Imposter Syndrome, Grit, and Growth: How Bhavya Rebuilt Confidence

You know, I feel like infra dev tools, like all these kinds of spaces attract a certain type of personality, which is like cranky. [laughter] >> It seems seems to be that way. >> You know what's actually funny is I I always perceived myself as not that kind of person. And I heard since then like, no, you actually are also like that. [laughter] All right, this one is a super cool one for me because I had the pleasure of speaking with Bavia Cashup who is an engineering manager at Chime. And what made this so special is that Bavia and I are actually former classmates and we both went to the University of Wateroo together. So we haven't talked together like this in probably well I'm not going to tell you how long but it's been a little while. Bavia tells an awesome story about her career journey. touches on things like failure and how that impacted different stages of school and her career. I think it's awesome. I think that you're really going to enjoy this. So, sit back, enjoy, and I'll see you next time. Bobby, if you don't mind starting from I guess as early as you want, I know we were kind of just chatting about about university, but um in terms of like career journey and stuff, do you want to start before university? like did you know that you wanted to get into tech like from a super early age or was this like something that kind of came up later? >> So this was actually a very I had a very interesting realiz like mo most of my life um I had been I was like one of those gifted kids you know so I was kind of like good at everything and I was also very creative. I was very artistic. I was musical. I would write and then I was I was very good at like math, physics, like I was just one of those kids. But I think because of the era, um, no one particularly saw me as like this this is the kind of person who's going to go into science and engineering, right? And so for actually a lot of my life, like I'd somehow fed into this narrative where I I don't know where it came from. like my parents were kind of like you're going to go to York and do a BBA or you're going to do marketing or something like that. But I also this that whole time like I think starting at maybe I want to say age 12 I started getting into coding and like they my parents didn't actually know cuz you know this was again the air I don't know a lot of people had the computer room right so I would just be in the computer room like doing random stuff >> and I would do stuff like I would like I would look at the source code for web pages and then I would be like oh what is this JavaScript thing here like what is this function And you know, as a kid, you're just trying to have fun. You know, I would see these I was really into anime. I was really into Dragon Ball Z. And I would do these like Dragon Ball Z quizzes like, "Which Dragon Ball Z character are you?" And I was like, "How do I make this? I really need to make this myself." >> Um, so I got kind of into that. And then over time it kind of then I started exploring, you know, we had a Windows computer so I'm like, "What is this registry here? Can I mess around with it? What happens if I change these registry values? >> Delete all these keys. Yeah. [laughter] >> Yeah. So, it just became very exploratory and I don't think my parents realized I was doing all of that. >> Uh and then later on, you know, I was like, I I kind of really like this. And then they realized like, oh, she's into something here, you know, do maybe she should do computer science. And I I actually did the grade 11 computer science and grade 10 cuz I was so like enthusiastic about it. and they were like, "Well, you know, she's smart. She can do, you know, the course ahead." Um, but I remember like as I approached grade 12, I talked to like our grade 12, you know, guidance counselor or whoever you talk to for going to university and she was like, >> you know, I've been looking at your grades and like, have you considered something like computer science or engineering cuz you seem to really enjoy this and you are you're quite good at it. M >> and then I was like I had not actually because no one no one had really said that to me before and then I started kind of raising that with my parents and they were really supportive of computer science initially. uh they're not gonna like my saying this, but [laughter] so I later had a a conversation with my uncle who was like, "You should do computer engineering because that's a lot more multid-disciplinary." And if you if you want to go into software, you can, but if you want to go into hardware, you can. You can also like there there other avenues. And he was like, "To be honest, I have friends who do computer engineering, then they went into dentistry, and they became really good dentists because it teaches you all this stuff." I was like, "That's not going to be me." But yeah, I'm down to do computer engineering. That sounds amazing. And then I went to my parents and I'm like, I'm going to do computer engineering. And they were really unhappy. >> They were okay with computer science, but then the engineering part was where it was not okay. >> Yeah. I think they in their minds, I don't think they they had realized like computer science is really math heavy. I think they were like she's really good at programming, but engineering is really daunting. And [snorts] they The thing they said to me uh which is maybe not the most politically correct thing is like we so we want whatever you do we want you to be the best at and we're not convinced that you would be the best at computer engineering. >> Interesting. Okay. >> Yeah. Uh and they were like, you know, you're going to be competing with all these international kids that are coming to Waterl who've been preparing their whole lives to do engineering. Uh and this is like a new pivot for you. And then I think that made me even more adamant like I have to prove them wrong. And I mean with the grades I had I got early acceptance to Waterlue like you know um so I was like I proved them wrong but then you know I think things things changed after I actually joined Waterlue. Um but you know we were you were just talking about this a little bit. Um I the journey the journey of Waterlue actually really solidified that I had picked the right thing for myself. Uh, and I don't think my parents really saw that until I got to the end of my degree. Um, >> which was Yeah, it's not it's not quick, right? So, that was probably a period of time where it's like it feels probably a little bit uncertain throughout the whole thing, especially for them. >> Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, we were, you know, we are we are an Indian Canadian family and there's, you know, a cultural expectation of career like academic and career success. And so, I remember my first like my 1A term at Waterlue, I found the jump between high school and 1A felt massive. I remember I think we were like three weeks in and we were or four weeks in and we were already already doing integration by parts and I actually we stopped at derivatives in high school for me anyway. And so I was like I have never seen this before. I I like don't even understand what's happening. And then simultaneously we have all the like foundational courses, right? And so like physics I was pretty good at. I was not so great at chemistry, but I felt like everything was just moving so quickly and I was not able to find my footing super well. And obviously, [clears throat] >> you had done really well in high school, right? So, you're going from like knocking it out of the park to like all of a sudden like, whoa, like there's a lot going on and like I got to start keeping up with this now. >> Yeah, it was it was very difficult. And I I think at the same time too I you know I wasn't prepared for the fact that our class would be like over a hundred guys and like 11 girls and I was like I everyone's making friends. I need to make friends. And I like there's some part of you that also you know you're trying to find your community. You're trying to survive school. There's just so much going on. And it was it was very stressful and I mean I did you know I I think you know 1 a fine I graduated 1A I I passed. Uh and then I felt like it just kept getting progressively worse. [laughter] Um I what I did learn is I was not good at any of the math courses. Like I repeatedly kept failing calculus. I failed uh math 119 more than once. So I failed it twice before I passed. Um and I failed math 117 too. But like I did fine in the the circuits courses. And this was kind of the beginning of like my figuring out like something something is off. Like I know that I I get the engineering concepts. you know I circuits I did great digital circuits like both the analog and the digital circuits courses I did great in I did well in compilers I did well in operating systems all of that stuff uh but then every it was numeric numerical methods so I failed to be numerical methods was the thing that did me in it wasn't any of the actual engineering courses it was like the pure math courses and of course you know I I didn't do well enough in some like the engineering courses either on the exams to pull my grades up. >> Uh which again, yeah, like I realized in retrospect I was just really anxious during exams. Like I could not focus on the questions because I was so intensely afraid of doing badly that you know I just ended up doing badly, right? It was absolutely relate to that. There's a I mean it was a math exam that I'm recalling but I remember getting a math exam. I can't remember the course and reading the first question and being like it's three parts or something and being like I don't know this. So like okay next question like I I got to get through it was three questions in total but multiple parts each. Flip to the next question I'm like I don't know this and I'm like there's literally one question left on the exam and I get to the you know flip the page I'm like I don't know this. So now it's been like five minutes into this exam, three questions, and I think these exams like because I wasn't doing well in the courses, they end up being like 90% of your grade or like, you know, somewhere between like 70 and 90% of your grade. And I'm like, I just >> I don't I can't answer anything on this. I have to just start writing things. And it's very similar, just not great with exams. >> I Yeah, I think a lot of us were in that boat. The pressure is really high. And then the setting isn't great because then you're in like the student life center with like hundreds of other students and you know you look around you and everyone's just writing furiously and you're like I don't I don't know what to do. >> Why am I not writing? [laughter] Uh but I mean also I remember like I would do fine on the labs like it's yeah it was just a it was a confusing experience and so yeah like I I failed to be I found I found that term particularly difficult. Um, and I I don't know if you remember this, but that was also when swine flu was going around >> and yeah, that was >> we had hell week where we had midterms and labs in the same week and everyone was sick and I was sick. Uh, and it was >> fall term, so it was cold. [laughter] Like it was just a we were in uh the RCH basement. It was just overall like a terrible term for I think all of us. Um yeah, and then after that, you know, obviously it was very devastating for me when I failed that term because I'm like, I have to now wait a year to repeat. I've lost all my friends. I'm going to be off stream with everybody, my parents. >> That's a that's a really good thing to pause on too, right? because and we talked a little bit before we started recording and so some people not might not realize this but it's not like oh like failed the semester like no worries just like you know jump in on the on the next you know couple months it's like nope that's a whole year a whole year you have to wait before you can jump jump into the next cohort right >> yeah and actually the other thing that people don't talk about is so with our program you don't get summers right it's it's a study work study work so then I have to go into this co-op term term. Uh, I was I was doing co-op at RIM, which is now Blackberry, in the operating systems group. Uh, which is also like, you know, for a university student, you're doing like, sure, it's fine. you're an intern, you know, you're doing intern level work, but it's still like you're working on drivers and stuff. And uh and then you you're getting through that while still recovering from the devastation of having failed a term, wrestling, you know, with your whole identity because my whole identity up until that point had been exceeding academically. and I was having to face that the thing that I chose to do and that the thing that I like really enjoyed I was bad at. >> Um my parents were extremely upset at me. Um and it was it was a really tough period of my like that was probably to to that point that was probably the most difficult period in my life. And you had mentioned before too like the fact that and kind of interested maybe more perspective on this right like there's not many women in in the class right so you're probably looking at this there's probably an extra dimension that you know I'm not going to necessarily understand and maybe some viewers won't but like you're probably struggling with that too being like wait a second like is this confirming like this this bias against Yeah. I I had an intense fear of being perceived as stupid because of my gender. Uh especially in the class because you know at listen we were what like 18 19 20 like 20-year-old 20-year-olds overall are not the most like empathetic or emotionally intelligent. Uh, and there were some there were some percentage of the people that we we knew, like I'm not going to say I knew them that well. They weren't necessarily friends, but they were in our class and they were like there was no like they got they gave me no sympathy. They're just kind of like, well, you're stupid, you know? Uh, and so I really like internalized that and I felt really badly about myself. But then this is when kind of that like dissonance came in because I was still always getting really good reviews on my my co-ops. You know, I I loved coding. Um I remember that term just to like keep my mind off things. I wrote like a like an IRC client, you know, I was experimenting with like TCP libraries. That's also when I bought an Arduino and I was like trying to write my own drivers uh for that ECC add-on chip. >> This is stuff that like that that stupid people do, right? Of course. Yeah. >> Yeah. Well, it was I I joke because um at the time I told people like if you came into my room like in the apartment that I was sharing with people like you wouldn't you wouldn't understand who lived in this room because I had a table that was covered in like components and like like I had old video cards like old computers like I bought this old iMac that was like a power PC iMac and I was like trying to on Gen Two on it and then you look at the other side of the room and it's just like a bunch of makeup and like all this other stuff everywhere and it's [laughter] it's just like a very chaotic room. Um I mean but and that was me like that's still who I am but I felt very ashamed of who I was also because of that whole experience. Um but then then I had that period of you know I had that person uh in my life who had been in computer engineering also and he had he had failed out and he was like there's this hackathon happening at the student life center at school uh just just go and I yeah I had I didn't have a working laptop I just had like a netbook that I couldn't really do a hackathon on and he's like we'll we'll just bring your desktop so lugged my desktop in the snow. Uh, and you know, I had that's when I chose to like just experiment randomly. Every it was the hot era for Ruby on Rails and MongoDB. So, I was like, I'll just try this for the first time. Uh, and I wrote that um like a to-do list app, like grocery list app that was like that had the real-time updates with longpulling. And then I came second and then Facebook was like, "Yeah, I mean, you're you're definitely good enough to work at Facebook for a co-op at least, like you're not you're not bad." And I was like, "I am not bad." >> [laughter] >> Was that like a like the start of like getting some positive reinforcement in sort of I don't want to say like it necessarily flip the switch and everything was everything's perfect, but did was that the start of feeling like wait a second, maybe this is for me. Yeah, I I think so because um you know that was one of those like 24-hour hackathons where you're up all night and you're sleepd deprived and I realized like I'm really good at problem solving on my feet. I've never even looked at Ruby before. [laughter] Like this is my first time looking at a NoSQL database. I'm like I was I was just calm. I was, you know, I'm like, I understand all the underlying concepts here. I can just figure it out. And I I did. I had a working demo. A lot of people didn't end up with a working demo. Um, and you know, they asked me some good questions. They're like, why why do long polling instead of short polling? And like I was answering all of that stuff. Uh, and then but to be fair, like I think some part of me just went into autopilot because I was really tired, you I was I was still kind of depressed also from >> the fail. So, and then after that I was like, "Hey, I >> how did that even happen?" And even on the, you know, I didn't automatically get the Facebook co-op. They're like, "You win an interview." And then the interview was uh, you know, I'm sure people who do Leap code all the time have seen this now, but I had never seen it before. It was the end queen's problem. >> And I remember just going into autopilot again. And then just like I blacked out and I did the interview and then they were like that's actually the correct solution and I was like oh >> you're like where am I? >> Yeah. [laughter] Um and so then they're like congrats you're going to San Francisco. And I was like what? Um and actually again this is you know my parents aren't really going to be happy that I'm saying this publicly. And I I do forgive them for this because, you know, I think they had been so traumatized by my academic failures that I when I first told them about this, they were like, "Are you sure? Like, are you getting scammed?" Like, they didn't fully believe that I was capable of doing that well. And then when they real when I got the offer letter, when I signed the offer letter, when I got the the visa for it and everything, they were like, "Oh, wow. This is this is real. >> Real. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Um and so yeah, after Yeah. I remember I had to actually wait till after the following 2B to to do co-op. So I repeated the 2B and then I went on co-op. Uh and then I think it like somehow we were back on stream or something. Uh because that's when I roommed with Sorz, Michael Sorz, our our old classmate uh in San Francisco and that was that was a really fun term. >> Cool. >> Um yeah, that was he he was doing co-op at Zinga. I was doing co-op at Facebook. >> There was a lot of people at Zinga, I feel like, from our class. Like a lot. But that's cool. >> Yeah, I think there were at least like four or five. Um, >> yeah, and there were just a lot of people from our class in the area at the time. [clears throat] Um, so it was just it was a super fun term and I I had missed everyone so much. You know, being off stream with all of you had been really hard on me and I was still finding ways to hang out, but it was it was nice to have that group especially. I think also people don't realize, I think a lot of Americans especially don't realize that Canadian culture and American culture is different enough that you feel it, >> right? >> Um, and so I had my, you know, group of Canadians here with me in the States. Uh, and we were all kind of navigating these like subtle differences together. Um, and we were also navigating things like, oh, there's like health insurance and stuff, you know? >> Yeah. Like, what is what does that even mean? Like, I hope I don't get hurt or something like [laughter] >> Yeah. So, after that, I think my confidence just went up a lot. Um I I [snorts] remember by uh by fourth year we had to do the FYDP and um you know I just kind of like took the lead in my group and I was like once we decided on what we were building I was like okay this is our hardware component this is our software component. >> It's happening. Yes. >> Yeah. I'm like I'll make the net list. I'll design the PCB. I'll send it for manufacturing. Like I mean everyone was kind of like pitching in but I remember you know at that by that point I had done everything from working in drivers and operating systems you know on Blackberry to all the way like top of the stack at you know the Facebook co-ops were literally on the Facebook website. So my my first co-op I was on photos and videos. My second co-op was like locations and events and I contributed to a bunch of other stuff internally. Um, so I was like, "Hey, I guess I'm, you know, I know the full stack now, so you know, just listen to me." [laughter] And and they, you know, I had a pretty passive group, so they were like, they were really great, but then they were like, "Sure." You know, um, and then when I graduated, actually, that's where, you know, I I know you're at Microsoft. That's when I I I was like, I don't want to go back to Facebook because I didn't actually enjoy being that high up in the stack. All of my >> Interesting. >> Yeah. my my 4A and 4B were all like embedded systems, embedded security, computer architecture, all of that stuff. And so I I got this interview at at Microsoft. >> And this is this is uh I have your LinkedIn up. Sorry. So this is after graduating though, like for Microsoft. Okay. >> Yeah. Um, so I did this interview and they were like, this is the interesting part. So they were like, you're clearly very technical and we know exactly where we want to place you, which is Windows core. We're you you were born to be in the wound at Windows and devices group. Okay. Um, but would you like to try being a PM? I mean, there's only at the time like we didn't really have product managers like everyone. It was like a program manager. you're just kind of everything at one time, everything that's [clears throat] not an engineer at one time. Um, and so they were like, do you want to be a program manager in Windows Core? And I was like, sure, I don't know what that means, but but sure, I'll do it. Um, and it was I loved it because it was still a fairly technical role. Uh so initially I they they put me in kernel but then they reorged me into storage and file systems and initially I was kind of like bummed about it because I was like storage isn't cool and then I learned very quickly like no storage is really cool like file systems are really cool and we actually um you know I came in at the the end of like Windows 8.1 or that had just gone out and so we had started on the Windows 10 release. Okay. >> Which was a multi-year effort and we were doing the whole unified Windows thing. So we were trying to do kind of the same OS distribution across like Windows consumer, Windows Server, Xbox. The Xbox One launch was so interesting because they were using the same unified Windows under the hood. And so like our group was part of the whole like storage virtualization for that so that 360 games and like Red Dead Redemption and stuff could still run on Xbox One. Um and then we were part of like >> developing NVMe as a technology for the industry. Uh and like I was I was part of the eMMC like the flash storage roll out for Surface laptops. >> And then actually my claim to fame that like no one probably knows or cares about is I was the one who designed the storage settings in Windows. The mo the one in mo the modern storage settings. So, uh, you know, I know it's really slow, but like, you know, when it's like indexing all yourself, like that was all like me. [laughter] Um, >> that's awesome. >> Yeah. But, you know, we still, we were still, like I said, fairly technical like uh all the program managers in that space. We all had engineering degrees like you have to understand a lot of OS concepts. >> I had a question about that though because it's uh it's kind of interesting, right? you had said at Facebook you were doing sort of top end of the stack and you're like that's that's a little bit too high and then so you transition into a role where you're not you're not the software developer but I'm assuming that was still a really good fit because you were at the exact opposite end of the spectrum for like how deep and technical the the pieces are. Is that fair to say? Yeah, I the it the like what I was working with was so exciting to me and I know a lot of people like did like some of the people I at Facebook that I had made good friend like friends with they did not understand they're like why would you leave Facebook to go to Microsoft and you know at the time like Microsoft wasn't hot it was like Steve Balmer had just like left and it was the stock was like 35 a share it wasn't what it is now so it was like pre the cool era of Microsoft or just at the tail end of that. But I was like, I'm getting so much fulfillment from this. Like I I felt like I was in this very interesting multidisciplinary role where I still got to like I'd have to read bus diagrams. I had to understand power states. Um, I had to understand how flash storage worked versus rotational storage and and like uh we were doing all this interesting stuff for consumer devices for Windows phone which was still alive at the time for you know like Surface Surface >> one of those. I had a Windows phone. >> Me too. I actually brought my Windows phone to the interview and they're like wow someone who doesn't work at Microsoft that has a Windows phone. [laughter] Um, and so yeah, I I was in so I was in storage and file systems for like three years. Uh, and I would say like that actually set me up probably for the rest of my career. But I think by the by the time I got to that point like I actually started to feel like something not start I had been feeling like something was wrong even though I was enjoying myself. And what I realized was I didn't actually like being a program manager. I wanted to go back to to software engineering. >> So the domain like that part was interesting. The the technical part analysis like everything that you're dealing with is interesting, but the the type of work that you're carrying out on a day-to-day basis maybe isn't the right thing. >> Yeah. And I had stuck out in the role for a while because continually like the the dev lead I was supporting or even my GPM and stuff, they were like, it's much easier to be visible as a PM. It's much easier to get promoted or have career success as a PM. And I was like, but I'm a PM in in storage and file systems. Like, it's still not that visible. like whatever benefit you're talking about, I don't know if I'm getting that much from it. But also, and I I actually tell people this too, like really examine like if if something feels wrong, look at your trajectory also as a signal for whether you feel like you're in the right role because actually a lot of my friends were getting promoted a lot faster and some of that was they were not in the same domain. Like obviously Windows has a really long ship cycle. >> Sure. And you get promoted usually when things ship, but even then I felt like I was like a little behind. And I remember having a conversation with my GPM too where he's like, you are so smart, but something doesn't seem to be clicking here. And I and I told him like, I don't think my heart is in this. And it's not that my heart isn't in storage. I don't think my heart's in PM. And then he was like, just try out maybe just try out a different team. Maybe something else will click. Uh, so I actually changed orgs at Microsoft. I went to Universal Store, which is the backend for the Windows app store and the Xbox store. Uh, but also there was like a bunch of other stuff it fed into. Unfortunately, you know, people complain about the ads being in the start menu and the, you know, action center. Like that was that was Yeah, that was that that was actually specifically me. Like I was the one in charge of the ads and the start menu. And I felt so bad because I'm like, I know no one likes this, but I have to do it. >> We we we'll we'll edit this part out, right, so no one will know. >> Oh, it's like Kevin, this part stays in. [laughter] >> Um, but yeah, and and I remember I felt even more strongly like this is not right for me. Um, >> and you know, I was asking around and they were like, "Look, the role you had in Windows is really uncommon. You know, what you're doing now is actually more realistic or more true to the PM, >> the program manager or product manager experience. So, if you don't like this, you just don't like being a PM." And it took me like four years to figure that out. Um and then I loved Microsoft. You know, Microsoft I still hold in such high esteem. Like it it was one of the best parts of my career. But the one thing I found very challenging about being M at Microsoft was uh it was very hard to switch job ladders or yeah like job families once once you'd been in a role for a certain amount of time. And so the barrier to switching back to dev was very challenging. But I I was like extremely determined to make this happen. And I was like, come hell or high water, I'm I'm going to become a software engineer again. Uh and then around the same time, you know, I was living in Seattle at this point and the other big company there's Amazon and everyone's like, "Oh, Amazon's really I knew it was scary, but I was like I heard that switching roles at Amazon was much easier than at Microsoft." So, I saw it kind of as like maybe a necessary evil. >> Sorry, Amazon. Actually, no, I'm not saying sorry, Amazon. [laughter] Um, but I I joined Amazon pretty much with the explicit purpose of switching back to dev. And then I I did. Uh, the interesting there thing there is they don't allow you to be downleveled. So, >> Oh. So you have to if you switch in as a senior you have like the the the level of what you switch into also has to be senior. Um, so you know, and then the bar for me was quite high. Like I had to do a full loop and then I also had to like write a production service uh because I had to prove that I could still do software engineering in from a like in a day-to-day capacity. Um actually to just to make it clear to some people like this this was I jo I I I had to join uh Amazon as a program manager and then I immediately switched to dev essentially. Um so it was an internal production service. It wasn't like some random take-home thing. They don't they don't do that. >> You made Amazon Prime. [laughter] >> Yeah. Well, no I didn't. But I was on the logistics side when I switched. So this service was actually like for for delivery >> like routing. Yeah, it was actually kind of cool except I was really stressed out. So it wasn't like I wasn't enjoying it. I was like I got to get this get this thing done. Um and then after I switched to dev, I moved into Alexa. Um and that was a really that was a really interesting experience I learned a lot from and you know I enjoyed my time there too. But obviously after like not being doing like not doing industry development every day for you know 4 years. >> Mhm. >> You are kind of rusty like >> Sure. >> Yes. I cleared the bar. I cleared the interview. I wrote the service. Uh and just the you know I had to get PR reviews and stuff too. So I wasn't like super rusty but there were some things like I was not used to especially also like in drivers and OS on you don't have on call. like I went from like not having coded regularly in a while to coding every day and then being part of an on call rotation. Uh and then you know I ended up being like more on the platform and infra side of this team. It was actually a full stack team. And so then I had to start like hand rolling cloud formation and I was like setting up all these like pipelines and setting up all this infrastructure and like learning about VPCs and VPC links and you know uh I was the oh and then actually there was this huge companywide migration happening and and a bunch of initiatives that were requiring us to run all our services in elastic container service. And this is interesting because people assume like hey AWS has been around for a while that means like all of Amazon uses AWS and that was actually not true at the time on the retail side. They were using like this old fabric and like old set of systems still to run all the services that were not that were not on traditional or what we called native AWS internally. Uh, and so all these VPs were like, "We want to get off of that as much as possible. We need you to migrate all your all your legacy services onto this onto AWS and we need you to run all new services in AWS, specifically in Elastic Container Service for some reason." Um, and so then our team was like the second in the whole company to do this, which was insane because I was like, I I feel like I'm still ramping back up again and I don't have anyone to copy. [laughter] So, >> right. Yeah. Yeah. >> Uh, and so I remember that was like a very intense period for me, too. You know, I I wrote these technical docs. They got reviewed a lot. that I did all these consultations with people. I ended up contributing like a bunch of shims that everyone else ended up using to run their services in Elastic Container Service. Uh and then I I wrote a bunch of these like internal wikis where for like a few years after I left Amazon, people would like reach out to me on LinkedIn and say, "Thank you for your elastic container service wiki tutorials." >> Awesome. I was like, "Ah, my legacy lives on." Um, >> so I'm imagining the imposttor syndrome was probably uh insane at this point because you're like, "I'm trying to get ramped back up now. I'm at the forefront of some migration like you said, I can't copy other people." H how uh if if that's accurate, how long like did the imposttor syndrome kind of last? Uh, >> it was I I think I had imposter syndrome for the entire time I was at Amazon. Um, and it was only towards the may like the last couple of months that I was like, "No, I'm I'm actually doing really well." Um, and I a lot of the the imposture syndrome I felt too, like I recognized it was no longer logical. it was purely an emotional like it was an anxiety response. Um and it kind of tied back I think to even those like early days in Waterlue where I was so afraid of being perceived poorly. Um but you know towards the time my you know the end of my time at Amazon like I had junior engineers like coming up to me asking me for advice getting my thoughts on things and like they had no idea that I spent four years being a PM like they just were like she's a you know pretty senior software engineer and she's like an AWS god like she knows all of this stuff you know I'm going to go talk to her. Uh, and I'm like, "Let me teach you about VPC peering, you know." [laughter] Um, so I I think that was like the end almost of my questioning myself. I was like, "No, I think I'm really really good at this." Uh and interesting interestingly with that whole effort too like I didn't have a PM for that because >> okay >> the the PM function at at least in our org was they were like business PMs. We didn't really have engineering PMs like at Microsoft. >> Okay. >> So I had to program manage everything and I would do all of this stuff and I would send out email blasts with like these matrices of like these are the dependencies that are complete. This is what's outstanding. These are the stakeholders. uh these are the customer teams that are waiting on these things because actually like one of the services I actually wrote a after we did this migration I wrote a service in elastic container service also like on top of the infra that I written it was like a secure asset store service and then like some team in New York was like can we use your service uh so then they were you know stakeholders and I was like oh I'm basically just a tech lead now like I'm just doing all the stuff and you know I was also like directing some other more junior engineers. Um, and then I think that's when it started. >> Did your PM experience help a lot? Like it was just kind of natural because you're like this has to get done and like you kind of just see it and you know what to do because you've done it. >> Yeah, I I I do believe that actually is what happened. Um because you know the PM function it forces you to be very communicative like you don't you don't have a lot of tangible output right you don't have a lot of power like yeah you write your docs and you write some user stories and stuff um on on the more product side but really like your your uh contribution comes from influencing teams without authority, being very communicative, unblocking things, just making things happen for other people. Except in this case, I was making it happen for myself and for a few other engineers. Um, and I think by the time I left Amazon, I was like very confident in my like engineering leadership ability, which is sort of what took me into my like next role. Uh I ended up at Cocoon, you know, which was a it was like a small Y Combinator uh funded startup that actually got acquired later by Substack. Um but yeah, by that point I was like, okay, this is a it's a different vibe. It was like a zero to one product. It was consumer social, but I just like I was fully just like I know how to execute. I have no questions about my own ability. I can I can I can operate in a fully ambiguous environment now. Um which I think is where a lot of you >> h >> I said yeah you'd proven that to yourself right like you it's it's no longer a matter of like oh no if that happens if I'm put into such an environment like what's going to happen to me it's like no I I know that I can do this I have done it. Yeah, I and I think it's a combination of things, right? Like in in for a lot of us, I think just experience with different projects gets you there. And I think in my case, there was that additional factor of I'd been in so many of these like tumultuous situations or big career pivots where I'm like, is this am I doing the right thing? Is this like I don't know what I'm doing, but I better make it happen. You know, I don't have a choice. So I think my tolerance for you know not having clarity about what was supposed to happen just got very high because I was like okay I don't know what to do I will figure it out somehow. >> Um yeah unfortunately you know that company was you know it started to run out of like runway and I got laid off at the end of the same year I joined. That was a little stressful because I was on an H-1B uh you know as a Canadian and I was like oh I have 60 days to find a job and that's how I my friend Sorz our friend Sorz uh he was at Chime he just he'd been a he had joined like a few months prior and he's like let me refer you as an engineering manager um and I was like yeah you know why not [laughter] >> yeah yes we will do that >> yeah and I mean So I I got I got the role and I joined for an infra team to manage an infra team and then there was a reorg and they're like do you have any fintech experience? I was like no they're like well you're just going to manage this accounts team and this is not user accounts by the way this is like bank account abstractions. So I was like I I don't Okay, [laughter] sure. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Um but I think again like I I like I mentioned I had stopped kind of questioning my ability to learn. Like I think I had proven to myself I can learn to just pick up these domains. Um, and I think that's what honestly engineering is all about. Like so I know there are some people who, you know, their whole lives are kind of in one space. They go very deep into a single domain. They're subject matter experts. But I think there are also a lot of people who are kind of like me where they jump around. Uh they have more of a breath thing. But I think because I had such a strong foundation in engineering between Waterlue and even like the early days like being in Microsoft also helped a lot because I think a lot of the the cloud and network concepts are kind of translations of like low-level concepts right you know >> uh at Chime I actually after this accounts team I did move into like the infra and dev tools org for this com for Chime. I was there for three years managing this team uh that they managed a lot a lot of the caching infrastructure and a lot of like SDKs and abstractions for the rest of engineering at Chime and you know we talk about like okay what happens when circuit breakers trip what what what do we do with rate limiting this and that and it's like these are also circuits concepts these are analog circuits con like circuit breaker is literally a you know it's a term from circuits um you know rate limiting you can even think about that in terms of like resistance and things like that you know you're just slowing the flow of current or traffic >> right >> um and I think once you know once you start being able to associate those kinds of concepts um it's really life-changing because that that's kind of how you're like well I can kind of just drop into whatever and try to figure it out. [laughter] Yeah, different names, different flavors of things, like different contexts, but when you boil these things down to their fundamentals, like you see a lot of different parallels and you're like, "Okay, like you know, it might might look a little different over here, a little different over there, but overall, like if you can see these things like at their at their low levels, then yeah, you you truly can drop yourself into these different areas." It's I think that's a really cool way to look at that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, the the challenge for me as I, you know, have kind of grown into my engine manager career is really more on the people side because then you realize like, oh, not only am I helping problem solve like engineering problems, obviously you're doing like engineering road mapping and high higher level strategy at that point, but then you're also kind of like a therapist. You're like managing people's emotions. you're like a mediator, [gasps] you know. >> It's uh it's funny. My my wife is literally a therapist. So when it it's it's just very interesting to hear because I'll get, you know, bits of her day and she'll get bits of mine and sometimes I'm like, "Yeah, maybe like you know, I would never call myself a therapist like like in seriousness." But yeah, some of the things when you're dealing with people, it truly is like kind of like a therapy session, right? uh maybe different magnitudes of things going on but yeah it's uh it's interesting. Yeah, honestly and it was it was a it was an interesting being in in that one or too. Um, you know, I feel like infra dev tools like all these kinds of spaces attract a certain type of personality which is like cranky. >> Seems seems to be that way. That's that's all I've done at Microsoft for five years is like platforms. But you know what's actually funny is I I always perceived myself as not that kind of person and then I've heard since then like no you you actually are also like that. [laughter] Um but you know it was like a very I had a a very senior group of engineers. Uh to be honest like when I first took over that team I think I was actually the second youngest like when I considered all my devs and myself together and then they were just like kind of a cranky bunch. Um so then they would get into these like arguments with other engineering teams where they were like why are you misusing Reddus like like why aren't you paying you know sometimes it's like oh you know why are you running out of resources it's because you're not paying attention to your autoscaling like learn engineering and [laughter] guys that's way too like you can't say like that, you know, >> old man yells at cloud kind of thing. Yeah. Just like taking it out on people. That's funny. [laughter] >> No, it's the kids that are wrong, you know. >> Yeah. Um, so dealing with all of that was was interesting, but I think if I was not going to be in drivers or operating systems, especially just because the the need for that these day, I feel like it's a hard space to be visible in still and there just fewer jobs in that area. But I I think if I was not going to be in that, I I was definitely going to be in something like infra and dev tools and you know I I'm the kind of person where I enjoy Kubernetes memes and stuff which is I think also like the connection to Marino here because he's always at these like Kubernetes conferences. So like I wasn't necessarily like reaching out to him but I was like admiring him from afar like oh that's cool. Um but yeah so I I I managed that team actually at one point I was managing two teams there because I had that first team that I mentioned called application framework and then I was managing a because Chime is largely a Ruby company. So the Ruby came back somehow we went full circle as Ruby on Rails. [laughter] >> Uh and I was actually the other team was a Ruby excellence team. So they were like enforcing like idiomatic Ruby standards and stuff throughout the company and it was we actually had an internal Ruby conference that um my staff engineer from that team and I kind of like set up uh >> and it was very cool and then then I realized like oh you know I keep jumping around and I think the problem is me so now I must change orgs again. [laughter] Uh, and so actually for the first time ever I'm in like a product engineering manager role. So I'm in the product engineering order at Chime. So now I'm actually working on stuff that's directly in the Chime app. I'm managing a full stack team. I have mobile developers in Poland also, which has been interesting, >> right? >> Um, >> is that sort of first time with a cross cross geo management for you like in like completely different time zones? you I mean on on the previous team everyone was in a North American time zone. This is my first time managing people like outside of North America, >> right? >> Uh you know and there's a cultural difference, time zone difference obviously like the I had a one-on-one with one of my mobile developers at 11:45 p.m. like this last week. Um, but to be fair, like up till that point, he'd always been doing really late. Like we'd have standup and it's like he's just tired and it's clearly like night outside and now it's like >> two 2 in the morning. Yeah. Um, I had a a dotted line report uh from Suja China. And we didn't we didn't do like weekly one ones, but for that team it would be like every month we do a one-on-one just to catch up and stuff. And I gave them full flexibility. I'm like, "Hey, like whenever you want, it's it's very infrequent. I'll make it work." And they would pick times that were like 1 or 2 in the morning for them >> by choice. And they're like, "Almost all of us are night owls here." And I'm like, I am a night owl and I would not take a meeting at 2 [laughter] in the morning by choice. >> Yeah, that's a little intense. So for for me, I'm like, if we do it before midnight, I'm still chill about it. And then it's then it's no. Um, >> but yeah, I mean I this is where I am now. I'm I'm enjoying myself. I'm working on some like very high impact stuff and you know I'm excited about some launches and rollouts although you know they're a few months out but yeah that's that's the whole career journey which I guess took like almost 50 minutes this [laughter] recording time. No, it's super awesome though. And I just want to double check with you. I know I I I have you for an hour. We're a little over. Do you still have a little bit of time to chat? >> Yeah. Yeah. I actually have nothing else after this. So, >> okay. Awesome. Um, yeah. I I have two questions that kind of came to mind around like you had talked a lot about, you know, feeling like when you're in a function, right? So, as a PM or as a dev, like kind of like gravitating towards engineering. So I guess the two things I want to ask about are um one as an engineering manager I don't know like in your role are you are you still writing code and if not is that something where you're like oh crap like I really miss that or it feels like a void that needs to be filled. >> Yeah. So I don't I no longer write code. I haven't written code at Chime. I haven't written production code at Chime ever. Like I've updated readmes and stuff, but uh I have done like I have reviewed poll requests for example and like done proper reviews. It wasn't like a rubber stamp kind of situation. >> Um I've also >> Yeah, just like oh cool oneliner, you know. No, it was like a you know it was a proper review. I've also written like a lot of technical docs, reviewed technical docs like um I you know I think I can say this because everyone involved knows now but we actually did this very large Reddus internal Reddus migration over the last year from uh a nonAWWS vendor to AWS like Elasticash and then we we actually like enforced a lot of there was a lot of like weird cache usage going on >> um across a lot of services and we did this massive effort to fix all of it just because we were we were having like a lot of problems with like failovers and things like that. Um and so I wrote the initial deep dive and like technical doc and and the whole you know I also like mapped out the whole effort and all the work streams and stuff. Um but I do still feel that void especially I think in in product engineering my role is very different. It obviously is a bit more product focused and you know sometimes like in a week I might not really do what I consider to be engineering management work at all. Like there's a lot of time I'm spending with like compliance people, you know, like making sure you got the sock too right or like talking to lawyers or whatever. I feel like they didn't talk to us about this in school. Like all these other things that aren't just I don't know chemistry and physics. It's like you're going to have to work with privacy and compliance. Like I don't want to do that. But yeah, we have to. [laughter] >> Yeah, we we do. Yeah, you don't have a choice. But I mean I still enjoy coding in my spare time. I'm always kind of doing projects even if I don't like launch anything. >> Um just for the sake of learning. Uh I think with like AI and stuff now too it's it makes it easier to tinker. Granted like I am very careful not to just even in my own projects like commit AI slop >> to [laughter] to the repo. Um, I I think just from my own training, I think a lot of us who've been here a while and aren't new to the field like understand that even if you're if you're learning a new language, for example, like I, you know, AI seems to be really good at Typescript. So, I'm like, you know, screw it. I'll I'll do some I'll spin up this TypeScript project. But like I'm also cognizant that what the AI has been trained on is like thousands of public GitHub repos that don't necessarily have a quality bar. And so you can't always trust that what you're getting is the like the blessed way of doing it or like the you know what the industry standard is. So then you have to kind of like go look it up like is this the right way? like do people do people define interfaces this way? Like do whatever it is like do people use types this way? Um and there were a couple of time like initially I sort of did fall into that trap of like I'll just go with what the AI says and then and then I was like wait but for the things I know I I I don't accept a lot of the AI you know output. So why should I just go with what it's saying for these other languages I'm trying to learn or these other frameworks? Uh, and I still believe that I'm actually, you know, like I said, Chime is a a Ruby on Rails shop largely. We use Go as well, but when we hire engineers, like we're we're hiring them based on like their general engineering skill set. We don't necessarily expect them I think this is true of most tech companies. You don't expect people to spec like know a specific language unless it's very relevant to the role. And so, you know, we'll hire like junior engineers and especially I think a lot of junior engineers rely heavily on AI these days. >> Um, and I really have to remind them like don't just blindly trust the AI because it's very obvious from the PR you put out that this was all AI generated. And that's and the reason it's obvious is it's because it's doing stuff that like a human dev like wouldn't do or an experienced Ruby developer wouldn't do. Um we noticed like actually in you know obviously when you put out a PR you want to put unit tests in there. Uh >> and you know in some like in some of these RSpec tests that are very heavily AI generated there's a lot of over mocking going on like they're mocking out a whole bunch of stuff you don't need to mock out. It's like yeah >> what are you know >> my my most common like AI frustration is like like okay so if I have it generate code for me and then I'm like okay I know I have to write a bunch of tests I might as well get it to like scaffold a bunch of tests. What ends up happening sometimes is that it writes tests with names that look really good, the setup looks good, and then I read the actual code and I'm like, the system under test isn't even real code. It's like it's like a mock object or it's like a or a new object. It's not truly a mock, but it's just like a dummy thing that's not even used. >> So, it wrote what looks like a good test on code that isn't even real. And it's like, yeah, that's terrifying. [laughter] >> Yeah. And I think like a lot of the more junior engineers, you know, they're still kind of developing their I guess observation skill. I mean, that's that's like I'm not I'm not even joking about that. You just develop these skills over time. So they these tests get generated and then the tests pass. So they're like, "Great, [laughter] >> I have a I have a positive signal. I have the test. I have the green check marks." like and if you're scanning through them like if assuming that they're actually reading some of it, they're probably at a high level going looks like it's doing the right things. >> Yeah. I mean, I guess like you know, this is where like the line coverage and all of that stuff comes into play, but you know, again, if you're if you're just learning, you may not even think to look at a lot of that stuff. >> It takes time. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, sorry. I know you said you had two questions. >> Yeah. Yeah. And the other one I wanted to ask was around so so thank you for talking about like the the sort of the the technical or the how you're how you're still feeling connected to code. Um it's it's kind of similar to my experience actually like I don't write code at Microsoft but I love to code outside of work still finding ways to develop stuff. But the other question I had was around um and I I kind of asked a little bit about it earlier, but now that you're in like an engineering manager role, um do you find that your prior experience in a PM role also contributes well here? Um, I'm the reason I'm asking this is that when I talk about engineering management, uh, in general, like whether it's on social media with people that are curious about it, I try to remind people like going from an engineer role to a manager role is not like a it's often perceived as like direct promotion. Like that's the obvious next step, but like it's a very >> different role. And I was very curious to hear sort of like your experience in transitioning into that with the prior experience from your career. >> I I do think the PM skill set has helped me be successful in this role and I think I was able to avoid a bunch of the gotchas a lot of like new managers fall into because I I had that experience. Um so like for example right you don't realize you have all these stakeholders or you think like my stakeholders are just like product and a bunch of other engineering teams and you don't realize you might have a you have design stakeholders you have analytics stakeholders you have uh bisdev stakeholders like you have all these legal stakeholders like you have all these different parties where they have requirements that actually do directly impact the software that you're writing, right? because then you're like, "Oh, I need to include this analytics event or I need to take into account masking out this field in this schema because that's considered PII, you know, >> and I I knew like immediately right when I when I transitioned roles like this is going to be it's going to be a mix of kind of being having that tech lead mindset and >> program managing all of this and managing these people to make sure that we don't fail. >> Um, so the stakeholder management piece was very very important. Uh, and I think yeah, that's that's the trap a lot of people fall into where they're like, I'm just here to manage the team. No, you're you're you're managing down, you're managing sideways, and you're managing up, you know. Um, and I think the other thing too is also learning to think about your the success of your team a little differently. Um because your success doesn't just come from like delivery of the immediate software that your devs are writing or I mean you you yourself are not writing software anymore but it's also like strategically understanding how what everyone is doing actually contributes to the larger roadmap to the business. >> Is it meaningful? >> Does the scope make sense? Um, so I think that that stuff is stuff that you do as a PM also. You know, usually you collaborate with your manager. So I was like, well, now I'm just on the other side of that, >> right? Yeah. So you your prior experience had even given you some insight into like, you know, sort of what the engineering manager as a stakeholder would have to be doing. Now you're just on the other side of that. So you had a little bit of insight. >> Yeah. Um, yeah. I honestly I would never take back that experience of being a PM. Um I actually know a few other people who've done the same transition uh who were PMs. I think Microsoft for what it's worth seems to love having PMs or at least they did for a while. Like the ratio of program managers to devs was really high at one point. I think it was like one to five or something like that. um which it absolutely did not need to be like that. [laughter] Um so I think a lot of people who went through Microsoft um that maybe came across as communicative or whatever got converted to being PMs and then a lot of us were like uh I don't know about this and like switched back. >> Well, it's uh it's interesting. I I was curious about it and you kind of said it, but uh I didn't want to sort of bias anything you were perhaps going to say about it, but it was very interesting to hear you say like you don't that's experience like you don't regret like it's not like oh no like I got the the program manager experience on my resume like how do I go hide that or I wish I could have that time back. It's actually valuable experience and um one of the the things that I have found from you know from catching up with people and talking through their careers is that like you'll you're on a path right you're at you're at some point and you're on a path somewhere but all of the experience that you gain along the way even if it's like you know might not have been exactly what you would have planned you know x number of years ago but you go on this journey and all of these different experiences that you gain are absolut absolutely valuable in whatever capacity and contributing to like your forward growth. So having something like program manager, you know, as multiple years of experience for you has been, I'm sure, incredibly valuable and, you know, enabled you to be a better engineer afterwards, enabled you to be a better engineering manager afterwards. So um yeah, hearing you say like you don't regret that time I think was really helpful. >> Yeah. And I mean what's the purpose in hiding it? Like I know some people some engineers es especially they look at non-engineer experiences like not like not a good thing. It's like oh you know >> um but I can't hide it. Like if if I go anywhere I go they're going to do a check like a job history check. They're going to do a background check and they're going to see what titles you held. So, I can't, you know, I'm not going to lie or pretend like, hey, I was a dev at Microsoft when you're going to look and clear like Microsoft will tell you, yeah, she was a program manager. Um, but I think it also anyways obvious when someone speaks to me the kind of experience I've had because then I'll be like, "Yeah, I was a program manager, but like I said, I was reading like bus diagrams. I was looking at like addressable memory and stuff, you know, like >> Yeah. Yeah. And like and it comes with such a beneficial set of experiences, right? Like your ability to go navigate not only the technical pieces there, but just like navigating like as you were kind of describing the the PM function, like having to unblock people, keep things moving, communicate with the right groups, like all of that stuff is tremendously valuable. So, um I I do like reminding people like, hey, uh you know, even for people that are trying to break into tech, sometimes people will say, well, you know, I'm trying to get in and like I don't actually have dev experience at like professionally. And it's like, well, I've talked to someone who was like uh on one of these podcasts, uh he was a a flight instructor for helicopters in the military and like had done it for years and years and years. And I'm like, dude, there is so much like interesting like experience that you could talk about. It's not directly developer experience, but so much stuff that would be unique to being able to, you know, perform effectively in an engineering role. Um, but I don't think a lot of people think about other roles and try to like I don't know extract like the valuable skill sets, but they have interesting experiences. >> Yeah, actually I've seen this. So, Chime is one of the first companies that I've been at where a lot of people, I would say the majority, but like a non-trivial number of of people that I've met at Chime have non-traditional backgrounds relative to, you know, like Microsoft and Amazon tend to hire pretty traditionally, you know, actually even at Cocoon it was like exfang people. So, you know, more traditional backgrounds, but at at Chime, it's been a mix because in the early days of Chime, way before IPO, like it wasn't actually it was not doing so great. So, like they hired a lot of people from boot camps and stuff. >> Uh, and some of those people, a bunch of those people are still here. So, you have people like I I have this this friend that I made internally who's actually now my my peer in this org. Uh, he's another engineering manager. He actually recently got promoted to senior engineering manager. Um, but he used to do labor work on a tomato farm in the central valley in California. Uh, and he what I have seen from him is that his tolerance for stress, handling stress is extremely high relative to a lot of other people. So he learned a lot of his dev skills on the job or like through the book boot book boot camp and on the job but in inc like he is a really good incident coordinator um because of just his background uh and it's not like he's not an anxious person but like I think like it's an example of how like a different environment where you might be put under a lot of stress can translate well to engineering or like other skills like I had a report early in Chime who her she was a teacher and then she transitioned into software engineering and uh I actually made her the tech lead for the team eventually because she was so good at she was very structured and she was really good at mentoring people you know uh all of these skill sets matter you know to your point >> that's awesome and thanks for sharing those examples because sometimes I talk about it and I'm like ah I wish I had like some things like some some better more concrete things to pull out. But yeah, like those are two awesome ones. The the tomato farmer one's incredible because that one to me, as you say it, it's like, okay, how is this one going to possibly line up? But it's it's true like for people that have not been in like an on call like incident bridge type of thing. Imagine like you can imagine some of the smartest people that you work with and then like things aren't going right and all of a sudden it's like uh I don't know what to do. Like everything's on fire. I can't think. Honestly, I the people there are people who I've I've seen in incidents who have done this whole like like either they were in physical labor like construction or whatever it is for a long time or they were in the service industry. Their thresholds for stress and like their stamina levels are so high. So they can be like in these like 10hour incidents, you know, they can be like in a sev0 zero or sev one or sev 2 or whatever and like you know they're stressed. It's not like they're not, >> but >> they just they handle it a little differently, I feel. >> Yeah. and the people like it's pretty obvious when people don't handle it well, especially if they're in a position that's like a bit more of like an authority or leadership position because it makes everyone else around them also feel more stressed. And when you have someone like you're describing like they they remain calm and as a side effect like it helps calm other people around so that everyone's not like like you know stuff's on fire but you're like okay like there there is a path forward. We will figure it out. And instead of just panicking and being like can't do anything, it's like nope, like start taking some steps. Like we'll make it through it. But it makes a huge difference in those high stress scenarios. So that's that's a really cool one. >> Yeah. >> Well, I figured um I don't this is like my final question, I guess, and I didn't ask you this ahead of time, so I don't mean to put you on the spot, but in terms of like parting words of wisdom, if you could give that to anyone who wants to get into software development. Um, do you have anything that you'd like to to share with folks? >> Um, yeah. I think [gasps] there there are two things like don't shy away from hard stuff whether it is like tedious work or like challenging concepts because the way that you learn is by is by working through those things. Um, but the other thing is also I mean I actually it kind of ties into this like I think perseverance overall is is very important and just persisting because I think once you get over whatever hump it is whether it's a hump in learning a hump in progress in whatever project that you're working on or even a hump in terms of like I know the market is challenging right now especially for a lot of people entering like If this is something you love and you think that you would be good at, don't don't give up on yourself just because you're not getting the opportunities that you expect or things have changed. Um, I think it's this this field to me is really worth it. There's something really fulfilling about being in software in technology and being specifically in a building role. Um, and so, you know, I just want to encourage everyone to kind of stay the path and and keep trying. You know, I think you'll you'll get there. Uh, yeah. And also, you know, if if you need any career advice I'm around beyond this this >> Well, that's the the the the last, I guess, question that I wanted to ask you that's not like a, you know, a surprise question or anything, but like if people want to get in touch with you, what is the best way that they can reach out to you or or see things that you're talking about or anything like that? >> Yeah, I've been a little less active lately, but I am I am on X, I am on LinkedIn, so you can use those avenues. Uh, and then also I do have a website that is like my full name.com and so you can like reach out to me through the website >> and I'll put stuff in like the video description and all the all the things for social. So I will make sure to include those. But uh, Bobby, this was super awesome. Um, I'm very glad that I got to catch up with you. I want to just say thank you so much for making the time to do this. uh bit of a time machine to have a conversation like this and I honestly think it was super valuable that you kind of walk through the different parts of your career and we got to see like kind of what was going through your mind in those in those phases and thank you for being vulnerable too about like time during school what that looked like. Um it's yeah it's a lot of I know like we had we had different experiences and I don't want to I don't want to sort of necessarily compare myself to you especially because you were talking about some things whether it was like uh you know cultural differences from your parents or uh you know gender differences and things like that but like I remember going through school and just being like I don't know if this is for me and every time I had an internship I was like this is absolutely for me And so it was when you were talking through it, I know like I said different experiences, but it was uh it resonated a lot with me. So that was really cool. >> Yeah. I think for what it's worth, a lot of us actually do have similar experiences. There's a lot of shared experience and you only really find that out by talking to each other. So, thank you for having me on here, especially since we we haven't seen each other in so long. Yeah, we won't I don't know if we already said we won't say the number of years unless someone tries to do the math, but yeah, it's been a [laughter] while. >> Yeah. >> Cool. Okay. Well, thanks again. I really appreciate it.