🎙 About the episode

Ready for your first dev job? Today on the podcast, you'll learn how companies work and how teams stay efficient. How does a typical team operate? Who do you report to? How do you know if you're the right culture fit? Why should you know what you need from your team? And why do job postings sometimes... not make sense?

We have compiled the best, most actionable advice to help you understand a corporate environment. You'll hear from engineering manager and career coach Tiffany Jachhja, founder of Technical Integrity Dave Mayer, opera singer turned developer and developer coach Ana McDougal, and engineering manager Jason C McDonald.

📻 Listen to the full interviews

🔗 Connect with everybody

Tiffany: 👩🏻‍💼 Linkedin, 📹 Twitch, 🐦 Twitter, 🌐 Website
Anna: 👨🏻‍💼 LinkedIn, 🌐 Website, 👩‍🚀 GitHub, 🐦 Twitter, 📹 YouTube
Dave: 🐦 Twitter, 🌐 Website, 👨🏻‍💼 LinkedIn
Jason: 👨🏻‍💼 LinkedIn, 🌐 Website, 👩‍🚀 GitHub, 🐦 Twitter, 📖 Dead Simple Python - Idiomatic Python for the Impatient Programmer

⏰ Timestamps

Understanding corporate structure (02:14)
Differences between smaller and bigger teams, and project management vs. people management (04:54)
What should a junior developer look for from their engineering manager? (07:57)
Nine Belbin Team Roles (09:49)
How to find a mentor online, and why you should know how to code in a team (11:08)
A job interview is just looking for compatibility (13:31)
Community break (16:20)
What does it mean to be a culture fit? What is a culture add? (19:12)
Company culture vs. company values (21:55)
How to understand your own values (23:16)
Why you shouldn't get discouraged if you don't meet all the requirements on a job ad (29:22)

🧰 Resources Mentioned

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Rick Renner's July 2025 Teaching Letter