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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
#250 - Delivery Driver to Developer: Jacob’s Journey into Tech as a New Dad
Whatever you do, don’t learn to code.
The market is over-saturated.
AI took your job.
There is no hope.
But then you meet someone like Jacob, a young dad who was delivering food a year ago and just landed his first dev job without submitting a single application.
Is his story typical? No. But then few stories are.
At Parsity.io, we've seen CS grads take up to a year to get hired. We've seen people go from zero to hired in 6 months or less.
There is no formula.
What works for one person might work for you and it might not.
Not a great marketing tactic eh? It's just the truth.
Jacob shares how he landed a role with ZERO applications and juggling a tight schedule as a new father while learning to build complex software.
Shameless Plugs
🧑💻 Join Parsity - For career changers who want to pivot into software.
✉️ Got a question you want answered on the pod? Drop it here
Zubin's LinkedIn (ex-lawyer, former Googler, Brian-look-a-like)
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 Today on the Develop Yourself podcast. I got Jacob, a former mentee at Parsley, kind of a current mentee. No one ever is like a former anything at Parsley. Once you're in, you're just in. We talk here and there. Jacob just got hired and I want to talk to him about a couple of things today. Mostly about the getting hired process, because he has a very interesting way he approached it, but also about his background, getting into coding and what it's like now that he's.
Speaker 1:How far along are you on the job now? I just hit a month earlier this week. Whoa, okay, that's a pretty pivotal chunk of time. That's like those first 30 days can be really stressful. They can be really like enthusiastic. It's a lot of emotional stuff going on as far and technical stuff going on at that time. Well, thanks for being on the show today. I really appreciate you taking time in between doing your first 30 days to come on and talk to us about this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm really grateful to be on a platform like this with so many other great speakers that have been on here before, and just to have the opportunity to share my experience. I think is just going to be super valuable for people who are going through the same kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's funny because before we hit record you were saying you know, I'd like to share a little bit about my past and how I kind of got into coding. And I think that's really important because oftentimes people will put barriers around themselves before the world really ever does. We say, oh, I'm not smart enough to code, or, you know, I didn't grow up with computers, or I don't know math, whatever. What is your background for people that don't know so, that's like kind of how I started out as well.
Speaker 2:I was really into tech growing up, but not in terms of building apps and things like that. I just really liked how software worked on a user level. So I was always interested in the new iPhone, the things like that that it could do, and I was like I don't know how this works, but it's really cool. But I never got into coding, even though my dad is actually. He learned to code when he was in college. My grandpa before him actually learned to code. He was using those floppy disks, oh, my God.
Speaker 2:When they had those giant rooms that were a computer.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was like on on the ground floor of the Internet, so I have it in my family history, but I never had an interest because, mainly, I thought that you had to be highly skilled with math, and math wasn't my taste.
Speaker 2:It wasn't something I was good at, and so I stayed away from coding. I thought it was more than just problem solving. I thought it was a lot of math required and so I actually went down the medical field and I went to college to be a. I went to pre I was doing pre-med to be a doctor. That's the route that I wanted to take initially, because I just love learning about the human body and things like that.
Speaker 2:But I was also a victim, you could say, of the college COVID era. And about the beginning of my junior year they shut us down and went full remote, and this was at the time that I was starting to get my, you know, high honors type courses for like taking the MCAT and things like that, and so my my grade tanked a little.
Speaker 2:I was so far into the degree. I didn't want to switch to anything, so I went ahead and finished it and I did get my degree, but I will say that that did not help me get the job that I am working right now, so I didn't even mention it to him initially.
Speaker 2:So it was completely irrelevant. But I did get my degree. But at the same time, during COVID, I kind of realized that it wasn't the path that I wanted to choose. Just certain things made me kind of realize that I wanted to take a different direction. I also got married and had my first son he's going to be two pretty soon and so I'm a young, young husband and father as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I will say, when I got my degree, I was looking at what I could do with that and it was just I kind of felt like I was settling for something and I'm like I don't know if I want to do this. And I started looking around. You know, what is something that I can get into that doesn't require me to go back to college, doesn't require me to spend years on years to learn myself or something like that. And I came across, you know, coding Boot Camps and I actually heard your podcast and that's what got me interested into learning what code is and things like that.
Speaker 2:And so I give a lot of credit to this podcast and Aaron for starting it up and you taking it over, I think that's what really drew me in, and I actually was doing Amazon delivery and I just had hours to kill where I was listening to podcasts. So I found yours started to listen. I just binge listened to it. I've probably listened to all the episodes.
Speaker 1:Dude, remember we were talking about that, I think, on the phone at one point and I was like it's surreal when I hear people say that, but that's a pretty crazy. I forgot about the fact that you were in Amazon Delivery. That's a crazy story, Like pre-med. Amazon delivery truck driver and now software engineer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I had to pay the bills, so I was just I was working all day doing that and I'm like I cannot be doing this anymore, and so I started getting into coding and learning the podcast and things like that, Like learning about what code is what a software engineer does.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And to be honest with you, I never. I signed up for a different bootcamp because I hadn't heard about Parsity and then I started hearing about the bootcamp horrors and kind of how they have that cookie cutter design.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I started to instantly get like a buyer's remorse, even though I hadn't started yet. So, I started looking around. I'm like, should I go through with this? And I ended up canceling that bootcamp and switching over to Parsity and I still had no experience. And then I found out that you guys had an entrance exam and I'm like, well, I got to learn how to code a little so I can get in. And so I did dev 30.
Speaker 2:I learned the bare bones of coding, did not start posting on LinkedIn at all. I kind of thought that was more of a self motivator kind of accountability sort of aspect, didn't realize there was a lot more to it than that and I failed the Parsity interview and that totally like rocked me because I was like, ok, maybe I shouldn't do this, oh man.
Speaker 2:Then I talked to you and Jamie and you guys were like, well, I think you're going to be a great fit, so we're going to let you in anyways. And I was like shocked. I'm like OK, I got to take advantage of this opportunity and so I was working while doing coding, while taking care of my son and holding it down, while my wife was working on certain days.
Speaker 2:And just real short. I mean I, so you know the, the. I guess you don't call it a bootcamp as much anymore, but just for the sake of the term. Like you know, the bootcamp was supposed to be about six months, but I loved that it was fully asynchronous and so you could do it on your own time.
Speaker 2:That was perfect for me and just being able to. I think the biggest thing was having people like you to reach out to like the mentors whenever you get stuck on something, because that's what really sold me on it. Yeah, rather than learning myself, just having that person to go to, especially when you have questions about things that you just, you're just so stuck. You've been on it for a day or two and you're like I don't know what, what's wrong with this?
Speaker 2:And then you look at it for five minutes and you're like oh, I see it right here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:So, uh, I I give a lot of credit to you, and the way that you guys had the uh, have Parsity set up is just a really great environment for me to learn.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that so much, jeez, I mean that's always really wonderful to hear, I know right. I was like I need to send you a box of donuts.
Speaker 1:later I was going to send you one out of habit. But dude, that's a yeah, I mean one. You hit on so many like interesting points there. Like that, we tend to get a lot of young fathers in general in Parsity no-transcript, or they go to these coding bootcamps, whatever. But besides Parsley, I'm much more interested to talk about the part of like how you got hired, because you've been really prolific, in my opinion, on LinkedIn. I I point to use like an example for other people, like oh, have you seen what Jacob's posting? And I talk a lot about what you've done because I think it's really cool. What led you to post on LinkedIn and can you tell us a little bit of the story like how you got into this job from LinkedIn?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'll admit, at the beginning I wasn't posting on LinkedIn at all. I really didn't see the value in it. I thought it was more to just kind of like start connecting with other engineers and get to know people, and I saw value in that, but it wasn't really taking my time at the moment. Then I started listening to your podcast talking about how putting yourself out there showing your work is kind of like putting your resume out there for other people to see, almost. And then I also I listened to the programming podcast with Danny Thompson and Leon.
Speaker 2:Noel. They're great as well.
Speaker 2:And they talk about the same exact thing. And I'm like, okay, all these guys are like well-seasoned engineers and they're all saying the same thing. I got to start like forcing myself to do this and I was just starting the final project, for you know, building my own app, sort of thing, full stack, start to finish and I'm like I'm just going to like talk about everything I learned on the way here and just see if anyone's interested, and sure enough, people really started gravitating towards it and I didn't really think it was going to be much to talk about. But you start running into a problem here and you get through authentication and yeah, to get Google OAuth to work.
Speaker 2:And someone else was like dude, I had the worst time with that, but like once you get it up, it's like the, it's the best, and so you just start making conversations with people and you know I I'll admit I haven't posted on LinkedIn in a little while, cause I've just been like so- that's how it goes, you know for sure.
Speaker 2:But I still get people that go through my old posts and you know they'll like it, or people want to connect to me, and so I think it's still paying dividends. But I will say that I would not have had this job opportunity if it wasn't for posting on LinkedIn. 100 percent I I'll. I'll say it loud and clear right here I didn't send one application out, I didn't have one interview at all, and I say this because I am the extreme outlier.
Speaker 2:I totally thought in my head you know, this is going to be a six month trial and error 99 no's for one yes. And it was just going to be a grind and I was ready for it. And then I get this DM from this CEO and he's like hey, my team's hiring in the LA area, which is where I live, for a software engineers. Are you interested? Would you like schedule a call with me?
Speaker 1:And I'm like looking at this like hell, yeah, dude, yeah, I was like I was like on edge at first.
Speaker 2:I'm like, is this a scam? Cause I don't understand why the CEO's reaching out to me and like I don't. I just didn't see it coming out of nowhere. It was out of left field. So I did a little research on the company and on the CEO. He's actually really smart, really amazing guy, and the company is is. It's a startup, but it's been around for five years and they've got a core team, so it's it's not a super volatile startup.
Speaker 2:And so it kind of looked like the right fit. And the product is really cool too because it is basically a hybrid cloud platform which allows you to use different cloud services you think of, like AWS, microsoft Azure, gcp. You can use any of those and you basically pay like a very minimal amount. It's super customizable and it's super easy to use. And so I scheduled a call with him. I'm like, let me just talk to the guy, and we zoomed and we hit it off right away and it was not like a formal interview. He kind of just got straight to. It was like I see, you built this app on and you were sharing on LinkedIn and I can see you've got the skills and you're willing to. You know, work hard to learn certain things.
Speaker 2:You're a go getter and he's like I'm actually not really looking for college students because they come across a little entitled.
Speaker 2:You know, they put in the effort and they kind of well, I, because, uh, from what I've heard from others is not everyone, but sometimes a college student will put four years of learning in but they don't really know how to code a lot yet. And then they get to the company and they're like all right, I did my four years, like you know, it's time to sit back and relax because I put in the work already and uh, and a lot of companies aren't a fan of that. They like the self-taught type, people that are like I may not know everything right now I don't have a degree to back that really well. And I'll say he on the first meeting we had, he just jumped straight into. He's like so we brought you on the team, like how much would you want to be making? And I'm like damn, oh, I was like I was just like.
Speaker 1:I don't know man.
Speaker 2:I just gave him like such a big ballpark and I was like maybe we can rediscuss this later. And as soon as I got off the call, I ran straight to you. I'm like dude, I don't even know what to ask for. I'm like what is reasonable? What is out of?
Speaker 1:Oh man, I know that's a tough one.
Speaker 2:That was quite the call I had.
Speaker 1:Dude, I didn't know all these details, no-transcript, and how we have so much gosh dang success. If you're interested in being one of the few people that works with us this year, go and apply at parsityio slash, inner dash circle. And now back to the episode and the other thing about your posts were like as much as you posted about like a lot of technical stuff, you also had a healthy mix of like very non-technical stuff that was interesting to me too.
Speaker 2:I found that the more I got into coding, the more I could see it in other aspects of life, whether it's like working out in the gym which I relate to a lot when you have posts like that or just working on cars and like learning how things work on a component level, you know, it's like it's almost the same, and I realized that coding is really like an amazing skill to have that translates into so many other aspects, and so I think I kind of want to talk about that as well, that it's not just about the code. Sometimes it's about things that are like coding and they're outside of that world.
Speaker 1:I think that's what made like me one take a lot more like looks at your posts. Like your posts are just showing up in my feed, naturally, like sometimes people parse the posts and I don't really see what they post until I have to like actually dig for them. But you were popping up a lot and I remember you had some things about like off-roading, for example. You're writing about that, I believe, and, and like you know more, it was pictures and things like things that I normally don't post on my own. But, mike, this is cool.
Speaker 1:Like this is, let's be honest, linkedin is social media, right Like. So the more you can kind of like show who you are, the more trust I think you also gain. Like I think you taught me a lot with that actually to be like yeah, like this is. This is not the dry platform it used to be anymore like I think that we do need to treat it a bit more like social media in order to create those connections, because, if I'm not mistaken, didn't the person also like find some sort of connection with you from your posts that were non-technical? Like didn't you have some sort of shared interest or something like that?
Speaker 2:Uh, yeah. So I mean he mostly saw that I had built the app that I built for kind of my credibility.
Speaker 2:but but he had initially said to I noticed that you're a software engineer based out of Los Angeles and he actually lives, I kid you, not like 20 minutes down the road from me and that was one reason why he was so interested in me is because he was looking for someone local to him, uh, and so I think, kind of putting myself out there, I had mentioned in one post, uh, that I posted on my kid that I did live in the LA area and I think that was probably where he saw that.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I totally think that having those kinds of posts really show yourself as not just this like square, like I'm just here for work type of person and I think there is a level of professionalism on LinkedIn, which is good, yes, but I think you have to balance that with, like, we're all people here. We still like to see you know the things that are going on in your life, and I think I got a lot of that from following other people like you, like Brooke Sweetar, like Aaron, the guy who started the bootcamp yeah, I mean, they all post things outside of just coding. They're the ones that I'm the most interested in usually, which is really cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great point. We are, we're humans, right, and you got to pass the vibe check. This is the thing, especially at startups, even if it's a bigger startup, even at a really big company At some level. You got to pass that vibe check and you did obviously for this, like if you had come across weird or whatever. But he probably felt like, okay, I already know a lot about you.
Speaker 1:It's like your, your resume, like I'm seeing now for me personally, I'm really not giving my resume out at all anymore either. Like I'm getting hit up from people that follow me either on LinkedIn or maybe read an article of mine, like kind of random ways. People are coming into my like circle now for job opportunities, but it's certainly not through me sending out my resume anymore that I feel like those days are kind of behind us and if, if I'm being honest, I feel like the resume is almost like a formality at this point, you know what I mean. So so this guy's already offering you the job, like through the first call. What was your interview Like? Was there like a formal interview? Like, hey, let's you know code in front of me?
Speaker 2:No, so there was. There was no interview whatsoever. And that that's, that's why I think this is such an outlier type of event for me. But it was also really cool because I think he has been in the game long enough that he just saw kind of through the fluff and he can see deep down, like okay, this guy knows what he's doing, he's willing to learn things, and because I hadn't heard about the company until we met and I was about to start deploying my app that I had just finished.
Speaker 2:And he said I want you to deploy it on using our service and I knew that that wasn't a very straightforward thing. Cloud deployment is. I've learned very quickly that is not a straightforward thing at all. No, it is not, and so he told me to deploy the app using their service, and so I had to do that and to show him that I knew how to do that and then also create a video showing how I did that kind of as like a test run to show that.
Speaker 1:I could explain. That is an interview, essentially.
Speaker 2:Okay, I guess. So I would say it was more like take-home assignments, not necessarily like I wasn't really doing anything under the gun. It was like, hey, you know, when you get a chance, like do this and we'll meet up when you're done with that.
Speaker 2:So, I mean I guess you could say it was a bit of a filtering process. I mean, if I had bombed those he definitely wouldn't. I'm sure he probably might See ya. But there was definitely no like rounds of interview. I wasn't competing with anyone because I think he was just reaching out to people in the area who had the, you know, the, the, I guess you could say, the skills that I had and and it just happened to work out perfectly that way. I think it was a gift from God. He just put it right in my lap and I really have nothing else to say about it.
Speaker 1:I mean that's an amazing story. But it's funny because you said you feel like this is like an outlier and in many ways it is. But do you know how many times I've been hired for like senior roles with zero technical interview? I believe it. Three separate times it's happened to me and I've been a little shocked, honestly, like some of them. I was like you're really trusting my LinkedIn profiles up to date because you're just going off vibes and whatever LinkedIn told you. But I like your experience. I think that's actually going to be more common, if it already isn't.
Speaker 1:Like I worked at a startup. I work at a startup now, but we were trying to hire for senior roles and it was like impossible. You know as much as I know it's really hard on the employee side. It's also hard on the employer side.
Speaker 1:And if you're a small company, like I bet, if the CEO at your company put up a post and said hiring, I bet you he probably, probably wouldn't get that much traction, right, I bet he, he probably wouldn't get that much traction, right, I bet he doesn't have a huge following, right? He's not an influencer, so he's not going to get all that traction, so he's going to have to kind of go out and look and when he's looking he's probably doing the filters like okay, who's in the area, who knows this? He's probably just looking, like many of us are just looking, and that actually is a pretty effective way to find people and just like directly target who you want, rather than just doing this big like hey, let me pay LinkedIn a thousand bucks and hire a hiring manager and then hire this person and then have my whole team do hours worth of coding interviews. That's a lot of time and money.
Speaker 2:So for sure. Yeah, it's just, and I think the big takeaway from I think the big takeaway from that is that if that's the new method to hire people, especially in these startups or smaller companies, right, if you're not on LinkedIn, you're not going to be found. I mean, you know you can't just go and hit the quick apply and hope that you get found, because that's only you know what 10% of maybe less than that of job applications it's uh.
Speaker 2:I heard from someone that, uh, usually if you see a job posting on LinkedIn, they're already interviewing if it just got posted, because they're that quick with their connections and if you get that connection with someone, you're first in line for the interviews.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a that's a really good point. Yeah, I think people really, I think we all have to. It's the market is so different. Now that I hear that, oh, it's a brutal market, and I really think I'm kind of leaning towards, yes, it's brutal in the way that what we used to do is completely different, Like it's so different now than what we used to do. So so now you're on the job. How how is it, man, Like, what is? What is your first month been like?
Speaker 2:Man it has been, they say, drinking through a fire hydrant. That's not an exaggeration. I imagined that working with my first company would be a lot. I did not imagine that my first company would be specializing in you know, a SAS product that is cloud based and I all of a sudden have to become a cloud expert. And I did not. I mean, you know, parsity taught a surface level of like yeah like something on AWS.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, yeah right.
Speaker 2:And they're very graceful and very encouraging with me, like giving me the time to learn this kind of stuff. But I'm just looking at it and I'm like, okay, what do I start with? There's so much I had to dive back into the basics of things like IP addresses and NAT gateways and subnets and. Vpcs, and I mean I could just keep going, there's just so many I don't know any of that stuff really, you know.
Speaker 1:So that makes you. You're no more than me at this point. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:I do. I will say, though, that I think this kind of an opportunity. While it seems very intimidating on the front end, I see myself on the back end, having this on my resume as a cloud platform engineer type of person. I see that being something very marketable compared to, maybe, just like a normal SaaS company. I mean not to say anything against those, but when you are working with something that's so new technology, wise and high in demand, I just think that's a very marketable skill. So I'm really fortunate to be in this kind of a position and with such a great team. I mean, so far it's just been a great experience. Just that's so much work. That's all I can imagine.
Speaker 1:I mean even me, you know doing this for 10 plus years now. Every time I start a new company, I feel like I'm just.
Speaker 1:I always feel like I'm going to get fired, like that's my own neuroticism a bit Like I'm like I'm going to get fired this time and you know I never have, but it's always part of my mind. But I remember that first job I'll never forget. Like I walked in and I'm like I'm in so far over my head I don't know what the hell's going on, and now I have the confidence that I can like, okay, I'll figure it out. But you know, that first job it can be a lot to handle. You seem like you're handling it pretty well. Of times you'll post on linkedin because like congratulations, and then that's it, and then they think okay, and then they don't realize now, now, the game has really just begun. So, yeah, yeah, have you been dealing with, like you know, some of the stress of like a new career, essentially, yeah, I'll say, feel like in terms, if you can compare it to like running a race you know, learning to code is like running in your own time.
Speaker 2:It's like you you're building that endurance and you're getting ready for the race. But when you get hired, that's when you're on the starting line and the gun goes off it's a different feeling and there's so much more uh, demand and pressure on you. It can really tear you apart emotionally if you're not ready for it. And I will say it, it definitely got me in certain moments where I was really nervous, like how you were saying, uh, just from small things. Like like they ask like, oh, do you know what this is? And I'm like, no, I don't. And they're like, oh, you need to go back and learn that.
Speaker 1:And, like the way they said, I'm like, oh, I should have known that already and I'm like okay.
Speaker 2:I gotta, I gotta learn this like quick and uh, I guess the hard thing too is with this company. Most of what I'm learning right now isn't necessarily code related. I mean, it's all it all revolves around, you know, using code, building an app, deploying it, but it's much more around the deployment process and that is such a new field to me still that it definitely makes me feel like I'm the new guy and I am learning from scratch again. It's so hard. But you know, I just say you take it a day at a time and some days are better than others. And I look at it and I'm like I've been here for a month now and I look at where I was at when I started and I know Lightyear's more than I did. And I look at it and I'm like I've been here for a month now and I look at where I was at when I started.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I know light years more than I did when I started and I can only imagine three months, six months from now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And and I know because my team has the confidence in me to get there and they're going to keep pushing me, which is a huge part of it If you have a team that tears you down, you're in the wrong place.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter For sure.
Speaker 2:But I will say just be patient with yourself, because there really is so much to learn out there and there's a reason why you're a junior. You're not going to learn it all in the first year and thankfully, you learn a lot of it in the first year, but I'm still on that journey where it's like when does the learning stop? And it doesn't really, but it just feels like it's infinite learning right now.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's like I thought, like I'm like, oh, I can't wait 10 years, I'm going to be like an expert. And now I feel like geez, you know, here I am and I feel like now I'm very aware of how little I know and I've had to make decisions like, okay, I'm not, I cannot learn everything. I have to be pretty skilled in a few areas and then areas that I'm curious about I can go explore some more. And then I look at people with 25 years and I asked them the same question and they often feel the same way Like things move so fast in tech, which is both intimidating and also makes it really, really fun to do this stuff, because there's always something new.
Speaker 1:You can stay in one field, you can pivot to somewhere else, like you're now. You're in cloud, which is a really interesting place to be, and then who knows where you'll pivot from there. I mean that's a very interesting skillset to have. That's a skillset I don't really have, but it's beyond a surface level. So probably in your one month you probably know more than me right now about like cloud in general. I know that's a really large term, but I bet your knowledge is probably deeper than mine and it certainly will be in six months, which is interesting, right?
Speaker 2:That's the cool thing about tech, you know it's and that's one of the things that really drew me into tech is every other job I worked before. You know. It's like you learn the initial skills, you get there and then you kind of just keep doing the same thing over and over.
Speaker 2:It doesn't really bring new challenges and there are other fields out there that have this sort of trait to it. But I will say all the jobs I worked before, it's kind of the same thing over and over and I really like that with tech. I just took a deep dive on how old the internet is and it's crazy that we know people that are older than the internet. Right, and to think of how far it's come with AI coming out now and with like cloud development and things like that, it's like okay, when I'm 10, 15 years into this career, like who knows what the landscape is going to look like?
Speaker 1:It's, it could be so different It'd be unrecognizable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and we're first in line to learn all the really cool stuff that everyone talks about, which is pretty fun because all of my friends and family they're asking me about AI which models the best and why, and is AI going to take all the jobs? And? I'm like the source of knowledge. Here I'm like well, from what I understand.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, I don't know much more than you do, but it is pretty funny. Like I think all software engineers are now getting like their parents or their cousin or their uncle, like aren't you afraid of AI taking your job? And I'm like, aren't you afraid of AI taking your job? Yeah, not to. Like I don't want to down anybody or make jokes, honestly, about people losing their job. That's actually a pretty morbid or dark thing, but I do think that, like, it is interesting that people that like are often doing things like manual labor or spreadsheets or office stuff, where they're writing emails highly automatable things and I'm like I'm not super concerned about software engineers being fully automated away. And if we are, then I think that we will have a much larger problem on our hands to deal with.
Speaker 1:I think lawyers and doctors and other professions could also find it happening, but I mean, we don't know the future. That's the thing. I don't know what's going to happen, but I do know that this is particularly a fun time to code. Like, I use AI tools all day at work. What's your AI tool usage like at your job?
Speaker 2:So it's funny because I was kind of unsure when he first asked me. He's like, how much do you use AI? And I was like, is this a trick question?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to know if I know anything. And I told him that I use it, but that I, you know, verify everything, you don't just copy paste. And then, after the first week or two, he started telling me use cursor to build this thing real quick so we can work with the configuration. Use chat GPT to figure out what's going wrong with the logs here. Use Gemini, because that's the fastest model. Now let's go back and forth between these two models and see which one gives the right answer.
Speaker 2:And so I find that I'm using AI a lot in my work and I really have.
Speaker 2:I'm very convinced that companies that restrict AI usage out of just the fact that they feel like their employers might not know what they're doing there's a balance to it. But I think you're severely limiting the amount of growth and productivity, because that's the whole reason why AI exists is to increase our productivity, to make things that are very monotonous very quick and easy to take care of. Now I'm just trying to build an example application that I can deploy on my cloud platform. I just tell chat GBT, make me a really simple app that just does something real simple. And it does it like that and I can just start focusing on the next thing. I don't have to worry because it's not going to production, it's not going to be crucial taking people's credit card info and stuff. So I'm like just build this thing. I just wanted to say something when I deploy it and it does it and I love using it because I actually just got the cursor subscription, because I'm like I see, I'm using this thing enough.
Speaker 2:I might as well just get into it now.
Speaker 2:But, it's really cool to to be using it on a daily basis and I'll just I'll just say that, out of everyone I know, it seems like nobody knows what AI does, except for the people that I've talked to that are software engineers and it's. I think it's just because people are too intimidated. They think it's so abstract. But when you start like looking into it I know you've done a couple episodes on it it's really interesting to see how it breaks it down and how things are vectorized and stored and referred to, and and I just I think more people should know what it does and how to use it properly, because I think, no matter what profession you're in, I mean I told my parents I'm like yeah, I'm like, if you're stuck, my dad was trying to figure out how to do something on his computer and he's a computer wizard.
Speaker 2:I'm like, dude, just ask. Like Copilot, it's built into your computer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, seriously.
Speaker 2:It's like it could tell you that quick. If it's like where do I find this in my settings? You know something as simple as that. But I just think, no matter what profession you're in, you can find a use for AI just in daily life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, it's. It's wild to me that like I read it somewhere, like around half of Americans aren't using AI and I'm like, oh, that's not good. I see a big digital divide going on right, and I'm using these tools at work. In fact, the interview I did for this company, I was like, oh, should I turn Cursor off or should I use VS Code? And the guy's like, no, go ahead and use Cursor. I'm like, oh, this is different and that was a very different interview than I've ever done. And now, in fact, our interviews penalizing people for not using AI tools, and I thought this is such an interesting time to start coding and how everything is changing all at once. Very cool to hear. Before I let you get out of here, I want to get your take on a few things, a couple of hot takes from you. What is some overrated advice?
Speaker 2:you've heard about LinkedIn, sure overrated advice, yeah overrated advice about linkedin I've heard so many people talking about uh building up that github. Uh, what is it? What is it called the? Uh, oh, the github portfolio.
Speaker 1:Github profile yeah, uh, the, you know the, the green squares, yes yes, those, those, yes, yeah, your commit history, yeah, yeah, activity, whatever those green dots no-transcript a, that's a good point.
Speaker 1:Like I'm, I might, I might push back on that one, but like I feel you, like it's also kind of silly, like at the end of the day it's your personal work. Like I've never understood this whole thing. Like you have to have like what? Like why are you looking at my personal work? What does that matter? And also, you, you have a good point too. Honestly, now that you said it, I'm like, yeah, what if it sucks? What if you just put terrible stuff every single day?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Cause you could just NPM a new app every day every single day to get help and and it looks like you're on there every day doing something.
Speaker 1:So I think there's a balance to it.
Speaker 1:I like that point a lot. I'm like I'm I'm like not a big fan of portfolio projects, as you, as you probably know. You know, like, like the whole idea of like my portfolio project, and then, in addition to that, the GitHub, which is kind of like related to that, is going to get me by. Um, what's the best advice you have for people that are like busy parents, that have jobs and stuff, that want to learn to code? What's something you like wish you had done or that you've figured out that really helped you? Like maintain your schedule?
Speaker 2:So for me, I found that, first of all, having a partner that is committed with you, someone that is going to support you, because there's times where I'm I was working on my app and I was debugging something and I was pulling my hair out, and my son wakes up and I'm like please, please go get him. I cannot leave the computer right now. Right, and so to have that support system is a game changer if you have a kid. But also just finding those windows of opportunity where you have the time, even if it's an hour, even if it's 30 minutes, it's still enough time to make some progress and, to you know, get the code going in your head. Because there's times where I had to go to work and I'm with my son but I got 30 minutes, and so I get myself in there and I might maybe write another line or two and I'm figuring something, but then I'm like driving to work and I'm thinking about it and it's in my head and so I'm figuring things out.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm listening to the podcast and then on my way home I'm immediately thinking about it so that the next morning when I get up, I wake up before my son's up and I get started right on it. And I think you just got to find those windows and take advantage of them. It's I you've talked about it a lot how you can get kind of an analysis, paralysis of like okay, when I get this window, what should I do? But you need to have like that plan, like okay, I'm, I'm going to keep this window open on my computer. So every time I see my computer, that window is open for me to start working. You know.
Speaker 1:Man, you give me so many flashbacks. Like you know, I still do that sometimes. Sometimes I have to like, force myself, like, okay, well, if I go to work, I'm like I have to leave because I have to get back to my family, right? But then on the train or whatever, I'll be thinking about the problem and oftentimes I'll solve it in my head or I'll leave myself a voice note and then I'll get home and I can be like, okay, cool, I needed a break, I needed to rest my brain. Just like I tell people to do, I got to take my own advice. And then I'll get home and actually solve the thing, or wake up in the morning before my kids wake up and yell at me to cook pancakes or whatever, and then, boom, I have the answer. Man, that is well.
Speaker 1:That's the reason, I think, why you've made it, because you're doing a lot of the things that I think people either refuse to do or they know they should do and aren't doing. But this is a pattern. I've used this pattern. You are Ann, who I just spoke to, who's also going to be on the show, who's a Parsity grad who just got hired. She's doing these same things. There's a pattern here. I think that it's a trail of breadcrumbs that hopefully other people can hear and then follow, because you're a busy young father with a job, wife a whole nine, and you still had to like make this time to do it, which I think is important to know.
Speaker 2:I'll add one more thing to that.
Speaker 2:I posted about this a lot because I'm really set on this mentality to have.
Speaker 2:You've got to have that grit and that determination that when you get stuck on a bug or when you get rejected from an interview or you don't get the job or things like that, that you just keep going at it.
Speaker 2:I've had times because it took me longer to complete Parsity than it could have if I dedicated more time to it. But I also looked at it as like this is a marathon, not a sprint, and I just need to get to the finish line. I'm not trying to get there as fast as I can, and if I trip once, you know that's not the end of it, because you're not going to survive in the job market If you get discouraged from one little issue. You have to be able to keep going at it, day after day or even on the same day. If you hit something and you just got to take a walk and get away from it for a second and come back, I had to force myself to just go eat lunch or something because I cannot understand what's going wrong here and I come back and it just clicks Like literally right before we recorded this.
Speaker 2:I spent most of the day trying to figure something out and I went and took lunch.
Speaker 2:I came back and I figured it out right away and sometimes you just got to be willing to get out of the chair and get back in the chair day after day, and that that is what will separate you from the rest of people, Because as long as you keep doing the thing, you'll eventually get better and better at it and you'll eventually figure those things out and over the long period of time that will mold you into a more hireable engineer and eventually a senior engineer, wherever you want to go.
Speaker 1:That's you hit the nail on the head. But there's many. You can learn technology, you can learn coding languages. It's much more difficult to learn that kind of mindset and that kind of habit, to develop that kind of mindset Like, yes, this is going to suck you. And that's the other thing I noticed just talking to you today. Like you have the correct expectations in many ways, like you have expectations that were like aligned more with reality, which which is why you would say, hey, I was so surprised I got hired, cause I expected to get you know 99 nos and and and that's not a bad mentality to have. Cause then you're like, okay, I know I'm going to fail, I know that's just part of the game here. Like I'm going to fail, I'm going to get hit, I'm gonna get knocked down, and then I'm able to feel deflated really, really quickly. Yeah, where can people find you?
Speaker 2:online, man, so I my plan is to continue posting on LinkedIn. I haven't recently, but I will continue to share on there. I believe my LinkedIn handle is Jacob Cox.
Speaker 1:If it's wrong, you can put it in the show notes. I'll put it in the show notes.
Speaker 2:I am more than happy to have a conversation with anyone that reaches out. If you have any questions, I'm always here to talk, but, yeah, for the most part, linkedin is where I'm at. I don't really. I actually one thing that I committed to myself before I started the bootcamp was to completely get rid of all social media, at least temporarily, until I got my first job, and I still haven't got back on it yet, and we'll see if I do, but I found so that's another thing is, if you cut out those kinds of things, if you can do it, you will find so much extra time on your hands.
Speaker 2:I you know you spend an extra hour at night going on. Yep Scrolling and I was like dude, if I cut this out, I'm going to get like two or three hours a day back, like so I? It was a no brainer to me, so I'm I'm only on LinkedIn at the moment.
Speaker 1:Hey, that's, hey, I love it, dude. Um, thanks so much, man, it's been really great speaking with you. You're you're a wonderful dude, fantastic person, you know outside of parts, just a great human being. I think he has a lot of wisdom and a very interesting story. Thanks again.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, brian, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: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.
