WEBVTT 00:00:12.300 --> 00:00:16.100 Scott: Welcome to the Bikeshed Podcast, where we talk about all things software engineering, 00:00:16.760 --> 00:00:19.960 Scott: current tech events, and not having enough emojis in the Discord. 00:00:20.740 --> 00:00:27.420 Scott: I'm your co-host, UI guy, coffee curator, and professional amateur powerlifter, Scott Kaye. 00:00:28.140 --> 00:00:33.140 Scott: And alongside with me today are my co-hosts, your principal engineer's senior engineering lead, 00:00:33.620 --> 00:00:41.200 Scott: a man whose opinions change faster than the weather, the only person to read every RFC and reply with comments, Matt Hamlin. 00:00:42.140 --> 00:00:42.680 Scott: And on my other 00:00:42.680 --> 00:00:47.480 Scott: side, the spice you didn't know you needed, Dillon Spicy Take Curry. 00:00:48.860 --> 00:00:49.800 Scott: What are we up to today? 00:00:52.940 --> 00:00:55.900 Matt: I feel like that's an apt intro for today's episode, Scott. 00:00:56.900 --> 00:00:59.980 Matt: But yeah, first off, Dillon, you were talking 00:00:59.980 --> 00:01:01.120 Matt: about you got a new keyboard. 00:01:01.230 --> 00:01:05.100 Matt: I'm curious, how's that been going for you? 00:01:06.500 --> 00:01:07.140 Dillon: It's been good. 00:01:07.390 --> 00:01:09.700 Dillon: I set it up at work yesterday. 00:01:10.620 --> 00:01:14.860 Dillon: Got some really cushy, quiet keycaps. 00:01:15.560 --> 00:01:16.760 Matt: Is it like thocky? 00:01:17.540 --> 00:01:22.600 Matt: Is thocky like an actual term that people use in the mechanical keyboard industry? 00:01:24.380 --> 00:01:24.700 Dillon: Probably. 00:01:24.990 --> 00:01:26.100 Scott: The community, yes. 00:01:28.020 --> 00:01:29.340 Dillon: I said keycaps and I meant switches 00:01:30.020 --> 00:01:31.760 Dillon: the switches are really nice 00:01:32.780 --> 00:01:33.400 Dillon: yeah 00:01:34.679 --> 00:01:36.320 Matt: what kind of switches? 00:01:37.480 --> 00:01:37.980 Dillon: they're called 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:39.240 Dillon: red 00:01:40.180 --> 00:01:41.900 Dillon: clear top silent 00:01:42.640 --> 00:01:43.800 Dillon: they're complicated 00:01:44.920 --> 00:01:46.360 Scott: so they're silent switches 00:01:46.840 --> 00:01:47.320 Dillon: yeah 00:01:47.320 --> 00:01:48.420 Dillon: they're like pretty silent 00:01:48.580 --> 00:01:49.180 Dillon: they're really nice 00:01:51.959 --> 00:01:53.160 Scott: what kind of keyboard? 00:01:54.180 --> 00:01:54.739 Dillon: it's a 00:01:55.180 --> 00:02:00.540 Dillon: nuphy or nuphy oh you heard of that yes 00:02:00.540 --> 00:02:03.300 Scott: matt was looking at them now i know why 00:02:00.540 --> 00:02:03.300 Dillon: it's 00:02:03.300 --> 00:02:03.860 Dillon: got like 00:02:03.860 --> 00:02:03.980 Dillon: a 00:02:04.720 --> 00:02:12.960 Dillon: aluminum top with a plastic translucent bottom so the rgb shines through the bottom it's insane 00:02:14.020 --> 00:02:17.740 Dillon: everyone in the office is looking at me like that guy's really good coding 00:02:19.060 --> 00:02:19.260 Matt: nice 00:02:19.260 --> 00:02:23.579 Matt: yeah that's that's the best way to flex on your co-workers is uh with the new mechanical 00:02:23.600 --> 00:02:23.880 Matt: the keyboard. 00:02:24.280 --> 00:02:24.640 Dillon: Yeah. 00:02:26.420 --> 00:02:29.760 Matt: It's actually entirely coincidental that, like, I think maybe two days 00:02:29.960 --> 00:02:33.580 Matt: before you, oh, Scott's showing off his keyboards to the camera that no one could see it because 00:02:33.740 --> 00:02:40.880 Matt: it's an audio podcast, but entirely coincidental that, like, I think maybe two days before you 00:02:41.040 --> 00:02:43.800 Matt: said that you were getting that keyboard, that I was actually looking at the nuphy keyboards. 00:02:44.070 --> 00:02:49.000 Matt: And so, and then you basically, the fact that you bought one is like, all right, maybe I should 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:49.560 Matt: just get one also. 00:02:52.340 --> 00:02:54.100 Matt: So yeah, so hopefully mine's arriving. 00:02:54.600 --> 00:02:54.920 Matt: I don't know. 00:02:55.700 --> 00:02:56.760 Matt: Maybe next week. 00:02:56.900 --> 00:02:57.580 Dillon: Oh, you ordered it? 00:02:58.340 --> 00:02:59.960 Matt: Yeah, maybe for the next time I'm 00:02:59.960 --> 00:03:00.080 Matt: recording. 00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:01.980 Dillon: Did you order the Air or the regular? 00:03:02.780 --> 00:03:03.700 Matt: Yeah, I got the-- 00:03:04.470 --> 00:03:06.720 Matt: what is it, the Air 75 v2, I think. 00:03:07.080 --> 00:03:08.080 Matt: Originally, I was looking at the Air 60 00:03:08.620 --> 00:03:10.660 Matt: because I like the smaller form factor. 00:03:10.900 --> 00:03:13.560 Matt: But the fact that it didn't have the function key row 00:03:13.630 --> 00:03:17.860 Matt: at the top was kind of a reason for me to go to the 75. 00:03:18.880 --> 00:03:19.040 Matt: Mainly 00:03:19.040 --> 00:03:19.520 Matt: because it's 00:03:19.520 --> 00:03:21.540 Matt: like the media controls and like the volume and whatnot. 00:03:21.760 --> 00:03:22.640 Matt: Like that's really convenient. 00:03:23.300 --> 00:03:25.440 Matt: And the 60, you can like hold down the function key, I think, 00:03:25.580 --> 00:03:27.080 Matt: and sort of like do the same behavior. 00:03:27.320 --> 00:03:29.240 Matt: But yeah, I was like, all right, whatever. 00:03:29.540 --> 00:03:29.860 Matt: I'll just get 00:03:29.860 --> 00:03:30.180 Matt: 75. 00:03:30.700 --> 00:03:31.300 Matt: It's $10 more. 00:03:32.160 --> 00:03:33.740 Dillon: So what are we talking about today? 00:03:33.980 --> 00:03:34.300 Dillon: Keyboards? 00:03:36.780 --> 00:03:38.560 Matt: Well, maybe we should do an episode on keyboards. 00:03:40.020 --> 00:03:42.700 Matt: But today we're talking a little bit about engineering levels, 00:03:44.100 --> 00:03:47.760 Matt: what they are, like how they can be maybe confusing at times, 00:03:48.540 --> 00:03:50.900 Matt: like what it might mean for a promotion from, 00:03:51.020 --> 00:03:51.440 Matt: you know, 00:03:51.660 --> 00:03:53.660 Matt: junior to senior to senior to staff, et cetera. 00:03:55.300 --> 00:03:58.120 Matt: And, yeah, I think there's, like, kind of a lot of interesting things to talk about. 00:03:58.520 --> 00:04:00.860 Matt: Before we dig into that, though, we just wanted to give a quick shout-out 00:04:00.980 --> 00:04:05.180 Matt: to a friend of the pod, like maybe one of our few listeners right now. 00:04:06.080 --> 00:04:11.520 Matt: Yair, he gave us some decent feedback the other day in one of our Discord servers. 00:04:11.890 --> 00:04:12.740 Matt: We really appreciate it. 00:04:12.770 --> 00:04:13.880 Matt: We want to keep that feedback coming. 00:04:15.460 --> 00:04:23.980 Matt: But yeah, if anyone else has any other feedback or comments or whatnot that they want to share, feel free to join our new community Discord server. 00:04:24.400 --> 00:04:26.980 Matt: The invite for it should be on the website now. 00:04:28.600 --> 00:04:30.680 Matt: But yeah, we really appreciate this feedback. 00:04:33.160 --> 00:04:35.220 Matt: But yeah, so let's dig into engineering levels. 00:04:35.500 --> 00:04:39.640 Matt: I think this is kind of a very nuanced discussion. 00:04:39.720 --> 00:04:41.660 Matt: I think there's a lot of different aspects we can take this down. 00:04:43.040 --> 00:04:46.940 Matt: I think something maybe that's worth thinking about is like, you know, 00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:49.840 Matt: engineering levels and how they like, like, 00:04:49.980 --> 00:04:51.360 Matt: how do you handle getting promoted? 00:04:52.480 --> 00:04:54.080 Matt: I think oftentimes at different companies, 00:04:54.180 --> 00:04:57.560 Matt: it's like the process to get promoted from one level to another is very 00:04:57.960 --> 00:05:02.540 Matt: convoluted and, and you know, I don't know, difficult to reason about. 00:05:02.860 --> 00:05:06.640 Matt: Like, I think there's, if your company has a well written out career ladder, 00:05:06.840 --> 00:05:08.360 Matt: usually it's like not that actually, 00:05:08.420 --> 00:05:12.960 Matt: like not actually useful what I've found like very vague, 00:05:13.040 --> 00:05:17.440 Matt: and you kind of need to wait for some people to pave the path of going from one level to another 00:05:17.900 --> 00:05:21.020 Matt: before you kind of understand the guardrails of what's expected. 00:05:22.200 --> 00:05:28.180 Matt: I'm curious from your guys' perspective, maybe talk a little bit about if you had sort of a career jump, 00:05:28.260 --> 00:05:32.580 Matt: like a level jump that was unique or tricky to get through. 00:05:33.960 --> 00:05:34.640 Dillon: Want me to go first? 00:05:35.400 --> 00:05:36.000 Scott: Go ahead, yeah. 00:05:37.020 --> 00:05:37.200 Dillon: Cool. 00:05:38.420 --> 00:05:42.040 Dillon: I think the first thing I think of in terms of promotion, 00:05:42.540 --> 00:05:44.060 Dillon: that's what you want me to touch on, right, Matt? 00:05:45.080 --> 00:05:46.100 Matt: Yeah, I think that would be worth it. 00:05:46.680 --> 00:05:47.300 Dillon: Yeah, cool. 00:05:48.320 --> 00:05:52.580 Dillon: Is that when you're at a company and you want a promotion, 00:05:52.800 --> 00:05:55.520 Dillon: you need to make it very clear very early on to your manager 00:05:56.800 --> 00:05:58.020 Dillon: that that's what you want. 00:05:59.360 --> 00:06:00.980 Dillon: Because if you wait too long 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:03.460 Dillon: and you expect at your performance review to get promoted, 00:06:03.960 --> 00:06:05.940 Dillon: it's highly unlikely that you're going to get promoted 00:06:06.460 --> 00:06:08.260 Dillon: unless you made it very clear you wanted that. 00:06:08.740 --> 00:06:12.920 Dillon: I've just seen that in the past. Maybe there's unique cases where people just get promoted, 00:06:13.800 --> 00:06:20.160 Dillon: but I don't think that's very normal. And then the other way to get promoted is just 00:06:20.590 --> 00:06:24.800 Dillon: find a new job. That's probably the easier way to get promoted from what I've seen. 00:06:26.260 --> 00:06:29.840 Scott: That's a great answer. So you have the two 00:06:29.840 --> 00:06:30.180 Scott: questions. 00:06:30.210 --> 00:06:31.680 Scott: How do you handle getting promoted? 00:06:31.980 --> 00:06:42.580 Scott: So Dillon calling out, making clear what you want from your manager ahead of time, the sooner you let them know, the more likely you will get that promotion. 00:06:44.060 --> 00:06:49.340 Scott: And then the other thing you brought up was like a level jump that was unique, I think, Matt, right? 00:06:49.560 --> 00:06:57.580 Scott: So I immediately thought of my current situation of actually going from staff down to senior. 00:06:58.500 --> 00:07:05.960 Scott: We could get into this a little bit later, but more so, I have been considered a staff engineer for the past few years. 00:07:06.780 --> 00:07:09.160 Scott: I took a role that has me be a senior engineer. 00:07:10.600 --> 00:07:16.300 Scott: And to be honest, it didn't bother me that the title changed at all. 00:07:17.080 --> 00:07:25.180 Scott: As essentially, it's a role at Airbnb, and the compensation was great. 00:07:26.540 --> 00:07:31.380 Scott: and it allows me to get in at maybe like a lower level. 00:07:31.520 --> 00:07:34.380 Scott: So the expectation might not be as high 00:07:34.500 --> 00:07:35.560 Scott: and a little bit less pressure. 00:07:36.040 --> 00:07:37.620 Scott: So it allowed me to be more successful 00:07:38.140 --> 00:07:39.440 Scott: as I grow into that role. 00:07:39.840 --> 00:07:42.900 Scott: I was trying to think of a example of going up levels. 00:07:43.640 --> 00:07:46.640 Scott: I didn't with the timeframe yet, 00:07:46.920 --> 00:07:50.040 Scott: but that I found is unique in the sense that 00:07:51.660 --> 00:07:55.099 Scott: levels are not the same from company to company 00:07:55.840 --> 00:07:57.960 Scott: and expectations aren't the same from company to company. 00:07:58.480 --> 00:08:02.820 Scott: But just knowing that my title is a little bit lower, 00:08:03.100 --> 00:08:08.120 Scott: I feel like I have even more of a strength coming in 00:08:08.360 --> 00:08:11.580 Scott: and feeling like I can really set a high bar for myself 00:08:12.180 --> 00:08:15.900 Scott: and really show that maybe I'm actually at the higher level. 00:08:17.500 --> 00:08:18.460 Matt: Yeah, that's a good call out. 00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:23.600 Matt: I think like levels, yeah, exactly what you're saying. 00:08:23.760 --> 00:08:26.460 Matt: levels between companies are like very hard to sort of align. 00:08:26.900 --> 00:08:29.660 Matt: Like, you know, what might be a senior at one company is, 00:08:30.320 --> 00:08:33.440 Matt: might be a junior at another company or might be a staff at another company. 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:36.760 Matt: Like it sort of depends on how they've structured their, you know, 00:08:37.469 --> 00:08:38.760 Matt: career ladder or like, you know, 00:08:38.789 --> 00:08:43.140 Matt: how they've laid out the path from going from one level to the next. 00:08:45.280 --> 00:08:48.720 Matt: Yeah, it's interesting. I think like in many ways, and, you know, 00:08:48.820 --> 00:08:51.280 Matt: maybe this is like just the way I see it. Maybe Scott, you disagree, 00:08:51.500 --> 00:09:08.380 Matt: But like, I think when you like, especially going from like, maybe, maybe like either smaller companies or maybe less well, sort of like less popular or sort of like not as well known companies to more popular companies or like bigger companies. 00:09:08.480 --> 00:09:18.240 Matt: So like, you know, for example, like your move from, from Tollbit to Airbnb, it's like you're joining a more prestigious, like maybe the wrong word for it, but like sort of 00:09:18.240 --> 00:09:19.060 Matt: more well known 00:09:19.060 --> 00:09:19.360 Matt: company. 00:09:19.460 --> 00:09:27.360 Matt: And so the levels are maybe a little bit more, I don't know, well-versed or well-structured, potentially. 00:09:29.720 --> 00:09:34.160 Matt: A senior at Airbnb has a little bit more weight than a senior at Wayfair, for example. 00:09:34.780 --> 00:09:35.860 Matt: Just because it's like you have that. 00:09:36.640 --> 00:09:40.480 Matt: I keep coming back to prestigious as the word to describe it, but there's probably a better word for it. 00:09:41.800 --> 00:09:44.620 Matt: But it's just like there's, I don't know, more insight to it. 00:09:44.960 --> 00:09:49.540 Matt: In the same way that a senior at Google is probably seen as a stronger engineer, maybe, 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:52.660 Matt: by most people than a senior at Wayfair. 00:09:54.460 --> 00:09:55.760 Matt: For lack of a better reason. 00:09:56.720 --> 00:09:57.520 Scott: I entirely 00:09:57.520 --> 00:09:58.180 Scott: do 00:09:58.180 --> 00:09:58.520 Scott: agree, 00:09:58.780 --> 00:09:58.860 Scott: actually. 00:09:59.660 --> 00:10:00.220 Scott: I think what 00:10:00.220 --> 00:10:03.900 Scott: you're getting at is, yeah, you say prestigious is a good one, I think, 00:10:04.040 --> 00:10:09.020 Scott: but competitive, in a sense, is also another word I was thinking of to describe what you're 00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:09.260 Scott: saying. 00:10:09.700 --> 00:10:29.180 Scott: But smaller companies essentially are more likely to give you a larger title or, yeah, they're more likely to give you a more all-encompassing title because you're doing a larger scope for them as opposed to being a little bit more in a niche at a larger company. 00:10:29.890 --> 00:10:32.820 Scott: And then the more, I guess, like I was going to say prestigious as 00:10:32.820 --> 00:10:37.920 Scott: well, company you're at, the harder it might be to get some of those titles as well. 00:10:38.580 --> 00:10:45.260 Scott: So it's just interesting that you could 00:10:45.260 --> 00:10:45.800 Scott: probably, 00:10:45.960 --> 00:10:48.640 Scott: some small businesses, as Matt and I have realized, 00:10:48.760 --> 00:10:51.260 Scott: is that they don't even care if you self-title yourself. 00:10:51.440 --> 00:10:54.280 Scott: They might just call you, you're a software engineer, 00:10:54.600 --> 00:10:55.320 Scott: you're a front-end engineer, 00:10:55.580 --> 00:10:59.020 Scott: and then you want to call yourself a staff, go for it, right? 00:11:00.420 --> 00:11:05.220 Scott: But as you are at a larger, more, I guess, again, 00:11:05.360 --> 00:11:11.540 Scott: prestigious business those titles tend to reflect a little bit more people like put a little bit more 00:11:11.740 --> 00:11:15.120 Scott: weight into them and then they are harder to obtain or achieve 00:11:15.120 --> 00:11:17.780 Dillon: i'm going to quickly touch on what scott 00:11:17.920 --> 00:11:20.920 Dillon: said because it brought back a thought from like early in my career 00:11:20.920 --> 00:11:22.580 Dillon: where i went 00:11:22.580 --> 00:11:23.140 Dillon: from like working 00:11:23.280 --> 00:11:29.299 Dillon: at a startup to working in an agency and i only had like three years of experience and i was doing 00:11:29.320 --> 00:11:38.240 Dillon: like prototype work for this agency so they could build like like examples for for potential clients 00:11:38.520 --> 00:11:46.100 Dillon: to sell them for like building an ios app i would build like a web prototype and somewhere later on 00:11:46.360 --> 00:11:51.760 Dillon: working there i no longer needed to do that work and so i was like trying to fill a niche in the 00:11:51.880 --> 00:11:57.399 Dillon: business of like doing marketing and i just like self-titled myself at the agency as like the 00:11:57.240 --> 00:12:02.240 Dillon: director of marketing because nobody was doing it but it was just hilarious at that time and be 00:12:03.340 --> 00:12:07.260 Dillon: like the boss like the ceo of the company's like yeah it's fine you can you can have that title 00:12:08.160 --> 00:12:13.380 Dillon: but it didn't mean anything it didn't change my salary so it's it's funny to see how at small 00:12:13.480 --> 00:12:19.320 Dillon: businesses i feel like titles don't really matter at all and they start to matter more at more um 00:12:20.500 --> 00:12:24.020 Dillon: just like set i don't know prestigious companies i guess like you guys are saying 00:12:25.940 --> 00:12:31.000 Scott: we grew really fast at wayfair um wayfair was why 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:33.620 Scott: when i started wayfair had an ipo and then they 00:12:33.820 --> 00:12:41.220 Scott: ipo'd and they were rapidly growing into a larger tech org and i remember working prior to wayfair 00:12:41.380 --> 00:12:47.260 Scott: so years ago with with a colleague who was like it takes you a decade senior to become a senior 00:12:47.420 --> 00:12:53.779 Scott: seniors are actually like you've done like 10 years of experience at least to be a senior but 00:12:54.440 --> 00:13:06.080 Scott: When you're working at a tech company that's smaller or a company that's rapidly growing like that, you might still be pretty young and not really have that much experience and start gaining really high titles really fast. 00:13:06.430 --> 00:13:09.240 Scott: And there's pros and cons to moving up the ladder faster. 00:13:10.080 --> 00:13:14.940 Scott: I have a lot of thoughts. We'll probably get into this, but I have a lot of thoughts about, 00:13:16.190 --> 00:13:21.820 Scott: do you want to move up the ladder super fast at a company and then realize when you try to go to 00:13:21.830 --> 00:13:27.760 Scott: the next company that you might not have the confidence in what you do? Like if you've been 00:13:28.240 --> 00:13:32.360 Scott: an engineer for five years, you go from senior to like director, and now you're trying to be 00:13:32.580 --> 00:13:38.060 Scott: director. And now your options are limited because you have to work at maybe like a startup or a 00:13:38.020 --> 00:13:43.280 Scott: smaller business that is willing to give you that opportunity. It's interesting that you'll see some 00:13:43.500 --> 00:13:49.600 Scott: folks move up the ladder faster. And sometimes you'll think, oh, like, I think I'm better than 00:13:49.740 --> 00:13:54.840 Scott: that person. Why don't I move up the ladder faster? And it is not always, in my opinion, 00:13:55.500 --> 00:14:01.759 Scott: about the speed in which you move up the ladder. It is about your confidence. It's about the ability 00:14:01.760 --> 00:14:08.220 Scott: for you to execute and soak up as much knowledge and make sure you're still learning at the 00:14:08.420 --> 00:14:12.920 Scott: job and in the job that you're at, that you feel like you're growing and that you can 00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:15.440 Scott: move comfortably to a new job. 00:14:15.880 --> 00:14:22.600 Scott: The worst feeling I ever had was working at a company for so long that I didn't know or 00:14:22.700 --> 00:14:26.120 Scott: have the confidence that I could go and do an interview and get a new job. 00:14:26.600 --> 00:14:28.160 Scott: Those are terrible feelings. 00:14:28.760 --> 00:14:33.700 Scott: And they're usually feelings that you either need to do some work on the weekends. 00:14:34.270 --> 00:14:38.640 Scott: And I hate that we have to do this in our industry, but do some work on the weekends 00:14:38.810 --> 00:14:46.920 Scott: for you to get some confidence in your ability to execute or finding better opportunities 00:14:47.240 --> 00:14:51.640 Scott: at work to make sure that you're working on something that you're not comfortable in. 00:14:52.080 --> 00:14:58.040 Scott: And sometimes the worst thing to do at work is tasks you're not comfortable in because 00:14:58.020 --> 00:15:02.120 Scott: you don't want to do them but the more you do them the more you get comfortable yeah 00:15:02.120 --> 00:15:03.200 Matt: i think uh i 00:15:03.200 --> 00:15:08.580 Matt: guess like more of an as an aside like i'm curious like what your guys take on like why maybe most of 00:15:08.640 --> 00:15:14.240 Matt: us moved pretty fast at wayfair in terms of the career ladder i think my thinking of it is like 00:15:14.320 --> 00:15:20.000 Matt: maybe twofold is like just a sort of the years in which we were at wayfair which we overlapped at 00:15:20.260 --> 00:15:26.119 Matt: wayfair sort of uh like i think those years just generally across the industry scaled pretty quickly 00:15:27.120 --> 00:15:32.920 Matt: but then also maybe just like Wayfair itself was also scaling relatively quickly within those years 00:15:33.060 --> 00:15:39.220 Matt: like I know when I joined it was like a huge hiring push you know like a ton of people being hired 00:15:39.980 --> 00:15:44.340 Matt: almost every week and you know obviously that slowed down over the years and like sort of 00:15:44.490 --> 00:15:48.400 Matt: that picked back up over the years and like sort of in these periods but I feel like that maybe 00:15:48.720 --> 00:15:50.640 Matt: contributed to it yeah 00:15:50.640 --> 00:15:54.339 Scott: one thing to note too is in those earlier years right Matt we were growing 00:15:54.360 --> 00:16:00.520 Scott: really fast. We were moving up levels really fast, but towards the latter half, as the company, 00:16:02.360 --> 00:16:07.720 Scott: I guess, struggled to find an identity in what they were making, you notice that the growth 00:16:08.020 --> 00:16:13.780 Scott: trajectory was clearly slimmed down. You still saw some people grow really high up in that 00:16:13.980 --> 00:16:20.279 Scott: organization, but we were not moving as fast. I think in the first three years, I was from level 00:16:20.300 --> 00:16:24.860 Scott: one to level three and then i was level three for like four or five years before i became a level 00:16:24.970 --> 00:16:31.280 Scott: four there so i mean i just want to note like at wayfair level one two three and four were like 00:16:31.540 --> 00:16:39.580 Scott: junior regular senior and staff at the time they even changed the levels however all these companies 00:16:39.780 --> 00:16:44.899 Scott: they tend to have their own lingo and like i said a little bit earlier the levels don't often 00:16:44.900 --> 00:16:52.900 Scott: actually mean the same from company to company. It's really just like, what is your experience 00:16:53.600 --> 00:16:59.580 Scott: within the company and maybe some that you bring from outside? So they just used one through four 00:16:59.740 --> 00:17:07.699 Scott: leveling. At Airbnb, if you're a senior, you're called a G9. And then they go for 10, 11, 12. 00:17:08.120 --> 00:17:13.479 Scott: It's kind of wild. So I know that at HubSpot, I'll speak for Matt a little bit. It's a software 00:17:13.500 --> 00:17:18.480 Scott: engineer or probably a junior a software engineer and then like a senior one and a senior two and 00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:24.839 Scott: then you move up to staff um they do have titles at airbnb alongside that so like a g9 would be a 00:17:24.939 --> 00:17:30.100 Scott: senior software engineer and then it moves up to a staff engineer and a senior staff engineer 00:17:30.440 --> 00:17:37.039 Scott: principal architect like that but levels are just kind of a little bit arbitrary yes people speak 00:17:37.480 --> 00:17:44.960 Scott: into their levels, but I also feel sometimes people, based on circumstances and maybe 00:17:45.980 --> 00:17:51.100 Scott: happenstance and luck, kind of fall ass backwards into their position based on need. 00:17:52.110 --> 00:17:57.600 Scott: So I've talked to a friend who we used to work with at Wayfair about seeing some people 00:17:57.730 --> 00:18:00.580 Scott: at director levels that I didn't expect. 00:18:01.500 --> 00:18:03.740 Scott: And he said, oh, they just really advocated for it. 00:18:04.800 --> 00:18:08.720 Scott: some people get to direct a level within the same company but some people leave and also get to that 00:18:08.760 --> 00:18:15.660 Scott: level pretty fast as well and i also i feel like it's a level of luck um it's not all luck it's 00:18:15.780 --> 00:18:21.640 Scott: definitely skill but sometimes the company has to have a necessity for you to end up in that situation 00:18:21.960 --> 00:18:23.360 Dillon: yeah exactly 00:18:23.360 --> 00:18:29.560 Dillon: scott it's like if there's no opportunity at that place then 00:18:29.560 --> 00:18:30.880 Dillon: what are you 00:18:30.820 --> 00:18:38.400 Dillon: getting promoted in to do like and I found that at Wayfair I went from L2 when I started to L3 00:18:39.100 --> 00:18:44.140 Dillon: and I never really made it to L4 part of that was definitely on me not having the ambition at that 00:18:44.280 --> 00:18:49.700 Dillon: time but I'm looking back also in the last few years I was there there just wasn't a lot of 00:18:50.040 --> 00:18:56.260 Dillon: opportunity within the teams I was in to to to like grow into that level like if I got to that 00:18:56.310 --> 00:19:00.780 Dillon: level like what would I be doing more within the team there just wasn't a lot going on and 00:19:00.800 --> 00:19:07.240 Dillon: another point you made earlier was like if you you started to you possibly started to feel like 00:19:07.700 --> 00:19:13.360 Dillon: how hireable am i and i think that's a good sense of like if you're not being challenged at your job 00:19:14.100 --> 00:19:21.600 Dillon: you're not going to be like increasing your skills and be very hireable i i feel like where i'm at 00:19:21.720 --> 00:19:26.740 Dillon: now i'm doing so many different challenging things all at once that i feel the most hireable ever 00:19:26.760 --> 00:19:31.840 Dillon: been even before getting hired here, which is like crazy to look back on. Like, I feel like I've 00:19:31.940 --> 00:19:36.920 Dillon: learned more in six months than the last three years, which is like, I'm kind of sad to say it 00:19:36.920 --> 00:19:39.380 Dillon: in a way, but I'm really glad that I've made the change. 00:19:40.900 --> 00:19:42.780 Matt: Yeah, I think something you were kind of 00:19:42.860 --> 00:19:49.700 Matt: hinting on, Scott, and also Dillon, like is the, I think a lot of people look at, you know, the only 00:19:49.710 --> 00:19:55.140 Matt: way to grow is to go to the next level. And I think that's maybe not always exactly correct. I think 00:19:56.000 --> 00:19:59.460 Matt: certainly that is an avenue for growth within a company. 00:20:00.300 --> 00:20:03.920 Matt: You could also grow by going to another company, like what Scott was saying. 00:20:04.120 --> 00:20:07.720 Matt: You could just move to another company to change levels or change the growth there. 00:20:08.180 --> 00:20:12.720 Matt: But I think also importantly, a lot of people maybe sort of miss out on the opportunity to grow. 00:20:13.520 --> 00:20:16.880 Matt: I don't know the right term, but if you think of levels as sort of vertically, 00:20:17.160 --> 00:20:21.880 Matt: you can grow laterally within your level, sort of branch out to other things. 00:20:22.180 --> 00:20:26.100 Matt: I mean, Dillon was kind of talking about this when he was working at the agency, right? 00:20:26.190 --> 00:20:30.720 Matt: It's like you just move into another area that your company or your team or your organization, 00:20:31.320 --> 00:20:34.580 Matt: whatever scope you want to think about, has a need, like grow into that need. 00:20:34.610 --> 00:20:39.500 Matt: And then, you know, I think for the most part, if you're working at a larger company, 00:20:39.590 --> 00:20:44.200 Matt: you probably won't necessarily see a lot of maybe return on investment from the company 00:20:44.360 --> 00:20:48.360 Matt: or sort of like the company might not see that work or effort you're putting into. 00:20:48.800 --> 00:20:57.980 Matt: But I think you will see it internally in terms of like your own growth of like things you better understand, things you might be more interested in if you decide to pivot or whatever. 00:20:59.120 --> 00:21:03.700 Matt: Or just like make you seem more fit for a different company, maybe potentially. 00:21:04.110 --> 00:21:09.040 Dillon: I just wanted to add on to that, Matt, about like seeing opportunity within a company. 00:21:09.380 --> 00:21:16.380 Dillon: I think that's probably the fastest way to grow within an org is to like on your own, 00:21:16.650 --> 00:21:18.860 Dillon: figure out what the company needs and go and solve it. 00:21:19.020 --> 00:21:21.240 Dillon: Don't like silo yourself into, oh, I'm a software engineer. 00:21:21.240 --> 00:21:22.240 Dillon: I'm just going to write code all day. 00:21:22.650 --> 00:21:28.620 Dillon: Like figure out the company's problems and like call those out and work with teams beyond 00:21:28.790 --> 00:21:30.120 Dillon: your team to figure that out. 00:21:30.360 --> 00:21:35.240 Dillon: Like the company will notice that you're being very valuable to them and appreciate it. 00:21:37.020 --> 00:21:38.700 Dillon: sometimes people don't want to do that because they're like, 00:21:39.190 --> 00:21:40.660 Dillon: oh, wait, now I'm not going to be coding all day. 00:21:40.720 --> 00:21:43.840 Dillon: I'm going to be doing this other stuff that I didn't really sign up for. 00:21:44.600 --> 00:21:46.440 Dillon: But if you want to grow quickly, that's the way to do it. 00:21:46.440 --> 00:21:48.280 Dillon: It's like solve problems for the company. 00:21:49.430 --> 00:21:52.660 Matt: Yeah, and I think even if you don't see like top-down appreciation 00:21:53.020 --> 00:21:54.880 Matt: from the company you're in of that, 00:21:54.990 --> 00:21:58.180 Matt: I think you'll probably definitely see people in your organization 00:21:59.320 --> 00:22:00.440 Matt: that will appreciate it. 00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:02.460 Matt: So like, you know, maybe you're a direct manager 00:22:02.510 --> 00:22:04.040 Matt: or maybe the skip level, things like that. 00:22:04.360 --> 00:22:08.520 Matt: they'll probably notice what you're doing and give you praise for it. 00:22:08.620 --> 00:22:13.000 Matt: And if anything, it maybe opens the doors down the road for other things as well. 00:22:13.140 --> 00:22:18.100 Matt: It's like, oh, two years ago, I remember this person that was doing X, 00:22:18.240 --> 00:22:21.000 Matt: and it's like, great, they might be a great fit for this thing now 00:22:21.860 --> 00:22:23.720 Matt: because they've been continuing to put in that effort. 00:22:25.020 --> 00:22:26.760 Scott: Yeah, and just on top of what you're saying, Matt, 00:22:27.600 --> 00:22:31.559 Scott: there is a lot of good examples of you kind of going above and beyond at Wayfair 00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:37.740 Scott: and filling gaps that maybe weren't, wasn't asked of you, but turned out to be appreciated by your 00:22:37.870 --> 00:22:42.140 Scott: fellow front-end engineers, like things, documentation stuff that we didn't get enough 00:22:42.190 --> 00:22:50.200 Scott: time to really spend on to make it good. However, like you would try to do that and you ended up 00:22:50.380 --> 00:22:58.300 Scott: building a rapport with front-end engineers and a perception of yourself that like Matt can, 00:22:58.720 --> 00:22:59.240 Scott: Matt does everything. 00:22:59.350 --> 00:23:00.400 Scott: He can do it really fast. 00:23:00.600 --> 00:23:03.140 Scott: And well, to a degree, that's definitely true about you. 00:23:03.190 --> 00:23:10.760 Scott: But like you really made a name for yourself and people knew of you because you actually 00:23:11.020 --> 00:23:15.400 Scott: just showed that you cared and found opportunities that maybe you didn't want to do. 00:23:16.210 --> 00:23:17.780 Scott: But you saw that these were problems. 00:23:18.560 --> 00:23:26.200 Scott: I actually faced something like this at Airbnb literally yesterday where I used neovim and 00:23:26.200 --> 00:23:32.100 Scott: And I'm gung-ho about making sure I use it in a virtual space. 00:23:33.040 --> 00:23:35.320 Scott: And there's like one command line in the docs. 00:23:35.580 --> 00:23:36.940 Scott: The docs there are actually really good. 00:23:37.600 --> 00:23:43.280 Scott: But for this, it's not because everyone just uses VS Code, I assume, based on the docs. 00:23:43.840 --> 00:23:52.880 Scott: And I thought that like, oh, once I get this running, I'm actually just going to convert this into a more clear doc and ask to update the doc. 00:23:53.400 --> 00:23:54.960 Scott: And that's not something anyone's asking for, 00:23:54.980 --> 00:23:56.420 Scott: but I know the next person who's me, 00:23:56.860 --> 00:23:58.920 Scott: who goes to do this, doesn't want to spend hours. 00:23:59.180 --> 00:24:00.660 Scott: They would rather have like a template 00:24:01.200 --> 00:24:02.060 Scott: that they could work off of. 00:24:02.160 --> 00:24:03.540 Scott: Right now, the template to work off 00:24:03.620 --> 00:24:06.900 Scott: is somebody else's dotfiles config. 00:24:07.320 --> 00:24:11.260 Scott: And I'm getting a little engineer speak here, 00:24:11.500 --> 00:24:14.600 Scott: but not everyone uses NeoVim there. 00:24:14.720 --> 00:24:16.920 Scott: Some of them use Vim, some use them Tmux and whatnot. 00:24:17.380 --> 00:24:20.020 Scott: So it's not like I can just copy and paste a template, 00:24:20.200 --> 00:24:22.360 Scott: but I'm going to leave a template for folks. 00:24:22.680 --> 00:24:23.960 Scott: I just see that as an opportunity. 00:24:24.660 --> 00:24:26.420 Scott: I'm already doing the work to get there. 00:24:26.940 --> 00:24:28.460 Scott: And someone is going to see that, 00:24:28.860 --> 00:24:30.140 Scott: see that you did it and appreciate 00:24:30.140 --> 00:24:30.540 Scott: it. 00:24:30.590 --> 00:24:32.800 Scott: And those are things that I learned from Matt at Wayfair. 00:24:33.720 --> 00:24:36.260 Dillon: Yeah, I just wanted to add on to Matt's praises, 00:24:38.240 --> 00:24:39.380 Dillon: seconding something Scott said, 00:24:39.410 --> 00:24:43.640 Dillon: but basically the fact that Matt would go 00:24:43.940 --> 00:24:46.380 Dillon: like outside the team and like work with others 00:24:46.560 --> 00:24:47.500 Dillon: and like try to solve problems. 00:24:47.960 --> 00:24:49.640 Dillon: I think it helped him as an engineer, 00:24:50.740 --> 00:24:55.640 Dillon: like build a stronger mental model than every front end engineer about like how the how all 00:24:55.640 --> 00:25:01.720 Dillon: the different systems at Wayfair connected and he was able to like drive conversations with 00:25:02.340 --> 00:25:07.580 Dillon: multiple stakeholders across teams that we weren't able to do like we would show up in those meetings 00:25:07.660 --> 00:25:13.080 Dillon: and just be like Matt what do you think because we knew you had that context and we just hadn't put 00:25:13.080 --> 00:25:17.319 Dillon: in the work to like connect those dots ourselves but and then that's something like I look back on 00:25:17.340 --> 00:25:20.320 Dillon: And I think I've improved on a lot where I am now. 00:25:21.980 --> 00:25:25.920 Dillon: But yeah, it's something I look back and I'm like, man, I wish I had done that more. 00:25:26.600 --> 00:25:27.360 Dillon: But I'm doing it now. 00:25:27.620 --> 00:25:28.460 Dillon: So that's good. 00:25:29.460 --> 00:25:29.740 Scott: I want to 00:25:29.740 --> 00:25:30.780 Scott: reflect on that point quickly. 00:25:32.480 --> 00:25:36.580 Scott: I just have to say that Dillon is on fire with that point. 00:25:36.740 --> 00:25:39.900 Scott: That's a Diablo point about that. 00:25:40.560 --> 00:25:43.600 Scott: That at Airbnb, I have made it a point. 00:25:44.080 --> 00:25:47.320 Scott: It just started, but I'm already trying to reach out to other teams, 00:25:47.800 --> 00:25:51.040 Scott: like teams that are web platform and design system, 00:25:51.900 --> 00:25:54.640 Scott: to learn about what their expectations are 00:25:55.460 --> 00:25:58.040 Scott: so that I can be the best partner as possible. 00:25:58.240 --> 00:25:59.800 Scott: And I learned that exact same thing from 00:25:59.800 --> 00:26:00.060 Scott: Matt. 00:26:00.160 --> 00:26:01.040 Scott: This is the Matt episode. 00:26:04.400 --> 00:26:04.880 Matt: Dillon, 00:26:04.940 --> 00:26:05.920 Matt: did you have a follow-up point there? 00:26:08.240 --> 00:26:09.700 Dillon: Go ahead. I'll save it. 00:26:11.060 --> 00:26:24.420 Matt: Well, so I think one thing that is easy to overlook with this stuff is like it takes a lot of time and effort to build up that leverage or that context. 00:26:24.990 --> 00:26:27.300 Matt: And I think the context is what gives you leverage. 00:26:27.890 --> 00:26:37.620 Matt: I think there's this person on Twitter that was really active years and years ago that would tweet out really sort of sage wisdom within the VC space. 00:26:37.800 --> 00:26:43.720 Matt: But I think one of the stakes was like around leverage and like information is like leverage within the economy. 00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:53.240 Matt: But the like the the thing that I think a lot of people maybe overlook is that, you know, maybe no matter what your level is, 00:26:53.290 --> 00:27:04.380 Matt: like the more time and experience you have at that company or in that role or in that organization is going to give you a lot more leverage in terms of delivering results that are valued. 00:27:05.559 --> 00:27:15.720 Matt: The fact that maybe I knew the teams to connect with at Wayfair was because of the eight years that I spent there. 00:27:17.020 --> 00:27:21.040 Matt: The fact that I was able to connect with other people across the org and understand that over time. 00:27:21.100 --> 00:27:24.440 Matt: It was just slowly build up this network of people I know who to reach out to. 00:27:25.620 --> 00:27:28.080 Matt: Things that I've seen happening at the org and things like that. 00:27:28.080 --> 00:27:32.640 Matt: So I think that's something that maybe a lot of, and this is maybe going down a different point or a different path, 00:27:32.840 --> 00:27:48.060 Matt: But it's like, you know, I think another opportunity of like growing within a level is just like sort of the more time spent in that level or at that organization gives you a lot more return on investment than if you're a fresh, you know, fresh person coming into the company at that level. 00:27:48.370 --> 00:27:55.260 Matt: Like you're just not going to have the same perspective or context or awareness that the person that's been there 10 years is going to have. 00:27:56.160 --> 00:28:23.820 Matt: Which is like, I think another interesting thing is like, often we look at, you know, switching from company to company and like maybe getting promoted, but it's like, you might come in at a different level. But like, there's people that have been in that company for a while, probably, and they probably know a lot more than you do when you're joining. And it's like kind of this weird, at least I've found this, like, I found this, especially when I joined HubSpot is like, there's this like weird vibe of like, it's like, am I actually this level? Like, should I be a level lower? 00:28:23.880 --> 00:28:26.060 Matt: because there's the people I look around 00:28:26.170 --> 00:28:27.360 Matt: that are maybe a level lower than me, 00:28:27.370 --> 00:28:28.380 Matt: but they know so much more 00:28:28.580 --> 00:28:29.360 Matt: because they've just been there. 00:28:29.740 --> 00:28:31.920 Matt: They have the benefit of having spent time there 00:28:32.100 --> 00:28:34.520 Matt: and understanding the ins and outs 00:28:34.770 --> 00:28:36.120 Matt: of engineering at HubSpot, for example. 00:28:36.670 --> 00:28:38.380 Matt: And so it's just this weird thing 00:28:38.430 --> 00:28:39.100 Matt: to come to terms with. 00:28:39.280 --> 00:28:39.520 Matt: I don't know. 00:28:39.640 --> 00:28:40.260 Matt: Maybe it's just like my, 00:28:41.360 --> 00:28:41.920 Matt: what's that, 00:28:44.280 --> 00:28:46.800 Matt: where you always think that you're... 00:28:46.840 --> 00:28:47.540 Scott: Imposter syndrome. 00:28:47.780 --> 00:28:48.780 Matt: Yes, imposter syndrome. 00:28:49.020 --> 00:28:49.140 Matt: Exactly. 00:28:49.900 --> 00:28:51.120 Matt: It's 100% leaning into that. 00:28:51.180 --> 00:28:55.540 Matt: It's like, I shouldn't be at this level because these other people know it better than me. 00:28:55.680 --> 00:28:57.480 Matt: Why are they not at this level also or whatever? 00:28:57.820 --> 00:29:02.840 Scott: Well, I just want to quickly add that it's interesting that I'm not at that point. 00:29:03.280 --> 00:29:05.680 Scott: And you've been at HubSpot by about three, four months now. 00:29:06.440 --> 00:29:11.660 Scott: And one point people always say is it takes up to six months to realistically ramp up to a job. 00:29:11.860 --> 00:29:12.660 Scott: You're not quite there yet. 00:29:13.140 --> 00:29:17.720 Scott: So I'm interested in maybe how I'll feel in a couple months to revisit that discussion. 00:29:18.920 --> 00:29:19.460 Scott: I have that. 00:29:19.660 --> 00:29:24.880 Scott: I had a lot of imposter syndrome at Wayfair, especially middle to end. 00:29:25.600 --> 00:29:28.760 Scott: And I don't think imposter syndrome is necessarily good, 00:29:28.840 --> 00:29:31.200 Scott: but it's also, I think, a sign of honesty 00:29:31.900 --> 00:29:34.640 Scott: that you actually want to make sure you're adding value. 00:29:35.700 --> 00:29:37.720 Scott: But I just mostly want to point out, 00:29:38.320 --> 00:29:40.580 Scott: it's probably something worth revisiting in like three months 00:29:40.640 --> 00:29:42.140 Scott: to see, Matt, where you're at, 00:29:42.140 --> 00:29:44.860 Scott: and if I'm starting to feel that same level of imposter syndrome. 00:29:46.320 --> 00:29:48.080 Dillon: Yeah, I wanted to add something from a little bit earlier, 00:29:48.580 --> 00:29:49.540 Dillon: like five minutes ago, 00:29:52.040 --> 00:29:52.760 Dillon: related to, 00:29:54.520 --> 00:29:55.700 Dillon: like, when you start a new job, 00:29:56.900 --> 00:29:59.380 Dillon: like, one of the things I did at Whoop 00:29:59.680 --> 00:30:01.260 Dillon: that I'm very proud of, looking back, 00:30:01.570 --> 00:30:03.200 Dillon: I just, I want to, since we've been praising Matt, 00:30:03.210 --> 00:30:06.180 Dillon: I want to stop praising Matt and praise myself a little bit 00:30:06.670 --> 00:30:07.740 Dillon: for something good that I did. 00:30:09.000 --> 00:30:09.100 Dillon: When 00:30:09.100 --> 00:30:09.940 Dillon: I joined Whoop, 00:30:11.900 --> 00:30:14.740 Dillon: I, before I got, like, super ingrained into a project 00:30:14.980 --> 00:30:15.620 Dillon: and super distracted, 00:30:15.750 --> 00:30:18.080 Dillon: one of the things that I made a point was to set up, 00:30:18.520 --> 00:30:25.540 Dillon: as many one-on-ones with people with my team close to my team within the first two weeks 00:30:25.920 --> 00:30:29.800 Dillon: because I just wanted to like pick the brains understand what everyone's doing so that when 00:30:30.120 --> 00:30:35.200 Dillon: when something does come up down the line I know who to reach out to and I set up like 25 one-on-ones 00:30:35.320 --> 00:30:41.200 Dillon: my first two weeks it was a lot but looking back I'm like super glad I did it and I recommend this 00:30:41.280 --> 00:30:46.700 Dillon: to everyone is just get to know as many people as you can because when you get deep in the weeds on 00:30:46.720 --> 00:30:52.040 Dillon: a project, you can be like, oh, this person on this team that's very far from my team knows about 00:30:52.120 --> 00:30:53.780 Dillon: this and I can go talk to them now. Go ahead, Scott. 00:30:55.380 --> 00:30:56.440 Scott: So this is exactly 00:30:56.440 --> 00:30:57.500 Scott: what I was getting at 00:30:57.680 --> 00:31:00.300 Scott: and saying about learning 00:31:00.300 --> 00:31:03.760 Scott: from Matt kind of, but coming into Airbnb, I've just, I've been reaching 00:31:03.880 --> 00:31:08.200 Scott: out to the people who interviewed me, making, trying to make connections. They actually told 00:31:08.220 --> 00:31:12.760 Scott: me in an interview that like one of the hard things is that we're remote and that, you know, 00:31:12.820 --> 00:31:15.720 Scott: you might not know people, so you're going to have to go out of your way to make connections. 00:31:16.340 --> 00:31:17.620 Scott: And I really did take that to heart. 00:31:17.740 --> 00:31:20.920 Scott: I've now worked in, this is my third remote environment. 00:31:21.100 --> 00:31:23.160 Scott: And I've learned that that is the case. 00:31:23.340 --> 00:31:26.960 Scott: But now that I'm at such a big engineering company, 00:31:27.200 --> 00:31:30.040 Scott: I just figure like, shoot your shot with a bunch of people. 00:31:30.340 --> 00:31:35.020 Scott: See who's receptive to wanting to develop a relationship. 00:31:35.520 --> 00:31:40.040 Scott: There's actually some awesome things that they do. 00:31:40.280 --> 00:31:42.040 Scott: Like there's a Boston group that meets. 00:31:42.600 --> 00:31:45.240 Scott: So I'm going to make sure I go to that in April. 00:31:46.480 --> 00:31:51.120 Scott: it's april now but it's it's like next week and then they meet for launches and and stuff 00:31:51.680 --> 00:31:56.520 Scott: it really cool so like people get together my and and you get to actually meet people in person 00:31:57.040 --> 00:32:00.200 Scott: so there's that and then there's also this like really cool front end thing they do 00:32:00.820 --> 00:32:05.380 Scott: where every three weeks they you can sign up and they'll pair you with a different front end person 00:32:05.920 --> 00:32:11.680 Scott: so it's like ways to try to meet people and like all these are like kind of simple ideas that i wish 00:32:11.700 --> 00:32:17.460 Scott: I had promoted, but they really work or give you opportunity to work at the culture there 00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:22.720 Scott: and like want you to be more successful. They drive these opportunities for you to meet. 00:32:23.380 --> 00:32:27.420 Scott: And so I've reached out to like a lot of my interviewers. I've had some of my interviewers 00:32:27.560 --> 00:32:33.900 Scott: reach out to me. I've talked to my recruiter a lot. I just, I've had a really good experience 00:32:34.420 --> 00:32:39.380 Scott: in a week, but I'm really just trying to do what Dillon is saying. I'm just trying to make sure I 00:32:39.340 --> 00:32:46.240 Scott: know who owns what i i want to um ask questions and you know get forgiveness later if see how 00:32:46.400 --> 00:32:48.940 Scott: people are receptive to messages 00:32:46.400 --> 00:32:48.940 Matt: i 00:32:48.940 --> 00:32:51.860 Matt: think uh since this is the episode where we're praising everyone 00:32:52.100 --> 00:32:57.120 Matt: i think one thing i do want to call out like i think scott is uniquely good at building a really 00:32:57.250 --> 00:33:01.660 Matt: great network and and this is also something you know kind of similar to it to like that time in 00:33:01.660 --> 00:33:05.880 Matt: the level right like just like building a network across a company it's like going to and like 00:33:05.900 --> 00:33:12.020 Matt: across multiple companies is just going to deliver, you know, just return on returns on investment over the years. 00:33:12.940 --> 00:33:17.660 Matt: And this is something we've always like maybe said that Scott has done better maybe than most, 00:33:17.980 --> 00:33:22.720 Matt: most other people that we've worked with. It's like he has connections at almost anywhere you can think of. 00:33:23.380 --> 00:33:28.840 Matt: And, and, and it's not, it's not that he's like actively going out to just like form a connection just to have that connection. 00:33:29.020 --> 00:33:35.380 Matt: It's like, he's just like genuinely excited about connecting with people, which is something like I, I, I can't do. 00:33:35.540 --> 00:33:39.380 Matt: like I'm I don't know I consider myself maybe introverted so it's like hard for me to like go 00:33:39.470 --> 00:33:42.960 Matt: in and the kind of do the thing you were talking about Dillon where just like you set up 25 one-on-ones 00:33:43.080 --> 00:33:49.040 Matt: in two weeks um but something I have found useful and and I've done this like only a few times but 00:33:49.420 --> 00:33:54.800 Matt: like for people that aren't as excited about just talking to people is um maybe consider setting up 00:33:54.900 --> 00:33:59.940 Matt: one-on-ones with someone that you interact with uh you know here and there so it's like it like 00:34:00.020 --> 00:34:04.620 Matt: it kind of like a friction one-on-one almost but not actually like a pain point but it's like it's 00:34:04.640 --> 00:34:08.940 Matt: like, okay, like, oh, I, some random person gave me some review feedback on PR. I might reach out 00:34:09.000 --> 00:34:13.080 Matt: to them and just like grab coffee, you know, have a coffee chat in, in those remote, like, just like 00:34:13.080 --> 00:34:16.639 Matt: have a quick 30 minute huddle and just like, just chat with them. Right. Like it could be about the 00:34:16.800 --> 00:34:21.540 Matt: PR could just be about like, tell me more about like what you do at this company or whatever. Like, 00:34:21.659 --> 00:34:27.560 Matt: I think maybe we're getting into tips on onboarding, but, um, I think it's like, like, you don't have 00:34:27.720 --> 00:34:32.020 Matt: to go out and just like sort of connect with as many people as possible within the first few weeks 00:34:32.040 --> 00:34:32.440 Matt: of 00:34:32.440 --> 00:34:33.080 Matt: either 00:34:33.080 --> 00:34:34.879 Matt: getting promoted, joining a company, 00:34:35.040 --> 00:34:35.560 Matt: or whatever it is. 00:34:36.179 --> 00:34:38.540 Matt: But sometimes it can just be like natural interactions 00:34:38.820 --> 00:34:41.080 Matt: that then lead to building those connections over time. 00:34:41.740 --> 00:34:43.700 Scott: There's going to be a little bit of an oversimplification. 00:34:44.720 --> 00:34:46.020 Scott: The way I see it is just like, 00:34:46.220 --> 00:34:48.360 Scott: try to be nice to every person you interact with. 00:34:48.639 --> 00:34:50.000 Scott: And then when you talk to somebody, 00:34:50.179 --> 00:34:52.540 Scott: just try to find some common interest that you share 00:34:53.040 --> 00:34:54.120 Scott: and talk about it. 00:34:54.700 --> 00:34:56.540 Scott: And I feel like that's how I built it. 00:34:56.840 --> 00:34:58.680 Scott: And my level might not be like, 00:34:59.040 --> 00:35:01.540 Scott: sure, I was a staff before or I'm a senior now, whatever. 00:35:01.620 --> 00:35:03.040 Scott: I might not be a director. 00:35:03.760 --> 00:35:05.880 Scott: I've chosen not to be an engineering manager. 00:35:06.480 --> 00:35:11.020 Scott: One day, maybe I'll want to manage, but I still really love doing the work. 00:35:11.980 --> 00:35:13.360 Scott: But I'm happy where I'm at. 00:35:14.080 --> 00:35:16.940 Scott: And I'm not dying to be CTO. 00:35:17.700 --> 00:35:22.560 Scott: So it's important to remember that Matt talked about, I might have a big network, but I'm 00:35:22.680 --> 00:35:28.200 Scott: not at the top level of where we're at. 00:35:28.300 --> 00:35:29.220 Scott: But it's okay. 00:35:29.540 --> 00:35:29.940 Scott: That's okay. 00:35:30.020 --> 00:35:38.660 Scott: you are where you want to be. And if pushing harder for me to be a director or senior staff 00:35:38.900 --> 00:35:43.640 Scott: engineer was the goal, hopefully one day I'll grow into something like that. But I want to go into 00:35:43.820 --> 00:35:51.260 Scott: the level and have the confidence that I'm going to succeed at this level. Some of the worst fears 00:35:51.320 --> 00:35:57.240 Scott: you can have is like, will I be successful? At Tollbit, when I was a quote, full stack engineer, 00:35:57.540 --> 00:35:59.980 Scott: I was a little bit nervous, like, can I do this? 00:36:00.160 --> 00:36:02.860 Scott: Because I'm really not a true back end. 00:36:03.380 --> 00:36:11.460 Scott: But that little bit of scariness or scaredness, for lack of a better term, was good for me. 00:36:11.620 --> 00:36:12.580 Scott: It was motivating. 00:36:13.340 --> 00:36:14.540 Scott: So a little bit is okay. 00:36:14.880 --> 00:36:20.880 Scott: But you don't want to just somehow luck into a position and then be in that position and not be able to do anything. 00:36:21.580 --> 00:36:30.040 Scott: So you're going to rely even at your level on other folks in your network and making friends, but you want to just make sure 00:36:30.040 --> 00:36:32.320 Scott: you can have confidence going into that role. 00:36:32.560 --> 00:36:49.340 Dillon: I just want to call out that sometimes people say, you've got to create a network. That's the most important thing. And they're getting a little bit obsessed about just progressing in their career and creating a network is sort of why they're doing that. 00:36:50.240 --> 00:36:54.260 Dillon: But we're spending most of our life at work. 00:36:55.100 --> 00:36:58.760 Dillon: You should be trying to create genuine connections, genuine friendships. 00:37:00.240 --> 00:37:05.920 Dillon: Because why else would you spend all that time at work if you're not enjoying yourself, 00:37:06.720 --> 00:37:07.700 Dillon: spending time with these people? 00:37:08.680 --> 00:37:11.480 Dillon: So I think it's a really important part of this, to me at least. 00:37:11.960 --> 00:37:13.080 Dillon: Some other people might not agree. 00:37:13.480 --> 00:37:16.780 Dillon: Maybe they're just like, I go to work and I just want to get it over with and get paid. 00:37:17.540 --> 00:37:22.800 Dillon: But to me, if you're spending every day with all this time, you should be enjoying it. 00:37:24.040 --> 00:37:24.620 Scott: I agree 00:37:24.620 --> 00:37:24.980 Scott: with that. 00:37:25.080 --> 00:37:30.640 Scott: I actually want to just quickly call out that I see every networking opportunity as a friendship. 00:37:30.980 --> 00:37:33.360 Scott: And I don't really think about it as a networking opportunity. 00:37:33.960 --> 00:37:36.120 Scott: I just want to meet people. 00:37:37.480 --> 00:37:39.140 Scott: And sometimes it's hard for me too, Matt. 00:37:39.140 --> 00:37:40.340 Scott: I know you said you're introverted. 00:37:40.460 --> 00:37:41.480 Scott: Sometimes I can be that way. 00:37:42.000 --> 00:37:43.860 Scott: But it's just say hi. 00:37:45.360 --> 00:37:46.640 Scott: See if there's common interests. 00:37:47.340 --> 00:37:50.380 Scott: see if you can teach someone something this is something i should have brought up 00:37:50.800 --> 00:37:57.440 Scott: it is good to try to teach people things um selflessly you might learn that that person 00:37:58.060 --> 00:38:03.800 Scott: was maybe not the right person but you gave it your best shot and you were proactive about it 00:38:04.440 --> 00:38:10.860 Scott: um and that person won't forget you and that person will refer you later yeah 00:38:10.860 --> 00:38:11.400 Matt: i think we're 00:38:11.640 --> 00:38:16.060 Matt: i mean i i don't know about you guys but i feel like we're kind of like hitting at a pretty good 00:38:16.480 --> 00:38:18.640 Matt: maybe sort of summary and ending point here. 00:38:20.040 --> 00:38:21.280 Matt: I don't know if you guys have further thoughts 00:38:21.350 --> 00:38:23.980 Matt: that you wanted to dig into related to it. 00:38:23.980 --> 00:38:24.580 Matt: I feel like we could, 00:38:24.780 --> 00:38:25.380 Matt: as 00:38:25.380 --> 00:38:25.940 Matt: with every topic, 00:38:26.010 --> 00:38:27.900 Matt: I feel like we can go on talking for hours and hours, 00:38:28.120 --> 00:38:31.860 Matt: but I think it could be worth maybe us trimming it there. 00:38:32.400 --> 00:38:34.100 Matt: Scott, it looks like you have one last point to make. 00:38:35.220 --> 00:38:38.060 Scott: Yeah, I do want to say that a lot of our early episodes, 00:38:38.520 --> 00:38:40.620 Scott: we're going to scratch the surface of topics, 00:38:41.050 --> 00:38:43.420 Scott: but we plan on revisiting and deep diving 00:38:43.610 --> 00:38:44.880 Scott: into a lot of these topics again. 00:38:45.280 --> 00:38:49.420 Scott: But we just have so much to say, and we want to get some surface-level takes out there. 00:38:50.680 --> 00:38:54.100 Scott: All I want to really say is basically 00:38:54.100 --> 00:38:56.760 Scott: levels, do they matter? 00:38:58.540 --> 00:38:59.380 Scott: It depends. 00:38:59.750 --> 00:39:00.060 Scott: Yes and 00:39:00.060 --> 00:39:00.300 Scott: no. 00:39:00.900 --> 00:39:02.100 Scott: It's really a yes and no. 00:39:02.720 --> 00:39:09.000 Scott: You want to make sure you're progressing in your career, but levels will be different from job to job. 00:39:09.720 --> 00:39:14.980 Scott: And yes, you may want to achieve CTO, maybe even a CEO at some point. 00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.480 Scott: in your career and you want to try to set those boundaries, but you've got to make sure you're 00:39:19.560 --> 00:39:24.000 Scott: looking for those opportunities by making sure you're getting the growth constantly. 00:39:25.200 --> 00:39:30.200 Scott: But it depends what you want out of your job and it depends what satisfies you. 00:39:30.520 --> 00:39:32.520 Scott: And I'll just reiterate some of my points. 00:39:33.860 --> 00:39:37.680 Scott: Doing the work and seeing my creations, that's satisfaction for me. 00:39:38.460 --> 00:39:41.860 Scott: The level matters in the sense that I want to make sure I'm growing, 00:39:42.720 --> 00:39:52.920 Scott: But it doesn't matter in the sense that I don't care to tell you I'm a senior engineer versus a principal engineer and be at the same place and not learn and grow. 00:39:53.460 --> 00:39:58.280 Scott: You need to balance what matters that makes you happy and feel complete at work. 00:39:59.220 --> 00:39:59.480 Matt: All right. 00:40:00.110 --> 00:40:04.120 Matt: With that, do we want to pivot into our stand-up updates? 00:40:07.940 --> 00:40:08.840 Matt: Scott, what's new with you? 00:40:10.480 --> 00:40:11.560 Scott: Yeah, so I 00:40:11.560 --> 00:40:12.480 Scott: don't really have a good one. 00:40:12.560 --> 00:40:16.920 Scott: I just kind of feel like I've been saying it this whole time, but I'm onboarding at a new job. 00:40:17.340 --> 00:40:26.020 Scott: It's been the, like, I don't want to call the onboarding easy, but it's been the most laid back is probably a better way to describe it. 00:40:26.420 --> 00:40:27.200 Scott: Onboarding I've done. 00:40:28.019 --> 00:40:32.340 Scott: I just going to quickly call out that, like, when I was at Wayfair, it was still, like, a startup. 00:40:32.660 --> 00:40:40.180 Scott: So even though that onboarding was slow because they, like, gave me the wrong computer because that was a thing back then, it was... 00:40:42.580 --> 00:40:45.520 Scott: maybe more to learn because I didn't know getting stuff. 00:40:45.520 --> 00:40:46.900 Scott: I was really raw at the time. 00:40:46.930 --> 00:40:47.660 Scott: It was like 13, 00:40:47.960 --> 00:40:48.540 Scott: 14 years ago. 00:40:49.920 --> 00:40:51.800 Scott: And then the last two companies I started were startups. 00:40:53.260 --> 00:40:55.440 Scott: They were like, 00:40:55.840 --> 00:40:57.240 Scott: you're writing code day one, 00:40:57.520 --> 00:40:57.660 Scott: which, 00:40:58.020 --> 00:40:58.380 Scott: which is great. 00:40:58.700 --> 00:40:59.100 Scott: And you know, 00:40:59.180 --> 00:41:01.780 Scott: there's just less rules and guardrails and maybe internal tools. 00:41:02.540 --> 00:41:03.760 Scott: So it's been a little bit slower. 00:41:04.240 --> 00:41:04.860 Scott: It's been a lot of meetings, 00:41:05.760 --> 00:41:09.900 Scott: but I've gotten like super inspired and I'm drinking the Kool-Aid. 00:41:10.420 --> 00:41:13.260 Scott: and I'm really excited to be there. 00:41:14.100 --> 00:41:18.480 Scott: I haven't really written any code this week. 00:41:18.480 --> 00:41:20.440 Scott: I've been editing my dotfiles a bit 00:41:20.940 --> 00:41:23.460 Scott: and I played with monorepos a few weeks back. 00:41:24.100 --> 00:41:25.840 Scott: I'd like to still build this BunWatcher, 00:41:26.460 --> 00:41:29.920 Scott: but I don't know when I'm going to have the time just yet. 00:41:30.640 --> 00:41:31.960 Scott: I'll kick it over to you guys, though. 00:41:32.440 --> 00:41:33.680 Scott: What's your stand-up updates? 00:41:34.740 --> 00:41:38.819 Dillon: For me, I've been doing some morning workouts 00:41:38.840 --> 00:41:45.680 Dillon: this last week and I usually hate them because and I think I know the reason now it's because I 00:41:45.820 --> 00:41:51.140 Dillon: usually just don't get enough sleep when I I do a morning workout so then I just feel like crap for 00:41:51.140 --> 00:41:55.400 Dillon: the rest of the day so I figured out my sleep during the morning workouts and it's made my 00:41:55.510 --> 00:42:02.080 Dillon: sleep schedule just a lot better like I'm going to bed at like 10 p.m on the dot and I feel super 00:42:02.150 --> 00:42:07.840 Dillon: well rested and I can wake up earlier and just get a lot more done so I'm gonna try to keep with 00:42:07.860 --> 00:42:18.540 Dillon: that so we'll see also scott made a point about like the kool-aid tasting good um i feel like i 00:42:18.620 --> 00:42:23.800 Dillon: like i'm in the same place at my job i'm only like six months into it and i'm like i'm hoping 00:42:23.860 --> 00:42:28.980 Dillon: the kool-aid will continue to taste good for for years to come but but we'll see i feel like the 00:42:29.060 --> 00:42:31.100 Dillon: kool-aid always tastes great at the beginning of every job 00:42:31.100 --> 00:42:34.079 Matt: yeah i feel like maybe we should do a 00:42:34.020 --> 00:42:37.940 Matt: whole episode on kool-aid you know what's your favorite flavor you know like how do you how do 00:42:37.940 --> 00:42:38.500 Matt: you prefer it 00:42:38.500 --> 00:42:40.480 Matt: uh 00:42:40.480 --> 00:42:44.560 Matt: no um let's see my stand-up update um let's see this last week we did 00:42:44.560 --> 00:42:44.900 Matt: we 00:42:44.900 --> 00:42:45.140 Matt: had like 00:42:45.140 --> 00:42:50.640 Matt: this really pretty large on-site for our sort of entire organization ton of like you know 00:42:50.980 --> 00:42:55.780 Matt: miscellaneous events there was sort of like ai agents hackathon where like one of the categories 00:42:56.040 --> 00:43:01.100 Matt: was just like you have to vibe code everything um which i don't know how many people sort of 00:43:01.120 --> 00:43:04.960 Matt: submitted that versus like building custom MCP stuff. 00:43:06.160 --> 00:43:09.300 Matt: But anyway, yeah, it was kind of nice to sort of see a few faces in person again, 00:43:10.040 --> 00:43:11.680 Matt: both on my team and a few other teams around me. 00:43:13.400 --> 00:43:18.060 Matt: Outside of work, I've been tinkering a little bit more and more with both like my Obsidian setup 00:43:18.270 --> 00:43:21.960 Matt: in terms of my notes and like how I'm managing tasks within there. 00:43:22.030 --> 00:43:25.960 Matt: And I'm like kind of trying to work around some of the friction points that I'm finding with it. 00:43:27.500 --> 00:43:33.220 Matt: And outside of my notes, I'm also tinkering with using TinyBase, which just had their like a V6 00:43:34.050 --> 00:43:39.060 Matt: major release, which is like a kind of like a sync engine, a storage engine for like websites. 00:43:40.620 --> 00:43:45.380 Matt: It's a really neat project. It just like gives you like kind of database and also like maybe 00:43:45.410 --> 00:43:51.100 Matt: not necessarily like database fidelity, like sort of just like raw, like storage primitives for web 00:43:51.280 --> 00:43:56.360 Matt: apps, like synchronized to the browser, like in session storage, local storage, stuff like that, 00:43:56.440 --> 00:43:58.300 Matt: or persist it to a server. 00:43:59.960 --> 00:44:01.360 Matt: Anyway, it's pretty neat, pretty exciting. 00:44:02.960 --> 00:44:04.680 Matt: Yeah, I think that's about it, I guess. 00:44:04.780 --> 00:44:08.060 Matt: And then obviously the keyboard, I'm excited. 00:44:08.360 --> 00:44:09.480 Matt: Hopefully it gets here soon and 00:44:09.480 --> 00:44:11.120 Matt: I can test it out 00:44:11.460 --> 00:44:12.160 Matt: before our next episode. 00:44:16.000 --> 00:44:16.280 Matt: All right. 00:44:17.380 --> 00:44:17.820 Matt: Is that it? 00:44:18.200 --> 00:44:19.520 Matt: Any further thoughts that people have? 00:44:25.720 --> 00:44:29.560 Matt: All right. Remember to like, subscribe, comment, 00:44:29.940 --> 00:44:30.020 Matt: share 00:44:30.020 --> 00:44:31.060 Matt: this post with someone you cherish. 00:44:32.420 --> 00:44:32.780 Matt: Yeah. 00:44:33.280 --> 00:44:34.160 Matt: We need more listeners. 00:44:34.460 --> 00:44:38.180 Matt: Feel free to join our Discord and join in on the conversations there. 00:44:39.060 --> 00:44:39.900 Matt: It's pretty lonely in there. 00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:41.580 Matt: It's just, I think, maybe four of us at the moment, 00:44:41.860 --> 00:44:44.380 Matt: but hopefully it grows over time. 00:44:46.099 --> 00:44:46.640 Scott: We're looking 00:44:46.640 --> 00:44:47.460 Scott: at you, Romania. 00:44:49.040 --> 00:44:49.580 Matt: That's true. 00:44:53.980 --> 00:44:55.200 Matt: Later. Peace out. 00:44:57.200 --> 00:44:57.400 Scott: Peace