how content can land you a job w/ chantastic

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Um, Jan, let's give the people what they want me in. Quick background, just about you. Maybe just who you are. What do you do? We'll go from there. Yeah. Uh, my name is Michael Chan. I go by Chantastic on the places. And, uh, I work with a company right now called workOS. We provide auth and identity services for people who want to get enterprise ready with their applications. Super fun. It's, it's all stuff that I didn't know that I would, uh, be excited about, uh, last year at this time. Oh, we talked more about that. But yeah, it's like, it's fun. I think I spent most of my career in the front end of things, a lot of React stuff, a lot of design systems.

And there are so many gaps in my knowledge in terms of like full stack web development. And I think right around the turn of 2024, I was kind of feeling like, you know, if I wanted to build something, like if I wanted to make a product to put it out into the world, I don't think I would have to learn a shit ton of stuff to be able to do that. And not just the development side of things. Like how to sell something, how to give people something they bought, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, so this is kind of a, it was a really exciting opportunity to get connected with WorkOS and learn the often identity side, learn how complicated it is, how many challenges there are, how hard it is to protect your customers and keep their identity and their information safe.

And so it's been a lot of fun. And I think, you know, for me, it's all about learning. You know, I just love, I have an avarice for like learning new, learning shit. That's a word. That's a word. That's a word of avarice. I'm not into my vocabulary. That's awesome. So yeah, so that's me. Yeah, worked in the past with React team, with the Storybook team, you know, all kinds fun stuff in the back catalog. So yeah, I'm curious, right? As a developer, as a developer, you get into what you're doing now, video editing, obviously kind of a different type of, just a different type of ecosystem with the OS stuff, you know, which all that stuff you just said.

Yeah. Do you still go? Do you still get your hands dirty with react at all? Or like, what does that look like? Yeah, that's so funny. Less, yeah, but like that's actually, you know, it's so funny. My happy place is, this is so stupid. This is so stupid. But like my happy place is writing guides, right? Really? I fucking love it. Right? Yeah, it is weird. It is. It's super weird. You like writing instruction manuals. I do. Like I do, like, you know, and everything kind of like comes from that. I enjoy giving a talk fine, but it's really the preparation of a guide of like, okay, I got 30 minutes to tell someone how this thing works.

In that 30 minutes, what are the most important things that they need to know? And then they can kind of figure out the rest, right? But what gets them to a finished product in that 30 minutes? And and then we can, you know, they can Google from there. So yeah, no, like a, yeah, Doc's boy, that's right. Uh, no, it's true. I over the- You're funny sometimes. Yeah, man, over the holiday, it's like, oh yeah, like, React 19 came out with some stuff. I think I'm just gonna like write up some docs about the new context APIs, so I can like understand it but I don't really like- You're not only at some nerd shit dude, I love it though.

It's a total nerd shit, total nerd shit. All right, all right, so you and I can yap it. Yeah, we have like nine hours, but so I want to get into, and I know we talked about this, you know, I think six months ago when I brought you on, but I want to talk about your last job search, right? So going to work OS, I think you put out kind of a first-like YouTube series, and I fell in love with it. Like I still get goosebumps talk, and like I'm not trying to gas you up, right? I mean, I truly mean it. I think you're one of the most genuine dudes I know.

I think you're one of the most creative guys I know. And you start to put this like YouTube series out, right? And obviously shout out, we have a video together, highly recommend going to check it out. It's a good one. It's a very tactical. Like I would highly actually recommend it. Yeah. But that's one of my favorite ones in that series actually. I'm just supposed to say that. You're on live with me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm pulling it up right now. I'm gonna share it with everyone in the chat. But yeah, so I got a playlist of all those videos, but here's this one of my favorite ones because it was just like, hey, I'm in a mess right now, right?

Like I'm in a hole, help me get out of it. Yeah. And dude, okay, so I just put that, I think I put it in the right place. I just put it in the YouTube one, that's okay. I'll get Jason, Jason, go copy. I'm so stupid at streaming here. I'm gonna put it in our private chat. No, no, no, no, it's not you. It's actually this program. you can only post comments as the speaker in YouTube, not LinkedIn or not Twitter, it's crazy. I think it's an API thing. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Fucking APIs. You're saying that right? Anyways, yeah. Hi, Rick, go ahead and change test YouTube.

So what was the start? Like you got laid off, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was January, I think 22nd, I got laid off from a job that I was feeling like pretty good about. You know, it's funny, like, I, like, there's a lot of people who do content that are like, you know, narcissists, like they really need the world to know how great they are. Yeah. I like really. Really, I just. I just. Yeah, like I. Like my mind, like I think chance like, they're trying to help people. I don't know if the fuck the followers or anything. Oh, I do not. Like I, like, I would do the same shit.

And that's why I don't like launch a lot of shit, do, is because like I would do the same shit. like if it was, if there was nobody there. Like I just, you know, if I can help one person, like I'm so happy to put all the stupid effort into, to help with that one person. And so it is kind of hard for me to like, you know, to actually like get into like a content flow sometimes because like just doing it is satisfying enough for me. But yeah, this was kind of this moment where like, I was, I was doing a lot of storybook.

I was, I was working for chromatic, doing storybook content. And I thought we were doing a great job. Like our videos were doing well. People were super excited about it. People were getting excited about the content. If you look at the sentiment in the state of JS for that year, like Storybook was not doing well and the year that we were working, or the two years that we were working together, things were starting to turn around. And so I felt like we were ultimately doing really good work, but I guess it just didn't fit into their plan for the direction they wanted to go. And yeah, so laid me off at the beginning of the year.

And I kind of didn't know what to do. But in those moments, it's just kind of like just be as loud and as helpful as possible. And I think in retrospect, it's kind of easy to see that like, I was on a little bit of a wave. You know, like I think a lot of people were getting laid off, but specifically in the dev role space. There were a lot of people who were getting laid off. A lot of companies were getting rid of their like DevRel, DevEd type people. And so I think something that I'm able to look back on in retrospect is that it's like, yeah, I was laid off and I was talking about that experience for me, which was independently helpful.

But it got boosted by the fact that, by the industry that I was in and kind of what was happening, the changes there and questions that people were asking about how relevant that space is still. So it was really, I don't know, I think it was a good time to do it because I think that if it was just about like, oh, I got laid off, let's talk about it, I would have lost energy for it. But there was enough in there for me to kind of like be excited about it until, you know, I eventually found something else. So I mean, how did, like, you know, I think people look at you and, you know, I think people get creators and they're like, they don't think we're humans.

and they're like, there's people heroes, and they don't, they're invincible, and they don't go through feelings, and they can figure out themselves. How did you feel when you got laid off? Oh dude, it sucks. Yeah, like, you know, I, I don't think we're talking about this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, I work for money. You know, like, you know, I would just be a nerd writing, you know, docs for myself, if that wasn't the case, but I work for my god. Which by the way, that's doc comment, by the way, Mark, love that nerd shit. I love Ryan Docks too. Docks are important. Docks are overrated.

I think we need to have an entire, we can have a lot of Jason at this is something you do around docks because I'm not nerdy enough to understand docs. So I think it needs to be its own thing. We should just do a webinar panel on docs. How we should let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. I love the hub on that. Actually, you know, it's so funny. You know those career assessments that you take in high school. It's not. Oh, it's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, career assessment. Go. Yeah. I remember, dude, this stood out to me, I think about it all the time.

Mine came back and it said I should be a dictionary editor. And I was the only person dictionary editor, a dictionary editor. I didn't even know that was a fucking thing. And the career assessment and it said you should be that I, you need to have a t-shirt that all it says is. that is wild. That is so true. And like, but like, you're the guy that the career assessment goes, who's taking this? Like, like the mind of the career assessments, like who is taking this? And then it just rolls the dice. And it's like, I don't know, anal retentive, you know, like right to right.

Like, right, dogs, like, dictionary editor, I guess. So obviously it sucked by going back to getting laid off. I mean, yeah, because I think, because I know people who have messaged me and they're like, did you feel anything? Like you're fine, you can get a job. I posted that like I felt bad when I got laid off and somebody literally treated me and go, it doesn't matter, you found a job in four weeks. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm allowed to have feelings. Sure, yeah, yeah. You still had four weeks of that feeling. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, which like any amount of time.

Now I understand that like sitting with that feeling for an exceptionally long amount of time is exhausting. Like no doubt that the sustaining that for a long time is an amount of torment that is different, right? But it still sucks. I mean, I still think the worst part of it is just finding out and your whole attention kind of like shifting to like, what do I do? And yeah, I think it, yeah, I mean, I guess to answer your like, specific question, like, there's this thing that you kind of have your head down and work a lot of times. And like, this is one thing that's really challenging.

I think, you know, this ties back to like one of the reasons that I don't like being a consultant or, you know, like a freelance or whatnot, is because it's so hard for me to focus on both getting work and doing work. It's so hard. People don't understand. Like I want to be three-inch, like are you a content creator? I basically tell people are you a content creator? No, like who you think? I'm like, yeah. You seriously have to be a content creator and a business like you need to develop and do content maybe not. Yeah, that's actually a really great point. Like now it's like probably three, right?

Because like if you're not like someone who's doing content is gonna out, like, is gonna win you. If there's a recruiter, I mean, in full transparency, if there's a marketing consultant, I don't know what I am anymore to be totally honest with you. But let's just say, there's a tailor man. You do everything. Let's just say there's a marketing consultant out there who doesn't post and then there's me. Like who's probably gonna look at first? Totally. 100%. Which kind of leads into our conversation as we're 16 minutes in and quite happy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Create, I mean, just create, put it out.

Yeah. Yeah. And so I think that's the, like, I think there is, It sucks. And like, man, there were days where I was like, I'm making the wrong fucking choice, like doing this instead of something else, like instead of like grinding resumes or whatever, or like getting in touch with more people in my network. Because, you know, like, you know, I have a family, right? And, you know, even though like I'm like financially responsible and had like, you know, three to five months or whatever of runway, you know, in the bank, you know, plus the, you know, Which shot out was in California? Oh dude.

I will admit I'm like lucky as hell we we bought at the right time And so like we did very Fortunate timeline wise, which I have no control over I just am grateful to have been lucky I'm and so it was was possible which I tell you now it would not be possible the I'd be I'd be running zeros like at the on my bank account at the end of every month. Yeah, and I think that like there's this, there's this kind of like shame in it too that you're feeling of like, shame around getting laid off. Shamer and getting laid off of like, oh, I guess I couldn't hack it or like whatever.

You know, you're feeling a lot of those things and it really does become like kind of, you know, content is kind of hard in those modes, right? Like the times that I haven't posted stuff, it's times that I've been like the most ashamed. So kind of pulling myself out of that is, or pulling yourself or like whoever, like out of your head to do that is like a really impossible thing. And obviously again, like I've been fortunate, like to have come off of the back of having like a pretty successful react podcast for a bit and to have like a little bit of an audience.

You know, if you're starting that stuff up from scratch, like nobody gives a shit, it's... And actually I mean that, and I want to preface that, I say no one gives a shit, meaning that that's great. You can literally create an iterate on stuff. I mean, it's up to me six months talking to the void. Listen guys, this is my fifth year of guidance counselor too. This is a great year. Yes. Nobody, like the comments, like these comments, like y'all are amazing. The comment section has been through the roof on this thing. I don't take that for granted, because I did six months of this where nobody commented.

Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody. I know that. You know, and like, I feel like you have to earn it, right? Like that, that builds up like a steel in you that is so important. And you take with you everything. Because it really makes you question like, yeah, am I doing this for likes and comments and, you know, follows and all that kind of stuff? Or am I doing it? Because I like it and I want to help people. Yeah. So going back, going back to YouTube things. So you got laid off, I felt awful, obviously. And then you just like, I want to help people, I want to document my job search.

Like where did that kind of, like where did that click for you? Yeah, like so I'm an insanely curious person. I think that kind of like ties into the, like in right docs, like there's always some kind of hidden magic, some type of hidden something inside of, you know, an API or a design decision that you can like, you know, learn from and it actually like changes, It's like XP farming, right, but for real life. And this felt like an opportunity. I had been laid off in the past, but didn't have kind of the tools necessary to talk about it out loud, I guess. And so this was a time I think I wanted to, my goals for the time were to learn something about where our industry was at, Because again, I had been heads down for just kind of like getting workout.

Learn something about where our industry was at, where we were trending. Just talk with friends. I think that there's this idea of content where you're producing something and it's all for something else. But at the end of the day, it's like you and I get to hang out for like 30 minutes in the middle of the week. Right? doing this, right? And like part of it is just like hanging out with your friends and like kind of learning learning what's up. I think it's guys, I think it's guys too. And I'm not a female, so like a female watching this chime in. But like I'm married, you know, to a female, like I understand kind of the maybe the kind of the nuance of it.

Like I feel like females are so much better like, oh, let's just go like get a matcha like journal and hang out, right? Guys, it's like, nah, I'm gonna be out my desk and just like typing away all day. Yeah, yeah, like one of the things one of the and you know, I've thought about I really have I was like Should I hang up guidance counselor 2.0 for a bit like should I like yeah? I'm like this is my this is my only way to keep hanging out with people in the industry. I love Yeah, like my boy Anthony may's out in California. Actually, I need to text him.

He's in LA I didn't think about that Anthony like I love that dude to death. He's in LA every time we see each other It's like we're like we're like brothers from another mother, but like Like, I don't get to hang out with him unless I do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, it's just, honestly, like that is a huge part of a huge motivator. I think one of the things that keeps sustaining you for the long time, right? Being able to like hang out with your friends and just kind of see what's up, see how they're thinking has changed from, you know, quarter to quarter or year to year or whatnot.

That's why I'm so bullish on streaming. because I feel like, actually, it was in my newsletter, I just put out this morning, but like I'm so, because like I think people view content and like to be a content creator, you know, just go live and hang with people. Yeah, yeah. And we'd be like, now your YouTube stuff's really good. I mean, shout out to your amazing editor. I love this stuff. Very engaging. Like, so if you watch your stuff, I would get intimidated. I was like, well, Chan can like edit. But that's why I, like that's, I don't edit. I just go live and I just post this stuff on my YouTube.

Now I do have editors, I have the phone report which Shout out Torque for obviously supporting me, but like I did phone, I mean literally most of my photos from Boston that I posted the last three or four days if you follow me or all my phone, edit all my phone. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like, you don't need a lot. But I think, I think everybody should stream and everybody should have excuse to hang out with people. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Also it's like, man, that's like, when you're having fun with people, Like that's such engaging content. Right? It's so much fun. I mean, like I still have like videos locked away in my brain from you and you have like a videographer with you like going through Atlanta and like just getting shots of you like hanging out, having fun with people.

And man, that stuff is so sticky. Like we're so like, our brains are tuned to see the advertisement, I guess, of people just having fun with other people. That's it. It's box. I listen, I know there are some people in business that I deal with. I drive them nuts when I talk about vibes all the time. When I come to realize it's all vibes. It's all vibes with your team, it's vibes with your career, it's vibes with your wife, it's how does things feel? Do things feel right or do things feel wrong? Yeah, yep, yep. And that's, I mean, you know, it's so funny. It's like that is, I think in American culture, We're so up here and we don't trust the, like so many, like all of our ancestors, like really trusted what was going on in their body and their nervous system.

And you had to like roll up on people and they're like, do they have guns out or not? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, yeah. Mighty senses were big back then. A hundred percent. And we still have all of that, right? But we train ourselves, like, We let the brain tell every other part of our body, oh no, that's not a thing. We're all about trying to control everything from the top down. And in this production of that short series of layoff videos, part of what was attractive to the team that hired me at WorkOS, Michael Greenwich, I remember feeling like he really got it when we had an interview.

he reached out and he was like, you know, trust is like the most important thing when building a brand, building a company, you know, just making content. And you know, you are a person that people trust because you open up and you talk honestly about a thing. And you know, that is, that's something that we want to, you know, invest in and partner with. And that really stuck with me because I think that, you know, it's like vibes is a little bit of like a meme way to describe it like oh yeah it's all vibes, it's all vibes. But like when you think about content as a machine for building trust with people, like what you're doing here is like you're creating a space where you're like hey we're gonna have an honest conversation about what it looks like to you know find work and you know continue to market yourself as a professional.

You know and have those honest conversations like every time you're building trust and like, yeah, it's like vibes in the abstract. But that trust, that is what brought me to ask you first and foremost, like, hey, what do I do? Like I haven't been in this place since before I knew you, but now that I know you, I know that you're the person that I need to talk with about this thing. And so, yeah, I think trust is probably, you know, trust is such a like, I don't know, plated word, I guess. But I think that's the way that I think about it is like, are you a person who is continually investing in being trustworthy and known for, you know, like not taking shortcuts, but like being honest with people, you know, all the time, even when it sucks.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Talk about how, sorry, so people start watching, It's just like, all right, we're talking about content, we talked about trust, we talked about giving back, we talked about being friends, we talked about hanging out with people. How does it land a job? Yeah, yeah, so, you know, I think that you can't, can't over us undervalue just doing the work too. You know, I mean, like, you know, you gotta, you know, I went through, you know, I went through and I did like kind of those, you know, LinkedIn, you know, profile checks and like try to make, you know, make all that stuff good.

I have another video in there as well where we talk about kind of like getting your LinkedIn up to ship shape with Danny Thomas just has a LinkedIn course. Like you literally just go through that and like just, your LinkedIn goes from like zero to 100 like overnight. And yeah, I think, you know, doing that, sending the resumes out. Man, I should send a couple links. I still have them on my site. I have a couple applications. Send in private chat, because what I'll do is I'll take all these links and posts on my LinkedIn where we're streaming and tag everything. Okay, yeah. I'll find them and I'll get them to you.

I don't know exactly where they are on my site right now, but I had them all public. So I applied to both, I had full places. So like Netflix and then syntax was hiring at the time. And yeah, so I made both of those applications like public to show the work that I did on those. But those are just, you know, like, you just grind in on problems in the traditional way, traditional applications. There was a lot of that as well as the more content side of things. I think I would have been happy either way, but I am really glad to be continuing to learn about the art of video production, being able to continue to do that instead of just having a struggling...

How did WorkOS find you? I want to make sure we highlight that. How did WorkOS find you? Oh yeah, through the content, through the interviews. I think my first video I posted about getting laid off. Did you make a video like for them, like almost kind of like a spec ad almost or? No, no, no, no. I, yeah, for that, you know, the, honestly, so that's, I mean, that's a nice thing about like doing content is is that like effectively, I was just like, they were seeing, they saw my original post about getting laid off and then saw some of the interviews that I was producing, some of the, you know, whatever and we're like, oh, like, Homie can just like take this ball and roll with it.

We know we need some more video stuff at this stage in our company. This is a person who can just do it like A to Z, like no brainer. Like when we're seeing them do it in real time. So I'm curious, how is the interview set? Because like, I think I know where this is going. Did they just like see you're like, we like you, we are like, I'm sure, I'm sure that tone is different. Oh, oh yeah, the tone is way different. The tone, I mean. Not an interview. Yeah, the tone was different for all of the interviews that I took. Like even Netflix, which I ended up, um, funny, funny story.

So I made a video, I will, like I will share it so that, you know, anyone can, uh, can see it. I made a video for Netflix, um, saying, Hey, I've identified this team. I think I'd be a really good fit for it. Whatnot. Turns out it wasn't a good fit and that came up in the interview. Now right. He was, yeah, I was not a good fit. Um, but I actually let him know. I was like, you know what, this sounds like it's probably not, um, the ideal fit for me. I think I'm a strong candidate, but I'm not the exact person that you're looking for.

And I don't want to ruin a good chance on the wrong role. And the guy was like, it took him a second to recover. And he's like, no one's ever said that to me as a Netflix recruiter, ever. Which was kind of a fun little thing. It was very kind of like personally satisfying to be like, oh man, you know what, I'm at a point in my life where I know what I'm good at and I know what I'm not good at. And I can close doors that I know we're gonna be a bad fit and like are gonna grind both of us. And so that was really exciting.

But I mean, I would not have gotten that interview. Like just, I would not have gotten that interview if I did not make a video for them and just put it out into the world. Because it just got, it got a lot of attention and people started sharing it and like, what the fuck is this? No one's ever made a video for us. And you think like Netflix, right? Like people are gonna, like, everything's already been done. But like, no, like there's, it's so easy to get attention just by, just by being willing to stand out. And 100%. I wanna be real quick. I wanna be respectful.

Cause I have another question. I see Jason's question. We're technically at time. What's your availability? Can we go a little over or? Oh yeah, I'm good for probably another like 15 minutes. Okay, cool. All right, so we'll go 15 more minutes. I do want to go to Jason's thing real quick. Can you elaborate on why it wasn't a fit or is that in the video? Oh yeah, no, I never like kind of followed up on that publicly. Most of the work that I do is like extremely deliberate. You know, I worked in like design systems and like I didn't get there by accident. Like I got there by being like an extremely slow, like parallel thinking type of person, like not like, like, hey, you got this component, like you gotta take it and you gotta make a component for this thing.

It would take me 10 times longer to do it because I was thinking down the road of like, well, how does it supply to all of our components? And how can we like, you know, universalize this and make it work for our growing team, you know, long term and like get better patterns around that? Yeah. And like, not everybody thinks like that. And that's just the way that my brain works. And it makes me really good at a certain type of development. But despite the way that the, and you know this delta very well, despite the way that the job was written up, which kind of talked a lot about the design thinking, front end architecture, all that stuff, they really just needed someone to grind out as fast as possible.

And that's just not. I just can't, right? It's just not a mode that I got, like I have slow twitch muscles when it comes to development, not a fast twitch. And so- And so- And so you're a marathon runner, you're not a sprinter, I mean, that's absolutely a thing, absolutely. And like, I mean, and again, and I want to reiterate what Chan's saying, I think if you can get to the point in your career, well, you can turn down Netflix. Like I don't want that to go like under the radar here. Like, Chan was like, nah, I'm good. It's not a fit. Like do you understand where you have to be at in your conference of who you are, developer, the awareness of who you are as a developer, and the balls to just say to Netflix, no I'm good.

So shout out to you because, but I truly think, and this is where I finally got to. I have experienced, I put out a newsletter two weeks ago about dealing with imposter syndrome. The last four years in my career has been heavy, heavy imposter syndrome. Why? Because I was moving from a traditional recruiting role to this like the bell, the bell marketing, yeah, whatever I do, right? People ask me like, what do I do for a job? I'm like, I have no idea. So like the fact of the matter is like, I felt so much posture, but now like when I interviewed at Torca, I was like, this is what I can do.

This is what I will do. This is what I will not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh man, it's so hard to say that, right? Because like once you've said it, you can't go back and be like, oh yeah, I guess I'm willing to do that. Like no, like they know now, they know. Yeah, like oh yeah, this guy's bad at that. Yeah, and Jasmine, I appreciate it kind of words. Appreciate it, appreciate it. Yeah, it's just like, and I wanna encourage people, I think if you can get to that point, even if you're junior, I think you're actually gonna probably turn some heads more than you think washi washi.

That's just my hot take. Let me ask you this, Chance, because I only got you about for 14 minutes. And again, thank you for hanging out. This has been, conversation's been great. The views are through the roof. So I think people resonate with this. So there's a conversation right now. And again, this is a little bit of a hot take, a little bit of a hot topic. But I feel like in today's world right now, it's very hard to get started as a junior developer. It's very hard to get started as a developer. I feel like the end to this, and this could just, you could just tell me I'm wrong, we can move on.

I feel like if you could pick up video editing, oh man, everything is moving to content. Like literally, and I've posted about this in my, again, my newsletter is kind of like, torque updates and like, industry trends. And like, I think like hiring a developer for engineering content is like the next wave of marketing. And so for the people who couldn't necessarily hack it in the dev side, which is totally fine, I feel like if you can become a decent, And not even like you. I'm talking about like open up cap cut web web or desktop and just do some clipping. I feel like that's like the next hot thing, but I'm curious here your thoughts on this.

Yeah, so, man, like I'm so like, I'm so cautious right now. I know, and listen, this is safe space. We gotta be here to safe space. So you can, I know. I think that like yes and no and I'm gonna qualify those to be like like totally I'm gonna come back to the no First emphatically yes Like if you have any interest in video editing at all push into that a hundred percent. I agree with that sentiment entirely so much of Like you know So the CEO of work OS Michael Greenwich is constantly talking about product market fit and finding it, whether it's enough, et cetera.

And one of the ways that you know that you have product market fit is that your customers keep pulling you into various directions. They're just begging you for features. And so I've been doing web development for the last, what, 15 plus years? The majority of my adult career is in web development. However, I went to school for multimedia production. And so like back in my history, I have like a lot of audio production, a lot of like video production like back there. And I can say for a fact right now, like my job is like 90% editing right now. Like, and I am like, I'm a developer educator, but it's like so much of it is editing.

Now, the no part is like, if you don't want to do that, like, you know, you got to trust your gut. Like, yeah, I'm not saying you have to. Yeah. But if you have any interest in that shit at all, man, being able to, like, because I think of editing right now as being able to tell a story. And man, everybody needs that. Everybody needs that. Like, Emory comes here. There are way more. Yeah, yeah. Listen, what I'm saying is, is I think If you are having problems finding a job, but you are also artistic and like the editing and like content, I think if you could pick that up, I think you could potentially find a job faster in developer marketing than you can being a developer.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Because what, because what I'm seeing right now, when I was on my last job search, I talked to two to three companies who have fired their entire marketing division because traditional marketing does not work. My words, their words, not mine, which is what I'm obviously very passionate about. I am like, I'm like, you have traditional marketing sucks for the most part. Briana, if you hear this, you're wonderful. Briana Holmes, my right-hand woman from Render. He does all the Render's marketing works. I mean, she's wonderful. She's insane. For the most part, traditional marketing has worked. So it's like, all right, well then what does that look like?

That goes into more content style marketing, which to do content well, you need to be able to do some video editing. Or at least know your way around it. Prime example, there's this girl of all, it's actually the sister of a guy on my team, Luca. Luca's sister is an incredible product marketing content person. She works for a company called Chameleon, I think it's some payment, something or other, right? First off, I would have never heard about this company to begin with, it wasn't for her. Second off, I watched every single one of her videos. It was like, it's not even about a product that's even necessary to me.

I just watch it because she's really good at what she does. Yeah, yeah. I think more of that, that's something I'm really considering too. If you want to go on a marketing like Sprint here, like that's my thing, like creating meaningful impactful content that people will watch no matter industry. That's when you tap into the next level. So if you're a developer and are able to bring those video skills, that's that next level shit, which is what you got. Yeah, no, I 100% agree with that. I think that every, you know, as markets collapse, like everything ends in individuals and like this goes back to that thing that I hate doing.

So this is kind of like linking back to the like, why I never wanted to be freelance or. You know, that's all. All right. That's actually what comedians do. That's a really good comedian. Every. When we identify like a skill that we have that we like, that we want to grow in, we want to try to. We try really hard to protect only doing that one thing, right? especially develops like, oh, I'm just a front end guy, right? Like, or I'm just a back end guy. You want to like niche, everyone's trying to niche down. The people who have the best sustained careers are the people who think like entrepreneurs, no matter what field you're in.

And so you have to look at the landscape, look at where, like, look at where things are going. As much as over the last 15 years, I've wanted to be able to just put my, like, put my head down and just crank out, like really excellent like front end components that work for like multiple like multiple applications and design systems, et cetera. That has never been true for me, right? Like I always get end up getting like pushed around and you have to be someone who thinks entrepreneurially no matter what job that you do. And I think that, you know, in that way, if you know, I completely agree, if you have an inkling about like, Hey, I want to get into content.

I want to write more. I want to, you know, produce some little videos around things that I learned. I think that that is an incredible skill to develop that that's kind of like that and, like, you know, maybe you're like, you know, this is the value add because man, I tell you what, like, you know, being on the marketing team or having been on multiple marketing teams, people don't know how to communicate the thing that they've built, right? And so like you'll get like a first draft like, hey, you know, I spent the last like three months building this thing and you'll get a draft trying to talk about it, like communicating that to the world and it's not good.

Yeah. And so I think that, man, like just being able to tell a story, communicate like however that resonates with you, like writing, you know, it doesn't have to be like video editing. But like, you could be a great writer. I mean, I do think there is like when it comes to social and con and again, I know we're kind of blurring lines here like Taylor's at the marketing podcast or. But I think like with Chan coming on, Chan is like a unicorn too and kind of sits in the middle. Like I've kind of sat in the middle with the marketing to marketing to where we can see in and out.

So that's why I'm bringing this up. And then I just think like if you love writing, you don't have to do video. If you love writing, there's a huge need of writing blogs, writing social content, like, you know, like, I even want to go to the, to the F degree on tour, but we just have a TikTok person that just creates TikTok. Yeah. Right. He's like TikTok content's different than Twitter content. And it's different from LinkedIn content. I mean, like, there's so many nuances. And so I think like if you are technical and understand technical jargon, but can still communicate, I think that's huge. And I think that new lane is going to be through content creation.

Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, to bring it back, it's like, it's all about, It's all about story, right? And like that will, developing that skill will never, will always serve you. Like it's always going to be an interview process. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I mean, all storytelling. If you can't, like if you can't sell like some feature that you built, there's no way you're gonna be able like sitting in an interview and like sell yourself, right? Like it's so scary to be like, hey, this is the shit that I'm good at. Like this is what I've done. Like this is how awesome I am. Like it's so unnatural for a developer.

Like I don't know, like I've been trying, I guess, to some extent sell, you know, myself for various things, like for the past, like my entire career. And like it's still fucking awkward, right? Like, you know, some people are natural at it because they think they're the center of the universe. But for those of us who are kind of maybe more like traditional nerds, doc nerds, you know, if you will, it's not easy and it's a skill that you have to develop. and kind of asking yourself every time you do anything, what's the story in this? Like what's the story in this? And I think that's what you've learned through content.

I think people can like in a very small way, just say like, hey, I've built this really cool thing. I'm gonna talk about, what's the thing that I'm allowed to talk about? Because that's a thing too, sometimes people are under some type of, if it's closed source that can't talk about. But you learned something through that process that is yours to talk about. Right. And being able to harness that, talk about it, find a lane where it's easy for you to introduce that into your process. Man, that's the difference. That is the difference and it changes everything. 100%. All right, last four minutes, rapid fire here.

Again, Chad, thanks for coming on. Y'all, I'll post some links and whatnot. But I guess the first question real quick, any technical things, any frameworks, trends, something that you're nerdin out about right now that you wanna share? Yeah, so Theo posted a video I think maybe yesterday, maybe a couple days ago, but it was talking about, I'll find it, how just sentiment around JavaScript is bad, just in general, across the board. I found that to be a very interesting take. I think that it's, it makes sense, kind of given the time that we're in. I don't think JavaScript became like the rails of productivity that everybody wanted it or a lot of people wanted to become.

And so yeah, I think there's kind of like a shifting vibe on like, how we build applications. I think there's just a general trend towards thinking more full stack, thinking more in terms of product than there has been. as our industry kind of like goes through that that that low. We have to take on more roles, put on more hats. And so I find that to be like an interesting thing of like, how do we tell stories that help people build build the products that they're interested in, whether for someone else or for themselves? That's something that I'm interested in right now. I love it.

I love it. All right, last piece of advice for you hop off here. When it comes to people in their careers right now and they're struggling with, right? The biggest thing is like, you know, biggest piece of advice you would tell yourself or just biggest piece of advice you tell somebody right now on the job search. Yeah, find a way to figure out how to tell stories like throughout your whole career. I mean, that's really in like, it's everything. It's everything. It's everything. Story is everything and it is a, it's a way to connect with people, you know, as, as we've talked about this whole time, right?

Like at the end of the day, like we've been talking about like creating connections through storytelling. That is like just that's how you make good friends. That's how you make good industry connections. Like being able to raise the time raises. Yeah. When you go and you want to raise, you got to say what you've done. You got to spin it a little bit. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah, you got to get good at saying like what what you've done, cause, you know, to another thing that we've said, like, nobody gives a shit. Like people aren't out there looking for like, hey, how can I give a shit about the thing that you're doing?

Like, that's not how we're wired. Everyone's trying to like survive and figure out their own shit. Yeah. And so you have to figure out how to tell the story that helps other people, cause that's how you get attention. That's how you build trust. Those vibes we're talking about. That's how you build vibes. How you... I'll go back. All right, well, it's chance they'll talk to somebody back stage, but y'all have a great one. Have a great Friday. Hey, you did it. You listened 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.