From IT Call Center to Expert DotNet Software Engineer - Interview With Dan Patrascu

Hi, I'm Nick Coantino and I'm a principal software engineering manager at Microsoft. In this video interview, I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with Dan Petras Gupa, who's also known as Code Wrinkles on YouTube and social media. And this video interview was really special for me because when I first started making content on YouTube, and I think I probably had around 300 subscribers at the time, Dan had significantly more than me. And it was really awesome because he put together a video that was shouting out some of the smaller channels. So, it was really cool for me to be able to have him back on my channel, interview him, talk about software development, uh talk about uh all of the career experiences and stuff that he has because it looks very interesting compared to a lot of sort of traditional journeys that people expect for software engineers. So, Dan is someone that I really enjoy talking with on social media. I really uh, you know, admire him. I think he's got great perspectives to share and uh like I said, this was really special for me to be able to do. So, I think you're really going to enjoy it. I certainly did. And uh yeah, sit back, enjoy, and I'll see you next time. Dan, if you don't mind, if you want to give uh viewers and listeners a bit of background for uh who you are and kind of where you started and as early as you want to go back in time. >> Okay. Yeah, sure. Uh my name is Dan and I'm also kind of like very active on on YouTube and on social media. Probably some some folks would know me as code wrinkles and I am like professionally writing software for around 11 or 12 years already. Right now I am a technical director at a company that's called Amaris and basically as a technical director I unfortunately don't write as much code as I would like because my main job is to actually take care about the quality of the delivery like the technical quality of the delivery for for for the customers because we are mostly doing outsourcing. So that's a very very important topic and uh some of my other responsibilities as a technical directors are for instance to assist our sales in technical pre-sales discussion to evaluate and assess our clients or potential clients needs and trying to find out the the right technology or the right solutions that that we need to to offer them because it's not always just about coding. We cover like everything around cloud not cloud what do they already have? What do they need? Can we change something to that? So I as a technical director I also jump into those discussions to to evaluate and to to set up actually then the project properly with the the proper people and the proper knowhow. >> Very interesting. Yeah. >> And yeah where I started that's actually a great question. Um and probably my journey is a little bit let's say not that uh natural or what you would expect regularly from >> sure >> from engineers that very often is something like okay I I I I went to college and then I learned programming and then I got into an internship and then well I basically climbed the ladder then because uh right when I finished high school um I I didn't know exactly about programming and I I had this preconceived idea um that in order to become a programmer you you need to be excellent very good at maths >> right >> and yeah mathematics was something that was totally strange to me I didn't like at all like obviously I wasn't bad at high school I would say I was pretty good but mathematics I really it it was always a struggle and I didn't like it and the idea that okay to become a programmer you need to actually do this. >> There was for me kind of like an equality check between programming and mathematics, >> right? >> And I understand nowadays that mathematics might help and might fit in usefully in some cases, but it's not a sign of equality >> between them and and therefore what I went through to study in college actually was philosophy first. So I I went to study philosophy. I was really a lot also into this kind of like social sciences stuff. I was also fairly good at at writing even let's say fictional non-fictional. So I I did write quite some stuff. So I I went to philosophy. Uh and then it it happened that kind of like I um I had the opportunity to actually go and study abroad. So not in Romania where where I'm based. And I had the opportunity to go to study in Rome in in in Italy. And basically I I also received some some money there to study. So I didn't have to to pay anything. I had where to stay. I had food and and everything. So basically I just needed to study and I really enjoyed it very much. And then when I finished my philosophy study, there was this other opportunity and another passion that I have discovered there which was theology. So I just took that opportunity and I went on to study theology also in Rome. So I basically studied in Rome for six, seven years in total seven because I had one year of of of adjustment. >> Wow. >> Uh so yeah it it was kind of cool and and I don't really regret it. But the more I kind of like studied like at the very beginning to be honest when I started to to to study theology I had this idea that I want to become a priest maybe. Um h however things didn't u didn't really turn out that way and uh well that idea faded away quite quite rapidly even though I really enjoyed the studies. So when I came back so when I finished the studies and there was this idea I I knew I don't want to remain in Italy I I always wanted to come back to to my country to to Romania. So there was the question, okay, but what can I do there? Like in in Romania, you have to imagine like it was the period about 2010 um to 2009 maybe. Yeah, because I returned in 2009 and there wasn't or there weren't too many opportunities kind of like it's it's the same today. So I had this idea because I I I come from a family that kind of like um let's say we struggled a a little bit financially. So I had this idea that I want to do something that okay that that that would allow me to have a little bit like a better life would say. So there was a choice to make. So what can I do there in Romania to kind of like also earn some some money that I can afford a good living a a decent living? Becoming a teacher which was one of the options with my studies unfortunately was not a good idea because teachers are let's say paid uh awfully in Romania like >> that seems to be a common thing in many places unfortunately. Unfortunately, although teachers should be actually paid very highly from my point of view because it's they they they build basically the the next generations and >> that's a huge responsibility actually. So teachers should be definitely paid very well. >> So by that time in in Romania like you've had this opportunity to maybe if you become a doctor or something that that you can have a good life but not from let's say a regular job. But there was this one area where people were paid very good and that was it. >> Okay. >> Now it was something that was not really str uh uh well totally strange to me or let's say a stranger because I was kind of like uh passionate about it. So I was kind of like that that guy that was installing Windows basically for for everybody and fix their computers and and things like that. But my knowledge about it kind of like stopped there. So it it didn't go beyond that um at that point. But I said okay maybe I find an opportunity to get into it somehow and then try to learn to to evolve and see where where that gets me. And fortunately I found a place to start not because of my IT knowledge because I said it was limited at installing Windows which is not not much in the end in in this area >> but because the fact that I was speaking fluently German. >> Oh >> no yes because I I studied basically in in a school in Romania. We have these schools where where you can study literally everything in a certain language like German or Hungarian. The reason behind is that we had historically very big uh communities of German speaking people or Hungarian speaking people or in my area Serbian speaking people. So you can do the schools basically in in those languages which means that you study everything in in in in that language like mathematics, chemistry, everything except Romanian which you study in Romanian obviously but everything else you study in that language and I was in such a German school so I studied everything in German. So I was speaking fluently German. Um so there was this uh huge or basically big company. Uh I'm not sure if we are allowed to to to name companies here on on on this >> fine by me if it's if you're comfortable with it. Yeah, that's fine. >> I I am I am there definitely. So it was Borch. I think you know about Bosch, you know, but >> Yeah. Yeah. They had a call center in in my town like in Timishara that was kind of like a call center but on the IT part. >> Okay. >> Like basically employees from all around or mostly Germany. They were just calling there when they had problems. Hey, how do I do that? I can't access my calendar. I can't do this and I can't do that. So we were helping them basically as an IT help desk and I started there basically with with my knowledge like the pay was not great at that point. U it was actually fairly terrible as a call center agent but I always saw this as an opportunity to kind of like this is the start but from here I can learn things and maybe I can evolve to do something better. So I took this as an opportunity and started to learn whatever I could learn there about things that I didn't know and there I started to learn some basics about active directory for instance basics about exchange server at at that point some basics about let's say outlook but mostly active directory and exchange server is what I have concentrated now there are challenges because what you're doing in a call center you can basically imagine that it's it's it's not much So the opportunity to learn is not that great. So you you learn some things obviously if you don't know anything you have the opportunity to learn but you arrive at a certain point where you can't go further basically because it's the nature of of the job and the things that you need to do in call centers. They really don't put that emphasis on kind of like you have to learn more because hey that's the job that you need to do. You don't need to know more than this for this job you know right? >> Uh because for the things that weren't easily solvable. Let's say you needed to simply just well uh just redirect that ticket to some other team that would hand hand hand it locally or something like that. >> There's like specialties of people that would go handle things beyond a certain point and you kind of get back to helping triage the calls that are coming in and getting people sorted. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, uh then basically I I learned whatever I could learn there about Active Directory. Obviously, I spent a lot of time also besides what I could learn um at the job to understand better Active Directory and Exchange Server and and things like that. Uh and then after one year and a half obviously I started to look for opportunities for jobs that were not call center and that were more specialized about active directory and and potentially exchange server. Those were the areas that that I was mostly uh specialized in if we can call it. although my knowledge was kind of like very very low still and and a little bit of networking. So I also needed to to learn a little bit of networking. So that was the time when I started to understand what DNS is, what an DHCP is, how things work over the network, the protocols and and so on. So I starting to started to look for for new opportunities and that's where kind of like uh happened something that that I would say changed my career for the better. >> Okay. >> And that's when I was hired at Microsoft, you know. So kind of like uh I'm not sure when you started at Microsoft >> about four years ago now. Like just over four years like four years and a month. We never were colleagues then because uh kind of like I think in 2015 I I I I I stopped working there. But uh it was the year 2010 and by then there there was something that nowadays seems kind of like okay uh obvious but you know that it was just the period when office 365 started >> right >> like that was the period when uh Microsoft started to have this push uh on office 365 and also in Microsoft they were building uh teams like support teams for this techn technology you know obviously I didn't know anything about office 365 about exchange online about things like that >> I feel like Microsoft itself probably didn't know much about it at that point so >> obviously yeah so the interviews that that they were doing were mostly okay active directory questions exchange server questions and obviously you you know like I'm not sure if if if people are are aware but even if you work in support at Microsoft like I was working in uh premier support. I think there are still the the premier contracts like the big customers like BMW, like Coca-Cola, whatever. So you need to do support for them which means that basically when their IT doesn't know how to go further you need to jump in which means that you need to know your stuff you know because it's kind of like well if if they don't know at BMW how how to go further with with something and they expect you to help them so it means obviously that you need to know your stuff obviously you also have also all the knowledge that is inside Microsoft. So you can definitely access that. So you you have some tools that give you an edge, right? >> But support for for premier customer is not something that's like in in a call center. It's totally different, >> right? >> And obviously my knowledge about active directory and an exchange server was not that deep. So if I would wanted to to apply for let's say support only for active directory or for exchange server uh I wouldn't have got the job but for the office part as say uh they needed people that that that had some knowledge in this area and that would be able to to learn and to become experts and kind of like lead the way then uh with with with office 365 and and everything that's that's online and that was my luck because that's how I actually got into Microsoft uh because they they hired me. I also had my my first manager there that was for me he's he's still a role model nowadays for what it means to uh to be a manager and even though technically I was definitely not very good at that point he he saw something then in me and and had this fate and and hired me and um basically in two years uh afterwards he he was very happy with with that choice because I kind of like grew a lot and and be became one of of the main guys basically in whole EMIA on on certain areas there like uh ADFS and Asia active directory mostly that was what I was uh specializing in but I started in Microsoft and that was for me let's say the moment where suddenly I had this whole ocean of knowledge that I could access >> right >> I had this whole ocean of tools that I had because literally we could do everything there like we could spin up our own exchange server environments, active directories, like servers, like networking, you could do everything there. Everything virtualized obviously. So for me, it it it was like a heaven because I had a lot to learn there. So I really had a lot to learn. >> Before we move on, this is just a reminder that I do have courses available on domain if you want to level up in your C programming. If you head over to do train, you can see that I have a course bundle that has my getting started and deep dive courses on C. Between the two of these, that's 11 hours of programming in the C language, taking you from absolutely no programming experience to being able to build basic applications. You'll learn everything about variables, loops, a bit of async programming, and object-oriented programming as well. Make sure to check it out. And that would have been very different from the previous job, right? Because instead of just being at this point where it's like, "Oh, that's too complicated. Hand it over. Someone's got to go deeper. Hand it over." Like you are the team that is the it's got to go deeper now. So like it's handed to you and now you have these resources around you where >> you can and you are expected to be able to go deeper and and diagnose things and stuff like that. So yeah, that sounds Yeah. Very cool. >> Exactly. Still obviously o also at at the support level we we had kind of like some let's say a superior tire like the the the seniors or or or premier field engineers or things like that. But the thing is they wouldn't accept simply cases or well that you would transfer to them >> if if you didn't do the things that you were supposed to do and you and you couldn't really prove that that you have done already your best. >> Right? So it's not that you could simply say just okay I I just give this uh well two to somebody else and they they will take care because they simply wouldn't accept that. Um, so I I needed to to learn and that's >> I think where where it started because when I I was getting better and and and and better to that I I was soon realizing that for most of the the call the cases that I was working on once again with customers like BMW and Coca-Cola, the British Parliament, Aston Martin um and and so on. So we had customers like that mostly in in the IMIA region but big customers like big IT infrastructures and and so on. So I saw that basically whenever we had a new call there were a lot of things that that we needed to gather like a lot of logs that we need a lot of dumps a lot of information about their uh active directory and and snapshot and performance counters and whatever. So there were a lot of repetitive tasks that we needed to do and always we need the first thing we need we needed to to say okay we need this so perform me these steps then they had a secure way way to upload the the results and and dump files and crash files and and whatever else we needed to to that location and then on those files we just started the analysis >> right >> but always this was the first step so I was >> you see where this is going already which is awesome. >> Yeah. >> So I was thinking okay but kind of like this is a little bit cumbersome because always I have to ask the same things. So we lose >> a lot of time potentially just for them to to do that. Sometimes they didn't know exactly what I was asking for them because a lot of things were on exchange online or shareepoint online or as active directory and as you said nobody was very familiar with that uh at that point. So even they if they had great IT people in uh in their environment for at at those customers, nobody was an expert on on the online stuff, you know. So uh I was thinking, okay, how can I automate that, you know, and I discovered PowerShell because there were a lot of things that that we were doing through PowerShell. So I I said at at a certain point in I I remember that I basically stayed uh for one entire weekend. For me it was like like a heckathaton. Uh obviously it was outside the the job hours. It was not paid as as as u kind of like how do you call this overtime, right? I wanted to do this for myself and like a hackathon I wrote a lot of different PowerShell scripts meant to kind of like take all this information that they needed or that that I needed and uh obviously I had access to whole resources and environments that I could set up with exchange server farms and active directory and online. we had at Microsoft that was the good thing the opportunity to have everything set up like we can spin those environments up. >> So I I basically I I I think I slept for only four hours in in three days. But in the end what I had on Monday when I went to the office was kind of like some very powerful scripts that were gathering all this information for me. And and Dan, but at this point you're you're not a programmer, right? Like you would say like I don't program, right? Like you're you just you knew that you had been using PowerShell scripts at work. You knew that there was some type of code or something associated with them, but at this point you had not written >> No. >> From your perspective, not written code before. Is that fair to say? >> No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It was just PowerShell scripts. Obviously, it took so long because I I discovered a lot of things about PowerShell because you can work with variables, you can so there there's >> a little bit of programming into it and and I think I'll come back to to this very very soon. Uh but for me, yes, indeed, I didn't see this as programming. I I just see this as scripting, okay? And and and try to kind of like make things uh easy easier for me. So at work I started to use these scripts like whenever hey run this for me and everything was collected automatically. It was literally we didn't need to to have a call for that to understand things. So just run me these scripts I will get the results and then if there's any anything else I'll need we'll have a call and we'll see. But uh customers did that. The scripts were working well. So suddenly my my manager asked and and also colleagues but how how do you get things so fast? >> Yeah. >> And I said well because I have these scripts here you know that that that uh kind of like do a lot of stuff for me so I don't lose a lot of time initially just to make the customer understand what we actually need from them. I just ask them to run these scripts and then I get all the information back. So this already saves me a lot of time. So suddenly uh people also more senior engineers were were looking into it and they say hey you have some you you've done some some great job there. So we were started we have started to use this basically in all our teams and other teams that that we had here uh basically uh in in in EMIA were starting uh to to use the scripts that that I have built. Now those scripts was a little bit tailored for this specific online. We had mostly customers that that were uh kind of like uh trying out or moving to to to Office 365 to Exchange online hybrid organizations and and so on. Sorry. But then the cool thing is that there was another guy at at at Microsoft basically still in in Romania who saw my scripts and said, "Hey, you know what? I can do cooler scripts than that." >> Okay. So as a starting point he started to to do his own script and then I was looking at what what he was doing and hey but you don't I think I could do this better. So there was kind of like a challenge like creating PowerShell scripts like cool PowerShell scripts that that can help. It was a challenge a a good challenge because we were friends like we we went out for beers and so so it's not that we kind of like I don't know. >> Yeah. It wasn't like a nemesis right? It wasn't like this guy at work sucks and he's trying to be better than me so I got to show him who's boss. Like you guys were friendly about it. So okay. >> So the good thing is that I've learned a lot of par a lot of passion and along the way a lot of networking a lot of bunch of other stuff. But the thing is that that was actually the point at a certain time when I was thinking okay but if I'm able to do this could I maybe just really program because >> for me it was already kind of like the things that I do in PowerShell they are pretty advanced you know so if if if I'm able to do this maybe I'm able to also get into programming you know and that's when I decided that okay I I want to start learn programming and obviously the choice was net because I was uh uh >> surrounded by >> yeah but the thing is that we didn't have any programmers in Romania at Microsoft at at that point and I um I have some friends that are programmers but they are mostly C++ embedded uh or PHP uh and nobody was actually a net developer so also in Microsoft uh I I didn't have where to actually ask a lot about this So I as we didn't have any programmers like in in Romania in in the immediate network that I had in Microsoft right there. >> So I needed to basically start uh start out on on my own. Uh obviously for some things I could look up some resources that we had internally at Microsoft that make made things a little bit easier. but for a road map and how do I actually start to program that that was a question that that I didn't find or the answer I didn't find in internally at Microsoft directly so obviously I started online and I discovered that uh there was this great course for me this was the best I think uh I think it's Bob Taber it was called okay >> uh there was a guy he he he had kind of like C for absolute beginners course where he would take you from like okay install Visual Studio and Hello World, you know, it would take it from there. So, uh there was a version that that was free, but there was then a paid version for it. And uh yeah, obviously well when I started at Microsoft that the salaries at Microsoft were well were good. So obviously already as I've already grown like I didn't have any financial constraints anymore at least, you know. So uh Microsoft really offered me this this kind of like financial freedom to to don't really care about the next day you know which enables you to to then concentrate on on other things. So I was able to spend okay this this course I don't know it was $100 or something like that. It it was not really a big deal and I I saw this as an investment in myself. >> Even if I fail at programming still it's $100. It's no big deal. So it's it's okay. It's a >> the risk is is low, right? You're not you're not operating like oh no. If I go spend this extra $100 like that might mean that bills are going to be difficult or food might be difficult. It's okay. I have I have an extra $100. So >> exactly I have an extra $100. Okay. I I I can spend them if I learn if if it will be okay. If it will turn out good then that's great. If not then well it's nothing lost and that's it. >> Yeah that's you know um in instead of investing in Bitcoin which might have been a good idea at that point. >> Hi 2011. Sorry, I don't know. Uh but I invested in in in in in that course and um that was kind of like very very cool because I I learned the basics and I I really understood basically that hey um I can do that you know I discovered that I don't really need to be good at mathematics to actually become a programmer you know and I've discovered that I can actually do some stuff and see instantly the result like in a console or maybe in in in a Windows forms. So I see okay it seems that I can do this you know so I kept on learning programming. So uh I I went over to to to Pluralsight and think basically there weren't too many options at at that point like it was 2012 2013. So you didn't have all this content that you have nowadays. Like nowadays >> there's a lot more content. >> You have a lot more training platforms. You have a lot more YouTube content, free YouTube content. Uh but even when it comes to to training platforms where you have to pay, you have plenty of net content like at that time there was virtually almost none. Uh but there were two guys that that were having kind of like trainings on on pro side uh about net. There was uh Sean Vildermute which I think everybody knows he's >> nowadays one of the most well-known guys there. So I took his course about building APIs and there was another guy maybe not that popular as as Sean at least in in the US but probably popular in in in Europe which is Kevin Docks. >> Okay. >> Um I'm not sure if if you know him. >> Yeah. The name is familiar. Yeah. Yeah. He he had also some courses uh on on net like building an an API but he had also some other courses that were on authentication authorization more focused and those courses actually talked to me a lot because if if we go just a few steps back at Microsoft uh basically when I started to to learn programming I I shifted a little bit my my career instead of of doing kind of like premier support for Office 365 and mostly Asure Active Directory because that was uh what I was concentrated on and I became kind of like uh ADFS was a thing back then you know uh ADFS was used when you wanted to federate to uh let's say on premises active directory organizations but when you went to office 365 with Asure Active Directory if you wanted to have single sign on you needed to use ADFS and I kind of like became quite an expert on Asure Active Directory actually and and uh ADFS in uh in IMIA. I was even started to to travel to have workshop with customers with Microsoft customers with Microsoft partners to uh to to to train other teams basically in ADFS and and and and Asia active directory. So when I saw those courses about authentication and and authorization, you know, this was the feeling that hey, you know, this is an area that that kind of like also overlaps with my previous experience like with things that that I already know and that I'm fairly good at, >> right? Yeah. >> And those courses then help me to kind of like also understand programmatically. So as a programmer, how do I do work with the these things that I worked on more or less? let's say like a cis admin like >> you see from the other side right >> exactly exactly >> and yeah that that's how how how I I got into programming and obviously the next thing that I wanted to do was say okay I need to I need also to have a more practical reference now I have learned a fair amount of things about programming about also APIs but I need to build something you know >> that was going to be my question is like um I think a lot of us that are trying to put out content and help others. Uh, one of the things that's, you know, very common for us to say is like make sure you're building things. Make sure you're building things. And, >> uh, the landscape is obviously very very different now, like as you were saying, even with paid courses, it's going to be limited. Now, nowadays, there's a lot more paid courses. There's tons of free information. And it seems like like it makes the path you're explaining makes a lot of sense where it's like, hey, I'm finding these resources. I'm going to try them out. But what like how did you shift gears like to not get caught in like tutorial help, like kind of thing to start building. Yeah. >> Now that you put it this way, I I I realize that this journey to to actually switch careers and kind of like switch and and and become a a programmer also. It's it's it's not everything about the technical knowledge that you get, but it's also a lot about mental toughness and resiliency and the ability to kind of like understand exactly where you need to go to the next step and what that next step would be. And I think maybe my philosophy studies helped me a lot in this case with the critical thinking and understanding. But I think here or this is exactly the point where most of the people would need a mentor you know >> right >> because otherwise if if if if you don't really have built up this this this very critical and analytical thinking you might get caught up as you said in tutorial and basically arrive at the point where you know the basics but you feel that you never can get to the next step and then actually really get a job let's say right >> I know my if statements I know my for loops I know these some of these concepts, but like what what am I doing with it? Like if you put some code in front of me, I could probably tell you about it, but what am I doing with it? >> Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So, uh I I I knew I needed to to build something and I I I started to actually do that. And it was not a web application by the way. But the idea is that my wife, she's an architect, you know, and she always complained about uh finding it very hard kind of like uh track her projects and so on and the financial part, but also the execution part uh like she's an architect. I always say a a real architect, you know. >> For real things. Yes. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh okay. So I said okay let's let's build something like a program management tool for her so that she could use that you know and I've started to build this uh well obviously the choice was not the best in in a Windows forms application >> sure but uh you know the thing is that the code is ugly as hell but actually I was able to build something that worked and I've built it as Windows application because I just build it I I've sent uh her the the files. So, I didn't need to install I don't know a lot of things. So, I didn't really need an installer and and things like that. >> Copy the files. >> Yeah, copy the files, run the application, bang. It had this SQLite database, you know. So, I I needed to also look into that. So, I was figuring that I I can't connect to to an SQL database. So, I was researching and I found SQLite. Okay, good. Great. It's exactly what I need. So, >> persistence, right? And you got it and it's right there. >> Yeah. And it was in the files that she copied, you know, so she could potentially if she could switch the computer, she could just, let's say, copy everything that she had in that folder on the new computer and everything was working. So nothing was lost. So for me, it was kind of like everything was achieved. So I I build this application. I don't remember exactly how how much time it it did take me. Uh not quite a lot. like I think it was something like three or four weeks when when I worked after hours obviously uh to to build it. I I was still working at at Microsoft at that point also traveling a lot um with with work giving courses on on the things that that that I knew >> and uh I built that application and she started to really use it you know and that was kind of like cool uh I I was very happy. So yeah, >> she wasn't too critical of a customer. She wasn't uh as your wife, she wasn't like, "Hold on, no, you got to fix all these things." >> No, she actually was very happy and excited and yeah, she was okay, cool. She struggled with a lot of things. This application solved really a lot of of her problems and she was very very very okay with that. So that application even kind of like there were things that I needed to build there >> that I never studied in the courses that I had because I needed to generate PDFs. So how do you generate PDFs, you know? So I need to search for that once again kind of like searching for things was a a little bit more difficult back then but still you could find information in stack overflow. So I I found a library. I don't remember if it was iron PDF or something else. I think it was maybe something else. Uh obviously I need to find a library that was also free or that had a free version. Uh so I I I really hit some some some some roadblocks there that I needed to solve and find solutions for them. And I found solutions for really every one of that. So I' I've built basically my first product and that's the point when I realized that hey I I can be a programmer like I can do this professionally. Obviously you just like yeah you proved it. So I was aware even though I didn't really have all the knowledge to understand and say exactly why but I was aware that the code that I've written obviously is bad but I've built a working product actually you know and um that was the point where I decided okay I want to become a professional programmer a professional engineer. So uh at Microsoft once again I I I switched a little bit the focus and uh from focusing on Asia active directory and things I've became a partner technical consultant. I think this role still exists at Microsoft although it's a little bit different right now. Um and concentrating on our ISVS. So suddenly I was starting uh in the meantime obviously Asia grew a lot and become a thing and everybody was moving to Asia. So part of my job was uh already involved a lot of coding because I I had to build a lot of proof of concept mostly okay how do you work or integrate with Azure Active Directory your application how do you work with Azure service bus how do you work with Azure SQL for instance uh how do you work with Cosmos DB when it came out later a little bit so I needed to do a a lot of proof of concept it was still coding but only at at the proof of concept level So uh but I wanted to really become let's say I wanted to be part of teams that really build software not just proof of concept like software that is shipped somewhere you know. >> Yeah for folks that like are that are listening or watching like uh sometimes like I I spent a lot of my career actually like doing prototyping and proof of concept. So totally totally get it. Uh, and sometimes, uh, like people hear about this kind of thing and they're like, "Oh, wait." Like, so instead of a feature team, you just get to look at all the new shiny things. And it's like, hold on, but there's a catch. And it's like you might code something and then throw it away and then do that on repeat for like every day for a month. And like you're you don't sort of get to see things grow and evolve as much because a lot of the time it's just a quick thing. >> Exactly. And I think there is a another big problem with this that that I felt for myself. You never know how good is the code that you write because nobody cares >> because it's not the goal at that point, right? And I've always said for people that aren't familiar with prototyping and proof of concepts like the goal I mean there's the goal is to answer a question. That question might change. It might be like is this viable for us like technically uh is it going to be like a market fit? Like do the customers like it? There's always questions that you're trying to answer. But one of the questions that you're generally not answering is like is this code going to survive on? because the answer is like probably not like you're just trying to answer something else with it. >> Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And I I felt that I I couldn't really progress basically. I had already my goal. I want to be a professional programmer and I felt that I I'm stuck right now, you know. So that was the point for me when I decided okay I I I need to to kind of like take a role that's full-time programming and that's it on things that you really build on teams that that are doing this basically for living. so that you understand also the code that you're writing is it good is it not good why is it not good because that that's the way that that you can improve now the problem was that uh at at Microsoft obviously u there was already a small team of development started in Romania so theoretically that uh that would have been an option however the problem was there at at Microsoft that uh well when you want to go for the interview obviously they start to ask a lot of questions about data structures and algorithms and reversing trees and I don't know things like that and obviously I didn't study that and uh I said okay uh well there should be something different I mean uh I've just built some products I' I I do programming it can't really be that whenever you become a programmer everybody asks you these questions that you actually never use in real life although So uh obviously my take on this right now it's a little bit it's a little bit more more nuanced because if you're doing stuff for Microsoft or for Google or for things probably you will also need to be aware and do stuff that they ask in the interviews. >> Yes. >> So I can totally agree and understand right now that uh in companies like this they ask these questions because probably you will be faced with them. um if you are at a startup or things like that where you just want to build a product there obviously you you don't tackle these challenges that Microsoft or Google or Facebook does to have the need to actually uh uh have that and to put it in the context for instance the development team that that was in in in Romania at Microsoft at at that point was working on Bing maps like obviously they were doing a lot of graph theory and graph traversals and things like that that I did not understand But that's what they were doing, you know. >> Uh I also didn't really want to to to move out of Romania. So I started to look at things outside Microsoft. And uh uh that was the point where I I've got this interview at the company that I'm also currently working on uh it's called. And um that's when I realized it was actually my first interview that I was very bad at programming you know because they started to ask me a lot of things like uh clean code principles like solid principles uh and object-oriented pr principles. Now the object-oriented principles I I I have seen in in the courses. So uh these things were not totally strange to me but I obviously didn't have a really practical understanding and practical reference on them. Uh but I had a very big advantage. >> I was very good with Asia you know in a time 2015 >> where people were not very good with Asia. So I literally in in those times I was an Asia expert you know and there weren't too many people in in in the company and generally that that were expert in Asia you know so they said okay you know we do here at the company mostly net stuff in in those types because now right now we are kind of like technology agnostic we do a lot of other things so they said okay this guy seems to know a little bit of programming you know probably if it is just for for his programming knowledge we wouldn't hire him but >> he worked at Microsoft it means that he's probably smart >> and he >> Microsoft said yes right so like the bar is the bar should be set okay yeah >> yeah and and he knows Asia you know >> so what if we hire him because maybe he he can learn stuff you know and maybe he can become useful for us and they had faith in me and hired me as a junior software developer. Now the thing is and I think I think I want to emphasize this because I I think it's it's it's very important. Now you have to imagine that I was at Microsoft you know I I was kind of like on a decent uh seniority there like uh I my salary was was quite high like for for Romanian standards was quite high very high I would say. So the thing is that uh I wanted to move to a field like software engineering like become a full-time software developer >> right >> where my knowledge was at a junior level you know very junior level even if I did know Asia but as a developer kind of like compared to all developers that that they had I was literally very very low so they couldn't obviously match and give me the salary that I had at Microsoft Right. >> So I had this very important decision to make. So I say I want to become a software engineer. So right now I'm at Microsoft. I have a decent salary. I I'm okay with that. The thing is that how how are things in in in most companies kind of like the salaries don't really grow a lot after a certain period of time like you get three 5% every year or something like that. Uh so now I want to go to to switch to to a software developer role where my salary will be 25% less like 25%. It's a lot like still it was not that bad when I started in a call center. So it's it's it it's still well kind of like would be okay for a decent living Romania, >> right? So, >> it's not that it's bad, but it's definitely it's a 25% is a noticeable like kind of step back and and it would make you think like, okay, >> my expenses look like whatever they are today, like what does it look like to have like 25% less income to to cover all of these things and how how has my standard of living changed? >> Exactly. And and I I think we need to be aware that kind of like uh when you earn more, your expenses also get more, you know. >> So, the thing is that >> very typical. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I was in a place that okay I I was earning enough but it's not that I could put or that I did put a lot aside uh at at that point. So yeah it it was 25% was something because we we also had some loans that that that we had to pay. So it meant that that we would need to to cut some some of the expenses like to to be a little bit more disciplined with that. Mh. >> So it was a big decision and we didn't know exactly where I didn't know exactly where where where this would take me but I said okay this gives me the opportunity to go in in in in this field to become a software developer. And I was saying okay and I I'm bad right now. I'm a junior but if I manage to succeed at Microsoft I think I will be able to succeed also here as a software engineer. >> Right? >> So I said okay let's do that. So I accepted the the job offer and um I think um I think it it was a very good idea at right now. So it turned out well let's say eight years after. So uh I think it's it's it's fairly okay. So yeah, but the the decision so one thing that we also need to understand sometimes when we want to go for something like it means that we might be also need to well go for a salary cut if we know or if we have a hunch that that could be really in the long run a better step in in our career like when I say a better step not necessarily from a financial perspective but also from a perspective that hey that's what I want to actually that that's I what I want to do and it it's fun for me to do and I don't go to work and it's awful you know because that's also important >> such a good point right and I think that uh for a lot of people I mean software engineering in particular is a is a pretty well- paid field which is which is great but yeah like the the reality is like if you're in a job that you're that you're not in love with then yeah like the you're going to be doing this for many years unless you happen to win the lottery or something like that. >> You you want something that's going to be obviously paying you uh at at least a decent rate so that you're feeling like you're not like financially scared or at risk or anything. But if you're not enjoying what you're doing over, you know, however long our careers are, they're 40, 50 years or whatever, then then what? Like that's a big chunk of your life to not be enjoying things. So, I I would strongly suggest for people to to kind of make the pivot when they start to realize like, hey, I think I'm I want to try this thing because you have many years to get better at it. You have many years to kind of grow and get advanced and and and see like raises and, you know, uh higher paying roles and things like that. So, I think it's definitely worth doing when you start to identify it. >> Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree with that. Uh definitely. So yeah that's uh I think this this story got already a little bit longer than than expected but uh that's that's u how I actually got into programming and then obviously when when I started to work there I once again had a lot to learn had an opportunity to um meet brilliant people there uh some of them are even nowadays my colleagues so they they are still there at the company and I I I always kind of like say that uh or I heard this I'm not sure who said this uh at some point but it was this idea that uh if you are the smartest person in the room then you should leave the room you know >> right >> so I I I never had this this feeling that that I'm the smartest person in the room um in in in the current company and I still don't have this feeling that I still have the feeling there are people there that that are way smarter and every day I get to learn something from them so I I I totally love that um and I grew I started to to grow to learn a lot to to write software professionally >> to well get to understand the technology better to widen even my my expertise in different areas of of technologies u let's say one thing about working in an outsourcing company is that you kind of like also switch the projects a lot and you get to to understand the different industries and I think that's a good thing there are obviously also downsides working in outsourcing so defin definitely but a Good thing is that you get to to understand more industries. You eventually get to understand and and work with also different technology stacks, you know, because at at a certain point I I worked for a customer and they kind of like acquired uh some some some new product that needed to be integrated with with their with their existing product and guess what that one was written in Node.js, you know. So suddenly >> not C#. >> No. Yeah. No, no, not C#. Yeah. >> What were they thinking? >> Yeah. Yeah. So uh I I needed to go into NodeJS and uh obviously I I already knew JavaScript because I I was doing a web application. So it it was not totally strange. But uh well I I I went and I and I suddenly found out that uh okay if you already know one language or or one framework and one framework you can then go also to other languages because there are a lot of languages that that have a lot of similarities and you can learn them very easily like once you get the fundamentals once you have what I would say the engineering mindset and the engineering way of looking at problems and trying to understand them and decompose them and solve them then learning a new programming language, it's mostly a matter just of kind of like a time of a few weeks to to learn a syntax and that's it. >> Yeah. You just need to start like making the time to practice it because if you're not like it's not going to be familiar, right? Like and I would say I've even had periods where I'm not coding the in the language but reading it over a period of time helps but I would like in order for me to be comfortable programming in it, I couldn't just read it. I would need to be writing the code as well. >> Definitely. Definitely. Definitely. And uh yeah also for other projects with have we have uh spring boot so I eventually also got into Java a little bit. Um there were also some projects where we use some Python for for some stuff for the customer. So I also got into Python. So I literally went into kind of like a different set of of programming languages and and texts and and kind of like understood a little bit what are the pros and cons. what were the good things about each programming language about each stack and this kind of like gave me a wider view and a wider understanding of of technology and uh well a better baseline for making decision when you need to make decisions you know for certain projects which I think >> it's it's a very important thing and that's why I always advise people that they say uh I don't know for instance also at at work when we have there there are a lot of developers that don't really want to go outside outside their comfort zone. So they are on a project they say I'm a net developer and I I write C# and suddenly I don't know there's the need for me to write Java or to write Cotlin or to write I don't know what else and I don't want to do that and I say that's actually a very bad thing that that you do for yourself >> because you kind of like put yourself limits with this >> you you you limit yourself just in a small box >> but you'll never have a wider understanding of what's actually outside that small box of yours. And that's the reason why you won't be able when the time comes to maybe that you need to to make some decisions about something that that you you don't really have the baseline to to make those decisions. And that's what I'm trying to always mentor uh people about to always be open to go outside. Okay, I understand that you can have a preference. Obviously, I I'm still in love with C# and net. So that that's my primary focus and probably it it will never change but I always go if needed outside and try to understand these new technologies like when NexJS came out one year and a half ago obviously it's still JavaScript but it it was a new framework like React they bragged a lot that hey at React React is not a framework it's just library you use it how you want you know probably that's one of the reasons why React code bases are always awful but but then suddenly you know, hey, here's a framework based on React, and if you take a look at it, it's the most opinionated framework out there. It's more opinionated than Angular or or or or other frameworks. So, obviously, I said, okay, me I I need to investigate this, you know. >> Sure. >> Even if I was already a technical director and I was not coding every day, I spent time at home to kind of like, okay, write an application in XJS to understand the model, to understand the challenges, to understand to to to understand what happens. Now there are a lot of programmers that I see uh encounter also at at conferences but also at work and at events they don't do this you know so they they they just do the their box they stay in their box but then the problem is that at a certain point I know that there were some people that asked how did I manage to kind of like arrive to this role of the te of a technical director you know and the reason why I arrived to this role is not because I stayed in the box But because I I went outside, you know, and that gave me a wider understanding of of of things and technology and that gave me the baseline to make some good decisions that made some customers happy and well that that helped me to to to get promoted. Like if you stay in in your box, you'll never get to do that and then you you'll arrive at a certain point in in your career where you will simply not progress anymore, you know? >> Right. And no, that that makes a lot of sense. I even like I know like I can identify for myself like I I certainly focus on C andnet an awful lot. Uh but there have been points in my career like espe like I don't code at work anymore but uh in my career where there have been things where like okay we have to go find uh information about something and there's a library that exists that does something and it's not in C andnet and it's like you better go figure out how it works and like uh you know so I would have to go learn it and we would either have to go wrap it to integrate with it but I still have to understand it or I would have to go understand the code in some other language intimately enough to we need like a net version of this and and go do it. Um, so I I know like I I love how you said it though because I can I can definitely say that I am sca- scared is too strong of a word and maybe not the right word, but I'm going to use it because I can't think of a better one. I'm like I'm sometimes scared to go into these like new situations where I'm not familiar with the technology, right? Like I I know net, I know C, so I should stick with it. But I have found that every single time in my career where I am put into a situation that I don't know the thing that yeah it's a little awkward in the beginning and always results in like a tremendous amount of learning. Like it's almost like a step function where I'm like instead of just kind of coasting along and being like okay like couple more things I understand. It's like this sucks, this sucks, it's awkward and all of a sudden like step function like okay like I I finally have this new perspective. So I definitely hear what you're saying on that >> and and I also had this feeling or or being scared about this but now I'm less and less scared and you know why I I think it's it's it's a matter once again um of a thought process. So I always tell to myself I was in this situation already I don't know X times before and I did well. So I'm not scared to go into something because I know that historically I was able to comprehend things and and to to perform well and to understand them. So I simply always remind myself about this and just go all in. >> Yep. I've had in my experience I have had approximately zero times where it's ever been bad. >> Yeah. >> It's it's always and I will say it's always awkward. It's always like a little frustrating but it's never been bad. It's always had a good outcome and I've always learned a lot. So, exactly as you said, I I am trying to do better at reminding myself like hey look like you know every time this happens good things uh are the other side. So like just do it. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And I think this mindset also helps a lot with the impostor syndrome >> right >> that that that you might have. And actually I I think I I I can tell a story about this as well. >> I would love that. Yeah. Because obviously my journey as as as I have explained it so far, you you need to understand that there were several times in in my career where I felt this impostor syndrome very very very deeply. There are also times when I feel it but not that deep. So it's something that that doesn't really scares me or kind of like brings me into questioning. Okay, why am I doing this? Um should I literally do this or maybe I should go do something else? >> Yeah, maybe this isn't for me. Yeah, there are different levels of of of the imposter syndrome. But one moment where I experienced this impostor syndrome at a very very high level was actually the first time I got to speak to a conference outside Romania and it was a net conference. Uh I I know it was kind of like um not a big one obviously and it was in Minsk in Barus. was way before all these things happened right now. So, uh that there were things happening in Belarus. So, that there was a conference there. So, I applied and I don't know because I applied to to a lot of conferences and kind of like I did get a lot of rejections and I almost wanted to to give up but they invited me there. >> Cool. And the problem was there once I arrived there I was kind of like at at some point at at the conference day in in the speakers lounge and in the speaker lounge there were people like Conrad Kokosa I don't know if you know he's the author of the pro.net memory management book >> okay pro probably knows a couple of things. Yeah. >> Yeah. There was Mikail type there which is the author of for chocolate you know the graph library. There was Steve Gordon. I'm not sure if you know >> I don't know. >> Steve Gordon. No >> he's also well very well-known guy in in in the net world at least in in Europe like he has also a lot of proite courses. He's really like he speaks at NDC and and he's really great at this. Um there was also there some guy from Microsoft. Um it he was called I remember the name Egor Bugato. Maybe the name doesn't tell a lot >> but at a certain point uh there was kind of like they were sitting at a table this this agore with Conrad and with MK type they were literally talking about read only spans and memory marshalling in making the hot parts of some part of the hot chocolate library faster and more memory efficient and I didn't understand stand a thing about what they were talking like I didn't >> and you're like I'm a I am a net developer and I'm here to speak about this stuff and Like I was there to speak about some API gateway called Oslo that I have used at work at lot and had working it with it in production environment. So, but when I was there, I I wanted to cancel my talk. Like I was one step from going to the organizer say I I want to cancel my talk, you know? I felt it so so so badly there like this idea that what am I even doing here, you know? >> Right. >> I these guys here they they are literally well well 10 levels above me, you know, and they talk here what what am I doing here, you know? So it it was very bad. And by the way there was also there that Kevin Dox the the author of some courses that I that I took on pearl site. So for me that point was something like a a point where I said man no no that's that that's not going to work. So I remember that I was just going outside and uh taking a walk and I was thinking about this entire situation and I've already interacted also with Conrad and with Mel and with Steve Gordon and so on and I I saw them like some some kind of gods obviously but they were so friendly and kind of like not condescending at all. they were kind of like talking to me as I was their equal and and and while I was walking and and thinking about this and said okay but if if this guy is okay um kind of like have this attitudes to towards me then uh probably I don't know I I should give it a try with with the talk and not cancel it because chances are that also people at the conference might behave kind of like in this the same way >> right >> also there was another thing that that I was saying myself. Okay, I know this this Oslo API gateway. Nowadays, you also find a lot of articles about it. But at at that point, it was something quite new and we work with it. I used it in a production application. So, I was fairly confident that nobody in that room would have more experience with that piece of technology than me, >> right? You had to remind yourself, right? Like I I do actually know this thing. It's like you started to do this comparison with people in the room it sounds like where they're talking about things that you don't know. >> Yeah. >> And they're people that you've uh you've looked up to. You've kind of you've in some cases like taken their courses and going like I can't compare to them but you had this reminder to yourself like I actually do know this particular technology and like I have experience with it and >> and I can talk about that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And the last thing that that I remember from that walk was one thing that uh that also uh stood stood to my mind. I obviously always like uh looked up to Scott Hanselman that you already that on the podcast and you are also colleague. So I I hate you for that. Um but I all I I very often since I was at Microsoft was looking at him as as as a role model like the way he behaves, the way he talks at at conferences and the way he his attitude. So for me he was always a role model and I remember that uh somewhere I think on on his blog on on on some of his descriptions is something like I talk to whoever wants to listen or something like that. So that phrase re remained with me like for years already and kind of like it reminded myself like okay I talk to whoever wants to listen like if there is anybody at this conference that wants to listen to this idea of this API gateway and how we used it in production then I talk to them if there are two people or three people or or or 10 people u I'll just talk to them I I don't care about this if they want to hear that I talk to it so I went and and gave the talk and the talk went went well and went smooth and and everything was okay and uh but that was I think the the moment where I experienced this impostor syndrome at the deepest possible level and I think the next important thing to do is when you get this imposter syndrome like the first step is to to find this this mental resiliency and toughness and and and find things to actually get out of it and uh try to do the thing that you to do even if if you doubt yourself a little bit. But then the next thing for me is always, okay, I heard these guys talking about >> things that I didn't understand. It's time to learn, you know, >> right? It's an opportunity now. It's not just a barrier. It's not this bad thing. It's like, okay, like >> uh you you act, it's cool because you used it as a feedback mechanism, right? You talked about overcoming it, which I think is incredibly important, but you also didn't just stop there and say, "Okay, I made it through." You said okay but I did have this feedback like from yourself right you you kind of created the feedback loop to say that didn't feel good to be in this position where I didn't know about these things but what can I do about that >> yeah exactly so I wanted the next time that I meet these guys I don't want to have this problem anymore you know obviously they will still be much better than me but at least I would have an understanding of what they are talking about you know >> and the really cool thing is if the exact same thing happened next time and It wasn't spans and memory management and the same group of people was talking about the coolest technology and you repeated the exact same thing where you went, "Oh no, I don't know this stuff." You could try to go through all the steps you just explained, try to overcome your imposter syndrome and then go learn something new yet again. >> Exactly. Obviously, I did this very often afterwards. But you know what? That was the first time that it happened to me that that I had this feeling. Once I did go through it, I I basically created a framework for myself, you know. So I created a framework. Whenever I encounter this problem, I know exactly what to do. And that's why I don't go in this type of crisis anymore, you know. Because okay, I'm in this situation. I have the framework. I need to overcome to to think about this and then I need to learn. So I I I already had this this set up for me mentally and and I simply apply it and reapply it whenever the the situation occurs. And the thing is that obviously >> that's a great way to learn because that expands this way you expand your knowledge and understanding uh very very much and it's kind of like very important from my point of view that obviously if I need right now I'm not an expert on memory management let's say >> sure >> but I know enough about memory management and and performance to understand when I'm in a scenario where this is important and to know exactly where to get started you know >> and where to look and what are the first steps and then that's everything you need to then actually learn to go in depth about it you know so I have everything that I need to get started and to understand when this is important and uh when I need to apply that and where to start looking on how to how to apply that you know and it's important I think to understand that uh when you want to grow in your career like eventually what What do you want to do after you are a senior software engineer or a principal software engineer? >> What's the next step? And then from my point of view, a lot of people fail uh or fall into this trap that they concentrate a lot on just one technology like their box. I want to be good at C, you know. And there are people that I know even maybe well people that that I know developers that I know that if we would take a let's say C test the most in-depth C# test that's possible I'm sure that they would do better than me at that test but they focused only only on C you know >> while I started to always expand a little bit my horizon you know so it's it's I think it's important important when you grow to still be good very good in one area >> but then to expand. So it's not going only deep but it's also to going wide >> right >> because this gives you a lot of context and understanding that enables you to make decision you know >> right I've heard people describe this as like a almost like a T-shaped developer and I've heard other like sort of flavors of this where you want to like that in terms of the T-shape like having breadth across some range but also depth is like the the vertical part of the T. Then I've heard of other people saying like a Wshaped developer. Like the point is like you want to have at least an area where you're like this is something that I feel like I can go pretty deep on but you don't want to just be like a vertical line in terms of depth. You want to make sure you have some some breadth to it. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And and that's what what enabled me for instance to kind of like have this role as technical director because right now I I'm guiding projects and not all projects are net. Not all projects are only with Asia. We have AWS a lot also. >> How dare you? >> Yeah, because kind of like I I also wanted to to go and and had kind of like this experiences to to to also go a little bit wider and not only deep into one single technology. And I think especially now in in this era of of new AI, I think that's actually one thing that developers need to do because I think that developers that go only deep, they will be obsolete because uh that the AI will be able to do the job probably as good as you, maybe even better. But what AI can't really do is making good decisions where there are a lot of variables in the context >> right >> and that's where you have to we need to have this system understanding and understanding the high level picture understanding constraints understanding a lot of different things that AI doesn't understand because it's based on creativity and right now AI it's not necessarily creative from from my point of view right >> so I think that for the future actually this will be more and more important for developers in order to bring more value or to continue to bring value >> and we see this a lot even like if if folks are programming and you're using LLMs like if you're using chat GPT and stuff you can like there's I know I work with one particular developer outside of Microsoft that uh he would say like he's not a programmer by any means and he uses chat GPT almost exclusively to be generating literally entire applications that are totally functional but the the thing that's interesting is that like I totally agree with what you're saying like you can ask an LLM to go write code and it will do it but the the part that's important is that we have this like extra perspective that we can add in and and we can say hey wait no like consider this now or here's other constraints and the LLM on its own is not doing that so it just goes this is the instruction you gave me here's something >> but we have to be able to think about these other these other vari variables and we have to make decisions and optimize for them, assign like from our perspective the weight of these things, the importance of them and then instruct the LLM to be able to say like no actually this is I value in this case performance more so go make it less readable or no you have to use this particular technology and without that guidance like it's going to give you an answer that's not necessarily wrong but it might not be what you need. >> Yeah. Exactly. and and it might be coded that that that's actually a hell to to maintain basically >> because and I give literally that's something that that I've experienced this week the past week. So I was using a lot this uh cursor you know this new IDE >> I haven't tried it yet but I've heard about it. Yes. >> It's it's impressive. It's it's really cool. Now I know Angular. I I would consider myself let's say a mid Angular developer let's say. So I wanted okay let's build an application with angular and I started to build an application with angular with carser and basically relying mostly exclusively on prompts and code that cars was generating for me and I created the application end to end without I think I didn't write even 10 lines of code myself and the application like well became fairly big it was not really a hello world application now it was also not an enterprise application but I had around 25 different components. There are a bunch of different types of services and so on and so forth. And the application was working. And obviously I did this faster than I would have done this kind of like if I wanted to do this without any help of of cursor and and and AI especially because I haven't written Angular for three or four years and Angular has changed a lot even recently has has has changed a lot. But then again two days ago or three days ago I opened uh cursor again to look at this application after let's say a break of one week that that I didn't look at it at all. So when I opened that IDE and started to go through the code, I had this really uh I would call it epiphany even man this code here is really bad. Like I saw there literally there it was missing the new functional angular way with the old angular way with classes and inheritance. It was a mix of using directives and not using directives when they needed or they didn't need it. Uh it wrapped a lot of things into observables when it was not the case to wrap things into observables. The code was very very bad. Now if you want to maintain this like if any other developer would would would come on this team and work on this they wouldn't understand anything from that code because literally every file uses different programming approaches and models and okay the LM helped me to generate this application that that's the real power of of that but in the end if you don't have the skill to understand what it generates for you and that actually even that it it helps you you can't rely on it because you need to to to have a consistent programming model in the things that you write. >> You you need to to to adhere to to certain principles, you know, and if you are not aware of them, then AI will literally help you write more buggy code than before, you know. >> Yep. And I it's interesting. I wonder because like that that totally makes sense. I without even having seen the code I can envision what that could look like even using C and having like these interesting like different patterns and coding conventions and stuff across a bunch of different files but I'm I'd be curious if you were to try it again and you're like I want to prevent this from happening. I do wonder if you could sort of it working with the LLM sort of prompt it to kind of guide it more to say like use these types of conventions, avoid these ones and stuff and and maybe the styling and like and stuff would be more consistent. That might be interesting to see. >> You can you you can definitely do that but then the the thing is first of all you still need to have the knowledge to instruct the LM. >> Exactly. You have to you have to know that to be able to even tell it because people that say that okay uh well why need do you need to learn that because you can use an an an LLM because you don't know what to tell your LM to do you know and you don't have a critical way of understanding what the LLM generated to uh uh for you and eventually give some some other prompts to kind of like reshape that or or or have that better. So first of all you you you need to have this understanding and if you don't have it then this is a big problem. Um and then the second part is there is a point I think when if I still need to do a lot of follow-ups it might become actually more productive for me to write me a certain things myself from scratch you know >> right >> and then when I can instruct the LM like in cursor it's it's fairly cool because you can give the files or you can give more files as as context and and even pictures and generate the prompt based on that and then you can set up things different things by yourself and then take them as a context and say that I am okay help me do this now based on this context and then the chances are that it gets better you know but I think this is also kind of like an example on why I think that LMS won't definitely replace programmers but it will replace programmers that are only focused and that understand only a narrow very narrow set of things because they will not have the ability to understand the wider picture and understand uh what did the LLM generate for me is it secure how does it perform how does it doain about these things in general right they're not going broader yeah >> so obviously uh those developers that that have this uh very narrow and strict mindset I think they they they will have a problem with AI in the near future But if we can adapt and developers that can adapt and that that have also the breadth of of of understanding so that they can use the LLM to their advantage, they can definitely become more productive and bring more value. >> Yeah, I totally agree with that. I I'm personally of the mindset like at least in the foreseeable future like I I disagree with a lot of like the the the CEOs and stuff that are saying oh like you know developers are going to be obsolete in like a couple years or something. I I don't think that's the case. Uh and for a lot of the exact same reasons that you're saying like uh I think that you know as you said like we need to evolve and I think that's absolutely the case. I think there there going to be things it's kind of like when we started um this is just my perspective from even over the last 12ish years uh seeing like uh in some cases manual testing rules where like if people weren't getting more creative about how they were testing things like yeah we could go write automated tests to go do the exact same things that you're always doing. Now it doesn't mean that manual testing or doing manual validation is bad or it's obsolete but there are certain things that absolutely could be automated and if you didn't adjust then yeah your entire role might be obsolete and I see the same thing could happen if we're not adapting like we need to make sure that we are thinking more broadly we're thinking more from like a system perspective we're asking these important questions like truly around the engineering part not just like like specifics about the code. So >> yeah. So the way I see I say it like if coding is your superpower then you'll have a problem but if engineering is your superpower then I think you're you're fine. But regarding QAS, I think that uh I see let's say a higher risk for manual QA to kind of like have a lot of their uh part of the jobs kind of like done uh by uh by some form of of AI and that's why for instance in in in in the company in Amaris we have initiatives to kind of like teach all the QA automation you know because I think that might be valuable for them in the future and if they don't do it right now. It could be. I don't say that definitely it would be but it could be there is a higher probability that uh yeah they won't bring enough value to justify a job you know. >> Yeah. >> So we have this effort to to to go into automation because of that. Yeah. >> Yeah sense like for at least and this is still going back Yeah. Like before LLMs and stuff even for the uh the QAs and testers that I would work with before it was more like move move from just manually testing things like don't don't think about your job as like it's a manual uh repetitive effort. >> Exactly. >> Uh that you can be a user proxy and like give feedback as a user like that's super valuable in terms of usability and things like that. You're literally a person >> and if it's awkward for you to use and you're stumbling through it like that's good feedback to have. Um, and and being creative about things that we should be considering testing. Aside from that, like helping with automation, I think is key. But if you're if you're the way you said it, like if your superpower in this case is like I can I can go through the the list of things to go click and do them on repeat. I'm like that's actually a computer superpower. And unfortunately, it's significantly better than humans. >> Yeah. Yeah. And they don't get bored. Yeah. >> Yeah. That's the other thing. They don't get bored. Um, no. Dan, I wanted to ask in the last couple minutes here, I know like for for you content creation is a big part of what you do. I know you you speak and things like that. So, I I wanted to kind of hear from from you. You talked a lot about your your career and how things have changed and how you like your perspective on things. How does content creation and and speaking and like these are to me they seem like on the outside like this is a huge opportunity for you to be giving back to others and and kind of sharing your wisdom and stuff like that but I'm I'm inventing this in my head like I would love to hear from you if like that's the case and the motivation and things like that. >> Actually it it is very intentional and uh it always was a very conscious effort about this. Now I wouldn't um bring conference talking or uh speaking at conferences uh as as being part of of this mindset of of this conscious effort to to give back because to be honest for me it was initially more a thing like of an ego >> to talk conference to to that's fair >> if I can do that. So I didn't really see it as as giving something back when talking at at conferences. it was more like a kind of a goal for me that that I wanted to achieve. But on the other hand, and that that's one thing that that actually I I didn't talk about a lot is that from the moment that I actually started to to learn programming and understand that hey, okay, I I managed to do this mostly I managed to do that on on my own because at that point there were not that many resources, didn't have the people that could really mentor me. So I I I really did this on my own, but I realized and recognized that it's actually very tough and challenging that and that that people that might want to do exactly the same thing that they might need actually some some guidance and some some help on their way and starting already I think with 2015 like when I was still a junior so I I I I wasn't that uh uh that good of of of a software engineer but I already have this idea. Okay. Uh, I think I'm I'm not that good. I'm not the best. I still have obviously a lot to learn, but I think I know already enough that I can maybe try to also help others that want to do a career shift like I did. And actually the name code wrinkles the the company itself because that there's also a company behind it started uh in 2016 right from this idea because I've created this company where I wanted to uh organize trainings and and and courses only for people that wanted to kind of like get into programming from something else. Now uh probably I was also very bad at marketing as a company that didn't uh really work very very well but what I managed to do is still I got in total uh I I did mentor on myself like directly I think probably around 30 people uh mostly most of this mentoring was in the end done for for free so not not on on the company itself uh and I mentored people that were professional dancers uh people that were cooks, people that were uh salesperson um in kind of like retail, >> people that were I don't know what drivers for instance, uh people that were uh librarians, nurses. So I work with a lot of different people and from all the people that I've mentored actually when I say the number it's it doesn't really seems very high but I think 15 around 15 they are nowadays professional software engineers uh some of them are already uh senior engineers they they are very good but I I think what we can actually learn from this is making this type of switch in your career and learning to to become come a software engineer. It's definitely doable, but it's not easy. >> It takes a lot of commitment. It takes a lot of resiliency. It takes a lot of mental toughness um and consistency because otherwise you you will simply not be able to do that. And the main reason is that you will still need to to work a full-time job and do this basically on on your free time. It means that you will have to invest a lot that that will have to dep prioritize maybe some other parts of your life. So that there are sacrifices that that need to be done because if you don't put in the work uh and consistent work that's not a journey that that you'll make in six months, it will take one year, one and a half years, maybe two years. You you never know exactly. Uh so it's an effort. It's it's it's a long-term effort that that you need to do. And that's why not everybody that tries this journey really succeeds because they simply give up and >> right >> I don't blame them because it's hard. It it's hard but uh it's doable. The message is it's doable but it's hard. It it's not easy. So people they say that it's easy. They It's BS. It's not easy. >> It's very misleading. Yeah. It's like I was talking about this the other day when I was saying like uh for me like I' I've been fortunate in my career journey and stuff but when I think about it like I went to university. It was like the you know sort of like traditional path >> but >> but it's not like when I graduated university one of the things that I had an advantage for was that I had two full years of work experience because I had six internships. >> Yeah. >> But but those internships I didn't just get for free. I still had to apply to all of those. Like they were they were jobs. So correct, >> I had to spend the 5 years straight of like of busting my butt. So yeah, at the end of 5 years, was it like air quotes easy to get a job? Like it helped, >> but I had to go do all of that work over five years, not like a not like a, you know, four-week course and then I expected to be able to just like have it mastered. >> And it's unfortunate because I think there's a lot of stuff out there now that that is misleading that way. like, "Hey, don't worry. Just do this thing. In a couple weeks, you'll be an expert. You're going to get a $100,000 a year job." And it's like, is it possible? Like, yes, but is it realistic? Like, >> no. >> No, it's going to be hard. >> It could be that that you are some kind of genius and that really that But I think these cases are very rare. Like, not everybody is David Fowler, you know? >> Yep. Exactly. Well, and the other thing I wanted to briefly bring up because it came up earlier in the conversation, right, is that uh so I think the way you explained that is awesome. I think we we have so many things that stop us from even getting started, right? And I think if you can at least get started, that's when you're going to be facing the stuff that's like that's going to be the hard stuff and you got to stick with it. But you also might realize as you go through it, you might realize that you don't enjoy it. And that's that's actually okay because >> definitely >> if you go into it and you're genuinely trying and you're like I actually don't like problem solving like this. I uh I don't feel rewarded once I get stuck on a problem and overcome it. Like it's it isn't going to be for everyone. I do think that everyone can and should try if they're interested and I think that they can succeed if they stick with it. It might take a while, but if genuinely if you're going through it and you're like, I don't enjoy this, then I would not chase software development and software engineering for a salary. If you're like, I hate everything about this, but the the money is going to be good. Like, you might as well go find the thing that you love to do. >> Yeah. Because it will lead to frustration, depression, and a lot of mental health problems in in in the long term. I I remember one one of the examples that kind of like was uh also sticks to my mind uh from my first manager at Microsoft. Uh we we had a chat about kind of like this idea of salaries and and money and he said kind of like this example. What if uh I'll give you starting tomorrow a salary of $10,000, let's say, and your job would be to kind of like, you know, take those uh boxes of of print papers, you know, there are 500 in them. And your only job is to count them to make sure that there are really 500 in in in each box. For how long do you do you think you would be you would be able to do that? You know, and the thing is that if you really do this exercise and see yourself counting those papers, say 1 month, two months, okay, $10,000 sounds good. Did they come? But there will come a point soon enough where that money will actually not compensate for the frustration that this job actually gives you. And it's same with with software engineering. Like if it is really a field that that that doesn't give you or that you're not passionate about that that you don't feel rewarded of of doing then don't do it because in longer term you're doing your yourself a disservice basically. >> Absolutely. Yeah. No, I I I definitely agree with that and I I thought it was important because I I also like uh you know advocating for people like you should try like try not to put the like don't be a gatekeeper even for yourself. Unfortunately, there's enough other people gatekeeping. Uh and it is going to be hard but um that reminder that you know you should try and if you don't enjoy it be honest with yourself. It's okay. Um, but Dan, where like so Code Wrinkles on YouTube, absolutely. Where else can people find you if they want to learn more about you, if they want to get in touch with you? Where are the best places to find you? >> Uh, well, this is a good question. I'm literally in most on most of the social networks. Although, when it comes to this type of more technology, uh, I'm I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me with my name there. Not with code wrinkles, but with my name. Um, so you can find me there on on Twitter. You can find me as well. Well, X, sorry. I I'm old and I'm accustomed to Twitter, so it's hard to change habits. >> I'm not I'm not calling it X, I don't think, ever, so it's okay. >> Okay. So, I I'm also there quite a lot. Uh, obviously on on on Instagram, I I'm there as well. You can find me with my name, but on Instagram, I usually don't post uh decorated stuff or less decorated stuff. I It's more personal like photographs from hikings and running and I don't know. >> And running. Yes. >> Yeah. Um so basically on LinkedIn on on on on Twitter uh there's also code wrinkles blog that that I write on sometimes and you can definitely also visit uh that place but uh I I'm mostly here on on this one on so YouTube LinkedIn and and uh Twitter X that that's where you can can find me and get in touch with me definitely. >> Perfect. And I'll make sure I'm going to put links in the description and the comment and stuff so people can check you out. Um, and Dan, I wanted to say I've really enjoyed talking with you. This has been uh it's been I kind of said this before we started recording, but it's a really cool opportunity for me because right when I had started trying to put content out and stuff, uh you were someone that uh had stumbled upon my channel, gave me a little bit of a shout out, which is super cool. Uh and that's over a year ago now. Um and it's it's really cool to be able to connect with you. I I've really enjoyed engage engaging with you on social media and stuff. Um, I think most things it's really cool. Like I think we agree on most things. I think there's a couple things we don't agree on, but >> And it's normal. It's okay. >> Yes. And I that's I I was I was literally vlogging about this in in uh in a video uh this week cuz I was like excited for this conversation and I had mentioned in that that while we probably agree on most things, the things that we disagree about, I've never been like, "Oh, Dan, like how dare you?" It's like actually like no, cool. Thank you for sharing that perspective because in my opinion, we're not going to agree with everyone and being able to learn from other people. Just their perspective is hugely valuable. So, I've always enjoyed being able to have conversations with you. So, for me, this was super awesome. I I I wanted to say something uh regarding this um well the the shout out that that you mentioned actually >> I I remember quite well when I was uh I literally had had this idea that okay uh my channel was not that big but still it was kind of like I had I think around 14k subscribers then and I I I was looking to say okay there there are quite a lot of people right now that that also try this idea of of of doing content on on YouTube and that have less than 5,000 subscribers ribers. So, what if I could use my platform even if it's not the biggest one, even if it's not like the scale of Nick Chopsas or Milan. So, but it's still a platform, you know, what if I could use that to actually try to I don't know, promote some some some some guy, somebody that >> that I uh find useful actually or that that I really like. So I did a lot of research there and going through through a lot of different channels and I didn't know your channel till then and it it was actually on the Discord community like we are.net where I think I I I heard about you. So um >> so I I went through through the videos that you had and uh the things that you were explaining how I was >> dude but how comes this guy has so so few subscribers? I was like blown away. His content is really great. I think he's he's better than than my content. Like, >> oh, thank you. >> It's impossible, you know. And it was kind of like a no-brainer. Okay, this this guy should be on my list definitely. And so we so so it came to the fact that I definitely also included you in in that video. And uh I'm really happy that I said even if my platform is small, it's not the big scale but still I think and I think people generally should try more to use their platforms to also help other people grow >> right >> and that's generally in in life in in career but also in content creation and fortunately uh I think we would need more uh attitudes more mindsets like this in the content creators community, let's say, because unfortunately I see very often that that happen things when some creators actually try somehow to not just have disagreements but maybe somehow uh belittle a little bit other creators. So I think uh creators should consciously use their platform a little bit more to also help others grow, you know. I I think that that's something that that we're still missing as as a community. >> Yep. there's a huge opportunity to help others and it doesn't take an awful lot of effort to be able to to help and collaborate versus kind of like uh like to tear things down, right? So, yeah, >> I totally agree with that. Um >> and Dan, uh I don't know if you're up for it, but I definitely want to have another one of these at some point and I would love to maybe it'll be a live or something. I don't know, but we should we should get into some code at some point because I think that would be super cool if you're down for it. >> I'm I'm I'm always up for things like this. So, yeah, we can definitely plan that. Awesome stuff. Okay. Well, Dan, I wanted to say thanks again so much. Uh this was truly an honor for me and uh we'll definitely sync up for another one in the future then. >> Also, thank you for having me. It felt really like we know each other for a long time in this discussion, but we never met. >> We have known each other for a little while. We just haven't met yet. >> Exactly. Exactly. So, thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it. Of >> course. Okay. Thanks, Dan.