triathalons and tech w/ vp of eng, brian walter

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Brian, let's give the people what they want. Who are you? What do you do? We'll dive in. All right, Brian Walter, I have got over 20 years software industry, software engineering industry. Used to got my start as a software developer a long time ago back in the day when we built desktop applications. There you go. A lot of that. So cut my teeth on Microsoft Technologies and a lot of back end technologies like database stuff. But did that for about 10, 12, 13 years, something like that, as I was transitioning into leadership within the software industry field still, and have remained there since then. And various companies, but kind of work my way through from software engineering manager all the way up to my most recent position as VP of engineering.

It was a company called Voice, startup company in the blockchain space. We were building a platform to sell NFTs, non-fungible tokens for digital artists, digital creators, buyers and sellers of that type of artwork. So yeah, that's how my career has progressed. So Brian, what do you like to do in your free time, man? Free time? Well, I do. Crazy person. Yeah. Let me first say, free time, importance of family, that's very important to me. Absolutely. Good answer, because your wife in the room like once, understand. She'll be listening, yes. But I do spend a lot of time doing triathlons. That's a passion that I have outside of work.

I am doing a full Ironman this weekend in Florida, this weekend coming up. It'll be my first foray into that distance. But I've just spent a lot of time on the bike. I spent a lot, I was in the pool this morning. And I put miles on the road running as well. I love it, dude. That's something that I'm passionate about. And it's something that has, has really been foundational to who I am. I actually started out more of a running career from college and into my earlier years doing that. But it's really guided me as far as the, the discipline it takes, the goal setting, the achievement type mentality.

And it started with just being a software engineer, but now leadership, I draw on those analogies. I draw on that experience all the time. Well, let's talk about it, right? Because again, I'm not pivoting the podcast by any means, but I want to get on the more of a personal side. I mean, we've talked about interviewing, we talked about hiring, and I know a lot of people probably think I'm a broken record. But what, what, um, things have you learned from doing triathlons that, that you've applied to your professional life? Absolutely. Um, I've learned, you know, it, you have to understand where you're going. You know, you can go out and run every day or go out and just do just exercise.

And that's great. Absolutely. But as you're wanting to, to set goals, you need to kind of come up with a plan. And pivot that plan with minor pivots from day to day if needed. Maybe one day I'm just too tired. And it's not going to be beneficial to slog through a workout. And I need rest. Same thing applies with work. Your team can get overly stressed and you need to understand and be able to recognize that. But also you have to set milestones to reach goals. And that's so important. And it does take hard work. It does take focus and dedication and discipline and all that.

And living a whole life, that packaged life of those things together, that's what I think I've learned the most about it throughout my career. Let's talk Alex time times in. There's definitely an overlap between endurance, training, engineering, leadership. It's also going to hear from our leaders that appreciate that. So Brian, talk about rest for a second, right? So this is the topic that I'm personally trying to talk more about. Of course I've talked a lot about it. Everyone's like, Taylor, you okay? And to be honest with you, like I'm burning at both ends too. So like I'm trying to understand slowing down and rest. And I feel like it's really hard in especially today's culture.

And Brian, I'm sure if you're training for a triathlon, you're like, no days off. Yeah, right. I'm sure like the mentality is like, I got a, I mean, you, you, you basically run the distance at the earth. at these things, right? So like I can't take it down. So talk about the importance of slowing down, not only in training, but also as you've scaled engineering team successfully throughout your career. Sure, absolutely. That's a great question to ask, because you get in this mentality of, I have to keep going, I have to keep going. There's somebody else that is out there working out. Yeah, Colin, Colin Lords out here are gonna beat you, right?

Absolutely. One of the most important, I guess, beneficial tools that I have come across recently and recently is the last years is this or ring that I wear and it helps me monitor my sleep and Yeah, you know the the wearable technology that exists today are so good for giving you metrics on how you're doing because recovery is so important, you know, If you use the analogy of weightlifting you have to stress yourself yourself, but you also have to recover. And I use a simple, a simple equation that I talk to my teams all the time. Stress plus rest equals growth. Stress plus rest. I love that stress plus rest.

You know, and you have to have both of them. And that is the rest part is the hard part to maintain. But when you understand a, you have a teammate that's stressed out, you have to be able to take time, you know, take the afternoon off, take an hour to take a nap or whatever you need to do, because I want you to be high-performing when it's time to be high-performing. And having those conversations with your team members to be able to understand that, engage where they are is so important. You know, so from that standpoint, I act more as a coach as opposed to a manager.

And it's being able to ask those questions, how are you doing? Or pick up on those cues that, oh, you're stressed out. You need to take some time here to regroup and come back fresh so that tomorrow you are ready to go at your performance. Well, and yeah, and I want to give a shout out to Tasia, my CEO and co-founder of Gun IO. He told me, he picked up. And we talked about this in my interview, what I landed with them. He's like, you know, where you at mentally, are you ready to sprint? Cause so Tasia does a lot of like jujitsu stuff, but he also is kind of interested in kind of this endurance, marathon type stuff.

And we talk about fitness all the time at work and talk about this rest. And he told me, he goes like, I sense you stressing a lot and doing a lot. He goes, sometimes Taylor, I want to give you the opportunity to just work out in the afternoon and like take an hour or two off. And for me, that's foreign. Like for me, I came from a very sales heavy background, it was a typical recruiting agency. So the thought of trying to like take a break absolutely terrifies me. What would you tell me or others who are terrified to maybe fall behind in taking a break?

I'll go back to that simple equation. You know, you have to be able to be ready when it's time to be ready. And, you know, we live in this world now where we've kind of departed from the traditional eight to six or, you know, yeah, it's definitely not like talking clock out. Yeah. And if, you know, if a long walk during lunch or some kind of workout during lunch is something that refreshes you, that's important or a coffee break, 15 minute coffee break. Those are the important things to be able to step away. And again, it's, it goes against the grain of what we typically think of, If I step away or if I rest, somebody else is gonna get a leg up on me.

And that's not the case. It's I'm gonna rest for a little bit of time so that I can then quickly get back to more of a peak performance scenario. I want to answer two questions here and then I want to talk about the importance. What does it call the bilateral movement to help your brain? That's why they tell you to walk and stuff. I want to hit that in a second. but Riley comes in here goes favorite book slash resource that contributes your success as engineering manager to VP of engineering. I would say favorite book for me has been a book called drive by Daniel Pink.

Really? Okay. That's in that book he talks a lot about engaging or making sure that your team or making sure you are engaged. Yeah. And I use that as a resource a lot of times because I like to just really measure the engagement from an individual perspective. You know, there's three things that he talks about that particularly that goes well with the engineering field that everybody really wants. Autonomy, mastery, and purpose. It will have latitude and the flexibility to kind of explore and grow as they want to. Autonomy mastery, they want to have the ability to master their craft and then software engineering. I do view it as a craft.

You know, how do you cater at what you do and then purpose. Doing things that you like to do that adding value in the world. And when you get that right with your teams, when you have engaged employees, you have a gauge engaged team member, one that can reach that peak performance much better. I love that. That's something else. There's also an author that I follow and his name is slipping me a little bit, but he comes from a running background. He was a coach. See if you have the book in there. Magnus and he's written some books and he uses a lot of running he has a book called Peak Performance.

I'm reading one now called Do Hard Things. I love that. Yeah, so it's, those types of things are inspirational to me. You know, how other people have overcome, how other people have gotten to peak performance in life. Yeah. So that's absolutely, yep. Sean, Sean is a good question here. Brian, I saw your LinkedIn profile that at times you've gone from BP to director level to engineering manager. relatively new to the management side of engineering teams, but due to the size of my company, my title far outweighs my experience. How do you make yourself an ideal candidate and communicate your experience without turning off potential employers for thinking your over experience?

Yeah, that's a good question too. So that's one where you need to look at the company, what the company's doing, the size of the company, and your experience. experience, how that relates to the job that you're applying for. But yes, I have come from I'll say higher level positions to what are seemingly lower level positions. And another thing I've found out throughout my career is different companies will call the same position a different, have a different time. Yeah, titles are all jacked up. And they are. And so it's what what you bring to the table that the company that you're looking for, whether you're in the company or not already, but it's what you bring, you know, in your level of experience, your level of leadership, your level of vision outside of your own team and all that.

And so, yeah, I can remember somebody asking me one time in an interview, you know, you're applying for a job or you're interviewing for a job that's a step back in your career. I didn't view it that way. And that's how I answered that question. Talk about that for a second, right? Talk about maybe taking a step back. I feel like a lot of people always like, I gotta get the next title, I gotta get the next raise. And it's like, I mean, like technically, technically, I took like 16 steps backwards from a title perspective where I'm at now, but I don't really care. Cause that's just me, but talk about the mentality of it.

And again, I'm sure it's the long game, right? We're bringing back the triathlon and looking three months down the road where you want to be. So talk about maybe taking a step back in your career and that it's okay. It is okay because again, it's what you want to accomplish and what you feel like you're good at. And titles can be, I mean, you can go find a VP of engineering position that's really senior software engineer. Yeah, right? Yeah, that's a whole other conversation too. Yeah. But once you once you gain a level of title, whether it's DP, whether it's senior director, whatever, it's what you wanna do and what you're good at and how effective you can be.

And taking a step back, I'll say, is not really, it's in the eyes of the beholder. If you're comfortable with that from a title perspective, then you absolutely need to do that because you wanna be engaged as well. You wanna be challenged in the work that you do. You wanna have the right skills, but you want to grow. And for me, I also want to help other people grow. And as long as I'm doing that, I title doesn't mean as much to me. It's more about coming to work every day and preparing that atmosphere for other people to thrive and do well in their own careers.

Yeah, and Sean, I know Sean well. I mean, Sean, what I would tell you is as well as I would have multiple different types of resumes. Yeah. So if you're, if you submit just for a senior dev role, I'd honestly strip your, your title and just call it a senior dev, right? And this may be a hot take. I'm a big fan of changing your title to, I'm not saying change your title to something that's not true, right? I'm saying change your title to what it is as it relates to the role you're submitting to, right? So if you're submitting to a senior dev role, Sean, You are senior dev.

You're a senior dev. You're very hands-on. You're very hands-on CTO. There's nothing wrong with you changing the title. And then maybe having some bullet points with some leadership skills in it. Because you're right. A lot of HR, a lot of ATSs can get scared away pretty quickly. So you've got to change your title as it relates. Because again, like for me to put in perspective when I was at Vaco, my last company, I had a managing director title, right? That's how we did the whole associate. We did like the legal slash accounting titles is what I call it, right? So I was a managing director.

I had so many developers not work with me when I got that managing director title because they thought I was out of like recruiting. So I demoted myself to try to like make sure people knew that I wasn't out of recruiting. And that's just me. But again, it's that wherewithal to make sure it's all marketing and branding, right? It's how are you marking yourself there and job search. So another one to Greg, former guest on the show as well. Greg is good to see you buddy. What's your strategy for staying relevant as it relates to technology? So you can talk to talk while at the same time and proving as a manager.

If you don't code in your daily work, how are you keeping up with your team respects, your opinions and thoughts? Another great question, because I've been out of coding on a daily basis for a long time. and being able to have relevant and meaningful conversations with your team, because I still have conversations with architects and have conversations with folks that are coding on a daily basis. I don't pretend to know more than they do, but I also have to understand the tech speak enough. And so staying relevant is either in the technology field you're in, you know, I've been in block chain space for a while, and understanding what the landscape looks like and why it's important.

There was a learning curve when I first entered that, and I came into a space that I felt very insecure on my knowledge of the space. So I, sure, I had to spend some time really understanding that and how it fits into an overall application building and all that. but I'll say gotten by, but it's more than getting by, it's effective without having to write a line of code. How do you study up, man? Do you have any specific resources like my go to? I always give a shout out to the pragmatic engineer. His name's Gergé or Gergly, I always butcher his name, but he writes an amazing newsletter that like he dives into hiring tech, to layoffs, to like how to migrate off of the cloud.

I mean, he gets pretty technical. So that's my resource. Do you have any like favorite resources you wanna give a shout out to? I do follow pragmatic engineers as well. Yeah, he's good. I just try to keep my finger on the pulse of tech, you know, and as it relates to my job or things that I'm interested in. You know, absolutely today's world is so much about AI and ML. Yeah. And trying to stay relevant there without in, in golfing yourself in that and distracting from your main goals and your main mission of your day operations. So I can't point to one specific, but just trying to stay abreast of a lot of is really my strategy there.

100%. So, you know, obviously, we kind of run our time here next 10 or so time flies when you're having friends with new friends, fun with new friends. So you're on the job search right now. Right. So anybody looking for VP of engineering? Hi, Brian. Brian, what, what did you see in the job search? What's, what's working well for you? Maybe what some pitfalls you've done that you maybe want to share with others so they don't make the same mistake. What, what do you can just, just kind of chop it up real quick about your job search? Sure, absolutely the best thing that you can do is network.

Absolutely. And yeah, you have to reach out, because the number one pitfall is thinking that you can just go on LinkedIn or any of these job boards and buy a sheer number of applications that you're gonna get a job. That's the number one pitfall. And just submitting your resume, submitting applications over and over. That's the definition of insanity. doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. And that's where I started, uh, kind of that mentality because you can spend all day reading job descriptions on LinkedIn and submit a couple applications or resumes and not get anywhere. It's when you start networking is when you start reaching out and start expanding your own network and, uh, just getting opportunities because you know somebody or you were introduced to somebody that knows who you are, and then you make a connection that way.

And what does reaching out look like to you, man? Cause, because I think, I think people are just so terrified to reach out to like random people online and they don't know what to say and they just feel awkward. Like what do your reach outs look like right now? They come in different forms, you know, sometimes it's just cold calling, you know? And those are the hardest ones. Hey, I found this person on LinkedIn that works for a company that I would love to work for and just reaching out through a LinkedIn message. And like any kind of cold calling situation, that's not as effective.

The more effective way is to go through somebody else and say, hey, can you provide me an introduction? Yeah. Yeah. That's a very huge. Or just I want to find, you know, and not necessarily throwing it right into the, I want a job with your company. It's taking the approach of I want to learn more about what you do and what your career path has looked like to this. And not just targeting companies or people and companies that you want to work for, but maybe tangentially and getting to know folks because then it's like, hey, I don't, we're not hiring, but I know this other company and be in a relationship, I will recommend you.

What's your, you know, so I, my joke is now that I was a recruiter talking about the job search, but I've never been on the job search. Right. And so one of the things I was saying was before I was on the job search is the job search is a eight hour thing. You got to go after all day and I, and it burned me out. Right. When I started the job search, what's What's your cadence mix again? I like to be pretty practical here. Like, you know, what do your mornings look like? What do your afternoon look like? Do you have any like standard that you try to hold yourself to?

Like, can you give me any nuts and bolts from that perspective? Um, sure. So during, well, during any time in my life, I still prioritize exercise. Yes. Excuse me. Get out. Touch grass. Yes. Absolutely. typically get up in the morning and exercise first. And then have some personal time before I start my day, eat breakfast with my family, and then now that I'm unemployed and my job is finding a job, I still try to keep a fairly structured workday. And spend time in the morning, take a break for lunch, maybe do another quick workout or something like that, lunch with my wife or something like that.

and then still have the afternoon where I'm very, you know, have goals. Maybe it's a resume that I wanna tailor for a specific job I'm applying for, followed up by making sure that I reach out to specific people in the company and try to make connections that way. But also reaching out to other people and some locally, some that I can maybe connect with them through a virtual coffee or something like that. Yeah. But those things are important to not, again, not just get in this mode of I gotta apply, I gotta apply, I gotta apply. Yeah. Cause it happens. Yeah. Yeah, that's one thing that worked for me, it was sprints, right?

So like, you know, get to my computer by eight, go from eight to 11, take a two hour break, eat once for an hour or whatever, and then work out for an hour, and then come back and then two to five round it out, right? So it was really like six hours, kind of like three hour segments is what worked for me. But then also being intentional, what days you interview to, I don't know if you have, I mean, I'm sure you probably like, just take them as they go, but also making sure you don't schedule all interviews on one day, I did that one time, I had four interviews in a day, that was a terrible, terrible plan.

Absolutely. And, you know, the days that I have interviews, I do have specific time cut, you know, carved out to prepare for them, you know? And that's important to know the company that you're interviewing for and take everyone as seriously as possible. Even if it's maybe not one that, that you're super excited about. You still take it seriously and you go through the motions and you do your due diligence of being prepared because that goes such a long way. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. So we obviously didn't get to the interview inside of things, but I do want to touch on it really quickly because I know there's some engineering leaders on here, you know, Greg and Sean to name a few.

What's your advice for hiring? What do you look for? What do you, yeah, just maybe some intangibles that you look for when you interview. The main thing I look for as a leader is TeamFit. And you know, it's because how I've conducted the interview process when I'm hiring for my team, I don't do the technology assessment. That's important. You have to have some level of knowledge there and expertise. But I dig so much into the behavioral side of things and asking those questions and really trying to get at, is this person gonna be a good fit? Is it gonna improve our team or is it gonna be somebody that would potentially take away from the team?

And it's so much about how well I think they're going to fit. And there's no perfect prototype that I'm looking for. But it's communication. It's understanding what it takes to win. How do you work well with others? That's what I look for the most. So for me, the technology is secondary. they still have to pass that part of it. Right, so that's what I was gonna get. Like would you say what, 60% interpersonal, 40% tech? Like if you would have to like wait it. I would even go a little bit farther because I can teach somebody that's knowledgeable enough on the technology side. I'm more personally, I care more about building the team culture and nurturing that with the right people.

Yeah. And you know, the right people comes with diversity. It comes with years of experience. 100%. On both ends of the spectrum there. And because, you know, I do like young people that are new into their careers and early on in the early stages of the careers because there's a little bit of a different, bigger and hunger there. Yeah. But also having the seasoned folks that know and can teach And it goes both ways, you know, there. So absolutely. Yes. Somebody said he was first. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. All right. So last three questions. And again, Brian, thank you for hanging out.

Please go kenk with Brian. And again, if you're looking for a talented leader, hit on Brian. Brian, three questions for you. And I know we talked about, I'm going to throw a curve ball outside of triathlon. What do you like to do for fun outside of work? Uh, practically. The other hobbies. Anything outdoors. I love the fish. Yeah, of course. Yeah. That's a very Blacksburg, Virginia answer. It is. It is. And that's one of the reasons I'm in Blacksburg, Virginia. We've got the Blue Ridge Mountains. You got everything I do up there. Yeah. Maybe not much of a football team right now, but. I do enjoy my hooky football.

And we're on a little bit of a roll a little bit. A little bit nice. I've been both. I've been playing in South Carolina. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to evolve a bit on alumni perspective with nice athletes at Virginia Tech. Oh, that's awesome. And really try to bring that back together, you know, reunions and things like that. Oh, that's cool. That's cool. Former athletes. And so that takes up time too. But they're really interesting. That's awesome. Second thing, what tools, technologies, trends, are you reading about, researching about, interested in it or like just keeping an eye on, just general tech stuff right now. Yeah. Like I mentioned before, AI, ML, that is certainly the biggest buzz word, if that's a word.

Today, because all companies are wanting something. They feel like they're behind if they don't. So just trying to keep my finger on the pulse of that is really the biggest thing. Is there any tools that you're pretty hyped about right now? I'm still not as knowledgeable as I feel like I need to be. So sure, sure. You're a great engineering leader, man. You're always like, I don't know. I'm just not about knowledgeable as I need to be. You get very good answers for a senior engineering leader. The key to that is not necessarily knowing everything, but it's knowing who to ask. That's that's that's. Bring into the conversation.

A hundred percent. Yeah. Last question as we wrap up here again. Thanks y'all for tuning in to the first guidance counselor the 2.0 from the last two weeks, appreciate it. Also too, by the way, if you've commented and I haven't thrown your comment up, I don't think I'm getting all of them because as I'm doing this live, I'm getting emails too of people commenting, like my voice is out commented, like I'm not seeing it in the comment box. So if you've commented and I haven't thrown up your comment, it's probably maybe because I'm not seeing it, which kind of stinks, just a sidebar. Last question, this show is called Guidance Councilor 2.0 because we had guidance counselors in middle school, high school and college, but now it's adults.

really have a guidance counselor to turn to to ask general career advice. So what would be your biggest piece of career advice to young Brian? Never, I have not thought about that. But probably it would have to be around just trying to stay as relevant as I can in my career, exploring more things outside of the technologies that I'm currently working on from a work perspective. But also focusing on what's the next step or what's the next three steps that I want to get to. So a future looking perspective, yeah, an approach to that because it's kind of where we started is having goals, then you put milestones in place and really understanding that you know in order to reach that you have to gain along the way and you can't get it overnight and it is a bit of a long game so so just keeping that in mind that's that's probably what I would tell myself I love that and it's also it's a hard world you know there's always another engineer if that's what you're good at there's always another engineer that can replace you.

There's somebody else out there. It's the things that are going to differentiate you and the value that you bring are those intangibles to being a great team member, being somebody that other people want to work with. That's what makes a winning team and makes winning teammates. Yep, absolutely. I love that. All right, y'all. Thanks again for hanging out with us today. Brian, stay on real quick so I can say bye to you backstage. But again, go take a Brian. Go can't cook people on the chat. Like I said, I've had people find jobs on this chat and for mentees apprenticeships. So definitely go do that.

But again, thank you for hanging out tomorrow. We have busy week for guidance counselor to went on tomorrow. We have Jermaine Murray. The job father is his nickname. So he's committed to placing 500 black people into tech. And he's very close to doing that in the last year. So really excited to hang out with him tomorrow. He's he's a incredible recruit out of Toronto. So you won't want to miss that. But y'all have a great one Brian. Thank you again for hanging out with you buddy. We'll see you all too little peace Hey, you did it you listen to an entire episode and I am very grateful because you know why there's a lot of podcasts out there There's a lot of episodes and I myself rarely finished an entire episode So I appreciate you so so much for listening quick reminder Please rate and review this podcast in the app store I want this to be discoverable to others and the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it please like right now unless you're driving then don't do it.

So thank you again if you need to reach out to me at Tdastin on all social media handles and I hope you have a fantastic day.