the importance of value in your career w/ staff dev advocate, adewale abati

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Are you what do you do? Right. Yeah. So my name is Adewale Abati. I'm a software developer, web developer from Nigeria. I currently live in Amsterdam and I work for Block as a staff developer advocate. For those that do not know Block, it's essentially the parent company of companies like Square, Cashab, Spire, Tidal, you know, so it's mostly FinTech. but also, you know, developer tools and like so. I'm currently working as a star developer bucket there on that one and only Angie Jones, I was 10 down in 1908. She's a superstar. She is. She is. Yeah, so we're just working on developer relations on a global level for block.

So that's what I do these days across multiple products. It's exciting so far. That's cool. That's cool, man. All right, so let's dive in. Lots of cover. Talk about your time in Nigeria. How did you get started in the tech? What was your exposure? What got you interested in tech? That's a very interesting question. My first scenario of tech actually was in preschool. I think the first level, we call it primary school in Nigeria. I was like maybe four or five and there were these games on the screen that you picked up a gun in court and then you shoot in the bets on the screen.

So I was like, oh, this is this is like, you know, very nice stack. I think that was the first time I'd have a Microsoft Windows and the likes. But I never really got into development in general up to, you know, the university, basically college. And it was my second year. And I saw some of my colleagues that were in the same class as me. It was my first year, actually. I saw some of my colleagues that were in the same class as me already building very interesting stuff. I was like, I was just possible, we just got in the end. Right, right, right. So my second year, I just started learning and picking stuff up.

And ever since then, it's just been, it's been an old new world that opened up to me. And one thing that I think we eventually get to is the fact that Nigeria, the technical system there was one that was very commonly driven. Right. So most of the land names, of the opportunities came from being engaged in the community, interacting with people, learning from people, and also having a path being forged for you. So for me in that situation where I was in school, and I started learning how to code, would find my colleagues and myself in the middle of the night in classes, got it around, sharing resources, sharing to groups.

And just building random stuff and then talking about it, and then you're impressed by the random stuff that somebody built, then you can find an altitude there, And it was just a lot of learning from each other and getting inspired by each other back then. It was really amazing. I kind of still miss that kind of community. Because as an adult, I mean, everyone is doing their own thing. In the way, but it is that you leave. For the imagine random gatherings where you guys have similar goals and then you keep trying to do stuff. And there's a lot of learning in that space. Well, and I feel like, and I think one of the things I want to do in 2025 is, And I'm not saying this because I'm talking to you about it.

I'm saying it because I truly see like the community in Africa, especially Nigeria every time I speak with somebody from Nigeria. There's a passion. I feel like there's a lot of talented, talented people from Nigeria. What do you, like, kind of putting my community hat on, what do you think companies or communities can do to try to replicate the specialness of the Nigeria tech community. Like what makes Nigeria so special and so passionate on the tech side of things? That is a very, very interesting question. Thinking about it for a second, I think the beginning is the drive. There is a reason for people to want to learn some of these things, to make an aim for themselves, to make impact, to earn money, and just to follow a path that they discover that it's a way to achieve career growth.

So there are different reasons, but there are reasons. Right. And as a result of that, there's a video of comments is that sprung up that add like, you know, very niche focus areas. There were some like, back in the days, about six, seven years ago, like for Loop Africa, basically just thought everyone, everything about web development in a way, actually every type of development. So you find people based on a level, you come there. And the question about this is, the conferences or the meetups at that time would introduce you to new technology, but you're supposed to meet new people there. So like the technology is there for you to like, we'll go try this out, or this is what this could help you do this and all of those things.

Or when you go there, you know that you have an opportunity to like meet somebody else in this growing ecosystem, build a bond, really to interact with each other on Twitter. That was like, here's a go when it was more sane. Right. So there were opportunities for you to actually advance your career and also learning new tech that could bring you to your office place. Do you mean? I was going to say I've been active in the NGO ecosystem like I used to have as I moved out but I would assume it's very similar. Do you think there is a hunger for tech as a way to not get out of Nigeria, but to level up finances to help families?

Because I guess what I'm trying to get is I almost feel like there's this hunger there to try to level up that there may not be in the US. I almost feel like we're given a lot in the US, and maybe that's not the case in Nigeria, so there may be more of a hunger to level up your family life, level up your career, which kind of comes with that passion. Is that relatively accurate? Yeah, I would say there's definitely ambition, because you drew inspiration from a lot of places. For myself, I was in university watching documentaries on beauty gates, and I was inspired not because, oh, he has so much money, But I was inspired because he was making like very interesting stuff as the end of the company.

So I didn't have a lot of money at the time. But I wasn't like, oh my God, I can't make so much money by doing this. Right. That was my reason that time was just like so, so more like that in that position and every other person in that area, they were able to study company. So Ellie make impact. So Ellie and they keep doing it. And it's like a thing that changes the world. And I actually applied and participated in the Microsoft Imagine a few times. There were no monetary words for me at least, but it was just like an opportunity to make impact on that scale.

So there are definitely different reasons for ledger, both financially and of course mentally or for making impact in general. So the best way is that all of these people actually are lying in out in land and teach each other. Because for example, a few years ago I came starting out in tech, I wasn't sure what career path I would take eventually because I didn't have so many examples. So I knew I was late not to code but I didn't know if in six years I wanted to be an engineering manager or even six years I wanted to be a developer. I had no idea. I just knew I wanted to build stuff.

So the chiropracts started to take shape when people before me were also like 14 down chiropracts and I was like oh this is possible or working remotely is possible or moving out is possible. Like I don't know these are the things that you find out as you get into it but they were not like necessarily ability information in the beginning for me at least. Well, and I think one of the things I've become a little bit more fascinated about lately is just people's exposure to things that has molded them to where they're at, right? Like, I think of my background. I didn't know what a recruiter was.

I had no idea. No idea. And I just like randomly interviewed for a spot. And here we are 12 years later, 13 years later. So like, I'm wondering like, man, like, how do you think communities can bring exposure? like, or how do you think people can get exposure to different things? Like based off your upbringing, what do you encourage people to do to get exposure to different things? Not even tech, just in general industries. What would you recommend to that? I think the foundation of this is sharing, like sharing what you already know. It sounds crazy but we share what you already know. Someone might come across that and I've like maybe better insights with you.

Oh, you should I've done this this way. Or this is a very interesting approach. Why did you do this? Or just conversations like that will build up what you already know and provide new information for you to learn. It's kind of like one of these is why I got into open source in the first place. I was building kind of like the same applications we run over again. And then I reached out to a colleague. I was like, I'm kind of bored. Yeah, right. Oh, you know what? Yeah, so now I can I level up? I can I learn new things? And I was like, oh, just check out open source.

Check out some of these reports. But then I started doing that and I found people putting things that were interesting. Things had not taught, for example, were relatively simple stuff. I just get into that space kind of like exposed me to the different ways that people would put in technologies. I'm sure this will apply in any of the areas, like maybe academia, for example, you publish a paper, and some of comments on it and then you let something new. I feel like that would apply anywhere. So whatever it is that you can do today, actually do it and then share it. and you're putting up to many eyes and watch feedback and stuff like that.

I love that. And I want to talk about sharing, right? Sharing your information. You know, of course, everyone's like rolling their eyes. Like, I know where Taylor's going with this posting content to the internet. I love you, I'm like, how do you do it? Like, where do you find it? It's a lot. It's a lot. So, like, my question to you is like, people who are scared to share, Right? I think one of the things I consistently hear on a day to day basis is nobody's going to want to know what I'm doing. Nobody cares what I'm doing. I'm too junior to have anything to give or even I'm senior and I don't have enough to give.

What would your advice be to those people? I mean, I was talking to myself because it never really goes away until you finally conquer it, to be honest. Yeah. So the things I try to tell myself to convince myself to post something or to play something is the first step is oh I'm just documenting this for myself oh this was interesting I want to document this for myself I posted I'm not taking about anybody in the moment I just I just thought oh this was amazing I was who I was a genius for coming up with this like stuff like that I was documenting that's like the first step another one is oh I struggled with this I think there's a problem somewhere that does I don't want this person to struggle like hey if you're in this moment I found this this might help you out like I put it that way.

And then the third one is which is probably very interesting is like sharing for a set number of people like oh I know I have a couple of people that I know interested in these kind of pins. I know it's Dr. Braco before or we you know vengaged on this topic I'm sharing it for you guys to see and then more people might see it but I have reduced the pressure of myself I'm thinking about the millions of people that are on Twitter for example that could find this thing to like a set set of people in my head and it kind of reduces is the pressure.

It doesn't eliminate the pressure entirely. Right, right, right. But it reduces like basically I'm feeling towards sharing and posting these things because it's a lot. I just thought, was it Tessa? I think someone came up with me. Yeah, Tessa's incredible. And the fact that she's scared to share. So, yeah, it's the same. It's a constant cycle where you just have to get into that zone and just keep sharing to be honest. One of the things, one of the things I want to ask you, a tray comes in here. I also think people need to be less risk adverse and try different things. 100% and then Jeff, that has been me, but no more in 2025.

I am outside sharing. Yeah. And again, like I want to give Jeff a shout out. He has been so active in our end and the torque discord and helping people. Um, man, I think it just changes your entire career. I truly think if you can get out of your own way and share and be vulnerable and open, it'll transform your career and open up opportunities that you never would have had. For those of you watching, I booked Aaron Francis to come on in January. He spoke at Commit Your Code, Danny Tox's Conference in Dallas. He talked about building in public and just putting things out there.

So I'm going to bring him on and we're going to talk about his talk about constantly putting yourself out there because Aaron's story is incredible. So pump to hang out with him next month. Jordan comes in here. Your respective is what you have to give. You're never done with your journeys. So just start sharing now and open a car to 100%. My god, Lawrence. Hey, Lawrence. How you doing? So good to see you, bro. I want to talk about sharing what you're struggling with. Yeah, it's Jerry what you're struggling with I think And I think it's our generation our generation was raised and we're we're like we got to be perfect or maybe that's my southern Baptist roots I don't know we can talk about it a whole another day in and of itself But like not like being vulnerable.

I feel like we kind of grew up in a generation where it's like you need to kind of be this perfect child Man woman whatever and and and I really feel like now actually sharing your professional struggles is a thing that separates you. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, that's a very good question. This is also what I'm trying to work on for myself. I was talking about it the other day and one of the things I actually want to work on for next year is expression. What do I mean by this? It's what I want to share, what I'm letting I want to share, whatever it is that I'm inclined or I desire to share.

Taking away the block of expressing myself, it's gonna help me, I would like to create a block of writing or creating or just talking about it in general. Well, like when I don't bring in situation or it's an introversion, as guess may be, taking it with a blocker and feeling more free to express stuff, I think we're just gonna like get you more familiar, get you two graphs from sharing and expressing with the little things to expressing with the bigger blocks of new information. So I want to tackle, and I even want out days also thinking about this, like tackling the roots of expression, like, what is stopping me from expressing myself?

Yes. What is stopping me from sharing this? I don't know. Like, if I'm in the room with my friends, I would say these things. I would talk about this technology without any pressure. Right. So what else is stopping me from expressing myself? So anytime I open like a blank slate on Nushehaun, and I won't talk about a topic, and I'm spending hours on it, what is stopping me from expressing what is in my head? And gradually, I'm just trying to get over that arm where I just open it in and just express my september to document and I can clean it up if I have to.

I know of those things. We'll get that expression out first. Yeah. And then what about the zappos next? So that's, I think that's one of these, I also would walk on. I love that. Have you noticed, Ace, that when you share things you're struggling with that you almost resonate more with people? Yeah, because I mean, we're all humans. We kind of go to the similar things. We have this attitude or belief that we're kind of unique, which we are, experiences that are individually unique. But on a top level picture, we're going through similar things for different reasons. And just explaining or talking about something could give someone an idea of what to do.

We just kind of, why I love moving into the AI-judging thing, where I'm just just jotting me jotting me and he says something that doesn't make any sense. Sometimes, but if I'm saying those things, I'm like, oh, okay, I should actually go think about this and just open up my... Yeah, I love that. I love that. So, yeah, going back to here. So I need to, honestly, I think writing, I think is one of the best ways to get better at interviewing. I think if you can write cohesive thoughts, it allows you to be more articulate interviews. I didn't know if you've noticed your writing and your documenting has allowed you to be more articulate at conferences, etc.

Documenting definitely because, yeah, recommending else with your memory and your memory has to your confidence because the times that you walk on stuff and you just remember it and if you're going to interviews and are like, oh, tell me about station where you have to do this. You're building that situation where you We have zero memory because it's not something you've documented or written down as a case may be. But if you actively just, whatever form it is, document some of the things you're working on, when you're agreeing against conversations that kind of touch, even close to it, you have something to talk about because you remember the fact that you actually went to something similar.

So 100%, I don't know what form would you take, but 100%. Yeah, absolutely. So let's continue to kind of go through your career. time is quickly ticking by is that so how I mean how did you I don't know how to summarize this how did you get to where you're at dude I mean you are working for a very prestigious company in a very in an industry that is very hot right now you are an international speaker you I mean you like I would say from the outside looking on like you have I think the career a lot of people want. So how do you get there, man?

What's your secret sauce would you say? I'm going to reference this video from Jason. I think you made a video in Atlanta talking about the world of luck in your career. I think it's an amazing video. There are so many people in there talking about how luck comes into play. Everyone also says luck is opportunity means preparation and stuff like that. One of the things I wanted to our light is regardless of where you currently are and what you're working on. Thinking about what value can you create in that space? Kind of just cascades, compounds, and it kind of keeps you going over time, where you find that in a year or two, you've made progress more than even thoughts.

You plan to, you thought you were actually making just because you were creating value along the line. I was also one of these, I was actually looking for something about today in general, like what value are we creating as a solution as, for example, Am I just writing code, like anyone else could write? Or am I bringing in a level of personality and problem solving and you know, building stuff that actually connects to the business goals of the company I'm working on. And then it's when you create a value that you're able to share because when you share stuff that has no value or it's just, I don't know, I don't wanna say jargon.

Right, yeah, just words. Yeah, just yeah. And people would take you for what it is and just move on, right? If it's bloated, if it's all of those things. but when you treat yourself and share something of value, could be to one person, could be to two people, then when it's active, they will appreciate the value and it just keeps going on like that. So I always talk about value and driven development. In the sense that whatever your beauty and each other species you find yourself, thinking about what value could come out of this always comes in very handy. And I look at the other step was being in the ecosystem like Nigeria's, was a very, very common to given one, which kind of also elected value.

I can give a story of the first time I spoke at the big meetup. Yeah, please. I used to be on a Slack group called Def Carrier and I was very, very into Stack Overflow stuff, where I just, I'm not going to work for the different example, I just go into the Stack Overflow, I go into the Slack and I'm like, what is problem to solve? It's a problem to solve. And there are people in there that were just sharing their problems and I was really into PHP there and I would just up them out. And I wasn't doing it because I wanted someone to notice me.

I just enjoyed doing that. And I enjoyed helping people out. I'd be like, oh, thank you so much. I'm like, yay. We did that. And then one of the people in the community is going to wish that I go, I see that you talk about this and a lot of the abuse this thing, which you might talk about it, right? I had no idea that was the thing that was possible. Someone was reaching out out of the blues. But I was super excited to get the opportunity. And I did talk about it. And funny enough, me talking about that project, at that event, about so many other people come to me, like, yes, let that out the line.

And we're like, you, I listen to you one time, and I was just so inspired. And it referenced that event. Like the reference that really is like that. And that's not. That's madness, because it started from like being enslaved to the guy reaching out to me to speak for the first time there. And I spoke there, and so many other people also like started their careers off of that. Like, it's insane when you think about the connecting, connection and the cascading effect, it's a madness. We're just creating that value and being able to continue to do that openly as much as possible. It's basically what comes to this point.

So I wanna reiterate this for people watching right now. You putting yourself out there, you getting involved in the slacks and the discords and asking how you can help and being engaged And then speaking at an event within that community, you said it builds on itself. 100%. Okay, I want people to hear that, right? I can tell you it's the exact same thing that happened Jason Torres and I. Jason, very active on Twitter. I saw him from afar. He started to work with me a little bit, very active. How can I solve problems, right? Then he got a job, right? You know, it's how it all works.

And I want to try to get that through y'all skulls this morning and A.H. is out here saying the same thing to A.H.E. how long ago was that talk you gave by the way? Oh, damn. We're still referencing. Hello. Maybe nine years. Nine years. A.H.E. gave a talk guys and gals nine years ago. That was nine years ago. And it's still being referenced. Right. And so if you can continue to build on this, it's huge, right? Ace, talk about just again, trying to solve problems even as a junior developer getting in work. It can be open source, just again, just hammer that home through with people, or even if they're senior, but just getting involved.

Can you just... Yeah, I have a very interesting example for that. If you, as I go around the same time, 2018, there were about... There was a lot of conversations in the NGO ecosystem about Nanchean's being consumers of tech. And I disagree with that because I was inspired by assuming that in the ecosystem that we're doing. So I essentially set out to build a repository of people that build up those projects. They were not just locally relevant, they were like globally relevant, like anyone else in the world from anywhere could use this project. So I started in mid-Nanchean repository. And from that moment, creating a product by myself, people saw it and they started contributing.

And then more people saw it and they started contributing. And it became a victim relatively well. We have about 200 projects that are globally well-vanned, one of which is probably Chakra UI. I'm sure you've heard of Chakra UI, it was me by an engineer and it was like super proud. But then building up projects, it was one of the biggest component teams, because not just for me, but also for like younger developers that came in and wanted to see what other insurance we're doing. They were able to see other developers that were building open source projects and not seen it's like get to the highest of levels.

And it was just very inspiring thing. I've gotten into conversations as a result. I spoke to different people as a result like just off of that project. And it's just one task. Cause I didn't do any of this in the beginning like, oh, if I put a project, I'm gonna be like talking to so many people because I know you view this project. It was more like very valuable. I wanted to put this project to address the specific theme. I can put some value in it and it just grew. And as a sort of the growth impacted myself, but for so many people that got involved.

And since today, people are trying to guess stories and inspirational and finding projects of it. Someone essentially built an API just three days ago, just last week, on the API, on the data set that we used in that project. So they built an API, in case anyone else to find the most challenging projects in the interior and stuff like that. Yeah. That's an ecosystem building on top of that as well. So it's really exciting just seeing that one idea, that one project cascades into stuff like this. That's crazy. Talk about the value. You've mentioned value quite a few times over the last few minutes, right?

And I think people watching this are like, what does that mean? Like, what, so can you expound on learning your value, knowing your value? And I would say probably as is it translates into the interview process. Yeah, I think, I would think about value is why, why? Like, what's the point? I remember this talk, I don't know if it's a famous talk, but I think it was, I kind of remember the person's name, I think it's the Simon something, and he talked about the way Apple used to advertise the, it was a TED talk, basically, like people started by Simon saying, Simon's saying, thank you very much.

I'm guessing you said it's often. Yeah, why was why? Yeah, so it starts with why. So if if I want to start a project, they'll have an idea on a real project. And I think you would do this. Why? Like if I were able to come up with why it's like okay, my reason for building this project is because people like this would benefit from this. I've established a value that well, where sometimes when we think about ideas of projects and we've not been able to connect with value to it, but we get excited with the activity with the business of it and we live struck up the value, there was no essentiality on anything.

But if we're able to approach problems, whether it's a walk, whether it's a personal project and you're like, what would someone came from? Someone came from the shop, someone came from the shop, someone came from the shop, someone cared about this, I think about the value and like, nope, that's not a value, let me think more about it. And you fleshed out the value. Like, why am I on this call? Yeah, it's like something like that because I'm expecting that people that are watching and also get a chance to express themselves or learn something or I see the comments and again, and idea like it's just something that continues to go around, it's like energy, is neither destroyed, but continuous change is formed.

And it contains inspired different people. So, everything about why in that sense, lots of stuff is really like what do I get from this, but like why am I doing this? What do I expect to be the value that comes out of it? Does I see value? So in an interview conversation where someone asks me about a project, I'm not going to mention the random project as zero value, because I want them to see that I create things that actually make sense. I think of my player that builds and why that project was a relevance project, which means I'm focused on value of it. But even if I get the interview, why I'm beating that project, I need to think of its value so that it becomes a relevance, commercial topic in the future as well.

So if it's a small project, the big one, not everything has to be the biggest value possible. Or like just think about why you're doing it. Like, is it what's your time? is wanting to be busy, is wanting to be productive, is wanting to make a change, stuff like that. So that's what I think about when I talk about value. Yeah, because a lot of software developers, you can go through the documentation, you can know how to do every single thing. But can you combine all of these codes, snippets, to be something of value, right? So. And do you feel like that's been one of your greatest acts in your career?

Quote unquote, is that you can sit there and explain value in an interview process or explain the value in a day-to-day task? Funny enough, I don't think explaining the value is a strength. I think it's by default thinking of things from that value perspective. Because in the sense that, let me expash it on that. I can be in a conversation in meeting, I'm talking about being in a new feature. I don't automatically think, oh, I can try out this new technology or I can build this thing out this way. I start thinking about, the person that is going to use it, like what do you want to get from this feature?

I love that. Does it make sense also to this? Like I think more from the customer or user or the business perspective, before I was start getting into, well, this is the library I'm gonna use, right? Cause that is what is important. So it's from that thinking process, I think that mentality that mine sets, this is where the value creation starts, even before you start building. Do you feel that a lot of engineers right now are more concerned about what tech they can implement, the latest and greatest, instead of putting themselves in the shoes of the customer and the value that this feature can provide to the customer, is that something that you've seen in your career or not?

Yeah, I think definitely a lot of people get carried away with that. And I definitely love to see more people just moving really little bit from that focus on the value. Sure. For me, the biggest strength of a software developer, For example, it's the things that you can develop, what value can they bring, versus where I can develop. Right. And I keep saying this value, but it's in over. That's great. I'm gonna rename the title of this, a live to value. That's it. That's what we call it. Yeah, because it just always translates. Like even a simple conversation, you might not even think about it from a valuable point of view, like what value am I gonna give you to Taylor speaking to Taylor right now.

But like when you're in that moment, and that's kind of pressing that you, That's kind of mentioned that you kind of grabbed it over that. But that takes time to view. So if you're not that kind of best enough first, just go via review, try to be a little bit harder on why you're doing something so that it starts like just focus on the impact that something could have. Yeah, I love that. As we kind of wrap up here, I do want your biggest tip on how to level up your career in a company, right? I mean, you've obviously grown, excuse me, at companies you've been at outside of value, because we've talked about that.

Is there anything else that you would recommend people, if they want to grow their career at a company, get to that staff level engineer spot, what's another key thing or two people need to do? And Gee, what a very interesting article recently. I'm trying to figure out. Drop it in the private chat. And then I'll throw it up in the banner. Yeah, so it's basically called, she wrote an article called Better Man Metric. Okay. And you cover the way people do performance reviews at comp rules. Okay. So it's, when you're in a company, if you're really good in an interview process, people don't just, people no longer have like, oh, you know the thing the most, because a lot of people know it.

They think about, are you someone that is nice to work with, would I enjoy working with you? Would you, would your teammates and you're working with you? Would you guys be able to work together to create something that affects the business as well. So Angie wrote about the better metric, which kind of covers on how people in a team or in a company could actually work together to how's it gonna say value again. I'm probably gonna take the title as far. Let's do work together to achieve the business goals and stuff like that. And what would impact your performance across the board? So you do the tech thing, you build the thing, or what would make you want to advance to the next level and it does when you're starting them a bit.

I mean, as you talk about the different types of people that exist and which ones recommend it versus the other. I love that. That's awesome. All right, if you wrap up here again, for those of you tuning in, thank you so much. Thank you. Let's go connect with A, send them a message. Again, remember to add a note. Hey, A saw you on the show. So A, we're coming from, A, I kind of do like a little rapid fire question here. And then we'll wrap it up. So first off, if I told you tomorrow that when you wake up, you can't do anything in tech, but I'll pay you the same, if not more, AKA money is not a problem.

What would you do for your job? Two things. Two things. Oh, you're ready to go on that. Here we go. The first would be, I'll probably be a football coach for a young team. I love that. I love that. Yeah, so teach them how to play out to be winners. The second one is to be in tech, I want to attend in Tag Bowl like something in gaming Something in gaming something in gaming. Oh, that dude. Do you have a favorite game? I'm not favorite. Well, I am I am bouncing because of sports. I play a lot of fc 25 because it's football Yes, we're bright.

Well first I played all the time. I've taken Rexham All the way to the Premier League So I've been a lot of people my friends people pro clubs, which is like one person clean a a single position. Yeah, that's awesome. It's amazing. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Outside of video games from a hobby perspective, what do you like to do outside of work, man? Let's play physical football basketball. Okay, awesome. I love it. I love it. That's fantastic. Any kind of kind of like content recommendations, anything you're reading technically, software development, just anything that you're tinkering with from a coding perspective that that you're interested in that you want to give a shout out to or any blogs you've read or just anything like that?

Yes. So in terms of tech and tinkering, currently I've been working with AI agents recently, more frequently, also did our work. And those things are going crazy. Really? Really? There's a lot of announcements come up every other day. So I've been working on Goose, which is like an open source AI agent that people can also check out. I already used it. I have this stream recently where I built an application just prompts, I didn't write a single line of code. I was just like, oh, let's build this app, and then you generate the entire thing. I'm like, okay, let's make this speech like this, and you just skip doing it for me.

That is the future there. I've been thinking, this could get us closer to Java this way. It could be the meta-gloss and I was like, you know what? Show me this thing, and it just builds up the application, and it just shows me that kind of thing. That's the future I drew more. Crazy, crazy. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I'll sign up. Yeah, I'll sign up. Take, I'm within a book called the design of everyday things. So, I'm pushing that up. Awesome. All right, last question to wrap up here again. Thank you all for tuning in. I appreciate it. The comment section has been crazy. I'm glad you'll showed up for the last guidance counselor 2.0 2024.

Aces shows called guidance counselor 2.0 because we had guidance counselors in middle school, high school and college. But now as adults, we don't really have a guidance counselor to turn to and ask for career questions. Now we have no, that would be your biggest piece of career advice to young ace. If you could go back to in Nigeria, and you could go back to your former self and just say, Hey, here's my biggest piece of advice for you. What would it be? I think the singular would be never stop expressing yourself. Because that's one the decision that younger is made is all to go into this point.

So you did a great job. Yeah. Yeah. So the only thing I still want to work on is that expression. And if younger is probably more of that as well, that would be great. So that's so like expressing yourself to be in your content, could be in the obvious that you have, could be in the side projects that you create, like, you know, feeling connected to something, definitely recommend. I love that. That's awesome. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode. And I am very grateful. because you know why? There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes, and I myself rarely finish 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 Tdaston on all social media handles, and I hope you have a fantastic day.