Stay relevant in the Dev Career: Enhance your Profile and Reputation

Chris Engelbert: You said you're actually helping people building their own companies. How does that work? Are you like playing an advisor for people? Bruno Souza: We call it more like mentorship, right? So it's kind of helping understand how people are and then helping them out on making their decisions and doing the right things. Chris Engelbert: If you know people in the industry and you're looking for a job, don't be scared. That's the second thing I want to put out. I can imagine how hard it is, and I know how hard it was for me. After being very much sustainably employed, even if I changed jobs, just to get out and say, I'm actually looking for stuff. I'm open for work. Bruno Souza: What you should be doing, you should have this broad approach. You should be looking at things that are interesting to you, right? And then people say, "Oh yes, but then I have to learn everything." No, you don't, right? You have to learn about everything. Chris Engelbert: Hello everyone. Welcome back to this week's episode of Simplyblock's Cloud Commute Podcast. Today another incredible guest, and you know the spiel. I say that every time, and you know, it's true. So, but this, this time it's one of those like special episodes where we want to do a little bit of a different thing. Normally we talk about technology, but once in a while, I'll sprinkle in some other things. And today is one of those episodes with a good friend of mine, Bruno Souza from Brazil. Very long way. Thank you for coming all the way down here. Bruno Souza: Hey Chris, good to be here with you, man. Thanks a lot for the invitation. Chris Engelbert: Yeah, my pleasure. My pleasure. Maybe, maybe just say a few words about yourself. Bruno Souza: So, hey, hello everyone. It's so good to be here with you, Chris, but everyone is watching us. It's amazing here. And, you know, we're talking, me and Chris were talking right before this and talking about the importance of career, right? So career is one of those things that it's a never-ending thing, right? It's like an infinite game that we have to be playing all the time. And so for me, it has been a game that I've been playing for, you know, almost 30 years now that I'm helping people grow their careers. And usually, Chris, it was something that I did on the side, right, you know, while I was doing other things. And lately, I've seen that a lot of you guys are listening here and are needing some more career help. So that's what I do today, Chris, right? I help, you know, professional developers like you guys to, you know, grow your reputation and get some visibility in the market so you can work on amazing jobs, you can work on the best jobs and best projects in the industry. And, you know, I've been, as I said, I've been doing this for a long time. And, you know, I've been an evangelist for Sun. I've worked on NetBeans. I've worked on OpenSolaris. I've done, and I've built so Java, one of the largest Java user groups in the world. I've built the Java user groups community. And, you know, something like this, I had and failed on a startup. So all kinds of interesting things. And it's great to be here with you. Chris Engelbert: I think a great start, a failed startup belongs to every good developer and every good engineer and probably everyone in the tech industry. Everyone should have this experience of how hard it is to actually build a company, which is not just a great idea but also sustainable. I think the general rule is like one out of 10 startups will eventually make it. I think that is what, what VCs work with or calculate with. And being this one startup, it's such a low chance, and still it's, it's a great experience. Even if your startup eventually fails. I've been there as well. So whatever. Bruno Souza: Yeah, I know we can have good ideas, but turning good ideas into something that makes money, actually making money, is so hard, right? So, you know, sometimes we forget about that. Especially because in the software industry, salaries are so high, right? That we kind of forget how hard and how difficult it is to make money. And that's, one of the things that we discuss a lot, right? So I do help a lot of my mentees to build their own companies and, you know, build like a second income stream. So yes, it's all, I think that this whole discussion about career is so interesting. So thanks so much for the opportunity here. Chris Engelbert: You're welcome. Maybe, maybe let's just stay with that topic for a second. You said you're actually helping people build their own companies. How does that work? Are you like playing an advisor for people or how does that look like? Bruno Souza: Yeah. So, one of the things that I do a lot is, actually, you know, we call it more like mentorship, right? So it's kind of helping understand how people are and then helping them out on making their decisions and doing the right things. And that's one thing that I've been doing for a long time, usually very informal, right? And I think all of us do a little bit. I've been doing it for my friends forever, right? And you know, a lot of my friends have grown up and become top developers in the world and become Java champions and Microsoft VPs and all that. And so, and, and for me, I would do this, you know, I would have my day job and then doing this on, at nights and on weekends. And as you know, there's a limit on how many people you can actually reach out and help out by doing this, right? And so a lot of the things that I was doing was trying to combine this idea of just helping people with whatever I was doing in my company, right? You know, when I was working for Sun, it was a little easier because I was an evangelist. So it was easier to reach out to people, but you know, when I built my own consulting company, most of my time was billable hours. So the amount of time that you have to really go out and help people is smaller, right? Fewer opportunities. And so what happened was that, you know, I was really honestly, I tell this, and people think it's just like a marketing phrase, but it's very true. I was running out of friends, man. So I wanted to have more friends. And for that, I needed to have more time, right? So I actually worked on how to do this as a business so I could have more time and help more people, right? So today, I do have a small group of mentees that I work with more directly. I have some mentees that I work with individually, but really what's happening is that now I have more time, right? So for example, last week, we had the Developers Conference here in Sao Paulo, and we launched a new initiative called the Mentorship Hub, where we had around 50 mentors spending the three days of the event, you know, talking with people and helping them out, understanding where they're going, you know, because mentorship is a little bit different than an instructor, right? You know, because an instructor has some content that he wants to give, right? And that's all fine. It is good. We learn a lot from instructors. But a mentor is someone that, you know, has a piece of content, right? But they're really trying to understand what's your situation, right? So what's going on in your life? What's going on in your career? So what you tried, what you didn't try, right? And so, and then help you adjust, right? Because every career is different. Every path is different. And we don't have like this one "Oh yeah, so just do this and it's going to be great for you" because you have to try it out. You have to learn how to do it. You have to build the skill, and then you have to make mistakes, right? All of that. So you can imagine more of a consultant, right, for a career, maybe. That's mentorship. Right, Chris Engelbert: right. And that was for the conference. So people were walking with their mentees around the conference and- Well, Bruno Souza: so on the conference itself, right, we had like an area, right? So it was like a hub where we had five tables, actually five, four big tables and one small table, right? So five tables that we had there. With mentors all around. And then, you know, we had some topics during the day. And so people would join. And so it would be like a group mentorship, like a small group mentorship. Like, you know, it was between 6 and 15 people, right? Because, you know, the table was just for six, right? But then, you know, some mentorships, you know, people flocking to it, and so we have more and more people. It was good, right? So we had about, you know, somewhere between 250 and 300 people coming around and sitting, like, for an hour with someone that's willing to actually listen to what's going on, understand their career problems, and then help them out. Chris Engelbert: That's cool. I think that could be a really good idea for a lot of conferences. I mean, a lot of conferences also have those programs for students. And I guess for them, it must be like super beneficial. But, even for like general employees, as you said, we talked a little bit before the recording, and in the last one and a half or two years, we have this massive layoff rounds. Sometimes I don't know, like 10, 20 companies basically doing the same thing at the same time. I made the joke last year that some business magazine or some business analyst or whatever have made up the number 30 and every company just laid off 30%. I think for those people, it must be super beneficial as well. Not everyone is in this like super easy position. I mean, even for me, it took a couple of weeks but still like more than three months to actually find something that I wanted to do. And, I was on the lucky side because I had the chance to, select. But I know that for a lot of people, that is not necessarily true. So, so if, if there's conference organizers out there and you think that is a cool concept, I guess they can just, you know, drop you a line and you're more than happy to help them out how to set it up and make it happen. Bruno Souza: Yeah, reach out to me. And one of the things that I'm seeing a lot, you're totally right, Chris. There is, you know, the layoffs kind of put some light into the problems, right? Because there's a- what I see, let's talk about Java in particular, right? But, that's true for many other technologies. You know, Java is, uh, almost 30 years old now, right? So, yeah, exactly. Right. So, then what we have right now is that we have all these amazing people, right, that have been developing software for 15, for 20 years, right? So maybe, you know, even some of them approaching 30 years, for example, just in Java, right. And so they have different problems than they had when they started, right? So, for example, I work mostly with developers with 10, 15, or more years of career, right? So, and it's funny that the things that brought us here, right, are not the things that are going to bring us to the next level, right? And that's one thing that I'm seeing a lot, is lots and lots of people coming to discuss that and coming to. You know, to have questions about what do I do now, right? And, you know, because they've been trying the same thing that they've been doing for the last 10 or 15 years and it's not working anymore. And, I think the layoffs actually put a light on this, right? Because, you know, we were in a moment that, you know, there's lots of jobs, everyone is getting very high pay, all of that. And so, there weren't a lot of things that we needed to do to get an amazing job, right? So of course, you know, different people are luckier or have a little bit more skills on getting jobs than others, but in general, we were in a very good position. Then the layoffs that happened last couple of years are really straining things a little bit, right? Because now there's a lot of good people that are not able to get jobs, and they don't know why. Right. You know, they're like, "I'm very good. I'm an amazing developer. I have lots of experience. I've done all that. Why can't I find something?" Right. And we were talking a little bit about the job market and one of the things that's a reality is that some research shows that up to 75 percent of jobs are in what they call the hidden job market, right? So those are invisible jobs. And so if people that have been well-employed and working for, you know, several years without having to look for a job, now need to start looking for one, they don't understand what the hidden job market is. So they're, you know, they're looking for something that they don't even realize how it actually works, right? So, yeah, so I think that there has been a surge of people needing help. There are way more advanced people than you'd think looking for jobs, and say, "Oh man, this guy is all fine, right?" So you think this person doesn't need any help, but in reality, they do. And I think that's where some like individual support and mentorship can help a lot. Chris Engelbert: Yeah, and I think there are two things to it. I mean, you talked about this last year at your keynote in at Jcon in Munich, Cologne, I don't remember. Too many cities in Germany. And you also brought up this concept of the hidden job market. And for a lot of people, that seems to be very foreign. But the main idea behind that is that somebody in the company already recommends you. So the job offer will actually never be put out into the public at all, which is the job you actually want, right? Because if the company doesn't know anyone to contact for the position and potentially doesn't want to pay high fees to headhunters, the worst thing from my perspective is when the headhunter comes along and offers you this amazing position. 99 percent of the time, it's like the least favorable option ever because now the company is completely lost and doesn't know what to do. So they take headhunters. So from my perspective, that is like, if you know people in the industry and you're looking for a job. Don't be scared. That's the second thing I want to put out. I can't imagine how hard it is, and I know how hard it was for me after being very much sustainably employed, even if I changed jobs just to get out and say, "I'm actually looking for stuff. I'm open for work." Just this morning, I actually saw a post from somebody who worked as an artist for Disney and I don't know what else. And she actually put the word "desperate" on her photo because she learned that you should not put "open to work" on your photo because it makes you look desperate. And she was like, "I am desperate. So I'm making it very, very obvious." Right. And I think it's something people need to understand. There's nothing bad about needing a job or not finding something. Let people help you. Let people recommend you. Bruno Souza: Yeah, that was a, that's very interesting. And so I actually have a mentee that when I first met him, he had this idea that, "Look, I have to find a job on my own merits," right? So, for example, he would go to companies that he knew he had good friends at, right, for even sometimes for teams that he had a friend there. And so he would hide from his friends that he was talking to the company because he said, "Oh, you know, if he helps me, then it's not my own merit. So I don't deserve the job," for example. Right. And it's actually, when he learned that that's not how it works. Right. So he's been getting bigger and bigger and bigger jobs like this all the time. Right. So, you know, he's very well-positioned right now. I was talking to him the other day. He was very well-positioned. He's really growing a lot. Right. And so that is something that we have to understand, right? So yes, don't be afraid, talk with people, be nice about it, right? And one of the problems of letting it get to the point of desperation is because it gets to a point where you start- Because look, the best way for you to talk with people about that, for example, right, is figuring out how you can be helpful. Right? So the more helpful you are, the more people are going to want to talk to you. So if you let this go until the moment that you're desperate, then you're calling people that you haven't talked to in a long time. You're talking to people that you're not comfortable with, and you're calling them with a request. Right? And that's going to be awkward for you. That's going to be kind of weird for them too. Right? So, the best way for you to do this is kind of maintain a certain level of networking or talking to people and being present in their lives and helping them out. And so there's all kinds of things that can be done, right? But, yeah, as you know, talk to people. Right? Talk to people, let them know that you are looking for something. Let them know that you're available. And, you don't need to put this on your social media, right? So you can talk to everyone that you know, everyone that you follow. You can even reach out to people that you don't have a direct connection with. And I do understand, you know, I don't want to put this on my social media. And I think it makes sense. But at the same time, you know, don't let this- you know, it's one thing to not want to put it on your social media. That's one thing. The other thing is you can talk to people. Right? So reach out to people, reach out to them, reach out to your friends, let them know what you do. And, one of the things that happens is that I think that's, one of the hard things is that when you reach out, you know, if I reach out to you, Chris, and say, "Hey, Chris, I'd love to work in your company. Is there anything for me?" Then if you don't know what I do, right, if you don't know how I can help you, how I can help your company, you might say, "Yeah, sure, I can point out someone." Right? You know, "Here's our page of job offers." Right? But if I can tell you, "Hey, Chris, you know what? You know, my passion is helping developers to grow their careers and to, you know, to be more visible. Is there any place in your company that I could work with you?" Right? You know, so now you have an idea, you have something that you can work with. Right? You know, that could be- you can say, "Hey, Bruno, our evangelist team needs someone." Right? Or because it's more like what you're saying. Or you can say, "You know, maybe you can come in and have a conversation with our team." So that was going to give you some insight or some understanding of how the team works. I mean, if you tell me, or in this case, if I can tell Chris what I do in a way that he can understand and pass it forward, right, then things help a lot. Lots of people reach out to me and say, "Hey, you know, if there's any job, let me know." Right. It's like, job for what exactly? What you're looking for. Chris Engelbert: Yeah. Before going to the next thing, I think it's also important for people to understand, there's no reason to be scared to have somebody help. I had my own startup, but I also ended like, I don't know, fifth startup or whatever. The best people we hired were either people that were already active in the community, basically our own referral mechanism or it was people that were actually referred because people are often very careful. They don't just recommend everyone but they recommend people they know are actually really good. And if a recommendation comes in, it's normally a really good sign. And from a company's perspective, you'd be stupid not to go into that. Bruno Souza: Yeah, I like to say, Chris, that's, you know, if you know someone that's very good, you recommend to your team, to your company, right? If you know someone is a good friend of yours, but you know, they're not very good, you recommend to someone else. Chris Engelbert: Fair. Bruno Souza: So Chris Engelbert: that's probably how it works, right. Bruno Souza: And that is true, right? So, of course, you know, there are moments where you don't have a place to recommend inside your company, but the thing is, if you know there is a recommendation inside your company for someone to work in the company, to work in the team. You're putting your reputation on the line. You know, if I tell you, "Hey, Chris, I have this friend of mine. He's going to be great to work here in our company." You know, and if this person turns out to be terrible, turns out to not do the things, turns out to be a terrible person to work with and all that, I'm the one who's going to be singled out. They'd say, "Hey, Bruno, how come you suggest this person?" Right? And so we don't do that. We don't suggest people unless we truly believe in them. And that's one interesting thing for you that you're looking for your friends to recommend you, is that, you know, you go talk with them, right? Understand, you know, how you can help, how you can be helpful, how you can be like a giver, and help people out. And that makes a huge difference. Chris Engelbert: We talked earlier about how a lot of people don't really have a feeling why they can't find a new job. And part of that is probably like a changing ecosystem. We're mostly a cloud podcast. And I think a lot of that comes from the fact that a lot of companies are actually moving from on-prem to the cloud and jobs change, or you need different frameworks, you need to know different technology. What do you think is the thing people should, if they have this problem right now and have this feeling, like, what should I really look into? What should I learn? Do you have any feeling, any recommendation from your discussions? Bruno Souza: Yeah, I think it kind of depends where you are right now, right? So, for example, if you are in the beginning of your career, you know, have somewhere like five, 10 years of less than 10 years of career, for example, then probably there's a lot of things that you can learn. Probably a lot of things that you can, you know, if you master that thing, you create a new line in your curriculum, for example. Right. And so, you know, I have a general idea that the best way to learn anything is by being hired to work on that stuff, right? So, you know, because then you have to be there all the time, but of course, you're not going to be hired to do something you've never done before, right? You know, you have to have some experience in it. For example, maybe you're very good in the financial market and working with jobs in the financial markets, and you'll have a lot of experience working on, I don't know, like credit card fraud, right? And so extending that, you do that thing on the cloud, that would be an amazing way of extending and learning something. So you can probably get a position to do finance, Java applications, credit card fraud in the cloud, even though you don't have any cloud experience, right? But so when you're beginning, learning something can really help you out. But when you grow a little bit more, it's usually not what you need to learn, right? It's usually more, you know, how you can show that you can really help the company. Because look, after 10 years of experience, right? You know how to learn, you know, we all have been gone through all kinds of different tools and all kinds of different technologies. You know, if you learn different languages, we apply different strategies. So after 10 years of experience, you have enough knowledge and enough experience that anything that comes along, you will learn and apply it, right? There's no doubt about that. And so I think that when you get to that level, you need to be able to show the company that yes, you can learn fast, you can apply things fast, and you can apply your past experience on whatever comes next. Right? Because companies don't hire us to work- Yes, you know, "I'm going to hire you to work for a year and go away," right? That's usually not the idea. Now, when you hire someone, it's a huge effort. It's a huge expense. And you want that person to work for, you know, for 10 years, right? I'm not sure that's going to happen, but that's the idea. I want someone. And so in the next 10 years, so many things are going to change. So many technologies are going to change. That companies actually need someone that can adapt, that can apply new things, that can learn new things. Right? So if you can show that, that's very, very important. That said, you know, there are some things that have more appeal, right? So for example, you know, if you're, yes, if you're like cloud computing, DevOps, AI, data science, big data. I mean, there are some things that have a different appeal because there's lots of people wanting to do that, right? Lots of people trying to do this. And so if you're someone that has a little bit of experience, you've done some of those things. You've applied this in a project, you apply this inside your company right now. Of course, all those things are going to help you out because it allows you to enter those markets a little bit better. Chris Engelbert: I had one question that just dropped on my mind. Ah, well, whatever. Whatever. Okay. Bruno Souza: So why are you thinking a little bit, that, right? So, you know, one of the things that I really think that helps a lot in terms of learning things, right, is that we go do something, right? It's not about, you know, you don't put the books that you read or the courses that you took on your resume, right? You put the things that you did, right? So sometimes even doing a small project, right, that you can talk about, that you can show, right, even if it's something for you, right? That's something that you're using, not like, "Oh, yeah, as I implemented this sample application." Right? No, not a sample application, just do something that's real, right, that you can use, that your friends can use, maybe that your company, you know, I always like to talk about this. This mentee of mine, Rodrigo, right, he was working in a company, right? And he loved automation, right? And I said, "Man, apply automation in your company." He said, "They don't want that, right? They think that automation is a waste of time. So they want to just do the things instead of automating." And so I said, "Okay, that's good, but you love automation, right? So go do automation inside your company, right? Even if they don't agree with that, do the things that are important for you. So if you have to do something, automate that thing because it's going to help you. Maybe not the company, but it's going to help you." And the reality is that he learned that. So today, he's the automation expert at a game company in Canada, right? So he's very happy right now. But better than that, when he decided to move on, he left behind a lot of automation, right? That allowed the company to continue to do the things he was doing, even though that was not what he wanted in the beginning, right? So you can find those small things that you can do, right? "Oh, my company doesn't use cloud, but you can do like a little cloud thing to automate something that you're doing, right? Maybe to run a task, maybe to help out in some way. You know, just do a tool for you." "Oh, my company doesn't use AI." Okay. You can go and get AI tools and use AI to help you code better, for example, right? So, by having those experiences, it allows you to come into an interview, for example, or a job offer, and you can say, "Look, I have experience with that. I've done it. Although my company was not interested, my company is not using this in production, I've done this for me. I've learned that thing in real life." And that makes a huge difference. Chris Engelbert: Right. So the thing that I actually wanted to say was to the point that we are lucky because we're in an industry where change is a constant. So we're very much used to learning new things and adjusting to things, which is very different from a lot of other industries. For the sake of time- Bruno Souza: Some people say luck, some people say curse, right? Chris Engelbert: Yeah. But I agree with Bruno Souza: you, it's a very dynamic industry. And I think there's a lot. But at the same time, don't let this scare you because a lot of things that we do are very grounded in fundamentals that have been, that have existed for several decades right now. Right. Chris Engelbert: Right. For the sake of time, because we're running a little bit out of time already, and I did not expect that, the question I always ask people: What do you think is the next big thing? What do you see on the horizon coming up? Bruno Souza: Oh, well, that is an interesting question. You know, I really love the Java approach, right? That's that, you know, you can explore all kinds of things. And then, you know, because, because really, first of all, there's so many things going on right now. There's so many new things coming on. You know, there's programming languages and libraries and ideas. There's so many things going on. Clearly AI is probably the big one right now that everyone's talking about. But in reality, we don't know. We don't know exactly what's coming along. So, you know, it could be- look, people call me the Java man. But, you know, I was lucky, right? I was very, very lucky that I learned about Java one week before the official release of Java. Not official, the first demonstration of Java. So I was very lucky about that. And I was even luckier that I decided to follow that up. But honestly, when Java was released, man, it could have gone nowhere, right? And like other things, you know, I still have a bunch of Ginny books, right? So, you know, here among my friends, I was known as the Ginny guy because I really loved Ginny. For me, it was like such an amazing, innovative technology. I thought Ginny was going to explode. It never did. And then, I'm not sure if you remember, because I was this distributed software guy, right? So then Juxta came along. Have you ever heard of Juxta? Right. Most people haven't, have never heard of that, right? So Juxta was like the new Ginny kind of thing. And I just loved that, and I did lots of things with that. I don't even know what that is right now. Right. So, I mean, so there's all kinds of new things that can come along and disappear. And we don't actually have any insight of that, but here's how it works. What you should be doing is having a broad approach. You should be looking at things that are interesting to you. And then people say, "Oh yes, but then I have to learn everything." No, you don't. Right? You have to learn about everything. One of the best ways for you to keep up to date and keep looking at what's going on is you learn about it. So, you know, let's say Juxta just came along, right? And so let's go, that's an old technology, but, you know, let's say Juxta just came along. I don't know what it is, but then I can look and find out what it is. Oh, it's like, it's a distributed protocol that can be used. Okay, so cool. Right? So I know what it is. I know what to use it for. I know some of the advantages, some of the disadvantages. And, you know, that is something that you're going to learn in one reading of some documentation. Even though you don't go deep on it, you know about it, right? And so, you hear this one time, and then there's going to be another event or just somebody, a talk, and you're going to hear about it a second time and then a third time. And then it's okay. So, yeah, so that, that might be something I should be looking more into, right? But then save that, right? In your head or in your computer, wherever you want. Save that as something that you know about, right? Because knowing about means that you can learn more of it when you need it. And then if you find some place that that thing can be used, then you apply it, right? Even if it's a small thing, and then now you're learning it, right? But, if you know about lots of things, you're going to be way more prepared to decide what it is, when to use it, right? So. I don't know. I'm not sure, Chris, right now, you know, AI is like the big thing. I'm worried about AI for different reasons, but AI, it's one of the big things right now that the market is looking for. Tons and tons. I mean, we're in the AI bubble right now, right? There's tons and tons of AI startups. And so, sometime in the future, some of them are going to consolidate, some of them are going to disappear, right? But that's a huge opportunity, right? Because, you know, when startups get consolidated, they get acquired, right? So, that's a huge opportunity for a lot of people to do that, right? So, even though people say it's a bubble, I don't mind bubbles, man. I think the bubble's a great way for us to move ahead. And so, yeah. So that would be one thing to look into right now, but I think that's kind of cliché because everyone's talking about it right now, but knowing about things, I think that's going to be the big thing. Chris Engelbert: Right. Okay. That's, I think that's very fair. And as you said, I, also don't mind bubbles. You don't want to be in the bubble by the time it actually pops. You want to have made your money by that point. Right, exactly. Right. Last question, and then I let you go back to Brazil. Is there anything else you want to have the audience know about? I know there's a newsletter that comes out weekly, biweekly, whatever. Maybe tell, tell whatever you want to tell about it. Bruno Souza: Okay. Well, so, you know, if you guys want, can I give a book? Sure. All right. So, you know, we're talking about here, thinking about the future, thinking about your career, right? So. A book that I wrote, a tiny little book, is called The Best Developer Year, right? And so, it's a good way to enter the newsletter because you download the book and then you join the newsletter, right? And so if you go to jav.mn/best, you're going to get a free book, a short book that's very actionable, that's going to help you think about the future, right? So we're talking here about, you know, what is the next step, right? So, or how do I get a job or anything like that? The reality is that if you think about your career, you think about your focus, think about what you want to do, how far you want to get. So you think about those things, it's going to be a lot easier for you to think about your next steps. And go after the best jobs you want, go after the best technologies. You know, the best technology for you, it's probably not the best technology for me. Right? And so if you're thinking about what you really want to do, what you want to achieve, it's a lot easier for you to decide what is the thing you should follow, right? So this book is going to help you out. And then what happens, Chris, is that once you download the Best Developer Year book, you get into my newsletter that you mentioned, right? So in my newsletter, it's, I'm going to say almost daily, right? Because not every day I'm able to do it, but that's what I try, to give you some interesting insights, like a little bit every day. So, so you can, you know, I think career is this infinite game that we have to move forward a little bit every day. So, you know, I try to come up with interesting ideas, interesting things that you can apply, you know, that you can even do for your career every day. So, you know, sometimes I miss out, right? You know, I'm actually on hiatus right now because I was organizing the Developer's Conference that happened last week. And I was so crazy busy that I was not able to send as many daily emails as I like. Right. But, you know, I'm back now and you guys can expect me. But more than that, right? So once you join my newsletter, you get, you know, once you download the book, you get my email, and then I'm very open to answer your questions, anything that you have. Right? If there's anything that we didn't talk about here today, just send me an email, tell me your situation, and I'll be very happy to discuss it with you. Right? So, you know, that's one of the things that I do a lot, Chris, is I do these career conversations, right? So I sit down with people and I go deep in their careers, understanding what problems they have, and we try to make up a plan for people. Right? So, you know, if you need some help like this , let me know. And I'll be happy to figure out a way to help you out. Chris Engelbert: Awesome. You see, I didn't even realize, but it's almost daily because there's always something to read in it. It's certainly one of the better newsletters that I get. And I, as I said, I was not aware that it is basically a daily, or it's supposed to be a daily thing. All right. Bruno Souza: Let me say, it's not supposed to, right? I try to write as many emails as I can, right? But, you know, my goal is to be a daily email, right? And I miss out sometimes. All right. Chris Engelbert: Fair enough. I think that was by far the longest episode we've had so far. I'm sorry to the audience, but I hope the topic was super interesting. There is so much more to say about this. I already left questions out. As Bruno said, if you have questions, you know where the show notes are. We put the book and the newsletter signups in there. And if you have questions for him directly, you also know where to find him. So thank you very much for being an amazing guest. This is, I think, a conversation we could go on for hours and hours. I have so many more questions. But thank you for being here. Bruno Souza: Thanks so much, Chris. Thanks for the effort you're doing here. I think that bringing technology and good discussions to everyone is so good because we have so many amazing people in the community that can come here and talk about their experience and help people out. So thanks for doing this. And for you just watching us, sorry for the long episode, but thanks so much. It was great to be here with you. Chris Engelbert: Thank you very much, everyone at home. You know the spiel. Come back next week, same place, same time. And I hope you listen in again. Thank you very much. And don't forget to like, subscribe, all the random stuff that you're normally supposed to do.