eddie: Welcome to episode 38 of the web joy podcast.
I'm your host, Eddie.
And in this podcast, we interview guests about their origin story.
And what makes them excited and joyful to be part of the tech community.
I hope you enjoy today's episode.
I learned.
How by doing leak code with Carolina, Lou Dardy, Korea.
Welcome to another episode of Web Joy.
I'm excited to have Carolina with us today.
Carolina, say hi to all the Listen.
Hello everybody.
Thanks for having me.
Absolutely.
Thank you for coming on and being willing to chat with me for a bit.
So I know you pretty well, but those listening may not.
So if you don't mind, to get started, let's just talk about
who you are, what you do, where you work, just uh, a brief intro.
So, yes.
I'm a person in transition at the moment.
I used to consider myself.
I, I am a supply chain professional, so working in the industry for a couple
years, I used to have like the, a little bit of, uh, identity attached
to the profession kind of thing.
But, uh, because of my love for supply.
The last couple years I, I decide to make, in the last year I decide to make
a switch in going to tech, and right now I'm going through this transition.
So I quit my job at Amazon August of last year.
So this week, uh, it is one year.
Since I quit my job at Amazon to become a developer.
So I'm a self, self-taught developer.
Self-taught, eh, I went to YouTube University, . So I learned how
to code, uh, by doing it code.
That's actually the truth.
That's how I learned just by seeing the patterns and doing it over and
over, maybe like 400 questions later.
I think I know.
Maybe not.
And then, um, in May of this year, I actually got a opportunity to join
Amazon back again, but this time in, uh, thank you, uh, this time in Indiana,
Princeton ship as a software engineer.
So I just, uh, got my very first job as software engineer apprentice.
In the FinTech team at Amazon and I started, uh, back in June.
So I've been doing this for about, uh, seven weeks now.
Awesome.
Well that is exciting and fresh.
Congratulations on that.
Thank you.
What was it that really pushed you to say, I want to do this programming
thing and I want to do it enough that I'm willing to actually.
Quit my job and take time off to actually pursue this thing.
Like what was it that really drew you in?
So there are, there are two things.
One, I kind of like, I had come from way a couple years of very
stressful job positions that helped me to grow very fast.
And those are manage career years.
Because I grew in like about two or three years where people take 20 years to.
Their careers and I was able to do that.
So one, I wanted a break period, so you know, I wanted to take a couple months
to just, to be home and, you know, just like have some, uh, try to find some
balance, you know, health and wellness.
Do some yoga.
I spend more time at the gym.
I always dream going to the gym for two hours.
And I was able to, they all just that kind of stuff.
. So that was some of it.
But what happened was, so back in, uh, I was weighing out, I'm not a tradition,
I was not a traditional student.
So I ended up finishing school a little bit on the later side.
And while I was going through college and working full-time in
the supply chain industry already, I came across the idea of block.
And I had no idea, but everybody was talking blockchain
from a finance perspective.
I, and I had read Steven Jobs book, biography had just come out.
I read it and then like I heard about blockchain.
I'm like, what?
What is this?
Can I use this in supply chain?
This is a question that I had in my head.
And guess what?
I wrote a paper about it for one of my classes.
Uh, I got accepted.
I went to, actually presented at Harvard at a conference.
Uh, I did not go publish personally.
Wasn't that that great?
But anyways, I learned a.
That was the point from that period on, I knew, and from reading step
Jobs biography, I knew that I wanted to do something with my life.
I did not know that I was tech, but I knew that, uh, you know,
and I knew how much supply chain struggled because of the lack of tech.
So I did not know what I wanted to do.
And they did not know what coding was, and they did not know that.
And that, and like I lived in Texas.
In Texas, we don't talk about tech like we do over here in the, in the west coast.
Right.
So I just knew that it was something that I wanted to do, but I didn't understood
what it was and how so then I got a wonderful opportunity to move from
Texas to the Bay Area to work at Tesla.
And that was the opportunity that changed my life.
Like I feel like whenever you're ready and you have that, like that
grit and the thing inside, like I knew I wanted to do something.
I did not know whether something was right.
Uh, I did not have anybody around me that knew how to code
it and knew what coding was.
We did not talk about stocks.
You know, it was just a different life and the different mindset.
But inside me, I had something and the opportunity to come work
at Tesla came and whenever go to Tesla, man, did I find out that.
Horrible that I knew.
Nothing . Oh no . It was wonderful because it was like, it was, I would
have to leave work and go home and study and spend this weekend learning like how
to do basic things that other people in the Bay Area everybody knows how to do.
So while I working at Tesla and like got Introduc and you know, I had to automate
some, a lot of my work it like, that's what I said it was like, The perfect
mix of chaos, but that brought out in me discreet and this in this desire of
being better and pursuing excellence.
So I started having to, to like really chase, like, how, how do I get out this?
Like I do not know how to do this and learning.
And that's when I got introduced to sequel . I had wonderful, wonderful
coworkers that were very, uh, skilled with excel in writing macros and all of this.
And.
Like when I start a new, nothing.
When I left, I had improved a lot of processes within my team.
I had helped to build dashboards that like, I streamlined the
conversation between different, uh, players in the supply chain.
I had built new processes, I had done so much stuff that was
like, it was wonderful, but I still liked the technical side.
And then I joined Amazon after that.
And the, one of the reasons why I joined Amazon is, I kind of
like, I had a dream , , Tesla.
I had, uh, this idea.
There was one process that I used to do with Tesla.
There was extremely manual that was not related to Tesla.
That everybody that does the imparts or exports has to do in extremely manual,
which is, which is like classification.
Let's not get into it.
It's uh, it's boring , but it, it's very, it's very manual and the, and
the isn't like anything that like.
There isn't technology that solve that because at the end of the day, you still
need the human eye to be able to do that.
Right.
But I was like, there gotta be a way, there gotta be a
way, there gotta be something.
And at the time I came across Andrea Noun, I think machine learning
class, obviously at that point I did not have enough knowledge.
Understood.
I did wash the classes on Coursera.
Did not follow, did not understood.
Like, but okay.
But I, I got an idea and then I came to work at Amazon.
That was kinda like the idea that I had.
They are building it and I got to work, my team was building it with the tech
team and I got to work with the t p m, the technical program manager into
building that and having out have the, the meetings with like, you know, and
that would be the liaison from the business side with the technical side.
And I loved the doing that and I love those conversations.
That's all I wanna do.
And I did not like, and I love my job, but it was not, it was challenging,
but not that challenging at that point.
And, but I wanted to do more of that.
And then like on my, on the side, I started like taking classes and I
was like, Talking to other engineers and like Amazon, they have very
strong culture of, uh, mentorship.
And you find mentors to help you through your career, doesn't need be our team.
And I noticed that all the people I reach out to were other engineers because I
would talk to the engineers, I don't not wanna talk to the business people anymore.
And you know, they, I got to a point where I was like, oh,
everything that I would touch, I would think, how can I improve this?
How can I automate?
I wonder if there is something that could be done about that.
And that was my mindset and the way I got to the point where I was not
thinking about how build processes or improve operations are reducing
or reducing, you know, the number of people or overhead that we had.
I was more thinking about how can I using technology, solve this issue.
That's when I decided that I wanted to do it.
And also at that point, all my friends are engineers.
Cause I was living in Seattle, so I went from Texas to Bay Area to Seattle
to work for Amazon and you know, it was just, it was just a wonderful experience.
Yes, it was nerve wracking.
The very first couple months after I quit, I needed some mental health time.
So I did, took a couple months, took me about three months to like
be in a state where I was like not feeling burned out anymore.
I did not tell Des most people too very recently.
It was very recently that I felt comfortable telling people that I
was struggling with my mental health and that I took some time for myself.
And, uh, in the beginning at.
People would ask me and I'd be like, yeah, yeah, I'm studying,
you know, just the beginning.
But I wasn't, I was taking care of myself, but I felt like I didn't
feel comfortable telling people that.
So, uh, took a couple months, felt good, then took a vacation and then came back.
And then when I came back, I came back focused and I was like, you know, and
that's when I was like, started working and let coding like crazy and connected
with people on to Twitter and then start building small projects here and there.
I don't have not built many projects.
Like I said, I learned how to code by doing lit code, and that's when.
Came together.
That's awesome.
Wow.
Talk about learning on difficult, like I feel like it's funny, a lot
of people learn through the typical ways of like, okay, building these
different projects and things like that.
And that's, you know, for everyone listening, that's a great way to learn.
Good job.
And then I interviewed Francesco from Daley Dev and like he
learned using Unity making.
Video game and I'm like, that seems like a difficult way to like learn development.
Like you're gonna build a video game.
Yes.
But then I mean, leak code, even people who are in the industry for years, right?
Like we all hate leak code like . We do leak code if and only
if we have to do it to get a job.
And here you are, you're like, I'm gonna learn programming.
I'm going to use leak code.
Wow, that is learning on difficult, so congratulations on that.
I mean, for not giving up when leak code was your primary resource,
that's, uh, is impressive.
In my defense.
In my defense, I was strict , like I said, I live in Seattle and all my friends are
like, you know, because what happened was, at first, like, I think like everybody
who has ever tried to learn how to.
What did I do?
I went to your demi and bought like 20 different, like full bootcamp classes.
Learn this in three days, LA, la, la.
You know, that's a route I went.
So I have started about like, you know, 20, like, you know, about me
pages because I started so many things.
So this is how I actually, I got to it.
I read a whole book.
A Python book and I wrote every page cuz that was my mindset, right?
And then one of my friends came over and is like, what are you doing?
What's the plan?
Right?
You're gonna quit your job or you gotta have a plan?
I'm like, no, I have a plan.
I'm gonna do this football camp class.
I'm gonna do that football camp, plus I'm gonna finish this in five days.
It's 50 hours.
Lala, you know, that was my, that was my mindset.
He's like, no, you don't need any of that.
You need to know how to lead code.
And he's like, do you know how to do fist first?
I.
I had done Fbu at that point.
Yeah, I can do it confidently.
No.
He's like, okay, let's do fbu And then he was like harassing me
about it, you know, okay, whatever.
And then he is like, okay, here's the plan.
You're gonna do talent codes per day.
And I'm like, huh.
But that, that was it.
You know, because I went, I took like, you know, I went to Python principles, learned
how to like a little bit Python here.
But then I learned by actually doing it.
And the, the thing that I struggled with now that I I start working
is the fact that I, I feel like I know a lot of concepts and I know
how to write the code, but I do not know how to connect things, right?
So it's a, now it's a different learning curve.
Now I'm now my learning curve is how do I bring it all of this together?
How do I actually implement a link list into my, whenever I'm building
a website and don't wanna change the.
So that's a difference.
Just how do I bring it all together now?
That's the challenge.
Yeah, no, that makes sense because like a lot of people learn how to
do a project and they get that down, but then they have to figure out
how to get someone to hire them.
Right.
Because a lot of companies use leak code, you know, in interviews and stuff.
So it's like you kind of have to know both.
So a lot of people know how to build a project, but they
don't know how to get a job.
You really figured out coding and how to get a job really well, . But now
that you're in the job, like connecting the individual codes that make up the
leak code into a whole project you haven't had as much experience at.
So that makes complete sense.
And honestly, I mean that's a.
easy thing to learn, right?
Like it's , you'll, you'll get it done at no time.
Yeah.
It's really funny because, uh, some, some people were like, I, yeah, I can
do a immediately code easily nowadays, but you know, sometimes I have to
ask some basic correct questions.
Or the other day I was also struggling with interfaces
in Java, but hey, it's okay.
I can do it.
I can learn.
So one thing we like to talk about on this podcast is something that brings you joy.
So I guess, is there anything lately that has brought you a lot of joy, you know,
whether community, whether a tool, whether you know, something you've been learning?
Pretty much anything is open . I think that, thankfully, not sure if it was the
way I ra I was raised or any, I do not know where that influence comes from,
but, uh, I think like that I'm pretty simple in that sense that, uh, I am able.
See the good and to appreciate the simple things.
And I think that that has served me very well in very difficult times of my life.
So I don't need the extraordinary or an additional tool to make me happy.
I can just like wake up and have someone to say good morning to I, I
understand how significant that is and how blessed I am for having that.
Uh, so I think that I'm very blessed that I'm able to see and have joy simple.
But lately, I, I have, life has given me some, uh, very sweet surprises.
Some very great things have happened to me.
One of them is my brother is visiting me from Brazil, so he's spending
three months over here with me.
So I moved out, I left my hou my home when I was 18.
So pretty much I have not lived with my brother for like almost so years.
So I knew him as a teenager, like, you know, as a rebellious kid.
And so I did not know who he was.
I did not know him.
So now I get to spend time with him.
It's been wonderful.
Then throughout this apprenticeship that I'm doing, I have met
some wonderful people, some uh, women that are just like me.
They're driven, they have had different careers that are challenging themselves.
So we have been able to connect and it's such a blessing to have other people that
can like ha think like you do because I have in the past have had people
think that I'm too driven, you know?
So now finding people that think the same way, it's amazing.
Of course, I'm careful to not just go to into group sync.
I know that, but you know, it's just amazing to have, like, there's
some supportive system and, and my.
I have four pets.
One of them is missing.
That's the not joyful pet.
Oh no, for sure.
No.
Yeah, we're not gonna talk about that cause we're talking about
joy, , , uh, but I have four pets.
I have two dogs and two cats, and they are the joy of my life.
There is never a due day in this house.
You know, there is never like a boring moment because they're always
doing something and you know, like if I'm here just working, my cat will
scratch the door and have me let him in and then he'll come and, you know,
like, make, make me stop working and throw with him and, and then he lift.
So it's uh, you know, they gimme a lot of, a lot of, a lot of joy.
And then also I live in Washington.
I'm sorry, but I gotta show off And Washington's gorgeous in the sun.
So I get to go on hikes and just like literally just walking,
just driving through the state to anywhere that you drive.
It's just beautiful.
The mountains, the sun, it's so green, it's so beautiful, you know?
So Seattle in the summer is the best place to be at, and I'm
here, so I'm very thankful for it.
It's funny being not from the north of the United States.
I often picture it always cold in desolate, but we actually
visited Maine recently during this summer and I was like, wow.
It like feels really good up here.
Like the weather is nice and warm, so I imagine, you know, it's probably
somewhat similar temperament.
Mm-hmm.
, uh, in Washington as, as Maine right now, so yeah.
That's awesome.
You have the good summer.
I love that.
Really the thing that brings you joy is life, right?
Like if you think about all the little things that you listed, right?
Like having someone to see in the morning, family, pets, and also,
right, like having community.
I think that's the essence, right?
Like you said, you know, of course you don't want to group think,
but like to be in a place and not feel like you have anyone.
Who can think like you or understand like you, right?
Like you were saying, people sometimes might think you're too
driven or something, and that can make us feel individualized, right?
And like set aside because well, people think we're different for some
reason or another, and so to isolated.
Yeah, exactly.
And so to find people who like see you for you, right?
And like understand the way you're wired.
It is such an awesome thing to be able to rest and know and that's awesome.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Well, as we wrap up today, you know one thing we always like to do at the end is
just to say, Hey, like as a community, we love to support each other and didn't know
if there was anything that you're involved in or anything that you've worked on that
you'd like to share with the community.
You think they might find helpful?
Well, you know, uh, not actively involved right now, but, uh, whenever I was doing
need code, uh, and I was struggle, find myself struggling, I use, I relied on
Twitter a lot, you know, just as saying I would post some there, like, I don't feel
like doing need code today or something, and people would kind of motivate me
and that was the really, literally the idea, the reason why I would pose is
because, Thrive from the peer pressure
So from that, a idea, and it was actually not an idea to clarify, it
was, uh, Sean Accents idea to create a community where we would like
help each other to stay accountable.
And because of that, a, I ended up creating a community
called Accountability Buddies.
On Twitter, I actually don't promote this community much
because you know, it's growing.
It has been growing since it started.
It's not very large, but I like it to be organic thing and like I
only tell people to join it if I someone that I know that it needs
some sort of accountability or help.
So we have this community where you can go there and you can be like,
Hey, I'm currently working on this.
I need's some accountability to get someone check on me on your week.
You know?
And then like we can like, uh, help each other, remind each other.
Sometimes at the beginning of the week, we go and post our goals.
People post people use the community differently.
And some people will use just to track, you know, just through like
go there and write and be like, Hey, I will get X, Y, z done.
So that's a wonderful community.
If.
It doesn't matter what it is that you're working on, you know, I'm
talking about like lit code, but doesn't need to be even tech related.
If it's a fitness goal that you're pursuing or perhaps a, you know,
you just wanna feel healthier or you just learn, read more.
Just like use the community and ask people directly point out to
people and be like, Hey, who can help me to be accountable in this?
Because that is a community for you, right?
So just like, you know, uh, I have the community, uh, that I'm very proud of.
Uh, like, you know, I was being off the social medias for a while now,
but I, I logged in today and I saw that people were helping each other
and they, they gave me so much joy.
They really did.
I actually went downstairs into my partner.
You're not gonna believe it, because I kind like, felt a little bit in
the beginning that the community was a little bit dependent on me to.
Keep the conversation going and that's not the case at all.
People are helping each other and that's the beauty, you know, you find
people that are like, have similar goals and you push each other.
So Yes.
Uh, accountability parties is a community on Twitter.
Yeah.
So that's what I have.
If you guys need any help with staying accountable.
Awesome.
That's excellent.
And yeah, that's so encouraging, right?
To just.
Like step away.
And when you peek back in, you see people working together and
helping each other out and like it really achieved the goal, right?
Which is like anything that relies on one person isn't really a thing.
Sustainable.
Yeah, exactly.
It's not sustainable.
And so that's awesome to see.
It's kind of, it's grown beyond the need for you to be there and like
you can come in and check in right when it's good for you and when it's
healthy for you and when it's not.
Like they'll still be there to.
Support each other, and that's just super encouraging.
So thank you for sharing.
Yeah, absolutely.
And thanks for asking . Well, that is about it.
Thank you Carolina, for joining us today.
I really appreciate you making the time to chat and it's been fun just
hearing about your journey and what brings you joy and all of that stuff.
Awesome.
No, thank you so much.
I really appreciate you inviting me over.
I was like, why me?
I'm, you know, but I like, I hope that my story, uh, inspires someone.
and if you have a go or something, just connect with me.
Let let me help you to be accountable as well.
So thank you so much, Eddie.
This is such a pleasure.
Thank you.
Appreciate you.
My pleasure
eddie: thank you for joining us for episode 38.
I learned how by doing Lee code with Karoleena.
Lou Dardy, Korea.
You can find links to everything we talked about in this episode, as
well as a link to Carolina's social media accounts in the show notes.
If you enjoyed this episode, help others discover it as well.
Why don't you give us a shout out, you know, on your favorite
social media platform, maybe tag that friend or coworker that
came to mind during this episode.
Don't forget to follow us wherever you hang out online, or, you
know, you can subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date.
Thank you for listening and have a great day.
bye.