Latest / #TheTechHustle Podcast 🎙 / Backstage with BobbyD featuring Sebastian Nunez

Transcript

Backstage with BobbyD featuring Sebastian Nunez · #TheTechHustle Podcast 🎙

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Currently a software engineering intern at Google.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Growing up.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I didn't really know exactly what I wanted to do, literally not know a single thing about coding.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: I love TypeScript.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I mean it's a great language, definitely tricky when you get to like the complicated types, but on average, way better than JavaScript.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: But yeah, the cool thing about Chelsea Market is that you know you have the market downstairs but everything above is pretty much Google owned, so most people, I think it's definitely interesting to think about, like people are just doing the everyday stuff and then they have like all these engineers on top of it, you know right, not even knowing right.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, that's cool.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Actually, last night was the first time I was back on twitter for one whole year.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: So I've been boycotting twitter for one year, since they changed the name to x, and now, you know, all I'm thinking about is twitter in my back of my mind, so I can't get the name out of my head.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Is this the type of job that you want, like full-time?
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Absolutely welcome, welcome, welcome.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what up d hustle, whathustle, what up player.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Guess where we at my man, the Big Apple.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: The Big Apple.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: NYC.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Stand up, we out here.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I can't believe we've made it all the way from San Francisco to New York City.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: And big shout outs to everybody that we've had a pleasure of hanging out with, especially some family.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: We had some family time right, yeah, yeah, we did with uh, especially some family we had some family time.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we did, yeah, yeah.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: All those florentinos, yeah, all those dominicans, I mean, they had me.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: I was overwhelmed.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Now I'm just playing.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: I love each and every one of them.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: We'll shout them out throughout the show.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: But today we have a special guest.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: We got uh, it's somebody that low-key.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: When I first met him, I knew he was gonna be hitting stars he.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: He's somebody that, when you look at his journey, you're gonna have to follow along, because he got some gems and, yeah, his start may actually mention something in the caribbean too.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: But let's give a big round of applause for sebastian nunez.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the stage, sebastian.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: What's?
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: up man.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Thank you let me give him a real, a real introduction.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Let's see welcome, welcome, sebastian, welcome to the tech hustle.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: This segment here is called backstage, with bobby d and um, as mentioned in terms of all the show prep.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Uh, the main focus here is to highlight your journey, um, and definitely introduce our audience to some of the people that I've had a pleasure of you know, encountering, mentoring, teaching, having conversations with and seeing how high you're climbing on this ladder man, congratulations.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Welcome, thank you.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you, it's awesome to be here.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Thank you for the opportunity.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I'm excited for our conversation.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Shout out to Sebastian Nunez yes.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: From New York City.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and D-House is going to hold us down in the cut indefinitely.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Let's just kick the story right off.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Tell us where you're from, how it all got here and we get to where you're working at right now, because you're doing big things.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, speaking of Dominicans, I'm Dominican myself.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, look you see.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: If y'all were only here to see how excited he was to hear another.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Dominican, I'm excited to see somebody from my country.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Let's go, stop playing around Finally.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Let's do it.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Let's do it, yeah.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I'm Dominican Born there.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Came to the US.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: When I was 11 years old, moved straight to Cleveland, ohio, that's more or less what I had my upbringing.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Cleveland, ohio.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: That's a little, that's a difference.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Next thing you know he's telling me he's a LeBron James fan.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, don't worry about that.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Don't worry about that.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: He is he didn't say nothing.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Shout, I mean who?
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: isn't to be honest.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: So Ohio.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: What's up in Ohio, though?
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Family there.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my aunt.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: She's the first person that kind of migrated here and she lived there for 25 years right before us, so it was kind of a natural place for us to land.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and then you found yourself where else after Ohio.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I lived in Ohio pretty much from middle school all the way up to high school, when I graduated high school, I actually moved to miami now he go from dominican republic to ohio right and then can find his way back to miami, which is basically extension of the caribbean right.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: What you say, yeah yeah, yeah, it was, uh, mostly my mom.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: She wanted to move to miami.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: We have some other family there yeah and, uh, she was kind of tired of the cold and I was like that's usually what it does big shout out to mom thank you for getting it out of there, everywhere out, yeah.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: So what's up in miami?
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: well, you, you went to school up there or down there, rather yes, I'm currently studying computer science at fiu, so go panthers out there big shout out to fiu.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's, that's by far one of the best engineering programs we have in this nation.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Like seriously, I've talked to a lot of students around the country that go to different schools and FIU is definitely at the top of the list in my opinion.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Big shout out to FIU, shout out to FIU.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: So studying computer science.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: So how did you get into computer science or engineering like that?
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so studying computer science.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: So how did you get into computer science or engineering like that?
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: So I started it kind of in high school I you know, growing up I didn't really know exactly what I wanted to do when I graduated.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: But kind of at some point a friend of mine he was like oh, you should maybe take this computer science course.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: It kind of he saw what I was good at science, math.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: He was like sure.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: I literally did not know a single thing about coding or anything like that.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: So I took that intro to computer science course in like my junior year and then I liked it, um, really liked everything about it actually, specifically kind of the more like javascript front and development side of things.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Ah, that's what you're sitting at.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah yeah, at this point I would come on some more on the full stack level, but it was a great place to start.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: The following year I took a Java class, AP Computer Science A.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: I had a great instructor Crushed it and then after that I was like I want to do this.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: I did my research and I was like, yeah, I'm down for it.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: That's what's up.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Congratulations on that, and the cool thing is that you actually found some passion behind it and joy right Rather than oh, I want to get into this, I can make a billion-dollar type stuff, but versus like, hey, I actually really like this.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: And then, being a front-end developer with JavaScript, you've got to be really, in my opinion, like artistic a little bit, because you're really putting together the visual of the Internet and putting it all in code, which is really cool.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: So JavaScript was your first programming language.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, javascript was kind of my introduction to programming.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Then Java and then kind of.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Those have been my two strengths.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: No Python, no Python.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think Python right now is probably my favorite programming language.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, let's give a big, big round of applause for Python.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: He said it's one of your favorite programmers.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, a big, big round of applause for python.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: He said uh, it's one of your favorite programs, one of my favorite programming languages also.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Um, it's very phonic in the way that it's written and read and there's so many libraries that you can do everything and then you know over time it just becomes easier to manage because it's not uh, so many construct, so many like uh.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Object oriented program can be cool, but sometimes it just gets a little confusing, especially with java and how uh it could get stacked up.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: But in general they're all great programming languages.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: But if python is something you want to learn, develop python, go go find out.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: You'll see what I'm talking about, definitely.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: So, fiu.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: So tell me a little bit about fiu.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: So, uh, are you in the init init program out there?
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Don't they have like an init?
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: yes, yeah, yeah, and it actually that's kind of how I was introduced more into the internship world and like how to actually break into tech, because kind of my first year, two years, of computer science I didn't really understand, since my family, you know, doesn't have any tech experience.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: I'm like first generation college student, yeah, um, and specifically in tech, um, I signed up it was called, uh, epsilon, pi, epsilon up at the time and they have really amazing programs um, a lot of preparation for, you know, technical interviews as well as just like building projects, yeah, where that's where I got my real introduction to like what it actually takes to get an internship and, you know, hopefully get a job yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Well, we'll talk about that because he's already checked off a few boxes around internships and stuff like that.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Let me interject real quick.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: What's up?
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: kid it seems like you're the first generation in IT.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you had that same experience as me.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Did you get phone calls that say my TV's not working?
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Can you connect all that stuff?
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I still do oh man, because I get that a lot.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Ay, oh man, because I get that a lot.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: Ay, mijo, come over here.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Yo no se que yo hice, you know, yada, yada, yada, I'm like.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: All you have to do is hit this button.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: And it's working.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, even now, recently, we're like I just want to make sure it's not just me.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Even recently with, like, the Crowd keys to everything right, so true, so true, and and d's right.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: It's like, uh, as soon as they hear you say anything about computers, it's like literally anything that plugs into the wall.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: You're supposed to know how it works and and you can fix it.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: So, uh, next time, tell them yo.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: If it's some javascript or something like that or css html, then I could probably jump in.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, you're gonna have that for the rest of your career or rest of your life.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: That's what's up.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: So, talking about internships and more or less getting close to where we first encountered each other, tell me a little bit about the Intuit program and how that really got you prepared for internships in the real world.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: So I would say that they had a great build program.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Essentially it's a semester of building projects with a team of fellow students, maybe people who have done internships lead, but yeah, throughout kind of that semester I also learned about CodePath, which has also been kind of a huge catalyst for me.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: I've taken I think like four or five courses from them and between those two and CodePath, like it's a really good duo to prepare you for pretty much anything in tech.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's just give a big shout out to CodePath.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: What up CodePath?
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: What up Kelsey?
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: What up Geneva?
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Geneva in the house.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: What up, what up, what up, catalina?
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: We see y'all, all the whole team I'm gonna be missing a few people the whole career center.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Big shout out to CodePath.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: So you say, in the combination of both of these, uh and I like to label as supplemental education or supplemental things that you have to do to really get yourself, uh, ahead of the your peers, because there's a lot of y'all coming out with computer science, fiu has a great campus, a great, you know, student body, so you know you still have that competition even at your own school, and adding these supplemental education things always give you that upper hand, uh.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: So big shout outs to you, man, I'm really piecing that together because, thank you, uh, I think that really did open up an opportunity for you to intern at a really cool company.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't want to say it out loud, but I'll, I'll let you batch and mention it.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: So were you interning this this summer?
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: yeah, yeah, I'm currently a self-engineering intern at google oh, pause, pause, let him say it again because he's getting a little nervous.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Say it with your chest out player.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: So I'm currently interning at Google.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: That's what's up.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: That's what's up.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: That's what's up and yo this opportunity in terms of interning at Google and really getting a chance to be exposed to it.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: How has that changed your perspective of computer science and all that?
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I was definitely kind of thought I was here, but it's a different type of beast, especially with, like, the big tech and corporate world in general.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: But it's been fun.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: I've been learning a lot, definitely had a lot of support, you know, within my team management and even outside from CodePath.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I was talking to Catalina pretty much like every two weeks leading up to internships and doing check-ins to make sure that I have a strategy and a plan going into everything.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: So it's been great, amazing.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I mean pretty much everything that I expected plus more.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's what's up, big shout outs to this internship, and one of the cool things that I like about the opportunity that you have is that you're getting real exposure to it not just like hey, this is what it's going to be like, or could be like.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: No, this is actually what it is like exactly.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: And I have a question for you because, um, in our industry, unfortunately, we use this uh service or tool um to measure proficiency for potential um candidates which is called lead code.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, uh, but my question is is how much lead coding have you been doing in terms of your role at Twitter, and how much does it really apply?
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Not at Google.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sorry.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Look at me.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: I'm over here trying to get this guy an internship.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, internship at Google.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: I apologize, but how?
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: How has lead code really played a role in any of that?
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: I think honestly, the code is pretty much the only way that I think you can offset the amount of luck you need within an interview setting.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Because, I feel as though a lot of the time in these interviews it's all pretty much luck, depending on the question that you get, the interview that you get.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: But by doing LeetCode and preparing for these interviews specifically kind of the 45-minute technical questions, the more you do you can kind of offset the amount of luck because you've seen more of the questions, more of the patterns.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it doesn't require you know to know everything, but a lot of leak code for sure.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Now, in your day-to-day, in terms of your role, do you actually solving those type of thing problems, or are you going to be doing different type of things?
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think actually, surprisingly, within the project that I'm doing now, there's actually a lot of data structures that I didn't think I would use day to day.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Specifically now I'm using in-area trees, a lot of typical hash map sets, things like that, but trees I didn't really expect, because I'm doing a visualization of non-linear release pipelines, things like that, so I didn't really expect it.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: But it's definitely a great foundation to have to really understand those data structures.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, data structure is definitely one of those things that you don't really understand how it all comes together, unless you're doing a project and a use case for it.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Storing data, storing user information, manipulating it so you can access it in other ways.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: But hey, I'm grateful to hear that all these skills are playing out and um very much favorable for you.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: So you mentioned a little bit about the project you're working on, so tell us a little bit about what you're working on at twitter.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Lord, what's wrong with me?
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: Like you know what it is, and then I'll tell y'all what it is that's not what it is d.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: actually, last night was the first time I was back on twitter for one whole year, so I've been boycotting Twitter for one year, since they changed the name to X, and now, you know, all I'm thinking about is Twitter in the back of my mind, so I can't get the name out of my head.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Give it to your girl, Thanks D.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: That's for the next one that happens.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: That's for the next one.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: But anyways, come on, bro, come on, man.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I'm messing with Sebastian.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: No, it's okay, sebastian gots it.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: It's just me.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: But Google in general, tell us a little bit about the projects you're working on this summer.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's mainly one project.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm doing kind of a supplementary thing now, but they have.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: You know I'm within the CICD space, specifically more on the continuous deployment side.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Essentially that's everything from after you submit your code or run through the test, you actually have to deploy it out in the world, essentially throughout the entire world, different locations.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: They have already an automated system to get these candidates released, whatever.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: But there's actually a requirement now to have non-linear release pipelines where you it's not just like, okay, it goes to the early stage and pre-prod and then prod.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: It may be required that you have multiple pre-prods.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Maybe one specifically could be for Europe because they have different privacy requirements.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's kind of the idea where you have this kind of tree structure of dependencies that have kind of independent promotion schedules and different rates of release.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Essentially, that's what's up, so yeah it's centered around that giving users information to be able to do it.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Shout out to.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Sebastian, that right there, in terms of what I always feel like CICD, is like right in the middle before all the work you're doing in terms of dev to actually getting in this production right.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: And as long as you have an effective tool or service to help you deploy, it usually streamlines the process.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: And then it definitely sounds cool in terms of being able to you know parallel deployments in different regions, percentage wise probably.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: You said pre-production, test development and then in production.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Like having a cool tool like that definitely makes life easier for developers, and that's usually the role of those teams specifically around developer.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: What do they call them?
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Like developer advocates or people that are just focusing on helping developers get their code into production as quickly as possible.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: That's really cool.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Now, are you doing anything on the cloud infrastructure side after the deploy, or just the CIDCD pipeline itself?
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: No infrastructure, mostly just like developing kind of visuals for different engineers to be able to understand what's going on.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you're a front-end engineer, are?
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: you using TypeScript at all.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, a lot of TypeScript, a lot of TypeScript.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: So how do you feel about TypeScript though?
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: I think it's great.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've had to actually with a different project that I'm doing now it's more of legacy UI and that's in JavaScript and using like AngularJS, which is like really old, whereas what I'm doing now mostly it's Angular 2.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I love TypeScript.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I mean it's a great language.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Definitely tricky when you get to like the complicated types, but on average it's way better than JavaScript.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: And that's always good to hear as these new programming languages are coming out to supplement what we've already been customized to use.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Still have some of that same flavor, taste, but definitely adds a new you know, seasoning to it or a way of writing code or developing or deploying.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: So that's, that's big ups.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Uh, would you say that typescript is going to be like the new front radar and in terms of like those you know, people that are interested in getting into tech or they're already in tech.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Uh, thinking about, you know, learning another programming language yeah, I think I guess if between like front end and back end, if you want to go back, mostly java, like you know, the back ends I'm using, it's all java yeah um, and then front end definitely typescript.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: I mean it's definitely the way to go by far.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Uh, just everything uses typescript, pretty much Like any company that I've worked at uses.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: TypeScript as a baseline.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: So definitely learn.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: TypeScript.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: That's a nugget right there.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: There's definitely an opportunity for you all to catch this, because I've heard something Sebastian says is that places that you've interviewed talked with or done some work with.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: they are looking for that skill set, typescript Even though, yeah, you can learn it as you go, but it'd be great to have projects to be able to showcase that for sure, for sure, now in terms of like, uh, other things about google, or tell me like one, one cool thing that's in terms of just your experience there, you know, visiting and being in that work environment and stuff like that yeah, I think definitely the office space is something that shocked me.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: I had been to previous like Google offices, but in New York, specifically, given kind of the constraints in space they essentially have, like the main building, it's like this massive 16-floor block like a whole width and then a whole block the other way that used to be, like the Port Authority building, and then besides that, there's also a really cool one which I work at.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: It's called Chelsea Market.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Have you been to Chelsea Market?
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we actually walked that way.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: We were heading towards Pier 57.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Pier 57.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Pier 57, another one of the buildings.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: But yeah, the cool thing about Chelsea Market is that you have the market downstairs, but everything above is pretty much Google-owned.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: So most people I think it's definitely interesting to think about like people are just doing the everyday stuff and then they have like all these engineers on top of them.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: You know right, not?
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: even knowing right.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, that's cool, that's cool doors.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: There's a whole bunch of gates yeah everybody.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: It's like um, what is it?
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: uh, what do you call?
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: it.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: It's like a monitor, I guess in the beginning.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, people go up.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: I think it's a big route.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: I think you it's like a monitor, I guess in the beginning, yeah, people go up.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: I think it's a big route.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: I think you guys had like a family friends day.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, when we went there.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was midweek last week when we went to Pier 57.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: There was two separate entrances, one for us to go to the market and then one for the Google entrance and they had like a bunch of kids and parents there.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: So I was like, oh, they're probably doing like a bring your kids, a bring your family to work day type stuff, which is always really cool when you work in these.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: You know Silicon Valley, you know tech startups or companies as established as Google and, yeah, man, office spaces in terms of their locations.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: We were actually out in Mountain View the other day too, so we got to see their campus out there and I tell you, tell you, man, yeah, y'all definitely google uh making an investments in the workspace but also creating an environment for you to be creative, because I guarantee you, that really helps amplify your creation.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: That does that does that give you that vibe yeah, I mean, I'm somebody who more or less works out out of my computer pretty much the same size as what you have there, um, so that's one of the benefits.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: I don't need like another monitor.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Some people have like two monitors so they're always just stuck to their desk but I've kind of developed a workflow around just my computer so I can just go sit around wherever actually.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Go out to one of the top floors or out on the balcony and just think relax, do some work yeah yeah, yeah, that creative space is something that when I worked at Twitter.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: that's the only time I'm using the right word.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, at Twitter.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: That's the only time I'm using the right word.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: That really just helped me.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: You know, be creative Because, like you said, it wasn't like I was tied down to a cubicle, which is a normal Fortune 500 type thing, or even this space here, this area, I have to be here.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: I used to go to the cafe and every Tuesday at four o'clock I'm there, you know, chilling, and everybody knew that was my chill spot.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: It ultimately became a way that people really was able to mingle and connect with people outside of just a normal day-to-day um and I used to do like development type stuff, like hey, if I'm working on a project with another team, I'd like yo come to this spot at this time.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: We're going to be chilling here, we're going to be working on this and it just made life so much more um easier for me to like get my creativity out, so I'm happy, happy to hear you really experiencing that.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: That's what's up.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: That's what's up Now.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: You know you're interning at Google.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: I always say that internships are like is this the type of job that you want, right?
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: So my first question is is this the type of job that you want?
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: Like full time.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Absolutely full-time, absolutely, I love that, I love that right.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: And then just putting that out there in the universe is like what are your plans, what are your goals?
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: What is, uh, the future looking like for you?
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: yeah, I mean, I'm about ready to graduate from fiu, so I'm hoping to finish strong with the internship.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Um, I have one more semester of classes left, so, whether it's, you know pretty much, my goal right now is graduating in december and, uh, get a full-time job and then keep working at it.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Right, but yeah, surprising with like everything, all the timelines.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: It's kind of crazy where I'm doing the internship now but like full-time recruiting has already started, so I'm doing like applications yeah, and all this stuff while working, so definitely interesting stuff.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: You see how he's doing it.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Listen to it.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: That's the hustle.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Say it to them again, because they didn't hear so yeah, usually you have to be careful with the kind of recruiting timelines because a lot of the time they start pretty much a year ahead of time.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, you have to stay on top of things Well.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: first of all, congratulations on graduating.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: I on top of things.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Well, first of all, congratulations on graduating.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Thank you, I'm excited.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: So you're already there, don't?
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: worry about it.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: And second, and second.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: You don't have a second.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: I got a second for him.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: You want to give him?
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: the second, yeah, the second one Doing your thing, player Out here in these streets man Killing it in these streets and these opportunities, and got to stay on this hustle and you got to be ready to go soon as the bell rings.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: You got to be the first one in line, um, and one thing that I would say you know this opportunity before you leave, and letting them know, like I'm looking for a full-time opportunity, right, and my work speaks for it, um, and yeah, I'm trying to, you know, get something before I even leave, type stuff.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: So I always do want to encourage you, you know, with your managers, your mentor, um, and whatever that management chain over there, just to emphasize you know your interest in making this a full-time opportunity, because I've had too many times people leave and then they send me a message hey, I do want to work there and I'm like, but when you was here you didn't say that, like we didn't even know.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: I thought you wanted to go see some other places.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: But, hey, it happens.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: It happens Now in terms of like, let's say, the calendar out five, ten years from now.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Well, where do you feel like you're going to be at?
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: Well, what are you aspiring to and what are you, like you know, working towards?
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: yeah, um, I think long term well, even initially I kind of thought that at some point I wanted to go into the more of the product management side.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Um, so I saw more or less just like doing development, maybe like five, seven years, and then move over to more of the product slash management side.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: But right now I'm happy where I'm at.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I've definitely even gotten to experience where, as a dev, you get a lot of kind of what's the word that I'm looking for Responsibilities, just in general.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: So you don't have to just be coding away a task that somebody gives you.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: You can actually go and seek out scope, seek out features, and then, of course, you have to get them validated, maybe through like UX research, things like that.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: But as a dev, you actually get a lot of opportunities to do product side things just like organization, which I like.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: So I'm very happy.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: So five years out, I see myself probably like a senior software engineer.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, look at my guy Put it manifested.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: There we go.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: There we go, working towards staff already, so yeah, that's what's up and you are right, that's one thing.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: As you're going in your career, just always keep an eye out for opportunities because you might find passion in other lanes, such as product, because I've seen, known a lot of software engineers that have transitioned in the product because they really want to be like close to the client to see what they're doing and help influence the implementation or features that are being developed.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: No-transcript moving and just run towards it.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you know but he already graduated in my book.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: He's already got it right.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: He's already having the celebrations, the parades and everything he's already got it right.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: He's already having the celebrations, the parades and everything he's.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: You already booked the flights to dr.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Oh man, that is awesome, that is awesome.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: So yeah, so, uh, in general, uh, the last thing that I want to mention to you, because I definitely want to bring them back up, is code path, um, and just really just quickly want to uh give them a space hear, you know you talk about your experience with the program and definitely just reiterating some of the stuff that you mentioned earlier.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: So tell us a little bit about how you got involved in CoPath and definitely the results of you know, supporting or using their services to get where you are now.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: So I got introduced to CoPath through INIT.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Essentially a lot of the people that I was working on in the project.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: They were talking about taking classes with them.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: So you know, it was kind of late, like summer and fall season, so I didn't actually get the chance to sign up for like a class right away, so I had to more or less just like put myself on the wait list.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: As soon as.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: I got that email that wait list opened, sign up.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: It was, I believe, an, an Android development course.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: So I've actually kind of done it all.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: To be honest, I've done like Android course, ios, technical interview prep and the web development track.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: So I definitely got a lot of experience and it's been really great to just have the opportunity to experiment with different things.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: But, yeah, besides that, I also did the ICP program.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Icp, yeah, that's a really good program Over the summer.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: I had a lot of great opportunities to network, specifically because I think that's one of the most important things now with kind of how the markets are.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: They're very competitive, so the one thing you can do is kind of network and look out for opportunities.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Always Stay on the hustle.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, stay on the hustle.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: But yeah, through that I was able to build a network, talk to different people and up until now it's been working really great.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: I got even the opportunity to meet Michael, ceo of Copath.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, through a recognition through Miami-Dade County.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: What up, Michael Ellis?
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: You come up to the podcast playing.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was actually, I did not expect that at all.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Like I felt like I met a celebrity and we were just like at this event, which was really awesome and I think in general, just like the Miami community is really booming as far as tech goes, which is really exciting to see.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: I want to see more companies in Miami Because you know, a lot of the time like, let's say, now I graduate, I'm looking for opportunities elsewhere a lot of the time because there's not that many jobs specifically within Miami or tech companies.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: So and we up in Palm Beach.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you knew that.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: We're up in West Palm Beach.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Oh OK, we're a little bit north of Miami, less than 45 minutes.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's where we're holding it down at.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: That's awesome, that's awesome, so yeah we definitely want to see South Florida come up too, and I guess our first encounter was one of a CodePath event.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: I guess they did a cafecito meet and greet with the career coaches and stuff like that, and I did a workshop, yes, to kind of give you all some game on, you know, technical interviewing and stuff like that.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: What do you thought about that experience?
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: I thought that it was very eye opening.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: In a sense, I'm waiting for him because it was.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: These were like my early days, like up until that point I'd never had like a technical interview before.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about leetcode, um.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: So it was kind of eye-opening to see that these questions, like they, have a method to them.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: It's not just like oh, I'm not that smart because I can't solve it, you can't solve it because you haven't maybe seen the pattern before you don't know the data structure.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: So it's a matter of going out and learning.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of what I realized that there's a lot to learn.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Um, and specifically, just like, what do I have to focus on?
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: That I'm lacking now because I've always been kind of good at the you know, programming and making your java code.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Um, just like courses in general yeah um, but specifically to get a tech giant job, you need a lot of legal preparation.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: That's not typical within a classroom setting and that's also another thing that's really beneficial about CoolPath is having the ability to work on real-life kind of projects and skills that are not necessarily focused on during school.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: I felt like a lot of the courses give you a foundational and kind of background courses, give you a foundational and kind of um background knowledge that you need, but not like maybe necessarily the specific skills to get a job or work at a job.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that's been really great yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Big shout outs to cold pad and that's what I always talk to my mentees and cohorts over there is like the practical knowledge is what you get, not just theoretical, right, um, and even the projects you're working at school.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: I need you to do something that's real world, like real.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Like not just build a tic-tac-toe and they want to get a hundred thousand dollar job, and I'm like yo.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: How does that happen?
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: I can build a tic-tac-toe too, right.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: But once you start to, you know, build applications, actually build apis, build a front end, connect that together, stored in the, maybe have to add caching as soon as you start to do those building blocks.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: That's where the leveling up comes.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: So it's always good to be associated with organizations that are doing that supplemental stuff.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: And, yeah, big shout-outs to CodePath again.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: I just wanted to make sure that we give them a quick shout-out.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Now we are getting close to the end of the podcast segment here, but there is an opportunity for you to ask me any questions that you may have, and I don't know if I have put that in the sheet or not, but if you do have any questions.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Being backstage with Bobby D, you know it's an open book here, so let me know if you have any questions on the top of your mind.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess now that, since you've been mentioning Twitter all this time, you said that at the beginning that you had kind of boycotted twitter.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it's interesting to see kind of what the different dynamics have been with like all the layoffs you know, in twitter specifically, but outside, um, so where do you see kind of tech going with all these layoffs?
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: You have any advice for?
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: People that are maybe struggling, uh, to get a job, or just starting to think about getting a job.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: That's a great question.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: First of all, it's Twitter 1.0.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: So that's the one that I represent.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Twitter X I don't even know what that is, but yeah, so it is definitely something that's an eye-opener, because I've been in this game since about 2002.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: And I've seen the roller coaster ups and downs of the tech industry.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: So when I got right into the industry it was like right after the tech bubble.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: So the bubble happened in 99, 2000.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: Everything is dropping in terms of opportunities and I slid right in there with a job starting at the bottom, working at the help desk.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: more or less servicing calls people resetting passwords to creating accounts and stuff like that.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: So I had to literally downplay my skill sets a little bit so that I can get an opportunity.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: So that's something that I think a lot of people may be running into, especially the senior engineers that are being laid off, is that they're downskilling and taking all the junior jobs now you get what I'm saying.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: So now y'all newer people or newer engineers coming into the field don't have access, because those opportunities are taken up from people that have to shift.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: I also see that the market itself.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: Whenever I go to job listings, they're always looking for senior staff engineers, and I'm like yo, what the heck is going on here?
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: And what I'm really noticing is that the market is shifting in terms of the type of candidates that they're looking for and the actual skill set you need to bring to the table.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: With that said, this market is going to be an opportunity for you to number one, be upscaling, so you're going to have to learn more than just one programming language, and when I heard you say TypeScript, I'm like yes.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Or you're finding out all of these things that these companies are using, because those are the things you're going to have to upscale so that you can be more marketable, and because those are the things you're going to have to upskill so that you can be more marketable.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: And then number two is apply, apply, apply.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: Even if the job says VP of engineering and you need a PhD, apply.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: My thought process is if they call me, hey, that's, all I need is a phone call.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: We'll talk about why I applied for the job and all that stuff.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: You're going to have to be on this hustle even more.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: You're going to have to lean on your network, linkedin.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: If to have to be on this hustle even more, you're going to have to lean on your network, linkedin.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: If you're not on linkedin, you better be on linkedin.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: And, in general, it's going to be, uh, really tough for you to catch these opportunities, like they did 2020 compared to now.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: So you got to be on it.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Um, the opportunities are there, because I still see the job listings.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: It's just that, um, the requirements are going to be a little bit higher, so you're going to have to do more to be seen.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Um, I'm I'm hoping that, uh, the graduates that are hearing this conversation and those that are just getting the tech really just understand that, hey, it's not you in terms of you don't have the ability.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: You just got to show your work more.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: You got to show your ability more so that you can be seen um and stay on the hustle um, but hey, the roller coaster right there's down and then there's an up, and eventually we'll be back up to the top.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: So that's my opinion.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: That was a great answer.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Honestly, Thank you.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: You need to say Twitter after that, right?
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: No, no, wow bro, wow, my fingers are twitching.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: He's twitchy over there.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Anything else come to mind?
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess when you were talking one thing specifically about like applying, applying, applying, which has been kind of my strategy as well, is that you may apply to a job that maybe may not fit you due to like your graduation day or things like that.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: But even I have experience where the recruit is like oh, you don't apply for this one, but this one that I have open works better, so you kind of get redirected that way.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Facts.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I think that's one of the best strategies right now.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Just apply as much as you can Look out for any opportunity.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what the company is, even if you don't want to work for them.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Maybe you get an interview and it's good practice.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Facts.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: So yeah, big shout-out to you, sebastian, giving out real knowledge out here.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Real knowledge, real knowledge.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Well, I want to first of all say thank you so much for pulling up and hanging out with us.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: D-hustle you going to cue up the music kid?
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, let's see.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, my guy.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: And the other thing is that you don't know is my wife is Dominican.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, she is, oh yeah, oh, that's awesome, so you know, I'm a bachata merengue, all you know.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: When I go to the parties.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: they're looking for me.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: See D-Hustle and his moves that he's making.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: He's feeling himself.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: But you know what YouTube is going to kill us on this right here.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll see.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: Cut it out, cut it out.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: We're still going to play it, I don't care.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: But yo, sebastian, again, we really do appreciate you pulling up to the Tech Hustle backstage with Bobby D.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: How did you enjoy your time, man?
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: I thought amazing.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't know what to expect, but everything was flowing.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: So I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to come out.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Of course, man and keep hustling.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: Keep on it.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Tell FIU I said what's up.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: Tell Google I said what's up.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: Tell them.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: I've been calling them on Twitter for a little bit, but whatever, that only on certain days, especially when I'm back on it.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: But seriously, thank you so much for pulling up.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: We're traveling the country, so you'll definitely be seeing some more of this.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: Let me close it out with the audience right before we leave.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Turn it up even more D-Hustle.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Turn it up.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Turn it up, yeah.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: Yo, thank you all so much for tuning in to our next episode.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: Here at the Tech Hustle Backstage with Bobby D, we had our guest Sebastian, and let me tell you, if you didn't catch it, press that rewind button, listen for that special sound.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: What's that special sound?
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: D-hustle Hold on, that's not the one.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: That's not the one.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: D-hustle guys Is set up for us Always.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: We really do Appreciate y'all pulling up.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Catch us in our next episode Coming up soon, because we got a few more guests.