Parenting and Developing

A few months ago, I was learning how to balance being a new-ish software developer and a new mom. I reached out to a few mothers in the community and was amazed at what I heard. Every mom talked about facing similar challenges which got me thinking... do all parents feel this way? Are we all feeling isolated about the same issues?

As a result, I put together a survey and tweeted it out to parents (mothers and fathers) who are also developers. The results have been fascinating and very telling of issues and trends in this area.

The great people at Ruby on Ales allowed me to speak about the survey and it's findings this past weekend (video will be posted once it's available).

As I mentioned in the talk, this research will be ongoing. The more data I can collect, the better! If you are a developer and a parent, or know someone who is, Please fill out this survey if you have a chance. It's super short and we're all busy parents so don't worry about complete sentences or well-thought out responses... just a simple stream of consciousness is more than okay with me!

Thank you in advance!!! And ping me if you've got any questions.

Survey link: https://allisonmcmillan.typeform.com/to/BbVmbH

I'm Back!

After a hiatus (which was admittedly even longer than I thought it was!), I've decided that everyone’s got to start somewhere. So, in an attempt to re-commit to blogging, and not let this be another dead technical blog on the interwebs, this is a simple update post. I had envisioned doing something more substantial than just an update but after watching “post on blog” float on my to-do list from one week to the next, I figured its best to just get something up and try to get things going again.

Since the last time I blogged, I am still at General Assembly, learning new things every day. I spoke at Ruby Nation 2015 about presenters! My first technical talk. I took a mobile development/swift course, attended Strangeloop and DCamp again, and had a baby (there will definitely be a future post about taking maternity eave as a newer developer AND having to take pumping breaks as a dev, two things that I've found very difficult).

I'm looking forward to getting back to posts about things I'm learning like more Javascript and writing better tests, things I've found newly challenging like anything related to coding and babies, and things I've gotten better at like being a remote junior developer. My goal is to post at least once a month so see you in a few weeks!