Chris Quit (ft. Aaron Francis)

May 9, 2022

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Transcript

Aaron
00:00:00 – 00:00:03
How about I do the intro because I'm hosting today? How does that sound?
Chris
00:00:03 – 00:00:04
You just did the intro.
Aaron
00:00:05 – 00:00:20
Welcome back to Pushing Boulders. My name is not Chris Faddell, but my name is Aaron Francis, and I am hosting, and I will be interviewing Chris Faddow because he's got some major breaking news right now. So, Chris, what's going on over there?
Chris
00:00:20 – 00:00:25
Breaking news. I quit. Quit my job after 8 years.
Aaron
00:00:26 – 00:00:34
Yep. So 8 years, you've been at Userscape, And you quit, what, yesterday, the day before?
Chris
00:00:35 – 00:00:38
Tuesday? Tuesday.
Aaron
00:00:38 – 00:00:40
And what's next?
Chris
00:00:41 – 00:00:52
Okay. So, we took a job at Fly, Fly. Io, the I don't know what to call them. I keep calling them server hosting company, but that's because my family is asking me about this. And I'm just like, I don't know what to call this.
Chris
00:00:52 – 00:00:59
Yeah. They do server things, but they're Heroku ish even though I think they don't actually like that description of themselves.
Aaron
00:01:00 – 00:01:04
You're gonna have to get this pitched down a little bit better, but, yeah, that's good so far.
Chris
00:01:04 – 00:01:10
Right. I'll figure that out. That'll be part of the job. So, they're they're h one. Right?
Chris
00:01:10 – 00:01:29
Deploy app servers close to your users. They, I actually found out when I was doing the interview process that they started as a CDN and pivoted into what they are now. And I think that's part of the reason why they, like, rent servers around the world. I don't know this for sure, but that that seems to be logical to me. Like, they're they're not an AWS or anything.
Chris
00:01:29 – 00:01:42
They just have their own, like, rented servers, and it's globally distributed. And the whole thing with Fly. Io is as easy to globally distribute your apps so that they are run close to your users. So you don't have servers in New York talking to people in Australia.
Aaron
00:01:43 – 00:02:00
Right. Yeah. So they have they have they own their own stuff all over the world, which I think is super interesting because they don't sit on top of, you know, AWS. And their whole deal is like they they do something. You'll know this better.
Aaron
00:02:00 – 00:02:13
Well, you'll know this better once you start. They do something with, like, is it firecracker? Like, the micro VM stuff that's like that drives Lambda as well. They do something with containerization. It's like containers, but not containers.
Aaron
00:02:13 – 00:02:14
I don't fully know.
Chris
00:02:14 – 00:02:37
Right. Which is actually sort of what Lambda is too or at the Lambda runtimes when you use containers. It, like, takes the stuff inside of the container, copies it into what they call a micro VM, and runs it. So you could kind of make a container, install whatever you want into it, even like a full Linux thing with, like, system d and all the the things that, what do they call it? The process, whatever is PIP 0 or whatever is usually in a container.
Chris
00:02:37 – 00:02:55
The thing that starts every other program and and make sure it stays running in Linux. You could, like, install that and stuff. This which is usually not in the Docker container, and they can kinda throw that into your thing. That all gets copied into this little micro VM in, a Firecracker server, a server that's running Firecracker and and runs it. So, yeah, Lambda does that.
Chris
00:02:55 – 00:03:18
Lambda is, like, kind of an interesting they've AWS made Firecracker, and they run Lambda on it. And Lambda is just, like, you know, run a function, basically. And then they have those extra stuff like Lambda layers where you add in whatever files that are there in addition to your code and all that kind of stuff. And Lambda has all sorts of limitations, like 15 minute run time, and, you know, they do all sorts of funny things with that. But you don't have to.
Chris
00:03:18 – 00:03:26
Like, Firecracker can just run processes forever. So here, you can just, like, have your apps running on it sort of like it's a server. So it's almost serverless.
Aaron
00:03:27 – 00:03:37
Yeah. It's like servers servers that are serverless. I used it for a couple things, and I was blown away when it was like, you can just SSH into it. And I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Right.
Aaron
00:03:37 – 00:03:53
This is, this is a Lambda function. And you know, after reading the docs, I was like, Oh no, this is not a Lambda function. This is a full on server that stays alive forever, and you can get in there and muck around with stuff. It's cool. So what are you gonna be doing for them?
Chris
00:03:54 – 00:03:55
Not managing servers.
Aaron
00:03:57 – 00:03:58
That's good.
Chris
00:03:58 – 00:04:05
So, Userscape, I manage, like, a fleet of 300 servers or something like that.
Aaron
00:04:05 – 00:04:06
Woah.
Chris
00:04:06 – 00:04:19
And, it's really stable. It's, like, not a big deal. Like, there's very rarely does the server just break or something like that. So it's that's actually been pretty good, which is good because it's such a small team. And I'm changing to a role that's more community focused.
Chris
00:04:19 – 00:04:36
So the job posting that caught my eye here was, a Laravel specialist is what they call it. And they they just like Laravel. They wanna they wanna, you know, move into different programmer centric areas. Right? So right now, they do a lot of stuff with Phoenix and Live View.
Chris
00:04:37 – 00:04:55
Mhmm. And that's been working out for them. They get a lot of users to that, apparently. So they're gonna try out Laravel and maybe Rails and, you know, whatever else comes up. So part of their hiring strategy is to find some senior level ish people to, like, spearhead that, and then they're gonna hire, I think, some also more junior level people to to also flush the team out.
Chris
00:04:56 – 00:05:17
But it'll be just, like, community type stuff. So articles, improving the documentation, making sure it works well with Laravel. And they actually support Caleb who made LiveWire because they like live views so much in the Phoenix world, and LiveWire is kind of like that same idea. So they actually, what's the word I'm looking for? They're they give them money through GitHub.
Chris
00:05:17 – 00:05:41
Sponsoring. Yep. I might end up helping with that, like, doing some maintenance on the Livewire stuff or just generally, you know, kind of promoting it, like, rating about how to use it and different use cases and all that stuff. What they like about Live View and Live Wire is that their kinda globally distributed system really makes it snappy. Like, it feels kinda like an SPA because it's so quick because the servers are close to you.
Chris
00:05:41 – 00:05:46
Because once you start getting lag with that idea, like, it makes the the things, you know, feel less nice.
Aaron
00:05:47 – 00:06:05
Yeah. So everyone knows Live View and LiveWire are both, like, server side front end frameworks. And so they have to bounce back to the server a lot, which means the farther away the server is, the more lag you get on your front end, which is why probably Fly likes both of them because they put your servers everywhere. Is that accurate?
Chris
00:06:06 – 00:06:26
Yeah. And I, like, fly personally because it's not like a lot of the new things coming out, which are very, like, React and just front end centric. Like, React front end and then, like, maybe have a Lambda function or 2 to do something and then offload off and all the stuff that doesn't make sense to me as a full stack developer. Right. Why is just, like, host your full stack apps with us.
Chris
00:06:26 – 00:06:45
So I kinda like that angle. The the thing that really attracted me to this, because I wasn't really looking for work, but the thing that attracted me to it is, you know, it's community work, which is different from what I'm doing right now, which is very, you know, programming on an application and managing servers and all that kind of stuff. And after 8 years, it's like I don't know. It's rote. It's comfortable, too comfortable.
Chris
00:06:45 – 00:06:50
So it's like, you know, good it's a good change. It's a change of pace with the type of work he'll be doing too.
Aaron
00:06:51 – 00:07:11
Yeah. Are you excited to be I mean, you already produce a ton of content, but not for Userscape. You produce a ton of content for your own stuff between blog posts for Chipper and your whole, AWS Cloudcast. So are you excited to be doing, like, content production and Yeah. Working with the community as your full time
Chris
00:07:11 – 00:07:25
job? Right. And it it solves a lot of that's not issues, but it solves for a lot of things. Like, me being able to do the thing I do in the side full time is nice. Kind of being in the Laro community full time, like, being paid to do that is is really nice.
Chris
00:07:26 – 00:07:32
That is benefits for me. Those benefits for Fly. You know? Mhmm. Maybe it could help with, Chipper's growth.
Chris
00:07:32 – 00:07:33
I don't know. But, you know, maybe.
Aaron
00:07:33 – 00:08:03
Yeah. This does feel this feels extremely cohesive for, like, you, your personal brand, and the thing that Fly is looking for. Because I would assume Fly is looking for someone who's already kind of a community person, well known, trusted, and has the experience in the community. And so the fact that you have like all this side stuff going on is probably a huge advantage for them because everybody knows you and trusts you.
Chris
00:08:03 – 00:08:11
Yeah. Being somewhat known in the Laravel community is is definitely a benefit. Right? I think that makes sense. Like, I have the experience they were looking for.
Chris
00:08:11 – 00:08:19
So I think for them, it was an easy decision or, you know, the the the interview process went relatively quickly. Or maybe that's just how they happened also.
Aaron
00:08:20 – 00:08:29
Yeah. So tell me, from the time you found it and the time that I started pressuring you to take it to the time that you actually took it, like, how did that whole process go?
Chris
00:08:29 – 00:08:40
Yeah. They, was it, like, a week and a half, 2 weeks? Something like that. And then a lot of that time was just, like, you know, they're busy doing stuff, so I was you know, I had a few days to accomplish those things. So what happened?
Chris
00:08:40 – 00:08:57
I saw a tweet where someone was talking about being, like, a dev evangelist or something. I forget what the tweet was, but it was like, oh, I like the sound of that. And then you pointed me at the the fly posting after that in Twitter. And then Kurt, the CEO of Fly was like, yeah. I think you would like this.
Chris
00:08:57 – 00:09:14
So, like, I just sat on that because I was like, I'm not applying for a job. Because I I've always, like, just kind of been like, I'm not doing anything. Like, I'm comfortable where I am. And also, like, the fact that I know so much about, the Userscape stuff means Right. There's not, like, a lot of time pressure.
Chris
00:09:14 – 00:09:20
So I, like, actually have time to think about other stuff after work and work on it. You know what I mean? Like, it was just
Aaron
00:09:20 – 00:09:20
Oh, I see.
Chris
00:09:21 – 00:09:44
Easy to, like, do all the side stuff and, like, the like so, like, that was working for me. But, the thing with Userscape has always been, like, it's not necessarily market rate, but you're encouraged to have side projects and all that kind of stuff. And that very worked out for me for years in terms of, you know, having revenue from my side stuff. Less so now because my kids are at an age where it's really tough to get extra time. Like, they go to bed later, but they also, like, need attention, like, throughout the day.
Chris
00:09:44 – 00:09:58
If if I'm not at work, you know, I have to give them attention. And then that leaves me just, like, an hour and a half, 2 hours before bedtime to actually do anything. So, like and it's like, I do I even talk to my wife anymore? And I was just like, I know. I have to go to work, you know, do my own stuff after the kids are bed.
Chris
00:09:58 – 00:10:13
You know, it's it's crazy. So, this will help fulfill a lot of that stuff to do, during working hours. Like, not, you know, not necessarily working my own stuff, but, just kinda do the community the community component audience growth or whatever, that kind of thing.
Aaron
00:10:14 – 00:10:19
Yeah. Now part of your, like, full time official job is to be on Twitter, so that's kinda nice.
Chris
00:10:19 – 00:10:24
Yeah. It's fun. Yeah. Okay. So we lost the thread of, like, the job part stuff, or I did.
Chris
00:10:24 – 00:10:41
I oh, so they had a job posting. The job posting was, like, email us here and send us some information. And they have, like, one of those things at the end where, like, give us this little tidbit of info to make sure we actually read the the you know, read everything, I think. And, I don't know if that was actually the purpose of it, but it seems like it because it was at the very end. Mhmm.
Chris
00:10:42 – 00:10:57
But I like cheating, so I DM'd Kurt immediately. Because I thought, yeah, I think he had followed me at some point. So I was just like, I'm just I'm just cutting out that part. And, that worked out because he immediately was like, let's get on a call. I wanna pitch you on why I think you should apply, which I thought was
Aaron
00:10:58 – 00:10:58
Love it.
Chris
00:10:59 – 00:11:15
A good move on his part and also, like, a no pressure way to get on the on the phone, on the Zoom, and and just, like, talk through what it would be. So we did that, and it sounded good. Like, I've we've both seen Fly from the outside, I guess, right, and Hacker News and that kind of thing where they have they have some really good writers there that
Aaron
00:11:15 – 00:11:17
Some incredible technical writers. Yeah.
Chris
00:11:17 – 00:11:22
Yeah. They write super interesting stuff where, like, I barely understand it, but it's like Same. It's high school.
Aaron
00:11:23 – 00:11:30
But it's it's also, like, kinda funny, and you're reading along and you're like, I don't get this, but I'm laughing, but it's also way over my head. Yeah.
Chris
00:11:30 – 00:11:44
Yeah. So I like that, and that's a lot of that feels like from the outside still because I haven't, you know, begun work there. But from the outside, that seems like their culture a bit. So that that seems really cool and interesting. So I started just down the I decided to apply from there.
Chris
00:11:44 – 00:12:10
And then they had us do had me do a sample project, which is, like, do a thing in LiveWire and then write it up. And then, from there after that, that sounded good. And the next thing after that was, like, a little workaday project where, I was in Slack with them for a few hours, and we basically pretended we were working together on a little thing and just kinda scoping out scoping out, like, a little, like, live wire based kinda, like, real time ish project.
Aaron
00:12:10 – 00:12:15
All async over chat in Slack? Yeah. Cool.
Chris
00:12:15 – 00:12:27
So I was like Smart. Hour and a half, 2 hours. And, you know, it's more intense than what you would do normally during the day because you're like, it's you know, you know it's an interview, and they're kinda Right. Yeah. Asking questions, then, like, they wouldn't be that probing if it wasn't kind of an interview.
Aaron
00:12:27 – 00:12:27
But
Chris
00:12:27 – 00:12:32
Right. It was still, you know, still fine. I wasn't really, sweating it really, which is nice.
Aaron
00:12:33 – 00:12:43
Yeah. I'm sure that the take home project and the async work project for you were probably kinda basic, I'm guessing. I don't know what the projects were, but did you just crush them?
Chris
00:12:45 – 00:13:01
They weren't bad. They didn't they didn't make me did. They they make me sweat. Or, like, some stuff is like like, I had to rewrite what I wrote the first time, and I actually tweaked, like, how I did it. Because the first time I, like, over caffeinated myself at a coffee shop, and, like, the solution wasn't as good, and then I had sat on it for a day.
Chris
00:13:01 – 00:13:16
And luckily, they were like the turnaround time didn't matter too much. Yeah. So and it wasn't like a full technical interview. Right? Because I'm not, like, the person doing networking and, like, all the weird stuff they do because they manage their own service at such a a level that I'm
Aaron
00:13:16 – 00:13:20
not too WireGuard. Whatever WireGuard is, they're super into WireGuard.
Chris
00:13:20 – 00:13:27
Mhmm. Right. So I am gonna look forward to not being responsible for servers.
Aaron
00:13:27 – 00:13:27
Yep.
Chris
00:13:27 – 00:13:34
But I like, you know what you do? That's that's gonna be nice. And, just doing that type of community work. It sounds really fun.
Aaron
00:13:35 – 00:13:41
Well, this is incredibly exciting, and I'm super stoked for you. I'm glad that Right. I'm glad that you're taking it. I'm I've kinda wanted to
Chris
00:13:42 – 00:13:49
It's all your fault. I know. It kind of is. I've always needed a push. This is gonna be my 3rd job ever.
Chris
00:13:49 – 00:13:56
Like, 6 years at 1 place, 8 years at another. I don't move around a lot. But then I'm in the VC type companies, though. You know? Who knows?
Chris
00:13:56 – 00:13:59
I don't I don't think I'll be another 8 years. I mean, maybe. Who knows? But
Aaron
00:14:00 – 00:14:04
Well, I mean, hopefully, you'll work there for, like, 2 years, and then they'll sell They'll
Chris
00:14:04 – 00:14:05
just get acquired or something.
Aaron
00:14:05 – 00:14:05
Yeah. And you'll be
Chris
00:14:05 – 00:14:06
a billionaire.
Aaron
00:14:06 – 00:14:07
That's the goal.
Chris
00:14:07 – 00:14:08
Right? Billionaire. Mhmm.
Aaron
00:14:09 – 00:14:37
This is similar to obviously the path that I took. So I was working at Resolute, and I was, like, managing not 300, but managing the server and doing all of the coding on the product and doing all of this stuff. And now I'm at Tuple, and I'm not, like, on the core product. And it is honestly kind of a relief. Like, this whole Heroku breach thing, and everybody's like, oh, we gotta roll all these tokens and do all this stuff.
Aaron
00:14:37 – 00:14:52
And I'm just like, oh, that's not super my problem. I just have to build out this marketing page and talk to this video production company. And it's different. Like, it's a different set of problems, but it is kinda nice to not be responsible for production. I must say it's kind of a relief.
Chris
00:14:53 – 00:14:59
And I don't know about you, but I also like the growth in a different skill set, like that change of science team science.
Aaron
00:14:59 – 00:15:16
Yep. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. One thing I'm super excited about for this job is that like, I don't know. I kind of feel like this pushes the Laravel community slash ecosystem out a little bit.
Aaron
00:15:16 – 00:15:35
I feel like Laravel is not, not insular in any way, but just not broadly talked about in some of the other ecosystems. And I feel like having like, sending these Laravel people out into these other companies, I feel like it's gonna be real good for Laravel in the long term.
Chris
00:15:36 – 00:15:54
That's a good point. And, also, most of these startups that are very possible, they if they're doing, like, code related things, you know, they have a home page and they say, like, what frameworks they support and all that stuff. And PHP is always, like, you know, the afterthought. It's never on the home page. Even on fly right now, Flair Rail is not in the home page.
Chris
00:15:54 – 00:15:55
Gonna see if I can change that.
Aaron
00:15:55 – 00:15:56
You can change that on day 1. Yeah.
Chris
00:15:56 – 00:16:02
I'm gonna get rid of who am I gonna get rid of? Rust, Django, Crystal? Who's gonna go?
Aaron
00:16:03 – 00:16:09
That's a pro first day move to come in and kick somebody off the home page so you can put your favorite framework there.
Chris
00:16:09 – 00:16:12
I don't think I'm gonna have access to do that, but
Aaron
00:16:13 – 00:16:44
We'll see. Yeah. I think it's I think it's gonna be great. Like, obviously, it's, you know, kind of a bummer that you're leaving Userscape, but Userscape is, like, the OG Laravel place, and I think it's gonna be good in the long term for our community to have more Laravel evangelists inside these big other companies. You know, hopefully, eventually, we'll get one into Vercel, and we can figure out what the hell full stack JavaScript is all about and teach them about full stack PHP.
Aaron
00:16:45 – 00:16:49
But, yeah, I'm super I'm super stoked for you. I think this is gonna be a lot of fun.
Chris
00:16:49 – 00:17:04
Thanks. Yeah. It should be fun. I had, a super huge amount of anxiety about leaving because I mean, this is just a tough conversation to have after 8 years. Ian was, like, totally supportive, and, like, you know, I'm sure he suspects that that'll happen eventually after so long.
Chris
00:17:04 – 00:17:14
Yeah. And developer salaries are so inflated and everything right now, so it's hard to, you know, it's hard to not have people, like, looking at salaries to be like Yeah.
Aaron
00:17:14 – 00:17:21
It's you know, when they're coming across Hacker News every day and you're like, wait a second. Even if you're not actively looking, you're seeing it.
Chris
00:17:21 – 00:17:27
Right. Which I wasn't. It was like, you know, again, it just kinda came. And this one snagged my attention, so I went for it.
Aaron
00:17:27 – 00:17:35
So what's next? So how do you do how do you do the big announcement? So we're recording this on, Thursday, May 5th. So what's your plan for
Chris
00:17:36 – 00:17:53
You have a plan. You have a plan for me once again. Because I would just be like this so this move is, like, exciting, but it has a lot of anxiety attached to it still. Like, I'm over the hump of, like, saying I'm leaving and everything. So I probably would naturally not do any announcement at all or do, like, a a tweet, like, you know, when I started there or something like that.
Aaron
00:17:53 – 00:17:54
Yeah.
Chris
00:17:54 – 00:18:07
But I like your idea of, like, becoming a thread boy and and do it like a thread and, like, talking about it a bit. And, you know, I'll like, we can post this podcast episode as part of that or whatever. So Yep. That sounds kinda fun.
Aaron
00:18:07 – 00:18:20
Yep. I think that's a good idea. I think that's also your first, like honestly, it's kind of your first work product for fly. Right? So this is a big I mean, you're not you're not a marketer, so it doesn't matter as much.
Aaron
00:18:20 – 00:18:27
But, like, this is a big marketing event. Like, you're this is a chance to to point people to fly Yeah. Especially us.
Chris
00:18:27 – 00:18:30
I mean, it's it's certainly a branch of marketing.
Aaron
00:18:31 – 00:18:49
Yeah. I kinda think it is. Okay. So we'll do, we'll obviously record this podcast and then you're gonna put together some kind of thread. Please, please do not use the thread emoji, but I'm still gonna comment thread boy because you do that to me every time I string a few tweets together.
Aaron
00:18:49 – 00:18:55
You come in there and you just drag me. So I'm gonna do that Yeah. To you. And then when's your first day?
Chris
00:18:57 – 00:19:00
I think it's the 31st of this May.
Aaron
00:19:00 – 00:19:05
Are you getting are you getting any time off in between Userscape, like, a week or 2?
Chris
00:19:05 – 00:19:21
It depends because I'm wrapping up some projects there. I don't I don't I'm gonna take a few days off. I'd really like that last week off, but we'll see what happens because I'm I'm wrapping up some projects that that need to get wrapped up at too, and one aspect of them might go a little long. So we'll see.
Aaron
00:19:21 – 00:19:26
Cool. If you can swing it, taking a week or two off in the middle there is incredibly helpful. Jesus.
Chris
00:19:26 – 00:19:29
Yeah. Yeah. I know. God, I gotta do that. Let's see if I can.
Aaron
00:19:29 – 00:19:31
Sounds sounds like you super need it.
Chris
00:19:32 – 00:19:33
I don't know what you're talking
Aaron
00:19:35 – 00:19:37
about. Alright. Shall we call it there?
Chris
00:19:37 – 00:19:38
Sounds good.
Aaron
00:19:38 – 00:19:39
Alright. Congratulations.
Chris
00:19:40 – 00:19:41
Alright. Thanks. Thanks for hosting.
Me

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