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urn string	text string	type string	firstName string	lastName string	numImpressions int64	numViews int64	numReactions int64	numComments int64	numShares int64	numVotes int64	numEngagementRate float64	hashtags string	createdAt (TZ=America/Los_Angeles) string	link string
urn:li:activity:7394447910509326337	A super useful feature in GitHub you've never heard about: . 1. Go to your favorite open source repo 2. Press the period button . 3. You are now in the GitHub code editor 4. Use the same key bindings from VS Code to explore!	IMAGE	Brian	Jenney	7,950	1,672	34	8	1	0	0.005409	null	2025-11-12 10:56:04	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7394447910509326337
urn:li:activity:7394070168739635200	What are you learning for 2026?	VIDEO	Brian	Jenney	3,237	850	74	7	2	0	0.025641	null	2025-11-11 09:55:03	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7394070168739635200
urn:li:activity:7393700166693728256	“𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘑𝘢𝘷𝘢𝘚𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘵”. A co-worker I admired told me this many years ago at a small start up. It stung to hear that. He was also right. I had been using AngularJS for a couple years but there was a problem... 𝗜’𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗮 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿, meaning I knew how to use AngularJS but didn’t understand the JS behind it. I resolved to suck less at JS. I learned the basics including promises, async/await, 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 and common design patterns. I went through all the Kyle Simpson books. I made janky apps to internalize the information. I gained knowledge and confidence. Understanding the fundamentals provides a lot of benefits: - frameworks become less magical - you start seeing patterns everywhere - less learning curve when switching between technologies - libraries become more read-able Frameworks are great. You need to know them. Just don’t build your house on a shaky foundation.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	7,399	5,523	50	8	1	0	0.007974	null	2025-11-10 09:24:48	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7393700166693728256
urn:li:activity:7392967452923551746	"Maybe you’re just not cut out for this." I rarely say that to anyone. But last evening I said it to a person over the phone who was interested in joining Parsity. He told me, "I’m just too lazy. I need someone to push me to do the work." I got bad news for you... If you need someone to force you to learn, you’ll never make it as a developer. Cruel? Perhaps. Reality. 100%. As the bar continues to rise for new developers looking to land their first role, there is a skill that no one ever talks about that you're going to need (especially if you're junior)... and it's not AI.	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	20,125	4,105	84	11	2	0	0.00482	null	2025-11-08 08:53:15	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7392967452923551746
urn:li:activity:7391886663808933888	8 months ago, the CEO of Anthropic said that in six months AI would be writing 90% of code. We’re past that deadline. Developers are still… writing code. Predictions were meant to be broken 🤷 AI made coding 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 easier. But learning it? Harder than ever. Just how cooked are newer developers who (over) rely on AI to do their job? I got a chance to get John Crickett's take on interviewing with AI tools, cheating in interviews and the tech bro hype machine.	VIDEO	Brian	Jenney	4,128	1,224	48	10	2	0	0.014535	null	2025-11-05 09:18:35	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7391886663808933888
urn:li:activity:7391545313959972864	Ship code, nod along, don’t cause trouble. I thought this was a safe career path. If career trajectory and increased hire-ability is your goal, then playing it safe is your greatest threat.	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	4,127	2,962	37	8	0	0	0.010904	null	2025-11-04 10:42:11	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7391545313959972864
urn:li:activity:7391177868061548544	Overheard in a cafe in SF: “𝘞𝘦’𝘳𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯 𝘈𝘐-𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦, 𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘯𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘬 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘣𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘢 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘵, 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧-𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴. 𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘳𝘶𝘱𝘵 𝘴𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴. 𝘛𝘖𝘛𝘈𝘓 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘳𝘶𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯.” VCs were scrambling to grab their wallets. When the scraggly man mentioned "the cloud", they made it rain on him. It was glorious. He's pre-revenue, bootstrapping with a team of 1 using Claude as his CTO and Cursor as his junior developer. Why let him have all the fun? 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗧𝗵𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝗜'𝗺 𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝗽𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴... 𝗝𝗮𝘃𝗮𝗦𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗽𝘁. Why let the Python boyz have all the fun?	EVENT	Brian	Jenney	4,886	4,477	37	10	1	0	0.009824	null	2025-11-03 10:22:05	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7391177868061548544
urn:li:activity:7390074006457995264	11 years ago, I started my career in software as a lowly hamburger working 5 days a week in an office using AngularJS, C# and DB2. I even had to wear slacks!!! Since then, I've gone through more jobs than I would've ever imagined, failed too many interviews to count and I'm proud to say I can finally afford a new costume! If you're on on-call or doing a release today, may the Halloween spirit be with you 😅🎃	IMAGE	Brian	Jenney	5,802	5,635	102	10	1	0	0.019476	null	2025-10-31 10:15:44	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7390074006457995264
urn:li:activity:7389725231768199168	I was looking forward to hosting an event today to help junior devs tackle their interviews but based on the comments I've read on LinkedIn, it seems that AI has made this skill obsolete 🫢 Apparently, you should 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗮𝘁. - Don't memorize common syntax - you can look up how to write a for loop! - Do not think through problems. Just prompt. - Whiteboard interviews are biased. Just skip them. - Getting the job is more important than keeping the job! I've yet to try these suggestions but please let me know how they work! For the rest of you - join me here today or at least register so I can send you the recording later: https://lnkd.in/geiFi8pG	IMAGE	Brian	Jenney	2,779	2,748	20	9	0	0	0.010435	null	2025-10-30 11:09:49	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7389725231768199168
urn:li:activity:7389692569900855296	3 students hired in the last 30 days: Shout to Rose Reyes Brandon Rakowski and Thomas Winskell! I wish I could tell you some secret or hack that got them hired but honestly, there isn't one. Some took longer than others. 2 out of 3 participated in an internship. 1 had previous experience as a dev and 0 gave up. 𝗜 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗶𝘁'𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗻𝘆. I know it's not what you want to hear, but if there is one thing that I've seen that separates those who get hired vs those who do not... it's consistency. You can't be (too) weird. You can't suck at coding. You must re-calibrate when things aren't working. You have to be practically optimistic. Excited to see what's next for these bandicoots.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	3,900	3,689	60	9	0	0	0.017692	null	2025-10-30 09:00:02	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7389692569900855296
urn:li:activity:7389333279654662145	5 Interview horror stories: 1. "𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧-𝘵𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘴" - Interviewer at Google berating me for not knowing binary search trees 2. That time my phone screen turned into a lesson referential equality in JS because I thought {} === {} (𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗴𝘂𝘆!) 3. The recursion problem I bombed and 𝗮𝘀𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 because I was too embarrassed to keep bumbling around. 4. Drinking too much coffee led to 𝗮 𝗹𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘁 𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗰 𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗱𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗩𝗣. I actually asked if we could start our convo over again 😬. 5. The time I made a joke in front of the panel and 𝗻𝗼 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗴𝗵𝗲𝗱. This was at the start of an in-person interview. I’ve failed plenty interviews. I’ve passed plenty interviews. The failures are always stickier than the wins (and more interesting). The human brain is designed to avoid rejection and failure back when being booted from the tribe meant literal death. Rejection is the first step towards an offer. Play. Lose. Get better. Win.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	51,996	51,927	153	25	2	0	0.003462	null	2025-10-29 09:12:21	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7389333279654662145
urn:li:activity:7388977513953275905	I’ve failed around 80% of all my technical interviews. The 20% I passed helped me quadruple my salary. Let me be clear - I used to be terrible at interviewing. I didn’t know what a binary search tree was. I was anxious (𝘐 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘢 𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘤 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘥𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸). I rambled. I froze. I took every rejection personally. Then I got obsessed. Dozens of mock interviews, "real" interviewing twice a year 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘢 𝘫𝘰𝘣, and grinding AlgoExpert and LeetCode in the off season. 𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻’𝘁 𝗯𝗶𝗴 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀. Big tech interviews are documented to death. The other 99.9%? Total wild west. Everyone tells juniors “just build projects” or gives advice so vague it might as well be fortune-cookie wisdom. Some even tell people it's OK to cheat 😅 (𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺 - 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥'𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘴𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘢𝘭 - 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘥𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸𝘴). People deserve real help. So this Thursday, I’m hosting a 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 session where I’ll break down: • The 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗼𝗻 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 I’ve seen for years • Behavioral questions you can actually expect • What to study (and what to stop obsessing over) • A study plan to learn enough DSA to be dangerous 𝗜'𝗺 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴. I have 2 weeks off and all the nonsense I've read online about interviews is really boiling my potato. You can register here: https://lnkd.in/geiFi8pG	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	105,006	103,635	211	19	2	0	0.002209	null	2025-10-28 09:38:39	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7388977513953275905
urn:li:activity:7388629838380716032	LinkedIn is a dumpster fire. 𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝗼𝗳: • AI fear mongering • beginner experts with courses • comments that were ripped directly from ChatGPT • jobs posted 30 seconds ago that have 10K applicants • cringy influencers with their big bald head in a gradient background 𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗼 𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝗼𝗳: • strangers willing to lend you a hand • quality content you can learn from • inspiring stories • opportunity I've made friends, business partners and even some money from posting on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a social media platform and it will do its best to feed you content it thinks you like. If your feed sucks, follow some better people. 𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘦'𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘐 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘐𝘧 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘳: Zubin Pratap (my brother from another mother) John Crickett this dude is smart af and has decades of experience in software 🌻 Anna Miller she posts jobs that are under the radar David Roberts he's the guy I recommend to people who know how to code but can't get hired (𝘮𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘣𝘰𝘹 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘶𝘵𝘴) Addy Osmani super useful technical advice and Chrome browser expert Zach Wilson for all you data eng wannabes out there - dude has a very cool origin story as well I guarantee I missed a lot of people but these were the first to come to mind and specifically for people earlier in their career. They also tend to post regularly. Hope that's helpful!	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	21,742	21,621	93	24	2	0	0.005473	null	2025-10-27 10:37:07	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7388629838380716032
urn:li:activity:7387880853462245376	5 things that nearly derailed my developer career when I first started: 1. 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝗴𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴. I would've job hopped a lot less if I had been up front with what I wanted. 2. 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 "𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘁 𝘀𝗮𝗳𝗲" 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝘀𝗮𝗳𝗲. No opinion, no questions... no visibility. 3. 𝗔𝘃𝗼𝗶𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗦𝗔. Seriously - not that hard to learn and gave me more tools to solve coding problems. 4. 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀. It's really tough to debug or move between frameworks when you don't have a solid foundation. 5. 𝗥𝘂𝗯𝗯𝗲𝗿-𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀. This is embarrassing - I let too many issues slide by because I thought I had better things to do 😬 If I was starting off today, I'm sure I'd be over-relying on AI tools instead of StackOverflow and following the advice of every bald influencer online who I think has it figured it out. Hindsight is 20/20 which is one of the reasons I write online in the hopes maybe you'll avoid some of these pitfalls. If you've written code for a while, what are some mistakes you wish you hadn't made when you first started?	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	14,826	14,765	39	8	1	0	0.003238	null	2025-10-25 09:00:55	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7387880853462245376
urn:li:activity:7387527327674658816	Caught 2 people cheating during interviews so far. They looked great on paper. Wrote code without once looking up syntax. Tackled system design with textbook answers. But there were some tell-tale signs that something was off: 1. Odd pauses between hearing a question and answering it. 2. Not one typo? 3. Unable to explain why their code would work or not. 4. Can't articulate their opinion on any approach or technology because they haven't actually used it. 5. 𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘤𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘴-𝘩𝘢𝘪𝘳? If you're spending $900 on one of those "undetectable" cheating tools out there - you're only fooling people who are completely asleep at the wheel. What was their ultimate plan? Cheat their way into a role and then get found out later? Just having fun? Seriously curious about the success rate for this kind of scummy behavior.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	273,416	272,020	338	245	8	0	0.002162	null	2025-10-24 09:36:08	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7387527327674658816
urn:li:activity:7387188784167079937	You don’t have a problem learning to code. You have a time management issue. Instead of spending marathon sessions where you cram on the weekend, try this: 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘇𝗲 - identify the most important task you can do 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻 - tackle the most important thing in the morning 𝗦𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗲 - open your phone and check your activity - something’s gotta give 𝗦𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁 - humans aren’t robots… yet. Take short pauses to reflect and correct your course Consistency > Intensity *** I break down how I learned to code while getting sober with 2 kids, 1.5 jobs and an hour long commute. Includes a worksheet for busy ass adults. https://lnkd.in/gHE2BqGz	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	1,910	1,887	13	4	0	0	0.008901	null	2025-10-23 11:10:53	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7387188784167079937
urn:li:activity:7387140839833165824	Let’s pretend you’re working for one of those “AI” startups which basically is a wrapper for ChatGPT. This hypothetical startup helps users track calories by having them upload a list of what they ate and did for the day. We'll call this company BigBax️️️™️. In this article, you’ll learn: - why mocks don’t work for LLMs, - what kind of tests actually tell you when something breaks, - how to write tests using structured outputs, schemas, and a little math-safety Let’s protect your equity and save BigBax™️.	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	3,526	2,624	14	6	0	0	0.005672	null	2025-10-23 08:00:22	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7387140839833165824
urn:li:activity:7386765554113527809	𝘐𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘖𝘒 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘈𝘐? 𝘚𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘪𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘫𝘰𝘣? I get some pretty interesting questions from listeners of the Develop Yourself podcast. No judgment (well, maybe a little). After 11 years of writing code, interviewing and teaching hundreds of people, I always think I've heard it all. If you got a question about coding, AI, interviews or hair-care routines, drop it using the link below and I will do my best to answer on the show. https://lnkd.in/gEZ3P68g	IMAGE	Brian	Jenney	1,275	1,259	8	5	0	0	0.010196	null	2025-10-22 07:09:07	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7386765554113527809
urn:li:activity:7386180842903101440	Over the years I've participated in over 100 interviews outside big tech as an interviewer and interviewee. I'm going to tell you everything I wish I could've told previous candidates and what I wish someone would've told me. There's no sales pitch. We're going to cover: • The most common ReactJS interview • Behavioral interview red flags and green flags • A study plan for basic DSA that does not include solving 100 problems • Crafting a good story • Using AI during interviews • Anxiety 𝗪𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴: this is NOT for people trying for FAANG. This is NOT for senior positions. There may be some light coding if you want to follow along. I hope you can join.	EVENT	Brian	Jenney	3,937	3,888	26	0	1	0	0.006858	null	2025-10-20 16:25:41	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7386180842903101440
urn:li:activity:7386126500535853056	I'm launching a 30 day AI cohort for full stack developers who know Typescript. It's clear there is a massive gap between what the market wants and what most current developers know. Over the last 18 months I've helped build and ship AI powered features and systems for 2 start-ups. Major takeaways: • RAG is the most obvious and practical way to leverage AI for most companies • Context engineering > Prompt engineering • Agent frameworks are cool and you probably don't need to use one • You can and should be writing tests for agents • Chunking strategies for RAG cannot be an afterthought • Don't use VertexAI for your vector store (sorry GCP) • A little bit of linear algebra can give you a lot of intuition for LLMs Whether you enroll in 1 of the 15 spots or not, I sincerely believe you should take a few weekends to learn how to practically incorporate RAG, agents and LLM observability into your web apps. DM me with a 🤖 for more info and you'll get a response from me (not AI).	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	2,928	2,876	28	8	0	0	0.012295	null	2025-10-20 12:49:45	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7386126500535853056
urn:li:activity:7386038489194274816	There is a game being played that many of us don't understand. Not knowing the rules cost me tens of thousands of dollars. In this article I break down my simple approach to negotiating salary so you don't make the same mistakes I did.	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	6,703	3,084	24	11	1	0	0.005371	null	2025-10-20 07:00:01	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7386038489194274816
urn:li:activity:7385423329102520320	React server components for dummies… from a dummy	VIDEO	Brian	Jenney	1,178	395	22	0	0	0	0.018676	null	2025-10-18 14:15:36	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7385423329102520320
urn:li:activity:7385061564011220992	How Chat GPT-5 led us to erotica bots (a theory): When 5o was released, power users revolted. The backlash was so great that OpenAI brought back 4o. When you comb through Reddit, Twitter and IG - you notice that most of the anger wasn't because 5o was inferior or producing worse answers than previous models. 𝗣𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 "𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗶𝘀𝘁", "𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗱𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗲" 𝗮𝗻𝗱... "𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱." They missed the overly-agreeable tone and positivity. At the same time, most software developers (any maybe even their corporate overlords) are waking up to the reality that AI is not the 1-to-1 replacement they had hoped for. AGI isn't coming next earnings call BUT, right in time for the holidays, you may be able to have the most optimized inappropriate conversations with the LLM of your dreams.	IMAGE	Brian	Jenney	2,688	2,671	7	4	0	0	0.004092	null	2025-10-17 14:18:04	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7385061564011220992
urn:li:activity:7384988956385361920	I've been very vocal about the pitfalls of AI and some of the ridiculous takes I've read on here. Now that the hype-dust is settling, there are practical use cases emerging that very few software developers are prepared to take advantage of. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩 𝘵𝘰 𝘔𝘓. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘗𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘯. If you're a web dev, you're 75% of the way there already. In the last 12 months I've built and deployed agents, implemented data pipelines for RAG and created chat interfaces to "speak" to the data. It's been a ton of fun. In the show below, I break down the specific tech and concepts you want to know and 𝗶𝗳 𝗽𝗼𝗱𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻'𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗯 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀. https://lnkd.in/ekkEvXha	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	1,332	1,322	9	4	0	0	0.00976	null	2025-10-17 09:29:33	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7384988956385361920
urn:li:activity:7384266796016713728	null	POLL	Brian	Jenney	3,121	3,112	2	9	0	33	0.014098	null	2025-10-15 09:39:57	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7384266796016713728
urn:li:activity:7384228630517809152	My toxic trait: I'm too impressed by titles. I had a small panic attack years ago during my last interview with the VP of a large company I was trying to join. Sometimes when I meet super-senior developers or execs I find myself worrying about how I'll appear or how they'll judge me. Trying to sound smart usually has the opposite effect... and it's silly. If you look at my LinkedIn profile you'll notice I've had a range of positions and the titles didn't always reflect the work. - 𝗔𝘀 𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗗𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿, I basically helped a small web team migrate to Cloud Front. HTML/CSS sites. Yes, you heard that right. - 𝗔𝘀 𝗦𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗿 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿, I managed individuals, not other managers. I actually deflated my title to EM to reflect the actual work I did. - 𝗜 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗮 "𝗷𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗿 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿" although I was objectively more junior than any recent grad we've taught through Parsity when I started. This is as much a reminder to myself as it is to you: 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲'𝘀 𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗹𝗲𝘀. They're subjective and they can mean wildly different things at different places.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	4,683	4,665	19	7	0	0	0.005552	null	2025-10-15 07:08:17	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7384228630517809152
urn:li:activity:7383534430897983488	𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘵𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘱 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦: • Makes coding and learning a routine • Applies consistently and broadly • Has 1 or 2 complex side projects • Re-calibrates their approach when needed • Has faith that opportunity will present itself 𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘵𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘱 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘴 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘭: • Applies to only junior roles • Tutorial • Tutorial • Tutorial • Relies on motivation instead of routine • Doesn’t get hired in 3 months • 𝘎𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘶𝘱 I sat down with David Roberts, a recruiter and bootcamp-grad-job-whisperer to break down the mistakes software developers make when it comes to landing a role. David does not sugar coat it and he puts his money where his mouth is with a get-a-job-or-get-your-money-back guarantee. Wild.	VIDEO	Brian	Jenney	2,374	997	45	12	4	0	0.025695	null	2025-10-13 09:09:47	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7383534430897983488
urn:li:activity:7382580001906470912	You can grab a project to learn the basics of RAG with Typescript and NextJS here https://lnkd.in/d6Pzfcg6	VIDEO	Brian	Jenney	1,257	428	30	5	0	0	0.027844	null	2025-10-10 17:57:14	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7382580001906470912
urn:li:activity:7382453788927983616	I was nervous af honestly. I was one of a few people picked to be on a livestream with Alex Hormozi and Leila Hormozi and ask them business questions. My question was pretty simple: "𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘰 𝘐 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸 Parsity 𝘵𝘰 100 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳?" That's it? I mean... yeah. Parsity will never be a large coding bootcamp style program. I don't believe they work very well for the majority of people. At the same time, we have so many more people we can serve. I'm taking their advice and doubling down on YouTube and creating more content for early-career developers. They say you never want to meet your idols, but this buff, business lumberjack was cool as hell. 𝗣𝗦. I got a little treat for all you NextJS devs out there who want to learn some practical AI skills. Slide in my DMs (in the most platonic way possible) and just say "AI". I'll send you a free Github repo that's going to teach you in a hands-on way.	IMAGE	Brian	Jenney	13,214	13,205	97	11	0	0	0.008173	null	2025-10-10 14:58:35	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7382453788927983616
urn:li:activity:7382087200789884928	First we told a generation of people “𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣 𝙩𝙤 𝙘𝙤𝙙𝙚!” Now we’re telling a new generation “𝙣𝙤 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣 𝙩𝙤 𝙘𝙤𝙙𝙚!” Listen - there is still a lot of room for you in this industry IF your commitment and consistency outweigh your excitement. - It’s going to take more than 3 months. - You’re going to get rejected a lot. - You will doubt yourself every step of the way. - Your timeline will be your timeline. BUT if you stick with it, adjust your strategy when things aren't working and remain practically optimistic - you WILL reach the destination.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	2,125	2,120	37	4	0	0	0.019294	null	2025-10-09 09:19:01	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7382087200789884928
urn:li:activity:7381724246391259136	Here's enough Vim to be dangerous: 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗮 𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗲: 𝚟𝚒𝚖 𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝗘𝘅𝗶𝘁 𝗩𝗶𝗺: Press Esc then type :𝚚 and press Enter (If you've made changes, add an exclamation mark to force quit without saving: :𝚚!) 𝗦𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝘀: Press Esc then type :𝚠 and press Enter 𝗦𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘁: Press Esc then type :𝚠𝚚 or 𝚉𝚉 and press Enter 𝚒: Enter insert mode to 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝚡 𝗗𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿 under the cursor 𝚍𝚍: 𝗗𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝚞: 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗼 𝙲𝚝𝚛𝚕 + 𝚛: 𝗥𝗲𝗱𝗼 During an internship for Parsity students, we had to SSH into a server instance on AWS to figure out how to deploy some code that our grads had been working on. I realized how often I've had to do tasks like this to troubleshoot issues on remote servers. It can be stressful. 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗰 𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀, 𝗶𝘁'𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗳𝘂𝗹. Our grads jumped into this codebase made by contractors who we have no contact with. Ruh roh. 𝗜 𝘄𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗿. Turns out, the original developer would SSH into the box, pull down the code from GitHub and then restart the server manually. No judgment... except of course I am. The only way I figured that out was to investigate their bash history by doing: 𝚌𝚊𝚝 ~/.𝚋𝚊𝚜𝚑_𝚑𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢 Now I could see the evil genius at work here and why our app was crashing. I made a code change on the fly and the work our grads created was now LIVE. 𝘖𝘩 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘩, 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘺 𝘰𝘯 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘺𝘴. 𝗧𝗟𝗗𝗥; learn some terminal commands. Learn some vim. It won't suck and you'll look way cooler when you're at the coffee shop working on that SAAS app.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	1,766	1,750	17	0	0	0	0.009626	null	2025-10-08 09:16:46	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7381724246391259136
urn:li:activity:7381401957221007360	This week I traveled to beautiful (kinda) Reno, NV. I'm working on some massive curriculum updates for Parsity in between gambling away my life savings. If you want to follow along with what I'm building, go to https://lnkd.in/gmEZY7K8 (or try and find me on IG 😉)	IMAGE	Brian	Jenney	1,058	1,051	17	2	0	0	0.017958	null	2025-10-07 11:56:06	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7381401957221007360
urn:li:activity:7380997986467659776	Is this guy trolling me? A while ago, I wrote a post about using AI tools for coding and some of the hilariously bad results I got. Ben Johnson called me out in the comments. I wasn't giving enough context or instruction - no wonder my results were bad. I disagree(d). Next thing you know, he's in my DMs and suggests we set up a phone call. Against better judgment, I agreed. Turns out, he's an awesome guy with a hell of a story and knows a ton about a topic I'm very interested in: RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation). Since then, Ben and I have chatted a few times and while we may not agree on everything, I appreciate his perspective and advice. 𝗕𝗲𝗻 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻, 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀, 𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗵𝗲'𝘀 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗥𝗔𝗚/𝗔𝗜 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀. https://lnkd.in/gDw6-inS	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	2,600	2,592	17	13	0	0	0.011538	null	2025-10-06 09:10:52	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7380997986467659776
urn:li:activity:7380286967646732288	This is the stuff I wish I had known before building AI agents. Light on theory. Heavy on application. If you're a Typescript developer interested in building with agents - I wrote this for you.	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	2,205	3,138	30	11	1	0	0.019048	null	2025-10-04 10:05:32	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7380286967646732288
urn:li:activity:7379938814863007744	I've been banging my bald head against the wall building AI agents over the last couple months. It's also some of the most fun I've had as a developer. There are tons of articles and opinions on best practices but we're in new territory: - Libraries like Vercel's AI SDK and LangSmith AI are barely a couple years old. - 𝗧𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗟𝗟𝗠𝘀 that are non-deterministic is tricky. - Making sure a prompt change didn't degrade a response can be subjective. - There are SO MANY models... I'll be sharing some of my takeaways and practical steps you can take to avoid many of the mistakes I've made tomorrow. If you're a Typescript dev who wants to work with agents, I think you'll find this useful. https://lnkd.in/g_DTazAE	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	2,345	2,334	27	3	0	0	0.012793	null	2025-10-03 11:02:06	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7379938814863007744
urn:li:activity:7379529299957260288	What is the 1 thing that separates bootcamp grads who get hired vs those who don’t? I’ve thought about this a lot, especially as I’m now the owner of a coding bootcamp (𝘸𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩) Parsity. I’ve seen too many success stories (and failures) from unlikely people. - The guy who struggled to memorize how to complete a for-loop? Hired before the program ended. - The woman with a CS degree? Nearly a year and 100s of applications for her to get a break. There is very little rhyme, reason or “hack” I can confidently suggest. Except this: 𝗚𝗿𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗪𝗜𝗟𝗟 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲. The surest way towards failure is to quit. Most people will choose this route. 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗹𝗲𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗵𝘆. Build stuff or do LeetCode or Odin Project. Do something where your hands are on a keyboard making code do stuff. 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀? Maybe work on that. 𝗚𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴? Good. Work on that. Good luck out there!	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	5,361	5,350	40	4	0	0	0.008207	null	2025-10-02 07:54:50	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7379529299957260288
urn:li:activity:7379170471461707776	Typical Redditor advice to a person learning to code: "Don't!" "It's too late." "Market over-saturated." "AI!!!" Truly, big brained activity. Here's some advice I wish we'd stop telling younger developers, including 1 (or maybe 2) things I've said in the past 😅	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	14,960	2,602	55	10	3	0	0.004545	null	2025-10-01 08:08:58	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7379170471461707776
urn:li:activity:7378801866903621632	Did you hear what happened with Claude Code recently? At first I thought it was just me. Then I went to Reddit and saw other people having the same issues: - Noticeably worse code quality - Ignoring instructions - Unpredictability - "𝘎𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘐'𝘭𝘭 𝘨𝘰 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘵𝘰 𝘊𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘳" 𝗔𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗰 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝗱𝗺𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗶𝗻 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘀. There were 3 major issues affecting customers between August and September. Props to them for making this public. BUT - do you see the problem here? These tools are complete black-boxes with non-deterministic outputs. Code quality is subjective and in order to know what's bad - you first need to know what's good. If you're an early career developer, I'd take this as a cautionary tale and be careful before you outsource your career to the latest AI tool.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	11,683	11,568	67	17	2	0	0.007361	null	2025-09-30 07:44:16	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7378801866903621632
urn:li:activity:7378444655035813888	We just announced our first scholarship winner for Parsity and it's bittersweet. I honestly thought picking a "winner" would be easy but when Zubin Pratap and I reviewed all the submissions that came from around the world we realized how difficult this would be. Honestly, Parsity is already one of the most affordable options out there, especially considering the amount of personalization we give. But it's still out of reach for many people. Yes you can totally self-teach, but let's be honest - this doesn't work out for the majority of people. It's why colleges, bootcamps and mentorship programs exist in the first place. I'm excited to work with Abby, our scholarship recipient, and I'm confident she'll be another success story. For those who will never be able to join our program, we are thinking of more ways to give back. Stay tuned.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	2,551	2,536	32	3	0	0	0.01372	null	2025-09-29 08:04:50	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7378444655035813888
urn:li:activity:7377882337881198593	Over a year ago, I did a mock interview with Dicky Kitchen Jr and released it to YouTube. (he's a stud) The video did pretty well and I got a lot of positive feedback from others. "𝘐𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘥𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸?" "𝘐 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘵𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘱 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴. 𝘈𝘮 𝘐 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘸𝘦𝘥?" "𝘍𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 - 𝘢 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘋𝘚𝘈" "𝘏𝘰𝘵 𝘱𝘰𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘰 - 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘧𝘰𝘹!" One of those I made up 🤔 We do mock interviews at Parsity and do a lot of personal coaching for mentees but 𝗜 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼 𝗮𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗽 𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲. 𝗜𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁-𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗔𝗜. If you're down - just DM me! You can check out the interview here: https://lnkd.in/gxa6Q_Zq	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	1,391	1,385	6	1	2	0	0.00647	null	2025-09-27 18:50:23	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7377882337881198593
urn:li:activity:7377461034627936256	𝗠𝘆 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝟭𝟬 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗴𝗼: - Why do you want to work here? - Y u no have CS degree? - LeetCode easy or coding trivia - In person lunch to make sure you’re not crazy - "𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯 𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘊𝘰-𝘗𝘪𝘭𝘰𝘵" - 💰 𝗠𝘆 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀: - Pair programming with screen share - "𝘠𝘦𝘢𝘩, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘊𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘳" - Automated code challenge (LeetCode medium+) - Take home assignment that takes way too long - Tell me about a technically complex project you did recently… - Design some wildly complex system neither of us know how to build - Let’s have 12 rounds spread out over 2 months because we don’t trust ourselves - 😅 Interviews are a game and they are winnable. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆’𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁. The small startup in SF will use a similar format to the tech company in Austin. Use this to your advantage and 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲, 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗯𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗿𝘆 and maybe just cheat if all else fails. Just kidding… or am I? At https://parsity.io we've actually seen more mentees land interviews recently. Everything from Amazon to companies where you need to wear slacks 👖	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	8,632	8,625	22	7	0	0	0.00336	null	2025-09-26 14:56:17	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7377461034627936256
urn:li:activity:7376726247047032832	7 books and 6 projects to take you from zero to building complex software: 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝟭: Build a mobile-responsive web app with multiple pages using HTML and CSS. No libraries. 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀: None yet - just build 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝟮: Add a form to the project from step 1 that can create data, store it locally and display it on the page. Try creating a table of “users” with the time they were created, first name, last name and a list of hobbies. 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀: YDKJS 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝟯: Deploy the project using GitHub pages. 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀: Coding Career Handbook 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝟰: Re-create the project using NextJS… or Vue 🙄 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀: Clean Code \|\| Clean Code in Javascript 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝟱: Research public APIs to 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗮 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁. Add persistent data storage using Postgres and Prisma/Drizzle/whatever 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀: DDIA && The Phoenix Project 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝟲: It’s 2025… 𝗮𝗱𝗱 𝗔𝗜 𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗥𝗔𝗚 or at the very least use an API like OpenAI so you can learn about working with LLMs. 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀: System Design I && II What did I miss?	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	3,473	3,464	32	2	0	0	0.00979	null	2025-09-24 14:16:30	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7376726247047032832
urn:li:activity:7375905985430958081	You're going to hate to hear this but... There are people less qualified than you who are getting hired faster. LinkedIn is a social media site pretending to be a job site. On one end you have recruiters trying to find candidates in a tidal wave of AI produced slop. On the other end you have qualified candidates who are basically invisible to the algorithm. So, who's winning here? (hint: not you) 𝗦𝗼 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗮 𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿? I mean, it's not the worst idea 😅. A more practical approach might be: 1. Curate your feed to connect with more recruiters and hiring managers and less influencers (𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵 𝘥𝘰 𝘐? 𝘐𝘧 𝘴𝘰, 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵) 2. Go old school - 𝗱𝗼 𝗮 𝗕𝗙𝗦 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘀 (𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘨𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘪𝘵 𝘶𝘱 😉) 3. 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝟱𝟬𝟬 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 to be more discoverable 4. Diversify your options: WellFound and JobRight are solid alternatives 5. Join Parsity and stop going off vibes and social media when it comes to your career switch approach	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	25,785	25,745	36	8	1	0	0.001745	null	2025-09-22 07:57:04	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7375905985430958081
urn:li:activity:7375179499866529792	The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet. This weekend I'm building a tool to help me with content generation using Qdrant, NextJS and ~100 articles I've written over the last few years on Medium. It's a simple app that chunks, vectorizes and stores these articles in a vector DB, Qdrant so I can quickly search or generate new articles from a simple text search. Example: "𝘎𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘥𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘺 𝘢𝘴𝘴 𝘢𝘥𝘶𝘭𝘵" 🤖 Beep boop bop.... 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝟭𝟬 𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗻𝘁 📝 I'll be doing a walkthrough of the app for students at Parsity. If you want to check it out, subscribe to my newsletter which is still written by a human... for now.	IMAGE	Brian	Jenney	5,446	5,440	40	3	1	0	0.008079	null	2025-09-20 07:50:16	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7375179499866529792
urn:li:activity:7374511996387430400	AI sucks at writing. Agree? 🚀 After writing nearly 1000 posts on LinkedIn and 100+ blogs I'm tired of re-inventing the wheel. Inspired by the designers at Craigslist, I built this small app which uses Pincecone, OpenAI and NextJS to find posts and articles I've written from a simple text search. Now I can use AI to write in MY voice or at least help me dig through years of material at lightning speed. For now, this app is open source and includes 900+ posts from me. You can make it your own and 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗥𝗔𝗚, 𝗔𝗜, 𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗱𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗟𝗟𝗠 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝘄𝗲𝗯 𝗮𝗽𝗽 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗮 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘆. https://lnkd.in/d6Pzfcg6	IMAGE	Brian	Jenney	1,087	1,083	15	5	1	0	0.019319	null	2025-09-18 11:37:51	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7374511996387430400
urn:li:activity:7374245474972860416	Last month: Claude > Cursor This month: Cursor > Claude Anyone experienced this shift? Or is this a skillz issue?	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	2,500	2,497	10	6	0	0	0.0064	null	2025-09-17 17:58:48	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7374245474972860416
urn:li:activity:7374113571552747521	The job search can feel unrewarding, draining and shake what little confidence you have in yourself. Last night at Parsity we had serial guest speaker Brian Schuster share some practical, no-nonsense on the job search which he just went through. Here's the thing though: it’s a game of both skill and chance. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗯𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 “𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗹”. Rejection is rarely personal, it’s an inevitable consequence of many factors: - Resume quality is subjective (ask 5 people to look at your resume and get 5 different opinions) - Some companies hire internal candidates but open roles to the public - Engineering interviews can be biased in favor of a specific answer even when presented with working (or even better) alternatives So what does this mean? Expect failure and learn from it. Try your hardest not to take it personally.Whatever you do, please do not stop playing the game. You only have to win once.	IMAGE	Brian	Jenney	1,723	1,714	27	7	3	0	0.021474	null	2025-09-17 09:14:39	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7374113571552747521
urn:li:activity:7373423936522383360	At some point, you need to take off the training wheels. You’re going to learn a hell of a lot more from: • getting stuck • reading the documentation • realizing the docs suck • scouring Stack Overflow • getting rate limited on ChatGPT • throwing everything at the wall • finally figuring it out • wanting to share your excitement and realizing your non-coding friends don't care 😑 as opposed to: ....typing what another person has typed. If you don't know what to build for a side project, I got you ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/gCjQ4mhG	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	1,001	998	8	0	0	0	0.007992	null	2025-09-15 11:34:18	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7373423936522383360
urn:li:activity:7373031227882323968	Zach Liibbe me up after attending a 1 hr live session where we went over building a chat bot with RAG using NextJS, Typescript and OpenAI to show me what he'd built. Super cool implementation! Why more developers aren't learning this skill set is wild to me. Because I like you - you can check out the live session here: https://lnkd.in/d6Pzfcg6	IMAGE	Brian	Jenney	878	869	8	0	0	0	0.009112	null	2025-09-14 09:33:48	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7373031227882323968
urn:li:activity:7372648992628748288	Your AI developer starter kit (𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘵 𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴) to go from 0 to "𝗛𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗼 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹": 1. Linear algebra basics (https://lnkd.in/gzZtagYw) 2. Vercel's AI SDK (https://ai-sdk.dev/) 3. $5 on OpenAI's API (https://openai.com/api/) 4. Free account on Pinecone (https://lnkd.in/gj4g8AWj) 5. Mini-project with RAG (https://lnkd.in/d6Pzfcg6) 10x more fun that arguing with people who can't solve FizzBuzz about developers going extinct.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	2,178	2,164	29	0	0	0	0.013315	null	2025-09-13 08:14:57	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7372648992628748288
urn:li:activity:7372303530038128640	Let me supercharge your debugging process by 420%. I remember scratching my bald head a few years ago at work while trying to debug a Node/Express API with my manager. We had an important demo that day and something was breaking. No pressure 😅. We added no less than 69 console logs in the code with no luck. Luckily, a smart nerd on the team showed us this method which I'm shocked more of you aren't using. Maybe you're like me and didn't know it existed within VS Code. Here's a short video of me breaking down how to debug a Node/Express app using breakpoints just like you might do in your front end code. I mean, you are using 𝚍𝚎𝚋𝚞𝚐𝚐𝚎𝚛 in your JS code right? Right?! Hope it saves you a little hair.	VIDEO	Brian	Jenney	1,211	405	21	0	0	0	0.017341	null	2025-09-12 09:22:12	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7372303530038128640
urn:li:activity:7371988286384345088	We’re all so afraid of healthy debate nowadays. Everything is a hot take. Every opinion online is carefully crafted to get maximum emotional response. Anyone doesn’t agree? They’re a fool or…. worse. I don’t agree with Charlie Kirk on many points but I enjoyed watching him debate people on the other side of the political aisle with what appeared to be good intentions. He made me question my own liberal views. I think this is good. If you can’t defend your point of view - you don’t fully understand what it is you’re arguing for or against. We don’t need to agree on everything to have respect for each other. Or at least tolerate one another. That’s kind of the whole point of being in this amazing country. RIP Charlie Kirk.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	4,082	4,055	44	5	0	0	0.012004	null	2025-09-11 12:29:32	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7371988286384345088
urn:li:activity:7371544469898387458	𝘈 𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵: • Look up free APIs you can use (𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘢) • Choose a technology you want to learn (20% 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘯𝘥 80% 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘳) • Think of what you can build around the data • Can AI be used? Good. Use it. (𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘓𝘓𝘔𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘖𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘈𝘐) • Sketch out the main pages and functionality (𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘯𝘢𝘱𝘬𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦) • Deploy on AWS like a fancy lad (𝘰𝘳 𝘎𝘊𝘗 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘴𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘵) Along the way, you’re going to pull your hair out, throw everything against the wall and get rate-limited on ChatGPT. This is exactly where the learning occurs. You keep coming back because you have more emotional attachment to your own project than a 100 hour video where you type what the other person types. Here's a video walkthrough for what to build when you have no freakin' clue where to start: https://lnkd.in/gCjQ4mhG	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	2,624	2,610	31	7	0	0	0.014482	null	2025-09-10 07:05:58	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7371544469898387458
urn:li:activity:7371210818501185536	Our job as software developers is changing... rapidly. Just 2 years ago we were shocked that auto-complete tools like GitHub co-pilot were finishing functions for us. Now we have Chet in marketing vibe coding his SAAS app over the weekend. And honestly… it looks pretty damn good. Unfortunately, too many software developers don’t realize the game has changed beyond using code-gen tools like Cursor and Claude.	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	8,087	2,581	36	7	0	0	0.005317	null	2025-09-09 09:00:09	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7371210818501185536
urn:li:activity:7370861685475250177	Tech interviews are weird. Just this week at Parsity, we saw: • One student doing a 𝟲-𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 that included recruiter chats, assessments, team interviews, and a CEO conversation. NO coding rounds. • Another juggling 𝗺𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝘀 with exclusively LeetCode-style questions. • Another prepping for a 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱-𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝘁 𝗮 𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘆 𝗔𝗜 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽 with front end challenge. Interviews don’t have a single format. Some look like algorithm gauntlets. Some are behavioral-heavy and have 0 coding involved. Some are just about whether you can clearly explain your past work. If you’re preparing for interviews, don’t fall into the trap of thinking it’s only about LeetCode or only about system design. Instead: • Prepare for the most obvious 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 (tell me about a time…) • Learn to 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 (if you can't explain working code that will not fly) • Be ready for both 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗲𝘀 and 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻-𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 “𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹” 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 • And expect curveballs: panels, assessments, or multiple informal chats Most importantly, just ask. Use Glassdoor, TeamBlind and your recruiter so you're not guessing. I'm curious, if you're reading this and had an interview recently, what was unexpected?	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	64,319	64,195	54	17	0	0	0.001104	null	2025-09-08 09:52:49	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7370861685475250177
urn:li:activity:7370125112785903616	He created a full stack app that worked pretty well. It even looked nice. But when I asked how it worked… Oof. 𝗔𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗲. Too many developers fall into the trap of looking at a tutorial, following along with the instructor and typing what they type. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝘆𝗼𝗳𝗳: a shiny new app. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘁: a false sense of mastery It’s an enticing trap and it may even fool someone into hiring you. More than 90% of my side projects never had users or been deployed. I made janky apps and sites to learn new concepts, frameworks and even join a startup as a mid-level developer in a completely new tech stack. Every side project doesn’t need to be a masterpiece. Leverage them to learn what you won’t at work or what you would like to work on next. If you want my step by step guide on creating a solid side project you can grab it here https://lnkd.in/gKsJEhZk	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	3,484	3,474	30	2	0	0	0.009185	null	2025-09-06 09:05:57	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7370125112785903616
urn:li:activity:7369748066913914886	You can imagine how the Twitter mob jumped on this. I'll admit I was skeptical and wrote it off as rage bait. Then I joined a small startup with some of the smartest people I've ever met from the biggest companies in tech. The entire app, including our data pipelines to ingest hundreds of thousands of documents and API routes were all in TypeScript. We were using a type of database I'd never heard of - a vector store - to retrieve documents we had scraped from the web and were using to augment AI responses that were being streamed to the front end. This was my introduction to RAG and I was shocked at how simple it was to get started and how difficult it is to maintain and do correctly. Once you see how useful it is, you can't un-see it. It felt like I glimpsed into the future. Turns out many other companies are using RAG but it gets a hell of a lot less attention because it requires actual technical knowledge that doesn't grab headlines like: "[𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘵 𝘫𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘢𝘴𝘴 𝘊𝘌𝘖] 𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘈𝘐 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 99.2% 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵" At Parsity we're going deep into RAG and the core skills you still need as a developer to excel with and without AI. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗯 𝗮 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝘁𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗼𝗻 𝗥𝗔𝗚 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲: https://lnkd.in/d6Pzfcg6	IMAGE	Brian	Jenney	6,964	6,954	40	5	0	0	0.006462	null	2025-09-05 08:07:42	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7369748066913914886
urn:li:activity:7369407402254729216	The problem with the internet isn't that everyone has an opinion - it's that the most polarizing ones get all the attention. I've had non-coders tell me that my job is at stake and no one is hiring. Career coaches who don't know what HTML is explain to me that companies simply don't need junior developers any more because AI can already do whatever it is they think juniors do. These people may all be smarter and even better looking than me. That doesn't make them right. It also doesn't make me right. Try the tools. Read the studies. Understand what's going on just beneath the surface of the tools you use and maybe, just maybe, draw your own conclusions.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	1,110	1,104	21	0	1	0	0.01982	null	2025-09-04 09:34:01	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7369407402254729216
urn:li:activity:7369091067549265924	A developer from Parsity recently got hired and we'll be onboarding a few more people into an internship soon. Now the real work begins: - Exploring a new codebase - Finding areas to make impact - Learning the engineering culture and the boatload of jargon (CI/CD, TDD, SDLC, story points, sprints) - Figuring out JIRA and the team's flavor of agile - Using git… but like, for real this time - Doing on-call 👹 This is the area where developers need the most support. The job search is stressful but it makes up such a small portion of the developer life-cycle. You won’t be spending your days optimizing algorithms or manipulating palindromes. The part after the interview is when the real work begins. If you’re a recently hired developer, what are some areas where you wish you had more knowledge?	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	1,967	1,964	23	2	0	0	0.01271	null	2025-09-03 12:37:01	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7369091067549265924
urn:li:activity:7368653793279774720	“𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘢 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮? 𝘐 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘎𝘗𝘛 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘵?” Your job as a developer is changing. Now you have to explain to people who have never written code why security, accessibility and complicated API integrations can make “simple” changes take longer than writing a sexy prompt. As annoying as this can be — it’s also good. 𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗲’𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 “𝗮𝗻𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲” 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲. A monkey! Your uncle who can’t open his Hotmail account! A child who can’t multiply yet! AnYonE! It’s time to learn how to articulate what we do and the value it creates as well as why things are never as simple as they seem. Your job will involve a lot more education and gently letting those just above you understand where the AI hype ends and reality begins. I think this opens up major opportunities for you as a developer if you're trying to climb the corporate ladder by being the "expert" in the room to translate technical details to the higher-ups. I'm curious - have you had to defend your code against non-coding prompt engineers?	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	28,179	28,174	61	45	1	0	0.003797	null	2025-09-02 07:39:27	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7368653793279774720
urn:li:activity:7367592785467592704	Learning to build software is the slowest get-rich-quick scheme I know of. It’s still worth it. Personally, I enjoy writing code for a living. I code outside of work hours because it’s also my hobby. I’ve started multiple businesses with this skill and met tons of amazing people. Learning to code gives you options and leverage if you’re good at it. At the end of the day, it’s also a job. Here's what most new coders get totally wrong about the job of writing code for money...	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	3,801	3,008	25	5	0	0	0.007893	null	2025-08-30 09:23:23	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7367592785467592704
urn:li:activity:7366889333846441986	Have I corrupted Cursor?	IMAGE	Brian	Jenney	5,814	5,807	45	10	0	0	0.00946	null	2025-08-28 10:48:07	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7366889333846441986
urn:li:activity:7366829791481655297	The CEO of AWS recently said that firing junior developers because “AI can replace them” is “the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” Is this even controversial? Depending on who you listen to, you’d think we’re already obsolete. Just beyond hype and shareholder meetings we might find reality.	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	2,300	3,065	27	2	0	0	0.012609	null	2025-08-28 06:51:31	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7366829791481655297
urn:li:activity:7366504902807666690	Typical Redditor’s advice to junior developers: Just give up. Insightful, I know. What might actually work better: - 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 worth writing about that has a backend and front end that looks decent - 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 to bypass the LinkedIn hunger games - experiment with sites like WellFound or JobRight.ai - do live interview practice on sites like Pramp or interviewing.io - supplement experience with an internship or 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝗽𝗽 - be practically optimistic If Zubin Pratap and I had the magic formula to finding that first role then our program would be a hell of a lot easier to run. We can only tell you what we've seen work for others and coach you personally to see what WILL work for you.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	7,488	7,479	41	18	0	0	0.007879	null	2025-08-27 09:20:31	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7366504902807666690
urn:li:activity:7365753863825481728	Honestly, the debate is already tired. No one knows what’s coming next. Not bald headed LinkedIn dudes who run coding programs. Not mainstream news sites who don’t know what HTML is. Not some rando telling you he’s “10x more efficient with AI” Fear mongering is profitable and more exciting than reality. What’s much more interesting is actually learning the skills needed for the next wave of software development: - RAG - Testing LLM outputs - MCP - Building agents - Streaming React components Whether or not you believe you can be replaced by AI, you’re right. If you’re looking to start building, I have a free project to get your hands dirty with RAG, using NEXT.js, Pinecone, OpenAI and Typescript. Grab it in the comments.	IMAGE	Brian	Jenney	5,803	5,797	39	5	0	0	0.007582	null	2025-08-25 07:36:10	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7365753863825481728
urn:li:activity:7364382367769120768	"𝘋𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘏𝘛𝘔𝘓 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘑𝘚" "𝘑𝘢𝘷𝘢𝘚𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘵 𝘪𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘨𝘦" "𝘈𝘐 𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘫𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘳 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘴" I've read these brilliant takes online and I wonder how much they affect newer developer and learners. This is part of the reason I started a new episode of Develop Yourself podcast to answer questions directly from listeners. No fluff, no spin. Just my direct advice to you based on 11 years of progressively sucking less at coding. 𝗚𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗰𝘆 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (about coding, careers or AI)? 𝗗𝗿𝗼𝗽 𝗶𝘁 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲: https://lnkd.in/gYzCQ2UK 𝗚𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝗻𝗼𝘁-𝘀𝗼-𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗰𝘆 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻? Leave it in the comments 😉	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	2,973	2,966	23	9	0	0	0.010764	null	2025-08-21 12:46:20	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7364382367769120768
urn:li:activity:7364021075589939202	I'm biased - but we have some real super stars at Parsity. That's the power of being small and intentional with who we work with. Whether you're a recruiter or looking to connect with some other developers, here are a few people who really stand out: Mecca Conway - runs a study group for Parsity and major contributor in our recent internship at an AI start up Marci Prescott && Mutsumi Hata - I love how they both share the wins and (more importantly) the losses on their journey towards professional developer Thomas Winskell - basically a senior developer at this point and de-facto team lead for students in the internship program Roberto Iturralde - this dude won a freakin' hackathon recently and just got hired! There are so many other amazing people we have the pleasure of working with and I could honestly shout the entire group out. If you are a recruiter - slide in my DMs (in the most platonic way possible) and I'm happy to connect you with any of our super stars who are currently looking.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	2,176	2,170	40	5	0	0	0.02068	null	2025-08-20 12:50:41	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7364021075589939202
urn:li:activity:7363635399883182080	As a junior developer, I was really anxious that one day my team would find out I was a hack. Then, one day, I actually did get “found out” 😬 I was working at a small startup with some incredible talent and when our star engineer left to pursue his own startup, he gave me some candid feedback: “𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘱 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘑𝘢𝘷𝘢𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦. 𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘰 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴.” I was embarrassed. He was also correct. I wrote down his suggestions and made a plan to get more proficient with JavaScript and some of the concepts which had always confused me like promises, prototypal inheritance and decorators. It wasn’t even that difficult. I wondered why I hadn’t done this earlier. In fact it’s 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗱 we 𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝘁 Parsity: 1. Open code editor 2. Create a practical example leveraging the concept you're learning 3. Record a video explaining the concept and your code For promises, you could create a promise using the promise constructor and invoke it using the async/await pattern and then refactor it to use promise chaining. Make a video for yourself. NO ONE has to watch it. The video simply forces you to articulate what you’ve learned in plain English. Hope that’s helpful. https://parsity.io is a program for career changers, not influencers, but you WILL be getting on camera 😉. It's awkward. It's cringey. It works.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	104,541	104,521	91	16	0	0	0.001024	null	2025-08-19 11:18:09	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7363635399883182080
urn:li:activity:7362191460831518721	What the hell even is an AI engineer? Someone who uses AI to write code? Another word for data scientist? 10x vibe coder? TBH - I'm still not sure but I do know that most developers are missing out on the most fun (and profitable) parts of building with AI: • Using OpenAI with structured outputs and schemas • Vector databases like Pinecone • Scraping data for RAG (retrieval augmented generation) pipelines • Going past spaghetti-code generation Last night, me and some nerds from Parsity got together to build a cringe-influencer clone based on my LinkedIn posts to learn how to practically build an app leveraging RAG. 𝗧𝗼𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝗜'𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗽𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗺𝘆 𝗻𝗲𝘄𝘀𝗹𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿. Then I'm privatizing that repo: https://lnkd.in/g_DTazAE	IMAGE	Brian	Jenney	2,666	2,661	23	8	0	0	0.011628	null	2025-08-15 11:40:27	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7362191460831518721
urn:li:activity:7361751988990078977	I asked Claude Code to refactor a 2k line component last night (don't judge - or maybe do). 5 minutes and thousands of tokens later it did what would’ve have taken me hours. • It followed SRP. • Components were modular and well constructed. • There were unit and integration tests and even documentation. I mean, nothing worked - but got damn it was beautiful.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	20,839	20,816	228	18	2	0	0.011901	null	2025-08-14 06:57:15	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7361751988990078977
urn:li:activity:7361422037103325184	At some point we told all new developers they had to become mini LinkedIn influencers. I disagree. Kinda. I spoke to a former co-worker who gave a talk to mentees Parsity . She’s an amazing developer who I knew could offer some insight and practical advice for developers at the early stages of their career. I was shocked to learn that she ended up landing a role from a post that caught the attention of our former VP. This led to an interview that she crushed. A former mentee of mine had an even wilder story: He follows a popular YouTuber who he reached out to that ended up referring him for a role. These stories aren’t typical. They also can’t be ignored. Networking and learning in public obviously work, despite my own biases. You know what else works? • Never writing a word on LinkedIn. • Making connections with people through comments on their posts. • Mass applying. • Going on Facebook and asking your high school friends and family if they know anyone hiring. We’re all right. We’re all wrong. Pick a strategy you can actually follow and then do it. They all (can) work.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	7,968	7,961	57	22	0	0	0.009915	null	2025-08-13 08:43:02	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7361422037103325184
urn:li:activity:7360671905319735296	Shocking and not so shocking takeaways from the 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey: 1. Javascript is the most used programming language. Take that haters. 2. Everyone uses VS Code - learn it like a pro. 3. NextJS surpassed Angular in popularity but is still less used than... Jquery?! 4. Bootcamps love MERN - professionals love SERN. There’s never been a better time to learn SQL with offerings like Neon/Supabase - it's easy to get started. 5. Most devs are FS. You probably should be too. 6. Twice as many new coders highly trust AI than more experienced coders. 🤔 I go into the most interesting takeaways here: https://lnkd.in/gCdkwey7 You can check out the survey here: https://lnkd.in/ggag932p	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	14,945	14,921	44	10	0	0	0.003613	null	2025-08-11 07:02:16	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7360671905319735296
urn:li:activity:7360324784473214976	The marketing worked. Or maybe it failed actually. I was fully expecting GPT-5 to be earth-shatteringly good. The hype from some respected YouTubers and Altman's claims of PhD level expertise really primed the pump. The response to the rollout has been... not great. It's been so bad in fact, that they had to reverse course and offer older models that were hidden by a new routing feature that would choose the best model for the task... that also broke. 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝗜'𝘃𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲'𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗳*𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗱. Forget AGI or catastrophic job decimation. The majority of GPT users aren't coders. They could care less about small improvements to code-gen tools. They're using GPT as their therapist/friend/confidant. That's much scarier. People missed the cringy, over-the-top, way-too-agreeable voice. Screw the hallucinations. Forget that this is a token generator that often flubs simple math problems. They wanted their friend back. I'm beginning to think the real AI threat won't be job displacement. It might be relationship replacement.	IMAGE	Brian	Jenney	654,405	654,130	728	117	10	0	0.001307	null	2025-08-10 08:02:56	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7360324784473214976
urn:li:activity:7359969979661758464	A decade ago I was living a life that can only be described as... criminal. I was 50 lbs overweight, my lungs were toast from years of smoking and I had regular panic attacks. I was a complete mess. Learning to code didn't change my life but it did change my wallet. These are 3 habits (that don't involve code) that made the biggest difference in my coding career and life. Maybe you'll find them useful.	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	2,280	3,521	27	4	0	0	0.013596	null	2025-08-09 08:33:04	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7359969979661758464
urn:li:activity:7359255838168883204	A week ago I made a post about the myth of AI productivity and Ben Johnson disagreed with me. We had a little back and forth in the comment section that turned a tad snarky. Then I get a DM. Ben - "𝘏𝘦𝘺 𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯, 𝘭𝘦𝘵'𝘴 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦" Me - "𝘚𝘶𝘳𝘦, 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦'𝘴 𝘮𝘺 𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘯𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳" (I'm old and too trusting) Was this a set up? He called a few days later. We discussed our experiences with AI tools and while Ben didn't completely change my opinion, he certainly highlighted some areas where I can improve with my use of tools like Cursor and Claude. I called Ben last week and we chatted about RAG and how we're implementing it. He's a smart cookie. Ben - thanks for renewing my faith in people and reminding me that having a difference of opinion is a good thing and that healthy dialogue still exists.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	3,482	3,475	63	7	0	0	0.020103	null	2025-08-07 09:15:20	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7359255838168883204
urn:li:activity:7358904828351188993	The market is over-saturated. AI took your job. There is no hope. But then you talk to someone like Mindi Weik, who landed a job without submitting an application. Is her story typical? Not really. But then again, it’s not atypical either. I interviewed 2 recent Parsity grads last month who had nearly identical experiences after going through our program. Maybe there's something there? Some takeaways: 1. They all reached out to their friends/family/community to find leads 2. None of the roles were listed on LinkedIn 3. Mindi and Jacob posted online using a mix of technical and personal stories 4. None of their interviews involved DSA So what does that tell you? The traditional job hunt isn't broken, it’s just not the only way in.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	9,578	9,572	43	17	1	0	0.006369	null	2025-08-06 10:00:32	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7358904828351188993
urn:li:activity:7358157485913919488	If I had to start from scratch and get a developer job in 2025, here's what I would NOT do: 1. Build a ton of small apps for my portfolio 2. Get a bunch of certificates 3. Put the green banner on my LinkedIn 4. Smash the easy apply button and play the numbers game 5. Go back to school 6. Learn 3 languages I break down what I'd actually do (which is basically what we teach at Parsity) in this episode: https://lnkd.in/gUNpJu2z	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	6,996	6,970	43	4	1	0	0.006861	null	2025-08-04 08:30:52	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7358157485913919488
urn:li:activity:7357432533728333824	"Uhh, Brian - something is broken in production." It was 12AM on a Thursday night and I was unfamiliar with this code. I used a method I break down in this article to find and squish tough bugs, specifically in JS code.	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	1,748	3,497	17	1	0	0	0.010297	null	2025-08-02 08:30:10	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7357432533728333824
urn:li:activity:7356689955240202242	Five years ago, during an interview for a senior dev role, I had a panic attack. My heart was pounding. I couldn’t get my words out. I had to ask the interviewer to restart the call. I was embarrassed, shaky, and 100% sure I’d blown it. Another time I bombed a Facebook interview so badly that I just cut it short. I couldn’t solve a recursion problem and I knew I was just wasting time so I pulled the plug and bailed early. I left these interviews thinking: "Maybe I’m just not cut out for this." But I’m stubborn. And obsessed with patterns. So I started breaking the whole process down and rebuilding it from the ground up. Here’s what changed everything:	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	7,540	3,305	36	5	1	0	0.00557	null	2025-07-31 07:19:25	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7356689955240202242
urn:li:activity:7356329920337219586	I bombed the interview so hard, I considered just walking out. In my second round at the Google onsite 7 years ago, my interviewer was visibly frustrated. I was bumbling through a tree traversal problem using a for loop 🙄. "𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘶𝘴𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧-𝘵𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘴", he said before he took over and showed me how he would've approached the problem. Let me be clear: this guy was an ass hat of the highest degree. He also exposed a major gap in my coding knowledge. I went on to spend lots of money on programs, books and courses to learn data structures and algorithms. This helped me pass a ton more interviews but also increased my confidence. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵: 99% of the technical interview advice you read is for the top 1% of companies. I just left the interview circuit and have spoken with 700 developers over the last 2 years. I also completed around 100 interviews over the last 10 years as interviewer or interviewee. Your next interview is much more likely to revolve around building a React component, talking about your past experiences and coding challenges that will involve arrays or strings rather than trees. This Friday Zubin Pratap and I will be breaking down your next tech interview from recruiter call through offer to give you the best shot at "winning" the game of interviews.	SHARE	Brian	Jenney	1,158	1,153	11	2	0	0	0.011226	null	2025-07-30 07:28:46	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7356329920337219586
urn:li:activity:7355590423492349954	𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘌𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩! 𝘈𝘐 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 50% 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘪𝘥-𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘣𝘺 2026. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘈𝘐, 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘈𝘐. Sufficiently rage-baited? I don't have a crystal ball and I don't know what the future of AI means for code authors. I do know this: In the last 12 months I went from knowing nothing about AI/LLMs to using vector databases to create RAG applications and building data pipelines to ingest tons of data to train AI models. This has been a ton of fun and seems to have made me a hotter commodity on the job market than I realized. I'm going to do a power packed walk through to show TypeScript developers how to build a non-trivial RAG app using 800+ posts I've written on LinkedIn to write like a mini-me. 2 hours max. We'll learn a bit about: • how LLMs vectorize words • rudimentary linear algebra to gain intuition for how LLMs work just beneath the surface • working with vector databases • fine-tuning vs RAG • how to mitigate AI hallucinations with RAG This will be hands-on and use practice over theory. I was going to do this for Parsity students only but 𝗜𝗙 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 [𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗴𝗵] 𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗷𝗶 𝗜'𝗹𝗹 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗼𝗼 (𝘂𝗽 𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘁). Or just keep trying to get better at prompting and let us know how that works for you.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	41,245	41,064	80	96	0	0	0.004267	null	2025-07-28 06:30:17	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7355590423492349954
urn:li:activity:7354895031272427520	I love AI tools. I hate the hype. It's like we're afraid to admit the truth: these tools are amazing and can make certain tasks take a fraction of the time but they're not a replacement for good judgment. At worst, they actually slow us down. It's like having a really ambitious intern who can write code at lightning speed. Yes, I'm sure I'm just using them wrong 😑	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	2,866	2,916	35	9	1	0	0.015701	null	2025-07-26 08:27:02	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7354895031272427520
urn:li:activity:7354509534754738178	How cooked are junior devs because of AI? Will the tech job market ever "correct"? What's the best way to build a MERN stack app? Why can't you finish that tutorial? Should you? I got some great questions for this episode of Office Hours and my answers might surprise you. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲: https://lnkd.in/grbd5YYJ We do office hours regularly for students at Parsity and over the last 5 years I've done around 700 individual phone calls (I'm old school) for developers around the world. I used to write articles on this kind of stuff but no one reads anymore! What's a question you'd like me to answer on the next episode?	IMAGE	Brian	Jenney	2,438	2,436	24	0	0	0	0.009844	null	2025-07-25 06:55:13	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7354509534754738178
urn:li:activity:7353621556155068417	What's one tip you'd give to someone learning JS? Here are some areas I struggled with when I first started writing JavaScript: • promises • DOM manipulation • functions • debugging • nested arrays What helped me grok these concepts was a pretty simple technique: Learning by form. I'd spin up a blank CodePen, create a button and an input. When I clicked the button, something would happen. Maybe a div would change colors. Maybe a message would flash across the screen with the value from the input. Total nonsense stuff that made the conceptual practical. This week, I'll be doing an episode on learning JS for n00bs. If there's something you wish you knew that might help others, drop it in the comments.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	1,921	1,917	19	8	1	0	0.014576	null	2025-07-22 20:06:42	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7353621556155068417
urn:li:activity:7353484012444667904	The job search can feel unrewarding, draining and shake what little confidence you have in yourself. It’s a game of skill and chance. You can be absolutely qualified and still “fail”. Rejection is rarely personal, it’s an inevitable consequence of many factors: - 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗲 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 (ask 5 people to look at your resume and get 5 different opinions) - 𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 but open roles to the public with 0 intention of hiring - 𝗖𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗯𝗲 𝗯𝗶𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 in favor of a specific answer even when presented with working (or even better) alternatives So what does this mean? 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗶𝘁. Try your hardest not to take it personally. Whatever you do, please do not stop playing the game. You only have to win once. Zubin Pratap and I will be going over the strategies we teach to Parsity mentees to give you the best shot at nailing your coding interviews, next Friday. Register here: https://lnkd.in/grQZWewf	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	1,506	1,501	25	7	0	0	0.021248	null	2025-07-22 11:00:09	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7353484012444667904
urn:li:activity:7353121234231963649	null	EVENT	Brian	Jenney	678	671	13	0	2	0	0.022124	null	2025-07-21 10:58:36	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7353121234231963649
urn:li:activity:7351987694899527681	Are we done with vibe coding yet? Too many software developers are obsessed with the surface layer when it comes to using AI. The fun stuff is just a layer below. Over the last 12 months I've been using AI in production apps which has not only been fun, but has also significantly increased interest in my profile 😉. I won't call these tips or tricks. There aren't many standards when it comes to using these tools so I'll just share how I'm working with them: 1. 𝗦𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗺𝗮 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: LLMs can return the kind of structured data we expect in software development if you provide a schema. OpenAI supports this OOTB with Zod. 2. 𝗧𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗜 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲𝘀: A small tweak to a prompt can break things fast. Using an LLM-as-a-judge in a unit test for a function that relies on an AI response has alerted me to breaking changes. I run these tests daily or before deploying since they are not free. 3. 𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴: OpenAI caches prompts when the prefixes are the same. Keeping dynamic content at the end of a prompt saves time and a little bit of money. 4. 𝗦𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘆: I'm done writing complicated parsing logic. I throw all the HTML from a scraping job to an LLM and it gives me a structured response. There's so much more I'm exploring and experimenting with at work and at home including RAG, fine-tuning and agents. It's a fun time to be a software developer. I'll be going deeper into all these methods with examples in Typescript this weekend: https://lnkd.in/g_DTazAE	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	43,001	42,986	55	20	0	0	0.001744	null	2025-07-18 07:54:19	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7351987694899527681
urn:li:activity:7351611694021816321	Nothing against LeetCode, it's just way more likely that you're going to get asked one of these questions in your next technical interview. Because I like you - in the most platonic way possible - I've included some videos and coding exercises so you can teach yourself promises, closure and binary trees using JS. Enjoy.	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	3,929	3,269	26	7	0	0	0.008399	null	2025-07-17 07:00:14	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7351611694021816321
urn:li:activity:7351366478740324353	Should I lie on my resume to get the job? Is it worth getting a degree from WGU? Will JavaScript make me go bald? These are all real questions I got from listeners (or maybe trolls) of the Develop Yourself Podcast. Got a question you want me to answer? Drop it here: https://lnkd.in/gYzCQ2UK Leave your name if you want a shout out on the show!	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	1,550	1,547	12	3	0	0	0.009677	null	2025-07-16 14:45:50	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7351366478740324353
urn:li:activity:7350939997480382465	Junior developers are inherently risky (in every industry, not just tech btw). "𝘉𝘶𝘵... 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘢 𝘫𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘳", you say. Yeah, I get it, just bear with me here. The word "junior" is so subjective that it's nearly meaningless. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘁 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗯𝗼𝗶𝗹𝘀 𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝘀𝗼 𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗼𝘄𝗻. • They need significant hand-holding for months on the job. • They will take on the easy stuff and maybe break some things. • They won't contribute much. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴: nearly every developer will be "junior" when they first join a company unless they are very senior. You don't actually need to a be a mid level developer to be a safe hire. You just need to avoid the tell-tale signs that you are, in fact, a n00b. Quite simply, stop down-playing yourself. • 𝗥𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗷𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗿, 𝗮𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 from your resume and LinkedIn. • DON'T talk about "the project from your school or bootcamp" • 𝗗𝗢 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗽𝗽 𝗼𝗿 𝘄𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗿𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 - yes, you need to have a project to talk about. • 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 and speak to the benefits of features you created. • Instead of "created a full stack app with [a laundry list of tech]" try "𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘑𝘚 𝘢𝘱𝘱 𝘵𝘰 𝘛𝘺𝘱𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘺".	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	18,852	18,847	26	2	1	0	0.001538	null	2025-07-15 10:31:09	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7350939997480382465
urn:li:activity:7350571678097170432	“𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘥𝘦 𝘪𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵. 𝘚𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘪𝘴.” Matt Watson sold a company for $150 million and didn’t do it by building fancy tech. He did it by solving painful problems in a boring industry. I had the pleasure of speaking with him and we talked about: • Why most dev-led startups fail • How AI is exposing average engineers • What it really means to be “product-minded” and why that matters even more in 2025 If you're a developer who wants to build things that actually matter, give Matt a listen. https://lnkd.in/gk8b2c78	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	1,105	1,103	10	2	1	0	0.011765	null	2025-07-14 10:07:35	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7350571678097170432
urn:li:activity:7349833950552342529	Me to Cursor: This code is too slow. 🤖 "𝘠𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘣𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵! 𝘓𝘦𝘵 𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘹 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘣𝘺 𝘢𝘥𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘴𝘺𝘯𝘤 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴." No... not like that you fool. Just make these processes non-blocking in the function. They can be executed in parallel. 🤖 "𝘈𝘩𝘩 - 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵, 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘳. 𝘞𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘢𝘪𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭!" Well, not quite. This is in a server-less environment and if we don't await the promises then the function might not complete. 🤖 "𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩! 𝘐'𝘭𝘭 𝘧𝘪𝘹 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸" At what point do you just turn off Cursor or Claude or [insert new tool] and finish their work for them?	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	33,254	33,249	175	50	4	0	0.006886	null	2025-07-12 09:16:07	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7349833950552342529
urn:li:activity:7349825892619075585	Before learning to code, I was addicted to drugs and alcohol, had an awful stutter and was bald. I'm still bald. But I'm sober and stutter free for 11 years! The tips I'm going to share won't keep you from losing your hair, but they may very well keep you from losing your career.	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	11,638	3,919	72	6	0	0	0.006702	null	2025-07-12 08:44:05	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7349825892619075585
urn:li:activity:7349549453541859328	Worst way to spend your weekend? Completing a take home coding project that was supposed to take 4 hours but really takes 2 full days. If you MUST participate in these kinds of interviews there are 2 ways you can stand out: - Write documentation - Write some unit tests You don’t know how to write unit tests? Let’s fix that. https://lnkd.in/gGrYTrfj	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	3,720	3,719	21	2	0	0	0.006183	null	2025-07-11 14:25:37	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7349549453541859328
urn:li:activity:7349139784717475841	I’ve spoken with over 500 developers in the last 12 months. I won’t be doing any more 15 minute chats in the foreseeable future. But the truth is, most beginners ask the same 3 questions: 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩’𝙨 𝙬𝙧𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙢𝙮 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙪𝙢𝙚? 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙄 𝙗𝙪𝙞𝙡𝙙 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙖 𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙚 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙟𝙚𝙘𝙩? 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙙𝙤 𝙄 𝙜𝙚𝙩 𝙝𝙞𝙧𝙚𝙙? So I want to answer them for free: 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗯𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀. Remove any mention of junior or aspiring and use this framework: did [x] using [y] which led to [z]. Think from the recruiter’s perspective. Do you sound like a risk to hire? Make yourself less risky and don’t tell them everything. Why do they need to know your last job was at a french fry shop? Lead with your developer experience or technical projects. 𝗦𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗻𝗲𝘄 or keep your skills sharp if you’re not working. Really, they should be enjoyable. They’re an alternative to grinding away at toy problems and expose you to challenges which you can give yourself. Want to understand how to implement role-based authentication or get your hands dirty with serverless? Build it out. Also follow John Crickett, he has a ton of cool projects to make. Now here’s the hard part and the truth no one wants to hear: 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗴𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝘂𝗰𝗸. If there is one trait that I see in successful grads, it is their consistency. They just didn’t stop. They outlasted their fears, insecurities and the fear mongers. They changed what didn’t work and picked a strategy. Mass apply or network or do both. Then don’t stop. PS. Even though I'm not answering questions via phone - you can drop your burning coding questions here: https://lnkd.in/gYzCQ2UK and I'll shout you out!	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	71,334	71,305	60	15	2	0	0.001079	null	2025-07-10 11:17:45	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7349139784717475841
urn:li:activity:7348459688113381376	Most developers would benefit more from reading “𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘞𝘪𝘯 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘗𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦” than “𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸”. Here's the thing: Technical skills can get your foot in the door. Soft skills open up the rest of the house. This is one of the many reasons we spend so much time with mentees at Parsity to develop skills like technical communication and how to "sell" themselves. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝗮 𝗯𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗷𝗼𝗯 𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵? Knowing how to navigate human dynamics, to empathize and connect, to articulate your thoughts and influence others are the tools that build careers better than learning another yet another programming language. Also - read The Phoenix Project if you’re looking for a novel that will teach you a ton about building software.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	3,973	3,972	37	11	0	0	0.012082	null	2025-07-08 14:15:17	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7348459688113381376
urn:li:activity:7347993470776524800	Recently, I gave some bad advice to a person who was interested in pursuing data science. “𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘗𝘩𝘋 𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳’𝘴 𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵,” I told him. To be clear, I am 𝘯𝘰𝘵 a data scientist, but I’ve worked with plenty over the years. They are magical people. Half statistician / half software engineer. Most of the ones I’ve met have advanced degrees, but then, so do many software engineers. That didn’t stop me or the majority of people at Parsity from pursuing a career in software or getting hired. Last week, I got to interview Ryan Varley, a data scientist with years of experience leading engineering teams and building complex systems in the real world. He was pretty blunt: “𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘢 𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵. 𝘚𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘐’𝘷𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘵, 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘭𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬.” That stuck with me. In this episode of 𝘋𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧, we dig into what data engineers and data scientists actually do, how AI is (and 𝘪𝘴𝘯’𝘵) changing their work, and how to break into the field even if you didn’t go to grad school. https://lnkd.in/g6Nk-bnA	ARTICLE	Brian	Jenney	2,133	2,132	18	7	0	0	0.011721	null	2025-07-07 07:22:42	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7347993470776524800
urn:li:activity:7347662093027823616	A student at Parsity just got their first rejection after an interview. That sucks. I won't try and sugar-coat it. Interviews are a game and you simply cannot win them all. We analyze, we learn, we cry (just a little) and then we move on. I bombed a mock interview last year that had the lowest stakes possible. I mean, it was literally a mock interview. My heart raced. I drank too much coffee before the meeting. I didn’t have water nearby. I froze up. Don’t wait until the real game starts to get practice. There is simply no substitute for being j̶u̶d̶g̶e̶d̶ interviewed by another human. If you’re a little shy try this: 1. Open up Leetcode or whatever tool you’re using to study problems (also... stop with the LeetCode already for the love of Bob) 2. Set the timer on your phone for 30 - 45 mins 3. Open up a video recording tool and explain your thought process and code as you type 4. Watch it later and cringe a bit 5. Repeat until you cringe less	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	5,528	5,524	42	7	1	0	0.009045	null	2025-07-06 09:25:55	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7347662093027823616
urn:li:activity:7346928695434977281	You’re not in school anymore. No one is chasing you. You have to own your learning process or you will get eaten alive. You need to: • Filter resources instead of binging every tutorial • Actually 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 the documentation • Ask better questions, especially when stuck • Practice spaced repetition and revisit concepts over time • Write down what you don’t understand, not just what you do If you want a method, here’s a good one: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗲𝘆𝗻𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗶𝗾𝘂𝗲 1. Pick a topic (e.g. closures, promises, the call stack) 2. Try to explain it in simple terms 3. Identify what you can’t explain 4. Go back, learn it again, then re-explain it At Parsity we take it a step further and have students do something they hate: explain these concepts over video 😅. This is the secret sauce: doing uncomfortable stuff that forces your growth.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	3,222	3,222	34	5	0	0	0.012104	null	2025-07-04 08:51:40	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7346928695434977281
urn:li:activity:7346539547339497473	A 4 step guide to creating a side project when you don't know what the f*ck to build: 𝟭. 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀. Check out sites like Acquire and WellFound to see what small startups and 1 person businesses are building for inspiration. 𝟮. 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗮 𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲. 𝗔𝗱𝗱 𝗮 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗸. Check out the feature requests or reviews for an app you’re using. What do people want? Maybe build that. 𝟯. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝗣𝗜 on rapidAPI or use OpenAI (everyone’s doing it 😎) and think what you can build around it. For example, can you scrape a user’s top posts as a way to train GPT on their voice and content? 𝟰. 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀. Is there something at work or in your personal life that you do manually that could be automated? Spreadsheets are an easy target. Fix it for yourself and others. You also don’t need to solve anything. A great side project really only has 1 metric for success: you learned something.	TEXT	Brian	Jenney	1,866	1,866	24	5	1	0	0.016077	null	2025-07-03 07:05:20	https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7346539547339497473

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