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The Scrimba Podcast

How To Be Strategic About Your Learning and Career, With Mike Chen

🎙 About the episode


Meet Mike Chen 🇺🇸! Mike is a self-taught developer who worked at Yahoo, Google, and Airbnb, before becoming a CTO and co-founder of Motivo. Nowadays, he also helps other coders succeed. In this episode, you'll find out what it was like to work at Google and what are the pros and cons of working in a big tech company. You'll learn how to stand out as a new developer without a degree and why you should (not) idealize Silicon Valley.

Ultimately, Mike will tell us why tech is cool (if you have a passion for it), as well as how we should go about putting in our work wisely and why it is worth it. He will also reveal what motivates him to teach and mentor other developers!

➡️ Do a mock interview with Mike Chen!

🔗 Connect with Mike

⏰ Timestamps

  • How Mike went from studying biochemistry to becoming a developer and eventually worked at Google (02:55) 
  • Paul Irish: Tools, not rules (05:29)
  • Has the way big tech companies hire changed since Mike broke into the industry? (06:22)
  • How were the front-end roles at Google structured back then? (09:46)
  • Ad break: How to support us + Next week: Rian Errity, who's doing a lot of cool stuff (12:25)
  • How big is Google's infrastructure, actually? (14:05)
  • Mike's experience at Google and the benefits of working at a big tech company (15:32)
  • Why working in big tech ultimately didn't work for Mike (17:11)
  • Why do hiring managers like people with big companies on their resumes (18:25)
  • You have to figure out what you want out of a tech job (21:25)
  • The best way to demystify Silicon Valley is to be in Silicon Valley (22:51)
  • Career advice for new developers: How can they stand out if they don't have a degree and haven't worked at Google? (24:19)
  • Why you should have a demonstrable track record (27:45)
  • Losing your passion is normal over time; here's what to do first (28:44)
  • What did Mike have to give up on to learn to code and change careers? (31:19)
  • In tech, it pays off to put in more work, but not any kind of work (33:09)
  • What motivates Mike to help other developers (37:18) 


🧰 Resources Mentioned

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