Allen Whearry, self taught iOS developer working at Yelp.

Allen Whearry is the person organizing #iOSDevHappyhour. You should look that one up on Twitter if you haven't. Allen had an interesting journey into tech, he started with a psychology major and went through several sales roles before diving into tech. On this episode Allen and I take you through Allen's backstory.

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Transcript

Jeroen Leenarts: 0:46

I'm sitting here with Elon weary on another special episode. So the former podcast, Elon, where we all know him from iOS deaf, happy hour. But we're going to talk about a few other things about Elon. Because what I tend to do with my special episodes is really dig into the history of people that are my guests. So Ellen, just to get things started, how are you doing today?

Allen: 1:10

I'm doing well, I'm doing very well. Thank you so much. Very glad to be here.

Jeroen Leenarts: 1:15

So um, how did you actually get started with iOS deaf happy hour? Because that's, that's probably one of the goalposts and then we'll take from there. Yeah, so

Allen: 1:27

getting started with iOS dev happy hour. So at my job at Yelp, we, we would do like a happy hour after project completes, right. So I think it was like, the next day after what happened or the same day after one happened. I tweeted, just saying, hey, there should be, you know, a happy hour for iOS devs, you know, called maybe iOS dev happy hour. And the response was just like, Yeah, I'll join. Definitely, but you do it like you, yourself. Do it. Right. So um, yeah, within like, a week, I think I had a had an Eventbrite link posted and, you know, invited people people registered, I think the first one had 89 registers. 49 people showed up to the first one back in September. And yeah, I was shocked. I was shocked. I really was because, you know, I'm expecting maybe five to 10. I mean, I would have been happy with one person. But, you know, the community kind of really showed out and, you know, as a, we just had one this past weekend that had over 300. Right. So it's really grown. And I love it. I love it.

Jeroen Leenarts: 2:42

Yeah. So if people want to get more information on that, they should look at the hashtag, iOS, deaf, happy hour. If you find that on Twitter, you will find all the information that you need. And you can actually enjoy Alan, in real life on a webcam, of course, but live and in person. So, but I think you have a very interesting backstory, because if I'm correct, you are a self taught iOS developer. You work at Yelp, which is kind of a big company in in the US. And how did all that happen?

Allen: 3:18

Yes, so. So iOS development, it was something that I, I felt like I always wanted to do, or at least mobile was something that I always wanted to do, but never end up doing it. So like, I know, another programming language. I've done other things and other programming languages, nothing as far as like a full time job. But just little side things here. And there, especially while I was in college, I used to throw parties and events. And I would create websites for those events, and maybe small orgs, around around the college or around campus. But I never thought that that was going to be like my career at the time. It was just like, I'm majoring in psychology, right? Um, I'm gonna go to grad school. Was I thought, right.

Jeroen Leenarts: 4:07

So you mentioned you studied psychology when you were in school. So how did you end up with psychology but with somewhat of an interest or hobby into basically the tech stuff, because the creating of websites for events and just you were only already dabbling with technology, but you were focusing your attention to psychology?

Allen: 4:32

Yeah, there was a whole different path that I had saw for myself. I mean, I wanted to study psychology, go to grad school, and ended up going into what's known as executive coaching, which sort of branched off organizational psychology, which I really love and really enjoyed. But I seem like tech just was always something that I liked, right, you know, programming, being able to build something of whatever you have in your mind, just being able to, to build it, essentially. Right. I enjoyed that. I think at the core, I like building things, maybe.

Jeroen Leenarts: 5:11

I don't know what it is, or so what about breaking things down?

Allen: 5:15

I love breaking things. And don't get me wrong. But yeah, you know, I looked into it a little bit, but, but at the same time, I was majoring in psychology and when I would look at job descriptions, right, you know, it's like, oh, man, I got to know all this extra stuff. It's no point right? At that time. All the job descriptions were saying, oh, must have a CS degree anyway. So it's like, what's the point? I'm majoring in psychology,

Jeroen Leenarts: 5:43

so you're basically self disqualified. Fight for attack roll.

Allen: 5:47

Yeah, even though like I had stuff that was good, like I had proof that I was capable. Right. And I think that's, that's sort of what imposter syndrome is, is, you know, you know, self deprecating even though you have the proof of otherwise. Right. And it's, of course of there's a little bit of oh, you know, you might be a junior, you might not know, everything. But again, I have proof that I built stuff, why couldn't I just, you know, say, hey, companies, this is what I have. This is quite a bit of work, right. And I don't have a CS degree, by the way, but I'm capable. I don't know why I wasn't able to do that. But that's that's imposter syndrome. And

Jeroen Leenarts: 6:31

it is interesting that even having done like a formal education in psychology, that you were unable to, like self reflect and come to the conclusion that, hey, I'm just disqualifying myself, why should I do that? And even if you're, like, formally educated on the topic, imagine, like, be just a regular person doing any other traits and then figuring out on your own that, hey, I shouldn't like give up i If I want to do this. I should try at least give it a try and work on it to actually get to the position that you might actually have a job in the tech field.

Allen: 7:08

Yeah, exactly, exactly. But so fast forward a little bit after college, I ended up in sales that was like, my, I Well, not even after college, like my last semester of college, I end up going into sales as part time job. And I used to work at a company called Joseph a bank, their main store, I don't know if they're worldwide, but I know they're pretty popular in the United States. Basically sell men's suits, ties, dress shirts, pocket squares, etc. And I really enjoyed it, like I really did, I really enjoyed it, it was so fun. Being able to interact with customers coming in and wanting to you know, buy a suit, right? They wanted to understand everything about a suit, and how it's supposed to fit and all of that good stuff. And I really enjoyed that interaction. So sort of my plans of possibly going to grad school, I would say almost shattered because I enjoyed that, that, I guess, Chase, in a sense, so much end up getting another job, which wasn't the best job in sales. But I learned a lot. And for people who may be in the United States and have gone to Walmart and seen someone asks them, who do they have for cable, I was that guy trying to sell them direct TV inside of a Walmart, right. And I'm talking to 150 to 200 people a day, just getting endless, endless rejection. So at this point, at this stage of my life, in the present, I am like immune to rejection, almost like I got so many throughout that time period, you

Jeroen Leenarts: 8:54

grow a thick skin if you're in sales, so with customers.

Allen: 8:58

Exactly, exactly. And then my next job after that was my favorite sales job, I think and that was at a company called Paloma shapes. And that was in plastic distribution. So I sold materials like plexiglass, nylon, PVC, and this was our core audience was display and signage companies as well as industrial companies, some aerospace. So I wasn't selling like plastic bags and, and plastic spoons and stuff. No, I was selling to companies who were trying to make a sign or some type of display, right? Some of my customers did work for the Superbowl that took place in Atlanta. Some of my customers tried to replace their metal engineering parts or industrial parts with plastic because it was lighter. And it may be able to take heat better than the metal, right. But again, there was something that was just calling me to like, you know, you got to try to take the chance. And so to get into tech, and so it was 2018, I think was March, where I was just like, You know what I do like mobile. I like iOS, I have the iPhone, right? Let me try to do this. And not even at this point for a job, but just like try to build an app and see what happens. Right. And so I did that. And I ended up building my first app, I think, was it three months to six months in, I basically built built a rough draft of my app. And my first app was a plastic Weight Calculator. And again, remember my job was in plastic distribution. So I built this Weight Calculator app plastic Weight Calculator app to help me on the job. If a customer asked me on the phone, hey, you know, how much does x plastic weigh? Right? I should be able to give that answer to them immediately. Where the current is, if I didn't have that knowledge, I would have to call the manufacturer. And that could be a five minute call. The manufacturer, the first person who picks up might not know the answer directly. So they may have to call their engineering department that could be another 510 20 minutes. So and that's bad in sales, right? Yeah. If you hang up on the customer, right, that gives them an opportunity to go to somebody else. And that was like a no, no, no for me. So I built this app. And it worked. And it took a while before I actually released it. But when I did release it, I got a lot of feedback, a great feedback. And I think somewhere in between that releasing and or initial starting and releasing, I kind of told myself, Okay, I think I'm going to apply for jobs. And we'll see what happens. And 19 months later after from initial starting to learn, and 19 months later, that's when I got an offer from Yelp and was hired and accepted the offer. And so I was lucky to be at Yelp. I'm sure Yelp is lucky to have me. I hope, right? Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. And I think it's important that people know that, you know, their journey is their journey, right? Of course, everybody wants that three to six months, I became a developer and three to six months. But, you know, everybody's journey is different. You know, I only had a limited amount of time, at the end of the day to study Swift. You know, I had a full time job from eight to five. I have a family with two kids, right. So the only time I have to study is when they are asleep. So that can be from what 930, maybe 10 o'clock to, for me to study to one, two o'clock in the morning. times later.

Jeroen Leenarts: 12:50

Yeah. But you have to be able to function the next day for the entire week. I can't Yeah, exactly.

Allen: 12:55

So it was definitely tough.

Jeroen Leenarts: 12:57

So you mentioned that you were able to put together this plastic calculator app. Yeah. And like half year's worth of your time or calendar time. And then you when you decided to actually pursue a career in software development, you mentioned that you had 19 months to actually starting your search and landing a job at Yelp. So what did you do in those 19 months? Did you keep on studying? Or did you work on other small side projects? So what did you do to actually develop yourself as a, as a software developer?

Allen: 13:31

Yeah, it was a lot of study. So just to clarify, I'm saying 19 months from when, initially, I started to learn Swift not when I decided I was going to pursue a job before I initially started learning Swift. So I, I realized I needed some type of structure, to you know, when you're self taught, like, you don't know what you don't know, right? Yeah, it's kind of hard to figure it out. So a technique that I used, which I don't know if you're still able to do it now. But I would search for like boot camps, maybe college courses that were teaching iOS development, and I would try to get a syllabus from them. And see, you know, what topics are, they're going over? With boot camps, a lot of time there was like, oh, yeah, just put your email in, and we'll send you the breakdown. Sometimes they had it directly on their website, right. And I would just write down take all the notes of like, okay, this probably what I should go over first was probably over second, I will look at job descriptions and anything that they said they need it, I will write them down, put them in an Excel sheet, Ram. And keep doing that. Keep doing that. So many, I guess, courses that I've looked at books that I bought, just following through tutorials as after tutorials, of course, trying to prevent this tutorial trap, right, so I would do a tutorial. And then I would try to build something immediately after that's like my own thing, but still touched on what they did. So, I mean, it's it was a lot of that there was a lot of that. So you

Jeroen Leenarts: 15:10

mentioned that you try to build something immediately after you've done gaining some knowledge. So you follow the tutorial or you did some course material. And then you had some new knowledge and you immediately tried applying that into some small way in the new like mini projects that allowed you to actually experiment with technologies.

Allen: 15:30

Exactly, exactly. That's a good one, man. Yeah, it uh, it stemmed from a older gentleman that I met at a random meetup. And to this day, I don't know why I was at this meetup because they were talking about one of the ceiling languages and it's just like, to this day, I don't know why I was there. But this gentleman he asked me, you know, of course, after introductions, he asked me, you know, how do you learn? And I say this all the time, like, my learning and memory teacher would be pissed at me for the answer that I gave, if she ever heard, right, you know, a psychology major saying, you know, how do you learn? And I said, I read like, of course, like, that's what I do, right? And the guy was like, no, no, no, no, you don't know. That's, that's a horrible answer, basically. And he told me this concept. And I don't know if he created it himself, or he heard it from somewhere else, but he called it learn, try, apply. And I'll try to briefly go through what that is. The learn stage is what I like to call the consuming stage where you're just consuming knowledge, reading books, watching tutorials. And the the next step is to try stage where you actually have to write down word for word, what each of the of those tutorials or that book or that video said, and the next stage and final stages to apply it. And that means to go ahead and put it into your own small project. Or if you have a larger project, try to implement that same feature into it. And so I took that to heart after I learned I applied it the whole time while I was learning Swift, even to this day, I do it. So

Jeroen Leenarts: 17:06

yeah, it's a powerful mechanism. And I must say, I've heard it somewhere before, but I wouldn't be able to tell what's the actual source of this, this mechanism, but it's it's solid advice that you will give in the back there. So just to look a bit at your background, you live in the US? You've done most college education or was University for personal psychology.

Allen: 17:35

College University, I guess in the US, they're pretty much the same thing.

Jeroen Leenarts: 17:38

Okay. Yeah. Cuz I'm from Europe, in the Netherlands, and they have some distinctions, but pretty much it's all like either a three to four to five years long program that you do, and then you end up with some certificate. And they say that you have gained some knowledge. Exactly. So how was your childhood? How was that for you? Like, did you have like computers available when you were smaller? Or was it like, non there? Or what was that like for you?

Allen: 18:09

So my childhood? I think it was, it was pretty, pretty great. For the most part, right? Like, of course, I've had, you know, some things happen to me in the past. So how do I want to say this, I normally don't present this. So you might be one of the first people here. And I think I mentioned it at the last I was to have happy hour, but both of my biological parents died in a car accident when I was six years old. That's when I was living in Philadelphia. And I was fortunate enough to where my mother's sister and her family husband and whatnot, was able to adopt me and my sister, and which then we moved to Maryland with my cousins who, of course, now I call brother and of course, my I call mother and my uncle, I call it that now. And so I was very fortunate for that. And then, you know, they they took us in as family which essentially we were right.

Jeroen Leenarts: 19:10

Yeah, that's difference between your own kids and the kids of your brother or sister.

Allen: 19:17

Exactly. But there was no difference in how they treated us. Right. Yeah. So, so important. Yeah, yeah. And a blessing that, you know, my sister was able to come with me right, you know, or I was able to cover with her right and, and whatnot. And so yeah, I grew up pretty well. Not like wealthy, but like, we were good.

Jeroen Leenarts: 19:43

Right? Yes. Yes. Some toys she had a nice tidy room and food on the table and

Allen: 19:49

tidy. Me Right.

Jeroen Leenarts: 19:55

Yeah, but enough, not enough space to like like roam around the house and outside of the house and just experiment. Break things. Exactly. Right.

Allen: 20:05

So I grew up doing sports, football, track and field. Of course, my toys, I would try to take them apart, try to put them back together. I remember. I took apart a plate my I think it was my my PlayStation two and then took apart and put it back together. Still didn't work. I don't remember because I think I had the PlayStation three by that time. Some of those. Well, I definitely did that. So went to went to public school up until high school, went to private school, in high school and then go into college. I went to a private college so Yeah. It was childhood tough. Yeah. But like I by no means like, I know the privilege that I had, you know, growing up. So,

Jeroen Leenarts: 20:57

yeah, it's just just me just the idea of like, having to live through what you had to at eight, six, it's Wow. It that must have been like so tough. So I'm just to keep the conversation flowing a little bit. Was there any computers in the households? Did you do some tinkering with systems? Or was that at a later age that you grew interest in technology?

Allen: 21:26

Yeah, it was definitely a later age, I think. Oh, so in, I guess, in high school, I did enjoy art, I really did. So drawing painting, using charcoal, whatever medium, it was even graphic design, my brother, my oldest brother, he is a graphic designer. And so I think it was like, the seventh or eighth grade. He taught me like the basics of Photoshop. So I was really into that as well. So as far as computers, like, I didn't do any code at that young it was more so just browsing the internet, doing whatever kids do on the internet, and then messing around with like, maybe some computer games. I love the Sims. Oh, yeah. Trying out. Photoshop, of course. Yeah. And it wasn't till I think. Yeah, until college, where I was just like, oh, yeah, there's Tech because of my cousin. I know he was in. He was in tech, and he loved it. So I kind of thought about it from there.

Jeroen Leenarts: 22:36

Yes. Because you mentioned earlier that you did some websites for like these, these meetings and events during your college? Yes. How did you gain the knowledge to actually be able to put something together? Because I can imagine if you have no clue on technology, and no clue on, on websites, really from the technicals perspective. How did you pick that up?

Allen: 23:03

I think it was, it was just, of course, the sheer interest and trying to figure out how to do that, you know, trying to somehow brand the event in itself that I was doing, or that we were doing, it was a group of us in some way. And of course, web was big, and it's just like, oh, wow, I'll figure it out. I think my first introduction to HTML, it was Facebook had like their Facebook business pages where you could where at that point, you could actually use HTML to kind of alter how the not the whole page, but just like a section of the page look, yeah. So I was I messed around with that. And then kind of just went further and further. I started working on some newsletters, and then it branched into actually doing a website.

Jeroen Leenarts: 23:54

It's interesting that because a lot of people when they gain entry to technology for the first time, it's quite often people just right clicking on a website, and just hey, there's an interesting menu fuel source and see what's underneath that it's like the the Alice in Wonderland experience. You go down a rabbit hole, and you don't know how deep the rabbit hole is. But you keep on tumbling and tumbling. And at some point, you land and you come out again, with a lot of new insights in how stuff actually works. So you had some interesting websites, then you finished your education's, you basically went on to into sales, and then ended up at this plastics company. But between, like creating sort of like a website and creating your first iOS app, there's a lot of stuff in between that must happen that I can imagine that would actually bring you from like, scripting a website and just doing some HTML and stuff into actually deciding okay, I'm gonna learn Swift. It's gonna take me a while, but hey, let's do it. So what's what's in between? They're

Allen: 25:11

attempting to do back end development. Oh, wow. thing. So I tried. I tried to Ruby and Ruby on Rails. And while I liked the language, I think my fault there was I didn't fully understand the Ruby language before trying to jump into Ruby on Rails. And so if something broke on Ruby on Rails, and it could have been something simple where I because I didn't know Ruby, I didn't know how to fix it. I didn't fully understand And the language in itself. And of course, maybe I didn't fully understand the framework, rails as well. But I, I built some personal projects. And I, I, of course, looked at job descriptions again. And one. I think at the time, there wasn't many Ruby, Ruby on Rails jobs or back end stuff. Yeah. On top of that. You know, those descriptions, they throw everything at you, and

Jeroen Leenarts: 26:20

be like, a unicorn with like to spikes on your hat and like, eight legs and tails, and

Allen: 26:25

exactly right. So you gotta have 30 years of experience for a programming language that's been around for five. So

Jeroen Leenarts: 26:32

yeah. That was fun. Like, what swift two and swift three, like asking if you had like five years of Swift experience.

Allen: 26:41

Exactly. Right. So, you know, no, it's, it was a, it was tough seeing those. And so I dropped Ruby, I think, a year passed before I really did anything else. And that's when I picked up on Python. And the Django framework, and I learned Python first, like, I really learned Python, and then went into Django.

Jeroen Leenarts: 27:08

So why initially Ruby? And then why? Secondly, a Python because there must have been trigger event that made you decide, hey, let's do Ruby. And then that was a bad choice for you personally. And then there was like Python, and that that somehow clicked better with you?

Allen: 27:25

Yeah. So I think it was it was my cousin's, my cousin's house warming, I believe it was, and it was the same cousin. So who, who was in computer science? And he was telling me, I should learn Python. I think this was 2000. Maybe it was 2012 2013. I can't remember what it was. But he was saying, oh, yeah, you should pick a Python. And a friend of his was saying, No, you should pick up Ruby. And, you know, unfortunately, the guy who said Ruby had a better argument. I don't remember what the argument was at this time. Like, what the, you know, but but it was? Yeah, it was very convincing. It was very convincing, even though I should have trusted my cousin in the long run. See, sometimes you just just trust your family, family. Family First, always. And that that was a, I don't want to say it was a bad idea. Because it definitely while I knew some JavaScript, I felt like for me, Ruby did bring me a little bit more into the object oriented programming languages. Of course, JavaScript is one, but like, most of the stuff that I was doing was an object oriented. For the most part, there was a little bit but for the most part, not nothing heavy. Ruby really got me into understanding object oriented programming. But again, like I said, I, you know, I went, thought about looking at the job market, pretty much was like, nope, the same for me, I don't have the skills. I don't have the skills. What is like, here's, here's this little lottery picker that I did in Ruby, this work, here's this little sample website, I did, but then it doesn't have any of these things in the job description. So it's like, ah, that hurts. And unfortunately, when I picked up Python, kind of the same thing happen, yeah, even though I knew a lot more Python, and a lot more about the Django framework, there was still a lot of things that I was missing. Well, I don't want to say a lot of things that I was missing. Because even now, when I got my job in iOS development, there were still a lot of things that were missing. But I still got the job, right. And so I think the difference between Python and Ruby and me now and iOS, it was just the confidence to just do it.

Jeroen Leenarts: 30:04

And but But you say that once you've started at Yelp, having peers available that are more developed as software developers, compared to you, has that like accelerated your own growth or the speed at which you can actually move forward with your insights into software development?

Allen: 30:27

Yeah. So I think, even before I wouldn't got my job at Yelp, I think the community itself, especially on Twitter, for me, was huge and kind of keeping me motivated to kind of keep going In iOS development, but yeah, of course now being at Yelp, there's there's things that I'm learning that I don't think I would have learned on my own. Right. So I mean, even some technologies sort of outside of iOS development, for example, like Git, like, of course, I used git before, but I'd never used git with a team.

Jeroen Leenarts: 31:07

Nobody ever explained some of the details about it.

Allen: 31:11

Yeah, exactly. So like, just, you know, on something. I don't know if it's simple, but like rebasing like, I never had to do that. Right. Yeah, I never had to, to cherry pick a commit and put it somewhere like, I've never had to do that. So learning that those are things first often get was huge. Because now I do it all the time. Yeah. Right. It makes life simple. Sometimes,

Jeroen Leenarts: 31:42

but if you look at your growth as a, as an individual, and as a software developer, you already mentioned there was this guy at a C pipeline beat up. Yeah, who gave you like, one solid piece of advice. And, of course, there's your cousin, you mentioned, who gives some helpful pointers and

Allen: 32:04

that I should have listened to

Jeroen Leenarts: 32:07

other any other people that like, along the way, stood out in ways that they helped you or that you'd say like, yeah, just on these occasions, just getting the insight of a more experienced individual has really helped me out and allowed me to move forward. That helped me to move forwards. Past certain AMTech, like struggling a bit here.

Allen: 32:34

That helped me I guess, level up in a sense, yeah,

Jeroen Leenarts: 32:36

that you met somebody that helps you level up or get past the blockades. In your own development?

Allen: 32:43

Mm hmm. Yeah. So well, let's see. So there's a gentleman by the name of Michael Westbrook. He went to college with me, he was I believe he was an economics major, but then ended up going into iOS development, and, you know, got hired. And so I kind of looked at that was like, oh, that's motivation right there. Like he went to the same school as me. Yeah, right. So of course, I reached out to him on multiple, numerous occasions, multiple times. And he's been super helpful. In the motivational aspect, and kind of knowing what to knowing, kind of what to know, going into an interview, especially specifically. So that was super helpful. And then there was another gentleman named Johnny Boston, he went to school with me. He also did not major in computer science, but he ended up going the route of web development. And I think he definitely specializes, I think, in JavaScript now. I can't remember unfortunately, but he helped me with actually getting my resume on point because he actually reviews resumes at his job. Yeah. So that was super helpful. And I think that helped me level up significantly, because, of course, there was a time where I was applying. And, you know, I would get nothing, right? No responses, he would look at my resume. And now I'm getting more responses, he would kind of look at my resume again. And now I'm getting even more responses. Right. Now I'm getting to second interviews I'm getting or I'm getting the first interview, I'm getting past the first interview. And then there was just things that I kind of had to I don't want to say, I don't know if it's learn on my own, but just pull from past experiences, I'll say, yeah. And between, you know, the interview process, right, like one being confident, right? My brother, one of my brothers, my second oldest brother, I remember him saying when I was like, super young, and it was like, people, like people can see confidence, right? Or something like that. Something along those lines and like it ends up being true. Like, there's a note of noticeable difference between, like how someone's body language is when they're confident, versus when they're nervous. Right. And I think, you know, people normally stand taller when they're confident. And I think just walking into an interview, or even if I'm on the phone, which was a technique that I use when I was selling, I would you know, sit up straight, I would be confident into with whoever I was talking to. So, I mean, there's so many people who helped me along the way it's, it's Yeah,

Jeroen Leenarts: 35:39

but irregardless people helping you along the way. It's it's so important and I think you One of those people that likes to pay it forward. And every opportunity,

Allen: 35:50

I try to, I try to I know sort of what my, my skill sets are. And so I try to use those in whatever fashion I can to help someone. Will I be the person that writes, you know, amazing tech articles and books? I don't know, maybe. But for right now, I feel like my, my best attribute is being able to bring people together.

Jeroen Leenarts: 36:18

I think you're getting that done quite nicely. So but just just a question that I want to ask, based on the things that you just said, Europe, HP psychology major, so you have some formal insights, maybe. But how do you pick yourself up after a string of text? After a string of declines? When you are on a job hunt?

Allen: 36:48

Twitter responses, you know, I would, you know, I used to tweet just like, hey, I have a job interview. Didn't get it. You know, and people were like, You know what, you got it the next time, right? Yeah. And then on top of that, like, I've gotten rejections before, right. So it's never like I took it. Like, rejections weren't personal to me, at some point. At some point, it was like, it was just things didn't align. Yeah, right. Like, it just, it wasn't like, oh, they hate me as a person is just, you know, like, either I didn't say something properly, right or correctly, it's just you got to figure it out. Because

Jeroen Leenarts: 37:24

I'm talking from my own experience in this regard. And not myself personally. But I've seen it with my own father, at a quite a senior age, he was let go at his position. And then he had a really, really tough time, getting back in the saddle again, to get his new job. And it took him like two years to actually get a new position somewhere again, and just like the continuous strings of, of negative responses, it had an impact, so to speak, I was young, I was like, I think was like seven or eight years old. And just seeing that happen with your own father, it was so tough for me. And I wished as a kid who can't, but I wish I could have done something to help him. But I also saw that it's so important to be able to pick yourself up to reframe your own being into okay, this happens, what can I learn from it? How can I improve on the next attempt? And it was really cool to see that at some point, I don't know who or what actually triggered it in my father. But once he at some points, started doing that flow in Okay, failure, improve, try again, and immediately started lifting him up and ended him at the position again. But it was it was a tough two years. I can tell, you

Allen: 38:54

know, I'm sure. You know. I can imagine, I can only imagine. So, of course, I'm sorry that you know, you went through that. And, but it is tough for a lot of people, right, you know, to be able to bounce back from rejection. And so I was fortunate enough that I was able to, from my sales experience, I think just be able to bounce back from rejection, like consistently or constantly, right. Like, again, my job was selling DirecTV in a Walmart for two people who are there to buy groceries and probably T shirts. Right? Like, no one's going to Walmart looking for

Jeroen Leenarts: 39:35

a message coming home. I say, Yeah. Honey, you were supposed to get what's this is plasma TV.

Allen: 39:41

Yeah, exactly. So yeah. So I think just from that, like, and that was a tough time to write. Yeah. But it was fun. I enjoyed it. And yeah, great.

Jeroen Leenarts: 39:55

So through all of this, how was the support of your family? Because you already mentioned that you have two kids at home. I reckon that there's a wife accompanying those as well.

Allen: 40:06

Yeah. supportive, very supportive. Of course, my kids are young, so they don't know what's going on. But yeah, she was super, super, super, super supportive. And I think at the end of the day, she wanted to see me happy and of course, even at my last job, I would have been happy. It wasn't like I hated my job. It wasn't like I was doing bad at my last job like I was doing very well. I was one of four selected out of like 400 salespeople to be in our company's first leadership program, which would basically be a fast track to running your own local, your own location branch. So like, I was doing well. And so I think it's just it. Just I think that's a part of it too, right. Like I had a job that I was doing well, yeah. Right. So it wasn't like I was struggling. Like, I didn't lose my job. So and I know a lot of people who do lose their job and like, they got to find that next thing and wanted to be programming. And I've been fortunate enough that I had a good job. Yeah, I had my job I had it was it was set, was I making the most amount of money? Or was I making as much money as I am now? No, but it was still a good job. And I was on the path to make that anyway. So it was like, for me, it was like, hey, if if I fail at, you know, getting a job at in tech, I still have my current job. And I was still going to be a manager there and, and essentially be fine. The separation for me there was just like, hey, I really like tech. Let me jump into it and not regret it when I'm 90 and saying I should have went into tech. Right. Let me try to do it. Now.

Jeroen Leenarts: 41:45

Saudi discussions with your wife at the kitchen table were mostly about Okay, where can we find time in the day to actually do this job change?

Allen: 41:55

Yeah, pretty much, pretty much and shout out to her for wanting to even because we we moved from Atlanta, Georgia to come out to California, right. So shout out to her for even wanting to do that. I mean, I kind of had the inkling that she wanted to get out of Georgia. And then luckily, California was on her list. And it was like when I got the job. It was like, Okay, right. Let's go. Yeah,

Jeroen Leenarts: 42:22

much better weather, I reckon.

Allen: 42:23

Yeah, definitely. So I enjoy it. And so

Jeroen Leenarts: 42:27

if I'm, if I'm allowed to ask her what is what does she do actually?

Allen: 42:33

So she runs. So she has her own business. One, she is a doula. And I don't know if they have these in Europe or not, but basically, they help with pregnancy. So sort of like a midwife, but without the I think midwives have special medical training. So doula essentially the sort of support another support person? Yeah. So she had does that now. Unfortunately, Doron COVID. And the hospital's like, she can do that. So she also does social media work as well. So handling social media for companies, small businesses, and etc. So, and then, of course, when I'm working, she's taking care of the kids as well. So homeschooling our children there. Yeah. For me, I'm like homeschool. And that's kind of early for how young they are. But you know, it works out. It's not anything too long or whatnot. So she, she definitely holds down the fort.

Jeroen Leenarts: 43:35

And it's, it's so helpful to just be to have a life partner that that's first of all supports you and also is like a sounding board for any wild ideas that you might have. And also to keep you in check if you have any stupid ideas sometimes.

Allen: 43:54

And I try to tell her what, like what I'm doing, and she'll just nod her head and smile. And I'd be like, you don't know what I'm talking about.

Jeroen Leenarts: 44:03

She makes a judgment by not spending our money. So it's not too bad. Right. Right. So and your kids, how old are they? Because you mentioned that you were young?

Allen: 44:15

Yeah, so my oldest is three. He'll be four in September, and my youngest is one and some change. She'll be two in March.

Jeroen Leenarts: 44:27

That's like really young, because I have like a three year old and a five year old. And they change so much in so little time. But it also exhausting sometimes.

Allen: 44:39

Oh, yeah. So have you heard them in the background? Yeah, but that's okay.

Jeroen Leenarts: 44:44

But how do you balance your time between keeping on developing yourself as a software developer doing your job at Yelp, doing all the things that you do next, that you know, the the online meetups and maybe some other things that you also do, and finding time for your family and your kids?

Allen: 45:04

You know, try to be in the moment in every step of the process. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not perfect. Sometimes when I'm supposed to be with my family. I'm on my phone. Like, she tells me all the time, but for the most part, you know, you try your best to be in the moment in each section. So if I'm at work, it's work mode. If I'm with my family, it's family mode. Once they go to sleep, it's my time maybe right so I don't go to bed all the time as late as I used to. But you know, that's my time. Now. Everybody sleep I naturally stay up later than everybody I was I guess I'm naturally a night owl. Yeah, home. And so like, you know, that's my time. And so I do whatever I want to do in that time. If I watch a movie, I watch movies, watch TV, watch TV or practice some data structures and algorithms. I'll do that. Read a swift book, I'll do that.

Jeroen Leenarts: 46:04

Yes, sitting in front of a webcam with 300 people.

Allen: 46:09

Exactly. No. And then yeah, especially when I have like the event, right? It's just, you know, making sure as soon as that date is planned, I'm like, Hey, India, like, this is the, this is the date, you know, there's the time period I need and just like, Okay, I'll take the kids outside.

Jeroen Leenarts: 46:27

That's, that's just being open and like, making sure that expectations are clear. And of course, taking on some other stuff, to take some work out of her hands every now and then also is a good idea. I can I can imagine.

Allen: 46:40

And then the same thing for her. Like, she does stuff as well. She has meetings, she has calls and kind of the same thing. So

Jeroen Leenarts: 46:48

cool. Um, is there anything that we've forgotten or something that you think like, oh, we should definitely touch upon that? Or do we have a full story by now?

Allen: 47:02

I think you have the full story. Let's you have any more questions just in general? I think that's the full story.

Jeroen Leenarts: 47:09

No, I think we're there I looking at my notes, because I like to keep notes while we are recording. And then I really liked the fact that you like, did psychology, then dabbled a little bit with websites. And then all of a sudden, things snowballed. And you ended up at the plastics company after a number of sales jobs. And then at the plastics company, you were starting to scratch your own itch. And that snowballs even bigger? Yeah, now you're working at Yelp. Yeah,

Allen: 47:39

yeah. It was. It's been good so far. I mean, I've been here been at Yelp for a year and two months, three months now. So yeah, it's been fun. I've led a project. I'm on my second project now. So yeah, second, Project leading. So

Jeroen Leenarts: 48:03

that's, that's really cool. Because just working with people and just seeing other people grow was also some of the things that I really liking my own position at the moment. So but when you started at Yelp, just one question on Yelp. What was the biggest thing like in like, the first month or so like, that happens? And Jesse likes what? Well, I'm working at a tech company, and they actually do these kinds of things.

Allen: 48:32

For me, I guess. What is the I think there's probably a few that you kind of got to get used to coming from, essentially professional sales into Silicon Valley Tech. Culture, right? So like, there's like, in the professional sales, it's like, you got to be there, hey, you leave at five, right? In Silicon Valley. It's like this idea. Dislike, yeah, you can show up. You know, essentially, when you want you, you do your work, you finish your work, and then you leave. And it's like, I remember, I think it's, I think it was like, I got to work. I think one day, I like 930 or something, right, which is late. I guess in my mind, it's late for me. But like, that's when other people were kind of walking in, of course, there's people there at eight and whatnot. But then it's winding down to like, I think 630 Or seven, I think at night, and I probably should have gone home, but I was I'm just sitting there like thinking someone's going to tell me I should go home and like I asked my mentor at work. And he's like, oh, yeah, you could have left like 30 minutes ago or an hour ago if you wanted to. You finished already. And I was like, What? What?

Jeroen Leenarts: 49:53

No one's gonna tell me. That's no buzzer

Allen: 49:57

Yeah. All right. So I would have been there till the next morning. So, yeah, just that, of course, all the free snacks. Like, I was not expecting that. I mean, I've heard of it. But like, you know, I always thought there was like some stipulation to it. But no, this isn't

Jeroen Leenarts: 50:17

throwing a quarter in the in the jar somewhere. Yeah, right.

Allen: 50:21

No, is free snacks. And then I guess on the tech side of things, it's like, Yo, I mean, just learning the sort of how they do things in general is, is gonna is a big task, right? Because it's completely different from what I know. I mean, even just talking about the architecture of the app, right? It's It's completely different from what I know. You know, I I basically learned MVC like the whole way even from like web development like they and Python and Ruby, they kind of have an MVC like architecture, right? So going, my iOS study was basically MVC. And then I get to Yelp and it's it's basically MVVM. Right? With the, or a MBB. M version of it. Model View. ViewModel version of it. Yeah. And so that was a big jump. Yes, I knew what MVVM was. And I've had a little bit of practice with it. But it was like, they're on a whole different level right now. It's beautiful. Now I know it for the most part, right? A year later. It's amazing. It's amazing.

Jeroen Leenarts: 51:33

And still, there's so much stuff you can learn. So yeah, exactly, exactly. But that alum, I would say, keep on doing what you're doing. I think you're doing some wonderful things already. And with your energy and, and plants and wild ideas, maybe sometimes. I think some more magic will happen in the future.

Allen: 51:55

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. I really do and thank you for having me. Of course.