Career Chats with Swyx and Randall: Recent Episodes

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We're taking a short break to focus on solo projects! Randall is launching CrowdFox.io soon and Swyx is launching his personal podcast.

• General format
  • Sheldon Hull "I rarely listen to podcasts because of how much wasted time there is. I've been listening through all you and Randall do and it's super useful and interesting. absolutely incredible job. Cheers and thank you"
  • Michael Gee "I have gained a ton of value from your informative and concise podcast Career Chats so thank you & keep up the good work"
  • John Raptis "I really like this short format with links. I don't know if I'm able to squeeze yet another one hour long podcast in my day."
• Episode 5: Twitter for Developers
  • Charlie You: "LOVED this episode, extremely helpful for me as a Twitter noob. Just bought the course Randall mentioned"
• Episode 10: Big L Notation
  • Hassan El Mghari: "FWIW this is the only podcast I listen to regularly bc of the high signal to noise ratio. Almost every episode makes me stop and reflect on what I'm doing (love the action item at the end)"
• Episode 12: Staff Engineer
  • Barry Kern "just stumbled on Staff Engineer episode and its 🔥 thank you🙌👏 picking up so much from this one."
• Episode 15: Goals vs Processes
  • Debra-Kaye Elliott "Great tips in this episode!"
  • Godswill Umukoro "Awesome podcast on setting achievable goals"
    • "People over estimate how much they can get done in ONE YEAR, and under estimate how much they can get done in 12 WEEKS" - @RandallKanna

Got questions and requests for future episodes? Shout us out on Twitter or email an audio question to swyx@hey.com!

Speaker Links

• Randall (@randallkanna): CrowdFox.io, The Standout Developer, The Standout Career
• Swyx (@swyx): Learn in Podcast, The Coding Career Handbook
• Discuss this episode on Circle

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Randall interviews Swyx about how you can get a job as a developer advocate

Show Links
https://www.keyvalues.com/blog/what-exactly-do-developer-advocates-do
https://www.samjulien.com/devrel-book-links
https://alexlakatos.com/avocados/2020/11/24/building-first-year-devrel-program/
https://www.heavybit.com/library/podcasts/developer-love/
https://twitter.com/swyx/status/1340105489133182981?s=20

Speaker Links

• Randall (@randallkanna): The Standout Developer, The Standout Career
• Swyx (@swyx): The Coding Career Handbook
• Discuss this episode on Circle

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We believe in systems over goals. Swyx and Randall love goals and we talk about how you can actually achieve your goals and how you can create a process to follow through.

So many people set 'wishes' and they don't actually set goals because you're not creating a process to follow through. If you don't create the process, the goal won't happen.People overestimate how much they can get done in one year and they underestimate how much they can get done in 12 weeks.

When you're looking for a job, the goal is to get the job. But just setting the goal isn't enough. You need to have a system in place to get the job.

Links
The Twelve Week Year - https://www.amazon.com/12-Week-Year-Others-Months/dp/1118509234
Goal setting process - https://jamesclear.com/goals-systems
Growth without Goals https://investorfieldguide.com/growth-without-goals/
The one Thing by Gary Keller - https://www.amazon.com/ONE-Thing-Surprisingly-Extraordinary-Results/dp/1885167776
Identity Based Habits - https://jamesclear.com/identity-based-habits

Speaker Links

• Randall (@randallkanna): The Standout Developer, The Standout Career
• Swyx (@swyx): The Coding Career Handbook
• Discuss this episode on Circle

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It's difficult knowing when it's time to leave a company. Sometimes we get 'stuck' and we don't want to leave. Interviewing isn't fun either!

1. When you get an offer you can’t refuse - My $200 million mistake

2. When you aren’t learning anymore/too comfortable

3. When you dread going to work (or watching the clock)

4. When you aren't aligned with company values/when there is no trust

5. KeyValues.com
6. (our episode on Ethics isn't published yet)

7. The Speed of Trust

8. When there’s someone above you and you want to move up

9. Charity Majors blogpost

In this episode, Swyx and Randall discuss the various reasons to keep in mind when debating leaving a company. Swyx and Randall also have an argument about how nice Swyx is!

Late career, if you have family, that might be different. Early career, you want to optimize for growth.The right company will offer you career advancement and support.A company will always try to keep you with what they've gotten you at. Switching jobs nearly guarantees a bump in compensation. If you stick around and hope for a promotion, it's a lot more difficult.
Future episodes to come:

• Tech Ethics (for real!)
• How to Leave Well

Speaker Links

• Randall (@randallkanna): The Standout Developer, The Standout Career
• Swyx (@swyx): The Coding Career Handbook
• Discuss this episode on Circle

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Philip Kiely joins Swyx and Randall to talk about CS degrees, the myths around getting a CS degree and how to be successful in college.

• "Institute of Technology" vs "Liberal Arts"
• Hackathons to set yourself apart
• Writing externally to gain credibility
• Grad school? not needed - except for visas, research

Links
MIT's Missing Semester: https://missing.csail.mit.edu/
The Craft of Writing Effectively: https://www.robincussol.com/the-craft-of-writing-effectively-summary/
Georgia Tech OMSCS: https://omscs.gatech.edu/

Speaker Links

• Philip Kiely (@philipkiely): Writing For Software Developers, Cold Email for Interesting People- Randall (@randallkanna): The Standout Developer, The Standout Career
• Swyx (@swyx): The Coding Career Handbook
• Discuss this episode on Circle

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This week we have another guest interview with the multi-talented Forrest Brazeal (site, twitter, newsletter) who is one of the most passionate cloud advocates in the world. Definitely check out A Cloud Guru's Cloud Resume Challenge if you or someone you know is interested in getting into the cloud, and stay for his hot takes on mid-century children's literature!

0:00 - Intro & Background

1:55 - Cloud Resume Challenge

• a child of the pandemic
• https://twitter.com/forrestbrazeal/status/1254822417203113986?s=20
• https://cloudresumechallenge.dev/
• https://acloudguru.com/blog/news/introducing-the-cloudguruchallenge

5:57 - Success Stories

• Hall of fame https://cloudresumechallenge.dev/halloffame/
• Pay-as-you-go cloud made this much more affordable

9:17 - Community & Cohorts

• Join the Discord https://discord.gg/2PTwAth

10:09 - Employers

• Most people don't even need Forrest's network
• You learn real knowledge going through the projects
• Being able to grow inhouse talent is a competitive advantage
• We need more internships and rotations in the industry

14:23 - Cloud Specializations

• Monthly challenges are themed
• Kesha Williams Machine Learning Challenge https://acloudguru.com/blog/engineering/cloudguruchallenge-machine-learning-on-aws

15:20 - Career Advice

• Be careful about general advice - we all start from different places
• What DOES work is sharing your network and privilege

16:58 - The Value of Networks

• Don't play Resume Roulette - spray & pray
• Networking is not beneath you
• This is you evaluating the industry as much as the other way around
• Giving the gift of your network and referrals does way more than advice

19:15 - The Right Way to Get Referrals

• always see if you can get a referral when applying
• "How do you know this person" - Cold DMs for referrals don't work
• engage in the community, write blogposts, try stuff out, tag the creator
• Pick Up What They Put Down

22:16 - Why Own Your Content

• Its fine to start on Dev.to or Medium
• But eventually it's important to own your domain/mailing list

23:45 - Specialization vs Megatrends

• Didn't choose the Serverless life, Severless chose me
• Can't forecast 10 yrs ahead - just listen to megatrends
• Generational trends - Lindy effect
• Hypergrowth trends - capturing big % of population every year
• Text Editor wars -> VS Code

26:41 - Mid-century Children's Literature

• Perceptions of reality
• Virginia writing alternate history of the Civil War
• Japanese WW2 equivalent
• Subjective vs Objective Reality

29:05 - The Read-Aloud Cloud

• https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51645863-the-read-aloud-cloud
• explain Cloud to non-technical people
• people don't have an intuitive model for why Cloud exists
• helps them ask the right questions

Speaker Links

• Forrest Brazeal (@forrestbrazeal): Site, Twitter, Newsletter, The Read Aloud Cloud- Randall (@randallkanna): The Standout Developer
• Swyx (@swyx): The Coding Career Handbook
• Discuss this episode on Circle

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What happens after you go past Senior? Will Larson, CTO of Calm, has been interviewing Staff-plus engineers across the industry for his new book, Staff Engineering.

This is our first full-length interview podcast episode! If you enjoyed it, please help us share with a friend and let us know your feedback! (Links at bottom)

1:00 Why research Staff Engineering?

• Most bigcos make up their ladders as they go along, or cargo cult from FB/Google.
• We have to separate management from leadership.

4:31 Who are Will's role models?

• Lara Hogan - the Voltron Manager
• Julia Evans' Wizard Zines
• Tanya Reilly - Being Glue
• Dan Na - Pushing Through Friction
• Julia Grace, Director of Eng at Apple: "Don't play team sports alone, you'll lose."
  • The Staff level is a leadership role, you don't get promoted on the basis of your work alone.

11:08 How do you find someone to help you grow?

• 3 types: Role Models, Mentors, and Sponsors
• Sponsors: Lara Hogan on Sponsorship
• The key question: "Do I need to develop myself" or "Is the company evaluating my work fairly"?
• Mentors: Some mentors give generic answers, others know your specific context. The second one is harder.
• Role Models: Helps you know someone with your background can accomplish something. Lighthouse hires are important as proof.
• Retention is most important here
• Look externally on Twitter and on StaffEng.com
  • Duretti Hirpa at Mailchimp
  • Ras Kasa Williams at Mailchimp
  • Michelle Bu at Stripe
• The best people may not be writing online

16:30 Being Visible

• Books are bought, not sold
• If you aren't visible, your work won't be valued.

18:12 Career Management

• Most people don't manage their careers at all
• Most companies are set up to assume Fungible Developers which is exactly what you don't want to be
• But also blaming your manager is a self limiting belief. You personally have to be managing your own career.
• Write your own promotion packets on an ongoing basis.
• Julia Evans on Brag Documents
• Tip: Make your own achievements channel in Slack and log all that info for later

20:39 Architects - How do you lead without authority?

• Silvia Botros at Twilio
• Katie Sylor-Miller at Etsy
• Spend a huge amount of time soaking up context
• Reduce communication and coordination costs
• We rarely understand the problems we are solving when we design the solution
• One directional communication doesn't work - gathering context and providing a common interface helps solves this
• Architects are powerful bc they are aligned with their engineers, Managers have to align with their orgs
• Similar to a Product Manager role - all of the responsibility, none of the authority

24:37 Solvers and Matching Archetypes to Company Stage

• Opposite of Architects? It depends on the company's approach - do they plan and then ship, or do they ship and learn. Architects cannot function in the second type.
• 4 archetypes: Team Leads, Architects, Solvers, and Right Hands.
• Calm is all Team Leads - the majority of the value is not in operating or creating infrastructure - it is in creating product
• It's pointless to bias too much to Architect or Right Hand early on
• You don't see Right Hands except at much bigger companies - for scaling out

29:10 What should Senior Engineers know about Systems Thinking?

• Will Larson's Intro to Systems Thinking
• https://github.com/lethain/systems
• Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows
• Engineers should have both an abstract Systems Thinker and a practical Solver toolkit
• Incident programs overfocus on compliance rather than remediation
• Incidents -> Response -> Review -> Management (catalog, tag) -> Remediation
• Don't focus on moving from stage to stage

32:33 Metrics: The subtle art of Measuring Engineer Productivity

• Accelerate: Building and Scaling High-Performing Technology Organizations
• 1. Delivery lead time
• 1. Deployment frequency
• 1. Change fail rate (defect rate)
• 1. Time to restore service
• How they dynamically run tests to improve productivity at Stripe

36:30 Career Advice

• Will Larson's Career Advice
• Think about the teams you've worked with with the highest density of people you want to be working with
• Yahoo story
• Digg v4 story - your network will outlast your job
• Your manager and team matters more than the company

Thanks for listening!

Speaker Links

• Will Larson (@lethain): Blog, An Elegant Puzzle, StaffEng.com - Randall (@randallkanna): The Standout Developer
• Swyx (@swyx): The Coding Career Handbook
• Podcast Episode discussion on Circle

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Swyx and Randall talk about how they've stayed consistent while writing books and working multiple jobs.

Every day you're not consistent is a zero day.I was sitting and waiting for motivation to strike and it would rarely happen.Don't just be accountable to yourself; be accountable to others, make public commitments even if no one sees them.If you want consistency, be with consistent people.

• Call to Action: Read the Motivation Myth and share it with a friend!

• Discuss this episode and give feedback!

Show LinksThe Motivation Myth
The One Thing
Keystone Habits
The Seinfeld Strategy
Sam Selikoff Work Journal (posted every week on Twitter)

Speaker Links- Randall: The Standout Developer
- Swyx: The Coding Career Handbook

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Personal growth has an algorithm and we can consciously pick better ones. Don't tell yourself you can't learn faster and get a promotion faster.

https://www.swyx.io/big-l-notation/

Swyx borrows the idea of Big O notation to discuss how you can't let titles or expectations hold you back in your growth.

• Call to Action: Break down the Big L of someone you admire and tell them.

• Discuss this episode and give feedback!

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Oh, so you mean I don't have to be dumb?
Our first guest episode! Swyx chats with Will Johnson about how having the right Mindset and Grit can help change your career.

• "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." - Tweet

• Book: Mindset: the New Psychology of Success

• Book: Grit: the Power of Passion and Perseverance

• Will's Blogpost - How I Switched Careers Into Tech With No Degree In My Mid 30's

• Follow Will on Twitter

• Call to Action: Do something that scares you.

• Discuss this episode and give feedback!

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We're discussing emailing a company and pitching yourself for the job you want. Randall did this recently!

If you're not getting rejected twice, three times a week, you're probably not pushing yourself to where you should be. Our natural state is to avoid rejection.This isn't just a cold email. No one likes the email where they think this person could have just emails this to ten other people.
Gumroad gig announcement tweet

CALL TO ACTIONGet rejected on something this week. If you're not getting any rejections, you're not testing your limits!

Got Feedback? Questions? Send them in!

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Randall discusses how to do the research to make sure you pick the right bootcamp!

Go out there and try to code email as many people as you can and find out about the bootcampRead every blog, post, and tweet you can find about the bootcampLinks
How I got a job two weeks after my coding bootcamp
Want a job in Silicon Valley? Stay away from coding bootcamps
Coding House Review
Course Report

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Swyx discusses the four Learning Gears for people Learning in Public

• Explorers: indulge your curiosity without goals. Episodic notes to self, low public commitment.

• Settler: You don't know things that others already know. Run up the learning curve. Make Open Source Knowledge for others like you.

• Connector: You know what others don't. Teach to learn! Put yourself out there - Talks, blog, newsletters, videos, workshop. Regular nontrivial output. Easy to get paid to learn in public here.

When one teaches, two learn. - Robert Heinlein- Miner: You've found something you're obsessed by that people think is important. Push the boundary of human knowledge and capability and the world conspires to help you succeed. You won't need to put yourself out there, they will come to you. Bet your career. Build infrastructure and community.

Links
Learning Gears blog post by Swyx

CALL TO ACTIONLook at your peers and mentors - what gear are they in, and how are they learning in public consistent with their gear? How can you use that as an inspiration for what you do?

Got Feedback? Questions? Send them in!

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Randall discusses her Twitter presence and how she went from 300 to 30k+ followers in the last year.

Find the intersection of what interests your audience and what you have credibility onIt's not all about followers. It's about building that meaningful relationship and taking that off Twitter!
Give a lot before you ask!

Links
- Daniel Vassallo's Twitter Course.
- Randall's Free CS Degree Tweet
- Randall's Frontend Developer Tweet
- Randall's Resume Review Tweet
- Giveaways
- Daniel Vassallo on Things to avoid when building a following

CALL TO ACTION
Write one tweet that you have a lot of credibility on that gives immediate value to your followers!

Got Feedback? Questions? Send them in!

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We've been trained to learn in private our entire lives. Today, we talk about why you should learn in public.

Quote 1:

"The schooling systems teach us to learn in private our entire lives. "Let's all study for this test". "Let's all try to do better than our peers". We train people to learn in private. The rules of the game for school prepare you very poorly for the rules of real life."
Quote 2:

"Make the thing you wish you had found, document what you did, and the problems that you solved. The third time you look up something, you can make a resource for yourself, and that's how you build a second brain."
Quote 3:

"Your ego protects present you at the expense of future you. Your ego wants perfection, so it stops you from shipping anything. Your ego wants to be adored, so you fear critics. Divorce your ego from your work. You can learn so much on the internet for the low, low price of your ego."
Notes

Nasa: How do Rocket Scientists Learn?

The 1% Rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_(Internet_culture)

Scott Hanselman: Dark Matter Developers

Swyx's Book: https://www.learninpublic.org/

Blog Post: https://www.swyx.io/learn-in-public/

Keep your Identity Small: http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html

React TypeScript Cheatsheets https://github.com/typescript-cheatsheets/react

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When faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem, break it down.

Quote 1

"Stop worrying if you can get something done. Instead, break your problem down into many small problems. And choose just one to tackle." - Pieter Levels' MAKE book
Quote 2

"Try to build your idea with HTML and CSS and JavaScript and see how far you get. Just Google every single thing you don't know. Start with "how to make a HTML page" Then "how to make text colored in HTML". Then “how to make a button in HTML”."
Notes

• What is the ONE small thing you can do to make your life better? https://www.the1thing.com/

• Do you break down a fullstack app with frontend vs backend first?

• Interviewing strategy - Make it work, make it right, make it fast

• Test-driven development (TDD)

• Senior Devs/Architects - take requirements, break them down

CALL TO ACTION
What is something that you've solved by breaking it down, or what have you struggled with breaking down?

Got Feedback? Questions? Help us make the show better!

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Being lucky is a skill you can develop. https://www.swyx.io/writing/create_luck/

1. Binary Luck
2. Luck Surface Area: https://www.codusoperandi.com/posts/increasing-your-luck-surface-area
- Fixed vs Growth Mindset: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/29/carol-dweck-mindset/
3. Four Kinds of Luck: https://pmarchive.com/luck_and_the_entrepreneur.html

• Active

• Accidental

• Magnetic (Do something interesting and people will be interested https://twitter.com/dvassallo/status/1256784770387685376)

• Prepared

4. Habits and Strategy: "Put yourself in luck's way"
- Developer's Guide to Tech Strategy: https://www.swyx.io/writing/dev-guide-to-tech-strategy/

CALL TO ACTION
Ask a mentor how they got their "lucky break", and dig a little to see if there was any skill involved in getting there!

Got Feedback? Questions? Help us make the show better!

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Embrace the uncomfortable, in order to grow. https://sive.rs/uncomf

How do you get the energy to force yourself to get through the uncomfortable?

• Does Homeschooling help you be more self directed?
• No Zero Days: https://medium.com/hackernoon/no-zero-days-my-path-from-code-newbie-to-full-stack-developer-in-12-months-214122a8948f
• The Resistance (from War of Art): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistance_(creativity)
• The One Thing: https://www.the1thing.com/

What's something good that has come out of you forcing yourself to be uncomfortable?

• Learning Babel -> Learning ASTs generically useful skill
• Babel Plugin Handbook
• "Welcome to the Suck" https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt7zgd4
• "The biggest growth is when you feel the most uncomfortable"
• https://consensys.net/academy/
• Hands-On Smart Contract Development with Solidity and Ethereum: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/hands-on-smart-contract/9781492045250/
• TruffleCon 2018: React + Truffle + IPFS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5ebt4NNvPQ

CALL TO ACTION
What's just out of your comfort zone right now, and how can you make yourself get through it rather than avoid it?

Got Feedback? Questions?