INIT
Episode 3: The Journey of A Thousand Frick-Ups
Published:
Dude, in this gnarly podcast episode, Seth Whiting and Jake Pacheco dive into the rad world of coding. Seth, this full-stack developer with a decade of experience, introduces himself while Jake, a newbie barber, shares his fresh excitement about coding. They guide beginners in coding from basics to mastery, bro.
The main theme of this epic episode is understanding the coding journey. Seth reflects on his early days as a developer, the confusion, constant Googling, and the meme-worthy code fails. They discuss project management systems like Kanban boards and Seth's experience working on a music publishing project with a small team.
The convo wraps up with Jake asking about salary versus hourly payment. Seth prefers salary due to its flexibility. This episode is all about Seth's coding journey, growing confidence, and the joy and challenges of being a developer. It's a rad ride, dude!
Special thanks to Diarrhea Planet for our intro and outro music and @SkratchTopo for our artwork.
(Auto-Generated) Episode Transcript:
Seth Whiting: Hey, I am Seth Whiting and I'm a full stack developer from Portland, Maine, and I've been coding for about 10 years now.
Jake Pacheco: And I am Jake Pacheco. I, I am a barber from a Augusta, Maine, and I've been coding for six or seven weeks, something like that.
Seth Whiting: Well, you said, you said five weeks last week. Last time, yeah.
So yeah, two weeks have passed since then.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. These, these, these semantics get me in trouble with the girlfriend sometimes, so, so yeah, let's go, let's go to the six. Yeah. Yeah. Not very long.
Seth Whiting: Yeah. So Jake is, is starting on his journey and. That's kind of the whole point of this podcast is to go from, from square one to hopefully mastery.
That's, that's the goal is to get 'em working on actual projects and, you know, contributing code to, to get paid and, and all of that. And if you haven't heard any of the other episodes, we would advise that you started the first one. Just because these could end up kind of building on our, our discussion in this one could end up building on the previous one.
So it might be a good idea unless you , saw something in the title that you thought you needed to know right now. So if you're just starting out with the podcast and you want to kind of get the full experience, I would, I would say go back to episode one and. Come back here and see us later.
Yeah.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. Listen to us later. And goodbye.
Seth Whiting: Thanks. So, yeah, today we're gonna be talking sort of generally about kind of what can you expect out of learning to be a developer and, and then being a developer, I guess is sort of like the main theme of this one. Yep.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. So I mean, I have, you know, I, I always have a thousand questions to ask you.
But I guess my question currently is what's, you know, the, the cliche day in the life of a developer, but I'm curious about , what was it when you, , let's say a few months in when you were really beginning. Yeah. And then I want to get to , you know, what it was toward the middle and then what it is now.
Yeah. What your, what your everyday kind of looks like. Are you on a computer eight hours a day? Are you uhhuh, you know, doing other stuff? How, how does that how's it, how's it work, bud?
Seth Whiting: Yeah. So I'll go, I'll go through beginning and then kind of like the, the middle and then like where, where I, I have found myself ending up now.
And I ca like, obviously I can't say that this is what you can expect cuz everybody's journey is different, but this, this, I, I can talk about my, my particular journey. So like I said, I, I did a A bootcamp in 2012. And when I say, like I said, I mean on the first episode, so if you didn't listen to that, go back to the first episode.
Yeah, if
Jake Pacheco: you're confused at those point, what are you doing here?
Seth Whiting: Yeah. If I ever say, like I said, and you didn't, if, and you're confused about, , when I said it, just go, go back and do what we told you to do. So I That's awfully bossy. Yeah. Get outta here, get it. Don't come back. Just please come back.
Please, please,
Jake Pacheco: please come back.
Seth Whiting: Yeah, he didn't mean it didn't mean. Give me another chance. I so I started out in 2012 at a bootcamp in Nashville called Nashville Software School. Shouted out to them good, good people there. And I. Quit halfway through because I, I, I basically, it, it basically kind of seemed like this is too hard and I don't , I don't like hard things basically.
So I was like, I don't think I'm gonna enjoy this as a career path if it, if it's this hard the whole time. And spoiler alert, it's not that hard the whole time. But so in the beginning it's, it's very hard to, to kind of get, get your head around everything. So so like I said, I, I was like, I don't, I don't think I'm gonna like this.
So I quit halfway through, and then a couple basically like a year passed, I think, and a friend of mine needed help on a project. He, he was primarily a backend developer, but he, he knew a bit of the front end. And he knew that I did sort of like the front end part of the bootcamp, and basically he needed help and he was like, Hey, you know enough to help me out, so can you, can you come help me out?
And I was like, sure. I'm not doing anything else. Like I'm working at Starbucks right now, so I will, I will gladly jump ship and help you out with this. So yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. Actually, I, I wasn't working at Starbucks. What was I doing? It doesn't matter. I, I was, I was doing something else. He was doing some job that didn't matter, I guess.
Didn't matter. Yeah. So I, I started helping him out and side note, I immediately start , made more money than I had ever made in my life. Like entry level, just an entry level position. I was already making , Significantly more than I had made at any other job, which was pretty sweet. But we can get into that later.
So
Jake Pacheco: yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm itching to ask. I'm getting,
Seth Whiting: And, but also spoiler alert, significantly more than I had ever made before, is not saying a line.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. I get you. Anything over like the $25,000 cap is like, oh yeah, I'm doing right. Yeah. Yeah. I get it.
Seth Whiting: So yeah. So in, in the, the early days of, of me at that first job, it was like chaos, basically.
Just like, I don't know what I'm doing, but my, my friend is like, he was awesome. His name's Kenny House. Shout out to Kenny House. Helping me through basically just the, the basics of developing an actual application. And he taught me some of the backend stuff too, which was really cool.
But I, I the whole time I was confused very often of like, I, I, I did a thing and it's working but I'm not completely sure how, and , yeah, that's, there's, there's this meme out there that's like too identical pictures of a guy like being confused at his computer screen and the, the first panel says, my code isn't working, and I have no idea why.
And then the next panel is, my code is working, and I have no idea why. That's like very, you, you'll find yourself in that position for sure.
Jake Pacheco: I've already found myself in that position a couple times, so Yeah. Get that. It's like, why did that work
Seth Whiting: and the other one didn't. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yep. So yeah, I mean that's, that's how it is at the beginning is like you you do a lot of Googling and you do it poorly and then you get further along in your development career and you do a lot of Googling and you do it well.
That's the
Jake Pacheco: difference. Yeah. Yeah. That's kinda what I, yeah. Yeah. That's. But I'm just excited to know what exactly to Google, you know,
Seth Whiting: I'm just excited to Google versus parameters.
Jake Pacheco: I don't know. Yeah.
Seth Whiting: What kind can I Google today?
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. So in the beginning then, , I mean, obviously you're asking a lot of questions and doing a lot of Googling. Yeah. Was it kind of like this, eight hour a day, that's your workday and your work week is like five days a week?
, or is it more freeform in the sense of , here's a project, figure it out in the week, or something like that?
Seth Whiting: Yeah, so I'm trying to remember if we had a formal project management kind of system that we were working with. So have you ever heard of a con bond board? Con bond board.
Yeah, it's, you, you probably wouldn't unless you were in some kind of , project based yeah. Career. But a con bond board is basically, you have little cards in these vertical columns and you can move, move the card from one column to the next and you can Yeah.
Jake Pacheco: I, I, I, I, sorry to interrupt. I, I think that I think I saw something like this on Silicon Valley.
Oh, yeah. Shout out to Silicon Valley. Shout out. Yeah. I think that they call shout out system or something like that. Yeah. I mean, fuck. Yeah. But but yeah, I think that they they had something like that. It was like a smart system or something like that. I
Seth Whiting: what. Yeah. So there, there's a lot of different ones out there.
Mm-hmm. But basically all you really need to know is when you're working on a project th this is like, you can expect this in pretty much any development job. But the, the only reason why I hesitate to think that we, whether we were using that back then or not, is because it was just me and my friend and we, yeah.
We, I don't know if either of us knew about that back then or not. We, it sounds, think we probably
Jake Pacheco: did kind of just. Yeah, it sounds like you guys were kind of just going at it anyways. It wasn't like a super organized formal thing because you were learning still and kinda teaching you
Seth Whiting: stuff.
Although we were, so what we were making was a music publishing software for this music publishing company on Music Row in Nashville, which is the famous street in Nashville. And they, they had somebody kind of overseeing the project and she may have been , giving us tasks in a formal way.
I can't remember. All of this is irrelevant. Basically it's just like the con bond board is , you have a to-do column, a doing column and a done column. Usually you can, you can make them say whatever you want and you can add more columns or remove columns. But you have little cards that represent a task .
We need a button on this page that does this thing, you know, and, and then like you move it from to do to doing, and then you develop it, and then you move it to done. So I, I forget what your original question was, so, oh,
Jake Pacheco: I was just like with that, like with that job, was it like an eight hour a day job?
Were you, you just like, like sitting on your computer a hundred percent, like all the time. Pretty much. Or was it more than that because you were like, so like into it kind of thing? Yeah.
Seth Whiting: What did your Yeah, then I wasn't dating anyone. I didn't have kids. I didn't have like any like, organized activities that I was doing.
I was basically just coding from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep, basically. Like and like. It, I, I, I'm pretty sure that I was being paid by the hour. So like that, that was like pretty, like advantageous, you know, that I had all the time to work the time. Yeah. Because like, yeah, if I work 12 hours, I get paid for 12 hours, you know?
Yeah. I'm not saying that you need to do that at all. But that's just like, I could do it. And I, that's like what I was interested in at the, the time, like, so I got like really into it and just didn't stop.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. So yeah, I, I see a lot of people they, it, it seems like a lot of coding or programming in general runs on like salaries.
Being in it as long as you have. Do you, do you prefer like the salary thing or do you Yes. Prefer, yeah, a hundred
Seth Whiting: percent. I, I do. A lot of people don't, I think. Yeah. So just a little background on me for the last, like four years or something, I've been doing a lot of contracting, which is just like a more official term for freelancing, basically.
Yep. Just working on contracts and everybody that I worked with was also contracting and they gave you the option to do salary or hourly. Salary or hourly. I'm just realizing that that sort of rhymes. So and a lot of people chose hourly because they were like, well, it's very likely that I will work overtime at some point and I want to get paid for that.
Yeah. Yeah. And the flip side of that though is like, for me at least, there's a lot of interruptions like in my life. And like one day I might need to like stay home with the kids and like, because they're sick or something, and then another day mm-hmm. I work, you know, 12 hours or something like that.
And so it all kind of balances out and I don't, I don't want to keep track of all of that cuz like, it, it probably like broke even. Probably, yeah. And I, I don't think, yeah, I, I feel like, I feel like it probably did. I don't think that I was working less than I should have. And I feel like. I probably wasn't working more than I should have, and I feel like some days I was working less and some days I was working more, and I feel like I kind of evened out and I just didn't want to, like, it's sort of like I, I have worked hourly before as well, and I, I don't, I don't like that as much because it's sort of like added pressure to like, should I stop my timer to like, take lunch?
Should I stop my timer to like go to the bathroom because like I, I'm gonna be there for a bit or like, yeah. Yeah. I, it's just like an ethical gray area that I'm not like, comfortable with, so,
Jake Pacheco: yeah. Yeah. Because you ended up kind of almost micromanaging yourself Yeah. And making yourself feel bad if you did take a longer break or something like that.
I feel like. Yeah. And I'm sure that there's some people that aren't as ethical, that are just like, yeah, I work 12 hours a day. Yeah.
Seth Whiting: Know what I mean? A person where, one, one time I was working, I, I think I was working like non hourly. And so like, whether I was working or I wasn't, I was still getting paid the same.
And I was working for a company in Nashville, but they, they look, they had an office. I didn't need to go to the office when I was in Nashville. But one summer I just went to Maine for, for for the summer. And they were cool with it. They were like, you know, as long as you're getting our work done, whatever.
And one, one week, it was just like, really nice. So I went. Out to like the lake a bunch. And I was like, by the end of the week I was like, I fully intended to like make up the time, but I just can't. So I went to my boss and I was like, can you please just like dock my pay like half this week? And he was like, oh, I don't, yeah.
Like, can you just like make up the time over time in the next few weeks? And I was like, I don't think, I don't, like, I don't know if I can. And I, I, I would feel better if you just didn't pay me as much. It's like, oh,
Jake Pacheco: Seth. Seth here, folks. You're, you're starting to understand that Seth is just a really good gift.
Yeah. So that's,
Seth Whiting: well, that's very, very nice. Yeah.
Jake Pacheco: I feel like not everyone would, would be as honest probably. Just in general, I feel like people are kind of punks about it, but I, I was curious about that because like in a salaried position, so I guess that there would be three then maybe where it's salary.
Mm-hmm. There's hourly and then there would be, I don't have anything that rhyme with it, but kind of buy the job. Is that a thing also? Sure, yeah. Flat fee, like pay. You're, yeah. You're gonna bid on this job is how much you're gonna do it before
Seth Whiting: there you go. Yeah, for sure. Kind of a thing. I've done that kind before too.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. That's more in freelancing, I assume, right?
Seth Whiting: Yeah. Yep. So like the one time that I did that, it, it may have actually been right before when I started helping Kenny out on that music publishing one, like that was like the first job that I count as a job. But I did a job on a site called Upwork, and yeah, back then it was called something else too.
I think it was E Lance maybe, or maybe I'm totally getting that wrong. Anyway there was this person who worked with law firms in Hawaii and she, she needed a, just a straight HTML and CSS page. Made or, or website made with like several pages, but there was no PHP involved, there was no JavaScript involved, just straight HTML and css.
Mm-hmm. And I was like, Hey, I know HTML and css, and I basically, I got this, yeah. Basically it was like I think it was like a $5,000 job or something like that. Maybe even less. I don't even know. It could have been, it could have been a lot less. And I, but anyway, it was like, I knew that like, I can probably do this in like a week or so.
Mm-hmm. And that's, that's worth it to me, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it, you know? Yeah. And it, it ended out, you know, like it didn't, it didn't pay a lot, but like, to me at the time it did. And yeah. And like, I got along really well with the, the client and like, she was like trying to hire me later on.
In my career, and I was like, I'm charging way more than this now. So, yeah. Yeah. But
Jake Pacheco: yeah, but I mean, that's, that's, I mean, even as entry level, like, let's even cut that in half and say it was like 2,500 or something. Yeah. Like in a week of work. Yeah. Like,
Seth Whiting: that's, that's pretty nasty. I mean, that's, I could be getting all of those numbers wrong.
Yeah. It could have been in the hundreds and that would've been stoked, honestly.
Jake Pacheco: I mean, yeah. Yeah. I feel you. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, yeah, even anything over a thousand is like more than a lot of people would make in general, and having only done like half of a bootcamp or however, and then like being, being able to land any job is like, kind of, that's, that's kinda sweet.
Yeah. That's kind of encouraging in a way. Yeah. Yeah.
Seth Whiting: For sure. Yeah. So like just a side note, like if you're starting out Well actually I'll save this cuz like, basically I was just going to do a little tangent about like, freelancing and freelancing sites, but let's, let's cover that. Yeah. More extensively.
We'll get into that later. Yeah.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. But yeah, so, so your day mostly pretty much sun up to sundown in the beginning were work, work, work, work, work. It sounds like like, and not, not, but it was probably because you're somewhat enjoying it. You're with your
Seth Whiting: friends. Well, I'm just disappointed that you said it right.
Monotone and you didn't do it. The who even sings that song? Work. Work, yeah. There you go. Work, work, work.
Jake Pacheco: I know I thought of it halfway through the work and I was like, ah. Missed off. Yeah.
Seth Whiting: Next time look at it. Next time.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. Next time.
Seth Whiting: Next time. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that was just because I was like, like a a year maybe.
I, I think it was probably about like a year out of college and like, just, I didn't have anything going on in my life and like, what else are you doing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. So you could totally not do that. I think it, it was probably advantageous for me to do that at the beginning just because like, you know, the, the more experience you get, like the more hours you code, the better you're gonna get at it, you know?
So like the, yeah, the, the faster, and in the time span of like days I was cramming in, you know, more than the average person. So like,
Jake Pacheco: yeah. In, in the beginning it was more of like like trying to discipline yourself into learning something, whereas this was more of like, you were actually excited about it and you were like motivated.
Seth Whiting: Yeah, I was, I was sort of like Like
Jake Pacheco: hungry for it, nothing else was going on, so, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Which is, I, I feel like, like something that feels motivating is much better than something that you just have to have discipline to do. Yeah. You know
Seth Whiting: what I mean? Yeah. But the fact that I was getting paid for it was pretty key, you know?
Like, yeah. I, I wouldn't have done it if I wasn't. So like, it was, it was really cool cuz it was like, oh, I'm getting paid to like, learn something that I'm actually like really interested in now, you know? So.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's a super deal. Yeah. Like, yeah. If, if, yeah, if I, if I could get paid from Code Academy, that would be, Hey guys,
Seth Whiting: if you're listening, hello World.
Yeah. You
Jake Pacheco: like that function, I guess, right? Anyways, but so fast forward, like, let's say. I don't know. You're 11 years in now, right?
Seth Whiting: Yeah. Well I guess if you go, if you go by like the, the time that I did the bootcamp then yeah, it would be 11 years. But like, when I started like professionally coding, it's been, it, it was like 2013, so it's been around 10 years, but yeah.
Yeah,
Jake Pacheco: that's still quite a long time. So let's fast forward a little bit to like, I don't know, when you started, like, let's say after that job was done mm-hmm. And you started feeling like, I assume after that you felt kind of confident to like at least do quite a bit of front ends. Yeah. So is that what you went, is that what you went into?
Did you like go into more of just like, well actually stuff
Seth Whiting: or, yeah. I kind of didn't feel super confident even after that first job because that first job I think was like, like I. Maybe like nine months of work or so. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know, I don't know if Kenny was like, he's doing more harm than good.
We need to get him off. Or, or if it was more just like, you know, I can ticket from here, like, you've done enough on the front end, I can, you know, whatever. Like, and also like the project kind of like evolved over times. So like, as it always does, you, like, you'll find when you start doing projects is like the people who hired you to do the project start out with like one idea of what they want and then you start voting it, and then they get like greedy basically.
And they're like, oh, but what if it did all of this other stuff too? And it's like, well, let's just do the first stuff first. And they're like, no, no, no. This is, this is a new thing now. It's like, okay. Yeah. All right. So,
Jake Pacheco: so it's obviously that's on a much larger scale, but. It happens a lot in haircuts. Oh, really?
Get exactly what you're saying. Yeah. It's like people are, people are wild with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll start one thing and they said that they wanted, and then they're like, oh, what if we, and I'm like, no. Like, what if we don't? Like what if, what
Seth Whiting: if you cut back? What if you shut up and I cut your hair?
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. How about, how about, how about, how about you're gonna look good at the end of this? And they'll,
yeah. But yeah. No, so I, I get that where it's like yeah. The client will like kind of change as it goes along. Yeah. And I'm sure, you know, if these are people who view themselves as, whether they be art entrepreneurs mm-hmm. Or they are like, you know, I always brainstorming new ideas. Yeah. Then I feel like that could be kind of frustrating because it's like I just spent like 10 hours onto this one thing to be this way.
Yeah. And then you change it. I mean, it's
Seth Whiting: semi frustrating. Oh, you get paid for it. Yeah, exactly. It's semi frustrating, but at the end of the day, it's like, okay, well that's like more work, you know, security. Yeah. Like more job security. Yeah. Job security. So yeah. That
Jake Pacheco: makes sense. So let's say, let's move to when you, I want to say when you started feeling like actually more confident, comfortable and confident.
Yeah. But I'm sure that's kind of a hard mark to make because like, I'm sure it kind of cropped up on you and you were like, oh man, actually I know
Seth Whiting: what I'm doing. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, it, it definitely is a very gradual process. So I, I worked on that music publishing project and like left kind of feeling like, Okay.
Yeah, that was like semi successful, you know, like, I feel like I can, yeah, yeah. I can write code, you know, I can say that at least, like I can, I can write some code. And then a f a friend slash like mentor of mine in Nashville needed help building out like a full stack application. And he was like, mm-hmm.
Hey, I need somebody who can work on the front end and the back end. We're using this particular stack, quote unquote, which we're, we'll, we'll go into like what that means at some point, maybe in this, maybe at the end of this episode, maybe in the beginning of the next one or something. But basically he's like, we're using this, this, this, and this.
Like, we need somebody who knows these things and like, this is what you're, what they will be building and who's like, do you know anyone who could like help out? And I was like, I could do that. Yeah. On the inside I was like, no, I can't. But but I'll figure it out, you know, like I, I've got nothing else going on and I've got, you know, I've got time to learn this, so I'm going to, I'm just gonna jump in.
Yeah. So so yeah, that, in that particular project that there, I've reached a big milestone where I finally understood like how to connect a front end to a back end. That was like a huge moment for me. Mm-hmm. It took, yeah. I feel like it was be, yeah, it took like a, like, I, I may have been doing it on the music publishing project, but like, I didn't understand it.
I didn't know it. Yeah. I didn't like conceptually grasp like, this is how you do it. Like, this is, you know, like, yeah. That was like a pretty big like skill unlocked their, which was pretty cool. Yeah. And so that, that made me feel really cool. Like, really like yeah. Confident in stuff, but I was still very much a junior developer, like, no question, you know?
Mm-hmm. Yeah. But I was able to, I was able to, to make something and I, I was able to make it work. Which like at the end of the day, that's what you want, you know, that's what you're getting paid to do. But there's a pretty big difference between a junior developer and a senior developer where like, you can make something that works as a junior developer, but if a senior developer looked at your code, they'd be like, oh my God.
Like, yeah. It's like how. How can this exist? Like how dare you. Yeah, yeah. It's
Jake Pacheco: like you're, yeah. Yeah. I, I, I, I could see that because I mean, even Justin, a little bit that I've learned, like it's cuz you know, I, I learned the what is it if then statements, Uhhuh. Is that For this Uhhuh? Yeah. And then they switch over to like, you know, writing it in the short form, which is like the with the arrows and stuff, I believe.
Well,
Seth Whiting: the arrows would be like functions, but the if elses ones. Oh, I'm thinking of the question marks. Oh, oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Those are, those are called turnery operators.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. Turner. Yeah. That, yeah. What we'll get to that.
Seth Whiting: Yeah. We'll get to the jargon later.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. The jargon. That's, that's so frustrating.
They just expect me to know. Yeah. Anyways But, but yeah. So like I, I assume it's like, you know, you're maybe long writing these things or you're, you know, maybe you'll write something short. Mm-hmm. And then the next one you'll write long. Yeah. In the long form. And, and it's like, so I could see how that could be like, like looking at just a pile.
Yeah. Like, it's like, what is
Seth Whiting: this kid do? Yeah. Short, short story about that. On one of the last one of the last contracts I was working on, we were making this application like a phone application with JavaScript. And it was, it started out as a project where it was like, people that I had worked with before, and like we were, we were like super stoked because we just got off this other project.
We were, we were all working, we were working with. Everybody from this one kind of like staffing company that vets people really, really well. So everybody that you're working with, you know, is gonna be like top quality. And yeah, the, the previous project that we had worked on was like super successful.
We loved working with everybody on that team. And so it was me as the lead developer and then a project manager that I had worked with on the previous project and then a designer. And we, we hadn't worked with this particular designer, but it was like we, we knew that he was gonna be good because he was stopped by the same company.
So we were like, this is gonna be great. It's gonna be just like the last project that we worked on. And like, it's gonna be, you know, like super, like fun to work on plot twist. They hired an Indian firm to like work with us and they were like, You like, we're gonna pay you to work on this project, but like, you have to work with this Indian team too.
And you just kind of have to deal with it. And they've got like their own project manager and like, you have to kind of like co-manage this project. And like, and there are Indian developers that are really, really good, but the thing that they, they kind of do is like, they just, they will throw quantity of developers on a project over quality.
So like so when we first started out, like the development team on this thing, on the front end, at least of the team, was me and two junior developers. And I had no idea that they were junior developers, but like we started getting into it. Yeah. And I saw like some of their code and I was like, oh no.
Like, It was like I, like I was so used to working with this, this like, you know, elite group of people. Yeah. And then I, I started working with these people and I was like, we, we can't, like we, we literally, we cannot like work with, like, we can't build like the foundation of this application with this code.
Cuz there's like, there would be a block of code and then another block of code, like a couple blocks down that completely just like negated the other one. And it was like, why would you do that? Like, what is, like, what's going on? And like, just like duplicating stuff all over the place and is just like a nightmare.
So like, I, I had to like, raise the flag and like sound the alarm and everything and they, they eventually like kicked them off the project and brought in a couple other developers who were like adequate, basically. Yeah.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. I get you. They weren't, they weren't. That's, I, I'm gonna be, that, I'm gonna be that Indian develop, weren't they? Like all you can hope for for another senior person.
Seth Whiting: Yeah, it's all junior. No, but like the, the thing is like trash. We were, we were on a super tight deadline and like super, super tight.
And in a normal scenario, I would be stoked to like teach somebody on the job. Like, I love teaching people how to code and stuff, and like, I'm, I'm all about it, but like, when we have a deadline like that and a project this big, it's like, no way. Like no way. Yes. Are we like, am I gonna like allow this to happen on my watch, basically?
Yeah. So yeah. Anyway big difference between engineer and senior developer. Like code. Quality wise, I've found. And, you know, I like, like I kind of mentioned like I was, I was that on the project with like me and me and Kenny and I was probably still that on the project where like I learned how to connect the front end to the back end and everything.
And really it's just like when I got to like mid-level, I would say is like mm-hmm. Maybe like three years in, maybe. Yeah. I don't know. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So I started, so after, after those two projects, those two initial projects in Nashville I started working at a marketing firm making WordPress sites, which we, we've.
Covered like what WordPress is. Yeah. We've covered that. And other episodes. Mm-hmm. And that, that at least allowed me to like really hone my skills with like HTML and CSS and yeah. And then you, you get into a bit of like PHP and like functionality there and, and kind of like writing things kind of like efficiently.
Mm-hmm. And, but, but I like, so, but the thing about that was that I wasn't doing like what I really wanted to do as a developer, which was like, make apps, you know, I was making like websites as opposed to web apps and but like I, I honed a lot of like, useful skills for like later on. So it wasn't like a complete like waste or anything.
But basically just like the more time I spent, you know, the, the more comfortable I felt, you know? Yeah. So,
Jake Pacheco: yeah. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. So it, it was about three years in where you felt like pretty comfortable to do whatever, but you were kind of doing like mostly web development stuff. Yeah.
Seth Whiting: Professionally, I should say though, that like, I have always done like side projects and have always been like interested in like, making my own ideas, like come to life basically. Yeah. So even, even when I was working at like the the marketing companies, I, I was always kind of doing application development on the side.
So like it. Yeah.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. So, so you were working with a lot of backend stuff and like front end and everything else Yeah. On the side, but it just wasn't what you Yeah. It just wasn't what you were doing for your main stream of
Seth Whiting: income. Yes. Yeah.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. And then when was it where like you just felt like I can just do everything?
Yeah. Like, you know what I mean? Like where, where you're like, oh, I could actually start calling myself like a full stack developer. I know. I, I know what to do in all of these circumstances, and if I don't know what to do, I know how to find the answer to
Seth Whiting: do. Yeah. So like, I, I would say it's like when I, when I considered myself like a false stack developer, it was on that early, early project where like I learned how to connect the front end to the back end.
That's, that's basically like, yeah. Once you know how, how to do that, like once you know how to write backend code and make it communicate with the front end code, that's like, you're, you're a false stack developer at that point. Like, congratulations. That's cool. So but as far as like, when I kind of felt like I was like a senior developer, like when I could kind of like feel that, like, when I could feel like, okay, like I finally know what I'm doing.
Like you, you know, like, yeah. And I, I I don't have any like guilt when I say like, yeah, I'm a developer. I, I know how to develop things. Like I, I, I'm, yeah, I know what I'm doing. That, that was like 2017, so that's, I guess five years ago ish. Yeah. Yeah. I was working on an application, my first, my first application using.
React or React native. It, it ha it happened to be React native, which just means that you're writing React code. And like, we still haven't kind of like covered what, what that means, but it's JavaScript. Yeah. But within a framework called React, which we'll get into what a framework is, but just high level is just like a way to write JavaScript in like an organized way.
And mm-hmm. In, in, within like a, sort of like a package of code that gives you really useful tools to work with. So like pre-written JavaScripts blocks that you can just use you know, at your, at your leisure. Leisure.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. Yeah. All right. It's, yeah. So, so it was about five
Seth Whiting: years in? Yeah, about five years In, about five years in we're saying five years in where like, I.
I was working on this project solo and mm-hmm the, like I said, it was the first one that I was working within the framework of React, which, which I now use every day. That's, I pretty much have become like a React and node developer. But mm-hmm. Back then I was just like learning everything that I could about, like react native, and like basically building out every feature of this application, which is sort of like a, sort of like a social media thing, but more mm-hmm.
Geared towards a specific purpose of like helping people. And I had to, I had to, I couldn't rely on anyone else at, on that project. It was just me and I learned a lot and I, I learned how to kind of like do things. Like in like good ways basically. Like the, the like learning kind of like the efficient, yeah, efficient, efficient, efficiently, effectively, like, yeah.
And like well organized and all of that kind of stuff. And so sweet. We eventually brought in another developer who had been developing for at least as long as I had. I'm pretty sure. But he was writing code where I was like, oh, I can, I can tell that, like, basically, like I can tell that I'm better than this guy, you know, like which is like a weird thing to, to say, but like, you can kind of tell, you know, at, at some point you can tell like, yeah, definitely.
Oh, I'm better than I'm, when you can tell that you're better than someone. Like, and you, and you're not just saying that in like an arrogant way or anything. It's, it's just like a objective. Like, like no, this is just, I know things that this guy doesn't know and you know, he's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
Jake Pacheco: that's, that's probably a pretty incredible feeling, especially in the, in that line of work in Covid.
Like, it must be like, oh man is a cool feeling. Like, I'm actually getting somewhere here. It is a cool feeling
Seth Whiting: that, that's also kind of like when you can tell, like, like, okay, I feel like I can probably say that I'm like senior now. I, I think that's, that maybe sort of No, that's awesome. Fighting line is like when you can actually tell, and, and it's not just out of like so like I want to get into like the Dunning Kruger effect.
But it's, it's not just out of like, oh, I think I'm awesome and like I'm better than other people. But it's actually like, yeah. Oh, I, I actually can tell that I'm, I'm better than this person. Yeah.
Jake Pacheco: So, yeah. Yeah. It's, it is not a, it's, I think that what you're trying to, like differentiate is like the difference between like unfounded cockiness Yeah.
And just confidence. Yeah. Like you just, you, you, you knew what you were and what your value was and what you were doing. Mm-hmm. And you were like, and, and if you saw someone that didn't know what they were doing, wasn't a judgment, but it was just like yeah. Like, I, I, I, I know a little bit more about what I'm doing
Seth Whiting: than this person.
Yeah. It's, it's just like an observation that kind of like takes you by surprise. Yeah.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. I'm sure. Yeah. But that's, that's awesome though. Yeah. Yeah. So as like since that point, I guess, was it still these like 12 hour days working and like trying to, you know get stuff pushed through as quick as possible?
Or was it a thing where like, You were kind of starting to relax more. Were you still hourly? Were you salaried? Yeah. Like when did the switch to salary?
Seth Whiting: Good question. Or, or project based or whatever. Yeah. I
can't remember if I was hourly on that one or not. But I, I was working, I think I was kind of like, I kind of like calmed down by that point and worked like eight hour days. Yeah. And I, I, I think it was sort of like the, the whole thing where I was talking about before where it was like some days it would be like 10 hours, some days it would be like six hours, you know, that kind of thing.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I think I may have been like tracking my hours. I think I may have been paid hourly. But I'm not, not, not positive about that. I, I feel like that may have been like one of the first like, salary ones that I was on. Yeah. But I'm not positive.
Jake Pacheco: But re regardless at a certain point, is it a thing where like, you go, like, do you make the choice of, well, now I'm worth this hourly, so when I post for a job or anything else, it's like, Hey, I'm this, I'm a senior developer.
I, I am proficient in these things, Uhhuh and I, I, this is my hourly rate. Or is it still like, you're picking up a job for, and and they just tell you like, yeah, we'll pay this for the job and you decide whether to take it or
Seth Whiting: not. Yeah. Obviously you want to kind of like make as much as you can as soon as you can, you know?
So I. At, at that point. I, I feel like I, I kind of always, like, whenever I was kind of deciding or like trying to come up with like my rate, I was more going by what, like my friends were making like mm-hmm. Who were sort of on the same track, in the same kind of like pace, the same Yeah. Like, you know, going along in the same, so like, I, like, like I said, like I, I did the Nashville Software School thing and so like I had a bunch of friends from that who like, literally started coding on the same day that I did, you know, so like I had people to like, compare with.
Yeah. Yeah. Particularly my friend Corey he, he currently makes like a good bit more than I do because he did the whole bootcamp and he kind of started Yeah, like a, a bit like at a, a kind of, a bit like higher echelon or whatever than I did. Yeah. But so like, it was like comparing with him, comparing with Kenny, mm-hmm.
And that's kind of like how I, how I went along with it. But when I started freelancing like, or like contracting, like, like seriously freelancing on like big projects. There's like you could kind of like, so I, I. I freelanced or contracted, or whatever you wanna call it, through a company called Toptal and that that was the mm-hmm. The company that I was talking about.
Whereas like, they have like great vetting and like everybody that you're working with on a toptal project is like the cream of the crop. It's like great. Yeah, great, great people from all over the world. Like I was working with people from like Portugal and Romania and mm-hmm. Like Brazil and Canada and all over the US and all of them were awesome.
And that company has people who kind of like place you with jobs. And those people who like place you with the jobs are open to like, you know, like candid discussions of like, Hey, if I charge this much, would that be like good or would that be bad? And they'll be like, yeah. If you, if you start charging more than this, companies will start hiring you less basically, because it's like they're looking, generally we have like a certain range that we see that people are like looking for.
And if you, if you, if you are like outside of that range, then you'll probably get like, filtered out of their, like searches basically. Hmm. So interesting. Yeah. So, so yeah, that was, that was really helpful. Shout out to Toptal.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah, yeah. If you I'm all about the shout outs, you know.
Seth Whiting: But yeah.
But also there's a, another company that I like even better, that I would have loved to be working with the whole time that I was working with Toptal, which is a company called Gunk gun.io. Which is, they do the same thing as Toptal, but they're smaller and their CEO is a friend of mine, so,
Jake Pacheco: yeah. Yeah. Nice.
Yeah. Yeah.
Seth Whiting: So big shout out to that huge shout out to gun io. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, basically like that's, that's kind of like where I would like to get you is like to the point where you can get through those, like vetting processes, you know, and, and, and like get you working on like, cuz all, all of the companies that are like on Toptal and on Guo are like looking to hire people at like high rates because they know that they're going to get what they pay for, you know?
Oh, that's awesome.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like, this is where you find the quality and they're providing the quality. Yeah. Like it's, yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. So it's like, that's cool. I didn't know that things like that existed. I didn't realize that. I like I, I don't know if you want to, like worker pl, worker placement programs, I guess mm-hmm.
Existed in coding. So prevalently, like, I didn't know. It was like such a, a prevalent thing. Yeah.
Seth Whiting: And another, another like note on that is like, as soon as you get on LinkedIn and put that, you know, JavaScript and like react and note, like if, if you, like, once you get into all of that stuff and you like, put down that, you know, that stuff.
Mm-hmm. It, it's like a big thing in the industry that like recruiters for companies will just pop out of the woodworks and be like, like, here's a, a, a job that's open and like I'm trying to get somebody to work on it. Like, you know, I, I will fast track you through the process, like, please like, Please respond to me.
Cause it's like, yeah, people just start like, basically like throwing like job opportunities at you left and right. It's crazy.
Jake Pacheco: That's cool. Yeah. So so nowadays how many hours day do you think you
Seth Whiting: work? Eight. Eight? On average? Yeah. On average. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With, with like a lunch break, you know, like,
Jake Pacheco: because you're so like you know, good at it.
Like, are you one, I guess is it still enjoyable? Oh, yeah. And are, are there days where you're just like, I'm sick at looking at, I'm sick of looking at this, or like,
Seth Whiting: yeah, that's a good question. Like
Jake Pacheco: Boston, the sauce, you know what I mean? Like, I know for me, like with like. You know, I, I, I've been cutting hair for, you know, a little over six years now.
Mm-hmm. And like, I'm in love with it. Mm-hmm. I get lost in the sauce. Yeah. Like, and some, sometimes I'm, I mean, but for me it's because I'm mostly somewhat introverted, uhhuh and forcing myself to be an extrovert all day long mm-hmm. And talk to new people can be kind of hard. Yeah. But still, it's, it's, you know, so just with a lot of jobs and like every job that I had before this was very much a thing where like, I, I just hit a point where I'm just like, okay, like I time to learn something new.
You know what I mean? Barbering has been a lot different, but you know, here, here I am living coding. You know what I mean?
Seth Whiting: Yeah, yeah. No, the, I mean, the answer to your question is like, no, I do not get bored with it. It's I, so when I was a kid, I used to play with Legos for hours and hours on end. And it's sort of the same feeling really?
Yeah. Where it's just like I'm creating stuff, you know? Like I, I'm just like, I'm building something and it's gonna be like, like when I was a kid who was like, I'm gonna build like the biggest thing and it's gonna be like, you know, this, this, you know, like big, like, monumental thing. And like, that's sort of the, the thing with code is like, I'm building this entire application and like, I get to like, I get to start with nothing and like, make something, you know?
And it's just like a really cool, really cool feeling that like you never get tired of. And if you, if you kind of feel like things are getting like monotonous or whatever, there's no way, there's no chance that you will ever learn everything. About development. Like there, there's not enough hours in the day, there's not enough.
Like, like, like there, there's, if you lived like a hundred lifetimes, like you, you would like, maybe then you would learn everything. But there's, there's no way you would ever learn everything in, in one lifetime. So,
Jake Pacheco: yes. You know, you, you, you speak about it the way that I speak about like like, cuz like I've built a bunch of cars and stuff mm-hmm.
From the ground up and like, my most recent one to Miata and like, it's just like, you know, like I have like a vision of like, this is what it is going to look like. Uhhuh, this is what it's gonna be. Yeah. And it's like, I just need to get there. Yeah. And like I, and, and then, you know, like you're doing it and you're just enjoying it the whole time because you're like, because you know every step that you have to take to get there.
Right. So it's like kind of similar to like, or it sounds kind of similar to like that, or like the house build that I'm doing. Like, it's like, I'm so excited because I have it built in my brain. I know the things that I have to do to create this. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Seth Whiting: So yeah, that's not, it's just like a matter of like going through the steps to do it.
Yeah. You know, and it's like, you, you enjoy the steps because like you, you know, you know what they're leading to.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. So is there, I guess with that as a senior developer, do you still run into problems with your code as in like, you know, you'll type something in and like write a huge like thing of code?
Yeah. And then I'm like, you know, Press, you know, control enter, and like, it's like yes, what is, what's wrong? You know what I mean? But do you But but in the error, do you know, like, oh, I must have done that wrong, and then you're all set. Yeah.
Seth Whiting: So it's the, the problems are bigger. That's the difference. Yeah, there's like if I run into something where it's like, oh, why isn't this, you know, like, why isn't this block of code working the way that I wanted it to work?
Like, eventually I'll be able to like, like within like a couple hours, usually I'll be able to, you know, get, get over that. But then there are some, some bugs that are just like, what is happening? Like, yeah, where is this coming from? Like, there's, like, there, it's not, it's not like giving me any like, error message.
It's not like giving me any indication of like how this is even possible. That this ha this is happening. And you have to just hunt it down. And I spent, like, I, I have spent literally weeks on, on, on issues that are just like, the application is just not working at all. And it's, it's been two weeks and it's still just not working for anyone.
Like, luckily it's not like out in the hands of like, people in like, quote unquote production, which just means that like you have actual users on it. Yeah. Yeah. It's like pre-production stuff, thankfully. Yeah. But
Jake Pacheco: is this like pre beta stuff too? Yeah. Or, yeah.
Seth Whiting: Well, no, not necessarily. I mean, like, it, it, it was like, yeah, pre beta, but it was like alpha cuz like we had like a few of your friends are using it or something?
Yeah. Like, yeah, yeah. Like the to report for bugs, paying the, the people that are paying me, like have access to this thing as I'm developing it. So yeah. Yeah. So yeah, there are like huge, like embarrassing failures that like Yeah. That like still creep up, but
Jake Pacheco: yeah, no, does, does that like I guess a question is like, does that bog you down?
Yes. Or is it like an adventure trying to figure it out? No, it's like, is it tell it's awful. It's helpful. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get that. And,
Seth Whiting: and if like, there are, there are some problems like we talked about on a previous episode where like you will struggle with a problem for a long time and then when you finally understand it, when you finally get it, it's like a great powerful feeling and like, oh, I'm so smart.
There are some problems that just took you so long that you're just like, thank God it's working. I. I don't even care at this point. Like, just like I'm so beyond this. I don't want to look at this particular problem for the rest of my life. Just like I Yeah. Good rids Yeah. Kind
Jake Pacheco: of thing. I could see how that could be a thing.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was curious about that. If there was like times where you're like, oh my gosh, like I could pull my hair out. Yes. But I, I mean, I guess that exists in anything, in, in any of my passions, it's always existed. Mm-hmm. Where it's like, you'll, you'll get to something. I remember when I was younger and I had my bmw, it was none of my lights worked.
Mm-hmm. And I was like, what is happening? Like, what, why wouldn't my lights work? And like, I went around like so many times trying to figure out what it was that a trunk light bulb was out and therefore none of the lights worked. Really, I changed the trunk light bulb and in it, it must have been, Yeah, it, it baffled me and it baffles me to this day cuz it shouldn't be in line with it.
But it was like, it was one of those things where it, it, I spent like days just trying to figure out why the heck, you know?
Seth Whiting: Yeah. It sounds like the old, like Christmas tree lights were like if one Yeah, exactly.
Jake Pacheco: Exactly. And that's exactly what I thought. I, I'm like, what the heck? Yeah. Feeling like Clark Griswold kicking.
Yeah. But but yeah, so I was curious about that. Yeah, so nowadays it's pretty much eight hours a day, like just doing coding
Seth Whiting: and stuff. Yeah. I mean, more or less so like I, I have to, I guess it's more like seven and a half hours with the lunch break, so like Yeah. I get you. It's, it's a normal, it's a normal job hours.
Yes. Yeah. It's a full-time thing. Mm-hmm. It's just like, I, I have to leave a bit early because the girls like daycare closes at a certain time and I need to, like, it closes when the work day ends. So like, I need to be there before that. So, Anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jake Pacheco: I feel you. So yeah, I mean, that's kind of covers like most of the day in the life of slash journey of all of
Seth Whiting: that.
Yeah. Well, I mean, really it's just the journey and like we spend it. I mean, like, I don't, I I think this is like an entire episode by this point, so like, we don't even have time for like your, your segment, but we'll, we'll get to that. We'll get to it at some point. Yeah.
Jake Pacheco: Yeah. But maybe I'll just talk a ton next time.
Seth Whiting: Yeah, yeah. I mean, basically this one is just like me talking about my self.
Jake Pacheco: Well, but you were talking about everything I was curious about. It's
Seth Whiting: fine. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, even like a day in the life of developer, we didn't. Really go through that. I mean, we sort of did like, it's, it's a lot of, basically, I'll just cover it quickly cause we already covered a lot of it in, in what I was saying, but like, junior developer, mid-level developer, senior developer, you're, you're all basically, like whether you're freelancing or you're like full-time on, on a job the, like, if you're working with other people on a project, you're, you're gonna start the day and usually these days you'll be working within, they have like a project management framework called Scrum, and the, the term scrum comes from rugby, actually, it's not like an acronym or anything.
Mm-hmm. Where it's sort of like a huddle, but like an active huddle where like you're, you're. You're kind of huddling with, with the other team and like moving the ball like down the fields with like shoulders linked or something. Like, I, I think I'm getting that right. But anyway, the, the whole point is like ev within the framework of this project management kind of like system, they have like standardized meetings.
And so those meetings are like, every day you have a, a standup or a huddle is what that meeting is called. And it's supposed to be like 15 minutes, here's what I did yesterday, here's what I'm doing today, and mm-hmm. And then every the, the work or like the project is split up into what's called sprints.
Usually they're two weeks long and there's sprint planning at the beginning of the. The sprint and then mm-hmm. At the end of the two week sprint, you'll have what's called a retrospective, where it's like, what, what worked well, this sprint, what didn't work well, this sprint, and just kind of like mm-hmm.
You know, sum up like you know, how did it go? And then there's what's called like backlog refinement, where you go through all of the tasks and say like, okay, this, this one will push off to the next sprint. This one we actually need to pull into this sprint, and we're assigning it to all these people.
And then we're assigning like how long we think each of these tasks will take. So that's all done on a con bond board, like we talked about before. Yeah. Where it's like you have these tasks and each of these tasks has like a person who works on it an amount of time that they think is it's going to take.
Priority a lot of the time and you know, things like that. And just like a description of like what, what the, what the thing is. Yeah, so like a day in the life of a developer is basically just like you, you have your tasks that you are assigned to and you just kind of like, you sign on and you just like move a task over into, like, in progress and you just like mm-hmm.
Make whatever they want to, to like, be there. Fair. Yeah. Like, you, you, you take, you know, you, you code something into existence and then you mm-hmm. Mark it as done, which is like pretty cool, huh? Like, it's, it's, it sounds kind of boring, but like the, the, the part where you, you know, are actually working on it is.
You know, like, to me it's fun, you know, it's, it's, yeah. It's like a cool, cool, yeah. Like interesting thing to do. Yeah.
Jake Pacheco: Well, and I'm sure it's kind of exciting seeing the progress bar move kind of a thing. Yeah. Like yeah. You know what I mean? Like, Ian start seeing them move on and you're like, okay. Mm-hmm.
Hey, our, our, our stockpile here is getting smaller, which is kind of nice. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Huh. Interesting. All righty. Well yeah, I guess we end, end this one there and and we continue on the next Yeah.
Seth Whiting: We, we got through about like half of what we wanted to talk about, so Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll talk about the rest, so it's going well.
Yeah. Yeah.
Jake Pacheco: Exactly. All right. Well thank you everyone for listening. We really appreciate you joining us. Yeah. And yeah, join us next time.
Seth Whiting: Yeah, we will yeah, attempt to to illuminate some more, more, more stuff for anybody starting out on this stuff. So yeah, continue on your journey. And I, I guess like a good, like, sign off thing for all of this stuff is like, just, just keep going.
You know? Like it's, I know it's tough. I know you're probably like, if you're, if your word date is, it's, it's, it's tough, but just it's correct. Keep going. It's, it's, yeah. It's work, work, work, work, work. Yeah. I, I was tempted to do the just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Jake Pacheco: That's
Seth Whiting: so, yeah.
Have keep, keep at it, everyone. Yep. Cool. All right. Talk to you next time.