WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:05.759 Hello, and welcome again back to another episode of Adventure 2 00:00:05.799 --> 00:00:10.800 in DevOps. Today, I'm joined by our guest Ben Johnson, 3 00:00:11.560 --> 00:00:14.720 and unfortunately Will, my fellow co host, would not be 4 00:00:14.759 --> 00:00:18.000 able to make it, but he sends his regards. Apparently 5 00:00:18.399 --> 00:00:20.679 they may have pushed something at the end of Friday 6 00:00:21.440 --> 00:00:25.440 last and well we probably know not to do that, 7 00:00:25.480 --> 00:00:27.320 but you know, maybe he's a little bit tired because 8 00:00:27.480 --> 00:00:29.519 we were last week, we were talking a lot about 9 00:00:29.920 --> 00:00:32.960 having really long careers, and so I'm really excited this 10 00:00:33.039 --> 00:00:35.320 week to talk with Ben, who actually joins us for 11 00:00:35.359 --> 00:00:35.960 the second time. 12 00:00:36.280 --> 00:00:38.640 Who has just I mean, it seems like you've been 13 00:00:39.679 --> 00:00:40.039 in and. 14 00:00:39.960 --> 00:00:41.840 Out a lot of different companies for a very long 15 00:00:41.880 --> 00:00:42.520 period of time. 16 00:00:43.960 --> 00:00:47.320 Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I'm the CEO of Particle forty one, 17 00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:53.719 and we have expertise in software development about engineering devopsn 18 00:00:53.840 --> 00:00:57.600 sipos sees term DevOps anymore, I guess. And then data science, 19 00:00:57.640 --> 00:01:00.719 which of course includes AI solution for clients. 20 00:01:01.200 --> 00:01:03.320 Yeah, of course, right, you know that's the newest trend 21 00:01:03.359 --> 00:01:03.719 of course. 22 00:01:04.159 --> 00:01:06.719 Yeah. Yeah, we'll try not to talk about that too much. 23 00:01:07.920 --> 00:01:09.719 Why not use the term develops anymore. 24 00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:15.120 So it's been this debate DevOps versus platform engineering. I 25 00:01:15.159 --> 00:01:18.000 love these articles because they do really talk about the 26 00:01:18.799 --> 00:01:21.920 kind of the issue with DevOps as it was widely 27 00:01:21.920 --> 00:01:25.200 adopted as it became the new cloud it and so 28 00:01:25.239 --> 00:01:29.599 we love this internal discussion, especially since I'm selling these services. 29 00:01:30.280 --> 00:01:33.120 I want to be clear that our job is to 30 00:01:33.200 --> 00:01:37.599 actually engineer ourselves out of a job. And so we've 31 00:01:37.599 --> 00:01:42.519 started to use that term platform engineering and try to 32 00:01:42.560 --> 00:01:45.239 create that conversation where we're talking about the good and 33 00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:47.680 the bad of DevOps and what will we all believe 34 00:01:47.680 --> 00:01:52.400 it to be this kind of eternal definition definition thing 35 00:01:52.480 --> 00:01:54.599 that's in the community so prevalently. 36 00:01:55.040 --> 00:01:57.560 Yeah, you know, I definitely was one of these warriors 37 00:01:57.560 --> 00:01:59.760 at the beginning to try to maintain the purity of 38 00:01:59.799 --> 00:02:02.799 what DevOps was, and I think for a lot of 39 00:02:02.840 --> 00:02:07.040 people that means different things. And over time I definitely 40 00:02:07.040 --> 00:02:10.000 lost that battle, and I sort of gave up because 41 00:02:10.080 --> 00:02:14.840 my vision is that it's a mindset change for organizations 42 00:02:14.919 --> 00:02:16.400 on how they approach things. 43 00:02:16.599 --> 00:02:17.479 And I have. 44 00:02:17.599 --> 00:02:21.400 Noticed now it's pretty much a replacement instead of calling 45 00:02:21.479 --> 00:02:23.479 team release engineering team. 46 00:02:23.800 --> 00:02:25.719 Or actually a long time ago it. 47 00:02:25.639 --> 00:02:28.199 Was called platform engineering teams, I think what we have 48 00:02:28.280 --> 00:02:32.199 now is something slightly different or sre are often known 49 00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:35.479 as DevOps team, and they spend a lot of time 50 00:02:35.719 --> 00:02:38.800 right now, I think working on Kubernetes more than anything. 51 00:02:39.199 --> 00:02:45.159 Sure, yep, we're in that daily, daily battle, or not 52 00:02:45.199 --> 00:02:49.599 really a battle, but we love to help. So we 53 00:02:49.680 --> 00:02:52.039 just don't want to be like the what was it 54 00:02:52.120 --> 00:02:54.319 the episode of Lost where they had to push the 55 00:02:54.360 --> 00:02:57.680 red button every five minutes or something really bad happened. 56 00:02:58.479 --> 00:03:00.159 We of course want to work our way out out 57 00:03:00.199 --> 00:03:03.719 of out of that type of situation. The business shouldn't 58 00:03:03.719 --> 00:03:06.039 be in that kind of situation, so we want to 59 00:03:06.039 --> 00:03:08.560 take the magic red button out of the equation as 60 00:03:08.639 --> 00:03:09.439 much as possible. 61 00:03:09.800 --> 00:03:12.479 Have you so you transition to using the term platform 62 00:03:12.520 --> 00:03:14.439 engineering because you found that like a lot of your 63 00:03:14.439 --> 00:03:17.400 clients had a wrong impression of. 64 00:03:17.319 --> 00:03:19.039 It or was more progressive. 65 00:03:19.919 --> 00:03:23.280 DevOps is still the right marketing term. So that's still 66 00:03:23.639 --> 00:03:28.599 what people understand. But we kind of have that conversation 67 00:03:28.879 --> 00:03:33.280 readily about Okay, you know cloud I T is what 68 00:03:33.280 --> 00:03:36.560 we're doing. If we automate some more things, then we're 69 00:03:36.599 --> 00:03:40.680 creating a platform that's resilient and working for you. You're 70 00:03:40.680 --> 00:03:43.960 not working for it, and so yeah, we try to 71 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:44.400 do some of that. 72 00:03:44.479 --> 00:03:48.599 Vocabulary makes sense A lot I do have a question 73 00:03:48.680 --> 00:03:52.520 here because a lot of our audience obviously focused in 74 00:03:52.520 --> 00:03:55.560 the devas space, like what sorts of problems do you 75 00:03:55.680 --> 00:04:00.240 see yourself and your company coming into helping clients with. 76 00:04:01.080 --> 00:04:05.560 Yeah, so we're really big on that app modernization at 77 00:04:05.639 --> 00:04:08.599 monetization part of it. So since we have a robust 78 00:04:08.680 --> 00:04:13.520 software development team, we're usually and some of my best partners, 79 00:04:14.479 --> 00:04:18.040 partners in crimeer MSPs MSPs are kind of hoarding the 80 00:04:18.120 --> 00:04:20.680 legacy tech and that's what we really want to do 81 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:25.120 is replace the world's legacy tech with modern services of 82 00:04:25.199 --> 00:04:29.120 modern cloud services. And so we're kind of coming into 83 00:04:29.680 --> 00:04:34.600 some older things that were built as as pets and 84 00:04:34.680 --> 00:04:37.800 we're converting them to cattle. So what that usually looks 85 00:04:37.879 --> 00:04:40.639 like is containerizing. One thing we're working on as a 86 00:04:42.120 --> 00:04:47.040 payment solution that was provided and the original engineers use 87 00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:51.279 Seapanel as their means to virtualize. So we thought, well, okay, 88 00:04:51.360 --> 00:04:54.240 you provided Spanel, does that mean that you're in customers 89 00:04:54.240 --> 00:04:58.600 are logging. Nope, Nope, we are using Spanel as our virtualizer, 90 00:04:59.360 --> 00:05:02.800 and so we showed we're showing them and we've showed 91 00:05:02.839 --> 00:05:05.959 them how converting that to containers with the c c 92 00:05:06.040 --> 00:05:10.040 D pipeline eliminates the cost for c panel and it's 93 00:05:10.040 --> 00:05:13.319 actually way easier to use. You just interact with the 94 00:05:13.959 --> 00:05:18.279 repository and Bob's your uncle. Sounds overly simplified, but it's 95 00:05:18.319 --> 00:05:23.079 really not. It's like just you know, huge reduction in 96 00:05:23.199 --> 00:05:27.759 price to support the all that virtualization and then we've 97 00:05:27.839 --> 00:05:32.199 kind of converting it to cattle, so it's it's it's 98 00:05:32.240 --> 00:05:34.560 going to be a n PCI scope, so we don't 99 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:39.639 want to have the pets to do all that security 100 00:05:39.720 --> 00:05:43.439 work with and so like, yeah, a lot of containerization 101 00:05:44.959 --> 00:05:48.399 and then we're not afraid to touch the applications like 102 00:05:48.519 --> 00:05:51.120 most managed service providers might be. 103 00:05:51.600 --> 00:05:53.839 Yeah, so yeah, I was going to ask you about that. 104 00:05:53.920 --> 00:05:56.279 So MSP is a managed service provider, and we're talking 105 00:05:56.279 --> 00:05:59.639 to like ones that had come in and delivered their 106 00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:04.040 own software as an application that your clients were running previously, 107 00:06:04.279 --> 00:06:07.800 or help them to build something, or gave them the technology. 108 00:06:07.839 --> 00:06:10.759 We're talking on prem or post a lift and shift 109 00:06:10.839 --> 00:06:12.319 into one of the cloud providers. 110 00:06:12.519 --> 00:06:14.759 Yeah, all of that, those are the kinds of projects 111 00:06:14.759 --> 00:06:18.959 we're getting like readily involved in on prem to cloud, 112 00:06:19.439 --> 00:06:23.240 the cloud migration. And then what does the application, how 113 00:06:23.279 --> 00:06:27.120 does the application need to be refactored to support that movement. 114 00:06:27.759 --> 00:06:32.560 Do you still see a lot of organizations on using 115 00:06:32.639 --> 00:06:35.319 on premise solutions when they don't need to be still 116 00:06:35.439 --> 00:06:37.720 or has that really died down a lot in the industry. 117 00:06:38.480 --> 00:06:42.439 No, it's still there. It's still there, and it's surprisingly 118 00:06:42.639 --> 00:06:49.360 in really important, like really important industries like banking. Not like, 119 00:06:49.560 --> 00:06:52.959 so we all know Capital one super vocal in the community, 120 00:06:53.120 --> 00:06:54.879 a lot of we know a lot of Capital one 121 00:06:54.879 --> 00:06:58.399 people are friends and they were kind of the pioneers. 122 00:06:58.439 --> 00:07:02.399 But you think about all these little credit unions where 123 00:07:02.600 --> 00:07:06.519 the IT folks were a little bit scared of the cloud, right, 124 00:07:06.680 --> 00:07:09.000 like a little bit like, well, it's maybe not secure, 125 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:13.600 and so they kind of never made that shift. So 126 00:07:13.639 --> 00:07:16.480 there's a lot of still fairly critical things that are 127 00:07:16.720 --> 00:07:20.759 on prem and then once they invested in those data centers, 128 00:07:21.560 --> 00:07:24.319 they they had to kind of stick with that investment. 129 00:07:25.439 --> 00:07:28.279 And so now we're seeing all of that tech age out. 130 00:07:29.439 --> 00:07:33.560 And then not to over beat up AI, but I 131 00:07:33.600 --> 00:07:36.920 think their desire to use AI is also driving them 132 00:07:36.959 --> 00:07:40.800 towards cloud services so that it's a little more available 133 00:07:40.839 --> 00:07:44.759 to them. Whereas you know, setting up all that in 134 00:07:44.800 --> 00:07:48.600 an age data center just doesn't is really not like, Okay, 135 00:07:48.639 --> 00:07:51.360 that's why we should have been part of this move. 136 00:07:51.959 --> 00:07:54.160 Yeah, we have the whole rest of the episode to 137 00:07:54.279 --> 00:07:57.240 beat up on AI if that route. 138 00:07:57.680 --> 00:07:57.720 No. 139 00:07:57.800 --> 00:08:01.120 I think it's really interesting that we still see so 140 00:08:01.240 --> 00:08:04.600 many companies running on prem things, and I think you 141 00:08:04.680 --> 00:08:09.079 really hit it pretty on the nose there that the 142 00:08:09.240 --> 00:08:16.000 more secure, the more requirements regulations that companies have, the 143 00:08:16.040 --> 00:08:18.879 more likely to be on prem, and almost it almost 144 00:08:18.879 --> 00:08:21.720 seems more ridiculous, like I would those are the companies 145 00:08:21.720 --> 00:08:23.439 that I sort of want to be in the cloud 146 00:08:23.480 --> 00:08:26.639 more likely, because like those are more critical services in 147 00:08:26.759 --> 00:08:27.519 most cases. 148 00:08:29.279 --> 00:08:33.000 Yeah, we also see a weird kind of on prem 149 00:08:33.039 --> 00:08:36.240 which is more of like an instance model, so they 150 00:08:36.279 --> 00:08:38.759 were giving they were actually giving a box to their 151 00:08:38.799 --> 00:08:41.679 customers and say, hey, put it in your store. We 152 00:08:41.759 --> 00:08:47.639 see this in kind of retail type environments, restaurants where 153 00:08:47.679 --> 00:08:52.120 brick and mortar existed. There's this kind of distributed on 154 00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:56.519 prem and now you know the like now they want 155 00:08:56.519 --> 00:09:01.039 to centralize, so really go to the SaaS model rather 156 00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:05.360 than all these distributed nodes, and then you know, getting 157 00:09:05.399 --> 00:09:08.120 data out of all those nodes to do BI solutions 158 00:09:08.240 --> 00:09:11.639 was a challenge. There was a lot of interaction with 159 00:09:11.679 --> 00:09:16.039 those brick and mortar locations. Yeah, all the kind of 160 00:09:16.080 --> 00:09:20.879 like hang ups between being distributed I call it distributed 161 00:09:20.960 --> 00:09:25.639 on prem, you know, really starting to show and they 162 00:09:25.679 --> 00:09:28.039 really want to take the benefit of the cloud and 163 00:09:28.159 --> 00:09:31.039 centralizing and all the data things that they can do 164 00:09:31.080 --> 00:09:34.639 for customers, so that I wasn't really expecting. 165 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:36.000 No, I totally got it. 166 00:09:36.360 --> 00:09:39.720 Would you say that it's being driven from the like 167 00:09:39.840 --> 00:09:44.679 software application providers who want to transition to the SaaS 168 00:09:44.720 --> 00:09:46.600 moll I mean, I'm sure they're going in some cases, 169 00:09:46.679 --> 00:09:51.360 but or the end users. The companies that have were 170 00:09:51.399 --> 00:09:54.080 responsible for running their own sort of IT department in 171 00:09:54.200 --> 00:09:56.519 order to build up a hack data center, which was 172 00:09:56.559 --> 00:09:58.360 a couple of machines sitting under their desk. 173 00:09:58.840 --> 00:10:00.840 Where do you see the poll from? 174 00:10:00.879 --> 00:10:05.159 It's both. It's both that the customer wants new features. 175 00:10:05.320 --> 00:10:09.240 Those new features are going to be deliverable from a 176 00:10:09.279 --> 00:10:15.080 centralized location. The barrier of entry is reduced using cloud services, 177 00:10:15.120 --> 00:10:19.799 so the cost of manage is lower. What ended up 178 00:10:19.799 --> 00:10:23.960 happening is that then the service provider ended up having 179 00:10:24.039 --> 00:10:27.080 access to those on prem servers to better support them. 180 00:10:27.519 --> 00:10:30.720 So certainly the IT departments that are trying to run 181 00:10:30.759 --> 00:10:33.639 like point of sales and do the things that they're 182 00:10:33.679 --> 00:10:38.759 supposed to do to run those environments. Are wanting a 183 00:10:38.799 --> 00:10:43.720 better solution. So yeah, I mean there are a few 184 00:10:45.679 --> 00:10:49.759 in restaurants we definitely see this on prem footprint that 185 00:10:49.879 --> 00:10:55.919 is required because when you're in a restaurant and you're 186 00:10:55.919 --> 00:10:58.240 looking at the like in the kitchen, there's this ticket 187 00:10:58.440 --> 00:11:01.440 management screen that shows the order. You know, some people 188 00:11:01.480 --> 00:11:04.519 have looked behind the counter and see see it your 189 00:11:04.519 --> 00:11:06.720 favorite fast food place that they're looking at the order, 190 00:11:06.759 --> 00:11:10.320 they're preparing the ingredients. It's super fast paced, and if 191 00:11:10.679 --> 00:11:15.159 that restaurant were to have glitchy Internet, that would disable 192 00:11:15.240 --> 00:11:19.519 the whole service. So there are practical applications, and then 193 00:11:19.600 --> 00:11:24.080 those practical applications we're looking at like little Kubernetes clusters 194 00:11:25.360 --> 00:11:29.679 with you know, surprisingly fault small footprint machines, but you know, 195 00:11:29.759 --> 00:11:33.320 taking three nooks and turn them into a Kubernetes cluster 196 00:11:33.519 --> 00:11:38.120 allows you to have some on prem presence for like 197 00:11:38.240 --> 00:11:42.240 super low latency and fault tolerance, but you still need 198 00:11:42.279 --> 00:11:45.519 to have everything backed up to the cloud for corporate analytics. 199 00:11:45.600 --> 00:11:49.600 And so you know, you're running a franchise of restaurants, 200 00:11:49.600 --> 00:11:51.480 of course you're not going to go talk to all 201 00:11:51.519 --> 00:11:55.279 those locations at once to understand revenue and things. So 202 00:11:55.320 --> 00:11:59.480 we are seeing these kind of hybrid environments and Kubernetes 203 00:11:59.559 --> 00:12:02.919 is making that, of course a lot easier to serve 204 00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:06.120 them to rent the ICD to then so they get 205 00:12:06.240 --> 00:12:09.679 updates and such. But there are a couple of applications 206 00:12:09.720 --> 00:12:12.039 where on prem makes a lot of sense. 207 00:12:13.080 --> 00:12:16.120 I'm sort of curious there on where the burden and 208 00:12:16.200 --> 00:12:19.759 responsibility for managing those physical machines that are on prem 209 00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:20.360 comes from. 210 00:12:20.600 --> 00:12:22.799 Is it being managed by the. 211 00:12:22.759 --> 00:12:25.840 Third party provider who's offering the service an application, who 212 00:12:25.879 --> 00:12:30.639 then like sends the knocks to the individual locations and 213 00:12:31.039 --> 00:12:34.519 manages maintenance, et cetera, patching, et cetera. Or is it 214 00:12:34.720 --> 00:12:36.720 sort of a shared responsibility model. 215 00:12:37.720 --> 00:12:42.120 It's very similar to I mean, like an iPhone or 216 00:12:42.159 --> 00:12:45.919 something would be very similar automatic updates, but the shared 217 00:12:45.960 --> 00:12:48.799 responsibility is that, yeah, if you miss use the device, 218 00:12:49.639 --> 00:12:52.159 then you know, we'll have to give you a new one. 219 00:12:53.480 --> 00:12:57.720 And so yeah, it's I would say it's a shared 220 00:12:57.759 --> 00:13:01.159 responsibility model because the physical device is in the location, 221 00:13:01.799 --> 00:13:04.440 so somebody has to give it power, somebody has to 222 00:13:04.480 --> 00:13:09.360 plug it into internet access, you know, somebody has to 223 00:13:09.399 --> 00:13:11.399 do that and hopefully they don't put it right above 224 00:13:11.440 --> 00:13:14.639 the fryer. Hopefully that has. 225 00:13:14.519 --> 00:13:17.039 Happened, you joke. 226 00:13:17.120 --> 00:13:19.120 But there's a non truly number of times where I've 227 00:13:19.120 --> 00:13:22.559 seen an issue with the company on site not knowing 228 00:13:22.600 --> 00:13:25.600 how to manage the data center effectively and putting it 229 00:13:25.639 --> 00:13:28.960 in a place which is problematic, not just in the building, 230 00:13:29.039 --> 00:13:31.559 but choosing another building that's maybe close to an airport 231 00:13:31.720 --> 00:13:33.840 or difficult to get to in case there's an issue, 232 00:13:34.600 --> 00:13:38.799 or not well managed, like not like not following appropriate 233 00:13:38.840 --> 00:13:41.039 codes because they're using a building that wasn't scoped out 234 00:13:41.080 --> 00:13:43.360 to actually be a data center in some way, and 235 00:13:43.399 --> 00:13:46.919 then they're being a fire or a flood and having 236 00:13:46.919 --> 00:13:47.840 a real issue. 237 00:13:48.200 --> 00:13:53.240 Yeah, So the on prem IT or in these franchise situations, 238 00:13:53.559 --> 00:13:57.639 there is a facilities management function that already exists. I 239 00:13:57.639 --> 00:14:00.960 mean even the point of sale machines that that you're ordering, 240 00:14:01.039 --> 00:14:05.240 or the devices that the service staff at the restaurant 241 00:14:05.279 --> 00:14:08.200 is carrying around to take the order, the things on 242 00:14:08.279 --> 00:14:12.039 the tables to because sometimes we're doing self ordering now 243 00:14:12.679 --> 00:14:15.320 where people are ordering their drinks directly from the table. 244 00:14:15.960 --> 00:14:20.639 So in these cases, there is an IT services company 245 00:14:20.759 --> 00:14:24.440 that can follow an sop you're sending them the device 246 00:14:25.120 --> 00:14:28.279 with everything embedded on it that you need, and you're 247 00:14:28.320 --> 00:14:32.240 giving them some instruction and you're hoping that they will 248 00:14:32.279 --> 00:14:35.200 follow those instructions so that then you can be responsible 249 00:14:35.279 --> 00:14:39.639 for keeping the software updated. So I think mobility is 250 00:14:39.679 --> 00:14:42.879 a great metaphor for what's happening there. 251 00:14:43.919 --> 00:14:47.519 And it's your company. Particle forty one is facilitating making 252 00:14:47.519 --> 00:14:48.039 this happen. 253 00:14:48.440 --> 00:14:52.080 We're writing the software and we're setting up the DevOps routines. 254 00:14:52.639 --> 00:14:56.120 But yeah, our client is the kind of the parent 255 00:14:56.159 --> 00:15:01.720 provider providing that software to all the restaurants, and then 256 00:15:01.759 --> 00:15:05.639 of course they're interacting with different franchisees in that particular 257 00:15:05.759 --> 00:15:11.120 use case. But we've also seen it in retail where 258 00:15:11.159 --> 00:15:15.480 there was inventory management solution that was on prem that's 259 00:15:15.519 --> 00:15:21.440 being centralized. So in retail, centralization is possible because the 260 00:15:21.480 --> 00:15:24.919 loss of Internet doesn't completely bring down the whole place. 261 00:15:25.039 --> 00:15:28.279 We can just cash up some things locally until Internet 262 00:15:28.360 --> 00:15:32.159 is restored and do some queuing on prem inside of 263 00:15:32.200 --> 00:15:35.600 the point of sale device. But we don't have to 264 00:15:36.480 --> 00:15:39.559 be so fault tolerant that we're shipping a whole Kubernetes 265 00:15:39.559 --> 00:15:40.639 cluster to the location. 266 00:15:40.960 --> 00:15:43.600 Yeah, no, I got it. If it's all right, I 267 00:15:43.600 --> 00:15:43.879 sort of. 268 00:15:43.919 --> 00:15:45.720 You know, one of the really interesting things that you 269 00:15:46.080 --> 00:15:50.200 mentioned pre show and looking at your pro was the 270 00:15:50.279 --> 00:15:51.840 number of times that you've been in a position where 271 00:15:51.840 --> 00:15:53.600 you've had to stand up on your team, like I imagine, 272 00:15:53.679 --> 00:15:56.600 especially with multiple customers, it's not just one engineer. 273 00:15:56.720 --> 00:15:58.080 You're not just body listening. 274 00:15:58.240 --> 00:16:02.080 You're really the bining their whole process, potentially doing the 275 00:16:02.120 --> 00:16:05.039 shift for them. That's a lot of teams that I 276 00:16:05.039 --> 00:16:07.080 imagine you may have created from the ground up. 277 00:16:08.320 --> 00:16:09.080 Is that accurate? 278 00:16:09.679 --> 00:16:14.039 Yeah, that's a great So we use a special operations 279 00:16:14.120 --> 00:16:20.679 metaphor here, so we think of ourselves and this sounds grandiose, 280 00:16:20.720 --> 00:16:22.679 but it's really a great metaphor. The more you know 281 00:16:22.759 --> 00:16:26.200 about like Green Berets, so green Berets will go behind 282 00:16:26.320 --> 00:16:30.600 enemy lines and they will recruit from the local militia, 283 00:16:30.679 --> 00:16:32.799 so from the local people. So if you're a Green Beret, 284 00:16:32.840 --> 00:16:36.759 typically you know a language, like a specific language like 285 00:16:36.799 --> 00:16:41.440 Mandarin or something, and then you might also know explosives, 286 00:16:41.559 --> 00:16:45.240 or you might know you know some kind of offensive skill. 287 00:16:45.559 --> 00:16:48.000 It's very much similar to that where you are trained 288 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:50.679 in training because you are going to be working shoulder 289 00:16:50.720 --> 00:16:53.799 to shoulder with other folks that maybe don't have the 290 00:16:53.840 --> 00:16:56.120 same skills as you and are looking to you for 291 00:16:56.200 --> 00:17:00.399 your expertise and your advice. So our selection us as 292 00:17:00.440 --> 00:17:05.400 super rigid. You know, sometimes you would even look at somebody, 293 00:17:05.440 --> 00:17:08.640 we might turn away and go like, well they look great, 294 00:17:08.720 --> 00:17:11.480 their backgrounds great, and you kind of have to trust 295 00:17:11.480 --> 00:17:16.680 our process because similar to the special operations, like if 296 00:17:16.720 --> 00:17:19.759 somebody didn't make it to selection, there's a reason and 297 00:17:19.799 --> 00:17:21.799 you just kind of trust that. You know, you don't 298 00:17:21.839 --> 00:17:25.279 judge a book by their cover, and so yeah, our 299 00:17:25.319 --> 00:17:27.799 selection process is really rigid because we know we're going 300 00:17:27.839 --> 00:17:31.119 to get into a situation where we need to be 301 00:17:31.160 --> 00:17:33.440 trained in training, we need to be ready to pass 302 00:17:33.480 --> 00:17:38.119 on you know, pass on those skills. And then we 303 00:17:38.160 --> 00:17:41.319 don't have any long term agreements. So we we love 304 00:17:41.440 --> 00:17:43.440 to come in and help and the way we earn, 305 00:17:43.880 --> 00:17:46.640 you know, more time with the client is to do 306 00:17:46.640 --> 00:17:50.119 do good work. And you know, a reward for a 307 00:17:50.160 --> 00:17:55.880 perfectly executed sprint is another perfectly executed sprint. So for us, 308 00:17:55.880 --> 00:17:59.200 like pressure is a gift. So that's something we kind 309 00:17:59.200 --> 00:18:03.319 of say across our teams. And each team member has 310 00:18:03.400 --> 00:18:07.559 two concentric circles that they're operating in so they're operating 311 00:18:07.599 --> 00:18:12.880 in a team engagement that has a clear mission, clear objectives. 312 00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:18.480 You know, it's an agile, multi multi disciplined team with 313 00:18:18.559 --> 00:18:23.559 developers QA, maybe a DevOps person or project manager, front end, 314 00:18:23.559 --> 00:18:27.759 back end engineers, whatever the particular objective that the client 315 00:18:27.839 --> 00:18:33.680 is trying to reach needs. And then they're also involved 316 00:18:33.680 --> 00:18:36.920 in a squad, and a squad is really for them 317 00:18:37.160 --> 00:18:41.640 and their professional development, and so squad leaders are helping 318 00:18:41.680 --> 00:18:45.240 people be what we call T shaped, so not only 319 00:18:45.279 --> 00:18:48.680 have good hard skills, but good soft skills. And then 320 00:18:48.720 --> 00:18:51.880 we reward heavily for self training, so like if you 321 00:18:51.960 --> 00:18:57.160 go get AWS certified, we incentivize you and we love 322 00:18:57.200 --> 00:19:00.000 to so we really use this kind of special operations 323 00:19:00.119 --> 00:19:06.039 before where training yourself being elite is is what how 324 00:19:06.039 --> 00:19:09.640 you move up and how you're rewarded. And you know, 325 00:19:09.680 --> 00:19:12.960 we really lean into, you know, how can we be 326 00:19:14.079 --> 00:19:18.559 the agent that helps a team fill in all those gaps? 327 00:19:18.880 --> 00:19:20.640 And when I say that, when I use team in 328 00:19:20.640 --> 00:19:24.400 that context, like the client's team, the broader mission team 329 00:19:24.440 --> 00:19:26.920 that we're engaged in. But people still have a place 330 00:19:26.920 --> 00:19:31.039 where they can go and say, man, I'm stressed, I'm 331 00:19:30.599 --> 00:19:36.079 my capacity is getting stretched, and we don't use the 332 00:19:36.079 --> 00:19:40.480 word capability. We use the word capacity. So a lot 333 00:19:40.480 --> 00:19:42.079 of times in our self talk, we're like, man, I 334 00:19:42.119 --> 00:19:44.640 don't know if I'm capable of this. Well, that's a 335 00:19:44.640 --> 00:19:47.119 good indication you just don't have capacity for it yet. 336 00:19:49.200 --> 00:19:51.319 That's a good way of looking at it. I've come 337 00:19:51.359 --> 00:19:55.079 to a similar conclusion about using the word capability. It 338 00:19:55.119 --> 00:19:57.920 always felt off in some way. 339 00:19:58.440 --> 00:19:58.720 I am. 340 00:19:58.799 --> 00:20:01.519 I am sort of curious though, if there's something you're 341 00:20:01.559 --> 00:20:05.200 doing during the recruitment or hiring process that really stands 342 00:20:05.240 --> 00:20:11.200 out as really the most impactful part of the review 343 00:20:11.599 --> 00:20:17.160 or overall for identifying which candidates will be more successful 344 00:20:17.160 --> 00:20:19.319 in this trainers trainer role. 345 00:20:20.839 --> 00:20:27.359 Yeah, it almost always involves looking at at code, looking 346 00:20:27.400 --> 00:20:31.119 at at work product, and handling some kind of problem 347 00:20:31.160 --> 00:20:35.119 together and seeing how the candidate performs in that. So 348 00:20:35.160 --> 00:20:37.759 whether they bring up portfolio of code that they've worked 349 00:20:37.759 --> 00:20:41.240 on before and you know, get into it and explain 350 00:20:41.279 --> 00:20:45.880 it and we are impressed by that, or we do 351 00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:48.599 have a series of take home projects we also use 352 00:20:48.640 --> 00:20:51.839 code or byte But what we're really trying to assert 353 00:20:52.559 --> 00:20:55.880 is is what does this person like to work with? Like, 354 00:20:55.960 --> 00:20:58.599 what will they be like when they're on our team? 355 00:20:59.079 --> 00:21:04.240 And then once you once you're in, then certifications are 356 00:21:04.319 --> 00:21:09.440 mandatory for advancement. And so between a combination of those things, 357 00:21:10.160 --> 00:21:14.680 we feel like we meet the selection criteria that would 358 00:21:14.720 --> 00:21:19.160 be successful behind enemy line, so to speak, and and 359 00:21:19.200 --> 00:21:23.400 that you have the skills to help and train train 360 00:21:23.440 --> 00:21:28.599 the client's team in areas where they're where they haven't 361 00:21:28.720 --> 00:21:31.039 flushed in. If you've been working on a legacy system 362 00:21:31.400 --> 00:21:33.359 and now we're going to work on modern cloud service, 363 00:21:33.400 --> 00:21:36.559 there are probably gaps that we need to be prepared 364 00:21:36.559 --> 00:21:38.960 to fill, and we want to do that in a 365 00:21:39.079 --> 00:21:42.319 super open way so that there's always this like we 366 00:21:42.359 --> 00:21:45.200 can we can go work on something else at any time, 367 00:21:45.559 --> 00:21:48.960 Like we're constantly keeping you informed as to what we're 368 00:21:49.000 --> 00:21:53.640 working on and why so so that you don't feel 369 00:21:53.680 --> 00:21:57.240 like you're just moving all your expertise to an outside team. 370 00:21:57.319 --> 00:22:00.640 We want to feel like an inside an inside team. 371 00:22:01.039 --> 00:22:03.599 No, I mean, that's a pretty healthy perspective to have. 372 00:22:03.640 --> 00:22:06.039 I've seen a lot of consultants come in and try 373 00:22:06.039 --> 00:22:11.359 to encourage after work follow ups a long period of 374 00:22:11.599 --> 00:22:14.359 time where they're engaged with a company, And at least 375 00:22:14.359 --> 00:22:17.880 from my own perspective, when I worked in a resulting model, 376 00:22:18.440 --> 00:22:22.720 I had a very similar expectation that realistically, I like 377 00:22:23.000 --> 00:22:24.960 the day that you don't need me anymore is sort 378 00:22:24.960 --> 00:22:28.000 of a celebration, like we achieved something so that you 379 00:22:28.039 --> 00:22:29.880 know clearly you had a need and now you feel 380 00:22:29.880 --> 00:22:31.880 like you don't, like something must have changed. 381 00:22:32.720 --> 00:22:37.400 Yeah, I think we celebrate that. We celebrate that we 382 00:22:37.519 --> 00:22:42.359 can get into a position where and a lot of 383 00:22:42.359 --> 00:22:44.400 our clients we work with them for a long time 384 00:22:44.440 --> 00:22:47.640 because that partnership is there and they know exactly what's 385 00:22:47.680 --> 00:22:53.079 going on, and so if that's the case, why stop. 386 00:22:55.640 --> 00:22:57.759 So yeah, I think I think it works to our 387 00:22:57.799 --> 00:23:02.759 benefit large percentage of the time. But yeah, you have 388 00:23:02.839 --> 00:23:05.279 to take that risk. I mean, relationships are about risk, 389 00:23:05.400 --> 00:23:07.720 right If you don't if you don't risk yourself, you 390 00:23:07.759 --> 00:23:12.960 won't get to know anybody. And so there's there's always 391 00:23:12.960 --> 00:23:16.319 that inherent risk that Okay, I don't need you anymore, 392 00:23:16.359 --> 00:23:19.119 but it just doesn't really play out in reality. Like 393 00:23:19.160 --> 00:23:22.160 if you're meeting somebody's needs and relationships and you've taken 394 00:23:22.200 --> 00:23:25.680 that risk to show them that you're to be vulnerable 395 00:23:25.720 --> 00:23:30.480 with them and share yourself, then that's where magic happens. 396 00:23:30.839 --> 00:23:33.720 But if you never take that risk and you hold 397 00:23:33.759 --> 00:23:37.680 on to things you're not vulnerable, then then you won't 398 00:23:37.720 --> 00:23:39.400 have any powerful relationships. 399 00:23:39.880 --> 00:23:43.279 Yeah, no, I totally, I totally agree, definitely right on 400 00:23:43.359 --> 00:23:45.400 the money there. I do have a I do this 401 00:23:45.480 --> 00:23:48.920