Charles Max Wood returns to Elixir Mix to discuss career growth opportunities.  They dive into coaching and mentoring developers who feel like they're not moving forward in their careers or profession. They offer some advice on how to alter the course of your career and how to build your skills. 

Hey folks, welcome back to another episode of Elixir Mix. If you haven't heard my voice for a while, I'm Charles Max Wood from Top End Devs. I'm actually the guest today, but I've, well, we started this show when I was a host on it for a while with these other two guys. So I'm back for a week. This week we also have Alan Wyma.

 

Hello, hello.

 

and Adi Iyengar.

 

Hello.

 

And yeah, so this week I've been talking to a lot of developers. It's funny because most of them are like junior, maybe lower mid-level developers. And, um, just cause I put out there that I was willing to talk to people for a half hour and do some coaching and stuff. And one thing that I'm running across over and over and over again is people are getting on the coaching because effectively they feel like they don't have good prospects to move jobs. Or they really like the company they work for and they feel like, but the company isn't giving them opportunities to grow or advance, right? So they're not getting raises, they're worried that they're not getting paid what they're worth. They're not being encouraged to learn new skills. They're worried that their skills are then falling behind. The company's not really talking to them about their future prospects and so they're not sure if they're just kind of be stagnating where they are for a while. So, you know, as I kind of help them through it and help them figure out what they are looking for, I realized that there are a lot of things that people can do. And I had kind of come up with a way of building and gaining momentum in your business and maintaining momentum, or not in your business, sorry, in your... I talk to a completely different audience sometimes, but in your career, I put together this program and as I've kind of talked people through it, they really get excited and they see momentum build as they start doing a handful of things. And I probably talked about it on this show before, but I just wanted to jump in because the focus has changed a little bit. I was trying to kind of say, Hey, everybody should do this. And I still feel that way, but the people that seem to be benefiting from it the most are the people at kind of that lower end of the, the career spectrum who are a little bit, feel a little bit stuck. And so anyway, I just, I just thought, Hey, well, I'll just jump on Elixir Mix have a conversation about it. I'm a little curious, have you guys felt that at all in your career at any point? I'm a little curious, have you guys felt that at all in your career at any point?

 

Um, same mean like from like a, the side of a junior engineer, like getting stuck and uh, like, I don't

 

Well,

 

know.

 

at

 

Right.

 

any point, I felt it as a senior too.

 

Right.

 

But yeah, just feeling stuck or not knowing quite where to go next.

 

Yeah, I mean, luckily I haven't experienced it. I was, I think, been very lucky to have opportunities always in life, but I have mentored others who have

 

Mm-hmm.

 

experienced that. It is, you're right, it's very hard to navigate that because, you know, a few things need to be right for you to get next opportunities, right? The company needs to have that opportunity available. They

 

Right?

 

need to trust you, and you also need to be proactive about, you know, reminding them about, you know, that opportunity.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

If you don't get it fast a couple of times, it's kind of demotivating. You don't like,

 

Right.

 

you know, you need that motivation from your regular work instead of side projects to, you know, at least explore something initial that you can further continue to side projects, but it's very hard. I've been really lucky, so I'm gonna not talk about as much. Alan, what about you? I'm not sure.

 

Yeah, I mean, to a certain extent, yeah, I've felt a little bit kind of in the same spot for a while. Right. So you're always just developing code. I when you're doing startups, right, you're always kind of doing the same work over and over again, building these systems

 

Mm-hmm.

 

that take in data and show data, etc. But then it's like, if you do this for a couple of years, you're like, OK, but what next? Because this is basically the same thing, you know, kind of the

 

Right.

 

saying, what is it? Same, same toilet, different stuff inside, you know, like I'm doing the same stuff

 

Right?

 

every day. What's next?

 

Yeah, that's usually when I'm talking to senior developers that run into it. That's how they describe it, right? Is effectively, you know, my opportunities for growth is I could get paid a little bit better to go do the same thing in a different place. And, you know, and it's like, you know, I, and most of the time they don't, you know, they're not complaining about it. It's just, they're looking for that next challenge or that next opportunity to learn, and some of them will actually tell me that they wish that they could go back because they were consistently learning and growing. And so that's the version of it I see with the seniors, but with the juniors, they just don't have the connections and the experience to go and say, okay, this is what I need to do to get to the next place. And so they really feel trapped. And so, yeah, we just talk through some of the options with them and see where things go. And so, yeah, I'm curious, trying to said that you haven't deeply experienced this, but I'm curious as to what you think you have done or do to put yourself in a position where you haven't felt that, because I'm guessing that some of those things are some of the things that I recommended people that they do.

 

Well, I think it's good to have an idea like a roadmap about where you want to

 

Mm-hmm.

 

be next, right? So for me, it was always like, okay, I'm always building stuff, but, and I think my technical skills are fine. But now the question is, how can I work on my soft skills, which was always kind of my problem. And I think now the next thing

 

Right.

 

is more finely tuned on how can I deal with people who are not developers? How do I explain

 

Mm-hmm.

 

stuff to them? How do I generate sales? These, so there's more other stuff besides development, which is more interesting to me. I mean, I still enjoy coding, right? But at the same time. uh, you know, when you went to the university, you're always thinking yourself, okay, I'm just gonna sit at my desk and just code all day. I don't have to talk to anybody, just me and my computer. But that's

 

Hmm.

 

not, yeah, how do you smile? Because it's not the way it is, right?

 

It's so true.

 

And

 

Yeah.

 

you have

 

They

 

to deal

 

put you

 

with

 

on

 

people.

 

a group project and it's, it, you know, you have three people

 

Thank

 

in

 

you.

 

your group and it's three group projects

 

Well, basically life

 

that you're going to merge.

 

is like the group project where you're the only guy doing stuff and other people are not.

 

Yeah.

 

That kind of, how do you get chicken's

 

Yep.

 

head? Sometimes life is like that. So

 

Yep.

 

it's

 

Been on those

 

like,

 

teams too. Yeah.

 

how can I, rather the team, right? Because those

 

Yep.

 

are, I think, much more valuable skills than just writing code.

 

Yeah, I'm gonna seize on what you mentioned first though, and that is just having a plan. A lot of folks that I talk to, it's like, okay, well, what do you want, right? And most of the time I get this blank look, right? Like they don't know. And there are kind of two aspects to this. One of them I kind of have gotten. I've gotten better clarification on since talking to my friend Sam yesterday. That's going to come out as a bonus episode, by the way, next week. But the first one is, yeah, do you want to be a senior developer? What does that mean? Right? You want to move into being an architect or CTO or whatever, right? What does that mean? Right? Because it's not just, oh, somebody's going to bestow me the title, right? And then I've got all my problems solved. I'd been professionally coding for like a couple years and they made me a senior dev because I was working for a consultancy and they could bill me for more if I was a senior dev, right? I didn't get paid more, you know? And so it did it tick the box for me? Not really. You know, so is it do you want to get paid more? Do you want to, do you want to work somewhere that you can get a certain kind of mentorship? Are you looking for more recognition? Are you looking to build your skills? Are you looking right? All of these things kind of matter. And so to one extent, yeah, it's like, what does your job look like? And then to the other extent is, and this is what I talked to my friend Sam about, was what are the factors that are gonna fulfill you at that job, right? And so he has six career factors that you can, he can actually go take his assessment for free and it'll tell you what your factors are. But yeah, so, you know, those are kind of the ideas. Like where do you want to end up, right? And sometimes people are like, oh, well, you know, I just, you know, I want to get paid another $20,000 a year and I want to be the senior developer. Oh my gosh. And so the reality is that, yeah, you kind of have to know what that is, but I push people to look a little bit longer term, right? It's like, look, do you want to be, at what level do you want to be in the company you're working at, right? Do you want to stay where you are? Do you want to stay where you are long term? Those kinds of questions, have you considered going freelance? Because sometimes that's the best option for certain people. to make a roadmap. And I encourage people to go out like three years. And yes, I recognize the world will change in three years and that may not be a valid plan after two, but it'll get you way further down the road toward where you wanna end up than sitting there and waiting for stuff to happen to you. And so, yeah, so having that plan is critical. It's always the seventh one I list because it's always the one that intimidates people. But, That really is a big part of it. And so I just encourage people to sit down and just go, okay, you know, what does my next step look like and where, where eventually do I want it to take me? Right. Do I want to be showing up on stages? Do I want to be a host on Elixir Mix? Do I want to be, you know, working on open source and be recognized for that? Um, cause all of those things will come into play and there are steps you can take now that will get you there.

 

Yeah, totally agreed. I think also along with plans, I think, I think you implied it, but I think like more material accomplishable goals along the plan

 

Mm hmm.

 

as well, like that you can like, you know,

 

Yeah.

 

quantify like, oh, I want to like I said, you want to do x at this time, why at this time, right? Come at this much code mentor as many people on this about AWS, whatever it may be

 

Uh huh.

 

that that definitely helps. I'm going to be a little bit of a downer and still say I feel like, you know, it does come down to luck a lot, man. You know, it's having experience, I think, so much luck in my career. I literally, everyone I work with, everyone, my friends who's an engineer, is a better engineer than me, or would have been a better engineer than me, if they would

 

Right.

 

have had the opportunity. And it just, I think, it's a reality of things to also acknowledge, yes, when you make goals, you might not have the opportunities know, you hope that you would, but it's okay. Keep trying. You know, maybe it'll come. You might be a little less lucky,

 

Hahaha.

 

but you know, it will show up and you know, it's, it's, you got to be flexible. If ask things, ask things change, you, you expect it to have some opportunity that you do

 

Right.

 

not have. Be, you know, adaptable to, you know, you know, when

 

Hmm.

 

life, when life throws you lemon, make lemon, it kind of adapt, adaptable.

 

Right. Well, and that's where the other things that I tell people about kind of create those opportunities, right? They put you in a position so that when you get lucky, you can grab it. Right. I'm going to say one more thing about the goals really quickly. And that is that I use a planner. It's called the full focus planner. It's put together by Michael Hyatt. He ran a publishing company way back in the day. And so what I do is I write down my three month goals. And then I figure out what I need to be doing every week. that down into what I'm going to do today and tomorrow and the next day. So then I have a pretty good idea of what I need to get done in order to create the opportunities I want. So for the other opportunities, I mean, most of the opportunities that I've found have either come because I knew somebody, right? So I know somebody works at a company, they're, you know, great place to work. I talked to them. They talked to the powers that be, the powers that be decide they want me to work for them too. Right. Um, the other opportunities, a lot of them have come from having the podcasts. And early on, um, I would luck my way into. probably the first two or three jobs that I had, I lucked my way into. But because I'd been consistently learning, I was able to put my best foot forward, even though I didn't have all the answers to all their questions during the interviews. So that's what the rest of these are all aimed at, right? So the first thing that I tell people to do is just learn something new every day. And when I say that, I'm not saying go take an Elixir course today and then go take a React course tomorrow, right? That's not realistic. What I'm saying is, is is spend an hour listening to Elixir Mix, or spend 10 minutes watching a tutorial video, or read a section out of a book that's gonna tell you how to do something. And then go put it into practice, so go commit code. Or if you're reading up on soft skills, practice it today. If you're learning Git, something about VS code, right? Go pick that up and put it into practice, right? So those are one and two, right there, because those are gonna put you into a position where as people come to you and start asking you questions, or if you apply to a job, right, you can say, I don't know the answer to that question, but this is what I've learned so far, right, over the last few days, or over the last few weeks, or, hey, I'm making a point to go learn something new every day, and so these are the next three things that I'm going to learn, right? So you can ask me again next week if you want. And that really does put you on a good footing. And then the third one is meeting somebody new every week, right? And having a conversation with them. Because if you can do those things, it puts you in a position where you're consistently can grow your career from the people that you now know. Right? And so, you know, you can help them, they can help you. You can find a lot of opportunities that way. So those are kind of three of them.

 

Now when you meet somebody new, what's the criteria for that person to be new? I mean, you could just go to the bus stop and say hello to somebody. You met somebody new, right?

 

Right. So yeah, I'm talking about somebody in the programming space, right? Or I mean, you know, you could be forgiven if they're a non-technical manager or contact at a company that, right, that... But usually it's somebody that you also have something to offer to them and they have something to offer to you, right? And so, you know, they may have contacts in there or may be able to You know, whatever, you don't really know what the payoff is going to be. And they may not either, but you know, it's, it's a valuable contact that you have that, that can take you somewhere possibly.

 

Yeah, I'm a huge fan of then meeting someone new, not just for the contact and also, you know, growing your circle perspective, obviously, that's the case. But I think it's also kind of like breaking your bubble. And as

 

Mm-hmm.

 

engineers, we like, we work in a team, we might work in a small company where, you know, you might build something relatively simple that you get a lot of recognition for, you know, and you might develop a lot of, you know, what's the word like done in Kruger's like, oh, I'm actually,

 

Mm-hmm.

 

I'm pretty good, you know, you need to, it's important to see things in perspective,

 

Right.

 

important to like keep grounded and see there's like unbelievable things happening out there, right,

 

Right.

 

in terms of engineering. And I think it helps you with that, you know, managing your ego and I think which oftentimes comes in the way of, you know, what he said, like self-awareness and, you know, self-reflection and then making that plan, you know, if you

 

Mm-hmm.

 

don't have that ego fear, if you are clearly aware about what you're not good at, it helps you set that plan better.

 

right.

 

And, and knowing other people outside of your bubble helps you manage that ego and let's stay grounded.

 

Yeah. I want to add another thing to that too, because it forces you to build the skills that you have to have in order to work well with other people and interact with other people. And

 

totally.

 

so you get both, right? And then the last thing is, is it has to be genuine, right? It can't just be, hey, because networking events, you go and you don't really build any kind of relationship with people. And you really are aiming for that, right? You want to build a relationship where you can mutually be there for each other and help each other. And And yeah, I mean, 90% of the people that I have built relationships with, had conversations with, you know, if I run across them again, it's like, hey, we're friends, right? But that's kind of the extent of our interaction these days, right? But the other 10%, it's, oh, hey, you know, oh, you're running into this, well, let me help you with it, right? And then, you know, a year or two later, it comes back around and we run into each other and it's, oh, hey, well, you really saved my bacon a year or so ago. you out with something and it turns out that they can pull something out for me. And so that wasn't the basis of the relationship, but that's kind of what comes from it.

 

Well, these networking events, usually they have some kind of presentation aspect to them too, right? This is what I usually run into. These are just like, well, these are the things that I go to. There's like networking at the beginning, you have presentation and at the end, then you can have

 

Mm-hmm.

 

your chit chat, right? For those kind of events

 

Well, yeah.

 

that I usually go to, I try to actually do like a five minute spiel, because sometimes they'll say, okay, we need more content.

 

Hmm.

 

They start asking people. And

 

Yeah.

 

that's always a good time. Like even if you're, just present something, right? And then you'll find that people come up to you and say, hey, I like that you did. And that's a perfect way to also meet people too. It's similar.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

interest, right? Because they have something interested in your topic and then that's a good way to kind of get to know more people.

 

Yeah, and you've kind of led into the fourth thing that I tell people to do, and that's go find a meetup and go to it. And, you know, so I guess they're technically networking events, but usually the events where it's kind of an explicit, hey, I'm gonna say five things about me, and then the other eight people at my table are gonna say five things about them. You kind of have to build the relationship outside of that, right? It really is highly transactional, and that's not what we're after. But yeah, go to meetups, You know, I mean Alan's spot-on right if if you're if you're out there and This is gonna be editing nightmare for jib, I'm sorry But if you're out there and you're presenting even if you're presenting on something like hey, you know I'm new to elixir and so I'm gonna present on Tuples right and just just real simple, you know fundamental stuff Right it builds those skills A lot of times I've done presentations on fundamental stuff. I haven't done it in a while. Usually I'm presenting on more advanced stuff these days. But. Sorry guys. Um, but you know, if I'm presenting on something fundamental, a lot of times I'll have people come up afterward and say, I've been programming in this for 10 years and I didn't know that you could do that with strings or whatever. Right. And so you, you know, and then you get to start that conversation, right. And it's, it's such a terrific place to meet people. And so, yeah, then yeah, the networking part of it where you're actually chatting with people. Those are awesome. and you actually get to have a full-on conversation with people. You meet one or two people at the meetup and... And that may be the real payoff.

 

Yeah. I mean, maybe can you talk more about like how you usually do things these days? I mean, it must be, you must have gone through a lot of different iterations to finally got to where you are

 

Hmm

 

now, right? Like what is your kind of optimal flow at even at your kind of senior status?

 

Right. So most people I meet are through the podcast. By the way, that's the other one that I encourage people to do is put out some kind of content every week. And then I encourage people to go to a conference every year. Right. And even if it's like an online summit, um, you know, if that's all you can do, do that, but find the opportunities in that summit to go and connect with people virtually. Right. Because that's the real value in the, the conferences. If you can go in person, that's even better. Um, content kind of cements your reputation out there as far as what you know, but it also is a terrific way to connect with people. Right? I mean, you know, I invite people on the shows that I want to meet and people are way more open to that than they are to, hi, do you want to talk for five minutes on Zoom? And so that works out really, really well. So my optimal flow these days, a lot of it comes out of the podcasts. Ruby Meetup here in Utah. It's kind of been tough to get people to show up. There are a lot of people on the Meetup group on Meetup. And so, you know, I'm just kind of working with the people who have the keys of the kingdom there and then trying to organize events. And we probably have a half dozen or so people show up. But it's, you know, it just takes work and consistency in a lot of cases there, right? And then figuring out where and when you can actually get together with people. So yeah, and in a lot of cases there are places like universities or businesses or things like that where you can organize a lot of this stuff, right? So my other, yeah, that's part of my optimal flow is just going to a meetup every month and just trying to make that work. Just connecting it, right? And the nice thing about being, you know, an organizer or somebody that's kind of high up on the food chain with those is that everybody gets to know who you are, right? And so, you know, that way I have an opening. If I want to go meet somebody or talk to somebody, I have an opening, right? Because, you know, I say hi and they say, hey, this was great, right? This was a great meetup and then we can start talking. And so, you know, it really does open the gates and it doesn't have to be anything specifically, you know, special, right? You just get a couple of people to share a couple of, you know, kind of mini talks and then you, you know, let people mingle and it works out really well. So yeah, so going to the meetup every month, You know, having people on the podcast so that I can talk to them. You know, sometimes I'll find a topic that I want and then I'll go find somebody to come talk to us about it. And then, yeah, I'm consistently, I'm either reading, so right now our book club book is The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. We're going to do seven languages, seven weeks. And Bruce Tate's actually going to come to some of those. He's the author of the book, if you didn't connect those dots. So, you know, we're going to be talking about his book. We're going to do it over eight weeks so we can kind of do a kickoff and then, you know, seven languages in seven weeks. So I'm doing that. I'm always writing code on something, you know, whether it's for something I'm getting paid to work on or for top end devs. Right. So those are all part of my process, right? So I'll pick up an idea or a library or something. and I'll incorporate it into one of my side projects. But yeah, it all kind of works together that way. And so it's not like it's, hey, well, I'm reading books is my ultimate flow. I'll go watch videos or whatever, and then I'll add it to whatever I'm doing. I do this with the podcasting too, by the way. So I listen to other podcasts about podcasts. I have picked up a couple of books, almost as long as I've been programming. It's been like 15, 16 years. And I'm still constantly looking to learn and make connections and go to the conferences and things like that. So yeah, it's all part of that work. I reach out to conferences and see if they want me to come and do podcast interviews at the conference. And so I'm going to one in January or in June.

 

Well,

 

So, you know...

 

no, I'm curious about that one. How does that actually work? Because you know, I'm already in the podcasting scene because of you. Besides this podcast,

 

Yep.

 

right? And it's

 

Yeah.

 

funny because I had a podcast guest who was doing a conference and they asked me to come. I've never actually

 

Mm-hmm.

 

thought to reach out to them and actually asked to come on that part. Do you mind to talk about that for a second? Because I'm sure there's other podcasters out there

 

Right.

 

who are listening.

 

So the way that that's gone down. Um, so I'm, I'm going to be going to JS nation and react summit in June. Um, it's actually starts on May 31st, but it's that first week in June. It's in Amsterdam. Um, they're paying for my airfare and hotel and giving me a ticket to the conferences. And what we're doing is we're doing a couple of interviews leading into the kind of promoted, you know, hey, I'm going to be at the conference. I'm talking to this speaker from the conference, right? Hey, you want to tell us in 20 minutes what you're talking about at the conference. Um, and then, you know, do some interviews at the conference. Um, but yeah, I just sent him an email and said, Hey, you know, I host JavaScript Jabber, we get so many downloads per episode, um, you know, I'd love to come out and do some podcast interviews at your Now, I already have a track record with this, right? So I've also told them, you know, I've been to several of the Microsoft conferences where they arranged for me to talk to people who work for Microsoft. I did this at a SwampUP event with JFrog about their DevOps stuff. And you know, here are some examples of what we did. But I mean, people are pretty open. kind of background where you can say, hey, I've done this at a dozen or so other conferences. You can still get away with a lot just by... You could point to what I've done, right? If it's in a space that I'm not in and just say, hey, I talked to Chuck, he does this stuff, it looks pretty cool. Here's some examples of what he's done. I'd probably do something pretty similar, right? And

 

Okay.

 

yeah, just kind of see how it goes. But yeah, that's basically the outreach. And then, you know, it took them a little while to get back to me because the person I'm reaching out to works for Git Nation, which is the company that puts on these conferences, she had to go run it up the chain and get OKs. So there were like three weeks where I didn't even think that they were going to get back to me. And then,

 

here.

 

you know, they finally did. Microsoft was different because I already knew, um, rich Richard Campbell, Net Rocks podcast. He also does Run As Radio, which is another podcast. Both of those are in the Microsoft space. Anyway, he reached out because they were putting together podcasts, podcasting it. What was it? Microsoft Build? So, we went to that one. After that, it was You know, some of their big corporate events. We did a couple of interviews with some of those. Yeah, anyway. So that's kind of what gave me the idea in the first place.

 

Yeah, because like I said, I got invited. I was I was quite surprised because never really thought about doing that. And of course, it's great advertising

 

Mm-hmm.

 

for them because it's like, oh, you know,

 

Oh,

 

I

 

yeah.

 

didn't know about this pod or I didn't know about this event. Right. And also,

 

Yeah.

 

um, it's a great place to catch these guys sitting down somewhere because sometimes they're really hard to get a hold of because they get to put this

 

Yeah,

 

stuff

 

that's

 

ahead

 

very

 

of time.

 

true. Yep.

 

Yeah. And doing this stuff in person is much better than doing it remotely, which is what we've been doing for the last couple of years.

 

Yep. Yeah.

 

But bring all that gear with you is painful now.

 

Um, it's not bad. So I have a Zoom H6 and then I have a bunch of Shure SM58 microphones. And so it fits in the bottom of a backpack, everything I need. The Shure SM58, you can run off of battery. I have a plug for it and that's just a tiny power supply. So, I mean, the whole thing really doesn't take up that much space.

 

Okay. Yeah, I brought my roadcaster pro two with me to UK.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

It's a big, big beef machine, but it's because I bought have a bunch of XLR mics, you know, because of

 

Mm-hmm.

 

you, you know, I blame you Chuck, I bought a lot of crazy stuff, but at least my

 

Yeah.

 

audio sounds great. So that's that's the good thing.

 

Yeah, yeah, the Zoom H6 has four or six, it'll expand to six XLR plugs on it. And their plugs are kind of cool because it'll also do the quarter inch and the 3.5 millimeter plugs. You can plug any of those into their plugs. So yeah.

 

Yeah, it's not too bad.

 

Anyway, that went faster than I thought. Is there, do you guys have any other questions about any of this stuff or anything else you wanna talk to me about? I mean, I'm happy

 

I

 

to

 

think

 

go

 

I think

 

into whatever.

 

I have this kind of question, right? Like, let's say that you want to get a hold of somebody, you want to meet a specific person. But you don't want to be, I mean, I'll just be direct. You don't want to be a creeper where I kind of try to stalk them down and try to find their contact information. You know, how can you do something like, because it may be something that somebody who's like very specific in your field that you want to kind of get a hold of, like you see yourself as, okay, he came from a similar background as me, he's doing what I'm doing.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

I want to know his path, how can I meet this guy? How can I get in contact with them? Or even like, not even just how to get in contact with him, how can I approach them? It's probably maybe a better way to do it.

 

Right. So, I mean, when we're looking for podcast guests, we go the creeper route, right? We go find their email address. And some people are open to that and some people really aren't, right? Now, if I'm coming to them and saying, hey, do you want to come on this podcast and talk to a couple thousand people, they're okay with the creeper mode, right? It's like, oh, you found my email address good for you. Yes, I'd like to come, right? If I'm creeper-moding and then saying, hey, can you talk to me for 20 minutes on a Zoom You know. you know, not so much, right? If they're local, sometimes that's easier to do because then you can at least invite them to meet for lunch or something, right? So they, you know, it's time that they might take anyway and so people are more open to that. But without the creeper, what I try and do is I try and just pop up on their radar periodically. And so what I'll do is I'll actually go kind of stock them on social media, right? Because to the extent that you follow them on social media, right? That's pretty passive. They don't even know you're there. And so you can kind of get a feel for, okay, what are they interested in? What are they working on? What are they talking to people about? What are they speaking at conferences about? What are the books about? You know, all of those things. And then from there, then what you can do is you can actually start sharing their content, right? And so, because Twitter will let you know if somebody retweets your tweet or quotes your tweet, you know, it'll show up in your notifications. your name will pop up on their radar. If you reply to something on LinkedIn where they're not getting a thousand replies to their tweet, you're more likely to be noticed, right? And not necessarily that they're gonna reach out to you at that point and say, hey, I wanna connect, but your name will have showed up, right? And it'll show up in a few other places. And so, maybe you submit a PR to one of their GitHub repos, right? So you do these kinds of things It's not kind of an in your face, I'm trying to get your attention. You're adding value to their ecosystem. And then from there, the trick is, is yeah, eventually then you send them a message over whatever or you pull their email address off of GitHub, which is usually where we find people's email addresses. I'll just admit straight up. All right. You send them an email and you say, hey, I got your email address off of GitHub. of the stuff that you're putting out on social media. I even submitted a couple of PRs to your Git repos and you know, I think you're awesome and I'd love to just get to know you a little bit. You know, you know, can I, you know, do you have 10 minutes to talk to me? And at that point, it's not, it's not an ask out of the blue. It's a, hey, look, I've added I'd like to get to know you a little bit better." And you know, because then it's not creepy, it's not weird, it's not some stranger coming and saying, hey, I tracked down your contact info. And these days getting somebody's contact info off the internet is not terribly hard. But I mean, I haven't really tried to find physical addresses, so I don't know how hard those are to get. But like a phone number or email address is not hard. So, anyway, so that's kind of the approach that I would take. And then, yeah, just make it real easy. Hey, I'm free at this time, this time, and this time, and here's my phone number. Right. Or, hey, you know, I've reached out to a few other people and I set up this Calendly thing so that it's easy to set an appointment or, you know, whatever.

 

here.

 

And so you just keep it really low key. You know, don't, don't put a whole lot of high stakes on it, but yeah, if you keep showing up for them, eventually they're going to be willing to show up for you.

 

I think it's a good point like softly kind of get underneath our radar so that they've seen your name quite a few times. I think that's

 

Yep.

 

a good point. And also, uh, if you know people who know them, of course, I think that makes it easier,

 

Mm-hmm.

 

especially if they can give an introduction.

 

Yep.

 

I think no matter how

 

Well...

 

you look at this, all these individual steps, all sound kind of creepy. If you step back and take a look at them, there's no kind of easy way to

 

Well,

 

nicely get into somebody's life.

 

the way that people look at it as creepy is that... Like if you organically in the same way built a relationship with somebody, they would not, they would not think it's creepy because your ultimate goal was not to meet this person, right? Um, and so you're, you're deliberately doing things to get noticed. But I mean, the thing is, is that. I think the motives matter even more than just, you know, I want to meet them, right? So some people, I mean, it's, I want to meet them so I can pitch them my terrific idea and, and, you know, they're going to love me, right? That, that, that's getting way into the creepy realm, right? If it's just a, Hey, look, you know, I'd like to make contact. I feel like I have something to offer them, you know, or, you know, it'd be great to just talk to them for 10 minutes or whatever, you know, I don't think that's quite so creepy, right? on my podcast or I'd like to get them on my YouTube channel or I'd like to interview them for 10 minutes so I can write a blog post about it or something like that, right? That's a whole lot less creepy. Just because at the end of the day, right, you're building a relationship and you're offering them something. You know, yeah, doing it because you have completely and utterly selfish motives where you, and you have, you want something from them directly. And so you're doing it and you're going to be, you know, aggressive or disappointed if you don't get it. You know, that's where it becomes problematic. But yeah, I mean, I don't see anything wrong with going out of your way to try and get somebody's attention. If you feel like you have something to offer them. Just keep in mind though that yeah, if you're coming to them and honestly you think that you have something that they need to do or change or whatever. You know, I'm sorry, but that's going into a creepy realm, right? If you're coming to them and bringing them some other opportunity, that's a different thing. Right? And so... Because I've seen people do that, right? Where they want to be around somebody just because they're cool or famous or whatever. And it's weird. But I've also seen it where people come in and they really feel like they have something to offer and it works out. And so... I think that's really what the difference is. Are you doing it as much for their benefit as yours or not?

 

Well, I mean, if you like, if I give my example where I kind of wanted to know what is, what, you know, what was their path, that sounds very much

 

Mm-hmm.

 

a one sided street, you know, what would I

 

Yeah.

 

actually have to offer them?

 

Yeah, but see, the thing is, is if you've already been adding value, right? So you've been, uh, you know, sharing their stuff on social media, you put PRs in on the thing, right? Um, you can have that organic conversation with them if you can get them on the phone at that point and just say, you know, and you just let them know straight up, Hey, I really admire you. I've, I've been, uh, you know, contributing in these ways. Not that they owe you anything, but you know, then you can say, Hey, you about this part of your journey, do you have 10 minutes to talk through it? Right? And then they could tell you no. And then if you don't take no for an answer, that's creepy, right?

 

Yeah, I agree with what you're saying, Chuck, about adding value. But honestly, I feel like, I mean, especially if you're talking about Elixir community, I feel like people

 

Uh huh.

 

are very open to responding

 

People

 

even.

 

generally are.

 

Yeah, like I respond to, I get a good amount of emails every week, I would say, through podcast or whatever. I've been very open about wanting to help

 

..

 

people out, right? And I think a lot of people in the Elixir community

 

Alright.

 

are like that. There are some emails that people send me very inconsiderate, copy and paste their code or like link to the repo. Can

 

Right.

 

you review this? That's a little obviously inconsiderate. I'm not gonna review 2000 lines of code

 

Right.

 

for you, right? But like if it's like a quick email, if people are very concerned about like not writing three or four paragraphs, a quick email, and generally they're padding, hey, nice to meet you. Really appreciate your time reading the email and end it by saying, it's totally fine. Understand you're busy. If you don't have time for that, that's totally fine. I think even a stranger, we respond to obviously, as you go in different communities, if you like message, I don't know, some crazy engineer

 

Mm-hmm.

 

who gets like thousands of emails a week, you won't get a response,

 

Right.

 

but the Elixir community isn't quite there yet. So I'm not sure who you want to get in touch with, Alan, if they're like crazy famous. Yeah, you might wanna chucks around as better, definitely get

 

Yeah.

 

showing up more

 

Yeah.

 

often, but if they're not like, you know, I mean, Joseph, well, he responds to my emails. Like he's responded to a couple of my emails, I

 

Yeah.

 

think before even he knew who I was. So if Josie is responding, I'm assuming most of the lexicon will be good.

 

I

 

I

 

think

 

mean, it

 

you're

 

doesn't have

 

generally

 

to be just,

 

right.

 

yeah, it doesn't have to be just Alexa community. I'm just thinking like in general, I mean, there's always,

 

Yeah.

 

you know, YouTubers or people you think are doing really interesting things. And even people at Microsoft were doing some like, you know, the AI stuff happening.

 

right.

 

You may want to reach out to some of these guys and just want to know more about whatever it is that they're working on, et cetera. I mean, it's really an open thing. It's not really just about other people in general. I

 

Yeah.

 

mean, in most tech communities that are smaller, I think they're really easy to get to.

 

Gotcha.

 

Some of the more famous people in React JavaScript line, I think, are

 

Yeah,

 

much

 

they

 

more

 

getting

 

relatively

 

hit all

 

popular.

 

the time.

 

Yeah, so, you know, how do you reach through that kind of... There's a lot

 

Yeah.

 

more gates you have to get through, right?

 

Yeah, and even those folks, right? I mean, I've talked to quite a number of them. I mean, even those folks that are really, really well known in the larger communities, you're not doing any of this stuff because they don't want to get back to you. You're doing it so that when your email pops up in their inbox, they go, they recognize your name and go, oh, I think I know this person, right? Or do I know this, how do I know this person? And so they'll open it, right?

 

or they'll see

 

open

 

this

 

to

 

your

 

helping

 

name and

 

people.

 

say, Oh God, not this guy again.

 

Well, yeah, you don't want to go that far. But usually you get to that point by saying, hey, can you do this for me? Hey, can you do this for me? Hey, can you do this for me? Hey, can you do this for me? Hey, you're doing this wrong. And so, you know, at that point, they just feel like they're being hounded by you instead of, oh, where have I seen this name before? Right. And so they go look and it's, you know, they see the email notifications from GitHub and from Twitter and they're like, they're oh, okay, this guy's been, you know, he's been following my stuff and responding to my stuff. I'll talk to him for 10 minutes, you know, or I'll open the email and see what he wants, right? Because they have a favorable feel for who you are, right? As opposed to the person where the email just comes in cold and they don't have any frame of reference whatsoever, they're just gonna skim by. And so you wanna give them that pattern interrupt where it's like, oh, I think I know this person. Because I do that on my email sometimes, right? You know, I'm in a hurry. I wanna make sure there's nothing important in my inbox. Right, and so I'll open it up and then I'll be like, okay, you know, this one looks important. And it looks important because there's something about it that's familiar, right? You know, either in the subject line or the person who sent it, you know, where I'm going, oh, this is somebody or something I need to respond to and so I'll open it. And yeah, so if you can get people on that level to open your email and, you know, respond to you that way. But yeah, I mean, You know, the Ruby community's been that way for a long time. The Elixir community's been that way for a long time. Some of the communities within the JavaScript community are that way. You know, I've emailed some people that I thought were huge names in the programming space, right? They're kind of above the language communities, you know, something like Bob Martin or Kent Beck or somebody. And Kent Beck's a bad example because I met him through somebody else. But you know Bob Martin or you know Martin Fowler or some of these other guys right who have written books that kind of Transcend the communities and even they have gotten back to me without really knowing who I was Right and so that there a lot of them are really open to helping people and and that really was a good point to bring up But yeah, some of them get so much stuff that yeah, you kind of have to break through the barrier and get their attention first

 

I think John Sama is sending some meats and cheeses to Bob Martin or something. They get

 

Hahaha, yeah.

 

an acknowledgement in his book if you remember that.

 

Yeah, he did that. So he found out that he was trying to get Bob to write the forward to his book

 

Thank you.

 

and figured out that Bob's birthday was like the next weekend. And so, yeah, he sent it over and he'd emailed Bob like three or four times. And Bob's a busy guy. And so, you know, send him that stuff. But Bob had a look at it and from what I understand, it was still kind of serendipitous because Bob was still going to tell him no because he didn't have time. And then he wound up on an airplane and happened to have taken the manuscript on his computer. And so he looked through it. So, yeah.

 

So even a nice birthday gift may not guarantee a reply, or guarantee

 

Yeah,

 

you get what

 

because

 

you want.

 

people have lives and they're busy, right? And so, yeah, if it doesn't go the way you want, I mean, it's okay to be disappointed, but yeah, it's not unreasonable for somebody to just not be able to do it.

 

here. That's a good question. I mean, Audi, you said you get content to quite a lot. Have you ever had to, you know, deny some of these requests or?

 

I mean, I haven't had like a creepy kind of a contact yet. I think like Leah

 

Right?

 

looks like a pretty good. But I think I would say like about 20% of emails I get are, I think there's a few, I don't wanna, there's a few in particular that I even remember the names. I think they, it's very, you know, out there like, hey, do this for me. And it's a pretty huge favorite. It'll take like a few hours of my time.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

And it just, I just don't have that time. And I also don't appreciate that it's very, very entitled at least. I think there might be a language barrier. And

 

Mm-hmm.

 

for some people, I can understand that. But I think it's just hard psychologically, you know, cross that bridge to spend two or three hours for a person you don't know who hasn't presented their case really well for you

 

Right.

 

to help them, you know. So like, like, I literally, someone asked me to review their production apps pull request. It's

 

Oh

 

pretty

 

wow.

 

complicated background job

 

Mm-hmm.

 

stuff. And we actually had a few weeks ago, we had a talk about, oh, I'm sorry, I band, right? So it was actually a follow-up of that. And yeah, I'm very open about people reaching out to me and I'll help, but I mentor people actively too, but there are pretty strong limits to my time.

 

Yeah, one thing that I've found there too though, is that a lot of times, especially if they're newer or just haven't made that kind of request or they haven't done that kind of a review before, they don't realize they're asking for two or three hours. They think that, oh, Adi is an expert, I heard him on the podcast, he can look at it in five minutes. And yeah, so sometimes my reply is, I don't know if you realize this, but what you're asking me to do is going to take three hours that I don't have. You know, and so I wish I could, but I can't. And yeah, cause I've gotten those and you know, it's like, you know, sometimes I'll, uh, I'll refer them to like, uh, mentor crews or code mentor or something and say, Hey, you know, if, if you have the money, you know, you can probably hire somebody to walk through the code with you.

 

Yeah, it's nice to hear the opposite side because usually a lot of listeners at home are probably on the side where they would like to have some help or whatever. And they're not on the side where they're actually getting requests for help. So it's good to hear the other side.

 

Yeah, well, and it's easy to be kind to people, even if you're telling them no.

 

Totally. I guess this kind of like branch off of like, you know, meeting people and the company that you keep, right? So I'm gonna like go on a different side like it's So I totally agree. It's very important to like, you know surround yourself with like excellent people

 

Mm-hmm.

 

and meet more people So, you know, excellence induces really fast But what induces faster is laziness and one thing I really try to do and it sounds so bad is like cut out people who are you know impacting. I mean

 

Mm-hmm.

 

sometimes just my career even if my personal life is not significantly negatively impacted by that but that's because my professional personal life it's like so tied together right now and if someone's like really negatively influencing me and if I have evaluated that oh this person is doing that I don't like cut them out completely but I decreased my interaction and I know it's a little bit of a controversial subject I would love to get your thoughts on that Chuck like what do you think about that?

 

I don't think it's controversial. To a certain degree, I actively go and try and find people who are moving the same direction in the same kinds of things that I am. That way, if they encounter something that I haven't, then they have better ideas. This is another benefit of meeting new people, is that they may have some perspective on because you keep running into them or you keep meeting up with them. They may have some perspective on something that you just wouldn't have gotten anywhere else. And so just to give an example, so top end devs, what we're looking at doing is I'm going to start putting together online meetups and I'm going to be starting to put together. And this was an idea that came out of one of the guys in the book club, right? We were talking and he's like, hey, I bet you could get more people to sign up if you were putting on the meetups. that I wanted to do anyway. And so, you know, yeah, great. But the other thing is, is I put together kind of a tiny mastermind group with two other guys who are building courses, right? And trying to sell courses. Cause that's another thing we're trying to put out. I'm looking to more put out something kind of, kind of like what Railscast used to be, where you get videos every week, right? And so that learning something new every day, it's like, hey, come, we got two of your days covered, right? But, Yeah, so just talking to them, right, and filling my time with those people, what I find is that the negative people, I tend to not have to deliberately cut them out. I just fill my time with other stuff. Occasionally, somebody will continue to push their way in. Usually, that's in my personal life and not in my work life. And so, you know, I can just kind of, you know, I can work through that. But yeah. If it's not helping you get where you want to go, then yeah, it's not a bad thing. Yeah, I get that sometimes relationships are hard, sometimes families are hard, sometimes people are hard. And I go to church every week and there are people at church that sometimes get under my skin, but I still go to church because I believe it. Right. And so there are going to be some things that you just have to do and you kind of have to figure out the best way to deal with it, right? them out. But yeah, to the extent that you can surround yourself with people that give you momentum, that is so powerful. Right? And then if there are people that sap your momentum, then yeah, find ways to contain that so that you can be aware in what and who you want to be.

 

Yeah, totally, totally. And also, I think on top of it, the people who are giving him momentum, I think also, like, and it's a tough one, I think creating a culture around those people who you professionally engage with, where

 

Mm-hmm.

 

they can give you feedback, right? Like,

 

Yeah.

 

where you don't have to think about what you can do better.

 

That's the mastermind

 

Others do it for

 

principle.

 

you. Yeah. Yep.

 

Yeah, I can give you an example of that. So last week, no, it wasn't even last week, it was two days ago. Boy, it's been a long week. So Tuesday is when we meet, me and these two other guys. And anyway, so we got on our call. One of them couldn't make it because he had something going on with his daughter. And so the other guy gets on and we start talking. talking about, I'm trying to do this and this and this and this and this. I had like 10 zillion things I was trying to do. I'm trying to put this together. What we've been talking about with, hey, how do I get unstuck? How do I maintain momentum or build momentum in my career? I was like, well, it seems like the way I would explain this to a junior developer is different from the way I would explain it to a senior developer. We kind of talked about that at the beginning of the show. put content out there for the juniors and I also want to put content out there for the seniors, right? Which makes sense. And so he just looks at me and he says, well, who's coming to you for help? Right? And, you know, I know these answers, right? And it's funny because I've actually coached other people and given them these answers, right? And I'm like, well, it's like 90% the junior developers, right? Are looking for an answer to this problem. he's like, he's like, well then why don't you just focus on the people you can really help, right? The people who more frequently have this problem and, you know, give them a product that solves the problem that is something that they can and will willingly pay that amount for instead of trying to create all of these levels of things so that you can, you know, capture more whatever from the senior developers. And I was like, you know, that makes a lot of sense, right? won't work for senior developers and it's not even that I'm going to be deliberately gearing not gearing it toward the senior developers but if I speak to the issues that the junior developers have then I can build trust with them then I can help more people right is ultimately what it boils down to and so but but this was all insight that he gave me you know as we were talking for an hour right and it's interesting because his his is the people who are transitioning into becoming programmers in the first place. So he's hitting people like brand new baby developers, right, who don't even have their first job. You know, and so I'm hitting people who have been in their first or second job for a year or so and are kind of going, I don't know how to make this move from here. And so, you know, and so just narrowing that focus, right, was like, oh, that simplifies, you know, what I talk about on the podcast. newsletter simplifies what I talk to people about when I get on a call with them. I'm totally willing to help the senior developers and I'm going to help them in a lot of the same ways, but that's not going to be my primary focus because then I can put that message out there and say, hey, look, I understand you. I understand where you're at. I understand where you're going. I understand what your frustrations are. So I can solve those issues. It's more of a marketing thing that I'm talking about, but just having those people in that group. The meetups in a lot of ways have served that for in the tech space where I'm struggling with something or trying to figure out how to do something. I'll show up to the meetup and they'll have talks about stuff that has nothing to do with this stuff. Then afterward, I'll go and I'll talk to somebody who I think might have the answer. I'll get the same kind of feedback. So it's like, hey, we use this library and we solved this problem with this, right? It's like, okay. this way. Oh, well, it has a plug-in that does that. Or, oh, well, then you need this other library that does it different. And so, yeah, a lot of that just comes out of having those groups. But it's the mastermind principle if you've read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. He talks about how… And it's funny because that's the principle that people pull out of it, but there's so much more in that book. But that's the idea, right? and mine will on its own. And

 

totally.

 

yeah, and so that goes back to meeting somebody new every week because in a lot of cases, that's what's gonna happen, right? So you build it up, the next time you'll be the person that somebody comes to, right? Or you'll be the person that helped you refer somebody to, right, or something like that. So anyway, it really does make a difference. And so yeah, just surrounding yourself by the people not just tell you, not just be the positive influence, hey, what you're doing makes sense and you're doing a good job, but are also gonna go, hey, look, you know, this is where your pain is, right? You're telling me about the pain and you've got this thing that's causing you the pain. And so, you know, let me point it out, right? Oh, that's unpleasant. You know, you're telling me I did it wrong and that's why it hurts, right? But you need that too. Cough cough

 

Totally. I guess I had like one more thing. And Alan, I think mentioned this at the very beginning about like soft skills too. And I

 

Mm-hmm.

 

guess it's kind of related to people, but like the more people interact with the better you get at it. But how those soft skills of interacting with people and talking to people and like being used to making friends helps you develop social equity at work. And that plays a huge effect

 

Hmm

 

because, you know, if you're a liked person by the management, you're a lot more likely, even if, you know, even if say two people are asking for the same opportunity if someone is more liked, others will be more implicitly biased towards

 

Mm-hmm.

 

that person and we'll find reasons to give that person the opportunity, even, you know, I mean, subconsciously,

 

Right.

 

right? And I think that creating that, you know, like developing that social skill, talking to all these people, and can also help you come back to work. and like win people over on your side and

 

Yep.

 

make you be a likable person who people can, you know, feel

 

Yep.

 

comfortable around and give you more opportunities and stuff. So, yeah.

 

Yeah, there's a really good book about this. It's called The 360 Degree Leader by John Maxwell. And it's kind of geared toward middle management, but I think it's terrific book for just about anybody. So what he talks about is, and it's leadership, right? It's not management. And so what he puts forward is that in order for you to be a leader in your organization, you not only have to manage the people below you, but you have to and you have to manage laterally. And so, when I say manage, what I mean is communicate. And so, he talks about all of the ways that you can communicate and facilitate and take the lead on things with people who are above you in the organization, with people who work on the same level as you, right? So, other team leads or just other developers, and then people who work for you, work under you, right? So, if you are the team lead. And even if you don't have under you, right? The principles still apply, right? Here's how I make sure I communicate to the people who are on kind of the same level as me, you know, or who are stakeholders on other teams that work on whatever I'm working on, right? That are all kind of lateral, you know, they're all kind of on the same level as you. And then here's how I communicate and, you know, and manage my relationship with people who are above me. And that could be your boss, but it on the other teams of the people that you have to deal with or, you know, people above your boss or, you know, people in other organizations that come in and are part of the process. And so anyway, it's a terrific book and it just talks about how to, because in so many cases getting done what needs to get done. I mean, a lot of times we as programmers think that we can just sit down and just do it ourselves, but most of the time these days you can't. So, what you wind up needing to do then is you need to effectively lead the process or lead the people so that the right things are getting done at the right time in the right order. And I'm not talking project management. I'm just talking about making sure that all of the communication that has to happen does happen so the outcome can be achieved. And that really is leadership. be the person whose name is on the project as kind of the person in charge of it, but you really can have a major impact in the way that you facilitate those kinds of things. And I would put forward that those people that can do that kind of work are infinitely more valuable than the people who just show up and stamp out code every day.

 

This looks like a great book, I just bought it on Amazon. It looks awesome. I'm going to go back to the book.

 

It is so good, so good. We should do that one for a book club, maybe in like November or something. I guess I took the lead on this one, so maybe I should push us toward picks.

 

Yeah.

 

Um, now on the other shows, one thing that we added was we added a segment where people can do self promo. So I'm going to do that real quick. Um, we'll start with Alan. Alan, what are you working on that people should know about? And how do people hire you?

 

Wow. What am I working on? Um, yeah, recently I just finished up this, uh, trading system for, well, we're in the process of finishing it up where we're, they basically want to ditch Bloomberg because it's super expensive. And, uh, they're using this other vendor who's not very good. I don't want to name shame them, but they should be ashamed

 

Ha

 

to

 

ha

 

be

 

ha

 

honest.

 

ha!

 

They should be shamed also, but I'll try to be nice. Um, yeah, but anyways, it's pretty cool. We're actually building on flutter and we have the backend written in a Back end to use quick. We have error tolerance, which of course we need to have with this vendor. So it works out quite nicely and Yeah, I mean basically takes all the boxes, which is what they want fast efficient and easy to stand up So, yeah, I mean if you're interested in kind of Taking a look to see if elixir or flutter or anything else even rust we're pregnant some rust to it make a little bit faster Go ahead and reach out to to to me Feel free to at me at Alan Waima on Twitter or look at my company, Plangora.com. P-L-A-A-N-G-O-R-A.com.

 

Awesome. Do they have a name for that stack yet? Flood Xer or I don't

 

You

 

know.

 

know what that I did? Thanks for putting it in my mind. Now I got to come up with something. So that's my Easter project now.

 

There you go. All right, Adi, what are you working on that people should know about?

 

So my book that I've been working on for a little over two years is finally done It will be

 

Woo!

 

out Yeah, it's super exciting. It

 

Books

 

was

 

are a ton of work.

 

Yeah, you told me that the first episode I was here and you were like, oh, it's gonna be hell. You were not lying It was crazy especially working in the in a startup for you know, you're

 

Mm-hmm.

 

in the half while writing the book but Yeah, the publishers I work with were awesome. They were super supportive They let me build an app to write the book in which is just awesome, because I wanted all the code snippets to be tested

 

Mm-hmm.

 

with all the elixir version and stuff, so they allowed me to write that before writing the book. But

 

nice.

 

yeah, the official publication date is May 9th, but I think the pre-order should become order in a couple of weeks on Amazon. I'll post the link in the show notes.

 

Awesome, what's the title of the book?

 

All right, my bad. It's called build your own web framework in Elixir. It basically teaches you how to build Phoenix, how to build a small version of Cowboy, plugs, all that, and then wrap them into a metaprogramming interface. So it will feel a lot easier for you to dig into Phoenix's code base. And that was a whole theme with this. Like Chucky was saying, a lot of people

 

Mm-hmm.

 

feel stagnant that early senior engineers, this kind of a book that shows how the magic around Phoenix works will help them bridge

 

Mm-hmm.

 

that gap from early senior to late senior.

 

Right? Awesome. So for me, what I'm working on, I am actually working pretty heavily to just update top end devs. My contract kind of took over my life for a year and a half. So yeah, I've had a few weeks to kind of get back on it. You'll also see I have a green screen behind me if you're watching the video. And if not, I have a green screen behind me. that will just manage what shows up on the green screen. But I'm gonna be doing quite a bit of content creation within Top End Devs. So if you wanna sign up for a membership, you'll get access to the book club, and then you'll also get access to the series that we're putting out. I'm planning on putting out a series on tooling. So we'll get into like Git, VS Code, and whatever else. I'm also putting out a series on probably Ruby and Rails just because I can probably do that one in my sleep. And then I'm going to be doing one on game dev. And as far as meetups go, if you've been interested in writing a game, and I guess this will be kind of the big thing that I plug, is, so my 17 year old wants to be a game dev when he grows up. And, so yeah, so I was like, hey, I'll learn how to build video games with Unity. And my friend Jason actually has a course on how to build had hundreds and hundreds of people take it. And so I talked to him about it, and I was like, it'd be fun to have kind of a meet-up about this, where people who are going through the course with me could join in. So if you're interested in building games in Unity, go to topendevs.com slash gamedev. That'll take you to a link to his course. And so then if you buy the course, use the code JavaScript5. That was the code he gave me. script show, but whatever. That'll get you 20% off. And then if you buy the course, then you can just come to the meetups and we'll just talk about it. The meetups will be free. And so yeah, just let me know you bought the course and I'll tell you how to access them. I'm going to start up next week as we speak. But yeah, it's going to be me and my 17 year old and whoever else shows up. And yeah, it'll be fun. So that's another area I'm getting into. machine learning and a couple of other kind of up-and-coming areas where I feel like people who are trying to find the next stage of their career it may not be in the technology you're working in or it may be by pulling in some of these up-and-coming technologies into technologies that you're working in and so I'm looking to facilitate a lot of that. If you want to do a course or a series with us I'd love to hear from you on that too. picks. Alan, what are your picks?

 

Yeah, so let's have one pick. I just finished a video game that I went crazy about. Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War. Have you guys played that one?

 

I've heard of it.

 

Yeah, I've been watching videos about it on YouTube. It finally came out on Steam. I bought it, completed in just a couple days. Super awesome story. Looks great. Yeah, I love it. So if you guys are interested in good story and Call of Duty, I highly recommend that game.

 

Nice. How about you, Audie?

 

I got a couple of picks today. One is, since we talked about all of books, one book that really helped me is called Detox Your Ego. It's a very small one. Probably will take like five, six hours to read. But I think what I noticed was, if you have a lot, people have a lot of hobbies and tend to be kind of good at a lot of things, they are more susceptible to that Dunning Kruger's effect. Like, you know, thinking that something is easier more susceptible to developing an ego. Because

 

Mm-hmm.

 

you have a lot of hobbies, you generally feel like you get a lot of things. But I think this book specifically pointed a few perspectives that really helped me manage that Delling Kruger's effect. I think I'm very susceptible to that. And

 

Ha ha ha ha.

 

it actually even allowed me to see that I am, which I wasn't aware about myself. So it made a huge difference in my life. So highly recommended this book. My video game pick is Sekiro. I just thought I'll replay it. It's been a while since it came out. And I finished that game, I think last time I played it was 2018, and I finished without dying even once. And I realized

 

Mm-hmm.

 

today, or last week, that I've become a terrible video gamer. Because

 

Ha ha ha

 

I just kept dying. A game that I used to think was hard, but not super hard. to play. So anyway, it's challenging for me, but it's actually also remind me how good a game it was when it came out. Even today, it holds really well. Right. Yeah. Oh, sorry, maybe like 2019 is when it came out. Yeah. But, but either way, if you guys haven't tried it, it's, I think available for like 20 bucks on PlayStation Plus. It used to be 50. So I would highly recommend it.

 

Nice. So my game obsessions are a little bit more mundane. And I always pick a board game on the shows that I'm on. So I'm gonna pick a couple just cause they're fun. And I think people, I don't know, if you're into board games, you'll benefit. The first one I'm gonna pick is kind of a heavy game as far as like gameplay and mechanics and stuff like that. It took me and my friends, I think both times we played, it took us like two and a half, three hours to play it. It's called Arc Nova. Effectively, what you're doing is you're building a zoo. You build zoo points. I can't remember exactly what they're called, but you get points for the prestige of your zoo. On the other end, you're building conservation projects. You get conservation points going the other way on the board. When your two pieces meet in the middle of the board, as soon as somebody does that, the game's over. and then whatever the distance is between your two pieces, that's your score. And so whoever has the widest spread on their pieces after they've crossed is the winner. And so if you're the first person to meet, you have a better chance of winning because you know, anyway, you're connecting, you know, you get further around, but that doesn't mean you win. And it's fun, the art on the cards, awesome, the game mechanics, we had to play it twice before we figured out what we were playing wrong on it, but it was still fun even when we got some of the game mechanics not quite right. And like I said, it's kind of a hefty game. Board Game Geek ranks it, so it's one to four players. I think we played it with three and four and that was fun. just to give you a little bit of context. Kind of the casual games that are just a little bit complex, right, kind of the adult level games, those are like a two. Okay, and this one's almost a four. So it's pretty involved, but way, way fun, way, way fun. So I'm gonna pick Arc Nova, and then the other one I'm gonna pick is Dice Forge. And we have one of the expansions for Dice Forge, and so we've played with that one as well. The thing is, with Dice Forge, you can actually swap the faces on the dice. So you have two dice that you roll, and then you can buy different dice faces, and you swap off faces on your dice, and then you roll them to get more. There are three different kinds of currency. There's gold, and then there are two others. And then, yeah, you're buying cards. And the cards allow you to do different things, and they also count for points. And so you're basically building that up as you go. The expansions add some other features to it. But yeah, it's a fun game. You play it in about an hour. It's a two to four player game. It's simple enough to where my kids could play it. This one's got a board game weight of 1.96 out of five. If you're a casual gamer that kind of like, it's like, hey, I have to read the manual once and kind of pick up the game. That's this game. And it's really fun. So anyway, I'm going to pick both of those. And then, yeah, I'm just going to also just shout out again about seven languages in seven weeks. And so you'll probably hear a bonus episode from Bruce next week or the week after because I'm interviewing him as a preview for the book club. So anyway.

 

Yeah, I want to plus one that book, man. That book was the inflection point in my engineering career. I read that in a week, seven languages

 

Mm-hmm.

 

in a week. Basically it was doing Haskell and Prolog, especially out of that

 

Cough.

 

was

 

Cough.

 

amazing. Yeah, highly recommend that book. It's amazing.

 

Yeah, well, I've talked to Bruce a bunch of times because he used to be a host on this show. And I thought that Elixir was gonna be one of the languages, but it's not. Airlang is, but Elixir isn't.

 

I think Seven More has Alexa, Seven More languages in seven weeks. It has Alexa, Ellen.

 

Oh, interesting. I didn't know there was seven more languages in seven weeks.

 

Oh, yeah.

 

Cool. All right, well, that's all I've got. So I'll go ahead and wrap this up. Till next time, folks, Max out.