Andrew Cook talks with Dave Rael about being a paramedic, becoming a software developer, community engagement, and learning
Andrew Cook is a software developer and Paramedic with years of experience in the Microsoft Stack including ASP.Net, MVC Framework, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft SQL Server, Redis Cache, VSTS, C#, HTML, and CSS. He's a Xamarin Certified Developer and a Udacity Full Stack Web Developer Nanodegree Graduate.
Chapters:
2:04 - Dave introduces the show and Andrew Cook4:18 - Andrew's paramedic career and leveraging free time to learn software development10:41 - How Andrew got started with creating software14:03 - Andrew's experience with JavaScript16:05 - Andrew's community involvement19:13 - The mystique of conference and user group speakers26:16 - Andrew's story of failure - demonstrations that didn't work30:09 - How Andrew stays current with what he needs to know32:18 - Andrew's success story - completions of becoming a paramedic, giving quality presentations36:29 - Andrew's book recommendation38:50 - The need to push back40:45 - Andrew's experience with using influence to find a creative solution to getting a patient to a hospital44:12 - Andrew's top 3 tips for delivering more value47:29 - Keeping up with Andrew
Resources:
Andrew's Blog
Udacity Full Stack Web Developer Nanodegree
The Joe Rogan Experience
John Sonmez on Developer On Fire
Andrew's book recommendation:
Soft Skills: The software developer's life manual - John Sonmez
Andrew's top 3 tips for delivering more value:
Create projects to learn
Get involved with your community
Treat everyone as a customer - Understand that we're all people and be as helpful as you can be