The Art of Networking...Internally w/Dania Luc, Cyber Security Program Manager

All right, hold on. Uh, StreamYard has lost access. What's going on? Why, why are we having technical difficulties while we're going live? Give me a second. That goes—

yeah, you're good.

It tells me we're going live on Facebook, uh, just so my mom can watch me before we go.

I love that.

All right, sweet. All right, good morning, y'all. Uh, happy Tuesday. Excited for this one. You're probably like, Taylor, you always say you're excited. I am. I do. I always say I'm excited. I, I bring on like guests like— so here's the deal, right?

I—

the reason why I— this show has, you know, morphed into many different things, but the reason why like I'm always going to keep this show is it just gives me an excuse to hang out with people that because of schedules and locations we just can't. And like, Danya's one of them. Uh, and so I'm pumped. I'm pumped to hang. Um, uh, she's an amazing individual. Um, we know each other obviously through Render. Um, and so, uh, you know, she, she posted a tweet and like I said, I say this all the time, like I do a lot of social listening, right? Like I watch what people are saying. Um, I, uh, you know, slide into their DMs, like prime example, like Danya today. And then tomorrow we have a guy named Andrew coming on. He's a part of the Torque community. Um, he, he posted about finding a job and how he did it, and so I immediately just slid into his DMs like, yo, we should talk about it. So again, the power of putting yourself out there. Um, uh, Danya has amassed an incredible following, so she understands that. Um, but again, excited to hang out today and excited to talk about a topic that's really important, which is like internally networking and just, just being a good person. And, and, uh, so we're gonna dive into it here in a second. But, um, as always, please say hey. Would love to hear from you. Um, you know, I, I tell folks, I said, I've been doing this for 5 years now. If you have consistently shown up, send Donnie a DM, follow her on Twitter. I still call it Twitter. And like connect with everybody in the chat. You have a pretty expansive network over 5 years. So please do that. Please say, hey, we'd love to hear from you. Wanna give some housekeeping things before I kick it over. Shout out to Appwrite. I'm an Appwrite Hero. Probably the only non-technical guy on a Hero program, but they're good people. I love the DevRel team. Jason Torres is also an Appwrite Hero as well. Um, so if you ever go check out their product, tell them the Torque Boy sent you. Um, they'll be glad to hear from you. Uh, also we got a new refresh, rebrand refresh on our website, torque.community. It's nice and sleek, it's fun, it's nice, it has nice colors, it's got— but it's got like good boxes and things, so you should check it out. It's good content as well. So torque.community, we got all of our events, we just shifted over to the actual Torque site. Looks great now. Also, listen, I've had people like say like, oh Taylor, I didn't know you were in my city, or hey Taylor, like, you know, I need, you know, you know, we should hang out. Listen, text this number. This is me. I use this when I like pull up to Atlanta or like, you know, Raleigh or Dallas or wherever we're going next. I always send a text out when we're doing kind of meetups. So text me. This is my number. Also, you can text live as well, um, to let— I send out a text whenever I go live with wonderful guests like Danya. Uh, I think that's enough of me gapping. All right, it's good to see y'all. Kelly, Chris, Chris, Ricardo, Kelly, Terron, it's good to see you. Uh, all right, Dania, let's give the people what they want. Who are you? What do you do? And we'll go from there.

That is a great question. Um, so my name is Dania. I have been a lot of things. So, uh, my background is in software engineering and computer science, um, and I moved over more to product management, and I'm now in program management. I always tell people that tech is my passion, but I think people are more my purpose. So anything that has to do with communication, organizing, which is how Taylor and I met at Render, I'm all there. So I'm currently a cybersecurity program manager at Digital Realty, which we're doing a lot of cool stuff. But I'm really excited to talk about just kind of the art of networking as it pertains to doing it really well in the context of your job.

Yeah.

I know lots of people talk about going to conferences and kind of doing all of these other things, but I think we are really underscoring how important it is to really master the art of who and when you need to talk to someone at your organization.

Yeah, I love that. I love it. Do you have the tweet still pulled up? I wanted to pull the tweet up.

I think so. Yeah.

Yeah, read the tweet just to set the stage for people who are watching and people who are listening in the future. Also, by the way, I've been with no caffeine. We're doing a church fast. I've been with no caffeine for the last week, and your boy's dying.

Tomorrow— Oh, you're doing great. You're like really—

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm trying here.

He's running off of pure Taylor right now.

I really miss coffee. So yeah, go ahead, read the tweet.

Okay, awesome. And I do love this story. So a while back I was working in project management, but specifically in a domain where we were acquiring real estate. So physical space for the business that I was working at. What we would do is essentially manage everything that went into acquiring a site. Getting the building if we were buying it, leasing the building, signing all the agreements, making sure that people showed up to install the tech, et cetera, et cetera. Then we would hand it off to whoever's running the site. And so we're all sitting on a call because we've been going back and forth trying to get this building for months. So I said, "I'll never forget being on a call for a site we're having trouble with," and our teammates were a little like, "Oh, this is," and I'm making up a name like my friend John build it, my friend John's building. And they're like, "Oh, John that went to da da da da. You know we'll call him, we'll text him, we'll email him." Yeah. And we get the whole thing done in like a week and we've been waiting to hear back from people for months. So in my follow-up tweet, I said, I often tell people that socializing and networking isn't just a skill you can use to further your career, but to provide value. So even if you don't have friends who own buildings and who can move the needle at scale, being well-liked at your organization in and of itself can move mountains.

Yep.

And so that's kind of what I wanted to talk about today is a lot of being able to get work done, facilitating projects or programs like what I do is having had enough conversations and people having enough trust in you to where they'll show up when you ask them to.

I love that. I love that. Yeah, absolutely. So where do we start? Like, where do you want to start? Like, this is a pretty— this is a pretty wide— this is a kind of overall topic. So there's a lot of places we can go. So I'm gonna let you just— where? Yeah.

So I know because you had kind of mentioned that this is how you manage people. So I kind of wanted to talk from sort of that managerial level first, particularly because we contextualized it in the context of layoffs. So I'll speak about my manager and managers that I really enjoyed. I know that we are— tech is going through some things, y'all. So if you are not aware, honestly, good for you. But tech is just going through a lot. I think one of the things that you can do if you are a people manager or if you're kind of just over anyone or over any program is exactly what we're talking about. So managers that I've had and my current manager are really good about socializing, but socializing in the context of every time they talk to someone, they know what we're doing and how we provide value. So it's always this person on my team worked on this really cool thing and it saved us X amount of money or it brought us X amount of customers. So being really vocal about not just— because I think we tend to report like, oh, it got done.

Yes.

What does that actually mean? Like the work is finished, but who did it? What did that do? How much time did that save us? How much money did I bring us? All of that is really important, especially now. Because we're hearing that a lot of this stuff is performance-based. If your organization doesn't know what you're doing all day, if they don't know if you're kind of worth what it is that they're paying you, when they're checking off all these boxes for you to get let go, you're going to be first on the list. So I think having them, if you're a manager, advocating for your employees really well. And then Taylor, I know you said that this is something that you do often also.

Yeah, it's interesting. I think I, I got— I love what you said about it just being done, right? A lot— I mean, I sit in these leadership meetings like, oh, it's done, it's done, right? But I think like it, it's the art of storytelling in everything you do, right? So instead of it, hey, we got this done, it's like, hey, this person on my team led this initiative, right? Like, for example, like Angelo, right? Uh, he's in the chat right now, on my team. I presented for the Torqall hands, like, and, and I made sure like I gave him a shout out Because I think a lot of times managers can just be like, it can really kind of take the credit in a way where it's like, oh, you know, I did it, but they didn't really do it. It was like the team that did it. So it's like sitting on the calls and like getting people aware, like, hey, so-and-so is doing this. Brianna's, you know, making, you know, a 45% open rate on emails, right? Like there's, there's all this stuff to make sure that we shout it out, especially as managers. It's our responsibility to make sure we lift everybody else up. And I think unfortunately a lot of managers just kind of sit there and they're just like, oh, well, yeah, yeah, we did it, it's done.

Yeah. And it's like, who's we? Who's we?

Who's we? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I, I, I like Taran, come here. Yeah, keep, keep a project journal. Absolutely. I mean, here's the deal. I think I saw somebody say this a while back and I'm gonna butcher it, but it's like 5 minutes a week, 1 hour a month to kind of keep up with all the things you've done. Um, like I've actually been thinking about too, like you know, trying to take my advice and like updating my resume and just like making sure, like, you know, because we've done so much. It's like, man, we've done so much and I have not kept up with it. So yeah, yes, Taran, I agree with that.

No, and I love that because, um, we tend to talk about in the context of like we call them brag sheets.

Yeah, yeah.

Which is, you know, if you, to your point, had to go and tell someone everything that you've worked on, or even in the context of your resume, right? Lots of people are job hunting or looking for more secure opportunities, or, you know, you know, maybe looking for contract work, supplemental things. But how do you tell people, hey, I've been here for the past 2 years? You're not going to remember everything when you start trying to condense those 24 months on your resume. So sitting down and really thinking about how impactful your projects are. I also think that's also a great thing to talk about your manager with. You know, really impactful resumes have numbers. They have something to back.

Yes.

Not just, oh, hey, I did this initiative, but did that initiative do? And I think if that's not context that's being given to you, then get that contact from— context from your manager, get that context from the business. Make sure that you're putting yourself in a position to get that information, because the last thing that you want is all you can say is, I've been doing my job for 2 years, because it's just not enough.

Yep. And it's— I like you brought brag sheets. So my dad's on the job search again, um, and, you know, he's in— he's like, Dad, if you're watching, he's He's down at the beach right now with my uncle. His, uh, I just, I doubt he's watching because he's at the beach in Florida. But, uh, my dad is like, I love him to death because like computer illiterate. We're just now learning, you know, Google Docs, which is kind of a new thing. And like, I just was like, hey, like, I, I, I really— well, first off, shout out to my dad because he's posting on LinkedIn. Like, my dad is posting on LinkedIn. So like, like none of y'all have anything to do with it.

Why isn't everybody else?

That's what I'm saying. That's what, like, am I like 62-year-old dad who like doesn't know tech is posting on LinkedIn every day, you can do it too. But I sat down with him and we created his resume. His resume is obviously very, very tactical, very quantifiable. But I said, you need to create this brag sheet and submit to a manager at the same time, because there may be things on the brag sheet that stands out that you don't think— that you didn't think about— that the manager may resonate with more. Like, I think that's one of the things, like, if your resume, especially if you're very senior in your career, I think I would, I would have a separate brag sheet to kind of like tell a larger story. You could call it a cover letter, but that's not really a cover letter. It's kind of like an in-between thing. But I think some managers are gonna resonate with different things on your, on your resume versus your brag sheet. So I think the more context you can give, the better. I don't know if your thoughts on that. Yeah.

And so, and here's my thing is even, I also think that even outside of the context of like getting in front of the hiring manager interviews, I always tell people to build some sort of cheat sheet. So you should be able, cuz let's say your resume makes it through the screening and maybe you don't have all of that information on there. You didn't put it in there, or to your point, you didn't think that it would resonate. So you've kind of got some different points. It is so uncomfortable when someone is asking you about, okay, well, tell me more about this project. And you're like, well, you know, like I did a thing versus if you've been kind of keeping track of everything, I think it's totally fine to just have a little something where you're like, well, I did this and I did this and this is what happened and, you know, all this other stuff. So I think just even just being overprepared. So just because you've gotten the interview you doesn't mean that you've gotten the job. Make sure that you can break down all of the consistent impactful points that relate to the things that you say that you did. Because even as I'm— even when I'm interviewing people, I've been at my last job where I was head of product and technology, you know, we're talking to engineers and I'm kind of like, hey, tell me more about your specific role in this project. Which is another thing people tend to talk about, the project's impact at large, not what they did specifically.

Yes.

And so I'm always like, okay, well, tell me what you did and the impact that that have had. And a lot of times people can't answer the question. And it's unfortunate because I don't have a point of reference for saying, hey, you can come to our team and do the same thing because you haven't really sat down and thought about what you did.

Yep. I love that. I love that. I want to dive into that because I want to set the stage, right? So if you go to Danya's LinkedIn, she's worked at some pretty amazing companies, right? So you intern at IBM, you intern at Honeywell, you intern at Mailchimp. Uh, solid. Uh, you interned at Salesforce. You're like Thanos out here. Then you were a product manager at GoPuff. Um, obviously, uh, and then, you know, you held some other works within head of product technology and whatnot. So I'm glad you brought this up. Um, first off, all right, hold on. I need to finish my thought and then we're gonna go to the interns. I wanna talk about your intern thing. Um, where, so let's, let's unpack what you just said about how you interview people. What you've seen, what are some other pitfalls, downfalls that people really, really struggle with during an interview?

Yeah, so I think, uh, so we'll kind of go from the top for anybody that missed it. Generalizing your work to the project itself and not what your specific role was. Yeah, not being able to break down exactly what it was that you did specifically. Um, so being too general is really kind of the sort of biggest red flag that I see. Um, I also think that when you put things on your resume, I'm expecting you to have sort of the technical knowledge, whatever side of the technical house that you sit on. So whether that's the tools you use to facilitate the project, whether that's the engineering aspect of it, whether that's, you know, the architecture aspect of it, depending on what it is that we're interviewing you for. So if I give you a similar use case for our business, my expectation is that you can take that, break that down and explain to me how you would do the same thing. You know, if maybe our tech stack is different, if maybe sort of our end goal is different.

Right.

So that's another thing is I think people are This is gonna be two ways. This is gonna be kind of like a spicy take. I think sometimes you have to be really careful because anything you put on your resume, I'm expecting you to be prepared to talk about it. Sure. I'm expecting you to be prepared to talk about it really well. So I would rather you put a project that maybe isn't as big and shiny and sounds as good.

Interesting.

Yeah. Than do something that just looks really cool. Because when I ask you about the really cool thing and you can't talk to me about it, now I know that you didn't play as big of a part as you tried to make it seem as you did.

Yeah.

And that to me as an interviewer is also a red flag.

Yeah. I, I was at, um, Thrive Tech Conference down in Florida, uh, with Cam and I, I was, I was sitting on a panel and one of the panelists said, uh, uh, I, I have interviewed before with managers that asked me what I put on my resume in my first position ever.

Mm-hmm.

Like, like they, they, they do reverse chrono, they do reverse chronological and start from the very back. So like, Yeah, yeah, you got to be careful with that. But, but I think instead of saying— I think also too, changing your mindset from we to me. Like, we did this. Okay, I don't— I'm not interviewing your team.

Yeah.

I'm interviewing you. What did you do, right? And so I think, I think transitioning from we to me is important. Like Elliot said here, I've literally been printing out an agenda with a mission on the, uh, of the company. Love that. Details about the interviews. Love that agenda broken down to 5 to 10 increments questions, but including the brag sheet is a good addition. That's— man, that's great. Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that. If you can be that intentional for each one, I think it's great. I think it's great.

Yeah.

Uh, what else? Any other tips? Any other tips from people interviewing? Then I want to bounce to another topic.

Yeah, so, um, I would say the biggest one, which kind of ties into what Elliot said, researching us. When people come and they don't know anything about our product, they don't know who we are, they don't know what we're doing, And I get it. The job market is really tough. A lot of people are just trying to find something. I'm not the person who's like, oh, you just want a job. You suck. You can't work here. Right? If you have a great work ethic and you're a good teammate, your motivation doesn't necessarily matter. You're going to show up, you're going to get the job done, or you're going to be pleasant while doing it. But coming to me and not knowing anything is— it also just takes a lot of time away that I could be getting to know you because instead of focusing on the work that you've done or focusing on who you are and how you're going to interface with us, I now have to give you this a much longer spiel about who we are and what it is that we're doing. So I think researching the company, and there's 2 different ways that you can do this. So for larger companies, I obviously go to their website, see what it is that they have going on. I also do a little bit of digging into like their financials and like their reporting, if that's available. A lot of times being able to see where a company is like spending their money sounds really good in an interview. Like, hey, I've been reading that you guys are putting, you know, a bajillion dollars, not a real number, a bajillion dollars towards AI or infrastructure.

Sure.

Or you guys are deeply invested in this partnership with this other company. Because again, you can take the work that you did and you can contextualize it in knowing that I know for the next couple years, this is your focus. This is a skill that I have that fits within this focus. And that's just a little bit of a layer deeper than, hey, this is what we do. It's, hey, I understand what you do, but I also know where you're trying to go. And this is where I fit into your mission.

Yep, I love that. That's, that's so good. Now let me ask you this though, but like, that takes, that takes a lot of effort. So like, because I feel like people, I think we as human beings are conditioned to do activity, just activity. Yeah, I feel like the job search, especially right now, is like the antithesis of that. Like, I would argue that like, don't try to do so much. I would try to do more that's focused but less.

Yeah, no, 100%. And so It's interesting because you'll get lots of mixed advice where people are like, it's a numbers game. Apply to as many things as possible. You know, twenty applications a day, whatever. Da da da. And I think it—I think it depends on what your end goal is, which may be an unpopular opinion. So, I—I—I think that it's really important to sort of map out. This is where I am today, and this is where I see my career going. I also want to emphasize that that doesn't mean that you need to be like. a director or a managing director or VP, because some people don't want to do that. But I think that it's important that, to your point, as you're applying to jobs and as you're doing all your research, does this fit anywhere in the plan that I have for the next 5 years? And if it doesn't, you're going to take the job, maybe set yourself back, maybe put yourself in a different direction, and now you're just going to be kind of reworking things, trying to get it all to fit.

Yeah.

So I think doing something like doing all this research, getting all these things together, contextualizing all your work, this should be stuff that you're doing for companies that you're really, really interested in and you're time to put your best foot forward. Um, I think that that's the best time to really, really get in the weeds, because if you're really interested, other people are also probably really, really interested. And the last thing that you want is that someone beat you just because they were slightly more prepared.

Dude, that last sentence right there— I tell people all the time, the reason why you're not getting jobs is not because you're not good, it's just you're not doing the little things right.

Yeah, and it's, it's, it's, it's in that— it's a huge part of it. I think even like researching the company culture, looking how other people have handled their interviews, what their feedback is. Like, if it's something that you really want, you have to do some digging because you don't want it to just be, I didn't know, because the interview is expecting you to know. You can't go back and say, hey, I know you guys didn't pick me, but I didn't know this was a thing, right? I didn't know that the interview was going to go in this direction because it's your responsibility.

Yep, absolutely. All right, I want to go to the next topic. Um, talk about, uh, the internships, right? Uh, You, you, you like worked at like great ones. I mean, yeah, was that, was that because of college? Was that on your own accord? So how'd you— yeah, like how did you do all that?

I love this story because it is a little odd. Um, so I did 10 internships by the time that I graduated college. And I, yeah, I paid my way through school and I realized you get paid a lot more to be a software engineering intern than you do to work at retail or do something like that. So when I did the math, I was like, well, even if I work for 2 semesters, I was making so much money working maybe summer or fall that even if I didn't work in the spring, I made more than I would've made taking a regular job on campus. So the motivation was financial, but it did work out really well.

Sure.

So it started with Twitter. So a very long time ago when I was an undergrad, I was taking my first computer science courses. And so I went to I was at Kennesaw State University. We have this area of our campus, it's called CARK. So it's where you go for like math tutoring, but it's kind of just where all the STEM kids just hang out. So it's like, yes, you can get your calc tutoring, but like it's kind of like a social spot. So I'm hanging out there and a bunch of people who, they're juniors and they're seniors, they're all saying they don't have internships. So they're like, man, I didn't think about interning. My advisor didn't tell me anything about interning. So now they're trying to apply for jobs to figure out where they're gonna land after college.

Sure.

And no one told them that, hey, you might wanna get some real-world experience, or it's gonna be a little bit harder for you.

Isn't that wild? So I'm gonna throw it to you real quick. Literally, I had my first university— so I signed up to be a mentor for University of South Carolina Business School because I am so tired of like the non-advice colleges are giving. So like, so I, so I have, I have 2 students. I'm kicking off the first one today, the next one tomorrow. It's like a 4-week, pretty short, 30 minutes. But like, I'm pumped because I'm just gonna do the These, these kids are gonna like hear it from me.

Oh yeah. And, and it's, and so it's crazy because I'm like, and the more that I'm talking to other kids, their advisors are literally helping them pick classes. That's literally it. They're not telling them about interviews. So nobody's, nobody's told me about like the data structure and algorithm style interviews. No one's told me about like the perks that come, that come with, you know, being an intern, you know, you being able to leave the state. Cause I lived in the Bay Area for a summer when I was out with Salesforce, but like Salesforce paid me, but they also paid for my housing. So like you could see. the Wharf from my window. And like, I'm a college kid, so it was really amazing. And so the next summer I lived in North Carolina, same thing. I'm in a— not as fun, really. I mean, not as fun, but still in a really nice apartment. They're paying for everything.

Uh, Raleigh or Charlotte?

Um, I was in— so I was living in Durham, but I was working.

Oh, Durham's great.

Yeah, I was in, uh, like near where like the Durham Bulls stadium was.

Yeah, so it was super nice.

So I'm like, wheels are turning. So I get on Twitter because like I said, I don't know anything. If my advisor knew anything, they didn't tell me. So I'm like, hey, how do I go about getting an internship?

Boy, I'm sure that post blew up.

So I start getting all of these messages, and a guy who had followed me on Twitter for a while messages me. And again, I don't know anything because no one's told me about like the big important tech companies or the differences in salaries. I'm blind, like posting. Yeah, somebody help me please. Um, so a random guy DMs me and he's like, hey, I've been following you for a while because I'd been posting through my CS degree. Like these are the classes that I'm taking. This is what I'm doing. Da da da. And he's like, "I work at Salesforce." I don't know what that is at this point in time. So he's like, "I work at Salesforce. My team's looking for an interview for an intern." And he's like, "Send me your resume," because like the this is in January, so they've already picked most of their people. He's like, "This is gonna be really last minute. You're gonna need to study, kind of do all these things." So he helps me get like a proper resume set up. showcasing my skills. So this is for college students. I obviously don't have any real-world experience. He's like, well, what projects have you done? What have they taught you in school? And we wrote the projects up like it was my work experience. So to your point, what I did specifically in the projects, all of the technology it was that I was using. So my first resume was just school-based academic stuff that I had done.

It read like a real job.

Yep. Broken down like I had done it as a job. Any side projects and things that I was interested in, things that I was self-teaching myself. So that kind of comprised my resume, obviously at that point in time, like my GPA. At the time it was kind of like standard practice to put in courses you would have completed by the time you get to the internship. So courses that I've done as well as what I was going to be doing that semester because I would know it by the time that I got there. Right. So we did that. Then he kind of introduced me to the concept of like, okay, well, they're going to ask you these data structures based questions, so you need to go on LeetCode. Didn't know what that was. You know, and you have to figure out how to do this. Da da da da. Went and talked to his manager, and because I had prepared so well, they picked me over a girl at Columbia who had a better GPA because they liked me more. And I went to a state college. So like my school is not known for computer science, is not known for engineering, but they picked me. I meshed really, really well with the team. I had a really, really great summer. It was literally the one thing that like changed the trajectory of me being in technology. Because I came back home and I was like, man, I don't want to go from— because before this I was working at Publix. So I'm like, I don't want to go from like sales.

Publix is great though. I do love some Publix.

Sandwiches all the time. It wasn't a bad gig. So I'm like, I don't want to go from, you know, the money that I was making in San Francisco to kind of going back to being at Publix. So I'm like, maybe let me see if I can find an internship someplace else. So I'm looking for internships in Atlanta in the fall. I end up at Turner Broadcasting in Midtown. So I intern at Turner. Spring semester, I did the same thing. So every semester I'm like, who's hiring? Where can I go? And at the same time, I'm building all of this experience. So when I graduated from college, having done all these internships, because it got to the point where I wasn't necessarily working on intern projects, I was doing the work of like a full-time engineer, just less time during the week because I was a student. Yeah. So people treated me like I had graduated with 2 to 3 years of software engineering experience. Which meant by the time—

dude, if your resume came across my desk, I'd be like, who is this woman? Like, it's so impressive.

So at the time when I graduated, it was really great because that meant that I wasn't interviewing for entry-level jobs. So post-graduation, I actually, if you notice, I have never had mid roles. I've never, yeah, I've never had junior or associate anything in my title because I jumped right into technical.

Uh, wait, yeah, the, uh, GoPuff.

Yeah. So I came in as like product manager, that's just somebody who already kind of knew how to do it.

Why, why did you go product manager? Why'd you go, uh, techno-functional route, not stay developer?

Uh, so I'm not gonna lie to you, I just didn't like being a software engineer that much.

I mean, I don't blame you. I mean, shout out to all y'all software developers. I don't know how y'all do it though.

No, I love it. And I think, and so for me, I always thought about what could I do that was sustainable. I think it's really important, and this is going to take a very different turn. Um, I think it's really important also in the context of your career to think about the lifestyle that you want to live, challenges that you're comfortable with, work through all these other things. And climbing the software engineering ladder just personally was not something that I was interested in. It didn't really fit my lifestyle. I got paid, and this again, I'm probably— I got paid just as much to be a product manager as I would've gotten paid if I was a software engineer. So it aligned with me. I think a lot of times tech is very sexy, so everyone wants to come off as very technical and very engineering heavy because I think that people think that folks respect that more. And I think that you should never pick what you want to do for work based on what other people would want for you or based on what other people think is cool. Facts.

Yeah. Yeah. Did you research at all product? Like why product? Like, did you do any research for it?

Yeah, I did. And I was kind of sort of chatting with my managers just about different opportunities that were available to me. But the whole purpose of me interning was to touch every kind of thing. So even when I was doing software engineering, I did like front end, I did full stack. I had an internship where I was coding in like C# because we were doing physical hardware. I did like DevOps, I did penetration testing. Like, I've done everything. And then I was like, I don't like any of this. So my final thing that I did was I did a rotational program at Salesforce. So I came back to the very first internship that I had, my old team, but I came back to my team doing product management and I liked it.

That's cool.

A lot more. It just seemed to align more with just natural skills that I had. I feel like I was just very good at facilitation and being organized.

Yeah.

The great thing about the transition was though, and even on the team that I'm at now, because I have the background in engineering, I do think that I get a lot more respect. I get put on slightly different products than other people because I understand the technical ins and outs of what it is that we're doing. So I stay on top of how things are working. I'm just not coding them anymore. Sure. But having a technical background has enabled me to move farther and get paid more as a product manager. So it worked itself out.

I love that. That's awesome. Um, let, let, let's kind of go on the college thing a little bit just cuz I actually did a one-on-one career session with, mm-hmm, uh, a senior dev I know in the, in Nashville. He sent his daughter to me. I coached her up. She got an internship at Capital One because of it. And now he sent his son to me. He's a mechanical engineer at Vanderbilt. Very smart family. Um, and, uh, we were just talking about college and he was like, he was like, what should I do? And I was like, get on LinkedIn. And I showed it to him real time.

Yeah.

I was like, go to Vanderbilt University alum, see how many people are in Nashville, and try to meet coffee, lunch, or Zoom call with all— and there was 111 people. 111 people that graduated from Vanderbilt in the— as a mechanical engineer.

Yeah.

That were in Nashville. I said, start there. I said, start there. By the time you get to December, you need to have— and we did the math, it's like, it was like 4 or 5 a week. It was a little aggressive, but yeah, like, like, I was like, your goal should be to try to meet all 111 people by the time you graduate. And so I, I don't know, like, if there's any other people who are, who are watching this or listen to this in the future around college stuff, do you have any other pieces of advice?

Yeah, so I didn't, um, I didn't have a LinkedIn until I got to the Bay Area, so That was actually one of the first things my mentor told me to do. He was like, hey. And again, no one told me to do this in college. They didn't tell me what a LinkedIn was. So I'm just sitting here like, how am I getting a job? Nobody knows who I am. I don't have a LinkedIn. I don't know where to go to apply. I have none of this information. So my mentor told me to go and make a LinkedIn. And what they were doing in the Bay Area the summer that I was living there, and I'm sure it's kind of similar, was everyone's office would be doing these mixers. So I was at Salesforce, but Salesforce would encourage us to like bring our friends to the office on like certain days. You know, you could go and go to a mixer at your friend who works at Google. You could go to, at the time, like the Twitter office. You could go see your friends at Slack. And it was designed to expose us to the different internship programs because a lot of times what would happen is you would kind of bounce between these different Bay Area companies. Yeah. Figure out sort of where it was that you wanted to land. So my mentor was like, go to all of these meetups, go to all these happy hours. And then same thing, he's like, meet all the computer science kids, connect with them all on LinkedIn, connect with all their hiring managers. Because he was like, when you graduate, he's like, these are the people that you want to talk to because they know you, they've met you, they've socialized with you, they know that they like you. And he's like, a lot of this is going to be you being able to get a referral because everyone wants to work at Google. Everyone wants to work at Slack. Everyone wants to work at the cool new startups. And he's like, the only way you're beating them to the front of the line is if you know somebody.

Yeah.

Or if you know somebody that knows somebody. And that's just kind of how it is. So I left that summer with 500 LinkedIn connections. Every single intern thing that was available to me, I went, I talked to people, we exchanged information. And even with that, every time I've gotten laid off, I'm still friends with girls from my internship program that I met 9 years ago. Like, we live together, we still text. Like, I'm, you know, on their close friends on Instagram. When I got laid off, these are the first people that reached out to me because they remembered me. Like, oh, hey, I'm still working here. I'm at this company now. Do you need something? So almost 10 years since I've left the Bay Area, those connections are still paying off.

I love that. That's awesome. Uh, Zara comes in here and goes, does the LinkedIn thing still work if you are between junior to mid-level?

Yes.

I think it works, period. I mean, I think you need to have it.

Yeah. Yes, absolutely. And I would say even when, um, because I got, I got laid off in April, found a new job in May, um, but I was cold emailing on LinkedIn. So Like I tallied up all my LinkedIn connections. I was like, how many messages do I need to send a day to get through everyone I know on LinkedIn in like 60 to 90 days? So I would message them, but I made it super specific. Like, hey, my name is Danya. This is my background. This is what I do. And I always ask people one of two questions. Someone taught me this. I don't know who, because I would shout them out if I remember, which is you want to either give people— you want to give them options. So a lot of times people will message me and like they just want a referral. or they just wanted something, or— but that just may not be something that I'm able to offer them. So we can't continue the conversation. So I always ask, could you give me some feedback on my resume? So I look at their company and I'm like, hey, you know, I see that you work at, you know, Atlassian. I'm really interested in doing product management there. You know, here's a little bit about my background. And like, could you give me some feedback on my resume?

It's the first thing that I ask. Yes.

And then the second thing that I say is I pick specific jobs because Again, sometimes people will message me. I think even at DLR, we have thousands of jobs listed and they're like, I want to be a project manager. Okay, what kind? On what team? What time zone? I can't—

Get specific, people.

Yeah, I can't look for you. So I pull 2 to 3 jobs max and I'm like, I saw this position, this position, this position. I do a short little spiel about why I think that I would be a good candidate. And again, my resume is already on here and I'm like, would you be comfortable referring me or having a conversation with me about the job? Because if they don't know you and they're not just willing to toss you a referral, if I get 15 to 30 minutes on your calendar, I can tell you about who I am, what it is that I do. 9 times out of 10, they'll give it to you. So I get the most responses when even if it's a person who's not comfortable doing that for me, I just say, hey, just take a look at my resume, tell me what I might be missing. Because they may say, hey, have you worked with this, this, and this technology? And you have, but you don't have it listed on your resume. And they can tell you, you need to list this on there because we're looking for software engineers or program managers who do this one specific thing. And again, it's just information that you don't have. How would you know?

Yeah. So good. I love that. Let's, let's go into kind of what the title is. I'm glad we kind of went on that tangent again. This is why I don't have like set questions. Yeah. Because I just, I just love the way this conversation goes. Uh, I, I wanna go to the art of networking internally. Um, what are some tips there, especially from a remote setting? I think it's easier. I, I was having a conversation about this with somebody the other day, how like I do miss being in the office and like, no, I mean like I would love to work with Brianna, right? Like, yeah, side by side, right? Or Jason. Yeah, that would be awesome. Yeah, yeah. Uh, so you can't do that. So like, what, what's your advice for people just in general, both remote and in person, and just the power of, of really building relationships at the company you're at?

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so there's, there's so many different things and it depends on company culture. So where I'm at now, my team, we're like really social. Everyone sends like a cute little good morning message every morning. Um, everybody's really nice to each other. Like I'm at the, on the kind of team where people ask about your kids if you told them that they were sick. Like my boyfriend hurt his leg like, um, 2 months ago. People are still asking about it. They're like, how's his leg? Is he doing okay? How's PT going? Right. So there's that aspect of it. But if you're just not, that type of person. I think having a— I think there's 2 people, I think, and it depends on what you want to do. I would say having a set cadence with someone who is able to vouch for you and what it is that you need. So making sure that you're frequently checking in with your manager. I think if your goal is to move upwards, having another set cadence with someone that you can give information from because they're vouching for you, but from a different perspective.

Yeah.

So if there's someone more junior on your team, touching base with them, not only when they need something, but kind of getting in that space of talking to them regularly, giving them some sort of information, like stepping into that role of sort of mentoring them. Because now you have your manager who can say, every time I ask him for something, he gets it done. He's really good at his job. Then you have this other person that can say, he's really good at distilling information. He's really good at explaining things to me. He always gives me the info that I need. So you kind of have that from both sides.

Yeah.

And I would also say, if no one's going to do it for you, getting comfortable doing it yourself. So, you know, letting people know when you've completed things in the channels that you're in. I think that also goes for letting people know if you haven't completed stuff, why. So, like, sometimes in reporting, if it's, we should have had this 2 weeks ago, but we don't, I'm literally like, because this person did— we're awaiting a response from this person. This person has not responded. Because I want to make it very apparent it's not my team, it's not someone that I'm managing that isn't doing their job. Someone else who's supposed to be a part of this process is dropping the ball, right? So making it very clear, this is what I did. And if you can't get it done, this is why I didn't get it done.

Yeah.

So I think, like, if you're an engineer, that's, like, being really detailed in your standups, being really detailed when you guys kind of have all those conversations when you come together. When we're having conversations and things like our retrospective, Being radically honest, tell me where the issues are in the process that I can fix them so that you can get your job done. Depending on the size of your company, I know that we do like an all hands every quarter. Ask questions because people are gonna click on you. They're gonna be like, who's that random guy that's always talking when we do the town hall? Right? So you want to drive as much attention towards you and your work as possible. And if people aren't gonna do it for you, do it publicly in every channel that's available to you.

Yep. Absolutely. I mean, one of the things, one of the things that I did, it's kind of tangentially, is like, when I started Torc, one of the things that was, I've realized, was that the community team was, was, no one understood what we did. So what I did is, is no one told me to do that. I was loud in our Slack, doing updates every week about what we're doing and what we're accomplishing, right? No one told me to do that, but I wanted to be more present because I was brand new at the organization. Right. So again, like, you have to put yourself out there. Um, uh, no one's— what's the saying? No one's gonna look out for you more than you, or something like that. Yeah, whatever that saying is. Um, Zara comes in here, goes, always thought if I reached out to my favorite person for advice about resume, it'd be too audacious.

I don't think so. I think so. The thing is, is that— and I'm gonna speak for myself, and I'm just gonna assume that baseline, everybody is a certain amount of good person— but people want to help you. I— and again, you have to think about People are doing so much socializing at work that, you know, a lot of us is completely different. They're maybe not interested in. So having someone talk to you about something where you feel helpful, you feel seen, you know, they think that you're smart, they think that you're important. Most people really just don't say no to that. Like a lot of times if someone doesn't message me back, eventually they get back to me. It may just be a couple weeks. It might be a couple months later because they're a little bit too busy. But I've never had someone negatively respond to me because I said that I needed help. And I think especially. in the space that we're all in, when it could, it could really be any of us. I think people are so much more compassionate because this is just collectively, we all kind of understand that things aren't the way that they used to be. So if I don't respond to you and if someone else doesn't respond to you, that could be the difference between changing your situation. And I think that people are really empathetic towards that.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, Zara comes in, goes, as in asking for a resume review for free? I mean, here's the deal, asking for a resume review for free That's— I mean, listen, that, that could be a little extreme. I— there is nothing wrong with sending your resume over to a friend like Donya. Like, if I was a product owner manager and, and, and like Donya and I had the relationship we had, I'd be like, hey girl, can you just, just eyeball this real quick for 7 seconds? Just one thing that stands out. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, going for like, hey, can you give me an hour rundown of the resume? That's a whole nother conversation.

Yeah, and there's also people— and again, I think there's a community for everything So there are people who were— that's what they're interested in doing. That's how they serve their communities. They do look at resumes, they've got Discord channels, they've got whatever. So I think it's if it's— you really need a very specific type of assistance. To Taylor's point, nobody's gonna advocate for you better for you. You have to go out of your way to find it and to ask people where it is because it's out there.

Yeah, absolutely. What I'm trying to think of some other tips, I think. Oh, names, right? is big, and I didn't realize it until, until somebody used— somebody's called me the wrong name consistently. Tyler. Yeah, it's like, listen, you're not even trying. Taylor is not— there's not a— it's not a long word. There's no need. I'm not asking you to pronounce my last name. My last name's crazy, but like Like, I'm just Taylor. Like, I think that makes a huge, huge difference as well.

Yeah. And it's just on that list of things of just remembering little things about someone, their name, if they like preferred name, because I have some team members, especially, you know, Slack will show you somebody's whole entire name and just knowing this person prefers to be called this instead. I think even just knowing people's like channels of communication. Some people don't wanna sit on Slack with you all day. Some people wanna huddle instead of message. Some people wanna do this, some people wanna do that. So, There's so many little things that can make you so much more pleasant, and a lot of it is just remembering what people's preferences are.

100%. Dani, coming up with the questions. Talk about your layoff. Why you pivoted to cybersecurity?

This is an excellent question. Um, so the company that I was at was— I was working at a startup, and to kind of condense what it was that we were doing, um, we were working on improving sort of the workflow for legal professionals. Um, so our founder, as well as a lot of the people working on the product, have backgrounds in law. So I'm talking they've been lawyers for like 40 years, like longer than I've been alive. And so the idea is essentially changing the way that lawyers do referrals, how they connect with one another, mentorship, which is a really, really big thing in this space. It's similar technology, but not— What we had also kind of transitioned to was all of the data and information that we're getting from cases, how people like to work, what their personalities are. Can we leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence to help them make better decisions, to help them build better teams, things like that. I got laid off in April because the entire company sunsetted. So literally it was kind of like I woke up one day and I didn't have a job anymore and neither did anybody else that worked there.

That's crazy.

Our founder was most— we were self-funding a lot of the company. So in this economy, that just wasn't something that was a viable option, especially since he'd already worked on this product for years. So I got laid off. I closed my laptop. I went to sleep. So that was kind of my response to that. I was like, cool, I'm gonna take a nap. And I woke up and the first thing I did was I posted on Twitter that I got laid off before I posted on LinkedIn.

Your following's tremendous on Twitter.

Yeah. So I was like, hey guys, I just got laid off. I'm looking for a new job. But I always told myself when I moved sort of outta my current role that I was gonna work in cyber and I was gonna work in AI. The biggest thing to sort of consider when you're building your career roadmap is spaces that are growing and what it is that you have to offer. And I think one of the things that people try to do, and I think this is kind of what we're experiencing with entry-level software engineering, is it can be really hard to get in someplace when things are oversaturated. So knowing when it's time for you to niche down and to pick a skill when the door is like wide open is a really important skill to building a career. So Right now, there's so much opportunity in cyber, and there's so many things that are also just different flavors of engineering. So I'm not necessarily a cybersecurity professional, but I spent so much time building secure products and following these protocols in a completely different way that I can again take that knowledge and transfer it. And with all of the opportunities that are available, I was like, hey, if I'm going to pivot, let's not pivot back to just being a generalist. pick something. Um, and so that's how I ended up in cybersecurity. But just kind of just a little tidbit there, if you're looking to switch to something, make sure that what it is that you're picking is going to have opportunity for you for the next couple years. You don't want to be the person getting in at the tail end of some sort of boom because it's just going to make things really hard for you.

Yeah, I agree with that. I think, I think one of the things that I've done relatively well in my career is kind of see the ripples. And I talk about sailing all the time. Like, I grew up sailing and you have to know where the wind's coming from. And, uh, and I saw that recruiting, the industry was changing. Not even before AI. AI just put the gas on it, but more from like this community aspect. Because when I was working at Vayco, people wanted to work with me because of me, not because of the name.

Yeah.

And I was like, wait a minute. That's okay. We're on to something here. So shout out to you for kind of seeing the— you're reading the tea leaves, seeing the tea leaves. Yeah, navigating that. That's great. That's great.

Yeah, absolutely. And again, I think that just goes into which I always encourage people to do market research, uh, because a lot of this is— if you, if you look at where companies are spending their money, a lot of it is in, you know, cyber initiatives and even thinking about AI, vibe coding, everything else. Whose responsibility is it, do you think, to make sure that all of that stuff is secure?

That's true.

And so everything that we're kind of building in this space of AGI, of, you know, wanting to use AI for everything, of writing sort of all of this code, is we need more security professionals to make sure that we're not doing things that we are not supposed to be doing. And sort of even when this AI boom is over, all of the data points that are being collected across all of the products that are now part of our daily life, Again, whose job is it, do you think, to make sure that all of that is okay? So cyber is going to be here for a really, really long time. Of course, the context of the work it is that we're going to be doing is going to change. Yeah. Um, but it's, it's a great sort of field to be in, the same way that if you can get into AI early right now, also a great place to be.

I love it. I want to go to this question here. New New Yams, for my Black folks that still prefer to use an easier pronounced name for better chances of getting hired. It's an interesting question. Obviously something I don't think about.

Yeah. So I'm gonna give 2 answers. There is a lot of content that I've seen around people saying that you can take your picture off of LinkedIn. You can go buy like a shortened version of your name. You can kind of do all this other stuff, right? I'm gonna answer your question with a question because you have to think about is if you had to do all that and that is the only reason that they picked you, Is that the work environment that you want to end up in? At some point, you're going to have to tell people your name. At some point, they're going to see it on your email. They're going to see it on your Slack. You're going to turn your camera on, right? So I will never tell people to not do things that they think would make them more comfortable or get them more opportunities if it's not like lying, stealing, cheating, all that other stuff, right? But at the end of the day, these are people that you have to work with. And if they feel so strongly about how you look or if they feel so strongly about what your name is, Mm-hmm. That's not gonna go away once they hire you.

Yep. Yep. So good. So good. Uh, Elliot's question, then we're gonna do rapid fire. Danya, how did you maximize tech conferences like Render ATL, local meetups, and maybe other in-person and virtual events? What was your mindset? Elliot coming with some great questions today. Elliot, I appreciate it.

Yes. Um, so Render's funny because I'm gonna give some background. Um, I met Justin at Mailchimp when I was an intern. Okay.

So Roxy was right. I saw the question come in. I just couldn't pull it up in time. So yeah.

So I met Justin when I was an intern at Mailchimp. I was kind of building my Twitter community. So online everybody had known me as the full— I was a full stack developer, but I love to eat. So I was the full stack developer and people kind of knew me. So I'd bump into people, they'd be like, oh, you're a full stack developer for social media. So before we got Bri, and thank God that we did, because I don't have a background in marketing, I'm just kind of good at community building. The first year it was like me, Justin, and a couple other people. So actually I put the conference together. As we've gotten more of a team and I've been able to attend Render, I think it's really just about being strategic. I look up who's going, I see who's posting about it on social media. And to the point that Taylor was making, looking up everyone that's posting about Render, niching down to people who have either job titles that you want or the same job title that you do, that are organizations that you care about. And I just focus on that. There are thousands of people at these conferences. There are hundreds of people at these meetups. You have to get comfortable with the idea that you cannot attend everything. So you've got to think about what your purpose is. If it's to go to talks and to learn, focus on that. If it's to, hey, I really need to talk to these 4 people at these 4 companies, do everything you can to make it happen. But like build a schedule. And I set goals for myself every single day, whether that's I need to add 10 to 15 new people on LinkedIn every day as I'm going through the conference. I need to go to this booth, you know, when this person posts about it to make sure that I can meet them and talk to them about job opportunities. I need to, you know, email my resume to 2 hiring managers a day who told me that they wanted it. Right. So it's just for me, and again, unpopular opinion, I think at conferences, less is more. Preserve your social battery for the conversations that you really need to have that are going to move the needle for your career.

That 100%. Love that. Love that. All right. Rapid fire. You ready? This was great. Thank you. Thank you for coming on. This was wonderful. What's one tech tool or app you can't live without right now?

One tech tool or app that I can't live without. Crisp. Crisp is my favorite thing. So Crisp is an AI platform. It's like AI note-taking, but that's not the cool part is they do AI noise suppression. Um, so if you work from home like me, or if you're traveling, you literally cannot hear anything. I was in Mexico and a mariachi band was legitimately playing behind me and nobody on the call could hear it. It was like legitimately ridiculous. You can blast— yes, you can blast music in your apartment. You can be out working in a noisy coffee shop. It is the only thing that I have used that works. And it takes notes. So it takes notes, um, like it kind of tags everything for you in terms of who's speaking and all that other stuff. It gives you a recording if that's what you want. So yeah, I'm a huge fan of Krisp AI.

Huh. Yeah. And you're always out and about, so that makes total sense. That's awesome. I'm gonna check that out. That's why I like asking those questions. Everyone's like ChatGPT. I'm like, no, gimme something good.

No. And even at something like Render, if you can't find a conference room but you need to chat, it filters everything else out that's not you. I don't know what they're doing or how they're making that work, but it does work really, really, really well.

I love it. What's the first job you ever got paid to do?

The first job that I ever got paid to do. The first job that I ever got paid to do was Publix, but I'm from Florida. I feel like everybody's worked at Publix if you're from Florida. So the first job I ever got paid to do was a cashier at Publix, which— and this was like my trajectory, my tech arc. I was a cashier at Publix. After that, I worked at a gym. I worked at like the first Crunch Fitness that opened in Florida before they opened everywhere. Oh, what happened? I sold cars for a while. So I was actually a GTR specialist at a Nissan dealership. And then I went into working in technology. So I had all of these like odd jobs and then I became a software engineer. That's crazy.

Um, uh, all right, so let me ask you this. I haven't quite figured out how to frame this question. So if you could set your ideal remote in-person hybrid cadence for a company, yeah, what would it be?

So I don't have a cadence, but I have like a thing I So I've worked at companies where we do all of our planning in person. So it doesn't matter when we're doing planning, but if we have to get together and plan something big or something that spans multiple teams, we just all fly someplace and we get it done. I think that if you're doing quarterly stuff, long road mapping, complex projects, that would be my desired cadence. It's like work from home whenever you want to. But if we need to really sit down and map something out and make sure that everybody understands what they're owning and what they need to be doing, I would strongly suggest that if you can do it in person, you do.

OK. I love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. I think, uh, the, actually the company I worked at before had a pretty good cadence. They would bring a business unit in a quarter. So like one week, one, one, one week per quarter would be like sales and then marketing. And, you know, I, I like that because you got everybody in the office and I enjoyed that. Um, but I do miss being in the office, um, believe it or not. What did you want to be originally when you grew up, like when you were a kid?

So originally, you know, I never— I didn't have like a, oh, like this is what I wanted to do. And this is not crazy. Like, I just wanted to be like cool and interesting. So my goal, like even when I, you know, was moving for college was I always wanted to have time and space for the arts. So even now, like I love to travel, like I'm really interested in fine dining. I have a camera, so I do photography. So It was less about what I did for a career because my identity isn't really my job.

Sure.

And more about being able to work, which is why I love remote work, in a way that facilitates me like doing the stuff that I actually want to do. I love it.

I love it. What's one career mistake you're oddly grateful for?

Career mistake?

Like any mishaps.

Career mistake that I'm oddly grateful for. Hmm. Realistically, I've made plenty.

Sure.

So there's been lots of times, like even at my first internship, I remember that my mentor kind of pulled me to the side and was like, hey, like, you're really smart. Obviously you've done really great at your coursework. But he was like, you can't— I think like academic program and functionally building a product at scale are 2 completely different things. And he's like, you're really not necessarily understanding how different this is. When I first got into product management, there's so much terminology and things that you have to use. And so I really kind of, every time I transitioned to something else, I was really publicly failing.

Yeah.

But I'm really grateful for all of those experiences because I had to learn to be really transparent about not knowing things and needing help. So I'm really grateful for just kind of being able to say, I don't know how to do this. I've never done this before. I'm not understanding this. I'm struggling with this topic. I think it gave me a lot of humility very early on in my career, but it also enabled me to have tough conversations, right? I think a lot of people, when they're at a job and they don't know something, it's either you're kind of trying to hide that, like, my work is not as good as other people's, or that I'm not moving fast as other people's, and you're skipping meetings and you're not giving updates.

Yeah.

And I had to very publicly learn to be like, hey, other people can do this and I cannot. So how are you guys doing this? Where are you learning it? And it really gave me a necessary skill, which is like being able to research something and then kind of to tie it back into the art of networking, finding the person I needed to talk to who was going to teach me what the standard was at our organization. So, hey, I'm struggling. Don't mind the struggle. Who has the time and the space to mentor me and how do I find them?

I love that. That's awesome. If I were to say you couldn't be in tech anymore, but you can make the same amount of money, if not more, what hobby would you pursue?

That's a great question. I went to this thing at the High Museum a couple weeks ago for like fine art printmaking, which I thought was really cool. So I'd do something like really like, I'd open like a pottery studio like Seth Rogen or like make art prints or I don't know, animal conservation. Like, it would just be something completely different.

I love it, I love it, I love that so much. Um, all right, last 2 questions. For the last— the second last question, are you a coffee or tea girly?

I'm a coffee person. Everything.

Hot or iced?

So it depends, because it's really weird, because I feel like I'm one of those people where it's like flipped. Like, in the wintertime, I'm like, ooh, iced coffee is delicious, and it's really drinking like the most scorching coffee imaginable.

I can't. Hot coffee makes makes. I hear it. I hear it. I love it. I love it. Do you have a favorite coffee spot in and where you're where you're at?

Um, so I have I have a few. Um, so I make I make my own coffee. I make um cafe soda, which is like Vietnamese style coffee at home because I finally mastered it. That's really hot or ice. So I I make my own coffee.

Hey, next next time next time we're in the same city. Yeah, I got you.

So I and I also so like I because I'm really into cooking. So I tend to not coffee shop at Atma as much because I figured out how to like make my own homemade syrup. So I like— sure, yeah, like the brown sugar shaken espresso that I would get from like Starbucks, I can make it.

I have to say, that is very delicious. I don't like Starbucks that much, but that is fantastic.

It's really, it's really, really good. But also, it's just like 2 parts brown sugar to 1 part water and you boil it. It's the exact same. Like, it's not a little bit of cinnamon, it's the same thing. Sure. Uh, so I feel like once I realized that like flavoring your own coffee wasn't hard. I just do a bunch of fun things at home. Um, but there's another place, Buddy Brew, which is in Tampa. Um, a portion of your proceeds of all your coffee things go to like dogs and shelters and stuff. So the coffee's really good. That's cool. Mission-based, and like you save a dog every time you buy a cup of coffee. So I'm into that.

I love it. I love it. Last question. This show is called Guidance Counselor 2.0 because we had guidance counselors in middle school, high school, and college, but now as adults we don't really have them to ask them for general career advice. Obviously a lot of advice was given today. What would be your biggest piece of advice if you could go back and tell Danya, like, in college?

Yeah, um, I think realizing that yes, everybody wants to help you, but that doesn't mean that they're going to give you all the information that you need. So the easiest way to be successful is to be really hungry for information. Even if you think that you really know something, I can guarantee you that there is a gap that you're not thinking about, right? Even if someone told me about getting internships Nobody still told me about LinkedIn. Even if someone told me about LinkedIn, no one told me about cold messaging or to your point, how to look for people who are in the same location as me. So when you get to the next step, figure out what you can do to improve that and to make that process better. Because listening to people, which is kind of controversial because we just had everyone listen to us for an hour, but listening to people is not going to give you all the information.

I agree.

To where you need to go. And so constantly being on that hunt for Okay, I'm on this platform. Okay, I learned this technology. Now what? What are people doing? What are the best practices? What do I need to do? And even with like AI, like ChatGPT, I know a lot of people kind of use it as like Google, but get it, you can use it to teach you stuff.

It's written one of my conference talks and it is, and I'm using it. It's all the information that I had, but it just made it sound more cohesive. Yeah. And then I use it a ton now to start planning and brainstorming for building community for Torque. Yeah.

And even with my job, I'm like, hey, I'm like, you know, pretend that you're a senior level product manager or program manager and you're working on it.

Helps with blind spots.

Yeah. Because there's just things that I'm not thinking about. So giving it that context so it can tell you, hey, have you thought about this? And chances are you're not. And to the point of what Elliot said, idea swapping is necessary and that's where your network is important. I went to a Labor Day thing with my friends and it turns out we're all product, we're all PMs. Someone's a project manager, someone's a program manager, someone else is a product manager. And we all started talking about, well, how are you guys using Jira? And my team's not doing this.

Labor Day cookout.

At the Labor Day cookout.

Wild.

But it was so funny because we've never actually talked about what we did and we realized we've got this whole community that can give us advice right here. So I think just Asking people questions whenever you can.

I love it. I love it. All right, y'all. Well, thanks again for hanging out with us today. Uh, again, moved these to hour sessions about 2, 3 weeks ago, and I love it. It allows us, me, the group, everybody to hang out a lot longer and have great conversations. So, uh, tomorrow morning, uh, I got my boy Andrew from the Torque community. He's gonna talk about, uh, how he got his job. I literally texted him today. I was like, hey man, I said, what did I say? I said, I said, I said, hey man, I'm making a LinkedIn post today. How'd you get your job? He goes, well, one, my buddy, uh, and meetup co-organizer told me to email his boss, and then the other came from a LinkedIn DM. So we're gonna talk about it tomorrow.

Yep.

Y'all have a good one. We'll see y'all.

Awesome. Bye everyone. Bye.