I'm J.D Nicholls and I'm from Medellin, Colombia 🇨🇴
I am the kind of person who loves to solve problems with technology, learn new ways to optimize processes, and create open source projects that can change the world by connecting people with small contributions. I am also a developer who likes to work in collaboration, being part of a team and engage everyone to share knowledge, the passion to create new things with code and find better ways to solve problems while we're working together to create solutions that can be used around the world and reach millions of people.
Known for be a disciplined, organized, humble and righteous person. Committed to good morals, continuous learning, innovation and development of optimal solutions.
I had always wanted to travel around the world, to meet people, participate in community and collaborate with others. It was one of my dreams so I decided to start working remotely few years ago in order to have the possibility to travel and to meet different cultures, so thats what I have been doing for the last years to be prepared for new experiences.
I believe anyone can be successful if they try hard enough.
I work as a Frontend developer at S4N, specially working for Nordstrom in their Employee Selling Tools as a Team Leader. I have 8 years of experience working as Software developer, I've experience playing different roles as Frontend, Backend and Software Architect.
In college, I studied Software Engineering at Universidad de Medellin (UdeM), then I had the opportunity to work as a Backend developer when I was finishing my bachelor's degree. During my first job I had the chance to work with awesome designers, using agile methodologies like pair programming sessions for creating web sites and social games. With this experience, I started working as a Frontend developer, creating better interactive experiences for almost 2 years.
Then I worked for 1 year as a Team leader helping other teams using Microsoft technologies.
Later I worked for almost 2 years as a Backend and Full Stack developer at Yuxi Pacific, during this time I become a Team leader again and I designed the baseline for cross-platform mobile applications using new technologies (Cordova, Ionic), with these results the company became an Ionic Trusted Partner.
Then I worked for a brief as a Software Architect where I helped to define architectural baselines for the development of reactive applications using new technologies (MeteorJS and NodeJS).
In my current job, I had the opportunity to start working for a Startup called BevyUp that later was acquired by Nordstrom, and with that acquisition I started working at Seven4n. I was responsible for researching new Frontend technologies, migrate apps using deprecated frameworks (AngularJS, Ionic 1) and then I've accomplished to define a modular architecture with React Native that allows multiple teams work in the same project adding new features at the same time.
- Making 2d games (Video games)
- Writing about my projects
- Creating video tutorials for my YouTube channel
- Programming/Coding
- Public Speaking (Teaching about Code)
- Being a Mentor (Volunteering)
- Taking Free Online Classes
- Playing tennis
- People Watching
- Inventing projects with technology
- Astronomy
I think I'm very good at working in a team, I've been doing that since I've been working so I think I've become very good at that. And I believe I have good technical skills using different lenguages and tools and good communication skills. I'm very responsible, reliable and disciplined person.
- I get distracted easily and do not feel so motivated when I work alone, for that reason I use to have pair programming meetings with my team, to share knowledge but most important to be focus on my tasks and have a lot of motivation working together.
- Sometimes I used to be stubborn when I knew that something can be done better and I took extra part of my personal time to achieve it, because of that I started giving these points for improvement in retrospective meetings, during the planning of our sprints, to take these into account as part of the estimation process because nothing is perfect, everything can be improved, to avoid procrastination.
- In a job where you have to work under pressure and have to commit to strict deadlines, estimating used to be a complicated task for me, so with experience I began to prioritize tasks and dip complexity into simpler tasks with small deadlines to be more efficient while seeing progress soon.
- I used to be a perfectionist in my work, but with experience working with others I learned that Good is better than perfect, because there's trade-off between being agreeable and being execution oriented, when you move fast, you can be aggresive and frustrate the people who want to get things done too
Tell me about a situation when you failed
- Scaling a problem instead of having a direct conversation with my coworker first.
- I remember once I started on a project that was delayed, having sprints of a week and also I got a hard deadline here. This project was using deprecated libraries and I spent a lot of time updating everything to avoid code refactors in the future, in the end it was a success but I was tired and bored because I had invested a lot of my free time.
It's better if you keep iterating and make it better as well as you need instead of trying to make everything perfect the first time, to avoid frustration because nothing will ever truly be perfect (Perfect is the enemy of good) and being able to recognize the value of constructive criticism.
How would your boss and co-workers describe you?
- Recognized for being helpful with the team
- Known for being assertive in proposing solutions and ideas
Why are you leaving your current job?
I'm no sure if I'm going to leave my current job, honestly I'm curious about the kind of challenges I could face working with you and see if I'm interested because right now I'm working for an excellent company with an amazing team, creating solutions for amazing clients that can reach a lot of people and face great challenges too.
What do you expect with this job?
- Being able to support others and give back to my community is very important to me (mentorship, speaker).
- Working with you I expect to have the opportunity to express my ideas. Be authentic, creative, and allow me to solve interesting problems that can impact people's lives.
- I would love the possibility to have a career path well defined to grow into the company, to be able to develop my skills and become the best version of myself.
- I hope the chance to share knowledge, continue learning together and get awesome experiences.
What's your dream job?
- A job that allows me to work from anywhere, being able to be an international speaker and mentor, attend interesting events, share about technology with other people and help tech communities like CodeYourFuture.
- A job that allows me to meet people and innovate while solving complex problems (like magic).
- A job that allows me to research and learn interesting things in order to solve problems with technology.
- Supporting Open Source projects while I'm creating awesome apps.
How you deal with getting stuck?
I prefer to rely on my team instead of spending a lot of time solving any problem on my own.
- Else if, I try to find out if it's a common mistake or if someone has had the same problem.
- Else if none of the above works, I seek to report the error in case someone else can help me and in the meantime I try to figure this out for myself.
How do you deal with pressure or stressful situations?
- Stopping to take a moment (10 deep breaths), break the problem into specific issues and priorize to solve that critical situation.
What do you like to do outside of work?
- I like to share knowledge as speaker/mentor in local communities like ColombiaDev, MedellinJS, CodeYourFuture, etc.
- I like working on open source projects that could be useful for my work and at the same time help others while receiving external feedback to continue learning.
- I also like to spend time with my girlfriend and do exercise, watch movies and series, travel and continue studying.
- I want to create more side projects, apps and games of my own ideas.
What are you looking for in a new position?
- New challenges
- New ways of doing things to constantly improve
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
- I’m looking forward to being a tech interviewer in the next 2 years, I’ve been practicing algorithms, mock interviews and behavioral questions with some books like Cracking the Coding Interview, also participating in communities, and I started creating a resource called “The Job Interview Guide”, in order to help other developers to get a great job!
- Developing into a great developer, being an international speaker and helping other developers to grow in this profession is something I'm really excited about.
- I'd like to be seen as someone with deep expertise as Sofwate Architect, being able to build large-scale systems that can face many interesting challenges.
- Well, hopefully working for your company. I would like to first become very good at my job. And then after that I will be ready to asume new responsabilities and go for the next step.
What type of work environment do you prefer?
- I like working remotely, but I also like working with others, having the opportunity to have flexible schedule to share with my colleagues and my family.
What's time you exercised leadership?
- Most of the time during meetings, talking about development, etc but I prefer to delegate responsibilities, so anyone on the team can be a leader!
What's time you disagreed with a decision that was made at work?
- I remember once a PM had coordinated a delivery with the client, so we have a meeting with the Architect because I did not agree to make decisions without taking the team into account, at the end of the day we had the opportunity to clarify everything and make a better decision all together :)
Have you ever worked with an engineer who wasn't performing well?
- I remember once a developer lied to me about an assigned task because he had been late in completing it, a colleague told me what happened but I preferred to give him a second chance, help him understand the problem he had to avoid it happen again and then he was able to perform the tasks very well.What is it about you that makes you a good fit for this position?
- I have the experience you're looking for, but most important, I'm most excited when I work in a team, I love to propose new ideas and take risks, I have experience creating projects for others, which help to generate a great impact while solving all kinds of technical problems.
- With my experience, I know we can face a lot of interesting challenges and deliver better consumer experiences while we're connecting people around the world and learning together.
- I have experience creating tools that are used across the world which allows developers to scale their solutions in many projects, teams and large organizations.
Why do you want to work for us?
Personally I want to work with you because of the impact you have on people, nothing motivates me more than seeing that my work can make people's live easier, adding my "grain of sand" to change the world by creating creative/innovative solutions that can help to empower people. Also, I like your values, when someone can be authentic, take risks and help others (I believe that most of the world's problems can be solved by connecting people).
Profesionally, the opportunity to work with talented proffesionals, looking to solve interesting problems with technology but also to have good spaces for sharing knowledge to help me make better decisions, build better products and create better experiences for everyone.
Maybe mention your own ideas about social changes, etc, e.g => https://github.com/proyecto26/social-change
What professional accomplishment are you most proud of?
- Designed the baseline for cross-platform mobile applications in different companies.
- At Yuxi, I had the opportunity to mentor a junior developer by delegating leadership responsibilities, helping her develop confidence, and take on new challenges to enhance her soft skills. Because at the end of the day it does not matter who the leader is, but rather that we're happy in what we're doing.
- At my current company I had the opportunity to start working for a Startup that later was acquired by Nordstrom, I had the responsability to investigate new Frontend technologies (Frameworks), migrate some apps and then I defined a modular architecture with React Native that today is used for multiple teams. With the help of the team, 2 weeks ago, on the Nordstrom Anniversary, the app reached a million dollars in one day, that was impressive!
What's your greatest professional achievement?
- My best professional achievement is Proyecto 26, I created it with the idea of Changing the world with small contributions, basically Open Source projects that can have a positive impact on the world. I've reach more than 1 million downloads with one of my plugins (A native plugin for platforms like iOS and Android in order to improve the user experience), so it's used by a lot of projects and during the process I've had the opportunity to work with people from all over the world and learn a lot!
What was the hardest bug you've faced?
What is the last significant thing you learned to do your job better?
What would you do differently in your next role?
How do you deal with conflict?
How do you like to give and receive feedback?
- Getting positive suggestions for the future
- No judging or critiquing ideas
- Giving it face to face
- Opportunity to seek advice
- Create safety (build confidence)
What were some of the best things you've built?
- Open Source projects
What are the most interesting projects you’ve worked on?
- Plugins for games
- Packages for mobile apps
What are some of the biggest professional challenges you've faced?
- Reach millions of downloads with my side projects
What major changes to your workflow have happened in the last year?
- Modular architecture to work with multiple teamsWhy are you working as a software engineer?
- Because I love to be a creator, using technology to create new things
How do you collaborate with your peers?
Tell me about your best collaboration experience
Tell me about a challenging interaction with a teammate
Tell me about a time when you advocated for and pushed your own ideas forward despite opposition?
Have you ever worked fully remote before? How do you feel about this experience?
Describe your typical project, workflow, or product development experience when working with backend or frontend applications
- What would a normal day of work be like at your company?
- What is the interaction like?
- What's a typical day like?
- How does that balance with life?
- How much of my life do you expect me to be here? (Horas nalgas o por objetivos)
- What's the work expectation here?
- What are the key responsabilities for the job?
- What can you tell me about your plans for growth?
- What's your favorite part about working here?
- What do you like most about working here?
- How would you describe the engineering culture here?
- What's the culture at your company like?
- How does project planning happen on the team?
- How much did the people on the teams tend to work?
- What other projects are you currently working on?
- How does the reward structure work?
- What has been the biggest technical challenge you have faced lately?
- Do you feel like you have good growth opportunities here?
- About opportunities, if I excel, what would I be doing next year?
- Was this an efficient discussion? (Request feedback)
- what makes this company different from its competitors?
- About careers, do I have a mentor? how does training look like?
- How did you come to work here?
- Who's the most successful hire here recently and why?
- Who did not succeed as a hire and why?
- What's the company's biggest challenge this year and how will you help to overcome it?
- How will I measure my performance so I know that I will have a positive impact on this challenge?
- What kind of skills and additional experience you wish I had that would make me a better fit for this job?
- What are the next steps in the process?
- Do you use third party packages or you write everything from scratch? (licenses management)
- If I have any other questions that I can't think of now, will I be able to email you or give you a call?
- I'm very interested in scalability, and I'd love to learn more about it. What opportunities are there at this company to learn about this?
- I'm not familiar with technology X, but it sounds like a very interesting solution. Could you tell me a bit more about how it works?
- Ask for clarification if you're not sure about something
- Explain what you're trying to do