February 20, 2024 • 46 mins
Have you ever wondered how a passion for video games might ignite a career in the high-stakes world of tech? Joshua Duffney, Microsoft's cloud advocate extraordinaire, joins us to share his incredible transformation from teenage gamer to industry expert. Our conversation delves into the nuances of his technical odyssey, starting with a Christmas gift that launched his journey into computer networking and the significance of mentorship in carving out a successful path in technology.
This episode takes you through the trenches of tech support to the cutting-edge of DevOps, as Joshua recounts the shift from help desk to system engineering. He opens up about the game-changing impact of PowerShell scripting on his career trajectory and provides candid insights into the art of translating tech-speak for the everyday user. We revel in tales of networking challenges and server upgrades, and the pivotal moments that propelled him from daily user frustrations to orchestrating the complex ballet of system automation.
As Joshua reflects on his career pivots—from a senior role at Stack Overflow to technical writing and advocacy at Microsoft—we explore the delicate balance between deepening technical knowledge and having a broader influence through mentoring and creation. We navigate the ambiguous waters of senior positions and uncover strategies for handling the restlessness that comes with them. The conversation also illuminates the intricate dance of online teaching and content creation, combining personal anecdotes with practical advice for those looking to make an impact in the tech community. Join us for an inspiring episode that charts the relentless pursuit of knowledge in the ever-evolving tech landscape.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tim Bourguignon (00:00):
If a junior came to you and asking the
questions you were asking yourmentors now, is there a piece of
advice you would give almosteveryone and say, hey, start
there.
Joshua Duffney (00:12):
I would say the fact that you're reaching out is
you're going to get an answerand you're going to be able to
be successful.
It's the people that don'treach out that are going to
remain stuck and stay junior.
So, just building your networkand talking to people, because
there's not going to be any.
It's all contextual.
It's all situational, but ifyou can find the right people
that have been where you are,they'll help you through it.
(00:34):
So reaching out is that keypiece of advice is what I would
give to the juniors.
Tim Bourguignon (00:40):
Hello and welcome to Developers Journey,
the podcast bringing you themaking of stories of successful
software developers to help youon your upcoming journey.
I'm your host, tim Bokenu.
On this episode I receiveJoshua Duffney.
Josh is a senior cloud advocateof Microsoft, a former
Microsoft MVP and XSRE sitereliability engineer at Stack
(01:03):
Overflow and a Pluralsightauthor, to name only a few.
Fz books or e-books and stuff.
I'm sure he's doing tons, josh.
Welcome to have Journey.
Thank you so much.
Pleasure to be here and it's mypleasure to have you.
It's been a long time in themaking and I'm glad you're
finally here Finally here.
Thanks for the persistence.
Before we come to your story, Iwant to thank the terrific
(01:25):
listeners who support the show.
Every month you are keeping theDevJourney lights up.
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 websitedevjourneyinfo and click on the
support me on Patreon button.
(01:47):
Even the smallest contributionsare giant steps toward a
sustainable DevJourney journey.
Thank you, and now back totoday's guest.
So, josh, as you know, the showexists to help listeners
understand what your storylooked like and imagine 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 DevJourney?
Joshua Duffney (02:09):
The very, very beginning.
Well, it's interesting that yousay DevJourney, because I feel
like the DevJourney for me isjust beginning, because the
first decade or so that I'vebeen in the tech industry I've
been in the operation side orlike scripting, and so I've
always kind of skated arounddevelopment, so to speak, going
deeper and deeper.
But it all kind of started forme in high school with video
(02:30):
games.
So I was around like the earlythousands when I was getting
really into video games andstarting to go into the PC
gaming and needed to upgrade mygraphics card.
And so my grandma got me agraphics card for Christmas.
But then I learned that there'sdifferent sockets and slots
that you put video cards into,and so my computer didn't work
for the video cards you got me.
(02:51):
And so that's kind of where itall began.
And then you know tinkering andtaking apart computers and then
eventually going into anassociate's degree program for
computer networking because itwas the closest thing to like
video game design that I couldfind at a local college.
Tim Bourguignon (03:09):
That's where it all began for me that must have
been a rough wake up call whenyou realize that networking has
nothing to do with gaming.
Joshua Duffney (03:17):
A little bit, but it got me in the industry.
It was either that or joinedthe military.
And I just met my wife now thenand so I felt like I had to
make a choice, like I could gothe military route and get a GI
bill and eventually pay forvideo game design down the road,
or I could go to the communitycollege route, stay here and
kind of pursue that path whicheventually to starting a family
(03:40):
and all that goodness.
So that's kind of the choices Imade and it was the closest
thing and it's treated me well.
I've gotten pretty far on thatassociate's degree.
Tim Bourguignon (03:49):
And I approve this message.
Joshua Duffney (03:51):
Do you want to tell us?
Tim Bourguignon (03:51):
about how you do studies went and maybe
compared to what you wereexpecting.
Joshua Duffney (03:57):
Yeah, I had really no expectations.
I really I could have gone to afour year university for game
design, but I didn't want tostart life Six figures of debt.
You know, college in the US isreally expensive and so I wanted
to avoid that and had thecommunity college, the computer
networking degree.
It was, it was said, computernetworking, but it wasn't
(04:17):
focused on that entirely.
I mean, I had a semester aboutprinters, a semester on shell
scripting, semester on Linux,semester on virtualization of
course, had some Cisco classes,had some C classes that I really
did not do well at the time andso it was kind of like a
general introduction totechnology and computers in
(04:39):
general.
You know, I did have somenetworking concepts.
I even got to wire the new dormroom so I had to run, you know,
hundreds of, hundreds of feetof cable and so I just got
exposed to everything really inthat two year degree, you know,
from layer zero all the way upto the application.
Tim Bourguignon (04:56):
You had pictured that in your mind as a
first step in your studies, orwould you expecting something
else?
Joshua Duffney (05:03):
I.
All I knew was I wanted to dosomething in the technology
sector because previously I hadcome and my summer job was a
road crew, which I enjoyed, butit required a lot of travel, is
a lot of manual labor, and I wasjust seeing like, as I get
older this is going to be harderand harder to do, and I guess
it was.
It was pretty laid out from thesyllabus and I had a good idea
(05:25):
of what to expect because I knewwhat these things were.
I just didn't understand howthey worked, you know, and so it
was.
It matched up with myexpectations and then it get.
Basically, let me hit theground running.
When I went into the workforceto start on the help desk, let's
talk about that how.
Tim Bourguignon (05:41):
how did you pick that field of operations?
Or how did that field ofoperation pick you the help desk
?
Joshua Duffney (05:48):
Yeah, well, it was kind of like the entry level
position that I could get withthat degree, you know, aside
from just trying to walk in as anetwork engineer or a network
administrator, which is kind ofwhat one of the teachers at the
college campus did.
He was a network administratorand managed all the way in
connections and stuff like thatwas where there was T1 lines and
stuff and all that.
(06:09):
Where you'd have to bundle itto get beyond was a one and a
half mag download and so, yeah,it was just I.
My wife lived in, kind of livedwith me for a little bit in
college and it's a couple hoursaway from where she's from and
where I'm from, and she wantedto move back home.
And so I just started lookingfor jobs in the area and there
was a little engineering firmthat was looking for a help desk
(06:30):
person, someone to upgradeeverybody's computer from XP to
Windows seven.
And I, I fit the bill, you know, and figured that out and kind
of ran the help desk there andinstalled software and
troubleshots stuff and all that,all that good good thing, all
those good things that you do onthe help desk.
But I learned, learned a lot,mainly a lot of people skills,
(06:51):
so that was a valuable traitthat I picked up.
Communicating my favorite, myfavorite story, I got to share
this one.
There was an executive that wassuper mad at me because I went
into his office work on hiscomputer over lunch and so I,
you know not to disturb hisworking hours.
And so then I went in and Ireplaced everything, upgraded
(07:11):
his computer, put a new keyboardand mouse on there and I got
called into his office not even15 minutes after he got back and
he's like if you're going tohave the audacity to come in
here and mess with my computer,you should at least plug back in
my mouse and keyboard so I canwork.
Lo and behold, I had replacedhis mouse and keyboard with
wireless Nice keyboard.
(07:33):
And I was like oh, I don't knowwhat you mean.
I say I've got batteries inthem, they're powered on, like I
made sure all those things work.
I had literally a paperchecklist I had to go through to
leave your office.
I was like it all works.
And he didn't say anything tome after I shook the mouse and
it worked.
He just said I could leave.
I mean no apology, nothing.
Tim Bourguignon (07:54):
Yeah, I guess I would be speechless as well,
yeah.
Joshua Duffney (07:59):
What is this magic Exactly?
Tim Bourguignon (08:02):
Do you have other example of people skills,
besides being able to deal withexecutives that have no idea
what you just did.
Joshua Duffney (08:10):
Well, a lot of it was just, um, just realizing
how much that you could know soquickly in the industry, like
there's these people that have areally, really smart had their
electrical and mechanicalengineers, but I could quickly
learn more than them about theseparticular things that they
depended on Just because of myfocus on technology.
It's so I really loved that thatfact that the there was so much
(08:32):
to learn in technology thateven me with less than a year
would know so much more thanthese people that have been kind
of in this field or in anadjacent field, dependent on
this for decades.
And so a lot of the the peopleskills I learned was just to
communicate without that kind ofTalking, that demeanor like
talking down to people, and solearning to communicate things
(08:55):
and to teach things is kind of Istumbled upon Very quickly in
technology one of the kind ofthe passions or areas that I
really enjoy, which is theteaching aspect of it, and so,
yeah, just being able tocommunicate with people about
technology was probably thebigger skill that I learned in
that role, and Calming peopledown when they're getting
emotional about you know theirspreadsheet doesn't do this or
(09:17):
that, or you know Outlook isn'tdoing this or that, like it's
just.
It's a, it's a programfollowing a procedure, and once
you understand a procedure thenyou can understand how to make
it work.
But doesn't mean that it's notcomplicated.
Tim Bourguignon (09:28):
Yeah, that is very true, that is very true.
The oldest positions, actually,where you're in Mendated to
help people when something isnot working, those are all
really learning pressure cookers.
Really.
People come at you, they aremad already they have a problem
(09:49):
that cannot solve and and it'stimely, and it's painful, etc.
And so you have to be thinkingon your feet.
You have to understand thewhole system.
You have to understand whatthey're telling you and what
they're not telling you, becauseyou just don't know about it.
And I've had my fair share ofof after-sales support now in a
Tech store, and that was that,was this, again and again and
(10:10):
again, people coming in andscreaming and this is whoa, I
really learned a lot.
I agree with that.
It's very interesting.
So how did you go from there?
Because I've heard you code abit, so, oh, at least you did
coding stuff after that.
So how?
Joshua Duffney (10:26):
yeah, yeah yeah, so the story there is.
I was helped Desk, worked therefor a couple years and then I
became kind of like a one-manshop, like a network
administrator was the title, butI was really just like the sys
admin for a small bank and so Iwas rack and servers, like
figuring out the storagecapacity, like for the backups
you know, and installing batterybackups for this little bank
(10:48):
and data center, rewiringeverything, upgrading the access
points, and then I startedworking on virtualization at
that point so net app Was thesolution that they chose there
and we were placing all the likethe teller terminals with these
little wise devices.
So instead of hardwarecomputers there are these wise
devices.
And that's where I I just gotexposed to like everything I was
(11:10):
.
I was responsible in theprimary on call for this little
bank and all these operationsand keeping the way and links
connected and all that stuff andand I learned a ton and I was
only there probably about a yearuntil I got this opportunity to
join, to get a pretty big payraise and join the service desk
for a really large enterpriseand that's where the kind of the
coding journey started and theticket that kind of Pushed me
(11:35):
down that path was we got was.
I worked for this really largeconstruction company and what
they would do is they'd spin upand they'd spend down
construction sites and they'dhire what they would call craft
workers, you know contractors,and but they would have to
provision them all theseaccounts and stuff to log in
time and whatever.
And so we would pretty often weget these tickets that you know
(11:56):
this job site spun, spun down,we needed to disable these 300
or 500 people and doing Is wehad a service desk of about 60
people.
They just divvy up this Excelspreadsheet and say you
right-click, disable 25 and youdisable 25, and so you know, by
the end of the day, you know wehad three chefs or whatever of
(12:18):
people it would get done.
And there was this guy His namewas Rob that worked with me on
the tier two help desk and wekind of looked at each other and
we're like I think there's abetter way.
I I think we could do thisquick.
The monotony of it was gettingus, we're getting bored, we're
getting a little stir crazy,right click disabling these
(12:38):
hundreds of lists, and so wecould some of them upon
PowerShell, powershell I justkind of taken root in the
Windows ecosystem and it had areally good support for Active
Directory and Exchange and thoseare the two primary things that
we administered.
And the first time we did thatwe got that list of 300 and
seconds later it was alldisabled and our bosses were
(13:00):
just stunned and blown away andmagic, you know like, oh, we
needed, we would have had.
You know, I need a team ofdevelopers to be able to figure
this out is what they said.
And so we quickly.
I was in my younger, my early20s at the time, so I got the
title of a script kid, so fromthat point on I kind of anything
(13:21):
that had any kind of volumebehind it.
It was an opportunity for me toexercise some more scripting
skills and eventually that gotme hired, taken out of the
service desk and hired as asystems engineer working on SCCM
, so system center configurationmanager, and I worked to
automate a bunch of softwareinstalls and Windows updates and
(13:41):
imaging, which kind of tiesback to the help desk job, you
know.
But now fast forward to Windows8.1.
Tim Bourguignon (13:47):
You know that was.
That was the OS Windows 8.1.
Oh, that was a nasty one.
Joshua Duffney (13:53):
Yeah, not as bad as Vista, but definitely not
fun.
That was the surface andeverybody wanted the surface and
those were a nightmare to tryto image, if memory serves.
But that's kind of where thecoding started.
And then I got kind of hoppedon the DevOps bandwagon and got
roped into infrastructure ascode and learning a lot of
(14:14):
software engineering principles,but in the lens of operations
and through infrastructure thekind of all the DevOps I read
like the Phoenix project and goton that bandwagon, started
following a lot of influentialpeople in the community that
were starting that up, justhumble being one.
And then what's his name?
Gene Cam.
And so that was kind of myfirst kind of introduction into
(14:37):
software engineering and thosedisciplines, was trying to apply
them and mature the process ofmanaging infrastructure and that
eventually I was a DevOpsengineer and tech lead for a
payroll company for about fouryears and then I got the
opportunity to join Stack,overflows and SRE, which you
know they're at kind of like thetop of the industry for the
(14:59):
practices that are led by ThomasLimoncelli, who was a sysadmin
at Google for many years andhe's now been at Stack for a
long time.
But they've got a really,really good you know ship, so to
speak, and it was just an honorto be among them for the short
time that I was.
And then I kind of hit thatpivotal point, I guess, where I
(15:21):
was like, okay, well, I've kindof got to the top of this
particular field that I'm super,was super interested in
profession and kind of.
I took a leap of faith andjoined Microsoft as a technical
writer because I had justreleased a book in this time and
so I'm skipping a bunch ofstuff we can dive deeper into.
But I in hindsight overpivotedinto that role, because
(15:48):
something that you do for theside that you have a passion for
doesn't always make a good fulltime job.
And so I quickly realized thatand I started to miss the sense
of mastery that I previously hadin my other discipline.
And so since then I've beentrying to repivot, so to speak.
Right now I'm currently as aI'm a cloud advocate, so I'm not
(16:09):
necessarily fully content.
I'm in the middle where I getto sit between the customers and
the product and both be thestoryteller and teacher, but
also an engineer, and so that'sbeen a good balance for me
currently.
But yeah, ever since I leftstack I guess I've been kind of
like trying to course correct alittle bit since an overpivot,
but what's been humbling andhonoring and people like
(16:32):
realizing that jump of peoplethat have followed me online and
stuff and I get theseconversations sometimes they
really admire the ability tokind of rebase right, like
rebase your skill set, which issuper hard.
A lot of people they get reallygood at one thing and they have
that sense of mastery and I getit.
You don't want to let it gobecause it's so rewarding.
(16:52):
But this, this field, demandsthat you constantly develop your
skill set.
My only caveat I think inhindsight that I would do a
little bit differently is makesmaller pivots.
That's such huge, drasticchanges but it is indeed.
Tim Bourguignon (17:10):
It is indeed and I want to know the choice of
word we say rebase your skills.
That's the, the, the expertprobably talking when you, when
you say you over pivoted and youmiss the mastery, can you, can
you explain a bit more what youmean?
Yeah, so I was moving from yeah, absolutely so.
Joshua Duffney (17:33):
I, to give the full context, I was, you know, a
site reliability engineer atStack Overflow.
I had been working seven yearsto get into that position.
I had applied many times, nevergot in, and then it finally got
in and I had a number offriends and colleagues that
already worked there that I knewfrom different communities and
so I was well connected.
But I just had such a sense ofmastery.
I knew everything that I was.
(17:54):
I was still challenged and theteam was still moving and
progressing and bettering theorganization.
But if in like the dev opsspace and is from a company and
culture stack overflow is, youdon't have to like sell dev ops
to stack overflow.
They understand it, theyembrace it, and so for a long
time I had to fight, fight thatin organizations.
(18:14):
But what I mean by over pivotwas I was moving from this
discipline of dealing withinfrastructure as code and dev
ops and a lot of that stuff andOver into technical writing, and
so the difference in the dailylevel is I'm no longer
responsible for maintainingProduction systems.
I'm now writing very technical,detailed, technical
(18:37):
documentation that explains thethings of my previous domain,
like terraform and ansible, andwriting that and so is a totally
different skill set to be ableto see, without even talking to
the audience, like what, like,what is this library want?
There's a lot of informationarchitecture that goes into that
.
There's obviously the editing,a little bit of storytelling
(18:58):
that you need to have in there,and then the real world
experience was kind of like theedge that I had on other people
that had technical writing astheir discipline.
For many years I had, I'd livedin these tools and I knew some
of the rough edges, but whatthat left me with was having to
create All these differentscenarios for myself.
No longer was I constantly hitin the face by the problems of
(19:21):
production, and now I had tocreate all the problems myself,
and the main thing that I lackthere was just the that keeps
your skills so sharp constantlyhaving problems presented to you
and having to solve them.
Just like the help desk, youget a, get a call, you get a sit
down and like outlooks notworking, that's the only
(19:42):
directive you get.
You gotta figure it out.
On the other side, with thetechnical writing, there's no
one calling you, there's noproblems hitting you in the face
.
You've gotta go and seek themout and try to understand them,
and so the biggest challengethere was just Having a faith in
my decision.
For the problems I wasselecting, there was no one
(20:02):
telling me that they're good orbad, or useful or not useful.
You know, you don't have.
You don't get that feedbacktill the end, just like an
author doesn't get that feedbacktill the end of their book.
You know.
Tim Bourguignon (20:13):
I see, I see it probably also do the problem of
of if you have a blind spot.
You didn't see a category ofproblems that could happen.
You just don't see them.
They're not gonna hit you inthe face and so, unless somebody
tells you gonna see, not gonnasee it.
Yeah, how was it in terms of ofreward cycles?
(20:34):
I mean, when you solve problemsday in, day out, you get your
kick off problem solving.
When you have to make your ownproblems and you're writing
stuff, I guess the time thatwould be way longer and the
rewards way less often.
Joshua Duffney (20:50):
Yeah, yeah, your feedback loop is way, it's a
long tail, right, and that wasactually the biggest thing that
I miss was the problem solvingin the reward cycle of that.
You know that constant feedbackyou get from programming or
solving those challengingproblems.
Yeah, for the content, I meanit would be take me two weeks to
write an article and then Iwould release it and then I get
(21:13):
some feedback.
And then, you know, doctor,it's learn now has good domain
authority, so the sc alwayspretty decent.
I can get ranked on google, butthere's the most people like
they won't leave feedback onthere.
The verbatim is always kind ofthe negative stuff and so, yeah,
you don't really get the samefeedback that you normally would
(21:34):
you like?
It's funny now that it's beentwo years since I've done that,
I'll get a comment like, hey,this was a helpful article.
So there's an example Like twoyears after I wrote it did I get
a single piece of feedback onit?
You know.
Tim Bourguignon (21:49):
But I'm.
Then.
Why did you decide to Iwouldn't say double down,
because you pivoted again alittle bit of pivoted back, as
you said.
Why didn't you say, hey, screwthat, I'm coming, I'm going back
, and but decided to trysomething else still?
Joshua Duffney (22:05):
That's a really good question.
I don't know if I made thatconsciously, part of it was just
opportunity.
So I kind of realize like, hey,I enjoy the technical writing,
but it's not somewhere I want tostay for a long, like a long,
long time.
You know, I've kind of learns alot of good skills.
My writing skills obviouslyimproved with 18 months of just
Always writing a littlebackstory.
(22:26):
I was writing a nonfiction bookat that same time as becoming a
full time technical writer, soI was just like reps and reps
and reps with writing.
So my communications gotten alot better.
But yeah, it was more.
So just the opportunity came upto join a team with someone that
I've looked up to in theindustry for a long time is
named seed morowski.
(22:46):
He had a spot open and I justsomehow stumbled upon it to the
job site and I was like I'd bereally cool to work with him.
You know, it's kind of like inthe middle of the two things
that I used to do or what I'mcurrently doing, what I used to
do.
So maybe I'll just give it atry.
It's just kind of anopportunity that I saw it and
it's the funny thing is is I was, I think four hours shy of
(23:11):
meeting the cut off for thehiring pause.
That happened couple years ago.
Wow, like had I waited to signthe offer just a couple more
hours, I wouldn't have thecurrent role I'm in.
Wow, okay, so that means, justbefore cool, be the gorgeous
when could it or something I waskind of afterwards, yeah when
the economy really hit in twenty, twenty two, twenty three, yeah
(23:35):
, okay yeah, yeah, that's thatone for sure.
Tim Bourguignon (23:41):
Okay, I'm.
Do you still miss this, thisfeedback loop, or did you manage
to create your own now, in thisnew position?
Joshua Duffney (23:49):
I do still miss it.
I've got variants of it.
Depends on the project I'm on.
But I'm also starting torealize, listening to some of
your other episodes actually,that this is kind of the world
of the senior role is.
Things are so much moreambiguous, you know, and there
are things are more long tail,just like a mentoring is a long
tail thing, and I'm realizingthat I'm probably just gonna
(24:12):
have to get used to thatambiguity a little bit, you know
.
Tim Bourguignon (24:21):
Maybe I've seen those deep technical roles
where you actually say, no, I'mnot gonna go this direction, I'm
going back to the I know staff,senior staff, principal route
and really going very deep as asan expertise in what I'm doing,
and then I guess you can stillkeep that part of the of the
(24:44):
feedback to be intact.
But as soon as you want tomultiply bb a force multiplier
and really try to to multiplyyour effort by mentoring,
networking, helping others, Iguess that's the price you have
to pay.
Joshua Duffney (25:00):
Yeah I guess I'll.
Yeah, that's that's kind of.
You talked about the fog of thewords beginning, beginning of
the episode before startrecording and when you feel lost
.
That feeling I definitelydefinitely feel that way.
I feel kind of like right atthe cusp of that being lost and
just trying to find, like, do Idouble down and find an area
where I want to be supertechnical or do I kind of
(25:22):
embrace this?
Am you a little bit more?
Is this the best way to justuncertainty right and try to
look for ways to drive moreclarity and have broader impact,
you know, and to have somefaith behind that?
And that requires that youlearn more in your network so
that way you can bet out thoseblind spots and All that good
stuff, which are all skills thatI have yet to really hone.
Tim Bourguignon (25:46):
Do you mind loving a bit more in this?
You're facing this problemright now.
What do you do?
I'm explicitly to try to getout of it, or understand it more
, or or cut some branches thatyou might realize are not the
good one.
How do you?
Do you go at it, right?
Joshua Duffney (26:03):
now.
Right now, it's been when itgets too much to handle.
What I typically do is reducescope and I try to find some
kind of problem that has afinish line.
So I just did like a littledeep dive into how containers
work and made that like a littlelearning sprint and I found a
way to make some, you know,content, did some live streams,
and that's an example of wherethe ambiguity and the
(26:25):
uncertainties just like it's toomuch, it's too restless for me
that I need to have some kind offinite outcome, and so I'll
kind of like zoom in for asprint, like a one to two week
period, on something like that,and I'm kind of coming out of
that phase where I know I needto deal with this.
But one thing that I'm justrecently learned is that I can't
(26:48):
think my way out of it.
I have to talk my way out of it, and so now what I'm doing is
I'm starting to set up meetingswith my lead and with other
Product group leaders in thespace I'm in to get a better
idea, like, okay, I have thesevague notions of important work,
but I need I need more datapoints, and those data points
(27:08):
can't just be conjured from myimagination.
I need to have real data pointsfrom different people.
Really good advice that I gotfrom a colleague was Find the
problems that the people at yourlevel or above Find important
but don't have time to do.
Then you know that you'realways working towards something
that has impact, because youdon't have to sell them on.
(27:29):
They see the value.
You don't have to sell them onthat.
But if you go and start your ownlittle thing You're gonna have
to create, unless you reallybelieve in it and you really see
the vision, you're gonna have auphill battle convincing people
that they should even care thatyour problem is is worthy of
solving.
You can go and solve it andthey're gonna say, okay, cool,
(27:49):
but if you go and solvesomething that they already are
experiencing as pain, you don'thave to sell them on that.
And so that's where I'mcurrently at right now is is
trying to Find the right peopleto have these conversations with
so that way I can moreaccurately Articulate the
problems that I'm working on andthen go back into that scoping
thing that I talked about.
(28:09):
Or okay, here's this broaderchunk of a problem, here's what
I can get done and show somevisible progress on.
And you know the next quarteror whatever it is, and then
break that down further, I loveit.
Tim Bourguignon (28:23):
I love it.
How would that discussion go?
Would you go towards some ofyour senior peers and then and
say, hey, I have the feelingyou're working on this and
you're working on that and youhave those problems.
This is by interesting rightnow.
Is it accurate?
Can you describe it a bit more,etc.
Oh, would you go at itcompletely differently?
Joshua Duffney (28:44):
I'll be on my first stop.
I have a really good team leadwas the gentleman that I
mentioned earlier, and so he'she's got a really good luck,
he's got a good leadershipcapacity and so he does have a
good, like broad View of thedifferent organizations, things
that are coming in.
And so typically what I'll dois I'll try to find someone like
that, someone that's just has abroader view than I do, like
(29:05):
I'm too down in the weeds hereor I'm just not seeing things.
I don't have the same network,and so I like to try to peer
into their minds, so to speak,to get that a broader, detached
view, kind of landscape.
Like are there some thingscoming down the pipeline that
are important, or should I stayin my lane here and double down
and keep focusing?
And so my first stop is usuallyto that person and say, hey,
(29:27):
it's usually in the form of acareer check-in, like I'm a
little bit lost right now.
I'm usually super honest.
Like I'm lost, I don't exactly,don't I'm doing.
It doesn't feel like I'm havingany impact, I feel like I keep
wasting my time, learned a bunchof stuff that really doesn't do
a whole lot.
Like you, where do you think Ishould invest my efforts.
You know, like what are yourtwo or three little areas that
(29:50):
you've got like future state,current state, and then Kind of
like the present.
You know, like the the now,next future type things, and
usually there's a technologykind of bracketed in there, like
maybe wazzy and web assemblytype stuff is the future stuff
that I should be have on myradar and be tinkering with.
(30:11):
But you know, don't make it abig boulder just yet, like
there's not enough there.
And so that's typically whatwill come out of those
conversations some clarity.
And then Usually I move on topeople that are more Focused.
So then they, they send me on,it's like kind of like a quest.
You know these the video gameanalogy, like here's the entry
(30:31):
point and then then here's they,just they're a pointer to the
town's person.
That's actually got you knowthe monster or whatever in the
dungeon that you need to go andslay.
Tim Bourguignon (30:41):
But and the monster is web assembly.
Okay, so really going broad,finding new contacts to go deep
with, understand if it'ssomething for you, if there is
something at all, if it'ssomething you could really rock
on for a while, and if so,double down.
If not, come back up, find thatperson again or a different
(31:03):
person to go broad again and andfind where to go deep again.
Joshua Duffney (31:08):
Yeah, sounds like a plan.
Tim Bourguignon (31:13):
Have you?
So we've been talking a bitabout, about Gaming again and
again.
That was the beginning of thediscussion.
Have you thought of going backto that?
Joshua Duffney (31:24):
You know only recently what really sparked it.
I kind of just left it as itwas because I had had.
I had.
Coding is as close to videogaming as I've gotten, as far as
like a flow state, like beingable to code and create things,
whether it be a script that justcopies files around or Whatever
else.
But I've never dived intoapplication development.
(31:46):
It's just been a domain thatI've For whatever seems like.
Maybe it's forbidden fruit inmy mind, I have no idea.
But very recently I've got moreapplication where I'm Teaching
my son math and I saw this thingon Twitter.
It's this game developer whocreated this little video game
for a son to do just basicarithmetic, you know, and I was
like that would be.
(32:06):
That would have been the bestway for me to learn as a kid,
and so there's been interest inthere, but I've never revisited
it.
Perhaps it's time I might finda new Passion in that.
But yeah, that's a really goodquestion.
Tim Bourguignon (32:20):
You know, and you haven't been tempted to go
toward your, I want to say, Idon't want to say first mastery,
but the mastery of, of DevOpsand infrastructure, etc.
In the gaming industry.
Joshua Duffney (32:34):
No, not really.
That would be.
That would be a good parallel.
I had a couple people that madethat jump the company where I
learned a lot of this stuff.
One person left.
He was a sysadmin and workedwith me pretty closely, or my
team.
I was a tech lead for theDevOps team, and so we we had to
basically connect with all thelike the DBA team and very
(32:54):
fractured, siloed, typicalorganization, right.
But he went to Blizzard, whichis now owned by Microsoft, but
so I was jealous of that.
I've had rockstar games reachout to me in the past, but the
relocating was always a no-gofor me.
Tim Bourguignon (33:09):
Yeah, maybe it has changed, maybe not.
Well, maybe the industry sucks,but that's, that's a different.
Do you see yourself?
Continuing this direction ofmixing is different the
technical writing, the community, building the expertise that
(33:29):
you have and continuing mixingthose.
Or are you going to face apivot again soon and say, hey, I
need something else?
Joshua Duffney (33:39):
That's the thing that's been in the back of my
mind for a little while, whichis do you disappear?
There is something that is kindof appealing to that, where you
can just disappear into theether of development for a
little while, because I've beenin the public eye for a little
(34:00):
bit since my PowerShell days,but I do enjoy the teaching.
I think I'll have it to a blendat some point, but I would like
the ratio to be more engineering, like more of the deep work,
more of the engineering, thequiet heads down type problem
solving.
So my next pivot, if anything,would be if I can change my
current role to have more ofthat time or a role that has
(34:25):
more of that built in.
But still, I think I wouldalways had a really good
question posed to me when I wastrying to iron this out, which
was what makes you think you'reso unhappy when your current
role?
Because it seems like you getto do all the things that you
like to do under the role and itjust takes a while to admit or
to realize that you can.
That's kind of the weird thingwith autonomy is to realize the
(34:46):
freedom that you have in it.
But I did come to therealization that, yeah, I think
even if I was full-timeengineering, I would probably
still teach to a degree Like Ienjoy it too much to let it
completely go, yeah, but I'dprobably pivot a little bit more
to more engineering in thefuture.
Tim Bourguignon (35:08):
Two questions on my mind.
Which nasty one should I pick?
Yeah, I'd pick that one.
What would be?
How did you put it?
An overpivot in this regard?
Joshua Duffney (35:20):
An overpivot would probably be to try to
force my way into a softwareengineering role inside the Big
Tech, which has got a lot ofgates, you know, with the
engineering role, with coding,interviews and stuff, and try to
stress this is something thatI've done in the past, a very
familiar territory.
So if I were to overdo it thisis exactly what it would look
like is I would buy and it's notlike I already did this, but I
(35:45):
would buy a whole bunch ofsoftware engineering books and
then I would force myself to dolead code for like two to three
hours a day for six months andforce my way into a software
engineering role, not give anythought to what that role would
do or if I would enjoy thecoding that I was doing in that
role.
That would be kind of anexample of an overpivot in this
scenario.
Tim Bourguignon (36:05):
Makes a lot of sense.
I don't want to say being there, I don't know, but rings a bell
.
You mentioned teaching quite abit.
You, I know you've writtentechnical books.
You have created many courseson Perl site.
Do you know in-person teachingas well?
Joshua Duffney (36:29):
I used to do in-person teaching, more so when
I worked.
Well, I do some of it for worknow when I speak at conferences
or do workshops or like usergroups, but I did a lot more
when I worked in an office and Iwould do a lot of like lunch
and learn type stuff.
So I've done some in-person,but more of the in-person has
been informal.
Most of my instruction stuffhas been online and virtual.
Tim Bourguignon (36:51):
Okay, how did you, because you've been at it
for a while, how did you dealwith this?
Mostly going online, mostly notseeing people interact with
your content, mostly beingasynchronous and getting the
feedback, if at all, later andnot while they're experiencing
it, not being able to piggybackon sparkling eyes and saying,
(37:13):
hey, they start to get it.
Or seeing faces make grimacesand say, well, something is not
right.
I've got to jump in and add anew example to this.
I assume you had thisexperience before and then,
slowly, with the technicalwriting and the video and such
it, transitioned to thisdifferent kind.
Can you speak with that a bit?
(37:35):
Yeah?
Joshua Duffney (37:36):
So the teaching, it was a kind of a natural
extension because it's all Iknew.
To be honest, like I had donemy very first, we'll go all the
way back.
So that help desk job that Ihad.
My second project was toimplement a help desk system and
(37:56):
there was a free one calledSpiceworks.
So Spiceworks is still outthere.
I actually interviewed for themand almost moved to Austin.
So I was almost a Texan but Idecided to stay here for my
wife's families here.
But anyway, in that they havethis awesome community feature
where it's just a community ofeverybody uses the product or,
(38:16):
you know, you don't have to usethe product to have the software
or to have part of thecommunity, just log in.
It's this form, you know, likethe old school forms.
And I started to become kind ofa lurker on there really early
on because I didn't mind, myboss at the time Worked part
time so he was only there acouple days of the week.
He was a firefighter as well asthis like network administrator
(38:37):
, saw a lot of time.
I was just on my own to figurestuff out and I heavily relied
on the community, ask questions,found a lot of stuff that you
know.
Some more people had problemswith, and then I started to.
I have a feeling I need to giveback.
You know, like a reciprocity, astyle of a giver started to
emerge where I needed to.
(38:58):
I needed to give back because Ihad taken so much Knowledge
from this community and so Istarted to write up.
My project says how to is in thecommunity, and so I wrote my
very first one.
I was called windows Imaging.
Windows 7 with the fog projectsof the fog project is like an
open source imaging tool.
It's like insanely complicatedto install on Linux, and I had
(39:20):
like a semester on Linux.
I was like, okay, I at leastknow how to install.
You want to?
And so that's where it all kindof started and I started to
teach.
And when I got into the powershell in the scripting, a lot of
that was just, I started a blogand I started to put that out
there.
And eventually I was sitting ina class one day and I was, my
(39:42):
wife and I were starting aboutthinking about starting a family
and if she would keep her jobor not have her job, and so I
just started to ponder, like,what are some other ways that I
could have income and plus, Ihad just started like was just a
startup company at that timewas 2014, 2015.
And I talked to the instructorof this class as I was like,
what do I need to do to do whatyou're doing?
(40:03):
And he very bloody said he'slike I wouldn't do what I'm
doing.
I would do video courses islike I would reach out to To
play with site and do that.
and I just read the four hourwork week and which in bolded me
to just ask anybody anythingright and I was living by that
mantra, and so I reached out toone of my the people that I had
(40:25):
watched courses for for the SCCMthis is some center
configuration manager and hisname was Adam Bertram and he had
a Twitter profile.
So I just hit him up and waslike hey, how did you become a
plural site author?
And he's like I just talked tothis guy, his name's Adam Blake,
and so I went over to AdamBlake's Twitter profile, was
like hey, I become a plural siteauthor.
And they like, fill out this,this interview.
(40:47):
And funny thing was I don't knowif you know who he is, but Don
Jones, who's a big figure in thethe power shell space for many
years, started a conference andall that did the comfort circuit
for many years and that Endedup becoming a mentor of mine
later on.
But he was the one that did myaudition interview for plural
site.
Wow.
(41:07):
And so I had to do a demo offive minute thing of just like
what's your style, like how doyou present yourself, like how's
your speech, and I got thegreen light by just recording it
on my laptop microphone andended up investing in the gear
and you know finding technologyI was interested in and then
recording content on that.
Eventually it got to be toomuch to do with a small family
(41:31):
and a job, but I was able to.
I think I have like five totalcourses.
Only a couple of them are stillactive, but that's kind of how
that all.
Just they just came about.
Tim Bourguignon (41:40):
Yeah, this is awesome.
Did you imagine some pointpivoting, overpivoting, probably
toward just creating contentlike this?
Joshua Duffney (41:48):
I thought about it because I knew a lot of the
people were making way moremoney than I was with my full
time job doing that, but I justdidn't have enough steam to okay
to pivot over to that part ofit was, you know, I started a
family and I didn't like theprocess of being independent and
having to worry about healthcare and all that stuff, and so
that kind of kept me in andcheck.
And then I had some what reallyderailed it, what I had some
(42:11):
health issues in 2018.
That just made it impossible todo kind of like anything other
than just tread water, and so inthat, a lot of stuff just kind
of fell the way side and Extraquick, their activities was one
of them.
One of those things it mightcome back at some point.
Tim Bourguignon (42:27):
Never say never .
Yeah, we've talked a little bitabout the, about becoming more
senior right now in the past,but that's that's your.
Your your present now.
And if a junior came to you andasking the questions you were
asking your mentors now, isthere a piece of advice you
would give almost everyone andsay, hey, start there.
Joshua Duffney (42:51):
I would say the fact that you're reaching out is
you're gonna get an answer andyou're gonna be able to be
successful.
It's the people that don'treach out that are gonna remain
stuck and stay junior.
So just building your networkand talking to people, because
there's not gonna be any.
It's all contextual.
It's all situational, but ifyou can find the right people
that have been where you are,they'll help you through it.
(43:13):
So reaching out is that keypiece of advice is what I would
give to the juniors and I loveit.
Tim Bourguignon (43:21):
This is so true .
Thank you so much.
Thank you, josh.
It's been fantastic going onthis roller coaster of your life
and your activities and overpivoting and, but still falling
on both feet and having a bit ofa About this.
That is good.
Thank you so much for that.
You're very welcome.
Thank you for the time.
Where would be the best placeto find you online and continue
(43:43):
this discussion with you?
Joshua Duffney (43:45):
I'm most probably active on acts at Josh
Duffney.
That's my digital home for themost part.
Tim Bourguignon (43:52):
Okay, well, either a link directly to that,
and I guess we can find prettymuch you, we can find you pretty
much everywhere from there andfollow the tree, the branches of
the tree, absolutely anythingelse you want to plug in.
Joshua Duffney (44:05):
That's it.
That's it for me.
Yeah, I'm just on there sharingevery bit of this journey on
Twitter.
I try to be pretty transparentand show what I'm learning, what
I've missed, what I've failed.
So, yeah, hopefully see youthere.
Teaching still yeah, thank youso much.
Thank you very much, it's beena pleasure.
Tim Bourguignon (44:24):
And this has been another episode of the
first journey we see each othernext week 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
(44:45):
on on our website dev journeydot info slash, subscribe.
Talk to you soon.
If a junior came to you and asking the
questions you were asking yourmentors now, is there a piece of
advice you would give almosteveryone and say, hey, start
there.
Joshua Duffney (00:12):
I would say the fact that you're reaching out is
you're going to get an answerand you're going to be able to
be successful.
It's the people that don'treach out that are going to
remain stuck and stay junior.
So, just building your networkand talking to people, because
there's not going to be any.
It's all contextual.
It's all situational, but ifyou can find the right people
that have been where you are,they'll help you through it.
(00:34):
So reaching out is that keypiece of advice is what I would
give to the juniors.
Tim Bourguignon (00:40):
Hello and welcome to Developers Journey,
the podcast bringing you themaking of stories of successful
software developers to help youon your upcoming journey.
I'm your host, tim Bokenu.
On this episode I receiveJoshua Duffney.
Josh is a senior cloud advocateof Microsoft, a former
Microsoft MVP and XSRE sitereliability engineer at Stack
(01:03):
Overflow and a Pluralsightauthor, to name only a few.
Fz books or e-books and stuff.
I'm sure he's doing tons, josh.
Welcome to have Journey.
Thank you so much.
Pleasure to be here and it's mypleasure to have you.
It's been a long time in themaking and I'm glad you're
finally here Finally here.
Thanks for the persistence.
Before we come to your story, Iwant to thank the terrific
(01:25):
listeners who support the show.
Every month you are keeping theDevJourney lights up.
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 websitedevjourneyinfo and click on the
support me on Patreon button.
(01:47):
Even the smallest contributionsare giant steps toward a
sustainable DevJourney journey.
Thank you, and now back totoday's guest.
So, josh, as you know, the showexists to help listeners
understand what your storylooked like and imagine 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 DevJourney?
Joshua Duffney (02:09):
The very, very beginning.
Well, it's interesting that yousay DevJourney, because I feel
like the DevJourney for me isjust beginning, because the
first decade or so that I'vebeen in the tech industry I've
been in the operation side orlike scripting, and so I've
always kind of skated arounddevelopment, so to speak, going
deeper and deeper.
But it all kind of started forme in high school with video
(02:30):
games.
So I was around like the earlythousands when I was getting
really into video games andstarting to go into the PC
gaming and needed to upgrade mygraphics card.
And so my grandma got me agraphics card for Christmas.
But then I learned that there'sdifferent sockets and slots
that you put video cards into,and so my computer didn't work
for the video cards you got me.
(02:51):
And so that's kind of where itall began.
And then you know tinkering andtaking apart computers and then
eventually going into anassociate's degree program for
computer networking because itwas the closest thing to like
video game design that I couldfind at a local college.
Tim Bourguignon (03:09):
That's where it all began for me that must have
been a rough wake up call whenyou realize that networking has
nothing to do with gaming.
Joshua Duffney (03:17):
A little bit, but it got me in the industry.
It was either that or joinedthe military.
And I just met my wife now thenand so I felt like I had to
make a choice, like I could gothe military route and get a GI
bill and eventually pay forvideo game design down the road,
or I could go to the communitycollege route, stay here and
kind of pursue that path whicheventually to starting a family
(03:40):
and all that goodness.
So that's kind of the choices Imade and it was the closest
thing and it's treated me well.
I've gotten pretty far on thatassociate's degree.
Tim Bourguignon (03:49):
And I approve this message.
Joshua Duffney (03:51):
Do you want to tell us?
Tim Bourguignon (03:51):
about how you do studies went and maybe
compared to what you wereexpecting.
Joshua Duffney (03:57):
Yeah, I had really no expectations.
I really I could have gone to afour year university for game
design, but I didn't want tostart life Six figures of debt.
You know, college in the US isreally expensive and so I wanted
to avoid that and had thecommunity college, the computer
networking degree.
It was, it was said, computernetworking, but it wasn't
(04:17):
focused on that entirely.
I mean, I had a semester aboutprinters, a semester on shell
scripting, semester on Linux,semester on virtualization of
course, had some Cisco classes,had some C classes that I really
did not do well at the time andso it was kind of like a
general introduction totechnology and computers in
(04:39):
general.
You know, I did have somenetworking concepts.
I even got to wire the new dormroom so I had to run, you know,
hundreds of, hundreds of feetof cable and so I just got
exposed to everything really inthat two year degree, you know,
from layer zero all the way upto the application.
Tim Bourguignon (04:56):
You had pictured that in your mind as a
first step in your studies, orwould you expecting something
else?
Joshua Duffney (05:03):
I.
All I knew was I wanted to dosomething in the technology
sector because previously I hadcome and my summer job was a
road crew, which I enjoyed, butit required a lot of travel, is
a lot of manual labor, and I wasjust seeing like, as I get
older this is going to be harderand harder to do, and I guess
it was.
It was pretty laid out from thesyllabus and I had a good idea
(05:25):
of what to expect because I knewwhat these things were.
I just didn't understand howthey worked, you know, and so it
was.
It matched up with myexpectations and then it get.
Basically, let me hit theground running.
When I went into the workforceto start on the help desk, let's
talk about that how.
Tim Bourguignon (05:41):
how did you pick that field of operations?
Or how did that field ofoperation pick you the help desk
?
Joshua Duffney (05:48):
Yeah, well, it was kind of like the entry level
position that I could get withthat degree, you know, aside
from just trying to walk in as anetwork engineer or a network
administrator, which is kind ofwhat one of the teachers at the
college campus did.
He was a network administratorand managed all the way in
connections and stuff like thatwas where there was T1 lines and
stuff and all that.
(06:09):
Where you'd have to bundle itto get beyond was a one and a
half mag download and so, yeah,it was just I.
My wife lived in, kind of livedwith me for a little bit in
college and it's a couple hoursaway from where she's from and
where I'm from, and she wantedto move back home.
And so I just started lookingfor jobs in the area and there
was a little engineering firmthat was looking for a help desk
(06:30):
person, someone to upgradeeverybody's computer from XP to
Windows seven.
And I, I fit the bill, you know, and figured that out and kind
of ran the help desk there andinstalled software and
troubleshots stuff and all that,all that good good thing, all
those good things that you do onthe help desk.
But I learned, learned a lot,mainly a lot of people skills,
(06:51):
so that was a valuable traitthat I picked up.
Communicating my favorite, myfavorite story, I got to share
this one.
There was an executive that wassuper mad at me because I went
into his office work on hiscomputer over lunch and so I,
you know not to disturb hisworking hours.
And so then I went in and Ireplaced everything, upgraded
(07:11):
his computer, put a new keyboardand mouse on there and I got
called into his office not even15 minutes after he got back and
he's like if you're going tohave the audacity to come in
here and mess with my computer,you should at least plug back in
my mouse and keyboard so I canwork.
Lo and behold, I had replacedhis mouse and keyboard with
wireless Nice keyboard.
(07:33):
And I was like oh, I don't knowwhat you mean.
I say I've got batteries inthem, they're powered on, like I
made sure all those things work.
I had literally a paperchecklist I had to go through to
leave your office.
I was like it all works.
And he didn't say anything tome after I shook the mouse and
it worked.
He just said I could leave.
I mean no apology, nothing.
Tim Bourguignon (07:54):
Yeah, I guess I would be speechless as well,
yeah.
Joshua Duffney (07:59):
What is this magic Exactly?
Tim Bourguignon (08:02):
Do you have other example of people skills,
besides being able to deal withexecutives that have no idea
what you just did.
Joshua Duffney (08:10):
Well, a lot of it was just, um, just realizing
how much that you could know soquickly in the industry, like
there's these people that have areally, really smart had their
electrical and mechanicalengineers, but I could quickly
learn more than them about theseparticular things that they
depended on Just because of myfocus on technology.
It's so I really loved that thatfact that the there was so much
(08:32):
to learn in technology thateven me with less than a year
would know so much more thanthese people that have been kind
of in this field or in anadjacent field, dependent on
this for decades.
And so a lot of the the peopleskills I learned was just to
communicate without that kind ofTalking, that demeanor like
talking down to people, and solearning to communicate things
(08:55):
and to teach things is kind of Istumbled upon Very quickly in
technology one of the kind ofthe passions or areas that I
really enjoy, which is theteaching aspect of it, and so,
yeah, just being able tocommunicate with people about
technology was probably thebigger skill that I learned in
that role, and Calming peopledown when they're getting
emotional about you know theirspreadsheet doesn't do this or
(09:17):
that, or you know Outlook isn'tdoing this or that, like it's
just.
It's a, it's a programfollowing a procedure, and once
you understand a procedure thenyou can understand how to make
it work.
But doesn't mean that it's notcomplicated.
Tim Bourguignon (09:28):
Yeah, that is very true, that is very true.
The oldest positions, actually,where you're in Mendated to
help people when something isnot working, those are all
really learning pressure cookers.
Really.
People come at you, they aremad already they have a problem
(09:49):
that cannot solve and and it'stimely, and it's painful, etc.
And so you have to be thinkingon your feet.
You have to understand thewhole system.
You have to understand whatthey're telling you and what
they're not telling you, becauseyou just don't know about it.
And I've had my fair share ofof after-sales support now in a
Tech store, and that was that,was this, again and again and
(10:10):
again, people coming in andscreaming and this is whoa, I
really learned a lot.
I agree with that.
It's very interesting.
So how did you go from there?
Because I've heard you code abit, so, oh, at least you did
coding stuff after that.
So how?
Joshua Duffney (10:26):
yeah, yeah yeah, so the story there is.
I was helped Desk, worked therefor a couple years and then I
became kind of like a one-manshop, like a network
administrator was the title, butI was really just like the sys
admin for a small bank and so Iwas rack and servers, like
figuring out the storagecapacity, like for the backups
you know, and installing batterybackups for this little bank
(10:48):
and data center, rewiringeverything, upgrading the access
points, and then I startedworking on virtualization at
that point so net app Was thesolution that they chose there
and we were placing all the likethe teller terminals with these
little wise devices.
So instead of hardwarecomputers there are these wise
devices.
And that's where I I just gotexposed to like everything I was
(11:10):
.
I was responsible in theprimary on call for this little
bank and all these operationsand keeping the way and links
connected and all that stuff andand I learned a ton and I was
only there probably about a yearuntil I got this opportunity to
join, to get a pretty big payraise and join the service desk
for a really large enterpriseand that's where the kind of the
coding journey started and theticket that kind of Pushed me
(11:35):
down that path was we got was.
I worked for this really largeconstruction company and what
they would do is they'd spin upand they'd spend down
construction sites and they'dhire what they would call craft
workers, you know contractors,and but they would have to
provision them all theseaccounts and stuff to log in
time and whatever.
And so we would pretty often weget these tickets that you know
(11:56):
this job site spun, spun down,we needed to disable these 300
or 500 people and doing Is wehad a service desk of about 60
people.
They just divvy up this Excelspreadsheet and say you
right-click, disable 25 and youdisable 25, and so you know, by
the end of the day, you know wehad three chefs or whatever of
(12:18):
people it would get done.
And there was this guy His namewas Rob that worked with me on
the tier two help desk and wekind of looked at each other and
we're like I think there's abetter way.
I I think we could do thisquick.
The monotony of it was gettingus, we're getting bored, we're
getting a little stir crazy,right click disabling these
(12:38):
hundreds of lists, and so wecould some of them upon
PowerShell, powershell I justkind of taken root in the
Windows ecosystem and it had areally good support for Active
Directory and Exchange and thoseare the two primary things that
we administered.
And the first time we did thatwe got that list of 300 and
seconds later it was alldisabled and our bosses were
(13:00):
just stunned and blown away andmagic, you know like, oh, we
needed, we would have had.
You know, I need a team ofdevelopers to be able to figure
this out is what they said.
And so we quickly.
I was in my younger, my early20s at the time, so I got the
title of a script kid, so fromthat point on I kind of anything
(13:21):
that had any kind of volumebehind it.
It was an opportunity for me toexercise some more scripting
skills and eventually that gotme hired, taken out of the
service desk and hired as asystems engineer working on SCCM
, so system center configurationmanager, and I worked to
automate a bunch of softwareinstalls and Windows updates and
(13:41):
imaging, which kind of tiesback to the help desk job, you
know.
But now fast forward to Windows8.1.
Tim Bourguignon (13:47):
You know that was.
That was the OS Windows 8.1.
Oh, that was a nasty one.
Joshua Duffney (13:53):
Yeah, not as bad as Vista, but definitely not
fun.
That was the surface andeverybody wanted the surface and
those were a nightmare to tryto image, if memory serves.
But that's kind of where thecoding started.
And then I got kind of hoppedon the DevOps bandwagon and got
roped into infrastructure ascode and learning a lot of
(14:14):
software engineering principles,but in the lens of operations
and through infrastructure thekind of all the DevOps I read
like the Phoenix project and goton that bandwagon, started
following a lot of influentialpeople in the community that
were starting that up, justhumble being one.
And then what's his name?
Gene Cam.
And so that was kind of myfirst kind of introduction into
(14:37):
software engineering and thosedisciplines, was trying to apply
them and mature the process ofmanaging infrastructure and that
eventually I was a DevOpsengineer and tech lead for a
payroll company for about fouryears and then I got the
opportunity to join Stack,overflows and SRE, which you
know they're at kind of like thetop of the industry for the
(14:59):
practices that are led by ThomasLimoncelli, who was a sysadmin
at Google for many years andhe's now been at Stack for a
long time.
But they've got a really,really good you know ship, so to
speak, and it was just an honorto be among them for the short
time that I was.
And then I kind of hit thatpivotal point, I guess, where I
(15:21):
was like, okay, well, I've kindof got to the top of this
particular field that I'm super,was super interested in
profession and kind of.
I took a leap of faith andjoined Microsoft as a technical
writer because I had justreleased a book in this time and
so I'm skipping a bunch ofstuff we can dive deeper into.
But I in hindsight overpivotedinto that role, because
(15:48):
something that you do for theside that you have a passion for
doesn't always make a good fulltime job.
And so I quickly realized thatand I started to miss the sense
of mastery that I previously hadin my other discipline.
And so since then I've beentrying to repivot, so to speak.
Right now I'm currently as aI'm a cloud advocate, so I'm not
(16:09):
necessarily fully content.
I'm in the middle where I getto sit between the customers and
the product and both be thestoryteller and teacher, but
also an engineer, and so that'sbeen a good balance for me
currently.
But yeah, ever since I leftstack I guess I've been kind of
like trying to course correct alittle bit since an overpivot,
but what's been humbling andhonoring and people like
(16:32):
realizing that jump of peoplethat have followed me online and
stuff and I get theseconversations sometimes they
really admire the ability tokind of rebase right, like
rebase your skill set, which issuper hard.
A lot of people they get reallygood at one thing and they have
that sense of mastery and I getit.
You don't want to let it gobecause it's so rewarding.
(16:52):
But this, this field, demandsthat you constantly develop your
skill set.
My only caveat I think inhindsight that I would do a
little bit differently is makesmaller pivots.
That's such huge, drasticchanges but it is indeed.
Tim Bourguignon (17:10):
It is indeed and I want to know the choice of
word we say rebase your skills.
That's the, the, the expertprobably talking when you, when
you say you over pivoted and youmiss the mastery, can you, can
you explain a bit more what youmean?
Yeah, so I was moving from yeah, absolutely so.
Joshua Duffney (17:33):
I, to give the full context, I was, you know, a
site reliability engineer atStack Overflow.
I had been working seven yearsto get into that position.
I had applied many times, nevergot in, and then it finally got
in and I had a number offriends and colleagues that
already worked there that I knewfrom different communities and
so I was well connected.
But I just had such a sense ofmastery.
I knew everything that I was.
(17:54):
I was still challenged and theteam was still moving and
progressing and bettering theorganization.
But if in like the dev opsspace and is from a company and
culture stack overflow is, youdon't have to like sell dev ops
to stack overflow.
They understand it, theyembrace it, and so for a long
time I had to fight, fight thatin organizations.
(18:14):
But what I mean by over pivotwas I was moving from this
discipline of dealing withinfrastructure as code and dev
ops and a lot of that stuff andOver into technical writing, and
so the difference in the dailylevel is I'm no longer
responsible for maintainingProduction systems.
I'm now writing very technical,detailed, technical
(18:37):
documentation that explains thethings of my previous domain,
like terraform and ansible, andwriting that and so is a totally
different skill set to be ableto see, without even talking to
the audience, like what, like,what is this library want?
There's a lot of informationarchitecture that goes into that
.
There's obviously the editing,a little bit of storytelling
(18:58):
that you need to have in there,and then the real world
experience was kind of like theedge that I had on other people
that had technical writing astheir discipline.
For many years I had, I'd livedin these tools and I knew some
of the rough edges, but whatthat left me with was having to
create All these differentscenarios for myself.
No longer was I constantly hitin the face by the problems of
(19:21):
production, and now I had tocreate all the problems myself,
and the main thing that I lackthere was just the that keeps
your skills so sharp constantlyhaving problems presented to you
and having to solve them.
Just like the help desk, youget a, get a call, you get a sit
down and like outlooks notworking, that's the only
(19:42):
directive you get.
You gotta figure it out.
On the other side, with thetechnical writing, there's no
one calling you, there's noproblems hitting you in the face
.
You've gotta go and seek themout and try to understand them,
and so the biggest challengethere was just Having a faith in
my decision.
For the problems I wasselecting, there was no one
(20:02):
telling me that they're good orbad, or useful or not useful.
You know, you don't have.
You don't get that feedbacktill the end, just like an
author doesn't get that feedbacktill the end of their book.
You know.
Tim Bourguignon (20:13):
I see, I see it probably also do the problem of
of if you have a blind spot.
You didn't see a category ofproblems that could happen.
You just don't see them.
They're not gonna hit you inthe face and so, unless somebody
tells you gonna see, not gonnasee it.
Yeah, how was it in terms of ofreward cycles?
(20:34):
I mean, when you solve problemsday in, day out, you get your
kick off problem solving.
When you have to make your ownproblems and you're writing
stuff, I guess the time thatwould be way longer and the
rewards way less often.
Joshua Duffney (20:50):
Yeah, yeah, your feedback loop is way, it's a
long tail, right, and that wasactually the biggest thing that
I miss was the problem solvingin the reward cycle of that.
You know that constant feedbackyou get from programming or
solving those challengingproblems.
Yeah, for the content, I meanit would be take me two weeks to
write an article and then Iwould release it and then I get
(21:13):
some feedback.
And then, you know, doctor,it's learn now has good domain
authority, so the sc alwayspretty decent.
I can get ranked on google, butthere's the most people like
they won't leave feedback onthere.
The verbatim is always kind ofthe negative stuff and so, yeah,
you don't really get the samefeedback that you normally would
(21:34):
you like?
It's funny now that it's beentwo years since I've done that,
I'll get a comment like, hey,this was a helpful article.
So there's an example Like twoyears after I wrote it did I get
a single piece of feedback onit?
You know.
Tim Bourguignon (21:49):
But I'm.
Then.
Why did you decide to Iwouldn't say double down,
because you pivoted again alittle bit of pivoted back, as
you said.
Why didn't you say, hey, screwthat, I'm coming, I'm going back
, and but decided to trysomething else still?
Joshua Duffney (22:05):
That's a really good question.
I don't know if I made thatconsciously, part of it was just
opportunity.
So I kind of realize like, hey,I enjoy the technical writing,
but it's not somewhere I want tostay for a long, like a long,
long time.
You know, I've kind of learns alot of good skills.
My writing skills obviouslyimproved with 18 months of just
Always writing a littlebackstory.
(22:26):
I was writing a nonfiction bookat that same time as becoming a
full time technical writer, soI was just like reps and reps
and reps with writing.
So my communications gotten alot better.
But yeah, it was more.
So just the opportunity came upto join a team with someone that
I've looked up to in theindustry for a long time is
named seed morowski.
(22:46):
He had a spot open and I justsomehow stumbled upon it to the
job site and I was like I'd bereally cool to work with him.
You know, it's kind of like inthe middle of the two things
that I used to do or what I'mcurrently doing, what I used to
do.
So maybe I'll just give it atry.
It's just kind of anopportunity that I saw it and
it's the funny thing is is I was, I think four hours shy of
(23:11):
meeting the cut off for thehiring pause.
That happened couple years ago.
Wow, like had I waited to signthe offer just a couple more
hours, I wouldn't have thecurrent role I'm in.
Wow, okay, so that means, justbefore cool, be the gorgeous
when could it or something I waskind of afterwards, yeah when
the economy really hit in twenty, twenty two, twenty three, yeah
(23:35):
, okay yeah, yeah, that's thatone for sure.
Tim Bourguignon (23:41):
Okay, I'm.
Do you still miss this, thisfeedback loop, or did you manage
to create your own now, in thisnew position?
Joshua Duffney (23:49):
I do still miss it.
I've got variants of it.
Depends on the project I'm on.
But I'm also starting torealize, listening to some of
your other episodes actually,that this is kind of the world
of the senior role is.
Things are so much moreambiguous, you know, and there
are things are more long tail,just like a mentoring is a long
tail thing, and I'm realizingthat I'm probably just gonna
(24:12):
have to get used to thatambiguity a little bit, you know
.
Tim Bourguignon (24:21):
Maybe I've seen those deep technical roles
where you actually say, no, I'mnot gonna go this direction, I'm
going back to the I know staff,senior staff, principal route
and really going very deep as asan expertise in what I'm doing,
and then I guess you can stillkeep that part of the of the
(24:44):
feedback to be intact.
But as soon as you want tomultiply bb a force multiplier
and really try to to multiplyyour effort by mentoring,
networking, helping others, Iguess that's the price you have
to pay.
Joshua Duffney (25:00):
Yeah I guess I'll.
Yeah, that's that's kind of.
You talked about the fog of thewords beginning, beginning of
the episode before startrecording and when you feel lost
.
That feeling I definitelydefinitely feel that way.
I feel kind of like right atthe cusp of that being lost and
just trying to find, like, do Idouble down and find an area
where I want to be supertechnical or do I kind of
(25:22):
embrace this?
Am you a little bit more?
Is this the best way to justuncertainty right and try to
look for ways to drive moreclarity and have broader impact,
you know, and to have somefaith behind that?
And that requires that youlearn more in your network so
that way you can bet out thoseblind spots and All that good
stuff, which are all skills thatI have yet to really hone.
Tim Bourguignon (25:46):
Do you mind loving a bit more in this?
You're facing this problemright now.
What do you do?
I'm explicitly to try to getout of it, or understand it more
, or or cut some branches thatyou might realize are not the
good one.
How do you?
Do you go at it, right?
Joshua Duffney (26:03):
now.
Right now, it's been when itgets too much to handle.
What I typically do is reducescope and I try to find some
kind of problem that has afinish line.
So I just did like a littledeep dive into how containers
work and made that like a littlelearning sprint and I found a
way to make some, you know,content, did some live streams,
and that's an example of wherethe ambiguity and the
(26:25):
uncertainties just like it's toomuch, it's too restless for me
that I need to have some kind offinite outcome, and so I'll
kind of like zoom in for asprint, like a one to two week
period, on something like that,and I'm kind of coming out of
that phase where I know I needto deal with this.
But one thing that I'm justrecently learned is that I can't
(26:48):
think my way out of it.
I have to talk my way out of it, and so now what I'm doing is
I'm starting to set up meetingswith my lead and with other
Product group leaders in thespace I'm in to get a better
idea, like, okay, I have thesevague notions of important work,
but I need I need more datapoints, and those data points
(27:08):
can't just be conjured from myimagination.
I need to have real data pointsfrom different people.
Really good advice that I gotfrom a colleague was Find the
problems that the people at yourlevel or above Find important
but don't have time to do.
Then you know that you'realways working towards something
that has impact, because youdon't have to sell them on.
(27:29):
They see the value.
You don't have to sell them onthat.
But if you go and start your ownlittle thing You're gonna have
to create, unless you reallybelieve in it and you really see
the vision, you're gonna have auphill battle convincing people
that they should even care thatyour problem is is worthy of
solving.
You can go and solve it andthey're gonna say, okay, cool,
(27:49):
but if you go and solvesomething that they already are
experiencing as pain, you don'thave to sell them on that.
And so that's where I'mcurrently at right now is is
trying to Find the right peopleto have these conversations with
so that way I can moreaccurately Articulate the
problems that I'm working on andthen go back into that scoping
thing that I talked about.
(28:09):
Or okay, here's this broaderchunk of a problem, here's what
I can get done and show somevisible progress on.
And you know the next quarteror whatever it is, and then
break that down further, I loveit.
Tim Bourguignon (28:23):
I love it.
How would that discussion go?
Would you go towards some ofyour senior peers and then and
say, hey, I have the feelingyou're working on this and
you're working on that and youhave those problems.
This is by interesting rightnow.
Is it accurate?
Can you describe it a bit more,etc.
Oh, would you go at itcompletely differently?
Joshua Duffney (28:44):
I'll be on my first stop.
I have a really good team leadwas the gentleman that I
mentioned earlier, and so he'she's got a really good luck,
he's got a good leadershipcapacity and so he does have a
good, like broad View of thedifferent organizations, things
that are coming in.
And so typically what I'll dois I'll try to find someone like
that, someone that's just has abroader view than I do, like
(29:05):
I'm too down in the weeds hereor I'm just not seeing things.
I don't have the same network,and so I like to try to peer
into their minds, so to speak,to get that a broader, detached
view, kind of landscape.
Like are there some thingscoming down the pipeline that
are important, or should I stayin my lane here and double down
and keep focusing?
And so my first stop is usuallyto that person and say, hey,
(29:27):
it's usually in the form of acareer check-in, like I'm a
little bit lost right now.
I'm usually super honest.
Like I'm lost, I don't exactly,don't I'm doing.
It doesn't feel like I'm havingany impact, I feel like I keep
wasting my time, learned a bunchof stuff that really doesn't do
a whole lot.
Like you, where do you think Ishould invest my efforts.
You know, like what are yourtwo or three little areas that
(29:50):
you've got like future state,current state, and then Kind of
like the present.
You know, like the the now,next future type things, and
usually there's a technologykind of bracketed in there, like
maybe wazzy and web assemblytype stuff is the future stuff
that I should be have on myradar and be tinkering with.
(30:11):
But you know, don't make it abig boulder just yet, like
there's not enough there.
And so that's typically whatwill come out of those
conversations some clarity.
And then Usually I move on topeople that are more Focused.
So then they, they send me on,it's like kind of like a quest.
You know these the video gameanalogy, like here's the entry
(30:31):
point and then then here's they,just they're a pointer to the
town's person.
That's actually got you knowthe monster or whatever in the
dungeon that you need to go andslay.
Tim Bourguignon (30:41):
But and the monster is web assembly.
Okay, so really going broad,finding new contacts to go deep
with, understand if it'ssomething for you, if there is
something at all, if it'ssomething you could really rock
on for a while, and if so,double down.
If not, come back up, find thatperson again or a different
(31:03):
person to go broad again and andfind where to go deep again.
Joshua Duffney (31:08):
Yeah, sounds like a plan.
Tim Bourguignon (31:13):
Have you?
So we've been talking a bitabout, about Gaming again and
again.
That was the beginning of thediscussion.
Have you thought of going backto that?
Joshua Duffney (31:24):
You know only recently what really sparked it.
I kind of just left it as itwas because I had had.
I had.
Coding is as close to videogaming as I've gotten, as far as
like a flow state, like beingable to code and create things,
whether it be a script that justcopies files around or Whatever
else.
But I've never dived intoapplication development.
(31:46):
It's just been a domain thatI've For whatever seems like.
Maybe it's forbidden fruit inmy mind, I have no idea.
But very recently I've got moreapplication where I'm Teaching
my son math and I saw this thingon Twitter.
It's this game developer whocreated this little video game
for a son to do just basicarithmetic, you know, and I was
like that would be.
(32:06):
That would have been the bestway for me to learn as a kid,
and so there's been interest inthere, but I've never revisited
it.
Perhaps it's time I might finda new Passion in that.
But yeah, that's a really goodquestion.
Tim Bourguignon (32:20):
You know, and you haven't been tempted to go
toward your, I want to say, Idon't want to say first mastery,
but the mastery of, of DevOpsand infrastructure, etc.
In the gaming industry.
Joshua Duffney (32:34):
No, not really.
That would be.
That would be a good parallel.
I had a couple people that madethat jump the company where I
learned a lot of this stuff.
One person left.
He was a sysadmin and workedwith me pretty closely, or my
team.
I was a tech lead for theDevOps team, and so we we had to
basically connect with all thelike the DBA team and very
(32:54):
fractured, siloed, typicalorganization, right.
But he went to Blizzard, whichis now owned by Microsoft, but
so I was jealous of that.
I've had rockstar games reachout to me in the past, but the
relocating was always a no-gofor me.
Tim Bourguignon (33:09):
Yeah, maybe it has changed, maybe not.
Well, maybe the industry sucks,but that's, that's a different.
Do you see yourself?
Continuing this direction ofmixing is different the
technical writing, the community, building the expertise that
(33:29):
you have and continuing mixingthose.
Or are you going to face apivot again soon and say, hey, I
need something else?
Joshua Duffney (33:39):
That's the thing that's been in the back of my
mind for a little while, whichis do you disappear?
There is something that is kindof appealing to that, where you
can just disappear into theether of development for a
little while, because I've beenin the public eye for a little
(34:00):
bit since my PowerShell days,but I do enjoy the teaching.
I think I'll have it to a blendat some point, but I would like
the ratio to be more engineering, like more of the deep work,
more of the engineering, thequiet heads down type problem
solving.
So my next pivot, if anything,would be if I can change my
current role to have more ofthat time or a role that has
(34:25):
more of that built in.
But still, I think I wouldalways had a really good
question posed to me when I wastrying to iron this out, which
was what makes you think you'reso unhappy when your current
role?
Because it seems like you getto do all the things that you
like to do under the role and itjust takes a while to admit or
to realize that you can.
That's kind of the weird thingwith autonomy is to realize the
(34:46):
freedom that you have in it.
But I did come to therealization that, yeah, I think
even if I was full-timeengineering, I would probably
still teach to a degree Like Ienjoy it too much to let it
completely go, yeah, but I'dprobably pivot a little bit more
to more engineering in thefuture.
Tim Bourguignon (35:08):
Two questions on my mind.
Which nasty one should I pick?
Yeah, I'd pick that one.
What would be?
How did you put it?
An overpivot in this regard?
Joshua Duffney (35:20):
An overpivot would probably be to try to
force my way into a softwareengineering role inside the Big
Tech, which has got a lot ofgates, you know, with the
engineering role, with coding,interviews and stuff, and try to
stress this is something thatI've done in the past, a very
familiar territory.
So if I were to overdo it thisis exactly what it would look
like is I would buy and it's notlike I already did this, but I
(35:45):
would buy a whole bunch ofsoftware engineering books and
then I would force myself to dolead code for like two to three
hours a day for six months andforce my way into a software
engineering role, not give anythought to what that role would
do or if I would enjoy thecoding that I was doing in that
role.
That would be kind of anexample of an overpivot in this
scenario.
Tim Bourguignon (36:05):
Makes a lot of sense.
I don't want to say being there, I don't know, but rings a bell
.
You mentioned teaching quite abit.
You, I know you've writtentechnical books.
You have created many courseson Perl site.
Do you know in-person teachingas well?
Joshua Duffney (36:29):
I used to do in-person teaching, more so when
I worked.
Well, I do some of it for worknow when I speak at conferences
or do workshops or like usergroups, but I did a lot more
when I worked in an office and Iwould do a lot of like lunch
and learn type stuff.
So I've done some in-person,but more of the in-person has
been informal.
Most of my instruction stuffhas been online and virtual.
Tim Bourguignon (36:51):
Okay, how did you, because you've been at it
for a while, how did you dealwith this?
Mostly going online, mostly notseeing people interact with
your content, mostly beingasynchronous and getting the
feedback, if at all, later andnot while they're experiencing
it, not being able to piggybackon sparkling eyes and saying,
(37:13):
hey, they start to get it.
Or seeing faces make grimacesand say, well, something is not
right.
I've got to jump in and add anew example to this.
I assume you had thisexperience before and then,
slowly, with the technicalwriting and the video and such
it, transitioned to thisdifferent kind.
Can you speak with that a bit?
(37:35):
Yeah?
Joshua Duffney (37:36):
So the teaching, it was a kind of a natural
extension because it's all Iknew.
To be honest, like I had donemy very first, we'll go all the
way back.
So that help desk job that Ihad.
My second project was toimplement a help desk system and
(37:56):
there was a free one calledSpiceworks.
So Spiceworks is still outthere.
I actually interviewed for themand almost moved to Austin.
So I was almost a Texan but Idecided to stay here for my
wife's families here.
But anyway, in that they havethis awesome community feature
where it's just a community ofeverybody uses the product or,
(38:16):
you know, you don't have to usethe product to have the software
or to have part of thecommunity, just log in.
It's this form, you know, likethe old school forms.
And I started to become kind ofa lurker on there really early
on because I didn't mind, myboss at the time Worked part
time so he was only there acouple days of the week.
He was a firefighter as well asthis like network administrator
(38:37):
, saw a lot of time.
I was just on my own to figurestuff out and I heavily relied
on the community, ask questions,found a lot of stuff that you
know.
Some more people had problemswith, and then I started to.
I have a feeling I need to giveback.
You know, like a reciprocity, astyle of a giver started to
emerge where I needed to.
(38:58):
I needed to give back because Ihad taken so much Knowledge
from this community and so Istarted to write up.
My project says how to is in thecommunity, and so I wrote my
very first one.
I was called windows Imaging.
Windows 7 with the fog projectsof the fog project is like an
open source imaging tool.
It's like insanely complicatedto install on Linux, and I had
(39:20):
like a semester on Linux.
I was like, okay, I at leastknow how to install.
You want to?
And so that's where it all kindof started and I started to
teach.
And when I got into the powershell in the scripting, a lot of
that was just, I started a blogand I started to put that out
there.
And eventually I was sitting ina class one day and I was, my
(39:42):
wife and I were starting aboutthinking about starting a family
and if she would keep her jobor not have her job, and so I
just started to ponder, like,what are some other ways that I
could have income and plus, Ihad just started like was just a
startup company at that timewas 2014, 2015.
And I talked to the instructorof this class as I was like,
what do I need to do to do whatyou're doing?
(40:03):
And he very bloody said he'slike I wouldn't do what I'm
doing.
I would do video courses islike I would reach out to To
play with site and do that.
and I just read the four hourwork week and which in bolded me
to just ask anybody anythingright and I was living by that
mantra, and so I reached out toone of my the people that I had
(40:25):
watched courses for for the SCCMthis is some center
configuration manager and hisname was Adam Bertram and he had
a Twitter profile.
So I just hit him up and waslike hey, how did you become a
plural site author?
And he's like I just talked tothis guy, his name's Adam Blake,
and so I went over to AdamBlake's Twitter profile, was
like hey, I become a plural siteauthor.
And they like, fill out this,this interview.
(40:47):
And funny thing was I don't knowif you know who he is, but Don
Jones, who's a big figure in thethe power shell space for many
years, started a conference andall that did the comfort circuit
for many years and that Endedup becoming a mentor of mine
later on.
But he was the one that did myaudition interview for plural
site.
Wow.
(41:07):
And so I had to do a demo offive minute thing of just like
what's your style, like how doyou present yourself, like how's
your speech, and I got thegreen light by just recording it
on my laptop microphone andended up investing in the gear
and you know finding technologyI was interested in and then
recording content on that.
Eventually it got to be toomuch to do with a small family
(41:31):
and a job, but I was able to.
I think I have like five totalcourses.
Only a couple of them are stillactive, but that's kind of how
that all.
Just they just came about.
Tim Bourguignon (41:40):
Yeah, this is awesome.
Did you imagine some pointpivoting, overpivoting, probably
toward just creating contentlike this?
Joshua Duffney (41:48):
I thought about it because I knew a lot of the
people were making way moremoney than I was with my full
time job doing that, but I justdidn't have enough steam to okay
to pivot over to that part ofit was, you know, I started a
family and I didn't like theprocess of being independent and
having to worry about healthcare and all that stuff, and so
that kind of kept me in andcheck.
And then I had some what reallyderailed it, what I had some
(42:11):
health issues in 2018.
That just made it impossible todo kind of like anything other
than just tread water, and so inthat, a lot of stuff just kind
of fell the way side and Extraquick, their activities was one
of them.
One of those things it mightcome back at some point.
Tim Bourguignon (42:27):
Never say never .
Yeah, we've talked a little bitabout the, about becoming more
senior right now in the past,but that's that's your.
Your your present now.
And if a junior came to you andasking the questions you were
asking your mentors now, isthere a piece of advice you
would give almost everyone andsay, hey, start there.
Joshua Duffney (42:51):
I would say the fact that you're reaching out is
you're gonna get an answer andyou're gonna be able to be
successful.
It's the people that don'treach out that are gonna remain
stuck and stay junior.
So just building your networkand talking to people, because
there's not gonna be any.
It's all contextual.
It's all situational, but ifyou can find the right people
that have been where you are,they'll help you through it.
(43:13):
So reaching out is that keypiece of advice is what I would
give to the juniors and I loveit.
Tim Bourguignon (43:21):
This is so true .
Thank you so much.
Thank you, josh.
It's been fantastic going onthis roller coaster of your life
and your activities and overpivoting and, but still falling
on both feet and having a bit ofa About this.
That is good.
Thank you so much for that.
You're very welcome.
Thank you for the time.
Where would be the best placeto find you online and continue
(43:43):
this discussion with you?
Joshua Duffney (43:45):
I'm most probably active on acts at Josh
Duffney.
That's my digital home for themost part.
Tim Bourguignon (43:52):
Okay, well, either a link directly to that,
and I guess we can find prettymuch you, we can find you pretty
much everywhere from there andfollow the tree, the branches of
the tree, absolutely anythingelse you want to plug in.
Joshua Duffney (44:05):
That's it.
That's it for me.
Yeah, I'm just on there sharingevery bit of this journey on
Twitter.
I try to be pretty transparentand show what I'm learning, what
I've missed, what I've failed.
So, yeah, hopefully see youthere.
Teaching still yeah, thank youso much.
Thank you very much, it's beena pleasure.
Tim Bourguignon (44:24):
And this has been another episode of the
first journey we see each othernext week 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
(44:45):
on on our website dev journeydot info slash, subscribe.
Talk to you soon.
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