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Hello, everyone. I am super pumped to kick off this week's episodes. We've been going

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for about three weeks now with the 99 Dev Problems live stream. We started it over the

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holidays, knew that we'd have a little bit, you know, lower attendance in that space.

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And I'm really excited to hit the ground running this week and chat with the awesome Tim Banks.

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Tim, I would love for you to introduce yourself.

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Hello, Tessa. I am Tim Banks. I am a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, five-time Pan American

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champion, three-time American national champion, three-time Silver Madison World Championships.

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I'm like this close to getting my black belt, like this close. Probably happy this year.

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And I also do tech work to pay the bills. You know, and we'll talk more about that later.

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But also I was a chef, also was a construction worker. I've done a lot of stuff, a lot of

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fun stuff.

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Ooh, okay. I love that.

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You know I was a chef?

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I didn't know that honestly, but like I feel like based on like your username and other

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things you've dropped out, I should have picked up on that. So yeah, that's really cool. Okay,

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I can't wait to unpack all of that. What are you doing today? Because those are really

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impressive, awesome things. So how does that play into where you're at today?

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So today I'm a solutions architect at Calent, who is a professional service provider that

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specializes in AWS. And I'm also an advisor at Expans0, which is the company that brings

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you Bacalhiao, which is a distributed compute over data solution. It's a workload orchestrator

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focused on distributed compute. So I'm doing some advisory work there as well.

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That's really cool. What's like one of their use cases?

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I'll tell you the biggest use case is like if you have a lot of people, if you have data

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in disparate places that you need to run ETL on or anything like that, a lot of people

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use Snowflake. Amazon just introduced Aurora DSQL for that. But if you can literally run

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any job anywhere you have compute, right? And you can do that with Kubernetes. And it's

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a lot like shooting a squirrel with a bazooka. But if you just need to do simple orchestration

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of simple data transformation jobs, you don't have to necessarily pay to bring all your

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data into one spot just to do that. It is both expensive. It takes time. And then also

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you're consolidating compute for no reason. So you can run jobs where your data lies to

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do ETL stuff to do any kind of thing you need. And which you've always been capable of doing

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if you want to log in and do it. But the orchestration of those jobs is difficult. So anytime where

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you have data that you need to run any kind of compute against in a distributed manner

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and you want an easy way to orchestrate it, that's when you're going to want to use Expansion.

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Interesting. Okay. I'm not going to side tangent on this too long, but there's some working

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on sort of building out a SaaS app, right? I'm taking some of the services that I offer

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and starting to productize them. And I am like so anti this, I'm going to say this with

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a grain of salt and then I'm not anti it because there is a reason why you need it.

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But I was talking to a developer and he's like, well, you're going to have to get, you

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know, Kubernetes and everything set up. And I was like, hold up. I don't think I need

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that giant cloud infrastructure to actually power my app. And like honestly, and I'm not

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saying that I'm against it because I've had a career in it too, as well, working inside

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of some of that industry. But for me, it just seems like overkill. And so I've been on this

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like sort of tangent of like, how can we build this technical stack that doesn't require

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cloud and Kubernetes and this, like you said, shooting a squirrel with the bazooka, which

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is a perfect analogy of over, you know, infestrating over, over creating infrastructure, right? Overbuilding

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something that is overkill. And so this is very interesting to me. I'm definitely going

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to have to check them out.

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Yeah, it's, it's, it's worth a look. Please go kick the tires. Let me know where, you

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know, we, we're in a stage right now where we, we want people to try it. We want us to

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tell you, if you love it, that's great. If you hate it, I definitely want to hear from

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you.

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Yeah, for sure. Well, data is a huge part of what I'm doing, right? There's a lot of

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insights and sentiment and sort of information that goes into it. And so there's a giant

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amount of data that will need to be stored and sort of referenced as the, you know, as

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you're interacting.

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Yeah.

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So yeah, I absolutely will. Very cool.

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So I, one of the interesting use cases around that as, as our devices and everything we

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use become smarter and smarter. Like, you know, like if you're, if you have like great

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examples like vehicles, right? If you have a vehicle fleet that has any kind of compute

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in it, do you need to send data all the way back to some place to run some compute and

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then send it back? Or can you just run that job on the compute that you have available?

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Yes, I have so many clients in this space, not so many, because I only have a handful

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of clients generally, but three out of,

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That was a perfectly good lie. You could have just ran with that. I have so many clients.

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So I'm sure I want you to know, I'm cutting out some precious time to do this because

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I have so many clients. I would have gone with that one. I would have just seen so many

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clients.

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Okay. Either way though, where I wanted to go is in this exact situation, right? In

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this edge use case, in this on device use case, in the sort of robotics in bringing

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technology to sort of the edge scenario. And I think it's really interesting because like

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we talked about in pre-show, I think it's a direction where where tech is headed, right?

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And like, how can we start to function? One of my previous clients I had, I'm only going

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to derail on this for a second because I think it's just really cool, is about like

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essentially reproducibility, right? So if you're going to deploy out to those different

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platforms, like you need everything to be exactly the way that it is supposed to be,

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right? And then like you said, bringing that data back, why are we, why are we bringing

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data all the way across something when you can communicate with the data right, right

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where it's actually at? So really intrigued by Xpansel. Okay. Really, really cool.

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So check it out there. And I feel like it's one of those cases where as more people use

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it, more use cases will pop up.

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Exactly. Exactly. That's like AR, AI, that's kind of everywhere that we're at, right? And

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it's like the more that we can start to experiment, the more we're going to learn.

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Absolutely.

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Okay. So with all this awesome career history and amazing strength and agility, what's,

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what does your developer education look like?

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Oh, I am, I am one of the, I am, I am a classic example of the unmedicated Gen X 80s kid who

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learned the program on a Commodore 64. And I learned Microsoft ROM basic so I could do

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animations and stuff like that. And then, and then I did that, didn't, didn't have any

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other computer other than that, other than like a Sega until I joined the Marine Corps.

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And then in the Marine Corps, I was an avionics. I was a C-130 flight navigation systems operator,

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which means I was a flying avionics technician. So essentially I did calculus in midair. But

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we worked on Vietnam era level navigation systems, which use inertial navigation units,

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right? But you had to be able to do everything from use it to do i level, which is intermediate

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level maintenance on it, which means I'm doing testing test benches of a guy I have to diagnose

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down to the component. And so as part of that school, you basically got what was an associate

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on it, associate's degree in electrical engineering.

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Yeah.

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You learned binary, you learned hex, you learned all the things like that. You knew how solid

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state, solid state transistors and, you know, silicone essentially work. And then I used

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that to kick out to the civilian career of being a system admin and an operator for manufacturers.

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And then everything was self taught from there. So I have never taken a formal programming

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class of any kind.

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Dang. That's, that is a very cool.

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And very interesting path into technology. I mean, obviously we hear sort of all walks

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of life when I ask that question. But I think getting sort of that experience in the Marine

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Corps and like really like having to sort of like you said, make those calculations as

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you're flying, that really forces you to like learn the systems and learn everything that's

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happening within them. That's very, very, very cool.

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What I think is really interesting is like you got folks like me and I feel like I might

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be on a good, good day, like a D plus level internet celebrity, but you've got folks like

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Kelsey Hightower who's self taught. You got Ian Coldwater who's self taught. You've got

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a lot of names who are doing a lot of important work around these communities who are self

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taught and people. It's not that people don't realize it, but people don't understand how

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difficult it was to do that back then versus now.

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And I feel like we should be overemphasizing the ability for people to learn themselves

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without having to go to college for all this. And I will not get on my modern college as

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a business racket soapbox today. But I can simply say that the more and more people and

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more and more types of roles have to be more and more comfortable with technology and the

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principles of technology. And it needs to be as accessible as possible. We have all

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this information out there that many mega corpse have trained AI on for free. And yet

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we still have a hard time of making it freely accessible and easy in a standard way for

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people to learn themselves. And I think we can do better at that.

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Well, I agree. I love that you have a soapbox around this. I am also self taught, tried

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to go to college three times for criminal justice, business management and programming,

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dropped out all three times. The programming one I only dropped out because I did that

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towards the end because I felt like I needed a degree. Just like you said, right? I felt

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like I needed that degree to be like, Oh, I'm capable. When at the end of the day, I

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was, I had freelance work and I was in a huge project with a really big agency that was

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very well known in Minneapolis. And I'm like, wait a minute, why am I paying for schooling

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when I know these skills and they're teaching me like how to build a website and tables?

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Are you serious right now? So I agree with you. I also had like what W three schools

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back when I tried to learn or when I was learning to code is they have a Z and W three schools

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was beautiful and great and really helpful, but it was like source code and you literally

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had to learn the system from the ground up like you did in the Marine Corps.

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Oh, and one other thing I will want, I let me just ease longer than just like tip to

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onto the soapbox for a second because there are so many companies that offer internships

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and they only offer internships for college folks in college. The people who need those

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internships in the same sense that you would do internships for plumbing or welding or

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mechanical work or age fact are the people who are trying to learn it on the job. So

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they should have apprenticeships for this job. And if companies would offer apprenticeships

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for this job, they could actually get away with, with treating, you know, the stuff they

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say like we're family and they'd like to abuse you. Yeah, they could do that a little bit

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easier, but also would be for good. Right. Because they would actually be giving these

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folks something like that that they need. So yeah, companies should be doing apprenticeships

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and not internships and I will I will beat that drum until the head breaks and then I

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will yell through it.

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I agree with that. I have brought in multiple people into my business and now I'm not like

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a big huge business with lots of revenue, but I've definitely brought a number of developers

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in because I'm like, Hey, I'm doing the work anyway, so you should learn it. So come alongside

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of me, learn the work. I'll coach you along. You can help me deliver something and then

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boom, you've got something that you can take and actually bring that into an interview

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or bring that into a conversation. And I think it's so important to give those chances. So

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I love love love your soapbox.

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So we've got a comment from X about the company's morning college students because of insurance

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liability and the fact of the matter is Lee's large companies, they will absolutely because

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they will make exceptions for folks in the military all the time. They will do internships

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for folks in the military without college degrees. So it is not an insurance liability

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thing. That is that is that is that is not that is not sufficient deterrent for the practice.

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Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. I we've been having such a good conversation that I didn't see

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all these amazing people in the chat. Kevin and Emmett and Rizal and Tages and trust.

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I don't know that I've met trust yet. So hello, Roxy. What a great, great group that we have

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this morning.

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Okay, so

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I agree. As someone who has hired people and worked in these different industries, been

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a part of the recruiting process, I know for a fact it has nothing to do with insurance.

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It has to do with the fact that they think that they need something and the in in their

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minds that that's it's what's inside of corporate. It's what's ingrained in their ladder. It's

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what's ingrained in their structure and changing that means a whole new HR process, a whole

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new whatever it is right within that company. So it's a it's a pain that's really hard

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to to definitely solve. I fully agree, James, fully agree that it's getting done the less.

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Yeah. Yeah.

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Okay, so we dove into what you're doing. We dove into your education. Love that. What

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kind of problems are you facing today? Right? Like you've got your hands in a couple of

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different things, but like what what challenges are you saying and things that you're trying

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to hurdles you're taking down?

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So it's interesting. I've got, you know, two different kind of areas I'm working in and

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I'm also by for care responsible, but there is a lot of overlap, right? Yeah. On a lack

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of organizational knowledge around how things work. Right. And I say this and this has been

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a recurring thing. I have made so much money based on folks really not understanding the

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house and the wise of things work. Right. I was a principal cloud economist at the Duck

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Bill group. And the, you know, one of the main things that you can do to save money on on

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your infrastructure operations is to understand how your infrastructure works. And then you

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can start making decisions around how you want it to operate because now you know how

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it works versus just putting money in the money hole and getting infrastructure out.

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And we still see that now. There's a lot of folks that need, we need expertise in this

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and we need expertise in that because we don't have it right now. And it's, and it's once

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people have the expertise, we're expensive. We're not cheap. And so there is really the

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this vacuum of extra and this started with Kubernetes. A lot of people had to hire Kubernetes

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talent and they got paid a lot of money because nobody knew it. And then the stop gap became

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the ecosystem, which offered a lot of services and tools and things like that, which let

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people run Kubernetes without knowing Kubernetes. Yeah. Right. But then you become dependent

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on that. And as either providers raise their, raise their prices or they get bought by Broadcom,

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you know, and then all of a sudden people were like, Oh, we actually don't know how

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to run this ourselves. And they get, they painted themselves in the corners. And so you're

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seeing a lot of folks either who have already painted themselves in the corners are realizing

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like, actually, hey, we're going to paint ourselves into a corner here. And, and that's,

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that's the main trend I'm seeing is folks who are either have painted themselves in

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the corners and need help or folks are like, we actually don't want to paint ourselves

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in the corner because we're seeing how that's bad and we need to get our expertise up. This

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kind of goes along what I'm saying about internship, but the, but the notion of real professional

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development and having your folks learn things, employing people and then letting them learn

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is not a thing our industry seems to really be good at anymore. They want you to know

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everything already. Right. And, and, and, and I can let me give you this as, as a person

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who, you know, Brazilian jiu-jitsu is not something you're going to start at being good.

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I don't care how athletic you are. And, and I love, I'm 49 year old. I'm short. I'm built

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like a bowling ball with Corgi limbs. Like I am not particularly like people. You don't

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look at me and think I'm an athlete. Right. And, and, you know, so we'll get some, you

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know, college Jim Bro who can cross fit till the days till the cows come home and has cardio

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and, you know, like 2% body fat. And that's all well and good. You get them in there and

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they listen to Joe Rogan. They think, all right, I know some jiu-jitsu. We're going to slap

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hands and I'm just going to exhaust them in 30 seconds and then have my way with them.

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Right. And this is the thing that happens over and over and over again. Right. You have

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to, you have to get over the, the idea that you're just going to instantly be good at

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something. Right. You have to build fucking up into your budget. Right. Cause you need

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to do it if you want to learn and grow. Right. But we swing the opposite way. It's like,

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Oh, well, we're just going to, we're just going to fail fast until we learn. I'm like,

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no, because that means, that means two white belts are going to become black belts just

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by rolling with each other is what you're telling me. And that's not how that works.

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That's a great analogy. A gym, a successful jiu-jitsu gym, right? Her dojo or academy

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has, you know, a lot of white belts and then fewer blue belts and then fewer purple belts

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and then fewer brown belts and just a few black belts. But then sometimes they have a

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lot of black belts because people have stayed with them a long time. Right. But the process

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of learning is part of the academy. You have to, when you are a white belt, you're going

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to lose all the time. Blue belts are going to wipe them out with you. Black belts are

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going to be untouchable. Right. But, but that is necessary for everyone to learn. And we

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don't do that in our industry anymore. We don't have the notion of an industry where

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people learn and grow. They expect you to know everything. They're really probably not

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going to promote you. Right. If they do, they're going to give you just a little bit. And so

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if you learn a greater to go pop, you know, pop from company to company. There are some

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people that say, oh, I've stayed here this long and I've, and I've worked in this thing.

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I want my channel up. But you notice they're typically specialists. Right. Yeah. Or exceptionally

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great companies that are harder to find. Yeah. Yeah. That is, that is true. And so I really

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feel like that notion of losing operational knowledge in the, in the, in the pursuit of

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velocity is kind of what we're doing with that. We don't want people to really learn.

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We just want people to do. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's interesting because I've been on

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my own little soapbox lately as I've been diving, you know, deeper into different areas,

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right? And as my business has evolved and taken me into sort of different areas of like

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realizing that a lot of developers today, they have so many tools, so many libraries,

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so many frameworks, so many things handed to them that they don't actually fundamentally

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understand what is happening behind the scenes in those frameworks of those libraries. And

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it's, I joke that I'm like, oh, my dev chops suck today. But at the same time, like my

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dev chops kind of don't suck, right? Because like I came from a world where like I understood

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the entire system, how is it exactly my infrastructure working alongside of how is exactly my code

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working, right? Because I had to understand it. I didn't have all these tools. We didn't

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have all these advancements. There wasn't like warp, right? For terminal where like,

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you no longer have to actually remember terminal anymore. It's like, I had to know all the

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things. And now today I see developers who are more like, Oh, well, I don't actually

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know, like react, right? I just know like next yes, or I know tailwind, or I know, you

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know, whatever it might be. And I think it's interesting to me with what you're saying

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too, is that that's definitely something I think that, you know, these younger developers

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are the ones that are early in their career need to start to push on and expand on it's

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like understanding the underlying infrastructure of everything that you're building, because

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exactly what you're saying, how do you become a specialist? How do you become an expert?

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How do you get those big fat paychecks at those great jobs and companies? If you don't

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understand and you're not a full expert on everything that you're working on?

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So I give a talk at the committee, your code conference about to come about context, right?

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And one of the things I talk about when when folks when I mentor folks, and they say, Well,

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how can I grow my career? It's like, do you learn more about what you're doing? Yeah,

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don't learn the intricacies of the syntax, learn more about what you're doing. How does

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it fit into the system as a whole? How does it fit into the business as a whole, be able

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to talk about how this function is going to help the company meet their quarterly goal?

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Right? Because you should be able to draw a line from one to the other. And if you can't,

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right? What are you doing?

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Fully agree. It's been so it's been so interesting to hear this sentiment around how important

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understanding the business side of technology has been in these conversations. Like, you

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are not the only one every time I've gotten someone in here who has been a more experienced

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and more senior individual, a leader, someone who is, you know, leading in or specialty in

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their craft, right? That's the advice they're like, you have to understand the business.

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What would be some of your tips that you could share with folks in terms of how they can

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understand the business? And also, I'm going to put the commit your code presentation that

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you delivered in the show notes because it was very good. And a lot of what his answer

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would be would be in your presentation. And so I'm going to share that with folks too.

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Sure. I appreciate that. So I think the number one thing you can do is to ask questions,

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right? And it's not just like, Hey, how do I do this thing? How does this fit in? Right?

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What is what I'm going to write this function? It's going to be a JavaScript. Where's it

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going to go to? What is this going to run on? What is the customer trying to do? Who is

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our you know, saying like, and I told a story in the past of really, you know, told stories

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in the past of really what it means to have the goal of what the customer is actually trying

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to do as your as your North Star? Yeah. Right? Because if you're just trying to do the do

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the thing that you want to do, and you're not necessarily doing the thing that they want

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to do, there's, you know, you're pleasing yourself, there's a word for that, right,

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which not pleasing the person who matters in this one. And that's the customer, right?

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And I'll give you a great example. There's a lot of work in the platform engineering

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space, right? A lot of work in the platform engineering space was to make it easier for

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developers to do stuff because, you know, they just needed the velocity or whatever, right?

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In a lot of the platform engineering teams are catering to the developers needs and wants

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and desires, as if the developers are only writing things to be to be put on the platform

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and then never be used in the public. But if your developers are writing stuff that the

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public is going to consume, your customer is not the developer, your customer is the

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paying customer who is going to be consuming that, right? You are writing something that

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is going to be consumed by your customers, right? So the developers needs and stuff like

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that are taken into account. But if you're only meeting developers needs, the developers

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don't have the context for what's happening outside. Once it leaves, you do. Operations

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does, right? Your TAMs do your developer advocates do your customer success managers do your

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support teams do and the customers do, right? So all of those things must be considered

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when you are building a platform that has to be job zero. And then you write the things

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that the developers can have their little API's to do the stuff. That is the dead last concert.

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That's the last thing you do. You know, like, I'm not going to build a house around the

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wallpaper. Boom. I love that so much. I think I don't know about you, but like early in

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your career, you know, depending on what roles you had, I had a really beautiful opportunity

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where I was at an agency. And because of the human that I am, I'm very, I actually don't

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want to say that I'm extroverted, but that's a whole conversation we're not going to get

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into. But I am I am people friendly, right? And I understand business. I came from business

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before I got into technology. And so I was the developer that they put in front of the

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clients. And they were like, Hey, let's talk through the project. So if you've ever worked

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in a small agency, then you're brought into some of those conversations, you're part of

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the work, you're working alongside the project manager, you're working alongside the designer,

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you're working alongside the rest of the people on the team, right? And so when I had those

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customer conversations, oftentimes I was able to break down really what seemed like complicated

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needs from a customer into what actually ended up being very straightforward needs on the

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actual technical side. And I am curious how many developers are getting those types of

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opportunities, because I think that those opportunities are gold, because you start you

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have to sit there face to face with a customer and talk about technology, not only explaining

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it in a way that they understand, but also being able to take what they're telling you

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and formulate that into what that technology actually like looks like. Have you had any

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opportunities, any tips for devs to think about things that way?

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I had that opportunity the first time I worked at a startup, right? Same thing, right? We

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had we had solutions architects, but they weren't like our solutions architects that

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were from the company that acquired us. So as they call this DevOps engineers back then,

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but we were SRVs, you know? And we met with customers all the time. As a matter of fact,

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the customers met with us and the support people mostly and their salespeople like secondarily,

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right? We knew the customer's needs. Some folks have heard me tell a story about like

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working with Tinder and how we knew those cats very well, right? And we knew the use case

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and we had all because we knew the use case, we were able to build solutions for them exactly

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how they need it, right? But if you're not in a company of that size and that agility

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where you have to wear a lot of hats, you tend to get pigeonholed, right?

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And I do think one of the main things you can do as an engineer at any level and every

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level is to sit in on customer calls. Yes. Right? Even if even you're just flying a

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wall, right? I want to hear what our customers are actually talking about. I want to hear

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what their business needs are because then like, you know, project managers have to,

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right? And if they're not, your project and project managers have to, they absolutely

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have to. You know, developer advocates, obviously they do a lot as part of their jobs, but product

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managers too. But if your engineers, especially senior engineers aren't doing that, then they're

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missing out, right? They need to have some things because they're going to have some

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context with things that you may not, they're going to have some more insight in the code.

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But especially as they're advising the juniors, they're going to now have the context of what

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the customer is actually trying to do. So you're going to make fewer mistakes. You're

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going to have to iterate less. Like, yes, yes, fail fast is great for learning how to fail,

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right? But if you want to be efficient, right? Get more context.

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I love that so much. I think it's interesting too because, you know, speaking to these capabilities

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at least I can presume that it has happened to you, but in DevRel role specifically,

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I've actually been brought into a lot of sales conversations and a lot of sales opportunities

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did a lot of field marketing type of stuff, a lot of sales engineering type of stuff because

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of the personality and understanding it and being able to take that, I get the context,

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right? What you're saying, I understand it. And then being able to go in those sales

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conversations. And by the way, I really love doing them because most of the time the sales

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people are dudes and I'm a girl, right? And so in those conversations, they'd like look

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at the sales person and be like, so can your technology do this? And I'm like, and I love

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it because they'd be like, actually, you need to talk to Tessa about that. And I'm just

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like, Mike drop because it was just a beautiful thing. But I think that it's interesting in

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being able to do those opportunities to understand and to speak to them also in a sales sense,

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because then you're understanding the dynamics of the purchaser, right? Why would somebody

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buy something? Why do they want something? What's the value that they're getting out

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of it? Because oftentimes, and I still do this, even though I know that I should self-reflect

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but we forget that the value of a product or the value of what we're building is maybe

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different than what our assumptions are, right? Someone might need it for something else.

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And I think being exposed to those conversations are really, really valuable as well.

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Yeah, Michelle brings up a good point. She says, only thing to get familiar with gong.

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Gong is a great tool. Otter AI is another one. Circleback is mine. Yeah, if anything

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you see anything that you see that has a note taker, right? There's a note taker in your

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call that's being recorded and if your sales org has it, uses it and will give you access

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to it, yeah. And you can, you know, that's a great little data project. Find out what

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words folks are saying most and what are their technologies and which of your core technologies

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that they're concerned about the most. And it really, really helps. That I think is one

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of the, one of the uses for AI I think that is actually good is call transcription recording,

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especially for accessibility reasons. But yeah, it's a great way to do it to make it

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more efficient and you can figure stuff out. And a lot of those folks are, a lot of them

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can already summarize those and summarize groups of calls too. So, but yeah, getting

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context that way is a fantastic idea.

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Yep. I definitely agree with the gong thing. One of my clients over the summer, they had

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gong and I was able to just dive in and I could listen to any sales conversation that

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I wanted to, which was very, very helpful, right? Because then again, speaking back to

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the value, you get to understand what the customer actually wants because like, and

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this isn't always the case, right? But even sometimes sales people don't necessarily know

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if they're not, you know, super technical or depending on their experience, right? They

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might not be able to bring those pieces together. And when we are technical and we can bring

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those pieces together, the value that we can bring to that company will far exceed the

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developer skills that we have. So yeah, I,

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Here's the dirty not so secret about sales calls is sales people nine times a 10 would

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absolutely kill to have a technical resource on a lot more calls, right? Especially that

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resource is intimately familiar with the products, right? As in I write them or I work on them

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all the time or it's like that. Just, just, just to have like, oh yeah, yeah, they can,

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so they can ask you questions. If not on the call after the fact, right? Did you hear that?

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What do you think about this? Right? Because, because they don't have the context for the

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technical side of it, right? It's really going to help them out strategically. So companies

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that have solutions or architects, that's what solutions or architects usually do. But

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even then sometimes they still, still, still helps out a lot. So helps a lot to be able

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to get that insight on both sides. Yep, I agree. And it's, it's really interesting

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to and this is like kind of going down a little bit of a rabbit hole too. But I think it's

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really interesting on kind of that sales side, right? Depending on the company and the staff

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and the, you know, the actual experience that they're bringing in, even partnering with

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them outside of calls, right? Like they can go through calls and questions that they've

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had and being able to, for the developer, understand what that customer conversation

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is. But then for the actual end user for that sales, that salesperson, right, they're

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able to get insights. And that's actually what I do with the client is I took a step

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back, consumed the gong and I actually created an entire sort of enterprise play motion for

399
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:34,000
them of like, Hey, this is what these developers are looking for. This is the insights they

400
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:37,920
need. This is the value that we can provide. And those are all conversations that happened

401
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:42,120
outside, right? But we, I could absorb the calls and we can still have those conversations

402
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:47,280
to allude into all of what needs to be, needs to be told essentially.

403
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:54,640
Yeah. Yeah. So I think in the end, there's, there's a lot more of growing outside your

404
00:31:54,640 --> 00:32:03,920
pot, so to speak, right? Like, you know, when, you know, the more I see outside of my, the

405
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:08,320
more I see and understand outside of just whatever things I type on the keyboard, the

406
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:17,400
better I am going to be, right? You know, it's like, it's like, if I'm designing a cog,

407
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:22,800
right? Right? Is it for a clock? Is it for an engine? Is it for, you know what I'm saying?

408
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:27,480
Like, it's two different things, right? Yeah. Yeah. And even if you tell me like, Oh, well,

409
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:30,520
it needs to have this and this and this and this, right? Just to set a requirements on

410
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:34,000
the sheet doesn't tell me enough, right? If I understand how it's going to be used and

411
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:37,680
why, maybe I'm going to see something that the requirements didn't capture.

412
00:32:37,680 --> 00:32:45,040
Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Mike, drop on that one. All right. So one of the other questions

413
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:50,080
I like to ask, and we're kind of nearing the end of our time here, but when you are stuck,

414
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:57,680
the amazing Tim Banks, when you get stuck, what's your go to?

415
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:03,360
So as I often tend to do, I'm going to release something to Jiu-Jitsu. Getting stuck is a

416
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:07,080
thing that happens to you too. Normally stuck inside, controller stuck in mount. Neither

417
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:16,240
one are great. But when I'm stuck, the first thing I try not to do is panic. Right? Love

418
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:23,920
that. I'm going to take a breath. I'm going to defend my neck. And then I'm going to see

419
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:31,120
what do I have and what can I do? Right? Or what can I get to? Right? When someone is

420
00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:36,080
stuck inside controller mount, both of them involve someone being on top of you and kind

421
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:41,080
of controlling, your legs are not in the game right now. So it's just your body versus their

422
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:46,080
whole body. And a lot of people try and jump and move around and do everything in one

423
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:50,000
big explosive move and tie themselves out and then get the life literally crushed out

424
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:57,040
of them. And I love doing it to people. Don't get me wrong. But the thing that I do is I

425
00:33:57,040 --> 00:34:03,160
take inventory of what I have. And then if I know I need to get an underhook and I don't

426
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:07,520
have an underhook, my battle is now for the underhook. And it's a bunch of little things.

427
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:10,000
I'm going to bump this swing and put my arm that way. I'm going to shift you that way

428
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:15,040
and blah, blah, blah. Okay, great. Now I have my underhook. What can I do with this underhook

429
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:20,880
now? Well, I can do this. And I'm going to do a bunch of small little battles, small

430
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:27,040
little moves that don't require a lot of energy until I get all the pieces I need. And then

431
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:32,120
now I'm going to make the big move. And the only way you can figure that out is to know

432
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:37,480
what the big move is and then to piece along all the little things you can need to do along

433
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:43,640
the way based on who you are. So I work backwards from where I want to be and digest everything

434
00:34:43,640 --> 00:34:47,560
down small parts. But the first thing I do is I call them the fuck down and I defend

435
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:48,560
my eye.

436
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:54,320
That is a really, really beautiful analogy for it because I think that it all plays into

437
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:58,680
solving any kind of problem, right? How can you sort of like, what do you need to do immediately

438
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:02,600
to protect yourself or to protect the situation that you're in or to do any form of, okay,

439
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:05,160
I have to take some form of action now, right?

440
00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:08,680
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly. But working back from, okay, if I'm trying to get to this

441
00:35:08,680 --> 00:35:14,760
end result, how do I get back into that? Okay, on a more actual, direct technical sense,

442
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:21,320
if you are stuck in code, what is your go to? Do you go to peers? Do you go to forums?

443
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:27,080
Do you go to what's kind of your, your stack of steps? Do you rubber ducky? That's a very,

444
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:30,440
obviously, many of us. Sometimes we don't. We forget.

445
00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:31,440
What rubber ducky is?

446
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:32,440
What? Shut up.

447
00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:39,960
You gotta remember, I'm an infrastructure person. I'm an ops person. So like my coding,

448
00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:45,400
when I get stuck in coding, you know, I'm old school, the first thing I'm gonna go to

449
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:49,480
is Google Stack Overflow kind of thing like that. To look for something similar, I will

450
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:56,360
check the docs, right? Because even today, and docs are not the best, right? But even

451
00:35:56,360 --> 00:36:00,120
today, nine times out of 10, my question is answered in the docs.

452
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:01,120
Yeah, yeah.

453
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:02,640
I love that.

454
00:36:02,640 --> 00:36:05,040
Because I came from before the internet.

455
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:09,760
Right, right. Yeah, same, same, same. Well, okay, I'm edging on 40. So,

456
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:10,760
Oh,

457
00:36:10,760 --> 00:36:11,760
Oh,

458
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:17,800
I know, a little bit younger, but still in the same vein of the edge of the internet.

459
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:21,400
So rubber ducky is just where you explain something to somebody. You're like, okay,

460
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:24,800
this is the problem I have. I'm dealing with A, B and C, right? And I can't get it to do

461
00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:28,960
D. And as you're explaining it, you're like, I'm an idiot. I forgot to do the step between

462
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:33,400
A and B because you just explaining it allows you to, but I think it's very similar to your

463
00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:37,440
sort of triage example, right? It's like working through that problem and really thinking about

464
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:40,520
it. And that's exactly what you do in jiu-jitsu, right? You think about where you need to go

465
00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:42,000
and what steps need to get you.

466
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:47,360
So the thing that I've done before is I will literally copy and paste the code out of whatever

467
00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:51,840
context it's in. I'll copy and paste the code and I'll put in a brand new thing. And then

468
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:57,920
I'm like, Oh, that's stupid. Why did I do that? You know, because I'm too busy thinking

469
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:02,400
about it and, you know, like I'm relating other things and, and which is wild because

470
00:37:02,400 --> 00:37:06,920
I was just talking about context before, but also sometimes the context can lead you to

471
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:10,800
thinking things that aren't, you're not, you're not looking at the thing you're looking at.

472
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:14,680
Yep. Right. You're looking at everything else. And I was like, Oh, I was trying to do this

473
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:18,240
variable there or I was trying to pass this like that. And no wonder it's not working

474
00:37:18,240 --> 00:37:22,800
because I don't, I don't even have it declared properly in here. Right? So it's like, let

475
00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:26,360
me actually take everything out. I'm going to rewrite this piece that I'm doing to make

476
00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:31,280
sure this piece works. Now I'm going to plug it back into there. And then that didn't usually

477
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:35,320
get to change variable names or whatever. Right? Right. But take that piece out out

478
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:41,080
of its context, fix the piece and then put it back in. Yep. Yep. I love that advice.

479
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:45,080
Okay. This has been an absolute lovely conversation. As you know, though, you and I could talk

480
00:37:45,080 --> 00:37:51,320
for hours and hours, which is always so lovely. Where can people find you on the internet?

481
00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:58,360
I'm mostly now on Blue Sky. I'm at lchefe.me on Blue Sky. I'm on LinkedIn. You can probably

482
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:03,160
search my name. I don't think anyone else out there looks like me. I have an account

483
00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:07,760
on Twitter that's probably going away shortly. It's there mostly is for archival because

484
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:13,440
I have very quality shitposts on there that I don't necessarily want to lose. I love that.

485
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:22,880
And I've got a blog, Timdeshbanks.Ghost.io, which like anyone with just incredible amounts

486
00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:28,000
of ADHD, I have a ton of drafts and I've got like four, maybe five published. But that's

487
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:35,000
just how it is. But yeah, come holler at me any of those. And then I'm always happy to

488
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:39,600
talk. If you see me at a conference, usually happy to talk. If I'm overwhelmed, you're

489
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:43,520
going to know I'm going to have on sunglasses and headphones, maybe not then, but any other

490
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:44,920
time I'm great.

491
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:50,080
That's a good approach to the sort of like leave me alone face, the sunglasses, because

492
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:53,320
like I'll do the headphones in the hoodie when I'm on a plane or something. So I'm like,

493
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:56,880
don't talk to me, which is pretty rare when I don't want to be talked to. But the sunglasses,

494
00:38:56,880 --> 00:39:01,040
that will really seal the deal. No contact.

495
00:39:01,040 --> 00:39:06,640
Let me give you something for all the neuro divergent folks out there. Conferences are

496
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:12,040
horrendously overstimulating, right? Because of the noise, but also because there's so

497
00:39:12,040 --> 00:39:19,160
much crazy light coming into your face. Please. The thing that I started doing is I start,

498
00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:25,560
I wear yellow lens sunglasses, which cuts off a lot of that. And if it gets really bad,

499
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:32,680
I will just wear full on sunglasses, right? But it has greatly reduced my tendency to

500
00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:37,640
get overstimulated in those areas. Even with the noise and everything like that, just cutting

501
00:39:37,640 --> 00:39:42,200
out so much light, it is transformative. So if you find yourself getting real tired real

502
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:47,840
quick, you know, like that, all the symptoms of overstimulation, try wearing some yellow

503
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:53,960
lens or some outright just regular sunglasses inside. I don't care what people say, you

504
00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:57,320
know, but this is there for me, but it helps a lot.

505
00:39:57,320 --> 00:39:58,320
Yeah.

506
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:03,400
Oh, and if you got ADHD kids, try that too. Give them some yellow lens and not blue blockers,

507
00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:06,920
actual sunglasses that reduce the amount of light coming in.

508
00:40:06,920 --> 00:40:14,200
Hmm. Interesting. I love that tip. Okay. Before we sign off, any last, any other last famous

509
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:18,280
words or tips you want to share with anyone listening?

510
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:27,080
I would just say, I would just say, start learning things outside of your day to day,

511
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:31,800
right? Ask people jobs, ask people who have different jobs, especially people who have

512
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:37,120
quote unquote non-technical jobs, right? And you will find out usually the areas that are

513
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:42,440
concerned are quite, quite vast and the depths of their knowledge are quite vast. And your

514
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:46,920
knowledge about the situation in the moment is very, very small. Get your eyes open that

515
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:48,560
way, please. It'll help you out.

516
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:53,600
Oh, I love that. To layer on top of that, if you're not sure how to do that, pick up Rise

517
00:40:53,600 --> 00:40:59,880
by Patty Azarello. Best book I've ever read about just being more connected, be more communicative,

518
00:40:59,880 --> 00:41:04,640
all the things inside of an organization or inside of a project or group of any kind that

519
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:11,280
can help you do what Tim just said. I love this. All right. Well, it has been so amazing

520
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:16,440
having you on the show. It is always fun talking and hanging out with you, Tessa. I agree. I

521
00:41:16,440 --> 00:41:19,840
need to find some local Jiu Jitsu and Waco and then I'll come down to Austin and you

522
00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:23,080
can show me all your tips. If you want recommendations, I could probably

523
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:27,680
give you some. But I would just need to come down to Austin for the ball, darling.

524
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:33,400
Yes. Yes. Yes. The ball. I will come for the ball. All right. Well, with that being

525
00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:38,280
said, thank you all for listening. It's been a lovely morning here with Tim and I will

526
00:41:38,280 --> 00:41:54,320
see you all tomorrow.