Promotions, Salary & Leadership: I Answer Your Toughest Tech Career Questions

Q&A time. I have career questions, leadership questions, personal development questions, and we're going to round off with podcast questions. So sit back, relax and enjoy. We're going to start off with the career questions. I have a lot of career questions today, and this is going to be a fun one to start off with.

As an IC who often has to lead projects, how do you hold your peers accountable to a consistent quality and delivery bar, especially when manager escalations don't help, don't drive any improvements, and there's a constant pressure to ship fast? All right, there's a lot to

unpack here. One of the fun things that I've learned about myself in asking for feedback, especially when projects end because I'm in a consultancy, a lot of people have said you raise the bar and I don't quite know how I do that. I'm very vocal when it comes to expectations. I call people out on their behaviour, not necessarily bullshit, but when there is bullshit, I do call it out and I discuss a lot what I think we need to be effective within a team.

Don't just focus on my own work because I like to help an organization. I like to move things with regards to impact. That's where I get my joy. So to give you an example, if I come in a team and the team processes are a mess, that's usually what I focus on. My focus will not just be individual developer contribution, but I will have a conversation on how we can make this thing more effective. Now, having a lot of experience helps with regards to those conversations.

Having theoretical experience also helps. And what I've noticed is that people understand the theory. Everyone agrees smaller teams, bigger impact. Focus helps. Let's focus in this Sprint. Let's not make sure or let's make sure there's not much noise, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. A lot of people understand the theory, but don't do the behaviour actually according to the theory.

So that's the problem, you can understand, but in the end you have to adapt your behaviour and someone needs to step out of that process, oversee everything. Sometimes don't actually partake then in discussions with regards to content, because then you can observe how people are behaving, how people are interacting, what might be necessary. And I understand that this answer still, at least so far, has been quite vague. But the problem is I have no clue what the problem is in your situation.

In the end, I think you do need to make sure to huddle as a team and to have this discussion and to say, all right, this is where I think we can go and this is where we are right now. You probably have an understanding of how to bridge that gap and you have to be vocal towards your team members. I usually have high expectations and likely this is what I've

learned too, high expectations. So I also am very vocal with regards to this is what I think and I can be the only one that thinks that way and that is OK. I need to make sure that if other people think the same, then we have a problem and we have something to fix. If other people don't think it's a problem, then that's fine, right?

Then that's me. Then this might need not be the best situation for me. We already talked in previous Q&A's about different perspectives with regards to career, drive and motivation and also family situation. There's a right time and a right place and a right environment for a lot of people and it can be that this environment is not the environment where you can thrive.

If not everyone is as career oriented as you are, especially since you've tried to do escalations towards managers and that also doesn't change any behaviour, then it might not be the environment for you. In the end that should be kind of a last breaking point in my opinion.

So you can try and you can still have the communication with the people, have discussions with them, set your expectations, actually make sure there's some some measurements and give feedback and people can also give feedback to you. I feel like that's in the end how you organically grow. It's very hard to make this an official artificial growth because in the end it also takes a lot of time. So, yeah, hard one, very hard. I want to touch on one one more

thing because you mentioned quality and delivery bar. In the end, quality is kind of malleable and people have different opinions on quality. I might sometimes prefer to deliver faster and lower quality to test our assumptions and to get that feedback and to make sure we are building the right thing. Other engineers focus more on a technical quality with regards to resilience and robustness and observability more for the long term.

There is a balancing quality and in the end your stakeholders, your business and what the company needs and that can differ. That can definitely have differing opinions, but that should be driving the quality. There's a product person there somewhere. They should be able to communicate and clarify and get everyone aligned on what the right quality is in balance.

And they should have the right experience to also listen to an engineering voice there because engineering quality and technical quality and technical debt will make or break your project in the long term. You have to balance this speed of delivery and thinking of long term. In the end, that's the game you need to play and that's what every company does. You will make mistakes and making mistakes is OK Learn from them and pivot and do better

next time. In the end, that's the culture that you need to adhere to. So I understand that if you have a high sense of quality, you have to make sure that it's apartment for whatever you're building. Some systems need to run forever, which means 100% quality with regards to system needs to run forever, that's quite black and white. Other systems, they don't need to run forever, they just need to run right now. They need to get feedback, they need to apply and execute faster

than competitors. I don't know which in which environment you're in, but you should know this or at least have a conversation, open up a dialogue and make sure there's a shared understanding of the quality we deliver for the task at hand. Now follow up question, when

leading large cross functional programs, let's say 20 plus engineers, how do you establish A scalable structure of accountability? Man, let me preface this because I've never been in this position, but immediately my mind goes to follow up questions. According to this, if people are not accountable for the work they're doing, does that mean they're saying one thing and then doing another thing? Because that, for me, is incredibly toxic. I truly believe in personal

values. I also believe that strong personal values will hire people that have the same values and accountability as one of them. If you say something, then do what you say. If there are other factors, then it's not necessarily accountability, right? Because you can still be held accountable for delivering and you might deliver something different than you promised months ago. And that is OK. We learn and we are agile in the way we develop software and that

needs to happen for sure. Having a dialogue I think with even with 20 plus engineers is absolutely still possible. And I think strong product leadership and strong engineering leadership, this is the direction we're going and clarifying any questions on what the business strategy is and why we are doing the things we are and what metrics we can tweak to

actually help the business. And what the role is of the individual engineering teams or even to an IC level, the people that are contributing hands on individually. I think that really helps in making sure there's alignment and a shared mindset on what we're actually doing. Usually, or my assumption is that when people are not accountable, there's missing information. I truly believe that people are there and they won't just coast

by default. If that's there and you see those symptoms, then definitely there's something else is wrong. But naturally, I'm very positive. So my assumption is people are not there to coach. They genuinely want to help. And if you have a feeling that they're not accountable for what they're doing, you can't hold them to account for their actions, then it must be something you're missing. Definitely have those conversations and it's a very hard one.

This is a very theoretical one. Next one, how do you stay on

track with your career growth when the goal posts keep moving, particularly when moving up the company hierarchy feels more political. Oh, I've definitely heard that. When I read this question, immediately my mind went to a conference I went to few months ago. It was in the summer and there was a person on stage and they had worked in many big tech organizations and the talk was about how to become a staff engineer. And the behaviour they described was incredibly toxic.

It had nothing to do anymore with being excellent in what you do. And then people seeing that are perceiving that and making sure you grow through that. It was all about preaching what you do and making sure others know and not just your team, but also making impact in other teams. It was like, in my opinion, it was not an organic way of climbing the career ladder. And I haven't worked in big tech, big, big disclaimer.

But I have heard that this behaviour, sometimes people feel like it's the only way to move up. I think that's quite toxic to be honest. I feel like your results should speak for themselves and people that are able to deliver both results and communicate quite clearly, set expectations with their manager. Actually ask the questions of what in your opinion, do I need to do to become a staff engineer? Because in the end, your manager needs to advocate for you.

Have the conversation with them and see what that is. If your manager says I don't just need to know about what you do, but other managers need to know about what you do, then it's a sad reality. But that might be an answer towards your question. I and when it comes to my own career goals, I'm horrible at setting long term goals. I've recently set a long term goal. I want this podcast to be the biggest tech podcast that there is. Now.

That's the only time I've actually been able to vocalize a longer term goal and it has nothing to do with my personal growth and personal development. I've always been very short term. I started in operations within operations and online I read about DevOps, then I moved to development software engineering, then I moved to consultancy and I did project after project when someone was like, do you want to do front end? I was like, I've never done it before, sounds fun, let's learn.

It was not a goal for me. In the end, it genuinely piqued my interest and I wanted to understand what people are doing compared to what I know on the back end that I've done. So everything has been kind of been an organic learning curve and an organic growth. Curiosity has always been the biggest driver in essence for me. So I might set smaller or short term goal posts with regards to what I want to learn or but honestly those have always been

curiosity driven in the end. Longer goal posts have been with regards to it's not necessarily moving up the career ladder because my company's kind of unique in the way we don't really have titles. So I have the same title almost seven years when I joined and I still have the same title in essence. Nothing changed. My salary changed significantly, but there's no moving up the

career ladder here. Now that's can be both a pro and a con because people have also left because of that, because they say don't really feel like there's a lot of career growth. And that might also mean within a function title, but I have had different function titles, different roles and responsibilities in the client projects that I do. I moved from software engineering to product and now again software engineering, I applied for an architect role.

Like everything is open and you can have and kind of carve out your own career path. So when it comes to roles and responsibilities, I feel like you can even join as an IC and by virtue of you making impact, you can, people can just give you more responsibilities. You can be like, I'm not happy

within this IC role. And if you've made good rapport and people respect you and people see that you've made impact beyond just being an IC, they will look towards their own organization to make you happy and to give you more roles and responsibilities or to give you more responsibilities even without having the role or the title necessarily. Maybe it's unique in the way I do personal development and goal

setting. I have had conversations with a coach, but I I find it very difficult to set long term goals for myself. It's just maybe the way I operate right now. I also like to keep busy, so maybe I don't even have time to consciously think of long term. I feel like if I would focus and do one thing and say in six months I want to do this, I think I would be more effective, but I would let go of a lot of things that I'm doing. So I'm doing a lot of things in parallel.

I'm doing a podcast, I'm doing software engineering, I'm part of the works council. I'm building a company in the weekends. I have many ideas on personal projects that I want to do that I haven't executed yet. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff to do and I'm having fun doing it. I think that's the most important part. Don't just focus on your career and goal setting. Also have fun along the way, or at least do it consciously and at some point you will need to have fun because otherwise it's

not sustainable. Technology is evolving faster

than ever. New frameworks, AI tools, system paradigms every few months. Fair enough. How do you personally stay relevant and keep learning without burning out? I think like the keep relevant question has come up in previous Q and as as well. I have a good memory and I feel like this is a question I've answered before. I feel like learning, being curious and continuously trying to execute. Setting the bar high for yourself and also within your team. Make sure you are relevant.

In the end, it's not about the technology or the knowledge that you have. It's about how you apply what you know in whatever business context you have. Learning is fun, but you won't be able to apply whatever you learn, right? You can learn about a new AI paradigm, but if you're not actually being able, if you're not able to use AI assisted Co tooling or you're not building AI functionality within a product, then in the end, it's

nice. It's nice to learn about evals from a product sense, but if I'm not building an AI functionality within my product, then I'm never going to use evals. So I know the theoretical knowledge, but I'm not able to apply it. So it's nice. I like it because I'm curious about certain things and I can

kind of deepen that out. But in the end, to be effective in what you do to stay relevant within your current role, I think you need to focus on what you need to do at hand, or not just you, but also the team in the company. In essence, that's how you make bigger ripples of impact. I feel like if you are not happy with your role, then indeed having the theoretical knowledge of another role or another discipline is really going to help.

What will then be make or break is how you've still applied that in practice, maybe not at your current role, maybe in personal projects. In essence, when I had the conversation of product manager role, I had never done or been responsible for product management. But I have had the experience as an engineer very close to product. That's what I leveraged. I was 100% honest. I've never had these responsibilities, but this is what I've done in the past.

In essence, this is what I have applied and this is the knowledge I have. That was the conversation. Someone took a chance on me, they believed in me and they gave me that rule. So yeah, quite happy with that.

So the relevant part was one of it. But also there's the learning without burning out. In essence, have some grace for yourself. You can't know everything about everything. That is ridiculous. Have some grace for yourself. It's OK not to know about certain topics and be like, oh, that's interesting, I didn't know that. And you can make a note and then deep dive later on.

It's OK to say I don't know this yet, but to have the drive and the curiosity to keep learning, I feel like that's what you need in essence to be long term successful within this industry.

What's the difference between working as an engineer in countries like Pakistan or India versus working at Silicon Valley or tech giants? To be honest, I have no clue, but bear with me. Beyond just communication and documentation, what are the technical differences and how can engineers breakthrough these barriers? I feel like there's enough technical knowledge out there in the open to have an equal level of technical knowledge in essence, no matter where you are.

So let's just disregard India, Pakistan or Silicon Valley because I have never worked in those environments. But hypothetically, if the technical knowledge is equal, then what is going to distinguish you in a certain country from me in this country? Then it will be, that's The funny thing, right? It will be everything beyond technical, everything beyond coding podcast name. In essence, it is communication, understanding your cultural differences. It's OK to say no in certain

cases. It's OK to say I don't know this in certain cases. In other cases, absolutely not. You say no, you're an idiot, you're out. I've never worked in those environments. But understanding the cultural differences, especially when you're working in a global context is really going to help you. And also being aware of how you grew up in the context that you're in, the cultural

differences from your country. And though just the way you communicate, being aware of that, being open minded of that, having a certain level of self reflection, asking feedback from colleagues abroad, hopefully within a safe environment will actually open your mind and be like, is this effective for what we're trying to do or do anything to change and adapt. And it's incredibly hard to change something, right?

I am now 30 years old. It's incredibly hard to change behaviour that has been moulded for the last 30 years. I'm trying to be incredibly open minded. I'm trying to be aware of other cultural differences. And I feel like when you're working in a global context, that is how you can make that is one of the options to make a difference if technical expertise is equal. And I feel like if your technical expertise is not equal, then there's work to be done.

Because in the end, results do matter, right? You can be the best communicator. I feel like I've been in situations where I'm a really good communicator, but I feel horrible because I'm not delivering and I have to put my head down and actually deliver as well as an individual and also as a team. In the end, this is a fun one. How long does the motivation

from a raise actually last and how do you decide whether to stay at your company, if you can get a better offer or when you actually have a better offer? All right, so when you actually have a better offer, you've already been looking outside, so now there's a decision to be had. All right. Do you take the offer?

Is it better than what you have? What are you leaving behind in people and culture and environment that you have built up in whatever time you've been working at the organization? I have seen someone get a better offer and they use that and leverage that because they didn't actually want to leave. Talked to their manager and they got like a 20% bump.

All right. This in essence already says that some of the processes when it comes to raises and promotions are broken because they got a 20% raise and I forgot. They also got a promotion. So there was a lot of hush hush and no one could talk about it, but in the end, they were happy. I've seen that happen. I've also seen people where when they get a better offer, current company just says we cannot match that.

Congratulations. It's a different domain, a different industry, a different business model. So some business models, engineers earn more per head count than other industries. That's just a fact. In the end, in big tech, that's what is there. Otherwise, how can they afford higher salaries compared to other domains? It's just how it works in essence. So the impact that you have as an engineer has bigger impact on the company and their operations

and their revenue. So in essence, they value you more as an engineer in certain industries, which is fair. So not every company can match it. Now, when it comes to a raise and the whole promotion process, it's very much up to the individual, right? Are you early in career? Are you happy with where you are? Do you feel like you're actually being valued, not just on a personal level, not just in communication and feedback, but also financially?

If you're feeling undervalued, then that will sit with you and it will take a long, long time. And you have to decide, am I OK with this? Have I done everything here to make sure this is it? Basically, have I voiced my concerns? Have I voiced my frustrations? Is it OK? Is it safe to do that? Is there any wiggle room with regards to the raise I've gotten? Am I happy with that? And if all the answers are no, you're not happy, Yes, you've

done everything that you can. Then in essence, you have to decide, am I going to accept it? Am I OK here or am I not happy and am I actively going to work on moving to a different company? I feel like doing it half half, you have to be really good to get an offer in the end. But doing it half half also is going to smear this out over many, many months. If you've decided this is no longer the environment for me, then you can continuously and

actively actually look outside. Still, make sure to be responsible. You can be held accountable. That's OK. Make sure to do your job in essence, because you haven't left yet, but it's OK to look outside. Not every environment is a good fit anymore. Some people might outpace the scale of an environment or the growth of an environment, right? And that's OK to move on. I hope that salary's not the

only motivation. I really like working with people. The tech industry is very people oriented. The way people give feedback, the way they create environments for others to thrive, to make impact within companies, to actually achieve business goals.

And doing this together, this whole feeling of togetherness, I'd be like that as one of my biggest drivers is the people and the reasons why we're doing this and the openness and transparency and financials and numbers and results and how I can make impact with just myself and also within a team. I really enjoy that. If that's gone but I'm getting paid double, I'm not sure if I'll be happy actually.

Because in the end, if I have questions and there's no answers, it is incredibly frustrating. So money will make me happy, but only to a certain degree. It's OK to earn and be happy with what you earn.

I think this is a challenging one. How do you build credibility and authority in your workplace? Authority and credibility. It's definitely not knowing it all or being a know all. Because then people think, sure, you might be right and you might be right all the time, every single time, but you're still an asshole, right? That's not going to give you authority. People might just in spite of it say no or hinder you just

because they don't like you. To be honest, credibility is also being authentic to who you are. One of my main drivers has always been curiosity. I joined a recent assignment in healthcare very specifically with a very focused assignment and I saw a lot of things where I thought if we tweak this we will be more effective as an

organization. Or when I heard the strategy of the company, I would ask questions on have we thought of these things because I think these are interesting avenues or do we have any numbers here to actually back up? Or are these assumptions? I really like facts that are backed up by numbers versus assumptions that we have and we are acting on assumptions and that is absolutely OK. But be clear in your communication so I can help.

And I can also think along, are there any other assumptions or have we actually looked into this Ave. is the strategy, does it hold true? Why are we doing this thing? What we can also do these things, Those are the questions that I typically ask and actually the feedback has been Patrick came in and the questions he asked was a little bit uncomfortable at the beginning. Maybe it's the way I ask. I am quite direct and I can come

across as quite critical. I'm very happy it was not construed as negative because that has also happened. But people appreciate this level of critique, this level of insights and thinking along and thoroughly actually wanting the best for the business. That builds credibility. You have the separate part of doing what you say you'll do and actually delivering results builds even more credibility. I feel like this is what gives you authority.

And the interesting thing is you cannot take authority. Most of the time other people have to give this to you, which is interesting, right? You can do everything for yourself and be a one man army, but in the end you will have no authority because other people will have to decide certain things and they will decide without you. If you're being this one man army, authority has to be given to you. And you can build up that with indeed being credible, with indeed being honest.

It's a lot of personal and intrinsic values. So if you feel like people are not necessarily respecting you or they're bypassing you with certain decisions, open up the conversation. Say I'd like to be involved. Is there somewhere where I can help or is there any reason why? Well, the this is kind of like this is where it's very nuanced because sometimes people feel entitled that they have to be

involved. But you can be genuinely curious and be like, I thought I would have added value in this way and I wasn't involved. Is there any particular reason if they don't see the value that you would have added, that's the conversation, right? And you can say, this is what I actually think I can add and I'd like to have feedback if that's actually the case. Can you invite me next time so we can see and I can learn and I can grow.

People are incredibly helpful for people that are open minded, that just want to learn and grow and make impact. If you act out of entitlement and the tech lead, why wasn't I involved here, then people will be like, oh, start getting defensive. You'll notice that when people are trying to defend themselves or you weren't available and I need to do this and it's your calendar and it's like pointing

fingers. Don't go there, try and be open, trying to understand and I feel like people will give you a certain level of authority. It's not going to be the whole world. They're not going to make you CEO of the company, but bit by bit and it's a long term play, you'll build up political credit. You'll be able to use that and capitalize and make more impact and making more positive impact. Also, looking back, it's a lot of fun. What advice would you give your

junior developer self? What would have helped you stand out and accelerate your career early on? So this is the thing, I'm actually quite happy. And if you were to ask me, do you have any regrets? I don't know if I have, I feel like I learned organically. I'm quite happy with what I've learned so far. It has gotten me to the place that I'm in now and I'm quite happy. So would I change anything?

I feel like there's a lot of times where I felt inadequate, definitely imposter syndrome, like I'm not smart enough to be here or I'm not experienced enough to partake in this conversation. Those were a lot of thoughts and I never validated them with people. I feel like I, I hope or my advice would be that in the end, you'll make it. Just keep doing what you're doing good intrinsic values, open minded perspective, having equal level of conversation with your peers and with others.

In the end, be less impressed and more involved. It's like a Matthew McConaughey quote that I listened to a podcast of his and I really like it. I was very impressed with titles. CTO, oh I'm having a conversation and the CT OS at the table and Oh no my 2 colleagues are not there and something fucked up and now they don't got to ask me questions. It would freak the hell out of me.

And going through that process has actually helped me realize that it's OK. It's OK to say I don't know and it's OK to say This is why we did things and explain things and learn if it was a mistake or explain why we did things to actually enlighten others. And oh, maybe it's not a big deal. And the CTO is also just the person and they are new in the role and they've never had that

role. And they also make mistakes or these are the things they're good at and these are the things they're not as good at having, having a conversation on and learning on. What does it actually mean to have this role and these responsibilities? And do I like that or experiencing and learning? I don't like these things and I do like these things.

It's OK, in the end you'll end up where you'll end up and you can work consciously towards goal setting and actually focusing, or you can go wide and let curiosity Dr. you and make sure you go where the wind goes. It's OK Have fun. Make sure you're happy with what you're doing. If you're not happy, switch gears. Communicate, be vocal, be close to your manager, actually have a good relationship with the people around you. And if the environment's not a good fit, change environments.

It's it. Be flexible. I'm very not rigid. I've learned I like processes when they're effective, not processes to have processes and I'm quite open minded. I want to understand before I form an opinion. I am very critical. I've also learned and certain level certain people can handle that critique and other people have labeled me as negative or

objectively negative. I handle objectively and I've seen other people handle emotionally and when I was furious, I can keep my emotions in check and that's OK. And other people cannot and that's also OK. Let them cool off and communicate later. I feel like I've gone through all these things. I've hit little Rd. bumps. It's OK to fail, get back up and continue. I would have a conversation on kind of what I've learned and then we're quite happy and I'm

quite proud to be honest. It's OK to be proud as well with what you've achieved. So yeah, no regrets. Junior developer. You can do it. Ask for help early on, took me a while, was very much focused on being on an island, figuring out everything myself, and in essence asking for help is OK. Now what is effective delegation

and how do you actually do it? Well, delegating depends on the responsibilities you have. So within product, I felt like my time was finite and I had a big engineering team, so I needed to spend my time with that big engineering team. If the engineering team comes to a standstill, then that would be a waste, right? Having 10 people not really working on what is important for what we're trying to achieve here. From a product sense, I felt like that was the most important thing.

If there were other things where I felt like either people from within the team or any of the stakeholders or any of the other people that I was working with could do it, I would ask them. I would ask them for help. I can't make this. I need to do these things. Can you help me with these things? And I would trust them. There are certain things, and I'm still experimenting with this because I don't quite know where. It's OK for people to make mistakes.

It's OK for people to do it differently than you would have had otherwise. But you cannot do everything yourself at a certain level when you get certain responsibilities or a certain role. So delegate, experiment, see what people can handle, see when it's too much for them to handle, and when you do need to step in and see what work is crucial. It's OK for people to make mistakes, fail, and learn and get back up. It's OK for timelines to move and people to learn and grow.

Sometimes it's not, and that's really when it's going to be a differentiating factor in what you can delegate and what you definitely need to make sure that if these things do not get handled well, then everything falls apart. Some people are a little bit more risk averse than me. I like having people around me that are very curious, that are

driven. If I give them something, I can trust that they do it and I tell them, and usually if you have the right people, doesn't matter if they fail and they get back up, because in essence, if it's their responsibility, they will be hold, held to account. Even though it's I'm actually accountable. They will take that and they will run with it. If they fail, they'll get back up. If they really need this, they'll put in hours of themselves, not that I asked,

but they'll do it themselves. That's that intrinsic motivation because someone gave them something that's important and they don't want to disappoint. The right people will do that for you. Now it takes a lot of experimenting. It takes a lot of self reflection, asking for feedback. Are you someone that micromanages? If it's very important to you, if it's very close to your heart and you give that away, your tendency will be to that's not how I would have done it.

To dot the IS in a different way to give feedback exactly the way you would have done it. And that is micromanaging. To be honest, if you cannot let go of the things you've delegated, then either don't do that or make sure make sure you're not in that position. Basically, it's very difficult.

Trust other people with the work that you give away, and then have faith that they'll make sure to actually hold up to your trust. Give them feedback and let them handle it. Don't take over. Please resist all urges to take over. I've done that, and then I reflect it and I felt horrible. Learn from that. In essence, try, experiment, see

what works well for you. See what you're comfortable in and that's it. I feel like that's the only way to learn about delegation and to make sure you know what works for you and in which cases with what work. It's quite a big one. What does being a team player

actually mean in engineering teams and how do you balance it with standing out individually? Now, standing out individually, is that something you want? Do you want the whole team to be like, man, Patrick's is a legend, he really stands out, Or do you want the team to stand out and people be like, man, this team, they rock. And then within that team, they know who's good at what and everyone that has equal levels

of respect. I've always kind of navigated and gravitated towards the team aspect. In essence, I don't care if I'm the one that stands up. I like that the team stands out and I like being part of a team because I feel like if I stand out and there's something I can't do, there's this more is a bigger pressure, bigger stress, like heavier weights on my shoulders.

Maybe that's the whole reason why I think within a team with distributed works and multiple minds, if you have a really good team, you can do whatever you need. Basically. You'll you'll grab people from other teams, you'll get the necessary expertise, you'll delegate, you'll learn about each other's networks. You'll make sure to do whatever you need to to execute as a team. I don't have to stand out.

In essence, I do feel like within that team, I need to deliver because if the team delivers and I don't deliver, I feel horrible because I am part of that team. So also individually I need to contribute. I need to show results because if the team shows results and I'm, I'm not upholding my part of the deal. It feels bad to be honest, but I don't have to stand out. People will know what you're good at within that team.

And typically, if you're not an asshole, if you're a kind person, if you communicate well, if you're clear, other people will also know because great people will tell other people about great people. I feel like that really holds true. If you ask me who's the best engineer I've ever worked with, I'll give you a list. And it's not because those people stood out individually. No, they execute it when it mattered.

They communicate quite clearly. I can rely on them when I don't know something and that feels really good. I'll remember that. And they don't have to stand out individually or within a company. That happens naturally. It's the same with the whole authorities granted to you. You can't necessarily take it. Some people will think you're an asshole or you're cold or you're arrogant. Arrogant, I think, is the worst one authorities granted to you, And it's only by doing great

things. What is working on yourself mean

for engineers beyond technical skills? What personal development actually matters? Yeah, it's a funny thing. I feel like it's a theme all across my podcast, to be honest. Personal development for engineers beyond the technical side. I feel like I really zoned in on this in the previous episode, previous Q&A on how to get a job remotely or from a different country. And the single best answer that that I can give you is honestly, communication.

Being able to be brilliant in different types of conversations. For me, that's communication. So one versus many 1V1, one-on-one, one-on-one. When it comes to someone that is in a completely different culture, in a completely different country. And make sure you are still effective with what you need to achieve. For me, that's communication, right? It's different levels of conversation. It's different types of

conversation. The only way you'll be better at that is if you work on the way you talk. So I don't mind accents. I think accents are brilliant.

The way you articulate is incredibly important because if you have a heavy accent and you articulate the way you do in your mother tongue, then it's not the same as articulating and being very clear in English. That's the level of articulation that I need, because then you're clear, and if other people can understand you, we can have a equal level of dialogue. In essence, communication, I feel like is not just a skill that's going to help you in this career within tech, but it's a

life skill, right? If something happens on the street, being able to communicate well, man, this is kind of a, an odd example, but with whatever interaction you have, either with if it's within family or if it's within friend groups, being able to communicate well, I think it's really valuable. People will want to talk to you more if you communicate well. If you know your boundaries between talking too much and not talking too much, you're a pleasant conversation partner basically.

And I think that holds a lot of value. If someone is insecure or they have concerns, they might be more likely to go to you. You'll have more information just by virtue of being a better communication person, person to talk to, communicate, to work. So yeah, that for me would be the single biggest valuable skill, not just technical skill, but also life skill. OK.

What's your take on engineers that rely heavily on AI and LLM tools? There is a distinction between people that are starting off and people that are quite experienced. I've recently joined as software engineer and I'm using AI tooling and I love it. I really enjoy it because I'm doing infrastructure as code and I'm very curious to see what is deployed versus what we need to do and what is there in code. And AI is really good at that.

I can do that manually myself, but if I have a really good product spec somewhere in Linear or in Jira, and I can basically pull that in and I have the context of what is there from infrastructure, both in the code, but also, for example, on Azure, I can get that through the CLI and I can make magic happen. And in essence, I'm a person that reads more code and I'm a person that reviews, but I don't

have to necessarily execute. I do have to understand because otherwise how can I instruct and how can I steer? That's when it's incredibly valuable. Now, to get to that point, you do have to conceptually understand a lot of things and it's very easy if you have AI tooling that is like magic to use that magic for a lot of things. There's a lot of studies with regards to if critical thinking doesn't happen, then information doesn't retain. And this is the pitfall when it

comes to AI tooling. Now the tooling itself is evolving. We don't know what the impact is going to be or what the eventual ripple effects also for junior engineers will be. But from a tooling perspective, the companies that are building these tools, they should be aware of this. There is already learning functionality in there where a lot of the boilerplate when it comes to software engineering or actually writing code is then done. And then you as engineer, you're

left to fill in the blanks. You can actually set, for example, cloud code to that in a learning mode. And then you have to think, does this make sense? What do I actually need to do and do actually the work? If you do that and you're conscious with the way you learn, the way you retain information, it is incredibly valuable and it's incredibly powerful.

There are a lot of things on social media, especially LinkedIn and Twitter, when it comes to if AI doesn't generate 95% of your code, you're doing something wrong. Those people, honestly, when you read that, they want a reaction in the comments section because that makes sure that they get bigger posts and more impressions and that'll increase their social presence. They don't necessarily care about being accurate. This is a lot of assumptions on

my end by the way. But I don't think those people care about being accurate because people will tell them in the comments. Actually, in this case, it's not really accurate. And that's engagement. This is 100% engagement farming. That's how I read the situation. Don't get triggered. Form your own opinion and it's OK. Discuss it with the people you trust. Don't discuss it with a random person on the Internet, although that also sometimes has it's merit. Merits.

But there's a high chance that you'll get frustrated, and there's no reason to get frustrated. Because of people on the Internet. That to me makes no sense. There's a lot of things better to be frustrated about. Don't let it stress you out.

Is volunteering at tech conferences worth it for networking and learning? What's your experience with this? I'm actually going to a conference at the end of November. I'm having a lot of fun hosting and also just participating. Not just being in the organization, but actually going to events, talking to people that are like minded. And actually I'll have a discount code. So if you've made it this far, there will be something in the

description. I'm giving away tickets to React Advanced and there's an advanced Tech lead conference that I'm also taking part of. It's the end of November. All the details will be in the description. So for the people that have not made it this far, you are in a unique position both to get the ticket as well as to get the discount codes. Leave a comment if you're interested in this ticket. I'm going to try something new and I'll only do the people that leave a comment.

So you should have already made it this far in the episode. Leave a comment saying I want the ticket. That's it. Then I'll enroll you and I'll give away the ticket. I have to figure out how many I can give away. I'll try and give away as many as possible, but there will be a little bit more things in the description. Leave a comment. People will be like, what the hell is this? They might look at the time stamp. Doesn't matter. All right, if you leave a

comment, I'll enroll you. Now, when it comes to actually participating in events, it's incredibly good at giving you energy in what you do. You go to a conference, in this case React Advanced because you like React. You want to learn more about advanced topics, things that are now applicable, but also things long term on the horizon when it

is applicable. You'll be like, oh, I knew about this thing because I heard about these things, or I know how to reach out to certain people to actually learn more. I'll follow their blog or their newsletter or their podcast. Incredibly good with regards to giving you energy and what you do on a day-to-day. So that's valuable both from a

participation standpoint. But the added benefit when you're part of the organization or you're a volunteer is that you talk to the people that organize it. You talk to the speakers more so than you would, weirdly enough, when you're just a participant. Automatically you'll get access to different settings. You might get invited to a dinner, you might be earlier. So you have more opportunities when no one else is there to talk to people about topics you

think are interesting. It's incredibly valuable to both be a volunteer and both work in the same field as the conference and the topics that are being organized because you can absolutely make use of that and is very valuable for your network. So 100% if you have the opportunity to do it, I'll be on the mainstage hosting and talking to people, maybe host, doing some panel talks and I love it. I get a lot of energy out of it. I usually say yes way too fast. It drains me.

Afterwards I'm done. I don't want to talk to anyone, but in the moment and also day after, I'm incredibly happy that I did it. So I will likely always say yes.

How did the COVID digital transformation OK and the recent AI revolution impact you personally? Did you embrace these changes right away or did you resist? I don't think I'm quite resistant to change. I feel like I want to learn and I want to apply and I want to experiment to form an opinion. And in the end, my opinion can be right or wrong. Still my opinion and my opinion

is malleable and it can change. But having an opinion, having a stance when I talk to people actually helps the conversation because they can see I'm in this corner or they can see this is what I think. And if they think differently, then we have a learning opportunity. I'm not going to be like, I want to convince you about what I think. Who cares what I think in the end, or who cares if you think the same way?

I think that's boring. I want to understand why you think this way because I think in this way and then there's a learning opportunity. That's how I see things with regards to change. Now with AI specifically, and I've talked to this, I've, I've actually touched on this a long time in the podcast. I've was a product manager for a year and a half and on assignment and I felt like this whole AI wave and AI assisted tooling and what it's good at

where it's applicable. I was just kind of a passenger. I was not even in the same car. I was seeing cars go by me when it comes to AI and AI hype and AI learnings and I was only reading and doing theoretical things. I wasn't applying as much as I wanted to, so that's why I switched back to software engineering to learn.

I think that's the biggest value right now for me to learn what is applicable, to have fun with tooling that's out there to form an opinion on, see what it's valuable and potentially to have opportunities for businesses, opportunities for clients, opportunities just for learning and having fun to learn more about that. That's why I went back to software engineering. I'm having a lot of fun with it and I think throughout that I'm open to change.

It's hard to embrace change. People really theoretically say you have to embrace change, but in essence, your behaviour will show what you actually do. And I like tooling. I also know that this is probably a pitfall or maybe a bad side of me is that when I've learned a tool, I really want to stick to that tool. I spend a lot of time mastering something and then switching. I don't feel that's great about,

to be honest. But then when I've switched, I'm having a lot of fun learning and exploring and indeed getting to that same depth. It's kind of paradoxical in that I enjoy when I've switched, but I don't enjoy switching. So someone has to be like I or something has to trigger me and be like, I have to try this thing out and I'm really enjoying it, but I won't do it if I don't have to because I don't like it, but I will like it when I have to. Doesn't make any sense. That's just me.

Now, is there a career decision you've made that you regret? Career decision that you've made that you regret? I think I touched on the regret part. I don't really have regrets. An easy answer would be like, I want to do what I did, but faster. Get here faster. Get here when I'm 25 instead of 30. Start a podcast earlier. Don't do operations, but go to software engineering immediately. I really value the experience that I've had, like learning about operations and then moving

to software engineering. It made so much sense the way that I did it, but it's also because I've experienced it. I feel like if an outsider would look at my career experience and kind of the path that I've taken, they would be able to see optimizations. But optimizing is not what I'm here for. I'm here for being effective. I feel like maybe effective in what I know now and what I can do now. And sure, I could have done things differently, but the outcome would have not been the

same. So in essence, no regrets. How can I go faster? Maybe I could have gone faster, maybe I could have made certain decisions faster. Maybe I should have looped in people instead of just trusting other people and get gotten feedback. There's a lot of thoughts. In the end, what happened happened and I take that with me and I'm better in the future. That's my mindset. How can someone be productive

and stay focused on programming tasks when they are going through immense grief? Now, the person that asked me this question, I asked if they're OK and they didn't reply to me. I hope they are OK. I've only had one experience with this. It was kind of in COVID. I lost both my grandparents couple months back-to-back actually. Yeah, that happened. I I don't lose people close to me often. I have a big family.

And even thinking about this, a big family comes with big benefits, but it will also come with a lot of hardship when people go. And this was the moment for them. It's not even my grandparents, it's just the grandparents that I grew up with. It's actually my mom's grandparents, incredibly close as a family. And at some point, they were just gone quite quickly, back-to-back. Very weird situation to be honest. I needed time. I could not put my head down.

I needed time to process, to do my own thing, to be by myself, to be with family, all of that. I took that. My company gave that to me. The assignment at the time also gave that to me. People are very helpful when it comes to these types of things. They are life impacting events. Don't be harsh on yourself. It's OK to drop things. Hopefully if it's not OK, still do what's best for you. You can't force yourself to do things and be in grief.

You need time to process and everyone process differently. It's OK in the end, whatever happens, happens. You'll be OK in taking time and processing things and it's OK not to be effective in that certain situation. If you have a good team, other people will cover for you. If you have a good company, they'll understand. And hopefully, I mean, I've also been in leadership positions. I have said take as much time as you need.

If there is a sense of urgency, then it will impact the grieving process and I want someone to grieve for as long as they need. You can still come back and be like, I'm, I'm, it's still there. When I shared this just now on camera, honestly, I'm so emotional and empathetic. It, it just hit me. And that's OK to round off

because we did a lot of career questions. Actually, I have some podcast questions and I can go to these quite fast, potentially rapid fire. OK, I'm going to see how long this is going to take. How do you decide who to bring on as a guest? I decide in a few ways. Well, I said rapid fire, so let's keep this short. I ask each guest who's the best person you've worked with? Who do you think is a good fit

for the podcast? And recently, because I want to narrow down on engineering topics, who's the best engineer you've worked with? That is the network of network effects. I also scour LinkedIn. I have a little script that goes through LinkedIn, specifically people in Amsterdam, makes a list of people that are interesting, pretty good script. And then I go through and I hit them one after the other. I send messages. This is why I think you're a good fit. I actually know you know this person.

I've had them on the podcast. Here's an example that is more the linked inside. And then honestly, there's people that I've worked with or people that other people indeed say they're great. I have a long, long list in my head with people that I think are interesting.

There are rarely people that come to me through e-mail and inbox or any social media platform that say I want to come on the podcast that I actually think are a good fit because then they're looking for something and they say they have something to offer. But every person that comes and that is in the US or not in NL, they've actually not seen the

podcast. And I just say it's in person only, which it is. So I like people that do their homework, that actually know what they're talking about that don't you send this one message to everyone. And I look for that. If there's only one flaw in that message, and typically it's that they're not in an NL, which is quite a big one, then you're not a good fit.

What is your secret to making people feel comfortable and open up during an interview? I don't have any secrets. I feel like I am who I am. I do my research, then I do a 30 minute intro call and when we actually sit down in this podcast recording, we've already chatted, we've already interacted already in an online call, sometimes already in person before the show. I feel like I'm open.

I feel like I'm curious. I feel like people love sharing about their lives, sharing about something they're passionate about. In essence, that is typically the topic, something that gives someone energy, something that they're passionate about. Who doesn't love sharing what they're passionate about and that makes them feel comfortable? I feel like I'm very chill. I don't talk a lot. I don't take space. I let people slowly come out of their shell.

It really helps that when we sit down, I tell them all the cameras are recording already. And then I talk about something that we have in common, vacation, travel, food to Amsterdam, anything. Anything, honestly. And then we move into the topics they're passionate about. Sometimes they don't even notice. And the feedback has been, wow, it's already finished. I'm like, yeah, we've been talking about an hour, actually. Oh, man, I felt like 20 minutes felt like 30 minutes.

Like time flies when you're having fun. That is amazing feedback. That's how I do it.

There's no secret. Has doing the podcast changed the way you communicate in your personal life? Yes. I am a way, way better communicator after I've done the podcast for the last close to five years than five years ago. It both has to do with me editing my own episodes, really focusing on filler words, tempo, pauses, melody, what else. Is there anything with regards

to the way I speak? If I didn't like it, I would try and actively change it. And you do that continuously and at some point you've changed the way you speak. People think that the way they speak is who they are, and I feel like you can change that. You change the way you speak and still stay the same person. You can articulate better. Just try, actually try to change the way you speak. What really helped for me was when I wanted to do an UMM, I

just slow down. I'd speak slower, articulate better, do it extra, act like you're in a theatre, continuously articulate more and more. And at some point it's very natural. It's easier. You don't lose your accent. I don't know what accent I have. I used to have a British accent because I used to work with a person from London and I still, when I hang out with him, he comes out worthy enough.

Maybe I mimic, but in essence, I've become a better communicator and that has given me a lot of opportunities and I'm very thankful for that. Big benefit, big, big benefit.

Now, last question, how do you handle guests who give really short answers or seem guarded? How do I handle them? I typically do a lot of research, to be honest, before I actually invite a person to an intro call. And that is all because I see this funnel of a lot of guests on this side and only the people that make it to the episodes or even returning episodes on this side. And the funnel goes like this. And throughout that process before they actually do an episode, I don't want to say

sorry, you're not a good fit. Sorry. I don't think the way we communicate is good for a listening experience. I feel like because people take the way they communicate and it's quite personal sometimes they identify the way they speak with who they are. I'm basically critiquing who they are and I don't feel like I am doing that. But yeah, it takes 2 to tango. There's receiving and sending. If I feel like I'm not sending anything harmful, someone can still interpret it as incredibly

harmful. I don't want that. I do my best to avoid that. So the people that I already filtered down to an intro call, I do a lot of research to make sure that the intro call also follows through in an actual recording of the episode and a great conversation. Now if even in the intro I noticed that someone is guarded or I genuinely am not interested in the topics or I feel like they're trying to sell something, then, and I'm not proud of this, I've ghosted people.

I'm trying to do better. It's not something I'm proud of. So I am trying to give their feedback in a way that is not going to make them hate me. And in essence, I am going to make mistakes, but I'm not proud of the whole ghosting thing. So I'm trying to give more feedback and saying the topic is not a good fit or actually figuring it out a way not to hurt their feelings. But still saying I don't think the way you communicate is good for a podcast.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that and I hope it doesn't hurt people's feelings when they're guarded or they give short answers. Typically it never happens then actually in the recording because I already filtered them out in the intro and people get really comfortable. This it's, it's so nice to have a studio space. It's quiet. Put these headphones on, their noise cancelling. We just have a conversation and that's it. If they're short in answering,

I'll talk. It's no problem. I also mentioned to them, I like it when people say it's a conversation rather than an interview. So feel free to ask me a question because typically the people that are short with regards to answering, they might not like to talk, but like me, they might like to ask a question. And then those make for really good and fun conversations when we just bounce off of each other's energy like that. Yeah, it's fun podcasting.

You should try it out. All right, this might be the

longest Q&A, honestly, that I've done. Big, big career component leadership components. I really enjoyed it. I must say. If you have more questions, put them down in the comments section. Otherwise, there will always be a post on the YouTube community page. I make a post on LinkedIn and Twitter or people send their questions to me personally when they know it's actually time and I'll sometimes remind people. So wherever you want to send me your questions, feel free to do so.

I really enjoy doing these. Thank you for listening. There's a new thing in YouTube where if you want to support small creators, you can hype an episode. It's not just the like, it's like a super like you only get 3 a week. You can actually hype the same video three times. And I've seen that that really

helps the channel. So if you like the channel, if you think the content is great, if you think there are actually more people that need to see these tyes of episodes, hype the episode as well, and otherwise I'll see you in the next one.