---
title: 'How to Build a Career in Tech: Henri Helvetica Connects the Dots'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=VtCUn3mY-L8'
video_id: 'VtCUn3mY-L8'
date: 2026-08-10
duration_sec: 3595
---

# How to Build a Career in Tech: Henri Helvetica Connects the Dots

> Source: [How to Build a Career in Tech: Henri Helvetica Connects the Dots](https://youtube.com/watch?v=VtCUn3mY-L8)

## Summary

In this interview, Henri Helvetica shares his unconventional journey from music and fashion to a thriving tech career. He discusses the importance of transferable skills, being public with your work, and consistency in building a professional network.

### Key Points

- **Current Career Overview** [13:20] — Henri Helvetica is a freelancer, organizer of the Jamstack Toronto meetup, and keynote speaker. He emphasizes that he hasn't reached the apex of his career yet.
- **Background in Music and Fashion** [16:44] — Henri came from a music background, working in marketing and promotions, and later moved into fashion. These roles taught him networking and product development skills.
- **Transferable Skills** [20:01] — Skills like building a global network, project management, and product thinking from music and fashion are directly applicable to tech.
- **Standing Out from Other Applicants** [28:08] — Henri used a unique Twitter handle and shared his passions publicly to stand out. He also tagged authors when quoting their work, building rapport with the community.
- **The Power of Public Work** [33:38] — Being public with your work can lead to job offers. Henri shared an example where the CEO of Shopify offered an internship after browsing a GitHub profile.
- **Consistency and Community** [37:28] — Consistency in showing up to meetups, engaging online, and contributing to communities is crucial for career growth. It helps you become part of a community rather than an observer.
- **Creative Meetup Ideas** [45:28] — Henri organized a themed 11/11 event with lightning talks, showing how creativity can make tech events more engaging and memorable.
- **Practical Advice for Beginners** [51:44] — For landing a first gig, Henri advises staying active, sharing work online, and being part of a community. He also suggests not stressing too much about the timeline.

## Transcript

your patience we are here we're up and running i am so excited to bring you the first in a series of interviews uh with me jason langstor if i run learn with jason in partnership with free code camp thank you so much for letting us take
absolutely thrilled to be talking to one of my favorite people today henri elvetica how are you doing man honestly i'm probably more thrilled to hiccup uh for everyone uh just watching uh
apologies were a little tardy it's all on me uh my computer was just acting weird and you know what i just discovered today is that the touch id is actually a button as well so i was sitting there touching it touching it
like wait this just went down i'm like oh man i didn't know this oh so uh regardless thanks for having me dude uh i think it's a it's an honor for you to first have reached out to me and uh finding out that i'm the first person uh
uh sort of like launching uh this set of uh interviews so i'm just beyond delighted i mean i'll go a step further than that man i i actually will say that you are the person who kind of inspired the whole idea for this um and we'll
talk a little bit more about why here when we get into it but so what i what i really want to do is i just want to say um you know the the idea behind this whole series and the reason that we're doing it is that getting into tech can
be really daunting right it can be um it can feel like this endless climb like rock up the hill and you never know when it's going to stop and what i what i'm hoping to do is to to help encourage people and and um kind of
show that like even if you haven't been working in tech you're still actively you in your career that are going to help you uh move forward so where i want start by talking a little bit about what you're doing now so do you want to maybe
share a little bit of what what does your career look like now certainly um i mean i i've certainly not uh reached i'd say the the sort of zenith or apex of my career so far in tech but i'm happy to share um i mean
what you would regard as your sort of prototypical freelancer uh and uh i probably take that freelancing a step further uh in a sense that i may things but that's also because i feel that i
also have a set of skills that sort of allow me to do so uh essentially so uh i came from a design firm you know classic you know you know being on the dev team et cetera et cetera uh and then i
discovered uh i mean sort of the inner layers of the the tech the tech scene and yeah i saw you know the conferencing and i saw the writing and stuff like that and i was like oh this is actually kind of
interesting and um having done freelancing uh quite and um having done freelancing uh quite often uh uh man sorry my notifications they're making all this noise but uh having done freelancing in a
in prior careers uh i was very much used to it you know uh and uh so it was no you know uh it wasn't complicated to really transition to a freelance environment so uh after that i just you know even you know
discovering the opportunity to be an organizer you know something that i've done previously as well uh which is absolutely part of the fold uh for me now anyhow so uh yeah i mean like the freelance title uh tends to be a
little boring you know uh but uh you know when i sit down and with people let them know what i do specifically what i enjoy doing specifically uh then you know i start to have this sort of like
multi-faceted uh many hats type of uh uh title something that i think is really interesting about your career in interesting about your career in particular is that you are a many hats
kind of developer because you work you do contract and client work um you organize the jam stack toronto meetup you're a keynote speaker you uh you make like swag you've got the the hip-hop pins which i have i have some of those
sitting around here actually oh man i i may have some no where do they go i i have but you've got like the ll cool js and the notorious big data and like all these amazing these amazing pins um and so you're you're kind of across the
board and what i love about it is that you you have done something that i think in your career which is that you haven't allowed what you do to box you in to a certain set of roles or
really inspiring and that's that's kind of what i was thinking about when we started talking about this show so specifically um what i'd love to talk about a little bit is you don't have a traditional tech
through a computer science college program or anything like that so what were you doing before tech so uh it's uh it's absolutely true i did not come from you know anything cs related
uh i was always curious about you know cs or computers in general you know i i uh younger men because i am still a young man but uh yeah it uh let me see i started
i'd say i mean ultimately i came from music you know if i really uh go digging pretty deep um you know in college uh i did i remember doing uh college radio you know and i had my own little show whatever
had my own little show whatever and um i also had like a part-time job and i say college college slash university uh but i also had a part-time job at a uh a record chain
and uh yeah i mean i enjoyed it and uh that led ultimately to working at a label and uh as you may or may not remember because i know
i'm sure you do remember but you know we've talked about our sort of parallel paths and whatnot in music but you tend to be around that sort of traffic where you know label execs come in you know reps uh you know they have you know swag
or whatever promos and that sort of brought me into the business side of i loved uh i may not love as much as i did back but uh i absolutely loved the the sort of the marketing uh the the development
of careers the development of acts uh and stuff like that so that really enabled me to you know do so many things um you know being in touch with you know groups of people all the time uh you
people you don't know necessarily but you know you you get to know eventually and you know creating creating a network of people across sometimes a country if not a continent you know and these were you know things that we did in in in
music marketing you know sort of being able to pick up the phone or send an email to a particular you know retailer if not you know radio person and and talk about you know some of your your sort of priorities at the time so i
definitely did uh quite a bit of a time in music and at some point uh in well because an opportunity came up and
neither clashed with each other on a scheduling level and certainly not on a content level sure back then it was prior to what i
happening after which was uh the sort of like meeting of two minds the fusing of those two uh industries you know fashion and music suddenly uh working well together hand-in-hand so and and that was also another
and and that was also another opportunity uh that i took i took on because that taught me a lot you know and i did a bit more of the sales thing marketing going on and like i said the music was starting
to fuse in with fashion and i worked with a label a clothing label that was yeah so so kind of talking about like so you
you've worked in in music you've worked in fashion uh you you got into a design um one of the things that i've i've noticed uh a lot of the skills that have helped me
progress have been more on the the kind of social side and really interesting which was about building that global network right and so i remember when i was in a band one of the hardest parts of being in a band
wasn't getting up on stage it was convincing a group of 16 year old kids in a city i'd never been to to go print out and hang up flyers for our show out and hang up flyers for our show right so what kind of skills do you feel
right so what kind of skills do you feel you developed in in fashion in in music that have that you use all the time that you maybe thought would not be oh you know great question and
you know i've actually thought about this prior and uh i i may have i've mentioned this to you but you know ultimately i think i probably will make my way over to like a devrel position
in tech but i tell people all the time you know when i sort of bring up the music bit that i felt like i was dev railing in music before i knew what the you know the the
devrel title in a sense that you first you know you do a bit of a reconnaissance mission like okay i'm in this industry who do i need to know who do i need to talk to what they did what
do i need to talk to what they did what do they do uh that is part of my you right and so you know you reach out to them you know cold emails sometimes but often enough it's like you know they know of
your company so they're like oh yeah no doubt you know blah blah blah you get in touch and and you start that way and you know that could be a national uh situation but it could easily be international right right right and and
you know again you know like you said as a as a someone who's in a band you know you know you have like 10 tour dates and you have to set up these dates with you know uh you know some marketing and some radio
appearances and you know so that means like you know you know prior to zooming uh you have to make that phone calls like hey x y and z i'm coming to town yeah you know can i do a a 15-minute phoner
right well and what you're and what you're talking about like really is that's a that's an overlap with project management that's an overlap with with like product minded thinking because you can't just say look one of the things
trouble is they think that the only part of the job is the code um and and because of that they get a little bit stuck where they write code but they're to the rest of the product of to the rest of the company to the people that
are using it and that kind of lets you you plateau at a certain point where you can't really push beyond and so what you're talking about with this like you know it's not just playing music it's not just doing the show there's all this
stuff connected around it and so you had to develop all these skills of thinking big picture and thinking about how one part would connect to another part how you could support the work that you were doing on this on stage with different
and i think that's that's just absolutely fascinating and such an thought that being a show promoter would help help you become a better developer right absolutely and you know it's uh i mean
again we've talked about this before i've told you like i i enjoy daydreaming i like to sit down and just sort of you know take an idea and start to develop it you know from start to finish good ideas poor ones but you know i jot
opportunities to you know take a product whatever it is and finding out how i can sort of develop it you know in music as you remember it's like okay we'll get the advance okay
what does the music sound like all right cool who do i need to reach out to to sort of you know see this music to uh get some feedback all right cool i got some feedback now i'm potentially going to go to radio with it boom boom boom
here's my priority here's the product that i'm working with let me know what your community says once you put that out there and then you pretty much the same with software you know
you're working on it you have an alpha you have a beta boom boom you put it out to uh a few people get some feedback what went wrong okay cool take it back and then at some point you could put out you know 1.0
right yeah it's that whole like 10 years to an overnight success thing right certainly taught me how to think a lot um i don't say that i think differently but i do believe that you know having come
i do believe that you know having come from music and as you know we have to be thrift you know we have to make we have to you know take a dollar and stretch it like from here to who knows where like i'm in
toronto i need to stretch this dollar to vancouver and back you know yeah absolutely it's uh we we tend to sort of really be enterprising than most right
so um and that actually kind of has me thinking about maybe some more more who are watching a lot of folks are trying to break in they're trying to get um so for the people who are in that
position you know going back to how you made that transition when you when you were coming from from music and fashion over into tech you how did you make yourself stand out from
the other applicants how did you actually let's start there how did you people as you were as you were trying to get that first gig get that first gig so uh i mean even beyond the gig
um i i'd like to talk about this like sort of in general sure uh but um i've sort of in general sure uh but um i've always said that uh you know there are a lot of people who are uh equally skilled you know you're always
gonna find that there are some musicians who are just like man you know he's a good guitarist you know his drums are you know whatever but at some point this is like little je ne
and um you know coming from the arts uh but you know i made sure that you know i
came with a bit of a different flair uh and i'm not talking about like you know i got feathers coming out my hat or whatever but you know i i i do want to make sure that you know you're going to remember me no matter what happens right
um so you know on the work level you know my first gig in dev uh was you know i knew people you know and i knew uh someone who had uh mentioned that a particular company that they're
this role and you know i was lucky enough to uh make it to the top of the pile of of applicants and you know i got through um but you know to me i i've always
mentioned this and it's you know what's going to make you interesting you know sometimes in these these lunch and learns that i do you know like you know you go out there and find your passion and and sort of work at it right and
i'll be very frank in the sort of like freelancer role and and sort of like freelancer role and and sort of like this whole developer scene right now um i think a bunch of things happened um for what you know this may seem like you
know such a small thing uh and bizarre thing to mention but i was like how you how are you not gonna forget me and the first thing was like my my twitter handle
uh and you know i used to get asked so much if it was my real name i was like this is like they're not forgetting me right right i mean there's been discussion about it
in the in the chat today about your about helvetica is your last name so that's that's like a developer stage name right it's not my real name but you know people gravitated towards it so much
that i was like okay when i went to conferences i just asked them to to use this as my my uh my name and you know there are a couple reasons beyond that i could get into but you know that was one and two what i also
did was uh you know when i was sort of you know a nobody and i'm just a bit less of a nobody right now less of a nobody right now but i'm still a bit of a nobody but you
know i remember just uh you know the things i got into i just started to read about and i used to start to tweet about it and if i could i'd i'd sort of tag the the author and be like hey you know i really love this quote boom and you
know i'll just put that out there also to sort of help myself but to really just build this this rapport with the community to let them know like this is what i'm into and you know if you go through my timeline you're going to see
i remember running into some authors later who told me they loved it you know they loved seeing someone reading about their work and quoting it to the rest of i heard that from authors i heard that
from other developers who just started to follow me just on that basis yeah um starting to deep dive in these areas that i was into as well and so deep diving sharing my passions uh
making sure that people would remember me uh and then you know things start to happen slowly thereafter yeah it well and it seems like i think a lot of people think that you have to know everything um and you know i i
maybe a a sign of of growing in your career is realizing that there's just no um but i think maybe the surprising thing is that you can you can really specialize and there's a lot of work there like for example you are a um like
an image performance specialist you're you've got one of the you're like one of the people i see do the most uh content about this right and that that brings you work right so you know i i never want to use
specialists as a sort of like uh you know title uh sure certainly aficionado uh i enjoy the conversation i enjoy hearing about it uh i mean there are some speakers out there or you know some engineers uh some
researchers in in the the uh sort of like images and the rendering scene that they don't speak a lot but when they do i enjoy you know i take time out of my day to make sure that i'm i'm available to see their talk you know
like people like uh cornell zinski he doesn't speak a lot but i remember a now i was like you know the minute the videos were absolutely so yes you know you tend to i mean you
need to project what people want to see right so uh you know if you're going to be a jerk project that you're a jerk yeah you got to get that gordon ramsay energy going exactly
but but you know i i start to read a lot about uh web performance in general you performance meetup which is uh one of the meetups that i run now uh and i just started to share some of the information whatever i had and i would follow you
know a lot of the uh the leaders in that field uh the you know they in turn shared some of their info and it's just like you know more for me to ingest and and sort of like
voraciously sort of uh devour so um but yeah you know it i i'm a big believer that uh whatever it you're a css person or you're getting into css you know
share you know some of the stuff that you're and people then potentially ask you questions you may or may not have the answers but you start that conversation with them and they'll be like oh yeah
that that person like you know i love that they share css or just a lot of them or you know i know i'll get like some nuggets from them at some point so there's actually there's a related question that i want to dig into scott
uh in the chat is asking so when you're learning this stuff you're talking about like especially in the context of of going in and applying for jobs i mean uh you can mention that in in
some of your uh you know uh in your resume or cover letter or something like that or you may have you know a repo where you're sort of like playing around with some some content and and you're showing some of
the results uh or you may have like a code pen where you've sort of laid out these sort of code blocks these examples of you working on on on a particular item that you know was puzzling to you at first but you're like okay i kind of
get it now but you leave it there out in the open for the public to see and that's something that i'm very adamant about which is uh being public with your work and i'm not saying that you absolutely have to do it
do you'd be surprised because this is working on your behalf while you sleep right right right um i mean i wish i wish i pulled up the example um actually in fact there's so
many links i want to carry uh for this uh for this uh we'll make sure they show up in the the notes on the video so we'll we'll post replay if for anybody who's watching now or if you're watching
uh the replay later on uh that'd be great i mean i could give you an example where i remember uh someone had just mentioned that they're looking for an you know uh
obviously they're going to be free and whatnot they're ready for the summer and oh man what am i why am i forgetting his name ceo of shopify
oh yeah i know who you're talking about i also yes toby yes he basically went to this person's github looked through it came back and offered them to spot the job on the spot you know in a queen he was like hey so and
so i just went through github it looks great i love what you did here if you're trying to intern with us i got you right now this is not hr this is the ceo right so um i've always said you'd be surprised what can happen when you're
public with your work sharing some of that some of that uh another example a really good friend of mine hussein jorday who's over at google right now he used to be at this company in toronto and he had been working on i
think uh a pwa uh a pwa uh i can't remember which one but
was like hey dude like i'd love to work with you on this and they start to both work on this project a few months later
a position opened up over google and he asked this gentleman my boy hussein to apply and you know the application process took place and he was able to join google so again this is the idea of
being public which you work with which will at least get you a look there well and i love that whole idea right how how i've ended up working with some of
the people that i work with and and sometimes it's because we we pulled a times it's because we have prior positive experiences with the people and and that comes from anything that comes from
somebody that every time we talk to him on twitter it makes us smile somebody who is always helpful in a community forum somebody who is part of the communities that we run in who is just always helpful and supportive and making
always helpful and supportive and making people feel like you know they can do it the work like there are people who are early in their careers and i see them they're writing articles they're they're sharing their works in progress they've
got those code pens they're seeing what somebody brilliant like like cassie evans will do this amazing svg animation and they'll go and they'll fork it and saw somebody did this yesterday cassie
and she did a an animation of the smashing cat and somebody went and put a guitar on the cat right just like forked that added a guitar and now the cat rocks out and it's like what what a fun way to learn something show that you've
that right and actually this is probably the thing that is maybe the most because you and i have talked about this a lot but consistency continuing to show up like how big of a role has that played in in your career
you know uh tremendous i and uh i mean before i get into that i want to actually bring up another example uh because you said something that made me think of it i was listening to a
you know this gentleman bdoggy [Music] jamstack radio yeah and if anyone wants jamstack radio yeah and if anyone wants to go and listen to the very last or the
most recent one i think it's episode 65 or 66 and someone who is at a boot camp right now uh prior to going to the boot camp i had been super curious uh and you know
started to poke around this actu this gentleman came from music in fact uh and he started to poke around you know uh i think python maybe but he really got into development and
at the same time he was discovering you know the jam stack and i think he's been playing around with redwood js with redwood js and so at the same time he was
attending the boot camp which is still now i believe he had been in the redwood js slack sort of like having these conversations with them and you know talking about things he was he was discovering uh with the
framework and you know i'm listening to this has done this program he's got work waiting for him yeah somewhere guaranteed and you know as i was listening to him i was like this is
brilliant because it was his early involvement his early sort of public involvement his early sort of public commitment to uh to working with this figure out how it worked uh best practices and whatnot and just to hear
him speak i was like well you know this guy's got this guy's got a job you know certainly coming out uh so i just want to mention that so if anyone want to go back and listen to that podcast but getting back to your question which was
you remind me again uh about consistency showing up oh yeah absolutely um where you almost have no choice but to show up and you know i think that i've put myself that position in a sense that you
around to see who's doing what uh who's writing what uh keep that in mind uh also the idea of you know as an uh also the idea of you know as an organizer uh you're also
looking for people who have interests in the field so that you're forced again to uh who's writing what who's speaking where what was the talk about uh and this is all information that you take in so
the only way you find these things out is is if you show up absolutely that's um and you know again it's getting back to the music pic right you know it can be at times you're like oh man i really want to stay home
tonight right you know i don't want to go see this bed because i've been out chill but half hour 45 whatever and do what you have to do and come back i think it's a
bit of the same you know yeah in certain roles in not all but certain roles uh about what knowing who to reach out to in case you
need a particular question answered a group of people may be able to answer that question for you you know joining some slacks and you know you don't even have to necessarily engage everyone but watch the
uh and a lot of times those are the nuggets absolutely well and and just to kind of you know to to expand on that even a is so interesting is like
you can you can see when people consistently show up they they start to become part of a community instead of observers in a community and and one of the things that i've noticed is that like
everything that i've done consistently is a thing that i now am able to do for work um and and so i think a little i think of it a little bit like every time that i do work even if it feels pointless even if it feels
do you know like as you said i just want to stay home and chill if i if i show up and i do that work that's a vote toward making that who i become and i want to cast as many votes as i can toward the lifestyle that i want i i
being able to do this show and the only reason that quincy reached out to me that i'm on the free code cam channel right now is because i showed up twice a week for the last two years on learn with jason right and and that that was a
vote for me being a video internet person right my career with the you know the the development job now i have now nullify and and i i think that that just you know that it seems true for
like we talked about earlier you don't just do you've got you know you're running a meetup you're running you you're running like a clothing brand you're running uh you're
consultancy like all of that stuff is happening because you're showing up and doing that work and you know what the the the pins and whatnot that was just an opportunity to sort of you know
mixture of two things you know my background in music and yeah i used to list a lot of rap whatever although you know my range was like all over the uh but you know i thought it would be a very
interesting way of of you know breaking the ice when meeting people uh and you know sort of like you know it's like a peace offering it's like hey what's up i have these pins i hope you like them whatever and people are just
like oh my god you know and so that was like more fun than anything but you know in terms of you know my my current sort of priorities certainly uh fact i told you i thought you know when i discovered you know i had a greater
understanding what the jam stack was you know i think i told you i think i told phil i was like i think this is going to be huge you know especially for freelancers but
teachers and you know when you're when you're parents you're like yo my parents are awesome but awesome but i'm going to get some cooler work
but you know with age i i start to realize how important uh being a teacher was uh being a uh sort of like a figure that people um and that just
took over and you know that's where the the sort of the the fascination for meetups came from and and being able to create a platform for people to come in and shine you know uh to start their careers uh
potentially with you know a lightning talk and then you know move that to a more sort of substantial 30 45 minute talk whatever and then letting that take them where where it may go and uh just because i've seen it
uh and i think it's an opportunity also to bring my flair to that meetup ecosystem and you know it might not be the meet up that you used to you know yeah well then the food might be different uh the emceeing might be a bit
you know have a bit more flavor when and you just did like to to maybe paint a picture of this flavor a little bit you just did a whole like themed 11d event right uh yeah like so what was november 11th so 11 11. you started it at what
time was it 11 11 11. and it was on 11d but you know what again it's an opportunity to spin uh a very detailed development platform into something that could be a bit more
interesting uh just the theme alone and you know it's funny you should mention speakers but they helped in putting together what was a super interesting in my
eyes event more people got you know even more was going on and they're like oh it's lightning talk okay cool and we ended up getting some of the the best talks i've heard in quite a while in terms for sure
as lightning talks because everyone had a detailed uh talk a detailed uh talk there was a fantastic talk by uh dan fascia on how he was living using 110 in a
medical profession and i remember he had told me in the the back channels that that's what he was he was going to do and i was just like oh i can't wait for this i'm not belittling everyone else's talk but
this is the idea that people can discover even though they believe they're like oh i kind of know how to liven your works and whatnot but it was just like mind-blowing yeah
so i like to enable that sort of element that sort of discovery element that that's you know and that's what i think is is interesting and and one of the reasons that that i i love watching you work is that i can see you bringing the
work is that i can see you bringing the creativity from your your previous roles as well it's a meetup it's a tech meetup it has to work like this and instead thinking of it as a it's a it's a
people together and anytime people come together it can be stiff and very formal and and kind of impersonal or it can be wild you know like a house party is just an informal
meetup right so how can we play with the format how can we make something that we've always done but something that feels unique something that's remarkable and i think that you have a unique talent for that um and i i would i would
wager and you can confirm that this has played a pretty significant impact on on and what that's been able to unlock for your career certainly you know and um i agree 200 with that you know and um
i'll give you a quick story i remember uh when i was first coming in to the uh the environment the industry and someone had said you know you need you're going to see and learn a lot of stuff i'm like alright cool whatever and
meetup to attend they happen to be friends of his but i was like okay whatever and i walked in and i remember this like it was yesterday i walked in i looked around it was packed
i was like okay this is really interesting and again you know you've had this hat on i've worn it obviously you know as people came from music a full room to us is like gold you know because we've had those ones that were
because we've had those ones that were yeah you know very you know sparsely attended uh but that's just because we think like so far ahead sometimes you know but i remember you know sitting down and
listening to the meetup and watching all the speakers and watching the organizers sort of do the thing and you know i paint a few of them i'm like guys this is really good but here are three things that i think could be improved
and you know instead of just you know peanut gallery be improved and just walk away i literally stepped to the organizers i'm like hey gentlemen you know this is great this is an
improve and i immediately start to share some of my ideas and you know they told me there know when you came up you know and start
we're kind of like hey you know here's some ideas there can like who's this guy you know i ended up joining them and i helped them sort of like develop uh you know better ideas uh and things that i
again you have to look at a particular topic and be like this is cool but i think it would sound better if we said this and then we can go out and get this type of you know uh speaker uh
yeah i mean i i think there are so many opportunities in tech right now to do uh really interesting things despite the fact that we are pretty much online all um it just might take that extra glass of
prosecco to really let your mind wander and and expand on this idea because i think uh you know some of the best ideas are hiding in in sort of plain sight levity thing i was just sitting right
reading something about levity and i'm like wait what's today's date and i looked at my watch i'm like wait november 11th is coming up i'm like 11 is really buzzing and i'm like i know some 118 developers
them and they're like dude this sounds pretty it and you know we did a broad daylight and it was awesome yeah i think i mean it's it's so much fun uh like i've said to to watch you
work it because you you do bring that kind of fresh perspective you you do interesting things that don't follow the standard format um and it's you know it's it's one of the reasons that when i'm thinking of how do we put together
something different you're one of the first people that comes to mind for that um thank you and and i've i really love to see that so we're we're down coming a little more practical for the people watching right
what what would you recommend both as as learning practices and as community practices like if somebody was going to adopt one or two habits today what should they start
doing if they're trying to land that first gig okay so i believe there's a little bit more
and there are a lot of people trying to do the exact same thing you're doing which is land a job which is land a job um
one prime i'm gonna one sorry i would say try not to stress it too much because i think a lot of people are you know they consider themselves ready at
job where's the job where's the job you know how come i'm not getting any offers try not to sweat that too much but more importantly i think as you you know shop around
stay active uh and you know to me that's the biggest part and staying active might mean uh something to one person and something else to some to to another one but
you know if you do a lot of reading uh you know blogs or you know you're looking at you know uh i don't know uh tutorials and whatnot just keep going and and try to create this environment where people can see your
work whether you're sharing this on twitter you have a github with or you have like a code pen you know shout outs to uh lintronix lin mm-hmm lennon yeah linotonic like her her one div
like i don't know anything else about her but i just know she's you know she's a gangster with the css yeah i'm saying so share your stuff online you know again whether it be a codepen twitter or
and um i would say that's like a bit of a priority for me you know i mean and and a lot of people like oh well you know the resume this the resume that yeah
that's totally cool but you know we're lucky enough that in this space at the very least the work that's out there that's public that's half your you know people are going to be like okay they know what they're doing here
you know they'll go go ahead well i was going to say for a lot of developers like when when you send in your resume your resume is basically a list of links list
absolutely absolutely and you know thereafter it could be a few different things obviously uh you know you'd be surprised what you know being part of a community might lead to and that means you know if you get to
up these people might ring you down to uh just sent you a little dm let me know when you're ready i'd love to talk to you like for example you know and i'll i'll shout you out in
public for this that time uh i heard from kraft uh cms oh yeah and you know it read like hey uh i'm from kraft
uh jason sent me here and i was like okay you know and i'm pretty sure i was like you dude good luck you know and uh thank are the things that i'm talking about you know when opportunities come around
someone might know you and say hey i i think this is coming down the pipe and uh i i you know this this sort of like this is your lane you know let me know what you think you know i'd love to set this up um i mean
in fact right before we got on i was having this conversation with someone potentially an opportunity early next year so i'm a big believer that you know being public with your work what you do
and then you know being involved with the community and you know it won't go zero to 100 overnight but you'll see your network grow and and like you said if you're that person that
people just love to see work and and and they smile when you're around it's like well absolutely i it's that's played such a big factor in my career as well you know after after i got i actually you know
what even when nobody knew who i was the way i got my first job in tech is i went to the local coding meetup and i was in montana in missoula montana so this was 14 programmers none of us wrote the same language like i was a php dev there was
one other php dev most of them were java we had you know it was like nobody was together because we were the only programmers in town and through that we we became friends and i got referred to a job because they
were a java dev and they were looking for php and i was the php dev so i got hooked up because i showed up to this meetup right and those those connections they might feel like nothing but they they start to form a fabric and you know
that that referral led to me giving my first presentation at a meet-up led to me giving my first conference talk which led to more referrals and all of that has been the snowball that that got me to here and you know you you made a
stressing at first because everybody's looking for their first job and it takes reminds me of a i wish i could remember who said this but there was a metaphor that i heard which is starting a career is like rolling a
boulder it is really really really hard to get it to move that first inch but as soon as it starts to move it picks up momentum and after a while you can't stop it you're just moving and so you gotta you gotta stick with it you
gotta show up and do that work every day to get that first inch um because it'll it'll all happen at once um totally so henry man thank you so so much for hanging out with us this has been an
absolute pleasure uh any final words for folks before we wrap this up oh man you know what um just you know wake up and and and you know smile you know it's uh i think there are a bunch of reasons especially
now to to sort of like be bummed out but i think there's been literally no better um and and be part of a community i mean and you'd mention the thing about speaking uh opportunities and that's
something that i'm gonna work on in 2021 for for uh all uh devs out there because um once upon a time you know you could be in toronto and not speak at the san francisco meetup but you can now yep you know so uh you literally have uh for
anyone looking i think the opportunities have never been better to to to speak and as you said and i'll test as well i think uh from a lightning talk to a full talk i think speaking can do wonders for your career as well absolutely so henry
keep up with you what uh what links would you recommend honestly i'm a big believer of uh of twitter uh so ahri helvetica uh i'm usually pretty quick on the on the uh the uh requests you know any dms my dm's
always happy to do that uh i've spoken to people from anything from you know dev to like running you know and uh yeah i'm happy to take on uh any questions you may have so twitter's it twitter
yeah and and it's a great follow uh henry is full of excellent information today so uh thank you all so much for hanging out with us today this is a series we're going to be doing these every friday so
free code camp twitter you can follow me at jlangstorff on twitter and if you're into live coding i also run a show called learn with jason on tuesdays and learnwithjason.dev and until next time
i've said it before i'll say it again thank you so much uh yeah it's it's been an absolute pleasure hanging out with you all and we pleasure hanging out with you all and we will see you next time