[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":457},["ShallowReactive",2],{"footer-primary":3,"footer-secondary":93,"footer-description":119,"trace-talks-ali-payne":121,"trace-talks-ali-payne-next":188,"sales-reps":206},{"items":4},[5,29,49,69],{"id":6,"title":7,"url":8,"page":8,"children":9},"522e608a-77b0-4333-820d-d4f44be2ade1","Solutions",null,[10,15,20,25],{"id":11,"title":12,"url":8,"page":13},"fcafe85a-a798-4710-9e7a-776fe413aae5","Headless CMS",{"permalink":14},"/solutions/headless-cms",{"id":16,"title":17,"url":8,"page":18},"79972923-93cf-4777-9e32-5c9b0315fc10","Backend-as-a-Service",{"permalink":19},"/solutions/backend-as-a-service",{"id":21,"title":22,"url":8,"page":23},"0fa8d0c1-7b64-4f6f-939d-d7fdb99fc407","Product Information",{"permalink":24},"/solutions/product-information-management",{"id":26,"title":27,"url":28,"page":8},"63946d54-6052-4780-8ff4-91f5a9931dcc","100+ Things to Build","https://directus.io/blog/100-tools-apps-and-platforms-you-can-build-with-directus",{"id":30,"title":31,"url":8,"page":8,"children":32},"8ab4f9b1-f3e2-44d6-919b-011d91fe072f","Resources",[33,37,41,45],{"id":34,"title":35,"url":36,"page":8},"f951fb84-8777-4b84-9e91-996fe9d25483","Documentation","https://docs.directus.io",{"id":38,"title":39,"url":40,"page":8},"366febc7-a538-4c08-a326-e6204957f1e3","Guides","https://docs.directus.io/guides/",{"id":42,"title":43,"url":44,"page":8},"aeb9128e-1c5f-417f-863c-2449416433cd","Community","https://directus.chat",{"id":46,"title":47,"url":48,"page":8},"da1c2ed8-0a77-49b0-a903-49c56cb07de5","Release Notes","https://github.com/directus/directus/releases",{"id":50,"title":51,"url":8,"page":8,"children":52},"d61fae8c-7502-494a-822f-19ecff3d0256","Support",[53,57,61,65],{"id":54,"title":55,"url":56,"page":8},"8c43c781-7ebd-475f-a931-747e293c0a88","Issue Tracker","https://github.com/directus/directus/issues",{"id":58,"title":59,"url":60,"page":8},"d77bb78e-cf7b-4e01-932a-514414ba49d3","Feature Requests","https://github.com/directus/directus/discussions?discussions_q=is:open+sort:top",{"id":62,"title":63,"url":64,"page":8},"4346be2b-2c53-476e-b53b-becacec626a6","Community Chat","https://discord.com/channels/725371605378924594/741317677397704757",{"id":66,"title":67,"url":68,"page":8},"26c115d2-49f7-4edc-935e-d37d427fb89d","Cloud Dashboard","https://directus.cloud",{"id":70,"title":71,"url":8,"page":8,"children":72},"49141403-4f20-44ac-8453-25ace1265812","Organization",[73,78,84,88],{"id":74,"title":75,"url":76,"page":77},"1f36ea92-8a5e-47c8-914c-9822a8b9538a","About","/about",{"permalink":76},{"id":79,"title":80,"url":81,"page":82},"b84bf525-5471-4b14-a93c-225f6c386005","Careers","#",{"permalink":83},"/careers",{"id":85,"title":86,"url":87,"page":8},"86aabc3a-433d-434b-9efa-ad1d34be0a34","Brand Assets","https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lBOTba4RaA5ikqOn8Ewo4RYzD0XcymG9?usp=sharing",{"id":89,"title":90,"url":8,"page":91},"8d2fa1e3-198e-4405-81e1-2ceb858bc237","Contact",{"permalink":92},"/contact",{"items":94},[95,101,107,113],{"id":96,"title":97,"url":8,"page":98,"children":100},"8a1b7bfa-429d-4ffc-a650-2a5fdcf356da","Cloud Policies",{"permalink":99},"/cloud-policies",[],{"id":102,"title":103,"url":81,"page":104,"children":106},"bea848ef-828f-4306-8017-6b00ec5d4a0c","License",{"permalink":105},"/bsl",[],{"id":108,"title":109,"url":81,"page":110,"children":112},"4e914f47-4bee-42b7-b445-3119ee4196ef","Terms",{"permalink":111},"/terms",[],{"id":114,"title":115,"url":81,"page":116,"children":118},"ea69eda6-d317-4981-8421-fcabb1826bfd","Privacy",{"permalink":117},"/privacy",[],{"description":120},"\u003Cp>A composable backend to build your Headless CMS, BaaS, and more. \u003C/p>",{"id":122,"slug":123,"vimeo_id":124,"description":125,"tile":126,"length":127,"resources":8,"people":128,"episode_number":138,"published":139,"title":140,"video_transcript_html":141,"video_transcript_text":142,"content":8,"status":143,"episode_people":144,"recommendations":175,"season":176,"seo":8},"836d591e-0f5c-47db-9756-c87d97283c02","ali-payne","896619497","Ali shares his relentless passion for technology and his commitment to staying abreast of current trends and developments. Tracing his journey from Ohio to the tech hubs of the West, Ali discusses how he perceives every technological challenge as a puzzle waiting to be solved.","82aad3bf-6a5b-44da-8c1b-1f98c5f8efba",37,[129,132,135],{"name":130,"url":131},"John Daniels","https://www.linkedin.com/in/jwdaniels/",{"name":133,"url":134},"Pedro Pizarro","https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedropizarrojr/",{"name":136,"url":137},"Ali Payne","https://www.linkedin.com/in/ali-payne/",4,"2024-02-08","Ali Payne, Lead Engineer at Stitch Fix","\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Someone is working constantly just in a different time zone. But it would be nice if you could just go in there and pair program with them with the VR headset, just sitting back on your couch air typing. I mean, if they don't automate our job before that. But hey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Pedro, and we got Jonathan here and Ollie. Welcome to another episode of Trace Talks, where we interview some thought leadership and engineers on their experience, and hopefully learn something along the way. So, yeah. Ollie, I'd I'd like to give you the opportunity to introduce yourself and maybe a quick, you know, minute, 60 second background, and we'll dive right in.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Quick background. I'm a lead engineer currently at, Stitch Fix. I've done everything from front end, back end, data engineering, CTO, startups, big companies, contracting. And, hey. I enjoy what I do.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>What more can I say?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: That's awesome. Yeah. John John, I'm gonna go ahead and take Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: And I I'd love to understand, I guess, since you love what you do, we we have these conversations, and everyone seems to love a different, a different reason why they do what they do, but we can just start there. You know, what what, you know, what got you into engineering, and and why you love it?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Funny enough, I got into engineering through recruiting. My very first job, I I my first year is in psychology. I was always interested in people, and I worked for a recruiting firm that actually built their own proprietary software. And from there, I kinda found out that you could build anything, and you could put it online and anyone could see it. So that's kinda what got me, started and interested.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Prior to that, I didn't really have any any idea, to be honest with you. To answer the question, like, what gets me interested is I I look at technical problems or just problems in general as solving a puzzle. And being in technology, you get to solve puzzles in the comfort of your own home.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Or in a hotel room. Either either where wherever you are.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Hey. Remote is remote in today's world.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. For sure. 1st, for some of those early engineering projects and, like, as you started to get into into engineering, was there any overlap between psychology and engineering that you sort of took advantage of or explored in those early days as you made that transition?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I will say one thing that psychology majoring psychology or even taking psychology serious, just human interaction in general, I think has been the one differentiating factor for me in an engineering career. Like, no matter where I've gone and I I did my fair job shop or job hopping. I'm not gonna lie. But no matter where I got, I was enough of a communicator to be able to galvanize the troops. Or, you know, like, make the friends you needed to make, find out who is the who, and then just get the conversations going about, hey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Can we get the troops going to do something fun? Or, like, can we, like, gear our engineers against the project managers in some regard? Not for, like, a negative, but just to be like, you know, there's some smart people that just don't say anything just because, you know, the, you know, we're engineers. We're we're here to not talk.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: That must be a different experience because our engineers love to talk. They love to tell jokes.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Well, I mean, once you get them going, they won't shut up. But, you know, the initial you know, like, I I one of the best people I ever worked with. He had to train himself, to look people in the eye. And, you know, just from the aspect spectrum of just how people think, it's not too infrequent that you get someone who's not like the the stellar communicator, but is a wiz problem solver.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Was was this person someone who is like a mentor to you, or was it someone you just worked with?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: It was my favorite mentor, my number one mentor, Doug himself. And, I'll say that one of the the best lessons I learned from him, at least mentoring others, is sometimes the best direction in leadership is none at all. To see where you land and just help.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Just get out of the way.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Get out of the way, let you fail, and then come around and be like, hey. Do you need help? I gotcha.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Is that a style of leadership that you you like where you would prefer it? You know, obviously, there's times where you would want a little bit more interaction with leadership, your leadership. But as you've climbed the ranks and gone from place to place, is that something that you react more openly to, a leader who kind of lets you do your thing? Or would you prefer or is it a case by case scenario where some projects you need a little bit more hands on? And then I guess as you're starting to be a lead engineer yourself or as you're in this role now, for people who kind of look up to you in a leadership role or as your as their mentor, do you lead them the same way as well?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I'll say my leadership style is just a little it's a little different, because I also did, like, coaching. I played sports a while, a long time. And and I like to one of the biggest lessons I learned in any leadership is, like, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And oftentimes for them to find that out, they have to put themselves in a bad position. And in engineering, nothing better than a deadline, missing a deadline, or telling some project manager that you completely understood the scope.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then once that happens, you can guide people into your loving support and care as a leader and then groom them. And once they can see you as that type of caring individual, not to say that it's a a facade or anything. It's it's a genuine care. It's just that that's kinda how I've learned to lead in a more of a passive passive way. I mean, everyone likes if you can do the work, you know, but if you can make an excuse for someone to make them look like a hero, hey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That's real leadership.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. That's awesome.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. And you're probably one of the first people we've talked to who's been who who has mentioned sports in the background. You know? I played sports when I was a kid. We have someone on our team who actually was a former NFL player.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We find that those types of people, they understand, number 1, how to be a team player. They know hard work because you can't play sports without working hard or you're not gonna play it long. But you also they also seem to understand when to step up and when to step up into a leadership role, whether it's temporarily or permanently as a captain or something like that. So I guess is that something that you think came from your sports background, or is that something that you think you had before sports? It helped you enjoy sports a little bit more, and it's just transitioned into the current place that you're at now.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Well, I'll say this. When I was a kid, I was uncoachable. I was that uncoachable guy where he's like, why is he on the bench, man? He's so good. Uncoachable.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? Just knew everything. So, you know, as you age, you mature, and I got to do this a little bit more than I got to do sports, I feel. And I've just come to that conclusion, you know, that that, like, some of I don't know who quotes it, but some people say, like, you don't hire smart people to tell them what to do. You hire smart people to figure out your problems.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And most of the people I've worked with, I I've been on, like, excellent teams or all of them have been smarter than me. I might just be able to articulate a little bit better their idea or their concept. But when you don't want the credit and you just want the team to win, like, that's how you build things. And it's just an interesting perspective from you know, you go to engineering. Most people that have been engineers their whole life, you know, it's kind of a set like, a solo pursuit.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? You you you find them with the computer. Like, I'm on the computer all day. I don't get to talk to people. But then, like, if you can reach out and it's like, no.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Let's do a community. Like, one of the best team building things I ever did, was at a startup at Zipseam, and we went and saw Deadpool together. And it's like I yeah. I still got memories from that. You know what I mean?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And it's just, I don't know. Everything's about team building at the end of the day. And it's and and all the problems that we all have, all the industries are all the same. It's all communication. Anything solvable.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's just can we communicate with each other, and can we make each other feel all wanted and put each other in the right positions.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. If you were to if you were to rank like the things you do as a leader, for your team, like, do you think those team bonding experiences, those team outings are the things that really foster that, sense of community and and, and creativity within the team that'll then allow you to work better together on on certain projects. Like, how does that you know, how would you stack that up against some of the other things that we've been talking about?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Well, one of my favorite teams I ever went on, we all came from a different background. Every single one of us was from a different background. But we went out to eat every day. Like, not every day because, you know, you can't eat out every day, but, you know, we ate out a lot, and we spent a lot of time together. And the project we might have been working on varied.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It was contracting various data things. But what brought us together was just coming together and bonding kinda like how a family has dinner today. Well, you know, you'd want to have dinner every night, you know, groom your children for whatever, but it's it it seems like it's just time spent together. And one of, like, the industry issues, at least since I've jumped around, I've been part of the issue, is is really interesting is it's like a lot of these legacy systems, a lot of these long built building things are just they couldn't keep their original engineers there, so we're all resolving the same problems. You know, but that that's just life.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I just think it's just anything about time spent together. Like, it seems like you guys got a pretty good bond together. Had there been time spent together in the trenches. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. That brings up a good question because Pedro and I have have we've been around the block together. We've been in 3 places together. Matt is now part of our trio. We've we've inherited him, one of our marketing guys.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But how do you find that that's how do you find to do that in the remote world that we're in? Because Pedro's in LA. I'm in Nashville. Some other coworkers are in New York or DC. And when we're in when we're in person, there is that it it feels like no time has passed, and we're on calls all the time together or we'll message each other all all the time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But, you know, we're we're we're sales guys by heart. You know, we have some other skills as well. But how do you find that that works with engineers who are typically in their in their houses and like to be remote and stay quiet a lot of times? How do you build that camaraderie or that team in a remote world?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Well, some of it, like I mean, we had a, I think it was this Christmas. We had, like, a, you know, a Christmas day. Just online playing games, you know, bingo, bang, playing games, just talking together or just like our daily meetings. Right now, I'm on a team where we have Colorado. We have Austin.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We have Michigan. I'm in Ohio or Nevada. And then we got, you know, San Francisco. And it and it's, like, interesting things that happen, like, not to be negative, but, like, the Amber alert. That go off for 1 of us, then it goes off for all of us, or, like, the weather or even, like, you know, local events that are happening, and you can just kinda engage yourself with other people.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And it allows you to be, I would say, like, a more well versed person just, like, nationally. And then it it kind of buys into, like, hey. You know? No. I got my friend in I got my friend in Texas, man.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, what this is what's going on on the ground. And I think that's the way to kind of build it. And it and it's like, you you have to think, my little brother, like, during the COVID, had to go remote school. You know? I mean, he's 1st grade, just typing on a computer all day.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, like, I I hate to tell people, well, this is just the world that we're probably gonna live in. Yep. So we might as well take advantage of it. And truth is if you look at, like, the statistics or the studies behind remote working, which a a lot of executives probably won't bring up, but you'll work more remote than you will actually in the office. Like, I'll find myself here late at night.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Just gotta get it done. Gotta get it done. And you turn your office or your house into your own you know, you're working around the clock. So it's a catch 22. It's an interesting conversation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But I see you just build build teams by being together. You know, being a person, being normal.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I definitely feel that. I I actually have to in my office, I have my lights programmed to change color at, a certain time so that I make sure to, like, hit the gym. And, of course, sometimes I'll ignore it, but it's just, like, at least having that mental marker, like, well, I was supposed to stop working about 30 minutes ago because I gotta start working again in a couple hours and take a call with, somebody in Malaysia or something.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But, yeah, I like what you're saying about, like, these these team outings, especially about the gaming thing. Like, I know a lot of friends who connect with their coworkers, through gaming, through playing games together online and stuff. And like you said, it's it is the world we live in, and I guess that's the the bet that companies like, you know, Meta are taking that maybe this is it's trying to bring that in person experience into the online world with, like, VR and stuff. And I don't know. Like, do what what's your perspective on on that?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Do you think that VR and these kind of future technologies can can accomplish that same goal of, like, going to all see Deadpool together, you know, but, like, in a headset or, like, the Apple with the Vision Pro coming out, that sort of thing?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: So interestingly enough, I, like, I wasn't sold on it at first. Right? Even though I had, like, one of those VR boys back in the day where I'd play tennis on it and everything. I was never sold Tango 1? Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It was like a Yeah. Virtual Boy, I think.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Virtual Boy.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: But I so I was never sold on it. But then so I'm out here in Vegas, and I went to see, King Tut, a virtual 3 d, thing down at, I think, Mandolin Bay. And you put the goggles on it, and it's the Oculus, and you're exploring Egypt. Just walking around, just playing with things. And then, like, my friend had one of those PlayStation VRs, and you could cook and you could do the the everything in it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And it's like I've seen some of the things where you could actually set up your office 3 d in a manner. And, like, I could have my 9 monitors or how we're monitors, and I could be in a virtual workplace together with people. So for for in that regard, like, kinda like NFTs or even cryptocurrencies. It's the utility of it, not the actual concept of it, I think. And I think more and more people will because there's there's just things like because we're so remote, like, we're in different time zones.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, we even have contractors in the Philippines. So we're like, someone is working constantly just in a different time zone. But it would be nice if you could just go in there and pair program with them with the VR headset, just sitting back on your couch, air typing. I mean, if they don't automate our job before that but hey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Right.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: You know? I I love the the VR aspect of that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. No. I I like what you're saying about the utility of it. Right? Like, the technology, the hardware, the software, that's all clearly going to get there to a point where it's like, you know, that you can't tell the difference between that and real life essentially, but it's it's the utility in the application, like, what are the companies going to build, to actually be able to do in there and and actually make you feel more together, in a not so cartoonish way.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Like, even us just using faces with our with the podcast. I mean, I feel more connected to you than if it's not. And a lot of policies that we're putting in place at Stitch Fix is you have to turn on your camera. You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, I wanna see your facial expressions because I wanna know if this is a terrible idea.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: You know? Right.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Or maybe you shouldn't know. But, yeah, I think there's I think I think there's some things where it makes sense. You know? Like, maybe watching a movie with a friend who's across the country or across the globe. But you're in Vegas.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I don't think I ever wanna miss the feeling of the the the slots hitting or playing craps. I don't think I could do that virtually. Yeah, I think there's some things that would be easily moved into the a fake world or a a VR world. There's some things that I feel like just should never never be replaced. So I'm kinda curious to see where that goes.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I I used to work for Apple, and the VisionPRO certainly interests me, but I don't know. It's starting to get creepy how real stuff looks. But but, yeah, you mentioned your 9 monitors. Like, if you if you could have your entire room just full of monitors, you're. But then again, we're already I think all 3 of us are over workers.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So do I wanna have a computer monitor up while I'm washing the dishes? I don't I don't know. What about you? Do you think it'll cause even more overworking potentially? Or I think we're all over workers anyway, so it doesn't matter for us 3.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We're already past the point of saving. Yeah. What about for others?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I mean, I don't think you can you can just make it convenient. You know? Like, the one thing that I wanted to do, like, maybe 2 years ago, I was gonna get, my cousin one of those headsets because you could both sit, like, front row at an NBA game and talk to each other like we were next to each other. You know what I mean? But, like, if you could all create a virtual environment workplace that's ideal and you could mix it with your home.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know what I mean? Like, you could, in a sense, maximize someone's output and make them to be comfortable. And not maybe because that's probably the best idea, but more about because, like, you know how, like, with with life or with future, it always leans one way and leans the other way. And, like, I see, like, what I went through as the job hopping phase, And I feel like companies are just gonna be tripling down on, like, longevity of employment again because we went so far left. We need to go right and readjust.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And a lot of our issues could just be solved. We just didn't have to keep getting people over and over again.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Do you see that as a problem now that you're climbing into leadership that that VR could solve? You know, you I think it is easy to job hop when you don't feel that connection with your coworkers or with your leaders. But if somebody if you're wearing a VR headset and somebody comes and whispers in your ear, you know, you turn around and there's a person virtually there, do you think that could solve that that kind of ease of job hopping when you just don't feel like you you anybody would miss you?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I don't know what the right way to put it, but I do feel like there's a just a disconnect with feeling a part of your business if you don't inter interact with other people.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I I I will say this. I don't know how VR VR might help. You know what I mean? Just because you would be around people, and I think that always is a is a positive. But with, with job hop, at least if I could give any advice while we're on here, and if anyone is listening to this, I've been in a pleasurable situation where I've been on a team where it's like, hey, you're groomed for for executive leadership.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right? Like, we know that you're gonna get there. We're putting you on a team. Everyone's gonna be moved up. I've also contract in positions where I I I was working to groom a certain individual who was going to move up the corporate ladder.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, they had already picked them out to be a CEO, and they just didn't know. I I and and it's like it bewilders you because you asked them, like, does he know or does she know? They're like, no. We haven't told him. I was like, don't you think?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And they'll they'll end up leaving, and you'll be like, oh, man. You guys lost a a CEO you were grooming. Like, that's kinda big. You know? Like, I mean, but since you didn't tell them, I guess, no one knows no loss.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But I think that the the thing that could just is just timing. You know? Like, I think a lot of people need to be more transparent about, like, hey, what they want out of their career and where they wanna be. And then, like, also companies should be like, hey. We see you as a leader.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, one of the one of the greatest losses I ever saw. Like well, I mean, I did it too, and I was the same person, so I understood why they left. But I was like, man, looking back, you probably shouldn't have left. But it's just something that you learn. You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I mean, you learn with time, and I just think the industry's gonna change just because it's been this way for so long that just the yin and yang effect of anything. Just the universal law is like, if everyone's leaving, then there has to be a period of time of us. We might not get Rolexes again, but, I mean, they're gonna want us to stay around.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: We can try and get Rolexes. But yeah. So so what do you what do you think? You mentioned one really good point that somebody else has mentioned in one of these podcast recordings too, letting letting leadership know your intentions of wanting to climb the corporate ladder. So what would be some good advice that you give having, you know, done these types of things yourself as well?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But for those engineers who would be listening or those who want to get into engineering and would eventually want to climb as well, What's some good advice that you would give, you know, people who are wanting to climb the the corporate ladder or the the leadership ladder?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Well, one one thing I would always tell anyone is variety is this is spice of life is variety, however you wanna put it. So experiencing everything is key. Right? Like, if you don't know what you've tasted, then you don't know what you want. So early in your career, like, for example, I did front end.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I did back end. I did data engineering. I tried to start my own company. I did a little sales. I was in recruiting for a while.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, I did, the drawing. I did the UX for a while. It's like knowing and and then once you know how to do everything, not to say you should know, but once you have that that skill, like, you can kinda tail you you 1, you can see where it all leads to, but more importantly, you can find out what it is that you like. So I think once you find out what you like, like, for example, I was a data engineer, and I'd go to data visualization, like, front end meetings. And, like, my managers would say, hey, Ali.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Why are you in this meeting? And I'd be like, well, I'm working on a side project doing data visualization. Anyway, I figured what's what's the harm of it. And if I know how the 2 need to to speak, then that's a win win. So just going out of your going out of your way, I mean, if you're young enough and you don't have a family or anything or any obligations, and we're still in the office, showing up early is always a good thing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>One of the tricks that someone told me, and it was my sales career, was always work a Saturday. You know? Come in and work a Saturday because if you work a Saturday, you know, a, you pick up everything. You might be able to relax a little bit during the week, but no one can get rid of the guy who works on Saturdays. And everyone remembers the call on Saturday.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>For for moving's perspective, we just got a so Citrix, we got, Tony, Tony and Matt, but Tony's been, just because he just spoke recently. He's talked about how he transitioned from coding to executive leadership. And, really, it was it was more about just aligning yourself with a business or understanding, especially if you're an engineer. Like, when you're young, you think like, hey. I gotta solve this.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>This is the most important thing in the world. You know, like, no one else can solve this. I'm gonna do this in such a creative way. You know how you you think, like, you're this god complex that comes from solving a few engineering things. But then when you you advance a little bit, you you can kinda take a step back and look at the whole picture, and it's like, it's not it's about the business.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Because if the business doesn't succeed, you don't have your engineering job. So how can you improve the business? Is there something you could do to improve our business, our organization? Could you open source something? Could you, like, have a conversation with an outside company like yours, you know, that's doing some very interesting things in the industry to put our name out there?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Just just other ways you can add value because if you're gonna separate yourself, it's gonna be like, the power of 3, like, your your your personality, your work ethic, and then that extracurricular killer stuff that you're doing on the side that also presents that. Oh. How?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: So what about people like myself who work Saturday Sunday? You're saying no one can ever get rid of me.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Well, I mean, you just love it, man, and we're lucky enough to find something we love.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. So you're really\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: mad about that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: True.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. That is that is so true. I think John and I both have, you know, sort of nights and weekends projects as well. So, as as do, I think, most engineers. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, most engineers we talk to have nights and weekends project. We did another interview with someone who had done some DJ work and, and did, like, karaoke stuff. So, it's it's really cool to see you know, you do get to express some of the creativity that you can't put towards work that doesn't have a fit there. You could still express in another way, right, through music, through art, through, you know, coding on a personal project. Do you have anything like that that you exercise those skills with?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Well, right well, I mean, I shouldn't say it. Right now, I like to trade stocks a lot, because I see it as, like, a nonsolvable problem. You know? Because it's all math, but it's just based upon time series and where you're at and, like, if the patterns recreate. One of the best engineers I ever worked with, he was a an he made swords.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So he's a fire. A fire maker. So I\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: was like, so what do you how\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I was like, did you did you get that signed by Randy Jackson?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: What a what a hobby.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. But it's like, you you know, you meet people who are like to take her. You'll find out all types of interesting, hobbies. So it's definitely something to to identify for or to ask like, hey. Are you working on these side projects?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, that's back in the day. That's how I'd identify a winner.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: It's funny you mentioned that because my my brother-in-law, who also is in technology, he's been in it longer than me. He used to make iron lamps, so lamps with pipes, and then there was a lamp at the top out of it. But that's how he met Steven Tyler, and he met a bunch of random people because he worked on this random side project. So it's kinda cool that somebody you knew made swords.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. I met somebody that somebody that I was in a band with started creating some art and then started creating, like, tapestries, these really complex tapestries. And all of a sudden, he gets a call from, like, Kanye's team to, like, design some, like, lion chain necklace. And all of a sudden, he's, like, the biggest thing in the in the rap and hip hop world because he's just like the go to artist for that kind of stuff, designing all these huge, you know, 10 foot tall tapestries for these guys' homes and stuff. So yeah, I mean, yeah, it's it's pretty cool.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: 2 notes on 2 notes on that. 1, like, from my other big career after this, I realized that musicians, given the right background, they're always great salesman because they're always great communicators. They always have a great network. And it's like they can take you in the fun environment, the professional. So that's always one thing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then 2, just for anyone like, hey. Just do whatever you like to do. You know? Like, I mean, this guy got paid to make tapestries. You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Imagine you get paid to do something you love to do. You know? You should always pursue that. And, eventually, you know, you pursue it long enough, it'll be a niche.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: I think we need to keep track, Pedro, of how many times music gets brought up on these conversations because music gets brought up. People who love to play music. I think it's a No. Engine it's an engineering trait. People just love to play different things.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. It's also it's also just math. I mean, music is is art, in a way, but it's it's mostly just math and chords and melody, and, it all just comes down to numbers. So I think the engineering mind does really well with that. I mean, we've got a number of musicians.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We say it all the time. We've got a number of musicians here at, at Directus, and we've got I mean, I just this morning, I was on a call with with a prospect who is had a bunch of guitars in the background, so it's always cool to see.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Matt was giving away the secret on LinkedIn about stop at time just replaying the same song. And Yeah. I I will say I once worked with, I once worked with, I don't even know what it's called, but, like, a PhD in music. And they also were a a coder, and it was just like, to them, it made so much sense, like, the the synchrony between the 2.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But to me, I just was like, I like listening to opera while I code.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. We, we're coming out with a just a series of videos with lo fi music because I I love listening to Oh, I love that. Jazz or music just on the side while I'm working. I think that's a very common thing. Opera is good.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>A symphony. You can't beat a good symphony. So\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: No. Something with pain. Something just with, like, like, or classical. I've been listening to lofi Tupac. Not gonna lie.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Lofi Tupac. Where can I find that? YouTube. Awesome. I saw I saw they did, I don't know if you've seen on YouTube.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There's a series where a guy takes, Super Mario 64 sounds and recreates entire albums. So he took, like, one of the Radiohead albums and used recreated the whole album with just the sound bank of Super Mario 64. And he's done it with a number of classic albums like Nirvana, and, it's it's pretty pretty interesting. Sweet. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>How random. People have a lot of time on their hands. But yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: No. You brought up, like, old video games. I remember my very first startup. It, like, was my internship, and I used to play Zelda. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Because I was always into video games. I played Zelda for, like, 12 years just to beat it. I remember, like, how hard it was. 1st day 1st week. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We, speed play Zelda. Like, the record was, like, 22 minutes. I said, golly.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. There's so many side quests. You have to do all the side quests.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I don't know how they beat it that quick, but it's just funny to say, like, at least I I don't know how long we have, but, like, hey. If you're not into tech, you should still get into tech because everything is tech. And that's how I benefited so much, and that's why psychology was so beneficial for me, as I've explored my direct career. Mhmm. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: That that's awesome. As we start to wrap up, I'd love to under I'd love to learn about real briefly, you know, what are what are your goals? And do you see yourself you talked about grooming a CEO or someone who is going to be that. You know? What what are your end goals?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Where would you like to see yourself, you know, climbing more into leadership, getting more into an individual contributor role, both? You know, I guess, what are what are your goals?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: My goals really, lately has been just, like like, trying to find people who are like me, younger, you know, and just give them everything that I've picked up along the along the journey just to make a lot of people's journey shorter. And I've come to realize, like, so I've had a privilege of working at Stitch Fix and also 8451, which was big on, like, women led organizations or, like, women involvement and, you know, like, you know, team involvement. It's just a diversity of a team in general. And it's like there's several problems in tech. I mean, like, we've we've proven, I think, that anything's solvable.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The the problem now is like, hey. Do we have the, like, let's say, the dynamic the the demographics to create all problems? Because once we create the problems, then we can create solutions. So it's just more of for me right now, I'm just trying to I'm I'm most interested in getting more people into tech, that look and don't look like me. Just just so, you know, like, well, for 1, I don't know what else they're gonna do.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But for for for 2, you know, like, it's not as hard as you would think. You know? Like, it it's not. It's really just solving puzzles. It's just we make it difficult because we like to be elitist.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. That's really good point.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Does it require 9 computer monitors to be as good as you?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I mean Or 12.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Some of these Just like you gonna be better.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Just like in monopoly, man. Like, it's all about real estate, man. And the more screen real estate you got, the better.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. So it sound I\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: after you. My bad. My bad.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: I I was gonna say it sounds like you need the VisionPRO from Apple coming out because in your whole you're everywhere you look, you can have screens.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: You just loop around in a chair and see screens all over you. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Or you're you're in Vegas. Just go to the sphere and put all your monitors on the sphere.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. The the the, ironically enough, the one jealous, the the the most jealous I've ever been as a developer. We had a, we had a guy who you could tell he had it. You know? Like, you can just see it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, you can just see it. But he only worked on one one screen, and I had to pair a program with him. And it was just like, man, how do you do this? But he had the advantage because it's like, sometimes I will not be able to work if I don't have a bunch of monitors, but he could work anywhere at any time. So just go camping on this monitor, and it's like so it's like there's it's like everything, man.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There's wind and there's plus and losses about the whole monitor con conversation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, awesome. I think I think it came across in this conversation, your real passion for engineering, and that's why you've gotten into it, but also your passion for people. So for for people who are listening, you know, how can they follow you? Where can they get in contact with you if they wanna get in contact with you?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Is it LinkedIn or other things as well? Let let people know\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: where you're at. I usually just use LinkedIn to be quite honest with you. I have a YouTube, but I don't really do anything on it. It's just more for me to play around with. I've been playing with the algorithm on both of them.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But it would just be LinkedIn. Just, I think it's just Ollie Payne. LinkedIn slash Ollie hyphen Payne, a l I hyphen p a y n e. But, you know, I'm focusing on those 2, man. I'm not gonna venture out too much.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we have little time we have little time for extra even projects, but so it's interesting that you even do algorithms. But, I think I can I think I can speak for Pedro? This has been a fantastic conversation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I feel like every conversation we have for this podcast is almost completely different, and yours was more so around kind of compassion for people and compassion for engineering. So I think we we both greatly appreciate the time, and we'll put your contact info in the the description, but definitely think that people can find some some good tidbits from what you've said today. So definitely appreciate the time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, hey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Hey. I appreciate talking to both of you, and, hey, they have a good product too.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Well, hey. You guys have good clothes. So if people need clothes, check out Stitch Fix.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Hey. Win win. Love the plugs. Appreciate it.\u003C/p>","Someone is working constantly just in a different time zone. But it would be nice if you could just go in there and pair program with them with the VR headset, just sitting back on your couch air typing. I mean, if they don't automate our job before that. But hey. Hey, I'm Pedro, and we got Jonathan here and Ollie. Welcome to another episode of Trace Talks, where we interview some thought leadership and engineers on their experience, and hopefully learn something along the way. So, yeah. Ollie, I'd I'd like to give you the opportunity to introduce yourself and maybe a quick, you know, minute, 60 second background, and we'll dive right in. Quick background. I'm a lead engineer currently at, Stitch Fix. I've done everything from front end, back end, data engineering, CTO, startups, big companies, contracting. And, hey. I enjoy what I do. What more can I say? That's awesome. Yeah. John John, I'm gonna go ahead and take Yeah. And I I'd love to understand, I guess, since you love what you do, we we have these conversations, and everyone seems to love a different, a different reason why they do what they do, but we can just start there. You know, what what, you know, what got you into engineering, and and why you love it? Funny enough, I got into engineering through recruiting. My very first job, I I my first year is in psychology. I was always interested in people, and I worked for a recruiting firm that actually built their own proprietary software. And from there, I kinda found out that you could build anything, and you could put it online and anyone could see it. So that's kinda what got me, started and interested. Prior to that, I didn't really have any any idea, to be honest with you. To answer the question, like, what gets me interested is I I look at technical problems or just problems in general as solving a puzzle. And being in technology, you get to solve puzzles in the comfort of your own home. Or in a hotel room. Either either where wherever you are. Hey. Remote is remote in today's world. Yeah. For sure. 1st, for some of those early engineering projects and, like, as you started to get into into engineering, was there any overlap between psychology and engineering that you sort of took advantage of or explored in those early days as you made that transition? I will say one thing that psychology majoring psychology or even taking psychology serious, just human interaction in general, I think has been the one differentiating factor for me in an engineering career. Like, no matter where I've gone and I I did my fair job shop or job hopping. I'm not gonna lie. But no matter where I got, I was enough of a communicator to be able to galvanize the troops. Or, you know, like, make the friends you needed to make, find out who is the who, and then just get the conversations going about, hey. Can we get the troops going to do something fun? Or, like, can we, like, gear our engineers against the project managers in some regard? Not for, like, a negative, but just to be like, you know, there's some smart people that just don't say anything just because, you know, the, you know, we're engineers. We're we're here to not talk. That must be a different experience because our engineers love to talk. They love to tell jokes. Well, I mean, once you get them going, they won't shut up. But, you know, the initial you know, like, I I one of the best people I ever worked with. He had to train himself, to look people in the eye. And, you know, just from the aspect spectrum of just how people think, it's not too infrequent that you get someone who's not like the the stellar communicator, but is a wiz problem solver. Yeah. Was was this person someone who is like a mentor to you, or was it someone you just worked with? It was my favorite mentor, my number one mentor, Doug himself. And, I'll say that one of the the best lessons I learned from him, at least mentoring others, is sometimes the best direction in leadership is none at all. To see where you land and just help. Just get out of the way. Get out of the way, let you fail, and then come around and be like, hey. Do you need help? I gotcha. Is that a style of leadership that you you like where you would prefer it? You know, obviously, there's times where you would want a little bit more interaction with leadership, your leadership. But as you've climbed the ranks and gone from place to place, is that something that you react more openly to, a leader who kind of lets you do your thing? Or would you prefer or is it a case by case scenario where some projects you need a little bit more hands on? And then I guess as you're starting to be a lead engineer yourself or as you're in this role now, for people who kind of look up to you in a leadership role or as your as their mentor, do you lead them the same way as well? I'll say my leadership style is just a little it's a little different, because I also did, like, coaching. I played sports a while, a long time. And and I like to one of the biggest lessons I learned in any leadership is, like, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And oftentimes for them to find that out, they have to put themselves in a bad position. And in engineering, nothing better than a deadline, missing a deadline, or telling some project manager that you completely understood the scope. And then once that happens, you can guide people into your loving support and care as a leader and then groom them. And once they can see you as that type of caring individual, not to say that it's a a facade or anything. It's it's a genuine care. It's just that that's kinda how I've learned to lead in a more of a passive passive way. I mean, everyone likes if you can do the work, you know, but if you can make an excuse for someone to make them look like a hero, hey. That's real leadership. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. And you're probably one of the first people we've talked to who's been who who has mentioned sports in the background. You know? I played sports when I was a kid. We have someone on our team who actually was a former NFL player. We find that those types of people, they understand, number 1, how to be a team player. They know hard work because you can't play sports without working hard or you're not gonna play it long. But you also they also seem to understand when to step up and when to step up into a leadership role, whether it's temporarily or permanently as a captain or something like that. So I guess is that something that you think came from your sports background, or is that something that you think you had before sports? It helped you enjoy sports a little bit more, and it's just transitioned into the current place that you're at now. Well, I'll say this. When I was a kid, I was uncoachable. I was that uncoachable guy where he's like, why is he on the bench, man? He's so good. Uncoachable. You know? Just knew everything. So, you know, as you age, you mature, and I got to do this a little bit more than I got to do sports, I feel. And I've just come to that conclusion, you know, that that, like, some of I don't know who quotes it, but some people say, like, you don't hire smart people to tell them what to do. You hire smart people to figure out your problems. And most of the people I've worked with, I I've been on, like, excellent teams or all of them have been smarter than me. I might just be able to articulate a little bit better their idea or their concept. But when you don't want the credit and you just want the team to win, like, that's how you build things. And it's just an interesting perspective from you know, you go to engineering. Most people that have been engineers their whole life, you know, it's kind of a set like, a solo pursuit. You know? You you you find them with the computer. Like, I'm on the computer all day. I don't get to talk to people. But then, like, if you can reach out and it's like, no. Let's do a community. Like, one of the best team building things I ever did, was at a startup at Zipseam, and we went and saw Deadpool together. And it's like I yeah. I still got memories from that. You know what I mean? And it's just, I don't know. Everything's about team building at the end of the day. And it's and and all the problems that we all have, all the industries are all the same. It's all communication. Anything solvable. It's just can we communicate with each other, and can we make each other feel all wanted and put each other in the right positions. Yeah. If you were to if you were to rank like the things you do as a leader, for your team, like, do you think those team bonding experiences, those team outings are the things that really foster that, sense of community and and, and creativity within the team that'll then allow you to work better together on on certain projects. Like, how does that you know, how would you stack that up against some of the other things that we've been talking about? Well, one of my favorite teams I ever went on, we all came from a different background. Every single one of us was from a different background. But we went out to eat every day. Like, not every day because, you know, you can't eat out every day, but, you know, we ate out a lot, and we spent a lot of time together. And the project we might have been working on varied. It was contracting various data things. But what brought us together was just coming together and bonding kinda like how a family has dinner today. Well, you know, you'd want to have dinner every night, you know, groom your children for whatever, but it's it it seems like it's just time spent together. And one of, like, the industry issues, at least since I've jumped around, I've been part of the issue, is is really interesting is it's like a lot of these legacy systems, a lot of these long built building things are just they couldn't keep their original engineers there, so we're all resolving the same problems. You know, but that that's just life. So I just think it's just anything about time spent together. Like, it seems like you guys got a pretty good bond together. Had there been time spent together in the trenches. Yeah. Yeah. That brings up a good question because Pedro and I have have we've been around the block together. We've been in 3 places together. Matt is now part of our trio. We've we've inherited him, one of our marketing guys. But how do you find that that's how do you find to do that in the remote world that we're in? Because Pedro's in LA. I'm in Nashville. Some other coworkers are in New York or DC. And when we're in when we're in person, there is that it it feels like no time has passed, and we're on calls all the time together or we'll message each other all all the time. But, you know, we're we're we're sales guys by heart. You know, we have some other skills as well. But how do you find that that works with engineers who are typically in their in their houses and like to be remote and stay quiet a lot of times? How do you build that camaraderie or that team in a remote world? Well, some of it, like I mean, we had a, I think it was this Christmas. We had, like, a, you know, a Christmas day. Just online playing games, you know, bingo, bang, playing games, just talking together or just like our daily meetings. Right now, I'm on a team where we have Colorado. We have Austin. We have Michigan. I'm in Ohio or Nevada. And then we got, you know, San Francisco. And it and it's, like, interesting things that happen, like, not to be negative, but, like, the Amber alert. That go off for 1 of us, then it goes off for all of us, or, like, the weather or even, like, you know, local events that are happening, and you can just kinda engage yourself with other people. And it allows you to be, I would say, like, a more well versed person just, like, nationally. And then it it kind of buys into, like, hey. You know? No. I got my friend in I got my friend in Texas, man. Like, what this is what's going on on the ground. And I think that's the way to kind of build it. And it and it's like, you you have to think, my little brother, like, during the COVID, had to go remote school. You know? I mean, he's 1st grade, just typing on a computer all day. And, like, I I hate to tell people, well, this is just the world that we're probably gonna live in. Yep. So we might as well take advantage of it. And truth is if you look at, like, the statistics or the studies behind remote working, which a a lot of executives probably won't bring up, but you'll work more remote than you will actually in the office. Like, I'll find myself here late at night. Just gotta get it done. Gotta get it done. And you turn your office or your house into your own you know, you're working around the clock. So it's a catch 22. It's an interesting conversation. But I see you just build build teams by being together. You know, being a person, being normal. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely feel that. I I actually have to in my office, I have my lights programmed to change color at, a certain time so that I make sure to, like, hit the gym. And, of course, sometimes I'll ignore it, but it's just, like, at least having that mental marker, like, well, I was supposed to stop working about 30 minutes ago because I gotta start working again in a couple hours and take a call with, somebody in Malaysia or something. But, yeah, I like what you're saying about, like, these these team outings, especially about the gaming thing. Like, I know a lot of friends who connect with their coworkers, through gaming, through playing games together online and stuff. And like you said, it's it is the world we live in, and I guess that's the the bet that companies like, you know, Meta are taking that maybe this is it's trying to bring that in person experience into the online world with, like, VR and stuff. And I don't know. Like, do what what's your perspective on on that? Do you think that VR and these kind of future technologies can can accomplish that same goal of, like, going to all see Deadpool together, you know, but, like, in a headset or, like, the Apple with the Vision Pro coming out, that sort of thing? So interestingly enough, I, like, I wasn't sold on it at first. Right? Even though I had, like, one of those VR boys back in the day where I'd play tennis on it and everything. I was never sold Tango 1? Yeah. It was like a Yeah. Virtual Boy, I think. Yeah. Virtual Boy. But I so I was never sold on it. But then so I'm out here in Vegas, and I went to see, King Tut, a virtual 3 d, thing down at, I think, Mandolin Bay. And you put the goggles on it, and it's the Oculus, and you're exploring Egypt. Just walking around, just playing with things. And then, like, my friend had one of those PlayStation VRs, and you could cook and you could do the the everything in it. And it's like I've seen some of the things where you could actually set up your office 3 d in a manner. And, like, I could have my 9 monitors or how we're monitors, and I could be in a virtual workplace together with people. So for for in that regard, like, kinda like NFTs or even cryptocurrencies. It's the utility of it, not the actual concept of it, I think. And I think more and more people will because there's there's just things like because we're so remote, like, we're in different time zones. Like, we even have contractors in the Philippines. So we're like, someone is working constantly just in a different time zone. But it would be nice if you could just go in there and pair program with them with the VR headset, just sitting back on your couch, air typing. I mean, if they don't automate our job before that but hey. Right. You know? I I love the the VR aspect of that. Yeah. No. I I like what you're saying about the utility of it. Right? Like, the technology, the hardware, the software, that's all clearly going to get there to a point where it's like, you know, that you can't tell the difference between that and real life essentially, but it's it's the utility in the application, like, what are the companies going to build, to actually be able to do in there and and actually make you feel more together, in a not so cartoonish way. Right? Yeah. Like, even us just using faces with our with the podcast. I mean, I feel more connected to you than if it's not. And a lot of policies that we're putting in place at Stitch Fix is you have to turn on your camera. You know? Like, I wanna see your facial expressions because I wanna know if this is a terrible idea. You know? Right. Or maybe you shouldn't know. But, yeah, I think there's I think I think there's some things where it makes sense. You know? Like, maybe watching a movie with a friend who's across the country or across the globe. But you're in Vegas. I don't think I ever wanna miss the feeling of the the the slots hitting or playing craps. I don't think I could do that virtually. Yeah, I think there's some things that would be easily moved into the a fake world or a a VR world. There's some things that I feel like just should never never be replaced. So I'm kinda curious to see where that goes. I I used to work for Apple, and the VisionPRO certainly interests me, but I don't know. It's starting to get creepy how real stuff looks. But but, yeah, you mentioned your 9 monitors. Like, if you if you could have your entire room just full of monitors, you're. But then again, we're already I think all 3 of us are over workers. So do I wanna have a computer monitor up while I'm washing the dishes? I don't I don't know. What about you? Do you think it'll cause even more overworking potentially? Or I think we're all over workers anyway, so it doesn't matter for us 3. We're already past the point of saving. Yeah. What about for others? I mean, I don't think you can you can just make it convenient. You know? Like, the one thing that I wanted to do, like, maybe 2 years ago, I was gonna get, my cousin one of those headsets because you could both sit, like, front row at an NBA game and talk to each other like we were next to each other. You know what I mean? But, like, if you could all create a virtual environment workplace that's ideal and you could mix it with your home. You know what I mean? Like, you could, in a sense, maximize someone's output and make them to be comfortable. And not maybe because that's probably the best idea, but more about because, like, you know how, like, with with life or with future, it always leans one way and leans the other way. And, like, I see, like, what I went through as the job hopping phase, And I feel like companies are just gonna be tripling down on, like, longevity of employment again because we went so far left. We need to go right and readjust. And a lot of our issues could just be solved. We just didn't have to keep getting people over and over again. Yeah. Yeah. Do you see that as a problem now that you're climbing into leadership that that VR could solve? You know, you I think it is easy to job hop when you don't feel that connection with your coworkers or with your leaders. But if somebody if you're wearing a VR headset and somebody comes and whispers in your ear, you know, you turn around and there's a person virtually there, do you think that could solve that that kind of ease of job hopping when you just don't feel like you you anybody would miss you? I don't know what the right way to put it, but I do feel like there's a just a disconnect with feeling a part of your business if you don't inter interact with other people. I I I will say this. I don't know how VR VR might help. You know what I mean? Just because you would be around people, and I think that always is a is a positive. But with, with job hop, at least if I could give any advice while we're on here, and if anyone is listening to this, I've been in a pleasurable situation where I've been on a team where it's like, hey, you're groomed for for executive leadership. Right? Like, we know that you're gonna get there. We're putting you on a team. Everyone's gonna be moved up. I've also contract in positions where I I I was working to groom a certain individual who was going to move up the corporate ladder. Like, they had already picked them out to be a CEO, and they just didn't know. I I and and it's like it bewilders you because you asked them, like, does he know or does she know? They're like, no. We haven't told him. I was like, don't you think? And they'll they'll end up leaving, and you'll be like, oh, man. You guys lost a a CEO you were grooming. Like, that's kinda big. You know? Like, I mean, but since you didn't tell them, I guess, no one knows no loss. But I think that the the thing that could just is just timing. You know? Like, I think a lot of people need to be more transparent about, like, hey, what they want out of their career and where they wanna be. And then, like, also companies should be like, hey. We see you as a leader. Like, one of the one of the greatest losses I ever saw. Like well, I mean, I did it too, and I was the same person, so I understood why they left. But I was like, man, looking back, you probably shouldn't have left. But it's just something that you learn. You know? I mean, you learn with time, and I just think the industry's gonna change just because it's been this way for so long that just the yin and yang effect of anything. Just the universal law is like, if everyone's leaving, then there has to be a period of time of us. We might not get Rolexes again, but, I mean, they're gonna want us to stay around. We can try and get Rolexes. But yeah. So so what do you what do you think? You mentioned one really good point that somebody else has mentioned in one of these podcast recordings too, letting letting leadership know your intentions of wanting to climb the corporate ladder. So what would be some good advice that you give having, you know, done these types of things yourself as well? But for those engineers who would be listening or those who want to get into engineering and would eventually want to climb as well, What's some good advice that you would give, you know, people who are wanting to climb the the corporate ladder or the the leadership ladder? Well, one one thing I would always tell anyone is variety is this is spice of life is variety, however you wanna put it. So experiencing everything is key. Right? Like, if you don't know what you've tasted, then you don't know what you want. So early in your career, like, for example, I did front end. I did back end. I did data engineering. I tried to start my own company. I did a little sales. I was in recruiting for a while. Like, I did, the drawing. I did the UX for a while. It's like knowing and and then once you know how to do everything, not to say you should know, but once you have that that skill, like, you can kinda tail you you 1, you can see where it all leads to, but more importantly, you can find out what it is that you like. So I think once you find out what you like, like, for example, I was a data engineer, and I'd go to data visualization, like, front end meetings. And, like, my managers would say, hey, Ali. Why are you in this meeting? And I'd be like, well, I'm working on a side project doing data visualization. Anyway, I figured what's what's the harm of it. And if I know how the 2 need to to speak, then that's a win win. So just going out of your going out of your way, I mean, if you're young enough and you don't have a family or anything or any obligations, and we're still in the office, showing up early is always a good thing. One of the tricks that someone told me, and it was my sales career, was always work a Saturday. You know? Come in and work a Saturday because if you work a Saturday, you know, a, you pick up everything. You might be able to relax a little bit during the week, but no one can get rid of the guy who works on Saturdays. And everyone remembers the call on Saturday. For for moving's perspective, we just got a so Citrix, we got, Tony, Tony and Matt, but Tony's been, just because he just spoke recently. He's talked about how he transitioned from coding to executive leadership. And, really, it was it was more about just aligning yourself with a business or understanding, especially if you're an engineer. Like, when you're young, you think like, hey. I gotta solve this. This is the most important thing in the world. You know, like, no one else can solve this. I'm gonna do this in such a creative way. You know how you you think, like, you're this god complex that comes from solving a few engineering things. But then when you you advance a little bit, you you can kinda take a step back and look at the whole picture, and it's like, it's not it's about the business. Because if the business doesn't succeed, you don't have your engineering job. So how can you improve the business? Is there something you could do to improve our business, our organization? Could you open source something? Could you, like, have a conversation with an outside company like yours, you know, that's doing some very interesting things in the industry to put our name out there? Just just other ways you can add value because if you're gonna separate yourself, it's gonna be like, the power of 3, like, your your your personality, your work ethic, and then that extracurricular killer stuff that you're doing on the side that also presents that. Oh. How? So what about people like myself who work Saturday Sunday? You're saying no one can ever get rid of me. Well, I mean, you just love it, man, and we're lucky enough to find something we love. Yeah. So you're really mad about that. True. Yeah. That is that is so true. I think John and I both have, you know, sort of nights and weekends projects as well. So, as as do, I think, most engineers. Right? Like, most engineers we talk to have nights and weekends project. We did another interview with someone who had done some DJ work and, and did, like, karaoke stuff. So, it's it's really cool to see you know, you do get to express some of the creativity that you can't put towards work that doesn't have a fit there. You could still express in another way, right, through music, through art, through, you know, coding on a personal project. Do you have anything like that that you exercise those skills with? Well, right well, I mean, I shouldn't say it. Right now, I like to trade stocks a lot, because I see it as, like, a nonsolvable problem. You know? Because it's all math, but it's just based upon time series and where you're at and, like, if the patterns recreate. One of the best engineers I ever worked with, he was a an he made swords. So he's a fire. A fire maker. So I was like, so what do you how I was like, did you did you get that signed by Randy Jackson? What a what a hobby. Yeah. But it's like, you you know, you meet people who are like to take her. You'll find out all types of interesting, hobbies. So it's definitely something to to identify for or to ask like, hey. Are you working on these side projects? Like, that's back in the day. That's how I'd identify a winner. It's funny you mentioned that because my my brother-in-law, who also is in technology, he's been in it longer than me. He used to make iron lamps, so lamps with pipes, and then there was a lamp at the top out of it. But that's how he met Steven Tyler, and he met a bunch of random people because he worked on this random side project. So it's kinda cool that somebody you knew made swords. Yeah. I met somebody that somebody that I was in a band with started creating some art and then started creating, like, tapestries, these really complex tapestries. And all of a sudden, he gets a call from, like, Kanye's team to, like, design some, like, lion chain necklace. And all of a sudden, he's, like, the biggest thing in the in the rap and hip hop world because he's just like the go to artist for that kind of stuff, designing all these huge, you know, 10 foot tall tapestries for these guys' homes and stuff. So yeah, I mean, yeah, it's it's pretty cool. 2 notes on 2 notes on that. 1, like, from my other big career after this, I realized that musicians, given the right background, they're always great salesman because they're always great communicators. They always have a great network. And it's like they can take you in the fun environment, the professional. So that's always one thing. And then 2, just for anyone like, hey. Just do whatever you like to do. You know? Like, I mean, this guy got paid to make tapestries. You know? Imagine you get paid to do something you love to do. You know? You should always pursue that. And, eventually, you know, you pursue it long enough, it'll be a niche. I think we need to keep track, Pedro, of how many times music gets brought up on these conversations because music gets brought up. People who love to play music. I think it's a No. Engine it's an engineering trait. People just love to play different things. So Yeah. It's also it's also just math. I mean, music is is art, in a way, but it's it's mostly just math and chords and melody, and, it all just comes down to numbers. So I think the engineering mind does really well with that. I mean, we've got a number of musicians. We say it all the time. We've got a number of musicians here at, at Directus, and we've got I mean, I just this morning, I was on a call with with a prospect who is had a bunch of guitars in the background, so it's always cool to see. Yeah. Matt was giving away the secret on LinkedIn about stop at time just replaying the same song. And Yeah. I I will say I once worked with, I once worked with, I don't even know what it's called, but, like, a PhD in music. And they also were a a coder, and it was just like, to them, it made so much sense, like, the the synchrony between the 2. But to me, I just was like, I like listening to opera while I code. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We, we're coming out with a just a series of videos with lo fi music because I I love listening to Oh, I love that. Jazz or music just on the side while I'm working. I think that's a very common thing. Opera is good. A symphony. You can't beat a good symphony. So No. Something with pain. Something just with, like, like, or classical. I've been listening to lofi Tupac. Not gonna lie. Lofi Tupac. Where can I find that? YouTube. Awesome. I saw I saw they did, I don't know if you've seen on YouTube. There's a series where a guy takes, Super Mario 64 sounds and recreates entire albums. So he took, like, one of the Radiohead albums and used recreated the whole album with just the sound bank of Super Mario 64. And he's done it with a number of classic albums like Nirvana, and, it's it's pretty pretty interesting. Sweet. Yeah. How random. People have a lot of time on their hands. But yeah. No. You brought up, like, old video games. I remember my very first startup. It, like, was my internship, and I used to play Zelda. Right? Because I was always into video games. I played Zelda for, like, 12 years just to beat it. I remember, like, how hard it was. 1st day 1st week. Yeah. We, speed play Zelda. Like, the record was, like, 22 minutes. I said, golly. Yeah. There's so many side quests. You have to do all the side quests. I don't know how they beat it that quick, but it's just funny to say, like, at least I I don't know how long we have, but, like, hey. If you're not into tech, you should still get into tech because everything is tech. And that's how I benefited so much, and that's why psychology was so beneficial for me, as I've explored my direct career. Mhmm. Yeah. That that's awesome. As we start to wrap up, I'd love to under I'd love to learn about real briefly, you know, what are what are your goals? And do you see yourself you talked about grooming a CEO or someone who is going to be that. You know? What what are your end goals? Where would you like to see yourself, you know, climbing more into leadership, getting more into an individual contributor role, both? You know, I guess, what are what are your goals? My goals really, lately has been just, like like, trying to find people who are like me, younger, you know, and just give them everything that I've picked up along the along the journey just to make a lot of people's journey shorter. And I've come to realize, like, so I've had a privilege of working at Stitch Fix and also 8451, which was big on, like, women led organizations or, like, women involvement and, you know, like, you know, team involvement. It's just a diversity of a team in general. And it's like there's several problems in tech. I mean, like, we've we've proven, I think, that anything's solvable. The the problem now is like, hey. Do we have the, like, let's say, the dynamic the the demographics to create all problems? Because once we create the problems, then we can create solutions. So it's just more of for me right now, I'm just trying to I'm I'm most interested in getting more people into tech, that look and don't look like me. Just just so, you know, like, well, for 1, I don't know what else they're gonna do. But for for for 2, you know, like, it's not as hard as you would think. You know? Like, it it's not. It's really just solving puzzles. It's just we make it difficult because we like to be elitist. Yeah. Yeah. That's really good point. Yeah. Does it require 9 computer monitors to be as good as you? I mean Or 12. Some of these Just like you gonna be better. Just like in monopoly, man. Like, it's all about real estate, man. And the more screen real estate you got, the better. Yeah. So it sound I after you. My bad. My bad. I I was gonna say it sounds like you need the VisionPRO from Apple coming out because in your whole you're everywhere you look, you can have screens. You just loop around in a chair and see screens all over you. Right? Or you're you're in Vegas. Just go to the sphere and put all your monitors on the sphere. Yeah. The the the, ironically enough, the one jealous, the the the most jealous I've ever been as a developer. We had a, we had a guy who you could tell he had it. You know? Like, you can just see it. Like, you can just see it. But he only worked on one one screen, and I had to pair a program with him. And it was just like, man, how do you do this? But he had the advantage because it's like, sometimes I will not be able to work if I don't have a bunch of monitors, but he could work anywhere at any time. So just go camping on this monitor, and it's like so it's like there's it's like everything, man. There's wind and there's plus and losses about the whole monitor con conversation. Yeah. Well, awesome. I think I think it came across in this conversation, your real passion for engineering, and that's why you've gotten into it, but also your passion for people. So for for people who are listening, you know, how can they follow you? Where can they get in contact with you if they wanna get in contact with you? Is it LinkedIn or other things as well? Let let people know where you're at. I usually just use LinkedIn to be quite honest with you. I have a YouTube, but I don't really do anything on it. It's just more for me to play around with. I've been playing with the algorithm on both of them. But it would just be LinkedIn. Just, I think it's just Ollie Payne. LinkedIn slash Ollie hyphen Payne, a l I hyphen p a y n e. But, you know, I'm focusing on those 2, man. I'm not gonna venture out too much. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we have little time we have little time for extra even projects, but so it's interesting that you even do algorithms. But, I think I can I think I can speak for Pedro? This has been a fantastic conversation. I feel like every conversation we have for this podcast is almost completely different, and yours was more so around kind of compassion for people and compassion for engineering. So I think we we both greatly appreciate the time, and we'll put your contact info in the the description, but definitely think that people can find some some good tidbits from what you've said today. So definitely appreciate the time. Yeah. Well, hey. Hey. I appreciate talking to both of you, and, hey, they have a good product too. Well, hey. You guys have good clothes. So if people need clothes, check out Stitch Fix. Hey. Win win. Love the plugs. Appreciate it.","published",[145,155,166],{"people_id":146},{"id":147,"first_name":148,"last_name":149,"avatar":150,"bio":151,"links":152},"41aa2924-8f60-4d44-a05e-7fe7db4af4fc","Ali","Payne","0f861dec-b055-420c-80ec-e9c2dd4e0da2","Lead Engineer at Stitch Fix",[153],{"url":137,"service":154},"linkedin",{"people_id":156},{"id":157,"first_name":158,"last_name":159,"avatar":160,"bio":161,"links":162},"9610ff1c-bcfd-4e59-9ab8-17ff5f567ccb","John","Daniels","5100c5aa-0455-48eb-bae3-4380bfd82ea2","Customer Success at Directus",[163],{"url":164,"service":165},"https://directus.io/team/john-daniels","website",{"people_id":167},{"id":168,"first_name":169,"last_name":170,"avatar":171,"bio":161,"links":172},"6057329f-2147-4f46-913f-d6b151dc1bf1","Pedro","Pizarro","7940df6a-db0a-4afe-81bb-a136ef93d229",[173],{"url":174,"service":165},"https://directus.io/team/pedro-pizarro",[],{"id":177,"number":178,"year":179,"episodes":180,"show":185},"53382dd3-4dd7-44f0-9102-a257b4760115",1,"2023",[181,182,183,122,184],"68c8fd05-ac09-4485-aa57-bb8d74a26699","f8864aad-281c-4921-9722-3b6b29d57eb4","83739ed2-e3ac-485c-97fa-f683db114386","57dcdecb-35d2-45da-b230-17ec18dfabce",{"title":186,"tile":187},"Trace Talks","c3914dd2-0a22-4214-a2ac-8314b7a56c27",{"id":189,"slug":190,"season":191,"vimeo_id":192,"description":193,"tile":194,"length":195,"resources":8,"people":8,"episode_number":178,"published":196,"title":197,"video_transcript_html":198,"video_transcript_text":199,"content":8,"seo":200,"status":143,"episode_people":201,"recommendations":205},"5755bb0e-40d5-49c3-bc89-29fb576a4d37","naz-delam","814d854d-db03-4f92-99ba-d825df61fb36","948642030","In this episode of Trace Talks, engineering leader Naz Delam shares her journey to LinkedIn, highlighting key leadership lessons she's learned along the way – from challenges of leading teams during tech layoffs to empowering teams through autonomy and ownership.\n\nNaz also offers practical advice on handling layoffs, continuous learning, and effective networking. \n\nThis episode is a MUST-LISTEN for any aspiring leaders in the tech industry.","64ce77c4-fc3c-4b5b-b344-771d6b867731",52,"2024-05-30","Naz Delam, Software Engineering Manager at LinkedIn","\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Oh, hey. It's a visit from the cat. I was hoping it would show up.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. It has my cat, Christopher.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I was hoping it would show up. Yeah. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Trace Talks.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Today, we have Naz. Naz, first off, congratulations on becoming a naturalized US citizen today. That's very exciting, very exciting. Sometimes I take that for granted. So it's very exciting when people I know have that happen.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But, yeah, we'll we'll let you introduce yourself. Why don't you let the people know just a brief background into who you are, maybe just a brief introduction into where you are, and then we'll get into the conversation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Absolutely. Good morning, everyone. Good afternoon wherever you are in the world. My name is Naz. I am currently an engineering leader at LinkedIn, leading media, and, previously worked as as a engineering manager and software engineer at Netflix.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>My background to tech was very traditional, so studied bachelor and master's, in computer engineering and afterwards, systems engineering. So, yeah, it's been, 10 plus years that I am in San Francisco Bay Area, and I got my first job here right after school.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Awesome. Yeah. Thanks so much for that quick intro. As this is kind of a a a podcast focus on leadership, I figured we'd start on that leadership trend. Right now, obviously, in in tech and even starting outside of tech, there's a lot of organizational changes happening and tech layoffs and everything that's, you know, kind of on the front the front of everyone's mind.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I guess let's let's kinda start off on, an interesting take. You know, what what are some of the challenges that you see in today's market, in today's, environment being a leadership at a company like LinkedIn in in in in a tech, you know, a tech world where there's a lot of instability and uncertainty?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. That's that's a great question. Unstability and uncertainty. Being comfortable with both of those and making those a norm, I guess that's the biggest change that we are seeing. And to frame it better, maybe it's just being more comfortable with a lot of change as it's coming your way and be more flexible to perform, knowing all of these uncertainties around you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, as a leader, it's it's very hard sometimes to motivate the team and uplevel engineers when you are in this situation, an industry that everyone are hesitant to put their 100% in. So how do you do that? How do you motivate people? Well, you know, things around you are so chaotic. People are not sure if they're gonna get laid off or not.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There is not more of certainty to the mission of the company. I guess, like, couple of things we are doing as a company is being very transparent with engineers if we have layoffs or not. So we are very clear that we don't have layoffs currently. If we know there's more layoffs, we'll let everyone know. So people will rest assure that there's no surprises.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I think it's been happening mostly in a lot of big takes as a surprise, which just has to change for people. It needs to be very more transparent.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. That's that's a good point. And I think that, like, you know, especially at start ups and smaller companies, these things can turn on a dime on people, especially when, you know, maybe the company isn't doing so well and people get shocked. And in those environments, I've seen a lot of managers and and colleagues get together and at least share information so that they can prepare for those next steps. Is that something that you've seen happen before?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, how would you recommend the first step if you do get laid off? What that first step is in finding that new position is is, like, would you recommend applying to a bunch of, you know, jobs that you're interested in or really reaching out to that network?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I will recommend take a 2 day off for yourself and do a self reflection. I've been through a layoff. So my last job at Netflix, I was laid off. And, I was on both sides of the coin, and seen both sides. So it's it's hard to get laid off.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's never easy, especially if you're performing and you're a great engineer and you're really asking yourself questions why. You know, I have dedicated to this amount of time to this company mission. I have put my all 100% in to develop features. I cared for our users, and now you're telling me to go. And this is not a great feeling for anybody.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I would say the first thing you do is just taking time off and self reflect and try to understand that this is not you, and try to think about your strengths. So what are the things that I'm great at? Because a lot of times when things happen, I see people start to blame themselves and really focusing on shortcomings. These are the things I don't have. Maybe that's why I got laid off because maybe I wasn't great at this.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Oh, how can I find a job now? I'm not great at that. But instead of that, try to be focusing on your strength and see the things that you are getting hired for at the current role and then what are the values that you can take into the next role and next company. And, you know, I coach a lot of engineers nowadays, and I always even say to my team, my direct reports that you're not bound to any company. Your career is you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So when you go to a company, don't bound yourself to a company specifically. Think longer term about your career and know that layoff can happen anytime. So you enter a company. You do your best. You're bringing value with your talent.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>If that's an exit, then that's a goodbye in in in different form, and you're taking those values and strengths to another company and bring more value for more people around the world. And that's not the end of your career journey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: That's true. Yeah. And Yeah. Go ahead, John.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I've that brings up a good point, and I'll I'll branch us into more of some questions around your leadership style because I I was watching a podcast that you were on previously this morning, and you mentioned something really interesting. You said you don't wanna be a leader on a team of followers. You wanna be a leader on a team of leaders. And so what what's some of the advice in the in the typical regular day to day that you provide to your team?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? Because it sounds like you want to train your team to be self sufficient, hire smart people who can solve problems, and you wanna lead people who are leaders, which in the end makes you a more valuable employee anyway. So what are some of those other values that you have as a leader? Number 1, leading a team of leaders, but what are some other things that you train your team, some values that you train your team to have so that they're just a more valuable employee in general?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Mhmm. I wouldn't call it a valuable employee. I would call them call them great engineers, who can go to any any company or even build their own products. Yeah. That would that was a concept I, read a book called turn the ship around.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's just an amazing leadership book, and, it talks about, how do you empower your team to make decisions on on their own. And that's so true. And it's a very easy statement, but it's not easy in practice. There's a lot of things required for that to be able to do that for your team. Autonomy.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, how do you, as a leader, get all the information to the team that they need? How do you onboard them onto the mission vision? How do you take them to the front lines, how do you get them areas of ownership. And at the same time, as you are in the back of the things, they're also accountable for their work because you don't wanna leave everyone and go. Not everyone feel accountable.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>People sometimes just leave things, and they don't follow-up. So how do they be very proactive, and feel ownership of their area? So I think, like, the most important thing is if the person thinks and feels that they are creating the impact and the impact is visible, they feel more ownership to putting in the work. So for me, also, how do I recognize this engineer? How do I shed light on their work in different forums?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Let's say, like, if if I like, it's a upper leadership type of forum. How do I present their work? How do I have them come and demo and show their work? So they feel they own it, and they feel the impact and importance of their work. And for me, not all the projects have the huge, huge impact.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So how do you actually empower engineers to feel that sense of ownership even on projects which is like migration? And, I think for us is whenever we wanna do something, we wanna think about the why of doing it, and it's one of LinkedIn's engineering principles. We need to have a very strong why. If you have an initiative, you have an idea why are you wanna do this. And if that why is very strong, that correlates to impact.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It means there is an impact. And if there is an impact and if I'm as a leader being able to give all the credit to the person who's doing the work, showcase all the light on that person, you know, and then really reward them based on their impact that they're having. They will feel the sense of ownership, and they actually execute pretty well. So that's what it says in that book is that also in addition to this, give them all the knowledge they need to perform and, have them make mistakes. I think that's one of the scariest things as a leader to leave the team to make mistakes, and it needs to be controlled mistakes.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So you you need to know when you can leave like an engineer. You know what's the right solution is, but you're not saying that. You you have them take their path. You have them make mistakes, and you have them learn from those. And a lot of time when people become managers newly, they try to control that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right? They try to make sure everything is done right on the team, and there's no area of mistake. But mistakes are very crucial for people development. So as a leader, we need to be able to have those controlled risk so people can make mistakes on areas that's it's not gonna fall apart.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. I love where you talked about sense of ownership, and I think we've talked about that a few times on this podcast. Obviously, everyone feeling like they're making an impact, feeling like they're driving themselves and the organization forward. But on the flip side of that, you know, especially in today's market, like, we were talking about with the layoffs and the reorganizations that can sometimes happen at that level that it almost doesn't matter the contribution that you made. Like, how do you coach someone through that?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Does that bring down morale if they see maybe half their, you know, half their colleagues have been laid off and now they're still at the company? But they're you know, they recognize that sense of ownership, and they're like, well, they didn't do anything wrong either. How do you keep morale high? How do you coach people through that?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I think one of the important things is to acknowledge all the emotions. Right? Is that it is hard to be in that situation. We had a situation like that last year where I think a bunch of our engineers were laid off late last year. And it is it is hard.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's scary. And, you know, as a leader, you need to acknowledge that. When you go in a room and say, well, everything is butterfly and sunflowers, and we're good, so let's get to work, people doesn't feel like that. Instead, get to a room and say, yes. I feel very bad today.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I, myself, am scared. I, myself, am not happy. I need actually some time to get my, you know, self up and running to be able to execute at my current job as a leader. So take that time too. It is heartbreaking to see people go around us, and I think as you're acknowledging that emotions, people feel more safe.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>People feel that they're in an environment that their leaders feel the same as they are, and no one is trying to, you know, hide things from them or display things in a different way as they are. And that transparency, even on the feelings level, will help people navigate these situations. And be very frank with people. I mean, this is an environment we are in at tech where layoffs are happening. It's been happening forever.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>This is not something new. When you sign a contract with a company, you sign that you can exit anytime, and they can let you go anytime. And this is a norm, and I don't think people should really bound themselves to these things and things like this is the end, and all my contributions are gone. This is not the case. Even for people, the they got laid off.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There have been many instances that we help them find their new role, so we are there for them. This wasn't something they have done. They are great engineers. There were many instances that I referred them to different places. We tried our best to find them new places, and, you know, business is business, and I think that's for people to understand.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>If CEOs of companies getting laid off, you know, it's it's okay for employees to get laid off. So it's it's a norm. I guess, like, in that situation, just to summarize, just be very honest with people. Talk about their feelings. Acknowledge.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So there is the 7 stages of grief that we all know. You have to walk your team through that 7 stages. And don't do that in one day. Day 1, every stage in one day, and then in the 7th day, people are back to their norm. If you're actually acknowledging the emotion, give them time to come back.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Take that anger. Create spaces for people to talk to you, and have them feel safe by you opening up yourself as a leader and talking about how you feel about this. People continue to open up and just put out everything that they're feeling. There would be anger. There would be resentment.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There would be lack of trust for a while. The morale will get impact, and there is nothing we can do about it. That's the reality of the layoffs. And the companies who are doing that, they know that it will have an impact, Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Be prepared for productivity. Yeah. Productivity to drop, morale to drop, but but, you know, maybe after a few weeks, it returns back to the norm if you can manage through it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Be prepared because you can expect your team to perform the same way they've been. It's it's grief.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You you know, human beings, we can perform the same way. It's it's exactly the last process.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. Let's let's take a step back in your journey because I'm always curious how people find their way to leadership, roles that they've had. And I believe part of your story is going through some of these transitions at previous companies that you're in. So I guess let's kind of take take it back to the beginning of your engineering journey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, what were you doing? What were some of those roles that you had? And what does that transition from an individual contributor to leadership look like\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: for you? Sure. I wrote a blog post on this as my story called transition to leadership like a butterfly, if if you anyone wanna read, in detail. But I guess I started my engineering journey, like, years back as a back end engineer. So I was doing Java.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That time was Spring, Khybernet, all these technologies, and I had a lot of pivots. So I'm very curious person, and I wanted to pick up different things. So I pivoted from back end to front end. And then and decide, I did things like machine learning. I worked on self driving cars, did a little bit of AI here and there, studied system engineering while I was working, worked a little bit on NASA.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So so many different branches I had, where I was an engineer. So I wasn't only doing my work. I was very active even outside of my work. And then during that time, as I was exploring different things, was I got this role to becoming a software architect, which was one of the most interesting and fruitful roles I had as an engineer where I could work on, like, a system end to end and work with so many amazing people who had many, many years of experience. So as an engineer, I definitely had experience with all over, all the technologies that we have, across the stack.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I think that made me very, versatile and being able to shift very quickly from, like, back end to front end or using different technologies and, bringing systems upgraded systems and having system understanding. How do you build complex systems that are highly aligned and loosely coupled? So how do you, like, handle risk? How do you test very well? So, that's part of my engineering journey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But things change. You know? As I started, I was very more technical, and then all of the softer skills getting added as requirement for my role. Right? How do I run a meeting effectively?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And as I grew more and more, I had to deal with more and more people, and that people side got way more interesting for me. So, I talk about my library when I, when I write that blog post where, initially, most of my books were technical. When I started my engineering journey, you can find my library from a programming books. And then as this continues, there's, like, addition of softer skills book getting added to my library. And I would see myself reading those books more more than my technical books, and sometimes I ask myself, like, am I doing the right thing?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Am I, like, going away from my path and doing something new? But, I could say, like, my mindset as my library kind of get transitioned to the people side of it. And over time, I find that more interesting because if I can enable and empower people, and I've been told many times that this is your strength, If I can do that, I would have way more impact than just running myself and executing myself.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Mhmm. Do\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: you find that curiosity that you you found for evolving, you know, soft skills and and newer technologies? That that's definitely a theme that we've heard from almost everyone that we've talked to on this podcast, the curiosity to try new things and then also not be afraid to fail when you're trying new things, but just that curiosity in general. Do you find that to be a crucial a crucial trait to have for a leader? And if so, is that something that you you try and cultivate with your, oh, hey. Visit from the cat.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I was hoping he'd show up.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. It has my cat, Christopher.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I'm gonna show up. Show up. Yeah. Is that a trait that you is is that a trait that you cultivate in people that you're leading who who also show that they wanna be leaders? If they don't have that trait or if they do have it, is that something that you cultivate with them?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I mean, people have different personalities. That's the thing I've learned, and not everyone wanna branch this many branches, to be honest. Some people like to go in-depth in one thing, and they stay in one thing, and they they, like, create expertise. Some people like me, they they just like to explore, and they gets maybe bored. I I would like I feel whenever I feel comfortable, and I learn something and I know I'm good at it right now and I'm comfortable with it, now I start to, like, seek something else.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I challenge myself constantly. Not everyone is like that, and it's okay, not to be like that. I think people have very, very different personalities. And, if they are the opposite of the spectrum, doesn't mean that they're not successful, and they can't be greatly less. But for me, specifically, my personality was in that spectrum of, like, I I don't stay in one zone when I'm comfortable, and I'm constantly want to learn something new.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Every year, I pick a new technology to learn out of nowhere. Like, this year, I was looking at quantum computing. Is it related to my job? No. It's it's like out of nowhere I do learn it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's interesting to me.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Is there any re that's a that's a hefty, hefty topic to start learning. Is there a reason you chose that, or you just you saw it, you had almost no idea what it was, and you just wanted to start exploring it?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Exactly. I saw it. I had no idea. I read things about it, how it solves problem, like, developing new drugs and proteins and working on human DNA, and I'm like, oh my god. This is this is super interesting.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>How does this work? And I started, like, listening to YouTube videos and then reading books about, like, quantum mechanics. So, yeah, I think it's just a curiosity and me wanting to pushing myself constantly out of my comfort zone and challenge myself. I feel that I'm if I feel like I'm in one place, I feel I'm stagnating. So it's it's all about personalities.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, we have different personality traits. I think my my my personality, I'm more of, like, an alpha personality where I have, like, very extreme growth mindset. But people have, like, different spectrums. Some people are very focused on one thing, and they're really great at it, and they don't go out of it. So I think that's totally fine to be in a different spectrum.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>As long as you're growing, it should be totally fine.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it's also a future it sounds like it's also a future focus too. Right? Curious about what comes next. I mean, people studying people have been studying, obviously, AI and large language models for, you know, years already.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We just, as the public, come to see it now. So maybe, like you're saying, quantum computing is that next frontier in 10, 20 years that sort of becomes more more mainstream.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: So, yeah, that that future focus is is interesting. I heard somewhere that, like, I guess at some point, quantum computers can essentially break all encrypted passwords that we have today. So it it could be an interesting problem to solve for tomorrow. Right? Like, how do we secure devices if not with, you know, with passwords and things?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that one thing that it was around 2015 when I went to ACM of ours. I don't know if anyone familiar. Association of Computer Machinery is, like, one of the most prestigious computer science, association, and this award is, like, a Nobel Prize for scientists. So that year, I think, was Bernice Lee who invented the Internet who got the award, and it was at the award ceremony.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And there was a committee who is protecting our data. And it was very interesting to me because all of our data now is binary. And with quantum computing, be the future, and it's not transferrable, how are how are our data gonna be read with quantum machines? Who's gonna protect it? Who's gonna keep a repository of all of our data?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And it was surprising to me that there is a whole committee who's responsible for taking care of our data, you know, as a society. And, they're thinking about all of these things. It's like, how do we transfer this data to quantum later on? So people can look at their images, or look at their binary data. But, yeah, if when you go to these places and you see people forward thinking these many levels, you'll be amazed to hear, like, there are people actually thinking about this thing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. And I also assume one thing I've heard you talk about in other podcasts as well is networking, especially as you just wanna become a better a better engineer, better employee, networking with people. And I'm sure those types of events also introduce you to people with really interesting things that they say and and even new topics that you can then, 5 years later, start to investigate yourself. And so what's the for for this podcast and for the people listening here, what is the value of networking that you, you know, find yourself and that you train for or or you you pass on to your mentees as well?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. That's a good question. Well, a couple of things. First of all, don't network because you want something from people. Network before you want something from people.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So beat those relationships before it comes to, like, looking for a job or, you know, changing your role. And, I always call it vertical and horizontal net networking. So when you are at a role in in your company, you need both of them. So you start the first three months of your role to 1st 6 months doing vertical networking. And by vertical, I mean your team, your manager, your skip manager, and everyone in the chain, and your close partners, so anyone you work with day to day base.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So build relationship with those people. But after that 6 months, you start to do horizon networking, which means going outside your team to other teams that you don't know about. A lot of companies have so many tools. Like, I remember when I was at Netflix, there was this coffee chat where you could register, and you get randomly, matched with someone across the company and you could get a coffee with. At LinkedIn, we have, like, similar tools that you can go in and, you know, chat with people across the company.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>If your company doesn't have 1, be the leader and build 1, so people can chat with each other. Or just simply, you know, ping people for, like, a 15 minute coffee chat to learn about them, introduce yourself, and, just connect with them. And then later on, you will be surprised how those people would show up in your journey, in your career. Not everyone have to give you a job or refer you. They will inspire you in so many ways as you're networking with them.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You may have a question or you may get an idea and you can run by them or they would just be your advocates. They know you somehow. And when there is an opportunity, they remember you, and they put your name up on the table. So that's that's a thing. Always remember.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Don't forget that horizontal networking. People usually go to companies, and they just rely on the vertical networking. They don't know really anyone across the company, and it's similar outside. As I mentioned, your career is not bound to a company, so think the same thing. Vertical networking in your area, horizontal networking outside your area, network with recruiters in different companies, network with people outside your field.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>LinkedIn right now make it super easy for everybody. I think 10 years was their LinkedIn, but it wasn't as active as now where you could find people this easily. Now we are getting to the area of conferences being back again after COVID. So attended conferences, meetups, and chat with people, learn about them, and they will learn about you too. So that's a that's a good thing to be at.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And there is so many things nowadays. I mean, you see all of these mentorship platforms that's showing up, which wasn't there 10 years ago when we started. That's a great way of networking, getting a mentor. It's a next level because that person is investing in you. And if someone is invest in you, they're way more willingly advocating for you later on than someone who just you meet in a conference.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So go on on these platforms. You know, there's a ton of them across the industry. Maybe get to the session with different mentors, people you aspire to be like them or people you they're ahead of you and you wanna get there. Learn how do they get there and ask for their advice. And then later on, when you build these relationships and talk to so many different people, they will invest in you and advocate for you whenever you are in your career.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. You mentioned LinkedIn was a good resource for that. Obviously, you know, that's bringing the entire network together and having making it easier for people to just reach out. In the past, like, I found it maybe awkward or or scary almost to reach out to people for advice. Like, what would you when you're reaching out to someone that doesn't know you at all completely cold and wanting to network with them, what are some tips that you would recommend on that initial sort of cold message?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I won't really do that. Right? I won't reach out to someone I don't know, and I don't advise that. That's why I'm saying, like, network before you actually need an advice, like, have a really broad people that you know. I won't send a cold message to someone and say, hey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I need an advice, and I know need 30 minutes of your time. People are super busy, especially people who are in better stages that can advise you. Right? Go get a mentor. Right now, there is so many ways of doing that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There's all of these platforms. There's Play Doh, Mentor Cruise, MentorMe. I mean, there's so many of them out there that you can find these people on those platforms actually offering you time. So, go find those platforms and find those people, and that's respecting their time and also going there professionally and getting the advice you need. And that will build trust between you and that person because your mentor is now trusting you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then you can send the cold message after you have couple of sessions with this person and say, you know what? I need an advice on this. What do I do? And they will always there for you. Like, I'll tell all my mentees, like, I'm your all time advocate.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Anytime I mentor, I'll be there for them, like, through their career. So, yes, it can happen. People, like, send them cold messages and say, hey. Can you make a referral? And I'm like, I I don't even know you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And that makes me question your judgment because how would you want me someone who actually doesn't know you at all to refer you to a role versus someone who's coming in and say, look. I'm looking for a job, and these are the things I wanna get better at. I have a good understanding of myself. Can you advise me how can I find a job? And then at that stage, when I have couple of chats with that person, may mock interview them, I know how their level and how they are.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I actually myself refer them to places that I think it's a great fit for them. So it happens very naturally when you build the relationship the right way. I am not a believer in those cold messages. Sometimes they work, but, I mostly believe in building relationships that are strong with people that have really good foundation and trust.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. That's that's really good advice. I think it's crucial these days to kind of build those are you when you open a position, are Are you when you open a position, are you first thinking of people who have built that type of a relationship with you, whether they're, you know, someone who would fit the position? And then, are you reaching out to your network of people saying, do you know somebody who might fill this position or might fit this position? I guess, which one or both?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, do you look for both of those types of sources for people when you're scaling your teams?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. So I try to be fair because I don't wanna only look at the people I know and advocate for them, only because I wanna give opportunity to people who I don't know and they can apply to the role. So we I usually build a pool of people where 10 to 20% of them are people I know and I know it's a good fit for this role, and the rest are opportunity for other people to apply to the role. And I take a look at those resumes too. But because I know these people, because I invested them, when a role pops up, I have them top of my mind, and I ping them that this is a role that's popped up.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>If you're interested, apply. But I'm not giving them extra benefits as other people. But the fact that I'm pinging them as a hiring manager and I'm saying apply, they will get an interview pretty easier than people who are applying to the roles, especially in this market. You know a role is popping up in 2 hours. There's 100 of applicants.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, if you have that relationships that people know you, top of their mind, that's the key to get a role is that people who advocate for you and put your name on the table without you wanting that. And that's a huge key to success in the in your career is that building those relationship that can result in this. So whenever I open a role, I have people on top of my mind that I know they're looking for a role and a great fit for this role. And, and I really do that because I know it benefit their role and benefit them. So I don't really refer people who are I don't think they're a good fit.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, you know, they've been people that their life changed because of that. I mean, they get into really big tech companies. I had a mentee who was a waiter, and, afterwards, he got hired at Meta, and that's changed his life. So many of these stories, people who are just entering tech and, you know, it's really hard to find your first job and build relationships like this with people across the industry who can refer them and advocate for it. Them.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So it's a it's a both mix up pool because fairness is super important when I hire. I wanna make sure I give, like, opportunity to all type of people, be as, you know, inclusive as possible to, like, all people from different backgrounds. Also, look at my team and say, like, okay. Is my team diverse enough? You know, what I'm needing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, do I have enough women at my team? I don't want, like, to having 1 woman in the room or 1 man in room to feel, like, isolated. I want everyone to feel belonging. So looking at the gaps on my team and see, like, what are those gaps that I'm looking for to fill in and really building that diverse pool of people, who are coming in to interview.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. And on the taking it from from the hiring side, I'm I'm curious putting you as the candidate. I know you were presented with options, you know, to maybe go to YouTube or Google and and LinkedIn, and, obviously, you you ultimately chose LinkedIn. When looking for a place to go, like, what was that deciding factor that made you choose LinkedIn and and framing that as advice for people who are listening? You know, if they're presented with so many options or so many different paths, like, how do you choose?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Mhmm. So, the framework I walk my mentees through is we do have a value table. Before you actually start job searching, you put together maximum five values you're looking into the next role. What are the things you really want in your next role? Example, for me, like, people mattered.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I wanna work in a culture that people come first. Growth mattered. I wanted to work in in a company that supports my growth. You know, technology mattered. I wanted to be a cutting edge technology.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Product mattered for me. I wanted to work on a product I've never worked on before, and there are a couple of other things that I have in my value table. And whenever I am interviewing a company, and I always say that interview is a two way assessment. There are things you're assessing too. These values are the things you have to assess.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Ask the recruiter. Ask the hiring manager in your first interview. What is the growth framework on your team? Who was the last person who got promoted on your team? How does promotion happens?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>How do you support an engineer who falls behind? How do you onboard people onto new team? You know, all of these questions you can ask to assess how good is that company and that team role for you in terms of your value. Ask about the product if it matters. Like, how old is the product?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Is it a new thing? Why are we is this a bet? You know? Is it something that we're just gonna do right now and just, disappear, like, a year from now, or is this something the company wanna invest in long term? If these things matter for you, be prepared to ask these questions because a lot of people go into roles blindly just because it's at a good company, and then they're not happy there afterwards because they're not assessing in their interview, their role in the company.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then when you have these values and you're interviewing, I give a score from 1 to 10. 10 means they're great at it. 1, they're very poor. And, then when you're reaching to the offer stage, like top 3, top 2, interview that you're doing, you can see the differences. So, for example, for me, between YouTube and LinkedIn, it was a product.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I wanted to work on a product I've never worked on, and for me, YouTube was a streaming again. And I'm not a person to go in-depth. As you know, my personality, I love the breadth. I love to get things which is new. I never work on a social media platform like LinkedIn.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So that was a a factor like, one of the biggest factor on that table that I picked LinkedIn over YouTube. So if you have that values, it's easy to to know, like, which one I I wanna go to and which value I wanna compromise, which one is compromiseable for me, which one is nice. For me, work life balance is not compromiseable. It's a value. I do a lot of things outside work, and work is not my only thing in life.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, I wanted a company that, you know, I don't have to work 247 because I really don't admire that type of environment. So I think it's toxic. So what are those values and which one you cannot compromise and assessing those over your interview then when you're at a offer stage? You you don't have a hard time to know which one do you have to pick.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. I I think I saw that you last end of towards the end of last year ran a marathon, and so those types of hobbies, I think, are pretty important. You know? Pedro and I play music music, and, I think Pedro is a coffee aficionado, so he loves making coffee.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I think it's important to have those things outside of work to to make sure you stay balanced. It sounds like you have several ways that you evolve yourself. You know, you you said you mentioned reading books and just being curious and learning new technologies. You probably also have your own mentor who you who you get advice from or several mentors. So is it is it hard, or do you just find it come naturally to still make sure that you're growing as a as a person?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Do those does that time come easy, or do you have to make sure that you, you know, spend a couple hours a week making sure that you're growing as a leader as well?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: That's a great question. I feel that's come naturally for me. It's not like I mostly build habits versus, like, I have to read, like, 3 hours per week. It's not like that. It comes as a habit.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You all know the book, Atomic Habits. Right? It's like stacking things and building habits and systems. For me, mostly, it's systems in my life. And you can't have all of it at the same time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, you can't go to the gym and read books and be great at your work and get a mentor and run projects. It's not possible. You need to have balance long term, but in short term, you may not have a balance. So let's say if you if you wanna get better at something and you have, like, 3 books to finish, you may have to cut off from your gym time or running time or whatever you're doing at on the side for, like, a week. And then a week after, you know that what is cutting off was my running, and now I'm done with this book.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So this is the things I'm gonna prioritize. I'm pulling it back up this week. I'm gonna focus on it more. So in long run, there is a balance between all of these things you're doing. But in short run, you prioritize between these things because you can't have all of these things together.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then you build systems for yourself. Systems of learning. What's your system of learning? Is that books right now is so integrated into my life. It's something that, you know, I usually read in the morning when I wake up or if it's a book.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Even learning how to read a book pretty fast is super important and summarize it so you can refer to it later on. But building that systems that actually can help you. For me, Fridays is my self reflection days. It's a day I have a session in the morning with my mentor. And after that session, I self reflect on, like, how what did I do this week?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>What are the areas I did really well? What are the top things top five things I did at my work? Then that top five things goes to 1 on 1 next week with my manager. And this is kind of what we call it managing up. Like, how do you how do you manage up, and how do you tell your manager and your escape what are you doing, and it's getting harder as you're going higher and higher.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So that's that's a way of me managing up by taking that 5 outlines and putting in my 1 on 1 doc, and then self reflecting of what are the things I have to do next week, looking at my team structure, how everyone is doing, did I capture what they did greatly this week? I do that for my team too, like, every individual on the team. I have a running doc that I say these are the things they did really well this week. So when it comes to their performance review, I am very detailed for advocating for them, for every engineer, and I'm taking all that recognition in. What are the feedbacks I have to give them?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'm very proactive on giving my direct reports feedback. I will let it sit. If someone is not doing something very well or there is there is a gap that they can do better, it would be right away. Every week, I'm thinking about their performance and how they did. So it won't be a surprise.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? There are some managers that suddenly come after, like, a year, and they say, you didn't do all of these things. And, that's hinder trust. The trust is broken at that stage. So the more honest and the more periodic and the smaller these pieces of feedbacks are and very targeted, the better those those people can grow.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So Friday, my system of self reflection into my life, plan of next week, How's my month look like? Am I having enough fun? How's my gym is going? How's my workouts? Relationship wise, am I spending time with people I love?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, sometimes I'm so much slanted at work. I forget about my friends. I'm like, next week, I'm gonna set time with my friends. Next week, I'm gonna spend more time talking to my mom. There are, like, 4 categories in my life.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's career, which is one that you all have. It's love and relationships, like you being very socially, satisfied with, like, going out with people, your best friends, your family, your close relatives, spending time with them. For me, financial life matters. I'm doing on that. Am I, like, on track with my goals?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then, health, like, in terms of am I drinking enough water? Am I a happy person? How's my mental health? Do I need, like, some of the weeks that I'm very exhausted? I usually go to a lighter sort of workout.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I'm like, okay. This week, I'm gonna go do yoga instead of running because I want less intensity in my life. So how are you assessing that and then having that, like, long term balance? There is this book also called design your life where it talks about these categories, which is something I took from this book, And then, having that categories help me to balance. So I measure every category every week, and I see how I'm doing and which category requires attention.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I prioritize a week after.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: I like that. I have to check out that book.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I'm I am writing that down because, there's definitely weeks or several weeks in a row where I might neglect 1 or 2 of those categories for sure. So that's that's a good book to write down.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Awesome. So, yeah, I think, we're coming close to time here for you know, thank you, Naz, for your for your time. I think maybe we could wrap it up with, you know, what's some advice that you would give to anyone who's listening, maybe something top of mind that's, you know, come across your mind over the last week or 2, that you'd like to just kinda pass along? And then where can everyone find you and and follow your journey?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Sure. Oh, that's a hard question. I mean, something that has been top of my mind. I was reading yesterday a quote about someone who lays off.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I think it was a company called Clarify, and she wrote couple of points I shared on my LinkedIn as opposed to where things I've learned from layoffs. And one of it is, like, really thinking about how do you not bound to one job and then have some back ups, make sure that that happens. The other was, like, really thinking about yourself and getting yourself back up. And, one point that was funny, and a lot of people didn't agree, is that people are there for you when you get laid off. But the reality is they're not.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Everyone having their own job, and you can expect that you're getting laid off and everyone is there for you. And now your friends are taking you to their companies. I mean, they do their best, but it's not the case. So be prepared. I mean, be prepared.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Have your resume ready all the time. I mean, don't just get on your resume when you need a job. Your resume is a reflection of you, and it needs to be ready and updated. Your LinkedIn needs to be ready and updated with latest things you do. And then always and always have 1 or 2 interview per year.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>What are you doing with the company? Even if you're at a place that you're comfortable, always, always interview. You are you'll be at the ready state all the time. Also, you learn about the market and what's going on, in other companies when you interview with them, and it's a it's a way of also networking. So when you interview with hiring managers and they get to know you, later on when they have a role and if you perform there in that interview, they're gonna they're gonna reach out to you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So be ready, before something happens is actually the key in this market. And knowing that your work is not bound to a company. You're taking your work to different companies' missions and vision and enabling part of their journey as a really amazing engineer. And, none of us have to be in a place forever. At least in tech, it's not the case.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Awesome. Yeah. I I think I think you also once mentioned sorry to sorry to jump in there. I think you also once mentioned around the interviewing process. You also just received feedback feedback from those people about how you present on a camera or your answers, or you get some valuable feedback from those interviews as well.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. And be very transparent when you do those interviews. Like, I'm not actively looking, but this looks like a good opportunity. I wanna I wanna assess and learn more about this company. Why not doing an interview?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And putting yourself in those situations more often makes you more comfortable. You'll be more confident. So if people wanna find me, I'm on LinkedIn, nazdaalum. Also, you can find all my handles on my website, nazda dev, and feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about anything I mentioned. Hopefully, we can have those books listed, John, somewhere, so people can find it on-site reference.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. I was definitely gonna say I'm gonna keep in contact with you just to see what books you're reading. Awesome, Naz. Well, yeah, I I really I personally found a lot of value from this conversation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There's a lot of things that, you mentioned that I just tend to forget over time, and so I definitely found some great value out of this conversation. Everyone, go follow her on LinkedIn. Pedro's battery is exhausted.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: My battery is exhausted, so my camera died, but I am here. Thank you, Nez. Thanks so much for your time. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Thank you, everyone. Thank you for having me. It was great.\u003C/p>","Oh, hey. It's a visit from the cat. I was hoping it would show up. Yeah. It has my cat, Christopher. Yeah. I was hoping it would show up. Yeah. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Trace Talks. Today, we have Naz. Naz, first off, congratulations on becoming a naturalized US citizen today. That's very exciting, very exciting. Sometimes I take that for granted. So it's very exciting when people I know have that happen. But, yeah, we'll we'll let you introduce yourself. Why don't you let the people know just a brief background into who you are, maybe just a brief introduction into where you are, and then we'll get into the conversation. Absolutely. Good morning, everyone. Good afternoon wherever you are in the world. My name is Naz. I am currently an engineering leader at LinkedIn, leading media, and, previously worked as as a engineering manager and software engineer at Netflix. My background to tech was very traditional, so studied bachelor and master's, in computer engineering and afterwards, systems engineering. So, yeah, it's been, 10 plus years that I am in San Francisco Bay Area, and I got my first job here right after school. Awesome. Yeah. Thanks so much for that quick intro. As this is kind of a a a podcast focus on leadership, I figured we'd start on that leadership trend. Right now, obviously, in in tech and even starting outside of tech, there's a lot of organizational changes happening and tech layoffs and everything that's, you know, kind of on the front the front of everyone's mind. So I guess let's let's kinda start off on, an interesting take. You know, what what are some of the challenges that you see in today's market, in today's, environment being a leadership at a company like LinkedIn in in in in a tech, you know, a tech world where there's a lot of instability and uncertainty? Yeah. That's that's a great question. Unstability and uncertainty. Being comfortable with both of those and making those a norm, I guess that's the biggest change that we are seeing. And to frame it better, maybe it's just being more comfortable with a lot of change as it's coming your way and be more flexible to perform, knowing all of these uncertainties around you. So, as a leader, it's it's very hard sometimes to motivate the team and uplevel engineers when you are in this situation, an industry that everyone are hesitant to put their 100% in. So how do you do that? How do you motivate people? Well, you know, things around you are so chaotic. People are not sure if they're gonna get laid off or not. There is not more of certainty to the mission of the company. I guess, like, couple of things we are doing as a company is being very transparent with engineers if we have layoffs or not. So we are very clear that we don't have layoffs currently. If we know there's more layoffs, we'll let everyone know. So people will rest assure that there's no surprises. And I think it's been happening mostly in a lot of big takes as a surprise, which just has to change for people. It needs to be very more transparent. Yeah. That's that's a good point. And I think that, like, you know, especially at start ups and smaller companies, these things can turn on a dime on people, especially when, you know, maybe the company isn't doing so well and people get shocked. And in those environments, I've seen a lot of managers and and colleagues get together and at least share information so that they can prepare for those next steps. Is that something that you've seen happen before? And, how would you recommend the first step if you do get laid off? What that first step is in finding that new position is is, like, would you recommend applying to a bunch of, you know, jobs that you're interested in or really reaching out to that network? I will recommend take a 2 day off for yourself and do a self reflection. I've been through a layoff. So my last job at Netflix, I was laid off. And, I was on both sides of the coin, and seen both sides. So it's it's hard to get laid off. It's never easy, especially if you're performing and you're a great engineer and you're really asking yourself questions why. You know, I have dedicated to this amount of time to this company mission. I have put my all 100% in to develop features. I cared for our users, and now you're telling me to go. And this is not a great feeling for anybody. So I would say the first thing you do is just taking time off and self reflect and try to understand that this is not you, and try to think about your strengths. So what are the things that I'm great at? Because a lot of times when things happen, I see people start to blame themselves and really focusing on shortcomings. These are the things I don't have. Maybe that's why I got laid off because maybe I wasn't great at this. Oh, how can I find a job now? I'm not great at that. But instead of that, try to be focusing on your strength and see the things that you are getting hired for at the current role and then what are the values that you can take into the next role and next company. And, you know, I coach a lot of engineers nowadays, and I always even say to my team, my direct reports that you're not bound to any company. Your career is you. So when you go to a company, don't bound yourself to a company specifically. Think longer term about your career and know that layoff can happen anytime. So you enter a company. You do your best. You're bringing value with your talent. If that's an exit, then that's a goodbye in in in different form, and you're taking those values and strengths to another company and bring more value for more people around the world. And that's not the end of your career journey. That's true. Yeah. And Yeah. Go ahead, John. Yeah. I've that brings up a good point, and I'll I'll branch us into more of some questions around your leadership style because I I was watching a podcast that you were on previously this morning, and you mentioned something really interesting. You said you don't wanna be a leader on a team of followers. You wanna be a leader on a team of leaders. And so what what's some of the advice in the in the typical regular day to day that you provide to your team? You know? Because it sounds like you want to train your team to be self sufficient, hire smart people who can solve problems, and you wanna lead people who are leaders, which in the end makes you a more valuable employee anyway. So what are some of those other values that you have as a leader? Number 1, leading a team of leaders, but what are some other things that you train your team, some values that you train your team to have so that they're just a more valuable employee in general? Mhmm. I wouldn't call it a valuable employee. I would call them call them great engineers, who can go to any any company or even build their own products. Yeah. That would that was a concept I, read a book called turn the ship around. It's just an amazing leadership book, and, it talks about, how do you empower your team to make decisions on on their own. And that's so true. And it's a very easy statement, but it's not easy in practice. There's a lot of things required for that to be able to do that for your team. Autonomy. Like, how do you, as a leader, get all the information to the team that they need? How do you onboard them onto the mission vision? How do you take them to the front lines, how do you get them areas of ownership. And at the same time, as you are in the back of the things, they're also accountable for their work because you don't wanna leave everyone and go. Not everyone feel accountable. People sometimes just leave things, and they don't follow-up. So how do they be very proactive, and feel ownership of their area? So I think, like, the most important thing is if the person thinks and feels that they are creating the impact and the impact is visible, they feel more ownership to putting in the work. So for me, also, how do I recognize this engineer? How do I shed light on their work in different forums? Let's say, like, if if I like, it's a upper leadership type of forum. How do I present their work? How do I have them come and demo and show their work? So they feel they own it, and they feel the impact and importance of their work. And for me, not all the projects have the huge, huge impact. So how do you actually empower engineers to feel that sense of ownership even on projects which is like migration? And, I think for us is whenever we wanna do something, we wanna think about the why of doing it, and it's one of LinkedIn's engineering principles. We need to have a very strong why. If you have an initiative, you have an idea why are you wanna do this. And if that why is very strong, that correlates to impact. It means there is an impact. And if there is an impact and if I'm as a leader being able to give all the credit to the person who's doing the work, showcase all the light on that person, you know, and then really reward them based on their impact that they're having. They will feel the sense of ownership, and they actually execute pretty well. So that's what it says in that book is that also in addition to this, give them all the knowledge they need to perform and, have them make mistakes. I think that's one of the scariest things as a leader to leave the team to make mistakes, and it needs to be controlled mistakes. So you you need to know when you can leave like an engineer. You know what's the right solution is, but you're not saying that. You you have them take their path. You have them make mistakes, and you have them learn from those. And a lot of time when people become managers newly, they try to control that. Right? They try to make sure everything is done right on the team, and there's no area of mistake. But mistakes are very crucial for people development. So as a leader, we need to be able to have those controlled risk so people can make mistakes on areas that's it's not gonna fall apart. Yeah. I love where you talked about sense of ownership, and I think we've talked about that a few times on this podcast. Obviously, everyone feeling like they're making an impact, feeling like they're driving themselves and the organization forward. But on the flip side of that, you know, especially in today's market, like, we were talking about with the layoffs and the reorganizations that can sometimes happen at that level that it almost doesn't matter the contribution that you made. Like, how do you coach someone through that? Does that bring down morale if they see maybe half their, you know, half their colleagues have been laid off and now they're still at the company? But they're you know, they recognize that sense of ownership, and they're like, well, they didn't do anything wrong either. How do you keep morale high? How do you coach people through that? I think one of the important things is to acknowledge all the emotions. Right? Is that it is hard to be in that situation. We had a situation like that last year where I think a bunch of our engineers were laid off late last year. And it is it is hard. It's scary. And, you know, as a leader, you need to acknowledge that. When you go in a room and say, well, everything is butterfly and sunflowers, and we're good, so let's get to work, people doesn't feel like that. Instead, get to a room and say, yes. I feel very bad today. I, myself, am scared. I, myself, am not happy. I need actually some time to get my, you know, self up and running to be able to execute at my current job as a leader. So take that time too. It is heartbreaking to see people go around us, and I think as you're acknowledging that emotions, people feel more safe. People feel that they're in an environment that their leaders feel the same as they are, and no one is trying to, you know, hide things from them or display things in a different way as they are. And that transparency, even on the feelings level, will help people navigate these situations. And be very frank with people. I mean, this is an environment we are in at tech where layoffs are happening. It's been happening forever. This is not something new. When you sign a contract with a company, you sign that you can exit anytime, and they can let you go anytime. And this is a norm, and I don't think people should really bound themselves to these things and things like this is the end, and all my contributions are gone. This is not the case. Even for people, the they got laid off. There have been many instances that we help them find their new role, so we are there for them. This wasn't something they have done. They are great engineers. There were many instances that I referred them to different places. We tried our best to find them new places, and, you know, business is business, and I think that's for people to understand. If CEOs of companies getting laid off, you know, it's it's okay for employees to get laid off. So it's it's a norm. I guess, like, in that situation, just to summarize, just be very honest with people. Talk about their feelings. Acknowledge. So there is the 7 stages of grief that we all know. You have to walk your team through that 7 stages. And don't do that in one day. Day 1, every stage in one day, and then in the 7th day, people are back to their norm. If you're actually acknowledging the emotion, give them time to come back. Take that anger. Create spaces for people to talk to you, and have them feel safe by you opening up yourself as a leader and talking about how you feel about this. People continue to open up and just put out everything that they're feeling. There would be anger. There would be resentment. There would be lack of trust for a while. The morale will get impact, and there is nothing we can do about it. That's the reality of the layoffs. And the companies who are doing that, they know that it will have an impact, Yeah. Yeah. Be prepared for productivity. Yeah. Productivity to drop, morale to drop, but but, you know, maybe after a few weeks, it returns back to the norm if you can manage through it. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Be prepared because you can expect your team to perform the same way they've been. It's it's grief. You you know, human beings, we can perform the same way. It's it's exactly the last process. Yeah. Yeah. Let's let's take a step back in your journey because I'm always curious how people find their way to leadership, roles that they've had. And I believe part of your story is going through some of these transitions at previous companies that you're in. So I guess let's kind of take take it back to the beginning of your engineering journey. You know, what were you doing? What were some of those roles that you had? And what does that transition from an individual contributor to leadership look like for you? Sure. I wrote a blog post on this as my story called transition to leadership like a butterfly, if if you anyone wanna read, in detail. But I guess I started my engineering journey, like, years back as a back end engineer. So I was doing Java. That time was Spring, Khybernet, all these technologies, and I had a lot of pivots. So I'm very curious person, and I wanted to pick up different things. So I pivoted from back end to front end. And then and decide, I did things like machine learning. I worked on self driving cars, did a little bit of AI here and there, studied system engineering while I was working, worked a little bit on NASA. So so many different branches I had, where I was an engineer. So I wasn't only doing my work. I was very active even outside of my work. And then during that time, as I was exploring different things, was I got this role to becoming a software architect, which was one of the most interesting and fruitful roles I had as an engineer where I could work on, like, a system end to end and work with so many amazing people who had many, many years of experience. So as an engineer, I definitely had experience with all over, all the technologies that we have, across the stack. And I think that made me very, versatile and being able to shift very quickly from, like, back end to front end or using different technologies and, bringing systems upgraded systems and having system understanding. How do you build complex systems that are highly aligned and loosely coupled? So how do you, like, handle risk? How do you test very well? So, that's part of my engineering journey. But things change. You know? As I started, I was very more technical, and then all of the softer skills getting added as requirement for my role. Right? How do I run a meeting effectively? And as I grew more and more, I had to deal with more and more people, and that people side got way more interesting for me. So, I talk about my library when I, when I write that blog post where, initially, most of my books were technical. When I started my engineering journey, you can find my library from a programming books. And then as this continues, there's, like, addition of softer skills book getting added to my library. And I would see myself reading those books more more than my technical books, and sometimes I ask myself, like, am I doing the right thing? Am I, like, going away from my path and doing something new? But, I could say, like, my mindset as my library kind of get transitioned to the people side of it. And over time, I find that more interesting because if I can enable and empower people, and I've been told many times that this is your strength, If I can do that, I would have way more impact than just running myself and executing myself. Mhmm. Do you find that curiosity that you you found for evolving, you know, soft skills and and newer technologies? That that's definitely a theme that we've heard from almost everyone that we've talked to on this podcast, the curiosity to try new things and then also not be afraid to fail when you're trying new things, but just that curiosity in general. Do you find that to be a crucial a crucial trait to have for a leader? And if so, is that something that you you try and cultivate with your, oh, hey. Visit from the cat. I was hoping he'd show up. Yeah. It has my cat, Christopher. I'm gonna show up. Show up. Yeah. Is that a trait that you is is that a trait that you cultivate in people that you're leading who who also show that they wanna be leaders? If they don't have that trait or if they do have it, is that something that you cultivate with them? I mean, people have different personalities. That's the thing I've learned, and not everyone wanna branch this many branches, to be honest. Some people like to go in-depth in one thing, and they stay in one thing, and they they, like, create expertise. Some people like me, they they just like to explore, and they gets maybe bored. I I would like I feel whenever I feel comfortable, and I learn something and I know I'm good at it right now and I'm comfortable with it, now I start to, like, seek something else. I challenge myself constantly. Not everyone is like that, and it's okay, not to be like that. I think people have very, very different personalities. And, if they are the opposite of the spectrum, doesn't mean that they're not successful, and they can't be greatly less. But for me, specifically, my personality was in that spectrum of, like, I I don't stay in one zone when I'm comfortable, and I'm constantly want to learn something new. Every year, I pick a new technology to learn out of nowhere. Like, this year, I was looking at quantum computing. Is it related to my job? No. It's it's like out of nowhere I do learn it. It's interesting to me. Is there any re that's a that's a hefty, hefty topic to start learning. Is there a reason you chose that, or you just you saw it, you had almost no idea what it was, and you just wanted to start exploring it? Exactly. I saw it. I had no idea. I read things about it, how it solves problem, like, developing new drugs and proteins and working on human DNA, and I'm like, oh my god. This is this is super interesting. How does this work? And I started, like, listening to YouTube videos and then reading books about, like, quantum mechanics. So, yeah, I think it's just a curiosity and me wanting to pushing myself constantly out of my comfort zone and challenge myself. I feel that I'm if I feel like I'm in one place, I feel I'm stagnating. So it's it's all about personalities. Like, we have different personality traits. I think my my my personality, I'm more of, like, an alpha personality where I have, like, very extreme growth mindset. But people have, like, different spectrums. Some people are very focused on one thing, and they're really great at it, and they don't go out of it. So I think that's totally fine to be in a different spectrum. As long as you're growing, it should be totally fine. Yeah. I think it's also a future it sounds like it's also a future focus too. Right? Curious about what comes next. I mean, people studying people have been studying, obviously, AI and large language models for, you know, years already. We just, as the public, come to see it now. So maybe, like you're saying, quantum computing is that next frontier in 10, 20 years that sort of becomes more more mainstream. Yeah. So, yeah, that that future focus is is interesting. I heard somewhere that, like, I guess at some point, quantum computers can essentially break all encrypted passwords that we have today. So it it could be an interesting problem to solve for tomorrow. Right? Like, how do we secure devices if not with, you know, with passwords and things? Yeah. I think that one thing that it was around 2015 when I went to ACM of ours. I don't know if anyone familiar. Association of Computer Machinery is, like, one of the most prestigious computer science, association, and this award is, like, a Nobel Prize for scientists. So that year, I think, was Bernice Lee who invented the Internet who got the award, and it was at the award ceremony. And there was a committee who is protecting our data. And it was very interesting to me because all of our data now is binary. And with quantum computing, be the future, and it's not transferrable, how are how are our data gonna be read with quantum machines? Who's gonna protect it? Who's gonna keep a repository of all of our data? And it was surprising to me that there is a whole committee who's responsible for taking care of our data, you know, as a society. And, they're thinking about all of these things. It's like, how do we transfer this data to quantum later on? So people can look at their images, or look at their binary data. But, yeah, if when you go to these places and you see people forward thinking these many levels, you'll be amazed to hear, like, there are people actually thinking about this thing. Yeah. And I also assume one thing I've heard you talk about in other podcasts as well is networking, especially as you just wanna become a better a better engineer, better employee, networking with people. And I'm sure those types of events also introduce you to people with really interesting things that they say and and even new topics that you can then, 5 years later, start to investigate yourself. And so what's the for for this podcast and for the people listening here, what is the value of networking that you, you know, find yourself and that you train for or or you you pass on to your mentees as well? Yeah. That's a good question. Well, a couple of things. First of all, don't network because you want something from people. Network before you want something from people. So beat those relationships before it comes to, like, looking for a job or, you know, changing your role. And, I always call it vertical and horizontal net networking. So when you are at a role in in your company, you need both of them. So you start the first three months of your role to 1st 6 months doing vertical networking. And by vertical, I mean your team, your manager, your skip manager, and everyone in the chain, and your close partners, so anyone you work with day to day base. So build relationship with those people. But after that 6 months, you start to do horizon networking, which means going outside your team to other teams that you don't know about. A lot of companies have so many tools. Like, I remember when I was at Netflix, there was this coffee chat where you could register, and you get randomly, matched with someone across the company and you could get a coffee with. At LinkedIn, we have, like, similar tools that you can go in and, you know, chat with people across the company. If your company doesn't have 1, be the leader and build 1, so people can chat with each other. Or just simply, you know, ping people for, like, a 15 minute coffee chat to learn about them, introduce yourself, and, just connect with them. And then later on, you will be surprised how those people would show up in your journey, in your career. Not everyone have to give you a job or refer you. They will inspire you in so many ways as you're networking with them. You may have a question or you may get an idea and you can run by them or they would just be your advocates. They know you somehow. And when there is an opportunity, they remember you, and they put your name up on the table. So that's that's a thing. Always remember. Don't forget that horizontal networking. People usually go to companies, and they just rely on the vertical networking. They don't know really anyone across the company, and it's similar outside. As I mentioned, your career is not bound to a company, so think the same thing. Vertical networking in your area, horizontal networking outside your area, network with recruiters in different companies, network with people outside your field. LinkedIn right now make it super easy for everybody. I think 10 years was their LinkedIn, but it wasn't as active as now where you could find people this easily. Now we are getting to the area of conferences being back again after COVID. So attended conferences, meetups, and chat with people, learn about them, and they will learn about you too. So that's a that's a good thing to be at. And there is so many things nowadays. I mean, you see all of these mentorship platforms that's showing up, which wasn't there 10 years ago when we started. That's a great way of networking, getting a mentor. It's a next level because that person is investing in you. And if someone is invest in you, they're way more willingly advocating for you later on than someone who just you meet in a conference. So go on on these platforms. You know, there's a ton of them across the industry. Maybe get to the session with different mentors, people you aspire to be like them or people you they're ahead of you and you wanna get there. Learn how do they get there and ask for their advice. And then later on, when you build these relationships and talk to so many different people, they will invest in you and advocate for you whenever you are in your career. Yeah. You mentioned LinkedIn was a good resource for that. Obviously, you know, that's bringing the entire network together and having making it easier for people to just reach out. In the past, like, I found it maybe awkward or or scary almost to reach out to people for advice. Like, what would you when you're reaching out to someone that doesn't know you at all completely cold and wanting to network with them, what are some tips that you would recommend on that initial sort of cold message? I won't really do that. Right? I won't reach out to someone I don't know, and I don't advise that. That's why I'm saying, like, network before you actually need an advice, like, have a really broad people that you know. I won't send a cold message to someone and say, hey. I need an advice, and I know need 30 minutes of your time. People are super busy, especially people who are in better stages that can advise you. Right? Go get a mentor. Right now, there is so many ways of doing that. There's all of these platforms. There's Play Doh, Mentor Cruise, MentorMe. I mean, there's so many of them out there that you can find these people on those platforms actually offering you time. So, go find those platforms and find those people, and that's respecting their time and also going there professionally and getting the advice you need. And that will build trust between you and that person because your mentor is now trusting you. And then you can send the cold message after you have couple of sessions with this person and say, you know what? I need an advice on this. What do I do? And they will always there for you. Like, I'll tell all my mentees, like, I'm your all time advocate. Anytime I mentor, I'll be there for them, like, through their career. So, yes, it can happen. People, like, send them cold messages and say, hey. Can you make a referral? And I'm like, I I don't even know you. And that makes me question your judgment because how would you want me someone who actually doesn't know you at all to refer you to a role versus someone who's coming in and say, look. I'm looking for a job, and these are the things I wanna get better at. I have a good understanding of myself. Can you advise me how can I find a job? And then at that stage, when I have couple of chats with that person, may mock interview them, I know how their level and how they are. And I actually myself refer them to places that I think it's a great fit for them. So it happens very naturally when you build the relationship the right way. I am not a believer in those cold messages. Sometimes they work, but, I mostly believe in building relationships that are strong with people that have really good foundation and trust. Yeah. That's that's really good advice. I think it's crucial these days to kind of build those are you when you open a position, are Are you when you open a position, are you first thinking of people who have built that type of a relationship with you, whether they're, you know, someone who would fit the position? And then, are you reaching out to your network of people saying, do you know somebody who might fill this position or might fit this position? I guess, which one or both? You know, do you look for both of those types of sources for people when you're scaling your teams? Yeah. So I try to be fair because I don't wanna only look at the people I know and advocate for them, only because I wanna give opportunity to people who I don't know and they can apply to the role. So we I usually build a pool of people where 10 to 20% of them are people I know and I know it's a good fit for this role, and the rest are opportunity for other people to apply to the role. And I take a look at those resumes too. But because I know these people, because I invested them, when a role pops up, I have them top of my mind, and I ping them that this is a role that's popped up. If you're interested, apply. But I'm not giving them extra benefits as other people. But the fact that I'm pinging them as a hiring manager and I'm saying apply, they will get an interview pretty easier than people who are applying to the roles, especially in this market. You know a role is popping up in 2 hours. There's 100 of applicants. And, if you have that relationships that people know you, top of their mind, that's the key to get a role is that people who advocate for you and put your name on the table without you wanting that. And that's a huge key to success in the in your career is that building those relationship that can result in this. So whenever I open a role, I have people on top of my mind that I know they're looking for a role and a great fit for this role. And, and I really do that because I know it benefit their role and benefit them. So I don't really refer people who are I don't think they're a good fit. And, you know, they've been people that their life changed because of that. I mean, they get into really big tech companies. I had a mentee who was a waiter, and, afterwards, he got hired at Meta, and that's changed his life. So many of these stories, people who are just entering tech and, you know, it's really hard to find your first job and build relationships like this with people across the industry who can refer them and advocate for it. Them. So it's a it's a both mix up pool because fairness is super important when I hire. I wanna make sure I give, like, opportunity to all type of people, be as, you know, inclusive as possible to, like, all people from different backgrounds. Also, look at my team and say, like, okay. Is my team diverse enough? You know, what I'm needing. Like, do I have enough women at my team? I don't want, like, to having 1 woman in the room or 1 man in room to feel, like, isolated. I want everyone to feel belonging. So looking at the gaps on my team and see, like, what are those gaps that I'm looking for to fill in and really building that diverse pool of people, who are coming in to interview. Yeah. And on the taking it from from the hiring side, I'm I'm curious putting you as the candidate. I know you were presented with options, you know, to maybe go to YouTube or Google and and LinkedIn, and, obviously, you you ultimately chose LinkedIn. When looking for a place to go, like, what was that deciding factor that made you choose LinkedIn and and framing that as advice for people who are listening? You know, if they're presented with so many options or so many different paths, like, how do you choose? Mhmm. So, the framework I walk my mentees through is we do have a value table. Before you actually start job searching, you put together maximum five values you're looking into the next role. What are the things you really want in your next role? Example, for me, like, people mattered. I wanna work in a culture that people come first. Growth mattered. I wanted to work in in a company that supports my growth. You know, technology mattered. I wanted to be a cutting edge technology. Product mattered for me. I wanted to work on a product I've never worked on before, and there are a couple of other things that I have in my value table. And whenever I am interviewing a company, and I always say that interview is a two way assessment. There are things you're assessing too. These values are the things you have to assess. Ask the recruiter. Ask the hiring manager in your first interview. What is the growth framework on your team? Who was the last person who got promoted on your team? How does promotion happens? How do you support an engineer who falls behind? How do you onboard people onto new team? You know, all of these questions you can ask to assess how good is that company and that team role for you in terms of your value. Ask about the product if it matters. Like, how old is the product? Is it a new thing? Why are we is this a bet? You know? Is it something that we're just gonna do right now and just, disappear, like, a year from now, or is this something the company wanna invest in long term? If these things matter for you, be prepared to ask these questions because a lot of people go into roles blindly just because it's at a good company, and then they're not happy there afterwards because they're not assessing in their interview, their role in the company. And then when you have these values and you're interviewing, I give a score from 1 to 10. 10 means they're great at it. 1, they're very poor. And, then when you're reaching to the offer stage, like top 3, top 2, interview that you're doing, you can see the differences. So, for example, for me, between YouTube and LinkedIn, it was a product. I wanted to work on a product I've never worked on, and for me, YouTube was a streaming again. And I'm not a person to go in-depth. As you know, my personality, I love the breadth. I love to get things which is new. I never work on a social media platform like LinkedIn. So that was a a factor like, one of the biggest factor on that table that I picked LinkedIn over YouTube. So if you have that values, it's easy to to know, like, which one I I wanna go to and which value I wanna compromise, which one is compromiseable for me, which one is nice. For me, work life balance is not compromiseable. It's a value. I do a lot of things outside work, and work is not my only thing in life. So, I wanted a company that, you know, I don't have to work 247 because I really don't admire that type of environment. So I think it's toxic. So what are those values and which one you cannot compromise and assessing those over your interview then when you're at a offer stage? You you don't have a hard time to know which one do you have to pick. Yeah. Yeah. I I think I saw that you last end of towards the end of last year ran a marathon, and so those types of hobbies, I think, are pretty important. You know? Pedro and I play music music, and, I think Pedro is a coffee aficionado, so he loves making coffee. So I think it's important to have those things outside of work to to make sure you stay balanced. It sounds like you have several ways that you evolve yourself. You know, you you said you mentioned reading books and just being curious and learning new technologies. You probably also have your own mentor who you who you get advice from or several mentors. So is it is it hard, or do you just find it come naturally to still make sure that you're growing as a as a person? Do those does that time come easy, or do you have to make sure that you, you know, spend a couple hours a week making sure that you're growing as a leader as well? That's a great question. I feel that's come naturally for me. It's not like I mostly build habits versus, like, I have to read, like, 3 hours per week. It's not like that. It comes as a habit. You all know the book, Atomic Habits. Right? It's like stacking things and building habits and systems. For me, mostly, it's systems in my life. And you can't have all of it at the same time. Like, you can't go to the gym and read books and be great at your work and get a mentor and run projects. It's not possible. You need to have balance long term, but in short term, you may not have a balance. So let's say if you if you wanna get better at something and you have, like, 3 books to finish, you may have to cut off from your gym time or running time or whatever you're doing at on the side for, like, a week. And then a week after, you know that what is cutting off was my running, and now I'm done with this book. So this is the things I'm gonna prioritize. I'm pulling it back up this week. I'm gonna focus on it more. So in long run, there is a balance between all of these things you're doing. But in short run, you prioritize between these things because you can't have all of these things together. And then you build systems for yourself. Systems of learning. What's your system of learning? Is that books right now is so integrated into my life. It's something that, you know, I usually read in the morning when I wake up or if it's a book. Even learning how to read a book pretty fast is super important and summarize it so you can refer to it later on. But building that systems that actually can help you. For me, Fridays is my self reflection days. It's a day I have a session in the morning with my mentor. And after that session, I self reflect on, like, how what did I do this week? What are the areas I did really well? What are the top things top five things I did at my work? Then that top five things goes to 1 on 1 next week with my manager. And this is kind of what we call it managing up. Like, how do you how do you manage up, and how do you tell your manager and your escape what are you doing, and it's getting harder as you're going higher and higher. So that's that's a way of me managing up by taking that 5 outlines and putting in my 1 on 1 doc, and then self reflecting of what are the things I have to do next week, looking at my team structure, how everyone is doing, did I capture what they did greatly this week? I do that for my team too, like, every individual on the team. I have a running doc that I say these are the things they did really well this week. So when it comes to their performance review, I am very detailed for advocating for them, for every engineer, and I'm taking all that recognition in. What are the feedbacks I have to give them? I'm very proactive on giving my direct reports feedback. I will let it sit. If someone is not doing something very well or there is there is a gap that they can do better, it would be right away. Every week, I'm thinking about their performance and how they did. So it won't be a surprise. You know? There are some managers that suddenly come after, like, a year, and they say, you didn't do all of these things. And, that's hinder trust. The trust is broken at that stage. So the more honest and the more periodic and the smaller these pieces of feedbacks are and very targeted, the better those those people can grow. So Friday, my system of self reflection into my life, plan of next week, How's my month look like? Am I having enough fun? How's my gym is going? How's my workouts? Relationship wise, am I spending time with people I love? Like, sometimes I'm so much slanted at work. I forget about my friends. I'm like, next week, I'm gonna set time with my friends. Next week, I'm gonna spend more time talking to my mom. There are, like, 4 categories in my life. It's career, which is one that you all have. It's love and relationships, like you being very socially, satisfied with, like, going out with people, your best friends, your family, your close relatives, spending time with them. For me, financial life matters. I'm doing on that. Am I, like, on track with my goals? And then, health, like, in terms of am I drinking enough water? Am I a happy person? How's my mental health? Do I need, like, some of the weeks that I'm very exhausted? I usually go to a lighter sort of workout. And I'm like, okay. This week, I'm gonna go do yoga instead of running because I want less intensity in my life. So how are you assessing that and then having that, like, long term balance? There is this book also called design your life where it talks about these categories, which is something I took from this book, And then, having that categories help me to balance. So I measure every category every week, and I see how I'm doing and which category requires attention. I prioritize a week after. I like that. I have to check out that book. Yeah. I'm I am writing that down because, there's definitely weeks or several weeks in a row where I might neglect 1 or 2 of those categories for sure. So that's that's a good book to write down. Awesome. So, yeah, I think, we're coming close to time here for you know, thank you, Naz, for your for your time. I think maybe we could wrap it up with, you know, what's some advice that you would give to anyone who's listening, maybe something top of mind that's, you know, come across your mind over the last week or 2, that you'd like to just kinda pass along? And then where can everyone find you and and follow your journey? Yeah. Sure. Oh, that's a hard question. I mean, something that has been top of my mind. I was reading yesterday a quote about someone who lays off. I think it was a company called Clarify, and she wrote couple of points I shared on my LinkedIn as opposed to where things I've learned from layoffs. And one of it is, like, really thinking about how do you not bound to one job and then have some back ups, make sure that that happens. The other was, like, really thinking about yourself and getting yourself back up. And, one point that was funny, and a lot of people didn't agree, is that people are there for you when you get laid off. But the reality is they're not. Everyone having their own job, and you can expect that you're getting laid off and everyone is there for you. And now your friends are taking you to their companies. I mean, they do their best, but it's not the case. So be prepared. I mean, be prepared. Have your resume ready all the time. I mean, don't just get on your resume when you need a job. Your resume is a reflection of you, and it needs to be ready and updated. Your LinkedIn needs to be ready and updated with latest things you do. And then always and always have 1 or 2 interview per year. What are you doing with the company? Even if you're at a place that you're comfortable, always, always interview. You are you'll be at the ready state all the time. Also, you learn about the market and what's going on, in other companies when you interview with them, and it's a it's a way of also networking. So when you interview with hiring managers and they get to know you, later on when they have a role and if you perform there in that interview, they're gonna they're gonna reach out to you. So be ready, before something happens is actually the key in this market. And knowing that your work is not bound to a company. You're taking your work to different companies' missions and vision and enabling part of their journey as a really amazing engineer. And, none of us have to be in a place forever. At least in tech, it's not the case. So Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. I I think I think you also once mentioned sorry to sorry to jump in there. I think you also once mentioned around the interviewing process. You also just received feedback feedback from those people about how you present on a camera or your answers, or you get some valuable feedback from those interviews as well. Yeah. And be very transparent when you do those interviews. Like, I'm not actively looking, but this looks like a good opportunity. I wanna I wanna assess and learn more about this company. Why not doing an interview? And putting yourself in those situations more often makes you more comfortable. You'll be more confident. So if people wanna find me, I'm on LinkedIn, nazdaalum. Also, you can find all my handles on my website, nazda dev, and feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about anything I mentioned. Hopefully, we can have those books listed, John, somewhere, so people can find it on-site reference. Yeah. Yeah. I was definitely gonna say I'm gonna keep in contact with you just to see what books you're reading. Awesome, Naz. Well, yeah, I I really I personally found a lot of value from this conversation. There's a lot of things that, you mentioned that I just tend to forget over time, and so I definitely found some great value out of this conversation. Everyone, go follow her on LinkedIn. Pedro's battery is exhausted. My battery is exhausted, so my camera died, but I am here. Thank you, Nez. Thanks so much for your time. Yeah. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for having me. 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