hiring off eq

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What's going on? It's been a few weeks since the last podcast episode. Hope everyone has been doing well It has been crazy busy on my end just finished up speaking at code stock last week in Knoxville that was an absolute blast and met a ton of great people and actually this podcast episode are two individuals that I met through the code stock conference and Super excited to have had the time to interview them their names are Brad and Andrew Brad and Andrew both work at the same company Code Tank Labs in Knoxville. It is a VR company and during this episode we talk about what EQ looks like, emotional intelligence looks like during the interview process.

I talked to them about what they look for when hiring new individuals and their stories about starting their own startup. So I hope you guys enjoy again a few other things. If you need to reach me, social media is the best way. All of my handles are going to be T. Decin T. D. E. S. S. E. Y. N. If you don't have social media feel free to shoot me an email. That's going to be at Taylor at Vaco.com V. A. C. O. Dot com. And finally if you guys want to rate this podcast in the app store that would be awesome. I would love for this to gain a little traction in the market so other people can use this podcast as a tool when they are on the job search process.

Hope you guys enjoy. Thanks. Yo, what's up guys? Hey, Taylor, how's it going, man? Thanks for uh, thanks for hanging out. I appreciate it. Yes sir, our pleasure. Um, so we'll go ahead and jump right into it. Why don't you guys give an intro of who you guys are and so the six listeners, five of them be my mom listening multiple times. Uh, can, can, can know who you you guys are. Well, first of all, Hot Taylor's mom. Karen, so her name is Karen, and she'll be very happy you said hey. Okay. Well, hello, Karen. So we're co-ting claps. I'm Andrew May. And I'm Brad Miller.

And we're a mobile development agency with specializations, obviously in mobile and AR and VR. So what is, so Brad, tell me about kind of I guess introduce yourself, tell me about your backgrounds and tell me what you do at a coat tank. Yeah, so my background was actually in engineering, mechanical engineering, worked in that field for several years and then decided that I wanted to do something a little different with the help of people like Andrew and several other from our field. It was actually self-taught with some mentorship and guidance along the way. And kind of come to the realization my skill set still very strongly in the project direction and product ownership motive things and so a couple years ago right after CoTain Labs got started interaction invited me to join the company as the first employee and then eventually went on to become a senior partner so most of my day-to-day stuff now is focused around director of operation and product ownership.

Fantastic now now what is product ownership look like for the people like Karen who doesn't know what that is. Yeah, so if you've ever seen the movie Office Space, the guy who talks to the engineers and then talks to the client that got fired right there in the middle, that's basically my day-to-day job. So, but on the technical level, basically, I worked directly with the clients and non-technical team members on the product side to help define the parameters of the project, budget, how things are going to flow, make sure all those assets are gathered and then work with the internal team to actually execute on those project requirements.

Awesome. Andrew, I guess give a run down to everybody kind of your background and who you are. All right. So, well, I'm the CEO and lead architect here at Cote and Collabs. My background is I've been a nerd since I was 12. Nice. Basically, I've been an uber nerd since. So, I've been and computing since the young child, obviously. You know, I worked with a lot of corporations. And eventually in the 2008 collapse, I kind of decided, hey, I'm going to start my own consulting gig. That took off, was just wildly successful. And I realized I needed to grow this company even further than just a single consultant.

So I merged with my co-founder Dave Levy, who was another consultant. I just kept running into them at the same clients. And man, we've just had some amazing success and have just simply grown beyond our wildest dreams. And obviously that's why I brought Brad on is to help with that growth. So essentially I'm the vision maker and he's the executor. Doesn't make it sound too pleasant, but it is what it is. It's what I do. So, and I talk about this on every podcast. So the main goal of this on my end is there are 3 1.5 recruiters out there and we're kind of this black hole.

And what I try to do is I try to educate individuals in the tech space and really across all different industries on how to work with recruiters in the job search process and hiring tips and anything of that nature. And so what I wanted to really rely on you guys heavily on this episode specifically is kind of how you guys go about hiring at-code tank. So Brad and you, I don't know who you guys want to start this, but I want to see kind of y'all's process with hiring. What does that look like? Do you guys use recruiters? If not, why don't you use recruiters?

And because I know a lot of people would be fascinated to hear how two senior individuals like yourself at a startup kind of look to bring on talent. So I'll kind of give you the look into our crazy world of hiring. So to be honest, long before we even ever hit anyone's technical skills, we're looking at their personality. Being that we fall under that startup category, we have to be very careful and selective who we are. Again, another sound pretty scary moment here. When I'm not someone, I really want them to stay here and I want them to grow here. And so people who are just looking to be isolated in a cubicle just doesn't work.

And some developers will like that. That's just not our fit. So first things first, we find out what they're like. We bring them in, no technical, just shoot the breeze with them. If they pass that smell test and they, hey, they can deal with us, deal with our insanity, deal with sometimes the cliche, fast pace, life of a startup. Then they move on to round two. And round two is then we kind of bring more of the team on and again, just a little more personality and kind of some tech questions. We just wanna kind of get a feel that they're not BSing us. Right, absolutely.

That they know some level of tech information. Great, so pass that. Then we actually bring him down for a coding test. We sit him down with the group and we say, hey, anything's at your resource, whatever you need, we actually have three tests. And it's really interesting, they're very unique. Two tests are just kind of your standard, hey, logic and show me your logic. Then we have a very unique test, what would you call it, Brad? Well, I think the best way to probably sum it up is if you're a Star Trek fan and the Kobayashi Maroon, basically the the unsolvable problem, you know, so that's Go ahead.

I'll be honest, I enjoy, and this is maybe because I'm a horrible person, I'm not sure. I enjoy sitting and watching these developers who've just done really well in the previous two tests. They've shown their logic, they solved it, they fixed an issue, they're excited, and then they get to this and they're just like, what in the world? The only way of winning the Kobyashami room is to cheat. Okay, so what's what's what's y'all's thought process behind this because I know Speaking only working with software developers day and day out on my end one almost all of them hate whiteboarding and coding challenges to Not only that you guys were given this kind of this Really difficult assessment where you're asking them to you know, basically, you know quote unquote cheat what what what's y'all's way of thinking behind this and to Like what do you look for from a problem solving perspective with these new hires with this test?

Yeah, Taylor because a lot of recently what we've been feeling is some front-end some more junior positions to accommodate a couple of large projects we're working on. We're dealing with younger people who we really need to kind of judge not only the way that they fit in but also some character and how they approach failure. And that's the biggest thing for us is you know when you hit an unsolvable problem. Are you going to be S's or are you going to be straightforward with us or are you going to take it upon yourself to you know find the solution even if it is you know basically deleting the repo and starting over.

So it's again it's not you know we're not masques we're not trying to frustrate somebody to the point of not joining us but it's really showing us a very critical part of their character is the junior your dev is what happens when you cannot figure something out. We've worked with some people and some joint teams before where we've had some experience working with junior developers who will ride a dead horse for a week before they ever asked for help. And we're a small team. We are growing every day, and we've got a lot of work on our plate. And we need people who we can trust to be able to face failure in the right manner.

And so that's really the way that we approach this is, okay, now show us what you can do and now show us what happens whenever you can't do. It's basically how you handle failure is just as important as you handle success. Ooh, that's good. That needs to go like on one of the wall art things right there. It's like, like, in a car house. It's so very true about developers. How do you handle failure? What I'd really love to see about some of the developers, so we're not gonna talk about the senior level guys that we look at. We're gonna talk about the entry in junior guys right now.

What I look for is, what do you do? When you're filling, I actually kind of look over your shoulder and I'm looking, watching them, try and figure it out. Googling, asking everyone else on the team, there's a reason why we put them in the family, say, hey, look, everybody's at your resource. Do whatever you need to do. Absolutely. I want to see, do they kind of get up and say, I need some help? Do they kind of shut everyone off and research? Different personality types handle things differently. You know, one of great question we ask during the personality portion of our interview is, what would you do if you just were given a million dollars?

No questions asked one day in your bank account, it is there. It's a personality test for us. It tells us are you based upon your answers, are you forward thinking or are you thinking in the now? So all these things kind of come together to kind of give us the picture of who the developer is. So, correct me if I'm wrong. Are you guys wanting these developers to say, hey, I don't know how to do this, I need help? That would be the best case scenario. It is, honestly, if they just say, hey, look, this is beyond me, I don't know what is going on.

That is the best case scenario for us. That makes sense. It was, I had lunch with the developer yesterday and we were talking about junior developers and what that looks like. And he said that he had a junior developer go off, rewrite a whole service layer, and all after a month, and all it was, was a bug. It was a release in the iOS. And it would have been fixed in five minutes. Yeah. It's one of the things we want people to understand when they come work for us. It's okay to not know something. Yeah, we want you to raise your hands. It's something that's really funny.

I have a nine-year-old who I'm still trying to get this lesson Into his head and nine-year-olds are stubborn by design I'm telling you when you're in school and you don't know The answer it's okay to raise your hand. Yeah, it's okay to ask questions So absolutely it's something that that we looked for around here. Okay. Now talk to me, kind of your thought process, kind of behind the senior devs. What do you guys do differently? What kind of characteristics that you could give, kind of the listeners who maybe are some senior devs, checking this podcast out, who are like, all right, well that's great about junior devs.

Now, what do you look for, you know, if I interview with you guys? So for senior devs or architects, we actually rely on recruiters at this point. What we do is we let the recruiters weed out the tech, weed out everything. Because at that point, we trust, we know you're gonna send us the high levels. Right. At that point, we scale it back to just our personality. And at that point, it's also a different personality we're looking for. It's now a, can they lead? Is this someone who can lead by example? And so one of the things we kind of ask are, what have you done in the past to lead teams?

Let's say I'm trying to recall all our personalities. We've got a whole slew of personality questions we just kind of tick through. Yeah, I mean, we talked to them a lot about what they do in their personal life. What's their extracurriculars look like? Are they involved in their community? you know, are they involved in coaching their kids sports teams? Anything that shows or exhibits their ability to lead teams of people that are not necessarily on their level in everyday life? I think anybody can fake their way through a nine to five job, but someone who has leadership ability outside of the office and in other avenues of life exhibit stronger leadership characteristics that are a lot harder to fake.

So to us for seniors, once we get through the recruiting process and we're sitting down across the table from somebody who has the resume and they've been vetted and we understand that they understand the technology, it's more about that leadership quality and what they're capable of coming in and doing for the people that we're going to place under them than anything else. That makes sense. Do you guys look for specific or or can't come in with specific technologies or would you say you're kind of technology agnostic and at the end of the day like you just want good people that you work with day in day out?

Ultimately it comes down to good people. When it boils down to it besides some very specific areas like unity, we can teach anyone anyone can pick up a language. skill sets and personality, learning how to leave, things like that. You know, that's a lot harder to teach. Yeah, impossible to teach in some cases. Now this may be just because, and also a little plug for you guys. So I had the opportunity to attend code stock last week. And these guys did a wonderful job with putting that on. with putting that on. So real quick, complete sidebar here. Tell about you guys involved with CodeStalk, how long it's been around and kind of what you guys do with CodeStalk.

We'll do a quick sidebar here. Yeah, well, Code Tank is one of the sponsors we actually exhibited this past year. I brought in a lot of our ARVR mobile tech. Andrew was with CodeStalk for six years and stepped away because both of us were on the board and basically Code Tank was growing so rapidly that we had to decide that while we both loved the organization, we had to divide our interest, or divide our attention, and so we continue to grow. So I'm still serving on the board at A Code Stock. We're a developer conference once a year that brings in, and I think this year we were right at, right under 900 attendees over two days.

You know, the great people at Vaco come out and help us put this on as well. So really awesome booth there, by the way, with the video games. I appreciate that. That was actually my wife's idea, believe it or not. She is, she's a genius when it comes up like that. That was epic and I'm going to make far next booth. I've got to find an NES. Yes. Yes. Yeah. We will definitely be having that that booth set up at Music City for sure. So, I kind of that took a sidebar off of this. So you guys, and this is something I've seen more often, and I don't know if I'm just getting more plugged in on Twitter and following the right people and coming to code conferences now.

But I feel like there's been a push in the last few years for more of the, I guess the, so I talk a lot about IQ versus EQ, right? So like, IQ is the, you know, your SAT score, which you can count mine on one hand. And then obviously your EQ, which is your emotional intelligence, right? And I feel like there's a push lately in the dev community to basically have a better EQ, right? Understand other people's feelings and why you feel the way you feel and why you problem solve the way you problem solve and being aware of other people. Is that, is that something that you guys have seen or is that just me or is that something that the IT community as a whole is trying to get better at?

Well, I think, no, it's definitely getting more and more widespread. You look at the volume of talks, the soft skills talks, as they're categorized at conferences now, a lot is focusing on EQ. I think our industry's evolving. We're definitely putting, grabbing towards that more diversity, more inclusion. And the stereotypical office space developers stuck in a basement, that personas really evolved quite a bit. And I think if that is the need for camaraderie amongst the team and community and EQ is the foundation of that. Well, you've nailed it that that persona has changed. And in doing so, it's evolved the teams to be more efficient. So, and again, that's part of what we look at is the EQ.

If you're your emotional ability to connect and grow is there, you're better hire for me than someone who's just gonna wanna sit and hammer out code. because the team will grow together and be able to produce better code as a team than single individuals. That makes sense for somebody listening to his podcast and they're sitting there and they're like, ah, I think I may be the guy that sits in the corner and codes all day. How can I be better at EQ or how can I be better at, you know, being involved? I mean, what are some suggestions as senior leaders at your company and hiring manage, what are some things that you would recommend?

Well, I think, you know, first of all, if you're a remote developer, potentially look to join a team. You know, I think you kind of evolve into whatever your circumstance is. So if you're around a team that's more social, that's more outgoing, it's kind of broken down the cubicle walls. And, you know, like our work area here at Code Tank is an open, we call it the pit. I love it. just an open concept. Everybody works together. You walk out there at any time throughout the day. There's normally some collaboration going on on projects. And you know, Taylor from what I've seen in other teams, a happy team like this can get more done in six hours than a team that is, you know, shoved in a corner somewhere and isn't allowed to collaborate can and can.

So you know, I think a lot of it is is change your environment first of all. And then, you know, beyond that, meetups are a great place to get out, you know, go have a drink with people in your industry. It kind of breaks down a lot of that initial intimidation factor because you're around people who do what you do, understand what you do, and get you as an individual. And so lessons kind of that fear factor that a lot of us who are introverts have in socializing and networking. So you know that that would be my top two things to tell someone to come out of that, you know, come out of environment and just get around other people that's doing what you're doing?

That's really good is you've got to socialize and that's going to be hard. For some people they just want to hunker down. It's a tough thing. The meetups. That is crucial. Go find a meetup. Go just once a month that they've got it once a month and get out. I'll have to admit that the co-founder, he'd be one of the first people to say this, of Code Tank Labs. He's very much an introvert, but he comes here every day and is working with the rest of us in a team and he doesn't seem like he's an introvert. So you got to surround yourself with your peers.

For sure. And just, you know, take that leap. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. So, so let's kind of move on to kind of the, I guess, y'all's personal story. So I always try to bring it back to kind of the, the job process. So we talked about from you guys, what you guys doing on the hiring side. talk to you about your experience as a candidate in the market before pre-code tank and y'all's experience and what you would recommend and what you wouldn't recommend it and then we can wrap it up from there. Oh pre-code tank man. Yeah. I'll tell you what you're talking mid-2000s for both of us I think.

I love it. You know both of us were victims of the economy. Yeah. When it when it took a dive back in 2008, both of us were sent into a flooded marketplace. And both of us really took the approach of instead of fighting for the little hanging fruit, we're just going to go out and start something on our own. We had the networks and connections individually, and that's actually how we met was through networking and social media and different things. So for me specifically, to be honest, Taylor, I haven't been on a job interview in probably 15 years. Well, one. But, you know, it's just we both had that entrepreneurial drive even before the economy collapsed.

And when the opportunity presented itself, we just kind of dove in with both feet. So the parachute on the way down and made it go at it. So, so, so let's pivot the question real quick then. So for individuals that want to start their own thing, what do you guys recommend then. For someone that's wanting to go out and do that. Sinking professional help first. Yeah, mental health. So, in all honesty, here's the thing. This is what a lot of people get right and a lot of people get wrong. You've got to be willing to take the plunge. It's an all or nothing. It's it's sink or swim.

There is no in between. There's no, hey, I'm gonna work my day job and pursue this consulting thing at the night. Yeah, it's it's it was literally and it's scared. I mean the first year that I had started my consulting company I was scared, but I did it because my alternative was Go back and at the time where the marketplace was just flooded. I mean Every single just so what had happened here in Knoxville was there was a bunch of companies who went under I can't remember the clothing company name. They fired up. Who was it? Goodies. Goodies. Goodies laid off their entire IT staff.

Wow. Anderson News laid off their entire IT staff. There was another company that laid off. So basically it was a flooded marketplace. And there was very few job openings. And I did stand out and I had some offers in 2008. But I thought to myself, oh gosh, is this going to happen again in another year? Now, obviously, the marketplace has changed. You know, if this happened now, I'd probably not make the same choices I made, but, you know, it pushed me, you know, out of the plane, so to speak. I felt like it was my best option. Right. So, but for someone looking to do it, jump to the deep end.

There's no alternative. Yeah, Brad, any thoughts on that? Yeah, I think having both of us done this, you know, one, what 100% what Andrew said is being the first critical component is it really isn't all or nothing venture. But two, I think the biggest key to making this work for you and especially people with families is find a good partner or partners. Andrew and I individually before our pass cross, we're going at this alone and it's just one of those situations where if you're sick, if one of your kids are sick, if you go on vacation, you don't get paid. I think that ultimately, not only the camaraderie and the collaboration, but just for your health long-term mentally and physically, this is really something to do with someone and not as a lone wolf.

And I know there's people out there who do it and who love that, but especially getting started and diving into the deep end, find someone who compliments your skill set and do it as a team. That's the other part is recognize your weaknesses. Like Brad is saying is look for that person who has that complimentary skill sets. I knew where I lacked. I knew that Dave could help me. And at that time I was already thinking about Brad And I knew what Brad can bring to the table. Brad makes an excellent point. Find someone who's willing to take that dive with you and get them to do it with you.

It's both emotionally, physically, everything. It just helps to have someone to do that. That way your kids sick, you gotta take two weeks off. Someone can help you pick up that slack. That's awesome. And make sure your significant others on board with it too. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, guys, thanks again for hanging out real quick as we wrap up, Brad. Where can people find you on Twitter? What's your social media handle? Yeah, on Twitter, it's underscore Brad Miller. Awesome. And then Andrew, it is Manta May. There you go. Awesome. So well, guys, thank you again. I really appreciate it and are you guys planning on coming out to Chattanooga for scenic city by chance?

Absolutely. Cool. Well, I'll see you guys there. That was very soon. Awesome. See you there. Thanks y'all. Thanks. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.