# mindiweik

> Software engineer, writer, builder. Figuring it out in public, one version at a time. The personal site of Mindi Weik: blog posts, the [WIP] podcast, talks, and projects.

## Blog

- [tag it and ship it: building a CD pipeline for a startup in alpha](https://mindiweik.com/blog/tag-it-and-ship-it-building-a-cd-pipeline-for-a-startup-in-alpha/): How a two-engineer startup went from SSH-and-pray to a tag-based GitLab CD pipeline, and what changed between the clean plan and what actually runs.
- [ai is rubber duck debugging, but the duck talks back](https://mindiweik.com/blog/ai-rubber-duck-debugging/): What if your rubber duck answered back? How I use AI to think through debugging out loud, and why explaining the problem is the real skill.
- [the job search, honestly](https://mindiweik.com/blog/the-job-search-honestly/): 65 applications, 3 final rounds, 1 offer. And for most of those interviews I thought I was bombing it. What the job search actually looks like from the inside.
- [why I rebuilt my whole site from scratch](https://mindiweik.com/blog/why-i-rebuilt-my-site/): Why I rebuilt mindiweik.com from scratch on Astro, moved away from the website builder, and what I didn't expect the process to feel like along the way.
- [level up: sources, performance & your playground](https://mindiweik.com/blog/level-up-sources-performance-and-your-playground/): Part 4 of 4: breakpoints in the Sources tab, performance profiling with the flame chart, Lighthouse audits, and a full Catz4Life sandbox walkthrough.
- [what's actually happening](https://mindiweik.com/blog/whats-actually-happening/): Part 3 of 4: the Network tab for every request, status code, and CORS error. Plus the Application tab for cookies and localStorage. Your debugging just leveled up.
- [your new best friend, the console](https://mindiweik.com/blog/your-new-best-friend-the-console/): Part 2 of 4: the Console tab is a live JavaScript environment in your browser. Six things you can do right now, from styling on the fly to making any page editable.
- [unlocking your browser](https://mindiweik.com/blog/unlocking-your-browser/): Part 1 of 4: a tour of browser DevTools starting with the Elements tab. Learn to inspect the DOM, tweak styles live, and use the tool you already have open.
- [building a compass](https://mindiweik.com/blog/building-a-compass/): I can’t tell you where I’ll be in five years and I’ve made peace with that. On adaptability, balance, and building a career that survives change.
- [✨ introducing... [wip]](https://mindiweik.com/blog/introducing-wip/): Introducing [WIP]: a newsletter and podcast about human development in tech, and the honest, ongoing process of growing as an engineer.
- [the importance of open telemetry](https://mindiweik.com/blog/the-importance-of-open-telemetry/): What OpenTelemetry actually is and why I didn't know how much I needed it until we found a bug hiding in plain sight with traces and metrics.
- [what's the difference?!](https://mindiweik.com/blog/whats-the-difference/): Compiling, transpiling, and runtime explained with a ramen recipe analogy. Because sometimes the only way to make something stick is to think about food.
- [the hidden currency of connection](https://mindiweik.com/blog/the-hidden-currency-of-connection/): Networking doesn’t have to feel forced. A tour through the what, why, when, where, and who of building a community that actually supports your career.
- [jmeter performance testing: part 2](https://mindiweik.com/blog/jmeter-performance-testing-part-2/): Part 2: running load, stress, and spike tests in JMeter, then parameterizing the whole thing with CLI scripts so future-me doesn't have to repeat the setup.
- [opportunity is knocking](https://mindiweik.com/blog/opportunity-is-knocking/): Feeling stagnant at work? Four ways to create your own growth: within your team, across departments, through your network, and in your own projects.
- [jmeter performance testing: part 1](https://mindiweik.com/blog/jmeter-performance-testing-part-1/): Part 1: getting started with Apache JMeter for API performance testing. Covers the GUI setup, randomized CSV inputs, and the options I used on a real project.
- [3 habits that helped me recover from burnout and stay motivated](https://mindiweik.com/blog/3-habits-that-helped-me-recover-from-burnout-and-stay-motivated/): A guest post on burning out hard, dropping the plates that don't matter, and the three habits that helped me actually rebuild momentum.
- [exploring typescript: primitive types](https://mindiweik.com/blog/exploring-typescript-primitive-types/): TypeScript's 7 primitive types broken down with examples, const type literal gotchas, and the nuances I didn't fully grasp until I wrote this out.
- [capturing curiosity](https://mindiweik.com/blog/capturing-curiosity/): A framework for rebuilding curiosity as a practice. Based on a talk I gave in 2024, covering four core habits to get more out of how you learn.
- [dependencies or dev dependencies, that is the question](https://mindiweik.com/blog/dependencies-or-dev-dependencies-that-is-the-question/): Dependencies vs devDependencies: what they actually are, why the distinction matters, and the time I moved a package to the wrong place in production.
- [the software engineer's guidebook review](https://mindiweik.com/blog/the-software-engineers-guidebook-by-gergely-orosz/): My breakdown of The Software Engineer's Guidebook by Gergely Orosz: career fundamentals, building competence, and the takeaways I'm actually using in practice.
- [exploring typescript: runtime](https://mindiweik.com/blog/exploring-typescript-runtime/): TypeScript types don't exist at runtime. Here's what that actually means, and three ways to keep your code type-safe once they're gone.
- [exploring typescript: ts compiler](https://mindiweik.com/blog/exploring-typescript-ts-compiler/): What the TypeScript compiler actually does, how to configure tsconfig.json, and why tsc being written in TypeScript blew my mind a little.
- [3 big, scary software engineering words explained](https://mindiweik.com/blog/3-big-scary-software-engineering-words-explained/): Idempotent, polymorphism, isomorphic JavaScript. Three terms that tripped me up, broken down with use cases and examples until they finally stuck.
- [experiences with a local gitlab runner: part2](https://mindiweik.com/blog/experiences-with-a-local-gitlab-runner-part2/): Part 2: moving the GitLab Runner to a Raspberry Pi. I corrupted it, started over, hit Mac/Linux case-sensitivity issues, and earned that green checkmark.
- [the power of career change](https://mindiweik.com/blog/the-power-of-career-change/): Five lessons from a winding career change into software engineering, from real estate and nonprofits to writing code for a living, one intentional step at a time.
- [feeling inadequate is okay.](https://mindiweik.com/blog/feeling-inadequate-is-okay/): Struggling with imposter syndrome after Women Who Code shut down. Three resources that helped me reframe inadequacy as a sign of growth, not failure.
- [learning typescript](https://mindiweik.com/blog/learning-typescript/): Five resources that actually helped me learn TypeScript: a Scrimba course, two O'Reilly books, a Udemy course, and honestly just building a lot of small things.
- [experiences with a local gitlab runner: part 1](https://mindiweik.com/blog/experiences-with-a-local-gitlab-runner-part-1/): Part 1: setting up a local GitLab Runner from scratch. CI/CD basics, installation steps, registration, and what I learned going in mostly blind.
- [peek behind the bootcamp curtain 🧐](https://mindiweik.com/blog/peek-behind-the-bootcamp-curtain/): What Hack Reactor was actually like: the cost, the pace, the moments life didn't pause for coursework, and why career changers bring something real to the table.
- [fundamentals of backend engineering course review](https://mindiweik.com/blog/fundamentals-of-backend-engineering-course-review/): A review of Hussein Nasser's Fundamentals of Backend Engineering on Udemy. 16 hours on protocols, TCP, TLS, WebSockets, and more, worth every penny.
- [how to start working with ai](https://mindiweik.com/blog/how-to-start-working-with-ai/): A question in a Slack community got me thinking about how I actually use AI at work. My honest tips, plus what ChatGPT suggested when I asked it too.
- [clean code by robert c. martin](https://mindiweik.com/blog/clean-code-by-robert-c-martin/): A book breakdown I shared with my team. Key takeaways from Clean Code on naming, functions, comments, and why keeping a codebase clean is everyone's job.
- [mongoose subdocuments & discriminators](https://mindiweik.com/blog/mongoose-subdocuments-and-discriminators/): A deep dive into two Mongoose tools: subdocuments for nested schemas and discriminators for storing schema variants in the same MongoDB collection.
- [failing fast](https://mindiweik.com/blog/failing-fast/): Failing fast isn't a productivity hack, it's an Agile mindset. Two real examples from my own work where iterating quickly saved a lot of wasted time.
- [learning: it’s better together.](https://mindiweik.com/blog/learning-its-better-together/): The first post. A software engineer with a winding background invites you along for the learning, the questions, and whatever curiosity surfaces next.

## Podcast

- [anemari fiser](https://mindiweik.com/podcast/v1-0-4-anemari-fiser/): Anemari Fiser on burning out in a job she loved, becoming a tech lead at 26, and coaching 500+ engineers through the messy middle of leadership.
- [anna miller](https://mindiweik.com/podcast/v1-0-3-anna-miller/): Anna Miller on tech hiring as a human process, online visibility as a career skill, landing vs passing interviews, and her Outlier Mentors community.
- [erik gross](https://mindiweik.com/podcast/v1-0-2-erik-gross/): Erik Gross on co-founding the Tech Academy, why AI is a crutch for beginners, and his journey from Navy nuclear reactors to The Uncommon Engineer.
- [jaidie vargas](https://mindiweik.com/podcast/v1-0-1-jaidie-vargas/): Jaidie Vargas on building Amigas in Tech, researching AI ethics, and how asking 'why not?' took her from Navy IT to cybersecurity leadership.
- [release notes](https://mindiweik.com/podcast/v1-0-0-release-notes/): The podcast returns. On pausing when life happened, the messages that brought it back, and building in public, one version at a time.
- [joram mutenge](https://mindiweik.com/podcast/v0-0-10-joram-mutenge/): Joram Mutenge on the data trifecta of engineering, analytics, and science, plus SQL, Python, Rust, and why curated learning beats random tutorials.
- [grace dees](https://mindiweik.com/podcast/v0-0-9-grace-dees/): Grace Dees on transitioning from the equine industry to cybersecurity, preventing burnout, setting boundaries, and doing it scared anyway.
- [mara kaela](https://mindiweik.com/podcast/v0-0-8-mara-kaela/): Mara Kaela on UX applied to wellness, building Align Vegan, and the Starflower app: an AI-powered platform designed for intentional relationships.
- [keshia coriolan](https://mindiweik.com/podcast/v0-0-7-keshia-coriolan/): Keshia Coriolan on technical support, transitioning back to software engineering, and what it means to belong in tech as a woman and minority.
- [nick clark](https://mindiweik.com/podcast/v0-0-6-nick-clark/): Nick Clark on DevOps and CI/CD, when certifications actually matter, and building in public with GitHub Actions.
- [kim maida](https://mindiweik.com/podcast/v0-0-5-kim-maida/): Kim Maida on what DevRel actually does, architecture-driven auth, closing the knowledge gap in identity and security, and building miniatures.
- [colin j lacy](https://mindiweik.com/podcast/v0-0-4-colin-j-lacy/): Colin J Lacy on cloud engineering, AI infrastructure and observability, MCP, and why being early to the party is its own kind of learning.
- [brendan schirmer](https://mindiweik.com/podcast/v0-0-3-brendan-schirmer/): Brendan Schirmer on going from software engineer to communication coach, async team culture, and why two-millimeter shifts create real change.
- [christin martin](https://mindiweik.com/podcast/v0-0-2-christin-martin/): Christin Martin on building BuiltInPublic, learning TypeScript, and how a tough job search accidentally became an open-source community project.
- [david weiss](https://mindiweik.com/podcast/v0-0-1-david-weiss/): David Weiss on building in public, overcoming fear of rejection, and the mindset of a consistent creator who can't stop starting side projects.
- [the first commit](https://mindiweik.com/podcast/v0-0-0-the-first-commit/): Introducing [WIP], a podcast about the real, human side of working in tech. Growth, career stories, and being a work in progress.

## Speaking

- [job search: from search to final rounds in 2 months](https://mindiweik.com/speaking/job-search-from-search-to-final-rounds-in-2-months/): A LinkedIn Live conversation about what it actually takes to go from searching to final rounds, and how Mindi did it in 2 months.
- [give to gain](https://mindiweik.com/speaking/iwd-2026-workshop/): A facilitated story-share workshop for International Women's Day 2026, built around the "Give to Gain" theme.
- [growing in tech: insights from career and real world projects with mindi weik](https://mindiweik.com/speaking/growing-in-tech-insights-from-career-and-real-world-projects-with-mindi-weik/): A Tech Academy talk on career growth, real-world projects, and building inclusive tech communities.
- [linkedin live: career conversations: personal branding with mindi weik](https://mindiweik.com/speaking/linkedin-live-career-conversations-personal-branding-with-mindi-weik/): A LinkedIn Live conversation about personal branding and the job search journey into tech.
- [how to see the invisible: intro to opentelemetry](https://mindiweik.com/speaking/how-to-see-the-invisible-intro-to-opentelemetry/): A lightning talk on OpenTelemetry and observability, shared at Gusto Denver's women and folks in tech event.
- [episode 233 - how mindi navigated adhd, bootcamp burnout, and landed a dev role](https://mindiweik.com/speaking/episode-233-how-mindi-navigated-adhd-bootcamp-burnout-and-landed-a-dev-role/): A conversation about navigating ADHD, bootcamp burnout, and landing a developer role.
- [linkedin live: thriving in tech with adhd](https://mindiweik.com/speaking/linkedin-live-thriving-in-tech-with-adhd/): A 60-minute LinkedIn Live conversation about ADHD in tech, hosted by Michael Greenspan.
- [the case of the curious engineer](https://mindiweik.com/speaking/the-case-of-the-curious-engineer-talk/): A 40-minute presentation on curiosity techniques for problem-solving, based on the 2024 "Capturing Curiosity" talk.
- [software engineering tales: career switch to software engineering with mindi weik](https://mindiweik.com/speaking/software-engineering-tales-career-switch-to-software-engineering-with-mindi-weik/): An early guest appearance on Software Engineering Tales, sharing the story of switching careers into software engineering.
- [capturing curiosity](https://mindiweik.com/speaking/capturing-curiosity-plop-2024/): A talk on curiosity techniques for problem-solving, shared live at the PLoP 2024 conference.
- [the software engineer's guidebook overview](https://mindiweik.com/speaking/the-software-engineers-guidebook-overview-talk/): An internal team presentation on The Software Engineer's Guidebook by Gergely Orosz.
- [capturing curiosity](https://mindiweik.com/speaking/capturing-curiosity-talk/): A talk on curiosity techniques for problem-solving, first shared at a Coding with Callie Meetup.
- [building a brand with linkedin](https://mindiweik.com/speaking/building-a-brand-with-linkedin-talk/): Personal branding with LinkedIn, shared at Women&TECH Colorado and in a virtual US presentation.

## Projects

- [Audition Cat](https://mindiweik.com/projects/audition-cat/): A platform for actors to organize auditions and self-tapes. Founding engineer.
- [Drip Dash](https://mindiweik.com/projects/drip-dash/): A dashboard for Gardyn hydroponic systems.
- [Gaming Retreat Portal](https://mindiweik.com/projects/gaming-retreat-portal/): A portal for running a multi-day tabletop gaming retreat, ranked-choice lottery and all.
- [mindiweik.com](https://mindiweik.com/projects/mindiweik-site/): This site. Astro, auto-deployed, blog + podcast + speaking under one roof.
- [catz4life](https://mindiweik.com/projects/catz4life/): A deliberately broken cat adoption page for learning browser DevTools.
- [prettykitties](https://mindiweik.com/projects/prettykitties/): A quick TypeScript + React app from my first year as an engineer.

## Optional

- [Full blog content](https://mindiweik.com/llms-full.txt): every published post in full