Finding a Job as a Director of Engineering w/Brian Walter, Republic.com

Good morning, everybody. Good morning. All righty, let's see. I'm gonna do this. We gotta do this. Okay, drop it in the chat. See here. All right, good morning everybody, welcome. Uh, no one's here yet, so we just— you just yap it up. Uh, excited to hang out with Brian, it's been a minute. There we go, look who's here, first, first person here.

All right.

Hey Colin, while I have you, I need to reschedule Thursday. Um, we have an all-hands. I was gonna text you this morning. It's been crazy. So, so, Colin, just text me and I'll send you the, the link. I'm sorry, it just got put on my calendar. I love you, Colin. We'll, we'll reschedule ASAP. So sorry about that. Um, uh, good morning everybody. Excited to hang out with Brian again. Brian, how long has it been since you've been on the show? What, a year? It's been a year.

It's been a year. Uh, it's, uh, seems like it's— it was about this time last year.

Crazy.

Yeah, it was.

I love it. And again, I love this show. It really helps me, you know, build relationships with people that would never have— obviously, uh, I've been able to meet Colin. Got us into— where'd you work with Colin again?

So Colin and I worked— we had 2 stints at the same company together.

Okay.

Uh, the company called Modea. Um, he came on board while I was already there, as we were both engineers, and then I hired him back He was out of town. He moved back to Blacksburg and yeah, worked for me for a few years, and then he moved to Nashville. So yeah, I love it. We go way back.

I love it. So again, shout out Colin for making the introductions. Um, and again, Colin, crazy awesome dude. He, he's a nutcase. Colin, Brian and I were giggling about you backstage. He does marathons. Colin's ridiculous. If you ever want to get into marathon stuff— triathlete, triathletes, triathletes, triathlon stuff. Yeah.

Yeah.

Crazy. Well, it's not Colin's show, it's Brian's show. So Brian, so Brian, I'm excited to talk about this, about this topic with Brian today. You know, I think a lot of— I think, uh, you know, I told Brian backstage, I think when it comes to the job search, I think everybody thinks leadership has it easy. Oh, you're in leadership, they know everybody. But, you know, we're gonna talk about Brian's search. I mean, Brian, how long were you on the search for?

It took me 18 months, almost 19 months, okay, to find a job after I had— the company I'd been working for, um, lost funding and we had to shut down. Okay.

Yeah, so 18, 19 months. So we're going to talk about it first and foremost. Um, again, I want to make an announcement. Whatever Brian yaps it up here, it is, it is reflective on his views, not Republic. Not, not that we're gonna say anything controversial, but we got to say it. But again, it's going to be a great conversation today. For those of you tuning in, say hey. We'd love to hear from you. Again, this is a networking platform. I say this, and Brian understands this, guests are secondary on the show. This is a networking platform to where you can show up, say hey to people in the comments, engage. We're actually on the Discord now. We're live on our Discord. So you can come in under our livestreams chat and you can chat it up as well. We got people in the comments. as well. So again, just please say hey, engage. I think networking has changed pretty drastically, and the best way to network right now is just show up in these streams and say hey. And Brian, I'm sure we're gonna probably talk about some good networking tips when we dive in. I wanna give a shout out to 2 people. Obviously, first and foremost, Appwrite. I am an Appwrite hero. And so if you have not checked out Appwrite, highly recommend you do so. Great piece of software. So go check them out. Also too, as always, shout out Torque, man. I mean, again, for— I mean, I know they're employing me, but really understanding community and the importance of it. All 3 leaders, all C-suite leaders at Torque are all former engineers. They understand that engineers want to be approached at a different level than just being running ads and traditional marketing campaigns. And they've brought me on and empowered me to grow community. As a non-software engineer, right? So again, I'm super, super grateful to be here. I want to give a shout out to people tuning in. We got a full crew this morning outside of Colin. We got Ricardo, Jason. He is another Torque community lead on my team. Taya, Richard, Trey, Katie. Shout out Katie. Katie redid our entire Discord for Torque. It is awesome now. So go check it out. Shout out Katie for doing that. Jeff. Jeff is a— I'm going to go ahead and call it Jeff's. Jeff's our first ambassador. Surprise, Jeff. You're our first ambassador. I haven't even told you this. I'm just super impressed. Jeff understands the power of community and thankful for him and everything he's doing in our Torq community as well. Dane, it's good to see you, man. It's always good when Dane hops in. Had the opportunity to work with Dane a few positions ago and place him at a job. Tell you, it's good to see you. Also, yeah, it's so funny. Appwrite has 2 heroes on the Torq team, me and Jason. So there you go. We got to do more with Appwrite in 2025. JC, it's good to see you. And then it's good to see you, Lights. It's good to see you, man. All right. So Brian, let's give the people what they want, man. Who are you? What do you do now? And we'll dive in.

All right. Brian Walter, software engineering leadership. My title is Director of Software Engineering for a company called Republic. Republic's out of New York. Actually, we have 2 offices, one in New York, one in London. But I was brought on recently to head up the engineering team and build a team of engineers for a project that has just kicked off. And so my goal is to build a team the right way, build it, build a product well, but we are a 100% startup at this point. Okay, project. So I love it. Yeah. Um, what, what else did you ask me to say?

Uh, man, we just— oh, you know, we didn't kick it off. We didn't kick it off again. I don't rehearse any of these things, obviously, so we're just talking this morning. Um, uh, so Christmas is coming. First off, do you, do you have the presents bought? Like, are gifts purchased?

There are a couple more stocking stuffers. That—

oh no, I forgot. Stop. I legit forgot about stocking stuffers.

Yes, but last night I finished the main shopping. Stocking stuffers are—

Well, there you go. Yeah, these stuffers are hard. I gotta figure out— I gotta text my wife. Yeah, give me some ideas. Anyways, um, all right, next thing. Uh, any holiday traditions, Christmas traditions that you do with your family or, or just you that you really try to do every single year? Is there one thing you always try to do?

Uh, every Christmas for me is centered around my immediate family in, in a big way. Christmas Eve, my daughter and I make homemade ravioli, um, and so it's around eating, presents, and just, uh, relaxing, particularly on Christmas Day.

I love it. Do you have any movies you guys try to watch at all or anything?

We do a lot leading up. Yeah, we watch, uh, Elf is probably our favorite.

Just watched Elf last night. It's so good. I was giggling. That movie's so old and I still giggle at some stuff, man.

Yeah, absolutely.

I love it.

Yep, I love it.

All right, so, uh, people like listening to the Christmas episode. I mean, I'm sure people talk about Christmas movies all day. Talk about, uh, let's just get into it, man. 19 months on the job search. Let's talk high level. What are your thoughts after concluding it? Just kind of give me some raw, unfiltered opinions on it.

Yeah. It was painful. That's probably the— and, but it was also, it was also a time of true growth there, you know, because now, fortunately, I started out, I, like I mentioned before, I started out, the company I was with went under. But the fortunate thing was, I got— was that I got a really good severance package. So the physical aspect of it, although it was stressful, it could have been a lot worse from that, that aspect.

Yes.

Where the pain came in and the real stress was as the months wore on and just the effort was seemingly very, uh, unfruitful.

Yeah.

And little gains, or I'd have I'd have a job that seemed like, or an opportunity that seemed like it was it, and it would fall through for whatever reason.

Yep.

And so, um, it was, it was very painful. But, um, you know, I do have a— I had a great support crew throughout the entirety of it. My wife, my family, um, and an extended group of people that I really leaned hard on. And I, you know, I can get into that as well. On, on what helped me through. Yeah.

So, all right, I'm sure there's a lot of— we're gonna get into a lot of things here. I asked Brian if we can go a little over, he said yes, but I don't want to take too much of his time. Talk about— let's get into, let's get into the emotional side of it, right? We can get a tactical side. You said it was tough. Um, how did you feel when you got the notice? Um, maybe what are some things— so how did you feel, and then what's like one or two things you started to do immediately?

Um, so I had heads up because like I said, I knew, I knew we were gonna lose funding. I worked with my CEO at the time.

Okay.

My role was VP of Engineering. So I was over the entire engineering organization. And we planned for it. And a lot of it was, how are we going to put, you know, set everybody up for success the best we can within limits? And I helped people find other jobs. That was my first role I felt like I needed to do, help people network and connect the best I could.

Sure.

And so I kind of—

So you were helping other people?

Yeah.

Yeah.

As much as I could, you know, I also had to start, you know, I didn't just jump in full bore because I needed some time to recoup a little bit and take, take time away. And I took about 2 weeks. And I had been unemployed before. And I went to start going the same route. You know, hey, I'm on LinkedIn, I'm just starting to apply for jobs, and immediately found out that's not the right way to do it.

Yeah.

It's a whole different ballgame than it was the last time. And what I knew from the start was going to be tough was that I live in Blacksburg, Virginia. I live in an area that doesn't have a significant amount of engineering leadership.

It's not a—

Yeah, there's a fair amount of technology. But what I have, what I've been experienced in, and what I think I'm good at, the opportunities are, are really small. So I was, I didn't want to relocate. That was my first hope is to stay where I am. And that meant looking for remote jobs. And immediately that shrinks your opportunities in a very, very competitive space. Engineering leadership, remote positions, it's tough.

Yeah, I love it. So talk about, talk about some steps you did, man. So props to you, shows you who you are as a leader trying to help people, got the news. I mean, props to you, man. Let's talk about you. What are some things you did kind of initially To start? Because I think that's where people— because I had, I had dinner with Colin the other night, and, you know, Colin and I talked about— I, I think what you do in the first week or 2 really may or may not set you up. There's some— I mean, it took you 19 months. You could say, well, Taylor, what he did in the first 2 weeks, 3 weeks didn't really help him. I would disagree with you. I think there's a lot of the market. But talk about some things you started to do, put into place immediately.

Um, I would say I made mistakes. And I talked about it. Yeah, I thought that, you know, because there was such a plethora of, of postings, particularly on LinkedIn or any job boards, it was not going to be a significant effort. It was going to be, okay, I just have to find the right one. And so that was my immediate thought. I just need to, you know, to get the right one. And I made the mistake of thinking, that I just need to get some kind of, you know, spray and pray type approach. Yeah, it was a little bit— that was really the biggest thing. And I quickly realized that this is not going to work.

What made you quickly realize it's not going to work? I think I know the answer, but I want you to say it out loud. How many—

this is how many responses I got, you know.

And which is— and you're not alone. I have so many DMs right now that the cold apply just does not work.

Yeah.

And can you talk about it from the hiring manager side real quick? Why that's the case right now?

Because you get so many applicants. So it's such a very difficult thing to weed through those. And if you don't have a connection with somebody, or they just for whatever reason just stand out above You know, and beyond everybody else. It's so hard to get through that initial stage. You know, it's harder to get that first interview, that phone screen, than it is to move beyond that.

Yeah.

And so that's why the power of just using somebody that you network with, that you make a connection with, that you can come in a different door today. Yeah, so vital and so crucial.

Okay, so you, so you were mass applying?

Yep.

Not working, zero response.

How?

Because I think people really don't get this. They're like, well, I'm gonna keep doing it and think something happens. When did you— how quickly did you pivot your strategy? Was it a week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, a month? What was it?

It was a couple months. And that was a couple months. Okay. Yeah. And here's what, here's what changed too. I, I joined a group of folks through a program called Never Search Alone. I don't know if you've heard about it or not. I love that. Basically, it's a volunteer-run group. There is a book that you can buy. And it is a pretty substantially sized group now. And they pair you up— well, not pair you up, but they put you in a group of similar folks, like similar in Maybe age, but career points in their career, not necessarily the same what you're competing for. You wouldn't be competing against anybody else in your group. But very similar place in life and place in your career. And that group is responsible for meeting on whatever cadence they deem they can. And in our group, we met twice a week.

Okay.

We started going through the book and started doing these exercises. But immediately, I started connecting with these people, but also their networks. And it was just a way of quickly multiplying my network.

Yeah.

And so throughout my search, I kept in touch with that group. And eventually, some folks started getting jobs. And of my group, I was the last one that, that got a job. But we still meet now. I love that, you know, once a month now, even though we're all employed and kind of gone our own way. But it was that community. And there were folks that I got introduced to that I got interviews with through just my immediate group there, but also that an extension of that. And for me, that's— that does not come natural for me, the community aspect and reaching out and expanding my network. But it was vital. It was crucial to— to— yes, Never Search Alone. It was very powerful. And I would recommend at least checking it out if you're looking. And it's amazing because it is all volunteer run. And you can buy a book for— I think it's like $20 or maybe $25 at the most. And that's your only investment besides time.

I love that. Can you get me connected with those folks?

Absolutely.

I would love to, I would love to talk with them and pick their brains because that's kind of what we're doing at Torque, right? I want us to— for you to always have a home base with us. That's why our unofficial slogan is Welcome Home here at Torque. So I love that. So what are some, what are some tactics that really started to work, right? Listen, then there's no— I'm gonna preface this— there's no silver bullet, right? So like what Brian may say may not work for you, but Brian, I mean, you said to get introductions and like, but you still have to chase leads. So like, how did you format that in your day-to-day?

I mean, I, I viewed it as a full-time job. And I mean, you, you have to in a lot of ways.

You have to.

And when I did find a job, whether I had a cold call or a lead that somebody had had provided for me. I spent the time, you know, I made sure that the application was, was tailored to the job description.

Yeah.

I made sure the COVID letter was, you know, said what I knew about the company I was applying for. So I tailored that. And then I started reaching out and trying to make contacts within the company Finding folks that, that had, had relationships and just working it from that angle.

So, so let me ask you, so kind of like quick, uh, role play here. So it's like you would— so you would find— would you find— where would you find the jobs at? Was it a LinkedIn? Was it just a general job posting? And then what, would you find the company page on LinkedIn and start connecting with people there? Like, what did that look like?

Yeah, it was the general LinkedIn job posting, or somebody would, would give me a heads up on a role they thought. And there were, there were a couple that, a couple companies that were much larger, that various roles would come up, and I would work those connections. Okay, to get it, get the first interview.

When you message somebody cold, I think people have a really hard problem with cold messaging.

Yeah, cold outreach.

And I mean, listen, There are sales classes to work on your cold outreach. It is a hard thing to do. What worked?

Not much.

Okay, well, love the honesty. There you go.

I will. Yeah, I will be absolutely honest there. It was, I would say, probably 95% of the cold outreaches I tried, I would not get a response.

All right, so Brian, you're, you're, you're not giving a lot of hope here. You said Yes, he's dead. So you said 0% of outreach DMs work. Now you're saying only 5-10% of cold outreach DMs work, which— and that's okay. I'm, I'm just speaking the reality of what is going on right now.

Yeah.

So, so how did you, how did you turn the 5% of responses back to you into something?

Um, well, let me back up by saying, please, my opinion is that the cold responses are just very, very difficult and very hard to get. So because I know from my end of it now, I get, I get, I don't know how many requests to connect on LinkedIn a day. And unless you really stand out in something in your message, That's not going to work. The— what, what does work is getting an introduction from somebody else. Okay. And it, you know, hey, here's Brian, you know, just want to introduce you to him. He'd love to pick your brain about X, Y, or Z, you know, in that way, starting a relationship, because it's like you've got a reference to somebody that they know and trust.

Right.

That's what really worked for me.

So where— but so then where did you get the intros from? How did you get intros?

Just through networking, you know, through people that I already knew or had a relationship. Hey, I see that you're connected to this person. Yeah. Can you provide—

yes.

Can you provide me an intro?

Okay.

Or, and when I had those, got those intros, And they may not even have been an intro for a job or anything like that. But it would always ask the question, is there anybody else that you could introduce me to? And that's how I was really successful in expanding my network, is getting the next intro, or the next 3 intros from that person.

Was LinkedIn your best friend through this?

It was a love-hate relationship. But yes.

Were there any other resources that you used that you seem to— again, I mean, if we're talking about it, out of 200 DMs you were sending, it may sound like you only were getting one response. I mean, like, based off what your stats you were saying, every 200 was one response back. Uh, out of— outside of LinkedIn, did you have any other avenues that you were consistently hammering away on?

Not besides like pure email.

Okay, okay.

No other platforms that were consistently, uh, that I focused on or that were very successful to me.

Did you by chance open— like, do you open up your phone and like kind of go through your old contacts, see if everybody was in there? Did you do that at all?

To some, to some extent.

Okay, okay, okay. So you were on the search for 18 months?

Yeah.

I think that terrifies a lot of people hearing that, especially again for For somebody kind of of your caliber of a senior level. Again, I want to go back to the emotional side of it, right? I mean, you're getting rejected or getting ghosted probably way more often than people realize. What kept you— I mean, I know what kept you going is like getting a job and providing financially. I understand that. But like, what— like, I mean, can you talk about just some doubts maybe you had or some impo— I mean, like, kind of kind of get into the mental side of it?

Yeah, I started— yeah, you immediately start and throughout doubting your ability to, to lead, to stay up to date on the latest technology. And I, I asked myself the question all the time, do I need to switch careers?

Really?

Yes.

That even creeped into your brain?

Well, and let me give a little bit more context to that. Because I started consulting. And I started consulting for an old friend of mine that just hit me up and said, hey, he had seen that I'd done an Ironman triathlon last year.

Oh, I forgot you're a triathlon guy.

Yeah.

That's, that's, that's really Colin's You know, I forgot about that for some reason. Okay, both of y'all are nutcases. But yeah, I mean, that's the most loving way possible.

But this guy called me up and said, hey, I respect what you've done. I need some help. Would you consider coaching me in my professional life? And I have to give a shout out to this guy that did that because he was looking for coaching to help kickstart his Uh, business, and he's an engineer in, uh, mining engineering.

Oh.

A field I had no— knew nothing about.

Yeah, yeah.

And as I started formulating this, uh, relationship with him, I learned about his business. I learned about mining engineering a bit and considered— continued to consult with him until, until 2 months ago. Um, and so I was questioning, is that something that I should go into?

So still engineering, but just not— yeah, just not pure tech, I guess.

Not software engineering. Not— yeah, not software development. Uh, mining engineering is literally digging in the dirt.

Yep. Yeah, you know, it's interesting that you brought that up. I wanna— I wanna talk about that for a second because, uh, where was I? I was at a conference recently. They're all starting to blend together at this point, but But somebody asked a question and they go, I thought this was very profound with where the market is. And then for everybody who's commenting, I'm gonna get to the questions here in a second. So please, if you have questions, please ask them for Brian. We're gonna get to them in a second. But somebody asked in the conference setting, they go, everybody raise your hand if you wanna work for like a SaaS tech company right now. Almost no one raised their hand.

Hmm.

What are your thoughts on that?

Um, where my sweet spot is, is building a team, right? And building software with the right, the best practices, nurturing that, whether it's a software, whether it's a SaaS company, or a smaller startup like I'm in right now. Yeah, as long as I can do that, I don't have as much of an opinion on what that looks like. Yeah. And so, but I guess, are you asking more from the opinion of, you know, a larger company?

Or just a general state of tech? I think like why people are picking that.

Um, I mean, it's a competitive landscape in the SaaS industry. Yeah, you know, and depending on the companies that you go with, you know, it's tough. And there's a lot of— there are a lot of cutbacks you hear about. And everybody wants job security. But there is none really today. And startups certainly are open to failure, but so are, you know, SaaS companies. So I don't have a strong opinion on that. Really. But for me, it's, it's all about being able to get into a position where I can, you know, personally affect how we build and nurture a team and build them up and manage up and manage down.

Right. Absolutely. I think too, my hot take is I think the non-tech, the non-SaaS tech-focused companies have almost been overlooked the last 3 to 4 years. And I think there's a huge opportunity for you to really move the needle in those type of non-tech SaaS companies, um, uh, because I think there's a lot of problems that still need to be solved. I think everybody went, they wanted the sexy, the, of, of, of SaaS and startup life and all that. And I think the market shifted. I think you can make still a huge impact, like you just said, like in mining or, you know, whatever. Um, I do want to get to some questions here. I can't believe it. Technically, we're almost at time, but this is really— this is so good. So we're gonna keep going here. Um, let's see here. Um, uh, let's see here. We got a bunch of comments. I'm trying to sift through here. Does anyone actually read cover letters? What was your experience with that?

No, I mean, probably a low percentage, but you still want to put the time and effort into them. Yeah, in the— because For me, I read cover letters, and if you don't have a cover letter that has some— something that catches my eye, I know you skipped that step. Yeah, I care about them, but maybe I'm in the minority of hiring managers, but I care about them.

There you go. Um, let's see here. Out of curiosity, uh, and this is for Barrett, but I think this is good. How many people have looked at that built products with users? Do those candidates stand out to you? What are your thoughts on this?

How many people have looked at that?

People that, like Bill, have built products maybe in their spare time, or, you know, from a volunteer perspective?

Oh, I see.

Yeah.

Yeah. Anybody that's doing something aside, you know, side business or side projects? Absolutely.

Yeah.

That's something that, you know, it shows greater initiative. It shows greater desire to get themselves ahead. Absolutely. Is that, is that kind of the aim of the question there?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just trying to separate yourself out in the sea of COVID letters and resumes and stuff.

Yeah, yeah, you know, because you want to be able to differentiate. And those are the things that I look at, you know, is it somebody that's just been, you know, developing code? I want to see other things. I want to see well-rounded people. And I want to see people that are energetic and, uh, go the extra mile there.

I love that. Um, how did you— okay, so then tell me this, how did you get the job at Republic?

Uh, former boss hired me.

And then how did that boss— how did you connect with that boss?

Um, I connected with him early on in my search. Oh really?

So it was an early on part of the search?

It was early on. He didn't have anything available Okay. But we had a call and he's like, you know, what's going on? What are you looking for? If anything comes up, I'll let you know. And it was probably a year later after that first connection. And I kind of would DM him every now and then. But finally he said, hey, are you still interested? I've got something. And I said, absolutely, let's talk.

That's awesome.

So I'd worked for him before and he knew my skill set, he knew my background and all that.

So, and again, I want to reiterate this, I want to reiterate this. If you get anything out of this, a lot of times, a lot of times the people you talk to at the beginning of your career, of your job search, are typically the ones, in my opinion, that usually come back around. But it doesn't happen immediately, which is why you have to stay at it.

Absolutely. And let me say this too. Every, almost every interview that I got in my search came from a former connection, a close connection, either a former coworker or somebody that I was close with, that were— that they knew who I was, they knew my skill set and were able to vouch for me beyond just a reference. And that's, that's an important thing. I think I had one interview that was purely a LinkedIn response application. Yeah, but everything else was a direct connection. And some of them were like from 2 jobs ago or 3 jobs ago.

I love that. Talk to me about your follow-up game. I mean, one of the things I talk a lot about, do you feel like you did well with follow-up? Do you feel like that's something that maybe you could have improved on? How did you Stay up with follow-up? Talk to me about that.

Yeah, I think I did pretty well.

Good, good.

Because you can't just let it drift and, and then try to, try to connect with some— reconnect with somebody 6 months later and say, hey, now do you have something? It just, it doesn't make— it doesn't work that well. It's just keeping, keeping in touch with people, you know, and Certainly the immediate follow-up. Every time I had an interview, I would send them a thank you, you know, and point out—

Talk about that. Talk about that for a second.

Every single interview, it's very— it's vital because— and you usually don't get a response when you follow up that way, but they see it and they read it and they appreciate it. But it was, I appreciated your time today. You know, I— this really resonated with me. And I think this is how I can help you.

I love that.

These are my strengths that what we talked about, or maybe something that I didn't get to put in.

Yeah, you're probably pretty explicit. I mean, like, like, I think right now, like, you have to be like, yep, yep. I love that.

And, and just keeping in touch. That's, that's a lot of, you know, there was one opportunity that seemed to come along, you know, would wane. In, and I had probably 3 different interviews over the course of probably 12 months. And it didn't work out. But I would, I would continually reach out to the recruiter and say, hey, still interested. This is what I've learned since the last time.

Yeah, talked. Yeah, absolutely. And then Trey comes in here. I think it's so true here. I think developers should stop listening to Twitter, as in chasing the new hot tech. Most internet is built on PHP. No one talks about it. Thoughts on this, Brian?

I agree with don't go chasing the newest hot tech. You know, and from a developer standpoint, engineering is engineering. I mean, I don't want to say that lightly. Sure. But what I look for are people that understand how to code and how to code well.

Yeah.

And the nuances between whether it's PHP or any other language, JavaScript. I can— I, a good engineer knows how to adapt to different languages. As long as you have a good sense of what— how to build, how to build well, and how to work well on a team. That's what I care about the most.

Yeah, absolutely. As we wrap up here, Brian, I want to give you last little bit of a minute or two to maybe say anything maybe we haven't covered? Any words of encouragement for people who are on the job search right now?

Um, keep at it. You know, it is tough. It is tough right now. We're dealing with a lot of things that we— that weren't out there 5 years ago, you know, particularly just the amount of people that are applying for, for different roles right now. Um, find somebody if you, you know, I mentioned never search alone. If If you look at that, but also find a support group that you can really lean on heavily. And I had more people that I would meet with outside of that group on a regular basis that would keep me accountable and encourage me through it, you know, whether it was grabbing a coffee or a virtual coffee or beer or something.

Yeah.

Just keeping in touch with people, because when you're down, they'll pick you up.

I love that, man. I love that. So good. All right, last few kind of random questions here as I wrap up every episode with. Again, Brian, thank you so much. Literally time flew by. I have no idea what happened to the time. That was wild. So for those of you, please go connect with Brian.

Yes, connect with me. I will answer if you DM me on LinkedIn.

Yes, but make sure when you send people notes, include where you saw them, include something, right? Brian, I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

Absolutely. Don't just say, me a connection request because I'll look at your— I'll look at the request and say, how does this person— why are they reaching out? You know, are they trying to sell me something or did they hear me on Taylor's show?

Yeah, absolutely. Plus, yeah, so please, uh, go connect with Brian. Um, um, all right, so last few questions. If you have any questions, throw them up in the chat as we kind of wrap up here. There's definitely kind of a little bit of a lag with StreamYard in this, so ask any questions and we'll try to get to them. But Brian, So, um, first question is, if I told you that tomorrow you couldn't do anything in tech— surprise, I know you just got this job— but let's say you woke up tomorrow, I said you couldn't do anything in tech, but I'll pay you the same if not more money, what, what would you do?

Oh, that's a tough question. If I was 30 years younger, I'd become a professional triathlete.

There you go. There you go.

But it would certainly be something in that realm. Athletics has, has been a huge influence in my life. So it may be something, you know, coaching potentially, if money was less of an issue. But because there was so much that, that, that athletics taught me that, that has been influential in my whole professional career.

Yeah, I love that. Um, outside of triathlon stuff, what do you like to do outside of work?

I love the outdoors— hiking, um, fishing, canoeing, kayaking. Uh, we have the New River around here. Just— and spending— just spending time with my family. I'm a Virginia Tech graduate, so everything orange and maroon around here. Football season, Basketball season tickets, you know, track and field, anything, and anything Hokie sports.

Blacksburg is just so beautiful, man. Um, next time I drive through there when I get to Roanoke, we'll need to grab a beer or something.

Absolutely.

Um, uh, uh, all right, Trey comes in here, and then, uh, we'll get to Trey's question. We'll wrap it up. My last question, Brian: what is your ideal engineer from a team perspective, the type of person you want to work with?

That is a great question. I mentioned teamwork, you know, I would rather have somebody, first of all, that maybe not as strong on a pure engineering perspective, but really has a vision of understanding that, hey, I'm, I'm part— I'm contributing to a team effort here. And I'm here to, from a perspective of iron sharpens iron, you know, we're all going to grow together. I'd rather have a team of similar talented folks instead of like a superstar that needs— that wants to be treated like a superstar. I want people that are going to work well together and understand what, you know, the value of communication with even within an engineering team that is so important, and can talk very well to product people or project managers, can talk even to stakeholders well and understand what that looks like. Sure, software engineering best practices are pretty important. But you, you have to be malleable, particularly earlier in your career, to understand what that looks like. And it may be that best practices on this team are a little bit different than another team. But it all points to how you develop product or whatever you're working on together well and what makes it— the engine run smoothly. I love that.

That's awesome. Last question, Brian, as we wrap up. The show's called Guidance Counselor 2.0 because we had guidance counselors in middle school, high school, and college, but now as adults, not so much.

Yeah.

What would be your biggest piece of career advice to young Brian? I know you gave it a year ago, but I don't remember what you said, so let's just come up with a new one.

I don't remember what I said either. But I would point to, to building that network early. I had a conversation with a guy that's looking for a career change. And I went— this was just last week. And I went and looked at his LinkedIn, and he had 82 connections. And I said, that's the first thing we have to work on. Yeah, is, is getting you out there.

Yeah.

And having conversations and then immediately set him up with a couple people to just talk with, not about getting jobs, but how they built their career. And again, I mentioned earlier, that was— that's always been a difficult thing for me to put the time in and the effort in, but it is well worth it.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Well, y'all, thank y'all so much for hanging out with us today. We appreciate it. I know Brian appreciates it. Go connect with Brian, send a note, tell him you saw him on Guidance Counselor 2.0 today. He's a gem of a human being. I'll also drop his LinkedIn in the Torque Discord so you have that to go connect with him. Again, so, Brian, thank you, my friend. Stay on so I can say bye to you backstage. But y'all have a good one. So tomorrow is our last one of the week. We have my guy Adewale. He is a staff or ACE. People call him ACE. He's a staff advocate engineer at Block. So he works on Angie Jones's team. and Rizel's team, um, with the Web5 kind of ecosystem. So Ace is from Amsterdam, uh, so he's gonna be on the show tomorrow, uh, gonna be talking about all things AI-themed right now. It's gonna be a great conversation. So y'all have a great one. We'll see y'all tomorrow. Last Guidance Council 2.0 actually of the year tomorrow. Um, so y'all tune in tomorrow, 9:30 AM Central. Brian, thank you, my friend.

Y'all have a good Christmas. Thank you.

Merry Christmas. See y'all.