Shawn: it is just really refreshing when someone else says
people deserve better and makes it . So I really appreciate that.
It brings me a lot of joy.
I think people have a lot of trepidation when they change careers at age 30 and
so I don't want to the impression, like I just took a leap of faith or anything.
You can actually test this out with the resources available today and de-risk
significantly the career transition.
Eddie: Welcome to Episode 4 of the WebJoy podcast.
I'm your host, Eddie.
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 enjoyed today's episode "Creating Something
from Nothing" with Shawn Wang.
Hey, thanks for coming on the show, introduce yourself to the community.
Who are you, what do you do, where do you work?
You know, just a brief introduction about yourself.
Shawn: Thanks Eddie.
This is exciting.
So my name is Shawn.
I'm originally from Singapore and moved to the U.S.
for a career in finance which then turned into a career in tech because I got so
obsessed with creating user experience and applications and all that good stuff.
I worked at Two Sigma as a software engineer, was the second developer
advocate hire at Netlify, and then joined AWS to do the same thing.
Most recently I'm Head Developer Experience at Temporal
Eddie: Awesome.
That sounds like a very fun, exciting journey.
Shawn: I think what's interesting about the web is the vast majority of us are
actually not formally trained for it.
It's inclusive field and it's such early days that it's still possible.
I think a lot of other well paid jobs or six figure jobs, you'd have to go
through years of formal training before you even get to practice the thing.
Eddie: Yeah, absolutely, and it's so interesting too, because a lot
of times formal training doesn't even move you really far ahead.
With some companies and businesses, you know, it will.
But, I know I was going for a bachelor's in computer science back I was in college
and I was learning less in college than I was just going out and programming with
freelance and with different companies.
You learn a lot more on the job than you do, studying and education and
everything with tech, just the way it is.
What got you interested in tech, right?
You were interested in finance and then you found yourself, you know,
swinging over into the tech area.
What stood out to you?
Shawn: I think the ability to create something from
nothing is always compelling.
And I was in a hedge fund looking all these IPOs that were coming out and a
lot of our job was to evaluate the IPO.
See if there are good investments and then continue to cover
them after a public offering.
I realized a lot of the value that was being created in the private
markets and it was mostly by software engineers and that I could also do that.
So I was interested in pursuing value creation, activity,
or whatever you call that.
It's all so abstract.
And I thought that, there's just more money to be made in private markets than
in public markets, and so I switch over.
The other thing that really motivated me personally, was that
I was a quantitative traders.
In other words, I was running a lot of models and accessing a lot of trading
strategies and presenting that to my portfolio manager, my boss, but the
problem was that every time he needed a change he would tell it to me and then
I have to translate that to code, and then I have to rerun it and give to him.
So in other words, I was a script monkey and I was the limiting
factor for the usability of my code.
So in order to divorce my time for my output I had to create a user
interfaces that other people could use and that's essentially what led me
to focus on JavaScript and move away from the sort of number crunchy Excel,
Python, Hascal world that I was in.
Eddie: I think it's so interesting.
Cuz a lot of career switchers are in a career.
They get frustrated with that career and then they just kind of jump
ship and they think tech is easy or interesting, but it's not necessarily
tied into what they're doing.
So it really intrigues me that you found your love for coding while in the other
job that's a really awesome transition.
Shawn: Yeah, and it wasn't a cold switch as well.
I took about a year to test the waters.
I became a non-technical product manager at a startup just to see if
I could work with software engineers.
And if I got the space and then on the side, I also learned JavaScript on
my own with the help of FreeCodeCamp.
I think people have a lot of trepidation when they change careers at age 30 and
so I don't want to the impression, like I just took a leap of faith or anything.
You can actually test this out with the resources available today and de-risk
significantly the career transition.
Eddie: I really love that.
Bringing analysis, intentionality and methodology to making big,
dangerous leaps like that.
I think that's best for everyone, right?
It helps you feel more safe and secure and also make sure
you're making the right choices.
Shawn: Yeah, in another world I would be interested in starting like a bootcamp
to help others do same thing that I did, but I feel like you should only do that
when you've made it and you are kind of retired and you're all right, let
me give back to the next generation.
I feel like it's a bit too soon for me.
Eddie: Nice.
I look forward to seeing that in 20, 30, 40 years, whenever you decide to retire,
Shawn: sure.
Eddie: So just kind of wrapping up your journey now you're a developer
advocate what sticks out to you as a developer advocate versus a straight
developer and what do you enjoy in that and what keeps you going day to day?
Shawn: So I guess the main difference is that you don't maintain production code.
It's not true that you don't write code at all because you actually have
to write code really well for your demos to work and for your ability
to answer questions from your users.
The main responsibility for a dev advocate would be content.
Because that's the thing that startups most need and specifically
developer focused content.
And really it's just a rebranding of marketing because most marketing fails
so epically when trying to relate things that developers want and need.
So the idea is to hire developers, to talk to other developers.
And it seems to have worked out such that people are really investing in that.
I think that can get over excited about it though, because at the end of the
day, you're still not a real engineer.
there's still a ceiling in terms of what a developer advocate can go.
There's no established career track from standard engineer
to manager, to VP, to CTO.
You're never gonna do that.
So a lot of developer advocates probably end up as teachers as independent teachers
doing their courses, because if you could teach for one company, why can't
you teach 10 different companies and get a pretty good income based on that.
The other people, for example, like myself, I tend toward more products.
So in other words, if I ever left developer advocacy, I would want to
work more on product management because that's where I have more impact.
The tricky thing about developer advocates is that it's kind of regarded to be your
job, to talk to as many users as possible.
But at the same time, you have the least power to do anything,
to change the product apart from just begging and pleading with
your product engineering team.
So there's a spectrum and I think this is an industry that's still being developed.
Eddie: It's good to see the different routes people can take.
I know a lot of people don't know about developer advocates so gaining kind of
preview into that, like if they to go that route, what that holds for them is great.
Thank you.
I guess let's dive into the goal of this podcast is to talk about
different things that bring us joy.
So for you, what's something that brings you joy that you'd
like to talk about today?
Shawn: We did a bit of prep before this and the one I picked
was something a left field.
It's a website called Listen Notes and it gives me joy as a user and
as a developer who someday hopes to start a business that's similar.
Listen Notes is an podcast search platform, it indexes all
podcasts and it gives you a very simple, straightforward search.
But the user interface is actually so sensible and it does so much I
just have the best time every time I need to look up something from a
podcast, I need to find a podcast.
It's the first place I turn to because everything else is so bad at it.
Apple, Spotify or everything else, basically doesn't
really respect the open web.
Doesn't really respect the MP3 distributed nature of podcast.
Everyone wants to try to their own podcasting platform on you.
When really, I just wanna look up an episode a simple task
that doesn't do very well.
Listen notes it's just the right mix.
It's created by one guy just indexing the entire web of podcast.
He ran a successful, independent solo business.
And I think it's just great, cuz it makes users happy , makes him happy.
And you know, the tech stack is pretty interesting as well.
Eddie: That's awesome.
I never heard of this before.
I'm really into podcasts.
I've done a couple small podcasts myself over time and yeah, I've
actually never run across it.
I always end up using iTunes podcast cuz like the closest to the open web.
But like you said, it still has a lot to be desired.
How'd you find out about it.
Shawn: The guy posts, about his tech stack every so often, and his
progress as a business on Hacker News and every single time he does it.
It's super outvoted because he's transparent and I think it's very
inspirational that one person can do such an amazing website.
Like you're literally indexing all podcasts.
And you're also doing translations.
To like, whatever 10, 20 different images that he also supports.
So it's like a fully fledged, like web app that has his very high standards
that most teams of 10, 20, a hundred people cannot reach they're so up
their asses about shipping proprietary products that they forget the core user
experience and Listen Notes definitely prioritizes the core user experience.
So one example is try to go to iTunes and try to download
the MP3 file for any podcasts.
iTunes has never heard of an MP3.
why, because they want you to to and subscribe on their player, and it's
so weird that you would take something that so open and try to put around it.
I get the company incentives, but it is just really refreshing when someone
else says people deserve better and makes it . So I really appreciate that.
It brings me a lot of joy.
Also take advantage of by the way is try to embed your podcast into other websites.
So for example, when I was working at Temporal, we would do podcasts and I was
to actually embed it into a blog and put a transcript of the podcast on our blog.
And so we wanted a way to embed the player and all the other players don't have the
right mix of seeking and fast forwarding, playing a 2X adjusting the volume.
Only Listen Notes shows a player in embed that you can sort of
chuck in there on your blog.
If it, it hovers.
It's just a really nice experience to listen while looking through the
transcripts, maybe looking at links that were mentioned by the guests and
it's all supported by Listen Notes.
I'm sure there's features that I don't even know about.
You know what I mean?
Eddie: I'm super impressed.
I've just looked around it a little bit.
As you said, we did a little bit of prep, so I knew you were gonna mention
that and thought, what is this thing?
I've never heard of it.
It looks really exciting.
I think I'm going to be definitely spending some time here.
There's a lot there, like enough that I was like, let me skim it
and find out what all it does.
And I was like, yeah, I'm not gonna figure that out.
in a short time of skimming it.
Shawn: It presents in the way that the authors of the podcasts, once a show
it to you instead of trying to hide it in favor of the platform's priorities.
Very simple things like show notes.
A lot of platforms just hide them from you because again, want you to play
the podcast and download their app or whatever, but Listen Notes is web
first, so that just shows up there.
It's just clean and really nice.
I really appreciate.
It's just the internationalization you can see like there's all these languages that
are supported and it's the same person.
I really appreciate that because so much of the world doesn't speak English.
It's not like the podcast is translated at all, but it's just
more usable software for people.
Eddie: Yeah, that's amazing.
I worked at another company couple years ago and we had like an engineering
team of like 40 and the topic of internationalization was brought
up and it was like, hush, no one say that word because of the upkeep
and all of the burden and stuff.
So to have one person doing that, that's absolutely amazing and super inspiring.
Shawn: So there's one feature that I wish Listen Notes had that's in a
different app, so It's called Listen Box.
And so what happens is a lot of people start publishing video podcasts on
YouTube, which is just live streams or edited live streams and it's a series and
they don't publish the MP3 anywhere else.
So what Listen Box does is it starts to help you strip the audio from the
video and just listen to the audio.
You could listen on the YouTube player itself, but it's just nice
to have an audio only experience you're doing other stuff.
you can listen like a podcast, and obviously maybe you're missing out
something on screen, like the visual aids or the facial expressions.
but still you get to skim the content without using your eyes.
And I think that's just really a nice experience and I wish that these
two sites that start with listen in their name would combine by.
Eddie: I actually had a podcast that I was interested in, but very rarely listened
to because it was only a YouTube video.
I don't subscribe to YouTube.
I can't have it closed down in the background of my phone and listen to
it and it has to be open on the screen they did finally turn into a podcast,
so I won't end up using this for them, but that definitely was a key thing
where like, I wasn't listening because.
I couldn't listen audio only, and this been super handy.
So that is really awesome to see.
And, like you said, they, should do a merger.
If listen box and listen notes is listening, start
talking, you should merge.
Shawn: Please get together.
Yeah, exactly.
Eddie: As a community, we really love to support each other.
And so one thing that before we wrap up, we'd really love to hear is anything
that we can do to help support you?
Do you have anything that you're involved in or anything you've worked on that
you'd to share with the community that they might be helpful themselves?
Shawn: Yeah.
I wrote a book a couple years ago called the coding career handbook, it's
basically to help, junior level up into senior by talking about everything
that happens after you get the job.
and I think people are very focused on job hunting and interviewing in
terms of tech career advice, books.
But mine is more of a career reflection on, strategy, principles and tactics
that can use to advance a career.
I do a weekly meetup call where it's like a book club led by the author where we
just talk about chapter by chapter and then, check in on the members' lives.
In fact, I'm gonna one in about an hour from this call, it's just a
really good mentorship experience.
If you're interested in that for your team or for yourself.
Eddie: If someone's like a mid-level engineer, do you think this
would still be helpful for them?
Shawn: Honestly, it's just a marketing line.
It really applies to everyone that is interested in personal
growth applied for developers.
You scope it down so that you have a cohort of people who
are roughly about the same.
stage in life, right?
So that's really what I'm trying to optimize for, because I think
that's the biggest gap in the market.
That's something that I personally went through as well so I have a lot
of credibility when talking about it.
We have engineering managers in our calls.
We have one VP of Eng who was really enjoying our conversations because
he loves providing his perspective.
And I think you'll also just pick interesting ideas that don't really
have anything to do with level.
They're just interesting ideas, period.
Personally for me I have had a really lucky, fortunate career as a content
creator and a lot developers when they want to start out doing that.
they kind of tune in for that as well.
Eddie: Awesome.
Where can they find your book that you wrote.
Shawn: Yeah, it's at LearnInPublic.org and that's basically the foremost principle
of everything and anything that I do.
So I just bought domain I hope to turn it into a nonprofit someday, but
right now it's just a book sales site.
Eddie: Awesome.
so if that speaks to anyone listening, right?
Whether you're a junior engineer or a VP of engineering, go check
that out, LearnInPublic.org.
And, thank you Swyx for joining us today, just talking about something
that brings you joy on the internet.
Shawn: Thank you.
This brought me a lot of joy to it.
Eddie: Thanks for joining us for Episode 4, "Creating Something
from Nothing" with Shawn Wang.
You can find out more about Shawn on his Twitter @Swyx.
You can find links to everything we talked about in this episode, as well as a link
to Shawn's Twitter in the show notes.
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider rating and reviewing it in
your favorite podcast directory and following us on Twitter @WebJoyFM.
Thank you and have a great day!
Next episode on web joy.
Michael: And it's once you learn that skill of being okay.
Being uncomfortable and not knowing, it really does feel like a superpower.
And now that I've been doing this for almost a decade now, it's very clear that
anytime I come to learn a new topic or I start that journey, I get excited because
of all the failures that I know I'm going to have all the frustrations that
I know I'm gonna have to endure, being able to push past that and understand
that there is a light where you come.
victorious.
Eddie: "Instead of Using Fire, I Use Ice" with Michael Lando.