how to get a job off of x/twitter w/ staff eng, jacob evans

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

We go. There we go. Alrighty. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. Uh, full transparency, I've been a little sick um the last two days. I had a massive fever last night. I slept for 10 hours last night. So, yeah. Uh, feeling better this morning. Uh, would not miss this live with Jacob. So, pumped for this. Um, it's going to be a great conversation. Um, but uh, you know, again, for those of you tuning in, welcome. Um, please say, "Hey, we'd love to hear from you." I always tell folks, right? This is a networking platform. We're going to talk about networking today. Uh, Jacob and I were chit cchatting backstage.

He's got a lot of a lot of great pointers and tips and and stories that that that we're going to talk about today. And it's all around networking. Shocking, right? Um, and so, uh, so please say, "Hey, would love to hear from you." Again, what I tell folks, I've been doing this thing for five years. And what I what I tell folks is like I would highly recommend uh for you to network off the back of me. Um that's kind of what we're doing at Torque in general is just allowing a place to bring on guests, for you to network with guests, for you to say, "Hey, um you know, slide in Jacob's DMs be like, "Yo, Jacob, it was good to see you on Taylor's show today." Um I mean, we're going to talk about how to build meaningful connections today.

And and I'm sure Jacob can attest that's the first step uh in developing meaningful connections. So please say, "Hey, we love to hear from you." Um, next thing, uh, uh, again, want to give a shout to Apprite. I'm a part of their Heroes program. Um, I always joke I'm probably the only technical guy, non-technical guy on a technical heroes program. Appright's just released a lot of great stuff. Um, I don't know what it all means, but it seems cool. Uh, so you should go check them out. Um, love the Devril team out there. Um, and, um, also too, you know, it's so funny that Jacob joined kind of a community first platform, um, in the ecom space.

We're community first in the staffing space. Um, so we do a lot of things in the community with these streams and resume reviews and and the chat that honestly our Discord is so crazy that I can't even keep up anymore. Um, so if you want to check that out, check out torque.com community. It kind of runs through everything. And finally, if you want to be if you want I text uh my texting community every day when I go live. Um, so if you want to text this number 615235-5650, this is my number. Um, and I'll get you looped in um to that texting thread um or that texting community and I shoot shoot out text every time I go live.

Uh so yeah, cool. All right, that's enough. We got some people tuned in this morning. Jordan, it's good to see you. Christopher EMTT, what's going on? OG, you know what? You know what? That's where I remember you from. Coder Dads, that's where I remember you from. That's it. That's it. Uh Amelia, it's good to see you this morning. Mark, Ricardo, Chris, double Chris. Jeremy, it's good to see you. Jeff, it's good to see you. Ta, it's great to see you as well. We got some people tuning in. As always, please keep saying, "Hey, we'd love to hear from you." All right, Jacob, let's get the people what they want, man.

Who are you? What do you do now? And we'll go from there. Uh, yeah. So, I mean, my name's right there. Uh, I currently am a staff engineer at at uh wop.com. um which as as uh as you mentioned is a community first uh e-commerce platform. They're hot. They're hot right now. Yes. Yes. There there is a uh very very um uh just popular platform right now. Yeah. And it's actually grown in popularity in a lot of places too that that is just very awesome to see. um um various countries and whatnot. So, uh yeah, I mean, you know, I've I've worked at Cloudflare where people know me from um because I was I am was and am still a very strong advocate for for uh Cloudflare workers and the products there.

I love it. Um and yeah, that's that's where I'm at right now. Cool. Love it, man. All right. Lot to dive into. Um uh actually I'm literally going live with uh one of my buddies who just took a job at Cloudflare. So there you go. Um uh so lot to go over today. Let's let's set the story of how this all came about kind of when you jumped on backstage with me. Set the stage. Talk about where you were on your job search, how you got tired of LinkedIn, and then kind of what kind of transpired from there. And then I'll start asking follow-up questions.

Yeah. So, um, I had reached out to my friend Theo and was like, you know, what do you what do you think I should do? Um, particularly early on when I was I was I was, you know, doing the the good old job board. Easy apply. Easy apply. What you said was not easy, which is not No, it's not easy anymore. Um, basically every recruiter wants you to fill out your resume like three times. But that's nuts. Um, Theo was like, "Oh, let me let me help you out." Posted a post and uh I got a a lot of calls from that one where he could just kind of kind of uh you know, redirected a lot of those those DMs he got to me.

Um that seemed promising. And yeah, those were really great. Um, some of them were still actually in process uh while I was um uh still interviewing and plugging away on like LinkedIn and stuff. But the job boards, this is the thing. I applied for two weeks straight. Um, and this is after I was I I left I was no longer with clerk. So, right. Um, I'm I'm like getting kind of like into that month area of of of go and I was like Yeah. Yeah. Not hearing from any of these job Yeah. Yeah. And so it's like, okay, Theo's post got me like X like like X.

That's funny. A bunch of uh uh uh uh interviews um phone calls at the very least. The job boards got me one out of like a hundred applications, 150 applications. It was absolutely insane. Yeah. The ratio that that was happening. And I'm actually f friends with a recruiter at at Cloudflare. Me and him have like a coffee meeting every every week. And um like he was also like he's like oh yeah you know these the ATS systems are absolutely going insane right now because of you know all this new AI technologies coming in and I know um so like as much as we used to complain about our resumes getting kind of black holed in in these like conventional uh job application systems uh they're like a million times worse now apparently Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's bad. It's bad. And so I was like, "Well, this isn't working." I'm like, I've I've built up a lot of I'm not nearly as big on the platforms as Theo is like Twitter and yo, Theo is an animal, dude. I mean, that he's not even S tier for sure. Exactly. And it's I was like, you know, maybe B tier, Ctier could do something here. Yeah. And so I was like, I've built up a lot of good goodwill with uh people on Twitter. Let me just post something and see what happens. And so I did and I actually got uh quite quite a few responses and calls from that as well, which was absolutely insane.

Uh uh definitely made me um little, you know, feel Yeah. feel good. Yeah. Like Yeah. Yeah. Um CT you're still putting in the work. Exactly. Um and so uh during that time I like I said I was still interviewing with some of the the leads that I got uh from uh Theos, but I one of them uh I got from my post was when uh Aiden B actually had like reposted um my my uh you know announcement. Yeah. And it actually came down that they uh the CTO reached out to me from from Wamp and because of one of your friends post not Theo's I I I want to drive that home here.

Yeah. So yeah, it was I posted my post. Yeah. Aiden by repo like retweeted it. Retweeted it. Yeah. And they reached out to me because they follow Aiden very closely. um uh they like him a lot. And the CTO got on a call with me very excited after that call about, you know, my Cloudflare experience and all these things that like I was like, he's like, "Oh, can you take a look at this?" And I was like, "Oh, yeah. I have ideas on this, this, and this." And um then I talked to their CEO who was very uh uh a very cool, very interesting individual.

Um definitely enjoyed that conversation a lot. got kind of philosophical which I was very very happy about. That was very fun call very fun interview call. Yeah. And by by the end of that call he was just like you should come out to New York and meet the team. Okay. And uh my my my family my wife and my parents have have uh jokingly said this before, but they said it especially after this. They're like you have like the most main character syndrome uh ever and it's all because you you get you see these opportunities and and and you just say yes. Yeah. Like we should talk about that.

We like the power just saying yes. Yeah. He was like you should come to New York. I was like sure. Okay. Sure. Let me talk to my wife. But sure. Yeah. Got to talk to the wife. Yeah. Talk to the wife for sure. Uh and that was that was like that was uh huge. After um I went out there uh met the team, worked with them for a few days. Great office, great, you know, great engineering team. Overall, the everybody in the company was super friendly. They didn't even know who I was. I was just walking around the office. They're like, "Are you serious? Who are you?" And I was like, "Um, you know, Sharky, the CTO, is like invited me here." And yeah, I love it.

I'm working for a couple days and they're like, "Oh, great. Let me show you around." I'm like, "Somebody already did like five times now." Um, thank you, though. Yeah. So, yeah, it was it was a really great experience and then got a job offer. That's awesome, man. That's awesome. All right. So, so now the stage is set. So much to unpack here. I think the first thing is is like um man, where do we start? Let's so so let's talk well let's let's let's rewind a little bit more which is what you told me backstage about your boot camp person telling you that X was not good for your career.

Can you talk about that? Oh yes. Okay. So I went to a coding boot camp. Uh um it was uh a very interesting experience. Um the the the the funny thing was is they had like this growth career uh manager person there. Their entire job was like prepare you for interviews, get you ready for uh your career and all this other stuff. And what I was told during that time was like go go go to meetups locally and I was in Seattle at the time. Yeah. Um where are you right now by the way? Uh I'm in uh Gig Harbor, Washington. Okay, cool. Sweet. Yeah, it's it's it's away from the cities, but Okay.

Uh, I was actually commuting um from a small town across. I'd had to take the I had to take the ferry to Seattle every every day to go to the coding boot camp. Yeah. Crazy. uh the meetups were great. Somebody at the meetup, one of the meetups that I went to is like the Amazon one or Axon or something. They were like, "You should join Tech Twitter." Um, it's super like there's like lots of people there that are very interested in like the stuff you're talking about right now. And um I was like, "Okay." Like I'm not really like I wasn't big on Twitter before and like I as a Hacktober Hacktoberfest.

Um it it's not it wasn't really like something I was I didn't know how to use Twitter. Yeah, I was on it and I was like, how what? Yeah, it was it was it was uh it was it was interesting. But so I started trying out the the tech Twitter thing and and it kind of grew in the coding boot camp and like everybody was like, "Oh yeah, let's let's you know, more people started getting on on tech Twitter and that that career growth person um that was in charge of like our interview stuff and our career stuff told us it was a waste of time." Said like, "Hey, it's it's like a quick fix.

Terrible career. makes you feel like you're doing a lot of a lot of uh networking. It makes you feel like you're doing a lot of uh work, but it it it's short-term uh and it's there's no real long-term gains, blah blah blah. Yeah. All this stuff that was just like even with what I knew back then, which was not a lot. That felt wrong. I was like, yeah, that doesn't sound right. That's not ideal. that digital digital networking is is is just as as valuable as physical networking 100%. Um and even then I I kind of knew that. Yeah. Um, so I I I kept I kept working uh on my networking in Twitter, but what I focused on primarily was trying to have like genuine connections with people, not just like posting memes and uh uh you know doing normal social media stuff that people generally do.

and and uh yeah, Jerome Hardway, we met on Twitter. Yeah, Jerome's awesome. Like we we basically uh uh like he saw that I was security forces, so I was in the Air Force as as a cop and so was he and we're like, "Hey, we're both in tech. How'd that happen, dude?" And that's the power of it, man. Real quick, I I wanna I want to rewind just a little bit. How does one get involved in tech Twitter, right? because you're not just like dumped into tech Twitter. You kind of got to go find it. So, can you talk about how somebody like finds tech Twitter?

Yeah. So, hashtags aren't a thing anymore. Amazon like early 2010s like Yeah. Um, so what what what I ended up doing was I kind of just like would find somebody who seemed like they were uh kind of big in this like tech Twitter. what like was like an abstract concept of tech Twitter and for instance like one of my initial entry points was like Kenzie Dods. Yeah. Yeah. And I found him and then I found all these people that at the time he was following or were following you just start following them and I started following people and I was like I don't know if these people are legit but like we'll see.

Yeah. Exactly. Yep. Um, and on top of that, like like stuff like where you meet uh certain people in like like chat threads, right? Yeah. And you get to you get to talking with them. One of my one of my favorite way So, uh, the creator of SolidJS, Ryan Carneato, I actually became friends with him because I DM'd him because he mentioned something about Magic the Gathering. Yeah. The card game. Yeah. And I was like, "Yo, you like Magic the Gathering?" Yeah. And he was like, "Yeah." And I was like, "Me, too." Ain't that crazy? And we just started we were in Twitter DMs just talking about Magic the Gathering for like hours.

Crazy. And so like people are like, "How do you know Ryan Carneato?" I'm like, "Not tech." Yeah. Exactly. Well, I have a tweet going out today, you know, because like Render's coming up the big conference and a lot of people are going to be there. I was like, most of the time people remember you not because of the technical stuff that you talk about. Yes. Like it's actually like like your connection with Jerome with you being both in the Air Force or Magic the Gathering. Like most people vibe with folks not because of what they're doing from a day-to-day perspective. Yeah. Um I like I I mentioned to you because you were like where do I know you from?

I'm like I did do Twitter spaces for like I don't know it was like three four years straight. uh three days a week. So like Yeah, that's aggressive. What What What prompted you to do that? I'm curious. Uh co So I started it Yeah, I started it like uh like near the end of the lockout because I was going to the gym and Twitter spaces had just like come out and I was like, "Oh, there's nobody here. Why don't I just like I'm on like an elliptical or a comet bike or I'm doing like a a static like like I'm not moving and doing weights and stuff.

So like why why don't I like do this Twitter space thing and talk to people from my my community from uh you know tech Twitter that yeah whatnot while I'm doing this and I you know did the code code in life is was the space's name and uh the first like week there was like nobody I just like had this open yeah I mean listen like yeah it takes a while like a couple weeks in though, you know, there was like four or five people were just talking, chitchatting. And the vibe I was going for is like, hey, why don't we just talk about like like work stuff that we're wanting to complain about and uh tech stuff that we want to complain about and uh life stuff we want to complain about.

Kind of like when you finish up work. So, I was at the gym, right? Like when you finish up work and uh you go like to the bar with your buddies afterwards from work, right? Everybody just kind of like, "Hey, you want to go grab something to eat and maybe a drink or something?" It's like, "Yeah, sure." And then you all go there and you all complain about whatever the hell you want to complain about. Yeah. Yeah. That's the vibe I was going for because we were all missing that socializing aspect of of life from lockdown. Sure. I love that. Um uh there was a question here and I think it's a good question.

Let's see where is it. Dave chimes in here. Is it possible to have a presence on tech Twitter avo and avoid the toxicity that seems to flourish there these days? That toxicity has flourished every day since it's existed. Yeah. Um the the way to do that because like when I joined every every couple months there would be like this like we called it Twitter drama. Yeah. Okay. And every couple months there would be like this huge Twitter drama when I joined. It hasn't happened nearly as bad. Yeah. But um it still occasionally happens. Sure. You see some stuff on there and you're just like I'm not touching that with a 10-ft pole.

Yeah. And generally what I say is is the best way to uh uh avoid it is just interact with things in tech Twitter that that you want to interact with. Don't Correct. You don't have to interact with correct the toxic because it beats I mean the algorithm is pretty good and it will push what you engage with. Yeah. And on top of that um a lot of this negativity gets pushed because people are engaging with it. Yeah. Um and there's nothing nothing forcing you to engage with it. And the less you engage with it um the less time it spends on your feed. Yeah. And I and I'll tell you this.

I mean, this is, you know, I I see Jordan here saying that like, you know, he can't really do X. He's barely got time for LinkedIn. And, you know, I I think here's the deal. If there is a social component to any platform, there is going to be some sort of toxicity. Yeah. And I think like you just have to kind of deal with it. And I know that's like maybe not the best answer, but like you kind of just got to let it blow over. and you know and I understand people get it in waves more than others but for me like I see it I don't engage with it and I move on right so it's it's I think it's I mean LinkedIn has its own craziness right X has got its own craziness I don't think blue skies got enough engagement to have a craziness and that's just my hot take uh but uh yeah so again I mean unfortunately I think I think you're going to have to deal with it but for me that's why I am key of like following the people I want to follow post the things I want to most and then not use it for anything else.

Yeah. Um the the the value really comes from uh just fostering the connections that you do make that are really uh you know healthy and and productive and uh you know have some sort of meaning for you. like like you said like not everything is um as positive or or uh like the like the Magic the Gathering or or or having the the military uh uh shared background. Sometimes it was like how I met Theo when he he uh first got like real serious on Twitter. Yeah. Um, he started using it more and me and him were in in Tanner Lindsley's Twitter space and this is like before his company even like he was he was I think he was just starting it.

Yeah. And me and him were just on on Tanner Lindsley's space. We're both friends with Tanner. We didn't know that. We were mutual friends. Uh, and Tanner was talking about, I think, React location, like the early concept of Tanstack router, and me and Theo just started arguing about something and everybody was just like, are you guys okay? Like, is this is is this are you good? And we're like, no, great. Like, this is a great this is a great discussion, right? We kept we kept arguing and realized that we both really enjoyed having this like super passionate deep conversation. Discourse. Exactly. And that's how we ended up becoming friends was arguing on uh Tan Wley's space and uh Theo started coming to my spaces and um uh he was a co-host for almost the entire time.

That's awesome. That's so cool. That's so cool. Yeah. Let's talk because because I definitely don't want to miss out on it. Um, as we, you know, are at like 12 minutes left. Um, talk about like building genuine connections, right? I mean, you talked about that backstage. You already mentioned it, you know, about magic, uh, you know, with Jerome, with with air, you know, with the Air Force, with Theo, with arguing, which I'm not an arguer, so I could never do that. But if that's your if if that's your taste, go ahead. If that's what you can do. Um, I mean, what what does it look like for you, right?

So, like, you know, you didn't know how I didn't know how to do Twitter, right? And now it's like it's like Danny Castro said on here now like I'm all over it, but like can can you talk about like the levels of like follow a person, like, and comment SL? I mean, do do you have I mean, do you have kind of a little bit of a method to the madness? Yeah. So, um, obviously engaging on people's posts, especially if they're, you know, something that's interesting and you can spark a discussion with is is definitely a very low bar for an entry point. Um, one of the things that you can do and how I actually became friends with Keny Dods, uh, and helped with his his early Discord community when it was still like KCD and it was just starting up.

Yeah. um was I was engaging on his uh uh on his Twitter constantly, especially stuff around his like test like JavaScript testing and his courses and whatnot. And I was engaging constantly with him on there. And I' I've back then and I still do pushed this concept of you can have mentors without this this this uh traditional concept of like they need to uh spend x amount of time like on you. Yeah. And in reality, you could just use them as a role model and engage with them on these platforms that they have already decided I'm going to spend this time on this platform like X sharing ideas, sharing thoughts and you can engage them there instead of being like DMing somebody and being like, "Hey, will you mentor me?" Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You don't need their permission. just just engage with them on the platform that they're already willing to engage on with everybody. Yeah. Um just get their attention by by posting and commenting and liking and being like, "Hey, I this I feel that this is, you know, wrong for this reason or I really like this idea for these reasons." And I actually built a relationship with Kenzie Dods through just like this concept of of uh uh you know passive mentorship and eventually ended up helping him with his uh you know Discord community and and uh I even helped him launch uh I was part of like the the uh the epic webdev launch one.

Yeah. Yeah. I actually MCD that this year. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. Um talk talk about Discord for a second, right? I mean, you know, I you know, you you were you know, you had the foresight to help Kent to network, right? You know, th this is a weird analogy and I'm going to say this out loud, but um bear with me here. You know how like you have like uh the whale the whale the it's like a whale basically. You have these whales, right? And then you have like these little fish that swim along the whales and eat kind of the leftover food and stuff.

Yeah. I feel like fish. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that's kind of like what networking is a little bit. Like piggyback off the whale until you could you I mean you you could stay piggybacking off the whale for as long as you want or you can go off and then do your own thing. So I don't know I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. Um I like that metaphor. Uh I appreciate that. That just came out of the blue, man. That that's very it's a very interesting way of looking at it and I enjoy it. Um, I definitely was a cleaner fish and you know, uh, Kent Cy Dodds was definitely a whale.

But the the the the funny thing was is uh how I initially met Kent Dods was when I worked at a a tiny startup. It was very first job out of coding boot camp and they were like, "You're in charge of social media because you're the only one that understands any of this stuff." And I was like, "No, I don't." I know. And I don't. He actually I I was posting stuff uh for the company in comments and whatnot and something I had said or done um got Kensy Dods to block the company account. And so I go on my personal I'm like please for the love of God don't block that company account.

I need this job man. Yeah. And and he was super nice about it. He's like, "Hey, could you just stop spamming comments or whatever it was I was doing that he found really annoying and I was like, "Whatever you want, boss." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I that was that was that was my entry point to meeting Kent C do. Like it's funny because like people are like, "Oh, like you must have had this really great first interaction with Dio." And Kent is like, "No, I was arguing with Dio and I got blocked by confrontation that started these relationships, which is wild. Wild, but it was a start, right?

It was a start of a conversation and it's up to you to continue it in a a healthy, meaningful way, right? Don't I I could have also been like, "Hey, thanks for unblocking us. Um, can you mentor me now?" And he would have been like, "No." Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. No, not at all. this not it would have been productive uh uh for either of us and that's kind of the the approach I take is just like what is the uh the you know the most uh healthy and and and productive way that you could communicate. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Um all right, so as we wrap up here, let's put a bow on XT Twitter.

What is your general like last words of encouragement? Why you should be on it, etc. Just let's let's tie bow in this. Find meaningful relationships on Twitter. Uh it's it's not just a drama meme posting engine. You can find meaningful connections with people and foster those connections. Uh it it takes a little bit of work. Um but it's worth it. I love it. I love it. Um all right. All right. So, I kind of rapid fire with every guest. Um, uh, so first question I have to ask, coffee or tea? Uh, I like, uh, sweet iced tea. And then I also enjoy coffee. Do you do All right.

So, coffee. Is it hot or cold? Iced. Iced or hot? Very like 99% of the time it's hot. Okay. That's That's gross. But that's okay. Um, I I have this whole thing that I feel like iced coffee really you can actually taste the coffee. You're just drinking hot liquid. Uh, yes. If you like this concept, you should. There's a podcast called uhies. Okay. And one of the ones that she brings on is a person who special he's a scientist and specializes in coffee. No way. Yes. And one of the things that they that they say is they actually don't fully understand the science behind why hot coffee uh breaks down when as it's getting colder and starts tasting bad.

They they know it's some sort of chemical reaction. Yeah. But ice coffee doesn't do that because when you when you essentially you're cold shocking it and it and it doesn't break back down uh like after x amount of time. Yeah. Uh and lose that taste. That's Yeah. That's fascinating. Yeah, we my guest yesterday said Pepsi. I was like, whoa, that was a wild he he threw everybody for a for a ride yesterday. Um I love that. Next thing I want to I want to ask you um when it comes to anybody in the community who's doing cool stuff, who who who do you want to give flowers to?

Oh man. Ah, who is Man, you got you got you got me on this one. I know. I know. People like, why don't you prep me for this? Because I just want the name that pops in your head first. I don't have any names that pop in my head first. Um, you know what? No, that that is a good one. Sam Goodwin. What What's What's Sam do? He's creating alchemy and I and I and I that popped up on my radar super duper early and I have been absolutely uh uh just just pushing hard. Um uh his his his work and stuff on on Twitter right now.

Okay. Uh Alchemy is a JavaScriptbased um like infra. Okay. uh like like think he is doing an extraordinary job of of nailing cloudflare's API with this this uh infrastructure as code and okay the ap the his his his uh API just has like a really nice DX to it. Okay. Um, and it's starting to finally get more attention and more traction from like the Cloudflare people, which is like what I was really hoping would happen. Sure. Sure. Um, I really I'm really hoping they just like like pick him up or offer him a job. That's kind of that's kind of like the would be really sick.

But yeah, you kind of answered my second question, which like what tools or technologies are you messing with that or you're finding pretty interesting? Is there anything else you're kind of tinkering with? Um, I mean, if if you're not in to some degree tinkering with or or interacting with uh LLM technologies right now, you're probably you're probably behind. Um, I don't say that ever. And like like the years of of technologies that have come out, I've never been like like you should be using this technology or you're falling behind. Um, this one, this one, this one kind of Yeah, this one this one's around. You may need to you may need to this one.

Take a gander. Like I'm using Take a gander. Yeah, I'm using warp terminal. Yeah, we we did a meet up with them in Denver. Yeah, I'm doing I'm using the free version though. I'm not paying for that. Sure. Um, I am using cursor and I am paying cursor. Okay. And I am using T3 chat which is theos and I am paying those those two I am paying for but nice. Um yeah the rest the rest of it I just use for free and then I occasionally when I want to tinker with something I'll like I have like an account with like open AI and I'll u uh pay for cups of tokens.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Five bucks with a lot of the mini models. Five bucks goes a long way if you're just like tinkering. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100% 100%. All right. Last question as we wrap up here. I got to bounce to another meeting. Um, we had guidance, this show is called guidance counselor 2.0 because we had guidance counselors in middle school, high school, and college, but now as adults, we don't really necessarily have them to turn to and ask questions. What would, if you go back in time and tell young Jacob something? Biggest piece of career advice, what Um, get into tech sooner. I I I that's a that's actually hard to say because I a lot of my experiences before tech I think built on like how I view communities because I'm absolutely bullish on communities from where I grew up and places that I've I've been and what I've been a part of.

You know, I me and my brother tried to start up a vinyl record store in Seattle. Okay. Yeah. We were like a block away from Pike Place Market. Like we were Oh wow. We were Yeah, we were popping. Um we had live music shows every weekend which like that's sick. The apartment buildings did not like us. But No, probably not. No, no. Um you know, my military experience and all that that all also affected how how I I view things. But it's like I started off doing like script kitty stuff and like hacking, not hacking, but like cheating in like Counterstrike, you know, when I was a kid.

And it's like everybody's like talks about how they started off there and that's how that that turned into their tech career very early on. And it's like I started off there and I went like in the longest detour possible. Um, but I think there was value in that detour as well. So, I love that. I I I guess I would just be like, um, make mistakes harder. Well, this you said that because literally my interview yesterday with Pat Clark, who's director of engineering, I mean, we kind of talked about this whole thing where you're going to learn more from messing up. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, break get get used to being comfortable um with that.

Like, I think I I think there's a lot of value to that. 100%. 100%. I love it. I love it. Well, y'all, thank you again for hanging out with St. Jacob. Stay on so I can say bye to you backstage real quick. Um, but y'all have a great one. Um, that is it. We have Laidoff Lounge today. Um, so that's in our Discord. So, um, I had a question. People like, "Do I need to be laid off to be there?" You do not. It's just a general Q&A around people in the job search and how they can help, um, or how we can help. So, that's at 11 a.m.

Central. Um, so here in an hour. Um, so I'll see you over in the Torque Discord, torque.dev/isord at 11 a.m. Central to just kind of answer your questions around the job search. Jacob, thank you, my friend. Everybody, go follow Jacob on Twitter. Send him a DM. Tell him, "Hey." And uh we'll see youall on the Discord