Hi everyone, My name is Patrick Akil, and if you're interested
in the tech trends nowadays, specifically in web development,
this episode is for you. Joining me today is Lydia
Halley, software engineer, and I love her drive and curiosity,
figuring out all the fundamentals and using that as
educator to educate others. We covered that developer
advocacy, AI in education and much, much more.
Enjoy. What do you think nowadays for
people that like come into either web development or tech
as a whole, what is like the biggest bottleneck you think?
Or how would you start? Yeah, it's a good question.
I mean, in web in general, there are so many different things.
So you can choose from now, you know, like what language?
Like am I going to go React and then am I going to go next?
Yes. Or Remix?
Am I just going to go vanilla JavaScript?
It's too much. It's too much.
Yeah. I mean, personally, what I would
definitely do is like, as I've always done, just go first into
the fundamentals of JavaScript itself, because that's still
like the main web language, of course, and then see what like,
and then just dependent based on the product that you want to
build. Because I feel like a lot of
people are kind of moving to trend driven development, right?
Like they just choose whatever's popular.
And that's also nice because a lot of content creation is then
around those languages or those tools.
So you get a lot of ideas and help with that.
But I feel like especially when you're just beginning, you need
to understand what the, I guess constraints are and what like
difficulties are with what you're working with.
So I, I honestly, I would just go like vanilla JavaScript or
like choose a framework that's like as vanilla as possible and
only then you kind of work your way up to like React and then
next GS and then server components, all that stuff.
Yeah, but it's difficult 'cause I always get asked a question.
I was from beginners, like where, where do I begin?
There are so many things. I'm like, honestly, I don't
know. Like I had it kind of easy back
in 2015 when I started that. Yeah, it's difficult.
I've never heard the term trend driven development, but I like
it like it's a good term. I.
Would say it's and it's. Definitely something I see
happen in practice as well. Like I'm on.
I'm on a lot of reddits to be honest.
I lurk a lot. I don't really discuss a lot
not. Reddit.
Reddit, yeah. Yeah, first, you shouldn't do
that for your mental health. I.
Love it. I mean, I I keep it compound to
certain topics, but tech is one of them.
Yeah. And I still see questions, first
of all, on job hopping, but second of all, with AI, is it
still, like feasible to come into this domain?
And I see two camps, people that are just genuinely interested,
that really want it, like do it from ground up, have either a
traditional career path or educational path or just out of
interests. And the other camp is just, can
I make a boatload of money basically?
Yeah. And I don't think that's
helpful. No, no, I fully agree.
I feel like, and it's such a shame.
I often see that also on my Twitter and I just really miss
the time when people were actually like interested in what
they're doing. Like I'm always like it.
It's great that tech makes so much money and like we're
definitely very privileged that we're interested in a field that
is so like lucrative and so fun and like we get to be so
entrepreneurial with everything. But I just miss like that people
are genuinely interested in what they're doing and curious.
Like I, I, it's so easy to build a product now with AI and just
get something out real quick or copy what other people are
doing. But it just to me, it lacks so
much like soul, like so much emotion.
It like I just see the same content every time And I'm like
if this is where the Internet is going and like where websites
and and ideas are going, it's such like AI don't know.
Very harmful trend. It is, yeah.
And I, I just truly wish that more people, so younger people
were truly like curious again and like, all right, so I have
this issue or I'm working with this tool or I'm working within
a browser. What is it that I'm actually
working with? Or like, you know, JavaScript
does it and I'm just saying JavaScript now as an example.
But whatever you're working with, like it interacts with
these features or with those features, how does it do that?
And like, how is that implemented?
And what did the creators think when they implemented that?
Like why is it there in the 1st place?
At least that's how I personally think about everything.
And maybe it's not like I'm sure it's not the most, not the most
useful, but of course it's not how you make the most money, the
quickest. If you just kind of take the
long route, like really researching something 1st and
like going trying to understand the fundamentals.
But I still think it's worth it in the long run to like really
become an expert in that field. And then based on that, you can
also, you know, if you're, if you want to use AI, you can
definitely improve your, your prompts based on what you know,
you know, what to avoid in your prompts, you know, what
specifics to ask for, what AI might have to avoid, like
building within your app. So yeah, it's I, I really hope
that more people, I don't know. Yeah, it's and, and not to be
pessimistic, but like I just because that's how I personally
AM. And every time I see that or
like younger people that are just like, Oh yeah, I created
this app or this website within 10 minutes.
I'm like, sure. But like, how long will it live?
Like, can you maintain it? Do you know what it does?
Do you know that security vulnerabilities?
And I'm starting to sound like a boomer now.
That's like super negative. About everything.
Yeah, no, but it's just true. And of course, like that's just
the current state of AI. I'm sure that even maybe within
two years from now, that's not even an issue.
Like it's then improved so much already that you don't have to.
Like it's, you know, secure and everything.
I would love to see some research for people that like
have either behaviour or motivation for why they're in
this field. Because also from this Reddit
perspective I see a lot of people that are genuinely not
happy with their job. Like I also have friends that
don't really do hands on tech work, but maybe are in the tech
field or like either in sales and still in tech companies
where tech is like the core and not everyone is as happy, which
is also, yeah, I don't know, maybe that's me specifically.
Like, I like being happy with what I do and not everyone needs
to have that. But I do think it's a sad, sad
trend, to be honest. Yeah, I think eventually,
especially with the comfort you get within tech is, you know,
you can kind of work from home or like we don't have a very
like physical job. It's it's silly.
So you kind of just get comfortable.
It's like, you know, I'm unhappy, but I have all this
like I have this salary. I have, you know, this comfort
and you kind of, and I noticed I started being like that as well.
And I was like, no, like I need to make sure that what I'm doing
right now is truly what is best for my life and like where I
want to be in life and my current kind of stage in life.
I guess like, I don't want to just end up stuck at a job that
I'm not really interested in, but like, of course it pays well
and it has all these benefits, but then, you know, you become
so risk averse kind of, and I, you just, yeah, exactly.
And I don't like that. I think people waste a lot of
their life away just like kind of being comfortable.
And it's sad 'cause I think a lot of people maybe get into
tech with a good idea, like, with good intentions.
And they're like, you know, I wanna like actually build
something and like contribute something to the future.
But then eventually kind of as they're in these maybe bigger
organizations that kind of just slowly, slowly dims, which maybe
it's just human progression, but.
Some organizations also want you to coast.
Like if there's not really a career progression path or
people don't get promoted, that basically means that, yeah, the
company is fine with you coasting.
They want you to be in that position.
They don't have any other open positions.
Yeah. It's either not worth it or
just, I don't know exactly why. Like, I've never been in a huge,
huge organization, but I have seen those trends for sure with
the people I talked to. Yeah.
And then, yeah, I feel like right now I don't want to coast,
right. I can afford not to coast
because I don't have any serious responsibilities.
No kids, no house even. I love the flexibility.
Yeah, that also means I can take more risk, which is fun.
Like you can reap the rewards of those risks.
And when the risks, I mean when they hit you back, it's not as
hard as of a hit. Yeah, no, exactly.
Yeah, I'm in the exact same boat.
That's also like, I think your younger years you should kind of
spend just really trying many different things and being more
like risky in that way. Try to do the things that may
feel wrong or feel like, oh, I'm just scared.
Like just getting out your comfort zone.
And then when you're older, yeah, like when you have kids or
when you have a house, when you have all these other
responsibilities. I feel like it's of course good
to maybe join a not necessarily join a bigger organization, but
like then I totally understand why you might prioritize, you
know, like your family and all these responsibilities may be
above pure happiness at your job.
I mean, preferably they're combined, but I feel like for
that's often difficult to find. Yeah, like I like seeing younger
people at these like bigger companies, of course.
Like I think it's amazing. Like I'm sure that the
experience they get is great. But at the same time, I also see
that you, like you, you become less entrepreneurial.
I guess like you, you don't dare to take as many.
More stability. Yeah, and at the same time,
that's amazing. But I feel like, I don't know,
I, I wish that more people really thought about like, their
own potential and their own life path and really kind of reflect
like, OK, am I truly happy or am I just following someone else's
dream? Kind of.
Because especially in tech, I feel like a lot of people kind
of tend to want the same thing. And I'm like, surely not
everyone can really think this way.
Like this is too too much of the same type of dream, the same
type of life. What same thing do you do you
mean when you say that? Well, it's more like just
grinding non-stop to get a business, maybe in crypto or in
AI right now and then you know, like sell it to either a company
or going to YC. IPO.
Yeah, for the IPO and it's and it's great.
Like that's a great goal, but I want it.
I noticed that it's not for everyone.
And then you often meet these founders or the people that work
at these companies and they're just like so unhappy, like
they're so unhealthy. And you can just see that
they're not really following like what their soul wants.
So that makes sense. So it's also really difficult to
really like not, I don't know if it has something to do with
comparison or just, yeah, not, not like trusting yourself.
I'm not sure. But again, like, it's no
criticism to anyone, but I feel like it's it's important that
people really meet themselves too.
And you can always combine tech with stuff that you're actually
interested in. Don't just try to be one of one
of the many people that try to make it.
I don't. Know no, I, I wonder if, because
there is a, a trend towards more people burning out and I wonder
if this is a factor in that, right.
If you don't get fulfilment out of the work that you do day in,
day out, and if you have an unhealthy relationship and you
work more than you're supposed to, let's say, over and over
again, I can see people trending towards a burnout right where
you just get sick of what you're doing basically, and your body
actually hits you back, basically.
Yeah. Yeah, Mentally you're still
fine, but then physically you can't do anything or even the
reverse. Yeah, I've never been into a
burnout, but I do see this epidemic of people that just, I
don't know, get burnt out. Yeah, it's very alarming.
Yeah. And I, I feel like a burnout is
not so much about working a lot. Like, I think that's often what
people kind of confuse. But yeah, it's working on the
wrong thing. It's working on something that
you deep down, you know, is not meant for you.
It's or like it doesn't truly make you happy.
And then it's also so difficult to really look at the future in
an optimistic way where you're like, oh, right now I'm
building, you know, the future that I want to create.
If you're currently not taking those steps to build that
future, yeah, I, I see that a lot as well.
But it's so difficult to to realize when you're starting to
get into a burnout and that you're not just like, like it,
it's good to feel uncomfortable with the tasks that you're
doing. So like you also need to learn
the difference between the, that feeling of like, OK, am I
feeling uncomfortable because it's difficult and I don't like
difficult things or because it's truly just something that I'm
really not interested in? But then also initially you
might not be interested in it because you don't understand it
enough. Like that's often what I think.
Like on the surface, it looks really boring.
And then I kind of research it more.
I'm like, oh, that's actually really fascinating.
Yeah. So yeah, it's a bit of both.
I think it's, it's difficult to learn how to avoid a burnout,
but yeah, it's, it's so important.
I agree. Yeah, I'm very curious recently
from your perspective of developer advocate or developer
relations, because I have a friend, he's a colleague.
I've known him for, oh, close to two months.
No, close to three years, Two months would have been quite,
quite sure. But in any case, he joined this
company and he was always creating videos about specific
technology. And that was something he did in
his personal time, right? In his free time, he was really
enthusiastic about this technology, even though he had
never used it in production for business specifically at all.
I also don't think it matters. But in the end, that company
eventually reached out to him and said, do you want to work
for us? Right.
The things that you do, we would love for you to do more of.
So he basically got his dream job, something that he was doing
in his free time, he now gets to do full time.
He hasn't done so yet. But I do feel like for me,
career path wise, developer advocacy seems very interesting.
And also think that as people get more productive with
technologies, developers are always going to become an
audience. So a person that is responsible
also educating developers in that aspect can be very
interesting as a career path. But for me, I have no clue what
you do day-to-day. I talk to him and I'm like, are
you going to create videos all day long?
And he's like, I talk to people. Some people that's what they do.
Like I don't understand. It engineer more like?
Or is he an actual like? Now he is, but his his title is
going to become developer advocate.
Specifically, but it's like the most vague job title that you
can have. Like, yeah, at my previous job
ever. So I was then also like
developer advocate. But like my whole team consisted
of people that did so many different things.
Like we were a team, but we kind of weren't because everyone was
just doing something completely different.
OK. You know, Like some people
worked on documentation, others worked on organizing meet ups
and others created videos. Others were on Twitter.
Like, you know, it's, it's so broad.
So yeah, the term like whenever people say I'm developer
advocate, like I you need to be more specific, but.
Which one? Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, No, personally kind of how I also kind of got into into
that. So I of course started as as
full time software engineering and in my free time, I've made
kind of content on the stuff that I dealt with on a daily
basis that I felt like wasn't talked about enough.
I mean, it was talked about enough, but it was written or
documented in a way that just didn't really fit with my like
how I learn things or like, I guess every time I work with a
technology or anything in life really, I just create this
really weird visual picture in my head.
It's, it's difficult to explain, but I think I learned stuff
slightly different than most people.
So I wanted to almost recreate that.
And then, yeah, I shared that a lot on Twitter and on Medium and
Instagram. And then people liked it and I
was like, OK, perfect, 'cause like, apparently I'm not the
only weird one that likes to approach things.
This. Time you.
Know, yeah, that that felt good, but yeah, so I like I only wrote
about the stuff that I dealt with during my daily job and
that was great 'cause it was kind of my like writing and
creating those things was kind of my yeah, like my free time.
Like I could relax. I could kind of at the end of
the day, I could organize it in my head by writing about it and
by like, kind of yeah, like answering the questions that I
had during the day. And yeah, that kind of
progressed and then I got into like I did that full time then
eventually back in 2021. But what I found the most
difficult is that I had to be in creative mode, like full time.
And I couldn't do that 'cause like I'm not a very creative
person. Like I'm definitely more
logical. So like I'm, I like creating
content like the what I'm doing now, like educating in my free
time, like next to engineering, because otherwise I get no
inspiration And I, I kind of burn out, well, not fully of
course, but like I'm starting to burn out if I have to be in this
creative mode. You lose that passion.
Yeah. So I feel like a lot of people
that want to get into developer advocacy, you need to kind of
understand that, OK, make sure that you can also still do a lot
of engineering on the side if that was your full time job
previously, because it's of course at least person like, I
can only of course speak from personal experience, but I found
the creative work so much more difficult than engineering.
Like I'd much rather just kind of be in my comfort zone in my
code base than having to like write stuff in a certain way
that that everyone needs to understand, that needs to be
technically accurate, that needs to flow well.
I don't know, like, yeah, you need to be a specific type of
person to be better at developer advocacy than engineering.
But like, of course, like just again, take the risk.
Like do it, see if it fits, and then yeah, see what happens.
But personally I found it way more difficult to do.
I can see that like I'm, I'm going to give a training soon
and for the content of that. I, I know it because I've done
it before. I've done it last year and the
year before that. But this year I tried out kind
of a new career path. Like I'm ACB as a consultancy,
as a consultant. I now I'm in a product manager
role since January. So I haven't actually done a lot
of hands on work. And then I'm like, man, if I
give this training right now, it's fine because I feel like I
know a lot of the internals. I look what is new, I'll update
the material. But if it's going to be in a
year or two and I still am in this product manager role, I
feel like I'm going to be like a fraud.
Like I haven't worked with this in production for so long and
then I do educate others and that feels kind of all to me.
So also from your perspective then if you're full time only
creating content about material on what people should use maybe
in production or in a project, and you don't actually do that
with engineering experience yourself, I could see that you
burn out from that perspective. And also just creatively, at
some point your mind is blank, like you need new inspiration.
Yeah, no, but that, it's exactly that.
And I felt so bad sometimes because like I spoke at
conferences or something and people would come come to me and
ask questions about what I was talking about.
I'm like, truly, I don't know, because like I haven't worked
with it in like a product or like a production environment in
like a year. And everything moves so fast
within that technology that I couldn't help them even though I
was talking about it. I was like, this feels strange,
like I should understand better what I'm talking about.
And like, if this was my own content, I would have never
done, dared to do that 'cause like, I always want to make sure
that whatever I'm saying is 100% true.
And like, it's from my own, like, experience.
But yeah, so either you need to then, like, code in your free
time, which is fine. Like, that's fun.
But it's, yeah, like it's so there.
There's just so much on your plate.
Then to really kind of combine that.
I've got your original question. This is.
No worries. No worries.
I am. I am interested though, because
this, this responsibility of things being, let's say 100%
accurate. That does sound a bit, I want to
say perfect. How how do you say that in
English? Like a perfectionist mindset?
Yeah. Is that still possible in in
creating content? Because mistakes will happen.
Oh, yeah, no, I'm that's the worst.
No, I'm, I really, I suffer from it and I use the word suffer
like it's the worst because I don't want to make any mistake
in what what I do. I mean I make mistakes.
Like I'm not saying that anything I do is perfect, but
I'm so cautious and every time that I because because there's
so much content out there that is just inaccurate.
And I feel like it kind of accumulates where it's like you
don't understand a topic, then you watch or read something that
is also slightly off, or it's just simplified in a way that is
just too simple. So then you are confused, but
then you think you get it, but actually you're still confused
because you still don't really get it because people explained
it the wrong way. And then those people share
their experiences the wrong way because they understood it the
wrong way. Like, I don't know, you kind of
built this big misunderstanding. Yes, exactly.
So to me, I like with, I mean, I, I don't have a big following,
but a decent 1 and I feel like it's a big responsibility to
make sure that I don't contribute to any like confusion
or that at least I can be some source of truth.
That's not like a specification or the official documentation
just, and I can only based it on like my own frustration that I
sometimes feel with certain content.
And also, I think everyone approaches this differently, but
personally what I really like to do is go into the deepest
details possible. Like just go as in depth as I
can whenever I learn something new and then after I know the
actual fundamentals, I can then simplify it.
But if I read someone else's simplification, you know, that
has already gone through their own brain processes that are,
you know, like that have their own filters and their own like,
I don't know, emotional state attached to it that might not
align with mind. So it it's not accurate.
Sorry I have a really hard time like phrasing this, but yeah.
It's already distilled content. Yeah, yes, exactly.
And yeah, that that's why I feel like it's so important that
people are a bit more curious and do more research because I
feel like everyone can definitely get to that stage
with like, OK, I understand the real fundamentals.
So then try to simplify it. And that's also a skill that you
got to learn. But when you can really explain
a topic well, you know, like, explain it like I'm 5, but it's
also technically accurate. That's so difficult, but it's so
important that you can do that. Absolutely.
But just make sure that you don't explain the wrong thing to
the five year old because that's what I see a lot of time now and
it's kind of annoying. People pick up on that, this
trend of people creating content and not really understanding.
Like I, I think it's good if you create content also as part of
your learning journey and you ask for feedback, you're like,
OK, I'm not perfect. This is what I put out and you
want that feedback to incorporate back into your
educational path. I really like that.
But then also, especially with AII had seen this tool first of
all for productivity, but also from an educational perspective.
And like you're saying, if it's ground fundamentals are based on
the content that everyone else creates because we don't know
the input, then factually it can also be inaccurate.
And then if people that start out use this tool to boost their
educational path and the fundamentals are inaccurate,
that's going to be very strange because we have people that
think then the world works like XY and Z and it doesn't, it's
like AB and C. Yeah, no, but I see that all the
time because like I often, so I don't use AI for any of my
content, but I do use it sometimes for like smaller, like
that would have been a Google search.
But then I use AI. But whenever I ask it more, like
sometimes just for fun, I ask like write an essay on this
topic and it is so factually incorrect.
But then it's, yeah, like you said, I know the type of
articles or the type of content that it bases a response on.
And it can phrase it in such a way that it seems to make so
much sense, like J, GB, T specifically, especially now
with the O1 preview that it's so difficult to kind of question
the response because it seems to have like arguments like, you
know, supporting that claim. You're like, no, those arguments
are are factually wrong. So the more like now, now I can
see that 'cause I know the fundament, so I can see that
it's wrong. But I can yeah, it's so easy if
you don't know that to just fall for that.
And like, I'm sure that I would do the same thing when I ask it
about plants or something, you know, like something I don't
know anything about and it will explain something to me like
that sounds. Yeah, sounds convincing.
Which? Probably is not even true, but
yeah, it's so, yeah, it's, it's very trippy, 'cause now, yeah,
you have a big group of people that are convinced it works a
certain way when it doesn't. And yeah, try to convince people
that AI is wrong and then that you're right.
It's yeah, it's difficult. I think high quality content
always wins, but then it's the question of visibility, right?
How do you get the the people or the people that need to find
that education towards the quality that is in the end
faction accurate? We have the documentation of the
people that create certain technologies.
But even then, I mean it's first line of education, I would say,
but it doesn't work for everyone.
So then people pick up on that and create, I say, distilled
content specifically for or either what they would want in
an educational path or what they think an audience would want.
And then that gets distilled. And if we then also have an AI
layer on top of that, it's even more distilled content.
Like I don't know how to fix this, but I also don't want to
say don't use AI because it will accelerate your learning if it
is factually accurate. Yeah.
I mean, now it sometimes helps when I just say like add your
source and then I see the sources and I'm like, this is
just from someone's medium block from 10 years ago.
Like that's not a good source. So now especially with
JavaScript or anything web development, I'm always just use
the HTML spec or the JavaScript spec or like the W3C group that
makes all these web AP is so that it can only use the actual
specification. And even then it's sometimes
still, I guess it's called hallucination.
I don't know, like hallucinates an answer, but like it's, yeah,
again, it's easier to know what you what you ask or what to ask
for if you know what components go into something.
Like if I'm asking about a promise execution, I don't know
in, in JavaScript, like I need to understand that it needs to
add something about the task queues or the promise job queue
or like all these, you know, the then handlers are a promised
object internally 'cause otherwise it might just, it
always, always simplifies it. Like whenever I ask, yes, like
imagine you have a stack of pancakes and then like a
promise. It's like the syrup.
I'm like, dude, no, like I know. What's going on?
I. Don't want to do this.
It always does that. So like, yeah, you need to,
yeah, I think, I guess it's called like prompt engineering.
Like you can become a better prompt engineer when you know a
technology really well or like a specific part of your field
really well in, in our case, technology.
But it counts for everyone. Yeah, you know what to ask.
Better don't explain it with pancake terminology.
Yes, like I always have to like, don't use analogies.
Don't pretend like I'm a child. Like aim it at like, expert
developers. Yeah, you need to be so specific
to not dumb it down. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, interesting. We, we started this episode
with, OK, how would I start if I'm either new in the field and
you mentioned fundamentals of JavaScript in in one of them to
start off, which I agree with. And it's something I probably
underestimated myself. I jumped right in to react.
I wanted to be productive, be practical, get stuff done.
And then when I was less effective, well, I thought I
should be effective. That's when I was like, OK,
something's wrong. And I stepped back and I looked
and and educated myself on fundamentals more and more.
But this trend of frameworks and people creating their own
frameworks and I think we we have quite a lot of technology
if you jump in web development nowadays, even on the backup now
I saw Dino 2 point O we have fun, we have node and they all
are on this kind of competition spectrum with each other
introducing new features. And I think it's a good thing.
I think it's a healthy thing. Competition breeds success at
the end of the day, but those companies also need to make
money. So at the end of the day, they
have their own kind of business system, and they might host a
certain solution on the cloud for you, and that's what you
then pay for. Yeah.
I don't know if we need all of that, to be honest.
Like I can do a lot with just vanilla JavaScript.
Yeah. And I'm curious from your
perspective, like, do we need all these solutions?
We have a lot of them, and they are there for people to make
money, but also they alleviate some problems.
Not all, though. Well, need is a bad word, I
think. I mean, it definitely make
things easier for a lot of people, but I again, especially
with like stuff like hosting, I mean, I often use Vercelno still
for hosting, but I also understand how I would set this
up myself in Cloudflare or in AWS.
Like that's also what I've worked with many years and like
the dev OPS. So I feel like before you get
into hosting, understand or not even hosting also with like Bun
and Dina, all these runtimes understand the issue that
they're trying to solve. Why do we have runtimes?
What do runtimes do? What does Bun have that Dina or
Note doesn't vice versa? And also with hosting, like why
would I use Versal or Netlify or go straight to Cloudflare or
AWS? Like again, be curious like what
are the problems that they're solving?
What is their solution? What is their road map?
What's their pricing, all these things.
And yeah, definitely first try to just set it up yourself.
You don't have to go to production with it, but then you
definitely understand what goes into a hosting provider, just as
an example. Because then you can like also
like when you're starting to or when you're part of a company,
you need to like kind of convince your manager to maybe,
you know, use certain tools or you know, take certain
approaches and you need to be able to kind of explain
yourself. But if you're just like, well, I
saw it on Twitter and a lot of people are using it and there's
a lot of community support, that's not going to win over
many people. And also in a lot of cases, it
might be cheaper to just self host.
But then you need to know the risks like, OK, well, DDoS
attacks, all these things like you need to understand what are
the potential risks to hosting and to web development in
general, You know, like what are these hosting providers maybe
helping me with that I would otherwise have to set up myself.
Like to me, it's just so obvious.
Like first, just try it yourself.
Like you're not stupid. You can do it like it's, it's
difficult, but challenge yourself like it's that's fun.
And sure, your initial approach may not be great, but that's
yeah, you learn from it and only then.
And also like you need to suffer first before you can truly
appreciate like what other people have done for you.
And it's like, Oh my God, like, thank God every seller exists or
like all these other hosting providers exist because
otherwise you just take it for granted.
And then like if some, if one of these providers goes out and
you're just, you know, you have a 500 every time because they
get attacked or whatever and you're just stuck.
Like, I also don't like the feeling that I put all my
control into someone else's hands.
I always want to make sure that it in case something happens, I
can always just take over. Yeah, I don't.
It might not always be possible. I I love this notion of you have
to suffer first to appreciate what what like is alleviated.
It's true, though it'd be hilarious if you get like a
cloud course and they're like, OK, let's start with the
fundamentals. You have this piece of metal,
you install this software. I would love that, dude.
I would love like a course that goes into like server
architecture hardware. Like I want to go to the actual
like electron level, like how does memory work, you know, and
then we go all the way up from there.
I'm the opposite, like I, I do want to be effective, but then
at some point it becomes a problem because as you say, like
if I have to take control, I have to take control and then
all those on security insecurities and uncertainties
come with it and then I have to figure things out.
I don't know currently. I mean, I know conceptually if I
use the cloud what it does in a data centre, but I've never done
that myself. I don't think I have to.
I do think it would be helpful from a knowledge perspective,
but from a curiosity standpoint, I don't have that for that
specific technology. I have it for other things and
if I were to have it for everything, I don't think I
would get anything done because we have quite a broad like
landscape of things you can go deep in.
And then it's a matter of picking your poison, I guess.
Like which one do you want to focus on and which one do you
want to take ownership of? That's also what I like though,
because we have a lot of different people that get
enthusiastic about a lot of different things, and that's why
I love this tech field. People can go anywhere, right?
If you're sick of software engineering, you might become a
developer advocate, right? You might be really enthusiastic
about education or the people aspect might just really, really
suit you. And then you become a people
manager from an engineering perspective.
You can leverage whatever knowledge you have in a specific
domain, take that with you to the next domain.
But for me indeed, like you mentioned, curiosity and drive
and passion, that should be at the forefront and that can
always change. But as long as you have that,
then you're fine in this field. If you don't have that, I don't
think you're going to survive, to be honest.
No, no. Or like, well, yeah, or unless
you're maybe part of a bigger company and.
You're coasting, Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
But I feel like that's not a fun way to live.
Like, it's just part of, like, being a human to be curious.
And I feel like once that dies, you know that you've done
something wrong, but it's still fixable.
But like try to try to avoid that.
Yeah. Do you see yourself kind of on
this path of educating others in the future as well or what like
interests you which you've never tried?
Yeah, I'm having like 1/4 life crisis right now.
I don't know what I want to do. Like I'm 26 now and it's like
OK, OK, 30s are coming. I.
Guess that's a proper quarter life.
Yeah, yes. Hopefully, maybe it's my
midlife. I don't who knows.
But yeah, no, I don't know. Like it's still my passion is
still in software engineering. I love that it's my my safe
space is in the IDE, but I get the most, I guess, satisfaction
out of helping people. Like it's after I've felt like
I've helped people, I can like go to bed, feel like, OK, I've
done something today. And I don't always get that with
like software engineering alone, maybe unless I work on a project
that I truly believe in. So maybe I just need to find
that like, I just really want to focus on stuff that is like
actually cool, that actually interests me.
But in the meantime, yeah, I love to help people out, but
it's difficult, as I said, to do that full time because I would
have to be kind of in that creative mind full time.
And that's what burns me out. So I kind of need to find the
right balance there. And I'm also not sure if that's
like a good like long term thing, especially with AI
coming, I feel like a lot of the educational stuff will not like
be a thing anymore in a couple years.
So yeah, it's kind of, I guess preparing for that era and but
yeah, it's difficult. I'm not sure.
I have no idea what I'm doing or what I'm going to do.
We'll see. I've I've kind of always lived
life that way though. We'll just see what life has for
me and see what feels right. Yeah, I'm in.
I'm in the same camp, though. I don't think it matters too,
too much, but I, I love thinking about it because there, there
are a lot of options at the end of the day, yeah, if what you're
doing fulfils you now, then there's no reason to switch.
But if you have an inkling of something like that, you might
also enjoy it. That's usually what I think of
for me, it's really developed advocacy.
But then I, I get these conversations and I'm like,
yeah, would I really enjoy it full time?
Full full time. Well, why do you think you might
enjoy it like? I love doing podcasting.
I love creating videos. I love creating educational
content. But like for what?
Like what do you get from it? Or like, what do you think
people get from it? Like what's the reason that you
enjoy it? I don't know.
It's just, I think it's on the same line as what you mentioned.
It's helping people, right, Either with specific aha
moments. Yeah, or you phrase it in a way,
you communicate in a way that it just clicks because I feel like
everyone learns in a different way and you might see
similarities, but there's still specifics there.
The way you explain it or the way you communicate things with
the insights that you can bring can be very valuable.
And insights are not just the only thing, right?
You have to communicate it properly as well.
That I really enjoy that, those aha moments.
That's why I'm now on a full time assignment and I still do
trainings. I still do educational content.
Yeah, Would I like to do it full time?
Sometimes I, I DA and I'm like, yeah, that, that'd be really
cool. But then I don't know in
practice if that's actually going to play out like.
That just try it. You won't know until you try.
Otherwise, it's just like a regret.
But now it's really, I think what you mentioned as well.
Right now I'm, I'm not coasting, but it is comfort, right?
Because I can do everything. If I don't want to be product
manager in the next assignment, I can try out something else and
it's still kind of a safe space. Yeah, but right now you're in a
part of life where, as you said, you don't have any
responsibility. No, there's no escaping now.
There's excuses. That's very fair.
Yeah. I have a lot to think of now, I
must say. Exactly.
Yeah. Yeah.
I really enjoyed this conversation, I must say.
Is there anything you're still missing that you would like to
share before we round off? Oh, I can't think of any.
I'm sure that on my drive home I'm like ah, I should have said
that, but I can't think of. Anything.
You're never going to escape that.
No. Awesome.
Then we're going to round it off here.
I'm going to put all Lydia socials in the description
below, Reach out to her and let her know what you think of this
episode and we'll see on the next one.