Rachel Smith talks with Dave Rael about working remotely, speaking at conferences, connecting with people, and delivering in multiple ways
Rachel is a Software Engineer at CodePen. Her interest in web animation led her to pursue an award-winning career in the advertising industry, building digital experiences for big brands. After being an avid user of CodePen she transitioned to a Product Engineer position at the company and now works on improving the Software that enables other people to create their own web animations. She currently works across the full stack at CodePen but specializes in the Front End and is leading the Product's move from jQuery to React. Rachel recently relocated from the USA back to her home country, Australia where she lives with the lights of her life: her husband Andy and dog Indy.
Chapters:
- - Dave introduces the show and Rachel Smith
- - Rachel's thoughts on feelings of inadequacy and being an imposter
- - Rachel's origin in web animation and path into more general software development
- - Rachel's experience with computer engineering in school
- - Rachel's diverse set of places she has lived and worked and working remotely
- - Finding a dream job, the value of conferences, and the value for connecting with people
- - Difficulty with speaking at conference and using it as a hack to connect
- - Rachel's story of failure - visibly taking down a feature
- - Rachel's success story - identifying a need for project management and executing on it to fix a dysfunctional project
- - How Rachel stays current with what she needs to know
- - Rachel's book recommendation
- - The things that have Rachel most excited
- - The positives and negatives of remote work
- - Rachel's top 3 tips for delivering more value
- - Keeping up with Rachel
Resources:
Rachel's book recommendation:
Rachel's top 3 tips for delivering more value:
- Look after your own physical and mental health
- Keeping in mind the recipient of the value you are providing
- Work on your written communication skills