Feeling Demotivated In Your Career and How to Fix It w/Emma Bostian

All right, I got that. We'll show comments in the chat. Okay, and then we'll do this, doing this, this, and then we'll do this, alerting the troops. Alrighty, sweet, awesome. All right, good morning, y'all. We're starting a little early. I feel like today's gonna be a great conversation. I finally, um, shout out to Naz in the Torque community. She was like, oh, you know, she's been a big fan of Ladybug Podcast and And she was like, hey, you should— I don't know if you know Emma, but you should get Emma on the show. I was like, you know what, I haven't, I haven't asked Emma, uh, to come on the show for like 2 or 3 years. So, um, thank you again for coming on. I appreciate it. It means the world to me.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Absolutely. So, uh, pumped for this episode. You know, uh, we're, we're— so we're taking a break. So I've been working through, uh, I've been— for those of you kind of tuning in, and obviously we gotta let the interwebs kind of do its thing, so, you know, we're still early, but For those of you who are tuning in or listening to this in the future, you know, I admittedly have not asked people. I've been so busy and kind of what we're doing at Torque, um, that I just haven't asked guests to come on. Um, so I've been working through kind of a job search series, uh, which you can go check out on the Torque YouTube— how to write a resume, how to write a LinkedIn, how to navigate job boards. I mean, we're— I mean, I'm going through everything right now, but Emma booked this. Uh, so pumped to have Emma on. So we're taking a little break from the job search. We'll still talk about job search stuff today, kind of career stuff. Uh, with Emma. But taking a break from that, and I have one more guest coming on, Ray Gasualdo. He's a staff engineer, um, and so he's gonna come on I think in like 2 weeks. But aside from that, it's solo shows. But not today. Today we have the wonderful Emma live from— Emma, where are you tuning in from?

I was like, are you waiting for me? I'm in Stockholm, Sweden.

I love it, I love it. Uh, Stockholm, Been there, it's great. Uh, bakeries are top-notch, coffee is top-notch. I mean, really, like, if there's a city for me, it's really Stockholm. So, uh, well, welcome from Stockholm. So what time is it out there right now?

It's 4:30, but it's been dark as heck since 2:30.

So I just bought— so we had our Torque, uh, kind of community all-hands this morning, every Monday, and, uh, I, I told the team I bought A happy light.

Wow.

I bought a happy light because I desperately need to, uh, be happy. And it does not get dark as early as 2:30, um, but, uh, it still gets dark pretty early here. So I went out and bought a light that mimics the sun so I can continue to stay happy through the winter months. Um, so, uh, Emma, uh, but well, before we, before we dive in, and again, for those of you tuned in, welcome, good morning. I see people chatting in again. Shout Shout out to Naz for, um, brokering this conversation. Again, I listen to everybody in the community, um, so again, thank you for brokering this. I appreciate it. I want to give kind of some, some housekeeping things real quick. First and foremost, I'm an Appwrite hero. Um, basically what that means is I am saying that you should go check out Appwrite even though I don't code. Um, so I always tell people I'm probably one of the only non-technical heroes on a technical program, but love the DevRel team out there. Uh, love the crew. Uh, Jason Torres is also an Appwrite hero. So, uh, if you go check them out, tell them the Torque Boys sent you. Um, also too, want to give some Torque community announcements, kind of what's going on. So we got, uh, so we go to torque.community again, kind of a brand new refresh webpage situation we got going on. It looks pretty. Um, and, uh, and kind of 2 announcements. First off, um, the, uh, ambassador signups and mentor-mentee signups end December 5th. Right, so December 5th. So we got 2 more weeks on those. Um, and, uh, uh, again, mentor— uh, the ambassador program, we've had, uh, last time I checked, 76 people sign up to be a Torque ambassador, which we're obviously super thrilled about that. Uh, we will not be accepting everybody. I just want to go ahead and say that. Um, we're trying to keep this— uh, depth is kind of the theme for 2026, right? 2025 was width. Uh, 2026 is depth. And so, uh, we're really going to, uh, lean into our, uh, community, um, in our Ambassador Program. So go sign up if you're interested in that. Um, and then our Mentor-Mentee Program— last time I checked, we had 14 mentors sign up to be a part of the Mentor Program to mentor some mentees. Uh, we have about 25 mentees that have signed up. So that's our second cohort that also ends December 5th. So If you are an individual who wants a mentor, please go sign up. And if you are somebody who's senior in your career and you've always had the desire to mentor somebody but don't have time, or, you know, to— because it's kind of being a mentor, you kind of have to have some, you have to put a little bit of oomph into it. We are providing that oomph to you. So Jason is kind of helping head up that mentor program. We're going to provide you resources. We're going to connect you with people. We're going to kind of Kind of move along the program for you. So, so really you can just slot in and show up and mentor some folks. So again, that, that ends December 5th. And again, this last cohort, we had— what do we have, like 10 mentors and 50 mentees? So it was a great program. Also, finally, enough. I'm about to be done yapping, I promise. TextLive. This is US only, obviously. So people in Stockholm can't be a part of this, but, uh, text LIVE to 615-235-5650, uh, if you, uh, want to be updated when I go live with amazing guests like Emma. All right, Emma, enough with me yapping. Again, everybody who showed up so far, thank you. Continue to comment. Uh, give a quick introduction about yourself. Who are you? What do you do? And we'll go from there.

Oh, what an existential question. I'm still trying to figure that out. I Um, I don't even know, how do I start this without telling you what I do for a living? Um, okay, I am an engineering manager at Spotify in Stockholm, and I've been here 5 and a half years now, so it's gone pretty quickly.

That's awesome.

Uh, I'm also a mom of 2. I just had my second child about 7 months ago. Yeah, you look great, sweetheart.

You look great.

You look awake. Thank you. Oh, that's ironic because I was up 12 times last night.

Um, oh, bless your heart.

Yeah, but, um, other than that, I mean, I love reading books, I love cooking and baking, so I'm into like being outside and lots of hobbies nowadays. Um, so you might not see me as active on the internet, but yeah.

Yeah, I love it. What, what's— what are you good at baking? Do you have like, like, if I'm inviting you over to Thanksgiving in the US, what are you bringing me? Uh, from Stockholm? Like, like, have you— do you have anything locked down?

I've, I've gotten really good at pizza dough and bread, but honestly, anything from that— yeah, Sally's Baking Addiction. I just bought her cookbook and oh my gosh, anything out of there, please. So good.

I love it, I love it. That's awesome. Have you picked up any like local things that you bake?

Not so much that I bake, but I've gotten decent at Swedish meatballs. There you go. Love that.

Love that. Awesome. Um, all right, so, uh, again, for those of you who listen to this, um, in the future, uh, and, and obviously now, I don't really come up with questions, right? I, I'm— I think one of the things I really try to do is have a really organic— oh, Sebastian comes in. Emma, what's your favorite dish from Sweden? I love that. Do you have a go-to? Is it the meatballs?

Do I have a go-to? I love meatballs. I've gotten really into like Turkish pizzas, like anything with like kebab. Is fantastic. I know, not something I was exposed to in upstate New York. Um, but yeah, uh, those are some of my favorites.

I love it, I love it. Kelly comes in here, I expect some sort of treat. What up, Kelly? Do you, do you want to plug Ladybug Podcast real quick since Kelly's not here but you are?

Yeah, we just finished our 7th season, I believe. It was all about engineering leadership, and it kind of sparked from this idea that Kelly's kind of been my engineering manager mentor for the past 2 and a half years that I've been doing this role. So yeah, Authentic Conversations About Engineering Leadership.

I love it. I love it. Check it out. Check it out. All right. So, uh, going back to— so I don't, I don't really come up with questions, but, you know, one of the things that Emma said, I, I do like to prompt people and, and see kind of what they're mulling over right now. And one of the things that— the, the thing that Emma said was really trying to get up off the mat If you're feeling overwhelmed or down in your career, we are obviously entering at the end of the year. Emma and I were chatting backstage. I was like, you know, where did this kind of come from? Um, so, you know, Emma, I just kind of want to start out kind of some general thoughts on this. Um, I know the general sentiment of the job search is, is in the state of the market is pretty down, right?

Mm-hmm.

Just in general, what, what's just some words of encouragements right now, uh, that you can give people? And then we'll, I'll Navigate this conversation?

Hmm. Words of encouragement. Yeah, it's— I would say this isn't necessarily the first time that we've seen the industry kind of take— enter this transition phase, right? Where, what does it mean to be— I'm seeing at least a shift in what does it mean to be a senior engineer, at least right across the board, making it a bit I don't want to say more difficult, but we're redefining the boundaries of what it means to go up the engineering career ladder. And I think we're seeing a shift more perhaps into career maps as opposed to career ladders. Words of encouragement? Yeah. Everything that feels very scary and insurmountable now, I would hope that things equal out. Long-term, right? I mean, I think about this like when the stock market dips, like the first thing you're taught not to do is to pull your money out. You're taught to kind of like wait it out and things will level out. And I would hope that the tech industry gets to a new normal and things are a bit more stable and we see more job openings and all of that.

Yep. I love that. What, what are you seeing right now? I mean, obviously, you know, one of the reasons why I love pulling on engineering leaders like yourself is you kind of have more of a holistic view of the market, right? And, and I mean, What, what type of conversations, uh, are you having with people? And/or, um, when it— let's, let's start there. Like, have you had any conversations recently, words of encouragement you've told some folks, just even in your immediate network?

I think I'm kind of trying to challenge this mindset of I always need to get to the next level. Like, I'm always striving for the next highest promotion. And my question to many folks, including myself, is, well, why, right? Why do you want this promotion? Is it something you've always told yourself that you need to achieve, and then at that point you'll be happy? Is it for, um, respect from your peers? Do you actually like what the job at the next level is going to entail? So do some deep diving on like, why do I feel this need to achieve the next level? Because frankly, the grass isn't always greener, right? Um, And then maybe look into opportunities at a more lateral level. Like, would being an engineer at the same level in a company that maybe aligns more with your interests be a better move for you? Or would product management or engineering management or another, like, tangential role in the tech space be interesting? Or maybe switching into contracting or freelancing. Um, so that's you know, something that I would encourage people is like, really think about what do you actually want. And something I just was talking to with my team member today is when you think about yourself 6 months from now, what type of person do you want to be, right?

Mm-hmm.

Like for me, I'm trying to live a more healthy, active lifestyle. So for me, I'm like, I'm going to be a healthy person, like go on walks every day with my son. I want to do strength training, things like that. Okay, well, how do I align my actions today to be that person in 6 months, right? I'm going to start today with identifying as that person, but what action— is every action I'm taking today aligning with that future version of myself?

I love that. I love that. Um, you, you mentioned something that I want to go back to real quick, from career ladders to career mapping. Can you expound on that? Because I think that's kind of interesting.

I don't even know if I can, because this is a concept— I, to be, to be honest, um, I was just at Lead Dev in Berlin, and I didn't get to listen to the entire talk, but I do remember hearing the phrase career map. And I'm like, huh, that makes a lot more sense. Like, historically, we've seen— I mean, it used to be back in the day, like, your next promotion after senior engineer would be engineering manager. So like, it was actually a promotion. Now we're seeing kind of bilateral tracks, where you've got a leadership track and an engineering track or an IC track, individual contributor. Now we're seeing just like, to go up the chain is getting harder and harder, right? So you have to develop this map of like skills or hats that you want to wear throughout your career that might not be the next level in a ladder, but it's, uh, it's more of a graph data structure than like a stack or a queue. I don't know if those are right, but you know, like more linear.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and I think it's interesting you brought up too, so one of the, one of the things we do in the Torque Discord is, um, we bring in Various individuals to just talk about, uh, basically around this conversation around job search and career. And we had James Perkins, founder of Unkey in Raleigh, uh, last week in, in our Laid Off Lounge series. And we really started to get into, which it's funny, you know, I always look at themes and what people are talking about, and he brought up specifically on the lines of like what really what you said, like grass is not always greener. And then also specifically around like why you want to either make a move, like leave your job, like have specific reasons. I feel like a lot of people, and which is fine, is chasing the money. And I get that, right? Things— life's expensive. I'm— I am not gonna sit here and, and, you know, disagree with you on that. But I think a lot of people are too focused on chasing money. And not trying to think about, hey, am I— what am I actually dealing with right now? I feel like people get too emotional and try to jump at the first sign of tension. What are your thoughts on that?

Oh, absolutely. And I'm, I'm a self-imposed victim of that. Um, something that I discovered later in life is that I am— I definitely have ADHD, which has gotten me to where I am in my life, but it also means it can come across as like hyperproductivity where I would like hyperfocus on a project for a couple of weeks, go all in, release it, and never touch it again. So I was like, wow, she's pushing out so much work, or wow, she's jumping from job to job every 2 years. I literally moved countries every 2 years. I say that like I've lived in a ton of countries. I love that. I was in Austin, Texas for 2 years, then I moved to Karlsruhe, Germany for 2 years, and now I'm in Stockholm, Sweden. This is the longest I've been in one place. And I would always switch teams every year and a half, always chasing the next best thing. The grass is not always greener. And I find myself really questioning, like, why do I feel antsy right now? Is it because I'm not feeling challenged in my role? Is it because I don't like— my values don't align with the company that I'm at? Like, what is the real reason? Would I be happier somewhere else? For me, the answer is no, right now, definitely not.

Right.

Also, what I've realized is sometimes you have to take a step back to take 2 steps forward. Like, when I'm— when I moved from Texas to Germany, I almost took a demotion. Not in title, but in salary. Absolutely I did. Um, I knew that that was going to get me to where I wanted to go long term. Uh, so yeah, uh, I had another point. I can't remember at the moment. But yeah, it's, um, the grass is definitely not always greener.

Yeah. And Kelly, Kelly brings up Uh, one thing, this is one good question I was asked when job hunting: are you running towards something or running away from something?

Mm-hmm.

That's pretty good. That's pretty good.

How dare, how dare she come in and be more insightful than both of us put together?

I know, classic Kelly. Um, so yeah, I mean, for me, and, and I'll say it here too, I said it last week in the Discord series, but I think you need to, you need to differentiate. Are, are you dealing with an industry problem or are you dealing with a specific problem as it relates to your organization? Because I think a lot of people are like, oh, I'm gonna bounce, and then they get into another opportunity because it's an industry problem.

Mm-hmm.

Right. And, and it's not really specifically an issue. Like in the— now, if there's an issue in the organization, you have a terrible manager, there's a lot of organizational stuff, leadership stuff, maybe business direction that you can't control, I think it's absolutely vital for you to, to, to take notes and, and make a change. But I think a lot of people are running from one job to another job, and I think they don't even realize it's more of an industry thing.

Mm-hmm.

I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

Yeah, I know, it's totally true. Is it a systemic problem across all of tech, right? Like, if I cannot get a senior promotion at my current company unless I get hired into a senior role elsewhere, which is not impossible, you absolutely could, um, like, am I gonna have an easier time getting a promotion in another company? I can tell you the answer is no if you got hired into whatever the position is that comes before a senior at the company you would move to. then you have to start over, essentially, like building rapport and, and a backlog of work and all of these things. One thing I will say, as I've gotten older, as I've acclimated to Swedish customs, work-life balance, I have transitioned my thinking from I live to work and achieve a high salary to I work to live, right? I live below my means. You know, I still— you know, we're not hurting financially, but at the same time, salary is not the, the most— the highest motivator at this time in my life, right? I would much rather have a really great team who I spend most of my days with, honestly, that I adore, uh, with people that I trust who all want to be there, great work-life balance so I can leave at 3:30 to go pick my kid up from school. Um, that is more important to me than a high salary. And I know that's very privileged to say. I, I will flat out say that. But at some point, once you hit like a threshold of Um, like income or benefits, like, you know, anything above that they say is almost negligible, or it doesn't necessarily serve to make you happier. So if you're constantly chasing, like, I want a higher salary, a higher salary, but it comes at the expense of a work-life balance, or, um, you know, other benefits like a fitness stipend or whatever it is, um, that's why you need to really ask yourself, what actually motivates me? If it is money, like, go chase that salary, like, go for it.

Sure.

But a lot of, a lot of times it's not, right?

Yeah, 100%. I think I want to go into— I like this theme that's kind of coming out of this conversation around work-life balance. And I think it's something that, especially around fitness, I mean, I know, like, admittedly, it's something that I've let slip. I mean, with 2 kids, you know, with a 3rd on the way, with kind of standing up kind of the Torque community team from scratch, it's been You know, I've definitely let a lot of things slip over the last year, right? And, and when, when did that mindset shift kind of hit for you? Was it kids? Was it before kids? I mean, I know kids put a lot of things in perspective, don't get me wrong, but like, when did you go from, I guess, chasing the bag to being like, hey, like, you know what, like, it's not all about that? Like, is there a, is there a time? Is there a moment? That you can recall?

Yeah. Oh, it was totally kids for me. I mean, that— you see, when I was on parental leave with my daughter in 2020, um, it was also like— I'm sorry, 2022. Um, I kind of dropped off the internet.

And yeah, you did. Yeah, you did.

Part of it was I had postpartum depression and anxiety horribly with her, so I was going through this crisis. Yeah, it was awful. But then I realized I need to just embrace this. And once I embraced it, I, I just like, my whole life changed. And I realized I love my job, don't get me wrong, it's a dream job.

Sure.

At the same time, it's a job, right? So like, what's more important to me, and, uh, as a manager, this is how I lead, it's like, hey, family comes first. If you need to go pick your kids up from school, like, you don't need to log back on later if you're getting your stuff done, you know. Spend time with your family or take time for your mental health if you don't have kids, you know, whatever it is. Um, Yeah, it absolutely, for me, was having kids. Because I realized, if, you know, when I'm 85 years old, and I look back on my life, am I going to think, wow, I really wish that I attended more meetings or opened more pull requests? No. Like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna sit there and think, wow, I actually wish I took more time to be present with my children, not just physically, but emotionally. Yeah.

It's massive. Yeah. And I think, I mean, that's kind of been, you know, I've I think I'm kind of going through that right now, right? Where it's like, work is important. You can't discount work. But I do think sometimes, and this Dads in Tech group I have, I mean, we've had some great closed-door kind of conversations in meetups. It's like there's sometimes I feel like you get so focused on work, it's hard to pull out. Like, it's hard to— like, like, for me, I feel like I'm going through a season of my life right now where I'm trying to unearth myself from work. And, and it's, you know, and to me it's like, oh well, it's okay that that task isn't done. Like, I've had to learn to be like, hey, you know what, as long as there's no like extremely pressing due date, it's okay that that task is outstanding. Um, and to me, that's been hard for me. Yeah. Um, because I'm very much, you know, I, I've talked, you know, I've talked about this in my dad's group where it's like, when you're, when you're an agency recruiter, like, it was bred into me. Like, I definitely think I have some ADD, ADHD, because I feel like I can get a lot of things going at one time. I feel like that's one of my strengths. But the problem is, is my focus into something has been difficult and trying to unearth myself from that has been really hard, um, and it's something that I've, I've, I've had to work on. So, so it's good to hear you and kind of you kind of figuring that out as well. Do you feel like going dark on social media helped? Because that's one thing I'm struggling with too, is like, oh yeah, keep keeping up the rat race of social.

Yes. At the same time, I had a pretty established career by that point, so let's not discount that. Like, I was able to do that, right? I did use it as a way to build my career, but I got to a point where I was like Why am I seeking validation from people I've never even met? Why do I care what people on the internet say? Um, I will say something my husband showed— he showed me a video yesterday and it was like, yes, you're tired as a new parent. And I was telling Taylor, I woke up like 12 times last night, right? Um, at the same time, nobody's coming to save me. So if I don't prioritize myself, no matter how tired I am, like, nobody's going to, right? So yes, I'm tired, but I'm still going to try to go on a walk today. I'm still going to read my kid a book. And The other thing with this to-do list, there are always going to be things on your list, right? It's almost a reframing that needs to be done from like, okay, the things that 100% have to get done, put it on a list. Everything else can be on a wish list, right? We've got to reframe from like a to-do list, like I have to do everything on this list, to like, okay, here's my wish list and here are the things I actually have to get done.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that's, and that's kind of what I'm trying to do as well, is like, hey, like What needs to be done this week versus what needs to be done next month. And I think, I think I'm kind of going through that process of trying to, trying to unearth myself. So again, I love that. I love that. Let me, let, let's, let, let's go back to, uh, some career stuff. There, there's, there's, there's a lot of people on the job search right now that are down. And it's like I kind of said in, in, you know, getting off the mat. What are some things if people Um, feel like they, they just keep running into a brick wall with their job search or their career. What are some things that you've done, um, to, to really add perspective and/or, uh, you know, really kind of get out of a rut?

Honestly, if you're able to step away from the whole thing, if you have the luxury of being able to do that, space and getting outside and Literally just taking a break from the whole process is genuinely the best way. If you're not able to do that, I mean, perhaps having a commiseration partner or an accountability partner to keep you motivated and going is a good way to do it. I mean, yeah. So when I was going through recurrent pregnancy loss, because I've had eight miscarriages in the course of I don't know how many years, five years. Yeah.

It was.

so isolating. I felt like nobody could understand my experience. It was something like only I was going through. And then I realized, well, that's not true. I just haven't found my community of people who are also going through it, right? And so you find even just one person who can somewhat identify with like, hey, I'm not getting any calls back about, uh, these job interviews, or, you know, um, I keep, you know, getting to like the last stage and then getting, you know, thrown out of the process. Like, no one can empathize with this, or no one understands. It's like— there are people, but maybe you haven't found them. And it's a very vulnerable place to be. I think for me, being transparent about what I was going through connected me with so many people I never would have met who also were going through the same thing. And it's like, okay, well, now I found my community. And that for me was very healing, and it was motivating to see other people come out the other side. So if you're in a place where you can be vulnerable with the people around you, or, you know, if you use social media as your community, I highly recommend it.

Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah, and, and I know I reached out to you. I mean, we, we lost— we had a miscarriage as well. And I think what's, what's crazy about the whole thing is, is I agree, like, I think there's— I think we as human beings, um, immediately go to shame with a lot of things. Um, and, you know, you know, I have a We have a really good, like, church group, dads group, right? And like, just to be able to sit down with these dads here in Hendersonville and like, you know, I mean, there was somebody else who lost, uh, a baby in, in the third trimester. And it's like being able to have that group and, and walk through life together is massive. And I think we as human beings Mm-hmm. We are, we are so quick to isolate and we are so quick to close up. Um, but I think one of the biggest, uh, saving graces is having people who can walk alongside of you in life.

Yeah, that's a big one.

And yeah, I think— go ahead, go ahead.

No, I was going to change it, so you, you continue.

Oh yeah, so again, just like My encouragement to folks, you know, I know we talk about community from a job search side of things, but like, I mean, I'm with Emma here. I think having somebody to talk with, to, to go through with, and, and not your spouse too, right? I think that that's a whole nother conversation around marriage, that I think having a— having somebody else to go to and not the entire burden on the other significant other is, is another marriage thing that we can talk about another time, another day. But I think having, you know, a girlfriend or, you know, a guy friend to be able to kind of walk through life with you is just, it's just a game changer. So go ahead.

It sure is. Yeah. I mean, the other thing is, I, what I realized is every emotion I have, I can just actually make a decision not to feel it if it's not serving me at that time. You know, I would get so frustrated or like anxious about certain things, like why haven't I heard back from this person? Or if you're searching for jobs, like why haven't I heard back from these companies? And I would make all about me. And the thing is, you're not that important, right? In the sense of like, you haven't heard back.

Mako used to say that. Yeah.

If you haven't heard back from someone, very likely it's not about you. Very likely it's everybody's dealing with their own stuff in private. Um, at the same time, I did make an executive decision to say, you know what, I'm actively choosing not to get frustrated over this or anxious about this. Um, And I'm truly a believer that like what is meant for you will be there for you when the time is right. I can't explain it, but that's how I feel. Like, as an example, when I moved to Germany, I had just gotten there. I got married to a really great person and I had started my Twitter career and that blew up really quickly. Well, I heard from an engineering manager at Spotify, hey, do you want to interview? I went through like the first few rounds And then I realized I just moved to Germany. Like, this is definitely not the right time. And I told them that, and I pulled out. I said, this is not the right time for me to move to Sweden. I really appreciate it. Let's keep in touch. Well, of course, um, if you know me from like way back when, my marriage fell apart. I ended up getting a divorce, and I'm sitting there in Germany. I'm like, well, this is kind of rock bottom for me. Like, I am in a foreign country. I have no family. I'm in tons of debt. What am I gonna do? Right. And that's kind of when COVID hit too. So I was like super isolated. And that's when like my career really took off. Like, I turned to social media, I started a side project about the tech interview process. I dug myself out of debt by selling books for $10 about how to interview for engineering jobs. And then I got my dream job at Spotify at the right time for me. And I moved to Sweden, right? And now look at me.

Yeah.

So things can feel really crap in the moment, and I just, um, I have to remind myself, like, if something's not going your way, there's something better coming for you. You just don't know what it is yet. Um, yeah.

So good. Yeah, I mean, I, I, you know, and again, I mean, you know, of course, like, it always hasn't been, you know, roses and sunshine with our marriage, right? And it's like, a lot of times what I've realized is Sometimes you learn more in the sufferings.

Mm-hmm.

Then you learn more on the mountaintops. And I think, I think we as, I think we as human beings, we always want to be, we always want to be on the mountaintops, right? And because it's good, life's good, vibes are immaculate, right? Like I always say. But I think one thing I've realized in life is that when it's When it's real bad, that's when, like, the character— that's, that, that's when you build character. That is when you figure out who you are and you learn a lot about yourself. And I think it takes— I think we— I, I think, I think taking the bad and under— and not necessarily going, why am I in this, but what am I learning from it?

That's so true. And it can feel so overwhelming. Like, when I'm sitting there in Germany, like, I had just moved into an apartment by myself. like, you know, we had already made the decision, okay, we're gonna get divorced. And by the way, I've never spoken publicly about it, but he is such an amazing person that I still keep in touch with him and his wife today. And I can tell you, looking at it from the other side, this is the best possible scenario, right? We're both married to the people we were meant to be, and we each have kids now, and we stay in touch. It's great. At the time, it felt like the world was ending, right?

Sure.

I'm sitting there and I'm like, well, okay, even after I get this dream job, I've paid off my debt, fantastic. Now during the height The middle of COVID I have to figure out how to move myself and 2 cats to Sweden. I'm like, how the heck am I gonna do that? It seems so insurmountable, like everything, even the good things. And then you break it down, you know, like take it one day at a time, take it one— you know, like let's say you're, you're job hunting, you finally get a callback, but you haven't had time to prepare for the tech interview. It's like everything's happening at once. It's like, okay, what do you do? Start with one thing. If you get laid off, what's the first thing you got to do? Okay, I need a resume. That's step one. Okay, after you create a resume, would, uh, maybe make a spreadsheet and start applying to jobs and keep track from day one of like, this is everywhere I've applied to, this is the recruiter's name, this is where I'm in the process. Take it one step at a time, stay organized, and, you know, find your community.

Yeah, I think I grew up, um, also this is why I don't ask questions because I thank you for being vulnerable, Emma. I appreciate it. This is, uh, this is, this is why I don't ask that questions. Um, but For me, it's, it's, it's controlling what you can control. Like my dad has always said growing up, like the circle of influence, right? Draw a circle and like you can only control what's in the circle, right? And I think a lot of us try to control what's out of the circle. I think it's human nature, right?

Mm-hmm.

And, and, and I think it's like what you said. I think taking it day by day, you know, my, my, my wife and I are, you know, in a season right now and it's like we're, we're just, we're just trying to focus on day by day. Day by day, because tomorrow's not promised. We can get super, you know, here, super high-level theoretical or whatever you want to call it, but tomorrow's not promised, right? Somebody, somebody told me the other day, they go, all you have is today. Everything else is a fantasy.

It's true.

They're like, the future, the future is a fantasy. Also, your past is a fantasy because it's what you remember.

Mm-hmm.

Right? It's not actually what it was. And so I, I think a lot of us get really, really caught up, um, in looking— I mean, for me in my career, I mean, I feel like you're wired this way. We're always like, all right, we got to do this. Like, how do we, how do we, how do I position myself for 5 years? I like— I think the question that really screwed up our entire generation is like the boomers asking, where do you see yourself in 10 years? Because it's like, man, I'm just trying to survive today. Like, I, I can't even Think about 10 years from now. And so being able to focus on that's important. I love that. All right. Let me ask you this. Let's go back to kind of tactical job search stuff. You are in a leadership position at Spotify. Where are you seeing people really miss the mark right now in interviews and/or their job search, whether it's them interviewing with you or direct people you're seeing? Where, where, where do you still see people missing?

Hmm. Um, I think there is a misconception that you have to know everything to kick ass in an interview. Like, you have to have the answers, even if— like, like confidence over competence almost, right? And that's such a misconception. It's actually— I forget where the study came from, but they've showed that leaders who actively admit that they don't know, but they're willing to learn, they have this growth mindset, are perceived as more competent than their peers who act as if they have all the answers. So when you're interviewing, should you be presented with, um, a problem or a question that you don't know, be very honest. I would so much— I, you know what, I have hired people who, uh, didn't have all the answers, uh, and I don't expect people to have all the answers. What I, I would hope is that you have a growth mindset, you're willing to acknowledge what you don't know and willing to learn. And you're humble about it. That's all I'm asking, right? So having this idea of like, I have to know all the answers, I have to, you know, I have to understand absolutely everything. It's not true, right? I'd rather you just be curious and open, and we can work through things together. Now, not all employers have that mindset. So I say that, you know, from my perspective, but if you don't know the answer, it's so much better to just say, you know what, I'm not sure. I'm happy to go like figure that out, or here's how I would go think, think through that, or look it up, or whatever. That's what I think the misconception is.

What, uh, when it, when it comes to— obviously we gotta talk about it, it's kind of the elephant in the room. How are you dealing with AI right now in the job, in the interviews? Are you required? Are you— is it a nice to have right now? I, and I ask these questions to every senior person I ask, engineering leader, because I want to get a beat on the market. And so I want to kind of see, is it a must-have right now? Is it a nice-to-have? Where are we at with that?

I would say today it is a nice-to-have. However, it's very quickly going to be a must-have. Like, we are getting to that point where you need to know how to use it now. I would caution you to figure out how to use it the correct way. Don't have it regurgitate answers that you don't understand how they got there. Figure out how to use AI to improve your proficiency. Like, as a leader, we don't want to hear that, like, I have it just regurgitate code and I throw it in my editor and ship it, right? We want to hear, how are you using this? to enhance your skill set? How are you using— like, for example, let's say you join a new company. Like, there are tools that you can use in your IDE to analyze the history of like, okay, tell me about this piece of code. Why was this written? What's the historical context behind this? Like, we want to hear how you would use it that way to be more productive and collaborative with your colleagues. We don't want to hear how you're gonna like literally have it write code that you don't even review and throw it into a pull request, if that makes sense.

Yeah, so really what you're saying is like use it to better understand what you're walking into, not even necessarily trying to generate code.

I think it has a place for generating code, 100%, um, and it can probably solve a lot of problems much quicker than we're able to. I think it's— the danger becomes if you have it generate code, and you don't understand what that code is doing. And then you ship it, especially if your product is touching anything to deal with, like financial, like the financial industry, or you're dealing with data privacy or things of that nature, right? So I think it's great at generating code to some degree, but you have a responsibility as the person submitting this pull request, right, to understand what the implications of that are.

OK, I love that. I love that. Let me ask you this, because I— this is a conversation, and, and I know Naz dropped in right here, says, figuring out how to use AI the right way is so confusing. What would you, what would you say to that? Like, what would you say to someone?

100%, I agree with you. And frankly, I, I don't feel very proficient in it either. And it's something I'm trying to figure out as a leader. How do I use it without getting into tricky situations. Like, I know I'm not going to use it to analyze my team members' performance. Like, it still has pitfalls right now. I'm not even aware of all the pitfalls of it, which make it a little bit scary to me.

Sure.

Um, I would never put confidential, like, personal information into that and use it in that way. Now, what I could do, what I have been using it for, maybe as a leader, is, okay, I want to have a team ways of working where we're going to cover collaboration and communication and my engineers will be there and my product and design counterparts will be there, develop like a template that we can use to be the best version of ourselves. That's the kind of thing I'll use it for. But I would agree, it's super confusing to know which tools are the right tools for the job, uh, what's appropriate and not appropriate to be using it for, um, right, things like that.

Okay, I love it, I love it. Is there, is there a specific Is there a specific, uh, AI tool that you guys are using? Like, do you guys use Claude or Cursor or anything like that? Is there— if, if, if someone's looking to use one of those, do you have any recommendations, or is it kind of all up in the air still?

Um, I don't know if I'm allowed to actually speak to the internals. I will say though, I am familiar with Claude and Cursor, and Uh, in my free time, I've tried out both just for fun. Like, I haven't used them extensively, but Cursor seems super cool just right off the bat. I would say like look into that one. Cloud Code also looks really cool, although admittedly I don't code so much anymore, so I couldn't tell you all the ins and outs of what it would be useful for. But both of those I've definitely heard floating around. So if you're gonna get in, if you're a developer and you're looking to get into AI tooling, start with those because they seem very popular. Yeah. Um, there's another one I, I've heard of as well. Is it NotebookLM or LLM?

Yeah, yeah, NotebookLM. Yeah, I've heard of that too.

Yeah, and that one is super cool because you can go dump a bunch of different types of files and docs and conversations in there and it can generate things. And what I'm interested in is like, oh, it can make a video, it can make a podcast, it can make a quiz out of it for me. That seems cool too. But I haven't actually used any of this in my job yet. I've only been back on the job for like 2 weeks.

There you go. There you go. I love it. Let me, let me ask you this. Uh, and we'll kind of start wrapping up right before rapid fire here. So if anybody has any questions, please ask them. Um, but you want— one of the things we keep hearing right now is, is, man, I've gone through 3, 4 rounds and then I don't hear anything back. And, you know, I've kind of— I've seen, I've seen the word the great, uh, the great hesitation that's happening right now. Um, can you give just some thoughts as an engineering leader just about kind of the— and I've kind of voiced to it too. I mean, there's been times at Torc where I've gotten sign-off from one person, but then it goes up to finance and it's like, no, we can't do it yet. So I mean, I'm, I'm even struggling with it. Do you have any thoughts on just kind of peel behind the onion of what you have to deal with from a leadership perspective? Obviously not giving too much away, but just kind of tell folks, like, sometimes it's just out of people's control. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

I, you know, I've heard of situations where like the ball just gets dropped. Let's say like somebody goes on a long-term leave unexpectedly, or like they leave the company unexpectedly, and the ball just gets dropped, and unfortunately no one's picked it up. And there can be unfortunate— I don't want to say victims, but like people who have been in the pipeline who just get dropped as a result. And that's Super unfortunate. Um, so like logistical issues is one. Um, I assume financial reasons could definitely be another one. Like when I was an engineer interviewing for a job in Germany, uh, I literally got through the whole entire interview process and they were like, you did great, we'd love to hire you, but also we can't because we don't have the finances to do it. And I'm like, well, why did you let me go through the entire process?

Yeah.

Um, yeah, I think Uh, from my understanding, like, at our company, we're very— we wouldn't put people in the pipeline unless we financially were able to. It's not something where we just pull people in and on like a hope that we could maybe hire them. We're pretty, um, I would say good on that, um, where we won't waste your time.

Sure.

But if the ball gets dropped, I would assume it's just, uh, like what I had mentioned first. It's just a logistical or a clerical, uh, issue. And that does happen sometimes, unfortunately, and that's awful. And if I see that happen, of course I make an effort to, to step in and say, hey, we need to pick this back up, or talk to the people involved, because we're wasting— not wasting, these are people's real lives and time on the line here.

Sure, sure. Yeah, I mean, I, I, I think, I think my advice for folks who kind of keep dealing with that, I think one of the questions I would ask immediately is like is like, is this budget specced out? Um, you know, like prime example, I was even helping— I'm helping my dad through the job search, right? He's in the restaurant industry and he was interviewing at a company here in town. And I was like, it sounded more of like, hey, we'd love to have you if we have the budget, you know, that type of thing. And I just told him, I was like, dude, you got to drill into it and, and, and you got to ask them about this stuff. And, you know, ultimately, he found out that they don't really have the budget right now, right? It's, it was more of like a, let's get you in the door and talk to you type of thing. And so—

Mm-hmm.

I, so like my 2 biggest pieces of advice from this little, little convers— a little bit of this conversation is, when you're interviewing for a role, there is nothing wrong with asking, hey, is this, is this role fully specced out? Is there budgetary approval for this role? There's, there's nothing wrong with asking that. Um, the, the, the second thing is, is that, um, I would also be just consistent on follow-up, right? I think a lot of times people are like, well, I haven't heard anything. It's like, you, you need to keep emailing. And again, I tell people multiple emails for follow-up is not annoying. Your tone is the thing that is annoying.

Mm-hmm.

But you checking in, especially if you're 3 to 4 rounds in, there's nothing wrong with you sending an email once or twice a week being like, hey, just checking in. Hey, just checking in. Wanna see where I'm at? Hey, let me know. You know, There's nothing wrong with that because I think a lot of times, uh, people are just busy and then people forget. So you got to stay on it.

Totally, totally. And if you find yourself annoyed, which I absolutely do all the time if stuff like that happens, throw your immediate response into ChatGPT and have it generate a more neutral, friendly version. There you go. This is how you can use AI.

I use— I use ChatGPT. I, I actually used that for an email recently. So yes, I would, I would Because I am sometimes a little terse and short in my emails. And yeah, and I knew the crowd I was trying to email, and I just was like, hey, can you make this friendly? And it worked. It was great. Um, all right, so, uh, rapid fire again. Emma, thank you for coming on. This was great. Uh, just thank you for just being so open. Um, it means so much.

Of course.

But want to get to obviously the fun questions. If you have any questions for Emma, please ask them here as we kind of wrap up. I know there's a little bit of lag on the streams. Um, so first off, What is one tech tool, app, something— it doesn't have to be like developer related, it could be a mobile app, whatever— what is one thing that you just can't live without right now?

This is so stupid to say, but it is actually Spotify. And I would have said that if I didn't work there, I swear, because I'm not joking. Every morning I go on a walk with my son for 30 to 45 minutes and I listen to an audiobook Or a podcast, and I'm not joking. Listening to something motivational is the only reason I have productive days.

Yeah, same. My wife's not that way. I send my wife all this stuff; she never watches it. But me, I'm like I need all the motivational content I can get.

So yeah, I totally agree.

What's the very first job you ever got paid to do?

I can't remember if it was. Okay, I was gonna say I worked at Victoria's Secret as like a cashier, but also I was a beanbag salesman. So one of those two.

Beanbag?

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, yeah, it was, it was fun. I was like a model in the photos. You could still find it if you know the name of it. I'm not going to tell you.

So I love it, I love it. Uh, that should be the COVID art for, for this podcast is finding it. Um, uh, let me ask you this. Um, uh, what did you want to be when you were younger? Like, what did you want to grow up to be? To, to be like, like OG Emma in like elementary school?

Obstetrician-gynecologist. Isn't that so ironic? That was my dream job. I was the 10-year-old kid watching birthing videos for fun. I thought it was so intriguing and I wanted to deliver babies for a living. And that's fascinating given my fertility history. Yeah.

Yeah, that's crazy. I haven't had somebody ask that, answer that. So there you go. That's, that's wild. Um, let me ask you this, and you may, you maybe alluded to it, um, but what's, what's maybe one career mistake you're oddly grateful for?

Hmm, I don't want to call it a mistake, but I would say getting too antsy and switching teams or jobs every year and a half. Like, I was never in a position long enough to build a solid, like, backlog of work to get a promotion. And at the time, I'm like, well, I'm never going to get promoted. At the same time, it really did get me to where I am today. So I would say, don't— yeah, it's this, like, really pause and ask yourself, like, are you running away from something? Are you running towards something? To Kelly's point.

Yeah.

Because if you're running away from something, That's not going to be good for you long term. And that was actually a mistake I did make. I didn't get a promotion for the first like 10 years of my career. It took a long time. Yeah.

Okay. Um, let me ask you this. Let's say I were to tell you tomorrow, Emma, that when you wake up, you can't do anything more in tech anymore.

Amazing.

Okay. Yeah, I figured you'd say that. But, and then, and then, and then money's the same. But I'd still pay you what you're making now. What hobby would you pursue for a living?

I would read books for a living. I would be in book publishing or own a library, wine bar, coffee shop. No wonder. I know. Well, do you know what? We're going to Italy to go to cooking school in Tuscany, and we're going to drink wine and read books together in Tuscany.

Uh, y'all should do some— y'all should post because content would go crazy on that trip. That's great. I love that. Drink a little wine, read a little books. That's great. That sounds like— the wine sounds great. Reading books sounds like my nightmare. I can't sit still long enough to read it, but, uh, shout out, shout out to you all to be able to do that. Um, uh, all right, last— oh no, second to last question. Um, I know you're in Sweden, right? So there's not Thanksgiving, but what's like, what's like the one dish you have to have for it to be Thanksgiving if you were to do Thanksgiving?

Stuffing or pumpkin pie, but they're in two separate categories, so I feel like I'm allowed to answer both.

They are. Yeah, I love it.

I will be making stuffing.

Okay, so homemade stuffing?

Oh yeah, well yeah, that's the thing, moving abroad to a different continent, I've had to learn how to make everything from scratch. But we will get a rotisserie chicken. I am not doing a turkey.

I love it, I love it, I love it. Um, all right, last question. Uh, the show's called Guidance Counselor 2.0 because we had guidance counselors in middle school, high school, and college, but now as adults we don't really have them. What would be your biggest piece of career advice to young Emma?

Stop worrying so much about stuff you can't control. I love that. Really? Yeah, I love that.

Yep, I need that too. I need that too. What is your favorite non-fiction book, Emma?

It was The Culture Map for a long time. For productivity, I'd say Atomic Habits. Okay, I love it.

Yeah, I've heard of the book.

It sounds great. Yeah, it's great. And for leadership, uh, Dare to Lead by Brené Brown. Fantastic.

I love it. I love how you had those ready to go. If you asked me that, I'd be like, I don't know, the coloring book.

Although, although I'm into nonfiction that's more like interesting, like, uh, Educated by Tara Westover is really interesting. Uh, like she grew up like, I don't know if her parents were like doomsday preparers, but they— she like grew up outside the education system, and then when she was an adult, she like got into formal education and had to teach herself a lot of different things. Uh, anything about space, like, yeah. So I have a lot of fun. Yeah, like the Challenger space explosion or, uh, things like that.

There you go. Again, sounds great. Sounds great. See, I just make friends with people like Kelly or Emma, they can just tell me the books so I don't have to read them. Um, all right, cool. Well, again, thanks y'all for tuning in. Appreciate it. Uh, go connect with Emma, uh, message her, tell her it was good to see her on Guidance Counselor 2.0 today. But y'all have a great one. Emma, stay on so I can say bye to you backstage. Um, but you guys have a great week. I'm gonna be live tomorrow, um, to discuss, uh, Interview Prep 101. It's kind of some basic blocking and tackling things that a lot of people miss out on. So I'm gonna be live tomorrow morning, 9:30 AM Central. Y'all have a good one. Thank you, Emma. I appreciate you. Thank you.