Are you trying to pivot into a programming job? Are you part of the Great Resignation and looking for your next coding gig? Are you learning coding and looking for examples of how to solve programming problems?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you might want to check out my series of articles on this blog in which I show you how to solve coding problems that tech companies have been known to ask in interviews.
Here’s what I’ve written so far:
The “find the first recurring character in a string” problem:
As a reader of this blog, you’re probably familiar with the wry observation that the most important tech skill is knowing how to Google for answers. Over the years, this observation has been turned into many, many memes:
I’ll agree that it’s a valuable tech skill. I do it all the time!
However, with nearly 25 years of Google, it’s now assumed that you Google answers in day-to-day office work, just as it’s assumed that you know the basics of using a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation software (you can still list Excel on your resume if you have deep spreadsheet skills — don’t forget that Excel is the next big esport!).
The “level two” skill
Googling for answers is a “level one” skill. It will serve you well for immediate needs in your daily life.
What you eventually want to do is move to the next level: Writing the answers that people Google for.
Here are the reasons why you want to reach level two:
It often expands your knowledge of the subject matter you’re covering.
It establishes you as a credible and knowledgeable source of information on the subject matter.
It often gets people to approach you with job offers, or offer to pay you for your services, or ask to work for you.
Achieving level two has two key components:
Putting answers in some online form. Traditionally, this has been writing, but people are increasing looking to video, especially on YouTube (the world’s second largest search engine), Instagram, and TikTok. This is the easy part.
Getting those answers on the first page of Google results for its search terms or keywords. SEO people love to tell each other this joke: “The best place to hide a body is on the second page of Google results.” This one takes a little more work, and takes into account that no two people get the same Google results for the same search terms.
Level two puts you in demand
On any given week, I get a handful of emails from recruiters, HR people, and the occasional manager with hiring authority asking me if I’d like to leave my current job and go work for them instead. Many of them came in the form of the Dreaded LinkedIn Request:
During last year’s “Great Resignation,” there would be weeks where I’d get one or two dozen such emails and follow-ups. (I’ve turned them down, as my current gig as a Senior Developer Advocate at Okta is pretty sweet.)
Level two gives you an extra portfolio
It’s very helpful to have a portfolio to show to prospective employers, collaborators, co-workers, and customers as proof that you can do what you say you can do.
It’s even better if you have multiple portfolios. You might showcase your work on a site, but also have a Github account where people can look at your work and code. My line of work has also given me a chance to collect media clippings where I’ve appeared or have been quoted, as well as records of my apps in the App Store.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve started a new portfolio: search results for which anything I’ve made is on the first page of Google results. It’s proven handy for my last couple of job searches, as it’s something that other candidates never bring up. It could give you the edge you need!
My “level two” tricks
Write an existing answer, but better!
There are nearly 1.2 billion web pages, so there’s a good chance that someone’s written up an answer to a question. But that answer may not be easy to understand, or wrong, or out of date. Someone else might need that answer in another language. Another reader might need that answer, but applicable to a different circumstance. This is an opportunity to write a better answer!
Here are some examples of this kind of answer from my own page one portfolio…
dates times swift: One of the page one results for this search term is the first article in my Dates and times in Swift 5 series, Creating and deconstructing dates and times. I was unhappy with Apple’s documentation explaining how you represent dates and times in Swift, and equally unhappy with third-party articles on the topic. So I wrote my own tutorial series, and many people point to it as the de facto reference for working with dates and times in Swift.
fizzbuzz interview: FizzBuzz is an old children’s game that was converted into a simple programming exercise to determine who actually knows how to code. For a while, it was a popular interview question, and my article, Programmer interview challenge 2: The dreaded FizzBuzz, in Python, is on the first page of results for this search term.
Write the answer that nobody else (or nearly nobody else) is providing.
Eventually, you may get the chance to be one of the first people — if not the first person — to post an answer to a specific question, solution to a specific problem, or exploration of a specific topic. This is an excellent way to establish yourself as knowledgable on a given topic and get on the page one results for that topic.
Whenever you encounter a problem that doesn’t have a solution that you can find via Google and the solve that problem, post your solution to that problem!
Here are some examples of this kind of answer from my own page one portfolio…
chromedriver 103 bug / chromedriver 103 not working: Not only is my article, Fix the ChromeDriver 103 bug with ChromeDriver 104, on the first page of Google results, but for me, it’s also the first result on the first page! It covers a workaround that I came up with for a problem where applications and scripts that use Selenium and ChromeDriver to control or automate instances of Chrome or Chromium stopped working with the Chrome 103 upgrade.
As far as I know, I’m the only person who posts a regular list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for the Tampa Bay area, and I’ve been doing it every week for five years. In spite of that, I’m missing from page one of the results for this search:
Why? Because until last week, my titles failed to use the right keywords:
Since 2017, I’ve used the title What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene, which fails to use search terms that people are likely to use, such as event or meetup. I’ll try changing it this week and see what happens.
Make sure that your answers have titles that contain words that people will use when searching for your answer.
Put the answer someplace where it’ll be found.
Your answer needs to be someplace where people look for answers or someplace that Google ranks highly. That makes your answer more likely to be found, which makes people link to it, which in turn makes your answer even more likely to be found.
This blog, Global Nerdy, is my personal tech blog, and I’ve been publishing tech content on it since 2006. This is important, as the Google algorithm factor that matters the most for a site is consistent, high-quality content:
This blog also focuses on certain aspects of technology and software development, which means that I’ve established myself with niche expertise on a handful of topics. Google also considers this in its site rankings.
While you can publish content on social media, I strongly recommend that you get your own site, as it gives you more control over your content and its format.
Tell people about your answer.
Once you’ve posted your answer, you need to tell people about it to increase its exposure and “findability.” This is where social media and forums come in handy.
Wait.
Getting on the first page of Google results doesn’t happen instantly; it’s the result of steady, consistent content creation. Keep at it, and you’ll build your own page one portfolio!
Try it out — start working on your answers and build your page one portfolio!
Sooner or later, you’ll experience this annoyance:
If you use Chrome or a browser that supports Chrome extensions (which includes Microsoft’s Edge), you can install the Save Image as PNG extension, which adds a Save Image as PNG option to the contextual menu that appears when you right-click on an image, as shown below:
Try it out! Download and install the extension and try saving the .webp image below as .png:
It’s an image format developed by Google, and it’s meant to replace image formats that we’re all familiar with — .gif, .jpeg, and .png. It supports features that we’ve come to expect for online images, including:
Lossless and lossy compression
Alpha transparency
Animation
WebP images were designed with the goal of fast er internet image transmission, so they’re optimized for small size. Encoding an image as .webp often produces smaller file sizes that encoding the same image at the same level of image quality using .jpeg or .png encoding.
Most current browsers support WebP, but older browsers such as Internet Explorer don’t.
Although WebP encoding often produced smaller images than JPEG or PNG, the image quality drops a lot as you increase the compression.
StartupBus Florida 2022! Tap to view at full size.
This article is a work in progress — I’m making it available to readers as I write it!
On Wednesday July 27, 2022, 13 people boarded a bus at The Sail on the Riverwalk in downtown Tampa bound for Austin, Texas to participate in a contest unlike any other: StartupBus 2022. I was one of those 13 people, and this is what happened on (and off) that bus.
StartupBus is the Mother of All Hackathons. The first part of the event is a three-day bus ride where buspreneurs (contestants), with help from conductors (coaches), conceive a technology startup, its software, and marketing and business plans. There are a number of buses that start in different places — in 2022, the buses left from California, Mexico City, Cincinnati, and Tampa — and they spend three days making their toward Austin, where their buspreneurs present their startups at the qualifying, semi-final, and final rounds of judging. It’s a road trip, entrepreneurship crash course, competition, and adventure all in one.
Day 1: On the bus from Tampa to Gainesville and Tallahassee
Boarding the bus
At 6:00 a.m., I arrived at The Sail, the designated pickup loacation. It’s a pavilion located downtown, on the Tampa Riverwalk, just a stone’s throw away from the Tampa Convention Center. The buspreneurs were told that the bus would depart at 7, so I expected to be the first one there. Instead, Mandy was there, and so were a handful of buspreneurs. This was a good sign.
The bus should’ve been there too, but it wasn’t. None of our bus contacts were responding to messages or Mandy’s phone calls.
“Let’s just chalk this up to Murphy’s Law and declare 6:45 as ‘panic o’clock,’” I suggested.
Fortunately, she made contact with the bus people at around panic o’clock, and they told us that they were on their way. That gave us a little more time to chat and get to know each other a little more:
Wednesday, 7:16 a.m.: VJ, Ray, Marley, Chevy, and Justin. In the background: Cary. Tap to view at full size.
The slight delay gave us a chance to load up on coffee and a little breakfast food. We started boarding the bus soon afterward:
Wednesday, 7:22 a.m. The buspreneurs get set to board the bus. Tap to view at full size.
Here’s a shot showing Josh’s photobombing prowess:
Wednesday, 7:22 a.m. Me in the foreground, VJ and Josh in the background. Tap to view at full size.
…and shortly after 7:30, our bus started making its way toward the highway.
The secret route
While the buspreneurs knew that the bus would start in Tampa on Wednesday morning and arrive in Austin sometime on Friday evening, they didn’t know what route we’d take or what stops we’d make.
The simplest route from Tampa to Austin takes I-75 north to I-10, and then takes I-10 west, a route 1,200 miles (a little over 1900 km) long. If you were to drive that distance at a consistent 70 miles an hour with no stops at all, you could make the trip in a little over 17 hours. Add stops for activities (more about these later), meals, sleep (at hotels or Airbnbs — we weren’t going to sleep on the bus), and bio breaks, and the trip easily expands to fill three days. At least one of the buspreneurs did some map consulting and guessed our route and where we might end up stopping.
Here’s a map of the route we took:
The route we took from Tampa to Austin. Tap to view at full size.
Opening ceremonies
Shortly after everyone had settled in on the bus, it was time to get started with the opening ceremonies. The buspreneurs were already familiar with us conductors, so we got on with the task of having the mentors say something to inspire them. First Cary…
Wednesday, 7:42 a.m. Cary addresses the troops. Tap to view at full size.
…then Josh:
Wednesday, 7:43 a.m. Tap to view at full size.
Wednesday, 7:43 a.m. The troops watch the opening address. Tap to view at full size.
With the introductory speeches out of the way, the next step was to have the buspreneurs introduce themselves and propose a startup idea.
Wednesday, 7:47 a.m. Chevy proposes “Tinder for puppy playdates.” Tap to view at full size.
Wednesday, 7:49 a.m. VJ proposes an electronic replacement for a first responder standard operating procedure manual. Tap to view at full size.
The buspreneurs got to refine their startup pitches in an online meetup with one of Tampa Bay’s Toastmasters groups, who listened and provided valuable feedback.
After the meetup, the buspreneurs started talking amongst themselves to figure out which startups they should create. Remember, they had only three days to create them!
Wednesday, 9:06 a.m. Tap to view at full size.
Wednesday, 9:47 a.m. Tap to view at full size.
Wednesday, 9:47 a.m. Tap to view at full size.
In the meantime, I got into an extensive conversation with Cary about his life and work, and we discovered that we had both lived in Toronto. Small world!
Here’s the list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, August 8 through Sunday, August 14, 2022. New month, new list!
Every week, with the assistance of a couple of Jupyter Notebooks that I put together, I compile this list for the Tampa Bay tech community.
As far as event types go, this list casts a rather wide net. It includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under the category of:
Programming, DevOps, systems administration, and testing
Tech project management / agile processes
Video, board, and role-playing games
Book, philosophy, and discussion clubs
Tech, business, and entrepreneur networking events
Toastmasters (because nerds really need to up their presentation game)
Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
Anything I deem geeky
By “Tampa Bay and surrounding areas”, this list covers events that originate or are aimed at the area within 100 miles of the Port of Tampa. At the very least, that includes the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater, but as far north as Ocala, as far south as Fort Myers, and includes Orlando and its surrounding cities.
This week’s events
I try to keep this list up-to-date. I add new events as soon as I hear about them, so be sure to check this post regularly!
If you’d like to get this list in your email inbox every week, enter your email address below. You’ll only be emailed once a week, and the email will contain this list, plus links to any interesting news, upcoming events, and tech articles. Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!
With all the layoffs taking place — and many more likely to come — you may be asking yourself this question: How will I know when I’m about to be laid off?
The one sure indicator that you’ve been invited to a layoff meeting
If you get a last-minute invitation to a high-priority meeting with a big or hidden guest list that has a vague name (such as “Special meeting” or something similar), with no agenda and is scheduled near the start of the day, the odds are good that you’re about to be laid off.
The general consensus among HR people whom I’ve talked to on the topic is that layoff meetings should be scheduled with as little advance notice as possible. They’re typically held as early in the day as scheduling and other issues will allow, and preferably not before a weekend or holiday.
Why are layoff meetings announced only at the last minute? It’s to harness the element of surprise, which helps blunt any angry or resentful reaction from employees, and the shock tends to make some people a little more pliant.
Another sign that it’s a layoff meeting
If you see unusual attendees at this last-minute meeting — typically HR people or “The Bobs”, a term referring to the “efficiency experts” from the film Office Space, it’s almost certain that it’s a layoff meeting.
Yet another sign that it’s a layoff meeting
If it’s a video meeting but the organizers have declared it a “camera off / everyone muted but the meeting leader” meeting, it’s probably a layoff meeting.
What to do if you realize that you’ve been invited to a layoff meeting
Do whatever it takes to steel yourself for the bad news. Whether it’s deep breathing, counting to ten, reciting your own personal mantra or firing up your “poker face”, you want to get ready to conduct yourself at the meeting with as much grace, aplomb and professionalism as you can muster.
You’re about to be in the second most important meeting you’ll ever have at this job.
(In case you were wondering, the most important one is the job interview.)
If you work for a decent company, there’ll be one or more follow-up calls, and they’ll be face-to-face. Depending on the size of the company, it might be just your manager or your manager, some other management people, and HR.
No matter what you’re feeling at the meeting, you want your termination to be as good a breakup as possible. This means that you must handle it professionally.
The way you behave at this meeting will set the tone for your departure. If it is full of bitterness, acrimony, and the gnashing of teeth, they won’t be inclined to do you any favors. On the other hand, if you conduct yourself with grace and decorum, you may gain some extra concessions and a willingness on their part to do what they can for you.
If you can remember these questions through the stress of the meeting, you should ask questions like:
When is my last day?
What is my severance package?
How long will my company insurance coverage last?
When do I have to return the company laptop and other gear?
What arrangements are being made so I can collect my stuff from the office?
What do you want me to do with my current projects and files?
Can I get a letter of recommendation and use you as a reference?
Don’t worry about memorizing these questions — just remember that you should leave the meeting with a clear idea of what they expect from you and what you can expect from them.
When they send you papers to sign, do not sign them immediately. You’ll be given time to look them over. Don’t look them over just yet.
Walk it off
This is going to sound terribly woo-woo new-agey, but I’m going to say it because it’s an important step: at your first opportunity, get away from whatever you’re doing, get out and go for a walk. Physical activity is a key part of this step, so don’t get into a motorized vehicle. You want to get moving, and you want to do it outside, preferably in your own neighborhood.
The walk is important because it gets you out of the house and gives you a chance to clear your head. It gives you a chance to come down from one of the most stressful experiences you’ll ever face in your working life and come to terms with what’s happened. It is not the time for figuring out what your immediate next steps are; it is the time to collect yourself for figuring out what your next steps are.
Deal with it…non-self-destructively
No matter how good a job you were doing or how well you served the company, and despite the fact that all this is being brought about by a combination of circumstances over which most of us have little control, you’ll feel like this cat:
It will feel as if you had been weighed in the balance and found wanting. In fact, that may have happened. Perhaps you weren’t found wanting as a person or an employee, but when the bean-counters did the books, they did the math and determined that either you went or the company did.
Deal with the shame, using whatever constructive coping mechanisms work best for you. In my case when I was laid off from my previous company in April 2020, I hit the bike, made some lunch, did a little housework, played a little music on the ol’ squeezebox and got involved in some very severe grenade-launcher-assisted altercations in Grand Theft Auto V:
If you must, have a drink or two but don’t go beyond that. You want to take the edge off, not go on a binge.
Network!
Update your LinkedIn — and don’t simply mark the end date of your job:
Announce your situation in a post.
Update your profile.
Reach out to your network.
Do the things that get your name in circulation, and let the world know that you’re open to work.
What to do if you weren’t laid off
If you escaped a layoff, the very next thing you should do after celebrating briefly is to follow the advice of Florida’s own “Tommy the Tech Recruiter,” who posted this excellent suggestion on LinkedIn:
If you know someone who is on the job search…
No, no they’re not okay. Especially in these times. They are tired. Exhausted. Frustrated. Scared.
Each passing day brings a rollercoaster of emotions. Each rejection or time they never hear anything back leaves them questioning or doubting themselves.
It’s a soul crushing process.
If you are on a job search… I am here for you and making it my mission to help shorten how long that search takes.
And if you see someone who was just laid off or has that green banner, comment on their posts for visibility. Share it. Leave a kind and uplifting comment or send them a DM of support.
