Stockholm: Mikael Carlsson - A Life in Tech
hello I'm Mikel as uh Brita pointed out uh I'm a front-end engineer and for the past decade I've been working in the Stockholm Tech startup scene so I've gathered some uh insights uh during my years uh and that's the sort of background for this speech so uh this speech is really about the those besides those pieces of golden nuggets from the tech world all right so let's just jump into this and uh hopefully it makes sense skills that's uh all all we got basically and uh let's see you are your own product in a sense uh companies work with uh with products and uh or services and uh and you uh your skill set is basically your product that you sell uh so it's kind of important that you treasure those skills and enhance those skills when you can or that you learn something new Focus uh it's kind of uh hard to keep up with everything that happens around you all the time when developing and quite often you might be distracted from where you are currently going by things on in the sidelines so you might read something on on slack someone is post posting something about some new npm package or Cool Tech that you you feel kind of tempted to implement or you you might think it solves your problems better than the the than the things you have in your project and I think it's important to set set up the sort of boundaries before you start your project so you know what what what tools you have and that's sort of the the punch line here get [ __ ] done with the tools you have at hand and uh don't don't start introducing new things or new technologies halfway through the project because even though it might uh solve some problem it quite often brings more problems down the line so uh deja vu in development when you have been working for a long time or in different projects or at different companies you might get the feeling of deja vu like haven't I been here done this before and I think this is where the the the answer is quite often yes and that's because uh products that different companies have are not that unique to be honest it's more or less uh more of the same thing I think that when you reach this point I think that it's a it's a golden opportunity to to sort of uh re-evaluate the ways you work and try to work smarter not harder not doing not keep repeating yourself and doing all the things all over again but it's also a good point because you have done something so you know how to do it all right loyalty uh touch a subject I I wasn't really sure I was going to bring this into the presentation but it's something that I feel strongly about it's uh something that have helped me during the years basically companies uh are uh often talking about loyalty and uh it's uh it may be asked from you to be loyal to companies that's sort of where it gets a bit sensitive uh I think that you should be loyal to yourself uh and to sort of know your value uh for companies because development is not always about what's good for the company it's uh quite often what's what's good for you and to know your value to the company then you can sort of make demands for your own benefit all right and then it's uh this this title is kind of strange but quite often in development I I feel that we're sort of circling uh around a bit you you read about some uh technology and you might not really know how to apply it to to your work or if you should or or when you might lack the skill set to actually understand understand this uh technology fully and uh I'm going to take websockets for an example so the first time I heard about websockets was around 2012 maybe just started my career in in front end development and uh I thought it was pretty cool um to for those of you who don't know what web suckets is it's sort of uh event driven messaging between the client and the server like I said I didn't really fully grasp what web suckets was all about until a decade later uh this summer when I was uh doing a project and started to think about shouldn't there be another way for front end to communicate with the back end to to sort of fetch information um and that sort of communication is often done with the the fetch a API and it's good but it's not the coolest and then I sort of remembered this web sockets thingy and read up on it and all of a sudden it made perfect sense to me and I even asked some of you in the JavaScript slack channel is because for me it was like I I heard about this 10 years ago is it still used and apparently it is so that's a good way to sort of circle back to Tech and then trust this is um probably one of the hardest harder things for for developers because you might uh um not trust yourself all the time you might f in that sort of uh sense you know that you have some skills uh you know that you can do certain things but sometimes you sort of feel that um trust is is failing and uh when I just started here I I was going for an interview at at Apple that I failed uh but uh before that I was uh getting some pointers from from one of you it was a pretty good advice I got trust in yourself as others have trusted in you I never met this guy but uh it was a really good thing to say and this is something that I try to sort of remind myself of every every time I sort of come to that point where I'm starting to doubt myself like am I really good enough for this uh or the the the the client is is asking you tough questions and then thinking this to myself kind of yeah I'm I'm probably good enough and then keeping it real this is a pretty hard um uh phrase for for Swedish people people I I think in general because it's like what does it mean keep keeping it real uh I think that uh it's about being honest and genuine to yourself and to sort of um do what you love uh that's the kind of best way to to learn and to move forward yeah move forward and and enjoy the the ride that's the end that's [Applause] all it should probably say questions here but yeah thank you so much Michael um and I want to open it up for questions I mean Michael has a lot of experience uh so it's an open open book for any questions that you might have or thoughts you want to hear from Michael so frontend engineer that's a new phrase for me what what is the difference between yeah front end developer well I don't know but we're all software Engineers I thought I twisted a bit uh you were talking about trust uh and I get it involves like imposter syndrome and stuff like that do you have any tips or tricks to overcome that well it's uh that imposter syndrome is always sort of uh looking over your shoulder and uh it's uh I don't really have any tips or tricks to overcome it it's just uh um it's ridiculous really because you worked so hard that you've gotten to a point where you uh signed a a deal for a job or uh at least gotten to the point where you are on an interview for a job and you wouldn't get there if if you didn't know what you know so I think the best way to to sort of Shake That imposter syndrome feeling is just to not think about that it's just Yeah you mentioned that over the years with experience you noticed and more that more and more you've actually seen the same problem before and it comes up again so you can maybe then rely more on your experience rather than Ingenuity to solve a problem because you already solved it once before how do you stay open to new types of solutions if you've solved the same problem four times before in a special manner this fifth time someone comes with a different suggestion how do you stay open to the new suggestion which might be not in balance with with your old solution yeah I understand what you mean kind of but it's is like um you build something 100 times and for the 101st time someone comes with suggestion on how to build it uh I would be totally open for for for changing it uh to building it in a new way um I don't think that my experience of how to do a certain thing is the best way I I think everyone should sort of try to stay open to well that's sort of part of learning new things isn't it uh on your career um when you were more of a junior developer is there any you can share that you would do differently and now when you look back on that uh when I was a junior develop veler my uh primary goal was to become a senior developer so I think that maybe my advice to a junior developer would be to enjoy the ride a bit more and not focus so much on on what what uh what to come like in in terms of seniority you talked lastly about keeping it real and uh being genuine and true to yourself uh what do you think are some of the challenges of being genuine or why is that why is that a problem and what have you done o over your career to to help yourself be more genuine and true to yourself uh also a difficult question I think that when when we're working in Tech we will uh be uh facing different types of of Technology maybe in different types of work uh and we're sort of expected to just deal with it I think that if if you find that this is not what you really want to do then uh feel free to sort of uh find a new job I I'm not saying that in a in a harsh way but sort of for your own personal development s um and that that that could be anything from like Technologies to to colleagues and management anything that doesn't sort of align with your uh values um should you really stick around and why so maybe just seeking out what's what's the best fit for you in terms of management or Tech stack or colleagues or whatever uh you mentioned the web sockets a little bit earlier do you have any other uh blast to the Past kind of tech that you encountered and like oh yeah I I read about this earlier and uh I think it could suit this project or nothing that I can think of uh right now but uh I quite often feel that uh that you uh sort of move in circles in a way that you come come across something uh you read about it and then you sort of pass it to the sidelines currently because you want to keep focusing on on on what you do now and then maybe sometime later you come back to this and then you sort of re-evaluate that technology um I I don't really have a another good example if you're if you reflect back uh more to the times when you were studying do you think there is some major thing that you were not taught and you did not understand before you got this experience what would be this one thing me oh to okay um one thing I was not taught uh well so I studied media technology and it's uh kind of web development kind of web design uh kind of usability so and that was I don't know 20 years ago uh I'm I'm sure a lot has changed since then um there was many things I wasn't taught but on the other hand it it's all it's all kind of different now back then it was PHP or Java uh static can of static uh no front end for sure um as little JavaScript as possible and then we kind of moved into where we are now where where we have one application on the front and basically and one on the on the back end and also moving more towards backend now so it's all sort of going back and forth um I don't really know what what what to pick tough question I'll think about it can't hear myself oh there we go now I can um thanks Michael uh for your your talk it was uh a life in Tech and uh of course like Tech is that's quite a broad stroke in terms of all-encompassing I'll say that so when you are thinking about like your your life and your life in the in the tech field then what I mean what what sort of how do you go from there how do you learn on a constant basis because it's so vast and there's so much you could learn and there's so many Avenues you could take uh how do you kind of direct yourself and then when do then how do you find that you learn best is it learning by doing or or learning by studying or learning by uh seeking out a mentor or something of the like I think it's a combination of of the three uh first of course you need to read up on things uh study uh and then I yes I I learn best by doing so I build a prototype just to get the sort of hang of it and thinking uh but then of course like mentorship is is golden of um in in many many ways it can be like a a more senior developer than you or someone else so yeah it's but but of course I mean you you can only learn sort of ideas or ways of thinking from a mentor you can't really learn Hands-On coding that's that I guess requires Hands-On coding and when you have like because based on what you're saying then it sounds like you've had mentors uh in your in your life and in your experience um you know for for those who are seeking um you know to grow in some way whether they're exploring something totally new because they're already quite a specialist in what they do or if they're looking to develop um in their own craft and what they already do then uh how have you found your mentors and where might others be able to find uh those mentors if they're seeking them well I I my my first sort of real Mentor was uh sort of a kind of a manager uh not my boss but around uh and uh he kind of explained the the value in extracting yourself from from what you're doing in in terms of not putting your soul into something uh if if we're talking about design maybe don't treat the design as your baby because if someone starts poking it uh it won't feel good so so that's one thing and then of course not or or trying to to keep the code clean to to sort of allow the next developer for for a smooth transition um I I think it's uh difficult if the question is where to find a mentor or if if I mean I mean I've had mentors in front-end leads or uh lead developers uh um those kind of positions as well I think it depends on on where you are and what you're kind of looking for hello yeah uh 20 years life in Tech uh so that's quite a long experience and time um I'm curious about the uh how do you see as a developer that um uh The View on technology and you in your role as a development developer has changed during these years uh it's it's changed quite a bit I would say uh because I was thinking about it during the panel discussion uh that we just uh watched and um I say 15 years ago maybe it was different in that you were a developer or a web designer and the web designer was basically responsible for both the visual design and the implementation of the ux part and then you had the other Developers for maybe backend developers or system Engineers um so that changed I think in 2010 or something like that where it sort of shifted uh and that web designer role split up into frontend developers and UI ux developers or designers um and I'm quite sure it will either merge again or split up even more I don't know but uh it's changing uh I think it's for the better in a way because some people like coding more and some people like designing more but it's yeah uh so I was uh uh looking at your slide of the value and I was thinking do you have any like uh Reflections or ideas uh regarding uh work life balance oh I suck at work life balance I wish I had yeah I tend to work too much uh and uh do life too little uh but some some people that I've worked with uh some uh colleagues of ours uh have been really good at sort of uh getting up early in the morning starting the day at 8 and then shutting off the laptop at 5: or whatever the time is really I've never really understood how many hours you're supposed to work I know it's 8 hours a day but does that include lunch or so yeah you're asking the wrong person all right thanks so much Michael uh one more round of applause for for Michael for today thank you thank you
2023-12-24 01:22
