golf and tech | conversations with a former CTO around the future of tech, hiring, and community

I'm terrified to golf this. They're like, who is this guy? Why is he getting— why is he chasing his balls in the wilderness the whole time? So it's becoming a little bit of a trend, right? So I go to cities and now I start golfing. Did this at Laravel. Golfed with my buddy who's in sales at a tech company. And then now having a chance to golf with my dear friend Benjamin Pyle. So Ben, And I got introduced years ago. He was on my show a few times.

Mm-hmm.

And then we're gonna go golf together. He's an amazing golfer, which we're obviously gonna highlight. But I've had this idea. So he was a CTO for many years. Now he's consulting, doing his own thing. And I've had this idea about like interviewing people on a golf course for a long time, especially around people's careers and whatnot. So we're gonna pilot this out, see how we do, see how you do, Patrick. And it's gonna be a great time. Can't wait. The rain cleared up. It's going to be— it's going to be an absolute vibe. It's so good to see you.

Oh, it's good to see you too. All right, thanks.

That works. Yeah.

Good shot.

Good start.

Right out of the plane. Have a good morning. We'll see you later. Good shot. Yeah, that works. Perfect. Let's see it. Let's see this wedge game. That looks good. Be right. Get up a little bit. Get up. Get up. Get up. I'm not doing any ball tracking, so that's fine. I just have to believe it.

Yeah, I know.

Oh, thin. Sit. I caught it thin. Get down. Yeah, that's way long. Not good. All right, number 1 in the books. So what are you, uh, what are you hosting this week?

So we got a Torque dinner tonight.

Okay.

Invite only.

Yep.

It's— you had to be in our Discord to know about it.

Okay.

So we have 18 people.

Wow, that's solid.

Yeah, that's solid.

And then Dallas is untapped, man.

Huh? Dallas is untapped.

I may be biased.

No. Well, so one of the initiatives for Torque in 2026 is to actually start doing more in-person physical stuff.

Okay.

And Dallas is one of our—

Like, it's very, very untapped.

Yeah. So the one sample size we have that I've had full control over is Latin America.

Right.

With my processes, we've placed 90% of our placements off of our community.

Oh my God. Yeah. Latin America is so hot. Traditional methods weren't working before. And I think like as leadership is getting younger, Traditional methods work even less.

Well, it's really interesting. I got hit up yesterday by an internal director of talent.

Okay.

He basically wants to build a Torque for his company. Uh-huh. Yeah. For their company. He was like, we need to do more LATAM.

Yeah.

And I was like, all right, well, you need a platform. You need to get involved. And it's crazy. All the stuff I take for granted, like all the stuff that comes natural to me, everyone's like, Well, what do we do?

Well, you're in tech. Tech people don't think like that. I know.

Like, well, we wanna do stuff in LATAM. And I was like, all right. And he goes— I was like, well, you need to sponsor events. He was like, well, do we need to be down there? And I was like, well, yeah, you do. But also, if you don't, you gotta have a place. You gotta have a platform for them to sign up.

Yeah.

He was like, we don't have a platform.

Well, how are you gonna get engaged?

I was like, so how are you gonna— so I said, I told him, I said, what you need is you need to hire a community person.

Yeah, just somebody to spearhead it. That's what I'm saying. People think they need another marketing hire.

It's not. It's community person.

As a developer, I want somebody that looks like me, talks like me, thinks like me, but instead is more interested in connecting people like me.

That's it. Everybody just wants to be connected.

Everyone's tired of it. It's become we've done this.

Exactly.

And the technology has forced it.

Yeah, yeah.

But like imagine if I didn't do this today. I'm super connected, but it's intentional. I'd rather be out here playing golf.

Well, that's what I'm saying. And what people don't realize is doing this Is more relationship building than sending an email.

100%. Like, we want the ability to work wherever, have freedom, have flexibility, but we also want to be connected.

That was not straight, but—

You hit those good. Get right there. All right, that's fine. You can get over that. Yeah, you get over that.

Like, the goal for what we're trying to do is like, like, this is the end goal. Like, I don't know how feasible it is to do this, but like, what if people who are without a job can actually work on projects that are Get them real experience with us.

Yeah, absolutely.

How cool would that be? Like open source part of our jobs platform, have them work on it. Hey, have you gone to Torque and gotten experience?

Right. As a ground, a proving ground. And if you've got people that are reviewing and giving them—

but even seniors, like let's say you're a senior .NET developer and you've never worked in Azure because of your—

Your job.

Your job. You can come work on an Azure project with us. That is where I want Yeah, yeah. I don't know how— I don't know what that looks like yet, but...

It seems like more of a logistical problem than it is—

It's just people. Just people.

Because honestly, everybody asks, well, have you worked on X? The truth is, is that have you worked on X really doesn't matter that much, right? Like, experience in something doesn't matter unless you're extremely nichey. But have you worked collaboratively in a team?

Sure.

Have you worked distributed? Some of those things.

Yeah.

I think are super important.

Yeah.

Because tech is becoming so fungible.

Oh, for sure.

And it's changing so much with what you're not even writing and doing anymore with AI.

Oh yeah.

But if you can be more than we will help you find a job and connect you with good people to We're gonna help you find a job, connect you with good people, and oh, by the way, in the meantime, we're gonna be a platform for you to get experience in that in which you're interested in, as well as getting feedback in it. Dude, that's huge.

That's huge.

Yeah, it's very huge.

Game changer.

If I could work like with other people while I'm looking, I could collaborate with other people, that's way more valuable than—

Wait, so you think actually just having a bunch of dots doesn't matter?

I don't think it matters. I don't think it matters. I think it's a box-checking experience now, and I don't think people get— like some people I think get experience from it. I think a lot of people are just out there I think I need to do this.

Yeah.

And I've never hired anybody because they had more dots than somebody else.

No, no. And, and it's not— in 11 years I was recruiting at Vaco, I never had a hiring manager be like, let me see them dots.

Now, if I did have like a guy like you say, hey, I know this person, she's worked in our community.

Well, that's our whole goal.

Now you're vetted.

That's our whole goal.

Right now you're vetted.

That's our whole goal, the vetted.

And we know how she works.

Correct.

Because I have my—

So the goal is to like We throw all these events.

Yeah.

We're going to use the Guild API into our platform.

Yes.

I don't know what I'm saying, but it sounds fancy.

It sounds good. I like it.

Yeah, yeah. So basically, if a recruiter at Ronstadt finds your profile, they can see, oh, Ben just showed up to a Dallas meetup.

Yeah.

He knows who we are. We should reach out to him for a job.

Yeah. He's a known name.

That's what we're trying to get to.

Yes.

Nope. I missed my '90s Dunlop putter from my dad. I saw a recruiter tweet this the other day. Okay, follow. He was like, he goes, 80% of my job at this point is verifying if a resume is not— is a real person.

Interesting. 80%.

80%. So that— so if you look at what we do at Torque is that we're already verifying who you are because you have to like, you know, do this double— what are the Google? Yes, single sign-on, whatever.

MFA.

Yeah, that's it.

Authenticator app.

So like if somebody's on our profile, they're a real person.

They've had to go submit and do that.

Yeah, they've at least had to go.

80%?

That, that he said, he said 80% is just trying to figure out if they're real.

That's crazy.

I hate par 3s. Maturing in golf is realizing that par 3s are the hardest hole in golf, without a doubt. Nope, this putter scares me. It just feels so powerful. Like when I swing it, it's like this thing is going to just rip. Do you think you get leads because of the content you post on LinkedIn?

I've gotten a couple of gigs because of it. Yeah, absolutely. And when I say gigs, I don't mean like 10 hours. I mean like—

Really?

Like 500-hour gigs, right? Which are significant for a solopreneur.

Sure. Well, so like I was talking with Jerome Hardaway yesterday on my live and he was like, I found a ton of success on Dice for my job search, but he was like, he goes, to be known for stuff and to get leads, you have to use LinkedIn.

Yeah.

So what's hot right now? Like, what are people— I mean, you're in the AWS. Do you still do a lot of AWS work?

I've actually done like— I've been doing some Azure work lately, which is kind of—

Dude, Azure's been brought up 3 times in the last week with my stuff.

So here's the funny thing is I had a customer that I had ended up getting into. They were converting from some AWS stuff to Kubernetes.

And I've always joked for years, like, I don't want to be a Kubernetes consultant.

I don't want to be a I'm not a Kubernetes consultant, but I'm on my 3rd Kubernetes project right now just based on kind of getting into it. So I have 3 customers running Kubernetes now, which is kind of crazy considering that, you know, 2 years ago I wasn't doing really any Kubernetes. So what's hot? Kubernetes is hot. TypeScript and Node is still hot. Like, if I was like learning a language, that's where I'm going. Forget about Java. C# is fine.

Python?

From what I can tell, like, The age of Python being the only language that's working with data is over.

Interesting.

I think it's taken over for R, but I think working with AI has changed, right? If you're still doing hardcore machine learning, building algorithms, that kind of stuff, Python for sure. But I think you can work with agents now with other languages and MCPs that you don't necessarily have to have.

Have you done any AI work yet?

So I have worked to integrate some AI, but AI is heavily embedded in my workflow. So I was telling somebody earlier, I'm a big Claude user.

Yeah, that's right.

I have agents and I spend a lot of time curating my agent context to match the jobs and the customers and the sites that I'm at. I have specific agents around Kubernetes and DevOps and security.

Do you think that's made you more efficient?

Yes. I'm more productive for sure. Efficient? I don't know quite yet. I do a lot of circling back. I don't know how you would use AI if You didn't have 20 years of experience of good solid tech. Like, I spent a lot—

So then how do you address everything right now? Because that's been a lot of the questions I've had on Guidance Counselor 2.0 where it's like—

So I spend a lot of time reworking AI. So like, I will give it a prompt or I will give it a set of requirements and it'll go down a path. And like, I literally will like, hey, hey, I'm paused, paused, paused, paused. That's not where you— I want you over here. If you don't know that over here is bad, I don't know what you're producing. Right. So I have a lot of concern about where it is right now, but for an experienced practitioner, I think it's fantastic. For an inexperienced practitioner, I just think you have to be really careful what you produce.

So you think it's still best to learn the fundamentals right now?

I always invest in fundamentals. Fundamentals are always never going out of style. Algorithms, data structures, relational databases, core programming, how to edit and write code, I think is still super important. How to connect to a database, how to connect customer and value to code. But man, if you can leverage AI to accelerate that, yes. But like, I don't think there's— I'm concerned about the point where people are just AIing stuff together and don't understand what they built. I don't think the AI is good enough yet. I'm hoping by the time that it is, I've got something else I'm doing. I hope I can do other things.

Do you think it's taking people's jobs yet?

People want to think It could take somebody's job.

Because it's easy to have a— my hot take is it's easier to have a scapegoat of AI and maybe you're just not a good engineer.

Maybe. I think that people want— I think executives and managers want to think that they can get more for less. That's always the age-old thing, right? Do I think it can replace junior programmers? Yeah, I do.

Really?

I actually kind of treat my agents like—

As a junior programmer.

Like less than 5 years experience. Go knock this out for me while I think about something else and let me kind of feed it and cycle I can give it more complex tasks. But what I do think that it does for me is that, like, I can have 3 or 4 agents running while I'm talking to a customer. So I can be building value on this laptop in a terminal while I'm having a conversation.

So then what do you think junior developers need to do right now?

Continuing to learn, continuing to grow, finding ways to—

Fundamentally, though.

Yeah, and connect with your leaders. Connect with somebody that's— I still think that gaps in programmers and gaps in Good programs from great programmers can connect user and empathetically build value for users. It was never about coding. Like, I'm not a word processor. I'm not a typist, right? I generate code. Based off of what? I create code to compile to build value. I'm only writing code to generate value. I'm giving AI the, I want you to go do this so I can think about how to add more value, right? Like, so I don't think it does anything more at the moment than remove the need for me to type to translate thought to Yeah. To value. So like if you can still organize your— I think organizing your thoughts, problem solving, critically thinking, like all of those things just become more important. AI just makes it easier for somebody that's good at that stuff to generate something that's usable faster versus me having to go like, if I bang out 70 words a minute, AI is banging out like 5,000 words a minute, right? How much more code can I create?

But you still have to have the wherewithal.

Yes. It does free you up. But if you don't know what you're asking it to do and you don't know what good looks like, Then what cloud does is just going to rush you down a dark hole faster.

Yeah.

Learning the depth of the tech stack from— developers don't want to talk about networking. They don't want to talk about operations. If I was a developer now, I'd be learning about how networking works. How does operations work? How does the infra team work? How does that guy over there working with data work? I'd be finding out how all these job functions perform because then when you're out on your own or when you're collaborating, it's like, oh, I kind of have some appreciation about what that person does.

You can also learn how it all ties.

Yes.

People are just so siloed.

Their software does not just deploy into a vacuum.

Yep. In my mind, based off what you said about a face of a brand, it is more important now than to literally have somebody— you can call it an influencer, you can call it head of community.

Whatever.

You have to have somebody to face your brand.

Yes.

You have to.

You want somebody to rally around and to recognize and identify with.

Yeah, because for me, it's like, I mean, I did this on purpose. 10 years ago, there was no recruiter that was in the developer circle, like, like in the corner for the developer. And so I was like, I was like, I want to be that person.

That, that brand is super important.

Yeah.

The face of— oh, there it is. Look at that.

Well, you know what's crazy is like you and I's relationship, just the power of staying in touch.

Yeah.

Shout out Alex Nadell.

Yeah.

But like I mean, you know, it's— I mean, Alex introduced me to somebody else recent— or back, back in the day, and he's hiring 15 engineers from us.

I kind of feel like community is a lot like love, and it's a lot like kindness, and it's a lot like goodness. It's a choice. So you can either choose to stay connected or not, or get left behind.

Yeah. Oh, that was good.

That was good.

That was good. That was bars right there, man.

Too much cut.

Yep.

Or not enough, I should say.

Safe.

Yeah, you're dry.

Straighten, straighten 100 yards.

Dry is important. Oh, I like it. Sit down, sit right there. Ooh, nice chip. Thanks. Come on. I got two from here, Pierce.

There you go. Plus one. Last hole of the day. Not bad.

In the hole.

Golly have mercy.

That's four birdies. Yeah, it's four.

How do you as a dad like encourage? Like if it like.

If your son wants to do something that you don't agree with, like, or like, or if they want to go against their talent, like if they're naturally good at something and they don't want to do it. Yeah. So I had a conversation with him. I told him, I said, I tell you what, I'm gonna let this pass you by. So like when you're 18 and you're like, man, I really wish I had, we're gonna have it.

Yeah, but should it be your job as a dad to put some guardrails in place?

Uh, so I, well, I have given him opportunities. I've put him in positions to in order to do what I know he can do. But I'm also a person that wants to follow the yeses. So like, I'm gonna follow like where he naturally wants to go. But I've told him, I said, you're gonna get to 18 and you're probably gonna wish that you had done this. And then we're gonna have another conversation about how you don't miss the next really cool opportunity in your life.

Yeah. So basically like for me, it's like, I think my parents did a good job of like opening me up to things and just letting me go pick something, which was hockey, which was crazy.

But like guardrails, like, I'm not gonna let him go do something that's gonna be detrimental or dangerous for him.

Sure, sure, yeah, yeah. But like, if he wants to go be a biologist—

Yeah, like that's where his passion is. So what I ended up doing is, is that like, he loves his aquarium, he's down, like he's into this fish thing. You should see the spreadsheet, and like his matching algorithm for community fish is probably stronger than Tinder's. Are you serious? It's really, it's really, it's really good. Like, it's, uh, It's pretty impressive. And so we have those conversations. Yeah, that's what he's into. Yeah. Take a guy like, um, I'm going to use something appropriate, timely. Take JJ Spaun. You know who JJ Spaun is?

Nope.

JJ, exactly.

That's great sushi though.

So it is good sushi. So, um, they just put that on the menu. So this week on that TV is the Ryder Cup. You know the Ryder Cup?

I know the Ryder Cup. Ryder Cup, right? US versus the world.

It is. And it's the 12, so 6 of the best and then 6 captains' picks. So one of the 6 best selections on the US team as a guy you never heard of, JJ Spaun. He's 34 years old, I think 34 years old, and he just kept getting better and better and better and better. And so the thing is, is you don't have to have it figured out at 14, right? So as a dad— Even careers too. You don't, you know, like if my, if my 14-year-old figures out at 20 that like, hey, I really wished I would have— yeah, you're still just 20. I know, you know what I mean? Like unless you're into like MMA where you're going to destroy your body and the younger you are the better. Like, it's hard to start an MMA career.

Or CrossFit or—

Yeah, but you could start a media business, technology business, recruiting, whatever you want. Like, the guy that started McDonald's was like 55 or whatever when he started McDonald's.

I know.

So like, as a dad, I don't feel a ton of pressure. I feel more pressure when I get on the internet. I felt more pressure when my kids were younger. Now that my kids are teenagers, I feel less pressure because they'll figure it out.

Love it.

And I've put the stuff in place. And so you watch them, and even like you go back to like homeschooling or unschooling or traditional schooling, it's important just to expose them to stuff, get them to know how to talk to people. And my kids can talk to you.

They're great.

That's like—

I mean, literally, like we were talking about, me and Patrick, like the sweetest kids.

It's the most important thing in the world is can kids blend into society, take what people are going through, understand it, and then try to relate it. Yeah, it doesn't mean you have to agree with everything, but like If you can like sit down with people of different everythings and like have a good lunch, you did your job.

Yep.

Yep.

Eat your sushi. Great day so far. Great conversation with Ben. Ben, thank you for having us, man. It means a lot.