10 Month Job Search w/Jeremy Barger, Director of Engineering

All righty. Good morning, everybody. And when I mean everybody, I mean nobody yet. Good morning. All right. Pumped for this conversation. So for those of you tuning in, welcome. Hello. Good morning. TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, X. Excited for this one. Um, Jeremy, thanks for hanging. I appreciate it. It was my pleasure. And, uh, you know, how long have we— we've been each other's network now for a bit, haven't we?

Uh, since 2020, I think.

Yeah, that's what I thought. That's what I thought.

So I love it.

I love it. Never met in person. I feel like I know you. So there you go. It's the power. It's the power of community and the power of content, right?

Uh, that's how we do it.

Yeah, I know. So those of you tuning in, welcome. Good morning. This is my second podcast already. Of the morning. I was on a podcast called The Data Mix. Go check them out. It's a data podcast focused on data and they are overseas in the UK. Had a great conversation with them around community and actually what Torc's doing. I'm really excited for the episode to release. We kind of, it wasn't planned. They just were really curious about what Torc was doing. So very excited about that. They were pretty pumped about how we really are transforming the hiring process. So, and just making it easier for engineering leaders to hire faster. And not have to do so many interviews 'cause we do a lot on the front end. So excited for that podcast to come out. But today get to catch up with my friend Jeremy, get to talk about his job search, right? And I think, so Colin was recently on my show. He's another engineering leader. Colin had a crazy job search too. I really like talking to engineering leaders about their job search because I really feel like the typical engineer's like, oh, you're senior, you have nothing to worry about. you're fine, right? And I think the reason why I like talking to guys like Collin, like Jeremy, like Brian Walter I've had on the show, like other engineering leaders is I think no matter where you're at in your career, the job search sucks and it just takes a lot of time. And so excited to talk with Jeremy kind of about his journey today. But we are having people tune in, which is good. We are a few minutes early. Mr. Ricardo, it's good to see you. Mr. Consistent, I love it. It's wonderful to see you as well. So before we dive in, wanna give a shout to a few, obviously, partners. First and foremost, Torc. Listen, we're doing some cool things on the hiring front. If you wanna, like, cut hours of your interview time down, please use us. I'm already working with a few of my friends, which is awesome, and hiring up actually some mobile engineers, Jeremy, believe it or not. So excited about that. Sally, it's good to see you. Chris, it's good to see you. Devon, it's good to see you as well. And so wanna give a shout to Torc. Obviously wanna give a shout to Appwrite too. I'm an Appwrite hero. As well as my guy Jason Torres on the show. Oh, Jeremy did— I think we lost Jeremy for a second. Jeremy, you look frozen. Jeremy, come back. Come back to me. You look frozen. Well, we'll keep yapping until he comes back. So want to give a shout out to Appwrite. I'm an Appwrite hero. I would highly recommend using their platform. They're fantastic. Also too, listen, I need to kind of start giving a shout out as well. If you want to be kept up to date— I'm going to also text Jeremy because he is frozen. Um, if you want to be kept up to date, all things, um, this show, shoot this number, um, and, uh, uh, text me this number. This is my number. Text LIVE to this number, um, and, uh, and you— and I text every time I go live. So if you want to know who I'm going live with, um, the show, all that stuff, um, definitely shoot me that text. That goes directly to me. All right, Jeremy hopped off. Hopefully he'll be back on. Jeremy's had some networking issues. Kentucky got hit with a bad storm last night, so hopefully he comes back on very, very soon and we don't have to schedule another one. But Jeremy is coming. So yeah, if you want to text, text this number to get updates on the show, 615-235-5650. That actually goes to me. This is my community number, as I say. I text out this number every single morning when I go live. So if you don't want to miss a live, Please text me. I know LinkedIn's kind of buzzy. So again, text live 615-235-5650. Jeremy just texted me. He said he is rejoining. So Jeff, it's good to see you, my guy. Angelos, fellow torque, torque, torquer, torture. I don't know. It's good to see you. Chris, it's good to see you as well. Yeah, gotta text live. I always text. I'll take Jeremy's spot if he did. I'm back on. Yeah, 100%. Chris, it's good to see you. I really wish I wish I could bring people on, um, to this show. That'd be awesome. I don't know why I'm fuzzy. We're having some major technical difficulties this morning. Um, so, uh, yeah, we're gonna wait for Jeremy to come back on this morning. Um, listen, also too, if you have not— if you're not part of the Torque community, we'd love to have you in the Discord. Why is my— we are just an absolute mess this morning. Why, why is this so fuzzy? We got Jeremy falling off. Oh, there we go. We're back. We're back. Um, Chris, it's good to see you this morning. Um, so, uh, so yeah, I think, um, uh, I want to give you some updates on the Torque side of things while Jeremy's looking to hop on. Listen, we got a lot of things going on at Torque. Um, uh, I, I'm really making sure that there's no excuse for you to get involved within the Torque community. So join our Torque Discord. Um, if you go to— actually, I need to put this on. Hold on real quick. I think it's torque.dev/discord. Let me see this real quick. Hold on. Let's see here. It is, yeah, torque.dev/discord. So I'm gonna put this on here, torque.dev/discord. So if you wanna join our Discord, please type that in. There he is, he's back. We're back. All right. You know, part of my job is stand-up comedian, by the way. Whenever this happens, I just gotta yap it up. So anyways, torque.dev/discord. All right, Jeremy's back. Yeah, Tennessee must have— yeah, we, we had some, uh, I know Kentucky got really, really hit, and I think they're calling for some storms here as well. So we're back. So Jeremy, I've been yapping. Let's give the people what they want, man. Who are you? What do you do? And we'll dive into your 10-month job search journey.

Uh, so I have spent, um, the last 15 years almost working as a director of mobile development, uh, mobile development manager.

Senior developer, architect, tech lead, all of the wonderful things involved with native mobile development.

So currently I am working for a utility company that is kind of revolutionizing the way tech is used for customer service.

That's awesome. So talk about— he is horrible at comedy. Thanks, Jeff. Appreciate that. So yeah, senior leader, you know, again, I feel like directors, you know, engineering leaders kind of have this vibe of like they have it easy. They're senior, they know everybody. But Jeremy just went through a 10-month job search process. So Jeremy, obviously there's a lot to break down here. Just gimme some general thoughts of this process and maybe let's just start at high level. What are some things that actually worked for you and that you felt like that you were getting somewhere with even though it was 10 months?

So you know me, man, I love public speaking. So I've basically got 3 points that I wanna hit.

Right.

People absorb 3. So the first was basically redoing and touching up my resume. So I had been using the same resume for almost 15 years when I was laid off. Same format, just updated with new roles. It always worked. Always. I would get calls back like crazy. But starting at the end of Basically, 2023 is when I was laid off, December of 2023. So right before the holidays, I was applying to new roles and getting nothing. No callbacks, no emails.

Say that, say that, say that one more time for the people listening and watching now and in the future. Say that one more time.

Oh, same resume, no callbacks. No, I was getting the generic rejection email.

Thank you for applying, you know, we're going to move forward with other candidates. So that's when I reached out to you. I had heard you talk about updating resumes. I saw that you had released a new resume format from Ghost, I think.

Yeah, on Ghosted.

So I scheduled time with you already. We booked time together. Before we met, I went through and started using that format to basically redo my resume, and I was keeping it to one page. Right, because I was applying directly. Uh, you recommended taking that out longer, uh, which I did. You gave some excellent feedback. Um, so along with brushing up your resume, like a subpoint to that is ask for help, right? Because the, the, the industry is changing at an incredibly rapid pace, uh, even over the last year.

Yeah.

So, um, my resume was not My, my old resume, right, 1.0, it was not tailored for the current market at all. So updated it, started sending it out, actually started getting some headbacks. So I think we met in late— was it February or January of 2024? And took your feedback on that, immediately implemented it, started sending out resumes again, and was almost immediately— getting hitbacks. So over the next— I want to say over the next like 6 months, I basically went through 10 different interviews, uh, with 10 different companies, started the process. Not all of them were hits, so some of them were a straight miss. So that's the first thing I did. We— if you want to get a detailed list—

Yeah, real quick, what, what did we change? By the way, low-key, I do offer the resume service on the side. I don't really promote it. But I do wanna say, what did— it's been a minute since we worked on your resume, right? What was the one thing, like, what did we change that you think really helped?

So I wanna say like pre-2020. Well, yeah, pre-2020, my resume was more focused on telling a narrative, right? So it was not specifically highlighting the technologies that I use. So along with the format that we completely changed, we changed the layout and the way that the information was presented. And my old resume was not presenting that information in the proper way. It was getting the information out there. If you wanted to read a, you know, novella, it would get it to you because it was— I mean, it was 5 pages, right? I've been in this industry for a while. So it was presenting it in a new format, in a new way. We were highlighting technologies used. We were highlighting key accomplishments in the role. But even before that, I think the first 2 things that you recommended was at the top of the resume resume, just highlighting my specialties, my areas of expertise, and my time in the industry.

That's it. I truly think that we call it the professional— I call it the professional summary. People call it different things. I think that's the biggest thing, right? If I can look at your resume from a recruiter, and for those of you— so we brought back Unghosted, unghosted.live with Alicia Novin. We brought that back. That resume template is at the top of the Torque Community app or Torque Community page. So go check that out. Alicia and I brought that back. Also, shameless plug, I'm starting Laid Off Lounge Thursdays next Thursday. I'm going live in the Discord for 30 minutes just answering any questions. But the professional summary, I need to hit your resume and know exactly what you do, your skill sets, 2 years of this, 5 years of this, 10 years of this. And I think, I think that's probably the thing that really, really helped elevate you.

Yeah, absolutely. Something did. And the keyword search. And originally I only had like my last 3 positions listed and I had to cut a lot from those to keep it on a one-pager. Uh, you told me not to be afraid to take it out to 2, maybe even 3. I remember that was a direct quote. So I took it out to 2 for my direct, uh, submissions. Yeah. And then when I was working with the recruiter, I took it out to 3. And then I even got it to three and a half at one point.

Oh, here we go.

I know.

Here we go.

Flirting with danger.

Here we go. Here we go.

Show show a little more leg. But that that that did phenomenal there. Now it's hilarious. I saw you talking earlier this morning. You quote tweeted on X. What do we call those excretions? Because they're no longer tweets. So you um you Q T'd him. He was talking about how he still had people searching for him on LinkedIn. And you talked about how LinkedIn was one of the most overlooked tools for people in the job search. I'm going to second and third that because, uh, since 2016, every position I've gotten has been found from LinkedIn. So almost 10 years, right? We're pushing on 8. Um, but then the next thing that I did was brush up my LinkedIn because you also took a review of my LinkedIn. profile. You made some suggestions. I implemented those very slowly because I'm very bad at social media, uh, trying to get better. Yeah, but I implemented those and all of my direct submissions were basically found through LinkedIn. So they would— they didn't all have the easy apply, right? So I had to go to their actual websites to submit some resumes, but for the ones that had the easy apply, I just did it right on LinkedIn.

You did?

Yeah.

And did you have success?

Uh, so if you're looking at numbers, no, it was probably less than 5% actually got a response.

Okay.

But mind you, at this time there were layoffs happening everywhere, so the market was oversaturated. Uh, I think Kelly Vaughn talked about how she got like, was it 5,000 resumes for one position or something crazy?

It was like 600 resumes for a senior role. Yeah, yeah.

And that was within less than 24 hours, I think she said. So it, it was nuts. The competition was very high. Um, so that, that was my, my second point. LinkedIn was key, uh, because LinkedIn is how I found my current position, and it was from a recruiter doing a search and reaching out to me. So—

Now, question, question, did that recruiter mention anything? Again, I'm trying to give like really practical tactical pieces. Did that recruiter go, hey, Did they mention anything or probably not? I'm just curious if they were like, hey, this caught my attention at all. Do you remember at all?

Yes. So again, I didn't implement everything you told me because I'm so slow on social media, but I went in and I started adding skills to specific jobs. So I highlighted the tech that we used, anything that I did leadership-wise that was relevant, and I started just throwing those under positions. And I did that first because it was easiest, right? You can add a skill. You can tell it which jobs you want it to apply to and it'll do it. So that's where I started. I updated my, uh, quick summary, like my bio at the top, uh, the headline I think is what it's called. You told me to make just a couple of changes there. I did that. She did say that it looked like the skills that were showing up on LinkedIn aligned perfectly with this role. So pretty sure she just—

Really miss out. They like don't put the tech— like, I'm telling you, when recruiters search Like for you, it would be like, I need director and mobile or director and iOS or leader and mobile. And like, if you don't have iOS or Android or mobile or anything that can get caught up in your LinkedIn, no one's gonna find you.

No, they will absolutely will not. So, and it was wild once I, once I updated LinkedIn.

Isn't it crazy?

I did. I started getting recruiters reaching out.

It's almost— it's— don't tell my wife, I kind of know what I'm talking about sometimes.

Yeah, we're playing a dangerous game with that one. No, it was, uh, it was unbelievable.

So that, that was, was point 2 of my job search. So first it was updating the resume, and then after I got that updated, it was going in and making sure that LinkedIn was not really up to par, but better than it was, right? It was 50% better than it was before we had our talk. And the third thing, and this goes back to me talking about social media, I started getting involved with the community more. I had always been more of a kind of just a passerby, right? I was very passive in the way that I would interact with communities and people online.

I would only comment when something really caught my attention, never posted because that's just, I don't know, which wasn't my thing. So I started doing it more. This is, I got involved with Gun.io.

Yep. Yep.

So, uh, Victoria, I think I spoke to them 3 times. I need to reach back out to her because I think I sent an email and it never got to her. But, um, I did that, and through that I had people reaching out. I would promote that on LinkedIn when I would do it, and that actually got people involved. Uh, I started engaging more with people on Twitter and just kind of throwing out there that I was, I was looking for a job. Yeah. Thank you, I appreciate that.

Yeah, but talk about the importance. Like, it's a snowball effect. Talk about like what happens when like you just start doing the damn thing.

So let me, let me start with something recent. So a company called Prologue that was started by Brad Luttrell— you should look them up, uh, just take a look at my, my LinkedIn profile, they're all over it—

he started a, a 28-day social media challenge where he wanted people to post every day Throughout the month of February, and he provided prompts, right, and examples for those prompts. And I'm about ready to launch, um, a new venture for myself, and I'm going to have to get better at the social media game. So I thought, this is perfect, perfect timing because I'm planning on launching it at the end of February. So I started. I have posted once every day for the last 5 days, and the amount of engagement that I am getting from LinkedIn has tripled by almost like 800%. So the number of views that my profile is getting, I, I've had executive recruiters connecting on LinkedIn even though I'm not currently looking. They're still connecting, they're commenting, they're following. So just in the last 5 days, the, the impact that I am seeing from LinkedIn has Has jumped tremendously, almost a thousand percent overall. My follower count has grown. My connections have grown. The people because I'm also looking now at the analytics. The people that are viewing my profile are all in the category that I want them to be.

What what what would you what would you tell people? And again, I promise y'all I did not I did not tell Jeremy to say any of that stuff because people probably look like this is exactly what Taylor preaches. I know I do this for a reason. Talk about— I do get some pushback, right, of like, oh, it sucks that the industry's this way, that you have to be self-promoting, that you have to do this. What would you tell those, tell those people?

Oh man, the— okay, so let's, let's go back to a time before like social media was around.

Yeah, like 2016 or even earlier than that, but Yeah, like you could go back to even 2010.

This has always been— every industry is an industry of self-promotion. So before social media, you were just having to do it in person.

You had to know the right people, right?

That, that's where that whole saying comes from, know the right people. So to those like me who really were just not— I don't want to say not wanting to put in the effort, but we're not sold on the the return that you would get from the investment of actually building a community online, right, or engaging with communities, man, you're dead wrong.

Like, you're just gonna have to suck it up and do it.

And it's, it's not hard, which is the thing, because the, the prompts that have been sent out by, by Brad and Prologue, like, they're helpful, but I noticed that once I read them and I'm like, okay, and then I start thinking about experiences That I've had, but it's so easy just to get out there and share. So if you don't want to do it, cool, fall behind. But like, you are very much handicapping yourself. Like, you're, you're, you're setting— like, you're limiting yourself, right? We were just— it's this—

it's essentially the same as like never getting out of your house, right?

If you don't explore your, your real life community, your real life town.

Yeah.

Like, you're never going to find out what is out there that you might like, that you might enjoy. People that you never would have thought of, yeah, I would engage with them and we would have a lot in common. You will. So, and it's wild.

Really?

Brad from Prologue, the reason I found him is because he had founded a startup that was building a mobile app. And this is a long time ago, but I was just searching for a local— I live in Kentucky, right, Louisville. So There's not a lot of native mobile opportunity in this area.

Right.

So I always would just do a random search to find out if there were opportunities, and I found his company, and I reached out to him. He wasn't hiring, but I reached out on LinkedIn and just said, hey, I've been doing iOS and Android development, you know, for this long. I would love to connect if you have opportunities in the future. Keep me in mind. And then I found out that his family is from Eastern Kentucky, the same place that, that mine is from.

I followed his journey, right?

He's— he had to end up selling his company and then kind of like shuttering the doors, and now he started something new. So that relationship that came out of nowhere has benefited me like tremendously, especially over the last 5 days.

Yeah, it's crazy. It's so funny. I literally had a man, a director of engineering, just text me and he goes, this show is super helpful today.

Well, I'm glad.

Yeah. And so, so let me— so I'm gonna be a disgruntled person on social media because there's plenty of them, and I'm gonna try to push back on one thing. I wanna know your thoughts on this. Somebody would say, well, you got— you didn't get a job from community, you got a job from a recruiter, so why do I need to get involved in community?

Right. So if I had not been involved in the tech community on Twitter, which I really got involved with them, uh, at the beginning of the pandemic. So early 2020, there was a group that formed on Twitter, still Twitter at the time, called the iOS Dev Happy Hour.

Okay.

And they met once a month. They would just have a big Zoom call. We would all get there and talk. Uh, I, I have met so many people that have provided numerous opportunities just through that. If I hadn't done that, I would never have found you. If I hadn't found you, I would not have then, when I was laid off, been able to update my resume correctly or find out that I needed to change my LinkedIn bio. So it is literally the butterfly effect.

It's crazy.

So if you, if you don't buy into it now, just give it a shot, right? Because at the end of the day, if I had not gotten involved with the community, I would have missed a lot of opportunity. And I'm talking a lot of opportunities over the next 4 years, right? Yeah, if I just took the shot and did it, like, what would I have lost? Well, I don't know, 30 minutes from making random posts and then never having them pay off.

Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. So, so, so, all right, so to recap right now, we got use your resume, edit your resume, We got edit your LinkedIn. We got get involved in a community. Now, I think a lot of people don't know where to go in terms of like, what do you mean Twitter community? Like, what do you, you know, Torque Discord? Like, there's so many places to start. Where would you tell somebody, like, again, let's say my senior, my director friend who just texted me, let's say he was getting laid off tomorrow. Where would you tell him to go from a community perspective first outside of torque.dev? Obviously come join us.

We're great. We're doing a lot of cool things.

Where? Where, where, where would you tell them to go from a community perspective?

So LinkedIn would probably be my first stop, and that's because on LinkedIn there are several groups, right? And those groups are beneficial because you can meet people that are in the same situation or recently been in that situation. You can search for directors in your area. You can search for directors in another area. LinkedIn is where I would start. Twitter. X now is gonna be really hit or miss because some of the, some of the community that was there has left. They've gone to Bluesky, they've gone to Mastodon, right? So X is more of a hit or miss. You're really gonna have to refine your searches. But I would always start just by trying to find one person, right? I know there's a great JavaScript community on LinkedIn. There's a great iOS, there's a great Android community. These are just places that you kind of have to search and look. But I think that LinkedIn provides you the biggest bang for your buck if you're just starting out trying to find a group. Meetup is also another great app. There have not been so many since COVID hit, but I think they're starting to come back. I know you've got your dads in tech, and even there, I mean, if you're a director, right, the chances of you having a family, maybe having kids, those are big. Don't overlook things that that have nothing to do directly with tech, right? Because your dad's in tech group, it's about dads just getting together, right? And, and having a community.

We, we created that vent channel. There's a lot of dads who have a lot of things to vent about, and they're venting about it. Like, we're barely talking about anything tech, we're just talking. And, and I think it— you just gotta, you just gotta go somewhere. Um, let me, let me ask you this. Did you have any sort of kids? I love this conversation. This is exactly what I wanted. So Jeremy, thank you so much. And, and obviously the people in the comments feel the same way too. Do you have any cadence of like cold reach out to people and say, hey, I want to chat with you? Because like, I, I'm kind of like, I kind of been preaching that, like send a DM like, hey, would love to chat with you. Did you work that in at all, or did, or did you just, or was your focus let me get in community that if somebody wants to talk from there, great? Or were you actually like really out here sending cold DMs to talk to strangers?

No, I was not sending the cold DMs. And that, that's not because I was opposed to it, but I was not in a position to— I don't want to say desperate because that, that sounds incredibly judgy, but I was, I was in a position where I was— I could be relaxed in my job search. Um, so I felt like cold DMing people is— it's more of an imposition to that individual.

Right.

You've got more of a salesperson hat on. Now, I will tell you this. I did reach out to Danny Thompson because I wanted to try to get involved with the Commit Your Code conference coming up in 2025.

Yeah.

So I reached out to him, cold DM. We ended up jumping on a 30-minute call and it was phenomenal time. So I'm absolutely going to start doing that because I now see the value in it. But that value for me was not looking for a job. I felt like if I had started cold DMing people because I was looking for a position, right, that would have put a level of stress on that that would have made the connection with that person less genuine.

Yep.

So that, that's why I shied away from it, um, because I don't, I don't like that. I didn't want to view myself as using that person just to get something when there were other avenues that I know eventually I would absolutely have done that. Um, yeah, no question. And I did that with Brad Luttrell back when he had his first company, right? Just kind of putting the filler out there to be like, hey, If a need comes up, like, you've got someone local that can absolutely help you.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, one of the things I preach a lot is follow-up in the job search. I think follow-up is key. What are your thoughts on that? Did follow-up play a big, big, big part with you? Like, just give me some general thoughts on that.

So I have done follow-up for my entire professional career. Uh, I remember when I was in middle school, I was in the 8th grade. They— this goes way back.

We'll go way back.

But they brought a man in to give us basically like a professional seminar, and it was, hey, you're about ready—

this is hilarious—

but they were like, you're about ready to reach the age of like where you can legally work, right? Even if it's only for like 4 hours a week. So here's how you get a job. He talked about resumes. He talked about how, you know, For him, it was at the time going in to drop a resume off. And when you do that, you wait 2 days, you call them back. Hey, I dropped my resume off. I just wanted to follow up. That stuck with me, obviously, because I'm, I'm still remembering it now, like years later.

Yeah.

But I've always done that. Even when I get rejection emails, I will follow up to say, thank you for the consider— if it's not a generic, I don't follow up to those, right? But if I've actually been in the process and they send back the rejection, hey, we're gonna move forward with someone else. I will email everyone that I interviewed with. I thank them for their time. I do this throughout the whole process. Thank you for— thank you for the hour. I appreciate it. Looking forward for the opportunity. Uh, just keep me in mind if something else comes up down the road. So yes, follow-up for me is a huge, huge thing.

Yeah.

Uh, and it's, it's more just who I am. I like to express gratitude when people try to help you out. I like, I like to be thankful when people give me time that I'm not entitled to. So yes.

And let me ask you this, like, you're, you're an engineering leader. How does that make you feel on the other side? If an interviewee, if you reject somebody, that interviewee emails you and goes, hey, thanks again for the time.

What does that do?

Like, what does that mean to you?

So I will, without fail, if someone— I had— it's funny you ask because I have an email folder where anyone who has ever sent follow-up after, or a thank you note after the interview process, if they, if they got the rejection, I keep their name always because if I ever need someone, those are the people that I will go to first.

You know what's funny? Jason gave me a hard time. He goes, we're really into pointing today. The reason why I'm pointing today is because Jeremy is literally giving y'all a playbook. This is the playbook. Like, this is why I want to interview Jeremy. 10 months sucks, but Jeremy, like, literally, y'all hearing it now, he is— he's literally— he did, he did Like, this is the playbook. This is absolutely the playbook. And this is, this is why I'm, I'm doing a lot of pointing today, because, uh, Jeremy, Jeremy is obviously right on the spot here. Yeah, Roxy comes in here and goes, I try to, uh, thank everyone that helps me. Yeah, 100%. Listen, listen, if Jeremy interviews somebody and that first— and his first point, if his, if his first person gets rejected or, or finds another offer and you were kind to Jeremy, And you were his number 2, guess who's getting the call?

Yep.

It's always small things that like just people just don't think about. Um, I mean, what else are we missing? We're coming up on time. I knew this was gonna fly by. What, what else, what else are we missing here? Is there anything we're missing?

So, uh, I guess the last thing I will say is like job searches are stressful, right? And they're, they're always, especially when you're laid off and and you didn't see it. I saw it coming. There was some writing on the wall, right? You have to always be looking, gears within gears. But there is a level of panic, right, that you feel at the beginning. And if you have kids, if you have a family, like, that level of panic is going to exponentially increase every day that goes by.

Yep.

So I say this knowing that I'm coming from a place I don't have children, I don't even have a pet, right? So Literally, for me, the situation is a lot different, but I always try to advise people, um, don't take the first offer just out of sheer desperation if you can.

Interesting.

I interviewed with a company that had phenomenal pay, phenomenal benefits, like it, it was almost everything I was looking for. But when I interviewed with the person that was going to be my boss, right, so I was interviewing with the president The vibe was completely off, right? Nothing felt right at all, and I was not going to put myself into a position like there was something about that interview that immediately shut it down. And this was early on, so for the next six months after that, I was still looking. But to that, I guess to end this on a high note, when the interview, when the when the Not the interview. The recruiter reached out on LinkedIn. I immediately responded. I was not in a position where I could talk to them right then, but I immediately replied to their, their LinkedIn message. I got on a phone with them 2 hours later. The next day I had an interview set up. I interviewed with one person who is the man that is now my, my boss.

My—

I'm directly reporting to him. 4 hours after that, I had an offer coming from them. And that's the fastest interview process I've ever had. But everything felt right. And now I'm in a position that I love with a team that is just tremendous. Like, I truly enjoy the work that I'm doing now with the people that I'm doing it with.

Yeah, absolutely.

So just like when you fall into an icy river and the thing that you can't do is immediately start gasping for breath, even though it's cold, you have to calm yourself down and assess the situation. So Just tried to do that.

Bob's everything. Bob's everything. And I think one thing you said, I think you need to be aware of your surroundings, especially if you're in a job and you think it's going south. Both my last positions, I knew. You know, you should know, and you need to be aware enough like, hey, this isn't something I, I need to change. And that's okay. And I think start looking then. I think, and if you have a good rapport with your manager, you know, they should probably give you some sort of idea. You know, managers that are listening and watching this in the future, be kind to your employees. If you know layoffs are coming, give them a heads up. Just give them a heads up. Like, there's nothing wrong with that. Go ahead.

Go ahead.

No, mine didn't. No, it was Monday morning, first thing that it happened. So it was— I had already— I had been for 2 weeks prior to that sending out resumes, which is another reason I reached out to you, because for those 2 weeks there were no bites. And I was like, all right, this is somewhat concerning.

Yep, absolutely. Um, all right, talk— so as we wrap up here, um, definitely want to obviously, um, want to have any questions. Any questions, please ask them. I want to go into rapid fire here. And again, Jeremy, thank you so much. This was, this was so good. This is I feel like a lot of, I mean, again, the fact I'm getting texts from people is amazing. Rapid fire here as always, as we wrap up here. And again, thank y'all so much for tuning in this morning. Please ask questions if you have 'em and we will get to them. But basically, first question I always ask people, if I told you tomorrow morning that you can't do anything in tech anymore, but I'd pay you the same, if not more, what is one thing you would pursue outside of tech?

Oh dude, I'd wanna be a teacher, right? A professor. Really?

I love that. What, like any subject at all?

Most likely philosophy, ethics, psychology. Those are all my jams. That's what I majored in. So how I ended up in tech is a long story.

Yeah, that's great. I love that. I love that. Second question, Valentine's Day is quickly upon us. Husbands, plus ones, Definitely need to, uh, be aware it's next week. Yes, if you have not made those reservations, please do so. Um, uh, uh, what's your favorite go-to candy? And don't tell me you don't like candy, just what's your like go-to? If there is a candy for Valentine's Day, what is it, dude? So I'm asking the important questions this morning.

No, I make a killer chocolate soufflé.

Okay, you went Damn. Yeah.

That sounds good.

No, man. Yeah. If I'm gonna do a dessert, I'm gonna do a dessert.

Driving to Jeremy's house, 2 and a half hours, unbelievable. And I'm gonna get a little soufflé. That's my jam. That's my jam. That sounds so good. That sounds so good. I got some brownies now. I'm gonna go eat some after this. Brownies, not quite the same, but close. I love that. I know obviously you're starting your new job. You're in the mobile space. Is there anything kind of cool in the mobile space that you wanna give a hot— any frameworks, technologies, Things that you guys are looking at right now to implement currently, or just that you're tinkering around with on, uh, um, on your own?

Dude, I, I'm not gonna jump on the AI train because too many people are doing that.

Sure.

Um, but for me, making apps that are smart on their own, so not using AI but coming up with the algorithm yourself to, to manual update things. So I'm, I'm working on a nutrition and and running app that is going to automatically adjust off of what people are doing from their different workouts.

I love that. I love that. That's awesome. That's cool. Last question. Oh, I want to give you an ability. I'm starting to do this, ask this question more. Who do you want to give a shout to in the community? Just anybody that you follow. Obviously, you've mentioned some names. It can be the same names that you mentioned, same name you mentioned. Just if you want to give a shout to anybody who's doing some cool stuff in the community.

Dude, I I have to give a shout out to Brad Luttrell and Prolog. You obviously would get a shout out.

That doesn't count. It doesn't count.

And then Danny Thompson. Like those are two people that have been.

Yeah, Danny. Danny's doing the Lord's work, man. He's he's he's awesome. All right, last question as we wrap up again. Thanks for tuning in. The comments were crazy today. And my buddy who texted me, he. He chimed in. You guys definitely need to get connected. Brian, message Jeremy. I think you guys would have a great conversation. The show's called Guidance Counselor 2.0 for a reason. We had guidance counselors in middle school, high school, and college, but now as adults, we don't really have anybody to turn to and ask just for general career advice. What would be your— if you can go back in time and talk to young Jeremy on anything, what would be your biggest piece of career advice to young Jeremy?

Wow, dude, that is a loaded question. I would probably, and this has just been my way forever, but don't give up, right? Don't sell yourself short. So every opportunity that I've had since I've entered the IT engineering space has been one that on paper was well outside of my ability. I was not qualified for any of them on paper, right? But paper does not always reflect the total reality. So my first job was as a project manager and I had, again, I double majored in psychology and philosophy. I was training to be and working as a tactical interviewer interrogator before that. I did stand-up comedy to pay the bills while I was in college.

I love it! I love it!

So nothing that I did in school, right? And my first couple of jobs was geared towards ever entering the field of tech. Um, but because I was able to manage and I could handle projects and I could deal with people, I got that project management role. And then that immediately transitioned into managing, uh, software engineers. I didn't know how to code at all. I taught myself because I didn't want to seem like an idiot to the people that I was managing.

I love that.

So, uh, it was, it was a wild transition that just kind of snowballed on itself.

I love that. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, y'all, Jeremy, thank you, my friend. This was a great conversation. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Um, uh, we need to have you on. I need to have you on again sooner rather than later. Um, just because that was so good. Um, y'all, thank you again. Again, connect with Jeremy. Please send him a— please send him a DM. Say thank you again. Make sure you add a note in the request so Jeremy knows where you're coming from. Um, so please connect with him. Please connect with everybody in the chat. We'd love to have you in the Torque Discord. Um, uh, and again, thank y'all so much for tuning in. Jeremy, thank you, my friend. on so I can say bye to you backstage. But y'all have a great Thursday, have a great weekend, uh, and we'll be back next week, next Monday. Y'all have a good one.

Thanks, everyone.