0:00

So how do you help yourself

0:03

to not say yes right away ?

0:07

So one of the things I do like to do , if

0:10

it's something like a mentorship or someone's

0:12

asking for information , I , I

0:15

try and I take an engineering approach

0:17

and like how can I solve this in

0:20

a way that scales ? And so is

0:22

it a blog post that I can write , or a

0:24

video I can record , or a you

0:26

know , a podcast , just like this that I can

0:28

record and share with them

0:30

as a way to not only answer their question

0:32

but also potentially answer it

0:35

for someone that doesn't know they want to

0:37

ask the question yet . So

0:39

that's really been something I've tried to focus

0:41

on more and more is how can I scale the information

0:44

that you know from one on one To

0:46

one to many ?

0:47

hello and welcome to developers

0:49

journey , the podcast bringing you the making

0:52

of stories of successful software

0:54

Developers to help you on your

0:56

upcoming journey . I'm a host team

0:58

. Oh yeah , all in this episode I receive

1:00

Brian children's . Brian

1:02

is a husband , father , technologist and

1:05

avid adventurer . As a technological

1:07

advisor with a strong background in software

1:09

engineering , cloud computing and cyber security

1:12

, he is Experienced in helping

1:14

CTOs and CEOs make the right technical

1:17

decisions for their organizations and

1:19

the rest we're gonna hear today , brian , a

1:22

warm welcome David .

1:24

Tim , thanks for having me . It's great to be here , but

1:26

my pleasure , my pleasure .

1:28

But before we come to your story

1:30

, I want to thank the terrific listeners

1:32

who support the show . Every month you

1:35

are keeping the Dev journey lights

1:37

up . If you would like to join

1:39

this fine crew and help me

1:41

spend more time on Finding phenomenal

1:44

guests than editing audio tracks

1:46

, please go to our website

1:48

dev journey info and

1:50

click on the support me on patreon

1:52

button . Even the smallest contributions

1:55

are giant steps toward

1:57

a sustainable dev journey Journey

2:00

. Thank you , and now back

2:02

to today's guest , brian . As you know

2:04

, the show exists to help listeners understand

2:06

what your story look like and imagine how to

2:09

shape their own future . So , as

2:11

as usual in the show , let's go back to your beginnings . Where

2:13

would you place the start of your dev journey ?

2:16

Let's see . I

2:18

remember taking some very rudimentary

2:21

programming classes in high school

2:23

, but really I think for me my programming

2:25

journey started in graduate school . Honestly

2:28

, I Was

2:30

not the kid Programming on my family's

2:32

computer at eight years old . That

2:34

just it wasn't me . So

2:36

I really didn't get into computers until I went

2:38

back to to graduate school and

2:40

from there really really found

2:43

my passion and have

2:45

continued to grow

2:47

and evolve in software engineering

2:49

since then .

2:51

For the non-us listeners , grad school

2:53

is the equivalent of college , is something

2:55

like this so post my

2:58

bachelor's degree .

2:59

So this is working more towards like a

3:01

master's or something along those lines .

3:03

Yep okay , how did ? How did

3:05

you come to to discovering or rediscovering

3:07

a computer programming

3:10

at that point in time ?

3:12

So my undergraduate degree , my bachelor's

3:14

degree was in something kind of so

3:17

far removed from software engineering

3:19

and computer science . It kind of wasn't even

3:21

funny . Actually

3:23

started my professional career as an outdoor

3:25

guide , so I would take people white water

3:27

rafting and mountain biking and rock climbing

3:29

and that sort of thing and really , really

3:31

enjoyed that work , but

3:34

found , you know a

3:36

little bit of time into that that I wasn't

3:38

completely fulfilled . It

3:41

wasn't really kind of , you

3:44

know , is intellectually challenging , didn't

3:47

really kind of do the things that

3:49

I was looking for to do , and so I at

3:51

that point I went back to graduate

3:54

school . I went back to college To

3:56

learn a geographic information

3:58

systems . I felt like that was a good kind of

4:00

blend between the things that I found

4:02

interesting and my , my

4:04

passion for outdoors and outdoor venture

4:07

, and that's what got me into

4:09

programming . At that point we

4:11

were learning Python , was the primary

4:14

language that we use in GIS and

4:16

was , you know , building some small data

4:19

analysis programs and

4:21

working in various systems , and you

4:24

know that that was kind of , I would say

4:26

, the beginning of what's led me

4:28

to where I am today .

4:29

So very much as a tool first for

4:32

doing something else , for doing GIS

4:34

analysis or whatever you do , and

4:39

then it evolved into a subject matter in itself

4:41

.

4:42

Absolutely .

4:43

Yep , it's exactly right . Do you remember

4:45

when , when the this this , this

4:47

u-turn happened ?

4:51

I was a ski bum , so

4:54

I was living in a small town

4:56

in Colorado , I Was a painter

4:59

during the day and that allowed me to

5:01

live and ski and do

5:03

those sorts of things , and you know that I had a great

5:05

time . Right , I was in my early 20s and

5:08

, you know , from there went

5:11

and did some Outdoor guiding

5:13

. I had already been doing it , you know , kind of all throughout

5:15

college but found , you

5:17

know , I want something different

5:20

, right , I just I want a different challenge

5:22

. And it was at that point that I decided , hey

5:24

, let me look at Going

5:26

back to school for something To

5:29

continue to , you know , grow

5:31

and expand my skills and maybe find something

5:33

that I'm even more passionate about . And

5:36

that's where I kind of stumbled into GIS

5:38

as a . I had no idea what it was

5:40

when I even started looking into it . It

5:43

just kind of brought together a few

5:45

different interests of mine and then

5:47

from there I just continued

5:49

to evolve and After

5:51

graduate school , got out into into

5:54

the workforce developing software .

5:56

Okay , so you didn't . Didn't work as

5:58

the GIS expert

6:01

, but what would you do as a GIS graduate

6:03

?

6:04

I did for about four months

6:07

. Okay , I worked

6:10

as a contractor for

6:12

the transportation department and so , basically

6:14

, for GIS , it's it's , you

6:16

know , putting information and

6:19

Tying it to points on the globe

6:21

, right . So it's the same technology

6:23

that makes our GPS units work . And

6:25

you know Strava and all of those

6:27

types of apps . It's all based on GIS

6:29

technology . And so

6:31

, you know , working for the transportation

6:34

department , I it was not nearly

6:36

as glamorous , right . I was basically

6:38

putting together and analyzing large

6:40

amounts of data that had been collected

6:43

on our highway systems and bridges and

6:45

culverts that run them underneath

6:47

roads , and Signs that are

6:49

on the side of the roads and that sort of thing . And

6:51

so , you know , it was , it was good , you

6:54

know , to kind of get out there and

6:56

practice a lot of the things that I had been learning

6:58

in school , but it wasn't , you know , it wasn't

7:00

exciting , it wasn't the thing that I was really

7:02

looking for , and and in

7:05

a prior job that I had had

7:08

, you know , one of the so I worked three

7:10

jobs to put myself through Graduate school

7:12

and one of those jobs I had

7:14

worked with a company who was doing they

7:17

were contractors

7:19

for Medicare and Medicaid and they

7:22

had an opportunity to come on

7:24

as an application developer

7:27

with their group . So they had

7:29

an internal software platform

7:31

that they had built and they offered

7:33

to bring me on and I jumped

7:35

at the opportunity . I thought it was be

7:38

a great way to kind of learn and you

7:41

know , I I think I kind of missed

7:43

being a junior developer and

7:45

kind of going through those Climbing the

7:47

ranks . I kind of skipped right over some

7:50

of those steps and was thrown right

7:52

into the deep end and

7:54

you know , I think I've continued

7:57

to To to go forward

7:59

from there .

8:00

Is that your way of learning

8:02

or of Going

8:05

at problems with with air quotes , jumping

8:08

the cold water , going to the end and

8:10

and see what happens ?

8:11

I Think it is Maybe

8:14

not intentionally , it just that seems

8:16

to be the way it happens . But

8:19

yeah , I kind of just you go for it

8:21

and figure some things out along the way

8:23

and get some skin to knees

8:25

and that sort of thing . But yeah

8:27

, I would say it's probably been a theme

8:30

throughout my career is to kind of take that

8:32

approach .

8:34

All right , fair enough . How

8:36

did you go being I

8:38

assume and correct me if I'm wrong kind

8:40

of a sole developer during your studies

8:43

, working on your data

8:45

analysis and tools , but probably At

8:48

least it was for me without all

8:50

the best practices of software engineering

8:53

? I'm really doing coding , I

8:55

would say , but , but not Crafting

8:57

software for the long term , with

9:00

, with the legacy in mind , etc . And

9:02

jumping into this new world of application

9:05

development and discovering all this . Assume

9:07

all the . Do you Discover that beforehand

9:09

? How did that transition ?

9:11

work , not . Yeah , I very much learned that

9:13

on the job , and a lot of that was just

9:15

what I thought was right , because

9:17

I didn't necessarily always have a team

9:20

that I could rely on . I didn't have a

9:22

great software mentors that

9:24

I could lean on that had years of experience

9:26

, and could you tell me about all

9:28

the ways that this could go wrong ? I

9:31

can just Follow my gut and

9:33

, thankfully , made some decent

9:35

decisions most of the time . Yeah

9:39

, I didn't really . I didn't have

9:41

a lot of that mentorship early on

9:43

, and so I saw it out in

9:45

other ways . I tried and

9:47

I think early in my career is when

9:49

I started to . Not only

9:52

I was working full time as an application

9:54

developer , but I started freelancing and

9:56

moonlighting and doing development

9:58

projects on my own , and I think

10:00

I tribute a lot of my success

10:03

to that hard work Doing

10:05

freelancing and moonlighting

10:08

to learn a lot of those things

10:10

, and it was just another way that I

10:12

could make those mistakes

10:14

and then I learned from them .

10:16

That's the deep end of the pool again yeah

10:18

, right

10:21

going from freelance projects

10:24

as the not junior

10:26

but still beginner in your career

10:28

. That's ballsy . How

10:32

did you find those projects ? How did you

10:35

manage to get in there

10:37

with probably not so much experience

10:39

to show for ?

10:42

I don't know charm and charisma . I

10:45

mean some of the early projects you

10:48

know I was finding on I don't know

10:50

if you're familiar with it , but like craigslist dot

10:52

com . So I mean this is many

10:55

years ago . You

10:57

know I was creating websites

10:59

for wedding venues and

11:01

insurance companies and that sort of thing . It

11:03

wasn't wasn't necessarily software

11:06

engineering , right , I was kind of largely putting

11:08

together wordpress websites . But

11:10

you know I had met

11:12

some people at meet ups really

11:15

good friend he and I still collaborate today

11:17

Met a meet up

11:19

group just randomly , you

11:21

know still user group , and he and I have collaborated

11:24

and worked on things and so he and

11:26

I would Kind of bump through that

11:28

together , you

11:31

know . But I just always looked

11:33

for opportunities to kind of learn and

11:37

found a you

11:39

know a lot of the things that I was learning on my

11:41

own in those early days I'm continuing

11:44

to use today . So it was really

11:46

really beneficial . I

11:49

probably didn't know what I didn't

11:51

know at that point . Maybe that was an advantage

11:53

because I didn't

11:55

let it hold me back that I didn't know those things

11:57

.

11:59

Yeah , the benefit of being young and

12:02

still naive . You

12:06

mentioned . You mentioned meet ups . See , you

12:09

discovered meet up really early on in

12:11

your career .

12:12

I did . I did , you know . I was just

12:14

ravenous because I didn't

12:16

. I wasn't collaborating with a lot of people in

12:19

my day to day work , especially

12:21

not from a software perspective , and

12:23

so is ravenous for more information and

12:25

to be around folks that were doing it . And it

12:28

was kind of at that time where start ups

12:31

were a really , really sexy thing

12:33

, like everybody wanted to be in start

12:35

ups , you know , because we were hearing

12:37

about the explosion of

12:39

google's popularity and all

12:41

the you know , the free food and the you

12:43

know slides and all of those kinds

12:45

of cool things that

12:47

was coming out around that time

12:50

, and so there was just a lot of draw towards

12:52

it . I had one of my college roommates what

12:55

is a founder in a

12:57

start up and you know , I mean it was

12:59

like three guys in a small bedroom

13:02

apartment in san francisco like developing

13:04

software that ended up Growing

13:06

and growing , like it was just a very exciting

13:09

thing , and so I

13:11

wanted to find a way to break into that , and meet

13:13

ups were a way to do that , and at the time I was

13:15

living in denver and there's a huge

13:17

start up population there , and so I was

13:19

able to attend a meet up every

13:22

night if I wanted , to Different

13:25

user groups . It was just a very popular thing

13:27

and you know , from that , made

13:29

a lot of great connections , learned

13:31

a lot , you know . It

13:34

also kind of pushed me out of my shell

13:36

. I'm not naturally , you know , kind of extroverted

13:39

, or , and so it really

13:41

kind of pushed me to go and meet other

13:43

people and learn from them and

13:45

see what I can share and maybe help

13:47

them in some way .

13:49

I'm gonna be piggyback on that . How

13:52

would you Behave , going

13:54

into a meet up ? First meet

13:56

up you come in the city . You haven't

13:58

been to that meet up yet and the first

14:01

time you show up , how would you be able to start

14:03

making connections , feel

14:06

at ease , just

14:09

just feel like somebody who's a who's

14:11

a welcome there .

14:13

You know it wasn't easy for

14:15

me . You know I

14:17

tend to be kind of more reserved

14:20

, held back , I'll be the ones kind

14:22

of sitting in the back corner of the room kind of

14:24

seeing what others are doing , you

14:27

know . But I found for me

14:30

the way that I kind of broke through

14:32

some of that was I would sit like

14:35

in a spot

14:37

like up towards the front , like

14:39

a couple rows back , kind of a few

14:41

seats in , basically in

14:44

a spot where Someone

14:47

was almost forced to sit next to me and

14:49

then when we're sitting next to each other , like

14:51

most of the meetups where there was a presentation

14:54

and then some networking and we have

14:56

pizza and beer afterwards , and

14:59

so by having

15:01

somebody sit next to me , then you know

15:03

it was just more of a one on one conversation

15:06

that I could kind of break through that . You

15:08

know that anxiety

15:10

or that fear and we can start to talk

15:12

about things . And because we were at the same user

15:15

group , it was largely based around specific

15:17

technology or you know a topic

15:19

that was really interesting . I could then use

15:22

that as my opening . You know , hey , tim

15:24

, what would you know interest to

15:26

about JavaScript or something

15:28

along those lines ?

15:31

That's . That's a good one . I've

15:33

heard a couple others and how to , how to

15:35

break in there at one . One was to sit

15:37

as well in the front , but mostly

15:39

to attract the eyes of the person speaking

15:42

. When you're speaking , you're quite often

15:44

searching for somebody who's really attentive and

15:47

and then you focus on that person

15:49

. It's your , your persona

15:51

, for the audience , and I

15:54

found it personally Call

15:57

me to be that person for

15:59

the , for the speaker , and then it was easier to

16:01

talk to the speaker afterwards and break

16:03

the ice and you've been looking at

16:05

me for an hour now , so let's

16:07

chat and that felt easier

16:10

, at least to me , and I've heard that from a couple persons

16:12

as well that eat , help them break

16:14

that high in that ice and

16:17

that's great .

16:17

I mean I do the same thing . Now that I'm doing

16:20

a conference speaking , I do the same

16:22

exact thing . I'll pick out a couple people in the room

16:24

and they're my anchors

16:26

. No one else exists in the room

16:28

.

16:31

That's the secret . It really really helps , really

16:33

helps . And the other one I've heard is

16:36

to go to someone and

16:38

ask them for referral . Asking

16:41

them maybe you know who I could talk to

16:43

about react

16:45

. I'm passionate about react . Maybe it's not a react

16:48

meetup , I'm passionate , but react . You

16:50

know someone here who I should talk to and

16:52

it's a great way to to have

16:55

this person , to have this person answer you and help

16:57

you without cornering her

16:59

or him into

17:01

having to talk to you . If they , if they don't

17:03

want to talk to you , they can just say , well , talk

17:06

to Bob of their he's , he's knowledgeable

17:08

about that , and there you go . And

17:10

if they , if it's their topic , then they

17:12

can start talking to you . And these two combines

17:14

of sitting in the front and using this , this

17:16

diversion technique , is really helped

17:18

me personally in many conferences

17:21

. To come there and know no one and

17:23

start talking from the get

17:25

go . That's really really helpful .

17:27

Nice , I like that a lot . I mean , I have to borrow that , yes

17:30

.

17:32

Okay , so you are in that journey , started

17:35

your first gigs , or at least your first

17:37

job , doing God

17:40

knows how many gigs on the side as a freelancer and

17:43

learning during meetups . Did you sleep

17:45

at that time ?

17:47

Not much . Thankfully

17:50

, in graduate school I was also

17:52

introduced to coffee , so

17:54

I've been a an avid

17:57

consumer .

17:57

sense yeah

17:59

so

18:02

how long does a lifestyle work

18:04

out ? Do you have to change something at some point ?

18:09

Um , I don't know

18:12

, I think I'm just , I have a

18:14

personality that naturally just I

18:17

want to have a lot of different things

18:19

going on , you

18:21

know , and so I found it ebbs

18:24

and flows a little bit . I kind of get to the

18:26

brink of burnout or maybe actually

18:28

burn out , and then I have to take a little bit of a

18:30

break . But I like , a lot

18:33

of things interest me and so I try

18:35

and , yeah , we explore

18:37

a lot of different things .

18:39

Do you have to actively Restrain

18:42

yourself from from going

18:44

in one or the other direction just because you know

18:47

it's gonna be too much ?

18:48

Now I do , I absolutely

18:51

do . Earlier on , I think In

18:54

those early days you're just looking for anything

18:56

, especially around technology , like which technologies

18:58

do I enjoy , which ones do I not ? What problems

19:01

do I like to solve , what industries are

19:03

interesting ? And

19:05

now I feel like I've Got

19:07

a better idea of those things

19:10

and so I try to Restrain

19:12

myself a bit more . But it's still

19:14

hard to say no with somebody comes

19:17

and says , hey , can you help out with

19:19

this thing or do you mind mentoring me ? It's

19:21

, it's really hard to say no .

19:24

How do you Help yourself

19:26

to not say yes right away ?

19:30

I . So one of the things I do like

19:32

to do , if it's something like a

19:34

mentorship or someone's asking for

19:36

information , I I

19:39

try and I take an engineering approach

19:41

like how can I solve this In

19:43

a way that scales ? And so is

19:45

it a blog post that I can write , or a

19:47

video I can record , or a you

19:50

know , a podcast , just like this that I can

19:52

Record and share with them

19:54

as a way to not only answer their question

19:56

but also potentially answer it for

19:58

someone that Doesn't know they want to ask

20:00

the question yet . So

20:03

that's really been something I've tried to focus

20:05

on more and more is how can I scale the information

20:07

that you know from one on one to

20:09

one to many ?

20:11

Okay , and and so you've

20:13

been writing blog posts , publishing

20:16

videos , etc . Creating your own content

20:18

for that or Partly

20:20

for that partly for that , partly

20:22

for myself .

20:23

To you know , my , my

20:26

blog is taking a bit of a hit of the past

20:28

year , to just Life

20:31

, it's gotten busy . But

20:34

I originally started that for me . I wanted a

20:36

place to be able to reference information

20:38

and so

20:40

I started it there . And you know

20:43

I found just having a blog

20:45

, a public Space on the

20:47

internet , has been hugely beneficial . I

20:49

mean , it helped me to get jobs

20:51

and bypass technical sections

20:54

of interviews and it's been really

20:56

, really helpful .

20:58

And there's not quite anything like

21:00

googling for something and finding

21:02

one of your own blog posts .

21:04

I wish I could tell you how many times that's happened

21:06

, that I've appeared on the first

21:08

page of Google and oh yeah , I

21:10

wrote about this a year ago . I've

21:13

already figured this out .

21:15

And for God , I love it . Which

21:19

is awesome just write about it . You

21:21

immerse yourself enough

21:24

into the subject matter to really be able to

21:26

write about it and then forget

21:28

about it entirely and really discover

21:30

it later .

21:33

It's just like high school , right we studied

21:35

enough to pass the test , and then we immediately

21:37

forgot everything . I just have

21:39

a resource .

21:42

You mentioned . I'm jumping back a bit . You

21:44

mentioned you skipped junior

21:47

dumb , I'm not sure that the word , but now

21:49

it is and you

21:51

jumped both feet first into a more

21:54

senior role . And how did that

21:56

evolve afterwards ? Is

21:58

there some more graduation of senior ? Is

22:00

your different flavors of seniority ? What

22:05

kind of thoughts

22:07

does that trigger ?

22:09

I think for me , yeah , there were

22:11

various areas of senior

22:13

that I focused on , so

22:16

it became less about creating

22:18

something that worked and more focused

22:20

on creating something that's maintainable

22:22

, that I can collaborate with a larger

22:24

team on . That

22:27

continues to kind of focus on

22:29

solving a business problem . So

22:31

it still wasn't as like heavy technology

22:34

focused , it was just more how do we solve this problem

22:36

, do it in a more maintainable

22:38

way , because you know a lot of the things that

22:40

I was doing earlier on it

22:43

wasn't as important , it wasn't , they

22:46

weren't as long lived projects and that

22:48

sort of thing . But as

22:50

I continued to progress in my career , I found

22:52

that that was actually important

22:54

, and so then I became the person

22:57

that really , really focused on you

22:59

know , quality and craftsmanship

23:02

in the software and took

23:04

a lot of pride in that , and

23:06

so you know now Working

23:09

with a number of different clients , that's something

23:11

that I really really focus on , because I

23:14

found it hugely valuable for me , for

23:16

the teams that I worked on and

23:18

now , you know , for my clients as they

23:20

continue to grow and scale . It's something

23:22

that I still like to focus on .

23:25

How do you approach selling

23:27

is not the right word , but but convincing

23:30

somebody ? They have a software

23:32

which is working and now

23:35

is the time to start focusing on more quality

23:38

, more craftsmanship , more sustainability

23:41

and more effort for

23:43

the long term . How to approach this discussion

23:45

with them ?

23:47

So I think it's important to know our audience

23:49

and who are we talking to , and so

23:51

I always like to understand what are the

23:53

things that drive that particular

23:56

person . If it's the business owner , they

23:58

may not care about the code quality

24:00

as long as it works . So I can talk

24:03

about , well , what happens if it doesn't

24:05

work , or what happens when we need

24:07

to expand it to onboard a new

24:09

customer that's going to bring additional

24:11

Revit , new into the business , and

24:14

if we don't focus on the quality

24:16

and the craftsmanship and the maintainability now

24:18

it's going to be very difficult for us

24:20

to bring in that new customer , which is

24:22

then either going to delay them

24:25

coming on board or potentially

24:27

we could lose them as

24:29

a customer altogether

24:32

. And so really kind of focusing on

24:34

what is that particular person interested

24:36

in and then tying in

24:38

the technology and

24:40

software from there .

24:42

Hmm , yeah , that's a very , very important advice

24:46

Really knowing your audience and tailoring

24:48

your arguments for

24:50

that . Obviously , if you start talking

24:52

with them about principles

24:56

, solid principles , etc . It's not going to

24:58

connect . No , they usually

25:00

are . So in

25:02

the in the Bible I read at the

25:04

beginning , you

25:07

kind of hinted as now you would

25:10

be doing some kind of consulting job . Is

25:12

this how you would describe it ?

25:15

Yeah , yeah . So you know I'm doing

25:18

the kind of freelancing in the moonlighting

25:20

for a number of years , so I mean call

25:23

it consulting , and

25:25

so now I'm full time , fractional

25:28

, cto and technical advisor . So

25:30

I consult with a number of different startups

25:32

and small media and businesses that are developing

25:35

custom software , typically in the B2B

25:37

space , and

25:39

helping them to . You know , I like to say that

25:41

I help get turn

25:44

around struggling software projects and

25:47

help them to scale , and so that's that's

25:49

what I do .

25:50

Okay , so fractional CTO would be

25:52

kind of a sidekick offer CTO

25:54

learning the ropes , or how would

25:57

you describe the fractional CTO ?

25:59

So the way I operate is you

26:01

know , I bring years of you know

26:04

, expertise and you know lessons

26:06

learned and mistakes made to

26:08

organizations that may not need

26:10

or may not be able to afford a full

26:12

time CTO and oftentimes , they don't

26:15

need a full time CTO

26:17

. A lot of organizations

26:19

are probably just looking for a really

26:21

strong lead developer and they call

26:24

them the CTO , and so what

26:26

I'm doing is helping them to . You

26:28

know , I bring a strong background in software

26:30

architecture and scalability , so

26:33

we'll focus there if that's what they're looking

26:35

for . Bring in a lot of just

26:37

software engineering , best practices , right Code

26:40

reviews and deployment strategies

26:42

and that sort of thing . Bring a lot of that in

26:44

big focus on security

26:46

as well application security

26:48

and you know how can we grow the team

26:51

in a way that's effective All

26:53

of those types of things I help my clients

26:55

out with . So it's it's a bit of a mix

26:57

. You know , different fractional

26:59

CTO is kind of focus in different areas , but

27:02

those are the areas that I tend to focus on most

27:04

.

27:05

OK , so I hear really laying down

27:07

the foundation , whispering the right words

27:09

, putting things in motion so that it

27:11

evolves in the right direction from the get

27:13

go , and then it will evolve without

27:16

you . You'll probably be somewhere else , as

27:18

I imagine your gigs

27:20

probably short term or a few months

27:23

, but not much more than this . Am I right there

27:25

?

27:26

Typically , yeah , I kind of aim

27:28

for three to six months . In

27:31

most organizations it may be longer

27:33

. We just might taper off how much

27:35

time I'm committing to that

27:37

particular engagement . Yeah ultimately

27:39

, my goal is to work myself out of a job right , put

27:42

those systems in place to empower

27:44

the right people , potentially bring on board

27:46

full time the people in the right role

27:49

and then kind of work myself out of it . You

27:51

know , that's tends to be the

27:54

best and the most exciting approach

27:56

for me .

27:58

How do you manage to get in and

28:01

right away start thinking about your

28:03

exit ? I would go full

28:05

, all in and say , ok , now I'm there , and

28:07

two years later I would wake up and say , oh gosh

28:09

, where did time go . How

28:12

do you handle this ? Phasing in , phasing out

28:14

and right away probably searching for next gig

28:16

and phasing a different gig at the same time

28:18

? How do you handle all this ?

28:21

So it goes

28:23

kind of can I give the classic , it depends . We've

28:29

got a bunch of developers . So I

28:32

tend to kind of ramp up quickly

28:34

. We'll do , potentially

28:37

, a discovery month where we figure out OK

28:39

, what are the real problems here

28:41

that we want to solve ? Is it scalability

28:44

, is it team

28:46

collaboration , is it , you

28:49

know , we pick the wrong technologies

28:51

and we need to do a big refactoring . So

28:55

we'll figure out what's going on , kind of put together

28:57

a strategy , put together , you know , what

28:59

resources do we need , what

29:01

team members do we need , and

29:03

then I'll tend to oversee that

29:05

process as it goes through . You

29:08

know , we'll kind of adjust as needed and

29:10

then ultimately taper off . And

29:12

so once the project is

29:14

moving along well , the right team members

29:16

are in place , then I'll taper off into

29:18

more , like of you know , kind of an advisory

29:21

or a retainer type of role when

29:24

I'm still available to the team , but not necessarily

29:27

as hands on day

29:29

to day . But

29:32

I mean it's nice because

29:34

I can kind of come in

29:37

and shake things up and

29:39

really focus on what's best for the

29:42

business , what's best for the project . You

29:45

know , I don't have the same type

29:47

of limitations . I think around like trying

29:50

to be friends with everybody , right ? I

29:53

don't want to , you know , alienate

29:55

anyone , but you know I am coming

29:57

in there to solve a problem , I am

29:59

coming in there to help the organization . So

30:02

, with that focus , it allows me to

30:05

, you know , make some decisions

30:07

that I might not make

30:09

if I were coming in as a full time person

30:12

.

30:13

Yeah , makes sense , makes sense . You mentioned the

30:15

tagline oh , at least I know

30:17

it's your tagline on LinkedIn Helping

30:20

struggling projects . Do

30:22

you think it's because

30:24

of this tagline , because of this focus

30:27

that you've been giving to your career , that

30:29

companies which are struggling

30:31

at a point in time go out and reach

30:34

out to you ? Or is it all

30:36

those companies try to make it on their own

30:38

and at some point realize something is not working

30:41

right and at some point then reach

30:43

out to find somebody with knowledge Call

30:45

it a fractional CTO or

30:47

any other name and then

30:49

find someone to steer the

30:52

ship back into the right direction ?

30:55

Yeah , I don't know that it's the tagline

30:57

necessarily that draws them in , but I have

31:00

, from a lot of my LinkedIn content

31:02

has drawn folks in to

31:05

my world . So , you know , I've had

31:07

the pleasure of working on a number of different projects

31:09

that were struggling Because

31:13

they , you know , the

31:15

architecture , the technologies that they

31:17

had chosen were too complex , the

31:19

team wasn't delivering on time . They

31:22

, you know , may have had other challenges

31:24

. They might have hired a development agency

31:26

or a freelancer who just kind of walked

31:28

away with all the code . There's

31:30

a number of different things that have kind of happened

31:33

but , yeah , a lot of the

31:35

content that I put out on platforms like

31:37

LinkedIn kind of speaks to

31:39

the challenges that I see , unfortunately

31:42

, day to day , and its organizations

31:44

that you know may not

31:46

have a strong technical focus

31:48

and so they relinquish a lot

31:50

of control over to

31:52

the development team or even

31:54

an outside agency or an outside freelancer

31:56

and they just lose control and

31:59

ultimately , you know , a lot of

32:01

the times when I come in , it's , you

32:03

know it's the . I've

32:06

got a lot of work to do . I

32:08

rent things around sometimes .

32:11

I hear you . I'm sure I

32:13

want you to swear , but then know , if you could , if

32:18

you , if you imagine going

32:20

to a project that wouldn't be

32:22

struggling right now , would you

32:24

be attacking the this problem

32:27

that's called the problem with the same , the

32:29

same way , doing this discovery

32:31

months , trying to find where the problems are ? Would

32:34

you go at it differently if it wasn't

32:36

obviously struggling from the get go ?

32:39

I think I would go at it a little bit differently . Typically

32:41

when I come into a struggling project we've

32:43

spent a lot of money , we're

32:46

over budget , we're over time , the

32:48

team is frustrated , they're

32:51

working a lot of long hours I think we can make some very

32:53

drastic , quick decisions

32:55

to kind of turn us around . But

32:57

if that's not the case , I love to

32:59

come into projects where I just get

33:01

to sit and hang out and talk

33:04

with the developers one-on-one , maybe provide

33:06

some mentorship to them and just see

33:08

where things are . What is that normal process

33:11

for the team and look for areas

33:13

that I can add some efficiencies that

33:17

I can continue to maybe

33:19

push some of the developers towards

33:22

opportunities of growth , if that's

33:24

what they're looking for . So if

33:27

I don't have to , I love to be able

33:29

to sit back and just see how things

33:31

operate and really

33:33

just make

33:36

sure that I focus on showing

33:40

that I really appreciate all the work

33:42

that has been done up until this point . Because

33:44

if those developers hadn't put in

33:46

all those hours and the blood , sweat and tears

33:48

to develop the platform to what it is

33:51

today , I wouldn't have a job . They wouldn't

33:53

be bringing me in Now . I might be coming

33:55

in to fix and tweak things , but

33:57

it's because of all their hard work that I have

33:59

the opportunity to come in . So I always want to

34:01

be grateful for

34:03

that and really show the developers that

34:05

I'm there to help support them .

34:08

Amen to that . It's always a hard

34:10

balance to strike

34:12

between coming in and seeing

34:15

things and saying , hey , maybe we should change this

34:17

, and you know you're going to hurt some feelings because

34:19

that's the way they were successful

34:22

so far . And so you're

34:24

going to push places where it usually

34:26

is painful , but

34:28

at the same time listening in and really

34:30

understanding from how

34:32

it is called second degree observation

34:35

, understanding why are

34:37

things this way , why it was done

34:39

this way and why it evolved

34:41

into this situation . To just

34:43

really understand how it came to being

34:46

there and not just remove something that is absolutely

34:48

crucial for the organization . It sounds silly . You

34:50

just remove it and the organization crumbles . So

34:53

really trying to find this balance is always hard

34:55

. And how does it work

34:57

on the three to six months timeline when

35:00

you first want to observe ? Do you have enough

35:02

time ?

35:04

So we can observe in a lot

35:06

of different areas , and so I tend to

35:09

really poke in

35:11

a lot of different places . I'll

35:13

not only schedule conversations with

35:15

the kind of the key folks . I'll

35:18

schedule conversations with members

35:20

across the team . I'll

35:23

poke around and slack , I'll

35:25

look at the conversations that are happening and

35:27

all the public channels and any private channels

35:30

that I've been added to Just

35:32

see what that conversation is . I'll look

35:34

at pull requests and

35:36

the comments that are added there how

35:39

is code added and deployed and

35:41

I'll look at documentation and

35:44

how are we collaborating on that . And

35:47

so there's a lot of different areas that I

35:49

can kind of observe without

35:51

it being a one-on-one conversation with someone , and

35:54

so I'll look for those areas . I'll look for trends and

35:57

from there I've been in enough

36:00

organizations and on enough

36:02

teams and projects that

36:04

there's at least a few different solutions

36:06

I might be able to propose

36:08

to the team as

36:11

an opportunity to improve

36:13

, I see .

36:16

You've mentioned burnout or kind of burnout

36:19

before . This

36:23

is going in , going out , jumping on a new project

36:25

that's

36:27

probably linked with a lot of stress , or at least long

36:29

hours to really

36:31

find the north , find

36:34

north , understand what's happening

36:36

, the topology

36:39

of the company , etc . And then , by the time

36:41

you're confident with all this , well , it's

36:43

time to start with your company . Do

36:46

you think you have stamina to do

36:48

this for a long time ? Do you see yourself

36:50

doing this for years and years , and years ?

36:54

I think so . I've certainly evolved

36:58

my approach over time . I've

37:00

got a much more robust playbook

37:03

that I follow now . That allows

37:05

me to kind of get to some of that information

37:08

a little bit more readily . But

37:10

I think some of my next

37:12

phases are actually going to be to grow

37:14

the group that I work with and collaborate

37:17

with closely , so potentially

37:19

bringing on other architects

37:21

and technical advisors and other

37:23

fractional CTOs to

37:26

be able to help me to scale and

37:28

take some of that day-to-day work

37:31

off of my plate so

37:33

I can be a bit more strategic with some of

37:35

the work , but not I

37:37

still want to be able to help as many organizations

37:40

as I can to deliver great

37:42

software at the end of the day .

37:44

But when you mentioned playbook , it sounds like taking

37:47

up a silly project of writing a book about

37:49

all this , which would end up

37:51

with even longer hours .

37:56

It's conversations like these , and

37:58

so anytime that I find

38:01

that I make a suggestion or come

38:03

up with an idea , I'll dump it into the playbook

38:05

and just kind of continually

38:08

add to it over time , and so it's

38:10

more of a what would I already be

38:12

doing normally . Let me put that into

38:14

one place . Instead of a

38:17

concerted effort to write a book , it's

38:19

more just kind of collecting

38:21

from all my notebooks and all my conversations

38:23

, pulling all that together .

38:26

Is this publicly available ? Is this your

38:28

blog or is this still notes for yourself

38:31

.

38:32

It's a mix , so some things I'm

38:34

happy to share any of it . None of it's secretive

38:37

, but I don't have it in a pretty format that

38:39

is probably digestible

38:41

by most , but yeah , anything

38:44

like there's . How do I do due diligence

38:46

on a technical project ? How do I do an architecture

38:49

review ? A lot of those things

38:51

I've absolutely shared with other fractional

38:53

CTOs or technical advisors

38:56

in the industry . I'm happy

38:58

to share any of that if

39:00

it's helpful in any sense

39:02

.

39:04

If we can link some to the show notes to

39:06

give a taste of what we've been talking about . I

39:09

think that would be great for the audience .

39:12

Absolutely yeah , happy to share .

39:14

Awesome . Do you see yourself

39:16

doing this for years and years and years ? So

39:19

you said yes , kind of . But I heard I

39:21

heard helping more

39:23

companies . Is this scalable

39:26

, being in the trenches and

39:29

doing some strategic work , etc . Will

39:32

you work change basically ?

39:35

That's what I'm trying to figure out now . If I'm honest to him , what

39:38

does that scaling look like ? Having

39:41

a playbook , having a set of repeatable processes

39:43

, certainly helps , I

39:46

think , helping to scale

39:48

it . I need folks to collaborate

39:50

with colleagues that have

39:53

years and years of industry

39:55

experience and have been in

39:57

those trenches before and have really

40:00

that level of

40:02

experience and made some of those similar mistakes

40:04

to be able to collaborate with . I

40:07

think that's something as an industry , we're struggling

40:09

a little bit with because we don't

40:11

have a ton of people at that experience

40:14

level that are still practitioners

40:16

in the industry . I'm

40:19

always looking for opportunities to collaborate

40:21

with folks in that

40:24

way .

40:24

There you put the word I was trying to find and

40:27

ask my question very clumsily being

40:29

a practitioner . What

40:31

I fear for

40:34

you when I hear this is that you're

40:36

going to graduate into some kind of management

40:39

slash , strategic position and

40:41

not be a practitioner anymore . I

40:44

fear it because I have a feeling that you need this

40:47

practitioner stance from 14

40:49

minutes discussion together . If

40:52

I'm putting you in the wrong box , sorry

40:55

about that . I fear you would

40:57

be missing it at some point .

41:00

You're absolutely right . So , selfishly , I

41:02

hang on to a couple projects where I'm still

41:04

hands-on coding , where I still have the opportunity

41:07

to bring in some new technologies

41:09

, some new patterns . I

41:11

think I will always maintain that I

41:14

may not do as much hands-on

41:17

keyboard coding as

41:19

I have , but I'll

41:22

always hold on to a few projects there , and

41:24

part of the way that I've tried to design my

41:27

business and ultimately the life around it is

41:29

to have time to be able to go and

41:31

explore some of those new areas and

41:33

really just have fun with it . I

41:36

think that's a thing that really keeps a lot of us

41:38

technologists in the industry is there's

41:41

so much new things that we can

41:43

play with and experience and explore

41:45

. I certainly

41:47

want to be able to continue to do that for a long

41:49

, long time .

41:50

Oh yeah , I mean to that . If

41:53

somebody was wondering , hey

41:55

, this fractional CTO thing kind

41:57

of sounds like fun They've

42:00

been more or less as a senior

42:03

software developer somewhere doing a lot of

42:05

things inside a company but saying

42:07

, hey , this is helping other companies

42:09

put out the right

42:11

foundation at the right time , that

42:13

sounds like fun . What would be your advice to start

42:16

getting into this direction ?

42:18

Yeah , I like

42:20

to say that technology is the easiest

42:23

part of what we do . In

42:26

many ways , it is as

42:28

technologists . I can Google

42:31

my way to a solution . On the technology

42:33

side , I think the skill that

42:35

we have the opportunity to continue

42:37

to develop is around

42:40

. How do we collaborate with other humans

42:42

? How do we collaborate and

42:44

communicate across time zones

42:46

? Like you and I are today Putting

42:52

yourself in a much more of a leadership

42:54

position and really

42:57

focusing on not only the people

42:59

, the collaboration , but also the business as

43:01

well . I think as technologists

43:03

, we're always excited about implementing new

43:06

technologies and new patterns , but

43:08

at the end of the day , we need to make sure

43:10

that it serves the business , because the business needs

43:12

to make money in order to pay our fancy

43:15

developer salaries . I

43:17

would encourage anyone that's considering

43:19

something like this to really start to focus on

43:22

the leadership and the business

43:24

acumen . We're

43:26

solid technologists . We can

43:28

continue to learn and evolve there

43:30

. That's a small

43:32

portion of what we really need to be focused

43:35

on to be successful .

43:37

Absolutely . Thank you for highlighting this , Brian

43:40

. It's been a blast . Thanks for

43:42

coming to your story , starting in GIS

43:44

and diverging entirely

43:47

and ending up whispering

43:50

in the ears of CEOs and CEOs

43:52

worldwide . Where

43:56

would be the best place to continue the discussion with you ?

43:59

I would say right now I'm most active on LinkedIn . I

44:01

encourage everyone to reach out , connect with me

44:03

, send me a message on there . I'm happy

44:05

to connect and schedule a call

44:07

if it makes sense . That's

44:10

going to be the best place to connect .

44:12

Do you have anything on your plate that

44:14

you want to highlight before we call it a day ?

44:17

I've got a lot of really interesting projects

44:20

going on right now A

44:22

couple in the healthcare space that

44:24

are AI focused , a couple in

44:27

education , in finance

44:29

, cybersecurity . I'm

44:32

really , really excited about what this

44:34

next year holds . I

44:37

think there's going to be a lot of really fun projects and

44:39

opportunities .

44:41

Can we read about it on LinkedIn or on your

44:43

homepage when you write about it ?

44:45

Yeah , absolutely , I'll definitely be sharing

44:47

. I'm learning every

44:49

day . Typically , what I share on

44:51

LinkedIn is something I learned the day before .

44:56

That's the best source of ideas

44:59

. It's just falling flat on your face

45:01

and saying , oh , I have to write about that .

45:04

Absolutely right .

45:06

Brian , thank you so much . I will

45:08

add some links to the show notes with LinkedIn , your own

45:10

page and maybe a couple of pages

45:12

of the playbook you've been gathering along

45:14

. If you want to connect

45:16

with Brian , don't hesitate . Go to LinkedIn and

45:19

reach out . Brian , thank you so much

45:21

.

45:21

Tim , thank you .

45:23

That's been another episode of DevGhost Journey . I

45:25

will see you there next week . Bye-bye . Thanks

45:29

a lot for tuning in . I hope

45:31

you have enjoyed this week's episode . If

45:33

you like the show , please share , rate

45:36

and review . It helps more

45:38

listeners discover those stories

45:40

. You can find the links to all

45:43

the platforms the show appears on on

45:45

our website devjourneyinfo . Subscribe

45:48

. Talk to you soon . Bye-bye

45:53

.