Heather Downing: Retooling for the Future - Episode 190

Heather is a passionate coder and entrepreneur. She has experience working with Fortune 500 companies building enterprise-level voice, mobile, and C#/.Net applications. She focuses on external thought leadership, encouraging fellow programmers to present on topics outside of the office and in the community. She is also an international technical speaker, recently speaking at NDC, an early adopter of technology, and a conference organizer at KCDC, the Kansas City Developers Conference.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:00] Heather talks about her deep dive into her local community to figure out how we learn and how different generations are discovering content.

[3:12] We now have a multigenerational community and it's important to consider that there are now four different groups of people that learn completely differently.

[5:40] With so many people from different cultures and backgrounds, Heather thinks that if we're not accommodating, we're not going to be able to replace ourselves.

[8:23] Heather explains the importance of every developer finding their favorite documentation.

[12:29] The great equalizer is that we all want to solve problems. Heather talks about the importance of letting beginners ask the right questions, and giving them the space to problem solve.

[14:36] Heather describes the reality she sees from university programs and boot camps, along with the importance of having basic people skills.

[18:27] Heather describes how time boxing and The Pomodoro Technique can provide a structure for productivity and can help you accomplish more without overwhelm.

[21:36] The book Atomic Habits was a powerful read for Heather and she wishes she had read it before! One of the takeaways is that anything that is broken down seems more digestible. When you focus on just getting one percent better at something every day, your goals start to get more manageable.

[24:24] Resiliency is key in software.

[24:49] Sometimes what you're trying to get better at is not software coding at all, but communication and really listening.

[24:50] Heather gives her take on if you need to have a University degree to go into software, and where she thinks the engineering field will end up.

[34:42] Heather's advice for young developers looking at older work — keep in mind that it's possible that they did the best they could have at the time. Plus, one day that will be you, so try to have some grace and understanding.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Architect Tips — New video podcast!

Azure DevOps

Clear Measure (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's YouTube

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Charisma University

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

Kevlin Henney, Medium

Kevlin Henney, NDC London

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Quotes:

• "You have to be able to think about how you want to solve this problem, but also communicate it and if you can't do that, it will limit you. You can be amazing, but if nobody knows what you're talking about, because you never mention it or you never speak up, that's going to limit you."
• "With so many people from different cultures and backgrounds, I think if we are not accommodating, we're not going to be able to replace ourselves." — Heather [5:15]
• "I feel like every developer needs to just sit down and find their favorite documentation that they've learned from and see if they can at least mimic that." — Heather [8:23]
• "If you're not enjoying something, maybe you can suggest a different way instead of just quitting." — Heather [12:04]
• "You aren't guaranteed to succeed. But you are guaranteed to struggle, struggle well." — Heather [23:24]
• "Maybe it really just takes a slight adjustment or retooling instead of blowing it away and building something completely from scratch again." — Heather [34:00]

Heather: Website | Twitter