Welcome.

Welcome.

What's popping now?

Today we have a special guest.

We have John Kim.

He actually also has a YouTube channel.

It's called Soul Encoded.

So you guys should check that out.

He has a lot of good insights.

Now.

The reason why I have him today is because he has a very special case.

He did not come from C s background.

He don't even have a siesta key.

No, he does not.

But where do you work?

I work at Capital Capital one as a software engineer for engineer.

Yeah.

Yeah, I just got senior too.

So that's why I never got to see you, but yeah.

So, as you can see, it's very possible to get a soft engineering job without a degree, so we're gonna be talking about that.

All right, So before we start, I just want to ask a few questions.

Yeah, you know, just to determine what kind of engineer you are.

So first question, Mac or PC both excellent.

You can't choose both.

I have both used at work.

Do you?

He's mad because you mean Oh, shit.

I thought would be the officer.

I thought you would use Mac personally and then PC at work?

No, Capital one's pretty hip man holding a one.

I work for seven.

No, they gave me windows.

Yeah.

Okay.

So what about home?

Use windows?

I used both, but windows for gaming.

Oh, you got everything else?

Development?

Yeah.

I mean, it makes sense.

Windows for interesting spaces or cabs.

Tabs.

Okay.

What's your favorite?

I d I like I like a lot.

I like Adam Right now.

You're asking this?

Do you use like, any special plug ins?

Yeah, tons.

I try to not go to river.

Yeah.

I don't want to get too close.

Yeah, there's, like, one We're like Like it's a number that pops out about language.

Is your favorite language like Java script right now, people like hate it.

So did I.

Love let No, Jess, my jam.

And also Google with V eight engine.

It's amazing.

It's pretty cool.

All right, so I guess now we're just gonna go over more like a personal question just to get to know you better.

So, as a kid, I mean, I'm guessing maybe you didn't know much of my engineering and stuff like that, But did you have any affinity to building things.

Yeah.

I mean, Legos.

My thing for a while, I actually just really like video games.

That was, like, my thing.

I hated studying.

I just like making stuff in video games.

And yeah, that was an engineer.

So I kind of have, like, drilled me, like, making stuff.

I got to important questions.

First question.

Which games do you play?

Super smash.

That was like my They wait, Milly, actually, yeah.

No, seriously, What was the character I played?

She fuck, man, I paid Martin, and she is usually like she would have an advantage against Mark.

Really?

I didn't get that.

Like into it.

I played.

I played a lot.

Like did you ever go to competitions?

No.

I mean, my parents, like June, was you know how to use like Dad.

Yeah.

Okay.

What about this second question?

So you work for capital one now?

You like enjoying job?

Yeah, I love, actually.

My boss is a really good capitalize.

Really good perks.

So a lot of people don't understand.

I know this because Cabriolet is more East Coast company and the huge crazy campuses, it's not a boring or the reason The reason why I ask is because you love video games, right?

Yeah.

Sells worrying.

Like, do you ever think about moving to game development?

So the thing is, I have a few friends who are in games, and then they're number one typists and knocking into games, if you like.

You hurt.

Like when you work for gaming, it's sexual dreams.

You?

Yeah, and video game programming is probably one of the hardest to do and time consuming to just make a little guy.

Yeah, that makes sense.

So maybe no plans to go now.

And the money's in, Like, to be honest, the money's in, like, web.

Cool.

Cool.

So what about on your free time?

Like, what do you do in our days?

Like, have a have a newborn, So really?

Yeah, I am.

You look so young, but I'm married, so Oh, wow.

Yeah, it's that takes up a lot of time to make you two videos, but I actually, like, really enjoyed program, and I'm, like, kind of lucky bag to do that for a living.

All right, so I guess before we start, I should one question.

So what did you do in college?

first of all, so actually just studied economics.

And so what did you want to do before college?

Did you wanna be a become promised?

Even with school?

No, actually, my dad's an engineer, and he's always pushed me to be an engineer, but I was pretty bad schools rebel.

Yeah, I got it.

I got it.

Okay, So you did economics, and then would you end up with the Jew do internships or anything?

I did, like zero internship.

So I should have brought a stopwatch video.

You are.

You're really I was probably, like playing Starcraft.

Probably let's get that makes sense.

But so that's the thing.

So you did economics, and then you didn't do any internships, and then Did you manage job right after you graduated?

No, actually, I did it.

So it was like 2010 right after the financial crisis.

So it was really tough.

Market was freaked out, So Okay, so I'm going back to school for this cat program.

It's like this isn't Santa Clara.

It's like a I want to say like, eight months program where youse get all the classes for accounting and then you got accounting job.

Yeah, and then I got my account.

So I had, like, interviews and like me and why I like force by pretty good.

I mean, I have a lot of friends.

Who?

Yeah, I get that, e I ended up working at a small Korean firm.

Nice.

Cool.

So then when did you start knowing about according or you knew before?

But you just didn't get into it.

So it was actually, during that time, my friends and I, we kind of got together.

We're just tinkering.

It was my roommate, another friend who I can't just got back.

He was like studying Was unemployment just started tinkering, and I actually started doing art instead.

Okay, So you guys were making app and you were doing that part?

Yeah.

I did, like, design made, like, like circles and squares.

And then you started lying to code.

Is that how it happened?

Actually, it came out of necessary.

They found jobs as engineers.

Essentially, I went back to San Jose and then I was like, I have all these are skills still wanna make like caps.

So that's when I started.

Yeah.

Uh, if you don't mind me asking, what was the Apple.

This is video games.

We made this hamster.

That's actually really I'll probably find.

Was it like a cute game where it was like it was a cute kid?

So when it's okay, what was your first development job?

How'd you get that?

Actually, my first development actual job would be this current one.

Yeah, but I knew a CEO in Korea who had a small company I did some stuff with.

I call that my connections, connections, connections are the grind.

And Russell, that's all that so Yeah, Indiana.

I just want to talk about how important connections are because, yes, I talked about internships and all that.

But Indiana, the reason why I got this internship was because of connections and that connection for me issue Waterloo, you know, because they're known to produce like, high quality engineers.

And then that's why they hire us.

So Indian connections are really important.

I hate the word networking, but I do think that's one of the most valuable skill you have.

Great and sometimes not even lights about luck.

If you happen to know someone, for example, I happen to know my brother.

And he happened to be you know he paved the way for me, so yeah.

So how did you even get those?

Capital One?

So you got a few internships, like with the Korean CEO?

Yeah, and damn Well, what else was only resume.

So I like self study on and off for like, three years.

I tried like us, but I ended up going to a bouquet, actually.

So that was probably the biggest like boost.

But the boot camp itself doesn't really help you in terms of boosting your resident.

Actually, sometimes it's considered a negative.

Like there's, like people looking for, like, new bouquet operations.

Right?

But I get a lot of products and hackathons when I was OK, So what was that can call?

It's called Deaf bouquet and how much how much it costs.

So the total was like 13,000 I believe.

Maybe 15,000.

I forget.

Exactly, but this is pretty hefty.

It was a decent amount, luckily, I guess.

Like, how did you choose your bouquet?

Because now there are so many.

Yeah, and some people think some of them are scam.

Some of them are not sure know how?

Why this one.

So it kind of goes back to connections.

I did A So what dream my whole time.

Like investigating about programming.

I started podcast where I like interviewed software engineers.

And there was this one guy do I interview.

He went to have cracked and he was telling me about his experience, and he was actually in accounting to goingto engineer.

So he gave me a lot of information and he told me like the ones are good right now, I will say, because my kids no longer exists.

Um, but I would say half reactor and AP Academy is probably the best.

There's a few other good moves, but you gotta watch that.

Right?

So on your resume basically had a few internships and then the boot camp.

And then that's when you applied to Capital one.

Yeah, pretty much so.

Actually, I didn't.

I never applied.

I met someone there.

So again, like all my interviews I ever got after my boot camp was because I met people, I reached out.

Okay, So did you interview for they have a pretty likes drinking interview process.

Like any Fortune 500 initial like interview.

Like, I didn't have to go through a parcel which my I don't think my resume would have gone through because I don't have but because I went to Waterloo.

Yeah, I guess that's one thing I want to mention to like a lot of people ask me like, Oh, is it important to get a C s degree and stuff like that?

And I say, like for two skills, maybe not, You know, for the actual work experience?

Maybe not.

But the reason is because they have so many applicants, not the only way that can go through all the applicants by filtering people out and like for them, yes, they know that they might feel throughout really talented people if, you know, sometimes they don't have a C s degree, but they're still very talented.

But it's just, you know, the opportunity cost of going through all of them.

It's just too high, you know?

So it's like I understand that it's shitty, but it's just a limitation.

We don't have enough resources to go through all of them.

So you are way too standing out is to have these stupid keywords like ideally, yeah, no, sure.

But yet it sucks.

But I think that's why trying to get a connection or like a referral.

You know, it's really for referrals are, like super important.