Annie Liew worked in all kinds of roles, from design to teaching, before she decided to make a career change into tech with Juno College's Web Development Bootcamp. Since graduating in 2019, she's gone on to working as a front-end developer and sharing her knowledge with the dev community on Twitter and beyond.
Today, Annie works as a Front-End Engineering Lead at Pastel. We chatted with Annie about how she got into tech, and her advice for every stage of the journey. Get to know her below!
Why Annie Changed Careers with Juno
What was your job before Juno?
Annie: I’ve worked in a lot of various roles prior to Juno, but my main career was Multidisciplinary Designer. I also spent a significant amount of time as an English Instructor in Japan!
Why did you decide to make a career change? Why did you choose web development in particular?
Annie: Although I’d studied basic web development at university and used it in my design work throughout the years, I’d always felt forced into doing it. I never had it on the table as a full-time career choice.
I moved to Toronto after a long stint as an English Instructor in Japan. Being out of my “professional” design career for so long, I struggled to get consistent meaningful work and make ends meet. As I looked into ways of re-skilling up, web development came back into the picture. Although I’d disliked it before, I was willing to give it another shot in a different environment and time of my life.
Why did you choose a Bootcamp program over other learning options? Why did you choose Juno?
Annie: After attending a few free one-off coding classes offered by various local bootcamps, I attempted to study on my own through a variety of free online resources. Unfortunately, I found I was jumping around, a lot of information was outdated and it was hard to stay personally motivated. I didn’t know of any coding communities at the time and didn’t really want to go through years of university again.
I reached out to many Juno College alumni and everyone was welcoming and supportive. It felt very inclusive and I was surprised to see how many of the grads were women.
I reached out to many Juno College alumni and everyone was welcoming and supportive. It felt very inclusive and I was surprised to see how many grads were women. I tested the waters with a part-time Web Development course there and had an amazing instructor and wonderful mentors. This inspired me to feel that I really could do this as a career choice! I signed up for the full-time Web Development Bootcamp, quit my job, and the rest is history!
Annie's Life as a Developer
What was your first job and company after graduating from Juno?
Annie: My first dev job was as a Front-End Developer at Trew Knowledge, a WordPress VIP agency.
I was mostly responsible for building out the front-end architecture of new websites, debugging existing projects and implementing micro-sites. I gave presentations to clients and was involved in sprint plannings and project estimations. One of the projects I worked on before I left was a boilerplate component library for the agency to make it easier to scaffold new builds. I was also the unofficial “Snacks Queen” after securing an office snacks budget from our CEO!
What do you do currently?
Annie: I’m currently the Front-end Engineering Lead at Pastel, a SaaS startup.
During the week, I mostly work on building and shipping features, but there’re also PR reviews, pairing sessions, reading and writing documentation, and meetings that come up. As front-end lead, I’m constantly thinking about best practices and how to improve the front-end codebase, as well as the UI, UX, and accessibility of our app for users.
We have a very flat company hierarchy, so I work autonomously with an incredible amount of ownership over my work. Since there are only currently two of us in Engineering (my CTO and me), being able to prioritize my time around feature builds, fixing bugs, learning, or addressing tech debt has been key to success in the chaos that startups can sometimes be.
What’s an accomplishment you’re proud of in your tech journey?
Annie: A fun accomplishment was building and shipping an Adobe XD plugin and launching it on ProductHunt! I built it in React from scratch (didn’t use Create React App) and it was a huge learning curve. I had to configure Webpack and other tools by myself and deal with UXP, Adobe’s fairly new API, which has a number of quirks.
On the non-technical side, something that I didn’t expect was getting better at public speaking. I remember how my voice used to shake when I had to give presentations at Bootcamp. Since then, I’ve done interviews and given talks with various companies and podcasts such as Hashnode, Scrimba and Microsoft, to name a few. Public speaking is still a work in progress but I’m proud of where I am now, compared to when I first started.
What are you currently learning and/or working on? What are you hoping to learn or accomplish next in your tech journey?
Annie: Working at a startup like Pastel is incredibly energising. There’s a lot of room for change and initiatives, all of which align with my goal to get really good at what I do. Here are four improvements I’m carrying out over the next few months to better our front-end developer experience and reduce tech debt:
- Introduce a design library to build faster and reduce UI inconsistencies
- Implement integration testing to ship features with more confidence
- Migrate our old-school Redux to Redux Toolkit to simplify Redux tasks
- Gradually transition to TypeScript and functional components over classes
Who is someone you look up to in the tech industry?
I’m a big fan of Quincy Larson, founder of FreeCodeCamp. He’s well-respected in the industry and someone I’ve collaborated with. I really admire his vision for FreeCodeCamp and all the energy he puts into making coding accessible to everyone. Quincy is building something that has wide-scale positive impact on people. It’ll be his legacy on the world. He has a gift for aligning people to his vision and is one of the kindest, most down-to-earth and modest humans you’ll ever have the good fortune to meet.
Annie's Advice For Beginners, Students, and Developers
Advice for those looking to break into tech as a beginner?
Annie: First of all, I honestly believe that anyone can be a programmer if they really want to. You just gotta put in the hours and embrace the suck at the beginning. If your motivation is financial stability, that’s a very valid reason and was my driving motivator when I first started.
I honestly believe that anyone can be a programmer if they really want to.
Something I’ve really learned since getting into tech as a developer is; your network matters. Leverage it. Building community around you and getting to know others in the industry is extremely beneficial to landing a job, especially as you progress through your career. It doesn’t have to be online through social media either. One of the best developers I know is barely online but has a reliable group of people he’s connected with and can reach out to when he’s ready to look for his next gig.
Advice for current Bootcamp students?
Annie: Take the opportunity to really buckle down and focus while you have access to your teachers and mentors. This is an incredibly valuable resource you’re paying for. Get as much feedback as you can from each project and implement them on your next one. While personal branding can play a role in getting your first job, recognize that time spent on social media has wide-ranging implications on your ability to focus and do deep work/learning. As much as possible during this time, I advise limiting your time scrolling on social media in favour of actual coding.
Advice for job-seeking developers?
Annie: Definitely! In fact, I wrote a whole article on this here: Getting Your First Coveted Tech Job: Advice from Senior Developers, Hiring Managers & Industry Recruiters
Advice for developers looking to take the next step in their career?
Annie: Of course! Here is another article with lessons I learned in my first year as a developer: 10 Lessons To Help You Excel in Your Developer Career
Last but not least, just for fun: your must-have, dev tool/resource?
Annie: Forget about border: 1px solid red; 😉 If you’re working with debugging CSS, I highly recommend the Pesticide browser extension — it outlines all the box elements on the page and is incredibly useful!
Ready to break into tech like Annie?
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