How To Figure Out Your Strengths as a Career Changer, With Caitlyn Greffly

Meet Caitlyn Greffly 🇺🇸! She's a career changer, developer career mentor, and the author of The Bootamper's Companion, a book of tips she wishes she had known when she was breaking into tech. In her past life, she was a psychologist working in beer. After changing careers at 31, Caitlyn is nowadays a full-stack software engineer with a passion for frontend.

In her book, Caitlyn shares resources, advice, and approaches to help you stand out and find a job. In this interview, she does the same! You'll hear how she decided to become a developer and chose a path to get there. You'll learn why you shouldn't be intimidated by your more experienced colleagues, and why struggling is essential. Caitlyn and Alex also discuss how employers can help juniors grow and how new developers can figure out if an employer is right for them.

🔗 Connect with Caitlyn

⏰ Timestamps

How Caitlyn ended up in programming after studying psychology and working in beer (01:37)
Becoming a coder as a woman in a male-dominated industry (03:03)
Did Caitlyn have any exposure to coding before attending a bootcamp? (04:39)
How Caitlyn knew she was ready for a career change (05:59)
The bootcamp landscape in 2019 and why Caitlyn chose that instead of a self-directed route (08:35)
How Caitlyn found a bootcamp that worked for her life circumstances (10:06)
Ad break: We had a bootcamp mentor on the show! (13:04)
What Caitlyn found more challenging - coding itself or maintaining positivity and motivation (15:08)
The importance of struggling and what to do when you struggle (18:17)
Why you should time box (21:22)
Caitlyn’s book, The Bootcamper’s Companion (21:54)
How Caitlyn got her first developer job (25:02)
On being front of mind and building a community (26:49)
The thing that had the biggest impact on Caitlyn’s journey - how one tweet resulted in her hanging out with Scott Hanselman! (29:17)
How to get yourself out there as a new developer… if you’re an introvert (32:46)
Caitlyn’s experience interviewing (35:45)
Are interview processes a necessary evil? (40:28)
Don’t forget to interview the company! (42:42)
Did Caitlyn feel like she was starting from scratch, changing careers at 31? (46:58)

🧰 Resources Mentioned

Scrimba Podcast: Bootcamp Mentor Hussien Khayoon: Careers Come in Three Stages, and Here’s How To Navigate Them
Scrimba Podcast: How to become a successful Junior Developer with Scott Hanselman from Microsoft
Book: The Bootamper's Companion by Caitlyn Greffly
Scrimba's Discord server!
Thinkful

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