Congrats! I've always wanted to be an engineer but never have the talent to become one. Great job!!!
Twilio's first support hire joins engineering
21–30 of 30 posts
Re: Twilio's first support hire joins engineering
#22And if anyone didn't think the tech sector is in yet another tremendous bubble, this article is all you need.
Re: Twilio's first support hire joins engineering
#23Congrats Renee!! Keep calm and carry on.
Re: Twilio's first support hire joins engineering
#24I consider myself to be a relatively experienced developer, and even still, reading this blog post really lifted my spirits.
I write code for a living, and even though no one has ever told me they weren't happy with my performance, the constant influx of new techniques, languages, algorithms, and systems in the programming world have always made me feel like an inferior developer. I constantly feel like there's so much to learn, that I can't possibly be good, as if the only worthy developers in the world are the top 500 geniuses that work for Google and Facebook and are somehow capable of magically knowing everything.
Knowing that this isn't the case, and that companies like Twilio are finding value in employees with skill sets much narrower than mine, is a good feeling. It's also really nice to know that they're open minded to the point that they respect this guy's talents as a developer just as much as they did as a customer service rep. #thehighroad
Re: Twilio's first support hire joins engineering
#25I consider myself to be a relatively experienced developer, and even still, reading this blog post really lifted my spirits. I write code for a living, and even though no one has ever told me they weren't happy with my performance, the constant influx of new techniques, languages, algorithms, and systems in the programming world have always made me feel like an inferior developer. I constantly feel like there's so mu…
A more cynical quip I like to use is that the corollary to "you're never the smartest guy in the world" is "you're never the dumbest guy in the world".
The more advanced you get in your field, the more you understand how little you really know. I feel like this every day. It's easy to forget that to a ton of people you're still a guy/gal who works magical wonders with computers.
Re: Twilio's first support hire joins engineering
#26Congrats! I remember seeing posts from you now and then about how you were learning programming. (IIRC, your first contact with programming was for the demo to get your track jacket?) It's great that you kept at it. My first task was to add a dismiss button on a Javascript popup. I thought the task would be easy, but each page actually has dozens of files of code fitting together to make a page work– style sheets, co…
I think the biggest lesson for me was that in programming things aren't necessarily there for a reason. Method and class names are arbitrary and part of the "creative" side of development. One of the best skills to learn is to read arbitrary code and be able to pull out the concepts and ignore the "design" on top.
Re: Twilio's first support hire joins engineering
#27Renee has handled a good portion of our support tickets over the years and does a fantastic job. It's refreshing to have someone treat even the smallest problem of yours so personally - making sure everything is resolved to your satisfaction. It's huge having someone who's overseen thousands of customer tickets becoming directly involved in the engineering process. Good luck Renee!
Re: Twilio's first support hire joins engineering
#28Congrats! I've always wanted to be an engineer but never have the talent to become one. Great job!!!
It doesn't take much talent, just an interest.
Re: Twilio's first support hire joins engineering
#29I said this elsewhere already, but I've been really proud to see Twilio take steps such as this one to bring more people (and more women in particular) into programming. Not being a part of the web team, I've only watched from the sidelines as Renee, who's consistently been in the office before I arrive in the morning and after I roll out in the evening, has worked to master a whole slew of technologies, and to ship new, non-trivial features for our customers.
I'm really not sure how the two facts we see here -- of people working exceptionally hard to better themselves, and of a company going out of its way to help people do that -- have to do with a bubble. It's hardly a new idea that companies do better financially when they help their employees learn to do work that they couldn't do before, or to do it better.
As the technology community, it's in all our interest to help people learn things they couldn't do before. Twilio's story is one example. Other great ones include RailsBridge, PyLadies, the Boston Python Workshop, and PyStar. Let's do more of this!
Re: Twilio's first support hire joins engineering
#30Congrats! I've always wanted to be an engineer but never have the talent to become one. Great job!!!
It doesn't take much talent, just an interest.
And persistence. You're absolutely right.
For years I hired developers and told myself I was incapable of doing what they did, never tried to learn. After the job market got hot and I was having to pay good devs $100+/hour I decided I had to finally learn myself. Less than six months later I can now do 80% of what I used to pay people to do for me and 100% understand what they were doing from a high level and why. In another year I think I'll probably be a better developer than most of the people I've hired in the past (mostly because I sucked at hiring good devs because I had no idea how to evaluate their skills).
There's nothing I've had to learn that was especially difficult or that requires someone a lot smarter than me or a lot better at math etc. It just requires persistence and a willingness to put up with frustration until you finally solve problems.
My only regret is that I didn't start learning 5+ years ago.