The Spiritual Genius

GA Apprentice Blog #9 (Farewells + New Beginnings)

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:51:47 -0400

Today was my last day at CommonBond. After spending three months with the team it’s kind of hard to say good bye (Boys II Men reference). It was a touch choice to move on but I still consider myself a part of the CommonBond family and offered to help out whenever I can. My time with the company has been an awesome learning experience and I feel like I accomplished a lot during my short time there. Key takeaways were learning UX/UI design, improving on my front-end development and design skills and learning how to write C extensions. Everyone was really nice and the company has an awesome culture. I want to thank David and Mike for giving me a chance to work with a group of such talented and driven people and giving me responsibility to make an impact from my first day with the company. Special thanks to Nate, Molly, Rex, Glenton and Holly (sorry we didn’t have a chance to work together longer) for being uber awesome and making me feel welcome. I’m going to miss the entire team but will make every effort to stop by the office to say hello whenever I can. I think there was a mismatch is terms of timing with them developing the technology aide of their business and what I’m currently looking for in career development.

The company I chose to go with is called SimpleReach. They’re a big data shop in the adtech space that specializes in analyzing social media data for content creators. They first started out on Rails and MongoDB but had to incorporate other technologies into their stack as they began to scale. They still use Rails at the core but do a lot of offline data analysis in Python, store their data in NoSQL databases (Cassandra and MongoDB), use Node.js to talk to these databases and have their front-end built in Ember.js and D3.js. All of these technologies talk to Rails through an internal API that they have built. I chose to go with them because it would be an opportunity to work with and learn a lot of different technologies. I think im going to continue to blogging about my experience at my new company. The posts may not be every week but I will try to provide frequent enough updates. I’ll move these posts off my Tumblr and will put them on new blog strictly for technology based posts. A new technology I’m really committing myself to learning on the side is Node.js so I’ll probably build this blog using it.

This goes into advice that I have for the upcoming apprentice class. The single most important thing you can do during your three months with your company is continue to learn. Challenge yourself to learn a new language or a new technology stack, build out an application as a side project, attend a hackathon or two and get involved in the tech community. New York has a very vibrant tech scene and people are willing to help you out if they feel you’re serious about your new chosen career path. Meet ups are a great way to network, learn and stay on top of the latest technology trends. Your goal during the program should be to grow. Also, start your job search early—like today if you haven’t done so already. The company you are apprenticing with is just one option that you have for a potential employer. Definitely attend career fairs like Uncubed, New York Tech Day and the New York Software Engineers career fair. Also don’t underestimate the importance of networking at meetups. Every time I go to a meetup there is always an announcement that a startup is hiring. In addition, update your LinkedIn profile and put “Web Developer” or “Software Engineer” as your title, under employment add a section about your current projects in addition to the company you’re apprenticing with and just wait for the influx of job opportunities from recruiters (and companies) to hit your InMail. During my apprenticeship I made it a goal to let every developer that I met know that I was apprenticing at a company but was open to full-time opportunities when the program ended. I kept in touch with these contacts and the people they referred me to two and had several offers toward the end of the program and decided to go with SimpleReach because they offered the greatest opportunity for me to grow the most as an engineer.

This has been a pretty interesting and rewarding journey into transitioning into a career in software development/startup life and I have to give credit to General Assembly for being at the core of the success of this transition. From learning Rails, networking at GA happy hours, participating in the apprentice program and landing a full-time job as a software engineer I have GA to thank for that. So thank you GA (Jenn, Ayman, Eddie, Mercedes, Adrian, Derrick, Alex, Tim, Jasmine, Ray, Marc, Len, Max, Stuart and everyone else that helped me out along the way) for helping me accomplish this goal. If any one wants to hit me up for a drink or a coffee (especially if you’re taking a course at GA or are an alum) my email is jamal.ogarro(at)gmail.com.

Until next time.

Peace.

L I V E

Fri, 03 May 2013 12:33:35 -0400

L I V E

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Fri, 03 May 2013 12:30:35 -0400

Just bleed…

Fri, 03 May 2013 12:29:40 -0400

Just bleed…

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Fri, 03 May 2013 12:28:57 -0400

General Assembly Apprentice Program Blog #8 (DISRUPT)

Fri, 03 May 2013 12:19:00 -0400

This week has been a very exciting and random week. This past weekend I did the TechCrunch DISRUPT 2013 Hackathon and ended up on the front page of TechCrunch for a hack my team and I put together called Espace. The idea was to connect meetup organizers with venue owners in order to help the venues gain more business on off days while making it easier for meetup organizers to find space for their meetups. This led to me getting free tickets to the actual DISRUPT conference. The folks at CommBond were really cool and allowed to take the days to attend.

Overall it was a really cool experience. I spent the first half of the first day talking and connecting with the startups in Startup Alley. This was really cool because I got a chance to connect with other entrepreneurs and gain inspiration from the problems they were trying to solve with their startups.

For the remaining two days I sat through most of the talks and spent the evenings networking at the after parties. Overall it was an awesome experience and I’m happy to say that I made several key contacts out from my time there.

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Hyper-Realistic Pencil Drawings At first glance, these...

Fri, 03 May 2013 12:12:09 -0400

Hyper-Realistic Pencil Drawings

At first glance, these impressive images may look like photos but they are actually pencil drawings by Italian artist Franco Clun.

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Fri, 03 May 2013 12:11:17 -0400

General Assembly Apprentice Blog #7 (Training Days)

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:23:00 -0400

I can’t believe that it has been almost two months that I have apprenticing at CommBond. That time really flew! Realizing that I have only about a month left I realize that now it’s time to “turn up”, as a friend of mine would say.

Last week I spent time really covering key areas in Ruby, Ruby on Rails and will focus on learning more object-oriented JavaScript. The JavaScript training that GA has arranged for us through the apprentice program has been very helpful and is helping me realize how powerful JavaScript is. I’ve kind of neglected really diving deep into JavaScript but this month this is about to change.

I’ve also been learning more low level Computer Science concepts as my Code Crew Computer Science study group and I continue to work through CS50. We finally started covering algorithms and data structures so I can confidently explain what a linked list and how to implement a hash table. I think I’m actually going to implement these so I can wrap my head around how to actually write this stuff in code. Also learning about low level concepts like pointers and memory allocation really helps me understand what’s happening under the hood in Ruby and I now have a new approach to the way I code.

Also on the list is to play with a few new technologies. For example I’m looking to build out a Rails app using MongoDB and may try to build something using Backbone. I these projects will make for good talking points during N interview Nd will help show that I’m not afraid to embrace new technologies.

On the apprenticeship front all is well. I’m diving deeper into building out my prototype of the new site in Rails and am learning a lot in the process. I have 5 weeks to complete the mission and I feel like I’m track to accomplish this.

Good Reads

To be on my ”A-game” come interview time I’m reading through the following books:

Algorithms in C - good book on algorithms and data structures
Object Oriented Programming in Ruby - been meaning to read this book and now is definitely the time
JavaScript the Good Parts - same story with this book

Until next time.

Peace

Irina Shayk photographed by Sebastian Faena for Harper’s Bazaar...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 21:01:14 -0400

Irina Shayk photographed by Sebastian Faena for Harper’s Bazaar Australia, May 2013

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Sat, 13 Apr 2013 10:47:42 -0400

True…

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 10:47:24 -0400

True…

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Sat, 13 Apr 2013 10:46:47 -0400

Givenchy Spring/Summer 2002

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 10:46:37 -0400

Givenchy Spring/Summer 2002