Maureen Dugan - WTR 4
Women’s Tech Radio - Episode 4
Maureen Dugan |WTR 4
December 10, 2014
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DESCRIPTION: Angela & Paige interview Maureen Dugan, the outreach coordinator at Epicodus and aspiring web developer. She shares her useful resources & thoughts on development.
ANGELA: This is Women’s Tech Radio, episode 4.
PAIGE: Women’s Tech Radio is a show on the Jupiter Broadcasting Network where we interview women in Technology careers.
ANGELA: My name is Angela.
PAIGE: And I’m Paige.
ANGELA: Now, Paige, what is one of your best technology troubleshooting stories?
PAIGE: I had a really good one. I had moved away from home, and I’ve kind of always been family tech support. My mom called me up, at one point, she was like Paige the computer is frozen, I don’t know what to do. This was really before we could do all the remote login stuff that was easy. She’s like, it turns on, everything shows up, but when I try to move the mouse nothing happens. Okay mom, I can’t get home for another two months before I can troubleshoot this sort of thing. Are you going to be okay? She said, I can use the computer at work, it’s not too big a deal, because mostly she just uses it for printing out things, doing a couple bills nothing huge. We waited the two months and I got home and I sat down in front of the laptop for the first time, and I was like okay let’s go. It’s booted up into Windows and I wiggle the mouse and nothing happens. I hit the Windows key and up pops the Start menu. I go to wiggle the mouse again and nothing moves. It’s a wireless mouse and I picked up the mouse and the batteries were dead. So, my mom had waited two years to use her computer, but the batteries were dead.
ANGELA: Oh my gosh.
PAIGE: Yeah, but the best art was, she really enjoyed this because she got, come up inside of it, because my aunt called her a couple weeks later and was like my computer is dead, mouse won’t move. Same problem.
ANGELA: Oh my gosh. That’s great. I love when we can impart that basic trouble shooting to the people that we trouble shoot. Oh my gosh, that happened to me a lot.
But my trouble shooting story is great. I worked at a medical supply company and I was setting up a concentrator, which is instead of having pure oxygen tanks there was a wall plugin type concentrator that got like 98 percent oxygen from the air.
PAIGE: So you didn’t kill anybody in this story, right?
ANGELA: I didn’t kill anybody, I promise. One of our patients had called in say, it’s making a really loud noise. It sounds like it’s going to explode. I need you to come pick it up and swap out a new one. And of course, obviously, if there’s any hit that there’s something wrong we need to go.
PAIGE: Yeah, right away.
ANGELA: They’re using that.
PAIGE: Life or death.
ANGELA: Yeah. So, we go and--I didn’t go personally, but I found out later that they were keeping their concentrator in the closet, which is not good, because it needs air circulation because it’s using our air to turn it.
PAIGE: Concentrating the air.
ANGELA: They had a vacuum on in the same closet. They turned their vacuum on and that was what was making the sound.
PAIGE: So it was just a vacuum in the closet?
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: It wasn’t the concentrator.
ANGELA: Nope.
PAIGE: Oh, that’s great.
ANGELA: Well, before we get into the interview, I just want to mention that we have a page where you can fund WTR. It is patreon.com/today. It is the Tech Talk Today Patreon. It supports the entire network, but the Tech Talk Today show is our thank you to the people that are helping to fund what we do.
Now who did we interview today?
PAIGE: Today we interviewed Maureen Dugan and she is an outreach coordinator at Epicodus. She gives us a rundown of her story and her journey and we started off with the question to tell us a little bit about being an outreach coordinator at Epicodus.
MAUREEN: Sure, I work for a web development boot camp called Epicodus, and I’m our outreach coordinator.
I’m a graduate of the program. Right now, I work helping all of our graduates find full-time positions as web developers and also coordinating out internship program. Give people a chance who have been learning Ruby on Rails to continue learning in wonderful environments.
PAIGE: Can you tell us a little bit about Epicodus, the program?
MAUREEN: It’s a four month, full-time web development boot camp for people who want to change careers. It’s designed for people who really have no experience web developing at all, but have shown some interest in it and are really excited to make a full jump and make the commitment to starting a brand new career. We have a lot of different people in the class and we really value diversity, and we value the different perspectives that different people bring to the table.
For me, going through the class, having it be immersive and full-time with all day pair programming, it was a really nice place to learn because you had a lot of people who were doing the same thing as you, but everyone got to share their different perspectives and it made for a really robust learning experience.
PAIGE: So you had no experience programming before you jumped in with Epicodus when you went through the program?
MAUREEN: Right, pretty much. I had done some HTML coding on WordPress sites before, but I really didn’t know what I was doing. I was just kind of guessing and checking all the time. For me, getting a full [INAUDIBLE] to Java Script and Ruby on Rails was really, really awesome and really, really fun.
PAIGE: What were you doing before that?
MAUREEN: Before that, I worked for three years as a tennis coach and academic tutor at a non-profit program in Portland.
ANGELA: So no technology there, or not much technology there.
MAUREEN: Not much technology, no. I was kind of the admin on our website for a while and helped get it set up, but really no technical skills there.
ANGELA: Right, so just dabbling.
MAUREEN: Yeah, just dabbling.
ANGELA: And what was the reason to make the switch?
MAUREEN: I had been in that position, and it was a wonderful learning experience for me. Just kind of getting a really--working hard and having great coworkers and learning from really great mentors. I had kind of outgrown it. I didn’t know what was next. I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. I ended up actually getting some really good advice from friends who suggested trying a coding boot camp.
PAIGE: Were you in the first cohort for the Epicodus?
MAUREEN: My cohort was the third iteration. There had been two before my cohort, which was the spring of 2014.
PAIGE: For people who either aren’t familiar or might be interested in going through this sort of thing, what did you actually do in the boot camp? You mentioned that you pair programed, but how does that happen?
MAUREEN: Yeah, all the curriculum for Epicodus is up online, learnhowtoprogram.com and we kind of pre-class we started with one chapter of homework to test the waters and see if we liked it. Then once we got into class we’d grab a pair each day and just continue working through the curriculum together. It really breaks down web development and we started with day one from test driven development. So we were writing test in Mocha and Chi for JavaScript. I had no idea why I was writing test at all. Now I do though. It was just kind of a really cool way to get started. Day-to-day the curriculum was made to break things down and then add on to the skills that you build each day. So, we got a really good look at a lot of the fundamentals for JavaScript and Ruby and Ruby on Rails.
PAIGE: And you mentioned before, when you were doing your previous jobs you were also the website administrator. Has that been kind of a life-long geeky thing where you always end up doing the technology thing as you’re moving through life? So even though you didn’t study programming before, you’d always kind of been that person?
MAUREEN: I was telling someone the other day that just being the youngest person in my family, everyone was like oh Maureen can fix that radio and she can get your CD player working. People had always asked me to fix something that was kind of technical in some way.
For me, actually, I can’t say that I was always drawn to web development or like to code on sites. Mostly, I like just figuring out problems, and really it took someone else saying you really like puzzles, and you seem to like math a lot, and you have a pretty good sense of logic and you like playing games, these are all traits of a good web developer. I had no idea, like what are you talking about? That’s really cool.
PAIGE: Problem solving is just the heart of programming.
MAUREEN: Yeah. Yeah.
ANGELA: Is there any particular, other than the boot camp and the learninghowtoprgram.com, were there any other links or resources that you found really helpful?
MAUREEN: I think, kind of once I’ve been out of class--I’ve been out of class for a while now and I’ve just been beefing up a little bit on learning some cooler HTML and CSS tricks, so checking out something like Codpen is really cool, because you can kind of see your HTML, your CSS, and JavaScript all in one place and then see what the website is doing and you can kind of tweak it and then figure out what you like and add it to your own site. I think that’s been really fun for me to just kind of play around with things, like building my own portfolio site and that sort of thing.
PAIGE: How important would you say a portfolio site is for somebody getting started in this field?
MAUREEN: I would say it totally depends on what you’re looking for. I see people and they’re looking for a frontend position. A portfolio site is basically mandatory. People really want to see that you can create a clean looking page. You don’t have to be a designer or particularly creative to do that, but you do have to kind of be able to know how to code it and know some tricks that a lot of people are using. That really kind of sets your application apart.
I think that for backend jobs and Ruby and Rails type jobs, the portfolio isn’t quite as important, but something like your get hub, and having a few projects live that have a lot of coding and some API integration into them, those are really wonderful resources to have.
PAIGE: You’re the outreach coordinator for Epicodus?
MAUREEN: Yeah.
PAIGE: What does that entail and what are challenges you face in that role.
MAUREEN: I do a lot of business development now, which is a shift from web developing but it’s kind of a really cool skill to build up to. I call and email employers daily to see if they’re looking to hire people and if they’re interested in working with junior developers, then that also kind of leads to setting up internships for people. And then I also mentor everyone in their job search. Doing things like cover letter reviews and resume reviews. All those things really help to build up their experiences.
I think as far as challenges that I face, for me I was adapting to being on the phone with people a lot. That was kind of like, whoa I’m not super comfortable with this but I can do this. I can figure it out.
And then assisting people in their job search, it’s kind of cool to now see a couple of our cohorts go through out job search and be able to give them really good advice is pretty awesome too.
ANGELA: And how did you get involved with Women who Code?
MAUREEN: I found out about Women who code via meetup.com. I actually just got an email one day, hey there’s a new group in Portland, it’s Women Who Code. It had a start off meeting at Nike and that was actually a wonderful way to kick it off, because there was so much excitement about let’s go out to Nike, let’s go be coders together. It was electric, that environment that was created early on. [INAUDIBLE] awesome job.
PAIGE: Do you find being involved in a women’s network really helpful? I know we’ve talked some about trying to get more women involved n Epicodus. How does that play in day-to-day for you, being a woman in such a man’s field?
MAUREEN: It’s such an interesting question. I guess, kind of, from my own experience and kind of how I entered the field, I feel like I have maybe a slightly different perspective. The environment here in class at Epicodus was really, really open--really open and really welcoming. I guess for me in this environment, I never really felt like an outsider as a woman. I felt like I was part of the team of everyone who was new starting here together. So that’s kind of one perspective I’ve had in the industry.
Since then, I’ve actually had people kind of ask me, hey you know you were training to be a developer, but not you’re doing a slightly feminized role in the industry. Number one, I said, hey thinks for asking me about this, because it shows that you’re a really caring person and that you are interested in women in technology. Let’s see, where was a going with that? I like the question because it was just an opportunity to start a discussing. I think I find in the position that I’m in I get to have those discussions a lot, and I get to connect with women and with men, and with other minorities who are really eager to just talk about what is happening and to troubleshoot and offer guidance and advice to people entering the industry.
ANGELA: Have you taken any non-boot camp IT courses in college or high school?
MAUREEN: I took one programing class in college.
ANGELA: And how does that experience differ from the boot camp? Do you feel like there were a lot of people in that original class that knew more going in than did at the boot camp?
MAUREEN: Yeah, actually it was a beginning level computer science course and I think I took it as a senior. It was technically an engineering course. I knew no one in the class. Everyone else was an engineering major and I was a liberal arts major. I actually had a TA ask me on break, you seriously don’t know anyone in the class? I was like, no, why would I. They’re all different ages than me and I don’t know what they do. So that was kind of strange, because I did really feel like an outsider in that situation.
PAIGE: Do you find that in comparison the boot camp experience was more accessible and less intimidating? Especially, it sounds like with the pair programing sort of stuff?
MAUREEN: Yeah, I had such a good time here. And also, any time there was an issue--because anyone could experience someone saying hey I know this, you have to listen to me. That could happen to anyone in class. It wouldn’t just be happening to women. It could be happening to guys. So we could all kind of share in troubleshooting. Well hey, wait a minute, no one should be talking this way to anyone else. No one should be saying that they know everything and making someone feel bad for not knowing something. SO it kind of allowed us to address issues that came up as, everyone is a beginner. Everyone has a different perspective and it’s really just important to value that.
ANGELA: And how about your class size? How big was the class in your boot camp?
MAUREEN: There is 60 students in all.
ANGELA: Sixty?
MAUREEN: Yeah.
ANGELA: Wow.
PAIGE: Wow, that’s a lot of people.
ANGELA: That’s a big class.
PAIGE: Do you find it’s different coaching men and women through the job search process? I know you’ve had women come through Epicodus. Has it been different coaching that experience?
MAUREEN: That’s a good question. You know, as far as the job hunt goes, the easiest people to coach are people who have looked for jobs a lot before and they just kind of know the routine, and they know what to do. Sometimes it comes down more to age, I think, in the job coaching environment. How often, how you search for jobs, if it’s your first time doing it it’s really intimidating. So I haven’t seen much a gender divide in that actually.
MAUREEN: That’s good.
ANGELA: I would have thought that maybe resume suggestions might be a little different for women versus men, or even the type of positions to apply for. Not necessarily that women can’t apply for any job, but…
PAIGE: I found more like willingness to apply for positions was different between my guy friends and my girlfriends.
ANGELA: Yeah.
MAUREEN: Yeah. I think that--you know, I have to look at it on an individual level and I’ve heard men say I didn’t feel like I was a good fit for a position, so I didn’t apply to it and I hear women say the same thing. And then I’ve also seen people take feedback really well. I don’t know if that’s partly the environment that we kind of set everybody up in here to be really ready for feedback and responsive to eat. I can’t see a brochure, but I haven’t ever felt like someone wasn’t taking [INAUDIBLE] regardless of if they are a man or a woman. It seems like everyone has been really receptive to it, which is pretty cool.
PAIGE: That is pretty cool.
ANGELA: Great.
PAIGE: We’ve talked a little bit to some people about the pair programing thing before. Several of our interviews before have had people who experience pair programming. Are you finding that there are actually some companies out there that are adopting pair programing, like as you’re getting people jobs out in the area and things?
MAUREEN: I think most of the time when I hear about pair programing in the workplace it comes in a couple forms. Some companies will say that developers team up when they’re working through a really difficult problem and it’s new for a couple of people so they team up together so they can all learn it as once. I heard other people say that they practice pair programing specially when they’re onboarding junior developer. So for the first week they pair and then maybe in the weeks after they pair less often, but it tends to be a way to kind of bring someone up to speed pretty quickly and make sure that everyone is on the same page from the beginning. I think with the exception of a place like Pivotal Labs, you don’t hear of a lot of companies doing it on a regular daily basis.
Although, no I did hear of one recently. All their developers are remote and if they pair up on a specific PR or pole request, they actually don’t have to have it reviewed by any other team members. So it if was a pair working on it, it can be automatically merged into master once it goes through all the checks and balances.
PAIGE: That’s a pretty cool idea actually.
MAUREEN: Yeah, like that’s really good motivation to have senior [INAUDIBLE] pair.
PAIGE: What are you excited about about technology right now? What’s getting your passion going?
MAUREEN: I think I am mostly just love how technology is--there’s so much going on. There’s so many new things. I love how everything new seems to be so accessible. Paige you were hosting a Swift workshop here recently and there are just resources to use and a good group of people to work through learning what Swift is.
We had a meteor JS workshop here last night and it was just a cool environment where everyone was really eager and ready to get started together.
So I guess I really enjoy the community that seems to be developing around technology. New things seem to attract groups of people that kind of want to bash their head against it and figure out what’s going on, and figure out what they can do with it. I really like that since of community.
PAIGE: I think bashing your head against it is a good way to describe [INAUDIBLE].
MAUREEN: It’s a good thing.
PAIGE: What’s probably the best piece of advice you’ve ever given or been given on your journey into getting into tech and stuff?
MAUREEN: I think one really effective thing was to kind of find what interest your most. There are so many things out there that it’s kind of easy to dilute your story, so to say, and just say yeah I’m interested in web development. I’m interested in being a full stock developer. If you can kind of find a specific thing that really interest your, then I think that it really helps you tell your story and it helps people envision what it’s like to work with you.
For me, I was really lucky to have a friend who is mentoring me and who is really [INAUDIBLE] all of the wonderful things that tester and development really gives you, principally that writing test will save you so much in the future if you can commit to doing it on a regular basis and always doing that first. When I’ve been able to tell that story to people I’ve always gotten really great feedback. They kind of feel like I have a sense of identity about how I want to be as a developer. That seems to be something like you can kind of tell that personal story and what really, really interest you. It’s something that can be really helpful as you continue to grow.
PAIGE: That’s really cool.
ANGELA: Right. Thank you so much for joining us today Maureen.
MAUREEN: Yeah, thanks for having me.
ANGELA: All right. Now, if you want to be on Women’s Tech Radio, or if you’d like to send us feedback or a topic idea, please email us at [email protected].
Transcribed by Carrier Cotter