from sales to first engineering job at netflix w/ shaundai person

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Let's give the people what they want. Sean Gray, who argue what do you do? And obviously we will go from there. Where do I start? Well, we're doing, I don't know. I'm Sean Day person, pronounced like a day of the week, Friday, Saturday, Sean Day. I'm a, I get some every time. I'm a senior software engineer, I'm a UI engineer at Netflix on the developer productivity team. Yeah, such platform team and outside of work, I am creating YouTube videos these days. I am. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm getting that going. If you go to my YouTube now, you're not going to see that much, but it's like, there's a lot of stuff a brewing.

I love it. And I love it. And I'm a mom. So, yeah, just balancing. I know everything, everything, literally all the hardest jobs. I just thought with Smol, which I love, which I love. All right, so again, I had Shanday on a year, a year, a year and a half ago, I think. So we're still going to talk about her journey kind of getting into software in which her first job was at Netflix. Right. I was joking with her backstage said, you know, most like first people's job is in tech is like at Bart's insurance down the road. You know developing some sort of HR app and some widgets and stuff Not Shandae she just went straight for it and literally just got a job at Netflix from out of the gate So we're gonna talk about that process today So Shandae a lot of places to start here, but kind of give a Little bit of your story of who you were before ending up at Netflix just kind of set the stage Yeah, I was a salesperson for a a little over a decade.

Right out of, well, undergrad, I went to school for business, grad school, I went to school for business. And the reason was because I was obsessed with entrepreneurship and what makes businesses tick. I love finance, I love business finance, I love personal finance. It's like a weird passion of mine. I have a friend that I'm catching up with after a couple months and we're like, let's talk about trusts and like this planning. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so excited. Yeah, you started doing some TikToks, and I got lost on that. I was like, well, I don't know what she's talking about. So that just inspires me to make some more because now I have to get everybody out of here.

You can break it down. Yeah, yeah. Your whole trust TikTok was fascinating. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. So yeah, if you ever want to get me talk and just talk about stocks personal finance, I will go. So I did sales. I did the sales thing. I was selling tech for a good part of that, but I sold everything. I sold bed sheets. I sold nail polish. I sold clothing services. Yeah, it was all of them. I sold cars. I was all over the place. And so, and I loved it. What I really loved was the business aspect of it. I wanted to start a business, but I didn't know what kind of business I wanted to start.

In 2015, I decided to pursue my passions for entrepreneurship and just quit the workforce. I started a business that was like selling things that you could see basically in like a whole Flugger Trader Joe's like all organic, natural, anything in that genre. And I had a Shopify store. What I found, which was surprising to me, what I found was the most fascinating about it was learning liquid, which is Shopify's Ruby-based language to customize my site. Cause I was like, it's not just gonna be any Shopify site. Basically my face HTML. Yeah, no, I needed it to be like top of the line. Like there needed to be marketing automation.

There needed to be the chatbots. Yeah, so I was like, all right, I'm going to learn to code to do this. And I figured out it is me from Leet Heat. There's a YouTube comment. I know. You're popping. That's just so crazy. So yeah, so I decided to kind of learn to code in all of the weirdest ways, because in my head, I thought that engineers needed to be, they needed to go to school for years and years, they needed to have some type of applied science knowledge, like ask you. You got to be like, the society teachers, you gotta have, you gotta have a pedigree.

Yeah, yeah, you can't just be yourself either. It's not like, you know, people who like to talk with people aren't welcome in engineer because you're going to say, yeah, we're going to closet with the lights off and like, some of the door type of situation, right? Exactly. Exactly. And I was like, that's not for me. So it started out as kind of like a hobby that I was really bad at. And there was one point where I had gone back into the workforce just because in the United States, you need health insurance and I got pregnant and I was like, I need health insurance, right?

For that. Because that would have been so expensive to have a baby. So I went back to the workforce and then I saw a comment about code cat, like there was an ad for code cat and there was a comment underneath that said, you don't have to go to school. You can be self taught. And that just unlocked the whole world of everything for me. And that's where we ended up. That's awesome. So learn so you went to a boot camp. Oh, no, I didn't. Oh, you did. OK, so we all self-taught learning liquid, trying to develop a Shopify thing for you. Yeah. And then it turned.

I mean, how did you get to Netflix? That to me is just great. I know. It seems like a big jump. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, no, we're going to like, I'm going to quit everything I'm doing. I'm going to learn liquid by myself, which is whatever. And then we just Netflix surprise. Yeah. No, that's a, that's a great question. And technically there was a first job in between, um, there was a company that I was at called sales loft for, um, Oh, I didn't know you had sales loft. Yeah. I was at sales. Okay. Ray. I want, oh yeah. Yeah. That's right. So yeah, that's, I met, that's where I met Ray in the first place.

So I was there I think seven months or so when I started interviewing at Netflix and Okay, so let me tell you about how that happened. Yeah, I'm always interested like how do you go from nothing to something? Yeah, okay, so you'll be really happy to hear this that it was networking that was the big But let's put emphasis on this this was before the economy kind of went shit away it is right now. No, yeah, no, no, actually, not the way that it is now. Right. This was 2020. So, okay. So it still was a little rough because it didn't quite start humming to like 2021 or something like that.

So yeah, it still wasn't ideal. Yeah, so I got my my job at sales loft in 20 November of 2020. And then I started with Netflix September of 2021. And so yeah, the job market, people were doing layoffs and things like that, it was scary because actually I wasn't selling during the pandemic hit and became the thing where we had to go in quarantine and all that stuff. So a lot of my big sales were at risk because of the economy going down people just getting laid out. Like I would call customers and they would be like, I got laid off last week. I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry.

So yeah, I, but before, before the pandemic, I had already kind of had in my head that I was going to figure out how to promote myself as somebody who deserved the opportunity to interview for an engineering role. So I was at a company sales loft and for those who don't know sales loft is a company that makes technology for sales people. They make what's called the sales engagement platform, which really doesn't matter. All that really matters is that I was selling software to sales people. Sales people were my customer. And I was a great seller. I will sell myself on that. And I made it a point to, I just wanted to get to know people and I came at it from a curious mindset because I realistically didn't think that it was going to be anytime soon that I was going to be able to get a job because I had just started to kind of learn to code when I was at sales loft.

And I was like, I just want to talk to people, figure out what kind of things they did to get into their roles. But I also want from them, I want them everybody to know me on the engineering side. And I want everybody, like if two people just end up in a room together, randomly from the engineering team. I wanted my name to come up and I wanted it to be good things. So that was just my goal is like, I just want to have my name in every room and I want my reputation to precede me. I don't want to have to ask for anything.

And I do that still to this day with conferences. I've never had to submit a CFP for a conference. I want job opportunities to come to me. I don't want to have to be like, you know, like running around, like running after people. So I thought of this way and what I ended up doing, we had a slack donut. It's like a bot and a slap. Yeah, like the next people, right? The whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. Like every two weeks it'll be like you have a coffee chat with Taylor and or, you know, some random person. Now if the person was in finance, I'd be like, yeah, forget it.

Like I don't care. But, right, yeah, I want to talk about that. Yeah. So, okay, real quick, I want to highlight, to be able to tune in or just right now. So you were actively, so you were in a sales, sales loft, actively networking internally with developers. Yes. That's right. That's right. Yes. Yeah. I know I'm preaching. I just want to clarify. Just want to clarify. Right. See, and that's the thing is like, it's kind of like finance slash insurance. Like you want to be ready for a rainy day. I, you know, I don't want the rainy day to come and I didn't have my umbrella and my rain boots.

I need all of that stuff to prepare for my rainy day. And so all of these were genuine conversations. It wasn't, you know, oh, I have this ulterior motive. Even if I did though, it's not a bad thing. Like it's a mutual gain. Like they're gaining an amazing conversation. They're gaining knowledge. and I'm learning about them and we're connecting as two people who work in the same company. But I'm finding ways to leverage this opportunity to get to know people closer and I might be at a conference or I might be at some meetup or something like that. I'm gonna use that opportunity to connect with people, make these genuine connections.

I'm not gonna ask for anything because I don't have anything to ask for right now, but then later on, if I do need to ask for something, now I already have that connection. So, yeah, I was building up this network over time. At the same time, I was also finding a community on Twitter. And that kind of happened by accident, but like in hindsight, I can think of all of the ways that that was so lucky and how it worked out for me. Yeah, cause so I was using LinkedIn a bunch just because it was the place where all my customers were. So I was selling on LinkedIn.

So I had a big LinkedIn presence, But I didn't want to alarm my customers by making them think that I was like half in half out because I was an account manager visiting accounts and also like Upselling and I didn't want my customers to think that I was like kind of in and out the door I wanted them to think I was fully dedicated to them Also the same thing with my sales leaders So I was like let me go where I don't know anybody which happened to be twitter twitter happened to have like this amazing dev community at the time. Now I think most people have migrated to blue sky and I've seen people on LinkedIn as well, YouTube.

But I was posting out loud all of the things that I was learning and then like hashtagging it with code newbie or moms who code dev new or code newbie, I don't know if I already said code newbies, But just posting things and it was just earnest like, I don't know what I'm doing and I just need to say it out loud. Like, right. So I ended up getting this amazing community built around me with people who wanted to see me win, who wanted to help. And what I love so much about the Devs community is that it's not, it's not like sales where everybody wants to keep things to themselves and keep like super secrets and stuff.

You know, and then if people are giving you secrets, there's always some kind of like sneaky thing like oh, I'm trying to sell you a course or I'm trying to like get over on you or teach you the wrong thing so that you won't feel as much as I do. So people were just so generous with information and I was like, this is different like this is different and there's people around me. And what they love for me is that I know how to talk. I've been in a career where that's all I have to do. Like that's. You are good with words. Yes. Yeah, so they were like, okay, well you could speak, you could do this.

And you know, you should try doing it out loud because that's going to bring more people to you. That's going to bring more of a community too. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, those are the bigger things. And that's really the two biggest, well, no, I guess that is one big thing that I used to get to from zero to where I'm at now is networking, like building community. just genuinely building community for the sake of having people around to like, you know, ideas off of and all that. So, so, all right. So recap, at sales loft, selling the software, you were internally networking. You also were posting what you were learning from a dev perspective on Twitter.

Yes. How did, how did, how did Netflix come about? I think I know, I think I know the answer this, but how did that first come out? Yeah, so I was OK, so taking you a little bit back as I was learning to code. One of the ways that I learn is by immersing myself in the deepest level of knowledge. You'll find me in the room, not even a junior yet, but you'll find me in the room with staff engineers, just sitting, taking notes. I don't understand shit, but I'm going to come back to it. I know all the words that I'm going to look at, but I don't understand how to connect.

So that's how I kind of dive in. So I was listening to podcasts on my way to my sales job every day before, you know, work in remote. And one of the podcast, my first favorite podcast was front and happy hour. And that amazing podcast, but I binged to listen to seven years worth of episodes in like two weeks. I loved it. I loved it so much. I, in sales, you have no concept of like fang or Netflix is big about it. Netflix has no sales team. So I like, Netflix was never on my radar. But so I'm listening to the voices and I'm like, oh, there's a couple of people I really enjoy listening to.

Ryan, which is Jim Young, I'm like, wow, you know, my dream one day would be to like work on Ryan's team because I knew he was a UI manager. And I'm like, no, it'd be so awesome because he seems like such a great person. And Netflix seems like a cool company, I believe in the product. And what, I forget what the other thing, oh, the tech stack, like the tech stack fits what I'm learning now. Yeah, right, right. No concept of like, I was like, it's gonna take a long time for me to get there. But so Ryan posted this role that I was like, this is perfect in terms of every, like the company, the manager, the tech stack.

But the big thing that I can't, is like the timing, the timing is off. I've only been in this for six or seven months. There's no way that I'm gonna be able to get a Java and Netflix, you know? So I messaged Ryan and I was like, hey, I saw that you had this position. And this is the same way I do like every kind of networking. This was not like, oh, give me a referral or anything like that at all. Just like, you know, this is my dream someday. I'm not ready to apply for this one. So, you know, don't worry about that. But I do want to make sure that I'm building the skills so that whenever you post your next job, I can be ready.

So can we have a conversation about like what skills you think you're gonna need? You just go into Ryan's DMs. Yeah, yeah. And we had become mutuals too, because I had tweeted about binging his podcast. And then, yeah, I tagged him. These are all there, I'm highlighting this for a reason. Yeah. I know, and it's all true. Like this is validated in stories. This is before I even met you, Tay. So this is like, you know, this is. I was like, you're so happy. I mean, this is, this is, this is, that's a Jason here. Don't make him, don't make him. I, I, I, I point when people are preaching here.

Yeah, you're doing it. You're literally doing the funnel that I talk about. So keep going. I love it. Um, so I, yeah, I, I messaged him and, okay. So yeah, we had been, we, we built this like mutuals connection. I'm not bugging him at all. He's not bugging me at all. Just like in his post on Twitter, you're maybe retweeting it with some thoughts. You're saying, Hey, I love the podcast. Just very non creepy. Right. It's just friendship. That's it. Like that's, you know, what I would I do just like, let's hang out online. Like that's that's it. I'm not going out. So, um, I messaged him about the role and was like, okay, six months to a year down the line.

I want to make sure that I'm like being precise in the skills that I'm building. So let's have a conversation about that. Oh, I also want to highlight too. You have specific ask in the DM. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Um, yeah. And I cannot emphasize this enough because it gets on my nerves. I will say this when people just like message you and they're like, Hey, can I ask you a question? No, no, no, not even that. I get. No, I got. Hey, Stuart. That's why it's like such a pet peeve of mine. I will not respond or just like a wall of text. Honestly, that's, I'm not reading that.

I'll take that. I don't have to. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sure. We're kind of getting into your salesperson. Like talk about the power of like a very short, precise message. OK. And this is a nice. OK, you're getting this hot off the press because I'm about to make a tick talk about this and it's like it's going to go viral. It's the way you know it. I will like it when I see that. two people very close back to back like within a week, um, ask me for feedback on their messages. Both of them had messages that were like so, okay, so this is messages to reach out and do more networking, right?

They were very beautifully crafted. Um, the punctuation was perfect, the capitalization was perfect. They had like paragraphs neatly, you know, signed off, you know, all my all my best whatever songs. Yeah and I'm like. No like yeah don't don't don't save it like I will skip over that so quickly. I was like this is way too formal and it sounds like you're gonna ask me for something like you're gonna ask me to buy something to spend something to spend money spend time something that I don't have enough of really and I just don't have the time for it. I don't know you. So I'm not reading past Dear Shanday, that that to me is a turn off.

Like don't even, don't do that. I was like, let's read, first of all, bottom line on top. Ask what you're gonna ask in the beginning. Don't worry about the whole pleasantries and stuff like that. Like I feel like it's more impolite to fake politeness. You might as well just, yeah. Be your full self. And I will approach my messages, not with like an extra level of unprofessionalism, but I'm just gonna be myself straight up like, hey, you know, it's been like, hey, exclamation point, smiley, wherever I want to, because this is my life and I can do whatever I want with it. And hey, hey, you know, just reaching out, I wanted to schedule a couple minutes with you, finite, small block of time, you know, no big deal or whatever, but just like maybe two, one or two sentences, I wanna learn more about this for the future, thanks.

And that's it. Like I don't sign off with my name. My name is already in the message. Like just keep it informal, keep it concise, and keep it friendly. And don't ask for something right off the bat. Yeah, and I think too, and I don't know, this is kind of so it's fat. I love, so I don't schedule any questions and I don't do it because I love kind of the way conversations flow. And I love what we're going into because I've seen more people post lately about, we're not gonna get into AI chat here, but I'm starting to see a lot more people, literally two people that I respected a ton in the founder VC kind of community on Twitter this last week, specifically say they think misspellings and errors and messages are the single most way to basically endure yourself as a human being with the sea of AI.

Yes. Which I think is because I also said that like a year or two ago. Yeah. I said, listen, like if you get messages from me, like literally Jason Kinetesis, if Briana, my right hand woman was on here too, she would tell you, all my, I misspell every slack message. I don't, I don't have time. Like you can bring your doubt type situation. But like I feel like in the DMS, just off man, authenticity matters in today's world so much. Agree. 100%. And we were saying this before, this was like 2013-14. We were using this as a sales tactic is to stand out because if you think about it, your competition is all of the other people who are DM'ing this person about all kinds of stuff, DM'ing about cleaners, DM'ing about wanting to be the person who mows your lawn, DM'ing about your kids' school, and then the other people who are DM'ing about, let me get a referral, let me get a referral, going to referral.

How are you standing out and how are you showing that you're like a genuine human or an interesting human? Somebody that I would care to spend more than half a second looking at their DM. But yeah, we would do like add an extra space here and there or a space between a period. The only thing that you don't want to misspell is the person's name. Do not misspell the person's name. All so huge. Yeah. Also right now. Don't do that. Don't do that. You just tell everything else. just don't don't cry. Right. Yeah. Exactly. My name is very, very, very, very, very, very, highly Tyler.

Right. Shano day. Yeah, no. So. Dm'd Ryan conversations. Then what happened? Like how how did that did Ryan go, Hey, we have a spot open. I'm curious on kind of how that transition fully took place. Yeah. So this was it was in response to a job posting that he had. And again, in my mind, I'm like, there is no way I'm getting this job, but I'm really nice job. There is no way I'm going to be able to get this job with my years of experience. This is pure curiosity and just like kind of, you know, I wanted to talk to him. So like, let's just talk.

So I didn't go in with any intentions other than to be curious. We had a meeting and he I had some questions already prepared the things that I was going to ask him. So not going in and I'm going in with the intentions of leading the meeting. I'm not going to go in and be like, Oh, well, what do you got for me? Like tell me about what you got? Yeah, I'm going to go up to you again. I'm dying. How I think I'm going to call it. And this may be a little bit of a controversial take. There is a hierarchy to the conversation.

Yes. When Shanday messages Ryan, Shanday is junior. Ryan is senior. The expectation for the call should be that Shanday comes prepared because Shanday is taking the more senior person's time. I can't tell you the amount of calls I've had where we get on a call and I'm just like, what do you want to talk about? And they don't have anything and you're just wasting my time. And listen, that may be a hot take, but if you're meshing somebody more senior than you, if you reach out to that person, you need to come prepared or that is a bad look. Thank you. Thank you. Come on time.

Come prepared and come ready to lead 100%. I don't think it's a hot take at all. I think it's cool. It should be cold. Like it should be. Yeah, yeah. Right. It shouldn't be hot for me whatsoever. Okay. Well, you want to offend anybody this Tuesday morning? No, but it's like, it's such necessary knowledge that I don't think everybody really thinks about all the time. Yeah. Like it's, it's actually offensive that you would kind of ask for somebody's time. The most precious thing that anybody has, right? for somebody's time and then expect them to have prepared something for you. Like they're already giving you their time.

So like the, the least that you could do is come ready to fill that meeting up with like questions and things like that and be like be ready to let it go early. If you don't have anything prepared, just like let it go. That it doesn't even make any sense. Um, real quick, Jeff comes up here. I think if you were reaching out to that person, you should come prepared. So you don't feel on the same level. If you are reaching out to that person, you want to have a conversation. You got to come prepared. Right. Have an agenda for the meeting. Um, I think it's just common courtesy.

And I, I think of it the same way. I think of dates. Like if I asked you on the date, I pay if you asked me on the date, you pay. But like, and you also plan it. You coordinate it and everything. Um, yeah. Same thing with, with, um, any appointments or meetings. I mean, I, I have never had anybody messaged me and go, Hey, we'd love to talk with you about these three things. I'll take five minutes of your time. If people did that, I would take calls more often. Same. Same. Right. I don't want a whole formal invitation. And like the worst thing that I can think of is somebody spending more time preparing the email that they're writing to DM me with like this formal preparation, then they actually spend preparing for the actual meeting.

Like, you know, and it can, you can tell when somebody is going to waste your time. So just don't even bother. So then how did conversation with Ryan and then it kind of just worked out? Yeah, so had this conversation and he gave me the information that I needed, some of the questions that I asked were like, what kind of gaps are there on your team right now? Like what kind of gaps are you looking for somebody to fill when your ideal team is complete? Like what does this person look like? Who is that completing piece of the team? I asked him for information about the future of the team because I was thinking more future.

Also, I think it's a good question for any interview is just what's the future trajectory of it? Where do you see yourselves going in terms of hiring projects and things like that? And by the end of that conversation, he was like, you know, I think you should just apply. And I was like, really? Cause no, I would be so heartbroken not getting it. And he was like, the worst that you could hear is no. And they'll also give you feedback about why you didn't get the job. And I was like, I thought about this, but I was like, I will regret it more to have just passed up this opportunity than, than to have like tried it and been told no.

So, yeah, I decided to shoot my shot and I got the job. They were like, you surpassed everybody else, because they were like, you know, for the amount of time that I needed. I was quoting, they were like, she needs to technically blow it out of the water. So I did that, I put my all into it. And, but where I really pushed is, I think, on the social aspect of it, like this is how I would be as a team. I assumed everybody else who was applying had great technical skills. And I was like, I'm really gonna shine as Shonday the human being. Shonday the person.

Or you need a part two, because we're already at time tech. Oh my God. I know this happens. I knew what happened. What let's highlight what you highlighted from a social, from a soft skills perspective, and then let's wrap it up. And let's work on a part two date. So what did you focus on? Like when you in an interview, I love that thought process. There can be people who are better technical skills than me, but I'm going to pass them with the interpersonal. Are there some things you really honed in on? There's some things you said that I really want to know. Yeah, where there's some specific key things you honed in on from a soft skills perspective.

Yeah, and I got that out of my conversation with Ryan initially. Yeah, so another thing that I did was I stalked everybody on the team. So I asked who is going to be here. Literally my talk in Amsterdam, I like dove in on this. Get out. I love it. So yeah, I was like, I'm gonna get, I heard what Ryan said, but I also wanna get a picture of who else is on the team and figure out how I would fit in. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to position myself as this person to this person, this person to this person. And I also want to harp on these specific traits that I have when I answer all my questions because I know that that's something that the team really wants.

Yeah. So yeah, I would say those were the number one thing that I did. I also use video, which like we can talk about real quick, talk about real quick. Okay. So I think video is the best way for you to stand out as a human, like as a human. When you're working remote, people see you, they can hear you. They can see your mannerisms and your tone. So I used video to describe my app that I built for my interview, and I went through it from a user's perspective and recorded a video that I included in the read me when I submitted that coding project.

I also use videos in my thank you emails. So instead of sending just a thank you email, I was like, hey, you know, made a cute little not cute, made a nice little video for you. Thank you for your time. And then two minutes of me saying like, Oh, that was so fun talking to you and them getting to see my smile and how great I look and call with them. Wouldn't you love to see me every day in meetings. Well, and I think too, it's so funny you brought this up too. So our dear friend, Mark Thompson messes me the other day. And he was like, Hey, got a random question for you.

I said, yeah, what's up. He goes, I have a friend who's looking for a job. Is it weird to send video for an application? Mm. Yeah. I think it's perfect. I said, no, but don't be weird. And keep it short. He goes, he goes, he goes, OK, that's kind of my thought too. Because again, I just think I've had some people message me some audio messages in LinkedIn. I listen, all of them. I think it's great. I haven't had anybody do it. I had it on Twitter and I loved it. Actually, Ken sent me. No, no, no. He called me one time. so different. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So, um, all right, this is great stuff. Yeah, a lot of comments. I knew this, I knew this morning was gonna go well, but the feedback's been pretty resounding. So, we'll have to do a part two. So, this is a good stuff. All right, uh, we're gonna restrict respect for every time. Also, full transparency, I gotta bounce here soon. So, let's, let's go ahead and wrap it up here and Shanday, we'll work on part two here very soon. Um, again, thank you so much. You're wonderful. Everybody go check with Shanday, but don't be weird. First thing I always ask, if I told you couldn't do tech tomorrow, but I'd pay you the same, if not more from a money company on an issue, what hobby would you pursue for a living?

Am I, it would either be working out or gardening. Awesome. What are you big on working? Are you like taking classes? Are you just doing your own thing? I'm doing stuff at home. I'm getting more and more into it as I do it more like yeah I have like a whole gym downstairs. No way. Yeah, it's turning into like a thing now Workouts at Shondays. I love it. I love it second question outside of Working out and gardening what what else do you like to do fun? Oh? Oh, I guess running is the same thing. I love video games with my son I love video games with anybody, but I love video games.

And I like eating food. I like going out to a bathroom. Say. Say. Is that a hobby? That's a hobby. What's, is there one good spot in Atlanta you've been to recently? Want to give a shout out to food was? Oh, I'm coming to good spots. Yeah, I really like Virgil's. They have multiple locations, but Virgil's is like, it's a soul food restaurant. Okay, really, really good. Okay. Really, really good. Yeah. Try that when you come down. Um, third question, which by the way, I'm in Atlanta. So much LinkedIn thinks I'm in Atlanta, by the way. They like, like, push Atlanta people. Yeah. Um, third question.

Is there anybody in the tech ecosystem you want to give your flower, their flowers to, um, just anybody who's doing really cool work, um, that you've been following for a bit? Oh, that's such a great question. Um, I, there's so many people. I could say. Oh man, I haven't wanted three. Let me just say there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm far from off. I'm Mark Thompson. Yes, he's a gem. Love that. Shruti Kapoor. Love Shruti. And Jason Langstorf. Yes, Jake, thank you. I'm telling you stuff. Yeah, yeah. I love it. I love it. Those three are huge right now, for sure. Yeah. Next question. Any cool tech stuff you're tinkering with right now, even if you want to throw out some AI stuff that you're maybe just messing with on your own or anything.

Oh, great question. I'm actually learning a lot more about playwright for some tests, some integration tests. But yeah, that's not, it's great. It is great. But I'm just having some troubles. I like things that give me a little bit of a challenge. So that's it. And not necessarily tech, but it's a skill that I'm working on is learning to navigate ambiguity a lot better. So I'm trying to find big problems at work and then attach myself to them as a leader, like a thought leader, and like help the team to navigate things kind of like a quarterback. And I'm like, okay, well, you do this and I'll do that.

And that's that's been a lot of fun. I love like psychology and like how interpersonal connections and how those work. So oddly enough, this is something that is is very, it's something that I'm working on that is like very exciting to me. Well, that's awesome. All right, last question we'll wrap up here. Show us called guidance counselor 2.0 because we had guidance counselors in middle school high school in college when now as adults don't really have anybody to turn to an S for general career advice. What would be, if you go back in time, what would you tell young Shonda like biggest piece of kind of career job advice?

Oh, that's great. Um, that the people who you look at as untouchable and successful and amazing are just you underneath. Like they're the same as you underneath. Like everybody is just, nobody knows what they're doing. Yeah, nobody knows. Nobody knows. Nobody had a man. I don't know. I'm very open about it. I know. We're just, we're just bobbing. We're just. people know everything and they like came with instructions or like even like a guide a little bit but I feel like everybody's just kind of winging it and I'm like I didn't know this I didn't I think it would have been harder had I known it because I would have been very skeptical for much longer but sure yeah yeah it's just seeing that like I can do anything because they they did it just because they did it I can do it absolutely absolutely I love it all right All right, y'all.

Shonday, stay on so I can say bye to you backstage, but y'all have a great one. 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 T.D.S.T. on all social media handles, and I hope you have a fantastic day.