Developer Spotlight: B. Holt
Intro
Brian Holt is an American soccer player who currently plays for New York Cosmos in the North American Soccer League. Brian has also graduated from the Juilliard School of Culinary Arts, takes part in Civil War reenactments, and is the only male to ever be named Miss South Davis County.
In addition to his penchant for making đź’© up, Brian is a senior UI engineer at Netflix where he works on the signup and payment processes. Previous to Netflix he also worked at Reddit, Needle, and KSL. He also done some workshops for Pluralsight and Frontend Masters and is a regular panelist on Front End Happy Hour Brian is a native of Salt Lake City who currently resides in San Francisco.
Q&A
What is your role at Netflix and what are your primary responsibilities?
I work mainly in two areas: client side development and “middle-end” development. The client code is all written in React and CSS and is pre-rendered on the server before it’s sent down. I focus on the non-member home page (the page you hit if you go to netflix.com not as a member) and the sign up process. The “middle-end” is a Node server that gathers all the requisite information from our various microservices, provides that data to React, server-side renders it, and responds to the request.
What was your background before you joined Netflix?
I used to work for the Reddit office that was in Salt Lake City. Many people don’t know that Reddit had a Salt Lake office and they don’t anymore. I was the director of marketplace front-end development before they moved me to work on Reddit’s new mobile web site.
Before Reddit I worked at a startup in Bluffdale called Needle and before that I worked on KSL Classifieds and KSL Cars.
As a software developer, what did you first think about coding bootcamps and what stood out about DevPoint Labs?
Dev bootcamps are definitely needed and a worthwhile investment for those looking to enter the field of product engineering. I wish they had been around when I was getting started. Right now there’s still a shortage of people who can come into a company and just start making features, a position that a dev bootcamp will quickly equip you to do. A dev bootcamp is going to equip you with the vocabulary and minimum working knowledge needed for you to learn to solve any problem that product engineering will throw at you.
In particular what impressed me about DevPoint Labs are the leaders: Nhi, Ty, and Will. Here are three guys who aren’t trying to rip you off but legitimately working to give you the best chance at learning and excelling in the field. There are plenty of dev bootcamps out there content to take your money and then leave to fend for yourself; with DPL you’re as much paying for the education as you are for network it’s going to get you.
How does Netflix culture differ from other tech companies culture?
Netflix espouses the mantra of “Freedom and Responsibility.”  You are free to do whatever you see best but you are also responsible for your actions. In practice it means Netflix treats us like adults. You can spend company money on whatever you think is best but make sure it’s a good idea first. I really enjoy that aspect of Netflix because it means there’s very little process and we’re free to just go and do the things we need to get our jobs done the best way we know how.
What makes you excited about programming?
The infinite expanse of things I can learn. I only know a very, very tiny of piece of what’s possible with programming and I’m learning more and more every day. These days I’m digging further into functional and functional reactive programming and it’s proving to totally alter the way I view programming. Never stop learning!
What do you like to do on your free time and not coding?
Travel! Travel is definitely my most favorite thing to do when I have the time and resources to do so. In the past two years my wife and I have visited Poland, Iceland, Italy, China, Australia, and New Zealand in addition to all of our domestic travels. Beyond that, you can probably find me parked in front of my TV watching Stranger Things or getting my butt handed to me at Overwatch.
Brian will also be the main guest speaker at Launch Day Fall 2016 coming up on Thursday October 13th, 2016. More information on the event and RSVP here.Â
