What I expect from Hack Reactor

It’s less than 24 hours since starting at Hack Reactor. I’ve been thinking about what I want out of the program and where I want to be in 3 months. It’s tough. I feel I don’t have one big reason to do it, but rather, many smaller reasons that add up to a very clear decision.

1. Getting into JavaScript and Node.js

In my previous job, I used to work as a front-end and back-end developer. I mostly developed using WordPress in a LAMP stack. While Worpdress is a great ecosystem, I started to enjoy writing JavaScript a lot more and started to understand the language really well, thanks to a couple of books I read on the subject. Since I really liked JavaScript I love the idea of having your front-end and back-end in the same (beatiful) language. Having some experience with Node and the node enviorment, I really enjoyed working with it and really like where it’s going.

I see this as an opportunity to take my knowledge from intermediate to expert-level in a couple of months. I don’t know how possible this is, but it’s worth a try!

2. CS Fundamentals

I’m a self-taught programmer. I started writing HTML and CSS about 5 years ago by reading a Head First book I downloaded of the internet. I learned PHP and JS the same way. I’ve been lucky enough to get many jobs doing this, but I stil feel there’s a a lot of fundamentals I’m not familiar with yeat. The worst part is that I don’t even know what I don’t know! I don’t think this is very important at a practical level, but I see this as a life-long pursuit and I want to refine my craft as much as I possibly can. I believe learning a bit more about things like algorithms and data structures will help me become a better, more complete developer.

I think these CS fundamentals are important for working in really complex problems. Right now, I’m at a place where I know how to build stuff, but I don’t really have the abilities to solve complex problems. That’s definetly something I’m looking to improve upon.

3. Working On My Own Projects

One of the things I’m really excited about is that about half of the curriculum is spent working on your own projects (one individual project and one group project). While at my previous job, I used to hack on a lot of stuff during the weekends, but you can only do so much when you’re not spending all your time on something. Being able to spend almost 100% of my time working on something, even if it’s only for a couple of weeks, will be a great way to improve my skills and try out some of my ideas. I’m especially looking forward to take on larger, more complex projects where I get to design the architecture for the projects. I’ve done this a bit for larger projects, but these have been projects in which the outcome was already set and predefined.

4. Learning how to Get a job

For better or for worse, getting a job in software engineering how little to do with what you will actually be doing on the job. First, there are many soft skills needed to navigate the job marketplace: resumes, cover letters, screenings, etc. Then there are the the interviews. Then there are interviews. Software engineering interviews are notorious for being hard on multiple levels. White boarding and toy problems are a skill on to themselves and I’d really like to get good at it.

5. The Bay Area and The HR Community

I’ve been wanting to come to the bay area for a while. It’s the center of the tech industry. Hack Reactor was a perfect excuse to come to San Fransisco and see what it’s like. The possiblity of staying around the bay area working makes it even sweeter. On top of THAT, the community around Hack Reactor seems amazing. It’s almost just worth to come to Hack Reactor just for the people. Meeting all these amazing people working on these awesome projects will make the transition to SF truly awesome.