0:02

Just a thought about entrepreneurship

0:04

and about this component of

0:07

luck versus risk. I

0:09

would say try to get as lucky as

0:11

possible. Evgeny Prudin is

0:13

the CEO of APM Hub, a

0:16

software development company based in Barcelona.

0:19

These are words he said to me in passing, but

0:21

they stuck with me. Because

0:23

I always thought luck and risk were

0:25

things one shouldn't depend on. At

0:28

least not too much. But

0:30

obviously Evgeny feels differently. As

0:33

long as you can permit yourself to

0:35

bet on something, bet on it. Because

0:38

life is more interesting this way. I

0:41

think I know how a big bet

0:43

can pay off. The world

0:45

is full of stories of people taking

0:47

chances. But how safe

0:49

are those bets? Can they

0:52

be safe or safer? And

0:54

how do you know when to make one and when to

0:56

stay the course? This

1:03

is Compiler, an original podcast

1:05

from Red Hat. I'm Angela

1:07

Andrews. And I'm Kim Wong.

1:10

We go beyond the buzzwords and

1:12

jargon and simplify tech topics. We're

1:15

sharing stories from industry veterans about how

1:17

they found their footing in the tech

1:19

industry. And today, we're

1:21

sharing two stories about placing big

1:24

bets and taking chances. My

1:30

name is Linda Ikichukun. I'm

1:32

currently a developer advocate at

1:34

Small Step Labs and I'm

1:36

based in Lagos, Nigeria. Linda

1:41

attended university in Nigeria. And

1:43

soon after, she landed her first tech

1:46

job with a large company working as

1:48

a cloud developer. A

1:50

talent pipeline with my department

1:52

and every year they would

1:54

usually pick two or three

1:56

students to come work with

1:58

them this way. usually like the

2:00

best students in the department. We'd

2:03

have this that

2:06

interested students were supposed to write and

2:08

those who came out on top were

2:10

recruited to come work with them. That

2:13

was how that happened. At first,

2:15

the work was stimulating, but

2:18

Linda noticed the skills she was picking

2:20

up were only relevant to

2:22

the ecosystem she was working in. And

2:25

for me, I had wanted to optimize

2:27

for the biggest

2:29

paycheck possible while also

2:31

doing valuable work and

2:34

getting better at my craft. Angela,

2:38

does this happen often? Do

2:41

people, when they first enter

2:43

the tech industry, do they end up

2:45

kind of working in a very homogenous

2:47

environment? I've seen it. Usually

2:50

in the beginning, folks aren't sure.

2:53

And they take the opportunity that

2:55

is presented to them that feels good

2:58

at the time. But when you start

3:00

doing the job, you may begin to

3:02

realize that this isn't where I belong.

3:04

This isn't the role that makes my

3:06

heart sing. I need to

3:08

be doing something different. And that can be

3:11

for a myriad of reasons. So

3:13

sometimes you have to realize and

3:15

say, okay, thank you for the

3:17

opportunity, but it's time

3:20

for me to move on and

3:22

do something else. And as the

3:24

title says, sometimes betting on yourself

3:26

is usually the safest and

3:29

the best way to go. You can't

3:31

hang your hat on promises

3:33

or titles or

3:36

the name of a company. If

3:38

it's not for you, it's not for you.

3:41

You have to bet on yourself. I

3:45

understand what you're saying. And maybe

3:47

it's just me doing an episode

3:49

on Big Bets because I am

3:51

the most risk averse

3:53

person in the world.

3:56

I don't gamble. You will never see

3:58

me at a poker table. Let's just say that. I

4:01

am not the kind of person to

4:03

take a big bet. And beyond that,

4:05

I feel, you know, when we're talking

4:07

about the work that we do and

4:10

trying to find purpose, and it seems

4:12

like all very, you know, altruistic, it

4:14

doesn't seem like the place

4:16

and time to be talking about luck

4:18

or you'd be talking about risk and

4:20

taking bets. It just doesn't

4:23

match to me. The culture just doesn't, to

4:25

me, there's no overlap there. Really?

4:27

Yeah. Because I

4:29

think every time you take

4:32

on a role, you're betting

4:35

on something. You're betting on the promises

4:38

of this role. You're betting

4:40

on this is something that's going to

4:42

help your career, help line your paycheck.

4:44

You're betting on something. You're

4:46

betting that you can be great at it. You're

4:49

betting on a lot of things. And every time

4:51

we take the risk, it doesn't seem like a

4:53

risk. It seems like, oh, this is what we

4:55

do. But some of

4:57

us stay very comfortable in roles

4:59

and positions on teams and in

5:01

companies. And we don't muddy

5:03

the water. We don't, you know, rock the boat.

5:05

We stay put because this is safe

5:07

for us. We could hate it.

5:10

It could make us not want to get up

5:12

and go to work in the morning, but because it's

5:15

safe, because it feels secure, we'll

5:17

continue to do the things that

5:19

don't serve us for the

5:21

sake of being comfortable, for the sake of

5:23

being safe, for the sake of not being

5:26

comfortable. Being risky. Right. This

5:28

is a sure thing. It's the W no versus the W don't. And

5:32

beyond that, I feel like that there's a

5:34

dimension of especially with Linda and her story,

5:36

which is super interesting. She

5:38

immediately started working for this

5:41

really, really large, really well

5:43

known company in space. And

5:46

that seems to me, that seems so lucky. It's

5:49

a pinnacle for all folks. Yeah, it sounds

5:52

like Lady Luck is like on her side

5:54

in this. For sure. And to kind

5:56

of get into our environment and say,

5:58

Oh, this is not. for me or

6:01

this is not quite the right fit. It

6:03

just seems antithetical to the

6:05

whole luck thing. It's kind of like

6:07

you're rejecting certain types of luck and

6:10

then you're taking a bet on something

6:12

else. And that's where

6:14

the confusion for me comes in. Where to go

6:16

and how to kind of

6:18

calculate the risk and calculate luck

6:20

and understand it and quantify it.

6:24

I like the word you use, calculate.

6:28

We don't go into any new

6:30

situation without weighing the pros

6:33

and cons. Many of

6:35

us don't sit down and write a matrix or

6:37

a rubric on how we decide to do things.

6:39

But we do take a

6:41

lot of things into account. How

6:44

we're feeling, where we wanna be, our

6:47

teammates, the work we're doing.

6:49

Like there's a lot of things

6:51

in this matrix, air quote, that

6:53

we tend to wanna calculate to

6:55

decide is this the risk

6:57

I'm willing to take or am I willing

7:00

to bet a couple dollars somewhere else? Am

7:02

I willing to, you know, slap down and

7:04

say, throw it on the table and say,

7:06

let me try something else. I'm feeling good

7:08

about this, let me try. It

7:11

is such an individual pursuit

7:14

to understand that each

7:16

of us is different. And what might be

7:18

right for Linda may be

7:21

terrible for Angela or what might

7:23

be great for Kim, maybe,

7:25

ah, it might be something

7:27

Yohan may or may not be interested in. You know what

7:30

I mean? More than me. Definitely

7:32

more than me. It's such

7:35

a personal thing. So you're

7:37

fine, you're okay for being risk

7:39

averse. But you take

7:41

chances constantly. And

7:44

you don't consider them chances, but

7:47

we do as humans. We do the

7:50

checks and balances so much in our

7:52

lives. We don't even think about the

7:54

risks we're taking and the bets we're

7:56

taking. We just kind of do it,

7:59

you know, natively. But because

8:01

we're talking about it in terms of

8:03

our careers, which is can

8:05

be make or break for a lot of

8:07

us, that seems like a much bigger

8:10

risk. And

8:13

for Linda, like her employer, again,

8:15

very well known company, leaving the

8:17

security of that job, it

8:19

was Linda taking a chance that would have

8:22

made a lot of other people like me

8:24

hesitate. Yeah, but with her days, you know,

8:26

she told me her days are becoming more

8:28

monotonous and the work that she was doing

8:31

just wasn't exciting her anymore. And she was

8:33

feeling very isolated, which I can

8:35

understand that as well. And

8:38

with all of that in mind, she was willing to

8:40

walk out on a limb. When

8:42

I was planning to make a

8:44

change, I thought of expanding.

8:47

I already knew cloud

8:49

deployment and cloud development.

8:51

But then my friends then were

8:54

coding and they had gotten jobs

8:56

at like as front

8:58

end developers, back end developers,

9:00

software engineers. And

9:03

that association and being around

9:05

them just made me pick up

9:07

interest again in coding. And I started

9:09

doing projects on my own and it

9:11

was fun. I decided that, you know

9:14

what, I'm going to switch from cloud

9:16

to software engineering. Linda

9:18

gave herself six months

9:21

to essentially learn software

9:24

engineering from scratch, which

9:26

I think is I think that's impressive. Okay,

9:29

Linda. Yeah.

9:34

I would come back home and I would

9:36

do like two hours of studying and

9:38

have my friends walk me through things that

9:41

I probably didn't understand and built

9:43

out a couple of projects and

9:46

built a portfolio for my project.

9:48

That's awesome. Yeah, that's

9:50

great. She went forward. Yeah, she really

9:52

did. Does it sound kind of like

9:55

a familiar story? Do you feel like

9:57

other people, like this is how they

9:59

do it? This is how they make that change.

10:01

This is how it's done. I

10:03

was a part of a community of

10:06

career changers for a couple of

10:08

times in my life as a

10:10

student and as an instructor. And

10:13

for people to take the time to focus

10:16

on something wholeheartedly like

10:18

Linda did, buckle down,

10:20

do the work, build

10:23

up the portfolio, the actual

10:25

portfolio or the portfolio of knowledge

10:27

that we tend to amass when

10:29

we're learning something new and then

10:31

take that out and try to

10:33

find that next great role. I

10:36

love these stories because I've seen

10:38

it with my classmates, I've seen

10:41

it with my students and it

10:43

is something to behold when your

10:46

friend is a bartender

10:48

and then he becomes a

10:50

software developer or your other

10:53

friend does a little bit

10:55

of this and that on the side

10:57

and she becomes a Q&A engineer and

10:59

you have another person who was coming

11:01

into retirement and decided he wanted to

11:04

do something different so he decided to

11:06

become a cyber security expert. So I

11:09

love these stories of

11:11

purpose, of pivot, of

11:15

self-assessment and

11:17

taking chances on yourself. This is what

11:19

so many people are doing. I

11:21

love these stories. Yeah.

11:24

And Linda, for her part, she's thankful

11:27

for her very first tech job. You

11:29

would think that making this change,

11:31

she's just kind of like, all right, this is

11:33

the new me. But she

11:36

also understands that that first position

11:38

she had was invaluable because it gave her

11:41

a lot of perspective on what she wanted

11:43

to do and what she didn't want to

11:45

do. And that's really, I think

11:47

that's really powerful to have that kind

11:49

of self-awareness. She understood how

11:52

important that first kind of foot

11:54

in the door is even

11:56

if she moved on to other things. It

11:59

was a great question. great first opportunity

12:01

into tech. You

12:03

know, your first job into tech

12:05

is like for this big enterprise

12:08

organization. It was nice, but

12:10

for the kind of career I wanted for

12:12

myself, I was optimizing for growth. I knew

12:14

that wasn't the path for me to take

12:17

because I was optimizing for rapid growth. We're

12:22

going to come back to Linda

12:24

because her story of taking big

12:27

bets isn't quite over yet. It's

12:29

first after the break. And

12:32

Jenny returns to talk about the big

12:34

bet he and his team made when

12:37

starting a new venture. Stay

12:39

with us. Chip

12:42

Shetterman here with your daily traffic report.

12:44

We're seeing a major jam at the

12:46

intersection of dev and ops due to

12:48

a few new clouds rolling in. And if

12:50

you're on the way to vendor support, the

12:52

bad news, they're rerouting all traffic until further

12:55

notice. But

12:57

there's a reliable alternate path through Red Hat

12:59

where roadblocks never stand in the way of

13:01

where you need to go from the data

13:03

center to the clouds to the edge. Start

13:06

your journey at redhat.com. Flash

13:08

option. It's

13:15

been nine years since as Jenny

13:18

Predain and his co-founders

13:20

started APM Hub. We were

13:22

just a bunch of guys trying to do

13:24

the task trying to program

13:27

actually in a good way. APM

13:29

Hub is focused on optimizing

13:31

software development processes, bringing in

13:33

that really powerful like dev

13:35

ops culture, you know, making

13:37

things more streamlined, with better

13:40

documentation, better development services.

13:42

Like that's kind of what their focus

13:44

is. And this makes sense because of

13:47

Jenny was a developer himself once upon a

13:49

time. And his co-founders

13:51

also have similar backgrounds in IP. Because

13:54

We read a lot, we learned a lot, we

13:56

tried to implement everything that we learned, and we

13:58

saw that there was a barrier. Coming

14:00

from management roles trying to get off

14:02

for as soon as possible and not

14:05

can't all the technical debt and found

14:07

some forfeit. Same old song, right? Yes,

14:09

I've heard that one before. So.

14:13

He told me about a big

14:16

fat that he and his leadership

14:18

team made when they landed one

14:20

of their first large clients. There.

14:23

Is one particular moments where we gather

14:26

it's a couple of declines and we

14:28

thought okay how can we grow fast

14:30

I dance was like second year of

14:32

our like existence. They. Landed

14:34

a big account in Vietnam.

14:37

Remember. As any and his team.

14:40

Are. In Spain. And we

14:42

thought okay now that we have to

14:44

travel to Vietnam oil now like a

14:46

regular basis, we know try to open

14:48

an increase their I remember being like

14:50

six people here in Spain and we

14:52

had fifteen people in Vietnam. The

14:55

team took a risk, they

14:57

made a bad and invested

15:00

money and time into building

15:02

out that team in Vietnam.

15:04

So. What? Happened. It

15:07

was a complete nightmare of managing. Cultural.

15:10

Differences, language barriers, time zones.

15:12

I think that's the this

15:14

meet our growth little bit

15:16

slower. Yeah.

15:19

That's interesting. Yeah, is is

15:21

also a familiar story that

15:23

I hear from a lot

15:25

of different people in the

15:27

storage space and people who

15:29

are trying to manage. You

15:31

know, teams that are international

15:33

teams that are remote hybrid

15:35

on. say yes, you're having

15:37

to balance different schedules and

15:39

different styles of management, language

15:41

barriers and cultural differences and

15:43

I feel like there are

15:45

certain nuances to tech cultures

15:47

internationally and certain hard. In certain

15:50

areas and even in the United States,

15:52

certain areas where maybe there is like

15:54

that preference for a certain type of

15:56

programming language or framework or there's like

15:58

up over like saturate. And of us

16:01

are in skill sets and maybe there's

16:03

a dearth of another skill set that

16:05

is needed or they're different types of

16:07

challenges. Barracks kind of a little bit

16:10

more grounded in like business challenges and

16:12

nodded and like challenges with resources more

16:14

so than just a simple if they

16:16

don't speak the same language. Kasich wrestling?

16:19

yeah, So.

16:21

Let's put this in another perspective what

16:24

is and said he was deciding i

16:26

want to move somewhere one day and

16:28

he closes his eyes and he points

16:31

at a map and he winds up

16:33

in Vietnam. That

16:35

experience of maybe never having

16:38

visited, not knowing the language,

16:40

not knowing how to get

16:42

around, not knowing that. Customs

16:44

and the mores and being in

16:46

Vietnam were just translating this into

16:48

business speak. This is the exact

16:51

same thing he was used to

16:53

doing business a certain way. and

16:55

then he had a team of

16:57

doing business a certain way. It

16:59

sounds like they had. A

17:01

lot of growing pains being

17:03

able to communicate and overcome

17:05

those barriers. And he said

17:07

something about fast growth. Yes, they

17:09

didn't do it iterative. Li to

17:12

go from zero to one hundred?

17:14

That's huge. Yeah on the other

17:16

hand, starting your own venture and

17:18

then having a client be sad

17:20

you from another country. It's gotta

17:22

be really exciting and I and.

17:24

And school or. Maybe this is

17:26

a case where they took a

17:28

chance because of the over excitement more

17:31

like the ear, the over stimulation

17:33

of getting the client. And are we

17:35

all know that getting a customer and

17:37

keeping a customer? two very different stating

17:40

Yes Ma'am Yes. So that's how I

17:42

look for the situation, but I think

17:44

you really nailed it there. And so

17:47

where's There's so many different aspects of

17:49

understanding the local culture and says that

17:51

kind of the environment and the atmosphere.

17:54

It's really hard to take. attempt

17:56

check on the changes that needs

17:58

me to an organization or

18:00

the changes that an organization needs to make

18:02

to its infrastructure when you're thousands of miles

18:04

away. And

18:07

of course, this was a learning

18:09

experience for Evgeny and his young

18:11

startup. You need somebody

18:13

who fully aligns and understands your

18:16

culture, who you can delegate and say,

18:18

okay, so we need to keep growing and the

18:20

pace that we need, we need to open it

18:22

there. Exactly. I think you

18:24

just learned the valuable lesson that

18:26

I think, Angel, you were speaking

18:28

to earlier. Yeah, you had to

18:30

find it out somehow. Yeah. And

18:33

he realized that that is a challenge

18:35

that he's going to have to work

18:37

to overcome. You can't sweep it aside

18:40

because these are humans that we're dealing

18:42

with. And it sounds

18:44

like he had the growing pains we thought

18:46

he would have. And I'm interested in seeing

18:48

what's next. We'll check in with him at

18:50

the end of the episode. We'll put a

18:52

pin in that. We'll put a pin in

18:55

it. We'll put a pin in it for

18:57

now. But

19:00

I do want to note that understanding

19:04

cultures and complex

19:06

concepts and what, you know,

19:08

things are like in a certain

19:10

location can be really powerful, especially when

19:12

you have something as transformative as tech

19:15

in the mix. Just

19:17

ask Linda, who at this part of

19:19

the story is settling into her new

19:21

role as a software engineer. One

19:24

day she was sharing some small

19:27

talk with her manager. We were having

19:29

a conversation about serverless, about the projects

19:31

where he wanted to deploy something the

19:33

serverless way. And that was my first

19:35

time preparing serverless. And

19:37

it was the balls were dense. I

19:40

spent some days or some

19:42

weeks even trying to just get what

19:45

serverless was all about. And when

19:47

I finally did, I published

19:49

an article about it. And it

19:52

was about how I understood

19:54

how serverless works through booking

19:56

an Uber ride. And that

19:58

article did a lot of work. Lot of

20:00

numbers. That. Article got

20:03

a lot of attention and

20:05

not just from Linda Spears.

20:08

I. Had as it goes

20:10

from technical publications. Reaching out

20:12

to me like see I saw this I like

20:15

the way you write. Would you be interested in

20:17

writing a couple. Of pieces for oath on their

20:19

stop a put out of it. Being.

20:22

Able to break down the

20:24

jargon and the buzz words

20:27

into an approachable, easy to

20:29

digest article that is usually

20:31

a godsend that is something

20:33

that everyone who's looking or

20:36

googling are trying to find

20:38

a solution and stumbling upon

20:40

something that's eye opening we'd

20:42

love when that happens. Soul.

20:45

For her article to get all of

20:47

that attention it must his talk to

20:49

a lot of people and the struggle

20:52

that a lot of people were having

20:54

at that time about understanding surplus. You

20:56

know she's doing med good work that's

20:59

good for her, good for her, I

21:04

feel like there's so many

21:06

technical folks out there that

21:08

have a wealth of knowledge

21:10

and that kind of really

21:12

great grass on concepts. and

21:14

and they're able to disseminate

21:16

that and too easily understood

21:19

language and easily understood stories

21:21

and narrative. What they don't

21:23

rate because they're hesitant, their

21:25

air. They don't want to

21:27

go risks to sounds. Maybe

21:29

you know they want to

21:31

sound stupid. Or they don't want to

21:33

embarrass themselves. Are they a don't want to

21:35

open? Themselves up or put themselves out

21:37

there, as they say, And so what

21:39

are your thoughts on that? There is

21:42

a lot of imposter syndrome about. Writing

21:44

Yes. What? you said i've

21:46

said those words out of my mouth

21:49

the so that's why i was laughing

21:51

over your to myself as because it's

21:53

feels when someone says oh you have

21:56

so much to say are you explain

21:58

that very well or you should

22:00

write a blog. And then I immediately look

22:02

at my calendar and say, when am I

22:04

supposed to do said thing? Right? So

22:07

it is just one of those things where

22:09

we feel like it's too

22:11

big for us. Right. We can't do

22:13

this. We leave that to the writers. Like we

22:15

can't do that. But

22:18

I've given the advice to

22:20

people, writing is

22:23

a way to learn something

22:25

very well yourself. Yep.

22:28

If you can explain a topic

22:31

in a very meaningful and

22:33

approachable way, because

22:35

this is something that you've learned,

22:37

someone's going to find value in

22:39

that. So it seems

22:43

huge. It seems insurmountable

22:45

at times, but I think all of

22:47

us should just take a pause and

22:51

maybe, Samia said

22:53

something in one of the last episodes where she

22:55

said, I gave it a couple of weeks, right?

22:57

And I worked on it and I decided that

22:59

if this was something that I was interested in,

23:02

I think we should all take a beat

23:04

and do what she did and say,

23:06

I'm going to give this the time it

23:09

deserves and

23:12

see if this is something that we can do. Even

23:14

if it's just one article, put yourself out

23:17

there and see what you catch.

23:19

Maybe nothing, but now you know you

23:21

can do it, right? That's the first

23:23

thing, believing in yourself. I

23:26

think it's awesome that Linda, she

23:28

believed in herself. She's such a

23:30

risk taker of that girl and

23:32

people sought her out after that

23:34

because it was that topic. I

23:37

remember serverless, make it make sense,

23:39

right? So I have to find

23:41

her article. I have to read it. And

23:44

I want to hear more. I

23:46

love this episode so far. Thank you for

23:48

doing the Big Bets episode because I love

23:51

it when people just take this risk and say,

23:53

let me try something new. Yeah,

23:57

it's interesting because I feel like if you

23:59

talk to. Linda and also maybe Evgeny, there's

24:02

a certain calculation and there's a certain

24:04

type of algebra that goes into how

24:07

they approach taking those chances.

24:12

For Linda, this paid off

24:14

because she was approached by a

24:16

recruiter for a position as a

24:18

technical writer, yet another

24:20

career transition. Because

24:22

she had seen a couple of articles

24:24

I have done in several places, and

24:26

she liked the way I am able

24:29

to break down things, and she asked

24:31

if I would be interested in coming

24:34

in for an interview. And

24:36

eventually she would make the jump to

24:38

develop her advocacy where she is today.

24:41

And it was all because of her writing and

24:43

her curiosity. My manager would tell

24:45

me that it was that portfolio that actually convinced

24:48

her to hire me, that she saw that and

24:50

she was like, okay, yes, I'd like to talk

24:52

to this person. What

24:56

does a story like Linda's

24:59

say about tech culture? I feel

25:01

like it says so many things. It

25:04

speaks volumes. We

25:07

live in a culture right now where we

25:10

almost have to do a lot of

25:12

things in public, right? I

25:14

see this on social media all

25:16

the time where people are learning

25:18

and living out loud. They're posting

25:21

articles from their companies or talking

25:23

about a new framework they're using

25:25

or something. And

25:28

I used to tell people, even people that

25:30

I mentor to this day, you should probably

25:32

think about learning in public because

25:34

you never know who is going

25:36

to be watching what you're putting

25:38

out there. So talk about what

25:40

you're working on. Talk about your

25:42

projects. Talk about this new

25:45

release of a software that you've been

25:47

using and highlight some of the new

25:49

benefits and features and put your new

25:51

project out there. I

25:53

say this all the time because

25:56

you don't know who's watching. For

25:59

Linda, I don't think she

26:01

was looking at this as a career

26:04

change. She put this out

26:06

here because she knew it would

26:08

help someone, right? This was

26:11

the article she wish she could have found to

26:13

help her understand. So she's giving

26:16

back and helping others

26:18

understand. So this is

26:20

the thing. If you're not

26:22

doing it, you should be doing it

26:25

because we're in such a volatile time

26:27

right now. We should

26:29

always be marketing ourselves and our skills

26:31

and our understanding of things. And it's

26:33

not like you want to make it

26:35

a second job, but just

26:37

think about how often you post. I

26:41

would even expand that to the

26:44

episode that we did on conferences,

26:46

like doing talks and kind of

26:48

sharing the lessons you've learned, your

26:50

failures, your successes. There's

26:52

also a lot of relevance for people

26:55

who are going to tech conferences and

26:57

networking and also doing a talk eventually.

26:59

It's all kind of related to that

27:01

kind of knowledge share. It really is.

27:03

Yeah. Let's

27:06

close things out first with Evgeny

27:08

because I asked him about placing

27:10

bets when you don't have all

27:13

the info. I think that it's part of

27:15

the job to make the decisions with the information

27:17

that you have. So we

27:19

can create a hypothesis. And if we

27:21

close it within this range, we can

27:23

go on this path. So

27:25

when there is uncertainty, it's obviously

27:27

more complicated. So maybe you try

27:30

not to create like a super

27:32

rigid strategy, but to create

27:34

something that would be able to adapt. So

27:37

again, with that adaptability and that

27:39

kind of that hypothesis or a

27:41

calculation, it's the same

27:43

for Linda. Risks

27:46

are not just taken. They're also

27:48

well planned out. That

27:50

takes the edge off the fear in

27:52

taking the plunge. Big

27:54

moves don't always need to be a zero

27:56

sum game. For me,

27:58

it's always patience. playing the long-term

28:01

game, not rushing it, and

28:03

still holding on to the safety net of

28:05

my current job while

28:07

I make that decision. But

28:11

what is a fast way

28:13

to start preparing for a big

28:15

leap? Linda says if you

28:17

want to make the change, you have

28:19

to dress the part first. Somebody

28:22

who has now become a mentor to me

28:24

told me a while ago, if you want

28:26

to get a job, start doing the job.

28:29

And so that has in terms

28:31

of career transitioning, that

28:33

has been my not star or

28:36

like something that I've always abided by.

28:38

I start performing in the capacity of

28:40

whatever title I'm looking out for before

28:42

I start interviewing for the role. It's

28:47

cosplay. It's like,

28:49

oh, well, today, I'm doing my day job.

28:52

I am a software

28:54

engineer in Linda's case. And she

28:56

puts on her outfit, she dresses

28:58

up, and she's like, okay, now

29:00

I'm a developer advocate. I am

29:02

writing about the things that I'm

29:04

learning and I'm passionate about and

29:06

I'm sharing. And

29:08

that is such sage advice.

29:11

Why don't you play the part now? Get used

29:14

to it. Get comfortable. Walk around in the shoes

29:16

a little bit. I wish more

29:18

people had gotten that advice because it

29:20

might make their transition just a little

29:22

bit easier. Yeah, and

29:25

definitely address issues with imposter syndrome

29:27

and not feeling a sense of

29:29

belonging or a sense of community.

29:31

If you're putting yourself in that

29:34

role, even when you don't

29:36

really have the title yet, it can

29:38

be very powerful. I think that it

29:40

can inspire not even just a career

29:42

change, but it can also make the

29:44

perception you have of the job that

29:47

you do have. It can change that

29:49

slightly where you understand concepts a little

29:51

bit differently than you did before. Exciting.

29:55

Yeah. There's a

29:57

lot of things I want to touch on before we depart.

30:00

Okay. First

30:02

off, I feel like Linda and Evgeny,

30:04

if they have one thing in common,

30:06

one common thread I found in their

30:08

stories was the sense of

30:11

community. I feel like community

30:13

is like a launch

30:15

pad in a lot of ways for

30:18

that type of change and for

30:20

taking chances without it being so

30:22

scary. You're right, that common thread

30:24

between these two very

30:26

different stories stuck out

30:28

to me as well. How important community

30:31

was in Evgeny getting his

30:33

startup off the ground? How

30:35

important community was for Linda

30:38

to pivot into a role

30:40

that she hadn't considered

30:42

until she considered it, right?

30:45

Community is everything. I wouldn't be sitting in

30:48

this seat right now if it weren't for

30:50

community. So I want our

30:52

listeners to understand just how important

30:54

community is in almost everything we

30:57

do. Yeah, absolutely. Another thing that

30:59

they had in common was the

31:02

calculation or like what I call the algebra

31:04

of luck and risk. Where the math

31:07

is mafing, yes. Yeah, at the top

31:09

of the episode Evgeny said what he

31:11

said about luck and risk and when

31:14

he's talking and when Linda's sharing her

31:16

story and then also Angela with your

31:18

input about how we take bets and

31:21

we take chances every day, I'm

31:23

kind of changing the way that I'm

31:26

thinking about risk and I'm looking at

31:28

it as a calculation and

31:30

taking a chance or going out

31:32

on a limb for something that could be

31:35

truly rewarding or life changing. It doesn't have

31:37

to be a big scary thing. It can

31:39

also be something that can be planned for.

31:42

It can be something that can be

31:44

approached with caution and even approached

31:46

with excitement kind of like Linda when

31:48

she was learning software engineering. It

31:51

doesn't have to be scary. It

31:53

can be something that is really

31:56

worthwhile, really rewarding and honestly kind

31:58

of exciting. That's why

32:00

I'm taking away from these stories. Great.

32:03

Take always. Yeah. So.

32:07

I'd love to hear what you're thinking

32:10

about this episode, What Spoke To You

32:12

Stitch You find other common threads in

32:14

their to stories hit us up on

32:17

our social media at Red Hat. Always

32:19

using the hashtag Compiler podcast. We'd love

32:21

to hear your stories. We'd love to

32:23

hear about some of the big bets

32:26

you've taken in your life. Come on,

32:28

share out! We'd love to. Hear it.

32:35

And that does it for this episode.

32:37

Of compiler thank. You

32:39

so much to our guess as any

32:41

per day in and Linda is it

32:43

Shukla. Today's. Episode was

32:45

produced by Kim Long, Johann,

32:47

Philippine, and Caroline Pray can.

32:50

Victoria Lawton always leads by

32:52

weeping. Are

32:54

audio engineer is Elizabeth Heart Special

32:56

thanks to Sean Cole Or theme

32:59

song was composed by Marianne Said

33:01

Us. Are audio team

33:03

includes Brent seminal leading me

33:05

to it might Mic Birds

33:07

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33:09

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33:13

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33:17

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