1 00:00:00,738 --> 00:00:05,718 Alex: You'd get to the 45 minute mark and then you'd see your build fail 2 00:00:05,868 --> 00:00:10,048 Not because it didn't compile but because it had two lines of white 3 00:00:10,053 --> 00:00:17,153 space next to each other and that was just the most sole crushing thing That 4 00:00:17,153 --> 00:00:18,893 I've had to deal with as a developer 5 00:00:19,521 --> 00:00:25,011 they see this job opening as this hole that they're trying to fill and in 6 00:00:25,011 --> 00:00:28,881 order to do that they crunch themselves up and they make themselves small 7 00:00:28,881 --> 00:00:34,186 in order to fit in this neat little hole when in reality they have all 8 00:00:34,186 --> 00:00:37,176 of this experience that is valuable 9 00:00:38,406 --> 00:00:41,496 Eddie: Welcome to Episode 3 of the WebJoy podcast. 10 00:00:41,796 --> 00:00:42,816 I'm your host, Eddie. 11 00:00:43,116 --> 00:00:47,016 In this podcast, we interview guests about their origin story and what 12 00:00:47,016 --> 00:00:50,676 makes them excited and joyful to be part of the tech community. 13 00:00:51,096 --> 00:00:55,656 I hope you enjoy today's episode "Taking up Space" with Alex Karp. 14 00:00:57,091 --> 00:01:02,461 Today we have Alex Karp and Alex do you want go ahead and introduce 15 00:01:02,461 --> 00:01:06,811 yourself who you are, what you do, where you work just uh brief intro 16 00:01:07,486 --> 00:01:13,226 Alex: Yeah my name's Alex He/ him pronouns I am based out of the Boston area just 17 00:01:13,226 --> 00:01:19,116 north of Boston I am an engineering manager at Twitter My team is called 18 00:01:19,116 --> 00:01:25,551 media foundation client so my team owns the media library at Twitter So anytime 19 00:01:25,551 --> 00:01:31,081 that you watch a video or listen in on a space or laugh at funny GIF that's 20 00:01:31,081 --> 00:01:34,033 all based off of my team and our library 21 00:01:35,066 --> 00:01:38,966 Eddie: Nice Well Hey I appreciate the work you all do I use plenty of 22 00:01:38,966 --> 00:01:44,146 GIFs on your service and have joined a couple of spaces So definitely glad 23 00:01:44,146 --> 00:01:45,766 you all are there and doing what you do 24 00:01:46,356 --> 00:01:47,826 Alex: Yeah we have a lot of fun doing it 25 00:01:48,616 --> 00:01:51,586 Eddie: Well what's kind of a short version of your story How 26 00:01:51,586 --> 00:01:55,906 did you get involved in tech and what has your trajectory been like 27 00:01:57,106 --> 00:01:59,956 Alex: Yeah I've been talking about this a lot lately with all of the coffee 28 00:01:59,956 --> 00:02:04,476 chats with the # hunter devs folks I tell people I got really lucky in a 29 00:02:04,481 --> 00:02:09,776 way I knew from a very young age that I liked computers I liked messing about 30 00:02:09,836 --> 00:02:18,121 on them and so I found resources online to teach myself basic web development. 31 00:02:18,121 --> 00:02:22,831 This was back in the day when there weren't nearly as many resources as there 32 00:02:22,831 --> 00:02:27,721 were now though to be fair there was only one flavor of JavaScript and I kind of 33 00:02:27,721 --> 00:02:34,006 liked it that way, Kind of missed that but I looked at programming as a cool way of 34 00:02:34,486 --> 00:02:38,646 solving problems, usually my own problems cause I'm a little bit selfish like that 35 00:02:39,076 --> 00:02:43,626 so it was this way of doing that And so I would just start on these projects and 36 00:02:44,046 --> 00:02:49,346 learn through that then when the iPhone was released I was like oh wow This means 37 00:02:49,346 --> 00:02:51,966 that I could take my things wherever I go. 38 00:02:51,966 --> 00:02:57,986 So of course I dived into iOS development and that's been most of my more recent 39 00:02:58,806 --> 00:03:03,790 developer history but I've done both front-end and back-end development on 40 00:03:03,790 --> 00:03:07,420 web and a bunch of iOS development. 41 00:03:07,470 --> 00:03:12,075 Because I knew from such a young age what I wanted to do I was able to 42 00:03:12,610 --> 00:03:17,440 put myself through a computer science program get internships and then right 43 00:03:17,440 --> 00:03:23,445 outta school I was at Microsoft for a year doing some front-end back-end and 44 00:03:23,795 --> 00:03:31,105 Microsoft development so I got to do some interesting server side executable things. 45 00:03:31,495 --> 00:03:33,705 Eddie: Sorry to hear that That doesn't sound fun 46 00:03:34,575 --> 00:03:38,875 Alex: Honestly the least fun bit about it was the way That our compile system 47 00:03:38,875 --> 00:03:43,565 worked the whole thing would take 25 minutes on an incremental build more 48 00:03:43,565 --> 00:03:47,115 like 45 on a clean release build. 49 00:03:47,685 --> 00:03:53,425 But the most frustrating thing about it was that we had this linter and the 50 00:03:53,425 --> 00:03:58,545 linter was incredibly strict if it found anything it would fail but they 51 00:03:58,545 --> 00:04:04,330 didn't run the linter until after they had compiled everything So you'd get to 52 00:04:04,335 --> 00:04:09,820 the 45 minute mark and then you'd see your build fail Not because it didn't 53 00:04:09,820 --> 00:04:15,300 compile but because it had two lines of white space next to each other and that 54 00:04:15,300 --> 00:04:21,915 was just the most sole crushing thing That I've had to deal with as a developer 55 00:04:22,545 --> 00:04:27,045 Eddie: Yeah that sounds painful And for anyone listening who isn't as 56 00:04:27,045 --> 00:04:30,855 familiar with programming linter would basically be like a grammar checker 57 00:04:31,005 --> 00:04:35,445 for programming code So it's checking to make sure all the grammar of the 58 00:04:35,445 --> 00:04:39,975 programming is the exact correct As it should be And like someone missed a 59 00:04:39,975 --> 00:04:44,670 period at the end of the sentence and that 45 minute whole thing was wasted Now 60 00:04:45,695 --> 00:04:49,585 Alex: yeah Especially on a team it's just a way of ensuring that all 61 00:04:49,585 --> 00:04:52,465 of our code kind of looks the same and that we can read each other's 62 00:04:52,465 --> 00:04:53,945 code That's that sort of thing. 63 00:04:54,645 --> 00:05:02,395 After that I ended up at Wayfair for about five years going from doing development 64 00:05:02,470 --> 00:05:08,000 into management which was interesting but I did have a lot of fun there in 65 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:14,450 the almost five years that I was there we grew from seven mobile engineers to 66 00:05:14,690 --> 00:05:20,545 I think we were about 155 When I left, so some pretty rapid growth and it was 67 00:05:20,545 --> 00:05:26,375 a wild ride and then back in February of 2020 I was part of the layoffs at Wayfair, 68 00:05:26,785 --> 00:05:28,105 so that's how I ended up at Twitter 69 00:05:28,549 --> 00:05:32,906 Eddie: Yeah that's definitely been a journey that you've been on this 70 00:05:32,906 --> 00:05:37,466 fun ride and you've ended up where you are now what keeps you excited 71 00:05:37,466 --> 00:05:40,421 and what interests you about tech now that you've been here for a while 72 00:05:40,596 --> 00:05:46,066 Alex: Yeah I think it's the fact that tech and software engineering it just 73 00:05:46,066 --> 00:05:50,511 intersects with everything if you think of anything else that's outside of tech 74 00:05:50,571 --> 00:05:56,586 that you're interested in there is some intersection with software so that's a 75 00:05:56,586 --> 00:05:59,996 really cool thing where if you get bored of working on one sort of thing you can 76 00:05:59,996 --> 00:06:03,909 go work on a different sort of thing I think that really helps keep things 77 00:06:03,909 --> 00:06:08,979 exciting and there's always something new to learn Like you're basically forced to. 78 00:06:09,354 --> 00:06:13,069 As long as you like learning new things and trying out different 79 00:06:13,129 --> 00:06:15,504 areas then you know it's a lot of fun 80 00:06:16,344 --> 00:06:21,554 Eddie: I love that I really feel that in my core I worked for a design agency 81 00:06:21,554 --> 00:06:26,754 where we built stuff for random companies I did something that helped doctors in 82 00:06:26,754 --> 00:06:31,964 the ER see how to use certain surgical tools on an iPad And then I was working 83 00:06:31,964 --> 00:06:37,924 on a cyber security application and now I'm at Glassdoor And I'm helping 84 00:06:38,084 --> 00:06:43,794 build software for businesses to understand the needs of their Employees 85 00:06:43,794 --> 00:06:45,564 in an anonymous fashion and stuff. 86 00:06:45,664 --> 00:06:50,134 Like you those are all very different things And yet we get to be involved 87 00:06:50,134 --> 00:06:54,594 in all of it because we are technology professionals So that's super exciting 88 00:06:55,194 --> 00:06:56,034 Alex: Yeah, absolutely. 89 00:06:57,169 --> 00:07:02,759 Eddie: Well the goal of this podcast is to kind of talk about things that Bring us 90 00:07:02,759 --> 00:07:08,669 joy around the tech industry so I have a question for you which is what brings you 91 00:07:08,669 --> 00:07:10,919 joy and what would you like to talk about 92 00:07:11,479 --> 00:07:16,509 Alex: I'd say recently it's just been not only the number of people but I guess the 93 00:07:16,607 --> 00:07:21,597 breadths of people that taking part in things like #100Devs or other boot camps 94 00:07:21,602 --> 00:07:27,077 or teaching themselves and just kind of deciding Hey I want to try this let's 95 00:07:27,077 --> 00:07:33,887 give it a shot and just how open everybody has seemed to be about their journey 96 00:07:33,947 --> 00:07:36,137 as they learn which I think is awesome 97 00:07:37,472 --> 00:07:42,802 Eddie: That's definitely cool what do you think gets you excited about getting into 98 00:07:42,822 --> 00:07:47,437 tech and helping people get into tech? 99 00:07:47,542 --> 00:07:51,097 Alex: Yeah I would again say that I've been kind of lucky in my career in that 100 00:07:51,187 --> 00:08:00,077 with both Wayfair and Twitter they had programs that were designed to bring 101 00:08:00,077 --> 00:08:05,572 more people in so at Wayfair we called that Wayfair Labs And at Twitter we have 102 00:08:05,572 --> 00:08:11,962 Twitter apprenticeships And the idea with both of these is to take people who are 103 00:08:11,992 --> 00:08:16,872 either coming off of a bootcamp or have taught themselves how to how to write 104 00:08:16,872 --> 00:08:20,902 code or are just starting out in their career or switching from another career. 105 00:08:20,902 --> 00:08:25,952 Any of these circumstances where it might be difficult for them to just go out and 106 00:08:25,952 --> 00:08:31,712 get a job as a junior engineer These are programs where you have a three month 107 00:08:31,712 --> 00:08:37,192 period or a one year period in which they're looking to bridge the gap between 108 00:08:37,272 --> 00:08:43,342 being able to write code and being able to write code as part of a team at a software 109 00:08:43,342 --> 00:08:48,127 company and I've gotten to do a lot of both interviewing for these roles And I've 110 00:08:48,127 --> 00:08:52,507 gotten to work with a lot of the people who have come through these programs And 111 00:08:53,137 --> 00:08:59,777 I am constantly amazed by the people that come through these programs they are some 112 00:08:59,782 --> 00:09:06,587 of the most driven people I've seen They have really interesting ideas that I don't 113 00:09:06,592 --> 00:09:13,087 think we would have thought of had we had we not had them on our team and also 114 00:09:13,137 --> 00:09:17,152 they're just really happy to be there and that happiness is kind of infectious 115 00:09:17,452 --> 00:09:22,762 Eddie: I totally get that I helped mentor at the collab lab which is a nonprofit 116 00:09:22,762 --> 00:09:26,722 focused on helping people in the exact same stages that you talked about the 117 00:09:26,722 --> 00:09:30,852 Twitter apprenticeship and at Wayfair and like you said I've seen the same stuff. 118 00:09:30,932 --> 00:09:35,302 I helped a cohort earlier this year and I was just amazed at how they came 119 00:09:35,302 --> 00:09:37,222 together and worked together in a team. 120 00:09:37,222 --> 00:09:42,032 No one had to teach them how to work together in a team that just blows 121 00:09:42,032 --> 00:09:46,732 my mind because I feel in the people who are normally in the developer tech 122 00:09:46,732 --> 00:09:50,412 industry I feel one of the big things we have to do in engineering management 123 00:09:50,442 --> 00:09:54,002 type things is figure out how to get our people to work together rather 124 00:09:54,002 --> 00:09:59,742 than just be engineers in their corners programming and this influx of new people 125 00:09:59,742 --> 00:10:03,622 who want to work together and solve problems it's a really fresh perspective. 126 00:10:03,742 --> 00:10:07,267 Alex: Yeah absolutely and that's one of the things that I tell a lot of people 127 00:10:07,577 --> 00:10:12,312 when they're asking about how to get into tech is to think about some of these 128 00:10:12,312 --> 00:10:18,182 other skills that they have especially if they've had other jobs or even the 129 00:10:18,182 --> 00:10:21,882 experiences you wouldn't think about where they develop things like teamwork 130 00:10:22,122 --> 00:10:28,837 communication leadership resilience all of these experiences that just get completely 131 00:10:28,852 --> 00:10:34,342 overlooked when people are applying to jobs that end up actually being really 132 00:10:34,462 --> 00:10:38,962 important And I would say at equally important and potentially even more 133 00:10:38,962 --> 00:10:40,522 important than the tech side of things 134 00:10:42,017 --> 00:10:46,797 Eddie: Yeah that makes a lot of sense at the end of one of our eight week cohorts 135 00:10:46,847 --> 00:10:53,367 we have one person become like the pseudo tech lead for the cohort whereas the 136 00:10:53,367 --> 00:10:57,162 mentors have been leading it up to that point and the cohort I was just a part of 137 00:10:57,212 --> 00:11:01,322 ... I was amazed because one person was like yeah I'll do it And they were so organized 138 00:11:01,382 --> 00:11:05,972 and I'm like they've never really worked in a team programming setting in this 139 00:11:05,972 --> 00:11:10,052 way And yet here they are knocking things off the list like a tech lead of 140 00:11:10,052 --> 00:11:12,632 years And I'm like how is this possible? 141 00:11:12,632 --> 00:11:16,577 To your point then I found out after the fact jobs that they've been at in 142 00:11:16,577 --> 00:11:20,927 the past they've been team leads in non-technical capacities They've been 143 00:11:21,087 --> 00:11:25,017 in these leadership type things And then you bringing those skills into the 144 00:11:25,017 --> 00:11:30,167 tech realm it's just goes flawlessly And if they don't realize that they can 145 00:11:30,377 --> 00:11:34,547 put that out there as a strength and as a resource then they're definitely 146 00:11:34,547 --> 00:11:36,497 missing something that can help it 147 00:11:37,702 --> 00:11:42,367 Alex: Yeah I talk about it a lot in terms of taking up space . for junior 148 00:11:42,367 --> 00:11:48,147 engineers or people going for their first role they see this job opening as this 149 00:11:48,382 --> 00:11:52,672 hole that they're trying to fill right and so in order to do that they crunch 150 00:11:52,672 --> 00:11:57,032 themselves up and they make themselves small in order to fit in this neat little 151 00:11:57,032 --> 00:12:05,007 hole when in reality they have all of this experience that is valuable and by 152 00:12:05,147 --> 00:12:11,397 really thinking about what it is that they bring to the table what value they bring 153 00:12:11,397 --> 00:12:18,192 to the team to the company they're taking up space and that's just a much stronger 154 00:12:18,772 --> 00:12:23,999 place to sell yourself from It's like Hey this is who I am This is the value 155 00:12:23,999 --> 00:12:29,719 that I bring These are the experiences that I've had that I think will help the 156 00:12:29,724 --> 00:12:34,765 company or will help me think differently that makes a much stronger case than 157 00:12:35,035 --> 00:12:41,602 by trying to fit into what you perceive as the hole that they're trying to fill 158 00:12:42,497 --> 00:12:46,517 Eddie: If you could choose one thing that's the most important for people 159 00:12:46,517 --> 00:12:50,507 to know when they're trying to get into tech What do you think that is? 160 00:12:52,437 --> 00:12:54,427 Alex: Honestly I would say that's probably one of the biggest things 161 00:12:54,457 --> 00:12:55,847 that I would mention to people. 162 00:12:56,537 --> 00:12:59,157 A couple of other things that I think are right up there. 163 00:12:59,447 --> 00:13:05,107 One is don't focus so much on the technical interviews and if you do focus 164 00:13:05,107 --> 00:13:11,287 on them focus on learning how to problem solve it's a much more generic way of 165 00:13:11,337 --> 00:13:15,867 looking at these problems cause you will never ever memorize enough algorithms 166 00:13:15,867 --> 00:13:20,317 and data structures to attack each one perfectly nor should you have to. 167 00:13:20,717 --> 00:13:27,397 The other one is don't be afraid to apply if you don't meet all of the requirements 168 00:13:27,402 --> 00:13:33,147 for a role people forget that these job descriptions are written by people 169 00:13:33,387 --> 00:13:39,667 who overwhelmingly suck at writing job descriptions and conveying specifically 170 00:13:39,667 --> 00:13:43,437 what it is that they're looking for, and I include myself in this category. 171 00:13:43,677 --> 00:13:47,952 So don't get discouraged if you don't meet things perfectly you're 172 00:13:47,952 --> 00:13:49,362 likely that candidate anyway 173 00:13:50,647 --> 00:13:54,247 Eddie: I agree with that As someone who's also written job descriptions it's like 174 00:13:54,607 --> 00:14:01,367 we are trying to create a person out of nothing we know that what we are writing 175 00:14:01,367 --> 00:14:06,497 this person doesn't exist as a single entity but we have to craft a person And 176 00:14:06,497 --> 00:14:10,967 if you feel like any part of that person resonates with you then you're probably 177 00:14:10,967 --> 00:14:15,082 a good candidate because we know not everyone's going to match everything And 178 00:14:15,082 --> 00:14:20,422 so yeah Throw your hat in the ring if you feel like it touches on your experience 179 00:14:20,422 --> 00:14:26,042 in some way And that's what interviews are for, For us to tease out and figure out 180 00:14:26,282 --> 00:14:29,812 if you are the right fit And so it doesn't hurt to to throw your hat in the ring. 181 00:14:29,812 --> 00:14:33,967 I know that I started getting a lot more job interviews because I used to 182 00:14:33,967 --> 00:14:37,117 have that same perspective I'd look down and I'm like oh I'm two years 183 00:14:37,117 --> 00:14:42,777 shy of this requirement And I wouldn't apply And definitely in the last four 184 00:14:42,777 --> 00:14:47,127 years five years or so I've started to just say you know what if this thing is 185 00:14:47,127 --> 00:14:52,017 remotely where I'm headed remotely what I'm interested in If I can find some 186 00:14:52,017 --> 00:14:56,427 way to spin it as being relevant to my experience like I'm going to apply And 187 00:14:56,427 --> 00:15:03,402 if I get to the interview and It bombs then that saved me because I wasn't ready 188 00:15:03,462 --> 00:15:08,292 but if it doesn't then I am ready and just let the interview be the thing that 189 00:15:08,292 --> 00:15:11,362 cancels you out rather than not applying 190 00:15:12,337 --> 00:15:15,602 Alex: Right Cause you'll always wonder what if I had applied Like 191 00:15:15,602 --> 00:15:20,022 what have I gotten that job you'll never regret applying for something and 192 00:15:20,027 --> 00:15:21,677 getting told that you're not ready yet 193 00:15:22,357 --> 00:15:25,807 Eddie: As we wrap up this episode as a community like we love to support 194 00:15:25,807 --> 00:15:30,187 each other We love to hear what each other is doing and what's going on So 195 00:15:30,427 --> 00:15:33,127 is there anything that you're involved with or anything you've worked on 196 00:15:33,127 --> 00:15:36,082 recently that you'd like to share and let the community know about 197 00:15:36,952 --> 00:15:40,947 Alex: Absolutely So I just I wrote a book and it's available now So it's called 198 00:15:40,947 --> 00:15:47,477 running start and the whole premise of the book is that it is intended to help 199 00:15:48,307 --> 00:15:55,047 More people get into tech my goal when writing it was to take my experiences 200 00:15:55,047 --> 00:16:04,371 and my observations as both an engineer and a manager and Use that to create I 201 00:16:04,371 --> 00:16:08,131 sometimes call it a cheat sheet for your career but it's basically everything that 202 00:16:08,131 --> 00:16:12,281 I wish that I would have known at the beginning of my career that I think if I 203 00:16:12,281 --> 00:16:18,226 had known would've made a big difference and the goal in writing it was to try 204 00:16:18,231 --> 00:16:26,352 to make it as accessible as possible so the primary audience for the book are 205 00:16:26,532 --> 00:16:30,972 people who are coming out of boot camps people who are trying to break into tech 206 00:16:31,602 --> 00:16:37,792 but the way that it's written I think really anybody can get value out of it. 207 00:16:38,302 --> 00:16:41,902 Eddie: Awesome let's pause for a second and realize you just said I just published 208 00:16:41,902 --> 00:16:45,382 a book I mean that's a huge thing you know what I mean so many people myself 209 00:16:45,382 --> 00:16:50,162 included have thought about writing a book but most of us haven't so congrats! 210 00:16:50,232 --> 00:16:54,052 What a huge milestone to be able to say yes I not only started writing a book 211 00:16:54,082 --> 00:16:57,952 which thousands of people have done but you finished writing a book and 212 00:16:58,602 --> 00:17:02,382 It's published and it's out there for people to check out So congrats on that 213 00:17:02,952 --> 00:17:08,242 Alex: Thank you It's really surreal but I'm so happy that it's out there 214 00:17:09,697 --> 00:17:13,547 Eddie: Awesome as Alex has said like it is useful to everyone, people 215 00:17:13,547 --> 00:17:18,347 particularly in bootcamps and things like that but really if it sounded 216 00:17:18,347 --> 00:17:22,097 interesting to you you're probably in the target audience So is there 217 00:17:22,097 --> 00:17:23,977 a website that they can go to check 218 00:17:24,707 --> 00:17:29,847 Alex: Yeah absolutely You can go to RunningStart.dev where you can purchase a 219 00:17:29,847 --> 00:17:35,947 digital copy Or if you go search Running Start on Amazon you can buy a copy for 220 00:17:35,947 --> 00:17:38,137 your Kindle a hard cover or a paperback. 221 00:17:39,127 --> 00:17:44,217 Eddie: Awesome So everyone go check it out And that's about it for this 222 00:17:44,217 --> 00:17:46,327 episode Thank you for joining us Alex! 223 00:17:46,707 --> 00:17:47,517 Alex: Thank you for having me 224 00:17:49,417 --> 00:17:54,637 Eddie: Thanks for joining us for episode 3, "Taking up Space" with Alex Karp. 225 00:17:55,027 --> 00:17:59,817 You can find out more about Alex on his Twitter @AutisticManager. 226 00:18:00,517 --> 00:18:04,777 You can find links to everything we talked about in this episode, as well as a link 227 00:18:04,777 --> 00:18:06,817 to Alex's Twitter in the show notes. 228 00:18:07,537 --> 00:18:11,257 If you enjoyed this episode, please consider rating and reviewing it 229 00:18:11,257 --> 00:18:12,937 in your favorite podcast directory. 230 00:18:13,177 --> 00:18:17,327 And following us on Twitter @WebJoyFM 231 00:18:17,797 --> 00:18:19,417 Thank you and have a great day!