March 19, 2024 • 44 mins
Meet Brit Myers, VP of Engineering at System Initiatives, who turned her late start into a celebrated career in software engineering. She swaps stories about the self-doubt she wrestled with, the internship that fueled her passion, and how she discovered that forging ahead and tempering expectations can unearth success. Brit's insights are a treasure trove for anyone standing before the maze of a tech career, searching for that elusive entry point or the next turn.
If you've ever wondered whether luck is something you can cultivate, let Brit and I guide you through the alchemy of reputation and opportunity. Brit tears down the traditional networking concept, advocating for a sincere interest in others as the cornerstone of meaningful industry relationships. She shares her battles with social anxiety and imparts the wisdom of a grandparent on meeting the expectations of those in charge to carve out a positive path forward.
Finally, we chart the rich tapestry of a tech career from the perspective of a math major who climbed the ladder to Associate VP of Cloud Engineering. Brit's story isn't just about career growth; it's a narrative that encompasses the humanity behind DevOps and the symbiosis between engineering and business prosperity. Her decision to pursue an executive MBA and the fulfillment found in empowering pioneers paints a picture of the tech world as a market and a complex, ever-evolving community where continuous learning is the most valued currency. Join us for a conversation that's as much about heart as it is about hard skills.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brit Myers (00:00):
doing.
Like those people aren't assmart as you think they might
like, or they are, and they makemistakes.
Like you will make mistakes.
Everybody makes mistakes.
Like cut yourself some slack,the expectations aren't that
high.
You have higher expectationsfor yourself and don't beat
yourself up.
And that has, like those havingsome of like those mantras or
like a talk track to sort oflike tone down my inner.
(00:21):
Like you can't do this, youshouldn't do this, you're not
qualified, you're.
You know, like the chatter thathappens in your brain.
It's like yeah, yeah, and thatperson wasn't qualified, and
then they did it and they rockedit and so why can't that happen
to you?
Like you can make that happen.
It's like, oh yeah, okay, I can.
So I think that that would bemy piece of advice is, the world
around you is not as perfect asit seems.
Nobody knows exactly what to doa hundred percent of the time.
(00:44):
The only thing to do is justkeep moving and just keep moving
forward and don't overthink it.
Tim Bourguignon (00:50):
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 a host team On this episode.
I receive Britt Myers.
Britt is the VP of engineeringat system initiatives and, more
broadly, she's a technologyleader with over a decade of
(01:12):
experience in the cloud andDevOps space, as well as a
scaling, high performingengineering teams.
Oh, and just to make it morefun, she recently completed an
executive MBA from theUniversity of Michigan.
What an idea, britt.
Why can't they have journey?
Brit Myers (01:29):
Thank you for having me, Tim.
Tim Bourguignon (01:30):
Happy beer, oh it's my pleasure and we have to
talk about this.
What, what was that for an idea?
A complete MBA, come on.
Brit Myers (01:38):
Yeah, it was probably not the greatest thing
to do, as I was expecting myfourth and in between jobs, but
you know I'm done.
Congratulations, thank you.
Tim Bourguignon (01:50):
But before we come to your story, I want to
thank the terrific listeners whosupport the show.
Every month you are keeping theDev journey 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 website,devjourneyinfo and click on the
(02:13):
support me on Patreon button.
Even the smallest contributionsare giant steps toward a
sustainable Dev journey journey.
Thank you, and now back totoday's guest.
So Britt.
As you know, the show exists tohelp the listeners understand
what your story looked like andimagine how to shape their own
future.
So, as is usual on the show,let's go back to your beginnings
(02:35):
.
Where would you place the startof your Dev journey?
Brit Myers (02:39):
Yeah, my start is, I think, probably later than
later than most.
You know I wasn't.
I was not really exposed to CSmuch well at all in high school.
I wasn't.
I wouldn't really classifymyself as a nerd.
Growing up I wasn't really intovideo games.
So for me it started in collegewhere I landed an internship at
(03:03):
a defense company here in theStates which showed me sort of
you know, leading up into thatinternship I had some exposure
to programming, basic concepts.
I understood the math I was amath major.
But what I'd never had sort ofgrasped until that internship
was connecting like the lines ofcode I was writing to the
impact of what's happening withthe service, of the product or
(03:25):
whatever I'm building, andhaving that feedback and seeing
that what I'm doing is not justsolving interesting logic
problems or, you know, sort ofexercising engineering curiosity
or creative curiosity.
It was like, oh, I'm writingthis code so that this problem
in the world is solved and thatwas like a light bulb that went
(03:46):
off that I haven't been able to,haven't been able to turn off
ever since.
Tim Bourguignon (03:52):
And it's really something that happens quite
often.
Until we see the reaction towhat we do, it's really hard to
really understand.
But many, many developersstarted with an app and finally
having an app on their own phoneand say, whoa, it's not just.
I did this, I built this with myhands and my fingertips, and
(04:12):
then I put my machine on my desk, you know, and it's not just in
the hell of a world on theconsole on my machine, it's
really something I'm using everyday and that's really the
mind-blowing moment.
I can really understand that.
So that was working with, orinternship with, the defense
contractor in the US.
Brit Myers (04:28):
Yeah, and you know at the time, college in the US
is incredibly expensive.
I had entered college as a mathmajor and, having that
internship, what I realized was,like this is what I want to do,
at least for my first job, andI wasn't thinking sort of for
the rest of my life.
But my goal is to land a job asa software engineer and I
(04:48):
basically oriented as much of myexposure and like coursework
for the remaining of my degreetowards that goal, without
changing majors, because by GodI did not want to pay for any
more years of college.
College is expensive.
Tim Bourguignon (05:02):
Okay, what was your major before?
Brit Myers (05:05):
I was math.
So I was.
I entered as a math major, Igraduated as a math major and
you know, part of my reason forbecoming a math major was I knew
I liked problem solving.
I knew I liked criticalthinking.
I didn't know what domain toapply that to and so my thought
was like, well, if I can provethat I'm smart by surviving this
math program, maybe somebodycan like tell me something to be
smart about.
(05:25):
You know, like show me theproblems to solve and give me
the tools to solve them.
And that internship sort ofgave me.
It, gave me that like, oh, Ican apply my skills here and,
you know, have this impact.
Tim Bourguignon (05:37):
Well, it worked all right, I guess.
Brit Myers (05:40):
Yeah, it's paid off so far.
Tim Bourguignon (05:43):
Yeah.
So how did you, from the momentyou realized, okay, this is
what I want to do now, how didyou approach the problem saying,
okay, what do I need to learn?
Where do I need to apply?
What skills can I value, as is,which ones do you learn?
Et cetera.
Brit Myers (05:58):
Yeah.
So I focused heavily on buildingmy CV.
So you know, I took any campusjob that had anything that I
could add to a resume that saidsomething programming, something
, software I took, you know,would find like side projects to
work on and, you know, create aportfolio to sort of evidence.
Because what I knew was that,applying for entry level jobs, I
(06:19):
knew that I'd be competingagainst people who have a
computer science undergrad orlike more direct academic
exposure to the domain, and so Ineeded to find a way to sort of
how can I compete with thosepeople for these jobs?
And so I just pursued workexperience and most of my
(06:40):
exposure was in this the defensejob I had, and then one of the
internships I landed at theuniversity.
It was this mix between mathand computer science and
software.
So it was never a veryconsumer-facing approach for me,
(07:00):
if that makes sense, and it wasmuch more leaning into the like
how vast of a background can Ibuild and how many different
things can I expose myself to toshow that I can think broadly,
I can learn quickly, and so, yes, I might not have the exact
experience you're looking for,but look at all this evidence
(07:21):
that I can teach myself and thatI can be good at the job
anyways, you know.
Tim Bourguignon (07:25):
For a long-term strategy, absolutely perfect.
Was it hard at the beginningfollowing this strategy?
Brit Myers (07:31):
It was hard and it was.
You know, I had to network alot.
Basically I had to find my wayin places, because that first
hurdle of you know if you've got, if there's a job posting and
there's, you know, 3,000applicants, 5,000 applicants,
even 500 applicants it's like Ihave pretty high confidence in
(07:53):
myself but stacked me up against499 other people I don't.
There are plenty of people inthis world smarter than me and
one of them maybe could haveapplied for this job in this
moment.
And so I networked a ton whichwas I don't know uncomfortable
and it felt a little bit strange, I think.
But you know, like therelationships that I was able to
build, I look really reflect onhaving a positive impact for me
(08:15):
in my career, and so I justsort of I latched on to that.
It's like, yes, obviously youneed to be able to do the job
and you need to be good at yourjob, but if people can know you
and they can want to work withyou also, then that was like the
icing on top that I needed andoftentimes like what sort of
pushed me over the edge in somesituations, where had I not have
(08:37):
done that and put in thateffort, I might not have gotten
the job, or I might not havegotten, you know, the call or
the foot in the door or whathave you.
So that was, you know it was.
It was a.
Really I learned a lesson.
That I learned, I think, quiteearly, is it's not like it's
about like building software andbuilding systems and running
systems is still as much aboutpeople as it ever was,
(08:59):
regardless of how far automationhas come, and I've just sort of
really never abandoned thatidea and leaned hard into the
people and the people side ofthings.
Tim Bourguignon (09:10):
Hell yeah, I've been facing the same problems
and it's never to take.
Brit Myers (09:17):
It's like yeah, you know, like computers are easy,
like people, like people arehard.
Tim Bourguignon (09:22):
Yep, yep.
I remember in college, themajor I was in had less and less
and less applicants year afteryear and at some point the, the,
the, the.
The professor leading the majorsaid hey, do you want to talk
to you to the younger students,I'll organize something.
And we talked to them for anhour and remember they were.
(09:45):
They were asking some dumbquestions and so at some point I
told them well, the techdoesn't matter, it's just, it's
just something that you learn.
And that was major I was in.
The tech doesn't matter, it'sjust something that you learn.
And in the end, it's justpeople stuff.
And I saw the face of theprofessor why You're here to
advertise a tech.
Brit Myers (10:04):
No, no, no.
We want them to come study thistech here right now and send us
the money for it.
Tim Bourguignon (10:08):
Exactly, but that was already something I had
darlily understood this peopleproblem.
What did you mean exactly whenyou said your networked a lot,
especially from the point ofview of not yet major or just
yeah, I was.
Brit Myers (10:27):
I was still an undergrad, you know I I don't
all all of the sort ofplatitudes of like I engaged
with the alumni network, so Iwas a collegiate athlete and I
like heavily resourced the womenbasketball players, alumni, to
sort of get to know them andunderstand their paths and
understand sort of their journeywithin, like on campus,
(10:48):
building relationships withprofessors, with faculty, to
understand, like, what theirconcerns are, what opportunities
they're seeing.
You know, I was able to, youknow everything from.
Oh, I, you know, was a TA forthis class and they paid, you
know, at the time this was likean insane amount of money for a
college student to grade papers.
It was like 20 bucks an hour tograde papers.
(11:09):
You know, however, long ago,which would minimum wage a seven
, it was like whoa, you know,and I only ever would have done
that if, like I, showed anactive interest and built this
relationship and so, when theopportunity came up, my name was
in top of mind, you know.
And so like there.
There are sort of like phrasesthat I've later learned in my
career, that I've latched ontothat I didn't have at the time.
(11:32):
But you know, one example islike having your name spoken in
rooms you're not in in apositive light, like the more,
like the more things you can doso that that situation happens.
More is like that's a goodthing and it's like effectively
what I was doing.
I just didn't really know it bythat name.
And then, yeah, you know, it'slike you meet somebody and you
(11:54):
hear about a thing and you knowyou try not to say no to events.
You know, try to just say yes.
And the other sort of phrasethat sticks with me that you
know I use with my kids a lot islike there is so much of life
that is just luck, like it isjust right place, right time.
And what my goal was was tojust maximize the chance, the
(12:18):
probability that I was in theright place at the right time,
you know.
And so if the question was likeah, is there anything in this?
For me it's like, well, isthere like will this be harmful?
You know, is this going to likedetract from what I'm doing?
And if the answer was in anobvious no, then that means,
therefore, there's a chance thatthat could be the right place
at the right time, where I meetthe one person to do the thing
(12:40):
and so much of my career hasbeen this, you know, been a
product of that happenstancewhere I can point at moments in
time and I can arguably say Ibusted my ass to get there and
also it was the right place atthe right time.
And something I had no controlover was the thing that also was
needed, you know, forsituations to work out the way
(13:01):
that they did, and so it's.
You know you have to.
I'm an extrovert, I'm veryoutgoing, but I do have a ton of
social anxiety, like showing upto, like networking events,
like it's incredibly still thisday, like incredibly
uncomfortable.
I have to like talk myself intoit every time, and part of the
talk track every time is, youknow that this has resulted in
(13:22):
good things, like just go do it,you know.
Tim Bourguignon (13:27):
It's the second time I think about this book
this week and I didn't researchthe name.
I completely forgot about it.
It was basically describingthat luck is not just a factor
of luck but being prepared forit and being ready for it.
And they had some, some, somemembers behind it, some studies
showing that basically companycompanies they were focusing on
(13:48):
companies less, less on people.
Companies that experiencedlucky moments actually didn't
have more lucky moments than theothers.
They were just able to leveragethem more than the others.
And so what you're describing isgetting ready for it is having
gone the moves and being thereand, when the lucky moments
appears, being able to recognizeit and grasp it.
Brit Myers (14:09):
Precisely yeah.
Tim Bourguignon (14:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that, yeah, I love
that, that's, that's, that'sexactly it, exactly yeah.
I love how you started thisanswer saying well, um, go to
people, go to your TA professorsand understand their concerns
and that's something that I'vebeen hearing um often is
networking.
It's not about you, it's reallystarting about the others, your
concerns, their interests.
(14:31):
You're nodding heavily rightnow.
Brit Myers (14:33):
Yes, yes, yes, I, I this is something my grandfather
actually uh, taught this to melike very young.
Like you'd always say, whetherit's you know as a child, when,
like, kids have often have solittle control over what's
happening in their lives, right,it's like you have to go to
school, there's all these rules,the schedule is out of their
control, the menus are often outof their control.
(14:55):
It's like there's all thesedetails in moments where
children, they just have to deal, you know, and then the path is
laid for them or the decisionsare made and, uh, focusing on
what you can control toinfluence what the path is going
forward, like that was.
That was just something mygrandfather like really drilled
home for me, which is, let's sayyou have a teacher and let's
say you hate this teacher likeyou.
(15:16):
Just, you don't like theirstyle, they're not working for
you, you think they're maybe alittle bit too mean or, you know
, passive, aggressive, whatever.
None of that matters.
What matters is that teacherhas some control over you, that
you don't aka your grade, and soif you can just figure out what
that teacher wants and this isthis, is he's telling me to this
as a child if you can figureout what the teacher wants and
(15:39):
give it to them, you'll pass theclass.
Like nine times out of 10,you'll pass the class.
And so some teachers are, youknow, professors in college.
It's sometimes it's, you know,being willing to show up to
office hours or like asking forextra help or being proactive in
helping other students.
Or sometimes teachers reallyhate that like don't help the
other students.
They want them to struggle andlearn how to struggle and learn
(16:00):
how to learn and get through it.
And every teacher, every sortof like authority figure, if you
will, has something slightlydifferent about them.
And if you can understand whatthat is and learn what they want
and what they appreciate andwhat they value, figure out a
way to give it to them, nothingbut good things will happen.
Like that is, it is just arecipe that will just result in
good things, and I think it'slike very similar to what what
(16:21):
you're describing, which is whenyou network, part of what
you're doing is you're lookingfor ways that this person can
help you, but you have toacknowledge they don't want to
help you for the sake ofthemselves.
Like, what did they're?
They're there for a reason too.
You know they have problems,they have concerns, and so, as
much as you can make thatbi-directional and as early as
you can figure that out like,the better it's going to be.
(16:41):
And it you know that applies toteachers, it applies to parents
to some degree, although maybeit shouldn't so much.
But bosses, teammates, you knowindirect bosses, skip levels,
your product managers, yourproject managers, right, like
all of those roles, they havesome amount of control that you
(17:01):
don't have.
Figure out what they need to do, figure out what's important to
them and help them get there,and everything will be better if
you just follow that, if youjust follow that path.
Tim Bourguignon (17:12):
Is it something , oh hell, yes first.
Is it something that is in yourguts now and you do it?
You do it by default.
Or is it something that youverbalize and that you have to
do with new connections and whenyou face problems?
Brit Myers (17:25):
I think it's pretty.
I think it's pretty defaultbecause I you know, we in the
pre-call we were talking, and,like you, talk, about influence
and influencing others, andthere's a, there's a spin on
that word influence, which islike manipulation, right, and I
think, I think what the instinctthat I have tuned is like how
(17:46):
to influence the situations thatI'm in to have the outcomes
that I want.
And so that part has becomemore natural, because because I
I don't know, I suppose I try towant the right things.
I, you know, like I try to wantthe things that are better for
everybody to some degree, youknow, and so that that part
comes natural, and and the partthat I, the part that I do, you
(18:10):
know, overtly or sort ofexplicitly talk through, is when
I'm building that relationship.
It's it, it does.
It has to be bi-directional,you know, and so I have to be
open and authentic andtransparent with the person,
because nobody wants to be sold,nobody wants to be manipulated.
You know, it's like the logical,the negative logical conclusion
(18:30):
of what I'm describing is areally awful person doing really
awful things selfishly, andthat's not at all what I'm, not
at all what I'm getting at.
And so it, if I start with thisinstinct and then I approach it
authentically with a person tobuild a relationship like it
just I don't.
I've found that people can,they can see through more than
you realize and so it just I.
(18:51):
Yeah, if you, if you take ittoo far, it just it is.
As soon as it becomes notauthentic, it fails.
I suppose I don't know that Iexactly answered your question,
but it was a hard question toanswer it was no, you did
fantastic.
Tim Bourguignon (19:12):
Let's let's roll back a little bit.
We went on this networkingtangent, which was fantastic,
but how did you enter then thethe industry being a math major
with a lot of CV drivenbuzzwords on your resume?
How was that?
How did that go?
Brit Myers (19:27):
Yeah, I, I.
So I went to college in I'mfrom Cleveland, where I still
live now Cleveland, ohio.
I went to college in Pittsburgh, pennsylvania, which is just a
short two hour drive, and at thetime when I graduated I had a
long term college boyfriend.
And so the question was like amI moving home and getting
married and having kids or am Inot?
(19:50):
And sort of the not.
The other was like this openvastness of like I don't know
anything ever in the world.
I guess I could be, you know,like what do I want to be when I
grow up?
And I'm in Cleveland with fourkids and my then long term
boyfriend is now my husband.
So I basically targetedCleveland, the Cleveland market
for jobs, and leveraged you knowI talked to everybody that I
(20:12):
could, that I knew in sort ofthe Cleveland network that I had
, and to branch out to just likewhat are the companies?
You know I Googled it what arethe companies to work for in
Cleveland?
Who's hiring software engineersand what are the company's
cultures like?
And so I started from sort oflike city then to company and
then I'd picked a few companiesand like, okay, these are
companies I think I want to workfor and I applied through the
(20:35):
websites to all of them and mostof them I say I don't know.
Maybe I think I will list downto like five companies.
Three of the five companies Ilike I hadn't in, so like I knew
somebody who like used to workthere or does work there or what
.
Have you interviewed them?
You know?
Call like hey, can you connectme to?
(20:56):
Like oh, I heard your brotherworks, worked for this company.
Can I meet him?
Can I talk to him, you know?
So I had some phone calls withpeople like what are they
looking for in the interview andlike what are the things that
they value and how do I know ifit's going well and try to get
you know.
Obviously this was now there'slike website, like Glassdoor
didn't exist then.
In this way, you know, you canget this information online.
Now.
I couldn't get it online thenand so met as many people as I
(21:19):
could and, ironically enough,the people, the companies that I
applied to, the jobs I appliedto, where I knew somebody, those
were the ones I had callbacksfrom and those are the ones I
had and the ones that I did notknow anybody I didn't get
callbacks from.
So I don't know that's like asample size of one.
I don't know.
You know correlation versuscausation.
But yeah, I ended up taking thejob that I ended up spending
(21:45):
you know, almost a decade atthat job that I first got in
Cleveland.
I was there for a very longtime and it was amazing.
But I, you know, I could lookback from that moment and think
like, okay, if I wouldn't havedone this, this wouldn't have
happened.
If I wouldn't have done this,this wouldn't have happened, you
know like there's a bit of likea butterfly effect that I do,
which is like was it worth it?
Like I'm working really hard,was all of this worth it?
(22:07):
And like, yes, yes, it has beenworth it.
Tim Bourguignon (22:10):
As the Frenchman living in Germany who
met his wife in Chicago workingfor Siemens in an internship, I
can relate a little bit.
Oh boy, so you stayed 10 yearswith the same company.
How did your role evolve duringthis time?
Brit Myers (22:30):
It evolved like crazy.
So, and part of why I stayedfor 10 years is it was just so
much fun.
I was working alongside amazingpeople solving awesome problems
and like the company hadchanged so much it was like
while I was there for a decadeit was almost like I had worked
for like five or six differentcompanies over the course of
(22:50):
that time because of how vastthe projects were or how fast
the sort of changes were andevolutions in the company.
So you know, I started on ateam of three as a junior
software developer was my titleand by the time I left I was the
associate vice president ofcloud engineering and managing
over 200 engineers around theworld and all the cloud native
(23:12):
sort of development teams.
So like that was the trajectoryof like the company.
You know, like when I startedthey had maybe a little less
than like around a thousandemployees total, but it was a 20
plus year old company, softwareB2B company.
And you know, over the course ofmy career, by the time I left
the company had 4,000 employeesand numerous product lines and
(23:34):
tons of acquisitions and it wasjust a you know every few years
that it was a whole.
Like I said, it was like awhole new company and it was
just.
It was fun, it was engaging, Ilearned so, so much.
I had amazing mentors.
Yeah, it was.
I did not expect to stay therethat long.
When I applied, you know, I didnot expect to stay there that
(23:56):
long.
Even just like after my firstyear, it was like, yeah, you
know, this is fun, this will becool, these people are nice.
I'll stay a few years and thenfind the next thing.
You know, as most people my agedid, then I didn't end up doing
that.
Tim Bourguignon (24:09):
Well, not to shabby anyway.
So do you remember when you,when you transitioned from an
individual contributor role to amanagement role?
Brit Myers (24:19):
Yeah, I, I'm sure they think years I'm so bad at
years Um, so I mentioned Istarted on a small team and that
team that I started on I becamethe team lead of and that was
sort of you know, at the time itwasn't, it wasn't a tech lead,
it was a team lead, and so itwas, you know, all of the sort
(24:39):
of career growth,responsibilities, with none of
the hiring and firing and money,salary side, right, um, and so
that really gave me a taste ofyou know, the impact, like the
transition you have to make whengoing from an individual
contributor to some form of likeexplicit leadership, like one
of the things I had to learn waslike how to let go and how to
(25:01):
find the same sort of likesatisfaction, not from using my
hands on the keyboard all day,you know, 10 hours a day, five
days a week or whatever you know.
Um, and that was hard at firstbecause you have this identity
crisis of like, well, wait asecond, like I, I have learned
all, I've learned the skill,I've honed the skill and you
(25:23):
hire me to do the skill and nowI'm not using, I'm not doing
this quite so much anymore.
What am I even doing here, likeyou know, like I'd have more
days than not where.
It's like how, what did I evendo today?
You know, like what?
What is it that you say thatyou do here?
It's like, well, I talked to alot of people, I helped some
people through some stuff, wehad some planning conversations,
you know, and like it took, ittook a while for that to feel
like work.
(25:43):
And even you know, this is aconversation we have with the
team a ton which is even evenstill it's hard, it's hard to
like innately feel that as work,but it is so much of the work
because it's all of thoseinteractions, all of that, like
everything about that has Canhave either a negative, positive
or neutral effect on theoutcomes that you're trying to
(26:05):
give right.
And so it's like, when youthink of it in that perspective,
like yeah, it's work, andsometimes it doesn't feel like
it, but it is, and that that wasprobably one of the more harsh
I don't know Lessons that Ilearned, so to speak.
Tim Bourguignon (26:19):
Is this direction you wanted to go, or
where you pushed, or did youstumble in there?
I?
Brit Myers (26:25):
I don't, I didn't explicitly want it in terms of
like I did not.
So, like the internship that Ihad in college and like the Sort
of exposure, like the workexperience I had, none of that
was in.
Like a large organization witha team and a management
structure and a hierarchy ofmanagers, right, like none of
none of that existed, or atleast it didn't exist in a way
that, like I, I acknowledgedthat it was a reality.
(26:47):
You know, like it was sort ofopaque to me and so, from that
perspective, there wasn't thislike, oh, I worked for this
great engineering manager and sowhat I want to be when I grew
up is like, just like thatperson.
Like I didn't have that, but IAlways have sort of like
naturally gravitated towardsleadership roles.
You know, if you think likeGirl Scouts as a kid, or you
(27:09):
know, like basketball teams,like who's like who wants to be
the team captain, like I wouldbe, I want to be the team
captain and I wanted to have apositive influence on Other
people.
So, like, from that perspective, like I had, like my instincts
said, leadership.
But but what was this black boxis like?
But I don't actually know whatleadership is like.
I don't, I don't know, I don'tknow the ends, I don't know the
outs, I don't know the politics,I don't even know what factors
(27:30):
say whether or not you'd be goodor bad, like I had no semblance
of that and so because of that,I didn't have, I didn't have it
sort of the.
The title on my resume in thefuture, with the year, is like
this is my goal, not, not atthat point, and it was.
You know, part of it was therewas a vacuum, you know, somebody
got promoted and so my boss gotpromoted and there was an
(27:51):
opening and it's like, oh, do Iwant it?
It's like, well, would it bebad for me?
You know, I kind of go back tothe like will it be?
Well, it will be bad for mycareer if I take this and I
thought, no, I mean, this wouldnot be a bad move for my career.
I'm either gonna love it or I'mgonna hate it, and if I hate it
I just won't do it anymore.
And now I'll know that's notthe path for me, you know.
And so I just sort of like usethe same thing that I've used my
(28:13):
whole life, which is there's aneed and I think I could be good
at it and I'm gonna build therelationships and try to do the
best I can to make my boss happyand make him look good.
You know, and and I took it andyou know, was given the job.
Tim Bourguignon (28:27):
And it's been ten years you must be doing
something right.
So when you move to from oneone job to the other so I have
your, your LinkedIn open and andyou have had quite a Few
leadership positions orexecutive positions in the past
years what do you look for in ain a next position?
(28:48):
What is kind of your algorithmto vet a position and decide if
you want to get there,especially with the, the, the
point of view of having led a200 you said 200 engineer team
as a very beginning or at theend of this tenure tenure?
What could you be looking forin in the next job?
Brit Myers (29:08):
Yeah, I.
So it's a lot like individualcontributors in the, in the, in
the like Culture side.
So culture is important, likefor me, it's incredibly
important.
You know there are, there areways that I believe this work
should be done and if I work forsomebody or with other people
(29:30):
who have like too drasticallydifferent of this like ideal
state of like how the job getsdone, I know I won't thrive, I
know I won't be successful andI'm, you know, setting myself up
for these like ideologicalchallenges.
So you know, the, the culturalfit for me is like a combination
of like ideologies andmanagement ideologies in I don't
(29:52):
know, like the socio-technicalimpact ideologies, like
similarities in approach, likethose, those things I look for
now and those were things that I, like I had to sort of like
through my management, whatevergrowth chart, whatever, like
(30:16):
these were things I had to learnabout myself, about like what,
what works, what doesn't work,like how will it work best and
how won't it, and so like all ofthose, all of those rows to the
top for me, and so Especiallylike where I am.
You know, I'm in my early 30s, Ijust got an MBA.
Like I am in, I Want to grow, Iwant to learn and I want to
(30:38):
have an impact, and so you know,I look for Like in where I
landed system initiative.
It's like I was looking for ateam of leaders that I could
both contribute to and learnfrom.
You know that there were thingsthat I had, that it would be
like a net value add to the team, and that there were things I
could take away and growpersonally, and that was that
(31:01):
was.
That was yeah, that was a bigthing for me.
And the second piece is I Ineed to feel passionate about
what we're building.
So, like, whatever the businessmodel is, whatever whoever the
purchaser is on the end of thetable, like it has to, like I
want I want it to have apositive impact.
(31:22):
You know I'm not, it's there,were, there have been plenty of
jobs that I've turned down, thatwere more money, that were in a
Vertical or in an area thatit's like I just you know, like
I'm not gonna put my heart intothis because I just don't care.
You know this isn't a space,this isn't a problem I think is
worth solving, or you know, likeit's not gonna keep me waking
up, excited to come to work inthe morning, like I need.
(31:44):
I need to feel good about thework isn't, and this is like a
you know I'm, I'm not a I Don'tknow how to describe it I'm not
a purist in.
I have these values and so I'monly going to go look, for, you
know, I'm only going to look forcompanies that build tools in
this space or like solving thisproblem.
(32:06):
It's more like, can Iunderstand the approach they're
taking, can I understand thecustomers we're trying to sell
to, and and do I want to helpwith that mission?
You know I do, I want to do it,and that was that's the other
piece that you know for, like,if you look at my LinkedIn, like
I've never worked for aconsumer's Product, I've never
worked B2B, and so part and partof that is for this reason of
(32:28):
like, I love the idea ofBuilding something that lets
customers, you know it, letsother companies do better things
.
You know it's, I think, thisamplifying effect and I love the
amplifying effect, and so, evenas I look, I'm pretty focused.
You know, b2b, I didn't.
I did not consider effectivelyany other, any other sort of
(32:49):
like software, softwarecompanies.
For that reason, Looking methrough lens of the amplifying
effect, being in cloud andDevOps is kind of Really
amplifying it is, and it's funny, like that even is that's a,
it's an accident that this isthe space that I have fallen
(33:09):
most in love with, and by that Imean, you know, throughout my
time at that first job.
We just I like I just ran facedfirst into DevOps out of pure
Like we have a problem to solveand like how can I solve this
problem?
You know, and the problem atfirst was we're planning in too
big of chunks and we're projectmanaging and All of these
(33:33):
features that the team isbuilding, none of them are being
used.
That doesn't feel like.
That's not, it's just itdoesn't feel like nobody feels
good when that happens, and soit's like okay, so something
we're wrong about, somethinglike how can we be more right?
How can we build things thatpeople actually want, you know?
And so what I thought was aSort of scoping problem, I'm
(33:53):
like ah, maybe it's an agileproblem, you know, maybe we're
just planning too big and maybewe're not taking you know we're
having the right conversations,we're not talking about problems
that we're trying to solve inthe right way.
And so I approached it from avery like process.
Like our process isn't workingbecause the outputs of the
process is features that arebeing used.
And so I experimented a lot totry to solve that problem of
(34:14):
process, and I got to a placewhere I'm like man, I'm really
proud of this product, likeeverything, looking at this
process, like it should work.
Why isn't it working?
And it's like, oh well, it'snot working because it takes us
six weeks to deploy toproduction.
So, even if the scope of thework is a two-week chunk of
experimental AB like if I'mgoing to feature, flag a feature
(34:37):
and ship it to production andsee if they want it before we
commit what was happening waswe'd spend two weeks building
something, six weeks trying todeploy it, two or three weeks
fixing things as it went wrong.
And now it was like oh so howdid that two-week experiment go?
Like, how is the new littlebutton?
And it was just so far apart sothat you can see how the story
(35:00):
ends with like, and then DevOps,because why does it take that
long and why does it go wrong sooften?
And so it was purely from this,like I just want to have a
better outcome.
I want my engineers to feelfulfilled, I want them to be
happy, I want them to be proudof the work that they're doing,
because the more proud theycould be, the better work that
they do, the more that they grow.
You know, it's like it's goodfor everybody and I ended up
(35:23):
just right in DevOps and nowit's been impossible to not see
problems as DevOps problems sortof ever since, which is, you
know, we, the feedback loops aretoo long, you can't collect.
You know it's like there's allof these things and engineering
leadership is well positionedand it is our job as managers to
(35:43):
solve these problems, becausethis is these.
You know, like that's the jobdescription.
It's like removing theroadblocks and what have you.
So, yeah, it was an accident andI'm like just so happy because
I just I love the space, I lovethe people and these problems.
(36:03):
It doesn't matter what size ofcompany you are, it doesn't
matter you know what country youlive in or what your product is
Like.
These are like ubiquitousproblems.
And so back to that amplifyingeffect.
It's like, ooh, if we can solvethese problems, think about the
impact we can have.
You know.
Tim Bourguignon (36:19):
It is it's exciting.
It is indeed Coming back to theexact example you gave.
Do you think that what is oftensold as the, the promise of
DevOps hitting for those maybeDora metrics or whichever you
call them, really shorteningcycles, focusing on less, a
(36:41):
measurable amount of issues, etcetera, would solve the problem,
the process problems you hadbefore?
Brit Myers (36:50):
I don't think so.
I don't, I don't.
Well, I think that they canhelp tell you what they can.
I think all of what you justdescribed can give you signals
to like what the problems are tosolve.
So I don't think that theanswer is in like, ah, if you,
just if I could release on adime, does that mean that I'm
printing money?
(37:10):
No, but if I can't release iton a dime, the likelihood that
you can prevent money like isprobably way lower.
Right, and so I see all of thoseas like enabling, is enabling
factors to get to the rootproblem for our industry, which
is just the product development.
Like that it's and it's it'snot the problem.
(37:30):
That is the business, thebusinesses like who can create
the best product and thenexecute on delivering it and
maintaining it over time, andlike that thought process and
that sort of that space iscompany building, it's product
building, it's.
You know that's not a softwareproblem, that's just business.
You know, is the business valid?
Is it business viable?
(37:51):
Am I building something thatpeople want?
Are they willing to spend moneyon it?
Like those are the questionsthat are the hardest to answer,
but all of these things end upbeing in the way of getting that
answer and giving us falsesignals or giving us you know
false hope.
Potentially, if it goes, youknow you can have you know
signals that say, hey, we'rereally great in this area.
Until you know it's like 90% ofthe time it works, 80% of the
(38:14):
time, but 5% of the time itblows up 100% you know like you
end up with all these situationswhere the answer to everything
is it depends.
And I think we really need tolike, think about how we
approach the space in terms oflike, is it just tweaking these
knobs to be faster on these,like in between steps, or is it
(38:35):
actually like we're looking atthe system fundamentally wrong?
And if you looked at the systemdifferently, like what could be
possible, if, and that line ofthinking is much more fun than
the other, much more risky, butit is much more fun to sort of
approach things from that way.
And you know, as you know,startups kind of give you the
(38:56):
exact sort of expectation that,like, that is what you're
expected to do, is, you know,think in those ways, which is
just, which is so fun, which isso fun.
Tim Bourguignon (39:05):
He meant to that.
Is it the kind of thinking thatled you to explore in an MBA or
following an MBA?
Brit Myers (39:12):
Sort of.
So I, in going back to what wetalked about in terms of, like,
being in the right place at theright time and are you ready?
The MBA for me was more in thatlike, will I be ready?
And what I know is that I likeleading.
What I know is that I likeexecuting.
(39:33):
You know, I'm not necessarilythe idea person myself, like I
wouldn't say I'm not the serialentrepreneur, like, yes, I have
interesting ideas, but like,most of them I think, are
garbage.
But what I love to do is workwith somebody who has amazing
ideas that, like, everybodythinks are amazing ideas, and
then, like, help them do it andthen help figure out, like what
the way is right.
So if I run with that as sort ofone of my strengths and
(39:55):
something that I really enjoydoing is, you know, partnering
up with creative folks andhelping to solve the problems
that they see and the ways thatthey see it will I at some point
be in a situation where theinformation that I will have
learned through a grad schoolprogram gives me, like, more
context and more confidence in,like the decision-making process
(40:17):
?
You know?
So it was on that lens, andthen the other side was just,
none of this matters and, likein today's society, none of it
matters unless it makes money,which is like an unfortunate
part of the game, but it's thegame we all play and I want to
win the game.
So there's an element of like,if I can learn the game and
(40:37):
speak the language of the game,which is speak the language of
business, that I am, like again,best positioned to win the game
that we all have to play, evenif we don't want to, you know.
Tim Bourguignon (40:48):
I fully understand, don't have an MBA,
but a couple of years of startupunder my belt, which is kind of
exactly the opposite, but thesame thing.
Brit Myers (40:59):
Yeah, well, and that was the other calculus for me
too, it's like all of what Ilearned, you know, all of what I
learned.
There are lots of ways to learnthat information, and part of
the degree for me and part of,like, the school that I went to
was okay, yeah, I need to learnthis information.
But what if, like, in theprocess of learning it, I build
these amazing relationships andmeet some people who, like I,
(41:20):
want to be in my inner circleand I want to be in my network,
and that was like a huge part ofit too, which, like, is like
just, I don't know, you know,it's like a plus one.
Tim Bourguignon (41:35):
We're back to networking.
Brit Myers (41:36):
there Back to networking, yeah, yeah.
Tim Bourguignon (41:40):
That's fantastic.
Sticking to networking andmaybe to mentoring or helping
younger developers.
Is there some kind of advicethat you give again and again?
Brit Myers (41:52):
Yeah, I, you know, as many people in the industry
do.
I'm somebody who suffered fromextreme impostor syndrome and
the thing that has helped me isjust reminding myself that, like
nobody actually really knowswhat they're doing.
Like those people aren't assmart as you think they might
like, or they are, and they makemistakes.
(42:14):
Like you will make mistakes,everybody makes mistakes.
Like, cut yourself some slack,the expectations aren't that
high.
You have higher expectationsfor yourself and don't beat
yourself up.
And that has like those havingsome of like those mantras or
like a talk track to sort oflike tone down my inner.
Like you can't do this, youshouldn't do this, you're not
qualified, you're, you know,like the chatter that happens in
your brain, it's like yeah,yeah, and that person wasn't
(42:36):
qualified, and then they did itand they rocked it, and so why
can't that happen to you?
Like you can make that happen.
It's like, oh, yeah, okay, Ican.
So I think that that would bemy piece of advice is don't.
The world around you is not asperfect as it seems.
Nobody knows exactly what to do100% of the time.
The only thing to do is justkeep moving and just keep moving
(42:58):
forward and don't overthink it.
That would be, that would be myadvice.
Tim Bourguignon (43:03):
And thank you for that, Not just for the show
but also the personal note.
I'm right in the middle of a360.
And so that's also good to hear, I can tell you.
But it's been fantastic.
Thank you so much for this role.
Brit Myers (43:17):
Thank you for having me.
This is great, this was awesome, that was cool.
Tim Bourguignon (43:20):
Where would be the best place to continue this
discussion with you?
Brit Myers (43:22):
Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn.
I'll send you the link.
I do have a Twitter or whateverX handle, but it's not very
active.
I would say you know, if you'reinterested in sort of exploring
more of the likesocio-technical conversation or
like more specific conversations.
Sysminitiative has a discordwith a bunch of sort of devops,
focused folks and peoplepassionate about the space.
(43:44):
Would love to have you come popin there and have some
interesting conversations aswell.
Tim Bourguignon (43:49):
And we'll add all those links in the show
notes.
So just scroll down and clickon it and you'll be right there.
Anything else you want to playin?
Brit Myers (43:55):
No, no, thank you so much, this was so fun.
Tim Bourguignon (43:58):
Fantastic.
Thanks to you, and this hasbeen another episode of the
First Journey.
I will see each other next week, bye, bye.
doing.
Like those people aren't assmart as you think they might
like, or they are, and they makemistakes.
Like you will make mistakes.
Everybody makes mistakes.
Like cut yourself some slack,the expectations aren't that
high.
You have higher expectationsfor yourself and don't beat
yourself up.
And that has, like those havingsome of like those mantras or
like a talk track to sort oflike tone down my inner.
(00:21):
Like you can't do this, youshouldn't do this, you're not
qualified, you're.
You know, like the chatter thathappens in your brain.
It's like yeah, yeah, and thatperson wasn't qualified, and
then they did it and they rockedit and so why can't that happen
to you?
Like you can make that happen.
It's like, oh yeah, okay, I can.
So I think that that would bemy piece of advice is, the world
around you is not as perfect asit seems.
Nobody knows exactly what to doa hundred percent of the time.
(00:44):
The only thing to do is justkeep moving and just keep moving
forward and don't overthink it.
Tim Bourguignon (00:50):
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 a host team On this episode.
I receive Britt Myers.
Britt is the VP of engineeringat system initiatives and, more
broadly, she's a technologyleader with over a decade of
(01:12):
experience in the cloud andDevOps space, as well as a
scaling, high performingengineering teams.
Oh, and just to make it morefun, she recently completed an
executive MBA from theUniversity of Michigan.
What an idea, britt.
Why can't they have journey?
Brit Myers (01:29):
Thank you for having me, Tim.
Tim Bourguignon (01:30):
Happy beer, oh it's my pleasure and we have to
talk about this.
What, what was that for an idea?
A complete MBA, come on.
Brit Myers (01:38):
Yeah, it was probably not the greatest thing
to do, as I was expecting myfourth and in between jobs, but
you know I'm done.
Congratulations, thank you.
Tim Bourguignon (01:50):
But before we come to your story, I want to
thank the terrific listeners whosupport the show.
Every month you are keeping theDev journey 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 website,devjourneyinfo and click on the
(02:13):
support me on Patreon button.
Even the smallest contributionsare giant steps toward a
sustainable Dev journey journey.
Thank you, and now back totoday's guest.
So Britt.
As you know, the show exists tohelp the listeners understand
what your story looked like andimagine how to shape their own
future.
So, as is usual on the show,let's go back to your beginnings
(02:35):
.
Where would you place the startof your Dev journey?
Brit Myers (02:39):
Yeah, my start is, I think, probably later than
later than most.
You know I wasn't.
I was not really exposed to CSmuch well at all in high school.
I wasn't.
I wouldn't really classifymyself as a nerd.
Growing up I wasn't really intovideo games.
So for me it started in collegewhere I landed an internship at
(03:03):
a defense company here in theStates which showed me sort of
you know, leading up into thatinternship I had some exposure
to programming, basic concepts.
I understood the math I was amath major.
But what I'd never had sort ofgrasped until that internship
was connecting like the lines ofcode I was writing to the
impact of what's happening withthe service, of the product or
(03:25):
whatever I'm building, andhaving that feedback and seeing
that what I'm doing is not justsolving interesting logic
problems or, you know, sort ofexercising engineering curiosity
or creative curiosity.
It was like, oh, I'm writingthis code so that this problem
in the world is solved and thatwas like a light bulb that went
(03:46):
off that I haven't been able to,haven't been able to turn off
ever since.
Tim Bourguignon (03:52):
And it's really something that happens quite
often.
Until we see the reaction towhat we do, it's really hard to
really understand.
But many, many developersstarted with an app and finally
having an app on their own phoneand say, whoa, it's not just.
I did this, I built this with myhands and my fingertips, and
(04:12):
then I put my machine on my desk, you know, and it's not just in
the hell of a world on theconsole on my machine, it's
really something I'm using everyday and that's really the
mind-blowing moment.
I can really understand that.
So that was working with, orinternship with, the defense
contractor in the US.
Brit Myers (04:28):
Yeah, and you know at the time, college in the US
is incredibly expensive.
I had entered college as a mathmajor and, having that
internship, what I realized was,like this is what I want to do,
at least for my first job, andI wasn't thinking sort of for
the rest of my life.
But my goal is to land a job asa software engineer and I
(04:48):
basically oriented as much of myexposure and like coursework
for the remaining of my degreetowards that goal, without
changing majors, because by GodI did not want to pay for any
more years of college.
College is expensive.
Tim Bourguignon (05:02):
Okay, what was your major before?
Brit Myers (05:05):
I was math.
So I was.
I entered as a math major, Igraduated as a math major and
you know, part of my reason forbecoming a math major was I knew
I liked problem solving.
I knew I liked criticalthinking.
I didn't know what domain toapply that to and so my thought
was like, well, if I can provethat I'm smart by surviving this
math program, maybe somebodycan like tell me something to be
smart about.
(05:25):
You know, like show me theproblems to solve and give me
the tools to solve them.
And that internship sort ofgave me.
It, gave me that like, oh, Ican apply my skills here and,
you know, have this impact.
Tim Bourguignon (05:37):
Well, it worked all right, I guess.
Brit Myers (05:40):
Yeah, it's paid off so far.
Tim Bourguignon (05:43):
Yeah.
So how did you, from the momentyou realized, okay, this is
what I want to do now, how didyou approach the problem saying,
okay, what do I need to learn?
Where do I need to apply?
What skills can I value, as is,which ones do you learn?
Et cetera.
Brit Myers (05:58):
Yeah.
So I focused heavily on buildingmy CV.
So you know, I took any campusjob that had anything that I
could add to a resume that saidsomething programming, something
, software I took, you know,would find like side projects to
work on and, you know, create aportfolio to sort of evidence.
Because what I knew was that,applying for entry level jobs, I
(06:19):
knew that I'd be competingagainst people who have a
computer science undergrad orlike more direct academic
exposure to the domain, and so Ineeded to find a way to sort of
how can I compete with thosepeople for these jobs?
And so I just pursued workexperience and most of my
(06:40):
exposure was in this the defensejob I had, and then one of the
internships I landed at theuniversity.
It was this mix between mathand computer science and
software.
So it was never a veryconsumer-facing approach for me,
(07:00):
if that makes sense, and it wasmuch more leaning into the like
how vast of a background can Ibuild and how many different
things can I expose myself to toshow that I can think broadly,
I can learn quickly, and so, yes, I might not have the exact
experience you're looking for,but look at all this evidence
(07:21):
that I can teach myself and thatI can be good at the job
anyways, you know.
Tim Bourguignon (07:25):
For a long-term strategy, absolutely perfect.
Was it hard at the beginningfollowing this strategy?
Brit Myers (07:31):
It was hard and it was.
You know, I had to network alot.
Basically I had to find my wayin places, because that first
hurdle of you know if you've got, if there's a job posting and
there's, you know, 3,000applicants, 5,000 applicants,
even 500 applicants it's like Ihave pretty high confidence in
(07:53):
myself but stacked me up against499 other people I don't.
There are plenty of people inthis world smarter than me and
one of them maybe could haveapplied for this job in this
moment.
And so I networked a ton whichwas I don't know uncomfortable
and it felt a little bit strange, I think.
But you know, like therelationships that I was able to
build, I look really reflect onhaving a positive impact for me
(08:15):
in my career, and so I justsort of I latched on to that.
It's like, yes, obviously youneed to be able to do the job
and you need to be good at yourjob, but if people can know you
and they can want to work withyou also, then that was like the
icing on top that I needed andoftentimes like what sort of
pushed me over the edge in somesituations, where had I not have
(08:37):
done that and put in thateffort, I might not have gotten
the job, or I might not havegotten, you know, the call or
the foot in the door or whathave you.
So that was, you know it was.
It was a.
Really I learned a lesson.
That I learned, I think, quiteearly, is it's not like it's
about like building software andbuilding systems and running
systems is still as much aboutpeople as it ever was,
(08:59):
regardless of how far automationhas come, and I've just sort of
really never abandoned thatidea and leaned hard into the
people and the people side ofthings.
Tim Bourguignon (09:10):
Hell yeah, I've been facing the same problems
and it's never to take.
Brit Myers (09:17):
It's like yeah, you know, like computers are easy,
like people, like people arehard.
Tim Bourguignon (09:22):
Yep, yep.
I remember in college, themajor I was in had less and less
and less applicants year afteryear and at some point the, the,
the, the.
The professor leading the majorsaid hey, do you want to talk
to you to the younger students,I'll organize something.
And we talked to them for anhour and remember they were.
(09:45):
They were asking some dumbquestions and so at some point I
told them well, the techdoesn't matter, it's just, it's
just something that you learn.
And that was major I was in.
The tech doesn't matter, it'sjust something that you learn.
And in the end, it's justpeople stuff.
And I saw the face of theprofessor why You're here to
advertise a tech.
Brit Myers (10:04):
No, no, no.
We want them to come study thistech here right now and send us
the money for it.
Tim Bourguignon (10:08):
Exactly, but that was already something I had
darlily understood this peopleproblem.
What did you mean exactly whenyou said your networked a lot,
especially from the point ofview of not yet major or just
yeah, I was.
Brit Myers (10:27):
I was still an undergrad, you know I I don't
all all of the sort ofplatitudes of like I engaged
with the alumni network, so Iwas a collegiate athlete and I
like heavily resourced the womenbasketball players, alumni, to
sort of get to know them andunderstand their paths and
understand sort of their journeywithin, like on campus,
(10:48):
building relationships withprofessors, with faculty, to
understand, like, what theirconcerns are, what opportunities
they're seeing.
You know, I was able to, youknow everything from.
Oh, I, you know, was a TA forthis class and they paid, you
know, at the time this was likean insane amount of money for a
college student to grade papers.
It was like 20 bucks an hour tograde papers.
(11:09):
You know, however, long ago,which would minimum wage a seven
, it was like whoa, you know,and I only ever would have done
that if, like I, showed anactive interest and built this
relationship and so, when theopportunity came up, my name was
in top of mind, you know.
And so like there.
There are sort of like phrasesthat I've later learned in my
career, that I've latched ontothat I didn't have at the time.
(11:32):
But you know, one example islike having your name spoken in
rooms you're not in in apositive light, like the more,
like the more things you can doso that that situation happens.
More is like that's a goodthing and it's like effectively
what I was doing.
I just didn't really know it bythat name.
And then, yeah, you know, it'slike you meet somebody and you
(11:54):
hear about a thing and you knowyou try not to say no to events.
You know, try to just say yes.
And the other sort of phrasethat sticks with me that you
know I use with my kids a lot islike there is so much of life
that is just luck, like it isjust right place, right time.
And what my goal was was tojust maximize the chance, the
(12:18):
probability that I was in theright place at the right time,
you know.
And so if the question was likeah, is there anything in this?
For me it's like, well, isthere like will this be harmful?
You know, is this going to likedetract from what I'm doing?
And if the answer was in anobvious no, then that means,
therefore, there's a chance thatthat could be the right place
at the right time, where I meetthe one person to do the thing
(12:40):
and so much of my career hasbeen this, you know, been a
product of that happenstancewhere I can point at moments in
time and I can arguably say Ibusted my ass to get there and
also it was the right place atthe right time.
And something I had no controlover was the thing that also was
needed, you know, forsituations to work out the way
(13:01):
that they did, and so it's.
You know you have to.
I'm an extrovert, I'm veryoutgoing, but I do have a ton of
social anxiety, like showing upto, like networking events,
like it's incredibly still thisday, like incredibly
uncomfortable.
I have to like talk myself intoit every time, and part of the
talk track every time is, youknow that this has resulted in
(13:22):
good things, like just go do it,you know.
Tim Bourguignon (13:27):
It's the second time I think about this book
this week and I didn't researchthe name.
I completely forgot about it.
It was basically describingthat luck is not just a factor
of luck but being prepared forit and being ready for it.
And they had some, some, somemembers behind it, some studies
showing that basically companycompanies they were focusing on
(13:48):
companies less, less on people.
Companies that experiencedlucky moments actually didn't
have more lucky moments than theothers.
They were just able to leveragethem more than the others.
And so what you're describing isgetting ready for it is having
gone the moves and being thereand, when the lucky moments
appears, being able to recognizeit and grasp it.
Brit Myers (14:09):
Precisely yeah.
Tim Bourguignon (14:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that, yeah, I love
that, that's, that's, that'sexactly it, exactly yeah.
I love how you started thisanswer saying well, um, go to
people, go to your TA professorsand understand their concerns
and that's something that I'vebeen hearing um often is
networking.
It's not about you, it's reallystarting about the others, your
concerns, their interests.
(14:31):
You're nodding heavily rightnow.
Brit Myers (14:33):
Yes, yes, yes, I, I this is something my grandfather
actually uh, taught this to melike very young.
Like you'd always say, whetherit's you know as a child, when,
like, kids have often have solittle control over what's
happening in their lives, right,it's like you have to go to
school, there's all these rules,the schedule is out of their
control, the menus are often outof their control.
(14:55):
It's like there's all thesedetails in moments where
children, they just have to deal, you know, and then the path is
laid for them or the decisionsare made and, uh, focusing on
what you can control toinfluence what the path is going
forward, like that was.
That was just something mygrandfather like really drilled
home for me, which is, let's sayyou have a teacher and let's
say you hate this teacher likeyou.
(15:16):
Just, you don't like theirstyle, they're not working for
you, you think they're maybe alittle bit too mean or, you know
, passive, aggressive, whatever.
None of that matters.
What matters is that teacherhas some control over you, that
you don't aka your grade, and soif you can just figure out what
that teacher wants and this isthis, is he's telling me to this
as a child if you can figureout what the teacher wants and
(15:39):
give it to them, you'll pass theclass.
Like nine times out of 10,you'll pass the class.
And so some teachers are, youknow, professors in college.
It's sometimes it's, you know,being willing to show up to
office hours or like asking forextra help or being proactive in
helping other students.
Or sometimes teachers reallyhate that like don't help the
other students.
They want them to struggle andlearn how to struggle and learn
(16:00):
how to learn and get through it.
And every teacher, every sortof like authority figure, if you
will, has something slightlydifferent about them.
And if you can understand whatthat is and learn what they want
and what they appreciate andwhat they value, figure out a
way to give it to them, nothingbut good things will happen.
Like that is, it is just arecipe that will just result in
good things, and I think it'slike very similar to what what
(16:21):
you're describing, which is whenyou network, part of what
you're doing is you're lookingfor ways that this person can
help you, but you have toacknowledge they don't want to
help you for the sake ofthemselves.
Like, what did they're?
They're there for a reason too.
You know they have problems,they have concerns, and so, as
much as you can make thatbi-directional and as early as
you can figure that out like,the better it's going to be.
(16:41):
And it you know that applies toteachers, it applies to parents
to some degree, although maybeit shouldn't so much.
But bosses, teammates, you knowindirect bosses, skip levels,
your product managers, yourproject managers, right, like
all of those roles, they havesome amount of control that you
(17:01):
don't have.
Figure out what they need to do, figure out what's important to
them and help them get there,and everything will be better if
you just follow that, if youjust follow that path.
Tim Bourguignon (17:12):
Is it something , oh hell, yes first.
Is it something that is in yourguts now and you do it?
You do it by default.
Or is it something that youverbalize and that you have to
do with new connections and whenyou face problems?
Brit Myers (17:25):
I think it's pretty.
I think it's pretty defaultbecause I you know, we in the
pre-call we were talking, and,like you, talk, about influence
and influencing others, andthere's a, there's a spin on
that word influence, which islike manipulation, right, and I
think, I think what the instinctthat I have tuned is like how
(17:46):
to influence the situations thatI'm in to have the outcomes
that I want.
And so that part has becomemore natural, because because I
I don't know, I suppose I try towant the right things.
I, you know, like I try to wantthe things that are better for
everybody to some degree, youknow, and so that that part
comes natural, and and the partthat I, the part that I do, you
(18:10):
know, overtly or sort ofexplicitly talk through, is when
I'm building that relationship.
It's it, it does.
It has to be bi-directional,you know, and so I have to be
open and authentic andtransparent with the person,
because nobody wants to be sold,nobody wants to be manipulated.
You know, it's like the logical,the negative logical conclusion
(18:30):
of what I'm describing is areally awful person doing really
awful things selfishly, andthat's not at all what I'm, not
at all what I'm getting at.
And so it, if I start with thisinstinct and then I approach it
authentically with a person tobuild a relationship like it
just I don't.
I've found that people can,they can see through more than
you realize and so it just I.
(18:51):
Yeah, if you, if you take ittoo far, it just it is.
As soon as it becomes notauthentic, it fails.
I suppose I don't know that Iexactly answered your question,
but it was a hard question toanswer it was no, you did
fantastic.
Tim Bourguignon (19:12):
Let's let's roll back a little bit.
We went on this networkingtangent, which was fantastic,
but how did you enter then thethe industry being a math major
with a lot of CV drivenbuzzwords on your resume?
How was that?
How did that go?
Brit Myers (19:27):
Yeah, I, I.
So I went to college in I'mfrom Cleveland, where I still
live now Cleveland, ohio.
I went to college in Pittsburgh, pennsylvania, which is just a
short two hour drive, and at thetime when I graduated I had a
long term college boyfriend.
And so the question was like amI moving home and getting
married and having kids or am Inot?
(19:50):
And sort of the not.
The other was like this openvastness of like I don't know
anything ever in the world.
I guess I could be, you know,like what do I want to be when I
grow up?
And I'm in Cleveland with fourkids and my then long term
boyfriend is now my husband.
So I basically targetedCleveland, the Cleveland market
for jobs, and leveraged you knowI talked to everybody that I
(20:12):
could, that I knew in sort ofthe Cleveland network that I had
, and to branch out to just likewhat are the companies?
You know I Googled it what arethe companies to work for in
Cleveland?
Who's hiring software engineersand what are the company's
cultures like?
And so I started from sort oflike city then to company and
then I'd picked a few companiesand like, okay, these are
companies I think I want to workfor and I applied through the
(20:35):
websites to all of them and mostof them I say I don't know.
Maybe I think I will list downto like five companies.
Three of the five companies Ilike I hadn't in, so like I knew
somebody who like used to workthere or does work there or what
.
Have you interviewed them?
You know?
Call like hey, can you connectme to?
(20:56):
Like oh, I heard your brotherworks, worked for this company.
Can I meet him?
Can I talk to him, you know?
So I had some phone calls withpeople like what are they
looking for in the interview andlike what are the things that
they value and how do I know ifit's going well and try to get
you know.
Obviously this was now there'slike website, like Glassdoor
didn't exist then.
In this way, you know, you canget this information online.
Now.
I couldn't get it online thenand so met as many people as I
(21:19):
could and, ironically enough,the people, the companies that I
applied to, the jobs I appliedto, where I knew somebody, those
were the ones I had callbacksfrom and those are the ones I
had and the ones that I did notknow anybody I didn't get
callbacks from.
So I don't know that's like asample size of one.
I don't know.
You know correlation versuscausation.
But yeah, I ended up taking thejob that I ended up spending
(21:45):
you know, almost a decade atthat job that I first got in
Cleveland.
I was there for a very longtime and it was amazing.
But I, you know, I could lookback from that moment and think
like, okay, if I wouldn't havedone this, this wouldn't have
happened.
If I wouldn't have done this,this wouldn't have happened, you
know like there's a bit of likea butterfly effect that I do,
which is like was it worth it?
Like I'm working really hard,was all of this worth it?
(22:07):
And like, yes, yes, it has beenworth it.
Tim Bourguignon (22:10):
As the Frenchman living in Germany who
met his wife in Chicago workingfor Siemens in an internship, I
can relate a little bit.
Oh boy, so you stayed 10 yearswith the same company.
How did your role evolve duringthis time?
Brit Myers (22:30):
It evolved like crazy.
So, and part of why I stayedfor 10 years is it was just so
much fun.
I was working alongside amazingpeople solving awesome problems
and like the company hadchanged so much it was like
while I was there for a decadeit was almost like I had worked
for like five or six differentcompanies over the course of
(22:50):
that time because of how vastthe projects were or how fast
the sort of changes were andevolutions in the company.
So you know, I started on ateam of three as a junior
software developer was my titleand by the time I left I was the
associate vice president ofcloud engineering and managing
over 200 engineers around theworld and all the cloud native
(23:12):
sort of development teams.
So like that was the trajectoryof like the company.
You know, like when I startedthey had maybe a little less
than like around a thousandemployees total, but it was a 20
plus year old company, softwareB2B company.
And you know, over the course ofmy career, by the time I left
the company had 4,000 employeesand numerous product lines and
(23:34):
tons of acquisitions and it wasjust a you know every few years
that it was a whole.
Like I said, it was like awhole new company and it was
just.
It was fun, it was engaging, Ilearned so, so much.
I had amazing mentors.
Yeah, it was.
I did not expect to stay therethat long.
When I applied, you know, I didnot expect to stay there that
(23:56):
long.
Even just like after my firstyear, it was like, yeah, you
know, this is fun, this will becool, these people are nice.
I'll stay a few years and thenfind the next thing.
You know, as most people my agedid, then I didn't end up doing
that.
Tim Bourguignon (24:09):
Well, not to shabby anyway.
So do you remember when you,when you transitioned from an
individual contributor role to amanagement role?
Brit Myers (24:19):
Yeah, I, I'm sure they think years I'm so bad at
years Um, so I mentioned Istarted on a small team and that
team that I started on I becamethe team lead of and that was
sort of you know, at the time itwasn't, it wasn't a tech lead,
it was a team lead, and so itwas, you know, all of the sort
(24:39):
of career growth,responsibilities, with none of
the hiring and firing and money,salary side, right, um, and so
that really gave me a taste ofyou know, the impact, like the
transition you have to make whengoing from an individual
contributor to some form of likeexplicit leadership, like one
of the things I had to learn waslike how to let go and how to
(25:01):
find the same sort of likesatisfaction, not from using my
hands on the keyboard all day,you know, 10 hours a day, five
days a week or whatever you know.
Um, and that was hard at firstbecause you have this identity
crisis of like, well, wait asecond, like I, I have learned
all, I've learned the skill,I've honed the skill and you
(25:23):
hire me to do the skill and nowI'm not using, I'm not doing
this quite so much anymore.
What am I even doing here, likeyou know, like I'd have more
days than not where.
It's like how, what did I evendo today?
You know, like what?
What is it that you say thatyou do here?
It's like, well, I talked to alot of people, I helped some
people through some stuff, wehad some planning conversations,
you know, and like it took, ittook a while for that to feel
like work.
(25:43):
And even you know, this is aconversation we have with the
team a ton which is even evenstill it's hard, it's hard to
like innately feel that as work,but it is so much of the work
because it's all of thoseinteractions, all of that, like
everything about that has Canhave either a negative, positive
or neutral effect on theoutcomes that you're trying to
(26:05):
give right.
And so it's like, when youthink of it in that perspective,
like yeah, it's work, andsometimes it doesn't feel like
it, but it is, and that that wasprobably one of the more harsh
I don't know Lessons that Ilearned, so to speak.
Tim Bourguignon (26:19):
Is this direction you wanted to go, or
where you pushed, or did youstumble in there?
I?
Brit Myers (26:25):
I don't, I didn't explicitly want it in terms of
like I did not.
So, like the internship that Ihad in college and like the Sort
of exposure, like the workexperience I had, none of that
was in.
Like a large organization witha team and a management
structure and a hierarchy ofmanagers, right, like none of
none of that existed, or atleast it didn't exist in a way
that, like I, I acknowledgedthat it was a reality.
(26:47):
You know, like it was sort ofopaque to me and so, from that
perspective, there wasn't thislike, oh, I worked for this
great engineering manager and sowhat I want to be when I grew
up is like, just like thatperson.
Like I didn't have that, but IAlways have sort of like
naturally gravitated towardsleadership roles.
You know, if you think likeGirl Scouts as a kid, or you
(27:09):
know, like basketball teams,like who's like who wants to be
the team captain, like I wouldbe, I want to be the team
captain and I wanted to have apositive influence on Other
people.
So, like, from that perspective, like I had, like my instincts
said, leadership.
But but what was this black boxis like?
But I don't actually know whatleadership is like.
I don't, I don't know, I don'tknow the ends, I don't know the
outs, I don't know the politics,I don't even know what factors
(27:30):
say whether or not you'd be goodor bad, like I had no semblance
of that and so because of that,I didn't have, I didn't have it
sort of the.
The title on my resume in thefuture, with the year, is like
this is my goal, not, not atthat point, and it was.
You know, part of it was therewas a vacuum, you know, somebody
got promoted and so my boss gotpromoted and there was an
(27:51):
opening and it's like, oh, do Iwant it?
It's like, well, would it bebad for me?
You know, I kind of go back tothe like will it be?
Well, it will be bad for mycareer if I take this and I
thought, no, I mean, this wouldnot be a bad move for my career.
I'm either gonna love it or I'mgonna hate it, and if I hate it
I just won't do it anymore.
And now I'll know that's notthe path for me, you know.
And so I just sort of like usethe same thing that I've used my
(28:13):
whole life, which is there's aneed and I think I could be good
at it and I'm gonna build therelationships and try to do the
best I can to make my boss happyand make him look good.
You know, and and I took it andyou know, was given the job.
Tim Bourguignon (28:27):
And it's been ten years you must be doing
something right.
So when you move to from oneone job to the other so I have
your, your LinkedIn open and andyou have had quite a Few
leadership positions orexecutive positions in the past
years what do you look for in ain a next position?
(28:48):
What is kind of your algorithmto vet a position and decide if
you want to get there,especially with the, the, the
point of view of having led a200 you said 200 engineer team
as a very beginning or at theend of this tenure tenure?
What could you be looking forin in the next job?
Brit Myers (29:08):
Yeah, I.
So it's a lot like individualcontributors in the, in the, in
the like Culture side.
So culture is important, likefor me, it's incredibly
important.
You know there are, there areways that I believe this work
should be done and if I work forsomebody or with other people
(29:30):
who have like too drasticallydifferent of this like ideal
state of like how the job getsdone, I know I won't thrive, I
know I won't be successful andI'm, you know, setting myself up
for these like ideologicalchallenges.
So you know, the, the culturalfit for me is like a combination
of like ideologies andmanagement ideologies in I don't
(29:52):
know, like the socio-technicalimpact ideologies, like
similarities in approach, likethose, those things I look for
now and those were things that I, like I had to sort of like
through my management, whatevergrowth chart, whatever, like
(30:16):
these were things I had to learnabout myself, about like what,
what works, what doesn't work,like how will it work best and
how won't it, and so like all ofthose, all of those rows to the
top for me, and so Especiallylike where I am.
You know, I'm in my early 30s, Ijust got an MBA.
Like I am in, I Want to grow, Iwant to learn and I want to
(30:38):
have an impact, and so you know,I look for Like in where I
landed system initiative.
It's like I was looking for ateam of leaders that I could
both contribute to and learnfrom.
You know that there were thingsthat I had, that it would be
like a net value add to the team, and that there were things I
could take away and growpersonally, and that was that
(31:01):
was.
That was yeah, that was a bigthing for me.
And the second piece is I Ineed to feel passionate about
what we're building.
So, like, whatever the businessmodel is, whatever whoever the
purchaser is on the end of thetable, like it has to, like I
want I want it to have apositive impact.
(31:22):
You know I'm not, it's there,were, there have been plenty of
jobs that I've turned down, thatwere more money, that were in a
Vertical or in an area thatit's like I just you know, like
I'm not gonna put my heart intothis because I just don't care.
You know this isn't a space,this isn't a problem I think is
worth solving, or you know, likeit's not gonna keep me waking
up, excited to come to work inthe morning, like I need.
(31:44):
I need to feel good about thework isn't, and this is like a
you know I'm, I'm not a I Don'tknow how to describe it I'm not
a purist in.
I have these values and so I'monly going to go look, for, you
know, I'm only going to look forcompanies that build tools in
this space or like solving thisproblem.
(32:06):
It's more like, can Iunderstand the approach they're
taking, can I understand thecustomers we're trying to sell
to, and and do I want to helpwith that mission?
You know I do, I want to do it,and that was that's the other
piece that you know for, like,if you look at my LinkedIn, like
I've never worked for aconsumer's Product, I've never
worked B2B, and so part and partof that is for this reason of
(32:28):
like, I love the idea ofBuilding something that lets
customers, you know it, letsother companies do better things
.
You know it's, I think, thisamplifying effect and I love the
amplifying effect, and so, evenas I look, I'm pretty focused.
You know, b2b, I didn't.
I did not consider effectivelyany other, any other sort of
(32:49):
like software, softwarecompanies.
For that reason, Looking methrough lens of the amplifying
effect, being in cloud andDevOps is kind of Really
amplifying it is, and it's funny, like that even is that's a,
it's an accident that this isthe space that I have fallen
(33:09):
most in love with, and by that Imean, you know, throughout my
time at that first job.
We just I like I just ran facedfirst into DevOps out of pure
Like we have a problem to solveand like how can I solve this
problem?
You know, and the problem atfirst was we're planning in too
big of chunks and we're projectmanaging and All of these
(33:33):
features that the team isbuilding, none of them are being
used.
That doesn't feel like.
That's not, it's just itdoesn't feel like nobody feels
good when that happens, and soit's like okay, so something
we're wrong about, somethinglike how can we be more right?
How can we build things thatpeople actually want, you know?
And so what I thought was aSort of scoping problem, I'm
(33:53):
like ah, maybe it's an agileproblem, you know, maybe we're
just planning too big and maybewe're not taking you know we're
having the right conversations,we're not talking about problems
that we're trying to solve inthe right way.
And so I approached it from avery like process.
Like our process isn't workingbecause the outputs of the
process is features that arebeing used.
And so I experimented a lot totry to solve that problem of
(34:14):
process, and I got to a placewhere I'm like man, I'm really
proud of this product, likeeverything, looking at this
process, like it should work.
Why isn't it working?
And it's like, oh well, it'snot working because it takes us
six weeks to deploy toproduction.
So, even if the scope of thework is a two-week chunk of
experimental AB like if I'mgoing to feature, flag a feature
(34:37):
and ship it to production andsee if they want it before we
commit what was happening waswe'd spend two weeks building
something, six weeks trying todeploy it, two or three weeks
fixing things as it went wrong.
And now it was like oh so howdid that two-week experiment go?
Like, how is the new littlebutton?
And it was just so far apart sothat you can see how the story
(35:00):
ends with like, and then DevOps,because why does it take that
long and why does it go wrong sooften?
And so it was purely from this,like I just want to have a
better outcome.
I want my engineers to feelfulfilled, I want them to be
happy, I want them to be proudof the work that they're doing,
because the more proud theycould be, the better work that
they do, the more that they grow.
You know, it's like it's goodfor everybody and I ended up
(35:23):
just right in DevOps and nowit's been impossible to not see
problems as DevOps problems sortof ever since, which is, you
know, we, the feedback loops aretoo long, you can't collect.
You know it's like there's allof these things and engineering
leadership is well positionedand it is our job as managers to
(35:43):
solve these problems, becausethis is these.
You know, like that's the jobdescription.
It's like removing theroadblocks and what have you.
So, yeah, it was an accident andI'm like just so happy because
I just I love the space, I lovethe people and these problems.
(36:03):
It doesn't matter what size ofcompany you are, it doesn't
matter you know what country youlive in or what your product is
Like.
These are like ubiquitousproblems.
And so back to that amplifyingeffect.
It's like, ooh, if we can solvethese problems, think about the
impact we can have.
You know.
Tim Bourguignon (36:19):
It is it's exciting.
It is indeed Coming back to theexact example you gave.
Do you think that what is oftensold as the, the promise of
DevOps hitting for those maybeDora metrics or whichever you
call them, really shorteningcycles, focusing on less, a
(36:41):
measurable amount of issues, etcetera, would solve the problem,
the process problems you hadbefore?
Brit Myers (36:50):
I don't think so.
I don't, I don't.
Well, I think that they canhelp tell you what they can.
I think all of what you justdescribed can give you signals
to like what the problems are tosolve.
So I don't think that theanswer is in like, ah, if you,
just if I could release on adime, does that mean that I'm
printing money?
(37:10):
No, but if I can't release iton a dime, the likelihood that
you can prevent money like isprobably way lower.
Right, and so I see all of thoseas like enabling, is enabling
factors to get to the rootproblem for our industry, which
is just the product development.
Like that it's and it's it'snot the problem.
(37:30):
That is the business, thebusinesses like who can create
the best product and thenexecute on delivering it and
maintaining it over time, andlike that thought process and
that sort of that space iscompany building, it's product
building, it's.
You know that's not a softwareproblem, that's just business.
You know, is the business valid?
Is it business viable?
(37:51):
Am I building something thatpeople want?
Are they willing to spend moneyon it?
Like those are the questionsthat are the hardest to answer,
but all of these things end upbeing in the way of getting that
answer and giving us falsesignals or giving us you know
false hope.
Potentially, if it goes, youknow you can have you know
signals that say, hey, we'rereally great in this area.
Until you know it's like 90% ofthe time it works, 80% of the
(38:14):
time, but 5% of the time itblows up 100% you know like you
end up with all these situationswhere the answer to everything
is it depends.
And I think we really need tolike, think about how we
approach the space in terms oflike, is it just tweaking these
knobs to be faster on these,like in between steps, or is it
(38:35):
actually like we're looking atthe system fundamentally wrong?
And if you looked at the systemdifferently, like what could be
possible, if, and that line ofthinking is much more fun than
the other, much more risky, butit is much more fun to sort of
approach things from that way.
And you know, as you know,startups kind of give you the
(38:56):
exact sort of expectation that,like, that is what you're
expected to do, is, you know,think in those ways, which is
just, which is so fun, which isso fun.
Tim Bourguignon (39:05):
He meant to that.
Is it the kind of thinking thatled you to explore in an MBA or
following an MBA?
Brit Myers (39:12):
Sort of.
So I, in going back to what wetalked about in terms of, like,
being in the right place at theright time and are you ready?
The MBA for me was more in thatlike, will I be ready?
And what I know is that I likeleading.
What I know is that I likeexecuting.
(39:33):
You know, I'm not necessarilythe idea person myself, like I
wouldn't say I'm not the serialentrepreneur, like, yes, I have
interesting ideas, but like,most of them I think, are
garbage.
But what I love to do is workwith somebody who has amazing
ideas that, like, everybodythinks are amazing ideas, and
then, like, help them do it andthen help figure out, like what
the way is right.
So if I run with that as sort ofone of my strengths and
(39:55):
something that I really enjoydoing is, you know, partnering
up with creative folks andhelping to solve the problems
that they see and the ways thatthey see it will I at some point
be in a situation where theinformation that I will have
learned through a grad schoolprogram gives me, like, more
context and more confidence in,like the decision-making process
(40:17):
?
You know?
So it was on that lens, andthen the other side was just,
none of this matters and, likein today's society, none of it
matters unless it makes money,which is like an unfortunate
part of the game, but it's thegame we all play and I want to
win the game.
So there's an element of like,if I can learn the game and
(40:37):
speak the language of the game,which is speak the language of
business, that I am, like again,best positioned to win the game
that we all have to play, evenif we don't want to, you know.
Tim Bourguignon (40:48):
I fully understand, don't have an MBA,
but a couple of years of startupunder my belt, which is kind of
exactly the opposite, but thesame thing.
Brit Myers (40:59):
Yeah, well, and that was the other calculus for me
too, it's like all of what Ilearned, you know, all of what I
learned.
There are lots of ways to learnthat information, and part of
the degree for me and part of,like, the school that I went to
was okay, yeah, I need to learnthis information.
But what if, like, in theprocess of learning it, I build
these amazing relationships andmeet some people who, like I,
(41:20):
want to be in my inner circleand I want to be in my network,
and that was like a huge part ofit too, which, like, is like
just, I don't know, you know,it's like a plus one.
Tim Bourguignon (41:35):
We're back to networking.
Brit Myers (41:36):
there Back to networking, yeah, yeah.
Tim Bourguignon (41:40):
That's fantastic.
Sticking to networking andmaybe to mentoring or helping
younger developers.
Is there some kind of advicethat you give again and again?
Brit Myers (41:52):
Yeah, I, you know, as many people in the industry
do.
I'm somebody who suffered fromextreme impostor syndrome and
the thing that has helped me isjust reminding myself that, like
nobody actually really knowswhat they're doing.
Like those people aren't assmart as you think they might
like, or they are, and they makemistakes.
(42:14):
Like you will make mistakes,everybody makes mistakes.
Like, cut yourself some slack,the expectations aren't that
high.
You have higher expectationsfor yourself and don't beat
yourself up.
And that has like those havingsome of like those mantras or
like a talk track to sort oflike tone down my inner.
Like you can't do this, youshouldn't do this, you're not
qualified, you're, you know,like the chatter that happens in
your brain, it's like yeah,yeah, and that person wasn't
(42:36):
qualified, and then they did itand they rocked it, and so why
can't that happen to you?
Like you can make that happen.
It's like, oh, yeah, okay, Ican.
So I think that that would bemy piece of advice is don't.
The world around you is not asperfect as it seems.
Nobody knows exactly what to do100% of the time.
The only thing to do is justkeep moving and just keep moving
(42:58):
forward and don't overthink it.
That would be, that would be myadvice.
Tim Bourguignon (43:03):
And thank you for that, Not just for the show
but also the personal note.
I'm right in the middle of a360.
And so that's also good to hear, I can tell you.
But it's been fantastic.
Thank you so much for this role.
Brit Myers (43:17):
Thank you for having me.
This is great, this was awesome, that was cool.
Tim Bourguignon (43:20):
Where would be the best place to continue this
discussion with you?
Brit Myers (43:22):
Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn.
I'll send you the link.
I do have a Twitter or whateverX handle, but it's not very
active.
I would say you know, if you'reinterested in sort of exploring
more of the likesocio-technical conversation or
like more specific conversations.
Sysminitiative has a discordwith a bunch of sort of devops,
focused folks and peoplepassionate about the space.
(43:44):
Would love to have you come popin there and have some
interesting conversations aswell.
Tim Bourguignon (43:49):
And we'll add all those links in the show
notes.
So just scroll down and clickon it and you'll be right there.
Anything else you want to playin?
Brit Myers (43:55):
No, no, thank you so much, this was so fun.
Tim Bourguignon (43:58):
Fantastic.
Thanks to you, and this hasbeen another episode of the
First Journey.
I will see each other next week, bye, bye.
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