Navigating the modern job market with Adam Argyle 🔗 **Source:** [Navigating the modern job market with Adam Argyle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk) > [!note]+ Document Notes > tags: [job-search, frontend-development, tech-interviews] > author: Kevin Powell > source: General Musings Podcast > reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk > date created: 2025-01-03 14:30 > > # 🏷️ Title: Navigating the modern job market with Adam Argyle > <!-- deep-read:sections start --> ## 🧰 Action Inbox - [H1] Create animated resume or video showcase — traditional resumes aren't effective anymore #job-search - [H2] Push back on irrelevant technical interviews — advocate for skills-based testing #interviews - [H3] Focus on companies with modern hiring practices — look for skills demonstration opportunities #career ## 🧭 Table of Contents - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📚 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### 🔗 References - [Sizzle Reel](https://nerdy.dev/sizzle) - [Animated Resume](https://nerdy.dev/res) - [Adam's Website](https://nerdy.dev) ## 📝 Summary - Adam Argyle, former Google developer advocate, shares his challenging 2024 job search experience after being laid off - Despite high visibility, referrals, and specialized skills, he faced numerous rejections due to mismatched interview processes - Companies want design engineering skills but test for basic React knowledge, creating a fundamental disconnect - Traditional resumes are ineffective; video showcases and animated portfolios get better attention - Modern hiring processes often fail to assess candidates for the actual role they'll perform ## 📖 Main Content Adam Argyle, known for pushing CSS boundaries and developer advocacy at Google, experienced unexpected difficulties in his 2024 job search. Despite having strong referrals, public visibility, and specialized skills in CSS, accessibility, and design engineering, he encountered systemic issues in modern tech hiring. The core problem centers on a fundamental mismatch between what companies say they want (design polish, accessibility expertise, modern CSS skills) and what they actually test for (memorization of React hooks, basic component building). This disconnect results in qualified candidates being rejected while companies struggle to fill roles. Traditional application materials proved ineffective. Resumes, even animated ones with scroll effects, received minimal attention. Video showcases performed significantly better, providing quick demonstrations of actual capabilities that hiring managers could easily share with decision-makers. Interview processes remain largely unchanged from earlier eras, focusing on generic technical assessments rather than role-specific skills demonstration. Even companies like OpenAI, despite acknowledging their process was broken, continued using the same ineffective methods. ## 🗒️ Notes #### ⏱️ [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk?t=0) — [H1] Introduction and Context - Key idea: Adam recently got a job at Spotify after a difficult search process - Evidence: "You recently landed a new job. Congratulations. It sounds like it was quite an experience to get to that job though" #### ⏱️ [02:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk?t=150) — [H2] Difficulty Getting Noticed - Key idea: Getting noticed in the application pool is extremely challenging - Evidence: "Getting noticed is really hard. There's a sea of people applying. I don't think people read resumes" #### ⏱️ [04:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk?t=255) — [H2] Resume Ineffectiveness - Key idea: Traditional resumes, even animated ones, don't get attention from hiring managers - Evidence: "I made an animated resume... it didn't matter. They would scroll it a little bit and be like, ooh, it animates. And then they leave" #### ⏱️ [06:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk?t=405) — [H1] Video Showcase Success - Key idea: A 3-minute video demonstration proved far more effective than traditional application materials - Evidence: "It took people 5 seconds to maybe 15 seconds to be like, 'Okay, that's a lot of really cool animation... we don't have anyone on our team like that. Bring that person in'" #### ⏱️ [09:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk?t=570) — [H2] High Rejection Rate Despite Success Metrics - Key idea: Even with effective showcasing, rejection rates remained high - Evidence: "I applied to like 20 places one day... the next few days are just like rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection" #### ⏱️ [12:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk?t=720) — [H3] Referral System Failures - Key idea: Employee referrals don't carry the weight they used to in hiring processes - Evidence: "I had a referral to an Adobe role... I get rejected and... later I talk to someone and they'd be like yeah it was basically an accident" #### ⏱️ [15:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk?t=945) — [H1] Skills Mismatch in Interviews - Key idea: Companies test for skills unrelated to what they actually need for the role - Evidence: "Hey, we need a guitarist in our band... All right. So, I show up to the interview like, 'All right, here's a bass. Show us some baselines'" #### ⏱️ [18:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk?t=1110) — [H2] React-Focused Technical Interviews - Key idea: Technical interviews focused on React memorization rather than design engineering skills - Evidence: "They want animation, front end, UI, modern... then I get into the interview and it's a technical React interview building some pretty basic component" #### ⏱️ [21:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk?t=1275) — [H3] Interview Restrictions on Value-Add Skills - Key idea: Interviewers actively discouraged showcasing accessibility and animation skills - Evidence: "'I'm going to add this little accessibility thing'... 'Don't do that'... 'How about I animate this thing?'... 'Nope, don't need you to animate it either'" #### ⏱️ [25:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk?t=1500) — [H2] OpenAI Interview Process Failure - Key idea: Even after acknowledging their broken process, OpenAI repeated the same mistakes - Evidence: "We've heard that before and you're right... let's bring you back in... I show up to the interview and it's the same interview, man" #### ⏱️ [28:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk?t=1725) — [H3] AI Usage in Interviews - Key idea: Most companies prohibit AI assistance in interviews despite expecting daily AI usage on the job - Evidence: "OpenAI did not allow AI in the interview, which I thought was kind of weird. I'm pretty sure they're going to expect me to use ChatGPT every day" #### ⏱️ [32:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk?t=1920) — [H3] Negative Reactions to Modern Web APIs - Key idea: Interviewers showed disdain for modern web platform knowledge - Evidence: "I use a field set and... the form data call... 'I didn't know that existed'... looking down their nose like that's a really lame API" #### ⏱️ [35:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk?t=2130) — [H1] Shopify's Excellent Process - Key idea: Shopify demonstrated how to conduct effective design engineering interviews - Evidence: "They weren't there to trick me. They were there to watch me work... they didn't have a checklist. They were listening and watching" #### ⏱️ [38:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk?t=2295) — [H2] Paper's Innovative Approach - Key idea: Paper offered a two-week paid trial instead of traditional interviews - Evidence: "Show us relevant things that you've built and just brag about them... The next phase... you can work... fully paid. If you land PRs we're happy with you stay on" ## 📚 References - [Sizzle Reel](https://nerdy.dev/sizzle) - [Animated Resume](https://nerdy.dev/res) - [Adam Argyle's Website](https://nerdy.dev) - [General Musings Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk) ## 🗣️ Paraphrase - The modern job market for frontend developers is broken, with companies testing for skills they don't actually need while struggling to fill roles - Traditional application materials like resumes are largely ignored; video demonstrations and portfolio showcases are far more effective for getting noticed - Interview processes haven't evolved with the industry, focusing on generic technical knowledge rather than role-specific expertise and real-world problem-solving abilities ## 📰 Newsletter Frontend developers face unprecedented challenges in today's job market, but there are strategies to break through. Adam Argyle's recent job search revealed that traditional resumes - even animated ones - barely get noticed in the sea of applications. Instead, a 3-minute video showcase proving your skills can get you in front of decision-makers quickly. The bigger issue? Companies say they want design engineering skills but test for basic React knowledge. It's like auditioning guitarists but making them play bass. If you're job hunting, consider creating video demonstrations of your actual capabilities and don't hesitate to push back on irrelevant technical interviews. **Key takeaway:** Modern hiring is about demonstrating value quickly and finding companies that test for what they actually need. Resources: [CSS Baseline](https://web.dev/baseline/), [Intent to Ship](https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev), [Web Platform Status](https://chromestatus.com/) ## ✅ Action Items #### DevRel - Developer advocacy: Create video showcases demonstrating technical skills, build public portfolio of contributions - Education: Develop content showing real-world problem-solving vs academic exercises - Developer experience: Document hiring process improvements based on candidate feedback - Developer marketing: Promote skills-based assessment over generic technical testing - Community management: Share hiring success stories and process improvements #### WordPress - Community: Create hiring best practices for WordPress agencies and product companies - Training: Develop interview frameworks for WordPress-specific roles (theme developers, plugin developers, etc.) - Documentation: Document role-specific technical assessments for WordPress positions - Design: Create portfolio templates for WordPress designers and developers #### Community - Maintainers: Document effective technical assessment approaches for open source contributors - Contributors: Create pathways from open source contribution to employment opportunities - Sponsors: Fund initiatives to improve technical hiring practices in the ecosystem ## 🧪 Hypotheses - Video portfolios will become the new standard for technical job applications as attention spans decrease - Companies using skills-mismatch interview processes will continue struggling to fill specialized roles - AI-assisted interviews will become more common as tools become integral to daily development work - Traditional resume screening will be replaced by portfolio-first evaluation within 2-3 years ### 📊 Methodology - Survey frontend developers about job search experiences and rejection patterns - A/B test traditional vs video portfolio application success rates - Analyze correlation between interview process quality and role-filling success ### ❓ Questions - How can companies better align their interview processes with actual job requirements? - What role should AI assistance play in technical interviews if it's expected in daily work? - How can specialized frontend skills be properly evaluated in hiring processes? ### 🔮 Future Research - Study the effectiveness of different portfolio presentation formats in technical hiring - Investigate the impact of skills misalignment on employee retention and job satisfaction - Research the ROI of improved hiring processes vs. current generic approaches ### 💡 Implications - Practice: Frontend developers need to shift from resume-focused to demonstration-focused job applications - Policy: Companies should audit their interview processes for alignment with actual role requirements - Education: Bootcamps and courses should teach portfolio development alongside technical skills - Funding: Investment in better hiring tools and processes could improve talent acquisition ROI ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment Reading level estimate: 9th Grade (Flesch-Kincaid) #### 👀 Visual learners - Present: Video examples, portfolio showcases, visual demonstrations of skills mismatch - Improve: Flowcharts showing hiring process problems, infographics of successful strategies #### 🔊 Aural learners - Present: Full podcast audio available with detailed discussion - Improve: Interview practice audio guides, hiring process walkthroughs #### 🗣️ Verbal learners - Present: Clear definitions of terms like "design engineering," detailed analogies (guitar/bass metaphor) - Improve: Glossary of hiring terms, role comparison guides #### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners - Present: Actionable steps for creating video portfolios, hands-on examples - Improve: Interactive portfolio builders, practice interview scenarios #### 🧠 Logical learners - Present: Clear cause-and-effect relationships in hiring failures, structured problem analysis - Improve: Decision trees for job application strategies, success metrics tracking #### 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Social learners - Present: Community discussion encouraged, shared experiences - Improve: Peer review groups for portfolios, collaborative job search strategies #### 🧘‍♀️ Solitary learners - Present: Self-reflection prompts about career positioning, individual skill assessment - Improve: Personal branding worksheets, solo portfolio development guides #### 🌿 Naturalistic learners - Present: Ecosystem thinking about job market dynamics, organic portfolio growth - Improve: Career development lifecycle thinking, sustainable job search practices ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment #### Screen reader semantics - Present: Clear heading structure, descriptive link text - Improve: Better alt text for any portfolio examples, ARIA labels for interactive elements #### Keyboard navigation - Present: Standard web navigation available - Improve: Skip links for long transcripts, keyboard shortcuts for timeline navigation #### Contrast and readability - Present: Standard text contrast maintained - Improve: High contrast options for code examples, readable font choices #### Text resizing and reflow - Present: Responsive design supports zoom levels - Improve: Ensure video player controls remain accessible at 200% zoom #### Media and captions - Present: Full transcript provided, video content has context - Improve: Downloadable transcript, chapter markers for different topics #### Forms and interactions - Present: Basic form accessibility maintained - Improve: Better error handling for any interactive elements ### 🌍 DEIB Assessment #### Cultural breadth - Present: Discusses US tech market specifically, acknowledges different company cultures - Improve: Include international job market perspectives, diverse company examples #### Inclusive language - Present: Uses gender-neutral terms generally, avoids excessive jargon - Improve: More inclusive examples beyond traditional tech companies #### Neurodiversity support - Present: Clear structure, consistent formatting, chunked information - Improve: Content warnings for job search stress discussions, alternative communication formats #### Representation - Present: Features experience from public developer with significant platform - Improve: Include perspectives from underrepresented groups in tech hiring #### Psychological safety - Present: Acknowledges job search stress and rejection impacts - Improve: More resources for handling rejection, mental health considerations ### ✅ Logical <!-- deep-read:sections end --> ## 📺 Video ![](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk) --- # 📄 Full Transcript *Auto-generated from YouTube captions · timestamps roughly every 30 seconds · [watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLdh9VU7YPk)* **[00:00]** Hello, my front-end friends, and welcome to my podcast, General Musings. My name is Kevin, and in this podcast, I talk about whatever is front of mind for me in any given week, usually in some way that's related to front-end development. And today, I'm really excited to have a guest join me. He's someone who not only gets more excited about new CSS features than I do, but also dreams up some that he feels are missing from the spec and helps make them happen. And once he has them, he pushes the creative bounds of what they can do to the point where sometimes he manages to get his personal site to crash the browser. Let's welcome none other than Adam Argyle. **[00:30]** >> Hello. Thank you so much. Oh, crash in the browser. That was fun last week. [laughter] >> Yeah, I clicked through on that the the link to to check it out and I just got the the little dinosaur start or was it whatever the crash thing is in Chrome and I was like, "Oh, I wonder what he did now." Yeah. [laughter] >> Yeah. I left that up for a day cuz I got called out and it was like, "A punk would would break browsers." And I was like, "You're right. Punks do break stuff. I should break crash. Just leave it broken." And then I was like, "But wait, people want to read it and all I have to do is go uncomment like one line **[01:00]** of CSS. I should just do that." Um, yes, my site has busted Chrome many times over the past couple years cuz it's using all the new stuff and they don't have tests that put it all together. So, my site is a cesspool or a beautiful garden, whichever one you want to consider it. [laughter] >> Uh, yeah, the joy, I guess, of of cutting edge CSS. And I guess normally you and me could just like nerd out about all that. Maybe that I feel like talking about that now. So we'll have to have another recording where we get to endlessly talk about CSS, but today's a **[01:32]** little bit different. Uh cuz you recently landed a new job. Congratulations. Uh over at Spotify. >> Uh it sounds like it was quite an experience to get to that job though. And um yeah, based on a little quick conversation we had and I said this could be interesting and I think a lot very useful for for people that are currently looking for jobs uh or that may eventually have to be looking for one. Uh so I thought it'd be an interesting conversation to have with you. >> I I I think there's interesting stuff to share. Things have changed a lot. I I hadn't I'd only been interviewing others **[02:04]** for the past seven years at Google, so I hadn't been the interviewee. And before that I did lots of hiring at many different small startups, uh, agencies, consultancies. I've done a lot of hiring. Um, and so it' been seven, eight years. I thought things would be different. I thought AI would be, um, more part of the conversation or whatever. And then I also um, I had a lot of referrals to use. I've been a very public visible uh, developer. So people are able to say we know he can do **[02:37]** this thing pretty quickly. So um I thought that would mean it was easier and it was not. So >> So I guess the first question is why was it so hard? It's a big question maybe but I'm just curious like do you have any general impressions or anything? What made it difficult along the way? >> Yeah, getting noticed is really hard. Um there's a sea of people applying. um I don't think people read resumes. So that let's start with résumés and I I **[03:09]** remember this even when I was hiring and I try to be a good um researcher like if you're applying I want to genuinely go I'm going to I'm going to show up to that interview and I'm going to have done research which I apparently puts me weirdly ahead of like everyone else because no one else even reads resumes. So and I was even guilty of sometimes skimming a resume. um you know like I I don't really care where you went to school. Uh I care more about like what work skills did you acquire through your career journey and stuff like that. And so I'm I noticed that my resume uh did **[03:42]** nothing. So at first um I thought it was a problem with my resume because it's hard just like at review time of the year, you know, like Kevin, you have to do this. You have to get reviewed by your peers, right? No, you don't. This is a lucky you. You don't have to go up for promotions or [laughter] anything. >> [gasps] >> But like when you do it sucks like summarizing yourself in a sentence, you know, cuz that's also sometimes the only that's the that's the first amount of time anyone's going to give you is maybe a sentence. So like you have to really start there. Like people aren't going to **[04:13]** read your resume. They might not even read a sentence and that's kind of ridiculous. Um so first off I I I tried to boil my entire career into a page which is super hard. I've done a lot of different stuff and so I felt like I was cutting corners and anyway I I I've made my resume felt really good about it. I did like four or five versions because again this is sometimes people's first introduction to you. Like if I'm applying somewhere and they don't know who I am even with a referral someone's going to be like let's look at the resume. Turns out I don't think people **[04:43]** did. I don't think people looked at my resume at all. So what I did to kind of level up there is I was like all right there's competition. There's competition. I'm gonna compete, man, because I got kids and I want a job. And I was getting a lot of rejections. Okay, just real clear out there, everybody. I got a lot of rejections. Um, which it was, I don't know, felt normal. Like people don't I'm not CSS isn't huge outside of this. And plus, actually CSS being my focus for the past six years was a detriment because people thought **[05:13]** that's all I could do. So like I'd apply somewhere and be like, "Oh, he just does this." And I'm like, "That's not all I do, dang it. That's why I got the resume." And they're like, "I didn't read it." I'm like, "I can tell." Um, [laughter] right. So, I made an animated resume. Uh, you can go to nerdy.dev/res and it's got scroll animations. It even had WebGL effects on it for a while cuz I was like, I want people to land here and be like, "Ooh, design engineer. Ooh, resume with animations and and particle effects and and grit and grain and, you know, like I think I took off the grit **[05:44]** and grain eventually because I was like, no one's even reading this anyway." So, that was the next thing is I built this animated resume. I'd never seen anyone do it. Um, and it didn't matter. And I was like, crap, people still aren't sc they would scroll, literally. I know what they did. They would hit the link, they'd scroll it a little bit and be like, oo, it animates. And then they leave, [laughter] you know, and I'm like, okay. So, I gave them that one impression uh that I could animate. Anyway, I'll stop there. So, résumés, I'm I think you should have one. I think it's a good practice for yourself to make one. It's good **[06:16]** historical uh capturing of you and maybe someone will read it, but holy cow. Um if you're applying these days, I I think you need to do better than just even a basic resume. So that's kind of the first topic. Um yeah. Do you have any questions or comments along that? >> Um I guess I do do you think like is are people just getting weeded out on their resumes because it just goes through like AI or whatever? So there's I mean before we talked about AI I know there was like they had the machine whatever software they would sort of go through I **[06:46]** guess just to pick out keywords almost. Uh do you think that's actually part of it or is it even just there's a pile there and I don't know they I mean they must at one point have people pass the first step. Do you think the resume doesn't really factor in at all or is there still some purpose to having one? Well, I'd say the main purpose is when like at Google when I was submitting people for a referral, I couldn't submit them without a resume, >> right? >> So, it had to be in the attached upload for submission of this person. So, you need it as table stakes. And I I do **[07:18]** agree that there is AI that's got a checklist and it scrubs you vaguely and then sees if you check the check boxes and you could easily be cut out that way. Um, and then the other thing too is people are using AI to generate résumés that are full of fluff and lies and stuff. So, I think there's another reason that like the resume is just not the northstar that we thought it used to be, >> right? >> Um, >> so yeah, I do think I got weeded out, but I I I can't verify any of those scenarios. They're like, "Hey, an AI cut me out." But, um, we'll get into later. **[07:50]** But, just it's so funny that you said, "Do you think the AI did that and had checkboxes essentially?" because that's what a lot of the interviews ended up feeling like is someone showed up and it wasn't >> um it wasn't a capability uh interview. It was more like did they check these boxes for the things we look for and it's they were trying to treat everyone the same but at the same time anyway we'll get there. So yeah, the the concept of like checklists for evaluating someone um is part of the big detriment of what's happening right now. **[08:20]** Um so cool that was a great question. So, um, what I do now that my animated resume still isn't getting me attention and I'm still getting rejected from jobs that I could totally kick ass at, um, I was like, what do people do now when they want to understand something quickly? >> They watch a video. And so I was like, all right, I'm gonna go make a sizzle video. I called it Sizzle Rizzle. So you can go to nerdy.devsizzle nerdy.devsizzle-izzrizle. **[08:50]** slizzle-wrizzle. Anyway, there's a video there that's a 3 minute song. It's to music. I spent a good amount of time capturing all of the stuff that I wanted someone to hire me for. And this is the main tip I want to send everyone, right? This worked phenomenally well because it took people 5 seconds to maybe 15 seconds to be like, "Okay, that's a lot of really cool animation. uh we we do we don't have anyone on our team like that. Bring that **[09:21]** person in. That was it. It's literally they would find they decide and you could send this to higherups. They didn't have to download your resume and open it up. They didn't have to go to anything but like hit this URL. So I put that on my site and then I syndicated it to Blue Sky Mastered on LinkedIn and Twitter to get engagement on it and then I started pounding it on LinkedIn. So that way, additionally, not only was the video hopefully standalone, but you could see like comments and interactions **[09:52]** with it that validated um the kind of content in there. And th that video uh alone got me in front of very high up people um because it was so easy to share and they all said that's what we want. So that that's like my one of my biggest tips in this that I want everyone to if you're in front end uh or back end, I mean literally it doesn't matter. you need to showcase uh what you do in a short time. Um and you need to showcase what you want to do because this is what people are going to point **[10:22]** at. Um so go out there and create that thing. Um even if it's uh aspirational. It's almost like uh when you graduate school, you need to have like a portfolio. The portfolio might not be real clients, but it's still work that you've done that's in the vein of what you want to do. Um, so anyway, that's I I stumbled upon that as a solution and it ended up being awesome. >> Yeah, that's really cool. I was just watching it now uh and I could see how like super sharable and definitely like could catch people's eyes. That's **[10:54]** >> really good. And also just like comparing it to the resume where it was like when I loaded the resume up, it was there but it's just it is a wall of text. So like it has the little animation come in and then just all that text that someone has to actually go through is here. you're just like cool thing, cool thing, cool thing. So like they're going to sit there and be like, "Oh, that's better than like, you know, created like an animated carousel is like here's this like, you know, it's you're showing them >> very low attention span that video." Yes. I sped up a lot of the interactions cuz I wanted to hit you with something like every few seconds just like a **[11:25]** TikTok. I was like, "What are what are people addicted to? How do they get fast impressions?" I'm like, "I got to just whiz this stuff in front of them." And so yeah. >> Yeah, that's that's really cool. Uh, and I'll make sure it'll be linked uh under the video. So, if anybody wants to check it out, uh, it's right there. So, it's just And if you're listening, sizzle Rizzle, nerdy.dev, uh, slash sizzle result. I I think the cool thing with that actually, you you're mentioning is just how it got you in front of, you know, you almost skipped a step because other the **[11:56]** higherups were were seeing it. And they might not be hire this guy, but it might be we need something like that. So, let's at least get them into the process of of getting hired. >> Yep. Exactly. Um and then I still got rejected after scenarios that that happened. So, [laughter] that's the that's the next thing. It's like it's it was still so difficult to get another role that um even having this which put me ahead of other people uh wasn't some fast track. It was a fast track for visibility. It was this is what it did **[12:27]** do. It got me noticed in the pile and and it really set the stage for I wanted a design engineer role. So I needed to make it easy for someone to point at me and say he's a design engineer and and just showcase that work. Uh so then it comes into like rejections. Um yeah, it was really depressing some days cuz I would um once I was done with like the summer break and the leave that I got after being um let go from Google. Well, yeah. Anyway, as part of the layoffs, uh I really hit the ground running and so I **[12:58]** I applied to like 20 places one day or whatever and then to just like over the next few days like I'd feel really good about it. Oh, that felt so good. Look at all those seeds I planted. You know, how many people are going to watch that video? And then like the next few days are just like rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection. And I was like, this is pretty brutal on the ego. They got to say owie, [laughter] what am I going to do? Um but then you know a couple of those turned into plants. And so that's kind of the other thing I like I like to think of. [snorts] Um my dad **[13:28]** growing up would say you don't get what you don't ask for. And so um I call it these days planting seeds. You won't grow a plant if you don't put the seed in the ground. And and throwing a seed on the ground is is really easy. Um cultivating it into a grown plant is where it's hard. But anyway, you need to know what's a starter and what's not. So I threw out a lot of seeds. I got a lot of rejections and tried to focus on the plants that were growing. Um, so I I got noticed and now I started getting into the interviews and this is where uh stuff was initially really good. So these I had interviews at um places like **[14:00]** Discord and OpenAI start to pop in. Um I got rejected from Nintendo. I was really bummed about that one. I was like I could have ran that Nintendo website. Imagine like me and [laughter] Nintendo website. Like all of a sudden it's just like awesome. Um but they didn't know. They didn't even they didn't even consider. Um, and then I had referrals where um it was a a person at the so like Adobe I got a referral to an Adobe role, multiple Adobe roles that I could have worked on. So I submit and then I get rejected and I'm like okay well I **[14:31]** don't know what happened but and then later I talk to someone and they'd be like yeah it was basically an accident. Like the person didn't know and you got phased out through whatever filtering system. We don't know what but we're all mad about it. And I'm like, "Okay, well that's cute. You're mad, but I got rejected and I moved on, so it's over." You know, like, "That sucks." Um, I don't know how to fix that scenario. Um, but it comes down to that checklist. Somebody put me against a checklist and I just didn't check the boxes. Like, it's probably that my resume or my **[15:02]** submissions uh did not say I was React heavy or something, which is a very So, we'll get into some of like the React scenario um here soon. So, okay. Yeah, I'll take a pause. I'mma breathe. Do any any questions or comments anyone? I guess the interesting thing there is like the referral I guess just gets you that it you know gets your name on the list somewhere but as you said then it's just that you it doesn't act necessarily actually mean a whole lot which is **[15:33]** interesting like you'd think that would automatically at least not I'm not saying get you a job because I don't think that's how it should work but at least sort of get you past a certain step there if people that are already working there are like this guy would be a good fit cuz they know the work and they know you and what you're able to do at le you know and so you'd think that would be a pretty high like a that should count for more than a lot of other things I guess and it's just interesting that it doesn't seem to really change much **[16:04]** >> it I agree with you in the past a referral was um not a shoe in but it was very impactful and had a lot of sway and influence on your application and I found those to not happen this much uh this time. Okay. So, let's say I get in the door um and I I go through the first few interviews and the first few interviews are usually not technical and sometimes they're with a recruiter and I remember a specific conversation with the recruiter. They were like, um we've **[16:34]** been interviewing for this role a lot of times and you are just checking all the boxes. They wanted someone to bring in UI polish um internationalization, accessibility and um and yeah just animation polish and just like making it better for users. And I was like you are talking to a really good person for this particular task. And so I go through the interviews I do a architectural diagram interview you know and they're like oh you did really good on outlining backends. And I'm like, I don't even know why you asked me about how well I can, but okay, **[17:05]** whatever. I'll show up to this uh and do it. Uh, and then I do these other interviews that none of them are about design, none of them are about accessibility, none of them are about none of them have tapped on anything that they want to hire me for yet. So, that's also pretty normal and annoying, you know, but then we get to the technical interview and this is where things got really sour for me where I was like, how have we not grown up as an industry? Because I went into these technical interviews and and I'm going to use a metaphor at first because this is what it felt like. Hey, we we need a guitarist in our band. Anyone play **[17:36]** guitar? And I'm like, "Hey, yeah, I've been playing guitar for like 20 years. I played guitar for these bands and these bands. You guys need a Yeah. Hey, bring them in for interviews. Bring them in for interviews." All right. So, I show up to the interview like, "All right, here's a bass. Uh, show us some baselines. Show us your technical baseline skills." And I'm like, "Why? I'm not going to play bass here. I'm going to play guitar." And they're like, "It's just the interview." Our interview, we have everyone play bass. And I'm like, "Okay, well, you're lucky. I can play a little bit of bass. Just like the backend architectural diagrams. **[18:08]** Hey, I'll play ball. I've been in this industry a while. Play some baselines. Get to go. Hey, we uh you didn't make it." I'm like, "Well, no kidding. You tested me [laughter] on base." So anyway, so what this means in terms of uh not a metaphor is I got brought in and they want animation, front end, UI, modern, all the stuff that like I'm known for and then I get into the interview and it's a technical React interview building some pretty basic component. Now I know React **[18:38]** enough. I finished all of these technical interviews. However, I could tell that I was not checking boxes that they needed throughout the interview and I had a checklist that they weren't checking for me personally. So, I would be working on the um interface and I'm like, "Ooh, I'm going to add this little accessibility thing right here so that way it does this." And they'd be like, "Don't do that." And I'd be like, "Really?" And we're like, they were like, "We need you to complete the component just in the given time." Um, so that's your goal today is just just **[19:10]** complete the task. Like, okay, it's only going to be like a minute. I can make this thing like report properly to a screen reader. No. Nope. Oh. And so on my little checklist I'm like, that's weird and I hate that. So just going to go and then like later I'd be like, "How about I uh how about I animate this thing? It's, you know, great. React rendered it. Whoopdedoo. That's what it does. Um, let's make it cool." And they're like, "Nope, don't need you to animate it either." And I'm like, okay. So now you can see where the bass and guitar thing is happening here where **[19:41]** it's like, >> yeah, >> my value is not my React skills. And so it turned out a lot of these interviews were basically testing new grads for their memorization of hooks. And I don't have all the hooks memorized. I know Claude and and Chad GBT have all the hooks memorized. I don't give a rip about And plus hooks aren't my bag. I'm here to add the desirable part of this, not some optimized react. You have probably 50 of those already. You don't need more. I'm here because you need **[20:12]** someone like me. Anyway, um and so it got so old. I had so many of these scenarios happened and I'd always complete the task that I called him out one time and it was at OpenAI cuz I I really liked the person I was that brought me in. multiple I had three referrals to an open AI role and I get in there and you know I I do well on everything until it comes to the technical interview and the technical interview and I get the rejection and I write the person back and I'm like hey I know it's uncool to be like you failed **[20:44]** me but your test is broken but [laughter] hey man I got to I got to tell you because this is happening a lot like your test is broken it did not ask me to do a single thing that you want me to do on your team me and you met face to face. You told me what your team needs and then your technical interview didn't ask for any there was no opportunity to spread my wings, show you my skills and show you the expertise that I would get. You basically were just hiring new grad react developers or testing them like they are one which even if someone's advanced like what are **[21:15]** you doing even testing them that basic? It was really broken. And he goes we've heard that before and you're right. Um let's bring you back in. let's get you back. So, OpenAI was like, let's bring you back in. We see what we did wrong. Um, next week, show up interview, but it'll be different. So, I show up to the interview and it's the same interview, man. It's literally it's a different person [laughter] and like a different component. So, instead of a toast notification system, **[21:47]** what did I build this time? Um, who cares? Who cares? It was something equally where I wanted to add accessibility, they didn't care. Wanted to add, they didn't care. all the things that I was supposed to be brought into didn't get tested and I didn't excel at what they were testing which was irrelevant to the role and it was just shenanigans and the the funniest one uh to me was when the recruiter rejected me and we were talking about it and she's like yeah we're having a really hard time filling this role and I'm like no kidding you I can't imagine a single **[22:19]** reason why you're not hiring anybody for this role maybe it's the mismatch of expectations and the technical diffult test. Anyway, I'm going to pause there, but [laughter] so so weird. >> Yeah. No, the I like how you wrapped that up just cuz at the very beginning, I had this question that was sitting in my mind. You sort of came back to it there just of like you'd said how they'd been something similar at the beginning where you said they'd been hire or doing a lot of interviews anyway. And you know, it's that's sort of like a okay, why is it so hard to find somebody? And it's you go through that whole thing and **[22:49]** you're like cuz you're Yeah. It's just it's frustrating that no one realizes what the pro like that's in that side of things who isn't sort of stopping for a second and going like why are we doing it this way when and that if you do find someone who passes all of the tests along the way then they're probably not going to work out because their skill set doesn't align with what [laughter] you actually wanted. It's Yeah, it's bizarre. >> It is bizarre. And so that's kind of like the beginning too when I was like um I had high hopes. It's been seven **[23:20]** years since I was in the thing. And we're basically interviewing still like its jQuery days or um or it's just intense JavaScript for like no reason. It's not the same as like Google interviews which did traditionally have tricky computer science questions or or needless, you know, what did people call them? Elite elite coding issues. >> Elite coding. Yeah. >> Yeah. And I studied for elite coding when I interviewed and got elite code questions. Um, and so I I I expected some of it, but just to see that we're **[23:51]** this far in, it's 2025 and we're still trying to hire devs like this is just ridiculous. Now, there are um companies not doing that. And so we can like talk about places that I interviewed that did have good processes and that were um optimized for bringing in talent and letting people show off. Like you should in the interview, you should be like asked to show off like come show us your skills. Um, so anyway, we can get into those too, but then and for AI in the interview, um, this is a fun topic before we got into who did it right, but OpenAI did not allow AI in the **[24:22]** interview, which I thought was kind of weird. I was like, I'm pretty sure they're going to expect me to use CI GPT every day as part of my coding process. And again, the mismatch of what we do every day versus what the test did. The test said no AI assistance. And I was like, for me, I generally don't care cuz I've been writing without AI for 20 years. But >> um it was interesting to So at Shopify, they did allow AI in the interview. In fact, it was like encouraged. >> And so the interview starts and they're like, "Here's your task." And I go, "That task could be oneshotted right **[24:54]** now. I'm pretty sure I could write a single prompt and the interview would be done in like two minutes." And he's like, "Yeah, someone did that yesterday." And I'm like, I can't tell if he's saying, "Yeah, like that was bad." Or, "Yeah, that was good. [laughter] So I was in my head I'm like well I'm going to demonstrate how I interact with AI which is I like to pseudo code >> and then uh take my pseudo code and find where I I want to just write it and find where I want its assistance because I **[25:24]** don't like oneshotting things. I do like making plans and I like guiding some I like guiding an assistant. That's fine. And so I start building it. Um oh and I have one other thing to tell you that was happening bad. you know, when I was talking about accessibility and animation, they didn't want it. There was a really negative comment that I'm going I'll tell you here in a bit. But >> so, I'm going through the AI interview and I hadn't used it yet. We're like 30 minutes in. I hadn't used AI at all. And I finally got to this one part where I'm like, oo, this is matrix math. Ooh, I need to I need to figure out an N number of possibilities with inside of a multi-dimensional array. I was like, **[25:56]** ooh, big brain time. And I was like, oh, or AI time. And I was like, hey, blah, blah, blah. and it knocked it out instantly because it's just a known solution. Like what I what I was doing was not special. It was classic. So anyway, boom, nails that thing. I do the rest of it and like I'm done early. I showed my skills. I added accessibility. I added animation. I used AI. It felt like a to me that was the interview I would like to see as an interview interviewer. And then AI did move through at Shopify. So I found that uh **[26:28]** AI and they were the only ones that allowed AI in the interview. So, even though I'm sure all these companies like want you to 10x yourself, uh, but you can't 10x yourself in the interview. You need to onetenth yourself and play bass, I guess. Um, okay. And then one, let me recap the the negative thing that I remembered. I did one interview where it was optional. Uh, vanilla JavaScript or React. Dude, it was a trick question. They wanted React, right? So, of course, I I picked vanilla, though. I pick vanilla because I'm naive and I'm just like, ah, I'm going to show my skills. I know a bunch of browser APIs. And so um **[27:00]** I do and I do one of the things I do is I use a field set and I put all my inputs inside of it inside of a form and then I get all the data off of it with the form data call. I'm like all right let me just get all the data out of this form and they go >> I didn't know that ex I I didn't know that existed >> and I was like oh yeah it's just an API. So then the rest of it goes on and I continue to use things like at starting style um view transitions in one scenario and something else and the conversation drastically turns to them going I didn't know that existed but it **[27:30]** was this like looking down their nose like that's a really lame API like I can't believe you're spending your time learning this stuff like I've never seen it before. We're successful here and this is just weird. And so I got I was like it turned into them saying I've never heard that before but it turned into a phrase of >> you're a dork kind of thing. And I was like wow this is a really snobby interview. It's turning into like uh I'm **[28:01]** just up here floundering and and you're judging the crap out of me. So I feel like some of this is like going to be really relatable for front-end developers who have CSS expertise. Maybe you're the front of the front or the back of the front. Uh whether you write JavaScript or not. I think finding your way to spread your wings and show your skills in today's interviewing scenarios is very difficult and employers need to change because I think that one of the harder things to do right now is have a beautiful UI. You can vomit a a prototype out really quick, but polishing it is really tough. You need **[28:32]** people who come in with the craft and the polish and so I'm worried that not only is it decommoditized or whatever, we've got tools that kind of claim to do the role, but our interview processes are also weeding us out. So, um, I worry for all y'all out there. And I hope that by hearing some of these things, you can find a way to get at the table and maybe push back. I think we should be pushing back. I shouldn't have been so scared to tell some of those other interviewers that this was a dumb interview. That might have actually got me the job, you know, hey, that interview was broken. **[29:02]** This is what you should have done. I'll write it for you so all your subsequent ones are good. They're like, hire him. [laughter] He's fixing our problems. You know, um, so anyway, I'll pause there real quick, too. other than it just being is a little bit depressing I guess in a way of >> it's depressing. Yeah. >> The that dis the whole thing is it just sounds like and again like you said it seems it's not a problem that's necessarily new but maybe it's even getting worse of this disconnect between what people are looking for the role that's to be filled and how they're **[29:33]** trying to find it. and it goes through all of the steps along the way um is pretty I mean it's disheartening but it also makes you wonder like just for these people that are in the hiring roles like you said like if they're looking down at you because you're using things they haven't seen before that do the job really well that you don't need a dependency for like that's a really strange take. [laughter] I don't know. It's [gasps] >> um >> Yeah, I guess in a sense I guess like **[30:05]** you've hinted at it a few times now, but there were a few different interviews you were going through where it probably like you had the red flags going off along the way as well. So even if you had passed, you think I guess it depends, you know, if you've been looking for 18 months and the f someone finally is like, "Yeah, we'll hire you." You're like, "Okay, I need to make some money." >> I'm in. >> Yeah. Yeah. But was there any where you were sort of like I guess well it sounds like there were some that maybe you were secretly happy or at least not maybe not happy but not disappointed when the **[30:35]** rejection came in. >> Yep. U and I didn't know it at the time you know I really wanted the role and so then to get the rejection I was really sad but then to reflect on the interview and just the whole scenario. Okay. And so this is where Shopify um excelled like wildly excelled. And then there's another company I interviewed for, uh, Paper, which is a, um, Figma-like design tool built on the platform. So when it renders Flexbox in quotes, it's not synthetic flexbox that's being rendered in Fig Figma's compiled WSM render tree **[31:07]** or whatever. It's the actual browser doing. So you what you see is what you get when you go to production. I thought that was really rad. And so paper what they did since it's easier to explain >> is they did an interview with the two pretty much founders. there's only like three or four of them in the team at the time and the product was really pretty, very robust, very foundationally sound and needed to scale up to more stuff and I just I felt really right for the job. So anyway, the first uh the first part of the interview is show us relevant **[31:37]** things that you've built and just brag about them. you know, open up a URL, open up local host or whatever you want to do, but show us something you built that's along the lines of like a graphical editor or something complex with a lot of state or something very interactive, something you feel applicable. And I was like, what a great way to start the conversation, right? Like who what kind of dork would apply for a job if they didn't have things to show that are like along the lines of what they're applying for? So, I pull up uh gradient.style style at the time and a couple other tools and my gradient **[32:09]** editor was um far ahead of theirs. I had conveniences and interactions and a lot of things they didn't have and so we spent a lot of time talking about that. We spent time talking about Chrome DevTools and the work did anyway. So an hour in they're like we trust you. We like the work we saw. Um we like your expertise. The next phase of the interview is you can work um we'll bring you on as a temporary employee for two weeks fully paid. If you land PRs we're happy with **[32:41]** you stay on and it's good to go. >> And I was like that's pretty cool. I'm pretty sure if I was there for two weeks I'd give you more PRs than you wanted uh and [laughter] it would all be really good you know. Um so I liked that one. Have you heard of anyone doing something like that? like a twoe fully paid trial run and then you're just on if you stay. >> Yeah. No, that's really cool. I always hear about the ones of like we're giving you this thing as homework that you have to do that's essentially free work and give it back within a week and I'm **[33:12]** always like oh I hate that so much. Like at least pay the people for their time like that's such a ridiculous thing. So to hear that like that's really really cool. >> That was cool. So papers shout out to your hiring. you're in the top three of all of the interviews that I did in terms of quality, listening to me, giving me room to demonstrate my expertise. It was awesome. So then Shopify, where I was applying as a design engineer, design engineering is a hard thing to interview for. You know, you're like, "Oh, we have design interviews and we have engineering interviews. Crap. Where do they fit?" **[33:42]** Um, and [snorts] they had a a a few phases of it. One of the phases was like a story. you tell your story, how you got to where you are applying to Shopify, and all the things you value along the way and things that help build your character. So, that alone was like this weird therapy moment where someone's just listening to you just like vent about your tech career history and it was cool. I was like, why doesn't other people do this? This is like you learn a lot about who I am and what [snorts] I value and what I can do in **[34:14]** one little interview. What a what a nice little scenario. Mhm. >> And then there was the technical interview which the technical interview was AI assisted. They weren't there to trick me. They were there to watch me work, you know, solve this kind of genericy thing. We want to see how you would do it. And they didn't have a checklist. They were listening and watching and intentive like attentive to the things I was doing, which is really cool. Um, and then they were even in the process of changing this system. And so they were really cautious with me like **[34:45]** saying, "Hey, hey, we want to make sure you get an opportunity to demonstrate a skill that you you think you need to demonstrate to us to show us your value and stuff like that." And so it's just it was all very considerate. There was a lot of positivity and reinforcing. People wanted to see me succeed, which was like the opposite of like the leak code things. The lead code things are like, "Solve this sucker." You know, you're like, [laughter] "Dang, that's really rude. You want to interview me that way?" Okay. And so, um, >> that was really nice, but apparently **[35:16]** it's really hard to get through at Shopify also. >> Um, >> but I I must have done well, but because they gave me an opportunity to share these things. So, I was really happy about that. And so, after I'd gone through all these crappy interviews, um, and then there's Shopify, which is like exemplary, I was really happy. Plus, all my friends that are there are are really happy. And then as I'm even, this is my second week. Um, this is going to be a great place for me. So, I'm really excited about it. But it's just the the journey to get here was full of thorns **[35:46]** and buttholes and um you know unexpected twists and turns. I played instruments I didn't need to play just cuz I was doing a song and dance for someone. Um and yeah, it's it's kind of the whole story. >> Yeah, that's well, you know, it sucks that it was it was difficult and you went through a lot of trial and tribulation, but at least you there were some positive experiences along the way and you did end up at a place that you're really happy with. So, uh, very glad to hear that. >> The happy ending. Yay. [laughter] **[36:17]** >> Um, I'm going to or I don't know. Was there anything else along the way? I know you you sort of had some notes that you wanted to get through. Was there anything else that >> Those hit the bullets? Yeah, >> those hit the bullets. Awesome. Um, so I will ask then having gone through all that and then seeing like the really good, the really bad, and everything. Maybe there's some hiring people listening right now. They're they're involved in the process and they're like, "hm, maybe we should change our process a little bit." they got some insight there when you were talking about um what you the positive ones you did go through. But let's say you're in **[36:48]** in charge of hiring a new front-end developer. Uh you know, focus a little bit on I guess the type of things you're doing, but front-end stuff, CSS, HTML, maybe a mix of the accessibility in there. Of course, they might need they might have to use React and everything else and be familiar with it. Um, but I'm just curious, do you have like an idea of what if you were doing it, what would the interview process actually look like? >> Yeah. What should this modern uh like scenario look like? I think the core **[37:19]** thing is giving people space to flex um because I think that's what they want to do when they show up in an interview. They're they're ready to demonstrate and so you could it should be relevant to the t to the role that they're doing. So find find something that's um common um so that you're not giving a unique test to everybody. You need to have some sort of control. So it should be a consistent request. Find something small enough to finish within an hour and let it orient **[37:49]** towards their skills. And so let them kind of drive their their solutions through it and observe whether or not it's going to match the requirements you have for the role. So if it's a back of the front, let's say it's design systems back the front end. Well, this person basically doesn't even need to write React. You [snorts] should give them a task that allows them to create a whole stack of custom properties that can pivot off of all these different scenarios that have good naming conventions and they can demonstrate and explain why they're there type of deal. And then same thing goes if someone's a **[38:19]** front end developer. I would test them on HTML first, but like let's just walk through a few different components and just conceptually talk about the semantics that you could choose ways to represent this information. How familiar are you with what a screen reader is going to see when it's breezing over this element or focusing this element? Um, let's talk about focus states. Let's talk about modalities. You know, like someone who's going to be handling all these things, you should uh ask them about it. Maybe Oh, you could have somebody work through an issue that's in the backlog or at least have a couple of example issues that have been solved in **[38:51]** the past and have them be confronted with a bug. >> You know, like, hey, imagine it's your first day. Here's a ticket. >> What do you do? how, you know, you gonna go make a get branch or I don't know, just walk me through the process that you do. Maybe we don't have to code it. Let's just have a conversation about this bug. So, it's even something you would do pretty much dayto-day with someone is you'd get an issue, open it up in your tab, maybe uh have a call with a co-orker and chat out the issues before you go hammer on it. Um. >> Mhm. >> So, yeah, trying to simulate the reality of day-to-day um in so much that you're **[39:24]** getting people to spread their wings, showcase their skills, and ultimately flex and brag. Honestly, I think there should be a point in there somewhere about just bragging. And it doesn't have to be long cuz I know bragging is really that's one of the hardest parts about making a resume is it's hard to hard to brag and talk about yourself. Oh, just had a something that was stuck with tech just fell. >> Oh, no. [laughter] It's okay. TAC sucks everyone. I used to attack and it was whack. So, [laughter] um but yeah, I think some things that **[39:54]** allow that um would definitely help. Um gearing things towards the person and the role, but maybe that's too hard for big companies. I don't know. >> Yeah, I guess I think I think just being aware of what you're actually hiring for is like is so important and it it amazes me that that's not always the case. And it seems like there's so much resource that goes into hiring somebody that you know it's expensive for the company to do. Then you're finally getting someone, you have to onboard them. You have to go through such like an expensive process **[40:24]** of getting a new employee in that you think you'd be trying to optimize how you're doing that uh for all the different roles. And anyway, I I I just keep saying the same thing over again now every time I have a comment of just like why are we still doing it like this? Why are we do Well, and yeah, you're reminding me too that we had a similar issue 10, 20 years ago, which was um you would put out the job posting on the website and the job posting didn't have the requirements or it had a whole bunch of extra crap in it that like you didn't actually want in the role. And so there was this tension **[40:55]** between like we have headcount and then you just posted the description that's like 5 years old. Why did you use the old one? And the recruiter's like I don't have an up-to-date database of descriptions that you wanted. You didn't give it to me. It's like well who's going to write the one that who we want to hire? It's like you had this like back and forth and so you'd show up to interviews uh and the job description could have been wildly irrelevant to like what the actual job was they wanted. It's just bizarre. >> Yeah. Uh hopefully things do start improving and again hopefully a few people who are interviewing have listened to this and maybe are going to be changing their ways. Uh I want to **[41:26]** thank you for your time for all of this. Normally when I wrap up these I ask five rapid fire questions about CSS, but I've already have done that with you as a guest in the past. Uh, so I'll let people go listen to that episode if if they want your answers to my usual questions. Um, but I am going to ask one CSS related question of now that you're working at a I'll call it a regular job, uh, how are you going to keep up with CSS these days? >> Yes. [snorts] Um, I I made myself a list the other day. Uh, I posted it was what was the thing called? It was like a 100 **[41:57]** plus CSS features from the past 5 years. And that was me going, I don't know what all these are, but I need somewhere when I have downtime to go find them. And so I'm like, boom, I'm just going to make this huge list. Um, and then how to stay on top of it. I'm going to scroll that list, find a thing. I don't know what it is. I'm like, oh, the colon heading function. H, so I can find all the headings or what can I do in the functionals and go figure out what happens in the functional notation. Um, so I'll be doing that. I do follow the intent to ships. Um, these are Twitter **[42:27]** accounts that you can follow. And then the other thing that I did, this is something very atom ccentric to do. So I don't necessarily suggest everybody does this, but I made a new chromium.org account in the bugganizer is like for the bug tracking >> and went and found all sorts of CSS features that I want and start them so that I'll get notifications whenever work starts to happen on them. >> So I think the intent to ship things are really good. You can also go to baseline. They have they produce an RSS feed. They also have lists. So if you **[42:57]** want to see what's baseline and not what's just kind of coming out in CSS, you can go there. Those would be my suggestions. >> Awesome. Yeah, I should I wish I had remembered about your site that you did because I had seen it. Uh I was at um it was out the other day and I was talking with someone who was like heavily involved in web but not front end at all, like more of a backend guy. And he was out of it for a while too. And you know, they'd always people like that have always dabbled a little in CSS, but I think they hadn't touched it at least in 10 years or something. And then he's like, "So, what's new in CNSS?" And I **[43:29]** was just like, "Oh my god, [laughter] where do I begin?" I was just like, and then I start talking about like a few little things, but I'm like, "I don't remember everything." But then as you talk about one thing, you remember about another into another. And they were just like, I'm like, "I have to stop now, but this list keeps going." It would have been nice just to here, check out Adam's blog post. It's all there. Yeah. >> Yeah. I made it to answer that question, too. And then I just gave a talk at CascadiaJS. It's literally called like, "Help. I haven't been paying attention to CSS and I don't even know what's going on, you know, and so it's a 25 **[44:00]** features in 25 minutes like >> here's a Tik Tocky style thing that helps you get caught up. >> Um, but yeah. [laughter] >> Awesome. >> There's a lot. >> Yeah. Anyway, I want to say thank you so much for joining me. It was a blast chatting as usual. Uh, for these days, where can people follow you? >> Yeah. Nerdy.dev. I have an RSS feed. Find me on Blue Sky. Find me on Masttodon. find me on GitHub. Um, yeah, those are good sources right there. >> Awesome. Uh, and yeah, every link and **[44:31]** every other thing that we've mentioned along the way will be in the show notes. And I just want to thank everybody for listening. And until next time, don't forget to Oh, I screwed it up. >> Make this corner of the, you know, I'm not going to steal your phrase. >> You You can do it [laughter] if you want. >> Um, make your corner of the internet just a little bit rder. Wait, a little bit more awesome. Uh, [laughter] crap. Yeah. Okay. >> Good enough.