Scott Adrian, Sr. Wordpress Developer

Speaker 0: Always thought, you know, I'm gonna I'll I'll just be a rock star, you know, no biggie. You know, I'll just go through the school thing and then be be famous for that.

Speaker 1: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Trace Talks. Today, we have Scott Adrian. I'm Pedro. We also have John here as well, who you may recognize from past episodes because we run this podcast.

Don't we, John?

Speaker 2: Yep.

Speaker 1: Any anyway, yeah. Scott, you know, I'd love to hear a little bit more about your background. I know you are a WordPress engineer, have been for some time transitioned from different, you know, backgrounds. Like, many of the folks we talked to maybe started off in a different industry, and ended up in, you know, in tech and in in web tech. So Mhmm.

I'd love to hear about your career, what got you to this point, and, you know, what brought you from professional piercer to musician to, you know, maybe a career in technology?

Speaker 0: Right. Money. Yeah. That's Yeah. That's what.

Yeah.

Speaker 1: He's a good driver.

Speaker 2: Wait. There's money in tech?

Speaker 0: Yeah. Exactly. That was the only one that made it. Yeah. Yeah.

Because, you know, when I, yeah, when I started out, I was like, oh, okay. So I'm gonna be famous. That wasn't a question. It's like, what am I gonna be famous for? My dad was a long time rock star and lead guitarist and stuff in bands.

So, I always thought, you know, I'm gonna, I'll, I'll just be a rock star, You know, no biggie. You know, I'll just go through the school thing and and then be be famous for that. And then yeah. Music was hard and I got into piercing, because I wanna make money at a young age. And, you know, back in 2,000, 2,000 ish, you know, 2,002, 3, Piercings were hot.

Right? Everybody everybody was trying to it was getting more popular tattoos, piercings, and and, it really helped that everybody underage had somebody else that was underage that could pierce them. So, yeah, I I, that's how I that was my first business. And then when I turned 18, I actually started working in shops because I'm like, okay, well, doing so well, you know, out, you know, an underground, go to a shop and there'll be gangbusters. But yeah.

Yeah. You you learn early on when you start working in shops. I was in Hollywood for a couple years. It's called the Walk of Fame tattoo. And on top of being horrifying and tear terribly scary, you know, working long nights in downtown Hollywood, There's no money in piercing specifically.

I can't talk about tattooing. They seem to be doing well, and I I have long time friends that are still, you know, very successful tattoo artists. But, yeah, Pierce Piercing's such a novelty. And people that come to shops, you know, walk ins are are like, here, I wanna nose. I want my ear.

And, you know, you're getting $20 on a Saturday.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 0: And, yeah. Didn't didn't work out for me. Yeah.

Speaker 1: So what so then what prompted that transition into, like you know, obviously, there was there's a bit more money to be made, you said, in in the web stuff, but what was sort of that initial catalyst to get you thinking about programming?

Speaker 0: Yeah. So I I I'm

Speaker 2: also really curious because I also you know, I I I wanted to be a professional golfer. I was like, oh, that's that's me. You need to be a professional golfer. And then there you know, I'd

Speaker 1: You need to be good at golf for that, John.

Speaker 2: Well, I I forgot about that part. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah. But

Speaker 2: but when I made that transition when I made that transition into web design or websites, I just had a friend who said, hey. I'll pay you $50 to build a website. So I'm just curious because that was what it was for me that kind of got me into web design and technology. So I'm kinda curious to hear your story about how you've gotten to tech, but also what was your first paying job for that?

Speaker 0: Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Because, you know, I've been doing web development for, you know, closer to 20 years, on my own. Because originally, when I was in bands, we needed a website, we needed a Myspace, custom Myspace layout.

And so that's what that was my first instances of HTML, CSS. Just I

Speaker 1: think I think for all 3 of us, that was probably probably a similar story. Exactly.

Speaker 0: So I knew I could do it. And, and, you know, it it was, you know, it's a skill I was gaining just for fun and just for my own stuff. Same with graphic design. I was making all the albums and shirt designs and all that kind of stuff. But, yeah, the the catalyst, was really I got a job for 1 stop Internet.

This was in 2,000, Yeah. Because I left I left in 2006 or 7. Yeah. So I was there for a while. I, I started working in the warehouse at 1 Stop Internet and they're, they're an outsourced e commerce company, basically large companies would be like, Hey, we need you to be our e commerce.

So they, they build the website. They house, they had warehouses, they'd store all the product and they'd handle all the distribution themselves and all their shipping and all that stuff. So website and fulfillment all in one. So we had giant names. I mean, we had Von Dutch, giant name.

We had we had, you know, Betsy Johnson, you know, Vestal Watches, Lululemon, True Religion, giant giant, brands, that that were housing other stuff, and we were doing the websites. And I was picking items for the warehouse at first. They promised me a job in the photo studio. So after after a little while and that finally happened, I started doing high volume photo retouching. And that's when I got on a computer, and I finally was getting paid to do work on a computer.

It was photo, Photoshop and 1,000 images a day, you know, but, I ended up, you know, moving up and kind of running the post production. I was post production coordinator for years. And then, and I started doing little web work for them because clients would need like a slideshow to see the images that they were, that we were taking for them and they wanted to view them. So I'd make these little flash websites and and these little Dreamweaver based websites, with sliders and all that kind of stuff. And, it it kinda sucked because one stop Internet built websites.

Mhmm. Like, for these clients, giant giant ecommerce websites. And I never had a chance to work for that department ever, which is crazy. I I tried. I I tried to apply it.

It's just like, hey, any openings and, you know, and they just had these very talented programmers working there, you know? So, so I left I left for, an e commerce company who took a chance on me to like run their website. And, it was on asp.net storefront, asp.net storefront, which was not a great first, website to be running and work on. But luckily, they needed a blog, and, we went for WordPress. And that's where I first kinda got introduced into WordPress.

And, so at that point, Piercing was side job, and, you know, I only did on the weekends or whenever the shop needed me. And, all all my income was coming from, you know, website work. And, yeah. And that's when I first started working in WordPress just with custom themes and plugins like everybody else does. And, and, eventually we needed some extra stuff and I would jump into the code and, Yeah.

From there, I I, you know, to to gain more knowledge, I was doing a lot of side jobs, a lot of freelance work. I had a lot of time at this gig.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 0: I played a lot of video games and watched a lot of series of animes, so much, that, yeah, I ended up being able to do a bunch of side work while I was working there. And, it was yeah. Just Craigslist. That was the Alpha main got out 50% of my income was Craigslist jobs, building websites.

Speaker 2: What was the initial driver to WordPress? Was it the ease of use? I honestly never got into WordPress myself. I was a Dreamweaver designer, which

Speaker 0: Yeah. It was. The ease of use. It was really easy to pick up. And at that time, I was scrappy, so I was just pulling in third party themes and plugins, hard coding CSS to just make them look how they wanted.

You know, I'd get something very close, 3rd party, and I just manipulate it. And, yeah, it was easy money, really. That that was how it got to that point. And Yeah. Do you do

Speaker 1: you think, like, specializing on WordPress allowed you to do that? Because typically in, like, the industry, we see there's, you know, sort of a debate on having a broad set of you know, being a full stack engineering, having a broad set of of tools at your disposal to really focusing in on a niche and being an expert in maybe WordPress or some specific Right. Language, for example. How has that kind of shaped your career trajectory thinking, you know, that you started in WordPress and and continue to focus on on that as a niche?

Speaker 0: Yeah. You know, it wasn't a conscious decision. I think like everybody else, I got pigeonholed. My resume started one way and it just kept growing that way. And then at a certain point, it was, you know, I was the WordPress guy.

So, you know, I started working for Beachbody's and, and working in their in their coaching department. We're developing a whole coaching platform in WordPress. And I was working some with some really, Austin Passi, big WordPress name. He ran the LA WordCamp a few years, and, they brought him in. And I I absorbed as much as I could because at that point, I was, like, the least experienced.

I I I could do whatever you wanted, but I would do it wrong because I was just using old old people's code and, you know, just piecemealing things together. But he he showed me like, oh, I can just build a theme. Oh, I can build a plugin, you know, to make this happen. And, and there was other guys on the team too that were really advanced. And, yeah.

So that's what I did. I faked it till I made it, and, and then I And

Speaker 1: you made it.

Speaker 0: And I made it. Yeah. So I had that on my resume, moved on to more jobs, you know, investors.com, like, one of at the time, one of the highest trafficked WordPress sites in the world. I jumped on as a lead, and I was leading, you know, 4 or 5 devs, all WordPress based. And, we were just developing custom themes and plugins for them.

And, you know, I started working with they I forget the scenario, but they brought XWP in, which is a big name in the WordPress world as well. They they're the ones that did, like, a collaboration with Google to get, like, the Google AMP plugin and, and, other things. And, Thierry and some of the other guys, I would literally have them in my, in my office with me. And these guys were like core contributors to the max, to WordPress. And, again, I just absorbed so much.

I'm talking, I learned unit testing there. I learned sanitization and escaping. All the you know, I already know how to program, but I learned coding standards from from that company, while pretending I already knew them, you know, which was a big theme.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 0: And, Yeah. And and so, that's that got me to the expert level, really.

Speaker 2: Mhmm.

Speaker 0: And I knew at that point, you know, any job I take going forward, I'm asking double and I'm, you know, and Yeah. And they're gonna, you know, they're gonna pay it.

Speaker 2: Yeah. What was that transition like into leadership leading a team of 4 or 5 devs when, you know, 10, 15 years prior, you're like, I'm a be a professional tattoo artist, You know? And now you're leading people as sort of, like, a boss almost. What was that like, that first leadership role?

Speaker 0: Yeah. I don't I guess it was weird. You know, when you're in a place of authority, it's all about appearance. As long as they're they think you're the authority and they think that you know what you're talking about and you and you're not completely horrible at your job and and you're not completely talking out of your ass. I was very good at, figuring things out on the fly while I was talking.

So still am.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 0: So, yeah, I guess it wasn't that bad. You know, they weren't I mentored a couple people who are really junior in the WordPress world. So, you know, you learn the most when you're teaching, and that really helped, helped me develop them into the dev that I needed them to be for for what I was doing and what I needed them to do. So, yeah, it wasn't that bad. I was I wasn't too nervous about leading the team, but it was surreal.

You know? Because I never really thought about the trajectory. I just thought I'm gonna make money being the doer, the code monkey. You know what I mean? And, but, yeah, I mean, I got old.

Yeah. You know? I got experience.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well well, as you've gotten older, you've maintained these side projects. You just released a book 6 months ago, so congrats on the book. And then I saw that you also you also released, like, an RPG game on the side or something. So as you've Sorry.

As you progress Yeah.

Speaker 0: You're you're correct. Yeah. So, last in 2023, I first published my my first sci fi fantasy cover, you know, novel, called Orbum. And, another another great learning experience, knew nothing about the book industry, made a lot of assumptions, and, I just recently rereleased it because I did it wrong.

Speaker 1: Amazing.

Speaker 0: In January 28th, I rereleased all of them properly.

Speaker 1: Got

Speaker 0: it. And, and actually book 2 is on preorder now, Myroupelia, which should be out July 1st. It's gonna be a 4 book series. Never thought I was gonna be an author. I read a lot of sci fi books at one point.

I was going through, like, 20 or so series. And I basically I have a really bad habit of if I'm spending a lot of time doing something that, that I'm not making money on, I feel, you know, that I'm not being productive. It's that really bad ambition kinda bug.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, it's it's definitely a really good timing this year. I think I think 2024 is a great year for sci fi having, you know, just seen Dune. And and all the stuff that's coming later this year. I think it's it's definitely a great year to be, you know, releasing that that type of material.

Speaker 0: Yeah.

Speaker 2: I

Speaker 1: wonder if that came from, you know, all the the free time that you mentioned that you had that you were watching all these anime and playing video games. Like, maybe that sort of inspired the the book as well.

Speaker 0: Yeah. I mean, it the story structure's definitely inspired by tons of the anime I I was watching. You know, play I played a lot of video games when I was younger. I do not have time to do that, you know, in the last 10 years. But, yeah, the, I, I, I think I had a, I had a big, you know, childhood of media.

You know, we always had a TV. We always had movies. We always had video games. And, so, yeah, everything's ingrained in my brain, and it's all just straight imagination. I don't, you know, the research I do for the books is are for the technical scientific terms because it's technically a hard sci fi book, because I do a lot of explaining of things that don't exist.

So, but, yeah, more more more or less, I don't plot the entire thing out. I kinda know where it's gonna go in my head to the very end. But, yeah, the main the main, driving force is I wanna know what happened next. You know? I wanna know what they're gonna say and to make people laugh because I I my natural timbre is snark.

You know? Yeah.

Speaker 2: Same. Same. Yeah. Do you think

Speaker 1: that that draws, like, the sort of the the authorship and the tech world sort of draw a parallel in that sense of, you know, you're sort of creating something out of nothing, especially when designing, you know, WordPress sort of extensions or plugins or coding things from, from scratch?

Speaker 0: Yeah. I mean, if, if you ever get a chance to read it, and being in the industry you're in and knowing where I came from, you're going to get a lot, a lot of the same, you're going to get a lot of the corporate world in there. A lot of the same terms, programming terms, and stuff like that. Things that maybe some people wouldn't, offhand know, like smoke testing and regression testing, you know, talking about his systems and, just little things like that, which, spill into the, the novel. Cause you know, these are scientists or they were all working for a corporation and then they all had to run away, you know?

So, it's easy to to to make, correlations there, but, yeah, I mean, it's all creative. I feel like as I get more into leadership, I get less creative outlets. So this is good for me, you know, rather than, you know, leading a team or managing a team. Like, I, you know, I used to be making things all the time, that kind of stuff. And, you know, and when you get to a certain level, it's a lot about maintenance and it's a lot about keeping things afloat, especially in the industry now where budgets are getting cut left and right.

Nobody wants to build a brand new this, you know, except for AI. Everybody wants a brand new AI tool. So

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. What's your, what's your take on that?

Speaker 0: What are we using AI for? Love AI. Right. I'm not against AI. You know, I've been working with OpenAI's API and using it for various things.

I use chat gpt all the damn time. I'm not a prompt engineer, but, man, I hate writing, you know, array building loops sometimes. So I'm just like, write me a function that takes this and moves the, you know, the key to the end and then move this key to the beginning and then merges them all the oh, dude. I just created a an object merging function. I I just don't have the patience to merge a bunch of objects together as long as they have true as their key value or whatever.

You know?

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 0: So With your Love that.

Speaker 2: Do you do you explore other new tech? Because, obviously, AI is very popular, but any other new tech or how much time do you even have to explore new tech or interest?

Speaker 0: Yeah. I don't, kind of both. I don't have interest, and I don't have time. Yeah. I don't know.

You think I I always say the the career is is for the money. Right? And then use the money to do things that make you happy. So I don't put I am very interested in the tech world. I keep up with, the general tech industry and general things.

I mean, I work with people that are like, Oh, look at this new API. Oh, look at this new endpoint. Look at this new, tool, this new whatever framework. And they keep me in the know. Luckily, You know, I'm not sitting there building a sandbox of, of the newest, you know, React threads or whatever.

And I'm just and we're like, look. It's like, oh, okay. Yes. I love that. What are we using it for?

It's I really have to learn by doing something that is being productive and and for a reason. And that's how I've learned my entire career. I think it's, you know, I think it's very valuable too when I find other programmers. You know, if I'm if I wanna hire somebody, that they have the skill set to just pick something up and learn it when they're doing it, and then applying it accordingly. And that goes to the whole philosophy of, you know, college degree versus the same amount of time as experience in work.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 0: You know, I don't I didn't go to college for doing any of this. I didn't I I did a weird trade school just to have a certificate on my LinkedIn, And, and it's never slowed me down or stopped me.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 0: So I don't care about that. If I'm gonna look at somebody's resume, you know, it it's I'd way rather you have 4 years working for, butt effing startup, whatever

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 0: Company, you know, where they were making you wear multiple hats and you, you know, and you still have a positive referral. So Yeah.

Speaker 1: You know? And outlook on life.

Speaker 0: And you're still happy and you wanna keep going. Yeah. Exactly.

Speaker 1: Right. Exactly.

Speaker 0: Dude. Yeah.

Speaker 2: That's probably the opposite of Pedro. I I probably get 4 or 5 text messages or tweets a day from Pedro telling me to check out new tech. And, like, I can't pay I can't pay attention to all of this.

Speaker 1: I'm the, yeah, I'm the tools fanatic. It's just like, what can make me more efficient so that I can go sit on a beach somewhere?

Speaker 0: I yeah. I I have a buddy, Scott Weaver. Same same exact way. I hate looking at his setup. Somebody give it give me that give me that that bash.

What do you what do you he builds his own bashes for his own computer just to make setting it up quick. I'm like, give me that. He's given me it. He's given it before. Like, when you do a computer transfer from 1 to 2, I was like, oh, it's such a drag.

He built an entire bash function that takes all the apps he likes and takes all the setups he does and it installs it all and just runs it. Wow. And I'm just like, you know, he has a repo for it, and I just take it.

Speaker 1: Incredible.

Speaker 0: Yeah. But that's I know I know my my work style. I know my personality traits. I know my time, my multitasking and time structures, and, you know, it's just not me. I can appreciate people that do live that way.

You know?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you are you still able to find any time to to I think you mentioned you don't really watch too much anime or play too many games. You know? What kind of a personal life do you have? I I think I I think I hear kids, so there's also potentially some kids who take up time.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Apologize for that if it's loud. Let me know because I got the headphones in. But, yeah, wife and 2 kids, 4 dogs. I have plenty of other things I need to do during the day.

Yeah. Plenty of time to spend with there and happiness that they bring. And, you know, my youngest, has autism and, she's the one that's usually around when she's not in in school. Yeah. And, so, you know,

Speaker 2: I'm I'm kind of the the main tear

Speaker 0: caretaker for her as well. I I handle all her therapy sessions and all the paperwork and all that kind of stuff. So that's that's also an extra time spent that I need to focus on as well. You know, I have documenting her progress and stuff too. Just teaching her to brush her teeth right now.

She's 8. I'm teaching her to brush her teeth right now, and I have to, like, document it, you know, how how her progress going and stuff like that. So, you know, I do watch anime, though, still. I just caught up with 1 piece because I did watch all the way to the, Wano saga and then I ran out of episodes and this was 2014 or something, 2015. Holy crap.

Getting back to it. So I finished the Wano, recently, because because I'll tell you why too. It's because my other kid, my my oldest, she's 10. She plays Roblox and I kept seeing these freaking luffy 5th gear avatars. And I'm like, what is that?

And I hate spoilers and I hate not knowing. Oh, no. Especially if it's a series that I watched a 1,000 episodes already. I'm like, I should know what's going on. Yeah.

Right. It took a really long time to get to 5th gear, man. Really Yeah. Fucking long. So, yeah, did that.

So, yeah, I still like to keep it up every now and then. I I mean, I watch a streamer, Pirate Software, on Twitch that I really like, Yeah. Just in the background. And, and he's inspired me to actually start developing my game more and I'm streaming it now on Twitch. Oh, amazing.

Yeah. Twitch, it's just slash orb and mortar. I try to do it, every day, 10:10 to 12 or something like that where it's showing the development of my WordPress based RPG game that I'm developing. Incredible.

Speaker 1: And that will be based on the same, content as the as the novels?

Speaker 0: Yeah. It's in the urban world. I'm start I'm using it, as a story structure for it. It'll have a lot of extra stuff, and I'm gonna have to tweak some things so he has more weapons and he can maybe use magic a little earlier than in the book. Spoiler alert.

Yeah. But, that's, yeah. So I already have an entire universe to build from, so now it's all about the mechanics. And it's all Yeah. All the content management, all the assets are WordPress based.

So it's, and vanilla JavaScript and SASS styling.

Speaker 1: That's amazing. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone building a a an entire game off of WordPress, but that we'll have to check that out. That's very interesting.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Feel it's it's it's been an interesting ride, and, I'm not using Canvas. So if anybody's listening and they're like, oh, he's using Canvas, probably.

I'm not. It's straight vanilla JavaScript and styling. Yeah. Nice. Very fun.

Speaker 2: Well, yeah. Take I mean, taking a look back again at want from wanting to be a rock star and piercing all the way up to leading teams, you know, I guess, what have what's you know, do you do you miss the days of being purely just an individual contributor, you know, or or do you have you enjoyed the journey all the way to where you are now?

Speaker 0: You know, I'm still an individual contributor in in a sense for what I'm doing. You know, when I worked for Disney for a couple years, I I was full on individual contributor until their their horrible timing structure of canceling contractors happened. And then, you know, Warner Brothers, same thing, individual contributor, and, those were all in the midst of different, you know, job structures and stuff like that, same for Universal. So it's like, I don't care at this point if I'm the builder or the one telling people to build. In the future, I assume that I'll just be managing giant teams and, you know, whatever, move up to a CTO role, the natural progression.

And I don't mind, you know, doing the whole recruiting, hiring, firing, meeting setup, collabs, all that kind of stuff, agile. You know? I know everybody hates it and whatever. I mean, I I'm not I'm not seeking it out to be a scrum master, but I can handle it. Yeah.

Better than others.

Speaker 2: At some point, you'll become a CTO, and you'll be on stage talking to others. So you'll be on a stage, just not as a rock star. Well, you'll be a rock star maybe with somebody.

Speaker 0: And I still release music too. So, that's that it could happen. I could still be a rock star someday. If somebody Yeah. Somebody takes it up, and it's also some of the music is, Orban based.

So Yeah. Definitely Oh, awesome. Finding a lot a lot of ways to incorporate this universe for sure.

Speaker 1: That's amazing. Yeah. Maybe maybe, you know, to kinda wrap this conversation of every everything we've learned about you, maybe you could tell everyone where to where to follow along with you on LinkedIn or if you have any other social media. Obviously, where to check out the the book and follow your progress on Twitch would be would be awesome.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Awesome. You if you wanna see anything Orban based or everything Orban based, it's literally Orban order, one word. I'm at that or slash that on all the social medias. Except for Facebook, I had to do the Orbum order because they flagged Orbom order for, like, a weird advertising bug, and it, like, closed I could not make ads on Facebook anymore.

They thought I was doing something nefarious, so I completely closed that out. And it's it's the Orgim order on Facebook. But, yeah, I got a threads, Instagram, Twitter, x. I've, Twitch, and Discord even. The Discord is open for everything.

And, yeah, like I said, oh, and the YouTube too. So the YouTube's where you can see my music, it's being distributed through CD Baby. So I mean, it's everywhere. You just look up, The Orban Order is the band name.

Speaker 2: Nice.

Speaker 0: Amazing. And, yeah, you can find I I have, like, 3 singles out, that are that are fun. Just power metal stuff, and and, it's yeah. And, that's

Speaker 2: it. Now you've had to go through a whole branding process, so you're also a brander.

Speaker 0: Dude, marketing. Yeah. I didn't know how hard, book marketing was. I mean, at the end of the day, I'm luckily in a tech sector where I work for a lot of marketing teams. So it completely coincides.

I mean, running ad campaigns on AMS, you know, Amazon, media services and running ad campaigns on Facebook ads and and, just handling I mean, I did all the typesetting for my book too in InDesign. I just Nice. I had to learn that. Because I'm I I know all the creative suite, you know, I do all my own video editing too. And, you know, just just from the years of doing stuff, and, the, you know, and I do on my own music editing on Garage Band.

And it's, like once you once you can work one program, everybody copies everyone. Right? So it's it's you know, you could pick if you wanna do it, you could do it. Not the best at any of it, but Yeah. I can release it.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, awesome. It it's so cool to hear, you know, we've we've talked to a lot of others who have this creative spark in them. So it's it's been great to hear everything in in your journey, and it's I'll definitely follow along and grab a copy of that book because I like sci fi books. I don't I don't like biographies or things like that.

So we'll put your links and all the information so people can follow along, but we definitely appreciate the conversation today.

Speaker 0: Awesome. Thanks so much. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Scott. And

Speaker 0: there's an audio book too if you guys don't wanna read.

Speaker 2: I like to read. I like to read.