From Frying Chicken to This Dot Labs - Career Stories With Danny Thompson and Rob Ocel

In this video interview, I was joined by Danny Thompson and Rob Oel of This.Labs. And this is an awesome interview because we got to see two individuals with very different career journeys. And I think that this is the exact kind of thing that I love showing on this podcast because I think it's so important for you to see that you can be very successful in your career. And it doesn't necessarily matter if you started off and you knew from day one that you wanted to be a developer or you decided later in life that that's the direction that you wanted to head in. So, we got talking about different influences on their lives and what led them to their career choices. And then we got talking about some AI usage as well. So, I think that you're really going to enjoy this one. So, sit back, enjoy, and I'll see you next time. Guys, thanks for joining me. I guess to kick things off, Rob and Danny, I was hoping that we could jump into a little bit of career journey. And I didn't say this before we started recording, but I guess as early or late as you want, like if you want to go back and you're like, when I was, you know, a child, I knew I wanted to get into tech or I guess, you know, at any point in that journey. Would love to hear from both of you. >> Yeah, we really are the yin and yang of of journeys here. So, why don't I give the traditional one, Danny, and then you can do the less the more non-traditional one. Anyways, hey everybody. Yeah, I'm Rob Cell. You heard I'm the VP of innovation at this.labs. And I have been a software developer since I was old enough to clack keys on a laptop that my dad brought home from work that was extra like way back in the early days of the '9s. Um, doing QBasic and having to go to the library because the internet was not yet fully a thing and borrowing books that had code inserts in them that I would copy down. And that turned into wanting to become a game developer and doing like visual basic games in middle school uh and and and um you know doing websites for my father in in high school for his family business. Then I went to college and they told me you need to be an engineer because that's just what people that were good at code and in tech did. So I did that for a number of years before kind of coming back and then realizing actually I wanted to be a coder. Uh I didn't quite get to game development. I've been doing uh uh software consultancy work for for the government and then privately uh for the last 20 years. Uh so I've worked with all sorts of people and become experts in all sorts of things like home insurance in Florida and how to grade trading cards and you know all sorts of different things. So that's what I love about it. Uh still doing it to to this day whenever I can steal the time. >> So Danny, how about you? How about your journey? >> Same. >> Honestly, same bro. Uh uh it honestly sound like you were saying my biography, but I would say uh for me I didn't know tech was a thing that I ever had the permission to be in as an option for a job opportunity or career. Uh it never came up to be honest with you, especially where I grew up that was not something that we really ever talked about. Uh >> I grew up in uh Brooklyn, New York. From there I moved to Memphis, Tennessee. Uh my entire career I pretty much worked in construction. I worked in um gas stations. I worked at a warehouse for a little bit, you know. Uh I laid asphalt. That was my first job ever, laying asphalt. That sucked, especially in Memphis. Uh and I perfect timing. I chose it in the month of August to decide like, oh, I'm going to start my asphalt career. I was burning from the top and the bottom. It was terrible. Uh but it was around the age of I was almost 30 years old. And at that time of my life, uh I I was frying chicken in the gas station. I did that for 11 years. Uh it's where I spent most of my time. I ended up working multiple jobs. Uh I honestly for a big portion of my life, you know, I didn't really get days off until I started in the field of tech. Uh that's kind of when that really truly started. Uh and I was around 30 years old. It was right like 29, early 29. And uh I basically found myself at a fork in the road. I kept saying the same thing to my family over and over again, like I'm I'm doing everything that I can. I'm working so hard. and you kill yourself to then realize, dang, I still have to borrow money to pay bills on time. It it just doesn't make sense. It doesn't compute with me. And I found myself at this fork in a road metaphorically where I was like, "Okay, if I go left on this road, I'm going to be in this gas station until the day I die." Simple as that. If I decide to go right, I got to make a change. It's got to be now. But I don't necessarily know what that change is. I don't know what I can go in. I don't know what I can do, but I got to do something. So, either come to terms with being a chicken fryer forever or make a change. And it's at this time where like I'm trying to figure things out and um like just discover what that is going to be for me. Uh and I started like leaning towards like learning a trade or something, but I didn't know what that would be. Um and it was a Sunday that I was working in the gas station cuz I worked seven days a week at that time. And in the gas station, there's like a TV uh in in in the corner. And I'm cooking and I'm putting some chicken in the hot box. And I hear over the TV uh this rapper, he invested several million dollars into a tech company. And this got me very curious. I'm like, where did this come from? Like, this is so random. And I walk around the counter and I go to the area where people wait in line to pay. And that TV literally exists so that way you don't get bored trying to give us money, right? And now I'm about to get so much value out of this one random thing on a Sunday. And they asked like, "Why are you investing in this tech company?" And he said, "I'm learning how to code." And this blew my mind. Like it literally melted everything that I ever thought. And I just stood there stunned because my entire perception prior to that moment was the only people in tech were people that were PhDs or rocket scientists, like the geniuses of genius. And there's someone from my kind of background learning how to code. This didn't compute. And so for like the rest of the day, I just like I'm I'm very very quiet. I'm like thinking a lot and I start coming up with reasons why. And then I'm like, why is the extent of my knowledge with the computer that I use every single day going on YouTube.com and like watching cat videos? Like, why don't I know more? Like, why is my limitation, here's a browser, here's a thing that I can go watch the video on, that's all I know. If someone were to tell me if you install this random thing, it's going to make your computer faster. I would do it because I don't know anything. I don't know any better. >> Got to do what the cats say. Yeah. >> Literally. Literally. And then I'm like, hold on. Why don't I know more about this $1,300 smartphone or $2,000 lapse? Like, why don't I why is this not why is it all just like, oh, I'm paying it because they tell me to pay it? >> Yeah. >> And I'm like, well, I have a basic understanding of my body. Like, if I'm sick, I know a I can ride this one now. I'm cool. Or B, I probably got to go see a doctor. Like, something's not right. It's far exceeding my level of knowledge. When it comes to the computer, it's like anything that goes wrong, I have no clue what's happening. I'm immediately going to somebody else. And it's like, I have a basic understanding of my body. I even got a basic understanding of my car. Why don't I have this with my computer or my smartphone or anything else? And so, he starts learning how to code and so do I. And I get on uh a website, freecodeamp.org. I'll always preach Freecode camp because I don't know if there would be a me in tech without FCC being there. And I just start learning. And it was about like probably like 4 hours after I start learning, I get like really really angry with myself. Like super angry. I wanted to flip the table. And it wasn't because of a coding problem. It was because I was stunned and I was like, "Wow, this is the first time that I can recall that I ever opened a book or learned something with the intent of growing a skill." every time prior to this it's always been oh you're reading this because it's funny it's entertaining it'll bring you somewhere and I was like this is what like all those YouTubers mean but like invest in yourself before I didn't know what that meant and it finally connected at this point where I was like okay this is what investing in oneself truly means and I just start learning and I learn and I learn and I learn and I find out about a thing called meetups now this in my opinion truly changed my life changed my mind changed everything for me and I go to this meetup and I instant instantly realized that I don't know sh stuff. I don't know anything. Like it's just very painfully obvious that I don't >> I think we can say by the way. It's okay. >> Okay. Hey, I don't know. I don't know. I play by the rules. Uh but I was like, "Wow." Like I, you know, to give you an idea, I'm walking into this meetup. I thought uh I I made like a project, right? And it was like um especially at that time, you know, it was like uh you put the URL of an image and it will return the image with like some color on top like filters. It's like Instagram's worst nightmare is basically what I created. It was just terrible. But I was like, "Oh, I'm going to cure cancer with code at this point. Like I'm good. HTML, CSS, baby, talk to me. I'm ready." Yeah, it was bad though. It was really bad. But I thought at that time especially the world began and ended at JavaScript and there was nothing past that because that's all I was exposed to. And I walk in this meet up and it's instantly I'm hearing like C#.NET, I'm hearing Java, I'm hearing SQL. Like these are all terms that just didn't enter my radar at that time. Um, it became very painfully obvious that I started getting excluded from conversations mainly because I just didn't even know what to say or what they were talking about. It's like a foreign language to me. And I left that meet up basically saying I'm never going to be excluded from these conversations again. And I just went home and I started learning. And I started learn I learned everything that I could about SQL and I and I started learning about like JavaScript like further in like JavaScript error functions. I went to that next meeting like you know how to do this with error function. You know how to do this with a SQL table. And I went home started to learn more about Java and I like hey man you know how to do this you know how a public static void name man like I I could be in the conversation now and it instantly shifted everything. I now could speak with everyone else and I wasn't the person that didn't necessarily belong but I found myself being welcomed by the entire community and that changed everything and I learned so much. I would go to these meetups and say, "Can you tell me why this sucks?" and show them an application that I made. And I started getting these like unofficial code reviews and it was phenomenal. And it wasn't a strategy at that moment, but it became one because I was like, "Wow, I'm learning what all the companies around me are expecting in a code review." And when I start going into these interviews, I'm referencing all these things. And it just became a gamecher. And this actually started becoming how I learned one skill that I believe is probably like my superpower, right? Um, and I'm stealing that word from Rob because he recently gave a talk at Commit Your Code and he used superpower. But my superpower was understanding the business side and the technical side and being able to translate the two languages. Because to me, a lot of developers struggle with this, but because I was able to have both sides of the conversation and understand that when I'm developing a solution, there's a business impact and being able to translate that. This changed my promotion trajectory, my income trajectory. It really helped me go to that next level. And I think a lot of developers lack this. And if this is the one thing that you take away from this podcast, if you learn how to do that, I can't wait to for you to send me the DM of you getting your next promotion or raise. >> Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Danny and Rob, thank you so much for that. Um, Danny, I had a a question that uh about something you said earlier in in sort of that that coverage and you you used the word uh permission and I thought that was a really interesting word to use. You said, you know, I feel like I like I uh I don't have the per or I didn't have the permission to kind of to be part of that. Um, and I was curious when you when you say that like did from your perspective like was it just something that being in tech like it just, you know, you're not cut out for it or like you're so far away from it that like it just wouldn't ever be feasible. I just thought that was a really powerful word to use and I was curious like just wanted to hear more about like about what that kind of felt like for you at that time. >> Yeah. You know, let me ask you a question, right? Like growing up in life, what were some of the things that you were told that you could be for like a job or a career or something to aspire to? >> Definitely not a basketball player or sports because I'm like 3 feet tall. So, not not that. Um but um no, I think >> Rob probably heard that though. I ain't going to lie. Rob is tall, man. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. My dad had hopes the coordination didn't match my size. So, >> okay, fair enough. >> You can't lose Rob at a conference, man. He see all the time. No. Uh, Danny, that's a good question, though. Um, I think there were I don't know. I feel like at least from my my mother and my father was supportive as well, but my mother would always kind of say like just I don't care what you do, but like I just want you to make sure that you enjoy it, which I always thought was really interesting cuz she would say things uh kind of like I don't care if you want to flip like flip burgers. If you enjoy that, like I support you doing it. But I think that they like with that said, they wanted to make sure that I was educated like no matter what it was like, hey, if you want to do anything, we support you, but let's make sure you're educated and that way at least then you can make informed decisions. I think was kind of the thing. Um, so that's kind like I don't know if that's really answering your question, but that's kind of the direction I was pushed. >> Yeah, I think it really answers my question because your influences can help guide you, right? And to say no matter what you do in life, I just want you to be happy comes from like a position of >> at the very least if this is the lowest barrier you go to. Your happiness is a value ad for us, right? But you're going to have the education. So at the very least, you have that opportunity to go forward in something else, whatever it may be. And you have the spectrum now at this point, right? Like you can see as high as you want or as low as you want as long as happiness is in the equation, >> right? So for me, um, college definitely never entered the conversation. I'm the eldest of nine. That never came up. But the highest I was able to aspire to wasn't happiness or wasn't a position that could go upwards. It was, hey, you should go work for that union construction company. They have benefits. Or you could go work for that union um um um garbage company, right? Like they have really good benefits. Like that was the ceiling, the limit, the highest I could aspire to be was that and >> get somewhere with good benefits because then at least like that's the bar that you get to to meet. >> Yeah, you're you're basically going to be a bus driver, a construction worker, a garbage man. Like that's kind of where my mind was at that time. Uh higher education nec didn't necessarily enter the conversation. And these are your influences. Like the people around you, family members, friends, the people around you are telling you like this is what you're going to aspire to be. So, how could I ever think there's something beyond that? Like a normal parent might say, "Be a doctor, be a lawyer, be something, engineering, something like that." Like, "Aspire to be this thing." And mine are like, >> "Be a construction worker." >> Mhm. >> Be a bus driver. So, like, how could you ever see past that, right? >> And so, that's why the word permission comes into it because I didn't know I was allowed to exceed that thought. >> Yeah. >> And that's what changed everything once. So, even when I started learning to code, it was never with the idea that I was going to get a job. that didn't really enter the conversation till a lot later on. It was wow, I have the ability to reach somebody outside of my zip code for the first time. That never entered my my brain as a possibility. I like you kind of get into this siloed idea like the world is around you and that's it. And so reaching someone outside of Memphis at that time, unheard of uh at least in my thought process. So I was like, I'm going to make a website and it's going to be the best website in the world and people are going to come here and they're going to buy stuff. I don't know what the stuff is yet, but I just know if I learn how to make a website, I can figure out what to put on there and people will buy. Then you learn about SEO and all these other things. It's like a different conversation and yada yada yada. You understand there's like levels to this, but the idea of still being able to reach somebody outside of your zip code was like super like intriguing to me. So, I just wanted to reach someone with the best possible way because if somebody's outside of my zip code, they don't know that I work in a gas station. So, it's like, cool. I can be somebody else that's more professional and they'll like me and they'll buy this thing from me. And that's kind of where my mind was. Once I learned that I could get a job out of this, nothing in the universe could have stopped me at that point. Like, it was like inspiration on fire. I I'll say too, there's another side of this besides just inspiration, and that is there's a very popular piece of wisdom to be bandied about on Twitter. And just because it's like pop wisdom doesn't necessarily mean there isn't some truth behind it, and it's that you can just do things, right? I think too many times people have a lot of inbuilt excuses. I'm junior. I can't speak up at work or, you know, I'm too old. This is a young person's game or whatever it is, right? And I think a lot of people will look at people who do amazing things and say, well, of course they did amazing things because they're an amazing person. And that's an afterthe- fact thing, right? I mean, Danny just uh did the second year of his commit your code conference. Last year he decided to do it and within two months had thrown it together. And you might say, well, okay, yeah, but I'm not Danny Thompson. That's fair, but there's nothing stopping you from making a local meetup if there's nobody in that in that, you know, in your area, right? Like the permission structure comes from saying like, listen, if you think you can do it, if you are willing to put in the work, if you're able to accomplish it or at least give it the best chance you have. You don't need it to be de deemed by somebody else. You don't need to be asked to walk through the door. You know, we're not the the vampires and and sinners here, right? like we can just do things. And that's what the actual kernel of truth in that wisdom is is this idea that like people who don't wait to be asked are the ones who usually will accomplish things. Now, not everybody who doesn't wait to be asked accomplishes great things, but you know, you need to have that willingness to maybe transgress a norm or to do something that maybe not everybody does in order to do to do great things. I think that's an important piece of it, too. Yeah, that's uh that's really helpful. And again, yeah, thanks for the framing on that. I think that as you guys are talking through that, a couple things come to mind. One is that like as Danny, as you were saying, you have like around you, you have this influence or you have these constraints being put on you by others, right? So that's that's one thing. And then the other thing that I think is super interesting is even even when we don't have that or we don't have it feeling like it's direct, we also do that to ourselves. Like we create a lot of barriers for ourselves. And this is uh like maybe it's also influenced by you know the constraints from around us but the the you know the common one I always hear is like well like programming software development like no way like I'm not smart enough I'm not good at math and it's like immediately like you put these barriers in place and you didn't necessarily need someone to come tell you like hey you're not good at math you can't be a programmer it's like you kind of created it or you fabricated it and then you you put the constraints on yourself as well and I I feel like there's a lot of there's already a lot of barriers for getting into things and you have constraints put on you by others. You put your own constraints in place and there's just a lot of things to try and break through. But, uh, Rob, as you were saying, it's like, you know, like you you can do. It takes, you know, it takes you making that first step to actually start doing, but you can. And I I just wanted to kind of say that because it's like we have constraints from around us and we put them on ourselves as well. >> Yeah. Maybe an unpopular opinion here, but like one of the things that's interesting is that software engineering is less like engineering than it is like a trade. >> Um, you know, I think the better model for thinking about being good at coding and getting better at coding is and and how you would break into it is not to be like, oh, there is a set of skills like math etc. that I need to have and much more of this idea of having a trade like apprentice master style relationship going on. Like most of what you learn in college in your CS degree has nothing to do with what you will do daytoday at your job. So even people that come out of college like you've learned a lot of skills that will make it easier to pick up on the job, but everybody starts their first day at work as an apprentice mostly learning on the job. And I think if you get into that mindset, usually you'll do a lot better with imposttor syndrome to realize that it's much more about the effort you put in on the job than than the the the boxes you've checked before you arrived. >> Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Danny, it looked like you had a thought that you wanted to jump in right when Rob went to speak, but >> he kind of said exactly what I was thinking, so no point of like retweeting that. Uh >> yeah, no, that's uh that's interesting. And I that's like that's been my experience too in terms of uh you know going to school and like I I like I went to school for for 5 years and I had uh internships the entire time. So the way that my school was structured was uh school semester for 4 months and then you go to work at an internship for four months and you did that for 5 years straight. It breaks down towards the end. I think there was like two school terms back toback but I had six internships which was two years of work experience by the time I graduated. And every time that I would go back to a school semester, I remember telling myself like, why am I doing this? Like I I do not like what's happening in school, like this is the wrong thing for me. And then I would go back to an internship and I was like, oh yeah, like this is this is the stuff as long as I'm doing this when I graduate, like go back to school, like finish it. And I just because I had those like every other semester, it kept me going. Like Rob, to your point, it felt like the things that I was doing in school, yes, they like it was computer engineering. Yes, we were learning about software, we're learning about hardware, but it it wasn't like when I would go to work, it was just very different. And I feel that while some of those things were like maybe a helpful foundation or background, I think literally the takeaway for me in school was not like here's how to be a good programmer. It was more like it taught me how I need to learn because I I think I got kind of lucky in high school. Like the way that we were presented with stuff, I'm like, "Hey, I don't really have to try and I can do well." But once I got to university, I was like, "You actually don't understand for yourself how you learn material." >> Like you can't just like show up and all of a sudden like you know it. It was like you actually have to go practice these things. So, I learned for myself, you don't learn by watching or listening. You learn by doing. Other people might be different, but Nick, you learn by doing. And if you're not, you're screwed. >> Yeah. And real quickly, I'll just add too, I'll put my cards on the table here. Like, I have a a college degree uh a major in electrical computer engineering as well as computer science and I have a master's degree in software engineering. So, like I like school. I get a lot out of school. I think degrees and things like that are worthy and they have taught me a lot. Like Danny was saying, I didn't really understand how computers worked. Well, I got that knowledge in college and it is useful. It's not my day-to-day. I didn't take a course in Jira, but I, you know, but I do know how logic gates work. I do even know how from my electrical engineering background how to how the materials create those gates. So, that's valuable at some level to demystify the machine. So, if you're a student listening to this, you know, and you're worried like, "Oh, maybe my debt wasn't worth it." Trust me, if you're if you're getting a lot out of it, it is valuable. It is a totally worthy and great track. I prefer that track. Um, but it is not the case that if you didn't have that background, uh, that you are unworthy of being in the field. There are so many insanely successful people in tech who either dropped out of college or never attended. >> Yeah. And if I if I could go back like I I would do the same thing again. As much as like the school part I didn't enjoy, I think it's because I didn't understand how I learn. And if I could go back and repeat it and be like, "Nick, this is how you learn." Like instead of being frustrated and going like, "School sucks. Like, why am I doing this?" It would be like, "Yeah, maybe maybe not every class is the most exciting, but at least you're not sitting there being like, why am I so frustrated that it went from doing well to doing terribly and just like not wanting to be there?" So, I would absolutely go repeat it. But yeah, I think that's yeah, good feedback for people listening. You thinking something, Danny? >> No, like I don't want to steal thunder because I feel like this these are good >> points and I don't want to like take away from it. So, um we could pivot onto something or hit a new angle. >> Sure. Yeah. I guess I I'm curious uh on another topic because uh Danny as you were describing your journey one of the things that like one of your takeaways was really around like interfacing between like the business needs and and developer needs uh like how how we trans transform like maybe like customer requirements like what is a business need to like we have to implement something technically and you had said something that I agree with like it's a generalization of course but a lot of developers seem to have a challenge with that like It's it seems like it's much easier to say, "Let me put my developer hat on. I'm going to put my head down and program because hell yeah, it's real cool and it's real fun." Um, and I was kind of curious between you and Rob because Rob, you did kind of say you have like, you know, this more what we call like a traditional sort of journey through this. You you might be the person who is more traditionally like, "Hey, I just want to code." But for the things that you're doing in your role, like you've clearly broken through that. So, I I just wanted to kind of maybe tease that apart. And like the thing that I'm hypothesizing is Danny, maybe because you didn't start programming like as soon as you were born that you had these other life experiences that kind of showed you what that looked like and then you were able to bring that into development. And Rob, my hypothesis is that you kind of learned that along the way. And I was curious if that's true and I wanted to hear your thoughts on on that. There's so many angles that I want to take this, but I guess uh I I'll start with this. I think the most important thing you can do, whether you're a new developer or maybe even seasoned right now, maybe you're a senior or or somewhere along those lines. Understanding business impact goes a long way. And I'll give you an example of this. I I going to something that Rob said a little earlier. This was the second year that we did commit your code. Um, last year was the first. I learned a lot by last year. Now, last year, not by any stretch was it a failure, but we failed in several areas that I didn't really understand >> and we were able to learn a ton from it. And one specific thing that I don't even think a lot of people realize even at the conference level is when you're talking to people in positions like Devril, developer marketing or things like that, right? They're the ones that you first interact with in trying to get a sponsor for your conference theoretically, right? They are showing interest like, "Oh, we'd love to be there, la totally sounds great, etc., etc., etc." Um, but you know, um, kind of send us your perspectus and all this stuff. Uh, and we can kind of share it around. Year one, I just made a perspectus, shared them, shared with them like, "Hey, this conference is happening, etc., etc." Um, and we only were able to raise $11,500 in sponsorship money, which is like nothing compared to like the average tech conference. And I kept struggling. Why were we not able to raise more? Why was it such a hindrance for us? Especially cuz like there's some conferences out there that are like super tiny and small and they get sponsors. What are we lacking? What are we missing? And I realized something. If I don't give these deval individuals the talking points needed, the deal dies. And why does it die? Because they don't actually control if the budget goes there. They're the talking piece for you to the people that do control it, right? >> And I'm hurting them by not giving them enough talking points. They're enthusiastic. Sure. Like they're like, "It's a cool thing. I love the angle." But how do you translate that to somebody who has no buyin, who has no enthusiasm, etc., etc., I miss that whole piece of the equation? And if I was just like maybe the average developer and not seeing the business side, oh, maybe it's like maybe people just aren't buying into it or something like that. Like I'm not seeing past the first level of interaction. And so what I did this year was I created those talking points. I created the showcase pieces. I created everything. We were able to almost 7x the amount of sponsorship that we got this year alone. And because of that, I saw how they were able to talk to the other side. And it was so it was structured so well that those people that you normally don't even get to see or interact with ask for meetings to talk. That opened up a whole new level of interaction because of that. And it got me further into the companies and organizations where I'm making myself a little known, I suppose, uh because I'm meeting people that may not necessarily be in the traditional pathway. But because of that, it really really really went a long way in discussions. And so when I go back to like the the business side of things, if I'm just a developer and I'm just interacting with my engineering manager and that's all the visibility I get, my manager, at least the way most companies, not all, I won't make a blanket statement, >> but most for you to get a raise or a promotion, it's not at your manager's discretion, it's them advocating for you to someone above them in order to get that released. Right? If you're not giving your manager those talking points, that deal dies with them. That's why you you'll see some people not get stepped over for pro for promotions, right? It's like your manager wants to do it. They know that you're killing yourself trying to get it done, but they're not the ones that controls it. They're their talking piece for you to the higherups. Give them the things that they need to express and use, etc. Or if you're on the consulting side of things, it's like you can tell whoever it is like we're doing a great job, but they have to talk to their internal teams too about what it is that you're doing. If you're not giving them the talking pieces that they need, how the hell are you going to get internal buy in for that thing? So like that becomes a thing. You can't just say, "Hey, we made the site faster." So it's like we made the site faster by X percentage by doing Y process and by especially if you're smart by creating Z solution that will scale with the number of users that we're going through. It's not the temporary band-aid now, but it's the solution that will scale with us for like the next year or so. So we never have to think about this problem again and we could put all of our resources towards something else. Who's going to turn that person down for a raise or promotion? >> Yeah. Yeah. No, that's that's helpful. Thanks Danny. Yeah, >> I I'll say too just add that like our our industry is one where it was traditionally gatekept on the idea of passion. It was very common when I first started the industry to say that I wouldn't hire anybody that doesn't code when they go home and codes all weekend and thinks about code and only loves code and does it for the love of the game. And I think for a lot of people that translates, you know, you don't want to bring money into passions. Like those are the things I like doing. So for a lot of people that are software developers, they get into this idea that they're in a patronage mode. somebody's paying for my my pursuits, my my intellectual and artistic pursuits to become the developer building the perfect software. Um, and like that and then they think that my manager is just there to take all my fun away. But I think what what was the breakthrough for me and listen I was there too. I remember telling my manager, I don't want to give you an estimate. It'll be ready when it's ready. Right? And now I laugh thinking about that because what you really have to think about is we are we don't act this way anywhere else. Right? If you go on a trip, do you always stay at the best hotel, fly first class, eat at the most expensive restaurants? Yes. Or do you try to figure out the best, you know, vacation that you can have for the budget you were able to set aside for that vacation? Right. I've had to live at times from paycheck to paycheck in the past. And when you're trying to figure out how to make your grocery bill last, you're not springing out for truffles every night to put on top of your food. We cannot afford and cannot look our customers in the face and ask them to buy software at the costs that it currently is. Software is incredibly expensive. So, it can be a fun game to figure out what is the best software you can give your users for what they are willing and should be willing to pay. And I think there's a pivot that you'll go to in your career when you realize instead of just trying to make the perfect software, when I can make a great valued software and you get joy out of that, that is that huge level up in making that leap to the senior levels of leadership because those are the things you start becoming responsible for is that trade-off between quality and excellence and what the market is willing to pay for that excellence. Yeah, that's a I think that's a really helpful perspective on that. It's it's tricky because I think if you're not exposed to some of those things and I I kind of think about even some of my own career, I was pretty fortunate in the beginning to have more exposure to like not always directly to customers, but working very closely with product or sales people where like you're hearing like I guess like secondhand like what customers need. Sometimes I'd go to conferences as a developer and could get it firsthand. And now like even though it's later in my career like over the past 5 years at Microsoft like I've been working at like on platform teams. So my customers are actually other teams. It's not like I don't have customers but it is a very different dynamic than having like the enduser like this the type of relationship you have with these partner teams is different. So um there are parts of me that miss that. There are parts of me that when I think about the teams I manage, I'm like I don't know if they're seeing some of these things as opportunities where it's like understanding your customer because yeah, the customer is, you know, it's Joe from the other partner team like they still are a customer and we have to try and think about it that way. It's just that they happen to be very technical customers with a lot of the like shared insights and knowledge because they're on the inside as well. But um Danny you the thing that you had mentioned I actually have a very similar parallel and it was an interesting learning experience being at a startup because I remember we were building digital forensic software and in my mind I was like cool we go build the you know the best the fastest all of this exciting software and we're like our end users are going to love it right it's doing all of these awesome things but the end user like I didn't really realize this until like you know several years into the job it's like the end user is not the one buying it. So, you need to be able to have um sort of like the story to tell. And this wasn't really my my job necessarily, but you needed to have the story to tell to the people who have the buying power. And uh it was just really interesting to figure out like okay we want to make this software that's going to help these people's you know their jobs make them more effective but they actually need to take that information and they have to go advocate to their manager the person who has the buying power. Um so it was a yeah just a similar thing where was like this interesting learning to be like your end user maybe isn't the one who's paying you for it. It's like there's another step involved. So >> yeah, you know, I think a lot of people when they think of like target audience uh when it comes to like projects for example, they will hyperfocus on the immediate target never think about steps two and three of like target two, target three or if target audience especially nowadays this is where my mind has kind of gone especially like the age of AI and stuff. Um, people love sharing things and people are very easily influenced by their influences or their friend group or things like that. And so if your target audience ends up sharing something in a social way with people that aren't necessarily your target, their response can often make or break your target audience sticking around or lead to mass amounts of attrition. And so, especially with AI and AI doing a lot of things, AI is really great at certain items, there are a lot of things that it really, really, really isn't necessarily phenomenal at. And because of that, especially when it comes to like UI related things. Um, >> I saw a post the other day where I was like, AI has an issue with gradients because it just wants to gradient everything. Um, I don't think that's great for anybody involved. And it's like the biggest tell that AI was involved with XYZ. For me, I think UI especially like the taste of UI is really human and it will make or break that experience. And if you're not factoring that in, that's a big miss. But if you're not factoring in like if Rob is geeking out about something and he sends it to me and I dislike it, do you think Rob is going to be like, "Well, I'm definitely going to keep using this thing and share it with Danny non-stop." Right? this like nah I think uh I think it's not great or uh the other side of things where it's like uh if Rob shared something with me and I loved it that's like a new user that you could get right whether it's target or not that social sharing becomes a big thing I'm starting to see more platforms integrate social sharing at the core level with their audience but this is something that should be factored in as the more that I think about it >> yeah that's That's really interesting, right? Like you as you share out there's influence coming back the other direction which is uh which is pretty interesting that way. So >> yeah. And so maybe AI is probably another good segue here. So >> for both of you, >> how have you seen like AI sort of uh transforming like the different things that you're looking at? Like so Danny maybe uh in some of the things that you're doing especially with uh you know helping more more junior people break into the industry and stuff like that. Have you been noticing like people are coming to you and being like like look I learned all this stuff and it's just AI generated or like have you seen that taking like a like a step in the positive direction a negative direction maybe a mix? >> AI has taken all the jobs. How's your wife? How did you No, it's uh it's a little different. Like I think there is the area with everything on social media. I've seen so many trends come and go. Uh Dinojs while a cool tool was the node killer. Um there was another tool. I think it was like I can't even remember the name. I think it was polyfill or something like that. It was like the LinkedIn killer. There's all these killers. And if you now notice like there's this trend on social media or especially YouTube where anytime new and any update comes they're like oh XYZ is cooked. It's like where it's just a hype cycle. Uh do I think AI is going to displace some people? Sure. The way that I think the typewriter displace people why where file rooms in every organization and hospital were a thing um at like massive levels to where they've either been completely eradicated or reduced substantially in size. Uh, I think all those are things that are going to exist no matter what. Um, with that being said, in regards to AI, I think especially in today's market, um, if you're like a junior, it's really important to be familiar with AI tools, but I make very big distinctions usually between your usage versus um, your goal, right? And so, uh, I do a cohort program that's completely free. We don't monetize it. Uh, but we are very selective on like who gets in there. And with the cohort, I I'm very anti-AII. And the idea is if our goal is to ship something quickly, let's leverage it. If our goal is to build something of technical value that we can discuss in an interview in a technical and non-technical way, why would we ever take that away from us? Like what are we going to be able to talk about? Um, knowing something and key holder of knowledge is very very powerful. And in the age of AI, there needs to be moments where companies are recognizing, hey, we're about to architect something brand new that we've never had. What if we slow down for a little bit, take away some of the gas out of the gas tank >> and just say, let's coast for a little bit. And with our speed, we're having humans make this, but they're going to deeply, deeply understand every single nut, bolt, nook, and cranny of what it is that we're building. new microser, this new moderate, whatever it is. Um, we're going to go ahead and like really dig down deep. And then after we have our guidelines, we make our documentation and our standards the way that we need to run with AI. Um, AI is really a productivity enhancer more than anything else. Like the way IntelliSense first came to all these editors, right? I that's kind of the way that I view it. Um because it gets a lot wrong and it will gaslight you like no other into believing like it's it's right and you're wrong. Um but uh I will say that for me AI is really good and I love to make it do the things that I don't necessarily like doing so I can focus on the things that I really really love exploring. Um and that's kind of the way that I I I view it now and the way that I'm really sticking to it going forward. And this goes across a spectrum. Like if you're working at a company like for example Airbnb released a study where um I believe they had a roadmap project for increasing code coverage across all the repos. It was like 18 months. They knocked it out in six weeks. To me that makes sense. Like who who's here like oh my god today the day I get to write unit test. Literally nobody. Uh so it's like have it do some of the things audit it set your standards and or whatnot and then just go from there and just always peer in. But I guarantee you those engineers that didn't have to write those unit tests got to knock out some really really big features that they get to geek out about. And like for example, Airbnb, if I'm not mistaken, didn't they release something where it's like courses or something like that now that you can or workshops or they released something new? It was a big big thing for them. Uh I can't recall it now. I don't I don't really use the platform unfortunately. Um but I know it was like you can now reserve your attendance at like gyms and courses or something like that. Um and it's like a big feature. There was no way they were knocking that out if they had to spend 18 months writing unit test. So like that's something to be really really aware of. >> Awesome. >> Yeah, I'll say that. I think AI is definitely here to stay. And I mean Danny, you raised up the IntelliSense point which is a great point and honestly there's another feature that was in the middle there that has already now gone out of our minds. At the time it was controversial and now it's taken for granted and that was the early versions of Copilot or any type of line autocomplete, right? sort of the earliest versions of AI and I think even in that how what you felt about it depended a lot on how your code was structured because that determined how effectively it was able to complete lines from you for you but I mean using it was almost always a value ad because it would give you some percentage 10 20 30% of the characters that you would otherwise have to write you no longer needed to write. It's not that it made any decisions for you. It's just that it did things that you were going to do that you now didn't need to do and it could do faster. AI at its base is going to be that at nothing else. I think it's going to go even further than that. Um, we're going to get to the point of automation. I don't think that will replace engineers, but I think AI automation will be where we're going. But at least for now, AI is incredible at writing lines of code that you otherwise would have to write and it can do it orders of magnitude faster. I was just talking to a director at a company who said that they've had to completely redo their hiring because what they found is they thought they needed a team of six for 6 months to rewrite a mobile app and it took two engineers with AI 6 weeks to do it. And he said it was so mind-blowing to them what they were able to accomplish that now they had to redo their hiring process and your aptitude at using AI tooling is now the biggest signal as to whether they're hiring you. whether you know the technology stack is the second highest right but your capability of using AI tools is the highest and I do not think this is an unusual finding and I think this is the direction we're heading so these are tools you will want to be familiar with I think if you are a naysayer generally and it's very easy to be one now we live in the era of AI slop um so don't be looking at the worst vibecoded websites and software you see now don't be looking at the worst mimedic sor Ora 2 videos you're seeing. What you need to be looking through is what real artists will do when they apply the same level of effort, passion, and talent with those toolings now available to them. And what will they be able to accomplish? I said earlier that like one of the biggest things you have to learn is that software is money. And that sounds again like the death of passion, but it's it's actually an important reminder. And so what AI is doing is lowering the cost of software that has some positive and some negative effects. But the biggest one is listen, if you're like me and you like to order food from local restaurants, almost all of their websites suck. And the part of the reason why their websites suck is because it's extremely expensive to hire software developers to do it better. AI will help lower the cost of software, makes more software able to be built than was ever built in the past. I think that's one of the coolest and most promising things both for society but also for software engineers. Our addressable market of people who can now afford our services will explode. Um we have to get used to this. So I would say that AI acumen is something everybody needs to be putting in their tool set because it is the way business will be done. It won't do all of the things the utopians say on Twitter and it will not take all of our jobs and all of that stuff. Um but it is here to stay and it is important. So, this is not one to sit out or wait to see how it happened. This is not VR. This is not crypto. Th this thing is is real, even though a portion of it is hype and a bubble. That's the weird duality of this moment. >> Yeah, that that definitely makes sense. And you see a lot of that where it's like it's really hard where you have all of this overhyped information coming in and you're like, really? And then you have the other side where you see this complete dichotomy where the other side is such garbage. you're like, how how are these things coexisting? Like it's the same technology. Something doesn't really add up. But yeah, really interesting thoughts. Like Danny saying um like I I really appreciate on the the learning path. Um, this something that I I think that I'm trying to explain to people in a similar way, which is if you're trying to build things quick, like if you just want something output, then I mean heavily leaning into AI to do that for you, like it might be able to go create the thing, whatever the thing is faster. It might not be perfect. It might not even, you know, work the first time, but perhaps you iterating on that through using AI can be faster. Now, what is like I always tell people, what is your goal, right? Like if your goal was just to go make the thing fast maybe and you don't care about the actual quality of it as long as it's running or you can use it for a demonstration purpose, maybe that's totally fine. And like that is one goal that you could have. And if the other goal and I think a lot of people that I talk to when they're like I want to be a better software developer or I want to get into this, the thing that I tell them is are you trying to learn? Because if you're trying to learn, I wouldn't say go ask chat GPT, go make me my portfolio because what are you going to do with that? Like you didn't actually you Danny you were saying like if you want to go to an interview and talk about it like what are you going to do? Say I said to chat GBT dear chatbt chat GBT please make me a portfolio like that's not that's probably not going to go so well and you probably won't learn a lot. Now, that's not to say that you cannot learn a lot. But if you're going to take that approach, I would go back to your AI tools and ask them questions like explain how this works. Show me a variation of this. Give me, you know, give me different explanations for this stuff. So, I feel like you can use the tool in different ways. Um, but I feel like a lot of the time people are kind of ignoring that because they're not really sure what their goal is. They're just using AI because that's the thing. Um yeah, that's my my thought on on like the learning part. Um Rob, I definitely agree with uh sort of like the productivity pieces you were talking about. One of the things that came up even for me at work, so at Microsoft now as a manager, I'm not I don't actually write code in my role. I love to I code every day outside of work. I love to program, but uh it's not a lot where I find that it makes sense for me to be programming at work. But with things like co-pilot, we have things like package upgrades. Like so we have unit tests as well. We have package upgrades that have to happen. And I can't think of anyone that I know who's like, I can't wait to get more package upgrade tickets to go work through. This is the most exciting work and I would rather just say to AI tooling, go upgrade these. Like we have tests in place. We should be able to validate these things work and that way other people can go do this stuff. that if that means I have to go kick off the AI tooling and I can unblock my team to go do more interesting fun things that add it's not that the package upgrades don't have value but I feel like from like a I don't know like a business opportunity perspective they're not the ones like moving the needle they're really just like kind of raising the bar of excellence but I I think yeah we change the the work that we get to to invest our own time into because there's more value in a human doing those other things versus a human just sitting there and upgrading packages to a new version or uh hoping you get the you know more unit test coverage. >> I will say too if you're if you're a business leader and you're currently adopting AI, you have to you have to embrace this weird contradiction seemingly at the heart of AI which is more senior than your most senior engineer will ever be and more junior than your junior engineer most junior engineer will ever be. And so you need to approach it in that lens. I think far too many people have heard what people are doing with AI and they just give it the keys to the kingdom. They go, "Hey, have access to the prod database. Have access to all the customers data and then it's given people free discounts or it's wiping the database clean because it determined that's what it needed to do." So, you have to uh account for uh hallucinations and errors and mistakes in your AI adoption strategy. I think far too many people are way too optimistic. We all know it fails all the time, but for some pres for some reason, we just believe that the best way to adopt it is to just hope it doesn't. And like we've seen way too many examples in the news of this going wrong. So again, don't be afraid of AI. It's incredibly capable. Uh but especially now while your team is building best practices because just because you use AI every day doesn't mean you're good at it. I hate to say that. It's a it's a piece of humility we all have to take from time to time, but um there are great ways to use it and there are very ineffective ways to use it. And I think you have to be accounting for some of your downside risk if you're a leader. Um you know, it's it's a thin shield to hide behind to say, "Oh, it was the AI's fault." And courts are already rejecting this as a shield. So, yeah. >> Yeah. That's uh it's funny. The I think the most frustrating like experience I have with AI is these situations where I'm like I'll ask it to do something and in reflecting on it I'm like I'm not actually giving it a lot to go with but it still ends up producing something where I'm like holy crap like that's that's really really impressive and then you know the next prompt I give it I'm like hey like do something and I try to give it a lot more detail and it fumbles it so hard and I'm sitting there going how can you be like seemingly so smart and so stupid at the exact same time. But Rob, as you just said, it's kind of like it can it can often feel like it's more experienced than your most senior engineer and simultaneously like way less experience than your most junior. >> Yeah, it's a lot like an ant, right? Ants don't walk around by knowing where they're going. They walk by following pheromone trails. In a lot of the ways, that's the way that the AI is functioning. it is following the guidance whether it's in its training data or it's in context that you give it to know where to go and how to do what it's trying to do. So as you get better in your AI usage, it means you're giving it better, clearer context up front rather than just relying on whatever in it is in its training set. And trust me, the more you rely on the training data, that's when you get into those weird situations and more hallucinations because there's a lot of contradictory stuff. It's human code in there in the training set. So, and it's probabistic on top of >> train on mine, I hope, because that's no no good for anyone. >> You know what's funny is I I have like a slightly different approach with AI before AI was a thing, right? Or at least in the widespread usage of like public usage. We all had like these movies and stuff where we had these robots that would do tasks and we would think how we would talk to them. We never talked to them with the idea like they already know exactly what I want them to do. It was, "Hey robot, go do this thing like this d and it performs set task." That's kind of how you need to use AI. It's a very convincing robot. Like I tell it very clearly, hey, this is what I need you to do. This is what you need to go and ahead and do, etc., etc., etc. Um, very explicit. I don't take for granted that it should have context because it feels like I'm talking to a coworker instead of feeling like I'm talking to a robot that's about to perform a task. This is what I feel is like the actual breakage of developers using AI. And what's funny is, and I love giving this example, um AI is a great productivity tool. And if I get if I give it a task, let's say it gets me 75% of the way there, what a lot of developers now do is they fight to get the AI to perform the next 25%. To me, it's like if Rob came to me with a coding problem, it's probably going to be in reverse if I'm being honest. But let's say for this argument, Rob came to me and as he comes to me and we're going over it and he got 75% of the way there, I'm not gonna be like, Rob, you better figure out this last 25. was like, "No, this pair program. Let's figure this out. Let's get you past this block. Let me direct you towards some resource." Something's going to happen whether where I'm doing work or effort to get this last 25% there. I'm not going to force like you know how to do this. Go do that. You know what I'm trying to get you to do. No, it's like, hey, this is exactly what I need you. I'll probably get in there manually with him and code side by side so we can get past this block, right? With AI, it's like, no, AI generated the 75%. I wanted to generate the last 25 and I don't care how long it takes me to get there. I'm going to get frustrated. I'm going to hate it. I was happy with the 75, but I'm mad at this 25. And now because of my experience with the 25, I disregard the 75 where it's like this was a three-day task. You were telling me with 45 minutes, I got to that 75% mark and I'm happy with the 75%. But now I'm going to spend the whole time that I had allocated to get this last 25. I was like, "No, let me take this boiler plate or whatever it is that it generated that it was useful for me, and now let me manually go in as a developer, the the developer that I am, and go fix this last 25%. It still saved me all this time, but this is like the big disconnect I'm trying to get people to see right now." >> Yeah, that's a it's a really interesting way to put it. I like that you were kind of talking about this frustration, right? The I I find and I I'm I don't actually know the answer to this. I'm assuming because it feels so convincing that it is like a person sitting there. Like I clearly know it's not I hope it's not a person sitting on the other side cuz I've said some mean stuff to AI, but I I think because it feels so convincing that you you want to respond to it in a way that it's like, man, like you're smarter than this. Like you should know and like that's why it's frustrating. But Danny, as you're saying, the reality is like you you literally cannot treat it that way because it is not that like it can only do what you're guiding it to go do. Um, and I've that really resonated with me what you were saying because I've had it had it do some things where I'm like that's pretty incredible that you got this far and like that last little bit I'm like how did you like I can't use this now because you didn't do it fully the right way. But the reality is maybe that's an extra hour or two of me to go finish it and the whole project itself I might not have even done it in the first place because I'm like the starting you know the activation energy for me to jump in to go do that feature that project I'm like forget it like that's going to take way too long. So it truly is like you know taking these huge steps forward only for me to kind of be like self-sabotaging and be like no like I'm so frustrated that you couldn't just get it 100%. Um, but yeah, that's that's personally been a lot of my experience using it. >> And you you the one of the most frustrating things, but it's kind of also weirdly true is sometimes people experience frustration with AI. Like that's the most common mode is the AI is not getting you exactly what you want. So you wrestle with it, you wrestle with it, you get a little better at prompting it, maybe you start over from scratch, >> and then you look at the clock when you're done >> and at worst it's probably about the same amount of time as if you would have coded it yourself. Like I've never heard someone say, "I coded it with AI and it took me 10 times longer to do it with AI than if I had done it." The worst I've heard is people say, "I could have done it just as fast." And if AI's floor is as fast as we are, and then it only goes up from there, that says quite a bit. Like look at that. When you see stories of people that are detractors, most of them say, "I could have done it just as fast." And like that's strong praise hidden inside of a harsh criticism, >> especially considering like how early we are with all of this. I know that there's a lot of like, you know, tech CEOs and stuff saying, "Hey, you know, eight months ago, we were all replaced by AI." But, um, we are still very early. I feel like this stuff's only getting better. So, it's it's very easy to like I had to I've literally had to convince myself for some of these tools. I'm like, "Hey, it might not be doing what you want right now. It might not be perfect. You might be getting frustrated, but stick with it because if you don't, it's going to keep getting better. And I don't want to be the person in two years from now that was like, oh, you know, chat GPT like it one time gave me really crappy code and ever since then I've disregarded it. I want to I want to try like experiencing these things, learning about them, understanding where their bottlenecks are, understanding where my limitations are because I am certain that month after month after month, they're just going to keep getting better. So I'd rather kind of feel that pain as it's evolving so that I'm understanding it as we go. So, I have to keep convincing myself. Otherwise, it's very easy to be like, "Oh, I had a bad experience." Like, "Screw you, cursor. I'm never going back." Hey, listen. I sometimes love watching people make artisal like woodworking and shoes from scratch. Uh, and I'm sure people will tune in to your YouTube channel to watch you write code in the artisal way, but there aren't going to be that many people going to pay you to do it. So, this is not one to sit out. >> Cool. Well, Rob and Danny, I had you booked for about an hour. We're right on or a little after time there, but I figured it might be a good opportunity to to wrap things up. And with that, I wanted to give you both an opportunity if there's anything you want to plug where people can find you. I know, uh, Danny, your face is all over everywhere. Uh, but be great for people to know how to to reach out to you and they want to get in touch with you. >> You mean to the three people that listen to all of this of us getting so boring? Okay. Um, you can find me anywhere on the internet at DT Thompson Dev. You can, um, find, uh, you know, pretty much all platforms with the same name. You can find me at the Dallas software developers group. If you're in the Dallas area, come hang out. But if not, our Discord is global. And so you can come to the commit your code Discord, which is the same name as our conference. Um, so if you go to dowsoftwaredevelopers.org, you can find us there. Or you could really find us if you want to go ahead and bring this. organization and we could easily solve your problems and come hang out with you there. And so, uh, we have some of the best engineers around as far as I'm concerned and we really get some pretty performant things done. Uh, so check us out at this do.co or if you really want to catch us every single week and see me and Rob geek out about stuff, come check out the Modern Web Podcast. >> Yeah, which you can find on Spotify. Um, I I will add you can find me on Twitter atrocelt. It's my name spelled a little goofy. uh on LinkedIn as Robosell or you know at this do we do a series of AI workshops there might be some still on the calendar when you're listening to this you can check that out at athisot.co uh which is a place that you can look for that so if you like some of the ideas that you heard here you want to hear some more of them uh you know definitely go and check that out. >> Awesome. And Danny, you were saying too before that a lot of the stuff that is in person uh for uh for like meetups and stuff like that, if it's technical, you try to make sure that it's streamed so that people have access to it, right? >> 100%. >> Yeah. Every technical meetup we do will always be streamed online. I don't believe in technical gatekeeping. So if there's technical value there, it'll be streamed. Like but tonight, for example, we have a meetup and it's literally just people hanging out. And so that one won't be streamed, but our next one definitely will be. >> Cool. Yeah. So that yeah the technical content for educational purposes will be streamed. That's awesome. >> One of the well thanks to both of you. I definitely appreciate the time. I think it's always really interesting to hear people's career journeys. It's really cool to hear like the different AI usage and kind of different experience kind of walking through that. So again, thank you both. Appreciate it. >> Awesome. Thank you.