I Interviewed My Boss | Life of a Web Developer

[Music] so [Music] all right everyone what is up everyone i am here in san francisco i know you can see my face this is my face right here but the reason i'm filming right now is because i actually want to introduce y'all to my boss and i want to ask him some tough questions about college no college what developers need to do what is considered a good developer and etc so hopefully this gives you some good content and helps you out let's go all right everyone what is up so i want to introduce you to someone special i hired him not too long ago i'm just kidding this is actually my boss the director of developer relations here at new relic yeah this is jonathan hi i'm jonathan i'm the director of developer relations at new relic yes now you know um so a lot of people have been asking like i should interview my boss so this is my only chance to interview you in front of a good camera very it's a pretty good camera you should see this thing he's got a massive camera yeah so it's a really good camera but yeah i just want to like interview ask you questions that can hopefully bring value to our audience just so you all know um when i quit my last job jonah is the one who actually dm'd me on twitter and saying hey i think you'd be a good fit for this position he told me that i would be streaming for a living making videos for a living creating content for a living i thought he was lying eight months later i'm still here and he wasn't lying didn't make it up yeah also that was a really good choice on my part right i think it was a good choice yeah so what happened if you you don't remember i quit my last job because it was toxic right and even though it would have hurt me financially big time i quit that job and as little literally a couple days later after i tweeted you dm'd me yeah so i'm curious like how did it happen like you saw my tweet on twitter or yeah so i had been following you for because i saw some of your videos before right like i went and followed him early on to when you were talking about uh your journey like coming into software and yeah yeah i had a rough ride getting here too i came later in my life a non-traditional background for sure and it spoke to me as a developer like you you were particularly inspiring to me so one i know you create inspiring content right two i know that like you have enough self-respect to walk away from a toxic situation like that and in doing a little bit more research about like your audience and the people who you have managed to surround yourself with it was pretty obvious to me this was a good place for you i mean wow was it a bad choice i don't think people actually mention this to me often was it only because i have a following on youtube no i mean it was definitely the hair right i was like sick hair no i think um like youtube following is important but it's like anything right if you try and endeavor devil's kind of a weird industry but chris has told you a lot about it but like if you try and measure anyone by a single facet of their platform or their audience you're gonna probably make pretty poor decisions right i i choose authentic that's why i chose i chose that you're here to show off the community in an authentic honest way that's what we want to do yeah that's the goal wow that's interesting i mean that's that's humbling to hear thank you for that by the way i think i'm pretty authentic too right [Laughter] oh i'm just kidding uh i'm not but no i try to be on the authentic that's my main goal and and i'm curious like for all the people who want to be developers yeah not just devrel let's just say software engineering yeah to junior developers mid-level whatever these are all types of people who watch my channel let's say you're working for engineering this is an engineering team what are the main things that you look for in a developer oh that's a really good question actually yeah um i look for people who are hungry to learn really that's the first thing you look for that's the first thing i look for how do you know if they're hungry well there are a lot of ways to find out right but i i think hopefully you get a feel for that when you're talking to someone that they are actually driven to find a solution right there's a certain type of developer who you talk to who very rarely says like this is a thing that can't be done i want to hire that person i want to find the person who's willing to find the creative solution there are a thousand reasons to say no to anything yeah right find the person who more often than not tries to find a way to say yes is that i feel like that's kind of an ambiguous statement yeah so are there other ways to like do you look at the the github do you sure is the one like let's say someone applies for a position do you automatically look at their github or what do you what do you look for right off the bat i'm definitely gonna google you it's the internet really like i'm gonna look you up for sure yeah especially if i'm interested at a glance but as a hiring manager you see a lot of resumes and they just kind of fly past right um wait wait what flies past like what in resumes do you see it this is just like everyone else's i don't wanna look i'm curious wow okay so like the resumes like there's probably someone who's applied for a job here like why specifically my resume okay so there's a lot of really good advice for how to write a good resume on the internet but i'm looking for people who have honestly like a story somehow like they put something in an objective at the top top of the resume that grabs my attention like i want to see like that works i am well yeah i want to know that you are not just interested in doing writing software somewhere i want to know that you were interested in writing software here with me on the work that we're doing yeah that you have taken the time to do a modicum of research the kinds of things that i scroll past are the ones that are like so generic as to be bland or very clearly seeking something that i can't offer my number one concern is that you're going to be happy in the role because if you're happy you're going to be productive and we're all going to have a great time working together if you're unhappy yeah i'm actually like harming you and the world collectively by hiring you why would i do that and if i could attest like that from one-on-one meetings we have every week that you that's your number one goal with me and like when i try to do more work you're telling me stop you're telling me to take vacations yeah take more vacations i haven't taken he works so much so much it's ridiculous i haven't taken a vacation i take a vacation friday's off yeah for a couple of weeks someday you might make a video about burnout or something you know yeah yeah oh yeah maybe i'll make a video on that yeah i guess another good question is and i think this is something everyone a lot of people ask me what are turn offs things that say no i'm not immediately just from the resume alone and from an in-person interview okay so there's one thing that's kind of a this is unfair because i did this on my very first personal website i hope no one ever finds it but like the thing where you rate yourself his name is joe nader if you're wondering don't go jonan show yeah thank you thank you for your help the thing where you reach your skills you're like ranking your skills if you have written javascript this is not a time to be humble i am asking you to highlight your strengths put javascript on your way don't put javascript two out of five stars the stars thing is over the top talk about the things that you are able to do confidently knowing you're gonna grow into the role exactly or whatever in javascript in python if you could write an application yeah in a day with python put python down on the resume list your skills and not the ones that are common if i see a lot of ones that are like html css and the job is for a web application yes well you you should know html if you're writing web applications and you don't know html yeah you shouldn't even put them because it's given right yeah don't write the things that are obvious it looks like fluff oh it does yeah that's true okay for the resume piece yes and the other piece about being in person ego really is dangerous so like what kind of ego are you talking about people for example are unable to admit that they don't know a thing during an interview would i want to hear if i ask a question you know the answer is to like oh i i'm actually not sure but i think it's this i mean you've got to tell me though because i'm curious right what you've just demonstrated to me is you are willing to admit that you're wrong that you are hungry right insatiably curious and that you are interested in learning along with me yeah right the basic picture is like look your job needs these five skills and maybe i only have these two but where i don't have them i'm willing to grow into it with you with the i've actually done that fingers thing in the interview before just demonstrate your willingness to grow that's interesting because of course not everyone is like you when it comes to that point because i remember when i've done plenty of technical interviews that i got rejected a lot of times i'm terrified to say i don't know but i have said that i don't know the answers to that yeah you got to do it and that and you like that you if you if you fake it it's going to be obvious to me oh which is worse way worse that's true don't fake it and you can tell it's very easy to tell if someone doesn't know something yeah very easy and if they've set it up to be like a quiz show he's probably not a great employer anyway when they like create the pressure cooker environment where there's three people interviewing you and they're like write a linked list implementation in python on the whiteboard in front of us yeah that's ridiculous so you we probably don't want to work there now i'm not going to tell you where to work if you've got to go there and suffer through a year we've all had bad jobs go do the thing so you can move on but what a whiteboarding interview should be ideally is an opportunity for you to work collaboratively with someone who's your potential peer i want to know what it's going to be like to work with you on a software team so chris let's pretend to build an app that does this yeah and then you and i come up with ideas maybe we write a little sample code scratching it out i don't care about the syntax this is not a time for me to be like well i typed it all into this computer over here and you missed a semicolon so no right if that's the point of the interview then they're doing it wrong and moreover it's an indicator to you that you like you don't want to work there i've often said that people who do get those kind of interviews companies are companies i don't want to work with because that doesn't always show everything about that person as a developer exactly yeah wow okay i know we've had a really long day but i want to ask you two more questions please two more questions okay from your experience what's one thing you can do to really show that you have the potential because you have no experience yet as a junior developer or aspiring yeah so do you have any suggestions for you should have experience already right like if you're applying for a junior developer job you've written some code the barrier to entry there is do you have some code in public that i can check out do you have a i hesitate to say that a github profile is like the end all and be all of hiring software engineers but the reality is it's a very convenient place to demonstrate that you have written some things and it doesn't need to be good if i'm going to hire you i probably am going to glance at i'm not going to go and read every line of the code in your 50 repos i have every trash repo i've ever written i think my first app is still up on my github i imagine you all agree yeah please please don't use any of it's just a dumping ground for me to demonstrate that i do this thing sometimes i think that getting in the door is largely a part of of finding the door most people paper the world with resumes yeah you're never going to get through that way if you have a referral coming to a job i will interview you one hundred percent of the time you've done that soon i have and maybe it doesn't end up in a job but getting past that resume screen and that recruiter discussion is nine tenths of the hard part about getting a job right like almost all of your rejections have happened before ever talking to each other yep yeah a lot of them a lot of them yeah right you've got to get past that resume screen to get in the door and that involves a lot of research and sometimes it feels creepy and almost stalkerish and i'm like looking at people's linkedin profiles and figuring out what they're into at meetings that's part of it you have to get to know the person somewhere yeah yeah and it demonstrates an interest in the company that you know what we're up to and you know the vision and the goals of the team that's important to me that you care and does it impress you when someone goes above and beyond to research about more about the company and then in particular your team absolutely that wow okay this person putting that extra effort why not give them that opportunity for an extra interview sure one last question then okay so jonathan so you got your first job professionally 10 years ago that's true yes do you want me to talk about that no go ahead it's totally fine yeah okay okay yeah how old were you when you first got hired i came into software when i was 32 years old having previously seen a poker dealer yeah so that was 10 years your poke dealers before yeah i could picture as a poker dealer no offense so that's 10 years ago now today 2021 someone who's 32 33 34 35 years old is that too late oh no no i talk to 50 year olds who are learning to cold all the time 60 really 65. six year old woman i spoke through the other day who's learning to code today what and she's trying to get a job she will get a job i'm sure she will absolutely get a job because she wants it that's pretty that's hap that's encouraging even for me it's not too late it's all about the value you can bring to a company what do you have to lose you are not you are not professionally employed as a software engineer today tomorrow you will still not be yeah so why not shoot your shot give it a try i have a strong feeling that you'll like it it's a wonderful industry it really is and one thing i want to share one thing that you said to me that's always hit me ever since i first spoke to you was that your goal is to help the next bagger at a grocery store be realize they can be the next bill gates the next whoever out there you and i have this in common and that we both were in places in our lives where our lives became so complicated and demoralizing just in their own existence that we couldn't pick ourselves up yeah and bring ourselves here and it happens by small degrees you carve out that extra 20 minutes on your lunch break to just try and write a little code and it becomes fun and it drives you and it takes work believe me it takes work a lot of work so you've got to make space right yeah you've got to make space in your life we tell the world to lift themselves up by their bootstraps this american dream is fundamentally broken you come home after a 12-hour shift in a factory you are not gonna sit down and read a programming book right definitely it's just not the reality i know for certain that we have geniuses in this country bagging the groceries who don't realize it who don't realize it and don't have the time and energy and capacity to grow their skills gotta find a way to help those people and that's why we have chris shaw's should every developer have a twitter account do you think that they should have some form of presence i would recommend it if you if you're starting from scratch create a twitter account create a github account create a portfolio site those all three should be named the same thing which is your future internet handle and unique enough that you can get it on every social platform i'm the jonen show everywhere you're crazy okay don't forget to like solo and subscribe i don't produce that much content this man is the one you want to watch absolutely get on twitter because it's a huge community of developers you can find thousands hundreds of thousands of developers out there talking about what they're doing all day long surround yourself with the people you want to grow to be like and that can help you get a job much more easily i mean absolutely i didn't even apply twitter awesome um is there any last words uh jonah that you want to share with the audience i want to share with you just to keep fighting for it this is a struggle i know that some nights it feels like you're not going to make it i promise you will and welcome to software we're glad you're here awesome uh john thank you for this i don't know how to end this casually but uh this is krishan this is a in the jonathan show i feel if you all can follow jonathan everywhere literally jonah's show uh honestly the best boss i've had to this date very understanding and he's the reason i'm here i got another shirt right here right there yes i didn't design that either yeah but cool awesome see you everyone thank you bye

Channel: Chris Sean

Views: 21,344

Rating: 4.9627476 out of 5

Keywords: learn, code, life, of, web, developer, html, css, javascript, query, js, php, angular, programmer, software, frontend, backend, front, back, programming, job, hired, junior, jr

Id: b1rP6M6KyWQ

Length: 15min 22sec (922 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 22 2021