Latest / Pre-Sales Pathways / Molly Elfers & Hannah Hawken: Should I do a coding bootcamp?
Transcript
- Chris: Molly, Hannah, thank you both so much for joining me on the show today. Molly Elfers: Yeah, glad to be here. Hannah Hawken: Thanks for having us. Chris: Yeah, no problem. I guess a bit of context, you when I was thinking about this particular topic and this show, you were the first two people that came to mind in terms of, who would be a great guest. I know I'd spoken to both of you independently about this idea of doing a coding bootcamp. And it was really funny. I started to look through your LinkedIn profiles before I, you know, more than I had done in the past. And there's some eerie similarities in terms of your background. You both studied sort of languages. or literature, you then did a coding bootcamp and then you've both gone on to work in, know, SEO pre-sales roles, specifically selling into quite technical buyers. But there are some differences between your journeys as well. So I'd love just to kick us off. If each of you could give us a very quick overview of your background, maybe starting with what were you doing before the coding bootcamp and then what have you done subsequently? Molly, maybe you could kick us off. Molly Elfers: Absolutely. so yeah, as you mentioned, you know, when I went to you would say uni, when I went to college, you know, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. And I I studied English, language and literature and kind of landed in a role that wasn't something that I was passionate about. I was an executive assistant for almost the first 10 years of my career. So you know. spent time I I moved to to San Francisco. I was very much working within the tech sphere and working closely with engineering teams, product teams, you know, mostly focused on SaaS type companies. and so I was definitely exposed to the industry and got to see a little bit behind the scenes from that perspective of working directly with product and engineering leaders. and I think that that was a little bit of how I ended up going down the path of pursuing a move over to the technical side was kind of observing from the sidelines, seeing how engineering teams and product teams worked, the type of activities that they were doing day to day. and I think that that was what inspired me to kind of say that's how I would like to be spending my time working on. you know, problem solving, you know, getting to have focus time, and really digging in on, you know, I I wanted to do something that I felt like I could lose myself in a little bit, that I could really, you know, go deep and feel very challenged by the work that I was doing because that was something that was missing for me in that executive assistant role. So that was kind of what Chris: Okay, cool. Molly Elfers: prompted my move. Chris: And so we'll get into the specifics of the boot camps for both of you shortly, but you were in this executive assistant role, you got to see product and engineering sort of from the sidelines. So then you do the boot camp, and then what came afterwards? How did you get into pre-sales? Molly Elfers: Yeah. So I I did this boot camp and immediately afterwards I moved into a technical support role. And that I think was one of the mo like that was really where I did so much learning. I'm someone who is really very learns by doing. and I just really threw myself into understanding how to debug. and that was such a valuable lesson for me, both in terms of developing a foundation for computer science, for how how coding, you know, kind of works, because you're coming from the opposite side of encountering an issue. How do I follow back these traces to understand what the where the problem originates? and that gave me a lot of deep experience in how to operate, you know, how to work within logs. how to navigate different types of tooling to understand where a problem comes from. And I think it also gave me an understanding of understand like just the life cycle, you know, the like how coding teams operate, you know, what what is the the SDLC. And from there, I you know, I ended up when I I started at Glean, which is of course where where you and I met, my I I started out in the support world. and then transitioned into the SE role, really from just raising my hand and being willing to to cover and to help out where needed. and that was that made that transition a lot easier for me. And I think because I had a background that you know, involved both very people-facing skill set from that time as an EA, as well as that deep technical troubleshooting debugging experience. it it paired really nicely for the SE role in terms of already having those skills to build off of. Chris: Okay, great. So you finished college, you move into the EA role, you're within the tech space, you're sort of seeing what's going on in product and engineering, you do the bootcamp, move into the customer support role and then transition into pre-sales or solutions engineering. Hannah, it would be great to hear from you, how did you, what were you doing before you got into the bootcamp and what have you done subsequently? Hannah Hawken: Yeah, well I count myself really lucky after hearing Molly's story that I ended up in the role that I'm in and the world of pre-sales and solutions engineering because I was very much on a path to be an international arbitrator. I came from quite a traditionally academic school where everyone was either studying to become a doctor, accountant or lawyer. And I thought I'd found my niche with a bit of a creative flair in languages. I read French, Spanish and Italian literature in an effort to pursue a four-year degree that I really loved and thought, okay, I'll tick the box and do my one-year law conversion course. And then I'm sure I'll love law at that point. But having done six months what they call in France, a stage, it's like a half-year, very serious internship where you are working in a law firm in Paris. I really was hating it. If you think to the series Emily in Paris, that was me every day just crying, walking by the Seine, thinking, what am I doing, trying to be a lawyer. And I found out about a coding bootcamp by a girl who was doing it in Paris. It was actually a startup, the coding bootcamp that I did called La Wagon. I was batch number 200 or something. And she said to me, the girl doing the course, Hannah, if you love languages so much, you've done four already in your life, why don't you? You're learning like nine languages in nine different coding languages in nine weeks. And the interesting part about this, and I wanted to layer into what you said, Molly, is the skills that you learn during a coding bootcamp and not just the output that you can measure of all. I understand HTML, CSS, whatever. It's the skill of being able to research and find the answers and really be solution-orientated. So at the time I had no idea that a solutions engineering role existed in the market. And that's why I say I'm really lucky that happened to be recruited from my first job that I thankfully got after doing the coding bootcamp as a full stack developer into Chris: Mm-hmm. Hannah Hawken: solutions engineering. And the other lucky kind of silver lining for that role was it was at Darktrace and the Darktrace philosophy at the time was for solutions engineers to work pre and post sales. So I didn't know how lucky I was having the experience of both sides. Now that I'm more mature and I've worked at different companies and spoken to people at other companies as well, I understand that normally we would specialize either pre-sales or post-sales and be more of a technical account manager if we're focused on the post-sales side or CSM, whatever acronym you want to use. I would say the bootcamp kind of ticked a box for me, just like the university degree or what I thought about law though, we can get into why it did teach good skills, but it really was what opened another door to transition from a very non-conventional tech background into tech. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned that you were a full stack developer between the bootcamp and becoming a solutions engineer. What motivated the change from that role to solutions engineering? Hannah Hawken: really circumstantial. think if it hadn't been the COVID pandemic and I wasn't working at a health tech startup, 16-hour days on something which I felt very passionate about, given what was happening in the world, but endlessly looking at code alone with no human interaction for anyone Chris: Mm-hmm. Hannah Hawken: that knows me and how much I love to talk and the fact that I read languages, I was not exercising a lot of what I see as my skills. And so being the bridge between tech and the end user and customer and then interfacing with product team, marketing. What we do as solutions engineers is way more my thing. I just didn't know that that was a next step for me from the bootcamp. And so I guess at 20, if you graduate in a pandemic where everyone's talking really quite in dire terms about the job market, you take what you can get. It really consolidated to a very, very technical level, my technical capabilities. And come full circle now, where I work at Chain Guard, our end customer and user is highly technical, is developers. So I speak their language and I'm so grateful for that year. I would counsel anyone that does a coding bootcamp, don't do it just to tick the box. I think it probably does earn you a lot more respect and grounding in your knowledge if you actually go and use those skills in the market and not just in theory in a classroom. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's zoom in on the bootcamp point then, because that's something that, you know, you've both done. I'd be really curious, Molly, from your perspective, you know, what was your impression of the bootcamp and maybe just share a bit of some of the logistics at the beginning. How long did it last? Was it something you had to pay for yourself? Do you feel like it gave you the skills that were transferable to the SE role or were there things in the SE role that you felt like the bootcamp didn't cover? Molly Elfers: Yeah, absolutely. so there were a few things about my decision that were you know, factors that that influenced the type of boot camp that I wanted to do. Chris: Okay. Molly Elfers: you know, this when I was going through this process, it was 2018. So at that time, you know, I would say boot camps were still very much a a thing that was was pretty popular. I I think the market For that has changed very significantly since then. but I was really looking for something, you know, at the time, a lot of the options that you saw out there were like you quit your job, you go on site, and you, you do this boot camp full time. And Chris: Mm-hmm. Molly Elfers: that wasn't something that I could afford at the time. so I had to look something look for something that gave me more flexibility in terms of not having to, you know, quit my job. Now the the beauty of it was I at the time was working for for Intercom, which is now called Finn, and I was working directly for product and engineering leaders and I shared this vision with them. And so they were I they were supportive of this move for me and they knew it was something that I was doing. And so I signed up for a bootcamp called Thinkful that was part-time in the sense that it was self-paced and self-taught. So they provided you a portal that you would log into. I wanna say it was three months, but again, it's it's self-paced. and one of the reasons that I went that path was that they had a guarantee at the time, which again, like probably not something you'd find today that if you didn't get a job after this course, that they would refund you. so Chris: wow, a full refund. Molly Elfers: full refund. And and if that was, of course, if you were checking all of the boxes, you know, they had. At each part, you know, mentors, you had to be like passing different check-ins, and then post program, you were working with someone that really helped with trying to get you placed. Chris: Okay. Molly Elfers: you had to be showing that you were applying for a certain number of jobs each week. So it wasn't just, you know, like no strings attached. And I did end up finding a job. but that was one of the reasons that I chose it, is it felt like there was a little bit of a safety net there where if it didn't end up actually getting me to where I wanted to go, that I would have a path to recouping some of that cost. but the upfront cost was something that I paid out of pocket and it was fifteen thousand US dollars at the time. Chris: wow, that's quite, yeah, so quite Hannah Hawken: Wow. Chris: significant. Maybe Hannah, if you want to jump in there before we go into what it Hannah Hawken: Yeah. Chris: did and didn't cover, just because I'd be curious and the audience I'm sure are for the contrast. Hannah Hawken: Well, that's more than double what I paid, Molly. Mine was full time. There was an expectation I wouldn't be working alongside. So kudos to you for juggling two major investments in mental energy and the motivation to keep it going when it's self-paced. Because I have to say that experience of this coding bootcamp was one of the hardest things I went through in life. Yes, it was in French. So there was another level of complexity that drained my brain. But... I'm not sure whether I would have powered through as much if I had to do that on top of a job and like drive myself to do it as well. Similarly, there was a safety net of we will help you find a job at the end, though I will caveat it with the fact that given it was a startup when I did it, really small, I'm pretty sure, and this is almost 10 years ago, we did it in the same year of 2018, Molly. Like, I think it was through network, so this can sound possibly a bit rude, but it might not have been the dream job, but it would have been a job as a developer, if that makes sense. Molly Elfers: I think that was the same expectation. And I think that would still be the expectation. Like you have to start somewhere, right? yeah. Hannah Hawken: Exactly. Yeah. Chris: And so on that Hannah Hawken: Yep. Chris: point around preparing you for a job, if you're both in pre-sales or SE roles now, looking back, which aspects of the role did the boot camps prepare you for and were there aspects of the role that it really didn't prepare you for at all that you need to learn on the job? Hannah Hawken: Do want to stop, Molly? Do you have to feed? Molly Elfers: Yeah, I mean, h like what I would say the boot camp really did was provide a solid foundation of computer science fundamentals. How does Chris: Mm-hmm. Molly Elfers: the internet work? like things like that, I think, were actually so much more important to me just in terms of understanding how these things happen. Like the actual hands-on coding part of it. I think it was almost less important than the understanding those foundations and understanding key concepts and terms that allow you to speak the language. because it's it's very obvious if you go into a conversation when you don't have those foundational building blocks, you've got to really be able to understand what what is the interviewer asking me? Why are they asking me this? What are the things that they're looking for? So I think that. That really was the most important thing that I gained out of out of the experience. Pretty much everything else I learned on the job. So, like from my perspective, the the boot camp experience was mostly about allowing me to even get a foot in the door and be in that room in the first place to have the opportunity to develop the skill set. and and that's partially because I'm very much someone who is not a hypothetical learner. I have to learn by doing and by doing it in a real way. so really I think most of what I have learned has been on the job. and and not necessarily always from the job itself. I've had many jobs where I have gone outside of my role and said, Hey, I want to help out with this project. I want to learn this. so I think it's it also has a lot to do with your own personal way of really seeking out the opportunities that you're looking for. Chris: Yeah, yeah. And of course in your personal life, right, people have opportunities now with VibeCoding as an example, everyone's got things that they're interested in doing in their personal time as well. Hannah, curious, so what would be your perspective? Which are the aspects of the coding bootcamp do you think were helpful for preparing you for the pre-sales of SEO? Hannah Hawken: Definitely agree with Molly on the topic of being a kinesthetic learner. Boot camps are a great way to be doing, so they feed you a lot of theory, but you actually get on in practice as well. They have many workshops all the way through, so you feel like you're achieving many projects effectively and then you can just apply them to the real world. However, I think the most important skill that I learned to exercise was a curiosity for... forever learning. And that is really important for the part that it didn't prepare me for effectively, which was the fact that when you go into a company like after Darktrace, I went to Wiz, the solution has that you have to be such an expert of the solution that you're learning and you're supposedly an expert of in front of customers and the public face of a company. that you need to have that curiosity to learn and be able to exercise those skills of finding the information, you know, being a technical SME in the field. And I think Molly's point super important too about the boot camp laying the foundations, which you can then build on becoming an expert in a given solution and do that every time you move company. The market context as well, especially in tech, we've kind of... started to talk about it a little bit with AI and vibe coding. Everything is accelerating so quickly and our knowledge has to forever evolve. There's got to be that curiosity for reading, learning more, speaking to products, diving deep into lots of information within our internal systems, I think. And coding boot camps can really lay the foundations for having that reflex. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. And on that point, mean, curiosity, I think is probably the most common trait across SEs, right? Or at least when they, when I ask SEs what makes a successful SE, they mostly say curiosity. I think there'd be a lot of SEs out there that do identify as curious, but when they look at something like a coding bootcamp, maybe they find that a bit intimidating. Maybe it's a sort of level up from how technically involved they've been or how deep they've gone in the past. I would love to hear from each of you, know, which was the hardest moment of bootcamp or were there moments when you were going through where you had a sense of doubt like really this isn't for me? Hannah Hawken: feel super passionately about the fact that you need to overstretch yourself to then excel within the remit of your role. Chris: Mm-hmm. Hannah Hawken: So, yes, it was the hardest thing that I did because information overload meant some nights I didn't even eat dinner, I just couldn't compute or make another decision. But, yeah, that's my point. It's really tiring to learn so much information, but I think pushing yourself that far. means that when all you have to do is master one solution and yes, have context for the competition and where it fits in the rest of the market, but you'll be rewarded better and do a much better job at that if you've already stretched yourself really thin. Chris: Anything you want to Molly Elfers: I Chris: add Emily? Molly Elfers: I I mean I agree with that. I think you have to like really, really want it. Chris: Mm-hmm. Molly Elfers: what what's actually interesting about this that I don't even think I mentioned is this was not I I like tried to do a coding boot camp one time before, Chris: Okay. Molly Elfers: before I did this one and it like Hannah Hawken: I'm really. Molly Elfers: didn't really stick. Yeah. And and like I like I kind of like I knew I was really unhappy in my job in terms of just like not feeling feeling like I wasn't challenged, wasn't in the right role, like feeling like work every day was just like kind of a slog. And so for me, it kind of was this like, I have to do this. It's a make or break. Like otherwise I'm just gonna be miserable. and I think I really needed that motivation because going through a self-paced course and and also working full time. So I was working full time, coming home on nights and weekends and like kind of pushing myself through this. And I think there were definitely parts of it that really didn't like make sense to me at the time. And I kind of had to trust like, okay, it'll it'll click eventually. so yeah, like it, it was definitely not like I got in and everything was like, this is this is it. This is my thing. I've found my passion, you know, I really did have to like push through it and be like, no, this is something I want for myself and have a little bit of faith that it was gonna work out in in the right way and that it was going to end up being something longer term that would move me in the right direction. And luckily it it absolutely did. And now I'm in a place where I genuinely love the work I do. I feel really challenged by it. but that wasn't the case the whole time, for sure. Chris: Interesting. Hannah Hawken: On that topic, did you ever think, Molly, about breaking it up? I don't know if the first Bootcamp you did was shorter, because sometimes achieving a milestone and doing something that only lasts a couple of weeks gives you the confidence that you can do it, and then, right, I'm going to do a bigger challenge next. I think to some of the certs that the cloud providers offer, if I don't have something as a bit of a challenge on my mind in a quarter, I feel like I'm stagnating, and I wonder whether you... whether the first course, Bootcamp, that you tried was equally huge and kind of overwhelming. Molly Elfers: I'll be honest that it's hard for me to it's like hard for me to remember the specifics like of of why it didn't really stick. yeah, I mean I think I think it it had a bit less structure in terms of how you actually move from the boot camp into the real world and like apply those skill sets. You know, it was more focused on the upskilling itself rather than the like actual career move. so I think that that was part of it. And I think again, like there they're really for me it was this this kind of like make or break of of like, you know, I I can't go back to this, you know, when when it's when it's like, it's fine, like, you know, when there's when there's not a real compelling like impetus to go and do something, sometimes it can be easy to say in what's safe. and so it kind of almost took me getting to that breaking point where it was like, where am I going? What am I doing? Like I need a change that I think was the biggest driving factor there. Chris: Yeah, I'd like to build on that, Molly, because it's interesting you mentioned that you tried the bootcamp before. I haven't been on a bootcamp before, but I think I've learned HTML and CSS probably five or six times throughout my life. I sort of start Molly Elfers: Uh-huh. Chris: here, I get into it, you know, I'm really going to do it this time. And then I almost always lose the momentum with it. And I think for me personally, it's just writing code is just not something I enjoy all that much. think, you know, when I am honest with myself in terms of what motivates me in the way I think I really enjoy systems level thinking and big picture and talking about architecture and all that stuff. When it comes to the granular detail and it comes to debugging, it's just something I don't really enjoy all that much. And I'm, curious if either of you have an opinion on that when people are thinking through whether or not they should do a coding bootcamp or an alternative, how important it is to actually, you know, be honest with yourself around is that there's a question of, can you do it, but would you like to do it? Hannah Hawken: Maybe a hot take, but maybe you don't need to anymore. Like, who's not using Claude Code to write them or Lovable or any other AI project to build an app of an amazing idea they had or a website they want to bring to life? I think you need to understand architecturally what's going on. But I'm not sure we need to be able to write every single line of code anymore. Do you disagree, Molly? I don't know. Molly Elfers: No, I absolutely don't disagree. But I think to Chris's point, like it's more about finding what types of activities fulfill you. What do you what types of activities do you find rewarding? And for me, like and and I I'm someone again, like I kind of have to try it out before I know, you know, like I Chris: Mm-hmm. Molly Elfers: I don't think always like there is sort of a dopamine hit that you get from like trying something new that can fade or that you're like, when I'm actually doing this for my job, I don't like it. And so I do think there is a little bit of that you have to really do it and see like, is this something that I could spend my entire day doing? And I think probably Hannah, I ended up with kind of the same conclusion because I did, as I mentioned before, you know, while I was working at Squarespace in a support role, I was still pretty like actively trying to move into a full-time developer role. And so I did some Some actual coding work on internal systems for like for different teams. And what I found was you know, the act of code review, of having someone like pick apart everything you did wrong. Of like, this is brutal, you know, like someone nitpicking Hannah Hawken: Mmm. So... Molly Elfers: everything, you know. So, like, even those types of things, you kind of have to like have that experience to know. Is this something that I want to do every day? Do I want to have someone like criticizing my work as part as a big part of my job? Hannah Hawken: Yeah. Molly Elfers: and so I think, you know, like and and now what I think I've realized is I love the problem solving piece. I love the customer interactions of like that aha moment and really making something happen for them of being someone who, yeah, is more systems design. project managing, ensuring that things are flowing correctly. so I think that that was definitely a learning for me. Chris: And it's interesting, Molly, you mentioned the code review being one of the less fun aspects of the role. And I've heard horror stories now of engineers in some organizations that's so much of their job, right? Because actually writing the code is super easy and everyone in the company is doing it. And suddenly you're responsible for reviewing all of this stuff and making sure that there's sometimes sloppy code is okay to go into production. So definitely agree with that in terms of thinking about what are the activities you actually want to do and give you satisfaction. So Hannah, you had mentioned earlier on certs from some of the providers and also getting hands on with something like Claude Code. Do you or either of you have an opinion on, if maybe a boot camp's quite a high commitment, both in terms of time and cost, are there other ways that you would recommend people dip their toe in the water or alternatives to boot camps that you think people should consider? Hannah Hawken: Definitely. I mean, it really, does depend on what stage you're at. myself Chris: Mm-hmm. Hannah Hawken: and Molly have come from different avenues, Molly, without putting words in. If I understand what you've played back or like played back what I've understood of your situation, it was kind of crisis moment. Like I'm going to go all in on a boot camp because I need to get myself out of this place. For me, I was just exploring other avenues while I was at university to, I don't know, change career paths before I got too deep in law. And so now, when I'm thinking about what the rest of my career looks like, I happen to have found myself in a specialism of cyber security. Chris: Mm-hmm. Hannah Hawken: And so a lot of the courses that I'll be doing are more around doubling down on my knowledge of the software development and given where Chain Guard is, software development lifecycle and how we can shift security left, what the type of attacks in that space are. Yes, you can get loads of this from reading blogs and the latest news articles. I listen to tons of podcasts on the space as well, which is Chris: Mm-hmm. Hannah Hawken: why I'm so happy to be in a podcast here. But things like Coursera, they often ping me with courses that I do consider doing. I think I've done a couple. The clouds are specifically relevant for me, and I think they just have a good badge of credibility. I say Chris: Mm-hmm. Hannah Hawken: they're really relevant for me because I work in partnerships. with those big cloud service providers. So I always love a reason to sing their praises and draw a tie about being an expert in AWS security help or something like that. Chris: Mm-hmm. Hannah Hawken: Other than that, I think that there are ways where you can exercise skills that aren't just badges from boot camps or certifications like... Coding communities, if you want to dip your toe in the water, are a great way of trying some projects with other people who are at the Chris: Mm-hmm. Hannah Hawken: same stage of exploring whether they want to go down that route or not. They don't Chris: Mm-hmm. Hannah Hawken: cost anything because it's a community. And there's a really great sense of gratification that you're also giving back. You might find yourself at a certain moment becoming the teacher and feeling a sense of confidence over how far you've come in your knowledge with others. And I definitely did a bit of that when I migrated from being a full-stack developer into a solutions engineer, just to kind of not feel too distant from the code for a long time. I can't say I've kept that up, but it's definitely a useful tool I would kind of advise people to use. Chris: Okay, great. And Molly, thoughts on alternatives to bootcamp? Molly Elfers: Yeah, I mean I I definitely agree with Hannah. Like I my perspective is kind of that we're we're past the time of coding boot camps. I'm not sure it would Like I I'm not sure it's necessary, partially because of the developments with with AI. but I think, you know, even at the time when I look back, like I said, it was really about developing those fundamentals. I think a big thing, part of it for me was like having accountability. It can be really hard when you're doing something more casually to really make it happen for yourself. Like you have to be highly motivated to To do it to follow through. And so I think a lot of it for me was just a little bit of that accountability. But I think today there are a lot of other ways to make that happen. I think there's so many free resources or, you know, very cost efficient resources out there. And I think particularly in the SE role, like, you know, there there are definitely some SE roles that require you to actually be hands-on keyboard coding every day. But The majority of of the roles that I have seen are again more about can you be curious enough about this product, about this industry, about this specific space, to develop that foundation that will get you the foot in the door? and Chris: Hmm. Molly Elfers: so it's really about tapping into that curiosity and saying, you know, if I did want to move into this to this area. What are the foundations that I need to understand and learn about? And there's so many different ways today that you can dig in deeper and establish those, whether through, you know, having Claude Code design, hey, here's the things to research for this, or going through a course era or, you know, those other free courses. YouTube has a plethora of resources, Reddit, you know. So I I think today it's easier than ever, and it's also easier than ever to kind of give up and not hold yourself accountable. so it's two sides of that coin. Chris: Yeah, yeah. I mean... Hannah Hawken: And another thing, Chris, I've just thought of is think of the solution that you want to be an expert in. I'm not sure if it's the case at Galeen, but certainly at Chain Guard, we have open source courses. So if a listener wanted to be an expert in secure software development and secure Chris: Mm-hmm. Hannah Hawken: software supply chain, you'd go to Chain Guard, you'd take all their courses that are free and open source and learn hours worth. I think there must be 30 hours worth of content there. If I were looking to pivot into AI, would 100, like more of an AI just focus company, not necessarily cybersecurity. I'd be going to those companies and trying to do their courses because they build them for a reason to, you know, be a market leader, but also educate the market. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. I want to pick up on a point, Molly, you mentioned around when you think of the se roles that you've actually been in, because like similarly, and obviously everyone's experience can be different, right? Work at different companies, selling to different types of buyers. But when I look across the roles I've been in, I've never really needed to write code, not even really needed to be able to read code in most instances. And there have been se's doing the same role who could do both those things and certainly played to those strengths. But what would have been really helpful in some situations was that foundational understanding. it's like one customer conversation I remember in the early days when I shortly after I joined Slack and it's just like stuck in my head forever was I was on a call with this like network engineer and he was trying to debug why calls weren't routing correctly. And I just remember thinking like, this guy's speaking a completely different language. And it's like so difficult for me to even know where in the organization I should take his problem because it's just like so much of that foundational. knowledge missing and for me that was like a real wake up call of, okay, if I'm gonna be working with that part of the product, I need to understand some of those foundations. So yeah, I think definitely it's not necessarily, although they're called coding boot camps, I get the impression from both of you that part of the value is also that foundational sort of computer science background that you get from it as well. Molly Elfers: Absolutely. And I I think Hannah Hawken: given me chicken skin thinking about that. Chris: haha Hannah Hawken: I've been in similar situations where you're like, sorry, what language are you talking? Chris: Yeah. Molly Elfers: Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean I I do I literally do that every day. And I think there is you walk in with a perception that everyone knows so much more, right? And Chris: Yeah. Molly Elfers: that everyone has this deep expertise. You're you're the only you're the imposter. And I think what I've realized through the jobs that I've had is that One of the most valuable things that you can do is just being fearless, not in the sense of like nothing matters, but in the sense of like being willing to look stupid or like being, you know, ha like having that low ego of just being like, I don't understand this. Can you explain it to me? Chris: Yeah. Molly Elfers: or like Going into a call like that that you don't know anything about and doing it anyways, because you know, okay, well, I'm gonna learn a lot about networking. And and, you know, and I think that that doing that and like having that like ability to let go of your ego a little bit and maybe Chris: Yeah. Molly Elfers: like be a little vulnerable, I think that's also been the most valuable skill that has gotten me to where I am was just the ability to say. I don't know how to do this, but I'll raise my hand for it anyway and I'll figure it out because it's gonna take me to that next level. That really has gotten me so far. And when you start doing that, you realize a lot of other people are doing the same thing, you know. We're all figuring it out, we're all learning new things. Where you know, a lot of times I would be like, I just really don't understand this. Can you explain it to me? And sometimes people say, yeah, it's this and this. And other times they'll be like, yeah, I also don't know what this person's talking about. You know what I mean? So like, you know, coming in with that, like it's a little bit of the curiosity and it's a little bit of that willingness to maybe fail or, you know, just like maybe, like, maybe people know that you don't understand something and that's okay. That's how you learn. Chris: Yeah, definitely. And Hannah Hawken: And Chris: yeah, go ahead. Hannah Hawken: I was going to say advocate for Glean internally and it solves all your technical Q &A live on calls. It's the best solution that we have internally for doing that. Chris: Yeah. Molly Elfers: I mean, you don't have to convince Chris and I. I've Hannah Hawken: You Chris: You Molly Elfers: now I when I've started at base ten you know a month and a half ago, that has been the hardest thing is I'm like, I really wish we had we had Glean here. I'm a big, Hannah Hawken: going, yeah. Molly Elfers: big proponent of it. Chris: Well, on Hannah Hawken: Yeah. Chris: the topic of AI enabled search, I do want to make sure that we cover off AI. Hannah, you mentioned earlier on about claw code and it really allowing anyone to be able to write code now. But I'm curious to either of you have a perspective on like how, if at all, does AI change this things? Hannah Hawken: It's an interesting one. I still believe that upskilling, if you have a curiosity and you have a desire to learn how to code, I would still say follow that passion. Because just like Molly and I have told our stories, it will lead to you on a journey where doors, not necessarily to become a coder, but different doors will open. And even though it's not salient in today's day and age, if you need to make a pivot into and you're interested in coding and that's the way you do it, then that's great. Do you know, there might be other courses out there specifically now, I'm sure they're being developed, because startups can just grow so much more quickly with AI now, where it's like a code with AI type of course. I Chris: Yep. Yep. Hannah Hawken: would be looking for something like that if I was starting my life out again. Probably it focus on more of an architectural level of coding when I've spoken to AI. engineers recently, we've talked about the fact that's more what their role is now. So we've talked about it reviewing the code, but then also what's the infrastructure look like? What's the most efficient way for us to build systems and secure way as well. So I'd definitely be going down that route, but always building as many projects as you can. Like I haven't talked about the number of websites I did freelance. apps that I built freelance, all of those mini projects that I did to one-off customers in my early 20s taught me so much about what I prefer and, you know, actually working with the end-users, the consumer of the tech that we're building. You'll find what you like more and just endlessly talking to people. So become part of an SE community or talk to SEs about... what you enjoy because then they might open your eyes to roles you didn't know existed, like becoming a product manager or working more in technical marketing, something like that. I think what we also forget is when you go into the corporate world or start working in a large organization, you have to really love what you're doing because it's on such a much larger scale. unless you go for a startup that's like 100, 200 people where you can dabble in a couple of different jobs, you Chris: Mm-hmm. Hannah Hawken: really need to hone in on your skill and drill down on what it is that you really like about your work so that you can do just that and do it well. Chris: Yeah, yeah. Anything you'd add, Molly? Molly Elfers: I mean, I I think as far as how have how have things changed now in terms of like the way that I use AI day to day, I was actually I was talking to someone who just started this morning and was talking about, you know, when I started at at Glean, this was March 2022, ChatGPT had not been released, right? And and so starting there and now starting at this new company base 10. My onboarding and the my way of working is drastically different. and I really AI is integrated in absolutely everything that I do. And I couldn't work at the scale or the pace that I do without that. With that though, there's a flip side where there is the cognitive load looks a lot different. And you do become more of that, does this make sense? You know, like Claude is or you know, AI in general is very good at sounding convincing, right. And so you d it makes it makes it so that you won't even more have to lean into your reasoning, your logic, you know, and and breaking it down and saying, do I understand this? Could I explain this and the and the reasoning behind it? Is there evidence to support this? so all of that has very much become part of my way of working is challenging, you know, really validating everything. I you don't trust, you always verify. and so the the type of work becomes very different. but it's it's deeply integrated into my way of working now. Chris: On a related point to that, found with Claude code, one of the things that it's not very good at doing, or maybe I'm just not using it the right way, but that I imagine a senior engineer would be quite good at doing it. I got so far down the line of vibe coding this application and then only, you know, right when I was ready to deploy it flagged like, by the way, you might want to think about this dependency. I was like, it would have been really helpful to know that like at the beginning of the process, that's going to cost me so many days. And I had to, you know, transfer my domain to another register and all this stuff. It's the sort of thing where I think someone with more of a foundational background experience in doing would have just said from day one, by the way, have you thought about this? So, yeah, it's, it's interesting in that it's definitely for people that have had that itch to build, they can suddenly scratch them, you know, like that's, that's really empowering. But yeah, it comes with caveats. Hannah Hawken: If I may add as well, I listened to a podcast the other day which was three hours, so I won't go and kind of spur you on to listen to it. But the key takeaway from it, which I think is really pertinent in today's day and age with AI, is your unique kind of skill and craft that you bring to the job, maybe with a creative flair, is what's going to make you memorable and what sets you apart. Chris: Mm-hmm. Hannah Hawken: And we're all in... As a solutions engineer, we're in customer-facing roles, or at least consider most of the time we're selling something, the technical value, to an end customer. So you Chris: Mm-hmm. Hannah Hawken: do want to make yourself memorable in some way. It might be the cherry on top of the cake to what you do after fulfilling the basic necessities of your job and answering their requirements or whatever. But I always try and remind myself however much I've used AI for technical Q &A or... write an email, like go back through it and hannify it if you like so that they know Chris: Yes. Hannah Hawken: it's come from me. Chris: Yeah, couldn't agree more. Molly Elfers: Absolutely. I I cannot plus one that enough. The thing that gets that I come back to time and time again are not not my technical acumen, you know, it's it's the little things that make me stand out. and and you know, like one great example of that is you know, did this boot camp in 2018, graduated in 2019. My first job out of the boot camp in this support role was I moved to New York City in November of 2019. And the company that I was working for was very much was in like the restaurant space. Well, COVID hit, all the restaurants shut down. I was furloughed. And and I thought, you know. What am I gonna do? I I I've just made this big career change. I've been laid off. It's the middle of a global pandemic. How am I gonna find another job in this market when I have basically no experience? And the thing that made me stand out was hey, I had 10 years of experience as an executive assistant. And that Chris: Mm-hmm. Molly Elfers: like what a what a unique story and what it what an interesting background. so yeah, like rely on the things that make you unique. Rel like Build your story, be a storyteller about like your journey and what that means to you. And you know, I ended up landing a job within a month of of being furloughed because of that really unique perspective and background that was not technical at all. so I I do really think that leaning on what makes you unique, what makes you you, that is always gonna be the key. Chris: Love it. Molly, Hannah, thank you so much both for your time. This is such an interesting discussion. mean, loads of takeaways I loved. The background on the boot camps, the fact that it gives you that solid foundation, but also, you know, it's applied, you get hands on. There are other ways to do that now, obviously, things like Claw Code make that easier than ever. And there were also these certifications from different vendors, so lots of different things to consider. But thank you so much both for sharing your insights. Hannah Hawken: It's absolute pleasure. Molly Elfers: Thank you having us.