if you are all smiles and willingness to learn, they look like big jerks for shaming you for not knowing something.
Now, I think the junior market is a TAD flooded so that can be hard in getting your first job... grit through it!!
I think that's been a big challenge of mine. I look at the code and think "that's not even possible!" only to step back and realize it totally is. I just completed a code challenge for WaPo, so maybe we'll cross paths soon!
Do you have any tips on "beating the blackhole" when it comes to job portals?
Oh awesome! Good luck!
there is no 'beating the blackhole' unless you have an internal contact. Maybe find their twitter accounts and tweet that you applied? mine linked in for contacts? the blackhole job form is the WORST!!!
Hi Jessica! Thanks so much for doing this. As a relatively fresh developer who just moved to the area, I'm excited to check out the resources/meetup group you listed as being an organizer for. Beyond those, do you have any other recommendations for meetups or groups in the area? Thanks!
DC Tech Slack is awesome, DC Tech Meetup if you're into startup life.. meetup.com in general has a PLETHORA of language/tech specific groups and depending on your background/identity there are lots of women/PoC focussed groups (women who code, black code collective, DCFemTech, Color Coded ect).
Thanks!