0:06

It takes takes more than a New Year's

0:08

resolution to not write any bugs, be to be

0:10

a great software engineer. This is is episode 432

0:12

of the Soft of the Soft Skills Engineering podcast.

0:15

I'm I'm your host, and Hans. I'm I'm your

0:17

host, Dave Smith. Smith. Soft Skills Engineering is the is the

0:19

weekly advice show about all the non -technical

0:21

things that go into the technical field

0:23

of software development, like sticking to your New

0:25

Year's resolutions New never writing any bugs the

0:27

whole year. any That's a good idea. We

0:29

should do that. good idea. We should do that. a pretty

0:31

easy way to do it, which is not write any code. do

0:33

it, which is not write any code. Although if

0:35

you you participate in

0:37

design discussions or architecture

0:39

discussions discussions and I don't know, know.

0:41

You probably just need to

0:43

not do anything do anything you

0:45

could contribute by by faulty

0:48

advice or incorrect requirements. You probably

0:50

shouldn't. mean, imagine chaos theory. theory.

0:52

You You shouldn't even

0:54

move or breathe, Don't do

0:56

anything. anything. could definitely inadvertently through a

0:58

through a crazy chain of events. cause a cause

1:00

a bug to come into existence. Yeah,

1:03

know how some people talk about code talk about

1:05

code bases is living. They're to

1:07

them, they grow. to You

1:09

need a taxidermied a taxidermy to

1:11

code base. Locked in. Yeah. Throw some glue on

1:13

it. I Throw some glue on it. I

1:15

don't know what they do with taxidermy.

1:17

Probably not need to You need to crackle

1:19

your code Yeah, crackle the code the code base,

1:22

yes. not what this show is not what This is

1:24

about. the This part of the show is

1:26

about thanking our patrons. Dave, do you

1:28

wanna do that? want do. do that? All

1:30

right, these these wonderful people are contributing at the

1:32

level where we shot them out. We have two we

1:34

shot them out. We have Charles one-time shout-outs. We have We're never High

1:36

to give you up, never going to let you

1:38

down, never going to run around and desert you.

1:40

you down, never going to run at the level where we shot

1:42

them out every week, they are. You wouldn't marry

1:44

a dog, so why would you date a dog?

1:46

week, they are. You wouldn't marry a dog, so why

1:49

would you date a dog? Never going to make me

1:51

laugh the first time I read it,

1:53

time I read the first time I read it, but the first

1:55

time I read it. I'll be be stone faced the

1:57

next time. time. Okay. and then it looks like

1:59

someone else else. Choose a name of never

2:01

going to give you up, never going

2:03

to let you down, never going to

2:05

run around and desert you, good. Answer

2:08

my question, you cowards, what is your

2:10

favorite color? And a German word, Aichornhenbroken?

2:12

All right, I don't know what that

2:14

means, maybe Jamie's can look that up.

2:16

In case I said something not safe

2:18

to say, Anna. Alexander Kuznikusnizov, Ten, Print,

2:20

Lucas Morinton. Michael Young.dev. Attribute error non-type

2:23

object has no attribute. Two-string, Javier Gonzales,

2:25

Chewy, Ted Timbrel, Alexa, set an alarm

2:27

at 4am. Okay, it did not work.

2:29

Become a senior engineer.com. Unsaulted french fries

2:31

are morally objectionable. Dan from Drone Deploy

2:33

Chase, W. Norton. Dave, do you want

2:35

to read our first question? Nice try.

2:38

Advent of typescript is here. Check out.

2:40

Advent of ts.com. Never is not just

2:42

a creator on Marslamingo emoji. I like

2:44

chicken. I like liver, mamix mammics. Please

2:46

deliver. Trash. What can people do if

2:48

they want their own answers questioned? Go

2:50

to Soskilstot audio and click the. Nevar

2:53

is not just a planet in the

2:55

Vulcan system. Jenny Kim, Owen, Shartel, the

2:57

stochastic parrothelicoan.a. I, best observability tool for

2:59

AI. Red Banda is best banda. Rust

3:01

is turning people prematurely into crab. crustacean,

3:03

you know, the rust mascot is a

3:06

crab. Yeah. Okay, Jonathan King's and I

3:08

Beautiful Functional User Documentation. Dave, I am

3:10

you from the future, whatever you do,

3:12

do not record episode number 752. Cody

3:14

sailing away from williamangel.net, Ragnar, Travis, Braden-Kains,

3:16

John Grant, Brittany, John Grant, Brittany, this

3:18

person's name is too hard to pronounce.

3:21

Joe Grossberg. If you would like to

3:23

join this lustrous crew, Dave, laugh now.

3:25

I hear you like movies involving Time

3:27

Travel, Los Crono Cremeness. Thank you everyone

3:29

for perpetuating the hilarity. It's so good.

3:31

Let's perpetuate the question answering which I

3:33

I will do, first we need a

3:36

question. I'm going to do that part,

3:38

and then the other part. And then

3:40

we'll question the answer. All right. Yes,

3:42

yeah. This is from an anonymous listener

3:44

who says, I would like your advice

3:46

on how I can improve my communication

3:48

skills. I realize that practicing is usually

3:51

the best way, but I'm interested in

3:53

taking online courses or learning more on

3:55

becoming a better communicator. However, I'm currently

3:57

taking courses in CS and would like

3:59

to primarily focus on that. So I

4:01

picked this question and I guess I'm

4:04

revealing the inner workings of the show.

4:06

I picked it because we talk a

4:08

lot about communication skills and sometimes we

4:10

talk about specifics of here's a good

4:12

way to communicate in this situation. But

4:14

this is a very broad question about

4:16

like, yeah, I've heard communication skills are

4:19

important. How do I do it now?

4:21

Like I know enough to know maybe

4:23

I don't have them is kind of

4:25

the under the subtext I'm getting out

4:27

of this question. Yes. Everyone talks about

4:29

how it's a good thing to do.

4:31

Very few people talk about how to

4:34

do it well. Yeah. And that's because

4:36

I don't know how. I just know,

4:38

I know the communication when I see

4:40

it. A good communication is you repeat

4:42

the stuff you hear a lot, right?

4:44

Like communication is important. I think that's

4:46

a sign of good communication. Well, what

4:49

do you think? What's some general advice

4:51

on how to improve as a communicator

4:53

overall? Well, I can tell a funny

4:55

story where I failed to communicate properly.

4:57

I'll take it. This is about 10

4:59

years ago actually and I was I

5:02

was an engineering director and I had

5:04

four or five teams that were in

5:06

the engineering department that I managed and

5:08

one of my daily routines was to

5:10

get up in the morning and sorry

5:12

my first thing I do when I

5:14

got to work in the morning was

5:17

to read through any bugs that had

5:19

come in over the last 24 hours.

5:21

I was like the first triage and

5:23

I would route them to teams where

5:25

I thought they would they would be

5:27

fixed by. And every time I routed

5:29

a bug to a team I would

5:32

try to write a little sentence about

5:34

why I'm sending it to them. And

5:36

typically that sentence would be something like,

5:38

well I think your team worked in

5:40

this area recently, or I think this

5:42

is in your area of ownership, something,

5:45

you know, simple. And then here's where

5:47

I got in trouble. I meant to

5:49

communicate. I want you, this team, you

5:51

can choose what the priority should be

5:53

for fixing this bug. I specifically was

5:55

trying to give them the autonomy to

5:57

choose whether to drop everything and fix

6:00

it now, or whether to push it

6:02

into a future date and fix it

6:04

at some later point. But the words

6:06

that I chose misled about half the

6:08

managers into thinking I meant drop everything

6:10

and fix this now. And I realized

6:12

that there was ambiguity in the way

6:15

that I worded it. And so here's

6:17

what I said. I said, I said,

6:19

okay, I'm assigning this bug to your

6:21

team. Here's why I'm assigning it, dot,

6:23

dot, dot. Now, I'm trying to remember

6:25

the exact words I've used because I

6:27

have banished these words from my vocabulary

6:30

because it created such a problem. But

6:32

I said something like, I'm giving this

6:34

to your team to your team to

6:36

prioritize to prioritize. And like I said,

6:38

what I meant by that was you

6:40

can choose the priority. But what about

6:43

half the managers heard was prioritize this

6:45

as priority number one. Yeah, please prioritize

6:47

this. And you meant do the work

6:49

of assigning a priority to it. Yes,

6:51

you choose the priority. I didn't mean,

6:53

and I meant, oh man. Anyway, then

6:55

I was doing this for months. And

6:58

finally, someone mentioned in one of our

7:00

engineering like management meetings. Just kind of

7:02

offhand like, well, yeah, you know, Dave

7:04

kind of disrupts our sprints a lot

7:06

because he gives these bugs that we

7:08

have to fix right away. And I

7:10

caught the offhand comment in a meeting

7:13

and I was like, wait a minute,

7:15

what? I can only remember once that

7:17

I've said, hey, drop everything and work

7:19

on this in the last year. What

7:21

are you talking about? And the manager

7:23

was like, well, yeah, you do it

7:25

to us like every week. And I

7:28

was like, oh no, what did I

7:30

say? What did I do? And then

7:32

I, they really couldn't explain to me

7:34

what I had done wrong. So I

7:36

had to go back and read the

7:38

comments and then I realized, oh my

7:41

goodness. I've been saying prior. when I

7:43

meant choose a priority. Anyway, honestly, Jamieson,

7:45

that experience was so impactful for me

7:47

that I almost I almost lost faith

7:49

in my ability to communicate at all,

7:51

just because literally I said the words

7:53

and half of the people I said

7:56

them to interpreted them to mean the

7:58

exact opposite of what I meant. And

8:00

it wasn't like jargon, right? You're talking

8:02

to experts in your own field. Yeah.

8:04

If I can't communicate with these people.

8:06

Yeah, people you work with all the

8:08

time. Oh, yeah. What hope do I

8:11

have? I mean, it honestly devastated me

8:13

for a little while. And so, I

8:15

mean, I immediately changed my wording, because

8:17

I mean, I was able to fix

8:19

that one problem very easily, right? So

8:21

I just started using the term, you

8:23

choose a priority, or I'm allowing you

8:26

the autonomy to choose a priority. Just,

8:28

you do it. And please note, I'm

8:30

not asking you to drop everything and

8:32

fix this now. Actually, it is interesting

8:34

to look at that story because I

8:36

think it illustrates one of the ways.

8:39

Good communication is, it's like inception. It's

8:41

where the message you intend to communicate

8:43

is understood by the other person. It's

8:45

not that you said pretty words or

8:47

everyone feels good or they think you're

8:49

smart or eloquent or whatever. Did they

8:51

understand the concept that you were trying

8:54

to get into their brain? Is it

8:56

in their brain? Exactly. Did they reconstruct

8:58

the same image information that you had

9:00

in your mind in their mind? And

9:02

the answer, of course, is always no.

9:04

But did they get close enough? Yeah.

9:06

And you mentioned that the purpose of

9:09

communication is not to make someone feel

9:11

good. But actually, the way that I

9:13

view communication is that there's kind of

9:15

a base level that we just talked

9:17

about, which is did the proper image

9:19

slash information get reconstructed in their mind?

9:21

as close enough to what was in

9:24

my mind. That's like the first rung

9:26

on the latter. But there's another wrong

9:28

on the latter, which actually is, do

9:30

they feel good? Yeah, like do we

9:32

have a good working relationship? Yeah, exactly.

9:34

Think I understand them, do they think

9:37

I'm competent? And this is like, it's

9:39

a whole other level of challenge, because

9:41

if you do manage to get that

9:43

information transmitted accurately enough, but they hate

9:45

you, it doesn't, it might not matter

9:47

how accurately you transmitted the information, because

9:49

there's this other gooey, squishy, human experience

9:52

side of the communication. Yeah, if they

9:54

understand it clearly because you treat them

9:56

like little idiot babies. Yeah, dumb it

9:58

down so much. I've published a picture

10:00

book that's meant for five-year-olds to tell

10:02

you how to build this feature. I

10:04

think you just described like presentations to

10:07

executives. Like no, less detail, more abstraction.

10:09

Yeah, summarize it more. More pictures, less

10:11

words. Okay, I guess. Money, money, good.

10:13

That's money, money go up. Yeah, money,

10:15

good, need go up, but down, actually.

10:17

Yeah, that's fair. I think we're kind

10:20

of talking around part of it, but

10:22

part of, a big part of communication

10:24

is kind of checking for understanding or.

10:26

Yes. Modeling what someone already knows in

10:28

your head, like to communicate well with

10:30

someone, you need to have some indication

10:32

either from your own brain, simulating their

10:35

brain, or actually confirming that they understand

10:37

what you're trying to say. Yes. Which

10:39

is why I like to administer a

10:41

written proctered test after every conversation. And

10:43

then you ask for a net promoter

10:45

score at the end of the test.

10:47

Yes. Would you recommend this test to

10:50

a friend? Yeah, would you recommend talking

10:52

to Jameson to a friend? Ooh, my

10:54

ENPS is in the toilet. I better

10:56

make the... more comprehensive to figure out

10:58

what's wrong. That's the problem. I need

11:00

more data. Oh man I could talk

11:02

all day about this so I've given

11:05

some feedback to people who found themselves

11:07

delivering a talk at a conference. The

11:09

thing that I told them was don't

11:11

be afraid to restate the quote obvious.

11:13

You know when you're communicating with someone

11:15

Sometimes you make assumptions like I often

11:18

make assumptions like oh, they probably already

11:20

know these three things So I'm not

11:22

going to state those I'm going to

11:24

skip that because we have a shared

11:26

understanding of that part and then move

11:28

on and there are two problems that

11:30

happen when you don't state the obvious

11:33

stuff and leave it You know, let's

11:35

just say what it is. It's an

11:37

assumption that the other person already knows

11:39

and the first problem is that they

11:41

might not have had a chance to

11:43

receive that information in the past. And

11:45

the second thing that happens is more

11:48

like an opportunity. You missed an opportunity

11:50

to clearly indicate to your audience that

11:52

you understand it and give them confidence

11:54

that you understand the foundational groundwork here

11:56

that you're working with, your shared understanding.

11:58

Hmm. I like that. We're kind of

12:00

giving tips of things to do, but...

12:03

You mentioned practice and I think you're

12:05

right that practicing is a good way

12:07

to get better at most things. You

12:09

also mentioned conference talks and I think

12:11

giving talks at meetups, those are usually

12:13

a lower bar to get into and

12:16

meetups are always desperate for people to

12:18

present on something. I think that's a

12:20

good way to practice that specific like

12:22

one to many style of communication where

12:24

you're up in front of a group

12:26

talking and trying to transmit an idea.

12:28

Obviously many other kinds of communication happen

12:31

and exist. But that's one that's important.

12:33

And also, there's an easy avenue to

12:35

practice, which is just go. sign up

12:37

for a talk. It might suck. That's

12:39

fine. The bar is low for me

12:41

to talk generally. And you'll get better

12:43

the more you do it. I love

12:46

that. James, and I think giving conference

12:48

talks and meet up talks, just basically

12:50

speaking in front of an audience, is

12:52

a underrated tool for getting better at

12:54

communication overall. Because there's something that shifts

12:56

in my mind when I'm preparing to

12:58

share information with a group that it

13:01

like puts my brain at a higher

13:03

state of, I don't know, I don't

13:05

know the right word to describe this,

13:07

but it's like when you're preparing to

13:09

teach versus just learning something yourself, I

13:11

don't know what it is, I'm sure

13:14

you've experienced this, but my mind is

13:16

that a heightened state of awareness, of

13:18

comprehension, of like, what really are the

13:20

concepts here? And I learn way of

13:22

it. Yeah, so I think that's a

13:24

great idea. Another idea is start a

13:26

podcast. Yeah, don't do it about soft

13:29

skills in software engineering though. That's taken.

13:31

That's already taken. There's already one. Yeah.

13:33

We're famously litigious, but only in space,

13:35

I guess. If you thought the Mickey

13:37

Mouse legal action over the last hundred

13:39

years is a serious wait until you

13:41

try to start a soft skills podcast

13:44

for software. As soon as you step

13:46

foot off of this planet, we'll sue

13:48

the pants off of you. Yes, with

13:50

our space lawyers. Sue the space suit

13:52

off of you. And then you'll die.

13:54

So I guess we're threatening to murder

13:57

you. Speaking of communication. Yeah, yeah, we'll

13:59

clarify what else and especially what about

14:01

the kind of like the I don't

14:03

know I'll call it the work communication

14:05

where it's it's one to one or

14:07

one to a couple people it's not

14:09

it's not the same as presenting a

14:12

prepared thing to a big group that

14:14

you put in orders of magnitude more

14:16

time in the prep than in the

14:18

giving, how do you practice and get

14:20

better at that? Like the one-on-one stuff?

14:22

Yeah. Yeah. Well, one thing that I

14:24

do that I think has served me

14:27

pretty well is when someone is sitting

14:29

down one-on-one with me and talking to

14:31

me, there's a few different, let's see,

14:33

situations that are prevalent in that scenario.

14:35

One is they're bringing a question to

14:37

talk. And that's okay too, right? And

14:39

in all three of those scenarios, I

14:42

find that my best first response is

14:44

to ask them a question. Whether they're

14:46

bringing me a question or bringing me

14:48

a concern or just talking, if I

14:50

can respond to them with a question,

14:52

it accomplishes several really cool things in

14:55

a communication scenario. First of all, it

14:57

ensures it can help me clarify that

14:59

I've understood them. And second of all,

15:01

it makes them feel good. Which makes

15:03

them more likely to communicate more clearly

15:05

with you because they're not going to

15:07

be on edge, they're going to feel

15:10

comfortable. Yeah, like this person's taking me

15:12

seriously. Exactly. Exactly. And I regularly get

15:14

feedback from people that says, Dave really

15:16

takes my concerns and my conversations seriously.

15:18

And I think people can feel that.

15:20

Now on the other hand, I do

15:22

come across as a little bit intense

15:25

because I think sometimes I come across

15:27

as like a... Like, what's that called,

15:29

like, a police officer that's an interrogator?

15:31

Yeah, an interrogator. That's the word. Yeah.

15:33

And I don't, I have to, I

15:35

have to be careful of that because

15:37

it's like, oh, really? What color shirt

15:40

were you wearing when this happened? You

15:42

know, like, it's like, not, not exactly

15:44

what I'm trying to do. But I

15:46

have found that that works really good.

15:48

And on the other side of it,

15:50

I often feel unheard. And I never

15:53

want someone to feel that way on

15:55

the other end of a one-on-one conversation.

15:57

Yeah, they're just waiting for their turn.

15:59

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, not really listening. Well,

16:01

I was really listening, but I'm not

16:03

going to ask a question. I was

16:05

going to say, prove it, prove it

16:08

by asking a follow-up question. Have we

16:10

answered the question? That's my question. I

16:12

think so. I want to add just

16:14

one kind of cross-cutting thing, which is

16:16

for a software engineer, a great framework

16:18

for thinking about communication and planning your

16:20

own communication is to consider all communication

16:23

as a form of user interface. Everything

16:25

you put out there, whether verbal or

16:27

written, is a user interface. And it

16:29

could be lots of users, it could

16:31

be one user, but it's always a

16:33

user. And so... I try it, like

16:35

when, let's just talk about written for

16:38

a minute, like when I've written an

16:40

email or a slack message, sometimes I

16:42

will read through that email, and depending

16:44

on how much of a hurry I'm

16:46

in, I will look at some of

16:48

the wording and think, could this be

16:51

misconstrued for something else? Like, is this

16:53

too long? Will someone just stop reading

16:55

halfway through? And if so, will they

16:57

get the most important information? Could this

16:59

just be three bullet points? Oh, like

17:01

here's a great one. in most of

17:03

my written communication. And that's because it's

17:06

very easy to misconstruate for the word

17:08

not. And like, for example, if I

17:10

say, I can now edit this code,

17:12

you know, I have so many times

17:14

either type out it myself as I

17:16

cannot edit this code, or someone else

17:18

misread it as not, I cannot edit

17:21

this code, that I just stopped using

17:23

that word in my communication. And so

17:25

sometimes I will read through. my written

17:27

emails and psych messages and try to

17:29

figure out like which one of these

17:31

words could easily be misconstrued for a

17:34

different one and let's just reword this

17:36

thing to make sure that that can

17:38

happen. Yeah I tend to be pretty

17:40

wordy and the faster I'm going the

17:42

wordier I am so I do a

17:44

lot of deleting. What do you mean

17:46

by equivocation? I mean anything like I

17:49

really think that and I can just

17:51

delete all of that. Yeah, I just

17:53

say the word. Yes, the thought. Yes,

17:55

I maybe we should, I don't know,

17:57

yeah. Yeah, yeah, just get rid of

17:59

the maybe, get rid of the should,

18:01

just be like, I propose. I don't

18:04

know. Yeah, that's great. All right. Surely

18:06

we've answered it now. We have, and

18:08

we question the answer, so I think

18:10

we're done with this one. All right.

18:12

Dave, will you read our next question?

18:14

Yes, this comes from a listener named

18:16

Chris P. Bacon. I have to make

18:19

a confession. I have to make a

18:21

confession. I am a job hopper. Never

18:23

staying longer at a job than a

18:25

year. I am getting bored quickly. I

18:27

always get the feeling of the grasses

18:29

greas the grasses big thing. This feeling

18:32

is a double-edged sword. On the one

18:34

hand, I know that I am aware

18:36

that this repeated behavior is not sustainable

18:38

and healthy. On the other hand, it

18:40

helped me progress extremely in my career

18:42

and climb the ladder quickly. And now,

18:44

after five years of experience, I landed

18:47

at Big Tech in my dream job

18:49

role. But I still get this old

18:51

feeling of planning the next thing, finding

18:53

myself distracted and losing interest and not

18:55

being satisfied. I want to stay at

18:57

the job and keep earning the big

18:59

bucks for my family. What can I

19:02

do to get rid of the grasses

19:04

greener syndrome? Never staying longer a job

19:06

a year. I get bored quickly. I

19:08

feel like a year isn't even enough

19:10

to do anything real. Maybe that's, I

19:12

don't know. Maybe I'm revealing how slow

19:14

I am or something like that. Maybe

19:17

that's an old age thing too. I

19:19

think I think I did hop jobs.

19:21

I feel like my tenure has increased.

19:23

as I have gotten older. So some

19:25

of this is just normal at the

19:27

beginning part of your career, especially if

19:30

you think like you're looking for a

19:32

job that fits your needs and circumstances

19:34

and you know the least you'll ever

19:36

know at the beginning of your career

19:38

about the breadth of possibilities out there.

19:40

So the odds are that that you'll

19:42

find something in your first job that

19:45

just is great is probably small, especially

19:47

given that you don't know what great

19:49

is. I don't know. I think it's.

19:51

normal to hop a little bit more

19:53

at the beginning while you're trying to

19:55

figure out what do I like. But

19:57

if what you like is always like

20:00

not what I have, that's, I guess

20:02

that's. the problem? Well, yeah, and it's

20:04

the Money Hall problem, right? I mean,

20:06

like, Money Hall problem, of course, is

20:08

the game show where you have three

20:10

doors to choose from, and behind two

20:12

of the doors, there's a prize. And

20:15

when you pick one of the doors,

20:17

the host will say, okay, you've selected

20:19

one door, I'll say, okay, you've selected

20:21

one door, I'm now going to open

20:23

one of the other doors that has

20:25

nothing. And now you have more information

20:28

than you have more information than you

20:30

have, The answer is yes, for reason.

20:32

Yes. Yeah, I don't believe it, but

20:34

it is. It's not intuitive, but the

20:36

answer is yes. And I remember when

20:38

I learned about this, I wrote a

20:40

bunch of code to simulate it like

20:43

thousands of times, and sure enough, it

20:45

does increase your odds by 5 or

20:47

10 percentage points of getting the right,

20:49

getting the price. But the reason it

20:51

works is because your field of options

20:53

has been shrunk. And so when you're

20:55

at a job, and it's your first

20:58

job out of a thousand. that were

21:00

possibly available to you, you know, in

21:02

a theoretical world. The chances that you

21:04

picked the right job for that first

21:06

job were one in a thousand. And

21:08

then for your second job, the chances

21:10

that you picked the right job is

21:13

one out of 999. So that's better

21:15

odds. So you should switch. Keep hopping.

21:17

Yeah, just keep going until it's like

21:19

that one job remains. Wait. until the

21:21

one job. Yeah, until your chances of

21:23

finding the dream job is one in

21:26

one, because you've already explored the other

21:28

999 options. That's also assuming that you

21:30

can tell you found it and you

21:32

don't hop away from your dream job.

21:34

That's true, prematurely. Do you feel like

21:36

you've ever left too early? Like if

21:38

you look back on your career, do

21:41

you feel... Are there places you wish

21:43

you had stayed longer? Financially, yes. Like

21:45

it's numerically objectively objectively true that if

21:47

I had stayed at one of my

21:49

previous companies for... Like two and a

21:51

half more years, I would have made

21:53

a lot of money Yeah, like life-changing

21:56

amounts of money, but I left early

21:58

and left all that money on the

22:00

table like a dummy, but you didn't

22:02

know I mean, I don't know that's

22:04

just the them's the breaks Yeah, but

22:06

that was the cost, that was the

22:09

opportunity cost of job hopping. Yeah. I

22:11

asked this question because if I look

22:13

back at all of my job changes,

22:15

did I go too early? I thought

22:17

I was gonna say, no, I feel

22:19

like I left at the right time

22:21

at all of them, but now I'm

22:24

looking back and realizing the answers, no.

22:26

Yeah, I think honestly, I felt pretty

22:28

good about the job timing that I

22:30

had, and the only one, the only

22:32

time I ever even got an indication

22:34

that there was something better, that you

22:36

made for me Jameson was how would

22:39

you even know? Yeah. And the answer

22:41

is I think most of the time

22:43

you won't. But this person isn't even

22:45

talking about financial windfall purely. Although that,

22:47

I don't know, job hopping often increases

22:49

your salary. They're saying I want, I

22:51

just want to do new things. I

22:54

get bored. The next step, the next

22:56

job, the next big thing. I feel

22:58

like my standard belief here is that

23:00

you learn things from staying longer at

23:02

a job than you do from switching

23:04

jobs. you learn different things. There definitely

23:07

is a ballpark of knowledge that can

23:09

only be acquired by living with the

23:11

consequences of your choices for extended periods

23:13

of time. Or even others, right? Like,

23:15

it doesn't even have to be your

23:17

choice. It can be someone else's decision

23:19

that they pushed for and you just

23:22

get to see it work out. If

23:24

you hop jobs, you often get to

23:26

see, you get totally new worlds, but

23:28

you don't get... as much of the

23:30

history and how they change over time.

23:32

So you might see a totally different

23:34

text stack. But you don't see how

23:37

that was chosen and the consequences of

23:39

choosing it as the code base evolves

23:41

over time. You just see the snapshot

23:43

of like, ah. Now I'm in this

23:45

tech stack. Here's this new observability to

23:47

what I learned. And I remember I

23:49

definitely learned this at a company I

23:52

stayed out for five years where we

23:54

went through one, two, three, at least

23:56

three front-end web frameworks in that time.

23:58

And all three of them seemed amazing

24:00

for the first couple of months. And

24:02

maybe even for the first six months.

24:05

And it wasn't until probably the yearmark

24:07

before we were like, oh boy, this

24:09

is a mess, like this is not

24:11

good. Yeah, you can make a mess

24:13

in any framework. Turns out, yeah. Some

24:15

of them just help you a little

24:17

more making messes. Yeah. Yeah. No advice

24:20

is universal. So there's probably someone who

24:22

can switch jobs every year for their

24:24

whole like 20, 30 year tech career

24:26

and and climb glad every time and

24:28

achieve better things every time. But I

24:30

feel like. Part of what gives me

24:32

satisfaction out of work is accomplishing big

24:35

things and sometimes those big things take

24:37

a while. So maybe looking at it

24:39

not just as like what's the new

24:41

new cool thing I can do but

24:43

like whatever I want to get done

24:45

here, whatever I want to be able

24:47

to point back to and say I

24:50

did this thing and it yeah, it

24:52

took a couple years. It was a

24:54

big vision and I achieved it. I

24:56

achieved out these features and I hired

24:58

a couple people and then I bounced.

25:00

I love that. That was exactly one

25:03

of the things I was going to

25:05

say, which is change your focus from

25:07

what can I get out of this

25:09

situation right now to what are the

25:11

long-term project outcomes I want to achieve.

25:13

And the natural byproduct of that mindset

25:15

shift will be that you'll have longevity

25:18

at places. Yeah. I think it takes

25:20

a while to build trust, too. I

25:22

mean, if you join as the one

25:24

of... three engineers, then you just kind

25:26

of get trust because there's no, there's

25:28

nobody else to do it. But a

25:30

year feels like just long enough to

25:33

you're really, you've demonstrated what you can

25:35

do enough for people to expect things

25:37

of you. And then if you leave

25:39

then, you don't get to cash in

25:41

on all the trust you've built up

25:43

necessarily to take bigger risks or bigger

25:46

bets. Yeah, I think that makes a

25:48

lot of sense. So I have some

25:50

very specific advice for someone who like

25:52

this question asker finds themselves at a

25:54

big tech company and I read between

25:56

the lines a little bit here in

25:58

the question But it seems like they

26:01

don't want to walk away from the

26:03

big earning that they've got at this

26:05

tech company Which makes sense to me.

26:07

So one way to do that and

26:09

actually a strategy that I am when

26:11

I was at a big tech company

26:13

was rather than looking for a job

26:16

outside of the company, these big tech

26:18

companies are so big, you can transfer

26:20

within the company and find great options

26:22

to reset that feeling of, oh no,

26:24

the grass is green or somewhere else.

26:26

And that worked great for me. I

26:28

ended up working on, I guess in

26:31

four years at a big tech co,

26:33

I ended up working on. basically like

26:35

two different organizations and three different major

26:37

projects. And that was awesome for me.

26:39

It was great. You know, I spent

26:41

a little over a year. The timing

26:44

wasn't uniform for each of them, but

26:46

it helped me to reset every time

26:48

I moved to a new team or

26:50

project and it like reset the clock

26:52

for me because I'm also kind of

26:54

a job hopper. Like I get bored

26:56

easily and I'm always looking for grasses

26:59

greener and other opportunities. But transferring within

27:01

a big tech company achieved everything. that

27:03

I wanted to achieve by jumping to

27:05

another company and I didn't have to

27:07

let go of any of the big

27:09

tech paycheck. Yeah, I know that's an

27:11

option. I think I've said those words

27:14

too to tell people to do it.

27:16

I never did it. When I was

27:18

at a big tech company, big mega

27:20

company, I was, I mean, my role

27:22

changed slightly, but it was the same

27:24

spot, the same team. How long were

27:26

you there? Three, four years, a little

27:29

less than four years? That's pretty cool.

27:31

Like you worked on essentially the same

27:33

project for four years straight. Basically, yeah,

27:35

I got more responsibility, but I never

27:37

just switched to a totally different thing.

27:39

Maybe that's the thing I should have

27:42

explored more instead of just telling other

27:44

people to explore it. I would have

27:46

more dollars if I had stayed this

27:48

whole time also. Yeah, me too. For

27:50

sure, me too. A lot more actually.

27:52

Lots of money. Yeah, but I'm happy

27:54

with the choices I made. And plus

27:57

we have all those patron contributors to...

27:59

pay for my yacht. That's true. It

28:01

went from Big Tech, co-paying for the

28:03

yacht to Patreon. It's great. It doesn't

28:05

pay for the yacht. But also I

28:07

live in a landlocked state, so there's

28:09

no order. put the

28:12

yacht. a had a

28:14

pond constructed in his

28:16

backyard and the yacht yacht

28:18

floats on it. my

28:20

neighbors It's pretty cool.

28:22

Boy, are my

28:24

neighbors mad. neighbors have a

28:27

my backyard neighbors have

28:29

a boat and

28:31

they have, it's like

28:33

a wakeboarding boat

28:35

so it has those

28:37

giant rear I speakers.

28:40

if you've I don't

28:42

know if you've seen

28:44

them, have. I

28:46

have, they look guns or

28:48

something, I or something,

28:50

I don't know. look

28:52

Yeah, they look like

28:55

rockets they sound they

28:57

sound like rockets also.

28:59

I And so to

29:01

I do need to

29:03

construct a pond

29:05

in my backyard as

29:07

revenge on them on

29:10

them for. Crank the tunes.

29:12

they park their boat with

29:14

with the speakers facing

29:16

house and just blast the

29:18

music. you serious? serious?

29:20

Oh goodness. Yeah. Have you read

29:22

you read your

29:25

HOA to make sure

29:27

there's no rule against

29:29

parking a yacht

29:31

in a pond on

29:33

your own property? on

29:35

your own that'd be

29:38

awesome. The first rule

29:40

of the HOA

29:42

where I live rule of

29:44

no such thing

29:46

as an HOA where

29:48

I live, so. thing

29:50

as hence why your

29:53

neighbors can blast

29:55

their hence speakers at

29:57

your house. blast their rocket

29:59

I'd way rather have

30:01

that Oh, HOA though.

30:03

have that than in HOA well.

30:05

talking we're talking about

30:08

stuff people can

30:10

clearly relate to. to and

30:12

obviously important for their for

30:14

their tech careers. the

30:16

Have we answered the

30:18

question? so and think

30:21

so, and going to to

30:23

question the answer. answer.

30:25

What can people do if people

30:27

do if they

30:29

want their own questions

30:31

answered? Go over to

30:33

to softskills. and click

30:36

the click a question

30:38

button where you can

30:40

fill out our

30:42

form. can We need

30:44

to just give an

30:46

absolutely huge thanks

30:48

to everyone who has

30:51

been doing that.

30:53

We love reading your

30:55

questions. It's been

30:57

wonderful to read them

30:59

all and they

31:01

just keep coming. they

31:03

And every time a

31:06

new question shows

31:08

up, I'm like, a

31:10

my gosh, my heart,

31:12

it's growing. it's It's

31:14

Yeah, I love it, thank you.

31:16

I love it. Thank

31:19

you. There's more

31:21

to learn out there.

31:23

That's part of

31:25

what it tells me.

31:27

right, thank you. there.

31:29

We appreciate you.

31:31

Thank you for listening.

31:34

you We catch you

31:36

next week. We will catch

31:38

you next week.