Q&A #7: 2024 Tech Trends, Managing Conflict, Gaining Respect & More with Patrick Akil

Hi, everyone. My name is Patrick Akil and welcome to Q&A #7. Today is the 29th of December and when you hear this, it might be when it releases 3rd of January or it might be in the far, far future. But in any case, it's no longer 2023, it's 2024. I got my phone again with my questions, which you sent me. Thank you so much for that and we'll get to answering these. Let's go beyond coding. OK Are you ready?

Yeah, I think so. Cool. All right. What new hobby would you like to try for 2024? Actually, I'm going to start with all the future things, all the 2024 things. So those are going to be at the start.

So what new hobby would you like to try for 2024? New hobby? I haven't really given this a thought, but I would always. I always wanted to be able to play an instrument piano and specifically. So maybe I'll start with that. I've gotten more and more into bouldering and recently through the company actually I got a fitness subscription so I've been starting to go back to the gym and yeah I already messed up my neck so I have to be more

careful. Usually I don't wait until a new year starts to play around with hobbies, I just try them out. I'm going to go remote working, most likely in March and mid of April in Sri Lanka, in Sri Lanka next to a Co working space. There's a lot of surfing and yoga going on. I've never done yoga. I have done surfing and it's really, really cool. So I might really get into that knowing myself and being in that environment. So that's going to be a lot of fun.

There's also this like paddle boarding, which I really enjoy doing in Amsterdam in the summer, and you can do yoga on a paddle board, so I might try that out. Those are more so things to try out. Not really hobbies, but we'll see what springs out and becomes a hobby. What tech trends are you

anticipating for 2024? This is a hard one because I'm not really like on top of the game when it comes to what is trending. I guess I recently saw Like a Webinar when it comes to and I always forget the name Web Assembly. Web Assembly was very much known for, for example, running Photoshop in your browser, a certain technology which allows you to do program in any language and then run it very small in both the front end as well as the back end. And more.

So people are leveraging that technology specifically within Docker, even on the back end side. So you get faster start up times, for example, less latency, but I guess latency has already reduced to a point where it's really specific scenarios where you need even lower latency. But that's the technology I'm I'm keeping my eyes on because I think it's interesting. Other than that, I mean, this whole year of 2023 has really been booming with AI technology. I think 2024 is going to

continue that. The only problem I see that 2023 hasn't really solved is the accessibility part. So how does it? How does it increase its user base? It's through accessibility. I need to be able to pick up my phone, be able to ask a question and then get the answer. Now I have to specifically go to chat GB. TI don't even know the website ai.com. Basically they're calling that domain, log in, type my stuff, and then get the answer as soon

as it gets more accessible. If I could say, hey Google and my Google Home, ask a question, get like a legitimate answer that's not just based on a Google search, it'll become more accessible and I think then adoption will start to happen. I think people are starting to work on it, but the fact that I have to go to websites specifically, be able to log in, have a specific account which is paid to get the latest models, that's a hurdle I think, to most general population.

And since I'm in tech, I have all of that, but not everyone does. So as soon as AI gets more and more accessible, if I just have it at the fingertips, which I already have a lot of, if I even have more, we'll see a lot of cool stuff happening. So I'm looking forward to apps actually adopting it and making it easier for people. Maybe that's my final answer. Other than that, no. I think a lot of Productivity Tools are gonna come out specifically for software engineers.

When it comes to creating software, leveraging AI Copilot is a big one, and I'm gonna, I feel like more and more tools will align with that and will allow developers to be more effective in whatever they have to create. So yeah, those are my thoughts. And future stuff is hard. You should get a crystal bowl. I should get a crystal bowl.

Yeah, I just got this new bottle for Christmas. That's one of my favourite gifts. I'm a simple man. Give me a water bottle and I'll be happy. How do you see the future of

yourself, future of software and the future of IT companies and is it worth to be in this field? I'll answer the second question, the last question. Basically I think it is worth to be in this field, otherwise maybe I wouldn't be in this field. I think it's hard for me to say because I'm very much biased and I'm very much in this field. I think it is worth though I think it is not easy. I think a lot of people can transition to it and it's going

to take time and dedication. I think there are a lot of factors and a lot of roles that people need to play within this field and a lot of them have a technology focus, but a lot of them also have a people related focus because this is all working with people trying to figure out what people want and then create that in a piece of software and the creating that in a piece of software gets more and more easy.

So then we leverage or people can leverage figuring out what people actually want or how to work together and get this done or how to get it done faster or cheaper. There's a lot of ways to optimise for that. So in that way, I think the IT field of the software related fields are very, very broad and I think it is worth to be in this field because the world is digitalising, it has been digitalising. It's going to digitalise more, it's going to leverage AI more and more even.

So I think it is worth to be in this field. When it comes to organisations, it's very hard to say because I I had a previous conversation with Bondon, for example, and he said I don't know exactly the statistics, but 20 to 30 years ago we had a Fortune 500 list of companies and only 10% of those remain nowadays. Which means that wait, I it was either 10% or 2%. But I'm going to go 2% for the sake of my argument because that's even less if 2% of the

companies remain. That means that all the other companies either died off or got merged or got acquired and then died off. Which means that IT industry or IT related companies, companies that have a digital component needs to need to be able to adopt to the ever evolving outside world outside of their organization. If they cannot adopt and adapt and pivot and be agile, then they might actually be legacy and die off in that way.

So I think for the future of companies that have a digital component, they need to be as agile as possible, not just pivot Willy nilly I guess, but really have a data component to it, a research component to it, and then actually be able to pivot in that way as well. I think that's the only way to stay on top of the game, maybe even ahead of the game, but definitely not fall off the game, which is what a lot of companies need to be able to prevent.

So yeah, I hope that answers it, otherwise let me know and I'll continue. I I missed a small component

actually when it comes to the future of myself, yeah, don't really think about the future that much. I think, and this was really hard for me, I think now one year ahead. So when I came out of my educational journey, I only thought months ahead. Half a year was already really hard.

Now I've gotten to a maybe a point of age, maybe a point of experience that I can think one year ahead and for one year ahead, hopefully if nothing changes, I would love to be able to do this podcast for another year, continue with that, really enjoy that, learn through that, educate myself through that and others hopefully make impact in that way. And when it comes to the far, far ahead future, I have no clue. I want to travel the world. I want to experience as much as I can.

I think having outside point of points of views really helps and gains like a grounded perspective which I can leverage then in whatever I do, whether that's working with people, whether that's creating software, whether that's podcasting or anything beyond. I think the future is very, very much open and I'd love to try things out. So hopefully be able to try as many things out as I want.

And I'm I've just really been enjoying this last year, so I I look very much forward to the coming period as well.

Is there a demand on the.net framework in the Netherlands? If so, is it going to persist in the future the.net Framework? I'm not as much into the.net space as maybe other developers are. We have a specific Microsoft part of the department and I am not part of that part of the company. When it comes to dot Net specifically, I can't give you any specifics, but you could basically crossout.net for any other technology and I would

probably give the same answer. On LinkedIn you can find people that are specific types of engineers. You can find a Golang engineer, Kotlin engineer.net engineer. So finding those people and seeing what companies they work for, whether that's based in the Netherlands or based in any other company, any other country rather, will give you an idea of what types of companies are hiring or have hired for which types of roles. That's technology wise.

So then you have, for example, maybe a large list or maybe a small list depending on your region, depending on your country. Now a lot of JVM technologies are very much establishediwouldput.net and thewhole.net ecosystem, Microsoft ecosystem when it comes to software engineering, all under there as well. It's an established technology just by the virtue of having

been established. I don't think it's going anywhere, but when you for example land a.net related job and you're a.net engineer or any type of engineer, rather technologies will evolve. So then at some point you'll come to a point where you can either keep doing what you're doing, let's say thats.net or try out a new technology.

And from my point of view, with my experience, I would say always try out at least maybe in your personal time maybe on the job the new technology, because that gives you again an outside perspective that makes you consider what you really like about whatever ecosystem you're working or what you don't like about whatever ecosystem you're working in. But in that case, it gives you perspective and you can make

decisions based off that. When that new technology is better for whatever problem you're trying to solve, you need to be able to leverage that. Because if you don't leverage that within the organization, other organisations might, and in that way you they outpace you or the technology you use might be outdated or might get outdated.

Now, established technologies don't really, really die, like there's cobo engineers still very, very much being prevalent in certain organizations and certain environments. Because once software goes live, it needs to be able to be maintained and it needs to really have a business case for it to be phased out and to get replaced by a different technology that does the same thing but better. So in that way, I think certain technologies never really die in

a fast way. Let's say there will always be years and years before transit before technology really transitions and gets phased out completely. So in that way I would say startwith.net, start with whatever excites you. Be open and able to change with the outside world with the technologies that advance as well. But if that not.net is still prevalent within your organization and you really enjoy that ecosystem, then who am I to say don't do that.

I would say go for it. Go for whatever excites you. Because this is a long term game, you need to be able to enjoy whatever you're doing, and if you're working with the technology, which you don't enjoy, then doing whatever you have to do is not going to be as enjoyable as it would be Loving the tech and loving the stuff you're working with, all right?

Or AI stuff. I should have known this was going to be AI focused as well. As AI continues to advance rapidly, how do you foresee the roles and responsibilities of software engineers evolving in the coming years and what new skills will become essential for professionals in this field?

We've touched upon it in previous episodes and I'm I'm still of the same mindset that figuring out why we're doing things and what needs to happen, This is going to become more and more prevalent for any professional within kind of the digital space as well as software engineers. Figuring out why we're building this thing, why we're building A versus B versus Z even and being able to leverage the data to really prove that we need to build this.

Or being able to build even multiple solutions at the same time, which really requires speed, I think are going to be skills and responsibilities that are new, kind of not new but maybe are going to be more prevalent in the coming years with AI. So figuring out the what and the why from a software engineering point of view, from an organizational standpoint, when it comes to skills, that's a hard one because I think software engineers and just

people within the space, I think any person is going to try and leverage AI. But when it comes to software engineers specifically, I'm going to differentiate between probably juniors and people that have more experience let's say. So people with less experience need to be able to figure out and get up to speed and leverage AAI in a way that accelerates their own learning path and learning process.

And that's really hard because they're going to certain AI tools going to spit information at you and you need to be able to figure out if that makes sense or not. And the only way to do that is by doing more research, by leveraging other information sources that are there. But I do think it can accelerate your learning path in that way.

As soon as you go into this mode of accelerated learning, you can also increase your productivity because this AI tool or AI tools will pop up that spit out code and generate code that makes sense or don't make sense. You have to figure out what makes sense, what to adopt and what not to adopt and what is rubbish. Basically.

You can do that by yourself and you can do that more so within a stable team, within a good environment, with colleagues that maybe have more experience or are doing and treading the same path as you. So in that way, I think people with less experience are really going to have to figure out how to use this to accelerate their own learning path. And I think it's very much possible and I think it's going to be a lot of fun, especially when you're early on in career.

For me, the biggest like joy would be to learn a lot of things and then to reflect and think back off. These are the things I've achieved, these are the things I've done. And there's so much more. If you're really enthusiastic and passionate about certain field, about certain domain, that's going to drive you and be fueled to learn more and to do more. At least that's how it was for me.

Then when it comes to the people that have more experience, they already are able to figure out what is rubbish and what is not, which means that they really can use the the AI capabilities to its maximum when it comes to their own productivity.

So you can use whatever you need to, you can ask any question, you can output any generated code and you'll be able to tweak it to make sure it fits whatever mold you're trying to have it fit in. I don't know if that saying makes sense, but in any case, you'll try and make it work basically, and you'll be able to make it work with the knowledge that you have. Foundational knowledge will become more and more prevalent and more and more effective.

I think that's more so for skilled professionals. Make sure to figure out how to increase your productivity because I feel like a human component will still be necessary for the coming year. I don't know how it's going to be in five to 10 years. I'm not going to say anything about that for the coming years. For the coming year, a human component will be needed that is going to be software engineer. So figure out how to be more and more productive.

Wire programming is going to be a lot of fun because you're going to see other people being more productive or different. You can see different ways of being productive and in that way you can take and pick and choose whatever you like to fit your own work style. So I think that's going to be a

lot of fun. Then when it comes to organisations, I think if you have a product, whether it's a software as a service, whether it's a physical product with a digital component, it's very interesting to look at what AI can bring in the form of any type of digital assistants. We already see. Yeah, I don't want to say a lot of organizations, but some organizations pop up with a

specific help component. In, for example, Adobe, I use Premiere Pro for editing, I use Photoshop for stuff, then I'll have an AI component. You can ask any question, it'll figure out what you need and actually adopt that and put that into whatever you're editing, whether it's a picture or whether it's a video. And I've heard it's actually quite good. I have to, I still have to figure out how to use it. I still have to try it out

myself. There's whole documentations and tutorials available already and that's only one tool that is what I'm using, which is completely not software development related, which has adopted it. And I think it's going to increase the people that are using that tool, the productivity, the joy, the effectiveness, which is really cool if you have that tool, if you have those AI capabilities and your competitors don't, it's a really neat thing from a user perspective.

So I think that is really, really crucial from our organization point of view to figure out what product you have and how you can leverage any type of AI assistance in there. I'm saying AI systems because that's kind of the most prevalent thing right now, but there's a lot of things, a lot of unknowns from my side which are going to pop up as well and they're going to be fun to see, to use and to see evolve.

This person gave me a question as well as some contacts there in the last year of university computer science degree, did both front end and back end internships have done full stack projects as well and they're in kind of an incubation program when it comes to entrepreneurship and fintech start up. But their question is what is the approach to probably figure out what field to focus on.

Now that's a hard one because there's numerous amounts of technologies, there's a lot of different domains, whether you like fintech, healthcare, e-commerce, IoT, even domain wise there's a lot to learn there. And then from your standpoint, what you like, what you like within this process of creating software, whether it's the people component, the tech component, the nitty gritty details, the infrastructure, the operations are really figuring out what is needed from a user perspective.

That is a lot and especially when you're in university and you don't have as much, I would say experience beyond just your educational journey, sure internships here and there. Honestly, I think any starting point is a great starting point as long as it's an environment that is open to you, learning as much as possible in a small time frame, that's really hard to and

really abstract. But it's really going to be custom because you're going to apply to organizations, organizations that could be big or small. You have to figure out what you want to start at. Smaller organizations are a bit more chaotic, a bit more. How do you say that in Dutch? You would say like Cowboy Landscape, I guess in a way that you might get a lot of responsibilities, but you might not get as much guidance.

So if you're a person that really figures out what needs to be done and loves figuring things out on their own, this is a great way to do so. But what larger organizations can offer you is a bit more, how do you say that? A bit more process and a bit more guidance. They can accommodate for a person with less experience and leverage the people that have experience and match that.

For the people that have more experience, they can educate which hones their own craft and their learning capabilities. And for the people that don't have as much experience, they can really learn and get guidance because figuring out what needs to happen is good, but figuring out what needs to happen and then implement it in the right way as well, that is sustainable for production environment, that is even

better. And if you like a team that can offer you that, it's going to be most crucial as a starting point. And then, once you've started, honestly try things out. Try what you think you like. Learn what you might not like or what you don't like. And just keep learning. I still right now have positions that I'm going to try out, hopefully soon of things that I think are interesting or could be interesting.

Product ownership, for example. Product management, I think that's fascinating and I would love to be able to try that out. I don't want to let go of any software development stuff, so I have to figure out how to do that. But doing that for a few months, for half a year even sounds like a lot of fun. Honestly, if I get the opportunity, I might jump on that. Otherwise, it's always going to be a what if. And there's other roles like that that I think might be

interesting. Scrum Master was one in the past where I thought, OK, this is very interesting and then I felt like I was missing this fulfilment of delivering value from a software perspective. And I mean based on that, I might not enjoy the Product Owner role, Product management role as much, but I still have to figure that out.

So even from your standpoint, coming out of uni, going into an organization, get a good starting point when it comes to the people and the organization and then just be hungry for knowledge, be eager to learn, be open and honest for with feedback and receiving feedback and yeah, keep an open mind, learn as much as you can and then you'll figure out what

you'd like. When it comes to the domains, it's the same I think try a lot of domains, I mean payments, IoT, again, I don't have to name any of them. I don't really get excited as much when it comes to the domain is what I thought in the past and it's still kind of true. But as the more domains you've been in and the more domains you've created software for, I mean, I have a preference now. The last project was awesome, it was IoT related, so that might

be on top of my list. I have to reflect a bit more and figure out what is that list in any case. But yeah, I won't go to a project specifically for the domain. Most of the time I'll go for the people and I'll go for the technology, but the domain is a very prevalent component in that as well. So yeah, hope that answers it. Otherwise, let me know the comments or I'll send a message in any case to this person. So yeah, what are some organization tools I should

incorporate into my workflow? Tools that you use and tools that are industry standard specifically for web developer related roles, organizational tools? Man, there's a bunch I would say. I mean whatever messaging type of software you use, whether it's Microsoft Teams or whether that's Slack, that's I think easy, that's accessible, you'll figure out how to use that.

So that one is, I think check. I would say make sure you figure out how to like manage your e-mail and manage your calendar in a way that works for you. And that took me a long time to figure out as well. Used to have an inbox of like 2000 unread emails and then things would slip through the cracks. And now I really try and archive stuff and make sure stuff is read.

Make sure to follow up stuff at least, or put reminders for myself to follow up in the future whenever I think I need to. So I'm more on top of my e-mail game since I didn't use the emails much and now I e-mail

more. So communication is more and more important then I would say any type of documentation tool that your organization has, whether that's SharePoint, where the stuff gets put on Dropbox, where the stuff gets put on Confluence. Even figure out where information is usually a piece of software where you can find things that are important to you when it comes to the

organization. Maybe you have an intranet somewhere, so whatever information you might need, make sure you need, you're able to find it. And at least from my point standpoint, that's more so the organizational software. Some people have like a bonus system where they can give points and then receive points and points transferred to money or they have a different system where they can get credits and then credits transferred to gifts and stuff like that. We don't have those.

But if you have those, make sure you don't miss out on any of that good stuff because those are all secondary benefits which are really, really nice, any type of stock program. We also don't have that any type of Stock Exchange program, whether you can leverage your monthly salary for stocks at a cheaper price, some bigger organizations have that which is incredibly nice and a big, big benefit. So make sure you use any type of stuff like that.

I think that's anything organizational related. Now when it comes to specifically web development or software engineering, I think more so for web development.

Any type of tool that your UX person or UI person uses, whether that's Figma, Zeppelin, whatever the tool they have now figure out how to use that specifically because most of those tools have a visualization component and then that visualisation component also for example has the CSS classes and headers and styling that you might use then to implement.

Now it's not great to copy paste because you you might have a framework, you might have different opinion of how things are, need to be able to be structured in that way, but it's a great starting point. For example, I'm a little bit a little bit colour blind. So when it comes to colours and web development, yeah, I always love going and picking exactly the colours that need to happen because otherwise it'll be bit of a mess to be honest. So that's always been a big, big

help. Then when it comes to any type of development role, I would say your IDE is going to be so, so crucial. Whether that's and I've transitioned from VS Code, so whether that's VS Code specifically. Figure out your shortcuts, how you open files, how you navigate, how you division files, how you interact with your Git, specifically your version management control system in any way or form through your IDE or through your terminal. But get to the terminal in a bit.

I think your IDE is very much crucial. I've transitioned to Intellij and I was one of those people that kept both open for the longest time until I actually had to make the transition and I transitioned because Intellij had a plug in specifically to Google Cloud, which VS Code didn't have. So I had to transition specifically for that project. In any case, I'm fully Intellij now, so I'm always going to have to pay the premium licence to

get all the good stuff. Or maybe I'll be able to transition to free in any case in the future. But yeah, Intellij is now my editor of choice. I'm super fast in it. I know how to DIF files, I knew how to do. I know how to do multi cursor select. I know how to copy, paste, generate code, stuff like that. Copy paste was not not the best example, but copy, paste and then based on that paste generate code. That's where I was going with

that. I know how to how do you say that change the interfaces of functions to do it everywhere. My renaming point is on game and my renaming game is on point and I suck with the references. And lastly the terminal. Honestly, I use the terminal and I have all get related specific shortcuts so I'm super fast when it comes to adding files,

committing specific messages. I have a convention and the commit message I have, it's basically brackets, that's the ticket number, and then whatever new thing has happened based on the changes that I'm committing. Sometimes I make a bunch of changes and then specifically commit specific parts of files. So I figure out how to do that because your legacy in your commit messages is very crucial for you.

Future you, future team members, your current team members, any of those people for the context, which is incredibly valuable, figure out how to rebase your code when it comes to specifically git again, and optimize for a great developer workflow. Version management related, that is a lot, and it's not going to happen overnight.

It's not going to happen in one year, maybe even a few years, but it will happen as long as you keep looking at what you have, keep looking at what other people are using, how they're using it. I've worked with people that don't use their mouse, so their whole developer workflow is fully how do you say that they can do everything with keystrokes to the point where they'll go to a web browser, they'll have a shortcut and then you can see based on any

clickable element, they'll see a keystroke and then they'll put that keystroke in and then it'll click based on that. So they don't have to use their mouse. Well, from a developer standpoint, they are really, really fast. From my standpoint, I'm not going to invest the time to get to that point and I'll happily use my mouse because I I don't know how much of a difference it will be. But as long as I don't know, I don't have to put in the time investment because probably I'll

go insane. But some people are really, really good at that. So I'm not, I'm not taking any digs. I'll just be like, for me it's not my preferred way of working. Maybe I should try it out. Some people even change their keyboard layout to make it more optimized because QWERTY is not optimized for a developer workflow or any type of typing. So yeah, I felt like I'm out of breath, which means I was rambling. But I hope this was helpful. I need to take a breath when

changing careers into tech. What is the best way to explain a career gap? Because it takes time to learn languages, frameworks, etcetera. In terms of gap, could you specify between short term and long term? Half a year, a year or career? Gaps are interesting and I've only I can only talk from the position of the interviewer. Having talked to interviewees which had career gaps on their

resume. I would ask about that because I think that is fascinating or interesting and what I'm looking for is honesty, but that's from my side. So anything you can give with regards to, I was learning X framework, I was transitioning from so and so to now, applying for this role or for the future, applying to another role of the past, looking at the past, other roles in that way. That for me is all valuable insights. It doesn't have to be specifically on the resume.

Again, that's from my standpoint and it's really hard to generalize in that way. But as long as you're honest and open about what you were doing in that period of your life, I think that's what the opposite person is looking for. And that's hard because that assumes that you're already at

the table talking to a person. When it comes to your resume specifically, whether you're learning a framework, whether you're learning a language, it really I think holds value if you're able to show what you've done with that.

So whether you're working, let's say, a few months on a project specifically because you're learning a framework or language, putting that in your resume, putting even a link to the GitHub or to a an interface where people can see that, I think is incredibly valuable because it shows your yourself educated in that way. You can educate yourself, you can have output, you can be productive in that way. In that period of time, you're not afraid to show what you've

done. I think show your work is an incredibly important mindset and people can actually see and play around with it. Maybe even give feedback if it's open sourced when when it comes to the code. So it all adds to your educational journey or learning process. Still on the job or off the job. I think it's valuable to show what you've created with that time. So yeah, I hope that helps.

I think if you're transitioning from a completely non tech related role to whether it's web development, whether it's back end development, whether it's any type of software engineering or people related role within the digital space here I think time will be necessary. Whether you're going through a boot camp or whatever, I would say still put that in, whether you're building a project or self educating also put that in.

But I do think other perspectives are are probably necessary, maybe perspective that is or from a recruitment standpoint than the one I can give you because I'm already talking to people that have passed kind of the first round. So it's hard for me, but I hope that helps and I would say don't be afraid to ask for help when it comes to your resume.

I love seeing people post specifically on Reddit when it comes to questions like these because then you get more varied, maybe still specific, but you get more perspectives. And I think more perspectives are better to kind of figure out what your perspective is on this and then execute on that.

All right, This one is in Dutch, so I'll have to translate it. Have you ever been in a situation in your job or an assignment which was on a technical level, fun and challenging? It had a lot of benefits, but we're not ethically responsible, so it wouldn't make the world a better place. Yes. And I'm not going to name which company, but you'll be able to figure it out if you just go to my LinkedIn and look at my work

experience in that way. Because it was in my period, Xevia. I mean, the period before was only a couple years, so it's not that much. So it was one of the assignments here. And in that way I was kind of new Ish at the company and there was already A-Team working on that project. Now the project had big, big benefits in the way that I missed out on a trip to Japan. I think I've talked about this

before. They went to Japan and I was on a different project and I was so, so jealous because I want to go to Japan. I've never been and that's still the case. So still jealous, actually, because they got a complete how do you say that their flights were paid, their hotel was paid, they did some work. Obviously that was hard work as well, especially within the kind of Japanese culture, but they had a lot of fun as well.

So they combined fun, personal learning as well as executing and making stuff happen on site with this whole trip. And based on that, I rounded off my project and I was like, I want to go to that team because I don't know what other trips they might do because they were still working on a product that was going to go live in Japan specifically. That's why they got to go completely missed that context.

But now you have it. And they were actually pivoting because that same product needed to go live in Russia. So I was involved throughout that whole period, but the domain, the product we were building, so the product we were building was e-commerce. But the thing we were selling is not the best for society. Looking back now, looking back still, I didn't really agree with that. But the team, the knowledge and the technology, the ownership, the autonomy, those were all really, really good.

So I wanted to experience what it was like working in that team with that technology and learn from that. Because honestly, back then I was probably like, what was I, 2324? Yeah, I didn't really care about the domain to be honest at all. And I worked in that team for a year. I missed out on another trip because they they I had the option to go to Russia, but I already had booked another vacation. So I missed out on two trips, Japan and Russia.

One, I mean, I should have just rebooked my vacation to be honest. But yeah, at some point, it got to a point where what we were building was finished, was done, We were going to go to another country. And I wasn't going to stay on the project for a country trip because that was not set in stone. It might change in any case. And I don't think it ever happened in that way. And I voiced my opinion that I

think I I learned a lot here. And it's funny because when you start a project, when you start in any environment, I think you're learning is going to go through the roof and then some point it kind of curves out and you're in control to make sure it curves out or it doesn't curve out for as long as possible. But as soon as you feel like it curves out for me, and usually that might be a bit too late even, I'm going to need something else because I love

that curve. I want that curve as long as possible and as many times as possible in my life because learning is fun, at least from my standpoint. So then I voiced that it might be time to round off and that just even vocalising that a person in my project then contacted my manager at the time and they decided it's time for me to round off. Even though I never said OK now is the time, I said it might be time.

So then all of a sudden I found myself in a different project specifically I wouldn't say healthcare but for health related products in that way completely different domain, a domain I got really excited about. And with that domains that you get excited about, that was kind of the first time for me that I got excited about this domain. And then the the project after was even more excited. Domain wise. Technology wise it it was different. Team wise it's always going to

be different. But still it taught me that yeah, the technology is fine but the domain can also be fun. Looking back, it wasn't really ethically sound. I think because I was earlier in my career younger in age. I did that and I had no trouble with that. I I'm not going to lie about that. I think nowadays I can still do that, but I will miss that fulfillment that a domain can offer you.

Getting really excited about making the world a better place or changing people's lives for the better and not just making the company as much money as possible. Yeah, having now experienced that, it's going to be rough being in that position again. And even though I think I can do it, something will be missing. So I might not do it for a long, long time. I might not do it even at all. Just being able to do it doesn't mean I like doing that.

So if I ever have the choice, I'm not going to choose for that. And I think it might might show some growth, actually, personally. But yeah, it's funny because in the past people would ask like what? What domain do you like? I'd be like, I don't, I don't care about anything. And they'll be like pornography and I'll be like maybe maybe that one and they'll be like gambling and I'll be like maybe

not that one. Like obviously you have a preference and at some point you have to weigh out the options. Do you want to go specifically for this domain, even though it doesn't make the world a better place to learn and leverage your whatever you can basically whether that's working with that team, with that technology, even within that domain because learnings can be applied anywhere. In that case, you have to make that trade off and looking back, you might say it's the right decision.

You might say it's not the right decision. I don't really like thinking like that. It's the decision I made and I can live with that and I can leverage that knowledge now in whatever future project. So yeah, good luck with those decisions.

All right, four more questions. Now this is a hard one. What is your career goal? And I'm saying this is a hard one because I don't really give this much thought to it. What's your career goal? Given that you interview others about their goals, it'll be great to learn about you as a person and see a more human side.

Now. I hope you see a human side in any of these Q&A S or even any of the other episodes, because I try and be as authentic as possible and I don't try and force it. I'm just trying to be myself in that way. But when it comes to my career goal, honestly it's not really a career goal. I want to have as much fun and as much learnings as I can. I do think it's important to have impact with whatever I'm doing. So if I'm just a cog in a huge, huge company, I don't think I like that.

I've never experienced that to such a degree that I was, but I don't think I'll enjoy that. I like making impact and in that way working at startups is a lot of fun. But when it comes to the end goal, honestly I want to enjoy what I do on a day today. I want to have fun little side projects which stimulate me mentally, fulfil me in whatever it is doing. Basically this podcast is kind of an artifact of that. I'm doing this 5% of my time, which is not a lot. I say 5%, let's say 5 to 10% to

to make it a bit more. 90% of the time I'm doing other stuff, but the fact that I can do this 5 to 10% fulfils me incredibly. I'm doing 90% other stuff, but even that is not the same stuff, it's also other stuff in there. For example, I've become a team lead this year, which I'm I'm really, really proud of. And now I have a team and I'm responsible for their learning, personal development, etcetera, etcetera.

So I'm really trying to figure out how to do that, how to customize my way of communicating, to leverage whatever they need in that way to meet the goals, to meet their goals, to make sure they're happy, because their happiness makes me happy as well. So that is kind of the other stuff in my career. And as long as I can do that, I think I'll I'll find joy going to work doing stuff day-to-day, do stuff that is different stuff that is still challenging.

From a mental side, intellectual side, I keep saying mental, but I mean intellectual. And that is the goal, honestly, to keep doing that, sustain that for a long, long time. Don't burn out doing that. Don't do any stuff that's boring. Yeah, career goals are hard. I want to do more usually when I'm like, OK, what am I going to do? I'm going to do more, going to do more of the same stuff, more of the different stuff as much as I can on my plate. So the burning out needs to need

to keep an eye on that. Otherwise, I've life course and the life course are to travel the world to experience as much as I can. Honestly, money wise, don't have any issues be able to do, yeah kind of anything. And I'm not living some type of luxurious life. I'm very simple, OK? I got a water bottle for Christmas. I was incredibly happy with that. So yeah, as long as I can keep doing that, sustain that for a long, long time, I think I'll be good. I think I'll be happy.

I don't think more money is going to make me more happy. I think more challenges will make me more happy depending on the challenges. But at least it's going to be fun. Learning, succeeding, failing all of that, I think is fun experiencing. I want to experience as much as I can within my career and within my life. Maybe that's the the end goal. So yeah, goals are hard. I hate goals, Should make more goals, but I hate goals. All right.

How can you handle work when a family member is passing through a difficult illness? What is the general position of a company when an employee has this kind of a situation that's hard working when family is ill? Yeah, it's really hard. Like both of my I never really had a good relation with my grandparents, but I had a great relation with my mom's

grandparents. They live next to us, few streets down the road and during COVID in a short amount of time they passed like first my grandpa and then a few months later my grandma. And that was a really rough time like it. It got labeled as a COVID case even though it wasn't really COVID specifically. COVID just made it worse basically. And honestly I was working from home day in day out.

I wasn't seeing many people. I was not in a great place to be honest, and I never asked this, but now that I've become a team lead, I learned that you can ask your company for special leave. So if you need time to recoup. I think I just took that time and I took days off because I didn't know that. But a company can offer you special leave.

So if you're going through a hard time, if you need to go back to your home country because you're working abroad and take care of your family, company can offer you special leave. So that's that's what I would advise. I think it's really hard to go through that as well as focus on your career. For me, career is kind of secondary when it comes to friends and family. That's what I tell myself.

That's what I tell others. When your home situation gets tough, it's hard to ask 100% of you at work. So make sure your home is OK, make sure you're OK. I think that's the most important part. Otherwise you'll stretch yourself too thin and you do yourself and your team and your organization at this justice, because then you're going to give your 50%, your 60%, whether

you think that's right or wrong. I think it's better to take time off and then come back and give 708090 work up to 100 again because you were able to take that time off and sometimes you need more time than a company can offer you. So yeah, you'll be kind of in limbo and that's gonna be OK. Like, sometimes just time needs to pass. That's what happened for me. I was kind of in limbo. Honestly, I don't remember much of that period.

Day in, day out, I was kind of doing the same thing, kind of just waiting for time to pass. Trying to process. It really takes a long time to process. It was really one of the people, like the few people in my life that passed that were the closest to me. And I know I'm very lucky saying that I have a huge family and that was also a reality check that with a huge family comes a lot of happiness and is also going to come a lot of future sadness. And yeah that's going to be it's

going to be hard. You need time to process and that's at some point all you need and luckily company can offer that. Yeah if you're going through a hard time, I hope you're OK That's that's it.

How can you differentiate when a Co worker's statement is wrong, especially when they have more years in the company and experience than you? How can you stand your ground in that situation? It's really hard because I don't know the context. What has happened with me when someone was just yeah, it's hard to say plain wrong because obviously context matters and nuances are usually in the

middle. But when I had figured out, and in a very robotic sense, how things work, if A happens, then B happens, if C happens, then D happens, the whole scheme of the landscape that we were in, I talked to my colleague because they were going through kind of this work procedure. And I I started with this whole thing because I didn't like the work procedure, doing the same thing day in, day out.

I said, well, we don't have to do this procedure anymore because if we do XY and Z, we'll have solved the problem. And I've talked to that and it's really hard to do XY and Z. But then that means when we get these types of error messages, we don't really have to look into them anymore. Specifically these because it was a specific message. And as you can guess, this was back in operations when I was 22/21/23 coming out of university, basically my first

first job. Well, that person looked at me and said I'm still going to do the same thing. And honestly we had like probably 20-30 years of age difference. They probably also had then 20-30 years of career experience. I didn't get it. They said they were going to do the same thing. And I said, well, we don't have to do that because of XY and Z reasons.

Very logical, very robotic. I was like, well, because XY and Z, we don't have to do it. And if it's person then is not convinced and says I'm going to do the same thing. I pushed. I was like because I don't want it to quit and I don't want to have him do it because if he might do it, I might have to do it. I pushed. I was like well, again, so and so and so we don't have to do it. And I did that again and maybe too many times.

It's hard to look back because this was a few years back, but he snapped. He legitimately snapped. He said you're not being a great colleague. He started yelling and saying this is, well, I'm not going to swear. He didn't really swear. But yeah, he started yelling and honestly, yeah, it made me feel very, very small. It made me feel like I might have done something wrong. This was on a Friday and he just

snapped and walked away. And I looked at my other colleagues because this was on an open workspace. I was like, did I say anything wrong? Did I do anything wrong? And they tried to reassure me and say no, no, you're right and blah blah. And then over the weekend, it really sat with me because he snapped. I was like, did I do anything wrong? Maybe I should have said something differently. Maybe it was the tone of voice I had, maybe I should have brought it in a different way.

And then on probably Sunday or Monday, I was like, maybe he just was having a bad day. But in any case, I decided this is not how you talk to colleagues. This is not how you talk to people. You don't yell at each other. When someone is trying to make a point and you disagree, you never yell. So then I confronted him. I said I want an apologies. He said it's not going to do that.

So then I went to my manager. Very childishly, I went like to the teacher to try and resolve this issue that we had. Because apparently the guy didn't want to give me an apology. And I expected and wanted an apology because I I don't think you should treat each other like that. And I had hoped that the apology would make sense and actually land. So then our manager put us at the same table, listened to the story and then yes, said Hank, you give Patrick, you're an

apology. Hank is just an an adias. That's not the real name. Trust me. Give Patrick an apology. And then person gave me an apology and that was that. And it took a bit of time to kind of build up that trust again and be able to work together again. And I don't know if it was ever ever exactly the same, but yeah, it was based on my actions and I was at fault as well. Maybe I shouldn't have pushed as hard, maybe I should have taken a step back and done it in a

different way. But me being the person I am, very Dutch directness, I pushed at that time and it had a consequence. So it's really context

dependent. If you're truly right and that person is wrong, is it the right time to push? And it's really hard to say if you should push or not. You can get buy in from other colleagues. You can try it from a different angle with other people. You can try numerous things. It's really hard. Is this point very crucial to you? For me, at that time, it was a yes. Looking back now, maybe I I I think I should have done things differently because I don't want people to snap.

Maybe he was having a bad day and then I just pushed his buttons in the wrong way. Which means I I need to be able to be more flexible from a communication standpoint as well. Make sure people don't snap. Maybe it was unavoidable even. And then even if I were to do a different thing, he still would have snapped. I have no clue. But choose your battles in a way, if this is truly important, stand your ground and you can

get buy in from colleagues. If you're truly, truly right now, the less experience you have, it's really hard to say OK, you're 100% right in that case. So it depends a lot on confidence, but outside perspectives will make that true or false in that way. For me, very early on I had rare moments where I thought I was 100% right. Again, because this was a process, because I could logically explain this, I had buy in from other colleagues. I thought I was 100% right and I

was. But most of the time I acknowledge that I might be wrong and that was the mindset I had when I came to an into a certain problem. When I had to explore things, I would be like, how do you think this works? Because I think perspectives help me form my own perspective, help us form a conclusion. I would bounce ideas off, not acting like I was right, but saying this is my idea, this is my opinion.

I don't like to be wrong. Maybe that's like a personal thing, but I don't like to be wrong, which means I talk a lot in this is my opinion and what I think cannot be wrong, what I think can change. I only talk in facts when I think it's 100% a fact. Even then, in the way I'm talking now is when I think it's 100% a fact, because I still might be wrong in that way. So it's really hard. You can always go to your manager. You can always get support from your colleagues.

It depends obviously in the on the environment, on the person sitting across from you. What I'm expecting from a senior is that they're open minded and that they're able and willing to spend time in educating others. People that have more experience, people that have less experience, I don't really care. As long as everyone has that mindset and has the patience to be able to educate, then it's

going to be a great environment. Obviously there's deadlines, so the patience might not be from that person, but because of the organization, there's no patience basically. But then still I expect the people aspect from that person to be there and to accommodate for that and to say maybe I I can't explain it now, but we can explain it to the future. And it has to do a lot with trust in that way. And trust comes from both sides. So yeah, I think confrontations

are very good. I think for your personal development, definitely don't go them out of the way. Reflect and learn from them and you'll do better in the future. And those confrontations, they're going to stick with you. This one was like 6 or seven years ago and I still remembered. Just a snap. Like yeah, it was incredible to me, honestly. So yeah, good luck. Last one, if you're a junior

with little experience in the domain field due to a career change, how can you gain respect from senior employees in the company and even your manager? So if you're a junior due to a career change, I think if you're if you have less experience in general, the way I give respect to people, respect comes by

default. But I admire people that are really hungry for knowledge and willing to learn, don't judge as fast and try and be objective and yeah, see them grow like I really enjoy that this hungry for learning, this eagerness to pick up anything and learn from that even though they've never done it. It doesn't have to be confidence, it has to be openness. Their ability to ask questions, their openness for feedback, those are all things that makes me admire people with less

experience. Respect for me comes by default. So if if you come from a place where people don't respect you, it's really hard work environment wise. So I like to put that on admiration, but that's what I'm expecting from people with less experience. We've we've hired for people with less experience and what we were always looking for was a specific mindset.

And mindset is super vague. But in that conversation, their eagerness kind of shined in a way that they were asking about what I had done in previous projects to a certain detail because they wanted to know genuinely. They wanted to know because they had the right mindset. If you don't have the right, if you don't have that, let's say that drive for curiosity and knowledge, then it might not be

the right field for you. The domain or the technology or the people might not be a right fit, but something in an interview process, something in your job makes you excited and that excitedness. If other people's perceive that. If I perceive that, it's hard for me to say if other people perceive that, if I perceive that it, it makes me admire that. And I think passion and drive can bring you far. And if other people see that, they'll be like, OK, this knowledge that I'm investing is

not going to go to waste. And this is my assumption, because I think that people with less patience, they think it's not worth it if they don't see you in this field for a long, long time just by virtue of you not being eager, not being interested, not being interactive in that way. From their standpoint, obviously then they might not invest what they know in, in the types of education they can do with you or the knowledge they can transfer to you, or just

honestly, working together. Pair programming, stuff like that might not be worth it to them because they think, well, in a few years they're going to switch again and it's all going to be wasted. So as long as they perceive that you're going to be here for the long game, within the organization, within the team, just by virtue of you being very much involved, very curious, hungry to pick things up and to learn, I think that's a way for you to get their respect.

At least that's how it was for me. Being open minded, being objective, being curious has always helped and I think it will always give you even more respect to others, regardless of what your previous job experience was, what you were doing, whether it's that's in a different domain or different craft even, or regardless of

your experience. I think even senior experienced people, if they do that, if they're interactive, if they're hungry for knowledge, if they're sharing obviously their knowledge as well and their perspective, it it gives a form of admiration to the people working with them.

So yeah, try it out, try what and see what works for you. Also ask for feedback. That is probably the most crucial part because there's an assumption in this question that they don't respect you. Ask for feedback. They might just be kind of stoic in that way that they don't show it, or it's their culture in a way to not really show that, but they might really respect you or admire you, because obviously having done a career change, a transition in that way is a

huge, huge step. I think not a lot of people do that. So I admire people that have done that and that are trying to do that, and I support people that are trying to do that. Obviously, if I don't think this is the right fit, then I still try and support them to find the right fit in that way. So yeah, ask for feedback. I think that's the one of the most important things you can do as well. All right, then I'm going to

round it off. Thank you so much for listening. If you're still here, do you have more questions? Put them in the comments below and I'll take them with me for the next round for Q&A #8. We've done this actually for over a year. It's Q&A #7. And I've really, really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for listening. If you're still here, again, happy New Year. I hope you have had a great holiday if you're here in the future.

If it's not 2024, honestly that is incredible and let me know because I would love to know if you're listening from the far, far future. But in the short term, again, thank you for listening. We'll see you on the next one beyond coding.