From Sales to First Engineering Job at Netflix w/Shaundai Person

All righty, hold on. Good morning, everybody. Um, I don't know if you're feeling it, Shondae, but I think I'm battling some allergies. Uh, yeah, I don't know if allergies kicked in with you yet. I don't know if you deal with allergies. I just got over a head cold.

Oh.

Like, now I'm like still scratchy, but it's like a different type of scratchy, so I'm gonna go pick up some Zyrtec after This.

So yeah, good for you.

I don't know if you're feeling it yet in Georgia.

Yeah, because we get the pollen really bad.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're going through, I think, the second or third winter. We have a couple of—

Yes, Atlanta TikTok. I have to say this, Atlanta, because I, you know, I'm on TikTok for work purposes, as I said. Um, Atlanta TikTok, I think, is my favorite. Anything around the snow, like when it snowed Atlanta TikTok was my favorite. Like, yeah, unbelievable. And then, um, and then even with like that third winner you said, like, I've seen some stuff pop up and it is the funniest thing.

There are a lot. I know, I love it. It's a, it's a very, um, it's a hilarious genre, but like I could scroll all day. But oh yeah, snowman.

If you ever want comedy, just type in Atlanta weather and you will have a lot of, uh, fun commentary. Um, but good morning, y'all. Happy Tuesday. I'm excited for this episode with my dear friend Shaundai. I had Shaundai on a while ago and LinkedIn isn't showing live. All right, hold on. That's not good. Oh no, it is now.

Yeah.

It's a little laggy. It was funny, I talked with an engineer, I think last year, a year and a half ago, that was at Netflix or no, sorry, that was at LinkedIn. And he was no longer at LinkedIn. And I was like, were there any ever plans to improve the livestream experience? He goes, no. He was like, he was like, basically he was like, from a business perspective, there's only a few of y'all that use it a ton. And so he was, it's not a priority. I was like, well, it could be incredible. And I wish, I wish there was more emphasis around it. So.

Yeah. Is it like a chicken or the egg problem? Like, is it people aren't using it because it sucks or sucks because—

Oh, if somebody comments, not live and I see it, I never get to it because it's like the worst experience to go back in the comments and engage. So please comment and say hey now.

Yeah.

So I see you and can comment, uh, instead of later, which I'll never get to. But, um, we got some people tuning in. Ryan, it's good to see you. And of course, Jeff. Um, Richard, it's good to see you as well. Taya. Roxy is here. It's good to see you, Roxy. Um, this morning. All right. Um, before we dive in, a few kind of, uh, housekeeping things as always. First and foremost, want to give a shout out to Appwrite. If you If you did not catch my live yesterday with Nishant, he's an Appwrite hero and an Appwrite integration engineer. Great conversation about what's going on at Appwrite. I'm an Appwrite hero, probably the only hero, non-technical hero, probably on any software team. So again, I don't know how to code, but I would use their product if I did know how to code. So please go check them out. And great live yesterday with Nishant. So go check that out. Also, if you have not gotten your tickets yet, I am actually— Shaundai and I were talking about kind of our speaking gigs. I'm sure we'll get to that today. Um, but I'm emceeing Kent C. Dodds's conference in 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 2 weeks. Um, so go please check that out. Highly recommend. Uh, if, if you want to go and can't afford it, let me know. Um, I'll see what I can do. But still highly recommend. The, the caliber of talent there is pretty insane. Um, and I'm gonna be emceeing, um, with my counterpart Bri, and we're gonna— I'm gonna tell some really funny dad jokes, so you should come out. Um, and then as always, we got a ton of stuff going on at Torque Community. Best way to check everything out, kind of our calendar, our ambassador signups, our mentor-mentee signups. We have our resume template on there. Check out our Torque Community site, torque.community. We're gonna upload a lot more resources to help you throughout the job search in your career. So go please check them out. If you do want to be kept up to date of when I go live and who I'm going live with, so you can pick and choose who to show up for, text LIVE to this number. This is actually me. This is not AI. This is not some automated thing. This is actually me. This is my other number, my work number, because I need more things to keep up with. Um, so please, please text me. Would love to hear from you. And I text this out every day I go live. Uh, let's see here. Um, uh, Ryan, it's good to see you as well. Um, uh, Devon, it's good to see you. So we got some people tuning in this morning, which is wonderful. All right, enough of me running my mouth this morning. Let's give the people what they want. Shaundai, who are you? What do you do? And obviously, we will go from there.

Where do I start?

I don't know.

I'm Shaundai Person, pronounced like a day of the week, Friday, Saturday, Shaundai. I'm a— it gets them every time. I'm a senior software engineer. I'm a UI engineer at Netflix on the developer productivity team. Um, yeah, slash platform team. And outside of work, I am creating YouTube videos these days. I am. Yeah, yeah. So I'm getting that going. If you go to my YouTube now, you're not going to see that much, but it's like there's a lot of stuff brewing. I love it. And I'm a mom. So, um, yeah, just balancing family and I know, everything, everything, literally all the hardest jobs.

And you just always smile, which I love, which I love. All right, so, uh, again, I had Shondé on, uh, a year, a year, year and a half ago, I think. So we're still going to talk about her journey, uh, kind of getting into software, in which her first job was at Netflix, right? I was joking with her backstage, I said, you know, most like first people's job is in tech is like at Bart's Insurance down the road, um, you know, developing some sort of HR app and and some widgets and stuff. Not Shaundai, she just went straight for it and literally just got a job at Netflix from out of the gate. So we're gonna talk about that process today. So Shaundai, a lot of places to start here, but kind of give a little bit of your story of who you were before ending up at Netflix. Just kind of set the stage.

Yeah, I was a salesperson for a little over a decade right out of, well, undergrad. I went to school for business, grad school, I went to school for business. And the reason was because I was like, I was obsessed with entrepreneurship and what makes businesses tick. I love finance. I love business finance. I love personal finance. It's like a weird passion of mine. I have a friend that I'm catching up with after a couple months and we're like, let's talk about trusts and like estate planning. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so excited.

Yeah, you started doing some TikToks and I got lost on that. I was like, well, I don't know what she's talking about.

So that just inspires me to make some more because now I have to, I have to get everybody on that.

You can break it down.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, your, your whole trust TikTok was fascinating.

Thank you, thank you, I appreciate that. So yeah, if you, if you ever want to get me talking, just like talk about stocks, personal finance, I am— I will, I will go. Um, so I did sales, I did the sales thing. I was selling tech for a good part of that, but I sold everything. I sold bedsheets, I sold nail polish, I sold consulting services.

Okay.

Yeah, it was all over the map. I sold cars. I was all over the place. And so, and I loved it. What I really loved was the business aspect of it. I wanted to start a business, but I didn't know what kind of business I wanted to start.

Love.

In 2015, I decided to pursue my passions for entrepreneurship and just quit the workforce. I started a business that was selling things that you could see basically in a Whole Foods or Trader Joe's, all organic, natural, anything in that genre. And I had a Shopify store. What I found, which was surprising to me, what I found was the most fascinating about it was learning Liquid, which is Shopify's Ruby-based language, to customize my site. Because I was like, it's not just going to be any Shopify site.

It's basically MySpace in HTML. Yeah.

No, it's— I needed it to be like top of the line. Like there needed to be marketing automation. There needed to be like, you know, the chatbots. Yeah. So I was like, all right, I'm gonna learn to code to do this. And I figured out— it is me from Elite Heat. Um, there's a YouTube comment.

I know, I love it.

You're popular. That's just so great. Um, so yeah, so I decided to, um, kind of learn to code in all of the weirdest ways because in my head I thought that engineers needed to be They needed to go to school for years and years. They needed to have some type of applied science knowledge.

Like, I feel like that's what society teaches. Like, you got to have pedigree.

Yeah. Yeah. You can't just be yourself either. It's not like, you know, people who like to talk with people aren't welcome in engineering because you're going to sit in a—

You got to be like, you got to work in a closet with the lights off and like slide pizza under the door type of situation.

Right? Exactly. Exactly. And I was like, that's not for me. So, um, it started out as kind of like a hobby that I was really bad at. And there was one point where I had gone back into the workforce just because, um, in the United States you need health insurance. And I got pregnant and I was like, I need to— I need health insurance, right, for that. Um, because that would have been so expensive to have a baby.

Yeah, yeah, it's a whole nother conversation.

Um, so I, I went back to the workforce and then I saw a comment about Codecademy. Like there was an ad for Codecademy and there was a comment underneath that said, you don't have to go to school, you can be self-taught. And that just unlocked the whole world of everything for me. And that's where we, that's where we ended up.

That's awesome. So, so learn, so, so you, so wait, so you went to a bootcamp?

Oh no, I didn't.

Oh, you didn't? Okay. So literally all self-taught learning Liquid. Trying to develop a Shopify thing for you.

Yeah. And then it turned—

I mean, how did you get to Netflix? That, that to me is just crazy.

I know, it seems like a big jump.

Yeah, yeah. It's like, no, we're gonna like— I'm gonna quit everything I'm doing. I'm gonna learn Liquid by myself, which is whatever. And then we just— Netflix, surprise.

Yeah, no, that's a, that's a great question. And technically there was a first job in between. Um, there was a company that I was at called Salesloft. Oh, I didn't know you were at Salesloft. Yeah, I was at Salesloft.

Okay, Ray.

I was. Oh yeah, yeah, that's right. So yeah, that's where I met Ray in the first place. So I was there, I think, 7 months or so when I started interviewing at Netflix. And okay, so let me tell you about how that happened.

Yeah, please. Yeah, I'm always interested, like, how do you go from nothing to something?

Yeah. Okay. So you'll be really happy to hear this, that It was networking that was the big— I know you—

This was before, but let's put an emphasis on this. This was before the economy kind of went to shit the way it is right now.

No. Yeah, no, it— no, actually not the way that it is now, but this was 2020.

So, okay, so it still was a little rough because it didn't quite start humming until like 2021 or something like that. So yeah, it still wasn't ideal.

Yeah. So I got my job at Salesloft in November of 2020. And then I started with Netflix September of 2021. And so yeah, the job market, people were doing layoffs and things like that in 2020. Right. Yeah. And it was scary because actually I was selling during the time the pandemic hit and became the thing where we had to going quarantine and all that stuff. And yeah, so a lot of my big sales were at risk because of the economy going down and people just getting laid off. I would call customers and they would be like, I don't know. I got laid off last week. I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry. So yeah, but before the pandemic, I had already kind of had in my head that I was going to figure out how to promote myself as somebody who deserved the opportunity to interview for an engineering role. So I was at a company, Salesloft. And for those who don't know, Salesloft is a company that makes technology for salespeople.

Yeah.

They make what's called a sales engagement platform, which really doesn't matter. All that really matters is that I was selling software to salespeople. Salespeople were my customer. And I was a great seller. I will sell myself on that. And I made it a point to— I just wanted to get to know people. And I came at it from a curious mindset because I realistically didn't think that it was going to be anytime soon that I was going to be able to get a job because I had just started to kind of learn to code when I was at Salesloft.

Sure.

And I was like, I just want to talk to people, figure out what kind of things they did to get into their roles. But I also want from them, I want them, everybody to know me on the engineering side. And I want everybody, like, if 2 people just end up in a room together randomly from the engineering team, I wanted my name to come up and I wanted it to be good things. So that was just my goal is like, I just want to have my name in every room and I want my reputation to precede me.

Yeah.

exceed me. I don't want to have to ask for anything. And I do that still to this day with conferences. I've never had to submit a CFP for a conference. I want job opportunities to come to me. I don't want to have to be running around, running after people.

Yeah.

So I thought of this way and what I ended up doing, we had a Slack Donut. It's like a bot and—

Yeah, like connects people, right?

Yeah, like every 2 weeks it'll be like, um, you have a coffee chat with Taylor and/or, you know, some random person. Now if the person was in finance, I'd be like, yeah, forget it, like I don't care.

Right, yeah, yeah. So, okay, real quick, I want to highlight for people tuning in or just right now. So you were actively— so you were in a sales role at Salesloft Mm-hmm. Actively networking internally.

Yes.

With developers.

That's right. That's right. Yes. Yeah. I know I'm preaching.

I just want to clarify. Just want to clarify.

Right. See, and that's the thing is like, it's kind of like finance slash insurance. Like you want to be ready for a rainy day. I, you know, I don't want the rainy day to come and I didn't have my umbrella and my rain boots. I need all of that stuff to prepare for my rainy day. And so all of these were genuine conversations. It wasn't, you know, oh, I have this ulterior motive. Even if I did, though, it's not a bad thing. Like, it's a mutual gain. Like, they're gaining an amazing conversation.

Yeah.

They're gaining knowledge, and I'm learning about them. And we're connecting as 2 people who work in the same company. But I'm finding ways to leverage this opportunity to get to know people closer. And like, I might be at a conference, or I might be at like some meetup or something like that. I'm going to use that opportunity to connect with people, make these genuine connections. I'm not going to ask for anything because I don't have anything to ask for right now. But then later on, if I do need to ask for something, now I already have that connection. So, um, so yeah, I was building up this network over time. At the same time, I was also finding a community on Twitter. And that kind of happened by accident. But like, in hindsight, I can think of all of the ways that that was so lucky and how it worked out for me.

Yeah.

Because so I was using LinkedIn a bunch just because it was the place where all my customers were. So I was selling on LinkedIn. So I had a big LinkedIn presence, but I didn't want to alarm my customers by making them think that I was like half in, half out. Because I was an account manager.

Yeah.

Managing existing accounts and also like upselling. And I didn't want my customers to think that I was like, kind of in and out the door. I wanted them to think I was fully dedicated to them. Also, same thing with my sales leaders. So I was like, let me go where I don't know anybody, which happened to be Twitter. Twitter happened to have like this amazing dev community at the time. Now, I think most people have migrated to Bluesky. And I've seen people on LinkedIn as well, YouTube. But I was posting out loud all of the things that I was learning and then hashtagging it with Code Newbie or Moms Who Code, Dev Newbie or Code Newbie. I don't know if I already said Code Newbies. But just posting things. And it was just earnest, like, I don't know what I'm doing and I just needed to say it out loud.

Yeah, yeah.

Right. getting this amazing community built around me with people who wanted to see me win, who wanted to help. And what I love so much about the devs community is that it's not, it's not like sales where everybody wants to keep things to themselves and keep like super secrets and stuff.

Right.

You know, and then if people are giving you secrets, there's always some kind of like sneaky thing like, oh, I'm trying to sell you a course or I'm trying to like get over on you or teach you the wrong thing so that you won't sell as much as I do. Um, so people were just so generous with information. And I was like, this is different. Like, this is different. And there's people around me. And what they love from me is that I know how to talk. I've been in a career where that's all I have to do. Like, that's—

You are good with words. Yes.

Yeah. So, um, they were like, okay, well, you could speak, you could do this. And, you know, you should try doing it out loud because that's gonna bring more people to you. That's gonna bring more of a community to you.

Yeah.

So yeah, those are the bigger things. And that's, um, really the 2 biggest— well, no, I guess that is one big thing that I use to get from zero to where I'm at now is networking, like building community, but just genuinely building community for the sake of having people around to like bounce ideas off of and all that.

So, so, all right, so recap. At Salesloft selling the software, you were internally networking. You also were posting what you were learning from a dev perspective on Twitter.

Yes.

How did, how did, how did Netflix come about? I think I know, I think I know the answer to this, but how did, how did Netflix come about?

Yeah, so, um, I was, okay, so taking it a little bit back. As I was learning to code, one of the ways that I learn is by immersing myself in like the deepest level of knowledge. Like you'll find me in the room, not even a junior yet, but you'll find me in the room with staff engineers, like just sitting, like taking notes.

Yeah.

I don't understand shit, but like, I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna come back to it and I'm gonna like, I know all the words that I'm gonna look up and I wanna understand how they connect. So that's how I kind of dive in. So I was listening to podcasts on my way to my sales job every day. Before, you know, working remote. And one of the podcasts, my first favorite podcast was Frontend Happy Hour. And amazing podcast, but I binged listened to 7 years worth of episodes in like 2 weeks because I loved it. I loved it so much. I, in sales, you have no concept of like FAANG or Netflix's big impact because Netflix has no sales team. So I like—

Yeah.

Netflix was never on my radar.

Right.

But, um, so I'm listening to the voices and I'm like, oh, there's a couple of people I really enjoy listening to. Ryan Burgess, Jim Young. I'm like, wow, you know, my dream one day would be to like work on Ryan's team. Uh, because I knew he was a UI, uh, manager. And I'm like, man, that would be so awesome. 'Cause he seems like such a great person and Netflix seems like a cool company. I believe in the product. And, um, What do I forget? What the other thing? Oh, the tech stack. Like, the tech stack fits what I'm learning now.

Right?

No concept of like, I was like, it's gonna take a long time for me to get there. But so Ryan posted this role that I was like, this is perfect in terms of every, like, the company, the manager, the tech stack. But the big thing that I can't is like the timing, the timing is off. I've only been in this for, you know, 6 or 7 months, there's no way that I'm going to be able to get a job at Netflix, you know. Um, so I messaged Ryan and I was like, hey, I saw that you had this position. And this is the same way I do like every kind of networking. This was not like, oh, give me a referral or anything like that at all. Just like, you know, this is my dream someday. Um, I'm not ready to apply for this one. So, you know, don't worry about that. But, um, I do want to make sure that I'm building the skills so that whenever you post your next job, I can be ready. So can we have a conversation about like what skills you think you're gonna need?

You just slid into Ryan's DMs?

Yeah, yeah. And, um, we had become mutuals too because, um, I had tweeted about binging his podcast. And then, yeah, I tagged him.

These are all very— I'm highlighting these for a reason.

Yeah, I know. And it's all true. Like, this is validated in stories. This is before I even met you, Tay. So this is like, you know, this is—

Makes me so happy. I mean, this is— yeah, don't make him— don't make him— I, I, I, I point when people are preaching here. Um, yeah, you're doing— you're literally doing the funnel that I talk about, so keep going.

I love it. Um, so I— yeah, I messaged him and— okay, so yeah, we had been— we, we built this like mutual connection. I'm not bugging him at all, he's not bugging me at all.

Just— you're liking his post on Twitter, you're maybe retweeting it with some thoughts, you're saying, hey, I love the podcast. Just very non-creepy, right?

It's, yeah, just friendship. That's it. Like, that's, you know, what I, what I do. Just like, let's hang out online. Like, that's, that's it. I'm not going out. So, um, I messaged him about the role and was like, okay, 6 months to a year down the line, I want to make sure that I'm like being precise in the skills that I'm building. So let's have a conversation about that.

Well, I also want to highlight too, You had a specific ask in the DM.

Yes. Yes. Thank you. Um, yeah. And I cannot emphasize this enough because it gets on my nerves. I will say this, when people just like message you and they're like, hey, can I ask you a question?

No, no, no, not even that. I get, hey. No, bitch, I ain't got time.

I swear. That's my— it's like such a pet peeve of mine. I will not respond. Or just like a wall of text. Honestly, that's I'm not reading the line. I don't have time. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sharing.

We're kind of getting into your salesperson. Talk about the power of a very short, precise message.

Okay. And this is a nice— okay, you're getting this hot off the press because I'm about to make a TikTok about this and it's fire. It's going to go viral. It's amazing.

I will like it when I see it.

2 people very close back to back, within a week, Um, asked me for feedback on their messages. Both of them had messages that were like, so— okay, so this is, um, messages to reach out and do more networking, right? They were very beautifully crafted. Um, the punctuation was perfect, the capitalization was perfect. They had like paragraphs neatly, you know, signed off, you know, all my, all my best whatever.

Best regards.

Yeah.

And I'm like, I don't know what regards are. Stop.

No, like, yeah, don't, don't, don't save it. Like, I will skip over that so quickly. I was like, this is way too formal, and it sounds like you're gonna ask me for something. Like, you're gonna ask me to, to buy something, to spend something, to spend money, spend time, something that I don't have enough of really, and I just don't have the time for. I don't know you, so I'm not reading past Dear Shondae that That to me is a turnoff. Like, don't even— don't do that. I was like, let's re— first of all, bottom line on top, ask what you're gonna ask in the beginning. Don't worry about the whole pleasantries and stuff like that. Like, I feel like it's more impolite to fake politeness. Um, you might as well just—

Yeah.

Be your full self. Um, and I will approach my messages not with like an extra level of unprofessionalism, but I'm just gonna be myself straight up. Like, Yes. Hey, you know, it's been like, hey, exclamation point, smiley face, wherever I want to, because this is my life and I can do whatever I want with it. And, um, hey, hey, um, you know, just reaching out. I wanted to schedule a couple minutes with you, finite small block of time. Um, you know, no big deal or whatever, but just like maybe 2, 1 or 2 sentences. I want to learn more about this for the future. Thanks. And that's it. Like, I don't sign off with my name. My name is already in the message. Like, just keep it, keep it informal. Um, keep it concise and, uh, keep it friendly. Yeah. And don't ask for something right off the bat.

Yeah. And I think too, and I don't know, this is kind of— so it's fat. I love— so I don't schedule any questions and I don't do it because I love, I love kind of the way conversations flow and I love where we're going into because I've seen more people post lately about— I'm not— we're not gonna get into AI chat here, but I, I'm starting to see a lot more people, literally 2 people that I respect a ton in the founder VC kind of community on Twitter this last week specifically say they think misspellings and errors in messages are the single most way to basically undo yourself as a human being with the sea of AI. Mm-hmm.

Yes, honestly.

Because I also said that like a year or two ago. Yeah, I said, listen, like, if you get messages from me— like, literally Jason can attest this. If Brianna, uh, my right-hand woman, was on here too, she would tell you all my— I misspell every Slack message. I don't, I don't have time. Like, you can figure it out type situation. But like, I, I feel like in the DMs, just, man, authenticity matters in today's world so much.

Agree. 100%. And we were saying this before, this was like 2013, '14. We were using this as a sales tactic is to stand out. Because if you think about it, your competition is all of the other people who are DMing this person about all kinds of stuff, DMing about cleaners, DMing about wanting to be the person who mows your lawn, DMing about your kids' school. Um, and then the other people who are DMing about, let me get a referral, let me get a referral, let me get a referral. how are you standing out? And how are you showing that you're like a genuine human or an interesting human? Somebody that I would care to like spend more than half a second looking at their DM. But yeah, we would do like add an extra space here and there or space between a period. The only thing that you don't want to misspell is the person's name. Do not misspell the person's name.

Also huge.

Yeah. Yeah. Also, right there. Yeah.

Don't do that. Don't do that. You can misspell everything else. Just don't, don't call me Tyler.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

My name's on social. It's very, very apparent.

I know.

Call me Tyler.

Right. I don't want to be Shanuday.

Yeah, I know. So DM'd Ryan, conversations. Then what happened? Like, how, how did that— did Ryan go, hey, we have a spot open? I'm curious on kind of how that transition fully took place.

Yeah, so this was— it was in response to a job posting that he had. And again, in my mind, I'm like, there is no way I'm getting this job. But I'm really— nice job. There, there is no way I'm going to be able to get this job with my years of experience. This is pure curiosity. And just like kind of, you know, I wanted to talk to him. So like, let's just talk. So I didn't go in with any intentions other than to be curious. We had a meeting and he— I, I had some questions already prepared, the things that I was gonna ask him. So not going in— and I'm going in with the intentions of leading the meeting. I'm not gonna go in and be like, oh, well, what do you got for me? Like, tell me about what you got.

Yeah, I'm gonna interrupt you again. I'm dying. Ouchies. I think I'm gonna call it And this may be a little bit of a controversial take. There is a hierarchy to the conversation.

Yes.

When Sean Day messages Ryan, Sean Day is junior, Ryan is senior. The expectation for the call should be that Sean Day comes prepared because Sean Day is taking the more senior person's time. I can't tell you the amount of calls I've had where we get on a call and I'm just like, what do you want to talk about? And they don't have anything and you're just wasting my time. And listen, that may be a hot take, but if you're messaging somebody more senior than you, if you reach out to that person, you need to come prepared or that is a bad look.

Thank you. Thank you. Come on time, come prepared, and come ready to lead 100%. I don't think it's a hot take at all. I think it's It's, it's cold. It should be cold. Like, it should be.

Yeah, this isn't too hot for me whatsoever. Okay, well, I don't want to offend anybody this Tuesday morning.

No, but it's like, it's such necessary knowledge that I don't think everybody, um, really thinks about all the time. Yeah, like, it's, it's actually offensive that, um, you would kind of ask for somebody's time, the most precious thing that anybody has, right? Um, ask for somebody's time And then expect them to have prepared something for you. Like, they're already giving you their time. So like, the, the least that you could do is come ready to fill that meeting up with like questions and things like that. And be like, be ready to let it go early. If you don't have anything prepared, just like let it go. It doesn't even make any sense.

Um, real quick, Jeff comes up here. I, I think if you're reaching out to that person, you should come prepared. So even if you're on the same level, if you are reaching out to that person, you want to have the conversation, you got to come prepared, right?

Have an agenda for the meeting. Um, I think it's just common courtesy. And I, I think of it the same way I think of dates. Like, if I asked you on the date, I pay. If you ask me on the date, you pay. But like, and you also plan it, you coordinate it and everything. Um, yeah, same thing with, with, um, any appointments or meetings.

I mean, I have never had anybody message me and go, hey, I would love to talk with you about these 3 things. I'll take 5 minutes of your time. If people did that, I would take calls more often.

Same, same, right? I don't want a whole formal invitation. And like, the worst thing that I can think of is some— somebody spending more time preparing the email that they're writing to DM me with like this formal preparation than they actually spend preparing for the The actual meeting. Like, you know, and it can— you can tell when somebody's gonna waste your time. So just don't even bother.

So then had a conversation with Ryan, and then it kind of just worked out?

Yeah. So, um, had this conversation, and he gave me, um, the information that I needed. Some of the questions that I asked were like, what kind of gaps are there on your team right now? Like, what kind of gaps are you looking for somebody to fill when your ideal team is complete? Like, what Um, what does this person look like? Who is that completing piece of the team? Um, I asked him, I asked him for information about like the future of the team because I was thinking like more future. And also I think it's a good question for any interview is just like, what's the future trajectory of it? Um, where do you see yourselves going in terms of like hiring, uh, projects and things like that? And by the end of that conversation, he was like, You know, I think you should just apply. And I was like, really? Because no, I would be so heartbroken not getting it. And he was like, the worst that you could hear is no. And they'll also give you feedback about why you didn't get the job. And, um, I was like, I, I thought about this, but I was like, I will regret it more to have just passed up this opportunity than than to have like tried it and been told no. So, um, yeah, I decided to shoot my shot and I got the job. He— they were like, you surpassed everybody else because they were like, you know, for the amount of time that I needed, I was coding, they were like, she needs to technically blow it out of the water. Um, so I did that. I put my all into it. And, um, but where I really pushed Is, I think, on the social aspect of it. Like, this is how I would be as a team. I assumed everybody else who was applying had great technical skills, and I was like, I'm really going to shine as Shondae, the human being, Shondae, the person.

We're going to need a part 2 because there's— we're already at time.

Oh my gosh.

I know this happens. I knew this would happen. What— let's, let's, let's highlight what you highlighted from a social, from a soft skills perspective, and then let's wrap it up and let's, let's, let's work on a— let's work on a part 2 date. So What, what, what, what did you focus on? Like when you're in the interview, I love that thought process. There can be people who have better technical skills than me, but I'm gonna pass them with the interpersonal. Are there some things you really honed in on?

Are there some things you said that I really— Yeah.

Were there some like specific key things you honed in on from a soft skills perspective?

Yeah. And I got that outta my conversation with Ryan initially. Yeah. So, and another thing that I did was I stalked everybody on the team, so I, Asked, I asked like who was going to be—

Literally my talk in Amsterdam, I like dove in on this.

Get out, I love it. So yeah, I, I was like, I'm gonna get— I heard, I heard what Ryan said, but I also want to get a picture of who else is on the team and figure out how I would fit in. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to position myself as this person to this person, this person to this person. And, um, I also want to harp on these specific Traits that I have when I answer all my questions, because I know that that's something that the team really wants. Yeah. So yeah, I would say those were the number one things that I did. I also use video, which like we can talk about real quick.

Talk about real quick. Talk about real quick.

Okay. So I think video is the best way for you to stand out as a human, like as a human.

In general, period.

Yeah. When you're working remote, people see you, they can hear you, they can see your mannerisms and your tone. So I used video to describe my app that I built for my interview. And I went through it from a user's perspective and recorded a video that I included in the README when I submitted that coding project.

Gotcha.

I also use videos in my thank you emails. So instead of sending just a thank you email, I was like, hey, you know, made a cute little— not cute, made a nice little video for you. Thank you for your time. And then 2 minutes of me saying like, oh, that was so fun. talking to you and them getting to see my smile and how great I would look on a call with them. Yeah, wouldn't you love to see me every day in meetings?

Well, and, and I think too, it's so funny you brought this up too. So, um, our dear friend Mark Thompson messaged me the other day and he was like, hey, got a random question for you. I said, yeah, what's up? He goes, I have a friend who's looking for a job. Is it weird to send video for an application?

Yeah, I said, I think it's perfect.

I said, no, but don't be weird and keep it short. He goes, he goes, he goes, okay, that's kind of my thought too. Because again, like, I just think I've had some people message me some audio messages in LinkedIn. I listen to all of them.

I think it's great. I haven't had anybody do it. I had it on Twitter and I loved it. Actually, Kent sent me— no, no, no. He called me one time and I was like, this is so different.

But I love it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, um, all right, this is great stuff. Yeah, a lot of comments. Uh, I knew this— I knew this morning was gonna go well, uh, but the, the, the feedback's been pretty resounding, so we'll have to do a part 2. So this is good stuff. All right, uh, we're respectful of everybody's time. Also, full transparency, I gotta bounce here soon, so let's, let's go ahead and wrap it up here, and Shondae will work on a part 2 here very soon. Um, again, thank you so much. You're wonderful. Uh, everybody go connect with Shondae. But don't be weird. Uh, first thing I always ask, um, if, if I told you you couldn't do tech tomorrow but I'd pay you the same if not more for my money, comp was not an issue, what, what hobby would you pursue for a living?

I might— it would either be working out or, um, gardening.

Awesome. What, what, what, what are you big on working? Are you, are you like taking classes? Are you just doing your own thing?

Like I'm doing stuff at home. I'm getting more and more into it as I do it more. But like, yeah, I have like a whole gym downstairs.

No way!

Yeah, it's turning into like a thing now.

Group workouts at Shawn Days. I love it.

That's right.

Um, I love it. Um, uh, second question, outside of, uh, working out and gardening, what, what else do you like to do for fun?

Oh, um, okay, I guess running is the same thing. Um, I love video games with My son. I love video games with anybody, but I love video games. And I like, I like eating food. I like going out to restaurants. Is that a hobby?

That's a hobby. What's is there one good spot in Atlanta you've been to recently? Want to give a shout out to food-wise? Oh, so many good spots.

Yeah, I really like Virgil's. They have multiple locations, but Virgil's is like a. It's a soul food restaurant.

Okay.

They're really, really good.

Okay.

Really, really good. Yeah. Try that when you come down.

Third question, which by the way, I'm in Atlanta so much LinkedIn thinks I'm in Atlanta, by the way. They like push Atlanta people. Yeah. Third question, is there anybody in the tech ecosystem you wanna give their flowers to? Just anybody who's doing really cool work that you've been following for a bit.

Oh, that's such a great question. Um, I— there's so many people I could say. Um, oh man, I have one of 3. Let me just say their names. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mark Thompson.

Yes, he's a gem. Love that dude.

Shruti Kapoor.

Love Shruti.

And Jason Langsdorf.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, killing it.

Love it.

Those 3 are huge right now for sure.

Yeah.

Um, uh, next question. Any cool tech stuff you're tinkering with right now? Even if you want to throw out some AI stuff that you're maybe just messing with on your own or anything.

Oh, great question. I'm actually learning a lot more about Playwright for some tests, some integration tests.

Okay.

But yeah, that's not— it's great. It is great. But I'm just having some troubles. I like things that give me a little bit of a challenge.

Sure.

So, that's it. Not necessarily tech, but it's a skill that I'm working on, is learning to navigate ambiguity a lot better. So I'm trying to find big problems at work and then attach myself to them as a, as a leader, like a thought leader, and like help the team to navigate things kind of like a quarterback. And I'm like, okay, well, you do this and I'll do that. And that's, that's been a lot of fun. I love like psychology and like how interpersonal connections and how those work. So oddly enough, this is something that is very— it's something that I'm working on that is like very exciting to me.

That's awesome. All right, last question, we'll wrap up here. Show's called Guidance Counselor 2.0 because we had guidance counselors in middle school, high school, and college, but now as adults, you don't really have anybody to turn to and ask for general career advice. What would be, if you go back in time, Uh, what would you tell young Shondae? Like, biggest piece of kind of career job advice?

Oh, that's great. Um, that the people who you look at as untouchable and successful and amazing are just you underneath. Like, they're the same as you underneath.

Like, everybody is just Nobody knows what they're doing.

Yeah, nobody knows. Nobody knows. Nobody had a manual.

I'm very open about it. We're just, we're just vibing. We're just—

Sometimes it seems like people know everything and they like came with instructions or like even like a guide a little bit, but I feel like everybody's just kind of winging it and I'm like, I didn't know this. I didn't— I think it would have been harder had I known it because I would have been very skeptical for much longer, but Sure. Yeah, yeah. It's just seeing that, like, I can do anything because they, they did it. Just because they did it, I can do it too.

Absolutely, absolutely. I love it. All right, y'all, Shondae, stay on so I can say bye to you backstage, but y'all have a great one. So tomorrow I was gonna have my friend Aaron Harmon. He's an amazing recruiter and internal recruiter, but he had to bail because he's traveling with work. So tomorrow I'm gonna do kind of a— I, I used to do them all the time, I haven't done lately. I'm gonna go live just myself, kind of update y'all with Torque stuff. Um, talk about some job search stuff I'm seeing on the market right now. Um, so it'll just be me live tomorrow morning, 9:30 AM Central. So love to have y'all hang, ask me questions tomorrow. Um, but again, go connect with Shondae. She's a gem. Um, and, uh, y'all have a great one. Shondae, thank you, my friend. You're wonderful. And we will work on part 2 for y'all. And y'all have a great Tuesday. Appreciate y'all.

Bye.