All my friends teach
Working in the online world, I’m surrounded by really smart people. Like, REALLY smart people. We’re all developers and creatives so we surely do think a bit more outside the box then others. Folks in this industry come from different backgrounds, and thus deliver different strengths and skills.
It’s really easy to sit and code a website if you have the experience, however teaching someone how to do it takes a really special type of person. That person is you.
All of my friends are developers, but they are also teachers/mentors. These friends I look up to, due to the fact that they share their skills with reckless abandon simply out of excitement and passion.
Brenna O’Brien
I’ve had the pleasure of working with Brenna for the last 7 months at HackerYou. By far, one of the best teachers I’ve seen. Speaking with conviction and passion for the topics, Brenna can hold an audience and will never let up until anyone understands the lesson at hand. Coming from a Math background and moving into development, Brenna started working at Ladies Learning Code and HackerYou and has been an example of why brogrammers are bullshit and why female developers shouldn’t be marginalized, because she’s really fucking good.
Wes Bos
This guy eh. When you look at this guy, you think, ‘ok, he’s about 32 or so’. Guess again, this hero is 26 years old. Wes is a freelance developer who I’ve as well been working with at HackerYou. Insanely positive and full of jokes, Wes has lead hundreds of students through code and is committed to education. Besides being a talented developer, Wes is an active member of the community, regularly posting about new topics and tips, some of which have ended up in his first book
Sacha Sayan
Sacha is again, another HackerYou friend. Coming from a CompSci background, Sacha isn’t like every developer. Sacha is the nicest guy you could ever meet, and just wants you to love this industry as much as he does. To say that his strength lies in one-on-one mentorship is an understatement, Sacha will take the time to ensure that you ‘get it’, even if it cuts into his own time.
https://medium.com/@sachasayan
Darcy Clarke
I knew of Darcy prior to working at HackerYou. I was a big fan of his Front End Developer questions and looked to him as a source of inspiration. Since he is, I guess, we could say, a “HackerYou Fellow”, I’ve had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with him. Darcy doesn’t work at HackerYou but regularly provides help, guidance and advice to the students whenever they ask. He does however teach at Humber College in the same program I did, and from what I’ve heard from my past students, he’s got the right stuff.
Writings about web development, design, ux, interaction and showcasing experiments in the latest web technologies like…darcyclarke.me
Ryan Christiani
Ryan has to be the nicest person ever. The best way to describe him to someone is “the guy with the cute illustrated twitter avatar”. Ryan comes from an illustration background so of course, everything he does looks great. Doing triple duty as a full time dev and part time educator, Ryan was my first choice to offer Humber College as my replacement when I decided not to return. It’s paid off in spades. Ryan is a great teacher with a real passion for sharing his knowledge.
A recent client project called for an image rotator that was essentially a 3D cube. I was pretty excited when I heard…ryanchristiani.com
Haris Mahmood
My students have been spoiled recently because of this man. A talented Front End in his own right, Haris took the Rails class at HackerYou and never left. Working at The Working Group as a Full Stack Dev, Haris still comes by HackerYou every night ready to help someone. Providing a help session to cover the following classes questions, Haris doesn’t even have to booked to work that night, he just comes in after work and does it.
Hello, my name is Haris Mahmood. I'm a Web+UI designer & developer based in Toronto. I spend the majority of my time…meetharis.com
These are my friends
They are so passionate about this industry that they put their interests secondary to helping someone. I guarantee you all of them would agree that their technical skills have grown infinitely more due to the being a teacher.
Every day, it’s like being at a conference because I get to work with such talented people.
As we just had our fourth cohort graduate from the fulltime bootcamp at HackerYou. Many have asked how they can still be involved in the program, offering to provide mentorship. I taught them the skills they needed to succeed in this industry and if somehow I inspired to give back, then my job is done.
Teach on friends.
