Interviews Week One

My first assignment for this class was to interview two developers. I interviewed Debra Spivey and Dennis Warner. Since I am a college student, I reached out to my father and asked him if there were any developers where he worked that I could interview. I was then able to schedule phone calls with the two of them. The two of them work on OUC.com for a utility company in Florida and they particularly focus on front-end development and UX. Both gave me answers that paralleled everything I have learned in this class so far. Mr. Warner who works mainly with creating “personas” and user experience learned how to code quite slowly over time. He started off with some older languages I had never heard of, but now he focuses on JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. Mr. Warner also gave me some great advice. He stressed the focus of MVP when working on an idea so you do not waste time. He also told me to study people such as Gary Vaynerchuck, and Tim Ferris. When I asked him about working with me on a project, he said that he could not because of his time and family but he said that I should continue trying to learn as much as possible. He told me to work on learning as much as possible, therefore I can find the differences between quality developers and poor developers.

Ms. Spivey has been working specifically on the front-end development as well. She learned a lot about web design and computer science while she was in college at the University of Central Florida. She has been doing this since college. The advice she gave me about learning to code was very similar to what Mr. Warren had told me. She told me to make sure I learn how to differentiate between a good developer and bad one. She has some health issue and only works four days a week, so she couldn’t work with me on a project however. She told me that I should focus simply “diving in” because it can be hard to learn but worth it in the long run.

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