Why James Disappeared from the Internet w/James Q Quick, Head of Dev Exp

What? A premium account is required on Twitter? Are you serious? Do you see that too?

Yeah, I see that too. That's weird. That's crazy.

That's new, huh?

Yeah, StreamYard just being StreamYard, I guess. Well, I guess you can like retweet mine if you want.

Um, So you have premium? Yeah, yeah.

I mean, we, we, we use this, we use this solely. So for like me, for all of our community team streams. What's up everybody? Good morning.

No one's here. That's me or to everybody? I don't know.

Or to this one? To both, uh, basically. So, uh, we, um, I can't spell. We just spent the last 5 minutes Trying to figure out how to spell disappeared. Uh, so that was— so, uh, you know, you're— you— I, I've, you know, I've always thought about like going live immediately with guests to try to like just to show behind the scenes and the catch-up and stuff.

Um, hey, you never know what—

Yeah, because you would, you would see that I tried to use spell check. I, I misspelled disappeared so much that spell check goes, I don't know what you're trying to what you're trying to do. So, um, again, we are— but we did it. We're here. Uh, welcome everybody. Good morning. Um, excited for this. Um, uh, we're bringing James out of retirement.

Not really retirement. Yeah, it's been the opposite of retirement, but like, yeah, yeah, in a different— in a different way than what it was before.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and, and, you know, it's funny, I, uh, you know, I, I don't prep. I don't have questions. Um, yeah, Francesco, what's up, brother? Yep, yep, we can see you, brother.

You— we can see—

it's good to see you. It's good to see you, Jordan. It's good to see you. There we go. Everyone's excited that, uh, that, that, that James is here.

You know, all the time, every time, every time I do anything, all the comments are like, who is that? Where has he been?

Like, yeah, what? Yeah, yeah. And that's what I'm saying. Like, so James hopped on. We cop about family stuff and, and, and work stuff and And I'm gonna get James to kind of give his kind of spiel. But really, this live is just gonna be more catching up with friends. Like, we have some topics that we talked about briefly, but, um, first off, James— James, this is only the second time, uh, with him on the show.

Uh, did I not do a second one in between? Because I feel like the first one was a few years ago.

The first one was on— was that VACO still?

So that was like, yeah, 3 or 4 years ago.

Well, maybe it's been another one.

I hope it's been another one. I think there was one In between. But also, like, I, I haven't seen you in person in a long time at this point. Yeah, longer. I have like a little bit of a render. It's been render last year.

No, no, render this year.

Render coming up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, uh, so basically, yeah, yeah, he's been working. Yeah, so basically we're gonna talk about that. James, James has taken, uh, a little bit of a hiatus from the internet. Um, uh, and but I think it dovetails. I've started to use the word dovetail. I don't know why, it just kind of has worked in my vernacular, but And vernacular. Geez.

Yeah, just wordage. Wow, that's fantastic.

Just words, man. Yeah, we're getting smart. We're getting smart over here.

Can't spell but uses the word vernacular.

But I can say words. Um, so, uh, so basically, uh, we're, we're just gonna catch up today. I have some topics, but, um, again, for those of you tuning in, welcome. Say hey. We'd love to hear from you. Like I always say, this— I mean, this is a meetup. This is a networking stream. Um, you know, please comment. The only way we know if you're watching is if you comment. We're not in the metaverse yet. We don't have our goggles on. Um, even though it'd be pretty sick to like pop on your goggles and like be like in a conference setting where you could see everybody. That'd be pretty sick. Um, but we don't know if you're watching unless you comment. So please say hey, uh, tell us where you're tuning in from. Um, would obviously— Taylor, Taylor's studying the dictionary. That's too funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I fall asleep with it under my bed, um, under my pillow. Um, did you used to do that with tests back in the day? Uh, my, my mom was like, If you sleep with like your study material under your bed, you'll like wake up in the morning understanding it. So like I slept with like study, like actual notes from class under my pillow. Did you ever do that? Interesting.

Uh, not exactly, but the idea of that actually holds true where I would fall asleep not intentionally studying. Like I would fall asleep while studying, not intentionally. And I swear I would have like epiphanies while I was sleeping.

Yeah.

And then I would wake up sometimes and be like, oh, that, that actually makes sense now. Yeah.

Yeah. Yep. Yep. So, um, so say hey, we'd love to hear from you. Um, a few housekeeping things as always. Uh, first and foremost, I want to give a shout out to Appwrite. Um, I am a hero. Um, if you want to join the Discord, um, we— I have some credits to give out. I need to post those. I'll post those today. Um, so, uh, yeah, go check them out. Great crew. Love the community team out there. Uh, we have a lot of things going on, uh, within the community team at Torque, um, that I help lead up with, um, uh, Jason and Brianna, uh, Holmes. Um, and we have a fantastic team. Go check that out. We're doing actually a 30-minute, uh, hangout session, uh, our Laid Off Lounge is what we called it. So, um, I'll be in there 30 minutes to answer any questions you have around the job search. So please come hang out with us. Also too, if you wanna be kept up to date whenever I go live with guests like this, shoot me a text. This is actually my number. Um, it's not some AI chatbot. actually me. Um, so text LIVE to 615-235-5650. I send out a text every single morning when I go live, just let folks know that we are here. Um, let's see here. I love it. Kendra, hi, uh, uh, from Georgia. I love it. Um, we got Dan here.

Georgia in a month.

Yeah, there you go. We got, we, we got, we got old Dan here. Um, Francesca goes, I miss your screenshots of you while editing, finding captions. That was my favorite activity on Twitter. Uh, I love that. I love that. Uh, yeah, that's exactly what AI would say, Taylor. 100%. All right, so enough with me yapping. James, uh, for the people who, who don't know you and, and who are slowly trickling in, I know we're a few minutes early, um, give the people kind of a quick background about you and what you do and what you've done and all that stuff.

Yeah, spent the majority of my career doing developer relations, developer advocacy, even go back to technical evangelism. Technical evangelist was my first title ever. Like as a professional at Microsoft. And all of that means that I spent a lot of time in the community. Um, I've done a lot of content. I help people learn things. Like I didn't, I didn't know this originally. I didn't know this growing up, but like my thing is I'm a teacher. I love to teach people. I've taught a couple rounds of bootcamp. Like all of the things that I do come from loving to teach, whether it's content or speaking on stage or like live streaming.

Yeah.

It's like sharing with the world and helping, helping the world. be a better place. Like, I'll be super cliché about it, but, um, for people who know me, a lot of what they would know me for is doing content. And I did content full-time. YouTube is my biggest thing, which is— I'm like doing this on YouTube now for the first time, and like since a previous live stream, and then it was a few months before that since I posted a video.

It's crazy.

So I know it is. Um, so that's where a lot of people know me, is just by throwing content, by doing content. And I'm currently working at Uh, interesting relationship. So I joined Makeshift, which is an 18-person startup back in October. They were already acquired by BigCommerce, which is an e-commerce platform. Easiest comparison is Shopify, biggest direct competitor. And, um, I joined Makeshift back then, uh, in October. I'm now kind of evolving more into—

Bless you.

Uh, being engaged at the BigCommerce level. So across a bigger company and like learning more about different aspects of the company and that product, as well as being tied to Uh, Makeswift. So I've been working a full-time role for 6, 7, 8 months now, which is—

That's crazy.

A weird thing for me after going like full-time working for myself and just like creating content when I wanted, traveling when I wanted, all the things.

Yeah.

So yeah, big, uh, big transition back in October.

I love it. So, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then how'd you get this Makeswift job? How'd this come about?

Oh yeah, that's a, that's a good story. Speaking of Roxy Render, I actually met the Makeswift team at Render last year.

That's awesome.

And, uh, I was just talking to, uh, 2 of the founders. It was Alan and Miguel, I think mainly. And they, they were kind of telling me they were hiring for like a DevRel person. And as we were talking, and I was like passively interested in roles at that point, like I, I think I kind of knew I was ready. And as he was talking, he was like, yeah, so if you know anybody. And I was like, well, actually, like, I might be interested in that. And so we just, we talked more, we hung out at Render. Hung out at their booth last year, hung out at one of the dinners, and, um, anyway, kept the conversation going. They couldn't hire immediately, just budget-wise, so I did some contracting with them for a couple months.

Sure.

And then interesting situation, I got like another offer and I went back to Mixsmith and was like, hey, I'd really like to make this happen. And they were able to push really hard internally to get—

That's awesome.

Within a day or two. Like, it was kind of a hectic turnaround. Yeah. And then, uh, Here I am.

So I love it. I love it. Looks like we got a former student.

I'm a former student. Yeah. Who I don't recognize the username, which sucks. Like that's super hard, but like, I know, I know. If you're comfortable, share your real name.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then I'll know who it is. But yeah, great, great to see some of the former LaunchCode students. So LaunchCode was the bootcamp that I taught one round in person in Memphis and then one virtually during COVID for a group in Arkansas. And that was Oliver.

Oliver.

Oliver. Oh, cool. Nice. What's up, man? I love it.

That's awesome.

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah.

Um, so, uh, great. All right, so I think the big question, and I even asked you this too, and this is the title of the show. I mean, listen, you kind of went dark, right? And, and, you know, I, I think, I think in today's world, I think a lot of people confuse like social activity with like actual activity. But like, I mean, behind the scenes you've been Obviously crushing it. Um, speaking of crushing it, my golf game's gotten better, so we gotta find— yeah, we gotta find a time to golf together. I, I will make that a priority. I wonder if there's any courses in Atlanta we can go to.

Oh, I'm sure we can. We also, uh, we joined a golf club, not a country club, golf club. Yeah, it's way, way less intense than you may think. Like, there wasn't a join fee, there wasn't a commitment fee, and it's like pretty cheap per month. Um, anyway, I— yeah, I can't wait till we go play.

Yeah, yeah. So So yeah, talk, talk, talk to the crew that's here, man. What, what's— what, what kind of, uh, kind of made you go a little bit off, off the internet? Um, but obviously still crushing it from the day to day. What was kind of the thought process behind that?

Yeah. Um, first and foremost, I think parents can relate to this. We have Jamie, our daughter will be 2 in a week, week and a half. And so like, that's most of the answer, or that's like a good portion of the answer right there. And I think any parents in the chat will We appreciate that. We haven't actually said this like super publicly yet, but like, here we go, we're also pregnant. Jess is pregnant with our second.

Oh, we're announcing it here.

There you go, we're doing it. I mean, this is like exclusive, right? So that's like, you, you think about planning, planning on 2. There's a lot on our mind now, like thinking towards that in October. Um, that's a lot in and of itself. So that's like one thing. The other thing is, is starting a full-time role. And so as, as a full-time content creator, like Uh, working completely for myself, I, you could kind of do like whatever you want, whenever you want. Right. And that's a lot of, um, a lot of DevRel is, is kind of like that. So it wasn't that different, but like I'd go speak at conferences, like me just going to a conference and networking was like worth it in and of itself. 'Cause I would build relationships and then have partners and sponsors that I could work with and all the things. So like I get, I get to make all those decisions. What's up? Um, anytime I wanted. And that was really cool. I love that. It's one of the most proud things that I've ever done in my career is being able to successfully Work for myself and do my own thing for 2 years.

Yeah.

One thing I didn't realize was how burnt out I got on doing that. I think there's the pressure of like earning, earning a living. Um, and like transparently, I made good money. That wasn't necessarily the problem, but it's always your responsibility every day to make sure that that's happening. And that was a lot. And I think back to like parental leave for Jamie, that didn't really exist. Like I took 2 weeks kind of really quiet of not doing anything. Then I, I kind of had to get back to doing stuff. Now I'll actually have parental leave for baby number 2. So that's a totally different thing, which is really, really cool. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I, um, I didn't realize how burnt out I was on creating content.

Really?

I think mentally the thinking that I should be scaling my visibility, because I went through this one year of like really big success on YouTube and that's where like a lot of people know me because of that year, to be honest. And then I wasn't having that level of success. Actually, numbers were like really far down and I think I was trying to do some things. To get more creative in ways that weren't really natural to me. And I think that really showed and numbers kind of went down and that was really hard to be like making money from a thing and then also creating content and, and just not seeing the results that I had seen before. And no matter what people say, like we don't, we don't necessarily do it for numbers and you do it like for the value that you provide, but especially after you've seen like, hey, I get, I get this amount of visibility and then visibility significantly drops. Like that matters and that like mentally affects.

Yeah.

How you think about it. So anyway, like, I think I was super burned out on that. I don't think I realized how much. And then I started a full-time job. And the simple answer is like, between a full-time job and I go and pick up Jamie after school, or, or Jess does at, at 4 or 4:30 or whatever, like, I'm, I'm with my family. Like, I wanna be doing family stuff. And Jess and I still play soccer together. We go to nephews' like baseball games and track meets and all their things. Like, we wanna, we wanna do family stuff. So yeah, the time to do all those things outside of what I'm doing at a full-time role.

Yeah.

Just not there.

Yeah. No, I love— yeah. I mean, and I love that.

I love that as a, as a fellow dad, I feel that.

I feel that for sure. Talk, talk to me about, um, uh, so I put out a post and I told you just kind of backstage, um, that I put out a post the other day that I feel like DevRel folks should kind of talk about what they do a little bit more about the product they support, about some wins they're doing internally. I think there's this Based off the comments I received on the tweet, people are like, well, I don't wanna come across as salesy, you know? And then I had a few DevRel folks go, well, there's a lot about DevRel that kind of are behind the scenes. So, I mean, can, can, I mean, can, can you talk about, I guess, what you're doing? Like, what does DevRel look like that isn't James all plastered all over the internet?

Yeah.

Like, like, like what are you trying to do internally for people? Because I think, I think naturally, and it's the end, it's the job that people see DevRel, people see community. I mean, especially, I mean, we are hitting it hard at Torque. I mean, we're all over the place, you know, traveling. You know, you were posting content, hitting insane numbers on YouTube, traveling, and then you've pulled back and a lot of people are like, what's James doing? So can you talk about maybe some wins that you've, you've been able to do at, at Makeshift?

Yeah, uh, a couple things. One, like, I'm not keeping up with chat, so like, hi everybody, thank you.

Yeah, yeah, it gets a little crazy on these shows.

Yeah, which makes me so excited to like That's the, that's my favorite thing about content, by the way, is just like the interaction. Yeah. Whether like, I don't know, I mean, I was gonna say positive or negative. That's not true. Positive interaction is fun.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, so let's, let's start by just saying like DevRel can mean a lot of different things. It can mean a million things. That's one of the most stressful things about DevRel.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. We see people speak on stage and we see people travel for conferences and I think at like very surface level, we associate that with DevRel as a whole. Correct. And that's not, that's not true by any means. I think, I think we, we look at like, oh, they just get to travel around and like hang out with friends. And there's a certain truth to that because like every time I go to a conference and Taylor, you're there and Roxy, you're there and Jason, you're there. Like all these people, like we're getting to hang out. We're having a freaking amazing time and that's great. But we're also like, there's benefits to that because my network, even though I haven't talked to people as much recently, my network is strong as shit. Like if I If I need to find somebody for something, I can find somebody for something. Yep. Yep. And that's, that's by being there in person. But I think we, we think that's all there is. And the reality is there's a million things that you could do. You could be, you could be doing docs. I've spent a lot of time doing docs, which I hadn't really like—

What does docs look like? Somebody who like isn't technical, like what is, what is docs? Like people say docs. I'm like, I don't know what that is.

You're like, well, one, it could be a lot of things. So the, the easiest answer is like, as our product evolves and we have new features, How do you have documentation that shows people what those features are, how they can use it?

Kind of like a how-to guide, step-by-step situation.

It could be guides. It could be more like reference material specifically, like here's exactly what this thing does. Um, I think a lot of my approach to docs is more like what you're saying of like, it, there's a difference between saying like, here's what this thing does and saying, here's how you want to use this.

Yeah.

And that takes understanding of the users, of the product, of like, uh, struggles that people have had with the product. How do we fix that? How do we address that? How do we change the way they think about the product to really understand how to use it? So docs as a whole is, is a really big deal. So keeping up with new features as they get shipped is one thing. Updating existing docs that already exist and guides and stuff that already exist is, is another really big one. There's also kind of like creating some content internally. So I've recorded Uh, part of a video is on like bigcommerce.com. Like I'm in, um, one section of a video that they have on a product that we have called Catalyst. So like being able to do that, being able to create content internally for other teams that need to understand.

Yeah, yeah.

So like sales teams, for example, like we have this whole new Catalyst is basically a Next.js project integrated with, uh, BigCommerce as an e-commerce platform and then integrated with Makeshift as well. And so there's, this is a new, I mean, I say new, like relatively new and like understanding that and being able to sell it is something that we have to translate, like things that we know to other people that have to know it to then be able to communicate that to like, to sell it. And so there's content that I've created internally for that. There's like a whole ramp up of understanding all of those things, our product, BigCommerce products, use cases. I don't know any, I've never done e-commerce before. So this is a whole new world. It's also like hack. For example, I worked at Auth0, which is authentication company. I worked at PlanetScale, which is the database company. Worked at BC, which is e-commerce. Those are completely different areas.

Very different.

But also like think about the experience that I have from working at 3 completely different products. Like I've not just worked at database products where I learn more about databases, I'm learning more about different products and that's kind of cool. Um, so there's a lot. And then I kind of mentioned, alluded to this, like expanding more into the BigCommerce as a whole versus just MakeSwift. And that means that many more opportunities to learn, interact with, um, other teams, with, with potential customers and that sort of stuff. So there's, there's a lot that happens behind the scenes.

A lot.

And the one caveat, I mentioned this to you before, MakeSwift after being acquired, like our big opportunity is to be really successfully integrated with BigCommerce. BigCommerce has millions of dollars in revenue, like already has a bunch of customers. They're looking for something like Makeswift. If we do a really good job there, longer term, we can do a really good job as we build a better product, as we understand more use cases, as we understand customers, we can do a better job longer term of building Makeswift on its own.

Yeah.

Because of that, there's not as much, ideally I would do like more of these things, but time, like there's not as much of a need for us to do completely external Makeswift stuff, right?

Sure.

We have an audience, we have like a funnel coming in of opportunities through BigCommerce.

Yeah.

In a year from now, that could be totally different. Like, all of my time could be focused on like externally telling everyone what Makeswift does, how it, how it can change the way they build stuff with Next.js. Like, that's still a conversation I'd love to have if people are curious. And talking about your product is one of the things you mentioned.

Yep.

But there's just— it's a kind of a specific time and state that Makeswift is in within the BC ecosystem that's a little bit different than what people typically think.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, no, I think that's great. Um, let me, uh, what I, I will also say this too, that if I— so you have a very small— I mean, it's just, it's mainly just you right now, right?

So, um, my title as we have it here, which sure probably will change slightly coming soon, but, um, Head of Developer Experience at Makespace specifically is just, just me. Um, and then there's, uh, me kind of moving more to the BC side And us having a kind of, kind of new slash already existed, but like different DevRel team with a team of basically 3 of us. Yeah. And that'll be again, going like bigger parent company, not just specific MakesWeb products.

I love that. I love that. Yeah. I mean, and, and I would say this too. I mean, you know, James and I were, were chatting backstage before we went live and, and I was kind of giving the rundown of kind of where I'm at. I mean, if it wasn't If, if we had an even smaller team— I already think we have a small team compared to what we're being tasked with at Torque— but if we were any smaller and like I didn't have Jason or I didn't have Brianna, oh yeah, like I probably would've pulled a James and been off the internet. Um, because there's so much internal things that I am doing internally at Torque that will never see the light of the internet, even though I do I do want to talk about it in some way, shape, or form eventually. But so yeah, I understand that. And I think shout out to you for putting priorities and also kind of saving your burnout as well. Let me ask you this. Ultimately, this show, you've been on it for job seeking, blah, blah, blah, career stuff. Talk about Um, really the mindset, I know you mentioned it, but like for people who, um, may want to go out on their own or people who are tired from being on their own, I mean, can, is there any other thoughts you have for folks who, um, maybe are freelancing right now during this time or who wanna go freelance?

Yeah. Um, one thing really quickly. Yeah. I saw a shout out from Noah about the talk that I gave last year at Render, which is one of my favorite talks that I've ever given, and I thought it was a damn good talk too, so I appreciate it.

Also, what was the talk last year? Do you remember?

It was about like, um, I can't remember the title, but how to effectively look for jobs, basically.

Oh, great.

And it was one of those ones where I was just like super, super in it, passionate about it. I love it. And, uh, yeah, I thought it was pretty kick-ass, so thank you. Um, remind me what we're talking about. That's wild.

General thoughts just around freelancing. I don't know. I feel like a lot of people have this idea that they think it's great and they think it's like, you know, you get to do whatever you wanna do. And while that is the case, I mean, there's a fair amount of pressure.

Yep. There's, there's pressure. I think, I think that's the, like, that's one of the things that was hard and I think led to burnout was like, it was different creating content when it wasn't my full-time job. There's like things you try to do because it's, because it's my full-time job that I think kind of bit me a little bit, like experimenting in a way that like wasn't really natural. And anyway, so I think that's part of it. The other thing that I will say, and it was really interesting, I was on Danny and Leon's podcast and Leon kind of referenced me as being— he thought I was kind of a spark as one of the early people who went out on their own and then other people did it based on—

I would agree with that. I mean, I was a little bit— I know.

I was blown away from that comment. Like, I— there's nothing that could feel cooler to me to hear that. But I looked at like people that I knew that had been doing it before me and I looked at them the same way. Right? Like I knew it was possible because I saw other people do it. But the thing that's really important for me financially is I was actually let go from PlanetScale. They went in a completely different direction in summer of '22 or whatever that was. And that's when I started. And what's up, y'all? And there, there was this turning point of like, I could, I could go full-time, which is something I've been thinking about doing for a year, year and a half or so. I could find another job and based on network, I posted and I was like, hey, might be looking for jobs. based on connections, had a lot of like messages coming in, which is great. But I, I had already been making money on the side with content, like great side money. And I, I kind of knew like runway-wise, we could safely, I could safely take 6 months and experiment. And if I completely failed, I could just go find a job.

Right.

But if I like, if I did it, then I could, we could reevaluate in December and kind of see like, oh, am I gonna continue to do this? And I'm not the kind of person who takes these big financial risks. Like I would not be the person If I wasn't already making significant income on the side, I would not have gone full-time. Yeah, I'm a very— like, we are very fiscally responsible. Like, we're trying to pay off our house in the next year type thing. We don't have debt. Like, I mean, all the things we take super, super seriously.

Sure.

And because of that, like, I just want people to know I didn't make this like drastic, go jump off a cliff and see if I can survive type thing. Like, I made a very calculated— we made a very calculated decision. And so I want people to know that first and foremost, because I don't want to encourage people to go and like take this big financial risk. The other thing was like, I didn't want to continue to do it after 6 months if I was like just making enough to get by. Like, I wanted to keep a standard of living, to keep being able to like pay down a house, to keep doing all the things financially that we wanted to do. So that was really important too, to not put any additional like financial stress on us and have to drastically change lifestyle to be able to do it.

Right.

And again, like, from that point of view, I was successful, but the stress of, of having that pressure on yourself continuously, like, that's a lot. And I, again, I don't think I realized how much. It's cool and freeing to be able to do whatever you want whenever you want, but you also gotta remember all of those things are also your responsibility. Like, if, if I create a course, and this is true like on the side too, but like designing a thing, building a thing, marketing a thing, creating the website, creating the content, recording, editing, all those things.

Right.

All the, all the things that like, or my responsibility. And then you start to like figure out people who can help you do those things. So it's a lot. It's super, super cool. I can see a day where like I go back to do that again and maybe the content is different, maybe the topic's different. I don't know. Yeah. But, um, I am very comfortable, very happy, very excited, and like very optimistic for where I am right now in my career.

Sure. I love that.

In my role.

Talk about— I, I— this, this just popped in my head. I had 2 thoughts that popped in my head. The first, the first thought is You were able to essentially negotiate— not negotiate, to find a job from a conference.

Yeah.

Which I think is everybody's goal.

Yeah.

Right. So do you talk me through the conversation? Makeshift had a booth, right? They had a booth from what I remember, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

So talk, talk about how, how do you approach a booth, right? Render's coming up. I mean, I'm about to go We're about to go on, I'm about to go on a tear of travel. Like, you know, booth, how do you navigate coming to a booth without being salesy, trying to ferret out an opportunity? Can you walk me through that process?

Yeah. My, so this is, I feel like one of the, one of the most unique takes I have and one of the ones I'm most passionate about is like, people say network and I hate the word networking. It's cold, it's sterile. Like it, it, It gives me that vibe of like, hi, I'm James, I do this. And then like with the firm handshake and blah, blah, blah. Uh, networking is, is just investing in your community. It's just showing up. It's just being a part of the conversation. Like this conversation started in line for food and I talked to Alan and Miguel who were there. We talked a little bit about React.

Oh, so you were just in line for food? You weren't even at their booth?

I didn't, it was, it didn't start at the booth. Okay. And we talked about React and Next.js and Astro and they told me about kind of what they were doing. I didn't, I didn't know who the guys were at the time. Like, I love these guys now, uh, but I didn't, I didn't know specifically anything about them. I was just having a conversation and you never know. And that's hard to like, that's hard to give the advice of like, just talk to people and it'll be a job opportunity. Like, that's not true.

Right.

The more you talk to people, the more you know, the more network you have, the more when an opportunity comes available, like they may know or you can reach out to them and you have that connection. 'Cause I'm sure you said it a million times on the stream, like Applying blindly just doesn't work. Having someone that can at least pass your resume on.

Yep.

Works to at least help get to the next opportunity. So we talked and they, they talked about the role that they were hiring for, and I was just listening and listening for the things that they wanted and they were excited about. And then I was like, hey, like, I think that that might be me. And again, going back to like the idea of, of networking, again, I hate that word, but like they, they weren't ready to hire at that time.

Correct.

Like I, I worked with them.

All timing. It's all timing.

A couple months and then I was getting more and more anxious for a full-time thing and started interviewing and then was able to come back to them and say like, hey, I have this offer that I'm excited about. I would like to know, do I have an opportunity at Makeswift to be able to compare? Yeah. And, and they went to bat honestly internally to make that happen. And then it worked out from there. So advice at Render, like you have a, you have a threshold for social stuff, like every Every time, inevitably, you have a day or multiple days where it's like 4 o'clock and Taylor's done and he walks away. But whatever you can give into just being a part of the conversations of showing up, learning about products, learning about teams, learning about positions that they're hiring for, figuring out what skill sets people are looking for, even if it's not that company, like, using that to figure out what gaps you have and then going, okay, those skills—

Let me interrupt you real quick. Let me interrupt you real quick. What skills Did Makeswift bring up in line that you were like, ah, yeah, do you remember?

Um, a lot of it was, a lot of it was around content. And, and I'll like, I'll be honest, having had the success with content that I had, that's a huge advantage. So I like, I'm transparent about that. I know that. I also think content is one of the biggest hacks out there. I also think commenting in this chat, which a lot of people are doing, and I see a lot of people in here that are doing that, that I call out specifically that like I've seen that lead to success and opportunities being engaged, commenting, posting, providing feedback, asking questions. All those things are, again, can't guarantee you anything, but makes a hell of a difference when it comes down to like some, you versus someone who's never done those things.

Yep.

And so that I think, that I think is the easy part. But then like knowing that the, the role they were looking for was DevRel, this is what I've spent the majority of my career doing. Like, I've spent the majority of my career on stage. I've spent the majority of my career in front of a camera. I've spent the majority of my career in front of a mic. I've spent the majority of my career thinking about technical products, working with different teams, figuring out how to like communicate things. These are all things I've done. So like just that at its level, I knew that was the kind of thing that I was interested in. Then it becomes about like team and product and people that you potentially work with. And I got a great feel for that from being in person. with a lot of their team at Reddit. Yep.

I love that. I love that. Um, the next thing, uh, the next— oh man, of course I forgot the other thing I was gonna bring up. Um, when it comes to, when it comes to how people can leverage conferences, right? So how fast does James make content? Some would say It's lovely.

Thank you. Started last year. So I was talking to like both you and Jason, I think last year, about having talked to Makeshift team. Yeah, like vaguely. And, and then again, like months later, that's what it turned out to be.

So you brought up something about like— and again, I know we're getting into conferences. I mean, you're coming to Render, we're coming to Render. It's gonna be a big old party like it always is. Um, I'm trying to figure out like, are there any other tips that you would give folks who are gonna show, maybe, maybe this is the only conference they go to in a year.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Let's say Render's the only conference that they're gonna go to. I mean, I mean, it's a 5,000 person. I mean, it is not a small conference.

Yeah.

You know, any, any other tips, tricks for them?

Yeah. Um, I think like the tips and tricks mainly are geared towards people who are not super confident socially. Yeah. And that especially, let's be honest, I would say that's the majority of this demographic, right? Let's just, I agree.

Let's just, let's call it what it is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, and I, I think most people feel like it's only them. And, and the reality is like, it's, it's everyone. I'm, I'm a very outgoing person. Taylor can be very outgoing but also considers himself very introverted, right? Yeah. And like, it's that threshold and then just very focused, right?

Like, I know it's like you mentioned it, like, I want to give you— and I want to give you the energy that you deserve, but you— I, I also know you're only going to get that energy between 8 and 5.

Yeah, yep. It was just totally fair. And that self-awareness I think goes a long way. So a couple things, uh, having Having a person or 2 people that, you know, helps make every single thing easier throughout.

A posse, as Aaron Francis said on Mostly Technical Podcast. He said, I, I, I was in Aaron's posse for React Miami. It was great.

Yep. If you, if you have 1 or 2, 2 people that, you know, that you like, that you trust enough to just hang out with and say, hey, which talk are you going to? And go with them and sit down at a table so it's less intimidating to meet other people. That is an absolute game changer. Um, so that's, that's number one. How do you do that? Like, maybe you have to meet somebody there. Maybe you know absolutely no one. The reality is, if you're spending time on Twitter, especially for something like Render, you see other people that are going. So you can start to like comment on people's posts about Render. You can send people a DM, hey, I'd love to like get coffee and like learn about what you do at Render. Like, just having that one or two people that you can start a conversation with and like maintain that is a game changer.

Yeah.

The other thing is like, I consider it my responsibility because I'm very comfortable in these situations to make that easier for other people. So like blanket statement for people, if you're going to Render or Vercel Ship or New York later on in the month or whatever, come find me.

I'll help.

I'll help do that.

James will help.

James will help. It's not only something I feel like is my responsibility, it's something— there's nothing more I love than to help make other people feel more comfortable in that stressful situation. So like that could be me, that could be Taylor, that could be a lot of different people, but like specifically here, If you need someone to talk to and like help make things a little bit easier for you, come find me and we'll, we'll go and do that. The other thing is like, people are nervous and you feel uncomfortable and you feel awkward. Understand that like almost everyone else does too, unless they have this group of people that they already know. So accept that. Like, don't, don't be ashamed of that. Accept it and just know that that's okay. And don't let that hold you back from going and sitting down at a random table and talking to someone because that's what you gotta do. Like, there's a— there's a— here's the reality of like, it's really hard, and then here's the reality of like, well, you got to do it, so do it.

Yep, absolutely. Big, big commerce developers. There you go, James.

Hey, rocks. All right, I'm assuming this is— I'm assuming Katie joined under the BC Developers account.

Yes.

I love it, I love it.

Um, uh, uh, we got a question coming in here. I can't even keep up with the chat this morning. Hey, Q, I've been following for a bit. Where do I keep up with events where I can So I, I— listen, I'm gonna plug Torque. I'm gonna plug Torque here. This is exactly why we've created the Torque community. Check out torque.community. We got a lot going on in Discord. But obviously, James, go ahead.

Uh, yeah, uh, a lot of it— a lot of what I do is I'm, I'm on Twitter. Like, and I say that and I'm much less on Twitter than I have been in a long time, but that's where I see a lot of my stuff. I also have been around enough that I know to keep an eye out for certain conferences. I know Render's coming up in June. I know Next.js Conf is coming up in October or November or whenever they do that. So I kind of know, kind of know the series. There's a couple of— I think that dev.events, somebody check that, or events.dev is a site where you can look for stuff.

Um, yeah, I know. Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, one of those.

Yeah. If anybody has that question after and you want to send me a message on Twitter or something to try to get you a direct link, do that and I'll try to find that for you. Um, you can also just search developer events. Search for things in your city. Search for things in nearby cities. Also, a hack that you can do— like, conferences are expensive. So 2 things. One, I know, thank you, Katie. Uh, one, ask your employer. This is one of the things I'm most intentional and passionate about, is your employer should be supporting your learning and growth. And that can, not necessarily always, can include conferences and travel for conferences. I've gotten to leverage that in companies that I've been at before, and it is a game changer to have that be taken care care of and to feel like you're appreciated and they're investing in you. The other thing you can do, and I've done this also, is volunteer at a conference. Now this is easier if it's in your city, obviously, but usually you get a free ticket. You can do things for the first half of the day working and volunteering, and then also go and watch talks and network and things at night. So volunteering is another hack that I highly recommend people do to get a discounted, like, whatever the overall cost is, but like basically your ticket's paid for and then you can kind of work part of that and then go do other things.

Yeah. Yeah. And then, um, uh, also we have a Discord channel within the Torque Discord where we're like talking about conferences coming up. If anybody from the Torque community is going, doing a Torque meetup, et cetera, et cetera. So again, I know I'm shameless self-plugging, but, um, that's, that's why we're doing it.

Um, dev.events.

Yep.

There you go.

Sweet.

Thank you.

Um, James, anything else, man? Anything else? Anything else that, that you want to plug or have to cover?

You want to, want to hang on?

You want another hour? You just, just, we'll just stream for another hour. I've wanted to stream for 9 hours with, with folks.

For 9? I didn't think that's like full day. I'll do another one. Um, I don't know, one, one cool thing, um, if you're a Next.js developer. Oh, here we go. So we launched something called Vibes. Um, you'll have to put this— I'll send it to you in the private chat.

Yeah, send me a private.

Um, we launched something called Vibes, and it's meant to be like— if you think about ShadCN for people, um, it's a component library basically. And we'll have different sets of Vibes. We have one to start, but they're deeply integrated with Next.js. Again, less for Taylor, more for other people, but like all the super technical features of Next.js, like streaming and forms and All these things that Next.js can do, these are components that are highly integrated with all those things. And it's something that we are using in Catalyst. It's something we're gonna grow on its own. And I think it's a really cool, cool idea. There's actually a talk I'm giving at Vercel Ship, or a workshop, Vercel Ship in New York later, June 25th, later in the month in June. That will be around like some deeper learnings about like streaming and PPR for Next.js that is based on Vibes.

Okay.

So that was really cool. Check that out. And then MakeSwift, also super cool visual builder that integrates with Next.js. So you can use Next.js to build custom components that then somebody in the visual builder can drag and drop and customize and all those looking things.

Okay.

And, uh, and the last thing is, uh, BC, which is higher level. Again, going back to like the relationship MakeSwift and BC, and that's e-commerce compared to something like Shopify. I would love to— if people have like experience in e-commerce and I don't need to sell you anything, I would love to learn about your experience and see the things we enjoy or don't. There you go. Oh, hit up— chat about that, let me know that too.

Yep, I love that, I love that. Um, real quick, add some quick comments. Definitely volunteer. Conference is huge. Um, and I want to reiterate, ask your employer, um, you know, if especially, uh, employers typically have something for, you know, continued learning, so please ask for that. Um, and also, if you are coming to Render, Let us know. Let me know. Let James know. But I do want to reiterate, find some friends. It makes the whole thing so much easier. Um, and, uh, so highly recommend that. All right, James.

Um, another hour, you said?

Yeah, another hour. No. Um, uh, kind of some rapid-fire questions real quick and we'll wrap up here. Again, for those of you tuning in, we're going to be live in the Torque Discord literally in 30 minutes, um, to, uh, a little Q&A around Laid Off Lounge. I'll be leading that with Jason. Um, but James, real quick, first off, um, I always have to ask, I always ask my guests this, uh, if, if I were to tell you, you wake up tomorrow and you can't do anything in tech, but I'd pay you the same amount of money, if not more, money's not a problem, let's just say that, what hobby would you pursue for a living?

So I have answered this in the past.

I know, but it's been a minute, so just answer it again.

I know, I feel like you made fun of me for my last one.

Did I? That doesn't sound like me.

Something, uh, something sports related. Like, I always wanted to be a professional athlete. Growing up. I'm not near athletic enough to do that, but I do love sports. So like something around sports, sports marketing or something like that would be really cool. Like being around athletes and teams I think would be super cool. The other thing—

Any specific sport?

Well, basketball is always my favorite sport by far. What's interesting, like basketball is harder on my back. I'm getting old, the thing. And, uh, so we play a ton of soccer and I actually haven't played basketball in a couple years, which is wild. Like if you knew me Up until 3 years ago, you would think that was crazy, but play a ton of soccer. So like soccer is definitely up there too. Also, fun fact, I'm a really good ping pong player.

Are you really?

Like, I didn't know about that. Because people, people like, oh, you're good, we should play. And it's like almost like twice has there been that situation and it's been competitive. Just a, just a fun fact. So if everybody's coming to Render, I can bring my paddle.

We need to— I, you know what, Render, I'll, I'll, I'll message Brian on Slack. We need a ping pong table because that would be so sick because like So back at Vayco, we had a ping pong table and we played all the time. And then we would go, there was one dev company, we placed the majority of the devs and they had a ping pong table. So like we would always go and then we did like a ping pong battle, like in our office building of like other tech companies were in our building. Like we would host a ping pong battle. So I'm—

I missed, I need to bring that back. Maybe. We are planning, um, a happy hour, by the way, at Render. I need to tell you about it and see what you're doing, where there's overlap and stuff.

Yeah, we'll do something. We'll do something. Let me know. Uh, next thing, next question is, um, I know Roxy, Roxy always asks, which is really, really funny. I always ask about like holidays and candy and stuff. I mean, Mother's Day doesn't have candy necessarily, but like, I know we just finished up Easter. Like what, like what's kind of your go-to? Or, or let me ask you this, like, like what is Jess from a, from a candy side? Is she candy? Is she cookies? Is she cake? What's what's what? What is Jess like?

She's definitely a candy snacker.

Really? Are we a chocolate candy snacker? Are we talking about like the Smarties, Sour Patch Kids? That is awful. Hot take. That's that's disgusting.

It's not. I like Sour Patch Kids. I like. I rarely ever eat them. I'm definitely a chocolate person. Like just chocolate in general.

Are you dark chocolate or more milk chocolate?

Dark chocolate.

Same same brother.

Same. But she— we both also love ice cream. That's a big— so like if we're doing a dessert in something, or just like randomly at lunch, we'll go get, uh, ice cream.

Ice cream for lunch is diabolical, man. You better have that. Yeah, I, I need Tums after that. Um, uh, next question. Um, want to see— I want, uh, is there anybody in the community that are doing really cool things that you want to give a shout out to? Just any company, any individuals, anything kind of— any, any people that kind of pop into your brain first thing?

Oh geez, now the pressure of thinking about that real time.

I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, you can give somebody even internally at Makeshift a shout. That's, that's fine too.

Yeah. God, why didn't you send me this beforehand instead of making me look like—

Because, because, because I want, I want, because I want like top of mind. I, I don't want people to prefer, um, Brian, Brian Morrison, who—

yeah, I don't know if you've had him on the show or not.

Yeah, I've had Brian on the show.

Clerk. I think he's always been kind of a little bit of an like definitely underrated, but like under the radar, like really good content creator. And the stuff he's done at Clerk, I think has been really good. They also just launched a new feature that I don't quite understand that like I'm excited to learn more about. I'm also I'm going to go like internally like to a chat that that we have. So there's there's Brian who's been doing really good stuff at Clerk. Cap Capehe has started. I forget exactly the role, but like community. manager of community or something at Vercel.

Okay.

And she's one of my favorite people. She's been crushing it for a long time. We worked at Auth0 for like 6 months before she went to Sanity and then now is at Vercel, which is crazy cool for her. Um, Holly is in that chat. Holly, I worked at with Auth0 as well. Also worked with her at PlanetScale.

I was about to say, she's the VP of marketing at PlanetScale, right?

Yeah, no big deal. VP of marketing at, uh, she, she and I've, I've tweeted back and forth.

I really like, I just kind of like her vibe. I've never met her in person before, but like, she just seems The vibe's there.

These are, these are 3 of, um, 3 of my favorite people, and it, it makes me so excited to talk to them. Um, also Chris, uh, Cap is married to Chris. Yes, who's at Laravel. Who's at Laravel now, which is like head of developer experience, I think, at Laravel, which is such a cool fit for him because he's used that for, for years, going back to when I worked with him on Scotch, like writing articles for scotch.io, which I think was built with Laravel like years ago. That's all. Anyway, so I'll like, I'll choose that like internal chat that we just talked about setting up some time to, to catch up, all of us. So yeah.

I love that. That's awesome. That's awesome. Um, all right, last question, and I ask this to every guest. 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 have them. You can go back in time and tell young James Quick, basketball playing, non-bad back James Quick.

It's the most accurate description of me. What would you tell them? Um, to like, one thing I'll reiterate, I'll do 2 things. One is I'll reiterate networking is just investing in your community. It's showing up, it's being a part of the conversation. It's like asking questions, it's answering questions when you can. Just being there will cause a world of difference. And the reality is people that are active in this chat right now, like you're here, And that, I think for all the people that I know in here, that has made a difference in your—

And also it seems like Lawrence is here. I think the comments are not loading properly, but I'm seeing people tag Lawrence too.

So, uh, so, so I saw one late message from him, I think on Twitter that he joined late, I think.

Oh wait, wait, here it is. Here to see, like the chat's been so crazy. I haven't even seen it. Lawrence, go see. But yes, networking. Yes. Showing up.

Yes. Um, showing up and investing in your community. Make a world of difference. The other thing, and this is like on a more personal level, I am fairly confident. I like, my friends make fun of me for being too confident. Like, I don't think cocky like necessarily comes to mind for most people. Maybe it does, but I'm a pretty confident person. But I've spent a lot of my life, like many people, not being super confident in things about me that were different.

Yes.

And I wish I could go back to a younger, version of myself and tell them like, don't give a fuck what other people think. To like, which is— don't be rude, don't be an asshole, but like do you and be confident in that and do your thing.

Yep. I went— I, I did a live with, uh, Salma and Nordcraft on Tuesday with her kind of their internal pod, and, and that's what we talked about. They're like, people are already going to judge you regardless, so you might as well put yourself out there and make it work to your advantage.

Yeah. And I think I think that like leading back to career and potentially where we are now and like going to conferences and maybe deciding if you wanna do content or not, don't be an asshole. Don't use it as an excuse to be an asshole to people, but stop giving a fuck what people think. And if there are opinions of like what people think, quickly decide, is this stuff I shouldn't give a shit about or is this shit that like actually matters? And hey, that's a learning opportunity for me.

Yeah.

And, and have those be 2 very distinct paths. Real quick, Elliot asked Brian Holly and who? So Brian Morrison. What's Holly's last name? Message me and I'll find her. Guerva. Guerva. That's her married. Yeah, Guerva.

It's yeah.

At Holly Lolly L A W L Y. Yep. And then Cap Capehe. And what's her?

I think it's literally just Cap.

No way. Is it seriously? Oh no. Capehe underscore.

Okay. G underscore.

Okay. Yep. Yep. Yeah.

All— yeah, they're, they're, they're— I finally met Cap again. The power of networking, right? I met— so I met 2 folks in the last like month that I swear I've met them in person. Cap was one of them. I went up to Cap, I was like, hey, what's up? And I was like, I was like, wait, we've met before in person, right? She goes, no.

She was like, absolutely not.

I was like, yeah, what? She was like, no, we've never even talked.

I was like, it's crazy. Which reiterates like, you don't, you don't have to be in person at all these conferences. It helps and it makes— it's a different level of relationship, but you can feel close and connected to people. Bobby and I.

Well, and, and even, even Francesco, right? Like, like, you know, uh, I've, I've obviously seen him at Render, but like, you know, next time I'm in Rome, I'm sure I could pop into Rome and just hit up Francesco and we're doing dinner that night, right? So like, again, incredibly important. Um, and then another one too, Barrett Blake. He's usually on the show. He was a speaker at Stir Trek. We've never met in person. He was a guest on the show and I was like, dude, it's so good to see you again. He goes, we've never, we've never met in person. I was like, oh, okay.

So, so good to see you not online.

Yeah, I know. So anyways, it's just I can't stress enough. I will continue stressing until the day I die. Show up, comment, say hey. It works, I promise.

So yeah, also extra shoutouts Francesco, Jason, Roxy, Chris.

No, I mean, the comments, like I said, I haven't been able to keep up. It's been nuts.

JB, Jason. Oh, it's good to see y'all.

Free pizzas, let's go, let's go! Going to Rome tomorrow. Just kidding. Um, sweet.

All right, y'all.

Well, thank you again, James. Stay on a second. Say bye to you backstage. Y'all have a great one. Last live of the week. Next week we got some amazing guests. I got actually the founder of a meetup company called River. The founder's name is Ray. We met on Twitter. She got— whether you like him or not, at the end of the day, she got picked up by the All In podcast. She threw watch parties for the All In podcast across the globe because of her software. And Jason Calacanis wanted to invest in her. So she's coming on Tuesday to talk about the Power community. And then I have my dear friend Bree Hall coming on, fellow MC at Epic Web Dev. Bree's coming on. She's senior DevRel at HubSpot. So that's Wednesday.

Fellow MC. Are you MCing?

What?

Are you MCing?

What?

Epic Web Dev? Already did.

That was last month. Yeah, I MC'd. Shit. Dang.

How was that? That happens when you're off the internet, James.

So happens when you're on the internet.

For, for anybody that's organizing a conference that needs an MC, that's something that I would love to do.

Yeah, yeah. No, it was great. It was great. Kent runs a great event. The talent was there. It was fantastic. So, all right, y'all, obviously we'll see y'all next Tuesday. Y'all have a good one. Peace.