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[MUSIC]

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I would like to welcome up our
opening speaker Anthony Culver.

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Anthony is a software engineer at Netflix
in the content engineering group.

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A Chicago native and alumni of both Clark
Atlanta University and DePaul University.

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Anthony has built a career focused on
back-end service and platform engineering.

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As well as a data engineer building and
scaling numerous BI platforms,

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data warehouses, and data pipelines.

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He's also a father of three,
lover of music, movies, video games, and

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a novice Raspberry Pi tinker.

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Please welcome Anthony Culver.

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>> Thank you so much for the introduction.

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I'm super excited to be here.

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Like I said, I'm Anthony, and

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I wanna talk to you about my journey to
becoming a software engineer and how that

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path may not have been as straightforward
as you might think it would be.

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[COUGH] So if you have any questions, feel
free to drop them in the Q&A as you think

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of them and
I will try to get through them at the end.

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I should probably share my screen.

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All right, so again,
my name is Anthony Culver.

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I use he/him pronouns.

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I'm currently the software engineer
in Netflix, I grew up in Chicago,

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Clark Atlanta, DePaul.

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And then just a couple of
interesting things about me,

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I find peanut butter to
be absolutely disgusting.

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And I just recently learned that most
people find that to be very odd.

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And also a song I produced a few years
ago was used on the soundtrack of

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a documentary.

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So, get right to it.

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Here's what I'm gonna discuss today.

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I'm gonna talk about how and why I
decided to pursue a career in software

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engineering, the various jobs I've had
throughout my career, what I learned from

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those roles, and how those experience kind
of have gotten me to where I am today.

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So, how did it all start?

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So Cisco was actually
offering prep classes for

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networking certifications in high schools.

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[COUGH] And my high school happened
to be one of the pilot schools.

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So we started just taking computers apart,
identifying their components,

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reassembling them.

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We did some basic HTML and

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CSS before we kind of jumped right
into the networking material.

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And I loved every second of it.

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Everything was logical, it made sense.

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I could physically see the results
of what we were doing.

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And so I figured this would be
a cool thing to do for a living.

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I mean I had to go to school forever,

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which was probably my
biggest concern at the time.

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And so I did the only thing that I knew
to do next, which was go to college for

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computer science.

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So I ended up at the University
of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

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So why did I do that?

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So the the answer on paper is really
because it was close to home,

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I got accepted super early and
state tuition was that cheap and

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it was one of the top computer
science programs in the country.

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But the reality was I was just lazy.

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I didn't put a whole lot of effort into
it to research the schools and everyone

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always talked about how great of a school
it was, and it is an excellent school.

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They have all the resources you could
possibly need at the university and

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I met some really incredible people
that I'm still friends with to this day.

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[COUGH] On the flip side, I realized
I didn't actually want to be there.

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Most of the people there were
from the Chicago and St.

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Louis areas and a lot of people I went
to high school with they were they.

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So it didn't really feel
like I left home and

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I think that's what I
really was looking for.

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But I also realized that I
personally needed more guidance and

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direction because I didn't
know anything about anything.

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And I was kind of fumbling my way
through trying to figure things out.

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But this is what I thought
I was supposed to do.

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You've finished high school,
you go to the best college you can,

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you get a job after graduation, and
then you live happily ever after.

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But that is not how it used
to [LAUGH] play out for me.

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So I left Illinois and
I went to Clark Atlanta.

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And I actually put some
thought into it this time.

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And I figured out what I wanted and
really I just wanted to go to an HBCU.

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I wanted to get away from home and

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I wanted to go to a part of the country
that I was relatively unfamiliar with.

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And so the great thing about HBCUs is its
faculty and staff all wanna see you win,

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they're gonna push you to
be the best you can be in.

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And that's something I really
didn't know I needed but I did.

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And people also look at me kind
of weird when I say this, but

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it It was also probably the most
diverse environment I've ever been in.

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And this allowed me to be exposed to so
many people from so

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many different walks of life and
prepare me really well for

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some of the experiences
that I would have later.

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So it was also the first time I was
away from home and living on my own and

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it forced me to grow up, which again,
something that I personally really,

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really needed.

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On a less than positive note I was
also dealing with a lot of stress and

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didn't really understand
what to do with that and

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what it meant to take
care of my mental health.

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I was taking way too many classes at one
time, I was taking classes that were

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prerequisites for other classes
I was taking at the same time,

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I was working almost a full time schedule.

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At one point I was actually having
anxiety attacks almost every day.

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But this was something I think I really
needed to experience and go through so

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I would understand what that meant and
what it looked like later down the line.

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So while I was in college,
I also did a few internships.

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If you can get one,

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they are a great way to not only build
your resume while you're learning but

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give you an idea of what it would be like
to work in this field in the real world.

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And sometimes that's getting experience
with enterprise tools that you wouldn't

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use in college or boot camps.

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Sometimes it's just learning that you
don't really wanna do a thing that you

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think you wanna do.

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And I did have one of those experiences.

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I thought I wanted to go into networking,
got an internship with a networking team,

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and realized I do not
wanna do this everyday.

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Also the internships are usually paid,
some of them aren't.

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Usually for
engineering internships you will get paid,

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which is always a good thing,
especially while you're still learning.

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But not all internships are created equal.

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A lot of them do require you to be
enrolled in college degree programs.

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Sometimes people will force interns to do
just irrelevant menial tasks just because

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they feel like they can't.

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And also most corporations will take on
interns with the goal of hiring them,

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but not all of them do.

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So again, your experience will vary.

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Finding good internships is actually
kind of difficult sometimes.

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So now we're gonna get into what
I've done so far in the workplace.

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And so what you see here is just a list
of all the jobs I've had since I finished

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college.

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And the main thing that I wanna point
out here is that more than half of these

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roles don't actually say anything
about software engineering.

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And that's because I didn't start
out working as a software engineer

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immediately.

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In this role here at Cerner,

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this was the first time I had
the job title of software engineer.

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And this was about five
years into my career.

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Eventually I would get promoted to senior
software engineer while I was there, but

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I wasn't actually building software.

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I was doing what would later
become known as data engineering,

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that wasn't really a term people
used when I started there.

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But, when I took that job I had no
idea what data warehousing was.

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But this was a great company.

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My team was amazing,
I still keep in touch with them,

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I meet with a lot of them to this day.

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And I really loved the work I was doing.

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So it actually wasn't until I
started in Mailchimp that I

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was working as a software engineer on a
team that was actually building software.

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And this didn't happen for
almost 12 years into my career.

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And this is not at all how I
thought this was gonna play out,

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especially when I was in high school and
bright eyed and bushy tailed and

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ready to go, just to write code.

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But everything happens for a reason.

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And there's just so much that I learned
in those non-engineering roles to help me

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prepare for the engineering
roles that I would have later.

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So what was it that I
was actually doing and

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what kind of technologies was I using and
things like that?

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So this is by no means a comprehensive
list of the things that I used or

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learned in those roles.

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But what I do wanna highlight
here is the fact that even

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in the non-engineering roles,
I was using tools and

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technologies that would come
into play later down the line.

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And so looking at this every single row
required me to use something that I

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still use to this day.

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Another thing to note is that with
with each role, the number of those

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technologies kind of began to increase cuz
I was using more of them in each role.

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And I'm still using a lot of those things
that I learned even in my first role

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out of college.

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So what's the point?

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Why did I just kinda go through in
this rundown and explain all this?

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What is it that I'm trying to convey here?

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Well, it's just that,

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it doesn't matter how you go about
becoming a software engineer.

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It is completely irrelevant.

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There's no right way to do this.

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There's no preferred method.

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There's no preferred path for
you to take to become a software engineer.

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It doesn't matter if you're self-taught,

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it doesn't matter if you
went through a boot camp.

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It doesn't matter if you went to
college and studied computer science.

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What matters is what you
learned along the way, and

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how you utilize that knowledge
to get to the next step.

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The only thing that matters
is just growing and

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getting better every step of the way.

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I went down this, quote unquote,
traditional path, and

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it was still years before I started
working as a software engineer.

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I know people that have computer
science degrees that have

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never worked as software engineers.

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[COUGH] Could I have
done things differently?

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Sure, a hindsight is 20/20.

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Would it have changed anything?

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Maybe, maybe not.

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But again, that doesn't really matter.

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So that being said,
what did I learn along the way that I feel

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made me a better engineer and
kinda got me to where I am?

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So the first thing is that writing code
is just one part of being an engineer.

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There's so
many other things you have to do.

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You have to learn to
communicate clearly and

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effectively to not only other engineers,
but executives, end users, stakeholders.

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And you have to be able to do this
well both verbally and in writing.

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You have to learn how to debug,
test, deploy, and monitor your code.

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You have to know how to choose
the right tools for the job.

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You have to understand
how to design a software,

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both at a feature level and
at a system level.

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Also learning how to learn,
I would say it's probably one

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of the most important and valuable
things that I picked up along the way.

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Things are always changing,
constantly changing in this field.

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And there's always something new to learn,

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there's something that you've
just never encountered before.

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And so for me, learning how I learned
most efficiently, allowed me to be able

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to pick up enough of the core concepts
of new technologies quick enough.

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To be able to continue moving forward
with whatever task was in front of me.

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Another thing I found to be really
helpful is doing the things that no

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one else wants to do.

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It'll get you brownie points with your
team and leadership, and things like that,

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but it also helps you to learn more
about the things that you work on.

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People don't want to do these things
because they're usually very tedious and

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repetitive tasks.

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But they typically lean heavily
on the fundamentals of whatever

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the thing is that you do.

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But working on those tasks is a great
way to get familiar with what you need

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to know to do your job.

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And also everything in
technology is related.

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Everything builds on the fundamentals,
so even if you're not working on

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the shiny new framework or
the coolest features, you're still gaining

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valuable experience that you will use and
you will need eventually.

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Last but not least,
diversity of perspectives is so

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important to a high
performing engineering team.

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If you're a person of color,
if you're a woman,

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or you identify as a member of any
underrepresented group in this field,

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you will often find yourself being the
only person that looks like you in a room.

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And you may be the only person
that didn't go to college and

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studied computer science.

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But the thing to keep in mind is, that is
what makes you the most valuable person in

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that room B\because you're gonna approach
everything with a different perspective.

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And that will get other people to start
questioning things they've always done in

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a certain way, and
that's gonna make everyone better.

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And that's ultimately going to result
in a team building a better and

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more inclusive products.

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And so now I just wanna
leave you with a few things.

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This is not an easy job to be in, but

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it also isn't impossible to do and
be successful.

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Anybody can do this.

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We're not doing brain surgery.

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It's a skill.

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And just like any other skill you
dedicate time to practicing and

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developing this skill,
you will continue to grow and get better.

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Aside from the technical challenges,

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there's a world of other challenges that
are presented to those of us belonging

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to these underrepresented
groups in this field.

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Again, if you're a person of color,
if you're a woman.

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You're someone who did not go to
a specific set of colleges and

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studied computer science, you're going
to walk into a lot of situations where

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people immediately think less of you.

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In some cases, people may just flat out
tell you that you don't belong there, or

246
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that you're not good enough to be there.

247
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And you'll have those bad days when
you start to believe that yourself.

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But this is why finding a community of
people that you identify with is so

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important.

250
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And one of the things that I did was,

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I made the mistake of trying
to do everything on my own.

252
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And this is such a different journey and
such a different and unfamiliar

253
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experience that is not one of those
things you can really just figure it out.

254
00:15:30,007 --> 00:15:32,945
And so having a community
of people to lean on and

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00:15:32,945 --> 00:15:37,362
to also share those experiences with,
has made a world of difference.

256
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So make sure you go find those people.

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Organizations like Treehouse, for example.

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DevColor, Women who Code, Techqueria,
Black Code Collective, they're all

259
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out there, and they are all great places
to go and be a part of those communities.

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Also, working in this field can open
a lot of doors that have historically

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been closed to a lot of us in those
underrepresented communities in tech.

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We're able to live places and
provide things for our families,

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and start businesses, and live
the types of lives that our parents and

264
00:16:12,540 --> 00:16:15,858
grandparents probably never
could have even imagined.

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So just stick with it, push through
the hard times, go be incredible.

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And just share your experiences with the
next group of software engineers that come

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after you so they don't have to experience
the same challenges that you did.

268
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So, for sure if there are any questions,

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00:16:41,296 --> 00:16:49,285
But if not, Wait,
there are some questions here.

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00:16:53,295 --> 00:16:55,346
So how old are you now?

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00:16:55,346 --> 00:16:59,421
You said that after college you spent
a lot of time in previous jobs.

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Do you really love your current job?

273
00:17:01,404 --> 00:17:02,711
What's your further goal?

274
00:17:02,711 --> 00:17:06,659
Did you reach job you trained?

275
00:17:06,659 --> 00:17:09,737
So now I am 37, I'll be 38 in September.

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Do I love my current job?

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00:17:14,357 --> 00:17:17,217
I do.

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00:17:17,217 --> 00:17:22,768
Part of it is I love the work that I do,
I'm somebody that loves solving problems.

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And so this is a great field to be
in if you love solving problems.

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Also, I work for Netflix,
which is actually kinda cool.

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It's always fun when you get to work for

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00:17:36,505 --> 00:17:41,463
a company that makes a product
that you use on a regular basis.

283
00:17:41,463 --> 00:17:45,665
So I do love my current job.

284
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It's like any other job,
you have good days, you have bad days,

285
00:17:50,945 --> 00:17:54,886
but overall I get up and
I enjoy the work that I do.

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00:17:54,886 --> 00:18:00,642
In terms of further goals, right now,
honestly, I'm just learning.

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00:18:00,642 --> 00:18:05,325
There's a lot that I have not done,
cuz I've spent most of my time as a data

288
00:18:05,325 --> 00:18:08,966
engineer and
I'm working more on backend services now.

289
00:18:08,966 --> 00:18:15,348
So just being in that field and
working on in a different industry.

290
00:18:15,348 --> 00:18:22,810
Being in film and entertainment now and
working with the streaming service.

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00:18:22,810 --> 00:18:26,296
I'm working at a different scale now.

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00:18:26,296 --> 00:18:27,925
That presents a different
set of challenges.

293
00:18:27,925 --> 00:18:31,834
So that's been fun.

294
00:18:31,834 --> 00:18:34,234
And would I call it a dream job?

295
00:18:34,234 --> 00:18:37,186
Not necessarily.

296
00:18:37,186 --> 00:18:40,879
And I think part of it
is just my perspective.

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00:18:40,879 --> 00:18:47,920
Some people live to work and
I work to live, so I enjoy my job.

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But at the end of the day it's a job.

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It's not something that I would
necessarily dream about, but like I said,

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I enjoy it and I'm happy doing.

301
00:18:56,706 --> 00:18:59,240
So, let's see.

302
00:19:02,394 --> 00:19:03,975
Let me start down here at the bottom.

303
00:19:06,051 --> 00:19:10,156
I wanna pursue a career in cybersecurity,
how would I start?

304
00:19:10,156 --> 00:19:13,403
I do not know much about cybersecurity.

305
00:19:13,403 --> 00:19:18,325
But, well, again, kinda going back to a
point that I mentioned earlier of finding

306
00:19:18,325 --> 00:19:22,636
communities, reaching out and
finding people that work in that field.

307
00:19:22,636 --> 00:19:25,694
Whatever you wanna do,
whatever area you wanna go into,

308
00:19:25,694 --> 00:19:28,124
that is always the first
place I would start.

309
00:19:28,124 --> 00:19:30,485
Find somebody,
just doing what you wanna do.

310
00:19:30,485 --> 00:19:31,813
Reach out to them, talk to them.

311
00:19:31,813 --> 00:19:37,654
Find out how they got there and
kinda go from there.

312
00:19:37,654 --> 00:19:42,107
So, what would be your suggestion
on learning how to learn?

313
00:19:42,107 --> 00:19:45,158
I think that would be different for
everyone.

314
00:19:45,158 --> 00:19:48,127
A good example is a lot of people
like watching YouTube videos.

315
00:19:48,127 --> 00:19:51,775
I don't learn well like that.

316
00:19:51,775 --> 00:19:56,787
For me what I ended up doing was coming
up with a really small project that I

317
00:19:56,787 --> 00:20:02,105
could build with anything, and
I would take that project,

318
00:20:02,105 --> 00:20:05,330
and if I found something
new that I wanted to learn,

319
00:20:05,330 --> 00:20:09,165
I would try to recreate that
project using that technology.

320
00:20:09,165 --> 00:20:12,979
So if it was some sort of like ETL tool,

321
00:20:12,979 --> 00:20:18,473
I think the project I used
was streaming Twitter data.

322
00:20:18,473 --> 00:20:22,264
Just I would pick a random topic,
stream tweets from that topic.

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00:20:22,264 --> 00:20:26,406
And I would store it in
some sort of database and

324
00:20:26,406 --> 00:20:29,921
build some kind of reports on top of it.

325
00:20:29,921 --> 00:20:34,386
And so doing that was generic enough,
but it was small enough that I

326
00:20:34,386 --> 00:20:38,472
was able to just kind of quickly
do that in new technologies.

327
00:20:38,472 --> 00:20:46,870
So, Let's see the next question.

328
00:20:46,870 --> 00:20:52,335
How can I get hired at a well
known company like Netflix?

329
00:20:52,335 --> 00:20:57,016
So one thing I will say is that,
if that's your goal,

330
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is to work at a big company and one of
the big tech companies, then go for that.

331
00:21:03,796 --> 00:21:07,214
Talk to people that work there.

332
00:21:07,214 --> 00:21:10,810
Figure out what their
interview process is like.

333
00:21:10,810 --> 00:21:12,691
Figure out what they're working on.

334
00:21:12,691 --> 00:21:16,513
The things that are important for
engineers at that company and

335
00:21:16,513 --> 00:21:18,542
focus on learning those things.

336
00:21:18,542 --> 00:21:24,463
But I would also say, don't get bent out
of shape if it doesn't happen right away.

337
00:21:24,463 --> 00:21:27,731
Because the interview process,
for instance,

338
00:21:27,731 --> 00:21:31,246
software engineers is really,
really difficult.

339
00:21:31,246 --> 00:21:37,773
And it's a whole another skill that you
have to develop as a software engineer.

340
00:21:37,773 --> 00:21:42,549
And so that's something we could spend
an entire day talking about as well.

341
00:21:44,735 --> 00:21:47,574
So like I said I would start there.

342
00:21:47,574 --> 00:21:50,280
Figure out what that
company is looking for.

343
00:21:50,280 --> 00:21:51,440
Work on those things.

344
00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:55,003
And then from there start
on interview preparation,

345
00:21:55,003 --> 00:21:57,940
which looks like one
of the next questions.

346
00:21:57,940 --> 00:21:59,990
Do you have any tips for job interviews?

347
00:22:01,980 --> 00:22:05,692
There are a number of groups and
websites and

348
00:22:05,692 --> 00:22:11,218
all kinds of things that people
use to prep for those interviews.

349
00:22:11,218 --> 00:22:16,198
I would say for me, system design is
probably one of the toughest things to do.

350
00:22:16,198 --> 00:22:19,512
Because you can't just really
solve a problem like that, right?

351
00:22:19,512 --> 00:22:22,525
You have to have another
person to work with and

352
00:22:22,525 --> 00:22:25,239
do mock interviews and things like that.

353
00:22:25,239 --> 00:22:28,116
There are other sites that
allow you to do that.

354
00:22:28,116 --> 00:22:30,482
Again, finally, communities of people.

355
00:22:30,482 --> 00:22:33,614
People will volunteer to help you do that.

356
00:22:33,614 --> 00:22:37,998
In terms of the other parts of it, it's
a lot of understanding data structures and

357
00:22:37,998 --> 00:22:38,769
algorithms.

358
00:22:38,769 --> 00:22:41,490
So there are websites like Hacker Rank,
Leetcode.

359
00:22:41,490 --> 00:22:46,570
I personally I'm a huge
fan of Interview Cake.

360
00:22:46,570 --> 00:22:49,791
There's another, algoexpert.com.

361
00:22:49,791 --> 00:22:51,465
Those are all really good sites.

362
00:22:51,465 --> 00:22:55,109
Some of them require subscriptions.

363
00:22:55,109 --> 00:22:57,261
So you have to actually pay for them.

364
00:22:57,261 --> 00:23:00,674
But some of them like Interview Cake,
for example,

365
00:23:00,674 --> 00:23:04,408
will refund your money if you
don't end up getting a job.

366
00:23:04,408 --> 00:23:09,614
So those are definitely good ways to prep.

367
00:23:09,614 --> 00:23:15,477
Well, communities that support
beginners and motivate to learn.

368
00:23:15,477 --> 00:23:20,101
So all the ones I mentioned
earlier are great.

369
00:23:20,101 --> 00:23:22,761
The fact that you're here and
you know about Treehouse.

370
00:23:22,761 --> 00:23:24,581
Treehouse is a great community.

371
00:23:27,762 --> 00:23:31,609
The other thing I will say is,
once you start to get connected with some,

372
00:23:31,609 --> 00:23:35,537
when you get connected with one
community you'll start finding others.

373
00:23:35,537 --> 00:23:40,885
Local meetups are a good place to
just kind of go and find people.

374
00:23:40,885 --> 00:23:45,063
Not necessarily the meetups themselves,
but just finding people.

375
00:23:45,063 --> 00:23:46,050
Connecting with people.

376
00:23:46,050 --> 00:23:49,037
Asking questions.

377
00:23:49,037 --> 00:23:53,639
And trying to, like I said,
just even asking someone that,

378
00:23:53,639 --> 00:23:59,787
just finding people that are working at
places, doing things that you wanna do.

379
00:23:59,787 --> 00:24:00,861
Reach out to them.

380
00:24:00,861 --> 00:24:04,472
Ask them if they'd be open
to having a conversation.

381
00:24:04,472 --> 00:24:07,055
If nothing else,
you get a little bit more perspective.

382
00:24:07,055 --> 00:24:09,830
They may be able to introduce
you to somebody else rather.

383
00:24:09,830 --> 00:24:17,427
But I would definitely say just finding
people is definitely key for that.

384
00:24:17,427 --> 00:24:24,862
C, the age restrictions on top to
start a career as a developer?

385
00:24:24,862 --> 00:24:30,671
No, I know people that started
when they were teenagers.

386
00:24:30,671 --> 00:24:34,589
I know people that started in their 50s,
60s, in some cases.

387
00:24:34,589 --> 00:24:38,304
So don't ever feel like it's too late or

388
00:24:38,304 --> 00:24:43,999
even too early in some cases to
start in trying to pursue that.

389
00:24:48,733 --> 00:24:53,454
Have you had a mentor to you that has
been a big influence on your growth?

390
00:24:53,454 --> 00:24:54,840
Yes, I have.

391
00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:57,960
Some of them have been previous managers.

392
00:24:57,960 --> 00:24:59,610
Some of them have been coworkers.

393
00:24:59,610 --> 00:25:02,900
Some are people that
I've never worked with.

394
00:25:02,900 --> 00:25:06,653
But to be honest, a lot of them don't
actually know they're my mentors.

395
00:25:06,653 --> 00:25:10,799
They are people that I keep in touch
with and I talk to them regularly.

396
00:25:10,799 --> 00:25:13,343
And I learned from them.

397
00:25:13,343 --> 00:25:16,557
But that is also very, very helpful.

398
00:25:16,557 --> 00:25:20,722
Having a mentor,
I would probably say is necessary.

399
00:25:20,722 --> 00:25:26,130
And so it's just to just get another
perspective from someone else as well, so.