I am super excited to be back with more Mind of Snaps podcast episodes! We're starting off strong with another ADITL (A Day in the Life) episode, this time with Adam Pino, Video Game Engineer at Bungie!
You can follow him on Twitter at @Pinotorious and I think you should, because he's a really cool guy and he's got great taste in games, tv shows and cocktails.
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Make sure to subscribe to the Patreon if you'd like to make it easier for me to create more free content for everyone!
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Jessy (Mind Of Snaps / SheSnaps)
www.MindofSnaps.com
CONTENT --- Twitch | Youtube | TikTok
SOCIAL MEDIA --- Twitter | Instagram
Snap Pack, Best Pack - Join the Community Discord!
I am super excited to be back with more Mind of Snaps podcast episodes! We're starting off strong with another ADITL (A Day in the Life) episode, this time with Adam Pino, Video Game Engineer at Bungie!
You can follow him on Twitter at @Pinotorious and I think you should, because he's a really cool guy and he's got great taste in games, tv shows and cocktails.
-----
Make sure to subscribe to the Patreon if you'd like to make it easier for me to create more free content for everyone!
-----
Jessy (Mind Of Snaps / SheSnaps)
www.MindofSnaps.com
CONTENT --- Twitch | Youtube | TikTok
SOCIAL MEDIA --- Twitter | Instagram
Snap Pack, Best Pack - Join the Community Discord!
Welcome to the podcast with your host, Jeff. She stamped popular twitch broadcaster photographer and that in this and future cast to fall on with snaps. She learns more about her mind, the world, and her fellow humans. It could get messy. You might just learn something as you enter the mind of snaps.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. You guys were really back. Welcome back to the podcast. It has been too long since I've recorded an episode, so I'm excited as fuck to get back into a solid group. Excited, excited, excited. I have really, really enjoyed doing the a day in the life podcasts, Adi Tel podcasts last year, so I'm pumped to bring you back even more of those this year. I really, really love learning about people's days. We're going to do all kinds of other different topics that I find interesting and of course we will be bringing back hi history as well. So don't you fret lots of good shit coming to you in this wonderful new year. This will be our 15th episode of the podcast overall. Our first one for this new year for 2019. So I'm really delighted to have a special guest with us today. Today we have with us Adam Pino, who is an engineer at Bungie. If you're not familiar with Bungee, they are the Washington based developer responsible for incredible games like halo and destiny. That one's especially like important in my life. Oh my gosh. I could talk about that all day. I've been to the Bungee headquarters a few times now and I really, really like their whole team. Everyone I've ever talked to, they've all been super cool, really chill. So I'm really looking forward to getting to know Adam a bit more tonight. I have no idea what a day in the life of a game engineer looks like. Like no idea. So I'm expecting to learn a lot. I do want to mention if you're tuning in thinking that you're going to get some top secret info on destiny, that is definitely not what this is about. We're here to talk about life and work in a way, broader sense. So we won't be getting into anything that's game specific. Lo Siento anyway, if you'd like to chat with our new friend Adam, hit him up on twitter. His handle is p notorious, like his last name, Pino Torres. I'll tag him. You'll find him. He's a nice dude. You'll see. Having said all of that, let's get started. All right, Adam, welcome. Thank you for being here tonight. Thank you for inviting me. Yeah, I'm really excited. I think we've had too much time to talk other than, you know, probably random stuff on twitter. So I'm excited to get to know you and I'm excited to get to know a little bit more about your job. Sounds good. Okay. So jumping right into it, let's pretend that we are talking to people who don't know anything and we got to break it down to the basics here. So you are an engineer at Bungie. What is that like? What does that job? What does being an engineer at Bungie mean?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so basically everything we do in video games obviously runs on software and the people that built it are the engineers. Um, so a Bungie is really a special studio and a lot of ways where ideas come from anywhere but, but usually like the design group comes up with sort of the plan for what a project will be, but in order for anything to work they go to the engineers to build the technology that runs the game. So yeah.
Speaker 2:So what do you, just, just to elaborate on something right off the bat there. What do you mean by ideas kind of come from anywhere?
Speaker 3:So like if there's something about a game that you're passionate about, you can go to the design group and say hey, what about this? And at Bungie though, they'll be like, oh that's interesting. Or they'll tell you, they'll explain pretty well why. Well that doesn't really work because of this, this and this. It's really collaborative, like gambit especially was extremely collaborative like the artists and the designers and I all worked together really closely on, on stuff and the designers were really good about listening to ideas from anywhere.
Speaker 2:That's cool. Is that not traditional? Is that not a standard across studios?
Speaker 3:It can be, but I've, I've, I mean I've worked places where it wasn't as much the case and I've definitely heard of places where it was really like designers pretty much are in charge of it so.
Speaker 2:Well that's cool. So you are the one that gets, gets to coding and starts creating all these awesome things.
Speaker 3:Yes, and like destiny runs on this huge bit of software. Like there's, there's multiple computers that are running destiny, there's the Internet has servers that are running where they store your data about your character. Then we'll spin up servers to run the activity that you're playing and then you have your own game that's running on your xbox or ps four. Pc mainly I work on the bit on your pc called the client. That's most of the work that I do and that's like moment to moment what happens during the game. I'm like, if you like in gambit, like we had to write some special code to make the notes come out of the enemies. Right? That, that would be me.
Speaker 2:Interesting. So you, you do pvp in gambit primarily, right?
Speaker 3:That's what I have done. I started as a networking engineer at Bungie, but prior to that I've worked on all kinds of things like pandemic studios. I built the streaming system for this abetour. So I've, I've done all kinds of things.
Speaker 2:What was your, what was the one that you clicked with the most out of all these different types that you've done? Is that what you're in now?
Speaker 3:Well, so the thing I think I liked the best overall was building the streaming system for the saboteurs because it was such a midi big, like hard problem, like loading data off the disk fast enough. The problem is when I got to Bungee that stuff was pretty much all done. Um. Gotcha. But at Bungie it's nice because I'm a lot closer to the game so I have a lot more impact on my decisions and I got to go to more play tests and, and that stuff's really cool.
Speaker 2:That is cool. So the thing that you liked the most was a major challenge. Is that, is that common for you? Did you, do you tend to get really excited when you see stuff that's, that's like a big undertaking?
Speaker 3:Yeah, because like so like with software there's like a core bit of software that's like runs most of the time, like I don't know if there's a better way to explain it, but when you build something like a streaming system, the whole game is always doing that versus when you do something in destiny and where you're like doing a gameplay thing, say you write some special code for the raid, like that means only players that play the raiders are going to see it and they have to be playing the rate at the time. So it's, it's fun to do the guts right where you're doing like everything uses of your work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could see that. I could see that, that fun in it. I get excited. Like when I was doing photography full time, I would get excited, you know, if people hung up my pictures in their homes and stuff, I can only imagine knowing that people are using something that you spent. I don't even know how long working on day in and day out.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah. It's, it's pretty cool. Especially, especially when you get to something as big as destiny or halo, like it's. Yeah, I mean I worked on halo four as well and that was the first game I worked on that was that massive of an audience and it was, it was definitely like a big like realize, oh my God, millions people are going to run my code.
Speaker 2:That was an exciting, oh my God, millions of people are going to run my code. Not like, oh my God, what is it like panicking, like get nervous about it or
Speaker 3:I mean a little bit of column a, a little bit of column b, like especially with something like Halo, there's a big responsibility of like, oh my God, like we can't mess this up. People are counting on us to make something good. So
Speaker 2:yeah man, I can't even imagine the pressure. Like no one gives a shit what I do and it's awesome. It relieves a lot of the pressure. You have stuff that people are potentially gonna get all worked up over. If anything doesn't go the exact way they imagine it should.
Speaker 3:It's true. I mean it's nice when you actually meet people in person that people are usually just really excited about what you've done even if they have disagreements. So that is nice. Yeah. Like at the summits, yeah, some answer. Like I went to Pax and worked on the work the line for Gambit and it was just neat meeting people who were excited about it.
Speaker 2:Oh I bet that would have been cool. I'm imagining it like, cause not everyone I imagine like as soon as they see or like Aha, I know that guy. I know exactly what role he had in this. You're like the chef, like greeting people at the door to the restaurant but you're not wearing like the funny hat or anything. So they have no idea.
Speaker 3:Exactly. And then every once in a while someone asks him like, wait, what? You worked on this? Oh my God. Yeah. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Cool. Did you have anyone ask for pictures or autographs?
Speaker 3:I think I had a few people ask for autographs but no one asked for pictures so
Speaker 2:well we'll have to fix that. Or You guys, are you going to be a guardian gun? Do you get to go to some of the fun events?
Speaker 3:Sometimes this, some people like this and Robin, who? Someone else? Peter to Guardian con last year. I don't, I don't know if we're, if we're going to go or not. I mean I could, I could just go myself if I wanted to. Yeah,
Speaker 2:I mean it doesn't blast. You should
Speaker 3:fun Florida in July.
Speaker 2:It's the fucking truth man. I love that event. I love it. I just wish I didn't have to go outside at all to get there or meet up with anyone after. If I could just teleport into the event and then like any of the subsequent after parties or whatever, that would be perfect for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's looked hot.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. It certainly was so worth it though. Really like it. There is no chance you're going to get me anywhere with that much humidity if I'm not like going to like confident that I'm going to have a great fucking time.
Speaker 3:Nice.
Speaker 2:So you, you've been working at Bungie how long? Five years. Five years. You were talking about you've worked at all different sizes of studios, right?
Speaker 3:Yup. I've worked at A. Yeah, like the smallest was about 40 people and the biggest thing, the biggest it's Bungee, but I worked at Microsoft which is bigger or smaller.
Speaker 2:Bigger. Yeah. What are the, what are the challenges and benefits of each, like what's, what's the bonus of having a small team versus a big.
Speaker 3:I mean the small team when I was working on it, we were making ps two games and that means didn't need a big team and you got to have a lot of impact. Like I, you know, I got to build the Ui tools and the Ui and all of it by myself and you know, I could do that because that was the expectation. The industry has sort of moved on from that paradigm to a large degree. Like you need a big team to compete with the AAA games. So yeah. So like, and then pandemic like on, I worked on a game called full spectrum warrior and that was like probably about 40 people just on that team and that was nice because you had still have to do something really cool and impressive but you know, you've still got to have that impact and then with Bungee, like it's just, you know, you have this incredible huge amount of insanely talented people all around you doing awesome stuff and you just constantly get to see the cool stuff people are putting in and like it's just a rush to get to do that. It, it, you know, it can be hard to like get noticed a little bit in the studio that's that big but, but you know, I mean you get to make friends and you start to build a network and then you start to get like it. It's not really bad. It's just, you know, you know that you're responsible for a much smaller part of the game because it's, you know, 700 people or not. I don't know exactly. But a lot of people working on it
Speaker 2:[inaudible]. Interesting. So I could, I could see, I can totally see like from my past employment history, how I could really enjoy either side of that, like being in the company where you have no choice but to wear a bunch of different hats, but because you wear so many hats, you also learn a fuck ton, which is cool. And you really get challenged from that kind of like diversity and variety in your day to day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally. I mean I think the biggest thing is you're going to have a bigger impact at a smaller place, but the product will have a bigger impact of the beer place.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You make dustman like destiny with 40 people like I don't imagine.
Speaker 2:I'm sure someone like will someday listen to this and be like, I can, I can do that. You know, some people get overconfident, but I think. I think you're probably right about that.
Speaker 3:It would be tough. Anyway.
Speaker 2:It's cool though because like I said, I could totally see the value of having the smaller team where you were a lot of hats, but I can also see the bonus or the benefit of being able to have some focus in your day and say this is the main shit I'm working on. I'm a part of this big team and it seems like you guys have a super, not just like collaborative in general, but like physically open environment there.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah. It is extremely physically open. Yes. That's accurate. Yes.
Speaker 2:Or can we. Can we talk about that? That it just seemed to be like one big room?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I think we did tours of it when destiny launched. I think we let people see, so yeah. No, it's was. I mean it was a bunch of movie theaters and they just cut, gutted it and just lifted a huge room.
Speaker 2:I'm visualizing it right now. I'm in my brain just picturing it from my last there and I'm trying to like see how a movie theater that makes so much sense. Especially that location. Cool. Wow. Totally unrecognizable.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Now it's just hundreds of desks and enough power to let every computer run, which is sometimes finicky, but um, oh, the little things you don't even think about sometimes. Oh totally. Like sometimes people like I want to move over here next to my team or something like because for some reason I just changed teams and we're like, wait, you gotta wait, we gotta make sure we have the power before you just pick up your stuff. Oh Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could see that, that, that has to be a challenge because you're working with like an office that was kind of custom created for you guys then it seems pretty much. Yup. So do you like the big open, open working environment like that?
Speaker 3:Do I personally it's not, it's not what I would pick, but I mean somebody you can adapt to well enough, like there are moments where it's really helpful to like, you know, say here over here the designers saying, Hey, I'm going to do this. And you're like, oh actually hold on baby, maybe don't do that. Let me, let me see if that'll work on the code first or hearing a designer say, hey, there's really no way to do this. I'm like, actually there is a way to do that if you just do this. So like that part of it's nice, but then sometimes you know, people are having an animated discussion behind me and it's really interesting to me of sometimes can be hard to focus.
Speaker 2:Uh, okay. So you see the value in it overall. There's some definite benefit there, but there's some potential distraction that comes along with it. Exactly. I see. I, I have a hard time imagining myself being able to work like that just like I, I think it would be cool, but at the same time I also know that like when I'm, when I was at my, in my corporate job and stuff, when I'm at my desk, I'm there to work. I had, I was definitely more of a dick. I don't have time for the small talk. Like I'm here. I want to get some shit done, man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I it pandemic, we used, they used to have on the team that did mercenaries to, they have something called quiet hours were like, you weren't allowed to bother people during that time unless it was like super important, but
Speaker 2:oh man, I want to institute quiet general in various things that the smart though, just to make sure that, that there is a little bit of balance to that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. People are usually pretty respectful. Like, like if you just say, hey guys, I'm, I'm really in the middle of something. Can you move to somewhere else? Usually people will just do that.
Speaker 2:That's good. At least there's no, no animosity or people just being ridiculous about it. Some, some offices can definitely get very caddy.
Speaker 3:Definitely not so much bungee.
Speaker 2:That's good. That's good. You know, whenever I think about stuff like that too, man, I'm going to out myself as a terrible person. I worked at the corporate office, um, and at one point there was this woman who was just always on my fucking case, man. She like, we did not have the same role. I barely had to interact with her, but anytime I did she was just always being like very rude about it and I had to cover her desk every once in awhile as a part of like a team help everything kind of plan. Like it had nothing to do with my job description. So like I, I was on a diet once and I was eating tuna, like just tuna and some salt and stuff. I was doing Quito and um, after I was done without thinking one day, like I had finished all of it, there was none left. I just tossed it in the garbage that was near her dress or near her desk. And she wrote this like very strong, like email about it and she like came up to my desk to ask me if I had gotten the email and was just so obnoxious about it that every time I covered her dusk I would started even like deliberately leaving a little bit of the tuna in whatever it is and putting it into there and the like putting papers on top of it and just being like, fuck her and walk away. So it's just that you don't have to deal with people like her or really me. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I worked with a guy who sat at a desk with another guy who apparently with eat carrot sticks and it would drive the guy who wasn't eating carrot sticks crazy. Like the sound would just get on his nerves. It
Speaker 2:sound
Speaker 3:and I like. I'm like, I can't imagine that bothering me. But man, if it did that would suck
Speaker 2:some people who have Misophonia and use the phone yet. I never say it right. But like their brains, and this is something that I struggled with a lot in the past, like you react to things body first. So like you hear these small repetitive noises and I immediately imagine someone just constantly chomping into carrots and was just like horrified for this dude because that would fill me with literal rage. My body would be like tensing up. I would start to feel my heart beating before my conscious mind even registered. Like it's just some dude eating fucking carrots. I would just be like, eh, raging over it. So I feel for the dude who had to listen to that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that would be rough if that reaction happened by what I would be. Yeah, that would suck.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's not fun. Some of the smallest things, like people who tap their feet, people who keep like every time they use a fork and they kinda like hit the plate with it, you know, they make that like scraping noise. People who breathe heavy, like the smallest noises can just totally change your whole attitude. It's weird. Brains are weird, man. Well I'm glad. Again, you don't have to deal with that. Anyone like that at your office. That's a good feeling. Everyone there seems really nice. No one type to religiously eat carrots or leave tuna. Someone's stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Hasn't come up.
Speaker 2:Let's, uh, let's get into the day to day stuff because imagine it is Monday morning you're heading into the office. What time are you usually getting there? Do you guys have kind of flexible hours or is everyone there? Same time, the same time?
Speaker 3:No, we have, we have flex hours. The core hours are 10 to four. So that's what you're supposed to schedule meetings and then you, you generally work eight hours a day around that will, depending on if you take lunch or whatever. But uh, so I usually get, I usually get in around nine, 15 to 9:30, which was on the earlier side. Most people push it to 10.
Speaker 2:I mean, I can't imagine. I'm honestly surprised. I can only imagine people going in early if they had something they wanted to do quietly. Otherwise I imagine most people are trying to head towards that 10:00 because why not?
Speaker 3:Well the main reason is if you have kids, like because one of the guys would get there at seven and leave at four. So you get home in time to meet the son. Oh there's some, some people do do go with the early shifts but I can usually keep that up. So. So yeah, I get in check, usually check my email, see if anything important happened. And
Speaker 2:emailing you when you check your email is that people saying here's something you need to work on as people saying, how do I do this? Why isn't this working? Here's what we're doing next.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Generally for me it's this thing didn't work. Please help. Or because usually we'll have a meeting about what we're going to work on and then we'll build this software we use called a team foundation. Server tfs is what we call it. It's a Microsoft software and that it's just task tracking and bug tracking basically. Gotcha. And so when we have these meetings, we'll go in and make tasks for everyone. So the. So the next thing I'll do after I checked my mail is open tfs and see what, what I'm supposed to be working on or usually I remember from the night before and I'll just have the code editor visual studio up and all, you know, hopefully I left myself a note as to what I was doing and then just keep finishing the task or testing it or whatever.
Speaker 2:Okay. So that's, that's pretty much the way the most of the day goes is checking off tasks. Occasional meetings maybe.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a fair number of meetings. I mean, I, I've report so sometimes I have a one on one with my report or I'll you have a meeting with him or something, but usually it's pretty much writing code and testing code or going over and there's what we call walk up when a designer or someone else, maybe another engineer walks up and says, hey, I need help with this. Then you walk over to their desk and help them out.
Speaker 2:Well you guys have a name for that.
Speaker 3:Call it walk up. Yeah, it's worked at western interior. Official,
Speaker 2:yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I like that. And then the other other thing we do a lot, it's engineers as we do what's called code reviews where someone thinks they're task is finished and they want to have another engineer check over their work to make sure everything is good. So sometimes I'll do that like, well because that'll be an email, I'll get her. We use a software for that too, and then it just shows all the changes and code and I can look at them carefully and be like, Hey, I think this is actually a mistake. He might not want to do that.
Speaker 2:How big is your team? You said you have reports?
Speaker 3:Well, my report is actually not directly on my team, but yeah, my team is, is not that big right now. Like the gambit team was I think seven people or eight people and a and I was the only engineer so that that's happened to me a couple times, like being sort of the solo engineer on the thing that I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Do you enjoy being the solo engineer?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it doesn't really. It doesn't really matter to me either way. Like I'm, I'm happy working with other people or when there, there isn't a huge. Like the engine we have does a lot of stuff so they don't usually need a lot of engineers. Like I'm only adding a little bit of functionality for the designers usually.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay. So not a huge team. Not I'm trying, I'm like kind of visualizing this in my brain. I'm picturing like that, that big office area, all the desks that I'm seeing and I'm imagining the kind of like up and flow of it and it's just, it's fascinating. I would because I'm a creep and I don't mind watching people, I would love to just sit there and like stare from the top and just be like, how does all of this come together? This is cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well my desk has. I have four monitors so that that'll help you visualize.
Speaker 2:That does actually. Yeah. Thank you for giving me the extra little details. What? Okay. Describe the rest of your desk. Do you, do you have pictures and stuff up or do you keep a queen? Like sterile workspace?
Speaker 3:That's pretty. Well it doesn't have pictures and stuff because there's not a lot of space. I don't know if anyone would describe it as clean exactly. Like I have like papers and stuff on it, but I think so it's a little weird. One of my monitors is turned sideways so it's like very tall up and down, so the code I want to be able to see more at once it makes sense. Then the center monitors left like portrait or landscape, sorry. Landscape like well I had. So if I want to look at a website or the game, I can look at it on there and then I have the monitors above each other on the right. Yeah. Usually I'll start looking at code on the left and then go to my email in the middle and then when I test I was tested in the middle monitor
Speaker 2:is the middle monitor. Are they all the same size monitor?
Speaker 3:No. The ones on the right are smaller, but the other two are the same size. Okay. Yeah. The other two were like small tvs that were used to be used for TVS, but when I just plugged them into the video card. Okay.
Speaker 2:Like I, I'm getting like the full picture and I genuinely enjoy that. At your job then, what do you like the most about it? Like if you were to go in on a Monday and have a surprise that you were pumped about or have a task that you'd be really excited. Is there. What kinds of things at your job seeing, seeing as how you're. You seem to be kind of, you know, checking off tasks as you go. Are there certain types that when you see them cross your desk, you're like, yeah, I love working on stuff like this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely. If I get to build a system at all, like if I get to do something a little bit deeper and more complicated and that's always more exciting. Like you,
Speaker 2:you liked the hardest stuff like you were talking about before, right? You like getting in there and having the challenge?
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally. But it's also a lot of times the Nice, the best part of the job is getting to go to a play test when we've got a feature finally working in like and it turns out that it was really fun and then like we have this awesome playtest where everyone has a really good time. Like that's a pretty good moment to how do they pick people for playtests? So usually the team like for gambit lead the team play tested a lot. Just ourselves. Like I guess there was like maybe eight or nine people. We always had enough to play gambit and that was really helpful because everyone had a real sense of where it was going. Make sense? If we don't have enough people, there's like, there's a way to send out a request to the whole studio, like, Hey, if you want to sign up for this playtest tears, here's the place to sign up for it. And then then sometimes we, you know, we have this group I think Dj talked about, I called Tiger core, which is like the hardcore destiny players in the studio and we'll send an email out to. They're saying, hey, we're going to have a play test. Anyone wants to come?
Speaker 2:That's cool. That would be so fun. Do you guys get really into it when you're playing? Gathers? There are a lot of like shit talking and stuff.
Speaker 3:Uh, depends who's in there. Like I won't learn.
Speaker 2:Just happy to play the game while there's get really into it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Like I won't naturally should talk, but if there's someone, certain people there, I will definitely start getting into it a little bit.
Speaker 2:Seem very chill as like a, as like a baseline for you so I can, I can see that not being something you jumped to right away.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And, you know, not everyone's necessarily as good at the game and I don't want to make anyone feel bad. So yeah, I want what I want people to feel like they can come to playtest and not feel like they're going to get insulted if they come to some kind of shit talk. So,
Speaker 2:uh, yeah, I guess I hadn't even really thought about that. Like they're, they're taking a little break there helping out really probably don't want to, you know, wreck their spirits as they're, they're doing you a favor essentially testing out something you worked on.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So,
Speaker 2:okay. So you, you enjoy when you get the big tests across your desk stuff where you get to really dig in, what are the things that cross your desk where you're like, okay, let's do it.
Speaker 3:Uh, well there's a good example of today. So you know, there's a bunch of, like a game has a lot of moving parts and the like there's a certain frame rate we want to hit on every platform and if we're not like in order to make sure we hit that we have to like test out the game. And then pull data as to like what's running and what time and that's a huge amount of data that we get for like say for gambit, like when we tested that there's, you know, 36 variants of gambit or probably more than that, I don't even know with all the maps and all the races and all the different enemies that can spawn. So you have to go through every single game that they tested of that and like look at this software that tells you how long everything's taking for every frame. Luckily we have a bunch of analysis. It's like these are the frames that are too expensive that we need to continue to do something about and I can look at those and see what was running and what was happening. But that is not the most fun job. So
Speaker 2:it gets tedious.
Speaker 3:Can get a little tedious like yeah, okay. It was slow for these 15 frames. What happened? Oh, I see. They put too many ai and we got to take some out or something.
Speaker 2:When you say too expensive, you mean like resource expensive?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it just takes two. One on the processor to run, so like if you have like 200 ais in the game, that would be too many for the game to run at 30 frames per second on a Durango or an xbox one or something.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay. I love this. I, I really, I really enjoyed every, every time I had a chance to like meet anyone at Bungie or go and check it out and just in general, you know, I, I didn't have an opportunity to get into the gaming industry until I started streaming and it's just another one of those things you don't know how, how complex it is and how much goes into some of these things that you love and kind of cool when you look at it in terms of the people that are creating these things that you get to then have at home and bond with people over. I'm, I met my boyfriend through destiny. Did you know that? It's pretty dope. He moved in last year in January. We've been playing for years and it's just so cool that the game is called destiny. When people ask me how we met, I can just tell them like, oh, through destiny.
Speaker 3:That is good. I hadn't thought of that.
Speaker 2:So if you're a Gamer, you're like, oh really? You guys played together? And if you're not, you're like, oh, you believe in that? Just an he brought you together. That's beautiful.
Speaker 3:That's good.
Speaker 2:So did you, was this what you always wanted to do? Were you, were you working through school? Excited to work on some games?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well I was really young. I kind of wanted to draw comic books. That's cool. It was cool. But then I went to a comic book drawing class and I found out today wasn't as good an artist as I thought to be fair, I probably could have worked on it, but instead I got into computers and I started programming. Like I started programming really young and I just always loved it.
Speaker 2:So young is really young. Like you were two years old and you were clicking away.
Speaker 3:I mean I think it was like six or seven and I was writing on the apple basic on my. I'm a little bit, I'm kind of on the old side, so it was, yeah, it was a little different back then, but yeah,
Speaker 2:my youngest niece is seven and I'm just like trying to imagine her getting into stuff like that and I feel like she probably would be able to. It is crazy. Like when you're a little kid and you're passionate about something, nothing phases you, you're like, yeah, I'm going to learn that. Totally.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's true. Totally. It was, it was good.
Speaker 2:Were your parents into this where they were they tech or tech savvy people? Like how did you stumble onto that? At so young too?
Speaker 3:Not to. My parents weren't. My uncle had the computer and he was an electrical engineer and then like at what happened was my mom had a boyfriend who was a computer science professor. I don't even know how they met and one day he sat down with me and I was like, here's the program and like I don't know what the hell he was doing. Like it printed out a number and I'm like, what is I don't understand. And then one day I like look like I got this computer, I was looking at the program, I was like, oh, that's what it does. And I, from that point on, it was like, okay, I'm in. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Damn. And you've been doing this since you were so fucking cool, man. Yeah. I like especially like, like it's cool that you did the little foray you gave the um, the comic creation a shot, but it's just, it's so cool. I feel like that's not a common thing that people connect to something at a young age and get to keep that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's true. I feel pretty lucky. I mean in high school I got to work with a bunch of other kids and make a pc game, but you know, didn't really do anything. But it was cool to be able to be a part of that.
Speaker 2:I can imagine. Yeah, dude, like you were, you're building stuff. It'd be cool if you were in um, you know, not shop class, but if you were in like woodworking or metals and your building cool, um, extravagant things with your hands like this is, this is the same thing. You're building cool extravagant things with your hands and you started really young.
Speaker 3:No, so it's similar. It's totally, it was, it's pretty. I feel very lucky that I got to do that for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It sounds like you had a good track record to like, have you, have you had bad jobs? Did you get good, good programming or engineered type jobs from the start?
Speaker 3:So. Well my first, so I was going to college but then I, I got a job for the summer that turned into just I am not going to go to college anymore and just do my job. It was a programming job that wasn't a game job and that was okay, but it wasn't, it wasn't like I had wanted to be making games and that's all I thought about. So like I could do that job. Okay. But it wasn't my favorite. And then I had a series of pretty bad tech jobs, our just like database marketing and they were first of all extremely easy and then also very not games, so I was getting paid a pretty good amount of money for the time and then I got a game job, like company showed up and I just applied for it and can I just barely got in and that took a big pay cut and sort of never looked back.
Speaker 2:That's so awesome. You, I, I can only imagine the perspective that you gained from that to knowing that it's kind of the same base knowledge that carries you across. One has the money but not the passion one has the passion, but less money.
Speaker 3:Totally. Like that served me well.
Speaker 2:No regrets, right?
Speaker 3:Not at all. No, I'd never go back to that. Like my mom. You asked about my parents. My mom was glad I was a programmer, was not as happy. I want to do video games. I think finally she's come around like when she sees how big destiny as it's. I mean it's different.
Speaker 2:When did you decide you wanted to do video games? Was that like from the start of your programming as you got into it, you were like, this is the future you did the thing in high school or like. Yeah, games
Speaker 3:pretty much. I mean I, yeah, I pretty much was always trying to make video games in some way or another. I uh, I would make games on my calculator like, I mean like my friends and I made a whole casino suite and we like made it so they all are, all of us wrote separate programs and then we made it solve the money was the same variable so they all work together. That was pretty cool. That's cool. And then, and then like, yeah, when, when three d graphics started to be a thing, when Wolfenstein Three d came out, I was like my found books on like how to, how they did that and I didn't totally understand them at the time because the math was a little bit complicated, but you know, I started to get it and then like I think the, the big moment where it was like, the thing was probably when the quake test first came out for the old game quake. When I first saw that running, I was, I just had to know how it worked. It was so awesome.
Speaker 2:Totally do. That's cool that, that really dug deeper. Getting that, oh I can't wait to find out how this all fits together.
Speaker 3:Yeah. When you saw that running and it just seemed like impossible, like computer stuff.
Speaker 2:Oh man, it's so fascinating how much so many of these concepts just like fit across the board from, from all kinds of different hobbies and jobs. I remember taking autos class in high school and like as soon as we started getting into it, just being so fascinated. Like that's how all of this works. Yeah, it's so, so simple, but not like there's all these little moving parts, like one tiny thing missing from this giant machine and it doesn't work
Speaker 3:totally.
Speaker 2:And like for you a fucking semi colon. Right?
Speaker 3:Oh Man. Some of the bugs I've been staying up all night finding some stupid mistake from you know, lunch one day, that's the worst. But you know,
Speaker 2:I did very limited coding in my lifetime and the, that being like the most frustrating thing when you, you're like I swear I have looked over every single fucking line. Nothing is missing. Nothing is out of place. Nothing is misspelled. What is going on? You get that blindness. Like you really have to take a break and walk away sometimes.
Speaker 3:Yep. So another thing you can do, which we do as you try to explain it to a bear, like you get a teddy bear and you explained what you're doing to the teddy bear. I think that the original one was a duck. As soon as you try to explain it to someone else, like you instantly see what you did wrong. Like, it's really funny.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, that is. So where did that come from?
Speaker 3:Came up with the idea that I brought over other programmers and like, I'm just like, I'm having this trouble. Can you help me with this? Can you do. Oh nevermind. I see what it is.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Oh, do you have like a physical stuffed animal? Do you imagine it and like talk to like a creature and do it like you've got like a little teddy bear sitting on your desk.
Speaker 3:I don't have one. No, I think people around the office too. But um, but yeah, I mean I just imagined it but yeah, it's, it can be handy. Can come in handy.
Speaker 2:That's a really fascinating way to go about solving any problem. Oh yeah, like taking yourself out of the equation. I've been just nerding out about brains lately. It's all I want to learn about and that concept makes so much sense on so many different levels.
Speaker 3:Totally. It's like when you give someone advice, right? Like, like if you were in their situation, you would never give yourself the advice you'd give them because you're, you can't see it because you're in it, but when you're external it's very easy to see what the problem is and you can give advice.
Speaker 2:People, people use that to allow them to figure out what they're feeling. Sometimes if you're like emotionally kind of backed up, you don't know what's going on, you're frustrated, you're in one of those moods where you're like, am I frustrated, angry, hungry. I don't know what it is. You know, like something feels off that I want to say rocky talks about this sometimes. I don't know if you know rocky from twitch, but um, he talks about it and I think it might've been a concept that came from like Buddhism too. You're looking at yourself from the outside. So he, he's told me before that you look at yourself as like a, a baby essentially, and you try to think of what you would do first to comfort that baby. So the idea is you're looking at it and trying to figure out what's wrong with the baby. How do I comfort it? But really you're looking at yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:It's interesting. Stepping back and putting yourself in a different position makes such a world of difference sometimes.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It can really help,
Speaker 2:man. So what's the future for you? What's your. You're living like the dream, right? You got the job. You like, you're working in a studio. That's awesome. Where do you go from here? Moving up that studio more?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's generally it. I mean getting more responsibility, finding way to have more impact. I mean, yeah, whatever I can work on there that I can pick it up to another level.
Speaker 2:Is there a progression? Are there like senior senior engineers or is everyone just engineer?
Speaker 3:There's definitely a progression. There's like we have like a, a low lake levels and they have numbers and we have a sub levels and like as a whole investment system and. Yeah. But interesting. Microsoft has that too and when I first started working there I had never seen that before and I joked to someone get like a ding when their level goes up and down. I guess not.
Speaker 2:Wouldn't that be great though, like uh, like I sold cars years ago and after you sell a car you get to ring a bell, like why not
Speaker 3:totally
Speaker 2:get promoted? You get a little Ding, it rings through the whole office and they're like, wow, good job.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So that's pretty fun actually. That'd be nice.
Speaker 2:Bring it up man. I mean, you got that fun workplace environment. Tell them you deserve a ding.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well sometimes when it's someone's birthday we yell out, hey everybody, it's so and so's birthday and everyone claps. So there you go.
Speaker 2:What? No, please go on
Speaker 3:some, some people go to a different discipline to like, I mean we've had engineers a switched to design, like one of my good friends who I've worked with for like 15 years or 20 years almost. I got uh, he uh, he went to and to be a producer. So
Speaker 2:are there any other avenues that you considered, like if you leave engineering what you might do?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I've, I've considered some of them, like I've definitely considered design. Um, but I like, I like engineering a little bit too much to want to jump over there yet, get anyone, there's no more worlds to conquer all. Think about it. Production I've thought about very briefly. I think I would be good at it, but I don't particularly like that type of work. So
Speaker 2:man, it just sounds like you hit the jackpot though.
Speaker 3:It feels that way sometimes for sure. Especially when I got, when I started working at Bungie it was like, okay, well,
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, that's awesome. And I've heard that their interview process is really, really tough.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's the toughest interview I ever had for sure. It was very tough.
Speaker 2:I wish I could. I think it might've been dj was telling us about it when I was there one of the times, the way that they go about it. Um, yeah, that, I don't think I've ever had an interview where I was like, man, that was, that was really hard work. Usually I'm just like, I know I deserve this job will not deserve. I know I would be good at this job. So it's just, do you guys want to hire me or not? You know?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean we're, we're super, super picky, which is really good. Like there's something about it when you get, when you look around and every and you know, everyone's good and you know, you can trust everyone that just is like so nice. And without that interview process it's really hard to maintain because I've worked at places where we were, it was much easier. Interviews and you know, you like you get a sense for the person interview and you're like if you have a really good manager he might or she might usually pick really good people but, but if you don't and there's in there at the company like it can be hard to like lay someone off or fire them. So you're, you're stuck with someone who you can't trust, you know, and then you have to like this. But at Bungie you know, Oh, if I give someone work it's gonna come back good. Like we're good. And that's the virus. Imagine
Speaker 2:like the implications of that too. Like having someone in that mix. I had a web design and Development Company for Awhile and I like having to work with and do the project management for just websites, you know, some of them more complex than others, but certainly nothing as complex as what you're working on, but the, the fucking pain in the ass when you have someone working on something for awhile and then they leave or they get busy or whatever, like that is a mess.
Speaker 3:Are those, the thing that would happen to us to say just would not do a good job and then, oh, then you have to like fix it or Redo it and then it's like, oh my God,
Speaker 2:you're doing double work. You're backtracking. Everyone's stressed. Deadlines are not being met.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Total. And with software and with bugs, I mean there's, it can take me two hours to write some code and then two days to debug it if the bugs bad enough. So if you have an engineer who's, who's doing a bad job and riddling the code with bugs, you're looking at months of debugging their broken work and that is really bad
Speaker 2:man. So yeah, I could see that the interview process being challenging, being a really good thing, I hadn't fully thought of it in terms of like the impact of not having someone who was interviewed so, so toughly, but man, it, it makes so much sense. Like you don't want a lot of turnover, you really want to know, you're getting someone who can rise to the challenge, who isn't going to be, you know, overwhelmed easily or whatever, and you really just don't want to be setting yourself up for shit in the future.
Speaker 3:Oh totally. Like, exactly.
Speaker 2:How long was the interview process? Can you, can you walk us through any of it is, it's super top secret. I don't want to get mad at me.
Speaker 3:I don't think it's secret. They basically, it's you go in in the morning, I think usually you meet with someone who's like hr or sort of like quote unquote friendly. Uh, and they, they kind of described bungee a little bit or something. And then it's like, like for an engineer, it's a bunch of senior or like hire engineers, engineering managers and it's one after the other asking you hard programming questions, here's the Whiteboard, right? Right. The answer, like write the code there or explain how it would work depending on the person and there's just one after the other, like basically seeing how good of a program or you are and how good of a problem solver you are. How long does that go on for? So that goes on for about eight hours. I think there's a lunch break where they take you to. That took me to a really nice lunch at a nearby steakhouse and then it's back to the, you know, back to the hard questions. It's kind of fun because you're solving problems so if you like that it can managed to not be nervous that it's actually kind of. But it's really hard to not be.
Speaker 2:I mean I can imagine just like how, how do you not, you know, like it's a cool studio. It would be so fun to work there. You enjoy like what they've put out, you're excited for whatever's coming next and here you are like in this. Ideally I'm imagining at least not a giant room, but you're in what's probably a relatively small room if working through these problems in front of everybody.
Speaker 3:It's one person at a time that helps. Oh, one guy comes and asks you this question then leaves or her question then leaves. That's it. So it's not quite as bad as that, but that's
Speaker 2:still intense. It's cool that you can look at it as fun though because you, you clearly clearly have a mind that really loves challenges and that's like what a great of all of the mindsets you can have. Especially something you developed so young to be like, I fucking love solving problems. You know, the more complex the better. Give me extra work please.
Speaker 3:Totally
Speaker 2:man. So how long did you have to wait before getting a response then after having eight hours with them?
Speaker 3:I think it was pretty fast. A couple days. So the next couple of days I heard back from them. It was pretty smooth.
Speaker 2:That had to have been really cool though. Did you have like a celebrate story or like a relaxing cocktail or a glass of scotch or something after that?
Speaker 3:Well, I think we went out drinking, so.
Speaker 2:Oh, with the people who you interview him.
Speaker 3:Oh No. Oh, after that. After the interview. No, no, no. It was actually at the time, I don't know if we still do this, but at the time they give you a present just for interviewing. That's nice. Yeah, it was actually nice because they're like, we know this is a really hard process so you know, here's the
Speaker 2:nice steak lunch, which is awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 3:totally. It was really nice. But now after the interview of now there is nothing. It's just like, okay, thank you very much. See you later.
Speaker 2:And then you went home and grabbed a buddy or grabbed your wife and you were like, time to drink.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I probably did. I don't actually remember, but that means I probably did need an old fashioned or something.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love old fashioneds. Someone from your area. I think it might've been my friend Riley recommended it. Um, someplace that we want to and I had such a good old fashioned, I like two sips, then I was like, you want one of these? Told my boyfriend so he got one and then it wound up being a night of just like a long table of us all just knocking back old fashions, which is not a drink you should be knocking back, you know, so true. So good. So like perfectly made that you feel like you can knock them back until you've had two or three in a short period of time and you remember that that is a bad decision.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of bars. I would recommend old fashions in Seattle that was pretty good for cocktails.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for real. I was really pleasantly surprised at every time I've been there. Honestly I don't think I've had a bad meal and I don't think I've had a bad cocktail and that's like, that's my goto normally is an old fashioned if I'm out and I'm going to have a cocktail or have a beer or anything. Like I would love to have that first.
Speaker 3:Oh totally. Like that's my test for a bar, like if they, if they don't know how to make it or b, make it completely wrong. I'm like, okay, so I can't order cocktails here. I guess I'm going to look at the beer list.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yes. One of the things that I look for too is like I'm looking for a selection of, of Bourbon whiskey to see if they have the potential to make it, but then I usually ask the bartenders if it's not on a menu somewhere already, do you make a good old fashioned? Because you can tell in a split second if you're about to get a good old fashioned or not. They're gonna look at you either with a like, yeah. And then try and like bullshit their way into making you a cocktail or they're gonna look at you with confidence. Like, Oh yeah buddy, I got it. I got a good beverage coming your way.
Speaker 3:Exactly. The thing that's frustrating to me about it is it's such a simple cocktail like it's four ingredient or three. It's simple syrup, Bourbon, bitters and ice in that and that's when you can put orange or terrorists, but that's pretty much it and it's like in so many people don't know how to make it and it's like now are you a bartender and you can't make an old fashioned like,
Speaker 2:dude, it would upset you if you knew the old fashioned that my boyfriend was given recently. Like I don't know what they thought that they were making. They put a packet of fucking sugar in it and like a cherry. I think there was an orange peel and then just bourbon. I'm pretty sure. And it just looked so gross.
Speaker 3:Yeah. A lot of people will muddle fruit in it and then not put anything sweet. So it's just bourbon and fruit and that doesn't taste good.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's really good seltzer water. Oh, just fill it with seltzer water. Like what are, you know, I don't want bubbly bourbon. So
Speaker 2:how hard is it to just look up a recipe? Like if you don't know, don't wing it. That's also made an old fashion. Just check it out, man. Like look it up.
Speaker 3:You have a smartphone, I mean,
Speaker 2:yeah, totally man. The best old fashioneds I've had. I've had a couple different spots. Make a maple old fashion. Yeah, that Combo is very pleasing. I will. Oh my God. I would brush my teeth with that. So good
Speaker 3:places in Seattle called cannon and they make a truffle old fashioned where they have, why they have truffled. I'm not bourbon, but actually Brandi, it doesn't taste like truffles at all. It just tastes like delicious and they make an old fashioned out of it and it's like the best. So amazing.
Speaker 2:That's so many words I like and I'm so conflicted right now. Literally like have my hands on my head like, like I'm shocked that that likes something broke or I don't even know. I'm trying to imagine that and I want to like it in my brain. But that concept sounds so strange.
Speaker 3:It doesn't taste like truffles. It, it just love truffles. They're good, but you wouldn't want to or maybe it. No, I don't know. Like maybe if you put sugar in troubles, that's how it tastes, but it tastes really good. However they do it. It's amazing
Speaker 2:because like how do you even, I have a hard time describing truffles because I talk about them way more often than I probably should, but like I'm like, they're kind, kinda like he, I don't even know man. They just have this kind of earthy. How do you. They taste good, but some people are very put off by them.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well you can overdo it. I think. Yes. True.
Speaker 2:If you're not like aware of the power in, in like even a truffle shaving I'm sure. Like you can make some mistakes there.
Speaker 3:It's hard to describe you and I don't even know how I would do it. I guess I'd be like
Speaker 2:really just about the challenge you to please describe, please describe the taste of truffles to the mind of snips. Listener base.
Speaker 3:Like a very strong mushroom. No, that doesn't make any sense. Nope. Can't do it.
Speaker 2:Cause that's Kinda like what it is. But I disliked mushrooms and it definitely isn't the same. They almost look like it but not.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, totally. Yeah. Yeah. You got to try one. I think that it's hard to describe a taste. It's a taste thing too. It's not like it's got a special flavor to it. That's.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And even kind of like a texture to the taste, you know?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think man, I think there's some Umami in there and I think that's part of why it's hard to describe
Speaker 2:Umami that I just, I just heard that recently. What does, what does that mean?
Speaker 3:That's like the other like, you know, you have salty, sweet, sour and salty, sweet, sour, bitter and Umami is the fifth taste and it's, it's kind of salty. It's, but it's like Jap, like it means like pasty and Japanese, but it's the MSG taste is like the best way to put it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Okay. Because I had just, I had just been watching, I want to say it was a series on psychology and they were talking about um, like perception and taste and everything and they got to that and they said, Ooh, mommy. And they explained that there is no equivalent word in the English language, but their description was that it's kind of like that Msg he taste. And I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, I like that. Chinese food. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. This stuff that just makes you want more like 30 seconds after finishing a meal that has a huge food baby formed in your stomach. Pretty much man. And I'm like addicted to soy sauce too. So like Chinese food and stuff like that. I'd need to stay away from because I will eat so much of it and I will just drown it in like just sodium sauce, you know, Umami taste too. So that was my immediate thought. Oh Great. Now I want rice fried rice tweet. Oh I just randomly stumbled on another tweet earlier today. I don't like on a random thread. No one I'm following. No one I know. And this chick is saying like, I got some news for you. Fried Rice is really easy. All you're doing is just putting whatever it is that you want to put in your fried rice in like. So I saw sesame sauce or sesame oil and like frying it up and then adding rice. Oh, and you crack an egg on the top of it. Why did I not know this either? So you didn't know. I'm not really much of a cook though, so. Oh well that makes me feel better, but like I cook a decent amount. I like cooking. I should have known this. I like cooking. I like fried rice. Why did the two never meet people? A lot of shame over it honestly, but I'm also very grateful because now I know and I have the instant pot, so my rice is done so easily on the rice is like hard, but it's perfect rice every time at this really nice. Now I'm going to make fried rice. Great. Now we're talking about all the things that I don't need right now at 1130, 11, 35. Oh my gosh. I better not smoke weed tonight or I seriously will make fried rice this late. I'm going to have to just drink water and put myself to bed. A truffle, old fashioned liquid. It leads to this and people who are listening to this are going to be like, we expected this. You want a long time without talking about food or truffles or old fashions. We're really proud of you snaps. Oh Man. And now I know the next time that I'm out in your area we're going to go and get an old fashioned. Yeah, for sure. Okay. So the last thing that I want to ask you then I'm, I'm really honestly very happy for you because it's just so cool that you started something so young that you were good at and passionate about. You got to carry that through your life and have all these different experiences. You've got to see that money isn't everything in terms of like a day to day job, which is awesome. Like you definitely in terms of career hit the jackpot. So what is, what is daily life like?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean it's pretty good. I mean like I don't know. You get, there's a grind to anything, like anything that's work as it's going to have times where it doesn't, you know, it's not all super clicking and whatever. Like you're working on something that is interesting and you just got to get it done and you're ready to go home when you're ready for the weekend. So. But like generally it's like go to work, hang out with my son, and then at night hanging out with my wife or something. Um, maybe play some destiny. Like I, I try to, I want to stay involved in destiny so I can know what the players are feeling, feel it too. Don't let us get any free drops or anything. So we got to earn whatever we get to. So, um, you know, it's old. Is your son, he's eight,
Speaker 2:decoding, nerding out with you?
Speaker 3:No, I've got, I've got, he's not as interested in that yet. Um, you know, he likes games a lot. So He's, he's playing, he's playing his destiny plays Fort Night. Um, that's, I think that's cool. Like it's really, it's really cool to get to play destiny with him when he wants to, like I can imagine like it's just getting to you, especially when he really gets into it and he really likes it and it's like, yes, this is, he really liked gambit. Like he was playing a bunch of gambit even without me. And I was like, yes, because like I did. So that was really awesome.
Speaker 2:What a cool like what a cool thing to have come full circle that you, you work all this time on building something and then it gets to be something that you can do with your family and something that you can watch your little man get excited about. Like how dope is that? I bet he's going to be really excited to tell his friends and stuff. I bet he does tell his friends and stuff. How cool it is that your dad, like his dad works on this stuff?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think so. I don't know if they believe. I'm like, it's that age where it's like, you know, you don't always believe your friends, but
Speaker 2:that's fair. And honestly at that age
Speaker 3:really.
Speaker 2:Oh Man. Sometimes it's just a matter of like things getting mixed up too. Like when I was really little I thought my dad played for the Chicago bears.
Speaker 3:Did he?
Speaker 2:And this is just because now he's certainly, it's just because he used to go to bears games a lot and my mom would stick me in front of the TV and she would say, watch for Daddy, watch for Daddy. Like I'm supposed to be watching for a minute crowd, but I thought like he's out there playing, playing football. My Dad is a football player, so I literally told people that were shown until one day I was a little little little fucking liar and I have no idea. My mom had to correct me on that and that was like years later. So I'm sure all the kids at my school probably thought I was just an idiot.
Speaker 3:Wow. That's, that's something, right?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Well I was, I was excited. I saw one of your tweets once that you and your wife are binge watching some shows and we have some shows in common. I get excited whenever I have chosen come. People like the happy are the good place.
Speaker 3:So good. Such a good. Are you caught up caught up
Speaker 2:man. Dudes, if you're listening right now, you need to watch the good place.
Speaker 3:So good. It is. It's just so much more than tv ever is, like so much depth to it and like if you don't usually think about stuff like that should make you, you know,
Speaker 2:it was, it came at a great time in my life because I was starting to research like so many different concepts that they kind of touch on in that show and I love the way that they choose to go about it. I like the concept of the show a lot and I really just love the execution. It's so fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean philosophy is just totally ignored in our culture and more real and it shouldn't be and it is because it's hard to get into and this showed us such a great job of breaking it down into something that people can actually understand.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's well worth getting into.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And you know, it's interesting to the philosophy aspect of it because that's something like I wasn't a good student in high school or in school in general. Really. Like I barely graduated. I was, I was a troublemaker for sure. So I'm like learning all these things now that I probably should have learned when I was younger, but now I'm actually really fucking excited about it and I just started researching philosophy more like right around the time that the show aired. And now like I found a new youtube series that I like that has like this awesome in depth explanation like courses. It's called crash course. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. It's so cool. They have these playlists of videos, each of their videos maybe like 10 minutes or so. And they cover topics really comprehensively. Like they have one on psychology, they have one on philosophy, they have um, like astronomy. They've got all of these different science disciplines and all kinds of other things like film and history. And it's just dope because like the philosophy one is like 45 videos long. Wow. Yeah. They start at the beginning and they, they explained like the vocabulary and very colloquial term so you can really grasp it right away. But like man, I highly recommend it. The philosophy when I started watching just recently, and it blew me away. Like I, I see what you mean when you say like it is something that we should be looking into more because just the idea of like arguing and how it kind of fits into philosophy. If people researched it a little bit more, I feel like they might be able to actually argue properly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally. Yeah. Logic and arguing and just the idea that like we have so much attention on technology and our culture and it's, you know, there's people don't forget the people
Speaker 2:crap for real and man, I really enjoy just the idea and you know, you're, you're kind of in a similar position because science works the same way. Like the idea of being wrong isn't a bad thing. No, totally. It just, it gets you closer to the truth.
Speaker 3:Yeah. One of the guys I work with says I don't want, I hate being raped. I'd rather be wrong because when I learned something,
Speaker 2:yeah, being right, like you just stay right where you are being wrong. You've learned something, you've progressed, Yay. You get a ding, right.
Speaker 3:You're level one up.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that, those videos of the philosophy ones especially like that really drove that point home again for me is like, if you're, if you're in an argument with someone, your goal shouldn't be to win the argument, your goal should be to find truth together.
Speaker 3:Well and that, and that comes down to a lot of, like there's a lot of people who avoid confrontation to that's like, don't you avoid it. Like they'll find some compromise. I'm like, you don't want the compromise. You want to find a way for both people to win. You have to have the confrontation to get to that point. And it doesn't have to be violent or angry, but it has to happen, you know? Totally.
Speaker 2:Have you had issues with confrontation? Has that ever been a thing that bothered you?
Speaker 3:I'm not. Yeah, I mean, I'm not, I'm not a very like, outspoken the sort of person usually like I'll tend to keep to myself. I mean if, if something's bothering me I will go in, but I, like I have, I have definitely been on the Shyer side when it comes to that stuff. Um,
Speaker 2:but does, does engineering getting into that path, did that kind of help hone that skill a little bit for you knowing that collaboration is an important part of it?
Speaker 3:Um, maybe could be. I mean, I think it's just something I've worked on over the years of like if I want the thing to go the way I want it to go, I'm going to have to get good at this. Like anything else, like learning how to program, it's just another skill and you know, and I'm at the point now we're at the, the real key though is like you're totally right and that you have to be listening because if you're not listening in the argument then no one's actually getting anywhere. And even if the other person isn't listening, if you're listening, you can still progress. It was really interesting.
Speaker 2:Oh man, that's a really good point because I think there's some people who as soon as they realize that the other person is kind of rooted, they just shut it down. And I know I'm guilty of that too. But if, if you can keep them talking, you can definitely start getting a little closer to the truth. Right. Or at least closer to some common ground.
Speaker 3:Totally. I mean, you know, I have emotions too, so sometimes like you do, they will present. They will prevent me from doing that. I'm too angry to listen right now. Like, you know, I, I try not to be, but yeah, everyone's happy. Right.
Speaker 2:It sounds like you have a lot of self awareness though, which is good. You know, especially taking the job that you knew you would love versus the job that pays more. I think that comes, that's something that does take some self awareness and in a little bit of that like I know that I'm going to feel better here and I want that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally. Like that's been every time I've done that, it's been more than once it, it, it's always paid off. Like always. You just got to be.
Speaker 2:It's funny that you, that you mentioned earlier too, that your mom doesn't always kind of see eye to eye with you on that because my mom didn't really either.
Speaker 3:That's funny.
Speaker 2:Like it's, I think it's just in their nature, you know, they, they want us to be successful and stable and you know, things most likely if we're talking about older generations, things weren't always easy for them. So stability is like paramount, you know, now we're in a position where we can prioritize happiness, but it's hard to explain.
Speaker 3:Totally. Like growing up money was always a problem for my mom. So, so to like make a choice like that is like totally hard for her to like get, you know. Yeah. Because what, you could make more money, that's what Elena, her job, she never liked any of her jobs. So it's like who cares what you're doing, right? Like do your work and go home and make extra money, you know? And I think that yeah, that's rough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a little hard to convince but I think the more more confident you are in your decisions, the easier it gets. You know, I feel for some people who are trying to make that switch and don't have that same like kind of peace of mind. Like I know I'll be okay no matter how much money it is that's coming in, I want to do something that makes me feel good. Like this is a big part of my life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. You got to make sure the heat, the heat bills paid out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. There's the basic of like, I need to make sure I can survive. Especially in a fucking polar vortex. I have to be able to afford to have a heat on an excessive temperatures. Water running for days at a time. It's ridiculous, man. Well, yeah, it was. It was a real thing like a. because I left my corporate job to go and do my photography. I had a nonprofit that was still running at the time. It's on a leave of absence right now and then I had my web design and Development Company and I just freelanced and done anything else I can do to make money in the meantime. And I was immediately relieved because the corporate job was great in terms of like the challenge of the actual work, you know, like that, that job you had where you got to wear all those hats, like that can be very satisfying. It's kind of fun knowing that things rest on you that much when you feel capable. But the workplace structures sucked. And My boss was a dick, like I was one of the youngest people there and definitely one of the youngest women there in a very male dominated field. So I was just getting shit on day in and day out. And I finally realized that I was making I think five to$7,000 less than a dude in my department who my boss had said was literally just good for data entry. And I was like, Bro, are you kidding me? I'm running this entire like three departments and you are paying this dude more than me. Why? He does not do half the work I do. So I finally got fed up with like working my ass off and grinding my teeth at night and like just being stressed and irritated all the time. So I had to try and explain that to her and she was not thrilled initially. Like we had a big fight over it and I was like, look, I'm just so tired of feeling like crap. I don't want to be grinding my teeth at night. I want to look forward to my day.
Speaker 3:That's it. I mean at a certain job I had for awhile. Like I was so stressed out and upset that I could feel my body breaking down. Like that's dramatic. I could feel my, like my heart was always pounding. I was always upset and I was like, I just have to leave this job. It was the best paying job I've had up until that point. And I was like, I can't work at this job.
Speaker 2:And you know, I don't think it's being overdramatic to say I feel my body breaking down because that shit is the truth man. The impact that stress has on your life, like especially depending on your viewpoint on how you view the stress, you seem to view it, especially in this newer environment as a challenge, which is great. That strengthens your body, which is cool. We just learned that depends what it is and then yeah, of course problems you're talking about like bullshit stress. It's a little different than like this is a challenge in a program I'm working on or whatever.
Speaker 3:Exactly. It depends on how much control I have, right? Like if I can, if I can have control and be the one making the decisions and making things happen. Like I can deal with a lot of pressure and a lot of complexity, but if I'm out of control and I'm someone else's controlling me in a way that's not comfortable, then I feel like I could. There's nothing I can do about it. Like that is when it really gets bad.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And then it really does show in your body, like if you have really bad anger, if you have really been stressed, the impact on your body, it literally is breaking down like your heart is suffering. Blood pressure might be going crazy. Like who knows the mind body connection is crazy strong.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I have a buddy at a job like that and he like, he keeps going to the doctor and running all these problems and he keeps having all those different medication for blood pressure. And I'm like, dude, you just need to quit your job. Like you're so unhappy all the time. Like he, he, he just, he wants that stability. So.
Speaker 2:And that's really hard to translate. Like, look dude, here's the deal. You can still have stability. Like think about all the things you don't need in your life because there are tons. You can have stability and like pay your basic bills and have your food and figure out the rest. You can have it all in the sense that you can survive and have a job that doesn't make you feel like you're dying.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly. Totally.
Speaker 2:Like it is totally possible and if you really want to go further, like you can have whatever you want, you can totally make whatever kind of life you want happen. It's just a matter of kind of working to figure out how to plan it out. Then planning it out and then taking the steps knowing they might be long and many of them. Absolutely. And that's like, that's where I'm at with my mom now. I'm really grateful she came around, she sees twitch as a good thing. Finally, she didn't quite understand any of this at first, but now she's, she's starting to see. She still wishes I would swear less. She tried to. She tried to bully me into giving up the f word and I was like, no, that one's my favorite. It's so useful. I know. And I had to explain that to her. Like, you know, part of the draw of my channel is that we can talk about life and random shit and mental health and we can also be vulgar and ridiculous and sometimes that's what you need is you need to hear someone dropping enough bomb to snap you out of something so that you can start paying a little more attention to the meat of it. The good shit. Like listen up motherfuckers don't take a job that is literally killing you just for the money. I promise you there's another fucking way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's such a good way to look at it. For sure. I agree.
Speaker 2:I'm glad. I'm really glad that we had the opportunity to talk tonight. Especially because now I have another example of someone who people can, can look to who had the, the time or took the time to look at what they wanted in life and then moved in the direction that felt. Right. Not the one that paid. Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well I'm glad. I'm glad people will hear it for sure.
Speaker 2:So, so what about, like I said, it seems like you have some great self awareness. Do you do any kind of like mindfulness or anything like that in your daily life?
Speaker 3:No, not that I'm so much. I think some people just have different knacks and get lucky at different things and that that's always been something. I've just always been very aware of things and myself, I dunno, I dunno where it comes from me now.
Speaker 2:Good man. That's good. That's something a lot of people have to work very hard for and that's awesome that it's something that you were able to kind of cultivate and challenge yourself to grow in as you grew in your career too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I guess I just think about things a lot like, like I think about, I think about like stuff like privilege but privilege in like a different way. Like, like I've always been kind of one of the smart kids or whatever. Not to brag, but that's just how it was growing up. Everyone.
Speaker 2:No, but pragmatically,
Speaker 3:smart Catholicism, everyone was telling me I was smart or whatever and like I've always just taken it for granted and like recently I've been thinking about it and like I just started realizing what if that hadn't happened? Like what if I hadn't been that, like how easy have things come to me because I had that and that was just like the lottery, like I won the lottery, right. And
Speaker 2:I do.
Speaker 3:And, and if, if I hadn't, if I struggled with math on, I struggled with reading like my whole life would be so different now. And so when someone does have those problems, I can look at that and be like, well yeah, I mean let me see if I can help you or whatever, but I can empathize a little bit more because I realized that, you know, I'm just not. It was just like I happened to win, you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah. You'd like we were talking about earlier too, um, with like art even, you know, maybe maybe you could have. And I think you probably could have developed and honed your craft and become really good at art. But there are some people who kind of start out great at art and then they continued to hone that craft, being able to start out with some good aptitude in certain areas like yeah, that's something to be grateful for and it's cool that you even take the time to recognize that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And, and I was also lucky, like you've said a lot tonight. I was lucky that I found a thing that was valuable and I also found it like everyone's got a talent you. But some people never find it. Like if
Speaker 2:some people never try to look,
Speaker 3:that's also true. That's also true for sure.
Speaker 2:And that's, that's talk like there's a lot of people who spend most of their time just hating on themselves thinking like I can't do anything, but who knows, they could be crazy good at any number of things that they just don't even know exist yet.
Speaker 3:Absolutely true. Absolutely,
Speaker 2:man. It's cool because like what you, when you analyze things, it's, it's cool because you are Angela, you're analyzing them in a mindful way. Like you're, you're practicing gratitude by looking at those things that you have and saying like, this isn't something I necessarily did. I, I should be grateful for this. This is something I certainly had a hand in as you grew. Like, you could've just been like, I'm so smart, I'm great at math. I don't need to take anymore of this, you know? And then things probably would have stalled out. But that's, that's important. I think I, I tend to get a lot of compliments on my stream because I keep up with chat really well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:Every time I'm like, look man, I wish I could say like, you know, thank you and really feel it. But it's, it's something I'm super lucky that I started reading really young. Like my dad was a big reader. He kinda got me into reading and I just, I was really passionate about it. And when you start reading really young and work like you're always reading, reading comprehension peaks like that adds a lot of knowledge. Just random shit, which can be very beneficial as you grow. And it helps me so much with chat because I can get paragraphs and paragraphs of texts from all these different people and I can glance over and read it quickly. So it's not like I'm some super fucking amazing streamer. I'm just kind of lucky that I happened to live a life that allowed me to read a lot. And then even luckier that I liked doing something that develops your brain so much.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Super Amazing Streamer. Am Lucky. Totally. I'm the best man. Oh Man. I'm just amazed she could do that and play a video game because I can't even talk to someone. Why play a video game wishlist? Like I can read really fast but I can't do anything else while I'm doing it like you can. So
Speaker 2:it all depends on the subjects though and like, you know, there's, there's an important ratio when it comes to my gaming of hydration, caffeination and weed. So if I have that ratio just right, then I can be mellow and play the game kind of on autopilot, you know, let my body do the muscle memory stuff and then I can just glance back and forth and pay attention to chat and come back. But if the ratio is off, then you know, sometimes I'm focusing too hard on my gameplay and I lose it or I'm not focusing at all and it's just not there. So the balance is somewhat delicate, but yeah, it is. I don't know, man. I learned recently that multitasking isn't what I thought it was. I've always thought like it's cool to brag about being a gold good multitasker, thinking that your brain is handling a bunch of shit at once. I didn't know that it is actively switching from thing to thing.
Speaker 3:I see.
Speaker 2:So that was kind of a revelation recently too. Like somehow over the years I've done a decent job apparently have of getting my brain good at switching from things quickly without draining me too much so I can bounce back and forth. Me, the gaming and a million different conversations and not feel like I'm going to pass out.
Speaker 3:That's interesting. It's like a. it's like programming a computer. Well, I used to work a long time ago when she had multiple. Now there's multiple cores, but it used to be it was one processor and you'd run. It was just time slice. It's time to run a little bit of this task. A little bit of this task. A little bit of this task. Yeah. What's expensive? There is the context switch between tasks, so that's like unload all this stuff in memory, load the new stuff and that like that must be the thing you're good at is just unloading and reloading very fast.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Being able to just switch back and forth. Yeah, it is interesting how much the brain is like computers though that like it's, it's Kinda mind blowing shit. The more I learned about the brain, the more I'm just like, are we robots? I don't know. Some of the stuff that runs in us the way that we operate. It's crazy.
Speaker 3:Yeah,
Speaker 2:man. Oh this is good shit. It's cool because like I said, I feel like you're already practicing mindfulness in your daily life, which might be why you seem so chill and I'm sure you know, we all, we all have our days, but do you, do you consider yourself a pretty chill person overall?
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely tend to stay pretty calm no matter what's going on. Not that I've ever had anything really drastic happen to me so, but like people get stressed out, I tend to say pretty level headed and not get too worried about it.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. That's awesome. I'm going to. I'm going to mark that as one plus one for the mindfulness just to continue to peer pressure people into doing things that are good for them.
Speaker 3:Okay. Fair enough.
Speaker 2:If you want to be like Adam and be nice and calm and cool under pressure, pay attention, practice gratitude, pursue joy, try meditation. It's fucking great. That's my latest, like real big peer pressure is I'm trying to get everyone to start meditating.
Speaker 3:Nice. I'll take it under advisement.
Speaker 2:Perfect. We can leave it at that. I won't. Peer pressure you too hard on this. Okay, well if midnight here for me and I'm getting warm in here because as I've mentioned, I'm in the polar vortex right now so we have to keep our heat up pretty high overnight and I am just boiling in my office right now, but man, I really appreciate you coming on ice. I super, super appreciate all of your time and this was really interesting.
Speaker 3:This is a lot of fun. I'm really glad I did this. Thanks a lot for inviting me.
Speaker 2:All right, so I told everyone they could find you on twitter at peanut darrious. Um, you said you don't have anything else you want to direct them to. So if there's anything else you want to share with them, please feel free.
Speaker 3:I mean right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right now drop some advice, some wisdom bombs. Tell everyone they're awesome or just say,
Speaker 3:I think my advice and wisdom. Obama's like when someone's really bothering you, like just take a second to look at it from their point of view if you possibly can. And I promise everything will go better.
Speaker 2:Perspective. Yes. That's a great wisdom bomb because it's one of those simple things that people really don't pay enough attention to
Speaker 3:and it's super hard. Like it sounds easy, but when you're mad at someone it's super hard to do so I totally get it. But if you can just try. Yeah. So that's my wisdom bone.
Speaker 2:So that's a people and gotten the response of I don't want to. I don't want to see it from their point of view. It's like I get it, but also. Do you see what you're doing? Totally. Totally. See. Totally a hundred percent man. Well that was the good wisdom bomb. Again. Thank you so much. This was awesome. Adam and I look forward to whenever we can grab a cocktail together because we're going to have a good old fashioned, not a bad thing.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah. Next time you're in Seattle, let me know.
Speaker 2:Oh, I will. Thank you again. Have an awesome and uh, yeah, dudes follow him on twitter and have nice conversations about life and gaining in engineering.
Speaker 1:Sounds good.