Month: April 2022

Favorite Technologies

One of my favorite tech stacks is Node.js, npm, MongoDB, and Express. This stack is primarily used for web development and I found it relatively easy to understand compared to other technologies like Django or Microsofts .NET tech stack. When I first started to use this stack in the winter term of 2021.

Node.js

Node.js has an asynchronous event-driven JavaScript runtime that allows a web developer to create an application that is scalable and can handle connections that is scalable. Node.js uses an event loop instead of a library and so when Node.js enters the loop, Node.js will exit when all the callbacks have been performed.

npm

npm is a javascript package manager for Node.js. Packages can be installed using the terminal/shell and these packages are downloaded and used for your Node.js projects. The packages that are installed in your project have a version that can be specified, just in case you need to have a particular version to avoid “breaking” your projects due to the version.

MongoDB

MongoDB is a database that uses documents instead of tables to persist data in your project. Instead of storing data using rows and columns, the MongoDB database uses BSON which is a binary representation of your database’s data. The data is displayed in JSON format which is serialized and deserialized through the web applications source code.

Express

Express is an open-source web application framework that is used with Node.js. It is written in javascript and is used to build single or multiple-page web applications and APIs. Express can be used to build simple servers to complex MVC architectures for your application. Express is for faster server-side development, middleware (database access or security), page routing, templating (EJS, Handlebars, Pug, etc.), and debugging.

There are many other technologies that can be used with this stack. But, I’m still exploring what I can do with this current stack, and I’m working on adding React, Vue, and Angular to my web development repertoire.

CS 467 Capstone Project (Software Programming Quiz)

The project that I have chosen and have been assigned to for my final course at Oregon State Univesity (OSU) is the development of a testing website for incoming employment candidates. This website is similar to the website “SurveyMonkey”. I chose this project because I knew it was going to be a challenging endeavor, I was going to learn a lot, and it was a project that I was going to be interested in.

My Group

My group members have been great so far. I am doing my best not to let them down! We are all on the same page when it comes to logical and realistic goals for the project. So far, we have created a GitHub repository, a project plan, and an online/cloud database for our project.

Project Description

The employer needs to be able to create an account and log in. After the employer successfully logs in, the employer creates quizzes that will be emailed to potential candidates. When the candidates receive the email, the candidate will take a timed quiz which they will submit upon completion. When the employer gets the test results from the candidates, the candidates will be ranked and stats will be presented based on their results.

The Gameplan

We all agreed to start with simple and low expectations, to begin with. The requirements for the project state that the site needs to have an account page for employers. Since we have a hosting platform for version control and collaboration. This allows all my group members to have separate “branches” that will allow us to work on separate parts of the project. We all agreed to merge our individual branches weekly to make sure nothing breaks. We are also looking at hosting our site on the OSU flip server or GitHub pages after significant progress has been made.

Ulitmate Goal

My personal goal for this project is to meet all the requirements and add this project to my professional portfolio site. I plan on using a myriad of resources and I have planned to spend a significant amount of time on this project.

Future Career

I am looking forward to what comes next for me after I graduate from Oregon State University (OSU). I have always been in computers and how they work and OSU has been a great opportunity to learn and practice new and old technologies vital for a new developer looking to make their mark in a new career in web development.

My initial exposure to web development in Microsoft .NET and the C# programming language. I really enjoyed web development from the beginning because I was able to render pages right away after the code was written. I liked the instant gratification of seeing my results right away. This joy has not changed much since my humble beginnings and I have learned so much since then. My first software job had little to no web development for any of their projects, but I did learn a lot about back-end technologies while I was there. But I was more interested in web development, so I spent a lot of time outside of work learning web development on my own.

Now that I am close to graduating, I am trying to implement what I have learned at OSU into what I know about web development to create a portfolio page that encompasses my hard work and accomplishments in the past 4 years. I have a good idea of how I want to set up this page, but I was to learn more about React which is a JavaScript front-end framework. React has a steep learning curve, but many large and small companies and businesses use this framework to create websites that are maintainable, dynamic, and high-performance.

I am currently searching for jobs that use React in their tech stack. I hope to get an entry-level position and I won’t mind if I am paired up with a mentor that can guide me through my first year of employment. Even though I have some professional experience, I think a mentor could help me progress quicker. I also would like to work at a place where frequent code reviews are conducted. I feel that I would benefit from learning proper coding standards and practices.

My goal is to become a full-stack developer. I like the front-end more than back-end development, but I am a lot more comfortable working with both than I was four years. Hopefully, some company will give me a shot and things will work out for the best.

Job search.

As I wind down my academic journey at Oregon State University (OSU), I have been preparing myself for potential software development/engineering interviews.  My first experience of searching for a software job was exciting, intimidating, and ultimately heartbreaking. The Microsoft Software and Systems Academy (MSSA) was not only an academic program, but it was also a military transition program that coached on both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ skills for civilian jobs. The soft skill basically focused on how you work with other people and questions about why you want to work for the company you are interviewing for.  Hard skills were focused on technical questions and demonstrations of knowledge via a whiteboard or take-home coding tests. I learned valuable skills in MSSA, but I haven’t experienced too many technical interviews in my short career so far.

My previous technical interview experience.

In the MSSA program, every member of the program gets the opportunity to be interviewed by Microsoft employees.  The interview was conducted over Microsoft Teams. It seemed that the interviewer did not want to be there from the beginning, and there weren’t many following up questions to my responses.  I felt that the whole experience was cold, phony, and uncomfortable. I wasn’t chosen to move on to the next stage of the interview process, but neither were over half of the participants in the program.  There were participants that I felt that has been chosen (not necessarily including myself), the absence of positive or negative feedback for anyone that was not chosen, and I think was detrimental to the confidence of the interviewees that this program was supposedly helping to transition from military to civilian life. But, this type of policy is typical of large tech companies. 

My second interview experience with a military contractor was a completely different experience.   I was contacted by a recruiter from a government contracting company.  I agreed to the interview and the primarily asked ‘soft’ skill questions, I felt my soft skills and my prior military experience helped me during the interview. There weren’t too many ‘hard’ skill questions or technical questions (which I found very surprising!).   A couple of hours after the interview, I have presented with an offer and I decided to accept my first software developer job.

On the job hunt!

I left my first software job about a year ago, and now I’m ready to rejoin the workforce. After two years of work experience, COVID-19, and getting close to completing my post baccalaureate degree at OSU I’m a little nervous about applying for jobs. 

The first thing I want to do is update my resume.  My current resume reads like a military evaluation that is would be non-sensical to most people that were never a member of the military.  Most of the bullet point list quantities and terse explanations of accomplishments.  There are many examples out there, but I think I will seek professional assistance once I have a solid working copy of my resume. 

The next goal is the development of a portfolio page that showcases the projects that I have been working on for the past three years.  I have an idea of how I want to organize and display my work, but I still need to sketch out my ideas.  I bought a domain name a few years ago and I probably start using it soon.

Finally, there is the “eating my spinach” part of my job search/interview process. This includes practicing my data structures and algorithms.  It’s one thing to work through these problems with an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), which gives you hints and code snippets and writing while explaining the code from memory.  I tend to learn by repetition and I have a good idea of which coding problems and concepts I need to work on to prepare for a technical interview. It’s going to take a lot of time and effort, but hopefully, it will be worth it in the end.

Wish me luck!

I would like to have the opportunity to introduce myself.  My name is Donnyves Laroque and I am a student at Oregon State University. This is my last term and I’m excited about moving on to the next stage of my software engineering career.

I earned a bachelor’s degree from Kansas State University and after I graduated, I was an elementary school teacher in Kansas City. I am also a Navy veteran, I served my country proudly for eight years as an Electronics Technician. While I was in the Navy, I earned another bachelor’s degree in information technology from Colorado State University. The only two courses that I enjoyed were my SQL and Visual Basic courses.  I wanted to learn more about programming, and I was lucky enough to come across a program called the Microsoft Software and System Academy (MSSA). MSSA is a program for transitioning service members in their last six months of service. After completing the MSSA program, I worked as a software developer for two years for a government contractor.

So, how did I end up as a computer science student at OSU? Well, I had a major case of ‘imposter syndrome’ at my first developer job and I was desperate to make this feeling go away.  I wanted to catch up with my fellow coworkers and felt that a computer science degree would be the best way to achieve this goal.  I learned immediately that it wasn’t about making up for lost time, but rather excepting that hard work and experience are the only way to improve as a developer. I was never going to catch up with the people at work, but I can improve and learn every day through both my accomplishments and mistakes. I stopped comparing myself to others and started to seek inspiration and wisdom instead.

With the support of my family, I decided to spend my last year dedicating myself to school.  I plan on rejoining the workforce soon during this last term or soon after. I’m ready to transition from government to civilian employment in the Greater San Diego area.  

Thanks for checking out my blog!