David Simmer, Senior Software Engineer at Netflix

Speaker 0: Remember the first time I, like, normalized a relational database. There was this clouds parting, feeling of of, like, I'm smart and I got this thing, and it feels so good to to see the elegance of it.

Speaker 1: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Trace Talks. We've been graced with the presence of David today. John and Pedro here as well. Don't don't worry.

We're still here for this conversation as well. But, David, I'd love for you to give yourself a brief introduction. Let the world know who you are. Just brief because we're gonna definitely dive into your background. So but let the world know who you are.

Speaker 0: You got it. I am employed right now as a senior engineer at Netflix. I'm in the consumer foundations team, but I spent, nearly the first 4 years there in the engineering. And outside that, I have a list of hobbies that's about 5 miles long.

Speaker 2: Amazing. Yeah. We'll we'll definitely wanna get to that. But maybe at first, like, you know, what could you take us back to the the moment that kinda ignited your passion for, you know, blending technology and and design and, you know, kind of what got you into technology and into the space in the first place?

Speaker 0: For sure. For me, it was a student job in college. I got a job in the AV department, and it turned out to also be the IT department, which tells you something about when that was and how small things were at the time. And what got me into that was as a student at that college attempting to use the online scheduling tool that they'd built to just figure out what my class schedule is gonna be for for the term. And, the two things I noticed, most strongly about it were that it was ugly and hard to use.

And I started asking, could someone change this? And then that question turned into, can I change this? And one of the great fortunate circumstances of my life was that the person in charge said, sure. Here's something you can change, and that was really the start. And and those two things, like, ugly and hard to use are really the the the converse, which is beautiful and nice to use is just continues to be a motivation.

Speaker 2: Amazing.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I was I was gonna I was gonna make a joke that half the technology out there today still is ugly and hard to use. So you saw you saw that problem 20 something years ago, which is pretty awesome. Did you have any technical experience before that or maybe just tinkering on a a computer every now and then? Or or you just saw something ugly and you wanted to fix it?

Speaker 0: Only a little bit. I had taken a rudimentary Photoshop course at Kinko's, before I owned a computer. And then, you know, just really basic stuff. I think a friend had had me over and been like, this is email, and here's how to get on AOL. But, other than that, a little bit of tinkering with, like, a hand me down DOS computer and a little bit of work on trail.

That was it. So it really was just the motivation of, I don't know how to do it, but I would like to learn, and I have some, you know, I have even though I don't know anything yet, I have some ideas about how that maybe this could be better, and that was the start.

Speaker 2: Mhmm. Got it. Did have you since taken any sort of formal sort of design or UX UI, dove into that space?

Speaker 0: Not not in the terms of, like, higher education or degree programs. So I I went to school originally to be a chiropractor. I wish I'd had better career advice or maybe had had changed tech earlier, but, I I have a, like, science and biology education, in undergrad, and all of my tech learning was, you know, the sir the term self taught is usually applied, but, this is something I mentioned a lot. I am taught by all the thousands of other people in this industry who love and are excited about what they do and who are delighted to write articles and make online courses and, produce demos showing how to do things with various technology. And so I have always loved, like, the design aspect.

My mom, had an art background, and so I was homeschooled as a kid, and so she made sure to incorporate that. And I always I always really enjoyed that part. But the actual melding of design and tech, that was just this exciting new field that there was, you know, there were so many resources out there, to consume that that's really where that came about.

Speaker 1: What what was the because I also got into technology kind of probably around the same time frame, and I was in school for design. Sure. But I remember back then, there wasn't there wasn't as many forums or definitely wasn't as many videos or boot camps, all those stuff that's out there today. What did you rely on? You know, you you took on you were going to school for chiropractory and science.

I don't think that's even a word, chiropractory.

Speaker 0: I like it.

Speaker 1: But you were going to school but you're going to school for something different, and you took on this tech project. How did you learn to build I looked at your LinkedIn, and you built a CMS. You built everything that was needed. How did you find how how to do that back then? You know?

Because I had people in person in school. I was going to school for that, but there wasn't forums. You know? Were you in communities in person asking these questions, or did you find some online forums to ask questions?

Speaker 0: It was there was a little bit. I remember, the, Jeffrey Zeltman's resource was a huge, or, like, his both his personal writing and then a list of part, which is a heavily CSS and, like, web standard sort of resource. That was one of my main go to's. And from there, that is really how I think I I you know, you could say I got my UI design education by their emphasis on not just, hey. This is beautiful and here are principal's design.

I mean, they mentioned those things, and, clearly, a a lot of the people in the community cared about that kind of stuff. But the, the larger point of so much of their writing and their tutorials and their excitement about, like, CSS becoming the main way to style things and and and the accessibility benefits of that versus the old clutches we were using to try to get things layout on screen that totally ignored the concerns of screen readers or assistive devices or anything else was this, it needs to be nice for humans to use. And it being beautiful is sometimes a companion, sometimes as a side effect to that, but that the primary thing is here's how to make it nice for him to use. And, also, by the way, here's how to have it kind of be more pleasant as a developer. You get that that mental satisfaction of having done this in a way that is elegant.

Again, that that elegance, you know, can turn into cleverness and be awful in a lot of ways, but that was always a side effect of doing building things in a way that are pleasant for humans to use.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And that and that makes sense. I think that was that's sort of, like, the turning point for technology become more widely adopted, right, with the PC and, kind of personal computing. And still companies today are pushing that forward. Like, a company that could take something very technical and and and just make it user friendly and beautiful as I I don't know.

The the example I always think of is, like, Square. Right? Like, there have been payment processors and credit card terminals and all these things, but they made a very simple, smart little thing that had a beautiful, simple design and Yeah. Captured a ton of market share by just doing that, like, leading with design.

Speaker 0: Yeah. It felt like the future instead of this awkward thing that beeps ain't really at you. It was just nice and yeah. Makes sense. Yeah.

But there I I think all the time about, like, this sort of if you build it, they will come aspect of, like, you can kind of fall into that trap as a designer engineer where you just think, if I just build the beautiful thing, my marketing and business viability and all those other problems will solve themselves, which, of course, is your however, like, that do build something beautiful is still something worth hanging on.

Speaker 1: Yeah. You've that's a good point to make. You know, you've you see a problem. You make it beautiful. You make it usable, and and people will gravitate towards it naturally.

Nice analogy, Pedro. I use Square myself. So it definitely I've I've found the the simplicity as well as ease of use, important. You've been on this long journey, not long, but you've been on this, wide ranging journey of different types of roles. I mean, even starting from chiropractor school to doing a c a CMS, and now you're at Netflix.

And there's been a long journey along the way. What do you look for when you're looking for new projects or new roles, whether it's internal where you're at or, external companies? You know? What do you gravitate towards? Do you gravitate towards somewhere where you know you can fix problems, or do you gravitate towards somewhere where you know you can grow as an employee and as as a engineer designer?

You know, what I guess, what ranks importance for you when you're looking for new projects and roles?

Speaker 0: Having, like, a baked in change of scenery or having having a change of scenery every so often has always been really important to me. I had, for a while, when I in one of my first roles, I was working for a small company. I probably stayed there longer than I should have. I had a bunch of friends, who were in agencies, and they had this sort of mental turnover of new clients, new projects that kept them interested in tackling new things. And I really started to desire that.

And so that, for me, has been a motivator in finding new things. In fact, it was and being the reason I left that company and set out to freelance for a while. I, rely on money to pay for the things that I enjoy and and, need to live in life. So that's also a motivator. But, really, you know, that that aside, I think there is a blend of the 2.

So when I found the role I was hired into at Netflix when I read that job description, it described it used all of the words that I was looking for in terms of the the mission of the role and what I'd be working with and the variety that was baked into it. And so that was one of the exciting things. But I think what, also really drew me to that was that it was on a team of people who had a wide variety of skills, but where my skills weren't sort of fully representative, weren't already duplicated by somebody else. And so it was gonna be that chance to to bring the things I knew that I was good at, and to to add them there. I I didn't come to it that role with the feeling of, though, that, like, I got this.

I'll show them, you know, what's going on. It was it was very much the opposite of, okay. This is the role that sounds awesome, but, of course, it's Netflix. And, you know, I'm not ready. Maybe they'll give me more time to prepare.

And, of course, you know, the interview, you know, was like, can you come talk next week? And so I, you know, I I put a lot of effort into it, but it was that, that combination of this is, this is an amazing opportunity. It's exactly what I wanna do that I think really spurred, you know, really putting a lot of focus and effort into into that interview process there.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And it and it seems like throughout your career, you've kind of transitioned between different roles and different industries. And now at Netflix, like, what what experience do you think was the most important or the most pivotal in shaping your approach to leadership that that you're sort of in it in that position now?

Speaker 0: Sure. There's been a few things. I I think the the progression I've been I've made in my career, the opportunities that I've had have been, thanks to other people who kind of already understood it. One of the people I think of a lot is is a old boss of mine, Gunther, at that first company, who in our one on ones, instead of it being project recap time, he made sure that we were talking about what did I want to do in my career and what was I interested in long term beyond this company, beyond working for him. And then fast forward a few, and there was a moment where I was a more senior engineer on a relatively small team.

And there was really a need, in order to make our junior engineers more effective. It wasn't going to be sort of teaching them in the sense of, hey. Here's how you do complicated things. They already had a lot of of skill at the technical things that they were taking on. Where, leadership was needed was for someone like me to do the glue work as it's, been described of, you know, a little bit of private project management, a lot of, taking care of some, you know, just sort of, like, unblocking chores for the team, being ahead of things like that, setting a a direction, you know, in cases where there was some ambiguity, providing, at least a decision and some reasoning, that we can all act on from there.

Yeah. I think it was seeing examples of other people and then just kind of realizing that there's this need and this is that by serving these other people on the team, that is actually a huge part of being a leader. And, and it was satisfying to start doing that. You know? In in isolation, the idea of of just, like, project management work sometimes feels boring or a chore or something you wanna procrastinate, on.

But when you are multiplying the happiness and and effectiveness of other people by doing that, then it becomes satisfying.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I that's a common thread that we've heard in a lot of these conversations that we've had is people who have worked their way up to some form of leadership. They've had good leaders, a lot of good leaders along the way. Some of them have had not great leaders, but, they all have this drive, and I I think it's ingrained in them by those good leaders. I think good leaders today have been trained by good leaders.

So do you enjoy leading more now, or do you enjoy getting your hands, you know, in and doing coding and designing still, a mixture of both? Some people prefer, you know, to train people and lead them like a true leader should, but some people still miss getting in their getting their hands in the dirt and and doing development work. So do you still get a mixture of those, and do you like that combination, or do you prefer 1 or the other?

Speaker 0: Yeah. I do still get a mixture. I do still love that mixture. I I often think about this because definitely the part of me, the engineer designer who loves building things, can very much get in the zone on a feature and be very happy, you know, towing away there and making it really awesome. And what I have to remind myself of is, like, I do have a desire to be a a good leader, a good engineering leader.

And I often have this feeling that and this is probably something, you know, I was gonna say, real leaders also still still feel what that that feeling of, like, well, I'm I I don't have as much experience or as much to give there yet or, you know, I'm not I want to be, but I'm not yet. And I think that that awareness isn't all bad, but also that just saying, well, I'm not a leader yet isn't necessarily helpful because I am doing things that are, leading other folks. For instance, I'm I'm frequently mentoring a junior engineer on our team right now, who is awesome, but there's so much about being a software engineer that isn't necessarily computer science. And a lot of those things, like, we are working together on, and it doesn't feel like me wagging my finger at Hertz. We're talking about these things, and I am able to provide that.

And I love doing that. I think one of the things that's essential if you want to do that is to make sure that you have some time set aside to do that. If I get so attached to my feature work and building the thing and then realize, like, oh, it's 1 minute until my 1 on 1, with the person I'm mentoring. Okay. Well, I'll just ask her how things are going.

Then not only have I will I probably not do as, I probably won't be as good a resource for her, but also I've short changed myself on putting having some time to think ahead about what is important here, even even if there wasn't mentorship involved. For me to spend more time thinking ahead about the strategy for the project I'm working on, where I fit in my organization, how I see roles shifting, or the importance of teams, or how a strategy doc that I read might affect our team. Those are the things that leaders do. And if you begin spending the time doing the things that leaders do, either you'll find yourself being equipped to be a leader or you'll find yourself actually being in a leadership position, because you began acting that way. And that's that's really the the approach I've been trying to take.

You know, I I love getting to have a 1 on 1 with a director or, you know, like, several skip levels up. And and I'm always asking, like, how did you get here? But it's not just what did you do to get here. It's what circumstances got you here, and what do you spend your time doing. And these these roles that I, you know, possibly aspire to have one day, I'd like to be, at least able to think like a person who has that role now even when it's not my role yet.

Because without that reflection and beginning to get yourself in the mindset of that different role, it's extremely unlikely someone's gonna come along and be like, great work building that thing. You're gonna direct some people now. So that's that's the mindset I've tried to take.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's important also as you as people continue to to climb upward in their, you know, personal and professional trajectory to to remember because you had mentioned, feeling like you might not be qualified or feeling like you don't know everything to be in a position that you might be in. I think it's important for people to realize that nobody nobody knows everything, and what you just mentioned there still having time to reach out to your superiors to to ask those same type as a questions that you're passing that information down to people who you're training as well. I think it's important to remember growing as a human and growing as a employee and growing as just whatever you're in, whatever field you're in, it's a two way street. You know, you learn from those who have been there before, and that's kind of the reason of this podcast.

And then you you pass that information down to those that you're training. So do you these days, I assume it's probably a different answer than if you'd answered this 15 years ago. Do you find more satisfaction in a junior engineer that you're training, get unstuck from a bug that they've been trying to fix or get promoted, or do you find more enjoyment in fixing a a major bug yourself? I assume it's probably seeing those that you're training, you know, get to the next stage in their development.

Speaker 0: Right. Like, it's it's tough to answer because it's still still joy in both, but I think you're right that it is the the latter because that's beyond that there's a a bigger effect that cascades far beyond that I, you know, unstuck a button that that wasn't working. Yeah. To see another person take off. And especially, like, there's there's so much joy.

You know, I I had mentioned that I had been in a in one career and then switched. And in in down moments, I have phrased it as I wasted those years of my life. That's not true, of course, because the person I am now is built out of those experiences. But one of the things that I get a lot of joy out and mention explicitly to younger engineers that I see, is that I'm so stoked that they are, like, getting started now. At work and especially for those who are really good at customer empathy and being curious and, thinking about strategic things and the health of the team and and sort of the work beyond just the the work itself that they are going to go so far.

And especially, you know, when I, like, I when I run into these sorts of folks at Netflix, I'm even more excited of like, for me, it feels like this amazing place to work where, I I finally got here, but after quite a long time in my career at, you know, you could say, like, smaller companies. I mean, smaller companies. It felt it felt like a a personally, like, such a huge achievement to make this this prospective company. And, I am so stoked to see young engineers getting jobs at, like, awesome companies and getting to start learning from amazing people way earlier than I did. It's it's so cool to see that, and I love being a part of that.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Stoked. I haven't heard that word in a while, so I I I appreciate the usage of that word. I mean, if you also, if you train people who are you, you know, who are your ment mentees, they'll do a lot of the work that then will possibly or potentially even enable you to then get more hands on in the code and and start fixing things because they're they're being smart enough and self sufficient enough to solve some problems that maybe a leader who hasn't trained their employees, would have to solve all of those problems. So I guess in a in a way, it probably helps you actually get back into coding and fixing bugs if you're training people to do some of that forward thinking leadership type stuff.

Speaker 0: Totally. And, you know, there's so much that I still don't know or things where, you know, if I was just working by myself, I'd be looking up. Of course, the the great secret of of senior engineers is that we're still googling everything. And to do that in front of a junior engineer, I think, is a really helpful experience too to say I don't know. Or, you know, I've used this 4 times, or I configure this thing once a year when I set up a new whatever it is.

And I don't remember what I was doing, so let's pull up in the documentation together and walk through it, and, you know, we'll we'll figure out how to do this again. Or that thing you're you're dealing with could be this, this, and this. It's not those. Okay. I don't have a ready answer off the top of my head, but you do a little more investigation.

I will as well. Let's talk again in a couple hours and see if we've gotten anywhere. And that's that's what being an engineer is all the time, and, it is freeing to, be able to admit that. And, also, like, that would be a a chance for my own growth and my own either remembering how to do the technical task or, in the larger sense, just reminding myself that there's, there's I'm I there's so much I don't know. There's so much I'm gonna forget to remember and just it's I think it's so valuable for anyone who hasn't figured that out yet to get a glimpse into.

That's just always that's gonna be how it is throughout your career. You don't have to feel bad about not knowing right away because 20 years from now, you still won't know anything right away.

Speaker 2: Yeah. The other thing that's interesting that you mentioned is empathy because it's it's something that we don't typically think about as a, you know, an engineering skill. Right? You think about the technical skills associated. But would you say that empathy and ABC's some of these other skills are, just as important or maybe more important as engineers are making their way, you know, up through the ranks or, you know, in different roles, within organizations?

Speaker 0: Yeah. Absolutely. Because there's so much, like, delightfulness and fun in embracing and understanding a complex thing. I remember the first time I, like, normalized a relational database. There was this clouds parting, feeling of of, like, I'm smart, and I got this thing, and it feels so good to to see the elegance of it.

So there's plenty of pleasure there. But, I think once you get out of just building something for its own sake or learning a technology or or kind of seeing how clever you can get with your understanding of a knowledge of a language that you know well, Ultimately, you're going to be engineering things, designing things for someone else to use. You may be several layers removed from, let's say, a customer outside your company. In my case, you know, productivity engineering, your your customers are other engineers inside the company. And so still that, that aspect of empathy is necessary for a couple things.

1 is just that when you have gotten a request for something to be built, something to be changed, You could just take it exactly as it's written and knock out that thing and feel like you check the box and move the Jira store over to the done column. But to be good at what you do, the result should really not just be only the thing you were told to do. It should accomplish the purpose of what are we trying to do here. Are we trying to make this simpler for a user? Are we trying to actually make the experience a little higher friction to avoid someone mistakenly deleting something important?

There's so many of those ways of thinking about things that that you're designing and engineering. Were to produce the highest quality version of the thing that you were assigned, you need to think through the eyes of the customer, probably the business, you know, understand all the needs that go into that. But then I think in addition to just producing the best version of the thing you could, I think empathy gives you curiosity and excitement and delight and the interest in taking on or suggesting changes that weren't already thought of, that weren't, identified. You can be the person who identifies those things. When you hear the frustration that someone has of, like, like, I have to click this 5 times, and then sometimes that this last step doesn't work.

One way it's you could view that is, like, okay. Well, the problem is, like, the the bug is that it breaks at that 5th step depending on a certain scenario. So you could fix that, but, also, is there I have to click 5 things to do this at once? Like, that customer just gave you some very valuable insight into what they're thinking or kind of what they want or what annoys them. And if you're not attuned to catching those kind of things, you might not ever take the time to say, can we rethink how this interaction works so that it's one click?

It's it's none. We, you know, make this whole thing more pleasant for the user. We don't just fix the bug that was described. We listened, and we might be able to invent something that really makes this whole thing more pleasant.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I think I think you're so right. Yeah. Like, that was

Speaker 1: I think you could have been a chiropractor. Someone says my back hurts, and we kinda find out why their back is actually hurting. Yeah.

Speaker 2: I think you're so right, though. Sometimes we're so we're so involved, and we're so deep and close to something that we can't zoom out and see the bigger picture, and it does take empathy to do that. I mean, you know, John and I can speak for ourselves, but we're in conversations with folks all the time that are just like, oh, I need this software to check these four boxes. Like, well, hold on. Let's back up and, like, how does this impact you, the organization, the people you work with?

Like, what's the actual business outcome, the personal outcome? And I think, engineers thinking that way is is definitely an interesting way to look at it because you can you can actually solve the core problem. Sometimes they're just like, oh, it doesn't like you said, it doesn't work at the 5th step. Well, maybe the whole process is the problem, and it could be reinvented. So that's that's really interesting.

Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah. So what you know, all of working your way up to leadership isn't, roses and daisies. So what kind of, you know, part of this podcast is kind of passing on this advice and and your experiences to people who are listening. So what have been some of the struggles that you you faced? Is it, you know, having to deal with meetings, leadership meetings?

I I assume those are I don't know how they are at Netflix, but in in some places, they're not fun. They're just kind of monotonous. But what have been some of the struggles that you've faced as you've worked your way up and and some things that you would say, hey, 15 year younger myself, be aware of this and or do this.

Speaker 0: Yeah. The first things come to mind are kind of personal habits of, like, giving myself a little too much room to procrastinate, not being as frequent a communicator, an aversion to maintenance. Like, I I was thinking about this recently that I think I have this inbuilt feeling that whenever I, like, buy a thing, it should just continue working forever. And, of course, you have to, like, change oil and dust and clean and, you know, all those may maintenance things. And, I think in similar ways, times where I've done you know, I I was given a chance to lead a thing and I didn't do a great job at it, Oftentimes came down to that of a lack of personal organization.

You know, I didn't kind of put in some important work ahead of time, and so I had to scramble to get a result at the end. And sometimes that works out, and sometimes it doesn't. And, in making yourself, you know, not making yourself visible enough or not being a communicator, not chiming in on meetings, I think there's a lot of a lot of times where had I been more aware that just that involvement, which takes work and energy to get yourself to, like, be there with your camera on and and, you know, to really to really be involved and not just, I saw a cartoon someone was like, how to how to, you know, make it appear that you've been contributing me to a meeting is to just say, thanks, everybody, at the end when you haven't said anything to the meeting. I mean, I so I've done that for a while, but I think I think avoiding those habits that require less energy, less investment, and just kind of, working on that is something I wish I'd started earlier. I heard I heard someone say that they've, it was another engineer at Netflix, It's Molly Stroup.

She said, I realized that I wouldn't be an effective leader until I was an effective leader from in my own life, and that's really stuck with me of you just your personal inclination to wash the dishes and wipe down the kitchen counter when you'd rather just leave it for somebody else or not do it at all. I think that's that is a great little microcosm of, the kind of things you need to be, just willing to put the time into if you want to be a leader. And, you know, I mentioned I I mentioned, like, being on camera is an offhand thing, and there's plenty of reasons why in meetings. Like, I I'm glad our shift towards remote work and getting used to doing things over Zoom and the reasons why someone might be on camera. I'm not trying to denigrate any of those.

But, in the the sort of being if if leadership is something you want to grow into, that putting this extra work in to provide energy and provide involvement to other people is really part of it. Just if you are there with contributions and and the feeling of, like, this is useful to be here and I am bringing my bringing my whole self here. Other people pick up on that, and that I think is is, super valuable. So I wish I'd I wish I'd focused on being that kind of person sooner.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. That reminds me, kind of on the opposite spectrum. I I used to work at Dell, and there's a guy who had been in the same position for, I don't know, 15 years, 20 years, something like that. And I asked him one day.

His name is Joe. I'll I'll call out someone's name too, Joe O'Brien. I was like, Joe, you've don't you ever wanna, you know, climb up the ranks and be a manager or be a regional manager? He's and he said something he said, I'm really happy with my life, and I really like where I'm at, and so I'm comfortable here. And so I think on the other end of the spectrum, it's and this applies to leadership as well.

You kinda have to understand what your personal goals are. Don't feel like you have to climb to leadership because someone else thinks you should climb to leadership. But if it's something that you feel like you want to do, then start to put those habits into your life. And so that that's some really good advice that you actually just gave there, which is be a proponent for yourself. Even if you're not ready, start putting yourself in that position to have those opportunities because you never know when you're gonna learn something, just because you're present.

So that's good advice. So, yeah, you know, what speaking of tech, you've seen, you know, both you and I came sounds like we came into tech around the same time frame. So there's been a lot that's changed over, you know, 15, 20 years, and a lot has changed in the last year or 2. You know, you start talking about AI and all that kind of stuff. So what's your vision for the future?

Are you always one of those on the forefront of technology? I think Pedro bought the r one Rabbit, which is a brand new AI device. But do you always try and embrace new technology? Do you kind of skirt the outsides to see what other people are doing with it?

Speaker 0: I think I'm a little more of a scooter. I I like keeping up with things, and I always have the the thought whenever I've seen I think, like, we all have maybe a a character, like, you know, the sort of person to which someone would say, okay, boomer. You know? The the idea of someone who's so fixed in their ways, they that all modern music is shit and, kids these days and nobody wants to work and all those kind of things you hear. Like, how did you become that kind of person?

You know, we've had that kind of person throughout every generation, and I don't wanna be that person. And so, similarly, in technology, you know, I have my formative era of what I got good at and what I was excited about, and there are certain branches off of those things that I spent most of my time on that I continue to be excited about innovations in. And, of course, no one has time to sort of be fully on top of every new innovation that's out there. So I often have a feeling that I should be more on top of things, but also, like, keeping an openness and and an excitement about how other people are using things, I think, is is still important to have. I could do more of it, but at least, I think I'm maintaining the idea of of openness.

I I am definitely surrounded by people who do a great job of more quickly embracing and tinkering with something new. And so, you know, I'm sort of maybe getting a secondhand keeping up by by keeping up with them.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Are there are are there any of these technologies that you're you've seen make an impact at, you know, at Netflix or any other companies recently?

Speaker 0: Yeah. I think the generative AI one is interesting for, like, specifically in writing code. I I gave a talk about this, a little over a year ago in which I expressed a lot of, if not skepticism, at least in encouraging people to pump their brakes on embracing it too quickly. Because, for instance, with writing code, you can only trust the output of an LLM when you can actually verify it. And so paradoxically, in order to make use of it, you have to kind of be able to do it on your own.

But, also, there are time savings to be had. There are so many sort of, like, we still bump into boilerplate all the time, and to have something where you can, automate for yourself the repetitive things, you know, the the why should I be typing the same syntax over and over again perhaps when there's some way I can automate the snippet or the generation of it or say, hey. Write me a unit test for this thing. And to incorporate some of that without fully relying on it, I think, is something that I need to get better at and is a good skill to have. Yeah.

That one is, I think, like, dominating the airways right now, and I think that the people who will make the most of it, maintain sort of, like, a little bit of a healthy distance. Like, they use it for what it is, but don't see it as, true artificial intelligence yet or or replacing their job. I think the other thing that, that I have isn't necessarily the future, maybe it's sort of standard now, but the idea of design tools that have less of a barrier to entry. So I am a big Figma user. Before that, it was InVision and Sketch and and those.

And and, of course, like, I grew up with Photoshop and Adobe Suite. And, you know, spending every day in Photoshop, I got used to it and I can move around quickly, but it's difficult to learn that kind of thing. And the way design tools have shifted to you don't need to have spent 20 hours in this to learn how to do it. Everyone can participate in from lo fi to hi fi, getting their ideas in a visual form and building from there. I think that in all its various forms has been incredibly valuable, and I am glad to see that continuing to happen.

There's so much engineering and design work within companies, even Netflix, where a lo fi, low code kind of way to do something is the really smart way to do it. And, I think that the more people who are encouraged to think of themselves as doing design work, if not necessarily being designers, is a really healthy thing.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I can tell you from firsthand experience, like, I used Sketch actually to design my first startups, like MVP app. Right? And I just kinda wireframe the whole thing out and gave it to the engineers, and we're like, make this happen. This looks good.

And there were some elements of that design, like, found in some kinda, you know, kit I downloaded, like, some UI elements that I had pieced together and changed around a little bit. But you're right. It was and that allowed us to launch our app in this, like, you know, it wasn't completely no code, but, definitely low code in in the sense of me designing the front end and just handing it to the engineers to to make happen. So it definitely accelerated our development and put a product out faster. So, yeah, I

Speaker 0: think

Speaker 2: it's super important.

Speaker 0: And there's still a need for pros who are great at design, and and that won't go away. But the, lowering the barrier to entry, I think, has been amazing. Tools that continue to lower the barrier to entry to producing something, to getting the satisfaction of the thing I built I can see on screen, is great.

Speaker 1: Yeah. That's a great point. I also learned Photoshop and Illustrator, and I can still use those today. But for example, I'm actually I'm not gonna show it off in camera, but I'm wearing a shirt that I used AI to create 2 images, front and back. Took me 30 seconds when that would have taken me an illustrator, you know, 40 minutes, if if not more.

But like you said, when you talk about programming and using AI for programming, you still have to know what you're doing because AI is not even anywhere to the point where people claim it can be. So it's smart to have that sort of healthy skepticism both with that type of a trend like AI, but I think in general, I think skirting the out or or, you know, skirting the edges of anything that you're approaching, whether you're thinking about being a leader or you're thinking about doing x or y. You know? Do your research, understand the pros and cons of anything, and find where it can help, lower the barrier. I think that was another great phrase that you used because, you know, I can have AI draft the first draft, and then I go and clean it up.

Because robots, I probably shouldn't say this on recording, but robots will never be as great as humans. So, it's but it's yeah. I think it's that was a great term that you used, lowering the barrier.

Speaker 0: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah. So so, you know, you've definitely gone on a a long journey. I think there's been some great advice. I think having, having empathy and, you know, leading on a two way road has been some great advice. So, you know, I guess for those who are listening who either don't know if they wanna be a leader yet or those who do know that they wanna keep climbing the ranks, what's some advice you gave advice for your younger self, but what would be some advice just in general that you would give to people who are out there looking to climb the ranks?

Speaker 0: Yeah. I would say raise your hand, when opportunities arise for anything. Volunteer to help set up your next team on-site. There's an extra project that would, you know, clean up some old data, you know, not to not to take on, so much work that you burn out or that you're sacrificing other parts of your life. But within, your ability to do so, you know, say yes to to things.

Those, those opportunities that you get, are not just about the task that you might do. They are about your they provide you this chance to work with other people that you might not have already, to be seen by other people you might not have already. And one of the things that really, some of my close friends had to drill into me, at some point in my career was promote yourself of of, like, don't be so humble and self aware that you don't ever say something nice about the things you're proud of, or that you, hesitate to, say, yes. I can take care of that. And I think even beyond that, you know, my wife, will frequently point out, what she used phrases, my white boy confidence, which is just like, oh, sure.

Why not? I could do it. Like, you might have seen the thing recently where, it was, like, 11% of all men surveyed believed that they could totally land a passenger airplane if they had to. You know?

Speaker 2: They could.

Speaker 0: They probably could. Right. Or, like, yeah. I could score a point against Serena Williams. So there's that there's overconfidence, and then I think there's a healthy amount of just a little bit more confidence than you actually maybe know you can back up.

And so that, for me, has been helpful of I I used the example planning on-site. That's something I'm involved in right now. And am I do I have a track record of doing that before or having to do that? Like, little aspects maybe, not not to the size of of the one that I'm helping with right now. But I raised my hand and said yes, because this is gonna give me a chance to collaborate with some other people on bringing this thing together.

It is fun to do some of this work to ensure that on those days, it is a valuable, engaging, worthwhile, fun experience for everybody. And even selfishly as part of my career, now there are more people, assuming I do a good job with this, who have seen me do a good job at this and have, gotten to see that I care and and putting some energy and bringing some ideas towards this thing. And whenever you have a chance to do that, that is, that's part of it. Being offered a leadership position, which is really what a lot of, you know, a lot of our our fortunes in life are dependent on what we do, and a lot of them are depending are dependent on what other people decide to do. And especially when we're talking about careers and jobs, almost always, it is someone else who is going to make a decision to hire you, to promote you, and they have to base that on something.

And when you have been seen to be an empathetic, you know, knowledgeable, skilled person in all these various ways that go beyond just the code that you're writing, the systems that you can understand and talk about. All of those feed into the possibility of you getting to whatever level it is that you want to advance to.

Speaker 2: Yeah. That's that's great advice. So speaking about promoting yourself, where else, you know, can the listeners go find you after this? You know, they've seen this video. They've heard this conversation.

Where else can they find your you know, follow your journey and, and learn more about you? This is a great time to mention that the

Speaker 0: that this is something I don't do a good job at yet. But so I have a I have a website, which as many of us, gets updated whenever I'm looking for a new job. And I've had a few updates since then. But, otherwise, I am not widely active online right now. Most of my time right now is spent, on my job, spending time with my wife and my dogs.

I'm remodeling my office. So it's in sort of a lull of of personal promotion and and visibility. But there there are a few things. I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me at Simmer there.

And so if you're interested in reaching out or talking more, you can send me a message there. Otherwise, my website, Simmer dot 0 0. When I first came across that domain extension, it was like, sweet. My portfolio site, with that, people are gonna have to say, oh.

Speaker 1: Of course,

Speaker 0: OO probably means out of office, which is also you know? Yeah. Yeah. So

Speaker 2: That's where you can find your nature photography.

Speaker 1: You're out of options.

Speaker 0: O o o. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So I've got some of my past work there. And when I get to writing, which has been a goal of mine for a while, then it'll start popping up there. Amazing.

Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, yeah, I I think, as I as I say with most of our guests, I definitely learned a lot. I think it's always it's always cool to hear the common threads that everybody has, but also each individual story. Everyone has their own individual story. So it's it's definitely it was really cool to hear your journey.

What I would say is for everyone listening, start go and follow him so that he has to start writing some more, because there were some great there were some great advice. Absolutely. And, I I you know, I I always listen to these podcasts back, but I might actually listen back and take some actual notes because it was it was a good podcast. But we greatly appreciate your time. Start your writing up again so when people follow you, they can actually follow current events.

Update your out of office website, and thank you so much for your time. Any any parting words that you wanna say? Any last pieces of advice?

Speaker 0: I I really appreciate you 2 having me on here, and I think just say yes to things when you when you have the ability is is my advice. That's that's why I'm literally here talking to you as well right now. So yeah. Yeah. Say yes.

Have empathy.