Hi everyone. My name is Patrick you.
And for today's episode, I had an ohmic do Lon who's currently
director of product and Engineering over at access
Springer, National media, and Tech.
And we cover her journey from Opera to the tech world.
How mindset is way more important than the skills?
Because the skills you can actually teach yourself.
And we also cover, how she copes with the Imposter syndrome.
I'll put the links to our socials in the description
below. And with that being said, enjoy
the episode. So, I looked you up online.
I saw a lot of podcasts but I never got the full story going
to browse through on how you got into the software engineering
first place. How'd that happen far back?
Do you want your own spin on it? Yeah, okay.
Well, let's start at the beginning when I was eight years
old, my, this is 1995 for those playing at home.
My parents took me to a Bookshop.
Yeah. And I saw An HTML at home.
Some it was something like that. Some book, all that.
And I was like, I want to do that.
Okay, I don't know why, but I just wanted to do it.
I loved computers from a very young age.
Yeah. So they bought it for me and I
just worked through it. I sat on my dad's computer, I
was very lucky that my dad owned a small business would like to
employees. And so you had a computer that
had an internet connection which in the mid-90s was already like
a big deal and I got to sit there.
And open up notepad and write HTML directly into notepad and
build websites that way. Uploaded them with FTP and the
whole old-school cool. Old-school you know he's Geo
cities and Angelfire for anyone who remembers the DiNozzo.
That's right. And yeah so that's kind of where
it started. I kind of made a few little
websites throughout my Early teens.
Yeah, I did a software design and development unit at high
school. Okay, which I loved I was very
good at it. The teacher was not very good at
it again, because it was kind of a whole new thing.
And yeah, probably like, yeah, they weren't really special lies
teachers for that for high school at that time.
And so, I actually ended up teaching the class the HTML kind
of stuff because I knew it better than the teacher and one
a little, like, School award. For it, you know, the special
contributions and all that stuff.
Which as you can tell, I'm still proud of such a teacher's pet
and I did that, but I was the only girl in the class and even
though the boys in my class were lovely, I have no complaints.
There's still a barrier there. When you've got a bunch of
teenage boys and one teenage girl, it wasn't Although there
were friendly to me and they were nice to me.
They weren't like actively involving me, you know, they
weren't actively, including me, in a social sense.
You were the old one up. I was the odd one out.
Yeah. And so I had other subjects.
I was good at where I wasn't the odd one out.
And so in the end, I ended up doing a really Arts heavy list
of subjects for my high school exams.
So like drama English Japanese and history Japanese even yeah.
It's not uncommon in Australia. Actually taught offer Japanese.
Okay, how's your Japanese terrible?
I think I can only remember, how to say, I studied Japanese at
high school. Yeah.
And like, hello Irwin hear those kinds of things really cool but
I can still read the alphabet, the kanji, not the kanji.
Okay, the hiragana and Katakana I can still read them even
though I haven't practiced them for so many years.
Like if I see them I can still be like oh that says you're a
God now or whatever. And yeah, it's fine.
Like But yeah, so then I kind of completely left programming
websites, the whole thing behind, I did a degree in media
and Communications that's like journalism.
I also made it in Spanish and did some time in Chile and so
kind of doing yeah, journalism radio TV, this kind of stuff,
production stuff, and then after my degree, I thought, you know,
I'm not sure that I'm actually a very good journalistic Rider,
okay? One And I found it very
difficult to break into production in general.
And so I decided to try for a whole bunch of other jobs and
the one I ended up Landing in was kind of project management
for conferences and for events. Yeah, so I did that for about a
year and a half before I then changing to digital marketing
and digital marketing, I did for Opera Australia.
So the company that runs all the operas in the opera house, for
example, in Sydney, really cool. So I was doing their face.
Book, Twitter, all that kind of stuff.
The, you know, the ads. But also, the engagement,
special promotions, all that kind of thing with digital.
Yeah. And also, from time to time,
updating the blog and that included working with CSS.
For the first time, I'd never worked with CSS before, because
remember, when I learn HTML, you didn't have that.
So I got a little bit of exposure to it there, but again,
I was just like, oh, this is a nice cool skill that I kind of
still have from my teenage years.
I still didn't think anything of it.
Um, I then, as part of being in the Opera Australia,
environment, I was meeting a lot of singers.
I was listening to a lot of Opera and I remembered that I
also enjoyed singing as a kid. And I thought, oh maybe I'll
just take some singing lessons and do that again as a little
hobby. Yeah.
And one of the Opera singers was kind enough to agree to give me
lessons. So I started doing these lessons
every week on my lunch breaks and very soon she said to me
look, I know you said you just wanted to do this as a hobby.
Hmm. I think you should try to go to
the conservatorium of music. Okay, I think you could do this
professionally. Yeah, excuse me, runny nose to
you. That means a lot.
Usually, when that happens to me, yeah.
When they actually believe in you, they have to do this kind
of thing. Exactly.
And it meant more as well because I wasn't looking for it.
Yeah. You know, I wasn't going to her
like so so can I be a professional exact, you know, it
was like it just came out of the blue.
I was like oh that's nice to hear.
Okay. Yeah.
And I had always wanted to do That as well.
So I said, okay like let's try. Hmm.
I then ended up changing teachers to one of the teachers
at the conservatorium and she kind of got me ready for the
auditions and then I was rehearsing every single day,
every single lunch break, so I was working full-time.
Still? Yeah, every single lunch break
would head up to the practice rooms, you know, do my scales,
do my arya's, just trying to get ready for this audition and as
you can imagine, I got into the Master's Degree therefore, at
the Sydney. Vittoria of music.
Yeah. In Opera performance Reaper.
Yeah, so that began my two years as an opera singer.
I supposed to do with. I completed that I think very
successful, it was really hard. I didn't know any music theory
for example, and most people who are doing a master's degree as
you can, imagine did a bachelor's degree in music so
they know all this music theory, They Know music history.
I came in basically being like, hey, I can sing really well and
I can act. What do you think?
Like, that's really cool. Don't have any theoretical
grounding and it was very intimidating.
I could imagine bills on top of that.
Yeah. And because it was a standard
that they expected that I wasn't aware of yet and it was Way
Beyond the standards that I had for myself.
Yeah, so I had to adapt adapt and it was there were a lot of
Tears, there was a lot of pain. I ended up paying for extra
tutoring so I could try to kind of catch up.
Yeah and by the end of it, you know I got to sing in the star
role in the final. Formance of my Master's Degree
and I got hired by Opera Australia as a singer directly
out of University. Yeah, I'm performing Cinderella
for school kids, really nice Cinderella.
And so later I moved to Germany, then to kind of try to pursue it
as a career. There aren't many full-time
singing jobs in Australia, in Australia.
If you say I'm, I'm an opera singer.
They say, oh, okay. And what do you really do?
It's like, it's like, it's so So not a career path, okay?
But the majority of people, I think there maybe 30 full-time
singing jobs in all of Australia.
Yeah. You know.
Germany. That's different.
Yeah. In Germany, every theater has
usually has a full-time chorus of Between 35 and 60 people,
okay? Are like basically one theater
in Germany, has more full-time jobs, Australia, so that the
decision was pretty easy to come over and luckily, my husband who
was my boyfriend at the time. Also won an award and he got
one, a one-year contract, one, a one-year contract at the same
theater where I had gotten hired.
So we kind of got really lucky just coincidentally where we
were able to work together there.
But three years and then I worked an extra third year.
Now, this is coming back to programming in a second, you
promise, I promise. That's a long story.
So during that time, of course, you know, we're living together.
We're working together. Things are going well, we decide
to get married, and then I become pregnant and planned and
we're super excited. But of course, by this point,
he's gotten a new job in Leipzig.
Yeah, I'm still living in Wiesbaden.
Now for anyone who doesn't know, German geography, the basically
on opposite sides of the country.
So so, it was Manageable. But not great during the
pregnancy. Yeah.
So basically, I was living alone in an Airbnb while I was
pregnant. And then eventually, of course,
once my maternity leave kicked in, I handed in my notice and I
went to Leipzig. Yeah, so this point, I'm heavily
pregnant. I know I've got one year of.
Leave ahead of me and being an opera singer while he's also
being a singer while having a newborn is extremely daunting.
Hunting is in to give you an idea in the Opera world.
You receive your school. At least I did receive your
schedule for the next week on the Thursday before hand.
Okay. So you can't, you can't plan
anything. No, it's just like that.
It's always like that and you're working nights.
Of course, a lot you're working weekends, you're working
holidays. So all the, all the worst times
for trying to find childcare basically.
Yeah. And so I was really thinking to
myself, do I want to He knew with Opera.
Yeah, after my maternity leave finishes, which would involve of
course during auditions all over again.
Probably wouldn't even get anything in Leipzig.
So then how would that work? The work of it.
I loved the day-to-day job of being an opera singer.
I often say like if you just took one day of work being, an
opera singer is amazing and I love it.
Okay, right. But taken all together over
time, I was like, okay I've done this now for seven years, I know
I can do it. I've been relatively successful
in doing this, but would I be able to lie on my deathbed and
be happy if I had this? Like, what?
I feel like I was fulfilling my potential.
Yes, ugly. And the answer I came to was.
No. I know that for a lot of people,
my husband included just creating music for them.
It's like that's life, like they love that and that brings them
the joy and satisfaction they need.
Yeah. And it's totally satisfying.
Me it wasn't I never really had that.
As I said, I came in kind of late for me, it was more about
performance. It wasn't so much about the
music itself. And so I also felt like there
was an intellectual part of my brain that I wasn't using.
I knew from The Filling. Yeah.
From the corporate stuff that I'd done before this project
management marketing stuff. Yeah, I knew that I was good in
business. I knew that I was good with
people and in the corporate world so to speak.
That's a different ballgame. Yeah.
And and I knew that I liked it and I also love logic puzzles
and these kinds of things, and like that was fun.
But then I kind of started thinking, well, hang on back.
When I was a kid, I did this HTML stuff and I really enjoyed
that. Maybe I should try it again.
Or try something like JavaScript or python, which I kind of heard
of floating around. I'd had a software engineer for
an ex-boyfriend, so he had kind of given me a very short
introduction to Java Script long, long ago, okay?
And they were kind of all these little things I was like, oh
yeah. I've always wanted to try
programming again and I really liked it as a kid.
Was it actually any good at it or was it just like a kid thing?
You know, only one way to figure out that's exactly is.
So I was getting towards the end of my maternity leave at that
point which meant you know the baby was a bit little bit more
didn't require like 24/7 access all the time, you know and I was
like, okay I should try it so I found the Odin.
Which is like a free web development course online.
I'll see ya. And I just started kind of
plugging away at that. My husband would take the baby
in the first half of the day. And I'd take her in the second
half of the day. Yeah.
And that meant that I had the whole morning every day to
practice coding. And so I would do between three
and six hours of coding every day.
Yeah. And was just teaching myself.
The great thing about the Odin project and I promise, I promise
is not a plug for the own project, but the great thing
about it is it teaches you like, get it teaches you General?
Skills like how to easily enter and things like that.
Not just it's not like free code camp where it's like you just
have this kind of social environment and yeah, yeah.
So you have to learn about all that stuff and it was great and
I knew very quickly that I was good at it.
Yeah. It was working for my brain.
It was like a light went off and I was like, hey, everything that
talking about. That's how I think.
Yeah. Like that's how I break down
problems. Like, oh, you have a problem.
We break it down into steps and then you break those steps into
smaller steps. Yeah.
And then you like, Find a good structure that can work for
those steps and then you break those apart.
And you know, like it's just it's exactly how my brain works
with everything. Yeah.
So it was a bit of a revelation and of course, I also had the
Discord community of the Odin project telling me.
Wow, you're going really fast, but you're also doing good work
here. Yeah.
Like, you should definitely keep going.
So, the big concern I had had, you know, as a new mom in my
early 30s was like, is anyone even going to want me there?
Like, I'm, I'm not like some Young hot shot out of a computer
science degree. You know, is someone even going
to want to hire me in that scenario?
And luckily, the Twitter communities this own project
communities, they all welcomed me with open arms and it was
like, everyone was just so lovely, and telling me like,
yes, you belong here, like you should keep doing this really
cool. That, that was very reassuring.
And then, I did a one-year, kind of Web development software
development costs, like what they call in German advisor
building, which means like a Continuing Education
certification. And I also during the course of
that, became the tutor for the course.
I was like learning the course, but also teaching the other
students, very nice. And I got hired before, that
course, finished by Nova Tech Consulting in Berlin, okay?
That's how it began. That was March 20, 20, 20, 20,
20 21. I got hired at only 21.
Yeah, that's like a year ago, yeah.
Really cool. The what I like is that so when
I was a kid, it was very intimidating, picking a career
path or even picking your you're like electives that you were
gonna do. It is a lot exactly.
Because that was going to kind of Define your future career
path, right depression? Exactly no pressure.
It's the future we're talking about here.
Yeah and those decisions you make might close some doors and
I was like man that kind of sucks.
Yeah. But luckily I mean even as you
describe it It's easy to Pivot, right?
Might not be easy, might require hard work, but it is doable.
You went from kind of a marketing thing meant more
business oriented to completely something else, Opera and
everything around that what it entails, but I can only imagine,
and then back to software, right?
Actually, being able to teach yourself the skills of kind of
creating software is amazing, right?
Everything is out there online, the communities, you talked
about encouraging, you giving you feedback and allowing you to
thrive within a Path like that. It just makes it feel amazing to
be part of that Community. I think it's very unique in the
software space to have that as well.
Yeah, true and I think mean there is still some gatekeeping
unfortunately, but I do think in general it is very welcoming.
And especially in the online space, what do you mean by the
gatekeeping part? Well, it's this is someone asked
the other day on Twitter. What's the difference between a
software developer and a software engineer?
And my answer was gatekeeping because, as soon as you use the
word engineer, you know, you have these guys coming out of
the woodwork being like, well, actual real engineer here, an
engineer, it's a protected word, and you can't really call
yourself lad and I'm like, well, one thing, if you do in
informatics degree in Germany it's called informatics.
It's not called engineering. Yeah.
Anyway so I just If you really care.
Like, I just, I just don't think it it's wrong.
For one thing I was a software engineer.
My first job was Junior, software engineer, and I didn't
have any government agents, like, knocking at my door.
Like, excuse me, how dare you? I just think like, and the fact
the matter is that the way our world is right now, if you will
girls and women in particular. But I mean we could talk about
lots of different, historically excluded groups, but especially
girls and women, We notice they're not coming through, you
know, high school systems and into University Systems.
So if we are like saying, okay, a software engineer can only be
someone with an engineering degree.
Yeah. Well like it or not you are
actively excluding anyone who has come through in a different
path and people who come through in a different path are usually
women. Yeah.
You know and that's so it's kind of like it or not.
That's a form of gatekeeping. Yes, I'm concerned.
If he was going to short-sighted in that way.
If you don't look past what you're saying, you might not
realize what you're actually doing.
And I don't think there's a difference.
They also say, software, developer, and Jen are just
regular developer. I mean, exact, would you expect
a software developer to not know how to set up a project?
No expect a software engineer to never complete.
A basic ticket know, like they do.
Both of them both a software developer and a software
engineer do both. I just think.
Yeah, it's that's the only difference.
If you call yourself a software engineer, you'll have people
like, knocking on your door being like, are you sure?
And If you call yourself a software developer, I want to be
like, okay whatever. Yeah, and these titles are not
formal. I can have could be a cloud
engineer Cloud sector box, I can create all the hottest Surfer
Cloud engineer. If you're not up in those clouds
mixing those years. I don't know if I'm actually
creating software a, my cloud engineer.
If I just pushed off to the clock if I do some
infrastructure. Yeah, there's no rules.
So I don't know why people create these kind of rules
themselves and and force them on other people.
And I think the reason is that it's about Texting their own
egos. I think people, when you
personally have always wanted to be a software engineer and
you've like, worked a whole life, you know, even a kid.
You've done it at high school, you've gone into University.
You've worked your butt off to get this degree and then you go
and become a software engineer. Now you've worked, let's say 10
15 years in software engineering.
And then you see someone like me like a form of opera singer
with, like, a years experience. Been like, oh now I'm a software
engineer. Yeah, I understand why people
don't like Like that feeling why that might make them feel like
the title is somehow lesser. Yeah but I do think in the end
it's a thing to do with your ego.
If if you're really proud of the work you've done which I think
those people absolutely should be proud of you.
Then it shouldn't really matter, what title is attached to that
because you know, you've done that work.
And you know, the experience you have and if someone else is
coming in as a junior or whatever and they're called
software engineer, what you should be saying is welcome.
I've got all this experience. Let me help you become better
exact. And then you can be inflate your
ego that way, basically, by helping other people.
I think that's the best way to boost your ego is by helping
other people in. And I mean that in a positive
way, like to help your confidence is to help other
people and to show other people what they can do.
And yeah, I think everyone has something to offer and I think
that's what those people should be leaning into rather than
getting defensive and feeling, oh no, like everything I've
worked for is under risk. It's like it's not you still got
your job. That's plenty of work for
everyone right now. You know, just go and help help
others and show them, show them what, you know, like prove it,
you know, and do it that way. Like boost your ego that way.
That's exactly. I think it's the same people
that say this is a weird or did that don't that can't think
further than just thinking it's right or wrong or black and
white right because experience is I don't know if it's additive
but it kind of Blends together, right?
If we have the same experience, we're going to think the same of
the solution is going to be the same.
But if we have, if you and me are in a team are So there are
different. I also don't have a traditional
computer science degree. I came here throughout my own
journey in my own path, but no one actually said to me you're
not a software engineer or software developer holding the
same things. It doesn't matter.
At the end of the day, if you're in a team, your experiences
blend together and together you figure out the solution can be
more or less Innovative based on the creativity within the team.
But the more diverse the more Creative Solutions are the
better. The end result gets because of
it. Absolutely.
And I think, I think the other thing to remember Amber there is
if you're creating, especially if you're creating software for
everyone, you know, an app that you expect to be used by many
many, many different people. Yeah.
If you don't then have many, many different types of people,
helping you create that software.
Yeah. You're going to have gaps.
Like loopy, coconut, you're gonna unintentionally exclude
people. Yeah, you know, you might have
the best of intentions but in the end you just don't have that
experience. You just can't like you just
can't know what someone from a different group is going to want
or need. Yeah, you know just like How I,
you know, I as an atheist I don't know what a Muslim person
needs, I don't know what a Christian person needs, you
know. I don't have that experience as
an Australian, I don't know what someone from Japan needs in an
app or someone from Nigeria, you know, they have that experience.
So it's so important. If you are creating
International apps or websites that are going to be accessed by
many, many different people. And especially we can talk about
a lie here, you know, all kinds of things this reaches into all
different Aspects, you need to therefore, have a diverse group
of people creating that product be it in the product side or the
engineering side, whatever. You know, you just need to make
sure that multiple eyes and ears are in there on your fingers,
touching, touching the screen or whatever it is.
But yeah, I completely agree with that.
And I remember an example of that that I heard of was a new,
I don't even want to necessarily call a nap.
But like a feature an airplane way you would It down and the
screen in front of you would say like oh hi Anna like welcome on
board. Yeah, whatever.
Now as soon as this rolled out the trans Community was like
this is a problem because a lot of them had dead names on their
official certification on their passports.
Yeah. So someone might come down.
So for example, a trans woman and she might sit down and it
would say hi Adrian. Welcome on board and suddenly
she's out Heard exactly. And that, that puts her,
unfortunately, even today in physical danger because there
are still people who will, you know, beat people up for that.
So, you know, there are things like that.
What you think? Oh, it's so it's so that's what
I'm look for. Innocent like just so welcome
someone on board but actually by flashing that name up so big.
You know, anyone who was involved in queer politics would
be able to tell you that that's a bad idea and it just comes
through not having it. First team involved in the
process. Yeah yeah I mean if you're
creating that you would think it's obvious, Right?
Use the name that's on their their birth certificate or
whatever. And all those on you have that
on the on the back end of that happening.
And I don't even know if those people that actually created the
software will get to hear the end of it.
We had to hear that. Actually, this is the result of
those choices, basically. Because unfortunately, sometimes
we don't even know what our impact is positive or negative.
Right. Which is a shame because I think
if you were, if you would hear that, you would take that with
you towards the future, right? That would be a new experience.
It's a learn, it's a learning experience, that's the thing.
And that's what I think. I'm a Believer in Impact over
intention, but I do think that if you are well-intentioned,
then you should you the impact with a learning, I should be
saying, okay, I had the intention to do something
positive. Yeah, it had a negative Impact
rather than going defensive again like before rather than
going defensive and saying, well, well, I didn't mean bad so
it's not bad. Yeah, you should be like, okay,
wasn't what I meant to do. I apologize.
How can I learn from this? How can I do better next time?
And it just, I mean, it's the same as thing I say, for
impostor syndrome in Tech. It's kind of like the same idea,
you know, rather than going in and getting defensive about what
you don't know. Yeah, you have to really go in
with a learning mindset of being like, okay, I don't know this
thing that Feels bad. I accept that feels bad but now
I need to do something positive. Let's fix it.
Yeah let's fix it. Like let's ask people.
Let's do the Google searches. Let's go to Twitter, whatever it
is but like let's find the answers and then that can be the
solution to this bad feeling. I have.
Yeah. Rather than just going defensive
defensive defensive, and it's a relief, right?
That you're in a space and that you are allowed to make
mistakes. As long as you learn from them,
you're not expected to know everything.
You are allowed to And what you don't know.
It just makes it. It makes it more comfortable to
be in this and to be unaware of the things that you don't know.
Because it's a learning Journey. So is life, right?
As a kid, you don't know the world.
So you pick up things, you put stuff in your mouth and you're
like, all this is not really edible but it back as a baby and
you continue on, right? That's how you learn why things
are. So even as an adult, that we
kind of opposed people to learn things and we expect people to
know what they should know rather than what they know and
expect them to learn, right? Be that sponge and sore.
Acknowledged, I think it's weird but I did you see it shifting
towards more, openness making people more comfortable in the
role that they have and allowing them to grow.
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I mentioned before
when I came into this Opera degree that I didn't know
anything. Yeah, you know about music
theory and people often ask me if I experienced impostor
syndrome in Tech, you know, being ostensibly an imposter but
I don't actually it's not. I've had the unfortunate
experience to the unfortunate luck to expect, you know what I
mean? Because I think I think it's
because I experienced it already in Opera, like, hardcore, right.
I was an imposter there, too. Like, I've done this whole thing
before and you know, I've cried the tears and I've had the
desire to quit and I fought through that and create a
successful career there. Yeah, so when it came to Tech,
It was like, oh yeah, I've done this.
Like, I've been the impossible for this is fine.
Like I just have to keep learning and an adventure.
I'll get to the point where I can do this professionally, just
like I did with Opera and no offense to programmers anywhere,
but Opera is harder than programming.
So I don't mean to offend anyone, but it is like the
Olympic sport of singing. I can agree with that because I
have no clue what it is. Well, to give you an idea.
Yeah, we've Opera, not only do you need to know the music
theory stuff. Yeah.
And not only do you need to be able to sing and The tune,
that's kind of goes without saying we have no microphones in
Opera and you're singing over a 70 piece, Orchestra.
Yeah, in theater, that can fit what?
I don't know. 700 to 1,000 people.
Sometimes more the screw and you're expected to be able to
project your voice from the stage over this Orchestra, the
very back of the theater. Yeah, with no microphone, right?
So, it is actually a super physical thing.
You have to know how to physically.
Hold your body, move your muscles, use your bones young,
it's actually very, very highly technical musical field.
Yeah, on top of that, you have to act dance move, we're really
tight costumes or big enormous wigs that are kind of trying to
pull your head. That's why sometimes you have to
do all of that while lying on the ground or floating upside
down on a wire, you know. Like so give me the ball game
again. I'm sorry, but programming is
easy. So, when it, when it came to
like learning programming and And not knowing anything.
I was like well if I can do it with Oprah I can I can do this.
Like you know. So different.
Like apples and oranges, right? Yeah sure.
You can't even compare the two. That's true.
Yes, is it? So in all product, can you learn
those skills? Well, yeah, it's still the same.
You can come in with a certain amount of talent and still teach
yourself a lot of things or cultivate those skills.
So I think the Olympics Sports analogy is a really good one
because as with Olympic sports with Olympic athlete, And not
everyone can become an Olympic Athlete, right?
You could learn to become the fastest version of yourself.
Yeah, let's say as a sprinter. So you might be a decent Runner
as a kid and then you go to a coach and you can get really
fast. Maybe you can even be the
fastest in your state. Yeah.
But you're not getting to the Olympics, right.
An average person will probably never get to the level of State.
Yeah, you know, but they can still learn to Sprint really?
Well. Yeah, I believe The same thing
about singing and about Opera, in general, I believe the broad
majority of people can at least, learn to sing.
Yeah. Will everyone have the ability
to become an opera singer or not?
Some people just don't have the natural Voice or they just, they
just can't coordinate their body in that way or they're also
physical builds that are more, that work better in Opera
compared to others. And you know there are just Some
things you can't change genetically that do play a role
in how well or badly you sing and of course, some people are
tone deaf and they will never be able to learn and just like with
programming, you know, some people they just can't they just
can't wrap their heads around basic programming Concepts.
Yeah, I believe those people are in extreme minority.
I believe. Almost everyone could learn
basic programming. I was gonna ask that.
Yeah, you do think that people can teach themselves in a more
General sense. Course, the program more easily,
than they would. For example, go to the Opera.
And for, yes, I would say that. Yeah.
So I would say, I would say of the general population.
Yeah, let's say, I believe probably like 70 to 80% if they
really wanted to, and if there were enough jobs for this, could
learn enough to become an entry level software developer.
Yeah, that's really cool. 70 to 80% of the population.
Yeah, Opera I would say like maybe If we're being generous
five percent of the population so it's a huge to be an opera
singer like a professional opera singer on a stage if they
decided to and if they went out of their way to do it, it's
really hard. And luckily for me I feel like
it did also teach me a lot of skills that helped.
Give me a head. Start in programming, despite
the fact that they seem to be all sorry, they seem to be
completely separate from each other.
There's a lot that I learned in Opera that I feel like still
helps me today. Day especially my new role.
Because I'm now I know I was a software engineer.
I'm now a director of product and Engineering at National
media and Tech, which is a tech subsidiary of the German media
conglomerate Axel Springer. And we do like all these.
We do basically everything for them.
They're the biggest media company in Germany.
Yeah and my job is kind of to oversee all of the tech products
that we do. It's all the tech projects that
we do. So I have to like keep my eye on
all these different things. My job is to come out and talk
about them. A lot, of course, also deal with
some Dai. So diversity, equity and
inclusion, initiatives inside, for, for our technical staff.
I'm not in h.r. So it's not really like
everyone, just just our Tech staff of they want some
representation at the highest level.
I'm there for them and that kind of stuff that kind of teamwork
speaking on stages talking to you today.
You know, a lot of those skills that I've learnt have come from
Opera, exactly. So it's not just that, for
example, Jacques Theory and learning music theory, has
taught me a type of systemic thinking that helped me.
Learn programming. I believe that's true.
So there's kind of that more programming side of things that
more like technical side of things.
Yeah. But also in a non technical
sense, I feel like the skills I've learned from being a
performer have really helped me a lot in my career just
generally. Yeah I think it's a wide array
of skills that you need as a software engineer or even when
you go more High over right. I love this.
Partially is technical sure. You actually need to know how to
do things but you can figure those out, right?
This isn't my own resources for that sometimes or sometimes your
trailblazing. We actually have to try things
out of the skills are also human interaction communication
psychology can help you which is then he comes back to what we
said earlier. Right the diversity within a
team makes the team better in the product as well at the end
of the day. Yeah, and it's interesting.
Say that because that's actually one of the skills that I really
feel like I did bring across. Yeah, is empathy.
Because I mean, I like to think I've always been a bit of an
empath like an empathic person in, you know, a social sense.
But the thing about Opera and or any type of stage performance is
that you are inhabiting characters, right?
Yeah. So when you're doing a character
study, you need to think. Okay, what kind of background
did this person have? How were they raised?
What were their parents? Like what was their school like?
Why are they behaving in that way?
In this scene? One of the roles I played was as
this kind of older, I should send you the clearance great.
This kind of older princess, but she's the aunt of the main
character and she's disinheriting her from the will
because she had a baby out of wedlock.
Yeah, and she's the, she's the evil character.
Like she's the bad guy in this Opera and that was me.
Yeah. But I when I walk out on that
stage, I don't think Okay, now I'm the bad guy.
I have to be like, I'm a good guy.
I'm the only one who can see what's the right thing to do.
Yeah, you know, because that's how she was the shifter.
Yeah, season selves is the bad guy.
So, I have to be able to shift into different characters and
think about how, and why they act the way they do flee from
their perspective, and I find that so helpful in software
teams even because you often do have people who are completely
different to you, I miss, you know, extroverted allowed
Australian, former opera singer, in an engineering day unique,
like, most of the time, there aren't a.
Lot of people like me in a team, but I really pride myself in
being good at talking to people from many many, many different
backgrounds, many, many different personality types.
And I would say, most of the time we get along really well,
because I feel like I'm able to Adapt to their needs.
I'm able to try to see things from their perspective.
Of course, I can't because I'm not them, but I can try exactly
and, and therefore connect with them and make them feel more
comfortable. And that's what I aim to do in
every team. I'm on.
Yeah, the makes sense. I mean, I do it but I didn't do
it like that consciously. Yeah, but because you come into
a team and you'll obviously want to make people feel comfortable.
You notice, when people don't speak up and some people do, Or
some people are the only ones talking in a meeting, right?
You want to include everyone because you know, their skills
are valuable here, right? We are still in a team, a team
is not a one-man Army, but some teams apparently are.
And if you can't make that same safe space within a team and
it's just going to be that one man army, the results going to
be the same as well, then. Exactly.
And I mean, I'm not every meeting I should say, not
everyone responds well to meetings, right?
Like there are some people who are never going to talk up in
meetings, no matter what you say or do.
That's also fine. And what I did in previous teams
that I was on is that I would actually like go to those people
after a meeting and just have a one-on-one coffee chat or
something and you know, just kind of talk about them and what
they're up to and if they want to talk about their ticket and
give them that space to talk about it but not force them to
do it. But very often that is where the
real Stations with those people would happen because they were
just too intimidated by big groups.
No matter how comfortable a lovely.
They were, it was just they had this fear of looking stupid,
this imposter syndrome kind of been creeping in where I asked.
Like, if I ask what a Docker container, is everyone's going
to like an idiot and then like they're going to fire me.
And you know, I'll be gone by the end of the way, you know,
this kind of. Oh yeah, anxiety.
Yeah. But when they're with me and
were chatting and I say oh yeah and then I have to do something
Docker containers. Then I can just say, okay, have
you worked at Docker containers before?
And they can say no and say oh do do you feel like you
understand what they are? Would you like me to go over it
again for you? Yeah.
You know, and then that gives them an opportunity then
exactly. Ask that question and yeah, I
feel like being able to put yourself in the shoes in my case
of someone who's not as extroverted and to kind of
think, okay? If I didn't like people as like,
well, like bringing energy in from people.
And if I weren't as confident in speaking, what would I need?
In this scenario like what would make me comfortable to ask
something? And you have to be able to I
think put yourself in that scenario.
Yeah, but I agree, it's not always conscious.
You like to think that after after a while you just kind of
do it without thinking about it which is, that's a good sign,
exactly, if you do that. So I love that.
You said, you learned how to cope with imposter syndrome,
right? Coming from the Oprah teaching,
ourselves those skills. And then being like, OK, this is
a different ball game, but still how to deal with that.
Is that it The same. Right?
What do you think the biggest Factor there is that helps you
cope with imposter syndrome? I love talking about.
This is one of my favorite. Thanks again, it's funny.
I can go back to this topic of the ego that we spoke about
earlier I believe and and you know might be a little
controversial I believe. When you feel imposter syndrome
that's actually your ego screaming out interesting for a
reassurance. It's like when people fish for
compliments, right? It's the same sort of idea, and
a lot of people say, well no, no I mean I feel imposter syndrome
because I'm not confident, you know?
And I think well, I don't actually believe that I think
you feel imposter syndrome because you think you could
understand this and you should understand this but you don't
write. And so then you think I'm better
than this. I should be better than this.
I can be better than this. Why aren't I better than this?
And it's this kind of loop so I believe it's your ego screaming
out for reassurance. You'd like that?
You are actually Enough. And that's often the response
that people give when someone says oh I feel imposter Syndrome
have go, it's fine. Everyone feels that way.
It's normal. You know, these kinds of your
find this kind of stuff. I think that that it's true.
Like all of that is true. I don't think it actually helps
the core issue of impostor syndrome which is that sometimes
you are the one worst one in the room.
Yeah. Like sometimes sometimes there
is stuff that you should know that, you don't know, and I
don't think there's anything wrong with just saying that That
with being up front about it. I'm a very blunt person in my
life and I feel like it's important sometimes to be
upfront with the truth. Okay, sometimes you are the
worst one in the room. Yeah.
Okay. So what happens?
Yeah, also this means. Okay let's say we've got six
people around this table and I'm the worst one in the room.
Okay. What do I have?
I have an opportunity to learn from five.
People who know more about the subject than me.
Yep, that's amazing. That's great.
Why would I be upset about that? Like, even if we accept that
engineering teams are open to failure and are open to
learning? Yeah, and if you are in fact in
a company like that, you should be because I feel like most
engineers During teams are like that nowadays then you should be
viewing every situation where you feel imposter syndrome, you
should be viewing that as an opportunity to learn not as some
sort of slight on you because you can be the worst one in the
room. And it's fine.
Like, Tech is an enormous field. There is so much to learn.
No one at that table knows everything.
Yeah. Everyone needs to interrogate
other people about what they know in order to learn the
Basics of any field of tech exactly because, like, you could
have the best back-end engineer in the world, you say to them
make a react app and they will stare at you completely blankly,
you know, like like, well, let's go.
Exactly. So to me when someone says, I'm
feeling imposter syndrome that says to me that they are
approaching these situations whether I need to prove myself
mentality. Okay?
So they might feel that they need to prove themselves to
others. Might need field.
They need to prove themselves to themselves, or to some
hypothetical terrible parent, or something like that, someone
that they feel like, oh, I'm going to show you, you know, but
this proving yourself mentality is to me.
Toxic absolutely toxic. If you go in being like, I need
to prove myself. Then you're going to put on a
front. I'm going to be like, I'm great.
I'm really good. I'm really good.
Look at it. Look, everyone.
Look how good I am. I know things, I know things.
I definitely know things like you're not going to be like, oh
okay, I've never heard of a Docker container before, what's
that? Yeah, you know.
And so for me, the change, the switch that is needed is from a
proving yourself mentality into a learning opportunity,
mentality viewing this as an opportunity to learn as an
opportunity to grow and seeing that, as a positive thing.
So, I felt I've said before, I don't really suffer from
imposter syndrome, I don't. Yeah.
But I do sometimes feel twinges of it like where I'm like, oh,
hang on, everyone's talking about terraform and I've never
even seen it before. Like, I don't know what I'm
Doing, you know, and in those situations, I try to just catch
myself and I think. Okay.
So you don't know about terraform like, no one's ever
asked you to know about terraform before.
Yeah, so ask someone like learn and then the next time terraform
comes up in conversation, you'll know what to do or you'll know
at least the basics of put it rolls talking about yeah you
know. So I think that that approach
that being open is really important.
I think it's especially important for senior Engineers.
Yeah because I think the higher you get in So to speak, the more
pressure, you feel to know everything or do you mean?
Yeah, but again, take as a huge field, they're always going to
be gaps in people's knowledge. And the reason I say especially
seniors is because seniors are in the unique position of being
a role model, for a lot of other Engineers exact.
And if they can very, very openly say, oh wow, I've never
worked with that technology before.
I'm feeling a bit of imposter syndrome right now.
George can you help me understand this?
Yeah, you know, No saying it openly, I'm feeling imposter
syndrome. I don't know about this topic.
Can you teach me more? If you can do those three things
as a senior engineer in a team, that's not only helping you as
an individual. Yeah.
It's helping the whole team Co. This is a safe space to know
nothing. That's a great example and we
made that exact everyone needs that?
Yeah, I've never heard it be kind of match towards ego.
I know I've had it, right? I've come from More of an
operational background. And then I got very frustrated
because I would know how to fix things, but I wasn't responsible
for that. I couldn't even do it.
So then I moved to more of the engineering side and actually I
had nothing to start off. Sure University knowledge made a
website here and there, but whatever it wasn't an
organizational setting the, you know, get, I'm really.
Okay, let's start with that. And now let's make these changes
here. Okay, we're going quite fast.
Okay, Quest. And okay, I was pretty proud of
that, and then I got For your marks and my conch, these people
know their stuff. So that's the how it kind of
snowballs, right? And it's always there, you're
always like, okay there's stuff, I don't know, but I always saw
myself as kind of a wild card. I was like, I'd it's pretty
obvious that I don't know stuff. So should I be ashamed of it?
Not really, I should learn from this, right?
All these opportunities, all these people are here and they
know a lot of stuff that I don't.
But if I really want to do this, I need to be that sponge to
absorb knowledge. It didn't make it go away.
The Imposter syndrome, like it was always there.
It's sometimes still pops up exactly as you say it, but you
do learn how to cope with it, right?
You do ask those questions because you might not be the
only one, that's like, what's terraform?
Because you're still within a group.
And if two people are talking, they also just mean like
interesting then it might not be the only one.
Right. Exactly.
Well, that's the other things so often, when you think, oh my
gosh, I don't know any of this often.
There's at least one other person in the room.
Who feels exactly the same way. Yeah.
So it's really great if you could be Person to open it up,
but I agree with you. I think, I think it actually, in
a way, it helps, being an outsider with impostor syndrome,
you know, because I can be like, well, yeah, obviously I don't
know exactly about relational databases like, you know, I
didn't go to UNI for this, you know, our teach me exactly how
about we lay it out. So we make sure everyone has the
same. Exactly, let's go back to basics
for a second. What?
Jean. And what's the 0?
What is that going to click? Never seen it.
These numbers before but I'm not quite sure I'm seeing the
connection. I, uh, but yeah, so I think that
cat does kind of help actually when you're like, very
obviously, an outsider in a way. It gives you a bit of an
advantage in that respect, but I do think that it comes down to
honesty, like, it maybe goes even back to the like your job
interview. If you're in your job interview
and you're saying, oh yes, I'm an expert in this, and I'm an
expert in that. I'm an expert in something else
in order to try to get a job. Yeah.
Then you're in a terrible position when you start, you
said, because now they should That expectation, you have to
work that whereas for me when I've been in job interviews,
what I've always really appreciated people saying, well,
you know, with react, I could create a basic, you know,
website, that, you know, could have like, for example, a
restaurant website, or something like that.
But I don't know how to use apis yet or something like that.
Yeah, so they can really say distinctly, I can do this.
I'm not sure about this yet this technology.
I've just touched a little bit. This tool I've used, maybe once
or twice this other one. I feel very comfortable.
Yeah, I love that because when someone is like that in a job
interview, you know, exactly what you're getting is no
question marks. Exactly, there's no like like,
you know, are they telling the truth about really being good at
all? This stuff because there's no
way you can test for all of it. Yeah.
In an interview process, you kind of have to take their word
for it, if the trust at some point and then that person, if
you hire that person that the bragger so to speak.
And then they're in meetings, that's terrible for them to
because now they feel like they're incapable of asking
these questions. Yeah.
So you know I feel like it's it's helpful from a unit lead
perspective if you're giving people space to discuss what
they're not. So good at it's helpful from a
team lead perspective, if you're giving space, in meetings to
give people space to not know about topics, but in the end, if
you as a person as an individual and not being honest, and
upfront with what your understanding, what you're not
understanding. Ending you just kind of dig
yourself deeper and deeper into a hole where everyone just
assumes you know. Yeah.
And then you can get to the point where oh I haven't asked
that question three weeks ago and now someone's asking me to
do a ticket on it and I have no idea.
And now it's like it's not too late.
I don't think it's ever too late but you can feel like oh now if
I ask a question it will everyone be like hang on you
didn't understand this all the time, you know?
We towards a confrontation. Yeah, it just gets worse and
worse. So it's just so important to to
ask those questions. Be open and honest about what
you are. Just, and don't understand.
Yeah, just take the risk. Most of the time people are fine
with it, like, it will appreciate it.
One of the, one of the points of feedback I would get is that
that's accurate. So we know you're kind of new at
this. Sure.
We're also very humble about what, you know, what, you don't
know when you say, you don't know, but you can figure it out.
I trust that, right? I don't expect you to know, I
just asked a question sometimes, I ask people do you know this
and we're going to do that and it takes them way longer than I
would think you should take is because they're figuring it out
and sure they can. No, but at that point, when
asked them, they didn't actually know.
But they weren't, they weren't comfortable telling me.
Exactly. Like, okay, I mean, I'm honestly
is number one with me, right? I don't assert a weird
expectation because then it doesn't fit well with me as a
person. If I'm disingenuous and not act
out of Integrity, I guess. Like, I hold strong value within
that. So, from disingenuous towards
you, what? I know I'm disingenuous to
myself as well, and either I need to figure that out, or I
should have said that. So I'm honest in what I know.
I'm also honest in, should we actually do this?
And I like to challenge a lot of things for people also be like,
okay, this is actually a conversation.
Now, instead of just being like a we need to do this, I asked of
Patrick to do this and he just does it regardless of the if he
knows it or not, I think it becomes better of it.
That we actually have a dialogue that we're honest about what we
know and what we don't know. I also have expectations about a
product owner that they know stuff, but if they don't then we
can figure it out long. As we're honest That exactly.
I think. That's, that's the key.
And that's the challenge. Yeah.
And especially I speak a lot of conferences about supporting
Junior developers. Yeah.
And one of the things I try to emphasize there is, don't
underestimate people's fear of being fired.
Yeah, especially when they're in their first job.
Like the terrified, they don't, they don't want to appear
ignorant or scared, or, you know, or nervous or unsure of
Themselves because they think if you sense weakness, you'll fire
them. Yeah.
And unfortunately for the juniors, the opposite is only
completely true. If you're asking a lot of
questions and being engaged in the topic, usually that actually
leaves a much better impression. As you said, the team lead, then
knows where you stand. They can actually give you
resources to help you, you can become a really solid developer
in a year, two years easily if you're being really open and
honest about what you know, and don't know.
But unfortunately, a lot of people are coming in with that.
Y'all of our if I show that then they're going to fire me.
Yeah, I gave the example before of do you know what a Docker
container is? Or would you like me to explain
it to you again? I think that's a good example
because sometimes, when you ask people these missions I'll do
you know what a Docker container is?
It can almost sound like an accusation like confrontation.
Do you know what? Exact whereas if you do the
offer immediately, do not a Docker container is or would you
like me to explain it? You know, it immediately gives
them an out when they go. Oh yeah.
Maybe you could explain it again.
Yes, I think I know but maybe you know, give me another
explanation. Exactly.
You know it gives them an immediate opportunity.
Yeah. So I think that's a good
solution for anyone who is trying to like Foster that like
don't check knowledge but try to check knowledge with an offer of
how to help at the same time so that it's much easier for them
to accept it. They don't feel like you're
about to fire when you ask those questions.
Yeah, I don't know how it was for me but I didn't have The
fear. I think I joined a company and I
was like, okay, this is absolutely gonna go right and my
way or I'm gonna get the hell out of here.
II know that I accepted that from when I started.
So I think that really might have helped.
I'm sure that must have helped but it not, everyone is like
that. I don't think everyone did.
So you recognize what you're saying that?
All right, like, I'm a little bit the same way I'm an eternal
optimist. Yeah, I always go into things
being like, oh, this is gonna be great, everything will go
perfectly and You know, I that's just kind of the attitude I
bring into things, but as you say not, everyone is like that
other people had different experiences.
Some people have had, especially career changes, they've come
from things like areas, like Hospitality where they are,
sometimes treated like absolute crap by their bosses, you know,
they're not used to team environments.
Exactly. Yeah.
Where people are actually supportive and actually want you
to ask questions and engage with that meaningfully, they used to
environments where they get yelled at if they don't know
something, or they get Hold to like go clean it up right now,
you know, like that and they have to do it and I'll be like
why. Yeah, exactly or what is a mop
and it's important to remember that also even University
graduates have often worked jobs like that, of course.
So they're early experiences of employment and not necessarily
conducive to having that kind of confidence that you that you had
when you started, I do feel like that's another benefit of coming
into town. Tech as a career changer as well
is that, you know, we we've had a few more experiences of the
the real world. We've kind of gotten well for me
anyway, past the age of 30. Especially I feel like I really
stopped caring if exactly act and I just got to the point
where I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna like be myself and
that's going to die with some people are not and whatever.
What will be will be, you know, and accepted a bit more the
things that I could control you. And just said, okay, some people
aren't gonna like me. That's fine.
I don't like everyone. Yeah, no problem.
Those things like sure it's unfortunate but it is what it
is. And similarly in the workplace,
okay? Maybe there will be from time to
time. Someone who doesn't respond
positively to a question that I asked.
Maybe I asked, you know, just going back to what is a
container and someone goes what I would you ask that?
Yeah. Highly unlikely for any genius
listening at home. Highly unlikely that will be the
reaction. Maybe it could be.
Yeah. And and if it is you just have
to be like well I don't know it and I want to get better.
Yeah end of story and someone else will be like, okay great
let me help you, exactly, right. They could be One Bad Apple from
time to time, you know? Team, hopefully not the whole
team by the occasional bad apple does crop up.
Yeah, but I think part of that confidence that you're talking
about is just accepting, okay? They'll be people like that and
that's not my problem. Exactly.
What Problem is becoming the best developer I can be.
And the best way to do that is to continue learning and to talk
to other people because often people can explain things far
better than documentation care. Yeah, unfortunately, then I'd
like one of my colleagues said that when they would see me
struggling and it would be like, okay, so we know you can figure
it out, right? That's not really the point.
But if you can figure it out within four hours and I can
explain it in like half an hour, choose the option that I explain
it because ask for help and you're beat faster and better
because Cuz of it because we are within the team, right?
I have colleagues next to me. That can explain stuff that I
don't know in a way because they know me that well actually be
beneficial and sure, everyone can figure everything out
because a lot of stuff is online.
It's just going to vary in time and if it takes too much time,
ask ask for help. Exactly.
And I think the really cool
thing as well, I'm sure you can speak to this too.
Is this strange phenomenon, where if you're stuck on a
problem, An hour, an hour and a half.
You got okay. I guess I have to just ask
someone for help. Yes.
Soon as you ask someone for help you suddenly understand what you
doing, really hang on. Yeah.
It's kind of like rubber ducking.
Little rubber duck technique but you like, you know, you've typed
out this long slack message explaining what the problem is
and then you're about to hit enter and then you go.
Did he just another good reason to ask questions?
Yeah, it's It's kind of externalizing, your thoughts and
being confronted with them. Like okay.
Now I feel it now I see the solution to this problem of
describing, what it was still wondering is because you made a
complete career switch is how the interview process went.
Did you have coding challenges? Lots of conversations or lots of
screening things where you didn't even go through?
Because all of that stuff is automated nowadays.
So I have the honor of saying I've still never done a
technical test. Okay?
Very lucky I've been sent one but I didn't end up doing it
because I got a job offer before I needed to.
Yeah. So when I was first applying it
was kind of an accident. I'd kind of said on Twitter.
Oh 2021 will be the year. I get my first day of job.
Very exciting table and then someone message me on Twitter
being like Oh if you're interested we've got a front end
position going like why don't you apply?
And I was like oh I didn't mean I didn't mean like now the whole
year my dad's gonna be all right and I kind of forced me to
create a CV and create a Portfolio website and this kind
of stuff because the offer was there, I wasn't going to say no.
So I was going to try to go for that.
And then as part of that process, I recorded a video of
myself, kind of giving the basics, because I have a YouTube
channel as well. That is a bit unloved at the
moment, but with lots of coding tutorials and career stuff.
And I had this YouTube intro but it wasn't really appropriate for
my Website. Because it's like it was on
YouTube channel introduction and welcome to my YouTube channel.
Yeah, exactly. So I thought okay I'll record a
new video specifically for my job search two minutes.
Like about me what I'm looking for.
ETC. Yeah, I recorded that video.
I put it on my website. I put it on my YouTube, I put it
on Twitter and that's where things kind of went a bit wild.
And I got about 12 different messages that night.
So, within six hours of posting that think about 12 job leads in
my inbox, Yeah. And one of those was the
managing director of Nova Tech and he and I then had a meeting
on the Monday. So I posted on the Friday, we
had a meeting on the Monday. And by the next Monday, I had
another meeting with the team lead, who was my future unit
lead and the Tuesday, I had the contract.
Okay, so, it went really untraditional really quickly and
I think they knew and I was very open with them that I had all
these other Jobs in the pipeline.
Yeah and so they knew okay, if we don't move fast, excellent
heat is probably gonna go somewhere else.
So they managed to kind of bypass the technical test in
that specific situation. And then of course when I was
interviewing for my current position it's a it's an upper
management role. So technical test wasn't
required, they kind of just took my word for it when I explained
what I could and couldn't do with programming because
although I will still be doing programming as part of my role,
it would be more like 20 to 30 percent of my role rather than a
you're 90%. So I think they just kind of
accept it. Okay.
She's probably telling the truth because I don't you exactly at
this point point, like why would I lie?
Have you ever been on the other side then of doing an interview
in that way and doing an actual like take-home coding thing?
That really not a take-home? No, no, I've been in a technical
interview before as an interviewer, that was a live
one. So what we would do is we'd
actually give them an existing practice code base and we'd give
them a uml diagram of like the relationship between the data
that they would be working with. And then they had to, you know,
use get to clone it onto the machine and then they had to run
the tests and they would be five failing tests and then they
would have to fix them. Okay?
And that was basically, that was the test.
It was designed to go for. I think an hour and a half in
total. Of course, it was assumed that
not every bug would necessarily be fixed.
Yeah. It was more about seeing how
they communicate how they think about problems.
As I say, we haven't mentioned my book yet, but in one of the
things I really focus on in my book about technical test
because I've spoken to a lot of people about them, of course.
Yeah, he's that very often. That's what they're really
testing. Yeah.
They're not necessarily testing. If you have all these
algorithms, memorized some pieces are but most of the time.
Most of the time, what they want to know is, could I work with
this person? Yeah.
Like do they know enough to be useful firstly, like in terms of
how they approach problems, how they get answers.
So for example, I know that my current company allows people to
use Google or whatever to look up their answers, you know, it's
completely like a normal developer environment.
How do people go about finding Solutions?
How do they think about problems?
And if we give them like three, Asks, how do they prioritize
those tasks? Because usually a technical test
is not designed to actually be finished in that time.
Exactly. And often what they want to see
is what feature you choose or what test, whatever approach,
yeah. What's your approach?
And why can you explain it? And also when you're doing the
test to kind of talk through what you're thinking is?
Well I think that's a real skill that people anyone who's looking
for a job. Be it, junior or senior, or any
level should practice before they start the interview
process? Yeah, is actually coding while
explaining what you're doing, imagine that you're in a pair,
programming session, you know, and you have to narrate what
you're thinking and what you're doing, and why?
Because that takes practice, of course.
It's exactly form of Master skill, and it's hot.
Yeah, sorry. So, yeah, it's a skill.
A lot of these things are skills and like, any skill that can be
learnt given practice time and consistency.
Yeah. Yeah.
That makes sense. I do see it trending towards
more of a conversation. I guess, exactly.
As you said it, I think yours is very non-traditional.
Channel because it kind of came from Twitter world that you were
already out there, kind of on social media.
You said, you have a YouTube channel, but for a lot of
people, it's traditional coding challenge, confrontational,
because that already Narrows kind of the market that we kind
of source in in a way. Because not everyone wants to do
that area. Will apply to those jobs that
require and a lot of people will be sorry to interrupt, but a lot
of people will also just actively say no to those exactly
nowadays. There are I have various amounts
of offers I will choose the easier path or kind of same
values and companies but no coding challenge.
So, yeah, we need to figure out a way that also can challenge.
Those things can make it apparent within a an interview.
We interviewer, there's a hard that the have those skills the
skills that we're looking for that.
They are valuable that, they don't know everything.
Sure. But what a limitations there and
then we can actually hire that way.
Yeah. Well I mean, I've heard the same
Saying, you know, you can train skills, but not attitude.
Yeah, you know, and that's, that's the same kind of thing.
I'm not sure I entirely agree, but I think you can train
attitude as well, but but I think also maybe it's hire for
attitude, not skill or whatever, it's something like that
mindset, maybe something like that, but it's definitely to do
with training as well. But that's the thing, I think if
someone's got a good mindset and I've got a good attitude and
they are thinking in the right way.
Yeah. Like they are, as we said
earlier, they're breaking down problems in a Why?
Or they are approaching approaching technical problems
in a logical thought out pattern.
Then, you know, they're on the right track?
Sure. They don't know.
The specific are a method or something.
Like, okay. Fine.
You know, but that doesn't make a great developer like, really
in the end, how you solve problems.
Yeah, that's what makes you a great developer.
As you said, learning the programming skills themselves,
like you can do that. The Google search, those are
easy, you know. Yeah but it's that mindset
training that mindset both the technical mindset, you know, the
the how to break down problems, how to come up with Solutions.
But also, as we said earlier, this learning mindset, the
ability to be open and honest. Yeah and know your worth because
I think everyone everyone brings something unique and something
different and I think they should be proud of that and have
confidence in that. Absolutely.
All of that. That's the stuff that really
matters, whether you know, C++ but you already know Java and
JavaScript. Like, you'll be fine.
You can land safely. You'll figure it out.
So that's the kind of stuff that people should be hiring for and
usually are hiring for. And so, that's what you have to
keep in mind in those interviews is, okay.
I just need to show that. I can communicate these ideas
that I know how to solve problems.
And so, the one thing lots of people forget that when they're
interviewing you, they want to imagine working with you every
single day, is this. I want to talk to every single
day. So, you know, bring your nicest
self basically? Yeah, because because they're
also hiring for that. Yeah, yeah.
I love that. Let's let's run it off there
that I love how this conversation went love.
Hearing about how your journey went and how you kind of ended
up here everything the ups and downs in between as well.
Is there anything you still want to share?
Not really, I guess, follow me on Twitter in the description.
There's somewhere. Yeah, you should all.
Come on, June, July, and July at scold.
Are you belong in Tech? So, as I mentioned, yeah, as I
mentioned earlier, that was the one question I had.
When I started, do I belong? This kind of says, yes, you do
and it's a very super practical guide to getting your first tech
job with zero programming knowledge.
So, it's like how to learn programming, like break it down
like what should you do? It's not a programming book, but
it kind of teaches you about how to learn.
Then it's about how to blog, how to create an online presence.
To find communities both in your local area and online.
And then it's about the actual application process interview
skills, these kinds of things. It's super practical, it's not
wishy-washy. Oh, it's like me, I'm just like
doing something. This is how you do it.
Bam, bam, bam. And yeah, it's coming out in
July, should be on Amazon Kindle, all those normal cool.
So I look forward to checking that out.
Awesome. Thanks everyone for listening
and a McDougal all her stuff will be in the description
below. And thanks for listening to
catch you on the next one. Thanks for listening everyone.
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