DEV Community: Mithra Perera

[Road to Job] #5 Done School. Now what?

Mithra Perera — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 07:06:02 +0000

Finally Done

I finally graduated! I'm not sure if I was more excited about that or the fact that I could finally spend all waking hours of the day doing something I loved.

Basically, in short, I fell in love with coding in my last year of EE and decided to drop all the hard work I put in to startup a EE career to pursue this passion.

So I let my boss know that I would not be returning to work after I graduated to pursue my passion. She wished me the best of luck. I finished up my final exams. Graduated and now here I am, jobless and learning more and studying more than I ever have before. I also built an app for a startup I worked on with a friend in a incubator program over the summer but more on that another day.

What I have been up to

Front End Web Dev
It's been a few months now since I have graduated and I have kept quite busy. I have been self teaching myself HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Building responsive websites and working towards learning React next.

AWS re/Start
Also, in my quest to find new things to learn, I stumbled across cloud engineering and I found it quite fascinating. So in following this curiosity, I found this cool program called AWS re/Start run in partnership with YES(Youth Employment Services). I applied and after some tests and interviews, I was in!
(I will start a series to discuss this further for those that are interested.)

Google's 30 Days of Cloud
Now another cool program I found was this 30 Days of Cloud that I found out about because I am still part of the discord server for the Google Student Developer Club of my university. It's pretty neat because they have 4 tracks and it runs 4 days a week for a month and you get to learn:

Cloud Computing Fundamentals
Infrastructure in Google Cloud
Networking and Security in Google Cloud
Data, ML and AI in Google Cloud

and the coolest part...it is all for free!
(I will start a series to discuss this as well so stay tuned!)

FREE Flutter Apprentice Book
Yup, I am just raining down gems today. Another cool learning opportunity for you all. The Flutter team has partnered with Ray Wenderlich to offer this book for free until January 6th, 2022! I am already pretty decent with flutter but I figured it wouldn't hurt to read it in my spare time and watch the book club they have going on till Jan 6th.

Links

AWS re/Start : https://aws.amazon.com/training/restart/
Google's 30 Days of Cloud : https://cloudcoach.dev/home/
FREE Flutter Apprentice Book : https://flutter.dev/apprentice-giveaway

TLDR

Learning web dev and the cloud full time and hoping to secure my first job in this new industry early next year.

Until then, onwards and upwards we go! 🚀

[Road to Job] #4 Change of Plans

Mithra Perera — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 00:16:46 +0000

I want to start with 2 sayings...
1) Necessity is the mother of invention.
2) Be water my friends.

I have changed my focus slightly after realizing what I wanted to use coding for. I didn't get into coding because I wanted to get a job...it was to create my ideas and getting a job is just an added benefit;)

If you look at earlier posts in this series, you will see that I was quite focused on Java. Well...I started going down Java and realized that it simply wasn't the best for what I wanted to do. Thus, I have put a pause on Java once I started learning Spring.

Why I am putting Java on pause

Java was a good language that really teaches you the fundamentals of Object Oriented Programming. However, no one ever uses it in hackathons and Java is mostly used on large and old code bases like at banks. I think it is important to learn the fundamentals of it and I do not regret starting with it as I will still need to use it when I get into the Data Structures and Algorithms part of my learning plan. However, there is simply better options for someone like me who wants to build things in 2021.

So what am I learning?

Let me save you the reading.

1) HTML, CSS
2) JavaScript
3) Python
4) Flutter

Why those 4?

As I get more and more into coding and do more and more hackathons...1,2,and 3 is what I see to be the most used and relevant. Mainly, it is what I need to learn if I want to be able to build full stack applications.

I am also learning Flutter because I believe it is the future of cross platform development. As of writing, Flutter 2.0 just came out and it just confirms my belief. I'll make a post about Flutter another time.

Conclusion

Necessity is the mother of invention and it truly is the case for me. I had some things I wanted to make and to do it, I had to shift focus and learn the things I need to make it.

I say be like water because tech is always changing. New languages and frameworks will come out and as developers we need to be able to adapt much like water can adapt to any container it goes into.

Happy coding gang!
-Dev of Myth

[Road to Job] #3 Hackathons!

Mithra Perera — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 19:16:44 +0000

Hello! It has been a while! I am disappointed that I have not kept up with this series but I promise to do better. It has been a very busy month or...2...I don't even know anymore. It has been hard to keep track. Full time school, a part time job and learning to code has been challenging but I haven't made it any easier on myself.

Over the past 2 months I have been competing in back to back business and engineering competitions. I have also really found myself being addicted to hackathons and figure I would go through what you need to know if you are interested in getting into them as well. So lets jump in!

Things to know about Hackathons for a beginner Hacker

1. Where to find them

I have been finding all my local hackathons hosted through the different universities in my country but 2 resources are your go to place if you want to find global ones.
A. Major League Hacking
B. Devpost

Both of these resources are fantastic and if you get into the hacker scene, you will definitely hear of them or use them.

2. You don't know anyone

Trust me, I know how you feel. Since it was my 5th year, all my friends had graduated and I did not know anyone going into my first hackathon. However, this current online format makes it quite easy to find a team on Discord. Don't be shy! If you are new, believe me when I say you are not the only one and if you just post you experience and skills, I am sure that you will get messages to form a team.

The hacker community is very friendly and I have made a lot of friends. Just be willing to learn and help in whatever way you can.

3. What skills should you know

A lot of people say that you don't need to know anything to join hackathons but I will take a different approach. I have done a bunch now and there is 1 common theme I see at every one I have been too.

People always want to build a web app with:
Frontend
HTML, CSS, JavaScript and React
I don't know what it is about React as I haven't learned it yet but everyone always wants to use it haha!

Backend
Python - and some framework like Flask and Django
or Javascript with Node.js

Database
MySQL or MongoDB

Other
Firebase

You can also learn some design skills like Figma and Photoshop to help with the creative side of things.

Main thing you have to think is, if I join a hack team, what can I contribute? If the answer is nothing, do not join a team with aspirations of winning. There are plenty of people who are beginners as well and would love to figure out something basic with you. So do not fear!

4. How do I win?

My team has won 2 hackathons thus far with honorable mention on another and I can give you a few tips if that is your goal as well.

First, you want to form a team with good experience and complementing skills. For example a team of 4 could have 2 frontend hackers with 1 of them having some good design skills and the other 2 being good backend developers.

Second, you want to pick an idea that solves a real problem. I think I have done pretty decent in hackathons because of my entrepreneurial background and that I am always looking to improve things and solve problems. Hackathons are kind of like starting mini tech startups in a 24 hour period.

Lastly, spend time creating a good submission on Devpost(usually where hacks are submitted). You want to clearly explain the problem, your solution, your tech stack and how you developed the solution. This is where the creative on the team can come in handy with creating a nice video and graphics to jazz up the submission.

Conclusion

Hope this helps any other fellow newbies! Hackathons have become a real passion of mine and I don't think I will ever stop doing them. They scratch my coding and entrepreneurship itch at the same time and I love that I always make new friends along the way.

Let me know in the comments if I missed any tips as I would love to learn them as well.

Happy Hacking!
-Dev of Myth

[Road to Job] #2 Learning Roadmap

Mithra Perera — Mon, 28 Dec 2020 22:23:21 +0000

Introduction

I will try my best to keep these short and sweet because no one wants to read an essay😅

After much research(aka scouring reddit) I have determined my plan of action to learn to code and become a Full Stack Developer.

For me, I like to have some structure to my learning and I also like to build strong foundations because I believe knowledge is built like a pyramid.

The Plan

Firstly, I have already spent way too much money on an EE degree and I was looking for the best way to learn for FREE.

1) First Language

For the record, I had learned C as my first language so I did have a good base to jump off from. However, through much research, I found that Javascript was the key language in the web, Python was a popular language that way easy to learn and Java was the best to start with because it will teach you Object Oriented Programming as well as give you a strong understanding of the basics. Also, it is a great general purpose language that can be used in Android, Web and Desktop apps. Lastly, I picked Java because 2 temporarily free courses were taught in Java(you will see below).

2) Codecademy

I started with completing the free Java track but I would not recommend wasting time doing that...maybe the paid is better...but I wouldn't know😋

3) Java Programming 1 and 2 MOOC

(https://java-programming.mooc.fi/)

Found this through reddit and it was highly recommended everywhere you look....and for good reason too! I am currently on Part 5 and I find it absolutely amazing to learn Java inside out and get you off to a good start.

4) Algorithms and Data Structures

Algorithms, Part I - https://www.coursera.org/learn/algorithms-part1?edocomorp=free-courses-high-school&ranMID=40328&ranEAID=EHFxW6yx8Uo&ranSiteID=EHFxW6yx8Uo-xAEM.U5bQn0EwOUUmqyF.g&siteID=EHFxW6yx8Uo-xAEM.U5bQn0EwOUUmqyF.g&utm_content=10&utm_medium=partners&utm_source=linkshare&utm_campaign=EHFxW6yx8Uo

Algorithms, Part II - https://www.coursera.org/learn/algorithms-part2?edocomorp=free-courses-high-school&ranMID=40328&ranEAID=EHFxW6yx8Uo&ranSiteID=EHFxW6yx8Uo-eSelmt67af7Gz_7CNUfeww&siteID=EHFxW6yx8Uo-eSelmt67af7Gz_7CNUfeww&utm_content=10&utm_medium=partners&utm_source=linkshare&utm_campaign=EHFxW6yx8Uo

Taught by Princeton University and FREE until December 31st to enroll!
They also have some other courses that is free because of COVID so check it out!

5) Jetbrains Academy for Projects

Now everyone says practice is the most important and I was fortunate enough to sign up for this back when they had the free promotion...it ends at the end of 2020 unfortunately😭

However, they essentially teach you the topics you need to do a project and break the project into parts. Basically, it is project based learning for Java, Python and Javascript, etc.

So I will be using it to practice with projects.

6) Spring and Spring Boot

If you are using Java and interested in building web apps, you have heard of Spring. The best way I found to learn this must of a framework is:

https://www.udemy.com/course/spring-hibernate-tutorial/

7) Databases

SQL is another must learn thing as a developer when working with Databases and I found another great course to learn this on udemy:

https://www.udemy.com/course/the-ultimate-mysql-bootcamp-go-from-sql-beginner-to-expert/

8) Now to learn the WEB

At this point, I hope to have some strong foundations in coding but need to learn the web! Mainly the holy grail of HTML, CSS and Javascript.

Some things you might have heard are things like React, Angular, Node, etc. So many things to learn! Where to start?

I was thinking of a bootcamp but then I found 2 great FREE, self learning programs so I figure I'll give them a shot.

The Odin Project (https://www.theodinproject.com/)

Learn the basics of the internet, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Node.js, Ruby and Ruby on Rails.

Full Stack Open (https://fullstackopen.com/en/)

Learn React, Redux, Node.js, MongoDB, GraphQL, TypeScript, REST APIs, etc.

9) Coding Bootcamp

If I complete all of the above and have a difficult time finding a job...I figure I will jump into a coding bootcamp to build my skills further but MAINLY to expand my network as many bootcamps have connections with companies in the local area to help me get my start.

Your network is your net worth as they say.

NOTE: I have done a lot of research into that for my local area as well so I'll make a post about my findings and which school I would choose in a later post.

Conclusion

I hope you get something out of this learning path and if you have any recommendations to adjust this path, I would LOVE to hear it!
All love and all positivity to anyone who is on this journey as well.

Let's get to work.
Dev of Myth

[Road to Job] #1 Electrical to Software Eng

Mithra Perera — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 21:02:12 +0000

Hello...I am new to doing stuff like this but I figured that I would document my journey to help others that may be in a similar situation.

Let me start by setting the scene. I'm in my last year of Electrical Eng, Eng Management and Entrepreneurship degree and have worked internships in the electromechanical industry and power/telecom construction. However, much of my degree and my work experience left me feeling unfulfilled.

I grew up never knowing what I liked and felt lost as to where I wanted to go with my career until I did a hackathon with some friends and found my love for coding!

So here I am, in my last year, middle of a pandemic and looking to follow my passion and get into backend or software dev by the time I graduate in the summer.

Relevant work experience: None...unless Access Databases count lol
Coding Languages and Technologies: C...that I had a course in and have done some Arduino projects with
Determination: Through the roof!

If you are interested, my next post will lay out my plan of action and I would love to get your feedback.

NOTE: I have already started as of writing this so this isn't Day 1. Also, I work part time and am in full time school so I will be doing my best to keep up with my goal and try to keep 2-3 hours a day at minimum.