Hi, everyone. My name is Patrick Akil and
welcome to Q&A #7. Today is the 29th of December
and when you hear this, it might be when it releases 3rd of
January or it might be in the far, far future.
But in any case, it's no longer 2023, it's 2024.
I got my phone again with my questions, which you sent me.
Thank you so much for that and we'll get to answering these.
Let's go beyond coding. OK Are you ready?
Yeah, I think so. Cool.
All right. What new hobby would you like to
try for 2024? Actually, I'm going to start
with all the future things, all the 2024 things.
So those are going to be at the start.
So what new hobby would you like to try for 2024?
New hobby? I haven't really given this a
thought, but I would always. I always wanted to be able to
play an instrument piano and specifically.
So maybe I'll start with that. I've gotten more and more into
bouldering and recently through the company actually I got a
fitness subscription so I've been starting to go back to the
gym and yeah I already messed up my neck so I have to be more
careful. Usually I don't wait until a new
year starts to play around with hobbies, I just try them out.
I'm going to go remote working, most likely in March and mid of
April in Sri Lanka, in Sri Lanka next to a Co working space.
There's a lot of surfing and yoga going on.
I've never done yoga. I have done surfing and it's
really, really cool. So I might really get into that
knowing myself and being in that environment.
So that's going to be a lot of fun.
There's also this like paddle boarding, which I really enjoy
doing in Amsterdam in the summer, and you can do yoga on a
paddle board, so I might try that out.
Those are more so things to try out.
Not really hobbies, but we'll see what springs out and becomes
a hobby. What tech trends are you
anticipating for 2024? This is a hard one because I'm
not really like on top of the game when it comes to what is
trending. I guess I recently saw Like a
Webinar when it comes to and I always forget the name Web
Assembly. Web Assembly was very much known
for, for example, running Photoshop in your browser, a
certain technology which allows you to do program in any
language and then run it very small in both the front end as
well as the back end. And more.
So people are leveraging that technology specifically within
Docker, even on the back end side.
So you get faster start up times, for example, less
latency, but I guess latency has already reduced to a point where
it's really specific scenarios where you need even lower
latency. But that's the technology I'm
I'm keeping my eyes on because I think it's interesting.
Other than that, I mean, this whole year of 2023 has really
been booming with AI technology. I think 2024 is going to
continue that. The only problem I see that 2023
hasn't really solved is the accessibility part.
So how does it? How does it increase its user
base? It's through accessibility.
I need to be able to pick up my phone, be able to ask a question
and then get the answer. Now I have to specifically go to
chat GB. TI don't even know the website
ai.com. Basically they're calling that
domain, log in, type my stuff, and then get the answer as soon
as it gets more accessible. If I could say, hey Google and
my Google Home, ask a question, get like a legitimate answer
that's not just based on a Google search, it'll become more
accessible and I think then adoption will start to happen.
I think people are starting to work on it, but the fact that I
have to go to websites specifically, be able to log in,
have a specific account which is paid to get the latest models,
that's a hurdle I think, to most general population.
And since I'm in tech, I have all of that, but not everyone
does. So as soon as AI gets more and
more accessible, if I just have it at the fingertips, which I
already have a lot of, if I even have more, we'll see a lot of
cool stuff happening. So I'm looking forward to apps
actually adopting it and making it easier for people.
Maybe that's my final answer. Other than that, no.
I think a lot of Productivity Tools are gonna come out
specifically for software engineers.
When it comes to creating software, leveraging AI Copilot
is a big one, and I'm gonna, I feel like more and more tools
will align with that and will allow developers to be more
effective in whatever they have to create.
So yeah, those are my thoughts. And future stuff is hard.
You should get a crystal bowl. I should get a crystal bowl.
Yeah, I just got this new bottle for Christmas.
That's one of my favourite gifts.
I'm a simple man. Give me a water bottle and I'll
be happy. How do you see the future of
yourself, future of software and the future of IT companies and
is it worth to be in this field? I'll answer the second question,
the last question. Basically I think it is worth to
be in this field, otherwise maybe I wouldn't be in this
field. I think it's hard for me to say
because I'm very much biased and I'm very much in this field.
I think it is worth though I think it is not easy.
I think a lot of people can transition to it and it's going
to take time and dedication. I think there are a lot of
factors and a lot of roles that people need to play within this
field and a lot of them have a technology focus, but a lot of
them also have a people related focus because this is all
working with people trying to figure out what people want and
then create that in a piece of software and the creating that
in a piece of software gets more and more easy.
So then we leverage or people can leverage figuring out what
people actually want or how to work together and get this done
or how to get it done faster or cheaper.
There's a lot of ways to optimise for that.
So in that way, I think the IT field of the software related
fields are very, very broad and I think it is worth to be in
this field because the world is digitalising, it has been
digitalising. It's going to digitalise more,
it's going to leverage AI more and more even.
So I think it is worth to be in this field.
When it comes to organisations, it's very hard to say because I
I had a previous conversation with Bondon, for example, and he
said I don't know exactly the statistics, but 20 to 30 years
ago we had a Fortune 500 list of companies and only 10% of those
remain nowadays. Which means that wait, I it was
either 10% or 2%. But I'm going to go 2% for the
sake of my argument because that's even less if 2% of the
companies remain. That means that all the other
companies either died off or got merged or got acquired and then
died off. Which means that IT industry or
IT related companies, companies that have a digital component
needs to need to be able to adopt to the ever evolving
outside world outside of their organization.
If they cannot adopt and adapt and pivot and be agile, then
they might actually be legacy and die off in that way.
So I think for the future of companies that have a digital
component, they need to be as agile as possible, not just
pivot Willy nilly I guess, but really have a data component to
it, a research component to it, and then actually be able to
pivot in that way as well. I think that's the only way to
stay on top of the game, maybe even ahead of the game, but
definitely not fall off the game, which is what a lot of
companies need to be able to prevent.
So yeah, I hope that answers it, otherwise let me know and I'll
continue. I I missed a small component
actually when it comes to the future of myself, yeah, don't
really think about the future that much.
I think, and this was really hard for me, I think now one
year ahead. So when I came out of my
educational journey, I only thought months ahead.
Half a year was already really hard.
Now I've gotten to a maybe a point of age, maybe a point of
experience that I can think one year ahead and for one year
ahead, hopefully if nothing changes, I would love to be able
to do this podcast for another year, continue with that, really
enjoy that, learn through that, educate myself through that and
others hopefully make impact in that way.
And when it comes to the far, far ahead future, I have no
clue. I want to travel the world.
I want to experience as much as I can.
I think having outside point of points of views really helps and
gains like a grounded perspective which I can leverage
then in whatever I do, whether that's working with people,
whether that's creating software, whether that's
podcasting or anything beyond. I think the future is very, very
much open and I'd love to try things out.
So hopefully be able to try as many things out as I want.
And I'm I've just really been enjoying this last year, so I I
look very much forward to the coming period as well.
Is there a demand on the.net framework in the Netherlands?
If so, is it going to persist in the future the.net Framework?
I'm not as much into the.net space as maybe other developers
are. We have a specific Microsoft
part of the department and I am not part of that part of the
company. When it comes to dot Net
specifically, I can't give you any specifics, but you could
basically crossout.net for any other technology and I would
probably give the same answer. On LinkedIn you can find people
that are specific types of engineers.
You can find a Golang engineer, Kotlin engineer.net engineer.
So finding those people and seeing what companies they work
for, whether that's based in the Netherlands or based in any
other company, any other country rather, will give you an idea of
what types of companies are hiring or have hired for which
types of roles. That's technology wise.
So then you have, for example, maybe a large list or maybe a
small list depending on your region, depending on your
country. Now a lot of JVM technologies
are very much establishediwouldput.net and
thewhole.net ecosystem, Microsoft ecosystem when it
comes to software engineering, all under there as well.
It's an established technology just by the virtue of having
been established. I don't think it's going
anywhere, but when you for example land a.net related job
and you're a.net engineer or any type of engineer, rather
technologies will evolve. So then at some point you'll
come to a point where you can either keep doing what you're
doing, let's say thats.net or try out a new technology.
And from my point of view, with my experience, I would say
always try out at least maybe in your personal time maybe on the
job the new technology, because that gives you again an outside
perspective that makes you consider what you really like
about whatever ecosystem you're working or what you don't like
about whatever ecosystem you're working in.
But in that case, it gives you perspective and you can make
decisions based off that. When that new technology is
better for whatever problem you're trying to solve, you need
to be able to leverage that. Because if you don't leverage
that within the organization, other organisations might, and
in that way you they outpace you or the technology you use might
be outdated or might get outdated.
Now, established technologies don't really, really die, like
there's cobo engineers still very, very much being prevalent
in certain organizations and certain environments.
Because once software goes live, it needs to be able to be
maintained and it needs to really have a business case for
it to be phased out and to get replaced by a different
technology that does the same thing but better.
So in that way, I think certain technologies never really die in
a fast way. Let's say there will always be
years and years before transit before technology really
transitions and gets phased out completely.
So in that way I would say startwith.net, start with
whatever excites you. Be open and able to change with
the outside world with the technologies that advance as
well. But if that not.net is still
prevalent within your organization and you really
enjoy that ecosystem, then who am I to say don't do that.
I would say go for it. Go for whatever excites you.
Because this is a long term game, you need to be able to
enjoy whatever you're doing, and if you're working with the
technology, which you don't enjoy, then doing whatever you
have to do is not going to be as enjoyable as it would be Loving
the tech and loving the stuff you're working with, all right?
Or AI stuff. I should have known this was
going to be AI focused as well. As AI continues to advance
rapidly, how do you foresee the roles and responsibilities of
software engineers evolving in the coming years and what new
skills will become essential for professionals in this field?
We've touched upon it in previous episodes and I'm I'm
still of the same mindset that figuring out why we're doing
things and what needs to happen, This is going to become more and
more prevalent for any professional within kind of the
digital space as well as software engineers.
Figuring out why we're building this thing, why we're building A
versus B versus Z even and being able to leverage the data to
really prove that we need to build this.
Or being able to build even multiple solutions at the same
time, which really requires speed, I think are going to be
skills and responsibilities that are new, kind of not new but
maybe are going to be more prevalent in the coming years
with AI. So figuring out the what and the
why from a software engineering point of view, from an
organizational standpoint, when it comes to skills, that's a
hard one because I think software engineers and just
people within the space, I think any person is going to try and
leverage AI. But when it comes to software
engineers specifically, I'm going to differentiate between
probably juniors and people that have more experience let's say.
So people with less experience need to be able to figure out
and get up to speed and leverage AAI in a way that accelerates
their own learning path and learning process.
And that's really hard because they're going to certain AI
tools going to spit information at you and you need to be able
to figure out if that makes sense or not.
And the only way to do that is by doing more research, by
leveraging other information sources that are there.
But I do think it can accelerate your learning path in that way.
As soon as you go into this mode of accelerated learning, you can
also increase your productivity because this AI tool or AI tools
will pop up that spit out code and generate code that makes
sense or don't make sense. You have to figure out what
makes sense, what to adopt and what not to adopt and what is
rubbish. Basically.
You can do that by yourself and you can do that more so within a
stable team, within a good environment, with colleagues
that maybe have more experience or are doing and treading the
same path as you. So in that way, I think people
with less experience are really going to have to figure out how
to use this to accelerate their own learning path.
And I think it's very much possible and I think it's going
to be a lot of fun, especially when you're early on in career.
For me, the biggest like joy would be to learn a lot of
things and then to reflect and think back off.
These are the things I've achieved, these are the things
I've done. And there's so much more.
If you're really enthusiastic and passionate about certain
field, about certain domain, that's going to drive you and be
fueled to learn more and to do more.
At least that's how it was for me.
Then when it comes to the people that have more experience, they
already are able to figure out what is rubbish and what is not,
which means that they really can use the the AI capabilities to
its maximum when it comes to their own productivity.
So you can use whatever you need to, you can ask any question,
you can output any generated code and you'll be able to tweak
it to make sure it fits whatever mold you're trying to have it
fit in. I don't know if that saying
makes sense, but in any case, you'll try and make it work
basically, and you'll be able to make it work with the knowledge
that you have. Foundational knowledge will
become more and more prevalent and more and more effective.
I think that's more so for skilled professionals.
Make sure to figure out how to increase your productivity
because I feel like a human component will still be
necessary for the coming year. I don't know how it's going to
be in five to 10 years. I'm not going to say anything
about that for the coming years. For the coming year, a human
component will be needed that is going to be software engineer.
So figure out how to be more and more productive.
Wire programming is going to be a lot of fun because you're
going to see other people being more productive or different.
You can see different ways of being productive and in that way
you can take and pick and choose whatever you like to fit your
own work style. So I think that's going to be a
lot of fun. Then when it comes to
organisations, I think if you have a product, whether it's a
software as a service, whether it's a physical product with a
digital component, it's very interesting to look at what AI
can bring in the form of any type of digital assistants.
We already see. Yeah, I don't want to say a lot
of organizations, but some organizations pop up with a
specific help component. In, for example, Adobe, I use
Premiere Pro for editing, I use Photoshop for stuff, then I'll
have an AI component. You can ask any question, it'll
figure out what you need and actually adopt that and put that
into whatever you're editing, whether it's a picture or
whether it's a video. And I've heard it's actually
quite good. I have to, I still have to
figure out how to use it. I still have to try it out
myself. There's whole documentations and
tutorials available already and that's only one tool that is
what I'm using, which is completely not software
development related, which has adopted it.
And I think it's going to increase the people that are
using that tool, the productivity, the joy, the
effectiveness, which is really cool if you have that tool, if
you have those AI capabilities and your competitors don't, it's
a really neat thing from a user perspective.
So I think that is really, really crucial from our
organization point of view to figure out what product you have
and how you can leverage any type of AI assistance in there.
I'm saying AI systems because that's kind of the most
prevalent thing right now, but there's a lot of things, a lot
of unknowns from my side which are going to pop up as well and
they're going to be fun to see, to use and to see evolve.
This person gave me a question as well as some contacts there
in the last year of university computer science degree, did
both front end and back end internships have done full stack
projects as well and they're in kind of an incubation program
when it comes to entrepreneurship and fintech
start up. But their question is what is
the approach to probably figure out what field to focus on.
Now that's a hard one because there's numerous amounts of
technologies, there's a lot of different domains, whether you
like fintech, healthcare, e-commerce, IoT, even domain
wise there's a lot to learn there.
And then from your standpoint, what you like, what you like
within this process of creating software, whether it's the
people component, the tech component, the nitty gritty
details, the infrastructure, the operations are really figuring
out what is needed from a user perspective.
That is a lot and especially when you're in university and
you don't have as much, I would say experience beyond just your
educational journey, sure internships here and there.
Honestly, I think any starting point is a great starting point
as long as it's an environment that is open to you, learning as
much as possible in a small time frame, that's really hard to and
really abstract. But it's really going to be
custom because you're going to apply to organizations,
organizations that could be big or small.
You have to figure out what you want to start at.
Smaller organizations are a bit more chaotic, a bit more.
How do you say that in Dutch? You would say like Cowboy
Landscape, I guess in a way that you might get a lot of
responsibilities, but you might not get as much guidance.
So if you're a person that really figures out what needs to
be done and loves figuring things out on their own, this is
a great way to do so. But what larger organizations
can offer you is a bit more, how do you say that?
A bit more process and a bit more guidance.
They can accommodate for a person with less experience and
leverage the people that have experience and match that.
For the people that have more experience, they can educate
which hones their own craft and their learning capabilities.
And for the people that don't have as much experience, they
can really learn and get guidance because figuring out
what needs to happen is good, but figuring out what needs to
happen and then implement it in the right way as well, that is
sustainable for production environment, that is even
better. And if you like a team that can
offer you that, it's going to be most crucial as a starting
point. And then, once you've started,
honestly try things out. Try what you think you like.
Learn what you might not like or what you don't like.
And just keep learning. I still right now have positions
that I'm going to try out, hopefully soon of things that I
think are interesting or could be interesting.
Product ownership, for example. Product management, I think
that's fascinating and I would love to be able to try that out.
I don't want to let go of any software development stuff, so I
have to figure out how to do that.
But doing that for a few months, for half a year even sounds like
a lot of fun. Honestly, if I get the
opportunity, I might jump on that.
Otherwise, it's always going to be a what if.
And there's other roles like that that I think might be
interesting. Scrum Master was one in the past
where I thought, OK, this is very interesting and then I felt
like I was missing this fulfilment of delivering value
from a software perspective. And I mean based on that, I
might not enjoy the Product Owner role, Product management
role as much, but I still have to figure that out.
So even from your standpoint, coming out of uni, going into an
organization, get a good starting point when it comes to
the people and the organization and then just be hungry for
knowledge, be eager to learn, be open and honest for with
feedback and receiving feedback and yeah, keep an open mind,
learn as much as you can and then you'll figure out what
you'd like. When it comes to the domains,
it's the same I think try a lot of domains, I mean payments,
IoT, again, I don't have to name any of them.
I don't really get excited as much when it comes to the domain
is what I thought in the past and it's still kind of true.
But as the more domains you've been in and the more domains
you've created software for, I mean, I have a preference now.
The last project was awesome, it was IoT related, so that might
be on top of my list. I have to reflect a bit more and
figure out what is that list in any case.
But yeah, I won't go to a project specifically for the
domain. Most of the time I'll go for the
people and I'll go for the technology, but the domain is a
very prevalent component in that as well.
So yeah, hope that answers it. Otherwise, let me know the
comments or I'll send a message in any case to this person.
So yeah, what are some organization tools I should
incorporate into my workflow? Tools that you use and tools
that are industry standard specifically for web developer
related roles, organizational tools?
Man, there's a bunch I would say.
I mean whatever messaging type of software you use, whether
it's Microsoft Teams or whether that's Slack, that's I think
easy, that's accessible, you'll figure out how to use that.
So that one is, I think check. I would say make sure you figure
out how to like manage your e-mail and manage your calendar
in a way that works for you. And that took me a long time to
figure out as well. Used to have an inbox of like
2000 unread emails and then things would slip through the
cracks. And now I really try and archive
stuff and make sure stuff is read.
Make sure to follow up stuff at least, or put reminders for
myself to follow up in the future whenever I think I need
to. So I'm more on top of my e-mail
game since I didn't use the emails much and now I e-mail
more. So communication is more and
more important then I would say any type of documentation tool
that your organization has, whether that's SharePoint, where
the stuff gets put on Dropbox, where the stuff gets put on
Confluence. Even figure out where
information is usually a piece of software where you can find
things that are important to you when it comes to the
organization. Maybe you have an intranet
somewhere, so whatever information you might need, make
sure you need, you're able to find it.
And at least from my point standpoint, that's more so the
organizational software. Some people have like a bonus
system where they can give points and then receive points
and points transferred to money or they have a different system
where they can get credits and then credits transferred to
gifts and stuff like that. We don't have those.
But if you have those, make sure you don't miss out on any of
that good stuff because those are all secondary benefits which
are really, really nice, any type of stock program.
We also don't have that any type of Stock Exchange program,
whether you can leverage your monthly salary for stocks at a
cheaper price, some bigger organizations have that which is
incredibly nice and a big, big benefit.
So make sure you use any type of stuff like that.
I think that's anything organizational related.
Now when it comes to specifically web development or
software engineering, I think more so for web development.
Any type of tool that your UX person or UI person uses,
whether that's Figma, Zeppelin, whatever the tool they have now
figure out how to use that specifically because most of
those tools have a visualization component and then that
visualisation component also for example has the CSS classes and
headers and styling that you might use then to implement.
Now it's not great to copy paste because you you might have a
framework, you might have different opinion of how things
are, need to be able to be structured in that way, but it's
a great starting point. For example, I'm a little bit a
little bit colour blind. So when it comes to colours and
web development, yeah, I always love going and picking exactly
the colours that need to happen because otherwise it'll be bit
of a mess to be honest. So that's always been a big, big
help. Then when it comes to any type
of development role, I would say your IDE is going to be so, so
crucial. Whether that's and I've
transitioned from VS Code, so whether that's VS Code
specifically. Figure out your shortcuts, how
you open files, how you navigate, how you division
files, how you interact with your Git, specifically your
version management control system in any way or form
through your IDE or through your terminal.
But get to the terminal in a bit.
I think your IDE is very much crucial.
I've transitioned to Intellij and I was one of those people
that kept both open for the longest time until I actually
had to make the transition and I transitioned because Intellij
had a plug in specifically to Google Cloud, which VS Code
didn't have. So I had to transition
specifically for that project. In any case, I'm fully Intellij
now, so I'm always going to have to pay the premium licence to
get all the good stuff. Or maybe I'll be able to
transition to free in any case in the future.
But yeah, Intellij is now my editor of choice.
I'm super fast in it. I know how to DIF files, I knew
how to do. I know how to do multi cursor
select. I know how to copy, paste,
generate code, stuff like that. Copy paste was not not the best
example, but copy, paste and then based on that paste
generate code. That's where I was going with
that. I know how to how do you say
that change the interfaces of functions to do it everywhere.
My renaming point is on game and my renaming game is on point and
I suck with the references. And lastly the terminal.
Honestly, I use the terminal and I have all get related specific
shortcuts so I'm super fast when it comes to adding files,
committing specific messages. I have a convention and the
commit message I have, it's basically brackets, that's the
ticket number, and then whatever new thing has happened based on
the changes that I'm committing. Sometimes I make a bunch of
changes and then specifically commit specific parts of files.
So I figure out how to do that because your legacy in your
commit messages is very crucial for you.
Future you, future team members, your current team members, any
of those people for the context, which is incredibly valuable,
figure out how to rebase your code when it comes to
specifically git again, and optimize for a great developer
workflow. Version management related, that
is a lot, and it's not going to happen overnight.
It's not going to happen in one year, maybe even a few years,
but it will happen as long as you keep looking at what you
have, keep looking at what other people are using, how they're
using it. I've worked with people that
don't use their mouse, so their whole developer workflow is
fully how do you say that they can do everything with
keystrokes to the point where they'll go to a web browser,
they'll have a shortcut and then you can see based on any
clickable element, they'll see a keystroke and then they'll put
that keystroke in and then it'll click based on that.
So they don't have to use their mouse.
Well, from a developer standpoint, they are really,
really fast. From my standpoint, I'm not
going to invest the time to get to that point and I'll happily
use my mouse because I I don't know how much of a difference it
will be. But as long as I don't know, I
don't have to put in the time investment because probably I'll
go insane. But some people are really,
really good at that. So I'm not, I'm not taking any
digs. I'll just be like, for me it's
not my preferred way of working. Maybe I should try it out.
Some people even change their keyboard layout to make it more
optimized because QWERTY is not optimized for a developer
workflow or any type of typing. So yeah, I felt like I'm out of
breath, which means I was rambling.
But I hope this was helpful. I need to take a breath when
changing careers into tech. What is the best way to explain
a career gap? Because it takes time to learn
languages, frameworks, etcetera. In terms of gap, could you
specify between short term and long term?
Half a year, a year or career? Gaps are interesting and I've
only I can only talk from the position of the interviewer.
Having talked to interviewees which had career gaps on their
resume. I would ask about that because I
think that is fascinating or interesting and what I'm looking
for is honesty, but that's from my side.
So anything you can give with regards to, I was learning X
framework, I was transitioning from so and so to now, applying
for this role or for the future, applying to another role of the
past, looking at the past, other roles in that way.
That for me is all valuable insights.
It doesn't have to be specifically on the resume.
Again, that's from my standpoint and it's really hard to
generalize in that way. But as long as you're honest and
open about what you were doing in that period of your life, I
think that's what the opposite person is looking for.
And that's hard because that assumes that you're already at
the table talking to a person. When it comes to your resume
specifically, whether you're learning a framework, whether
you're learning a language, it really I think holds value if
you're able to show what you've done with that.
So whether you're working, let's say, a few months on a project
specifically because you're learning a framework or
language, putting that in your resume, putting even a link to
the GitHub or to a an interface where people can see that, I
think is incredibly valuable because it shows your yourself
educated in that way. You can educate yourself, you
can have output, you can be productive in that way.
In that period of time, you're not afraid to show what you've
done. I think show your work is an
incredibly important mindset and people can actually see and play
around with it. Maybe even give feedback if it's
open sourced when when it comes to the code.
So it all adds to your educational journey or learning
process. Still on the job or off the job.
I think it's valuable to show what you've created with that
time. So yeah, I hope that helps.
I think if you're transitioning from a completely non tech
related role to whether it's web development, whether it's back
end development, whether it's any type of software engineering
or people related role within the digital space here I think
time will be necessary. Whether you're going through a
boot camp or whatever, I would say still put that in, whether
you're building a project or self educating also put that in.
But I do think other perspectives are are probably
necessary, maybe perspective that is or from a recruitment
standpoint than the one I can give you because I'm already
talking to people that have passed kind of the first round.
So it's hard for me, but I hope that helps and I would say don't
be afraid to ask for help when it comes to your resume.
I love seeing people post specifically on Reddit when it
comes to questions like these because then you get more
varied, maybe still specific, but you get more perspectives.
And I think more perspectives are better to kind of figure out
what your perspective is on this and then execute on that.
All right, This one is in Dutch, so I'll have to translate it.
Have you ever been in a situation in your job or an
assignment which was on a technical level, fun and
challenging? It had a lot of benefits, but
we're not ethically responsible, so it wouldn't make the world a
better place. Yes.
And I'm not going to name which company, but you'll be able to
figure it out if you just go to my LinkedIn and look at my work
experience in that way. Because it was in my period,
Xevia. I mean, the period before was
only a couple years, so it's not that much.
So it was one of the assignments here.
And in that way I was kind of new Ish at the company and there
was already A-Team working on that project.
Now the project had big, big benefits in the way that I
missed out on a trip to Japan. I think I've talked about this
before. They went to Japan and I was on
a different project and I was so, so jealous because I want to
go to Japan. I've never been and that's still
the case. So still jealous, actually,
because they got a complete how do you say that their flights
were paid, their hotel was paid, they did some work.
Obviously that was hard work as well, especially within the kind
of Japanese culture, but they had a lot of fun as well.
So they combined fun, personal learning as well as executing
and making stuff happen on site with this whole trip.
And based on that, I rounded off my project and I was like, I
want to go to that team because I don't know what other trips
they might do because they were still working on a product that
was going to go live in Japan specifically.
That's why they got to go completely missed that context.
But now you have it. And they were actually pivoting
because that same product needed to go live in Russia.
So I was involved throughout that whole period, but the
domain, the product we were building, so the product we were
building was e-commerce. But the thing we were selling is
not the best for society. Looking back now, looking back
still, I didn't really agree with that.
But the team, the knowledge and the technology, the ownership,
the autonomy, those were all really, really good.
So I wanted to experience what it was like working in that team
with that technology and learn from that.
Because honestly, back then I was probably like, what was I,
2324? Yeah, I didn't really care about
the domain to be honest at all. And I worked in that team for a
year. I missed out on another trip
because they they I had the option to go to Russia, but I
already had booked another vacation.
So I missed out on two trips, Japan and Russia.
One, I mean, I should have just rebooked my vacation to be
honest. But yeah, at some point, it got
to a point where what we were building was finished, was done,
We were going to go to another country.
And I wasn't going to stay on the project for a country trip
because that was not set in stone.
It might change in any case. And I don't think it ever
happened in that way. And I voiced my opinion that I
think I I learned a lot here. And it's funny because when you
start a project, when you start in any environment, I think
you're learning is going to go through the roof and then some
point it kind of curves out and you're in control to make sure
it curves out or it doesn't curve out for as long as
possible. But as soon as you feel like it
curves out for me, and usually that might be a bit too late
even, I'm going to need something else because I love
that curve. I want that curve as long as
possible and as many times as possible in my life because
learning is fun, at least from my standpoint.
So then I voiced that it might be time to round off and that
just even vocalising that a person in my project then
contacted my manager at the time and they decided it's time for
me to round off. Even though I never said OK now
is the time, I said it might be time.
So then all of a sudden I found myself in a different project
specifically I wouldn't say healthcare but for health
related products in that way completely different domain, a
domain I got really excited about.
And with that domains that you get excited about, that was kind
of the first time for me that I got excited about this domain.
And then the the project after was even more excited.
Domain wise. Technology wise it it was
different. Team wise it's always going to
be different. But still it taught me that
yeah, the technology is fine but the domain can also be fun.
Looking back, it wasn't really ethically sound.
I think because I was earlier in my career younger in age.
I did that and I had no trouble with that.
I I'm not going to lie about that.
I think nowadays I can still do that, but I will miss that
fulfillment that a domain can offer you.
Getting really excited about making the world a better place
or changing people's lives for the better and not just making
the company as much money as possible.
Yeah, having now experienced that, it's going to be rough
being in that position again. And even though I think I can do
it, something will be missing. So I might not do it for a long,
long time. I might not do it even at all.
Just being able to do it doesn't mean I like doing that.
So if I ever have the choice, I'm not going to choose for
that. And I think it might might show
some growth, actually, personally.
But yeah, it's funny because in the past people would ask like
what? What domain do you like?
I'd be like, I don't, I don't care about anything.
And they'll be like pornography and I'll be like maybe maybe
that one and they'll be like gambling and I'll be like maybe
not that one. Like obviously you have a
preference and at some point you have to weigh out the options.
Do you want to go specifically for this domain, even though it
doesn't make the world a better place to learn and leverage your
whatever you can basically whether that's working with that
team, with that technology, even within that domain because
learnings can be applied anywhere.
In that case, you have to make that trade off and looking back,
you might say it's the right decision.
You might say it's not the right decision.
I don't really like thinking like that.
It's the decision I made and I can live with that and I can
leverage that knowledge now in whatever future project.
So yeah, good luck with those decisions.
All right, four more questions. Now this is a hard one.
What is your career goal? And I'm saying this is a hard
one because I don't really give this much thought to it.
What's your career goal? Given that you interview others
about their goals, it'll be great to learn about you as a
person and see a more human side.
Now. I hope you see a human side in
any of these Q&A S or even any of the other episodes, because I
try and be as authentic as possible and I don't try and
force it. I'm just trying to be myself in
that way. But when it comes to my career
goal, honestly it's not really a career goal.
I want to have as much fun and as much learnings as I can.
I do think it's important to have impact with whatever I'm
doing. So if I'm just a cog in a huge,
huge company, I don't think I like that.
I've never experienced that to such a degree that I was, but I
don't think I'll enjoy that. I like making impact and in that
way working at startups is a lot of fun.
But when it comes to the end goal, honestly I want to enjoy
what I do on a day today. I want to have fun little side
projects which stimulate me mentally, fulfil me in whatever
it is doing. Basically this podcast is kind
of an artifact of that. I'm doing this 5% of my time,
which is not a lot. I say 5%, let's say 5 to 10% to
to make it a bit more. 90% of the time I'm doing other stuff,
but the fact that I can do this 5 to 10% fulfils me incredibly.
I'm doing 90% other stuff, but even that is not the same stuff,
it's also other stuff in there. For example, I've become a team
lead this year, which I'm I'm really, really proud of.
And now I have a team and I'm responsible for their learning,
personal development, etcetera, etcetera.
So I'm really trying to figure out how to do that, how to
customize my way of communicating, to leverage
whatever they need in that way to meet the goals, to meet their
goals, to make sure they're happy, because their happiness
makes me happy as well. So that is kind of the other
stuff in my career. And as long as I can do that, I
think I'll I'll find joy going to work doing stuff day-to-day,
do stuff that is different stuff that is still challenging.
From a mental side, intellectual side, I keep saying mental, but
I mean intellectual. And that is the goal, honestly,
to keep doing that, sustain that for a long, long time.
Don't burn out doing that. Don't do any stuff that's
boring. Yeah, career goals are hard.
I want to do more usually when I'm like, OK, what am I going to
do? I'm going to do more, going to
do more of the same stuff, more of the different stuff as much
as I can on my plate. So the burning out needs to need
to keep an eye on that. Otherwise, I've life course and
the life course are to travel the world to experience as much
as I can. Honestly, money wise, don't have
any issues be able to do, yeah kind of anything.
And I'm not living some type of luxurious life.
I'm very simple, OK? I got a water bottle for
Christmas. I was incredibly happy with
that. So yeah, as long as I can keep
doing that, sustain that for a long, long time, I think I'll be
good. I think I'll be happy.
I don't think more money is going to make me more happy.
I think more challenges will make me more happy depending on
the challenges. But at least it's going to be
fun. Learning, succeeding, failing
all of that, I think is fun experiencing.
I want to experience as much as I can within my career and
within my life. Maybe that's the the end goal.
So yeah, goals are hard. I hate goals, Should make more
goals, but I hate goals. All right.
How can you handle work when a family member is passing through
a difficult illness? What is the general position of
a company when an employee has this kind of a situation that's
hard working when family is ill? Yeah, it's really hard.
Like both of my I never really had a good relation with my
grandparents, but I had a great relation with my mom's
grandparents. They live next to us, few
streets down the road and during COVID in a short amount of time
they passed like first my grandpa and then a few months
later my grandma. And that was a really rough time
like it. It got labeled as a COVID case
even though it wasn't really COVID specifically.
COVID just made it worse basically.
And honestly I was working from home day in day out.
I wasn't seeing many people. I was not in a great place to be
honest, and I never asked this, but now that I've become a team
lead, I learned that you can ask your company for special leave.
So if you need time to recoup. I think I just took that time
and I took days off because I didn't know that.
But a company can offer you special leave.
So if you're going through a hard time, if you need to go
back to your home country because you're working abroad
and take care of your family, company can offer you special
leave. So that's that's what I would
advise. I think it's really hard to go
through that as well as focus on your career.
For me, career is kind of secondary when it comes to
friends and family. That's what I tell myself.
That's what I tell others. When your home situation gets
tough, it's hard to ask 100% of you at work.
So make sure your home is OK, make sure you're OK.
I think that's the most important part.
Otherwise you'll stretch yourself too thin and you do
yourself and your team and your organization at this justice,
because then you're going to give your 50%, your 60%, whether
you think that's right or wrong. I think it's better to take time
off and then come back and give 708090 work up to 100 again
because you were able to take that time off and sometimes you
need more time than a company can offer you.
So yeah, you'll be kind of in limbo and that's gonna be OK.
Like, sometimes just time needs to pass.
That's what happened for me. I was kind of in limbo.
Honestly, I don't remember much of that period.
Day in, day out, I was kind of doing the same thing, kind of
just waiting for time to pass. Trying to process.
It really takes a long time to process.
It was really one of the people, like the few people in my life
that passed that were the closest to me.
And I know I'm very lucky saying that I have a huge family and
that was also a reality check that with a huge family comes a
lot of happiness and is also going to come a lot of future
sadness. And yeah that's going to be it's
going to be hard. You need time to process and
that's at some point all you need and luckily company can
offer that. Yeah if you're going through a
hard time, I hope you're OK That's that's it.
How can you differentiate when a Co worker's statement is wrong,
especially when they have more years in the company and
experience than you? How can you stand your ground in
that situation? It's really hard because I don't
know the context. What has happened with me when
someone was just yeah, it's hard to say plain wrong because
obviously context matters and nuances are usually in the
middle. But when I had figured out, and
in a very robotic sense, how things work, if A happens, then
B happens, if C happens, then D happens, the whole scheme of the
landscape that we were in, I talked to my colleague because
they were going through kind of this work procedure.
And I I started with this whole thing because I didn't like the
work procedure, doing the same thing day in, day out.
I said, well, we don't have to do this procedure anymore
because if we do XY and Z, we'll have solved the problem.
And I've talked to that and it's really hard to do XY and Z.
But then that means when we get these types of error messages,
we don't really have to look into them anymore.
Specifically these because it was a specific message.
And as you can guess, this was back in operations when I was
22/21/23 coming out of university, basically my first
first job. Well, that person looked at me
and said I'm still going to do the same thing.
And honestly we had like probably 20-30 years of age
difference. They probably also had then
20-30 years of career experience.
I didn't get it. They said they were going to do
the same thing. And I said, well, we don't have
to do that because of XY and Z reasons.
Very logical, very robotic. I was like, well, because XY and
Z, we don't have to do it. And if it's person then is not
convinced and says I'm going to do the same thing.
I pushed. I was like because I don't want
it to quit and I don't want to have him do it because if he
might do it, I might have to do it.
I pushed. I was like well, again, so and
so and so we don't have to do it.
And I did that again and maybe too many times.
It's hard to look back because this was a few years back, but
he snapped. He legitimately snapped.
He said you're not being a great colleague.
He started yelling and saying this is, well, I'm not going to
swear. He didn't really swear.
But yeah, he started yelling and honestly, yeah, it made me feel
very, very small. It made me feel like I might
have done something wrong. This was on a Friday and he just
snapped and walked away. And I looked at my other
colleagues because this was on an open workspace.
I was like, did I say anything wrong?
Did I do anything wrong? And they tried to reassure me
and say no, no, you're right and blah blah.
And then over the weekend, it really sat with me because he
snapped. I was like, did I do anything
wrong? Maybe I should have said
something differently. Maybe it was the tone of voice I
had, maybe I should have brought it in a different way.
And then on probably Sunday or Monday, I was like, maybe he
just was having a bad day. But in any case, I decided this
is not how you talk to colleagues.
This is not how you talk to people.
You don't yell at each other. When someone is trying to make a
point and you disagree, you never yell.
So then I confronted him. I said I want an apologies.
He said it's not going to do that.
So then I went to my manager. Very childishly, I went like to
the teacher to try and resolve this issue that we had.
Because apparently the guy didn't want to give me an
apology. And I expected and wanted an
apology because I I don't think you should treat each other like
that. And I had hoped that the apology
would make sense and actually land.
So then our manager put us at the same table, listened to the
story and then yes, said Hank, you give Patrick, you're an
apology. Hank is just an an adias.
That's not the real name. Trust me.
Give Patrick an apology. And then person gave me an
apology and that was that. And it took a bit of time to
kind of build up that trust again and be able to work
together again. And I don't know if it was ever
ever exactly the same, but yeah, it was based on my actions and I
was at fault as well. Maybe I shouldn't have pushed as
hard, maybe I should have taken a step back and done it in a
different way. But me being the person I am,
very Dutch directness, I pushed at that time and it had a
consequence. So it's really context
dependent. If you're truly right and that
person is wrong, is it the right time to push?
And it's really hard to say if you should push or not.
You can get buy in from other colleagues.
You can try it from a different angle with other people.
You can try numerous things. It's really hard.
Is this point very crucial to you?
For me, at that time, it was a yes.
Looking back now, maybe I I I think I should have done things
differently because I don't want people to snap.
Maybe he was having a bad day and then I just pushed his
buttons in the wrong way. Which means I I need to be able
to be more flexible from a communication standpoint as
well. Make sure people don't snap.
Maybe it was unavoidable even. And then even if I were to do a
different thing, he still would have snapped.
I have no clue. But choose your battles in a
way, if this is truly important, stand your ground and you can
get buy in from colleagues. If you're truly, truly right
now, the less experience you have, it's really hard to say
OK, you're 100% right in that case.
So it depends a lot on confidence, but outside
perspectives will make that true or false in that way.
For me, very early on I had rare moments where I thought I was
100% right. Again, because this was a
process, because I could logically explain this, I had
buy in from other colleagues. I thought I was 100% right and I
was. But most of the time I
acknowledge that I might be wrong and that was the mindset I
had when I came to an into a certain problem.
When I had to explore things, I would be like, how do you think
this works? Because I think perspectives
help me form my own perspective, help us form a conclusion.
I would bounce ideas off, not acting like I was right, but
saying this is my idea, this is my opinion.
I don't like to be wrong. Maybe that's like a personal
thing, but I don't like to be wrong, which means I talk a lot
in this is my opinion and what I think cannot be wrong, what I
think can change. I only talk in facts when I
think it's 100% a fact. Even then, in the way I'm
talking now is when I think it's 100% a fact, because I still
might be wrong in that way. So it's really hard.
You can always go to your manager.
You can always get support from your colleagues.
It depends obviously in the on the environment, on the person
sitting across from you. What I'm expecting from a senior
is that they're open minded and that they're able and willing to
spend time in educating others. People that have more
experience, people that have less experience, I don't really
care. As long as everyone has that
mindset and has the patience to be able to educate, then it's
going to be a great environment. Obviously there's deadlines, so
the patience might not be from that person, but because of the
organization, there's no patience basically.
But then still I expect the people aspect from that person
to be there and to accommodate for that and to say maybe I I
can't explain it now, but we can explain it to the future.
And it has to do a lot with trust in that way.
And trust comes from both sides. So yeah, I think confrontations
are very good. I think for your personal
development, definitely don't go them out of the way.
Reflect and learn from them and you'll do better in the future.
And those confrontations, they're going to stick with you.
This one was like 6 or seven years ago and I still
remembered. Just a snap.
Like yeah, it was incredible to me, honestly.
So yeah, good luck. Last one, if you're a junior
with little experience in the domain field due to a career
change, how can you gain respect from senior employees in the
company and even your manager? So if you're a junior due to a
career change, I think if you're if you have less experience in
general, the way I give respect to people, respect comes by
default. But I admire people that are
really hungry for knowledge and willing to learn, don't judge as
fast and try and be objective and yeah, see them grow like I
really enjoy that this hungry for learning, this eagerness to
pick up anything and learn from that even though they've never
done it. It doesn't have to be
confidence, it has to be openness.
Their ability to ask questions, their openness for feedback,
those are all things that makes me admire people with less
experience. Respect for me comes by default.
So if if you come from a place where people don't respect you,
it's really hard work environment wise.
So I like to put that on admiration, but that's what I'm
expecting from people with less experience.
We've we've hired for people with less experience and what we
were always looking for was a specific mindset.
And mindset is super vague. But in that conversation, their
eagerness kind of shined in a way that they were asking about
what I had done in previous projects to a certain detail
because they wanted to know genuinely.
They wanted to know because they had the right mindset.
If you don't have the right, if you don't have that, let's say
that drive for curiosity and knowledge, then it might not be
the right field for you. The domain or the technology or
the people might not be a right fit, but something in an
interview process, something in your job makes you excited and
that excitedness. If other people's perceive that.
If I perceive that, it's hard for me to say if other people
perceive that, if I perceive that it, it makes me admire
that. And I think passion and drive
can bring you far. And if other people see that,
they'll be like, OK, this knowledge that I'm investing is
not going to go to waste. And this is my assumption,
because I think that people with less patience, they think it's
not worth it if they don't see you in this field for a long,
long time just by virtue of you not being eager, not being
interested, not being interactive in that way.
From their standpoint, obviously then they might not invest what
they know in, in the types of education they can do with you
or the knowledge they can transfer to you, or just
honestly, working together. Pair programming, stuff like
that might not be worth it to them because they think, well,
in a few years they're going to switch again and it's all going
to be wasted. So as long as they perceive that
you're going to be here for the long game, within the
organization, within the team, just by virtue of you being very
much involved, very curious, hungry to pick things up and to
learn, I think that's a way for you to get their respect.
At least that's how it was for me.
Being open minded, being objective, being curious has
always helped and I think it will always give you even more
respect to others, regardless of what your previous job
experience was, what you were doing, whether it's that's in a
different domain or different craft even, or regardless of
your experience. I think even senior experienced
people, if they do that, if they're interactive, if they're
hungry for knowledge, if they're sharing obviously their
knowledge as well and their perspective, it it gives a form
of admiration to the people working with them.
So yeah, try it out, try what and see what works for you.
Also ask for feedback. That is probably the most
crucial part because there's an assumption in this question that
they don't respect you. Ask for feedback.
They might just be kind of stoic in that way that they don't show
it, or it's their culture in a way to not really show that, but
they might really respect you or admire you, because obviously
having done a career change, a transition in that way is a
huge, huge step. I think not a lot of people do
that. So I admire people that have
done that and that are trying to do that, and I support people
that are trying to do that. Obviously, if I don't think this
is the right fit, then I still try and support them to find the
right fit in that way. So yeah, ask for feedback.
I think that's the one of the most important things you can do
as well. All right, then I'm going to
round it off. Thank you so much for listening.
If you're still here, do you have more questions?
Put them in the comments below and I'll take them with me for
the next round for Q&A #8. We've done this actually for
over a year. It's Q&A #7.
And I've really, really enjoyed it.
Thank you so much for listening. If you're still here, again,
happy New Year. I hope you have had a great
holiday if you're here in the future.
If it's not 2024, honestly that is incredible and let me know
because I would love to know if you're listening from the far,
far future. But in the short term, again,
thank you for listening. We'll see you on the next one
beyond coding.