Re-Platforming One of the Original Dot Coms in Elixir with Angel Jose

Today’s guest is Angel Jose, a Software Engineer Manager at Cars.com with a passion for product and the customer experience. Angel played a key role in completely re-platforming Cars.com via Elixir, Phoenix, and other open source tooling, and his former adventures in the blockchain space include working with ETH, EOS, and general distributed tooling. In today’s episode, we discuss Cars.com's decision to migrate to an entirely Elixir-based system, rebuilding the data model from scratch, redesigning all of the user interfaces, and what that meant for the team that Angel was tasked with leading, as well as how the Elixir system functions at such incredible scale, with Cars.com receiving more than a million visitors daily! We touch on Angel’s approach to onboarding new engineers, how Elixir impacts this process, and the broader impact Elixir has on the community as a whole, as well as what he hopes to see from the community in the future, so make sure not to miss this awesome conversation about adopting Elixir with Angel Jose!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Hot takes, rants, and obsessions: Angel’s best and worst taco experiences.
• Why Angel won’t be at ElixirConf 2021 and the story of how he began programming in Elixir.
• The process of finding a job in software engineering after completing an online bootcamp.
• Angel’s experience of navigating the freedom that comes with being an engineer.
• Find out how Angel got involved in re-platforming Cars.com, one of the original dot coms.
• Get a glimpse into the make up of the engineering team at Cars.com.
• How the pandemic impacted not only Angel’s deadlines but the car industry as a whole.
• The ETL pipeline of different data points that makes up Cars.com and Auto.com.
• Angel shares his opinion of LiveView and what he has learned about using it at scale.
• Advice for those adopting new technology: make sure there are enough resources out there.
• Where Angel believes his team would be without Elixir and what they are looking forward to.
• Some of the tangible benefits Cars.com has seen from flipping the switch to Elixir.
• How Angel approaches onboarding new engineers by providing them with resources and integrating learning into their day-to-day.
• The importance of celebrating small wins and fostering feelings of accomplishment.
• Angel on how Elixir impacts onboarding and new engineers; more simplicity, less magic.
• How Elixir has impacted the programming community and what Angel hopes to see in future.
• Taco happy hour, conference food, making the most of each meal, remote work, and more!
• What Angel has learned from working remotely, particularly from a social perspective.
• Angel shares his dream car after working at Cars.com and moving to Colorado.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Angel Jose on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajose01/
Angel Jose on Twitter — https://twitter.com/ajose01
Cars.com — https://www.cars.com/
Cars.com Careers — https://www.cars.com/careers/
Elixir Conf — https://2021.elixirconf.com/
Elixir Slack — https://elixir-slackin.herokuapp.com/
General Assembly — https://generalassemb.ly/
SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/

Special Guest: Angel Jose.