w/alishah novin, director of engineering @ celero commerce

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

What's going on everybody? Thank you for tuning in this morning. I already gettin' some viewers, this is good. I haven't even seen it come across my LinkedIn yet. Thank y'all for tuning in at me, comment. Let us know where you're tuning in from. We'd love to hear from you. I have a special guest today. So this is my dear friend Alicia. Alicia and I, Alicia was my first interview. So when we started, when I started to interview people and started this whole thing of guidance counselor 2.0. Before I even really knew what it was, last year in COVID hit, Alicia was my first interview. And so he and I were talking and I was like, man, we need to have you on for like a one year reunion.

But boy, I tell you what, time flies because I can't believe it's already been a year since we chat. So Alicia, thanks for coming on, man. Yeah, for sure. No. Say what? I said, I have to be here. Yeah, absolutely. Of course you have to be better be happy to be here. I'd be totally, it would be awkward. like, nah, you really actually driven this. I don't really want to be here right now. Noah, what's going on? It's good to see you again. Addis, comments. Well, let's go ahead and dive in. We got a good amount of viewers now. Alicia, I think you're a household name.

So first off, for those of you who are tuning in, thank you for tuning in to Guidance Council 2.0. Again, the reason why I do this is because when the pandemic started in March, which is the first, consequently the first guy interview was Alicia, I was like, hey, we need to have, I need to have a community where people can like network. They can be comfortable to slide other people's DMs because of a live show, because they had a single point of interest. And so that's why I want to do the show. I want to do the show for other people to make friends, to learn something.

Because I tell you what, the job search is exhausting. You can feel like you're on an island. And so my goal for individuals who are watching this right now is to not feel that way. A few shout outs to my team around me, Brandon Arvey, Brandon 78. He's doing an amazing job. Noah Allen, Noah's doing all my video work. We just had an individual Bianca. Bianca is doing all my graphics. So you're going to start seeing my videos actually be pretty now. So Bianca is doing all that. Very excited for her to join the team. And then also Alex, poor doing all my copy, all my emails, just kind of my posting, all that jazz.

So that being said, Alicia, my man, it's good to have you on. Tell everybody who you are to 30,000 foot view in 30 seconds. Go. Sure. Hey, everyone. My name is Alicia Novellen. I'm the director of engineering with a FinTech company called Solero Commerce. I'm not a national native, but I've been in natural for a little over 11 years now. We're native now. Yeah. Native now. Long enough. Originally from Canada though, so I'm not sure those roots. And I've been in tech for more than 15 years and it's transitioned from a coder to leader manager, that kind of thing. So I have to give a special props because Alicia is a very humble man.

He won't say it. Alicia won a guitar Alicia tell me about the guitar you won recently so So I was awarded the Community leader of the year award with the greater National Technology Council Which was a huge huge surprise especially because you know with with a lot of the other award categories there are a lot more about accomplishments like if you're the CTO of the year award or security engineer I mean those are all focused around something that you accomplished in the year whereas if you're if you're ever trying to do anything for the community it's really hard to think like I should get an award for this you know not something that you're really thinking about when you're going about doing anything for the community and it's this this kind of Like, Taylor, I think you caught it, right?

It's the bug where you do something and you're like, ah, I really like this. I want to do more and more and more. And so you never feel like you're done. And so it was a big surprise. And I'm really grateful for just the whole thing. And yeah, just. Well, you're awesome. And thank you for everything in community, which leads me to the next thing. So Alicia, Alicia, one night, I think it was one night. It was like 9 o'clock at night or something. Like Alicia, like blew up my DM. I was like, there was a bunch of like, incomplete sentences and like, hey, I have an idea, we need to do this, this, this, this.

So Alicia, explain to the viewers what we wanna do. And for those that if you are interested, we don't have any sort of mail-in list or anything like that. If you are interested, just shoot me an email, tailor at vaco.com. So Alicia, go ahead and talk about what you and I've been chatting with for the last two weeks. And I'm gonna throw something up on the board real quick while you're talking. Yeah, so in talking to Taylor, well, the one side of conversation, if you will, I was just, this thought was stuck in my head about just, you know, a lot of people out there, regardless of where you are in your career, it's always hard to know, you know, how you compare and rank against people who are, you know, same title, same level, same years in.

And I've heard that from people who reported to me, I've heard from friends, I've heard it from different people over the years. And, you know, times myself, I've always felt that fear. And one of my former mentors, he always called them, he always calls them just being fat and happy, like the fat cat. And so I always think of like, oh, I don't want to, I don't want to ever be fat and happy. I always want to feel that challenge. But a lot of people like where they are and they're not necessarily looking to leave, but at the same time, the easiest way to get that fear of realizing what you don't know is by going through interview rounds and also you're realizing that they're asking you questions about technologies that you've never even heard of or never even used or didn't think it was that popular and and here like people are using it all the time.

So that kind of idea was really sort of sitting in my head. And so that's when I started messaging you Taylor about how we could kind of tap into that same sort of approach of what you get the value you get out of interviewing, even if you're not changing jobs, how we can kind of recreate that scenario so that people who are feeling that sense of doubt or are not but should probably be feeling it can tap into that and start realizing what it is that they're missing and what kind of things they can do to get up to speed. And so the whole idea is really centered around how do you recreate that interview setting without it being an interview and furthering it by letting people kind of really assess their ability to be interviewed as well.

Yeah, absolutely. So we're really excited about this. We don't have a date. We don't have people. I think Alicia, Alicia, I'm behind. I think you sent me an icon or like promo thing. So again, we are in the infancy stages, but I think Alicia hit a nerve, and I'm very excited to partner with him on this. And we're gonna, it's just anybody can join, but it's gonna be national specific, right? Cause Alicia and I are very passionate about the national tech community, how we can help others. I help junior devs, or I want to help junior devs, right? And I can't because companies don't pay us to place junior devs.

And so I'm very passionate about giving back to the community, all of my information so they can take and run with it. And Alicia, what he brings to the table, So we're like, man, we feel like interviewing. We feel like interviewing Mary's both the senior architect level people and then also the junior people. And we can get them on the same wavelength and how we can become better, not only hiring managers at interviewing, but also job seekers interviewing. So we're very excited to roll it in posturcon is what we're going to call it. It's going to be kind of like a, I'd say it all day, probably like a five, I'm probably a five hour, six hour thing, not like a nine hour thing.

And so we're going to roll it out here. So be on the lookout. If you're interested in helping or being involved, Shoot me an email, get you involved with Alicia, but we're very excited to obviously get this rolling. So that being said, so let's talk about the reason why you're here Alicia. So first off, congratulations on your year at Slayero Commerce. Thank you. And so this, so, and one thing because we chat about this is I think right now the tech market is nuts right now. People are leaving, I had one guy bounce after two weeks on Project. Now I don't blame him. He got a crazy offer, right?

But we're in this market right now where I think you can't just pay somebody and expect them to stay, right? I think there's a lot involved. And so I kind of want to break that down with you during our few minutes here together this morning. So talk to me right now about kind of your background. You stayed at one company for what, 10 years. And then you moved to Slurry, been there for a year. Let's start very simple. What are some things that have kept you at Slurry? not only as the company, but maybe some things you've implemented to help your team to obviously keep you engaged.

Yeah. So, I have a rule that I try to never say good question, because I feel like it's the new filler for all. People say, oh, good question, but genuinely good question there. So I'll break my own rule, because it had me thinking for a second. But I think the real, It's down on the basics of really just empowering people to make decisions and even giving them the room to fail. There's enough mechanism so that if you were to fail, it's not like everything's gonna come crashing down, but knowing that you have that space to think through things, present your argument, and then you'll get people's support, just that trust and that trust builds loyalty.

And that's something that I felt day one coming in. And I'll even go so far hard to say that it was my first week and we kind of, we had an all, like a fire happen and I was sort of right in the thick of it and trying to wrap my head around how to sort things out. And, you know, I was given a lot of space to operate knowing so little at that time and it just sort of really cemented for me the decision to make that switch. But it's something that I've also tried to establish for my own team is, you know, I I read this quote recently, and so it's kind of top of mine, but it was basically said that leaders can't accomplish anything without their team.

And that stuck out to me, but I framed it a little bit differently, which is that the leaders aren't necessarily even there to accomplish the goal. It's that the leaders are setting up a framework, and it's the team, it's the doers that accomplish those goals, right? And so really most of my job is how do I get out of the way and stay out of the way, but then kind of something else that's coming up in the way, I just need to get rid of that obstacle. And so that's been the biggest thing for me. That's what I'm trying to do with my team, but it's what has also been done for me.

And so I think that that empowerment is huge. And listen, I mean, Alicia, I don't know why I don't have you on honestly quarterly because I could just sit down with you and just hang out for an hour or two to talk about leadership culture because I think, listen, I don't work with you. You could totally be be a you know somebody who lies and just says good things. I doubt it. I know people right who say very very amazing things about you. But let's let's break it down from a job seeker side right now. So everybody who's for the most part people watching this are on the job search are thinking about leaving right.

And the biggest question I get asked. When, like, when's a good time to leave? When should I leave? When, like, when is it time? That's actually what I was looking for to be good with. When is it time? But I had to go through a few sentences to get there. When is it time to make a job? And real quick, give a few shout outs. John, dude, it's always good to see you. Hope you're doing well. Johnny, Amy, Alicia, thanks for all the good insight. Yes, Alicia is amazing. So, Alicia, from your perspective from a, from a candidate, right? Because again, we always say a hiring manager is just a candidate without or a candidate is just a hiring manager without a job.

So what made you leave? What are some things that cause you to leave your last gig to hear and what should individuals be mindful of? Yeah. So let's start with the obvious, which is barring any obvious reasons for having to leave or being asked to leave. Those are usually the main things that will cause anyone to start looking. But if you're ever fortunate to be in a position where everything is otherwise good and you're faced with what's my next move and is it here, I think that's kind of what I was faced with. I loved and still loved the team that I was part of prior to Salero.

And there's just a phenomenal group of people, really, really close relationships with them, have done my best to try to maintain that in the year of COVID. But the thing that I was faced with was, what is my growth potential? And it's an easy thing to kind of feel that, but it's hard to answer that and it's hard to really know what's out there. And especially going back to our idea and posture con is that you don't really get a sense of what growth looks like until you're out there looking and seeing what other people are looking for. You can then start measuring yourself against that.

One of the things that I did myself was I started to just push myself to read and read and read about everything, whether it was blog posts or other people who were in a similar level or otherwise books. And I was realizing that there's a lot out there that, you know, being fat and happy, I kind of like just got comfortable with my day-to-day challenges. And I was not seeing all the stuff that has was advancing around me. And especially when you're at a really large organization, which was where that's where it was, you know, a lot of the a lot of the tech, a lot of the culture, a lot of the things have already been established and they're not necessarily changing or cutting edge.

They're not like the thing I love about about startup worlds is they're always trying to innovate and also leverage other people's innovations. So they're looking for the latest tech to cut their own internal costs down to even like the phones that they have on their desks. Like we had the old ones that look like regular phones. They're gone. We're all cell phones now. And then yeah, I don't have a phone on my desk here. And so it's just interesting how like that cultural shift was, I was missing, right? I was not seeing it because I was everything I was seeing was what had been established for years and years and years.

And that I think is really part of it is just looking at and asking yourself very, very openly like what don't I know, which isn't always a hard thing to answer. But if you're trying to be honest with yourself, you'll often find that there's plenty you don't know. And if you have no ego or a hubris about it, you'll probably realize that you have to kind of seek out the answers to those questions. But the second part of it is it comes down to the relationship that you have with your manager or your team and knowing what, just through regular conversations and what opportunities exist for you within the place.

Because sometimes you don't have to leave. Sometimes there is the opportunity within the team. And it's important for you to bring that to the table whenever you have a one-on-one with your manager. If you're not having one-on-ones, you definitely need to. At best weekly, but at worst, it should be every other week. And you should be bringing this kind of idea of growth. And tempering your expectations for what growth is, right? Like, a lot of people have this idea that in six months I want to be here, but then they might not be, right? Growth takes a year, two years, three years sometimes. But if you start early and you lay out that plan and you lay it out for yourself, your manager, what I do with my team, I incentivize to keep them.

When the average employee in tax stays up their job for 18 months, that's not a long time. And if you have, let's say, a six-month ramp up, you've got a year before that person's going to leave. But if you can incentivize them to stay not just through pay, but through opportunity, challenge through giving them that space to operate, but also playing that mentoring side of the role where you're laying out their opportunities for growth. And they bring that to the table in terms of what they're looking for, what they want to be challenged with. You'll very soon get to the point of knowing whether that place that you're currently at has those opportunities for you or they don't.

And in my case, it was, I left on really great terms and it was just a matter of knowing that it wasn't quite there. You know, it was those opportunities. I kind of hit that ceiling. So let me ask you this and thank you LinkedIn user. I appreciate that. I wish I could see people's names. Sometimes just let me do it. So thank you for whoever posted that. So a lot of great stuff you just said, right? Let me do. There's a lot of places going, I want this session to be shorter, right? Because that's my whole point is to be short snippets so people can watch in one day.

But if somebody is struggling to make the bounce and they're scared, right? So let's talk about the scared aspect. Because a lot of people are scared. What would you tell them right now? Alicia, I come here and I'm like, Alicia, listen, I want to leave Vaco. I don't Vaco for anybody who's looking. I'd watch it, I don't want to leave a co. But if I can just like, hey man, I want to leave a co. You can eat it. Yeah. I know I'm going to get an email from HR, like, at all my boss after this. But hey, Alex. But if I talk to you after this and like, hey, Alicia, I really want to leave, I'm scared.

I'm scared to make that jump. What would you tell me? Yeah. So, so that's exactly what I faced, right? 10 years ago, I was 25 years old. So I had no mortgage, no kids, wasn't married, and 10 years later, I have all three. And it's much more difficult, I hate to say it, but it is in a frame of mind because you job change, changing jobs is like stressful to begin with. But when you have to lose you at that point, it's your family. And so it is very much that. But that's, there's, so let's kind of tie it back and put this whole idea of imposter right?

And the feeling of being an imposter, imposter syndrome and all that. I think that fear is healthy. Fear is one of those things that tells you that there's something there. You don't, you might not know exactly what it is, but your body, your mind, something is telling you that something is off and you need to listen to that fear. Now, you can become an unhealthy thing, so you've got to kind of rein it in. But the idea is that fear is what motivates you to grow and what motivates you to take on the next challenges. And the worst thing that you can do is just ignore that sense of fear and rest in the comfort of what you know.

Because come one way or the other, at some point, relationships do end, from point, and I hope that won't release me. But when you're at work, I mean, if it's growth potentially if it's just the job changes or something. If you're not, if you're not using that fear to grow your own skill set and grow your own capabilities, that becomes a challenge. And one of the things that I think is incredibly valuable that national is insanely good at, better than most of the other cities I've lived in, is the community aspect of it. It's like if you're not part of Nash Dev, you need to be.

I think- So what's Nash dev? Sure. Nash dev is a Slack channel for developers and other technologists. I think it's open to everyone, so it's easy to join. I think initially it was if I invite, but now it's pretty much open, so you can check it out. And it's lots of people who have very passionate and strong opinions. There's channels for everything from those in .net to JavaScript frameworks to just about everything else. And sometimes you can just ask a very broad question about tech or a problem that you're dealing with and other times you can ask about just the job market and who's looking, there's a careers page, there's just about everything there and it's a fantastic community and anyone's not part of it, should definitely be part of it.

But there are other ones out there too. There's smaller groups, They're smaller ones that are kind of designated to more minority-centered kind of initiatives. And I think that the one thing that you should look at when you're going there is not just purely to network and who do I want to be friends with or who's out there I can just geek out with, but also be challenged by them, right? And use them as a way, as a tool to understand where you sit and how much you know and what you don't know. And oftentimes those people will either be able to point you in the right direction in terms of go read this or go learn this language or you build this project that you try doing in this way and they'll give you the incredible feedback.

And that's one of the things that just tech has always been incredibly good at and it's become more and more inclusive over the years, particularly. So it's been getting better, but it's just that it's, you know, we come from the group of people who used to work in the garage and would tinker and go down to Radio Shack when Radio Shack would actually be selling you, you know, resistors and little kind of things that you'd have to solder together. And we geek out over it. We want to help each other out. And so it's, it's something that if you've not fully tapped into, it's, it's right there for the big panel.

Definitely. Definitely. So a few people commented says, uh, LinkedIn, you, again, I don't know who you are. My mom encouraged me to stop leaving. Dude, why be scared of success? Go into the next situation knowing that's a good fit, right? And I talk about that as a job seeker. You need to have confidence, right? I think a lot of times people are that fear overtakes them and so they approach interviews and they approach looking for something in this kind of this hunched over, kind of scared, you know, stick your chest out. Be confident in your skills to provide, but don't be cocky, right? There's a very fine line, but you need to be confident.

Also Brandon, is that my brother, my mom encouraged me to stop leaving? Cause at this time, my brother would say. Somebody goes, I live in ATL and I'm a Nashville native. Nashville is awesome. Tech 404 is awesome too. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's so many sub, you know, on Slack and Discord and whatever. It says, go into community seeking to help. Who is this LinkedIn? Oh, it's Emmet. Never mind, he just commented, what's going on Emmett? Go into community seeking to help as many people as possible network with the intent of giving, not taking. Yeah, absolutely. Totally awesome. Yeah, for sure. One comment about the stop leaving too.

So there are definitely times when it's, you don't wanna get the reputation of being a job hopper, right? And I've faced that. I mean, the show job that I've ever had, I was there for one day. I got hired, started my day. One day, I've never heard that. That's impressive. That's impressive. They were doing some shady stuff, but I just didn't want to be part of it. I let them know pretty quickly. But obviously that didn't end up on my resume, but I did for early in my career have a short stints, a year, one place, 14, 15 months at a different place, and that can reflect bad on you, right?

And so the question is, question of my mind is not necessarily, you know, when do you leave, but it's when do you make the case for growth? And whether that's internal or extra next place, it's or moving on to the next place. You know, the thing, let me, I'll tell a quick story about a friend of mine who hears this, he'll probably know it's him. He's the most, He's so easy going and he's got so much growth potential and those two things are bad together because when you're really easy going and you've got all this potential you often will get passed up by people because they know that they can wait you out a little bit, right?

Here's, I've got a person who's saying they're about to leave or they're threatening me or I'm worried that they are going to leave and I want to keep them I want to keep them. And then I've got a person B who is really, really easy going. And he has this potential, but he's not a risk yet. He's not a flight risk, right? And in those cases, if you're not confident, like you said, Taylor, if you're not confident about stating what your path is and how you want to grow, someone who's put in a position of having the side between person A and person B will always go with person A because they have a little bit of runway with you.

And that's why it's not just the worst thing that you can do for yourself is treat everything like an ultimatum and go right into and say, this has to happen now or I'm out. You need to have that long, long trajectory of where you're going. And that's why I was talking about the one on once, because that's something that you should be defining and setting a target. And you can be as official as laying it out on paper or having your vision board and all that, or you can just be informal about it, but know where you want to be and kind of lay that out and your manager should kind of build that trajectory with you and kind of build that plan so that he knows, right?

So that there comes a day, actually it's a he or she knows, because there will come a day where you know, you want to hit that point and if it's not there for you, that person, that manager should know, okay, I've not held my end of the bargain up. And so they'll know what their risks are at that point. I love that. I love that. Alicia, I could keep talking to you, but I realized I have a 10 o'clock that I totally forgot about. So I need to run All that being said y'all. Thank you for changing guys cost 2.0 today 2.0 today If you are interested in imposter con being involved You know because we need help right and this is a great time for you to network right?

This is it I mean you're networking with the director of engineering Alicia you're in your networking with me So again, we're gonna roll that out very excited. Alicia, thank you for coming on, man. How about I have you on in like another like two or three months, not a year? All the show. That'd be great. But again, thank you all for tuning in. Text me one job tip of the day to your phone. Shoot me a text, 615-235-5650. And if you want to reach out to Alicia, connect with him on LinkedIn. He is one of the most kindest individuals I've ever met. And so, big fan of Alicia.

So, Alicia, thanks for coming on, man. And I'm sure we'll text today about it in Postercon. Absolutely, yep. All right, brother. Take it easy. Yeah.