The "Senior" Junior Engineer: Recent Episodes

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EPISODE SUMMARY

This week I got the chance to interview a long-time friend, Techie, and designer Juan Carlos. Hailing from the great state of Nebraska, Juan graduated from Creighton University in 2017 with his Bachelors in CS, before moving out to the Bay area to "grab a slice of the tech industry" and begin his career as a Software Engineer at GE. Following GE, Juan moved to Apple and has since landed the title of Lead UI Engineer. Juan currently works remotely from his hometown of Omaha while keeping himself very busy with his many side hustles and projects.

In this episode, we dig deep into how educational inequity, income inequality, and privilege impacts access to and within the tech industry. We dive into frugal living, and how to chart a path toward "retiring early".

EPISODE NOTES

• Making the transition from fine arts to CS
• What it's like moving from the midwest out to Silicon Valley
• Tech and startup culture, how to navigate it without losing your mind
• Navigating the pressure and imposture syndrome as a new dev at a tech giant

"It is up to us as developers to share the process we took to get into this industry"

• The importance of education - specifically CS & Technology
  • How to leverage exp. in the tech space to impact low-income, marginalized communities.
  • Being the person that says "You can do this" is the gateway for people who might not even know that this career path is an opportunity they can pursue.

"Life is more than just working and earning money."

• Living off your investments by living frugally and sticking to a plan.
  • It's not about getting rich quick schemes, it's about intentionality
• The Fire movement (Financial Independence Retire Early) - you have enough money in investments that you can live off these investments
• How the experience as a software engineer has influenced his approach to saving and investing
• How to balance all of competing priorities as a leader, entrepreneur, mentor/coach

Three biggest takeaways

1. These things (tech, code, etc.) are built by people who are no smarter than you are. you are good enough, you'll figure it out.
2. Read a lot more! Documentation, code, supplementary resources. Don't beat yourself up.
3. beware of the hustle culture, burnout is real. The late nights and the "grind". Take care of yourself.

Featuring

Juan Carlos — Twitter, Github, Linkedin, Website, Youtube

Andrew Locke — Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Medium

Links

• Ask me anything - If you have any questions, let me know! I'll do an episode where I answer your questions.
• Sign up to be on the podcast
• Del Rio Cuisine - Juan's family's catering business
• Mio Ts - Juan's T-shirt printing company
• The seven steps to financial independence

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Episode Summary

This week I had the pleasure of speaking with Sandhills Development's Director of Technology, Chris Klosowski. Hailing from the Phoenix Metro, Chris shares his non-traditional path into engineering via a JR engineering program w/ GoDaddy, through his transition to Sandhills development where he helped grow and shape the team to what it is today. In this episode we discuss what it was like growing the team and culture at Sandhills and what it takes to make the transition from IC to Manager in the software world.

• Ask me anything - If you have any questions, let me know! I'll do an episode where I answer your questions.
• Sign up to be on the podcast

Episode notes

If you're going to go to college, do something you'll actually enjoy.

• What you learn about the importance of team/ mentorship/management on growth during the "Jr" stage of your career.
• How to know when to "cut ties" & move on from a role?
• What to consider when looking at making a transition; It's what's important to you.
• IC vs Leadership → How to decide which path to take. (how do you measure your own success on a daily basis).
• Being the person that helps facilitate success for your team members.
• How being a father has impacted his role/work.
• Managing your time and defining priorities
• How to "Build a company around people, not code"?
• go-to methods of keeping yourself on task, and productive in the midst of distraction

Takeaways for someone considering transitioning from IC to leadership:

• Take a transition role if possible - Take a "tech lead" role, leadership without the "responsibilities"
• Spend some time talking to someone you really trust, get their perspective on your career, and leveraging your skills in the best way possible. Have those hard conversations with someone who can give a third party perspective
• "It's not for everyone", find what makes you happy and pursue that. You don't have to "climb" the ladder. That's ok.

Featuring
Chris Klosowski — Twitter, Github, Website

Andrew Locke — Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Medium

Links* Ask me anything - If you have any questions, let me know! I'll do an episode where I answer your questions. * Sign up to be on the podcast * A manager's path * Leaders eat last * How becoming a parent has made me a better developer * History of Sandhills Development

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EPISODE SUMMARY

This week I got to speak with Achilles & Paris, LLC's CEO, and Coach Laran Evans. Laran, a veteran in the industry has taken his experience across small scrappy startups to large silicon valley megacorps. to start coaching "experts" on how to become better leaders and mentors. In this episode, we walk through Laran's career journey and dive deep into what makes a great leader. Listen this week to get some insights on how to continue growing past that "Senior" title and get better at working with the people around you.

EPISODE NOTES

Topics covered in this week's episode:

• Management, relationships, and navigating people as a software engineer.
• Is a degree in CS Worth it?
• How can a company/team/engineer start planning releases further out in advance?
• What was your experience stepping into management/leadership for the first time?

"I didn't feel the same competence managing people as I did when I was building systems"

• what does it take to effectively "navigate people politics" as a software engineer?
• leveraging the opportunity potential in today's technological landscape

"how do we help the people with technical skills better leverage technical skills to really innovate"

• "DISC" - a behavior methodology. Adapt behaviors based on communication style.
• pace and priority, the keys to how things get done.
• The Platinum Rule: Treat others as they want to be treated.
• How to become an effective leader. Leadership as a parallel skillset.
• Common behavioral patterns that limit or inhibit engineer's growth

"If you don't know where you're going, any old road will do"

Three biggest takeaways

1. Empathy for others, being flexible, and understanding where others are coming from
2. Never stop learning! Figure out what learning looks like for you.
3. "if you don't know where you're headed any old road will do". Have a plan.

Featuring

Laran Evans — Twitter, Github, Linkedin, Website
Andrew Locke — Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Medium

Links
* Ask me anything - If you have any questions, let me know! I'll do an episode where I answer your questions. * Sign up to be on the podcast * Get coaching - Achilles and Paris

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EPISODE SUMMARY
* Ask me anything - If you have any questions, let me know! I'll do an episode where I answer your questions. * Sign up to be on the podcast

This week we dive into your questions on a special AMA episode. Former podcast guest Andrew Yasso joins me as we dive into questions podcast listeners have submitted. Join us to hear more about my take on a wide range of topics from side projects to get better at remote work.

EPISODE NOTES
Questions asked

1. What was the first project or moment you realized "This is what I want to do"?
2. What's something you thought would get easier but hasn't?
3. What are some of the tools and practiced you've used to navigate the challenge of remote work?
4. What does a typical day look like for you?
5. How has your previous career impacted your career as a software engineer?
6. What has surprised you from doing the Senior Junior Engineer Podcast?
7. How do you acquire essential non-technical skills?
8. What's a book or resource that has influenced you most?

Featuring
Andrew Locke — Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Medium

Andrew Yasso — Github, Linkedin

Links
* Ask me anything - If you have any questions, let me know! I'll do an episode where I answer your questions. * Sign up to be on the podcast * Loom - Video / Screen recording software * Krisp - Audio filtering software * The four hour work week - Tim Ferris

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EPISODE SUMMARY

• Ask me anything - If you have any questions, let me know! I'll do an episode where I answer your questions.
• Sign up to be on the podcast

This week I got the chance to speak with 20+ year veteran in the industry, Warner Onstine. Hailing from Dallas, TX, Warner is the founder and owner at coffee in code out. Has worked at large companies like Intuit, founded his own startup, now works as a remote freelance contractor while also building his own learning platform, "30-minute projects"

EPISODE NOTES

• Managing engineers
  • Be the "shield" for your engineers, protect them from bad policies or things that would prevent your team from being as effective as they could be.
  • Identify where your team members want to go one day, it helps his team members bring their best & builds trust amongst the team.
  • Connecting people benefits everyone in the long run
  • Learning to step back, trust your team members to execute on your vision. But, you have to be able to effectively communicate that vision to the team.
• stay up to date in an industry that is constantly changing by subscribing to mailing lists, scan to see what's "hot" and what is starting to get traction.
• "Be so good they can't ignore you" - Why "follow your passion" is bad advice.
  • find what you're passionate about what you're already doing. Get better at those
  • Find where you want to get better, focus on growing those skills
• How to finally get your side project finished
  • Code every day! - Read the article below
  • Create a 4-6 wk deliverability plan with goals
  • break the project down into 30 min chunks
  • keep an engineering journal
• Three biggest takeaways
  • Do a side project and see it to completion.
  • Blog, write something, a youtube channel, express your ideas and engage with other developers. Blogging forces you to do written communication and express them in a way that others can understand
  • Don't be defensive, try not to have an ego about your own work. If someone comes to ask a question & you feel like they're attacking you, remember they are talking about the work and not you. Assume optimistic intent.

Featuring
Warner Onstine — Twitter, Github, Linkedin, Coffee In Code Out
Andrew Locke — Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn

Links

• 30 minute projects - Code in coffee out
• Use this link to get 30% off of the 30-minute project course
• Aggregated list to keep up with the industry - Warner Onstine
• so good they can't ignore you - Cal Newport.
• "What I liked about 'so good they can't ignore you' and other ramblings - Warner Onstine
• Write code everyday - John Resig

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EPISODE SUMMARY

In today's episode, I got the chance to sit down with my friend and Stride's CTO, Alex Kuzmin. Alex has been in software formally for almost 10 years but his intro into the world of software started long before that when he began hacking some of his favorite games as a kid. Alex started his professional career in hardware, then moved to android and eventually to Unity where he began working in game development. Most recently Alex has been working as co-founder and CTO of his own company, Stride.

EPISODE NOTES

• microcontrollers & working with assembly language
• Working remotely before it was "popular" in 2014
• learning how to code when English isn't your first language
• Knowing your limits when exploring new avenues of study.
• deciding to pick up his life and move to Taiwan & the experience of building a company from the ground up while in a foreign country
• the challenges of being a technical co-founder
• the importance of delegation to empower your team for success
• important career milestones:
  • Great leadership that taught how to review code and support other developers in their coding - the importance of mentorship.
  • making architectural decisions for a team - the importance of a larger perspective
  • expanding his scope via conferences
• Three biggest takeaways
  • Find someone to mentor you - ask them to review your code, pick their brain, learn from them
  • Do personal projects - it's really about finding something that keeps you excited and exploring. It pushes you to learn your craft. Find problems in your life that you can solve with your code
  • Try at least once to build a full-stack project - It will give you a better appreciation for the challenges each "side" will face.

Featuring

Alex Kuzmin — Twitter, Github, Linkedin, Website, Stride

Andrew Locke — Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Medium

Links

• Ask me anything - If you have any questions, let me know! I'll do an episode where I answer your questions.
• Sign up to be on the podcast

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EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode, I interview Johnson Hsieh, a friend of mine who made the conscious decision to leave his job as a software engineer to embark on a journey of self-discovery. Before leaving his software career, Johnson obtained his undergrad and masters in CS from USC then went on to work for some of the biggest names in tech, landing internships at Semantic and Google, joining the team at Amazon for a year, and finally landing at Tinder.

In this interview, Johnson reflects on his experience as a "cog in the machine" at these tech giants and how his personal exploration into the meaning of work lead him to quit his job and pursue a life of learning and personal development.

EPISODE NOTES

Three takeaways

1. Ask a lot of questions.
2. Spend time thinking about your "why."
3. Enjoy the journey; life is about the journey, not the destination.

Featuring

Johnson Hsieh — Github, Linkedin, Medium, Facebook, Email

Andrew Locke — Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Medium

Links

• Ask me anything - If you have any questions, let me know! I'll do an episode where I answer your questions.
• Sign up to be on the podcast
• Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions
• The Secretary problem

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EPISODE SUMMARY
On this special episode of the Senior Junior engineer podcast, I was given the chance to appear as a guest on FM101.7 KLWN, my hometown radio station in Lawrence KS. During this interview, I talked a bit about how it has been working async and remote in Taiwan as a software engineer. I also share my crazy journey into the world of software engineering and what I learned along the way. I hope you enjoy it!

Featuring
Andrew Locke — Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Medium

Links
* Signup to be on the podcast * Ask me anything - If you have any questions, let me know! I'll do an episode where I answer your questions. * KLWN - Radio for grownups

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EPISODE SUMMARY

Today I got the chance to chat with Austin Adamson, a software engineer at PING golf. Austin has been in the industry for 8 years as a software engineer and is currently a mid level engineer at PING, working primarily on API architecture, DB design. Our conversation covered a wide range of topics, including:

• The importance of mental health & finding the right team
• Empathy in team member & team leader
• Figure out what you don't know, don't accept just being comfortable in your own domain. Best way to grow is to continue looking for growth opportunities outside of your immediate focus.

Three biggest take aways from our conversation

• Eager to learn what you don't know
• Work for people and not money, make career moves that are good for you mentally
• Strive for balance, work/life but how you define the life portion is insanely personal to you.

Featuring

Austin Adamson — Twitter, Github, Linkedin,

Andrew Locke — Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Medium

Links

• Ask me anything - If you have any questions, let me know! I'll do an episode where I answer your questions.
• Dare to lead - Brene Brown
• Start with why - Simon Sinek

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EPISODE SUMMARY

In today's episode, I have a conversation with another non-traditional convert into the world of software engineering, my Co-worker Ian Lituchy. Ian shares his journey from Electrical engineering to running a food truck startup and eventually to his current role as a Software Engineer at Apostrophe. Ian share's how he uses Software as a tool to impact people and find fulfillment.

EPISODE NOTES

On today's episode Ian and I discuss a wide range of topics;

• Product driven Software development to have a larger impact on people.
• Focusing on outcomes
• The importance of having a growth mindset
• Keeping a "learning" journal as a reference to fast track your continuous growth.
• How being thrown into challenging situations can help grow your confidence and abilities
• Key take aways:
  1. learn from your failures, don't dwell too much on the what ifs
  2. Believe in your self and that you can do anything, learn how to ask the right question
  3. Always learn as much as you can, regardless of what you're doing.

News!

I am doing an AMA episode! Send me your questions.

Featuring

Ian Lituchy — Github, Linkedin, Website, ilituchy@gmail.com

Andrew Locke — Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Medium

Links

• Ask me anything - If you have any questions, let me know! I'll do an episode where I answer your questions.

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EPISODE SUMMARY

On this episode I interview Nathan Atkinson, a Senior Software Engineer at PXG and my mentor. Nathan, like myself, is a "non-traditional" convert into the world of SWE. Nathan has been with his company for 6 years and has watched his team grow from 3 to 11 engineers during that time. We discuss a wide range of topics from the importance of keeping a journal, a "senior" engineer's approach to variable and function naming and how to use poker or t-shirt sizes to get better at scoping your work.

EPISODE NOTES

Some topics covered in today's episode:

• Keeping a journal to keep track of what you've learned can help you better leverage your strengths, and learn from your weaknesses
• Figure out how to ask the right questions to illuminate unknowns.
• Getting it done vs getting it done in the "best way"
• Have a "senior's" approach naming variables & pseudo coding
• How to scope work by weighting / pointing, while taking into account team's current load and "difficulty" of implementation. talking through projects with the team to determine the scope before diving in. Breakaway from days & hours mentality.
  • Effort
  • Complexity
  • Dependency
• Skills he wishes he would have gotten better at
  • Debugging - console log to using a debugger & breakpoints
  • Building side projects
• Three biggest Takeaways
  • The importance of staying physically fit, taking care of yourself, stretch
  • When getting advice, pay attention to the thought process of the person giving the advice.
  • Find a team that challenges you and pushes you to grow.

News!

Ask me anything! - If you have any questions, let me know! I'll do an episode where I answer your questions.

Featuring

Nathan Atkinson — Linkedin

Andrew Locke — Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Medium

Links

• The pragmatic programmer - Book
• Fullstack React w/ Ben Awad - YouTube tutorial building reddit
• Harvard's CS 50 Class - How Nathan got started before his bootcamp
• Ask me anything - If you have any questions, let me know! I'll do an episode where I answer your questions.
• Signup to be on the podcast

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EPISODE SUMMARY

On this episode I got the chance to chat with an 18 year veteran in the industry, Site Reliability engineer Josh Dewald. We cover things like how to identify and overcome impostor syndrome, finding a love for debugging and the problem solving process and the importance of finding mentors to guide you through your journey.

EPISODE NOTES

Key topics covered:

• Finding a love for the debugging process.
• The importance leadership that values exploration, communication and testing.
• It is ok to make mistakes. The key, learning from your mistakes. Humans are fallible, plan for that.
• Imposter syndrome is real, but it's ok, ask questions.
• Taking initiative to find the "interesting stuff" at your company, find your niche.
• Lean into admitting when you don't know something.
• Look for mentors & learn from them, often they'll love being able to share what they've learned.
• Our fundamental job is to solve problems, not to write code.
• Recognize design and systems patterns, what the key components of a system are & how they fit together.
• Observability → Figuring out key metrics that impact your team.
• Visualize and plan before diving in.

Three biggest takeaways

1. Find a mentor or mentors. Someone you can talk to and get advice from.
2. Learn to love troubleshooting and debugging. Don't think that your code should "work" the first time you learn it. Always question your assumptions.
3. Don't get bogged down by the impostor syndrome. remember you're an engineer and you're solving problems.

Featuring

Josh DeWald — Twitter, Github, Linkedin, gmail: joshdewald@gmail.com

Andrew Locke — Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn

Links

Sign up to be on the podcast

Code Complete

Notion for organizing dev docs

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On this episode of The Senior Junior Engineer podcast we have my friend and co-worker, Ali Haidery. In this episode, Ali shares how his experience across large corporations to small, scrappy start ups helped him find his path. We discuss how Ali's experiences have helped him solidify the things that really mattered most to him in his career and the importance of finding a strong community to support continuous learning.

Learnings from this episode:

• The importance of exploring the various career paths across large corporations & smaller startups to really find your niche, while remaining open minded & looking for the best opportunities.
• How ownership and autonomy leads to accelerated growth
• The importance of having a community around you to learn from
• How to use your experience across all of your jobs to inform what matters to you.

• Putting a priority on continuous growth

• Key take aways

  • Put some intentionality into your "plan
  • Find balance, your career is important but don't let it overrun your life.
  • Surround yourself with a positive and uplifting community.

Connect with Ali on Linkedin

If you'd like to be on the podcast, fill out the form and we'll be in touch!

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On our first episode of the Senior Junior engineer I interview Andrew Yasso, a fellow DevPoint Labs bootcamp grad. We talk about Andrew's transition from bootcamp to his first company as a solo dev and then his transition to Byte, a small, high growth startup in Las Vegas. Along the way we talk about some key principles for growing as an engineer in today's crazy world;

• The importance of surrounding yourself with people you can learn from
• Diversifying your experience by learning languages/frameworks outside of your comfort zone
• It's about building things that matter to people, shifting from writing code for codes sake to focusing on how your work impacts the end user.
• What does it mean to be a "wise" engineer?
• Three biggest takeaways:
  • Take care of yourself
  • Act with humility & be willing to admit when you don't know something
  • Be optimistic

Shout out to DevPoint Labs, thanks for helping us get started on this awesome journey.
Connect with Andrew on Twitter at @AndrewYasso or on LinkedIn