advice from a hiring manager w/ eng manager dan digangi

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All right, so Dan, let's give the people they want real quick, man. Who are you? What do you do? And then obviously we'll figure out what we're going to talk about together. Sure. So my name's Dan Daganji. I am an engineering manager. I work at Active Campaign. Right now I've been managing for the past year, the post-smart products, transactional email and email delivery, super cool business, super successful, really fun. I've been, and was less than we talked. I've been the industry like 20-some years, way less gray hair when I first started. I started as a designer way back in the day, but in my past 20 years, I've been heavy engineering.

Super in the JavaScript React, even though I don't manage front end teams much anymore. But super passionate about mentoring, coaching, leadership, but you obviously know to job hunting, helping people be successful. Most things are something that just have always enjoyed. It's a lot of broken and growth opportunities in the hiring and job hunt industry. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think one thing I appreciate about your friendship is in just who you are, Jason, this guy again. We had dressed up. We already did, Jason, you're late. You're late. We already dressed up. I think one thing I appreciate about you is I feel like you're just very authentic, right?

And you just tell it how it is, which I appreciate. And so again, appreciate you. And literally for those of you who are just now tuned in, like Jason, Dan, I literally just called Dan up. I text him two minutes before I supposed to go live. And Dan's like, yeah, sure, why not? So again, power in the tour community, power in community. It's great. So Dan, obviously, so I'm kind of interested. Is there any hot topics that maybe are on your brain right now that you want to talk about? Just in regards to what you're seeing in the market, maybe obviously you're hiring right now, anything where people are missing the market.

Is there any topics that you kind of been, man, I wish people didn't do this or man, I wish people didn't more of this that you kind of think about. Now's the time to get it out. You know, I was actually kind of curious since kind of did we do this last minute. It was, I was also kind of curious to ask you the same question, which is like, what your take has been on the market. Because I forgot someone asked you recently and I'm trying to remember it was Angie or someone. And so I just started by just opened a role and we do have some of the active campaign.

And I don't know, it feels like it's a weird time right now. Like I see things like nothing is ever going to go back to the hot peak period that we had, of course. But I've seen it like that. Get out of your brain. Like just get it. Yeah. I guess it's like weird as I'm having like this crisis of like, so we know the market's like super saturated, highly competitive. And you know, like when layoffs happen, it only makes it harder for everyone. But like you see more jobs starting to slowly open up. So it's like, what's the disconnect of why those bridges aren't lining up?

And it makes you wonder is it just like, you know, is it because it's a employer's market? And we're just being more picky because we have to be very strategic about who we hire. So I'm still kind of like, I'm not exactly, it's almost like, it's just like, weird purgatory transition phase. And I don't know where it's going to go, but I kind of see the signs. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think at least what I've been seeing, and I spoke with somebody about this on the pod recently too. It's a lot of start and stop. I don't know if you've had issues with this, just with hiring, like it's like we need a role.

Then it's like, well, we don't need a role, but then we do need the role. But we need the role yesterday, but then we don't need the role. Like I feel like, I mean, it's even happened to my team. Like we were going to hire a position for the tour community. I got to go ahead and then like I sent over to finance and finance was like, ah, psych. Right. I feel like it's a lot of that. I also think too, I still think we underestimate the amount of talent that got flooded into the market when the layoffs happened in 2022, 2023. Like I feel like we still don't like, it was so much.

Like it was, it was an ungodly amount of tech talent that got flooded into the market. I think we are continually seeing a lot of people. I know a lot of, I know two people in my network, specifically that were both developers that are no longer developers anymore. You know, it was interesting. So I've had more of that come up too. So one of my best friends, Sam Cicero, he was a docu sign for about six, seven years and he actually left recently. And I was, you know, giving him some tips because he hasn't been in the market in a long time. And he actually set me a, oh man, I forgot how terrible lead code is.

And I was like, ah, yeah, no. But what's interesting is, so Sam's been managing just a little bit less than me. I think he's like five years on like seven or eight in. And I could not see myself ever going back to coding or being an I see, but what I thought is interesting is, as good as a manager as Sam is, he's very much so looking at I see rules. And I'm like, really like, why'd you get there? And he's like, I don't know if leadership's for me and I kind of miss being out there and putting the hands on the code and being focused and not all the BS that manager is doing.

So it's interesting to see that people are leaving the industry or like dramatically taking a 180 on what they're doing or even like, you know, lateral moves have become more commonplace, which I think is interesting because you know, there's value in lateral moves, but it also can put time in between your next step because you're kind of starting in it, not a zero, but you're not moving upward. So I personally... And it's a great topic. Let's let's let's park it on this topic. Yeah. Andy heads up all of the direct tire of Perm Business at Ronin staff in the US. So Andy, appreciate you, Chairman and buddy.

Pergatory phase is by the way, if you do a video call with me and Andy, we look like brothers. Like literally it's the craziest thing. Pergatory phase is the right description. Businesses plus business steering aren't aligned 100%. Obviously Andy, Andy, if you're watching this, please read book me to come on the pod. We'd love to have you to talk about this. This would be great. Jordan, I'm so triggered right there. Yeah, Jordan also, the fellow Ron, Stad co-worker as well. She also just dropped a podcast, which I got out today. So I think this is a great conversation to park on. I think like any time of stress, I think you have to learn how to pivot.

And I think what happened is, and I think there was a lot of entitlement that has occurred over the last few years, especially in the engineering space, up, I can spell react, I deserve a job. Hello, that, by the way, I said that joke at Epic Web conference with Kenzie does, and everybody laughs. So like for me, it's like you used to be able to spell frameworks and get jobs. That is not the case anymore. We are back to where we were before you. And I think people, I think we as human beings have short-term memory. And so we don't realize what it was before that.

Like you actually have to grind to find a job right now. And I think people have lost that grind in that way. You know, I don't know, I don't know, like I kind of, but kind of not in my opinion. I'm not that kind of. Yeah, I love a little discourse. I think there's two ways I think about when I hear that, is one is there is probably yes, the side of you do it, like there's no doubt you have to grind harder right now. But I also kind of wonder, as you said right, like, oh, I can spell reactor. I have a framework is just like, what if the flip side of it is not that we have to grind more is that we didn't grind before?

Because it was sweet. I guess you know, yeah, yeah, you're right. Because I want to be very, very cognizant of that for sure. So I think that's a better way to say it. So thank you for saying that. I like what Jordan said, normalize being okay with moving from leadership to IC girls. What are your thoughts on this? Like, I feel like there is a stigma. And I feel like right now, you're your friend from DocuSign is like, bro, like, I'm ready to go back. And I mean, for me personally, like, you're not going to see me ever personally go back to doing coding like as a day to day.

I'm worried about that. But like, you know what you want, which is, which is great. But that goes back to exactly this is like, what is the best place for you for the type of work you do, the skills you have, what you want for your life, what kind of balance, you know, like, I found that I was pretty good at coding, but never like the crazy, crazy, like, AA plus plus plus that I wanted to be. But when I got into like leadership and like, or leadership opportunities pre-management, like it worked really well for like the type of person and my skill set, like rallying people and stuff.

And that's where I'm planning to stick. Do I miss coding? Oh, I won't lie. Yes, there is times what I do find it hard to go. I'm getting raw, you get rusty after a long time. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with going sideways or up or down or in the downs and even the right word. Not down to go to IC, it's lateral in a sense, right? Like, there's a reason why when you get to senior, that's usually where the manager conversation comes up, right? So it's not, I'm moving up or down. It's I'm deciding which side I want to go to and then I'm going to go forward.

So there's nothing wrong with going to a different role. And, you know, you do have to be careful with one thing, which is if you do write, maybe you go back to IC, it is two degree can be a reset at some level. And you know, you've got to understand the time component, but there's nothing wrong with switching. And I try to do it is I stick with what I'm good at, which I love leadership. I do try to find opportunities for IC things when I can come up, but I do tend to keep myself out of the critical path for obvious reasons. What, so I think there's two stigmas that I've gone, that are not gone away but less it.

I think breaks in employment and layoffs. I think those stigmas have come down. I mean, when I started recruiting 10 years ago, if you had any break, we wouldn't look at you. Like I remember recruiting, and if it was over three months, I wouldn't look at you. That's the thing that's always weird to me. You know, obviously, you know, I've done an extensive amount of hiring over the years. And I have looked at that, but for some reason, like that, it doesn't deter me as much as I've heard from others that have worked in like hiring roles and stuff. Like I do look at it and I care about it, but if I start back, I would almost love to see some be like, I've been at death for 10 years.

I took a year off to spend time with my family, realign my life. That to me is actually a great green flag. Like, you know, like, maybe break some rust off, but there's nothing wrong. I will say I'll give you something to go with that. So my girlfriend is actually really random. By the way, so with the application for the mortgage, one of the things I had to do was a letter for a job or a gap explanation for when I got laid off. So I had to actually write like, I was laid off from company done sizing. So they actually like hired required it.

I thought it was kind of funny. More of its companies if you're listening, relax. So if I was interested to see a second, my girlfriend was, so she's still trying to get her first job. She's on the UI design side and you guys know our everyone knows it's very difficult right now. And we were talking about breaks and stuff. And I forgot what it was exactly. She was talking about as a break. She's like, well, I want to get a year in and then I might need to do this for a period. If you're newer your career, I would be very careful with taking breaks like intentional ones.

Not that I don't say you should. It's just when you're newer, that can have a more negative impact or perspective created for someone, even if it's not legit. It just yet remembers. Regardless of things in shoot, regardless of context and all the things that makeup, why a situation is the way it is, people still bringing a framing and perspective and apply it regardless of that context. And it's something you always gotta remember. Yeah, I love that. I also think, I also think like being laid off is like no longer the stigma that it used to be. Not as much. No, but it might be, this is crazy.

It's like, is it because it's normalized? But that's the thing you don't want that either. Like I don't want the layoffs taking place to be something that becomes normalized. But maybe again, layoffs have been happening for about hundreds and hundreds of however many years. It's not a new thing. We just might be because we're in tech and we're experiencing a new wave and high, you know, a lot of it to us. It's very disconcerting, right? Because it's new to us in this industry. You talked about something I wanna highlight and I wanna continue to reiterate this and I've tried to continue to reiterate this. Is there is a narrative that is formed in the minds of the person reading the resume that you can't control but you need to be aware of?

I brought that up yesterday when Jason and I were doing the resume review. So we were looking at some of these in the torque discord. It was Luke and when we got to one of the sections, Jason asked me a question. It was basically we were looking at, you know, like that little bio you can do in LinkedIn and I tell people it's all the time. It's the same when I write any type of communication is don't think about you when you write that. Is when what is the people that you're trying to get to come there? What is it that you're getting them to think about?

What's the story you're trying to tell? Like it's not about you in the sense of like, you're talking about you but it's for them. And that's really important when communication in general and especially when you're trying to produce content that's related to getting a job. Very important. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And again, I mean, I would, you know, so one of the things back when I was managing a recruiting team at BayCo was we would all kind of joke. And I know this probably isn't kosher, but I must say it anyways. Whenever I saw a developer that said freelance, we would always say not working. I have to be lances.

I'm here for you. Taylor's all over you. I'm here for you. I got you. Yeah, I know. But the reason why I wanted to say that joke is because it's the narrative that we consistently saw. We consistently saw for people who freelance did not have the requirements and the resume to justify what they were actually doing. They did not write their projects the same way as they wrote their real jobs. Is interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They would highly summarize it. They would be very vague. Like I want to encourage you all. If you, even if you are actively freelancing, like that's what you do, you need to write each project, each client, like it's an actual job.

Yeah. I mean, that they literally are jobs. That's super weird to me to hear that they would be treated differently. It's a different thing. It was like we would always be like, oh, you're freelance. And what were you doing? Would like say all the, it's like, why would not your resume? I think there's a discount. Interesting. I thought with another guy, he was a two year develop. I never forget this. I've literally told a story so many times. So two year developer, his react guy. It was a few years back. And I looked at his resume and I was like, man, like your resume is fantastic.

It was written so well. And I was like, so how much? So I was like, so what do you look at your compensation? What were you getting paid? And he goes, I wasn't getting paid. And I was like, what are you talking about? He was like, I've literally taken on a project 10 hours a week for the last two years to help my resume. And when I read his resume, I mean, it looked the way he wrote it was like 40 hour a week full time job. And so I paid. Yeah, he wasn't getting paid. So like what he was working like, obviously like some other like just non tech industry jobs at the time too.

But I would just encourage you all, even if you're junior, you need to write your resume or your LinkedIn the same way you would write your resume and LinkedIn as a full time job. Any thoughts on that, Dan? I mean, I feel like it's kind of straightforward. I mean, it's kind of like a no greater thing. You're there. You know, like regardless of pay, if you're doing work, it is actual work experience like write it in that format. Like some of the things like, I know there's always context and like flavor and how are we going to do it. But some of these are like kind of a little more binary to me that's very binary.

Like there's not a lot of debate to be had, but of course, somebody's opened a debate of someone disagrees. Yeah. And Jay's goes honestly, didn't we see that yesterday with no is resume where it was kind of detailed as freelance section, but I bet he could have talked about it for an hour. This is what I'm talking about. And I mean, like so I think yeah, I was in no is he had freelance and it wasn't a bad or anything. It was just, it didn't actually say anything about the actual pieces of work that were done. Let alone like actually describing what the important parts of it were.

And several of those like I also started in freelance way back in the day. And that was actually one of the reasons when I was newer to the industry, I was able to get people to talk to me and take me a bit more seriously. So not every standard path of work is the only path to show experience and ability. So like freelance is a potentially great way for people to hold experience and show it. So don't just count it for yourselves, y'all. If you've done it or you're considering freelance. And you might make some extra scratch. You know, like there's nothing wrong with making the extra money.

100% yeah, I'm a big fan of freelance. I actually, I just need you to write your resume properly. I think that's the big thing. You know, I just thought of something. I don't know if this is a good thing to use AI for to write your resume. I think Jason, Jason just triggered this in my mind. We're so much more comfortable talking about what we do and not writing what we do. Is there a tool where you could like just like talk about what you do and then tell chat GPT to turn it into a resume based on what you said. Is that possible? I'm sure that exists, but I was going to say, we all have that tool.

It's literally the thing that the skin carcass that we're sitting inside of. So I do, I do something with the way that I write mine. So I told Jason, as yesterday when we're doing the stream, was so I have my working copy of my resume and I have my production copy. My working copy is all of the possible content, different variations like all the pieces. And I iterate in there and get all this, you know, again, different variations. And then I move that in my production copy, which is that final version. So like sometimes I'm pulling new content in or writing it in a different way.

The reason I say this to what you said though is, there's something to be said of like, I don't know, this is gonna sound really lame. And I don't do this often, but I have done it is, there's times where I will take something I write and print it and read it to myself out loud or sometimes in my head. But when those mediums and channels like say out loud, what's your reading or literally go to, so let's say you're in work word or Google Doc, whatever, go put it onto a drive doc or into LinkedIn as like a temporary like reading things in different places and saying them out loud, that helps you see the value and quality of the content and if it actually flows or is right.

That is a super helpful tool. Yeah, I did that with reading my email and I was about to let our set out. I actually like, I have this editing process I do, but like the final version is me actually reading my email out loud because when you read stuff out loud, you catch a lot of issues. We catch a lot of issues. You had Jason goes, wait, you have a printer? Yeah, yeah. And that's, I couldn't get it to work, but I do for the record. I do leverage AI stuff for a variety of things across my job and life now. So like if anyone's ever like, that's cheating or whatever, like it has been the best productivity, boost of anything that I've had in the past few years.

The sidebar question, because we're technically almost that time already. Oh yeah. What's, what, what are some AI tools you're using that's a really big fan of right now that helps just with anything? So me personally, I have clawed. I bought like the subscription and I ended up buying a year of it. And I mean, if I, if I show you the history, it's everything and then so you can see stuff from me trying to buy my house. There's code stuff. There's, I sometimes literally just ask it like, what it thinks about something just to see or I give you like a non work example. My dad has a lot of chronic pain issues and he came in and found this article in ARP about the thing called nerve decompression.

So I went and I, I had it summarize this article for him. But then when it brought out and said certain things, I just started kind of poking at those pieces of things that it said. And it started taking me down more paths. It got my brain thinking and it brought more information. So like there is, I really highly suggest if you all have not tried these tools, don't use it to short circuit your work or cheat, use it as a productivity and a learning tool. It is so worth it. So worth it. Yeah. One of the things that I've actually started, I don't use it at time.

But one of the things I've started to do is when I interview guests on topics that I don't really know, so prime example would D yesterday. He's a little outside my space. I want to get read up on kind of his background a little bit more. So I was like, I just, I went into Grock and I was like, hey, like what? Like I'm interviewing D. Murphy. Can you give me 10 questions to ask him based off his background? And I mean, it helped me tremendously. I can give you something specific for, for those that are like seeking jobs and doing researches, literally go in and talk to one of the bots, like and ask it about the company you're working in, the space they're working in, like who are their competitors?

What are some XYZ about it? But this, like that stuff, that's a great research tool if you're trying to learn about companies. And again, you can apply this in so many lenses, but like these take advantage of the tools that are coming out. Like I thought it was gimmicky at first, but now that I use it, like it is a core part of my workflow across my life easily. I love it. Yeah. It's a bachelorette. I'm using AI right now to better say data validation. I do that one. That sounds right formulas and Google spreadsheets because I'm terrible formulas. Yeah. I don't know any of that stuff.

God, I think that's great. That is great. One thing is so funny, because I always post about trying new stuff. I'm back to super list, by the way, or to do list. I think super list is a great combination of Apple notes and Apple reminders in one app. So highly recommend super list for tasks. I was on things and things just, it was two, I needed a place to do task and notes together and things is just purely tasks. So highly recommend super list. That's not AI, but I just recommend it for to do. Cool. All right, man. Let me kind of give you kind of the rapid fire and then we'll end it here.

So first off, thank you for coming on. I appreciate it, but I'll hear the best for real. This is a great, like you're one of the guys. It's just like you and Jason, we just hop on and just get after it. First question is, and you've been on by having been on it a bit. So this question is still true. If I told you tomorrow that when you wake up, you couldn't do anything in tech. What hobby would you pursue for a living? I mean, so I was saying, I think same answer I gave you last time, so I'm so bored. I'm obsessed with snowboarding.

I love it. I would love to take a year off and just be a mountain bum. Yep, I love that so much. Second question is, what's like one person in the community that you think's doing cool stuff? Just anybody you're watching or any content you've read lately or any podcast you've just to just anybody in the tech engineering community wanting to give a shot of too? Oh man, I don't know if I know his actual last name. Henry Habedica. I stumbled across his blog a few months ago and some of the contributors, the articles in there, like a performance stuff too. I really liked it.

It was really, really good. It was good. It was cool. There's one other one and I'm totally with and on their name. So I'll stick with Henry for now, but I'm re-engaging how that my work's kind of stabilizing in a good path. So that's how I've been enjoying. I met my mentor. Like I like being in this work community. It's nice to help there. And obviously I always love you and Jason. Connecting with you guys has been great. Yep, I love that. All right, last question, because I got a one-on-one here in one minute. If it would be one piece of career advice, you would tell a young dad.

Put the time in, meaning don't do the surface-fout level stuff. Like pick something or a few things over time in a week's week, whatever. And put super, it was a go deep and go to the ones and zeros. I don't mean just code. I sometimes was very surface-fout level or I didn't go as deep and it made me like jack-a-ball trades master and none earlier in my career. So really drill into things. It makes a big difference. I wish I knew that when I was younger. Yep, I agree. I agree. Cool. I'm staying on second set body backstage. We all have a great one. That's it for the week.

And we'll see y'all in the torque discord. 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-Dasting on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.