Let's Discuss Junior Dev Ramp Up And Legacy Code - Principal Software Engineering Manager AMA

think we're live here awesome stuff let me get going on Instagram too always takes an extra second for some reason there we go there's my bald head on Instagram perfect um and I don't know what's going on with LinkedIn I started it from restream this time which is a little bit different oh now it's saying it's connected okay yeah kind of weird and Facebook is just not working at all um which is kind of a pain in the butt anyway um not for you to worry about that's someone on Facebook's problem welcome uh if you're joining in the chat feel free to say hello um lets me know the chat is working I do appreciate that uh I do have to kind of look across a few windows and stuff here to make sure that everything's good to go uh but so far so good um if you're new to these live streams these are something that I want to make sure is engaging for you so feel free to ask questions and stuff uh so if you're on Instagram Tik Tok LinkedIn X wherever you're from um just feel free to use the chat if you want to ask questions to interrupt me I'm happy to answer those instead uh focusing on the topic but the topic is going to be two parts actually that's because I had a a pretty hectic week last week um so I spent a little bit less time on like an indepth newsletter article and talked about a couple of things from uh code commute that came up so for those of you that are not familiar um I mean depending on how you got to where you're watching this from you probably uh are you know following Dev leader on on social media that's my primary personal brand my primary YouTube channel I do have a second one called code commute which is what I've been uh adding more content to so if you're interested in checking it out it is here just added that to the chat it's just @ code commute on YouTube and what's been really cool about this is that it gives me a bit of a I don't know like a forum for doing stream of Consciousness kind of like thoughts around software engineering and uh people submit topics and questions and stuff like that so I try to make sure as I'm commuting because I'm not doing anything else that I can chat through these different topics and I think this week There's a couple of good ones and those are what I wanted to focus on so um the first one is going to be about rampup time for junior Engineers uh what that looks like some factors that influence that and then the second topic that we'll get into so they'll both be shorter topics but we'll cover them both the second topic is around uh Legacy code and this idea that if you were to join a team or you're on a team and you inherit some Legacy code what do you do if there's no documentation and no one there to support you um because this is unfortunately not a an uncommon thing so uh we'll chat through that um I think with that said we'll dive into it so I'm going to put the link to the newsletter article in case you are curious uh I always mention on these like I understand newsletters are not for everyone so uh don't feel pressured like literally if you enjoy these live streams and you just want to like follow along with the material that I'm going to go through generally the newsletter is a place to go you don't have to actually subscribe to it it is totally free the paid version has uh private Discord access if you want to chat and get you know more one-on-one conversations or support from community members and uh the second part to that is that with the newsletter paid subscription you get access to the archive uh which is currently over 70 newsletter issues I've been doing this for a little while so plenty of examples of newsletters to go through okay so we are going to be diving into junior Dev rampup time now when I was answering this question on code commute the thing that I wanted to make sure that I I mentioned was that I don't think there's like a rule um I don't think there's uh you know it's very situational so if I want to go offer advice on this or talk talk about it what I really want to make sure I'm not doing is making people think that um that everyone's going to have the same sort of Journey doing this uh the same individual on different teams might experience completely different ramp up times it's a long day um so completely different ramp up times and even at the same company you might have or the same team you might have different individuals have different or similar ramp up times there's so many different factors that I didn't want to go into this and say okay the rule is that at this type of company you should be X weeks and that's going to be it I don't think that's fair I think that's misleading and I figured instead that I would share different thoughts around uh what types of things influence rampup time um so definitely you know to start things off it depends right that's the reality uh like many things in software engineering it's a bit of a meme now right it depends it depends but most things depend on some context so the couple of things that I was looking at in code commute when I talked about this are Concepts around like what does your environment look like so startup versus larger company remote work versus in person Um this can be very different and I think that your environment can influence a lot of this so um when I was talking about this it was more like trying to share some of my own experiences and things I I've observed but I also have to call out biases and things like that so for example when coming to Microsoft that was my first experience in a very very large company but also we I went from being like inperson non-stop to fully remote at the same time so again some bias some things might be conflated there but these are things I have to call out so to start off if we think about startup companies or smaller companies generally and again it's not a rule but a generalization that I notice around this is that it's much more difficult for a startup to bring on someone and have sufficient time or resources to wait for them to be productive right and people don't like hearing that I think because they they don't like startups to sound like they're being cheap or not respecting people they're bringing on but I think the reality is like startups are like fighting to stay alive so if they're bringing on people hiring is something that is not a perfect science by any means and it's risky it's risky because if your hiring process has gaps in it and uh surprise every hiring process does it means that there's going to be some risk introduced and risk when you're bringing on a person to a company can have a dramatic impact if you're not totally familiar or have uh things in place to basic Bally uh exit people quickly if they're not going to be a good fit so um that means that at a startup if you're trying to minimize risk so that you can number one have someone be productive right away and number two uh essentially not waste money like waste money as in you bring someone on not a good fit now you're going to have to exit them start again and hire someone else um these are going to be challenging things and you're not going to want to take risks to make sure you can get on some get someone on quickly to be productive um hello on LinkedIn it's it's good to see the LinkedIn stream is working I don't know why uh I can't even see it on my own LinkedIn literally says that I have not made an event um so it's kind of funny does it just say that I'm live or something oh cool um so weird it didn't make an event it just started streaming live very bizarre anyway I won't do that next time I'll make it actually from LinkedIn so it's less uh confusing so given that startups are like this I think the expectation and again it's not a rule but the expectation is that you are able to to ramp up quicker now this is challenging because startups are fast-paced you don't have tons of resour is around you um it's going to be chaotic for the most part right just trying to keep a company going um uh T man I don't know what that question means uh will you give me I don't know what you're asking unfortunately um so when startups are focused on this like it's in their best interest to make sure that ramping people up quickly and effectively they have some in place to do it but that's also costly so again these are challenges that you're going to face at startup companies for the most part um but what's also interesting is that if you're the I don't want to say like the right mindset but I definitely think it takes um okay it's a joke I I see uh I think it takes a a certain mindset to to be effective at uh at startup companies so if you're looking for um if you're looking for tons of structure to stay effective and and things like that you're probably going to find it's a bit of a struggle at a startup realistically because it's probably not something you're going to get so some thoughts around this are uh different personality types so if you are the type of person that is going to be very proactive very engaged very curious um I think this can work really well right because you're going to be dropped into an environment where it's go go go and uh priorities are always changing things are probably pretty stressful again this isn't going to be every single startup but I think it's uh it's highly likely that if a Company's trying to fight to stay alive you should expect it's going to be a little bit chaotic um I do think that and we and we'll talk about this a little bit more when I go into talking about like inperson versus remote but [Music] um I think that in any case no matter how we're slicing and diing this something that you want to make sure that you're doing as someone who's joining a company and trying to ramp up quickly it's like you're not hesitating to ask questions and like I said we'll see this a little bit more uh in a few minutes but I I think that this is a a misstep for a lot of people uh as in you know asking questions looks like a sign of weakness I need to productive right away so people are expecting that in isolation I will just ramp up immediately like it's just not true um I think that you need to be ready to ask questions um think about it like asking questions to to make progress is not it's not like you putting your hand up and saying hey I suck I need you to do this for me it's not a sign of weakness it's nothing bad uh what it actually is is like a sign that you are trying to make sure that things are progressing and I think that's like an uncomfortable thing for some people to navigate so I'm trying to say that in a way that makes you realize like okay if I've joined a company if I'm stuck on something I don't know what to do instead of being afraid right so instead of being afraid of saying something about it um I think it's really important to like Reach Out be proactive hey like I've tried a couple of things or I'm not sure what to do and then reach out and get help get yourself unblocked that does not mean have someone else always do your work so you should check things out a little bit on your own hey John vanir good to see you on Tik Tok I'm calling you out um but I think that it's really important that you actually get yourself unblocked however that needs to look right it's going to be different depending on your team how you're structured but you know sitting being blocked on like a build issue or like you're you don't have Clarity on something and kind of waiting for a day days on these things not a good recipe um you're going to want to reach out and get clarity and ask for help people aren't going to be upset with you people will want you to do this so please just keep that in mind uh because it's going to make a big difference in terms of getting ramped up um pratic sorry if I'm pronouncing your name incorrectly pratique or pratic on YouTube as a new grad who wants to structure who wants structure an autonomy during work which type of company should I look out for Al can of Junior mid-level on board and make impact quickly so great question the second part definitely more sort of aligned with this topic but like don't hesitate to ask anything um on the first part I would say generally not uh brand new startups again these are generalizations anyone who's listening or watching in the future too um you can always have a exceptions to everything I'm saying so I'm just I have to speak in generalizations cuz I can't uh cover every unique scenario but I would I would say for the most part uh very small new startups are not going to have a lot of structure it's probably unwise if they do because they need to be able to Pivot so much that this structure is going to uh like kind of impede them from uh being successful so I would say small mid uh to large siiz companies there's lots of variation um the struct certainly the structure part uh the l i i again generalization I would say the larger the company the more structure there probably is but autonomy is probably um I don't want to say inversely proportional to that because it can depend um I know that like my personal experience again I have biases here the smaller companies afforded me more autonomy and that's because people were like pardon my language but like shit's got to get done so like get it done like find a way to get it done and like we trust you and go do right and I find it larger companies there's a lot more um red tape is probably too strong of a phrase but there's more like interactions there's more like hey we got to engage with this other team there's more process and stuff like that so uh for tick oh awesome great okay I I'm terrible with names so I I'm always nervous to say people's names and I don't want to offend anyone so I did an okay job I guess but yeah I would say at the larger companies there's just a little bit more like interaction that is warranted so it's not that it's bad but um sometimes I can feel like it's taking away from autonomy so for for just to give you an example I actually I filmed an episode of Code commute um on the drive home from work today so it literally freshened my mind and one of the things I was talking about was that like sometimes um say like at at Microsoft where I am right like very large company there are some things that from my startup experience uh I use the the word like or the phrase like it it feels bad and it's because I've seen things be more Nimble but when I say it feels bad I'm not saying that it is bad or it's it's not warranted it's not valuable it's just that I find that some things move slower but there's probably good reason for it right there's like your your surface area where you're interacting with teams is much greater like I I worked at a startup for uh the last place I was at for eight years of my career it's been four and a half years at Microsoft so I have a bias for what like what's comfortable for me because I spent more time doing it right so just something to think through hope that helps on the first part uh on the second part how can a junior midlevel on board and make impact quickly so yeah let's let's kind of shift gears a little bit um I'll kind of get back to some of the the stuff I wrote in the newsletter um if I if I change how I'm describing these things it might me be a little bit more streamlined with this question maybe that's a good way to do it um couple things um so I would say uh onboarding Bud that might sound kind of funny but like having someone that you know is is set up to work with you for onboarding so number one if you are listening to this or watching this and you are uh an engineer on a team or you're someone who's sort of influencing like a tech lead or a manager on a team uh I would highly recommend you have something like an onboarding buddy um this is so valuable in in terms of making sure that uh people have a connection when they're getting started right there's lots of maybe not lots but there's other people on the team that can help right generally um but knowing that like hey this person was literally set up to help me I have found in my experience uh for literally onboarding people to teams es interns especially this is critical but it's not specific for interns having someone they know is like dedicated to help them I think makes a huge difference with Comfort levels for asking for help um hey thanks for creating that video on Startup brisk I'm going to go the startup route we already have an incubator meeting this weekend awesome glad to hear it that's that's super cool um yeah that's exciting something else to think about uh structured onboarding so sorry before I continue on from that last point if you are new to a place um maybe the the manager that's brought you on that might be something you could ask and say like hey by the way like is there that they don't have onboarding buddies or something like that like hey is there someone more senior on the team that like I could be set up with to make sure that like I can go to them to ask questions the manager might say yeah that's me depending on like if there you know they might facilitate that um as as a manager like I've been managing smaller teams where sometimes I take that role on uh but what I hate to have happen is like if I'm my day is a lot more chaotic like I'm in a lot of meetings uh I make it such that I am open to people adding me to last minute meetings and I don't want to block someone so I'm happy to help people on board but it feels really bad if I'm their their blocker so um yeah if you're onboarding asking to have an onboarding buddy or something equivalent to that you can find your own phrase if onboarding Buddy sounds a little weird to you but it's one thing I recommend structured onboarding um so again uh if you are on an existing team please try to create something to help people on board you can have the new people go through it and keep it up to date because uh big surprise documentation is out of date basically the instant you write it so um the next person on board inevitably is going to be going through some type of onboarding documentation that's out of date but hopefully some of it is still relevant and for all the stuff that's not they can update it and kind of keep it uh keep it alive essentially um if that documentation doesn't exist in your onboarding uh you can have a a double benefit here one is you're creating that documentation for the next person right so you're already delivering value by doing that but I also think that it helps reinforce the things you're doing when you're onboarding so um try to document onboarding stuff to give some structure for the next person I think it's incredibly valuable this one is not doable for uh in all situations okay but then this one here is FaceTime with the team I realiz realiz that for a lot of people these days uh remote is very common uh like when I started at Microsoft that was my first role that was fully remote uh I started in Canada my team was based out of Redmond in uh in Washington so different time zone completely separate from my team and there are some people on my team I didn't meet for three years like in person which is nuts um even after I moved from Canada out to Washington there were people I hadn't met for a long time so it's pretty pretty wild um so I get when I say um FaceTime it's not feasible for everyone but I would say if there is an opportunity I have seen this have a dramatic impact so there I'm not a psychologist I can't comment on all the different aspects of this but I think there's pardon me a couple things going on one this might seem like it's not a big deal um and it might not be because it's not affecting you but in terms of having FaceTime with people and learning how others interact uh I think we all have this I don't know what you call it we do this thing where we start assigning tones of voice to what people are saying like what they're typing how they respond to their messages their emails their poll request comments you start to associate this tone with how someone you're working with is responding to you and the dangerous part about that is that it's completely made up it might happen to be accurate but it's completely made up right if I type something to you like you you don't know if I'm happily typing this or if I'm angry with you and uh so I try to insert like emojis and stuff all the time so people know like I'm not pissed off at you like I'm just like saying we got to get this thing done or something but it's really difficult to to associate these things and I think that having FaceTime can completely change that Dynamic for people I've seen it firsthand it's worked for me I've seen it with team members uh I've seen it with team members to individuals that aren't getting along well and then they meet face to face and work together and like it's almost I don't want to say like they become best buddies but like the dynamic completely changes like they really enjoy each other's company and it's like holy crap like why didn't we do this sooner it's cuz it's not always possible okay so it can absolutely change the working dynamic between two people that's part one number two two I need two fingers for that two um number two is that this side effect I've seen with remote work and I'm just I'm scanning my newsletter I don't see it called out this way but what I have really noticed for people on boarding remote is that there's this this tendency and this not for everyone but this tendency to to stay blocked for a lot longer and I feel like no matter how hard I've tried to articulate this to whether it's interns new hires no matter what I say and do and trying to let them know people on the team want you to ask for help they're happy to help you they want to unblock you they're here to do that no matter what I say and how I frame it I find that people really struggle to believe that or lean into it and I know this because I've talked with them after they get blocked and they're like I didn't want to bother them I'm like I've told you told you 10 times in the past week that you're not going to bother anyone but it's I think it's hard for them to to truly take that to heart so I have found that by getting that opportunity to meet in person for some reason really helps them like acknowledge like this is a real person and I got to interact with them uh I feel more comfortable around them I I believe I finally believe that they want me to succeed and I've seen that make a big uh change with um with people basically being able to unblock themselves a little bit more um and yeah let me nomies let me come back to your question that's an interesting one the second part to that that I wanted to mention with the remoteness is like personality types I kind of hinted at this earlier um I think there are some people that are are very self-motivated and from my observations people that are just willing to ask questions like get past that un like that discomfort of like oh I don't want to bother someone but like um they'll just instead reach out like hey like I'm stuck on this I tried X Y and Z doesn't work or I'm stuck on this I actually didn't understand what this was saying or what I'm supposed to do could you give me some guidance the people are willing to do that like uh I don't I think I can say this with confidence 100% of the time in my experience that I've observed this have a much smoother onboarding they can get to being productive much quicker because what they're doing is recognizing I'm stuck I don't want to be stuck the way to get unstuck is to ask now I'm gonna I'll I'll share a an inverse to this one in just a moment um but I've seen a lot of people that are remote having this hesitation to um to reach out and ask for help and that can really impede their progress for onboarding um I'm not saying that makes them a worse person they're less intelligent they're not going to be successful but I definitely have seen that slow down progress for onboarding and I I wish I could make this more clear for people like like no one is going to be upset with you for asking for clarity and trying to get unblocked it's just not it's just not how it happens people want you to be successful so if you're stuck ask um before I go back to chat um the other thing I wanted to mention is that I've seen I've had experiences in person with new hires where uh they they went too far the opposite way and instead of asking to get unblocked um what was happening was they actually this this is going to sound kind of silly uh but please bear with me um they actually struggled with problem solving and what was happening was that they would ask for help when they hadn't tried anything so they would try nothing and basically just ask for help and we perpetuate the problem when we just give someone the answer so hey like uh I don't know how to do this and someone goes no worries and then they do it for them and that person goes okay like great I can move on to the next step and then they go oh I don't know how to do this hey can you do like can you help me and then someone goes oh yeah let me give you the answer and what happens is this it's a pretty crappy feedback loop but it feels like to one person hey I'm getting unblocked I'm making progress over time it feels like for the person helping like why am I constantly doing this stuff like like I feel like I'm always doing someone else's work and it doesn't help that other person build up problem solving so one of the recommendations I've always had is like try something first and that way when you go to ask for help expect that someone will say what have you tried so far and I feel like if you can say I've tried something or I tried two things like you're in a good spot so do ask for help um okay checking chat have you ever had a weird feeling where people are looking up to you for answers even though you're just as confused as they are yes um yeah a lot uh this happens at Microsoft a lot so um couldn't disagree more well you I don't know who you're responding to so you can feel free to elaborate on that um so I think this happens to me a lot at Microsoft um especially like for background when I was at Magnet forensics before Microsoft I was at Magnet forensics for eight years and I had built uh a lot of the sort of the product base that they have or at the time they had I had built a lot of the original pieces of that not the very first like program uh that was created by the founder but like we had Rewritten a lot of that I had Rewritten entire apps I had built lots of the the bases of products that they have there so even though I had moved on from those things at any point in time teams could call me over and I could go help them I could say oh I remember that code don't touch that code like that's risky um I had lots of context and and um okay T man we'll come back to that um this is definitely an environmental thing and we should talk more about that because that sounds like um it's not a youth thing though so what had happened for me is that coming to Microsoft I went from being an expert in every area that because I had been there for a long time to now there are these established areas and I have zero experience zero and I am managing teams and some of those team members many of them are also brand new so they're coming to me going hi we need help and I'm like yeah me too like I need help I don't know anything about this space um so the difference is that I need to be able to um I need to find ways to get myself ramped up and simultaneously ensure that I can help people get unblocked and a lot of the time that means that I have to delegate to other people so uh I have a different learning approach than some of the ic's on my team would have because they're in the code building it I'm not doing that so I'm learning things at a higher level and then trying to get them connected with people than get them answers so um I like I have this experience a lot where people are uh looking to me for answers and I just don't know them but but I think something that I need to do and I try to practice as an engineering manager is like I need to be very transparent when I don't know stuff there's no pretending if I don't know it like I will say hey I don't know or sometimes I'll say I don't know I'm not confident but I think um and just let people know because I think there's something to be said about um being honest and transparent and vulnerable about that stuff to show people it's okay to not know because I think it's a lot worse if you try to masquerade like you do and then people catch on and they're like this guy has no idea what he's talking about it's not a spot I want to be in so uh that's kind of what I would say there uh set Getters on um our new guys started new guys started on Monday last week and we were all in office for two days he told us everyone seems super locked super locked in the following wday to Friday once we were working from home um yeah uh I think that there's you know if the fact that guys could go in and and meet someone in office I think that's great um yeah like some like I realize this opportunity doesn't exists for everyone right so trying to be clear about that um okay so T let's go back to your your question here your comment right so every time I ask for help I'm treated like an idiot and that I shouldn't be there okay so couple things uh without knowing the context number one uh anyone that's making you feel like an idiot uh pardon my language again is a piece of no one should ever try to make any anyone else feel like an idiot so that's number one it just it doesn't help anyone it's never positive um even when I've had people like I gave you the example of someone turning to me asking for like hey can you basically can you solve my problem and then people giving them answers like the situation where the problem solving wasn't really there I would never and I if I saw someone else on my team doing this we'd be having a conversation for sure you never like there is no benefit to making people feel less confident about themselves it is only negative it doesn't matter how pissed off you are how shitty of a mood you're in there is no place for it ever ever so couple things to think through one is you might be in an environment that's pretty toxic I don't know anything about your work environment I don't know if it's everyone doing this a couple people doing this but that's something to look out for that would be a conversation with your manager I think I think that's important If your manager also someone doing this I would try to be transparent with them that that's not helpful and if you're like that scares me because I don't want to like upset my manager they might get rid of me or something it sounds like you're probably not in a good spot if that's the case anyway so if it's not your manager doing that and it's certain individuals I think that it's important to have a conversation you can start with them directly this is uncomfortable for a lot of people right it takes it takes I don't know it's way easier said than done and I fully admit that um having difficult conversations with people so if you had the conversation with someone and said hey just wanted to chat you get on a call and you're like uh I know I've been asking for help a lot I'm getting stuck on some things I appreciate your time uh I just I wanted to have this conversation because I felt like when I've been asking for help uh I feel like uh I don't know I'm bothering you whatever and it's felt like the feedback that I'm getting is either dismissive it's making me feel a certain way I just wanted to talk through that because I'm trying to be effective I'm trying to be productive uh is there some other way that we could approach this where I could still get the help I need and enable you to be still effective in your role as well I'm just making this up off the top of my head but I think that there's ways that you can literally have conversations with individuals depending on the circumstances if this is something that you cannot navigate and you need support I would say go to your manager it needs to be addressed so the next part and probably the last part that I'll add unless you want to talk through more context on this is that uh back to the point I said if you are going at things and not putting in and I'm not saying that you are doing this by the way I'm just framing this up if you're not putting in some effort into let me try it let me explore it um before going to ask for help people certain individuals may get annoyed they'll get frustrated they'll say hey T man's back and he didn't try anything again why the hell am I always doing this maybe right I don't know so what I would recommend is make sure again my my litmus test for this is okay I have to go ask Bob for help I should expect that Bob is going to ask me what I've tried so far and I feel like if I can tell Bob hey look here's the the problem I'm facing and here's something I tried it wasn't working or here's a couple things I've tried because the first one didn't work so I tried the second one now I'm stuck you can even say both things worked and I don't know which one's better um but when you're stuck being able to tell someone here's what I've tried to me is a very good litmus test if people are still being an to you when doing that um it's a them problem and it's a conversation with your manager because I don't think that that should be happening um you don't want to be in a toxic environment if you feel like that that's what the environment's like I would say start exploring other opportunities um again easier said than done but it's not going to be a spot where you're going to grow yo what's up suboi sus sus boy oh not subio awesome trik hello King what do you think about uh C for making for 5G applications we're using rust now Rus in C++ uh I don't know what 5G applications you're talking about to be honest um I Ed C for absolutely everything uh for years I have built tons of stuff with C uh whether it's backend Services frontend stuff if it's uh video games if it's desktop software all the forensic software that we built was in C um so you know it's very capable uh it's come so long since I started using it too so it's extremely performant I think there's lots of room I'm biased because it's my favorite language to use but it's very capable of uh of lots of things um we run like planetary scale stuff at Microsoft using C right uh there are certain things at the scale we're at where we do use C++ and rust because we're trying to squeeze the ultimate amount of performance out of it and it's not that c is a bad language but we've literally in some situations said it would make more sense for us to if we want to optimize this to the full extent we literally take a a penalty in terms of development time to go back recreate it in a new language and going forward we will be at a faster Baseline it's a very specific use case though so um I think C is extremely capable though um let's see I got an eight-month internship in January at a midsize company I'm getting some impostor syndrome right now as I've never worked with a larger codebase any uh tips for me to be a productive worker um yeah so sus boy um I feel weird saying that out loud I'm not trying to call you sus sorry um I if you go on I I guess you're on my YouTube Channel right now um if you search for impostor um I think I have a bunch of stuff there uh I think maybe even my live streams that I they should be recorded but if you start on my YouTube channel there's some videos on impostor C let me just see if I can even quickly go there and look um because I'd like to be able to find it for you impostor ah yes okay so this is an old video um this is real old man okay so here's an impostor syndrome video um I don't know if I have one on code commute I'll put the link back to code commute in here by the way for folks that um want to see more stream of Consciousness stuff by the way if you have questions um that you want like basically between like 20 to 45 minutes of me rambling about them ask me on code commute just comment on a video and leave your question and I will go through it it's not a live stream but it's a a stream of Consciousness where I'm just blabbing as I'm driving so um impostor syndrome is very common um this is one of those things like I hate to say it but like expect that you will experience it your entire career it will come and go um it gets it becomes I would say the more successful you are the more prevalent it becomes but also the more experience you have to remind yourself like it's just impostor syndrome uh it's just a feeling um I have lots of evidence for my success to remind myself that like I am not an impostor um it's just that it will keep coming up so um I think that one of the tricky things and this is like a sometimes it's like a self-esteem thing is how I look at this stuff and when I say self-esteem what I mean is that sometimes it feels like getting external validation can help with these things right you're saying I have impostor syndrome and if you're like oh well if I just had feedback from someone that was like hey you're doing a good job like don't worry um you're like yeah that helps right but with with self-esteem that's a very temporary thing is self-esteem your selfworth how you value yourself so if other people are giving you that value externally it's a very temporary thing it's like oh like I got that validation like give me more but when you have self-esteem that's high you don't need the external validation and I I realize these are different things but I find with impostor syndrome it's similar in that sense where you build up the validation for yourself and it's unfortunate because it takes time but you can do things like reminding yourself like I was hired for a reason I'm on this team for a reason people believed in my skill sets try to remind yourself about your successes um remind yourself that you're always going to be facing new challenges you're not going to know everything and that every time you get through these periods you're going to be smarter you're going to be more experienced you're going to be more effective every single time it happens so it's hard I'm not trying to minimize it it's extremely hard and uh this is one of those things that I think uh unfortunately is very much associated with um like intellectual jobs like software engineering so um something else that can help I think is that uh if you're comfortable talking about this stuff talking about imposter syndrome with more people is helpful sounds kind of silly but when you hear other people talk to you about impostor syndrome you realize I'm not alone many people experience it I'll give you two examples when I started at Microsoft I was hired on as a principal level software engineering manager um I have never at that point in my life I had never deployed code into a data center I was hired on as an engineering manager for the Microsoft 365 deployment agility team responsible for helping deploy hundreds of services to hundreds of thousands of machines across the planet I knew absolutely nothing about deployment you can imagine that the first little bit of time there I'm going what the hell am I doing here I don't I don't know anything every day there's a hundred new acronyms I don't know anything it took me a long time to feel effective when I switched teams earlier this year I moved over still in substrate which is Microsoft 365 I moved over to the routing team I've never been responsible for managing a large scale firewall or for routing traffic uh or for running services like we do I don't know anything about this stuff but my manager and his manager uh they had a lot of faith in me they understood what my leadership uh you know style was they knew that I've been successful managing teams before they believe in me I know that I've been successful moving into other spaces I I did it on the deployment team I felt like I was an effective engineering manager there right I had I had a team that really valued me being there so like it's hard but you have to keep reminding yourself that you've been successful doing these types of things before so you will succeed at this um Aaron deori love the code commute videos on the car raging that give me a samsic vlog Vibes what's your take on building in public and maintaining an open repo a it's funny you mentioned the Sam suic thing so uh for people that don't know uh like my sort of my passion outside of software engineering is literally bodybuilding I've been uh up until this year I've been bodybuilding for as long as I've been programming so um I only stopped bodybuilding at the beginning of this year because uh I'm getting older now like in my mid-30s and I'm very short like I'm 5'4 so I'm a short guy uh I like bodybuilding but like when you're trying to put on size like my BMI is like basically very obese based on a BMI and it's not healthy to be carrying a lot of weight on your body if it's muscle or body fat so I started realizing like hey look I like the lifestyle I like structure I like the style of working out and stuff but I'm not going to be a professional and I think I want to focus more on longevity stuff so uh I switched to the dark side I now do CrossFit with my wife which uh kicks my ass every time I do it but I feel like that's a good thing um you know I would never say that I mastered bodybuilding but to have been in a gym for 21 years and now I go to a workout and I'm like I am getting my ass kicked every time um it's fun but when I started code commute I was thinking about Sam suic because he doesn't edit anything it's just like he's just talking and I was like I could be the Sam suic of software engineering so we'll see um it's kind of funny for a comparison um so take on building and public and maintaining an open repo yeah so I've I've also talked about this let me see if I can pull over the the live video This is actually um last week's video I'm just going to put it uh Aaron in the chat uh that didn't copy at all one sec it's last week's live video on dev leader um I talked about this a lot um but I talked about projects to build I think building in public I really uh encourage people to do it I think it's awesome um I think people I talked about this on code commute too so I think people can misalign this though if you're building in public or learning in public I guess is what I talked about learning in public let me switch gears building in public I think is good um I think that you have a sort of a network of people that you can if you're posting about it and talking about what you're building you have this network that can give you feedback right and that's something that like if you were to just build and you know stay locked in your dark room like I am right now and you're building stuff and never talking about it you don't have this network that you can go learn from so I think it's really good um some people will say well okay like I need my repo so that I can show uh you know when I'm applying to jobs that I have a GitHub repo and like that's the only way I'm going to get hired it's not um do I think it can be helpful sure um but I think that there's different benefits to building in public a side effect is that you can have start to have a public portfolio of stuff you're building I think it's a side effect I don't think that's the primary reason so I do encourage it I think it's awesome um hope that helps so ex experto thank you for the video about people coming from unconventional backgrounds if you don't mind I'd love to hear advice on how to stand out in the atmosphere of layoffs and uh bar raising for uh in the bar raising for junior devs while trying to find a first job um yeah this is again I'm got to link another code commute video um let's see I'm trying help I'm this is maybe a little different um this one sorry I'm not sharing my screen I'm trying to copy videos so experto this one's for you um it is a code commute video um if you scroll through the code commute YouTube channel uh and just look for recent videos you'll probably find a couple that are seemingly related to this um I always talk about standing or the job application process I see in multiple phases uh first one is going to be literally standing out which is challenging it's definitely challenging um a lot of this can be based on luck right um if you are applying to jobs where there's thousands of other applicants you're literally decreasing your odds of standing out right just because there's more volume you could and you could literally be the absolute best developer there you could have the most experience and be the best developer you could have even written the best resume and it happens to get missed for some reason purely because of volume maybe they already went through the first thousand resumes and they said we've got enough applicants like we're just closing it off there's too many to go through right these are all possibilities so I think that if you're struggling to get noticed one thing that you can switch up is applying to jobs that are different uh John vanir I'm not I don't think he's still on uh Tik Tok on the live um but if you look up lad IO John vvir talks about this kind of stuff all the time uh he recommends a very high number of applications per week and basically playing the volume game uh I think that that can work I think a thing that you should do to mix into that is less of a shotgun blast approach but more about do that plus Network networking is slower over time it's more purposeful so you know making contacts at companies or like just curious about what they're building so look on social media for people posting about what their teams and stuff are doing be genuinely curious ask them questions don't message them and say hey please refer me to your company because they're going to say I don't know who the hell you are right so that's not a strategy that I recommend but taking the the longer term approach of building up a network I highly recommend doing that even once you have a job building up a network is a huge value ad so next part uh projects and stuff I've I said in a code commute video that my take on projects is that I love seeing stuff that people are iterating and building on it doesn't have to be a perfect thing it doesn't have to be something you have paying users I just think there's a lot of value in showing that you're building and iterating on software as an interviewer I have so many things that I can talk to you about so many why did you pick that technology like what did you contrast it with oh you rewrote that why did you rewrite it or you had to refactor that for performance tell me about how you figured out how to go do that these are types of things that happen when we're building real that's not to say that building a uh you know a to-do list or something else doesn't have value but those types of things aren't necessarily portfolio projects because they won't stand out but if you told me that I built a to-do list and then I actually rewrote it to be on mobile and then I actually rewrote some other part of it to switch out the database like cool like tell me how you arrived at those things what did you learn right so I think that there's a learning part and I think that there's a way to stand out and these aren't necessarily the exact same thing um but yeah I I recommend the networking and building stuff I think some people don't realize that um probably probably the average developer is not even building stuff on the side they're just applying I went to school I went to boot camp I'm going to apply I got my resume ready I'm going to go it's probably the average statistically I don't have stats for the record but I imagine that's the average going the next level up is going to be okay I'm building stuff on the side I'm getting practice I've talked with I've talked with people that went to the same University as me like some students that reached out and we got on a call there's two individuals completely separate the to me about this and they were like stressed that they're not doing enough they want to stand out they were talking to me about participating in hackathons in different parts of the country volunteering at startups doing all this stuff and I was like man I don't even know how you're doing that and they're worried that they're not doing enough I think there is an an element of randomization that works against us sometimes and we see it's like we're biased because we see all the times where we're failing or not getting the interview whatever it happens to be and that's kind of misleading so uh experto I hope that helps a little bit uh I tried to implement sctb protocol on C it's not success is very very bad forb protocol I don't know why it's bad I don't know what would be bad about it but um uh all you can so set Getters on I'm way back in the chat I'm sorry uh all you can do is put an effort resourceful as your alternative to quitting which will not help your self-esteem that's it right it's going to be hard it's not going to be easy stick with it it's not going to it's not going to kill you and you're not going to give up so your only option is to be successful right uh how old am I I am 35 I'll be 36 in April uh I never thought I would be four guy when I'm 61 yeah um I can't reach anything on the top shelf but I fit in small spaces which is great um no clothes fit me because I'm super short and wide so it's really unfortunate but that's uh a decision I made I guess so um started to co when I was 10 years old nice for me I was probably 14 I was in grade nine when I got to do that uh Shrea graduating soon no job no screening calls 500 plus apps 10% with even without cover letters feeling stuck advice thank you um yeah um I I'm not the best at like trying to analyze this stuff without going through it 500 plus applications is a lot of course um if you're like I don't know what types of jobs you're applying for but if there's a theme I would consider a couple things like uh switching to switching what you're applying for sometimes when you're applying to different types of things you may find that you'll have a different success success rate so for example if you're applying for I'm just making this up uh only mobile development jobs because a lot of your exper as a mobile Dev you might try something else right um I've even heard people saying in in times like this they're applying for um I guess you'd call them like a slightly tangential role so maybe there's an opening for a different type of uh something in close proximity to being a developer as a junior position they get in doing that they can demonstrate that they have development skills and then they can do a lateral movement so that's one type of thing uh if you're not AB testing I know you're saying with cover letters uh if you're not AB testing your resume uh that's a missed opportunity to try and see if there's changes that you can make um I think unfortunately there's a lot of like resume review services that are probably kind of like scammy not to say they all are but um hey like send me a 100 bucks and I'll review your resume and then like I give you really crappy feedback or useless feedback I got your money now you feel bad like I don't think that you know some people might be good at it I don't know any good services like this unfortunately um but I would like Shreya ultimately don't give up like I know easier said than done but don't give up uh the opportunity will be there uh someone commented on a code commute video in response to AI uh and um you know AI taking jobs and their perspective was like um like there's there's going to be a shortage of software engineering roles was their perspective so quite the opposite of what a lot of people are fearing right they said there's going to be a shortage and I think it's an interesting take because the need for software developers has only continued to go up as every single industry and Company becomes digitized very interesting um maybe I think software engineering is going to look different I don't think it's going away though um sus boy what's the best way to get up to speed when first starting at a company reading through docs I also have a video on this you guys got to you got to go through my videos I put out all these videos for you um when honestly sus boy if you here this is for you sus boy um go read through uh the different live streams I I did it somewhat recently um I can't I'm trying to scroll through as I'm uh as I'm talking but I I think that there is a recent one on this so I do recommend that uh there's lots of detail um my dream is Microsoft but I've never found an application that didn't have thousands of applications yeah um I had been in the industry for I don't know 10 years professionally before going to Microsoft um some like and we hire we do hire people fresh out of school so like it's possible um but yeah I mean I would say like if the volume is there it's going to be extremely competitive it's just the unfortunate reality of it like this is this is one of those things it's like really it feels shitty to say out loud but I want to I want to say it because I think it's important you hear it you can't control everything right obviously um but I think what's important to realize is like if you focus on the stuff that you can control the that gives you your power back if you're like I'm applying to this job and I did the best I could but there's 10,000 applicants you can't control how many applicants there are you can control where you apply so I know it's not what people want to hear but like if you keep getting caught up on stuff that's out of your control it's going to be so demotivating so I just want to say that out loud and I know it's hard to hear so sorry for saying it but um do I have a video on networking I have an early one on code commute never mind found it okay excellent the shotgun blast doesn't work I've applied to over 6,000 jobs and had less than 10 interviews with no offers change up what you're doing something's got to change um just it's just how it is this is the this is the problem okay so when people say this doesn't work I'm telling you other people are having success with it so it's not that it doesn't work it's that you need to change something that you're doing I don't know what you need to change necessarily but it works because it's working for other people um this might be off topic but I love your perspective I've been working full stack JavaScript typescript and building a personal finance app I've gotten feedback that my project seems too Junior lack of product at full stack um Metalhead what does it mean for a project to feel to Junior like who who says um should I pursue CS degree focus on C which I'm interested in our go learn uh one sec Tik Tok thinks that no one's here because my camera's obstructed because I can't stream from the desktop properly um should I pursue a CS degree or learn go for better demand how can I stand out uh language so I this is my perspective on the language stuff um the I have hired software developers at Microsoft I've had software developers start on my team before I was brought on that didn't know C at all I think I can count one maybe two people in the two teams I've managed that that were hired on that didn't that used C so the language people get caught up on the language thing but like it doesn't matter you're going to learn other languages there's people that that were learn that know C now on the team and they're using rust or people that were like getting wrapped up in C and they have to go work on our C++ code you're going to learn it like that's it's just you know a language it's just a tool so um I think don't get too anchored to the language I would say stick with something that you get comfortable with right you can go explore other things but uh I would say build up some experience with the language and if you happen to use like say it's like typescript or JavaScript and you're doing HTML and CSS you have some other things um you know if you're building a web app and you want to do typescript in the front end and like C in the back end or like you want to mix and match like I think that's fine too um but the perspective of different languages is helpful uh if you're just getting started and you're trying to touch too many languages I feel like it can be distracting but um I don't think focusing on the language and making that a differentiator is going to be that helpful long term uh if you're if you're applying to jobs and a lot of them are asking for typescript and JavaScript I would say you can absolutely lean into uh what's in demand but I want to caution you that the demand will change it will change over time and I don't want you to be in this position where you're like oh I learned this and now it's not in demand like it doesn't matter things are going to change and you will learn different languages it's okay um on the on the project being to Junior I don't know what that means um so again like I don't know who gets to set the bar for 2 junr uh if it's 2 Jun even by your standards like go add more features to it make it more complicated people when they're looking for building things and having this experience and trying to say like I want to be able to put this on my resume if you're not at an employer and saying like I can't get these opportunities create them for yourself right um okay so your your personal finance abis 2 junr make it crossplatform have a have a go make a dedicated Android iOS like native app for It Go um like go rewrite part of it in a different language go like there's all these things you can go do that just give you more experience building stuff so I think there's lots of stuff you can do I don't know what it means to be to Junior on some of this stuff um Jade Wilson reviewed your resume awesome Jade Wilson is is great uh I've I've interviewed with her not not like to apply for a role but like we've done like a podcast kind of thing uh she's got great content she's very smart I think she's awesome um it's true it's difficult to get off LinkedIn and stuff but when you uh divert again to your project it helps AI lot with a lot with anxiety okay um that was a feedback received engineering manager said they lack depth complexity and Technical depth um I mean is this is the weird thing is the engineering manag hiring you for your project if they're saying that they want to see that you need more skills for a particular role I don't that might be like confusing feedback right like is your job application and your experience based purely on one project um I don't know so I I I'm realizing I'm catching up on the chat now so and but I'm not trying to I'm not trying to call out your response and make you feel awkward for it I'm I'm kind of redirecting my questioning back to this engineering manager that I've never met um so I I think that what they're trying to tell you is like I don't see the skills that I want to see demonstrated just in this app but then I would say well what are those skills they want to see so that's why I listen and kind of going back in time here what I was saying was like building these other types of things so it's not about the app itself it's just the experiences that you can build while doing doing that so I hope that helps um you're going to here's the other thing about hiring in applications and stuff like that like everyone's got a different opinion I'm telling you my perspective you could literally go read a post online watch someone else's video and they'll say that's uh that guy doesn't know what he's talking about here's the right answer what is the right answer right it's going to depend on the day that you're getting your your application reviewed by someone making that decision it's going to depend on the day that you're going going through your interviews and which interviews going through your interviews and which interviewers you have there we go words are hard it's going to it's going to change and it's unfortunate it feels unfair and I get it I don't like it but it's sort of the reality of it so Focus the attention on what's in your control you can control how many applications you put out you can control how you structure your application you control whether you're not you write cover letters you can't control other people right you can't control the number of applications you could be the best uh interviewer or interviewee You' have the most experienced interview amazing and someone else on that day could come in and do a hair better than you a hair better to you it feels like you completely lost it right you failed you didn't get the job someone else got it even though you did absolutely amazing and it's really crappy but you can't control the other people so I just I want to say that because I think it's important to hear uh what's rust adoption looking like at Microsoft from your prview have to ask I like rust it's coming up more and more um I would say like we have some stuff being built in Rust uh this came up it actually came up on Reddit earlier this year and someone tried to someone I'm going to put it in the chat someone tried to basically make it seem like rust or Microsoft was abandoning rust it was kind of funny um let me see if I can find it on my channel um yeah this was nine months ago so um they went on Reddit and they were basically it was a job posting that made it made people afraid that Microsoft was like moving away from C and stuff but like just not the case so I went on to Reddit and I responded and I was like uh no there's like hund just in the area that I'm in there's hundreds of services written in C there's tons there's tons and like we have a project that we're writing in Rust it's literally like a performance critical thing conscious engineering decision at the scale we're at I need like got to remind people we're talking about routing trillions with a TR trillions of requests a day that's not that's not running an asp.net core service with a 100 you know 100 users in a day no trillions it's crazy crazy it's across the planet so when when there's a decision being made like this like can we squeeze out more performance we're talking planetary scale it can literally make an impact to say we want to go take more time to go develop this in a different language from scratch that's going to be a huge cost to an engineering team but it's actually going to make more sense for us to do in some situations not at all so um there is more focus on on Rust uh in some areas uh but then I I think people get like kind of spooked by that they're like oh so like so Microsoft is moving from C and it's like no like it's just another tool like there's still there's tons of C++ code there's tons of C code probably somewhere there's probably lots of python I don't know uh we have lots of power shell in different areas that we're in there's just lots of stuff these are different tools right so yeah rust is getting uh more eyes on it but um certainly not replacing c um in some spots it might right because it's like hey this is kind of Legacy now if we want to go uh update it for performance like maybe it makes sense to go build it in Rust maybe but it's a conscious decision that has to be made uh I use both C and rust and definitely not abandon one for the other yeah people are in a pick a side mode for everything these days exactly um I I interviewed let me I got a I have a lot of shout outs of videos this is cool um Let me let me go pull up my my interview with um with Scott Hanselman so if if you're like a do or a Microsoft fan in some capacity you probably know who Scott Hanselman is uh I got to do this interview with him which is super cool um so Scott talks about this kind of thing um let me put that into the chat um and it's towards the end of the interview but he goes like he pulls up stats on stuff and what we're talking about is like people have this thing in their mind where it's like uh it's it's only one way or the other right like you know pick anything and it's like oh well rust is going to beat C and like that therefore we must use rust and it's like in in what though like is it beating it in some performance benchmarks absolutely sure um is it beating it in terms of like uh speed of development in terms of like Community Support in terms of like a million other factors no but does that make C better or rust better but like not necessarily right it's going to be contextual so I think people jump on to stuff way too quickly and this is literally why we have a meme in softare engineering where it depends depends on so many things you can't just like be dogmatic about stuff so we always have to back up what we're saying with evidence and do an analysis so okay you guys are talking about of stuff I had a whole other section to talk through uh I don't know why I'm here hello nice to see you on Kick um the other thing I wanted to talk through was about um was about like Legacy code um so this was a code commute episode I'm probably only going to stay on for another 15 minutes or so um so maybe I'll I'll keep this one super brief um I'm looking into web app development that's awesome it's a good spot to be in for sure so the thing about Legacy code that uh maybe is news for some people and I'm sorry that I'm the bearer of bad news is you're probably going to spend a lot of your career working with Legacy code like probably a lot and I think for some people that sounds scary it sounds boring it sounds bad like I don't want to do that I want to build new cool stuff um but the reality is like working on stuff that is serving users right that users are paying money for that's the stuff that keeps a business running and not everything we do is going to be a green field project I mean it's obvious when I say it that way right not everything you're not going to go into work every week and start a new project unless you work on a prototyping team which is possible so maybe you do and maybe you come back and you say Nick I proved you wrong and I'll say that's great I'm glad you're working on a prototyping team how does it feel to throw out most of the code you write right so odds are you're going to be working uh with um Legacy code and the topic that was submitted on code commute was about hey look got a team going like I joined a team or whatever and there's a legacy code base and there's no documentation on what to do with this thing and there's no other team members right so I got this thing I got to support it what do I do um yeah getter on hey that's the stuff that gave me gray hair at the age of 26 yeah um you'll notice I don't have hair on my head anymore but if uh if you look not too long ago there used to be something up here um I got white my beard I got no hair left on my head I did just shave it but um yeah I was going bald it was going pretty bald I'm going to blame it on the stress but um who knows so with Legacy code the advice that I was trying to give this person was about navigating situations where you you have Legacy code and you got to keep it going now again this is it depends it's going to be situational but something that I tried to recommend they do was like um to build up the documentation so that might again that might be like it sounds obvious so if you have to keep something supported and there's no documentation and this is something that you think is valuable I would say start documenting and I don't mean like open up your IDE and just like scroll through the files and start like saying this code does whatever um I mean like you got uh like prioritize it right there's an issue that you got to go fixing it cool this could be something where you go uh right a um we call them battle cards you can call them different things but for our on call Engineers we have what are called battle cards and that way when there's an issue happening they have a resource they can go look up say oh here's the steps for you know mitigating this diagnosing it debugging fixing um I think like starting to build that up is hugely beneficial um because it doesn't exist and if you're going to have another problem especially if you're not there then someone else has that resource they can start to lean into so that was one thing uh I talked about trying to document um areas of code that are brittle so if you're like hey this is the fifth bug we found in this particular kind of area roughly um keep track of that stuff because this next part if you're building on this Legacy code base you're going to be say delivering new features to it you may want to try and have an idea of where stuff is brittle so if you've been fixing bugs trying to get this thing going keep it running now you need to go start extending stuff it would be very helpful to know where the brittle parts are maybe you need to go work with your product owner prioritize rewriting parts of it refactoring Parts rewriting parts so you can go build more on top of it perhaps but being blind to it and like just like fixing stuff and like not realizing in it's the same spot over and over or a couple spots over and over I think it's a missed opportunity so I'd recommend some type documentation for inventorying this stuff um and I think one of the really big takeaways that I wanted to give to this person was around this idea that like you need to have an idea of whether or not you're just keeping this thing running whatever it is could be a shipped product it could be a live service are you keeping this running and there's no intention for the company to build more stuff on it pardon me I got got a heartburn um or are you actively trying to build and extend on it because if it's the former I would say touch it as little as possible if it's working people are using it it's paying the bills customers are happy using it for the most part touch it as little as possible the scenario is that it's Legacy code there's no documentation there's no subject matter experts left if it's not broken don't fix it it's just going to introduce more risk that's why I started off by explaining if you're going into fix things because it is broken start building up the documentation build up that knowledge base um it's different if you're going to be extending it by definition you have to go touching stuff so this is where I would say like yeah like you're going to want to know where the brittle areas are but truthfully if you just need to keep something maintained like basically hey we inherited this thing and we just got to keep it alive I would honestly Focus your efforts on other stuff and try to address the problem areas as they come up if there's a backlog of bugs to go fix or customers are unhappy this is a different story right a product owner should be able to say like these are the things that we need to go address they're keeping users from uh Ren or keeping us from acquiring new users like this is a business decision that we should go fix these things go do it but if it's just like hey this this stuff's working and I'm looking I happen to be looking through the code and it's pretty gross honestly if it looks gross but it's got users paying and no one's complaining and you don't have to go touch it otherwise I would leave it Go focus on something else in the chat uh are the main languages I need to know for web development HTML CSS and JavaScript uh those are probably the main ones that you should know typescript uh otherwise for JavaScript I would say they're not the only ones that exist uh are the only ones you need to know um to start I don't think there's anything wrong with that I think that's a totally fine base for web development um if someone came to me and said sort of the inverted the question and said hey I would like to get into web development which Lang which things would you recommend I would probably say that the most common language is going to be Java script and because it's uh web development HTML and CSS they're not programming like languages they're markup languages and you'd want to know those for sure now if it's not JavaScript I would say like I would prefer typescript over JavaScript because I like having uh strong types so that's one thing but you could go build web applications with python or other things it's totally doable so you can use C now um there's support there's something called Blazer that lets you do front end and backend development all in one uh so using C with a blaz framework um there's HTML still in that uh there's CSS still in that so those are kind of building blocks for web Tech um but the language can vary so um when I say no those aren't the only languages how to answer this right there are other languages if you just knew the ones you listed that's a fine starting point for sure it's just not that they're the only ones that exist so let's frame it that way um I gave a really succinct version of the Legacy code stuff um but the the reason I wanted to kind of bring that up at least was because I thought it was an interesting code commed episode I've already linked code commed a bunch in the chat uh it is at youtube.com Cod commute um that is my sort of second YouTube channel uh ridiculously it is doing it's like doing better than my main YouTube channel um it has less than 10% of the subscribers and gets over 50% of the metrics that my primary one gets and I don't edit the videos and I don't make thumbnails I just talk in a car um if I told you all of them you would be too overwhelmed to start somewhere that's exactly it um Setters Getters on I think set it kind of perfectly there right like there's lots of languages um so to answer your question like starting with that would be a great base um nothing to be concerned about there if you wanted to learn other languages you absolutely could so um how often do I stream I try to do it every Monday um my Tuesday Morning streams are a little bit hit and miss I might move those to to Wednesdays I have basically I have a project at work that's going to require that I have a Monday morning sink sorry Wednesday morning syn and um I don't necessarily want to be rushing back from Crossfit so I have to see how that's going to fit in um so my schedule is kind of changing in the morning the the second stream I do is live coding so this one's all about software engineering Career Development um I don't know why I'm holding my head I think I think I've been doing this all day cuz I shaved my head last night and if you've never shaved your own head when it's fresh it's got like almost like a velcro kind of feel so it's like Smooth this way but backwards is like my hand sticks to my head so I think that I'm not noticing but I keep touching my head because it's like feels real awesome um if you're wondering why I'm doing it so yeah I I have two different types of streams if you like this approach like what I'm doing right now um because I only stream once a week if you watch code commute you'll probably notice that it's a very similar Style except it's not a live stream so I'm not driving in my car and talking in the chat because that would be dangerous but it's the same kind of style like when I'm talking on these live streams none of this is pre-rehearsed I'm just talking right um so it's a bit of a stream of Consciousness code commute is exactly that I just talk like this and then I'm usually getting mad at people in traffic some I think Aaron in the chat was kind of saying that it was kind of funny that I rage at cars and stuff yeah there's lots of really stupid drivers that I come across um and I do work at Microsoft um everything that I do for social media is completely unrelated to Microsoft so um you'll hear it come up in some of the examples um this isn't like Microsoft sponsored or anything my my uh my skip level manager has literally joined the live stream before which is hilarious uh it was super cool we were talking about AI that day and he I saw him join the and I was like oh man like my skip level is here um which is super cool um and he was and he was chatting about some of his perspectives on AI and stuff he was asking like good questions and stuff but yeah it's not uh I am I do work for Microsoft my content is not Microsoft uh sponsored or focused at all um I happen to I've been a sear programmer for many years before being at Microsoft so I think that was a another connection people probably see and they and they wonder that but um yeah they're they're separate things Mad Max Fury wrot that's exactly it uh you seem like a very intelligent very smart I mean I wouldn't go that far no I I like doing this kind of stuff because uh I think that number one if it can be helpful then it's worth doing uh and I have had at least a few people tell me it's been helpful so I will continue to do it cuz is uh I feel like if I can spend an hour and help one person it's absolutely worth it um and the other thing too is like uh it feels fulfilling so um you know Microsoft pays me well I don't have to I don't have to be doing stuff like this um you know I I make courses and stuff online I all of my YouTube stuff uh I I've said this a few times my primary Channel Dev leader like I lose money on that channel like I lose hundreds of dollars every month on that channel um it cost me between $500 to $1,000 a month to get videos edited for that channel and I have just reached approximately $3 per day of income on YouTube I'm rich $3 a day so that covers um approximately zero perc now it covers a very small portion of um of the editing cost which is why I'm actually really excited for code commute I love my video editor but like if I don't have to get videos edited for code commute that's pretty sweet um every Monday I do stream uh that's what I try to do um I moved it from 900 p.m. Pacific to 7 p.m. felt like it'd be a better fit for people on the East Coast um so I try to do that if you can make it that's awesome they are all recorded too so if you ever miss it you can catch up if you have stuff this this is for everyone if you have stuff that you'd like me to talk about on the live stream or on code commute just message me comment on something let me know what you want to talk about or want me to talk about uh and if you um if you wanted to be anonymous message me and just say hey like here's a scenario could you talk about this and keep it Anonymous I'm happy to do that um I had on code commute I had someone submit something to me anonymously like I can see their name but I talked about it anonymously and uh they were like hey thanks so much that was good and they're like do you mind if I give you more context and they wrote me like a 2,000 plus word email it was nuts in like a good way um they they they had some questions about managing a a tricky situation as an engineering manager and provided so much detail and honestly the more detail that's provided the more context I have to try and help so thought it was super cool um I'm going to wrap it up here though folks so I'm going to do my obligatory stuff where I like um I advertise so I apologize this feels like a gross thing to do but um it's part of what I got to do so I'm going to go full screen here there's my face this is the newsletter article that I shared uh some content from so this is totally free it's weekly. Dev leader.com what I'm going to talk about in the Monday streams this goes out every Saturday it is completely free to sign up for if you do get a paid subscription you get uh all of the archive newsletters so there's over 70 newsletters now you get all of those issues and you get uh private Discord access uh so if you want me to talk through different things there happy to kind of help you out there um but otherwise like so I'll try to do this one was a pretty short one but I write articles every Friday that go out Saturday and then uh I have a recap from social media so the videos and stuff I post so you can see there's my dumb face driving on the highway uh doing code commute um more code commute this this week was a lot of code commute I was at the office almost every day which is pretty rare um but yeah you can see look there's me having fun on the commute because I get to hang out with you guys so um that's the newsletter uh I do have courses uh this is actually you're the first group that's hearing this um so I did just submit all of the material for a third career focused Dome train course so let me put this into the chat as well if you're interested my courses are a lot more structured obviously um it's not just me blabbing uh and the career ones I'm doing with Ryan Murphy who's an engineering manager at Yelp he's awesome and uh so we have two up right now third one just got submitted to dome train literally the this morning uh and then I have other C based ones so uh for example these two here getting started in Deep dive it's 11 hours of like learning C from from nothing um I always tell people this I don't think that courses are a replacement for for learning things I think courses can be a supplement that's helpful for some people um but I always encourage you that you're building things and not just following tutorials or just taking courses or whatever you need to be building things and then finally um Dev leader is my main channel so depending on how you got here um that's not where I want to go where's my channel there's a lot of video games there I play video games um I was playing Path of Exile um my main channel is Dev leader so um these are all my tutorials and Polished videos so check that out if you're interested in that and then Co commute is the channel that I've been mentioning a bunch today so um yeah appropriate facial expressions for drowning and Legacy code laughing crying cry laughing yes do them together so yeah those are the things that I got to share with you folks [Music] um if you find any of that content interesting please check it out I post on every single social media platform every day so um if you're you know tuning in from somewhere and you want to see more of me like in written format whatever else feel free to check out Dev leader uh I think I'm just not on Snapchat but probably everywhere else I don't think you'd want soft for engineering advice through snapchat that'd be kind of weird so thank you so much for tuning in uh I need to figure out a live stream time for coding so I apologize it's kind of might have to resume next week and otherwise I will see you folks next Monday same time take care and thanks so much for being here