Episode 255 | Aja Hammerly - Fun Pink Dinosaur

Guest: Aja Hammerly @the_thagomizer Aja Hammerly talks with Dave Rael about having a sense of humor, working for Google, mental health, productive environments, and taking care of yourself Aja lives in Seattle where she is a Developer Advocate at Google and a member of the Seattle Ruby Brigade. Her favorite languages are Ruby and Prolog. She also loves working with large piles of data. In her free time she enjoys skiing, cooking, knitting, and long coding sessions on the beach. Chapters: 2:43 - Dave introduces the show and Aja Hammerly4:26 - Working for Google7:44 - Aja and blogging9:39 - "You are not your code"14:39 - Aja's perspective on diversity in tech20:41 - Mental health24:18 - Burnout27:09 - Advice for dealing with situations not ideal for whole human prosperity and finding delight29:53 - Aja's experience in QA33:42 - How Aja got started in software36:46 - Aja's story of failure - corrupting a production database41:29 - Aja's success story - identifying a major integration problem and convincing teams of its reality and urgency and ultimately shipping44:57 - How Aja stays current with what she needs to know46:51 - Aja's book recommendation49:26 - Aja's top 3 tips doe delivering more value51:53 - Keeping up with Aja Resources: Aja's Blog Kelsey Hightower on Developer On Fire You Are Not Your Code - Aja Hammerly The Nagging Question (Diversity In Tech) - Aja Hammerly Boundaries - Aja Hammerly Ed Finkler on Developer On Fire Janet Gregory on Developer On Fire ubyConf 2016 - Datacenter Fires and Other "Minor" Disasters by Aja Hammerly Exercism - Level Up Your Programming Skills Michael Feathers on Developer On Fire Aja's book recommendation: Working Effectively with Legacy Code - Michael Feathers The Art of Prolog, Second Edition: Advanced Programming Techniques (Logic Programming) - Leon Sterling Aja's top 3 tips for delivering more value: Be predictable and consistent Cultivate relationships with everyone Have a sense of humor