IT Career Energizer

GUEST BIO: Annyce Davis is a software developer and an Android Google Developer Expert which means she spends a lot of time developing videos, blog posts and conference talks.  She has also created several courses for Caster, O’Reilly and LinkedIn Learning.  Annyce is currently the software lead for mobile development at Off Grid Electric, a social impact startup. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Annyce Davis.  She has already had a varied career. Annyce spent 7 years working at the Washington Post setting up their online content offering and user re-engagement initiatives. During that time, she used Python, Hive and several other tools to get the job done. She was part of the team that created PostTV Android. Today, she is an Android Google Developer Expert working for the social impact start-up Off Grid Electric. Annyce has also created numerous courses, a teacher and public speaker. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(1.03) – So Annyce, can you expand on that brief introduction and tell us a little bit more about yourself? Annyce explains to Phil that when she is not programming she is busy settling her family into European life. The company that she works for recently moved their headquarters from Tanzania to the Netherlands. (1.57) – Phil asks Annyce to share a unique IT career tip with the audience. Annyce’s tip is to find a way to teach regardless of what you do within the tech industry. Doing that enables you to make a positive difference in the life of others and “sound down” whatever you teach within yourself. (2.32) – Phil asks Annyce to share more about what she gets out of teaching. She says it really helps her to hone her own expertise and make things firmer in her own mind. It pushes her to learn more and deepen her own understanding of a subject. If she has a complicated concept, she has to break it down so someone else can understand it too. This requires research, a process that deepens her understanding of the subject. (3.53) – Annyce is asked to share her worst career moment by Phil. Several years ago, Annyce had just completed a complicated project and was expecting to be promoted. But, that did not happen for her. Yet, other colleagues, some of whom had started after her, were promoted. At the time, she felt very down, but, learned several lessons from the experience. The first was the need to speak up. If you do not do that you can easily be overlooked. Make sure that your manager knows your goals and that you constantly check your progress towards them. Also, remember that “work is not school” you have to “advocate for yourself”. Let everyone know what it is that you contribute to ensure that you advance in your career. (5.12) – Phil asks how else that experience has changed the way Annyce works. She explains that teaching keeps you visible and helps you to vocalize what it is you know and contribute. It enables you to interact with a lot of people. You become a force for positive change within your own organization and help people across multiple departments. Understanding the need to promote yourself has helped her to understand the value of being a teacher within your organization. (5.41) – Phil asks Annyce what her best career moment, so far. Annyce said that recording her first LinkedIn Learning course was a big highlight. She recorded in front of a green screen in a real studio. It was surreal and made her feel like a celebrity. Amazingly, it all started with the little step of going online and sharing a few tips. When Phil asked if she gets much feedback from her course, Annyce said yes, loads. She really loves people coming up to her at conferences and thanking her for what she taught them. (7.27) – Phil asks what excites Annyce about the future for the IT industry and careers in IT, in particular. She is both excited by and worried about how reliant we are on Open Source software. Not that long ago, most companies would not let you use Open Source code. Now, we actively look for it before we build something from scratch. It is exciting because you can get things done quickly. But, it is scary too. If it breaks there is not always an easy path to resolution. (8.28) - Do you see opportunities maybe evolving as a result of open source? Yes, definitely. It does not matter where you are in the world you can work with so many smart people and learn from them. (9.07) – What drew you to a career in IT, Annyce? One day, Annyce was playing with her favorite game, when her teacher told her that if she became a programmer, she could make games too. She did, in fact, create a word game for Android. (9.50) – What is the best career advice you were given? Annyce’s unofficial mentor told her about “the rule of thirds”. Basically, whatever you put out into the world falls into one of 3 buckets. One-third of people will appreciate it, one third will ignore it and one third will totally ignore it. You need to take whatever feedback you get and put it in one of those three buckets. Doing this ensures you do not become distracted and can continue to move forward and achieve your goals. Phil agrees and shares the fact that he has also received similar advice.   (10.48) – If you were to start your IT career again, now, what would you do? Annyce says she would change jobs every three years. She is very loyal to her current company, but also realizes that staying in one place is potentially holding her back, in some ways. In tech, there is always another challenge in another place. (11.19) – Phil asks Annyce what she is currently focusing on at the moment. Annyce is currently building a small team. She is focusing on being a great manager, who programs. Rather than a great programmer who manages, so she is focusing on improving her management skills. (11.49) – What is the non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? Being able to explain complex things in simple terms, it is a skill that helps you to work with all kinds of people. (12.09) – Do you vary the way you communicate depending on who you are talking to? Yes, absolutely. While teaching middle school for a year, she learned different teaching methods. Now, Annyce definitely considers her audience when she teaches. (12.58) – Phil asks Annyce to share a final piece of career advice. Annyce says, just teach, and share what you know. Start small and watch your career grow as you help others to learn. BEST MOMENTS:  (2.13) ANNYCE – “Whatever you do in the tech industry, you should try to find a way to teach it.” (4.57) ANNYCE – “Work is not school. So, you don't just get an A, because you worked hard, you have to really advocate for yourself.” (5.28) ANNYCE – “Be seen, be vocal be visible, and to share what you know, with the community, because it also helps people internally in your own company.” (13.02) ANNYCE – “Share what you know with others and just watch your career grow.” CONTACT Annyce Davis: Twitter: https://twitter.com/brwngrldev LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annycedavis/ Website: http://adavis.info/

GUEST BIO: Chris is the author of the award-winning Wahl Network Blog and host of the Datanauts podcast. Chris focuses on creating content that revolves around virtualization, automation, infrastructure and evangelizing products and services that benefit the technology community.  He is also co-author of “Networking for VMware Administrators”, has published hundreds of articles and a conference speaker. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: The guest on today’s show is Chris Wahl who has been working in the IT  industry for over two decades.  He is the host of the Datanauts podcast and the author of the Wahl Network Blog, both of which have won awards. His focus is on using his experience to give others the expertise they need to create the data centres of the future. Chris specializes in workflow automation and building operational excellence and the successful adoption and integration of new technology. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(1.07) – So Chris, can you expand on that brief introduction and tell us a little bit more about yourself? Chris said that he spent most of his career rising through the ranks. Three years ago, he set up Rubrik, which is already a market leader in Cloud Data Management. He now runs a fairly large team. The change from individual contributor to a full-time kind of manager has been a blast. (1.45) – Did you make the decision to change in terms of moving more into a management role? Chris said, yes, kind of. But, he tends to gravitate towards new things that push him to learn. For him, it is an effective way of managing the “imposter syndrome” that most of us experience. He also realized that if he continued to work as an individual how much he could achieve would be limited. On your own you can only get so much done. With a team you can build in more capacity to get things done, move the technology forwards and complete large projects. Chris has found that creating a team has enabled him to pursue some passion projects. (2.34) – Phil asks Chris for a unique IT career tip. Chris explains that it is important to push yourself out of your comfort zone. It ensures you continue to learn to keep up with the fast pace of technology. Chris has what he calls a “fear compass”. When he finds something that makes him go wow and take a step back initially, he usually dives in instead of backing away. You cannot afford to become stagnant or stale. (4.18) – Chris is asked to share his worst career moment. For Chris that happened early on. He was working for an IT shop that had a call centre type of operation to assist customers and keep the business running. One day Chris did an update and rolled it out without thoroughly testing it. Unfortunately, he had accidentally put a wild card in the script which nuked everyone’s system 32 folders. Leading to the operating system failing. On that day, 200 terminals went down. Chris could have tried to sweep his mistake under the carpet. But, he didn’t. Instead he was transparent, which enabled him and his team to get things back up and running as normal, very quickly. He felt really guilty about it. But, since then he has never broken the “test first” rule, which has helped him to deliver excellent solutions and propel his career forwards. (7.95) – Phil asks Chris what his best career moment was. Chris says that moment goes in tandem with his worst IT experience. On another job, a client asks him to do an upgrade at 11 am on a Wednesday. One of the busiest times of the week, so he warns them this is not a good idea and documents the fact. Yet, they insist he does it and everything goes down. Immediately, Chris was surrounded by the whole team, very upset and all panicking. Despite the pressure Chris was able to remain cool and quickly solve the problem. His worst career moment had helped him to understand the importance of remaining calm at moments of crisis and give him the chance to practice that skill. So, he was ready and able to deliver his best career moment. (9.26) – Phil wants to know what excites Chris about the future of the IT industry. Chris says the fact that the way we deal with IT is changing to a more collaborative way of working is exciting and important. Chris calls it the DevOps blend. He also likes the fact that everything is becoming more workflow and process driven. It is also good to see automation being utilized more. (11.19) – Phil asks Chris what drew you to a career in IT. Chris was only about 3 or 4 when he started playing computer games. He was programming by the time he was 8. He said that IT chose him rather than him choosing it. (12.18) – What is the best career advice you have been given? Surround yourself with the right people and success will follow. Positive people who challenge you and are great to work with will always drive you forwards. (13.04) – Phil asks Chris if he has ever been involved in Masterminds. Chris says not exactly. But, whether he is working on a project, attending a conference or something else he always seeks out the experts. Often, he ends up working collaboratively with them. (13.47) – If you were to start your IT career again, what would you do? Chris jokes that he would have invested heavily in Apple stock. Refreshingly, Chris does not think he would change much in the way he approaches his career decisions. (14.30) – Phil asks Chris what he is currently focusing on in his career. Chris is no longer getting heavily involved in the engineering aspect of IT. Instead, he is now focusing more on what the greater architecture of IT looks like. He is working to understand how to make this technology more accessible, so normal people can deliver this stuff. So, recently, he has been attending a lot of Gartner events and analyst conferences. (16.22) – What would you consider to be your most important non-technical skill, Chris? Writing, the ability to take something that is complicated and make it simple enough for most people to understand is a great skill. Communication is key. There is no point in producing something fantastic, if you unable to share it with others. (17.19) – Phil asks Chris to share a few final words of IT career advice. Don’t focus too much on the details, if you do you will just spin your wheels. Stop fixating on which cloud to learn, get your feet wet, learn and pivot later if you need to. BEST MOMENTS:  (3.41) CHRIS – “Standing still means you're just gonna be brought down. You have to constantly keep moving and finding that fear factor.” (3.47) PHIL – “It’s a case of challenging yourself to be able to grow and move forward” (10.21) CHRIS – “I really liked that we're blending those two worlds and gathering a lot of the great practices that the dev world has done and applying that to ops.” (12.25) CHRIS – “Surround yourself with great people, and successfully follow." (16.31) CHRIS – “As I've grown my career, I've realized that everything boils down to communication.” (17.11) CHRIS – “Learning how to extract ideas from your head and put it into a consumable format is such a huge skill”    CONTACT CHRIS WAHL: Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChrisWahl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wahlchris/ Website: http://wahlnetwork.com/

GUEST BIO: Denise is a web design and development industry veteran and author of the book The CSS Detective Guide which is about troubleshooting CSS code.  Denise is also founder & CEO of The Creative Dose, helping individuals to unleash their creativity by banishing their inner critic and hacking their creative brains, as well as being a regular speaker at conferences around the world. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Today, Phil’s guest is Denise Jacobs.  She has been working in the IT industry since 1996. Over that time, she has been a developer, designer, writer, speaker and mentor. Right now, her focus is on teaching, in particular helping others to recognize and overcome self-doubt. A positive step that frees developers and programmers to be more creative and excel at what they do. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(1.08) – So Denise, can you expand on that brief introduction and tell us a little bit more about yourself? Denise explained that she started web design when the web was really young in 1996. She worked for Microsoft and several other companies. In the end, she realized that what she really liked doing was teaching. So, she started teaching web design and development at Seattle Central Community College. When she moved to Miami she worked at a software company that produced a CMS. That experience made her realize she really wanted to work for herself. She also started speaking at conferences, around the same time, in 2009, she was asked to write a book. The CSS Detective Guide was a big success. Writing it and speaking about it got Denise more interested in the creative process. So, she started to talk publically about that side of IT work. Her latest book is about silencing your inner critic, so you can unlock your creativity and get into a flow state so that you can do your best work. (4.47) - Do you feel that writing the original book was that reason for getting into this more creative area? Denise explained that it was really the catalyst. The process of writing the book made Denise realize that she had crippling self-doubt. She was always seeking validation, questioning her developer and writing ability. Worrying about how she was perceived. Writing the book got Denise to the stage where she was finally felt comfortable with her work. (7.48) – Phil asks Denise for a unique IT career tip. Denise’s advice is to “be your brilliance” – tune into what you do well and focus on that. Unfortunately, we rarely recognize that we are good at something, especially if it is really easy for us to do. She gave the example of a gymnast. They will think nothing of balancing on a beam and not really think about the fact that doing that requires a good sense of balance. Yet, the fact that they have an excellent sense of balance, something which is obvious everyone else. To identify their brilliance, Denise advises people to - “think back to the last time that you did something that was so enjoyable that you lost time.” If you were so consumed that you forgot to eat or use the bathroom you were, likely, in a flow state and working in one of your areas of brilliance. (9.50) – Denise is asked to share her worst career moment by Phil. In one job Denise was singled out by one of her managers for “special treatment”, but, not in a good way. The company had a flexible working policy. Yet, her manager bullied her into coming in before 9 am and staying late. For Denise it was an awful time. It did not matter how many sacrifices she made her efforts were not recognized. Instead, she was demeaned. For example, one of her project managers was an introvert, so she ended up picking up the slack quite a bit. Effectively she became the de-facto manager. Despite assuming all of the stress and much of the physical work, when presents were handed out to everyone on that time all she got was a joke gift of a date ball. That was it; Denise saw the light and took a step back. (14.08) – Phil asks Denise what her best career moment was. For Denise becoming a public speaker has turned out to be a highlight. It has opened up a whole new world for her and enabled her to meet and help so many wonderful people. (15.36) – Phil asks Denise what excites her about the future of the IT careers. The opportunities are huge. Recently, an HR manager told her that a lot of positions are going unfilled. So, there is plenty of work available. More importantly, there is room for innovation and creativity. The possibilities and opportunities are huge. (16.32) – What drew you to a career in IT? Actually, Denise fell into an IT career by accident. While working at the University of Washington, she realized that the website was not getting updated. So, she sought out the person who was responsible for the website and discovered they were no longer keen to work on it. So, Denise learned HTML and a few other skills and took over. That was the beginning of her IT career. (18.10) – What is the best career advice you have been given? Denise says it is important to surround yourself with people who are ahead of you. She called them “opportunity models”, people that can help you to recognize the possibilities and opportunities. (18.42) – If you were to start your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Denise said that she would still focus on learning and teaching what she knows. She believes that is the fastest way to learn more and grow your community. (19.17) – Phil asks Denise what she is currently focusing on.  Right now, Denise is working to grow her reach and provide value. She has a lot of information to share that she has been too busy to get out there. So, over the next year, her plan is to share a lot more content. (20.08) – What would you consider to be your most important non-technical skill? Denise picked out two things. Firstly, being able to write well and communicate effectively. Secondly, her design skills, which enables her to make her content visually appealing and engaging. (20.43) – Phil asks Denise to share a few final words of advice with the IT Career Energizer audience. Denise says it is vital not to let your self-doubt get in your way. You need to be able to identify when you are suffering from imposter syndrome, procrastinating, worrying about being judged or doubting yourself. That is the first step to breaking through those negative thoughts and dealing effectively with them. There are tools you can use to hack your thought patterns, so you stop holding yourself back. BEST MOMENTS: (4.25) DENISE – “It’s about silencing the voice of self-doubt, so that you can actually unlock your creativity and then get to the point where you're doing your best work.” (7.16) DENISE  – “Negative self-talk is the number one barrier to success.” (7.35) DENISE – “Creativity is really just about solving problems.” (8.01) DENISE – “Be your brilliance. Tune into what it is that you do well and really do that.” (15.43) DENISE – “The number of positions that go unfilled is ridiculously high because there aren't enough people who actually have the skills.” CONTACT DENISE JACOBS: Twitter: https://twitter.com/denisejacobs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deniserjacobs/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denisejacobs/ Website: http://denisejacobs.com

GUEST BIO: Joe Birch is an Android Engineer, working as part of the Android team at Buffer.  He is passionate about coding and loves creating robust, polished and exciting projects for mobile, the web, TV, wearables and whatever the latest thing is.  Joe is also a keen writer and public speaker, enabling him to share his learnings and experiences with others. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Joe Birch. Currently, he is working as a Senior Android Engineer at Buffer. He also spends a lot of time at Caster.IO sharing his knowledge as an Android Instructor. Joe has also worked as a content manager for Eroski and as a freelance photographer. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(1.02) – So Joe, can you expand on that summary and tell us a little bit more about yourself? Joe explained that he is also a Google Developer expert for Android and that he loves playing with anything technology related. Phil noted that Joe’s current role provides him with a nice balance. In that role he is able to continue to develop his skills as an Android developer as well as explore new tech. (1.42) – Phil asks Joe for a unique IT career tip. Joe believes that sharing what he has learned is helping him to continue to learn new things. At first, he was reluctant to speak publicly and share what he knows in writing. Like many developers, he was afraid that people may not think he was good enough or what he was saying was right. He was worried about being trolled and having to deal with a lot of negative comments. In reality, the opposite is true. He believes that putting yourself out there is a great way to further your IT career. It is especially good for networking. (2.54) – At this point, Joe is asked to share his worst career moment. About 3 years ago Joe wanted to make a big change at the company he worked for. In an effort to achieve that change, he ended up spending virtually every waking moment online. He believed that he had to be constantly online to be able to advance in his career. In reality, that is not necessary. Joe did not burn out completely, but, it did have a negative effect on his well-being. (3.56) – Phil asks Joe if this experience has lead to him changing his approach. The answer is yes, he balances work out with running and keeping fit. He goes to the gym before going on his laptop and makes time to read and does not work right up until he goes to bed. (5.01) – Phil asks Joe what his best career moment was. He says that when he gave his first public speech, the fact that it was a success significantly boosted his confidence and opened several doors for him. It gave him the speech bug and really helped him to build a name for himself. If he wants to learn a new technology, he will apply to give a speech about it. That pushes him to really dive in and learn everything he can about that new technology. (7.03) – Phil wants to know what excites Joe about the future of the IT industry. For Joe, it is the pace of change. You know that there is always going to be something new to explore. Just look at Android, to start with it was just phones. Now there is Android TV, Android Things and Google Home, with more in the pipeline. (8.24) – What drew you to a career in IT? Joe studied computer science at university, but he was not sure exactly what he wanted to do. For his final project, he created an App. The thrill of seeing people download and use it is what hooked him and made him pursue a career in IT. (9.14) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? At Joe’s last job his boss had a chat with him about the fact that it is not necessary to “know everything”. He helped Joe to realize that he was getting caught up in the latest things instead of focusing. His boss wanted him to stop being so distracted and focus in on the things he enjoyed and was passionate about. (10.06) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right, now, what would you do? Joe says it is important to network right from the start. He used to attend conferences, but never spoke to many people. This was largely due to a lack of confidence. (10.51) – Phil asks Joe what he is currently focusing on his career. Joe explains that for about two years now, he has wanted to write a book. He is in the process of trying to make that a reality. Joe also has several side projects on the go, some of which he has been working on for a while. Right now, he is focusing on actually getting them finished. (11.38) – What’s the most important non-technical skill that has helped you in your career? The ability to say no has really helped Joe to focus on what he really wants to do. Joe has noticed that for a lot of developers saying no is really hard. Phil agrees, he says it is a combination of not wanting to miss out and feeling the need to please everyone. “The risk is that you just say yes to everything.” (12.51) – Phil asks Joe to share a few final words of career advice. Joe’s advice is to learn new things and share what you know. Put it out there, get feedback and take action. BEST MOMENTS: (2.15) JOE – “That held me back from sharing things. And in turn, I think that also held me back from learning new things.” (5.10) JOE – “Giving my first talk was a massive confidence boost for me and really opened up a lot more doors.” (7.41) JOE – “I know there's always gonna be something new for me to engage with and play with.” (13.11) JOE – “Just get stuck in and show what you're doing, even if someone's already written about it.” CONTACT JOE BIRCH: Twitter: https://twitter.com/hitherejoe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-birch-80392157/ Website: https://hitherejoe.com Medium: https://medium.com/hitherejoe

GUEST BIO: Randall Hunt is a Senior Technical Evangelist and Software Engineer at Amazon Web Services.  Randall spends most of his time building demos and writing about new services and launches on the AWS News Blog. Python is his favourite programming language but he can sometimes be found in the dark realm of C++. Prior to working at AWS, Randall launched rockets at NASA and SpaceX but he found his programming passion at MongoDB. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Randall Hunt. He started his career working as a physicist for NASA and SpaceX. He is now working at Amazon Web Services. His favourite programming language is Python, but he also works with C++. Over the years, he has worked in several different verticals, so he has a lot of business and technical experience. Randall helps developers to maximize their productivity in the cloud, especially at conferences and similar events. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(1.16) – So Randall, can you expand on that summary and tell us a little bit more about yourself? Randall studied physics and a little computer science at Western Carolina University. He did a kind of internship at NASA and whilst there realized that software engineers earned a lot more than physicists. So, he switched careers. Randall had been programming as a side hustle, since he was about 12 or 13. But, he only officially started his IT career in 2010. (2.15) – Phil asks Randall for a unique IT career tip. Randall has worked for a lot of startups. He said that he definitely left a lot of money on the table with his first few jobs because of 90-day expiration window clauses. So, he recommends that people learn about contracts, so that they can make an informed decision before signing one. (3.00) – Randall can you tell us about your worst IT career moment and what you learned from it. Randall answered this by sharing a particularly frustrating experience with the audience. It happened while he was working at SpaceX. The launch process involved the system going through a series of checks prior to the launch. But, there was an outage. Randall and the other engineers knew the cause of the issue and how to fix it, but the stakeholders took a lot of convincing. It taught Randall the importance of earning the trust of the stakeholders and the need to communicate effectively. (6.53) – Phil asks Randall what his best career moment was. Randall enjoys the AWS re:Invent event. Every year, it gets better. For him it is great to see how customers are using the technology to do everything from cure cancer to build electric scooters. There is a huge range of really interesting and cool things going on. (8.20) – Phil asks Randall what excites him about the future of the IT industry. AI is going to have a big impact on how we code. Intellisense style autocomplete features in IDEs are already available. So, we are not far off the point where you will be able to ask your computer to build a simulation using a simple command and a few basic parameters. Then, just leave it to “intuit the program”, including any of the defaults or variables. There will be savvy business folks who will learn just enough code to be able to use these systems. Many of the mundane tasks will disappear, leaving people free to focus on more exciting differentiated stuff. That is part of what the SaaS movement is all about. Businesses that use it are freed up to focus on innovating and growing. (10.06) – What drew you to a career in IT? For Randall it was the money. When he saw an intern earning 9k a month Randall was stunned and realized that a career in IT was the way to go. (10.30) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? “Think about where you want to be in five years and work backwards.” (10.56) – If you were to start your IT career again, right, now, what would you do? Randall said he would get involved in AI and study it academically and pragmatically. (11.16) – Phil asks what career objectives are you currently focusing on? Randall would like to do more live coding and live streaming on Twitch. He wants to focus on sharing his expertise and making it more accessible for everyone. He is also planning to scale up his outreach, so that he can take on more speaking engagements, which he will record. He wants them to be more accessible and interactive. (11.55) – What would you consider to be your most important non-technical skill? Randall has an understanding of how startups and convertible notes work. This gives him a better understanding of what the stakeholders are trying to achieve and how they are getting it done. Being able to read profit and loss statements and understand what resources are available really helps you to make viable decisions. Having a little bit of business savvy is a very useful skill. (12.37) – Phil asks Randall to share a few final words of career advice. He responds by saying “Ignore that 90-day exercise window in any start-up contract that you sign.” BEST MOMENTS:  (2.48) RANDALL – “I definitely left a lot of money on the table... because I had no idea how to do contracts (5.42) RANDALL – “The only reason we write code is to communicate.” (6.06) PHIL – “The other important thing about communications, is making sure that you tailor it for the person who's receiving it.” (10.34) RANDALL – “Think about where you want to be in five years and work backwards.” (10.49) RANDALL – “Don't focus on short-term gains, you know, use long-term thinking.” CONTACT RANDALL HUNT: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jrhunt LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jrhunt/ AWS Profile: https://aws.amazon.com/developer/community/evangelists/randall-hunt/ AWS Blog: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/author/randhunt/

GUEST BIO: Eric Lippert is a programmer who builds tools for other programmers.  He’s worked on Visual Basic, JavaScript and C# at Microsoft, designed code analyzers at Coverity, and is now working on a variety of programming language design problems at Facebook. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Eric Lippert. His career has been a long and varied one. He was a Principal Developer at Microsoft and a member of the C# language design team. Eric was also involved in the design and implementation of VBScript, JScript, Windows Script Host and Visual Studio Tools for Office. Over the years, Eric has published and edited numerous programming books and is now working at Facebook. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (01.00)­­­ – Phil asks Eric to expand on his brief introduction. Eric said that he studied computer science and maths at the University of Waterloo. There they run a co-operative education system where you study for 4 months and work for 4. He was an intern at Wacom and Microsoft. When he left Microsoft he went to work at Coverity. He is now working on developer tools at Facebook. (3.39) – Phil asks Eric for a unique IT career tip. When Eric was a young developer at Microsoft his manager told him to “find a source of questions and learn to answer them”. He put that advice to work straight away and read every question in the JavaScript group. If someone asked a question that related to his area that he did not know the answer to, he would go away and find out. That taught him to answer queries concisely, which in turn honed his own knowledge. (5.54) – Can you tell us about your worst IT career moment and what you learned from the experience? Eric says it was probably the morning he woke up to the headline “Worst Security Flaw Ever Found in Internet Explorer”. Eric had worked on the piece of code that was involved in the issue. At first, he thought that he may have made the error. It turned out that his code had been changed and that change had not been properly reviewed, so the potential weakness was not found. The security flaw was nowhere near as serious as reported by the press. It would have required a virtually impossible hack to be executed in order to take advantage of the flaw. After that, a much stronger culture of code reviews was put into place. (9.17) – Phil says to Eric - Can you maybe take us through your career highlights or greatest success? Eric says there were two. The first was his work on a new version of VisualStudio. They met the completion target date and every single planned feature was included in the release. His other highlight was being involved in the “from scratch” C sharp rewrite. That massive project was also successfully completed and shipped. C sharp now has over 5 million lines of code, it is truly huge. (14.42) – Looking to the future Phil wants to know what excites Eric about the IT industry. Eric says it is the fact that we have still only really scratched the surface. There are so many features that can still be added to the various languages. For example, we can take features from programming languages and add them to production languages which would immediately raise the bar. We want to be able to write programs that can reason naturally about all kinds of probabilistic things and we are getting there. There is still a ton of stuff to do in the programming languages and tools space. (17.43) – What first attracted you to a career in IT? Eric started programming before he owned a computer. He would write them out on paper and type them into the school’s Commodore PET. He had intended to study either mathematics or physics. But, he soon realized that he was not good at physics. He was much better at computer programming and enjoyed it, plus he could work while studying IT. (19.22) – What is the best career advice you have been given? Eric reiterated the advice to find a source of questions and answer them. But, he added that it was important to learn how to write well. Learn how to be concise and convince people that you’ve written correct code. To do that you need to write convincingly. (20.29) if you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Eric says he would study statistics. Much of the machine learning and probabilistic programming is about understanding statistics. With differential programming there is even calculus involved, something Eric never expected to see. (21.27) – What objectives are you focusing on now Eric? He responded by saying, "Building cutting-edge tools and helping real developers to get real stuff done". The same focus he had at the start of his career. (21.30) – What would you consider to be your most important non-technical skill? Being able to communicate effectively, it is crucial. (22.57) - Eric, can you share a parting piece of career advice with the IT Career Energizer audience. Know your tools. I get pitched features for tools and programming languages that already exist. It shows that a lot of people do not know their tools well. It also indicates that the tools are not as discoverable as they should be. Users need to dig in and understand them better and tool providers need to make their tools more discoverable. BEST MOMENTS:  (2.18) ERIC – “I have a keyboard on my desk that is older than my intern.” (4.09) ERIC – “Find a source of questions and learn to answer them”  (9.27) ERIC – “I want to ship actual code that solves actual developer’s problems” (14.34) ERIC – “It’s immensely satisfying to build something really, really big that actually works.” (17.25) ERIC – “Every time you build a tool, you magnify your impact across the entire industry.” (20.54) ERIC - “So much of machine learning and probabilistic programming is about understanding statistical concepts.” CONTACT ERIC LIPPET: Twitter: https://twitter.com/ericlippert @ericlippert LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-lippert-a3893485/ Website: https://ericlippert.com

GUEST BIO: Stefan Tilkov is a co-founder and principal consultant at INNOQ, a technology consulting company with offices in Germany and Switzerland. He has been involved in the design of large-scale, distributed systems for more than two decades, using a variety of technologies and tools. He has authored numerous articles and a book and is a frequent speaker at conferences around the world. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Stefan Tilkov who is a co-founder of, and the principal consultant, at INNOQ, a leading technology consulting company. Stefan and his team design large-scale distributed systems. Over the years, he has worked with numerous programming languages including C++ and CORBA over J2EE/Java EE and Web Services to REST and Ruby on Rail and several others. He is also a published writer who frequently speaks at conferences across the world. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(1.00) – So Stefan, you can I ask you to expand on that brief summary and tell us a little bit about yourself? Stefan said that Phil had covered what he had done over most of the past 20 years. Today, Stefan rarely gets the chance to program anymore. But, he does get the chance to do many other things that he enjoys. Particularly, consulting with clients and talking to them about architecture and the design of systems. A lot of his time is also taken up with the company management stuff. When he can, he still does some of the technical work. (1.54) – Phil asks Stefan for a unique IT career tip. Quite early in his career Stefan started public speaking. He feels that doing this has benefitted him greatly. It has helped him with client engagement, with meetings and with negotiations. The fact that he is very used to talking to people in his career makes all of these situations far easier. (3.38) – Stefan is asked to share his worst career moment by Phil. Interestingly, it is related to public speaking. Early in his career he was working on a project where C++ was used. Things had worked out so that he was the only one on the team who knew anything about that language. So, when the project manager was unable to make a client meeting, Stefan was the only person with enough knowledge to be able to make the presentation. But, he was very new to the world of work and had not had any time to prepare. Unsurprisingly, he completely “bombed” and felt really awful about it for quite a few days. (5.09) – So, moving away from your worst moment, can you maybe talk about your IT career, highlight or greatest success. Strangely, that happened when Stefan was working on a project that went completely wrong. It was a disaster on every level. Everybody had given up a little on the project. But, various members of the business, including Stefan, pulled together and were able to turn the project around. The client was surprised they had managed to do so and went on to use it for a decade or so. Stefan felt better about this project than ones he has worked on where everything has gone smoothly from the start. (7.09) – Phil asks Stefan what it is about the future of the IT industry that excites him. Stefan says there has never been a better time to be involved in IT. Since around 2008/9 the industry has gotten progressively more interesting. Technology now touches and influences every part of your life. Everyone is talking about it and understands how important it is. Right now, IT professionals influence so many things and are able to work in a much more connected fashion. Stefan would not trade his IT job for any other. (8.59) – What first attracted you to a career in IT? Stefan said it was the amazing discovery that he was able to tell the machine what to do. He started using computers at age 10 or 11. At the time, computers were very rudimentary. Stefan loved the challenge of having to figure absolutely everything out from scratch. For him learning new things was like a detective story. Phil commented that he often forgets that, in the early 90s, when you bought a computer, there was nothing on it. (10.43) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? Early on someone encouraged Stefan to write documentation, proposals and to explain what he was doing in writing. Later he went on to write articles and books. Writing is an important piece of the puzzle. Being able to express your thoughts clearly is vital. (11.35) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Stefan said I would look for fun stuff to play with. Building things is fun, so, if you have the time, play and learn. Use your skills to do things for yourself, friends, your community and maybe help society or do some open source work. Not everything you work on needs to be commercial and about making money. (12.40) – Phil asks Stefan what career objectives he is currently focusing on. Right now Stefan is focused on the company. Along with his colleagues he is working to maintain a healthy company culture as the company continues to grow at a fast rate. (13.24) – What would you consider to be your most important non-technical skill? Being able to speak English and communicate effectively in that language has helped Stefan in his career. (14.26) – Phil asks Stefan to share a few final words of career advice. Stefan says to make sure that you are having fun. The IT industry is one of the few in which you can have fun, so if you are not enjoying your job, look for a new one. BEST MOMENTS: (2.56) STEFAN – “Try to get into speaking and then getting yourself into situations that may feel uncomfortable at first, but actually help you a lot in getting your ideas across.” (7.19) STEFAN – “There's never been a better time to be in this industry.” (12.08) STEFAN – “Start playing out, playing with stuff and build things for your own purposes, for your friends, for your community, maybe do some open source stuff.” (14.52) STEFAN – “If you're in this industry and are not having fun, then you should probably switch your job.” CONTACT STEFAN TILKOV: Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/stilkov @stilkov LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefantilkov/ Website: https://www.innoq.com/en/staff/stefan-tilkov/

GUEST BIO: Kelsey Hightower has worn every hat possible throughout his career in tech, and enjoys leadership roles focused on making things happen and shipping software. Kelsey is a strong open source advocate focused on building simple tools that make people smile as well as an occasional conference speaker. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: In this episode Phil speaks to Kelsey Hightower, who is known in the industry as an innovator who makes things happen. He strongly believes in the power of the community, so works on bringing people and motivating them to produce products that truly work. He is currently working on the GoogleCloud project and is a popular technical workshop speaker and teacher, who believes in and advocates the use of Open Source products. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­ (00.59) – So Kelsey, you can I ask you to expand on that brief summary and tell us a little bit about yourself? Kelsey explains that he has been in tech for about 14 years with various companies including Puppet Labs and Chrome OS. He is currently working at Google making sure that all elements of the Google Cloud work together. Kelsey says he is working on the computer side of the house, on everything from Kubernetes to the Google service platform. He now describes himself as a generalist. Phil described Kelsey’s role as creating “seamless integration from a user perspective” (2.00) – Phil asks Kelsey for a unique IT career tip. Surprisingly, Kelsey’s tip is to “write it down”. In IT we tend to do things on the fly. Often, we do this because we are trying to minimize outage time. Sometimes it is because we want to implement change and feel we need to move quickly to keep everyone on board. Operating like this means that, often, we do not come up with the right solution. In the long-term this can turn out to be a big problem. It is important to stop, sit down and capture all the facts and consider the pros and cons of your proposed solution. You also need discuss the idea with others. For this a document acts as a great reference point. It also enables you to look back and understand why you made the decisions you did. (3.25) – Phil asks - Do you see that as an iterative process, as well? Kelsey agrees often these projects can span many years. Over that time, things will change so the objective or goal can also evolve. But, that document you created captures the current situation. It does not mean that you should never change your opinions and the direction you take. (4.24) – Phil asks - do you see it as a problem in IT generally that people don’t necessarily think too far ahead in terms of what the future might look like? In IT people tend not to take the time to document why things are done the way they are. Plus, they do not always work to push things forward. When someone asks them to change, their immediate response is that “it is not possible”. But, when you ask them to explain why the change is not viable, they do not really know. They just know that things have always been done that way and can be resistant to change. (5.31) – Kelsey is asked to share his worst career moment with the audience. For Kelsey it was the moment that he realized that to be able to make progress on a project you have to convince people that things need to happen. The realization put out a flame for him. Prior to that, he believed that he could just make things happen. He was a bit disappointed to realize that he had to overcome people’s resistance to get things done. But, he soon adjusted and learned to do both. So, in the end his worst career moment resulted in a positive change for Kelsey. (7.10) – Phil asks Kelsey what his best career moment was. Kelsey explained it was the day he first spoke publically at a meetup in Georgia Tech. He did a lot of preparation for that event, so that he could make his points concisely and take the entire audience, including the newcomers, with him. It went really well and he got great feedback. That day inspired him and set the scene for the rest of his IT career. Today, he enjoys seeing the light bulbs going on as the audience “gets it”.   (10.11) – Phil asks Kelsey what excites him about the future of the IT industry. Kelsey responds “the potential”. Today, it is possible for a newcomer or new business to come along and use some of the existing systems to get what needs to be done. They do not have to worry about legacy systems and integrations. It is possible to install a modern system that just works and takes care of the basic functions, leaving the new firm to focus on growing their business.   (11.55) – What attracted you to a career in IT? When Kelsey started his IT career, you did not need a college degree and you could earn very good money. Both of these facts attracted him to the field. Working in IT is a great way to connect with others, make a difference and be rewarded financially for your efforts. (12.46) – What is the best career advice you have been given? Definitely, “write it down.” If you believe something is the solution write down why you think that is the case. Doing so allows you to see things clearly and makes it easier for others to consider your proposal and challenge it if necessary. This greatly improves your ability to identify and implement the right solution for the situation. (13.48) – If you were to start your IT career again, right, now, what would you do?  Kelsey said that it is important to understand that the fundamentals are more important than the products. If you dive deep and learn the fundamentals of a product you can operate well in most environments. Phil summed it up by saying the technologies may not last but the fundamentals are always of value. (15.05) – Phil asks Kelsey what he is currently focusing on. Kelsey says he is just working on being a little better every day.  Each day he pauses and spends a little time analyzing what happened and how he can improve. He is also focused on building up his technical ability and becoming a real expert in certain areas. Kelsey is now willing to go deep. He is not just taking the “happy path” and learning what can be done with his chosen technologies he is also studying its limitations, so he can recognize when not to use it. (16.22) – What would you consider to be your most important non-technical skill? Kelsey says his genuine positivity keeps him excited about the projects he is working on and what he is learning. He is able to pass that positivity on to others, which motivates them. Making people feel good about themselves inspires them and pushes them to be more effective. (17.19) – Phil asks Kelsey to share a few final words of career advice. In IT you need to push yourself, to think outside of the box and over deliver. Kelsey explained that he has come across people who just take a task and do exactly the task. They do not look beyond it and never ask themselves if they could come up with something even better than what is being asked for. As a result, they stagnate and do not really grow. They end up spending 15 years in a role, but only accrue the equivalent of one year’s experience. Don’t be afraid to “automate yourself out of a job”, there will always be more work to do, better work. You need to be creative and innovative when you work in IT not just someone who blindly does a list of tasks. BEST MOMENTS:  (5.22) KELSEY –"Noone is really sure why the process exists. There's no clear place with the processes defined, so we know how to improve it. I think that's one of the biggest problems we see today."   (6.49) KELSEY - "A lot of cases, you would actually spend more time doing the convincing than the actual solution takes." (9.09) KELSEY - "You can see the light bulb go off for some people for the very first time and you know that those communication skills are working." (9.53) KELSEY - “You have to learn how to create the light bulb moment for yourself before you can create them for other people." (15.05) - Phil – “The technologies won't last but the fundamentals are always of value.” (15.18) KELSEY – “Just be a bit wiser every day.” CONTACT KELSEY HIGHTOWER: Twitter: https://twitter.com/kelseyhightower @kelseyhightower

KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(1.02) – So Tim, can I ask you to expand on some of those things and tell us a little bit about yourself? Since Tim was a boy he has had a fascination with all things tech. This is part of the reason he is now a generalist with a deep understanding of everything from the hardware to the software. Over the past couple of years, he has focused on the public cloud, in particular Microsoft Azure. (1.50) – Phil asks Tim for a unique IT career tip. Tim explains that developing the ability to organize your thoughts and present them clearly is very important. Public speaking ensures that you learn and practice those critical skills. (3.06) –Tim is asked to share his worst career moment by Phil. Fortunately, Tim’s worst IT career moment has a silver lining. Tim has always been a teacher as well as an IT professional. So, when he was in the running for an IT directorship in a local private High School he focused on securing that role. But, the school changed its mind and decided not to go in that direction. This was a big blow and very depressing. But, the experience taught him the need to keep the prospect of a future position in context. IT moves at the speed of light, so you need to take a flexible and agile approach to your career. (6.00) – Phil asks Tim to tell everyone about his career highlight, his greatest success. That happened when Tim was speaking at a big conference about WireShark. The audience was a big one and they were eager. So, eager in fact that some of them were applying what he was telling them immediately. There was even a group of programmers from one company who were instant messaging his troubleshooting advice back to their datacenter. That experience demonstrated to Tim the importance and practical value of the technical education he was providing. It was great to see people developing their careers, live, right there in front of him. (7.50) – Phil wants to know what excites Tim about the future of the IT industry and careers. Tim loves the fact that industry work can now be done from anywhere. There is no longer to spend ages in a car traveling or to work in a data center. Cloud computing is definitely the future anyone involved in IT cannot avoid working with cloud computing. However, it is a little worrying that newcomers are not likely to be able to do any actual cabling. Tim’s experience of interfacing with the hardware has helped him to develop software-defined networks that work properly. (9.00) – What first attracted you to a career in IT? Puzzle solving and the fact that you become a perpetual student, there is always something new to learn. Tim was inquisitive from an early age, so for him IT was the perfect fit. (9.55) – What is the best career advice you have been given? Tim said his grandfather told him “if you're doing work that you would do even if you weren't getting paid for it, then you found your right career.” It was a good piece of advice and one of the reasons Tim continues to work in tech and information. (11.38) - If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Tim says that is tricky because today’s IT industry is very different than when he started. He sometimes wishes he had majored in computer science. He advises someone entering the field today to survey as many different disciplines as possible. Then whittle down where their interests and aptitude lie. (12.20) – Phil asks Tim what he is currently focusing on. Tim is still creating Microsoft Azure training and doing consultancy work when he wants to do so. Tim is also doing his best to give back to the IT community, by talking at workshops, mentoring, teaching and attending meetups. (12.58) – What would you consider to be your most important non-technical skill? For Tim it is public speaking. There are plenty of ways to learn this skill and it is well worth taking the time to do so. Being confident and able to be concise and persuasive will help you with job interviews, pitching ideas and selling your case. (14.03) – Phil asks Tim to share a few final words of career advice. Unless you enjoy the work, Tim advises considering another career. IT requires a lot of time and effort, so it is not something you want to be doing if you do not enjoy it. BEST MOMENTS: (2.33) TIM – “The ability to organize your thoughts and present your thoughts clearly is going to carry your career.” (4.46) TIM – “It’s important to be that flexible and agile in your approach to your career.” (10.03) TIM – “If you're doing work that you would do even if you weren't getting paid for it, then you found your right career.” – Tim’s grandfather.” (14.00) TIM – “You really can't go wrong with by honing your public speaking skills.” (14.09) TIM – “In information technology careers, you're never going to be hurting for work.” CONTACT TIM WARNER: Website: https://www.techtrainertim.com Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/TechTrainerTim

GUEST BIO: Simona Cotin is a Developer Advocate for Microsoft and an Angular enthusiast.  She is passionate about knowledge sharing and has mentored at workshops for Women Who Code and NgGirls, and is also co-organiser of the JavaScript London meetup. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Today, Phil is speaking to Simona Cotin a Developer Advocate for Microsoft. She is a passionate mentor in the NgGirls, codebar and Women Who Code workshops. Over the years, she has hacked all kinds of projects in Delphi, C/C++, C#, Java, Python, PHP, JavaScript, Lisp and is still learning new languages. She has a passion for working with Angular. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(1.00) – So Simona, can I ask you to expand on that brief summary and tell us a little bit about yourself? Simona explained that her job at Microsoft was to make sure that they build “great developer experiences in the cloud for web developers.” She is also passionate about teaching, so is a regular mentor at several workshops. One of which, codebar she recommends everyone checks out. This group is working to make tech more diverse and bring people from different backgrounds together. (2.21) – Phil asks Simona for a unique IT career tip. Simona says get out there share your knowledge. Try to contribute to open source projects and be active in local communities and on social media. (3.17) – If you were talking to someone who was just starting their IT career, what would you recommend to them as the easiest way to begin? Simona recommends finding some of the projects you are passionate about and diving deep into those. Follow the project and creators on GitHub and Twitter. Also, use meetup.com to find local meetups and attend. (3.54) – Phil asks what her worst IT career moment has been? – Simona says – “I’ve been lucky enough not to have been in such a position”. For her all of the teams she has worked on have had a positive impact on her career. However, she does regret not finding a mentor while she was at university. Had she done so she would not have taken a job (her first one) which meant that she was working on a desktop project when it was the web that she was passionate about, at the time. (5.38) – What has been your best career moment,? For Simona it is the job that she has right now. She is working on a great team. Everyone on her team is a superstar. Working with them is enabling her to learn a lot and have an impact on the products that are shaping the way we write software. (7.05) – Phil asks what excites you about the future of the IT industry? All the hard problems we are solving now and in the future excite Simona. For example, how self-driving cars will make our commute much simpler and less risky or the way in which AI is improving workplace safety. How technology will help us to build a more sustainable environment. She encourages everyone working in IT to focus on the problem that they are solving rather than the tech that they are using. (8.43) – What attracted you to a career in IT? Simona loves mathematics and was not really good at anything to do with literature. This fact narrowed down her options so she felt she had to focus on economics. While doing that she learned about computer science and algorithms. Basically, she “fell in love with algorithms.” (9.11) – What is the best career advice you have been given? – Embrace failure. Simona explained that she came from a culture of “perfection and shaming failure”. But, she realizes now that there is “no growth without failure”. Phil agrees most seasoned developers feel that they learn more from projects that do not go well than those that are easy. (9.48) – If you were to begin your career again, what would you focus on? Simona said she would focus on machine learning because we can solve so many interesting problems using it. (10.05) – Phil asks Simona what she is currently focusing on, currently. Simona said that she is focusing more on machine learning and understanding how to use it to solve problems. She is also working on connecting to communities and using her Azure work to have an impact. (10.31) – What's the number one non-technical skill that has helped you in your career so far? Being a huge fan of people and being a good communicator has helped Simona throughout her career. (10.41) – Phil asks Simona to share a few final words of career advice. Simona’s advice is to never stop learning and building things. Have fun, be meaningful and intentional about what you do. BEST MOMENTS: (2.57) Simona – "I think we can all equally benefit from just putting ourselves out there." (5.16) Simona - "During university I would find someone to mentor me, I would find someone to chat about my passions, chat about what are the opportunities for me out there." (8.07) Simona – “Focus as much as you can on the problem that you are solving as opposed to the tech that they're using." (8.09) Phil - "The technology is the means to the end. It's the problems that need solving that are the important part of it." (9.15) Simona - “Embrace failure…There is no growth without failure." (10.54) Simona - "Never stop learning and building stuff. Just enjoy yourself, have fun and while you're doing that maybe solve some interesting problem." CONTACT: Simona Cotin Twitter: https:///www.twitter.com/simona_cotin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simona-cotin-2ba8747/