finding a job through a friend and a dm w/ andrew gilliland

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What's going on, everybody? Good morning. Happy hump day. You know what's crazy? Time is, Andrew, I don't know if you can test this. Time is very weird when you get into the business world. People are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we just spoke yesterday. It's like, no, no, no, that's been like four weeks ago. It just feels like time just flies by when you're working a nine to five. What are your thoughts on that? Yes or no? I think time flies in general. Okay. All right. Fair, fair, fair. I had, so I guess a birthday year mark. I don't look at me that big. Some people are like, oh, a thirty.

But I had the four-oh this year. Dude, you're forty? I mean, you look great, dude. You look great. Those compliments, that's what keeps me coming back. It's those traps, dude. It's those traps. You know, I try to exercise a little bit. Okay. But yeah, I had that. It's just like, man, I like yesterday I was twenty. I felt like it was just like, yeah. And sometimes in my mind still, I'm like I'm like a little kid, like I'm building Legos and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. Like I like I'm about to we're having our third kid in December and probably January, most likely. Like, thanks.

I should not be having kids like literally like I just I feel like I'm like twenty one. Like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just like. But that is – you have the ultimate responsibility. When you're a parent, like I have not done that yet. Sure. I do want to. Yeah. But it's terrifying. Yeah. It's scary. And I have mad respect. All my friends – most of my friends have kids. I haven't done that yet, but it's just like that is the ultimate responsibility. That's – Yeah. It just makes your days go by so fast. Like I was helping my wife yesterday like getting the kids to bed.

It's just like – I don't know, man. I'm kind of in this weird state where I feel like days are just flying by. It's just flying by. Anyways, we're not here to talk about days flying by. We're here to talk about Andrew and his job search and his career, which I'm super pumped about. Andrew's part of the Torque Discord. He's a Torque member. So, Andrew, I appreciate you. Um, for that, I want to give kind of a quick rundown, uh, a few things here. First off, say, Hey, Hey, love, love, love. He's no, not you, Andrew, the rest of the people say, Hey, say, Hey, we'd love to hear from you.

This is a networking event. Um, and, uh, you know, we really want people to connect with others. Um, you know, go connect with Andrew. You know, I tell folks time and time again, connect with every single speaker that I've had on the show. and connect with every single person in the audience that comments, you're going to have a pretty tremendous network, which I will argue with you is pretty much the twerk discord. So like jump into the twerk discord, You won't be disappointed. Go ahead. I was going to say, so Chris Becker, I popped into your guys' Discord, and I think I searched Illinois, and he's actually local to where I am.

And I got him. He shows up to our meetups. No way. No way. I love that. People connected, man. I love that. That's awesome. Um, so, uh, also, uh, so again, I, how I said that, all right, do this. All right. So, uh, app, right. I'm an app, right? Hero. Me and my boy just tours app, right? Heroes. Uh, go check them out. Great product. Great team. Um, I don't know what they do really. Cause I'm not a developer, but I like their people and I like their branding and it's pretty. So you should go check them out. It's the best sales pitch ever. Listen, we just rebranded our community site.

It's pretty, it's sleek. It's got like, it's nice. It's very nice. It looks nice. You should look at it. It's great. It's got all of our events on it. It's, it's fantastic. So you should check it out. Talk to that community. Also, if you want to be kept in the loop on when we go, when I go live text, text live, like this is actually my number. Also, I've had a lot of people lately with my travels. Like, dude, I didn't know you were in my town. And I'm like, I'm on social. I don't know what else I can do. If you want to know when the torque team, either myself or the torque community is in your town, shoot me a text.

Just say, Hey, just text that number. Say, Hey, um, we, I will, I will do a better job of whenever I travel to send a text out to get people to lunches or dinners or whatever. So, uh, shoot me a text. Uh, we dropped a new torque merch, uh, If you want some, buy it. It's at cost. We don't profit anything. Sure, it's like eight bucks. To be honest, in this economy, we're really giving you a deal. So check that out. Cool. Let's see here. Just all the people tuned in this morning. Ricardo, Naz, Chris, Chris, Sebastian, Kelly. We got some folks from the TORQ Discord.

Will, former guest on the show. Angelo. Let's see here. Mark, it's good to see you. Chris, hard agree on the TORQ Discord. Thank you, Will. Uh, there he is. There's Jason. Hi, Jason. It's good to see you. Uh, Tork Bjorn. We appreciate you, buddy. I appreciate this. Uh, cool. Awesome. All right. Andrew, it's good to be with the wild man. Who are you? What do you do? And we'll go from there. Um, I am a, uh, full stack, uh, engineer at elevate. I, uh, they are a kind of wordy title, but, uh, they, uh, If you look at their website, you're like, what do these guys do?

They're a data-driven solutions company that helps strategy for sports, entertainment, and consumer brands. And specifically, they have a tool that helps with ticket management, consumer insights, venue insights, some other things like that that they've done. But they have a whole other gamut of things that's outside of the whole technology spectrum. I love it. But what about you, dude? Tell me about you. Like, how'd you get into tech? Let's start that. You gave me the quick. I told you you have to repeat yourself. Andrew and I were catching up backstage. I said, this is great, but you're going to have to repeat everything. So let's start, man.

How'd you start? What'd you do beforehand? What are you drinking there? What's that? Spindrift. Do you do Spindrift? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got, uh, I got a little cooler down here. I got Waterloo right now. Waterloo's great. We can get into this. This is a little icebreaker. I'm really, really, really big into the soda water world. Do you have a favorite go-to? Spindrift isn't really my favorite soda water. They have good flavors. They have this and a strawberry lemonade, but there's no sugar in it. It's like one percent juice. It's so good. My go-to is typically Waterloo. Waterloo is a solid brand, but I'd say Topo Chico is the upper.

It's too spicy. It's too spicy for me. It's too bubbly, man. I want to drink my water and enjoy it. When I drink Topo Chico, I feel like I'm about to blow up. It does have a hard seltzer. Carbonation is higher. You can only have maybe one of those. I down way too many a day. What do you think of Mountain Valley? I had a Mountain Valley sparkling water the other day. I feel like it was more of a duller sparkling, but it was still fantastic. Have you ever had Mountain Valley? I've seen it. I have not tried it. Do they have flavors? I think it's only sparkling.

Only Sparkling. Liquid Death? Have we tried Liquid Death? We're getting way off topic here. Do you like Liquid Death? I do. I feel like sometimes the flavor is a little... I don't like the flavors. The flavors are disgusting. Liquid Death, if you ever watch this, y'all's branding is top-notch. Your flavored soda water is terrible. I do like just the standard bubbly one, though. Yeah, the branding is really good. All right. So where'd you start, man? So, gosh, this is two thousand eighteen. I was working as a personal trainer and a bartender living down on the Gulf Coast of Florida, and I had stopped personal training for a little bit that fall and decided to start learning how to do web development.

A little bit – I told you this also. I talked to – the restaurant that I worked at that I bartended, there was a tech recruiter was sitting in my bar, and I was talking to her. She was from Atlanta. And I was like, if you're going to get in technology now, what would you learn? So I picked her brain. We're chatting. And she said Ruby on Rails. Which is wild for the record. I feel like, yeah, that was possibly the kind of – I think Ruby on Rails – Ruby was – because what year was it again? I don't know. Ruby always resurfaces, I feel like, every like four to five years.

So maybe it was on an uptick. You know what? It is. I remember recruiting on a few Ruby clients at Vaco during that two thousand seventeen, eighteen, nineteen stint. So, yeah, she's yeah. Yeah. I don't know why it always resurfaces. And I yeah, I never worked in Ruby. Yeah. That's just a wild thing to say as a recruiter to somebody who's working on a bartender job getting into tech. I would never say Ruby ever. But two thousand eighteen wouldn't. there. But, yeah, so I started learning Ruby. I got on Codecademy and was checking it out. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, the HTML, the CSS, the JavaScript that's all in here.

Like, I don't know what this stuff really does. So I need to start from the basics. And then I just want to start building websites. Like, honestly, it was a scratch. An itch I need to scratch. That's what I need to say. And I was just always curious, you know? Like, I'm old enough that I saw the internet happen. And I was like, just how do you build this stuff without using a site builder or anything like that? So I just started digging in. I really got into Udemy courses and then got on YouTube a ton. And I like to say I'm a community taught developer.

I make this content. Somebody else made this content. And if I ever meet it, I've met some of the people that made the courses that I have taken. I always say thank you. I met Kenzie Dodds, Jason Langsdorf, Scott Tolinsky. I took him out to breakfast. And one time I was out in Denver because I was like, dude, you owe I owe you my career. For real? Yeah, well, him and Wes, like, I feel like I started listening to syntax back in two thousand eighteen. And when I started when I started listening to it, I did like it was just all garbled gook. I was like, I didn't understand half the stuff they're talking about.

Yeah, I don't either. And I just I kept putting it in my ears. Yeah, you know, you don't. It's just developers just make foreign language. It's like learning French. Yeah, it just it's a foreign language. And so I just kept listening to them, start spawning off with some other podcasts. But yeah, him and West Boss, I was getting on level up tutorials to take courses and things like that that Scott made. So I but yeah, I say thank you to all those people that have taught me over the years because I am super appreciative of that. How did you get your first job in tech?

So, all right. I was living out of Florida at the time. Moved back to, I'm from Illinois originally, and that's where I am currently. Moved back to Syria. And so I was like, all right. At that point, that was two thousand twenty one, three years of span. I'd been learning all this stuff. I tried doing some freelancing. And I was like, trying to do marketing websites for people that want to pay five hundred bucks. I'm like, I can't make a go of this. I'm just not a much much of a marketing sales guy. That's not really I just want to learn this stuff. I want to get paid and just keep learning.

And so I was like, I just need to find a job in this. And I was hitting LinkedIn, hitting up LinkedIn for job postings. And I was submitting applications and, you know, working on my resume, just working on projects and nothing. And that was a time when everybody's like, oh, it's so easy to find tech job. I wasn't finding a tech job. Nobody was responding back unless it was like really low paying things. Yeah. For us. And so I was like, I got to try something different. Um, and at that time I, I sure I'd probably seen some of your content. I feel like you crossed off.

You've been on syntax. I think you've been on react native radio. Um, those are like primary two bigger podcasts I listened to all the time. And, uh, I was like, he he's got some stuff. He's putting down some info. I'm picking it up. Um, so I was like, I gotta hit the ground. Like I gotta see what is actually in my area and talk to people, meet them face to face and say, Hey. I'm Andrew. How are you? I'd like to work for you. I'd like to work for you. But... state forums headquarters is five minutes down the road from where I gotcha um they weren't even I knew I'd even apply there because like they're gonna look at me um so I looked at some smaller agencies in town um and I was like all right this is a potentially a better way I can get in front of a human to talk to instead of just submitting the interwebs and um But yeah, there was some marketing agency in town did kind of marketing websites.

One of my buddies had mentioned, he's like, Hey, have you checked them out? And I was like, no, I hadn't even checked them out. So I applied. I met their, their vice president and we had great conversation. It was, it was like, He was picking my brain. I was going to pick his brain, seeing what the company worked on and things like that. And at that point, I was willing to do just about, like, if you just want me to do HTML and CSS, awesome. Like, I would have had a riot doing that. And I still would have a riot doing that. You know, and not to say those aren't programming languages, because some people like to have that debate.

Right. So anywho, he's like, hey, you should check out this other place in town. And so he nudged me over to some other business. As soon as I got done with that chat with him, I went home, applied to that place. They did more kind of custom application development and not so much the marketing website stuff. So. As soon as I got home, applied there, got a response email and then just went after it. I was very fortunate. I didn't have like a leak code style interview process. It was all right. First, we had a meet and greet. Just like a normal human being interview.

Yeah. Just like, hey, let's just talk. Let's see. That's great. It's amazing what those type of interviews can do. I know. And it's like, hey, you're a nice person. I might want to work with you too. Cool. So that led to – gosh, it was – uh that was I met with them on a friday and then they're like all right here's this take-home assessment um we want you to build this little project it's a um full stack application uh node uh actually they said you'd pick your tech stack but oh nice they needed a full stack application front end back end data um so I was like they're like all right well we can give you till next friday I was like no I can get I'll we'll get it done by tuesday um I was like after I got off the closet oh gosh maybe I was maybe I was a little too right right uh jumping the gun but that night I was actually leaving to go up to milwaukee because I went to see hollow notes on that saturday so angelos he's he's in here he he knows yeah yeah we've been talking they got rock we got to uh I love some yacht rock oh gosh I yeah um that was actually one of their lash I wasn't saying their last show but one of their Cause they broke up.

I think that neck later that year, the next year, all notes broke up, man. That's crazy. It's sad. So got that job at that agency. Uh, like I, I, well, first off, yeah, I just worked my butt off as soon as I got back from that concert. Like that Monday, like it was just cranking very little strip sleep. Like I was stressing myself out and I don't get stressed very often. yeah um and uh I was like I gotta do this this is my shot and so I just worked my butt off got this thing working showed up it was a react node mongodb full stack app and uh uh walked through it like I I just had to brain dump this on their lead tech And, like, it was just, all right, explain what you did and how you did it.

And so, yeah, I ended up getting that job. So let me ask you this. What would be your biggest piece of advice for junior devs then? Like, you've done it. You were bartending, weightlifting, weight training, personal training. I was getting other people to weight train. Yeah, you get other people to weight train. You moved back to a city I would argue is probably still not a huge bustling tech thing, tech scene, and you still found a job. If there's one thing you want to get across to folks based off what you just said, what would it be? Look at some unconventional spaces. Like what? Look at those agencies.

Look at those small – reach out to – there's a lot of – I'd say marketing, branding agencies, they need people that know how to do websites. This application, this little business, this was kind of niche. I don't feel like you find very many app development companies. They had maybe fifteen people and they did custom application development. That was pretty rare to find. But if you do some research, do some homework, find some smaller places because they will take shots on people that don't have that experience. Yeah, I feel like the general sense – this is kind of what I spoke on in Raleigh just with big tech.

I feel like people just think, I need a job. I need to go work at a big company. I think that's just like – the how humans work and it's like no like susie smith and keith you know so and so down the road that has a small mom and pop marketing agency they need help for a web developer like that your your chances would be way higher there yes is it not gonna be probably all the bells and whistles and tdd and all those you know formalized process but it's gonna get you in the door yeah so I totally agree with you on that and and yeah like I mean it was um I was very fortunate because actually that company had uh did a lot of work for this ag ag tech company local in the area and um they did so much work for them that Within three months after being there, our company got acquired.

And so we were merged into this ag tech company. And then all of a sudden, boom. See, that's what I'm saying. If you get somewhere and put yourself in position, that could happen. Or you could meet so many people at the company you're consulting for in this small agency. Or if they like you, they could try to bring you on. Mm-hmm. So you just gotta get, you gotta get in the stream, right? You gotta get in the mix. I don't know how else to say it. Like you just kinda gotta get into it and not sit on the sidelines. Yeah. And like get in front of somebody like face to face, like not this buffer of digital medium of the Internet, you know?

Yeah. And and like that's just more of my feel. That's more of my fit. Like I've you know, I don't know. I've never aspired to work for a thing company. They probably wouldn't even look at me. They would just get brushed away if I put my application in. So sure. I want to work for people, honestly. That's what I want. I want to work for people, not companies. And that's how I look at it. Oh, I like that. People, not companies. All right. So talk about, so obviously started your career. Talk about any pivoting. You know, I had a great live yesterday with Donya. We talked kind of about pivoting and looking where things are going.

Have you been doing the same thing? What are some learnings that you've had kind of throughout your career? Because you've been doing this now for what? Seven, eight years now professionally? Four. Four. Four. Gotcha. I took pre-algebra in college. No, no, no. I mean, I think a lot of people think I've been doing this longer. And no, it's just I feel like, yeah, no, I was very fortunate, very grateful for every opportunity somebody's taken on me. But also, too, is when you get something thrown on your lap or an opportunity comes like, yeah. Say, hey, I don't know this, but I'm going to give it my best shot.

I love it. And that little agency, the first thing they threw at me was some – I had to work on some PHP backend stuff. Never touched it. And I was like, all right, we'll figure it out. And then not long after I was there at the agency, they were like, hey, you want to try some mobile development? I'm like, I've never touched it, but I'll try it. I'll give it a shot. Do you think it would – behoove that's like my only big word I ever used do you think it would behoove benefit folks to actually start in kind of an agency world to kind of get thrown at a lot of different things to see what they like yeah no I think that definitely like I I I love that just be get thrown in the deep end like That's how you learn the fastest.

It's uncomfortable. It's very uncomfortable. I felt like an idiot. And this is something I try to live by is I try to be the dumbest person in the room and just soak up knowledge, just ask questions, learn stuff. But yeah, get thrown into a lot of different stuff, a variety of things, kind of spread into different things that, okay, I like this more. I like this more. But but also just that attitude of just like, you know, if when people get put on something, just like, oh, no, I just want to do this thing. Like, yeah, well, maybe maybe you don't know until you tried it.

Like, yeah. And like, even as I say, I don't aspire to go think of me. Maybe I could if maybe one day if it was ever an opportunity and maybe like, oh, yeah, maybe that was fun. I should try. Yeah. All right. So four years professionally, what made you jump to the next role? Um. so gosh last last year um the ag tech company I was at they started doing some reorgs they did reorg and some layoffs were happening and the the company culture started shifting very drastically and a lot of the projects were getting um kind of just getting dismissed and things were they were in the midst of figuring things out.

And I was like, I saw other engineers, uh, being let go. And, um, I was like, I need to start looking. I need to be proactive on this before it happens. And so, uh, we lost, we lost some good people and, uh, some people have brought a lot to the table. And I was like, it doesn't matter. Sometimes you can, work hard and do all those things, but still you can be just that, you know, number of attrition, um, when the hammer comes down. So, um, I started looking, uh, and yeah, I spent some time last year looking and trying to figure out really what I wanted.

Um, and then it wasn't, so it took some time. Uh, it wasn't until this year at the beginning of this year, around later February, uh, a role came up here locally, another local smaller, uh, agency and they were hiring and they needed a, uh, senior full stack engineer. And so, uh, went through the interview process there. How did the interview process differ from like, uh, the second time to the first time, like, like the second time I job search to the first time on the job search. Um, like, was there like, do you feel like it was easier or, um, It was, I mean, there's, there's anxiety.

Like, I, I feel like you never, uh, fully get away from that kind of like, oh, I have no idea what they're going to throw at me. Um, I feel like the first kind of meet and greet interviews, um, when I get, when I get one-on-one with somebody, I feel like I'm able to, um, communicate a little better than if, um, You know, I'm in a big crowd of people. Yeah. So I feel like that's that's my time just to be, you know, say who I am, what I'm about. But then the tech interviews that I mean, there's a lot of a lot of anxiety because you don't know what they're going to throw at you.

I mean, you don't know if they're going to be like, hey, do bubble sort. And I'm like, oh, no, I don't. Or like, how would you build this like, you know, a real life application? So but yeah. It was I'd say both of them were very informal because they were both smaller, smaller places. You know, the tech interview wasn't like algorithm heavy. They kind of wanted more. The second one was more about, OK, how would you architect an application? Sure. And. with, you know, from your infrastructure, front end, back end, things like that. And then, you know, just kind of lay it out and talk about it.

Yeah. Okay. So talk about, you know, kind of the title for this show is finding a job through a friend and a DM, right? So it talked about kind of an early part of your career. I want to get kind of the meat and potatoes here over the last fifteen minutes before we kind of dive into rapid fire and then wrap it up. how'd you find this last job? Talk about the power of getting involved. Talk about the LinkedIn strategy too. Let's kind of talk about those two things and kind of, yeah, let's start there. Let's start there. I'll say the LinkedIn strategy. I don't have one.

I am lacking in that way. I, I, I would kind of like one. I need like a, as someone that was a personal trainer, I need like a trainer to help me. get me in that rhythm but Jason Jason I so I have pitched this idea Jason if you're watching he's gonna roll his eyes I I have come I've thought of an idea of like like a seventy five hard but for job search where it's like these are like twelve things you need to do every single day to be successful so it is on the list is on the list will probably be rolled out here at the end of the year beginning next year but yes you saying that validates my idea No, I think like, cause it just doesn't come natural to me just to, to, I won't say word vomit, but to put stuff out on online, I feel like I'm kind of more of a in person person.

So that's where I decided to start some meetups. Yeah. And this actually started when I used to live in Pensacola, Florida. I knew he was listening. I knew he was listening. See Jason validated my idea. It's almost like I know what I'm talking about. Anyways, keep going, Andrew. Um, but, uh, so when I was listening to these podcasts, I always hearing about, oh, they're talking about this meet up here, this meet up there, this meet up there. And I'm like, I get on meetup, I sign up and I'm like, there's nothing here. I can't imagine there's a lot in Bloomington where Bloomington, Illinois, right? Yeah.

So I can't imagine there's like a bustling meetups. No, but even down in Pensacola, Florida, which was a little bigger, um, there was nothing there. Um, and you know, I was like, Oh, do I need to drive to Atlanta? Do I need to drive to new Orleans? Do I need to drive to, would you have done that? I would have. Yeah. I, I, I even, when I first moved back here, I was like, I'm ready to start driving up to Chicago. I was, I was even looking up the stuff you were doing. I was like, I'm about ready to start heading out of Nashville like once a month.

Um, and yeah, and Nash, Nash Tucky, it's a fun time. Oh man. I've had some good times there. Um, but, uh, do you remember those times? It was a little wobbly. Um, but, um, So down in Pensacola, this is before I was even working in software or programming, that I started a meetup. And because I was like, my coworkers were tired of hearing me talk about JavaScript or CS. They didn't care. You know, the people I was bartending with or when I was personal training clients, they didn't want to hear me talk about the nerdy stuff. So I was like, I'm just going to start a meetup here.

You started, I just started one. I didn't know what I was doing. I mean, that was a coffee shop first. Was it a restaurant? Was it a lunch? Was it a dinner? What was kind of strategy there? The first, um, so as somebody that had worked in restaurants, I knew don't go to a rest, sit down restaurant because it's yes. Chris is correct in that. Um, but which is crazy because university of Illinois is right where he lives. And that is like one of the top computer science schools in the country. Is it really? And yeah, it's, it's one of the, like we had so many, uh, university of Illinois, uh, graduate interns at that company uh precision planting the ag tech company I worked at oh wow and uh they were we just had and I loved it because I was like I get to pick their brains I I don't have to go to this college yes yeah you get a computer science degree by association so was it a topic?

So, so yeah, so sorry. So finish your, so where, where, where'd you start it at? So, okay. I didn't want to go to restaurants. I was like, they're going to shuffle you in and out. A server is going to get pissed. You're sitting there hogging their table, not moving. So I was like, let's do a brewery. Um, there's, you know, you can sit kind of leisure. They're usually chill spaces. They're always, I mean, brews are always super cool and hip, you know, it's, it's very hip. And, uh, um, even if you don't drink, you can still go there and have an all right time. So actually fun fact, I don't drink, um, anymore.

Um, and so some people are like, Oh, why do we have to have brews? I'm like, you don't have to drink. Yeah. Yeah. I don't drink anymore either. Um, yeah. but um so um yeah I started doing a breweries and like probably within a few months like we were getting I was without even really trying just doing doing meetup like no other marketing no social media and I was getting probably about fifteen twenty people no way and these people are just like oh dude like thanks for doing this like where do you work at I'm like I I'm a personal trainer and a bartender. I'm just learning this stuff.

So I just got to say, man, that's so cool. Um, so it was just, you know, like everybody, uh, so that was down in Pensacola. I moved back up to this area and I started one up here. Okay. Um, now this is, that was pre-twenty-twenty now post-twenty-twenty. So I started, have you seen a difference in people not wanting to come out? Yeah, it started like, I mean, I put this, our meetups at a brewery. It's like in the center of town. College students can walk there. There's two universities in town, Illinois State University and Illinois Wesleyan University. The kids can walk there if they want to.

And we've got a good, good amount of college kids that show up. And then I've reached out to some recruiters at State Farm and said, hey, we've got this meetup. We've got... You know, college kids come in there. They're asking questions. Bring some of your engineers here so they can just talk to them and set those connections. So we we got some state farm engineers. But yeah, when I first started off, it was I mean, there's been. maybe there'd been a couple of the first ones where I had nobody. I just sat there on my laptop and I was like, all right, nobody shows up.

I love the honesty, dude. I mean, even, even I've had some, when I was in Denver, dad's in tech, we threw a, a meetup. There was like five or six dads that RCP and Trey, my boy Trey showed up. That was it. It was just, it was like me, Trey and Jason. Well, that's okay. Like it's not like it's, it's, it's, it's always going to be a positive. You know what I'm saying? Like you're either going to invest in two people or, Really well. Or then you have twenty people and then they can all make friends. Yeah. And like I if even one person shows up.

So, yeah, I maybe only had like one or two of them were as one where nobody showed up. But then there's only one person. Dude. Yeah, exactly. Quality over quantity. Like, I don't care. Like, I know this area that I live in. Like, it's not going to get. It's like your good neighbor state farmers. Yeah. Um, and, uh, but, uh, you know, I, I, I get very focused and honed in. Like I, I'm, I take my phone, I throw it like last night. So we had our happy hour last night for our meetup. And, um, I threw my phone in my bag. I got home.

I was like, Oh shoot. I didn't leave my phone there. Like, cause I just get so engaged. Like I'll get on one person. And even when I was down at Render, I was like, sometimes I got zoned in. Like one day I might have like three people I've had really solid conversations with. And I'd rather have that than... know like just spread out have very kind of idle conversation amongst them yeah yeah agreed agreed so so this last job came from the meetup so one of my co-organizers uh his co-worker um he said reach out to my boss um shoot him an email and so that just He's building out a team.

He didn't have all these positions listed on their website. So since then, I've learned I don't go through LinkedIn to apply. I go directly through the websites. I try to find a person, a human being, and get their email and contact and say, hey, I applied. Just curious, what are some of the things you're looking for in an applicant and things like that? And I try to line like technology stacks, like definitely. I've learned a little bit there is like, all right. You know, some recruiter, I had a recruiter one time, I had a three hundred K plus job in Golang. And I'm like, did you even read my LinkedIn profile?

I don't have anything about Golang on there. Like as much as that'd be cool. Like I just like let's let's align all this stuff up, you know, so it works out best for everybody. So yeah. question question so uh nas comes in here I've always wanted to do the same thing to do a meetup gathering in my town but it's a small town so I don't know what would be your what would be your advice for her I mean, maybe find the next biggest town that's nearby. I mean, and that's, like, you got to be honest with yourself. Like, are you willing to possibly travel somewhere to do this?

Do you have the availability to travel? Things like that. Like, I mean, so this Bloomington and Normal, two cities kind of smushed together, we're about a hundred and fifty K. And, like, if I get ten to fifteen people at our meetups, I'm ecstatic. I mean, so... I don't know what size of place you're living in. So try to find like a smaller city possibly to host them at. Because, yeah, you know, if I was in a town of I grew up in a town of twenty five hundred, if I was there, like I wouldn't even bother trying to have one because, yeah, you're probably. Well, it's interesting, too, if NASA, if you go back.

uh to the last conversation I had with kevin griffin um kevin griffin is in northern va when he started his like meetup thing he would travel to like richmond or he would travel to like raleigh like he would drive to go be a part of these communities because he knew like, this is what's going to take him further in his career. And he specifically has said, if I did not do this, I would not be where I'm at today. So yeah, my, my biggest encouragement is like, you know, even if it's an, even if it's thirty, forty five minute drive, like, and you're passionate about it, like, do it, do it, because it'll benefit you.

Um, So Andrew, you were interviewing with two companies at one time, right? That is correct. Talk about your strategy there, right? Cause that can be a little unnerving to people and trying to keep up and trying to finesse it. Do you have any thoughts on there? Um, it was unnerving. It was, I was working and going through two interview processes. Um, the, the first interview process started from a DM from a recruiter on LinkedIn. Okay. Um, and, um, saw kind of alignment of tech stack he was internal to a company and um he gave me the rundown of what technology they were using uh so I was like all right this fits so that was a that was a lead software engineer uh developer and or position and so I was like I may not get this but I'm gonna I'm gonna try it I'm gonna shoot my shot and so started going down through that interview process but not but like less than a week later my buddy was like hey Um, you know, reach out to my manager.

So I did, I did that and didn't expect to get to happen sequentially. Um, but it, it happened. Um, there, you know, it was kind of some overlap. It's like, you know, you've got to get ready. You're who are you, the whole like. um and both of them had kind of more informal interview processes I mean we weren't jumping through like eight interview processes to get to like google or something so usually like a meet and greet um culture fit uh tech uh interview um and then you know depending on what leadership in the company that meet so um but yeah. Uh, I mean, so some, there was some overlap, but yeah, it was about scheduling and making sure, um, you know, um, did you, did, uh, did you push one company over the other?

Because like, cause you were like, Hey, I'm, I'm interviewing with another company. Like, did that ever come up? Cause I think it's a great way to leverage. Um, you know, and that was the thing is I was, I was feeling like, okay, how, how do I do this properly? Cause I don't want to burn any bridges. Like even, um, So I went through both interview processes and I you know, I didn't I I told the one that I was veering towards the one that I'm currently working at, you know, I told was in the interview process, like towards the end, they had already extended the other company to extend the offer.

So I told them I was like, hey, they get an offer. I didn't even put the salary. I wasn't trying to pitch salaries or trying to work at this other company because first off, my buddy worked there and then that I already knew. And then I met the boss and he was my boss currently. And I was like, I like this guy. yeah these are people I want to work for and work with so um in fact yeah two offers the the the place that I deferred the offer came first and then second so I had to kind of I had to tell the company I'm currently working at I told my that boss during the interview process like hey there's another company um but I would I I am putting you as a priority And, um, in fact, actually the other company had a higher salary, um, had a, um, you know, I guess bigger title, which I'm not chasing titles or salaries.

Um, I want to work with people, um, that I love and vice versa, I'm sure. So. That's awesome, man. All right, as we wrap up, last wise words of wisdom before we dive into rapid fire here. Any last words of wisdom for people getting started in meetups or getting started in their job search or their career? Any last things that may have popped into your brain that we didn't get to? Well, I always used to use the inverse. I was like, follow the golden rule. Don't be a dick. Yeah, I mean that. But now I've inverted it and I say, be kind. Just be kind.

Kindness is... free to give out. And it's like only hurt people, hurt other people. So if you're ever interacting with people online and they are not too polite or kind, just, just walk away. You know, there's something going on in their lives. I've, but just be kind. You don't know where, if you planted that seed, like for example, Will, he'd said something nice to me when I put something in the wins channel and just gave me some helpful advice. And I was like, dude, that's, you remember people like that. You do. And yeah, gratitude is the secret sauce in life. I think true, true appreciation for other people.

Um, and just appreciate every day and everything that you have coming towards your way. Cause, um, yeah, there's, there's a lot of people that paved the path for you and just show appreciation to them. I love it. I love it. I'm in rapid fire here. First question. What is one tech tool or app you cannot live without right now? Oh my gosh. I was listening to you and we'll talk last week and yeah, definitely. I've been turned on to Claude more so than chat GPT, but it is just, you know, it's, it, it hallucinates. It's not perfect, but it is just having tools like this nowadays.

Like, Some people are terrified of them, but they are. If you want to learn something, if you don't know about something, it's helped tremendously and speed up the process of learning. And if you're an inquisitive person and you challenge things and you don't accept things at face value, then that's the thing is you can't accept it at face value. Just like you couldn't accept a Google search at face value. Like, use these tools, leverage them properly. Don't have them do all your work. But learn from them. I got thrown onto a Swift project. I hadn't touched any Swift. I was like, okay, I'm used to doing this in JavaScript or TypeScript.

How do I do this in this? And just keep pinging back and forth. I feel like I can be my prior senior... engineer, he'd be like, I'd ask him questions, probably tell him to shut up. Whereas I can just keep pinging this thing back and forth. I know. It's really cool. That's actually a great way to say it. That's actually a great way to say it. It's basically like having a senior engineer at your beck and call, basically. A bit. Yeah. And it's, but yeah, validate what it says. Like don't question it, test it, try it out. But yeah, it's. I love it. Just be curious.

I love it. What's the first job you ever got paid to do? So I filled pop machines. My family owned a IGA grocery store. What machines? Soda pop machines or soda machines, whatever you would call them. I call them pop machines. I'd just basically go load up the soda and put them in the pop machines. That's great. it was like, it was always during the summer. Like all my other friends had to be tassel corn. They come back. I'm like all sweaty. And I'd be like here, throw them like free sodas. And it was just like, I was everybody's friend. Cause they're, they get off like sweating their butt off.

I'm like, Oh, I've been working in AC all day. Soda. I love it. That's awesome. Uh, I don't know if you're a remote hybrid or what your situation is right now. What is your ideal situation? If you could set how you worked with any company, what would the cadence be versus is it all remote? Is it some in the office? When is it? I am full remote, but my boss and one of my soon to be two more of my coworkers are geographically located in my area. So we try to get together about once a week. And I like that. If I had it, the choice, I would want to be in person, but with maybe one day a week of flexibility.

But generally, the prior company, that ag tech company, they were right here in town. And I just, you know, got into my zone I could roll over the devops guy like hey we need to spin something up on aws like we just got stuff done efficiently and um we enjoyed each other's company like we just built a camaraderie that um with remote work I'm still learning how to do but It's hard. It's hard. I, so, so, so would you like to be in the office at least once or twice a week? Ideally? Yeah. I think same too. I think, I think I would, I would argue, unfortunately, I think in our industry, it's just, it's, it's going to be fully remote staffing.

I don't think it's ever going to be confined to a location, even though we're talking about some things for tort next year, by the way. So it could be some exciting stuff in some cities potentially. Yeah. Nowhere near you, Andrew, maybe Chicago, but I'm willing to travel. I don't know. I'm like two, two and a half hours from Chicago. Well, we're talking about potentially, potentially, potentially, potentially some big cities. So I'll let you know. I'll keep you updated. Um, what is, uh, what did you originally want to be when you, when you were young, when you want to grow up? Like, like when you were a kid, like, what'd you say you wanted to be?

I wanted to be an archaeologist, but then I found out what Indiana Jones did was not what an archaeologist does. No, no, no. They drink with toothbrushes all day. But then, no, I wanted to go into architecture. Okay. And, but then I actually ended up going to college at the United States Naval Academy. And that was not a career option after that. So I was, wanted to go in the Marine Corps. Okay. So. Awesome. Awesome. Um, next question. Do you have a, do you have any career mistakes you're oddly grateful for? Uh, this, this question seems to stump some people, but any missteps in hindsight, you're like, well, it kind of worked out.

Yeah. I mean, pretty much my whole life. Like I didn't want to be in restaurants for a decade. Um, um I didn't that wasn't the plan uh it kind of happened to me and but I am so grateful because it taught me really uh I I feel like I I've coined myself as an introvert most of my life uh I said that I'm kind of an extroverted introvert but that that taught me how to talk to people like how to solve people problems and how to interact with people and Like I heard you say this one time about, you know, you've never like until with the blooming onion where you have to get.

Yeah. Friday night, three blooming onions to three tables at the same time. Like, I mean, that is just I still have those restaurant stress dreams, but I am glad I did it. Yeah. I'm glad the skills it taught me. I'm glad it taught me how just to be OK with like I mean, especially when you're when you're as a bartender, you're having conversations with people that you may not agree with about anything. But you can't run away from the bar. You're stuck behind that bar. So it learn how to just be able to just communicate with people and find some even really some even ground to play on, you know.

that's really it like for me like we should have done this whole talk on what the service industries taught us but like I'll never forget there was there was one night I just completely forgot to like turn in the ticket like I forgot to turn in the meal and like they never got their stuff and I was like oh no it's like I went out apologized and they were a super nice couple and I was hammering it up with them I was like man like I'm an idiot blah blah I'm so sorry like we'll get this out quickly and they were super chill with it and literally at the end of the dinner They gave me a huge tip.

They're like, we didn't care that the food was late. We had a great time. You entertained us. And the guy hooked me up with a few pairs of Ray-Bans. I have no idea how that... I think it was in the eye industry, the eyewear industry. But just vibing with people and being kind, dude, is everything. I would say that's how I've gotten to where I'm at in my career. Just be nice. And yeah, when I was down at the beach, it was just like people are on vacation. Like I'm just getting them drunk. I'm like, let's have a great time. I want you to have an awesome vacation.

And I'm not here to be fun, please. But yeah, something goes wrong. Like you can always give them free food. You can always give them a little extra on the poor and they leave happy. All right. Last question. So it's called Guidance Counselor II.O because we had guidance counselors in middle school, high school, and college, but now as adults, we don't really have them. What would be your biggest piece of career advice to young Andrew if you can go back in time? Biggest piece of advice. That's just kind of like I said, back to the other things is figure out what you want. Like first off, figure out what you want.

Like, I mean, take a day, go – Go move down to the beach and figure out your life, even if it takes a decade, and then get back to earth and say, okay, this is what I want to do. Make a plan. But, yeah, back to things. Be kind and have gratitude in your heart. And then another thing, move your body. Like, as an ex-personal trainer, like, you've got to be a gym rat. Yeah. go for a walk, do whatever your flavor of fitness is, find something. And I, and that's the one thing that, you know, I'm glad that since we really started talking about mental health.

Yeah. I think one of the least prescribed things for mental health is physical activity and sun and sun. Just, you know, I, every day for lunch, I, you know, if I work someplace and they're like, Oh, you can't even take a three minute walk a day. I'm like, I'm not sure if I'm going to work for you. You're not like if I don't have the time, my day to do that. So yeah, go for the walk. If you have the ability to go for a walk, if you like doing yoga, do yoga, do CrossFit, go like find it and also find a community in that.

That's a great way to find community, but it's just your body and your mind are going to thank you for taking some time to take care of it. And you're going to get more from it. Like you're just going to feel better. You're going to have a better day. Like, and, That's all I want. I want everybody. I agree. I've started to walk first thing in the mornings. Oh, Gary Brecker thing. Like get outside first thing in the morning. Like that's really helped me kind of dial in. Um, and I just find myself like if I'm holding my office all day and I just don't get out, like I just feel irritable.

Like, um, so go for a walk, get some sun. I love it. Awesome. Andrew. Thank you, my friend. This was fun. Yeah, dude. I love this. I'm super grateful, appreciative because you had some people on. I'm like, dude, I'm a shadow in comparison. Oh, stop. Everybody's story resonates with somebody else, man. Sebastian comes in here. Do you do Pepsi or Coke? I do not do the colas. I will drink a Diet Coke. Your accent's fantastic. Cola. I don't drink a cola. I'll drink a Diet Coke if I need some caffeine or something. Yeah, yeah. Do you do coffee? Do you do coffee or matcha or anything like that?

Oh, yeah. I got some terrible Folgers in this cup right now. My wife and I had a conversation recently. She's like, here's the deal. trying to cut back saving got three kids coming up right we were evaluating our finance she goes you you have to figure out how to cut down on your coffee spend and I was like I understand because I can't I just I can't do super cheap coffee um like folgers I just can't like I would vomit no no offense I mean like what do they make it with like I want to know I want a doctor series huh I think it's dirt.

I think it's literally, I'm just drinking dirt. I think so. I think they like get dirt. They pack it down and they just like sprinkle some, some like coffee flavor in it. But yeah, I can't do it. I found trade coffee. I'm back doing trade coffee. It's actually cheaper. I can get a bag a week, which is kind of what I go through. And it's twenty bucks. So it's eighty bucks a month. Okay. That's not terrible. No, it's not terrible. So, but you, okay. Here's the thing with folders is I just give myself folders. It was like my baseline. Then on Saturday or Sunday, I treat myself.

I appreciate it. Like that's how you really, truly appreciate yourself was like when you give yourself crap all the time, I love it. Yeah. Yeah. That's a very like personal trainer mentality. Like we're just going to get in the dirt. Yeah. All right. Y'all thank you again. Comments have been off the chain. I appreciate y'all so much. Um, thank you. Go connect with Andrew. We'd love to have you in the torque discord. Um, and, uh, y'all have a good one. We will see y'all next week. Peace. All right. See ya.