Aisha Blake is the Director of Developer Relations at Pluralsight and often a professional rubber duck. A theater kid turned tech community leader, Aisha has co-organized a number of meetups and events over the years, including Self.conference and <title of conf>, a tech conference inspired by her love of teaching and musical theater.

This season, we’re helping you level up your interviewing skills! Each week Lauren Lee, Danny Ramos, and industry experts will offer advice on navigating career progression within tech.

Do you have ideas about how we can make our show better? Or would you like to be a guest on an upcoming episode? Reach out to our #devrel team at devrel@newrelic.com. We would LOVE to hear from you with any questions, curiosities, and/or feedback you have in hopes of making this the best show possible!

👉 Give us a follow: @LaunchiesShow

Topics Covered On This Episode: 

• Asking Questions During Interviews To Give You Real Company Insight
• Evaluating: “Is this someone I want to work with?”, “Is this somewhere I want to work?”
• Figuring Out What You Want In An Employer/Team

Links:

• Aisha’s Blog: aisha.codes
• Aisha on Twitch: twitch.tv/aishacodes

CTA (Call To Action): Join the New Relic Community Slack and tell us…

What are your top three must-haves you want in your next job? Is it respect? Is it mentorship? Are you looking for really good benefits? Do you want them to be fun? Sit down and think about what would make you happy at your day-to-day.

👉 Follow Launchies, Lauren, and Danny on Twitter! 

🚨 Registration for FutureStack 2022 is open! 🚨

Sign up to share your successes and learnings in a hands-on lab, workshop, or deep-dive session to help your peers advance their observability game.

Ceora Ford is a Developer Advocate based in Philadelphia. Her career thus far has centered around creating educational content focused on making the tech industry more accessible to everyone. She's been able to work with amazing companies like CodeSandbox, DigitalOcean, Egghead.io, and Apollo GraphQL and has recently joined The Stack Overflow Podcast as a host.

This season, we’re helping you level up your interviewing skills! Lauren Lee, Danny Ramos, and industry experts each week will offer advice on navigating career progression within tech.

Do you have ideas about how we can make our show better? Or would you like to be a guest on an upcoming episode? Reach out to our #devrel team at devrel@newrelic.com. We would LOVE to hear from you with any questions, curiosities, and/or feedback you have in hopes of making this the best show possible!

👉 Give us a follow: @LaunchiesShow

Topics Covered On This Episode: 

• Finding & Evaluating Companies
• Resources Used in Research
• Reaching Out to Current Employees/Former Employees
• Employment Non-Negotiables
• Researching Employment/Business Practices

Links:

• 5 Mistakes I Made My First Year Learning to Code 
• NCT - K-pop band

CTA (Call To Action): Join the New Relic Community Slack and tell us…

What are your non-negotiables when it comes to a company and finding a place to apply?

👉 Follow Launchies, Lauren, and Danny on Twitter! 

🚨 Registration for FutureStack 2022 is open! 🚨

Sign up to share your successes and learnings in a hands-on lab, workshop, or deep-dive session to help your peers advance their observability game.

Spence Taylor is an Engineering Manager at New Relic who runs the Central Hiring Program. 

Born in Compton, California, he had a very unorthodox journey to tech. Trying to find the right fit for his career, Spence has worked in the military, event management, hospitality, and finally found his place in tech. Working as an engineer, he experienced many issues with current hiring practices and has always been passionate about improving the hiring process. 

Now with the Central Hiring Program at New Relic, he hopes to find ways to improve the hiring process for both interviewers and interviewees and implement effective diverse hiring practices. 

This season, we’re helping you level up your interviewing skills! Each week Lauren Lee, Danny Ramos, and industry experts will offer advice on navigating career progression within tech.

Do you have ideas about how we can make our show better? Or would you like to be a guest on an upcoming episode? Reach out to our #devrel team at devrel@newrelic.com. We would LOVE to hear from you with any questions, curiosities, and/or feedback you have in hopes of making this the best show possible!

👉 Give us a follow: @LaunchiesShow

Topics Covered On This Episode: 

• Common Hiring Practices and Interview Pipelines
• Interviewing The Interviewer
• Overcoming Unconcious Bias
• Technical Take-Home Challenges
• Asking For Interview Feedback
• Cultivating Good Interviewing Skills
• Combatting Interviewee Anxiety
• Best Networking Practices

Links:

• Dr. Dre ft. Snoop Dogg - Nuthin' But A G Thang (Official Video) [Explicit] 
• New Relic Ignite Program

CTA (Call To Action): Join the New Relic Community Slack and…

In whatever language you prefer, write a function/method that accepts an object. The function should return a new object with the same data but with the keys and values swapped. Since the returned object might have multiple values for the same key, it should put the values in an array. 

👉 Follow Launchies, Lauren, and Danny on Twitter! 

🚨 FutureStack 2022 call for papers is now open! 🚨

Sign up to share your successes and learnings in a hands-on lab, workshop, or deep-dive session to help your peers advance their observability game.

Ian Douglas is a Senior Developer Advocate at Postman and is live-streaming his learning in public on Twitch. He loves developer education in all forms and is a strong proponent of accessible content and diversity in tech. He has about 26 years of professional experience in the industry as a developer, manager, director, DevOps engineer, business owner, freelance developer. 

This season, we’re helping you level up your interviewing skills! Each week [Lauren Lee](https://twitter.com/LoLoCoding), [Danny Ramos](https://twitter.com/muydanny), and industry experts will offer advice on navigating career progression within tech.

Do you have ideas about how we can make our show better? Or would you like to be a guest on an upcoming episode? Reach out to our #devrel team at devrel@newrelic.com. We would LOVE to hear from you with any questions, curiosities, and/or feedback you have in hopes of making this the best show possible!

👉 Give us a follow: @LaunchiesShow

Topics Covered On This Episode: 

• Ian’s Background & Expertise
• Progression From Coding To Teaching
• The Tech Interview Guide
• Tech Interview Accessibility 
• Common Interview Questions
• Demand For Specific Languages/Tech Stacks 
• Tech Interviewing Resources
• Working For Mitch Hedberg 

Links:

• techinterview.guide: Free Technical Interview Advice from Ian Douglas
• Streams - Thursday and Sunday - Twitch/LinkedIn/Facebook 
• Vets Who Code
• Pramp
• HackerPen  
• Interviewing.io 
• Free Daily Email from Ian Re: Interview Prep 
• Ian’s Interview Prep Discord Server

CTA (Call To Action): Join the New Relic Community Slack and…

Build your board of people. Find three people in your network, friends that are also interested in tech, or people who are in tech now, and have them give you feedback or schedule one or two mock interviews. Tell us how it went!

👉 Follow Launchies, Lauren, and Danny on Twitter! 

🚨 FutureStack 2022 call for papers is now open! 🚨

Sign up to share your successes and learnings in a hands-on lab, workshop, or deep-dive session to help your peers advance their observability game.

Rynn Mancuso is a Developer Community Manager. They began their career as an Accessibility Engineer working on Women Who Code and building a WordPress community locally at Tech Liminal, and have built developer communities at Mozilla, Wikimedia, Tidelift, and New Relic.

Show Notes:

This season, we’re helping you level up your interviewing skills! Each week Lauren Lee, Danny Ramos, and industry experts will offer advice on navigating career progression within tech.

Do you have ideas about how we can make our show better? Or would you like to be a guest on an upcoming episode? Reach out to our #devrel team at devrel@newrelic.com. We would LOVE to hear from you with any questions, curiosities, and/or feedback you have in hopes of making this the best show possible!

👉 Give us a follow: @LaunchiesShow

Topics Covered On This Episode: 

• How Communities Have Changed Since The Pandemic 
• Advice For Introverts and Extroverts
• The Importance of Social Media to Achieve a Career in Tech
• Networking & Finding Community
• Community Engagement
• Finding a Mentor
• Leveraging Your Network

Links:

• Alternate ROOTS
• LiveJournal
• Stack Overflow
• DEV Community
• Slack
• Twitter

CTA (Call To Action): Join the New Relic Community Slack and tell us…

List what are key things you're looking for in a community that you want to join. Share them! What you do want? What don't you want?

👉 Follow Launchies, Lauren, and Danny on Twitter! 

🚨 FutureStack 2022 call for papers is now open! 🚨

Sign up to share your successes and learnings in a hands-on lab, workshop, or deep-dive session to help your peers advance their observability game.

Chloe Condon is a Senior Developer Relations Engineer, previously working at Microsoft, Sentry.io, and Codefresh. 

Before entering tech, she got a degree in Drama from San Francisco State University and worked in the Bay Area as a musical theatre actress, while working 9-5 in various admin roles. She's worked in tech in roles ranging from video game customer support, virtual assistant, office manager, executive assistant, and recruiting. A Hackbright graduate and mentor to many non-traditional background folks in tech, she's passionate about bringing more artists into tech and more tech into the arts. 

Show Notes:

This season, we’re helping you level up your interviewing skills! Each week Lauren Lee, Danny Ramos, and industry experts will offer advice on navigating career progression within tech.

Do you have ideas about how we can make our show better? Or would you like to be a guest on an upcoming episode? Reach out to our #devrel team at devrel@newrelic.com. We would LOVE to hear from you with any questions, curiosities, and/or feedback you have in hopes of making this the best show possible!

👉 Give us a follow: @LaunchiesShow

Topics Covered On This Episode: 

• Objective Statement: Write or leave out? 
• Make Your Resume Pop 
• Resume No-Nos 
• Getting Personal
• Playing The Algorithm Game: Is listing every tech keyword I can think of in hopes of making it past a machine learning screen a good idea? 
• Getting Feedback 
• Including Non-Tech Work
• Keeping Things Up-To-Date 

Links:

• Sentry.io gifs
• Welcome Chloe Condon 

CTA (Call To Action):

1. Tweet us @LaunchiesShow and tell us something that you included in your past resume that you wish you could take off? Or keep!
2. And write a hook for your cover letter that grabs the attention of the recruiter and or hiring manager and share it with us.
3. Join the New Relic Community Slack!

👉 Follow Launchies, Lauren, and Danny on Twitter! 

🚨 FutureStack 2022 call for papers is now open! 🚨

Sign up to share your successes and learnings in a hands-on lab, workshop, or deep-dive session to help your peers advance their observability game.

This season, we’re helping you level up your interviewing skills! Each week Lauren Lee,  Danny Ramos, and industry experts will offer advice on navigating career progression within tech.

Launchies is a show for folks launching into tech and today we're kicking off this new season! Every new season, we plan to zoom into one specific topic and provide tangible resources and helpful advice for our listeners.

✨This season is going to be all about tech interviews and landing a job!✨

Do you have ideas about how we can make our show better? Or would you like to be a guest on an upcoming episode? Reach out to our #devrel team at devrel@newrelic.com. We would LOVE to hear from you with any questions, curiosities, and/or feedback you have in hopes of making this the best show possible!

Give us a follow: @LaunchiesShow

Relicans host, Lauren Lee, talks to Styra’s Peter ONeill about being a digital nomad, working for Styra's Open Policy Agent, and learning to code via Coding Dojo, a coding bootcamp.

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: @LaunchiesShow.

Do you have ideas about how we can make our show better? Or would you like to be a guest on an upcoming episode? Reach out to our #devrel team at devrel@newrelic.com. We would LOVE to hear from you with any questions, curiosities, and/or feedback you have in hopes of making this the best show possible!

Relicans host Lauren Lee talks to Technical Community Builder at Camunda’s, Kiran Oliver, about joining the field as a technology journalist and looking at Community Health Metrics. They also give bunches of great advice, wisdom, personal experiences, and tips on navigating this wild space that is tech!

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: @LaunchiesShow.

Do you have ideas about how we can make our show better? Or would you like to be a guest on an upcoming episode? Reach out to our #devrel team at devrel@newrelic.com. We would LOVE to hear from you with any questions, curiosities, and/or feedback you have in hopes of making this the best show possible!

Relicans host Danny Ramos talks to Senior Software Engineer at PlanetScale, Iheanyi Ekechukwu about how when breaking into tech and starting the interview process, everybody takes Ls over Ws at first, and that having a way to set yourself apart from other candidates is always good. 

Additionally, he talks about learning and creativity and even about his own failure in trying to learn music, but that he also doesn’t necessarily consider it failure.  He recommends keeping a log of your progress, so when you get frustrated with yourself, you can go back to early moments to see how you've grown.

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: @LaunchiesShow.

Relicans host Aisha Blake talks to Developer Educator at Apollo, Megan Sullivan, about her roundabout journey into tech, the difference between developer advocacy versus education versus experience, and how it is v. important to not underestimate your own expertise!

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: @LaunchiesShow.

Relicans host Danny Ramos talks to Community Manager, Katy Farmer about attending the Turing School of Software Design, coming into tech from a publishing and editing background, and gives advice for people who consider themselves introverts and doesn't really look at interviews as a fun or exciting process.

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: @LaunchiesShow.

Relicans host Aisha Blake interviews Early Career Software Developer, Danielle Thompson about moving from the hospitality industry into tech, being self-taught, Googling frequently, living with ADHD, and participating in weekly Code School Q&A with our very own, Jonan Scheffler! 

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: @LaunchiesShow.

Relicans host Danny Ramos talks to Lead Developer Advocate for Huawei AppGallery, Zachary Powell, about looking at failures as learning experiences and getting as much feedback as you possibly can to understand situations and improve them, wanting to go from being a developer to being a developer advocate, and encouraging people to persevere during interviews. You're not going to succeed the first time every time. It takes time. It will happen.

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: @LaunchiesShow.

Relicans host Pachi Parra talks with DevRel Engineer at Storyblok, Arisa Fukuzaki, about opportunities and resources to learn programming for Japanese folx, starting and keeping a coding school alive, and to find a mentor who you aim to be because if you have someone who is like a role model, you really can motivate yourself effectively.

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: @LaunchiesShow.

Relicans host Aaron Bassett talks to New Relic’s newest Relican, Lauren Lee, about being a “second career dev” after starting out as an English teacher, her experiences on going through the Ada Developers Academy bootcamp, and finding her way into DevRel.

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: @LaunchiesShow.

Relicans host Pachi Parra talks to Developer Advocate at GitHub, Rizél Scarlett, about coming to America as an undocumented immigrant, the biggest barriers she encountered when getting into tech, and the learning curve when going from coder to DevRel.

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: @LaunchiesShow.

Relicans host, Aisha Blake talks to Product Leader, Advisor, and Consultant, Anne Griffin about being the only woman and Black person in the room, that one of the worst things you can do is give up your own power by thinking you don't have any, and helping people to leverage LinkedIn better.

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: @LaunchiesShow.

Relicans host, Pachi Parra talks to Thuy Doan of Prodigy Education about imposter syndrome being a thing that you always have, but that you just become incrementally more comfortable with it, skills she developed in her first years that led to a promotion, and how she’ll never work onsite again. Remote, remote, remote! (But that Zoom fatigue, tho!)

Thuy also thinks that one of the biggest things that deter developers from building accessibly is if they don't know how to do it, it overwhelms them. They just think it's all or nothing, and that’s not the case! Tip: Use semantic HTML!

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: @LaunchiesShow.

Relicans host, Chris Sean Debatos talks to Senior Software Engineer at HOVER, Mannah Kallon, about his journey from animation nerd to BBQ chef, to philosopher and mathematician, to getting a Master’s Degree in Education, to becoming a teacher for several years. 

Eventually, Mannah went to work for an ed-tech company as a content creator writing math lessons and worked with developers for the first time. And that, friends, is how he ended up a full-time software developer and has not looked back since! Mannah also talks about overcoming impostor syndrome (while helping others do the same!), being a very product-focused engineer, and what makes a good developer a good developer.

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: @LaunchiesShow.

Relicans host, Aisha Blake talks to back-end self-taught engineer, Ben Barten about breaking into the FinTech industry in Germany, Googling all the answers, finding a sponsor, promoting yourself through finding a network, and why focusing on a particular niche is very important in coding.

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: @LaunchiesShow.

Relicans host, Aisha Blake talks to Developer Evangelist at Twilio, Streamer, and VC Scout, Lizzie Siegle, about her journey into Developer Relations and how having fabulous mentors has helped her see how others make the jump from academia to getting a full-time job and adulting in general.

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: @LaunchiesShow.

Relicans host, Pachi Parra talks to Design Systems Engineer, Kedasha Kerr, about attending the Grace Hopper Conference with the intention of getting hired, thinking as a product engineer while also thinking like a Bootstrap engineer, and focusing on content creation on Instagram.

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: @LaunchiesShow.

Relicans host, Chris Sean Dabatos, talks to Freelance Frontend Developer, Janine Marsh about teaching herself to code by herself during the pandemic, getting over her impostor syndrome, and the communities that motivated her to keep going.

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: @LaunchiesShow.

Relicans host, Pachi Parra talks to creator and maintainer Bekah Hawrot Weigel of Virtual Coffee about the importance of leaning on others during learning, listening to your body: (Rest and recharge!), and letting others help hold you up during these days of Pandemic-life and the trauma, strife, and grief we are all suffering globally, collectively.

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: @LaunchiesShow.