Taylor Desseyn and Blake Watson Chatting MagnoliaJS Conf
Developers, recruiters, and conference organizers share insights on hiring, remote work, and side projects while previewing MagnoliaJS 2023
Episode Description
JavaScript Jam hosts Magnolia JS conference speakers Blake Watson and Taylor Desseyn to discuss home-cooked apps, hiring trends, and the tech scene in Jackson, Mississippi.
Episode Summary
This episode of JavaScript Jam features guests from the upcoming Magnolia JS conference in Jackson, Mississippi, set for October 17-18, 2023. Conference organizer Kayla Sween explains how the community-funded event highlights Mississippi's developer scene, noting that she and her husband spend upwards of $30,000 annually out of pocket to keep it running. Blake Watson, a developer at MRI Technologies working on web apps for NASA, previews his talk "The Joys of Home Cooked Apps," which champions building personal software for yourself, family, or friends rather than always targeting mass distribution. He shares a decade-old timesheet generator he built for his caregivers as a prime example of useful, unglamorous personal software. Taylor Desseyn, a talent advocate at Gun IO, outlines his manifesto on hiring, arguing that both job seekers and hiring managers lack a proper playbook for interviews. He shares examples of companies that got hiring right through speed and trust, and offers his read on the job market: the 2020-2022 hiring frenzy was an overcorrection, the current downturn is the correction, and a return to steadier hiring should arrive by end of Q1 next year. The conversation also touches on remote work's benefits for accessibility, the shift of developer hiring from pure tech to traditional industries, and AI as an emerging vertical driving new demand.
Chapters
00:00:00 - Introductions and Italy Travel Chat
The episode opens with host Scott Steinlage getting the X Spaces session running and inviting speakers and regulars up to the stage. Developer advocate Anthony Campolo checks in live from his honeymoon in Italy, sparking a fun tangent about Rome, Florence, and Cinque Terre. Taylor Desseyn compares notes on his own recent Italian trip, and the group bonds over how Rome feels surprisingly similar to New York City.
After the casual banter, Scott introduces the JavaScript Jam format, emphasizing that developers of all experience levels are welcome to participate. He and Ishan Anand, VP of product at Edgio, set the stage for the day's focus on the Magnolia JS conference and its upcoming speakers, while also plugging the JavaScript Jam newsletter at javascriptjam.com.
00:07:07 - Meet the Magnolia JS Guests
Taylor Desseyn introduces himself as a talent advocate at Gun IO, a freelance marketplace for senior engineers, and expresses excitement about speaking at Magnolia JS in less than two weeks. Blake Watson follows, sharing that he works with MRI Technologies on web applications for NASA and commercial space partners, and that his conference talk centers on personal side projects. Scott highlights Blake's work on a spacesuit management system as a uniquely cool opportunity.
The conversation shifts to Magnolia JS organizer Kayla Sween, who explains how the conference originated with local developer J.C. Hyatt and was handed off to her and her husband Richard. She describes the event's mission to spotlight Jackson, Mississippi's developer community and combat negative perceptions of the state, noting the significant personal financial investment they make each year to keep the conference alive.
00:12:25 - Jackson's Tech Scene and Remote Work
Ishan asks Kayla to describe the tech landscape in Jackson, Mississippi. She explains it's a small but diverse community spanning telecommunications, government contracting, and various stacks, with Magnolia JS aiming to serve the full spectrum from front-end to full-stack developers. The conversation turns to remote work as a major opportunity for Mississippi-based developers who previously had to relocate for better-paying jobs.
Blake Watson offers a powerful personal perspective on remote work, explaining how it provides essential accessibility for people with physical disabilities. He shares that he transitioned to a remote company just before the pandemic and values the ability to work from an environment suited to his needs. The group discusses how companies that learned to do remote work well before the pandemic gained an early advantage, while those that rushed into it often struggled with productivity.
00:19:14 - The Joys of Home Cooked Apps
Blake dives into the concept behind his Magnolia JS talk, arguing that software developers have a superpower they often underuse: the ability to build personal tools just for themselves, their friends, or their families. He pushes back on the assumption that every project needs to target mass distribution or be polished for a customer base, suggesting instead that some of the most rewarding coding is small-scale and deeply personal.
His standout example is a timesheet tool he built roughly a decade ago for his caregivers. Using a custom markdown-like syntax and some jQuery, he created a system that automates the complicated timesheet process and has been in continuous use for ten years. He admits the code is messy and he barely understands it anymore, but since he's the only customer, reliability is all that matters. Ishan connects this to a broader product lesson: off-the-shelf software rarely fits every workflow perfectly, and building your own small tools is a powerful way to bridge those gaps.
00:26:17 - Magnolia JS Logistics and CFP Questions
Scott pauses for a mid-show station break, thanking the guests and reminding listeners that anyone is welcome to join the conversation on stage. Audience member Tobiloba from Nigeria, known for his work on Million JS, asks whether Magnolia JS accommodates remote speakers. Kayla explains that while in-person attendance is preferred, remote participation can be considered on a case-by-case basis, and Anthony vouches for Tobiloba as a strong potential speaker.
The discussion turns to the conference's call for proposals process. Kayla reveals that this year was the first time Magnolia JS ran a formal CFP, having previously relied on direct outreach to known speakers. She notes that CFPs are currently closed with the event just days away but encourages interested speakers to follow Magnolia JS on Twitter for future announcements, as a mailing list is still in the works.
00:31:26 - Taylor's Hiring Manifesto
Taylor previews his Magnolia JS talk, a manifesto aimed at both hiring managers and job seekers. Drawing on 12 years of recruiting experience, he argues that most companies fail at interviewing and that candidates often lack basic preparation like polished about-me statements or company research. He shares examples of companies that nailed the process, including Channel Advisor's fast, thorough hiring pipeline and a Nashville startup CTO who trusted his recruiter's advice to pivot from a full-time hire to a short-term consultant.
The conversation broadens into the current job market. Taylor characterizes it as company-driven, with more developers than open positions, a correction from the reckless over-hiring of 2020-2022. He notes early signs of recovery, including recruiters being hired again and developers reporting more inbound DMs, and predicts a return to steadier hiring by end of Q1 next year — though not the frenzy of the pandemic era.
00:43:20 - Market Signals, AI Trends, and Wrap-Up
Audience member Spaghetti Code shares his perspective on developer compensation, suggesting that networking with peers in similar roles can reveal salary information beyond what recruiters or industry reports provide. He also raises concerns about a skills gap among some employed developers, noting encounters with engineers unfamiliar with fundamental concepts. The group acknowledges the tension between hiring volume and candidate quality.
Scott steers the conversation toward AI as an emerging hiring vertical, noting the massive funding flowing into AI companies. Blake connects AI back to his home-cooked apps theme, mentioning interest in assistive technology applications like Apple's personal voice feature. Taylor shares his final market outlook before departing, and the hosts close by promoting next week's guests, Todd Libby and potentially Jeremy Meiss, and encouraging listeners to grab Magnolia JS tickets and subscribe to the JavaScript Jam newsletter.
Transcript
00:00:00 - Scott Steinlage
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00:01:19 - Scott Steinlage
Hello. My goodness. Hello, hello. There we go. You know, just normal X stuff here. Yeah, always something. I swear things are going great, though. Let me bring up a couple people here. We got Blake in the house. Let's see. Why is this not working for me? I think this is a weird thing. I'm clicking on him, but it doesn't say... it doesn't say. Well, never mind. There we go. Thank you. Looks like you got it, Ishan.
00:02:23 - Ishan Anand
Yeah, I clicked on both Blake and Taylor.
00:02:27 - Scott Steinlage
Cool.
00:02:27 - Ishan Anand
But, you know, sometimes it takes a while.
00:02:29 - Scott Steinlage
We could also bring Anthony up here, and we could also bring Magnolia JS up here, and Jason up here too, because he's a regular. Why not? Come on, y'all. All right. Awesome. And Toby. Yeah, what's up? We'll bring Toby up here. There we go.
00:02:49 - Ishan Anand
Oh, hey.
00:02:50 - Scott Steinlage
From Million JS.
00:02:53 - Ishan Anand
All right.
00:02:54 - Anthony Campolo
From Italy. Hey.
00:02:55 - Scott Steinlage
Yo, yo. Our boy Anthony is in Italy right now on his honeymoon, but he's still here on Spaces. Y'all watch out.
00:03:05 - Anthony Campolo
Yeah, we just finished dinner.
00:03:09 - Taylor Desseyn
What part of Italy are you in?
00:03:11 - Anthony Campolo
We are in Cinque Terre right now.
00:03:13 - Taylor Desseyn
Nice. My wife and I just went to Italy for two weeks, about three weeks ago.
00:03:18 - Anthony Campolo
Very cool. Yeah. We hit Rome. We were just in Florence. I like Florence. Honestly, I kind of hated Rome, but Florence is nice.
00:03:27 - Taylor Desseyn
Yeah, we did Rome in four hours.
00:03:31 - Anthony Campolo
That's probably about as much time as you need.
00:03:33 - Blake Watson
Yeah.
00:03:35 - Ishan Anand
Wow.
00:03:36 - Scott Steinlage
Well, Anthony said something about Rome being like New York.
00:03:39 - Taylor Desseyn
It's like, in my opinion, a dirtier New York.
00:03:43 - Anthony Campolo
Yeah, it's very, very similar to New York. Honestly, I felt like I was in New York.
00:03:49 - Scott Steinlage
That's something else. Yeah. It's crazy how some parts of the world can seem so similar to other parts of the world, right? I mean, it's crazy. Especially in the United States, when I'm going to another state, you're expecting, maybe hoping, for something much different. Sometimes you get it, but other times it's very similar in many aspects. So kind of interesting.
00:04:09 - Taylor Desseyn
Well, the cool thing about Rome is it's dirty, but you're waiting on a subway for the train or whatever, and you look to your right, and it's like a glassed-in artifact
00:04:20 - Scott Steinlage
from, like, before the 1700s. Yeah.
00:04:22 - Blake Watson
Yeah.
00:04:22 - Taylor Desseyn
Or, like, no, before Jesus. I mean, literally, it's like, here's a wall that was here in, like, 2000 BC, and you're like, Jesus Christ. So that's the big difference.
00:04:32 - Anthony Campolo
Yeah, I said it's like New York with older buildings.
00:04:35 - Taylor Desseyn
Yeah, exactly.
00:04:37 - Scott Steinlage
That's funny. All right, well, thank you all so much for coming. Greatly appreciate it. I'm sure we'll hear more about Anthony's travels. Super excited about that. But more than anything, I'm excited to have Taylor Desseyn and Blake Watson with us. And Magnolia, I think we have someone on the other side of the pumpkin, which we'll talk about here shortly. Yes, with the hand-clapping. Thank you so, so much. Greatly appreciate y'all being here. I just want to say really quick, whether you're a beginner developer or whether you're an advanced developer, it doesn't matter. We love to hear from everybody up here. So please, please, please feel free to come up. If you're a regular, we're going to invite you up anyway, and you're going to have to say something. I'm kidding. But I will invite you up, and you can partake in this conversation with us and have a good time. That's what this is all about, right? JavaScript Jam is very much about being as brand-agnostic as possible and just having fun and just giving all the love everywhere, right? Love everybody. Love and peace, y'all. Love and peace.
00:05:44 - Scott Steinlage
Anyway, yes, Taylor with the laughing face there. But yeah, thank you all so much. Greatly appreciate it. And remember that we do this every Wednesday at 12 PM Pacific Standard Time, except for when we don't. But more than that, we are here. All right, with that being said, I'll make a couple quick introductions and then we'll kick it off, I guess. My name is Scott Steinlage. I'm the technical community manager at Edgio. Ishan, what's up?
00:06:16 - Ishan Anand
Hey everyone. I'm Ishan, the VP of product for the Edgio applications platform. And one other callout I'll add on top of what Scott said: if you haven't already, go to javascriptjam.com. There's a newsletter curated usually by Anthony. This week it was myself subbing in, but it's a great way to keep up to date on everything in web development. And then we have Anthony, who's technically on vacation and on PTO. But Anthony, why don't you...
00:06:45 - Anthony Campolo
Hello, hello. I'm Anthony Campolo, developer advocate at Edgio, and great job on the newsletter. While I was gone, I was reading them, so happy to see it continuing on while I'm on vacation.
00:06:57 - Scott Steinlage
Nice. Yes. Ishan's been doing a great job. I think so. I feel wonderful.
00:07:02 - Anthony Campolo
Technically it's his newsletter before mine.
00:07:05 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah, that's true.
00:07:07 - Ishan Anand
I think Anthony does a better job, but I was happy to sub in as needed. So let's introduce our guests today from the Magnolia JS conference.
00:07:16 - Scott Steinlage
Absolutely. Taylor, would you like to go first, or Blake?
00:07:22 - Blake Watson
Yes.
00:07:23 - Scott Steinlage
Okay.
00:07:23 - Taylor Desseyn
Yes. Sorry about that. A little slow to that. Yeah. My name is Taylor Desseyn. I live in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm a talent advocate at Gun.io, a freelance marketplace platform for senior engineers that want to jump-start their freelance part-time careers. And I'm stoked to be at Magnolia here in, what, 13 days or something like that?
00:07:45 - Scott Steinlage
Yes. Super soon. Absolutely. Blake. What's up, man? How are you? Would love to hear from you.
00:07:53 - Blake Watson
Oh, I'm doing good. I'm Blake Watson. I work with MRI Technologies. They're a contractor that does stuff for NASA and like commercial space partners. I work on some web apps for them and before that I was at an ad agency. And before that or all the time, ever since I learned how to code, I've been working on side projects, which is what my talk is about.
00:08:21 - Scott Steinlage
Nice. That kind of goes hand in hand there: side projects, Taylor talking about side freelance work.
00:08:28 - Blake Watson
Yeah.
00:08:28 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah, that's kind of cool. And NASA, man. Yeah, I read something about you currently working on a spacesuit management system. That's pretty sweet. Jeez, man, not everybody gets that opportunity in their life. Super cool.
00:08:41 - Blake Watson
Yeah, it's pretty cool. It just kind of fell into my lap, so I'm very happy.
00:08:45 - Scott Steinlage
Awesome. Well, we'll definitely get more into that, and also we'll talk a little bit about your guys' talks for Magnolia JS coming up just to give people a sneak peek and some excitement. You know, FOMO. Don't want them to be missing out on this Magnolia JS event, as usual. I mean, it's going to be top-notch. So super excited for that. Yeah. Kayla, did you want to come up here and introduce yourself? It's up to you. I'll invite you up here.
00:09:10 - Ishan Anand
Actually, before we jump into that.
00:09:11 - Scott Steinlage
Sure.
00:09:12 - Ishan Anand
You know, I noticed we have Magnolia JS. I assume that's either Kayla or Richard, the creators of Magnolia. Yeah, click the invite to speak. It'd be great.
00:09:23 - Scott Steinlage
That's what I was just saying.
00:09:24 - Ishan Anand
Come up here.
00:09:25 - Scott Steinlage
Absolutely.
00:09:26 - Ishan Anand
And, you know, just first of all, we should tell people when it is, where it is: October 17th and 18th, 2023, at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson, Mississippi. But I'd love for them to come up and give the pitch about what's great and answer just a few questions about the conference. So I don't know if we've got them up on stage. Why don't you take it away and introduce the conference, please?
00:09:51 - Kayla Sween
Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Kayla Sween. I'm one of the organizers, along with my husband Richard, for Magnolia JS. And yeah, we'll have it on the 17th and 18th of this month in Jackson, Mississippi. Magnolia JS is just really something that we wanted to make sure we kept going to keep highlighting the developer community we have in Jackson, Mississippi, and show people that Mississippi isn't everything terrible you've seen in the news, and that we have a lot of developers here and a thriving tech community.
00:10:27 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah, that's awesome. And I was just gonna say one thing on top of that: you guys started this, and you've been really funding a lot of this out of your own pockets. I mean, that says a lot about how much you guys care for the developer community, and obviously also for your local community too, to be doing that and funding all this out of your guys' own pockets. I don't know if a lot of people know that, and so I think that's an important piece to put out there. I mean, to show how much you guys really do care and want this to be a success for everybody. Yeah, that's really cool.
00:11:08 - Kayla Sween
We're hoping that someday that won't be the case because, yeah, spending upwards of $30,000 a year for the conference isn't ideal. But yeah, we've had a couple sponsors this year, and Blake's one of our sponsors, so we really, really, really appreciate that.
00:11:29 - Ishan Anand
Yeah, you've been doing this for, you know, it says five years. This is the fifth year. Was there any particular event or thing that was a trigger for it, or you wanted to do it for a while and you finally just had the support to do it? Was there anything that precipitated it?
00:11:47 - Kayla Sween
So, we didn't start the event. Another local developer, J.C. Hyatt, actually started Magnolia JS. He ran it for two years and then handed it off to me to run. It's a lot, and so he was ready to start a family, so he was ready to kind of pass the baton, so to speak. So yeah, I know that that was kind of the goal around that. I think maybe the city of Jackson or somebody like that had really wanted something like that here, and I think that was kind of the catalyst for it.
00:12:25 - Ishan Anand
Okay, how would you describe, for those who haven't been there, just the tech scene in the Jackson, Mississippi area? Does it lean toward a particular industry? Is it folks from a particular area? Just how would you describe it?
00:12:42 - Kayla Sween
I mean, it's small, but I wouldn't say it leans toward any particular industry. We have a lot of people who work in telecommunications because we have a local telecommunications company in the area. We've got a lot of government contractors. We've got a lot of people who work for the government directly. Yeah. And so the tech community doesn't really lean in one industry or the other. It doesn't really lean in one stack or the other. It just heavily depends on which company you work for. And so we try to aim toward mostly front end, and I'm kind of air-quoting right now, but we try to have full-stack stuff so that everybody can get something out of it. And even if you're not strictly a web developer, maybe you could still get something out of it too.
00:13:32 - Ishan Anand
Yeah, I noticed it wasn't entirely all front end in the talks, and so that makes sense, especially if you're saying people span the full spectrum. Do you feel there's a startup ecosystem or scene in the area, or do you think it's maybe nascent?
00:13:55 - Kayla Sween
You know, you hear of a few startups in the area, but I couldn't really speak to how prevalent startups are. Most of the people that I know are working for either smaller, kind of established companies in the area, or work for larger established companies in the area, or even work for other companies around the country, around the world, but work remotely from here.
00:14:25 - Ishan Anand
Yeah, I would imagine remote is a huge boon in terms of expanding the work opportunities. Is that your sense?
00:14:36 - Kayla Sween
That is my sense, and that's what I hope to continue because I know a lot of people in previous years have moved out of the state to get better opportunities, better pay somewhere else. And so I'm hoping, since a lot of things are more remote-focused now, that we can kind of help highlight those jobs around the nation, around the world, just so people realize that they don't have to leave home to get a good-paying job.
00:15:02 - Ishan Anand
Yeah, that's really important. At the previous company I was at, we were remote before the pandemic, and we found it was a really useful hiring tool because it opened us up to a range of candidates who just weren't going to come to the Bay Area because of its cost of living, and we were headquartered in the Bay Area. And it was great to be able to pull from basically anyone who's qualified in the US, and we built our first remote team. I think that was like four years before the pandemic. And I think it was a win-win on both sides. And then when everyone went remote, it was like, now we had to compete with the big guys again.
00:15:44 - Scott Steinlage
Exactly.
00:15:45 - Ishan Anand
I think it's pretty... yeah. And now some of those guys are pulling it back.
00:15:49 - Anthony Campolo
So I actually saw an article about this, how they were saying that people who went remote immediately lost productivity, because to get the productivity boosts, you need to know how to be remote. You need to be able to take advantage of people who are in other places. And there are all these things you need to do to actually get productivity boosts from working remote. And if you just go remote, you lose productivity, but if you do it right, you gain productivity.
00:16:21 - Ishan Anand
A really good point. It's like almost anything. You've got to do it the right way to get the benefit. Okay, well, that's... we should let our...
00:16:33 - Anthony Campolo
Also, real quick, we had an interview recently with Ryan Magoon go live. And in that interview, we were asking him what conferences he was excited about, and Magnolia was one that he name-dropped. I was listening back to that, and I'm like, hey, we mentioned Magnolia in this. So it's something that I hear on the lips of community members frequently. And that's even something I say in the air. People always talk about Magnolia and how great it is. So it's something that people who've been there really enjoy.
00:17:03 - Scott Steinlage
Absolutely. Yeah. And Blake and other folks on here, I feel like there's some great conversation in that podcast that you guys might enjoy. It's really cool.
00:17:15 - Blake Watson
While we're talking about remote work, I just want to throw out that this is something I care a lot about because I'm a person who has a pretty severe physical disability. And I did work in an office previously, but I switched to a remote company actually right before the pandemic happened. So they were already a remote company who knew how to do remote stuff. But I like the idea that this work can be done from anywhere. And I think companies going remote give people with disabilities a very good opportunity to be able to use their skills and work, and be able to have the things that they need. You can work in your own environment. It's kind of accessible to you, but you can still work a good job in tech. So yeah, I care a lot about remote work.
00:18:11 - Scott Steinlage
That's awesome. Yeah, that is very cool. I mean, it's not every day that you get to hear that perspective, and it's really phenomenal that we got to have you here today to talk about your perspective on that. I'd love to hear more of it as we go on through the conversation and stuff, and how different things look from your perspective. It's really, really great to hear, and I'd love to promote that more and help in any way we can. Right? So it's awesome.
00:18:39 - Ishan Anand
Yeah, maybe that's actually a good segue. You know, Blake, if you want to talk about either that a little bit more or talk about what you're going to be talking about, your talk is titled The Joys of Home Cooked Apps. Do you want to give maybe the audience the pitch for what you're talking about? And I just want to shout out, what I really loved in your bio is you said, "When not doing nerd stuff, he can be found..." and then says, "Checks notes. Never mind. He only does nerd stuff." And I felt a lot of resonance with that. But do you want to keep talking about remote, or your talk, The Joys of Home Cooked Apps?
00:19:14 - Tobiloba
Sure.
00:19:14 - Blake Watson
Well, I mean, I don't have more to say about remote except that I just think everyone should do it, pretty much. But yeah, my talk is The Joys of Home Cooked Apps. And so it's about sort of the personal side of software development. You know, it's about the type of apps that you can make for yourself because it's easy to think that if you make software, it's got to be for a client, or it's got to be a package someone can use. It's got to be distributed or shipped to a customer base or whatever. But I like this idea that you can just create stuff that isn't made for mass distribution. You can literally just make something that you and your friends use, or you and your family use for something. And it doesn't need to be polished or generic. You can literally make it for the three people that are going to use it. And because we're software developers, it's pretty amazing if you really think about it. We can just make software and put this technology into the world.
00:20:23 - Blake Watson
We have a sort of superpower, if you will. And it's easy to think about what you need to do for your work and stuff, but you can actually just make things for yourself that make your life easier, better. And if software and technology isn't making life better, then what's the point of all of it? So in my talk, I'm just gonna kind of go into the what, why, how of home-cooked apps and just share some examples. And I've got a bunch of examples that I've done, but I've been trying to get people to submit their own, and yeah, I've got some pretty interesting ones to share, so that'll be fun.
00:21:08 - Ishan Anand
That's very cool. You know, there are two interesting themes there. There's learning something from it. You win and get something out of it if you maybe use a new technology, and then you're potentially helping other people. And it's not like it may be helping people you don't know, but it's people in your own community or family or relationships that you're helping out. So it's very immediate. And I personally love coding up random small apps myself. I'm curious if there's one particular example you want to share that's your favorite.
00:21:51 - Blake Watson
Yeah, so this is probably one of the most useful things I've ever made in my time programming since the mid-2000s. So I have caregivers that work with me in different shifts, and at the end of their pay period we have to turn in these timesheets, and they're kind of complicated and annoying to fill out a lot of times. And so, at one point, probably like a decade ago, I was like, I'm just gonna make a thing that will take some... Basically, I didn't want to write down stuff in a spreadsheet because I'm lazy. So I made like a sort of markdown for working shifts, and it's just like my little syntax, and I use some jQuery in there, and I made this little thing that I can print out and give to my caregivers, and it lets them know how to fill in the timesheets. And I've been using that same thing for like 10 years now, and it saved me a ton of time.
00:23:04 - Blake Watson
It's not glamorous or anything, but it was just like, I need to make this. And I've peeked into the code before. I don't know how it works. I'm looking at the messiest, most terrible code, but it works great. So I'm just like, because I'm the only customer...
00:23:24 - Ishan Anand
...that experience of coming back to a side project and being like, I don't remember what I was thinking when I wrote this.
00:23:31 - Blake Watson
You can go both ways. You can look at old code that you've written and be like, wow, what was I smoking when I wrote this? But then also you can be like, man, I was a genius back then. I don't know how I thought of this.
00:23:44 - Ishan Anand
Yeah, well, what I think is actually the really important takeaway from that story is it's a powerful reminder that there's so much that we interact with as software in everybody's lives. But so much of those interfaces, or the way people interact with it, does not perfectly fit whatever the workflow is in that context. Whether somebody built this system... and I'll say this as a product manager, a product manager or designer thought through, here's the lowest or the most common way I can solve the problem, but they're not in every single context. And creating side projects like this to really kind of iterate and improve is really important. So it's a reminder that it's not always the perfect interface, the ones that they hand you in almost any application.
00:24:34 - Blake Watson
Yeah, I mean, we run into that situation at work working on our apps for NASA. With our customers, we work in a very iterative way. And so the developers and the project managers will basically come up with, okay, we should solve this problem this way. And then we might put that in front of the customers. And then they'll start using it and be like, what are you doing? This is awful. Like, obviously, I know I don't need this form field right now because I don't know the answer to this until later. Why is this required? So we have to sort of iterate and take into consideration the context that the user is in. And yeah, doing your own small projects is a good way to practice that, because you can know exactly that you and your friends or your family's the only user. So you can design for that.
00:25:41 - Ishan Anand
Yeah, exactly. I don't know if you've seen it. There's an animated GIF about what it's like watching a user use your product for the first time. And I think it's people drinking water out of a cup, and everyone just uses it wrong. Like, the animation is the idea. You thought it was gonna be used in this particular way, but then when it actually gets used by a customer and you watch it, you're like, oh wow, why did I even think they would... This seemed obvious to me, but it isn't obvious to them. It's definitely a really powerful reminder there. We're at the halfway point. Scott, do you want to just do our station?
00:26:17 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah.
00:26:19 - Ishan Anand
Let's hear from Taylor.
00:26:21 - Scott Steinlage
Absolutely perfect. Thank you so much for joining us today. It's been awesome so far. Thank you, Kayla, for talking about Magnolia and how that started up, and Blake, for the conversation you're going to be having and the cool side projects that you're working on and stuff like that. Really appreciate that. And just hearing from the authentic version of everybody here today has been really amazing. I love it. I just want to say, whether you're a beginning developer or whether you've been in this for a long time, it doesn't matter. We want to hear from everybody. So feel free to request to come up just like Toby did there. And as you can see, we allowed him to come up here on stage. And so then you'll be able to ask questions or make comments or facts or opinions, whatever, it doesn't matter. We want to hear from everybody. So that way we just bring more value to everybody here that's participating and in the audience. So thank you all so much. By the way, don't forget, if you haven't already subscribed to the JavaScript Jam newsletter, go to javascriptjam.com and subscribe there. That way you don't miss out on the latest and greatest in web development and JavaScript.
00:27:31 - Ishan Anand
Okay, thank you, Scott. So, Toby, if you have a question for Blake or is it for Taylor or something else?
00:27:42 - Tobiloba
Oh, yeah. Thank you very much, Ishan. Thank you very much, folks. Anthony. Scott.
00:27:47 - Ishan Anand
Yeah.
00:27:47 - Tobiloba
I have a question actually for Magnolia JS. I was gonna ask regarding the event: is it more in-person first? Because I was thinking of how CFP submissions work. So I was just wondering, is it like a very... you know, it's like a gathering, or how do the events work? And how are the CFP submissions for speakers? That was mostly my question. I was just trying to understand that.
00:28:14 - Anthony Campolo
Can someone from Nigeria participate?
00:28:18 - Spaghetti Code
Yeah, exactly.
00:28:19 - Kayla Sween
We like people to be here, but that's not a strict rule. So just on a case-by-case basis, I guess.
00:28:31 - Anthony Campolo
Well, Toby's pretty awesome. So if you want to make an exception.
00:28:37 - Scott Steinlage
Yes. Yeah. Million JS, man. I saw you got that MacBook Pro in the other day. Awesome.
00:28:43 - Ishan Anand
So it sounds like you'd consider a CFP if he submitted one, even though he'd be remote. Is that correct?
00:28:51 - Kayla Sween
Right.
00:28:53 - Scott Steinlage
Okay. Are CFPs closed right now?
00:28:55 - Kayla Sween
Yeah, they're definitely closed right now.
00:28:58 - Scott Steinlage
So for next year, though.
00:28:59 - Anthony Campolo
Next year?
00:29:00 - Kayla Sween
Yeah. Well, we. I mean, yeah, we're like 13 days out from the event, so, yeah, they're. I would be driving myself nuts if I was trying to look at CFPs right now.
00:29:09 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah.
00:29:09 - Taylor Desseyn
Yeah.
00:29:12 - Ishan Anand
When. When do you typically open up the CFPs? Is it like six months in advance?
00:29:16 - Kayla Sween
Well, I guess this year was the first year we did a CFP. So I guess there's no typical time frame, but we'll announce it. And there will be plenty of time. I think last time we had it open for like three months or something. So there'll be plenty of time to submit whenever we do it.
00:29:34 - Anthony Campolo
Did you just pick your friends when there was no CFP?
00:29:38 - Kayla Sween
Yeah, I would just reach out to people and ask. And that was hard for me because I'm terrible about asking for help anyway, which is the worst quality to have in a conference organizer. But that was basically what I would do — just reach out to people who I knew had spoken at conferences before.
00:29:56 - Anthony Campolo
Just straight nepotism.
00:29:58 - Kayla Sween
Yeah, basically. Because all the CFP things that are out there cost money, and as we've discussed, we don't have any. But this year I was just like, well, screw it. This will just make my life easier. So I did it anyway.
00:30:19 - Scott Steinlage
Okay.
00:30:19 - Blake Watson
Yeah.
00:30:20 - Tobiloba
Thank you very much.
00:30:24 - Ishan Anand
Yeah. So it sounds like get on the mailing list to be notified when the CFP opens up. But thank you for the question. It's definitely a good one.
00:30:34 - Kayla Sween
Yeah, we don't have a mailing list right now either, which is a problem. But that's coming, or we'll have a mailing list on the website at some point.
00:30:45 - Scott Steinlage
Okay.
00:30:46 - Ishan Anand
Follow on Twitter.
00:30:48 - Tobiloba
Yeah, I just did that, and I turned on notifications, so I'll just be notified as to when that happens. Yeah, thank you very much for the amazing answers.
00:30:59 - Ishan Anand
No, thank you for the question. Okay, Taylor, let's hear from you. You'll be speaking at Magnolia as well. You've got an extensive career, for those who don't know, in the recruiting space, and you're a frequent speaker at a lot of conferences. Your talk is a manifesto in hiring. Do you want to walk us through what you're going to be talking about?
00:31:26 - Taylor Desseyn
Yeah, absolutely.
00:31:27 - Scott Steinlage
And again, thanks.
00:31:28 - Taylor Desseyn
Thanks to everybody for putting this space on. I appreciate it, and inviting me means a lot. So this talk is kind of... I mean, I'm kind of pivoting this talk a little bit, but it was originally intended just for hiring managers, and now I'm kind of talking to both hiring managers and job seekers in this talk. But I think the biggest bottleneck in your career — and we could probably all agree on this — is the interviewing process. I was just in Atlanta last week speaking at the North Atlanta JavaScript User Group, and we got onto the topic of interviews and talked about it for almost two hours. The guys who run that were like, "all right, we gotta wrap this up." And getting out of that meetup, I was like, "man, this gave me a lot of motivation for Magnolia," because people are just terrified of interviews, and rightfully so. And I also think most hiring managers suck at interviewing too, and also rightfully so — there's no playbook.
00:32:38 - Taylor Desseyn
What this talk is is kind of a checks-and-balances thing. I understand that I'm only one recruiter, not the end-all be-all. But I've also seen hundreds, if not thousands, of companies fail at interviewing. In my 12 years of recruiting, I've seen probably only a handful do it the right way. What my talk is really focused on is: come to the talk, take notes, then go back to your engineering team and ask, "okay, are we doing these things?" And as an interviewer, ask yourself, am I doing these things — these simple blocking-and-tackling steps that most people don't know about?
00:33:21 - Blake Watson
Right.
00:33:22 - Taylor Desseyn
Most people don't have their about-me statements nailed down. Most people don't even research the company before they interview with them. Hiring managers suck at writing job descriptions. Hiring managers suck at giving feedback. So for me, it's kind of this playbook I'm starting to create to help equip job seekers and hiring managers on how to be better.
00:33:45 - Ishan Anand
Wow, there's so many threads. I want to go and unpack there.
00:33:48 - Taylor Desseyn
I know it's a lot.
00:33:51 - Ishan Anand
Very timely right now in the current economy. So one of the things you mentioned is you've seen very few companies who do it right. Could you name-drop some companies that you think do it right?
00:34:06 - Taylor Desseyn
Yeah, I can. I mean, so back when I worked in our Raleigh office in 2013, there was an e-comm company that spun up called ChannelAdvisor. Kevin Feasel, who I placed, he's really big in the data engineering community, but we placed most of their data... I placed actually most of their data engineering team. There's another woman who's really big now in the data engineering community named Tracy Baggiano. I placed her too. And what they did is, so this was when everybody was on-site, they would literally do like an hour-and-a-half phone call. They would fly you in the next week for a three-hour, four-hour on-site, fly you back same day, and then make you an offer.
00:34:49 - Ishan Anand
Wow.
00:34:50 - Taylor Desseyn
And it was so quick, so thorough, so easy. And their retention rates with us are through the roof because internal TA, internal talent acquisition, trusted us and we trusted them. And surprisingly, it was a very simple process. So that's one. There is a local guy in town, he's a CTO of a startup. They just got their Series A. It's my boy Daniel Norton in Nashville. It's a company called Neural Payments. They are a competitor to Zelle. So if anybody knows Zelle, the bank payment app, yep, they're the competitor. The thing with Zelle is if a bank signs up for Zelle, it's basically like they have to give you a ton of data on their users and stuff. And Neural Payments is like, hey, we just want to integrate with your stuff. We don't really care about anything else. So what he did... He and I are really good friends, and this hire didn't go through, but it takes this type of conversation. He came to me, he was like, hey, we have a bunch of Rust that we need.
00:36:03 - Taylor Desseyn
Not actual rust — Rust the programming language. He told me they had a bunch of Rust that needed to be rewritten and documented, and they wanted a full-time person. I said, "that's probably not going to happen — how much can you pay?" He told me. I said, "you're about $70,000 under budget." He goes, "oh." I said, "let's find a consultant who can come in for five to ten hours a week, help train up your staff, and then leave — no long-term obligation." My buddy the CTO was like, "that's great." Now, did it go through? No, because the requirements changed — they realized they needed more of a junior developer. They did it within like two interviews
00:36:49 - Scott Steinlage
and it was easy.
00:36:49 - Taylor Desseyn
But what I appreciated is that he listened to me, trusted me, and took my advice on how to level up his team. Not all recruiters have my background — I understand that. But hiring managers who can put a lot of trust in recruiters, especially on the agency side because we see so much, can really help level up their staff.
00:37:10 - Ishan Anand
Interesting. So on the flip side, most people are not on the hiring side, they're on the applying side.
00:37:20 - Taylor Desseyn
Yeah.
00:37:21 - Ishan Anand
What do you do if you feel like the company you're applying to is doing it wrong? You know, let's say I attended your talk and I saw the checklist and I'm like, oh my gosh, they're not doing these things. What power do you...
00:37:35 - Taylor Desseyn
Yeah.
00:37:35 - Ishan Anand
As the applicant?
00:37:37 - Taylor Desseyn
I mean, right now, not much. I'm just gonna be brutally honest. I mean, we're still very much in a company-driven market. But I think it's... listen, I talk a lot about dating and the job search. There are just a tremendous amount of similarities. And listen, our spouse, for those of us who are married on here, our spouse has got red flags, right? I mean, listen, like, I got red flags, right? And so, I'm sure some of you may be nodding your head. Maybe not Anthony, because he's on his honeymoon, but he's still early on. Everything's great still. But all that being said, I'm getting a lot of hundreds and laughy faces, so that's resonating with some people. So for me, I just think it's things to keep in mind. I'm not saying that if they do three out of the five things wrong, you need to run away screaming. But I think it's just things to be mindful of.
00:38:32 - Ishan Anand
Okay, I think we have somebody who raised their hand spaghetti code. Did you have a question for Taylor?
00:38:40 - Spaghetti Code
No, I was just popping in saying what's up. I like to join technical spaces. It seemed like some of y'all were, and I don't think I raised my hand. I think I waved to come up. But I'm gonna be chilling here for just a little bit. I have a lot of corporate knowledge as well. It sounds like some of y'all do too. But I'm a developer slash entrepreneur mostly, and definitely can understand most of this and relate to it. So that's why I come on Spaces. I tend to help a lot of people out with this kind of thing. So just listening in right now, I mean.
00:39:18 - Ishan Anand
Yeah, okay. Thank you, Taylor. So, you know, you alluded to, I think you called it a company-driven market. How would you characterize...?
00:39:30 - Taylor Desseyn
Well, right now it's a client... it's a company-driven market. Yeah, yeah. It's just because of the state of the market.
00:39:38 - Ishan Anand
and what recommendation would you give to somebody to try and stand out?
00:39:42 - Anthony Campolo
What does that mean to be a client driven market versus yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:39:46 - Scott Steinlage
Company.
00:39:46 - Taylor Desseyn
"Client" is in my brain because that's who we work with. But yeah, company-driven market. Right now there are more developers than there are jobs open. It's been a wild ride — 2020 to 2022 was nuts. There was definitely over-hiring. I called it. I hate to be that guy, but that's why I put out content, so I can be historically accurate.
00:40:12 - Anthony Campolo
You called the top, you say?
00:40:13 - Taylor Desseyn
Yeah, I called what we're going through right now. We were hiring with reckless abandon — people were having like six or seven managers in six months. It was absolute chaos. There was such a money grab, and I knew nothing good could come out of this. We are definitely feeling the correction. I don't know exactly when this is going to turn, but I think there are signs of life. I actually tweeted this this morning to get some feedback.
00:40:57 - Scott Steinlage
I just read that.
00:40:58 - Taylor Desseyn
Yeah, exactly. And if you look at the comments — I've talked with a few of my buddies who are still agency recruiters. They said hiring is happening, but everybody's still money-conscious, so the hiring positions are staying with internal recruiters, not agency recruiters. There are a lot of internal recruiters active on LinkedIn, but most of the chatter is driven by agency recruiters, so that's why you're not hearing much. The second signal is that a lot of recruiters are starting to get hired again, which means hiring is about to happen. And a lot of my developer friends commented on that tweet and said they're starting to see an uptick in DMs. My gut says we're never going to get back to where we were in 2020-2022 — that was unrealistic. But I do think we'll get back to more of a normal market at the end of Q1 next year. If you read the business newsletters, they're still talking about how a recession could happen, but that's a whole other conversation.
00:42:13 - Taylor Desseyn
So I don't know. Again, like I said, I don't know exactly, but my gut says at the end of Q1 we'll start to see the floodgates open up a little bit more.
00:42:21 - Anthony Campolo
That's really smart, looking at recruiters as a hiring signal for further hiring.
00:42:30 - Taylor Desseyn
Yeah, and I think a lot of the engineering community doesn't understand that recruiters are a wealth of knowledge. I'm not really in a traditional recruiting seat anymore — working for a talent marketplace means I'm just trying to get people into our community. You apply to jobs on your own within our Slack platform. But I'm still up on trends. If you want to know how much you're worth, recruiters know more about that than any industry report. You should really lean on recruiters locally and nationally and pick their brains on things.
00:43:20 - Spaghetti Code
Hey, I had a couple things I want to say if that's okay. I don't know if someone else... were you about to say something, Ishan?
00:43:26 - Ishan Anand
I was gonna ask a follow up question but we love audience participation, so go ahead.
00:43:30 - Spaghetti Code
Oh, so maybe most of this is opinion. I'm just giving my experience. So yeah, I mean, people look up what the market is, they use reports, etc. But something that I do find is the ones who are actually in tune with what's going on in the corporate world, they'll actually reach out to individuals who have been doing it in similar fields, and they'll find out what they're getting paid in a similar market, similar company size, similar region, etc., and then kind of adjust accordingly. And what I tend to find is people can make a lot more money. And yeah, you're right, recruiters definitely have an idea of what you're worth and what companies are willing to pay. But I think what I find generally is there's this large disconnect, even for the technical ones, because, you know, they get... I don't want to speak ill of anyone, but I just say, you know, they are recruiters. I mean, there are some that have been doing tech for a while. But something that I do find as well, and I was going to mention this earlier with the over-hiring of developers...
00:44:29 - Spaghetti Code
Something I see with that, even when they're under-hiring, to be honest with you, is just developers that are qualified. Now, I don't develop for corporations full-time or anything as a job because I don't really have a desire to do that. I prefer more like managing infrastructure and stuff, or particular systems. It's a lot easier to do, and you make a fair amount of money, so it's just a lot easier. But when I reach out to these developers and help them with issues, just really basic issues, and I mean this respectfully, but they just seem so disconnected from what a computer is, what they're even doing. Like, I helped this guy out yesterday to fix something, and he didn't even know what an environment variable was. And this guy was getting paid probably double what I am. And it's just very frustrating, right? Because I see this on an almost daily basis, and not just at the company that I'm at, but every company that I've ever worked for and had to help people fix their issues, fix systems, et cetera.
00:45:32 - Spaghetti Code
And it's just so common. And, you know, I haven't been in the industry for 20 years or anything, but it's been over 10 years now. I don't know how long, probably 15 years. And I've always seen that, and it's just something that I wanted to point out.
00:45:51 - Tobiloba
Yeah.
00:45:54 - Ishan Anand
Okay, thank you. So one of the things, Taylor, you mentioned is it's not going to get back to what we had. You called end of Q1 of next year when you mentioned it'll get back to normal. It won't be what we saw in the last few years. Could you describe, for people who kind of came of age in tech during the zero-interest-rate phenomenon, what normal should look like in your sense?
00:46:24 - Taylor Desseyn
Man, that's really hard to quantify. I think the easiest way to describe it is: you won't be able to sleepwalk through an interview anymore. You'll still have competition. Not everybody's going to be hiring, but it'll be more of a consistent stream of hiring.
00:46:52 - Scott Steinlage
Right.
00:46:53 - Taylor Desseyn
You're not going to see what I was seeing during 2020 to 2022. I had one company get their Series B and they said they needed 70 engineers. Anytime a company says they need to hire that many engineers, they really don't — I think they ended up hiring like 30.
00:47:12 - Anthony Campolo
And to read The Mythical Man-Month.
00:47:16 - Taylor Desseyn
Yeah, I mean, it's just like, when they say things like that, my eyes roll in the back of my head. I'm like, all right, sounds good. And then we were getting companies like, I need to hire 10 engineers. Like, there was just such a massive amount of one-time hiring, where I think now you're going to get, hey, we need two engineers, we need five engineers. Hey, we need an engineer. I think hiring will start to happen again. I think agency recruiters will start to get involved again. I think there will definitely be a surge, but it won't be the growth, just the massive amounts of hiring at one time, if that makes sense.
00:47:49 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah. Oh, go ahead. I said unless you're Clerk.
00:47:55 - Taylor Desseyn
Yeah, I know. Seriously, they're snatching everybody up right now. It's insane.
00:48:00 - Ishan Anand
Yeah, yeah, I guess what would that look like from the candidate position? Maybe the length of the interview process is this amount of time. Is there a qualitative way to describe it? Like, your interview cycle is two weeks, or you could have three companies bidding against you. It'll probably be...
00:48:22 - Taylor Desseyn
Right there during that time, I would have people with five, six, seven offers at once. People would peace out on interviews if they didn't get a job offer within two weeks. There were developers getting permanent job offers sight unseen off a single phone interview.
00:48:47 - Ishan Anand
Wow.
00:48:48 - Taylor Desseyn
Permanent salary offers, not contract. I understand contracting is a little quicker — "hey, you can spell JavaScript, you're hired" — but permanent jobs were nuts back then. So I don't think you'll have that. As a job seeker, you may have two to three offers instead of five to seven. But I still think it's...
00:49:12 - Scott Steinlage
going to come back.
00:49:13 - Taylor Desseyn
I still think it's gonna be good. It just won't be the hey, I have like seven offers right now.
00:49:18 - Scott Steinlage
I mean, there are so many different variables. There's almost a shift in the verticals that are hiring — it went from all these social platforms and ads companies, like Google and Facebook.
00:49:35 - Taylor Desseyn
Yeah, there's so much money, there's so
00:49:37 - Scott Steinlage
There's so much money being flooded into the market, whereas now there's not as much money being flooded into ads because people are cutting their marketing budgets and yada yada yada. But now AI...
00:49:45 - Anthony Campolo
All right.
00:49:46 - Scott Steinlage
Exactly. That's exactly what I was about to say. That's literally where I was going with this. So now there's a new vertical, right? And it's AI, and all these different companies are getting funded hundreds of millions of dollars all at once. And so it's kind of crazy what I'm seeing there in that area. And so a lot of people are getting ahead of the game and focusing on that as a developer, and many aren't because they're afraid of what that looks like, or they're not realizing. We were just talking about this the other day with B. Dougie, Brian Douglas from Open Source, about how easy it is to spin up AI and that you should just try it if you haven't already, and maybe work on some side AI projects and stuff because it's easier than you think. When someone like me can do it, so can you. I'm telling you, I've spun up stuff. I've done a few AI projects, and it's pretty cool.
00:50:49 - Scott Steinlage
You don't have to know how to create the models — they're there. That's why ChatGPT-4 is there. Anyway, I'm going into a rabbit hole here, but there are so many other variables that are going to help build out that hiring potential over the next year or so.
00:51:10 - Anthony Campolo
go where the money is.
00:51:10 - Taylor Desseyn
Definitely, definitely.
00:51:12 - Blake Watson
I'll just throw in there, if you want to get started with AI, you can make a home-cooked app first.
00:51:18 - Scott Steinlage
Right, which is perfect, which is what Blake was talking about before. Hey Blake, that's a good question. Not to jump around too much, but have you done anything with AI to help you with anything in your day-to-day?
00:51:31 - Blake Watson
Not yet, but I have ideas just sort of percolating, so I don't know when I'll get around to it. But I am interested to see... I feel like in AI there's a lot of potential assistive-tech applications that should be... I mean, basic ones being predictive text or stuff like that, which we kind of already have. But yeah, for example, Apple just... I guess this is related, but they just have this accessibility feature where users who are at risk of voice loss can create a digital voice based on their existing voice.
00:52:17 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah, I saw that.
00:52:18 - Blake Watson
Yeah, I saw that.
00:52:22 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah, I saw the feature on my phone and I'm like, oh cool, I might try this later. And I think I first saw it... you know where I first saw it? Most people probably know who this is. MKBHD, right? Marquez Brownlee, I think. Yeah, he was talking about it on his channel. That's pretty cool. Awesome, man. If you do anything with it, I'd love to hear about it. So be sure to tweet about it, X about it, post about it, something about it. And that's the term, right?
00:52:47 - Blake Watson
Sure.
00:52:48 - Spaghetti Code
Hey, I just want to mention, I'm not going to break it all down here because I don't want to do that, you guys, but I do have something I want to develop if anyone's interested. I mean, it would just be piggybacking on existing AI systems. It's not developing your own or training your own. There's no point in doing that for this. And it's a pretty large market that's going to be opening up any day. So it's related to call quality assurance and things like that, because a lot of those reps they're going to be letting go in the next few years probably, and a lot of companies already switched to AI systems for grading calls, etc. So there's a few companies already doing it, and I want to develop one. So anyone who has that information and stuff, or wants to work on it with me, let me know because I'm having to advise everyone on it along the way, and it's very frustrating. I need someone who's kind of already up to par.
00:53:44 - Scott Steinlage
Cool. Thanks, man. Yeah, so DM him if you're interested. But yeah, there's a lot of companies out there that are also using AI for those initial calls and leads and stuff too. I know a couple.
00:53:59 - Spaghetti Code
No, I mean for grading calls.
00:54:01 - Scott Steinlage
I know, I know what you meant. I'm saying that, even skipping the grading, I meant just doing the actual calls.
00:54:08 - Spaghetti Code
They came out with something like 20 years ago. I don't know how long it's been, but they had something that they were using years and years and years ago.
00:54:14 - Scott Steinlage
Probably.
00:54:14 - Spaghetti Code
That's probably... I think that's what it is.
00:54:16 - Blake Watson
Yeah.
00:54:17 - Spaghetti Code
But.
00:54:18 - Ishan Anand
Yep.
00:54:19 - Scott Steinlage
Anyway, cool. Awesome. Thanks so much, man. Taylor, sorry, didn't mean to go down too much rabbit hole there, but I'd
00:54:26 - Ishan Anand
I'd be curious, Taylor, given the unique lens you have. I've heard exactly what you described. In fact, that was one of my list of interview questions, Scott, was about what I heard, which is that what we're seeing in the hiring is that it's now less tech companies hiring developers. Outside of AI, it's now traditional companies hiring, and that's currently what the shift is. And then there's, of course, AI. So would you say that's accurate, Taylor, or do you have another theory about what's happening? And would you agree, are there other hot areas besides AI where you see demand is picking up?
00:55:03 - Taylor Desseyn
I can't really answer that accurately, because I'm still so new at Gun.io that I sit between our DevRel, product, and marketing teams and don't have a lot of visibility into what companies are coming to us right now. But yes, I have seen a lot less true tech companies hiring, and more of like, yeah, Wells Fargo's hiring a ton of developers. I'm starting to see other industries hiring outside of pure tech because pure tech took advantage of the money grab — VCs were cutting millions of dollars of checks sight unseen with absolutely no due diligence. I think everybody's in timeout right now in tech, and so other industries are able to take advantage. Anyway, I appreciate it — I have to go wake up my daughter from her nap, so I gotta bounce. Thanks for the invite, guys.
00:56:14 - Taylor Desseyn
Yeah.
00:56:15 - Scott Steinlage
Thank you so much, Taylor, for joining us, everybody. Before he leaves the room, be sure to click on his face there and follow him if you don't already. Great connection to have, great person to know. Even if you don't need a job, whatever, hit him up. He's fun to listen to and watch. He does this daily vlog thing. Pretty cool to check out and see the life of Taylor. Thank you, guys.
00:56:41 - Taylor Desseyn
[unclear]
00:56:42 - Scott Steinlage
Appreciate it. And that goes for anybody else that was up here on stage. If you got any value from anybody else up here, be sure to click on their face and follow them as well. Magnolia, click on them, follow them. Obviously, if you haven't gotten tickets yet to go to Magnolia, I don't know what you're doing, but you need to do that, I think. Did they go up? Was yesterday the last day?
00:57:04 - Kayla Sween
Yeah, yesterday was the last day.
00:57:06 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah. So they're still available, but they're still there, right, right? But you missed the early-entry price anyway. It's still a great deal, actually, compared to many other events out there. So be sure to scoop those up and get to the event. That way you can be a part of something really great. And yeah, by the way, next week we will also be chatting with a couple more people from the event that will be speaking as well. And those folks will be Jeremy Meiss and Todd Libby. So that should be a great time.
00:57:48 - Kayla Sween
We'll have to check with Jeremy about that because I know he had to drop because of layoffs.
00:57:54 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah, got it. That's unfortunate. Okay, well, you know what, things always happen here in this tech world, but maybe he'll still want to hang out, maybe not. I don't know. Either way, we will definitely have Todd Libby there, and I'm sure Kayla will be hanging out with us too. So be sure to join that conversation as well. And I think Todd is going to be, if I'm not mistaken, he's going to be talking about deceptive patterns, dark patterns on the web. So that'll be interesting to talk about on the show. Yeah. Once again, thank you so much for joining us. Greatly appreciate it. We're pretty much at the hour here. I know Ishan has a hard stop, and so yeah, I think we're gonna...
00:58:47 - Ishan Anand
Callout to all of our guests and to Magnolia JS conference. But Scott, I'll let you take us out since I have to hop to my next one.
00:58:58 - Scott Steinlage
Yep. Thank you, Ishan. Greatly appreciate you. Yeah, I think that pretty much sums it up. Thank you all so much for being here. If you got value, JavaScript Jam wouldn't mind the follow as well. And if you haven't already, go to javascriptjam.com and sign up for the newsletter so you don't miss out on the latest and greatest in web development and JavaScript. Yeah, Anthony, be safe on the rest of your travels there around Italy and all that good stuff, and we'll love to hear more when you get back in town here soon. So thanks for joining us, man. So much pasta. Yes. Blake, thank you so much for joining us, man. Looking forward to hearing more about how your talk goes at Magnolia. And by the way, if you're feeling like it, anybody who's here that's not a regular, if you want to become a regular, it's okay. You can do that. We're here every Wednesday, 12 PM Pacific Standard Time, so yeah, we always love having more people join us because it just spices up the conversation and brings more value. So all right, thank you all so much. We love y'all.
01:00:11 - Scott Steinlage
And we'll see you in the next one. Thank y'all so much. We love you. We'll see you in the next one. Peace.