Great things come in unexpected places. For Tracy Lee, an ex-boyfriend’s T-shirt sporting the Ember Tomster is what tipped her off to software development. Following curiosity and a three-week bootcamp, Tracy was hooked and ready to take on a career in coding. Today, Tracy is the CEO of This Dot Labs. She leads a team of 50 developers with a focus on reactive programming, web performance, and developer experience. Her clients and colleagues have become her closest friends and she’s always looking to help fellow developers expand their careers. When she’s not running an agency, Tracy is part of the RX Core Team (one of her many professional memberships), posting tech content to social media, and raising a new baby boy. So how does she manage it all?  In this episode, Tracy talks with Chuck and Robbie about wearing every hat under the sun and wearing them well, why she loves RxJS, having hard conversations with over-eager developers, what’s so often ignored by non-technical CEOs, and what keeps Tracy motivated above all else.  Key Takeaways [00:09] - A Cinco De Mayo-themed beverage review.  [02:47] - An intro to Tracy. [06:17] - What RxJS is used for.  [09:28] - How Tracy balances everything. [18:55] - Tracy’s life outside of coding, parenting, and business ownership.  [27:17] - How Tracy first got into web development.  [38:23] - Tracy’s advice for developers and the hardest pill to swallow when you’re over-eager.  [45:05] - An important conversation about whiskey and Tracy’s liquor cabinet.  Quotes [08:24] - “Check out RxJS if you have not checked out RxJS. And then if you like it, I think it takes people a little bit to wrap their heads around it because it’s a new way of thinking, but once people do I feel like people just want to RxJS all the things.” ~ @ladyleet  [15:19] - “I hope I can turn my life into only doing my hobby again. So that’s my goal. Hire enough people to where I can actually not have to do all the things I don’t love.” ~ @ladyleet  [29:36] - “I love development because it was so challenging to me, instead of business. I think developers go the other way, they’re like, ‘oh development’s easy, let me do business stuff because that’s challenging.’ For me it was different, I was like, ‘man this is so invigorating, this is hard and it’s awesome and I can build things and create things.’” ~ @ladyleet  [35:19] - “I always talk about web performance and generally no one really wants to invest in it but performance is such a huge deal.” ~ @ladyleet  Links Tracy on Twitter This Dot Labs Cutwater Spirits  Bartesian Keurig RxJS Core Team Google Developer Expert GitHub Stars Microsoft MVP RxJS Angular Ember.js  ember-concurrency  tc39 Proposal for Observable  Introduction to RxJS Patterns in React This Dot Media on YouTube React Ken Wheeler Cricut  JavaScript Meetup ES2015 The Ember CLI GraphQL Apollo Federation Vanilla JS Sagamore Spirit Four Roses Single Barrel Blanton’s Bourbon E.H. Taylor, Jr. Collection W.L. Weller Rickhouse Buffalo Trace Distillery Pappy Van Winkle's Whiskey Willett Distillery Stagg Jr.  Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s Amaretto Sour Laphroaig Porsche Experience Center This Dot Media Angular Meetup This Dot Media React Meetup This Dot Media Women In Tech Monthly Mentoring Connect with our hosts Robbie Wagner Chuck Carpenter Ship Shape Subscribe and stay in touch Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts Whiskey Web and Whatnot Top-Tier, Full-Stack Software Consultants This show is brought to you by Ship Shape. Ship Shape’s software consultants solve complex software and app development problems with top-tier coding expertise, superior service, and speed. In a sea of choices, our senior-level development crew rises above the rest by delivering the best solutions for fintech, cybersecurity, and other fast-growing industries. Check us out at shipshape.io.

Great things come in unexpected places. For Tracy Lee, an ex-boyfriend’s T-shirt sporting the Ember Tomster is what tipped her off to software development. Following curiosity and a three-week bootcamp, Tracy was hooked and ready to take on a career in coding. Today, Tracy is the CEO of This Dot Labs. She leads a team of 50 developers with a focus on reactive programming, web performance, and developer experience. Her clients and colleagues have become her closest friends and she’s always looking to help fellow developers expand their careers. When she’s not running an agency, Tracy is part of the RX Core Team (one of her many professional memberships), posting tech content to social media, and raising a new baby boy. So how does she manage it all?  In this episode, Tracy talks with Chuck and Robbie about wearing every hat under the sun and wearing them well, why she loves RxJS, having hard conversations with over-eager developers, what’s so often ignored by non-technical CEOs, and what keeps Tracy motivated above all else.  Key Takeaways [00:09] - A Cinco De Mayo-themed beverage review.  [02:47] - An intro to Tracy. [06:17] - What RxJS is used for.  [09:28] - How Tracy balances everything. [18:55] - Tracy’s life outside of coding, parenting, and business ownership.  [27:17] - How Tracy first got into web development.  [38:23] - Tracy’s advice for developers and the hardest pill to swallow when you’re over-eager.  [45:05] - An important conversation about whiskey and Tracy’s liquor cabinet.  Quotes [08:24] - “Check out RxJS if you have not checked out RxJS. And then if you like it, I think it takes people a little bit to wrap their heads around it because it’s a new way of thinking, but once people do I feel like people just want to RxJS all the things.” ~ @ladyleet  [15:19] - “I hope I can turn my life into only doing my hobby again. So that’s my goal. Hire enough people to where I can actually not have to do all the things I don’t love.” ~ @ladyleet  [29:36] - “I love development because it was so challenging to me, instead of business. I think developers go the other way, they’re like, ‘oh development’s easy, let me do business stuff because that’s challenging.’ For me it was different, I was like, ‘man this is so invigorating, this is hard and it’s awesome and I can build things and create things.’” ~ @ladyleet  [35:19] - “I always talk about web performance and generally no one really wants to invest in it but performance is such a huge deal.” ~ @ladyleet  Links Tracy on Twitter This Dot Labs Cutwater Spirits  Bartesian Keurig RxJS Core Team Google Developer Expert GitHub Stars Microsoft MVP RxJS Angular Ember.js  ember-concurrency  tc39 Proposal for Observable  Introduction to RxJS Patterns in React This Dot Media on YouTube React Ken Wheeler Cricut  JavaScript Meetup ES2015 The Ember CLI GraphQL Apollo Federation Vanilla JS Sagamore Spirit Four Roses Single Barrel Blanton’s Bourbon E.H. Taylor, Jr. Collection W.L. Weller Rickhouse Buffalo Trace Distillery Pappy Van Winkle's Whiskey Willett Distillery Stagg Jr.  Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s Amaretto Sour Laphroaig Porsche Experience Center This Dot Media Angular Meetup This Dot Media React Meetup This Dot Media Women In Tech Monthly Mentoring Connect with our hosts Robbie Wagner Chuck Carpenter Ship Shape Subscribe and stay in touch Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts Whiskey Web and Whatnot Top-Tier, Full-Stack Software Consultants This show is brought to you by Ship Shape. Ship Shape’s software consultants solve complex software and app development problems with top-tier coding expertise, superior service, and speed. In a sea of choices, our senior-level development crew rises above the rest by delivering the best solutions for fintech, cybersecurity, and other fast-growing industries. Check us out at shipshape.io.