Do the Projects You Find Fun and Take Time To Process Rejection: Actor-Turned-Developer Ollie Church

🎙 About the episode

Meet Ollie Church 🇬🇧! Ollie started out as an actor. He took up coding as a hobby during a lockdown and made a puzzle game partially inspired by an escape room where he worked at the time. Now he works in fintech!

This episode is about lockdowns, hobbies, motivation, and having fun. Ollie talks about his career change and approach to goal-setting. He also shares advice on choosing portfolio projects, as well as dealing with rejection - something that actors are maybe even more familiar with than new developers.

You'll find out how an online game he made for fun brought Ollie some income even before he landed his firs junior developer role, and what it's like to accidentally be interviewed for a senior role when you're applying for a junior position. Spoiler: Ollie did get the job in the end!

You'll also get an inside scoop on working as an actor, and how the pandemic has impacted the world of performing arts and in-person experiences.

🔗 Connect with Ollie

• 👨🏻‍💼 LinkedIn
• 🌐 Website
• 👩‍🚀 GitHub
• 🐦 Twitter
• 🎥 Acting reel

⏰ Timestamps

• What is's like being an actor (01:59)
• Theater, in-person experiences, and performing arts during the COVID-19 pandemic (03:18)
• How Ollie took up coding (07:55)
• Front-end development as a hobby (09:34)
• How Ollie and his partner created their first online puzzle game (11:43)
• How to make learning to code playful, and how to choose portfolio projects (14:17)
• Ollie's puzzle game became a work project! Here's how that happened. (17:13)
• Should you apply before you're ready? How Ollie navigated changing careers and defined his goals and deadlines (20:53)
• Ollie's job hunt stats (25:51)
• An interview process from hell (16:15)
• How Ollie got his current job - it started with a rejection (30:13)
• How to deal with rejection and when is the common advice about it actually useful (31:03)
• The interview that got Ollie his current job... and how it went wrong (33:30)
• First months on the job and imposter syndrome (38:33)
• Ollie's closing advice for new developers: do the projects you think are fun and focus on showing up. It's a marathon, not a sprint!

🧰 Resources mentioned

• The Frontend Developer Career Path
• "Happy", by Derren Brown

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