Getting the Job – Episode Transcript

2019-07-12 s1e2 manager interview Dan Crews part 1.mp3 transcript powered by Sonix—the best audio to text transcription service

2019-07-12 s1e2 manager interview Dan Crews part 1.mp3 was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best way to convert your audio to text in 2019.

Tyler Peterson:
The only thing I can promise you about becoming a web developer is that you can't predict exactly how it's going to happen for you. Today we're gonna go through the first part of an interview that I conducted with a friend and colleague of mine who's a web developer a GraphQL architect and hiring manager in Utah County. We're gonna talk about his start and his hiring practices.

Tyler Peterson:
A lot of the engineers retiring today got into engineering or computer science programming through unusual paths. I once worked with a guy whose degree was in comparative literature and he was a great engineer. But his degree certainly didn't help prepare him for it. And of course I've worked with people that didn't have any degree.

Tyler Peterson:
A lot of people that I've worked with had degrees but they weren't C.S. degrees they were other technical degrees and a lot of this is because when these people were getting their start C.S. wasn't even being taught in universities. So people that are trying to get into programming and web development in particular they at least have the advantage of well-designed classes and well-designed programs to help give them their start.

Tyler Peterson:
So Dan Crews is a principal engineer and hiring manager in the Utah County area and he has a nontraditional start to his career. And we're just going to cover a small part of his story which is actually quite fascinating and entertaining but we're going to talk more specifically we're gonna zero in on how he got started in web development.

Tyler Peterson:
I didn't know it at the time but when I was interviewing Dan he had just given notice at work. He was not dissatisfied with his job but he came across a perfect opportunity elsewhere based on his experience. And you should always be open for opportunity. And he looked at it and it felt like a good choice for him and his family. So he had just stayed late that day to talk to management about it. Because- I don't know if you've ever given notice but if you're any good when you give notice it's not unusual for people to want to double check that you are- if there's nothing they can do to get you to stick around.

Tyler Peterson:
Now I don't recommend you do that as a negotiating tactic. You shouldn't give notice just to jerk people around. But if you're good people are going to not be happy to see you go and that's what- Dan is good and they weren't happy to see him go he'd stayed late. Had some tough talks and he was a bit subdued. So this isn't a completely typical view of what it's like to talk to Dan Crews but his advice is still there and his story is still very compelling.

EFFECT:
[MANAGERJS THEME]

Tyler Peterson:
Okay. Hey how you doing Danny.

Dan Crews:
Great.

Tyler Peterson:
[CHUCKLING] You're still at work.

Dan Crews:
Yeah.

Tyler Peterson:
It's like six o'clock on a Thursday and you're still at work.

Dan Crews:
Yeah.

Tyler Peterson:
Date night.

Dan Crews:
It is date night and I'm sad. But CTO wanted to talk, so…

Tyler Peterson:
Yeah. It's not like you get to just be like, "Sorry man. Five o'clock I'm done. Outta here.".

Dan Crews:
That's right. I got to go hang out with my lady.

Tyler Peterson:
Yeah. Was it at least important.

Dan Crews:
Yeah it was. It was a conversation that I wanted to have with him so it was- It was nice of him to give me some time.

Tyler Peterson:
Good. Cool. Well you're the first interview for this podcast. I hope to be interviewing a lot of people. I want to interview managers and students and junior developers because the thing inside of me that makes me want to do this is my experience going to career fairs at schools and getting some of the same questions over and over again and wanting to be able to give them better answers and also wanting to be able to get them better prepared for those career fairs so that they can maybe you know get to the next level of questions.

Dan Crews:
Yeah.

Tyler Peterson:
Does that makes sense?

Dan Crews:
Yeah definitely.

Tyler Peterson:
So I expect to refer people at these career fairs to do this podcast. Hey Dan you want to introduce yourself.

Dan Crews:
Sure. My name's Dan Crews. I am a man of a few hats. I'm currently platform architect GraphQL architect, manager, and a software engineer at Vivint Solar.

Tyler Peterson:
And you're also a standup comedian.

Dan Crews:
Yeah. So for fun I've got to open microphone a few times. I'm hoping to go enough that the manager Keith will recognize me and let me open up for somebody but no not yet. One of these days.

Tyler Peterson:
Yeah I've seen your clips. They're pretty darn funny. I think it's hilarious.

Dan Crews:
Thanks.

Tyler Peterson:
And you've been polishing your set for quite awhile now. It feels feels like it. It's definitely showing the polish. I thought it was funny the first time but it's getting even more smooth.

Dan Crews:
Yeah thanks. It helps to not really be scared of people and being a manager has helped a lot with that actually.

Tyler Peterson:
Yeah?

Dan Crews:
Yeah like Im running a lot more meetings so I'm kind of on the stage a lot more so. Figuratively.

Tyler Peterson:
After I was made a manager there were a few months of just uncomfortableness. Because as an engineer I was kind of protected. I had my teammates and I had a manager. And those are the people I had to keep happy. When I became a manager I was exposed to the entire company more or less. And you just can't keep them all happy. And learning to be OK with people not knowing who you are or knowing who you are and thinking you're annoying or thinking you're wrong. Learning to be OK with that, and just on an emotional level, not just intellectually but to just go to bed every night like, "Yeah there's people at work that aren't in awe of my awesomeness." You know that think I'm just OK so that's probably the biggest gift that being a manager has given me and it's one of the reasons why I say, I think every developer should spend some time in that environment whether it's as a manager or a senior developer, or team lead because it's very freeing when you get through that.

Dan Crews:
Yeah definitely.

EFFECT:
[TRANSITION MUSIC]

Tyler Peterson:
I'm in the mood for something completely different. I'm in the mood for.

EFFECT:
[USER JINGLE] Un-solicited endorsements and reviews.

Tyler Peterson:
That's right. It's time for me to talk about something special to me without anyone asking me to. And today I am talking about

EFFECT:
[THEME MUSIC]

Yeah big bonus points if you could recognize that theme music that is the theme music to the programming podcast, "Detached Head." Which, if you haven't been using the git version control system might sound very alarming but it's really just a really mundane sort of programmer pun that they've chosen to go with: detached head.

My good friend and colleague Kyle wrote the music and edits the podcast and Drew and Dewey are the main voices in that podcast (who are also friends and colleagues of mine). We have worked together in the past and Kyle and Drew still work together with me. Dewey has moved on to another company. I have always enjoyed chatting with these guys talking about shop just talking about life in general or how we think work works and how we can make it better. And I think that you'll enjoy their take as well.

I was a recent guest on their podcast. We talked about the hiring process some mistakes that candidates have made in my experience and things that bug interviewers. A lot of them are things that didn't bug me right off the bat but after doing interviews for a few years they do start to stand out as as problems and I was happy to be able to share some of my own experience with them on their podcast and because I know these guys really well and we are used to sitting down and and talking at length about things they did get me pretty candid and might have said some things that I don't regret. But they got me they got me talking kind of freely so check it out check out their podcast by going to anchor.fm/detachedhead and that detached head is all one word. I think you'll like it.

So thanks for listening to this segment of.

EFFECT:
[USER JINGLE] Un-solicited endorsements and reviews..

Let's get back to Dan.

So talking about how you got into software. What got you your first real job. What was your first real job doing software.

Dan Crews:
So I did customer service tech support at a web host company down in Provo. I was helping people fix their email problems because I was pretty good at things. I mean I had been doing tech support for my mom for a decade or two. So I was doing customer service and people would call in and they'd have problems with their website. I eventually got to the point where I was like, "OK well I know a little bit of CSS. Let me help you out." And then I would get in and tweak some stuff and it would go well and they'd be happy or they wouldn't and they'd have to send them up to the updates department and the wait time was two days.

Dan Crews:
Eventually I got better at that and then I got really good at CSS and HTML. And at that company we had some good designers who knew a lot about design. We had some good programmers who knew a lot about PHP, but we didn't have anybody who knew how to take PHP and make it look like a design. And I was pretty good at CSS. So I started a design integration department. It was just me. And my job was to take the finished PHP that the contractors didn't want to touch and take the finished design that designers already got paid for and put them together. And I was there for probably about four years and then eventually was the lead developer there working my way up from nothing but tech support.

Tyler Peterson:
So sweet. Four years there?

Dan Crews:
Four years.

Tyler Peterson:
Wow you did a lot more PHP than me but we both have PHP in our past.

Dan Crews:
Yeah.

Tyler Peterson:
It's a- I know a lot of people that hate PHP but a lot of them when you pin them down have used it and made money on it.

Dan Crews:
Yeah definitely. And you know I have kind of gotten the same experience that a lot of people kind of look down on it. But being a node developer those same people looked down on JavaScript for years. And some still do even though it's really coming into its own as a language that is really for web development and even desktop development now and mobile development. So I tend to speak a little snide to PHP developers and PHP as a language but when it comes down to it I owe everything that I am to those four years doing PHP. So, I like to make jokes but it's- it's mostly fake.

Tyler Peterson:
Yeah. PHP is an example of that old maxim that says, "You never get fired for buying IBM." Because it got so big that you knew it could always be around. So- So while PHP might not be the best choice you don't have to worry about it just not being around some day.

Dan Crews:
That's right. Yeah. I was at a conference in Las Vegas a few years ago and there was a talk by Rasmus Lerdorf who wrote PHP and I walked up to him afterwards and people were asking him like, "hey did you ever- like what's it like being the guy who wrote PHP." And he was like, "I don't know. I don't have anything to do with it anymore. I wrote it for me and people just liked it and went with it. So I guess it's pretty cool now."

Question: What would make you leave Web Development?

Tyler Peterson:
What would have to be true to make you re-evaluate being in web development? What would make you go a different direction?

Dan Crews:
Oof! I don't know. It's the best: web development and really this whole community as a whole. The passions that I have for creating things that my mom can look at for example. Early on especially was really big for me to say, "hey Mom! Look at this thing. You can still be proud of me." I mean, "you can start being proud of me because look at this thing that I built.".

Dan Crews:
And it was built in a way that she could go look at it and she could say, "hey that's pretty cool." She didn't really understand why I was so proud of a blinking light on a web page but like being in the web is so great. And the technology is moving so fast. It's just so exciting. I don't know what else I would do. This is it. This is my jam.

Tyler Peterson:
This ship would have to be sinking I guess for you to get off.

Dan Crews:
Yeah. And I just don't see that happening. I mean maybe.

Tyler Peterson:
Yeah all the people that have bet against JavaScript in the past have lost their money. So.

Dan Crews:
Yeah. Agreed. I think the one thing that I could see taking JavaScript down a little bit is if web assembly ever took off. Because then people could just build in COBOL or build in C sharp- whatever they want. It would compile down to C which would compile into JavaScript and it would just run in web assembly.

Tyler Peterson:
Yeah. Yeah. I've looked at Web assembly. I've had people telling me, "Oh get ready to be extinct because web assembly is gonna let us Java developers take over web development.".

Dan Crews:
That's right.

Tyler Peterson:
And they have tried to do it before. GWT anybody?

Dan Crews:
Oh man. Google Dart.

Tyler Peterson:
So the thing is, I think Web assembly is gonna be awesome. But I think it's only going to affect like 10, 20 percent of the sort of stuff you do on the web. Because the things that you use javascript for are interacting with the Dom. And the difficulty of interacting with that Dom and getting it to look right and behave right- they're not any easier in Java. I mean I was a Java developer for years before I was a web developer. So I could be wrong. And I will be happy to be wrong. Because it'll just be a new opportunity. But I don't see it happening.

Dan Crews:
Yeah.

Tyler Peterson:
Have you seen other people moving out of web development?

Dan Crews:
Not really. I mean I've got a few friends who just got into web development because it was what was available. Like people who just wanted to be in game development- when the last few years they really wanted to get into machine learning. People who get into embedded systems with the extra difficulty of dealing with low memory and dealing with actually physical devices and getting into the maker scene. That's really the only place I've seen it go.

Dan Crews:
I've had several people tell me that desktop applications aren't dead and the fact that they said that made it feel like they were wrong. But…

Tyler Peterson:
Yeah, yeah it's like, "why do you have to tell me they're not dead?".

Dan Crews:
That's right. I didn't even think it. But thanks for telling me.

Tyler Peterson:
Flash isn't dead either.

Dan Crews:
Yeah!

Tyler Peterson:
It's not dead!

Dan Crews:
Yeah neither is FLEX. FLEX is going to be big.

Tyler Peterson:
Flex- Flex is going to be awesome.

Question: What is web development?

Tyler Peterson:
We've been talking about web development a lot and I'd like to ask you to tell me when somebody says, "what's web development?" and maybe they have some technical background- maybe a college student or a junior developer in another field says, "well what is web development? Could I do it? I don't know what it consists of."

Dan Crews:
Web development is… I've often thought that I wasn't artistic- that I didn't have any creativity. But web development is my creativity. It is my art. It's translation. It's being a translator, where someone has some idea of this concept and you get to talk with that person and figure out not just what they're asking for (because they're asking for something very specific) but it's what are they really asking for. What do they want behind what their words are. And then building and creating- It's engineering this thing.

Dan Crews:
I mean, most of the applications that I build- People tell me I mother hen my code just because I don't like people coming in and messing with it. Because those are- these- these are my- These are my children. These are my babies. I'm putting so much of myself into an experience for someone else. It's really sharing who I am helping someone else have a good experience. That's just the best!

Dan Crews:
And I've kind of faded off from where your question is to some extent. But to me that's web development: It's building something that is available to everyone. Mobile development is valuable and it's a thing. Desktop applications are a thing and they're not dead, from what I've been told recently. But web development! You're building something that anybody can access. If you do it well then you're building something that a blind person can work with, a person on dial up networking in the Democratic Republic of Congo can get on and access it. It's. I don't know. It's just crazy that anyone could use this thing. And I'm sharing my gift with anybody who cares to look.

For Dan, Web Development includes some ability to design experiences or graphic design, not just take a finished visual/experience design and implement it.

Tyler Peterson:
You talked about talking to somebody and going from them not even knowing what they want to you creating something that satisfies that need. So it sounds like for you web development includes, normally, turning requirements into the experience not just taking a finished experience from an ex- user experience designer and realizing it. But also being able to interpret that requirement and have influence on what that means. Right?

Dan Crews:
That's right yeah.

Small shops can give you broader experience.

Tyler Peterson:
And I know that in some big shops, if you have enough developers, the more developers you have the more specialized they're going to be. So, if you have a thousand people working in the same area then you're gonna have plenty of people that are better at design than you, because you're a coder. And so they'll probably end up taking up that space. But if you're in a smaller company then-.

Tyler Peterson:
That's one of the things that I tell students that come to me at career fairs and they like interpreting requirements and turning them into a thing (even though the customer couldn't draw a picture of it). I encourage them to look for a smaller shop because at a smaller shop you'll have more responsibilities. But if you're in a small enough shop then you'll have to go from requirements- turning that into an experience design, and a palette, and writing the HTML, CSS, JavaScript that runs in the browser, and writing code on the server, and writing the services that it calls, and designing the database schema, and being a DBA admin all the way up to a user experience designer.

Broad experience without mentoring can lead to bad habits.

Dan Crews:
Yeah and one of the things that I would say: in my experience as a hiring manager at one of the things that can be a negative when I'm interviewing somebody- if someone's only been in a small environment it's hard for me to interview them just because they haven't been surrounded by people who… Like, I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. And if you take a young developer who is just starting out– young in their career I mean– and make them "the guy" they're going to learn to do things wrong. Which gets it done. And they'll get better. And that's OK. But it's hard for me coming in with them five years down the line. If they've been the person doing everything they can do everything but a lot of things are doing wrong just because they haven't had senior leadership.

Tyler Peterson:
Yeah yeah. And a lot of it doesn't feel painful to them because: doing things wrong a lot of times means when this work crosses the divide it's not going to be maintainable. But because they did the whole stack, they don't even think it's weird, what they're doing. You know, they're dealing with lower level concerns in the higher layers. But because they understand the whole thing, that was small enough to fit in their head, they don't see how terrible that choice was.

Dan Crews:
Yeah.

Tyler Peterson:
So, I should amend my advice and say look at a shop that's small enough for you to not be pushed out of design, because they have 100 designers, but big enough for you to be working with other senior developers that can mentor you.

Dan Crews:
Yeah. If you can find something that's small enough, and you have that opportunity, mentorship is going to be key. Even if you're- like, if you get into development but you're interested in UX development and exploring that space, if you can find a small enough space that you can dabble? Maybe even when you're a senior developer if you're interested in being a junior UX guy for a while be a senior developer and just try to contribute. And try to ask questions and get mentorship from people who are in that environment. I like the idea of being in a small enough shop that you can be "the guy" in your thing… eventually. When I started it was just me as a developer and I did so many things wrong.

Tyler Peterson:
I can imagine. I was in that situation too.

Dan Crews:
And it's hard.

Tyler Peterson:
I was doing it in Perl.

Dan Crews:
Oof!

Tyler Peterson:
I was doing data processing for a market research company and everybody was using-

Dan Crews:
Oh bless your heart!

Tyler Peterson:
Everybody was using just word perfect editor and this proprietary language. And so there was a guy in the office that knew Quick Basic. And he was "the man." Like he could get anything done. And my brother told me, "hey if you're dealing with text you should learn Pearl," right? Because he was a computer science guy to. And it allowed me to be a god among men. But I was the only person and I'm sure that I did it wrong. Yeah but nobody else knew better to tell me that.

Dan Crews:
Yeah that's right. And as I moved more into the programming department I kind of learned that I was a bit of an idiot. But it was OK because I was learning and I was growing. And hopefully I was fixing some of the stuff that I built early on. But a mentorship is key.

Dan Crews:
But sometimes you have to start out being the only person and that's OK, too. That just means that in your next job be ready to be humble. Because you might be told that you were doing horrible things. And you have to be willing to learn. If you're the kind of person who is ready to be stubborn, start out in a bigger company. If you're- if you're ready to be humble and be teachable, be able to be a good team player, then yeah start out being the person. And that's fine. And learn everything that you can because: get experience wherever you can really. But, be careful. If you're stubborn, try to start out in a bigger company and be humbled when you're dumb. Don't try to be humbled later when you think you're smart.

Tyler Peterson:
Yeah and when people are already going to say, "well… you know, he just got out of college. It's ok.". You don't- you don't want to be making those kinds of mistakes four years into your career and people wonder, "Well, how did they get this far along and not know that?"

Dan Crews:
Yeah.

Tyler Peterson:
Especially if you're gonna be obnoxious about it.

How to stand out.

Tyler Peterson:
So you said that it was sometimes difficult to be confident when hiring somebody from a small shop. What makes a good candidate really stand out? If a college student is listening to this what could help make them stand out? Or somebody that's got a couple of years in a small shop.

Dan Crews:
Well if you've got a couple of years of a small shop, as an interviewer the best thing for me and one of the red flags- Actually let me start with the red flag: One of the red flags I've found is if you're the guy in a small shop you're gonna be slower to say, "I don't know." Whereas if you've been around a bunch of people who are telling you how to do better you're usually quicker to say that you don't know.

And as an interviewer my job during that process is to get you to the phrase, "I don't know." So that I can see where you're at- where you can grow. And I'm gonna help you along the process because I'm self-taught. I recognize that the way I phrase stuff might be confusing, now that I'm into the lang- lingo. And this is where I'm going to help you along. But I need you to be able to say, "you know I'm not sure. Let's rephrase this. Let's just work through it." I'm especially interested, especially with younger people who are a little bit more junior, a little bit more green, I really just want somebody who's willing to learn. And who's going to put their all into getting it done.

Tyler Peterson:
Yeah.

Dan Crews:
And if someone is willing to say I don't know, that's so much easier on the senior developers on the team. Because they can jump in and say, "OK, well, what do you know and let's start from there." And you can have that conversation. And you can grow. And you can work together. Because it's so important! Because if you're just going to spin your wheels for two days you're going to get fired because I don't have time for that.

Tyler Peterson:
Yeah. So, in a interview a candidate would be wise if they demonstrated that they take on assignments even when they're a little bit beyond their capability, and have a way of dealing with that lack of knowledge and overcoming it and learning what they need to know. Taking advantage of their network and getting the work done. If they can demonstrate that in an interview?

Dan Crews:
Definitely. Especially when you're- I expect, if I'm interviewing for a junior or a mid-level position, I expect that you don't know the answer. And I'm ready to be your Google. Depending on what problems we're working through. Either, "k, let me see how you search for stuff. Let me see how you Google. Let's get to the solution," or, "tell me what you would google. I'll tell you what you'll find."

Tyler Peterson:
Yeah I do that in my interviews pretty often, too. A lot of times I'll have them solving code on a computer and I'll say, "just go ahead: Google. It's fine." Because I want to see how they solve the problem. I don't want them to have it all memorized. It's fine.

Coaching failed candidates.

Tyler Peterson:
You know if you interview somebody and they fall short and you have a moment to give them some advice, what would you say to a candidate that fell short and what in general do you say, "this is what could help get you ready?"

Dan Crews:
Yeah. So it depends on the candidate. Because sometimes they'll fall short, and- I mean it really depends on the attitude. Like some people just aren't very good at receiving feedback. And while I'm talking with them for an hour, an hour and a half, I've gotten pretty good. Because I've helped them through some things. And I can usually tell if it's going to help. And if it is, it depends on the person and I try to I try to be a little empa- empath- empathetic? That one.

Tyler Peterson:
Yeah.

Dan Crews:
About like- Hopefully I've learned a little bit about how they learn and I can kind of say, "OK look, here's this thing. First of all…" And again, depending on the person I would either tell him this in person or not, but I would say, "look you're still a little bit green for what we're looking for. But here are some things that you struggled with and if- if you think you're really good at this tell me now. Because I may have missed something. And I can send you some homework and you can do it and just get back to me in 24 hours and see how things are." Or, "it's a little bit green here and this is a place that I think would help.".

Dan Crews:
I'm not always the best person to know which resources to pick up to be able to learn those things just because: I was self-taught, but I did a lot of JavaScript stuff six years ago and the resources were completely different.

Tyler Peterson:
Yeah.

Dan Crews:
But there's lots of books and sometimes I'll say, "Look the job that you are doing for- this isn't a very good fit right now. But we may have this job, or here's a position that we're planning on opening that's maybe a little bit more your speed or opening this up in a couple of months. If you're still around I'd love to chat. And here are some things…" I try to be really straightforward with where I feel like they're lacking. Whether it's testing. Whether it's just thinking out loud and having the communication aspect of it. So it depends. But I do try to give feedback if they're open to it and they don't seem like the type who will fight me on it.

Tyler Peterson:
Yeah yeah.

Dan Crews:
Because that's always hard.

Tyler Peterson:
That's all for today. Later when I finish airing this podcast we'll talk about some war stories that I rec- that I recorded Dan sharing with me during that interview. But to keep this podcast focused on on just a couple of things we're gonna cut it short there. And I hope that you have enjoyed the podcast.

Tyler Peterson:
I hope that you enjoy what you're learning. God bless you. And I look forward to working with you someday.

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Tyler Peterson:
Welcome to this bonus cast from manager J.S. Just within a half hour of publishing yesterday's post about Dan Crews and how he got into management and his advice to entrants, I got a question from a completely separate direction on the BYU connect hub. It was a question from a recent management graduate looking to change careers and move into development. He said that he had no formal background in C.S. And he's worried that without that formal background, or three to five years of experience it will be difficult for him to get a job in development. It seemed so on topic I just had to put a bonus here. I have his full question and my full response to him published on my ManagerJS.com blog.

Tyler Peterson:
I can't get across in writing just how I feel about this. It's so heartbreaking to hear from these people. They *can* get a job. If they keep going they will succeed in getting a job. Because there's just too many jobs out there. And there's too many companies that you've never heard of that you would never think to apply to. Keep looking for jobs. Keep working your network.

Tyler Peterson:
It is gonna be difficult. And without that degree: those people with degrees, those people with experience, they're jumping ahead of you in line. The key is that you're gonna have to keep looking and applying. Which is true for everybody. it's just doubly true if you're trying to fit into a job that your resume doesn't make you look right for.

Tyler Peterson:
So, you're gonna have to be creative in where you're willing to work. You shouldn't work somewhere that you don't intend to work. And I mentioned that to the questioner. These networks of people are too well-connected for you to take advantage of employers and work there under false pretenses.

Tyler Peterson:
That being said, it's totally normal to have a few short stints It's just if you form a pattern of working only a few months, or a year or two, over and over again eventually people aren't going to want to invest in you. Because, you want to have a great career. Well, they have problems they're trying to solve as well. Most significant problems take months and years of training, months and years of investment for you to be really working at your top efficiency and for them to be really getting the best out of you.

Tyler Peterson:
So most employers, especially in a knowledge work area, they really want you to stick around for a while. You don't have to be a career employee. It's understandable that you'll work there for four, or five years and work somewhere else. But two years, three years, over and over again, it will start to stand out. So be careful about working places for a short time.

Tyler Peterson:
But, when you're trying to get that experience- just like Dan Crews, he worked tech support, and now he wasn't thinking the whole time, "I'm going to turn this into a technology job." It's just he learned the skills that he was interested in and he saw problems and solved them.

Tyler Peterson:
So, that's the core way that you're going to shape your career over time. You need to train yourself. You need to seek out opportunities to acquire skills. And you need to have your eyes open wherever you're working to see what problems they have that you can solve. When you can match your skills to problems that they need solved: that's the magic.

Tyler Peterson:
You can more or less write your own job description. This is more likely to happen in small companies. Because, small companies can't afford to hire specialists in every field, but they will normally have tasks of every kind that need to be done.

Tyler Peterson:
So be creative. Don't just think of places that you know of as a consumer. You're going to need to work the job boards. Work your network. Try to find a company you would never think about. Try to find a position that matches the skills you currently have, not just the skills you wish you were using, but the skills you currently have.

Tyler Peterson:
And if it's adjacent, like it was for Dan, to technology then your trip into technology will be shorter. for example my own father he had a degree in management and never really expected to go into software. But there were problems at his work. They were best solved with software. And now at the end of his life- at the end of his job life, he's about to retire, he is an expert that is irreplaceable they're very dependent on him because of all of the software work that he's done and the expertise he's acquired.

Tyler Peterson:
Your career is long. So, don't be so worried about going straight from college into a job with "developer" in its name. Acquire the skills that you're interested in, that you're good at. Build on your strengths and get a job that's well suited to what you're good at, and a company that you can believe in and that you can believe you can do some good and just search for opportunities to do the good that you can with the skills that you have. And don't get totally hung up on getting a job with "developer" in its name. Because, there's a lot of development happening outside of those formal roles.

Tyler Peterson:
And the best place to switch from one job title to another is inside of a company. Because, inside of that company there are well-connected networks of people that know one another. And you can establish your ability to one person and they can transfer that trust and knowledge to another part of the company.

Tyler Peterson:
That's where it's going to be easiest for you to move from one kind of a role to another.

Tyler Peterson:
Don't get too hung up on where you get hired into that company. Make sure that it's a role that you can do well. And they should probably have some department, or some people doing the work that you're hoping to do. But don't worry about trying to get directly into that space. Again don't do it under false pretenses. Don't go in with no intention of doing the job you're hired for and doing it well.

Tyler Peterson:
It's really tough for me to hear from these people sometimes because I really want them to be able to succeed. There is always luck in your career so there's a chance that you could get right into exactly what you want. But most likely not. Even the people with the best degrees from the best universities have to rely on luck. They just have better odds because of their background.

Tyler Peterson:
Best of luck I hope you can get where you want to go. And thanks for listening. To this bonus episode.

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