Ben Wilhelm - Bootcamp Graduate Mentor

David and Ben traverse the options an early-stage engineer, point out positive and negative learning patterns, and talk about career direction.
Talking Points:
  • How understanding the context of the tools you learn can help overcome imposter syndrome.
  • Ben discusses a healthy view of what a true junior dev is.
  • Positive and negative patterns of entry level developers.
  • What people consider before hiring junior engineers.
  • Advice to Junior Devs who are interviewing currently.
  • Important aspects to consider when developing your software career.
Quotable Quotes:
  • “Go deep in what you do know and understand it, and go shallow in a few other things to get context and get ideas.” - BW
  • “Principles over tools” -BW
  • “You actually do have to have a bunch of buzzwords on your resume to get to a human.” - BW
  • “The person who is going to struggle more is focused on the specifics of the language API to the exclusion of all else.” - BW
  •  “Remember that you will never know even close to what there is to know in software development.” - BW
  •  ”[ Junior Developers ] DO have the ability to make and do things that can make people’s lives better.” - DG
  • “What I want to be sure of when I am hiring an engineer is whether or not they will make my life worse.” - BW
  • “Interviewing in itself is a skill. Don’t start with your dream job.” - BW
  • “You’re not ‘made’ when you become a software engineer.” - BW
  • “The resume is a terrible, terrible way to display your qualifications for anything. SO, the more real people you get to talk to the better.” - BW
Notes:
Ben’s Site:  /*BW*/
Junior-to-Senior Community