1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:09,080 Good morning, everyone. Excited for another session of 99 Dev Problems. I keep saying 2 00:00:09,080 --> 00:00:13,040 another and I feel like I need to change my intro because it's like it almost feels like 3 00:00:13,040 --> 00:00:20,240 another is not a good thing when I'm like, yes, another amazing conversation. Super pumped 4 00:00:20,240 --> 00:00:24,360 to chat with Matt this morning. Matt, I would love for you to introduce yourself. 5 00:00:24,360 --> 00:00:30,480 Hi, I'm Matt. So at the moment, I'm the founder of FuelType. This is EdTech for developer 6 00:00:30,480 --> 00:00:35,520 product I'm working on. Before that, I was a CTO at a FinTech firm called Telerium. It 7 00:00:35,520 --> 00:00:40,640 did energy trading. And before even that, I was the CTO of the hedge fund that did high 8 00:00:40,640 --> 00:00:45,960 frequency, medium frequency trading. I've always been interested in programming and computers 9 00:00:45,960 --> 00:00:50,920 and software development since I was 12. I wrote my own operating system when I was 10 00:00:50,920 --> 00:00:56,200 a teenager. I used some of that for my final year project at university. So there's plenty 11 00:00:56,200 --> 00:01:01,200 to dive into today, hopefully. And obviously, had successes and failures along the way, 12 00:01:01,200 --> 00:01:05,440 it'd be great to pick through that and see what we can find. 13 00:01:05,440 --> 00:01:11,080 Yeah, for sure. Okay, you wrote your own operating system. That's like, yes, we all have like 14 00:01:11,080 --> 00:01:14,960 had video game classes or we all had like early programming classes or whatever. But 15 00:01:14,960 --> 00:01:20,200 like your own operating system, we have to dive into that. Why an operating system? And 16 00:01:20,200 --> 00:01:24,000 like, what did you build? Tell me more. 17 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:29,320 So I think I came in with that engineer mindset, that sense of you can't really understand 18 00:01:29,320 --> 00:01:36,120 something until you really pick it apart and build it. And so I got started with games. 19 00:01:36,120 --> 00:01:40,880 It was nice cloning games like Pong and trying to come up with your own things. That was 20 00:01:40,880 --> 00:01:47,000 in a language called BlitzBasics, so for basic. But what I think I really tried to dive into 21 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:51,880 was, well, why do things have to be this way? Can we build it a different way and experiment 22 00:01:51,880 --> 00:01:56,480 with that? So I, you can get started with operating systems by writing the bootloader. 23 00:01:56,480 --> 00:02:01,960 So you have to fit a whole ton of stuff into 512 bytes. But once you get to that stage, 24 00:02:01,960 --> 00:02:05,440 you kind of think, okay, well, there's actually a whole bunch of different routes that you 25 00:02:05,440 --> 00:02:11,440 can go. And what I managed to do was just really work on it, you know, try and break 26 00:02:11,440 --> 00:02:15,040 down all of the problems, try to get it to do something cool that I know that a few other 27 00:02:15,040 --> 00:02:20,560 people have done. And of course, if you keep going along that timeline, then yeah, you 28 00:02:20,560 --> 00:02:24,720 can load stuff from the disk and get that going. But you get to a point where I got 29 00:02:24,720 --> 00:02:28,120 like basic USB devices working. That's kind of cool. 30 00:02:28,120 --> 00:02:30,120 That's super cool. 31 00:02:30,120 --> 00:02:37,560 Yeah. And then for my university, finally, a project, I had to write a thesis. I was 32 00:02:37,560 --> 00:02:41,560 a bachelor's. So this was, it wasn't as deep as Master's thesis, but it was still a couple 33 00:02:41,560 --> 00:02:48,400 of pages plus. And what I wanted to do was take one of the ideas from the Linux kernel, 34 00:02:48,400 --> 00:02:53,520 this idea of how do we make networking faster if we want to make a really, really fast network 35 00:02:53,520 --> 00:02:59,640 traffic, one of the things that actually stopped tons and tons of data flow, the unnecessary 36 00:02:59,640 --> 00:03:06,920 steps that we have or ways to reduce the complexity of sending and receiving tons of data. So I 37 00:03:06,920 --> 00:03:14,600 wrote a, I took this, the idea, I put it into my operating system and you could end up sending 38 00:03:14,600 --> 00:03:20,760 like with telnet and all those kind of basic TCP programs. It, wow, would you could send 39 00:03:20,760 --> 00:03:25,320 the data, copy the data and use a space, like set a flag and then the network card with 40 00:03:25,320 --> 00:03:29,920 goods and off the data. That was cool. I remember sitting and coding that for like 30 days straight 41 00:03:29,920 --> 00:03:35,360 writing the thesis in like another 20 days straight. But for me, it was, it was great. 42 00:03:35,360 --> 00:03:41,000 Yeah, it's that kind of purist form of engineering there is you have a good idea. You have a 43 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:45,000 certain amount of time to do it and just figure out how to make it work. And across the, the 44 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:48,920 brush that we all go for is, oh, cool, you know, this, all of this stuff together, all 45 00:03:48,920 --> 00:03:52,960 of these hurdles that I've had to overcome. But I've got to this point where, you know, 46 00:03:52,960 --> 00:03:59,160 I can actually go and send this piece of data and of course receive, you know, something 47 00:03:59,160 --> 00:04:05,000 so you could connect to this telnet server and it would give you the first bit of Star 48 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:09,040 Wars is this sort of ASCII art diagram. It was kind of cool to see that running on something 49 00:04:09,040 --> 00:04:11,000 that you have built from the ground up. 50 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:12,000 Oh man. 51 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:13,000 Yeah. 52 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:20,400 So that is, that is so sinking cool. Like I think there's been a few conversations back 53 00:04:20,400 --> 00:04:24,440 and forth, you know, I've had a variety of different guests on. But I think what's like 54 00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:28,000 really been so near and dear to my heart lately is like having really good conversations about 55 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:33,040 understanding system architecture, like, like really, truly getting every bit of what you're 56 00:04:33,040 --> 00:04:37,160 building from top all the way down and, you know, bringing in a framework that you actually 57 00:04:37,160 --> 00:04:42,440 deeply understand versus bringing in a framework you're not familiar with. You're like, you 58 00:04:42,440 --> 00:04:46,400 like tell that story so beautifully, right? Like you went all the way down to the root 59 00:04:46,400 --> 00:04:51,200 of building your own system at which then you would build software upon. That's like, 60 00:04:51,200 --> 00:04:55,000 that's the deepest level of meta I think you could possibly get when I pass it on. How 61 00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:56,000 cool is that? 62 00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:57,000 Yeah. 63 00:04:57,000 --> 00:04:58,000 That's really, it's really neat. 64 00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:02,400 It's an approach to things, you know, it's, and I think the supplies outside of stuff 65 00:05:02,400 --> 00:05:06,360 like engineering, can I, should I do stuff because someone else tells me that that's the 66 00:05:06,360 --> 00:05:10,360 right way to go or try to pick apart? Well, how do they get to that thinking? What's the 67 00:05:10,360 --> 00:05:15,440 kind of principles that where they kept in mind while they were doing that? And, you 68 00:05:15,440 --> 00:05:19,400 know, what can I do that if it's a slightly different situation, what kind of principles 69 00:05:19,400 --> 00:05:20,400 can I apply there? 70 00:05:20,400 --> 00:05:21,400 Yeah. 71 00:05:21,400 --> 00:05:27,320 So I found that it's really, you know, writing your own OS is pretty fabulous job, but the 72 00:05:27,320 --> 00:05:32,960 lessons that teaches you, you know, you can't really rely on, you can't lean on anybody 73 00:05:32,960 --> 00:05:36,160 else. You have to sort of figure out things for yourself. And if it breaks, it's going 74 00:05:36,160 --> 00:05:40,160 to be really hard to figure it out, writing quality code. That sort of set me up, I think 75 00:05:40,160 --> 00:05:42,560 for a good early start to my career for sure. 76 00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:47,640 Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Oh man, I bet that was a beautiful, I mean, and also on top of it, 77 00:05:47,640 --> 00:05:52,240 like, probably a really good story to tell in interviews and things too, right? So that, 78 00:05:52,240 --> 00:05:55,560 you know, as you're, you're going into that, I can only imagine, I'll let you speak to 79 00:05:55,560 --> 00:05:59,000 it, but like, I can imagine your sort of first jobs, right? They're like asking about, you 80 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:02,280 know, projects you did in college and whatever. And when you can speak to this, they're probably 81 00:06:02,280 --> 00:06:06,200 like, okay, here's our guy, you know? 82 00:06:06,200 --> 00:06:11,880 Yeah. And, you know, I spent a couple of months working in Bloomberg for me, the really first 83 00:06:11,880 --> 00:06:17,000 interesting job I had was working in this hedge fund, this high-currency trading firm. 84 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:22,360 Well, yeah, what's their business? It's reducing the latency of network traffic, you know, 85 00:06:22,360 --> 00:06:25,880 spending orders, receiving market data as much as possible. So it was Kismet, you know, I 86 00:06:25,880 --> 00:06:30,600 was lucky to be in that place and have access to those kind of jobs, but also I had prepared 87 00:06:30,600 --> 00:06:35,080 for it. It was the kind of job that was suited to me because I did all of this beforehand 88 00:06:35,080 --> 00:06:42,200 there too. So yeah, it is a long payoff perhaps, but it really has kind of framed a lot of 89 00:06:42,200 --> 00:06:44,200 things since. 90 00:06:44,200 --> 00:06:48,880 Yeah, gosh, I can imagine. Okay, so I like to ask folks, you know, their education and 91 00:06:48,880 --> 00:06:53,160 you already alluded to it, but if you want to speak to, you know, exactly what maybe 92 00:06:53,160 --> 00:06:57,680 degree you were chasing down, you talked about your thesis, but just curious, you know, what 93 00:06:57,680 --> 00:06:59,520 that education side of things looked like. 94 00:06:59,520 --> 00:07:07,960 Yeah, so the, I went to Imperial College London, did computing there, they have it under the 95 00:07:07,960 --> 00:07:12,800 Faculty of Engineering rather than science. So that sort of shows you the very engineering 96 00:07:12,800 --> 00:07:16,840 mindset background. Most people call it computer science, Imperial is strange in many ways 97 00:07:16,840 --> 00:07:22,520 and certainly in its course naming. I was going to do a masters, but I switched down 98 00:07:22,520 --> 00:07:26,600 to take a job at Bloomberg, realized I didn't like it and sort of navigated that little 99 00:07:26,600 --> 00:07:28,600 curve in my career. 100 00:07:28,600 --> 00:07:35,320 So it's, you know, I really enjoyed my time there. I think it's fortunate with something 101 00:07:35,320 --> 00:07:40,240 like computing computer science. I like the resourcefulness of it. You don't have to have 102 00:07:40,240 --> 00:07:46,280 a lot of, you know, backing. You can turn up on the first day, as long as you're prepared 103 00:07:46,280 --> 00:07:51,240 to read an experiment beforehand, you can make quite a bit of impact. It's the same, 104 00:07:51,240 --> 00:07:55,040 you know, in many other subjects, I'm sure, but in computer science, it definitely feels 105 00:07:55,040 --> 00:08:00,560 like that, that you can actually get a head start and, you know, that allows you to really 106 00:08:00,560 --> 00:08:06,040 dive deep into things, explore other things. And it was a, you know, I really enjoyed that. 107 00:08:06,040 --> 00:08:10,320 It was a good class and people who were passionate about computing. So I felt like I found my 108 00:08:10,320 --> 00:08:13,160 people at university. I was thankful for that. 109 00:08:13,160 --> 00:08:19,800 So honestly, I feel like that, that happens a lot, right? Like when I was a kid, I was 110 00:08:19,800 --> 00:08:23,120 like, I don't know, I like to say I was kind of a freak of nature, but I feel like all 111 00:08:23,120 --> 00:08:27,560 of us are very eccentric and different, right? So like, you know, during my day, I'd be like 112 00:08:27,560 --> 00:08:32,440 ripping apart a VCR and trying to figure out how the VCR is working and then, you know, 113 00:08:32,440 --> 00:08:36,040 ice fishing in another moment and then, you know, working on cars and another. So it's 114 00:08:36,040 --> 00:08:40,000 like, I just had all these very eccentric sort of hobbies. And it was, it was interesting 115 00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:43,760 to me because whenever I would spend time with people who enjoy technology, who enjoyed 116 00:08:43,760 --> 00:08:49,040 coding, who enjoyed any level of taking things apart and understanding how it worked, I just 117 00:08:49,040 --> 00:08:53,160 was like so happy, but I'm like, these people don't like to do the things I like to do. 118 00:08:53,160 --> 00:08:57,600 So like how, how and what do I do here? And I think that's what's, what's so interesting, 119 00:08:57,600 --> 00:09:01,960 right? Is like, when you can find that like engineering side of it and, and be able to 120 00:09:01,960 --> 00:09:05,760 harness that and then meet the people along with it. Like I didn't go to college. It's 121 00:09:05,760 --> 00:09:09,560 just, it's not the way I learn. I'm like, I throw me in the stuff and I'll figure it 122 00:09:09,560 --> 00:09:13,880 out kind of learner. And I think that's a missed opportunity, right? Is like, you know, 123 00:09:13,880 --> 00:09:19,080 having those fellow engineering students who think like, like I would write to sort of 124 00:09:19,080 --> 00:09:24,000 allow you to feel like, Hey, I am normal. It's not weird that I just want to build stuff 125 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:28,920 and do, you know, techie things. So I love that. I think that's finding your tribe at 126 00:09:28,920 --> 00:09:32,520 every stage of life. I think, I think feels really important as an engineer generally. 127 00:09:32,520 --> 00:09:36,200 True. And I think if you don't have university, then your first job is off to the point where 128 00:09:36,200 --> 00:09:40,880 you go, okay, yeah, I taught myself a lot of things, but here is this person who's been 129 00:09:40,880 --> 00:09:46,120 doing it for 20 years who has, who takes you almost up to another level. It's fine to get 130 00:09:46,120 --> 00:09:50,920 university degree, but it's, it's great theory, but there's so much gap and practice and experience. 131 00:09:50,920 --> 00:09:54,960 And you come out of it thinking on amazing. And within two or three months of your first 132 00:09:54,960 --> 00:09:58,640 job, you think, gosh, there's a lot to learn. So you're sort of traveling up and down that 133 00:09:58,640 --> 00:10:04,400 dumb and cruega curve pretty quickly. If you're new to this field and the best way to do it, 134 00:10:04,400 --> 00:10:07,120 of course, is trying to figure out what you don't know pretty quickly. 135 00:10:07,120 --> 00:10:13,200 Yes, exactly. Yeah, I love that. Finding out what you don't know is, is always the hard 136 00:10:13,200 --> 00:10:19,160 part, I think, because that's the thing, right? Is like, you know, so I have so many thoughts, 137 00:10:19,160 --> 00:10:23,400 I'm trying to culminate them into one thought here. I, so develop, yeah, so developers, 138 00:10:23,400 --> 00:10:27,880 like obviously, as, as we know, we don't have an owner's manual, like a doctor that has 139 00:10:27,880 --> 00:10:33,440 medical licenses and protocols and regulations and things that they do and, and licenses that 140 00:10:33,440 --> 00:10:37,240 they keep up, right? They know if they're a good doctor or not, they've got a scope and 141 00:10:37,240 --> 00:10:42,680 a criteria behind it. So after engineers have nothing, we're just like, one of us is figuring 142 00:10:42,680 --> 00:10:46,480 something out, the next one's ripping it apart and driving opinions towards it and trying 143 00:10:46,480 --> 00:10:50,640 to make it better. And we're just, you know, trying to find our way as we go. And I think 144 00:10:50,640 --> 00:10:56,600 it's, it can be a very isolating, maybe isolating, it's not the right word. It can be a role 145 00:10:56,600 --> 00:11:01,420 at which imposter syndrome can feel very natural and quick, right? And so getting out of college 146 00:11:01,420 --> 00:11:06,440 going into that first role, not realizing you don't know what you're doing can have 147 00:11:06,440 --> 00:11:10,240 a very overwhelming feeling of, I just went to college, I should know what I'm doing, 148 00:11:10,240 --> 00:11:12,280 why do I feel so lost, you know? 149 00:11:12,280 --> 00:11:17,120 Yeah. And it's a very divergent, divergent field. And I think the example that you have 150 00:11:17,120 --> 00:11:21,120 of the doctors side of things, well, they have one convergent goal, which is to make 151 00:11:21,120 --> 00:11:23,160 people, you know, better. 152 00:11:23,160 --> 00:11:24,160 Exactly. 153 00:11:24,160 --> 00:11:28,240 That's, that's all they're measured against. And if they can come up with new ways to do 154 00:11:28,240 --> 00:11:33,160 that, then they're an even better doctor. But for software developers, not only do you 155 00:11:33,160 --> 00:11:36,960 have that symptom imposter syndrome, am I good enough? That's kind of competency. But 156 00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:43,000 it's also that fit. Am I working on something that's actually worth working on? Or am I, 157 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:46,480 on the other side of things, am I working on something that 10,000 other people have 158 00:11:46,480 --> 00:11:48,480 done already and have done better there too? 159 00:11:48,480 --> 00:11:54,120 But those are both existential worries that I think is really easy to forget that most 160 00:11:54,120 --> 00:11:58,120 people do experience day to day. And if we can get competency and fit right, well, any 161 00:11:58,120 --> 00:12:02,480 realize, you get to the expert level, you're like the end of the, that in Kruger curve, 162 00:12:02,480 --> 00:12:06,320 and you realize there are so many things that you won't have the chance to experience, or 163 00:12:06,320 --> 00:12:10,560 you need to talk to other people to find out and try and grab as much as you can from them 164 00:12:10,560 --> 00:12:14,600 and see what mistakes they've made to save a bit of time there too. So I totally agree 165 00:12:14,600 --> 00:12:19,200 with you. It kind of plays on your mind quite a bit. And I think it makes you resilient 166 00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:23,920 to that and to the hurdles obviously that come from across in the job there too. 167 00:12:23,920 --> 00:12:29,480 Yeah, I know we could speak to like a lot of your career history and such, but I'd actually 168 00:12:29,480 --> 00:12:32,720 love to like dive into what you're doing today, because I think it's so applicable to what 169 00:12:32,720 --> 00:12:36,920 literally the conversation we're having right now of like this imposter syndrome and understanding 170 00:12:36,920 --> 00:12:40,520 where your skills lie and understanding sort of capabilities and where you can actually 171 00:12:40,520 --> 00:12:45,840 take your skills. So you're doing something pretty cool today. I'd love for you to tell 172 00:12:45,840 --> 00:12:50,560 the listeners or watchers what you're what you're up to today, because I think it plays 173 00:12:50,560 --> 00:12:52,800 so so nicely into this. 174 00:12:52,800 --> 00:13:00,120 So I'm working on PureType and that's a developer education platform that I believe has a good 175 00:13:00,120 --> 00:13:03,560 edge to it. It takes into context things that you're currently working on, the mistakes 176 00:13:03,560 --> 00:13:08,200 that you might have made, and then recommends a personalized learning journey for you. And 177 00:13:08,200 --> 00:13:12,160 if you can get your teammates on it, it gives you a sense of how your teammates are doing 178 00:13:12,160 --> 00:13:18,240 and you might as you can know that as well. So the what I've seen as the limit is the 179 00:13:18,240 --> 00:13:22,400 books and courses and we know developers purchase them, you know, and they invest in their own 180 00:13:22,400 --> 00:13:27,400 education and not to the best developers do. But there's a gap in the market, certainly 181 00:13:27,400 --> 00:13:32,920 from making that something you can fit into your continuing education, not a lot of people 182 00:13:32,920 --> 00:13:37,240 have hours after work, for example, but you know, they do want to improve, they do want 183 00:13:37,240 --> 00:13:42,600 to get better. How can you develop something that uses the few minutes they might have 184 00:13:42,600 --> 00:13:48,040 spent in the day to give them the one lesson that they need to learn that day? That's the 185 00:13:48,040 --> 00:13:52,840 angle I'm really chasing down. I'm trying to build a good engaging product. If I was 186 00:13:52,840 --> 00:13:56,640 to reduce it down to three words, it would be due a liga for developers, but I think 187 00:13:56,640 --> 00:14:03,520 that gives you enough credit for a good context. I'm going to apply to all of this and see 188 00:14:03,520 --> 00:14:07,560 the lessons I can learn from building ed tech and selling to developers. I've learned a 189 00:14:07,560 --> 00:14:10,640 huge amount already and I hope to learn a lot more. 190 00:14:10,640 --> 00:14:16,640 Yeah, that's true. Well, I can tell you right now as someone who helps people who are targeting 191 00:14:16,640 --> 00:14:22,000 developers, it is a long game. It's a building of relationships and all the things which 192 00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:27,600 we chatted about beforehand. But I think that's really cool because I think there's actually 193 00:14:27,600 --> 00:14:32,480 been a number of guests like Gingis was one of them during the first week. So I'll just 194 00:14:32,480 --> 00:14:36,920 for anyone who didn't catch that one, go back. It's like episode 14 or episode four or five, 195 00:14:36,920 --> 00:14:41,360 I think. And he really talked about this. He talked about engineering leadership and 196 00:14:41,360 --> 00:14:45,280 how some engineers are just not, they're not prone for the leadership track, right? They 197 00:14:45,280 --> 00:14:48,440 don't want to go and lead teams. They just want to be the best art engineer they can 198 00:14:48,440 --> 00:14:53,600 ever be until they retire, right? But all the way to sort of what does that leadership 199 00:14:53,600 --> 00:14:56,720 track look like? What does the other track look like, right? As you start to go through 200 00:14:56,720 --> 00:15:01,280 that career ladder as a developer and he just felt it was so incredibly important to have 201 00:15:01,280 --> 00:15:04,920 these plans and he had a really beautiful word for it and I can't recall what exactly 202 00:15:04,920 --> 00:15:10,440 it was, but I love how he approached it essentially. And I think that precedent of as developers, 203 00:15:10,440 --> 00:15:14,160 we really need to own our education. We need to own our career path. We really need to 204 00:15:14,160 --> 00:15:18,720 take a step back and actually plan that out and be methodical. Our brains are so used 205 00:15:18,720 --> 00:15:24,600 to thinking about the systems and to building things, right? It's we don't always necessarily 206 00:15:24,600 --> 00:15:27,920 take a step back and look at our career. And I think that's what he really urged developers 207 00:15:27,920 --> 00:15:34,080 to do is just do that. I think that is a beautiful melding into what you're doing, right? Is 208 00:15:34,080 --> 00:15:38,520 like you're taking that advice and saying, Hey, let's put it to action in this platform. 209 00:15:38,520 --> 00:15:42,320 And this is where you can come and actually make that happen. I think that's beautiful. 210 00:15:42,320 --> 00:15:46,360 I'm going to pause and let you let you sort of reply to that. But yeah, and I agree with 211 00:15:46,360 --> 00:15:50,960 him and education and career development. I think there are two major factors that most 212 00:15:50,960 --> 00:15:56,920 people come across. The first is we have such a focus as engineering teams on delivery, 213 00:15:56,920 --> 00:16:00,960 delivery, delivery. It's almost as if the only thing you're rated for is output and 214 00:16:00,960 --> 00:16:04,600 the volume of that output. And I think that's that's a big part of the picture, but that's 215 00:16:04,600 --> 00:16:09,240 not the whole picture. Right. So that's obviously the big time constraint that everybody has 216 00:16:09,240 --> 00:16:15,640 and what they're judged against almost. I think the second side of things is that education 217 00:16:15,640 --> 00:16:19,880 is one of those important, but not urgent things. And we all have books that we would 218 00:16:19,880 --> 00:16:23,680 love to read. And, you know, we probably have a time of the week, but you never go, Okay, 219 00:16:23,680 --> 00:16:27,920 I'm going to sit down and actually do that because I know that that's a big that's a 220 00:16:27,920 --> 00:16:31,560 book that's been recommended a couple of times. It's important on a particular path that I'm 221 00:16:31,560 --> 00:16:38,760 following that I can go and take a look and read through it and get that, you know, impart 222 00:16:38,760 --> 00:16:42,760 that knowledge, put it into practice. It's often like we're, we only really invest in 223 00:16:42,760 --> 00:16:47,280 ourselves when we absolutely need to perhaps we're searching for a job or, you know, that 224 00:16:47,280 --> 00:16:52,400 we're in a career transition, whereas there's nothing stopping us, we have all the technology 225 00:16:52,400 --> 00:16:56,040 that the kind of basis for all of this to actually break it up into little chunks and 226 00:16:56,040 --> 00:17:01,520 stop sort of making excuses to ourselves of, you know, we could actually go down that individual 227 00:17:01,520 --> 00:17:05,240 contributing part. It doesn't stop at senior you don't have to be an engineering manager. 228 00:17:05,240 --> 00:17:11,040 You know, staff and principal, engineering jobs are complex. And I think that points 229 00:17:11,040 --> 00:17:16,240 to one of the fallacies that we have in software engineering is we treat it like a lot of other 230 00:17:16,240 --> 00:17:20,280 hierarchies where all of the leadership is actually invested in one person, like the 231 00:17:20,280 --> 00:17:25,480 team lead, engineering manager, lead developer. It's not actually the case, you know, as soon 232 00:17:25,480 --> 00:17:29,320 as you get to senior or perhaps you're a staff or principal, at that point, you are taking 233 00:17:29,320 --> 00:17:34,200 leadership, it might be more technical leadership, but yeah, it's still an element of you have 234 00:17:34,200 --> 00:17:38,520 to go out into the unknown. No one's giving you the answers because you're the guy that 235 00:17:38,520 --> 00:17:42,360 has to, you know, you're the explorer with the partially filled in map that actually 236 00:17:42,360 --> 00:17:46,120 has to fill stuff in there as well. And I think of course, that's one of the great engaging 237 00:17:46,120 --> 00:17:50,360 things about this field is you never stop learning. And if you do, then you're almost 238 00:17:50,360 --> 00:17:55,760 certainly wrong about that. You need to stop filling in the map for other people to follow. 239 00:17:55,760 --> 00:18:01,280 Yes, yes. Oh, I fully agree. I mean, this bookshelf right here is probably like books 240 00:18:01,280 --> 00:18:06,160 that I've 50% read. Well, probably books I've read a chapter or two scanned through the 241 00:18:06,160 --> 00:18:12,720 book, and maybe have read 25% of them, right? Like it's, it's, we want to learn the things 242 00:18:12,720 --> 00:18:18,480 we want the knowledge we want to be, you know, the best at our craft, right? And as developers, 243 00:18:18,480 --> 00:18:22,120 we want to do it as fast and efficient as possible, like that's our end goal. So we 244 00:18:22,120 --> 00:18:26,560 can share and be like, look what I built, as quick as possible, ideally, right? But 245 00:18:26,560 --> 00:18:31,440 yeah, it doesn't have to learn almost, it's that sense of like, I'm going to lead to know 246 00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:34,600 exactly what I need to know. And then I'll move on to something else there. But that's 247 00:18:34,600 --> 00:18:38,800 a great first order thing, like you get something, you build it, it's cool, you get that rush, 248 00:18:38,800 --> 00:18:43,040 then you could push yourself further, get that basis and then build on top of that knowledge 249 00:18:43,040 --> 00:18:48,280 there too. So it's, it's kind of interesting to see who does that and how they do it and 250 00:18:48,280 --> 00:18:52,280 obviously try and help coach other people to do it as well. 251 00:18:52,280 --> 00:18:57,000 Yes. Well, I think that's this has been gosh, what a beautiful like theme that the show 252 00:18:57,000 --> 00:19:02,440 has honestly started to like create all on its own, not by my direction by any means. 253 00:19:02,440 --> 00:19:07,360 But there's been so many conversations recently about the lack of investment into ourselves 254 00:19:07,360 --> 00:19:10,560 as developers, right? Like we will go buy the book, like you said, but sometimes it's 255 00:19:10,560 --> 00:19:14,040 that's in our desk, or we'll go buy the course, like, you know, many courses I've bought that 256 00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:17,280 I like haven't actually finished because I'm like, a, I wanted to support the developer 257 00:19:17,280 --> 00:19:22,400 or be I did fundamentally want to learn, but it's, I just didn't prioritize the time. 258 00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:27,320 And I think it's one of those things of like, we see those drawbacks when we get into roles 259 00:19:27,320 --> 00:19:31,400 and when we're being pushed in different directions and I've been in a situation where it's like, 260 00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:34,160 gosh, I really wish I would have picked up that course that I bought that I knew that 261 00:19:34,160 --> 00:19:39,200 I needed, but didn't actually, you know, take it to fruition. So I think that there's a 262 00:19:39,200 --> 00:19:44,520 major sort of precedent here of understanding like we are engineers and we are paid decently 263 00:19:44,520 --> 00:19:48,680 well, like we should take some of those funds that we are being paid and reinvest them back 264 00:19:48,680 --> 00:19:53,040 into ourselves. It's no different than a business, right? If you're starting a business, my dad 265 00:19:53,040 --> 00:19:57,200 is an auto repair business, like it came with a tire machine, but the tire machine really 266 00:19:57,200 --> 00:20:01,880 sucks. So it's like you serve customers, buy a new tire machine when you can, right? 267 00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:06,400 And that's just kind of how business operates. So it's interesting that we don't do that. 268 00:20:06,400 --> 00:20:11,720 Yeah. And look here as a system and in the entire example case, well, what's the thing 269 00:20:11,720 --> 00:20:15,400 that's stopping us from serving more customers or serving them better? It's that let's go 270 00:20:15,400 --> 00:20:21,920 fix that. Let's indulge that engineering mindset. That's no bad thing. And people do have 271 00:20:21,920 --> 00:20:26,080 educational budgets. People work at companies that allow for this kind of thing. But if 272 00:20:26,080 --> 00:20:30,120 you and I were to bet how much that money gets spent and the percentage of companies 273 00:20:30,120 --> 00:20:34,480 across the board, I think it would be a number that's a fair bit lower than 100%. And I think 274 00:20:34,480 --> 00:20:39,760 that's a very telling sign that even though you have those free funds available to you, 275 00:20:39,760 --> 00:20:43,560 you don't necessarily use all of that. You're not developing as fast as you could, I think 276 00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:49,080 is a common theme there. So I think with a more competitive job market, that's the kind 277 00:20:49,080 --> 00:20:53,160 of thing that people are starting to realize that it's not necessarily always growing in 278 00:20:53,160 --> 00:20:57,440 the more developer positions than could ever be filled. We've been through a bit of the 279 00:20:57,440 --> 00:21:03,640 retractment is how do like 25 years of solid growth, it's going to be the bottom part of 280 00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:08,160 the market that drops out fair enough. It might not be suited to them, but that means 281 00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:12,840 that other people still need to shape up and make sure they've secured the roles or promotions 282 00:21:12,840 --> 00:21:17,120 they'd like to get there too. So it's nice that it all comes together in the theme of 283 00:21:17,120 --> 00:21:21,920 developer growth because I know that's something you're very interested in as well. 284 00:21:21,920 --> 00:21:26,000 Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, from all sides, right? It's like, at the end of the day, like 285 00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:30,600 I do the job that I do because I want developers to have the experiences that they want, right? 286 00:21:30,600 --> 00:21:34,960 I want them to go through a product and it's like, beautiful and the ducks are in the main 287 00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:40,000 navigation and it's crystal clear how to get started and the SDK is so stupid simple that 288 00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:45,600 you're like, look at me go, you know, and so for me, it's very much sort of the same end 289 00:21:45,600 --> 00:21:49,320 goal that you have, right? It's like, I want to see developers succeed and I want them 290 00:21:49,320 --> 00:21:53,240 to have that experience that they can have to be able to succeed where you're on the 291 00:21:53,240 --> 00:21:58,400 other side of how can we educate and how can we level up engineers in their actual career 292 00:21:58,400 --> 00:22:02,680 skills and in their education to be better professionals in their role, you know, and 293 00:22:02,680 --> 00:22:07,240 I think it's still a beautiful synergy of developer growth for sure. 294 00:22:07,240 --> 00:22:11,400 It's a very positive cycle and I'd like to think that, you know, as pure type expands 295 00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:18,080 as it supports more languages and technologies, it's freeing up managers to become more invested 296 00:22:18,080 --> 00:22:22,040 in career developments, the software side of things, you know, allowing for that getting 297 00:22:22,040 --> 00:22:26,560 rid of the mechanical, oh, you made this mistake, so go do this resource. Oh, did you get this 298 00:22:26,560 --> 00:22:31,000 down? I've got to follow up, etc. This stuff often gets dropped. You then leave no time 299 00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:35,280 for what I think is the most rewarding part of work, which is the ability for people to 300 00:22:35,280 --> 00:22:39,760 invest in each other's growth there. So I'm not looking to replace that whole hierarchy 301 00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:44,040 at all. What I'm looking to do is make sure that the human side of things actually gets 302 00:22:44,040 --> 00:22:47,760 the time it deserves and we'll see how things go. 303 00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:51,080 Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love that so much. I absolutely 304 00:22:51,080 --> 00:22:55,800 would have loved to have focused on that as an engineering manager. I think when you're 305 00:22:55,800 --> 00:23:00,760 in that space, right, it's, you have so many balls to juggle, right? It's both the technical 306 00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:04,880 balls, you know, the business and other balls that you're juggling, right? But then you 307 00:23:04,880 --> 00:23:08,520 have these humans that are reporting to you that you're, you know, responsible for their 308 00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:13,680 career growth at which they are in your company. And I think it's, it's not always easy to 309 00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:16,960 find that and to understand that. And so I love that you're doing that. And I think on 310 00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:22,400 top of it too, there are so many different neurodiversities in technology, which I think 311 00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:27,360 is actually why I think why there are so many neurodiversities is because technology is so 312 00:23:27,360 --> 00:23:31,880 interesting to those that have a neurodiverse brain, they get to really dive in and leverage 313 00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:37,200 what others may see as a disability and really bring that to life, which I think is so beautiful. 314 00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:41,600 But what I think is, is interesting is when you have those neurodiversities on teams, 315 00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:46,720 and that is not always easy to handle, right? Someone who, you know, needs to be in the 316 00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:50,760 mode, right? You know, whether that be ADHD, because it's a focus or a tunnel thing, or 317 00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:54,640 whether that be sort of just how they think and operate and being able to work when they 318 00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:59,880 want to work or operate how they want to operate. And I think often, you know, in corporate 319 00:23:59,880 --> 00:24:04,080 culture, we're not, there isn't really this beautiful scenario for a neurodiverse or an 320 00:24:04,080 --> 00:24:08,600 alternative thinking type of a person. But I think when we bring it into this engineering 321 00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:13,720 world, there is a space for these engineering leaders to sort of understand that more deeply. 322 00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:17,560 And I think when you can bring that to what you're building, right, and there's actually, 323 00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:21,520 it's more than just a number. Yes, they did lines of code, right? It's far more than that 324 00:24:21,520 --> 00:24:27,560 because someone can create a more beautiful solution versus someone else who can write 325 00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:32,040 more code, right? You understand what I'm saying. But I think there's, I think it's 326 00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:36,240 just interesting too, when you bring that dynamic into teams as well with education. 327 00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:42,680 And I think that draws upon two experiences I've had. The first is you can manage neurodiverse 328 00:24:42,680 --> 00:24:48,560 people well. It's, it's at least a area that allows for that, you know, it's analysis. 329 00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:53,440 It's not always about making 700 calls a day. It's, well, if you think about it for 20 minutes 330 00:24:53,440 --> 00:25:02,480 longer, you might save an hour. It's not incredibly output focused. And so, you know, being on 331 00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:09,480 teams, I, I like this principle of decisions are discussed, then made, much less of a top 332 00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:15,160 down thing of decisions are made, then discussed, because you get to take the pressure off it, 333 00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:19,200 you just get to collect opinions from people who might otherwise sort of shy away from 334 00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:24,280 those kind of scenarios and then say, well, actually, yeah, I've made the best decision 335 00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:28,040 because I feel like it's a mixture of all of these different points of view there. So 336 00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:38,040 that's the first point. The second is, you know, it's about giving people a full picture 337 00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:44,360 of what engineering is supposed to be. It's, even if you're managing a neurodiverse person, 338 00:25:44,360 --> 00:25:46,920 the people in the business are going to think, well, okay, they're not kind of following 339 00:25:46,920 --> 00:25:51,240 that. There's a strong group mentality as there should be in any company, but not everyone 340 00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:57,000 can be part of all of the practices of that group. And trying to give them a good sense 341 00:25:57,000 --> 00:26:01,800 of, well, this person is good, even if he doesn't follow all of the things there, or 342 00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:05,920 he has a bit more flexibility. That's not because he's a special exception. It's because 343 00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:11,120 that's the best way to get the best out of him there. And, you know, I'm not trying to 344 00:26:11,120 --> 00:26:16,320 fit everybody into a single template of what a great engineering leader is supposed to 345 00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:20,240 be. And I guess that goes back to what we were discussing about those two parts. Is 346 00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:24,520 it management? Is it technical leadership? Is it both? That's, there are a multitude 347 00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:29,600 of parts to follow. It's divergent. It's not convergent, I guess, to tie that particular 348 00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:31,600 thread up there, too. 349 00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:38,600 Yeah, no, I fully agree. Yeah, it's interesting, too. And I think it's, I'm just thinking back 350 00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:42,200 to, you know, to like engineering manager days, right? Or even just general like leadership 351 00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:46,120 days, I think that was probably the most painful thing to navigate with some of that stuff. 352 00:26:46,120 --> 00:26:49,480 And it was, and it's hard to because as a manager, you're looking to advocate, right? 353 00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:53,600 And so the more details and insights and information you can have to sort of navigate and understand 354 00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:54,600 that I think is powerful. 355 00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:55,600 Yeah, I agree. 356 00:26:55,600 --> 00:27:01,200 Yeah, love that. Okay, so let's talk a little bit more technically, like you are building 357 00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:08,000 peer type, right? And it's an actually, it's a platform itself. So what are the underlying 358 00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:13,120 technical stack that you've been building in or end on top of it and or what is your preferred 359 00:27:13,120 --> 00:27:15,800 stack to build in? But I assume it's likely the same. 360 00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:24,440 So at the moment, right now, it's Elixir and Phoenix Live View. So Elixir is cool. Yeah, 361 00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:27,600 it's, it's a language that's gaining a fair bit of popularity. And in fact, the initial 362 00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:32,200 language is not supported on the platform for people to learn is Elixir because the 363 00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:36,680 demand is there. And if you look at the Stack Overflow survey, it says, well, people actually 364 00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:40,800 want to learn it, but they haven't got around to it yet. So good place to start. Also, good 365 00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:52,440 language to code it in. So having built that, it's great for prototyping. It's a great language 366 00:27:52,440 --> 00:27:59,520 to interface with other things, machine learning, the way in which it picks apart the code, 367 00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:05,400 for example. So it's fine not to solve all problems at once. It's, it's almost a bit 368 00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:08,600 like Python on the machine learning side of things. If it needs to go down and do some 369 00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:13,200 numerical stuff, that's going to be some library that handles that. In this case, a lot of 370 00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:18,160 platform functions like recommendation engine. I have all of these different streams of information 371 00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:27,040 coming in. What's the, the, the areas they should learn next and picking that apart there 372 00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:31,520 too. So there's some great libraries that have come up in the last two or three years 373 00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:36,160 focused on things like machine learning focused on, in this case, Phoenix LiveView, it's like 374 00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:42,160 a server-based thing. So you don't have to write a ton of JavaScript. You can just write 375 00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:46,840 something in one language, get it going quickly, get the, the feedback that you need to go 376 00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:51,680 right somewhere else as well. Speed of prototyping is such a huge factor nowadays, but also the 377 00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:56,600 way that the language is designed, the stack is designed means that you end up writing 378 00:28:56,600 --> 00:29:02,240 individual servers within the same application that keeps state nicely compacted. It's almost 379 00:29:02,240 --> 00:29:07,600 impossible to, to write a code base that ends up being complete mess with everything, talking 380 00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:13,480 to each other after a while. It's, it's a language I would have, I think it was a brave 381 00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:18,320 choice to adopt back at the previous place five or six years ago, but I think it's a 382 00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:19,680 sensible choice nowadays. 383 00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:26,800 Yeah. That is really cool. Well, there's actually been, I'd have to go back to reference which 384 00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:30,920 ones, but Elixir has been mentioned twice on the show. And in both of those times they 385 00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:34,320 were talking, if I recall correctly, they were referencing like something that they 386 00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:39,320 wanted to be diving into, but didn't have the time, honestly. So that's really interesting. 387 00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:40,320 I love that. 388 00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:44,240 Hopefully with pure type, they'll get the chance at least to pick apart some of the things, 389 00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:49,760 get some feedback on that. And JavaScript type script will always be around. And my 390 00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:55,760 plan is to support those languages next, but you can also give feedback on the individual 391 00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:59,360 technologies and the frameworks that people are using within the language. And you can 392 00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:04,240 go further. I'm hoping into things like software architecture. Yeah, you wrote all of this, 393 00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:08,360 but actually you should probably use this pattern if that's the case. I think that's 394 00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:10,880 going to be a really interesting path to travel down. 395 00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:15,240 Yeah, I think that's going to be, that's going to be the like amazing, right? Because I think 396 00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:20,400 it's, there are resources to fundamentally learn languages, but like you said, there's 397 00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:23,880 a difference between learning that language and then taking that and actually applying 398 00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:28,600 that. And so when someone can learn a new language and then learn how that language 399 00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:32,480 works, right? That's, I think the beauty of it is like, we can pick up a language, we 400 00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:36,000 can teach yourself, we can memorize, you know, syntax and whatever, but it's actually truly 401 00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:39,280 understanding why that language is so powerful, why that's the one that you would want to 402 00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:43,240 choose and operate with, having those strong opinions, right? And then understanding how 403 00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:47,440 that applies into that build system. That's the, that's the good stuff that like will 404 00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:49,160 drive a career forward. 405 00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:53,480 Yeah. And you and I, I'm sure have been in the position where you learn a new language 406 00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:57,560 and then you get your first bit of your first issue assigned to your first PR and you think, 407 00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:01,920 okay, I could do it one of three ways, but I need to get some feedback from somebody. 408 00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:02,920 Let me do it this way. 409 00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:03,920 Yes. 410 00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:07,920 Figure out the, and then you get to call it review. Oh, why did you even try that way? 411 00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:12,280 You should do it second way or third way because, and then that's the point of which they say, 412 00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:15,480 here are the principles, you know, you might understand all of these different things, 413 00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:18,560 but here's how they fit together. And here's the factors that you should be taking into 414 00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:25,760 account to move that particular choice there too. So that's, that's an interesting angle. 415 00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:29,120 It's trying to make sure that people reach that point as quickly as possible. I think 416 00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:34,560 that's going to be quite interesting to go down and give that feedback. 417 00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:36,640 Yes. Yes. I fully agree. 418 00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:41,440 So I am, I'm excited. You'll have to come back on the show after you've been, you know, 419 00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:45,240 doing pure type for a while and, and catch us up on all the things that you've been up 420 00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:52,240 to. Okay. So sort of thinking about some of the questions I like to ask, I'm trying to 421 00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:58,600 think here, talk to your stack. How do you get unstuck like as you're building pure type? 422 00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:01,440 I mean, you're sort of, are you a team of one right now? 423 00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:07,840 I'm a team of one. And yeah, it is hard. And I think it might be able to allude to the 424 00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:12,920 question of, well, how do you, you know, get over hurdles? How do you see past things 425 00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:14,800 there? Yeah. Yeah. 426 00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:21,560 I'd say it's, it's wearing multiple hats. You know, I try not to be attached to any 427 00:32:21,560 --> 00:32:24,880 particular piece of code I'm writing. And obviously we live in an age now where the 428 00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:29,600 cost of writing new code has collapsed. You no longer feel such a big attachment to, well, 429 00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:32,840 I went down this particular path, this is going to take me hours to redo. 430 00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:33,840 Yeah. 431 00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:40,960 There it's, yeah. It has been critical. I don't mean it helps, you know, there's a review 432 00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:44,440 element to all of this. You do have to look at things and think, okay, well, I've written 433 00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:48,440 all of this, but I did it because that, that was the prototype. That's, it's almost like 434 00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:52,240 I'm generating some good material that I would want to get feedback on. 435 00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:53,240 Yeah. 436 00:32:53,240 --> 00:33:00,640 Yeah. I think it's the days perhaps of sitting and coding stuff for eight hours straights 437 00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:05,800 have, have changed significantly. You know, it's, it's much more mixture of different 438 00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:11,400 parts of it. And I've always seen writing code as a nice side effect of the job. I find 439 00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:18,960 myself leaning a lot more on chores, sketching stuff out on paper, getting some sense of 440 00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:23,720 where things are. I think the nice thing about being a bit more senior and doing this enough 441 00:33:23,720 --> 00:33:28,440 is the, having the language to criticize what the work you've done so far. It's a bit like 442 00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:32,840 a chef who doesn't know how to describe what they're, the food that they're tasting or 443 00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:36,320 the words that they have for it. If you don't have that language, it's very hard to know 444 00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:42,680 what's good or not. And getting that feedback from others is absolutely fundamental to that 445 00:33:42,680 --> 00:33:46,160 because they, they're the ones who say, well, this doesn't look right. And then they draw 446 00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:51,520 it up into some high level principle as well. I don't know if that's the kind of techniques 447 00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:56,080 that you've come across there and what you found useful there too. 448 00:33:56,080 --> 00:34:02,280 Yeah. No, I think, I think that's incredibly helpful because like, you know, as developers, 449 00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:06,280 right, sometimes it's hard for us to unveil the code that we wrote, although now I feel 450 00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:11,280 like it's, it's less in that way in that now, you know, PRs and code reviews and stuff 451 00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:16,280 are, are definitely a more regular type of a operation. But you know, like when I was 452 00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:20,640 a learning to code, right, that wasn't a thing like GitHub wasn't a thing. There wasn't, 453 00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:23,960 you know, this ability to go look at someone's code and review it. And like, I wasn't even 454 00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:30,280 using git. There was like, Oh my gosh, SVN, like, and was where I started, you know, it 455 00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:36,400 was, and even that was like painful. So it's really interesting too of like, I think now 456 00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:41,760 if I could go back and change things about my career start, right, is like that, I think 457 00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:45,880 is so incredibly valuable. It's like the ability to say, Hey, here's a chunk of code, here's 458 00:34:45,880 --> 00:34:49,960 a chunk of what I did. Go look at it, go provide feedback on it, you know, do those things. 459 00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:53,960 And it was just not as easy to do that in the past. So yeah, I think that, yeah, 460 00:34:53,960 --> 00:34:58,440 I'd sort of blurred that out of my mind. But yeah, when I started it was SVN and no one 461 00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:02,040 had, there wasn't a good code review platform for it. You just attached a diff to an email 462 00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:08,640 and someone if they had time gave you feedback. And in 10, 15 years, we've come from that 463 00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:13,560 prehistoric era to something where AI code reviews, obviously a big factor coming back 464 00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:18,360 to me, the market, that's, that's just mad that, that we could have ever learned from 465 00:35:18,360 --> 00:35:20,360 those kind of processes. 466 00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:23,960 Honestly, now that you say it like that, wow, that is really like 15 years. That's real 467 00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:28,280 fast for that to happen, truly, because like, not only did we not have peer reviews, like 468 00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:32,520 you said, but now we've got computer peer reviews and human peer reviews and all the 469 00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:39,000 possible reviews. Do you think, I don't know, gosh, like, it just makes me wonder, like, 470 00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:43,320 I really can't speak to what it's like to learn to dive into technology anymore, because 471 00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:48,600 it was just such a different world that we came from and how the evolution and how fast 472 00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:52,200 it's grown is like actually truly remarkable when you think about it. 473 00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:58,240 It was a shaky a start. It was harder. Things like repels didn't exist. 15, 20 years ago, 474 00:35:58,240 --> 00:36:01,520 you just had to code up something, compiled it and hoped it worked. 475 00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:07,880 Yeah, this is a danger turning into back in my day conversation, but that the cycle of 476 00:36:07,880 --> 00:36:13,160 getting that first bit of satisfaction and I think that first moment of, oh, cool, if 477 00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:17,320 that's the rewarding part for any future developer, then that's the thing that's the feeling 478 00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:24,680 you've got to latch on to and I think for in the future, that's something which at least 479 00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:29,200 you can experiment a bit more. We're almost as if we're becoming less, you have to have 480 00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:33,360 an engineering mindset and more scientific mindset. I'm going to experiment with this. 481 00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:38,200 I'm going to see if it works. I'm going to try and collect some feedback on why that is 482 00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:42,640 and why it's not necessarily the best solution. I think that can only be a good thing. I think 483 00:36:42,640 --> 00:36:47,920 we should accept a bit more failure as part of our job as software engineers almost. 484 00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:54,280 Yes. Oh my gosh, I love that. I love that so much because there's just so much to it, 485 00:36:54,280 --> 00:37:04,920 and yeah, man, I feel like I could pull this open even deeper, but I'm like, time. Okay, 486 00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:11,200 so how about you in your own work? Are you in terms of, yes, capturing feedback, super 487 00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:16,200 important, what have you, do you have a team of people that you reach out to them, like 488 00:37:16,200 --> 00:37:20,800 a circle that you're like, hey, I'm working by myself? Can you review my code? Can you 489 00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:24,400 review what I'm up to? How do you go about that being a team of one? 490 00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:28,600 So it's almost as if I leave the code review to myself. So I don't know what kind of horrors 491 00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:33,720 I'll unleash for anybody. I looked at the code base one day, we're often blind in that 492 00:37:33,720 --> 00:37:40,480 sense. What I found useful is at a high level, is it worth building this feature? Why? What's 493 00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:45,400 the feedback that I'm getting? What have other people done in the past? I've worked with 494 00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:48,760 an advisor, a couple of advisors, the sort of people who've done it before, but they've 495 00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:54,480 done it at slightly different angles. It might be security scanning. That's still a case 496 00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:59,600 of is this code good? Why isn't it good? In that case, the goal is, well, it has a security 497 00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:06,040 vulnerability. My goal is, well, there's a big gap between the code that you could write 498 00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:11,080 and the code that you have. And I think here's where the areas that you need to firm up on 499 00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:17,200 are the language that you're starting to speak. So I found that to be a lot more productive. 500 00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:22,000 And then you get some of the educational guys, the sort of people who have done this, you 501 00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:28,040 know, might be in high school or for college courses, instructional design, all these sorts 502 00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:31,800 of people who I think ed tech people never talk to, but they have very strong opinions 503 00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:36,120 on how things work, how people learn, how people learn, and the kind of questions that 504 00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:40,240 you should be asking to get them off the speed there too. So for me, that's over the last 505 00:38:40,240 --> 00:38:44,320 couple of months, it's been great to talk to people, job titles, for instance, I didn't 506 00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:49,360 even realize existed, and we talk about things at a high level. And maybe that's the way 507 00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:53,080 software engineering is going, that we are becoming more product engineers, we're becoming 508 00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:57,480 a bit more attached to each discipline, but we're using the skills I think software engineering 509 00:38:57,480 --> 00:39:04,480 has given us to pick apart those areas, find out those principles and become a lot more 510 00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:11,280 adept at in every demand too. And I think in the fields that I've been in before, thin 511 00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:16,360 tech and finance has been a strong value and actually learning what this product is or 512 00:39:16,360 --> 00:39:21,080 this contract, how it behaves there too. It's been nice to speak those languages as well 513 00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:28,040 as rights code there too. I haven't felt like a, was not becoming a software engineer, I 514 00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:33,640 just felt like I was learning additional stuff that also indulged engineering, learning all 515 00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:38,600 the things that I'd like to do. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, I feel like, you know, when 516 00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:41,680 you're in some of those like really niche industries and like FinTech definitely falls 517 00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:48,440 into that like healthcare is another one that sort of falls into that, obviously very regulated. 518 00:39:48,440 --> 00:39:52,120 But there's a lot that you learn just because when you're operationally building, right, 519 00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:56,040 you start to understand the industry itself, like how does the FinTech API's work, I hear 520 00:39:56,040 --> 00:39:59,840 some of them are archaic, right? I haven't had I haven't actually directly worked for 521 00:39:59,840 --> 00:40:03,960 a bank to have to work with some of those different sort of endpoints and things. I've heard 522 00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:09,680 the brutal stories though. Mine was a more cutting edge side when I was in FinTech, but 523 00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:14,720 it's really interesting to dive into that. And I think that's also been some good, you 524 00:40:14,720 --> 00:40:19,260 know, premise that has come from various conversations that just again feeds back into what you're 525 00:40:19,260 --> 00:40:24,600 building with peer type is, is like how important it is to actually like help and engage one 526 00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:29,080 another and to really dive in to have those conversations. Good follow up question for 527 00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:33,240 you. And I'm sure like, you'll have a variety of different answers here. But as you're 528 00:40:33,240 --> 00:40:36,720 starting to meet those people that you've never talked to before job titles you've you've 529 00:40:36,720 --> 00:40:41,160 never seen before, how are you finding those people? Like, are you just not LinkedIn scrolling? 530 00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:45,080 Are you asking folks to do introductions? What's your path there? 531 00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:51,240 I think it's it's both. And I think yes, LinkedIn, much more lines in terms of the quality of 532 00:40:51,240 --> 00:40:56,480 the feed, but you can always unfollow people. The fact that you can, you can connect to 533 00:40:56,480 --> 00:41:01,080 all these people that you have in common means that you can grow your network a lot more 534 00:41:01,080 --> 00:41:07,120 than you ever could virtually. And for me, physically, having moved to a new city, Montreal, 535 00:41:07,120 --> 00:41:11,320 it's great to get started in that and trying to pick through that and talking to going 536 00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:15,640 to CTO meet ups. Well, they're all have an engineering focus to them. They're all interested 537 00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:19,440 at least to see where things are going there. So I think LinkedIn is the first thing to 538 00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:24,440 go to. I think the second is following the intro chain. And I'm saying not just Oh, you 539 00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:27,480 talked to this guy that you asked him, Oh, is there anybody else in your network I should 540 00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:31,880 be talking to? And there was some way for this is a nice conversation that's not really 541 00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:36,000 going anywhere. You know, that overlap isn't there for enough, not everything works out. 542 00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:40,520 But then the intro to me to somebody who goes, Oh, this is exactly the kind of thing that 543 00:41:40,520 --> 00:41:46,760 I'm really, really quite handy with, you know, I really like the opportunity to do that. And 544 00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:51,520 actually following three or four people deep. That's again, it's, I think that's one of 545 00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:58,440 the great experiences I found during is brought me out of a, I need to be focused on this, 546 00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:02,480 you know, there's this product release coming up as I need to make sure that this is as 547 00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:07,920 good as possible to more divergent. Okay, there's 100 different people I could talk 548 00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:13,040 to, but who's going to care the most at this point? And who's going to help shape the direction 549 00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:16,840 that I've been seeing hundreds of hours building the right thing or and it comes down to that 550 00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:21,720 output metric of I could write all sit down and write all of this, but no soul founder 551 00:42:21,720 --> 00:42:27,160 is going to have the sort of resilience to do that. How can I use my time most effectively 552 00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:31,240 and how can I talk to people who do that? So could I have done that in the same way 553 00:42:31,240 --> 00:42:36,080 10 years ago? No, not really. People were based on LinkedIn, they weren't open to as 554 00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:41,680 many conversations. I think we are becoming a more collaborative world. I think in terms 555 00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:47,600 of these types of conversations, perhaps you and I wouldn't have met by the time you go 556 00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:52,120 to Italy. And within companies themselves, we're realizing that software engineering 557 00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:56,280 is quite a team sports, you know, yes, it's kind of practice individually, but it's becoming 558 00:42:56,280 --> 00:43:01,920 more and more practices a group, so you know, more programming, pairing, all of those practices 559 00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:09,400 are becoming a lot more efficient and easy to do asynchronously, etc. than they ever 560 00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:15,320 were a few years ago. Yeah. Yes, I agree. Honestly, like, you know, 561 00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:20,400 sometimes it's like there are some we can argue social media, right? And it's it's 562 00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:25,640 goodness that it has brought to the world versus the negativeness that it has brought 563 00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:30,080 to the world. But I do think that that LinkedIn has been one of the one of the really beautiful 564 00:43:30,080 --> 00:43:36,080 things to be able to just connect and network with people in that way in in in more of that 565 00:43:36,080 --> 00:43:40,000 professional sense, which I think has been something beautiful to do that. Because like 566 00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:44,520 you said, I don't think we would have met, right? Like, as I look at sort of our crossings 567 00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:49,880 and wherever it was a very serendipitous sort of meeting of, you know, someone introducing 568 00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:55,520 there in that way. So yeah, I mean, we think about it right in like, gosh, okay, so my 569 00:43:55,520 --> 00:43:59,160 I love the TV show friends, like, I love the show. So I swear this isn't a tangent. I'm 570 00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:04,000 not going I'm not going way off way off course here. But we were rewatching it. And right 571 00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:07,320 now we're like in season eight or something, right? But we've been rewatching it sort of 572 00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:11,720 just it just kind of is like in the background, my husband loves to watch TV. Long story short, 573 00:44:11,720 --> 00:44:15,080 it's just even interesting to sort of like watch old shows like that, right? In the beginning, 574 00:44:15,080 --> 00:44:19,280 they didn't even have cell phones. And they're like, Oh, like Ross gets a pager because his 575 00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:23,280 his like ex wife is going to have a baby or something, you know, and it's just interesting 576 00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:27,320 to sort of think back to like that world at which we had to be like, leaving voicemails 577 00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:32,120 on people's home phone voicemails to be like, Hey, can I intro you to a friend? Like it's 578 00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:36,520 just so much harder to just say, Hey, I know somebody, let me connect you to them because 579 00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:40,000 the path at which to communicate with someone was a lot more difficult. 580 00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:45,160 Yeah. Well, it's a bit like cyberpunk and that whole genre and the fact in the Victorian 581 00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:49,800 era, we built the first internet we could have basically real time transmission across 582 00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:54,760 the Atlantic, but we still had horses for that. And trying to figure out, okay, you know, 583 00:44:54,760 --> 00:44:58,280 speed of communication, what we could actually do with that communication is these two big 584 00:44:58,280 --> 00:45:04,960 factors that we're always playing a part. I feel like we've made a huge leap in communication 585 00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:08,320 over the past couple of years. And now we're trying to, okay, figure out, well, how do 586 00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:12,040 we work together using that and make use of it? They're two of them's obviously LLM's 587 00:45:12,040 --> 00:45:13,520 AI just fit into that. 588 00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:18,920 Yep. Yep, I agree. I know now we have like too many communication passes, like, do I 589 00:45:18,920 --> 00:45:22,960 mean to text you or Twitter DM you or send you a message on LinkedIn or email you or 590 00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:32,880 I could call you all the ways. This has been such a lovely conversation. Where can folks 591 00:45:32,880 --> 00:45:39,000 Yeah, great, great, great. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. Where can folks find 592 00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:43,640 you obviously peer type, but let us know the URL directly so that folks can go find that 593 00:45:43,640 --> 00:45:48,120 directly. And then any, you know, places where they can meet with you or get to know 594 00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:49,120 you. 595 00:45:49,120 --> 00:45:54,320 Yeah, so it's pure type.ai.ai because it was the cheapest domain in Suffolk. It does use 596 00:45:54,320 --> 00:46:01,880 a bit of AI as well. And I'm at fuel type.ai. But I'm always on LinkedIn, DM me there. I'm 597 00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:06,240 always happy for a chat. I know how hard it is to get that initial network going. And 598 00:46:06,240 --> 00:46:12,240 I like software development, I like learning, I like any intersection of the two. So I'm 599 00:46:12,240 --> 00:46:16,800 sure I will get around to answering any messages that you end up sending. 600 00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:20,360 Oh, I love that so much. I think, you know, like we talked about this a little in the 601 00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:23,760 pre show, but it's like us developers and software engineers, we just want to hang out 602 00:46:23,760 --> 00:46:27,440 with our tribe, like we want to get to know each other, we want to spend time together, 603 00:46:27,440 --> 00:46:32,840 have these kinds of conversations. So absolutely encourage folks to reach out to Matt. It's 604 00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:38,120 been fabulous meeting you like absolutely fabulous. You have done some super cool stuff. 605 00:46:38,120 --> 00:46:43,880 I'm excited to dive into pure type other developers. I know there are a lot of earlier to mid to 606 00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:49,000 light career developers that can really benefit from pure type. So I hope that folks get that 607 00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:53,280 that message and they check it out as well. So yeah, it's been lovely to meet in chat 608 00:46:53,280 --> 00:46:58,280 and I'm hoping to keep in contact and maybe appear on the show sometime soon. Let's see 609 00:46:58,280 --> 00:47:02,720 how it all works out. Yes, absolutely. Honestly, I should bring you on and we can talk about 610 00:47:02,720 --> 00:47:06,360 it later. But on the built for devs hub, I'm just trying to bring together like great, 611 00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:09,640 beautiful, meaningful conversations. So it'd be great to bring you in there and maybe you 612 00:47:09,640 --> 00:47:14,480 can talk, talk about sort of why you built pure type and, you know, sort of the backbone 613 00:47:14,480 --> 00:47:18,920 behind it, at least in terms of like developers and you need to learn and, you know, all the 614 00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:22,320 reasons why they should dive into investing in their own education. 615 00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:24,520 Exactly. That'd be great. 616 00:47:24,520 --> 00:47:29,120 Awesome. Okay, well, I hope everyone has a fabulous rest of their day. I'll see you all 617 00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:33,320 again tomorrow. Matt have a lovely day as well. 618 00:47:33,320 --> 00:47:35,680 Thank you. Cheers. 619 00:47:35,680 --> 00:47:42,680 Cheers.