Podcasts Technology IT Career Energizer Its All About Learning and Communication with Andy Hunt

Its All About Learning and Communication with Andy Hunt

Published: Oct. 8, 2018, midnight

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In today\\u2019s episode, Phil chats with Andy Hunt. Andy is a programmer turned consultant, author and publisher. He\\u2019s authored a dozen books including the best-selling \\u201cThe Pragmatic Programmer,\\u201d and was one of the 17 authors of the Agile Manifesto and founders of the Agile Alliance. He also co-founded the pragmatic bookshelf, publishing award-winning and critically acclaimed books for software developers.

Andy shares his story about why he chose I.T as his career and reveals his best and worst experiences in the I.T world. Listen to his career tips and advice. There is a lot to learn from Andy that will help you to become the best that you can be.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

[1:21] Phil asks Andy to expand upon the brief introduction provided. Andy shares the story of how he had a real interest in radio electronics at that time. He says that he was very interested in early computers with the S100 BUS and CPM. He recalls that he loved how programming lets you go in and create your own world which, for Andy, is still the most exciting aspect of it. Andy says that programming was easier and much more self-contained back then. The programming world is a very different place than it used to be.

[2:41] Phil requests for Andy to share a unique career tip for the I.T Career Energizer audience, one that the audience should know but don\\u2019t. Andy excitedly answers that he\\u2019ll give two tips. He talks about his 2008 book \\u201cPragmatic Thinking and Learning\\u201d, the thesis being that the two things you do more than anything else as a programmer are learning and communication. We communicate with the machine. We communicate with each other, and to end users to gather requirements, to learn requirements. Besides the tech stacks and the latest language of the day, you\\u2019re learning how the evolving system behave, you\\u2019re learning how your team behaves, and you\\u2019re learning how the end users work and what they expect, what the market demands. So, we\\u2019re all about learning in communication. Those are the important things.

[3:42] Andy\\u2019s first tip is to never stop learning. When you come across something unfamiliar, a term you don\\u2019t know, a framework you\\u2019ve never heard of, a new language, look it up, Google\\u2019s right there. It\\u2019s on your phone. It\\u2019s right on your screen. Take the 5 seconds when something you\\u2019re unfamiliar with comes up and see what it is. Look into it. Look more into it if it\\u2019s something interesting or something that you might have to work with. So, always take that extra step and pursue the unfamiliar. That\\u2019s part one.

[4:16] Andy says that this second tip makes the biggest difference for people who are successful. Always write down your ideas. Carry something with you always where you can jot down a quick note. It doesn\\u2019t have to be electronic. It might even be better if it\\u2019s not. Use an App on your phone, send yourself a voicemail. Andy says that he found out that most of the processes in the brain are asynchronous. You get interesting ideas or the seeds of great ideas randomly and usually when you\\u2019re not at a computer and not at work. So you need something with you to jot them down because you won\\u2019t remember it later. And then, when you have a chance later, when you\\u2019re at the computer, when you\\u2019re working, whatever, follow up on it. Make a note somewhere else more permanently. That\\u2019s really key to capturing the great ideas that you have but most people just loose. And Phil totally agrees with the idea.

[6:54] Phil asks about Andy\\u2019s worst career moment and what he has learned from it. Andy recalls a story from early in his career when, between the time of being interviewed and starting the job, his interviewer had been fired and the position eliminated. Andy was therefore assigned to a different group. It was an awful place to work and within a year the company went out of business which made an impact on him. The myth of working for a big company and having stability is just a myth. You\\u2019re not stable with a big company. You\\u2019re not necessarily stable with a small startup either. So, in terms of career preparation, you really can\\u2019t count on the organization being there for you for any number of reasons. Later on, during Andy\\u2019s consultant career phase, one project that he rather enjoyed and he had a good time at. It was very clear from their practices and what they were doing on the project that they were going to fail. Andy made his report, talked to the boss and said, \\u201cOkay, here\\u2019s the problem. This is what you need to fix.\\u201d They said, \\u201cThank you very much.\\u201d and didn\\u2019t change a thing. They lost $14 million. That was a lot of what inspired Andy to get on the early train of lightweight methods which was when the term \\u2018agile\\u2019 was coined. Andy then provides some insight into the Agile Manifesto.

[12:34] Phil asks about Andy\\u2019s career greatest success. Andy recalls one of his projects which was highly successful. It was replace a debit card transaction system. In fact, that\\u2019s the project where Andy met his partner Dave Thomas. They wrote \\u201cThe Pragmatic Programmer\\u201d together and founded the Pragmatic Bookshelf. He recalls that it was one of those insane projects where it was just the two of them. The key was that they had access to an on-site customer who knew the existing system inside and out. They got the project done and the system was subsequently the preferred solution when the company merged with other companies. Andy and Dave\\u2019s system did what it was supposed to do and did it better than the other companies solutions that cost a lot more money and had been written by large teams.

[15:46] Phil asks Andy about the future of the industry and careers in IT. Andy says that he is amazed when he watches his nephews and nieces, toddler age, navigating an iPad and buying apps. The idea that being able to learn at an early age how computers work and how to create and adapt software yourself, that\\u2019s critical. Because if you don\\u2019t take that next step and learn how to manipulate this world, you\\u2019ll be powerless in the future. He adds that he thinks we\\u2019ve barely scratched the surface of technology.

[18:42] Phil asks what first attracted Andy to a career in IT? Andy recalls when he was at a radio shack, it was in the 70\\u2019s, and there was a book about microcomputers. Andy thought that it was fascinating and as cool as any science fiction he had ever read. The author was convinced that this is going to happen in the future. It wet Andy\\u2019s appetite and he started from there.

[18:54] Phil asks what the best advice Andy has ever received. Andy says don\\u2019t focus solely on the technology because the tech comes and goes. And the companies behind the tech come and go. Andy says that people are much harder to program and deal with than with computers, but this is the world we now live in. This is what you\\u2019ve got to learn to do. If you focus solely on the tech, you\\u2019re going to get steamrolled.

[23:15] Phil then asks Andy what he would do if he had to begin his IT career again right now. Andy says that it would be AI, genetic algorithms, machine learning, that whole world.

[24:59] Phil asks Andy what objectives he is currently focusing on and Andy says that it\\u2019s retirement and going out with a bang. He wants to come up with something interesting.

[25:22] Phil then asks Andy what has been the number one non-technical skill that has helped him in his career so far. Andy thinks that all non-technical skills are critical. The sort of basics such as continuous learning and reading voraciously. Read everything you get your hands on. Write to remember. Take note and summarize. Write it in your own words. The act of writing stuff down like that really helps wire it in and to cement it in your memory. Do user group talks or write a blog if you don\\u2019t like talking in front of people. Talk to people at work, such as brown bag lunches. Be an advocate for the stuff that you\\u2019ve discovered, that you\\u2019re passionate about and that\\u2019s interesting.

[26:37] Phil asks Andy for a parting piece of career advice. Andy thinks that the number one piece of advice is to realize that you\\u2019re never done and that you\\u2019ve never made it. If you\\u2019ve learned some great framework, some great language, don\\u2019t stop there. The technology, the methodology that you used in the last project that was so successful might not work at all in the next project. That could be a completely different context. You might need completely different tools. So, the number one thing is to be prepared for that and to be ready to learn something completely different all the time.

BEST MOMENTS

[18:00] Andy: \\u201cTurbo Pascal when it came out was brilliant. It was 79 bucks and it included an IDE and a multi-pass compiler, and it was like, \\u201cOh my God that genius.\\u201d At the time that was a real breakthrough. These days you can get the hardware and any language you\\u2019ve ever heard of and just download it. So I think that\\u2019s pretty exciting and pretty remarkable and I think we\\u2019ve barely scratched the surface of where we can go with that.\\u201d

\\u201cThe stuff you learn in college you probably will not use much more than the first couple of years out in the world just because things change. So the tech comes and goes, and that\\u2019s fine. You need to know the basics. You need to understand how it all works at the lowest level.\\u201d

\\u201cThe hard part is that the tech keeps improving, but people are still people, and we are deeply flawed creatures. We are not like these brilliant computers that we work with. We have got major cognitive processing issues.\\u201d

\\u201cYou have to remember that whatever you think of the pace of change at the moment, this is the slowest that the pace of change will ever be because it is ever increasing. So as bad as it is now, this is slower. It\\u2019s going to be slightly faster tomorrow and slightly faster the day after that, on and on and on and on. So if you want to keep up, you have to keep going.\\u201d

ABOUT THE HOST

Phil Burgess, an I.T. consultant, mentor, and coach, is the creator and host of the I.T. Career Energizer Podcast. His podcast continues to inspire, assist and guide anybody wanting to start, develop and grow a career in I.T. by inviting successful I.T. professionals, consultants, and experts to share their advice, career tips and experiences.

CONTACT THE HOST

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ABOUT THE GUEST

Andy is a programmer turned consultant, author and publisher. He\\u2019s authored a dozen books including the best-selling The Pragmatic Programmer, was one of the 17 authors of the Agile Manifesto and founders of the Agile Alliance and co-founded the Pragmatic Bookshelf, publishing award-winning, critically-acclaimed books for software developers.

CONTACT ANDY HUNT

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