Kriszta Matyi — Front-end Developer
Hi, my name is Kriszta, I’ve been a professional web developer for little over 2 years now. I currently work for Wolff Olins as a front-end developer. I have a background in product and graphic design. In my spare time I am one of the organisers of codebar London. I also organise some of our one day events here in London and help out with other codebar chapters.
Catch me on the internet at:
Kriszta Matyi / @KrisztaMatyi / krisztinamatyi.com
What did you want to be growing up?
When I was a kid I was totally obsessed with ancient Egyptians so the first thing I remember wanting to be was an archeologist, specifically an egyptologist. When I was around 13 my attention shifted to medieval France (after reading Maurice Druon’s The Accursed Kings series of novels) and I wanted to become a historian. I later abandoned this plan when my father told me all a historian does is sit in libraries and read. Lastly, when I was around 15 my family moved house and we lived in interior design fever for months (we replaced all our old things, some inherited from grandparents with shiny new stuff). This ignited my interest in design and from then on I knew I wanted to become a designer. I never for one second thought I’d become a web developer. The job as such wasn’t even on my radar as a possible thing to do.
When did your interest in tech start?
After high school I got accepted into a design school in Budapest to study product design. At this point I was still really into design and thought I’ll be a designer forever. After my first year I got the opportunity to attend college in the US so I applied to Parsons The New School for Design. Miraculously (this was the only school I applied to), I got in and in 2009 I moved to the US to study at Parsons. My first real exposure to technology happened when I did a summer course with Parsons in China during the summer of 2010, at the end of my junior year. This course was organised by the Design & Technology department and they invited a few students from other departments as well. This is where I first got involved with technology from more than a “I know how to use Facebook” point of view. I was fascinated with what my D&T peers could do who applied code to creative and design projects. During the trip we became friends and they would often visit me in the woodshop (the bane of all product design students existence) to ask for help building physical things for their projects. During the next two years of college my interest in technology grew, but since I was already in the middle of a degree and transferring to the D&T department would mean an additional year of college, I decided to finish my studies in product design and pursue tech later.
After college I got a job at a tech startup that had a software and hardware component to their product. I worked mostly on graphic design projects there but sometimes got to work with their devs on the website (and the software). This is when I really decided that I wanted to become a developer. By this point I wasn’t enjoying design at all (and I wasn’t very good at it either).
How did you make the transition to being a developer?
While working for this company I started doing online tutorials, teaching myself HTML and CSS. My plan was to learn the basics of web development and hopefully apply some of it at my company, slowly making the transition to web developer while working full time as a designer. I hit the proverbial wall pretty fast, being able to finish online tutorials but not really understanding how to take my work ‘offline’, or apply it to real projects. At the same time, I hit a wall in my personal life as well. I didn’t get the visa I applied for and knew that I will have to leave the US pretty soon (going back to school again wasn’t an option for me). After some consideration I decided to move to London. I was just considering my employment options in the UK (thinking that I didn’t want to get a new design job but will have to anyways) when I accidentally saw a tweet advertising the intensive General Assembly web development course. After some digging I noticed they run courses in London too and the plan hatched in my head! I signed up for the December 2013 cohort, bought a one-way plane ticket and packed up my life in New York. My justification for attending the course was simple: I was already experiencing a major break in my life and career so might as well take 3 months to retrain and completely reinvent myself. On the 2nd of December I boarded a plane at JFK heading for Heathrow and 8 hours later landed on my friends couch where I stayed for 6 months while I did the General Assembly course and until I got my first dev job here in London.
I hit the proverbial wall pretty fast, being able to finish online tutorials but not really understanding how to take my work ‘offline’, or apply it to real projects.
What was your first development job?
My first job was at a digital agency where I was doing front-end work, working with the trio of HTML, CSS & JS. At first I had no idea what I was doing (even less so than I do now), I only had about 3 months web development experience but they trusted me with a job which is both insane and extremely generous. I’ve learnt a lot there, mostly about the less glamorous side of writing production ready code that works in the myriad of browsers on the myriad OS’s currently in use (just mentioning the name IE8 sends me into a white hot rage).
What is your favourite thing about being a developer?
I love building things, I love the fact that you can sit down on a Saturday morning and in a day or two build something, put it on the internet, and send it out into the world for people to use and interact with. I love the creative part of web development, it’s very much like design in the sense that it’s problem solving. I love how it keeps me on my toes, I love how challenging it is.
How did you get involved with codebar?
I’ve heard about codebar from a fellow General Assembly student, Jarkyn. She was on the cohort before mine, and mentioned codebar as a great resource for women and other minorities who are learning to code. After graduating from GA I went to a codebar session and fell in love with the community and the concept. For a few weeks I attended as a student, then gradually became a coach and am now an organiser.
Why do you keep coming back to codebar?
Organising codebar has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. I love to see students improve, hearing their stories on how and why they are learning to code. I love the community that grew out of codebar as well, it’s amazingly supportive and fun :) It gave me the opportunity to meet so many brilliant people in London’s tech community. I made real friends through codebar. I sometimes even get recognised on the street which is quite fun :)
I love the community that grew out of codebar as well, it’s amazingly supportive and fun :) It gave me the opportunity to meet so many amazing people in London’s tech community.
What are your plans for the future?
I’d like to keep working on my web dev skills but eventually my plan is to go into digital product design. I think that would be a great role for me where I could combine my design and technology skills. For now I’m still focused on getting as good at web development as possible and possibly dipping my toes into mobile development.
For codebar I’d like to grow it even further. I’d like to take it to international waters and open a few chapters in Europe. I’d like to see more and more students get jobs. I’d like to see more and more students becoming coaches.
What advice would you give to a newbie developer?
Don’t go it alone. Find a group or a mentor that can help you learn. If you are really serious about a career change consider a bootcamp (and be prepared to work your a** off). It is an investment but if you really are serious about changing career in a short amount of time it really is the only way to go.
Focus on a topic or language. Don’t try to learn 3 languages at the same time. Online resources are great but try to read a book about a language as well, they usually go deeper into the topic at hand and are a good way to learn about the fundamentals.
Learning to code is hard, don’t listen to the people who tell you it’s supposed to be easy. It is not. Don’t give up. I still have to tell myself that every day, when the going gets tough and I’m stuck on a particular problem. You will eventually grok it. Learning to code takes patience and practice (just like learning anything else, really).
There are a lot of failures involved in web development. You will fail to do something, fail to understand something, fail to know about something, your code will not work most of the time, people will constantly tell you you are doing things wrong. Learn to accept this fact and live with it. It’s not a reflection of you or your work or your abilities.
