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Hello, hello, everyone on this fine Thursday morning.

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I personally have a few sick children in my house and I am inviting my time because I

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think it is coming for me.

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So we are here with the 99 Dev Problems show.

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I am excited to talk with David this morning.

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David, I would love if you could introduce yourself.

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Absolutely.

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My name is David Beal.

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I live in Chicago, Illinois.

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I'm originally from Virginia.

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I did a nice stint in New York City, which is kind of where I kicked off my career.

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And yeah, I've been a lot of things.

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I've been a software engineer, a DevOps engineer, a sales engineer, and right now I'm a site

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reliability engineer at a company called Payne or Me.

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Oh, gosh, I have like so many things I want to pry into that.

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Like I did some sales engineering for a while.

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So let's like come back to that because I want to talk about that role because it's

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not a role that gets talked about a lot.

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So I think it'd be cool to compare your roles.

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As it relates to your developer education, whether that be sort of official or self taught,

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can you share with folks how you got into having the technical chops that you have today?

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I can.

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I am 100% self taught.

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I had a pretty rough childhood and things really fell apart.

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My senior year of high school, I ended up living in my car, delivering pizzas, just sort

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of surviving.

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And so I ended up not actually finishing.

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I went to college a couple times, community college stints, but usually I just get the

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student loan money and buy a van and go on tour with my band.

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Go to VE.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And so that being said, I was a musician.

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I still am.

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And I toured a lot through my late teens and 20s.

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Started out working in restaurants.

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And eventually a restaurant that I was working at needed a website.

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Like menu, all that sort of stuff.

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And so that was one of the first things that I ever did.

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I had built skateboarding websites and MySpace themes.

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I knew my way around like HTML, CSS.

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I had done some PHP.

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And then in the late 90s, I was like a MIRC and then got into installing Slackware on

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my computer and playing around with Python and stuff like that.

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But my home life was so chaotic that I really didn't get to develop that or be like, oh,

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I could go to school and learn this and have a job and stuff like that.

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It was more just like I have to survive and kind of got caught in a whirlwind.

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So I really didn't get my career kicking until 2011, 2012.

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I had done some contract work.

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I worked in computer stores, did all this stuff.

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And then I'd build websites on the side, taught myself Ruby on Rails, just sort of

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random stuff like that.

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And then I got my first job as a contractor and just doing kind of a data center refurbishment.

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Fresh.

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And then I worked for another company doing like kind of server patching and automation

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and still writing code on the side.

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And then in 2014, life just sort of imploded in like a sort of beautiful way.

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And I moved to New York and my friend had a studio apartment on 34th and Park.

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I slept on his futon for six weeks.

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It took me three weeks to get my first job.

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And I just started working at New York startups.

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I didn't know what a DevOps engineer was.

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I didn't know what AWS was.

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I mean, kind of.

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But I moved there and I just figured it out.

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I went to recruiters and looked at job descriptions and learned the tech.

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And then I got my first job and I had no idea what I was doing.

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And I would just stay up all night and figure it out and post on Stack Overflow and read

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it and anywhere else I possibly could and figure out the answers.

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The good news is that in the early days of DevOps, no one really knew what they were

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doing.

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True that.

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And yeah, just kind of slowly but surely built up a skill set.

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And thankfully it's carrying on and I'm still gainfully employed and supporting my family

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and thinking about what's next, where I go from here.

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I loved hearing your story.

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There is a lot.

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And obviously in the pre-show, you and I got to take 15 minutes and really deeply get

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to know each other, which is really, really great to even sort of just speak about that.

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Very similar childhoods that we talked about, very similar sort of adulthoods and just having

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to figure things out.

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Yesterday, Aaron Francis mentioned having grit and just go do the thing and really talking

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about just it doesn't matter if you don't know what you're doing, write about it, go

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do it, eventually things will come together.

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And it sounds like your story is like very much an exemplary case of that where you had

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a lot of stuff going on in life and otherwise and you figured out exactly sort of that niche.

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And I think, you know, as it relates on my side, very similar.

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I was also in restaurants, did bartending, then instead of going the route of sort of

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musician, I wasn't that cool.

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I went into restaurant management.

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And so I spent a great deal of time over in restaurant management.

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So then that slowly eeked into my tech career as well.

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So that was very cool to hear about.

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So of the different, yeah, sorry, if you have a follow up, go ahead.

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I'll go ahead.

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Yeah, I was going to ask you of the different opportunities and roles that you had, like

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do you have a favorite, even though I think sometimes we get further and we're like, oh,

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we're better now, but I don't know, some of my early jobs were really fun and more straightforward

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and just there was a lot more learning.

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So I'm curious if you had sort of a favorite thing throughout that career.

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There's a couple.

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So I worked at a company called Red Owl Analytics.

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And it was cool because I met the CTO through sort of one of my earliest mentors in tech.

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It's got him Greck Cannon, awesome guy, met him on a skateboarding newsnet group.

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He was a software engineer, gave me my first like Linux shell account that I could have

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to say gen do and like host my website and all that sort of stuff.

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And so I met Paul, the CTO through Greck.

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And immediately I was just thrown on site at Blackstone, the hedge fund.

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And I'm a, I'm about a year into living in the

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New York, but I'm from a small town in Virginia.

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I'm uneducated.

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I'm making it up as that go along.

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I'm like, literally like, you know, trying to just like remember how people talked in

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like the West Wing and like shows with smart people and be like, I'm going to use those

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words.

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And man, I, it was, it was not, it was not graceful.

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I was uncomfortable, but I was there.

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I was on site for three months, like there until three in the morning, just like snowflaking

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this, this sort of map reduce data aggregation application that we built.

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And you know, really just trial by fire had to learn so much so fast.

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And without the sort of humiliation of being like on site surrounded by all these, you

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know, incredibly intellectually superior people, I don't think I could have done it.

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So that's a favorite one.

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It sucked.

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Like I was, I was pretty unhappy and, and, and it was tough.

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But like looking back, it's like, you know, I'm a, I'm a big fan of David Goggins and

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he talks about your hurt locker and like how you got to like wake up every day and like

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feel that pain sometimes.

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And you know, it probably, it probably didn't suck any more than getting a, a computer science

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degree at like a top level university.

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You know, I'm sure that, you know, finishing up a masters in computer science at MIT is

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probably equally or more so uncomfortable to the experience I had.

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So I often think about those early jobs as my education, you know, like I wasn't really

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qualified.

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They needed bodies.

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I was cheap.

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And I kind of knew what I was doing.

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I knew what I was doing enough to be effective and, and I could fake the rest.

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And so that was a big one.

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I started getting some better jobs.

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You know, I worked at a skincare and makeup company called Glossier that kind of made

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a lot of great connections there.

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Um, you know, got my current job because of connections from that job.

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That's amazing.

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Networking is king.

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I worked at Etsy, which, you know, they were huge in DevOps and one of the, you know, the

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architects of like the original system that kind of became the model for like a successful

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DevOps job.

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I got there a little after that, you know, I got there in some growing pains, like regime

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changes, moving from a commitment to bare metal into Google Cloud.

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But I did some good work and I learned a lot and like, you know, so those are huge.

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And then the last one I'll mention, and this is certainly back to sales engineering.

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Um, I worked at a company called Armory.

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So I had a pretty good amount of experience with Sphiniker, which was a continuous delivery

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tool first built by Netflix.

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And so when I, back in 2022, I was just, I was really burnt out, like working in the

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pandemic as a developer, DevOps engineer, especially like fairly extroverted one.

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It's pretty isolating.

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So I talked to a friend and they was like, you should just try being a sales engineer.

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You know, make more money.

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It's a more socially stimulating job and you can use your experience to like work for a

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DevOps company.

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So I worked for Armory and I had a great leader, got him Paul, just a legend in sales engineering

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and learned so much.

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It was, it was kind of another red out type experience where I was just thrown in.

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Um, I was on a, on a plane, uh, demoing in person to, you know, a huge airline within

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two, three weeks of starting the job, which, you know, it's pretty crazy.

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Um, and so I've kind of just always loved those.

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I like those jobs where it's just like, you know, here's a laptop, here's root access

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to everything.

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Everything's broken.

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I wish you the best of luck and I won't notice anything you do.

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Oh my gosh.

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That's, those are good, very good lessons there.

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Very much related.

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I mean, you said a lot of really, really interesting things, but relating to the sales engineer

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side of things and sort of your experience being thrown into like Blackstone, I can relate

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to that very much.

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And you probably related to when you were in New York City was like, once you get thrown

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into sort of that Silicon Valley or like the in New York city's case, the NYC sort of,

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uh, you know, whatever it's called, right?

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Yeah.

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I love that.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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Silicon Valley, let's call it that.

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Um, things are different.

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I remember working at a company that was in open source.

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I would have never guessed that I would have had this experience, but we went out for dinner

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because we were doing a very like sales engineering slash developer advocate type of a, uh, type

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an event, essentially, and that's the role I was playing.

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Um, and I ended up like sitting at a dinner where it was like a 500 person dinner and I

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was just so uncomfortable.

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There was like so many pieces of silverware that I had no idea what they were for and

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where they were supposed to go and when I was supposed to use them.

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Um, and so I can relate to that also of like, you just, when you're thrown into those scenarios

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of like almost chaos, whether it be technically, socially or whatever, um, I feel like those

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are the opportunities where you're like, okay, we're faking it till we make it.

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And when you do make it or you don't make it, there's a lot that comes out of that that

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you learn that you can take into that next experience, which sounds very much like how

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your career has been.

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Yeah.

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And I think that's a, a testament to something that I've been really like coming to terms

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with lately.

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I'm not an incredibly technical person.

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I was never great at math.

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I was never great at, uh, you know, but in, I am because I'm an artist and the way that

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I express myself as an artist is often very technically when I was a kid, like I would

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take things apart not because I cared so much about how they worked.

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It's because I was like, this VCR would look way better if the internals were visible.

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Like it was a, I mean, really, it was like, uh, and, and I realized that like my greatest

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piece of art that I've ever built up to this point is my career.

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It's performance art, 100% performance art.

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Like I am, I am not, I don't have the, the, the formal background.

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I grew up, my father did not grow up with electricity.

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He grew up in Mennonite.

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Uh, my, uh, yeah.

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Very different.

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Like I have, I have hopped like a big jump here.

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And so the only way that I can do this is truly, and it's not deceptive.

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It's just, I am learning how to, I learned how to be an engineer from a, from a performance

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standpoint.

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Like I learned the words, the, the cadence, the, the tools, part of that is being able

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to write code.

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But for me, it's like, it's more like a, an expression, you know, like, okay, I can

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just do this.

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Like, and that's to me, the ultimate freedom of like being a creative person, being an

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artist is just like, I can just create this piece of art.

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And for me, it's like my career.

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So I think of the sales engineering part and, and I'm actually fresh back from that.

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So I was a sales engineer for about two years and I'm, I'm almost three months into my

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current job.

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And yeah, this is my first job back.

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I'm a much better engineer.

234
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And I appreciate building more than I ever have because when you're selling, you're not

235
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building.

236
00:13:48,720 --> 00:13:54,600
When you're selling, you can do everything right and still lose because, you know, they

237
00:13:54,600 --> 00:13:58,480
were always just going to buy the other thing, but their boss said, no, you have to do two

238
00:13:58,480 --> 00:14:02,400
POCs or I can't approve the purchase.

239
00:14:02,400 --> 00:14:03,400
And I can't.

240
00:14:03,400 --> 00:14:05,440
I can't, I can't do that.

241
00:14:05,440 --> 00:14:09,480
Like for me, like when, when I'm building, and I think that's where the artist mindset

242
00:14:09,480 --> 00:14:14,200
comes in, you know, if I'm, if I'm putting all this effort into this painting, I want

243
00:14:14,200 --> 00:14:16,240
to be able to stand back and look at it.

244
00:14:16,240 --> 00:14:21,040
And that's, that's the beauty of, you know, building infrastructure, building products,

245
00:14:21,040 --> 00:14:22,920
building code, building anything.

246
00:14:22,920 --> 00:14:26,280
So, you know, I enjoyed it and I'm glad that I did it.

247
00:14:26,280 --> 00:14:27,720
I'm glad that I know that I can do it.

248
00:14:27,720 --> 00:14:30,280
It's made me a better communicator.

249
00:14:30,280 --> 00:14:31,280
Love that.

250
00:14:31,280 --> 00:14:36,440
But it's also, it's also made me really kind of challenged my, or it challenged my values

251
00:14:36,440 --> 00:14:37,440
a lot.

252
00:14:37,440 --> 00:14:44,480
And, and, and yeah, I'm just selling at this point in my life does not align with my values.

253
00:14:44,480 --> 00:14:45,480
Building does.

254
00:14:45,480 --> 00:14:46,480
Yeah.

255
00:14:46,480 --> 00:14:47,480
Yep.

256
00:14:47,480 --> 00:14:49,480
Well, that's really interesting.

257
00:14:49,480 --> 00:14:54,640
So, so accurate on the side of no longer building, you're building demos, you're building

258
00:14:54,640 --> 00:14:56,760
sort of maybe integration pieces.

259
00:14:56,760 --> 00:15:01,440
You're like, you know, trying to present your product in the right way, but it is not the

260
00:15:01,440 --> 00:15:07,040
building that, you know, you and I or any really other sort of true blooded developer

261
00:15:07,040 --> 00:15:09,120
enjoys doing.

262
00:15:09,120 --> 00:15:12,280
Sometimes a good demo would get me excited because I'd build something or do some fun

263
00:15:12,280 --> 00:15:16,520
new use case with it, but it, that didn't last as long as like you said, when you can

264
00:15:16,520 --> 00:15:19,600
take a step back and like look at the full picture of everything that you've built and

265
00:15:19,600 --> 00:15:21,680
how that contributes to everything else.

266
00:15:21,680 --> 00:15:22,680
Yeah.

267
00:15:22,680 --> 00:15:23,920
And it's speculative.

268
00:15:23,920 --> 00:15:28,360
We're building all these things in hopes that it closes the deal instead of we're building

269
00:15:28,360 --> 00:15:33,400
all of these things for this awesome, you know, API or whatever product that, that we're

270
00:15:33,400 --> 00:15:34,720
selling.

271
00:15:34,720 --> 00:15:43,000
And so I just felt really ephemeral and, but, you know, I can't overstate how helpful it

272
00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:50,400
was and like the people that I met and I'll say this to you, the, the only true currency

273
00:15:50,400 --> 00:15:54,680
in your career and I don't care what industry you're in are the people that you meet and

274
00:15:54,680 --> 00:15:56,840
the relationships that you build.

275
00:15:56,840 --> 00:16:04,760
And, and, and I learned that or it was, it was further, you know, affirmed to me in my,

276
00:16:04,760 --> 00:16:12,000
in my time in sales and, and I, and I'm definitely flush with relationships coming out of that.

277
00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:14,720
And so, so, you know, no regrets.

278
00:16:14,720 --> 00:16:15,720
It's great.

279
00:16:15,720 --> 00:16:16,720
Maybe I'll do it again one day.

280
00:16:16,720 --> 00:16:17,720
Who knows?

281
00:16:17,720 --> 00:16:18,720
Probably not.

282
00:16:18,720 --> 00:16:19,720
I think.

283
00:16:19,720 --> 00:16:23,560
I think there's, there's other things that I would like to do if I were going to do something

284
00:16:23,560 --> 00:16:25,080
else in tech.

285
00:16:25,080 --> 00:16:26,080
Yeah.

286
00:16:26,080 --> 00:16:30,200
And, but I'm glad this is a part of the story.

287
00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:31,200
Yeah.

288
00:16:31,200 --> 00:16:32,200
Yeah.

289
00:16:32,200 --> 00:16:35,600
See, I'm, yeah, I relate very much to that.

290
00:16:35,600 --> 00:16:40,120
I think what a good hybrid and this is sort of a good conversation, you know, that to

291
00:16:40,120 --> 00:16:44,200
kind of dive into, but when I was playing that sales engine or engineering role and when

292
00:16:44,200 --> 00:16:48,280
I have, honestly, I played it like my entire career really because I was, I am also extroverted

293
00:16:48,280 --> 00:16:52,640
even though if people are not technical or intelligent, I do get drained.

294
00:16:52,640 --> 00:16:57,320
And so I'm sort of like, is it, I'm an extrovert with smart people, but I'm an introvert with

295
00:16:57,320 --> 00:16:58,680
the rest of the world.

296
00:16:58,680 --> 00:16:59,680
That's what I think.

297
00:16:59,680 --> 00:17:03,120
Um, but I love to talk to people who are technical and I like to get out there.

298
00:17:03,120 --> 00:17:07,280
And so I think that the sales engineering role can very much feel like that grind.

299
00:17:07,280 --> 00:17:11,720
But in my opportunities, I've had a developer advocacy sort of layer over top of them.

300
00:17:11,720 --> 00:17:18,240
So if I built like a sales demo, I was usually presenting a similar type of talk, not about

301
00:17:18,240 --> 00:17:22,440
Hey, look at my product, but like, Oh, Hey, look at a potential solution for a technical

302
00:17:22,440 --> 00:17:25,480
problem that you're, you're spinning your wheels on.

303
00:17:25,480 --> 00:17:30,880
And I feel like that gave me a lot of value from that because then you get the feedback

304
00:17:30,880 --> 00:17:31,880
from developers.

305
00:17:31,880 --> 00:17:33,040
They're like, Oh my gosh, this was so great.

306
00:17:33,040 --> 00:17:35,880
I'm going to go take this code sample or like you really helped me.

307
00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:40,680
And I think that helps sort of supplement maybe what you were missing potentially, um,

308
00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:42,320
in your sales engineering role.

309
00:17:42,320 --> 00:17:43,320
Yeah.

310
00:17:43,320 --> 00:17:49,120
And, you know, I think as a sales engineer, you're often kind of thrown into a lot of

311
00:17:49,120 --> 00:17:57,120
different roles and you're oftentimes like, it will really change how you feel about sales

312
00:17:57,120 --> 00:18:02,400
people, you know, account executives, they can be your best friend and just love you

313
00:18:02,400 --> 00:18:05,840
and think you're the most genius person in the world.

314
00:18:05,840 --> 00:18:10,880
And then, you know, the second that the, uh, their technical or economic buyer rolls

315
00:18:10,880 --> 00:18:15,600
their eyes, you know, your, your damaged goods and, and you're the reason the sale blew

316
00:18:15,600 --> 00:18:21,480
up and, you know, it, it, uh, there's just a lot there.

317
00:18:21,480 --> 00:18:23,800
There's a lot.

318
00:18:23,800 --> 00:18:29,080
It, it, it makes me wonder, like, is it, do people really need to be making like four

319
00:18:29,080 --> 00:18:37,280
or $500,000 a year as a middleman to sell, you know, SaaS applications to developers?

320
00:18:37,280 --> 00:18:43,440
Like, like maybe we could worry a little bit less about AI replacing developer jobs if

321
00:18:43,440 --> 00:18:47,960
we weren't like sending a bunch of A East presidents club every year.

322
00:18:47,960 --> 00:18:48,960
I don't know.

323
00:18:48,960 --> 00:18:54,880
Like maybe we could rebalance the, the economics of tech a little bit and the people who build

324
00:18:54,880 --> 00:18:59,000
the products could make more money than the people who sell them.

325
00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:00,920
And, and, you know, we're getting into a world.

326
00:19:00,920 --> 00:19:01,920
Yeah.

327
00:19:01,920 --> 00:19:02,920
Yeah.

328
00:19:02,920 --> 00:19:05,400
And I mean, we're getting into, you know, a little bit of politics and economics and

329
00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:09,440
all that sort of stuff, but yeah, it's interesting.

330
00:19:09,440 --> 00:19:13,080
You know, it's interesting knowing how the sausage is made and then also knowing how

331
00:19:13,080 --> 00:19:16,080
it's sold.

332
00:19:16,080 --> 00:19:22,680
And, and, and maybe, maybe that's more than people need to know if they want to just have

333
00:19:22,680 --> 00:19:25,680
a job and be happy and, you know, live life.

334
00:19:25,680 --> 00:19:32,400
But for me, uh, I, I feel like as a developer now, I know exactly, and I call myself a developer.

335
00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:33,720
I'm not a reliability engineer or whatever.

336
00:19:33,720 --> 00:19:39,520
I write a lot of YAML, uh, but I, you know, I write Terraform, I write whatever, I write

337
00:19:39,520 --> 00:19:45,720
a lot of Python, like, um, but it's, it's made me understand my value more.

338
00:19:45,720 --> 00:19:48,880
It's made me understand like, like what my impact is.

339
00:19:48,880 --> 00:19:53,200
And, uh, and something that I've been thinking about a lot is how we're not really paid for

340
00:19:53,200 --> 00:19:54,600
our skills.

341
00:19:54,600 --> 00:19:56,280
Like anybody can have skills.

342
00:19:56,280 --> 00:20:02,480
We're paid for our enthusiasm and we're paid for our curiosity and we're paid for our

343
00:20:02,480 --> 00:20:03,760
integrity.

344
00:20:03,760 --> 00:20:08,480
And those are the three things that make up like a good, a good thought worker.

345
00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:12,880
And I use that term a lot lately because I think that we're kind of in the equivalent

346
00:20:12,880 --> 00:20:17,160
of the industrial revolution, but for thought workers right now.

347
00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:22,920
And, and that's why, yeah.

348
00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:25,840
And that's why I'm starting to just think more about like what makes a good thought

349
00:20:25,840 --> 00:20:31,320
worker, you know, if you really boil it down, I can't, I can't get it to any like lower level

350
00:20:31,320 --> 00:20:35,600
than, than those three elements, you know, enthusiasm, curiosity and integrity.

351
00:20:35,600 --> 00:20:39,040
Um, those are the things that AI can't have.

352
00:20:39,040 --> 00:20:40,040
Yeah.

353
00:20:40,040 --> 00:20:41,040
Yeah.

354
00:20:41,040 --> 00:20:42,040
Yeah.

355
00:20:42,040 --> 00:20:43,040
Whoa.

356
00:20:43,040 --> 00:20:44,040
Okay.

357
00:20:44,040 --> 00:20:45,400
Let's, uh, let's shift.

358
00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:46,400
Love the deep note.

359
00:20:46,400 --> 00:20:48,800
And honestly, like I think you and I could have these conversations for hours.

360
00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:50,160
You were on the AI panel.

361
00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:53,280
So for anyone listening, um, there's a panel that we did on December 30th.

362
00:20:53,280 --> 00:20:56,920
It was, it was pretty lightly attended, but it was a really fun panel to just sort of

363
00:20:56,920 --> 00:21:02,000
slip all back and forth what we think, um, how and where we think AI is going and productivity

364
00:21:02,000 --> 00:21:06,960
wise, which is when I got to meet David, thankful for your network who introduced me to you

365
00:21:06,960 --> 00:21:09,400
because I didn't know you before that event.

366
00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:11,480
Um, so it was a really great event.

367
00:21:11,480 --> 00:21:14,400
Um, David shared some very strong opinions that I absolutely loved.

368
00:21:14,400 --> 00:21:20,280
Um, so I would strongly recommend going to hub.builtfor.dev, uh, to find that recording.

369
00:21:20,280 --> 00:21:24,560
Um, but coming back to you, the conversation, what is your, now that you've shifted away

370
00:21:24,560 --> 00:21:29,760
from sales engineering, site, site reliability engineer, um, what does your day to day look

371
00:21:29,760 --> 00:21:30,760
like?

372
00:21:30,760 --> 00:21:31,760
Obviously you're new.

373
00:21:31,760 --> 00:21:34,160
So I realize, you know, what you're doing onboarding probably still, but you know, generally

374
00:21:34,160 --> 00:21:36,520
what is that, that type of a day look like?

375
00:21:36,520 --> 00:21:37,680
Uh, we're startup.

376
00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:43,080
I was, I was committing code the second day I was actually maybe first day.

377
00:21:43,080 --> 00:21:50,800
Um, right now I am, I am fully responsible for delivering a new service into, you know,

378
00:21:50,800 --> 00:21:51,800
our environments.

379
00:21:51,800 --> 00:21:54,520
Uh, and, uh, so I'm working with the development team.

380
00:21:54,520 --> 00:22:00,560
And, uh, QA engineers and, uh, other folks on my team, but I'm kind of, I'm kind of

381
00:22:00,560 --> 00:22:01,560
having to lead the charge.

382
00:22:01,560 --> 00:22:03,960
We, uh, we're like mini shops.

383
00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:08,160
We have a sort of legacy application and then we're building a lot of sort of new greenfield

384
00:22:08,160 --> 00:22:09,160
things around it.

385
00:22:09,160 --> 00:22:12,960
Um, I work more with the greenfield things, but specifically with what I'm working on

386
00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:15,720
now, there's a lot of integration between the two.

387
00:22:15,720 --> 00:22:19,800
So, um, sales engineer jobs are coming in handy because I'm really having to like pull

388
00:22:19,800 --> 00:22:20,800
people together.

389
00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:24,480
Um, and, uh, you know, trying to kind of do a good job.

390
00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:25,480
Good job of that.

391
00:22:25,480 --> 00:22:32,440
Um, but, you know, my day to day, I, I think I use pretty strong developer ergonomics,

392
00:22:32,440 --> 00:22:38,440
you know, for me, my, my life is, you know, writing code, committing it to get, you know,

393
00:22:38,440 --> 00:22:40,760
opening PRs, getting approval.

394
00:22:40,760 --> 00:22:51,880
Um, I do a lot of, uh, uh, architectures, a strong word, but I do a lot of like thinking

395
00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:55,480
about how things could be maybe done a little bit better.

396
00:22:55,480 --> 00:23:02,680
Um, and then, uh, yeah, you know, it's, there's a, there's a reactive element to it.

397
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:03,800
Um, for sure.

398
00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:09,400
I think, you know, anybody and, and if you're a developer, like in your, you know, a little

399
00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:11,360
board, is it back developer, front end developer?

400
00:23:11,360 --> 00:23:17,520
Like there's always a need for SREs and DevOps people and the, the best or some of the best

401
00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:19,560
DevOps people are developers.

402
00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:24,400
Like if you can, if you can wrap your head around sort of, you know, I, I, I describe

403
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:29,040
it as like, uh, if you, if the front end developers are like painting your house and

404
00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:31,720
making it beautiful and doing your window trim and all that sort of stuff.

405
00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:36,480
And maybe the back end developers are like laying down the floor and building your cabinets

406
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:37,920
and putting up drywall.

407
00:23:37,920 --> 00:23:38,920
We're wiring things.

408
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:40,160
We're putting in the plumbing.

409
00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:45,480
We're, you know, kind of behind the scenes, but still, you know, code and it's, it's,

410
00:23:45,480 --> 00:23:50,920
it's a great job and it's, but you, you have to kind of, you have to think a little bit

411
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:53,080
differently to, to do the same thing.

412
00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:55,680
And I don't know if that makes sense.

413
00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:57,160
No, it doesn't make sense.

414
00:23:57,160 --> 00:23:58,960
Cause I did some DevOps after being a developer.

415
00:23:58,960 --> 00:24:00,440
So I fully agree.

416
00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:01,440
Yeah.

417
00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:04,920
And, um, but it's, you know, there's a lot of impact.

418
00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:06,120
There's a lot of autonomy.

419
00:24:06,120 --> 00:24:15,440
Um, and I would say that the one blumber is like, I miss the, the succinctness of a feature.

420
00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:17,360
You don't really get that.

421
00:24:17,360 --> 00:24:21,320
We, a lot along with projects, it's hard to work in sprints.

422
00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:24,120
It's hard to like chop things up into smaller tasks.

423
00:24:24,120 --> 00:24:29,720
Um, you do end up with like, uh, a lot of updates that are like still chugging along,

424
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:31,360
like still working through issues.

425
00:24:31,360 --> 00:24:35,200
Like, you know, something that you might think would take a week, takes a month.

426
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:37,360
I'm really struggling with that right now.

427
00:24:37,360 --> 00:24:39,720
Estimation and deadlines and things like that.

428
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:45,960
Like feel like the, the more senior you get, the more you have to take responsibility for

429
00:24:45,960 --> 00:24:46,960
that.

430
00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:49,080
You don't have other people being like, you can definitely get this done in two weeks.

431
00:24:49,080 --> 00:24:50,880
Like you're going to get this done in two weeks.

432
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:56,600
It's like, you know, I don't have any, I don't have anything, anyone to escalate to if, if

433
00:24:56,600 --> 00:24:58,080
I can't get it done in two weeks.

434
00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:03,280
So it does, there's a lot of moving targets, but, uh, you know, generally day to day, I'm,

435
00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:05,360
I'm, I'm working through what I'm working through.

436
00:25:05,360 --> 00:25:11,800
I'm, I'm interacting with my team, uh, pretty collaborative, love to kind of mob on things,

437
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:12,800
pair on things.

438
00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:18,880
Um, and then, you know, I'm trying to make some time for, for, uh, career development

439
00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:19,880
right now.

440
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:25,880
Um, I was going to learn the ZIG programming language this year and I started on it and

441
00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:28,520
then I was like, I want to just get really good at go-ling.

442
00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:34,200
I've been writing go for, you know, seven or eight years, uh, intermittently.

443
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:36,920
And so kind of made me just want to double down on that.

444
00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:42,600
So, um, yeah, working on that, working on writing more, um, and, and, you know, maybe

445
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:48,200
figuring out how to share my, my, my story and, uh, you know, maybe help some other people

446
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:52,560
that, that want to work in tech or struggling with tech and imposter syndrome and all that

447
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:53,560
sort of stuff.

448
00:25:53,560 --> 00:25:55,760
Cause, uh, I've, I've done it.

449
00:25:55,760 --> 00:25:56,760
Yeah.

450
00:25:56,760 --> 00:26:03,400
I really wish that there was like a support, like a, like an online therapy support, not

451
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:07,720
actual really therapy, but like just somewhere for developers to just come in.

452
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:10,840
If they have to be anonymous because that's how they feel comfortable, but just somewhere

453
00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:17,160
to just come in, like sort of dump and engage because it is so frequent that I meet other

454
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:20,320
developers who are like, Oh, it's so nice to hear your story.

455
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:24,000
And not because my story is exciting, but because there's some relatability and we

456
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:25,600
all feel imposter syndrome.

457
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:29,440
Like when we think about it, doctors have like medical licenses and they have to stay

458
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:32,920
on top of things and medical boards tell them what to stay on top of things and what they're

459
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:34,040
supposed to do.

460
00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:35,400
There is nothing for developers.

461
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:37,960
They're just like, well, we're figuring it out ourselves.

462
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:42,320
So we are constantly like filled with imposter syndrome because there is no bar at which

463
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:46,720
that we can compare ourselves against you, except for our neighbors, but we're told not

464
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:49,000
to compare ourselves to the Joneses, right?

465
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:56,560
So how can we by extension ever feel satisfied if we don't know where that bar is like many

466
00:26:56,560 --> 00:26:57,760
other professions do.

467
00:26:57,760 --> 00:26:59,920
So that was my soapbox, but yeah.

468
00:26:59,920 --> 00:27:02,000
No, no, I'm, I'm with you.

469
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:07,160
There is a Slack channel that has been around for over a decade.

470
00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:14,400
That is, it's a little bit like, if you know, you know, but also like, you know, so I wouldn't

471
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:20,800
broadcast it on here, but if someone's interested and pings me, I would be happy to share.

472
00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:23,280
Please.

473
00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:27,880
And it has a mental health channel or it's a Slack group or a Slack account, but it has

474
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:35,080
a mental health group that is probably the most active on the server.

475
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:37,440
Like, I think it's beautiful.

476
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:41,640
And it's a lot of people being like, I got a weird review.

477
00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:43,360
How do I make my work visible?

478
00:27:43,360 --> 00:27:48,200
How do I like, you know, and it's, it's, you know, directors at fame companies all the

479
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:52,800
way down to, you know, how do I get my first job out of college?

480
00:27:52,800 --> 00:27:56,280
And you know, a lot of people are struggling with struggling with anxiety and depression.

481
00:27:56,280 --> 00:28:00,040
A lot of people are like, Hey, does anyone ever tried this, you know, mental health

482
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:04,640
drug or is anyone ever tried like this type of therapy or does anyone have any recommendations

483
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:06,880
for therapy in this area?

484
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:10,000
And and it's, so it's, there are things out there.

485
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:12,600
I think that, um,

486
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:13,600
Very true.

487
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:14,600
There are problems.

488
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:16,840
We talked about empathy for a lot in DevOps.

489
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:20,120
I feel like DevOps was just all about empathy, empathy, empathy, empathy.

490
00:28:20,120 --> 00:28:28,000
There's a precursor to empathy that is not supported in most industries and that is vulnerability.

491
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:32,200
You cannot be empathetic to someone if you're not also vulnerable.

492
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:38,800
And that is the thing that I've really struggled with in my personal life, my, my professional

493
00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:41,120
life, like, and everything in between.

494
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:47,640
But now that I'm learning to be vulnerable, I'm finding that life's a lot easier and

495
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:54,680
you can, you know, if you're worried about a bad review or about a passive aggressive

496
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:59,600
thing that a coworker said to you, it is okay to just ask them what they meant by that.

497
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:03,080
And it's, it's really great to just hop on a call and do it face to face.

498
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:08,320
Even if, you know, we lose a lot of that empathy and vulnerability just inherently in our sort

499
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:10,000
of remote world, which is great.

500
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:11,120
I don't want to go back to an office.

501
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:14,120
It's not, it's not worth the trade off for me, but

502
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:16,520
I will not go back to an office either.

503
00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:20,280
Yeah, and, and I'm, but I'm working on ways to sort of bridge that gap.

504
00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:24,840
And I think that, uh, yeah, vulnerability is everything.

505
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:29,520
And if you can just get to a place where you can find a supportive company that you can

506
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:33,520
feel vulnerable in, that you can, you can build empathy for people, you know, like I

507
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:38,680
talked about before, the, the only actual currency in life is relationships.

508
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:42,080
And those are the things that will make your job good.

509
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:49,960
Like I, you know, I don't want to work in a shop deploying C sharp applications to Azure,

510
00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:53,680
but if there was the most awesome people in the world there, I would do it every day with

511
00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:54,680
a smile on my face.

512
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:58,560
Luckily, I would work at a shop now with awesome people and, and we're deploying tech that

513
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:00,360
I like and, uh, and that's great.

514
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:03,480
You can have it all, but the people are more important.

515
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:04,480
Yes.

516
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:05,480
Yes.

517
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:06,480
Yes.

518
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:09,280
Uh, I think back to different teams and different places that I worked.

519
00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:14,440
I was most recently laid off from Snapchat like way, oh my gosh, almost a year ago now

520
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:16,640
in a couple of weeks, it'll be a year.

521
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:20,960
Um, and I think the hardest part of that was the people, like whatever it is they're doing

522
00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:25,040
over there, smart, smart, kind of creative is their values and people show up with all

523
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:26,600
three of those values every day.

524
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:30,920
And it is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in terms of coworkers.

525
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:34,280
So sometimes it's like, I'm sad and it's not that I'm sad that I'm, I'm happy I'm doing

526
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:35,280
my business.

527
00:30:35,280 --> 00:30:39,200
I'm happy I'm doing what I'm doing and getting to drive developer growth for multiple companies.

528
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:43,720
But gosh, do I like miss the people and I miss, I miss being on a team.

529
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:45,240
I'm like so lonely.

530
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:47,920
And so, and it's not, I don't, I have people, right?

531
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:48,920
I have four kids.

532
00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:49,920
I'm married.

533
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:53,640
I have people, but it's different when you're in that work setting and you're working with

534
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:55,400
coworkers and you're hanging out.

535
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:59,800
And I think of all the things I realized with doing this live stream, which just gives me

536
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:03,360
more conviction to keep doing it and talk to awesome people like you, um, is that it's

537
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:05,320
actually like taking away some of that loneliness.

538
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:09,360
Like I've, I've realized over the last few weeks and I'm like, holy, holy cow, I'm getting

539
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:10,360
happier.

540
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:15,040
Like each and every day I'm like happier and I'm like, ah, my people, I need to hang out

541
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:19,480
with my people, whether it's someone new I've never met, but, but people who are like us,

542
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:20,480
right?

543
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:22,560
Who think this way.

544
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:26,880
And then coming back around, I wanted to speak to what you had said about the mental health

545
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:27,880
channel.

546
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:30,920
And I think that, I think that being vulnerable is really hard.

547
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:36,120
I am vulnerable enough to build strong relationships with people and I know that because I'm very

548
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:39,720
socially, um, mature in that way.

549
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:40,720
Right.

550
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:41,720
I know how to build relationships.

551
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:45,000
Well, it's one of my superpowers, but I'm not vulnerable about the things that I really

552
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:47,280
need to be vulnerable about.

553
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:51,240
And I think when we think about things in like a mental health channel, like, I don't

554
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:54,400
know that I would dive into that because I'm like, this is just, I just have crap, right?

555
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:55,400
I just have problems.

556
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:58,080
Like I'm just a, I just have stuff going on, right?

557
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:02,240
And I wouldn't necessarily jump to that, but I think it's beautiful that there is a channel

558
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:06,600
that is sort of normalizing like software engineering is hard.

559
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:08,080
Tech is hard.

560
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:11,640
We have no bar at which we are set to, right?

561
00:32:11,640 --> 00:32:17,420
So as far as we're concerned, we don't know when we are good and when we are not good.

562
00:32:17,420 --> 00:32:19,960
And I think that part is the hardest of all.

563
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:20,960
Yeah.

564
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:21,960
Yeah.

565
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:22,960
The stakes are high.

566
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:26,160
Like it's, you make a lot of money and you build a lifestyle and commitment surround

567
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:30,240
that money and then you need to keep making that money and then things change and you

568
00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:31,920
need to make more money.

569
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:35,800
And that's a lot to sit with.

570
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:37,320
You know, I'm a, I'm a single earner.

571
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:43,320
My wife is a state of mom and, and it's amazing and beautiful.

572
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:47,840
And I wish that I could say we were doing it purely out of, out of love, but childcare

573
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:52,520
is so expensive that it really doesn't make sense for her to work.

574
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:55,640
You know, so, but that's a lot.

575
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:56,640
That's a lot on me.

576
00:32:56,640 --> 00:33:02,320
And I used to really let my, my personal life affect my work a lot.

577
00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:07,240
And I used to use it as an excuse, but now I'm like, I'm finding it as a, an awesome

578
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:12,320
respite, you know, like when, when I'm feeling stressed and anxious about, you know, a weird

579
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:17,520
fight that I have with my wife or whatever going on in my personal life, work is consistent.

580
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:18,520
It's there.

581
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:21,880
You know, these people are, are working with me every day and, and we know we have shared

582
00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:27,480
goals, um, you know, in whatever level of alignment we're in, like we're at least working

583
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:28,480
towards the same things.

584
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:31,680
And, uh, and I'm starting to find a lot of comfort from that.

585
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:37,000
And when that gets ripped away from you, you know, by choice or otherwise, that's trauma.

586
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:40,200
Like I think our generation, we hop around a lot.

587
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:41,200
Look at my little tin.

588
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:42,200
I had, I struggled.

589
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:47,640
I had struggled to find a home and a lot of that has been, I think that's tech though

590
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:49,880
to give yourself grace there.

591
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:50,880
It is tech.

592
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:55,680
I'm, I, up until the last couple of years have been a pretty difficult personality type,

593
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:59,720
you know, very high conflict, very like, like when you're insecure and you're struggling

594
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:02,200
with that imposter syndrome, you get really defensive really quickly.

595
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:04,320
And you know, people don't want to work with that.

596
00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:08,040
And so slowly things start to degrade and you know, you, you're like, wow, no one likes

597
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:09,040
me here anymore.

598
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:10,040
I should find a new job.

599
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:13,440
And, uh, I don't want to keep, I don't want to keep doing that.

600
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:18,560
And, uh, so that's why I've really just been trying to be really grateful for, you know,

601
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:23,920
a lot of gratitude for the people that I work with, you know, whether they are right, wrong

602
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:29,240
or indifferent about this, that and the other, like at least they're there at least like

603
00:34:29,240 --> 00:34:33,240
you have someone to talk to, to share this goal.

604
00:34:33,240 --> 00:34:34,240
And that's awesome.

605
00:34:34,240 --> 00:34:38,280
I've been freelance before, you know, that sucks when you're just like, here's the thing,

606
00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:39,280
do the thing.

607
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:45,240
And like, um, so yeah, I'm, I'm very much a, yeah, it's tough.

608
00:34:45,240 --> 00:34:50,520
And, you know, I, I've, you know, there, there could be a future in which I, I build something

609
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:52,920
on my own or with a small group of people.

610
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:59,380
And one of the things that's always kept me away from sort of chasing that idea, as fleeting

611
00:34:59,380 --> 00:35:03,080
as it might be, is, uh, can I do this on my own?

612
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:06,560
Like, do I, do I know what I'm doing enough to just take this on?

613
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:11,120
And right now in my life, where I'm at, like I'm, I'm loving being an employee.

614
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:12,520
I've got a lot to learn.

615
00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:16,600
I feel like a lot of my career was running on ego for a long time.

616
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:20,320
And now that I'm learning to be a little bit more vulnerable and get the ego out of the

617
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:22,360
way, it's like, oh, wow, I can actually learn something.

618
00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:28,440
I could, I could legitimately be good at this and like, you know, provide value to a company

619
00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:29,840
and not be a liability.

620
00:35:29,840 --> 00:35:32,400
That's a, that's a powerful feeling.

621
00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:33,400
Hmm.

622
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:37,200
Oh, I love, I love all the vulnerability that you just shared.

623
00:35:37,200 --> 00:35:39,400
Um, completely agree on childcare.

624
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:43,200
We have four kids, but I have two, three of the four are in school, right?

625
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:45,440
So we don't have care for them, but my husband's a stay at home dad.

626
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:48,360
And so I know exactly what that's like.

627
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:51,380
He's been a stay at home dad for the last nine years and it's, you sort of set your

628
00:35:51,380 --> 00:35:52,380
life up, right?

629
00:35:52,380 --> 00:35:55,560
And even when, and so this will be sort of a, I don't know, a little tip for your wife,

630
00:35:55,560 --> 00:36:00,120
maybe like to keep some form of passion or something that she loves doing because now

631
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:02,240
our two year old is two, right?

632
00:36:02,240 --> 00:36:06,360
And so he's just a little, he's crazy, crazy, like a toddler and he needs to go to daycare.

633
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:07,360
Like he needs to get out.

634
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:08,360
He needs structure.

635
00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:10,120
He needs to just learn that his personality type needs it.

636
00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:12,880
And so my husband's like, okay, what do I go out and do now?

637
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:14,880
I've been a stay at home dad for like nine years.

638
00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:18,520
He's like everything that I did know, like his technical skills used to do fiber ops

639
00:36:18,520 --> 00:36:21,000
and telecoms has all sort of fleeted, right?

640
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:24,240
Things are changing, advancing and like he's been out of the workforce.

641
00:36:24,240 --> 00:36:28,840
So I think it's, um, it's an interesting dynamic of, of that stress, right?

642
00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:33,560
Of both being that stay at home parent and provider, because frankly it's not a job I

643
00:36:33,560 --> 00:36:34,560
can do.

644
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:35,560
Like I cannot be a stay at home parent.

645
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:36,880
It is not for me.

646
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:37,960
I don't have the patience.

647
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:40,000
I don't have that willpower.

648
00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:45,560
There's not a, I'm an achiever mentality or achiever sort of dimension in terms of personality.

649
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:50,440
And so it's very hard to figure out how you win when you're taking care of children.

650
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:53,040
So it just, it doesn't work for me.

651
00:36:53,040 --> 00:36:55,600
But on the other side, there's all this stress, right?

652
00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:57,640
Of being the breadwinner and the sole provider.

653
00:36:57,640 --> 00:37:02,560
And if I get hit by a bus, like what the heck happens to my kids, what happens to my family

654
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:05,680
or even if I just lose my job, right?

655
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:06,680
Then what happens?

656
00:37:06,680 --> 00:37:07,680
What do you do then?

657
00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:12,320
Um, yeah, there's, there's a lot with, you know, sort of that role generally and of being

658
00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:15,200
that sole provider, but also like doing that in technology, right?

659
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:21,520
Where again, the ecosystem is just so different than what is out there in the rest of the

660
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:22,520
world.

661
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:23,520
Yeah.

662
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:24,520
No, for sure.

663
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:25,520
Yeah.

664
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:29,480
My, my son is, uh, is three and he just started a, we live in the city of Chicago and he started

665
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:31,600
a preschool here.

666
00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:34,640
Uh, that's thankfully a part of the parks department.

667
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:35,640
Otherwise like,

668
00:37:35,640 --> 00:37:36,640
Oh, I love that.

669
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:39,920
I mean, preschools here are really expensive and pretty unattainable, frankly.

670
00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:40,920
Um,

671
00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:41,920
Oh, that's sad.

672
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:43,600
Well, education should be attainable.

673
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:45,480
It's so frustrating.

674
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:50,040
I mean, you know, it, it back when there was a middle class, things like that could happen.

675
00:37:50,040 --> 00:37:56,120
But you know, now it's, it's, like, I, I talk about it a lot, but like six figure poverty,

676
00:37:56,120 --> 00:37:57,120
man.

677
00:37:57,120 --> 00:37:58,120
It's a real thing.

678
00:37:58,120 --> 00:37:59,120
Like it's a real thing.

679
00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:04,640
And making what feels like a lot of money and it's just gone as soon as you get it.

680
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:05,640
And, uh,

681
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:11,400
And, but now that he's in a, in a, in a preschool situation, uh, my wife is, is much like me.

682
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:12,400
She's very autodidactic.

683
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:14,440
If there's something she wants to do, she'll just do it.

684
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:20,560
So she wrote a book and taught herself Photoshop and illustrated.

685
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:25,520
She's an incredible artist and, and drawer and, and you know, visual artists in general,

686
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:29,160
but she's just like, I'm gonna write a children's book and she just did it.

687
00:38:29,160 --> 00:38:30,160
And it's like almost done.

688
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:31,160
Yeah.

689
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:32,160
It's pretty incredible.

690
00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:33,160
Um, so, you know, like,

691
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:34,840
I know I would, I would love to buy it.

692
00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:36,360
Sorry not to interrupt you, but I would love to buy it.

693
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:37,360
So I'm gonna get over it.

694
00:38:37,360 --> 00:38:38,360
Yeah, absolutely.

695
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:39,360
We'll do.

696
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:40,760
I think you'll, you'll really like it.

697
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:42,240
Um, and yeah.

698
00:38:42,240 --> 00:38:48,480
So, you know, like the grit that we talked about earlier and then like enthusiasm and

699
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:49,480
all that sort of stuff.

700
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:52,240
It's a, it's a family value for me and it's a family value for us.

701
00:38:52,240 --> 00:38:56,920
So like, um, it's, it's awesome having that alignment, but it's a lot of stress.

702
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,160
You know, it's a lot of like, yes, it is.

703
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:02,640
Like it's just all on me and I don't have any generational wealth.

704
00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:04,800
I don't have, I don't have like, I don't have any.

705
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:05,800
I don't have anything to fall back on.

706
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:06,800
You know, this is it.

707
00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:09,960
I, I pretty, I'm a pretty good cook.

708
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:12,040
I have a couple of nice knives.

709
00:39:12,040 --> 00:39:17,000
So like I could, you know, maybe go get a line cook job and, and, and keep the lights

710
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:19,440
on if I really had to work my way up to Sue.

711
00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:23,960
Uh, and do that if I really had to, but that's it.

712
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:28,040
I can, I can write code and I can cook food and that's about it.

713
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:32,640
I can play drums, but I've, I've lost more money as a musician than I've ever made.

714
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:36,840
And so unfortunate, but I'm, I'm still doing it.

715
00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:37,840
Um, yeah.

716
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:39,200
So yeah, it's a lot.

717
00:39:39,200 --> 00:39:40,200
It's a lot.

718
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:44,600
It's good to, it's good to have other people that are like minded and vulnerable and supportive.

719
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:49,840
The leader at my job right now is amazing and fantastic and has really, uh, taught me

720
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:52,560
a lot already and shares a lot of my values.

721
00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:56,640
And I think that, uh, for a long time I got jobs that didn't align with my values because

722
00:39:56,640 --> 00:39:59,760
I was just like, whoever will hire me, that is where I will work.

723
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:01,520
I'm being a little more selective now.

724
00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:05,280
And I have the luxury of that because I'm, you know, more senior in my career, but, uh,

725
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:06,640
that is super important.

726
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:08,240
Don't be unhappy at your job.

727
00:40:08,240 --> 00:40:13,520
I'm done that, done that too much and it's not necessary.

728
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:15,320
What happens if you're making yourself unhappy?

729
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:18,600
It's so hard in the business.

730
00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:19,600
It is.

731
00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:20,600
It's so hard.

732
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:21,600
It's hard.

733
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:22,600
Cause I, yes, like, yeah, keep on.

734
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:26,440
There's, you're always, if you're unhappy, you're always making yourself unhappy.

735
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:27,760
That's something that I've learned.

736
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:33,560
Like you, you, there's always a different direction that you can walk in and, uh, I've,

737
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:36,120
I've kind of had to learn to accept that.

738
00:40:36,120 --> 00:40:37,760
You just have to accept responsibility for it.

739
00:40:37,760 --> 00:40:41,480
If you're making yourself unhappy, stop.

740
00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:42,480
True that.

741
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:43,480
High standards.

742
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:46,240
It's hard when you own a business and you have high standards, but I think it, it comes

743
00:40:46,240 --> 00:40:49,400
back to sort of everything we've talked about in this conversation, the imposter syndrome,

744
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:51,600
the childhood, the upbringing, right?

745
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:52,600
The uneducation.

746
00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:56,960
I constantly feel imposter syndrome because I'm uneducated, but it's like, I still have

747
00:40:56,960 --> 00:40:59,840
these beautiful, amazing skills that people want to pay for.

748
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:03,080
And so I need to give myself grace is where it all comes down to.

749
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:04,080
Yeah.

750
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:05,840
You're not, you're not uneducated.

751
00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:11,600
You're, you're, you just don't have a formal education, but I mean, I've worked with so

752
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:17,080
many people that have elite degrees from elite schools and they're like, yeah, you know,

753
00:41:17,080 --> 00:41:23,800
I learned a lot about Java garbage collection and like, you know, I wrote, I wrote a C

754
00:41:23,800 --> 00:41:31,080
compiler and a similar, but like, I don't know anything about API gateways and AWS or, you

755
00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:35,760
know, Cloud front, like, and that's the reality of, you know, that's the reality of doing a

756
00:41:35,760 --> 00:41:36,760
lot of work.

757
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:40,240
I mean, if you're a backend developer, it's like, yeah, they didn't teach me how to configure

758
00:41:40,240 --> 00:41:47,600
my postman to go through an in GROC layer because we, we have to use, you know, like

759
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:50,400
a cloud front in our local dev environments.

760
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:54,040
You know, that's the sort of stuff that you learn on the job.

761
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:56,480
Like, and it's so invaluable.

762
00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:03,560
And I think that like, yeah, there, there needs to be more like, we should all have like,

763
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:08,840
if once you've been in tech for 10 years, you should just have like a, an honorary master's

764
00:42:08,840 --> 00:42:12,480
degree from the university of your choice.

765
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:13,480
Boom.

766
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:14,480
I love that.

767
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:15,480
I do.

768
00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:16,680
And honestly, there's so much truth to that.

769
00:42:16,680 --> 00:42:20,280
Like, and we could even dive into that in a whole session about how much you learn by just

770
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:24,240
being like thrown to the wolves, honestly, because that's actually really the best way,

771
00:42:24,240 --> 00:42:29,080
in my opinion, to learn something that's valuable to an employer.

772
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:32,640
But there's a couple of topics I like to talk about before we jump off and we're nearing

773
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:35,800
the end of our time together, unfortunately.

774
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:39,800
I know that you do slightly different things than maybe a traditional developer or software

775
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:44,120
engineer, but still doing a lot of the same technical overlaps and otherwise.

776
00:42:44,120 --> 00:42:46,520
So what does your like building stack look like?

777
00:42:46,520 --> 00:42:50,000
You talked about, you know, investing in go and how you're, you want to, you know, obviously

778
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:55,720
become a stronger, uh, goaling, you know, goaling capable, right?

779
00:42:55,720 --> 00:43:00,880
But like what, um, yeah, what else is sort of in that stack of things you like to do?

780
00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:01,880
I'm going to jump in.

781
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:02,880
Sure.

782
00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:05,800
I mean, I'll, you know, I'll start from my fingers and go to the metal.

783
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:07,440
Um, here we go.

784
00:43:07,440 --> 00:43:08,440
Yeah.

785
00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:09,440
Yeah.

786
00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:14,120
So, uh, I've been, I've been in a editor purgatory for a little bit.

787
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:19,840
I was a VIM guy for a long time and then I used a sort of variant of them called space

788
00:43:19,840 --> 00:43:23,520
max that was VIM running on top of E max.

789
00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:28,000
Then I got tired of all that and I used VS code for, I don't know, three, four years.

790
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:33,960
I've been playing around with Zed, which is a sort of native AI editor, um, but lighter

791
00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:36,000
weight than some of the other ones.

792
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:40,440
And then recently I've been back in Neo VIM.

793
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:47,720
So weird full circle, but, um, having a lot of fun in Neo VIM right now, um, playing around,

794
00:43:47,720 --> 00:43:50,320
you know, customizing it with Blua and stuff.

795
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:52,720
Um, so, you know, use that.

796
00:43:52,720 --> 00:43:58,280
Um, if I were going to write, if I were going to write a, like if someone was like, Hey,

797
00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:04,360
I've got this great idea and you know, $10 million and I want you to architect this from

798
00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:05,360
the ground up.

799
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:09,960
Um, depending on what it was, but you know, let's just say it's sort of a standard web

800
00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:15,040
application where I'm going to need, you know, a backend databases, cues, whatever, and,

801
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:17,000
and maybe some sort of front end.

802
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:22,920
So I would, I would probably lean on go, um, for most of the backend stuff, or maybe just

803
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:30,160
like TypeScript, Node.js, Express Services or, or whatever, um, for, for just the, the

804
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:37,360
ease of, uh, finding people to help me, you know, like, I love, I love Elixir, but I'm

805
00:44:37,360 --> 00:44:40,880
not going to write something on, you know, Phoenix with Elixir because it would, you

806
00:44:40,880 --> 00:44:44,440
know, I, there's 12 people that could help me and I know.

807
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:47,760
Um, but I'm sure.

808
00:44:47,760 --> 00:44:48,760
Yes.

809
00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:53,400
Uh, and then if there's anything sort of data intensive or something that I could use

810
00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:58,200
like a DAG, TensorFlow, something like that, obviously Python, it's hard to build anything

811
00:44:58,200 --> 00:45:02,040
in tech without Python making it some way in one way or another.

812
00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:09,520
Um, for sort of orchestration and, and all that, I do really lean heavily on, uh, Terraform,

813
00:45:09,520 --> 00:45:10,520
Kubernetes.

814
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:14,560
Um, I like Pulumi and, you know, CDK, I've played around with crossplane.

815
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:18,880
If it's infrastructure is code, like I typically, you know, I, I'm, I'm down with it.

816
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:24,360
Um, I would lean towards, uh, open tofu now, probably as opposed to the hash to core Terraform.

817
00:45:24,360 --> 00:45:30,520
Well, I've hashed to court, but you know, times are changing and it just is what it

818
00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:31,520
is.

819
00:45:31,520 --> 00:45:34,080
And then, uh, you know, I don't, it's, it's funny.

820
00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:37,480
I'm actually, I want to take on like a front end freelance gig at some point this year

821
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:38,480
just to do it.

822
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:43,200
I, it's been a while, but, uh, for anything sort of website related, I'd probably go for

823
00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:45,560
like Jamstack, you know, Next.js.

824
00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:53,520
Um, as, as sort of static as possible, probably use like a, uh, definitely static file deployments

825
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:54,800
for all things front end.

826
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:58,360
I actually have like a little bit of an affinity towards like front end DevOps, which people

827
00:45:58,360 --> 00:45:59,640
don't really think about that much.

828
00:45:59,640 --> 00:46:04,920
But you know, leaning on things like CDNs and static file deployments, building, uh,

829
00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:09,280
managed version artifacts for easy front and rollbacks and stuff like that.

830
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:12,280
So, um, I get excited about that sort of stuff.

831
00:46:12,280 --> 00:46:15,760
Um, and I think that's a pretty like standard stack.

832
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:19,760
You know, I, you could really drop anything in and it's, in its place.

833
00:46:19,760 --> 00:46:25,160
Like if I had a good reason to use rust, let's, let's do it in rust.

834
00:46:25,160 --> 00:46:30,440
Uh, I, I just, I wouldn't, I wouldn't really lean for any, any kind of legacy.

835
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:36,280
Like I, I really wouldn't want to have to deal with an ORM or MVC framework or anything

836
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:37,280
like that.

837
00:46:37,280 --> 00:46:40,520
I just, and, and then I would try to do everything as cloud native as possible.

838
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:45,240
You know, like I'm instead of, you know, I feel like AWS is just kind of where we end

839
00:46:45,240 --> 00:46:46,240
up most of the time.

840
00:46:46,240 --> 00:46:53,000
So I'd really leverage things like SQS, SNS, managed Redis, managed databases, all that

841
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:54,000
sort of stuff.

842
00:46:54,000 --> 00:47:00,440
I had strong opinions on like Postgres versus MySQL or Redis versus whatever faster thing

843
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:05,680
or Kafka versus this or that or the other, like best tool for the job.

844
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:06,680
Yep.

845
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:11,120
But that's sort of my like, like a hundred yard view of, of my tech stack.

846
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:15,520
Um, I like, uh, Spotify a lot.

847
00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:16,520
That's pretty important.

848
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:19,920
And my, my developer, gotta have the vibes.

849
00:47:19,920 --> 00:47:20,920
Yeah.

850
00:47:20,920 --> 00:47:22,600
Oh, I love that.

851
00:47:22,600 --> 00:47:26,520
You were very, uh, comprehensive in your response.

852
00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:30,040
And it's usually like, I use this IDE or I use whatever.

853
00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:35,040
And it's pretty, uh, pretty summarized that that was very verbose on the tech stack that

854
00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:39,240
you enjoy, which I love hearing because like for me, you know, coming back to like not

855
00:47:39,240 --> 00:47:43,240
being as technical most recently, that was one of the core reasons of starting the show.

856
00:47:43,240 --> 00:47:46,440
One of them was because I have to market my business and I hate marketing my own stuff.

857
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:49,360
Love marketing for other developer products, not my own.

858
00:47:49,360 --> 00:47:52,560
Um, but starting the show, I was like, Hey, if I can chat with developers.

859
00:47:52,560 --> 00:47:56,280
Every day, then I can start to learn what are the technologies they care about.

860
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:57,280
Why do they care about them?

861
00:47:57,280 --> 00:47:59,200
Why are they so opinionated about it?

862
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:03,360
And then allow that to flow into like my trends and opinions as I'm getting back into, you

863
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:04,920
know, building things myself.

864
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:05,920
So yeah.

865
00:48:05,920 --> 00:48:06,920
Totally.

866
00:48:06,920 --> 00:48:07,920
Okay.

867
00:48:07,920 --> 00:48:08,920
Yeah.

868
00:48:08,920 --> 00:48:09,920
Last question.

869
00:48:09,920 --> 00:48:12,920
Um, and then we will wrap up because we are already over as long as that's okay.

870
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:13,920
Are you okay on time?

871
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:14,920
I'm good.

872
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:15,920
Okay.

873
00:48:15,920 --> 00:48:16,920
Cool.

874
00:48:16,920 --> 00:48:18,920
Um, what do you do when you're stuck?

875
00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:20,920
Uh, loaded question.

876
00:48:20,920 --> 00:48:21,920
I know.

877
00:48:21,920 --> 00:48:22,920
I'm not stuck, but yeah.

878
00:48:22,920 --> 00:48:29,280
Uh, you know, a year ago, I'd say I asked chat GPT, but me and chat GPT have probably

879
00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:33,760
been, been going at it quite a bit at this point already.

880
00:48:33,760 --> 00:48:35,960
I can relate to that.

881
00:48:35,960 --> 00:48:39,080
Pretty big part of my workflow and, and you know, that's a whole other episode.

882
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:42,600
Um, I, I asked for help always.

883
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:44,680
I tried to help before I'm stuck.

884
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:46,760
Um, I love that.

885
00:48:46,760 --> 00:48:47,760
Yeah.

886
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:48,760
And, and, and not that.

887
00:48:48,760 --> 00:48:49,760
Go ahead.

888
00:48:49,760 --> 00:48:52,360
I'm just going to say what are your signals when you think you're going to get stuck?

889
00:48:52,360 --> 00:48:55,320
Cause that is the first time I've heard that answer is that you try to avoid getting stuck

890
00:48:55,320 --> 00:48:56,320
to begin with.

891
00:48:56,320 --> 00:48:58,360
So I'd love for you to double tap into that.

892
00:48:58,360 --> 00:49:01,920
I mean, we all, we all know the feeling of like uncharted waters when you're like in

893
00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:06,880
a place and you're like, yeah, this is, I'm making it up as I go along right now.

894
00:49:06,880 --> 00:49:10,400
And then when you, when you hear, when you feel that friction of like, yeah, I'm not

895
00:49:10,400 --> 00:49:13,920
doing a great job of making it up as I go along right now.

896
00:49:13,920 --> 00:49:15,640
That's when you just bring someone into sanity check.

897
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:18,760
They might not know either, but they could at least come at it.

898
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:21,600
You know, with a, a different lived experience.

899
00:49:21,600 --> 00:49:26,040
And I think that, uh, that is where the ego struggles.

900
00:49:26,040 --> 00:49:31,840
That's cause like asking someone for help that doesn't know any better how to do it

901
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:37,040
than you do is a really difficult thing to do sometimes, but it is so powerful.

902
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:40,600
The only thing better than one person who doesn't know what they're doing is two people

903
00:49:40,600 --> 00:49:42,240
that don't know what they're doing.

904
00:49:42,240 --> 00:49:44,680
And it's even at a certain, it gets even better.

905
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:48,560
And eventually the result of three people who don't know what they're doing, trying

906
00:49:48,560 --> 00:49:52,640
to figure it out often results in three people who know what they're doing and just learn

907
00:49:52,640 --> 00:49:53,640
something.

908
00:49:53,640 --> 00:49:54,640
Yes.

909
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:56,640
I love that.

910
00:49:56,640 --> 00:49:58,880
That was a beautiful answer.

911
00:49:58,880 --> 00:50:02,320
Like best answer yet, I think I've gotten a lot of chat GPT's.

912
00:50:02,320 --> 00:50:06,840
I go to my peers, go to my mentors, stack overflow, GitHub, search the internet, you

913
00:50:06,840 --> 00:50:09,560
know, AI, just sort of all the things.

914
00:50:09,560 --> 00:50:13,680
But like that, I think is something that especially early in your career is incredibly

915
00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:17,880
hard to do to like let that ego go and be like, Hey, can you help me?

916
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:20,960
But I think like you said, that is the biggest learning opportunity.

917
00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:23,880
I also had some of an ego around that.

918
00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:28,280
I think because I was self taught, it isn't, wasn't natural for me to have an ego generally.

919
00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:32,280
Although I do like to win, but it's usually egoless.

920
00:50:32,280 --> 00:50:37,000
But I think the self taught side of it made me feel constantly an incapable, right?

921
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:41,280
And so being able to be vulnerable, just like you said, and just be like, Hey, how would

922
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:42,280
you do this?

923
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:43,280
Right?

924
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:44,800
Like it doesn't have to be that you don't know how to do something.

925
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:48,160
It's more of like, again, we don't have a bar that we are set to.

926
00:50:48,160 --> 00:50:50,520
So it's okay to be like, how would you think about this?

927
00:50:50,520 --> 00:50:51,520
How would you work on this?

928
00:50:51,520 --> 00:50:52,920
Because we're all just learning.

929
00:50:52,920 --> 00:50:53,920
Yeah.

930
00:50:53,920 --> 00:50:57,440
And I think the most important thing is just reminding yourself that you already won.

931
00:50:57,440 --> 00:50:59,600
Like you're here.

932
00:50:59,600 --> 00:51:05,320
You're getting to solve these problems and work with people that you respect and that

933
00:51:05,320 --> 00:51:07,240
you want to learn from.

934
00:51:07,240 --> 00:51:11,440
And it's just so incredible to be here.

935
00:51:11,440 --> 00:51:19,520
And if you can get that in your head, then everything else just feels a little less important.

936
00:51:19,520 --> 00:51:20,520
You know what?

937
00:51:20,520 --> 00:51:21,520
That is so true.

938
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:25,840
And just for context for you, for you, because I know that oftentimes, especially people

939
00:51:25,840 --> 00:51:29,040
like you and I, we really like to help one another.

940
00:51:29,040 --> 00:51:32,120
That statement actually really helped me because I've been struggling my business because I

941
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:34,960
feel like there's this bar at which I need to reach, right?

942
00:51:34,960 --> 00:51:38,520
Where I've got this revenue flow and things are reliable.

943
00:51:38,520 --> 00:51:42,080
And honestly, the fact that I'm still getting to run my business almost a year later and

944
00:51:42,080 --> 00:51:46,600
like, yes, things are getting sketchy here, but I think that it's going to be okay.

945
00:51:46,600 --> 00:51:50,200
And that statement really just reminded me like I've always wanted to do what I'm doing

946
00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:51,200
right now.

947
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:55,880
And so I need to just appreciate that I'm getting to do what I'm doing right now.

948
00:51:55,880 --> 00:51:56,880
Same.

949
00:51:56,880 --> 00:52:04,440
I get to sit in my office with my skateboards on the wall and my music and drink, spend,

950
00:52:04,440 --> 00:52:06,920
drift and play around with code all day.

951
00:52:06,920 --> 00:52:09,720
That's pretty amazing.

952
00:52:09,720 --> 00:52:12,920
We are living the dream, David, living the dream.

953
00:52:12,920 --> 00:52:13,920
Okay.

954
00:52:13,920 --> 00:52:18,520
I so, so, so much have enjoyed talking to you.

955
00:52:18,520 --> 00:52:21,320
We are definitely going to have to chat again.

956
00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:26,200
Where can people find you so that they can get all the amazing David essence for themselves

957
00:52:26,200 --> 00:52:27,200
as well?

958
00:52:27,200 --> 00:52:28,200
Yeah.

959
00:52:28,200 --> 00:52:32,560
I think LinkedIn is a great place to find me and I'm pretty findable.

960
00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:35,640
I think it's just D.Beele Jr.

961
00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:38,640
And then I have a website, which is just B.E.L.D.

962
00:52:38,640 --> 00:52:45,120
.sh and it is not much, but it has links to things like Instagram and LinkedIn and my

963
00:52:45,120 --> 00:52:47,600
email address and things like that.

964
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:51,200
If anything that I've said resonates and you want to talk, I love talking.

965
00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:56,000
I love connecting with people, whether in person or virtually or however.

966
00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:57,760
So please reach out.

967
00:52:57,760 --> 00:52:59,400
My network is your network.

968
00:52:59,400 --> 00:53:01,240
We're all in this together.

969
00:53:01,240 --> 00:53:02,240
Yes.

970
00:53:02,240 --> 00:53:03,800
Oh, I love that so much.

971
00:53:03,800 --> 00:53:05,840
Okay, well, thank you so much for your time, David.

972
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:11,160
This has been an amazing session, honestly, and I really, really appreciate you.

973
00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:12,160
Absolutely.

974
00:53:12,160 --> 00:53:13,160
I appreciate you too.

975
00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:14,160
Thank you.

976
00:53:14,160 --> 00:53:15,160
Yeah.

977
00:53:15,160 --> 00:53:16,160
All right, friends.

978
00:53:16,160 --> 00:53:17,520
We'll have a fabulous rest of your Thursday.

979
00:53:17,520 --> 00:53:22,400
I have a girly hair appointment tomorrow, so there will be no 99 Dev problems tomorrow,

980
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:25,080
but I will see you all on Monday.

981
00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:36,080
Bye, everyone.