Anna Sherman on Change, Failure, and living in Gig City

Even with the most programming experience in the world, coding still involves a lot of trial and error. People getting started in the industry should not become bogged down by failure. Because in the end, it’s a feature and not a bug. That’s one of Zillion developer Anna Sherman’s key messages this episode. We open our discussion with Anna by talking about living in Chattanooga, AKA, Gig City. She talks about why the tech scene there is exploding before diving into her journey into programming. Having created her own personal coding boot camp, she opens up about what she did to land her first software job within only two months of looking. After discussing her early working experiences, we explore her work at Zillion, along with her side projects. We then touch on what Anna does to expand her skillset and develop herself as a professional, using a style guide and ‘lunch and learns’ to update her team, and we hear the elevator pitch for Anna’s Code BEAM San Francisco talk. Anna shares her take on architecture and design, as well as the importance of domain-driven design in keeping your team aligned with what they’re building. Near the end of the episode, we talk about Anna’s pre-coding process, the virtues of being a ‘physlistcler,’ and why failure is an important part of coding. Tune in to hear more of Anna’s insights on change, failure, and living in Gig City.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Fast internet and the great outdoors; hear why Chattanooga has become a tech hub.
• Anna shares her love of math and how she got into programming.
• Creating your own boot camp and becoming a self-taught coder.
• How Anna landed her first gig, just two months after learning code.
• Exploring Anna’s first job at Sovee, a machine translation company.
• What side projects Anna is working on and how they help her Magic: The Gathering games.
• How Anna expands her skill set and develops herself as a professional.
• Hear Anna’s elevator pitch for the talk she gave at Code BEAM San Francisco.
• What architecture, design, and domain-driven design mean to Anna.
• Using a style guide and ‘lunch and learns’ to help your team understand patterns.
• Details on how Anna’s style guide keeps her team informed.
• The virtues of being a ‘physlistcler;’ anchoring your workflow to a physical list.
• Why failure is a key part of coding and the idea that anyone can learn to code.
• We close the episode by chatting about Anna’s favorite board games.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/
Anna Sherman on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-sherman-54289372/
Anna Sherman on Twitter — https://twitter.com/cavewoman90
Anna Sherman on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/annasherman100816/
Anna Sherman Email — anna@myzillion.com
Craig Lyons Email — craig@myzillion.com
Zillion — https://www.myzillion.com/
Bruce Tate — https://twitter.com/redrapids
Brett Wise — https://twitter.com/brettwise
Gig City Elixir — https://www.gigcityelixir.com/
NervesConf — https://www.nervesconf.com/
Chili’s — https://www.chilis.com/
GodTube — https://www.godtube.com/
Magic: The Gathering — https://magic.wizards.com/en
Scryfall — https://scryfall.com/
Code BEAM SF Talk — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgOJQAK6iHI
Evernote — https://evernote.com/
Nerves — https://www.nerves-project.org/
‘Repository and Services Pattern in a Multilayered architecture’ — https://www.vodovnik.com/2015/08/26/repository-and-services-pattern-in-a-multilayered-architecture/
A Handful of Stars — https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/197320/handful-stars
A Few Acres Of Snow — https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/79828/few-acres-snow

Special Guest: Anna Sherman.