When Kent C. Dodds graduated from the BYU Marriott School of Business in 2014 with his master’s degree in information systems, he had one goal: to impact the world by creating software. Now as a speaker and educator with a significant social media audience, he encourages his listeners to create their own positive impacts.
In 2019, after working at PayPal as a JavaScript engineer for three years, Dodds decided to pursue a different career path. Now a self-employed educator, he travels around the world to speak at conferences and present workshops that teach other developers how to create their own software. “I experience my biggest challenges while trying to convert skills into shareable knowledge,” he says. “Seeing a room full of people learning new skills from the materials that I spent countless hours perfecting is validating and makes all my hard work worth it.” To date, Dodds has conducted more than forty workshops and one hundred presentations.
In addition to instructing through in-person workshops, Dodds also uses online methods to teach others how to develop their own software. Across various platforms, he has accumulated hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter and YouTube, podcast listeners, and newsletter subscribers. Dodds offers an assortment of free educational content with the hope that his followers will use it to learn how to build better quality software. One of his biggest accomplishments is Testing JavaScript, a website he created and operates that illustrates how to test any JavaScript application through a series of blog posts and instructional videos.
Still wanting to do more, Dodds recently launched Epic React, his biggest project yet. Epic React is an online course that can teach anyone how to use React, a JavaScript framework created by Facebook for building user interfaces on the web. “In the past few years, React has become the most popular way to build front-end web applications,” he says.
For years, Dodds has shared his knowledge and expertise on the React framework through his in-person Epic React trainings and workshops. Hoping to expand his audience, Dodds decided to take his workshops online. Currently Epic React is an online compilation of all of Dodds’ workshops, recorded in a series of three hundred videos that allow a self-paced workshop experience. “Not confined to the space of a conference hall or in-person workshop, Epic React can take someone with zero knowledge in React all the way to a total expert, all in the comfort of their own home,” he says.
Dodds’ path to Testing JavaScript and Epic React began when he participated in two internships during his time at BYU Marriott. These internships provided him with his first hands-on opportunities to develop software. His two internship experiences were with USAA, a banking and insurance company, and Domo, a cloud software service for businesses. “USAA and Domo were two completely different internships for me,” he says. “Domo was a small startup using cutting-edge technologies, and USSA was a large company that’s been around for a long time, so its technologies were traditional and established.”
Experiencing this contrast was instrumental in helping Dodds choose his career path and identify his priorities. “Working at a big company like USAA was awesome, but I learned that I wasn’t a good fit for the work they do,” he says. “Working at Domo, a smaller company where I had a huge amount of autonomy, was instrumental in helping me understand what I wanted out of my career. I wouldn't have known that without having both experiences for comparison.”
Now that he is self-employed, Dodds continues to enjoy his autonomy. “My favorite thing about being my own boss is having the freedom to focus most of my time on doing things that I enjoy and spend more time with my family,” he says. He and his wife, Brooke, have four children and a dog and live in Pleasant Grove, Utah.
“I ultimately chose information systems because I realized that I could use computers to solve real problems and impact the world around me,” Dodds says. “My goal is to continue to do that throughout the remainder of my career.” No matter where his future takes him, he is certain about one thing: he will remain committed to improving the world through his work.
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Writer: Sarah Calvert
