Career Followup: Interview with Blake Hearn

Blake Hearn was one of our earliest team members who joined AFFORDABLE before we were well organized and had many collaborations. He was largely self-motivated in his computer science training. He was interested in the technology stack and tools we were working with as we started architecting the platform and worked hard to help implement many of the features that are being expanded upon today. He is currently found a great job utilizing his knowledge of Amazon Web Services that he had learned with our team. We wanted to follow-up and briefly talk about things he did with our team. Thanks again to Blake for all his support and wish him continued success in his career.

What were your professional interests before joining AFFORDABLE?

I joined to learn more coding skills and gain some experience from more experienced developers.

Talk about your background in computer science prior to joining AFFORDABLE?

I Had taken intro to programming classes in high school and college (background was probably at a college freshman level). Had a basic understanding of C, Java, and problem-solving.

What were you involved in with AFFORDABLE?

I Helped develop and test C++ API calls for Stripe and AWS S3 Helped develop a web form with JavaScript and 1Query Created a Python script using Selenium to automate web form testing Developed a single-page React application for website visitors to signup for monthly newsletters using AWS (API Gateway, Lambda, DynamoDB, Route.) Created a NodeJS program to query employee information and categorize it for email-forwarding using AWS (Lambda, DynamoDB).

What did you learn from your time with AFFORDABLE?

Tools/Languages learned: C++, Restful APIs, Regex, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, 1Query, React, Node., Python, MySQL, and AWS Pair-programming and software best practices

What would you recommend for other individuals that were in your position looking for jobs in computer science?

I would recommend attending meetups/job fairs and talking to people is 1000x more effective than applying to jobs online Always be willing to learn – especially from more-experienced engineers Become interested in and use cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure, etc.) Practice with LeetCode, Geeks for Geeks, etc.

Any other details you would like to share?

Do what you enjoy!

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