Today's episode is all about the environments we work in and the skills that contribute beyond the code. Jason Vasquez, CTO at Developertown, joins me as a guest. Today's episode is sponsored by Fuse! Build native iOS and Android apps with less code and better collaboration. Head over to spec.fm/fuse to learn more today!
Today's episode is all about the environments we work in and the skills that contribute beyond the code. Jason Vasquez, CTO at Developertown, joins me as a guest.
Today's episode is sponsored by Fuse! Build native iOS and Android apps with less code and better collaboration. Head over to spec.fm/fuse to learn more today!
New Promo Code: “dt” will give you listeners 70% off for 12 months. 70%!!! The code must be redeemed by December 31st 2017.
an experiment, go try lots of different things, especially try things that are outside of your comfort zone. Just don't go pick like another C-based language or whatever is like, sure, yeah, different API or whatever. But you know, go try something fundamentally different, you know, toy around with it, you're going to learn something that will probably apply in some way back to what you do day to day. That was the voice of Jason Vasquez. Jason works as a CTO at Developer Town. This is the second part of our interview. If you missed out on the first part, make sure you go back and listen to it. But in this interview, we're going to be talking about, well, interviewing, the skills that Jason is looking for from interviewees. We talked about a lot of other things as well, but I'm not going to ruin it for you. I hope you'll listen through this episode. You're listening to Developer Tea. My name is Jonathan Cottrell. And my goal is to help driven developers connect to their career purpose and do better work so they can do better. So they can have a positive influence on the people around them. And that may sound big and lofty, but the reality is the work that you do has an impact, whether you intentionally design that impact or not, what you do with your time, what you do with your energy, what you do with your career, it matters. It matters to the people that you have influence over. And if only that person is you, if that's the only person that you have immediate influence over, then that matters. So this show is dedicated to helping you become a better developer, become a more driven developer to connect to that underlying reality of how much your work actually matters. Not in a vain sense, not in the sense that you're self-important or narcissistic, but rather that you take your time seriously, that you care about how you're spending your time, how you're spending your days. You intentionally engage the work that you do. And that's really the key to being a better developer. So I want to thank you for listening to this show. I want for you to be those people, the people who care about the work that you do. And if you don't care about the work that you do, then this show probably isn't going to be very good for you. You're not going to enjoy it very much. But if you do care about the work you do, then I welcome you to listen to the show, to subscribe and to continue engaging this stuff, you know, each and every day. Thank you so much for listening. Let's get out of the way and get into this interview with Jason Vasquez. Jason Vasquez So I'd love to kind of... back out one more time here and look at the bigger picture with you about your career. And, you know, we talked about dark moments. We talked about, you know, these learning environments and staying up to date a little bit, but more importantly, kind of being able to switch between things and not getting too focused, hyper-focused on one tool. But I'd love to ask you, you know, what two areas that I want to talk to you about. One is hiring and the other one is going to be, you know, bright spots, moments where you're going to be able to do a lot of better things. What are some of the qualities that you're looking for in a career where you feel like you had an epiphany, a moment of clarity or inspiration? But first, let's talk about hiring. Let's say I'm a developer and I want to work at Developertown. When I walk into my interview, what are some of the qualities, what is something that you're looking for that really, if I were to walk in and accomplish that thing, that you would be ecstatic to have heard it and that would kind of put me at the top of the pile? Sure. Well, there's one of the things I, you know, if I go back many years, the way I would think about hiring was really more relational and social and kind of like kind of basic interview techniques, just asking a lot of questions, hopefully hitting the right things. We ran into some problems with that. And primarily one of the issues we hit was just people that could talk it, but couldn't actually do the work we expected they could do. And I know that's not unusual. So that really drove us towards, again, a not unusual technique where we do coding interviews. And to date at Developer Town, we've done those in person where we've had people come in. So we really split up our interview process into two parts, one of which is much more social. Let's get to know each other, talk about some things that excite you and that sort of thing. And then we get onto some pure technical things and see how you do. One of the things we're starting to... To worry about a little bit there as we think further about diversity and some other hiring factors is some bias that creeps in. So you can start to see some behaviors from people that we start to suspect may be really excellent, but due to social pressures or other things that are unfortunate in society, don't perform as well. Especially in that more technical portion where we hand them a marker and a really hard problem. And we... We do our best to make these really collaborative, like work through them together type things. But there's certainly a barrier. So we're starting to think a little bit about how we may address that via that through, you know, maybe an online version of the same thing where it's not, you know, that same social one-on-one type pressure or not. So that's kind of one aspect to it. We do need to make sure that people can actually write some code. That's an important factor. But then the other side of it is I want to see people that seem to care about what they do. And it's... It seems readily, you know, obvious to me at least when I ask somebody, you know, what's something that you're proud of that you've done? You'll see it. I mean, some people are like, well, you know, I worked on this big team and I did this thing. And there are other people. You just see them. They light up. It's almost like they were happy you asked them because they got to talk about this little thing that you could tell really meant something to them and that they worked really hard on and got done. And those things really stand out for me because those are things that, you know, I mentioned previously that they're the things that look like the way I think about things. You know, I just get kind of excited about stuff and I want to go after it and I want to solve it. So those are standout things for me. That's really good. And, you know, I just want to affirm something here. Hiring is really hard. It's really hard. It's probably almost harder than getting hired. I hate to say that. I hate to say that because I know a lot of people are in a difficult spot right now trying to find jobs. But it's emotionally taxing. It's in a lot of ways, quite honestly, physically taxing because it takes a lot more active engagement than, you know, just doing your normal job. It's definitely mentally taxing. And it can really lead you into a lot of situations where you're kind of rolling the dice. You don't really know. I mean, you're spending. You know, an hour or at most, let's say a day with a person that you're trying to decide, is this person going to make this company better? Are we going to make this person's life better? Is this going to fit? And, you know, that has major implications for that person, most importantly. But it also has major implications for the company and the people that that person is going to interact with on a daily basis, including the clients. You know, this is a huge, huge thing. And so, you know, there are managers who are listening to this right now and you're struggling with hiring and you're wondering what the secret is. And the truth is, there's not a secret to hiring. It is a hard process because it's something that can't be optimized. No matter how much we try, no matter how, you know, how good of a process we have, it is a extremely difficult thing because it's 110% human. And so I do, you know, it's difficult to balance. You know, how can I make sure that this person has the technical skills? How can I be certain that they're going to respond to pressure in the right way? You know, and asking the right questions is not always going to uncover what you need. So, you know, I have a lot of respect for people who are good at hiring because it really isn't, is not easy at all. Yeah, I haven't met anybody who's really fantastic at it yet. Or the best ones know that there's still a lot of holes. So, yeah, no, it's definitely a hard process. But I think really, you know, if you can at least get a baseline understanding of what are they capable of doing, but more importantly, can they get excited about things? And I'd say the one thing that disappoints me the most that I hear is when I say, well, can you show me some of your work, especially for somebody junior, you know, that sort of thing. Show me some things that you've worked on. And they say, well, I just really... I don't have any work experience yet, or I haven't had a job yet. I haven't had that opportunity. I'm like, oh, my gosh, there's so much opportunity. And if you don't love it enough to have been, you know, playing around with it and putting something on GitHub or whatever, you know, it doesn't have to be great. I actually don't care that much if it's not that perfect. It shows that you care enough to learn, you know. Let me run an idea by you then, because it's something that I've told developers to try. In the past, you know, there's a lot of ways to kind of get past that experience gap. You know, obviously, the most important thing is to actually get work experience. If you can get that, then that speaks for years of, you know, self... Just you saying you have experience if you have a project to show. But what I've told developers, especially... This is kind of more specific to web developers. But other developers... And I think developers can apply the same concept, too. Is to go and do a kind of like one of those, like a 30-day challenge, essentially. Where you build a single, complete application once a day, every day for 30 days. And this is, you know, something that's extremely focused. A very small piece. You know, you're not building a whole Rails application that, you know, manages a bunch of users and does all of the reporting and all that stuff. That's not what... That's not what you're doing here. You're focusing on a small and very interesting problem. And then you're doing that a bunch of times. And I've said, actually, to do five projects over the course of 30 days. So that gives you, you know, six-ish days per project. So you can actually get something recently... Or, I'm sorry, somewhat substantial for each of these projects. And you have a variety to show. So in 30 days, you go from having absolutely nothing to having these... These five projects to show. Yeah. No, it's fantastic. I say the other thing for us. We're a consulting company. And you'd have to be really hard-pressed to not find someone around you who might need a small website. Yeah. Or anything. And you know what? You could probably charge them a little bit. And to me, you learn so much doing that. You know, one, interviewing somebody. You know, them interviewing their clients. Understanding what it is they need. Putting together a little plan. Delivering. Yeah. You know, building the code. Getting it deployed. Getting it, you know, for a developer, especially someone junior. You know, understanding, like, simple things like DNS and networks and IPs and all of that stuff. Kind of prove a little baseline knowledge around that stuff, you know. So that the first time you hear these terms isn't after you've been hired. Right. Right. Exactly. We're going to take a quick break and talk about today's sponsor. And then we'll get back into the interview with Jason. Today's episode is sponsored by Fuse. Perhaps you were thinking about doing a side project. And more explicitly, you're thinking about doing a mobile application for your side project. Well, I encourage you to consider Fuse. Fuse is rebuilding the way we think about creating mobile applications. You can build native iOS and Android apps with less code and better collaboration. Fuse is an all-in-one solution that works both on Mac and on Windows that allows you to see the work as you're doing it. Up until now, mobile development environments haven't really changed very much. In about 10 years. But Fuse is aiming to change that. If you've ever used something called Unity for game development, then Fuse is kind of like that for mobile application development. Fuse recently went from beta to their official 1.0 launch. And they also launched their Fuse Studio Premium Editor and Workspace. This comes along with their professional plan. Of course, this is a paid plan. It includes a Fuse built-in UI kit. And you can do things like add premium charting to your... ...applications. Use stickers on your live camera feed. There's tons of interesting things you can do with the Fuse professional plan. Now, most people don't even need this paid plan. But if you do choose to go with it, then Fuse is providing you 70% off if you use the code DT for developer T. This is going to get you 70% off. This is for the first 12 months. And the codes must be redeemed by December 31st of this year. So if you want to take advantage of that deal. Go ahead. And head over to FuseTools.com slash plans. That's FuseTools.com slash plans. Don't forget that code DT. And remember, you can get started for free. You can try this product entirely free today. Head over to FuseTools.com slash plans to get started. Thanks again to Fuse for sponsoring today's episode of Developer T. I think a lot of developers, they fear those coding interviews. And they prepare for those. And I would say you're better served if you go and actually solve problems with code for a project than if you were to go through a bunch of code prep for a whiteboard interview. Yeah, absolutely. And to be honest, I mean, the harder end of our coding interview stuff is very little to do with were you successful at it or not. It's more about how do you think. How do you think through it? Because we want these to be conversational. Talk to me. What's stumping you right now? And we'll work through it and go. Because we want to treat it like we actually treat these kinds of hard problems in reality. Yeah. And the truth is you get stuck with that kind of problem in a real-life scenario. And you've got Google and a bunch of other people around you to help you. And so when you go into these coding interviews, recognize that, hey, you know what? This is more about communication. This is more about communication than it is about solving the problem. Right? Right. Exactly. It's more about understanding how, hey, these people are trying to understand if I'm going to be able to do this, if I would be successful at solving something together with them. And so if you clam up or if you're totally lost in your head, that's not a good sign. That's not going to give me a good amount of confidence that this is going to go well. Right. So if you're totally lost, take a step back. Say it. Like you might anyway. Yeah. Say, hey, I'm a little lost. Let me go over, you know, like step back and write an outline of what you know so far on the corner of the board. Yeah. Yeah. And then write the question mark next to the one that you're stumped on. Right? Right. Yeah. And just seeing that kind of thought process is really powerful. So. Another thing that I've mentioned to developers who ask about, you know, whiteboarding interview questions and that kind of thing is to provide more than one answer. Uh-huh. Because every problem that you ever face has contextual answers. There could be one way of doing it that serves a particular need or there could be another way. And so for you to show that you have a grasp on the subject such that you can talk about the implications, not just the solution, but the implications of the solution, that's the kind of thinking that produces great work but perhaps just as important. That's the kind of thinking that stays on budget. That helps, you know, a project manager understand the differences between two possible pathways. And if I can hear that in your work or in your thinking, then I have a high degree of confidence that when I ask you to solve something really complex, that you're not going to get stuck in a black hole where you're not producing value. But you're going to actually find a good pathway. Right. to the right solution. Yeah, and then be able to justify your solution. Exactly. As well, you know, versus alternatives. And again, especially in the consulting world where, you know, 99% of the time, we have fantastic relationships with our customers. You know, we really enjoy that. But every once in a while, you're going to get challenged on something. You know, like, wait, so why are we going down this path? You know, and not go, because I found it on Stack Overflow and copy and pasted or whatever. You know, I was like, no, I evaluated these four options. And, you know, these other guys, they didn't line up. So here's where we landed. And even if it's not the right thing, it's okay because, you know what, you've got these other three other back pocket things we can go down and get to as well. So I think that's really, really important. Very important. So we've gone a little bit over our time. I really appreciate your time tonight, Jason. And thank you for talking with me about the cool stuff that Developer Town is doing and about your experience as developer and where you've come from. And I have a couple of questions that I'd love to ask you that I like to ask every guest who comes on the show. Okay. The first question is, if you and I were to go out and have a cup of tea and talk for the very first time, what would you hope that I would ask you about? I think I would hope that you ask me about my family. I think that's an important thing just for me personally and then around our company as well. We really focus on that side of things. So. Yeah. It is very important. And it's something that everybody has a different perspective on. Yeah. How you take care of your family and your, you know, so again, a very tired phrase, but the work-life balance and all of those discussions are so important. And they shouldn't be left out of these kinds of talks about hiring, for example. That's a good interview question. What are your views on your family? Right, right. One of the things that was hard for me prior to Developer Town, I worked in a startup and we had just had a baby at the time. And I was the slightly older guy with a lot of younger guys who were there, you know, 20 hours a day. And I work a lot of hours. I would do them from home. But my visible face time was limited. And for a while, I felt really awkward when I walked out of the office at like five. You know, but that was important to me to get home and go. Now, you know, eventually you build enough cred and, you know, I think it works out. But that can be a little jarring right at first. And it's really difficult. We just recently had our first. He's going on four months now. So we're still in that. Congratulations. Thank you. It's a super early phase. And, you know, it is. It is tough to explain that. Because even if you were to explain it with normal, you know, this is why I'm going home. And it's such an emotionally connected thing that to explain it to somebody who hasn't experienced it is like trying to talk about a movie, you know, to someone who hasn't seen it. At some point, you're talking about a fact rather than a fact. Rather than a feeling. And that's a really hard thing to communicate. And so you have to be able to kind of separate that. And it is, you know, it's easier when you have other people in the company who have similar experiences to you. But there are people that I really, truly love working with. And if I didn't have a child at home, we would go out and hang out outside of work all the time. And now that I have a child at home, it's very few times that we're going to have a child. And I don't feel bad about that. I don't feel like I'm missing anything. And that's okay. You know, it's totally okay. Yeah. No, it just helps to get to have everybody know each other at that level, right? And then I can come to a common understanding and go from there. Yeah. And the respect and common appreciation for each other's individual circumstances. And yeah, it's so important for the health of a company. And, you know, I've come to realize, as a leader, that any person's internal monologue is really shaping their perspective of their work and the people around them. And so when you have internal monologues like, wow, I can't believe that guy's leaving at five, right? And if that's something that you expect is happening in the company, that's a really toxic and potentially divisive thing to happen in a company. Those emotions are going to, you know, divide, you know, even at a practical level, you're not going to want to be in the same room with people that you don't like. Right. You can build this resentment for each other. And, you know, this is why, for example, you mentioned earlier, and this is something that's going to resound with me from this interview, the access. You want to have a personality and a presence that is accessible to the people that you work with. And that's so important. If you weren't accessible, people would have that internal monologue that says, you know, I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. That seeds that little bit of dissent and, you know, it's discord, really. Yeah. And to be clear, I don't think I always do a great job at that. But I really try. Well, anybody who thinks they're doing a great job probably is not doing a great job. That's probably fair. Yeah. Well, this has been great. So one more question that I'd love to ask, Jason, and this is a tough one, but if you only had 30 seconds to give advice to every developer, of all backgrounds, what would you tell them? I think we touched on some of it, and that's that it's less about what you know right now, and it's more about your excitement about figuring out what's next. So that desire to stay up an extra 30 minutes to learn that next little corner of Erlang or figure out that next circuit design or whatever it may be, those are the things that really, I think, shape developers and make them really great is that ability to get excited about those things and really grow themselves. Excellent advice, Jason. Thank you so much for coming on to Developer Tea. Happy to do it. It's been a great time. And where can people find you if they want to follow you online, if they want to learn more about Developer Town and what you all do? Where should they go? Well, please visit our website on Twitter, Jason P. Vasquez, although I can't say I'm too... too active of a publisher, at least. I probably lurk a bit more. And feel free to reach out to me via email or any other channel. Awesome. Thank you so much, Jason. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Developer Tea. I have a pretty big announcement to let you all know about. If you are preparing for an interview, especially if the interview is coming up in the next 10 days or so, I want you to go and download this free guide that I've created for you. And really, this is for anyone. It's not just about interviewing, but certainly is most applicable to those of you who are getting ready to go into an interview. It's totally free. It's over 100 pages worth of content. This is the best advice that I can distill for you as you head into this interview, as you go through this life transition and finding your purpose. All of this stuff is covered in this book. Head over to beyondbootcamp.io. You can get the interview week prep guide for free. Once again, beyondbootcamp.io. Thank you again to Fuse for sponsoring today's episode of Developer Tea. Fuse is an all-in-one environment for Mac or PC. It's going to allow you to create and view what you are creating, your mobile application. It's a brand new way of doing mobile application development that improves, vastly improves on the ecosystem for mobile developers. Thank you again to Fuse for sponsoring. Head over to fusedtools.com slash plans. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you consider yourself a driven developer, if you believe that your work is more important than just a transaction with your employer, that you actually can have an impact on the people who use the things you built, you actually care about your coworkers, you care about your clients, or you care about doing good work for the company that you work for, then I want you to subscribe to the show. You are the people that I'm targeting with this show. And if you aren't one of the people then that's okay. You don't have to stick around. The show is probably not going to be well suited for you, but I definitely want to connect with those of you who have that underlying sense of purpose in the work that you do. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, enjoy your tea.