I am a CodeCollab fellow with Our Time for Tech

Tags: webdev, beginners, career, collaboration
Published: 2021-03-10 20:35:27

I’m a bootcamp graduate and CodeCollab fellow with [Our Time for Tech](https://ourtimefortech.org/), a coding initiative that empowers women transitioning into tech after former careers. 


Over the next 3 months, I will collaborate with a team of 5 early-career devs and 2 senior engineers on one of the biggest projects I’ve worked on yet! We plan to share our MVP with a community demo in late May. Until then, follow along on my journey with this blog. 


## Why I joined as a bootcamp graduate
> "Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." – Helen Keller

My time with [Rithm School](https://www.rithmschool.com/) taught me to appreciate the art of collaboration. While learning by oneself is an essential skill, discussing code with peers catalyzed my learning in ways I didn’t expect. 


The learning intensified when we started working on a community partner’s live codebase! There are so many aspects to developing code, like learning to communicate effectively about architectural choices and learning how to (re-)prioritize with moving targets, that are introduced with a team. 


Real-world projects are built as a team. 


Teamwork is a skill set that offers endless avenues for refinement and learning. 


As I prepare for my first role in tech, I looked for ways to keep refining my skill sets. I’m so glad to come across Our Time for Tech and the CodeCollab track. 


## What I look forward to with CodeCollab

Our Time for Tech was founded by Arit Amana, a software engineer with a non-tech former career. She has designed this program for career changers who understands the importance of sustained mentorship and real world projects for breaking into the tech space.


Some of Code Collab’s goals for new developers:
* Improve collaboration skills while building software with a team
* Learning how to interpret client needs, manage requirements, and implement projects to meet those needs
* Encouragement to stretch and grow beyond current tech stacks and skill sets
* Structured mentorship for junior devs as they take ownership of a product


## The first week


During the first week of CodeCollab we are given a client request. Our goal is to design, plan, and implement an app to meet those needs. 


To paraphrase Carla, a fellow dev, _we begin by building a structure for the rest of the project_.


Building a structure with a team is still so new to me. I have experience working on team projects given priorities based on business KPIs or following the structure set by senior developers. But in this first week, the senior devs have challenged us to set these priorities as a team. 


So far, this has involved:
* Identifying our minimum viable product (MVP)
* Identifying issues to build this MVP: This involved recognizing the smallest pieces or lowest hanging fruit, like building a database first
* Getting consensus on priorities: Practicing giving convincing rationale for architectural choices, Listening and discerning impact for each option, Handling conflicts and talking it out, Contributing to a generative space for the team to think out loud, make mistakes, and bring each other back to the goal if we need to
* Identifying and managing scope creep. It’s OK to recognize what we cannot build within a certain amount of time. Advocating for scope boundaries can help us further define our product. Managing our scope will help us focus and deliver quality software in the time we promised.


I’m excited to see where we go from here.


Follow along with DEV posts from my cohort: https://dev.to/ourtimefortech
Check out Our Time For Tech: https://ourtimefortech.org/