The Importance of Value in your Career w/Staff Dev Advocate, Adewale Abati

All righty, good morning everybody. When I say everybody, nobody. No one's here yet. All right, hey, so, so I gotta ask, um, uh, you got any— I got any holiday plans coming up?

Um, a little bit. Uh, last— for the last 2 years in Amsterdam, I've been indoors during the holidays. But this time around I'm planning to be outside. Okay, um, there's a couple of activities that kind of make the rounds around here. We have ice skating, Festival of Lights.

Nice.

Hopefully I'll get to see some cute things out there.

Yeah, nice. Do you ice skate at all?

I'm about to.

Nice.

Oh man, yeah, this will be my first time trying it out, but I have faith in my cognitive abilities.

Just stay low. Somebody who plays ice hockey, just keep your knees bent and engage from your, your, your quads, your quads and your thighs. It gets a big workout. Just, just stay in that power stance and you'll be good to go. I promise you. I promise.

I'll keep that in mind.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Uh, well, good morning everybody. Welcome to the last live of 2024. Ace won the lottery. Ace, you don't get anything, but you won the lottery. So the last live of the year. I'm pumped for this conversation. I'm starting a little bit early today just because it's going to be really, really good. We're going to talk about Ace's just journey both into tech, but also just from his roots in Nigeria to where he's at now. I think it's going to be a very powerful conversation today. So I'm super pumped. So before we dive in, as always, please say hey. Would love to hear from you. I always tell people that this is a networking platform. I don't mean this mean towards Ace at all, but the guests are secondary on this show. And the reason for that is because I wanted to develop an ecosystem where you could come, where people could come, they could say hey, they could network with people in the chat, they can network with guests. Please connect with Ace afterwards. You know, I tell people, I've been doing this show— I told Ace backstage, I've been doing this show for 4 and a half, almost 5 years. If you have connected with every single person in the comments and every single guest on the show for 5 years, your network is just as good as mine. And so that's what I want. I want people to network off the back of me because it is hard to network. It is awkward to network. It is awkward to send Ace a DM cold because you don't know Ace. But now, because you saw him on Guidance Counselor 2.0, you can message Ace and be like, hey, Saw you on the show. Would love to connect. That's a much easier conversation and less awkward for both Ace and you, right? So again, so, but please say hey, would love to hear from you. I'd also again encourage everybody connect in the comments, right? Um, my, again, my whole goal is to kind of build this community, uh, around this show. Um, but again, if you are watching and you don't comment, there's no other way to know that you're here. We're not in the metaverse yet. We don't have our Quest goggles on yet. That's gonna be pretty cool when we do, but we're not there yet. So again, please say hey, we'd love to hear from you. I do wanna give a shout to obviously 2 of my partners this morning. First and foremost, Torc. Listen, I think what we're doing is pretty special. No one's doing it. We're a community-first jobs platform, right? Nobody is really putting community first when it comes to talent solutions, and we are doing that. And what I mean by that is our Discord's off the chain right now. We have virtual events today. My guy Jason Torres is going live with Shruti, Shaundai, Cassidy, and James Quick on the state of JavaScript at, I think it's 1 Eastern, 12 Central. So please go check that out. It's gonna be a crazy awesome thing. So we're trying to do a bunch of things for you to get involved in the community. So really pumped about Torque and where we're heading. The next thing I wanna give a shout out to, obviously, of course, is Appwrite. Listen, I'm an Appwrite hero. Love what they're doing over there. So go check them out. A fantastic piece of software, and what they're doing is fantastic. So go check them out. Great people as well. Again, we got some people tuning in. Johnson, it's good to see you, brother. Taya, it's good to see you. Richard Jordan, it's great to see you as well. Again, last live of 2024, so I'm pumped about this. Well, Ace, let's get into it, man.

Yeah.

Enough about me running my mouth. Who are you? What do you do? Right.

We'll go from there. Yeah. So, my name is Adewale Abati. I'm a software developer, web developer from Nigeria. I currently live in Amsterdam, and I work for Block as a staff developer advocate. For those that do not know Block, it's essentially the parent company of companies like Square, Cash App, Spiral, Tidal, you know, so, mostly fintech. But also, you know, developer tools and the like. I'm currently working as a staff developer advocate there under the one and only Angie Jones. She's a superstar.

Yeah.

So we're just working on developer relations on a global level for Block. So that's what I, that's what I do these days across multiple products. So it's exciting so far.

That's cool. That's cool, man. All right. So let's dive in. Lots to cover. Talk about, talk about your time in Nigeria. How did you get started in tech? What was your exposure? What got you interested in tech?

That's, that's a very interesting question. Uh, the first, my first memory of tech actually was in, uh, preschool, or was it me? Yeah, I think the first level, we call it primary school in Nigeria. Okay, I was like maybe 4 or 5, and there were these games on the, on the screen that you picked up a gun, in quote, and then you're shooting the birds on the screen.

Okay.

Um, so I was like, oh, this is, this is like, you know, very nice tech. I think that was the first time I heard about Microsoft Windows and the likes. But I never really got into development in general until, you know, the university, basically college. And it was my second year and I saw some of my colleagues that were in the same class as me— it was my first year actually. I saw some of my colleagues that were in the same class as me already building very interesting stuff. I was like, how is this possible? We just got in here together.

Right, right.

So my second year I just started learning and picking stuff up. And ever since then it's just been it's been a whole new world that opened up to me. Um, and one thing that I think we'll eventually get to is the fact that Nigeria, uh, the tech ecosystem there was one that was very community-driven.

Okay.

Right. So most of the learnings, most of the opportunities came from being engaged in the community, interacting with people, learning from people, and also having like a path being forged for you. So for me, in that situation where I was in school and I started learning how to code would find my colleagues and myself in the middle of the night in classes gathered around sharing resources.

Really?

Yeah. And just building random stuff and then talking about it. And then you're impressed by the random stuff that somebody built. Then you go find out how to do that. And it was just a lot of learning from each other and getting inspired by each other back then. It was really amazing. I kind of still miss that kind of community because as an adult, I mean, everyone is doing their own thing. You live wherever it is that you live. But imagine random dreams where you guys have similar goals and then you keep trying to build similar stuff. And it's— there's a lot of learning in that space.

Well, and I feel like— and, and I think one of the things I want to do in 2025 is, is— and I'm not saying this because I'm talking to you about it, I'm saying it because I truly see like the community in Africa, especially Nigeria. Every time I speak with somebody from Nigeria, there's a passion, um, there— I feel like there's a lot of talented, talented people Um, from Nigeria. What do you like, you know, kind of putting my community hat on, what do you think companies or, or, or communities can do to try to replicate the specialness of the Nigeria tech community? Like, what makes Nigeria so special and so passionate, um, on the tech side of things?

That is a very, very interesting question. Um, Thinking about it for a second, I think the beginning is the drive. Um, there is a reason for people to like want to learn some of these things, to make a name for themselves, to make impact, to earn money, um, and to just to follow a path that they discover that is, you know, a way to achieve career growth. Yeah, so there are different reasons, but there are reasons, right? Um, and as a result of that, there's been a lot of communities that sprung up that had like, you know, very niche focus areas Uh, there were some like back in the days, about 6, 7 years ago, like For Loop Africa, uh, basically just taught everyone everything about web development in a way, actually every type of development. So you find people based on your level, you come there, and the crazy thing about these things is the conferences or the meetups at that time would introduce you to new technology, but you're supposed to meet new people there. So like the technology is there for you to like go try this out, or this is what this could help you do, this and all of those things. But when you go there, you know that you have an opportunity to like meet somebody else in this growing ecosystem, build a bond, uh, relate to, interact with each other on Twitter. That was like years ago when it was a bit more sane, right? Um, so there were like opportunities for you to actually advance your career and also learning new tech that could— you could bring into your office place. Uh, I mean, I was gonna say, I've been in— I haven't been active in the ecosystem like I used to ever since I moved out. But I would assume it's still like very similar.

Do you think there is a hunger for tech as a way to like kind of not get out of Nigeria, but like to level up finances to help families? Because I guess what I'm trying to get at is I almost feel like there's this hunger there to try to level up that there may not be in the US. I almost feel like we're given a lot in the US and maybe that's not the case in Nigeria. So there maybe is more of a hunger to level up your family life, level up your career, which kind of comes with that passion. Is that relatively accurate?

Yeah, I would say there's definitely ambition. Yeah. Because you draw inspiration from a lot of places. For myself, I was in, like, I was in university watching documentaries on Bill Gates And I was inspired not because, oh, he has so much money, but I was inspired because he was making like very interesting stuff as the head of the company. So yeah, I didn't have a lot of money at the time, um, but I wasn't like, oh my God, I can make so much money by doing this, right? That wasn't my reason at the time. It was just like, for someone like that in that position and every other person in that area, they were able to start a company so early, make impact so early, and they keep doing it, and it's like a thing that changes the world. And I actually applied and participated in the Microsoft Imagine Cup a few times. Okay, there were no monetary rewards for me at least, but it was just like an opportunity to be and make impact on that scale. So there are definitely different reasons, uh, for leveling up both financially and of course mentally, or, uh, sure, or making impact in general. So the, the best way is that all of these people actually align in how they learn and teach each other. Because, for example, a few years ago, again, starting out in tech, I wasn't sure what career path I would take eventually because I didn't have so many examples. So I knew I was learning how to code, but I didn't know if in 6 years I wanted to be an engineering manager or even 6 years I wanted to be a DevRel person. I had no idea. I just knew I wanted to build stuff.

Right.

So the career paths started to take shape when people before me were also forging their own career path. I was like, oh, this is possible. or working remotely is possible, or moving out is possible. Like, all of these things are things that you find out as you get into it, but they were not like necessarily available information in the beginning, for me at least.

Well, and I think one of the things I've become a little bit more fascinated about lately is just people's exposure to things that has molded them to where they're at, right? Like, I think of my background. I didn't know what a recruiter was. I had no idea. No idea. And I just like randomly interviewed for a spot and here we are 12 years later, 13 years later. So like, I'm wondering like, man, like how do you think communities can bring exposure? Like, or how do you think people can get exposure to different things? Like based off your upbringing, what do you encourage people to do to get exposure to different things? Not even tech, just in general industries. What would you recommend to that?

I think the foundation of this is sharing, like sharing what you already know. Um, it sounds crazy, but when you share what you already know, someone might come across that and have like maybe better insights with you and tell you, oh, you should have done this this way, or this is a very interesting approach, why did you do this? Or like just conversations like that will build off what you already know and provide new information for you to learn. It's kind of like one of the reasons why I got into open source in the first place. I was building kind of like the same applications over and over again. And then I reached out to a colleague. I was like, I'm kind of bored. Yeah, right.

So now what?

Yeah. So now we're like, how can I level up? How can I learn new things? And it was like, oh, just check out open source, check out some of these repos. And then I started doing that. And I found people building things that were interesting, things I had not thought of at the time, but were like relatively simple stuff. And just getting into that space kind of like exposed me to like the different ways that people were building technology. I'm sure this will apply in any other areas. Like maybe if you're in academia, for example, you publish a paper and someone comments on it and you learn something new. Like, I feel like that would apply anywhere. So whatever it is that you can do today, actually do it and then share it, uh, and then you open it up to many eyes, much feedback, uh, and stuff like that.

I love that. And I want to talk about sharing, right? Sharing your information. Of course, everyone's rolling their eyes like, I know where Taylor's going with this, posting content to the internet.

I love your content, by the way. I'm like, how do you edit? Where do you find the time?

It's a lot. It's a lot. So my question to you is people who are scared to share, right? I think one of the things I consistently hear on a day-to-day basis is nobody's going to want to know what I'm doing. Nobody cares what I'm doing. I'm too junior to have anything to give, or even I'm senior and I don't have enough to give. What would your advice be to those people?

I mean, I'll be talking to myself because it never really goes away until you finally conquer it, to be honest. So the things I try to tell myself to convince myself to post something or to create something is the first step is, oh, I'm just documenting this for myself. Oh, this was interesting. I want to document this for myself. I post it. I'm not thinking about anybody in that moment. I just, I just thought, oh, this was amazing. I was, oh, I was a genius for coming up with this, like stuff like that. So document it. That's like the first step. Another one is, oh, I struggled with this. I, I think there's probably somebody that does. I don't want this person to also struggle. Like, hey, if you were in this moment and you found this, this might help you out. Like, approach it that way. Uh, and then third one is which is probably very interesting, is like sharing for a set number of people. Like, oh, I know I have this couple of people that I know are interested in this kind of things, right? I know we've talked about it before, or we, you know, we've engaged on this topic. I'm sharing it for you guys to see, and then more people might see it, right? But I have reduced the pressure on myself from thinking about the millions of people that are on Twitter, for example, that could find this thing, to like a set of people in my head, and it kind of reduces the pressure. Doesn't eliminate depression entirely, right? Right, right, right, right. But it reduces like basically, um, how I'm feeling towards, you know, sharing and posting these things because it's a lot. Like I just saw, was it Tessa? I think someone come up on stream.

Yeah, Tessa. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Tessa is incredible and the fact that she's scared to share.

I mean, so yeah, like it's insane. Just have to— it's a constant like cycle where you just have to get into that zone, uh. and just keep sharing, to be honest.

One of the things, one of the things I, I, I, I want to ask you, Trey comes in here, I also think people need to be less risk-averse and try different things. 100%. Um, and then Jeff, that has been me, but, uh, no more in 2025. Uh, I am outside sharing. Yeah. And again, like, I want to give Jeff a shout out. He has been so active in our— in, in the Torque Discord and helping people. Um, man, I think it just changes your entire career. I truly think If you can get out of your own way and share and be vulnerable and open, it'll transform your career and open up opportunities that you never would've had. For those of you watching, I booked Aaron Francis to come on in January. He spoke at Commit Your Code, Danny Thompson's conference in Dallas, and he talked about building in public and just putting things out there. So I'm gonna bring him on and we're gonna talk about his talk. about constantly putting yourself out there because Aaron's story is incredible. Uh, so pumped to hang out with him, um, next month. Uh, Jordan comes in here, your perspective is what you have to give. You're never done with your journey, so just start sharing now and open and courageous.

100%.

My guy Lawrence.

Hey Lawrence, how you doing? So good to see you, brother.

Um, uh, I, I wanna, I wanna talk about sharing what you're struggling with. Yeah, sharing what you're struggling with. I think And I think it's our generation. Our generation was raised and we're, we're like, we got to be perfect. Or maybe that's my Southern Baptist roots, I don't know. We can talk about it a whole nother day in and of itself. But like, not like being vulnerable. I feel like we kind of grew up in a generation where it's like you need to kind of be this perfect child, man, woman, whatever. And, and, and I really feel like now actually sharing your professional struggles is the thing that separates you.

Yeah.

What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, that, that's a very good question based on also what I'm trying to work on for myself. Um, I was, I was talking about it the other day, and one of the things I actually want to work on for next year is expression. And what do I mean by this? It's whether it's my struggles I want to share, whether it's what I'm learning I want to share, whatever it is that I'm inclined or I desire to share taking away the blocker of expressing myself is going to help me out with like the creative block of writing or creating or just talking about this in general. But like whether it's a downbringing situation or it's a, it's an introversion, as the case may be, taking away that blocker and feeling more free to express stuff, I think, will just kind of like get you more familiar, get you to reps, uh, from sharing and expressing with the little things to expressing with the bigger blocks of new information. Uh, so I want to tackle— and I hope even anyone out there is also thinking about this— like tackling the roots of expression. Like, what is stopping me from expressing myself?

Yes.

Uh, what is stopping me from sharing? Because I know, right, like if I'm in a room with my friends, I would say these things, I will talk about this technology without any pressure, right? So what else is stopping me from expressing myself? So anytime I open like a blank slate on Notion and I want to talk about a topic and I'm spending hours on it What is stopping me from expressing what is in my head? And gradually I'm just trying to get over that hump where I just open it in and just express myself into a document and I can clean it up if I have to and all of those things. Well, get that expression out first.

Yeah.

And then whatever happens, happens next. So that's, I think that's one of the things I also want to work on.

Yeah, I love that. Have, have you noticed, Ace, that when you share things you're struggling with, that you almost resonate more with people?

Yeah, because I mean, we're all humans, we kind of go through similar things. We, we have this attitude or belief that we're kind of unique, which we are. Our experiences are individually unique, but on a top-level picture, we, we're going through similar things for different reasons. And just explaining or talking about something could give someone an idea, uh, of what to do, which is kind of why I love tech, moving into the AI ChatGPT thing where I'm just chatting with ChatGPT and he's saying something that doesn't make any sense sometimes, but the fact that he's saying those It's kind of like, oh, okay, I should, I should go think about this. And it kind of just opens up your mind.

Yeah, I love that. I love that. So, um, uh, yeah, going back to here. So I need to— honestly, I think writing, I think, is one of the best, uh, ways to get better at interviewing. I think if you can write cohesive thoughts, it allows you to be more articulate interviews. I didn't know if you've noticed your writing you know, and you documenting has allowed you to be more articulate at conferences, etc.?

Documenting, definitely, because yeah, documenting helps with your memory, and your memory helps with your confidence. Because there are times that you work on stuff and you just don't remember it. And if you go into interviews and they're like, oh, tell me about a situation where you have to do this, you've been in that situation, but you have zero memory of it because it's not something you've documented or written down, as the case may be. But if you actively just whatever form it is, document some of the things you're working on. When you, when you get into conversations that kind of touch even close to it, you have something to talk about because you remember the fact that you actually went through something similar. So 100%, I don't know what form it would take, but 100%.

Yeah, absolutely. So, so let's, let's continue to kind of go through your career, um, because time is quickly ticking by. Um, is that, uh, so How, man, how did you— I don't know how to summarize this. How did you get to where you're at, dude? I mean, you are working for a very prestigious company in a very, uh, in, in an industry that is, is very hot right now. You are an international speaker. You— I mean, you, like, I, I, I would say from the outside looking on, like, you have, I think, the career a lot of people want. So, so like, how, like, how'd you get there, man? Like, I mean, what's, what's kind of your secret sauce, would you say?

I'm gonna reference this video from Jason. I think he made the video at Render talking about the role of luck in your career, and I think it's an amazing video. There are so many people in there talking about how luck comes into play, but then everyone also says like luck is, you know, opportunity meets preparation and stuff like that.

Yeah.

And one of the things I wanted to highlight is regardless of where you currently are and what you're working on thinking about what value can you create in that space, yeah, kind of just, you know, cascades, um, compounds, and, you know, kind of keeps you going over time where you, you'd find that in a year or two you've made progress more than you even thought you planned to, or you thought you were actually making, just because you were creating value along the line. And it's also one of the things I was actually looking forward to talking about today in general, like what value are we creating as software engineers? For example, am I just writing code like anyone else could write, or am I bringing in a level of like personality and problem solving and, you know, building stuff that actually connects to the, to the business goals of the company I'm working on. Um, and then it's when you create value that you're able to share, because when you share stuff that has no value or it's just, I don't know, I don't want to say jargon, right?

Yeah, just words.

Yeah, just, yeah, then people would take it for what it is and just move on, right? If it's bloated, if it's all of those things. But when you you treat yourself and share something of value, uh, could be to one person, could be to 2 people, they will interact with it, they will appreciate the value, and then it just keeps going on like that. So I always talk, talk about value-driven development, uh, in the sense that whatever you're building, whichever space you find yourself, thinking about what value could come out of this, uh, always comes in, comes in very handy. And I like the, the other step was being in the ecosystem like Nigeria's, um, was a very, very community-driven one, which kind of also highlighted value. I can give a story of the first time I spoke.

Please.

At a big meetup.

Yeah, please.

Um, I used to be on a Slack group called Dev Career, and I was very, very into Stack Overflow stuff where just— I'm doing work for the day, for example, I just go into the Stack Overflow or I go into the Slack and I'm like, who needs problem to solve? It's a problem to solve. And there are people in there that were just sharing their problems, and I was really into PHP then. I would just help them out and I wasn't doing it because I wanted someone to notice me. I just enjoyed doing that, and I enjoyed helping people out and being like, oh, thank you so much. I'm like, hey, we did that.

Right.

And then one of the people in the community just kind of reached out like, oh, I see that you talk about these things a lot, or that you built this thing. Would you mind talking about it? Right. Um, I had no idea that was a thing that was possible, someone just reaching out of the blues. But I was super excited to get the opportunity, and I did talk about it. And funny enough, me talking about that project at that event, I've had so many other people come to me like years later down the line and be like, yo, I listened to you one time and I was just so inspired. And they referenced that event. Like they referenced that.

Really? That's nuts.

That's madness. Because it started from like being in Slack to the guy reaching out to me to speak for the first time there. And I spoke there and so many other people also like started their careers off of that. it's, it's insane when you think about the connecting, the connection and the cascading effects. It's, it's a madness. Um, but just creating that value and being able to continue to do that openly as much as possible, uh, it's, it's basically what got me to this point.

Um, okay, so, so I wanna— hold on, I, I, I, I, I wanna reiterate this for people watching right now.

Yeah.

You putting yourself out there, you getting involved in the Slacks and the Discords and asking how you can help and And being engaged and then speaking at an event within that community, you said it builds on itself.

100%.

Okay, I want people to hear that, right? I can tell you it's the exact same thing that happened Jason Torres and I. Jason, very active on Twitter. I saw him from afar. He started to work with me a little bit, very active. How can I solve problems, right? Then he got a job. Right? You know, it's, it's how it all works, and, and I want to try to get that through y'all's skulls this morning. And Ace is out here saying the same thing too. Ace, how, how long ago was that talk you gave, by the way?

Uh, oh damn, that, that, that people are still referencing.

How long?

Maybe 9 years.

9 years! Ace gave a talk, guys and gals, 9 years ago.

That was 9 years ago, and it's still being referenced.

Right. And so if you can continue to build on this, it's huge, right? Ace, talk about just, just again, like trying to solve problems, even as a junior developer getting in work. Like, I mean, it can be open source. Just talk to— just again, just kind of, kind of hammer that home through with, with, with people, maybe even, or even, even, even if they're senior, but just getting involved. Can you just—

Yeah, I found that very interesting example. example for that. A few years ago, around the same time, 2018 or thereabouts, there was a lot of conversations in the Nigerian ecosystem about Nigerians being consumers of tech. And I disagree with that because I was inspired by so many people in the ecosystem that were doing stuff.

Right.

So I essentially set out to build a repository of people that built open source projects that were not just locally relevant, they were like globally relevant. Like anyone else in the world from anywhere could use these projects. So, I started the Made in Nigeria repository, right? And from that spot, from that moment, creating projects by myself, people saw it and they started contributing. And then more people saw it and they started contributing. And it became a big thing relatively, right? We have over 200 projects that are globally relevant, one of which is probably Chakra UI. I'm sure you've heard of Chakra UI. It was made by a Nigerian who's, like, super proud. Yeah. Um, but then building that project, it was one of the biggest compounding things because not just for me but for also for like younger developers that came in and wanted to see what other Nigerians were doing. Um, they were able to see other developers that were building open source projects and seeing it like get to the highest of levels. And it was just a very inspiring thing. I've gotten into conversations as a result. I've spoken with different people as a result, like just off of that project. And it's just one task because I didn't, I didn't do any of this in the beginning like, oh, if I build a project, I'm gonna be like talking to so many people because they'll be like, oh, you built this project, yay! It was more like very valuable. Like, I wanted to build this project to address a specific thing and people saw value in it and it just grew, right? And as a result of the growth, impacted myself, but there's so many other people that got involved. And till today, people are, you know, trying to like get stories and inspiration and finding projects off of it. Someone essentially built an API just 3 days ago, just last week rather, on the API, on the dataset that we used in that project. So they built an API in case anyone else wants to like find the most trending projects in Nigeria and stuff like that. Yeah, that's an ecosystem building on top of that as well. So it's, it's really exciting just seeing how that one idea, that one project cascades into stuff like this.

That's crazy. Talk about the value. You've mentioned value quite a few times over the last few minutes, right? And I think people watching this are like, What does that mean? Like, right, like, what— so can you expound on learning your value, knowing your value, and I would say probably as it translates into the interview process?

Yeah, I think a way to think about value is why. Why? Like, what's the point? Uh, I remember this talk, I don't know if it's a famous talk, but I think it was. I can't remember the person's name, I think it's a Simon something, and he talked about the way Apple used to advertise their product. It was a TED Talk, basically. Like, people start— Simon Sinek. Thank you very much. I'm guessing you've seen the talk then.

Yeah, yeah.

So it starts with why. So if, if I want to start a project today, oh, I have an idea, I want to build a project, and I think you do this— why? Like, if I'm able to come up with why, it's like, okay, my reason for building this project is because people like this would benefit from this. I've established a value there. But sometimes when we think about ideas or projects and we've not been able to connect the value to it, but we get excited with the activity, with the busyness of it, and we lose track of the value, then we've not essentially done anything. But if you're able to approach problems, whether it's at work, whether it's at personal projects, and you're like, what would someone gain from this? What would someone benefit from? Why should someone care about this? And you think about the value and like, maybe that's not enough value. Let me think more about it. and you fleshed out the value. Like, why am I on this call?

Yeah, right.

Like something like that. Because I'm expecting that people that are watching also like get a chance to also like express themselves or learn something. Or I see the comments and I get an idea. Like, it's just, it's something that continues to like go around. It's like energy, you know, it's neither destroyed, uh, but continues to change its form and it continues to inspire different people. So when we think about why in that sense, not in a selfish way, like what do I get from this, but like Why am I doing this? What do I expect to be the value that comes out of it? As I see value, um, so in an interview conversation where someone asks me about a project, I'm not going to mention a random project that has zero value because I want them to see that I create things that actually make sense. I think about a project that I built and why that project was a relevant project, which means I'm focusing on the value of it. But even if I get an interview while I'm building that project, I need to think of its value so that it becomes a relevant conversation topic, uh, in the future as well. So if it's a small project, it's a big one, right? Not everything has to be the biggest value possible, but like, just think about why you're doing it. Like, is it worth your time? It's one thing to be busy, it's one thing to be productive, uh, it's one thing to make a change, stuff like that. So that's what I think about when I talk about value. Um, yeah, because a lot of software developers, you can go through the documentation, you can know how to do every single thing. But can you combine all of these code snippets to be something of value, right? Do you—

and do you feel like that's been one of your greatest acts in your career, quote unquote, is that you can sit there and explain value in an interview process or explain the value in a day-to-day task?

Funny enough, I don't think explaining the value is the strength. I think it's by default thinking of things from that value perspective. Because in the sense that— let me, let me, let me expand on that. I can be in a conversation, a meeting, and we're talking about building a new feature. I don't automatically think, oh, I can try out this new technology, or I can build this thing out this way. I start thinking about the person that is going to use it. Like, what do you want to get from this feature? I love that. Does it make sense for us to do this? Like, I think more from the customer or user or the business perspective before I even start getting into, well, this is the library I'm going to use, right? Because that is what is important. So it's, it's from that, that thinking process that I think that that mentality, that mindset, is where the value creation starts, even before you start building.

Do you feel that a lot of engineers right now are more concerned about what tech they can implement, the latest and greatest, instead of putting themselves in the shoes of the customer and the value that this feature can provide to the customer? Is that something that you've seen in your career or not?

Yeah, I think definitely a lot of people get carried away with that. Um, and I definitely love to see more people just move away a little bit from that and focus on the value. Sure. Because for me, the biggest strength of a software developer, for example, is the things that you can develop, what value can they bring versus, oh, I can develop, right? Um, and I keep, I keep saying this value, value thing.

Great. I'm gonna rename, I'm gonna rename the title of this live to value. That's it.

Because it's gonna be called— yeah, because it just, it always translates. Like, even a simple conversation, you might not even think about it from a valuable, um, point of view. Like, what value am I giving to Taylor, speaking to Taylor right now? But like, when you're in that moment and that's kind of person that you are, that's kind of mindset that you are, you kind of gravitate over that. But that takes time to build. So if you're not that kind of person at first, uh, just, you know, go over, review, try to be a little bit harder on like why you're doing something so that you start like just Focus on the impact that something could have.

Yep. I love that. As we kind of wrap up here, I do want your biggest tip on how to level up your career in a company, right? I mean, you've obviously grown, excuse me, at companies you've been at outside of value, because we've talked about that. Is there anything else that you would recommend people if they want to grow their career at a company get to that staff-level engineer spot, what, what's another key thing or 2 people need to, people need to do?

Um, Angie wrote a very interesting article recently. I'm trying to—

There you go. Drop, uh, drop it in the private chat, uh, yeah, and then I'll throw it up in the banner.

Yeah, so it's basically called— she wrote an article called The Better Man Metric.

Okay.

Uh, and it covered the way people do performance reviews at companies. Okay, right. So it's when you're in a company, especially even during interview process, people don't just— people no longer hire like, oh, you know the thing the most, because a lot of people know it. They think about, are you someone that is nice to work with? Would I enjoy working with you? Would you— would your teammates enjoy working with you? Would you guys be able to work together to create something that, you know, affects the business as a whole? So Angie wrote about the Betterment Metric, which kind of covers on how people in a team or in a company could actually work together to— I was gonna say value again.

I'm totally gonna change the title of this talk.

Basically work together to, you know, achieve the business goals and stuff like that. And what would, you know, impact your performance across the board? So you do the tech thing, you build the thing, but what would make you want to, you know, advance to the next level? And in terms of starting about betterment, and she talked about the different types of people that exist and, uh, which ones, uh, you know, recommended versus the other. I love that.

That's awesome. All right, as we wrap up here, again, for those of you tuning in, thank you so much. Thank you. Please go connect with Ace. Send them, send them a message. Uh, again, remember to add a note, hey Ace, saw you on the show, so Ace knows where you're coming from. Ace, I kind of do like a little rapid-fire question here, um, and then we'll wrap it up. So first off, um, if I told you tomorrow Uh, that when you wake up you can't do anything in tech, but I'll pay you the same if not more, aka money is not a problem. What, what would you do for your job?

Not 2 things, 2 things.

Um, here we go.

The first one would be, I'll probably be a football coach for a young team.

I love that, I love that.

Yeah, so teach them how to play, how to be winners. Uh, the second one is a little bit in tech, but I won't have to do anything in tech, but like something in gaming. Uh, something gaming. I love that.

Do you have a favorite game?

Not favorite, but I am bouncy because of sports. I play a lot of FC 25 because it's football.

Yes.

It's not my favorite, but I'm forced to play it.

I play it all the time. I've taken Wrexham from League One all the way to the Premier League.

That's dope.

Yeah.

So I play it a lot. I play with my friends. We play Pro Clubs, which is like one person playing every A single position.

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.

It's amazing.

Yeah, I love that. I love that. Um, outside of video games, from a hobby perspective, what do you like to do outside of work, man?

Uh, I like to play physical football, basketball.

Okay, awesome. I love it. I love it. That's fantastic. Um, any, uh, kind of, kind of like, uh, content recommendations, anything you're reading technically, um, software development, just anything that you're tinkering with from a coding perspective that you're interested in that you want to give a shout out to, or any blogs you've read, or just anything like that?

Yes. So in terms of like tech and tinkering, I'm currently— I've been working with like AI agents recently, like more frequently. Also did our work, and those things are going crazy. Really? There's a lot of announcements coming up every other day. So, um, I've been working on Goose, which is like an open source, uh, AI agent that people can also check out. I already use it. I had this stream recently where I built an application with just prompts. I didn't write a single line of code.

Wow.

I was just like, oh, let's build this app. And then it generates the entire thing. I'm like, okay, let's make this page like this. And it just kept doing it for me. That is the future there. I've been thinking, like, this could get us closer to Jarvis where it could be the Meta Glass and I'm speaking. I'm like, you know what? Show me this thing. And it just builds up the application and it just shows me that kind of thing. That's a future I dream of.

Crazy.

Crazy.

Yeah, that's cool, man.

But outside of, yeah, outside of tech, I'm reading a book called The Design of Everyday Things.

So people should check that out. Awesome. All right, last question as we wrap up here. Again, thank y'all for tuning in. I appreciate it. The comment section's been crazy. I'm glad y'all showed up for the last Guidance Counselor 2.0 of 2024. Hey, so the show's called Guidance Counselor 2.0 because we had guidance counselors in middle school, high school, and college. But now as adults, we don't really have a guidance counselor to turn to and ask for career questions.

Now we have you.

That would be me. What would be your biggest piece of career advice to young Ace? If you could go back to Nigeria and you could go back to your former self and just say, hey, here is my biggest piece of advice for you, what would it be?

I think the singular would be never stop expressing yourself, because that's one thing. The decisions that younger Ace made is what got me to this point. So you did a great job. Yeah. Yeah. So the only thing I still want to work on is that expression. And if younger Ace probably did more of that as well, that would be great. Um, so that's— so like expressing yourself, it could be in your content, could be in the hobbies that you have, uh, could be in the side projects that you create. Like, you know, feeling connected to something. Definitely recommend. I love that.

That's awesome. Well, y'all, thank you again for hanging out. Ace, I'm sorry I couldn't see you backstage. But y'all have a great one. Have a great holiday season, um, and, uh, great New Year's. And we'll see y'all, um, I believe my first episode back is going to be on January 6th. So we're gonna take about 2 weeks off. Y'all have a great one. Appreciate you, Ace. And, uh, we'll see y'all in 2025.

Thanks, everyone.