Amy Dutton shares how she got started in tech by building the original Giphy over 20 years ago. She talks about how she navigated some of her career decisions, ultimately landing a full-time job after seven years of doing freelance full-time.

SPONSORS

Pathwire / Mailgun / Mailjet

Pathwire is a powerful email API and intuitive email marketing solution that delivers over 250 billion emails a year for 400,000 companies around the world.

You can sign up now and try Mailgun or Mailjet for free today. Mailjet offers a trial that allows you to send 6,000 emails per month for free, forever. Mailgun offers a 3 month trial for 5,000 emails per month after which you only pay for what you send.

For more information, simply visit Pathwire.com

Vercel

Vercel combines the best developer experience with an obsessive focus on end-user performance. Their platform enables frontend teams to do their best work. It is the best place to deploy any frontend app. Start by deploying with zero configuration to their global edge network. Scale dynamically to millions of pages without breaking a sweat.

For more information, visit Vercel.com

ZEAL is hiring!

Zeal is a computer software agency that delivers “the world’s most zealous” and custom solutions. The company plans and develops web and mobile applications that consistently help clients draw in customers, foster engagement, scale technologies, and ensure delivery.

Zeal believes that a business is “only as strong as” its team and cares about culture, values, a transparent process, leveling up, giving back, and providing excellent equipment. The company has staffers distributed throughout the United States, and as it continues to grow, Coding Zeal looks for collaborative, object-oriented, and organized individuals to apply for open roles.

For more information visit their site.

Show Notes

0:00 Introduction
0:57 Family of Early Adopters
1:34 Building My First Website in Netscape Navigator Tools
2:49 First Real Job Updating a Website
4:23 Finding a Mentor
6:00 Teaching my High School Computer Class
7:05 Sponsor: Pathwire, Mailgun, and Mailjet
8:14 Working as a Production Artist
10:34 Studying in college
12:08 Getting a degree? Going to a Bootcamp? Teaching yourself?
13:12 Your background and experiences mean something
13:56 Working summer camp as a video producer
15:21 Brief experience with Animation Mentor
16:31 Sponsor: Vercel
17:12 Taking a job on Music Row
18:21 Moving into a Design Role
19:20 Going freelance full-time
20:33 Transitioning back into a full-time job
21:20 Sponsor: ZEAL
22:01 Amy Guesting on James's Twitch Stream
22:12 The Pros and Cons of Freelancing
23:06 Advice for making Job transitions
23:21 Grab Bag Questions #1: What is you favorite design for web apps and why?
27:27 Grab Bag Question #2: Is there a moment when you almost quit? What made you push through?
28:53 Amy's Pick: Tile
29:43 Amy's Plug: SelfTeach.me on YouTube
31:02 Simon Høiberg on Twitter
31:04 James's Pick: FeedHive
31:59 James's Plug: James Q Quick on YouTube
32:15 Conclusion