[00:00:00]
Zubin: So now that you've been an engineer for a long time, and you're a senior engineering manager at the moment, and you've been in the profession, you started at the time when the hype cycle was really when the boom was really getting started, you rode that entire wave.
Zubin: And now we're seeing a much more mature and consolidating market. Looking back, I gotta ask, man, what's harder, learning to code, Oh, getting hired as a coder And
Brian: Oh, no doubt getting hired hands down.
Welcome to Easier Said Than Done with me, Zubin Pratap, where I share with you the tens of thousands of dollars worth of self development that I did on my journey from 37 year old lawyer to professional software engineer. The goal of this podcast is to show you how to actually do those things that are easier said than done.
Zubin: Hey everybody. Welcome to the Easier Said Than Done podcast. And today we have a guest that you've actually met before on my show and I've been on his podcast, the Develop Yourself podcast. Absolutely go and check it out if you're an aspiring developer, it's got years and years of real practical wisdom and [00:01:00] industry insights in there, but I've got Brian Jenny with me here on the easier said than done podcast today, and we have a big announcement for you, but before that, hi, Brian.
Zubin: How the heck are you, man? It's good to
Brian: I'm doing real good, man. Thanks for the really nice intro there. I'm so used to being on my podcast and asking questions. A little bit nervous now.
Zubin: We've done episodes before, so, you know, we're all friends with this kind of stuff and hey, we've got, you know, a lot of Mexican food and Iranian ice cream behind us. So, you know, we've got a long history, dude, like podcast
Brian: man. That was a great night. That was a really nice night.
Zubin: That was a fun night in LA. Anyway, look Brian, let's let's, let's get the audience what they sort of, you know, what they're asking for. Now you've got one heck of a story and you've been very public about it. You've been very open about it on the internet. Why did you tell us a little bit about it?
Zubin: You became a code in your 30s. You chose to go to a boot camp. Tell us about that. When, why, what was happening in your life at that time?
Brian: Yeah. And, and I am gonna get a, a bit candid with the story, and the reason I do that is because. It's helped me in my life when I hear other people share their stories because I always felt like a real outsider [00:02:00] to tech. The way I got into tech was very unique, I guess you could say. I struggled with addiction throughout most of my adult life.
Brian: And I was really going down a really bad path, drugs, crime. It was like a bad rap video, you know, and eventually I did intervention like, like on TV, you know, crying and drama and screaming and all that kind of stuff. And fast forward a few months and I'm like thinking, okay, I got a real job. Quote unquote.
Brian: And I'm thinking, what am I going to do with all this time? I had no clue what to do as an adult with all this time. I stumbled into coding, essentially part of my duty at this place I was working was to update the website. Stumbled into coding. I'm like, this is nuts. I had zero clue. This is how the web works.
Brian: And I'm like, I want to do this all day long and which I did. And then I found out you can actually have a really nice career doing it. Fast forward some more learning, going to coding bootcamp and just finding people that could give me all the bits of information I needed and kind of bumbled my way into my first job.
Zubin: As we all do, and we
Brian: That's the, that's the condensed version right there.[00:03:00]
Zubin: yeah, oh, that is a condensed version because I know the real life detail is so much grittier and harder and more painful than, you know, everything. And I was having a conversation with Clement from algo expert yesterday
Brian: Love that guy. Yeah. Oh yeah.
Zubin: were talking about, you know, we condense these stories and everyone looks at the highlight reels and they don't realize it's actually happening. The tip of the iceberg, all the pain is actually concealed away from you. You know, all it's, it's like software engineering. You abstract away all the hard stuff .
Zubin: So that's one heck of a story, man. Give us a sense of timeline. Now. You were, how old, which year was this? When did you do your bootcamp? Give us a sense of the timeline of this?
Brian: Yeah, it's, it's, it's all a blur. It's funny. I'm one of those people. Some people like count down the days since they've been sober or something like that. I never did that. And no shade to people that do. It's just a part of my life that I've always been a bit ashamed of and kind of tried to forget, which is also why I hadn't really opened up about it for years until I was like pretty established in software.
Brian: And then I realized, you know what? This is not only an interesting story. I think people could benefit from it. When I share it, people tend to but I [00:04:00] was 30 when I got sober, this was around 2012 or 13, somewhere in that timeline right there. I've known it's been at least 10 years being sober, which, which also tracks with the amount of time I'm spending software because there, Very tightly coupled.
Brian: Yeah. And I'm in the San Francisco area, which is an important part of this story. Cause I have the luxury and the benefit of being around software developers. I was also doing ride sharing at this time for Lyft and Uber in addition to doing an office job. And so I get to meet these people in my rides that would give me these nuggets of information that would just get me a little further along.
Brian: And at some point I'm like, I should go to a coding bootcamp. I was telling students where I worked. I said, if I was you, I'd go to a coding bootcamp. If I was your age. And I'm thinking, well, why don't I take that advice? Right. And then I found one, found like the first one that popped up like on my phone or whatever on the internet.
Brian: And I'm like, cool. And I went down in person and I talked to the guy who was a kid. I mean, to me, he was like, he was 25. My geez, I'm 30 with two kids. This [00:05:00] dude's like a kid and he just sold me. I was already sold. I'm like, I want to do this. I'm already doing it. Right. But like, how do I get like the part where people pay me to do it?
Brian: I have zero clue how to go from like code Academy or writing HTML and CSS on a code editor at the time, sublime text or notepad. How do you, how do you go from that to getting these crazy salaries I hear about? And ultimately. They showed me the way they didn't, they didn't really teach me a ton. But they definitely showed me what I needed to do next.
Zubin: So this was 2012, 2013 that you went into the bootcamp, would you say?
Brian: That's right. Yeah.
Zubin: Okay, so this was the very beginning of the bootcamp era, because that really started off, I mean, around the time Lyft and Uber started off, which was, you know, 2009 to 2011 is when those apps really started to sort of serve the public.
Zubin: I remember MOOCs and and bootcamp started, I think 2012, if I'm not mistaken, I think even Clement
Brian: Sounds right.
Zubin: about it yesterday. I think it starts about 2012. So you were right at the first stage of a new innovation. And just to put that in context, it's pretty much Christmas 2024. [00:06:00] Now
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: almost 15 years ago. That's all
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: 13 years ago, I beg your pardon, almost
Brian: Yeah. Close enough. Yeah.
Zubin: Yeah, close enough. That's a decade and a half ago. That's a long time. So now that you've been an engineer for a long time, and you're a very senior engineer, senior engineering manager at the moment, and you've been in the profession, you started at the time when the hype cycle was really when the boom was really getting started, you rode that entire wave.
Zubin: And now we're seeing a much more mature and consolidating market. Looking back, I gotta ask, man, what's harder, learning to code, Oh, getting hired as a coder And
Brian: Oh, no doubt getting hired hands down. That was way more difficult. I was actually in the, in the boot camp I was in. It was like a front end pure, purely front end boot camp, which was at the time like you could do that. You could literally turn html, CSS and javascript and like some J query and get a job.
Brian: And one of the guys was a CS grad and I was really intimidated by him. Super nice dude. And I've still kept him in touch with some of these [00:07:00] guys to this day, but he was in there as a computer science grad and I'm like, what's this dude even doing here? Right? And he wanted to get more practical because he learned all this conceptual stuff and he didn't.
Brian: He was having trouble getting a job. I got hired eight weeks into this boot camp and didn't even really finish it. I just went, I just went because I was like nervous to be on my own. I just wanted this community around me to help me as I got this new job. And this dude took a full
Zubin: done a bit of coding before the bootcamp, right?
Brian: A ton, a bunch,
Zubin: me yet. So the bootcamp wasn't where you learn to code. It is where you learn to get hired as a coder.
Brian: essentially the biggest thing there. And I don't regret a dollar I spent there and I continue to, to invest in myself in education, but the, the thing I used to be a little resentful, if I'm being honest, cause I'm like, they didn't teach me anything. What did I pay these guys for? But here's the thing.
Brian: The one thing he said to me, which was worth the money I spent, which was at the time a few thousand bucks, which was all my life savings, by the way, that was, I spent literally my savings, like everything I had vigorous at the time, though I had nothing anyway. So I'm like, okay, I got this [00:08:00] little bit of money I saved up.
Brian: I'm going to burn it and throw it here. And I'm like, well, what's the worst that could happen? I learned this skill. And then I, What? They can't take a skill away from me. I'm thinking to me, it was, it was a no brainer. Honestly, I'm like, there's what, what's going to happen. I'm going to lose the skill. So, and, but the thing that guy told me, he's like, Brian, why aren't you applying?
Brian: I said, cause I'm not ready, man. And he's like, dude, you have to, I get, he sat me and I said, I want you to come in here. You're going to sit down with me and we're going to apply to a bunch of places. And I'm like, okay. And that just kicked off this thing. And then I got, you know, the rejections coming in and then became a game.
Brian: Like, Oh my God, I'm close. I got to get it. And I did. And I nailed one.
Zubin: Well, and that's, you know, that's the story, man. I think people just think it, you magically learn to code and you magically get hired and offers come pouring in. Even Clement and I were talking about it and he went, you know, to top bootcamps and top math school, Ivy League math education. And, you know, then eventually made
Brian: That's right.
Zubin: like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: was so hard for a long time because and this is what people don't realize we were talking about this at the start of The show is they see the coding they see the learning to code [00:09:00] they see the job They don't see all the darkness that was in between that and all the rejection that you had to learn from and This is the point.
Zubin: I really want people to understand let the marketing BS out there say, Hey, focus on this shiny thing called coding
Brian: Oh, yeah.
Zubin: enough to get hired as a coder. It was okay 15 years ago, 12 years ago to do less and get by because it was a growing market and there was a desperate demand for coders.
Zubin: But I can promise you this in this day and age, the markets mature, companies have gotten more sophisticated what you did 15 years ago, 13 years ago, you're not, we're not going to get the same result today. Like I went to a bootcamp
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: for a week and a half in 2019,
Brian: That's right. Yeah.
Zubin: the peak of bootcamps, right?
Zubin: They were just everywhere. And
Brian: you went to a top notch one too. You went to like one of the best.
Zubin: one of the best and I left my family here in Australia, went to San Francisco again, like you, I had my startup, I'd lost six figures in my startup. I took money against my mortgage, 54 grand, I remember, and I went to San [00:10:00] Francisco for four months to do this boot camp.
Zubin: I left after a week and a half, lost 9, 000. And came back home. So like you, like, you know, it, it comes from a place of I've got, whatever I've got to lose is really not worth keeping, but what I've got to gain is worth having. And
Brian: Yeah. Yeah,
Zubin: you said, no one can take the skills away from you. So, so let's go, let's analyze this. Cause you do Parsity, which I know you market as a bootcamp, but it's not really, and I do Future Coders, which is entirely about the personal coaching, what I call the anti bootcamp. Let's
Brian: I like that.
Zubin: why is it that boot camps resonated with so many people, especially career switches like yourself and like me, though, you know, we were six years apart you know 23 000 people graduated from boot camps in 2023 And there were only 3 000 that graduated in 2013 right? So that shows you the kind of growth of boot camps like
Brian: Oh, yeah,
Zubin: Why was it that boot camps seemed to be the right idea for so long?
Brian: it was [00:11:00] the this mental model. I think we have the idea of a boot camp. We think of guys in the military. That's our thing. We think like some program. It's like so fast. It's going to give you some wild transformation in this really small amount of time. And so you're thinking, Oh, my God
Brian: so I'm going to have a pain of three months, which is which like the typical boot camp was sold you as like three months of like torture, mental torture. And by the end, though, You're going to be getting more money than you could ever imagine. And it seemed almost like too good to be true. Like, wait, that's really it.
Brian: Like I just got to suffer for three months. First of all, even if that was true, most people can't suffer for three months because they're terrible at keeping track of anything, even more than a week. Oh, you know, you got to give up your job. That's the crazy part too. I didn't go to one of those cause I'm like, there's zero way I could do that.
Brian: I've met people that do it. I don't really understand it, but everybody's situation is different. So I was like, there's no way. So I went to one that was super, super part time only on the weekends and it was kind of self paced. It worked out great for me, actually. So but that, I think that was the big allure to it, right?
Zubin: And so, [00:12:00] that was again, at a time when the market was new and anybody who could write some codes, who could sling some code as you call it would get hired because it was a new market. We didn't have sort of the established levels we do now. And the alternative to computer science for, for your, you know, $80, 000 degrees or whatever it is was very attractive to do something in 90 days.
Zubin: But, but let's. Let's fast forward to this day and age 2024, 2025 AI is a new thing as well within the last three years. Can you get good at any career in 90 days? Like what do you think?
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Zubin: Can you get good at any career in 90 days? Like what do you think?
Brian: I mean, I'll say this, like, since I went to that bootcamp, I've spent tens of thousands of dollars on education within my career. So when I really look and kind of calculate, if I had like a tally of all the books, courses, programs, mentorship, things I've done. In order to maintain myself in this career, like, honestly, just to keep afloat, I had to supplement my own education, not just with time, but like with actually paying people like, Hey, I don't know the basics.
Brian: You know, at this point, I got to a job. I'm like, I don't even know. I didn't I didn't know how little I knew. I remember one day that the manager said something about big O notation. Like I wrote like a triple nested for loop crashed our [00:14:00] system. There's also no peer reviews at the time. And to me, I'm thinking, well, this works right?
Brian: Like, Who cares, right? This is all free. No. And so, and then I get introduced to these new words, and I'm like, I'm way out of my depth. And I thought if I want to advance in this career, I can't just be somebody that's just like a code or a code bot. Like\ I knew I could see already that that wasn't a recipe for success.
Brian: When I saw what the managers were doing and knowing they were involved in the business aspect, they were leading, they were, they were leaders with or without the code. The code was simply a part of the business function they did. It wasn't like their whole entire personality or their whole job function.
Brian: They were much more than writing code. And I thought that's not only where the money is, but that's where more fun is too. And I want a long, fun career in general. I don't want to just be like trapped in my little code box where all I do is like be the best coders. I'm like, I'm never going to be the best coder anywhere.
Brian: There's too many really good coders for me to be the best at any, at any major company.
Zubin: And it's too vulnerable a position. And when I was at Google, like the best, the most technical, the absolute [00:15:00] code jockeys weren't necessarily the ones that got ahead. In fact, very rarely did they get ahead because, you know, they often sort of end up stagnating or being really bored and frustrated in the corner of the world that they occupied, the people who really did well, who,
Zubin: really grew up in the ranks and sort of had influence and impact and leadership were the folks who knew how to do enough code to get the job done. But beyond that, we're also understanding about how the business works right. And I think that's what's changed. Sort of neatly segues to my next question to you is in the last decade when there was startups just Everywhere, like just exploding with startups, right?
Zubin: That's what 2007 onwards was. I mean, for God's sake, the iPhone came out, what 2007, 2008, like,
Brian: That's crazy to think that. Yeah, you're right. Yeah.
Zubin: know, it's, it's not that long ago. It's 15 years
Brian: That's really,
Zubin: ago, that all
Brian: yeah.
Zubin: came out. And with that boom, anybody who could code could get a job. But now in this decade. Everything's changed. So from a macro perspective, you know, in terms of hiring practices, you've been on the hiring side in tech. I've been on the hiring [00:16:00] side in tech and in multiple industries. industry has changed. Why didn't you take our listeners through you know, when it comes to career change, you need to understand hiring and what are hiring managers looking for today 12 years ago.
Brian: Oh man. I mean, do you remember getting interviewed like a few years ago? And like, I D you had a bit of a different story than me. Like you went to Google and some more high growth startups. I was more like in the mid tier companies, but I'm in the San Francisco area. So we didn't have a lot of competition, but my, my interviews went from like, get to know you essentially like a vibe check.
Brian: And like some just like in person. Also, they were all in person and I'm in the barriers. I have the I have the great luck of being in the epicenter of tech. I'd go all over the berry and go to the in person meetings and I'm a person actually offered me. They nearly offered me a NodeJS job and I asked the guy.
Brian: What is NodeJS? for a senior position. I mean, this was the craziness back then. It's like who shows up in person at the interview. It might only be three people. [00:17:00] If two of those guys I got what the first job I had, one guy had like a criminal conviction and he couldn't get the job because of that. So I got the job.
Zubin: Right.
Brian: so wildly different now. I mean, like your buddy Clement, he has a whole service based on helping software engineers beat interviews. The interview circuit. I just finished this seven round interview. Right. I mean, how long was your last interview? How many rounds is your last interview? I'm curious.
Zubin: sixth, I think. I don't think I've ever had a tech role that was less than six rounds.
Brian: Yeah, I mean, this is this is how large the barriers got. And I don't mean this to scare people. I mean, I actually have grown to love interviews and I have some sort of odd relationship with interviews. I see them as a winnable game. But yeah, it's like people aren't just looking for people that can code.
Brian: First of all, because now with AI tools like anybody can sit down and code. I've been hiring manager and I've hired people and just because somebody beats the algorithm portion. If they're like, I'll just be honest. They're really weird. Right. Or have like serious trouble communicating or say something off color or ask weird questions like, when's the first, you know, when's the, how much can I [00:18:00] get paid here?
Brian: Weird things that let you know, like, I don't care how good you code. You can't work here. So they've not only changed with, I think more behavioral like questions that we care about, but also like, yeah, the emphasis on coding and this is just the pure vibe check that kind of days are, are, are gone, I believe.
Zubin: A hundred percent, you know, and here's the thing. This is what I really want people to understand is that the code changes to like, okay, frameworks come and go and all that, but the fundamental nature of building software is not different from what it was 40, 50 years ago, as far as I can understand it.
Zubin: Right. It's still, how do you write good code that scales that, that handles the business requirements, meets those needs and is maintainable and other human beings can maintain it. Yeah. So, and it has to be commercially viable, but here's an interesting thing that happens. I was in India recently after a very long time, after 13 years sort of visiting some family and you know, I visited at a railway station, slight, it sounds like a slight digression, but it's not okay. Bear with me for a moment. I was at a
Brian: Railway Station.
Zubin: When I was a kid growing up in [00:19:00] India at any railway station on the platforms would be these guys in red, Shirts who were porters, for a little bit of money carry your suitcase on the head or whatever You know up the
Brian: Mm hmm.
Zubin: You know across the multiple 10 tracks or whatever it is They'd help, you know carry heavy things around. I couldn't see a single one of them this time, And I asked somebody at the station the station master i'm like What happened to all those porters when I was a kid they were everywhere and it's like Wheels on suitcases. And I'm like, that was one of the most
Brian: Damn.
Zubin: answers that ever heard.
Zubin: Right.
Brian: Wow.
Zubin: thing was escalators
Brian: Geez.
Zubin: and wheels. The need for physical brute force wasn't there. Doesn't mean luggage is not required.
Brian: Right. Yeah. Mm
Zubin: of moving luggage around has
Brian: hmm. Fundamentally.
Zubin: this. Fundamentally,
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: it's exactly the same with software engineering going forward.
Zubin: Software engineers are not the ones that can just write code. They're the ones that can build products with [00:20:00] code. And I think that's a big shift from the startup days, you know? And here's a second thing. What happens when a market booms? It attracts a lot of competition, right? happens when there's a lot of competition? Hiring managers have a problem. What used to attract 40 applications is now attracting 500.
Brian: Oh yeah. Geez.
Zubin: You come up with filters.
Brian: Yep. Stupid filters.
Zubin: Stupid filters, but you need a filter, right?
Brian: You need something. Yeah.
Zubin: you need something you're not going to look at 500 applications. That's not
Brian: I'm certainly not. No. Yeah.
Zubin: I've never done it like it's just not going to happen.
Zubin: It's just I mean, even if I spend six minutes on average per application, that's 3000 minutes. That's a couple of days without
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: You know, it's not going to
Brian: Yeah. Yeah.
Zubin: So for me, The more I analyze that and I look at LinkedIn, the easy apply button, what has that done? All
Brian: Oh my God. Yeah.
Zubin: a hundred thousand people apply for jobs they're not qualified for. All these [00:21:00] changes in the market means that hiring practices have changed from 12 years ago,
Brian: Mm hmm.
Zubin: so 40 percent of the students in my InnerCircle program, I only work with a handful of them every year, 40 percent of them are from top bootcamps.
Brian: Oh, wow.
Zubin: learning to code is not enough yet. You know, they've come from
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: name them, you know, the triple tens and flatirons. And, you know, I had a CodeCademy employee, you know, it was like, yeah, I need any help, you know? So happens,
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: different
Brian: shocked.
Zubin: different kinds of help. Not
Brian: Mm hmm.
Zubin: And no shade on those programs.
Zubin: They help. A certain kind of, but everything works for somebody,
Brian: For sure.
Zubin: works for somebody, but is it going to work for you and why aren't you getting the same results as other people that requires a bit of digging in, right? And that's different in 2025 than it was in 2012. What you need is different, right?
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: with that? Overall is in terms of everything that's changed. Mm hmm.
Brian: Oh, yeah. 100%. And that's why I feel like Smaller programs are poised to win because I do see that the [00:22:00] cookie cutter open door policy that a lot of boot camps have employed from growing so big that they cannot offer any level of personalization or mentorship is not going to work. It's also why you see a lot of like, like you said, this unfortunate situation where somebody goes to a boot camp, they learn, they acquire the hard skill and they don't get the benefit.
Zubin: hmm.
Brian: Right. And then you have people even go to like top colleges. I met a woman that went to UCLA and she was at a boot camp. I thought, you know, there's something wrong here because if you're going to these top notch school at 19-20, you're getting all this debt and you're still having to go out and learn the practical side to be employable.
Brian: What is the right choice now for people? So it's really difficult. It's a very, it's a very strange time. But I saw that even back then, the guy that went to a computer science, he got a computer science degree and still was having a lot of trouble getting hired because he didn't know how to actually code.
Brian: And that was really hard for him when he got out to market and say, Hey, write some code in front of me. He's like, I don't know. I know, I know some data structures and algorithms on paper, but I I have no clue how to write [00:23:00] JavaScript.
Zubin: Correct, and it's the same thing in every industry, by the way. I think people may fall into the trap of thinking this is unique to computer science and coding. No, it's not. It was there in the law less than 12% or 15%, sorry, less than, yeah, 15%. I'd say what I learned was actually used by me in my career in the real world because standardized programs. Well, when you think about it, standardized programs teach you all the things
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: the standardized degree, but not all the things you're going to use, right. But they have to teach you a little bit of everything to meet the accreditation requirements.
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: and, why should, why should a new career only be available to people who don't have kids, don't have a relationship in their 20s?
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: a 30 something year old like you and I, why can't we have an easier way? The reason I tried the bootcamp thing is. I thought, okay, maybe that's right for me at 38 or 37. And it so wasn't. And I had to spend so much money, not just the bootcamp fees, but not work. Like, and you know, it was
Brian: Drop your life, go, go across continents. That's, that's a [00:24:00] wild story, but yeah, it is unfair. And I also kind of resent when people say, Oh, coding bootcamps, you know, they, they suck or people shit. Like, I mean, what is people supposed to do if you are 30 and you do have kids and you do want to switch careers and you like coding, what are you supposed to just give up?
Brian: I mean, like. I don't like that, that narrative either that I see out there way too often. Like just give up, don't, don't learn. And like, so if you didn't go to school, you're just, you're just screwed. I'm like, that's, that's, that can't, that can't be the solution we're offering people.
Zubin: No, it's, it's, it's an unfair model. And again, just to be very clear with people, not everyone's going to succeed. Just like anything else in life.
Brian: Like anything else? Yeah.
Zubin: Just like anything else in life. Not everyone's going to Get the golden outcome that they're going for, but you're going to see very quickly why that is.
Zubin: And I can promise you it's not to do with intelligence or skill. Like those things can be acquired. People who don't succeed are usually not able to it's no fault of theirs because of their circumstances put in the kind of effort required because of their context. And what
Brian: [00:25:00] Yeah.
Zubin: are trying to do differently is we try to tell those people before they even start Don't start your context is not right to start. You know, if you're working two jobs and you're a single parent of three kids. I'll be honest, it's probably going to be really hard for you just because of time. You're just not going to have the time enough to do it.
Brian: Oh yeah.
Zubin: you're working a full time job and your partner is working a job and maybe you've got kids, but you can put aside 20, 20 hours or so a week, 15, 20 hours, then you just need the recipe, Then you
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: to tell you, join these dots and you'll get there you have enough time to do it. But, you know, I'm curious to know, Brian, because, you, you, you have the power city bootcamp and we're going to
Brian: Mhm.
Zubin: in a moment. Why is it that the bootcamp model continues to dominate?
Zubin: Why is it that, well, now they're starting to shut down because investors aren't getting their returns. the bootcamp model, why is it fundamentally in our view, against the interests of the student?
Brian: [00:26:00] Yeah, I think about this a lot. And I and I see that it's become so corporatized that we've That it seems like they only care about the bottom line, which I understand. I'm not going to say this is a charity case. I understand you have to make money, but at the same time to have zero barrier to entry and to have programs that only teach you the acquisition part without thinking about one.
Brian: How can we make sure you're the kind of person who's able to actually learn and go out there and find a new career. And so that big transition in boot camps, we went freely from these smaller programs, which actually did seem to have a lot of success to this other model where, where it seems like the, the goal is pumping out as many people as possible.
Brian: And I'm like, there's zero way this can work. If you take two people in and one person says, I've never used a computer in my life, the other person says, I'm a computer science, you know, major. And they're both in the same class. On a Thursday night at 6 p. m. to 9 p. m. And they're supposed to just get to this curriculum together.
Brian: I've seen this happen because in addition to being a [00:27:00] software engineer, I've worked at boot camps and I've seen this scenario play out tons of times. I'm like, this is a, this is a recipe for disaster. Like, there's no way this person can do this and you do this at scale.
Brian: And of course, at scale, you have what you see on LinkedIn. Tons of people saying this sucks. No one, you know, this is a, they feel like they've been scammed essentially
Zubin: Yeah. Yeah. And I think part of the reason why people feel they've been scammed is because they've been given false promises. You know, things like income sharing
Brian: big one.
Zubin: job guarantees. I mean, there's a reason Harvard doesn't give you a job guarantee. There's a reason why Stanford doesn't give you a job guarantee. There's a
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: law school didn't give me a job guarantee. It's because they can't guarantee, no one can guarantee you a job
Brian: Yeah,
Zubin: applying.
Brian: I feel I,
Zubin: the one
Brian: I feel back. I actually tried this out to be partially I ended it because I came to the same conclusion you did. First of all, I don't like what it does to the relationship between me and the student either. I'm like,
Zubin: Exactly.
Brian: you're incentivized potentially to to try to get a refund. I'm incentivized to force you to do as much as humanly possible to get the first [00:28:00] job that comes across your lap.
Brian: I don't like either one of those scenarios. Like I, I get that people like, don't want to feel like there's some sort of like pressure on me or Parsity to perform, but at the same time, like it creates the kind of relationship, which I don't feel as healthy. And you're right. I can't, how can I tell you what the future will be?
Brian: I don't have a magic crystal ball. I don't know what's gonna happen. I don't know where you live. If you live in Alaska, it's gonna be much difficult, much more difficult than if you live in California. You know,
Zubin: Right. And what if you don't do the work?
Brian: and what if you don't do anything? What am I supposed to do? Have you on video camera, you know, showing me applying to a thousand places, which is a lot of boot camps too.
Brian: They said you must apply to 500 applications, put them in this Excel sheet and show me a picture of the application in order for you to get the refund. Like, what's the point of all this?
Zubin: Yeah, it's funny. Cause gym instructors get this, they'll never guarantee you a six pack ever.
Brian: Yeah
Zubin: and we, we won't even think of asking them, but somehow when it comes to really smart people who want to get into engineering, they're like, But there should be a job guarantee. I'm like, how can there be a plus
Zubin: also, like you said, there's an incentive misalignment if I have to deliver on this job guarantee I [00:29:00] am going to make you do things that may not be in the best interest of your career Your job or your mental health is the
Brian: Yeah,
Zubin: it, right?
Brian: for sure.
Zubin: make you do things like that because I need to deliver this guarantee.
Zubin: Whereas I don't care about your first job. Personally, when I'm working with my students, I give them a money back guarantee. Zero people have taken it so far, right? Because they, they see the value in what they do. Not all of them will get the results, but those that don't get the results have said to me, it's because we didn't put in the work. We know that. We just know that. Right.
Brian: That's the harsh truth. It's, it's harsh, but it's like, it's absolutely true. And I feel so cliche saying this every time I go back, I think about this a lot. Like, I think what is separate all these people throughout the 10 years I've been doing this and seeing people what separates those from those who get it and those who don't.
Brian: And then I'm like, is it their degree? Was it their background? And I'm trying to find these things. And the thing I keep coming back to some people are consistent. Yeah. and kind of kept going and then figured out what they had to do to recalibrate and just applied pressure, steady pressure until they reached this, this goal.[00:30:00]
Brian: And some people just completely fell off and just stopped doing what they were doing.
Zubin: Yeah,
Brian: And that's it.
Zubin: I mean, when I was trying to leave the law and get my first role every and in the company, I was a top 5 percent performer in a 40, 000 plus company.
Brian: Geez.
Zubin: manager outside the law I mentioned said to me. Yeah, you'd be great in the role. You'd be fantastic. You know, you've got the legal background.
Zubin: You've got the commercial. You'd be great. All right. Can you give me
Brian: a job? "NO"
Zubin: three years, Brian, that
Brian: Oh, my God.
Zubin: in the company, more than 53 times within the same company, where I was a top performer, 53 times I got rejected.
Brian: Wow.
Zubin: don't talk about is just the
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: of effort it takes to convince someone to give you a role and career change. That's what it was. That was career change. That's how I learned how to do career change. So when I was switching to tech, I had all that learning of switching away from the law into
Zubin: Roles behind me, right? Huge
Brian: some expectation already. You're like, okay, I kind of get that. This is going to be like, no one's going to eat. Cause me like looking at you, I'm like, Oh, he's a lawyer. This probably, I know it [00:31:00] wasn't if, unless if I hadn't known you, I bet. Oh, no wonder he went to Google. It's probably super easy.
Brian: He's a lawyer and just like walked onto Google. Simple, right?
Zubin: It was all those rejections that made me realize it didn't matter what I knew. What mattered was whether the hiring manager could defend hiring me to other people.
Brian: Oh yeah. Yeah. The big one.
Zubin: matters. Like you and I know we hire people and we need to
Brian: Yeah. Oh yeah.
Zubin: when we do, like it has to. Makes sense.
Zubin: It has to add up, right?
Brian: Let's
Zubin: of the applicants have the skills. So, you know, and so, you know, let's talk about what you and I are doing now, right? Because it
Brian: do it, man.
Zubin: we're trying to aim for a truly transformative outcome for people beyond just helping them secure their first job. Because we know. Lots of people in engineering and tech who are unhappy with their job, so clearly that's not a guarantee of happiness that you're, you know, you're a techie is not a guarantee
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: So it's not about the first job. It's about the transformational outcome of building your career. So why don't you tell folks, Brian, what you and I are doing to help people, [00:32:00] regardless of what stage in life they're at, to truly have a shot at that? What are we doing?
Brian: I can't wait, man. What we're going to put together is something called the inner circle.
Brian: Zubin and I are going to partner through Parsity. You can actually check it out. parsity.io/inner-circle. If you want to see what we're cooking up, but it's going to be a transformative, very personalized program to not only help people with the skills acquisition and the job part, but I think one of the most important parts, which is what I'm really excited to pair with you on is getting the person ready to do this.
Brian: I mean, that's the huge thing that everybody's missing right now. Everybody is missing this massive step. We're going to go much deeper in this program, and it's going to be me and you working with these people one on one throughout this time
Zubin: and I think just to add to what Brian's saying there, what's really important is Brian and I are both people who didn't go the traditional computer science degree. We, we are career changes. Okay. And some of the worst advice I ever got in my life on changing to tech was from computer science folks who are hardcore coders who had never changed[00:33:00]
Brian: Oh, man. Yeah. Because learning to code and changing careers are two different things
Zubin: while firsthand We know why learning to code is not enough. Maybe it was 13 years ago It wasn't enough and I was moving six years ago, and it's definitely not enough now but more importantly like Brian said there are many stages to this guys you've got to prepare.
Zubin: All right. It's like the analogy. I tell my students is Everybody focuses on the moment when you jump out of the plane when you're going skydiving Okay, not the important bit. The important bit is when you're packing a parachute You that's the important bit. You've got to pack the parachute Then you've got to make sure the plane is right then you've got to ascend to cruising altitude you jump Okay, you don't just go straight to the jump stage And that's what what Brian is talking about when we say we need to work with the individual to prepare them for the journey Are you going to learn to code of course because you need to but that's not going to be enough is it?
Zubin: No, so that's why we're going to help [00:34:00] you for 12 months. We're going to take you from whatever stage you're at You Whatever your starting point is to preparing you for the journey, giving you a customized, not just coding plan, but a market approach and a market strategy plan that you need to do, under our supervision and guidance. And then we will walk you through all the steps. There are seven steps to go from where you, wherever you are now to getting your first developer offer. And it's not just about the offer. Is it Brian? It's about the career. Tell them why we need to think long term about the career.
Brian: Oh, yeah. Your people always forget this. Like it's the game just started when you got hired. All I can tell you is that when you get the job, this is where the game really begins, right?
Brian: It's going to span decades. There's a guy that at Parsity, he got hired at 40. Or in his mid forties, actually, and I'm like, he has another 20 years, most likely of working. This is a long time. You do not want to get into this career and then end up a year in a precarious situation . I switch jobs all the time and [00:35:00] you want to be able to have these options. That's why we get into tech in the first place. Most of us, we want options. We don't want to be stagnant.
Brian: So in order to have options, in order to have the kind of career trajectory, which you really need and you ultimately want. You can't just be like, I know how to code. That's it. I'm just gonna coast. Like, you need to be prepared to go in there with the mindset. Like, I'm here to learn. I'm gonna use this job is a foundation and then also have this like growth mindset or kind of hate that now it's overused term.
Brian: But this mindset of like, I'm gonna now look for what's next. What's the next thing I need to figure out to go to the next piece of this puzzle? And where do I want to go? Do I want to go into leadership? Do I want to go really deep in the technical side? Do I want to just stop at senior engineer. These are all things You should think about it, or else you're going to find yourself kind of given a career path instead of actually forging a career path somewhere.
Zubin: Absolutely. And what this really boils down to folks is don't obsess about the first job. That's just the first step. All right.
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: show you how to take control of your career, especially in the modern [00:36:00] era. And it's not just about tech. Layoffs happen across sales, marketing, recruitment, HR, blue collar work, logistics.
Zubin: It happens everywhere. Okay. you don't know how to stay relevant in the market, how to generate opportunities for yourself, how to do well at interviews, like Brian says, you know, treat it as a, as a learnable game, if you don't know how to do this, you are not taking control of your career, you are not future proofing your career, you need to know not just the coding stuff, but the career management stuff.
Zubin: So you always have options. That's why it. There's that old saying, it's better to teach a person to fish than to give them the fish, because teaching you to fish is all about the optionality and the self reliance for the rest of your career. That's what we're trying to do in this new Parsity Inner Circle program.
Zubin: We're bringing the Future Coders Inner Circle program and the Parsity program together so that Brian and I can walk you guys through from A to Z of your career management strategy, where learning to code and becoming a developer is a [00:37:00] part of it, an important part of it, probably the part that you're most focused on, but it's not the most important part for your career.
Zubin: It's the first step in a longer career. So, Brian, with all that said, what kind of person do you believe should choose something like the power city in a circle program versus a bootcamp, by the way? If it's right for you, go and go ahead and do it. Right. If you think it's right for you, but it's not the only way for you to get to your career.
Zubin: So what kind of person do you believe Brian would get the most success by coming to the Parsity Inner Circle program?
Brian: Yeah, I think about the kind of people that one I want to work with, but also that I think would have the most success here. They're going to be people that have some sort of career that have worked somewhere. They know that's not what they want to do. They say, I'm interested in tech.
Brian: I've dabbled in it a little bit. You've maybe explored Codecademy, or maybe you're even like into something like the Odin project, or you're on FreeCodeCamp or something like that. These are people that tend to do really well. Also, here's a weird one. If you're a musician too, I don't know why musicians tend to be overrepresented.
Brian: They end up being the [00:38:00] best. They really are. If you're, if you're a musician that's on Codecademy right now, listen to this. You need to apply. I mean, straight up, you're probably, you're probably going to be really just like the best. But, but people that are, that kind of have dabbled a little bit in code and, and they have grit.
Brian: Like that is one thing. That it's really tough to teach. And that's actually even on the site right now. If you go there, you'll see it. at parsity.io/inner-circle. If you go there, you'll see that it says no experiences are part, but you need to have grit because this is going to be a taxing
Brian: roadmap that you're going to embark on here. And if you have that mindset, like, yeah, this is not going to be easy, but what's at the end of this program is going to be a massive transformation. So if you have that mindset, you're not in for a quick buck. And when I ask people, why do you want to learn to code?
Brian: And the only thing they say is money. It makes me apprehensive because I honestly have not seen that work out too well. So those are the kind of people probably aren't going to do super well in a program like this. But if you have a realistic expectation of what it's going to take for you as a person to do this and you've dabbled a bit, you're probably the perfect fit.
Brian: You're [00:39:00] probably a person we want to talk to.
Zubin: Yep, 1000 percent love that he used the GRIT word because it's a big word in my world. It is truly important. The other thing I want to say is, all of this started out from the conversation that Brian and I had about, you know, the anti bootcamp model that I was kind of evolving in the, in the, in the future code is in the cycle. And why is that important? It's because I don't believe any of us truly know how long it's going to take us. Okay. I don't know. I doubt that three months is going to work for most people. Maybe it'll work for somebody who has a computer science degree. I don't know.
Brian: Yeah. It's
Zubin: infrequent, right? But in general, I say, give yourself enough time.
Zubin: Be patient, be consistent, be gritty. We will tell you what you need to do. You don't need to know the answers. We will tell you what you need to do, when to do it. We'll take away all the decision making, none of the overwhelm. All you need to be prepared to do is pay that emotional price, that sacrifice, that grit requires of consistently working and being outside your comfort zone for up to 12 months with us.
Zubin: That's a long time, folks, but more than
Brian: [00:40:00] a long commitment.
Zubin: guys to make the transformation. Yeah so if you're truly committed. You're going to not be worried about the fact that it could be up to 12 months. You're not going to worry about that because that's what commitment looks like. If you're put off by the idea of anything over the 90 days, then maybe this is not for you
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: ready yet emotionally to play the long game.
Zubin: And we both Brian and I believe in the long game, not just for your first job, but for your career. Okay. That's why it's more of a coaching program. Think of a sports coach rather than a sports bootcamp or a fitness bootcamp. It's not that it is a coaching relationship. That takes you from where you are to where you want to be.
Zubin: So with that said, Brian, where should people go? Now you mentioned the link previously, I'll put it in the show notes, but just tell them again where they can
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: book a call with us.
Brian: Yeah. parsity.io/inner-circle Check it out.
Zubin: Yep. Go there and you can read about it a little bit. Check out Brian's podcast, DEVELOP YOURSELF. Check out my episodes on YouTube as well on the EASIER SAID THAN DONE podcast, and if you [00:41:00] go to parsity.io/inner-circle you will see a way to book a call with Brian or I. And we can have a chat, right?
Zubin: We can have a chat about whether this is right for you. One thing I can promise you is that we won't pretend we can
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: know how to. Okay, that's an important thing. We're not going to accept everybody into the program. Brian and I have agreed that it's going to be the anti bootcamp for another reason. We're not looking at big scale, like the bootcamp, right. We're not looking at you
Brian: Not at all.
Zubin: of people, you know, over every month or whatever, none, none of that, right. We never going to get to 23, 000 people, you know, with, with
Brian: Never. Not in this
Zubin: to.
Brian: lifetime. No.
Zubin: Not in this lifetime. We don't want to. We want to do a few people for a very long time so that we know you'll get the results. We know we can give you the personal attention you deserve. And we, we both work full time as engineers, we get the satisfaction and the growth that comes in coaching and transforming your life.
Zubin: So in many ways, it's the anti boot camp, okay? In terms of the personalization of the curriculum, the period of time we expect for you, the kind of person we're looking for, and the fact that not everybody is going to just be invited [00:42:00] in. We won't pretend to help you, Or that we know how to help you. If we don't know, we will tell you we're not the right people for you.
Zubin: That's why we need to speak to you. So if this sounds like the kind of thing that you're ready to commit to and that you're ready to explore, definitely go to that link and book the call and you can speak with us and we will have that conversation honestly and transparently with you. Anything
Brian: Okay, for sure.
Zubin: Brian?
Brian: You summed it up real well. Yeah. I mean, if we're, if we're going to work together for 12 months, we should both like each other and think that you're actually going to succeed or else it would be, it would be a very fun 12 months with it, but I'm looking forward, I've talked to hundreds of developers over the years, a lot through, you know, these kinds of calls and I'm sure you have too Zubin
Brian: these are one really fun to do, and even if you don't choose to go into the program, a lot of times they can like expand your mind or at least help you kind of understand which direction you probably should go into. So I'm, I'm looking forward to chatting with people out there.
Zubin: We Me too And I'm glad you mentioned that, you know, we don't want to spend time a year of our life. At 43, one year of my life is an expensive proposition. So I want to make sure I
Brian: Oh yeah.
Zubin: I'm spending that [00:43:00] with.
Brian: Yeah, for sure.
Zubin: know yeah, so that's going to be an important part. Well, everybody, you
Brian: Yeah.
Zubin: the link.
Zubin: Brian, thank you for being on easier said
Brian: Thank you.
Zubin: about working with you. I think it's going to be a really interesting and rewarding 2025 for us. And I think we're going to have a lot of impact on a few people that changes lives. And that's fine by me. I don't need to do the big numbers.
Zubin: I'm not the vanity metric guy. I just want to
Brian: I hear you.
Zubin: lives.
Brian: Yeah, I'm looking forward to man. Thank you.
Zubin: Awesome. Well, have a great Christmas break . And folks, for those of you who are booking calls with us, we look forward to speaking with you. And it'll be a pleasure to see whether we can help you. All right. Take care, Brian.
Brian: See ya!
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