December 19, 2023 • 54 mins
Get ready for an engrossing episode, as we sit down with the remarkable Valarie Regas. Known for her passion in the tech industry, Valarie’s journey from a stay-at-home mom to a thriving DevOps engineer and full stack developer is a story that will leave you inspired. She opens up about her experiences navigating the tech world, the value in her unique background, and the game-changing role therapy played in her life.
Valarie also enlightens us on the trials and tribulations of job hunting and the significance of diverse perspectives in problem-solving. As a Southern woman in tech, her experiences shed light on the influence of upbringing on leadership styles and the power of embracing one's unique strengths. Her story is a testament to the importance of recognizing the value of individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences in the hiring process.
Rounding up our conversation with Valarie, we touch on a topic close to her heart - the well-being of engineers. Valarie advocates for more humane work cultures that prioritize employees' mental health, sharing her personal experiences with burnout, depression, and anxiety. She also gets real about the lack of parental leave policies in the U.S. This episode is a wake-up call to the tech industry on the need to prioritize the human aspect in our drive for innovation. It's a conversation not to be missed!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Valarie Regas (00:00):
Be yourself.
I find that when I get up onstage and I tell a room full of
people, oh yes, and I'm sober bychoice, and here's why burnout
and depression had led me toproblematic drinking because I
was under so much stress, andyou don't have to live that way
and I share my dirty laundry.
One of my kids asked me why doyou have to tell people that I'm
(00:21):
like, yeah, but if I recoverloudly, it can save other people
from dying quietly, and allthat matters on this planet, all
that matters, is the people.
I believe if you make a goodproduct and take care of your
people, the money will follow.
You don't have to worry aboutyour money.
It really will follow if youare putting good in this world
(00:44):
by taking, making the bestchoices you can with regards to
the other people in it.
And I don't know.
I'm looking for my next role,hopefully in developer advocacy.
If not, I do love me someengineering.
I would love to get back tocontainer orchestration.
It's cool, but mostly I'm justlooking for a company that has
(01:05):
integrity and morals and ethicsand treats the people that work
there like human beings, becausethat's where the innovation
comes from.
Comfortable, respected, caredfor people get to make cool
stuff and I wanna make some coolstuff.
Tim Bourguignon (01:21):
Hello and welcome to Developer's Journey,
the podcast bringing you themaking of stories of successful
software developers to help youon your upcoming journey.
I'm your host, tim Bollinger.
On this episode, I receiveValerie Regas.
Valerie is a DevOps fanatic,full stack developer, a Georgia
Tech coding bootcamp graduateand a veteran mommy.
(01:44):
She holds a BA in psychologyand currently works as a DevOps
engineer.
After years of being a stay athome mom, she decided to change
her life by entering tech andhas learned a lot along the way.
In addition to DevOps, sheenjoyed mixed martial arts,
fighting, tabletop role-playinggames, public speaking, creating
(02:06):
tiny humans and activism of allsorts.
Valerie, a warm welcome toDevTourney.
Valarie Regas (02:13):
Well, hello and thanks for having me today.
Tim Bourguignon (02:16):
Oh, it's my pleasure and it's remote, so I
don't fear anything coming yourend if I say bad things about
you.
But you're role-playing gamefanatics, so that's good Anyhow.
But before we come to yourstory, I want to thank the
terrific listeners who supportthe show.
Every month you are keeping theDevTourney lights up.
(02:39):
If you would like to join thisfine crew and help me spend more
time on finding phenomenalguests than editing audio tracks
, please go to our website,devjourneyinfo, and click on the
support me on Patreon button.
Even the smallest contributionsare giant steps toward a
sustainable DevTourney journey.
(03:01):
Thank you, and now back totoday's guest, valerie.
As you know, the show exists tohelp listeners understand what
your story looked like andimagine how to shape their own
future.
So, as is usual on the show,let's go back to your beginnings
.
Where would you place the startof your DevTourney?
Valarie Regas (03:18):
You know it's a fun question because even just a
month ago the answer to thiswould have been different.
The older I get and I'mofficially an old now I'm in my
40s and that's for y'all outthere in your 20s and 30s,
please know that now in my 40s,you could not pay me to go back
to my 20s and 30s, literallylike there is nothing you could
(03:41):
do.
40s are great and in fact I getmad now when people tell my
children enjoy your childhood,it's the best time of your life.
No, it is not.
No, it is not.
Being 40 is fantastic.
If I decide I want to stay uplate eating junk food, playing
video games, that's on me and Ican do it.
It's great.
So even just a month ago, likeyour perspective changes.
(04:02):
I might have chosen, like whenmy DevTourney started at a
different place, but I'm gonnasay it started when I was eight.
Actually, I saw my firstcomputer in the wild.
You know my father took me, sowe used to have this store back
in the day.
We had this store in the Statescalled Radio Shack.
I have no idea if they wereinternational or not, but they
(04:24):
don't exist now and that waswhere you went to get random
chords and dongles and whatnot,before we even knew what a
dongle was.
And so my father goes to getsomething and there's this magic
box on a table and it's veryexpensive and he's like, don't
break it, but you can touchwhatever that is.
He didn't even know.
And it was this.
(04:44):
You know Apple, and I had neverseen a computer I was maybe
eight.
And you know he comes back afew minutes later and I've
created some little like youknow scratch game, just little
stick figure running up a hill,kind of thing.
And he was so excited.
And you have to understand, myfather was born in 1926.
My father was older.
(05:06):
When he had me he referred tome as the fall crop.
I'm the youngest of four andyou know I have a sister who's
30 years older than me.
So my father fought in WorldWar II.
So for him, seeing an actualreal life computer in the real
world was exciting, just on theface of things, you know.
But for him to see his eightyear old work, this magic box,
(05:33):
was like oh my God, I've raiseda sorceress.
You know he was very excitedand so we go home and he tells
my mother this excited he's likewe've got to encourage this.
She just knew how to work thisthing.
And my mom, in all seriousnessand with no maliciousness, just
very matter of fact, they said,well, how will that help her
(05:54):
find a husband and make babies?
And that was the start of allsorts of journeys for me.
If I'm, you know now that I'vedone like 30 years of therapy.
By the way, everyone out there,if you don't have a therapist,
you're missing out.
Don't think of them as mentalhealth advisors.
Think of them as lifeconsultants In business.
(06:15):
If you don't have a subjectmatter expert on staff and you
don't know the solution and youdon't have the skill set to deal
with something, you hire aconsultant, right?
So I have had a life consultanton and off for 30 years,
because I am certainly not asubject matter expert on how to
live this life and you know.
So I look back at this littleeight-year-old girl and it did
(06:39):
kind of dash my dreams of.
Well, yeah, I did have a lot offun playing with this thing.
Maybe dad's onto something, andso I kept going.
I fell in love with Judo at somepoint and kind of went down a
path of physical skill.
I'm gonna use my body to livethis life.
I'm gonna be an athlete.
And then, when I went to school, there was still sort of that
(07:03):
air in my social circles ofyou're not really going to
school for a bachelor's of artsdegree, you're going for an MRS
degree, you're going to meet theright man and get married, and
that's why girls go to college,and I hate that.
I grew up in that, but I alsolove that I grew up in that
because it gives me a differentperspective on things.
(07:24):
So I was afraid to get a CSdegree.
I really was.
I got a psychology degree witha minor in gender studies.
That's not lucrative, and allof my electives, though, were
like in microbiology and medicalimmunology, and I was always
(07:45):
very drawn to the sciences, butkind of convinced by the culture
I grew up in that women don'tdo that.
It's just not your place, andso I did whatever one wanted.
I had my starter husband, thatcollege husband we don't talk
about anymore, which kind ofpretend that one didn't happen.
I got better from that after afew years, and I did bodyguard
(08:10):
work.
I worked as a medical officemanager.
I've always been drawn toleading people, when you're a
high level athlete and you win agold medal.
Especially and I know itshouldn't change things, but it
does when you win a gold medalwith your country written across
your shoulders and your anthemsinvolved, it's a very special
(08:33):
feeling.
But I didn't think there was abetter feeling until I started
coaching other people and seeingmy athletes win their own gold
medals.
And that's when the water Imean I seriously have broken
down, sobbing on the side of themat so proud at one of my
athletes winning their gold.
And so I've always been reallydrawn to coaching people and
(08:56):
helping them and officemanagement just sort of felt
natural like great, I've gotthis staff, I'm gonna help them
excel.
One of my goals for software isto get into management and
foster new talent and helppeople just become whoever it is
they're supposed to be.
But yeah, I don't know how Iended up in this industry.
(09:17):
It doesn't make any sense to gofrom yes, I'll be your
bodyguard for the evening to oh,I would love to orchestrate
your containers.
Yeah.
Tim Bourguignon (09:27):
But there's a story to be told Before we get
there.
You said something.
You said I was afraid ofgetting a CS degree.
Mm-hmm, Was that in your mindat that time already?
Valarie Regas (09:37):
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
It was so ingrained in meculturally that sort of my only
purpose on this planet was tobreed children and teach them to
fear God and maintain thestatus quo.
And it was really ingrained inme that I wasn't not just
(09:58):
because I was born a woman Imean, that was my first mistake,
don't get me wrong but it wassort of ingrained in me that
just I as a person wasn't smartenough, wasn't good enough,
wasn't capable of.
That was definitely a messagethat was both purposefully and
accidentally sent to methroughout my youth.
And some of the problem was andI I won't even blame a quote
(10:22):
American public schools, I meanall schools globally, have their
issues.
But I just happened to beraised in an area, in a school
system where they didn't knowwhat to do with a kid who was
malvy, had a high IQ but somelearning disabilities.
Like I'm dyslexic, my IQ ishigh but I struggle to read
(10:45):
sometimes because the wordswon't stop moving.
It's very rude of them and youknow I just all through
elementary school, for example.
I mean at one point I was beingput into a gifted program and
one of the teachers was likewell, that's not possible, she's
an idiot.
How could she test for thegifted program?
Like there's gotta be somemistake.
(11:06):
And you know they didn't thinkabout the words they were saying
and how they would impact agrowing child.
But and what's funny is, youknow, I always have been just
sort of a type to say ifsomething needs doing, you just
do it.
So like I dated a person whowas getting a CS degree and if I
would say, hey, I wanna go out,let's go shoot pool, let's go
party, let's go play, if he said, no, I have homework, I'd say,
(11:29):
well, give me your books, I cando it.
And I would just knock hishomework out for him.
And not because I understoodthe material, but because I'm
just very good at patternrecognition and finding things.
And you know, my starterhusband in college was getting a
geology degree.
I did a lot of work for him,just like random little
assignments.
Just, you're saying we can't goto a movie because you have too
(11:51):
much work.
Tim Bourguignon (11:52):
Well then, give me your work, I'll just do it.
Valarie Regas (11:53):
I wanna go to a movie and I've just.
You know, I worked as ahandyman at one point and this
poor gentleman who hired me, hewould say well, do you know how
to lay tile?
This house needs tile laid.
Of course I know how to laytile.
I didn't know how to lay tile,but I did know how to go to the
library and get a book abouttile work and read it and then
(12:18):
lay tile.
And you know I've just alwaysbeen I get that from my father.
I'm very much a little Georgeclone.
You know he re-did an entirehome based on reading books at
the library and then coming homeand saying I'd like to redo the
electrical system.
Now I read a book about it.
The Colonel and I, you know,definitely have that bond, quite
(12:41):
proud to be his daughter.
But yeah, so it's fascinating.
I always feel weird givingpeople advice about getting into
tech because my entry was soodd.
I did five years as a stay athome parent and that is bar none
the hardest job I've ever had.
I didn't know that life couldbe that hard.
(13:04):
It really is.
I mean, it was 24, sevengrueling hard work and what I
didn't realize is that I wassort of automating our home?
I didn't know.
So I had never heard of DevOpsbecause I'd never heard of
anything really to do withcomputers.
I married a technical architect.
He's incredible.
I've decided to keep thishusband.
(13:26):
He's lasting a while and so youknow he would talk about work
things and I had no idea what hewas saying and that was neat.
I didn't realize that I wasdoing things like having a
standard grocery order that Icould just click a button Sunday
morning and have food arrive atmy home for the week.
And I was doing little thingsto automate all of the stay at
(13:49):
home tasks and really optimizeefficiency.
Like I divided the home intofour zones and only cleaned one
zone per weekday, monday throughThursday.
And like I had and the zoneswere picked not based on you
know geo location Like not thesetwo rooms because they're
closest to each other, butwhat's the average time it takes
(14:10):
to clean them.
Like I was putting so muchmental energy into this job that
I hated.
But that's you know what you dowhen you're me you just make
the best of whatever presentsitself and you power through.
And so I had gotten prettymiserable, though as a stay at
home.
I was just unhappy and myhusband was noticing that I was
(14:32):
unhappy and he one night wasworking on a work problem and I
stayed up late to be with him,not that I could help or do
anything useful, it just feltlike, you know, he's got the
burden of our finances on himand he's clearly quite stressed
and I love him.
So I'm gonna stay awake out ofsolidarity.
And at one point I thought,well, I can't help with the work
(14:56):
thing, but you know, I'mlogical, I can ask questions and
maybe, maybe I'll ask the rightquestion that will remind him
of something he knows he's justtoo stressed to recall right now
.
And so, sure enough, I startedasking questions.
And you know it was reallyfunny because I'm like all
innocent and well, is there someway that you know you could
(15:17):
just pull this kind of data toget this kind of answer?
And he's like no, it doesn'twork that way.
And then, you know, after a fewquestions, he kind of softened
and was like oh, oh, no, itdoesn't work that way, but you
just reminded me and I can dothis, and blah, blah, blah, and
I remember it felt so good, itwas like a drug.
It was like a drug when hesolved the problem and we could
(15:38):
go to bed and I just, I mean, Iremember sitting there thinking
I don't know what this feelingis, but it's so nice and warm
and fuzzy and it was debugging.
It's what debugging feels like.
So about a week later he foundme at like two o'clock on a
Tuesday.
I had put the kids in front ofthe TV like a good mom, strapped
(16:00):
into their high chairs, eatingfood, watching TV, and I had
gone upstairs and locked everydoor between me and the children
and was sitting in my closetdrinking wine, like you do in
the middle of the day, sobbing.
And he came home and was likeyou don't look okay.
I was like I'm not okay, I suckat this job and I hate it.
(16:20):
And so we decided that maybebeing a stay at home parent
wasn't for me, and he suggestedI look into something to do with
software.
He was like you know, you'relogical, you're analytical, your
pattern recognition is on point, do something.
And he really thought I wouldbe drawn to data science,
because I am so facts andfigures based and I don't do
(16:45):
well with vague, I want to seenumbers.
I get mad when people say, well, if you do X, your chance of
death is double if you do Y andI'm like, yeah, but what's the
chance on Y?
Like double, what If it's twiceas high but Y is non-existently
present?
I don't care, you know, I'vejust always been very data
(17:06):
driven and so he thought I wouldreally dig that.
And I ended up doing the codingbootcamp at Georgia Tech for web
development, and that's where Iwas actually introduced to the
concept of DevOps, which DevOpsdoesn't exist.
I didn't know that at the time,but it doesn't exist.
There's no such thing.
It's a myth, it's a fairy tale.
And so I laugh.
(17:26):
When I see a job title forDevOps engineer I'm like what
does that even mean?
Because at three differentcompanies, that is, three
different roles that looknothing alike.
But the concept of DevOpsculture, the concept of okay, if
you have to do something morethan once, you need to automate
it, you need to make it reusable, and the concept of running
things efficiently to save timeand resources that really spoke
(17:50):
to my stay at home mom heart,because that's what mommies do,
that's what stay at home parentsdo.
All you do is worry aboutresource allocation, disaster
recovery and mitigation.
You are forever thinking abouthow to make everything smooth
and how to get your littleteammates to work together.
I mean, I fear no meeting whereadults are yelling at each
(18:14):
other over software, because Ihave made small children agree
in such a way that like theyboth think they won the fight
and I really I just fear noboardroom anger because, well,
I'm pretty good at convincingirrational tiny humans to get
along with each other.
I can handle adults, that'sfine.
Tim Bourguignon (18:36):
I'm laughing, my heart out.
Valarie Regas (18:38):
Great, like compared to my toddler.
No adult scares me.
Tim Bourguignon (18:44):
I mean you fully.
Valarie Regas (18:45):
And the two of my three children are like living
with velociraptors.
They're crazy, bright, a littlebit evil, and they're just,
they're just, they're tinyvelociraptors.
In my home my oldest, though myoldest, though, is the one that
tricked me into having more.
Be warned y'all out there thathave one kid and that kid sleeps
and is respectful andempathetic and kind, and that
(19:07):
kid is just an angel on earth.
That's a trick, it's a trap.
It's a trap.
It's to convince you to havemore and then you have more, and
they're like tiny velociraptorsand they're three years old,
picking your locks.
Like we have baby gates all overour home for a four year old,
as though he's still a baby, buthe's so destructive we have to
(19:28):
have like Fort Knox.
There's like a prison in ourliving room and two engineers
had to zip tie this together tomake it work.
It's ridiculous.
So, yeah, I got into thesoftware thing, and I think the
end result here is that I'venever really felt like I belong.
I'd be interested to like lookat the feedback from your
(19:49):
listeners on people who comeinto software from a
non-traditional background.
Do you ever really feel likeyou're not an outsider anymore,
cause I'm six years in stillfeeling like a stay at home mom
hanging out with the softwarepeople.
Tim Bourguignon (20:05):
I've never heard it put it this way, but I
guess that's a common trait.
Still about not belonging,about not being up to the task,
so hashtag imposter syndrome.
I'm always looking up to theothers and saying they have
something I don't have.
So I'm not right here, and thishas been talked many, many,
(20:27):
many times on the show, but I'mnot in the way you put it
directly.
Valarie Regas (20:31):
It's a little different.
Like I think I did suffer fromimposter syndrome the first few
years, the I'm not enough, Idon't belong because I'm
incapable, or these negativeself thoughts.
But it's different.
At this point I know I'mcapable, I'm actually.
So I'm in a weird place whereI'm job hunting right now and I
look at these job wrecks and I'mlike, yeah, I can do this job
(20:54):
and any section that I don'thave experience with.
I know I can learn.
I know I'm capable, over a longenough timeline, of learning
literally anything.
If you need brain surgery, justgive me long enough with enough
books and I'll figure it out.
So I don't really have the I'mnot good enough anymore.
It's more just like 20 of thesethings belong together.
(21:19):
One of these things does notkind of a odd man out.
Like I know I'm capable ofdoing the work.
I just still sort of feel likethe bodyguard in the room or
like a tourist, like I'm atourist.
Like all of these people areenjoying the beautiful cathedral
together but one of them iswearing the wrong shoes and now
we know she's a tourist, so Idon't know.
(21:44):
It's interesting.
I try to.
I go out of my way.
Every conference I speak atevery meetup I attend I go out
of my way to find people new toour industry and make sure they
feel welcome as best I'm able.
Make sure they feel like theybelong because they do.
I'm only six years into this,but I look at various problems
(22:06):
I've seen solved and situationsI've worked at some incredible
companies already.
I'm so fortunate in my career.
Most of our problems resultfrom limited viewpoints not
knowing what they don't know.
How do you know what you don'tknow?
I see problem after problem atan enterprise level where it's
(22:30):
just a bunch of people who arecrazy bright, highly educated,
very experienced, but they don'tknow what they're not aware of.
For my money, having teams withas varied a world view and
varied lived experience as wecan, the technology can always
be learned.
You can't just little things.
(22:51):
One of my first team outings Istarted work at Airbus.
Airbus had an Atlanta office.
They still do.
Actually, they're great.
I spent three years in my firstrole in tech because I loved
Airbus and, more to the point, Iloved my team and my office
mates so much that they're stillon my Christmas card list, kind
of thing.
(23:13):
We worked in a very affluentarea of town and we worked in
one of these really hipsterbuildings with overpriced bougie
food on the ground level andthen office space and play space
.
And hey, let's skip work to gofly drones in the park.
And hey, let's go to the roofand drink $20 glasses of wine.
No one needs.
(23:33):
It's like this first groupouting.
I'm up on the roof of thisincredible building we have here
in Atlanta called PonsodyMarket and I'm drinking this $17
glass of Malbec.
That was.
I mean, it was okay.
We're eating this overpricedfancy food and I just start
(23:53):
tuckling and one of my coworkerslike what's so funny?
And as I'm standing thereoverlooking my beautiful city,
surrounded by expensive thingsand money, all I could think
about is the time I was homelessin college.
I felt ridiculous just wastingcompany money on this meal,
(24:18):
because my worldview is a littledifferent and the number of
times I didn't grow up poor, soto speak.
So my father, being older,couldn't retire.
He just couldn't.
He kept retiring year afteryear, but it never stuck because
he was just again.
He was born in 1926.
He worked his whole life.
(24:38):
He was on his own, withoutparents starting it.
I think he was 14 when he wentout on his own.
He was married by 16, had a kidat 19,.
My older brother and he justcouldn't be still so he would
start these businesses.
And so what the result was?
In my childhood we had years offeast and years of famine.
There were years where we weregoing to shows and nice dinners
(25:03):
and had nice things, and thenthere were years that we lived
on food storage and couldn'tspend a penny on anything.
I got made fun of for wearinghand-me-down clothes, which
never really bothered me becausethat's a really silly thing to
care about in my world.
And so I do bring this sort ofdifferent perspective on money
(25:23):
and resources and the number oftimes we've been planning an
event at work and I'm like, okay, but what you're proposing
would cost $2,000, we can justhave a craft day and in one hour
knock this out and knock thatout and then for like $200, we
could have this party.
And they look at me like you'reinsane, just spend the money
(25:44):
and pay someone.
And I'm like, yeah, but that'scompany money.
And it drives home to me thatif we have a room full of people
who have all lived the samelife, you're just not going to
get the same kinds of ideas.
And sometimes time is money andsometimes spending that two
grand instead of 200 saves somany resource hours.
(26:06):
It makes more sense.
But it is nice to have thatcounter perspective.
I'm always thankful when I'myou know when.
Again, when I worked at Airbus,we had a very diverse team and I
got called out several timesfor accidentally saying
problematic things.
And I remember the first timeit happened, my colleague.
She was very concerned that shewould offend me by saying hey,
(26:29):
we don't use this word, this isan offensive word.
And you just said it and Iwasn't upset.
I said, oh my God, I had noidea.
When did that word become aproblem?
When did I miss the memo?
And she told me and we talkedabout it and I said, oh, okay,
cool, good to know.
I've been using that word for 20years and I didn't know that
that was thank you for lettingme, letting me in.
(26:49):
And it was a really interestingmoment in the office because so
many people were waiting foreither her to get mad at me for
not knowing or me to get mad forbeing called out.
And neither of us got mad.
I just politely, I was like Iknow who I am and how I was
raised.
Honestly, the fact that I'm notsaying problematic things,
(27:10):
every sentence, is a bigaccomplishment given my origins.
So no, thank you.
I don't ever want to offendpeople and if I do, I want it to
be on purpose and I want toknow about it.
I don't ever want toaccidentally be offended.
Tim Bourguignon (27:25):
This is something I've observed as well,
which is absolutely fascinatingPeople coming with a first
career or a second career orthird career.
Already you put it yourselfsaying I only have six years of
experience in this industry, butyou have so much baggage that
you could come with you.
You're not that 18-year-oldcoming out of high school or
(27:48):
20-something coming out ofuniversity or college.
You have a whole life behindyou and that has a lot of value,
even more so than what youlearn in high school being able
to react with human beings,being able to know where you
stand and not being shaken bysuch a comment and saying, hey,
(28:09):
okay, that doesn't attack who Iam as a person, it just attacks
the words I was using.
Didn't know.
That's good, good to know, andthis is gold in itself.
And when you have teams withsuch people, everybody's more
grounded, everything tends to besmoother.
I like that.
Valarie Regas (28:27):
Yeah, no, it's definitely lived experience
matters, no matter where yourexperience is, and it's been
fascinating.
I really fell in love at thetime that Airbus hired me, and
they hired me a few months outof my boot camp.
And I have no pride, and thisis a thing that has come from
years of aiming for the stars,and maybe you reach them and
(28:51):
maybe you don't, but I just Idon't have any fear of failure
and I'm very thankful for thatparticular trait.
And so I did my boot camp and Irecognized that I wasn't the
top student in the class.
I was very middle of the road.
I was in a cohort with peoplewhose parents were engineers, or
one of my favorite classmates.
(29:12):
She had a master's degree inhuman computer interaction, so
it wasn't.
Web development wasn't new toher, it was just a new skill set
.
It was an expansion of aknowledge base, whereas I
literally called my laptop themagic box that holds email and I
knew nothing.
I mean I cried, and so this isthe other thing.
(29:33):
I don't have any shame aboutcrying.
I was once doing a shootingcertification where you had to
fire a great many bullets topass this test, and it was a
point of pride for me to pass iton the first try at the highest
level because I was the onlyperson taking the test that
wasn't former law enforcement.
I mean, you know, we had aquick draw contest and a
gentleman who had been on a SWATteam outdrew me by two tenths
(29:57):
of a second and I was so upset.
I was so upset because I liketo win Winning is fun, I like it
Feels good.
But I really wanted to do wellon this test and I didn't pass
it at the highest level on thefirst try and it was fine.
I mean, I collected myself, Iretook it, I passed it at the
highest level, but I wanted todo it on the first try.
(30:18):
And so when I found out that Imissed it, and by something
ridiculous, like two bullets outof hundreds, that I was firing
for this test, some middleschool tiny margin, I missed it
by.
I was so upset and so I criedand I wasn't weeping and wailing
and ah, you know, but sometears were falling down my face
(30:39):
and I took a deep breath.
I went to the restroom,splashed water, came back.
Deep breath, let's do this.
And so later a gentleman wassaying well, val, you know I was
gonna hire you after this.
I've been so impressed with howquickly you've learned these
skills and I just I just saw youcrying and I thought you were a
badass Val Badasses, don't cry.
(31:00):
I can't believe you cried and Ididn't even really think about
it, because in Judo we cry.
It's we a moat?
And so I just looked at him andin front of all of his
colleagues I said actually,badasses cry whenever we want to
because we don't care whatpeople like you think.
And I didn't even mean it thatway at the time.
(31:23):
But I stand by it.
You know, emotion is not a badthing.
But you know this livedexperience of I tried a thing.
I didn't quite meet my goal, butI still came back.
I did it.
I dealt with some judgment thathas nothing to do with software
, but what it did do is make memore resilient.
(31:44):
And so when I'm in a situationlike I've done a few workshops
over the years when I'm in asituation where someone's
denigrating a lack of backgroundknowledge or oh, you didn't get
a CS degree, you did a bootcamp or whatever it is, it just
rolls off because I know who Iam and I've had so many
(32:05):
experiences putting myself tothe test.
It's like okay, well, you candenigrate me if you'd like, but
that's a reflection on you, notme.
Sir, you know, I hope you feelbetter for what you've just said
, but it doesn't really affectme, so bye.
Tim Bourguignon (32:22):
That is fantastic.
That's where you want to be.
Valarie Regas (32:25):
That's where you want to be.
I want that for everybody.
Tim Bourguignon (32:28):
Absolutely, absolutely.
I'd like to connect a couple ofdots.
See, if I'm not mistaken, up tonot so long ago, you were
really DevOps working in DevOpsas a DevOps I don't want to say
DevOps engineer, because thatdoesn't exist.
You told it yourself.
Valarie Regas (32:47):
But that's the best way to have.
Yeah, that was my job title.
Tim Bourguignon (32:50):
That's the best we have.
But drawing a line to the wholeathletic experience you have
and the leadership you talkedabout, drawing a line toward
this stay-at-home mom,organizing for the tiny humans
and the big humans revolvingaround it and organizing the
whole system how do you notdrift into leadership in every
(33:12):
role you take?
Valarie Regas (33:14):
I tend to.
Personally and I don't know howother people with my background
navigate it I can't help buttake over leadership, because
one I'm just always.
I'm that person in the actionmovie where the bomb has just
gone off and people say what dowe do now, whether I really have
(33:36):
the answers or not.
I was raised a Southern womanand Southern women in the US.
I don't know how much timeyou've spent with Southern women
, but we are a force of nature.
We get things done.
I mean, we organize, wegalvanize people, we get them to
get together and make change,and Southern women are
(33:59):
incredible because we've had tobe.
It's not a request, it's anexpectation and we rise to it
and it takes a great toll on us.
So some of us have done againyears of therapy and I now get
very excited.
I say a word that you're notsupposed to say as a Southern
woman.
I'm gonna say it right now.
Just y'all, brace yourself.
A Southern woman is about sayit no as a complete sentence.
(34:23):
No, it's so liberating.
Every time someone asks me todo something and I say no, it's
an act of defiance againstgenerations of programming.
But yeah, I do drift intoleadership just because in a
room full of people saying, well, we're all very bright and we
can see 20 pads forward andthere's so many options and our
(34:46):
IQs are so high and we're soeducated and we know all of
these things that we could do.
I do tend to walk in, hear thedifferent ideas and just pick
for people because I am morelimited in my experience, so I'm
not bogged down with knowingthat there's 20 ways forward.
I only see what's presented andI'm very good at quickly doing
(35:09):
a cost benefit analysis of allof these options and choosing
based on long-term reward versusshort-term comfort.
And it's again in some wayslimited.
Experience makes me morevaluable because I don't
remember how it was done 20years ago.
(35:31):
I hear my husband talk sometimesabout he feels bad for me
coming into software at a timewhere everything is abstracted
for you.
I mean cloud computing.
Think about that as difficultas it can be to come into
software in an age where thecloud is a thing but there's no
cloud.
(35:51):
There's servers somewhere.
You're just not touching them.
But so I learned everythingabout how servers work from a
GUI.
For you know, for me it wasmostly Google Cloud Platform,
and there is a difficulty whenyou're learning abstraction as
fact.
But then I've heard storiesfrom people who have been long
(36:11):
time in IT and they're talkingabout how difficult it was to go
from running their own physicalservers to having to learn the
abstraction and feeling likethey don't have the granular
control they used to have andthey're having to unlearn 20
years worth of knowledge andtake this differently.
And it's neither of us has iteasier or better, it's just
(36:32):
different.
And imagine if you put the twoof us together, we're an
unstoppable force.
Tim Bourguignon (36:36):
Now yeah, as long as you're not fighting
against the grain.
Yes, as long as you're fine orcomfortable in the place that
your mind, your skills, yourtraits, the way you work has put
you.
And if you're against the grainand in that place, that sucks,
that's really not fun.
(36:57):
But if you're going with theflow and really embracing it,
then hell yeah, that's a greatplace to be and then find the
contemporary people and rockwith it.
Valarie Regas (37:06):
But I do wonder sometimes where I would be if I
hadn't had the good fortune tohave had the roles I've had.
I mean, my first role wasAirbus.
Right, We've got this Atlantaoffice and a gentleman named
Jesse Coleman was the presidentof this little subsidiary and I
am giving him a shout out onpurpose because he changed my
life, he and the other peopleinvolved in that organization.
(37:28):
But to actually to comment onsomething you mentioned earlier,
that people coming intosoftware as a second, third
career, we do have a whole lifeahead that we've already lived.
So we're new, but we're not newto this world and I remember I
had spoken to the engineeringmanager and the CTO and I'd met
(37:50):
the staff at Airbus and everyonewas great.
And my last interview was withJesse Coleman and he said, okay,
well, let's talk salary.
Everyone likes you and we don'thave anyone doing DevOps.
And I just looked into thisinternship because, basically,
the back end engineering teamdid not want to deal with the
(38:11):
Google Cloud, just in general.
They didn't want to deal withit, with configuring, with
figuring out what needed to beset up.
They didn't want to.
They wanted to continuecreating back end code and
features and they didn't want todeal with the Kubernetes.
They didn't want to deal withit and just make that work.
Someone do that so we can keepbeing creative and innovative
and do what we love.
And so I pretty much was like,hey, I'll learn how to do
(38:34):
anything you all don't want todo, I'll just learn it.
And so that's how I ended up anintern at Airbus and Jesse said
something that really struck meas being reasonable but also
just sort of let me know he wasvisionary and he said you know,
I want you to know, this is thesalary we're offering as an
intern and it's a little higherthan we would normally offer,
(38:56):
but you're not an intern.
An intern, you're a grown adultwho's had successful careers
and you're raising a family andyou bring a lot of lived
experience.
So, even though you're anintern, we are going to pay a
more normal salary becauseyou're an adult and you bring a
lot to this and just the amountof gratitude I felt that he saw
(39:18):
me and recognized that, while Imight be new to this industry,
I've led people I've beaten updrunken frat boys for money as a
career path.
It was a really fun job, wayeasier than being a stay at home
mom.
That was being a bar bouncer,so easy compared to being a
parent.
But yeah, it just.
(39:39):
It really endeared him andAirbus and the whole org to me.
And I think leadership needs totake a step back and think about
, especially right now there'sso much hiring going on because
there were so many layoffs andthen, oh no, we let go of too
many people and now we don'thave enough people to do this
work Whoops.
(40:01):
I feel like leaders need totake a step back and remember
the people they're talking to,the candidates, and the people
they're interviewing.
We're actual human beings, it'snot just a job.
I mean, how many job wreckshave you seen open lately?
That start with we're lookingfor a highly motivated
individual.
I don't believe that they are,because if they were looking for
(40:24):
highly motivated individuals,you know who they'd be targeting
.
Single parents you want to talkabout a highly motivated
employee.
You find a single mom with noex paying her child support, who
is solely responsible for thelives of tiny humans she loves
like they're a piece of her,walking around on the outside of
her body.
That's a highly motivatedemployee.
(40:45):
That's someone who's going todo whatever it takes to get the
job done and get it done right.
I feel like it's mixedmessaging If you tell me you're
looking for highly motivated butyou're not targeting the most
highly motivated employees you'dever have.
Tim Bourguignon (41:00):
And they're probably not going to screw
around on top of buildingsdrinking wine.
They're going to be off by fivebecause they need to pick up
the kids, and so the work isgoing to be done by five.
Valarie Regas (41:12):
Pretty much, yeah , no, it's been such an
interesting journey and I'vesort of fallen into my niche.
So you were right.
I did spend the first four orfive years of my career as a
DevOps engineer.
I had the joy of working forAirbus I can't say enough good
about that company and then Imoved to Salesforce Again.
(41:33):
I loved my time at Salesforce.
I loved my team.
I was two companies in a rowhad fantastic leadership.
That never happens.
I've heard horror stories, so Ifeel particularly thankful.
But a couple years ago Irealized that I was speaking at
conferences on my own time, onmy own dime.
Airbus was great.
They would actually help covertravel.
(41:55):
They were very proud of mespeaking at conferences, but it
wasn't part of my job.
It was always in addition toand you know, I had to take PTO
for the days that I was speaking.
And then I went to Salesforcewhere I was on a DevOps team and
you know we handled deployingthis one specific cloud and it
was great work.
(42:15):
But my speaking and reallyenjoying the community was
starting to butt heads with mywork responsibilities and I had
this great manager and Occe wasjust a, just, just a good human.
You know, you can just feellike there's good leaders, but
then there's good people who arealso good leaders.
And he was both.
And he kind of put the bug inmy head.
(42:36):
He was like you know, we're soproud of you for these speaking
engagements, but we hired you todo DevOps work and you're gone
a lot and I need you and there'sno right answer.
Val, I'll support whatever youneed, but we need you to pick.
And that was when I ended upgoing to developer advocacy,
Because I do love people.
There's a reason I got a psychdegree.
(42:57):
It wasn't just that I was sortof terrified of you know.
Well, I'll do all of myelectives in the sciences, but I
you know that that's not forgirls, that's not for me.
You know I'm very interested inwhy humans make the choices we
make and you know I, speaking atconferences, I've sort of
(43:20):
fallen into this fun niche whereI almost feel bad when I take
the stage because if I'mspeaking about something
technical it's going to be like70% technical, 30% human based.
But for the most part I now geton stage and just talk about
the experience of being human,because I don't know if you know
this, but engineers are hurtingand I love it.
(43:42):
I do this one talk where I talkabout the five like biggest
problems facing engineers and Isay engineers but I mean
everyone in our industry.
We got five problems.
We got burnout, depression,anxiety, alcohol abuse and
prescription drug abuse.
We're struggling y'all and youknow I've been through most of
(44:07):
them myself and had to come outon the other side.
And you know I don't thinkthey'll ever be.
A time in my life I don't lowkey, deal with depression.
It's just a thing.
My brain is just wired where Ihave to work really hard to keep
myself level.
But this, this matters verymuch to me and I get so
frustrated sometimes becausepeople are like why aren't you
(44:29):
talking about?
You know a framework or or somesort of piece of technology.
Why are you talking about this?
And I'm like?
Because if we took engineerswho want to innovate and want to
be creative and want to solveproblems, but they're so burnt
out and depressed that they'refinding excuses to drink at
three in the afternoon andspending their evenings wasted
(44:51):
instead of innovating, and thenthey're hung over all the time.
Or you know the number of usthat have these minor injuries
and then get hooked on opioidpainkillers way higher than the
general population would suggestis reasonable.
And you know people sodepressed that they're like
they're reading about emergingtechnology, but they're not
(45:14):
impassioned or excited anymore,they're just tired.
Imagine what those engineerscould create if we addressed the
human.
I think there's this push toreally innovate in software
through new frameworks and, moreoften than not, tweaking
existing technology, and.
(45:35):
But I think we could reallyinnovate if we took care of our
people.
Because, as it turns out, Idon't know anyone who gets into
software thinking I'd like toPlug in proprietary code to
something I have no say in and Idon't ever want to create
anything creative.
I don't.
(45:55):
I don't want to solve anyproblems, I just kind of want to
type alphanumeric charactersand get a paycheck.
I don't actually know anyonepersonally who feels that way.
We all kind of want to bepioneers, we want to, to make
the next cool thing and we wantto disrupt the entire industry
and but then we are tired andyou know we're terrified of
(46:18):
layoffs so we're trying to keepour head down or we're so
overloaded.
I mean, airbus was great and Ican't say enough good about
airbus, but I had a third childworking for airbus and airbus
being, you know, aninternational company, they
didn't really have to thinkabout parental leave Because
every other country except minethat that's built into the
(46:38):
company or to the country's, youknow federal regulations.
So in the states we don't dothat.
We don't, we do not prioritizefamilies in the states at all
and you know we have what'scalled the family medical leave
act and that's great.
In in the us.
It means that you fill out aform and your company cannot
fire you for 12 weeks becauseyou have to have a human.
(47:01):
But you know what?
They don't have to pay youduring that time.
And it's so weird how yourlandlord and your electric
company and the grocery storeDon't accept those 12 weeks of
you not having a paycheck.
So if you're lucky enough tonot need you know not to need
the money, fmla is there, butthat's all we have in the states
.
So if your company doesn'tprovide parental leave, you're
(47:22):
just sort of out, you're justout.
So I was lucky, um, airbusallowed me to use six weeks, up
to six weeks, of short-termdisability.
So I came back to the office atsix weeks after having a baby.
Um, I had not slept in sixweeks.
There's still bugs in that codethat I put there.
Uh, because if you haven'tslept you cannot innovate, you
(47:43):
can barely function.
Um, at one point, my first weekback, I actually went to the
nursing mother's room to pumpand walked back into my office
and I was so sleep deprived.
I had remembered my laptop, Iremembered my bag of pump parts.
I forgot to put my shirt backon, just walked right on into
the office in a bra, just in thebra, and my, my colleague was
(48:09):
like Val and kind of glanceddown and I, oh, okay, I looked
down and what, those are mybreasts.
Those are out in the office.
Cool, that wasn't the plantoday, um, but that's a great
story.
Yeah, so I went and got my shirtand put it on it was a black
t-shirt on a black chair and Iwas six weeks sleep deprived,
whatever.
But I walked in and I'll neverforget my.
(48:30):
My colleague was so sweet, hewas so concerned about me.
He was like sweetheart, are you?
Are you embarrassed?
And I started laughing.
I said no, no, I'm really not.
I was like you know, what'sembarrassing is that I'm six
weeks postpartum and I haven'tslept and I can barely function
and I'm here.
What's embarrassing is that inmy state, of Georgia.
It's illegal to take a puppyaway from its mom until eight
(48:51):
weeks, but my six week old babyis in a daycare swimming in
bacteria and viruses.
That's embarrassing.
Tim Bourguignon (49:00):
You know, oh.
Yeah, this is, this is a world.
Uh, I mean, in europe it'sabsolutely the opposite of this,
and uh, in germany it's evenmore the opposite.
So that just feels impossiblethat this is the the standard in
the us.
Valarie Regas (49:16):
But I guess it's a part of late stage capitalism,
it's.
You know, our birth rate is onthe decline because it is.
It is ridiculously hard to havekids here and people think of
it as oh Well, you're makingchildren because you like to
play with the cute babies, and,yes, they are cute.
I won't lie, I personally makesome really cute humans and,
(49:36):
yeah, that is fun.
But long term, again long termI'd like to retire one day.
If there aren't people workingin my country to pay into social
programs, I don't get to retirelike I.
I'm also like Replenishing thepopulation.
There should be some amount ofgratitude, especially from
people who don't want children,like, just, I'm doing my part, I
(49:59):
had three.
I did more than my part.
I'm a team player here.
Tim Bourguignon (50:05):
Indeed, you are .
I'm I'm sorry, but we we timemaxed out our time box already
and I had a few advice.
I wanted to ask you, but Iguess I I have to read back what
you said, and that that's thebest advice I can think of right
now, which was Imagine what wecould do, what we could innovate
, if we took care of the people.
As I cannot top that, do youhave a better advice for us?
Valarie Regas (50:31):
No, no, um, the.
The closest thing to betteradvice for listeners would be be
yourself, unapologetically, andEven when it's scary, just be
yourself.
I find that you know when I getup on stage and I tell a room
full of people oh yes, and I'msober by choice, and here's why
Burnout and depression had ledme to problematic drinking,
(50:54):
because I was under so muchstress.
And you don't have to live thatway and I share my dirty
laundry.
You know, one of my kids askedme why do you have to tell
people that I'm like, yeah, butif I, if I recover loudly, it
can save other people from dyingquietly, and all that matters
on this planet, all that matters, is the people.
(51:15):
That I believe.
If you make a good product andtake care of your people, the
money will follow.
You don't have to worry aboutyour money.
It really will follow.
If you are putting good in thisworld by taking, you know,
making the best choices you canwith regards to the other people
in it.
And I don't know.
I I'm looking for my next role,hopefully in developer advocacy.
(51:39):
If not, I do love me someengineering.
I would love to get back tocontainer workstation.
It's cool, but mostly I'm justlooking for a company that has
integrity and morals and ethicsand treats the people that work
there like human beings, becausethat's where the innovation
comes from.
Comfortable, respected, caredfor people Get to make cool
(52:01):
stuff and I want to make somecool stuff.
Tim Bourguignon (52:04):
Then I wish you none other than just that.
Well, it's been a hell of aride.
Thank you so much.
Valarie Regas (52:12):
This has been delightful.
Thank you for having me on.
Tim Bourguignon (52:15):
I was delighted .
Where would you place?
Where would you?
I'm completely off my script.
Where would be the best placeto continue this discussion with
you?
Valarie Regas (52:25):
Yeah, so I, I am on, you know, the pretty
standard socials, uh, twitter,or whatever we're calling it
this week.
Um, and I, most things I'm, I'mso easily findable by my name.
I, please, I hope no one outthere is a stalker, because it's
just too easy to find me.
Um, but I'm on twitter at, youknow, at valerie regus, I spell
my name with two a's just to bedifficult.
(52:46):
Um, you know, I, the only placeyou really can't find me is on
facebook, because that's where Ihang out with my friends and
family and say the inappropriatethings.
But I'm on instagram and youknow I've got a notice profile
if you're interested in myspeaking.
Um, but honestly, like twitter,my dms are open and, uh,
(53:06):
selfishly, I'm just gonna say,if you're out there and you're
listening and you think that youmight have an issue with
burnout, depression, anxiety orany sort of substance abuse, hi,
I'm friendly and safe to giveyou resources and and help point
you towards the life youdeserve Find me on socials.
Tim Bourguignon (53:21):
Please do that Sorry.
Thank you so much.
Valarie Regas (53:25):
Have a great day.
Tim Bourguignon (53:26):
And this has been another episode of their
first journey and we'll see eachother next week.
Bye, bye.
Thanks a lot for tuning in.
I hope you have enjoyed thisweek's episode.
If you like the show, pleaseshare, rate and review.
It helps more listenersdiscover those stories.
You can find the links to allthe platforms the show appears
(53:49):
on on our website dev journeydot info slash.
Subscribe.
Talk to you soon.
Be yourself.
I find that when I get up onstage and I tell a room full of
people, oh yes, and I'm sober bychoice, and here's why burnout
and depression had led me toproblematic drinking because I
was under so much stress, andyou don't have to live that way
and I share my dirty laundry.
One of my kids asked me why doyou have to tell people that I'm
(00:21):
like, yeah, but if I recoverloudly, it can save other people
from dying quietly, and allthat matters on this planet, all
that matters, is the people.
I believe if you make a goodproduct and take care of your
people, the money will follow.
You don't have to worry aboutyour money.
It really will follow if youare putting good in this world
(00:44):
by taking, making the bestchoices you can with regards to
the other people in it.
And I don't know.
I'm looking for my next role,hopefully in developer advocacy.
If not, I do love me someengineering.
I would love to get back tocontainer orchestration.
It's cool, but mostly I'm justlooking for a company that has
(01:05):
integrity and morals and ethicsand treats the people that work
there like human beings, becausethat's where the innovation
comes from.
Comfortable, respected, caredfor people get to make cool
stuff and I wanna make some coolstuff.
Tim Bourguignon (01:21):
Hello and welcome to Developer's Journey,
the podcast bringing you themaking of stories of successful
software developers to help youon your upcoming journey.
I'm your host, tim Bollinger.
On this episode, I receiveValerie Regas.
Valerie is a DevOps fanatic,full stack developer, a Georgia
Tech coding bootcamp graduateand a veteran mommy.
(01:44):
She holds a BA in psychologyand currently works as a DevOps
engineer.
After years of being a stay athome mom, she decided to change
her life by entering tech andhas learned a lot along the way.
In addition to DevOps, sheenjoyed mixed martial arts,
fighting, tabletop role-playinggames, public speaking, creating
(02:06):
tiny humans and activism of allsorts.
Valerie, a warm welcome toDevTourney.
Valarie Regas (02:13):
Well, hello and thanks for having me today.
Tim Bourguignon (02:16):
Oh, it's my pleasure and it's remote, so I
don't fear anything coming yourend if I say bad things about
you.
But you're role-playing gamefanatics, so that's good Anyhow.
But before we come to yourstory, I want to thank the
terrific listeners who supportthe show.
Every month you are keeping theDevTourney lights up.
(02:39):
If you would like to join thisfine crew and help me spend more
time on finding phenomenalguests than editing audio tracks
, please go to our website,devjourneyinfo, and click on the
support me on Patreon button.
Even the smallest contributionsare giant steps toward a
sustainable DevTourney journey.
(03:01):
Thank you, and now back totoday's guest, valerie.
As you know, the show exists tohelp listeners understand what
your story looked like andimagine how to shape their own
future.
So, as is usual on the show,let's go back to your beginnings
.
Where would you place the startof your DevTourney?
Valarie Regas (03:18):
You know it's a fun question because even just a
month ago the answer to thiswould have been different.
The older I get and I'mofficially an old now I'm in my
40s and that's for y'all outthere in your 20s and 30s,
please know that now in my 40s,you could not pay me to go back
to my 20s and 30s, literallylike there is nothing you could
(03:41):
do.
40s are great and in fact I getmad now when people tell my
children enjoy your childhood,it's the best time of your life.
No, it is not.
No, it is not.
Being 40 is fantastic.
If I decide I want to stay uplate eating junk food, playing
video games, that's on me and Ican do it.
It's great.
So even just a month ago, likeyour perspective changes.
(04:02):
I might have chosen, like whenmy DevTourney started at a
different place, but I'm gonnasay it started when I was eight.
Actually, I saw my firstcomputer in the wild.
You know my father took me, sowe used to have this store back
in the day.
We had this store in the Statescalled Radio Shack.
I have no idea if they wereinternational or not, but they
(04:24):
don't exist now and that waswhere you went to get random
chords and dongles and whatnot,before we even knew what a
dongle was.
And so my father goes to getsomething and there's this magic
box on a table and it's veryexpensive and he's like, don't
break it, but you can touchwhatever that is.
He didn't even know.
And it was this.
(04:44):
You know Apple, and I had neverseen a computer I was maybe
eight.
And you know he comes back afew minutes later and I've
created some little like youknow scratch game, just little
stick figure running up a hill,kind of thing.
And he was so excited.
And you have to understand, myfather was born in 1926.
My father was older.
(05:06):
When he had me he referred tome as the fall crop.
I'm the youngest of four andyou know I have a sister who's
30 years older than me.
So my father fought in WorldWar II.
So for him, seeing an actualreal life computer in the real
world was exciting, just on theface of things, you know.
But for him to see his eightyear old work, this magic box,
(05:33):
was like oh my God, I've raiseda sorceress.
You know he was very excitedand so we go home and he tells
my mother this excited he's likewe've got to encourage this.
She just knew how to work thisthing.
And my mom, in all seriousnessand with no maliciousness, just
very matter of fact, they said,well, how will that help her
(05:54):
find a husband and make babies?
And that was the start of allsorts of journeys for me.
If I'm, you know now that I'vedone like 30 years of therapy.
By the way, everyone out there,if you don't have a therapist,
you're missing out.
Don't think of them as mentalhealth advisors.
Think of them as lifeconsultants In business.
(06:15):
If you don't have a subjectmatter expert on staff and you
don't know the solution and youdon't have the skill set to deal
with something, you hire aconsultant, right?
So I have had a life consultanton and off for 30 years,
because I am certainly not asubject matter expert on how to
live this life and you know.
So I look back at this littleeight-year-old girl and it did
(06:39):
kind of dash my dreams of.
Well, yeah, I did have a lot offun playing with this thing.
Maybe dad's onto something, andso I kept going.
I fell in love with Judo at somepoint and kind of went down a
path of physical skill.
I'm gonna use my body to livethis life.
I'm gonna be an athlete.
And then, when I went to school, there was still sort of that
(07:03):
air in my social circles ofyou're not really going to
school for a bachelor's of artsdegree, you're going for an MRS
degree, you're going to meet theright man and get married, and
that's why girls go to college,and I hate that.
I grew up in that, but I alsolove that I grew up in that
because it gives me a differentperspective on things.
(07:24):
So I was afraid to get a CSdegree.
I really was.
I got a psychology degree witha minor in gender studies.
That's not lucrative, and allof my electives, though, were
like in microbiology and medicalimmunology, and I was always
(07:45):
very drawn to the sciences, butkind of convinced by the culture
I grew up in that women don'tdo that.
It's just not your place, andso I did whatever one wanted.
I had my starter husband, thatcollege husband we don't talk
about anymore, which kind ofpretend that one didn't happen.
I got better from that after afew years, and I did bodyguard
(08:10):
work.
I worked as a medical officemanager.
I've always been drawn toleading people, when you're a
high level athlete and you win agold medal.
Especially and I know itshouldn't change things, but it
does when you win a gold medalwith your country written across
your shoulders and your anthemsinvolved, it's a very special
(08:33):
feeling.
But I didn't think there was abetter feeling until I started
coaching other people and seeingmy athletes win their own gold
medals.
And that's when the water Imean I seriously have broken
down, sobbing on the side of themat so proud at one of my
athletes winning their gold.
And so I've always been reallydrawn to coaching people and
(08:56):
helping them and officemanagement just sort of felt
natural like great, I've gotthis staff, I'm gonna help them
excel.
One of my goals for software isto get into management and
foster new talent and helppeople just become whoever it is
they're supposed to be.
But yeah, I don't know how Iended up in this industry.
(09:17):
It doesn't make any sense to gofrom yes, I'll be your
bodyguard for the evening to oh,I would love to orchestrate
your containers.
Yeah.
Tim Bourguignon (09:27):
But there's a story to be told Before we get
there.
You said something.
You said I was afraid ofgetting a CS degree.
Mm-hmm, Was that in your mindat that time already?
Valarie Regas (09:37):
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
It was so ingrained in meculturally that sort of my only
purpose on this planet was tobreed children and teach them to
fear God and maintain thestatus quo.
And it was really ingrained inme that I wasn't not just
(09:58):
because I was born a woman Imean, that was my first mistake,
don't get me wrong but it wassort of ingrained in me that
just I as a person wasn't smartenough, wasn't good enough,
wasn't capable of.
That was definitely a messagethat was both purposefully and
accidentally sent to methroughout my youth.
And some of the problem was andI I won't even blame a quote
(10:22):
American public schools, I meanall schools globally, have their
issues.
But I just happened to beraised in an area, in a school
system where they didn't knowwhat to do with a kid who was
malvy, had a high IQ but somelearning disabilities.
Like I'm dyslexic, my IQ ishigh but I struggle to read
(10:45):
sometimes because the wordswon't stop moving.
It's very rude of them and youknow I just all through
elementary school, for example.
I mean at one point I was beingput into a gifted program and
one of the teachers was likewell, that's not possible, she's
an idiot.
How could she test for thegifted program?
Like there's gotta be somemistake.
(11:06):
And you know they didn't thinkabout the words they were saying
and how they would impact agrowing child.
But and what's funny is, youknow, I always have been just
sort of a type to say ifsomething needs doing, you just
do it.
So like I dated a person whowas getting a CS degree and if I
would say, hey, I wanna go out,let's go shoot pool, let's go
party, let's go play, if he said, no, I have homework, I'd say,
(11:29):
well, give me your books, I cando it.
And I would just knock hishomework out for him.
And not because I understoodthe material, but because I'm
just very good at patternrecognition and finding things.
And you know, my starterhusband in college was getting a
geology degree.
I did a lot of work for him,just like random little
assignments.
Just, you're saying we can't goto a movie because you have too
(11:51):
much work.
Tim Bourguignon (11:52):
Well then, give me your work, I'll just do it.
Valarie Regas (11:53):
I wanna go to a movie and I've just.
You know, I worked as ahandyman at one point and this
poor gentleman who hired me, hewould say well, do you know how
to lay tile?
This house needs tile laid.
Of course I know how to laytile.
I didn't know how to lay tile,but I did know how to go to the
library and get a book abouttile work and read it and then
(12:18):
lay tile.
And you know I've just alwaysbeen I get that from my father.
I'm very much a little Georgeclone.
You know he re-did an entirehome based on reading books at
the library and then coming homeand saying I'd like to redo the
electrical system.
Now I read a book about it.
The Colonel and I, you know,definitely have that bond, quite
(12:41):
proud to be his daughter.
But yeah, so it's fascinating.
I always feel weird givingpeople advice about getting into
tech because my entry was soodd.
I did five years as a stay athome parent and that is bar none
the hardest job I've ever had.
I didn't know that life couldbe that hard.
(13:04):
It really is.
I mean, it was 24, sevengrueling hard work and what I
didn't realize is that I wassort of automating our home?
I didn't know.
So I had never heard of DevOpsbecause I'd never heard of
anything really to do withcomputers.
I married a technical architect.
He's incredible.
I've decided to keep thishusband.
(13:26):
He's lasting a while and so youknow he would talk about work
things and I had no idea what hewas saying and that was neat.
I didn't realize that I wasdoing things like having a
standard grocery order that Icould just click a button Sunday
morning and have food arrive atmy home for the week.
And I was doing little thingsto automate all of the stay at
(13:49):
home tasks and really optimizeefficiency.
Like I divided the home intofour zones and only cleaned one
zone per weekday, monday throughThursday.
And like I had and the zoneswere picked not based on you
know geo location Like not thesetwo rooms because they're
closest to each other, butwhat's the average time it takes
(14:10):
to clean them.
Like I was putting so muchmental energy into this job that
I hated.
But that's you know what you dowhen you're me you just make
the best of whatever presentsitself and you power through.
And so I had gotten prettymiserable, though as a stay at
home.
I was just unhappy and myhusband was noticing that I was
(14:32):
unhappy and he one night wasworking on a work problem and I
stayed up late to be with him,not that I could help or do
anything useful, it just feltlike, you know, he's got the
burden of our finances on himand he's clearly quite stressed
and I love him.
So I'm gonna stay awake out ofsolidarity.
And at one point I thought,well, I can't help with the work
(14:56):
thing, but you know, I'mlogical, I can ask questions and
maybe, maybe I'll ask the rightquestion that will remind him
of something he knows he's justtoo stressed to recall right now
.
And so, sure enough, I startedasking questions.
And you know it was reallyfunny because I'm like all
innocent and well, is there someway that you know you could
(15:17):
just pull this kind of data toget this kind of answer?
And he's like no, it doesn'twork that way.
And then, you know, after a fewquestions, he kind of softened
and was like oh, oh, no, itdoesn't work that way, but you
just reminded me and I can dothis, and blah, blah, blah, and
I remember it felt so good, itwas like a drug.
It was like a drug when hesolved the problem and we could
(15:38):
go to bed and I just, I mean, Iremember sitting there thinking
I don't know what this feelingis, but it's so nice and warm
and fuzzy and it was debugging.
It's what debugging feels like.
So about a week later he foundme at like two o'clock on a
Tuesday.
I had put the kids in front ofthe TV like a good mom, strapped
(16:00):
into their high chairs, eatingfood, watching TV, and I had
gone upstairs and locked everydoor between me and the children
and was sitting in my closetdrinking wine, like you do in
the middle of the day, sobbing.
And he came home and was likeyou don't look okay.
I was like I'm not okay, I suckat this job and I hate it.
(16:20):
And so we decided that maybebeing a stay at home parent
wasn't for me, and he suggestedI look into something to do with
software.
He was like you know, you'relogical, you're analytical, your
pattern recognition is on point, do something.
And he really thought I wouldbe drawn to data science,
because I am so facts andfigures based and I don't do
(16:45):
well with vague, I want to seenumbers.
I get mad when people say, well, if you do X, your chance of
death is double if you do Y andI'm like, yeah, but what's the
chance on Y?
Like double, what If it's twiceas high but Y is non-existently
present?
I don't care, you know, I'vejust always been very data
(17:06):
driven and so he thought I wouldreally dig that.
And I ended up doing the codingbootcamp at Georgia Tech for web
development, and that's where Iwas actually introduced to the
concept of DevOps, which DevOpsdoesn't exist.
I didn't know that at the time,but it doesn't exist.
There's no such thing.
It's a myth, it's a fairy tale.
And so I laugh.
(17:26):
When I see a job title forDevOps engineer I'm like what
does that even mean?
Because at three differentcompanies, that is, three
different roles that looknothing alike.
But the concept of DevOpsculture, the concept of okay, if
you have to do something morethan once, you need to automate
it, you need to make it reusable, and the concept of running
things efficiently to save timeand resources that really spoke
(17:50):
to my stay at home mom heart,because that's what mommies do,
that's what stay at home parentsdo.
All you do is worry aboutresource allocation, disaster
recovery and mitigation.
You are forever thinking abouthow to make everything smooth
and how to get your littleteammates to work together.
I mean, I fear no meeting whereadults are yelling at each
(18:14):
other over software, because Ihave made small children agree
in such a way that like theyboth think they won the fight
and I really I just fear noboardroom anger because, well,
I'm pretty good at convincingirrational tiny humans to get
along with each other.
I can handle adults, that'sfine.
Tim Bourguignon (18:36):
I'm laughing, my heart out.
Valarie Regas (18:38):
Great, like compared to my toddler.
No adult scares me.
Tim Bourguignon (18:44):
I mean you fully.
Valarie Regas (18:45):
And the two of my three children are like living
with velociraptors.
They're crazy, bright, a littlebit evil, and they're just,
they're just, they're tinyvelociraptors.
In my home my oldest, though myoldest, though, is the one that
tricked me into having more.
Be warned y'all out there thathave one kid and that kid sleeps
and is respectful andempathetic and kind, and that
(19:07):
kid is just an angel on earth.
That's a trick, it's a trap.
It's a trap.
It's to convince you to havemore and then you have more, and
they're like tiny velociraptorsand they're three years old,
picking your locks.
Like we have baby gates all overour home for a four year old,
as though he's still a baby, buthe's so destructive we have to
(19:28):
have like Fort Knox.
There's like a prison in ourliving room and two engineers
had to zip tie this together tomake it work.
It's ridiculous.
So, yeah, I got into thesoftware thing, and I think the
end result here is that I'venever really felt like I belong.
I'd be interested to like lookat the feedback from your
(19:49):
listeners on people who comeinto software from a
non-traditional background.
Do you ever really feel likeyou're not an outsider anymore,
cause I'm six years in stillfeeling like a stay at home mom
hanging out with the softwarepeople.
Tim Bourguignon (20:05):
I've never heard it put it this way, but I
guess that's a common trait.
Still about not belonging,about not being up to the task,
so hashtag imposter syndrome.
I'm always looking up to theothers and saying they have
something I don't have.
So I'm not right here, and thishas been talked many, many,
(20:27):
many times on the show, but I'mnot in the way you put it
directly.
Valarie Regas (20:31):
It's a little different.
Like I think I did suffer fromimposter syndrome the first few
years, the I'm not enough, Idon't belong because I'm
incapable, or these negativeself thoughts.
But it's different.
At this point I know I'mcapable, I'm actually.
So I'm in a weird place whereI'm job hunting right now and I
look at these job wrecks and I'mlike, yeah, I can do this job
(20:54):
and any section that I don'thave experience with.
I know I can learn.
I know I'm capable, over a longenough timeline, of learning
literally anything.
If you need brain surgery, justgive me long enough with enough
books and I'll figure it out.
So I don't really have the I'mnot good enough anymore.
It's more just like 20 of thesethings belong together.
(21:19):
One of these things does notkind of a odd man out.
Like I know I'm capable ofdoing the work.
I just still sort of feel likethe bodyguard in the room or
like a tourist, like I'm atourist.
Like all of these people areenjoying the beautiful cathedral
together but one of them iswearing the wrong shoes and now
we know she's a tourist, so Idon't know.
(21:44):
It's interesting.
I try to.
I go out of my way.
Every conference I speak atevery meetup I attend I go out
of my way to find people new toour industry and make sure they
feel welcome as best I'm able.
Make sure they feel like theybelong because they do.
I'm only six years into this,but I look at various problems
(22:06):
I've seen solved and situationsI've worked at some incredible
companies already.
I'm so fortunate in my career.
Most of our problems resultfrom limited viewpoints not
knowing what they don't know.
How do you know what you don'tknow?
I see problem after problem atan enterprise level where it's
(22:30):
just a bunch of people who arecrazy bright, highly educated,
very experienced, but they don'tknow what they're not aware of.
For my money, having teams withas varied a world view and
varied lived experience as wecan, the technology can always
be learned.
You can't just little things.
(22:51):
One of my first team outings Istarted work at Airbus.
Airbus had an Atlanta office.
They still do.
Actually, they're great.
I spent three years in my firstrole in tech because I loved
Airbus and, more to the point, Iloved my team and my office
mates so much that they're stillon my Christmas card list, kind
of thing.
(23:13):
We worked in a very affluentarea of town and we worked in
one of these really hipsterbuildings with overpriced bougie
food on the ground level andthen office space and play space
.
And hey, let's skip work to gofly drones in the park.
And hey, let's go to the roofand drink $20 glasses of wine.
No one needs.
(23:33):
It's like this first groupouting.
I'm up on the roof of thisincredible building we have here
in Atlanta called PonsodyMarket and I'm drinking this $17
glass of Malbec.
That was.
I mean, it was okay.
We're eating this overpricedfancy food and I just start
(23:53):
tuckling and one of my coworkerslike what's so funny?
And as I'm standing thereoverlooking my beautiful city,
surrounded by expensive thingsand money, all I could think
about is the time I was homelessin college.
I felt ridiculous just wastingcompany money on this meal,
(24:18):
because my worldview is a littledifferent and the number of
times I didn't grow up poor, soto speak.
So my father, being older,couldn't retire.
He just couldn't.
He kept retiring year afteryear, but it never stuck because
he was just again.
He was born in 1926.
He worked his whole life.
(24:38):
He was on his own, withoutparents starting it.
I think he was 14 when he wentout on his own.
He was married by 16, had a kidat 19,.
My older brother and he justcouldn't be still so he would
start these businesses.
And so what the result was?
In my childhood we had years offeast and years of famine.
There were years where we weregoing to shows and nice dinners
(25:03):
and had nice things, and thenthere were years that we lived
on food storage and couldn'tspend a penny on anything.
I got made fun of for wearinghand-me-down clothes, which
never really bothered me becausethat's a really silly thing to
care about in my world.
And so I do bring this sort ofdifferent perspective on money
(25:23):
and resources and the number oftimes we've been planning an
event at work and I'm like, okay, but what you're proposing
would cost $2,000, we can justhave a craft day and in one hour
knock this out and knock thatout and then for like $200, we
could have this party.
And they look at me like you'reinsane, just spend the money
(25:44):
and pay someone.
And I'm like, yeah, but that'scompany money.
And it drives home to me thatif we have a room full of people
who have all lived the samelife, you're just not going to
get the same kinds of ideas.
And sometimes time is money andsometimes spending that two
grand instead of 200 saves somany resource hours.
(26:06):
It makes more sense.
But it is nice to have thatcounter perspective.
I'm always thankful when I'myou know when.
Again, when I worked at Airbus,we had a very diverse team and I
got called out several timesfor accidentally saying
problematic things.
And I remember the first timeit happened, my colleague.
She was very concerned that shewould offend me by saying hey,
(26:29):
we don't use this word, this isan offensive word.
And you just said it and Iwasn't upset.
I said, oh my God, I had noidea.
When did that word become aproblem?
When did I miss the memo?
And she told me and we talkedabout it and I said, oh, okay,
cool, good to know.
I've been using that word for 20years and I didn't know that
that was thank you for lettingme, letting me in.
(26:49):
And it was a really interestingmoment in the office because so
many people were waiting foreither her to get mad at me for
not knowing or me to get mad forbeing called out.
And neither of us got mad.
I just politely, I was like Iknow who I am and how I was
raised.
Honestly, the fact that I'm notsaying problematic things,
(27:10):
every sentence, is a bigaccomplishment given my origins.
So no, thank you.
I don't ever want to offendpeople and if I do, I want it to
be on purpose and I want toknow about it.
I don't ever want toaccidentally be offended.
Tim Bourguignon (27:25):
This is something I've observed as well,
which is absolutely fascinatingPeople coming with a first
career or a second career orthird career.
Already you put it yourselfsaying I only have six years of
experience in this industry, butyou have so much baggage that
you could come with you.
You're not that 18-year-oldcoming out of high school or
(27:48):
20-something coming out ofuniversity or college.
You have a whole life behindyou and that has a lot of value,
even more so than what youlearn in high school being able
to react with human beings,being able to know where you
stand and not being shaken bysuch a comment and saying, hey,
(28:09):
okay, that doesn't attack who Iam as a person, it just attacks
the words I was using.
Didn't know.
That's good, good to know, andthis is gold in itself.
And when you have teams withsuch people, everybody's more
grounded, everything tends to besmoother.
I like that.
Valarie Regas (28:27):
Yeah, no, it's definitely lived experience
matters, no matter where yourexperience is, and it's been
fascinating.
I really fell in love at thetime that Airbus hired me, and
they hired me a few months outof my boot camp.
And I have no pride, and thisis a thing that has come from
years of aiming for the stars,and maybe you reach them and
(28:51):
maybe you don't, but I just Idon't have any fear of failure
and I'm very thankful for thatparticular trait.
And so I did my boot camp and Irecognized that I wasn't the
top student in the class.
I was very middle of the road.
I was in a cohort with peoplewhose parents were engineers, or
one of my favorite classmates.
(29:12):
She had a master's degree inhuman computer interaction, so
it wasn't.
Web development wasn't new toher, it was just a new skill set
.
It was an expansion of aknowledge base, whereas I
literally called my laptop themagic box that holds email and I
knew nothing.
I mean I cried, and so this isthe other thing.
(29:33):
I don't have any shame aboutcrying.
I was once doing a shootingcertification where you had to
fire a great many bullets topass this test, and it was a
point of pride for me to pass iton the first try at the highest
level because I was the onlyperson taking the test that
wasn't former law enforcement.
I mean, you know, we had aquick draw contest and a
gentleman who had been on a SWATteam outdrew me by two tenths
(29:57):
of a second and I was so upset.
I was so upset because I liketo win Winning is fun, I like it
Feels good.
But I really wanted to do wellon this test and I didn't pass
it at the highest level on thefirst try and it was fine.
I mean, I collected myself, Iretook it, I passed it at the
highest level, but I wanted todo it on the first try.
(30:18):
And so when I found out that Imissed it, and by something
ridiculous, like two bullets outof hundreds, that I was firing
for this test, some middleschool tiny margin, I missed it
by.
I was so upset and so I criedand I wasn't weeping and wailing
and ah, you know, but sometears were falling down my face
(30:39):
and I took a deep breath.
I went to the restroom,splashed water, came back.
Deep breath, let's do this.
And so later a gentleman wassaying well, val, you know I was
gonna hire you after this.
I've been so impressed with howquickly you've learned these
skills and I just I just saw youcrying and I thought you were a
badass Val Badasses, don't cry.
(31:00):
I can't believe you cried and Ididn't even really think about
it, because in Judo we cry.
It's we a moat?
And so I just looked at him andin front of all of his
colleagues I said actually,badasses cry whenever we want to
because we don't care whatpeople like you think.
And I didn't even mean it thatway at the time.
(31:23):
But I stand by it.
You know, emotion is not a badthing.
But you know this livedexperience of I tried a thing.
I didn't quite meet my goal, butI still came back.
I did it.
I dealt with some judgment thathas nothing to do with software
, but what it did do is make memore resilient.
(31:44):
And so when I'm in a situationlike I've done a few workshops
over the years when I'm in asituation where someone's
denigrating a lack of backgroundknowledge or oh, you didn't get
a CS degree, you did a bootcamp or whatever it is, it just
rolls off because I know who Iam and I've had so many
(32:05):
experiences putting myself tothe test.
It's like okay, well, you candenigrate me if you'd like, but
that's a reflection on you, notme.
Sir, you know, I hope you feelbetter for what you've just said
, but it doesn't really affectme, so bye.
Tim Bourguignon (32:22):
That is fantastic.
That's where you want to be.
Valarie Regas (32:25):
That's where you want to be.
I want that for everybody.
Tim Bourguignon (32:28):
Absolutely, absolutely.
I'd like to connect a couple ofdots.
See, if I'm not mistaken, up tonot so long ago, you were
really DevOps working in DevOpsas a DevOps I don't want to say
DevOps engineer, because thatdoesn't exist.
You told it yourself.
Valarie Regas (32:47):
But that's the best way to have.
Yeah, that was my job title.
Tim Bourguignon (32:50):
That's the best we have.
But drawing a line to the wholeathletic experience you have
and the leadership you talkedabout, drawing a line toward
this stay-at-home mom,organizing for the tiny humans
and the big humans revolvingaround it and organizing the
whole system how do you notdrift into leadership in every
(33:12):
role you take?
Valarie Regas (33:14):
I tend to.
Personally and I don't know howother people with my background
navigate it I can't help buttake over leadership, because
one I'm just always.
I'm that person in the actionmovie where the bomb has just
gone off and people say what dowe do now, whether I really have
(33:36):
the answers or not.
I was raised a Southern womanand Southern women in the US.
I don't know how much timeyou've spent with Southern women
, but we are a force of nature.
We get things done.
I mean, we organize, wegalvanize people, we get them to
get together and make change,and Southern women are
(33:59):
incredible because we've had tobe.
It's not a request, it's anexpectation and we rise to it
and it takes a great toll on us.
So some of us have done againyears of therapy and I now get
very excited.
I say a word that you're notsupposed to say as a Southern
woman.
I'm gonna say it right now.
Just y'all, brace yourself.
A Southern woman is about sayit no as a complete sentence.
(34:23):
No, it's so liberating.
Every time someone asks me todo something and I say no, it's
an act of defiance againstgenerations of programming.
But yeah, I do drift intoleadership just because in a
room full of people saying, well, we're all very bright and we
can see 20 pads forward andthere's so many options and our
(34:46):
IQs are so high and we're soeducated and we know all of
these things that we could do.
I do tend to walk in, hear thedifferent ideas and just pick
for people because I am morelimited in my experience, so I'm
not bogged down with knowingthat there's 20 ways forward.
I only see what's presented andI'm very good at quickly doing
(35:09):
a cost benefit analysis of allof these options and choosing
based on long-term reward versusshort-term comfort.
And it's again in some wayslimited.
Experience makes me morevaluable because I don't
remember how it was done 20years ago.
(35:31):
I hear my husband talk sometimesabout he feels bad for me
coming into software at a timewhere everything is abstracted
for you.
I mean cloud computing.
Think about that as difficultas it can be to come into
software in an age where thecloud is a thing but there's no
cloud.
(35:51):
There's servers somewhere.
You're just not touching them.
But so I learned everythingabout how servers work from a
GUI.
For you know, for me it wasmostly Google Cloud Platform,
and there is a difficulty whenyou're learning abstraction as
fact.
But then I've heard storiesfrom people who have been long
(36:11):
time in IT and they're talkingabout how difficult it was to go
from running their own physicalservers to having to learn the
abstraction and feeling likethey don't have the granular
control they used to have andthey're having to unlearn 20
years worth of knowledge andtake this differently.
And it's neither of us has iteasier or better, it's just
(36:32):
different.
And imagine if you put the twoof us together, we're an
unstoppable force.
Tim Bourguignon (36:36):
Now yeah, as long as you're not fighting
against the grain.
Yes, as long as you're fine orcomfortable in the place that
your mind, your skills, yourtraits, the way you work has put
you.
And if you're against the grainand in that place, that sucks,
that's really not fun.
(36:57):
But if you're going with theflow and really embracing it,
then hell yeah, that's a greatplace to be and then find the
contemporary people and rockwith it.
Valarie Regas (37:06):
But I do wonder sometimes where I would be if I
hadn't had the good fortune tohave had the roles I've had.
I mean, my first role wasAirbus.
Right, We've got this Atlantaoffice and a gentleman named
Jesse Coleman was the presidentof this little subsidiary and I
am giving him a shout out onpurpose because he changed my
life, he and the other peopleinvolved in that organization.
(37:28):
But to actually to comment onsomething you mentioned earlier,
that people coming intosoftware as a second, third
career, we do have a whole lifeahead that we've already lived.
So we're new, but we're not newto this world and I remember I
had spoken to the engineeringmanager and the CTO and I'd met
(37:50):
the staff at Airbus and everyonewas great.
And my last interview was withJesse Coleman and he said, okay,
well, let's talk salary.
Everyone likes you and we don'thave anyone doing DevOps.
And I just looked into thisinternship because, basically,
the back end engineering teamdid not want to deal with the
(38:11):
Google Cloud, just in general.
They didn't want to deal withit, with configuring, with
figuring out what needed to beset up.
They didn't want to.
They wanted to continuecreating back end code and
features and they didn't want todeal with the Kubernetes.
They didn't want to deal withit and just make that work.
Someone do that so we can keepbeing creative and innovative
and do what we love.
And so I pretty much was like,hey, I'll learn how to do
(38:34):
anything you all don't want todo, I'll just learn it.
And so that's how I ended up anintern at Airbus and Jesse said
something that really struck meas being reasonable but also
just sort of let me know he wasvisionary and he said you know,
I want you to know, this is thesalary we're offering as an
intern and it's a little higherthan we would normally offer,
(38:56):
but you're not an intern.
An intern, you're a grown adultwho's had successful careers
and you're raising a family andyou bring a lot of lived
experience.
So, even though you're anintern, we are going to pay a
more normal salary becauseyou're an adult and you bring a
lot to this and just the amountof gratitude I felt that he saw
(39:18):
me and recognized that, while Imight be new to this industry,
I've led people I've beaten updrunken frat boys for money as a
career path.
It was a really fun job, wayeasier than being a stay at home
mom.
That was being a bar bouncer,so easy compared to being a
parent.
But yeah, it just.
(39:39):
It really endeared him andAirbus and the whole org to me.
And I think leadership needs totake a step back and think about
, especially right now there'sso much hiring going on because
there were so many layoffs andthen, oh no, we let go of too
many people and now we don'thave enough people to do this
work Whoops.
(40:01):
I feel like leaders need totake a step back and remember
the people they're talking to,the candidates, and the people
they're interviewing.
We're actual human beings, it'snot just a job.
I mean, how many job wreckshave you seen open lately?
That start with we're lookingfor a highly motivated
individual.
I don't believe that they are,because if they were looking for
(40:24):
highly motivated individuals,you know who they'd be targeting
.
Single parents you want to talkabout a highly motivated
employee.
You find a single mom with noex paying her child support, who
is solely responsible for thelives of tiny humans she loves
like they're a piece of her,walking around on the outside of
her body.
That's a highly motivatedemployee.
(40:45):
That's someone who's going todo whatever it takes to get the
job done and get it done right.
I feel like it's mixedmessaging If you tell me you're
looking for highly motivated butyou're not targeting the most
highly motivated employees you'dever have.
Tim Bourguignon (41:00):
And they're probably not going to screw
around on top of buildingsdrinking wine.
They're going to be off by fivebecause they need to pick up
the kids, and so the work isgoing to be done by five.
Valarie Regas (41:12):
Pretty much, yeah , no, it's been such an
interesting journey and I'vesort of fallen into my niche.
So you were right.
I did spend the first four orfive years of my career as a
DevOps engineer.
I had the joy of working forAirbus I can't say enough good
about that company and then Imoved to Salesforce Again.
(41:33):
I loved my time at Salesforce.
I loved my team.
I was two companies in a rowhad fantastic leadership.
That never happens.
I've heard horror stories, so Ifeel particularly thankful.
But a couple years ago Irealized that I was speaking at
conferences on my own time, onmy own dime.
Airbus was great.
They would actually help covertravel.
(41:55):
They were very proud of mespeaking at conferences, but it
wasn't part of my job.
It was always in addition toand you know, I had to take PTO
for the days that I was speaking.
And then I went to Salesforcewhere I was on a DevOps team and
you know we handled deployingthis one specific cloud and it
was great work.
(42:15):
But my speaking and reallyenjoying the community was
starting to butt heads with mywork responsibilities and I had
this great manager and Occe wasjust a, just, just a good human.
You know, you can just feellike there's good leaders, but
then there's good people who arealso good leaders.
And he was both.
And he kind of put the bug inmy head.
(42:36):
He was like you know, we're soproud of you for these speaking
engagements, but we hired you todo DevOps work and you're gone
a lot and I need you and there'sno right answer.
Val, I'll support whatever youneed, but we need you to pick.
And that was when I ended upgoing to developer advocacy,
Because I do love people.
There's a reason I got a psychdegree.
(42:57):
It wasn't just that I was sortof terrified of you know.
Well, I'll do all of myelectives in the sciences, but I
you know that that's not forgirls, that's not for me.
You know I'm very interested inwhy humans make the choices we
make and you know I, speaking atconferences, I've sort of
(43:20):
fallen into this fun niche whereI almost feel bad when I take
the stage because if I'mspeaking about something
technical it's going to be like70% technical, 30% human based.
But for the most part I now geton stage and just talk about
the experience of being human,because I don't know if you know
this, but engineers are hurtingand I love it.
(43:42):
I do this one talk where I talkabout the five like biggest
problems facing engineers and Isay engineers but I mean
everyone in our industry.
We got five problems.
We got burnout, depression,anxiety, alcohol abuse and
prescription drug abuse.
We're struggling y'all and youknow I've been through most of
(44:07):
them myself and had to come outon the other side.
And you know I don't thinkthey'll ever be.
A time in my life I don't lowkey, deal with depression.
It's just a thing.
My brain is just wired where Ihave to work really hard to keep
myself level.
But this, this matters verymuch to me and I get so
frustrated sometimes becausepeople are like why aren't you
(44:29):
talking about?
You know a framework or or somesort of piece of technology.
Why are you talking about this?
And I'm like?
Because if we took engineerswho want to innovate and want to
be creative and want to solveproblems, but they're so burnt
out and depressed that they'refinding excuses to drink at
three in the afternoon andspending their evenings wasted
(44:51):
instead of innovating, and thenthey're hung over all the time.
Or you know the number of usthat have these minor injuries
and then get hooked on opioidpainkillers way higher than the
general population would suggestis reasonable.
And you know people sodepressed that they're like
they're reading about emergingtechnology, but they're not
(45:14):
impassioned or excited anymore,they're just tired.
Imagine what those engineerscould create if we addressed the
human.
I think there's this push toreally innovate in software
through new frameworks and, moreoften than not, tweaking
existing technology, and.
(45:35):
But I think we could reallyinnovate if we took care of our
people.
Because, as it turns out, Idon't know anyone who gets into
software thinking I'd like toPlug in proprietary code to
something I have no say in and Idon't ever want to create
anything creative.
I don't.
(45:55):
I don't want to solve anyproblems, I just kind of want to
type alphanumeric charactersand get a paycheck.
I don't actually know anyonepersonally who feels that way.
We all kind of want to bepioneers, we want to, to make
the next cool thing and we wantto disrupt the entire industry
and but then we are tired andyou know we're terrified of
(46:18):
layoffs so we're trying to keepour head down or we're so
overloaded.
I mean, airbus was great and Ican't say enough good about
airbus, but I had a third childworking for airbus and airbus
being, you know, aninternational company, they
didn't really have to thinkabout parental leave Because
every other country except minethat that's built into the
(46:38):
company or to the country's, youknow federal regulations.
So in the states we don't dothat.
We don't, we do not prioritizefamilies in the states at all
and you know we have what'scalled the family medical leave
act and that's great.
In in the us.
It means that you fill out aform and your company cannot
fire you for 12 weeks becauseyou have to have a human.
(47:01):
But you know what?
They don't have to pay youduring that time.
And it's so weird how yourlandlord and your electric
company and the grocery storeDon't accept those 12 weeks of
you not having a paycheck.
So if you're lucky enough tonot need you know not to need
the money, fmla is there, butthat's all we have in the states
.
So if your company doesn'tprovide parental leave, you're
(47:22):
just sort of out, you're justout.
So I was lucky, um, airbusallowed me to use six weeks, up
to six weeks, of short-termdisability.
So I came back to the office atsix weeks after having a baby.
Um, I had not slept in sixweeks.
There's still bugs in that codethat I put there.
Uh, because if you haven'tslept you cannot innovate, you
(47:43):
can barely function.
Um, at one point, my first weekback, I actually went to the
nursing mother's room to pumpand walked back into my office
and I was so sleep deprived.
I had remembered my laptop, Iremembered my bag of pump parts.
I forgot to put my shirt backon, just walked right on into
the office in a bra, just in thebra, and my, my colleague was
(48:09):
like Val and kind of glanceddown and I, oh, okay, I looked
down and what, those are mybreasts.
Those are out in the office.
Cool, that wasn't the plantoday, um, but that's a great
story.
Yeah, so I went and got my shirtand put it on it was a black
t-shirt on a black chair and Iwas six weeks sleep deprived,
whatever.
But I walked in and I'll neverforget my.
(48:30):
My colleague was so sweet, hewas so concerned about me.
He was like sweetheart, are you?
Are you embarrassed?
And I started laughing.
I said no, no, I'm really not.
I was like you know, what'sembarrassing is that I'm six
weeks postpartum and I haven'tslept and I can barely function
and I'm here.
What's embarrassing is that inmy state, of Georgia.
It's illegal to take a puppyaway from its mom until eight
(48:51):
weeks, but my six week old babyis in a daycare swimming in
bacteria and viruses.
That's embarrassing.
Tim Bourguignon (49:00):
You know, oh.
Yeah, this is, this is a world.
Uh, I mean, in europe it'sabsolutely the opposite of this,
and uh, in germany it's evenmore the opposite.
So that just feels impossiblethat this is the the standard in
the us.
Valarie Regas (49:16):
But I guess it's a part of late stage capitalism,
it's.
You know, our birth rate is onthe decline because it is.
It is ridiculously hard to havekids here and people think of
it as oh Well, you're makingchildren because you like to
play with the cute babies, and,yes, they are cute.
I won't lie, I personally makesome really cute humans and,
(49:36):
yeah, that is fun.
But long term, again long termI'd like to retire one day.
If there aren't people workingin my country to pay into social
programs, I don't get to retirelike I.
I'm also like Replenishing thepopulation.
There should be some amount ofgratitude, especially from
people who don't want children,like, just, I'm doing my part, I
(49:59):
had three.
I did more than my part.
I'm a team player here.
Tim Bourguignon (50:05):
Indeed, you are .
I'm I'm sorry, but we we timemaxed out our time box already
and I had a few advice.
I wanted to ask you, but Iguess I I have to read back what
you said, and that that's thebest advice I can think of right
now, which was Imagine what wecould do, what we could innovate
, if we took care of the people.
As I cannot top that, do youhave a better advice for us?
Valarie Regas (50:31):
No, no, um, the.
The closest thing to betteradvice for listeners would be be
yourself, unapologetically, andEven when it's scary, just be
yourself.
I find that you know when I getup on stage and I tell a room
full of people oh yes, and I'msober by choice, and here's why
Burnout and depression had ledme to problematic drinking,
(50:54):
because I was under so muchstress.
And you don't have to live thatway and I share my dirty
laundry.
You know, one of my kids askedme why do you have to tell
people that I'm like, yeah, butif I, if I recover loudly, it
can save other people from dyingquietly, and all that matters
on this planet, all that matters, is the people.
(51:15):
That I believe.
If you make a good product andtake care of your people, the
money will follow.
You don't have to worry aboutyour money.
It really will follow.
If you are putting good in thisworld by taking, you know,
making the best choices you canwith regards to the other people
in it.
And I don't know.
I I'm looking for my next role,hopefully in developer advocacy.
(51:39):
If not, I do love me someengineering.
I would love to get back tocontainer workstation.
It's cool, but mostly I'm justlooking for a company that has
integrity and morals and ethicsand treats the people that work
there like human beings, becausethat's where the innovation
comes from.
Comfortable, respected, caredfor people Get to make cool
(52:01):
stuff and I want to make somecool stuff.
Tim Bourguignon (52:04):
Then I wish you none other than just that.
Well, it's been a hell of aride.
Thank you so much.
Valarie Regas (52:12):
This has been delightful.
Thank you for having me on.
Tim Bourguignon (52:15):
I was delighted .
Where would you place?
Where would you?
I'm completely off my script.
Where would be the best placeto continue this discussion with
you?
Valarie Regas (52:25):
Yeah, so I, I am on, you know, the pretty
standard socials, uh, twitter,or whatever we're calling it
this week.
Um, and I, most things I'm, I'mso easily findable by my name.
I, please, I hope no one outthere is a stalker, because it's
just too easy to find me.
Um, but I'm on twitter at, youknow, at valerie regus, I spell
my name with two a's just to bedifficult.
(52:46):
Um, you know, I, the only placeyou really can't find me is on
facebook, because that's where Ihang out with my friends and
family and say the inappropriatethings.
But I'm on instagram and youknow I've got a notice profile
if you're interested in myspeaking.
Um, but honestly, like twitter,my dms are open and, uh,
(53:06):
selfishly, I'm just gonna say,if you're out there and you're
listening and you think that youmight have an issue with
burnout, depression, anxiety orany sort of substance abuse, hi,
I'm friendly and safe to giveyou resources and and help point
you towards the life youdeserve Find me on socials.
Tim Bourguignon (53:21):
Please do that Sorry.
Thank you so much.
Valarie Regas (53:25):
Have a great day.
Tim Bourguignon (53:26):
And this has been another episode of their
first journey and we'll see eachother next week.
Bye, bye.
Thanks a lot for tuning in.
I hope you have enjoyed thisweek's episode.
If you like the show, pleaseshare, rate and review.
It helps more listenersdiscover those stories.
You can find the links to allthe platforms the show appears
(53:49):
on on our website dev journeydot info slash.
Subscribe.
Talk to you soon.
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