Ting Becker, a CPA turned iOS developer

Ting from China, moved through Arkansas to California. With the support of her parents, she made a huge leap of faith. And it does seem the Chinese year of the Ox is smiling upon her choices. With dedication and a free schedule, Ting did a full reset of her career as a CPA. She's  a self taught iOS software developer, now an associate software engineer at Quicken Loans.

• Ting on Twitter, follow her there to stay updated on any online events, like Chinese New Year and hackatons.
• The Testflight link to LittleThings.

Please note. I left a lot of things unedited. This episode is the ultimate showcase of a guest and me having a lot of fun while creating the content.

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Transcript

Jeroen Leenarts: 0:45

My daughter, she also always also makes me smile. So that's also fun. But that's a completely different topic. I'm not like blabbering. Okay, and welcome to another special episode with dink Becker. I hope I pronounced that correctly. She's an interesting persona, because she's an accountant, it seems. But she's not anymore. And nowadays, she's a self taught iOS developer. And it's now close to a year or actually one year that she is actually doing professional iOS development. So I think we'll dig into that, how she managed to do that, make that transition, and also dig a little bit into her backstory. What's her origins and how she got into computers and science and stuff like that. So, Stephanie, thing Okay, so please just kill me. Okay. Good. Okay, let's, let's take the time index like the minutes. Wow, we lost one minute. Okay, so, thing, how are you doing today?

Ting Becker: 2:06

I'm doing well. Thank you. How are you doing?

Jeroen Leenarts: 2:09

I'm pretty good. I just destroyed my ceiling earlier today and figured out that we need to do some extra work because people listening to my podcasts are aware that I'm doing some home remodeling. Interesting thing is that's happening in March. And when we published this, this will probably be in April, I think, but who knows? Maybe I get some questions online about that.

Ting Becker: 2:32

We'll be done. Yeah, I

Jeroen Leenarts: 2:33

hope so. would be horrible. Because if it's still lasting till then I'll probably like sleeping in my garden in a tent or something? I don't know. She just leave it like that. Yeah, just forget it. So, um, during the accountant, right?

Ting Becker: 2:51

I was yes, I was a CPA. I've been a CPA for the last four years.

Jeroen Leenarts: 2:58

And just for people that are not from the US, what's a CPA?

Ting Becker: 3:02

A CPA is a certified public accountant. So as a CPA, you have the ability to do stuff, like sign off on tax returns, or sign off on audit report is just you're you're in a an accountant with better with a special power. Basically.

Jeroen Leenarts: 3:22

You can get people in trouble if they're, if their fingers don't add up. Yeah. So um, but But how did you get into accounting? Because that's a that's quite a specific field to get into. I think

Ting Becker: 3:38

my mom made me Oh, yeah, I did it. Because I guess I didn't really know what I wanted to do. When I was in college. And my mom had friends who are accountant. And I kind of liked the lifestyle that they had. It seemed like a very, pretty interesting work at the time, you know, you get to go into the companies get to learn about their business, their processes, and I thought it was pretty cool. So it was kind of like a why not? I'm just gonna go down this road and see if I like it.

Jeroen Leenarts: 4:17

And you've been an accountant for like, four or five years.

Ting Becker: 4:21

Yeah, I graduated a while I got my first. I started my first job on January 6 2016.

Jeroen Leenarts: 4:30

So and you went to San Francisco State University if I'm correct, yes. Correct. San Francisco. Yep. So you always lived around San Francisco. Is that where you're from? Or?

Ting Becker: 4:43

I am from China. I was born in China. My mom and I moved to the US when I was 14 or something. Oh, yeah. We lived in Arkansas for the first two years. And then we came to California after that. Thank God.

Jeroen Leenarts: 5:03

Every part of the US has its specific benefits and interesting scenery and geography. But I can't imagine that the opportunities in and around this part of California as you now live are way bigger than in rural Arkansas. Yeah,

Ting Becker: 5:21

yeah, you're right.

Jeroen Leenarts: 5:23

But how did you end up in Arkansas? What's what's the what's the thought process? They're

Ting Becker: 5:28

gonna talk to my mom about? She chose that. I think her thought process was, you know, when you go to your new country, you should start from the bottom, you know, get all the basic stuff and then move up. So she chose the bottom To the opinions. So just, I guess just get familiarized with the culture.

Jeroen Leenarts: 5:52

But how was it like for you as, as a teenager to actually make such a big transition from from China, where you where you were born and where you initially grew up into a completely different country with a pretty much different culture, as well.

Ting Becker: 6:09

It really sucked. If I can be honest, I was not happy. I think I remember my mom managed to keep this news from me, until pretty much the last week before we were supposed to move in, she came to school pulled me out of my class and said, Hey, we're going to the US. You don't have to go to school tomorrow. And I was like, what? That's what happened? Oh, wow. That's what happened. Yeah, a week later, we hopped on a plane. Landed in Arkansas, you know, I had no friends. Yeah, all my friends were super shocked. Because it's, you know, it hit us out of nowhere. But yeah, that was something.

Jeroen Leenarts: 6:57

Well, that's it's a big transition, just to put it mildly. But when you were in, in the US, you were 14 year old? When did you like? Get on your feet? And were able to, like, accept the new surroundings? Get friends like the break basically finding your stride in this new environment?

Ting Becker: 7:21

That is a great question. I think it took me at least two years. Yeah, it took me at least, I would say maybe a year to start getting used to this culture. I had to learn English. Of course, you know, I spoke some English when I was in China. But we only learned the basics in school, you know, like apples, the numbers, how do you say hello, that kind of stuff. Which was, it was good. But I had an accent. When I came here, I had to learn a lot of the very basic words. I think I remember when I got here, it was right before summer break. And during that entire summer break, I didn't go anywhere. I locked myself at home. And I had these like huge books. And I would read them and they're all in English. And I had no idea what they mean. So I would highlight the words that I didn't understand in English, I would look them up on Chinese, you know, translator or dictionary, I would write out what they mean in Chinese. And I would pretty much use that to practice my English I would like right over the words over and over. I've also watched American movies with a subtitle on and that kind of helped me. I think that's how I got it. That's how I really learned English is by watching movies, and show thing kind of hearing their accent like hearing how they speak. And that's how I learned.

Jeroen Leenarts: 8:50

That's pretty challenging, actually, if you if you describe it like that, because basically, being a self taught English speaking. That's not easy, actually. So but yeah, like you were like adolescence, and you were, you ended up in university. So I guess something went, went right. So how did you get into university because you were 16? And then you had to finish your I think it's called College in the US or what is yes,

Ting Becker: 9:24

yes. College. No high school. High school. Um, interesting story. I had a 3.87 GPA when I graduated high school, which is pretty high, because I think it's out of four. So I had a good GPA. But somehow I didn't think I was good enough to go to college, just because English was my second language. So I actually went to community college for two years before transferred to a real four year college. And I went to San Francisco State because it was closer to home so I could, you know, be closer to my mom.

Jeroen Leenarts: 10:03

Yeah. So and then you became an accountant did an accountant Yeah, I did that for a couple years and and then I guess something happened.

Ting Becker: 10:16

Well, the thing is, I see accounting, I didn't want to, I only went into this to explore it, and I kind of got stuck with it because I didn't really know what else to do. So I think just missing that passion. I never really loved accounting. It kind of was just a job for me. And to be honest, I don't think I'm very good at it just because that passion is not there. Right. When you're off work. Other people would be you know, doing training videos or reading more about audit and accounting and tax. And I will not want to do that. Because you see, I don't want to because I don't have that interest in it. And that really bothered me because I don't like being mediocre. You know, in life, I strive to be good at what I do, I want to be proud of what I do. And I just never really thought accounting was it for me. So during the four years of being in the business, I've kind of always kept my eye out for other opportunities and try to find the spark in me. I don't know if you've seen the movie, a Disney movie soul, but that was me I was looking for I was looking for my soul what my passion is. And at the same time, I've always had a curiosity for programming, I just thought it was super cool. I didn't know anything about it. And it's funny because at first I didn't think I could do it, it sounded like one of those things that only child geniuses can do it. You know, everyone, all the stories that I've heard are these people that started programming, when they were a child, you know, their grandparents or their parents taught them how to code they grew up coding, and that they end up learning how to code in school. And that just wasn't me, that's not my background. So I just never really thought I could do it. And then it was not until 2020, the beginning of 2020, my, my best friend who lives in Japan, he, like he knows that I've always had an interest in this. And he actually reached out and, like, sent me a few resources and offered me to, you know, offer to teach me pretty much. I was actually supposed to go visit him and then kind of learn programming to so he could teach me and obviously that didn't happen because of COVID. But the good thing was I had enough time during COVID to actually think about this what I want to pursue, and I made up my mind that I want to give this a shot. So yeah, I spoke to my team have found a date when I wanted to leave my work, which was set in June and then COVID happened in March. So then by June, you know, all the flights were down, like nothing was flying out. I couldn't go to Japan anymore. So I figured you know what, there's no going back. So I just got started.

Jeroen Leenarts: 13:30

But that that's actually quite a short timeframe that you gave yourself to actually make? Well, huge leap of faith actually from a study accounting job into basically the unknown, it seems.

Ting Becker: 13:44

Yeah, I took a leap of faith. So

Jeroen Leenarts: 13:48

how was your mom when you told her about your plans?

Ting Becker: 13:53

She was really understanding actually, I think she knew that I never loved accounting. She just wanted me to pick something that I can succeed in in the future. And she did ask me a lot of questions like, you know, why computers, she doesn't think computers is a good career choice for girl. She wanted me to do something else. And I'm like, No, Mom, I'm gonna do this. I can do it. And I'm pretty stubborn. And she knows that. So.

Jeroen Leenarts: 14:25

Okay. No fighting of no force nature, I guess. Exactly. So you mentioned that you sort of had an interest into technology. So computing, but you've never really investigated it because you thought it was like really a too much or too complex or too anything really. And But what changed in you actually that you came to the conclusion that you should actually not self deprecating on this specific topic.

Ting Becker: 15:01

Um, while the resources my best friend gave me were really helpful. One of the resources that used to get started was 100 days of Swift or hacking with Swift by Paul Hudson. It really opened the door of programming to me and how it's actually assessable and it's reasonable and realistic, and it's not something that's out of reach. He made it super clear everything was simple enough to understand as a beginner, and as I go through his courses, you know, the self doubts slowly faded away, and I knew like hey, if I put in the time I can do this or I I think I can do this. So I just kept going.

Jeroen Leenarts: 15:49

And just, and if you look at, let's think, because I want to do have good follow up here. So if you look at when you opened Xcode in earnest for the first time, and actually landing your first job, at least getting the confirmation that you would be being able to make a living as a software developer, how much time was between those two moments?

Ting Becker: 16:21

Sure, I gave myself a whole year to get a job. So that's from the day that I quit. So basically, my deadline was June 2 2021. And if I couldn't find a job by then I was going to go back to accounting. You know, that was my plan B. And I studied full time from June to when I got my offer was in late February. So that was eight months. That was eight months of just studying for eight hours a day. Yeah, I studied, I think I was eight to 10 hours a day, I would get up at, like 730, I would start studying by nine. And I would finish studying by say, like, five or six, or sometimes later, if I get stuck on something.

Jeroen Leenarts: 17:15

So basically, you did eight months of pretty much full time investing yourself into getting into programming. And that's pretty much but you, which had to have some support, right? Because you didn't have an income or because you need you need, you need a roof and you need something. And most of all, electricity to run your equipment. Exactly. So how did you how did you set that up? Because I'm actually coaching, somebody called Sam, who was also trying to get into iOS development.

Ting Becker: 17:50

I love Sam, I know, Sam,

Jeroen Leenarts: 17:52

I know you two are familiar with each other. Yeah. And he's a cook, and he has a paying job. And he's doing it in the evening or mornings. I don't know, actually, when he's working or when he's not working but and when he's studying. But he's like trying to jump off from a paid position. And hopefully, at some point, make the transition. But you seem to have been able to dedicate yourself full time to studying to get to to actually break into the software development field. So how did you? How did you arrange that? Because it seemed that you had some,

Ting Becker: 18:33

I am spoiled. I'm just kidding. Um, I, my parents were there to support me. So when I decided to pursue this brand new career, I spoke to my parents and asked them if they would be willing to, you know, support me by giving me a roof. So I can move home and be a full time student. So there were, you know, kind enough to let me do that. So I saved the money to pay rent, I didn't have to pay rent, I had a place to live. I also had a good amount of savings just from working. And as an accountant, you know, it's, I would say it's my strength for them to like, deal with money and finances. I had enough emergency fund saved, I had some investments. So I was able to pretty much like support myself, aside from paying rent.

Jeroen Leenarts: 19:28

So yeah, so yeah, that's, that's really cool that your parents were like, take their adult daughter back into the home and just say no, for B, and say, What the heck is she doing all day on this computer? But okay, she says she needs to do this. So let's support her. I think I think you're actually pretty good off with parents that are so dedicated to you, actually. And it's, it's actually so sweet of them to, to have done so I think. I'm

Ting Becker: 19:59

very lucky.

Jeroen Leenarts: 20:01

And so then you took eight months of full time study. And how was the How was the hiring process for you? Because I reckon that you didn't start looking for positions straight up in in June last year. But that's at some point, you must have took the steps, you must have taken the step to actually think okay, now, let's, let's start looking for positions and applying actually,

Ting Becker: 20:29

I think at the point when I realized that now would be a good time to start sending your resume was when I pushed my app into the test flight. And I have my app on testflight for a couple of weeks. I was getting feedback And I think that was a good assurance of my skills as a new junior developer. And I think I was able to gather enough confidence to start looking. So but even then I wasn't actively applying, I would pretty much Well, first, I started quick cleaning up my resume, since my resume was not, you know, tech based I had is a very different resume. So I reached out to quite a few people, ask them to take a look at my resume, give me any suggestions that they had. So I could, you know, make the update and make it a little more suitable for the new career that I'm about to pursue. So that took a few weeks, because I think I had, like six or seven people look through my resume for the span of like three or four weeks. But while I was doing that, I also had, you know, kept an eye out for any opportunities. So I would send, like one or two or three resumes, whenever good opportunity came. So like I said, I wasn't actively looking. But I was really active in the Twitter community, I was making network I was, you know, talking to people and making friends and having a great time. And I got super lucky because I was introduced to this awesome event called iOS dev Happy Hour, which is hosted by Alan he is awesome. So and there's a Slack channel that you know, Alan, have for the for the event. And there are different, I think there were called rooms slack was it branches, so like the different slack rooms and slack? I don't know what the word is. I think they're,

Jeroen Leenarts: 22:41

I think I think two rooms, but it sounded somewhat like a channel for I think it's channel channel,

Ting Becker: 22:48

maybe Yeah, yeah. But there's a channel in this slack channel called the jobs. And sometimes there will be really good opportunities get posted in there. So one day, I saw one message that said, hey, my team is looking for a junior developer, you know, DM me if you're interested. And I think by that date, I had version number five of my resume. So I pinged her, I'm like, Hey, I would love to, you know, pursue this opportunity. Can I send you my resume? And she said, Yes. And that was Kim. I don't know if you're familiar with Kim Arnett. I think that's how I say her last name. She's also awesome. She's super great. But yeah, what?

Jeroen Leenarts: 23:33

What is Kim's Twitter handle

Ting Becker: 23:38

is code Kate.

Jeroen Leenarts: 23:40

Yep. Yeah, no, I know who she's got. Well. I love Yes. Yeah. That's why I'm familiar with she has stickers. And she's like, really? She's really on top of like, getting those stickers out the door.

Ting Becker: 23:54

Yes, exactly. But yeah, she took my resume submitted through the recruiting team. And that's how I got my first tech interview. And that was my that was my only tech interview. So I pretty much did good through the interviews, and that which eventually led to the role that I have now. So I've only gone through one interview, which was that Wow. Well, there's three different interviews that made up the entire interview process. Yeah, it's only interview process.

Jeroen Leenarts: 24:31

So how was that like? Getting ready for the first interview of the three?

Ting Becker: 24:38

I liked it. I wasn't. I don't know why I don't remember being nervous. Um, since I had a professional experience before this. I kind of knew how to behave during interviews. I knew pretty much what general questions they were going to ask. Yeah. And for the tech specific questions, I had friends who helped me prepare. I, you know, had resources online, I was able to pretty much Google a lot of the interview questions or common tech interview questions. Pretty much practice them. And yeah, it was it was a very smooth, very good process for me.

Jeroen Leenarts: 25:19

So and are you? Are you working every day with Kim or?

Ting Becker: 25:25

No, so we are all in the iOS team, but I think she is on another team. So she's not my direct report. But she actually taught me something today. She was walking me through unit testing, which is super helpful because I've never done it before. So even though I don't get to work with her all the time. I I get to interact with her, which is awesome.

Jeroen Leenarts: 26:21

Okay. And if you look at these, these eight months that you were studying, and now, I think it's how many months that you're actually employed now, as a software developer.

Ting Becker: 26:35

This is my first week. First week, actually, wow. Yeah, I

Jeroen Leenarts: 26:39

just started last Friday. Okay, so compare that one week with like, the eight months of studying, would you say that you are learning a lot in just one week or?

Ting Becker: 26:51

Well, right now, it's mostly training videos, and I am just getting started. So I will probably say I learned more from the eight months, but I am so sure that going forward, I'm going to learn a ton every day. There's so much stuff to learn. And it's really exciting, because I just think it's super cool. Like she was, Kim was walking me through unit testing today. And I've never done it before. And I was just shocked the whole time just to see, you know, all these code. And I don't even I don't even understand what they do. But it just it's so exciting for me. So yeah, I'm super excited to learn.

Jeroen Leenarts: 27:32

It's actually really cool that by chance, maybe we end up like capturing you in an interview like right at this very specific point in time, that you are actually in the middle of making the transition into a paid position for the first time. Yeah. And so yeah, one week that's too early to tell how it compares to your previous professional life. But what do you expect for the for the future, actually, for yourself? Because you're one weekend, and hopefully, a great number of weeks to follow that first one. So what are your plans now that you actually managed to land your first job?

Ting Becker: 28:18

Honestly, as a junior developer, I just want to learn as much as I can. I'm still pretty fresh. I don't. I feel like at this point, I don't even know what I need to learn. But anything that gets put in front of me, I want to be able to have a good understanding of that. It doesn't matter if is UI testing if is like, was UI automation, or just making a view controller doesn't matter. Yeah, I just I just want to learn something.

Jeroen Leenarts: 28:53

I think I think that'll happen. If I if I'm like hearing what environment you're actually in? Because Can you tell what company you're actually working for now?

Ting Becker: 29:04

Yes, I am a part of Quicken Loans, which is owned by rocket Central.

Jeroen Leenarts: 29:10

Okay. And is there a specific product that you will that you are working on? Or at least are going to work on?

Ting Becker: 29:18

Yeah, so the product that I'm working on is the iOS app by Quicken Loans or Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans? Is the iOS app.

Jeroen Leenarts: 29:30

Okay. So that's, it's an interesting combination. Actually, you come from an accounting background, and now doing something that is a financial products and but then from the technical side? Do you expect that your previous background in accounting can help you with developing features for this product?

Ting Becker: 29:51

Absolutely. My background is actually in real estate as well. So I was an auditor for two and a half years at KPMG. And then after that, when I went private, I went to a real estate company. So in real estate, obviously had to work with mortgage and loans. I feel I think Rocket Mortgage is mostly for personal loans. So it's not really like company business loans, but just having that business knowledge would be helpful.

Jeroen Leenarts: 30:21

Just the inner workings of these institutions that actually provide the financial means to put out the loans. And then yeah, what actually happens in the whole process of acquiring and executing? And who knows what else is involved with, with loans and stuff? Yeah, I don't know just for this guy, you can actually see something thing can actually see something behind me because I have a hot, big gaping hole in my roof actually in the room that I'm in. And before we started recording, I explained to her that we're doing some home remodeling. And that also involves getting some financial means from somewhere. So that's just a process of just me as a consumer asking so for some money, and then just getting it because all checkboxes turned green for some reason. So but that process behind that that's all automated right as and you as a software developer are now actually learning a lot About Us processes I reckon. Let's see. If you if you look at that, it's very interesting, because she has I'm just now not out Carter's later but no, it's okay. It's very interesting because it's the story thus far is like, it's it's like, wow thing is like the golden child of software developers wanting to transition into this from another field.

Ting Becker: 31:47

I really think I just got so lucky. This year for some reason. I was actually joking with my friends that during Chinese New Year, yeah, um, I had an event called iOS, I think, was iOS. I was deaf Chinese New Year.

Jeroen Leenarts: 32:07

Yeah, it was. It was like spinoff from the iOS deaf happy hour.

Ting Becker: 32:11

Yeah, it was a one day event where I gathered some friends, some developers, and we just hung out, we played zoom games. I told everyone a little bit about my culture, and we celebrate it together. And I'm joking with my friends that it's because of that, you know, that gave me some really good karma with Chinese New Year, and I was able to have such good luck going forward.

Jeroen Leenarts: 32:38

Yeah, let's pick up on that topic x, because that's an interesting one as well. So thing, it really seemed to us that, yeah. But it's always so cool if you hit the uncut version, and then the actual version. So thing, it seems like in the past 12 months, you've been able to make some pretty big things happen, and actually just landing a job on your first interview, there must be a secret there, right?

Ting Becker: 33:14

I honestly think the secret is just a network. I am so thankful of my community on Twitter, you know, the iOS dev community has been so helpful. They're so genuine with their knowledge. Everyone was there for me when I need to help. When I had a question, I had at least like five people reach out and say, hey, you know, here's the solution. Why don't you try this? Go look at that. And I think that was that's the only reason that I'm able to move forward so quickly. It's because everybody was there to help you. And I think that's the secret is just network make friends meet people hear their experience. So there's a phrase in China, in Chinese that says, When you're in a room with two other people, you can always find someone that's able to teach you something, you can always find a teacher. And I think that's how the experience was for me is that when I'm on Twitter, like everyone had something you teach me and I just took that knowledge. I just made friends and I love I love making friends. I yeah, I had a lot of fun.

Jeroen Leenarts: 34:29

Yeah, but you must have done something to like improve your karma and to make sure that the stars aligned and the What's that? What's the current Chinese? Here? What's the animal again? Ah, there Yeah, to make the the ox look down on you with with gleeful eyes and just throw some luck your way, right.

Ting Becker: 34:56

Let's see. So I organize an event called iOS Dev, Happy New have no Chinese New Year. Oh my gosh, I think it was iOS deaf, Happy Chinese New Year. Like a week ish before Chinese New Year. I had, I think like 30 or so of good friends that I met on Twitter who are iOS developers. They all came and we like played zoom games, we hung out with each other. I had this little keynote that taught everyone a little bit about my culture, you know, a little bit about just this holiday in general, why I love it so much. And we just all hung out together. So I feel like that really helped me prepare for Chinese New Year going forward. Like I do any taboo that or anything that I'm not supposed to do during Chinese New Year. So I was very well behaved. I didn't eat anything I was supposed to. We have a lot of taboos in China, especially during the holiday. And I think that even allowed me to you know, remember those. And I think that I don't know, I just feel like that really gave me a lot of luck.

Jeroen Leenarts: 36:16

So that's it. Bye Make the ox ox very happy. And I still remember that because you you you spun it off from the iOS deaf Happy Hour by Adam weary and seemed to be once you've announced it that it got a little bit out of hand so to speak, it was like it was gaining so much traction, you were like on Twitter? Oh, boy, what what should I do now? How did you handle this entire influx of enthusiasm on the thing that you came up with?

Ting Becker: 36:50

I loved it. I think it was great that people had interest to learn about my culture. And I was also very happy to just make more friends on Twitter. So it was great. I think I'm a pretty like, what's the word? Social, pretty social person. So I really enjoyed interacting with everyone just be excited with them. Yeah, it was a it was a very good experience.

Jeroen Leenarts: 37:19

Yeah. And I do think, by the way, that you describe the things that's making yourself visible online, in a pretty vulnerable way, cuz you're just out there. I'm just trying to learn here. I don't know anybody want to help. And that seems to actually allow people to actually help you and to actually increase the speed of your learning of iOS development. And if there's anyone out there that's hearing this story, or actually working on becoming an iOS developer from a totally unrelated field. What do you think, in your experience, people can try to do to help themselves give a better shot at is.

Ting Becker: 38:12

I think the most important thing is to just go for it, you know, start anywhere, I know, it's scary, to go to transition your career to a completely different, you know, new field, some people would doubt themselves. And I just want to say, you know, it's, it's fine that you have those thoughts. But don't give up, just keep going, you have to keep going. Because I promise you, it will be worth it. It's definitely helpful to make connections online, make friends, talk to your community, having a good community, it's everything because they are going to be the people that's going to be behind you to support you to you know, be there for you when you need them. And I think yeah, I think that's the secret to my success is that I had a great support system. I had my parents who were there to support me, you know, physically with the house, I had my friends, my Twitter community to there to be there to support me on like, a so word. mental level? Yeah. Yeah, like a spiritual level. Sure. Sorry. English is hard. But yeah,

Jeroen Leenarts: 39:38

okay. And poop. Oh, one thing that we completely forgot, what was the first computer that you really got your hands on and, and got, like, interactive with in a way that's beyond just text editing, or word processing.

Ting Becker: 40:00

The first computer, probably. I've always been a Windows user. Until, I think a couple years ago, I got a MacBook Air as a gift. And I think that's the first MacBook that I've ever had. And it's funny because as a Windows user, my previous job also had a Windows Surface. So I didn't really touch anything Apple until I would say like probably like 2019 because I had a work computer that I would do everything on my work computer, and then my personal Mac would just be sitting there and just to look pretty, it was a decoration on my desk for a long time. But that was a it was a very expensive paperweight. But that's also the first computer that I typed out my first line of Swift, you know, when I ran Hello world, and that's where everything started. So I had that computer for a couple months until since it's old, it was really slow. And then I was able to finally put my foot down and buy a MacBook Pro. So but yeah, I think that MacBook Air, or was it a MacBook? I don't remember it was a very tiny MacBook.

Jeroen Leenarts: 41:20

Is it like a little bit of a wedge shaped so that it like, at the trackpad side is is thinner than the other side?

Ting Becker: 41:29

I think so I think 2015 MacBook?

Jeroen Leenarts: 41:32

Yeah, then it must be that there must be a MacBook Air because they have like this this tapered shape. Yeah, doesn't matter. It was an old slow MacBook. But it was your it was your programming origin so to speak, that was

Ting Becker: 41:45

the beginning of everything.

Jeroen Leenarts: 41:48

Okay. Let's see. I'm just trying to say artists like such a horrible edit is going to be but I will make you sound glorious and concise and like sound of mind.

Ting Becker: 42:04

No, you can't make me sound however, I mean, nobody is perfect. That's, you know, get some stuff in there.

Jeroen Leenarts: 42:14

Yeah, just to just to wrap things up. What were the biggest challenges that you ran into, because there must have been times in those eight months that you were basically getting to the point that you wanted to bang your head against two against a wall or out of frustration? Really.

Ting Becker: 42:34

I think the biggest challenge as a self taught person is to figure out what resources to look for what exactly you need to learn, because there are so many resources out there are so many options. It's so easy to be distracted. Like so many different blogs, you know, I could be going through with this tutorial. And then in the middle of there, another code tutorial comes along, I'd be like, Oh, that looks cool. I want to

Jeroen Leenarts: 43:00

try that. So I think that shiny object syndrome, exactly the

Ting Becker: 43:04

shiny object. So I think that was the most difficult was to just have a clear roadmap of what I need to do. So I don't get distracted. And that's why the hacking with Swift was so good for my experience, because it was 100 days, everyday had a project that you're supposed to do. So I kind of knew what my end goal was. And once I was done with that, I started designing code. And I think but I did a swift UI project. But still, like that project was also had a beginning and an end, I had a clearer, you know, view of where I need to go. So I didn't get shafted. So yeah, that was the most important things to navigate through all the resources, figure out exactly what you need to move forward. Another difficult thing was to make sure that I don't memorize. And so the thing was, when I first started, I would redo projects in order to have them stick in my head. But then what normally happened was I would start memorizing the code without really understanding. So I was able to do like, for example, a table view. I knew how to make a table view. But I didn't really know why these codes would go here. Like, why I need to do this. So it's important to, I guess, force myself to slow down, really try to put in the time to dig in and figure out the why instead of just the what, if that makes sense?

Jeroen Leenarts: 44:49

Yeah, there's a big difference between going through the motions and actually understanding what's happening in front of you. Is there anything that we missed, because we talked about you being an accountant, your origins from China, that you're actually a self taught iOS developer and that you took eight months to actually make this big transition? That that came actually links you up with your current company, and you got through your first interview, as a software developer ever in one go, which is amazing. And that's actually, what you also indicated, is that for each self teaching developer out there, that just having some guidance, or just some resource that actually lays out the path that you that you can follow is very helpful and important. Would you say that you had some important mentors along the way? Yeah. You already mentioned this person from Japan.

Ting Becker: 45:52

Yeah, um, I had a couple of really great friends and mentors along the way, but also just everyone on Twitter like everyone on the community who has ever answered a question or has replied to one of my tweet has been really helpful. Like I said, everybody was just willing to help to lead the hand. Teach. Yeah, I don't I think everyone helped me in some sort of a way, one way or another.

Jeroen Leenarts: 46:28

Okay. I think that's it. So, people, this was a thing, a proud, self taught and now employed iOS developer. And just being able to make such a big transition in just eight months, it's, it's impressive. And it's, I think it's a sign for some impressive things in your future. And I look forward to interacting with you more online through Twitter, and maybe someday, give you a big high five at a conference. Maybe someday. So thanks, setting for your time and talk to you soon.

Ting Becker: 47:08

Thank you for your time, talk to you soon.

Jeroen Leenarts: 47:12

So we're actually finished up recording. And I was like, in, in post with, with thing, and we came to the conclusion that we did not talk about her app. So thing Tell us about your app, what is it?

Ting Becker: 47:27

Sure. My, my app is called Little things, it is a very, very simple tasks app that uses a special rule, it's called a one through five rule. And by using this rule, it ensures you are spending your days efficiently, it increases productivity, because the goal is that, you know, no matter because going through the day, you have so many things that you need to do. And most of the times, it's easy to get overwhelmed. As you see your list gets longer and longer and longer, and you cross one item off, three more pops up. So this role allows you to pretty much prioritize your to do list and then you would only have one large tasks, which would take about like two or three hours, you have three medium tasks, that takes about 30 minutes each. And then you have five small tasks, which each would take like, like under under half an hour. So you will structure your day around these nine tasks. And then that's all you have to focus on. So by getting those done, after you're done, you know, you can go on with your day because there are more to life and crossing stuff off a to do list. And that was the whole purpose of this is to get stuff done and then have enough time to enjoy life. But yeah, that's that's my app. It is on testflight. And I tried to add a lot of personality to it. Because I think of woody sometimes. So I would add like little quirky comments. Like for example, when you finish a task, when you tap the button to cross that off, it would have like a little toast message that pops up and it will say something silly, like, Oh, I got 99 problems and task eight a saying or, you know, bye Felicia or something something silly. But yeah, I had a lot of fun, or having a lot of fun making this.

Jeroen Leenarts: 49:42

And do you have plans to actually release it on the app store? Or is it like only when it's like, good enough?

Ting Becker: 49:50

I definitely have plans to release it to the App Store. It just has been pushed back. Because I want to add accessibility to it. It is a topic that recently became very important to me, I want to make my app accessible for everybody. Because you know, this is my baby. This is my firstborn. And I'm proud of it. And I want everyone to have the chance to look at it and share this joy with me. So I definitely want to make it assessable I've just been busy.

Jeroen Leenarts: 50:26

I just I just started my new job. You're busy. Wow. How did that happen? I will get to go. Okay, so at least now we did not forget to mention your app. And we can we can again, sleep soundly tonight. Thanks