Guest Speaker - Oliver Wiegand, Software Development Engineer, Amazon

The WV Coding Club recently had another guest speaker, Oliver Wiegand, Software Development Engineer at Amazon. Oliver grew up in West Virginia and developed an interest in Robotics and Engineering which became a passion for coding once he got his first laptop computer. Around 5th or 6th grade he learned about coding on his own and became very interested in it. Oliver attended University High School in Morgantown, WV.

Oliver pursued his higher education at West Virginia University and earned his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Computer Engineering.  During college, he applied for and was awarded an internship with Amazon in Seattle, Washington. It turned into a full-time offer after graduating from WVU. Once he joined Amazon, Oliver worked on AWS security in Denver, CO.

From there, Oliver now works for Amazon in the HQ2 location (Arlington, Virginia) and that is the general area where his team is located. Oliver works in the Business to Business (B2B) space, a financial section developing ways to more efficiently get money back to Amazon from businesses. Process, workflow, call, email, phone call - how do you automate this process? Once automated, then you can track metrics to be able to improve the process.

Oliver shared that the last 18 months have been a little different with COVID. Working remotely as part of a team of almost 10 as a Software Development Engineer. It requires good self-discipline to work remotely and code most of the day. He takes breaks (about 15 minutes) after time periods (about an hour) to help him be more productive. Meetings also help to break up the coding sessions.

The team he is on works with a larger team of 30 or so. As you get more senior, you are more involved in how you design versus specific coding tasks. He has worked a lot in Java, one of the main languages that Amazon uses.

Being in the Washington, DC area, he is close enough to be able to come back to West Virginia regularly. Oliver talked about technology areas that are growing in WV like Fairmont and near Keyser, WV. These WV areas definitely have more tech job development.

Advice from Oliver, "Get involved in groups to develop your coding and problem solving skills. Lego League, Robotics competitions help you to learn to solve real world problems that have a goal/objective. Work with a team and find a mentor. Always be curious."

Dan McElroy, President of the WV Coding Club shared, "Another West Virginian with a great technology job, who developed his coding skills here in West Virginia. Even though Oliver works outside of West Virginia, he is close enough to visit regularly and keep connected with his family and friends in his home State. Thank you for being a great example for our students to learn from and see another career path for them to potentially pursue."

Thank you Oliver for your time and insights into your coding career!

Keep Coding!

Guest Speaker - Seth Theeke, Software Development Manager at Amazon

Our WV Coding Club guest speaker at a recent meeting was Seth Theeke, Software Development Manager at Amazon.

Seth is a native of Morgantown, WV. Growing up he got involved in playing soccer and coding was not something he was involved in until college. He was good at math, but didn’t touch coding until he settled on a course of study in college. Seth attended West Virginia University (WVU) and earned a Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering with a Minor in Computer Science

He started his coding career working with SQL queries for reporting needs at WVU. Then Seth earned an internship at Dominion Energy, doing Database administration. After, he had an opportunity for an internship at Leidos in Morgantown.

Seth then got a career start at Leidos as a Junior Software Engineer, then became a Lead Software Engineer.  He shared he was able to travel to Australia to present some of their work. 

He then moved on to Amazon as Software Engineer and now is Software Development Manager for part of Amazon Freight. He has a team of 6-10 software engineers from all over.

Seth currently lives in Nashville, TN where Amazon hopes to hire up to 5,000 Amazon employees.

He continues to stay involved in Soccer and enjoys the area. With Covid currently still impacting operations, Seth can work from home, but goes into the office for his work. Seth works with Product Managers and determines what is feasible within a given timeframe, planning out work into the future. Part of his responsibility is to make sure that projects are moving forward smoothly and provided with support as needed. Seth shared that their division operates in the US and Europe, but Amazon is a worldwide company.

Seth shared that there is still a gender gap in his type of work, and in general throughout the tech industry, but they are working to fill that gap. Amazon's recruiting team does recruiting around the country and world, but he is happy to pass along connections in West Virginia for potential employees.

Seth's advice, "Dive in! Read, get experience outside of traditional education."

Seth recommended some books and will share his list with the WV Coding Club:

Cracking the Coding Interview

The Clean Coder

Any books by Robert “Bob” Martin

Seth also shared that once you’re employed at Amazon, there are many opportunities within Amazon. Staying at Amazon is a win/win for the company and employee. Seth actually did shift from his start at Amazon Fulfillment Technology. His Manager transferred to Amazon Freight and he joined his manager there.

Dan McElroy, President of the WV Coding Club said, "Seth is another West Virginian who has a great career thanks to his coding education that he gained here in West Virginia."

Thank you Seth for taking time to share your story, experiences and advice to our WV Coding Club students.

Guest Speaker - Grant Jones, Software Engineer, Microsoft

Our recent guest speaker was Mr. Grant Jones, Software Engineer at Microsoft, who is from Morgantown, West Virginia. While growing up in Morgantown, Grant got involved in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and Engineering activities during his school years, like the Pumpkin Drop Challenge. The pumpkin drop challenge is an event where students individually or in teams construct a structure or system, using specific materials to protect the pumpkin from breaking when it is dropped from a significant height. These types of experiences fostered Grant's interest in STEM.

Grant worked as a research assistant in a Biometrics Lab at WVU, which led him to his internship at Lakota Software Solutions, Inc., in Fairmont, where he was involved in biometrics centered coding projects with other interns. Grant graduated from West Virginia University with a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering and a minor in Computer Science and Communications Studies in May of 2020. After graduation, Grant joined Lakota Software Solutions, as a Software Engineer. For those who aren't aware, Fairmont and Clarksburg, WV are like the "Silicon Valley for Biometrics". Grant's job was mostly writing and debugging code (primarily in Java) and developing tools/libraries for other coders to use with biometric devices. A lot of the coding involved researching and implementing algorithms for image capture and manipulation on various devices.

Most of Grant’s work involves “back-end” development, or designing and implementing services and databases to host applications, or for applications to use. Essentially the “behind the scenes” work. He also works with the various cloud services like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

Recently, Grant joined Microsoft as a Software Engineer and moved to the Seattle, Washington area. Microsoft has many remote workers; however, his specific job isn't conducive to remote work, as he has to come in and work with the servers/equipment. Grant is part of an eight member team that works on Microsoft Azure, which is Microsoft’s cloud platform. Grant likes collaborating with his team and others to improve “the cloud” and complete big projects together.

Grant picked up many "tools", skills and experience outside of College, but WVU was beneficial in helping him learn about the different roles, fields, and the fundamentals of coding / Computer Science. Also, WVU was very helpful in connecting with potential employers and future colleagues. When Grant interviewed with Microsoft, he understood that his college degree helped him, but they (and other companies) ultimately look for people who are “nerds”, people who are always wanting to learn, and are excited about solving problems with other enthusiastic developers.

Grant's advice to the students, “The fundamentals are so important, really for whatever you do. Build a good foundation and you can learn and understand any programming language or skill. There is more opportunity in West Virginia than people realize. Seek out these opportunities and get involved in activities and projects outside of school to learn more and build on your fundamentals and expand your skillset and knowledge base.” Grant encouraged the students to develop their coding and problem solving skills so they can be prepared for opportunities and even become entrepreneurs to create jobs to bring Coders and others to West Virginia.

Dan McElroy, President of the West Virginia Coding Club, said with conviction, "Grant is another great example of a West Virginian who has pursued opportunities with his coding skills and has charted a path by way of a coding career through his own hard work. Our students are preparing for these types of opportunities that are growing in West Virginia and around the country. Thank you Grant for sharing your experiences and advice with our WV Coding Club students."

The West Virginia Coding Club thanks Grant Jones for being another example of a West Virginian who is Coding as a career.

Keep Coding!

Guest Speaker - Lindsay Kelly, Associate Engineer with Walter P Moore

Our speaker at our most recent WV Coding Club meeting was Lindsay Kelly, Associate Engineer with Walter P Moore. Lindsay is from Charleston, West Virginia, now living in Florida.

Growing up, she attended schools in the Charleston, WV area before going to WVU (West Virginia University) to earn her Bachelors of Science in Civil Engineering and then her Masters of Science in Structural Engineering. During her education she learned basic to intermediate level coding and has made use of that learning in her professional career.

Through her hard work and efforts, she was able to earn a Disney internship, where she was a Structural Engineering Intern at Disney World in Orlando, Florida for one year. Through the internship and her professional career Lindsay has worked on a variety of projects at Disney World. They include rapelling the Tower of Terror for inspections, Water Park projects, and rehab projects throughout all four (4) Disney World Parks. Her work has included inspecting the various structures and providing designs for updates. Other projects she has worked with have included the Floating Mountains from Avatar and Disney’s Galaxy’s Edge - Star Wars at Walt Disney World. A lot of her work, especially on inspections, are done "behind the scenes" working when guests weren’t there overnight and very early in the morning to help keep that Disney "Magic". 

Lindsay shared she has and does work with other theme parks, and other non-theme park projects inside and outside the state of Florida. She has also worked on hotels and airports. She took time to share photos of past projects in various stages of development to give the students an idea of what it takes to make the "Magic" that they see as a finished product.

In Lindsay's work, she uses software for designing structures and features. By using her coding experience she is able to leverage the design software to save time and be more efficient.

Outside of Engineering and Coding, Lindsay's advice to the students is to network with other people. Building relationships with others professionally is very important. Adults/Professionals do want to help young people, so take the time to ask for help/advice.  Lindsay shared that LinkedIn.com is a good resource to help you network. 

Lindsay's parting advice is don’t be afraid to try an internship. That experience can have a great impact on your future career. And be persistent, you won’t reach you career goals overnight.

Dan McElroy, President of the West Virginia Coding Club, explained, "Lindsay helps to show there are many careers that benefit from knowledge and experience in coding. She is another West Virginian doing amazing and magical things. Thank you Lindsay for taking time to share your experiences and insights with our WV Coding Club students."

Thank you Lindsay!

Keep Coding!

Guest Speaker - Dr. Matthew Gonzalez - Cyber Program Director, University of Charleston

Dr. Matthew Gonzalez, CEH, CHFI, PMP, Cyber Program Director, University of Charleston, was our guest speaker at a recent West Virginia Coding Club meeting. He is working remotely in San Antonio, Texas and has been with the University of Charleston for five years, since the Cyber program's inception. 

After high school, he went on to college and completed his Bachelors degree in Information Systems, then earned his Masters degrees in Information Systems / Project Management and Business Administration. He then completed his Ph.D. Dr. Gonzalez worked for various organizations in the private and public sectors, developing his  Information Technology and Cyber Security skills.

The program he leads at the University of Charleston has three programs (two program paths that lead to a third program). At University of Charleston, students can earn an Associates Degree in CyberSecurity, as well as a Bachelors Degree. If you want to pursue further education in this area, there is a Masters Degree program in CyberSecurity (more management/leadership focused). All programs are 100% online. They currently have about 50 students in the Bachelors degree and 40 in the Masters degree programs. The Associates degree launches this Fall.

Dr. Gonzalez shared a video about hacking in an effort of activism - “Hacktivism”. The video provided information about a group called Anonymous. He discussed some of their activities and how they are generally organized.

Also, he shared a video concerning the Colonial Pipeline Malware Hack that recently disrupted the supply of gas from the Gulf Coast to the East Coast of the United States. This was not a DDOS attack (Distributed Denial of Service) for all industry wide service, just a targeted attack on this one company. Dr. Gonzalez spoke about the Malware that was used in the attack as being Ransomeware, which requires money to “unlock” the malware. The group Darkside, (more a like a criminal business and apolitical) was identified as the group who hacked the Pipeline group.

Ransomware, once accessed attempts to encrypt as many files as possible and then allows for a way to pay to receive a key that will decrypt the files. Usually, there is only a certain timeframe to pay or the price will increase, possibly double to motivate people to pay. He also discussed Nation State Actors, entities that act on behalf of a Government; and White Hat, Black Hat and Gray Hat hackers.

There are many careers in Cyber and a high demand for these types of jobs with the demand increasing. Examples of Cyber Security jobs: Cyber Security Expert, Graphic Designer, Social Engineering, Network Security Administrator, Social Media Consultant and Ethical Hacker. Not all careers require coding experience.

Advice from Dr. Gonzalez: Many online training opportunities, but beware of the many scams out there, so make sure they are reputable.

Find a mentor.

Join a Camp (Coding/Tech Boot Camp).

Participate in Competitions.

Thank you, Dr. Matthew Gonzalez, for taking time to share more about Cybersecurity with our West Virginia Coding Club students. 

Keep Coding!

Guest Speaker - Amber Bostic - Lead Software Developer - Advantage Technology

Amber Bostic, Lead Software Developer with Advantage Technology took time to speak with our WV Coding Club students at a recent meeting.

Amber decided after high school to attend DeVry University in Ohio and earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science. At the time, about 180 students started in the program, and there were very few females studying Computer Science. Amber stated that this was before the internet as we know it today and before cell phones.

Amber shared that she believes in learning about a broad range of languages. Her niche is working with backend software. Once you have a lot of the fundamental concepts you mainly have to get the syntax correct. Learning the concepts is the key to having the right tools to solve problems.

If you come across a barrier that you can't seem to overcome after some effort, take time to talk through it with another programmer, which usually results in finding the issue/solution. Today, you can find a lot of information on the internet, but it is important to filter out the “noise”.

Amber shared some key advice to the students. There are lots of resources on the internet. Pick one or two areas you are really interested in and focus on that. If stuck, ask for help, don’t let pride or fear get in the way of learning and solving problems. 

Working with teams and customers (external and internal) is critical and being able to communicate with each other is necessary to complete projects. Amber played sports growing up so she developed those skills of being a part of a team and also leading a team. Amber shared that at Advantage Technology, they have various teams that provide different types of technology services. In those teams, each staff person has different strengths, skills and experience to work together to best help their customers. Advantage Technology is unique in the fact that they have a development department in addition to all their other aspects of services.

Amber has been working remotely due to COVID and mentioned that there are many remote jobs that allow you to live and work in West Virginia. She encouraged the students to seek out those opportunities, especially if they want to stay in West Virginia.

Developers can do anything! A developer's mindset is focused on solving problems and a "can do" attitude.

Dan McElroy, President of the WV Coding Club, said, "Learning to solve problems in coding helps to give students the tools to approach other challenges they face in school and in life. Amber is a great example for not only young women who are interested in coding related careers, but for all students who are interested in a host of technology career paths."

Thank you Amber for taking the time to speak with our West Virginia Coding Club students and share your experience and advice with them!

Keep Coding!

WVCC Deeply Saddened!!

The West Virginia Coding Club family is deeply saddened to hear of the recent death of one of it’s founders, Cathryn Carena. We extend our collective condolences to her family in this time of sorrow. Cathryn was the first person I contacted with a concept paper about the need to form a coding club in our State. Her enthusiastic support and encouragement led to it being established in August, 2016. Rest in peace, dear one!

Guest Speaker - Amber Massey - Senior Product Designer - PowerSchool

Amber Massey, Senior Product Designer, at PowerSchool (formerly Schoology.)

Originally from Dallas, TX, Amber had an interest in Fine Arts. She attended college in Chicago, IL and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Finding it challenging to secure a career with a museum or similar institution, she explored coding and discovered how design overlaps with coding.

She continued her education with a coding BootCamp to help broaden her career opportunities. That knowledge was useful for Amber to understand how things get made from a coding/development perspective. With that added knowledge, Amber was actually getting involved in the field of UX (User Experience) Design. Amber started to provide designs to developers and now is a team leader.

At PowerSchool, Amber has a team of 20 developers. In the work Amber does as a designer, there is a lot of prototyping and concepting, which is very beneficial to the business. The design thinking process saves time and cost, as it is time consuming and expensive to hard code everything and then see what direction to go. Once a clearer direction is determined from prototyping and concepting efforts and feedback, then specs are created for the developers to code.

The process that is utilized for UX is design thinking which is a beneficial way to develop Ideas, identify and organize similar ideas and then develop concepts and direction. Part of this work is about the user and how things should work, as well as, potential problems users may run into. Feedback, from users and leaders, is beneficial to the process. Being able to parse and understand the feedback, then tactically move forward to ultimately develop the product for best use is the ultimate goal. Finding that right alchemy between what the business/organization needs and what the user experiences is the challenge for each project at PowerSchool.

The company PowerSchool is the leading provider of cloud-based software for K-12 education in North America. PowerSchool supports over 45 million students and 12,000+ districts, schools, and other education institutions in over 90 countries.

Amber talked about the type of key skills that helps candidates in the hiring process. She discussed T Shaped Skills - think of a “T” - the top line across goes wide and has broad general knowledge, but isn't deep. The line going down is the deep knowledge in a specific "narrow" area, like your specialty or super power.

In order to develop projects, they also utilize metrics. Surveys help capture responses into a tool to assess various aspects of their project. Many questions on the surveys use a Likert Scale - (ex. Likely vs Unlikely) scoring range to help provide information they need. Data and research are powerful for their successful completion of projects.

Amber is still working remotely due to Covid. They have some tools that help with their virtual process, like Miro, a sophisticated and virtual substitute for sticky notes in a room. These types of tools have allowed Amber to continue to do her job and help their customers.

Amber referenced a book called Atomic Design, by Brad Frost, that helps to provide a nomenclature and structure (methodology) for the thoughtful creation of design systems.

Dan McElroy, President of the WV Coding Club, shared, "Amber's talent and skills have directly helped the WV Coding Club. She designed our Web Site and has been a part of our efforts since the beginning. Thank you, Amber, for your support and for helping our students see another aspect of how they can move forward in a tech career."

Amber shared final thoughts with the WV Coding Club students, “Not everyone is a developer, but it is immensely powerful to know how to code. Don’t box yourself in. You can be code adjacent. See what roles are out there. There are so many needed roles in the tech world. It is an ecosystem with multiple avenues in design and development. Keep an open mind, explore and use your super powers for good.”

Thank you Amber Massey for sharing your time, experience and providing valuable insights for our WV Coding Club students!

Keep Coding!!!!

Guest Speaker - James Koval - Aurora Solar & West Virginia Remote Worker

The WV Coding Club had the privilege of interacting with a West Virginian and West Virginia Remote Worker, James Koval. The journey he has taken with his coding experience and skills has taken him out of West Virginia to some well known companies and then back to West Virginia where he works remotely for a company based in California. 

James was interested in coding at an early age and describes himself as a mostly self-taught programmer. With friends, they gave themselves challenges / projects to code. That helped to make them learn about different coding constructs and how to make things work.

James went to college in St. Louis, MO and earned a BS in Computer Science. While in college he had an intership with the State of WV Office of Technology focused on CyberSecurity using Google Maps API as part of the projects.

From there he worked with the Human Genome Project. After some experience there he went on to Twitter and explained it was a long process of 10 interviews to be hired. At Twitter, in San Francisco, CA, he worked on the International Team working on Twitter's translate function and working with users around the world on Twitter's UI (User Interface). For James, the perks of working for Twitter were great, but San Francisco was a very crowded place. At one point, Twitter had a major layoff and James saw good coworkers losing their jobs and he decided it was time to move on.

James found an opportunity with Amazon with their Amazon Photos project - a lot like Google and Facebook photos - at the time this was a new product being developed and he was a part of it when it was first released. After some time in Seattle, WA, James wanted to be closer to family in West Virginia and came back to Charleston, where he worked with Housing and Urban Development, as a Government Contractor.

After some time, he started looking for Remote Work using various websites for Remote Workers. James found a company that was Green Energy - a Solar Startup - Aurora Solar. He works with Front End (JavaScript) and Back End (Ruby on Rails). A company that utilizes Aurora Solar’s work and data is Solar Holler in WV. Part of Aurora Solar's work is to utilize Lidar Data - to get detailed images of people’s roofs to model in 3-D. Companies can pay for Roof Image and Roof Modeling to determine the viability of and how to install solar.

Internships may be a possibility. Aurora Solar's employees has at least doubled since James joined, now at about 200 staff. He was able to get another WV friend to be hired there and work remotely.

Advice from James - don’t worry as much about which program language you learn. It is easy to translate skills to another programming language. Collaborate with a friend or someone for a side project to develop programming and debugging skills.

Languages James has programmed in (not a complete list): Visual Basic, Java, Linux, Bash, Perl, Ruby on Rails (at Twitter), Java Script (at Twitter), Angular, React, WordPress PHP, AWS (at Amazon), Active Directory, TypeScript, Python, Scala, DotNET, ObjC

Dan McElroy, President of the WV Coding Club, said, "James is a West Virginian who has shown that remote work from West Virginia is not only possible, but a realistic way to have a good job and stay in West Virginia. We thank James for being a great example to our Coding Club students."

To learn more about the West Virginia Coding Club go to www.WVCoding.org

Guest Speaker - Richard Wilbur, President & CEO of Advantage Technology

The West Virginia Coding Club was privileged to have Richard Wilbur, Founder, President & CEO of Advantage Technology, speak at one of our recent meetings.

Richard attended West Virginia University in 1993-1997; however, didn’t study in computers. This was a time when the main operating system was in DOS, not Windows. After a while working in a different profession, Richard decided to research other job opportunities that were growing and had better salaries and found IT (Information Technology). Richard worked to get a certification in MCSE - Microsoft Engineer (Certification working on Servers)

Richard then joined a small local IT company and ended up dealing with the Love Bug virus. This was not a normal 9-5 job, and when a customer’s computer storage equipment went down, he had to drive the equipment up on Sept 10, 2001, to the Data Recovery Center, in the Washington, D.C. area. . . then Sept 11 happened, and he got stuck there to wait and pick up storage system. 

That time was difficult for the small business and his employer decided to not continue the business. So, Richard decided to start his own business with the small group of customers he inherited. He started out of a spare bedroom, and over time his business grew and grew and grew to the point now with 80 - 85 employees. When naming the company, phone books were still a thing and he wanted to list his business first, alphabetically. He named the company Advantage Technology (and this area of West Virginia is called Advantage Valley, so it made the connection to this area).

They now have offices in Charleston, Bridgeport and Williamsport, MD. Advantage Technology is the largest Information Technology service company in WV with customers throughout the United States. Richard has high level specialists; developers/coders, servers, networking, computers, cabling, and salespeople for software / hardware. They are able to do special projects, even for companies that have full IT departments. They provide service through the State of West Virginia to 750+ schools, to support wifi, switches, routers, cabling and related technology.

Richard shared that time to work these types of jobs are the (normal 8-5), but also evening and weekends, because businesses need support 24/7. It can be stressful and frustrating, but also very rewarding to help solve problems and support their customers. Richard, himself, still works on server projects and is involved in the service of their customers.

Richard’s advice to the students: To excel and do well, find a speciality! You can find better salary and benefits and you can focus on one area.

Certifications are also important to businesses looking to hire staff. It shows the employer that you have some base knowledge in an area and helps businesses as it has more certified employees. Examples of some key certifications today are CISCO, Azure (MS Web Hosting), .NET.

Dan McElroy, President of the West Virginia Coding Club stated, ”I appreciate the reality of Richard's talk and telling it like it really is in this environment. This is the kind of information that will help our students as they work towards careers in the Technology industry."

Richard shared that Advantage Technology has both women and men involved in the organization. He highlighted Amber Bostic, who runs their software development department.  “She has a great story to tell and is a leader with her knowledge of backend database programming.”

Richard emphasized that Advantage Technology also has internships available each year, starting at age 16. He also discussed areas that he felt were in high demand in the coming years, including cyber security.

We thank Richard for his time and insights into the Technology industry and appreciate him sharing that knowledge with our West Virginia Coding Club students!

For more information about the West Virginia Coding Club, go towww.wvcoding.org