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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
#271 - The Physics of Career Change: How Long It Actually Takes to Become a Software Developer
Remember when coding bootcamps promised you could learn to code and land a job in just three months?
That golden era of easy entry into tech has fundamentally changed, yet the marketing hasn't caught up with reality.
In this eye-opening conversation, ex-Google engineer Zubin and host Brian cut through the hype to deliver a reality check about what it actually takes to transition into software development in 2025.
What separates those who succeed from those who don't?
It's rarely about raw talent or technical aptitude. Instead, it's about creating systems that allow for consistent practice despite life's inevitable challenges.
"I've seen computer science grads fail and French fry cooks succeed"
Let's dig into why.
Shameless Plugs
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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 my buddy, the other half of Parsity Zubin on the show, ex-google engineer, ex-lawyer. Today we're going to talk about something interesting that affects our business and maybe you, if you're learning to code the three-month-to-job myth. Do you remember, like 2013, explosion of boot camps? In fact, I don't think I've ever told you this story. I went to a coding boot camp and I was hired within eight weeks, right, and I became one of their big success stories. And, uh, and they were like, yeah, he got hired in like in eight weeks.
Speaker 1:This is like what a crazy story, right, and this was like a common thing you'd see online or maybe even read now at some bootcamp say, hey, three months is all it takes to get hired. That's not reality anymore. So something's happened between now and then. I think people can kind of guess all the different things that have happened, but what's the reality now? Like, what is going on now? What is the realistic timeline for somebody, do you think, to go from zero to software engineer, and is it still possible?
Speaker 2:yeah.
Speaker 2:So, um, it's absolutely still possible, it happens every day. But you know, there was a time, um, and again, I'm just going to go back a little bit in history here because it's interesting, because I've always assumed that what happens in other industries will happen in software engineering, because ultimately it's a creature of the market, right? So there was a time when lawyers didn't need a license to practice, right, and that was how it was. There was a time when, you know, in American history, when somebody could teach themselves the law, practice law, and then become the president of the United States, namely Abraham Lincoln, right? But that isn't the case anymore and that happens in every single industry.
Speaker 2:So, for example, just a couple of weeks ago, I was speaking to a partner at a law firm he's an old friend of mine, he's actually one of my first bosses and he said the industry of law has changed a lot in the last 20 years. Why, um? When there was strong demand in the 90s, huge demand, which is when I became a lawyer. In response to that cultural phenomenon, um, over the next 10 years, colleges started to ramp up their legal um studies curriculum and their you know, their jds and stuff, and so they started producing more lawyers. Um, and they produce more at the rate the companies can absorb or the law firms can absorb. And so you have simple economics 101. Demand is growing, but supply is outstripping demand, right, so demand is still growing, a lot for lawyers. The same thing for software engineering.
Speaker 2:So what people don't forget is that the concept of the startup, as we now know it, is almost 30 years old, right? So Google, for example, started in 96, 97. Okay, let's take that. As you know well, apple started in the 70s and all that. But you know, the modern startup, where you know code, is everything. 30 years old. Okay, that's a long time.
Speaker 2:And so the market has started to mature and it shows the same what's known as an S-curve as every other industry. So going back to your question then, brian, yes, anyone can do it. Three months is possibly still possible, depending on the market you're in. But when I spoke to Algo experts Clement several years ago, when I joined Google, on on his podcast, we talked about this he said, look, even I did it in six months. But um, and I said yeah, I did it in about eight, but on my fourth effort, so really it took me five years. But when I knew what I was doing eight months, right?
Speaker 2:it's like that chinese bamboo tree it takes five years to sprout out of the ground and grow 20 feet, but it doesn't sprout out of the ground for the first three years or something. So how long did it actually take to grow? Did it take two years to grow or did it take five? It depends on how you want to look at it, right?
Speaker 2:Because if you dig the seed out of the ground, it may never grow. So it's the same thing with this. And so Clement and I were talking about well, if you do 15 hours a day, or 12 hours a day for six months, yeah, you'll get it, because that's the intensity that you're doing it yeah most people think it doesn't matter how many hours I do.
Speaker 2:They just think, oh, if I do three months, uh you, so it's possible a dead clock will show the right time twice a day twice a day correct, but the market has changed and because there's so much information available, um, and so many people are interested in the space and it's one of the few spaces that still allow you to get six figure incomes very consistently it's driven a whole lot of people into the market. So suppliers try to exceed demand, even though demand is huge, um, and so now employers can get to choose and be a bit more picky. So it's exactly like the housing market when there's too much housing on the market, people are going to have a tough time getting decent prices. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I like your bamboo analogy because, even though at that boot camp that I was speaking about, where I got hired in quotes in eight weeks, I had spent a year before that learning on my own. Yeah, so even this time this was 2013. This was like the height, right, and I'd spent basically a full year teaching myself until I went to this bootcamp and they kind of got me the last step of the way and filled in some some core gaps that I was missing, mostly around what we would call market development.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was actually where they had the most help for me especially had the most help for me especially, and I think that kind of rings true for what we see with students in inner circle as well.
Speaker 2:Totally, and you're saying this is 2013?.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 2013, 2014, something like that. In context, 2013 was an age ago in software. So I know it's only 13 years ago 12 years ago for us mathematically but that was, I think, when the iPhone 3 was out. I think that was when App Store 2 was out. I think that was when Instagram was starting out. I think that was when Uber was starting to take off. Airbnb was just about starting. I think that that was their second year and they just about hit 10 paying customers some rubbishly small number like that. Wow, 2013 was the start, right? So I would argue. Well, let me ask you this If you did exactly that, now you're a hiring manager and stuff, and if you today were to see a student or a candidate who had your level of skill in 2013, would they be your only applicant or would you be likely to find many more people better?
Speaker 1:Oh, I mean I joke about this, but I tell people in parsing inner circle all the time you're by the end of this program you're going to be much more capable than I was at the same stage. You're going to know three times more than what I knew. You're just going to be a much better software engineer than I was when I first started off. It took me, you know, another year on the job, learning with a team of people like kind of you know, sitting with me physically there in an office. Just it was like you're right, it's a whole other lifetime. It feels like a whole other world back then. Um, that just that world does not exist anymore. And this is the bay area, right, and like it's even more shocking that in this, that market, I was able to sneak in through the back door.
Speaker 2:Essentially, there was so much demand at that point in time, like so much demand, right, and and's not forget that was also the time when the IT outsourcing thing was starting to really take off. So people were outsourcing to different countries and labor market Like it was huge and it just wasn't enough people to do it. And also, netflix wasn't really a thing in 2013. It was still a video rental store transitioning to digital.
Speaker 1:You know it was still I getting the ones in the mail. Honestly, that's how wow. I'm really dating myself here and I'm sure people are hearing this like. And the funny thing is I know people will hear this and think, oh, it's so much easier back then. And you're right, it was easier, it was not easy. I had a computer science grad, also in the same program I was in. It took him a full year to get hired. In fact, most of the people in that bootcamp never got the result they wanted and I think it's honestly. The marketing was really good, right, and we didn't have the data to understand, right. There wasn't so much social media or articles and news articles Like three months, get a job, you're like, okay, I'm in, right, and then some people did and you'd be the success story and most people didn't, right, and then they'd be left with this idea like, wow, I guess it's just not cut out for me. And that was really sad to see too.
Speaker 2:It happened to me so many times. Brandon, the reason I get so angry and I sound like a bitter old man about the three months, five months, six months thing is it cost me five years of my life. I'm not joking. It cost me half a decade. At that point of time, it was one seventh of my life that it cost me because of the bad marketing. Right, I was 35 at the time and I think that was my second or third event. I succeeded only when I was 38.
Speaker 2:And for those five years it was nasty because I just thought I was not smart enough, I was not capable enough, I could never do this. It was too far out of reach. Why? Because the marketing produced bad expectations. Right, the marketing had made me believe, hey, other people are doing this in three months. That's just not true. And they were making me do that. And so they were like, yeah, I'm going to try this, I'm going, you know, I'm going to. I'm going to try this, I'm going to do this, I'm going to leap into it. Other people have done it. And then every time I would go smack into a window like face first into a window that I didn't know was there.
Speaker 1:It was humiliating. That is so. That is really interesting and and I and I know we we ex-lawyer went to Google and struggling with a lot of the same things. What do you wish you had known back then, or what was it with it? Kind of like, you know, had that light bulb go off in your head. That was like, oh, here's how I need to approach this.
Speaker 2:Let me try and find a way to explain it so that people understand right. Explain it so that people understand, right that old saying we always compare our day zero with somebody else's day hundred is 1,000% correct, okay, because we only see the end result, the highlight reel from other people, right? And then we know how they appear on the outside. So, you know, before we started recording we were talking about, you know, do we ever feel, you know, complete self-d-doubt or like you know, we're imposters? Yeah, and I said all the time, I feel all the time, not in all parts of my life, in some parts of my life, right, and so what happens is people will see me now on the podcast, so they'll see me at the office or on stage or something, and they'll be like, oh, you know, you don't look like you ever worry about that. That's not true. That's not true, right, and you're comparing your insights because you know how you feel on the inside. You're comparing that with how I appear on the outside, right? Um, and so that's why you feel that way, and it's the same thing, I think you. You end up comparing with other people and you don't realize that the, the most obvious thing is never the only thing that's needed.
Speaker 2:Let me give you an example. How many people go to the gym because they see somebody ripped on TV? Oh yeah, because everyone thinks I need to work out to look like that. The reality is, if you really want to get that kind of definition, you don't have to work out that much. You need to change your diet so drastically. For sure it's not the reps in the gym. You can go to the gym twice a week for 45 minutes at a time and go really hard, and not insanely hard, just hard enough to get hypertrophy just set in and then after that it's entirely diet. But it's the gyms and the supplements that get the money, because that's how they market.
Speaker 1:Ab rollers crunches.
Speaker 2:Remember those.
Speaker 1:You know those late night TV commercials, right Late night.
Speaker 2:TV shows. Yep, I've fallen for this because I always assumed the most obviously marketed thing was the trick. And bootcamps did the same thing, because people will market anything that the consumer believes they want. They will give you what you ask for. That's what marketing is right.
Speaker 2:And what do we do with the? Why do we call ourselves the anti-boot camp? Why do we say, hey, you know, it's not three months, it's 12? Why do we tell people this is gonna be one of the hardest things you you ever did? Why do I? Why have I been saying for five years that coding is the easy part? Because everyone's attention is on coding, the shiny thing. But the real work of climbing that damn mountain has nothing to do with coding. It has to do with this. It has to do with do you have kids? It has to do with how much time you have. It has to do with your habits. It has to do with your confidence, and so many people have life circumstances that aren't managed and they're driving the entire way with a handbrake on and they wonder why they burnt their brakes out in the engine.
Speaker 1:Oof, that's a big one. Because, yeah, I mean, most of the people we work with and most people in general go to coding boot camps aren't like 25-year-olds. They're people that are a little older. They likely have a kid or they're starting a family and they're starting to think what's next? Right, what do I want in my career? Do I want to do this? I mean, that's what I was thinking. I was like thinking, do I want to keep doing this for 35 more years? Cause I was thinking that that's like that's what's in front of you and and I thought I don't. And when I found coding my, if somebody paid me to do this, this is what I want to do now. You, you and I can get pretty months, and I'm sure some people are hearing that, oh my God, that's a long time. What do you say to that person that thinks, wow, 12 months, that's too long?
Speaker 2:So it's a physics problem. It's not a person problem, right? Anybody with average or above intelligence can. Okay, why do I say it's a physics problem? Let me start again. How long does it take to drive from los angeles to new york or san francisco to new york?
Speaker 1:that's the same long time yeah, okay, too long.
Speaker 2:Fine, let's, let's assume we just you know, how long does it take to go from san francisco to los angeles? Anyone actually answer? Yeah, but you're making an assumption there. I am. What is your assumption?
Speaker 1:Traffic, that you're driving, that I'm driving. You know the speed I'm driving at. If I got my kids in the car I might drive a little slower. You know 70 times I want to stop for lunch. You know all sorts of things.
Speaker 2:But the distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco doesn't change whether you're driving, whether you have kids in the car, whether you're taking a bicycle, whether you're flying, whether you're taking a train, whether you're flying, whether you're taking a train, whether you're doing it by boat, this is true, I also assumed I was driving.
Speaker 2:You also assumed you were driving. This is the problem with all advice out on the internet. There is a whole bunch of assumptions that have gone into the roadmap that people see on blogs. But how can I give anyone a roadmap until I know what their starting point is, what their ending point is, how they're planning to travel and how much time are they going to?
Speaker 1:invest in that travel right, yes, oh, the investment part. Yeah, that's a huge one like how much time do you have? Because if you're, if you're, if you are unemployed, then you have a ton of time. You can probably, you maybe can get through this in three months right, it's a physics problem.
Speaker 2:So for five years I've been telling people if you give me 20 hours a week and I remove all the decision-making for you and I tell you exactly what to do in those 20 hours and you stick to it, right? Like I said, it's a physics problem. Speed is distance divided by time, right? Yes, or it's the distance divided by time, yeah, so it's basically, I don't know, I'll just trust you on that one yeah, yeah, sorry I'm getting confused now, but it's a physics problem.
Speaker 2:There's a formula, right distance um time is equal to um distance divided by speed. There you go. Speed, yeah, right. Distance divided by speed. So we know what the distance is. Now the question is how fast can you go?
Speaker 1:that's, that's so practical, but that's like it's funny because that never come and I think it's because we've been conditioned like many adults. Uh, you're, especially if you're a little older, you know, if you're outside of school for a few years, your last memory of learning was likely in school. If you haven't educated yourself or read like I did and I was in a really negative state in my life at that point and my last memory was of school and I'll never forget this I've got one of those like javascript or html5 for dummies book oh yeah like that.
Speaker 1:I'd actually like get something out of reading this book. And I read the entire thing and I sat down on my computer with like notepad plus, plus or something, and I'm like what do I do next? Yeah no, it was.
Speaker 2:You know I went through the same. I went through the same trap, so I wanted to be the first idea that I had, like a lot of people is. I wanted to make a mobile app and I was thinking, oh, android, you know, that's much more accessible and friendly, so I'll make an android app. I had never programmed in my life, right, um? And so I was like, yeah, everyone's saying so. I built this app, remember 2013, 2014?
Speaker 1:oh my god, yeah, exploding everyone. There should be an Apps were exploding, Everyone.
Speaker 2:there should be an app for this.
Speaker 1:Remember that saying there should be an app for this. There should be an app for this, yeah.
Speaker 2:So Zubin was part of that hype cycle and said, oh, I'm going to make an app, you know, and blah, blah, blah. So I got a Java book, and you know, back then people don't realize this, but in 2005, acquired by Google in 2007. It was only six years, really old, at scale, like cab videos, you know. Yeah, exactly that's what it had, right, and so okay. So I tried to look at YouTube. Not a lot. There was some stuff there. Then I did some Coursera MOOC, blah, blah, blah. Okay.
Speaker 2:Then I realized, shoot, I cannot build an Android unless I understand what a framework is. So I got into the what's a framework, what's a library? And I was so confused because none of the words made sense to me and then I'm like I can't actually write on Android until I know Java. So then I bought a Java. And what book did I buy? Learn Java in 24 hours? Now there are two. Very yeah, but this is clever marketing. This is why I keep telling out there marketers will tell you what you want to hear. I wanted to hear fast and learn. What I did not know is two things. One is the book assumes that you have some programming knowledge. It'll tell you you don't need to, but you do right because you're learning a language, and of course programming generally works others.
Speaker 2:You want to understand a lot of the words that are in there. And the second thing is it had 24 chapters, which they think should take you an hour to read one hour each yep and I fell for assuming you write no code or anything like that.
Speaker 1:You don't write any code, you just literally read the words on everything, right, yeah so, and they're not wrong.
Speaker 2:You can learn java in 24 hours if you did that, but that's not how learning works. Yeah, right, and so zoom didn't give up. That was, I think, experience number two, the first time they showed up.
Speaker 2:I found it too hard, anyway. So all this to say that it's a physics problem, that if people ask me today, how long will it take me? I ask two questions when do you want to go Exactly? Define to me, and most people don't know. Most people are like, oh, I want to develop a role, I want to code a role. When I was at Google, I counted 42 different types of technical roles. Yeah, so that's like saying I want to go to Canada, brian. Okay, great, I'm willing to bet you don't want to go to most of Canada. I'm willing to bet you want to go to a few places in Canada, maybe seven, you know, but most of Canada.
Speaker 1:You want to miss right, so you have the wrong goal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have the wrong destination, so you can't tell me that. Okay. And the number two thing is how fast are you going to travel, which is how many hours per week? If I took away all decisions and I gave you the roadmap, you still have to drive that distance, or fly that distance or walk whatever, I don't care. What's your speed. If you can't do the 20 hours per week, you're not going to get to the about 800 to 1200 hours, depending on the person and the starting point and their goal. Right, I've calculated this for years now. Why do I say that? Because you can learn to code in about 200 hours, maybe 250.
Speaker 1:Seems reasonable. Yeah, yeah sure.
Speaker 2:And then you have another problem you have to get good enough to be professional at it. Yes, I can learn to play tennis in a weekend. I am not going to be playing as a pro athlete, even locally, for at least seven months, maybe 12. And at my age probably never, right? Yeah, I think that's the big thing.
Speaker 1:And people don't realize this. I spoke with a person you also interviewed on your podcast Aline Lerner of interviewingio.
Speaker 1:Yeah, amazing. I can't wait to release that. But she has. She has cold hard data on this. Interviews have objectively gotten more difficult. Anybody that's done a coding interview in the last five, 10 years can tell you. If you did a coding interview 10 years ago and you did one last week, you know that they've significantly increased in difficulty. Right, and then like equipping people now, like through through our program or through any program you're, you're going to have to compete on this market and and I think that's the the tough love people need it's like, yes, maybe it'll take you 12 months, maybe it'll take you six months, but putting in this number of hours is going to be necessary for you just to be competitive, or else you've just wasted your money, if I'm just being honest.
Speaker 2:Completely, and this is the thing. Aline's got the data because she was an ex-engineer, turned into a recruiter and all that. So she's got it for a check and the reality is this has been known for decades, because I think it was in the 80s a study came out that showed clearly how the average fifth grader in the 80s was about 20 times smarter on paper than a person of the same age 80 years prior.
Speaker 1:Oh my god which makes sense it makes. I mean it makes sense. It's kind of crazy to think, but I mean, yeah, yeah, it makes sense, right, and mean it makes sense. It's kind of crazy to think, but I mean, yeah, it makes sense.
Speaker 2:And so, and then in the 90s and you know the early 2000s again, it came out that oh, I actually I think 2012 or something, and I was reading one of the books on poker psychology and it talks about the top 20 poker players on average in 2015 were way better than the top 20 poker players on average in the 90s oh, wow okay, but this is true in sports, you look at yeah, you're right, yeah what does do?
Speaker 2:now you look at the kind of things people can do in extreme sports things that were impossible 40 years ago and now mainstream I see myself on his bike and I'm like what, how are you doing this?
Speaker 1:I get would have blown everybody's minds 30 years ago, when I was riding a bike and watching him do this stuff. I'm like this is nuts. And all his friends do it too. It's like, yeah, the bar just gets risen. It just keeps rising exponentially higher.
Speaker 2:Correct Because knowledge is much more fluid. So, if you want it, it's always been there, and now that somebody else has set the bar, you know what's possible. This is what I right. People thought it was medically impossible to run the four minute mile. They thought your heart would explode.
Speaker 2:Roger Bannister was a doctor, he was a medical person. And he said oh, I'm not so sure about that. And he's going against the medical orthodoxy of his day where they said you're crazy, your heart's going to explode in your chest. And he's like, not so sure, I think I'll try it out anyway. And he did it. And when he did it, a barrier that had not been broken in humanity's history before, that got broken more than 10,000 times in the next five years, including the high school kids, oh my God. The only thing that's changed is people realize it's possible. So yeah, 100% it's possible. You just need the plan. And Roger Bannister didn't just say I'm going to break the barrier and run out of his dorm room and start running. He trained for three years and kept failing, and then he did, and then he killed it that's a really cool story that's.
Speaker 1:That is nuts. Yeah, I mean, I'm a bit of a runner a four minute mile. It's crazy to think that. That, that psychological effect of just knowing that it's possible and then saying, boom, I can do it now and I I hope people take away an ideally an optimistic look. I tend to be pretty optimistic and I I know you do too practically optimistic. I'm not one of those all roses like, oh yeah, you can absolutely do it, but I'm like this is a possible path to do. It's just that your expectations need to be aligned with reality at this point. And so what do you see? Some of the biggest difference? Maybe, like technically, with the expectations now I mean, I can speak on this too but like what are you seeing the technical expectations that have, uh, increased or are different now in 2025 than even like just I just say, pre-ai? You know, like there's like a clear divide. Now it's like, oh, there's a pre-ai and ai. What's what's different? What do the developers need know now?
Speaker 2:So I think, more than ever, what I'm seeing is what people think is that, oh, ai makes me better and faster. What they don't realize is it makes everybody better and faster at some things, right, so it's not really a competitive advantage, because the playing field is completely flat when it comes to that. The people who have the advantage are the people who know enough to really get phenomenal use cases out of AI or phenomenal functionality out of AI. So just yesterday I had lunch with my ex-colleague from Google and he told me how he is building this thing and it's made him like six times faster. But I said, tell me about your prompts. And he's like, oh, oh, my God, they are so targeted, they are so controlled. Because I'm in control, I am not delegating, I'm not delegating decisions, I'm not delegating design, I'm not none of that. I'm using it in a very controlled fashion.
Speaker 2:So what's changed now is that because the overall standard of the market has improved. And, don't forget, most people who are making hiring decisions now are, let's say, in their mid-30s in tech. It's a very young industry, right? Yeah for sure. Those folks grew up in tech without AI and they grew up really cutting their teeth on the old school way of doing it. So their fundamentals are very solid and I can say this also some of them their fundamentals are weak compared to the engineers who grew up in the 90s, because I've seen these guys at.
Speaker 2:Google, right, they cannot use a VS Code ID because they're like it's too busy, I just want my Vim text editor, right? Yep, but they know how everything works at the byte level. It's incredible, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So every generation gets a little bit softer with the tools but more productive, but way more productive, and that's okay. So what's changed now for aspiring developers is because hiring managers are much more sophisticated, like you said, than they were 15 years ago. Simply because the industry has matured Best hiring practices, so 15 years ago. No, because the industry has matured Best hiring practices so 15 years ago no one was talking about the big tech hiring practices. Now all companies try to hire the big, adopt the big tech hiring practices.
Speaker 1:Adopt those practices. Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 2:Even if they don't need it, they unfortunately adopt it. What does that do? It makes we've gone from interviews in smaller companies being two runs To six.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's a 300% jump right there. I mean, you know a factor right there, right? Okay, so all of that has changed, and so people can't actually get by with doing less. They need to do a lot more, because, like we said just five minutes ago, on average people today are better than they were 10 years ago and that has always been the history of humanity, in every field, right. And so you can't be less than how people were 10 years ago. You have to be better, and to be better with the human brain you need to invest a bit more time in a proper plan.
Speaker 1:That's the big one too, because I think that people don't realize, like I met a really great guy I don't want to say his name because I hope I'm not being critical at all but and I've met a few people like this, self-taught and I respect anybody that's fully self-taught I mean I used to claim self-teach. I mean I went to a coding bootcamp and I've gone to other programs anyway. Anyway, self-taught dude finally got hired and took him three years. Now to me that was still really cool, I mean amazing that he did it with like zero real, like a formal traditional education.
Speaker 1:The same time I saw the mistakes he made because I met him and I saw what are you learning? And it was everything, everything, and set him on a more proper path in general. But I just thought, man, imagine if you had a plan right, like a vetted plan from somebody that knew what they were doing, you could have reached this destination much quicker. And uh, I think that's a lot of times when people don't get because they say I could, I could learn all this stuff myself like yes, you absolutely could. Yeah, and then I'd wonder do you want to. Is that a path you really want to take? You know?
Speaker 2:and and that's you know it's funny you raise that. So that's kind of what I ended up putting into the inner circle program because I'm 100 self-taught. But the person that made the difference for me was non-technical. She was my non-technical coach and she was the one that got me the results in those eight months. Because she said you're thinking about this all wrong, you're thinking about this as coding, a special.
Speaker 1:It's not, it's a skill, it's a freaking skill.
Speaker 2:All skills come from the consistent application of directed effort over an unreasonable amount of time, also known as deliberate practice. Yeah, not practice, deliberate practice, yeah, right. So she's like what are you doing? That's so narrow that you will be excellent at it when you apply it for 30 hours, that one thing damn right. And so that's how I've started learning. That's how I did it in eight months is I did the opposite, which we now teach in the inner circle program as the minimum effective dose. That came from her.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, that is really insightful. I mean I learned this by complete error, but learning how to code actually kind of just taught me how to learn, because now I feel a lot more confident learning. I see it spilled over to other areas of my life. Maybe I don't know if exercise or coding was the the like the main lever, but something. It triggered something inside of me where I'm like, okay, this is how, like doing these things, having some faith that doing showing up every day, I'm gonna get better.
Speaker 1:Because even when I sucked at coding and I did for years actually, I mean I've, I've, still, I finally, after 11 years, I feel pretty confident as a coder, but still, you know what I mean. That's a lot 11 years later. But but yeah, that was the thing just showing up every day, being consistent. I'm like I'm like I know that this will work if I'm consistent. And then I saw that applied to every area of my life. Then I thought, okay, well, I can probably be good at whatever to some level. I might not be the best at everything at all, but I'll be decent at everything that I really apply myself to.
Speaker 2:And dude. This happens at every level. Let's just share with the folks. So, brian and I, we have a coach ourselves. Coaches have coaches. That's how it always is you learn from people better than you. And so what did Ollie do on our call? We had four questions that we thought, oh my god, it's so important, we need to talk to him yeah, right we just zoned in on one.
Speaker 2:He like ignored everything else. Yep, yep, that was really interesting. That's what works. And just do that one thing till you get it right. There's no point building all these castles in the air till you get each foundation, each, I mean. Everybody tries to build a penthouse before they've got the ground floor. It's ridiculous. We all do it right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is funny and I hope people listening to this too, as we kind of close off is that, yes, this is possible. We're not talking about even something as difficult as losing 100 pounds. Actually, it's probably right on par with something like losing a hundred pounds or getting a six pack or something like that. This is almost that same level of effort, almost that same idea, the persistence, dedication and the consistency and also just knowing what to do. Like I keep thinking about weight loss, I remember losing a bunch of weight a few years ago and I had been trying for years. I was pretty overweight for my years of years of abuse, right and um, and I was like, what do I do? I'll try this weird fad diet I saw on TV. In retrospect it makes zero sense. And then I met one dude who just told me just do this. I paid him a bunch of money and I lost all the weight. I was like, oh, that's what. And that was the thing.
Speaker 2:And it's not the thing that everyone talks about in the billboards and the pamphlets, and you know it's not that thing, right. But what it is depends on you and and this is why it's really important for everyone no two people have the same problem. There are broadly five classes of problems that people have. It'll be around mindset, psychology, it'll be around time, it'll be around energy, it'll be around beliefs and values and it'll be around knowing what to do. Like it's it's these buckets, and everybody is going to have at least two out of those four or five things that are going wrong. And it's not the same, for some people have all five, right, some people have three, some people have just one.
Speaker 2:But, we cannot know until we spend the time with you saying, ok, this is the reason why you're not likely to succeed. Why do I do? The risk factors for every student in the capacity Is, even with the plan, when you're driving fast on the road, if you have a pothole, you will break your axle. It's not enough to know which way you're going in a car and just keep driving. You need to watch out for those damn potholes and steer around them. Every student. I have to sit with them and say these are your risk factors. I've gotten to know you over the last 40, 50 hours. These are your risk factors. Steer around these. Here's your plan, but here's your risk factors. And that takes time to get to know that. You have to help people steer around. Of course, everything's possible. Do the right thing at the right time in the right way. It's cause and effect. How can you not get the result?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's really the most powerful thing that I've seen in the inner circle program. It's like it's the consistency people come out of that, that that first eight weeks, especially like and I don't want to, you know, sound all hokey and corny but like people describe it as life-changing and in many ways it is. It's a pretty transformative experience. People go deeper into their own thoughts, patterns, beliefs, fears, doubts they probably ever have and um, getting it out on paper, coming up with a super solid plan. And that's why you see people in the program actually doing the work, which is honestly the secret, like. If I think of one secret over the years, if people are like what's like? What separates the person that got the job from the person that didn't, I'm like there's, it's just consistency. It sounds so corny and lame, but I'm like that's literally it. That is literally the secret sauce.
Speaker 1:I've seen computer science grads fail and I've seen French fry cooks succeed. It's like you know.
Speaker 2:And consistency is not just doing the thing, because life is real, it will get in the way. So you have to manage all these balls in the air so that you can be consistent. You have to free yourself to be consistent and and you know folks who sort of listen to us and say, oh, you know, you guys know how to do this. You know these transformative outcomes. It took me two years of trial and error to get them. I mean and this is you know because I've been in the program before you and I joined up five, five years, right. So the first two years I wasn't getting these outcomes. You know I was getting similar outcomes, but it wasn't like this. I had to learn how to coach different types of people around the world in their context with their culture. It was hard because I only knew what I knew at that point in time. You know, I mean the program was obviously cheaper then as well, but even that, to consistent, focused, very, very minimalistic sets of effort, right, and it took two years to get to that level. And then for three-something years now, we've been getting these sort of transformative outcomes.
Speaker 2:And if people want to look at it, they can look at it on the PowerCity website. All the videos have been put up there. But people will just talk and tell you what they've went through, and it's you know. Who is it who said that? How you do one thing is how you do everything right. The inverse of that is, when you fix some of the fundamental patterns in your life, all other outcomes will improve. All right, people in the program have had better results with their therapist. They've had better results fitness therapist. They've had better results fitness-wise. They've had better sleep. They've had better relationships with their partners and their family while learning to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the really pretty incredible part. I think it's a really unique program in that way. I mean I've never seen really anything like it and the results show. I mean it's nice to see people like that. That's the thing. It's like. That's solved actually the hardest problem because curriculum has never been the hardest problem it's always been getting people like do the thing and don't quit before you get the result that you want.
Speaker 2:And then we have a bunch of people who you know get their job offers, they win hackathons, they work as tech leads in tiny startups. All of that happens too, but of course it's going to happen. When you fix the cause, the effects will follow. It's just physics.
Speaker 1:That's a good way to put it, man. A really wonderful conversation. I always enjoy speaking with you. Thanks a lot, Zubin. Any last words before we take off.
Speaker 2:No, I suppose I'll just tell people that don't let AI fool you into thinking that it's easier, it's different. The industry will change. All knowledge, work is going to change, but the future will belong to people, and this is a good thing for career changes. There was a time when all you had to be was an uber technical nerd to succeed. I think that era is gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:I think career changes have a big advantage now because I'm seeing it in my work is if you have other skills, especially the softer skills, because the technical stuff can a lot of the hard things can be done with the AI with the right supervision. And supervision is a human skill, it's not a machine skill, right? That's why we have supervised machine learning is because they can't supervise themselves. We need to supervise them. So if we get good at those sort of judgment skills and combine that with technical skills, I genuinely believe the future software engineer is a very well-rounded personality.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent. Yeah, I could not agree more Excellent, take. Thanks again, man. Thank you, dude. 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.
