The 1.01 Podcast
Learning from the best builders, founders and creators to compound 1% improvements for great long term results.
The 1.01 Podcast
#8 David Xiang
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Engineering Manager at Datadog and creator David Xiang, discusses being one of the first tech youtubers (earning over 4 million views), his book Software Developer Life and reflections on staying technically relevant throughout his over 13 year career.
Follow Wilson on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/WilsonLimSet
Follow David on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dxiang/
Sub to David on Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/@DaveXiang
Show Notes
00:45 Influence from parents and getting into engineering at CMU
02:30 Competitive breakdancing,
04:00 Inspiration for first few tech videos (technical explanations)
06:30 Pivoting from Qualcomm (C/C++ roles) into startups
09:13 Cold emailing rap genius and building a web project in a month
11:10 The transition into a manager position with a deeply technical background
14:45 Mentorship coaching moments for SWEs
17:30 Vulnerability and transparency - amazon rejection video
20:10 Compiling his thoughts into the book Software Developer Life
23:05 Staying relevant in tech, even as a manager
27:20 Key habits developed
30:55 What's the nicest thing someone's done for you?