#165 From hating coding to programming satellites at age 37 with Francesco Ciulla
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The best approach that you can have if you are an introvert who wants to share something on social media is not to feel introversion like a disease, like something that is stopping you, oh my god. No, you can just do stuff while you are an introvert. And introverts have great skills, it's just that they are inside.

When you accept your nature, you can do whatever you want. Welcome back to the Free Code Camp podcast, your source for raw, unedited interviews with developers. This week, we're talking with Francesco Ciola. He's a software engineer who worked at the European Space Agency on the code that powers the Copernicus satellite program. He's also published courses on Docker and the Rust programming language.

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Francesco Ciulla, welcome to the Free Code Camp Podcast.

Thank you so much, Quincy, for inviting me. I'm super excited that let's get started and let's talk about Rust and many more things. Yeah, and my first question for you is about Rust. So Rust, of course, is a high-performance programming language that a lot of people love. I think it's been voted the most loved programming language by the Stack Overflow annual developer survey for many years in a row. Why Rust?

Yes, thank you so much for this question, Quincy. I think Rust really found the right spot between the right developer experience, but also high performance. And usually high performance languages, they're always fascinating, like C and C++. They are very hard to die because people really want to

software and I think that Rust has something unique especially in the memory area so it helps you really to manage memory in the right way and

One of my predictions is that in the future we will have more programming languages that will use a similar memory structure. And also I really like the compiler. It's like an annoying grammar that is very picky on many things, but once it works, it's a very good program. And yes, so I've been creating Rust tutorials for a couple of years, but I've been...

coding in Rust for way longer and I think Rust is not the easiest programming language to learn that's why I'm here so to create the tutorials and make your life easy yeah yeah and I like how you compare the Rust compiler to kind of like an irritating grandma who is correct but it's like ah you're right grandma dang it

Now I've got to change my ways. My grandma would always, bless her heart, rest in peace, grandma. She would always tell me, you're going to come to regret doing that. And then I would have to reckon with that and ultimately change my ways. And she was always right. And the Rust compiler, similarly, is kind of trying to save you from doing things that you're going to ultimately regret. C++, you mentioned, that has been the go-to product

language for many, many decades at this point. Whenever you need to write something that has to run really fast and where you can really scrutinize the code and stuff, C++ has been the go-to. And recently Rust is starting to kind of like take that mantle to an extent because there have been a lot of C++ memory safety issues. I'm just going to mention a few real quick. One of them was definitely the Heartbleed open

Open SSL buffer overread, uh, that happened, uh, like 10 years ago. Um, there have also been issues with, uh, the Mars Mars Pathfinder, uh, like race conditions in that. And of course the most tragic of all, uh, was the Therac 25 radiation therapy machine where there was a race condition in the code, uh,

That would essentially caught like silently deliver many times the required dosage to a radiation therapy patient. Like if you're getting treated for cancer or something like that. And a lot of people were like, you know, killed by this. And it's very hard, uh, to prevent these kinds of, you know, buffer overflows and race conditions and things like that in C plus plus. And rust has, uh,

done a good job of like i guess mitigating those uh to a large extent uh just through like forcing you to program a certain way and and just having better uh better ways of ferreting that out when you're actually writing the code so you don't have to like discover after the fact oh yeah this is what killed all those cancer patients right so that may be one of the reasons why rust is suddenly surging in popularity you've been creating a lot of tutorials around rust

Yes, yes. I've been doing this for a while. And this really proves how software really now is in our lives. So now software really affects people's lives. Maybe it was not like that, like 40 years ago. But now everything is used behind some software. And so this is becoming something more, let's say, urgent. And probably we need to...

take care of this. Nothing against C++, of course, but there are some

some things that I'm coming up. And so rest, let's say has learned some mistakes done by other languages and being just a bit younger, you know, you can learn from others mistakes. Yeah. And one mistake that has personally affected you, you mentioned before, uh, we started recording that, uh, the crowd strike, uh, blue screen of death that they delivered to like millions of machines around the U S Europe everywhere. Uh,

ultimately caused you to like kind of ruin a vacation it sounds like it was not a vacation it was a it was a conference so i was in berlin for a conference and my flight has been cancelled so i had to come back by bus from berlin to rome which is about 2000 kilometers like 36 hours of bus

36 hours of bus. Wow. Something like that. Hey, CrowdStrike, where's Francesco's check? My goodness, what an inconvenience. And again, it's all caused... This is not caused by C++. I want to be clear. We're not pinning this on C++. This was just bad software engineering, practicing bad process management. But it just goes to show that...

Bad decisions in software can have substantial real world ramifications. Um, and, uh, so I, I think it's awesome that you're out teaching people best practices and how to avoid those sorts of situations. And I want to dive further into your crazy story of how you became a software engineer because you were not always a software engineer. Maybe you can go back and like, you know, I mentioned this in the intro, but, but you worked as a volleyball coach for like 20 years, uh,

Right. You came to software pretty late in life. And I'm very interested in hearing about your upbringing in Rome, Italy, where you still live to this day and your journey into software engineering.

Yes, of course. So when I was a child, I had a Commodore 64. Maybe it's better to speed up a little bit. I had one too. I was very fortunate. My parents were able to provide me with a computer that was like a Commodore 64 Amiga. Yes, I still have a Commodore 64 T-shirt that I forgot to wear, but anyway...

Let's say I've been coding for a while. I also did a C course when I was 14 in high school. The main purpose was to impress a girl. It didn't work at all, of course, but at least this is how I started handling these efficient programming languages. And then, yes, I also made some basic HTML and CSS stuff. This was many years ago.

Then I, and then I, when I was 15, I became a volleyball coach. You know, when you are 15 and probably you don't know what to do with your life. I think barely I know now. Um, so I ended up by say teaching volleyball since I was 15, 16. And this has been my job for almost 20 years, 18 years. I also would like to mention it in the meanwhile, I was also doing some

private lessons also because both of my parents are teachers so my mom is a math teacher my father is a gym teacher gym instructor so I've been teaching for my whole life like math chemistry physics high school let's say things so

This has been my life. Let's say now we let's fast forward. I was, I was doing a CS degree, but in the meanwhile, I was still working as a volleyball coach. Even when I did my first, let's say internship, I was still doing like half, you know, half life was like volleyball coach and half life was learning thing and learning programming. Now I have to make a confession, Quincy.

I didn't like coding. So I liked the math, call me crazy, but I liked the math and algorithm parts, but I didn't like, like, you know, getting my hands dirty with code, which for someone who is doing a CS degree, it's like, what are we doing here? Maybe you did something wrong with your life. And I had this issue for many years. So I had this issue for a while.

And then in 2015, it was exactly 10 years ago, I made a post some days ago. This is funny because I made an exam at the university and the exam went pretty well. But then the professor said, he saw the coding part and said like,

Francesco, you were doing great on the theory and the stuff, but the coding part is not nice. You will never be a programmer. I still remember. You said you will never be a programmer? Exactly. I still remember this crystal clear. And then I remember me driving back home. By the way, I passed the exam, so it was not a complete mess.

But, you know, something like light up in my mind. You know, when you have these, like there are some phrases that something that happens in your life, it really triggers you so much. And I remember me while driving home,

And I consciously decided to learn programming. So remember me sitting at the computer saying, okay, now I want to learn programming. I still had some exams left for the university. But you know what, Quincy? For someone who's doing a lot of sports and running and people screaming with balls, sitting at the computer with coding can be a bit boring. Can you say that? Yeah, there's a big contrast. Yeah.

There's a big contrast between the physicality of the real world of playing volleyball or teaching people and all that, and then just the quiet of sitting there with a computer typing and waiting for the computer to respond. Yeah, I was not really used to sit at the computer, except for gaming, of course. So...

Yes. So I remember I said, okay, now I want to learn programming. How can I do that? What's the less boring way to do that? And I decided to learn probably in the worst possible way, which is with game development. So I installed like Unity 3D and I started learning in C sharp, total different language.

But even if that was probably not the best ideal choice, I started to do something that I really liked. So I started coding like 14 hours a day, 12 or 14 hours a day. And I really started to get in love with programming. And this has been really when my life started to change because then, you know, I found all the possibilities I learned online.

everything about REST API, the internet, how it works, like in the practical way, not just the theory that you learn in the university. Because you had a reason to do it because you needed to be able to build your game. So it was like project-oriented learning. Exactly. And this is how, for example, how I discovered Docker back in 2016 because I said, okay, now I want to create a backend for the database for this game. How can I deploy this somewhere?

and i ended up like learning docker but this was like nine nine years ago ten years ago and that's been fascinating but the technology the fact that now i am docker captain for example now it's for me it's it's mind-blowing but it started with a real software a real issue this is how i got into the devops stuff by solving my own problems which i think is the best way because

When you try to solve your own problems, you really have some issues and you are very interested into learning things. Not just learning because, you know, your teacher is telling you to do that. And so, yes, so basically my life started to change. In 2017, I completed my CS degree and then something happened. Basically, I was not actually looking actively for a job.

But I was one of the professors of the university sent me an email. I never had like any full time role as a developer. And he said, Francesco, would you like to try to get into the European Space Agency as a full stack developer?

I thought it was a joke. So I replied... I mean, that's like the pinnacle of engineering. Just to put things in perspective. Yes, you've got your SaaS startups. I worked at a small SaaS, software as a service type tech startup. And those jobs are relatively easy to get. And then you've got getting into Google, things like that. And then you've got getting into NASA. Essentially, we're talking about European NASA. Yeah, yeah. I've worked with... So...

The fun fact is that I thought that that was really a joke. So I said to the professor, like, okay, so now what's the real reason why you sent me an email? Like, no, no, no, there is an actual reason. And so my first idea was to just don't go because I never had like a full-time role. But then I said, you know what? I will need to find a full-time role anyway. So

what could go wrong let's go to this interview so at least I will start learning the process of an interview and everything will be fine so I had zero expectations for this interview

So I went by car, went by car, and then I started to have this conversation. Luckily, many questions, they were related to Git, learn Git, and then Docker, which I was really in love for a while. And then, you know,

I was so confident that I would not have started working there that maybe the person who was interviewing me, they thought it was just like, this person is really confident. There's no hesitation. So they observe your resignation as confidence. It's such a funny fire to cross. This happens, for example, to some actors. When you really don't care about something, you just do the thing, but you are not anxious about the output. I was really relaxed. I can say I was really relaxed there.

The fact is that a few days later, I started working there. So I was actually working there and I worked on a very interesting project called

Copernicus project. I've been coding mostly in Python, despite what people might think on Twitter. Sometimes there are the jokes, Twitter versus JavaScript, sorry, JavaScript versus Python. And so I basically have been doing this job for three years and a half. And the last thing I would like to mention is that

I still remember when I sit on that station, when I started working there,

I felt a bit sad because I said, now that I am a full stack developer, I will never be a teacher again. And I was really started to miss that because before I was, I was like teaching volleyball, teaching math, teaching chemistry. So for a while, I felt a bit sad because I said, I will never teach anymore. And if you are a teacher, you probably know what I'm talking about. You, you,

For you, teaching is like a mission. So it's like something I would have missed for my whole life. And I remember having this issue for a period, like teaching people what I know.

And this is probably how I got into, let's say, social media and stuff. And then we can follow, we can keep going for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so what you said about teaching being, you know, a mission, a calling, like,

it's hard to switch that off. Like I'm a teacher. I worked as a, as a teacher for about 10 years and as a school director teaching English as a second language running schools. And for me, like that's just part, a core part of your identity. You have this innate desire to share knowledge and to encourage people to pursue knowledge. And that is baked right into the ethos of free code camp. The organization we're all about propagating knowledge,

you know, best practices in programming and conventions and, and, you know, trying to teach people as,

time efficiently as we can and really like apply all the theory. Like you can go read tons of academic articles and you can take that and you can bake that right into your curricula. And it's amazing to see like it playing out in real life. Like, Oh, this, this thing that they're talking about hypothetically in this academic journal, we've like implemented it and it actually works. We can see the work, how it works in our analytics and stuff like that. Right. So I can definitely resonate with that, that like,

kind of like the death of your career as a teacher is what it felt like at the time. Uh, because you've been doing this for so long. You, you said you've been, uh, tutoring math, teaching math, teaching chemistry, and then of course teaching and coaching volleyball. Um, so, uh,

At this point, you've been working at the European Space Agency or like on this project. I know it's like probably a whole lot of different contractors and like it's a huge organization. But you've been doing this for like three years or so. And is that when the teacher bug started calling and creeping back in like, oh, you got to go share this knowledge that you're learning?

Yes. So let's, now let's fast forward to one of the most important moments of my life, which has been the beginning of 2020. So in 2020, I,

I started being a bit more active on social media. By the way, I really hated social media before. For me, social media was just social media equal waste of time. This was like my equation for me. I really didn't see anything good in doing anything related to social media and creating videos and so on. And so remember, in 2020, I started being a bit more active on Twitter. Sorry, now it's called Xer.

And then I think in March 2020, I made a post which was part of my story, which is like three years ago.

I got, I've been rejected for not remember SQL commands for an internship. This was part of the journey. And now I'm working on Landsat 8 with some NASA programmer. So it's like, I wanted to show like how my life really changed. Fun fact, I did that tweet while I was just working at NASA.

at work. I was actually doing that, but it was not like plant or schedule. It was something, you know. You're just sitting there working and you're like, I feel like tweeting about this. I just parked in before going to work and then I made this post and then I started to work again.

When at lunch, I checked that post, it had like 3,000 likes. I had like 500 followers at some moment. So it's like, what's going on? What is this? People went absolutely crazy and shared this. They started sharing their stories.

And so I said, okay, this was the 5th of March. I said, okay, maybe there is something good on social media. I can connect with more developers. I basically joined the tech Twitter before I knew it was called like that. So I said, okay, let's just connect with developers and focus on this.

And then I will see. And then I will still probably do something. Now, we know that two days later, if you're watching this maybe in some decades, probably you don't know what COVID is. But COVID happened. And also in Italy, we had a very, very strong lockdown, especially for some days. Italy suffered...

Because we were one of the first. Early on. Yeah, you were one of the first hit. We had no idea, and we are not famous for being organized people. So the thing is that suddenly I forgot to mention that I was doing two hours commute every day, basically. Two hours? Yeah, one hour to go and one hour to come back. So I had like a very strong commute. That's like an American-sized commute. Exactly. Yeah.

And then I started working from home. And then basically I finally had way more free time, time to organize myself. I couldn't do much during the weekends because everything was in lockdown. So I decided to dedicate more time on social media. And then I wrote my first article, let's say, in that period.

And I remember that when I released that article, that by the way has been watched by 10 people, something like that, I really felt the teaching, let's say, blood, let's say, flowing again in my veins. So...

I really felt like the potential of teaching to people again. And I felt so good, Quincy, that I still remember that feeling. And so I decided to dedicate more time on showcasing what I know and what I can do. Because before that, I was absolutely 100% locked in learning code, watching tutorials, doing more stuff. I was...

I was learning during the evenings, during nights. So I was absolutely locked in. But then I saw, okay, maybe it's time to start showing up something. And then something good started to happen to me that I also started my YouTube channel in August. And it was a really long process for me, like,

I wanted to start a YouTube channel like 15 years ago and I started five years ago because I was really stuck into like the fear of judgment, we can say. So now I can say this. So everybody experiences this.

I'm not good enough to be taking people's time, even on a place like social media where people's time is basically there. Most people, like a lot of people are on social media really to waste time, to escape from reality and just scroll through something on a lunch break or something like that. And, uh,

And so I'm not even good enough to be worthy of taking that time. And I've certainly felt that. And I think most people who put themselves out there really in any capacity have that apprehension that like, I'm not good enough and, uh, people are going to just shrug and they're going to keep going like, uh, or, or worse, they're going to heckle me or something like that. Right? Yes. Yes, absolutely. And yes. And so, uh,

And so basically this is how I started. And then I started doing some running videos because I also love, love running and exercising yet.

And then I started doing some series when basically I interviewed 100 people in 100 days. Quincy Larson has been one of the 100 honorable men. Yeah, I remember that. Thank you for that opportunity. No, thank you so much for coming. I remember being very anxious about interviewing you because I wanted everything to be...

to be, to be done very well. And I had less than a thousand subscribers. So thank you so much for Quincy for believing in me. Yeah. And for perspective, I think you've got like more than 200,000. So I did something in the meanwhile, but, uh, you know, but, but,

And the beginning is very hard because the beginning, it's very hard. You even have no idea how many things you need to set and to work on to get something meaningful, I would say, even to build an audience. So, yeah. Yeah. Okay, so...

at this point you've kind of like tapped into the fact that, okay, like people actually do care and they do find benefit in the things I'm sharing. And, and that's the thing that anybody who's out there that is thinking about, you know, creating programming tutorials, uh, and publishing them on YouTube or even just creating pithy, um, you know, thoughts about programming and posting them on, on Twitter, blue sky threads, wherever, you know, it's all fragmented now. Um, like,

That is, Oh, Oh, LinkedIn. I think it is probably actually the most effectual place that I've found to post these days. Um, because people are actually using LinkedIn. Um, that is something that you should not be daunted is what I'm taking away from this. Francesco is that if people are listening and they do want to put themselves out there that yes, they're going to have a little voice in their head. You're not good enough or people are going to, they're all going to laugh at you, right? That's the Adam Sandler thing. Um,

But that's not necessarily the case. In fact, what is most likely to happen is you're going to be met with indifference initially. And then eventually you're going to be met with people that are like, oh, yeah, this jives with me. Like this resonates. So how would you if let's say hypothetically somebody's out there and they're on the fence, they're writing code, they're getting things done. Maybe they're hustling, trying to find a good developer job in this relatively adverse situation.

job market right now. Maybe they are trying to just at the beginning of their coding journey, but they want to share it. They want to learn in public and share their passage and stuff. What tips would you give somebody if they want to start putting themselves out there using, you know, the many, many social media channels that are available?

Yeah, I like to make a main analogy with sports. So let's say that you want to get ready for a box match. You will never be absolutely ready because you never know what is going to happen there. And this is the same for all the sports out there. You'll never be ready. You can train a lot, but you'll never be. You'll never feel more ready. And the problem is that the more...

expert you become the more you probably know that you know nothing because if you start getting more expert in a field you know okay now I know absolutely nothing about DevOps now I know that I know absolutely nothing because now I discovered so many tools and so many things that how I know

Probably the only moment when you feel that you know everything is when you are just getting started. Yes. That includes your hypothesis, right? Yes. Anyway, I'm sorry. I'll stop interrupting you. But just for people who are unfamiliar with this phenomenon, it's totally normal to feel very confident initially and then you reach like the peak of disillusionment. Yeah. And then you start to realize, oh, damn. Like I'm just like a little boat in a giant ocean. Yeah.

Yes, and I like what you said, that there are so many platforms, I think too many platforms. So my suggestion is to do less. So don't start from zero. It's like a person who is never going to a gym can't go to a gym seven days a week for four hours. This is not possible. It's a process. If you are going to...

From zero to hitting the gym every day, after two weeks, three weeks if you're stubborn, you just stop because then you can't keep the pace. Yeah. So my suggestion is to do less. So choose one platform, choose one format, and go with that for, but not for three days, for six months, for an extended amount of time.

And then you can move. For example, I've been active on Twitter on X actively for six months before starting making YouTube videos. So, because probably if I would have started everything at once, I would say, okay, this is too much. So, uh, I'm, I'm a great believer of being consistent, but also do something sustainable on social media. I'm a great, huge fan of sustainability on social media platforms because I,

And because I'm not that young that I've been living before social media. So I, but I can understand that some newer generations for them, social media is something for granted that it's just there for me to always sound something a bit new because let's say I was already like a teenager when they started to show up for me. And so I would say never, never,

never get used by social media, but use social media to do your own stuff and do less. I don't know you, Quincy, but when I remove stuff, when I say, okay, now I don't want to make videos. I want to just make articles for three months. Usually I have the best output. When I try to spread too much content,

After a while, I said, okay, now I'm doing too much and then I need to remove stuff. So my tip is to focus on a format and then ask for feedback for like months, not just two weeks. And then you will see. Until you never try to create a tech tutorial, you will never even know what the output will be. So my suggestion is to do them

just as part of your daily routine

but don't get too stressed because the worst output I think it would be, and I have some friends who sadly, they just stopped being active on social media because they sort of burn out on social media. I can understand, I can understand getting like burned out in coding because it can be a mental stress, but getting burned out on social media, it means that probably you use them maybe too much for a while. And then you say, now I don't, I can't open that social media anymore. So,

My suggestion is to just use them a bit less and with intention, but for months. And then you will see the output. For sure, you will have some good feedback. I forgot to mention that when I started being active on social media, it was not to influence people or to do the Vrel or something like that.

Because I created an app, an Android app. And then I made that, by the way, it was a periodic table. Just a very old idea. A periodic table app. Okay. And DevRel, by the way, is developer relations. Yeah. It's kind of like a hybrid teaching slash software engineering role at a company. Yes, yes. And so basically when I started using social media...

I did that to ask feedback for this application because, you know, once I let all my friends and all my relatives to know about this application, what can I do? I don't have like a marketing budget. So I started being active

on social media to showcase this application. This is how I also, I got some friends by sharing these. So, uh, this is, I think is the best and more healthy way to, to start, uh, acting in the proper way on, on social media. And of course, best of luck, uh,

And probably the best would be to focus on something. So, I don't know, like I'm doing now. Focus on Rust or focus on React or focus on open source. Yeah, or Docker is something you've done a very excellent job of teaching Docker. Because I do this very intentionally. And I can even switch a topic because that's absolutely fine. This is how life works.

but for an extended amount of time period of time you should focus on something that's the best way to let's say get some attention so but it doesn't have to start like that i think our first piece of content it can be whatever i did running videos my first 10 videos on youtube i

Because I couldn't speak on YouTube. Now, probably you'll say, no, Francesco, it's not true. I couldn't say a single word on a YouTube video because I felt too stressed. So I said, okay, so I let my legs to speak for me. So I just did that for 10 minutes. But at least I started.

Yeah. And then I, now I do whatever I want the podcast with Quincy Larson and so on. No big deal. So, um, just to recap what you're saying, first of all, that's really cool how you kind of baby stepped it in with running videos where you didn't have to talk to me because obviously Francesco, you are a non-native English speaker. You're an Italian speaker who has adopted, uh,

Like the language of like the, the Anglophone realm, which is a lot of countries like, you know, Nigeria, South Africa, uh, United States, the UK, uh, Australia, India, like lots of countries use English, but you had to like learn that as a second language and, uh, you know, kind of like learn, uh,

how to communicate in that way. And so that's like just an additional layer of difficulty that many people listening to this may not have to face. But, um, yeah, so you started and also the cultural differences. I'm not going to just pretend that Italy and the United States are the same. They're probably dramatic cultural differences between the two. Uh,

So you got to also take that in account as well, that like Italy is a pretty big country, but like the total addressable market, if you're talking with in English is, you know, billions of people, right? It's like everybody in India, it's everybody in the United States, everybody, uh, like a lot of people in Europe, they have excellent, uh, English education in Germany and Sweden, places like that too. So, uh, but I guess the, the main takeaway from what I, what you said, uh,

Using social media just as a tool to get the word out, not getting too invested in it and starting simple, starting with a single channel. And when I, when I say channel, I mean in like the marketing terms, like you could consider LinkedIn as a channel. You could center, consider tick tock as a channel, right? Like there are different places where you can post content.

instructional content. And, uh, again, like the way I look at these platforms is they're mostly used for, you know, wasting time and like entertaining yourself with cat videos and stuff like that. That's the, that's the classic stereotype of social media, but it can be used for anything, right? That it is a general purpose tool, a free code camp approach YouTube, where people are mostly creating like one, you know, 10 minute, like listicle type videos. Um, and we started publishing, um,

10 hour videos on like Python development and stuff like that. And like, YouTube was like, what's going on? Why are you doing this? Like, why are you just posting giant videos? I'm like, well, cause it works. People want a giant video. They don't want like a whole bunch of playlists and have to like jump around and stuff like that. Like we, we figured out, uh,

our lane on YouTube was to create these comprehensive courses and to go as in-depth as we want to and not worry about like runtime and things like that. Uh, and not worry about like, okay, we got to keep things super entertaining so people won't jump away when the commercial break starts or something like that. We didn't even have ads the first few years. And then YouTube changed the terms of service and said that they would basically run ads regardless of whether you monetize your channel. So we decided to go ahead and monetize it. But, um, just, just a little bit of free cocaine history. Um,

But essentially you're saying focus on just a few topics, focus on a few channels and do that for several months and don't quit your day job. You didn't quit your day job immediately to like, Oh, I'm going to be a social media influencer right now. You were like,

I'm going to just do these while I'm working my day job writing code for the power satellites and continuing to learn. And a lot of it was probably learning in public as you were learning, as you were getting like this. What did you say? I know you're one of the most prolific Docker instructional content creators.

And you have some status within the Docker community. And you also have some status within the Microsoft community for what you're doing in terms of teaching people how to use their tools as well. Maybe you could talk a little bit about that. How did you get ensconced in these various developer communities? Yes. So basically, you asked about how I get into, for example, the Docker community, for example. Yeah.

Yeah, this is very interesting because when I started learning Docker, I was watching YouTube videos of DockerCon, which is basically the yearly event of Docker. And then I remember when I was active on social media, I was trying to find my niche or find what I really would like to share about. And my first idea was...

back in 2020 in January, it was to share Docker stuff. But then I said, I thought, maybe that's a bit too niche. Let's try to do something more broader. So I tried to adapt a bit. But after some months, exactly when I started the YouTube channel, I decided to focus way more on Docker. Because I said, okay, even if I get three likes, I don't care. I just want to share what I like now.

And you know what? When I started doing that, people really started to feel the enthusiasm and the, let's say, that I really love. When you teach something to really love, people can say that. I think we can all agree on this. So I started doing this on a daily basis. I think it was August 2020.

In June 2021, the DockerCon was online. And then I did something a bit crazy. I'm used to do something crazy sometimes. And basically, I watched the whole DockerCon like 10 hours in a row live. You watched the entire...

Things you sat there and watched it? That was just the beginning. Then basically, no, that was just, that was the easy part. Then I edited the whole 10 hours of DockerCon into 20 minutes. So probably if you are an editor, you know what I'm talking about. And then basically, by editing these and publishing these, Docker noticed me.

And they proposed me to become a Docker captain. And so I got, like, involved in the whole Docker community. I'm sorry. One second. Yeah, so the entire Docker community, which...

You know, Docker, of course, is like the theme is these containers. I'll tell a very quick history of Docker. So like for a long time, there were people that worked on the short, like longshoremen. I think there are still these people. But if you ever watch this amazing, amazing movie from the 1950s, I think, maybe 1960s, it's called On the Waterfront. It's got Marlon Brando and he's a longshoreman and like kind of like

uh, failed boxer. And, and what they did was they like moved all the cargo, uh,

off the ships and they had to like manually pick up these big boxes and carry them off and stuff. And then at one point they invented the shipping container and that made all the difference in terms of like modernizing. Like now they could just use a big machine to pick up the shipping container and unloaded ships much faster. We load ships much faster. So the storage container, that is the idiot that, that is kind of like the, uh, the idiom, I guess the analogy that, uh, Docker uses for being able to have like an environment where you can spin something up,

and everything is exactly how you configured it. Like it's, it's like a virtual machine that has everything pre-configured, whether that's your environment, uh, in terms of like development or whether that's your production environment or something like that, you can have everything perfectly captured and,

in this image. And then you spin it up in a container and then you access volume for data storage and everything like that. And Docker, right? So Docker Captain is kind of like if you've seen the movie Captain Phillips. I am the captain now. Look at me. Classic line. But basically you're the captain of the cargo ship. Yeah.

Yes. And of course, and now some people think that this is like a title that I gave to myself for just to look good, but no, that's actually their ambassador program. It's called like that. And those are, they're basically volunteers who creates, uh, um, and they amplify Docker, um,

Nokia releases and so on, they are not paid again. But for example, they get access to some features before anyone else or they get involved into even giving the first feedback. I think they have a very great

master program at Docker. So this is how I got involved into the whole Docker community, which I think it's a very great one. I also had the honor to go to Los Angeles, I think two years ago, to the last DockerCon. I've also been a speaker there, so this was really a great... Wow, so teaching Docker took you all the way to Los Angeles. Yeah.

Where undoubtedly on the waterfront was conceived and created. Sorry, I'm just trying to break this one circle. Exactly. Yeah, but I think this really shows Quincy how if we do something with passion in coding, we can go very, very far. So if even this Italian boy with a funny accent can make it to Los Angeles at DockerCon, I think that it's time for you even to start sharing your

more stuff offline and being like at the beginning can be a bit hard, but, uh, it can really something really great can happen to you. And I will not call luck at that point, but just putting the effort to, uh,

put something out instead of just, uh, absorbing stuff and, uh, and learning, which is still super fine. But, um, I think that, um, this really changed my life. We can say, yeah. Yeah. And I'll just quickly stump for learning in public. Um,

taking things you're learning and recapitulating them, teaching them. That's like the best way to solidify your own learning. Einstein himself said, if you can't explain a concept to a five-year-old, you yourself don't sufficiently understand that topic. And that is a great way to check your comprehension. Check your knowledge of a topic is to try to create, you know, a,

one minute YouTube short or to talk about like explaining that concept is simply as possible. Um, and in the, and in the process, not only are you reinforcing your own learning by teaching, but you are also putting out an artifact of,

that people can find and that will bolster your reputation as being somebody who knows something about this. This is a perfect example. If you've read my book, just Google learn to code book and you'll find, you know, the Quincy Larson's how to learn to code and get a developer job book. But I talk about this a whole lot in their reputation being one of the three things

uh, kind of legs of the stool. The others being, you know, actual skill. That's the most important one and network. Uh, so reputation, uh, you already had this reputation as being somebody in the know of Docker and you got, you know, flown out to Los Angeles and you got to talk at Docker com. It's awesome. That's a, that's a real world kind of encapsulation of that advice that I frequently share.

Perfect. Great, great. And I can say that I also had a lot of fun in doing this because if you get involved in a community about a topic that you really like, you know, it's like going to where people meet that they all love manga or they all love anime. So it would be a great event for you if you already are a fan of that technology or if you are...

maybe learning that countless amount of hours sitting in a corner alone at home and then you can do something a bit more like

So like this conference, for example. Yeah. And you identify as an introvert. You've told me you, you enjoy spending time on the computer, even though, as you said, it's not as exciting as being at the volleyball court with a big game going on and trying to amp up your players so that they can perform with their best as a coach. What is it about being an introvert and being a programmer? Like, like, has that been a struggle for you to put yourself out there?

Yes. So first of all, I have always been an introvert. I am sure about that. The problem is that I thought I was one of the few people who were like that, even when I switched to tech.

When I made some polls, like how do you feel like in tech, like 70, 80% of the people, they consider themselves introverts. So first of all, this makes me like feel a bit better. At least I'm not, not alone. Like even sometimes at some, I made a talk, which is like introverted developers on social media, which is exactly about this. So about this, this topic, um,

And I remember that at some point when I started making videos, one of my friends, he said to me that they sent me a message and said like, Hey, Francesco, um, I remember you were an introvert and look at you now. Look at what are you? So I remember that this is another, uh, like sentence that really triggers me. So I usually, I like to walk a lot. So that sentence of like,

Saying to me, like, Francesco, you were an introvert and look at you now. Okay, so what's wrong with this? Like, why is this person thinking that I'm not an introvert anymore? So when you show up, you stop being yourself. You just become another person. So I ended up deciding that I would have started to speak a bit more about this. This took me, like, 20 years. So here is this tip about this interview.

The best approach that you can have if you are an introvert who wants to share something on social media is not to feel introversion like a disease, like something that is stopping you. Oh, my God. No, it's you can just do stuff while you are an introvert. And introverts, I have great experience.

skills, it's just that they are inside, but you can do everything by being yourself. You don't have to be someone else. And probably you can connect with other people who have your same skills. You have the same, same mindset. And this allowed me to keep going on YouTube, doing things like that, public speaking. So I

When you accept your nature, you can do whatever you want. You have no more problems or feeling issues that you don't feel like confident about doing something that you don't feel like, uh, uh, that you can do something because, uh, you lack something or you should be someone else. No, you can be yourself and do, and do your own stuff. So this really helped me. I also made a talk. I also made some,

like introversion is not shyness, it's something different. And it's just the way how we, let's say, see the world and how we engage with the world. That's it. Yeah. And I just want to echo, like beautifully said, when you accept your nature, you can do whatever you want. Introversion is not shyness. It is just the need to, like the way I perceive it, is needing to recharge your batteries. I love spending time by myself.

I've got a house that has kids and a pet cat that always jumps on my head when I'm sleeping and a wife. And then I've got my in-laws whom I hang out with over the summer in Asia. And then I've got my parents here that are not a far drive and they're frequently coming to town or we're going up to see them. And that is all great and everything. But what I really like to do for fun is just go and walk around the nearby pond

Or go and just go do mall walking and listen to podcasts and stuff like that and just be by myself. And that is what helps me recharge the batteries so that I can do things like

Getting on a podcast and interviewing, I guess, a fellow introvert, Francesco here. Yes. I just define myself now as a jacked introvert. So now, for example, I can do two hours of interviews. I can do a three hours conference. But this doesn't change my nature. I still lose energy. But since I'm very well trained now, I lose energy at a very slower pace. But I still...

lose it even during now but now I'm enjoying it because also it also depends on the environment you are so yeah it's like it's like learning to hold your breath like humans cannot breathe underwater we don't have gills but we can hold our breath for quite a while and we can swim for quite a while and if you're a fan of one piece you can even have like a sword fight underwater and win while you're a human fighting against a fish man so

Sorry for anybody who doesn't care about one piece, but I thought that was awesome when Zorro fought Hori underwater. So let's dive into some takeaways for other people that are potentially introverts who are...

in a situation where they do probably benefit from putting themselves out there. I think one of the biggest mistakes you can make as a developer is just to focus on your skills exclusively and not cultivate your reputation, not cultivate your network. I know nobody likes the term network. Nobody likes networking, but that is a fact of life. Humans are social creatures and who you know is important and who knows you, who knows of you, that is also important.

especially when you're working as a freelance dev, which you've been doing. You've been doing freelance dev work and freelance DevOps. I want to talk about kind of general strategies that you have for people who may find going out and doing all this social stuff exhausting. How would you approach that if, like, let's say hypothetically you were parachuting into a new city, nobody knew who you were, and you had to start from scratch? Yeah.

Yes, absolutely. By the way, I am one of those people who still finds this exhausting. I think the best way to put yourself out is to...

do this in a gradual and consistent way so it's it's very similar to exercising it's very similar to to running it's very similar you even go out of breath like when you're anxious if you go if you go on on a stage on a talk for the first time you go out of breath it's like when you go for a run for the first time so there are some analogies so i think that the most important part is to

be yourself because this is a cliche but because if you try to do something very different from your persona from who you are then you need to keep going with that character who is not you and then probably this will put a lot of stress out I don't mean that we have to share everything we do in our life but I think the best way is to

share things that you are doing. And sometimes people, they ask me, like, how can I do, what's the best way? I think the best way is to start from what you are doing and then sharing. Are you currently, I don't know, learning how Kubernetes clusters, they work? Share something. Share something about that. You can create an article. You can, for example, you can even create connections with people

and platforms that you have been using. For example, have you been using FreeCodeCamp to learn something? Great. Share on social media that you are using the tutorial, that you completed the tutorial, that you got a very cool certificate. These are things that usually, if you're an introvert...

You don't feel the urge to share this because introverts, they like to keep things for themselves. If you see something cool, say, okay, this is cool.

Instead, you should do that extra step. Say, okay, I completed our course on FrequentCamp on the basic HTML. Share it on social media that you have done it. That's the best way. It doesn't have to be complicated. People don't expect a full crash course from zero of you. Probably nobody will watch it because they don't know you. So, again, something sustainable is

share things because once you start sharing something that you did on Freakout Camp, for example, I'm not saying this because you are here, but because it's a very good example, you start connecting with people who are learning on Freakout Camp. People, maybe you created the article on Freakout Camp. So you start doing the connection in the best genuine way. That's the best way. It doesn't have to be

You don't have to do a traversing media crash course in the first time you go online. No, you should start from what you like and the technologies that you like. So you start connecting with people in that area or or even better, you start connecting with people who are learning the same things.

Even better, you can find a job related to what you are learning. If you keep sharing that you are learning React and then you got, I don't know, a very first small gig or job,

And then you start sharing this and people will congratulate you. For example, when I found, I have no regrets in life, but for example, when I got my first job for the European Space Agency, I was not active on social media. I couldn't share it on social media. I didn't even have the idea. That probably would have been a very nice post because I would have been connected with those people. So,

Use social media when you want to share something, when you want to do something. Because then people will see, okay, this person is proficient with React. Next time that I will have one of my friends who is looking for a React developer, they will come up in your mind.

And that's, this is very powerful. And, and I'm saying, and I find it funny that I'm here advocating for this because I didn't believe in this. I didn't believe in like advocating for people who heard about them online. I was not a believer. So I'm here now trying to convince you, you were basically the me like five years ago. So,

And even if I'm not a huge fan of the word networking, I can say that connecting with those people will help you. I got many jobs. Even one of my friends on Twitter, he offered me a job and I started working from him.

i think it was the first of april 2021 people thought it was an april's fall but it was true i just started working on the first of april or the job for daily dev i interviewed the ceo on my youtube channel so you never know what opportunities will come up at you but if you start you know connecting with people trying to do meaningful activities

Then you'll get the lucky. That's it. And I'll just add like one thing that I found to be helpful is if you're not ready to do big public posts on your LinkedIn profile or create like a YouTube channel or something like that,

Join other people's discords, join other people's, uh, like if you can get invited to like group chats, like just text message group tests. That's how a lot of people communicate. Now there's been kind of a migration off of the big social media platforms into like these smaller enclaves. If you can get it active in those, you can build good relationships over time with,

And over time is an operative thing. Like it takes a while to earn people's trust. It takes a while to build up genuine understanding of who these other people you're hanging out with are. And don't rush these things and don't get discouraged. Just keep putting in the time would be my humble advice. So one thing I want to talk about, Francesco, is the fact that you are a freelance DevOps consultant. Yes.

You help organizations with their DevOps, their infrastructure, make decisions around cloud and things like that. And I wanted to dive a little bit into what your day-to-day workflows are like when you work with a client and you help them with DevOps.

Yes, sure. So I've been doing this for a while, of course. And now I'm doing this also in the meanwhile, while I'm also doing all the social media and content stuff, but I still enjoy doing this. And I found them both from people here, companies here in Rome, but also abroad. So it happened many, many times. I can say that...

For sure, being a Docker captain helps me a lot because it gives like instant... That's instant, let's say... Credibility, yeah. I mean, they've stamped you. They've said, you are a legit person who knows Docker. I know some stuff. Otherwise... So that's probably something that helped me a lot. And...

To be honest, I really find fascinating all the cloud ecosystem because it's less related to a single technology. So this is why I like, for example, all the Docker and DevOps stuff because you don't have to learn that specific JavaScript framework. It probably will disappear in six months, but it's something more...

It gives you more like the big picture of how the things work. So this is personal. Some people might say, for example, I don't like CSS. Now, don't hate me. But for example, it's just a different way of thinking. So for example, I'm not a huge fan of design, even if I've done this in the past. This is something that I like to do more often.

and I can say that probably... like... working on those parts... really helped me... even to understand something... which is replicable... so this is how I found... let's say... many interesting jobs... and if you like it... if you like all this ecosystem... and orchestration... I know many people... who have been working in this area...

And I think that if you create even some tutorials on how this could be done, I think it is the best way even. If you create, for example, tutorials on clusters, Docker, Kubernetes...

Once you find a potential client, you don't have to showcase yourself. You already have everything online. You got all these artifacts. The proof is already out there. You don't have to prove anything. Everything is already there and you can showcase all your skills without doing this, I don't know, in an anxious interview. But you can say, okay, I've done this, I've done that. So,

This is probably how you can find some jobs. And again, I never feel like anyone else is like a competitor. So I like to be connected to all the DevOps people. I think that I am connected with all the DevOps people working in DevOps in the world. So that's great. And I think, Quincy, this is something that I really love about the software engineers is

they see less competitors to each other compared to other jobs and other areas when the competition is really, really hard. So don't feel afraid to be connected with people who do your same things and probably you will find even some good collaborations, maybe even a small company, who knows. So that's my advice to find some jobs in the boops and freelancing area. Okay, so just to recap,

Don't worry about competition. Don't even necessarily think of competition. Competition is something that is relevant if you're literally competing for a finite pie, like government contracts. For example, you're applying for government contracts and the government has a certain amount of money that they're going to allocate to your satellite project or something like that, and you're like an aerospace contractor or something like that. That's an example of...

a fixed pie. But if you think about all the companies out there that could potentially save money and dramatically reduce the complexity by moving to the cloud or updating the way in which they use the cloud to spend a whole lot less money or be able to increase the rate at which they can deliver new builds and stuff like that or just...

Like there's so much savings to be had that it's not like a, it's not a scarcity thing. The pie can just keep growing, right? You're like discovering new parts of pie, if you will. Um, so one of the ways you can do that is being friends with everybody else who's doing it. And there's a good chance that a lot of these people hit like,

their limit as far as what they can do. This is one of the unspoken, I'm sure it's spoken, but freelancers are busy. They've got a lot of work and sometimes they'll have a client who wants something done and they won't have the bandwidth for it. And who are they going to turn to? One of their trusted friends. Like, hey, I don't have the bandwidth for this job. Would you like to take this job? And then later you reciprocate like, hey, I've got this. So it's kind of like an insurance

in the sense that they're having a network and kind of passing work around and endorsing one another and stuff like that. I mean, it is over a long iterated game. Competition, a lot of people look at it as a one-off game in game theory. We're going to play this game one time. And so I have all the incentive to keep the $20 for myself and to give you $0. But if you think of it as an iterated game where there are many, many rounds and maybe it goes on indefinitely...

collaboration makes a lot more sense than competition. So, uh, I think if you think in that sort of abundance mindset in terms of building those relationships, there will be people that are Machiavellian in how they approach it and they'll be very transactional and stuff like that. And you quickly learn to avoid those people.

And you just make friends with the people that are much more open and not just trying to hoard all their contacts or hoard all their work but are actually trying to go out and just get things done and are confident, have faith that more work will come down the pipe in the future. So that is my unsolicited advice to anybody listening. If you want to do freelance, don't take a –

scarcity mindset, take an abundance mindset and presume that there will be more work. And of course there's so much doom and gloom out there. How do you feel about DevOps? Like, do you feel like everything's going to be automated DevOps or that the field is going to cease to exist? I know I'm kind of like loading the question, but everybody, there will be people in the comments who are talking about that, uh, invariably. Yeah, sure. So for sure we want to automate things. So let's start from the things that are for sure. So for sure we want to automate things. Now, uh,

How we automate things, they are different from how we were automating things 20 years ago.

The problem is that we are just switching problems. So now we have probably more powerful tools to automate, but then we want even more advanced and orchestrated applications. So we are just switching the problems because now if you need just one person, two people to orchestrate a thousand computer clusters,

Perfect. Every company will want this. And so there will be more roles in that area. This is normal. And I think that this is an area when you still need human people handling things. Of course, with some support, automation. But to automate things, you need human supervision. Because

You know, in an ideal world, nothing wrong happens. But this is exactly the opposite of the reality. When everything happens, blackouts, a shortage. Yeah, crowd strike. You don't even know. Like, I don't know, a hard drive that just fills up or just a random attack from somewhere. So, of course, you will need...

people to handle this so that's uh that's an area that i really like and i think that it can be it can be worth it also to to learn if you like doing these sort of things it's not for everyone but some people really like this part of orchestrating and and i think that it's still absolutely percent worth and if you leave a comment of course i will fight with you in the comments

Awesome. So do leave comments with timestamps for anything you disagree with me or Francesco on. We will be happy to fight you in the comments. All right. And that is not adversarial. We just want to get to the truth. We want to like elucidate and through argument and discourse. That's how we get closer to an approximation of the truth. So.

How would you advise someone who is maybe they're a junior dev or they've been doing software development like just various projects? Do you think that you have to work as a software engineer before you can move into DevOps? Or do you think that there is potentially a path straight into DevOps where you get some cloud certifications and you start doing consulting?

Yeah, that's a great question because usually you don't start with DevOps because for a single reason. To create an application, you need to build an application. So, I mean, ideally you can even try to, for example, you come from systems and you, for example, you are an expert in just Linux, you can even come on that systems part and

But let's say for software developers, usually they go the other way around. So they start building an application and then at some point they say, okay, now how can I expose this application to the world? So I think that most of the people, they will have this issue. So it makes absolutely sense. I also have been in that problem 10 years ago, 15, 20, 12 years ago.

Once you have an application, it makes sense that you want to create a container, to create a Docker file. So I would say once you understand the basics of networking, not networking with people, networking with computers, and...

and how an application works, for example, on your PC, then probably it's time to understand the deployment process. So first of all, you should understand all the possibilities, all the options. You can use AWS, you can use your own infrastructure. You should understand the pros and cons. You can use Azure or Microsoft. So there are different tools available.

And I think that the best way is to understand the basics. So even this is why I am still a strong believer of understanding, for example, the Docker technologies, which is more agnostic and not based on a single cloud provider. So once you understand how things work, then you can do whatever you want. You can make a comparison. You can try to get the certificates. You will never get bored in getting enough certificates for sure. Yeah.

And yes, so probably getting some certifications might be interesting to get. I also got a Docker certification, which is not a Docker captain. It's something that I got some years ago when I think Docker still did like Docker official certifications. And then probably getting...

in a single cloud provider is probably the best choice. Again, so probably the best would be to understand a single cloud provider and get a job with that cloud provider and then

And then you can diversify. I have the same tip for people who want to get the first job in tech. So first learn one language, one stack, get a job with that stack, and then you diversify. People don't need a person who does like a hello world in 10 different languages. This is not what a company needs. So using the same principle...

Getting an expert in that specific field is probably what will get you a job. If you want, probably if you want to get hired at a restaurant, if you know how to make pizza very well, you will probably get a job. So you should focus on that.

Okay, so just to recap your advice there, getting good at a cloud agnostic tool like Docker. There's Kubernetes. There's Ansible. There is Terraform. There are lots of DevOps tools.

And some of them do have certifications. You mentioned getting a Docker certification and that they may not have vendor specific certifications anymore, but would you recommend going and getting certification? Like say, let's say you want to focus just on Microsoft Azure, for example, and Azure has an entire ecosystem of certifications that you can earn. Would you encourage people to study for those and earn those?

So this is a controversial topic, but I want to give my point of view anyway. I think certification should be a consequence of what you like and what you learn. So you should not say like,

You don't say, like, okay, now I want a math degree, like out of the blue. First, you understand your interest. You say, okay, really, I want to start learning a cloud provider. Then you notice that you really like how Azure is done, and then you decide that you want a certification. So the certification is the final step after you decide that the technology is worth learning for you. So I will not...

I would not urge with just trying to get as many certifications as possible, like if they were Pokemons, but more like this is in my, in this process makes sense now for me to get the certification. For example, one of my clients, I lost one of my clients because they wanted a certification. I don't know if this is a story. This is your story. Then you might understand that that's probably something that you might want to do. I will not,

over certificate because that might take all your effort all your energy so as a part of of it's great because it forces you to learn things it's great I

I will not over-certificate my life. It's like, I don't know, instead of trying to get a job, you keep getting degrees. There are some people who do this, but they are probably millionaires or people who don't really need to work. So it's probably... I mean, there are those, and in the United States, there are also people that rack up tons of student debt going back to school as a mechanism to feel productive while they're actually procrastinating entering the job market. Yeah.

And I don't want to throw any shade at anybody who goes back to school and gets like a second bachelor's or something like that. But like at some point, the actual proven returns to going back and getting additional degrees –

Right.

And let's get a master's degree in that, and that will be more applicable is what I thought at the time. But that was also kind of procrastinating trying to get a job. And I think that that is a technique that people use to justify their procrastination as well. But I don't want to – oh, Quincy's anti-advanced degrees. Yeah.

Everyone has their own stories. We can make a whole podcast, not episode, but series about if a serious degree is worth it or not. But I made this analogy with a degree, with certificates, because I think that they should be just a consequence. And for sure you will find more certificates you can do in a whole life. And the certificates, they also expire. So you need to... You're on a treadmill.

You're basically stuck in a loop of just doing certificates. So if you find out that you are spending all your day just doing certificates, probably it's not worth it. And you should have, because then you will lack the practical approach. So,

great to find a certificate. I don't know if Freakout Camp has also some certificates, but for example, this is something that can also be worth checking. Yeah, and ours are free, and they are general purpose, like the certified full-stack software developer. That is a certification that you get as kind of a consequence of learning. It's proof that you've

done, you know, thousands of hours of learning, by the way, anybody who's wondering when the rest of that will be shipped, we should have it, the rest of it live in 2025. If you start now, it will be ready by the time you get there. Like we're basically building the bridge and you can start crossing it now and the rest will be built by, uh, by the time you get there almost certainly. Cause it's already so comprehensive. And

Anyway, I digress. But that certification is free and it's not vendor specific. But getting the vendor specific certifications, the AWS certifications, the Azure certifications, just to confirm what you're saying, that should be because you're genuinely interested in that topic and you're actively learning it. It shouldn't be like, okay, what should I do to get a job? Oh, I'm going to go and get this certification. And it's not Pokemon where it's like got to catch them all. It's just...

whatever your interest is taking you in the direction when that, uh, client let you go because they were like, Oh, we need you to have this certification. Was that like some sort of government requirement or something like that? Yeah. I see you nodding. Um, yeah, that's a bummer, but like, should you drop everything and go cram for a cloud certification just because a single client wants that?

You did the math and you determined it wasn't worth it. Yeah, it depends on how you structure your clients. I will say that I think it's always worth to spend some time learning something new. So if you end up, you know, just working all day long, then probably you need to learn something. And certification is a nice motivator because it gives you like a goal. It's not just, you know, checking some random stuff. So yeah.

If you're a person who really needs a deadline and something that forces you, you can try to do one, especially if you feel that maybe you are working too much. In that case, you'll probably have other problems. Or if you...

don't have any clients i will not go full certification i will spend some time sharing your knowledge some time on uh let's say learning something and doing a certification and some parts on like actively looking for a job or do your own things but okay this is how i divide my my time okay so francesco's advice to people who are looking for a job

Spend some time getting certified and proving your learning, which could be a form of developing a reputation. Spend some time developing your skills. That's important. Don't forget that. It doesn't matter how well-connected you are or what your reputation precedes you if you get to the job interview and you can't code very well. And then the third one, actually go out there and look for a job. And the best way to prepare for the developer interview is to do the developer interview over and over and over again.

and just get rejected over and over, but learn. You learn more from failing than you learn from just sailing through, and everything worked out great, right? So that is the good news, is that if you have the audacity to put yourself out there repeatedly, you will get better at interviewing, and you'll gradually just learn all the tacit knowledge associated with that task, that you're not going to learn grinding leak code or something like that, right? So I have one final question for you, Francesco. You've been so generous with your time.

If you could send advice back to yourself, you're a 32 year old volleyball coach who does know a little bit about programming, but it has never really gone hard with programming and you've never really taken it that seriously. You've always kind of that the teacher is in the back of your mind. You will never be a programmer. Like what advice would you give to yourself if you had like a magic time machine where you could just send like a few sentences back to yourself?

Yeah, first of all, if I had a time machine, I would move it way, way, way, way sooner than 32. I'll move it to probably 15 or 10. But, you know, let's say that I have just a 10, 10 years time machine. So usually I have no regrets of my life. So I'm happy with everything I did. I will do something a bit different. The two main things that comes up in my mind is the first one. I, when I started the learning,

is that I had the idea that I wanted to learn everything. So like any beginner say, okay, now I want to learn all the front-end frameworks. Like this was my idea, of course, also because I was not acting on social media, so I had no idea how these things work. So I said, okay, I want to learn everything. And this idea of learning everything, of course, it failed because...

frameworks are not dead. They move in the meanwhile. If you stop doing React for two years, that's probably a whole new framework. So it's impossible to keep pace with all the technologies. Maybe you can keep pace with one technology if you like it. Maybe you can keep pace with Rust if you like it. Maybe you can keep pace with Docker if you like it.

But you can keep pace with all the JavaScript frameworks, for example. So I will focus more on a single stack instead of trying to learn, I don't know, all the front-end frameworks. So this is from a technical point of view.

Another one, another thing that I will probably do is that I will start sharing stuff on social media way sooner because I started learning in 2015 and I started being active on social media in 2020. Now, some people might say that that's perfect. You are absolutely locked in now.

But maybe, you know, maybe I didn't have to do like what I'm doing now, like posting every day. But, you know, maybe at least, you know, some posts or some articles or some important, when some, something, when I don't know, when I had some ha-ha moment while learning Docker, I never shared those. They were just, just me and the APC. So I will probably use social media a bit earlier because

And that's not a regret, but probably something that I will do different. Probably if I would have started a YouTube channel five years earlier, probably now I have one million. Who knows? So that's the thing. Because...

the sooner you start and the earlier you will understand how things are going and then you will have more time to adapt and change strategy and learn things. So that's my thing without overdoing it. So keep being locked in. And the first, I think the initial part is like very interesting when you want to learn programming, you know, when you start learning HTML on Freecode Camp, for example, that's like a very important moment for every developer and,

And, uh, but, uh, yeah, keep sharing stuff and start connecting with people because you will need those people for your future job. And that's something that will happen for real. So rely, you can rely on these, uh, connections and these, uh, let's say cool group of people. That's it. Well, Francesco Chiola, that's such excellent advice, um, to end on. I just want to recap, um,

Share stuff, put yourself out there and, uh, don't, uh, go too deep or go to go deep. Don't go too broad and don't try to learn everything under the sun. Just focus on learning a few key things. As you said, frameworks do move. They are growing. They are evolving.

We mentioned treadmill. AWS is constantly updating how their platform works, and you're going to have to keep recertifying if you get on the AWS certification treadmill. Nothing wrong with earning AWS certifications, but just know that that's what you're signing up for is a treadmill. And I really want to thank you for everything you're doing for the developer community, for teaching Rust.

a language that is extremely relevant and seems to have a very bright future in front of it. I'm going to link to your YouTube channel in below. I encourage everybody to check out some of your rust tutelage and, and learn how to use this very cool emerging, very safe language to program in very high performance language. We're going to have a lot more rust courses on free code camp. We do have an interactive course,

Russ course that we published a couple of years ago. And, uh, we, we've got a lot of, uh, Russ coming in the pipes. And, uh, if you want to learn about Docker, of course, Francesco has, you know, some Docker related learning resources. Free code camp also has lots of in-depth Docker courses. If you want to, um, pursue some of these, uh, DevOps related certifications we've been talking about, we've got lots of courses on that stuff. Um, but I, again, I just want to thank you for everything you're doing in terms of

for people to put themselves out there. Cause I think so many people think that if they get the skills, why, why am I not getting a job? I'm so good at this skill. I, and, and they neglect the other legs of the stool, right? The reputation and the network. And, uh, I'm thrilled that you're kind of providing a model, uh, for people to follow in terms of putting yourself out there and continuing to teach and continuing to share updates. And, and I, I, again, I want to compliment you for just being sure. So, uh,

blunt and not being super duper like, Oh, this was a mistake or, Oh, this happened. And this sucks. Like, no, you share the good with the bad. And it's not just, you know, um, rosy pictures of you, you know, driving your sports car into the sunset or something like that. No, it is like, it's real life, uh, that you're sharing and it is representative. And, uh, you're precisely the kind of person that we want representing the global developer community in my mind. So, uh, yeah. Thanks for everything you're doing, man.

Thank you so much, Quincy. Now you made my day, so I can finally close up this day. I think we'll have pizza this evening because I have a couple of friends coming up from Rome here. So the best way to end up my day is a classic Italian.

Thank you so much. Sorry for my accent, but it has been nice to have a nice chat with you. Looking forward to meet you in person. This is something that didn't happen yet, but I want to add a yet. So at some point we will fix this bug.

Thank you so much, Sir Quincy. We're going to grab a pizza together. And well, you know, it probably won't be nearly as good as the pizza in Rome unless I happen to make it out to Rome, which might happen at some point. It'll probably be like New York City or San Francisco where we're meeting and we'll just make do with whatever pizza they have on hand. But I do look forward to sharing a pizza with you, Francesco. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you so much, Sir Quincy. And everybody tuning in. Until next week, happy coding.