Transcript: Foxley Talent - Jon Gould

hi welcome to another episode of django chat podcast on the django web framework i'm carlton

gibson joined as ever by will vincent hello will hi carlton hello will and today with us we've got

with us jungle from foxy talent and django social hello john yeah hi hi chaps nice to uh get on and

and chat with you no thank you for coming on thank you for coming on you um so what do you want we

We should let people know who you are because I'm excited to have you on and chat about the various topics, but people might not know you too.

For people in the audience, how would you introduce yourself?

Who are you?

So I am a career recruiter, worked in tech recruitment for nearly 15 years.

And for 14 and 6 months of that, within the Django and Python community world,

mostly within the UK, up until probably the last 18 months,

it was always very much UK-focused.

Not sort of your typical recruiter.

I've always tried to buck the trend in that sense.

But I have been very sort of influenced and led by the various community

involvements um and i suppose over the last 12 of those 14 years heavily involved in like london's

community the django community with through various um guises which will probably i know

we'll try and cover off um and no no it's not last year anymore the year before last

i took the plunge and set up my own business which is foxy talents um with the the mission

the goal to be the go-to recruiter for the python and django community globally um

you and with just taking a very community first approach to everything if it's the right thing

to do we'll do it um very so very different okay that's good that's a good high level i'm gonna go

straight in there so you're recruiter right django how do you focus what what's led you to focus on

I mean it seems like quite a clever thing looking at what you've been doing the last year or so

and yeah it's like niche down get get a name in a particular area that sounds like a great idea but

in my experience of recruiters which is quite long they're they're they're not usually very good at

matching a particular skill set to a job it's like very much fire off random emails and see what

sticks yeah I think for for the major not for the majority but I think it's very easy to say that

you're a specialist um and it's probably what a customer a company or a job seeker probably

wants to hear is oh i specialize in this and then they'll probably present one job to you

and if you don't fit it you'll never hear from them again um or six years later are you still

interested in entry-level jobs anymore yeah the and then from the client perspective it is it's

matching that um understanding the job spec as a as a non-technical um person but understanding

where it what somebody's after the the key points about the personality it's going to fit the

experience they're looking for but knowing that all because all we do is talk to python and django

people everybody's pretty much going to be close enough to the um the the spec that we can come

off a call and know three or four people who will fit it if they're available or interested

and then do the other work behind the scenes um i initially i started my career in 2008

um as a contract recruiter for software engineers within the south of the uk and that was my remit

um trying to i think uh sourced dotnet developers c++ engineers java developers um a bit of yeah

at that point anything or anything that was software sort of fell to me and it was just

purely by chance in 2008 i think i was trying to i was working with a dotnet developer in

east anglia sent them to a their profile um agreed to send it to a couple of places that i knew in

the city of norwich norwich union being one of them who were at that point unknown to me were a

big django user um and they turned around said look we don't really need any dot net developers

but if you know a django developer or two we'd take them on for we've got projects all of next

year so it just sort of it happened i didn't know what they were talking about i've held my hands up

and i was like i i'm happy to take a brief on what you're looking for i've never heard of this

before but i can definitely find you somebody if you trust me and give me the opportunities to do

it um found the two two contractors who started like the following week um they then we met they

needed a couple more then they needed three or four more and before i knew it i was scouring

the whole of the uk for anybody who worked with django and this is 2008 so it's quite old just

nobody was really recycling on job boards in terms of like it might they might be in their

first job using django so they're not then looking for work because they're happy because they found

somewhere that commercially uses django so there's nobody who's using the job boards linkedin wasn't

really a thing twitter was somewhere that i suppose i'd started following because i'd you

know follow the football club i support and then i thought actually i wasn't one of any developers

are here um sort of found the django community there and then through that i found i think it

was the the london python dojo was happening and i just felt if i can go go along there i might get

to meet some of these people in person or at least some of the people that i'm talking to

and just learn a bit more there was another meetup run by a chap in london which was

less technical more social which was called the um the piss up p-y-s-s-u-p and it was just

meet in the pub and have some beers and talk python and django so so i was like do you mind

if i come along and it's you know the chap who ran it was very accommodating it's like yeah look

come along you know it's it's not really a recruiting event i'm not just sort of said i'm

not really there to recruit i just want to chat and find out a bit more about why people work with

this tech and the whole that was sort of the point where i found that i really resonated with what

a whole open source movement is about and every developer i was speaking to their first question

wasn't what's the day rate or what's the money like it was tell me about the project is it

interesting cat what tools are they using why and it was like this is where i want to be um

and yeah just over time um sort of became a more and more embedded attended different meetups um

and yeah yeah i was just gonna say like i've met plenty of companies at jango events like that

that are saying we're there we're there we're hiring we sponsor the thing but you're literally

the only recruiter i've ever met a jango event is this like a sort of secret knowledge that you've

hit on it to turn up to community events be involved in the community you it's not it's not

the secret code it's not because over time you do i do see there's other recruiters come to the

events but they come once and they go there right yeah exactly they'll go with a very blinkered

mindset of i need to go to this event to find a job seeker for this job that i've got that i'm

struggling with because it's the first python job we've had or so they'll go they'll probably

have got sign off from their manager to expense the some beers in the pub afterwards or something

like that and will be there shaking hands with everybody in the room introducing themselves

asking where people work whether they're looking for a job and if they're not they move on

and just sort of work the room and then leave before the talks um or halfway through the talks

and it isn't and then they'll never come back because they didn't hit they didn't find anybody

um whereas i suppose it's for me it's just i actually i enjoyed going there i met people

regularly so the same people were always usually the same people at least the same core of people

you have the same follow-up conversations you chat and like example i was at the london meetup

in november maybe is it november yeah it's in november and tom christie was there which who

hadn't seen in person for like three years and immediately he's like oh John congrats on you

you know setting up your business I've been following what you're doing we sort of exchange

it's just that it's more over the time it's developed into more friendships and

you know recruiter contractor recruiter candidate sort of relationships and just one more before

you button because I know you'll I can see you teetering a bit there well but just one more

because i always find that if you um are just part of a community you might have a product or a thing

to sell or you know whatever your job is but and people know what that is but that comes up in its

natural time and then you can just get on and have a conversation you know and be part of the

community it's conversation first get to know people and it's all it's almost like i almost i

use used to go in with a um a bit of a mindset of don't say what you do until someone asks

because nobody if if you're going oh hi i'm john i'm a recruiter i recruit python django engineers

are you looking for a job yeah that is a bit scary when you face it like that yeah we still get it

at times we go oh my god oh you're a recruiter no i'm not looking i wasn't going to ask

i mean i just assume if somebody's outgoing at a meetup they are a recruiter like that was my

experience in san francisco way back is like you know people who are friendly and outgoing

every single time recruiter which is fine but it was like um just yeah I prefer someone just to say

it right instead of three minutes in I mean because I never felt that way I think but if you

do I guess it's easier just to lead with who you are yeah I suppose it's it's easier now because

I've been there for so long and people know know me and actually people will introduce me to each

other other it it's more again it's like i mean i i feel accepted as part of the community as

opposed to just an outsider turning up and getting involved um i think it's funny you said one of my

long-standing jokes every time i hosted a meetup um where we had speakers and talks and a a sponsored

venue was every person who spoke would normally say and this is me where this is where i work and

we're hiring. And at the end of it would always be me going, I'm the recruiter here hosting the

event. And I'm the only one who's not going to pitch anyone for a job tonight. It was always

the standard stock joke. And it probably wasn't very funny after a while, but I'd stick with it.

It was part of that. That's the rules. Yeah. If I can butt in, I'm curious if you like,

what is the normal trajectory of recruiting? If you could get kind of give that overview,

Because my naive sense is that it's something there's a lot of younger people who are, you know, throwing stuff on the wall and then a handful of more senior people.

Like, why aren't more people doing what you're doing?

Like, does it winnow out or is that an inaccurate description?

Yeah, I suppose that I think my trajectory was probably I understood what I was doing.

I joined I moved into recruitment I was about 26 so I wasn't the young I wasn't a fresh young grad

um I had responsibilities and I had um like a reason personally to to be successful that

um my partner at the time when I joined I started in recruitment in the beginning of February 2008

my partner became pregnant in may 2008 and my son was born on the 5th of january

2009 so i immediately had having just left the job i needed to get my earnings back on track

um and so i dedicated every sort of spare hour in that nine month ten month period to really

understanding what i was doing and um getting to working out what was what worked for me and that's

where the the django world suited as well um i just it just clicked um so the usual trajectory

is somebody joins with no recruitment experience they're day one you're given a a database of old

people call them see where see if anyone's available for work or interested and if they are

here's some jobs that they might like very throw stuff at a wall see if it sticks um

and but you can you can progress through your career if you if you have targets and

go from being a trainee to uh having more responsibility with client side and

you know more autonomy being a senior recruiter then a maybe a team leader um then managing a

team which is the journey i went on i um when i was employed for the same company for 10 12 years

my trajectory was very sort of traditional in that i grew a team my desk became busier i found

somebody else to do the i was working python django they had somebody went doing front end

then php then some user experience and design all that accompanied it really but always under the

guise of this is your your remit where you can build um and over time that um yeah it was growing

a team and i got further and further away from the hands-on involvement with people and the

community and it was part of the trigger when i left was i really wanted to get back into

um the part of the job i really enjoyed which was the community side um so you can go on that

trajectory and people leave because it is hard work um maybe they aren't naturally good at

working with people ironically like mentoring people or they're not very you know they've hit

the achievement they've they've received some accolades in their company and then they go off

to go and either set up on their own or do this and then it's too difficult and it doesn't yeah

careers can peter out um because it's there's not much in terms of like a barrier to entry um

anybody with any background can do recruitment but to do well you have to be a bit more invested i

think but how do you get there so the other bit of the business i'm i've never sort of said well

we've got you peek under the hood sort of thing it's like because you're a market maker essentially

you're matching jobs to candidates so how do you get the relationships with the companies that must

be quite a difficult thing too no i mean because it's compared massively competitive it is and i

think again where i've done it for so long a lot of the people that i work with i've known i've

i've i might have worked with people as a contractor in the past and now they're

a technical director in their their startup or in their business or so they sort of the way that i

do it isn't necessarily print off this is the how-to um and i much prefer that i don't want to be

sending out you know blacked out cvs and all the key information redacted and phone calls and all

all of the noise that i'm sure happens still i would much rather people go john i somebody i

know knows you they like you can you help us um yeah that but that is brilliant i've got one more

question that's come up what is it about not telling the the salary range like why is it that

on an advert yeah yeah so or in a direct to me and you say well you know they say well we've

seen your thing on get up we basically did a search and you came up and we're sending the

same form email to anybody blah blah we got this right we might be interested you say okay well

what sort of range is it and they're like oh we can't tell you you know come on give me a clue

i don't know i don't know it's i try you've obviously got a range from the client because

that's what they can pay i think there's some people would do it because maybe if they told

you the salary and it's 15 grand under what your your current basic is you won't then have the rest

of the conversation and they may not be able to send you somewhere else or establish like exactly

where it is um where it needs to be if especially if they're only working one job because they're

not really a specialist they've got they want to speak to you they want to find out whether you'd

maybe take a pay cut because it's an interesting thing but to put that on an email or a message

might be there but no it's there's only so many much time in the day this is the salary this is

what they're paying like do you want the job or not um yeah is it of interest yeah is it of interest

it's you yeah it's i think i think it's it really helps because otherwise and yeah or on the other

side you might be lower and then maybe they can save the clients some money on salaries or

something but it's it just it never feels right just be open yeah i mean it's it's deeply frustrated

i think um but anyway go on well i think i would guess carlton that and this question for you john

you know being a market maker a lot of times i think employees and companies don't really know

what they want and i've seen like we link to you have some lightning talks about the why i guess

what i'm often of the opinion that it's easier to understand what someone actually wants even

if they don't themselves don't see it i'm curious if there's certain patterns if someone you know

especially a developer comes to you and says this is what i think i want and you're like no it sounds

like you really want this over here i'd imagine you like right like oh i want to be at a small

company but i'm in a big company or vice versa are there some patterns that you see just with all

your um experience we're definitely right now probably eight or nine out of ten people that

we speak to want to work in tech for good or renewable energy this is right at the moment it's

it's the the real pull at the moment that people want to give back and work in a sector like that

and not everybody's background will lend itself to to working in that sector but the but also it's

like if you understand that's why people are moving because they'd like to work there it's

almost um you know the why that i mentioned in the the the talk previously it's then the trick

is always trying to find that trigger that made somebody apply or get in touch and write right

it can't just purely be like say that one i'd like to work in renewable energy but everything

else about my current job is great there must be something else that's wrong that's made you have

that thought um which is what we'll try and establish through through a conversation um

understanding what is yeah really going on whether it's you've been overlooked for a promotion

whether it's um there's a technology that your business don't want to adopt that you want to

use in your in your career it's it could be there's too many people ahead of you in line for

opportunities it could be that the business isn't performing and you're worried about the security

the industry you're in so many variables but if we can understand and at least you know understand

together what the key thing is um i'm a like a belligerent note taker i will always write stuff

down and even at the towards the end of a search if somebody isn't if they've strayed from what we

originally said i don't mind taking like a picture of it and sending it to them and going this is

what i wrote down when we first spoke are you sure that's going to tick this box for you um right

it's like a psychiatrist oh maybe i'm completely unqualified that makes sense i i one more kind of

big question we have a whole list but um for people listening like what if someone's new to

django or wants to move into django what what should they do right how do they get on your

radar our company's radar like what's your current advice for right here's the things you should

prioritize yeah um i think location is really important and the world is has got a lot bigger

and more available to to more people but i think if you're look if you're in a position where you're

trying to learn to be able to get together with people in person and you know yes we can use like

virtual whiteboards and things but if you can actually sit and draw something out i think it's

really important so try and maybe target companies where you're you're nearby um or have got teams in

locations nearer to you um remote jobs we are everyone is working on how efficient we can be

but i don't think it's completely perfect for a junior um i think again identifying this the

technologies that you want to work with and looking for a company where if you've got if

you're a career changer so if you've got a career in another sector and you've developed lots of

skills that could almost be traded if you're you know maybe been an accountant you've become a

software developer and that's where you want to go try and maybe find a company who build

accountancy software and trade a little bit of your industry sector knowledge with the

the opportunity to learn and develop um your career as an engineer um another tip would be

to not every it's not that easy always to identify companies who work with django um i know there's a

a page where there's a list of all you know people recommend sites that have been built with django

and they're all listed but that can take some time to go through and look for jobs on um i always

direct people to the python job board on python.org um i used to send people towards like

django gigs and those sorts those sites um there's not very much traffic on them anymore

direct them to the job pages on current and previous conferences um and looking at the

sponsor pages as well because people are yeah they're either trying to sell their products

because it's relevant to the Django sector or any sector, same advice.

Or to go to the companies who spent money sponsoring and say,

look, I'll send an email to the HR director or HR person or the technical director

and say, I've seen you're involved in this conference, this meetup, this event.

This is my career. This is what I'm trying to achieve.

And would there be any opportunities for me to join your team?

And not everyone's hiring.

It's difficult at the moment.

But those are some good places to go and to start.

A further piece of advice would probably be to attend a meetup in your location

rather than waiting for a conference.

We're very lucky in London that we've got the London Python Dojo,

which is always probably the first port of call where I suggest people go to

because it's live coding experience as well.

We've got the London Python meetup.

We've got the London Django meetup.

And then I run a Django social in London as well.

So there's opportunities there just to get in and around people

and talk to people doing the job you want to do.

Yeah, my experiences of going to community events is you always meet people

and then it's, you know, meet them a couple of times later

and all of a sudden it's like, oh, you're hiring, aren't you?

Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah.

And, you know, opportunities just sort of come up in that way organically.

And that, you know, somebody that you've, you've connect on LinkedIn and it's not everyone's

favorite tool, but if you connect on there, people will share when their company's hiring

because it's exciting or it's, if they're growing, they'll share it.

If you will see where to go and it's.

Well, they'll share it because HL said, share it.

Yeah, like and share this post, yeah.

Yeah, sometimes you get a, you know, you get a cut of bringing in, like in the, in Silicon

Valley, it used to be that you would get, I don't know, a decent percentage if a friend

joined so you would find these you know these groups right groups of five or ten engineers and

the leader would go and then they'd bring all their friends and they would get a cut of it and

then after three years they go to the next place and yeah you know um what what about um personal

sites blogging is that important or is that overrated do you think i think it's really i

think in in terms of having your your cv i think the the personal statement at the top is important

because it you can address anything in there ahead of a cover letter i'd say that part is

more important because you can say this is me this is what i'm doing this is the stage of my

career i'm at and this is what i'm trying to achieve um and in that you could say i'm looking

to change industry i'm looking to work in this sector and then as long as then that is truly

what you're trying to move for and it's you know that's a really powerful thing to have at the top

address an elephant in the room if you've had a year out in the past because of a thing address

it in there and then it's it's it's done um i think you listing your personal personal projects

so even linking github or stackoverflow or anywhere you keep your projects whether it's on your

personal site again really important because people will click through and look at those

probably more so than reading what your first job at our university was um yeah yeah what you got

for your gcses 50 years ago yeah i had a uh an example i sent a profile over to a client when

we were working with them and in the email that i sent it i linked to their github it came straight

back yeah this person looks great please can you set up an interview we set up the interview

five minutes before it started i had a panicked call because the cv that i sent was blank

and all they'd done was look at the the github so they realized actually they had nothing to

talk to them about other than their projects um so yeah well that's that's confidence right you

pull that off right it's like oh yeah just just quickly moonwalk out a bit we'll say yeah we'll

send that across to you but at least at least you know we know you like them and why um so then it

meant it meant for us is if somebody had a github profile we would just we could send send them over

we know that's what they'll look at first um people have always like so github was being very

influential for me you know i started contributing and then you know it really changed the the hiring

dynamic i always said but then the counterpoint that you get this line where people say but

github's not your your cv um your github profile isn't your cv there's more to life than that i

mean what's your sort of take on the balance there between i mean if someone's gonna be that pedantic

I don't do you want to work with it but I think I think there's um if you're trying to impress

somebody to get a job put everything that you're good at and you're proud of available you can't

always share work projects because of commercial agreements which is fair but share as much as you

can if you go to it if you go to me if you go to meetups or if you go you're involved at conferences

or you contribute to anything list it on your cv because that just it just it will differentiate

you from um the the average developer who's maybe doing it as a career as to somebody who's actually

passionate about helping and growing and giving back and everything there um list it it's what

again after so you'll probably see like on a cv it's open a statement if there's a skills matrix

people will look at that just interested what technology people use last job mostly last job

title and any skills associated and then i tend to skip to the bottom to see if there's anything

interesting on someone's cv that i can talk to them about there isn't the job build a bit of

rapport and then um you can then talk about jobs a little bit more freely and again if you're

interviewing somebody try and i'll say look try and find them on um if you're being interviewed

try to find the interviewer online whether they've got a twitter account or a socials anywhere see

what they're interested in see if you can build a personal connection before you get too deep into

why you're moving around that's good find out who the interviewer is and stalking them that's

that's very advanced i think that's quite clever it's proving interest right i mean it's like i

always think if if there's if someone just has a cv it's like i can ask you generic questions but

But if somebody has like if somebody wants to work in Django and they have a couple of projects on GitHub, like let's just jump to talking about that, because that's more what a real work like you kind of skip the first stage.

It's a real work like environment.

And at least I find that people people are insecure about what they know and they they feel bad about not knowing something when really the question is how how self-aware are they of their knowledge and how quickly can they learn?

Because obviously someone more senior can tell, and the question is not, like, I'm not trying to make you feel bad.

I want to see why did you make these decisions and how self-aware are you of your knowledge, right?

That's, for me anyways, the test, right?

Like, oh, I see you use this package.

Just tell me why.

You know, it's not a – anyways, that kind of conversation is way more interesting than let's whiteboard some stuff or let's –

Yeah, but that's why I don't necessarily agree with having scripted one process interview questions.

I think that might work for a global giant and they've got a certain way of recruiting.

But I think there's such a human element at the moment and there is a bit of a battle for good talent and lots of competition.

half the job of the interviewer should be to leave the person you've spoken to wanting to

work for your company, whether you proceed with them or not. Because in the future, they will

tell their friends about the experience they had. And even though it wasn't necessarily the outcome

they wanted, they go, I really enjoyed this conversation with this company. They've taken

a lot of interest and I'd love to work there in the future. You should apply.

Can I tell a horror story related to that?

So my experience, especially at startups, often it's like the most junior people are the ones who do the first cut.

And the idea is, well, they're closer in age and and they have basically no training on how to do it.

Right. Like I remember I and some others would give them some questions.

But you're asking a 25 year old to or a 24 year old to interview like a 21, 22 year old.

And they just don't have we don't have the training to give to them.

They don't often do a good job.

sometimes they're thinking, I want to be hard on this person just because someone was hard on me

when I was interviewing. But in one of these interviews, we had someone who got to the second

or third stage, so they met with me. And so that's more of a culture fit. And we flew this person up

from LA to San Francisco, right? So we put some coin on the table, took them out to eat. And for

whatever reason, my company card was declined. So I just gave them my personal card. And this person

just wrote, went on Glassdoor

and wrote like a really

like just negative review

which was interesting because now they're being

negative and also like highlighting the card and i i was you know it was sort of like a code red

because like oh there's only one glass door review for us and it's this like horrible thing someone

being like they don't have any money and they did a bad job they can't pay for dinner yeah they can't

pay for dinner but it was also like i just couldn't understand why that person would want to put that

out there because if i'm reading that about that person that that just sounds like a pill um but

Anyways, that's, that's one of those, you know, I guess it's a long way of saying often people in, in companies don't have any training and the people who make that impression are just, you know, they're just kids and they don't, you know, it's not impressed upon them.

Hey, you're supposed to be giving a good impression out there for us in the world.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

So as a follow-up, for you as a recruiter, how do you avoid not focusing on the most senior executive people?

Because that's kind of, I'd imagine, where the money is.

And that's where, as you build up a reputation, in some ways, maybe it's easier to place those people.

What's the mix for you, right?

How do you still find time to place an individual developer when perhaps a more senior person is worth, I don't know what the numbers are, but it's worth more coin?

think that's the obvious thing probably is like right what's worse worth the most to us because

we the way that we operate is we um we'll work on a percentage fee of the salary that is that

is offered um and we're paid that from the client um so yeah it make commercially probably makes

more sense to to work with more senior management and and people but i find there's less turnover

of those sorts of people um i enjoy the the sort of the sweet spot and the thing that we really uh

openly say that we're good at is from that like second job up to principal lead engineer is where

we can really sort of i suppose add the most value to a job search for somebody because it's the

the companies we work with are either constantly on the lookout for mid to senior level developers

because they want to get them at a point where they've got knowledge and passion and interest

and then they can help them to to progress internally and therefore if you bring progressing

from mid into senior into leadership roles you're probably more likely to stay i don't quite know

the the psychology behind that but it's it's very much that's where there's more like more volume

more opportunities um i think that's probably where it is i mean i've probably placed one cto

engineering director level person in the last two years it's it's just not necessarily happened and

we we help we get a lot more from the the lower yeah the earlier career people do people hire

juniors do do people yeah the people hire juniors because like you know i see so many people saying

it's hard to get that first it is it is hard and we we probably err away from sort of specifically

working that partly because i don't feel we can justify charging a fee for somebody who has no

experience um when all we've done is identify potential and help so um i think it's people do

hire juniors whether it's dictated to by budget whether it's dictated to by um a need to attract

talent and hold on to it so again finding people who want that opportunity where they'll

prove loyal and stay for a while it whether it's just you've got the size and the capability of

some senior engineers who want to mentor juniors and that's probably the big thing like um i

generally for for a junior suggest looking for um not necessarily grad schemes but trying to

go and i've said before about approaching companies who hire at the higher level

and asking the question say look i like your company because of x y and z

are you hiring don't just send a cv and hope because you'll just end up never hearing back

um it's about targeting it um there are some places um in particular in the uk i know um

torchbox do a really good um junior academy and take sort of three four people per year

from with no experience whether it's graduate career changer um and take them into their

academy and train them through their business but there's it's trying to identify more of those um

like where people go after that first stage but i'm sure there's a way to do it

um i'm sure companies who hire juniors will um yeah if there's somewhere to put your hand up

because again it's trying to find good juniors um yeah i mean again that would be for the where

they're going to the meetups helps because if your company look at who is willing to hand

to hire juniors if a junior turns up to a meeting you know you're like oh well there's a perspective

candidate well that's also why if you can contributing to django i mean speaking of

you know torchbox like sage right i mean he was a google somewhere code and he's a superstar but

you know i guess technically that was his first job but he already contributed to django

so you kind of you know it's possible to leapfrog that step though i guess he got

mentoring you know from you carlton and others but um you know having having something that's

open source or yeah he's gone on to be paid to work on wagtail now so he did the google summer

of code i did the cross db json field yeah as a as a university student and then he's finished

and he's now working on Wagtail on a paid basis.

He came to our first Django Social in Bristol

that we held just before Christmas.

Yeah, I mean, he's not, I wouldn't say he's normal,

so I don't, but it's possible.

I mean, I know in the US, Cactus Group,

which is an agency in North Carolina,

they also do some mentoring.

I've talked to them.

It's just, yeah, it's challenging for companies

to make it work.

And at least as a company, the reason why everyone wants two to five years experience is they already know something, but they're malleable and they're cheap.

And that's kind of the that's the company perspective that I'm familiar with.

If you're there for the long haul, like Hactus or like Torchbox, you know, being there and really established, if you can if you can set up a kind of academy type thing, you know, it works for Manchester United or Chelsea, right?

They bring on the juniors.

Why can't it work for a development company?

Because mid-level role, good mid-level developers, they're rarer than who knows what.

But you also need staff who want to do that.

I mean, so Dimitri at Cactus Group, for example, he was a teacher, a math teacher, who got

into programming.

So he enjoys that.

So it's a retention thing for staff too.

But not every company has developers who want to do that.

But if you do, then it makes a lot of sense.

But anyways, let's talk about Django Social.

So we'll link to the site.

People should check it out.

Like what's, what's, what?

Yeah.

Oh, no, it's, please, no.

I mean, go look at Simon Willison's layout, right?

I mean, the more, the more badass you are,

the worse your site should look.

And your site looks way better than Simon's, right?

So.

Yeah, please, please don't judge the actual site.

Well, interesting.

So this is a really good segue

because this site was built by a junior developer

who contacted me in about June, July last year,

just finished his GCSEs in the UK.

So he's 16 years old, had the summer off

and wanted to get some advice

about picking up a project to put on his CV

because he wants to be a Python developer

when he grows, not when he grows up,

but when he leaves education.

And it just came about that I was trying

to get a site together for Django Social

and just said, look, if you'd like a bit of summer work

and something to put on a CV,

here we go.

And yeah, he's now, he started his A-levels

and I'm sure in two years' time,

there's going to be a really keen Python developer

deciding whether to go to university

or to go hands-on into career.

But yeah, so Django Social is,

I suppose, a simple-to-run meetup

which can be picked up by anybody, anywhere, in any city.

and started i spent years involved with another meetup in london called juggle which was the

django user group london um dj ugl um started by some of the original global radio people

trying to get people together in london and over time i was regularly attending it

um had had helped out with a bit of sponsorship paying for the beers and the pizzas and

then there was a venue let let the group down at the last minute so i fortunately in my job is

i was going around a lot of offices meeting people who use django and i was like actually

i know somewhere that could host let me call them see if we can work something out

um so then i was like this works really well i found a couple more venues um so i was

effectively helping with the sponsorship the venue organizing and then again I was speaking to Django

developers all day every day when there was a slot for a speaker needed I already had like a little

list of people who are working on interesting projects so suddenly it was like I was doing

every aspect of it but it became so much admin to find a venue to find some speakers that can all

make the same day um set it up get there early put out chairs that it they became less and less

frequent um and um i when i when i decided well after i started working for myself i thought i

really wanted to get some community things happening in london again but i don't want all

that admin because life is busy start working a startup is busy i just want to pick a day and

something to do and bring people together so django social we have done we've walked around

the park we've had sat in the park and had a picnic these are summer ones not right now it'd

be horrible um we we did a board games night we did a really successful co-working day just

brought 10 12 people who work usually on their own together for the day and the idea is that

it's just bringing people together with a common interest that's django and doing something together

as opposed to learning always what would be i don't know if you're familiar but um paulo has

talked about having uh biannual sprints so like the sprint part of jango cons but just in places

um and it's and just to which other frameworks have done and to do together for a weekend

um yeah i just it'll be it sounds like kind of what you're doing but it's um you know those

are exciting because those are like very targeted and um yeah one of the one of the highlights for

me of jango con this year was i actually stayed for the sprints for the first time at carlton's

recommendation and and they're they're fantastic they're in some ways um so it's like why do we

need to have a conference to have the sprints um so it'd be some i guess somewhere in between

and it it seems a great idea it's just trying to obviously if you get getting together for a

weekend there's there's obviously the the middle night that there isn't people might want to put

the laptops away for an hour or two and do something sociable and yeah that's that's where

i i don't i i'm not clinging on to django social and saying everything has to go through me if

somebody wants to run one then fine go for it it's it it should be just yeah it's for the community

now i'd much rather just pass it on um did you put down a sort of breakdown of what is involved

in organizing an event like a sort of checklist um i can do i i mean it's but it's one of those

it's it's that low admin carton i've done nothing for it because one one of the thought when you

said you were describing before it's like this classic scenario of this one person takes on a

job and then they take on another job and then they take on another job and none of these jobs

are identified and because because they're not identified that work is a hidden this is one of

the sort of long temp the the big um recurring themes of open source but also it's really hard

to get people to come and replace it because you can't say hey i need a volunteer to do x

or to do why and so you know one of the really important things that you know this comes out of

nadia eggball's work and related work around that but it is to first of all identify the work and

then say well thanks you know say thanks to all those people because then that creates the job

that you do list and the call for volunteers and it becomes a sort of um virtuous circle i just

wondered if like from your experience of sort of being that that one person deep in the hole

organizing it and sort of right slowly running out of puff you wouldn't have a good blog blog

post or something that people can refer to because i think right it's all obvious to you but it

wouldn't be for a first-time person in the same way that it was something that kojo mentioned in

his keynote jangakon was about people you know if you're going to an event thank the people who've

organized it because they've given up time to do all this that um it it's the an unsung like hero

role really and i'm not just saying that because i do it but it's um it's yeah i think there's

actually more but in theory there's far less to running a django social it can like weather

permitting it's as simple as going let's just meet here we'll go for a walk for an hour and if

anybody knows a pub afterwards we could go to let's just go there um or or other you know for

a coffee or whatever it's it doesn't need a lot of thought um yeah no that's good that's good but

yeah just that that sort of checklist of these are the things to consider i think that's a you

know valuable resource yeah i'm keeping a list of some of the ideas that we've we've got of things

that would work and people are you know every time it's like what else would you like to do what what

could we do it's different what's what's a good event and yeah whether it's a sprint you know a

tech sprint or doing all there's there's so many different options um it's just like what do you

do at a weekend um you know can we go to a mini golf or can we go and do a um take the pedalos

out on the lake at the Hyde Park and yeah it could be anything it doesn't have to be very

it's not tech centric it's just people so you so you said you said golf we have to mention both you

and I play which is unusual and mini golf reminds me that when I met I never played really mini

golf growing up. I played actual golf. And when I met my wife, one of our first dates, we went to

play mini golf. And I said, Oh, great. Like that sounds fun. So I brought my own putter and my own

ball. And she just still to this day made fun of me. I was like, but it, it matters, right? You

know, like I'm not gonna use a terrible putter. Like the balls are, the balls are crap. Like,

right. I mean, it makes so much sense to me. Why would I use deliberately awful equipment to do

that um but if anyone listening you know i got now i just use the terrible balls and put the

terrible balls balls and well but come on right like if someone was like hey did you win she still

hasn't beaten me you know so she's she's good um but you know so i'll usually like not pay attention

and then she's always like keeping score and then if she beats me on the on the front nine i'm like

okay i gotta focus and i mean i i want her to win actually it's not that i want to beat her but i'm

not going to let her win.

It's like my little brother, he also

plays, and our dad, when we were growing

up, said, offered him $50

if he ever beat me, and

that still hasn't happened.

So it's, again, same thing. I'll be screwing around,

my brother will play well, and I'll be like, oh, right, I've got to focus.

And then...

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so yes, I would be in favor of mini golf and I won't bring my own putter, but inside I'll silently be upset if I miss a putt. And I'm like, I would have made that with my right, my correct gear, right? Like you wouldn't go, you wouldn't go, if you're a Mac developer, someone wouldn't be like, let's go do some Django work and let's bring a Linux machine or Windows. Like, it doesn't make sense.

let's just go and see what kit they've got like like like what are we doing here right like yeah

anyways so yeah i'm in favor of that um i you know now that now that i'm now that i'm not on

the django board i mean one of the things that would be i can speculate and um one of the things

would be nice to do is you know just have funding for this weekend right so we could say like hey

like here's a half dozen people that in the in the europe and django will pay your plane tickets

and rooms and you're going to do a sprint, right?

And it's not directly paid for.

That would be, but anyways, I'm, um, Carlton, can we, can we discuss your, you've made it

public, your, your situation with Django?

So I'm going to step down from fellowing this spring.

Um, I've been there five years, January, 2018, I started, it's now 2023.

So it's, you know, I, I love Django deeply.

I'm not going anywhere, but it's time for me to, um, to do something else.

It's been a massive honor, but time to just change, really.

Last few releases, there's been an awful lot that's come together with Async, with the forms changes, with database constraints.

It's just the list goes on and on and on.

And there's lots now where it's like there just aren't the patterns that are known.

there's lots of new stuff that needs to be played with and those patterns need to be codified and

you know i want to play with them and i want to i want to codify them um and i can't do that whilst

i'm you know um managing the fire hose of incoming tickets you know on a weekly basis so it's time

for me to step back so hopefully they'll be the call should go out sometime soonish for a new

fellow um i've had said you know i've been banging the drum for since 2018 about how unlike the

community the contributors to Django core the co-contributors to Django Django are mostly men

almost all entirely men so if you're listening to this and you're a woman in the Django community

and you want to just chat about you know what the fellow role might involve then reach out to me and

I'm really happy to put some time aside and just you know talk you through it it's not that doesn't

mean you have to apply it doesn't mean anything but if you think oh yeah I could be the fellow

do reach out so um well carlton can we mention that i mean there's to stereotype there's a

difference sometimes in like how men and women approach these roles right where men are like

i'm a good fit and women are like i'm not i don't think i'm a good fit but right like some of the

emails you got immediately yeah no i mean yeah um i think blokes just have no idea if they're

like any self-awareness or limitations or anything at all they're just idiots basically and but yeah

i'll do that that's that that's that phrase carlton right like lord give me the confidence

of a mediocre white man yeah exactly exactly so you know if you're listening oh no it's not for

me no no do reach out like there's no reason and so one thing i also said to the um fellowship

committee was that if if needed i was happy to transition away to to do some mentoring so

You know, that's a genuine offer that I made, but I'm not going to, that's not, I'm not making that just for anybody. I'm making that for the right candidate who needs a bit of help. And if that happens, then I'll, you know, I'll phase out over a period of time.

But I would really like it if it wasn't just, you know, if we get another white bloke, we get another white bloke.

But I would really like it if we at least had applications that didn't fit into that category.

So I don't know if that's going to happen or not.

But, you know, Django itself is a lot more diverse than the code contributors to Django, to the Django repo.

So why is that?

Well, that'll come out on probably the Django Project blog.

You can follow the Django News newsletter if you want to just get a weekly dose of stuff.

I guess I have one more question for you, John, which is how do you think about working in-house versus doing your own thing?

I mean, obviously, you chose to do your own thing, but that's also a pattern where somebody, you know, a company is like, we're growing like crazy.

We need Django developers.

We've already worked with a freelancer.

Like, come in-house.

Like, how do you evaluate the pros and cons of that?

I suppose it never even crossed my mind to do that as a job for me.

I love what I do with the variety of people that we work with,

the variety of companies that we can support.

I mean, I've got personal goals that I want to achieve

and using Foxley and our work to do that.

And some of those are changing.

And I think, you know, I don't think I could give back to the community.

for me the person the thing that makes me tick is to give back to the community that has given

me a career um and these opportunities it's it's so important to do that without Django I'd never

have I'd never end up doing what I do um and I don't I couldn't do that by working internally

um but I think it's I think it's I think it's a really good it's a really good career move if it

suits your lifestyle and I think going back to one of the earlier questions about the the career

trajectory of a recruiter some not everyone wants to be working 12 hour days taking phone calls in

the evening um i'm not saying that internal talent teams don't do that but it's um it it's going to

be the right job for the right person um you know why does it why why do people work on freelance

or why do they work as a an in-house developer what you know it's the same as you've got to feel

that you line with that mission completely i like i feel my values align i suppose in the business

i'm building in the in the mold that i want having worked in other businesses before i can do

something different i can do something that i feel feel good about um and yeah the the mission we've

got is to give back to django to create or to say thanks and that sort of thing so i couldn't do

that without running my own business now that thought that you expressed there of um the um of

the framework of Django giving you a career that's exactly what I took on the fellow role um you know

2018 it's like you know literally gave he's given me a whole career and to be able to give back to

it is just phenomenal I know Fox I think back to the the conversation yeah the the very first thing

if if I'd said to the the the guys at Norwich Union like no I don't know what Django is I'm

not interested in finding out where i'd be right sliding door moment it is yeah really yeah um

but no i yeah it's it's just created everything that i know i know um fox you've said foxy talent

will give um a percentage of profits back to the dsf each year can you tell us about that a little

bit um yeah i suppose again it's a little bit my thinking in the learning more about the jango

foundation software foundation over the years about individual contributors um people like

yourself who are working as a django fellow it's you people are giving their time they're they're

contributing financially whether they're attending meetup uh conferences speaking sharing learning

um lots there's hundreds of contributors 230 odd actual individual members and i don't know what

20 30 companies who sponsor it um maybe that's generous i don't know um but every what i come

across is people individuals who we work with and help get jobs contribute to the django software

foundation whether it be time skill money um in theory companies who use django

contribute back by either working on projects giving up their developers time financially

contributing and our job and my business links developers to companies all using django why

shouldn't we do something and i can give back by time by getting involved in the the social and

attending conferences and being around to talk to people experience skill i don't i don't i can't

but i can contribute financially um so that's that's important to me okay cool and good i mean

you know five percent is yeah it's i i am building this uh my own business i think it's a good amount

to give back and we i've got a little personal goal that looking at the tiers on the um on the

to build up yeah the inner competitors there is i would like to be okay we're the first recruitment

company on there but i would like to be the one of the the top p companies um like just the inner

competitor wants me to do that if you don't keep score there's no excitement right exactly yeah um

and equally i this year i'm looking at different ways that i can i'll do something on top um

um in the we're looking at growing the business in order for the business to grow we need people to

want to work with us or come to us for help with their job search or to find them good talent and

again if i'm trying to work out like an affiliate not an affiliate scheme but a very basic if

somebody refers somebody to us and we can make help them in their job i will give another donation

on top of the five percent um just as a rather than saying like here's 50 pound amazon voucher

or here's whatever i'd rather go i'm putting this in the pot that we all benefit from

and that's not a sales pitch it's just i i'm passionate about it and i can't help myself

in terms of free advertising one thing you know on your foxley talent site if you have some blog

posts on like you know tips for getting hired or this that and the other thing i'm happy to

feature them in the django news newsletter which does reach some people right in terms of like

open sourcing the process but so i guess one last final final question world domination so when when

is the u.s office open for foxley are you are you you're still very uk europe focused is that fair

to say we are i suppose in what we do we can work anywhere at any time um i operate the way that i

run the business is we don't have any like core hours we don't really have any restrictions about

are you know corporate ruling because i'm very casual and that's the sort of person i want to

work with um i we've specifically this year are looking to work more within the us um with

companies out there um we're getting approached by people looking for work and it's just finding

those companies who are looking to hire to to match up um at the moment without having to do

the redacted information cv sending and sales calls um but yeah we're sort of looking at the

pie pie con in april as a um event to attend looking at the careers fair there to to get in

and actually be able to just you know maybe present jobs to people at a stand or just give

career advice or just be there and create a bit of a presence backed up with django con in october

um and getting out more and more um i know we mentioned about taking our golf clubs to that

one will but it's um yeah it's using events like that as the platform to reach more people and to

do that so yeah the us is very much on our um remit and pipeline for this year just needs people

to more people to help um and people who want help you know want to hire that's it um there's

chicken and the egg. Well, I would say as a bystander, I didn't know about you, but Foxy

Talent has certainly kind of come out of nowhere and now is like, not just the only, but like the

default one, right? Both just that you're focused on this space and all the, you know, Adam Johnson,

everyone down who in the EU knows you. And so your trajectory has been fantastic. And it's also

validating to see that there's a space for a dedicated Jenga recruiter. I mean, I often feel

like with you know with books and content like why aren't there more Django books you know sometimes

I'm like maybe the space isn't big enough or someone hasn't done a good enough job it feels

like certainly on the recruiting side there are enough jobs it's just um nobody's put themselves

out there as the Django you know recruiting shop yeah and that you know I think it's mentioned

about putting blogs on the website and having the website redone at the moment being built with

Django um because it just didn't feel right to do anything else um and it's it's completely

unnecessarily as well because it's a pretty static page and there's not a lot of um flashiness to it

but um yeah with that it's it's trying to I suppose cover a bit more of the the word about

what we're doing um I think if if I don't shout about it then I don't you know I can't rely on

adam um always just putting a good word in for us but which he's done like he's been such a great

advocate for us um and attended all of the the meetups uh the django socials when we when he

was in london still um last summer it's yeah it's been great to have good people and you know going

to django con last in september in porto attending there and just having people that we knew from

various events and having been to the denmark uh day conference in in april seeing the same people

at both it's just that's what that that that's what i love about the community it's it's the

same not the same people but it's a really good core group of people who really care and just

want to share what they know and how um how and improve the world we're all in in the django

sector or world. I would just put one final plug. If you know, there's DjangoCon Europe in

Edinburgh in May and then DjangoCon US in North Carolina, probably near Raleigh. That's to be

finalized in October. If you don't have the funds to attend, there often are, you can email the

organizers and there are opportunity grants and sometimes ways to get the funding to attend. So

don't be put off by the cost because it is expensive, especially if a company is not paying

for you. Okay. Anything else? I think we're near on time. Is there anything, Carlton, for you or

any plugs john no well yeah john have you got anything that we didn't cover that you want to

shout out and no i'm not i'm not going to plug anything else right okay i think i think there's

there's there's the line isn't there the sales guy the recruiter just coming in yeah oh i've

got this one opportunity can't tell you the pay range but uh yeah there's a company i'm not going

to tell you what they call or what they pay um but they're hiring so if you want a job let me know

But generally, I suppose if anybody wants advice either about building a team, hiring for the first time, creating a good job spec, or from the other side, is starting a job search and wants some advice and some options, I'm happy to talk about it.

There's no obligation to work with us.

It's just I can give good advice and hopefully we've got some opportunities that will appeal if you are a job seeker.

that's fair enough all right well thanks for coming on to yes thank you we'll have links to

everything in the show notes and jango chat.com uh we're on mass we're on uh foster don now yeah

yeah i'll sign up just before christmas yeah all right well we'll see everyone next time

thanks very much for your time chaps yeah no thank you for coming on really good one

right that was a good ending right bye