Develop Yourself
To change careers and land your first job as a Software Engineer, you need more than just great software development skills - you need to develop yourself.
Welcome to the podcast that helps you develop your skills, your habits, your network and more, all in hopes of becoming a thriving Software Engineer.
Develop Yourself
#234 - Coding Isn’t Enough: 3 Weird Traits That Predict Success in Tech
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What separates successful tech career changers from those who struggle?
After switching careers into tech at 31 following years of addiction, and mentoring hundreds of aspiring developers, I've noticed some odd patterns and traits of those who make it vs those who don't.
This episode is not meant to discourage you. I hope it gives you a practical idea of some skills you can develop and ultimately, whether you should consider this career path.
I'd love to know your take as well - leave a comment or email me at brian@parsity.io
Shameless Plugs
🧠 (NEW) Parsity's The Inner Circle Program - a highly customized roadmap to take you from 0 to hired. For career changers who want to pivot into software.
💼 Zubin's LinkedIn (ex-lawyer, former Google, Brian-look-a-like)
👂🏻Easier Said Than Done Podcast
Already a developer? Check out 👉 Not Another Course
Serious about joining Parsity? Schedule a call with me ☎️
Welcome to the Develop Yourself podcast, where we teach you everything you need to land your first job as a software developer by learning to develop yourself, your skills, your network and more. I'm Brian, your host. Why are some career changes successful when it comes to learning how to code and breaking into tech, and why are the majority not? I think about this a lot. I switched careers in tech around 31, after being addicted to alcohol and drugs for the majority of my 20s and teen years, and I've met people with computer science degrees that can barely get hired. I've also worked with hundreds of career changers over the years at bootcamps, speaking events. I've done over 700 15-minute phone conversations with people. I've heard it all and I rack my brain on this because I own a program that helps career changers break into tech, and I'm trying to think what is the secret? What is the one thing I can tell them or teach them that's going to guarantee their success? I've had to come to grips with the fact that not everybody is meant to be successful in this career. Now, the majority of the people that I will work with have the highest aptitude and possibility of becoming software developers. That being said, I think there's a few core traits, things that have nothing to do with being smart or technical or having a degree. These are just things that I've observed from years of mentoring and watching people either succeed or fail that I see as indicators that can determine their success.
Speaker 1:This may be controversial. You may not like hearing this. These are just my observations. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. I am a human, I am biased, but I'm going to tell you straight up, right to the point what I see as some core traits that can determine whether or not you may be successful in this career. And, ideally, if you see that maybe you don't have any of these traits and that you still wanna learn and you're not really into it, that maybe you shouldn't pursue this.
Speaker 1:I think we've gone down a path in the last 10, 15 years of telling people everybody should learn how to code or everybody can learn how to code and get a job in tech. That is not the case. If that was true, we'd have a lot more success stories. The problem is not people's lack of desire or their technical ability. I think at some point we've sold people on a dream that is a fantasy. Not everybody is meant to do this, just like everybody's not meant to be a lawyer or a plumber or a doctor. If you really are obsessed with this, I guarantee you there's a way to make this work. But if you're not, I don't think you should try to make a round peg fit into a square hole if you've heard that analogy before. So here are the core traits that I see are going to be predictive of your success.
Speaker 1:Number one obsessive drive. If you can't stop thinking about solving problems, learning, tinkering, kind of being almost addicted to figuring out how to make things work with code, I don't know if you're going to really make it. People that are obsessive a little bit and you could call this healthy obsession, you could call this a not so healthy obsession. I'm not here to talk about whether or not these are healthy things or not. I'm just saying these are the traits that I've observed. People that have type A personalities, the people that I've talked about or talked with on this show, the people that I've worked with over the years, the really good software engineers I've worked with tend to be a little obsessive. I think this is also why you have a high degree of people with like ADHD in this profession. I think it kind of invites those kind of people to be in this profession because they tend to do really, really well. If you're looking at a coding problem and you're trying to solve it for like eight hours or days on end, you can't just think like quote, unquote, a normal person. You have to be almost a little bit addicted to it. And if you're a type A person, the kind of person that color coordinates your calendar, or you're the kind of person that might want to play puzzles all day long or a video game, for example, and you have to figure it out, you likely will do well in this profession. It means you're relentless, it means you're going to figure it out eventually because you can't just let it go. If you're mildly interested or you've never really been obsessed with anything, I don't know if this is the best profession to enter in, because it's really difficult to be mildly interested and keep up with the pace that tech moves at.
Speaker 1:In just the last two years, we've had to all collectively learn things like Nextjs on the front end. We've had to learn how to work with AI tools. Now we've had to all collectively learn how to switch our code editors and also work with AI tools. In there. Most of the new things are a direct result of AI recently, but before that, like if you're a front-end developer, you've had to go through at least three to four frameworks in this time. You've had to learn all the different things that have come out with JavaScript. You've had to keep up with all the different trends in hiring and tech interviews and the tools out there and all the articles and things you have to read and the tools out there and all the articles and things you have to read.
Speaker 1:If you're not just a little bit obsessed with learning and a little bit obsessed with technology and software in general, I just don't know if you're gonna make it right. Especially if you went to a boot camp and they told you three months is all you need to do and you're gonna get hired, then you may not have the drive to keep going far beyond that. I had a guy that was in a bootcamp that I was in in like 2013, computer science degree, younger than me, better looking than me, maybe, I don't know. Anyway, he couldn't get hired for like a year and a half, but he didn't stop. He had that obsession, that drive, and he made it. Now, for those of you that might not know me or some of my story.
Speaker 1:I also kind of struggled with addiction in the past. I mean, maybe I still do. I think my new addiction just basically is coding, but I've always had an addictive personality. I use that in perverse ways, like to get into drugs and alcohol, and then I change it into a more productive addiction towards code and that's what I talk about at length. I mean, I do a podcast on it. I do it for my profession. I'm a full-time software developer and then I teach it on the side. So could you say I'm a little bit obsessed. Yeah, maybe a tad.
Speaker 1:Now this next one is going to be really difficult for most people to hear Natural likability. This is especially important for career changers. This is not about being fake or about being like outgoing or likable in the ways that maybe you think. This is about knowing how to at least be perceived to be likable. This is one of the most difficult things that I ever have to coach people on. I've done this a few times and it is really awkward to do.
Speaker 1:I met a guy that failed 100 interviews and I thought no way, there's zero way that's possible. Then he showed me some proof. And then I said dude, we need to jump on a phone call and do a mock interview because there is something very strange going on here. This guy was well-spoken, overall, likable, talked on the phone like a normal human being, you know, just seemed like a decent dude, right, get on the interview with him, immediately clams up one word sentences, seems almost antagonistic as I'm trying to offer him different points of view on the code he's writing or ask him questions about the code, just kind of just writes me off. And I thought what the hell happened here? It was like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde type thing. And then when the interview was over, he didn't do that bad on the actual technical part. But at the end I was like so how do you think you come off in these interviews? Because I didn't know how to tell him Like, you're coming off like a jerk dude. But I didn't know how to say that in a nice way. So he's like yeah, you know, I think I could probably do a little better with like explaining my thought process. And I said let me just tell you, dude, you're coming off kind of like you don't like me, like in the interview. You need to get on camera and watch yourself explain things and watch it back and ask yourself would you hire you? The worst part about not being likable is you don't know you're not being likable.
Speaker 1:Now, over the years I've had to kind of learn to reinvent myself, if you can believe it. I used to stutter. I used to talk really, really fast. I used to be very, very nervous around people. I used to also speak with a lot more slang, just naturally. I couldn't help it. I had been speaking slang so long that one time I got into an interview and the person told my friend who hooked me up with the interview. They said you know, he just didn't sound that professional, like he used some slang and he just didn't use correct English and I just didn't feel comfortable with going forward with him in the process. This embarrassed me beyond belief.
Speaker 1:You can learn these things. So as much as you want to change how you're perceived, you can. There's things like Toastmasters. You can simply open up a camera, record yourself going through a technical problem. We do this at Parsity all the time and we ask people to watch them. We provide feedback, they watch it and you can kind of see how are you coming across to people.
Speaker 1:I had to learn how to speak slower. I watched videos about how to speak. I read more books to improve my vocabulary. There are things you can do, and the one thing you can do if you really don't know how to be likable is read this book how to Win Friends and Influence People. This is gonna teach you the most basic things you can learn about being likable, even if it doesn't come naturally to you. I understand that not everybody can just be naturally engaging and likable like me. You know I'm perfect, but if you're not perfect like me, it's okay. Right, you can read a book on this stuff, like I did, and learn how to engage people and talk to people and become at least somewhat likable, because nowadays in an interview. And talk to people and become at least somewhat likable because nowadays in an interview. If you can't do that, you're gonna struggle, and this is one of the many reasons I've seen why people tend to get lots of interviews but can't close them, and a lot of times it's because they're not coming across as likable. They don't have high social intelligence. Again, this is learnable stuff. Don't let this deter you. I promise you. If you do, I'm going to come over this freaking microphone and slap you in the head with love.
Speaker 1:Okay, this last one. I find this especially important for career changers as well having a bit of a hustler's mentality. I don't mean, like you know, hustling, like on the street hustling, but kind of to be completely honest with you, what I really mean is creative problem solving outside the rules. Right, if you treat tech like it's, like some set of steps, that's just gonna get you to the promised land. Like I learned React and then I learned how to do interviews and then I did 500 LeetCode problems. Now you must hand me a job.
Speaker 1:This is not a checklist, this is a game. I understand this because I played some games outside of the law. Right, I did some stuff outside of the law. Right, I did some stuff outside of the normal boundaries of the law. I did some illegal stuff back in the days and I was actually fairly decent at it. But I think what this taught me I'm not trying to glorify or glamorize this stuff at all. I think it's stupid what I did, and I also never got caught. I didn't have to deal with the repercussions of my foolish actions. I changed them and I now live a square life that I really enjoy, but taught me a lot about treating life like a game. There are no rules, right, there's no rules and there's no checklist that's gonna guarantee you a job.
Speaker 1:So you need to figure out who do you talk to. What are the shortcuts? What are the shortcuts? How do you stand out? They don't just follow the application process, they game it. The people that are good at this thing they get that. They have to understand the way the game is being played. They understand that negotiations are a game. The number of years that they say they want you to have the salary, everything is negotiable, everything. You have to know how to game it. They understand that the best people aren't always getting hired. In fact, they're rarely the ones that get hired. The people that know how to get in front of people and look like good hires they're the ones that are getting hired.
Speaker 1:I don't mean to lie. I'm not encouraging you to make up stuff or cheat. I'm just saying that there are ways to play this game outside the boundaries of what you see on LinkedIn. So this is really common to see people from sales, entrepreneurship or even quote unquote grittier backgrounds like me, maybe, have a criminal background or some street smart experiences tend to get in a little faster. I've just noticed this. In fact, I've talked to multiple people on this show that have literal criminal backgrounds and ended up getting into tech and doing pretty damn well.
Speaker 1:Are they the best coders? I don't know. Am I the best coder? Absolutely not. In fact, I need you to realize something there are very few best coders on a team. There's one best coder. The rest of us are somewhere in the middle, and then you have the people at the bottom 10%. Your goal, in my opinion, is to always be in that top 10% to 20%. That should be your goal. You don't need to be the absolute best, although you should always aspire to it but you don't need to be the best. You do need to adopt this mindset and understand we're all playing a game here, right? This is not a checklist. Again, you got to do what you got to do to stand out, find the people, find out how to write posts, make yourself look impressive, do things that make you feel impressive, do projects, chase experiences that are gonna give you cool things to talk about. That's the great thing about software you don't have to wait for anybody to give you permission to build something. You can build whatever the hell you want and you can talk about it online. You can make an LLC. You can do whatever you need to do to make yourself feel and look impressive on paper. Here's the very last one People that have extreme ownership or high self-discipline.
Speaker 1:These are people who don't blame the market, the interviewer, the bootcamp. They're saying what can I do differently? When I talk to the most successful people, they're not blaming what they learned at bootcamps. To be completely honest with you, most bootcamps teach kind of the same thing and most people walk away with the same set of skills. Some walk away with much higher degree of skill than the others, but in general, most people know how to write some kind of code.
Speaker 1:Now, at Parsity, we take people from bootcamps all the time. In fact, we have at least two or three people now, I think, that went to a bootcamp and now they're back with us. Why, you might think. Well, they already know how to code. Yeah, exactly, but that's the problem. You think learning how to code equals a job. That's obviously not the case, or else many more people would have jobs. So Zubin and I are focused one on giving you the technical skills you need. We often find people lacking in that, even if they went to a really good bootcamp. But what we find people lacking in that even if they went to a really good bootcamp but what we find them lacking for even more is a strategy on how to get interviews, pass interviews, communicate well and actually get into a career, and not just beat the interview and get past the first hurdle. We wanna make people that have long, solid careers here. That's why we work with people for up to a year and not for just a few months and say, hey, good luck, see you later. And I think that's why we've attracted the people that tend to embody these traits.
Speaker 1:So if you're saying, what can I do differently? Or hey, I'm doing something that's not working, I need to fix this thing. Or hey, maybe my bootcamp did suck, what am I going to do now? That's behind me. I don't care about that. I want to get to the goal. What is the goal? Me having a new career? What's it worth? Is it worth another year of my time? Can I do this?
Speaker 1:And if that's the kind of person that you are, I think you're going to do really well here, because, also, as a software developer, no one's going to want to hear why the code you wrote broke production. And you say, oh well, it was because of this. Or oh, you know so-and-so didn't tell me that his dependency was outdated or something. Or oh, I read this on Stack Overflow and it ended up being wrong. And they want people to take extreme ownership, saying, hey, I screwed up, I understand, I'm going to get better. I'm going to read a book, I'm going to read an article, I'm going to understand how this thing works at a deeper level, so I don't screw up again. Those are the people that not only get the jobs, but they keep the jobs and they get promoted and do better in any healthy organization.
Speaker 1:So, to end off, if you're thinking about switching careers into tech, just ask yourself are you obsessed enough? Are you someone that people might want to work with? Are you willing to learn how to be that kind of person? If you're not, are you willing to hustle and treat this a bit like a game and not just following a syllabus? And when this gets hard, are you gonna blame people or are you going to adapt? If you are, you're already way ahead of most people.
Speaker 1:I truly hope this is helpful and I hope it doesn't discourage you. In fact, I hope it encourages you. Maybe you hear this and say you know what? That's not. For me, that's actually a great thing to understand, because why would you wanna spend 10, $20,000 paying a bootcamp or paying parsity on how to become a software developer and get into a profession that you don't want to actually be in the first place? And if you're considering going to a bootcamp that promises you you don't need to be any of these things and they're just going to deliver a job on a silver platter, you're being taken advantage of. Don't fall for it.
Speaker 1:Anyway, if you have differing opinions, I'm always open to hearing them. These are my opinions and my observations. Again, this is not the gospel. This is not written in stone. These are just things that I've observed over the years. As always, I hope it's helpful. See you around. Have a wonderful week. That'll do it for today's episode of the Develop Yourself podcast. If you're serious about switching careers and becoming a software developer and building complex software and want to work directly with me and my team, go to parsityio. And if you want more information, feel free to schedule a chat by just clicking the link in the show notes. See you next week.
