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In September 2020 I left my job as an English teacher in Jakarta and decided to teach myself to code. Despite little prior experience with programming, besides using R at university, I found myself getting hooked. I became particularly interested in e-learning tools after my classes were moved online due to the pandemic. The thought of being able to build such tools myself was, and remains, incredibly exciting. In May 2021 I joined Makers Academy for 12 weeks of intensive group based learning taking me from keen amateur to well rounded junior developer. Makers not only boosted my programming confidence but taught me to love pair programming and working in teams to best produce quality code and learn new technologies. In the future I would love to find ways of bringing together the skills I have developed both in programming and teaching.

• During my final project at Makers, our team had difficulty agreeing on which tech stack to use. Some members of the group wanted to focus on JavaScript, others on Ruby. We all wanted to ensure we made use of frameworks regularly used in the industry. I suggested that we use Ruby on Rails as an API on the backend and React on the frontend, allowing everyone in the group to focus on their own learning priorities. This also allowed us to practice using technologies like Postman and Insomia to test our Rails API.

• My university degree, Human Sciences, was highly interdisciplinary. I studied everything from environmental law to statistics, and from epigenetics to sociology. This gave me a strong sense of the importance of both breadth and depth of knowledge and allowed me to practice tackling problems from various lines of inquiry.

• While living in Jakarta as an English teacher, I spent time working with a dyslexic Iraqi refugee who was struggling to learn to read and write. His speaking ability was very strong and it was clear that he was a smart and motivated student. It became difficult to teach his class as my dyslexic student was unable to keep up with the rest of his classmates. After realizing that my student lived nearby, I spoke to his parents and to my supervisor in order to arrange free tutoring sessions. We spent 2 hours a week working on phonics. This allowed my student to develop his literacy skills and keep his place at my school. I remain in touch with his family.

• As part of my work experience with Global Initiative, an Oxford based digital agency, I spent two weeks working on a Laravel project where I was tasked with converting Blade templates into Vue.js components. I had no experience with Laravel or PHP and little experience with Vue. I was, however, able to use principles learnt while working with Rails, such as the MVC design pattern, and React/React Native, for example working with components, to tackle the project head on. Consequently, I was able to make fast progress and my code was merged into main. My changes meant that all events relating to the navbar, with differentiated views for admins, super admins, and regular users, were handled entirely by the frontend using Vue. Given Vue’s speed and performance, this allowed for a smoother user experience.

• Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, React, React Native, Vue, CSS, PSQL
• Insomnia and Postman
• Testing frameworks - RSpec, Jasmine, Capybara

Global Initiative, Oxford (October 2021)

Work Experience as a frontend dev

• My final week at Global Initiative was spent working on Javascript animations. I was tasked with creating animations using Jquery, vanilla Javascript and GSAP. Once I had created animations using Jquery, I was quickly able to update my approach for Vanilla JS and GSAP. The main payoff for me has come from increased confidence in switching between various libraries and approaches so as to best meet the needs of a particular task.

• Working at Global Initiative also gave me an insight into technologies that make for smooth and efficient project management. For instance, I was introduced to Liquid Planner by my project manager and also used Jenkins for continuous integration.

• Finally I became more accustomed to dealing with unexpected blockers, and using my own initiative to find solutions. For example, using older Node versions with an M1 mac, required me to use Rosetta. This allowed software built for Intel processors to run on Apple silicon, and allowed me to work on older codebases without issues.

Acknowledge App (October 2021 - February 2022)

React native developer

• Working with the Acknowledge team has provided practise debugging a relatively large codebase in a framework I hadn’t previously used. For instance I was able to identify and fix a bug related to user sign in by testing user experience on an iOS simulator.

• Using communication skills developed as a teacher, I have enjoyed working through the codebase with newer team members, introducing them to the app’s design and functionality, and answering questions about project workflow. This has resulted in faster integration into the team.

• My time with Acknowledge has meant working in an informal setting, requiring personal drive and initiative to keep up the rate of progress. Balancing various priorities, such as job hunting and work experience, while working on this project has also required careful time management and organisational skills.

Education First, Indonesia (April 2018 - September 2020)

Teacher

• Teaching young learners, teenagers, and business students, often all in the same day, required regular adjustment of communication strategies to suit the needs of my classes.
• After attending several teacher training workshops I was invited to hold my own workshops for newer employees.
• While working as a teacher, effective time management skills were essential both in terms of managing my own resources and those of my students.
• Adjusting to a new multicultural working environment was essential in making the move to life in Jakarta.
• Dealing with unpredictability, such as power cuts and flooding was also essential to life in Jakarta.
• While teaching myself to code, my knowledge of teaching techniques, such as spaced repetition, accelerated my learning speed significantly.

University College, Oxford (September 2012 - April 2014)

Caterer, Silver Service Waiter and Kitchen Porter

• In my final year of school I decided to get a job to gain a degree of financial independence and to allow for a planned hiking trip to Borneo. This experience, working in a high pressure environment where organisation and task flexibility was essential, helped prepare me for university and my first graduate job.

Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics (October 2013)

Work Experience

• Two weeks working an intellectually stimulating and highly demanding environment where attention to detail (especially while working with expensive equipment) was key.
• In this role I was tasked with extracting DNA from mouse liver cells and then helped to run a quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction, using an ultra-violet probe.

Agile workflow and team collaboration

• Learning to respond with flexibility to changes in project requirements and priorities made working in groups not only more productive, but also more enjoyable. This was achieved by pairing in sprints to implement tickets agreed upon by the whole team, and by attending standups to update team members on progress and blockers. The Agile approach also allowed for natural growth in projects, often taking them further than initially planned.

Model View Controller design pattern

• Using the MVC design pattern in Rails bettered my understanding of how code is structured across a range of popular frameworks. This enabled me to quickly and confidently make sense of new codebases, for instance when working with Laravel for Global Initiative.

Test Driven Development

• Makers encouraged the use of TDD to produce DRY, well organised code, and a methodical step by step process that has helped me personally to break down my code into more manageable sections. TDD has also made the refactoring of projects easier with tests providing immediate evidence of any newly introduced bugs.

Working in a high pressure environment

• For our final projects at Makers we had only two weeks to decide on, plan, and execute our ideas. The experience gave me the confidence necessary to teach myself new technologies and create projects with them from scratch. My teamwork and communication skills were also essential, particularly when deciding on a project that suited everyone in such a short timeframe.

• Human Sciences BSc
• 2:1
• Co-founder of the Exeter Human Sciences society.
• Using "R" for statistical programming at university.

• Continuing to practise Bahasa Indonesia whenever I have the chance.
• Listening to music of all kinds and playing Bob Dylan songs on the harmonica (pretty badly!).
• Hiking and adventure of any kind!