Dmitry Belitsky

I was not looking for any specific Ruby work, but I was contacted by someone who I had done work for in the past. The company was looking for someone to build an internal intranet web site. I meet with them to get an understanding of what they were looking for and I said I could get the work done in 2 weeks. I did not sell them on any particular technology I just said: "let's meet in 2 days and I will create a high-level prototype of what I think you need." I decided that Ruby on Rails would be a fast way to prototype the work, so I build a basic intranet site for the company in 2 days and finished the overall project in the next week. They loved how fast I was able to complete the project and I have been doing work for them on and off for the past 2 years.

The way I find work today and in the past is usually though refers from people who I have worked for and from people who contact me via my blog, twitter, or linkedin. I also have found work from various job boards: http://jobs.37signals.com/jobs, phoenix.craigslist.org/sof, or monster.com. I have found the best way to get work is through being an active blogger or contributer to open source projects. I get contacted for more work than I can handle simply from people who follow me on github.com/CarlosGabaldon or read my blog.

The best advice I can offer is to start contributing to one of the many great existing open source projects. Even if it is just updating documentation or fixing bugs. Get known within the community and learn from some of the great hackers that are working on the various projects. Make sure you are hacking everyday on anything that can improve your skills.

I am a forward thinking person, I never think about what "I could of..should of done" it is stupid. You can not change the past so do not waste your time focusing on the past. Everything you have done up to this point good or bad has made you the person you are..change one bad thing in your past might mean that two good things would have never happened..

I read a lot of books, usually 2 or 3 at a time. My recommendations:

• Software Architecture: Foundations, Theory, and Practice
• Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware (Pragmatic Programmers)
• The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development
• Mastering the Requirements Process
• Absolute FreeBSD: The Complete Guide to FreeBSD
• Apache Cookbook: Solutions and Examples for Apache Administrators
• From Geek To Peak: Your First 365 Days As A Technical Consultant — wish I had this book when I started consulting
• The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures — great book for selling your idea to your client
• JavaScript: The Good Parts
• TextMate: Power Editing for the Mac
• The Ruby Programming Language
• Programming Erlang: Software for a Concurrent World
• Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the Real World
• The Well-Grounded Rubyist

I work at least 35 hours a week with some weeks up to 50 depending on if I have multiple projects going on at the same time. I do not just do Ruby projects, but also work on Python, C, and a few web site design projects (Html and CSS). I love programming in any language and I love software development in general so keeping focused is not usually a problem. My biggest problem is making sure that I do not spend all day working. So I try and spend as much time playing with two little girls :-)

I do not use a lot of tools. For Ruby work it is my MacBook Pro, TextMate, Rspec, Git, Index cards (user stories), Moleskine (notes), big ass white board (design), and basecamphq.com (project management).

Success is about doing what you love, if you can make a living; all the better. Just keep doing what you love and the money will follow. Learn everything you can about programming. Do not just work on Ruby projects, but hack on anything that sounds interesting. If you get a big check from a project make sure you save a percentage of that check for a rain day. Always have some money in the bank to carry you over to the next project.

Programming is a craft that you get better at by doing. Code as much as possible and always try and work with people who are better than you.

I have been programming for over 10 years and the one thing that I have learned is that there is so much that I do not know. At first that seemed like a scary idea, but the more I thought about the more I loved the idea of being in career where everyday is chance to learn something new.

Cheers.