On today's show, we are joined by Dan Ivovich from our team here at SmartLogic! Dan is the Director of Development Operations and has already been a guest and cohost a few times on the show. Today we are talking about hiring and training and his experience with these tasks at the company and especially concerning Elixir. We discuss the challenges Dan has faced in recruiting and the ways in which SmartLogic has lined up resumes and possible candidates through events and meetups. Dan explains some of the difficulties that are common for programmers transitioning into Elixir and how the company approaches the tasks of onboarding and ongoing support. We also get into Dan's favorite resources and tools for staying abreast of Elixir and his recommendations for practices to learn fast as a newcomer before he explains how he thinks about continual learning and expanding his own skillset. The conversation finishes with some thoughts and reflections on functional programming from our guest, so make sure to tune in for all of that and more!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Dan's role at SmartLogic and how he leads the team.
• Recruiting new employees; collecting resumes and attending events.
• Challenges posed by recruiting good Elixir programmers and who to look for.
  
• Sticking points for people transitioning into Elixir from other languages.
• The stack at SmartLogic and the number of projects based in Elixir.
• Onboarding at the company; skills that are transferable to Elixir.
• Professional development and ongoing support for team members.
• Dan's favorite tools and resources for learning Elixir.
• Continual learning and Dan's strategies for growing his skillset.
• A simple definition of functional programming and Dan's early experiences with it.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/
Dan Ivovich — https://www.danivovich.com/
Dan Ivovich on Twitter — https://twitter.com/danivovich
ElixirConf — https://elixirconf.com/events
Java — https://www.java.com/
Ruby — https://www.ruby-lang.org/
Python — https://www.python.org/
Rails — https://rubyonrails.org/
Rust — https://www.rust-lang.org/
GO — https://golang.org/
Twitch — https://www.twitch.tv/
Bruce Tate — https://codesync.global/speaker/bruce-tate/
Scala — https://www.scala-lang.org/

Special Guest: Dan Ivovich.