Latest / The Unfiltered Engineer / Ep 4: LinkedIn, Minus the Cringe feat. Dan Johnson

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Ep 4: LinkedIn, Minus the Cringe feat. Dan Johnson · The Unfiltered Engineer

• Vishakha Motwani: Hello and welcome to the Unfiltered Engineer. My guest today is Dan Johnson. Dan's career started in a small mountain town in Vermont, where instead of doing homework, he built websites to post ski pictures. That curiosity took him all the way to building software at Netflix, which stops as a director of engineering, a principal engineer, and the first engineering hire at an early stage startup. Along the way, he moved from director back down to an individual contributor role, which is not a common move. And he'll tell us why. These days, he writes about tech careers with the occasional farm post mixed in from where he lives in Tennessee. Today, we are talking about engineering identity, what happens when writing good code stops being enough to define you, and how to actually build presence without it feeling gross. Welcome, Dan. Where are you tuning in from? Dan: Thank you. I'm in Tennessee on a Vishakha Motwani: all this. Dan: small farm. Appreciate you having me today, looking forward to chatting a bit. so yeah, I'll tell you a little bit about how my career got started, then kind of work our way through the conversation. So as you mentioned, I went to high school up in Vermont, little tiny mountain town. there wasn't much to do at night other than homework, and I didn't enjoy doing homework, so I started just building websites. And this was late 90s, early 2000s. so building websites was very different than it is now. you know, think like very early PHP, you know, CSS was just barely becoming a thing. so like it's hard to remember those days, right? But like that's that's how I got started. went to university as a pre-med, thought I wanted to be an athletic trainer, realized a year or two in that I didn't want to do that. Bounced around through business, even music, and finally just dropped out and said, you know, I really have no idea what I'm doing. And so what why am I spending money to be here? Around that same time, I realized that I was gonna be a father. And so my career up until that point, of coaching ski racing and working in bike shops, was perhaps not the best way to support a family. And so I thought, well, you know, I I wonder if somebody would pay me to build a website. And that's that's really how I got started as something more than just a hobby. so you know, did a number of kind of you know, freelance, just asking anybody who needed a website, anybody that needed the website fixed up, built a portfolio as again back then that was a thing that mattered. and eventually kind of got my first job at the Staples Corporate Office in Massachusetts. And I really credit that first job of teaching me how to actually program. you know, I I think it's one thing to build just kind of you know basic HTML sites just as a hobby. It's another to kind of go into a large corporation and actually you have to, you know, work on software. and that early job was very much just kind of taking all of their you know legacy ASP applications and porting them over to at the time what was kind of you know quote unquote new and modern PHP. and had no idea what I was doing, but just dove into it and like I said, really learned how to program, learned how to like you know read a code base and think about like how do I convert this to a different language. From there, you know, it's kind of continued on. worked at a number of kind of you know web agency style companies, also advertising firms, consulting companies around the Boston area, and kind of just worked my way up through kind of what I thought was the normal progression, right? So, like, you know, web developer, software engineer, senior software engineer, you know, all those sorts of things. And one of the most pivotal things happened in my career, at least in the first five or ten years, was getting the opportunity to teach programming. and was not qualified at all, had no idea what I was doing. I knew a guy who was running a web development certificate program at Boston University. And he was like, hey, we had somebody drop out. Can you you know come fill in? Why not, right? What's the worst that can happen? so taught a class on JavaScript. I don't know that it was very smooth, but I got through it, went back and did it again, and then continued to go back. and found that I really enjoyed teaching and I really enjoyed kind of helping others learn how to code, learn learn how to kind of take their ideas and actually you know build something out of it. But realized that I also didn't want to go into academia full-time, in order to have the education background to actually support that. Although I should mention, even though I dropped out of school, I did eventually go back and finish, but it was it was always a bit of a struggle. So did didn't want to be a full-time teacher, right? But knew I wanted to somehow work with people as much as I wanted to build things. And so that led me to engineering management, right? As a way, or at least it seemed like a way to combine both of those, right? I get to still like build stuff and still be involved in technology, but the focus is more on people and kind of helping other people grow in their careers. And so I did that for seven or so years. I kind of worked my way up through the kind of traditional track through manager, senior manager, director. and this was again at, you know, small and medium-science companies in Boston as well as New York. I would say they were all startup in nature, ranging from pre-seed, like first person hired, all the way up to a company that had just gone public. And learned a lot by kind of going through the journey of because like no one teaches you how to be a manager. Like no one teaches you how to actually do that role. And so like for everybody, you just learn by doing it. And so got to the point where as a director of a company in Boston, I was leading their consumer injure engineering organization, and found that the higher up I went in management, the less I enjoyed it. and so in that role, well, actually during that role, I had the opportunity to kind of transition over to a principal engineer role. I was like, wow, like I still like this. Like I haven't forgotten how to code, I still like building things. And so when that kind of role in general came to an end, I was like, all right, like do I just go find another director role or do I go back to an IC role, which is not a traditional path, right? Like most people get up to senior management, they're like, all like I'm just gonna stay here for however long it takes to then be able to retire. But I went back to NIC. this was early COVID. so companies like Netflix started to hire remotely, which was great for me, right? Because I never wanted to move to California or any of those cities. And so it opened up the opportunity to work for those kind of big tech companies. and so I joined Netflix as a senior software engineer. largely had a front-end focus, which I think has been true through most of my career. Like I've always enjoyed Building things people can see, things people can interact with, right? Like you can build a really great data pipeline, but how do you show a friend? It's it's kind of hard, right? So worked at Netflix for five years, both on their consumer side as well as their platform side as a friend and engineer. And that brings us roughly until today. Vishakha Motwani: Thank you so much for walking through your career journey. And it's been very non-traditional, I think, for you. You went through a couple of other careers before you decided on websites and building websites. And I think you also hinted at what you like about building, it's the people interacting with it, right? Building something that people can see. Would you say that that's the reason that this career has stuck with you versus the other careers? Dan: I don't know that I've tried other careers per se. I mean, I had other jobs, right? Like I taught skiing and I worked in bike shops and I did all these kind of, you know, various things related to things that I enjoyed. I don't know if I consider any of those a career. so tech is really the only kind of true career that I've had. I think the thing that is has continued to kind of stick with me is that. Like yes, I enjoy building things. Yes, I enjoy kind of, you know, technology as a whole, but it's also like the amount of flexibility and freedom you have as a software engineer to basically work anywhere you want on a laptop. And it allows you, at least most of the time, to fit life around work and not the other way around. Wait, did I say that backwards? Fit work around life, not the I always get it backwards. Well yeah, work around life, right? 'Cause I think like yeah, I I've I've got a couple of kids, right? And so it's always been important to me to not just like sit at an office for eight hours a day, travel for an hour, and then like see them for a couple hours after that, right? Like I've always wanted a more flexible lifestyle than that. and I think being in technology has has allowed me to do that. So I think again, like aside from just like enjoying building stuff, like I think that's been the thing that's that's been been the most important. Vishakha Motwani: I really appreciate that you gave us a little bit of a big picture view of where things started and how you've moved around in your life. what were your motivations to kind of understand your role as a director and then going back to ICs and you still loving that piece? How intentional was it? how did you navigate that time. Dan: Yeah, I think You know, there like I I was in two different director roles, right? And one was probably the most fun I've had in my career, and the other was probably the least amount of fun I've had. and I think there are a number of factors that go into that. I think the first was just like the stage of the company. So the first time, you know, like very early stage company, first person hired, built a product, then built a team, then you know, kind of did all the things that get get the company to the point of, you know, going through the whole Series A process. and so like yes the title was a director, but like I it's it's very different being a director of like a big tech company, right? So like I don't even really think about the title as much as just like what I was actually doing on a day-to-day basis and like how much fun I had doing that. The second time I held that title was that I got a much larger, much more established company. And was really the kind of the epitome of of middle management, right? Like and and very much kind of just felt stuck in the middle, right? Like you you're a little bit too far away from the day-to-day work, but yet you were also a little bit too far away from the actual kind of, you know, t top level leadership to feel like you were getting anything done. Right? So like I sat in meetings, had a lot of conversations, and I drive home and be like, I don't even know like I don't know what I did today, right? and I think over the course of time that that became more and more frustrating. And so, you know, I think I I had just gotten too far away from what I actually enjoyed doing. and like I say, I had the opportunity there to kind of try out being an engineer again and found that I enjoyed it. and found that there are other ways to kind of satisfy the desire to you know help people and kind of you would do like all those things you can do as an IC also. so yeah, I don't know. I think I think there's this I idea in the industry where like once you kind of move over to the people management track that you can't go back. Right. And like I don't think that's true. Nor do I think you need to go into management to grow your career. Which again, I also thought at at one point that was the only way to do it. So yeah, I don't know. I think careers are evolving very quickly. I think today that like it's very different than it was 10 or 15 years ago. And I think there's a lot more options for people to you know find ways and do what they actually enjoy doing and not just like what's defined this like the on-paper best approach for a career. Vishakha Motwani: I think, I think so too. And nowadays, like with AI, feel like all the director level or managerial level roles are also evolving. But you said something that you were far away from doing the things that you love and then still be able to help people around you. And you can still do that irrespective of what position you hold or what title you hold. So give us a little bit of insight about. as an engineer, as an IC, what did your real work look like along the years? Like the journey, I bet it has been a little bit more architecting versus building. And then the piece about how are you still able to help engineers like outside of your organization too. Dan: yeah, I mean I think the day-to-day work of an engineer has drastically changed over last twenty years, right? you know, back when I started, I I used a text editor called like Textmate. Right. And it was very much, you know, if you wanted to learn how to do either a new programming language or a library or a framework, like you go to Barnes and Noble, buy a book, you'd hold the book in one hand and like you'd be typing in text main in the other hand, you just like figure stuff out, right? like there there was no, you know, coding boot camps or or online tutorials, right? That sort thing. So I think that's kind of where I started. I think the state of the world today is like we don't even write code, right? you know, coding was a tool used to solve business problems or to build products, right? And that has been kind of replaced by AI actually writing the code, right? At least in most cases. and so the role of an engineer today is very different, right? You're largely orchestrating agents to do the same work that you or a team used to do. so same end result, right? You're still trying to solve whatever the business problem is, but like there's a different abstraction layer there to actually get that done. as far as you know working with other engineers, yeah. I mean, that's something that I've enjoyed doing, I guess, kind of forever. You know, while I was at Netflix, you know, there were aspects of management that I missed, yet, you know, didn't really wanna go back to that role. And, you know, I've always I've always been involved with hiring, always been involved with the whole tech interview process. And I think most people would agree that it's a challenge on both sides of the table. And so I started helping people just prepare for interviews, right? Because I think interviews are often more difficult than the job itself, which again is a whole nother topic. But I wanted to help people get through that, right? Not by giving them the answers, but by helping them kind of think about the preparation differently. and so I did a a number of you know kind of months of just really focusing on that. then realized that there was a trend. Everybody waited until the last minute, right? And so it's like, all right, well how how do we get people thinking about, you know, this kind of baseline level of of being prepared before they actually need it, before they have to, you know, that they have an interview scheduled for like, you know, two days from now. And fitness has always been a part of my life. And so I started thinking about, well, what does it mean to be kind of fit in your career? Right. And you know, thinking about like the various aspects of that. so I started kind of, you know, coaching a couple of engineers around, you know, kind of being more fit in their career and really just but kind of being more prepared for the unknown. Because I think everybody right now is looking at AI, looking at the future, and there's there's a lot of question marks, right? So it's like, what can you do to set yourselves up to have a little bit more confidence that you're ready for whatever comes next? and in doing so, you also help yourself if you end up having to interview or having to you know be ready for promotion or whatever it is, right? so started down that track a bit. And in the process of doing that, I realized, well, now that AI is becoming a thing. Everybody is interviewing or trying to go through a job search by way of brute force, right? They're just using all of the old things they used to do, like sending out resumes or like rewriting resumes, and they're using AI to just accelerate all of that, right? And then wondering: well, I set out 500 applications, why am I not hearing anything back? And in parallel, I think a lot of people are looking around their teams, looking around their companies. And thinking, hmm, like we're all doing the same work. What actually makes me stand out? Right? It's no longer code. I can no longer say, well, I'm really great at writing React. That's my thing. Cool, so is Claude. Right? So it's like if that's not a thing you can lean on anymore, then what else do you actually have? Right? And like most people have something, they just haven't thought about it, or they don't know, they don't know how to like build a presence around that. and so I started working with engineers around this idea of, you know, if if you have to not lean on your coding skills anymore. Like what else can you do to make yourself stand out in what is a very difficult job market, right? And that's that's kind of where I've landed today with kind of this you know little side project of helping other engineers. Vishakha Motwani: I absolutely love the way you put that, how can you be fit in your career? It takes a long period like yours to understand, to take the full picture, right? Like it's not just about the interviews. It's you want to be good at your job and whether you're getting promoted or whether you're going for interviews, but you just still want to be good at your job without having this idea that, okay, Cloud code or whoever is writing, whichever AI tool is writing the code, you want to be able to be at the top of your game in a sense. But having gone through or working with engineers, what has come out of this? Like what's the fear that you find engineers dealing with when it comes to, when you put this across them, right? Like if you were to talk about this to most of the engineers, there would either be complaints. Or there would be some requirement that they would talk about. have been on both ends of that search in a sense that I've had somebody asking for, you have five years of experience in React? And then on the other side, they've also said, hey, do you have experience building with AI tools? But how has your experience been in working with engineers and kind of understanding their fears around what you are proposing? Dan: all right, so I guess two things, right? I mean, I think like the fear is very easy to define, right? I like the fear is that people's jobs are are gonna get taken away by AI, automation, whatever you wanna call it. I think that's that's the main fear, right? I I like I think all of us have probably felt that at some point. I think if we're gonna talk about career fitness, we should define what that means, right? And so like my own definition for this, and like I've not like this is not patented, I don't like this is just like the way that I think about it. is there are kind of like four different areas or four different like axes of being career fit, right? There's goal clarity, right? Do you even know what your goal is, right? Like do you have a really good kind of sense of that? The next piece is network strength, right? And this is the one that we'll probably talk about next, but like I think network strength is very important. Third one is impact visibility, and the fourth is industry awareness, right? And so generally what I do is I kind go through those four And you know, have people just assess where they are, right? Like if you were to rate yourself goal clarity from one to ten, where are you? Ten being I know exactly what I'm gonna do. And if you ask me the next 10 days, I'm gonna give the same answer, to two being like, I don't know, like I have no idea what I'm doing, right? And kind of go through that process for each one of these. And there are a number of questions we can ask and conversations we can have, but figure out kind of like where are the gaps. And for most people, network strength is usually not where they'd want it to be. And so that's often a topic of conversation. And so getting back to your question around like what are people's fears, I think there is a commonality within tech that people are not very excited to put themselves out there on on LinkedIn, in in their local community, w whatever it is, right? I think again, this goes back to like for so long, it was good enough to just write code, right? And that's no longer the case, right? so people are generally hesitant to say, well, do I post on LinkedIn? Do I go to a meetup? Like how do I like, you know, build this thing that you're calling network strength? and I was the same way, right? Like I was not, and I'm still not really into social media, except for LinkedIn. Like I I don't have X, I don't use Facebook, I've got Instagram and all my followers who live in the same house as I do. Like I was never a a a big social media person. And one day I was just like, I'm just gonna try it. I'm just gonna write something on LinkedIn, see what happens, who knows? And I'm gonna keep doing it every day for some amount of time. And you know, realize that you know it's a great way to meet people that you otherwise wouldn't, right? Like we probably wouldn't be having this conversation it wasn't for LinkedIn. so it's proof right here. But you know, like I've met so many people over the last year and a half, and I've had so many opportunities kind of come my way. Just from spending a couple of minutes every day either commenting on other people's content, you know, writing some of my own content, like it doesn't take long and it doesn't take a whole lot of effort. But I think people are very hesitant to start. but then they're like, like how do I be successful during an actual job search? and it's like I think that's one of the biggest things you can do is start to just again build an online presence and show what actually makes you different from everybody else. But again, like if you go scroll through LinkedIn, all of your connections that are engineers, right? Most of them don't have a banner. Most of their headline says senior software engineer, but like there's not anything else there. Their jobs are either blank or, you know, really not that filled in. And so it's like there's so much things they could do that don't take much time that just, you know, make themselves stand out more. Vishakha Motwani: You mentioned something about like, if you'd met me in January this year, I would have been like terrified of this idea of like building an online presence. But one of the biggest struggles like I personally had, if I heard you seven, eight months earlier would have been like, okay, I'm ready to write on LinkedIn. But my issue is like, how do I understand what's my brand? How do I understand what I'm good at? And build around that, right? Like I don't want to be writing something, let's say, yeah, sure. Funny post. I can do that. I can write about cloud, but then ultimately you're asking to build a whole package around your profile, around your presence. So how does somebody understand what's their brand or what are they interested in and plus what they're good at? Dan: Yeah, it's a good question. I think for me, like the way that I started and the way that I still recommend people do it today is that don't try to Don't try to write about something you're not already thinking about. Or don't try to be somebody that you're not, right? Like the best way to start is just like write about what you're already thinking. You're probably thinking about all sorts of things related to tech, related to careers, right? and whatever that thing is, likely other people are also thinking it, they're just not saying anything, right? So I always tell people just like start with what you're already thinking about because it's so easy. Just write the thing you're thinking about, right? don't use AI, like don't ask AI what you should write about. That's that's a horrible approach, right? And just start there, right? And I think eventually you do have to figure out like what is the intersection, and this is specific to LinkedIn, but like what is the intersection between what I'm thinking about and what the general population on the platform actually cares about, right? I mean, I could talk about horses all day long and I'll get a little bit of traction, but most people in LinkedIn don't really care about my horses, right? They just care about getting a job or they care about you know networking, whatever. right so you have to figure out like what is the right mix what is the right kind of intersection there but yeah I mean the way to start is like right where you're already thinking don't don't like it's very easy to overthink it and nobody's gonna think about your content as much as you do Vishakha Motwani: I, God, I feel like this is where I began. I over thought it so much that like, you know, it has to be the best thing or the perfect thing that I'm writing. And then there was also the fear about, you know, what if somebody disagrees with me? And then I realized, sure, like, isn't that a great conversation to have if somebody does disagree with you. But in all of this, you said that it's very, there are very small things you can do. to build your presence. So let's say if today somebody is doing zero things, right? There's nothing that they're doing. What would be your first recommendation to do, right? Like let's say they're not ready to write yet. What's the smallest Dan: Yeah. Vishakha Motwani: thing that they can do? Dan: The highest ROI thing you can do on LinkedIn is the comment on other people's posts. Right? because if you think about it, like a lot of people, I mean, most people use LinkedIn when when they're trying to find a job, right? And so the general approach is, well, I'm gonna send DMs to all these people that work at companies that I'd like to work at, right? And hope that they write back to you. And then very rarely does it happen, right? because usually there's no incentive for them to write back to you. Now, if you comment on posts, right, now there's incentive on both sides, right? You you you want to start the conversation because you're interested in actually meeting them, but they also want to start the conversation because the more comments they get on their posts, the broader of a reach that post gets. So if you're able to start conversations there and then move those eventually into DMs, right, I find that's a much better way to actually meet people and a much better way to kind of you know start building your network and building connections at your target companies. Vishakha Motwani: So there is a little bit of piece of patience there, I would say. But how do you help people understand that there is something called delayed gratification with this? Because it's a process, right? I think sending applications or sending resumes is easy. Sending DMs is easy. Like you can say that, I checked it off. I did it. Versus commenting and interacting with posts or. trying to engage with people on the platform, it takes a long time. So how do you help balance this piece of, it's going to take time, but it's for the long term. Dan: Yeah, I mean it really depends on the situation, right? Like if you're like, hey, I need a job in the next two weeks or I'm gonna go broke or I've got like a really short visa timeline, or like there are all sorts of scenarios that can happen where there is a very condensed timeline. In that scenario, like you should probably do everything, right? You should be selling out resumes, you should be coming, you starting conversations, like do do all the things all at once, right? but if you're thinking more about just like in general, like building curve fitness over time, yeah, I mean it is it is a slow build, right? But I don't think it's as slow as people think, right? I mean, you can start to see traction from starting conversations on LinkedIn within a couple weeks, right? So like it doesn't take years, it doesn't take months. now if you're like, hey, like I wanna get to 10,000 followers, okay, like that takes a little bit time. But if you just wanna start conversations and start to see a little bit of traction there, that that usually happens pretty quick. because again, like you think about it, like it it sounds like, if I send a DM, that that'll be fast. But it's not, right? Because like imagine that you're on the other end of that. Like I get a bazillion DMs, right? I don't even see most of them because they go below the fold and the LinkedIn UX is horrible. But people that are writing content, they see comments much faster and they they care about those much more. So if you can find somebody who's actually posting, likely they're gonna get back to you much quicker if you just comment on their stuff than if you send them a DM. Vishakha Motwani: I like that. What is, why do you say commenting? What's the difference between just interacting the post by liking or supporting it versus commenting? Dan: yeah, I mean I think both are important, right? I think it's important to support other people's content by just adding a like, right? That also kind of helps that post gain a little bit more attraction. But if you're looking to start a conversation, and emoji doesn't do that, right? Like I can't reply to your like. and so if your goal is to like actually build your network and actually you know talk to people. You have to start it by actually like saying something. But it's significantly easier than just writing a post, right? Like you can write a comment without thinking anything about it, right? It's just reacting to what's there, adding a little bit of your own thoughts. Whereas people think, I have to write a post. Okay, hold on. I'm gonna get out my my book, I'm gonna write drafts, I'm gonna like- It takes forever, right? but commenting is very easy. And you know you you can do it while you're you know standing in line waiting for something, while you're you know, whatever. There are all sorts of you know points in time during the day where you can pull out the phone and just like add a couple of comments. Vishakha Motwani: Absolutely. think that's where we start about, like, this is how you build a conversation. I think I came across your profile. I had already been interacting with your posts. And once you commented, was like, yeah, that's where I want to have you here. And I can see where all of this fits in. But Dan, tell us, like, this was a little bit about network strength. And I bet there are other ways. If LinkedIn is not your thing, for whatever reason, what are some other ways that you'd propose here to other engineers that might work well for them? Dan: Yeah, I think it's very easy to just get trapped online and to think about like LinkedIn as the only avenue to kind of build your presence. But I think You know, getting out into whatever your local area is, whatever your local community is equally as important. I mean, I'm an hour south of Nashville, right? Which is not known as a tech hub, yet I've been surprised how much of a you know kind of technology scene there actually is here. There's a ton of startups, there there's a bunch of meetups, right? There are all sorts of things going on here. And I mean, I don't even go that often. I only go I go to something maybe once every couple months, right? And from that I've built up a network here that that that again, you know, there's potential for job opportunities. There's potential for all sorts of things that come out of that. And so I think it's important to focus on the real world aspect of it as well as just online using LinkedIn. Vishakha Motwani: Absolutely. And I think all of this that you've pointed or hinted at requires you to come out of that mindset of like the code is the only way that you can be judged or your work will speak for itself. You have to come out of that comfort zone and be willing to put yourself out there. One last thing that I definitely want to know about all of this is let's say this is not about job search. Like it's a, you are in a very stable career or a stable job, how do you think, what's your incentive to keep doing this? Because I strongly believe in this, I will likely keep on doing based on the number of people I've met and the conversations I've had. They've all been very interesting. But how do you, what is having worked with other engineers, like what do you think keeps them going even after the job search? Dan: Yeah, I think it's it's similar to going to the gym when you're healthy, right? that is a difficult sell for a lot of people, right? Some people love it. Some people like, I'm gonna go to the gym four hours a day, right? I feel great, right? Others don't see the point, right? Like they they wait until something's actually wrong. so I think like the their motivations are different for everybody. you know, I think for me, I generally just enjoy meeting people. I enjoy talking to people. and so like LinkedIn for me. I mean it's not the most fun thing I I ever like, but it you know it's it's it's kind of fun, right? I think if there wasn't some aspect of fun to it, I would probably not do it, at least to the extent that I do right now. I think the second thing is I think I mean there's so much unknown in our industry. I think everybody should be thinking about what is plan B, right? And like do I have optionality i in in my career if all of a sudden something changes, right? and most people I talk to don't have a plan B. so I think there is a little bit of just, you know, can you spend a little bit of time each day or each week to put yourself in a place where you have a little bit more confidence that if you, you know, get asked to leave your job or or something changes or w whatever it is happens to your industry, right? Like you're not just starting from scratch on whatever that that day is. You already have a plan, you can already be ready to execute it, right? And you kind of have the various career assets to actually help you off that with this whole like network thing just being one of those. Vishakha Motwani: love that. Thank you so much, Dan. I will end with this conversation, wrap up this conversation with one more question is, what do you think the biggest mistake engineers make when they're starting or while they're doing this? Dan: starting their career or or starting Vishakha Motwani: of the building the presence. Dan: well I think the biggest mistake is not starting at all. but I mean I feel like once people get going and start to see some of the benefits, generally they're excited about it. I think engineers generally like numbers, right? Because we're looking at code, we like metrics, we like all these different things, right? and so it's like you sort of think, well, like, well what is what does observability mean for my career, right? And how can I start to kind of see numbers there and kind of get excited about those actually growing? that's an interesting thing that motivates a lot of people. so yeah I don't know like I say it's it's tough to answer these questions in a generic way but the biggest mistake is just to not do anything right even if you wish you'd done something before like today is better than tomorrow right so yeah it's it's one of those things where sorry it's one of those things where like it's it's never too late but the earlier you start the easier it gets. Vishakha Motwani: I love how you put that, the observability for your career. This is such an interesting way to think about like moving forward or keeping at the things that you're already doing and your scene traction. And I think the biggest reward for you is to get to know people. At least for me, that's the biggest thing that I have enjoyed. I thought I was an introvert, which I probably am, but then I like working or hearing stories from other people. And that's what's brought me. or kept me going in this space of like, my God, you did this or I've done this or yes, I've been there too. So it's about finding your own motivation. All right, thank you so much, Dan. We are at the part of the episode where I asked the same three questions to all my guests. So my first question is, what is the one takeaway you'd want people to have from this conversation if they remember only one thing? Dan: Start ton start ten conversations on LinkedIn each week. Right? That's it. If you do that if Vishakha Motwani: Wow, that's so cool! Dan: you do that and you do it over the course of a couple months, your network will be in a significantly different place than it is today. Vishakha Motwani: Second question that I have for you is, what is a show, a podcast, a book that you recommend other engineers? Dan: well this is not engineering specific. This is more just like what have I been watching on Netflix recently? so there's a show called The Last Ship, which I started many years ago, and I think I got through season two and then just kind of forgot about it. it kind of came back onto the platform and so I think now I'm in season four. so that's that's kind of what I've been watching in the very rare time slots where I don't have anything else to do. Vishakha Motwani: I love, I've seen that, like I've seen the ads for it. I'm going to put that on my list. And the last thing that I have for you is how do you disconnect from work when you close your laptop? Dan: We're supposed to close our laptops? Vishakha Motwani: Yeah, what do you do after for decompressing? Dan: yeah, well I mean I live on a farm, right? So like I'm surrounded by animals. you know, there's kind of nature everywhere. and so I think for me it's it's a really good balance between tech and kind of just being outside. you know, the the farm animals don't care about your kind of CI breaking, they don't care about, you know, what sort of technology challenges that you're having. They're just happy for you to be there. and so I think it's it's kind of a nice balance. Vishakha Motwani: I love that. I've seen Waffles pictures and it's so endearing to see. Dan: Yeah, I should have brought Waffles in for the interview. he he's out there somewhere. Vishakha Motwani: But thank you so much, Dan. It has been a pleasure having you here. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge, your insights with us today and just being here and telling, giving us a perspective that probably not a lot of people are thinking about right now and just seeing. this as a long term investment versus like a short term, like just do it for now, even though it has short term results, right? So thank you so much, Dan, and see you in the next episode. Bye. Dan: It was fun. Thank you.