career and community talks w/ domitrius clark

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these people who catch the the the hype the end of the hype right like right they're going we're live but keep going that's fine they're gonna have to meet them as the developers that they are right and have an understanding of like because you're no longer you don't it's not that you don't have to have expertise as a developer anymore to get a job, but you still do. You still have to understand, you know, the, the, the core machinations of building software. Sure. Yeah. But at the end of the day, now people are building stuff with their, with English, like with, with their native language, they're going in, they're prompting.

It's crazy. So that I had a developer for Microsoft or I won't say who, but he texted me and he goes, Hey, I was like, do you think the layoffs are happening at Microsoft because of AI? He goes, no, not that I can tell, but I will tell you the next great coding language is English. He says, I have it. Yeah. Well, which is funny because like a lot of like code is written natively in English as it is. Sure. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's like now it's now just translate. The translation layer has like widened. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Yeah. Good morning, y'all.

So Dom and I were having a very lively chat backstage. I wish we could have shared it from the get-go, but some of it was just us boys yapping. But yeah, good morning, y'all. Excited for this. I've not gone live in a minute because I've been so busy. And I'm actually heading out to DevUp to speak tomorrow in St. Louis. So I'll be on a flight first thing in the morning. But we squeezed in Dom. So really, really pumped about this one.

um uh dom was scheduled actually like two or three weeks ago or a month ago um and two or three months ago was it two or three months ago already isn't that crazy I hate time I hate time a lot time in corporate america is wild like literally like my wife wonders why I ask her about things all the time because I have no recollection of time what's like and like at this point you know you you grow up trying to avoid the calendar being your life but like oh dude if it's not like I was I was messing with somebody at torque to do

a quick call he's like yeah give me a quick call and I was like no I'm sending you an invite I was like if it's not on the calendar like I scheduled date nights I I send the calendar to the wife I was like listen like if it's not on and I can't plan for it I won't remember gonna happen yeah and we and we've talked about our our memory capacity not being great my I I am yeah like when I try like my memory and my sense of direction is terrible like I think if I were on survivor or no no not survivor what

was the one great great great amazing race or whatever you like the amazing race the image right I would die I literally would.

I don't know if I could get out. Dude, I literally set my GPS always. My wife, she goes, you don't know how to get to our house? Don't bring up directions because that just hurts me deeply. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just send me the address. Don't tell me how to get there. Just send me the address. I'm a big like, and I think this is probably a New Jersey thing, but this is definitely a me thing. I'm a big like, yo, once you're on that road, You're going to see this really big wah-wah. Take a right at that and then hit the big yellow tree, and then you're at my house.

Like, that's it. Oh, my gosh. The chat is going insane. Yeah, chat's going off. Good morning, y'all. Welcome. Say hey. We'd love to hear from you again. It's like I tell folks, you know, one of the things we're trying to do, and Dom and I were talking about community backstage, and I'm sure we'll get into it here in a second, but What I've realized over the course of the five years I've been doing this live stream is... And Dom's been with me from the get-go. But this is your second or third time on the show. But for me, this is a virtual meetup. Say hey.

The point of this is to grab some coffee and comment and engage with folks. Give people a platform. One of the things I talk about, we did a new member Monday. We're doing this initiation type thing. that sounds creepy. We're doing this like thing in the discord where it's like, Hey, um, you know, I'll tell you about torque, whatever. And basically, um, uh, I tell folks like we want to open up our network to you all. Right. And I tell people this, like if you have DM and just at least said, hey, to every guest I've had on for five years, your network would be insane.

Pretty, pretty expansive. So, again, say, hey, oh, there he is. Wow. There we go. I see everything. The great Danny Thompson. Danny Thompson has a has a mad kissable forehead. I just want to put it out there. also, you know, what's crazy is I did the grok. Who's like the most famous, who's the most followed person that follows me. And it's Danny Thompson. Grok goes, Danny Thompson is the most followed. I mean, he is goaded. He is. He's unbelievable. Unbelievable. I aspire to be like Danny. I'm like, you remember, remember how we were talking about how you, you were talking about like the NBA and how they take all, or they don't take your likeness.

Like, I feel like Danny Thompson is like a LeBron of the coding world, right? Like, like he's up there like jersey uh I am I austin reeves I think you give austin reeves yeah yeah kind of guy yeah yeah what are you are you are you my joe chish kind of guy like I feel like I'm like I'm not a big basketball guy I definitely would have I would definitely have a beer like in the in the locker room he's leaned up he's leaned up though sure he's right we don't have to talk about being lean that yeah I mean now you're just yeah yeah I'm in my thick boy or it's fine But, again, it's great to see you all.

It's good to see you, Emma. It's good to see you, Amelia. It's great to see you as well. Joshua. So I ran into Joshua at Laracon. That's my cousin. Yeah. Is it really? No, it's not. No, I think so. I ran into Joshua at Laracon. It was so good to, you know, again, and we taught the power community, right? I mean, Josh, Joshua was super kind, said some nice words to me, but like I helped Joshua write his resume. I don't call him Josh. Joshua, I feel like is a little intense. So I helped write Josh's resume like four years ago. He came up to me and he goes, yo, I just want you to know, like, I got a job because of it.

And I gave your tips to a friend and he got a job because of it. So like, you know, again, power community. You never know the smallest interactions you have years ago and how it comes back. I'll tell you what, dude, I was on an eight month job search and, you know, I want to talk about it. You've seen my accolades. You've seen how long I've been in the industry. I definitely had my time being more public when I used to do live streams and a lot more content. Steve Nash. You're Steve Nash. I'll take Steve Nash. I'll take Steve Nash. I think that's a good one.

Yeah, I think that's a good one. Yeah, I think that's a good one. Yeah, eight months on the job search. I definitely turned down jobs. It's not like I wasn't finding my in, but I can tell you right now, uh the the way people showed up for me uh in like when you've got and I'm just gonna shout her out because she's absolutely goaded uh angie jones like dude I mean just I mean we all know like I don't have to I don't have to you know her flowers her flowers are are are largely given but I like, don't be wrong. I know her. We, you know, hang around a lot of the same circles and we've known each other for, you know, online for a long time.

We've met a few times at that point, but like, it's not like we have this like deep relationship with each other where, where I would reach out to her and be like, Angie, find me a job. But she reached out to me. And checked in on me like weekly. That's crazy. Sending me... Because that girl's busy as all get out. That's what I'm telling you. And so like I'm telling you like it's... that really opened my I know me and you have had this conversation a million times of like how important it is to be yourself and to spread as much if you get success spread the success right like that's just yeah that's just period point blank and like the coolest thing I think we talked about this like really early in in our meeting but like the idea of in tech there's a lot of bullshit.

Like we're now, we're now right in the middle of like social media being the owner of a lot of the things that we deal with, at least where we are, at least where we are. Like I, I think there's a ton of developers out there who don't ever have to deal with the social media, but I think they're even getting there to where they're starting to see that like shit, the competition is all over there in public and everyone sees what they're doing. Um, But now that social media is that big of a deal, pushing yourself to help people is cool. That's something that almost no other vertical has.

No other business... It's not cool to help people in other businesses. It's cool to gatekeep people in other businesses. It's cool to... All the people that you look up to gatekeep you and make you feel like, oh, I have to work harder so that I can get to that level. It's like this weird challenge. Here in tech... don't get me wrong. There's a ton of BS, but it's like relatively empowering, like in your social status to help people. And so like, I help people because like, I just love community. I love people. I love seeing like why I loved being a manager is because I just love seeing, like, I love telling somebody what they can do and then not believing it and then them doing it and being like, how the hell did I do that?

That's, that's something that's always kind of driven me in my career. And now it's like in the same position. Like, I just feel like I told before we got we went live. I told you like ten years ago when boot camps happened. That's where I came from. Like, it was so hard to find your way in this like insane world. It's only gotten like more big and more crazy. like now and you see this in you know I think in the tour community pretty pretty heavily but uh and just surrounded by the people that you've surrounded yourself with everyone wants to do that everyone wants to uplift the next person and it's like a community of fostering and like that's so hard to build so hats off to you for for building something like that because I think it's a lot and we talked a little bit about this you know no drama but we talked a little bit about this where businesses try to I'm going to say they try to bastardize community.

They try to, they try to wring it dry of what, what they can get from it. And the best communities start where they give out as much as they can. And I don't mean giving something like physically, I mean, doing these events and bringing people together and connecting them and working with them. And I don't know, I think that that's like a very special thing to see transpiring in a, in a really hard time to do it. So yeah, absolutely. So, well, man, you know, obviously talk about community briefly. I do want to talk about your job search, right? I mean, I think, you know, I think somebody like you, I think people can get a little weary, right?

Somebody like you, you know, if they don't know you, you know, I definitely want to give Dom his flowers. I mean, you know, I think... I try to bring people onto this show that get me fired up. And I don't know if there's anybody who fires me up as much as Dom. I mean, literally a brother from another mother for sure. I wish I had his dark complexion. That would probably help my day. I feel like our duality is what... Yeah, you're like dark and I'm like white. yeah well I don't know if I'm dark I'm like also pretty dark features yeah I'm also pretty like I'm I burn I burn yeah yeah yeah so but no I mean dom I mean dom's got an expansive network right and you know I I I do mean this I aspire to be like dom and help there's such a community first approach that dom takes and but I do think people can get they're like wow somebody like dom took eight or nine months to find a job oh yeah like that could be exhausting to think about.

So, I mean, talk about, talk about those nine months, man. I mean, like, like what worked, what I'm going to get honest with y'all. Yeah. I love it. No, no, honest, totally, totally uncensored. Again, this is this whole point of the show. So, so, I will say going into my job search, I spent about probably like two, three months recovering, two months, about two months recovering. And just like dealing with like, we had just bought a house. Like we're coming up in October, two years on the house that we bought. And so at the same time as settling into my house, I'd lost my job.

And everybody can empathize with how stressful that can feel. Like, okay, I have to get back. There's no... So what I did was I took those two months and I didn't stop working. I started... Figuring out who I wanted to be in the next phase. Do I want to go back to managing? Do I want to go back to IC? What are the companies that I'm really interested in? Who do I want to work with? Because I'll be honest with you. I started my career with where do I want to work? Now I kind of moved my career to who do I want to work with?

Because I'm going to tell you right now... I've been in the gambit. You can go look at my LinkedIn. I'm like the right before being the worst job hopper kind of job hopper. I stay about a year at most places. But I realized really early in my career, nobody cares about me like I care about me. Nobody gives a shit about my future like I will. And every company gives a shit about them way more than they care about me. And so I wanted to find a way to work towards not putting all of myself into my work. Like I, I spent a lot of my early, like the first five years, like you said, like I was tirelessly working, right?

Like I was out there in the community all the time in every community. I wasn't even just in like a community I built. I tried to spread myself across as many communities as possible, open as many doors as I could. Like that was a big part of my career, but I wanted to spend the next kind of half of my career. Like what do I want to define myself as later? Yeah. how do I want to see myself in my career? And like, honestly, like, What do I want to do outside of my career? Like, what are the things that I care about outside of this, this stuff, right?

Like starting a family and I play a lot of magic, the gathering, like that's been a hobby. It's really nerdy stuff. It's way over my head. And I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you right now, like I did that in high school and I hadn't really had a hobby. I play video games, but I hadn't really had like a hobby, hobby, like something that I, like I travel for this. Now I go to tournaments and I meet people and it's like, I get to do the things that I really like to do outside of work. And not everything has to find its way back to, um, like everything in the beginning of my career had to find its way back to being useful for my career.

And like, that was so tiring. And so first few months I was like deciding on who the hell I want to be. Um, I see, I do not have a bachelor's degree straight out of a bootcamp, straight out of bootcamp, not Compton, but bootcamp. It took me a year out of my bootcamp. I, I learned Ruby on rails. I'll be quick. I learned Ruby on rails. I was in Philly. I had to teach myself JavaScript. It took me a year to like get really good enough to like interview. And, and again, this is when people like didn't give a single shit about bootcamp graduates. Like they didn't care how long you spent, what you could build.

It was like, you had to prove yourself or not. Um, But anyway, two months about just trying to find myself and figuring out what I wanted to do next. And I started grinding interviews. I probably... And like, I was like on LinkedIn, I was in my network being like, who's like every company that I cared to interview for is where I started. Like I reached out to a bunch of companies to even just to see where they are. I didn't even know if they had like openings, like, but I've been a part of a lot of processes where I've gotten like that. Listen, we don't have a position open, but I, you know, I'll open one if I, if I can.

So I went through a few of those interviews and, A lot of AI companies were reaching out to me. And this was your latest job search. This is my latest. This is right before Netlify. A lot of AI companies were reaching out. And every time I got into an interview, it would be for like a developer relations, developer advocacy, whatever type of position. A lot of them were like the head of DevRel, you know, style roles. Sure. I got into the interviews and like, I'm just not a novice. Like I'm not going to just, I don't need, I, I need the job, but I'm not just going to take the job.

Right. So like I started every interview with like, yo, like why are you hiring? Like what, what responsibilities do you see this role fulfilling? Most like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, We don't know. We were hoping that you would help define that. And for me, I'm out. Right there, I'm good on that. Because every time you walk into a position like that, you're going to spend more of your time proving why you exist more than doing the job. Interesting. And like... I, I personally think that if you're running a dev rel team, if you're running a, I think you should keep your dev rels close to being engineers, like stop pushing them towards being social media marketers that, that, that hurts more than helps.

And it's why you, you're laying off. Yeah. How many companies are laying off their marketing team to hire a dev rel team to do the same things and then wonder why those dev rels are burning out? Like it. Cool. Anyway, um, spend a lot of time kind of sifting through and I'm talking like, three four interviews a company and I probably I still have a notion sheet I did let me go check yeah so so you kept up with everything which is again smart yeah yeah yeah brother me and you you know you know that um um because it's especially because I was so nervous like I was so which which I want to highlight right so I want to highlight two things one you took time right now two months a lot of people like I don't know if I can take two months that's fine I interviewed lawrence uh last month I don't know times times time I don't know what time is but I think it was a month ago um you know lawrence took the weekend right like I think giving yourself that breather man is huge and then also too like I want to like you were nervous like I was nervous when I when I left vaco and was interviewing and then when I left gun and I was in an interview and like I don't care how much you yap online.

People think that you might just be saying this performatively. I have the DMs to prove it is a stressful time no matter... Everyone sees... what we do and how public we are and you know, how, how we, how we, how enthusiastic we can be. And they're like, dude, that guy's that, that guy probably never worries about it. We probably worry more than you do because, because we are so public and because we are so readily available to people. Like, that's even more stressful because you have to keep up this. Like, I'll tell you by that, like I was stressed going into it, but I had confidence.

Like I knew, I knew I was, and you can be stressed and have confidence right now, dude, I lost. We'll get to this. I lost all of that. Like I, like by the end of my like fifth month, like looking like, I was like, you could talk to my partner, Dominique. She had never seen me so defeated. Wait, your partner's name is Dominique and your name is Demetrius? We're both, we have the exact same initials. That is wild. We're both, we're literally DAC squared. Oh my God, that's hilarious. We're like three days apart birthday wise. That's crazy. That's crazy weird. So you were nervous and you were stressing.

I mean, listen, I mean, I've been tweeting about it. I think the timeline's gone from less than three months in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two to now. And we're looking at six, nine, maybe twelve months. You know what the real big issue is, is that I don't think a lot of these companies know how to interview them. Ooh, buddy. Don't get me started with that. Like, I don't think that... It's weird. Like, tech itself is pushing so fast, but I feel like a lot of companies are regressing in how they see growth and what they believe will get them there. Because they're grasping, trying to figure it out just as much as they've ever been, right?

With this shift to AI, like, it's... And, you know, it's funny because if you remember the beginnings of AI, everyone was like, if you add an AI... Like, a lot of devs were like, if you add AI... your product like I'm I'm done with it and now it's like good luck using a product without ai and good luck finding a job that doesn't have some semblance of crossover with it would you say companies don't know what they want I think that it depends on the role sure um I think that DevRel has always been a really bad place to be. And I don't mean that as in, like, I'm not appreciative of the years that I've been one and continue to be one.

But, I mean, I've been across six companies at this point. And, like, there's some that I love. There's some that I'm indifferent about. But, like, I can tell you right now, I can't remember one that I felt confident understood why I worked there. Yeah. And I don't mean I, I mean the collective, like any, any dev rel at the company. Like it just, I think that engineers, I haven't worked as one, like as purely like a product engineer in years, but at least you have a realistic goal. It may be an insane goal. It may be like the features are a lot of work and it may be like too many features at once, but like what you do is defined.

And you have PMs to manage it. And you have skip levels to figure out how to sell it above you. Every DevRel that I have ever experienced, worked with, worked as, has had to do all of those jobs by themselves and then still be questioned about the output and how it converts. And so I think when we ask, do we think companies know what they want? I think that that's changed wildly in the last five years. um but I think it really depends on the role like I can't tell you that I feel confident any company that I interviewed with had a like a really active reasoning as to why they were hiring devrel other than like a lot of them were devrel masters content engineers like yeah and not like really just like content engines um and or like social media specialists that built project how did you ferret that out right I mean I don't know if there's a silver bullet but did you have any like did you have any tips or tricks where you tried to ferret that out sooner rather than later um I played the I played the game for the first two interviews right like you know, excited to be here.

I want to learn about the product. I want to hear what you guys do. Cause I, I like to like, I, I, I like to run my teams and I like to be ran as an engineer first. Like I care about, I think dev roles that were closest to product are some of the more successful ones because they can, they can much more easily look at like output as a, as a success metric. Um, and so I started a lot of my, I started a lot of my interviews, like, What does your product team look like? How does your marketing team run? I have a lot of questions because I've been around in such different capacities now.

I've kind of seen it all. And I think one of the coolest things about being at DevRel is that you're a great context holder across teams. um and so like you get to work with like sales a bit and you get to work with solutions a bit and like you know my time at clerk I was dual managing both support and community or and uh and devrel for a little bit and so like I I never had dived into support deeply until that into that role and so like you you get a really good broad blanket understanding of like the operations that exist inside your company more than just the wording um and so I spent a lot of time like figuring that out and then like first question I ask is always, like, why am I here?

Like, what do you think I'm here to establish? What is your team's... Like, not only what do I... And I ask individually because, you know, they always set you up with, like, four different people to interview with. I ask individually, like, what do you believe DevRel looks like? And most of the time, they all have different answers or they don't have an answer at all. And so, like, once that would settle in, I'd be like, okay, like, I'm happy to finish up because I'll never... To your point, I don't shut down an interview even if I don't feel like I'm the right choice for it.

But I will say, hey, I... I think that you, what you guys are doing is great. I don't think that I'm the right choice. If you want to keep interviewing and that changes, like I'm happy to do that. And then sometimes like on the other side of it, like I would describe my expectations for success and it didn't align. Right. And we would, and we would just, you know, split ways amicably. But I think it's like for new people, like, a lot harder to understand and speak to. Well, I think you got to take control of the interview process. I think I will tell you this.

I have not, I have, I'm confident to say at gun and even at tort, I have taken the jobs without fully knowing. Because I truly... My hot take is I truly don't think you can get... That's why I think contract to hire, in my opinion, is the best way for both the employer and the person. I started as a contractor at Torque just because it takes forever to get an offer letter at Ronstadt. But I think contract to hire is the best way to do it because I don't think any interview process can ferret out any developer appropriately. And you need an idea of how you work within the organization.

That's... I mean... We did a lot of contract hire at Vaco. I'm obviously on the other side of it now being on the community side, but I still pitch to clients. I think to get the best angle for a developer or anybody, I think contract hire is the way to go because I just get the person started if you like them. And then after six months, let's see if it works or not. Yeah, I think, again, it really depends on the work. Sure. What is the hire? I think what we do, and my wife even messaged me after I left gun, messaged me. She talked to me.

We live in the same house. Messaged you. That's insane. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She goes, hey, do you have time to talk to you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Getting calendar invites. Scheduled a one-on-one sync with her this afternoon. But she was like, you got to be careful because you're – your community and people resonate if you keep bouncing around so it's like I I do feel like it depends on the role for sure because I've had people ask me like hey why don't you start as a contractor and I and I've told them like hey no like I'm embedded in your organization like I'm a full-time employee for sure I don't think you can hire me as a if you're not if you're not if Well, that, but that's like, I'm not, I wouldn't say that I disagree with you, but I think that the hard part is that, well, no, no, no.

Cause I don't, I don't disagree with you. I think the problem is, is that it just shows a lack of investment from the company. Agreed. Yeah. And so like, you know, Emmett in the chat here said, I wish contract a higher covered health insurance. And it's like, Well, yeah. Do I really want to take six months and just stay in my house and hope that I'm okay for six months? I get it. Why did I just spend... And that's another problem is that even if it is contract to hire, why did I just spend three months interviewing to get that? Well, that's another thing. If you're going to do contract to hire, you got to get that person started quick.

It better be like that. Yeah. The whole thing. So... What else in your job search, man? What else worked? What else didn't? Obviously, I'm sure you've had referrals. Yes. That's what I was going to get into next. I did a lot of work submitting to ones I really wanted. Then I moved on to like the – I like the product. Let me go see if the team has spots. Then it became like I'll literally mass apply to as many jobs as I possibly can and just start playing the numbers game. And when I started playing the numbers game is when I started to really dip back into my network and be like, hey – I'm just going to be completely honest with you.

I'm having a hard time finding work. I'm having a hard time finding a place to put my feet down. And that's the thing, too, is that I spent about four or five months at Zeta, head of DevRel, moved to Clerk for about eight months, eight or nine months, all head of DevRel. And before that was all IC. And so everywhere that I interviewed went into this cycle with me where they would say, I don't think that you're experienced enough as a manager to hire you into this role. Interesting. And I think you spent too much time as a manager to hire you into as an IC.

I don't think you've done enough IC work in the last year and a half. And so I was in this really weird, hard place of like, I don't really give a shit. I can manage a team or not. I can work independently or not. But a lot of the jobs that reached out to me were coming to me for management positions, for head positions. And I can't tell you, it must have been five companies that reached out to me and then would be like, yeah, I don't think you have the experience we're looking for. And I'm like, I know you saw the resume. Like, I know you've seen how long.

And it always, for some reason, always came down to time. And so I spent a lot of time reaching out into my network. Like, shout out to Jason Langsdorff. You know, me and you talked about him. That's I mean, that's like my my big brother. He's always looking out for me. He's the reason I'm back at Netlify again. Angie, again, shout out to Angie. Huge, huge supporter. Huge help. But yeah, like I just started reaching into my network, started, you know, just straight asking people like if you. like you know I I would hit up like all of the people that I used to work with and and hey do you know somebody that would even give me an interview and I think it's an undervalued thing I think a lot of people are like oh like net new net new net new I need I need new connections new connections like and while it's important like even messaging people used to work with is like yes a huge underrated thing that I don't think a lot of people do well and I think also that like a lot of it it also comes down to the fact that like at a lot of the jobs like I try to make myself memorable while I'm there and like not just be your co-worker like I'm gonna reach out to you and be like hey like you know um you know And I would do this to people that I had no business doing this with.

But I'd be like, hey, to our marketing front-end team, if you ever get overwhelmed, message me. I'll hop in and do some PRs with you. Because to me, it's like... people have to trust you within an organization for you to do your best work. And so put yourself into a position where you really connect with the people that you work with. I don't hang out with all of the people that I work with. They're not all my friends, for instance, but like work friends are a real thing, right? Like, and I love to make work friends. And so, yeah, I started spending a lot of my time doing that.

And then, Um, towards the end, I had about three really interesting job opportunities. Okay. Um, and Jason was like, look, dude, I'm going to fly you out. You're going to come be on learn with Jason. Um, you're going to be in an episode. It's in person. He's like, I think, I think the problem is, is that you work best in person. Like people need to meet you. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, okay. I was like, cool. Like, appreciate it. get there I mean what an episode it was such a good episode it was me kent kent dodds charlie gerrard yeah aaron um it was like such a banger episode uh and sanity sponsored it we did it at a warehouse near the next js uh I think it was the next next jazz comp was happening uh so we were like one of the events so you know he had me out there and that was like where I really started I was like all right if I'm here like I'm putting in the work I'm like finding the CEO.

In person, dude, it was just at Laracon. It's different. It's so different, dude. Yeah, I worked to send my slides actually for my talk at DevUp, which is the power of content and community. And literally it's, It's the profile pictures of the COO of Laravel and Adam, the creator of Tailwind. Because I was literally at the Mostly Technical pod meetup that Aaron Francis did at Laracon. And I just somehow bumped in. I was hanging out with Tom, the COO. I was like, hey, Tom. I see you have Laravel on your badge. What do you use? He goes, I'm the COO. I was like, oh, shit.

I literally said oh shit and then and then I was at the next meet up the next day uh the happy hour whatever they were doing and uh this guy named adam with tailwind on his on his badge cam I was like I was like hey dude like what do you do a tailwind he goes oh I created it I was like oh shit so I mean I'm telling you like in-person events uh are just huge man huge I mean they they definitely well because you can't you like people can watch me on this stream and you know for folks that may not have known me before coming in like They're going to get an impression.

I like this guy. Maybe I'll follow him. He seems like he's got a lot of energy. But then you meet me in person. I'm like this six-four monster. Loud. I'm hugging you and you're like, I don't even know this guy. I love it. And I bring this level of energy that you're going to remember. And so for me... I go to this thing I'm like searching out the ceo of sanity and being like you need me like you need me I love it this is how I'm gonna this is what I'll do for your community when I join you know I see that you and I what people need to understand is that you need to actually know the company's product like like a lot of people will like get an interview and they'll skin the product page and they'll talk a little bit about it and they'll like go and use it and then talk about the things that you dislike like talk about the things that you like talk about things you dislike what you would do to like people love action takers and so like realistically if you're able to like talk about the actions that you would that you would take if you got the job even if they're at even if they're absolutely off kilter from what they are currently doing that shows an initiative that they're going to be really excited about so I was doing that I'm like hungry Then I see Matt Billman, CEO of Netlify.

Me and him had a great relationship from when I was there before. I had left when Jason had left. So Jason was my manager. Again, he's my big brother. He's like, hey, I'm leaving. When he did that, I was like, okay, well, I really wanted to work at Netlify, but I really wanted to work for you. I really wanted to work under you. People want to work and buy from people. Imagine that. And so, you know, I ended up I was and I and I also wanted to move up. I wanted to manage teams. I wanted to try my hat at doing the thing that I thought I could do so well.

Right. Yeah. So I had left whatever, but I left in a great, you know, there was no like hard feelings when I left. Sure. So I walk up to Matt, I'm chatting Matt up. Um, and he's like, what are you doing right now? Like, what are you like for, for work? And I was like, Oh, like I, you know, I just left, uh, head of DevRel at clerk, um, currently on the job search, honestly. And he's like, dude, like things have changed a lot at Netlify. Um, you know, we're looking to do this, that, and the third, I want you back. Like, I would love to have you back to, to push into this new kind of era that we're, we're running into.

And I was like, all right, dope. Like, and I hit him with a couple of hard like you know you say that this has changed like what about this this this and this like these are things that I I I held dearly to myself while I was there and things that I wanted to change and whatever sure because again like I'm a I'm a terribly honest person like I do not hire me if you want to sick a fan. If you want somebody to just tell you everything is great all the time. I'm not your hire. And I'll tell you that in the interview process.

And I'll tell you right now, it probably turns me away from jobs. But like realistically, it's going to make the job a lot worse when I get there and they don't know. So I'd rather you know that up front about anything. And so I told Matt that, and I only ever tell you these truths because I give a shit. And for me to do something at your company, that's prolific. I have to care. And for me to care, I have to tell you the truth. And so it's this cycle of like, these, these are the ways that I work.

Um, and so push comes to shove and, and he's like, you got to meet the new, you know, uh, leader of the dev rel team the dev ed team um you're gonna love them his name's shawn c davis meet him great conversation like you know totally aligned things that I wanted things that I and I told him I'm like look dude like I'm back on the ic track I want to I want to make it to staff within the year like staff would be really cool for me um I and I always have to have a goal and I always talk about my goals very

early so there's no confusion about like what what I'm here for yeah um and people can tell you all they want that like job titles don't matter and it's there's a duality of it the job title doesn't matter the respect that you get when you initiate conversations through that job title does matter uh so don't let people tell you that job titles don't matter it a hundred percent gets you seated tables that you wouldn't get seats at and it also would and it also gets you the ear of people that people typically wouldn't give a shit about um it doesn't always matter but it can

matter And so, yeah, got the job.

I'm about eight months into my time back at Netlify now. We're heavily pushing on AX, agent experience. We are almost... solely the the platform a lot a lot of these uh these ai kind of like no code low code platforms like deploy to yeah which is really cool and I get to like I think one of the coolest things about being back is I get to learn a lot like I get to like I get to like I think ai is a lot I think learning ai is a lot I think all of the models and like to be deeply entrenched in it like you really have to like finger on the pulse know what you're talking about at all times um but it's a lot more fun I feel a lot more empowered knowing how to use it and all of the things that encompass it than staying sheltered from it because I don't think it's going to impact me yeah Yep.

I love it. I love it. All right. We got five minutes left. All right, let's go. I got rapid fire. Do you have any last final thoughts? We can end there. Which one? Rapid fire. I love rapid fire. All right, cool. Let me, let me pull it up. Where is it? Here we go. All right. What's you can't say Netlify. What's one tech tool or app you can't live without right now? Probably Raycast. Okay. Love it. Love it. What's the very first job you ever got paid to do? Oh, I was a mall junkie. Like I was like... Mall junkie? Bro, if there was a mall...

Were you selling? I could see you selling cologne in the mall kiosk. No, God, no. If there was a cool company at the mall, I worked at it. I love it. People don't understand. I spent ten years in retail. I thought that was my career. Yeah, I say this all the time. I saw this joke on social media that us millennials don't have like world wars to associate ourselves to. So our world wars are retail... uh uh uh restaurant and tourism yeah like I two of them restaurant I wouldn't be where I am if I hadn't worked ten years in retail yeah oh same I learned I learned people same yeah back in my hand oh yeah restaurant no job has ever been as stressful as trying to get three blooming onions to a table at the same time on a friday I was like a zoomies guy i I like I was like, yeah, I skated for like fifteen years.

Yeah. Like I was like Zoomies, Tillys, GameStop, Journeys, Radio Shack, Best Buy. Like if it exists, I work there. Know that. I love it. Let me ask you this. Obviously, you're fully remote. Yeah. If if you could have your best set up. Yeah. Would you go into the office one, two, three, four, five days a week? What's kind of a good – So this was actually – this was a big piece of the interviews. This was a huge – a lot of companies were asking if I'd move to San Francisco. And I was like, are you paying me a five-hundred-K base salary? Sure. No? Eat.

Eat. You know, kick rocks. I almost said something way worse. But kick rocks. That's fine. You were just asking about it. You know, for me – I've only been remote. I've never... I worked in office as a front-end engineer right at the beginning of my career for two years. I've been remote ever since. It is for me. My ADHD and I just... I waste more time in an office than I'll ever waste it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A hundred percent. And so for me, there was a company that I was interviewing with in New York. Yeah. And I told them, I said, if you... I would come out once a month for a week.

I'll be in office all week. I'll stay at a hotel near the company. And or I would be willing to commute in two days a week. If absolutely necessary, I will do that. But otherwise, if it's not remote, I'm going to just park it on it.

yeah um what what did you want to do originally when you grow up like when you when somebody asked you when you were like in third grade what did you want to be when you grow up dude I thought I was going to be like a game programmer I thought like I've always I've always thought that I was going to work in video games um it's what it's what actually pushed me to do what I'm doing now like I was working in retail and I was like and or and I had I thought I was gonna be like a dm by thirty like my whole

goal was like how do I get before thirty how do I make six figures and it's like becoming a dm and I was like so fucking full of myself that I thought that like I could do it and then uh and I probably could have but um the I like met a bunch of store managers and they were like yeah dude like I've been doing this for fifteen years and they were like forty and I was like oh like I have to leave like I I have to get out of here uh and so then I went and like did the boot camp whatever whatever

but um for me it was like I, my first company that I'd ever worked for was a video game, like tooling company.

Like we built second screen apps for, for video games. Um, and so I was like real close and then, and then I realized video gamers don't get paid well, like video game programmers don't get paid well, which is really, it's such a shame because they're, they do some of the hardest programming in the space. And then, the work-life balance of like people in the game industry is horrible um and so I pivoted to web and I'm so happy because like it makes me feel much more connected to where we're going as a society and I feel a lot more empowered to be able to uh you know like we talked a little bit about magic I joined a team recently uh of of an artist who like sells his wares online um I'm like gonna set up his whole like shopify shop a website like something like I'm able to like combine my passions a Um, I'm much more happy.

Yeah. I think I love that. I did. Last question as we wrap up, because I got a call in one minute. Um, it shows called guidance counselor, two point O cause you got guidance counselors, middle school, high school and college. But now as adults, we don't necessarily have a guidance counselor to return to and ask for general career advice. You can go back and tell young Dom something. What would it be? Um, to be honest, it's, it's stay, stay, um, cocky, like stay because, because like, I said it before, I'll say it again, and I'll leave with this. No one gives a shit about you like you do.

So true. No one can believe in you like you can. And I know it's hard. I know that the world that we've lived in for the past five to ten years... It makes it really hard to believe in yourself and to believe in others and to believe in the good of the things to come. I'm not a religious person. I know you are. I know that there's a lot of faith that runs around. I decided to have faith in me, and I carry my team. I carry my family the best that I can, and I know that there's a level of selfishness that you have to have to become successful.

And it's not a selfishness that has to keep you from people. It's a selfishness that allows you to succeed in a way that as you succeed, more doors can get opened up for the folks that come behind you. And my whole big goal has always been push as far as I can leave as many of the doors that I've pushed through open so that others can easily more easily walk through them and utilize me as a resource by the end of that tunnel so believe in yourself like no one else does and and and give a shit like give a shit about the work that you're doing give a shit about like how they treat you, how, how people view you.

Like it, it does all matter. And especially, uh, as you get into the job search, like how you treated people is going to, is going to matter a lot. So, um, I love it. Good luck to you all. I forgot this question. I always ask this question, coffee or tea, um, coffee guy all day, hot or iced. Uh, both. I prefer probably iced. There you go, my man. Yeah. All right. Sweet. Awesome. Well, Dom, stay on. Stay by you backstage. Love y'all. I'm going to hop into a meeting with Brianna. Y'all have a good one. Peace. Later.