Nick's Cuts

The Collab Lab with Stacie Taylor

• Nick Taylor • Season 1 • Episode 3

Nick Taylor is joined by Stacie Taylor, Engineering Team Lead at Zapier and Co-founder at The Collab Lab. Nick and Stacie discuss The Collab Lab, career advice, Stacie's origin story, and all kinds of fun tangents as well.

Note: This interview was from earlier this year while Nick was still running the DEV Twitch stream. Parts of the audio aren't perfect because there was some Internet stability issues that day and he also was still learning how to use Descript. 🙃 Regardless, it was an amazing conversation.

Links:
- The Collab Lab, https://the-collab-lab.codes
- The Collab Lab YouTube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDYO8dRluRL0qFqQb7qt4Bg
- Stacie Taylor on Twitter, https://twitter.com/the_real_stacie

Nick Taylor:

Today I'm super excited to be hanging out with Stacie Taylor. We're gonna be talking about all things Collab Lab and who knows what else. Thanks so much for coming on. Stacie.

Stacie Taylor:

Collab is one of my favorite things to talk about. I could talk about it endlessly and eager to see what other things come up in conversation.

Nick Taylor:

Cool, cool, cool. So I guess, why don't we start off, I know you're working at Zapier right now. You're, I believe your team lead there. Is that right?

Stacie Taylor:

Yep. I lead two teams that are kind of in the marketing space. One of them is a more front end team that's the marketing platforms team where we build the platforms that Zapier's content creators can send great content out into the world with. And then I also manage a team that is more backend and does more of the data syncing from across our different tools. So that's what I do by day.

Nick Taylor:

Nice. Nice. And, and yeah, I guess by night, Or any other part of the day that you work in at the Collab Lab? I guess for folks that might not know what the Collab Lab is, can you kind of just give like the TLDR of what it is? Yes.

Stacie Taylor:

So the TLDR of Big Collab Lab, so we are an organization that is on a mission to diversify tech. And the way that we're doing that is by helping early career engineers get a foothold in their first job at Tech. Ok. And the way that we are doing that is that we have a program that runs once a quarter. We have four to five teams, usually from across the world that. Get together to collaborate to build a real life app using agile methodologies. So four developers will get together, they'll have two, three mentors, and they split up each week and pair through different pieces of the app filled. So when the eight week program is done, they have a working app and a lot of really juicy experience to talk about working on a team of developers. And okay, we found that that is really a necessary thing to have because so many of us who have tried to get a start in tech, right, are like, Okay, we went to boot camp, we learned how to code. However, whether you're self-taught or did boot camp or university even, but then when you go to interview for jobs, nobody wants to take a chance on you because you don't have experience working on a team. And so the Collab Lab really gives you that kind of experience so that you can talk about, you know, in an interviewer is like, Tell us about a time you had to give somebody feedback. You're like, Yeah. I was working on a team of developers and here's a very realistic time when that happened. So it's kind of like giving your first job in a very safe, comfortable space so that you can take those insights into the job search. And really, I impress people.

Nick Taylor:

No, that's awesome. And I, I guess before we talk a little more about the Collab Lab, how did the Collab Lab become to be, Did I say that right, Sure.

Stacie Taylor:

Yeah. So yes, set it good enough. Andrew Hedges is the founder of Collab Lab. He was, I think this forgo something like this, and y'all should ask Andrew because he'll tell it way more beautifully than I will . But he lives up in Portland and he was at a meetup, like a tech meetup, and found, he was chatting with somebody and they were like, Yeah, I learned how to code, but I'm really kind of falling off the wagon cuz I don't have anybody to practice with. I'm just kind of alone in that. Okay. And Andrew was like, Well, well wouldn't it be cool if we had. A team of people who could just work on things together and have some accountability and learn together. And so he grabbed this fellow he was talking to and three other people, one of them including me, to kind of try out what would this look like? And Andrew still kind of had built the app that we build at Cloud Lab now in the past. He broke it down into user stories and then we kind of just did a pilot of what it could look like and it went really well. And when it was over after the eight weeks, we were all like, Oh, that went really well. He was like, Great, thanks everybody. And I was like, That's not it, right? We're gonna keep doing this for lots of people, right? And he was like, Oh yeah, let's do that. And so that's when I kind of joined him as co-founder. And we just started rolling and we're like, We just closed applications for our Q2 2022 cohort, and I think we will be on our 44th team at the. That's awesome. We're feeling pretty good about how things are going and getting lots good feedback and just continuing to try and refine it. But yeah, it was just an ideal and some people got together, loved it, and then have kind of started refining it so that a bunch of other people

Nick Taylor:

can benefit. Okay. No, that's super cool. So like you said, there's been about 44 teams now. So there's there, there's these different cohorts. The cohorts are per quarter, right? Like you said? Yeah.

Stacie Taylor:

Yep. Okay. So every quarter we do a cohort. Inside the cohort, they're usually four to five teams. Those teams are generally like a couple North American teams. And then we have European African teams, and we also do Latin American teams that are fully in Spanish too. Oh, no way. So we've got a pretty wide range. We wanna keep growing. But of course it's completely volunteer run, and so it's all usually a matter of like getting volunteers and then getting people who wanna participate.

Nick Taylor:

Yeah. No, that, that was gonna be my next question. Like, I know I volunteer, I, I can't be a, uh, a mentor this cohort, but I'm still in the slack, you know, trying to help where I can. But yeah, I guess for starters, if somebody was interested in, sorry, interested in becoming a mentor for Collab Lab, what's, uh, what's the process to do that?

Stacie Taylor:

Sure. Yeah, so we're, the process right now is to go to the Collab Lab doc codes and next that, that, I'll drop it in the chat, but you go there and there's a, a page talking about become a mentor where you can reach out and Andrew will likely get back ahold of you and have a chat with you about what we're doing and what mentoring at Cloud Lab can look like. However, we're also going through a revamp on our website. Where we'll talk more about just volunteering at Collab Lab at large. Okay. Cause as you know, it's not just being a mentor. We have so many other things you can do. So if you wanna be a mentor, great. We always need them. That is about a 10 week commitment, about five hours a week where you're directly working with teams and running weekly syncs where there are, you know, retros and kind of sprint planning. We do some learning modules. Okay. And you're like a member of the team. You're a leader of the team. But we also have opportu. Like what you've done in our career lab space, which is a two week extension that we offer people optionally on their cloud lab experience where they can do mock interviews and beef up their LinkedIn and resumes and just like have access to a lot of really helpful information on getting started in their job search. So volunteering for that can be very lightweight. It's usually a week or two week commitment every quarter where you're just interviewing collabs and giving them advice based on your experiences in tech. So that can be a really lightweight commitment. That can be very valuable because all of our collabs have been like being able to mock interview and say the words out loud before going into a space where like a job is potentially on the line is so helpful. Yeah., No, there's also like automation opportunities. Like we are still. Like being very scrappy with the way we do things. And I would love to get so much more automated and in my head I have a million things, but then I also like have a full-time job and a mom and do other stuff. So I'm like, it's all a dream, but someday will be a reality.

Nick Taylor:

Yeah. Well, uh, speaking about yourself, we'll get to about like maybe your origin story if you wanna talk about it. Sure. But, but yeah, get getting back to the Collab Lab. So it is volunteer. I know like for example, like there's the slack. I think there's some seats for Google and stuff. And, and I know, I know like I've sponsored the Collab Lab on through GitHub sponsors. But is there, I'm, I'm curious because it is all volunteer, what are the main resources for, I mean, just to be blunt, like getting cash to enable all this with the volunteer. Aside from the GitHub sponsors, or is that the main source? That is

Stacie Taylor:

the main source. We, Okay. Like I saying, we run super scrappy. We do have things that we need to keep the lights on with, Right. Like Slack and, um, a couple of the other tools that we use, we have tried to be really resourceful with getting non-profit accounts for things because we are an official nonprofit. But yeah, just our donors, that's where we get all of our money from to keep the lights on. So please donate if you can.

Nick Taylor:

I'll, uh, I'll grab, You can do that for GitHub

Stacie Taylor:

responses. Perfect. Thank you. And on our website too, at the bottom, there's like more information about donating. Okay. Anybody out there, once you contribute

Nick Taylor:

Yeah, It's, it's a, it's a, it's a great program. I, I strongly encourage you to donate whatever you can. There is a question from the chat I use Ask because for the, the projects that the cohorts make during the, the quarter. It's, It's a web based project. It's using React. She's wondering how much experience do you need in React, like when you come to the kLab lab, or do you need any at all?

Stacie Taylor:

Excellent. That is a great question. Okay, so here's the thing. At the Collab Lab, we don't teach coding. We teach collaboration, and we practice kind of working on a team. So, because right now the only program that we're offering is building this React based app, we expect you to know how to code and to be able to demonstrate that. Generally we'll take a look at a GitHub repo that you send us so that we can see, you know, like what your commits are, like, what kind of code you're writing, but you'll have a much better chance of getting in if you have some React experience. That being said, if you have a very strong GitHub mm-hmm. profile, for example, that demonstrates a lot of view, experience, or experience in some other similar JavaScript framework. We've seen, we've brought people on who could be like, Hey, we noticed you didn't have a lot of React experience. You might wanna take a week to start beefing up on React before you jump in. But they've still been very successful. So you have a better chance if you know React, you will want to know how to code just so that you and all your teammates are successful. So generally we'll see a lot of people coming post boot camp or after they've spent a while learning how to code on their own. Okay. But it's hard to put a number on like how much React experience you need because Yeah, sometimes you don't need any if you have other experience, but yes, chances are

Nick Taylor:

best. Yeah, we can give the, it always depends, but yeah, I, I, it sounds like, you know, go ahead and apply anyways. You know, like, cuz it, it would be a great opportunity if you get in the program. Yeah. And

Stacie Taylor:

yeah, it's great. And it's like, just know that. If you're applying for Collab Lab, we are all here because we want to learn how to work in a T. Like when you get your foothold in tech and you start working as an engineer, you'll start to realize how very little of your job is actually coding like fingers to keys, coding. Yeah. And how much more of it is collaborating and organizing with a team. And it's like if you can refine those skills before actually going into interviews or going into a job, you're gonna be so much better set for success. Because like, you might not go into a really safe space to learn these things for the first time. And so if you can go in with like really confident, solid skills and collaboration, it can take a whole layer of sort of the panic we all feel when we start our first jobs in tech out of mix. Mm-hmm., so highly

Nick Taylor:

recommend. I do ask more questions for you, but there is a question from the chat from Sure. I don't know. I don't know who it is, but demo underscore X I V is asking the thing. Oh, it looks like a really cool project. Have you considered other languages like Python? No, Ruby, which is probably Rails. So yeah, just wondering if you could speak to that.

Stacie Taylor:

Yeah, for sure. We absolutely would love to consider growing the program and offering a lot more. As I mentioned before, we're completely volunteer driven and sometimes it can be challenging to get people to commit to building whole pieces of the project out like this. Yeah. And with the mentors that we have, the mentors are generally not always very skilled in React, and so they can be really good, offer, really good guidance to teams. Okay. So if we do start expanding, we'll have to expand our mentor pool quite significantly to Okay. Have people with those backgrounds too. So yes, we would love to somedays the answer, but today we just do react. Yeah.

Nick Taylor:

No, and I, I think that makes sense. Like you said, given the pool of mentors you have right now, you know, you don't wanna spread yourself too thin either. You still wanna offer a really great program. So yeah, I, I can definitely agree with you on all those things. Like, you know, as, as you get further along in your career, you know, you're still coding, but like, a lot of it, like, it's not to sound cheesy, but communication is like super important. You know, like o obviously you still need to have some kind of programming chops as you go through your career. But yeah, it's, it's so important and especially like the pandemic is kind of exacerbated this, but like a lot more companies have moved to remote, you know, you work remote, I work remote and I work with people all over the planet. I have coworkers in Russia, Poland. Like Thailand, South Africa. I'm in Montreal, in in Canada. So you know, we have meetings when it makes sense. We don't have a lot of them. Most of the stuff we do, it's, it's written. So even though we're open source project, even if you were a closed source project, you know, writing really good issues, communicating what the issue is, what's the roadblocks you're having? Because you know, when I'm finishing my day, and if I just left a message like, Hey, it's not working. You know, they're gonna wake up in the morning and they're just gonna see a message to say, Hey, it's not working. And then they'd probably respond with like, Well, what's the problem? You know? And then you end up with this ping pong. You know, learning to commute effectively is super important because when you can give as much context to things, it just, it's just, it ends up being a better experience. And, and also just like for context, for like historical context, you know, like maybe you're going to revisit something and like if you were right, more synchronous, you know, where you just had a meet, a one off meeting and nothing was written down like that, all that context is lost. So, you know. Exactly. It's super, super important. So I, I definitely couldn't agree more with you about that.

Stacie Taylor:

I love that idea of like, using Slack for example, communication as almost documentation. So at work at Zapier, what a lot of us will do is we'll almost create a thread just for ourselves. So it's almost rubber ducking. Like if you and rubber ducking. To anybody who's not familiar with that term. It's kind of the idea of just talking it out. There's, That's a cute little rubber. What is that? A Cordy duck?

Nick Taylor:

Yeah, I got that from, uh, Shadow to Jason Langor. His, he sells it on his store.

Stacie Taylor:

I love that. But anyway, the idea of rubber ducking, right, is just talking it out like out loud to somebody. And when you do that in a very public way, in a very transparent way in Slack, three months from now when another engineer is having the same error that you got, they gonna be like, Oh, here's the answer right here. Because all of those search terms were in this beautiful thread. Yeah. So I highly encourage you to just figure out a way to really communicate well and document your thoughts in a very digestible way. Because not only is it gonna help future you, but it's gonna help everybody else on your team too. And it's a really strong skill to demonstrate when you do go to find a new job, that that's something you really, you find really important.

Nick Taylor:

For sure. And it, like you said, like there's stuff I've done and I come back like even like. Two months later, sometimes I'm like, What the heck is all this stuff? And like, Oh, okay, now I remember. Okay. Cuz you're reading through some things. Yep. Um, exactly. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's also super important as you Oh, IU says she's gotta run for time. Thanks for popping by. Yeah. It's also like, if you can explain things well, like, you know, it's, it's a great skill to have, you know, So like, like I myself, even other seniors, I know sometimes it's like you're onboarding somebody or, or maybe you're, you're pairing with somebody and then you, you realize you have holes in your knowledge too. So just talking it through and then writing it down, it's just super helpful. And that's why like there's, you know, I'm kind of mixing a bunch of things here, but like, you know, there's career changers that have, I know they've come to Collab Lab in other places and I know like my friend. Becca. She used to be an English teacher, and she's so great at communicating because of that, you know, So like, and I was talking to two of our collabs last week for the job mock fit interview, and I was just saying lean in on your, your previous experience, even if it's not programming, because there's so many skills that can translate from there that would apply to Exactly programming. Because I, I find at the end of the day, yes, you're doing coding, but I, I feel like we're just all detectives, you know, we're trying to crack the case, you know? Yeah. Like whether it's a feature bug, you

Stacie Taylor:

know? Exactly. And we're all just trying to make life better for people at large. And those people that you might be making life better for might not be, you know, computer science, engineering grad. Yeah. They're like regular people like you've worked with in your other jobs. So it's. When you come to the table with a history and service, for example, I feel like you understand humans on a very different level than somebody else might who didn't work in that. And like, yeah, when we all work together and we kind of like put our experiences with humanity together, I feel like that's when we can really start building tools for people that they wanna use because we know that we know the people. And so lean on that for sure.

Nick Taylor:

Yeah. Like, and, and just also having empathy for, for folks like, I mean I, I used to work in restaurants and I, I also did internet technical support before I got, uh, programming job. And I can 100% tell you that nobody calls their is s p to say, Hey, my internet's great. Just wanting to let you know that. Have a great day. Good job. People, if people usually call up, they're angry or upset cuz their internet's not working, you'll let 'em vent a bit and then you just like, Okay, well let's take a look at this and then. You know, not always, you know, sometimes there's just people who are just full on angry all the time. But, you know, once, once you calm somebody down a bit, you help 'em out, then they're like, Thanks, you know, and stuff. And it's like mm-hmm. leaning into those skills. There's, I'll try and find the, the stream we did, but I had a, a few career changes on, and like, one of 'em was an opera singer, One was like, in a orchestra. Oh, wow. And I love that. You know, they're, they're thinking like, Well, you know, I'm an opera singer. Why? How would that even help me out? And I'm like, Well, if you think about it, you know, like music or, or singing, that's requires a lot of training, discipline. Mm-hmm.. And those are things that directly translate to problem solving, you know, and like, so just, just wanna give a shout to all the career changers.

Stacie Taylor:

So. Yes. And I love that you mentioned like the empathy. You develop in these other roles, like in service or support or whatever it might be, because it's like, as an engineer, a lot of times you're handed plans of sorts from a designer or a product manager, and you have to make those things go. And I want to encourage all of the engineers, the early career engineers listening to use your experience to make things better. Yeah. Just because somebody gave you these plans doesn't mean they're the best. Mm-hmm., like, put yourself as your coding features into a user's shoes and think, is this something that they actually are going to find useful? And if not, like, yeah, hopefully you're in a safe enough environment to do this, but challenge those ideas and propose better ideas because, you know, stuff that other people don't know. And so it's, that's our job is to like, make good things and you can't make good things without questioning things.

Nick Taylor:

Yeah. And, and I guess just that enough for people starting off their career too. Like, like I, I, I'm. I'm being slightly, slightly hypocritical cuz when I started off as a junior dev, I was afraid to ask questions. I, I was kind of terrified that like, people thought I was terrible and stuff, you know, and, but you know, your point of view could make the difference or, or like bring up something like, Oh yeah, that's a great idea. Or, Oh, I hadn't thought about that. And there's a, I don't have all these tweets lined up because they're just things that are popping in my head now, but there's a, there's a tweet from like a, an older game programmer from like, when there was like the older consoles, like, I think it was Atari or Nintendo, and they were talking about, I'm not really into football, but there's this game called Tech Mobile, which was a like, kind of pixelated football game. And there was this issue, like they were looking at the screen and they're like, Where's all the players? There was only the ball on the screen. And this junior developer, you know, was like, Well, did you look inside the ball? And then like all the senior developers, and I'm, I'm paraphrasing here, but the senior developers were like, Yeah, whatever. And then they debugged the code. They, they looked in the ball and sure enough the players were in there. They had been Zoom, zoomed, sorry, they got shrunk for whatever reason. There must have been a variable or something, or some scenario that caused them to get so tiny. And that was a junior developer. And then like, they were like, Oh yeah. You know, So it's like mm-hmm. definitely don't be afraid

Stacie Taylor:

to speak so often. Exactly. That. Like, we're all seeing things different and it could just be like a quick little bug and a line of code. To a more senior level person, they're like overlooking. But because it's very fresh for you, you can be in there asking questions like, Well, why is this this way? And that causes somebody with more experience to look and be like, Oh, you know what? It shouldn't be. And I hope that all of you get to go into a team full of very empathetic, honest people who don't have a lot of ego so that they can say things like, Oh, you know what? That was my mistake. I hope that they do that as a good model for you all, but you might not be in that space. Yeah. And I'm so sorry that's you, but do feel encouraged to ask the questions because you have to. Yeah,

Nick Taylor:

no, for sure. And no programs like this and just, I find, you know, not every company, but like I know when I started off, I didn't really have mentors or none that I can really. Stack Stack Overflow literally did not exist at this point. Like, I think Stack Overflow only showed up in 2009. And so like nowadays, like, I just think it's so great that there's so many folks willing to mentor sponsored people company. You know, again, not every company is, there's obviously still not so great companies too, but like you said, if you can find a place where there's like seniors willing to mentor, you know, pair, just, just help out, you know, it's, it's amazing. And, and those places are out there for sure. And I have no doubt, although I've never worked there, I'm sure since you Andra there, Zapier is one of those places for sure.

Stacie Taylor:

It's, it's all very different. I feel like no matter where you go. But I think that even as an early career engineer, At most places, unless you're working for a really big company, this very bureaucratic and has very strict rules. Yeah, I think there's a lot of freedom to make the experience be what you need it to be. So if you're an early career engineer, I would encourage that whatever team you join, find somebody on the engineering team that you can pair up with every day. Whether it's just like a 30 minute check in to tell them where you're getting blocked or what you're working on, or if you, you know, pair with them through a whole feature build. Having mm-hmm that person to lean on and to dedicate some time to you, makes you feel like less of a bother. So as you're going throughout your day, you're like, Oh, I have all these questions, but I don't wanna bother anybody. If you know that tomorrow you have 30 minutes, Engineer A, then you're not gonna feel like a bothering. You have space and if you can build trusting relationships, it becomes a lot more comfortable to ask questions and just make progress. And so, yeah, trying not to hide yourself away trying in the beginning be like, This is what I need from my team is 30 minutes of synchronous time a day. And having that time I think can make a huge difference. Yeah, no, for

Nick Taylor:

sure. And there's uh, someone in the chat, I also, Vicious is saying all this is so helpful. I'm in a bootcamp now and I'm a career changer. Used to be or might currently still be a journalist writer with tech support experience. And I'm wondering if I'm good enough to be there. I know what I would say. I would just say apply. So yes, you're actually, I'm gonna drop that link again. Yeah. So definitely check that out. Ally or ao. So Vicious. I'm not sure what your real name is. Aos. So

Stacie Taylor:

Vicious . Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. So we have so many career changers come through the program. In fact, I would say I would bargain to say 90%. Like that's who, okay, that's who comes to do these thing. People who, who have been doing other things and are ready to break into the tech industry and don't have the privilege of, you know, rolling out of high school and going to university and getting a degree. It's, yeah, people like me who, you know, am is a mom of two who has a communications degree that I used to do absolutely nothing relevant. And you know, you need to, you need the experience because it's really hard going out there and interview with companies. They're like, Why would we hire you? You have literally nothing to show. And Collab Lab does a great job of giving you something to show and it's, you get surrounded by people who just wanna help you. Mentors that become lifelong mentors who can expose you to opportunities and who can just be there for you if you have questions. Even once you leave the cloud lab and you get your. You know, next engineering role, and you have a question that you don't feel flexible at work. You have a whole team, a whole community of people at the cloud lab, so you can lean on for the rest of forever. Mm-hmm.. Nick Taylor: Yeah. And, and I like what you said there because like, you know, there's, there's a lot of, I mean, there's been times and times of, I feel like there's been a big influx of juniors since the pandemic, but like mm-hmm., you know, everybody is trying to make connections, you know, to land that job and stuff. And I totally get that. But, but to your point, what you were saying is like, don't focus on that short term. Like, hey, just connect with me on LinkedIn and hey, can you help me? Mm-hmm., find a job. Like, like you wanna make those meaningful connections. And I don't mean it's not gonna happen like overnight, like, but you know, those are the ones that are long lasting. I have like my first manager from like, like, cuz I, I'm, I'm like getting up there. I like my first ma I think, or my second manager from like 2004. I mean, I know him cuz I used to play a rugby with him. But like, I still talk to him about work all the time. Sometimes I've ended up doing some work for him on the side, you know, and just other people. And it, and the thing with these connections too is it's great if it helps you out, but it doesn't have to, you know, like, like I've met you through the Collab Lab now., maybe I never work at Zapier, but I know you and I know you work there. So I'd be like, Hey, there's this friend of mine, they're super interested in Zapier. You know, would you mind having like a 15 minute chat with him? They're just curious about this role or something. You know? So exactly that. So much of the game as who you know and what connections you can find, and it can be really hard for people who are nervous and introverted and don't feel a lot of imposter syndrome like they don't belong. But I promise you, there are people out there that wanna help you. So yeah, like Nick was saying, make those meaningful connections and use that time really wisely. Come with questions or projects or things that you wanna gain from it so that you can be really efficient and you can just use the time to grow together with somebody. Because as much as an early career engineers growing through mentorship, mentors are growing too. Yeah. It's like a total two way street. So it's beautiful to have those relationships.

Nick Taylor:

Yeah. No, I, I, I definitely can say I've learned some things from people I've mentored too, so, yeah, no big, big ups to that. I wanna kinda switch gears for a sec cuz you were talking about your communications degree and how you said like, Oh, well nothing really came to that. So I'm kind of curious how you, I guess kind of how you ended up in tech and like, and like yeah. Where you're at now, like kind of what that not sound cheesy, but I'll say journey.

Stacie Taylor:

I'll tell you about my journey. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So got out of high school, knew I had to go to college cause that's what I was supposed to do. Like I grew up in the deep Midwest and was kind of like, went along with what everybody else did. I was gonna be, I thought I was gonna be a nurse for a while because that's what most women who grew up in my community did. I live in a small farm town with like less than 3000 people. So I was like, okay, I'm obviously gonna go be a nurse. Started into that, got like a cna, started taking care of people as a nurse, nurse's assistant. And realized, like, I love people a lot, but maybe not that much , any CNA out there has a heart of gold because they're doing the hardest work. I, I think it's the hardest work. Anyway, then I was like, I don't know, I like to look at magazines. I guess I'll get a communications degree. I don't know what I was thinking. Got outta college, worked at a bank, and then came to California and got a job in social media where I was just like doing people's social media. And then that was at a little startup that was connected to a lot of other startups and we were kind of all growing together in different directions. At that social media startup, we started building our own kind of like customer client management system because we had very Okay. Unique ways we worked. And in that, I was kind of like, Oh, I'm loving driving this project of like our, our processes. I had built a lot of apps and stuff like that, like just automating things. Okay. And was trying to figure out how we could build this internal app. And the CEO was like, Well, you're doing product management right now. Like you should really lean into product management and learn that. And so just started really like kind of was fell into the opportunity to be a product manager because I liked it. I was kinda good at the stuff that it required. Got a lot of experience doing that for a couple different things, couple different projects and apps. Um, and then I was like, Okay, I wanna be a product manager. Places started applying. The gates are almost just as high for product managers as they are for engineers, so it was very hard to get into that. And so at the startup I was working at, at that time, I was like, I wanna go learn how to code, because I was having some friction with the engineers I was working with when I was the product manager where I'd be. Okay, our users really want this list sorted, A to Z, just alphabetically sort this list. And they were like, Well, it's just not so easy like that and would like drag their feet. And I was like, just sort the list, like why is this so hard? Granted now that I'm an engineer, I know that it's not always just so easy like that. But I think that there was a lot of tension and this particular situation, so told the ceo, I'm gonna go learn how to code cuz I wanna be able to just do this stuff on my own. And originally he was like, No, I need you to be the product manager. Kinda stay in your lane. Okay. And I was like, Okay, because I'm a woman in tech and that's what we do. And looking back, so embarrassed about it, but I was like, All right, I won't. But then secretly I was like, Oh, forgive about him. I'm going to bootcamp. And so I put myself through bootcamp. At this time I like had a one year old and was about to. Birth to another baby. I was like, I'm gonna do bootcamp. I'm gonna do my full-time startup, product manager, job And then when I finished bootcamp, I told that ceo, I was like, You told me not to go. And that was not okay with me. So I went anyway. And he felt so bad that he was like, Oh my God, I'm so embarrassed. That's not what I meant. I like pay for it. So he like footed the bill for boot camp. Oh nice. Knowing that I was probably gonna leave to be an engineer somewhere, but started freelancing with the new stuff I learned at boot camp for some of the bigger art or some of the bigger museums in Chicago. So the Modern Art Museum of Chicago, the Shed Aquarium. They have an accessibility app that makes acting with exhibits easier for people who have different disabilities. And so I was working on that as a freelancer and it was a rough experience being a freelancer as an early career engineer. People out there do it and are successful. So if you're listening to me say this, Know that there are ways to be successful. I was not. I was like, be like, Hey, can you make these images in a certain kind of grid? And I'd be like, Oh yeah, that'll only take me five hours. And then it's like hour 15 and I'm still working on it and I don't have anybody to ask because I didn't have any mentors either. And so I was just like billing them for five hours and like this. It was just not scalable as a mom who needed good, you know, benefits for children and stuff. So I was like, okay, I need to find a job as an engineer and this is where like why I'm really passionate about the GLAD Lab. Wanted to find a job as an engineer, had been freelancing, so had some experience, but nobody would hire me. Like everybody was like, Well you what? Like what do you have to offer us? You've never been a developer on a team. And I probably had like 50 rounds of interviews that just ended in me being very disappointed and feeling kind of worthless. So I was like, okay, I don't have time to keep going this interview route. The path least resistance for me is going to be finding a support role at a very technical company and then moving over to engineering from there because you can't fuck around with these interviews anymore basically. And so, Can I say that on the stream anyway, Sorry, that's too late. You already said it. So , I went to, I went to a couple companies and got into interviewing pipeline for support roles. Zapier was one of them and in the end I was like offered two roles and they're both really fantastic. But I had, I had known people at Zapier and by known, I mean I met Andrew Hedges through Twitter because I think I was tweeting about looking for a job and he tweeted like, Hey, have you looked at Saper? And I was like, Oh, that's interesting. I don't know if I'm qualified. And he was like, Let's just get on Zoom. And we connected on Zoom and he kinda like, Gave me a good referral and I was like, Okay, well I know that there's a kind, there's at least one very kind person at Zapper, so I think I'll take my chances on. Zer got there right up front, told everybody I could tell, I wanna go into engineering, I wanna move to the engineering team someday. And that's a really risky thing to do. And I think you have to do it very confidently because in tech in general, as soon as you say, I'm gonna come onto the engineering team, gates go up and it's like, I. Overwhelmed that zappier by all the support I got to make that move. Like nobody was like, you know, trying to like, put up gates or make me feel unwelcome. Lots of the engineers were like, How can I help you? Like, do you wanna shadow me? Do you wanna help like, pair up with me to work on things? Like, how can I move you over here? I want you to succeed because it'll make us all feel great. Um, and so that's what I did and honestly, that path is what I recommend to a lot of moms, specifically in tech, especially who are career changers, who have experience in the service industry or in support because we don't have the resources or the time, especially single mothers to mm-hmm spend a year interviewing. We have to have a job right now and it has to pay well and it needs to be flexible and all these other things. So I found that you can spend your tires trying to get the job endlessly or you can find a company that you like and a company that you know is supportive and find like, Find a path of least resistance there. Find an entry point there and put it in your growth plan that you wanna move to engineering and try and find ways in your day job to do that. I also think this is great because coming from support onto an engineering team is like a superpower because you know so many things about the company, then nobody, none of the engineers you work with know because they've never had to. And you can say things like, I don't think our users would find that helpful. I know because I talked to 50 of them a day for over a year, so Yeah. Yeah. It's like you can like get a level of respect that you might not get just coming fresh into an engineering org too. So I thought it was great. It takes a little bit longer. Sometimes the best things do.

Nick Taylor:

Yeah, it, it's, it's definitely not a, a cookie cutter recipe, but that, that path worked for you. And I know there's others that have done that path of like, you know what, I'm gonna do support and then move over, You know, like that's the, the end game, you know? But again, I kind of want to touch on what you're, you said you ended up speaking to Andrew, you know what I mean? So, you know, you bypass, it's a superpower when you can bypass like a whole part of an interview process, like the resume line. It doesn't mean, it doesn't mean you're guaranteed you're gonna get the job, but like just reaching out to somebody, you know, like, Hey, this looks really cool. You mind if we chat? You know, And then, and obviously I would assume you know, Andrew pretty well now and, and he's probably a lifelong connection and friend now, you know, so like, you know, there's that too, you know, So it's, uh, Yeah,

Stacie Taylor:

yeah, yeah. No, I think you're totally right that it's like, and I just know from working in Zapper that the amount of applications we get is. Uncanny. Like there are so many, there's no way you're gonna like our recruiters read through them all. But it's when you're getting so many that it's like just chaos. And so if you can find connections of a company that you like and sort of get somebody to give you a thumbs up, it's a really easy way to stand out in the crowd because the crowd is big these days.

Nick Taylor:

It sounds bad to say, but knowing people definitely helps out. It doesn't, it's not always the case, but it definitely, definitely helps if you do know people, even if it's just to have a conversation with somebody. Like, I can give an example, I didn't get a job there at Netflix, but I reached out to somebody on Twitter. I was asking about something and they're like, Oh, I don't know what, but I'll give you the email of a manager. Just I'll tell 'em you're gonna email 'em. And I had an hour long conversation with an engineering manager there. Like I said, things didn't work out, which is fine, but I.. I had that one hour conversation that I never would've had if I had just sent in a resume right away, you know? So

Stacie Taylor:

I love that. Yes. Actually, I have a very similar story at Netflix too, where, Okay. I was referred in by a fellow mentor at Lab Lab who's an engineering manager there, and she was like, she knew I wanted to be an engineering manager. I'm still not an engineering manager, it's my end of the year goal, But, so I had no experience as an engineering manager, and she's like, I wanna refer you in for this EM position at Netflix. And I was like, I'm wildly underqualified for this. You know that, right? She was like, Yeah, just do it anyway. So I met with this other hiring manager who sent me through the process. I did those whole big, long six hour interviews. Yeah. And in the end, also didn't get it because, hello, No experience. But also the hiring manager was like, I think you're gonna do great things, and I wanna be there to witness it. So I would love to coach you if that's something you're interested in. And so now I have, that's this coach that I meet with who's an ING manager at Netflix who just says there to coach me once a month and keep up to date on my progress and stuff. So it's like good things can come of things that don't work out too, so. Yeah. Yeah. Don't always feel defeated. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like making those connections is so important. It was kinda like weird saying the how it was really valuable for mentors too, because like I've got experiences like for example, there's this engineer named Eric. When I was going through bootcamp, I was like tweeting about a lot of the work that I was doing and struggles I was facing. And when I'd come across a technical problem, Eric would be like on Twitter, responding and trying to help walk me through some of these things. And we just developed a really strong Twitter connection. And then I went to Zapper and Eric was like, Oh, I am looking for new job I'm interested in. I was like, Please come to Zap here. Got him on the engineering team at Zapier and then he started sponsoring me from the inside to get over to the engineering team. So we've just kinda been going like this. Yeah, that's like years now. And so it's like making those connections has, it's just been beautiful. Highly encouraged. Yeah.

Nick Taylor:

Yeah. That's Eric, is it by, I'm trying to remember his name. We follow each other

Stacie Taylor:

on Abar. Eric Abar. Abar. I think it probably his handle something exactly like that.

Nick Taylor:

Yeah, if, if you find it drop, drop his Twitter in the, in the chat there if you can. But yeah. I'm still perplexed what happened to my internet cuz it's been like super solid. The only thing I can think about is I've, I'm having some renovations done. I don't know, maybe something, Well they definitely didn't cut the wire cuz then I wouldn't be back at all. But, uh, anyways, it's all good. It's all good. Don't worries. It's

Stacie Taylor:

all part of the remote experience.

Nick Taylor:

Yeah. Yeah. It's also one of the reasons why I don't really do YouTube videos. I mean, I, I put recordings up of streams. I do. But one of the things I like about Twitch is like, people expect it not to be perfect . So

Stacie Taylor:

Yeah, I've heard that. Cause I was really nervous about Twitch. I was like, I've never been on what is Twitch? I've heard the kids talk about it, obviously. Yeah. And then people were like, No, no, no worries. If something goes wrong, people expect that. I'm like, Oh, ok. Not so nervous then. Yeah. Team's like, Yeah.

Nick Taylor:

Yeah, exactly. So getting back to the Collab Lab, cause I know we're going all over the place here. We always go on tangents here, but, So in regards to the cohort, so you talked about, so there's, I'll drop the, the sample project and a link to the GitHub repo is people want to check that out. Yeah. How long, how long is the program like, So say I were to join up this cohort, how many months are we talking about? What's the kind of, what's the commitment to it, to check-ins, all that kind of stuff.

Stacie Taylor:

Okay. So this is what it looks like. It is, The CLA Lab's core program is eight weeks long. So over that eight weeks, there are four developers on your team. Each week is a new sprint. So in that week, the four developers split up into two pair. Of two. Okay. And they each tackle a story together. So, okay, you start the week, you code pair program with your partner to build the thing you need to build, and then you leave the rest of the week to send it over to the other pair for code review, make any revisions you need to make. Then it finally goes to your mentors for kind of a final approval of the code. Okay? And it all gets merged into production. Then what happens is on the weekends, either Saturday or Sunday, your team will have a weekly sync. The weekly sync will look one of two ways. There are two different versions, like even an odd numbered weeks. But one of the weeks you will, every week you get together and you demo the work you did the week before, which is a crucial skill, not only for the interview process, but for being a developer, cuz you have to demo your work a lot. So yeah, you get to learn how to demo really well. Get a lot of good experience with that. And on even weeks you will do a learning module. So your mentors will put together something that they think is really valuable, usually around collaboration and that side of being an engineer. And then you'll do kind of a sprint planning, you would call it if you do scrum where, Yeah. Or like it's just an agile thing where you get together and you say, Okay, what issues are we working on next week? You pick the two, you assign them, you talk through them to see if there's any, you know, if we need to add any color to the tickets, if anything's missing. And then it all starts over. You pair with your partner, you go through the motions of code reviews, and then the next week you have another weekly sync in this one. Instead of doing a learning module where you're learning something new, you do a retrospective. And these are also part of Agile. If anybody listening isn't familiar with that, oh, thanks for dropping that link. Retrospectives are a really, really fantastic time for growth. As a team, you get to give appreciations to your teammates for the amazing things they've been doing. You get to talk about what went really well. So in our project, in our collaboration, what things were great, what do we wanna keep doing more of? And then you also get to talk about what didn't go so well. And Collab Lab is a really great chance to say those things out loud and express that feedback in a very safe space where everybody's growing together. Because giving feedback can be one of the hardest pieces of being on a team. And if you've never had to do it before and you jump into a space that. You know, might not be as supportive as you need. It can be very scary. So yeah, restaurants are one of my favorite things that we do at Cloud Lab because again, just getting to say those things out loud before it really matters, before it's for money can be very helpful. So anyway, we do that for eight weeks. Each week is a sprint. At the end, we celebrate and we say, if you wanna stick around for two more weeks to get ready for your job hunt, please do. We highly encourage it. And we call that optional two week thing, career lab where we, you know, learn how to tell our story, do the mock interviews, which you've been involved with and are so helpful and just kind of repair. And you get to be surrounded by like a whole new set of mentors usually for that piece that you didn't meet in your core team. So it's even more connections for people who work for Zappier and obviously the practical dev at this time. And yeah, One pass. And like these big companies Buffer, like some big name companies who have mentors there. So it's like getting in, you get to know a lot of really great people. Yeah.

Nick Taylor:

Like, yeah, just that alone. Like again, just getting back to the connections and people, you know, like I've.. I definitely love the Collab Lab, like just the community aspect of it. Another thing to, in general, if you're starting out, or even if you aren't starting out, just joining the community period is a great thing you can do. Like I've, Yeah, I met my friend Becca, who's a good friend of mine now through Virtual Coffee. It's a program. She started, it literally started with, she tweeted out, Hey, anybody wanna meet a coffee for a coffee? And I just said, Hey, Yeah, I, I DMed her, Hey, if there's still room, I'll pop by. And that's like almost two and a half years later now. Mm-hmm., you know, and yeah, you, I think people would, maybe, it's not surprising, but Becca's here, Oh, hey Becca. Hey. Yeah, yeah. Heart rate back at you. You know, you'd be surprised at how many people are willing to help people, you know, and even. Even just putting stuff out on Twitter. Like I can think of concrete examples and like, I wasn't even adding the person. So we use Preact, which is like React at, at forum and dev two, and I was just, I wrote out like, Oh, I'm stuck on this thing. I had an issue open and all of a sudden we follow each other now. But the creator of the project, Jason Miller, who works at Google, he responded to me in my own issue and he offered suggestions and stuff. And that was like, not even me asking for help, it was more like, Hey, I'm stuck on this. Uh, curious, Well, I guess I was kind of asking it, but it was more like, Hey, internet, not like somebody specific, everyone, so, you know, so it's just, it's, it's, You'd be super surprised at how many people want to help. And I think the only thing I would say, people are listening. Yeah. The only thing I would say to that too though, is like, I, I love helping people. Whenever you do receive help, at some point, whenever you can, and hopefully you'd like to just, just give it back, you know, like help others out, you know? Oh, hey Shelly. Hey. Yeah. Shelly's in Collab Lab too, right? Yeah,

Stacie Taylor:

yeah, yeah. Is in, And I love this. I love this because I found, Okay, so my tech journey really started with the Moms Can Code crew, which, Okay. A lot of people who are in all these spaces are also in, Yeah. And it was like a very, it was very supportive to know. There were other moms out there trying to do this too, who were struggling, you know, with having so many babies and so much to do and needing to have full-time jobs and learn to code and then get another job. And it was a lot of stress. And having those people around just to have a shared experience was so powerful for me. And then from there, I've seen a lot of people break out and kind of form their own things, and we all have a lot going on now. Like Becca has got virtual coffee and we've got the cloud lab, and so there's this kind of like really beautiful blend. Like we work together so well in this space of just trying to make tech better for like underrepresented people specifically. And then bringing people in like allies to just rally with us. And it's been so powerful to have so many communities out there doing great things. And it kinda gives me hope. It gives me hope to see that there are so many people out there who wanna make a difference and who wanna see change. So yeah, I find everybody doing awesome thing

Nick Taylor:

and, and we haven't even talked about that. But yeah, there's a big focus on diversity in the Collab Labs too, and you know, because like, I'm, I'm prob, I wouldn't say I'm stereotypical, but like I am a white guy in tech, you know? Like, my name's not Chad, but you know, like there's a lot of, there's a lot of free passes I get, you know, just for being or, or looking the way I do, you know? And, uh, I'm aware of that, but I still have to kind of reflect sometimes before I say things, you know, like, why, you know, like, why don't you do this? And then it's like, well, I can probably do that just because I have a lot of privilege just cuz I'm a white guy in tech. You know? So it, some things, it's never anything bad. I said, it's just more like, Right. I have to kind of reassess, like, it might not work for everybody or like mm-hmm., if you can, if you have time, if it fits in with your things, you know, like I'm a big proponent of open source. It's opened a lot of doors for me, but like, I know, you know, not every, like, I had the privilege, I could spend a weekend on something sometimes, you know? And I know not everybody can do that, you know? But if you can. It, it, it definitely opens doors, but Yeah. But anyway, that was my long segue to talking about diversity in, in the cloud. Cause I know it's a big focus as well.

Stacie Taylor:

Yeah. So we, we do focus a lot on diversity and we recognize that everybody has biases. We have biases. Yeah. And so we are explicit about those. And so the way our teams work is we will, we have four developers and only one of those will be a male identifying person. The other ones will be, you know, female identifying or non-binary. And we do that so that like, cuz there was a point in, in my head where I was like, no, like all women and non-binary people. And Andrew was like, Yeah, but there are going to be men in tech and we need to raise them in a space where they understand how to communicate. And they know early on that how valuable, you know mm-hmm., these underrepresented groups can be. And so I was like, oh, that makes a lot of sense. Like, It's not like being exclusionary is not the key, but rather helping people see value in people that they don't understand. And so if you can imagine your first experience being on a team of all women and non-binary people, you're gonna go into the tech world with a very different view of who those people are and it's gonna matter a heck of a lot more to you than it did if you'd never worked with any. And so, yeah, I think it's a really solid approach and just a lot of work goes into all of us being mindful, like you're saying, of creating a very safe space for people. Yeah. And just being mindful of their own experiences. Like you were saying, you know, this is something I do that works for me. But when you're then mindful and you, you know, like can put the caveat if like, this might not work for you, like you need to do what makes you feel safe and comfortable, that can be very meaningful for

Nick Taylor:

people. Yeah, for sure. And you know, like you said, there not every place is amazing. I've, I have worked at some toxic places or, or like a place that did end up getting toxic or, you know, uh, I'd say I have a bit of a thick skin, but still, it's not great when somebody just tells you just, you know, Hey, fucking fix that, that sucks or something. It's not, even though I'm like, I can bounce that off me, that's still not a good way to respond to somebody. No. You know? No. And, and, and I think this is one of the, one of the great things you were saying about, I mean, it it's the Collab Lab cuz you're collaborating and we were talking about communication before, but it's, it's also super important, like when you're reviewing people's code, there's a, it's called conventional commits. It's, Oh, sorry. Conventional comments. It's something I started using. A year and a half ago, I'll drop a link to it. But it's just reframing how you give feedback, you know? So like, you know, instead of saying, you know, I don't know, change this, this doesn't work, or like, you use this method instead you could, you can re reframe it by prefixing it with stuff. So you can say like, refactor, nitpick, use this instead. But if it's something I, I consider like it's, it's, it can't ship, I'll say like, refactor blocking, and then I'll, I'll write something and it, it's a small thing, but I've had several people on the team. It was one of my old coworkers, Michael Cole, who had introduced me to it, but I've had other coworkers since then, like adopted and also just they found it helpful. Yeah. But my point about all that is, is, is really, it's the giving feedback, like you were saying before, and especially if you're an open source. So say you're looking for work, you know, all of this stuff is literally in the open. So like, if. Even if you're writing amazing code and then you're just like, people look at how you interact with people like that already. Like if people happen to see that stuff, they'll be like, Woo. Yeah, it's a lead up. You know what I mean? So basically it's pretty hard to go wrong by just being kind, honestly, you know?

Stacie Taylor:

Exactly. And it's like on the open source note too. I think that this is a very powerful way to kind of get your foot into tech in a way that doesn't have to be intimidating. Like I know a lot of people be like, I can't contribute to open source. I just learned to React. But never like doubt the power of documentation. So if you go in and something isn't properly documented, add that because it shows that you're being mindful of other people's experience with this piece of technology, and that's really powerful. Yes, go in and do coder views like Nick mentioned, and you know, make sure they're positive because I don't remember what the number is, but there's some kind of saying like, if you wanna build trust with people and you want to be able to give them constructive feedback, you need to give them, you know, 10 pieces of positive feedback for everyone construction. And so it's like go in there and just tell people like, Oh, this is a really brilliant use of this method, or whatever it might be. Or, Oh, clever that you did this. I would just like go in there and just like interact and show that you're a good team player because that's something. You can't demonstrate very well working on your own. So if you're applying for a job and you're like, Here's my GitHub repo, and it's a bunch of pet projects that you put together by yourself, what I see is somebody who's hiring is okay, you know how to code. That's one piece of the puzzle. But I wanna know how you work in a team and you can demonstrate that through these things like going into open source and being part of that team. So try and find teamwork where you can, because lots of people are learning how to code right now and it's what's gonna keep you like one step ahead.

Nick Taylor:

Yeah, and you know, like we were saying before there, there are a lot of new developers out there looking for that first job. So, you know, I'm not gonna candy code it. It's from everything I've read and like hearing from people, it's super competitive and it can be demoralizing sometime. But you know, I always say, Do whatever you can do to stand out. I mean, obviously don't break any laws with people, but uh, you know, like lean in on even things that you've done in the past. Like, like for example, it can be even silly stuff. Like, and I was talking to, I think it was RA or Amber, I was talking to him when we were doing the job fit, mock fit interviews. Mm-hmm. And I was just giving examples, like, like I used to play rugby and I also used to be in a hand bell choir when I was, that's how I got out church. I would just be in a Handbell choir and we were in our own space where we didn't have to really do church stuff. But my, my point is like, sometimes I would bring these things up in interviews and, you know, people will remember, Oh, that's, that's the handball guy. Or, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm., like, even, even if you don't get the job, or even if the interview didn't go that great, they'll probably remember, Oh, that's, that's handball guy. Or that's, that's, uh, Stacie, she's, uh, I don't know. She, she, she juggles spoons, you know, that's, that's spoon juggler, you know what I mean? Like, I'm being a little ridiculous here now, but anything to make people remember you, you know, can definitely help too, you know, And obviously interesting work you've done too will definitely help you stand out. Um, speaking to Amber, just giving our, our own collab, use a shout out. Mm-hmm. Amber, where she's currently working, she works with mainframes in a insurance company and like, I don't know anybody that works with mainframe. So like, as soon as we started that job mock fit interview, all I had on my brain was this is, this is mainframe person. You know what I mean? So like, yeah. If in a, in a, in a pool of like 600 resumes, I would, I would remember mainframe person. You know what I mean? Right. Cause it stands out. So, so yeah, just, just mention things you never know. Again, don't break laws

Stacie Taylor:

people, but Yeah. No, be, be yourself. Like, lean into what makes you unique because. People don't wanna work with robots. We wanna work with people. People are good. So be a person. Yeah. It can be hard like to know what to and not to say in interviews. And I know, like I, I feel fortunate that even when I was getting like my foothold in tech, I was very passionate about getting more moms into text so I didn't sugar coat it. Okay. I say things like, I'm sitting on the ground right now because the kids are in the living room and that's mom life. Okay, but I'm gonna do a heck of a job here. You know? And like felt very comfortable saying those kinds of things. And I know that some people mentioned the same kind of things, like that was really memorable that, you know, you are a mom and your kids were there, but you were still able to be very professional and yeah, that was impressive to us. And so it's like you can't always feel comfortable doing that, especially if you come, you know, from other underrepresented groups. But it is something that. I know when I get in the job, you're still gonna see, when you're working with me on a team, you're still gonna see this kind of thing. So I'm gonna be upfront with you right now that this is what life for me is.

Nick Taylor:

Yeah. Yeah. Allie and the chat saying like, Yeah, people definitely don't remember. Oh, definitely don't forget me. If I say used to work in a police impound, I mean, I would not forget that. And I'm sure there's cool stories that she can probably, or that they can probably share or not share. I don't know. But sure. I don't mean on the stream right now, but I just mean if you were in the interview. But yeah. And yeah, definitely what you said too about, I know I'm repeating some stuff you're saying, but like definitely being yourself is super important because like, I'll just speak about myself for a second, but I goof around. I mean, I do good, I do do good work, but I goof around. Like that's my nature. I'm serious when I need to be serious, but that's how I'm gonna act in the interview because that's what you're gonna get. And like if, if people are all of a sudden like, ye, I don't know, this guy's a bit of a joker, you know, I, you know, maybe that's already, you know, it's a way for me to filter out things on my own, you know? Mm-hmm. like, uh, you know, so,

Stacie Taylor:

Cause these are the people you're gonna be working with. And if you don't have like a vibe, if there's no flow between you, like do you wanna go to work every day and feel that I do not. Yeah. So you're interviewing them just as much as they're interviewing you. Don't forget it. Feel hard when you're desperate for a job when you're like, I will literally take anything cuz I've been there too. Yeah. But it's like you be yourself and you find a team where you're really gonna fit well, I think it will work out. Also on that note, just as somebody who does see the other side of the hiring process. Know that even if you do really, really well and you think everything is great and you get rejected, a lot of times it might not have anything to do with you. It might just be that there are five other people who were slightly better fits for that particular role. So yeah, don't, don't get too down on yourself. You know, it's very hard if it doesn't work out, just keep trying and if it, you felt like it went well, stay in touch with those recruiters because mm-hmm recruitment is their job and they might not even be at the same company in a few months. So yeah, if you can make a good impact on a recruiter or a hiring manager, you know, try and keep those relationships up.

Nick Taylor:

Yeah, no, for sure. And like you said too, we kind. This is kind of in the job mock fit interviews too, but like in general, it's a great thing. Like when you, when you go to interview, you know, they, they'll probably ask you some coding questions, some job fit stuff, but if you don't have questions for the company, I've heard from a lot of people and including myself, I'd be like, I find it a bit bizarre. You don't have any questions for me. Like, like literally anything. So like, you know, if, if you are applying to jobs, definitely, you know, read up about the company, maybe check out a few people that work there. Uh, you know, Cause if you get to a interview and you're like, I'm not really sure what Zapier does. But it sounds cool, You know, like, you know, but even it's just asking the questions will help you also potentially filter out where and where you don't wanna work. You know, like mm-hmm., maybe you're asking about like, Oh, what kind of processes do you have? You know, like, do you write tests or do you know, do people work late often? Or is, you know, is like over time, like a very rare occurrence when there's something critical, you know? Mm-hmm., Stacie Taylor: exactly that. There's just so many things. Andrew Hedges of the cloud lab during our Career lab portion does a really great session on what questions to ask your interviewers, and one of the kind of takeaways that I had from his session was think through your past, think through your previous jobs, what things did you like and what things did you not like? And how are you gonna ask the company if that kind of thing is gonna happen to you there? And so, for example, one of the questions I came up with after hearing him talk about that was, What ha like tell me about a time when your team didn't hit a deadline. What happened? Okay. Because in one of my previous jobs, we didn't hit a deadline and tons of people got fired and I was like, Okay, yeah, I wanna know before I walk into it, but that doesn't happen here. And it's like, I didn't really think about asking questions like based on my past and how I want the future to be. But it's a really great approach to those questions because you gotta know before you get in there. Yeah. And it's, I mean, interviewing in general is, is tough from both ends. You know? Like you have a finite amount of time with somebody you're being interviewed by, or you're, or somebody that you're interviewing, you know, it's not to say it's a gamble, but it is to some degree because like you only have, you know, people hopefully put their best foot forward and show who they really are and then you kind of just take, take a leap of faith to some degree because like, , you know, even you just, even if you were to have a, a long day of like, like, you know, eight hours of interviews or something, like even at eight hours, that's still not enough to really know somebody or anything. So, No. So it's, you know, it's tough.

Stacie Taylor:

So, yeah, My advice to people, because I'm sure there's a lot of people listening that are out there interviewing, but it's somebody who does a lot of interviews. Now. When you are giving your answers in an interview, try to give very concrete and specific examples that answer the question. Yeah. Even if they don't ask, like, give me an example of a time if they're like, How would you handle a situation where there was a conflict in a team? Instead of kind of in theory, I would, you know, go to them and talk to them. Give an example of like, that's a really great question. There was this one time when X, y, Z happened because that's what stands out and is memorable and shows that you actually have experience and you follow through on the things you say in addition to that. When you answer those questions, make sure at the end they always go up. So what I learned from that experience was this, it shows that you learned and you made a difference. Or if I were to experience that again, I might try this instead. And it just shows growth and you moving forward. So instead of ending it on a, like, here's how we dealt with that conflict, it's like, okay, but tell me what did you learn from it? What would you do next time? Kind of push that into the future I would write. So those are

Nick Taylor:

my tips for sure. And, and kind of, I'm glad you brought up that example, cause that's a really good question to ask. And it's if, if you're somebody who's, it's your first job, you don't have that scenario. But this is again, was like, this is why I say lean into previous experience. Like how did you deal with conflict at wherever else you were working? You know, it's, it's kind of still the same thing. Yes. It's not code, but like, you know, how you approached it, how you dealt with it, you know, so, Again, just lean into that past or or current career that you're transitioning from if you can. That'll definitely help to

Stacie Taylor:

Exactly that. Exactly that. Yeah. Cause it's like in the end, you're just a human working on a team of humans to get something done. And so like even if you work as a server, for example, which many, many of us have, there's a lot, there are a lot of times where it's very high pressure and there's a lot of moving pieces and people might not be on the same page, but in the end, we pick up Slack to make sure that the users, the end users are people that we're serving, are getting a good experience. And you can talk about times that were miscommunications and balls were dropped, and how you, you know, like solved for that. Because essentially you're doing the same thing in a team of developers. You're working together to get things done within a certain timeframe and make sure then end user is happy. So lean on that experience for sure is valuable.

Nick Taylor:

No, definitely, definitely. I'm just going to drop, I already dropped the Collab Lab codes site. I'm just gonna drop the Twitter again. Yeah, we're getting close to time. I don't know if there's a a way we could kinda wrap this all up. We've, we've, I feel like we've had just great discussions and just kind tangents and coming back, which is, is super awesome, I guess. Yeah. So again, like you said, if folks are interested in the Collab Lab apply regardless I drop the site. So we check out the dash collab dash.codes. If you're interested in being a mentor there to just visit slash mentor on that page, I can drop that again aside from that. So mainly there's the Slack channel where a lot of people communicate and. We, we didn't actually talk about it, but like I imagine you have the teams have Zoom sessions every now and then just to, to go over, It's not all asynchronous.

Stacie Taylor:

No, it's, there is, in fact quite a bit of it in the beginning of every week is synchronous because we emphasize care programming because you think it's a really good way to learn. So yeah, we'll use Zoom or whatever tool Google meet if a team wants to, to do those. And then at the end of the week also, we will do our weekly syncs on Zoom live as well. Okay. But yeah, it's great. We've got a, like my TLDR of the whole thing is that it can be so, so, so very hard to get your first job as an engineer. Yeah. And trying to do that. Trying to go through the interview process. Without having ever worked on a team of developers to do something is even harder because you don't have a lot of experience to lean on and you can't prove it, and everybody wants you to prove it right now. And so I think a really good stepping stone if you've taught yourself how to code or you've learned in a bootcamp, is then to come to a place like Collab Lab where you can work on a team of developers to build something together and get those experiences. We are, like I said earlier, an eight week program where you do get to do just that, collaborate on a group, on a project with a group of developers and learn the in and outs of what it's like to work on a team and then you can go talk about those, that you can land that job. Trying to do it without a community is not fun or easy. Yeah, we run teams every cohort. We just closed applications for this upcoming cohort, so, um, check the website. In a few months we'll be opening again, and we're always looking for mentors and volunteers with. You know, mentoring teams or doing career coaching or helping us build automation so that we can, you know, scale the program better. Yeah, so hit us up on Twitter or in our emails or through our website. However you wanna get in touch. We would love to hear from anyone.

Nick Taylor:

Awesome. Awesome. That's it. I think that's a, a great place to, to stop things here. I just wanna say, Stacie, it was amazing. I had amazing convos with you today. I'm really excited about the Collab Lab and for folks who are interested, I highly encourage you to check it out and apply.

Stacie Taylor:

Thanks Nick.