#126 How Suz Hinton went from Dev to White Hat Hacker
May 31, 2024
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Suz Hinton, software engineer and security researcher, discusses her career journey from flash ads to Microsoft, her passion for hardware and embedded development, transitioning to infosec, battling burnout in tech, and finding joy through hobbies like reading about computer history and watching gaming documentaries.
Live Coding sessions fostered collaboration and skill development in an open-source environment.
Professional growth intertwined with Live Coding, enhancing coding proficiency and community interaction.
Creating a custom streaming platform to prioritize privacy was paused due to the pandemic.
Managing burnout includes taking breaks, engaging in low-energy activities, and recalibrating work-life balance.
Deep dives
Inspiration for Live Coding
The idea to start Live Coding came after being inspired by a friend who showcased open-source work on YouTube. This motivated exploring an interactive and sharing platform to demystify coding tasks. The first Live Coding session had a handful of viewers, prompting rehearsing the session the night before to overcome nerves and uncertainty.
Learning and Open Source Focus
Live Coding sessions became a constructive mechanism to engage in open-source tasks that needed attention but lacked immediate motivation. The experience further cultivated technical skills by working on coding challenges in real-time, inviting viewers to observe and learn coding practices.
Integration with Professional Development
The Live Coding sessions organically intertwined with professional development, offering opportunities to tackle real-world programming challenges, enhance coding proficiency, and engage with an audience interested in coding practices. This integration facilitated a dynamic learning environment conducive to skill enhancement and community interaction.
Evolution and Continuity of Live Coding
As Live Coding sessions progressed, they evolved into a platform to share coding expertise, work on open-source projects, and engage with a diverse audience interested in coding and software development. The continuity of these sessions reflected a commitment to personal and professional growth while fostering a collaborative coding community.
Building a Streaming Platform
The speaker considered creating a custom streaming platform due to dissatisfaction with existing ones. The platform aimed to prioritize user privacy and offer unique features tailored to programming streams. The project was paused due to the pandemic, providing an opportunity for reflection and focus on personal software projects.
Dealing with Burnout
The speaker recognized burnout through spikes in anxiety, disengagement, and decreased productivity. Taking time off, reading about computer history, watching video game documentaries, and staying engaged with enjoyable low-energy activities have been key in managing and recovering from burnout.
Navigating Work Cultures
The speaker highlighted differences in work cultures, observing excessive identity attachment to jobs in the US compared to Australia. Emphasis on individual and collective identities tied to specific projects and companies in the US contrasted with a less intense identification with work in Australia.
Personal Growth and Recovery
During the recovery period, the speaker has been reading books like 'The Dream Machine' and 'Space Rogue,' watching channels such as Nerdforge and NoClip, fostering personal interests, and recalibrating towards healthier work-life balances to mitigate burnout and prioritize well-being.
On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Suz Hinton. She's a software engineer, security researcher, and one of the first ever people to live-stream her coding on Twitch.
We talk about: - How Suz started her career building browser ads in Adobe Flash, working around bandwidth early 2000s limitations. - How she moved to the US from Melbourne to work at Zappos, and then Microsoft and Stripe. - Her love of hardware and embedded development - How she went back to school to study infosec, and launched a second career as a security researcher - How she nearly burned out after 20 years in tech, and what she's doing to recover.
Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's a 2015 song from an Australian musician.
Be sure to follow The freeCodeCamp podcast in your favorite podcast app. And share this podcast with a friend. Let's inspire more folks to learn to code and build careers for themselves in tech.
Also, I want to thank the 9,331 kind people who support our charity each month, and who make this podcast possible. You can join them and support our mission at: https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate
Links we talk about during our conversation:
- Suz's article on live coding on freeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/lessons-from-my-first-year-of-live-coding-on-twitch-41a32e2f41c1/
- NoClip video game development documentaries: https://www.youtube.com/@NoclipDocs
- The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop. Suz says it's "Dense and long, but the best narrative about how computing came to be." https://press.stripe.com/the-dream-machine
- Space Rogue: How the Hackers Known as L0pht Changed the World by Cris Thomas. "A book about the original cult of the dead cow hacking group." https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/space-rogue-cris-thomas/1142912008
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