It's about Who You Know: An Introvert's Guide to Networking (and Becoming Amazing at LinkedIn), with Stephanie Chiu from PayPal

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Jan 17, 2023

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ANECDOTE

Hackathon Friend Became Mentor

Stephanie attended two hackathons in 2018 and met a friend who later mentored her after a layoff. That mentorship directly helped her transition into tech.

ADVICE

Use Coffee Chats And Hackathons To Network

Do coffee chats and always end by asking for recommended resources and who else to speak with to expand your network. Push yourself to attend hackathons and meetups even if you're introverted to open future opportunities.

INSIGHT

Immersion Builds Useful Tech Intuition

Immersing yourself in the tech world (podcasts, Hacker News, Reddit) builds intuition that helps in interviews and career decisions. Passive exposure accumulates into useful worldview and topic fluency.

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🎙 About the episode

Meet Stephanie Chiu 🇺🇸! Stephanie is a self-taught iOS software engineer and career coach. She's also a chemical engineer who thought she would never code... until she met people who actually worked in tech!

In this episode, you'll learn everything about her path to becoming a developer and landing her first job at PayPal! You'll also learn how important it was for Stephanie to be a part of a local developer community. Stephanie will teach you how to optimize your LinkedIn (and think about what recruiters see), seek mentorship, and reach out to senior developers for coffee chats, even if you're introverted.

Stephanie and Alex share excellent tips to help you find your niche and stand out as a new developer. They also discuss predictions for the state of the industry and job market in 2023.

🔗 Connect with Stephanie

⏰ Timestamps

How Stephanie started coding even though she thought she would never do that (01:36)
The life of a chemical engineer working as a production supervisor and why Stephanie wanted to change careers (04:28)
The collaborative nature of getting into tech and how to do coffee chats with developers (05:52)
Why you should go to hackathons (07:13)
Why getting out of your comfort zone can lead to cool stuff (08:17)
How Stephanie surrounded herself with tech people and why that was helpful (09:16)
Should a junior developer work remotely or in person? (11:48)
Ad break! Reading your podcast reviews + next week on the show: a comedian-turned-developer Amy Corson! (14:00)
How Stephanie picked her tech stack and approach learning to code, and why you shouldn't focus on collecting certificates (16:58)
Why iOS developer communities are tightly knit (20:51)
Why iOS developers generally receive higher compensation (21:55)
How Stephanie got her job at PayPal and why you shouldn't sleep on LinkedIn (25:32)
Do small companies hire juniors in the current job market? (27:34)
How Stephanie was found on LinkedIn by a manager at PayPal... and then rejected (28:50)
The engineers replied back to Stephanie's thank you email, she took up one of them on an offer to help her with learning, and the rest is history! (30:56)
The engineers initially doubted Stephanie (32:28)
How Stephanie's manager needed somebody who could think outside the box (35:24)
What is more important for junior developers: a resume, portfolio, LinkedIn, or GitHub? (37:46)
How to teach LinkedIn's algorithm what is it that you want to become (39:55)
The key to using LinkedIn is curation (40:53)
How the Skills section on LinkedIn makes a difference in what you see and who reaches out (42:33)
People don't scroll, so put the most essential things on top! (44:17)
What recruiters see on LinkedIn, and why Stephanie put her GitHub projects into the Experience section (45:36)
Stephanie's take on the state of the job market in 2023 (47:24)

🧰 Resources Mentioned

Levels.fyi - Salaries and tools to level up your career
Scrimba podcast with Austin Henline: How to make your LinkedIn profile standout according to a LinkedIn expert
Scrimba's Discord server!

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You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so they can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏