10 months on the job search w/ dev advocate valarie regas

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Alright, awesome. Enough of me running on that value. Let's give the people what they want. Who are you and what are you up to? Oh, God. We're starting with existential questions. I see. Exactly. Now we begin. I was born. No. I'm just a nerd trying to get along in this world, man. So I mean, for the purposes of this show, I am a DevRel enthusiast. I was a DevOps engineer for a minute and transitioned. I love, ah, I love humanity. And what excited me when I got into software was not just, oh, I ran a command and some cool things happened. It was definitely, sorry.

If you see any rude comments at the bottom, it's probably my dearest husband slash bestie. I love it. It's a frat house in our home y'all. You should, it's like a party. I'm a fan. Yeah, very good time. But yeah, no, I get really excited about technology making human life better. I mean, I look at someone at a hackathon writing an app that makes an insulin pump more efficient and user friendly and my heart just explodes. Like that, the very definition of technology is something that makes our lives easier or better or more comfortable. And I don't know, it was an interesting transition. I do have other careers in my background.

My first job ever was teaching Judo. I was a bar balancer in college, but I also did some time as a handyman. And I worked at a championship retriever training facility. There you go. So that was a neat one. That was a neat little college job. Great people. And I learned a lot about training dogs. I love it. See, this is my problem, Taylor. You ever give people advice where you're like, you need to figure out what you're excited about. And you need to figure out what you're excited about. Yeah. My career, aptitude assessment in middle school, when they factored in what I might be okay at doing and what I was excited about, my actual printout was over 30 pages long.

There you go. Because to be blunt, well, it's just everything excites me. I'm like a toddler. I want to know why I was in the ER recently and they offered to, they offered to like put up a drape so I couldn't see them stitch me. And I was like, are you insane? I want to see every last thing you do. I wish it weren't on me, but it's exciting in either way. I love it. I love it. Um, so, so we, uh, you know, your, your store over the last 10 months has been, uh, has been a lot good and bad based off our conversation backstage.

Uh, Obviously you've been without the job for the last 10 months. I mean, talk about, I mean, let's go and dive in, right? I mean, there's a lot to unpack here. Give me some initial thoughts, right? I think actually, let's start where you said at the very end, right before you went live, about how you're happy. Yeah. That just happens. Can you unpack that for me? Yeah, yeah. No, I do have to be honest though. You said there's a lot to unpack here. And I was like, wait, is this a podcast or a new therapist? No, I know. We're good. We're good. No, so I've had this really interesting 10 months.

I, you know, from anyone not living inside of my home, I'm sure I looked like I was doing great by most measures. But I went, I just went through a few years straight of, you know, gnarly car wrecks and just just life events, things that happen that mess with your mental health. And unfortunately, I went through all these little things that by themselves would have been, you know, not a big deal to handle, but cumulatively and doing that thing that I was raised to do. You know, the one where no matter how much you're hurting inside, no matter how broken you are, you just show up, put a smile on your face and get things done.

And that's, you know, for all of you, you know, women raised in the south that have shown up smiling. I see, I see you and it's not too late to stop. And so, you know, I, I had never been through leaving a role when it wasn't my idea. So it was, it was shocking. It was confusing. And, you know, for someone who already had PTSD, who already sort of feels like the rug's about to be pulled out any moment, you know, it was just a lot and it broke me. I just fell apart. And so I, I know sometimes I tell people that I took a few months off before I started job hunting, and what they hear is privilege, which is true.

I am privileged AF that I have a working spouse, and our bills are such like, you know, we weren't living well beyond our means. Sure. Yeah, I am privileged and very, very hashtag blessed. But also, it just my like, I had just reached a point where I knew that it was silly to job hunt and get into a new role if I was just going to bring the same old baggage. And I took a few months. I did a lot of mental health work. And for the first maybe six months, I was thinking, things will be better once I find the right role. And I must have said, oh, yeah, I'm going to do blank when I find my next role.

And everything was just waiting on this mythical date, which could be tomorrow, and it could be never. Like nothing's guaranteed in this world. And it was probably around Christmas. I got the rejection email on my dream job. I'd made it to the final round out of a thousand plus applicants. I had worked so hard on my final, And I just knew that I could thrive there for me and I could shine there for them. And I just felt like this was mine. And I got that rejection email at Right at Christmas, just a few days before. And I was devastated, but what do you do?

And then Christmas, I was on the couch chilling out with my kids. I have three that I know of. And, you know, I'm snuggling these tiny humans and I didn't buy them a fraction of what I wanted to. Sure. It was a smaller Christmas, obviously. Sure. But we were laughing and hugging and they were happy. And my sister who's one of the best humans I've ever been fortunate enough to know, she and my brother were over And just, it just kind of hit me, Regus, you're waiting to get a job to be happy, sweet Lord. Look at what you live with. And I just decided, you know what?

I'm not gonna be happy when I find a role. I'm gonna be happy now. Now's good. And it's been a bit of creativity on my part. So I've done Judo and other fighting arts for 30 years. I love it. You know, it's for those who don't know what Judo is, imagine if like a wrestler in a ballerina had a baby and it just wanted to wrestle you like a bear cub and not actually hurt you. It's great. There you go. There you go. We strangle. We arm, I once did a lunch and learned at Airbus called arm locks, wrist locks and strangles. Oh my. I love that.

I love that. But yeah, and I thought, well, I've been off the mat and I really can't afford 150, 200 a month for gym fees. Or, you know, but I don't want to wait. I don't want to wait to be happy. And so I called up a friend of mine that I know to be a good person with a high level of integrity, compassion, kindness, you know, these things. And I said, hey, friend, I can't afford to just join your gym, but I know Judo, can I come teach? You know, you teach Jiu Jitsu, can I come teach Judo? my kids come do Jiu Jitsu with me and he of course his name is Juan and he's just one of the best humans but he said of course and so now I'm teaching Judo on Saturdays and I'm helping teach the children's Jiu Jitsu during the weekdays so I'm learning a new skill while I'm you know I've never had a belt in other arts I guess I'll do that now you know right right and I know it's just been a huge ideological shift from waiting for we're waiting for some external thing to bring me joy to figuring out, you know what?

I'm happy now. Life is good now. Well, a lot better when I find the right role. Yeah. And listen, you know, I'm I love having these conversations. I mean, the point of this pod is obviously to give the tactical advice, but I think to get to the second third level that that most folks don't really get to in these type of podcasts. And for me, Like I've kind of gone through the same thing you have. Now I was blessed to where my job search was not long, but for me, it's been more the financial side of things. Like I've been very open. Like I'm making 40, 50% less than I was.

And I mean, that's pretty substantial. And now, but again, right? So like I have a job I need to be thankful, but I think there's been a lot of learning for me because I was my previous job, heavy sales environment, you got sent your metrics and your sales reports every single week, it was in your face. And then kind of moving to where I'm at now, there's a lot more people aspect on it. It's just been good for my soul to kind of take a step back. And, you know, one of the biggest things I've talked to my wife about a ton is like, who, who am I trying to impress?

Right? Like, like all my friends that I have, like love me, whether I'm making 50% more or 50% or 100% less. They don't care. And so again, it's been a crazy lesson for me over the last year. So telling you you're not alone and also to have had multiple conversations about this with other people too. So I think really like the last year has been good on I think a deep level for a lot of people. You know, to pick up on the whole, who am I trying to impress thing? One of my favorite, I've been doing a lot of work around building my own self-esteem and getting a little bit more pragmatic and objective on what are my strengths and weaknesses.

And there have been some personality traits I've looked at and said, well, different potential employers think this thing about me is a weakness, but I disagree. Yeah. I think I'm gonna keep it. Yeah. And the right thing. So I mean, I've been dismissed from several interview processes because the hiring manager felt like I care too much about people to be on their dev rel team. And I wish I were kidding. I wish I were oversimplifying, but it really is. And I had one person ask me, why do you do so many human impact talks? And I was like, well, because it seems to be what conference organizers want.

I always submit three if I can. I submit a technical talk about whatever product I'm currently representing, or if I'm not representing a product to something I think is cool. If I am representing something, I submit a second more technical talk on just a hobby, something I enjoy. And then I submit some sort of human impact talk. And for about a year and a half, that's what people have been choosing, which I think is telling about what people are hungry for. I agree. We know how to upskill. We know how to find more tutorials and learn new things. It's, I think we're all in a weird place where we went through a pandemic that forced us to isolate, which is a different kind of learning process depending on who you were before.

Oh yeah. I mean, I'm looking at the good that came out of the pandemic. You know, I mentioned this before. I had a bad habit of leaving the house sick all the time And not even knowing I was sick half the time. You know, I was definitely raised that you show up and you wear, and I remember, you know, relatives praising people for going to work really sick. And I can remember. Oh no, we lost Valerie. Valerie, where'd you go? Where'd you go? All right, so I'm gonna dance real quick. I do wanna talk a little bit about Valerie. Please come back. But oh, wait a minute, there she is.

There she is. Well, that was fascinating. I'm not. Oh, it's crazy. I was like, I got a dance real quick. We're gonna valor ago. All right, we back. We back. So being sick. So yeah, you know, and I, one, being raised, you know, to admire people who go to work vomiting in their office trash can. And, you know, crazy examples, The number of times I left my home really ill. And to me, it never occurred to me that that would be endangering people around me. I never had the thought I shouldn't go to work running a fever because what if someone around me lives with an immunocompromised person and that never crossed my radar, it was just suck it up, Regis, go to work.

The pandemic was great for shifting my mindset to, It's grind culture is bad for everybody. Yeah. It's, you know, I'm not doing my best work when I'm sick. I'm not contributing at my best. Why is that valued? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, it's been, I've told people that COVID may have been like the best thing for me. And that's a little bit of a hot take, but like for me, like it's completely changed, me being at home. I was in the office for years now. I have a daughter and I just announced I have a, I have a baby boy on the way. It's like, it's like, I, I've been at home the entire time and I've watched him grow up.

And a few times I've been in, I've gone to the office. I look at my wife and I'm like, this is what I used to do. You would never see me. I would never be home. And so like, I mean, that's one of the many things that I'm coming. I mean, I mean, I mean, there's, there's quite a few other things that have come out of it too but I mean that's one of the things so it is crazy. It is crazy at that time. I think our post-pandemic you know hellscape we're living in in software you know with the hiring situation and by the way yeah by the way like a new human on the way thank you you know a lot of the things that happened just before the pandemic.

For me personally, I had my third child not long before the shutdown. So I had a nursing infant in the early days of the pandemic. That was neat. Yeah, lots of video off on the on the prepay. Yeah, guys really stop. But yeah, a lot of the things that have happened both during the main shutdowns and sort of in this I say post-pandemic, because though it's not a thing that's still going on, but we're not shut down. We're living our lives. Okay. It's really highlighted to me two big gaps. And I'm now trying to like really work with my kids and any young people that I, you know, the judo students, I go work in my child's school sometimes.

We are way understaffed. So that's been a gift of this time off. I've been able to go and help out and make it so that teachers can go to doctor's appointments. It's pretty awesome. But yeah, it's really highlighted that we as a as a people, we're fundamentally lacking two pieces of understanding that I think could change the industry and the world. I feel like every single problem, actually I'm gonna say it, I feel like every single problem on this planet could be fixed if every person really felt empathy. The other people on this planet and valued long-term results over short-term comfort. So you're having another child, thank you.

Well, on the one hand, that's a really happy event for you and your spouse and your family's expanding and there's lots of good heart feelings but also I want to retire one day and in 20 years thanks to our declining birth rate, there might not be enough people to pay into social security. So thank you for contributing to our society. Right? The long term, you're doing good. And so when I hear people talk about like parental leave and say, well, I don't want to pay someone not to work. I'm like, yeah, but you're not. You're retaining good talent while they're being a good citizen. Yeah.

I liked having a few weeks off after the birth of my third, Obviously holding him and the physical recovery and all of that was important. But also I went back to work at six weeks postpartum and there's still bugs that I put in there. My first week back from work, I accidentally left the nurse or like the pumping room. We had like a little cell down the hall. I accidentally left that room not wearing a shirt and walked right on into the office in a bra. And, you know, like, I guess I should have been embarrassed, but I wasn't. I was like, I haven't slept in six weeks.

Right. Yeah. I'm not embarrassed. I didn't put my t-shirt back on. I'm embarrassed. I'm our sole dev ops engineer. That's embarrassing because I shouldn't be touching code right now. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I want to get into kind of some thoughts and observations of the job search. I mean, obviously you've been in it. You've been grinding. What are some takeaways that you can give to people, some action items? Yeah, so if it all possible. Now, I'm going to say this, I see a lot of articles on LinkedIn encouraging people to 100% be authentically yourself. And if they don't like exactly who and what you are, they're not the right company and all of that is true.

But not everyone's as privileged as I am. Not everyone has a working spouse to pay the bills while they job hunt. And so for folks out there that are looking at, you know, interviewing for companies they don't want to work for, enrolls they don't necessarily want. And they're having to edit out parts of themselves to get the job. You'll get no judgment for me. Yeah. We'll get no judgment for me. Don't feel bad about it. And don't let anyone shame you for doing what you have to do to take care of your family and yourself. yourself. But I, the biggest takeaway is that it's really important to develop self esteem, not not just a thick skin.

I was raised to have a thick skin. And so people would would say hurtful things. And I was pretty good at mask. I'm fine. I'm not hurt. I'm not upset. I'm fine. Right. Different than genuinely caring about and valuing yourself. And the sort of downside here is when I had no self-esteem and I got a rejection from a company, it didn't really hurt my feelings at all. It was like, I'd see the email and think, yeah, that tracks, yeah, that's fair. Like it didn't seem out of place, it didn't seem, I was used to feeling bad about me. So it was like, yeah, okay, cool, no big deal.

As I've learned to value me and really see me and the good, the bad and the ugly of me and love every ounce of it, now rejection kind of hurts. Now it's like, oh, you must be confused to not see that. No, really, I'm a very, very nice person and I work really hard. No, I don't think you know. Right. Right. It's weird. It actually is more upsetting now, but it's worth it. I mean, the perspective shift has been a huge blessing. I mean, I hear a lot of people talk about the perspective of no matter how bad things are, it's worse somewhere else, no matter.

Yeah, that's true. But a lot of job seekers, again, on LinkedIn is mostly where I'm seeing those people feeling like there's one right way to feel about this. Right. There's not one way to feel about anything in this world. Every situation is a complex interplay of myriad human perspectives and inter- narratives. So I don't know. I hope that anyone out there that's listening that's still job hunting, whether it's your first month or your 10th, And it's not you. If you're being yourself and if you're being critical with yourself, I mean, I can list out my weaknesses right now and tell you what I'm working on.

But to be blunt, my greatest strength is that I'm really comfortable with my weaknesses. I'm really comfortable acknowledging what needs work and what steps I'm currently taking to actively work on them. Yeah, yeah. I love that. I just, I hope that the people out there realize that whether you find your dream job in tech or not doesn't change the fact that you're valuable and you're contributing to this world. Yep. Yep. I love that so much. Is there anything else that you've seen work more for you than less? Is there any other tips or tricks that you've picked up along the way? Yes, absolutely. I, I've never had a difficult time being kind of the cool aid man and, but busting through walls to say, Hey, hi, me.

So I've definitely, if I see a role that looks interesting, I go look at who do I know who works there? Who do I know that used to work there? Who do I know that someone who works there? Try to get internal referral links. But I will tell you in this market, I've had several referrals from people that it wasn't just a courtesy like they, Oh, yeah, Val, love you. You're great. I refer you dismissed without an interview. I mean, it's just a matter of I've done all of the resume, optimization, I can. Yeah. Every ATS is different. They're kicking us for different things, so whatever.

But mostly just talking to people and saying, hey, like, I need work. You need someone who does what I'm good at. Let's chat. But it's hard. It's so difficult to get in front of the right people these days. It is. It is. Have you found any way to get in front of the right people at all in your experience? So for the most part, I am the last 10 months I have spoken at a few conferences. They were already lined up. And so going to events is a great place to network. I've gone to a few sort of hiring events. Yeah. Yeah, that's a hard one.

Like, you know, it's a very hit or miss for DevRel. DevRel is, you know, for me the sign of a thriving organization. It's, you know, you, you now have a good enough product that we're comfortable telling users to use it and we feel confident telling them how and building a community because there's more than a couple now. Um, so, you know, in Deborah, I've, I've been to a lot of hiring events where it's like, Oh, I pick up a DevOps engineer role this company and that'll be fine. If that's what I end up finding that works. works. It's such a gift to be fascinated by everything and interested in everything.

Because honestly, whatever role I get as long as I feel like I'm putting a net good in the world and I get to solve problems, I'll probably be happy. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I think you bring up a good point and Todd, it's good to see you, man. Really good to see you. Todd's the one that goes connected. Thank you, my friend. I love everything you've said. I think that just really hits home. I think really being focused on what brings you joy and it not be caught up so much on job titles because I feel like a lot of people are like, you know, I got to have like the next big job title or the next big raise.

And it's like, you realize you can only get paid so much in the corporate world And you can only have so many titles. So like, what do you actually like doing? And obviously it sounds like that. You've come to that realization. Yeah. Yep. So yeah, no, I mean, it's just been fascinating. It's I, if you had told me five years ago where I'd be today, Yeah. I would not have believed you. I mean, I am very fortunate. So when I was a kid, my father went through terminal illness and my mother had the wisdom to put me in therapy. And I tell everyone, especially at conferences and engineering events, in business, if we don't have the answers to a problem, what do we do?

We hire a consultant who's a subject matter expert to come in and help us. Right. On earth, on earth, do we all not have, if we are at all able to procure one, a life consultant, a therapist, an objective third party with our bestest heart to help us work true, you know? But after 30 years of therapy, you know, on some level, I thought, well, maybe some of us are just treatment resistant. Yeah. No, some of us are stubborn. Some of us are hardheaded and, you know, need to work on humility and then the growth comes. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, know, it's just been so fascinating to see the rapid changes at 41.

You know, the lie we tell ourselves is that the change happens in your youth and by the time you're 41, you're sort of who you're going to be. I can attest that is not the case. I'm different. I'm a different human than I was just nine, 10 months ago. I love that. I love that. All right. So we're going to wrap up here. Last four questions again. Thank you for coming on Time Flies when you're having fun with friends and knew what would happen. So four questions. First question, what brings you joy outside of tech? Yeah, so I have two main hobbies outside of tech.

One is fighting, which doesn't always go well. But yeah, for anyone who saw the bandage, that's why. I really enjoyed Judo and Moi Tai is probably my second great love with the fighting. Um, but yeah, I love sport fighting because I am super aggressive and I have big feels and there's just something really Any of y'all who feel like anxiety boils up get into a fighting art when you just pummel a tie bag and and kick it until the rafter shade Mine's mine's ice hockey mine's ice hockey. I have it tonight. So And nice violent sport, but it's sports. Yeah, I'm not a nice person when I play hockey.

So I let it out. Yeah, it's like, you know, I'm getting out aggression, but we're not I hate real fights. I will go to great links to talk people out of fights. I was a great bouncer. I was a great bouncer because I would just convince people don't do it to don't ruin your life. I thought I really enjoy sport fighting with sports fighting. Yes, emphasis on the sport fighting. Second question. If you were to leave Tech altogether, but had the same type of money that, oh no, I lost her again. What happened to Valerie? Valerie, come back, we're almost done. Come back, I can't dance too long.

These are questions just for you. Valerie, come back, come back. Valerie, there she is, there she is. We're back, we back. You're just, you're so excited to be here to talk with your hands and it just keeps kicking you off. What, so let's say money was not an issue. What would you do outside of tech for work? Oh, easy, easy peasy. I would be a home birth midwife. I love that. I love that. Love. I had my first one in a hospital. Midwives and doulas are unbelievable. Yeah, I had my first kid in a hospital. It was disempowering. It was terrifying. It caused physical pain and anguish and, well, well, it was still the best day of my life because the whole perfect human.

But I think that there's room in this world for healthy babies and healthy, undramatized moms. I would 100% And then my second two, actually you'll love this. My second kid was a home birth and I labored through like the transition, the most intense part while watching Fight Club. And it was nice because Tyler Durden, who's sort of my patronist, Tyler was telling me during the Lyche scene, rise up of the pain. And I'm like, yes sir. That's fantastic. It was great. I love that. All right, last two questions. Any tech things you're researching, looking up, reading about right now that you find fascinating that you want to share?

Yes, actually. I just went on sort of a rabbit hole. And it came in handy just in time. I've been falling down out why we do not need to fear the robotic uprising rabbit hole with regards to narrow AI and trying to learn all the talking points for why people who who are non-technical and are just thinking that, Chad GBT is not responding to you as a human, in the same way, it's not sentient. And I've sort of been falling down a rabbit hole on what a Jarvis type system would look like. It's funny, I did career day. Everyone out there, whether you're a parent or not, if you have any ability to go to a local elementary school and be a speaker for career day, It is so fun.

And so this, in years past for my kids class, I've gone in and I've talked about basic CS stuff. A couple of years I had them program me to make a sandwich, which was nice because they'd say pick up the knife. And if my hands were full, I'd like bend down, pick it up with my mouth and try to get them to understand how specific you have to be with programming. And so this year we talked about, in tier architecture in a really fun way, there was like a game of telephone. And then we talked about AI and it was really great. It's like the ultimate test of your dev rail skills.

Can you explain this to the room of nine-year-olds and have them understand? Yes. Yeah. It was, it's a good time. I encourage everyone go volunteer. It's a hoot. I love it, I love it. Last question, the shows called Guidance Counts are 2.0. And again, everybody, thank you all for watching today. I've seen y'all in the comments, y'all are wonderful. And then Valerie, thank you so much. So last question, the show's called guidance counter 2.0 because we had guidance counters in middle school, high school and college, but now as adults, we don't have them. What would be your biggest piece of career advice to young Valerie?

I'm off a climp. If I could go back and talk to me, my biggest career advice would be to never ever draw your self esteem and sense of self worth from how much money you make, what your job is, or what other people think of your job. I now understand that I deserve no more respect and kindness when I'm up on stage speaking at a conference. Then I did when I was making minimum wage as a bar bouncer. My worth hasn't changed, my value, my contribution to the world hasn't changed. I wish that I had had an understanding. It doesn't matter what other people think of my work as long as I Yeah, I love that.

I love that. That's awesome. Well, Valerie, stay on real quick so I can see about you backstage. But y'all, thank you again. Oh my God, Danny. What's going on, Danny? It's good to see you, buddy. Hey, special shout out to the Regus girls. My sisters were on watching. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. So good. Y'all thanks for hanging out with us this morning. We appreciate it. Um, Valerie, best of luck. Obviously I'm here if you need me for any, you know, introductions that you see, obviously, we want to help anyway. I can. But we are back to regularly, regularly scheduled programming this week tomorrow. We have Rashab Kumar.

He's a senior staff evangelist at Twilio coming on the show. And then my dear friend, Michael Hale, who is a project manager in Michigan. He is fantastic. We have a great conversation on Wednesday and then Thursday, and Thursday I will be gone to South by Southwest for the next few days. So anyways, y'all have a wonderful one, Vali. Thank you again for hanging out with me. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. And you all have a good one. Have a great Monday. Peace. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode and I am very grateful. Cause you know why? There's a lot of podcasts out there.

There's a lot of episodes and I myself rarely finished an entire episode. So I appreciate you so, so much for listening. Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the app store. I want this to be discoverable to others. And the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it. Please, like right now, unless you're driving, then don't do it. So, thank you again if you need to reach out to me at T. Dessin on all social media handles, and I hope you have a fantastic day.