Transcript: Roll Your Own Tech Job - Erin Mullaney

I'm Carlton Gibson, joined us ever by Will Vincent.

Hello, Will, how are you?

Hi, Carlton.

And this week we've got with us special guest Erin Mullaney, who's gonna come on.

We're gonna talk about freelancing and things like that.

Hi Erin, how are you?

How are you?

A bit tired of being locked in the house, but other than that, we're good.

Sure.

Although I've been a remote worker for um I think three years now, so I feel very well prepared for this moment in time.

Yeah.

I mean I was just outside with my kids.

Can you go outside in your yard?

No.

No, we can go in our back garden, but we're not allowed out in the street, and that's been the same for six weeks.

So I mean it's

We can go to the shop or the pharmacy, and you can go as a single adult.

Um and the police are quite strict about it.

And you know, I mean, Spain's been very heavily hit, so it's understandable.

Um everyone's starting to look if there can be some easing because the kids the kids need to get out and run a bit.

Um, but uh I think it's gonna be a few more weeks yet.

So anyway, but uh

So um that's about as strict as America gets with it.

Anywho.

I mean working remotely, so I've been doing that a long time as well.

So for me, it was the change wasn't too bad apart from the fact that I've got children at home the whole time, which obviously

No, no, no.

Um I

So I would really miss that.

I hope you get back to that soon, Carlton.

I missed that.

I do get to do a bit of Tai Chi outside, which is but I I just want to go for a walk, please.

Anyway, but anyway, we should talk about um freelancing and yeah,

But first, how does one come into the Django world?

What was your origin story?

So I went to college for computer science, actually, luckily, although um

Yeah.

And I just want to tell them that it really doesn't matter.

I mean, I'm glad I went to school for computer science.

It's it's kind of a cool thing to put in my resume, but where I learned to code was uh at multiple jobs.

So um so while I was

And I was talking to a friend recently about it, and she she was like, Well, of course you went to school for computer science, so I feel like I have to catch up every night and learn these things.

And I was like, No, no, no.

I please shut your computer off at 10 p.m.

at least and get a good night of sleep.

That's that's way more important.

Um, but I digress.

So so I

I I don't know, Carl, I'm curious what you would say.

I would say that I certainly the feeling doesn't go away.

I just put it in context where I know that nobody knows everything and I don't go around apologizing for it.

I don't know.

I don't I don't feel the need to apologize because no one can just whip off whiteboard algorithms and I've had to do that before.

I've spent 20 years reading all the right books and doing all the things, not you know, not calling constantly, but on the back burner.

And so I kind of feel like I know that stuff well enough.

But how often does it come in handy?

I don't never have to implement an algorithm.

The library always compiler.

That stuff's handy, you know.

But uh I don't know.

No, it's totally not the most relevant thing in the world.

Everyone has pretty major gaps.

It's just you don't need to tell everyone about them all the time.

Yeah.

And nobody expects you to know everything uh at their heart in their heart.

They don't expect you to just like have this like amazing amount of experience to just know everything without looking it up.

I mean, I look everything up every day.

That's I I think that's like the key to being a good programmer is to know how to look things up and know who to ask questions to, like you were talking about with experts.

But anyway, I was um so I was in college um and I was working 20 hours a week at this office as an admin person.

They found out I was going to school for computer science, they liked me, um, they they saw that I was a hard worker, and they said, Do you want to transfer sort of into a more coding role?

So this is around the year like 2000.

So there was a lot of needs, like the Y2K stuff, there was a lot of needs around around coding, and this was a mutual fund company, so they had a lot of a lot of needs, and they actually had a lot of um, I think they were either Fortran or COBOL programs.

Um, but they also had a department that was doing Visual Basic and Microsoft SQL and then getting into.NET.

So they said, Do you want to like kind of translate into that department and and we'll hook you up with a coding mentor who can help you?

And so I at this job I learned about source control.

Do you all remember?

I don't, I'm gonna age myself, Visual Source Safe.

I mean, I learned how to use that, I learned Microsoft SQL and I learned um ASP at that time, a little bit of that, and a lot of Visual Basic.

So this is going back to like 20 years ago.

Um so that was my first programming job, and I was doing that 20 hours a week and then doing that full time in the summertime.

And then when I graduated college, I continued there full-time for a year and then transferred um, well, tr took a different job at the University of Pennsylvania, where I did Cold Fusion for many years and Microsoft SQL, um, a lot of SQL, a lot of Cold Fusion.

Um, so that's really where I I mean I I think like we're we're always constantly learning in this industry.

So I like to say that's where I was like really thrown into the fire because there they were the department I was working for was supporting so many different applications.

So I would switch from working on a flash application one day to working on a cold fusion the next, and just sort of fixing bugs on all these different platforms.

Um, so I really felt in a good way thrown into this environment where I had to learn quickly.

Um, and I was hooked up with some some good mentors there too.

Um, so how I got to Django eventually down the line was they eventually decided to no longer support Cold Fusion because Cold Fusion was not going to be supported anymore.

I don't know if either of you have heard of Cold Fusion, maybe.

No, you're

So so we were like a fully Adobe shop.

We were doing Cold Fusion and Flash, and if you've heard of Flex, we were doing that.

Um so and going to Adobe Max every year, which was super fun.

Um so they as a as a as a department at the University of Pennsylvania.

I was specifically working at the Wharton School, and they decided Wharton-wide, we are no longer going to support Cold Fusion apps, we're going to sunset it, we have to pick a different um language framework.

So they um had a task force for it, and this was this was Wharton-wide.

So so this is like all sorts of like smaller departments had to had to like be on board for this.

So it took some time for them to choose a framework.

In the end, it was between Django and a Java framework that I don't remember, and Django won.

And I took that as okay, Django's the thing I need to get into now.

Um so while we were starting to translate apps from Cold Fusion to Django there, I was looking for my next job because I was ready to move to a new state, a new state.

So I was moving from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to um North Carolina, and that is how I ended up doing Django because Wharton kind of chose it, and then I used it as part of my looking for a new job.

I really liked working at Wharton, but I wanted to move um and I wanted to change things up.

So um so I took a job, so I started applying to jobs in North Carolina, and a friend of mine sent me a listing in Durham, North Carolina, at this place called Cactus Group, and it just all the stars aligned.

They had an opening, I came down and interviewed there, and it kind of happened a little bit more quickly than I was ready for.

We weren't quite ready to move to North Carolina, but the job was right.

So so I, yeah, so I took the job at that Django firm and and started really, really learning Django very, very quickly.

Um, and that was five years ago in early 2015.

You know, they've been around in for well forever and part of the community and you know, still are.

Yeah.

They had their 10-year anniversary recently.

I'm trying to remember if it was one year or two years ago.

But yeah, they've they're fairly established in the Django world.

But I didn't know that at the time.

I was just interviewing at a place that did Django.

I mean, I I try really hard not to pick favorites, but I would say they're definitely in a small number of elite Django consulting firms I recommend to people when they ask.

And it was just it was a great time to to join there.

I was, I don't know if you remember Mark Lavin, he was there at the time, Karen Tracy is still there, and um a number of other people who were able to work with me in this position where I was a longtime coder but not long time with Django.

Because we, you know, it's one of the difficult ones.

People always ask for mentoring, and you always, as a you know, a senior or established or longtime hand, you think, oh, I'd like to mentor, but then what what is it that makes a good mentor?

And so when I was coming, I'll talk about when I was coming to Cactus because I've been mentored throughout my whole career, but really when I came to Cactus, here I am this longtime developer.

I know I know the ropes pretty well, but as far as Django goes, I'm getting my feet wet and and and proving myself.

So the best way that I could be a good mentee was to really not not push it too hard.

So so I would schedule time with people and say, can you pair program with me for the next 45 minutes on this problem?

Um and we would set a time together and one of us would be the driver.

And I would, I that's how I learned about um breakpoints because breakpoints was not a thing in Cold Fusion.

Cold Fusion, it was just totally it was a different, it was a different idea.

So I learned about breakpoints by sitting down with a developer, um, probably Vinode at Cactus Group.

Um, and he he was using IPDB, and I learned about them, them from him, and you know, I so so there were different things that I was able to learn as a mentee by just watching people work and trying not to take too much of their time.

So I was always, if I was sitting and pair programming with someone, I was always watching them too and making sure that I wasn't that if they if they were getting to a point where they were like, okay, I'm done pair programming, I would know to say, okay, I think this was really good.

Thank you for your time, and I'm gonna go back to my desk and use some of the things that I've learned.

And I mean, you've listed all the bullet points I would say of someone who wants to be mentored of, you know.

Yeah, it's it's an important thing to say because and maybe this sounds a little cold, but I'm sleep deprived, so I'll say it.

So some people say, Oh, will you be my mentor as if it's like an honor?

And really it's it's just like a a lot of unpaid free time.

Um so it's important to for it to be some reciprocity in the relationship.

You know, if you if your colleagues that's great.

If it's a random person, you know, Carlton and myself are approached.

Uh I I don't know, there needs to be some back and forth.

Maybe we're learning about some project you're working on, there's some part of the community, but um, it's good to have in mind that it's not just a one-way street, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Whereas the other question is like, uh just a dump and it's it's like, oh I can't, where do I even begin?

I'd have to do hours of work to even start to answer that question.

How to frame it so it's concise, prove that you've done some work, but not have it just be, yeah, how do I build my app?

Which I understand the impulse to ask such a question, but it's not answerable.

So a lot of my mentor-mentee relationships at Cactus specifically, we would be on the same team together.

So we were trying to get tickets done.

And sometimes pair programming, you actually get things done more intelligently because you sort of step back and talk about the the solution together.

Um, and then you are are trying to reach the same goal.

So so pair programming can kind of, I don't know, it's it's a real positive, it's been a real positive experience for the most part for me.

I've never experienced it.

I lock myself in a room for two years and sort of kinda learned Django and and um I

I'm not sure why, if they feel like they just would rather work on their own, or if they just feel like they don't want you to see the magic behind how they come up with solutions, which is a lot of Google for me.

And I suppose this goes in the bucket of experience along with Googling of, you know, like like all the three of us, we have a sense of like I will spend a couple hours, maybe I'll sleep on something, but if at this point, if I'm truly stuck on something, I will you know, kind of then raise my hand, but I don't immediately raise my hand.

And um, I guess I'm just saying that there's a sense of when are you actually stuck versus when have you not done the work?

And there's no need to spend a week on something at any level, but you should at least put the work in and prove that you know, to Carlton's point about asking a forum question, if you say, Here is this concise problem I have, here are the steps I have taken that didn't work, you can see where someone is on the journey versus when someone just is lazy, basically.

And maybe they don't feel lazy, they're frustrated, but like you have to have like enough frustration to have tried.

I like the I started typing a question into them recently before I'd done a lot of research, and and I liked the it I think it sort of popped up and said, Have you have you are are you ready to release this question?

Are you ready to to ask this question or have you researched it more?

And then I did a little more research on it and I didn't end up asking it, and I was glad I hadn't asked it.

So I just liked that interface.

I just wanted to give you that feedback.

I'm not sure who worked on the Django Forums.

Was it Carlton or

No, it's um Discourse, is it?

Um it's it's it's a textbook, I mean it's a off-the-shelf white label thing.

Um Andrew Godwin did a lot of the work to um implement it, and uh we, the Django Software Foundation, are now um continuing to pay for that in going forward as part of the um Django ops stuff, which um which I should call out um the head of Cactus Group, Tobias is on the ops team and does quite a lot of unseen work to help the Django infrastructure.

Yeah, Tobias is great.

So I rolled my own job four years ago, and man, I would have saved me a lot of time if I'd seen your talk before that.

So how did you get to uh learning?

Because you ever so many things I was like, yep, yep.

Didn't think of that in advance, yep.

Um, so what so you so you left cactus group and then learned all these things about rolling your own job?

I ended up in 2017 moving to San Francisco for a year because my husband got a job offer out there.

And so the decision up to me was should I look for a job in San Francisco?

There are all these it's the land of tech opportunity but with that comes whiteboard interviews.

You mentioned whiteboard earlier and I really was not interested in any more whiteboard interviews.

I had been on a few and I didn't want to go that route so I didn't really want to work for another tech company.

I liked working at cactus so when we decided to move to San Francisco which we only stayed there for a year but when we decided to move out there I asked cactus if I could still work for them but just based out of California and they even had a client in Oakland at the time that I knew would benefit from me being out there.

So I sort of brought that to them and they were unable to deal with the taxes in California because California tax law is really complicated and different from North Carolina where where we're based so they gave me the option they sort of said look we can't we can't work with California unfortunately we would love to keep you do you have any interest in in contracting and they have a number of contractors there.

So I was familiar with contracting at Cactus.

I was a full-time employee who was hired by cactus but I knew other contractors there and I knew what what their life was like and I thought oh this is an amazing opportunity like I can take a step back from working full time at an office where I'm required to put in my 40 hours of billable time every week hopefully it's billable and I can set my hours and I can select my my projects this is what I knew from

contractors this is what I knew from how how they were working so I said yeah that sounds great how do I do that and they were really nice and said well you need to you need to do that you need to form your own business and then and then we can hire you as a as a consultant and you'll have to buy your own laptop and and that's that's what you'll have to do.

So I I um I ended up talking to every consultant I knew at the time anybody who worked for themselves I had a I had like a three hour phone call with my friend Patrick where I just he just runs his own business now totally unrelated to what I do but he gave me so much intel about you know whether or not I should form an LLC and how I should track my expenses and it was it was amazing.

So he I have to give Patrick Esmond huge props for that but also I talked to a number of other people Victor who I still work with now he's on a client project with me and he runs his own small firm he was also a huge help I took him out to lunch and asked him so I I just had all these you know I had lunches and phone calls and emails where I just asked everybody I knew because like I was talking with pair programming that'

s my learning style so I like to learn from people and experiences and that's how I I know I'm doing the right thing and every single person I talked to told me to form an LLC.

So that's you know that's one thing we can talk about today you know why form an LLC so that's why I formed an LLC because that was the feedback I was getting from everyone

thought about it a couple of times but because it's just me and you know I haven't got round to doing that at the moment there's no the the autonomous status that you have as a self-employed person in Spain is it's got most of the benefits of that without you know the massive overheads and a bureaucracy in Spain is quite high and as you've got as soon as you've got an SL it's like every month more you know administrative costs and and for me at the scale I run it's just not worth it.

LLC if you had to choose now.

Yeah North Carolina

My accountant keeps track of that for me um but it's not very high in North Carolina.

It was definitely higher in California.

I think when I formed it it was $800.

LC and like Carlton was saying this is really just particular to to the US but the the nice thing about the LLC in the US is that it helps you separate yourself from your business so that if the worst happens and you get sued you your business gets sued your personal assets aren't liable as long as you were doing a good job at keeping them separate.

I mean I I love how you have that really nice sheet Aaron that you linked to from your talk the Google Doc laying things out um because I I think that's that's great.

In some ways that's better better than like I use TurboTax to pay my taxes in the US and I use their QuickBooks self-employed which is works great for me.

So I have separate bank accounts set up for for business um and personal which you have to and I have a separate credit card and so it all kind of flows through there but it's

I just find it so much there's so much less overhead to just track your expenses in a in a single spreadsheet versus learning a UI for QuickBooks or whatever.

So if you have that is a whole number of automated expenses that kind of helps it'll estimate your taxes but well and I think and I like how you mentioned you just you you found your person on online right it wasn't a personal recommendation and not and he's he's not in the same state either which because that's another concern is that potentially state by state varies.

So I wouldn't have been aware of it if I hadn't inter if they hadn't contacted me to interview me.

But I that's how I found out about Thumbtack and I really like their site.

They've done a really really nice job of basically replacing Angie's list.

Yeah in a Angie's

They're terrible.

They're like subpar Craigslist, but they prey on old people and they're they're no.

Yeah, no, no, no.

Not not a good site.

But but yeah, Thumbtack is is really great.

And so I went to ThumbTAC and I think I I they ask you what your project is.

So I just said I was looking for a business accountant and I went through the number of steps and then a number of accountants sort of bid for the project and the one I found was in Georgia.

And this at the time I was in California, he was in Georgia and he said, yeah, I have a number of clients in California.

That's fine.

I'm very familiar with that tax law.

And he had to learn the North Carolina law when I moved back to North Carolina.

But um that was fine.

And he spent I think an hour with me on the phone just talking me through things.

And at the end of the phone call I was like yeah absolutely you're hired this is great.

So he's been my accountant since since that time since I hired him on Thumbtack.

So I'm really really happy with him and he's become our personal accountant too.

So he's great.

And he does my so I have to in order to make 401 payments as an employer

Yeah so it's in order so so with 401k

So there there's the employee contributions which is the same for everybody.

The max this year is what 1950 something like that.

Yes for 2020.

So he

I don't know if

Yeah.

So it it has to look like payroll it has to be payroll like you have to set the salary and pay that salary amount on the same day every every month if that's what you're gonna do like the monthly salary like you would if you were working for for a monthly paid job somewhere else.

And so he takes that monthly salary base level before the taxes come out and the I I think it's up to 20% or 25 I forget the amount exactly

So if you make like 160170 net then you can the employee and the employer can it's something like 56000 total.

I I don't make enough for that because I I kind of I just don't make enough for that but but yeah if you want to

Like you it you can put more money in pre-tax which means you're gonna be taxed less which is you know a good way to to make more money.

And the employee side you have the option of doing Roth if you want so you can make Roth 401k contributions which are post-tax but then when you take the money out you don't get taxed on it.

So anyway sorry this is I I overspend time on this stuff.

He's he's really really smart he's the FI tax guy but he I just spoke to him last weekend and he is a big proponent of employee contributions before employer contributions.

So really maxing out the employee contributions because of the way that the employer contributions get taxed on the way out.

So if you're just in a if you've never worked for yourself or run a business you just see the 7% taken out but the employer is already paying a whole bunch of stuff on top of that including for health insurance.

But traditionally pre the the Trump tax thing um where they have this thing called QBI which is qualified basic income which is 20% off for certain types of LLCs which software um consultancies fall into you would set up a LLC as an S corp so you could be taxed as a corporation but in fact be an LLC and then you could in theory like if you made $10 million you could say well the average for a software developer is $

150,000 and so I will get paid the full you know I'll the full tax on the $150 but then beyond that I don't have to pay the extra self-employment taxes.

And that was why you would set up payroll historically um though I'm I'm a little bit interested in why you set up payroll when you don't do that but I I believe you're you're financial experts but um we're getting too inside baseball on this it's just there's a lot to think there's a lot to think about especially the first year it's so much non-programming non-work time to configure all this and

This is what we're chat about and it's business.

Like you think oh I'm just gonna be a freelancer and I'm gonna do coding no you're gonna do business like all your week is business and then you get 10 minutes to natural client

But this you know this last year it was more pro forma um and I was grateful to have some flexibility around retirement stuff.

But I think to Carlton's point I I didn't you don't think about all these things until you do it and it is a serious cost and probably it's great that you found an accountant you can trust.

I've heard uh quite a few horror stories unfortunately

And like I said I'm I I did a ton of research for the talk and um whether that research was talking to my accountant um or watching YouTube videos on forming a business I found uh there's this channel called all up in your business and it's a she's a lawyer I forget where she's based out of I think she's southern and she's amazing.

She's she's a lot of things

Um I did recommend a bunch of podcasts uh so I'm a huge I'm like a podcast addict for sure but she she has a YouTube channel that's where I learned a lot of things I I also listened to I recommended um choose fi has a really good podcast on um the financial independence movement and so I there was an episode with Alan Donnegan where he talks about running your own small business he started the pop-up business school and

um when we're ready to talk about clients like there's a lot of stuff that I learned from that podcast about about that.

Like I'm on a six month contract right now.

It's not like you've got you haven't got a job.

You haven't got a job.

And so you need to be for me you need to be conscious of well this contract will end and then what

They had just extended me for six more months.

So it just began in in April.

And it's I've agreed to do 30 hours of coding a week for them, and and that includes meetings and things.

And that's sort of my my happy medium there is coding for 30 hours a week.

Because any more than that, and I start to get really drained.

So that's just me personally.

Because by the time you've done 30 hours of actual work and then a few admin stuff, that's that's your working week.

Um and I've done over the years I've had clients where um I've been working for that one company for a while, and that's great because you get loads of money come in, it's nice.

But then when the contract runs, it's like, well, actually now I'm essentially unemployed and I've got to find some more.

And so as I got older, what I favored was you know, half a day for you, half a day for you, you know, the case, you know, a client where I might come and do, you know, a few days every few months, you know, that kind of and have a a bunch of those because I find that on average that's more secure, that's that's more sustainable for me.

Um I

When times are great, they're they're great, but then they can get bad all of a sudden.

And I mean for me I've done I've done project based primarily.

Um but honestly, in the last year, I haven't I've just been able to focus on my my books and stuff, which is nice.

Um but I do think about when I think about doing it, honestly, I think I would maybe go through an agency just so I don't have to deal with all the client management stuff.

Yeah.

Because there there is a lot of burden and so, you know, for me, I'll probably go back to some consulting later this year, but probably within the context of having someone else manage that and I focus on code as much as I can and not deal with that business side of things.

They're always like start as a consultant and then they kind of want to backdoor you into being full time, and it's like, well, if I wanted to work full-time, I would, but Right.

Right.

Exactly.

I think when it it it with experience as well, like you know, when what I aim for now, I wouldn't have been able to get five, ten years ago.

I just wasn't didn't have the the authority to say, no, like I'll do half a day.

Like, you know, who wants half a day?

Well, you know.

Right.

I mean, that's part of some clients, you know, just like they asked for whiteboard interviews and stuff, and then some have completely unrealistic expectations.

And I I'm sure you know, you can see this erin, right?

You can sort of s sniff when a client is gonna be awful to work for because they don't really understand reality with project estimates.

I mean, I I hope so.

I mean, it's it's nice to work for technical that for more technical clients for sure, uh, because they understand the reality of of the difficulty and the complexity.

Um, but yeah, I I don't know.

I just find it difficult to find clients who are willing to do, even when you're going through an agency, who are willing to say, okay, 20 hours a week, that's fine, 10 hours a week, that's okay.

Um, but yeah, when I started consulting, I was working, so I was working in California for this Oakland client for Cactus, and I think I was doing 25 hours for them, and then 15 for Wharton, who were my former employers who I'd who found out that I was consulting through a social media post that I posted.

Um, actually, two ways.

So, so there were two ways that I connected with Wharton.

One way was I posted to Facebook that I was going to start working for myself, and that post got a lot of likes from from a lot of friends who either, you know, were connected to me from my Wharton job or you know, elsewhere.

And I guess word got around to a uh person who I knew who was working at my former department at Wharton, and she was excited to hear that I had um sort of become a consultant and wanted to work with me.

So she reached out to me from that's that social media post, and and I still work with her department part-time.

And so that was really cool that that was this sort of like organic way that I found a client.

Um, and then the other one, the other way I reconnected with Wharton was I was at a PyCon a couple years back, and I ran into a former coworker, and we got to talking about his current boss and my old boss at Wharton and how what a great boss he is.

And I said, you know, I keep meaning to send Jason an email.

Jason is such a good, he was such a good boss, he was so technical at that time in my career where I needed someone to be technical and help guide me more towards framework programming, and you know, and this friend of mine was like, Yeah, absolutely, Jason's the best.

And I said, I keep meaning to send him an email, and he was like, just do it, just send him an email, just send him a thank you email.

So I got back from PyCon and I sent Jason an email, and it was not like I wasn't the intention was not to get work from from my old boss.

It was just the intention, my intention was pure.

It was just I want to let you know that you were a good boss.

Thank you.

Just a gratitude email.

He found out I was available because I he he just knew I was available because of this other friend.

So that's I ran into.

So yeah, so he I didn't mention in the email that I was available.

He responded, thank you for this email.

This is I'm having a really rough day.

So this just came at like a really good time for me.

Um, also, also, this this other person just mentioned that you're working for yourself now.

Is that true?

Because we're finally moving that project you worked on to Django and we could use your help.

So I had worked on this like massive cold fusion website right before I left, and so I had the background knowledge and I had the, you know, I had then I had the like all of the year the couple of years of experience of working at Cactus full-time with Django, so I was kind of the perfect developer for that project.

And uh that worked out.

So I worked on that for for a little while.

So I was when I was in California starting out consulting, I was working on that part-time and working on this Oakland client part-time.

Yeah, and yeah, it was working out, and then I sort of and then it was nice when the Oakland contract ended, I could switch to full-time hours with Wharton for a while and sort of like backfill and get that project sort of more quickly done towards their deadline, which was nice.

Yeah.

I mean, I've been doing this for probably fewer years than both of you now.

Um, because I started in 2017.

Okay.

So, so yeah, so far it's been that way.

And then also by my work with cactus.

So they're they know me and and they like to to connect me with work when they have it as a consultant.

Um, I've also worked with another consulting agency.

So I've worked with two different consulting agencies since going full-time.

Um, I prefer between the two of them, cactus worked out a little better just for the time zones because we're in the same time zone and and I'm local to them now.

So that's been really nice.

So you left California though, that's what we're getting at, right?

So Yeah.

I lived out there for a while.

Um what was it for you?

Because I would say it's a really fun, but it's interesting within one month because I love being there and I move back for family reasons, but it's an incredibly transient place.

So there's this initial rush of like, oh, you're not from here, I'm not from here.

Let's hang out, as well as like, you work in tech?

No way.

And then you find out that no one's from there, everyone works in tech, and um you know, some of the negative aspects creep in, but I guess you it you you figure that out faster than that.

What part

What part were you in?

Were you in San Francisco?

I worked in um on 2nd Street, which is quite do you know Cal Hollow?

I know Pac Heights, yeah.

And the and the marina.

Yeah.

I thought you were saying Cal Hollow, but no, no, it's fine.

No, I I yeah, I know.

I mean, and I there's a lot to like about the West Coast when you come from the northeast, as I do.

Yeah, yeah.

I have a infant now and I'm walking outside and it's dark at 10 a.m.

and it was raining.

And you know, in California, my younger my oldest one, I would just walk her every day in the sun and you know.

But it's not everything.

Uh, I guess it was very, very expensive, and it felt like it to me to be around a place where people can't, this is gonna get rather philosophical, but where people can't work at a grocery store and live at the same place where they work at a grocery store feels unfair to me.

My school, my husband works in the education system, but he was he he was actually he had a pretty good salary that brought him out there in the education system.

It just felt really it felt like end stage capitalism.

It just it felt really not great.

Um, we were both doing okay, and we uh were able to afford this adorable one-bedroom apartment in inner sunset that was just gorgeous.

It was great.

I went for a walk in Golden Gate every day.

Um, yeah, I mean it was it was a beautiful place to live, but yeah, being that far away from family and then and then just just how how how difficult it is for for regular non-programmers to live there.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Even if I fit into that, you know, even if I'm like, oh yeah, I I I'm the same way.

I'm we're all around the same age.

I I think it's really important to have a diverse ecosystem at your workplace, whether that's a client or or you know, if you're full-time.

And the the place I'm working, the the client I'm working with right now is is a client based out of Oakland, and their development team is all over the map as far as ages and is coming from different, really different backgrounds.

So it's really it's really, really nice.

And I've worked on teams where everyone is kind of in their 20s and excited to work and and you know isn't really familiar with burnout and isn't really worried about it too much.

They will be.

Yeah.

Isn't that why they hire them and why they have that hiring process?

I mean, I think that's well, I I think that that is that is some of it.

I think that it's you have a lot of in here.

I'm gonna burn a bunch of bridges, but you have a lot of founders who are in their early 20s, they just want to hire their friends.

You have the adults in the room who are in their 30s or 40s who are all male Peter Pans, and it it I don't think it's they're sitting around, you know, smoking a pipe thinking we want to be evil.

They're just thinking when it gets to the culture fit part of who do we want to hang out with?

They want to hang out with people like themselves who are all about work and fit those profiles.

I don't think it's quite as I mean, certainly the startup I worked at, we weren't thinking I want to exploit these young MIT Stanford grads, though that's basically the only people we hired because of combination of they fit into the culture, they pass the test.

Our other employees, you know, were kind of like that.

So I'm not saying it's not there, but I think it's more I don't know, evil's more benign, or it just sort of creeps up on you.

It's just you want to hire your friends.

But it's like the way the whole way that it this it's structured just ends up with.

I know.

I mean, I was like, I was I remember being there being like, uh, where's a 30-something male programmer?

Um, and they exist in many places, but it is that combination.

I think also it's self-selects.

I mean, Carlton, you and I wouldn't want to work in that environment now.

Um and they probably wouldn't want us either.

So it's it's also fresh off fresh off the fresh off the boat of the airplane from wherever.

And um but it is it it is kind of intoxicating and and quite fun for a while, I would say, to go from not being surrounded by a tech community to being around it all the time.

And it was just it was just a perfect, it was perfect, just start to finish.

So thank you for that.

I was one of the like 200 people who's seen it on YouTube and I sent him a note.

Okay.

And this talk is this this podcast episode has been a little organic itself.

Django chat, yeah.

And he he's his his mantra is always be caring.

So it's the ABC sort of, you know, when you think of ABC, you might be thinking of that line, always be closing, in terms of, you know, sales and and finding clients and all those things.

But he he sums it up a different way.

He says, always be caring.

And so I really like that mantra.

And that's definitely carried me through my whole career before I was a consultant.

I really cared about the projects I was working on.

I really cared to make sure that, you know, the technology was right, sure, like that's really important, but make sure that that it's accomplishing what the client, whether that's an internal client that you're working for as a full-time employee or you know, whatever that client is, that stakeholder, make sure that that it's it's what they want.

It's it's gonna be best suited to their needs and you're listening to them.

And so I just I really want to stress that that's really helped me connect with clients because my old bosses want to work with me again because I made our stakeholders happy.

That's that's really important.

So that's that's that's one really big thing I kind of wanted to drive home.

I don't know if you wanted to talk uh had any thoughts on that.

Like uh finding clients is difficult, right?

One way of getting a sustainable freelance business or sold or business is to have clients come back to you.

And they may come back, you know, eight years later and they might be like, you know, ah, I need to, you know, I need you again.

And it's like they ain't gonna do that unless you do a good job.

And it's a good job by their eyes, not your eyes.

Oh, I used, you know, the latest tech framework, and you know, it look how it was containerized and I deployed it with, you know, these special none of that matters a shred.

What matters is their goals, their outcomes, and you know, yeah.

So yes.

Everything is a really small world when you get down to it, right?

Which is um kind of nice and sort of too bad when some people don't realize that.

But the reality is there's you know, there's an endless supply of work that needs good people to do it, and people who do good work know people who do good work, and and that's what you look for, right?

Whatever whatever side you're on.

If you want a f a colleague or you want to hire someone, it's it's a reputation.

I mean not not right now, there's not because of the whole coronavirus, but the the economy will come back and beyond the tech bubble, beyond San Francisco, there's there's a whole world that you can get working.

May not feel that way, but that's the case.

So I felt comfortable to give that Django talk last year, but I wouldn't have been comfortable giving a talk at Django Con maybe two years prior to that.

Um that was the talk that I was that I was ready to give at that time.

So, and that led to this podcast, which was really cool.

Um the I also have been writing technical blogs for Cactus.

So so it's a it's a nice um that's a nice feature of when I was working full-time at Cactus, they encouraged us to write blogs.

And then when I went off and became a consultant, I said, you know, I've written some blogs for you.

I still am interested.

I still like come up with ideas that I want to write, and they still pay me to write to write blogs.

I just have to go through a different process with them and sort of get, you know, give them a, you know, here's how many hours I think I'm gonna spend writing this blog, and would you, you know, pay me for for that, for that many of hours?

Would you be interested in publishing this this topic that I want to talk about?

And so that's another way to sort of get your your reputation built up online.

And it does, it can be Django itself or it can be one of those ecosystem projects.

And if you become you know helpful there and you just do a little bit, it doesn't have to be a lot, it can be an hour a week, it can be you know a couple of times a month, a couple of hours, you know, not not a lot, but that adds up over time, and all of a sudden it's oh yeah, that person they maintain, you know, this so-and-so plugin.

That's I mean, people who listen to this podcast know that that's always the advice I give is have some open source code or contributions and and have a post or a a talk to get your name out there.

Um it's it I think it's hard for a lot of developers who may be a little more introverted by nature to do, but it is you know, someone's gonna Google you and what are they gonna find, right?

Like um, if they find existing work, then the interview and stuff can be about that.

Otherwise it's you're gonna go through the whiteboard treadmill.

But I think that's the hard thing in a way is that like we think, you know, I should be doing you know, I should spend those hours a week coding or doing like super advanced Python or Kubernetes or whatever, but the reality is you should be spending it on your network, on communicating.

And it, you know, I always take attitude over aptitude, and part of attitude is communication.

So once you hit a baseline, it's all about your attitude and your communication skills because you can kind of figure anything out versus the loner who maybe is an expert in some area but no one wants to work with.

That's not who gets hired.

Right.

Are there we have links to oh I wanted to ask.

So what's the story?

Because when you set up an LLC, you can't put um a trademark in there, right?

So like I can't call my Learn Django LLC, for example.

Yeah, you cannot call it that.

Um yeah, maybe you could misspell it or something.

I don't know, but that would be pretty weird.

Um, yeah, you you can't put a trademarked name into it.

Um yeah, it should be easy to be like you should be able to spell it easily.

So, so that's you know, kind of an important thing when you're coming up with your your LLC name.

Um, I forget what else was on that slide, but yeah, you can you can go back to my talk and and see.

And then when you actually submit it to your state, if you're in the United States and you're forming an LLC, if it's already been taken, then it's gonna get returned to you and you're gonna have to come up with a different name.

So you should be able to go to your state's SOS.gov website, your state's Secretary of State website, and look up the names and make sure that it isn't currently taken.

But yeah, you can't have the the word Python in in the name of your business.

Or probably the name Django, I assume that's trademarked.

I don't know.

Yeah, I

So um Yeah.

That is not you know.

Uh well in and naming is what it's it's almost like startup names.

It's one of those things where it doesn't matter at all and yet you spend an inordinate amount of time on it.

Um at least that's my kind of philosophical take on it after spending an inordinate amount of time on startup names.

And you know, I I mean what do I have?

I have, I mean, as a sole proprietor, I have a DBA, so doing business as account.

So that's how I uh it's um so that's what I use for my checking account.

So it's like still me, but it it's labeled as something else, and that's how my mail and sometimes I'm like, oh, do I like the name that I have?

Like mine's still River Press, but like no one cares.

It should be, but it's not that's not what's gonna make or break your business.

No.

Yeah, yeah.

Um I mean cactus has like a misspelling of the word cactus when you think about it, C-A-K-T-U-S, and it hasn't seemed to hurt them.

So I don't know.

Like um, so I finished a philosophy degree of two or three, and um thought, ah, I'll start, you know, I'll start with a company.

I need a name, I'll call it Numinal, why not?

Rem reminiscent of Kant and all of these things I love so much.

No one can spell Numenal, no one can even say it.

So like for years, it was like, how do you spell that?

I was like, uh, but and then it I said, I'm not changing it, I can't be bothered.

Like, just I'm keeping it like oh well.

That was so I did learn that the hard way.

Don't have a name that people can't, they read it, go

Yeah, yeah.

History of it is anyone

Like uh Aaron Rachel Consulting was my website, so it was Aaron Rachel Consulting.com, which feels really long.

And finally, recently I got the URL, aaronrachel.dev.

And so I was like, oh, that's so much easier to tell people to go to now.

So that makes me really happy.

Um, I think your resources are fantastic.

Again, I love that you have those deep links to the Google Docs and the spreadsheets.

That's the kind of stuff that because you have a bunch of things you link to from the talk.

It's not just the accounting.

I think there's five or six.

Um to me, that's that's sort of like like sanding inside like a bureau or something.

That's like Steve Jobs' analogy, or like the back of like a cupboard.

Like people don't really see that, but someone who takes a peek is like, oh, this person cares about what they're doing.

They're doing a really good job.

Like, I love that you did that in your talk.

Because you could have easily spit saved those hours.

Um, but I looked at those sheets and I hope others do as well.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I've actually updated the sheets.

Maybe I should update my shared sheet too to make it a little bit easier.

But yeah, yeah, I think that that I think that layout was nice and easy to follow.

So thank you.

I'm glad you appreciated it.

Just thank you for coming on.

Um it's I love that we spent like, you know, a good half it talking about accounting because that's that's freelancing.

Thanks for having me.

Um, there are so many coding podcasts out there that don't do that.

That's it.

It's the community.

It's true.

We we we do put some thought into it.

Um, and it does.

We're trying to reflect the Django community.

Um so excellent.

We're chat Django on Twitter.

We have links to um Aaron's website, and we'll see you all next week.

Bye bye.

Bye bye.