We Belong Here: Lessons from Unconventional Paths to Tech

41. Alex Trost: Horsing Around with this Frontend Dev🐴

Mar 4 '21

Alex Trost grew up having, as he puts it, a fixed mindset. He studied graphic design and education in school and actually taught himself to program by making an app for his school when he was a teacher. In 2018, he realized he wanted to do development full time and has been a frontend dev ever since.

Growing up, he was always passionate about tech and loved to tinker and build. So much so that he had a pet project called FreeBasketballSkills.com where he modified the HTML and CSS of the site to share basketball skills with his friends. Despite that, he never thought he could actually program because he equated that with calculus and complex math abilities.

He thought he wasn’t smart enough to succeed in school, so wondered why even bother trying. He ended up going to community college to study graphic design. But eventually found himself in a career in teaching 2nd grade as he loved the moment of helping kids unlock new skills.

Soon he learned about the Growth Mindset Concept and realized that he had always thought that because he didn’t currently understand something it meant that he never would know it. He discovered that we can in fact be good at whatever it is we set out and work to learn.

He taught himself to code when he built an application for his school to make sense of all of the data the district had on their students’ performance.

Eventually, he landed a role as a frontend developer and had the opportunity to do a ton of on-the-job learning.

Today, he is a Developer Experience Engineer at Prismic and writes Frontend Horse, a newsletter and blog where he learns creative techniques from other great frontend developers. Alex brings with him what he learned in his past as an educator into his newsletters to ensure that they are accessible to a variety of skill levels.

Resources:

Frontend Horse

The Overlap Podcast

Bear app - note taking & writing app

The Learning Myth: Why I'll Never Tell My Son He's Smart

Doing Content Right with Steph Smith

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