September 28, 2021 • 57 mins
Leo and Software Engineer Nick DeJesus open up to each other about some of their negative experiences in the tech industry. After an alarming interruption, Nick details his path to finding a new specialty in his career; Leo and Nick discuss the key to bouncing back from mistreatment in the workplace.
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By: Leo Yockey
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:15):
Hello, and welcome to anotherepisode of the Leo Yockey show,
the show where I Leo Yockeyinterview guests about the
universal truths and theirunique life paths. How are we
doing today? It's autumnsomehow, already, I don't even
know where time is going, it'sgonna be 2022. Before we know
it. I've been hinting at thisfor a few weeks now. But I've
(00:40):
been talking about the fact thatI'm returning to tech after a
few weeks or a few months sorry,of saying that I'm quitting
forever, I'm never going back.
I'm finally ready to go back.
And I feel really good about it.
And I wouldn't have gotten thereif it wasn't for the
conversations I was having righthere on this podcast. So I thank
all of my previous guests, everysingle guest has been a big part
(01:04):
of my healing. But perhaps in away, none more than this guest
today, Nick day, hey, Soos. NowI know Nick through that black
tech Twitter network that Italked about a little bit on
Paris Athena's episode in seasonone, which Fun fact, Nick and
Paris are actually engaged. Sothere's a passage from a book
(01:29):
that I actually want to read toy'all. It's from the book shook
one by Charlemagne, the guide.
It's a book that I'm currentlyreading right now, actually. And
I just read this passage maybean hour ago. And as soon as I
read it, I said, Oh, my God,this perfectly explains the
(01:51):
conversation that I have withNick. And I was already planning
on recording this intro thismorning. So it's like, I gotta
throw it in there. So here itis. We all share so many of the
same fears and insecurities. Ihave friends who might have
grown up in the Bronx, orDetroit, or LA, maybe even
during different areas. But whenwe talk about it, we see that we
(02:14):
often share the same exact painand this and the exact same
trauma. And once we can admitthat the pain that used to feel
so heavy, suddenly begins tolift, we are actually able to
laugh about a lot of thisbecause we've all been through
it. We realize it's not just usalone on an island. So once
(02:36):
again, that's from Shaquan,Pash, Charlemagne, the God. Now
what he's describing here isexactly what I felt talking to
Nick, you know, we shared someof our experiences that,
unfortunately, are all toocommon for black people in tech.
But there was something aboutthis conversation that I could
(02:57):
feel myself as we were havingit, the the energy that gets
created when two or more peoplemeet and share common
experiences. I don't know it'slike there's, there's magic in
that. And toward towards theend, we do talk a little bit
about, you know, really what ittakes to be able to heal and
move on, when you're goingthrough these things when life
(03:19):
gets tough, and how to keepmoving forward. Because
ultimately, that's all we're alltrying to do here right is just
keep moving forward, no matterwhat happens in life. So Nick, I
appreciate you having thisconversation with me. Again,
just being able to share andrelate our experiences with each
other. It helped me see that myissues my experiences, they
(03:46):
weren't an issue with me, youknow, I didn't fail at Tech, as
much as it was that I justwasn't prepared for some of the
challenges that I was kind offace and, and not realizing that
this is something that kind ofhappens to all of us to some
degree or another so I'm reallyexcited that you're gonna get to
(04:06):
be a fly on the wall for thisconversation. Now, I don't think
we get too much inside baseballhere. There is gonna be some
tech jargon. Some some of thekey words from Tech that I heard
that might not be relatable toeveryone are Redux, react, React
Native tech in which is a videogame, which I wouldn't have ever
(04:29):
known about. If it wasn't forNick being in my life,
JavaScript, open source dev REL.
If you hear these things, you'renot familiar with them just know
that they're tech terms. We'rejust kind of talking shop a
little bit, but I don't thinkthere's too much of that
throughout the conversation. AndI do think that again, with a
conclusion that we come totowards the end. I think this
(04:51):
conversation is going to berelatable to a lot of people
regardless of what industry youwork in, because again, these
are issues that happen in everyindustry not just tech so let's
get into the conversation Shallwe?
(05:15):
Alright Nick, here we go. Howyou doing? What's up?
I'm doing great. What's up withyou? It's been a while. Once the
last time we actually talked.
Dude, the last time we likeactually taught we've deemed a
little bit on Twitter about somebooks and things, but i think
that i think that i was in thein the black tech pipeline. I
(05:37):
was just a peek behind thecurtain for the listeners,
former guests of the show ParisAthena black tech pipeline. This
is Nick Nick is Paris is the DNCYonsei and he is also famously
on Twitter, the unpaid CTO hestill have that on there I think
(06:00):
I mean, I don't know if I'mgonna I'm gonna keep that there
until she decides to pay me formy work one day
maybe I don't know I've heardabout like major like abuse it
you know, it's like the peopleclosest to you that hurt you the
most you know if you were somemirando you probably would have
been done paid by now but youknow
(06:22):
now I got I'm holding on to it.
It's It's It's all I've got fornow. It's like you know, my call
for accountability on her part.
There you go. I like it. Yeah.
You're you're trying to look outfor the all the future CTOs of
blast test that plan and makesure that they get paid. What
kind of monster we pay bears outto be right now. I know. Right?
(06:44):
I mean, I'm the listenersalready got to know her on their
own.
I'm always here for parishslender, though. Yeah, it's like
what we do?
Absolutely. is, if you don'twant to follow either them on
Twitter for the tech stuff,follow for the relationship ship
posts, that's for sure. Yeah.
But yeah, I think the last timethat we talked for real, I was
(07:05):
in the black tech pipeline. AndI was talking a few of the
companies there. And potentiallybeing recruited. And then at
some, so this was probably like,February or so of this year.
It's now August 19, that we'rerecording this. And I said, at
one point, I was like, You knowwhat, I'm actually done with
(07:26):
tech, you can remove me fromthis pipeline of yours. I'm
going to go off and spread mywings. And, you know, life life
is having multiple other plans.
But it seems like both of us arekind of in slightly different
different boats than what we sawourselves in six months ago.
(07:47):
Right? Because you were alsolooking for an engineering role
back around that time, I think,right?
Yeah, it was a reallyinteresting time. Because I
mean, I feel like the beginningof this year was a really big
struggle for me. You know, mypast five years as a software
engineer, haven't really beenthe happiest. And so I started
(08:09):
getting more and more pickyabout where I want to work. And
fortunately, I've been able tosurvive off of, you know, stripe
sponsorship. In my get my myGitHub sponsorship, which
includes stripe. And so like, Iremember talking to you about
(08:31):
this stuff, and then eventuallyyou're like, you know what, I
think I'm just done. I'm notgonna do this anymore. Yeah. And
I was like, man, like, I feelyou know, saying, like, like,
saying, you know, I'm like, Iunderstand exactly, how, like,
you were speaking my language.
But unfortunately, I guess Ifelt like, I cannot I still have
(08:53):
to be here. You know what I'msaying? Yeah. And so that that
resonated with me a lot. Andit's kind of some it's one of
those things that like I revisitin my mind every now and then
because, because this like,because I feel like I've kind of
been suffering in silence on myown. And then and then but it
was just kind of validating toknow that other people in this
(09:17):
space, same space as me feelthis way as well, you know?
Yeah. So so the five years thatyou spent unhappy Can you kind
of, can you kind of describethat a little bit more like what
what was going on? Exactly. Likewhen you scan happy? What do you
mean?
Yeah, I think I mean, there'slike a lot of, there's a lot of
(09:39):
just weird things that I'veexperienced that I don't think
others would, you know, my firstmaybe two or three years as an
engineer, I was at a huge agencyand I was like, their IT guy,
and I wanted to convert frombeing their IT guy fixing all
their laptops and stuff tosoftware engineer. Doing a web
(10:02):
development more specifically, Ieventually ended up making that
switch. And it was at a reallyweird time. So first of all,
what was awesome? Is that myfirst dev role ever, I got sent
to live in Scotland ineverything. Oh, yeah, all
(10:22):
expenses were covered. I livedin the center of the nightlife
in Edinburgh. I was balling. Itwas like the bet, like it was
amazing. Just there was amazing.
However, it started off my firstday showing up at work there,
the person leading the project,was waiting for me outside the
office, and literally told me assoon as I got there, he's like,
(10:46):
I never wanted you on thisproject. Don't tell anyone, this
is your first job. As anengineer ever. You are a react
and Redux expert. And don'tdon't ask for too much help. And
oh, my God, okay, hold on.
podcasting is an audio medium. Ijust need everyone to know my
jaws on the floor. I can'tbelieve that's how you started
(11:08):
your very first job. Day one,Jesus,
okay, it's first day at work gethere. It was such a stern look.
And at the time, I mean, I wasgrateful anyway, because I was
like, out there, this is myfirst thing, you know, and, and,
and at the time, like, I lookedat that, and I was like, Oh, I
(11:30):
get it, we need to look good forthe clients. You know, I didn't
really think of it as malicetowards me. Yeah. Until I
realized that he was actuallyworking towards actively
removing me from the projectsince I started. And so like, so
I was supposed to the pit. Theplan was I was supposed to stay
(11:52):
in Scotland for six months, anddecide if I wanted to live in
Europe for the rest of my lifeor not. But what happened was,
he got me removed from theproject after three months, at
two months, my access tobuildings and all that stuff
seemed to happen to accidentallygo away. But it was really him
(12:15):
pulling strings in thebackground to remove me and it
just kind of happenedprematurely. Oh, my God. Yeah,
it was like the wildness. And Ihad my coworkers, I loved them.
It was first of all, this this,this agency's competitive
advantage is underpaying a shitton of Indian people. So my co
(12:40):
workers, but like, I had, like3040 Indian co workers, and they
knew the situation and theyshowed me so much love and tried
their best to support me. Butthey couldn't. Because they
didn't want to, like get caught,like talking to me too much.
Yeah, trying to survive at theend of the day, too.
Yeah. And so it was it washorrible. But man, let me tell
(13:05):
you, I had a great time afterwork every day, drinking all the
whiskey hitting all the bars,the clubs, traveling to other
countries and so much easier outthere. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, so so it was it wassimultaneously the best and
worst time of my life.
Yeah. And that tends to workout, huh. Right.
(13:27):
Exactly. And so and I came backto America, and then from there,
the people at the agency keptsending me to shit projects. Is
it okay to curse on thispodcast? Fuck Yeah, dude. Okay,
shape. Hell yeah.
So I got so all out now. Yeah,great.
(13:47):
So they sent me to like New Yorkto work on like Saks Fifth
Avenue or something. And, butand that was cool. But after
that, the basically myreputation was tarnished. And
also this company was goingthrough an acquisition at the
same time, and tons of peoplewere leaving. So everyone that
got assigned to me as a mentor,kept leaving. So I basically had
(14:11):
no mentor, no manager for leggyyears starting off my career. So
no way for me to grow. And togrow, I realized I had to do
things on my own, which is why Istarted all kinds of side
projects. Yeah. So that that wasreally like long, but this is
(14:32):
how I started off in theindustry. And I've only had
similar experiences to what waslike at that agency for years
after. And this year, it finallychanged.
And in this year, what whatchanged exactly like how do you
think it changed? Why do youthink changed?
(14:53):
Well, yeah, so it's a differentrole. It's not just like
traditional softwareengineering. I'm a developer
experience engineer. At prismic,and I wasn't necessarily looking
at the time for work, but theyreached out to me. And this is
really important to me theinitial interactions. It's like,
(15:16):
Hey, you know, we saw yourprofile, we're really impressed.
This we are prismic this is whatwe do. What do you want to do?
What are you interested in? I'mlike, Oh, well, you know, I'm
not really looking for work, butI like e commerce, you know, and
I like developer tooling. Andthat's like, that was pretty
(15:39):
much it, right? Like, I don'tcare about CMS stuff. And then
they were kind of like, well,that's cool. What if you did
those things with us? And I waslike, Oh, wait, like that sounds
kind of nice like So you mean totell me that I can still care
about the things I care aboutoutside of like a traditional
(16:00):
job but at my traditional joband so after having a bunch of
discussions and you know, theydidn't even give me like a code
challenge they just wanted tosee maybe some maybe they wanted
me to do like a presentation onon a technical topic and I had a
discussion with the CEO and itwas really like just nice it I
(16:26):
didn't feel like I had to beanyone else other than myself
it's very nice and and I've beenI contracted with them for a few
months and I still feel that waythat I could just be myself and
and I am working on ecommercethings at prismic right like so
(16:54):
they trust me we have like gameplans and stuff on like I think
like I could bring a lot ofvalue to them around ecommerce
and in payment handling stripeall that stuff. Like these are
the things I like working withyeah and so I'm allowed to work
on these types of things withtheir platform
(17:19):
that's awesome. So what was itlike so before they before
presenter Okay, let me let meshare a little bit about about
my experience so far I keep likebombard you with all these
questions so you know in myexperience so so my experience
was a little bit different Ididn't have someone flat out be
like I don't want you here. ButI still had an experience going
(17:42):
into my first tech job where itwas like I feel like I'm kind of
at a disadvantage before I evengo out the gate and I'm just
trying to do my job and peoplearen't letting me but it was a
lot more around like it was alot more discriminatory It was
like I think you know that I'mtransgender. Like Yeah, so when
(18:06):
I started my very first tech jobso I started testosterone I
started my like medicaltransition within the same month
that I started my first tech joband so my name hadn't legally
changed it actually didn't knowwhat I wanted my legal name to
be, but I was going by myinitials at the time I was just
going by Lj and I figured I waslike okay, I talked to HR about
(18:27):
this I'm like hey, this is why Igo by Lj please don't like let
anybody else know my legal namethat doesn't absolutely need to
hear it and they said no problemand then not immediately but
like maybe a month or two intothe job my manager was like oh
yeah HR tote like everyone knowsand I'm like what I didn't oh
(18:48):
shit i didn't know that and hewas like yeah I don't know if
you noticed that like thisperson in that guy are like kind
of weird around you like they'renot like I kind of have to like
you know keep them at baybecause they're not really
comfortable with you beingtransgender blah blah blah so
like you should probably juststick with me because you know,
like I you know, like I'llprotect you basically, manager
(19:10):
said wild It was also a lie. Soit wasn't a lie that HR told
them so HR did like spill thebeans whether they did it like
maliciously or if like the rightpeople hadn't connected yet to
like inform them that this wassupposed to be confidential. I
don't know it doesn't matter.
But my manager straight up liedabout these people like having a
(19:30):
problem with it. And as Icontinue to get to know them,
what my manager was saying waskind of contradicting but at the
same time I was, I was young,I'm in a new career. I'm brand
new to this whole transitioningthing. I mean, it all happens so
quickly. I went from coming outas transgender to starting my
just started my transition tostarting this new career all
(19:52):
within like six months. So Ibarely have a handle on what's
going on and this guy's kind oflike, take Taking advantage of
my vulnerabilities. So I'm kindof in this position where I'm
like, Well, I need this job tosurvive. And I don't know, like
some of the things that you weretalking about happening in your
job, like, I don't know if thesethings are happening, and it's,
(20:14):
it's making me kind of paranoid,it's in the back of my head,
like, I don't, I don't know. Andit's like, oh, I could have just
gotten a new job, but not Imean, I was brand new to the
industry, it took me a long timeto get that job, you know, I was
like, I can't leave a job in thefirst six months a year, like,
that's not gonna reflect well onme. So I felt really like
trapped. It really wasn't. Sothat was all back in the
(20:35):
beginning of 2018. And it wasn'treally until like, honestly,
really, in the last like, fewweeks, I was, I was talking to
someone about it. And I was, asin a group of trans people
actually, we were sharing, likecoming out stories at work and
stuff like that. And I was like,Well, I didn't really come out.
(20:56):
But this is what happened to me.
And everyone was like, Damn,dude, that's really bad. And I
was like, Oh, wait, you'reright, that is really bad. Like,
no wonder I like don't want tobe in this industry, because I
have shit kind of happen at mysecond job, too. You know, and I
hadn't really processed it. Andso I kind of realized that in my
(21:18):
wanting to leave tech, a lot ofit had to do with like, not ever
really feeling like I had, youknow, I had already been in the
industry for like, three, fouryears at that point, and never
really had a chance to get like,my, I never had like the
development or anything likethat, like it was constantly
like, I'm just trying to survivehere and also prove that I'm
(21:40):
good at what I do. But I don'treally have the space or support
to actually like, practice mycraft, and so right. Anyway, so
I say all that. So with yourexperience, like what was kind
of the process of like, real, Imean, I'm sure you knew in the
moment to some degree that like,what you were dealing with was
(22:01):
fucked up. But then you saidthat you were like, kind of
dealt with smaller versions ofthat at your next jobs, which is
the same thing that happened tome. So at what point were you
just like, yeah, this offbutton, I don't actually deserve
any of this treatment. And like,yeah, like, what, what kind of
what was that process like foryou to just what was the process
of processing it like?
(22:24):
So? Honestly, I have a lot offuck you energy. Right? So it
didn't take me long to realizethat things were bad. But what I
did was kind of, I started doingabsolute bare minimum, I
(22:48):
launched my tech app on theirdime. Like, during my nine to
five, I was coming into work.
I'm like, oh, they're giving meshit work to do. So let me just
hammer get that out of the way.
It was like I was literallydoing data entry. Because they
didn't know they couldn't findanywhere else to do it. So I'd
be like, let me just bang thisout. And now I'm just going to
(23:08):
work on learning React Native,making an app for the fighting
game community Tekken players.
So this is how I like thatphrase, reclaiming my time.
Yeah, I reclaimed my time. Thatway, it was like spike driven
development where I'm like, Oh,I don't, they're not supporting
me. They're not giving me what Ineed to grow. So I'm going to do
(23:31):
it myself. at my desk. Yeah. Andso that was kind of what allowed
me to be okay. You know, maybeit would have been mentally
healthier for me mentally if Ihad taken action and tried to
find somewhere else to go. But Iwas like, fuck this, like, where
(23:53):
else am I gonna get to write aReact Native app for my
community? I'm just gonna do itat my job. Yeah, and
getting getting a job in tech. Imean, this isn't like just throw
your application to great placesand get hired like, this is a
very involved energy drainingprocess that Yep, yeah, it's not
(24:13):
it's not simple.
And so I so and that helped, soI launched it right. And you
know, the thing that's messed upthey were they needed React
Native developers. I was one ofthe earliest adopters at that
company, or just in general ofReact Native. Yeah. And they
were getting React Nativeprojects and skipping over me
even though I had moreexperience versus people who
(24:36):
didn't had none. Like they wereliterally gatekeeping like the
good stuff. And soI can relate this by seven
chicken. Yeah, yeah. They Ilaunched t seven chicken. And I
ended up getting like 20 to30,000 users. Oh, wow. And It
(25:01):
was great. It was such a greatexperience doing all that. And
I'm like speeding through a lotbecause this is over the course
of like years, right? Yeah. Andso that was my ticket for
applying to new jobs. Becausenow I had something that I can
point to, and say, Hey, I wrotean app, I launched it on my own.
here's proof. And here's, here'swhy it's valuable. I've got 30
(25:24):
people, 30,000 people using it.
I got 4.9 star reviews. Screwwhoever gave me like the two
stars. Right? Never. Neverforget, you really don't forget
when you have like, you can getfeedback. You can get like a
million positive feedback thingsand but you're always going to
remember the one or two that'sthing. Yeah, the
human right. Am I right? Right,right. And so
(25:47):
that's what I want to gointerview with. And so it's
funny, because I was actuallytrying to get fired from that
place for a while, like I wasliterally just doing the worst,
the worst things possible. AndI'm like, man, they still have
me here. But I don't know, wecould maybe go over those later.
But anyway. So I ended up atthis other. I interviewed at
(26:12):
this other company, and it feltamazing, because I bombed their
coding challenges all of them.
But they really liked me. Sothey hired me anyway. And I was
like, Wow, this is great. Theysaw potential, they love that I
launched something on my own.
They were considering ReactNative stuff. And I knew Redux
(26:35):
to know they don't meet they Iguess you don't meet a lot of
developers, JavaScriptdevelopers that like like Redux.
And I love Redux. Yeah. So thatwas going well, for a while,
until the company kind of wentin. I was there for like, eight
months. And so first two orthree months were great. But
(26:58):
then it went into like a sixmonth crunch time. And whoever
was supporting me got way toobusy to like, even look my
direction anymore. Especiallybecause they announced that they
were leaving the company. Andthey basically, they were so
good at JavaScript, they werelike carrying the whole company
on their back. So they werelike, can you please release all
(27:20):
of our features ever? Until youuntil the day you're gone. And
he genuinely liked doing thatkind of stuff. So I basically
lost the support that I had. Andthen stuff just started getting
weird. Like my co workersweren't really associating with
me, it was also like a culturefit thing. Two, co workers
weren't really talking to me, orinviting me out to lunch, or
(27:42):
trying to spend time with me atall. I was making sure all of
the tickets that I promised todeliver each sprint, those were
happening, but then I washearing complaints about me
texting too much, and stuff likethat, right? Like, oh, man, it
was so I still have no idea whatthe problem was there. Um, and,
(28:09):
and I remember talking to one ofthe it was like the VP of
engineering about diversity andstuff, because I was struggling
every time I see one of theblack people there, which
obviously is either going to belike, custodian level roles or
IT support. Yeah, you know whatI'm saying. So, every time I saw
(28:31):
them, I just couldn't help butwalk over to talk to them. And
it felt great. Like, there wasthe only time I was happy when I
was talking to the only blackpeople at this company. And so I
remember bringing up thediversity thing to the VP of
engineering. And he's like,well, if you look at our
numbers, you already knowI've already so annoyed this
(28:53):
guy. Like he hasn't saidanything real yet.
Never forget. He was like, hisposts. He was like super laid
back with his arms crossed, justso chill. It's like, well, if
you look at our numbers, it's50%. Like, left handed people,
(29:17):
gay lesbian, whatever. And like,so Spanish, like every category
ever, like me, like shortpeople? Yeah. And then, and then
50% white tech Bros. Like,it's like they're scrambling to
find diversity numbers like,yeah, had you had a weird
stomach condition for a year.
(29:41):
You're disabled. Right?
You are. Yeah, exactly. So whenhe said that, I was so like, I
was shocked because like,normally I see that kind of
stuff on Twitter. I didn't thinkI would hear it with my own
ears. Yeah, and I wouldn't havethat being sent to my own face.
I immediately was like, Okay,cool. That's really great to
(30:03):
know. And I went back to mind. Ijust sat back down, and just was
like, wow, internally screaming.
Right, right, right. And I don'tknow, just over time, the
manager, I had a really sweetguy. He just did not know how to
handle conflict at all. Therewas oh my god,
(30:27):
all this sounds so familiar.
He didn't, he was too scared. IfI was in his position, I would
have been like, what's yourproblem with Nick? Yeah, like,
let's talk about it. Let's getNick in a room. Like what? You
told me he was texting. Why areyou snitching? Like, you know,
I'm saying, like, I maybe it'sjust how I've grown up in like,
(30:50):
you know, we, it's like,something's wrong. We, you know,
we say something, and there's noproblem. You just got to, I
genuinely feel like whitepeople, or like white men in
particular have a hard time withconflict stuff. Yeah. You know,
and so that happened. And hekind of kept shrugging exam. So
(31:16):
he basically kept saying, like,I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. And
he, I didn't get fired. Hehinted that. Like, he really
wanted me to quit, because theydidn't have anything to fire me
for. Yeah. And so I said, youknow, what? Why don't I just
pack my shit and walk out rightnow? You were disturbing. Like
(31:37):
he's serving the feasts,obviously. And I know that he
felt so relieved when he heardthat, but I also know he felt
really bad because he knew hedidn't support me or nothing.
And if you feel bad, or sorry,yeah, oh, my God, this is all
just static. so familiar. Soyeah. Okay, so dealing with
stuff like this, like, let mesee, see, I need a minute now to
(32:01):
like, what, what am I trying toask from this? So when you're,
when you're dealing with all ofthat stuff, it's like, how do
you even get to see that? itthrough the thick of all this
because you're not working atraditional, like software
engineering role now? So it'slike, how did you kind of sift
(32:21):
through all of that bullshit,and realize that, in addition to
the fact that you were in thesepositions of being poorly
managed, you were also not quitein the right niche of tech?
I think, I mean, ultimately, Igo by, I am very, I believe in
(32:44):
doing what you feel, likecommitting to what you feel if
you feel something, even if itmakes, like no sense at all.
It's how you feel. And that issomething that you need to
acknowledge as long as it's likenot hurting somebody, you know
what I'm saying? Like, and sowhat's interesting is that I'm
so committed to that. And I feltbad most of the time. But I'm
(33:10):
like, this is the only option Ihave. Yeah, so I've always kind
of been longing to not have todeal with the tech stuff, like
you know, being a traditionalsoftware engineer. But I didn't
know what was available to me.
And sobecause you also say sorry,
really quick because you've alsosaid we've talked off mic a
little bit like making a lot ofmoney is important to you and
(33:33):
that's real and so it does feelfor a while that like it's like
software engineer or what Iguess I go back to like minimum
wage jobs or making like 30 Yes,I'll die. Yeah. Right. Like
that's, that's real because itdoes kind of trap you.
Right? And so, you know, and soI just had I just I didn't think
(33:55):
there was anything else for me.
And so you know, this year, so alot has happened and stuff and
this year was really weird. Iwas like, Okay, I need a job.
But now I'm just going to bepicky. Yeah, cuz I keep getting
burned from just jumping onwhatever. Yeah, this year
started off actually did acontract for a really cool
(34:17):
startup. It's called it'splaying multiverse calm. And I
was I was happy and excited.
They're like, it's a Wait,what is all that noise? Sounds
like a smoke detector. Are youokay? Are you safe? Is that your
house? Is your house on fireright now? No idea. What's
(34:44):
happening. Harris. We're tryingto record something.
Oh my god, dude, can I just likego check that out? Yeah,
please do. We can cut all thisout. All right. It's putting his
headphones back on. Hello. So, Iheard you say it was your alarm.
So no one broke into your house.
(35:04):
It was no, no, it was the firealarm on the second floor. But
she's like doing something withher hair. But I don't know. I
mean, her hair's not on fire. SoI think that's good. Yeah. False
alarm.
Cool. Anyway, you were justsaying that, um, in your job
(35:27):
hunting this year, you decidedto get picky and take whatever,
whatever the thing was, I foundhere laughs
Yeah, yeah. So so I was I waslike, really passively job
searching. So like, I didn'twant to apply for any jobs where
I didn't just want to, likestraight up apply. It had to be
through friends or connections.
So that was one thing. So thatwas like my rule. I'm not gonna
(35:51):
go look for a job. I'm justgonna wait till someone says,
hey, there's this opportunity atthis place. You want to check
that out? And that, you know, Itweet a lot. So that kind of
help. It's, you know, I was alsofocused on Paris's business to
like, you know, doing like, youknow, coding things and whatnot
(36:12):
for, you know, typical stuffthat CTOs would do you know what
I'm saying?
Yeah, paid or unpaid?
Yeah. And so that, so and then Ialso have my sponsorship from on
GitHub, and especially fromstripe, you know, so I was
actually able to livecomfortably without a full time
(36:36):
open source, maintainmaintainer. So. But, you know, I
wanted more money. And I startedoff this year with like, working
at this startup play multiverse.
It's like, online tabletopgaming platform, which is
amazing. Nice. Unfortunately, Iwas not in the good mental space
for that role. I had a friend atthe very beginning of this year,
(37:03):
he was murdered out of an act ofracism. town. Yeah, it was like
a good friend. I've known himfor like over 10 years and
stuff. He was somebody I metthrough tech and and so I
actually was trying to work atmultiverse as a distraction,
which is, like, the worst thingyou can do when you're grieving,
(37:24):
for sure. And so you know, andit's a it's a startup, very fast
paced environment. And so, youknow, I was getting feedback on
my deliverables. And eventually,you know, it was like, it
doesn't work for the business,you know, and so, and that's
fair, like, the I'm still I'm ongood terms with them. Like I
(37:46):
know that the CEO he's actuallyin Cambridge and Boston area.
And so we're probably going tolike hang out or whatever.
Sometime but yeah, like that wasa big blow to my ear. And I
didn't feel like interviewing oranything for a while after that.
Sure. Then I joined anotheragency and that was an absolute
(38:12):
shit show. I don't even want toget into that one. That was
Yeah, such such horriblemanagement.
Yeah, common common Famous lastwords or this time will be
differentright? That's exactly what it
was that I told them about myexperience at the first agency
(38:33):
to like yeah, it's gonna bedifferent now. And it was the
same my godyeah, so So at what point were
you like, you know why maybe,maybe I just need to do
something other than engineeringlike in addition to all this
bullshit, like it's also justnot quite the right niche.
That's the thing even this yearI still believe that I needed to
(39:00):
stay as an engineer so now I'mlike, Wow, now I need to just
try even harder to find a placethat I'd be happy being an
engineer. Hmm,does it feel like you're like
swimming upstream? Almost likethe heart? Yeah, trying the
worst it's getting?
Exactly. I did I did forget tomention I worked at an amazing
boot camp focused onunderrepresented groups called
(39:24):
resilient coders. Oh, nice. AndI did work there as sort of like
a teaching assistant. And thatwas like my first taste at
having a job that didn't requirecoding. Yeah. And so this this
all happened that happened likea while ago.
And I will say to you said youwere like focusing on your
network and if listeners ifresilient coders sounded
(39:47):
familiar, that's where Parislearned how to code so it was
kind of like your your foot inthere. Yeah, I mean, it does.
Yeah, difference. Having thatnetwork connection, knowing
someone and kind of be a betterplace. That way, you know,
oh wait, I think Imisunderstood. No, I was part.
So I actually met Paris. Istarted mentoring at resume
(40:09):
quarters when she joined.
Oh, gotcha, gotcha. We metbecause of resume. Oh, look at
that a little, a littleresilient coders couple
different again, a successstory.
I got so much shit. Like while Iwas working there, they will
after her cohort, they made arule that mentors but but I'm so
(40:32):
salty I need I need I need thepublic to know is that she
expressed interest not me. Soa lot of matter, it doesn't
matter. That's never that'snever whatever, whatever helps
you sleep at night, man.
It does help me sleep at night.
I'm just messing with. Soanyway, yeah, so I guess that
(40:58):
was my first taste intosomething that didn't require me
coding. But even then, I justdidn't feel like there was any
other option. That's whyprismatic was so prismic reached
out to me. And then they juststraight up were like, yeah, we
figured you'd be a good fit fordeveloper experience. You know,
what do you like, you know, and,you know, I told them what I
(41:21):
liked. And they're like, dowhat, hey, you could do what you
like here, though. So. So inthat, and that's that, and I've
been happy. And and you know, Ididn't like I'm very active on
Twitter. Yeah, right. I've been.
I've been with them for months.
But I didn't want to sayanything, because I'm so work,
(41:42):
work. trauma is a thing. Yeah.
Right. And so I'm like, I joinedy'all. But do y'all suck? You
know?
Yeah. It's like, you don't wantto publicly be like, I love this
place, then be like, here's myblog post about why they suck.
Like, yeah,exactly. Exactly. So awkward.
tone, like, so. And I it part ofit makes like, that kind of
(42:08):
thing makes me feel bad, right?
Because I don't think like,like, they didn't really they
don't deserve to be looked atthat that way. Right? Like, I
joined. And I'm like, I need tomake sure that no one is a piece
of shit. Right?
But there's real like, like,it's not really quick. I mean,
if you're, I mean, this isanother piece. It's like when
(42:29):
you're hiring people, if you'rein a position to hire people,
and it seems like someone who'snew on board is is less than
enthused, like it could be thatthey've been burned so many
times that, like, they need thattime and space, like, did they
kind of give you that time andspace to say did? Yeah, that's
great. Yeah.
(42:49):
Yeah. And they've been sosupportive, you know. And so,
the bar is, like, so low for meat the at this point, because
like, all they had to do wasshow basic, decent amounts of
respect, and my mind would havebeen blown. But they've been
going above and beyond to reallymake sure I'm happy in in, you
(43:12):
know, I'm enabled, and I'm ableto do what I, what drives me,
you know.
So that's great that they'realso able to, like, recognize
me, like, Hey, here's this otherthing that you can do, because
it's a weird thing. It's like,we don't know what we don't
know. So until you're like,seriously considering or until
(43:32):
that other option is presentedto you. It doesn't really seem
like an option. It's like, yeah,it's it's software engineering,
or bust. And they're like, oryou could apply, like some of
what you're doing on Twitter andthings in your real life job,
because we see you doing it.
Yeah. And we know you would begood at it. That's exactly
you're actually not the first.
Sorry, I keep saying Debra, Iknow that's not technically what
(43:53):
you're doing. That it's it'skind of make sense. But I do you
know, I Isha Blake. Yes. She's,she's a former guest of the
show. And she's also in dev REL.
And she also if I remembercorrectly, was like initially
kind of sought out. It was kindof the same thing where she was
like, wait, I'm doing thisalready. Like it could be my
(44:14):
job. So I mean, I know ValerieFeeny. I mean, let me just run
through all the tech peoplewe've had on the show so far.
But Valerie Phoenix, you know,she was saying like, you can get
into tech without knowing how tocode at all. And and even in the
realm of coding, like there's somany different jobs out there so
like, I think that I think thata big takeaway it's like you
(44:35):
because here's the other thingand I think Valerie said was
like, you know, I'm gonna be ablack woman no matter where I
go. So I might as well be inTexas. This is where the money
is. It's like, a lot of thisbullshit we're going to deal
with no matter where we gobecause unfortunately, these
problems are kicked into mostindustries. So it's like when
you find the right fit, it feelsa little bit less Yeah, friction
(44:58):
doesn't feel as bad becauseyou're at least doing what you
want to do you know what I mean?
Because it's like, okay, so ifyou're a white guy, especially
if you're a white man, andyou're in a job that doesn't
really fit you, people are gonnahave a lot more compassion for
(45:19):
you. Because most people, ifyou're in a job, that's a bad
fit, you're not going to be asengaged and you're going to have
other issues and things likethat. But it's like, when you're
the other, no matter what thatother may be in this job isn't a
good fit for you, they're justgonna think that there's some
sort of character flaw withinyou that you're an employee, and
they're not going to give youthat chance to really, like you
said, you didn't get the supportthat you needed to, you know,
(45:42):
and someone who is reallymentoring you, like a manager
should might have recognizedlike, hey, maybe this other role
would have been better for you.
You know what I mean?
Yeah. Yeah, totally. And yeah,and in the wild thing about all
of that, is that it makes, itreally makes you question
yourself. And I think that's theworst part of it all. And that's
(46:05):
a big part of what I was facingmost of this year. I'm like, Why
the fuck? Can I not hold a devjob? Like, what is wrong with
me, too? I need to get better atcoding to I need to get better
at socializing. Do I? Like whycan I Why is everyone else
successful in this, but not me.
And I felt and I've beenfighting with that, on top of
(46:29):
the loss of my friend, on top ofthe financial burden, the idea
that I wasn't really making,like really good money, you
know, it was just this year.
This year did not start offWell, for me at all in a mental
and emotional space. Yeah, youknow, and so. And so like that,
(46:57):
all of that is kind of why I wasso picky, because it's like, the
last thing I need is now to justbe at a job that sucks. On top
of the not even being able tokeep the jobs. Yeah, for sure.
You know, because by cuz in mymind, it's like, no matter where
(47:19):
I go, I'm just going to beunhappy. I just need to be at a
place where I would be unhappythe least. Now what a
depressing,right? Like That was how I saw
the world. Yeah, yeah, forsure. I mean, it's just and I
think that the big the bigpiece, I mean, you, you keep
kind of bringing it up socasually, almost in passing, but
(47:41):
I think it's actually the mostimportant key here is he kept
saying, you know, like, I'm onTwitter a lot, I'm active on
Twitter. And I think that, youknow, throughout all of that,
you kept showing up. And, youknow, I think it's like Arlen
Hamilton, it's like, you know,be be be who you are, so that
the people who are looking for,you know, nowhere to find you.
(48:01):
So it's like, even though you'regoing through all this stuff,
and I actually do remember nowyou tweeting about your friend
that had died, I remember apicture of the two of you at
like a convention that youposted for protection. And you
know, so you were still showingup, you're still active in your
community, and you're, you'reshowing what you're doing. So
even even though you couldn'tsee that maybe part of the
(48:23):
problem is you're trying to geta software engineering job, when
you really belong in thisDeveloper Relations, developer
experience role, the fact thatyou are continuously showing up
and being yourself, the rightpeople did find you and
recognize that and they wereable to reach out to you,
whereas if you were like, Idon't know what I want to do.
(48:43):
And why is this not working forme, and I'm just gonna, like,
you know, kind of curl up intomy own shell and kind of
disengage from the world, thenyou would still be wondering why
you can't hold a tech job andtrying to make it work with
software engineering, and stillbeing miserable. So I think that
that, that willingness to bevulnerable, I think, is really
(49:04):
what kind of helps you get towhere you're at. Now, you know,
yeah,yeah, I am very happy to share
what I'm going through and put,I think it's important to put
stuff out there. Like, becauseI've always found it helpful
(49:29):
when I'm down in the dumps. Andthen someone else kind of tweets
like, Hey, I'm down in thedumps. Like, oh, shit, yo, me
too. You know, like, yeah, thisthat just feels good, you know.
And so and I have also tweetedthis year about my struggles
with like imposter syndrome, or,you know, coding challenges. Oh,
(49:52):
man, that's another thing I wasbombing these interview as
bombing challenges. at placesthat I feel like I'd be amazing
at more games.
Yeah. And so that that reallyhurt, too. And so I think like,
oh, I'll always be kind ofsharing these things. And that
(50:15):
energy that you put out, comesback, you know,
100% 100% I couldn't agree withyou more. And I can't can't
imagine a better note to endthis on to I think we're out of
time to do you. Do you haveanything else that you want to
share that you feel like you'dbe remiss if you if you left it
out? Um,then I don't I can't I can't
(50:36):
think of anything right now. Ijust have a genuinely, I just
genuinely think that it'simportant to for people, it's, I
wouldn't say important. I thinkit's valuable for people to
share themselves on socialmedia.
Yeah. Beware Be who you are, andshow up. People who are looking
(51:00):
for you can find you.
You have no idea what kind ofpositive impact you would make
on somebody. You'll probablynever, you'll never know, you'll
just there are people out therelurking. Mm hmm. And then I'll
hear something like monthslater, someone said, Yeah, that
one tweet. You put out aboutthis? You know, I decided to do
(51:23):
XYZ because of that. Yeah. No,and that person doesn't comment
or like or post themselves, butit's out there for them. You
know?
Yeah. I love that, man. Yeah.
Thank you for coming on, Nick.
That I mean, this was a reallycool conversation. And I think
it's, it's I really, I mean,this wasn't even really the the
(51:47):
general theme that I wasexpecting to come out of this
conversation. But I think thatit's a really important one.
It's like when you it's like,it's almost just like, don't
give up. Like, just keep, keepshowing up. And that's the
biggest thing. It's like whenyou're when you're not sure what
you want to do share that withpeople share that with people
share with the world, becauseyou just never know who's going
(52:10):
to be that person to kind oflike, show you show you the
other route and show you theother way. Because a lot of
times it could be you know,being a software engineer like
you're so you're so close, yetso far to like, yeah, it
actually should be and it'slike, sometimes when you're that
close, you can't see the otherperspective, the other the other
(52:31):
options and things like that. Sojust opening up talking to
whoever talking out into theworld on social media, like, you
just never know where that'sgonna take you, man. So I thank
you for sharing your story andfor and especially for being
vulnerable about some of thehard parts. I mean, man I can, I
can go on and on and on with myown versions of some of these
(52:52):
nightmare stories that you'veshared right down to that. That
goddamn diversity thing. Oh mygod. Yeah,
I burned on time. memories,right? Yeah. Yeah. I'll
tell us about some of that stuffoff. Make the Yeah. Do you have
anything that you want topromote anything else you want
to plug including yourself?
(53:14):
Um, no, like, just you know, ifyou want. Follow me on Twitter,
if you if you don't want to,that's cool as well. At day Hey,
Soos DAYHAY. S o s?
Yeah. I love that. The phoneticspelling of de hasee.
Title I do is calling me theJesus. Yeah. Oh,
(53:37):
my God. I'll put I'll put thelink in the show notes for that.
And, man, Nick, thank you somuch. I will talk to you soon.
Take care.
Once again, that was Nick day.
Hey, Soos. Thank you again forcoming on the show. Nick. I
(53:57):
really hope we get to worktogether someday. That would be
just so cool. And I appreciatethis conversation. I appreciate
the chats that we've had sincethen, and we'll continue to have
in the future. I think at onepoint during the interview, I
mentioned a quote from ArlenHamilton. I pulled up that
(54:17):
quote, it's from her book, it'sabout damn time. And she said it
much more succinctly than Itried to paraphrase it. But the
quote is, be yourself so thatthe people looking for you can
find you. And how true is that?
I mean, with everything thatNick went through putting
(54:40):
himself out there and beinghimself on Twitter is part of
how he was able to move forward.
And you know, in my experience,doing this podcast and getting
these interviews together andreally reinforcing my network
through this podcast has givenme opportunities that I wouldn't
otherwise have You know, I've,I've been introduced to people
(55:01):
that, you know, mutual friendsof ours said, Hey, I think you
too, I think this person wouldbe a great fit for your podcast,
and then that person becomes areally good friend. You know,
there are people in my life whoI have been in my life for a
long time. And we've gotten toknow each other on a much deeper
level as a result of thispodcast of doing an interview on
(55:24):
this podcast. And there's just arichness that has been added to
my life just from putting myselfout there doing this project.
And you know, that might looklike different things for
different people. And, you know,whatever that putting yourself
out there means but you know, weare, we're social beings, as
(55:46):
humans, we need each other toheal. And I'm just so grateful
to have the opportunity to shareand heal with others. And you
know, and be able to share thatwith all of you. So if you liked
what you heard today, pleasegive us a five star written
review. It's like currency inthis world. Truly the way that
(56:09):
the rankings work in the podcastworld is by the five star
reviews, not by the amount oflistens. So it really goes a
long way in helping to promotethe show. Take a screenshot of
this podcast and throw it onInstagram, make it your
Instagram story, you can tag meat Leo Yockey LEYOCKEY. It's a
great way to let your friendsknow that you're listening and
(56:36):
what you're into and what youfind cool. Yeah, and I will say
right now, there is a slightchance that next week, October
5, we're going to go dark. Withsome of the changes with getting
an attack and a couple ofpersonal events coming up. I
might not have the bandwidth tobe able to put these out once a
(56:57):
week throughout the remainder ofthe year. I'm going to go as
close to once a week no morethan bi weekly, or sorry, no
less frequently than bi weekly.
But just putting that out therefair warning, I might put up
some bonus content or somethingif I can't do a full episode,
but either way, I'll definitelybe back by the 12th. I have some
(57:18):
exciting artists coming in.
Towards the end of October Ihave a musician Trish is who's
got an album coming out soon.
Addy woolridge is coming backthe day that her second book
gets released. So I'm reallyexcited for you to hear those
conversations. Thank you forlistening. Thank you for being
on this journey with me. And asalways, stay evolving.
Hello, and welcome to anotherepisode of the Leo Yockey show,
the show where I Leo Yockeyinterview guests about the
universal truths and theirunique life paths. How are we
doing today? It's autumnsomehow, already, I don't even
know where time is going, it'sgonna be 2022. Before we know
it. I've been hinting at thisfor a few weeks now. But I've
(00:40):
been talking about the fact thatI'm returning to tech after a
few weeks or a few months sorry,of saying that I'm quitting
forever, I'm never going back.
I'm finally ready to go back.
And I feel really good about it.
And I wouldn't have gotten thereif it wasn't for the
conversations I was having righthere on this podcast. So I thank
all of my previous guests, everysingle guest has been a big part
(01:04):
of my healing. But perhaps in away, none more than this guest
today, Nick day, hey, Soos. NowI know Nick through that black
tech Twitter network that Italked about a little bit on
Paris Athena's episode in seasonone, which Fun fact, Nick and
Paris are actually engaged. Sothere's a passage from a book
(01:29):
that I actually want to read toy'all. It's from the book shook
one by Charlemagne, the guide.
It's a book that I'm currentlyreading right now, actually. And
I just read this passage maybean hour ago. And as soon as I
read it, I said, Oh, my God,this perfectly explains the
(01:51):
conversation that I have withNick. And I was already planning
on recording this intro thismorning. So it's like, I gotta
throw it in there. So here itis. We all share so many of the
same fears and insecurities. Ihave friends who might have
grown up in the Bronx, orDetroit, or LA, maybe even
during different areas. But whenwe talk about it, we see that we
(02:14):
often share the same exact painand this and the exact same
trauma. And once we can admitthat the pain that used to feel
so heavy, suddenly begins tolift, we are actually able to
laugh about a lot of thisbecause we've all been through
it. We realize it's not just usalone on an island. So once
(02:36):
again, that's from Shaquan,Pash, Charlemagne, the God. Now
what he's describing here isexactly what I felt talking to
Nick, you know, we shared someof our experiences that,
unfortunately, are all toocommon for black people in tech.
But there was something aboutthis conversation that I could
(02:57):
feel myself as we were havingit, the the energy that gets
created when two or more peoplemeet and share common
experiences. I don't know it'slike there's, there's magic in
that. And toward towards theend, we do talk a little bit
about, you know, really what ittakes to be able to heal and
move on, when you're goingthrough these things when life
(03:19):
gets tough, and how to keepmoving forward. Because
ultimately, that's all we're alltrying to do here right is just
keep moving forward, no matterwhat happens in life. So Nick, I
appreciate you having thisconversation with me. Again,
just being able to share andrelate our experiences with each
other. It helped me see that myissues my experiences, they
(03:46):
weren't an issue with me, youknow, I didn't fail at Tech, as
much as it was that I justwasn't prepared for some of the
challenges that I was kind offace and, and not realizing that
this is something that kind ofhappens to all of us to some
degree or another so I'm reallyexcited that you're gonna get to
(04:06):
be a fly on the wall for thisconversation. Now, I don't think
we get too much inside baseballhere. There is gonna be some
tech jargon. Some some of thekey words from Tech that I heard
that might not be relatable toeveryone are Redux, react, React
Native tech in which is a videogame, which I wouldn't have ever
(04:29):
known about. If it wasn't forNick being in my life,
JavaScript, open source dev REL.
If you hear these things, you'renot familiar with them just know
that they're tech terms. We'rejust kind of talking shop a
little bit, but I don't thinkthere's too much of that
throughout the conversation. AndI do think that again, with a
conclusion that we come totowards the end. I think this
(04:51):
conversation is going to berelatable to a lot of people
regardless of what industry youwork in, because again, these
are issues that happen in everyindustry not just tech so let's
get into the conversation Shallwe?
(05:15):
Alright Nick, here we go. Howyou doing? What's up?
I'm doing great. What's up withyou? It's been a while. Once the
last time we actually talked.
Dude, the last time we likeactually taught we've deemed a
little bit on Twitter about somebooks and things, but i think
that i think that i was in thein the black tech pipeline. I
(05:37):
was just a peek behind thecurtain for the listeners,
former guests of the show ParisAthena black tech pipeline. This
is Nick Nick is Paris is the DNCYonsei and he is also famously
on Twitter, the unpaid CTO hestill have that on there I think
(06:00):
I mean, I don't know if I'mgonna I'm gonna keep that there
until she decides to pay me formy work one day
maybe I don't know I've heardabout like major like abuse it
you know, it's like the peopleclosest to you that hurt you the
most you know if you were somemirando you probably would have
been done paid by now but youknow
(06:22):
now I got I'm holding on to it.
It's It's It's all I've got fornow. It's like you know, my call
for accountability on her part.
There you go. I like it. Yeah.
You're you're trying to look outfor the all the future CTOs of
blast test that plan and makesure that they get paid. What
kind of monster we pay bears outto be right now. I know. Right?
(06:44):
I mean, I'm the listenersalready got to know her on their
own.
I'm always here for parishslender, though. Yeah, it's like
what we do?
Absolutely. is, if you don'twant to follow either them on
Twitter for the tech stuff,follow for the relationship ship
posts, that's for sure. Yeah.
But yeah, I think the last timethat we talked for real, I was
(07:05):
in the black tech pipeline. AndI was talking a few of the
companies there. And potentiallybeing recruited. And then at
some, so this was probably like,February or so of this year.
It's now August 19, that we'rerecording this. And I said, at
one point, I was like, You knowwhat, I'm actually done with
(07:26):
tech, you can remove me fromthis pipeline of yours. I'm
going to go off and spread mywings. And, you know, life life
is having multiple other plans.
But it seems like both of us arekind of in slightly different
different boats than what we sawourselves in six months ago.
(07:47):
Right? Because you were alsolooking for an engineering role
back around that time, I think,right?
Yeah, it was a reallyinteresting time. Because I
mean, I feel like the beginningof this year was a really big
struggle for me. You know, mypast five years as a software
engineer, haven't really beenthe happiest. And so I started
(08:09):
getting more and more pickyabout where I want to work. And
fortunately, I've been able tosurvive off of, you know, stripe
sponsorship. In my get my myGitHub sponsorship, which
includes stripe. And so like, Iremember talking to you about
(08:31):
this stuff, and then eventuallyyou're like, you know what, I
think I'm just done. I'm notgonna do this anymore. Yeah. And
I was like, man, like, I feelyou know, saying, like, like,
saying, you know, I'm like, Iunderstand exactly, how, like,
you were speaking my language.
But unfortunately, I guess Ifelt like, I cannot I still have
(08:53):
to be here. You know what I'msaying? Yeah. And so that that
resonated with me a lot. Andit's kind of some it's one of
those things that like I revisitin my mind every now and then
because, because this like,because I feel like I've kind of
been suffering in silence on myown. And then and then but it
was just kind of validating toknow that other people in this
(09:17):
space, same space as me feelthis way as well, you know?
Yeah. So so the five years thatyou spent unhappy Can you kind
of, can you kind of describethat a little bit more like what
what was going on? Exactly. Likewhen you scan happy? What do you
mean?
Yeah, I think I mean, there'slike a lot of, there's a lot of
(09:39):
just weird things that I'veexperienced that I don't think
others would, you know, my firstmaybe two or three years as an
engineer, I was at a huge agencyand I was like, their IT guy,
and I wanted to convert frombeing their IT guy fixing all
their laptops and stuff tosoftware engineer. Doing a web
(10:02):
development more specifically, Ieventually ended up making that
switch. And it was at a reallyweird time. So first of all,
what was awesome? Is that myfirst dev role ever, I got sent
to live in Scotland ineverything. Oh, yeah, all
(10:22):
expenses were covered. I livedin the center of the nightlife
in Edinburgh. I was balling. Itwas like the bet, like it was
amazing. Just there was amazing.
However, it started off my firstday showing up at work there,
the person leading the project,was waiting for me outside the
office, and literally told me assoon as I got there, he's like,
(10:46):
I never wanted you on thisproject. Don't tell anyone, this
is your first job. As anengineer ever. You are a react
and Redux expert. And don'tdon't ask for too much help. And
oh, my God, okay, hold on.
podcasting is an audio medium. Ijust need everyone to know my
jaws on the floor. I can'tbelieve that's how you started
(11:08):
your very first job. Day one,Jesus,
okay, it's first day at work gethere. It was such a stern look.
And at the time, I mean, I wasgrateful anyway, because I was
like, out there, this is myfirst thing, you know, and, and,
and at the time, like, I lookedat that, and I was like, Oh, I
(11:30):
get it, we need to look good forthe clients. You know, I didn't
really think of it as malicetowards me. Yeah. Until I
realized that he was actuallyworking towards actively
removing me from the projectsince I started. And so like, so
I was supposed to the pit. Theplan was I was supposed to stay
(11:52):
in Scotland for six months, anddecide if I wanted to live in
Europe for the rest of my lifeor not. But what happened was,
he got me removed from theproject after three months, at
two months, my access tobuildings and all that stuff
seemed to happen to accidentallygo away. But it was really him
(12:15):
pulling strings in thebackground to remove me and it
just kind of happenedprematurely. Oh, my God. Yeah,
it was like the wildness. And Ihad my coworkers, I loved them.
It was first of all, this this,this agency's competitive
advantage is underpaying a shitton of Indian people. So my co
(12:40):
workers, but like, I had, like3040 Indian co workers, and they
knew the situation and theyshowed me so much love and tried
their best to support me. Butthey couldn't. Because they
didn't want to, like get caught,like talking to me too much.
Yeah, trying to survive at theend of the day, too.
Yeah. And so it was it washorrible. But man, let me tell
(13:05):
you, I had a great time afterwork every day, drinking all the
whiskey hitting all the bars,the clubs, traveling to other
countries and so much easier outthere. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, so so it was it wassimultaneously the best and
worst time of my life.
Yeah. And that tends to workout, huh. Right.
(13:27):
Exactly. And so and I came backto America, and then from there,
the people at the agency keptsending me to shit projects. Is
it okay to curse on thispodcast? Fuck Yeah, dude. Okay,
shape. Hell yeah.
So I got so all out now. Yeah,great.
(13:47):
So they sent me to like New Yorkto work on like Saks Fifth
Avenue or something. And, butand that was cool. But after
that, the basically myreputation was tarnished. And
also this company was goingthrough an acquisition at the
same time, and tons of peoplewere leaving. So everyone that
got assigned to me as a mentor,kept leaving. So I basically had
(14:11):
no mentor, no manager for leggyyears starting off my career. So
no way for me to grow. And togrow, I realized I had to do
things on my own, which is why Istarted all kinds of side
projects. Yeah. So that that wasreally like long, but this is
(14:32):
how I started off in theindustry. And I've only had
similar experiences to what waslike at that agency for years
after. And this year, it finallychanged.
And in this year, what whatchanged exactly like how do you
think it changed? Why do youthink changed?
(14:53):
Well, yeah, so it's a differentrole. It's not just like
traditional softwareengineering. I'm a developer
experience engineer. At prismic,and I wasn't necessarily looking
at the time for work, but theyreached out to me. And this is
really important to me theinitial interactions. It's like,
(15:16):
Hey, you know, we saw yourprofile, we're really impressed.
This we are prismic this is whatwe do. What do you want to do?
What are you interested in? I'mlike, Oh, well, you know, I'm
not really looking for work, butI like e commerce, you know, and
I like developer tooling. Andthat's like, that was pretty
(15:39):
much it, right? Like, I don'tcare about CMS stuff. And then
they were kind of like, well,that's cool. What if you did
those things with us? And I waslike, Oh, wait, like that sounds
kind of nice like So you mean totell me that I can still care
about the things I care aboutoutside of like a traditional
(16:00):
job but at my traditional joband so after having a bunch of
discussions and you know, theydidn't even give me like a code
challenge they just wanted tosee maybe some maybe they wanted
me to do like a presentation onon a technical topic and I had a
discussion with the CEO and itwas really like just nice it I
(16:26):
didn't feel like I had to beanyone else other than myself
it's very nice and and I've beenI contracted with them for a few
months and I still feel that waythat I could just be myself and
and I am working on ecommercethings at prismic right like so
(16:54):
they trust me we have like gameplans and stuff on like I think
like I could bring a lot ofvalue to them around ecommerce
and in payment handling stripeall that stuff. Like these are
the things I like working withyeah and so I'm allowed to work
on these types of things withtheir platform
(17:19):
that's awesome. So what was itlike so before they before
presenter Okay, let me let meshare a little bit about about
my experience so far I keep likebombard you with all these
questions so you know in myexperience so so my experience
was a little bit different Ididn't have someone flat out be
like I don't want you here. ButI still had an experience going
(17:42):
into my first tech job where itwas like I feel like I'm kind of
at a disadvantage before I evengo out the gate and I'm just
trying to do my job and peoplearen't letting me but it was a
lot more around like it was alot more discriminatory It was
like I think you know that I'mtransgender. Like Yeah, so when
(18:06):
I started my very first tech jobso I started testosterone I
started my like medicaltransition within the same month
that I started my first tech joband so my name hadn't legally
changed it actually didn't knowwhat I wanted my legal name to
be, but I was going by myinitials at the time I was just
going by Lj and I figured I waslike okay, I talked to HR about
(18:27):
this I'm like hey, this is why Igo by Lj please don't like let
anybody else know my legal namethat doesn't absolutely need to
hear it and they said no problemand then not immediately but
like maybe a month or two intothe job my manager was like oh
yeah HR tote like everyone knowsand I'm like what I didn't oh
(18:48):
shit i didn't know that and hewas like yeah I don't know if
you noticed that like thisperson in that guy are like kind
of weird around you like they'renot like I kind of have to like
you know keep them at baybecause they're not really
comfortable with you beingtransgender blah blah blah so
like you should probably juststick with me because you know,
like I you know, like I'llprotect you basically, manager
(19:10):
said wild It was also a lie. Soit wasn't a lie that HR told
them so HR did like spill thebeans whether they did it like
maliciously or if like the rightpeople hadn't connected yet to
like inform them that this wassupposed to be confidential. I
don't know it doesn't matter.
But my manager straight up liedabout these people like having a
(19:30):
problem with it. And as Icontinue to get to know them,
what my manager was saying waskind of contradicting but at the
same time I was, I was young,I'm in a new career. I'm brand
new to this whole transitioningthing. I mean, it all happens so
quickly. I went from coming outas transgender to starting my
just started my transition tostarting this new career all
(19:52):
within like six months. So Ibarely have a handle on what's
going on and this guy's kind oflike, take Taking advantage of
my vulnerabilities. So I'm kindof in this position where I'm
like, Well, I need this job tosurvive. And I don't know, like
some of the things that you weretalking about happening in your
job, like, I don't know if thesethings are happening, and it's,
(20:14):
it's making me kind of paranoid,it's in the back of my head,
like, I don't, I don't know. Andit's like, oh, I could have just
gotten a new job, but not Imean, I was brand new to the
industry, it took me a long timeto get that job, you know, I was
like, I can't leave a job in thefirst six months a year, like,
that's not gonna reflect well onme. So I felt really like
trapped. It really wasn't. Sothat was all back in the
(20:35):
beginning of 2018. And it wasn'treally until like, honestly,
really, in the last like, fewweeks, I was, I was talking to
someone about it. And I was, asin a group of trans people
actually, we were sharing, likecoming out stories at work and
stuff like that. And I was like,Well, I didn't really come out.
(20:56):
But this is what happened to me.
And everyone was like, Damn,dude, that's really bad. And I
was like, Oh, wait, you'reright, that is really bad. Like,
no wonder I like don't want tobe in this industry, because I
have shit kind of happen at mysecond job, too. You know, and I
hadn't really processed it. Andso I kind of realized that in my
(21:18):
wanting to leave tech, a lot ofit had to do with like, not ever
really feeling like I had, youknow, I had already been in the
industry for like, three, fouryears at that point, and never
really had a chance to get like,my, I never had like the
development or anything likethat, like it was constantly
like, I'm just trying to survivehere and also prove that I'm
(21:40):
good at what I do. But I don'treally have the space or support
to actually like, practice mycraft, and so right. Anyway, so
I say all that. So with yourexperience, like what was kind
of the process of like, real, Imean, I'm sure you knew in the
moment to some degree that like,what you were dealing with was
(22:01):
fucked up. But then you saidthat you were like, kind of
dealt with smaller versions ofthat at your next jobs, which is
the same thing that happened tome. So at what point were you
just like, yeah, this offbutton, I don't actually deserve
any of this treatment. And like,yeah, like, what, what kind of
what was that process like foryou to just what was the process
of processing it like?
(22:24):
So? Honestly, I have a lot offuck you energy. Right? So it
didn't take me long to realizethat things were bad. But what I
did was kind of, I started doingabsolute bare minimum, I
(22:48):
launched my tech app on theirdime. Like, during my nine to
five, I was coming into work.
I'm like, oh, they're giving meshit work to do. So let me just
hammer get that out of the way.
It was like I was literallydoing data entry. Because they
didn't know they couldn't findanywhere else to do it. So I'd
be like, let me just bang thisout. And now I'm just going to
(23:08):
work on learning React Native,making an app for the fighting
game community Tekken players.
So this is how I like thatphrase, reclaiming my time.
Yeah, I reclaimed my time. Thatway, it was like spike driven
development where I'm like, Oh,I don't, they're not supporting
me. They're not giving me what Ineed to grow. So I'm going to do
(23:31):
it myself. at my desk. Yeah. Andso that was kind of what allowed
me to be okay. You know, maybeit would have been mentally
healthier for me mentally if Ihad taken action and tried to
find somewhere else to go. But Iwas like, fuck this, like, where
(23:53):
else am I gonna get to write aReact Native app for my
community? I'm just gonna do itat my job. Yeah, and
getting getting a job in tech. Imean, this isn't like just throw
your application to great placesand get hired like, this is a
very involved energy drainingprocess that Yep, yeah, it's not
(24:13):
it's not simple.
And so I so and that helped, soI launched it right. And you
know, the thing that's messed upthey were they needed React
Native developers. I was one ofthe earliest adopters at that
company, or just in general ofReact Native. Yeah. And they
were getting React Nativeprojects and skipping over me
even though I had moreexperience versus people who
(24:36):
didn't had none. Like they wereliterally gatekeeping like the
good stuff. And soI can relate this by seven
chicken. Yeah, yeah. They Ilaunched t seven chicken. And I
ended up getting like 20 to30,000 users. Oh, wow. And It
(25:01):
was great. It was such a greatexperience doing all that. And
I'm like speeding through a lotbecause this is over the course
of like years, right? Yeah. Andso that was my ticket for
applying to new jobs. Becausenow I had something that I can
point to, and say, Hey, I wrotean app, I launched it on my own.
here's proof. And here's, here'swhy it's valuable. I've got 30
(25:24):
people, 30,000 people using it.
I got 4.9 star reviews. Screwwhoever gave me like the two
stars. Right? Never. Neverforget, you really don't forget
when you have like, you can getfeedback. You can get like a
million positive feedback thingsand but you're always going to
remember the one or two that'sthing. Yeah, the
human right. Am I right? Right,right. And so
(25:47):
that's what I want to gointerview with. And so it's
funny, because I was actuallytrying to get fired from that
place for a while, like I wasliterally just doing the worst,
the worst things possible. AndI'm like, man, they still have
me here. But I don't know, wecould maybe go over those later.
But anyway. So I ended up atthis other. I interviewed at
(26:12):
this other company, and it feltamazing, because I bombed their
coding challenges all of them.
But they really liked me. Sothey hired me anyway. And I was
like, Wow, this is great. Theysaw potential, they love that I
launched something on my own.
They were considering ReactNative stuff. And I knew Redux
(26:35):
to know they don't meet they Iguess you don't meet a lot of
developers, JavaScriptdevelopers that like like Redux.
And I love Redux. Yeah. So thatwas going well, for a while,
until the company kind of wentin. I was there for like, eight
months. And so first two orthree months were great. But
(26:58):
then it went into like a sixmonth crunch time. And whoever
was supporting me got way toobusy to like, even look my
direction anymore. Especiallybecause they announced that they
were leaving the company. Andthey basically, they were so
good at JavaScript, they werelike carrying the whole company
on their back. So they werelike, can you please release all
(27:20):
of our features ever? Until youuntil the day you're gone. And
he genuinely liked doing thatkind of stuff. So I basically
lost the support that I had. Andthen stuff just started getting
weird. Like my co workersweren't really associating with
me, it was also like a culturefit thing. Two, co workers
weren't really talking to me, orinviting me out to lunch, or
(27:42):
trying to spend time with me atall. I was making sure all of
the tickets that I promised todeliver each sprint, those were
happening, but then I washearing complaints about me
texting too much, and stuff likethat, right? Like, oh, man, it
was so I still have no idea whatthe problem was there. Um, and,
(28:09):
and I remember talking to one ofthe it was like the VP of
engineering about diversity andstuff, because I was struggling
every time I see one of theblack people there, which
obviously is either going to belike, custodian level roles or
IT support. Yeah, you know whatI'm saying. So, every time I saw
(28:31):
them, I just couldn't help butwalk over to talk to them. And
it felt great. Like, there wasthe only time I was happy when I
was talking to the only blackpeople at this company. And so I
remember bringing up thediversity thing to the VP of
engineering. And he's like,well, if you look at our
numbers, you already knowI've already so annoyed this
(28:53):
guy. Like he hasn't saidanything real yet.
Never forget. He was like, hisposts. He was like super laid
back with his arms crossed, justso chill. It's like, well, if
you look at our numbers, it's50%. Like, left handed people,
(29:17):
gay lesbian, whatever. And like,so Spanish, like every category
ever, like me, like shortpeople? Yeah. And then, and then
50% white tech Bros. Like,it's like they're scrambling to
find diversity numbers like,yeah, had you had a weird
stomach condition for a year.
(29:41):
You're disabled. Right?
You are. Yeah, exactly. So whenhe said that, I was so like, I
was shocked because like,normally I see that kind of
stuff on Twitter. I didn't thinkI would hear it with my own
ears. Yeah, and I wouldn't havethat being sent to my own face.
I immediately was like, Okay,cool. That's really great to
(30:03):
know. And I went back to mind. Ijust sat back down, and just was
like, wow, internally screaming.
Right, right, right. And I don'tknow, just over time, the
manager, I had a really sweetguy. He just did not know how to
handle conflict at all. Therewas oh my god,
(30:27):
all this sounds so familiar.
He didn't, he was too scared. IfI was in his position, I would
have been like, what's yourproblem with Nick? Yeah, like,
let's talk about it. Let's getNick in a room. Like what? You
told me he was texting. Why areyou snitching? Like, you know,
I'm saying, like, I maybe it'sjust how I've grown up in like,
(30:50):
you know, we, it's like,something's wrong. We, you know,
we say something, and there's noproblem. You just got to, I
genuinely feel like whitepeople, or like white men in
particular have a hard time withconflict stuff. Yeah. You know,
and so that happened. And hekind of kept shrugging exam. So
(31:16):
he basically kept saying, like,I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. And
he, I didn't get fired. Hehinted that. Like, he really
wanted me to quit, because theydidn't have anything to fire me
for. Yeah. And so I said, youknow, what? Why don't I just
pack my shit and walk out rightnow? You were disturbing. Like
(31:37):
he's serving the feasts,obviously. And I know that he
felt so relieved when he heardthat, but I also know he felt
really bad because he knew hedidn't support me or nothing.
And if you feel bad, or sorry,yeah, oh, my God, this is all
just static. so familiar. Soyeah. Okay, so dealing with
stuff like this, like, let mesee, see, I need a minute now to
(32:01):
like, what, what am I trying toask from this? So when you're,
when you're dealing with all ofthat stuff, it's like, how do
you even get to see that? itthrough the thick of all this
because you're not working atraditional, like software
engineering role now? So it'slike, how did you kind of sift
(32:21):
through all of that bullshit,and realize that, in addition to
the fact that you were in thesepositions of being poorly
managed, you were also not quitein the right niche of tech?
I think, I mean, ultimately, Igo by, I am very, I believe in
(32:44):
doing what you feel, likecommitting to what you feel if
you feel something, even if itmakes, like no sense at all.
It's how you feel. And that issomething that you need to
acknowledge as long as it's likenot hurting somebody, you know
what I'm saying? Like, and sowhat's interesting is that I'm
so committed to that. And I feltbad most of the time. But I'm
(33:10):
like, this is the only option Ihave. Yeah, so I've always kind
of been longing to not have todeal with the tech stuff, like
you know, being a traditionalsoftware engineer. But I didn't
know what was available to me.
And sobecause you also say sorry,
really quick because you've alsosaid we've talked off mic a
little bit like making a lot ofmoney is important to you and
(33:33):
that's real and so it does feelfor a while that like it's like
software engineer or what Iguess I go back to like minimum
wage jobs or making like 30 Yes,I'll die. Yeah. Right. Like
that's, that's real because itdoes kind of trap you.
Right? And so, you know, and soI just had I just I didn't think
(33:55):
there was anything else for me.
And so you know, this year, so alot has happened and stuff and
this year was really weird. Iwas like, Okay, I need a job.
But now I'm just going to bepicky. Yeah, cuz I keep getting
burned from just jumping onwhatever. Yeah, this year
started off actually did acontract for a really cool
(34:17):
startup. It's called it'splaying multiverse calm. And I
was I was happy and excited.
They're like, it's a Wait,what is all that noise? Sounds
like a smoke detector. Are youokay? Are you safe? Is that your
house? Is your house on fireright now? No idea. What's
(34:44):
happening. Harris. We're tryingto record something.
Oh my god, dude, can I just likego check that out? Yeah,
please do. We can cut all thisout. All right. It's putting his
headphones back on. Hello. So, Iheard you say it was your alarm.
So no one broke into your house.
(35:04):
It was no, no, it was the firealarm on the second floor. But
she's like doing something withher hair. But I don't know. I
mean, her hair's not on fire. SoI think that's good. Yeah. False
alarm.
Cool. Anyway, you were justsaying that, um, in your job
(35:27):
hunting this year, you decidedto get picky and take whatever,
whatever the thing was, I foundhere laughs
Yeah, yeah. So so I was I waslike, really passively job
searching. So like, I didn'twant to apply for any jobs where
I didn't just want to, likestraight up apply. It had to be
through friends or connections.
So that was one thing. So thatwas like my rule. I'm not gonna
(35:51):
go look for a job. I'm justgonna wait till someone says,
hey, there's this opportunity atthis place. You want to check
that out? And that, you know, Itweet a lot. So that kind of
help. It's, you know, I was alsofocused on Paris's business to
like, you know, doing like, youknow, coding things and whatnot
(36:12):
for, you know, typical stuffthat CTOs would do you know what
I'm saying?
Yeah, paid or unpaid?
Yeah. And so that, so and then Ialso have my sponsorship from on
GitHub, and especially fromstripe, you know, so I was
actually able to livecomfortably without a full time
(36:36):
open source, maintainmaintainer. So. But, you know, I
wanted more money. And I startedoff this year with like, working
at this startup play multiverse.
It's like, online tabletopgaming platform, which is
amazing. Nice. Unfortunately, Iwas not in the good mental space
for that role. I had a friend atthe very beginning of this year,
(37:03):
he was murdered out of an act ofracism. town. Yeah, it was like
a good friend. I've known himfor like over 10 years and
stuff. He was somebody I metthrough tech and and so I
actually was trying to work atmultiverse as a distraction,
which is, like, the worst thingyou can do when you're grieving,
(37:24):
for sure. And so you know, andit's a it's a startup, very fast
paced environment. And so, youknow, I was getting feedback on
my deliverables. And eventually,you know, it was like, it
doesn't work for the business,you know, and so, and that's
fair, like, the I'm still I'm ongood terms with them. Like I
(37:46):
know that the CEO he's actuallyin Cambridge and Boston area.
And so we're probably going tolike hang out or whatever.
Sometime but yeah, like that wasa big blow to my ear. And I
didn't feel like interviewing oranything for a while after that.
Sure. Then I joined anotheragency and that was an absolute
(38:12):
shit show. I don't even want toget into that one. That was
Yeah, such such horriblemanagement.
Yeah, common common Famous lastwords or this time will be
differentright? That's exactly what it
was that I told them about myexperience at the first agency
(38:33):
to like yeah, it's gonna bedifferent now. And it was the
same my godyeah, so So at what point were
you like, you know why maybe,maybe I just need to do
something other than engineeringlike in addition to all this
bullshit, like it's also justnot quite the right niche.
That's the thing even this yearI still believe that I needed to
(39:00):
stay as an engineer so now I'mlike, Wow, now I need to just
try even harder to find a placethat I'd be happy being an
engineer. Hmm,does it feel like you're like
swimming upstream? Almost likethe heart? Yeah, trying the
worst it's getting?
Exactly. I did I did forget tomention I worked at an amazing
boot camp focused onunderrepresented groups called
(39:24):
resilient coders. Oh, nice. AndI did work there as sort of like
a teaching assistant. And thatwas like my first taste at
having a job that didn't requirecoding. Yeah. And so this this
all happened that happened likea while ago.
And I will say to you said youwere like focusing on your
network and if listeners ifresilient coders sounded
(39:47):
familiar, that's where Parislearned how to code so it was
kind of like your your foot inthere. Yeah, I mean, it does.
Yeah, difference. Having thatnetwork connection, knowing
someone and kind of be a betterplace. That way, you know,
oh wait, I think Imisunderstood. No, I was part.
So I actually met Paris. Istarted mentoring at resume
(40:09):
quarters when she joined.
Oh, gotcha, gotcha. We metbecause of resume. Oh, look at
that a little, a littleresilient coders couple
different again, a successstory.
I got so much shit. Like while Iwas working there, they will
after her cohort, they made arule that mentors but but I'm so
(40:32):
salty I need I need I need thepublic to know is that she
expressed interest not me. Soa lot of matter, it doesn't
matter. That's never that'snever whatever, whatever helps
you sleep at night, man.
It does help me sleep at night.
I'm just messing with. Soanyway, yeah, so I guess that
(40:58):
was my first taste intosomething that didn't require me
coding. But even then, I justdidn't feel like there was any
other option. That's whyprismatic was so prismic reached
out to me. And then they juststraight up were like, yeah, we
figured you'd be a good fit fordeveloper experience. You know,
what do you like, you know, and,you know, I told them what I
(41:21):
liked. And they're like, dowhat, hey, you could do what you
like here, though. So. So inthat, and that's that, and I've
been happy. And and you know, Ididn't like I'm very active on
Twitter. Yeah, right. I've been.
I've been with them for months.
But I didn't want to sayanything, because I'm so work,
(41:42):
work. trauma is a thing. Yeah.
Right. And so I'm like, I joinedy'all. But do y'all suck? You
know?
Yeah. It's like, you don't wantto publicly be like, I love this
place, then be like, here's myblog post about why they suck.
Like, yeah,exactly. Exactly. So awkward.
tone, like, so. And I it part ofit makes like, that kind of
(42:08):
thing makes me feel bad, right?
Because I don't think like,like, they didn't really they
don't deserve to be looked atthat that way. Right? Like, I
joined. And I'm like, I need tomake sure that no one is a piece
of shit. Right?
But there's real like, like,it's not really quick. I mean,
if you're, I mean, this isanother piece. It's like when
(42:29):
you're hiring people, if you'rein a position to hire people,
and it seems like someone who'snew on board is is less than
enthused, like it could be thatthey've been burned so many
times that, like, they need thattime and space, like, did they
kind of give you that time andspace to say did? Yeah, that's
great. Yeah.
(42:49):
Yeah. And they've been sosupportive, you know. And so,
the bar is, like, so low for meat the at this point, because
like, all they had to do wasshow basic, decent amounts of
respect, and my mind would havebeen blown. But they've been
going above and beyond to reallymake sure I'm happy in in, you
(43:12):
know, I'm enabled, and I'm ableto do what I, what drives me,
you know.
So that's great that they'realso able to, like, recognize
me, like, Hey, here's this otherthing that you can do, because
it's a weird thing. It's like,we don't know what we don't
know. So until you're like,seriously considering or until
(43:32):
that other option is presentedto you. It doesn't really seem
like an option. It's like, yeah,it's it's software engineering,
or bust. And they're like, oryou could apply, like some of
what you're doing on Twitter andthings in your real life job,
because we see you doing it.
Yeah. And we know you would begood at it. That's exactly
you're actually not the first.
Sorry, I keep saying Debra, Iknow that's not technically what
(43:53):
you're doing. That it's it'skind of make sense. But I do you
know, I Isha Blake. Yes. She's,she's a former guest of the
show. And she's also in dev REL.
And she also if I remembercorrectly, was like initially
kind of sought out. It was kindof the same thing where she was
like, wait, I'm doing thisalready. Like it could be my
(44:14):
job. So I mean, I know ValerieFeeny. I mean, let me just run
through all the tech peoplewe've had on the show so far.
But Valerie Phoenix, you know,she was saying like, you can get
into tech without knowing how tocode at all. And and even in the
realm of coding, like there's somany different jobs out there so
like, I think that I think thata big takeaway it's like you
(44:35):
because here's the other thingand I think Valerie said was
like, you know, I'm gonna be ablack woman no matter where I
go. So I might as well be inTexas. This is where the money
is. It's like, a lot of thisbullshit we're going to deal
with no matter where we gobecause unfortunately, these
problems are kicked into mostindustries. So it's like when
you find the right fit, it feelsa little bit less Yeah, friction
(44:58):
doesn't feel as bad becauseyou're at least doing what you
want to do you know what I mean?
Because it's like, okay, so ifyou're a white guy, especially
if you're a white man, andyou're in a job that doesn't
really fit you, people are gonnahave a lot more compassion for
(45:19):
you. Because most people, ifyou're in a job, that's a bad
fit, you're not going to be asengaged and you're going to have
other issues and things likethat. But it's like, when you're
the other, no matter what thatother may be in this job isn't a
good fit for you, they're justgonna think that there's some
sort of character flaw withinyou that you're an employee, and
they're not going to give youthat chance to really, like you
said, you didn't get the supportthat you needed to, you know,
(45:42):
and someone who is reallymentoring you, like a manager
should might have recognizedlike, hey, maybe this other role
would have been better for you.
You know what I mean?
Yeah. Yeah, totally. And yeah,and in the wild thing about all
of that, is that it makes, itreally makes you question
yourself. And I think that's theworst part of it all. And that's
(46:05):
a big part of what I was facingmost of this year. I'm like, Why
the fuck? Can I not hold a devjob? Like, what is wrong with
me, too? I need to get better atcoding to I need to get better
at socializing. Do I? Like whycan I Why is everyone else
successful in this, but not me.
And I felt and I've beenfighting with that, on top of
(46:29):
the loss of my friend, on top ofthe financial burden, the idea
that I wasn't really making,like really good money, you
know, it was just this year.
This year did not start offWell, for me at all in a mental
and emotional space. Yeah, youknow, and so. And so like that,
(46:57):
all of that is kind of why I wasso picky, because it's like, the
last thing I need is now to justbe at a job that sucks. On top
of the not even being able tokeep the jobs. Yeah, for sure.
You know, because by cuz in mymind, it's like, no matter where
(47:19):
I go, I'm just going to beunhappy. I just need to be at a
place where I would be unhappythe least. Now what a
depressing,right? Like That was how I saw
the world. Yeah, yeah, forsure. I mean, it's just and I
think that the big the bigpiece, I mean, you, you keep
kind of bringing it up socasually, almost in passing, but
(47:41):
I think it's actually the mostimportant key here is he kept
saying, you know, like, I'm onTwitter a lot, I'm active on
Twitter. And I think that, youknow, throughout all of that,
you kept showing up. And, youknow, I think it's like Arlen
Hamilton, it's like, you know,be be be who you are, so that
the people who are looking for,you know, nowhere to find you.
(48:01):
So it's like, even though you'regoing through all this stuff,
and I actually do remember nowyou tweeting about your friend
that had died, I remember apicture of the two of you at
like a convention that youposted for protection. And you
know, so you were still showingup, you're still active in your
community, and you're, you'reshowing what you're doing. So
even even though you couldn'tsee that maybe part of the
(48:23):
problem is you're trying to geta software engineering job, when
you really belong in thisDeveloper Relations, developer
experience role, the fact thatyou are continuously showing up
and being yourself, the rightpeople did find you and
recognize that and they wereable to reach out to you,
whereas if you were like, Idon't know what I want to do.
(48:43):
And why is this not working forme, and I'm just gonna, like,
you know, kind of curl up intomy own shell and kind of
disengage from the world, thenyou would still be wondering why
you can't hold a tech job andtrying to make it work with
software engineering, and stillbeing miserable. So I think that
that, that willingness to bevulnerable, I think, is really
(49:04):
what kind of helps you get towhere you're at. Now, you know,
yeah,yeah, I am very happy to share
what I'm going through and put,I think it's important to put
stuff out there. Like, becauseI've always found it helpful
(49:29):
when I'm down in the dumps. Andthen someone else kind of tweets
like, Hey, I'm down in thedumps. Like, oh, shit, yo, me
too. You know, like, yeah, thisthat just feels good, you know.
And so and I have also tweetedthis year about my struggles
with like imposter syndrome, or,you know, coding challenges. Oh,
(49:52):
man, that's another thing I wasbombing these interview as
bombing challenges. at placesthat I feel like I'd be amazing
at more games.
Yeah. And so that that reallyhurt, too. And so I think like,
oh, I'll always be kind ofsharing these things. And that
(50:15):
energy that you put out, comesback, you know,
100% 100% I couldn't agree withyou more. And I can't can't
imagine a better note to endthis on to I think we're out of
time to do you. Do you haveanything else that you want to
share that you feel like you'dbe remiss if you if you left it
out? Um,then I don't I can't I can't
(50:36):
think of anything right now. Ijust have a genuinely, I just
genuinely think that it'simportant to for people, it's, I
wouldn't say important. I thinkit's valuable for people to
share themselves on socialmedia.
Yeah. Beware Be who you are, andshow up. People who are looking
(51:00):
for you can find you.
You have no idea what kind ofpositive impact you would make
on somebody. You'll probablynever, you'll never know, you'll
just there are people out therelurking. Mm hmm. And then I'll
hear something like monthslater, someone said, Yeah, that
one tweet. You put out aboutthis? You know, I decided to do
(51:23):
XYZ because of that. Yeah. No,and that person doesn't comment
or like or post themselves, butit's out there for them. You
know?
Yeah. I love that, man. Yeah.
Thank you for coming on, Nick.
That I mean, this was a reallycool conversation. And I think
it's, it's I really, I mean,this wasn't even really the the
(51:47):
general theme that I wasexpecting to come out of this
conversation. But I think thatit's a really important one.
It's like when you it's like,it's almost just like, don't
give up. Like, just keep, keepshowing up. And that's the
biggest thing. It's like whenyou're when you're not sure what
you want to do share that withpeople share that with people
share with the world, becauseyou just never know who's going
(52:10):
to be that person to kind oflike, show you show you the
other route and show you theother way. Because a lot of
times it could be you know,being a software engineer like
you're so you're so close, yetso far to like, yeah, it
actually should be and it'slike, sometimes when you're that
close, you can't see the otherperspective, the other the other
(52:31):
options and things like that. Sojust opening up talking to
whoever talking out into theworld on social media, like, you
just never know where that'sgonna take you, man. So I thank
you for sharing your story andfor and especially for being
vulnerable about some of thehard parts. I mean, man I can, I
can go on and on and on with myown versions of some of these
(52:52):
nightmare stories that you'veshared right down to that. That
goddamn diversity thing. Oh mygod. Yeah,
I burned on time. memories,right? Yeah. Yeah. I'll
tell us about some of that stuffoff. Make the Yeah. Do you have
anything that you want topromote anything else you want
to plug including yourself?
(53:14):
Um, no, like, just you know, ifyou want. Follow me on Twitter,
if you if you don't want to,that's cool as well. At day Hey,
Soos DAYHAY. S o s?
Yeah. I love that. The phoneticspelling of de hasee.
Title I do is calling me theJesus. Yeah. Oh,
(53:37):
my God. I'll put I'll put thelink in the show notes for that.
And, man, Nick, thank you somuch. I will talk to you soon.
Take care.
Once again, that was Nick day.
Hey, Soos. Thank you again forcoming on the show. Nick. I
(53:57):
really hope we get to worktogether someday. That would be
just so cool. And I appreciatethis conversation. I appreciate
the chats that we've had sincethen, and we'll continue to have
in the future. I think at onepoint during the interview, I
mentioned a quote from ArlenHamilton. I pulled up that
(54:17):
quote, it's from her book, it'sabout damn time. And she said it
much more succinctly than Itried to paraphrase it. But the
quote is, be yourself so thatthe people looking for you can
find you. And how true is that?
I mean, with everything thatNick went through putting
(54:40):
himself out there and beinghimself on Twitter is part of
how he was able to move forward.
And you know, in my experience,doing this podcast and getting
these interviews together andreally reinforcing my network
through this podcast has givenme opportunities that I wouldn't
otherwise have You know, I've,I've been introduced to people
(55:01):
that, you know, mutual friendsof ours said, Hey, I think you
too, I think this person wouldbe a great fit for your podcast,
and then that person becomes areally good friend. You know,
there are people in my life whoI have been in my life for a
long time. And we've gotten toknow each other on a much deeper
level as a result of thispodcast of doing an interview on
(55:24):
this podcast. And there's just arichness that has been added to
my life just from putting myselfout there doing this project.
And you know, that might looklike different things for
different people. And, you know,whatever that putting yourself
out there means but you know, weare, we're social beings, as
(55:46):
humans, we need each other toheal. And I'm just so grateful
to have the opportunity to shareand heal with others. And you
know, and be able to share thatwith all of you. So if you liked
what you heard today, pleasegive us a five star written
review. It's like currency inthis world. Truly the way that
(56:09):
the rankings work in the podcastworld is by the five star
reviews, not by the amount oflistens. So it really goes a
long way in helping to promotethe show. Take a screenshot of
this podcast and throw it onInstagram, make it your
Instagram story, you can tag meat Leo Yockey LEYOCKEY. It's a
great way to let your friendsknow that you're listening and
(56:36):
what you're into and what youfind cool. Yeah, and I will say
right now, there is a slightchance that next week, October
5, we're going to go dark. Withsome of the changes with getting
an attack and a couple ofpersonal events coming up. I
might not have the bandwidth tobe able to put these out once a
(56:57):
week throughout the remainder ofthe year. I'm going to go as
close to once a week no morethan bi weekly, or sorry, no
less frequently than bi weekly.
But just putting that out therefair warning, I might put up
some bonus content or somethingif I can't do a full episode,
but either way, I'll definitelybe back by the 12th. I have some
(57:18):
exciting artists coming in.
Towards the end of October Ihave a musician Trish is who's
got an album coming out soon.
Addy woolridge is coming backthe day that her second book
gets released. So I'm reallyexcited for you to hear those
conversations. Thank you forlistening. Thank you for being
on this journey with me. And asalways, stay evolving.
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