Insights from Interviewing Great JavaScript Developers

You've heard about some of them...

As part of my new role working as a Dev Advocate, one of the projects I was tasked to start was a new podcast.

A podcast that would focus on interviewing people from the JavaScript community. These interviews had to be technical in nature and short, to the point. Episodes should be good for listening while commuting or going for a walk, and so “20MinJS” was born.

It’s been almost 2 months and I’ve published 7 episodes (so far) with more already recorded awaiting for me to edit them.

As part of the interview process, I always ask the same 3 questions at the end of each episode, and the last one, which I think is the best of them all, asks the guest “what is one thing you wish you knew before you started coding?”

It might be a bit cliche, I know, but I’ve been surprised with the type of insight I’ve seen from all my guests, so I wanted to share some of it with you.

#5. Write stuff down

Chris Bongers, the first guest on the podcast dropped this gem and I think it’s worth sharing it. Writing stuff down as soon as you learn it is a great way to cement that knowledge when learning a new skill.

Especially so if you do it intending to teaching others, because you’ll have to understand the concepts to the point where you can explain them using simple ideas.

I’ve seen the effects of this practice firsthand, because in every new article I write, or book I work on, I need to research and deep-dive into a topic so that I can then translate it into simple ideas using my own words.

#4. It’s OK not to know everything

I can’t just name one guest who’s said this one, which is what makes it so relevant. Many of my guests have stated that at the start of their career they thought they had to know everything. And whenever they didn’t they felt like they were doing something wrong.

Nobody knows everything, heck, I would argue that probably 99% of developers don’t know enough to work without Internet for more than 1 hour. Eventually they’ll run into a concept that they don’t remember. And guess what? That’s normal!

Scratch that, it’s healthy!

That means you’ve spent time working, thinking and doing other things that aren’t programming. That’s a good thing.

No developer should be expected to know everything, especially not when Google has the answer a few keystrokes away.

#3. Math isn’t that important

Look, eventually Math can come in handy, yes. But many people (*cough* gatekeepers *cough*) see it as a hard requirement to get a career as a developer.

In episode 3, Raymond Camden literally said he used to think math was important but that in his 20 years of experience, he’s barely used it, maybe once.

Granted, you might be in a field that heavily relies on Math, like data science, but unless you wanted to get in that field from the start, Math should’ve never been a hard requirement to get a career in software development.

I can personally agree with that myself. I’ve been at it for almost 20 years, and I can’t really think of a single instance where I needed to use math more complex than calculating an average of multiple values.

#2. First make it work, then make it perfect

Again, this one has been repeated by several guests so I couldn’t just pinpoint it to one episode. That said, trying to get our code right from the beginning is one of the many common mistakes we make when we’re just getting started.

It’s not like you have a limited number of keystrokes when working, you know? You can write, delete and write again many times.

the key to writing code is not to make it perfect, ever. You’re writing code to solve a problem, then focus on that. Solve the problem, and prove that what you wanted to achieve CAN be achieved.

Only then focus on improving it.

#1. Consistency is key

Finally, in episode 6, Geoff Rich talked about the importance of consistency and I have to say, it’s probably one of the key aspects to achieving anything that most people forget about.

There is no such a thing as “overnight success”, even if you lunch a new product and it becomes viral the next day, you’ve probably been working on it for a while.

Consistency beats inspiration, consistency beats motivation. If you manage to work on something consistently even when you don’t feel like it, then you’re making consistent progress.

Even if you have time to move very little every time, eventually it’ll add up to a lot more than 0, which is what you’d get if you’re waiting for inspiration or motivation to hit.

Keep working, keep pushing through.

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There is a lot more to listen to, so if you haven’t already checked out the podcast, you might learn a thing or two!

Finally, if you have a suggestion of who you’d like me to interview, feel free to drop the name in the comments (and yes, it can be you too!).

See you at the next one!