joe karlsson, sr. developer advocate @ mongodb

full transcript

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

What's going on everybody we are live this morning with just a beautiful beautiful man I need that hair. I do not have that hair Very excited to have a guess with me today. I'm not running my dang mouth Everybody say hey to Joe Carlson Very excited to have him on Joe. Thanks for hanging out with me, man. I appreciate it. Oh Taylor I'm like trying to like fix my hair and And talk at the other same time. Yeah, your phones are hard for styling at the same time. You're doing fantastic. Hey Before before we dive in Joe. Where where are you in the continental US right now?

Good question. Yeah, I might many apples Minnesota, um, warm right now usually cold, so What's whether like right now just just to give a comparison? Cotton humid, it looks like you're a Nashville right Taylor. Yep. Yeah, I'm sure it's pretty similar right now I bet we're both melting Um, I'm about to put my ac on I think today. I was gonna melt to death my my apartments I love it. I love it. Well, everybody. I'm at us. Come. I said Joe. I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to see you Just set set out a text message to my community so they'll jump on here soon But again, very excited to be with you all this morning Let's go ahead and dive in because Joe Joe's a popular man and And we definitely don't want to keep here all morning because we'll have work to do Even though Yeah, we can hang on all day.

Yeah, absolutely So Cathy good morning Casey hey Joe. I'm riding around the corn Sioux falls. I love it So Joe before we dive in Give a little introduction about who you are and know We did not coordinate Sure, we should have though We should have but we did not Yeah, absolutely loving to think on this live. Yeah, absolutely I think he was attention with this so look at this we'll enjoy some of the boss of dev tiktok He is referring to Joe not me Brandon Erica Joe Andrew Brian what's going on y'all live a lot of y'all haven't seen a bit So Joe give us a background about yourself big dog.

Yeah, you know Taylor I do these all the time and like I never know to say when I introduce myself, but I Should like have a prep thing by now and I don't But yeah, I'm Joe. I'm a developer advocate and software engineer. I work for a company called MongoDB and My job is to like write technical documentation blog posts YouTube videos Make tiktoks speak of conferences And just like hang out with developers. I love it That that's basically what I do that's basically but I don't code But yeah, I'm super stoked so Joe so I met Joe for those of you are tuning I met Joe on tiktok I saw Joe on tiktok again the power of networking the power of social media I've been preaching for the last year.

I slid into Joe's DMs Just like I preached to y'all a simple DM. Hey Joe. I love what you're doing. I love to have you on here We are so I'm telling you people I also Practice what I preach for the last year and just ask and so So what really resonate with me and what made me DM Joe was Joe made a tiktok post about how Although it was it was it a blog or something about how senior devs don't code or why senior devs don't code as much as they should And I was like holy crap. I've talked about this before and some of my stuff So I need to have Joe on and so For those of you who are watching that is what we're gonna talk about today The issues that plague developers and why they do not code and so Joe I want to go get started.

What are just some initial thoughts on this? And then we'll kind of riff on some stuff. Yeah, totally. I think for me it was So I had made a post about how like I don't code very much anymore and On tiktok it's a lot of new developers on it and they're like what the like what the hell Like why are you saying it's fine? Okay I don't know what is down. I'm not saying it's saying this is I felt here in my day morning It's gonna get weird I forget I forget that it's like weird that senior developers don't code and like that needs to be explained Oh, Peter.

Hey Yeah, I so weird um I So I made the video explaining like what I do and why that happens and I did I ended posting a couple more like blog posts and tiktoks about the subject though But I feel like it's one of the things that people in tech like just kind of know But right Taylor you brought this up too like obviously you talked to a lot of senior developers like Those senior devs like aren't coding Dead's get paid a lot. They're doing a lot They need to keep up on the latest stuff for the not actually coding So what do you what do you think plagues this senior devs from not coding because because because because I'm I'm definitely Interested in here in your thoughts One of the things I see is is meeting to for those of you who are watching again.

I want this to be interactive So I want to hear your thoughts to but Joe some questions whatever yeah exactly questions Everything so is it meetings is it the lack of companies being able to Understand the value that senior devs bring like what is not now?

I it's about maximizing your value and I think senior devs understand That you can get more work done By being less involved with the code like I see my I was my last job before MongoDB I was the technical lead for the front end of best by dot com Which is the third largely commerce site north America, but like if I it would be a yeah exactly No one knows it which is why I had to say it like but Everyone knows Amazon Walmart, but everyone's like what that's by yeah, yeah, yeah, anyways It's tricky like I become a blocker if I was coding or

like my my PRs were like The thing we're waiting for yeah So like if I but if I can empower team to do the work that I need to get done on that project I no longer become a block or I can like practice leadership skills And then I can also like empower junior devs like explore code bases and like get better at it Yeah, it's some I do I have seen companies though We're like their internal power structures like hierarchies does limit developers and still have the ability to code It wasn't a lot but like yeah But the writing text backs or meeting with

developers are doing reviews like that wasn't a much better use my time And I could get like a chance Multiply effects by empowering the teams Yeah, so so what so companies and again to the point of this live show is is also not always buys You know developers and individual on the job search but also companies as well like what advice would you have some for companies?

Who are trying to figure out how do you see in your devs Yeah, how does strategically use them with an organization's like what are some some nuggets of Joe That you can leave for companies. Oh, oh You know It's really about communicating with the senior devs because like I think I'm a little bit So oriented but something engine I senior devs don't want to do any of that like they want to just code and be individual contributors Cool not a problem, but I think it's about like communicating with your senior devs to make sure you're doing what they want to do But I think do want to explore technical leadership Yeah, we should you should be empowering them to like Practice that.

I think that's a great skill to have and if you have juniors on a team You should be like leveraging them to multiply your effect at the organization one thing it's a my new question that I ask People I have on yeah, and is why is leadership so shitty in tech? Yeah, and like I This is starting to become my question because I'm fascinated everybody's responding Because again, it's like you just said like I feel like there's just this huge disconnect between leadership Senior dev and then also junior devs up and so Why do you think leadership is so shitty with in tech? Yeah, I Have talked about this a lot too.

I feel like there's a lot of similarities with chef culture in tech culture. It's stressing. Please explain Yeah, like we only like the Gordon Ramses and Amphibor Danes rest in peace, but like Like a lot of those chefs like they still like their own cooking shows and like they need to like to be respected Like restaurant tour you have to still be like hands in the kitchen and coat like cooking same with like coding. I feel like Like we need our managers to be technical so a lot of like software engineers become managers I feel like there's such different skill sets like yeah, and I don't know if that's true of other industries I only really know tech but like Yeah, I Would honestly like it's so tricky.

I don't I don't even know if I have a full answer yet because like I do want my engineer like Miami manager like understand vaguely what I'm doing Yeah, I said I'm like yeah, and like I've had non-technical managers But I do also want a manager who wants to manage and like studies it in like understands it and wants to learn about it Because otherwise you're just gonna shitty manager who knows to coat how to coat a little bit and Honestly, I like if you're gonna promote someone rather promote someone who's good at managing humans then it's good at O bases And you would want both but like in tech Typically we hyper-focused on people really good at I want like yeah, I want like tech leads to be good at tech and I want managers to be good at people and I want Coders to be good at code like I love that I don't know no no no that's fantastic So a few comments have come in so so Pierre goes Z senior devs are Jedi zoomers.

Yeah, true Yeah, yeah, teacher. It's good to see you too girl So she would so teachers said a lot of times they are too removed from the code from a management perspective Yeah, and that's a different thing right, but it's but it's like what would Jo just said I think if you're a management need to manage you need to be a Student of people student of the game in terms of some people and amazing teams. Don't try to do both And then obviously, you know, don't don't pick on leadership and tech leadership is difficult no matter yes Really however, this is a tech-specific thing But yes leadership in general's flawed.

It's in perfect people leading in perfect humans So yeah, I'd totally agree with that so so Joe what about so I want to go back to to the senior dev thing Yeah, yeah, and how so in your past experience how have you structured? Senior devs and and and just the responsibilities and to make things work within organization because I want to give this High majors right higher majors watching now higher majors in the future. I just wanted to be good. I just said this Yeah, this is really good. So how do you kind of move people around and Your past experience. Oh, what I just posted an article on this like I think it's like 70 30 Joe and I Joe Joe's I keep posted like that's why I was so excited to have you on because I think A lot of the same stuff I say too.

Yeah, totally if anyone's connected me on LinkedIn Just be prepared for me to shit post a lot on there. So you will see a lot of tech garbage on there but like I feel like You I I don't want all the promotions to come from internally. I do want outside blood But I want most of it to be coming from internally and I want like yeah, I don't know 70% moved up internally and maybe 30% of fresh blood coming in. I you want to I want to mention the org too And I think it's I've worked in orgs where like leadership where like promotions are frozen that's horrible I've worked that one company.

It was so broken. They just said to freeze all promotions and like which was Horrible. It was like you're just telling developers you have no future here anymore. We can't fix it. We're yeah But yeah, I think it's important to have technical leadership. I think even like a not even if it's on a promotion Even just like job titles like tech lead or Whatever like I think that can be encouraging and like helps people out In even like my senior developers I typically Move them around to like have more juniors or more fresh Challenge on their team if they like want to explore leadership promotions.

I Don't know it's I mean Taylor I'm sure you know this it all comes down to communicating through team with like what they want and what they need I have opinions about what I think works But like what works for me may not work for some other people my 100% but I Would help I would help guide that for my teams. I think I think it's helpful Have I think for me it's helpful to come in with an opinion about how it should be structured and then like Discussing about what that might make me look like Especially like new people who don't understand like how to stretch your teams or grow them or how to seem like I don't know what that looks like They just don't know yet.

I feel like what we do to is just like It's helpful to have an opinion and guide that conversation, but I'm not married to my opinion We just can move it wherever we need to move it But I think and you can agree with this too I think that makes a good engineer right because what you want is you want So you know interview so many people on this show where it's like You have to be able to have an opinion You have to be able to have a back one you have to be able to say hey listen yes No, maybe here is why but also be understanding that your viewpoint may not be the best viewpoint and I feel like within tech I feel like there's there's very little middle ground right you have a lot of people who just steamroll individuals Like this is the way I want to do it or you have people who just go Nope, yeah, it like and there's no real middle ground and I feel like those that that's more Excel With the heck leadership.

Oh, I totally agree. I actually I've been exploring this and I don't I would I feel like I could come up with a sexy name for this to sell a book, but like I have like I have a theory that like Playful leadership is a really great way to go about that like humor and like it's more like like I can come in with solutions But like I think sometimes you come into strong it feels like if you don't agree with me am I solutions You're gonna be punished. That's like I don't know you don't know We're just exploring this together like this kind of just play around with this problem until we figure it out and like And I try and you see my post I try to make my content try to make fun and funny and like approachable Even my written content.

It's supposed to be like I don't know what I'm doing, but we're just playing I'm just goofing around here and this is kind of what this looks like dude after I interviewed so many people job seekers and hiring managers Have no idea what they're doing either one and I feel like once you can get to that place of understanding on both sides I think they can become much more helpful. Oh Totally both ends. Totally because I feel like the hiring managers and interviewing We're doing a lot of interviewing if you want. I have many thoughts on interviewing but The whole thing where you know, I feel like companies interview to reject and and and not to accept I think that's a thing right job seekers who don't do the research right I can't tell you how many job seekers that I deal with who don't know They're why don't ask questions and interview and then get pissed off when they take an Opportunity because they ask the questions right so at the end of the day Neither one of them know what they're doing, but I think I love I love that playful leadership playful You patient.

I think is so huge. It's just so huge So let me know so What say what oh? I hope yeah, I hope so. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know Especially in tech. I just feel like it's a lot of like competition and blow hard and people like saying like I know what I'm talking about But like no one for nothing this thing as we build it to no one knows like no one knows and I feel like For juniors that makes it much more approachable to come in with a suggestion or whatever because I don't know and like as We're talking about as a senior.

I'm in the code last like I may not you might see something. I totally miss like I Need to make that feels like safe to come in. Yeah Say something to me about that and not taking myself seriously. I think it's a good way to do that Yeah, and I feel like everybody in tech takes themselves way too seriously Yeah about junior depths because because I'm I volunteer my time to speak at Nashville software school shout out Nashville software school Here at Nashville to a amazing job June and I'm fascinated with the approach right now And I interviewed who to interview last week about senior devs and how they're at all-time premium Oh Jason Langstorf at he's a VP developer experience at Netlify and He and I talked about you know Trying to build teams specifically around junior devs why people don't why team divide?

They're not leveraging junior devs. What are your thoughts on the the field of junior devs and why companies? Don't hire them enough. Yeah. Oh totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I the market is so it's on like it's it's on fire right now Ridiculous and I've seen person to pay is just going to the roof for Especially senior engineers But yeah, so another thing my I was actually the lead technical instructor one of the top 10 best developer boot camps in the world In Honolulu, Hawaii. I did it for a couple years. So yeah, I So I have a little experience with dev and I helped like tons of junior developers get hired or whatever but Yeah, I it's still scary in the thing too.

It's like I've hired I've hired tons of junior developers boot camp grads computer science students in self-taught engineers and Some of them are a mate I would rather hire a like a boot camp grad than a lot of like Mass like students are coming out of master's grades. Why that? Why is that I don't know they're like they're way more like open to learning. They're like when we're playful. They should have interesting backgrounds I can usually help guide them a lot too Let me ask you this do you think do you now I may get some angry people don't happen Do you think That when you come from a place of a bachelor's degree of master's degree you come from a place of entitlement When now amp engineers come from a place of just hustle and grind Yeah, it depends so like and I'm a computer science.

I'm a traditional computer science degree And and it's changing right like boot camp sitting exists when I was in college Yeah, it's a in like I see C.S. students come out in the Bay hustle to sure. It's a different hustle It's it's just it's different. I and I think there's a place for both I don't think either one is better than the other the morally neutral places to learn but I Do see that a lot too, but I'm thinking I've also seen C.S. students or on boot camp students who just don't have the hustle either They kind of expect to like pay the thing everyone like some there's always 90% of every like 90% of everything is Shit and 10% is great like you're gonna get crap in both ends And the hard part too, and I'm sure you see this too like with junior candidates.

It's it's It's really a mixed bag for all of them to whether they're great or not And it's like trying to figure that out for me personally when I'm evaluating computer science Like I'm valuing computer science majors and boot camp grad the same way right? I'm looking at their Portfolios and their get hubs and their learning like how they're learning after they graduate to see if they're gonna be good fit I don't care about what they did. I don't care what they learned I don't care about their group projects. I care about like what did you work on after you graduated and like are you obtaining to learn?

That's really good. I love that so but but why do you think companies don't leverage them? You know, I'm saying yeah, I'm like look higher all the seniors just like listen You can't have all of these senior level problems. There's there's gotta be ways Well, you can build these correctly. Oh totally well That's a thing and I'm sure you see this to every company thinks that they have They're solving the hardest problems and the most unique problems and they have the most and they're not They're not they're not you heard you heard it here first Not special you are not solving the most difficult problem Everyone's solving the same problems right now.

Like right we need to scale up in the cloud and like yeah All in the same problems. It doesn't matter And like yeah, you could hire juniors But I think it's just this thing of like exceptionalism like where are the best at blah blah blah? We need to hire the best and they're also just not willing to train with the senior You don't have to have any you can have a shitty onboarding program. There's shitty training program and No leadership and if you don't have the internal org structure Will like man it or like to scale up with juniors. You're it's just not going to be feasible Otherwise they you throw them in the deep end like a senior and they flounder and fail and you wonder why they sucked in You just hire juniors, but seeing it seniors are expensive and they're rare and it's hard to interview for and there's a And frankly we probably have a surplus of juniors coming out of boot camps You know be super happy to do whatever And they're really easy to train and yeah, they learn they're it's their fresh.

They're moldable Yeah, I it's just I don't know. It's just like fear and like not having the internal structure in place to like Scale out juniors, which is really problem I think the even scaling out junior programs as I talked about like can help scale out your seniors like giving them people to manage your Important to is great for their careers. It's great for your product. Yeah. It's it should be a win win win win win Yeah, and yet there's so much fear around it So good. So so we've had a comments come in want to give obviously some shouts as always So back to communication students at communications huge.

That's where most organization struggle overall organization struggle Yeah, I mean, listen that even even with they can we struggle with it Kale look more than it's good to see you case It goes one thing I learned about my leadership from my time teaching different people respond there different kinds of leadership You know one one thing. I don't know if you're any gram guy Joe, but our office had to make made us take the any gram test So we all knew so all the managers at they could knew how to manage better. Yeah, and then people have thoughts in any gram I'm a fan. It's more just a little baseball starter perspective, but yeah And then Casey also goes I've had some students who take harsh criticism as a challenge to rise to another student There's some so you need to be guided.

Yeah, and again, this is management styles with it right like the same thing Like you can't parent the kid the same kid or two kids the same way right? And I think it comes to that within leadership as well Where you need to obviously manage and guide and lead devs Differently and you have to know that right? I've been preaching about toned Joe as everything has been said during this conversation I'm sure you have as well team to hire managers Companies your team is getting DM's about a multitude of jobs Every week if you not know your people more than ever right now you are going to lose 100% you are going to lose 100% I didn't know if you any thoughts on that now.

I totally agree I totally agree. Yeah, and I mean most the reason people leave is because of the manager Yeah, or people don't leave Come to leave people or something like that. Yeah, yeah, totally agree. It's a And pandemic makes it hard to I feel like remote work is made especially managers want you to remote work Yeah, it's easy to view your team as Units of work to be done in it correct or recorder and not it's in the beings correct. Yep I've seen it It's in it doesn't feel good and like if your teams hasn't offered to get ghosting with the butter culture We're gonna take it exactly and probably gonna get more money to if they're absolutely Yeah, so anyway people if there's any engineers here who are not considered looking at the job market again Please do so it's You will probably get paid more money if you look around You heard it here first Taylor I'm just gonna take a little bit the clips of Joe saying these like really great things Last money internet.

Yeah. All right. Well, that is it for today Joe, thank you again want to respect your time. I appreciate you a ton Again, everybody we had a great great session today everyone tuning in So a few things few housekeeping things Text me 615-235-5650 One text message a day to your phone on all thing job tip related Go follow Joe on tiktok Go follow me in Where all the places obviously I'm gonna share all this this footage with you all here in the next Obviously few weeks Joe. Thank you again for coming on man. I appreciate it Y'all have a great Monday and I'll see y'all tomorrow of 9 30 am Central peace