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From Log Homes to Log Files: Ian McKain's Path to Tech
34 Plays5 months ago
What does it take to transition from building log homes to building enterprise applications? In this episode, I sit down with Ian McKain to unpack his incredible journey into the small-screen world. From earning his first paycheck at 14 to running his own construction company at 18, Ian’s early career was all about grit, resilience, and hard work.
But when the 2011 housing crisis hit, Ian had to pivot. Over the years, he launched businesses—including a hookah lounge and a coffee shop empire—and dabbled in real estate, all while chasing fulfillment. Eventually, his quest led him to coding, where late nights and long hours of self-teaching paid off in a big way. Now a Senior Engineer releasing enterprise applications, Ian reflects on the lessons he learned, the risks he took, and the mindset shifts that helped him rewrite his career.
This is a story of reinvention, proving that with determination and a willingness to adapt, you can transform your life—no matter where you start. Whether you're looking to break into tech or seeking inspiration to make your next big move, this episode is packed with practical advice and powerful insights.
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Transcript
Introduction and Backgrounds
00:00:24
Speaker
In order to understand what this podcast is all about, you need to do something first. You need to believe that all things are possible. My name is Henry St. Just. My story is pretty simple. I am an immigrant. I am an Afro-American. I went from college dropout to software architect.
00:00:51
Speaker
And you can too.
Guest Introduction: Ian McCain
00:01:01
Speaker
Welcome, welcome to Degree Optional. Today we have Ian McCain. ah Ian, first and foremost, I'd like to thank you for accepting the invitation to be on Degree Optional and sharing your background um and how you got into tech and delivering um enterprise grade application at scale. um So before we get started, can you tell our listeners more about yourself?
00:01:27
Speaker
Yeah, then thanks for having me. Been really looking forward to doing this. Really, really love the idea too. Super super cool idea for a podcast and platform. um Yeah, I'm Ian McCain, a senior software engineer for a little company called NetJets. And man, a little bit about myself.
00:01:50
Speaker
um Yeah, i I have a very non-traditional background in terms of my career. And and when I say non-traditional, I mean even well beyond just the tech space and the non-traditional format of of how people get into tech. I have a pretty non-traditional career path for any career for that matter.
Early Career and Lessons Learned
00:02:15
Speaker
um And you know the the journey for me ah
00:02:22
Speaker
transitioning into tech was ah was a long, winding road. So just a ah little bit about you know where I came from. um
00:02:34
Speaker
So from a career perspective, you know, I had my first official job when I was 14 years old, I was actually telemarketer when I was 14. I've always worked, you know, I've always tried to do something with my time that I felt was going to be worthwhile.
00:02:54
Speaker
um And that one, you know i I wanted to actually like get a paycheck and not just do like the the mowing lawns or um you know random little jobs and stuff that that I would find. you know People from church or whatever, whenever you're and for your kid, you you get what you can find. right so um I actually had to get a work permit for that job. I convinced my parents to go down to the
00:03:26
Speaker
courthouse or whatever and file for work permit, ah but that was actually really good. I made like 16 bucks an hour at 14 doing telemarketing. It was soulless, but it was good. Okay. Okay. Nice. So, so it was, it was hourly. It wasn't um like, what's that vector, like the knife's company where, you know, they got all of us when we were younger.
00:03:48
Speaker
yeah I had so many friends that worked for them. and Yeah. um No, it it was hourly. ah You got commissions if you you get bonuses more than anything. I called for fraternal order of police in Special Olympics of Pennsylvania.
00:04:05
Speaker
So it was more donations and nonprofit kind of stuff, which made it a lot better. At least I could feel somewhat okay about doing that. ah But yeah, it was a very interesting ah first job. That's for sure.
00:04:20
Speaker
um And you know, while I had that job too, um i I worked construction as well. So from the time I was like, I don't know, like 13, 14 years old. I was on job sites as a gopher. Just give me this, give me that. I'm picking up nails, you know, that kind of thing. And so I worked construction for quite a long time all the way through high school. And ah and i was when I was so I turned, my birthday's in October, so it's towards the end of the year. So 2008, turned 18, got my contractor's license somewhere around like November, I believe, um and started a construction company.
00:05:08
Speaker
oh Mainly building log homes 2009 to 2012 is around, you know, early 2012 we, we started to shut down.
Reflections on Education and Self-learning
00:05:21
Speaker
um And that was.
00:05:25
Speaker
You know, for me, it was one of those things I always kind of saw like career path and in school was separate kind of things. I was someone who self-learned quite a lot. You know, i I read all the time from the time I was a kid, you know, I started like, I've always read.
00:05:44
Speaker
read books. I started reading chapter books when I was like ah seven, eight years old. um and I used to read a lot. yeah I read my first Nietzsche book when I was 15.
00:06:00
Speaker
and um yeah as I got really into philosophy and and a lot of other things around political science, and that's why I ended up studying in college. but um i've always I've always been a big proponent of self-learning. My career, my career my my schooling and and learning were very separated for me. they they weren't They weren't entangled. I feel like it's a big difference for most people, including all of my friends. you know there's And most people kind of put those two things very hand in hand. You know, you have school, then you have career. And to me, it was...
00:06:38
Speaker
career in school or separate paths. um And you know to the to that end as well, um school wasn't a huge priority for me. you know I had my construction company when I was 18. I had jobs. I had money coming in. I felt like my career, I could kind of do whatever I wanted to really do.
00:07:02
Speaker
um And school was never a huge priority. And that comes from other things, just kind of where I grew up. um And you know as a kid, you you have a lot of external influences from from various things, you know other other friends, other friends, parents, people around you, the school system itself. right so um You know, those, those waters can be really tough to navigate as a kid because you don't really know what you're doing. And honestly, anyone under the age of 23 is a kid to me. yeah yeah because because um I think scientifically it says your brain is not fully developed until you're 25. Yeah. And I, I'm fully there. I fully believe that. I remember back when I was, when I was 25, absolutely. um And so yeah, I mean, I,
00:07:54
Speaker
you know it It took me a while to really find what I wanted to do, but um since school wasn't a huge priority, I i was i was honestly pretty bad at it, and mainly because of homework. you know there was There's a big systematic approach to how school works. you know you you do your, you know, you follow and step and you do the work and you do what has to be done in order to get the grade. um I have never really been that kind of person. I i kind of, um you know, make my own path and in a lot of ways and so school was
00:08:31
Speaker
not really something that that I saw a lot of value in. And it's unfortunate, too, because I wish I had. I'm not saying either that that's like a good approach. I don't think it is. Embrace school. You know, I i wish I had looking back um because I could have learned more. Right. I i could be better even you know than I am now. And that's really important to to know so.
00:08:55
Speaker
Yeah, just to dig into that a little bit. um I also feel like the school system, the way they teach is broken, right? And it hasn't been um ah thought on to improve upon that safe system since the beginning. And if you go back to, you said you're into like, laaf um um philosophy, right? So if you go back to the days of Socrates and then Plato, the way they they learned and they taught was um to apprenticeship, right? You have you have a master and you have an apprentice. ah And then even looking back at Alexander the Great, his mentor and his teacher, when he was I think around 12 years old was Socrates. um So like,
00:09:42
Speaker
ah These things, they're they're related. that That's why like the system that they had worked, and it built great empires and great people, men of valor. So if you look at the school system, if they were to incorporate apprenticeship, like going into an industry and following somebody, shadowing somebody, that would be beneficial for us.
00:10:04
Speaker
Oh, totally agree. Totally agree. And I think there are some there are some education options that that do offer that kind of thing. And you know I think everyone learns differently. I'm fully a proponent of different types of intelligences right and and tailoring your studies and your learning towards those.
00:10:23
Speaker
um But yeah, I 100% agree. I think it can be really tough with our current system, especially in America.
00:10:35
Speaker
um because it's become so processed to death more than anything. You know, they they basically had to create this extremely bureaucratic system in order to achieve consistency or fairness or whatever you might say. and I think that kind of, it it bogs down the entire process. And I think you have people, you know, teachers, teachers have a very, very, very hard job. um I've had teachers in my in my personal life that I've i've known pretty well and um you know it it really opened up a lot of perspective to me later on whenever I got to kind of hear about their daily lives and the things that they deal with.
00:11:23
Speaker
um And just how inspiring it can be and how sad it can also be. um you know I had a good friend who worked in a very poor po school district and ah they had a career day and ah the kids, there were multiple children that were like, why would I need a career? I'll just get my check in the mail like my parents.
00:11:44
Speaker
And it's it's really hard to judge that because it's like, well, these kids these kids just, they follow what they know, right?
00:11:56
Speaker
their their world is, and everyone's world is so singular to themselves, right? So everyone's perspective is is so influenced by these very important people in your life, like your parents and your teachers. And I think it can be really tough to gain some of that outside perspective um for ah for a lot of kids, right? And so the the learning system is very tough because you get a lot of teachers that I think become disenfranchised and then just kind of do the, okay, here's a worksheet, fill it out. You get your 10 points, move on. That's the part of school that I always found pointless. um And this kind of good segue into this, right? Because I, you know, I went into my senior year with a 1.8 GPA. And i the fact that I'm saying that on a podcast too, please don't judge me anyone that listens to this. Um, I do have, I do have some brain in here. Um, but I just, I didn't fall in line. Um, you know, I, I wasn't, I wasn't goose stepping in the parade, so to speak. Right. So, um, I had a, I had a teacher in high school.
00:13:10
Speaker
and is the only teacher I've had that was honest about the world. He was a history teacher. He was actually one of the first Green Berets ever he fought in Vietnam and was a part of the Green Beret Unit whenever they first created the Green Berets during Vietnam.
00:13:27
Speaker
And just a really interesting, super intelligent guy, a huge history nerd, which I am a massive history nerd. I love history. And so I really loved him. He was my favorite teacher. And so this is my junior year that I had him, my junior year of high school. And It was probably the only class that I did anything in. Everything else, I ah just didn't care. But the first, I'll never forget it, the first day of school.
00:14:01
Speaker
We go into his class and he's just got a, he's got a stack of papers in his hands and he goes, everything you've ever learned and will continue to learn after this class will never help you in the real world. Everything you've done has not prepared you for what the real world or what college is going to give you. This class will.
00:14:25
Speaker
And he said, what I have here is a syllabus. And in this syllabus is everything you have to do for the year. So just like college, right? He ran it just like a college class. We had ah we had lecture days on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays where he would get up and he would talk. And then the last 15 minutes of class, we had time to work on whatever we wanted, his work or not.
00:14:52
Speaker
and be able to talk to him and ask him questions. Tuesdays and Thursdays were open days. We could work on anything we wanted. We could sleep. We could work on other homework. We could work on stuff for his class, or we could ask him questions. It was kind of his office hours, right? so And he even said, you know there are no everything's laid out right here in the syllabus. If you want to get all your work done now, great. Do it.
00:15:18
Speaker
If you don't do anything, that's fine. I don't care. um And that was the only class that that really prepared me for any kind of college structure or anything with life and I really respected him for that and I really liked him and I'll never forget this because um I owe a lot to that man too because he kind of changed around a lot of my view. you know ah the So the high school I went to actually, um I had 600 kids in my graduating class. um Only 500 of them actually graduated. So we had 100 dropouts.
00:15:55
Speaker
Wow. I was prepared to drop out even because I had, you know, i I had money, I was working construction, I had other jobs as well and other income. um I was very self-reliant. I didn't feel like I really needed school. And that's just part of where you grow up, right? Sometimes and then who you're around.
00:16:16
Speaker
um
00:16:20
Speaker
I remember my family was going on a vacation and they give you those pink slips, right? That you got to go have them sign. And I had all my teachers sign it and get around to to Mr. Wilson here. And I was like, Hey, I'm going on vacation. It was after class. I was like, Hey, I'm going on vacation. Would you care to sign this? And he goes, No, I won't sign that.
00:16:42
Speaker
and just walked away from me. I was like, I thought he was joking, right? yeah yeah he was Like, wait, what do you mean? Like this is just, you just, you sign it. And he was like, no, I, I, I refuse to, you don't deserve a vacation. And I was like, Oh wow. I was like, wait, what, what do you mean? He was like, I don't like you. He goes, you are lazy. You don't apply yourself. You don't use your ability to do anything worthwhile.
00:17:11
Speaker
And so I don't think you deserve to have any kind of vacation and I will not sign that. And I was crushed because I loved this guy. That was the first time he had ever said anything like that to me. And I like I was so just inspired by him and I related to him and it really bothered me. So, you know, I kind of.
00:17:33
Speaker
I reflected on that a lot. um You know, I did a lot of self self reflection and self actualization around that comment. And I really tried. So I started trying more and really putting effort into it, writing better papers for his class and really putting some time. And we had a total.
00:17:59
Speaker
180, we became you know pretty close. um he He was a he was a sh strong mentor to me for sure. That's awesome. um Just to like jump into that, um right you you from the story, from what your your background and your journey, it it feels like you know like environment played a big role.
00:18:20
Speaker
and um how you thought about school and then your interaction with Mr. Wilson, ah you know that interaction played a pivotal role and you know that 180 that you guys did or that you did and started focusing and and doing your homework and your um the papers, right? Like putting an effort into it. Would you say that was a pivotal role and in your journey to, I don't know,
00:18:46
Speaker
Uh, where you are, and where you are now. Absolutely.
College Journey and Challenges
00:18:50
Speaker
Yeah. 100%. I think without that, I don't know where I would have been to be perfectly honest. Like I said, I was, I was fully prepared to just not be in school. I mean, I, like, like I said, I finished out my junior year with a 1.8 and the only reason I got that was because I tried in his class. Um,
00:19:10
Speaker
And I i remember it towards the end of my junior year too, Mr. Wilson was like, you got to do something. You you have way too much.
00:19:23
Speaker
Wait, and this is gonna sound pretentious and I don't mean for it to sound pretentious, but he gives you, you know, you have way too much of a brain to waste it doing nothing and just working in construction and just, you know, wasting your life. Like, well, don't do it. Go to college, do something, learn something, be better.
00:19:44
Speaker
And that was hugely important. um That that was ah was an extremely pivotal moment for me in my life. um And I owe him a lot. And I stayed i stayed in touch with him for you know several years after that. um and That was what motivated me because, you know, at that point it was like, okay, well, I, yeah, I'll go to college. I need to listen to this guy. I trust this guy. He's the only person that's ever been honest with me. He was the only adult that I felt was really honest with me about like what life is and was honest with me about like, you know, he even said like, I don't like you. Like just straight up like he didn't like me because he felt like I was just wasting my life.
00:20:27
Speaker
And he was right. yeah i I was. So i you know i I wanted to fix that. I wanted to improve that. And um i so I buckled down. Senior year comes around. I made sure to actually do my work. I wanted to get into college. So I got a 4.0 my senior year, um which was the first time I had ever done that.
00:20:52
Speaker
in the history of school um for me, ah just so I can get into college. And I fought tooth and nail to be able to get into college. I had to go and talk to the admissions director. like it was It was a whole thing. And quite honestly, the only reason that I really got in that they really took a chance on me um and let me into the the school was because of the recommendation letter from Mr. Wilson, which if I do recall clocked in at around like five pages. Like he wow
00:21:25
Speaker
he really stood up for me and went to bat for me in a lot of ways. And you know, I own a lot. And a lot of people don't get that either. That's the thing is like, I had a very, um I was very lucky, you know, in some ways, I think some of this stuff is is come down, comes down to luck. Because when you're a kid, you just don't know what you're doing, right? You think you're invincible, you think you know everything. Um,
00:21:52
Speaker
And of course you do, right? You have a very small small window of perspective. And it was um it was definitely the the one thing that really opened my eyes. So I i finally you know was able to get into college.
00:22:14
Speaker
um I attended Marietta College in Marietta, Ohio, which is across the river from where I'm from, from you know, Parkersburg, West Virginia, um where I majored in political science with a minor in philosophy. ah So those are useless, right? and but But I loved it, right? I i loved paul i loved domestic politics. I'm a huge history nerd.
00:22:42
Speaker
um Especially in, you know, the political climate. ah It was something that was extremely interesting international politics, mainly a focus on Middle Eastern studies. It was my focus in college. um And, you know, even in college, you know, I i did the.
00:23:03
Speaker
you know I tried to fit into the box of of what college provides, right? um But going to liberal arts college, you end up having to do a lot of courses that have nothing to do with your but your career path or what you want to do. So by the time I was a junior, I had actually finished out my capstone and all my 400s for um political science and for philosophy.
00:23:25
Speaker
Okay. And um that was, you know, part of kind of my my motivation when I did leave school. But, um you know, just kind of before getting into that. um I attended college 2009 and at this point um I had had the construction company for, I mean started that pretty early in the year. It was like March when we started in 2009.
00:23:57
Speaker
um So that was when we started the construction company that is. So yeah, it was, you know, probably six months.
Entrepreneurial Ventures
00:24:08
Speaker
oh I had had that about, but we were doing great. We were building long homes. Um, things were going very well. You know, I had contacts in that space, so it was, it was fairly easy to to get things moving. And then, um, you know, I actually had a couple other jobs too as a merchandiser for Scott's miracle grow as well when I was in college, because they paid ridiculous. It was insane. I okay hardly had to do anything. I made like 25 bucks an hour or something like that. It's like, yeah, whatever. I'll do it. Nice. um Yeah my schedule i also worked at a fine dining restaurant on weekends which i was the worst server you can ever imagine i was terrible at it but people like me so the the owner kept me around.
00:24:52
Speaker
but um You know, I, my schedule in college was crazy. So I had, I had those three jobs. So I'd wake up every morning at like four, five a.m. I'd run like, you know, cause this is back when I was fit. Not so much anymore. You know, I'd run like, I'd run five miles, um, first thing in the morning and then I would head to our office around like so six o'clock. Um,
00:25:19
Speaker
I get the guys ready, ah get the crew ready to go out to the job site, wherever that was. you know We built a lot of things locally, and then we had a lot of subcontracted jobs, Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina, Colorado as well. I think the furthest we went out was Colorado. but um And so I'd go to the office, get them prepared, and then I would always have my first class around like 9 AM, m something like that. And I tried to schedule all my classes.
00:25:48
Speaker
real early so I could get them done first thing in the day. And then after that, I would go and do my merchant. I would usually go and hit up my merchandising job because I could do that. And, you know, it took me like 45 minutes per day kind of deal. And then I would go out to any local job sites. We had checkup, make sure things were fine. um You know, be there if I needed to be there. And then um Depending on the day, you know, I would then go and go to my fine dining job and I would be a server and do that. And then somehow I would go and hang out with friends to I don't know how I had a social life. I have zero battery anymore. And I think it's because I earned it all out really early. yeah
00:26:34
Speaker
but Yeah, I still don't know how I did it. But i um during that time, you know while I was in school having in the construction company, it was a pretty bad time to start a construction company. That was when the housing bubble happened, in case there were some young folks ah listening to this. ah the housing The housing crash in 08, 09 really hurt.
00:27:02
Speaker
contractors and and people that were building. um So around 2011, banks stopped lending money completely. ah And it just it just wasn't available. So the work was starting to really dwindle down. I saw the writing on the wall and um started to look for an exit plan. So I had started ah i started a hookah lounge.
00:27:23
Speaker
which was funny so being in political science i i went to a lot of political conventions i was in dc quite often um and i would go to hoover lounges when i was in dc you know go out with people and you go to hoover lounges it was fun and so i was i was used to the concept and i was in a college town small college town but college town nonetheless
00:27:47
Speaker
I was trying to think about what other you know career options, what other business options are there um that are pretty good money. so know That was one of the ones I thought of. I started doing some math, of wrote up a business plan. Profit margins were insane. ah We had 44 cents per hookah and average 15 out the door. so um yeah Markup of 3,333%. I think is what it ended up being, um, which is insane markup, uh, very low overhead. And you know, I could still be in school and be around the hook launch because it was right down the road from the college. And so, um, you know, I started that and started work on that in 2011, uh, opened in 2012. And then that's when we also shut down the construction company. Okay. Um, and.
00:28:40
Speaker
After that, you know, I like the hookah lines was going well, we were making money. um You know, I had I had everything I needed from a career perspective. And I got to the point my after my junior year, I'd finished all my capstones, my four hundreds. All I had left was like.
00:28:57
Speaker
just Gen Ed's and I didn't and I somewhat regret this today still. um But I was like, you know what, I'm not ever going to do anything with this degree. I'm just going to leave. You know, ah what's the point of continuing to pay for this? um And, you know, i'm I'm glad I even had that option, right? The fact that I had options available is not something that a lot of people get. um So I keep that in perspective too, whenever I think, because it's not so easy to just say, I'll just go do your own thing, whatever. Like that's it not, not everyone has, um has that.
00:29:39
Speaker
option to them, right? So, and it took, it took years. I mean, by the time I was able to do this, you know, I'd been, uh, I'd been working setting up doing things and with my own company now for years by this point, right? So it was something that I got into very early on. And so I i went ahead and I left school, um, and focused on that full time. Um, and then it kind of just, you know, snowballed from there. So, uh,
00:30:08
Speaker
had the Hoogle Lounge for four and a half years, sold it in 2016. Before I sold it though, I had bought a coffee shop um with a partner, bought that in 2015. We expanded that one to four different locations, um had a you know net increase weeks, man. It was like 320 something percent. i I can't remember exactly what it was. Net revenue increase over the three years that I was involved. So to 2018.
00:30:41
Speaker
um And it was good. I i enjoyed it. I did a lot. Director of business development was my role um in that and that company. So I was not a managing director or anything like that, a managing partner. i i was I was more on the business side. so ah But it was really enjoyable. and I enjoyed my time doing it. I i got to learn a lot.
00:31:00
Speaker
um And then, like I said, sold to Hookah Lounge shortly after that. you know Hookah just was kind of fell off. it It wasn't really something that people were doing anymore. Especially when you're dealing with colleges, you have a constantly rotating customer base. right So you have four years of classes. And if you have the you know your juniors and your seniors love to go out and do that, well, as soon as they're rotated out, those underclassmen, those ones are now in that position, they don't do it at all. right so you You lose an entire customer base. and and It was okay. I was ready to be kind of done with it. I'm staying up. i mean There were times we weren't restricted by any kind of hours like other bars are. so
00:31:49
Speaker
um I can remember times where we didn't close until like 6 30 in the morning. um So that was that was a lot. You know, you're you're there literally like 16 18 hours a day and you know, it was good money, but I just I got sick of it. So um you know Sold off on that, started investing in some real estate, which was just kind of a sad thing. And then yeah I was like, I just really want, and I was doing the i was doing the coffee shop stuff, and and I was making money with with the coffee shop, you know no complaints there, but ah just I wanted normalcy, I wanted a 401k, I wanted healthcare, I wanted someone just to give me a paycheck.
Transition to Tech: Coding Journey
00:32:33
Speaker
You need to forget about things because when you have your own business and and when you even even with a partner, right everything falls on you. it is You are constantly on call. i I always wanted to travel and go out of the country and and do things and I never got to do those things because I never felt like I could be away. That's really tough.
00:32:57
Speaker
so I just wanted normalcy just like the just like my friends, you know, they they had normalcy in their lives. And that's kind of what I get for, you know, the price I pay for not having a non traditional path. But um yeah, I just um I wanted all that stuff. And so ah That's when I i sold my half of the coffee shop. I was focused on the the real estate stuff and then just finding a job. I got in with a Fortune 200 doing business development ah for them. um And you know I was just kind of bored with the work. Honestly, i my job was insanely easy. I hardly worked truthfully.
00:33:40
Speaker
ah And it, I had a lot of free time. Like I had a ton of free time. And in fact, it's funny because whenever I talk to people about this, they're like, man, why would you leave? That's great. You could sit around and do nothing. And oh my God, I hate that so much. Every time I talk to someone and they say that to me, it's like,
00:33:58
Speaker
I don't know how, how anyone could be comfortable doing that personally. That's me personally, right? Like I, I, I feel the same way. Like, you know, you sit down and you're not doing anything and you feel unfulfilled even though you're getting paid, but you're unfulfilled. So it doesn't align with your passion, your purpose at all. So yeah. Yeah. And you know, for some people, like if that works for you, that's fine. Right. Um, but for me, I just,
00:34:24
Speaker
I couldn't do it. So, um, I, I wanted to fill my time up with things that mattered because all I was doing was, you know, talking to, you know, dealing with business owners, uh, in the Columbus area and then playing all the golf. That was, that was a lot of what I did. So, um,
00:34:44
Speaker
you know, just wanted to, wanted to actually do something. And that's why I started teaching myself how to code. Um, and. For me, it actually helped me within that ah within that role too, the business development role, um because I was able to ah able to write you know some visual basic scripts for my Excel sheets and automate a bunch of stuff for my job. like I had tools that I had built that made my job um
00:35:16
Speaker
super easy, like I could get done, like what took other people like a week and a half to do, I could have done in 15 minutes. oh And so that's why I had so much free time, right? too Like I, my free time became exponential. Like I was using my free time to learn and then using that learning to apply to my job, which gave me more free time. So it just, it just grew and grew and grew. And I had more time to be able to devote to this. And you know, I realized that you ever like,
00:35:47
Speaker
Did you ever externalize that, like the the macros or the the programs that you were writing? Did you give them to some of your colleagues as well, or you just kept them to yourself? I did. I tried. I reached out to my boss like, Hey, I, you know, I made this tool. Like what, you know, can we use this for the region? Whatever. And everything I made got shot down because there was some rules and you know, corporate is corporate, right? So there's rules in the corporate industry where they they didn't want um cottage industry kind of tools popping up. They, they wanted,
00:36:26
Speaker
if you were going to use a tool at that company and needed to come from the company. So they didn't, my boss had like, he was in love with it. He was like, this is awesome. And, you know, approached it to the senior director and all the other things. And, um, and they were like, yeah, no, yeah he shouldn't even be using this. So stop. And I i was like, well, I'm not going to, but whatever. yeah It's not like you guys are go to know But I did have coworkers that did use it. Yeah. the The ones local to me that, you know, I trusted. And so i I gave to certain people, which made their jobs a lot easier. They would text me and be like, like, I don't have to do anything. This is awesome. Thanks again for that. That's like, yeah, that's what, you know, some people, they use their time for the family or use their time to sit around and do nothing. and That's fine. You know, whatever. But so was that, was that your first language that you learned visual basic? So yeah, this is, and this is what's funny. Like.
00:37:23
Speaker
And I know we were talking about this a little bit, but I, um, you know, for me, like I've always been very hands on and like different kinds of tech and very interested in like technology and and new upcoming things. And, um,
00:37:43
Speaker
And that just like how computers worked in the first place, like even today with the code that I write now, like it's so magic to me that like it's it's amazing. It really is. It's like it's like magic. And I i love it. It's the most interesting thing. And I.
00:38:04
Speaker
You know, i I had started messing around with some command line stuff whenever I was younger as a kid. um And I was doing coding stuff that I didn't even realize that I was doing things that could be used later, you know. um And so.
00:38:24
Speaker
I won't go into a lot of that, but and there was kind of like my big one. I started building Hackintoshes, and if any Apple lawyers are listening, please don't come after me. I don't do it anymore. But I used to build Hackintoshes, and if you're unfamiliar with what a Hackintoshes is, it's basically a custom-built PC using ah very powerful, good components, more powerful components than what Apple used to produce. I mean, this is back in like, you know, 2009,
00:38:54
Speaker
early you know mid 2000s or mid 2010s. And so the the mac the Mac hardware that was coming out in those machines was pretty bad, honestly. It's not like it is today. The the M chips are crazy powerful. But back then, it it wasn't. you know They were using like Intel Pentiums and stuff. It was just bad. um So I was building these custom-built PCs and then basically split partitioning drives for Windows and then for Mac OS.
00:39:30
Speaker
When you do that, you have to write some, uh, you have to write some boot loaders and things. Uh, a lot of this stuff you can get from, uh, from websites. So ah shout out to Tony Mac 86. Um, I can't believe I still actually remember that. Um, but there were some custom, uh, hardware components that, that I had got for a couple of the builds that I did for people. Um,
00:39:58
Speaker
that I ended up having to write some custom boot loaders for. um And that that was my first kind of like real foray into writing code. I had no clue what I was doing. Like before, like before that, it was like HTML stuff, you know, um like Web things and then just the command line stuff that I was just kind of like a blind squirrel just typing stuff in the command line and seeing what would come out of it. Right. um And so.
00:40:39
Speaker
I. I don't really know what I was doing, but but I was able to get stuff done right through perseverance and just continuing to try yeah and. It was fun. I really enjoyed doing it. That was the only reason I did it. I got paid anywhere from $100 to $300 for building these machines for people. And I didn't really care about making money. It was people that were friends of mine, right? So it wasn't about the money. I just enjoyed building PCs and doing that stuff. So I don't know. I did probably 20 of them. OK. It was fun. I loved it. And so that was my first kind of entry into that.
00:41:20
Speaker
You know, I had done other things with code. And like I said, I didn't really even realize that that what I was working on were things that could actually like transition into a career path. um I always ah saw myself as I,
00:41:41
Speaker
you know, I've never been down on myself. I've always seen myself as intelligent in ways that I felt intelligent, which was, you know, business, um, you know, definitely self-motivated self self-learning. Right. Like I, I had my own, um,
00:42:03
Speaker
I had my own.
00:42:08
Speaker
kind of view around what my intelligence could offer and and what kind of intelligence I have, right? Like I said, I'm a proponent, definitely a proponent of multiple different types of intelligence. And so anytime I thought about computers or people that write code,
00:42:23
Speaker
um I always saw those people as just beyond intelligent. and you You think about someone that that writes code, and I was amazed by those people who's so interesting to me. It's like, how can you be so smart? How how can you figure that out? I always looked down on myself in that way. like I was like there's no like, I can't do it. ah like I can't be that. know i'm I'm not that smart. There's no way. And so I never really went at it like I should have.
00:42:52
Speaker
Yeah, so when you thought about somebody who programs a software engineer, who who did you think about like the Elon Musk, the Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg? Yeah, I mean, Steve Jobs for sure. And you know, here's what's funny about that, too, is, um you know, as as someone who's a fledgling entrepreneur early on as a kid, you know, you will look at you you look up to some of those some of those people that have started from nothing and grown into these just
00:43:27
Speaker
giants of industry, right? um They can be hugely motivating and their stories can can shed a lot of light on kind of what what a good path looks like and shed a lot of light on, you know, what is necessary to make that happen. And when you look at Steve Jobs, right? Like, yeah, he was a developer, he was a programmer, but he was a crap programmer. He wasn't even right at it.
00:43:57
Speaker
Steve Jobs was a businessman. Steve Jobs was an idea guy. And that's what's interesting to me, right? Because whenever I looked at Steve Jobs, I was very inspired by Steve Jobs as an ah as an early entrepreneur. He was very inspiring to me. And I took a lot of motivation from him um as a person, right, as an entity. But I also knew his story and I knew that everything he did, Steve Wozniak is the one who built it. right so You have this incredibly intelligent genius of a man who is one of the most humble people on the planet.
00:44:41
Speaker
to the point where he donated everything he had. I mean, the dude was this I don't know if he is anymore, but I know he was a school teacher for a long time after he left Apple, um you know, back in his hometown. And you you look at you look at Steve Wozniak and it's like this is someone who is so far beyond intelligent, like that he just doesn't even care about money, career. ah it's It's just not even on its radar. and it's like that That was hard for me to even understand, I think, too. Because it was like, I'll never be that smart that I can just like not care about what my income is. like i'll just yeah I'll never be that.
00:45:34
Speaker
right and so you know i I looked at things like that and like, yeah, you know um this is ah this isn't something I can do. you know I went to high school with kids ah ah that went and got engineering degrees and and they were in all the AP classes and just really intelligent. I kind of looked down upon myself in a lot of ways um because you know I didn't focus in school and I always felt like I could have, maybe I could have done it, but it was never something that I really tried. So I i didn't think I had the the intelligence. I didn't think I had the the ability or the know how to be able to do it. I just didn't think my mind worked that way. And that that was really I think that was really the only time that I actually ever um you know really doubted myself. If I'm honest, I
00:46:30
Speaker
you know i use that I use that time as a motivational tool for myself nowadays. like You can do anything if you just try. Put your mind to it. Try. you know i and Even looking back, it is strange to think that I felt that way about that when I am so comfortable with failure. and If you're going to be a software engineer, especially self-taught, you have to be okay with failure.
00:46:53
Speaker
like i am I am 100% a full proponent of mountainous or mountain of failure pit of success. um And I think that applies so well to people that go to college and get into a career, whether that be in software development or not, right? People that go and get CS degrees because, number one, they have, like I know people who have CS degrees who do not do any coding in their free time. They do not care. They really don't even like it all that much, but they know how to do it and they're good at it, right? And we have the brain that works that way.
00:47:34
Speaker
and they put in their soft thirty six and they go home right that's that's kind of their off thirty six yeah man um and And they're fine with that. And that's fine. You know, i'm I'm not saying that everyone needs to like constantly be pushing and in doing all this work for some like large enterprise or even that you need to like necessarily be your own boss or any of that. Right. Like you know do what's best for you. Do what makes you happy. And for a lot of people that enter end into that career, they just have this adeptness
00:48:12
Speaker
from just years of conditioning, schooling, and that repetitive nature to be able to just enter in the workforce fairly easy and be able to to thrive or at the very minimum survive, right? so Sure. um Yeah, i I think about um you know people with people with CS degrees too and just how easy it is to get a role regardless of if you like it or not once you have that piece of paper like that or if you're good at it or not as well so because they have like
00:48:51
Speaker
to have the degree. you So I want to ask you, like, when you when you thought about you mentioned you're self taught, how long did it take you to actually go from I'm going to do this and I'm going to learn about this? Like how many hours did you put in? ah Was it working on the weekends, putting the time in to to learn how to code and and build something? Was it project based? Was it just, you know, tinkering around?
00:49:19
Speaker
Yeah, so great question. um Yeah, so in 2018, after, um you know, after I had sold the coffee shop, I was kind of looking around. Like I said, I was i was trying to find, um sold the coffee shop, you know, mid middle of the year and had my real estate and was looking around for corporate role. And so I was, you know, I was playing around with some things. I was having fun.
00:49:47
Speaker
um nothing really too crazy, just like getting involved in in some web dev stuff and then just like some ah few little command line things. um Yeah, i was I was getting into a little bit of Python as well. And it was just something that I like doing. And so I like, like I said, you know, the visual basic stuff, writing macros for my Excel sheets and another thing, that's that's where it really started to take off for me. And I was like, oh, I think I can actually do this. And so I started. You know, just kind of researching, right? It was like, OK, well, what can I do? Like, what do I want to do? And I had to actually think about it because it's tough when you're researching it on your own, especially coming into this totally fresh. Like I hadn't. Like I had friends that were software engineers.
00:50:43
Speaker
um And they went, they went to straight from college. And so to be honest, they weren't very helpful, right? Because, and I love my friends, but I would say this to the face, right? They were not helpful because they don't have that perspective, right? They went to school, they did the CS or the mechanical engineering or the electrical engineering degree, and then they went out, they got a job. and It's all she wrote. And so to them, it's like, oh, wait, you want to try to start coding? Hmm. Well, you should probably go back to college. It's like, well, I'm not going to do that. So that's all right. So I ended up doing a lot of searching on my own. Right. and Even back then, don't make me sound old, but even back then, like it just wasn't this was only, I mean, what? Seven years, six years ago. Yeah. I mean, six and a half years ago.
00:51:38
Speaker
So um even then, like. you You search things on on the internet. You search things on Google. You you try and find stuff. you You get a lot of noise. You get a lot of things that are just going to try and take your money and and not necessarily like provide you much. And it's really unfortunate. And that's the days of ads. right um But there are some really good free options. And so I started looking, you know just watching YouTube videos. i I was trying to also find what I wanted to do. right like I was ah just playing around with things more than anything. like I started on the visual basic stuff. And I was like, oh, this is cool. What else can I do?
00:52:13
Speaker
And so I started just trying to find new and cool things. and I made a little game. um You know, I started messing around with with unity and and C sharp. And then from there, I was like, I want to write an app. And I started working with WPF. And then I was just kind of like bouncing all over the place. I had no clue what I was doing. I was just I was just all over. And after a while,
00:52:42
Speaker
Like I remember I didn't even use I didn't learn about get until I did my boot camp. Like I had no clue what it was. I had seen things about get like in the Internet and just through my searching and research and like I was like, this looks incredibly confusing. I have no idea what this is. This doesn't make any sense to me. So I i never really got into it. And then, um you know, i I kind of realized after a while I was like,
00:53:11
Speaker
i I can do all these little things, right? I'm i'm learning some stuff. I've been able to ah fumble my way around and be able to write some things that are fun and cool. um But nothing big. I still don't really understand it at the end of the day. um And so I wanted to give myself some more legitimacy.
00:53:33
Speaker
And I had gotten into, uh, well, I guess I should say too. So, uh, through 2018, you know, I was doing this learning and then, um, towards the end of 2018, I had found react and I love, like I, I had a lot of fun with it, right? Cause it's very malleable. You can do a lot of cool things. So I had made some, like, like I said, I made some little games and stuff, just HTML, web, web app games, just little things, you know, tic-tac-toe, you'd like, uh, a, uh,
00:54:03
Speaker
Well, it just used to be hosted. It's actually not hosted anymore. I need to take care of that. ah yeah um Oh man, why can't I think of Mastermind, the code breaker game? This was a lot of fun. I used to play it. Like I made stuff that I wanted, right? So, and then after that I got into React Native, right? And I started working in React Native and cause I wanted to do mobile stuff. I was like, how can I do mobile things? And it was like, oh, well, um, you know, iOS development. I had tried to do iOS development and I like Swift was still.
00:54:39
Speaker
um I think at that time, Swift was still not super mature, if I recall. Was it in 2018 or yeah around 2018, 2019? Yeah. So, so Swift, I think came out like end of 2015.
00:54:58
Speaker
um And then 2016, there was a lot of breaking changes with Swift going from like 2.1 or 1.1 to like 2.1. But yeah, so. There was a lot of examples online either. That was the tough part too. you know you You try and learn things and I mean, got reading and you know this, but like you go onto a website or you go into like ah a like a website for a language, right? You read their documentation. You want to talk about dance. Oh, my goodness. um It takes a while just to even like.
00:55:35
Speaker
be able to read some of those docs and understand what they're trying to say. Like, you know, like the TypeScript documentation is, oh my goodness. That is like, that's one of the densest things I've ever had to read in my life.
00:55:49
Speaker
ye ye ye yeah It was tough getting into that, you know, because it was it was very much all on my own. And so I, you know, I fumbled around with this stuff and I was kind of like all over the place. I didn't really know where to focus or what to do. I was just kind of working on things that like I had popped in my head and got I, um, I did a bootcamp and 2020 pandemic hit, right?
Bootcamp Experience and Self-learning Insights
00:56:14
Speaker
Well, it's like, well, I'm at home. There's nothing to do. Um, so I you was doing all that coding and then I was like, I'm going to do a bootcamp, give myself some legitimacy. Like i I really enjoy doing this. I think I want to do this as like a career, right? Or transition my current career into the space. Yeah. Cause I did like the company I worked for. Um,
00:56:36
Speaker
So I did a bootcamp and that was great. I mean, you know, I'm still close with the guy that I, that taught me in the bootcamp. Um, we're, we're still good friends. Um, was it a group setting bootcamp or was it a one-on-one? It was a group setting. Yeah. So it was an 11 week program. Um, and yeah, it was, it was super beneficial. I, you know, it covered a lot of different areas. Um,
00:57:03
Speaker
the version control was probably the most valuable thing for me, but i I learned a lot of tips and tricks. I learned how to write clean code. I learned how to structure a code base. I learned how to structure a file system. I learned, I learned all the things that like the internet just doesn't teach you, right? Even now you go, like you, you go on YouTube and you search like How do I make a mobile app? How do I do this and react? How do I do this and react native? Whatever. How do I do this with Python? It's going to give you your answer, but it's going to be a very specific. Tailored to that situation answer, and it's also going to give you a very small view of
00:57:54
Speaker
how you would use that kind of implementation, right? yeah and And that's, I think, the the biggest challenge is how do you learn to work within an enterprise project?
00:58:09
Speaker
um and And how do you structure your own projects to
00:58:18
Speaker
to have a better understanding of of how that works whenever you work with multiple people, right? So that was another thing the that the bootcamp did really well was we had a lot of group projects. So we had to work with others and we ran things. We did like two week sprints and all this stuff. And it was very, they tried to prepare us. Like this is what it's like to do development work in the world. And That was really beneficial. So I think i I picked a really good one. I think like talking to other people that have been to boot camps, I feel like mine was a very different experience. It was more tailored towards how can we prepare you for the workforce and not how can we just shove some code down your throat in six weeks and get our 20K.
00:59:07
Speaker
i said that was I think that that's what a lot of them ah sometimes can do. So definitely like anyone that's listening to this or you know taking away from this research, research your bootcamp before you do it. Bootcamps are wonderful things. What's the barrier to entry to a bootcamp? You mentioned 20K. You don't have to mention exactly how much you paid but because I know price fluctuates.
00:59:34
Speaker
Yeah, um I think that's the biggest thing, right? Boot camps. And this is another thing too. I i think not everyone has the opportunity, the means to be able to go to college or to go to a boot camp or even access to a computer. And there are some really good free options and happy to get into those too, because I think they're worth talking about for sure. um But as far as boot camps go, yeah, they they do cost money. um I paid, what, like $15,000 for mine? I had to get a loan, um which was fine.
01:00:11
Speaker
ah for me in that situation. I was, you know, at that point I i was in, I was two years into my, uh, corporate role and you know, I had my other things and before that too. So I was doing okay. Um, but I got along just to do it, but and that's just what worked for me at the time. Um,
01:00:39
Speaker
There are a lot of ah really good um state options though. So I have a buddy that did bootcamp and the state of Ohio paid for all of it. okay So definitely look out.
01:00:58
Speaker
ah you know do Do research within your state and see what your state has to offer about career change, um upscaling, that kind of thing. Especially if you're unemployed and you can get you can get ah
01:01:14
Speaker
assistance ba yeah okay how best is just to be able to to do this kind of bootcamp. So definitely worth, worth looking into that. If, uh, if you don't have the means necessarily to do a bootcamp, I do recommend it for sure. Um, just because it it gives you a little bit, it's, it's easier, right? Because you, you have someone who is well versed in the industry, well versed around the work that needs to be done. And and you're going to get a lot a lot more prepared to actually enter the workforce ah when you are self-taught. Sure. And um what's the level of of expert expectations should that person expect? Like, is it going to be a lot of workload? um Can somebody do a bootcamp and hold a job at the same time? Is it beneficial to just focus on the bootcamp? What are your thoughts there? Yeah, I think that's going to depend on the person, honestly. um
01:02:13
Speaker
Here's what I will say in terms of being self-taught. And this is the big difference between CS degrees and people that are self-taught. If you go to school when you do the CS degree, you're gonna get that piece of paper and it's gonna help you out immensely. You'll be able to get just about any any drop you want.
01:02:41
Speaker
That doesn't necessarily mean that you like the work. It doesn't even necessarily mean that you're good at it. And to be honest, college does not teach you modern development practices. It doesn't teach you modern languages. It doesn't teach you modern frameworks. It doesn't teach you.
01:02:56
Speaker
It doesn't teach you a lot of what you use in the real world. Go figure. It's more about, you know, it teaches you how to think. Right. And, and that's where it can be extremely helpful. It's always good if you can do it, right. If you have the means, definitely not required. And, um, in terms of.
01:03:19
Speaker
being self-taught, right? Or career transitioning or, you know, I'm in college now, but I'm doing, you know, basket weaving, whatever. Um, how do I transition into this? Um, if you are going to be self-taught, you have to be highly motivated. There is, there's no other way around it. eight ah You can't phone it in. If you don't love it and you're self-taught, the odds of you succeeding are pretty low. Just in my opinion, um you you have to be you have to be pretty self-motivated, I think. um and Like I said, you have to enjoy it. I don't know if you if if you would agree, but I feel like everyone I've ever met that's self-taught that does this for a living,
01:04:12
Speaker
Loves it. They're like obsessed with learning new things and and new technologies and writing code. Like, yeahp yeah, I agree 100% just because like that's all I think about. Like my brain never shuts down. All I think about is code. You know, how do I improve? How do I, how do I do this? And then, um, I would go out, um, just like, I don't know, like preparing my meal or watching a TV show. And I'm thinking about, Oh, that's what it is. And I run to my computer and then try to fix whatever, you know, issue I was having. So.
01:04:45
Speaker
Have you ever, have you ever gone to bed and you've been working all day on something, go to bed and then just wake up at like two in the morning? Like I got it. enough oh yeah that's a That's a great thing, right? Like the, you know, once you get to the point, I do feel like once you get to the point where.
01:05:06
Speaker
you're, you're working in this, you're you're writing code. Like you, you do kind of pseudo code in your head and you kind of start to like see that structure and taking a break from something regardless if it's, you know, coding industry or not is a good thing, right? People get that mental block. So it is good to step away and then it, you know, it'll come to you.
01:05:30
Speaker
I've stepped away from things and come like I've either been things I've worked on for like, you know, 12 straight hours, just punch it away. And then like, okay, I need to step away, step away, come back. And it's like, what was I thinking? Oh my God, why I've made this way more complicated than it needed to be so. So.
01:05:51
Speaker
I'd like to switch gears a little bit. So you, you, you, you did the self thought thing and then you wanted to be legit. So you went through a bootcamp and then how did you actually break into tech and, and you know, how did you acquire your first job? um What was the experience like? Was it overwhelming? Did you feel like quitting? Did you feel like you made a bad decision? Like what, what was it like for you? Yeah, I mean, absolutely. All those things went through my mind during that process. Right. And, um,
01:06:21
Speaker
You know, there's there's no growth without some struggle, in my opinion. yeah This is going to be really, um really cheesy. I'm sorry for that. But one of my favorite quotes of all time, oh to improve is to change, to perfect is to change often. And and i I have That's resonated with me ever since I was young, right? That's a quote from Winston Churchill. And I remember the first time I ever heard that, I think it was 16 years old. And that was something that was highly motivating for me, like, yes, absolutely, to improve as a change, right?
01:07:00
Speaker
um You need to change change the only constant you need to change constantly and you need to be okay with that and embrace it embrace the change embrace the failure um it's important and I failed a lot in my life right and so in terms of ah you know, that transition and and what that looked like for me. I, when I was originally going down this path, it started out as fun, right? I just had a lot of free time. And so I was just doing it because I thought it was cool. And then it was like, Oh wait, I actually really liked doing this. I have fun with it. So, you know, I ended up sitting in my computer and learning this stuff for, you know,
01:07:44
Speaker
sometimes like 16, 18 hours at a time, I would just like be locked in, focused, working on a project. um
01:07:55
Speaker
And i i know I didn't really, it didn't really become a thing as I want to transition my career because truthfully, I had a good career, right? i The job that I had, um you know, I I made fine money. There was, there was no reason I needed to leave. Um, and I didn't really have to do anything. So that's another, that's another little piece of that too, right? so um I wanted to originally whenever I was thinking about like, I want to do this for a living. I wanted to kind of parlay my new skill set with the company that I had that I was already at. Right. So I wanted to take that, apply it to some things, try and get some recognition and then move around into the corporate side of things, into the tech space.
01:08:49
Speaker
um Unfortunately, in the corporate world, sometimes things can be based on who you know, rather than merit or, um, or any of that. And sometimes it's also tenure, right? Well, this guy has been waiting for promotion for X amount of years. So we're going to move him to this tech role that he has no idea what he's doing. Right. And that that's actually what happened. I had applied for a tech role within the company. How was that?
01:09:21
Speaker
And, um, I didn't get it. You know, I had done the interview, all of that. I had recommendations from, uh, cause I, I was in, I was in good standing with the president of our company with two of my VPs and my senior director. And I had recommendations from all of them, um, for that role, but I still didn't get the role and they.
01:09:47
Speaker
put me on a, I'll never forget this. I got put on a, a tech testing kind of team. um Basically they were rolling out new tech, new hardware of for our employees. And I got put on that team to like analyze it and to do a case study with it and all that stuff.
01:10:17
Speaker
Okay. And so I'm down there. And at this point I'd been working with React Native for a little while, a couple of years. um And so I'm down there and at our at our home office, right? And they had hired, um, I can't remember. Oh, Cognizant. Yeah. They had hired Cognizant to do the build of the application ah that employees were going to be using. And they had the developers in the room, right, when we were doing all of this stuff.
01:10:55
Speaker
And some of the developers, not all of them, but you know essentially it was it was kind of like a fact-finding mission for them as we were going through the the probe the application and you know seeing what worked, what didn't work, you know how could things be structured a little bit better. And so it was funny because ah you know I was writing my own apps at the time too, so I was looking through this. I'm like, oh, hey.
01:11:17
Speaker
You know, see how you're doing this, like instead of that, and I was able to speak their language. And so I was able to be like, Hey, do this, this, this. And they're like, Oh yeah, no, that's, that's cool. We can do that for sure. Um, and I was like, are you guys using react native for this? Because it, I don't know. I'm getting, I'm getting the react native vibe and they're like, yeah, that's exactly what we use. I was like, Oh, okay. Well, this makes it way easier than all. You gotta like change this or do this, whatever. And.
01:11:47
Speaker
I felt really um disgruntled by that in a way.
Corporate Realizations and Career Shift
01:11:52
Speaker
and And here's why, because the role that I had applied for, um which was, I can't remember the exact role, but it was in the technical space. So the guy that got that role was in the room with us. And he was someone that I had known from my time. um He was from a different state, though.
01:12:14
Speaker
it um But he was in that role, and you know I was talking to him like, yeah, man, that's you know that's awesome. So like or so you you know when did you start writing code? like You self-taught? Did you get a degree in this? And he's like, oh, I have no clue what I'm doing.
01:12:30
Speaker
I was like, what? He's like, yeah, i I was up for promotion. They put me in this. He's like, I don't understand any of this. I'm only here. They put me here so I could like get some more experience around it and start to try and learn something around the world.
01:12:47
Speaker
cool so this is what this is gonna be like so that really motivated me to move on right cuz I wanted to do that work um and I wasn't being given an opportunity so that's when I started looking elsewhere I was kind of ah you know methodical with my searching I did like I said I my job is fine I had I had time it wasn't a restriction or anything so I um I was able to look uh, look around and be strategic about where I wanted to land. Um, as far as like, you know, how, how much work it took to get to that point too. I mean, I, like I said, I had put in like a ton of time and a ton of effort through like up until that, but once I started on like, I want to get a job doing this, which was probably around like
01:13:41
Speaker
I think that was 2021. It was early. Yeah, it was like January 2021.
01:13:50
Speaker
That they, that I had gone down there and that situation had happened. And that's when I got really motivated to to do something different. So I was like, I'm going to like, I'm going to get really good at this. I'm going to learn. I'm going to get better. And I had done my bootcamp and everything. And so I,
01:14:08
Speaker
I started just like a mad man, just writing code and doing projects and working on anything and everything and doing yeah Udemy courses, um which I do want to mention Udemy to here in a second. But, um you know, all kinds of things. And it took me a while because I was like, what what do I actually.
01:14:31
Speaker
want to do, right? Like, I can't learn everything. And I'm trying to learn Python. I'm trying to learn TypeScript. I'm trying to learn C sharp. I'm trying to learn ah Swift, Objective C, right? ah i was I was doing too much in too many different areas and spreading myself very thin. And you know our our brains, especially once you get older, you know I'm in my 30s at this point.
01:14:57
Speaker
You know, our our brains can only have so much intake. Um, and so I wanted to, I took, I took a step back and I wanted to make sure I was doing this in a way that made sense. And so I just thought about like, what motivates me? Like, what do I want to work on? What sounds cool? And the mobile development thing is, is what really came to me and really spoke to me. So, um,
01:15:25
Speaker
I had done React Native stuff for a little while and I really liked it. So I focused straight up on that. um
01:15:36
Speaker
And the way that I viewed it before that was like, I'm going to learn things that I can get a job in, right? Like I, I had mentioned, I have friends in the software engineering space and one of my friends wanted to get me on with his company, uh, but I needed to know C sharp. And so that's when I started doing a lot of dot.net and WPF stuff and writing C sharp, um, unity helped with that too. Um, and running, writing those scripts. Um,
01:16:04
Speaker
But I didn't really enjoy it. It wasn't as it wasn't as satisfying as the whole development. And so. um
01:16:15
Speaker
You know, I was like, I'm I don't know if I'm going to be able to do the C sharp thing. ah And I just I really started focusing on that. um
01:16:28
Speaker
I, I knew eventually though, it's like, okay, well, if I want to do this for real, like, and I focus on one thing, eventually I'm going to get good enough at that one thing to land a job. Like at some point in the timeline, I'm going to know enough to where it'll work out. yeah That's kind of what I always banked on, right? Like be prepared to fail, be prepared to be turned down. And I, I was fully prepared for that going into it. So, um,
01:16:58
Speaker
You know, I worked on apps in projects. I mean, at um at minimum, I always worked at a minimum like four or six hours. Okay. Okay. Always every day. Okay.
01:17:16
Speaker
And, and when I say work, you know, some of that was probably pretty light. There was like research or whatever, but I was every day i I was at my computer doing something around it, you know, even if I was messing around with an app, like sandboxing something, you all I'm on discord talking to some buddies. Right. Um, and then there were a lot of days, like, I mean,
01:17:42
Speaker
There were days where I spent 12, 18 hours just at my computers plugging away, learning, learning, learning, writing, writing, writing. Yeah. Repetition reinforces learning. So yeah, exactly. And especially with this, right? Like you have the syntax for these languages.
01:18:03
Speaker
once you write the same thing over and over and over and over and over, you just eventually know what you need to write. yeah um And that's hugely important. And especially as a self-taught person, you you need to have you know the ability to perform in a coding exercise if they provide one in a technical interview. ah You need to have projects that are well structured and and are easy to read.
01:18:30
Speaker
especially if you're going to present those to someone, um, for them to judge your value, right? It's very important. So, um, practice is the biggest thing. You know, if you can practice that skill, practice that syntax, just constantly write, you know, whatever you can, you know, that's why I like, I always hated boiler plate stuff. Whenever I was learning, I think there's a big push in certain like,
01:19:04
Speaker
When it comes to some of these learning tools that exist, you'll see like, hey, download this boilerplate code or download the sample project. And that to me is just. All you're doing is kneecapping the people you're trying to help, in my opinion, you're not helping anyone, you know, you had write it. um And this goes back to the like, you know, I was doing Udemy. I was doing a lot of Udemy. um I didn't resonate with YouTube. I didn't really like YouTube, if I'm honest, just because Everything that YouTubers do ah is so very specific to that one use case. And they also will bring in like these weird third party libraries. And then it's like, okay, well, how do I do this without using that? Right? like
01:19:50
Speaker
And they don't, I don't think they do a good job a lot of times. And it's because it's there for like these quick hits, yeah yep you know, it's monetization. I understand it, but Udemy was very good. Um, I really enjoyed what Udemy had to offer. And I, if I have any advice to anyone that uses a Udemy course, um,
01:20:14
Speaker
as you work through it,
01:20:17
Speaker
You know, get to the initial setup if it's something that you need help with, right? If it's just kind of the initial like starting point. But whenever you get to a section, like I did a lot of Angela U courses and and she's great. yeah go As you get to a point where she's going to say, you know, Angela would say like, okay, now we're going to build like this search functionality and pause it, build it yourself.
01:20:42
Speaker
do everything you spend as much time as you need to try to implement what that instructor is talking about on your own. And then go back once you've done that and play it and see where your solution was to their solution. And that's gonna enlighten you because you've just done a lot of, you've done the manual work, right? So now it's in your head. You're not just copying someone because If it's just wrote copying, you're not, you're not gaining anything out of that. You're not understanding it. And that's the thing with being self-taught. And this is why I keep coming back to the failure, right? Like being self-taught as a mountain of failure. yeah And that is what's going to make you improve. If you.
01:21:29
Speaker
If you are not prepared to fail and write bad code and have people trash your code or, you know, I, the amount of, the amount of people that have, uh, made me feel terrible on stack overflow is insane.
01:21:45
Speaker
yeah i was here with this ah Be prepared for that. It is a good thing. You need to have a thick skin, right? It's, but it, it, it strengthens you and it makes you better. Um,
01:21:59
Speaker
I really think that's important. Nice. Um, could you, could you share a story about a mentor or a connection that played a pivotal role or a key role in your career?
Joining NetJets and Mentorship
01:22:13
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I kind of talked about, you know, the first one, right? But when I got my first dev job, so, um, I eventually did get a job as a developer, uh, 2022. Um, and it,
01:22:29
Speaker
yeah I had applied to a lot of places um and it just never worked out. A lot of places wouldn't even call me back um or you know get get back to me. Some of them were very instant rejections. I just couldn't get anyone to really give me an opportunity. um Out of 400 different applications I put in, I had maybe five interviews over that entire time.
01:23:01
Speaker
And what's funny is with NetJets, you know, they reached out to me, which was very strange. I had a recruiter, um, that I had, I'd kind of befriended and, you know, that I had reached out to early on. and And she was like, Hey, I'm going to find you something. Like you, I feel like you'd be good. Like we'll find, I'll find you something. And One day she gives me a call and this has been like months that I had had this relationship ah with her. She gives me a call and she's like, Hey, my colleague has an opportunity with this company called NetJets. Would you be interested in talking to them? Yeah, absolutely. And I'd never heard of NetJets before, right? So the recruiter gives me a call.
01:23:48
Speaker
And she's telling me about the role and whatnot. It's mobile development role um using React Native. I'm like, sweet. That's exactly what I want. This would be perfect. And um you know it was even funny because she was telling me private aviation. I was like, oh, so it's ah it's a you know well regional little more regional line. That's cute. Yeah. I had no idea, right? oh you know What kind of?
01:24:17
Speaker
what kind of stature that company has in the world. but um I did my interview and, um, one of the, one of the people I interviewed with was someone who became a mentor to me. And I don't know it was if it was ever in kind of like an official capacity as a mentor, but I looked up to him as a mentor and Henry, I've even told you, you know, I can, and it's funny cause you're, I think you're younger than me too. So it's like, but I do consider you a mentor to me. oh Um, for and you know, I, I reach out to you when I have things or like, I, I'd like your advice or,
01:24:53
Speaker
you know i I appreciate so much of of what you've provided to me as far as like experience um and and kind of that that leadership understanding too because you've you've been
01:25:10
Speaker
you've You've been a in my space since I started with them. And just everything about what you've been able to accomplish and just your intelligence is just so inspiring and hugely motivating for me. I've learned a lot from you, too. so Thank you. Thank you. I've enjoyed all all the time I've got to work with you. so And I know we get we don't get to work together that often. But when we do, I i cherish it for sure. And so I've had quite a few people like that at NetJets. But getting to land where I did was Huge for me because I know other people that have entered the workforce from being self-taught and the team that they were on was either you know spread out they were remote or
01:25:51
Speaker
you know, people don't really like interact with them. Um, and they don't really have that support system. I feel like I got to learn from one of the best people that I could have ever learned from. And, you know, I'm not going to say his name just because I, I don't know how comfortable he would be. just Yeah. public but I know. I think I, I know who you're talking about. Yeah. yeah And I mean, genius, absolute genius of a human being and i I had my interview with him, I had my interview ah with the VP the next day, and whenever I actually got to NetJets,
01:26:30
Speaker
You know, I, I got, there was my, it was my first day there and they were just getting my device provisioned and and he was kind of showing me around stuff. Second day there, he's, I get my Mac, right? And he comes up to me and he goes, okay, here's, here's the link to this setup script. Go ahead and run it. If it breaks, fix it. Yeah.
01:26:55
Speaker
look i was like Oh man. Okay. I've never worked with bash in my life. Like I didn't know it, right? I had done like, I had done command line stuff before, which had done some bash, but I didn't think like I needed to really learn that stuff. I was like, and this script is huge. I mean, we're talking about 5,000 lines of bash code, which is,
01:27:21
Speaker
Uh, if you've ever written bash before listeners out there, yeah yeah you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, it's dense. Um, and I love bash now. Like I love writing scripts. Um, I've written way too many. You're, I'm sure you're aware. yeah So, um,
01:27:44
Speaker
You know, it was great because I got thrown right in, right? And it's like, sink or swim, man. And that's what I did. You know, he was hugely motivating for me because um he definitely shared this idea, like getting, getting into that industry, getting into that company. And, you know, I had always had this kind of mantra of like, learn, learn, learn, always be learning, always be doing something. And,
01:28:14
Speaker
he shared that exact same thing and it was really crazy to see someone just so different than the status quo of software engineering. You have I think a lot of people that are perfectly fine to just kind of let things stay the way they are and I've I was hugely inspired by the fact that this guy was just so like we need to improve. He was always learning something new, always learning about new technologies, was so up to date on things. It's like that's that's the bar right there. That's the bar of what I want to be. And.
01:29:03
Speaker
that relationship and his, uh, his mentorship to me, that's the only reason that I was able to do what I was able to do with my career path now. And also become the developer I am today. I mean, you know, I, um, I worked really, really hard and put in a lot of hours to get to where I am. Um,
01:29:31
Speaker
And not everyone, like I said, not everyone has that time. you know i like i don't have I don't have kids, things like that. like you know i I get it. Everyone's situation is different too. so um but i You know, I, I wanted to be like him. I wanted to, I didn't want to disappoint either. Right. Like I'm going to use every opportunity I can to work with this man. And like he was, if you recall to, he always went into the office. Oh, I worked from home days. He was there. Me too. I didn't work from home. I went in every single day so I could, you know,
01:30:10
Speaker
Be right there behind him in that row so that I could turn around. I could ask him questions. I could siphon off that knowledge. I could go to lunch with him and I could i could pick his brain. that He could tell me things that that helped me become better. Yeah.
01:30:26
Speaker
And that's so important. I think for anyone for anyone that is in a situation where you know you crave mentorship or do you want mentorship, make it happen. you know um I feel like in some ways I've i've forced i forced you and and mentors into mentoring me. I don't leave you alone.
01:30:50
Speaker
um and And same thing with, uh, with other coworkers, you know, they're in, I know you know who, and yeah I, I want to know like, how am I doing? How can I improve? Um, you know, what, what can I do better? Um,
01:31:08
Speaker
And, you know, can you, can you take a look at this, like writing up a POC and sending it out like, Hey, can you look at this? Can you please give me some feedback? I'd i'd love to hear what your thoughts are. Um, that's what is so important to me. Um, and just being able to, to really, uh, really have that is great. So another recommendation I would have for, for anyone that that is trying to.
01:31:34
Speaker
enter the workforce or or get their first step job, whatever. Do not go for a remote role. Remote roles are, you know, sexy. They're, they're cool. Um, but you're just, you're doing yourself a disservice with her. In my opinion, I, I think that you lose a lot of You lose you lose a a ton of potential gains um by doing remote. um So if you can't get a hybrid role, get into an office, get to work with people and be able to like get to know them and ask them these questions and establish that relationship, it's going to be huge for your career. And it was for mine.
01:32:16
Speaker
you know i I worked really, really hard because I wanted to make sure that I was up to his standard, right? This man was a genius and had such a standard principal programmer. That's what I, that's what, that's what I want to be. Right. And I'm not going to be that unless I am as good as the person I'm trying to learn from and I i need to siphon all the knowledge I can. but yeah given up so I agree um you know got ah got that job and then eventually got transitioned into, you know, I got my senior after a year and I attribute that 100% to that man. So the mentorship thing is huge. I know that was probably a little long winded for your question, but
01:33:07
Speaker
No worries. I wanted to really paint the picture there because I i really do think that remote work um is very harmful to mentorship relation, to to the mentorship thing. It really hurts it. Especially if you are new, if you're breaking into tech for the first time. But if you're if you're a senior or a lead, and yeah like remote work is is fine. But you need that face-to-face interaction. You need mentorship. Yeah, I
Skills Demonstration and Final Thoughts
01:33:35
Speaker
agree.
01:33:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And just to clarify, yeah, for sure. If you're, I only mean for people that are starting out getting into their first role or even if it's not your first role, but you still are not, you know, you might be an associate, a junior, you know, even mid level, um, getting into an office and and being around this people, it's, it's important. Yep. Yep. Yep.
01:33:57
Speaker
Um, so I think we're running a little long. Um, I think we also covered every question I wanted to cover. Um, so where can our, no worries. Uh, how can the listeners reach out to you? Yeah. Uh, you can find me on LinkedIn. Um, Ian McCain, if you search me, I should pop up. There's not really too many ah McCain's out there and there's even less of McCain's out there. There's only one and he's in Great Britain and he won't talk to me. So, okay. I did. I added him on Facebook whenever I was like in my 20s and he died. But other than that, you can also find me on GitHub. I McCain is my GitHub handle. My GitHub is a little outdated. I'm not going to lie. I'm not as I'm not as up to date there, um but I do have some good projects that, ah you know, feel free to look at.
01:34:54
Speaker
um a couple of those projects were part of the reason I got into the role that I got into, right? I think if you're self-taught, having projects is really, really important. And I don't think I got to mention this, but if you do have your projects, make sure that you have very clean, readable code.
01:35:13
Speaker
um just as ah Just as a quick thing, and you know I know we're wrapping up, but um
01:35:22
Speaker
I recall in my interview, um, the guy that actually was my mentor, right? Um, he had asked me a question about promise statements. He was like, can you explain to me what a promise statement is? And I couldn't, I,
01:35:43
Speaker
I, you know, looked to them all and i'm like hey i'm you know i I can't tell you what exactly a promise statement is because I just didn't have that kind of like textbook knowledge at the time, right? But I know how to use them and I know when to use them.
01:36:06
Speaker
And that's when I referenced a piece of my, cause you know, preparing for an interview, what I did was I had my, my repos. I went through all of my code repos that I was, that were available on my GitHub and anything that I felt like was worth highlighting to show my skills. I made notes of that and then had that for just quick access to be able to reference. So I said, Hey, go to this file, go to this repo, go to this file line, whatever.
01:36:36
Speaker
And you'll see I'm using a promise statement. I'm implementing it appropriately to perform this function in this task. And, you know, this is why I needed it. I needed to wait on the response i duhdadahdadahdada and And.
01:36:53
Speaker
That was really beneficial. And I remember he even talked to me afterward and he was like, Hey, you know, you weren't able to answer the question, but I looked at your code and you were honest. Like you told me, I don't know how to answer that. I can't answer that, but I can show you what I've done with them and here's how to use them. And I care more about that than I care about you being able to answer the definition of a word.
01:37:18
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, I ah really appreciate that. So anyone that is listening to, that's the one reason I want to say that was because it's, I think it's really important to to understand your code. Don't just take from chat GPT. Don't just take someone's example, write the code yourself, understand it, understand how it works, understand why you need it. And if you can do that and you can explain the why and how That is so much more important than some arbitrary definition in my mind. I agree. I agree. All right. Thank you, Ian. Yeah, thank you, Henry. I you know i appreciate the opportunity. um It was fun, man. I enjoyed it.