🎙 About the episode

Meet Jen-Li Lim 🇲🇾! Jen is a writer-turned-developer who has recently landed her first developer job! Although she had been tech-adjacent in the past (before becoming a full-stack developer, she worked in content marketing) and had always been interested in coding, it wasn't until the lockdowns that Jen started learning to code. She was doing it alongside a full-time job and quickly realized that she shouldn't compare herself to other learners since everybody has different circumstances.

Jen started learning to code as a hobby. But after a couple of years and only about 400 hours of studying later, Jen realized - hey, this could also be an exciting career! She now works at a company offering free, lightweight vector animations for your website and tools to create, edit, and embed them. In this episode, you'll learn about Jen's struggles with coding and how she overcame them. She'll share invaluable insights on selecting portfolio projects, navigating roadmaps, and why learning to code is akin to learning to swim. Get ready to be inspired!

🔗 Connect with Jen-Li

⏰ Timestamps

How Jen got interested in tech back in the days of Neopets but never pursued it (01:40)
Do you need to be good at math to become a developer (02:29)
How Jen became a writer and worked in content marketing (03:32)
Are there any similarities between content marketing and code? (04:21)
What was it about coding that drew Jen in? (05:57)
The hard part of learning web development is that there's no single path, and that's why Jen ultimately learned on Scrimba (07:55)
How Jen structured her studying (08:50)
Community break with Jan The Producer (10:42)
How Jen logged her studying time and learned to code in only 400 hours! (12:48)
Why you should learn to code at your own pace (13:39)
How to get project ideas (15:32)
Did Jen plan to switch careers? (18:18)
Changing careers challenges your identity (19:38)
Jen changed careers by means of an internal transfer. How's that different from applying for a job from the outside? (21:01)
How Jen felt about the competition, and what was her advantage (22:23)
Shortcuts vs. strategies (23:09)
What is LottieFiles? (24:15)
How Jen found out she was getting her first dev job (25:52)
What Jen wishes she knew when she was starting to learn to code (26:51)

🧰 Resources Mentioned

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Creators & Guests

Host

Alex Booker

Host of The Scrimba Podcast

Producer

Jan Gregory Arsenovic

Producer of the Scrimba Podcast

What is The Scrimba Podcast?

Learn from inspiring developers about how they found meaningful and fulfilling work that that also pays them well. On The Scrimba Podcast, you'll hear motivational advice and job-hunting strategies from developers who've been exactly where you are now. We talk to developers about their challenges, learnings, and switching industries in the hopes of inspiring YOU. This is the podcast that provides the inspiration, tools, and roadmaps to move from where you are to work that matters to you and uniquely fits your strengths and talents.

Jen-Li Lim (00:00):
Once I made the switch, I was like, "Why did I limit who I thought I was to this identity?" Once I learned how to code, I felt like, "Oh, I did it. What else can I do that I have been previously limiting myself from?"

Alex Booker (00:14):
Hello and welcome to The Scrimba Podcast. On this weekly show, I interview developers about how to learn to code and get your first job in tech. You might be wondering how many hours does it take to learn to code? Well, according to my guest, Jen, the answer is somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 hours. Yes, that's right. Jen painstakingly logged her hours learning to code, to give you a better sense of how long it could take. In this episode, we're going to take a closer look at Jen's study schedule, hear her top tips, and learn her story transitioning from a content writer and marketer to a full stack developer.

(00:54):
After working as a writer for the better parts of a decade, making this transition at 30 wasn't easy. And Jen did it alongside a full-time job, by the way. But now, Jen gets to solve interesting problems with support from her team. It all seems worth it. I had a great time chatting with Jen. It was a really lovely and insightful conversation that I just know you're going to get value from. If you do enjoy the episode, as I'm sure you will, please consider sharing it on social media, be that Twitter, LinkedIn, or even just DM'ing a friend. Word of mouth is really the best way to support a podcast that you like. So, a big thank you in advance. With that out of the way, you are listening to The Scrimba Podcast. Let's get into it.

Jen-Li Lim (01:40):
As a kid, I was always really interested in tech. I remember it was the '90s and there were a lot of really colorful websites, and I don't know if you're familiar with the site Neopets?

Alex Booker (01:51):
I've definitely heard of it. Yeah.

Jen-Li Lim (01:53):
Yeah, it was really big when I was growing up. And, they would let you customize your webpages with HTML and CSS. And, that was the first bit of HTML I wrote. And growing up, I was always interested in it, but I never really felt like I was smart enough to pick it up as a career. So it was really a later in life thing.

Alex Booker (02:15):
How come you didn't feel like you were smart enough?

Jen-Li Lim (02:17):
I think, I've never really excelled in "hard science" subjects, like maths and physics. So I felt like maybe I wouldn't do well with coding either.

Alex Booker (02:29):
That's the thing, isn't it? Coding is so often associated with maths and physics, first and foremost. And yet, once you actually start learning to code, I mean, you tell me, Jen, do you end up needing any maths or physics?

Jen-Li Lim (02:42):
I do deal with a bit of math. Well, that's only because I do a bit of programming related to computer graphics. But, for general web development, yeah, it's almost no math.

Alex Booker (02:52):
Yeah, so I guess that's geometry and stuff mainly.

Jen-Li Lim (02:55):
Yeah, trigonometry. Yeah, and lots of terms that I don't remember.

Alex Booker (03:00):
I didn't do too good at maths when I was growing up either. I was lucky, I suppose, to stumble into coding, and not get the chance to talk myself out of it maybe. But looking back, yeah, I wish I knew a bit more about those subjects, because they can be a little bit handy when building front-end applications, and custom graphics, and things. But by and large, no, you don't need to be an expert at those STEM type subjects to get started. So, you didn't go straight into coding. What did you start off by doing? What did you study at school and what did you do for work originally?

Jen-Li Lim (03:32):
I did a bachelor of arts in university. I majored in writing. So I really wanted to write. And, I did that for up until last year. It's almost a decade now.

Alex Booker (03:40):
Writing novels and stuff?

Jen-Li Lim (03:42):
Oh, no. I started out being an educational writer for children. So, I would write English lessons and stories for really young children. I did that for a few years. And then, went into content marketing for another few years.

Alex Booker (03:57):
Oh, I see. Okay. For the uninitiated, what is content marketing exactly?

Jen-Li Lim (04:02):
When you Google anything and an article comes up, and sometimes it's a good article, it tells you information, and then you realize it's written by a company, and you click on those companies products, so that's basically content marketing. You're writing information that you hope people will stumble upon through Google, and through that, sell your company's products.

Alex Booker (04:21):
Yes, absolutely. It's a really interesting subject to me, because one thing I was working on at Scrimba is the official Scrimba blog, which people can check out and read if they're interested. It's a really exciting and interesting role. Yeah, there are self-served, self-interested ways of going about it. But oftentimes, the best content in content marketing is hosts that educate the reader, and in turn, position the product. That's what you were trying to do at Scrimba at least. But it's funny then, because I started my career as a developer, and I transitioned into content marketing. But you on the other hand, you started your career as a content marketer and you've recently succeeded at transitioning and getting your first job as a developer, which is just incredible. I'm curious, what motivated you to make that change from content marketer to developer?

Jen-Li Lim (05:12):
I think, just really the motivation to create cool stuff, and have people use it. I don't know whether you feel the same, but I feel like, content marketing and coding is actually quite similar, in the sense that, in both, you're trying to create something that you hope is useful for other people.

Alex Booker (05:29):
Yeah, I agree with that actually.

Jen-Li Lim (05:31):
And, you're constantly thinking about how to present your piece of writing, or your piece of code to be more easily understood by someone else.

Alex Booker (05:38):
I mean, mostly you're talking to humans probably, I assume, when you're writing blog posts. When you're coding, you're writing for a machine. Yes. But also, the developer that's going to read and understand your code. So it is a form of communication as well. I really like that comparison. What was it about coding that drew you in specifically?

Jen-Li Lim (05:57):
There was a period of time a few years ago, where I would come across creative coding projects built by other people. And, I think they were using libraries like Three.js or p5.js, and I thought the stuff that they were making was so cool. I felt like, "Yeah, I want to learn how to do that too."

Alex Booker (06:14):
P5.js, that is a-

Jen-Li Lim (06:17):
I don't know whether I'm describing it properly. But, to my knowledge, it's a creative coding library. So it helps you create graphics on a canvas, and you can do a lot of cool interactive stuff with it. I've seen people create simple games with p5.js.

Alex Booker (06:32):
... I suppose then front-end development seemed quite attractive to you compared to back-end development?

Jen-Li Lim (06:38):
Yeah. For me, I think the motivation was to create an app, just any app. And, when I Googled how to create an app, I found a lot more resources on the front-end than I did the back-end. And, when I did come across back-end resources, they seemed really complex. So, that was why I started with the front-end.

Alex Booker (06:57):
Did it look approachable to you at that point, or was it more intimidating?

Jen-Li Lim (07:02):
At that point, it was still pretty intimidating. There's this really popular front-end roadmap, roadmap.sh. I think that's the URL.

Alex Booker (07:10):
Yeah. Yeah, we can link it in the show notes.

Jen-Li Lim (07:12):
Yeah. So it has a really good roadmap of what you have to learn. But, as a complete new developer, you look at that and you think, "Whoa, there's so much to learn to get a website up." That was quite intimidating at first.

Alex Booker (07:24):
I suppose when you pick a specialization like front-end development, that's a big hurdle. It's great that you slotted into front-end dev. And, I agree, it's a great place to start. The next question tends to be, what do I learn? And it's great that you got that from the roadmap as well. And then, after that you have to figure out what learning resources are going to work best for you. Some people consider a bootcamp, for example, other people like books. How did you approach finding something to study in? Where did you end up learning?

Jen-Li Lim (07:55):
The hard part about learning web development is that there's no single path, and everyone's offering a different path on how to create an app or something. So, I would try to start by searching for courses, because usually, they start with what you need to know in sequence. So yeah, that's why the Scrimba front-end path was very useful, because data stood out everything. I didn't have to do any mental work to try to figure out what was coming next.

Alex Booker (08:23):
That's really good to hear, because that's exactly the objective. It's that roadmap built in with hopefully a nice learning experience that's easy to understand. And yeah, you get that instant feedback loop as well with Scrimba and front-end development. That can be really motivating.

Jen-Li Lim (08:39):
Yeah. There was so many times where I wanted to figure out how something works, so I would delete, and then press play, and then delete, and press play, and also useful to have that appear in some [inaudible 00:08:51].

Alex Booker (08:50):
Jen, how did you structure your studying? Did you do it while working full-time?

Jen-Li Lim (08:55):
Yeah. I would try to finish off work, and then try to put in half an hour to an hour of Scrimba. This was during the pandemic lockdowns in my country. We didn't really have anything to do. You couldn't go out. And it was easier to spend that time on Scrimba. And also, I think, having a set ritual of doing something every day really helped keep me sane during the pandemic.

Alex Booker (09:21):
That was a really interesting time in general. I think people related to it in different ways. I love these stories of people using that time to better themselves, and carve out a new opportunity. Do you think you would've made this change if not for that time during the pandemic?

Jen-Li Lim (09:36):
Oh, man. I don't know if I would've had the self-discipline and the time. And, I really don't know. If I had been using other learning resources, would I still have made this change? But, I do feel pretty drawn to learning how to code. So I hope that I would've still made that change without the pandemic.

Alex Booker (09:52):
Well, the lockdowns ended a couple of years ago now, really? Right?

Jen-Li Lim (09:55):
Yeah. I think it was mostly 2021, we had lockdowns.

Alex Booker (10:00):
Yeah, it's 2023 now. So, a couple of years, and you've stuck at it all this time. So, was it much challenging then to stick at the routine once everything went back to normal?

Jen-Li Lim (10:11):
Yeah, it actually was. I think that's why I had such a big gap between finishing the course and actually transitioning careers. Now there are more things to do. You can go out. There are people to meet. I was also having periods of going to the office physically. And, I think that extra commute was just a bit more tiring.

Alex Booker (10:30):
Yeah, it definitely eats into your study time, doesn't it?

Jen-Li Lim (10:33):
Yeah.

Alex Booker (10:33):
Did you code on the weekends and stuff as well?

Jen-Li Lim (10:35):
Yeah, I tried to. I think I would try to do at least two hours on the weekends.

Jan Arsenovic (10:42):
Coming up, what did it feel like to compete with more experienced developers?

Jen-Li Lim (10:47):
The hiring manager did acknowledge that I wasn't experienced.

Jan Arsenovic (10:51):
Alex and Jen will be back in just a minute. But before that, let's take a look at your social media posts about the podcast with me, Jan the producer. On Twitter, Emmett Pennington says, "Took a break from the Scrimba front-end path. But, listened to The Scrimba podcast with Kyle Tan. Alex mentioned html.new. Check it out. And Kyle, his insight on imposter syndrome, use of open source design, and why you always need to be learning. A motivating interview. Alex Rocks." Well, on behalf of Alex, thank you, Emmett. Andrea, @AndreaArethe says, "I've been following The Scrimba Podcast for the past year. Great motivational content." Thank you.

(11:33):
And Anthony Nanfido says, "Wow. The episode of The Scrimba Podcast with Jess Gilbert felt like it was made for me, and not just because I got a shout-out in it. As a teacher working toward becoming a developer, hearing about Jess's experience as a teacher and her desire to get out felt like preaching to the choir. I also loved how she commented on the fact that teaching can often be a very isolating career with little or no collaboration with colleagues. And I'm very happy to hear she found the opposite in her new career as a dev. That's really encouraging. It's really gratifying to hear about her journey and how she found the company that values her experience and skills as a teacher, but also her skills as a developer. Go, Jess."

(12:16):
If you have missed the episode with Jess, I will link it in the show notes. And, if you'd a shout-out on the show, just join the conversation on Twitter or on LinkedIn, as long as your post contains the words Scrimba Podcast and the search functions work properly, we will find it. If you're feeling really supportive, you can also consider leaving us a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts, or whatever may be your podcast app of choice. And now, we're back to the interview with Jen.

Alex Booker (12:48):
So, it sounds like you were coding a little bit during the week where you could, and then spending a couple of hours coding on the weekend as well. And, you did this process over the course of about two or three years. Is that roughly the timeline?

Jen-Li Lim (13:01):
Yeah, I think so. I think there were a few pauses in between, because I had changed to a different job. I think, in total, because I tracked it, I think it was 400 hours completing the Scrimba course, and completing other courses, and building projects. So, 400 hours was about the time from the time I started learning to the time that I transitioned.

Alex Booker (13:23):
Oh my gosh. I'm so glad you logged that to give us an idea of how long it took. Did you just have a Google spreadsheet or something? You just added all your hours as you were studying?

Jen-Li Lim (13:33):
I track my sessions with Toggle. So, it helps creates charts for you.

Alex Booker (13:39):
Oh, that is such a good idea. I hope someone else gets the idea to do that after listening. So yeah, that's really interesting, because you put in the hours. But it sounds like you did it at a pace which worked for you and what else was going on in your life, like changing jobs. How do you feel about the timeline looking back? Because, I mean, sometimes you hear about people learning to code and changing jobs in just a few months. Were you aware of those stories? Did they mean anything to you? Or were you quite content in the way that you were doing things? Clearly, it paid off in the end, right? So nobody could speak poorly of it at all.

Jen-Li Lim (14:12):
Yeah. So, I used to read all these stories. And I used to read the Scrimba blog as well to see how other people were transitioning and how long it took them. And, I did feel a bit demotivated that some people were taking just a few months to transition. But, I figured that a lot of them, maybe some people are not working full-time jobs, and it took a bit of confident that... And I hope this isn't coming off as me putting down other people.

Alex Booker (14:40):
No, not at all. Their circumstances were different, right?

Jen-Li Lim (14:42):
Yeah. I also read... Have you heard of Steph Smith?

Alex Booker (14:46):
Yes. You may be about to reference an article that goes, "To be great, you just need to be good consistently."

Jen-Li Lim (14:55):
Oh, I've read that one and I really liked it. But there was an article where she had talked about her own coding journey. And, she had a super detailed spreadsheet of every day, did she make progress? She also gave an estimate of how long it took her. And, I would look at that article a lot and just use that as a benchmark. And, I think her benchmark was 300 hours to learn basic web development. And, I used that as a benchmark. So as long as I had put my hours in, it didn't matter if I was going at it really slow.

Alex Booker (15:32):
Yeah, everybody's paths a little bit different, right? So, it's not just the timeline that's uncertain, but the specifics aligning by that benchmark I think is a really good idea. Did you build any projects to help you learn to code?

Jen-Li Lim (15:45):
Yeah. I did few of the Scrimba projects. I also worked on a few challenges on a site called Frontend Mentors. And, I think to tie everything I knew, I also worked on very simple book search app. I just wanted to learn how to get a website up online and work with the database.

Alex Booker (16:09):
Oh, is this One More Page?

Jen-Li Lim (16:11):
Yeah, onemorepage.co.

Alex Booker (16:13):
We'll link it in the show notes. And, this is a really cool beginner level up. I mean, I say, beginner level, because it has a very realistic scope. Some people want to build a really ambitious, huge app with a login system, and connecting it to a payment gateway, and all these things, which are great. It's such a big project, it's hard to really complete it, especially while you're new. But what you've produced is something that's just incredibly tidy, and smooth, and genuinely pretty useful, and fun. I love this. So, you pick a book, you choose your reading speed, and there's even an option to test your reading speed to give you an idea, 70 words per minute, 100 words per minute, whatever. And then you also enter your daily reading time with a little slider component, and it tells you how long it'll take you to read the book. This is so clever. Where did you get the idea and how did you build it?

Jen-Li Lim (17:07):
I was also inspired by Steph Smith. She had an app. I think it was called begreat.me. You put in how much time you spend on certain activities, and then it would tell you, "Oh, you you're spending this many hours on things that are distracting. Now, if you spend 10% of that time on other things, you could read five books in a year." Or something. Yeah. So, it was just a play on that really.

Alex Booker (17:33):
I think it's a great idea to get inspiration from someone or rift on their idea. What advice would you give to someone who's wanting to build a project but struggling to come up with an idea?

Jen-Li Lim (17:43):
If there's anything that you are curious about, or any pain points that you experience, or see other people experiencing, that could be a good starting point.

Alex Booker (17:51):
Yes, definitely. Solving a real problem. And how did you build this? Was it with React, I would guess, just based on the fact you did Scrimba?

Jen-Li Lim (18:00):
Yeah, it was with Next.js, which is a React framework. Yeah, and Supabase for the database.

Alex Booker (18:05):
Oh, very nice. And what about the back-end? We don't teach back-end at Scrimba. So, how did you navigate that?

Jen-Li Lim (18:11):
I took a course on Frontend Masters. They had a full stack next year's course.

Alex Booker (18:18):
Okay. So you put in your 400 hours, you've been drawing inspiration from the wonderful Steph Smith. I really like her stuff as well, by the way. Funnily enough, she is also a content creator basically, and has her own podcast and stuff now. So there must be some link between this content creation and coding thing clearly. But yeah, I imagine the end goal for you was to get a job as a developer, rather than do it as a hobby say. How did you plan to get your first job? Did you have a plan?

Jen-Li Lim (18:47):
No. It's funny that you mentioned that it could have been my end goal. But yeah, in the beginning it really wasn't. I think I just found coding very interesting. And I just wanted to make cool stuff. But as time went on, and I joined my current company, and they were just so enthusiastic about the stuff that they were building. And, I found that enthusiasm really infectious. So, I was thinking about it for a few months, and thought that maybe I would enjoy being a developer as well. So, yeah, no plan. When my company had an opening for a developer, I just reached out.

Alex Booker (19:20):
Oh, that is brilliant. I love that. So, you essentially made an internal transfer.

Jen-Li Lim (19:25):
Yeah.

Alex Booker (19:26):
Did you find it hard to leave writing behind? Because, I suppose you'd been doing it for so long, that's how you earned your living. It becomes a part of your identity, I feel like, when you've been doing something for so long.

Jen-Li Lim (19:38):
Yeah. It was. I don't know if you feel the same way about switching to content marketing from being a developer. But, I felt like it really challenged my self-identity, because I had identified as someone who wrote for a living for so long. But I also felt that, once I made the switch, I was like, "Why did I limit who I thought I was to this identity?" Once I learned how to code, I felt like, "Oh, I did it. I learned how to code. What else can I do that I have been previously limiting myself from?"

Alex Booker (20:10):
It's just unreal, isn't it? What that experience unlocks. This wasn't even something you originally felt you could do. Not only did you push through and probably there were a lot of things you thought you couldn't do, at first, whether that's [inaudible 00:20:24] at back-end, or deploy a whole website like you did with your project, One More Page. But every time you do something you didn't think you could do, it just gives you this confidence for you can do it again. And yeah, now you've got a job, it goes beyond just the coding part, right? Your confidence to solve coding problems increases, sure. But once you actually get that external validation that someone else is going to hire you, and pay you, basically, I hope you get paid to write code, then it is just so empowering, isn't it?

Jen-Li Lim (20:54):
Yeah. I mean, all that growth that I feel like I have experienced over past year. And now, I'm even doing a podcast, which I had never thought I would do.

Alex Booker (21:01):
Yes. And we're so happy to have you on, Jen. I really appreciate you sharing your story. Maybe tell us a bit more about this internal transfer. How does one navigate something like that? Ordinarily you would apply, and they don't really know you, so you go through quite a strict interview process. I'm thinking maybe if you change internally, they at least know your soft skills, and things like that, and they have some sense of your experience. But did they want you to prove your coding knowledge at all before making that transfer?

Jen-Li Lim (21:30):
Yeah. I don't feel like I've made the transition to tech on easy mode, because I had already had a way in this company. Although, yeah, they did want to assess my knowledge. We had a very casual interview, where the hiring manager was trying to figure out how much experience I had, which was not a lot. And, after that, he had wanted me to develop a proof of concept for a feature they were working for. I'm not sure if I can share a lot about it, because it's not a feature that's released yet. But, if it would be useful, it was a proof of concept where I had to figure out how to implement a feature, what technologies I would use, the process that would entail, pros and cons of different approaches.

Alex Booker (22:18):
Did the company only advertise this job internally, or were there external people applying as well?

Jen-Li Lim (22:25):
Yeah, it was advertised externally.

Alex Booker (22:27):
Oh, okay. How did you feel about the competition, shall we say?

Jen-Li Lim (22:33):
Yeah, I was not confident at all, because I had no professional experience. And, I know that they typically look for developers with a bit of experience. So no, I was not expecting to get the job, to be honest.

Alex Booker (22:46):
What do you think tipped things in your favor then?

Jen-Li Lim (22:50):
The hiring manager did acknowledge that I wasn't experienced, but he did like that I had shown initiative, and this was something that I learned on my free time. So I think that went a long way into convincing them that if I got the job that I would do my best to grow into the role.

Alex Booker (23:09):
That's very cool. I mean, if you can make as much progress as you did doing it part-time basically, well dedicating the bulk of your focus to the content marketing role, it's not hard to imagine how great you could be if you were doing it full-time. You said something like it is on an easy mode or something. But, the thing is, why should you take the hardest path? The hardest path is usually to go on LinkedIn and just apply for jobs cold, especially as a junior. It can work. And it does work. But it's certainly an uphill battle, compared to if you can get a little bit creative, right, and maybe leverage your network. Or in your case, make an internal transfer. I think making strategic decisions to smooth the process of becoming a developer isn't easy, it's smart.

Jen-Li Lim (23:54):
I like the spin on it. It wasn't a shortcut, it was the strategic option.

Alex Booker (23:56):
Absolutely. I hear that a lot. I think people are so modest and humble in the way they explain it. And must be clear, it took you a few years as well. You're definitely patient, which I think is a great attribute as well. So, what does the company do exactly? And I'm curious because obviously they do content marketing, but clearly there's a development team as well, which you've now moved to.

Jen-Li Lim (24:15):
The company is called LottieFiles, lottiefiles.com. It's a platform where you can find free Lottie animations.

Alex Booker (24:22):
What is Lottie?

Jen-Li Lim (24:23):
It's a really tiny animation file. So if you're a developer and you want to include animations in your website or mobile app, you can actually copy a code that you can find on the LottieFiles website. You copy that code and you paste it in your website, and you have an animation. So what's cool about it is that you can actually set it up to be interactive, but you could make it play on click, or on scroll, stuff like that.

Alex Booker (24:48):
Oh my gosh, that's so interesting. I didn't even know that existed. So, I guess, on the content marketing team, it's a bit about building awareness about the product. On the development team, I guess, it's less so designing the animations, it's probably more to do with that interactive part you were talking about. Is that fair to say?

Jen-Li Lim (25:06):
Yeah. We have a creation tool that is in private beta at the moment, and that's what my team is working on.

Alex Booker (25:13):
What's the advantages and disadvantages of using LottieFiles compared to using compressed GIF, for example?

Jen-Li Lim (25:21):
So one thing is the file size, and another thing is the interactivity. With Lottie animations, everything is vector based. So, if you want to make quick changes, you could edit it on LottieFiles and change colors or something.

Alex Booker (25:34):
Oh, it's pretty cool. I don't ordinarily ask too many follow-up questions about the company, but obviously, this is something developers could use. So I thought I'd ask you. So yeah, I'm so happy for you. You must have been so excited when you got the job offer. How did they let you know? What were you thinking and how did you feel when the news came through?

Jen-Li Lim (25:52):
So, after I had that interview with the hiring manager, there was a few months of radio silence. So, I thought, "Okay, maybe I didn't get a job." And, I think, someone had brought up that I was joining the team, and that was news to me, because no one had told me yet. Yeah, I was really glad to hear that I had gotten the job. And also, in a project that I was personally very excited about. So, a mix of excitement and anxiety of whether I'll be good enough at a job.

Alex Booker (26:23):
So now, you've completed this journey. I mean, there's always going to be another path to venture, right? And oftentimes, when you get your first junior dev job, you could say, that's when the real learning begins. But, in terms of this massive milestone for which I congratulate you, yeah, this is it. It's awesome. I'm wondering, if you could go back to the beginning of your journey and offer yourself one bit of advice, knowing what you know now, what would that advice be?

Jen-Li Lim (26:51):
At the start of my journey, there were so many times where I was feeling really demotivated about how slowly I was learning things. Or if a concept didn't come easy to me, I would feel like maybe I'm not good enough to learn coding, because I'm not getting it immediately. I think it took me a while to realize that, yeah, it's just part of the learning process, and I suppose, with every new skill you're learning, yeah, they're going to be challenges.

Alex Booker (27:16):
It's interesting. I don't know what the right comparison to draw to this exactly. But, I'm going to go with swimming, because lately I've been learning to swim. And I know by chance, by complete coincidence, and the producer, who'll be editing this episode is also learning to swim. And it's like one of those things where if you've not really learned to breathe underwater, you can panic a little bit. You're like, "Oh no, I'm going to drown." Or, "Oh no, I'm going to suck at this." But then, you learn one technique, right? One stroke, or just one part of your swimming technique, like kicking or something. And it just gives you that confidence that you can do it.

(27:51):
And, at some point, you're learning a more advanced technique, and it's impossible to feel bad because you recognize that you're just a beginner at this advanced technique. And just like how when you were a beginner before, at the basics, you're not anymore. You have the confidence to not be good at something, you stuck at it consistently, and now you can do it. And that same thing will happen with the more advanced swimming technique in this example. But of course, it's the same thing with coding really, isn't it?

Jen-Li Lim (28:19):
Yeah. I like the example that you've brought up, because I think, learning code, you learn this skill, and you're not only learning how to code, you're learning the meta learning skills on how to learn other things, right? That it's applicable to swimming or something.

Alex Booker (28:34):
Yeah, yeah, totally. But tell me, Jen, is coding sink or swim, do you think?

Jen-Li Lim (28:40):
There is always GitHub. So, if you make a mistake, you can always go back.

Alex Booker (28:46):
Yeah. There's nothing permanent about your mistakes. I like that a lot. And you know what, Jen, that's just a wonderful note to end on. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story.

Jen-Li Lim (28:55):
Thanks for having me, Alex.

Jan Arsenovic (28:57):
That was The Scrimba Podcast. Make sure to check out the show notes for the links and resources from this episode, as well as for Alex's Twitter handle, if you want to tweet at him directly. If you made it this far, subscribe. You can find the show wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Jan, I'm the producer. I'm going to the pool tomorrow. And, we will see you next Tuesday.

The Scrimba Podcast