This episode features an interview with Ceora Ford, Developer Advocate at Auth0. Ceora began her career in 2020 during the height of the global pandemic. Because of the unusual timing, she focused on learning in public and getting her name out in the industry. Ceora’s career revolves around creating education content that makes the tech industry more accessible to everyone. She’s collaborated with companies like Apollo GraphQL, CodeSandbox, and egghead.io. In this episode, Cassidy, Zach, and Ceora discuss building relationships, learning how to ask for help, and Ceora’s love of K-pop.
This episode features an interview with Ceora Ford, Developer Advocate at Auth0. Ceora began her career in 2020 during the height of the global pandemic. Because of the unusual timing, she focused on learning in public and getting her name out in the industry. Ceora’s career revolves around creating education content that makes the tech industry more accessible to everyone. She’s collaborated with companies like Apollo GraphQL, CodeSandbox, and egghead.io.
In this episode, Cassidy, Zach, and Ceora discuss building relationships, learning how to ask for help, and Ceora’s love of K-pop.
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Episode Timestamps:
(01:53): What Ceora is working on right now
(05:10): What Ceora’s day-to-day looks like
(07:05): What tools Ceora uses
(09:32): How Ceora got into the industry
(17:46): Rapid Fire Questions
(30:11): Random Segment Generator
(40:07): Cassidy’s Sage Advice
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“Every job that I've gotten is because of people who I became friends with through learning in public. It's not just a take relationship, it's give and take. So you do a couple things for them, they do a couple things for you. That's how I've gotten every role thus far. I really think that me investing so much time and building that community was really valuable because it's something that still helps me to this day.” – Ceora Ford
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Links:
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Cassidy Williams: Hello
everybody and welcome to The Dev Morning Show (At Night). My name is Cassidy and I am very excited to be with you today alongside my wonderful co-host, Zach Plata. Hey, Zach.
Zach Plata: Hey, Cass. Do you have any New Year's resolutions this year?
Cassidy Williams: Do I ? I dunno, I just, I blog more. What? What else is. We're, we're joined today by our guest who's awesome, Ceora Ford.
She is a Dev Advocate at Auth0 by Okta. Hey, Ceora, do you have New Year's resolutions?
Ceora Ford: I actually, okay. I'm not gonna rant. I'm not gonna take up the whole podcast talking about New Year's resolutions, but I don't set them. I'm like anti New Year's resolution because I feel. Setting them sets you up for failure cuz nobody stick to their New Year's resolution.
Mm-hmm. So I, I like to wait like a couple months before I actually start like my goals for the year. Yeah. Or just don't at all. Yeah, exactly. ,
Cassidy Williams: what about you, Zach? Do you have any?
Ceora Ford: I don't.
Zach Plata: I was just reflecting on it. Someone asked me the other day and I was like, oh, should. people do that ?
Cassidy Williams: I, I do. So what I have done in the past is instead of setting goals, I just write down like different stats for myself and, uh, just at the beginning of the year.
And so it'll be just like number of pushups I can do or, or like my, my ranking and playing go, or, or something like that where I don't set a specific goal, but I just. , leave the step there. So when I do it the next year, I could see did it change or, yeah. Yeah. Worse or better or
Ceora Ford: fair. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.
Cassidy Williams: Um, but Ceora, anyway, what are you working on right now?
Ceora Ford: Like project-wise? . Anything wise? Anything wise? Okay. Yeah, so I'll say, I'll say a coding project and then I'll say like a life thing. So for a coding project, I am working on building an application in Next.js for like the first time ever. I've never worked with Next before, so I'm excited.
Um, the goal is for it to eventually grow into, you guys know I'm into K-pop, so I want to build like a, an app, like a web app where I can keep track. like albums that I wanna buy because collecting albums is really good in K is really big in K-pop. So I wanna build something where I can like create like a wishlist and track the pricing on different albums and also like cross off ones that I've bought already, things like that.
But like make it nice, very personal to like what I would like for an app like that. So that's the project I'm working on now. It's very, it's like in the very, very, very early. Um, and then for life . Yeah, like, I need it. I'm, I, I wanna finish it like now, but it's gonna take a while. Um, but for life in general, I just moved into my first ever apartment, like on my own.
Woo. Congrats. That's so exciting. Thank you. That's why you can hear an echo. Or you could earlier before we fixed it, because I don't have anything . I don't have items, I don't have like I have like my desk in a bed and like a few other things and that's pretty much it. So I am working on like getting furniture hopefully very soon.
I'm just so indecisive that I don't like know what to get or where to put it and all that kinda stuff. Yeah. But I would like to have a couch, you know, instead of just like, , you know, sitting on the floor. That would be nice. So that would be pretty cool. That's, that's my life project right now.
Cassidy Williams: That's a very big project.
Yeah, because there's, there's, I remember moving into my first apartment in like, Realizing, wait, I need to buy paper towels, , like I, I just didn't have them. And just little things where you don't realize how much stuff you need to sustain your life. Yeah,
Ceora Ford: absolutely. Like I wanted to make a grilled cheese sandwich the other day cuz I'm obsessed with grilled cheese sandwiches and I realize I don't have a spatula.
So that was like interesting. Yeah. But like those are the little things that keeps happening where I'm like, oh my God. Like this is something that I never realized I had to buy. So I need to get a spatula. ,
Zach Plata: Target is the friend in all of this ?
Ceora Ford: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Cool. So, well, I'll probably be going sometime today, or.
It's a good life
Cassidy Williams: project and a big one. And now
Zach Plata: it's time for our lovely sponsors. LaunchDarkly. The Dev Morning Show (At Night) is a sponsored podcast, means someone has to pay the bills around here we're sponsored by LaunchDarkly, and LaunchDarkly is the first scalable feature management platform. That means dev teams can innovate and get better software to customers faster.
How? By gradually releasing new software features and shipping code wherever they. Fast tracking their journeys to the cloud and building stronger relationships with business teams. Thanks for the money
Cassidy Williams: LaunchDarkly.
Thank you for the money. Hey . Hey. So Ceora, what does your day-to-day look like?
Ceora Ford: Ugh, my day-to-day is very different depending on the week.
Um, lately, because it's the beginning of the year, my team has been doing like a lot of planning for events and different things like that. So, . Um, yeah, so lately it's been a lot of, um, meetings and drafting plans and creating documentation for this process and that thing, and that's like a lot of what I've been doing.
Um, so usually my day starts at around like nine and I, you know, that I'm a huge notion user, so I'll have like all my tasks for the week laid out there and I'll. , I'll like try to prioritize what I should get done first and like what's a really big deal for me to finish. And usually that will include some things, like a meeting that's really important and that I have to prep for.
So I have to like do some prep for the meeting and then go to the meeting. And then sometimes it'll be like, after that I have to work on creating this, like I'm working on a document for, um, some of our plans for one of the dev, one of the developer communities that we serve. So I had to like put that together.
I have to finish that by the end of the day. So usually that's kind of like, I flip flop between doing a lot of like writing and independent work and then going to meetings and then like checking up on Slack, that kind of thing. Sometimes I'll have like a podcast or, um, some weeks are filled with travel like next month.
I'm going to be, or this will probably air in February. So in February, , I'm going to be going to California for a hackathon. So I have to like, ooh, travel that week. Yeah, that week is gonna be different. And then some weeks I'm like going to a conference. So it, it really changes depending on what's going on at the time.
Nice.
Zach Plata: And so you mentioned you use Notion Slack and you know, other various things. Uh, what other tools do you use, um, on a day-to-day
Ceora Ford: basis? Yeah, so I would say I use, I've been working a lot with VS Code lately because I've had a, had to do, right, exactly. I've had to do a lot of coding lately. because I'm working on a project for work that will be used for future like talks and content and things like that.
Hmm. So I've been having to crack open vs code like very often lately, which is nice cuz I sometimes don't get a chance to code that often during the day because I'm doing like other things. So I'm glad that I got to get to do that now. Um, so I would say the things I use the most often are probably vs.
Code Slack notion. Google Calendar is like a godsend, , . And like I have it set up so that I get notifications in Slack before a meeting happens. So that has saved me like a ton, thankfully. Mm-hmm. . Um, so I'm trying to think what else do I use? Hmm. Oh, GitHub. It's like something I use very often. Yeah. And then I also use, um, I guess this could count, but like I use off zero documentation.
So much to figure this out. Yeah. Yeah, because like I'm still pretty new , and actually I feel like anybody would have to rely on documentation pretty heavily, but I'm still like figuring the product out. So there's still so many things that I'm like, wait, what? What's that? What does that do? Why does that work that way?
And that kind of thing. So I'm always like knee deep in documentation trying to figure out like exactly what's going on. Plus when I give a talk or a workshop, , I really wanna know what I'm talking about just in case you get a question and you wanna like be able to actually like that answer it . So, so yeah.
Yeah. ,
Cassidy Williams: does the dev team maintain the documentation or is there a separate team for that?
Ceora Ford: There's a separate team for that. Um, usually that's handled by like the SDK teams. , but Sure, that makes sense. We do, yeah. We do give them our feedback on different things. And then we also have like what we maintain is what we call a developer center.
So that's more so the place where it's not necessarily documentation, but it might be like, um, tutorials or articles mm-hmm. that like answer certain questions, things like that. So that's what we kind of maintain. Um, I don't get to work with that as much as some other people on my team, but I do use those guides and like tutorials.
Mm-hmm. a lot when I'm figuring things. , you
Cassidy Williams: mentioned that you're kind of new to your role. What got you in the industry in the first place? UN until now. Yes. This
Ceora Ford: is a fun story. So , I say it's fun because when I think about it, I'm almost like, wait, did that really happen? So , I , I started getting into the tech industry during the pandemic.
And what a time to join I, I know, right? Like that was so, that was so ambitious of me. But I was, so when I was trying to get into the tech industry, everything was virtual, right? So like, yeah. So that opened up a lot of doors for me because now I could go to like virtual conferences. I could go to virtual meetups.
Yeah. And I could do a lot of networking virtually. So I did a lot of, like when I was first learning, I did a lot of learning in public. , which basically means like I would like tweet a lot about the things I was learning. I would write a lot about the things I was learning, and that kind of like got my name out there.
And it also helped me to build a network and build a community, which has been very helpful for me, which you'll like learn as we go through the journey. So I was doing that and then I eventually, got involved with, um, some various startups, one of them being like egghead.io, which is a course platform where they do like a lot of courses for web development and things like that.
So, um, I got involved with them and I just didn't like contract work with them. Um, and then eventually I was like, okay, like I'm ready to like actually look for like not a real job. Cuz that was technically a real job, but like a job, full-time job. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, um, what that ended up being for me, So I started learning how to code in like March April, 2020.
And then I got my first like role with Digital Ocean. It was still a contract, but it was a full-time contract in September of 2020. And I was working with them as a contract. Amazing technical writer. Yeah, like I don't . And again, like this was something that I, this was a gig that I got because of the network that I had built, which was really awesome.
It was like, I know, it's like I, this is what I say when I think about it. I'm like, I can't believe that happened . But I got that role. Um, and it was, I learned a ton. I also learned how much I can learn. It's surprising for me because sometimes you think like, oh, like I'm not prepared for this. I've never worked with reactor type script or whatever the language is.
And like, don't underestimate how much you can actually figure out when you have like a deadline . So that was like one thing. Yeah, exactly. So that was one thing I discovered. Um, and then after my contract with them was up, I started working with another startup called Code Sandbox and I worked there as a developer marketing coo.
and basically that means that I did 1,000,001 things . The startup at the time was like really small. I think when I joined there were like 12 or 13 people, so it was like super, super fresh. Yeah. So I was like, I was helping with running our podcast. I was helping with running our newsletter, I was helping with running our social media, I was helping with our content strategy.
Like I did a ton of stuff there. , but because I was doing much more like marketing work, I wasn't spending as much time like coding. Mm-hmm. and doing like the technical stuff, which I had spent all that time learning. So I was like, I feel like I'm getting rusty now and I, that's not what I really want. So yeah, that's why I ended up moving to a polygraph ql and that's where I started my first official like developer advocate role.
And that was really fun. The team there was like, really? . Um, I really liked the way they did Derell at the time, and I learned a lot. I got to work with gra Quel and again, like you learn how much you can learn on the job, which is always kind of like fascinating. Yeah. Because what you think you can do is usually a lot less than what you actually can do.
So it's cool to like prove yourself wrong. But yeah, that was like, that was a really fun time. Um, I did a lot of cool work there. A lot of, um, content over there and things like that. It was really fun. And then the job I have now, at off zero. I joined off zero in July of 2022. So it hasn't even been, has it been six months yet?
I
Cassidy Williams: think it's been a little months. I think it's six months at the time of recording .
Ceora Ford: Six months at the time of recording, so, so, yes. Um, I've been here and it's been a lot, a lot of fun. Um, so far. The fun thing about off sale that I really like is we are very intentional about how we measures success, which is always really tough to do in dev rail, but I really like the way that we do it here.
Um, and then I also like that leadership here is always like willing to hear suggestions and implement suggestions. So like, um, like for instance with measuring success, we always are discussing ways to improve our system for doing so, which is really cool. So, so, yeah. That's, I think that's pretty much everything up to now,
Cassidy Williams: Well, it's, it's such an impressive journey because you're self-taught and you're self-taught within the past few years and. Something that I've always been impressed with you in general is that you were so good at putting your name out there, and that's what I try to tell developers so much when they're getting started.
Mm-hmm. to get their foot in the door to, like you said, learn in public and, and shout about it and everything. And you had those skills out the gate as you were, uh, learning how to code and to the point where, I remember when we were first chatting, I don't think I realized that you were so new to the industry because it felt like you were so embedded in all of these different circle.
Ceora Ford: Yeah, so I was very intentional about that. So, um, before I was learning how to code, I used to do digital marketing, so I was very familiar with like, which explains . Yeah, I was very familiar with like social media marketing and all that kind of stuff. And I was doing like, Eventually I had started doing it like on a freelance basis, so I would be helping like local businesses and things like that.
Um, and then the pandemic happened. So I like lost all my work and that why I was like, okay, I'm really gonna learn how to code this time. And I had done enough research prior to like the whole pandemic situation that I. have read a bunch of articles about people who got into tech, like the non-traditional way, so without a CS degree or through a bootcamp or teaching yourself through whatever means you could find.
Um, and one thing that I consistently heard was that they would put themselves out there, so build a network and so that they could build a name for themselves, reputation. And so, . I was like, okay, that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna like put these digital marketing skills to use. I didn't do all that work for nothing.
Um, and that's why I like used content. I used a lot of like content strategy and social media strategy to get myself out there. Um, and then like along the way, you genuinely, it's not just like networking. You genuinely build meaningful relationships with people that like Yeah. Will probably be lifelong.
So it's all around a good thing. I think if you. . It takes time. But if you can find the time to do a little bit every day, like it really helps.
Cassidy Williams: It compounds. It's, it snowballs for real. And it's like you said, it's relationship building. It's not just like schmoozing and passing out business cards and stuff.
Yeah. It's, it's, it's getting to know people, but then people think of you when opportunities come up. Yeah. And then you, you can kind of take advantage of that. Think of them when opportunities come up. Yep. That you can't take on and. It's so important. So I love that you're a success story .
Ceora Ford: Yeah. Yeah. Like I can't emphasize this enough.
That's like what carried me thus far. Like every job that I've gotten is because of people who I became friends with through learning in public and through, you know, it's not just a a take relationship, it's give and take. So you do a couple things for them. They do a couple things for you. And like, that's how I've gotten every role thus far.
Um, so I really think that me investing so much time in building. That community was really valuable because it's, it's something that like still helps me to this day. Okay.
Cassidy Williams: It is time for rapid fire questions.
We're going to ask you questions rapidly. So the first one, uh, we all have domain names and project ideas that we're squatting on. What are some of your.
Ceora Ford: Okay, I have a couple. So one of them is, it's like something I started like so long ago that I literally never finished, and it's not even that hard of an idea.
I just can't get around to it. It was supposed to be a website, like a blog where I would basically interview people who have different jobs in the tech industry. , um, just so that people coming into tech could get an idea of like the different, all, like the plethora of different rules that they could get into.
And it was going to be called Day in the Life Dev. And I never , nobody's still my idea cuz I'm still gonna do it, but I never got around to like actually finishing it. And I, and like I think about it all the time cuz I'm like, man, that would've been such a great. Project to to do, cuz I know that's something that I would've found useful when I was first, first getting started, but maybe someday, I don't know.
Cassidy Williams: it's the simple ideas that are like Insidious. Mm-hmm. , because you're just like, yeah, I can do that whenever because it's so easy and then you just don't
Ceora Ford: do it. Yeah. and it's like there's so many frameworks and things like that out there that help you build a blog really quickly and it's like I could just.
I could do that like in a couple hours. Right? Like , but, but I don't , so that's my project. That's like, it's too real. I know. It's so, it makes me feel so bad,
Zach Plata: but yeah. What is the most recent thing you over-optimized?
Ceora Ford: Over-optimized? Hmm. I don't know. I'm coming up.
Cassidy Williams: I mean, the fact that you're building an entire project around K-Pop just to buy albums.
actually that's,
Ceora Ford: that's a really good point because I actually have like a super beta, beta, beta version of it, and it's like, I've been so dramatic with this, this project that is this, it's really not that hard, but I'm like making it into something that, So dramatic, and I don't even plan on like, opening it up to like be used by other people.
It's at this point, essentially just gonna be for me. But I wanted to have like everything So , I would probably say my, my K-pop album tracking a little application that I'm looking on, like I'm, I'm being so extra you guys. It's so, that's why I'm saying it's gonna take a while for me to finish because it's like so much that I want in it.
So, so, yeah.
Cassidy Williams: I understand , what is your golden rule for coding or working in general?
Ceora Ford: Hmm. I would say my golden rule is, and I'm really bad at following this, but like ask for help, like, Hmm. And I would say that for anything, and even if asking for help just means like, Googling that's kind of asking for help, but I tend to be super stubborn, like, no, I'm gonna figure this out on my own and I don't care if it takes me 12 hours.
And the thing is like sometimes, especially for like day-to-day work, what could take me three hours, like figuring out on my own, could be answered by a coworker in like five minutes. So a lot of times it's like, yeah, don't put yourself through that unnecessarily. And like, I, I do think it's important to build those like problem solving skills on your own, things like that.
But like, know when to ask for help and a lot of times you should probably do it sooner than later. Um, and even if like, it feels like such a simple answer or like, this is something I should know, just ask or just Google it. Like, don't put yourself through that please. .
Cassidy Williams: It's hard to find your pride sometimes.
Ceora Ford: I know, and I'm really bad at it. Like I'm always like, no, I can do this on my own. Like I don't even know why I think like that, but yeah, I'm trying to get out of the habit of doing that cuz it like it, I'm getting in my own way sometimes and it's just not worth it. Hmm.
Zach Plata: Yeah. What's your favorite? It depends.
Question. Hmm.
Ceora Ford: Hmm. I don't know. Let me think because I feel like I say that to a lot of things and now that you're asking me, I'm like, I don't know. Um, drawing a blank. . . Hmm. Well, I know recently, um, someone was asking me like, oh, what, like what coding language or framework should I use? I've actually been asked.
So what coding language should I focus on or like should I learn, react, or view or angular and that kind of thing. And I always will say like, what you decide to learn really depends, cuz it really does. It depends on like what you wanna do, like what career you wanna go for. Even like sometimes if you wanna be.
Say, someone's like, oh, I wanna be a web developer. Like also what you learn could be dependent on where you live because certain languages in like libraries are more popular in certain countries and cities than other ones. Yeah. So like all those things are have to be factored in when you're trying to figure out like what you're, what you wanna learn.
So that's one of the, I would say, the top ones that I get all the time where people DM me or ask me in person, like, oh my goodness, like what coding language should I learn? And I'm like, it really, it really does depend on like what you, what your end goal. . Yeah.
Cassidy Williams: Yeah. Well, and and also people just have different preferences and skills too.
It's so tough. Yeah. Like someone I know is building, it's very, sounds a lot like your K-Pop app, but it's for movie tracking and, and tracking. Like when certain movies are coming out, when they wanna go to the theater, when do they wanna buy it and everything. And they're building it all in a spreadsheet.
And, and with that spreadsheet, they're building a tool to use the spreadsheet as a database. Wow. It's very similar types of concepts, but very different tools. And it just, it depends on you and what, what your skills are.
Ceora Ford: Yeah, absolutely. That's pretty cool. I wonder how that project ends up going. .
Cassidy Williams: We'll talk
What's the oldest piece of tech you still own? Mm.
Ceora Ford: This is my, I don't, first of all, let me start off by saying I don't have a lot of old tech and because I just moved, a lot of things are still at my parents' house, so I wish I could like show this and I really did try to find it, but I like couldn't and I couldn't figure it.
And it's not here. It's definitely like somewhere in my parents' basement. But the oldest thing that I own, like that's. and not my parents. It's probably my Nintendo. The yes . Like the first first edition I had the dark blue one and it's the last time I saw it. It's like so busted now. Like the hinge is broken.
So like the, the screen pop sec. Yeah. Oh my goodness. But I think I got that in like I was in second grade. This is so, so it was a long time ago, but that's probably the oldest, oldest thing that I own. Yeah, that's so. I can't believe it, but, and I miss it too. I used to have like these wonderful, like games that don't exist anymore and I wish they would bring them back for Switch or something like that.
But those early games,
Cassidy Williams: yeah. They were so good. They're, they're so good. Yeah. And you don't realize, like when you play it as a kid, you get so into it so differently than you might like now. Yeah. Where to this day, like, yes, I enjoy playing like Zelda and, and and various other games, but when I think about like Pokemon Blue version on the Game Boy Color, I know every corner of that game so deeply because of how I played it as a
Ceora Ford: kitchen.
Yeah. There was. I actually, I never owned a Game boy, but my cousin did, and he would leave it at our house all the time. So I would like use it. And there was this SpongeBob game, I don't even remember the name of it, but like I was so, like I used to stay up late at night, like hiding from my parents so they wouldn't catch me like playing it because I was like so into it.
trying to beat the level that my cousin had reached. So it was like very serious for me. And I, like, I learned all the tips and tricks for like beating certain levels. Like it was so intense for me. So I totally get what you mean .
Cassidy Williams: That's so real. Yeah. I remember when I was a kid, I, I would also. Play Game Boy and like hide from my parents because I was supposed to be sleeping or something.
And I remember I was always so surprised when my dad was just like, this was on. I can tell. And I was like, I don't know how you tell, but looking back it's because I was just like so sweaty, , like it was just a really hot device. Yeah. But it's definitely
Ceora Ford: you or like seeing the light underneath your blanket, like, come on, they can, oh.
Zach Plata: I think a real flex was if someone like during that Game Boy era had that cool like light accessory that you could just like clip onto your game. Boy, you know, when it's like late at night.
Cassidy Williams: Those, those were, those were like the fanciest that had like, those were like the
Ceora Ford: magnifying glasses or all of the different things on her.
Wow. Good times. Yeah. Now I wanna like look on eBay for a game. Boy, .
Cassidy Williams: I know, right man.
Zach Plata: I'm sure there's one. Have you written a piece of cringey code lately?
Ceora Ford: Lately, yeah. Like , I would say all the code that I write is pretty cringey, but like for sure, um, for this K-pop project that I'm building, I have actually gotten some help from some of my coworkers for like doing co reviews on it and stuff.
Cause I'm like so serious about this. And let me just tell you. , I'm, so sometimes I'm so embarrassed to like show them some of the stuff that I'm doing because a lot of it is like, just like gluing, you know, Popsicle sticks together to like build a house. Like it's so . Sure. So janky sometimes. But, um, I'm glad at least now I have like other people who can like, be like, yeah, maybe this isn't the best way to do this and you should check out this documentation for a better way.
Um, which is much better than. Two years ago when I was like alone learning and I just was like, eh, if it works, it works. But yeah, so I definitely write like I would, I kind of feel like most of the code I write is pretty like cringey cuz it's so, yeah, me and code are like, we're friends, but also enemies at the same time.
Like it's a love hate relief. Especially with JavaScript though. Yeah. ,
Cassidy Williams: what's your favorite programming? Pun?
Ceora Ford: Programming Pun. Hmm. I don't think I have one. Or joke. Or joke. I think all the jokes about how MPM like takes so long to run is are really funny when people are like, I'm gonna go take a nap. I think that's hilarious, , because that's genuinely how I feel, except sometimes it's really fast, surprisingly.
And so I'm like, I'm gonna go like. , I'm gonna go make myself something to eat, and I come back and it's already done, and it's like, oh my God, I just wasted 30 minutes when I could have been like, started on my work. But yeah, ,
Cassidy Williams: yeah, I I do like those ones. I've, I've seen 'em where it's like, well, I npm installed on the airplane and I took down the wifi for the whole flight or something.
Zach Plata: Oh, that's good. Um, what's your most use emoji
Ceora Ford: most use? Can I check ? Let me see. Yes, it's probably the melting face emoji or the crying one. Oh, hold on. Let me see. Am I right? That's a good one. , it's the crying one, and then after that it's the eye rolling one. .
Cassidy Williams: Yep. I like learning this about people because you really know like what their vibe is.
Ceora Ford: it's, I feel like, I think this needs to be a trend. Yeah. Honestly. And I feel like the crying emoji just like defines how I feel so many times. Not that I'm like crying all the time, but a lot of things are like, I don't know, it's just perfect to me.
Cassidy Williams: Yeah. And the melting one, it's, it's a good one. It's, it, it reflects so many emotions.
I'm
Ceora Ford: so glad they added that, cuz they added that like a couple years ago. We didn't have it for the longest. I'm like, oh, thank you Apple. Mm-hmm. . That was so great. I know. Amazing. Yeah. , it's relatable.
Cassidy Williams: Yeah. Yeah. It is now time for the random segment generator.
Let's find out what the random segments are, and the first one is talk and ship. What's something that's, in your opinion, overrated or underrated in the dev tech community?
Ceora Ford: This is a really good question. I don't wanna sound too spicy, but I feel like Tailwind CSS is kind of overrated. Ooh.
Cassidy Williams: Ooh. That's I, I like the spice.
I
Ceora Ford: like the spice. Yeah. And like, I respect everyone who uses it, but I personally just feel like I'm just gonna use regular css. I think CSS is. Optimized enough like, but I, you know, I respect people who use it, but it just is not for me probably. Cuz I did try it a couple years ago and I was just like, no, I'll just stick with what I know.
I felt like I had to like relearn CSS to use tailwind, which was like, okay, I might as well just use. Css. So
Cassidy Williams: I do feel that way about a lot of CSS utility libraries in general because it's like you're relearning CSS to write it in line when it's just CSS in the end. But at the same time, it's nice to have like these defaults where you don't have to establish that design system yourself.
Yeah. Yeah.
Ceora Ford: I like, I think, I feel like Tailwind makes more sense and. production code, like for companies and things like that, because I feel like it's a quicker way to get things done, a more uniform way to get things done. But for me personally, like I'm not, it's, it's not, it's not my thing. . That's what I'll say.
Yeah. Yeah.
Zach Plata: I get it. I feel like, especially when you're just learning tale on css, it's. , most of the time you're like, I know how to do this in css, but how do you want it Tailwind. . Yeah. What is the string? Yeah, that's that's You
Ceora Ford: spend more time in the documentation. Yeah, exactly. And that's like, for me, that was slowing me down more than it was like, making me faster, so I was like, I don't, I don't wanna do this.
Zach Plata: Yeah, that's a good one. All right. Our next segment is Dev Opposites. So what do you do outside of your day
Ceora Ford: job? Oh, okay. Outside of my day job, I do a ton of things because I have adhd, which means that I have a million and. Hobbies that I shuffle through. Um, so Perfect. Yes. Lately I have gotten back into anime.
I was really into it like a year ago and then I kind of fell off and then I'm back into it and it's been a lot of fun. I'm currently, um, watching Chainsaw Man. I just finished up Chainsaw Man, and I've actually been, I've actually gotten back into reading the manga as well, which is like, haven't done that in a really long Oh dang.
That's a whole other layer. Yeah. So I. Because I finished, they have 12 episodes so far, and I finished all of them and then I was like, I need to know what happens next. So I started reading Mana, which has been really interesting. So Anime Mana lately has been like a big deal. Also, obviously, I've suddenly gotten really into interior design because I'm trying to figure out how to furnish this apartment.
So that's like a, I spend so much time on Pinterest and like looking at people's, like layouts of their living room and stuff, and hopefully I'll figure out. Soon enough. So that's another thing. Um, obviously K-pop that is like, it's so much fun you guys, and I know a lot of people like don't understand it, but there's so much good music and like good performances.
So much fun. I just went to a concert a couple weeks ago, like, I flew to Atlanta Oh, fun To go to a concert. It was so fun. Wow. I know. Like, and it was, I had the day off that Friday. and I was like, I'm just gonna do it. I had like a, a credit for Delta and I hopped on a plane and I was like, I'm young, I can do dumb stuff.
So I hopped on a plane and I flew down to Atlanta. I went to the concert and then flew right back the next day. So I was super tired and my body hurt really badly the next day, but it was worth it. 100% worth it. Um, and then I've been getting back into my. Playing games on my switch as well. Um, I just started playing this one game called Hollow Night.
I don't know if you've heard of it before. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I really like it. It's like kind of like dark and creepy, but like in a good way. I like it. Um, so yeah, those are my, those are, I'll stop there cuz I could probably keep going, but those are the main things I've been doing lately.
Cassidy Williams: What? I do wanna ask what your favorite anime
Ceora Ford: is? My favorite anime? Oh, that's such a tough question. I would probably say I really, really, really like Cowboy Bebo. I feel like Cowboy Bebo is like, I've
Cassidy Williams: heard that one a lot. I haven't
Ceora Ford: seen that yet. It's really, really good. Like, it's one of the ones where I'm like, this anime is amazing.
Like, this is like perfect through and through. I really like that one. Um, and then there's probably a couple others that I really like, but I'll stick with Cowboy.
Cassidy Williams: Yeah, that one's really good. I think mine is full medalist Brotherhood. I
Ceora Ford: love that one. So good. Such a good story. I haven't gotten into that one yet, but it's on my list.
Like I have Oh, you got it. I have, I actually, this is so geeky, but I have a notion of like all the anime that I wanna eventually watch and it has like a hundred things in there, but like I, I feel so happy when I get to like check them off and I give them a star rating. , like, it's very serious for me. I, so I think full Metal Alchemist is definitely on there.
Good. Good. Zack, which one's
Cassidy Williams: your favorite?
Zach Plata: Um, probably a death note.
Ceora Ford: That's a good, yeah. Death note is
Cassidy Williams: good. That's a good one. Yeah, that's a good one. That's a really good
Ceora Ford: one.
Zach Plata: Um, I also wanted to ask, what K-pop group did you see?
Ceora Ford: Thank you so much for asking
I went to go see NCT 1 27. I've seen them. So far. Oh yeah. Huh? It was such, it was such a good show and I had floor seats. I somehow managed to get floor seats for like a really reasonable price. Yes. I was like in the fourth row, so I was really, really close. . Oh, it's just, it was, it was so fun like, and I was like in pain for like three days after that because when you're on the floor you're like standing up and like looking up the whole time.
So your whole body like really hurts the next day, but totally worth it. Totally 100% birthday. Oh,
Zach Plata: so funny. Oh yeah, I'd believe it. .
Cassidy Williams: So if you weren't in the tech industry at all, what would you be doing? Hmm.
Ceora Ford: Good question. I think, hmm, I would probably like have a bunch of different jobs because at one point in time I really wanted to work at a roller rink because I love roller skating.
and like, I'm really bad at roller skating, but I'm so happy when I do it . So it like makes me genuinely happy. I would love, like if I own my own roller rink and I could just like fall and skate all day. Super fun. Um, and then I've all, I think everyone thinks about owning like a cafe cuz cafes are just like, They're most people's happy place.
Like, come on, it's a cafe. Um, and then if I wasn't doing any of those things, I think at this point I would seriously consider owning a K-pop store, cuz Philadelphia does not have one. And that like grinds my gears. So yeah, if I wasn't working full-time, I would definitely think about like, what do I have to do to open up my own K-pop shop in Philly?
I could see that
Cassidy Williams: thriving in Philly, actually.
I
Ceora Ford: mean, I'm like so shocked that we don't have one. I'm like, there are ones in New Jersey. There are ones in like smaller cities. Atlanta has one. I'm like, why don't we so. Yes. I think, I feel like
Cassidy Williams: our entire, like Chinatown and Chicago turns into just like K-Pop Alley in certain seasons of the year where just every single boba shop has, like, you can buy photo cards or like, they have K-pop dance nights in the different squares and stuff.
It's, it's
Ceora Ford: so big. That would be so much fun. I would love that. Yeah. Come visit,
Cassidy Williams: we'll get you . Yeah. . All right. And then our last random segment is Launch Lightly Crash Darkly as a reference to our lovely sponsors. , what is your best advice for someone who's just getting started in the software development world?
Ceora Ford: Hmm. I think my best advice would be to be consistent. Um, I think consistency is like, like even if you take small steps every day, that's better than not doing anything at all. Um, because that is how. with anything. That's how you like, build the muscle of problem solving, build the muscle of like learning the language really well in and out.
Um, and you'll be surprised how much little steps every day can take, like how far it can take you. So I would say like by far consistency is like the, one of the most important things you can, like being consistent in the beginning is really important.
Zach Plata: Yeah, fair. And what are you most excited about in the world of software development and stuff today?
Ceora Ford: Hm. , I think, I think I'm really excited about like a bunch of different like software tools that have come out within the past, like year or so. Like, um, I've talked to the folks over at Astro and Planet Scale, places like that. Yeah. And I feel like they're building a lot of things that, um, are going to have a huge impact on the software development world as far as like how much we can.
and like how quickly we can build it and the, the people who can build it, um, because they're building like tools that make it so much easier to get up and running. Um, so I'm excited to see what people create with those things. So that's, that's what's exciting to me right now.
Cassidy Williams: I feel like dev tools right now in general are just really good.
Yeah. And, and they, they've gotten a lot of like support and stuff where they can actually focus on developer experience and stuff, so I agree with you a ton there. Well, it is that time of the show. It's time for Cassidy's Sage advice,
and I'm Cassidy with Sage Advice. And I wanna tell you something that Ciara already told you earlier in the episode, and that is the importance of networking. Putting your name out there and learning in public and really just emphasizing your skills and what you're doing is so important because.
Unfortunately, it's never really like a, if you build it, they will come type of thing. You do have to kind of shout about it a little bit so people are aware of you. But when you use those skills to build relationships with others, to put out information that might teach others or help others, or just show what you've been learning or teaching, so many opportunities will come your way because.
People think of you when it comes to a certain topic, and so really try to focus on putting something out there in the world. You don't have to be that active on social media. It could be blog posts, it could be LinkedIn posts, it could be anything. Just put it out there. Figure out a way for people to see the work that you're doing and that will help all kinds of job hunting later on.
That will help for contract work. That will help even just for debugging problems, because there will be people who might know the answers that you might not have. . Otherwise. That being said, Ceora, thank you so much for joining us today. It was awesome. Yeah,
Ceora Ford: thanks for having me. This was so much fun.
Cassidy Williams: It was so much fun.
Now, where can people find you on the internet? What do you wanna plug? Yes,
Ceora Ford: so you can find me on Twitter. My username there is ceeoreo. That's C E E O R E O underscore. And I also have a little website, which probably will be changing within the next month. Just, just a side thing, but it's ceora.dev, so that's c e o r a.dev.
You can find me some of the content that I do there.
Cassidy Williams: Awesome. And then I'm also going to lightly plug Ceora and I co-host the Stack Overflow Podcast, . So you should listen to our show
Ceora Ford: sometime, . Yeah, we're a lot of fun over there too, so
Cassidy Williams: check it out. Yeah, more fun here. But we're fun everywhere. And once again, because making podcasts is expensive.
This show is brought to you by LaunchDarkly LaunchDarkly, toggles Peaks of 20 trillion feature flags each day, and that number continues to grow, and you should use them. You can head over to launchdarkly.com and learn about how. Thank you for making this show possible. LaunchDarkly, I've been Cassidy Williams.
You can find me at cassidoo, c a s s i d o o on most things, and I'm CTO over
at Contenda.
Zach Plata: And I'm Zach, and I'm a DevRel at Rive, and you can find me on Twitter at zachplata.
Ceora Ford: Thank
Cassidy Williams: you for tuning into The Dev Morning Show (At Night). Make sure you head over to our YouTube channel where you can like and subscribe. You can also listen to the audio version of this wherever you get your podcasts.