Ep. 15 - GarageBand Isn't Just a Garage Band with Branden Rogers | Developers:After Dark
This is a YouTube video titled "Ep. 15 - GarageBand Isn't Just a Garage Band with Branden Rogers | Developers:After Dark" featuring a podcast episode from the Developers After Dark series. The episode includes multiple hosts and a guest, Brandon Rogers, who discusses his background in technology, education, career path, and experiences working at HubSpot. The conversation covers topics such as learning programming, internships, career milestones, and the evolving nature of tech education. The tone is informal and conversational, typical of a podcast format.
Also, Developers After Dark. Is this. Are we supposed to be filming now? Is it supposed to listen when you.
Say words like that? It kind of like the magic's gone. Thanks.
The viewer count just dropped as it's gone now you just. You review.
Yeah, it feels a little disingenuous. That's all. There. Beautiful.
Fade in.
Beautiful. Music is better every time. Love it.
It does. I like. I mean, I. When I heard that track, I was like, that's. That's all we got to keep.
Very good.
Well, here we are, episode 15 of developers after Dark, the only podcast and website you will ever need. I know Dennis is. Dennis is always amazed. It's.
It's like you actually know what you're doing. You can.
My banner skills. Yeah, well, it's out of complete necessity because I don't want to look like I don't know what I'm doing, like, fully. Like, normally I don't what I'm doing, but to look at and not and show it at the same time, it's. It would be embarrassing. So. Yeah, no, I. I learned the banners in. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And plus, I'm representing you two, too, so if I sink, I'm going to pull you guys with me. Absolutely. And blame you as well. So I might.
It's okay.
We might as well try to do a good job. But. Yeah. No, here we are. Episode 15, Developers After Dark. Thank you everyone who watches and who is attending live today. Dennis, I do believe we are also streaming on YouTub this.
Yeah, we're on the YouTubes. You know, Brandon. Brandon's an important figure on. On the YouTubes. He's constantly in the top three to four videos played. As a matter of fact, if you don't mind, I want to just go ahead and throw this onto the screen if I can.
Yes, please.
Are you grabbing the thumbnail?
Oh, I certainly am.
I. That is one of the. The first times I ever was aware of Brandon's existence. It was. If this is the thumbnail I'm thinking of. This is. Yes.
I mean, this. This is when our YouTube channel start blowing up. This is. This is the gold right here. This is the gold.
You can look at the. You can look at the Google Analytics and it literally. It's just. The data was posted. It just went, like, up and to the right.
We have a limb and basically say all the viewership is due to the thumbnail. And that's nothing to do with the.
It's very true. No, that's very true. No. Yeah, that was. That was one of the first times I had ever seen. I. Because when I was talking with Dennis, when I went to go put a couple of videos up, I told him, I was like, we should do, you know, I'll find some funny pictures or something. I'll find something where he's like, he's like, yeah, you can try. But there's, there's one that you'll never, you know, not even knowing that it exists. He's like, there's one that you'll never beat. And as soon as I saw it, I'm just like, I mean, I'm ready for second place. That's fine. I'm absolutely ready for second place. So it's. But it was a fantastic. Before we get started, let me do a couple of. A little bit of housekeeping and pay a couple of bills for right now, if you haven't already. If you want to watch any back episodes or you want to watch any videos, especially the one that we just showed with the greatest thumbnail in the history of YouTube, you will of course need to go to the HubSpot developers at our YouTube channel and you can check all of that out as well as plenty of other episodes of this show and videos from Brooke, who's on our team as well, and Devrel and a lot of other things. Very educational. I learned a lot of stuff just getting when I first got to HubSpot, that was like the place I spend most of my time just trying to learn everything. And still, even to this day, there's still things that I still want to catch up on. So do yourself a favor if you haven't already and go check that out. If you want to know just what's happening in HubSpot in general, you should definitely check out the changelog. That is one of the things at HubSpot.com or developers.HubSpot.com changelog where you will find everything that you need to know about what's going on currently right now if you want, if you haven't caught this one already for our developer events, for our dhugs, you just missed, I believe Dennis, it was the AI in the future with Replit. That was one that just posted.
Replit just went on. And coming up next, SJ and team are taking over the developer hug and doing something sj, Hannah, Brooke and a couple of other people that I'm totally forgetting about and I apologize for that. But they're coming up and then followed by that is going to be 1 on the AI series again with Postman. They have a new Product coming out and we're going to talk all about that as well.
Right? That's the building careers and HubSpot development. Bridging the gap is that.
Nailed it. You got it.
Yep. There you go. See, look. Look who's actually paying attention. You know, I'm trying on this. I'm trying. And then last but not least, if you haven't already go to the academy.HubSpot.com to about just about everything. Right? So you've got inbound marketing, you've got SEO. Those are some of the ones I've taken the SEO one. I highly recommend it. But yeah, if you haven't already, go check that out. That even some of our friends, aj, remember we were talking with some of our friends online and they were asking about the academy and just had no idea that some of these things were like you could just go and do it. There wasn't like a barrier to entry. It's like you can actually like they thought you had to pay for most of this stuff and it was like, no, no, you can go to the academy. Like you can learn like right away. So it's one of those things where if you haven't already, check that out. And plus too little, little side tip, having these accreditations in the academy also show up. Like if you're a provider in the marketplace, you can get like for asset providers, for example. Right. Like the accreditations that you get are actually shown on your listing page for you as the provider. So you get. There is a, there's a bonus to some of these things too. Not just for people in the marketplace, but again outside the marketplace too. You also get to learn. So with that said, those are the bills and those are paid. I was looking back and I don't think there was any corrections that we had to make from the last episode. So that, that was really good.
I had to take AJ's stuff out pretty much all together.
So there's no edit out a lot of stuff. Yeah, they go along. For Brandon and those that are aware, we do every once in a while, like we have these little things where we like to call each other out. Like for examp example, the 800 pound elephant that I, that I mentioned. That is not even, not even a turn of phrase. But I, I think there was an Isaacs episode where it was like we had to mention something about the next episode because it was such a ridiculous statement that comes like a lot of things I say sometimes are a bit ill informed, I guess. So like being on YouTube for the first time this week. Let's see how long it takes for me to get banned. But, you know, nevertheless, we.
We do, like, watch the next one so I can. I can see you guys correcting everything I say in this one.
No, no, no, no. That's the thing. It's not that. To be clear, it is not. The guests. The guests. There's never anything like. It is the dumb stuff that I typically say and then aj, when it comes to, like, music and things like that. Of culture.
Got it.
Yeah, yeah. There's no. There's never really any. It's like that. We know the guests that we have on here are far more intellectually superior than we are. We're just.
We're just.
We're literally three dumb animals that are just having fun. So barely that.
Barely that.
Barely that. Yeah. But without further ado, let me. Brandon, why don't you introduce yourself, Tell everybody who you are and what you do.
Sure, yeah. I mean, first of all, thanks for having me on. I'm super excited. Dennis told me before we joined that this is the top rated podcast in the world.
Yeah, yeah. No lie.
So I feel pretty honored.
There's a little bit of an asterisk there. Like, it's the top rated podcast with a diabetic host in Illinois. In the world. Like. Like that would be. I mean, that's more accurate. But no, I think I get next.
But yeah. Anyways, yeah, I'm Brandon. I'm based out of Medford. I don't know who we have tuning in, but if you don't know the Boston area, that's Medford, right outside of Somerville, which is right outside of Cambridge, which is right outside of Boston. That makes sense.
Yeah.
Thanks.
That helped a lot.
Yeah. I work from home most of the time. If you couldn't tell, go into the office every now and then. I've got one nice little co worker here, Murphy, 4 years old. He doesn't do all that much, but he's nice to have around. I went to school actually here in Boston at Northeastern. Got my Bachelor's of computer science. There's. Born and raised in New Hampshire, pretty close to the Boston area, like southern New Hampshire. And for work at HubSpot, I am on the developer product group. We work on enabling people to build third party applications and install those into HubSpot. So specifically, I am a front end tech lead that owns the HubSpot CLI. And that is just the mechanism through which people can interact with the HubSpot developer products.
You say it so humbly. That's a big deal that changed my life, my friend. So thank you.
Wow, I feel honored.
Yeah, you should be.
That is awesome. Yeah, no, thank you for being here, Brandon. I really appreciate it. Let's kind of start. We'll go with origin story, right? Because everybody has that moment, right, that kind of, whether it's in their career or just in technology in general, or just in the space that they say that this is something I want to do in this, this could be a career. Like, what was one of, like the first things that sparked your interest in technology in general?
There's maybe a few moments for me. I mean, growing up, I was always interested in just building stuff. I said I grew up in New Hampshire, so building often meant, like physically building things like, you know, tree houses. Me and my brothers would build, like, I don't know, like, stupid weapons and things like that. So, like, I've always liked creating. Then also there's like the, you know, I got super into garageband, super into, like creating videos. And then it wasn't really. It had nothing to do with computer science up until probably high school, where I took my first Intro to HTML class. And that was kind of in like the MySpace days too, where, like, you could, you know, there's actually an application for HTML and like understanding css because then you could like actually style your pages. But yeah, I took that class and it was really, really basic. It was just like HTML, css, spin up something that's static. And I absolutely loved that. I love being able to just come up with something in my head and then be able to actually see the manifestation of whatever I built. And then that's something I can share with others, show to others. So that was kind of where it took off for actually considering computer science as a career. My dad actually is in this industry as well, so he's a web. He actually works on mostly like back end systems like cloud storage and things like that. But I saw what he was doing and I couldn't fathom at all what he was actually doing day to day. But I more just saw like how he was able to work. Like he could work from home, he could support the family that we had, which I was like, okay, at least it pays decently. Um, and then that was kind of like the thing that pushed me into pursuing it from like the college degree perspective. I didn't really have any. I don't know if I felt incredibly strongly that, like, oh, this is like my passion. Going into college, it was more of a, like, this is the thing that I'm the most interested in. And nothing else really resonates with me. But then actually in school, once I started seeing what CS actually is beyond just like HTML, that was when I really started to understand that I liked it a lot. I could start with there's more, there's.
More beyond HTML cs. I thought this stopped right there. That was it.
Now I know I'm so confused. At work all the time now. You said. I. I gotta, I gotta go back a little bit now. You said that you did music in a garage band as well. What kind of. What kind of music? And if you don't mind sharing it, like what was the name of the band? Because for me that's always like the creativity and band naming.
GarageBand.
I mean literally the GarageBand software, like working with your default.
Oh, I thought he's like, okay, all right.
Nick's experience with Mac applications is out.
Yeah, exactly. This is.
No, this is.
And hey, create my own music. Although I did Brandon lessons for a year.
Brandon, you did say you were going to watch next episode to see about something dumb. I said, just. Just doing that. Just doing that. So it was worth tuning in the next episode. Just so you know, this was all planned. Obviously in my notes I have this written down. So just so you know, like I'm making it worth it. See, this is why people can fix it.
Brandon, can we add some of your videos that you made in the past to the show notes?
This.
I'm sure you have them ready readily available, right?
Oh, I've got them right here. Yeah. No, to see this.
Oh, that's not true.
Very deep down in the depths of YouTube, make us a brand new like.
Theme Intro song with GarageBand if you really wanted to.
The intro is so high quality, you would hate what I put up. Also, developers After Dark. Is this. Are we supposed to be filming now? Is it supposed to.
When you say words like that, it kind of like, the magic's gone. Thanks.
The viewer count just dropped. It's gone now you just. You review.
Yeah, it feels a little disingenuous, that's all.
Filming Alaska.
You know, just like it's.
Five o' clock somewhere, anytime, somewhere.
So it is. I forgot it's a global podcast.
Where did.
When you signed the picnic, where did you get this quest? I. When you signed the contract, Brandon, you were not supposed to say certain things. And I. I mean, right off the bat. Here we go. It was actually, I think we just came up with it because we thought, we thought, yeah, there's no way they're going to let us do this during work hours. So then I think that was literally where that came about. So. But I mean, that's, you know, for those that are watching that don't work at HubSpot, that is one of the, like, things that you can't really deny about how great it is, is it's like you're able to. Not only are you able to do like meaningful work, but you're able to then branch out and actually like either learn new things or like that GarageBand isn't actually a garage band. Like there's things that you. That you learned. So it's like. Yeah, I think the name came about because I think we thought this was going to be something which would have. Actually, looking back on it a little bit, would have sucked because then we would. Had to have had people be like, hey, what you doing at like 9 o' clock at night on a Friday?
Probably busy lunch. Doesn't really have the same.
It's true, it's true. Nick, is this our first guest who's actually fully completed like you did you went to school for what you're doing now? Like, have we had a guest yet who's actually went to school for what they're doing?
No, no, you're actually. That's the first. Yeah, I. Wow. Slow. I will slow clap that one. That was good. And it's good too because, like, it. Yeah. I started to think that it was almost impossible because as a lot of the people that we talked to with it, like they started and some of them, like, maybe the paths were similar. Right. Or there had some sort of like similarities or some sort of things in common. But yeah, a lot of the times it was like, yeah, I didn't expect myself to be here versus, you know, previous. Right. But I do, I do like the fact too, like our dad as well was a programmer for the. For like Cook county for here in Illinois. And yeah, it was that same thing too where we saw some of the stuff he was doing. It was like Dawes too. So it wasn't like nothing, you know, but still you'd see that and it was just kind of like one. It's, you know, it's, you know, it's a parent or it's somebody that you, you know, look up to and respect and it's like, well, what is. You know what I mean? The awe to it was. It was amazing. Right? And it kind of. While I didn't go to school for that, it kind of. I do. I was drawn back to that. So I can appreciate that, like tremendously. So that is very, very cool. So with respect to the field that you're in now, how did you, how did you get started in particular?
Like specifically my role here. Yeah, yeah. So going through school, one of the first things that I did when I got into college was they gave a presentation and they said, hey, if you want to PIV your major, we offer these things called dual majors. So on the spot in that meeting I, I switched my major from just CS to CS slash business with a focus in marketing. And that's relevant because that fit super, super well with what HubSpot does.
Interesting.
So that was like, I was like, oh, that is like the, the company that I have to work at. Yeah, yeah, it worked out really nicely. Also, I had a few roommates actually at the time. There was I think five of us living together and at one period in time, four of us were all doing internships at HubSpot at the same time. And I had like, they had done an internship the year before. I even knew about HubSpot and I just heard through word of mouth, through them how great it was and they would hype it up every single day to the point of I was getting sick of listening to them talk about it, but it sounded awesome. They're like, this place is like the greatest place you could ever work. So I shot really hard for that, for my next co op, which was my last co op at Northeastern. And from there I got the full time position, ended up on the team that owned the CMS drag and drop page editor. That was kind of where we were working on the WYSIWYG editor, where you can click anywhere, drag anywhere, just bringing the page editor to a modern, modern functionality. And from there I've kind of just like that was very like marketer focused in terms of the Persona that we're solving for. And ever since then I would say my journey at HubSpot has just been getting closer and closer and closer and closer to the developer Persona where I feel like now I'm in the developer product group. I feel like this is like my, the final destination of as close as I can possibly get to solving for that Persona. Good.
That's it. So you're done. You just stop there like you, you've solved it. Well done, man.
I mean, I think we can all close up shop. I'm pretty sure we're good now. But I know you mentioned, you mentioned internship at the very, very beginning. Was there, was there something that surprised you about like when you first Got into like, let's say that that internship was like the start of the career right at that point. Was there, was there anything that, about that time that kind of surprised you more than anything else?
Yeah, a few things. I would say probably the biggest thing that surprised me when I made the transfer from just like academia into actually applying the. What I had learned in a work setting was the fact that I wasn't. Maybe this will sound silly, but the fact that I wasn't expected to know everything and how much learning actually happens in the workplace environment. Coming out of school and going into the first job, I hadn't done a lot of work on any sort of real applications. All the classes are very focused on algorithms and understanding the inner workings of software development rather than, oh, here's how you would actually piece all those puzzles, piece all those pieces together to build the broader picture. So I was really anxious going into the first job where I actually had to like build software. And I thought I was just going to be like way out of my league. But turns out the, honestly the most valuable thing I got out of school wasn't necessarily the language specific knowledge that I got. It was more just the skills and the know how of how to teach myself to, to learn certain things and like hit a wall and then understand how to like self service and get over it. Of like, oh, I've never seen this pattern before. I've never used this language before. I've never tried to build, you know, X, Y, Z features before. And then just understanding that in the workplace is where like the majority of the actual learning happens.
Yeah.
And that's like really eye opening for me.
I think that's a great point because that's, I think a lot of people don't realize that going out of school, like they go in and they're like, oh man, they're going to expect me to day one. And like that's a lot of pressure that people put on themselves to do that. So I think you pretty much like, I know that was the same for me. Like I went in and I was like, oh man, I don't understand like half of these things and whatever. And I remember very vividly it was one of my good friends Rob, he was like, dude, just sit down, take a breath. Like stop. You are seriously pushing yourself way too much. Just take a breath, think about it kind of thing. So yeah, I think that that's, that's. So let me ask you this question then. Would you, if you had the choice to go back because now there's like the boot camps that people do, right, where they learn and they code and they kind of build a project as they go. Would you, if you could go back, would you continue and say like, no, I would still go the school fundamental route or I would probably do a boot camp. Like in your opinion, which one do you think would help somebody more in.
Their future career path? That's a good question. I think it largely depends on circumstance like school. If you're going to take a four year college, the cost and time cost of that is significantly more. I do think that going through the four year program gave me a deeper understanding of some of the foundational things. So maybe not necessarily building applications, but understanding run times and I had to do some projects in assembly. So getting a base level understanding of some of the low level stuff I think has been semi helpful. I don't know that I would say that it helps me like every single day. But there are definitely, you know, when you're going through like systems design type problems and you're trying to scope out the features from like the ground up, it's sometimes useful to have some of that background knowledge. But I don't know. My brother and his actually they're getting married. This. His, his fiance, they're getting married next week. Yeah, I'm excited for it. I have this suit. As soon as Dennis told me this was the, the biggest podcast in the world, I was like, oh, maybe I should put the suit on. And yet you didn't.
And yet you didn't.
I had a whole bunch of ideas for this that I never executed on. I also wanted to get like a bunch of cups that I just randomly drank from to see if anybody picked up on that. No, but anyways, they both went through the boot camps and they're both fully employed now and they're both killing it. So if I had to do it again, especially if you're factoring in cost, I might try the boot camp first. And then if it feels like I still don't have the tool belt that I need after that, then maybe start looking into the more expensive and longer term one.
Do you think your answers say the same now with, I mean this present generation, like you took HTML in high school. Is that what's happening now in high school?
Is there like it's way more advanced than that now?
Yeah.
Right.
I mean, so like, would that change how you would go about it? Perhaps if you're doing a lot of in high school. I mean, I, I think college is very important not only for the Educational aspect, but for the socialization, for the actual. Just growing your mind, generally speaking. Right. But I might do. I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know. I think you have to know yourself too because like me coming out of high school, I was so freaking lazy. And like, I think I actually needed the college environment, otherwise I wouldn't have learned anything. Like, I had. I tried to coast as hard as I could and then college kind of like knocked me on my ass a little bit. And then, oh, shoot, I actually have to try here in order to get things done. And that was like a wake up call for me. So I think, I don't think I would have succeeded if I had gone the boot camp.
Like, I hear you there. Yeah, I'm the same way. We, we actually have photographic evidence of AJ being set on fire in college, so. Oh, jury's out. Jury's out.
You had. I thought you're going to pull it up. I was like, if you have it, this is. Oh, God.
Stories.
No, this is the time I was going to say if you haven't. But no, that's. Yeah, it's completely understandable too because like, at the same time he didn't like my. I think my first year in, like, I had that same thing where I was like going, going to college, not like pretty much knock sense into me. Like, yeah, this isn't gonna be one of those things that you're just gonna be able to like just glide through. Because it was like, I was like, oh yeah, I'm gonna take oceanography. And I was like, I had no intention of like doing anything. Like, it's just like, I just gotta fill a class here and there. I really didn't treat it like it was an educational experience that I could draw from, you know, as I went on. So. But going there shortly after that, yeah, it really, it really kicked me into gear. But I think it would have been nice to have those type of like boot camp options and things of that, like starting out, because I definitely would have tried those first. I mean, I've got, I've got an 11 year old who's. They're teaching them to use chat GTP right now to help improve their writing skills. Right. So it's like, this is not going to be the same. Do you know what I mean? Like where it was like, like we were talking about. I mean, I think you took the same class as me too, just at different times. The Intro to, the Intro to Web Code. I don't even know what it was called, but it was just like they didn't teach CSS yet at that time because it hadn't picked up yet. Yeah. So I mean like it's going to be a lot different when my 11 year old is already doing chat GTP to help her write better.
So.
But no, that's, I couldn't agree with that more, 100%.
So yeah, she'll be a better software dev than all of us in like a couple years.
Yeah, I was like the next generation is absolutely going to be so. And I mean like there's, and again there's like it's a double sided or double edged sword at that point too because it's like they'll be so embedded in tech and then at the same time it's like go ride your butt and then just I don't want to ride my bike, I want to play Fortnite. So it's like I have to argue with my youngest about like no, go do something like touch grass. You cannot do Fortnite all day. So it's, yeah, it has this kind of like balancing act that you try to do. But I think if you can tackle that problem with the balancing act, I think you're going to have like a much, much more informed and there'll be more options for like the next group coming, you know, going through that.
So like I'm excited for 20 years from now to see what tech is going to be like, especially with all of this because like as somebody just said on YouTube, like their friend's 7 year old is getting taught Python. My kids just put together, they're in third grade, they put together like Google Slide decks because they had their open house at the school last night and we go there and they're like giving us presentations of like all about themselves. And I was like, this is good, like meme heavy for sure. And it was awesome. But I'm like, I think I may just have my kids do my next like internal like Google project that we're going to present. Like I'm just going to have them.
Do it and present it that way.
Because I think it's just hilarious that.
They want to learn more like that.
Plus no one's going to argue with a kid that's given a presentation even if it's like the statistics are wrong.
And then be like, yeah, you can't argue with it. Tell them they're wrong, go ahead.
Who's going to call them out and say yo, that ROI. Yeah, nice try.
AJ's child crying. Y is so optimistic. In 20 years like, what are we doing? Like, what is. AI is taking over, and we're just going to.
It'll work.
They've got. I was gonna say I've got Golf plus on the Oculus or the Quest now. That's. That's all you really need at this point. Rest of it, smooth sailing.
It's gonna be ready, player one.
We're all just gonna be sitting in rooms and, like, world.
Yeah.
That's such a good movie. But it's scary at the same time how close we could be to that being a reality.
That's.
Yeah.
Then your kids will be outside and touch grass.
Yeah, right.
Oh, absolutely.
It's moving. But if we remember back when Facebook first launched their, like, VR thing where, like, there were no legs to people. There were no.
Like, it's moving, it's moving, but floating bodies.
Just. Let's go to. I want to shift a little bit to some milestones and pivotal moments for you so far in your career. Can you talk a little bit about those?
Yeah.
I mean, aside from being on the podcast. I mean, that's obviously well done.
Well, yeah, we all know that goes without saying.
Paper shuffle to make it seem like he had notes.
I do. No, I do. You know what? No, Dennis knows. Dennis knows that I printed out notes. See, Brandon, there's been a. There's been a. There's been a transition throughout that. It's only been 15 episodes, but we've. We started out a little fast and loose. We've tightened things up a little bit. And I print notes. I don't have silly quizzes at the end, which I thought were fun, but they took up a lot of time. So there's things we've. We're sparing you from some of the.
Quizzes that you're lazy.
No, no, it's not because I'm lazy. It took up a lot of time, like. And meaning it took like. Okay, there was a. There was a thing where it was like, hey, this can't run two hours because no one's gonna tune in that long. And it was like.
And the fact brawl from 1994 to 1996.
That was in one instance. That was in one. Brandon, if you ever have a chance, there's an episode with Brie hall, and I completely. I made a quiz that was completely irrelevant because the movie quiz was nothing that the guests had even. Even seen. And it was just like, yeah, I. I feel so bad.
Bree's like, I wasn't born yet. Like, some of these. And it's like, yeah, right.
And so it was. Yeah. So there. But there was a. There was. There was honor in the attempt. But. Yeah. So those things get kind of tossed to the wayside. But not to die, not to divert the conversation. Sorry. Milestones and pivotal moments. Yeah, I'll have to.
I'll have to go back and watch the lore of the origins of this podcast. Yeah. For milestones, I would say the first real big one I had actually happened in college during my first internship. So I was CS degree. And if anybody's not familiar with North Northeastern, they do the co op program where you are. You do like a alternating class versus six month or however long it was internship cycle. So you're kind of like. It was nice for me because I don't know if I would have been proactive enough to go off and find my own internship. So it's really nice to have somebody being like, you have to find one other else, otherwise you're in trouble. But for me, I had a really hard time landing my first internship, and I actually couldn't get one that was in the industry that I wanted. Well, in the industry, but not the role that I wanted. So my first one, I was doing QA at a company called pht. I think they might have rebranded, and I don't know if they're still around now, but their whole thing was that they built medical survey software where people could. Who are testing drugs could go and fill out questionnaires each day just so that the company could then, like, verify that it was doing what it was supposed to be doing and they could get whatever. I wasn't testing the drugs. I was testing the. But yeah, it was a QA role and I hated it so much. The company had, like, cubicles, so I was by myself all day, just, like locked in a literal and metaphorical box. Or the tall ones, they were pretty tall. You couldn't see over. You had to, like, stand up and get out of it to go, yeah, that's too much. Felt like a prison.
I do have to push back on a little bit of something that you had you'd written down because for. Just for transparency for everybody. We do in this iteration that we have, I do have a questionnaire that people. You do mention that I had to settle for a QA role now as somebody that personally works in ecosystem quality, where they have to qa, you know, I don't know offerings in the marketplace. What you mean by had to settle. Just throw that out there. I'm just curious.
I don't know what you're talking about that must have been somebody else's doc that you got confused.
I mean, my highlighter is smearing stuff. When I was. It could have just been me because that's how the garageband thing got messed up. I believe it was just a highlighter.
But there a problem there?
Thought I'd ask. I just thought I'd ask. That's the one I share.
Sorry. No, no shade to qa. Incredibly important. But for me, when I wanted to be building something, it stunk that I had to just be like testing in and day out. And also that industry was just so boring to me of like going through these forms and then checking to see if the form was doing what it was supposed to be doing, just day over day over day over day. So, like the pivotal moment there for me was realizing that I had kind of just been coasting through college up until that point. Like my GPA wasn't anything special. It wasn't like, you know, failing classes or anything. But I just wasn't putting my best effort out. And it really showed in the, in the co op that I landed. So I kind of like tried to flip the switch and be like, okay, I am trying now because I really never want to be disappointed by the internship that I get. And it also didn't help that like all of my close friends in college who also were in the same degree got like way better co ops, like better paying. They were software dev. They were learning so much. They would come home every day, like so excited. But what they had learned, they're like, so happy for you. Great.
By the way, the floors worked fine today.
Anyways. It was kind of like the kick in the butt that I needed, I think. So I just spent. I would do my work that I had so easily there because they weren't really expecting all that much from me. And then I had a bunch of free time and nobody was looking over me because I was literally in a box where nobody could see. I just spent a ton of time just learning other, like, programming languages. The thing that was interesting to me at the time was making games. So I kind of used that as the mechanism through which I was learning things. I think I tried to pick up Python and built something there. I learned C and made a game there. But I wouldn't say that I actually learned it because my memory management was so bad that if you played it for more than five minutes, it would just crash.
Because I was going to ask, can I get it on Steam? Because I will check it out if.
You give me 20 bucks. I'll email it to you. Yeah, so. So that was really helpful, and I feel like that was a good way for me to kind of, like, catch up to the pack and at least not feel like I was, like, so far behind in everything because they were getting all that, like, real life work experience, and I was just, like, you know, plugging away through forms. So I think that was very pivotal for me. I also had another. I would say, like, another milestone here is at work actually kind of related to that concept of, like, how much learning do you do in school versus, like, how much learning do you do in the actual professional setting. I had this mindset of when I. When I first started for, like, maybe the first year or so, that whenever I was given a task that I should just, like, like, put horse blinders on and just, like, beeline it through that task and just produce the result as quickly as I possibly could. And my speed was really high. And I was like, okay, that's the only thing that matters is just that I'm producing code so quickly, and it's impressing people that I can do it so fast. But then what I wasn't doing was taking the time to actually look around and understand the areas of the product that I was working in. So I would. I would, like, finish these products or these features or whatever I was doing, and I would do them quickly. So I would, like, get some praise for it. But then at the end of it, I would have no idea. Like, I wouldn't know anything else about that system. I would just know the very specific lines of code that I had written. And if you asked me a question about, like, well, how does, like, this other piece in the system work? I would have no answer for you. I would have to, like, go back in and look at it as if I had, like, never done it before.
That's a huge shift from, like, what you do now, right? I mean, you have to have giant scope of what's happening with the CLI and what's going on, where things are coming from. That's so huge.
Yeah, that was like. The real shift for me is, like. I think I've heard it described as, like, speed versus momentum, where speed is just building features really, really fast. But then, like, every single time you're back in that system, you're, like, starting from scratch. You haven't increased your momentum, you've just increased. Like, your speed is high, but, like, momentum is, like, you're building these things, but as you're building it, you're also taking the time to learn so that the next time you build it, you get, like, the head start, and then you can move faster. And you can move faster as, you know more and more and more. It just expands your ability to build things quickly. So that was kind of like the shift for me there.
That was a huge one. That stood out to me, And I actually. A.J. whatever you say, regardless of it, I do actually take notes and highlight. I did. Momentum is more important than pure speed. Like, that was something that, when I saw that, I was just like, it literally rings true on so many different levels. And it's like, that's a mindset that you know, because, like, when you first, like, people can easily fall into the trap. Like, when you first start out doing something, whether that's a job or a task or whatever, is just like, I just want to get through this. I just want to get to the other end and then onto the next thing without really understanding, like, the impactfulness of the work that they're doing. Right. And people should. Right. Because they're doing. Like, people here, especially at Hubson, are doing really great work, and you would hate for that to get overlooked, especially by the person doing it, because they're more worried about, like, getting to the next thing versus how that's going to integrate into other things. So, yeah, I thought. That's why I highlighted that. I thought that was just, like, it's hugely impactful. I just think, personally, so.
No, no. I mean, I've said this, like, several podcasts so far, like, where when I was on at an agency, I just was getting the website done. I made it pretty and I got it done, and I didn't really think about how this is actually connecting to anything else. It's a website, you know, I'm done. And once I moved on to here, I realized, oh, my God, I missed out on so much potential that I could have done with it and connected it better to the actual CRM itself that I feel sad.
Yeah, absolutely. You're doing, like, yourself a disservice.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think it's also, like, a delicate balance, too.
Right.
Because you can do the MVP building, but if you go the opposite end of the spectrum, which is usually. Usually what I do is, like, I go full in, and all of a sudden my mind just starts. And Dennis can. You know, we'll start with an idea, and all of a sudden, I'm like, five years down the line. Here's what we need to do. Here's everything. And it's like, peel it back. Like, Right. And like that's one of the things that I have to learn about because even our boss Chris tells me all the time, he's like, hey, you don't need to go to the end with this. Like let's, let's iterate, let's do whatever. So like I'm, I'm in that opposite boat where like I over plan and I like have everything laid out and then it's like now I've kind of put like a wall up around it and it's like great. I only operate within these parameters and do whatever. So like I've been myself trying to be more of the let's start like go like halfway, don't go 30 years down the line.
Definitely halfway. And I like that. Now I was going to ask you, is there, was there any. Obviously, you know, becoming a TL as well is one of those things that's kind of like, you know, it's a, it's a milestone, it's a pivotal moment. Were there any things that going from the position to a team lead was made it difficult or you had to like kind of change the way. Because I remember Dennis, I can't remember who we were talking with previously where they said that their mindset kind of had a change. Like making that transition was. Did you have any similar things like that, Brandon, with yourself or you had to kind of start to change the way you thought about things?
Oh yeah, yeah. I would say big time. There is a few things. I mean one of the most obvious ones is just your impact changes from being pure code output and what you can produce with code to now a team level output. So it's not necessarily about the code that you're individually producing, but it's also about what is the impact that the broader team has. But then also what, what are the career trajectories of the people on your team? And there's just like so many other things that you need to start worrying about and you'll go weeks where you're not necessarily writing any code or maybe not that much code. And when you're like fresh from IC into TL role, that's something that at least I was really insecure about because I would go a little while and all I had to show for myself at the end of the week was like a couple conversations and some Google Docs and I was like, oh, it does not feel like I did anything.
Yeah, I hear you there. I hear you.
Yeah. So that was really, really hard to get used to and honestly still is sometimes. HubSpot always says that the tech lead role should be coding. On average, your work should be split between coding and or like active code contributions and managerial tasks. I think they say like 70% to 30% towards coding and I feel like I often skew closer to more to like, I don't know, sometimes like 50, 50 or even less on the like coding side. So that's something that I'm actively trying to just like push on to make sure that I'm, I'm being a little bit more selfish in some cases and making sure that like I'm taking the time to contribute code and PR reviews and like from the technical perspective. But that's something that's really hard to adjust to.
It's not a delicate balance, right? I mean maybe some months it actually makes more sense for you to be 30% code and 7% lead. It shifts all the time, I imagine.
Oh yeah, 100%. It definitely ebbs and flows, especially when you're in planning season or if you're in the very early stages of any sort of new product. Yeah, you're going to be in more meetings, you're going to be talking about more project planning things and system design and all that type of thing and scoping out issues and collaborating with other teams. So yeah, absolutely. And then once you actually get everything on paper and as issues and people are starting to agree to some of the initial passes of things, then you can actually go a little bit more heads down. But yeah, that was probably the hardest thing for me to get used to. Also just the meeting load, which I didn't. I guess like everybody warns you when you're going from an IC to a TL that it's going to be more meetings. And you know, as an ic, you're kind of like, yeah, yeah, whatever that sounds fine, I'll just handle it. But it really was a big shift even just from a like energy perspective. Like I just wasn't used to being in meetings that often and I like lean towards introvert. So for me like being in social settings, I love it and I like talking to people, but it drains me. I would get out of meetings all day and then sit down. It's like, okay, now's the time where I can be productive, but I just wouldn't have the energy to do anything. And then I felt really guilty because I'm like, there's nothing else that I have going on. Why am I not right?
Right. Seriously, I'm meetings all day long. Why can I not just, you know, do something now? Yeah, I hear you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I feel like that was kind of also around the time where Covid hit and then we all started working from home more often. And I hadn't really worked from home for like any, you know, consistent amount of time. So that was like such a hard transition for me. It's just like the guilt of being home, it being the work day, but then just not having any energy to like, actually sit down and be productive. Which, like, if you think about it, when you're in the office, like, you'll grab coffee breaks, you'll take like lunches where you're chatting with people, but like, for some reason when you're home alone and there's nobody else, like at work who's chatting with you, you just feel more guilty that you're not doing anything.
Yeah. When you're inspiring, when your co worker behind you is doing that all day long. I mean, I know. What are you gonna do?
Yeah. Well, just wait till he gets his year end review.
That's right. Seriously, how did it, how was the transition like, when you became a lead to be able to think about, you know, your, your staff, like you said, they're, you know, the career trajectory and whatnot. Like, how was that for you in terms of like, you know, the, the teaching aspect of it, the code reviews, all that good stuff.
Yeah, that, that one's, that's one that's been very interesting. I think at HubSpot, one thing that's nice is that even as individual contributors, you can kind of fill in that, that like, mentorship role a little bit because, like, we all review each other's PRs, so there's that opportunity. A lot of like, the more senior devs on teams will kind of like stand in as mentors for some of like the, the slightly greener devs, so you get some of that experience even before you get like put into the TL role where it's like more explicitly your job to do it. So that transition was a little bit easier for me. The thing that's difficult to overcome is this idea of, at HubSpot, we call it like gardening versus gatekeeping. Of like, how much do you pre plan out work and scope issues and reduce ambiguity for devs versus how much do you like, let that ambiguity exist and kind of like challenge them to grow? Like, throw problems at them that are going to push their abilities and finding exactly where that spot is. And for me, I think sometimes I tend to lean more on the pre scoping things out. It's kind of hard for Me to just stand back and say, I'm going to challenge you and it is possible that you'll fail here. And that's okay. You know that that's just like a learning opportunity. I'm always mindset of, like when things become overwhelming and it feels like we have a lot to do, I just will take on a lot of the burden instead of like delegating and then trying to spread the work out. So that was something that like, and honestly still is to some extent something that I'm trying to get better and better at is like the just like let go and let people do the work because they're all capable and they can do it. And it also gives them the opportunity to show those wins. Right. Like they do. Then that's like a growing opportunity and looks great for them and then, you know, and also the team.
So do you push people hard? Like on, you know, this person can do X better, but it's hard for them. Do you push them to really try to get better at that?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I try to. We do like week or we do bi weekly one on ones now. And in those, we always try to with, you know, sometimes I. I'm not as good at this as I should be. But the goal in the one on ones is to be talking about career trajectory in, you know, everyone ideally, but, you know, at least, you know, at a fairly regular cadence. And in those is where you have the opportunity to say, like, okay, here's like the next. Whatever role or accolade or whatever that you're trying to shoot for that's going to progress your career. And here are the pieces of that that you could be focusing on to make sure that you can kind of showcase your ability to do whatever it is without getting specifics there, but try to just projects that you can give to people where they have the ability to finish the project, which always looks good. But then also check other boxes along the way. Oh, can you collaborate with other teams? Oh, can you mentor this other person? Can you like, do these other things that then we could kind of like check off and give experience there too.
And bi weekly, you mean every other week, I'm assuming. Because if you're doing this twice a week, I can give you some advice on clearing up some of those meetings. You know, might be a little bricky there.
Yeah, yeah.
Every other good advice, Dennis.
You're welcome. I think I just did my part.
I don't have a notebook. Let me write this down.
Way to bring that. Bring the quality up on that One, Dennis, I appreciate that. Thank you. Well, let's. Let's change gears a little bit, and let's talk about real life. Let's talk about outside of work. Let's talk about. You said there's. And rightfully so, right? There's a. There's. Sometimes things can get a little bit stressful, a little bit overwhelming. Right. With. Depending on, you know, what time of year it is and whether you're planning or trying to meet a deadline and things like that. What type of things do you try to do? And again, we always have the disclaimer that you can never. Most things. You can never get away from tech. Like, non. Like. Like, if I were to ask you, like, tell me something non. Techie. Yeah, that's really hard to do, but as least techie as possible. What are, like, some of the things that you like to try to do, to unwind?
Sure.
Yeah.
I would say my. My absolute biggest hobby that I think all of you know is golf. I got into golf over Covid, and I got obsessed with it. Like, obsessed to the point where, like, my wife would get annoyed with me talking about it. I was, like, watching YouTube videos. I was playing it nonstop. I was going to the Driving ra.
I was like, the Masters. Isn't that. I think that's coming up in a couple weeks, isn't it?
I think you're right.
Yeah. And then I think.
I don't actually.
Yeah, I think. Yeah. No, I think the Masters comes up in a couple weeks. And then I thought. Because I remember they had. They had it here. I can't remember which golf course. But not a couple of years back. Not too long ago.
No, that's not. That. Wasn't the Masters always in Augusta?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Maybe it was the US Open.
It was. I went to it. Yeah.
Oh, nice. That's awesome. Yeah. Was Cocktail Asia, Is that what you're saying? Right?
I think it was Coggo.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right. That's where I got married, actually. How funny. But, yeah, no, that's. That's probably one of the thing. One of the. One of the one sports that I watch that I cannot do for anything. Like, not. Not like, I'm like, you can try things, like, you could throw a football. You could do it, like, hit a. Hitting the golf. I can. I just can't do it. I'm like, I am so horrible at it that, like, I said, I had to buy it Golf plus for the. For the Quest 3. And that is about as close as I get to looking like I Know what I'm doing? Yeah, well, yeah, of course then, because you could just like, honestly, the sensor on that thing, you could just go like this and you're like, ah, 220something.
Yards drive, no problem on the table.
Knocks things over, right? Yeah, yeah. How did you like, was it. Was that something that. Did it take you a while to get used to doing, like just getting into golf? Because like, I feel like that's got to be one of those ones where it's like, you could get used to get into ping pong pretty quickly, you know, where it's like golf, maybe not so much.
Yeah, it's like the great equalizer. Everybody sucks at golf when they start. And a lot of people suck at golf even after they start. Yeah, yeah, that one was tough. That was one where I didn't have. I was kind of like looking for some hobby to kind of just like jump into. That's always how I am. Like, anytime I find a new thing that I'm interested in, I'm gonna do it like 110 until my wife, friends, family, everybody are just sick of me for like talking about it. So I was kind of like in the market for a new thing. And during COVID my friends were like, hey, you gotta try golf. Golf. And it actually wasn't the first time I'd ever played. My dad golfs also, and when I was little, he tried to get me into it, but I just did not have the like, mental fortitude to handle it. I have like some like scarred memories of like hitting it into the water and just absolutely losing it. That was a no go when I was young. But then in Covid, I picked it back up and I stunk at it. But I was almost like excited that I stunk at it because I was like, oh, great, now this is going to be like the greatest arc where like I go from shot so bad to just like practice it non stop. And then so I was like, I.
Don'T know that I had like one.
Thing to just commit all of my time and energy to.
Is there any footage of you, like, you know, doing your thing? Like a documentary of your.
I know I should have. I should have filmed it and then we could have had such a cool.
You could have got a garage band, made a nice soundtrack.
I mean, but you should. I mean, you can't expect nothing less. Like, if you do have that mentality where like, when you go into something, you do like, I do the same thing. Archery, like, you know, was one of the things where I was like, Tried it for the first time, and I was like. By the. By the end of the first lesson, I was like, which one? Which bow am I buying? Which. The guy's like, this is your first lesson. We're not letting you walk out of here with anything. Like, you need to make sure. Like.
But that's.
That kind of lends to that. I. I'm excited about not being good at it, because I'm gonna push, and I'm going to be. I'm gonna be up there, like, yeah, I feel like that's usually be good.
I don't want you to be good at archery, man. This. Don't.
I think it's fun. I mean, personally, I. I think it's fun. No, but it's that mentality, right? That's what gets you that drive, essentially, no pun intended with golf. But see what I did there?
That's why this is the best podcast in the world.
See all of them.
There you go.
I have a scar right here from being hit with a number three.
Wood.
Yeah. Like a driver. When I was probably, like, nine by my cousin, we were practicing. I lived on a farm, so we just, like, hit balls out into the field, and I was teaching him how to do it. Stood too close, and then it was backswing. Just, like, smash. My lip went open. Fun fact.
Well, good thing you got that beard.
Now. You can't even notice. That's why it's there.
That's why it's there.
That I sound all right. That is a rough.
So do you still golf, Dennis, then?
I really enjoy golfing. I do, but I haven't golfed in many years. I'm not sure really, why. Just. I haven't. When I go home, like, we'll still drive into the field. You can go out to our. You know, one of our fields. You'll see, like, golf balls all over the place, but it's awesome.
I just imagine Dennis getting in trouble when he's younger, being like, go, clean the field.
Go.
Yeah, right.
Seriously, he's that guy in the. He's that guy in the little. Yeah. Drives the cart with the buggy in the back. That picks them all up, and you aim at him. That's the. Now what? I'm just suggesting a Devrel. Outing hiccup balls at Dennis while he's out there. That's. I mean, that could be a fun. That could be a fun thing to do.
I'm just saying, like, I. I don't think so. I also.
You wear hockey, like, head to toe, Dennis. I'm just Trying to do team building here. I mean, if you want to be negative about it, that's fine. I just. Just throwing it out there. You're right. You're right.
Right.
I know I usually am. I usually am. Except for, you know, 800 pound elephants and things like that. So it's. It's. Yeah, but usually I'm right. You also mentioned too, I wanted to ask you, like you do for unwinding, not just coding, like trying to code video games, but is gaming one of those things that you kind of do to unwind as well?
Yeah, off and on. I haven't played in a little while, but yeah, I was a big, big, big into video games in college and right after. And now I. I like go through phases, depending on if games are out that I'm interested in. I used to play a lot of first person shooters, like Apex and Over. Well, Overwatch. Not first person, but like, you know, competitive shooters.
Right.
But then I stopped for long enough that now it is like too hard for me to get back into those. And whenever I try to play them, I just get absolutely annihilated by people that are like a third my age. And it's extremely frustrating.
Wait, wait, wait, wait. The same thing with golf right now. You seem to build a New York.
Wow. Okay. Wow.
I should be motivated by that. If anything, I guess it's.
Yeah, me and AJ can attest to that where it's the. Nothing beats getting like shit Talked by like 6 year olds, you know? And while you're getting destroyed in Call of Duty, it's like devastating.
It's just, that's.
That's how you know you're old as. I'm like, oh, God. I'm like, really? And then my kid plays too now. Well, not Call of Duty, but he's starting to play games more and more and it's like, yeah, I'm just like. I'm listening to him try to. And I'm like, you're not. There is no mic for games for you. I'm just letting you know. Right. Like, because that was like the one big thing where I was like, absolutely not. Are you being exposed to like open mic anything right now at this as a second grader?
No.
He's lucky he's on the computer. But yeah, it's just one of those things where it's like, it's a stress reliever in moderation. Right. It can be addicting. But yeah, I always found that to be something where at the end of the day when it's. And Dennis loves When I say that. But no, I just feel like it's one of those things where it's like, it's. There's always these pockets of things that help you escape from the real world for a short time. I. I attribute it to, like, going to Disney World at Disneyland. AJ you know what I'm talking about. You just go there and it's like you forget where you are for a short period of time. Like, anything that can do that, I think is just hugely beneficial. And I mean, stuff like golf, gaming, like that kind of stuff really does, I think, help. You know, I'm not saying that should take the place of any type of, like, if you need to, like, talk to somebody like this, but it does, it does definitely help get you away from, like, you know, the real world for a little while.
So I'm in the games. Who's just like running against the wall constantly because you can't figure out where to get circles. Shooting myself in the face, you know, like, that's happened a few times.
I always forget to pull the parachute.
So, like, we all jump off the plane and then I just like, bam.
Right on the ground.
I pull it too late every time.
I was gonna ask you, Brandon, just to kind of shift out of the extracurriculars. Is there anything that you do that kind of helps you? Because again, like, we talked about, you know, things that you do to unwind versus things that are, you know, on the job that, you know, keep you busy. But is there, is there any tips or anything that you have for people when it comes to the work life? Balance? Because that's something. I mean, that's a phrase that we use. Not just here, but I'm sure everybody uses it in their job at some point. So is there anything that, like, you do to help balance that?
Yeah, that's a good question. That was actually a really hard one for me once we all started working from home. I never had a problem with it when I was going into the office because it was always really easy for me to just leave the office and then say, well, it wasn't as, like, clear cut as this, but like, you know, you leave the office and then work is done. Yeah, sometimes it's hard when, like, you're in the middle of a problem and you solve it on your walk home because you can't stop thinking about it. Yeah, but like, the majority of the time I would be pretty good at just being like, I'm home. Then, you know, like, I prioritize life over work. So I'm Going to just focus on that. And then when I'm in the office, I give it my all and, you know, separate it. But then when you're home, it's so hard to create that separation because my office is where I do everything. I, like, I play video games here, I do person stuff here. Like, it's all at this desk. It just feels like it all meshes together for me. I try with limited success, some, you know, success, to just turn off at the end of the day and, like, instead of trying to, like, bring my computer down and say, oh, I'll just, like, finish the workday in the living room or whatever, and. And which, like, kind of, like, gives, like, a really long tail because, like, you know, you're. You'll be like, cooking dinner or something after work is over, but then you'll see your computer thing, and then now you'll start noticing slacks that are coming in and emails. You're like, well, I might as well answer those to get ahead of the next day, but try as much as I can to not do that and then just, like, leave my computer in the office. I always go out for. Well, now I kind of have to with him, but go out for walks in the morning and after work. So, like, I'll. I'll start every day with a walk with him, and then I'll, like, come back, make coffee, do that kind of thing, then sit down to start the day. And then my day ends that way too, where, like, I wrap up work and then I just go take him on a walk. And I think that's been really helpful for me to just, like, keep work in one little, like, segment of my day. And then, like, before and after the walks are like, my transitions.
No, that's brilliant. That's absolutely brilliant. Yeah, it's hard to, like, the last thing you want to do is be, like, with one hand on your laptop here while you're cooking on the other. Trying to, like, you know what I mean? It's just like that it can get. Not that people would take it to that extreme. I mean, maybe I've done that once, but yeah, it's just. It's hard not to want to because like you said, there's this kind of, like, fear of backlog where it's like, but don't answer this now, then that. And then there could be three other things. And then it's like, like the fear of the unknown when it's really. Yeah, there should be that unplug. And it's. It's a hard habit to break. It's. And plus two, it depends on, like, what your. Your history has been up to this point. Like, if you work somewhere else where that wasn't the case, and it's, you know, that's a hard habit to break. I mean, I've, I've very. It's. I've. I don't even think I've break. Broken that habit here. Even working here almost four years, I still have habits from old jobs where I just. It's just sometimes it's just that hard to break.
It's also if you enjoy your job, like, compared to, like that QA job, I imagine you were going home thinking about that. You know, you totally, like, got rid of that QA job. Not the QA jobs are bad or anything.
Yeah. Like a factory reset. As if I had never worked.
Yeah, yeah. It's severance. It's essentially. That would be severance right there.
I've always liked qa. Like, I've always thought it's fun to, like, do some quality testing. I remember at the old agency I worked at, her name, she's. She was one of the best QA people ever. But, like, she loved making you feel bad because you missed something. And it was hilarious because she did it on purpose. So it was always this, like, funny banter. But you would just get this document, be like, hey, I think you forgot how to code for a bit here, like, and it was hilarious.
I was gonna say, if you want, I've got about it. I've got the queue open over here. If you like QA that much, my friend, I can say, do you want. I kind of got this other thing.
I'm working.
I was gonna say, don't you have access? You can, you can. You can see what I could see. I mean, if you want to help. I mean, brotherly love, it's all you gotta do. Yeah.
I'm here for you, man. I'll start talking like that all the time.
He wants to talk down to. I mean, I'll. I do that for free. So I don't know, like, it's fine. I mean, if you really like it that much. I mean, I guess. But let me. I know we're running up on time almost, but I did want to ask you this question, Brandon, because I'm always fascinated with the. The variety of answers. Just because, you know, everybody's experience is different. The people that they interact with throughout their careers, throughout their life, you know, obviously there's not going to be any that even come close to each other in most Cases. But as far as like mentorship advice, like, what is some of the best advice that a mentor has ever given you about the industry that you're in? Or it doesn't even necessarily have to be about the industry, but just best advice overall. A lot of that stuff kind of transfers, but.
And I always, I always stipulate nothing from me. Okay, so don't worry about us.
Interjects. But if you want to call it.
Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. I would say some of the best advice I ever got was related to how to progress your career. And it was really about making sure that you're always talking with your manager about what it is that you to want want next. Which sounds so simple and so obvious. But when I was, especially when I was like a more junior dev and I was newer in the industry, I kind of just thought that like, you know, you just work hard and you do your stuff and then people will just like naturally push you up and like things will come to you. Which, you know, if people are attentive and in the best case scenario that does happen to some extent. But like the, the better way to do it is to be way more proactive about it and let people know what it is that you want next rather than forcing them to guess at what it is you want next. So that was something I started doing maybe like midway through my time at HubSpot and then just started making that a conversation that I was having in like all of the one on ones with my, with my manager. And not from like the annoying perspective of like, when do I get the promotion? When do I get the promotion? When? Like, that's not what I mean. I more just mean like constantly asking like, what is it going to take for me to get to the next level? Like, I, like, I want this like active, open feedback so that I can continue to grow. I feel like I had a bad habit of just like every now and then just saying what could I be doing better? And I feel like when people are put on the spot with that question, they always just say you're doing good. Like, you know, keep it up. Which is just not helpful at all. And it's also not really fair to them because it's hard to come up with like really thoughtful and useful feedback on the spot when somebody asks you that question. So instead of going that route, I went the route of like, okay, every one on one we're going to be talking about this. So like make sure that when we're in the one on one you have reasonable feedback for me. So when I was pushing for, like, the TL role, that was something that I think helped me a lot, especially because. Because I had been having that conversation with my manager and my manager manager, a different role. We had like some sort of, like, hand wavy plan for what it was going to look like for me to go from IC to tlc. But instead of that happening, another TL role opened up on some adjacent team. And because I had been having that conversation and I had been leveling up and trying to check all the boxes that they said I needed to work on when that became available, I was one of the first people on the front of their mind because they're like, oh, he's really gunning for this and he's supposed to be ready for it. That was one of the reasons why I was able to land that.
Is it fair to say it's almost. It becomes more of a continuing conversation than this kind of, like, spot check where, like you said, without. It becomes disingenuous to try to answer something on the spot like that, because there needs to be some thought put into it. Right. And if you continue to talk about it throughout and throughout and throughout, it becomes more. Even if it's in the back of your mind, at a certain point, it's still on the mind, versus completely out of sight, out of mind. Then, oh, all of a sudden, let's. Let's bring up this conversation that, you know, we didn't talk about for like, six months and let's pick up where we left off, you know.
Yeah, exactly. And it just makes them feel like, like if you're asking for feedback, not because you want, like, them to tell you what you're doing wrong, but because you're, like, actively trying to grow, it makes it so much easier for them to give you feedback because it's framed from a perspective of, like, here's how you level up, not here's what you're doing. Rob.
Right. No, that's fantastic. One last question I wanted to ask you. Are there any. And it's. It's one of these things where I might have to call you out on this one one more time, Brandon. But it's about resources. Resources that you. You might find particularly valuable and kind of like in growing in your growth in your career. I mean, you did mention that there was nothing super insightful for podcasts. Sorry. But, you know, I mean, there might be one, I can think of. But aside from that, aside from that, are there any other things that you tend to use as far as resources that help you kind of keep up with the industry.
Yeah, aside from this obvious one. Yeah, I do a lot of. I'm not a huge podcast listener.
Now you're.
Wait, I would classify. Yeah, I'm more like, I'd rather participate than. Yeah, I'm more of the type of person where when I find like a technology or something that I'm interested in, I'll do like a deep dive into it rather than a like steady stream of consumption. So like, I'll hit a point where it's like, oh, I feel like I don't know enough about this technology. Now let me go watch YouTube videos. I. I'm big on YouTube. I, I feel like I ingest most of my information through YouTube. I wouldn't say that I have like any specific channels that I'm loyal to, but like, I just do like a deep dive where I'll just watch like video after video after video of like everything to do with whatever it is that I'm interested in. I also have been into trying to, with limited success, trying to read on like on a weekly basis, work related things. So I had finished a book called the Lean Product Playbook. A little while ago I started Radical Candor, which has been interesting.
So that's there just to show off. You have a book, it's going to.
Look like product placement. I swear it's been on my desk. Nobody's going to believe me though, of course. Oh yeah. So, yeah, I've been trying to get into reading more often.
Maybe you can help us settle a quick debate. I know there are people that have been on this podcast. Like I remember we had this conversation with John on those. Do you consider audiobook listening reading?
This debate's always funny to me. My stance on it is that a. I think it's funny that people are opinionated about one or the other. But like, to me, like, reading is reading. Like, if you want to talk about like, because it comes up, because people are like, well, you didn't read that, so it doesn't count as a book that you read. It's like, yes, but I consume the content. So like, if you want me to frame it as here's how much content I've consumed, then that's fine. But like, yeah, I don't know. Like reading to me is reading. Like you read the book. Listening is listening, right? Like, you wouldn't say what are like, I don't know, you wouldn't listen and say you read. You wouldn't read and you wouldn't Read a book and then say, I listened to it.
All right, I get behind that.
That's right.
Well played. Well played.
You still consume the content. So, like, if you, like, here's how many books I consumed, then I think. But I am a huge audiobook listener.
I have opinions on the quality of the consumption of listening to versus reading.
I may just use the word consumed versus anything else ever again. Anytime I talk about it, I'm just gonna say, I can. I consumed this. This book. It doesn't matter. Like, they don't know if I'm ready to listen to it. Yeah. Yep.
Fair point.
That's fair. That's fair. That's fair. Also, he had a question previously, too, about is QA better or. And I stopped reading because QA is better. Whatever. Whatever the. Whatever the rest of that question was. QA is better. Just. I'm just gonna throw it out there. No bias or anything. I just. QA's. Whatever the other comparison was. It's QA.
Macro, macro, data refinement.
QA is better.
I'm done.
It doesn't matter what the. I'm just saying. It doesn't matter what the rest of the question is. QA is better.
I just.
I may have an affinity for it, but that's okay.
But.
No, yeah, but we're. I'm going to. We're hitting up on time, but, Brandon, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to sit with us and talk. I mean, I would have been disappointed if I wasn't able to have a conversation with the most famous thumbnail developers. HubSpot YouTube history. You know, I aspire to be a close second. I'm not. But I'm one of those people, too, that I like pushing, that I like to, like, get into something, and I like to, like, really? And, like, like. You were. You were an inspiration to me. I just want to say, you know, so. It's never said that to me.
He's never said that to me.
No, I definitely never had a handle.
I try, man. I've tried, and it just. It's not. It's embarrassing. It truly is. Mustache.
And it did not go well.
He's not. Witness. It grows better up this way than out this way. I just.
It. It. I don't know if it's legal for me to say this, but that's Photoshopped on, I hope. I don't know if that's obvious or not.
No, no.
That. Now everybody in the podcast knows.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna delete this. Actually. No, I don't want that.
Damn it. This is why they say don't meet your heroes, because then you learn something, and then it's like, I did not. I did not. I thought it was real. I honestly thought it was real.
I was like, I'm getting too much praise for it.
But the thumbnail is so small. Like, even if it went like, it's either the best Photoshop in the world or the thumbnail small enough where, like, the human eye. Yeah. That doesn't like good Photoshop. I believe that. I. How could you not? Like, there's nothing. There's nothing that says Photoshop there. Nothing. Like, I'm just like, that's quality.
Brian Doherty over on the cms.
Yeah.
Just gave a huge compliment to his Photoshop skills.
That's awesome. I thought that was awesome.
It's not just the mustache. It's the fact that you know how to handle the mustache as well. I mean, like, that. The whole pose, everything was perfect.
Yeah.
That's the important part.
We're gonna start sending our thumbnails over to Brian now. So that way. Why not? That is artwork right there, I'm telling you. Thank you for coming on. And like I said, it's. These are the type of conversations, and I say this every episode because we get lucky enough that every single guest is fantastic, and then we get to have these kind of, like, they're not ones and zeros heavy, but they're. There's a human aspect to it, and it's one of those things where it's like. I remember the first time, actually we ever spoke, Brandon, was, I think the meeting that we had with both of our teams, right? And it was like. And that was your. That was your suggestion, Right. Which kind of goes along with some of the stuff that you've been saying throughout this podcast where it was like. Like being the extrovert and going out there and, like, trying to make this team building and getting like, you know, like you said about, like, one of the things that I think you had mentioned. I can't remember if it was either written or you had mentioned it earlier, was like, the. You know, the introvert is like, what people think. Like, it's not right. It's. It's going out there, making these connections, being cross team, you know, participation. And that was one of the first experiences I ever had. And that was the first time I came. Like, they technically met you, like, was in a meeting like that where that was your suggestion. That was the thing that you wanted to do. And it was like, it was really Clear. Just from that moment on, it was like, this is one of the people that, you know, that this is who we have to talk to, because these are the people, like when we. No, I'm just saying when we. When we created this, that these type of people with that type of mentality is like, that's who we want to talk to. That's what makes really great conversations.
So, Brandon, if you want me, like, clip this for you so you can.
Send to your manager.
No, no worries, you know.
Yeah, no, I really do appreciate it, though. And that meeting was great. Yeah. Getting the teams together was. Yeah, that was a lot of fun.
No, absolutely. And Dennis doesn't appreciate good comments because, I mean, you actually have to do good work to get good comments.
I've not had one of those before.
Just saying. Just saying. But, hey, the sky's the limit for you, Dennis. I mean, look at.
Look at bars low. A lot of room for improvement.
That's right.
That's right.
When you're on the ground, there's only up. Right?
So it's not.
I mean, when we have our next meeting where I have to evaluate both of you, I mean, you're. You're getting nothing. It's good. You're doing good. Doing good. So well.
Yeah. I do really appreciate you guys having me on, though. Being on the best podcast in the world is a huge honor. It was a bucket list item of mine that I feel like now I can check off.
I'm going to be checking your LinkedIn resume later to see if it's on there as a.
Before we.
Oh, good, good.
Okay, good, good. I was just gonna say, I just. I want to make. I want to make sure people are taking advantage of this. This great opportunity that we bestow upon them. So that's all. I'm just, you know, I'm not, you.
Know, this is going to slingshot my career.
I'll give you guys easily, easily perfect.
It's in what direction, I think is the question you want to ask yourself.
Somewhere I'll be in a different spot. That's all.
It's a good way of looking at it. But no, thank you again. And yeah, for everyone that our new. Our YouTube live followers now thank everyone for tuning in. You know, anyone that visits the website. We really do appreciate that. And with that, I will leave you with a little bit of a. A little phrase from an American writer. His name is Albert Hubbard. I believe this is the way it's pronounced. But I kind of took one of his quotes because I found it very very instrumental for me. It is like a friend is someone who knows your Internet history and still loves you. This quote was in the 1900s. I just upped it up a little bit and made it a little bit more relevant to today, that's all.
Kareem's ending.
