from yoga teacher to director of engineering — harjis deksnis’ nonlinear tech journey

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All right, awesome. Well, good morning, everybody. I don't know. Do I look at anything or do I look at him? Like, where should we go? I love it. Camera is red. So I'm excited to be here. This is my first international conference. I'm hard just here. Welcome. Thank you for hanging out with me. And I appreciate it. Yeah, awesome. I think you've been waiting. But maybe my name is basically, basically, left in the version of Harry. So you can't be Harry. Awesome. Harry, I love it. I love it. All right, so I've known Harry now for about 90 seconds. So we're going to dive into your career.

Really kind of how you got to where you're at, right? So what about me is I've been in the engineering space for 13 years. I was a traditional recruiter. We've got people jobs. I've placed thousands of engineers at this point. It really my whole thesis and really the company I work for Torque is to really help people throughout their career. So I wanted to ask you, obviously, your current, you're currently a director of engineering. So I'm fascinated. Your origin story, how did you get to where you're at? How did you get in attack? And then we'll go from there. Yeah, well, how much time do you have?

30 minutes, man. 30 minutes. Yeah, we'll fight through it. Well, the journey hasn't been fast. Bath and escalator are all lived. I'm 40 now, so it's taken a while. You're great. And hasn't been sprint or like a dead set goal to get where I'm just a natural progression or sort of career growth and just doing the best you can, wherever you are, my personal journey has been quite meandering in a way. Because actually when I finished school, I wanted to go into law or economics and finance. But I didn't get there. OK. I was a bit sick at a time and exams just didn't go well.

But I did get into computer networks, administration, and Linux, Windows 2003, the lamb stack. And I always loved, even as a teenager, just building websites, even with basic words, saving HTML files and linking together. I really loved it. Just creating UI and all these experience. So we were playing games like Unreal Tournament, for conners trying to my friends. And we had a clan back in the day. I love it. And I built the first web page for us. It was pure HTML, who had frames set. Then I learned PHP, some MySQL. So yeah, long story short, I don't want to maybe go too long. But my path has been quite meandering.

Because eventually, I did also get into economics and finance. I studied one more time, I got my bachelor's degree. Then I decided not to work in that field. And I went to become a yoga teacher over five years. That's awesome. But all the time on the side, I was doing freelance gigs. Like, for a more website, would PHP, one lamb stack at a time was like 2007, 2012. But yoga teacher, job actually got me to Mendelands, because there was a studio in Rotterdam, which where I came to work. I didn't really like it here. And it was a time my first child was about to be born.

And I realized, OK, time to get serious and get a 9 to 5 job. And since I had all those web skills, I got into the front end development. Because there was actually time when back and in front and really split. Yes. Before there was no front and back end, it was just web development. Right. Just did it. Right. Like, what front and went back end? And that was time when it was Angular. It was really the first Angular came about. And it was really in that scene for many years. Basically, 2020, Angular, React, View, Node.js, a little bit of cloud, a little bit of Java, a bit of Python.

But mostly, mostly front end work. And the next four years ago, I started working with Giraffe. Let's see how this company from my home country. And we've had a lot of chemistry. And the team really trusted me. Of course. Because I had a lot of background, all this journey, of course. You've seen a lot of things. How teams work. How big of a work. How agile work. How strong works. What all the roles. What QA does. What architects do. Just a general acumen of things. And actually, my economics and finance studies did help a lot. Just talking with business. So then, yeah, it sort of went relatively fast to be given responsibility, to scale some teams, to work with the backend team, platform team, to shape how the teams work, how it's interactive product.

And I love it. Just gat. I love it. So let me ask you this. I think a lot of people, they always see people on leadership in tech right now. And they don't understand that you started from the same place every other junior developer starts. You started with no experience at one point. How did you land your first job in tech? Was it through a networking event? Was it through a meetup? Like, how did you land that first job in tech? My first job was working for a Latvian news site. There's a PHP developer. A lot of them. 6? Yeah. I just saw the. I saw there was all my posting.

They need a developer. And I applied. Really? I got the job. I went there. The interview went well. I finished the test. It was like, had to implement like, drawing a mathematical function in PHP was really simple. Back in a day. But to be fair, I had experience with PHP. I had built some websites for myself. And also in that university computer administration, we had a PHP course. I had a chance to polish my skills already before that. So, and you bring up something interesting about having the experience before you had the job. Do you see that's incredibly important? I mean, obviously you're in a leadership position.

Sure, you're probably responsible for some hiring some engineers right now. I feel like a lot of the market right now, it's very difficult to get a job. I've been preaching a lot. Like you kind of have to have the experience before you get hired. And do you see that? Do you really look for people who already have the experience before coming in? Yes, you do need to have. But although I wouldn't say that experience is the seminal thing. Actually, what comes before experience is your genuine interest. That this is the feel that you are like, it's a park's interest. You feel excitement. You want to build things you want to figure out things you have curiosity, how these Unix work, why do we use terminal to run commands?

Why do we don't use GUI for some things, how it all builds, how the abstraction layers come together? Of course, you're not going to understand everything in beginning, but you at least have a curiosity to keep digging when you encounter something new. And if you have that, then you'll get experience just being home and being curious and tinkering with things. And I really look for that when I talk with juniors, when they apply. I made a couple of bets, and I'm happy most of them paid off. Because if you manage to spot that talent, that spark, that somebody, I don't know, playing Minecraft, but still building his own mode or something or playing whatever call beauty, but building something his own skins, things, and tried maybe some 3D things.

And for the role, he actually didn't have much web experience. But just because he had tried those things, and I saw that spark, I knew he would figure it out. And he did. So it's like curiosity. That's really people need to bring to the server. Yes, genuine interest in the field that it's yours. There can be a bit of a mercantile sentiment that I'm going to go in IT because salaries are good. Right. But of course, yeah, you can do that and can work. But it's not going to often get you out of the bed and make you go extra mile and it would be curious.

I made a similar move back in the day going for economics and finance degree. I've really struggled with graduating because everything was up to a battle emotionally, like accounting, finance. I mean, I'm glad I did it now in a red perspective. But it was a struggle because my heart is not in it. And that's why I never went working in the field. Yeah, absolutely. So you're an engineering leader now. What's kind of some of the things you've learned as a leader that you wish you knew earlier in your career that you could tell others if they're getting into engineering leadership? Yeah. Well, in Boston or syndrome is a thing.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. You just have to go through it. And the day still, what really matters a lot is human to human connection. And the day we work together in teams and you need to have good relationship with your subordinates and the people who are managing you. Because there's going to be hard times, financial problems with some of these comes. Sometimes you will have to let some people go because there's no funding or something. Right. But if you are with people that you're ready to go shoulder shoulder and tackle those problems, then it's doable. Yeah. That's the thing. That's really the most fundamental thing I've learned.

How do you develop those relationships? I think because that's something too. Yeah. I think it's very hard to do. It's very hard. But you have to be sincere. Show vulnerability when you have it. Don't be afraid of it. All of it's very hard. I'm not created it. Especially as a man. There's sort of some blockage being heard of. Yeah, that's a whole nother. I know that's like, actually, I have some sadness. I want to. I'm not sure I can show it. Yeah. Right. Absolutely. I'm not going to think like, who's this pussy? Right. Right. Right. Because of my leader, right. Right. Right. Do you, what are your thoughts on one on one's?

What's your cadence on one on one's with your team? Do you have them? Yeah. Stay away from them. I know you have different thoughts. Yeah, I'm grounded. I tried to do one meeting per sprint. So every two weeks with direct support and if I skip a level, then I do once a month. Okay. But it can vary. As a team grows, it can be really hard to really have it like a system and a whole distribution of one on one. So you have to be sometimes just strategic or people you have been in the company the longest, who are a bit more like informal leaders, like key personal key players.

They are also of course no more than the newcomers. And then you can get a better sense what's going on in your teams. So have you done hiring lately for your team? Like, I think. I think in the first couple of years, I did a lot of hiring. I think I've done like 200 interviews. So I started there. I can totally, that's my estimate. Like, you know, the engineer, skewer, DevOps, backenders, blood, protodontors, potential scrum monsters. Yeah, so 200 interviews we talked about curiosity being incredibly important when it comes to interviewing. What are some other things you look for for individuals? Where if people really miss the mark?

Like, if you could say, hey, out of the 200 people, those people, the people that I rejected, did these three things really poorly. Well, communication skills obviously stand out how you come across, how well you're able to articulate whatever you're trying to say. Because the expectation that people are going to know everything that's wired for the role, I think that's unproductive. Because what matters way more is how people are able to learn. Yes. Because all our professions are now evolving so fast. Right. I am also not falling behind on many fronts, especially on hands-on coding. And every now and then I need to catch up with something.

Sure. And everyone is expected to do that, because technology will so fast. So you actually want to find that signal that shows that they are good learner and they are into it. They actually like it. They enjoy it. And yeah, good ability to communicate, of course, correlates with a higher, also, intelligibility. And I'm a real quick communication. I know people are so tired of hearing it. Like, you need to have good communication skills on people. Like, keep hearing that. But I think you set it best, like, articulate. Because I feel like sometimes you get into an interview and you're like, hey, tell me about this.

And they give you 60 seconds of something. And they don't really dig into it. And then that's it. And they just kind of sit there. I feel like when it comes to articulating communication skills, I think it's going deeper. It's going to that second, third level. And like, really deep diving and then turning into a conversation. What are your thoughts? Because I feel like a lot of times the interviews people sit. You ask them questions. And they go, I don't know. And they just sit there. Or you ask them a question. And the answer really shortly. Can you talk and kind of encourage people who interview, like, hey, try to turn into a conversation?

What are your thoughts on that? Because I feel like people sometimes can be really short in their answers. It just doesn't help now. So that also depends who's on the other side of the table. I have my own personality and my own seeing things and judging fitness for the role. There's a question. Multiple factors just experience. Art skills. Assumed culture fit. Because you know, it's 100% a bit of a bit of a subjective guess. So I don't think there's a universal advice. You have to see who you're talking with. Sure. If you want to be successful interview, you need to build a record. Yes. Build a connection that can understand the person.

Try to decay. What is he or she looking for? What kind of answers? It's totally fair game to ask a bit of an expression. When you ask, do I ask? Or something? You can ask, how long have you expected? Yeah. How much information you want me to give you? How deep do you want me to go here? Yeah, yeah. I love that. That's all fair game. So curiosity, lack of communication skills, order other two areas that people have really asked out of the 200 interviews that you've conducted. What those are the biggest ones, because those are hard to fake. And a bit more, yeah, software-inclusive, I think it's a big game changer.

Because they can set you apart from others. That are just hard facts, just experience. Somebody who has done three roles and been already a senior, was a react developer, and done something a bit on a cloud. Of course, it's going to stand out. Sure. So that's no brainer. Everybody sees a kid. Yeah, of course, yeah. That the fitness is in there. So when it comes to resume writing, you're saying, if you have the experience, put it on your resume. Of course, yeah. Of course. And of course, there's a lot of it that's going to be next stage technically interviewers. Sure. So that'll be tested, and maybe coding assignment.

It's going to, of course, be checked. But do you like it when people come prepared for an interview? Like, hey, listen, they've done research on you. They didn't research on the company. Is that the exact same way? Absolutely. Absolutely. That helps a lot. Of course, that they are into it. That they want their curious. They are interested. They want to be part of the team. They like the mission. And they're going to have more motivation that I think that's very fair assumption to make. I think that also sets people apart, obviously. So obviously we're at DevWorld right now. Incredible conference already. I've been here for 10 minutes.

It's incredible. Talk about the importance of networking. Talk about the importance of showing up at these type of things. I feel like it's important from a career perspective. Can you give any insight to that? Yeah. Well, I went to my first conference like this in 2018. It was a view conference. Also, here, I'm to them. OK. And at the time, I think I had worked mostly with Angular. I didn't like it. Oh my god, view the whole new thing. Like what are you talking about? What is this code? Not much. But the biggest actually impact and takeaway afterwards was that it's part of my curiosity.

I was like, OK, this is the energy. There's so much people. There were like 1,000 people in one theater. I was like, wow, that's a big deal. The avenue, the creator was there. And then I spent a weekend learning view and building my, like, some things. And then that's how I learned view. Yeah. That's also that's the biggest thing. I don't expect to come to conference and learn something because there's so much information. You can see so much code blocks. I mean, you have so much brain power. But the biggest thing is inspiration to actually pick up some ideas, some notions, make a photos. And afterwards, you can do your own research.

So I think it's that. And of course, like, me and you people. Having a chat. Me and you. Yeah, well, obviously. Like what? And I think too, from a leader perspective, why do you think it's important for leaders or organizations to empower people to come to these? Because in the States, there's been a lot of conversation about budget cuts, companies not sending developers to conferences. Maybe there's a little concern about their developers finding other jobs, right? Yeah. I know. What do you encourage? Or what would you say to engineering leaders who don't want to send their people to conferences? Question. I haven't given such a deep thought.

I am in favor. I have sent my team, my folks. So I encourage them to come. Basically, you see what's out there. You do it to use Latvian work for that, work for that, I don't know how well it translates. English basically to ventilate. Yeah. Basically, you know, to ventilate your mind, to give it a first breeze. Yes. Because otherwise, for the rest of the year, you're just in your stack. Of course, there's a lot of things going inside a company. But still can be a bit of a stale and boring sometimes. Sure. But you get out there, get an excitement. Hey, the tech industry is actually blooming.

It's so much going on. And what do you know, they're going to find out, maybe this, I don't know, for example, let's say they find out there's a data dog, right? Hey, you know, they're going to bring up. Should we consider maybe you should use it for this service? So the data dog is right choice, for example. I mean, I'm not saying they are, but as an example. Or this other tech, or on their dyslibrarian or this guy who was tackling this problem, that's quite similar like ours. Let me message him on LinkedIn. Maybe he can help us if we're listening out. So I think the externalities and potential benefits are large.

But yeah, there's this risk. Yeah, they will go out finding somebody, someone a company and leave you. Right. What you're going to do, right? Also feel like it's a leader if you're sending people to conferences. It allows it like it shows you, it shows then that you want to invest in them. So they're going to stay. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. As you wrap up here, I so I have a podcast called Guidance Counselor 2.0. But the last question I ask every guest is if you could go back in time and tell yourself one thing early in your career, what would it be?

How early? Just just when you're starting out in tech. Oh, good question. Good question. I don't believe in these things. I don't. I don't. Good question, but I don't believe in it. Yeah, because I mean, everyone is, you cannot get smarter than you are. I mean, I had to get my bumps. I had to make my mistakes. In career and outside career as well. I don't. Yeah. Maybe that would work. That I really believe in it. I think there's plenty of stubbornness or, because I have maybe this flaw that I need to test things, even when it comes down, universal truths and truth and relationship.

Sometimes I'm saying, I test things. I love it. I love it. So keep testing things. Yeah. I love it. That's awesome. Oh, thanks, man. Awesome. Awesome to be here and have a chat with you. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Awesome. All right. 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 finished an entire episode. So I appreciate you so, so much for listening. Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the app store. I want this to be discoverable to others and the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it.

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