Ep. 12 - The Sad Accountant with BJ Szyjakowski | Devs:After Dark

You should see the notes I have. It makes no sense. Like, if you're looking at it, it's misspelled. It's all shorthand and it makes no sense. But in my mind, it's like it all comes together like, like a beautiful, like, poem. It's amazing. It's like haiku, but—

Hello and welcome.

It is Friday, the 21st of February, and we are here on episode 12 of Developers After Dark.

Dark.

With me, as always, are Dennis and AJ. And if you haven't— if this is your first time viewing or you haven't caught up on any of our previous episodes, you can find them all on the HubSpot Developers YouTube channel. So you should definitely go and check that out amongst all the other videos that are there. You don't just— don't just go for me. Don't just go for me. I know you love me, but don't just go for me. So that would be @HubSpotDevelopers if you're on YouTube just kind of poking around. Um, also too, just to pay a couple of bills, you should definitely, if you haven't already— we probably said this almost every episode now— but the developer changelog is something that you're going to want to subscribe to, and that's going to be at developers.hubspot.com/changelog. Um, one of the other things too, uh, Dennis, let me ask you, um, How do you feel about your dev skills? Are they rusty like a lawnmower in the garage over winter?

Yeah. Wow. You know me well. You know me well.

That's— see, I do.

I do. And, um, do you think like Python's just a snake in the Amazon or JavaScript is just how they write your name on the Starbucks coffee cup or Ruby on Rails being a grunge band in Seattle?

Is that—

is—

Yes. If you could get me some sort of resource that could help me really understand what you're actually— I have no idea what the words you said were.

So, you know, It's funny that you mention that because there is something, there's something. It's a little-known secret. Maybe people have heard of it, maybe they haven't, but it would be the HubSpot Academy.

Sure.

And if you go to academy.hubspot.com, you will find certifications, resources, things to take that rusty lawnmower and make it sharp, be able to mow the lawn 10 seconds flat. Don't take my word for it. You should go there, definitely.

So I feel like you just have a list on the side with like comparisons of things to just rattle off.

Oh, it's amazing. It's like haiku, but that's not what you're looking at when you're looking at the notes. I'll tell you that right now.

What was that movie? Was it Sling Blade about the guy with the llama? You're talking about? No, no, this is all—

I know the movie.

It's like your generation too. I will find links and we'll— I'll add to it. It's about a guy with a llama or who has—

That's fair.

That's fair. Yeah, I know what you're talking about, but I don't know if that's exactly what went on.

Sounds like one of those like OG Blockbuster finds, you know, you're just like, that is a thing.

And I can totally respect that because I used to work at a video store for years. So that's how— that's why— that's literally, Dennis, that's where that whole, um, kind of, uh, issue of mine comes from, where I'm stuck in a certain I don't know if he is aware, but in one of the episodes, I kept making movie references and a quiz in movies, but it was all stuck in this 4-year, 3-year span. And that's all I know. Any other movies outside of that, I was completely oblivious to. And Dennis made the point of pointing that out kindly.

Billy Bob Thornton. That's Susan Slingblade.

Yeah, Billy Bob. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.

That may come.

Oh, Nick, by the way, in celebration, it's actually Developers After Dark. I've decided to crack open an Athletic Brewing Company— I'm not supposed to say titles and all that, right? So I'm drinking a beer here.

Oh, nice.

Okay.

Okay.

Non-alcoholic, but I'm trying.

I didn't want to ask, but I wanted to ask. And I was just kind of like, it's After Dark. I mean, we could pretend, but we're live. I mean, anyone with a watch might be able to call us out on this slightly.

Yeah, it's not quite after dark over here either. You can very much see that. This is a very intelligent, very, uh, very sophisticated lighting setup I have going on.

It really is nice.

Yeah, any light's better than none. My— I have like— I literally had to go buy light because there is no light in here, and it was just like, it's horrible. It's absolutely horrible. And everybody would be like, yeah, after dark, that makes sense because it's dark where you're at. And I'm like, nah, it's like 2 PM or it's like noon. I'm like, it's just— there's just literally no light in this place. So It's just one of those things. That's why the name fits so well. But one more thing I wanted to mention too, and there's actually, I was only aware of one, but now there's actually a second one coming up. But for dehugs, Dennis, there's obviously, and this is going to be a slightly, a good transition here, but you have coming up on the 27th, that would be Taking HubSpot to the Next Elevation, a RAD-powered showcase, right?

You get it, you get it. Yep, yep. That's with our star over here, BJ. So I'll let him talk all about that today. And then on the, what is it, the 14th? Does that sound right in that area?

There's a March 13th.

13th. Yeah, 13th of March. We have the one with Replit where we're going to start— I want to start a series on AI and development and disruption and what these people have their opinions about. Replit's a, well, it's an IDE that you can basically type in what you want to make and an app pops out. And it's not all true. And I want everyone to be aware of that. I want them to state their case and how this is like how development is going to be for the future. So show up, ask questions, be thoughtful, things like that.

I will come back. I literally was in Replit and I basically said like, create me a Figma plugin that has like 2 options and then literally pastes that option to the, to the canvas or whatever when you select it. And it did its magic. It did a little bit of talking to itself and it was like, oh, this isn't working. I need to fix some stuff. And then literally was like, just go ahead and load the plugin. And sure enough, boom, done. I mean, it was just like, you know, a triangle and a square, but I was like, hey, I can build off of this at least.

So.

We don't need BJs anymore.

Yeah.

Well, you know, put me out of a job.

Thanks. Thanks for coming.

I appreciate it.

Thanks for being a guest. It was nice talking with you. But no, Denison mentioned that there is a, um, with the previous, uh, debug that we were talking about with Elevate, uh, that there is a, there is a correlation to, to our guest. So I will let him tell everyone who he is and what he does.

Am I?

Is that me? Go for it, Sonja. Uh, yeah, so my name is BJ, um, BJ Schakowski, because I think my last name might be usable somewhere. It's just a mash of consonants slapped right next to each other. Um, I am on the content assets team here at HubSpot. And content assets team is kind of in charge of all of the default CMS assets. So if you love it, I'm the guy to talk to. If you hate it, talk to someone else.

Yeah.

We've got a form for that. If you made it, it was made before I joined the team. But yeah, yeah, spending a lot of time building out Elevate and playing inside of all the new Like React pipeline stuff that's kind of going on. And, and, um, yeah, having a lot of fun doing that and hanging out with y'all, um, outside of this context.

Good, good.

Excellent. Excellent. Well, why don't we get things rolling a little bit and tell us just kind of how you started? Because everybody has that, like, that point in time, right, where they're exposed to something that they say to themselves, Well, this can be, well, this can be a career. This can be something I could see myself doing in the future. Um, with regards to everything that you've done up to this point, what, where was that moment where you kind of saw development and you saw engineering and you saw these things as something where it's like, hey, that's something I could see myself doing as a career?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you want the, the long story or the short? Go with the long story.

Go with the long story. We want to tell the story.

Yeah, we're gonna go back. We're gonna go back. So, you know, I think my first, like, introduction to, like, HTML, CSS, stuff like that was, I think, in middle school. In, like, I forget what the name of, like, the elective was called, but it was something along the lines of like Exploring the Web or something like that.

Tabletop House Design 101.

Yeah. Yeah. How fast did that go out of style after you did it? Because like, I remember taking something and I think it was like right before college and it was like, it was obsolete maybe right after.

Yeah.

I mean, I have no recollection of what the heck I even did in that class. You know, like I remembered like what the project was that we worked on, but we had a full semester to, you know, try to build a website. And, uh, like, that was pretty much it. And I had no idea what I was doing. I was just copying and pasting from other people. And like, I just was like, oh, this is like kind of cool. But it was just HTML and CSS. Didn't touch it again until many, many years later. Um, but I remember that being kind of cool. And I remember at that point being like, well, Interesting. Um, and went to college. Um, didn't know what I wanted to do. Pretty typical.

As one does.

Yeah, yeah. Like interested in like music stuff. I was interested in art. Um, kind of wanted to do something along those 2 lines, but then I actually enjoyed like playing music and I enjoyed like drawing and animating stuff like that and just heard a lot of horror stories about people, you know, going to school for something that they love, coming out of it just hating it, never doing it again, you know?

Right.

So I figured like going to school for something generic would be like better. So I went to school for accounting, because that was the hardest business administration like major that we could do.

Is it accounting?

Accounting.

Yeah, left field. I didn't realize, I didn't know it was coming. Okay.

Yeah, yeah, I can, uh, I can do your taxes. But, uh, yeah, um, so I really enjoyed like accounting work, uh, like I enjoyed like, it's basically similar to programming, right? It's just a lot of logic. People think it's like a lot of math, but it's just like At its hardest, like finding percentages of something and multiplying that on something. But you know, you always have like check figures, and it's like just figuring out problems. So like that's kind of fun. And fun fact, if this is one of the main things that I remember from my accounting, my accounting days at school, is that if you are an accountant for the FBI. You get to carry a gun. So, you know, if you if you want to carry a gun and not shoot people, you can be an accountant for the FBI. You'll be safe. Anyway, I really didn't like the people. This is what it came down to. A lot of the people that I was working with, you know, I was during my college career, I was. And a little bit before, I was working at a climbing gym. I was like a big climbing bum for a long time. Started climbing when I was 3 at like our local gym here in Milwaukee. And was just like showing up to class in like chacos and shorts and like sandals. And it's just like this laid-back personality. And everyone else in my classes were like suited up and like business attire. And I'm just this like outlier over here.

Let me ask you, was the, was the, was the draw to climbing because of the fact that's, I mean, in a certain sense, it's kind of an individual type of, it's not like a team type of thing where it's like, you know, an entire, it wasn't more like because it was a solo effort when you could do climbing. So you didn't have to, 'cause like I have the same thing where it's like, I, I'm not a— AJ can attest, some people could call me not a people person, you know, to a certain extent. So like, there's things I'd like to do where it's like, I could just go off and I can do this. And this is like, kind of peaceful for me. Did you find— is that, is that kind of what drew you to climbing?

Uh, not entirely. So I mean, I started so early in my life that I had like zero— it was just, you know, like my dad was into climbing. So like, then I started climbing. And, uh, Like, you know, I don't even know who I am at that point, like why I'm doing the things I'm doing. However, like, I think once I got to, like, you know, high school and into college and, like, who I was was starting to, like, settle in or come out a little bit more, that was definitely, I think, a part of it. You know, I'm an only child. So, like, I think up until relatively recently, like, A lot of my interactions with people and like how I like viewed people had to do with like activities that we were doing together. Um, and you know, I'm all about team sports. I played soccer for a long time, but, um, I, I think climbing is just something because it's so individualized, like you were saying, it's something that you can kind of just progress and like make your own and do whatever you want with it. But I wouldn't say necessarily that the draw was that it's like a solo activity.

So now most, most people don't start it at 3 years old. I gotta ask, just because you put— I remember you had mentioned that you were doing it when, you know, you started when you were 3. Like, that had to have been hell for your parents. That had to have been, you know what I mean? Like, I remember with my kids at 3, like running around, I was just like, don't touch anything, don't climb on anything.

But like, still got like the pool noodles out on the edges of the table type thing. Yeah.

Yeah, I— my dad started me like rock climbing and skiing, like when I was around 3. And that's largely because that's the stuff he was doing. So he, he taught classes in like our little hills here in Milwaukee or around, you know, southeastern Wisconsin. Yeah. And You know, while he was teaching classes, he would like bring me out with them. And like, he taught climbing classes at the local gym here on Saturdays. So while he was teaching classes, I would just be like kind of climbing around. So no, I mean, I'm, I'm sure at some point it caused some kind of panic, but I think it was expected. That's great. I think it was too chaotic.

Yeah.

So are you more of a fan of the indoor climbing or are you more of the like outdoors, like let's go scale a mountain kind of climbing?

Yeah. So I mean, that's just the interesting like conversation in and of itself with me is like I worked at the climbing gym for like 8 years. And while I was working there, I was really gung-ho about climbing in general. So I didn't really care what it was, if it was gym climbing, cuz it was easy, like easy, accessible, easy. Um, I was fine with that. Spent a lot of time in the gym. Um, the weekends during like summers, I would definitely try to get out outdoors. So a lot of climbing at like Devil's Lake and like other places in Wisconsin here. And then like, of course, like larger trips out to like Yosemite, North Carolina, West Virginia, California, stuff like that. Um, and they all, they all have their own, um, their own appeals. Um, but I, I definitely don't fall in the camp of like, you're only a climber if you do, you know, if you boulder V12 and like, you know, or pull it harder. You're only a climber if you're like a trad climber outside placing your own gear. Um, no, like, you're a climber if you think you're a climber. Like, it doesn't matter.

But yeah, I feel like that's the way with like website development too, right? Like, you're a developer if you're, if you're actively like trying to hammer out code. You're a developer. You're, you're in the developer mindset. You're in their shoes right there. So you may not be a skilled one, but you're doing it.

Like, yeah.

Yeah.

The reality is that we all start there and we are all also there in comparison to like someone else who's miles ahead of us.

Yeah, because you can even start a new language and you're right back to square one, you know, if you're not understanding. So it's—

Right.

I always found that to be quite, I guess, odd is the way to put it, when people would have that mindset, right? Where it's just like, oh, you just don't know, or you just— it's like, no, you're still a developer, you're still this or that, just even if you're going through the learning process, which, you know, it's not easy, but like, You have to give credit for people that do it, right? Because there's some people that'll be like, yeah, I'm not, that's too much, I'm not doing that, you know? So, uh, but yeah, no, that's, that makes perfect sense. From there though, you kind of, that's where you kind of shifted into, um, uh, more of a part of your career shifted into things where you started touching on HubSpot, uh, especially right after that then.

Yeah, yeah. So I ended up getting like just kind of burnt out. There and with climbing in general. So then I kind of took like a little step back and was just kind of like throwing darts at the board just to see like what stuck, you know. I was like, well, accounting is out of the picture. I graduated, like, I'm done. Graduated without debt, so I didn't need like a high-paying job right away. So like, you know, I wasn't in any hurry. But I started like, I guess my tactic was like, I don't know what I'm gonna do or like what I wanna do, so I'm just gonna pick something and see how it feels and like, you know, let that kind of guide me. So I knew that I enjoyed like writing, so I started doing like some freelance writing and didn't know how to price myself. Absolutely hated it. So I was like, this isn't working. Um, and then got in contact with like a marketing agency. Um, in the, in the Milwaukee area here, they were a startup at the time. And, um, they, I was like, do you guys need any content writers? And they were like, nope, but we see you have a degree in accounting. Do you want to do some like data analytics work for us? And I was like, as long as you know, I don't know what that means.

Sure.

Like, I'm comfortable in spreadsheet and I can like do math. So like, that's fine. Um, but yeah, they, they were like evangelists of HubSpot at the time. And, uh, I think this is back in like 2015. Um, and, uh, 2015, 2016, around there. So they were like into HubSpot and like, that's what they like used and that's what they were pushing on their clients. Um, And one of the things they had me start to do is like building landing pages for their, their customers. And I just remember that, you know, the editor, I can't remember if it was the template, the template builder, or if it was like the page editor. But I just remember looking at this like, box and then looking at a website being like, I don't get how like these squares— The old template editor.

Wow.

Yeah. And it wasn't— yeah, it was really confusing for me. And I was like, hey, I think that if I'm gonna build these things for you, that I'm gonna have to learn how to like code. And they're like, okay, well, we don't have a lot of work for you. So you can like, you know, allot this much time and like bill us for it. Okay.

So consider it data analysis, or that was your job title at this point still?

Yeah, at that point. Yeah. I mean, there was like a 3, 4 person operation. So we're sitting in like 70 hats, you know, and they're just trying to like give us work. But yeah, they were okay with me like billing them for like just learning and like messing around. So I just started like coding a lot on my own. I think I like was heavily leveraging this one resource called the Odin Project, which is like, it's like a bootcamp equivalent. kind of like free resource. But the way that they make it free is that they don't necessarily— they like, they link to a lot of documentation. So like, if you're doing something in like React, like they're just gonna link you to the React docs, but everything's free. And there's like Discord channel and some forums. And they kind of guide you through some projects. So I was like leveraging that to like just gain some chops. And basically it was just like self-taught to the point where like they started growing and I was like, okay, I'm like having a lot of fun. Like I can start to like speak this language a little bit and like, um, like it's making sense and like I'm like not bad at it. I was pretty bad at it actually at that point in time. I was, I was not good. But it was a lot of fun and I was getting paid for it. So I was like, I think this is something that I could see myself doing. And I remember working at like a coffee shop one day because we were all remote at that time, pre-pandemic days. This is revolutionary. We were all remote.

Yeah, that's true. That's awesome.

I was working at a coffee shop and someone saw that I had like I think I had Design Manager open and, you know, I don't think I was in my code editors yet. I was just one of the Design Manager people. And they came over and asked me a question about something I had never heard of before, and that was SQL. And they asked me like, oh, do you know how to make like this SQL query? And I'm like, What? And that's what made me feel like, okay, I don't know what the heck I'm doing at all. You know, just no HTML and CSS. So no, I don't know.

There's always that humbling coding question that knocks you down a peg, right? That's always just like—

Always.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's when I think I really started like digging in a lot more. And eventually it got to the point where, you know, I was like, I am able to like build modules relatively fast. Like I can do things. I think I know what I'm doing, but I also haven't been sat next to someone who like definitely knows what they're doing. So I don't know. And there weren't any other developers on the team. Like, it was just me, and I'm a self-taught solo dude who like is like, has this inferiority complex at this point, right?

Right.

Um, and I get to the point where I'm kind of talking with like the owners a little bit. I'm like, I get the feeling that you guys don't want like a development arm to this team. I feel like y'all just want to do like SEO and stuff like that. Um, and I feel like you're just giving me some work because I'm here and that's what you like. You just want us to like work. And they were like, yeah, pretty much.

Those are the SEO heydays where it was like everybody focused on that and the development side of it wasn't as important, but it was like, don't forget to stuff those keywords in that meta tag.

Don't you forget that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

The keyword meta tag, how great that aged.

Miss that.

Um, and then yeah, they were like, yeah, that's pretty much it. So I was like, okay, cool, let's come up with like an offboarding plan for me. And, uh, I do a lot of swing dancing, so I like went on like a swing dancing like trip to go do like a whole bunch of dancing. And when I came back, they were like, oh, We've got an interview lined up for you. You know, this is a Monday. And I'm like, yeah, you got an interview tomorrow at this, this other place.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Your, your, your company lined up an interview for you at another company?

I was just, that's what I was going to add. Yeah.

That's not real.

Yeah. Yeah.

I have never heard like, that's, that's unicorn stuff right there, man.

I've never heard that before ever.

I've heard of, let's do your offboarding plan. There's the door.

Yeah. Never. Or let me tell you what you did wrong for the last 4 years and then, well, yeah.

So looking back, I have theories and, uh, this is higher picture. This is like, I have life theories, um, on some of this and how it plays out. We can get into that in a little bit if we want to. Uh, but they're like philosophical. Need a stinger.

Life theories.

Yeah.

Life theories brought to you by Peach. Anyway, yeah, they, they had me set up like the next day with an interview. And I don't, I don't know if he's been on the show or not. But I know you all know John McLaren. Oh, that guy.

He's mentioned something about you stealing his job once or twice, I think in the last 20 minutes.

But I didn't steal his job. But he had just left a company called Spin Group here in Milwaukee, who, if any Spin Group people are out there in the ether, y'all rock and I love you. And if you're a marketing team that needs a good agency, I highly recommend getting some development work with Spin Group. They're good people. Anyway, um, good. John had just left Spin Group to come work at HubSpot, um, and I think it lined up where it was like maybe a week or two, or it definitely wasn't long after he had left, which is how this like coincidental, synchronistic, like opportunity kind of happened. And, uh, yeah, at an interview with the owner and within that week was working at Spin Group at this like, wow, full-time development job with actual like developers and engineers and like, you know, they're a small little powerhouse of like, you know, 3, 4 developers and they get stuff done. So yeah, I worked there for like 2 years just being almost entirely like the HubSpot developer. Um, and I tell you, just 2 years of doing, you know, something under some mentorship with like full-time, like you learn so much. So, so much.

Um, speaking of that, quick plug, uh, mentorship program HubSpot. Sign up for it if you haven't already.

How do you do that, Nick? What's—

you have anything?

Uh, Dennis, you have the URL, I believe, somewhere, don't you?

Oh buddy, did we post it?

Find it again. Now I'm like actually having to do things.

Thanks, man.

Because what's gonna happen is I'm gonna have to be like, yeah, it's in the show notes, I didn't do yet, for like the 3rd week in a row. It's my Achilles heel. It's—

I'm—

I—

yeah, I— it's bad. It's bad.

So let me ask you, let me ask you really quick, AJ, because I, I kind of had a similar thing where, you know, Was the only developer at a company that I worked at, then went into an agency, then came here. I, I'd say like when you said like working under people that like are teams of developers with mentorships and stuff, like it is really crazy to be thrown into that world almost like from going to being like the sole person who's like, yeah, I just like picked up web and just started doing it because there was a need for it. And then getting thrown into like an actual agency life. Did you find it? Harder to like, I guess, did you find it harder going that route as opposed to doing something that, I don't know, like being a freelancer for a little bit, then going into an agency? Do you think that would have helped you? Because like looking back, I feel like if I would have just done more freelance of random clients, then went into an agency, I would have had a much better understanding and probably an easier onboarding than just You know, throwing myself into the deep end kind of a thing.

I hear what you're saying. This worked really well for me. I think that what it did for me is it like, it provided at the onset, like validation that like, oh, like I am doing things the right way. And like, here are some things, there's a lot that I don't know. But I should also, I think, specify that like the way that Spin Group worked a little bit wasn't like they act as the development arm for a lot of other agencies. So it's like this small team of just developers. And there was a lot of autonomy for like, you know, you're owning this project, you're running this project, and the owner kind of like is like helping. helping you out. There's so much flexibility, you know, from his standpoint of like, you know, what do you want to do as an engineer? And like, I'm gonna get us that work and like allow you to grow how you want to grow so that you can like go do the things you want to do. So For me, it worked out really well. I didn't feel like I was thrust into a place with a lot of like hard set rules and hard set like practices and like, you have to do it this way, you have to use this tool. It was very much like, what do you, what do you want to do? How do you want to grow? And let's get you there.

Perfect.

So I really loved it.

BJ, earlier this week when we were talking, had our kickoff meeting about the upcoming developer hug on Elevate, which possibly a good segue. We were discussing with Anton how the nice thing about developing on HubSpot was the ease of onboarding. Like you can get into it pretty easily and move forward to, you know, more complex things. They're talking about, you know, incorporating React in that and how the onboarding is going to be a little bit more challenging. How do you— reflecting back, how do you think that would have affected your experience?

Are you saying that, like, if I like putting myself back in the shoes, but pushing the timeline up?

Yeah, exactly.

Like, as a new developer, kind of green in the engineering space in general.

So like, like, compared to where it was then, now put yourself into those shoes Present day.

Yeah.

Where it's a, it's, it's a, it's a different animal. It's not in the design manager, you know, or the template builder at this point. You're not adding a little HTML, you know, snippet into your boxes on the design manager anymore. You're actually doing coding on your own device and setting it up. Um, it's, it, it's hard— it's harder, you know, admittedly it's, it's different, right? Yeah.

Yeah, so it's a, it's a double-edged sword, right? Because like, I think, you know, part of the question we're asking is like, how do engineers— like, if you're just getting into like coding now, like, what do I learn? How do I like allocate my time? And like, one of the cool things about HubSpot is that like you can just know HTML and CSS and get really far. And the reality is that that's not going away, right? Like, you can still be starting today, know just HTML, CSS, and you can still do things however you want to do them in Design Manager or pull things down locally and like push things up using the CLI. And frankly, if we are just starting, like if you are just getting into the development world, I think that that's what you should be doing. Like, I think that you should be learning HTML, CSS, plain old JavaScript, and you should have those chops. Because that is what, you know, React is built on. But then I think that, you know, once you spend a little bit of time there, I think that absolutely learning some kind of JavaScript framework, whether it's Vue, you know, if you're like watching this and you're not a HubSpot developer, if it's Vue, if it's React, like if it's Svelte, like just learn one of them and like really dive in. I think that if you are like an experienced like HubSpot developer, like now is the perfect time to really start like wetting your chops, wetting your whistle with, um, with React because like you already Now you have a reason for it, right? Like, you are already a HubSpot developer. You don't have to learn that ecosystem anymore, but now you can see how this other really great tool, um, that has been industry standard for, like, frankly, a very, very long time, um, can now be used on the platform that you're building out to help your customers. And you're seeing how you can, like, integrate it into your own workflow. And like, personally, I have to say that like, I've been building with this like new theme pipeline, although it's like not quite documented super, super well yet, uh, because it's changing so quickly. But once you like spend a bit of time in it and like get comfortable with it, like the benefits that you get from it are just like astronomically better than like building the old way. You'll be able to build things a lot faster. You'll be able to like have like better performance sites without like trying that hard. And you'll be able to like have like cross-site scripting security kind of like baked in and a lot of these other like the security issues kind of like tackled. There's just so many benefits that you get from it.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, outside of the obvious, like server-side rendering and stuff like that. But to like, getting a little off track, but to like circle back to your question, like, learning, I think it would be daunting, right?

Mm-hmm.

But I think that as an engineer, if you're like committed as a developer to want to learn, like, How to be a developer, how to program. Um, this is all like spending 3 months, spending 6 months, spending the next year trying to learn how to like work with React is only going to make you a better, more well-rounded engineer. Yeah, totally agree. If you're, if you're, uh, like a solo developer, it's going to open up the world for like, oh, I can take React projects now. Like, yeah. Yeah, because I know how to build in React. Like I can start using these other frameworks, you know? Yeah, for sure.

Uh, yeah.

Also, you'd just be a more complete HubSpot developer that, you know, you can start doing, you know, React cards, you know, app cards. So I've—

Yeah, I was, I was just going to say it's a perfect segue into learning both sides because the app cards and stuff are powered by React. And if you happen to be like an app developer who knows React, guess what? You can build on the CMS too. Like it's a transferable skill at that point. And I think like that's, that's, that's what I love about the fact that like we're doing React on the CMS side and in the app cards is I have always been a CMS-based kind of developer and like more on the frontend stuff. So now it's like I can start building these things. I can start, you know, tacking on the knowledge that I have and expanding my skillset.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think if you've been in like the HubSpot developer ecosystem for, you know, 3, I think 3 to 5 years at least, um, maybe even less, uh, like you probably have some, um, HTML, CSS, and at least a little bit of JavaScript chops.

Mm-hmm.

And I think based off of that, like that is enough to be able to like take the leap and kind of start sticking your toe in the React waterland. And I think that for a lot of the experienced developers who have like vanilla JavaScript chops, like if you feel comfortable writing JavaScript, like, and have never worked with React before, I would say if you spend like 2 months to 3 months, a little bit of time each week, just like kind of sticking your toe in. Starting to build a module, see how it works. Like within 3 months, I think that you'll be at a place where you're feeling like confident. And that I feel like is a very small investment, you know? And I'm not saying 3 months of like every day I'm sitting here like chugging away trying to learn, but it's like, I'll pick it, you know, an hour or 2 a week, you know? And just like try to like futz around with something for a little bit.

Yeah.

Um, I think that within 3 months you'll, you'll see the benefits.

Uh, it, it sounds like Vijay's offering to do like a, a CMS React bootcamp. Yeah, that's true.

That's what I heard.

That pretty much heard that.

Yeah, that's what I heard.

I read between those lines. I read between those lines.

I was like, I was gonna say, maybe just come to the de-hug next week. Maybe come to the de-hug next week. It'll be our little mini bootcamp.

I mean, my next question was gonna be, why is JavaScript so sexy? But I think you pretty much nailed it at that point.

But I mean, yeah, good. Oh, those are the— I mean, it's the title of the debate, right? You're gonna have people who hate JavaScript, you're gonna have people who love it. But as a frontend engineer, like, JavaScript now allows me to write backend code, like, I can pretty much link from wherever I want to be. That's right. Yeah. So it's amazing. I think any language that you know, Is amazing. And when you can do more with it, it's even more amazing. Yeah, absolutely.

Now with the— because you touched on like going in and dipping your toes and like going for, you know, take a couple months. With as daunting as some of the stuff can be, what are some of the ways or what are some of the resources that you use to kind of keep up to date with some of the latest things going on, like especially in JavaScript or in any other kind of area?

Yeah, so this is where I maybe like am a little bit different than other developers. I don't really know what other people are doing, but I don't have like a whole lot that I like, you know, refer to. I think one of the main places or one of the main resources that I have is a newsletter called JS, JavaScript Bytes, B-Y-T-E-S. And it's just this like weekly newsletter that has a lot of like updates in the JavaScript world. So it could be React, could be GIMP, could be Svelte, could be some, you know, MDN docs thing. But then they always— it's kind of comical too. The guy, whoever writes it, is pretty funny. And it's like meme-y. And then there's always a quiz at the bottom each week. And that like, here's this like, just like a challenge, like a little puzzle. So it's fun to like solve that.

We should steal that idea.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

And, you know, some examples might be that it's like, what's wrong with this?

Like, function?

Why doesn't it work? Or maybe it's like, what is the like output of this thing supposed to be? So I guess, yeah, you could do it in like Hubble talk or React talk or just quiz about Dennis's life talk.

The airspeed velocity of a swallow carrying a coconut? No.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. The important questions. But yeah, JavaScript Bytes, that's That's my, my go-to.

Should we all learn TypeScript? Is that, is that necessary now? Oh yeah, I know I'm bringing in the heat now. There's some spice coming along with this.

So I gotta say, old me, old me would have been like, hell nah, dude, JavaScript is bunk, man. But I now think that I'm in the camp of, dude, like, people who don't like TypeScript, they're just people who haven't used TypeScript.

Yeah.

Is that the Nickelback defense, right?

I am at a— like, I see both sides to it. I think that it is simultaneously a thorn in your side, but also has saved me countless hours of debugging. For sure.

It is such a thorn sometimes though, isn't it? It's like, damn it, just let it go. Come on, let it slide.

Yeah, I feel like so what I do a lot of now, so I am heavily like in the cursor camp, is that I will just write JavaScript. And then be like, type this for me. And then it does a pretty good job of doing that. Um, so I just have to sit there in my TypeScript file and just ignore the red underlines for a while. Um, or keep telling Cursor to do that as the red underlines like bug me enough.

May I ask, uh, so a question specifically to Cursor and like this whole new, you know, way of developing. How would that have affected your learning, you know, prior to it? Like, if you're asking— if you're writing JavaScript and this is outputting the TypeScript, what are you learning TypeScript at that point?

That's interesting. Um, I think it depends on who you are as a person. I think that, you know, and that has to go back to like, you know, what is it like to even be in college right now with ChatGPT, you know?

Right.

It's a good answer. I think that, like, personally, the way that I interface with Cursor and, like, Cursor Chats and, like, AI is from a, like, furthering my understanding of something. So, um, I might write, like, a function and be like, I think this looks pretty good. Like, how, like, can you refactor this and make it any better?

Mm-hmm.

Um, and see what it does. And, you know, sometimes there have been instances where I've been like, oh yeah, that's way smarter than what I wrote. Uh, and then other times you're like, ah, like it's probably, you know, 0.001, 0.005, like more performant, but like, I can't read that shit fast.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

You know, it's like, I'm not gonna use that. So I think that if you're the kind of person who is going to use it as a, like, teacher, as a tool, as like something to help you like learn, I think that it will be very, very helpful for you. If you are the kind of person who's like, you know, Replit, write me this app that does this thing and then blah, blah, blah, hit enter and then like. That's it. Like, cool. Like, you didn't really build anything.

I feel attacked right now because that was my story earlier.

Describing my life story. What's going on?

Yeah, I think that it's gonna be harder, you know, and, and I think that you're digging yourself in a hole if that's— if you're like going down the engineering coding path, and you're like going to use Cursor because it can like build the whole project for you. Because at the end of the day, it's going to write stuff and it's going to be complicated and you're not going to know how it hooks in. So yeah, I still think that based off of like my use cases with Cursor and like these AI tools that are building apps and stuff like that, like They still aren't really even close to the point of like being able to replace someone or replace like a well-thought-out engineer, someone who's worth their worth of salt. But they are good at like making developers who know how to use them significantly more efficient in building whatever it is that they're building. They're dope, I agree.

Well, what's, what's the title? Prompt engineering, right? Is what a lot of people are talking about is what they're calling it. Prompt engineering. So I agree with you. I think like prompt engineering is great, but I think you need to have a technical background as a developer to really utilize it to its fullest potential. Because like you said, like it's one thing to go to AI and say, hey, make me my idea, but is it going to be as performant or is it actually doing like what you're expecting it to do? And how do you expand on that? Right? Like you can't plan for scale.

Yeah.

You don't think about that ahead of time.

So, right there.

That's a very good point. Let me ask you this, um, 'cause I'm curious with regards to, 'cause I, I similarly, um, some of my earlier jobs were kind of that like one person on an island type of setup, right? Scenario, if you will. And there wasn't a lot of, well, there wasn't a lot of mentorship. You know, going off of that theme. So there wasn't a lot of things where, or even soundboarding, right? It's just like, am I doing this right? Somebody just talk to me. Don't have to give me an answer, but talk to me about this. Let's just talk about it. Maybe I'll come up with it as I talk. But what are some of the, because I imagine the better, you know, more advice comes along with more people. So we'll try, we'll try. I'm trying to do it without actually saying that. So I'm glad that you got to that.

It's so like, You know that you're trying really hard.

In my head, I'm trying not to do it. I don't know if PJ knows, but every episode, real estate always comes up. I used to work in real estate, but that doesn't count as me saying it. But no, has there been any advice that people have given you, like a mentor or something along those lines, that's really stuck with you over time?

Yeah. Yeah.

I think, you know, it's kind of a, I feel like it's a recurring theme that like people tend to want to be like jack of all trades, especially in like the engineering world, right? Like you're like, but this is the, this is honestly something that upsets me a lot is that like everyone who comes out of a bootcamp is like, oh, full stack developer. And I'm like, dude, you can't even write, like, you don't even know how the DOM works, dude. What are you talking about? You're not a full stack developer. Dude, dude, man, come on. It's just Mike. I'm like, you know, I've been doing this for, I don't even know how many years and I don't even consider myself to be a full stack developer. Like, can I like write backend code? Yeah. Like, do I know how to do it? Yeah. But like, am I a full stack developer? No, no. Absolutely not. Someone who knows backend, like someone who knows Java can write, you know, circles around me. Even if I were supposed to do it in like Express, you know, using like JavaScript. Yeah. Someone, someone who's a backend engineer can write circles around me. But anyway, I think that the advice that, that was given to me early on, um, was that like, don't try to be a jack of all trades, you know, go into specialization, like be really good at one thing. Uh, and if you become a jack of all trades, great. But like, don't set out to be the best at everything. Um, because at the end of the day, especially if you're like, uh, a solo engineer, like just like barking around for like gigs, like being a jack of all trades, I feel like makes you slightly less hireable, to be honest. Because a lot of times I feel like people aren't— sometimes people are looking for someone who can do everything, right? But then you're typically getting a person who can like do like 40% this, like knows 20% that, maybe 60% here. And a lot of times what makes you much more valuable at an organization is being the person who like really knows how to do everything on HubSpot. You're like the person who knows a lot about accessibility. You're the person who knows like how to like, you know, make any design come forth on, um, the front end. You know, you're the person who knows how to architect the best back-end API that you can make, you know, like really stepping into like a focus of being like a HubSpot developer and like what it is to do that. And like just kind of like, you know, now there's all these other like branches too, right? Like you can be like a front-end HubSpot engineer, you can— or developer, you can be, uh, uh, like building on the CR— the CRM and like building your cards and stuff like that. And you can build a whole business off of just like being that guy.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so I think that, yeah, really focusing, especially early on, I think that this is mostly advice for people just getting like into the scene or who've been around for a little bit but are looking for some traction, is just to like Pick something, even if it— like, even if you don't know that's the thing you want to do, right? Like, pick that thing and go with it. And eventually you'll be like, I hate this, I don't want to do that, or this is absolutely the right choice and I'm glad I made it. And you can always like make these little adjustments along the way.

Yeah.

But that at least is more direction than being like, There's React, there's Vue, there's Svelte, there's all these frameworks, there's accessibility, there's, you know, just being good at CSS, there's styling with Tailwind, there's just doing raw CSS. There's like all these different stacks. Like, what do I choose? Just pick one and like, go with it.

That's tough, man. I mean, like when you have the imposter syndrome already, like you just want to have familiarity. Like when someone comes into me in the coffee shop and says, You know how to write an SQL query. You know, it's like, uh, I will in 5 minutes because now I need to know, you know, just to keep up.

Being a jack of all trades is like a one-way path to burnout because you're going to spread yourself so thin that you're, you're not like, you're eventually going to get something from everything that you've learned come at you at once. And now you have to prioritize and you have to shift things and you have to like Set them all up, knock them all down. But like, that can just completely derail you.

Plus, you also want to avoid that pitfall too of like finding a place to work where they may be specifically— and again, it's not anyone's like fault, but they may be asking for that not knowing exactly what they need. So they kind of ask for that. Like, as I've seen ones and had interviews too where it's been like, well, we want you to do like X, Y, and Z. And I'm thinking, Okay. Yeah, no, no, the SEO part I get, but then the other 5 things, I'm like, you think one person's going to be able to do all this? Yeah.

Horribly.

Like, you know, at 20%, like you were saying, Vijay, like there's going to be this kind of like percentage that you can only reach when you're spread so thin. So yeah, that too is—

Sounds like a data analysis, uh, working on landing pages to me.

Right.

Yeah. Yeah. And the reality, like you guys are saying, is that like, you know, that's what ends up giving you so much stress, right? Is because you're like, I understand 20% of what this task is. And like, now I have to like really dive into like the nitty gritty on like how to maybe make this little thing happen that I just don't know that much about. And I think it's also liable to put you in a position where you are less of a team player, you know, in the world where you become like, you know, you'd say you do that for a while and then you get brought onto a team that has like a bunch of people on it. And like, you know, it's like HubSpot where we have like our little, like, you know, smaller teams that move quickly. Like, I very likely would have come up with some kind of like, you know, personality quirk that's like, oh, I'm what I refer to as a Stack Overflow developer where I'm like just gonna like shit on you for having any question. And I think that I'm like the best person in the world.

Hmm.

By the way, I think the best way, if you're ever gonna post on Stack Overflow, The best way to get someone to actually answer your question is to write your own question on there and then make another account and log in and answer it the wrong way. And that way people won't blast you for like asking a stupid question and they'll blast the person who was wrong about answering it wrong and you'll get the right answer faster.

There you go, friends.

That is such a great tip though, because I 100% believe that that is exactly what would happen.

Yeah. Yeah. I've been talking from experience on that one. I posted on Stack Overflow maybe like 2 or 3 times. And the first, the first few times it was like me asking a question and just getting railed for like, for like not asking the question the right way. And I'm like, I'm just starting. Like, Yeah, I don't know.

I didn't—

what?

I thought you guys were going to help me, but you're just berating me for asking a stupid question. And then the next time I asked the question, walked in and made a stupid answer. And then the stupid answer got blasted by someone who corrected the stupid answer. And I was like, wow, that seems to be a lot more efficient.

Flytraps.

Yeah.

Oh, that's brilliant. Yeah. Next time I go on there and I see somebody who just answers like reinstall Windows, I'm going to know. I think that's BJ doing that.

I know that.

I mean, his name is JB though, so I don't know, it could be. But no, it's amazing the lack of empathy that when you go outside the walls of HubSpot that exists, right? I mean, like, I shouldn't say I didn't, I wouldn't know that already, but like, you kind of, once you've, and I don't know, this is just me, but like, once I started working here, you know, the The less and less I needed to like there's there's I mean there's there's thousands of thousands of intelligent people that work here, so it's like going to Stack Overflow. Yeah, you still may need to do that. Like those type of things in certain aspects. But I mean there's a lot of intelligent people here that we deal with on a daily basis that we ask questions of when we have problems. And because this place is like very very empathetic, you start to almost have amnesia where you go outside of the thing and you're like wow everyone's. Everyone's just a prick. Wow, how does this work? You know, it's like, so yeah, that's one of those things too that always gets me. And I was one of those people, so it's not like I completely— yeah, that's one of the things that shocks me kind of when having to kind of like bounce in between like inside of HubSpot and outside of HubSpot. So, but no, that's a really good tip. Like, that's— I'm just like, I'm just thinking in my head like, well, I just want to go ask something now just so I can watch it and practice.

Yeah.

Yeah, I like to think that your mentor was your swing dance.

I think Dennis is cutting out again.

Swing dance.

Swing dance.

I think what you're saying was, was your mentor that, like, an instructor from?

No. No, I've heard that advice from multiple people. Like main, I think the latest person that I've gotten it from was my, the owner of Spin Group there. So that agency that I was working for.

That's Gary, right?

That's Gary.

Yeah.

Gary's cool.

Gary's really cool. Yeah.

Is, do you have a particular piece of advice that you would like if the roles were reversed and some, and you were giving someone like, some sort of advice. Is it along those same lines, or is there one in your head in particular that you're like, I need to make sure I tell people this? I know we've talked about a couple of them, but is there any one of them that you would say that that was the one thing that you would hope if somebody else were asked this question and they were like, oh yeah, BJ told me this, what, what would that— what do you think that would be?

I think that my advice for people would be very different depending on who's asking, but I think the, the generic advice that I have and this pseudo ties back into the like life theories that I have, um, would really just be like follow your excitement. Um, yeah, you know, do the things that are exciting for you. Um, do the things that, yeah, are exciting for you. And I think that everything else, like if you're honest with yourself about like what you're excited about and what you want, like, just really, yeah, what makes you happy, what's exciting, the rest of the things will work out. So like, I think it applies across the board, you know, so like, you're in, you know, programming because it's paying, it pays well. You know, that's one thing, but I think that you're at the end of the day going against the grain and you're gonna get burnt out.

Mm-hmm.

And you're probably not gonna be like happy. You might be happy for a bit because that money's gonna be nice, but eventually you're gonna run into some problems. And I think that if you're in, you know, software because you enjoy coding, Great. That's what you should be doing then. And I think that from there, you know, if you're trying to figure out what to do, it's literally just following your excitement. And if, again, if there's so many options that you don't know what to choose from, you know, the first option typically being frontend, backend, just pick one. Pick one and see if it's exciting to you. And if it's not, Then you know to go to the other one.

That's subordination. You just gotta go.

Yeah, and I think that that's just your really good framework for making decisions. You know, it's just like if you're at a crossroads and you don't know what the best thing to do is, it's at that point where you should stop trying to figure out what the best thing to do is and you should just pick something to do. And like that will be far more helpful. than trying to optimize your life.

Because you'll get, uh, you'll have that choice paralysis at some point because there'll be so many things you have to just kind of— I always, that always used to happen to me when I was designing stuff, whether it be for like websites and stuff. I would always, oh no, no, I can do it this way. Or no, this, I want to do this design. Or no, I'm going to redo this. This is better. This is bad. And it would be like, it would just never get done. Right. So it's just like, there's one of those things where you just kind of have to jump into it. And I kind of did the same thing, like, like you're saying with your advice. Is I was like, okay, well, what do I want to do? I really love this. I really love that. I really love SEO and I really love, well, maybe I'll just find something that does everything or that encompasses all of it. And it was just like, yeah, looking back, I was like, yeah, that was a dumb, dumb way of thinking about that. Just really bad, right? Because then that, like you were saying, that burnout that becomes almost inevitable at a certain point. So, but no, that is, that's just kind of, And I don't think people realize too how monumental that kind of advice is because everybody's, you know, when you're first starting out, no matter who you are, you know, you're always kind of this, I'm gonna turn this all on its ear and I'm gonna show everybody how this is done. I'm gonna like, I'm gonna rock this. And it's like all you end up doing is rocking yourself. There was this—

Yeah.

I'm gonna have to paraphrase it 'cause I can't remember the quote, but it was like, you know, people that like, you work constantly and you're trying to do all of these things and you're burning up all of this time and it's like, Nights, weekends, and all of this, like really, really focused on this particular, like either coding task or whatever, that will go away eventually. Like that will disappear and you will move on. The only people that was gonna remember that you burnt all of that time are your family, your friends, your loved ones, your kids. Like, so it's like one of those things where it's like you really have to, like, you have to narrow down the focus because you will like spin your wheels and spend all of that time.

Mm-hmm.

And yeah, you don't want to be one of those people that look back on it and be like, oh man, I wish I had those 5 years back. You know, it's so—

And I believe the quote you're looking for is, nobody's going to remember you were working late except your family and kids.

Yes, that is exactly.

Yes.

Thank you. Thank you. I like that quote. I really do.

It's a great quote.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I mean, and I think that one's focused on working hard, but like the same tactics apply when it's like trying to do too much at once because then you do have to spend that extra energy and time and it's like, You know, how many people actually succeed with that type of approach? Very little, if any. So, but no, I— DJ, that's like fantastic advice. It really is. I think we're gonna have a lot of YouTube Shorts where we're literally—

I'm just gonna make like a really cool intro trailer for like Thoughts of DJ and everything, and then just like, we'll just make excerpts of you.

But you're stealing.

Just as long as you do one of those blooper reels that's like one of us, it could be me just going, huh, Talking about the, like, the start of all the problems.

Yeah.

Anyway, I think the other thing that just came to mind, um, would be that if you're— and I think that a lot of people hear this, right? But if you're just getting started in, like, the developing space, um, be it on HubSpot or just in general, I think that the other piece of advice that I would give is like, just build stuff. Like building a lot of things and like, don't worry about it being built well. Like, I mean, if you're getting paid for it, make it as good as you can.

Mm-hmm.

But if you're just like learning, just try to build a bunch of stuff. You know, I think one of the things that I go back to is I built this tool before like the AI train started that was that I called Help Copilot. And it was to bridge the gap between, you know, when you're working in Design Manager, you see all of your fields in a drag-and-drop interface. And when you're working locally, you don't get that. So I built basically the same thing, but as a standalone app that you could install on your computer, program you could install on Windows. It was that drag-and-drop interface, and it like automatically synced and saved your files. If you're working locally, you just do it all. And the codebase for that thing is just a brick of nonsense. It is so ugly and I never want to look at it again.

But it was fantastic though. I remember you shared that with us and like, it was awesome. Like, it was a really good app.

It worked.

It worked.

It got the job done. But I think, like, just thinking back of, like, late nights trying to solve, like, problems that I would consider fairly simple right now, I did in the most complicated ways. So, but I mean, like, that's the progress of learning. And the reality is that, like, you know, you see a hole, you see a gap, and, like, you're like, I think I can build something that can fill that gap. And it might not be the best technical solution, but it will be something that you will use, that people will use, and you'll learn a lot from doing it. So just building things, seeing how they turn out, and then reflecting on those things, like, will do dividends for your growth.

Right.

Yeah, that's fantastic.

Well, we're gonna— we're running up on time just a little bit here. So I just want to thank you for coming on and talking with us, Abhijay. This has been like, it's been fantastic. And it's, it's good to hear, like, because honestly, we get a lot of journeys that are, they're very, um, as you put it, you said yours is very organic, right? And it was very like some of the ones we've had, like even mine, myself and others, you know, it's a little, you know, it's kind of all over the place, right? And neither is good or bad, but it's like, it's, it's It's nice to hear a journey like this where, which I'm sure a lot of people can relate to, if not a majority of, but like that kind of self-taught, because I'm a little bit of that. I'm kind of in the same boat with like some of the things that I've learned. So there's like a lot of respect there because it's not, it's not easy, right? Like the, it's hard. And let's put it this way. It's hard when you have, and at the time, like, I didn't know, like, I didn't even know the term imposter syndrome, right? Like when I first started working, but it's hard to have that. And then not have any outlet to even express that, even if it's a coworker or even if it's somebody in your field. Like when you're on an island by yourself, it is just that. It is very lonely. It is very like, and like you said, you've, you know, you post something on, let's say even Stack Overflow, there isn't a warm reception and a red carpet rolled out for you.

Do you know what I mean?

So it's like, Yeah. there's, I have utmost respect for you for the the journey that you've taken thus far and the way you've approached it because like it drowns a lot of people, you know what I mean? And it takes— there's a certain amount of strength that you have to have coming from that sort of relevant island that you're in to make that next leap forward. So I think that's just fantastic. It really is.

So. Yeah.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Thanks for having me. It's been a lot of fun.

No, I love it. And yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where I think it's important for people to hear. It really is. Because there's people out there, and then wherever you are in your, you know, developer journey, or even if it's relevant, you know, to developing, it doesn't have to be specifically like, I'm a coder. It could be, I'm, you know, a program manager, whatever it is. Hearing just different stories and different things like that, I feel like kind of helps people navigate. Because some people are in the middle of their story and they don't even know it, or they don't know how it's going to go or where it's going to go. But hearing how other people kind of overcome some of these things or just kind of, you know, paddle through the water to use a really bad, you know, journey analogy. But, um, yeah, we think it's, it's fantastic. And having you on has been fantastic as well. So I just, I wanted to say thank you. It's been really awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, and related to what you just said though, too, like if you're, and I'm sorry for keeping this going, but like, if you are like in the middle of your journey, I think the last little bit that I would like share is just like, don't get hyperfixated on the fact— don't get like hyperfocused on what you think your journey should be. You know, don't like think that like, oh, because I started, you know, you know, I started off with a job that was like doing data analytics stuff. You know, if I was gonna started out going to school for like accounting, if I were like accounting is the thing, you know, I would have just been stuck in this like hellscape of being like really sad, making a lot of money, but being very sad, you know, and being open to like the idea that where you think you're going is the happiest you can be. Like that's not true. Like your brain can't even conceive of the other options that could make you uncomfortable. conceivably more happy, right? Right. So I think from that standpoint, you just have to be willing to like really feel that like this is exciting. And if it's exciting, it'll take you to the place that you're supposed to be.

Oh yeah, absolutely agree. And John makes a really good point too, especially nowadays. He said accepting that life's going to change, right? And you're going to be so wildly different just years from now. So it's, uh, yeah. Yeah, it's— and plus too, like, with, with the way technology is advancing and with, with the tools that, you know, we not more than a couple years ago weren't there that are there now. Granted, like, like we talked about, like, some of these things, it's not just going to be as plug and play as we'd like it to be, but as a tool to help guide you instead of like the shortcut. Yeah, I think there's now more than ever. Um, I always tell AJ, this is kind of the At least for me at the age I'm at, this is the span of time that's just so unique coming from not having any of this, like straight up like Razr flip phone experience in that, right? To like now where we're talking about like, you know, putting in, you know, blocks of code to have it be rewritten more efficiently or in some cases written in general. Um, is a huge leap, right? I remember, because I remember when my first, my first job where I ever touched tech was just, um, it was at Eastern when, uh, I was there. I think you were still there with at the same time, AJ, but like it was in the web department and we're talking like this was tables. This was like web pages and tables where it was like copying and pasting cells back and forth to try to like edit the, the tech department's website or whatever for Eastern. So it was just like remembering that and like to where we're at now, as John puts, it's going to change wildly daily. Now, now it's on the daily. Then it was just like month over month, but like, yeah, it's just one of those things where that, and then some of the advice that you've given, like—

Just ask anybody who was an Adobe Flash developer.

What was it? Swift? What was it? The other thing, the Swift animation. Right. Remember that was like, uh, you could do— yeah, that was— I did that because I, I didn't grasp the Adobe one yet. So I was like, oh, well, Swift is a lot quicker and you can just do like, you know, it's like almost like not drag and drop, but it was easier. So I was like, oh yeah, I'll jump on that.

That's—

but yeah, no, absolutely. But again, I just want to say thank you for coming on. Um, uh, thank you, uh, AJ, for helping out. Uh, thank you, Dennis. Uh, he had to go, uh, sing backup, uh, vocals for Beyoncé, I think. He was on a hard deadline, so we had to stop. But that's okay. That's okay. Let me leave you with this little tidbit of information. English poet Alexander Pope, when once asked about GitHub, he did say, to err is human, but to green square, divine. I'll leave you with that. Then AJ, you can take us out.

See you later.