Arthi Radhakrishnan on the Value of Collaborative Learning for Software Engineers

Elixir Wizards

This week we welcome Arthi Radhakrishnan back to the show to discuss how Elixir and her career more broadly have shaped her perspectives on learning. Arthi first got into programming as a child growing up in the Bay Area, constantly exposed to tech and tech culture. She remembers building websites using GeoCities in high school and learning about data structures and OOP in Java while in college before transitioning to Elixir during her current position as a backend engineer at Community. We hear about what made her learning so enjoyable, the biggest paradigm shifts she needed to make, and she talks about the value of mentorship, pair programming, and working at a company that encourages learning on the job. In today’s show, we also explore a realization that Arthi has come to at the end of her first decade as a software engineer: that effective learning requires a big dose of self-compassion. So, for all this and more, be sure to tune in today!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Introducing Arthi and the work she does as a backend engineer for Community.
• What it was like growing up in the Bay Area and how Arthi got into programming.
• Going from building websites with GeoCities in high school to building a compiler in college.
• The big role that Java and OOP played in Arthi’s experience of programming fundamentals.
• Arthi’s experience of learning Elixir and having to shift away from an OOP paradigm.
• Where Arthi is in her journey of learning Elixir and why she enjoys it so much.
• How compelling it is to learn on the job and the value of companies that allow for this.
• The impact that company culture has on job experiences and career trajectories.
• Summer internships Arthi did in college and how they shaped her career goals.
• Finding time to do personal learning and why Advent of Code is so helpful.
• Why setting low expectations for yourself is a helpful paradigm for learning.
• Exercising self-compassion while learning and how Arthi’s learning approach has evolved.
• Why Arthi is so grateful that she has gotten to learn Elixir at Community specifically.
• What good mentorship looks like to Arthi and why she loves pair programming.
• How learning Elixir and the past 10 years have shaped Arthi’s sense of her needs.
• Arthi’s thoughts on how Elixir will evolve in the next 10 years.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Arthi Radhakrishnan — https://www.linkedin.com/in/arthiradhakrishnan/
Community — https://www.community.com/
Advent of Code — https://adventofcode.com/
SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/
Audience Survey -- https://smr.tl/survey

Special Guest: Arthi Radhakrishnan.