My name is the tech lead, and today I'll be the Tech lead.

I wanted to talk today about how I got into Google, and the path is a lot less straight for than you might imagine, essentially had to teach myself a completely new programming language to do it now.

Several years ago, I was doing a lot of Web development like I was what you would call a full stack lamp developer.

I was, you know, that's the next Apache, my sequel.

PHP.

That was very popular text back at the time, and it was all Web development, essentially creating various APS and games for websites like I was working on the Groupon dot com website in Ruby on rails and coffee script.

Any time I searched for a job, I would look for something along the lines of lamp, full stack general Web developer.

Something like that, And that was essentially who I was.

That was my skill set.

Now I will try.

I plan to these top tech companies, but it was very difficult to get in with my skill set.

Like love, companies aren't necessarily looking for a full stack engineer like they're looking for, maybe say specifically, database engineer.

And I'm not really a fantastic database engineer.

My friend and JavaScript skills were okay, but they weren't up to date with the newest latest frameworks that a lot of other people knew and look at back in skills.

My strength was in PHP, but not all companies were looking for a PHP Def Leppard.

That language was in decline.

Not at the time I took some time off and decided to just go travel for a while.

And I was in Japan and my phone development was starting to get hot.

So it really took me a long time to get into iPhone development.

I would say, like I avoided it for a long time, and by the time I started looking into it, it felt like a lot of people were saying that the boom was over and that it wasn't worth getting into iPhone development anymore.

Um, it took me like a year to get on my supplies like I first had to buy an iPhone and learn to use it.

And then over time, I decided to get a Mac book.

But even when I had the Mac book an iPhone.

I still wasn't really sure if I wanted to get into it all.

I remember when I got the Mac book, I was thinking, Yeah, I kind of want to get into iPhone development.

Maybe I wasn't really sure if I was gonna do it.

Andi, it took me a lot of convincing myself to really push myself into it.

And there were no classes on Iowa's development.

I wouldn't take a class.

I generally wouldn't pay to take a class anyway.

But like what I did was I just decided to sit down and start to try to learn the language.

Objective C.

And you know, these days a lot of people are using swift.

But at the time I was using objective see.

And you know, the funny thing is, everybody who knew IOS at the time had to teach themselves The language is not like there was no other way to learn that, basically, and I remember in Japan my girlfriend would always be asking me to go out shopping, go out to take a walk.

She didn't want to just be cooped up in the room all day, and I would be like, Okay, let me take the Mac book to a cafe, and we just at the cafe for a few hours, and I would sit there and try to learn my programming.

So for me, it took, like, 1 to 2 months of solid work for me to push a nap out through the APP store.

Not this up was pretty simple.

It was essentially a Web you so that I could leverage my Web development skills.

And then over time, I would lay her on additional native components like I would add integration with the camera.

I might add integration with maybe some native gestures like I was just slowly at the new feature every day and just layer on top on top until maybe after, say, 10 days.

I had 10 80 features in there and, you know, that all adds up over time, and a lot of my learning was driven by the project that I was doing.

Like if I wanted to integrate with some social media site or something, I would look up what the A p I for that would be.

And then just at that feature, after I finished that by marketed it as well as I could, and I got several 1000 users, and I put it on my resume.

After a while I left Japan and I came back stateside and I began applying for jobs again because I needed the job.

I needed my health insurance.

You know, there were some mobile developer positions open for Google, and I was like, Okay, let me just try applying to this because I didn't feel that my Web development skills were unnecessarily strong enough to land like a friend imposition or back in position or database position.

The generalised full stack stuff is really good for startups, I would say.

But this was like a complete career switch, and I'm not sure if many programmers do this that often in their careers, actually.

But for me, I basically had to teach myself this new language at the time.

There's a shortage for Iowa's engineers generally everywhere.

So I did my interview with Google.

They needed IOS engineers, and I had some understandings of it, along with some other Web for stack engineering work and stuff like that.

And so I was able to land their role there, Um, and for me.

I really credit my landing a row at Google to a good timing of learning a new language when very few other people knew that language.

And, you know, it was in the I guess it was just a really good investment for me to have decided to teach myself objective.

See, you know, like and there was only like, 1 to 2 months after my time to do that.

And, you know, it always sounds like it's so much work.

But once you sit down and get into it, you find that you're really making progress really quickly.

And I think for me, that's one reason why I didn't want to go out all the time.

I knew, like if I could just have one full day, I could get another complete feature in.

And adding an additional feature to an APP is really quite noticeable, I would say so.

I wanted to continue pushing progress on that each day.

I that new feature and, you know, I was learning a lot.

I was teaching myself new skills, and so overall I would say it was just a really good learning investment for me to have decided to teach myself objective C.

And this kind of relates to another similar story I have.

Which is when I finished grad school.

I was really into game programming like my emphasis was on computer graphics, and I knew nothing about Web development.

But at the time, the Facebook at platform opened up and it was like this huge opportunity for developers to start building APS for the Facebook platform and get a lot of exposure.

And it just sounded really fun to me.

And that was the first time that I decided to just pick up a PHP book and read through the whole thing and start developing.

PHP Epps Again This was a very good investment for me because a lot of my APS became very popular and allowed me to actually quit my job and computer graphics that I was working on and just get into Web development.

And so it was a very strange career switch for me where I remember when I was leaving my company, I told my coworkers, Hey, I might become a Web developer now, you know, And everyone thought, Well, that's kind of strange for, ah, computer graphics developer to just switch into Web development.

And so I hope you can take away from this story is that even computer programmers have to continue to teach themselves new languages and by teaching themselves new language is a lot of new opportunities.

Open up.

Um, now it's true that I got computer science degree, and I think that these computer science fundamentals are very important, and you can learn that by reading like a algorithms and data structures textbook.

But for me, right out of college, I was going in a certain direction towards computer graphics programming, and if I didn't do anything, I would still be doing that today.

But my course changed drastically when I got into Web development and then changed again when I got into IOS development.

So what I'm saying is, if you're an experienced developer, you can teach yourself a new technology and start going into another direction.

And I would say that even if you're not doing computer programming now, you can still pick up the fundamentals and teach yourself a language and get into it.

And this would probably be especially worthwhile in newer fields where there's less people who understand the language like I would say that these days racked native Coughlin Swift.

And there may be others that are pretty up and coming technologies with brand new languages.

There's essentially no courses on these languages, and people just have to teach themselves the language and get going.

And overall for me, I've seen that investing in my own learning and teaching myself new things has almost always been a very good payoff.

For May I, West Development took a long time to convince myself to get into.

I washed the iPhone blow up.

I watched other developers making tons of money.

I would just sit there and keep thinking like I wonder if I should do this.

I wonder if I should get into it.

Once I sat down and got into it really wasn't that bad, you know, like like the progress I was making was pretty quick and within, like, 1 to 2 months, I had already finished my abs.

So when I see people asking like they want to get into programming, sure, they teach themselves out the code.

Um, you know, the answer is like, Well, I had to teach myself how to code, and it wasn't much easier for me like you basically do the same way I did it in the same way everybody else does it.

You just sit down and you teach yourself.

If there's course is great and you know, maybe that can be helpful.

But I think a lot of people just kind of sit down and get into it.

And you know, there's not a lot.

If you're looking for a shortcut, there's not that many, I would say.

So don't be afraid.

I've learned in a little something think about where you want to be in six months and then just set up a plan for you to get there.

Like if you think you want to be able to know Java script or python within six months, I think that's a very realistic thing.

And you know, you could just craft yourself a plan and just learn a little every day.

And by the end of that six months or even last time, probably you have satisfied your own curiosity and you will probably be in a better place, and it probably be pretty fun, too.

I think like learning is pretty fun in general.

Anyway, that would do it for me.

Give it there like and subscribe, and I'll see you next time.