Podcasts about googlers

A Googler (Episode 303) by Moose, Ceaz, Dona, & Joz

After 11 years helping hundreds of career changers switch into software development, I've found the hardest part isn't teaching technical skills but rewiring brains from misleading online advice that hurts new developers. Much of this advice is well-intentioned, but some is designed purely for clicks and engagement.• "Don't chase titles!"• "Don't build CRUD apps!"• "Coding bootcamps are a scam!"Take all advice (including mine) with a grain of salt. Your path is unique, and a personalized approach to career development is more effective than generic advice. Question everything, take what makes sense, and leave what doesn't.Send us a textShameless Plugs

Let's tackle three of the most common struggles career changers face: 1. Breaking into tech from another field2. Networking without feeling fake3. Staying motivated when the job search drags on. If you're wondering how to make the leap, keep connections warm, or simply not burn out—this one's for you.Got a question of your own?

Have you ever wondered why some developers keep getting promoted while others stay stuck at the same level despite their technical skills? The answer might surprise you.Through practical, actionable steps, I break down exactly how developers at any level can strategically increase their influence and advance their careers. You'll learn how to gain credibility before speaking up, frame concerns as questions rather than criticisms, and pair problem identification with solution proposals. For junior developers and career changers, I offer specific guidance on leveraging your unique perspective and starting with low-risk moments of leadership.The truth is that being universally liked feels safe, but being honest and solution-oriented makes you invaluable. Your career won't skyrocket by becoming infinitely better at your tech stack—it will accelerate when you thoughtfully challenge the status quo and offer solutions to problems others see but are afraid to address.Send us a textShameless Plugs

Breaking into software development isn't about finishing another tutorial—it's about building something that matters. In this episode, I'll show you how to choose a side project that proves your skills, keeps you motivated, and actually impresses employers.You'll learn:Why great data makes or breaks your appHow to apply the 80/20 rule—stick with tech you know, sprinkle in something newPicking a project you're emotionally invested in (so you don't abandon it)Tools that make you look sharp fast—React, Next.js, Tailwind CSS, and smarter database picksAdding AI functionality to make your project stand outBuilding a real MVP, deploying with Vercel or the cloud, and estimating time like a proHere's the link for the free APIs on GitHub: https://free-apis.github.io/#/browseAnd—don't miss it—we're giving away a full Parsity scholarship. 

The tech job market is sending seriously mixed signals in 2025. While social media overflows with doom and gloom about hiring freezes and impossible entry barriers, actual data tells a surprisingly different story. Job openings are trending upward, with big tech companies like Meta, Google, and Apple actively expanding their engineering teams.What's really happening is a massive shift in what companies need from their developers. "AI engineering" positions have exploded, increasing 5-6x since 2023 alone. But here's the critical insight most are missing: these roles don't primarily require deep machine learning expertise or data science backgrounds.This represents a golden opportunity for software developers willing to expand their skills in the right direction.Let's explore.Here's the link to the original article: https://substack.com/inbox/post/172584839?utm_source=unread-posts-digest-email&inbox=true&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=trueApply for Parsity's AI Developer Program: https://www.parsity.io/ai-developerSend us a textShameless Plugs

Remember when coding bootcamps promised you could learn to code and land a job in just three months? That golden era of easy entry into tech has fundamentally changed, yet the marketing hasn't caught up with reality.In this eye-opening conversation, ex-Google engineer Zubin and host Brian cut through the hype to deliver a reality check about what it actually takes to transition into software development in 2025.What separates those who succeed from those who don't? It's rarely about raw talent or technical aptitude. Instead, it's about creating systems that allow for consistent practice despite life's inevitable challenges."I've seen computer science grads fail and French fry cooks succeed"Let's dig into why.Send us a textShameless Plugs

AI is changing coding faster than anyone expected. Two years ago, autocomplete felt wild—now people with zero dev experience are shipping apps over a weekend. The question isn't “is AI replacing developers?” It's “how do you actually use it without wrecking your codebase?” In this episode, I'll break down when to use AI (and when not to), why Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) is the real game-changer, and how you can stay valuable as a new developer in a world full of hype.Send us a textShameless Plugs

In this episode of In-Ear Insights, the Trust Insights podcast, Katie and Chris discuss whether blogs and websites still matter in the age of generative AI. You’ll learn why traditional content and SEO remain essential for your online presence, even with the rise of AI. You’ll discover how to effectively adapt your content strategy so that AI models can easily find and use your information. You’ll understand why focusing on answering your customer’s questions will benefit both human and AI search. You’ll gain practical tips for optimizing your content for “Search Everywhere” to maximize your visibility across all platforms. Tune in now to ensure your content strategy is future-proof! Watch the video here: Can’t see anything? Watch it on YouTube here. Listen to the audio here: https://traffic.libsyn.com/inearinsights/tipodcast-do-websites-matter-in-the-age-of-ai.mp3 Download the MP3 audio here. Need help with your company’s data and analytics? Let us know! Join our free Slack group for marketers interested in analytics! [podcastsponsor] Machine-Generated Transcript What follows is an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain errors and is not a substitute for listening to the episode. Christopher S. Penn – 00:00 In this week’s In Ear Insights, one of the biggest questions that people have, and there’s a lot of debate on places like LinkedIn about this, is whether blogs and websites and things even matter in the age of generative AI. There are two different positions on this. The first is saying, no, it doesn’t matter. You just need to be everywhere. You need to be doing podcasts and YouTube and stuff like that, as we are now. The second is the classic, don’t build on rented land. They have a place that you can call your own and things. So I have opinions on this, but Katie, I want to hear your opinions on this. Katie Robbert – 00:37 I think we are in some ways overestimating people’s reliance on using AI for fact-finding missions. I think that a lot of people are turning to generative AI for, tell me the best agency in Boston or tell me the top five list versus the way that it was working previous to that, which is they would go to a search bar and do that instead. I think we’re overestimating the amount of people who actually do that. Katie Robbert – 01:06 Given, when we talk to people, a lot of them are still using generative AI for the basics—to write a blog post or something like that. I think personally, I could be mistaken, but I feel pretty confident in my opinion that people are still looking for websites. Katie Robbert – 01:33 People are still looking for thought leadership in the form of a blog post or a LinkedIn post that’s been repurposed from a blog post. People are still looking for that original content. I feel like it does go hand in hand with AI because if you allow the models to scrape your assets, it will show up in those searches. So I guess I think you still need it. I think people are still going to look at those sources. You also want it to be available for the models to be searching. Christopher S. Penn – 02:09 And this is where folks who know the systems generally land. When you look at a ChatGPT or a Gemini or a Claude or a Deep Seat, what’s the first thing that happens when a model is uncertain? It fires up a web search. That web search is traditional old school SEO. I love the content saying, SEO doesn’t matter anymore. Well, no, it still matters quite a bit because the web search tools are relying on the, what, 30 years of website catalog data that we have to find truthful answers. Christopher S. Penn – 02:51 Because AI companies have realized people actually do want some level of accuracy when they ask AI a question. Weird, huh? It really is. So with these tools, we have to. It is almost like you said, you have to do both. You do have to be everywhere. Christopher S. Penn – 03:07 You do have to have content on YouTube, you do have to post on LinkedIn, but you also do have to have a place where people can actually buy something. Because if you don’t, well. Katie Robbert – 03:18 And it’s interesting because if we say it in those terms, nothing’s changed. AI has not changed anything about our content dissemination strategy, about how we are getting ourselves out there. If anything, it’s just created a new channel for you to show up in. But all of the other channels still matter and you still have to start at the beginning of creating the content because you’re not. People like to think that, well, I have the idea in my head, so AI must know about it. It doesn’t work that way. Katie Robbert – 03:52 You still have to take the time to create it and put it somewhere. You are not feeding it at this time directly into OpenAI’s model. You’re not logging into OpenAI saying, here’s all the information about me. Katie Robbert – 04:10 So that when somebody asks, this is what you serve it up. No, it’s going to your website, it’s going to your blog post, it’s going to your social profiles, it’s going to wherever it is on the Internet that it chooses to pull information from. So your best bet is to keep doing what you’re doing in terms of your content marketing strategy, and AI is going to pick it up from there. Christopher S. Penn – 04:33 Mm. A lot of folks are talking, understandably, about how agentic AI functions and how agentic buying will be a thing. And that is true. It will be at some point. It is not today. One thing you said, which I think has an asterisk around it, is, yes, our strategy at Trust Insights hasn’t really changed because we’ve been doing the “be everywhere” thing for a very long time. Christopher S. Penn – 05:03 Since the inception of the company, we’ve had a podcast and a YouTube channel and a newsletter and this and that. I can see for legacy companies that were still practicing, 2010 SEO—just build it and they will come, build it and Google will send people your way—yeah, you do need an update. Katie Robbert – 05:26 But AI isn’t the reason. AI is—you can use AI as a reason, but it’s not the reason that your strategy needs to be updated. So I think it’s worth at least acknowledging this whole conversation about SEO versus AEO versus Giao Odo. Whatever it is, at the end of the day, you’re still doing, quote unquote, traditional SEO and the models are just picking up whatever you’re putting out there. So you can optimize it for AI, but you still have to optimize it for the humans. Christopher S. Penn – 06:09 Yep. My favorite expression is from Ashley Liddell at Deviate, who’s an SEO shop. She said SEO now just stands for Search Everywhere Optimization. Everything has a search. TikTok has a search. Pinterest has a search. You have to be everywhere and then you have to optimize for it. I think that’s the smartest way to think about this, to say, yeah, where is your customer and are you optimizing for? Christopher S. Penn – 06:44 One of the things that we do a lot, and this is from the heyday of our web analytics era, before the AI era, go into your Google Analytics, go into referring source sites, referring URLs, and look where you’re getting traffic from, particularly look where you’re getting traffic from for places that you’re not trying particularly hard. Christopher S. Penn – 07:00 So one place, for example, that I occasionally see in my own personal website that I have, to my knowledge, not done anything on, for quite some time, like decades or years, is Pinterest. Every now and again I get some rando from Pinterest coming. So look at those referring URLs and say, where else are we getting traffic from? Maybe there’s a there. If we’re getting traffic from and we’re not trying at all, maybe there’s a there for us to try something out there. Katie Robbert – 07:33 I think that’s a really good pro tip because it seems like what’s been happening is companies have been so focused on how do we show up in AI that they’re forgetting that all of these other things have not gone away and the people who haven’t forgotten about them are going to capitalize on it and take that digital footprint and take that market share. While you were over here worried about how am I going to show up as the first agency in Boston in the OpenAI search, you still have—so I guess to your question, where you originally asked, is, do we still need to think about websites and blogs and that kind of content dissemination? Absolutely. If we’re really thinking about it, we need to consider it even more. Katie Robbert – 08:30 We need to think about longer-form content. We need to think about content that is really impactful and what is it? The three E’s—to entertain, educate, and engage. Even more so now because if you are creating one or two sentence blurbs and putting that up on your website, that’s what these models are going to pick up and that’s it. So if you’re like, why is there not a more expansive explanation as to who I am? That’s because you didn’t put it out there. Christopher S. Penn – 09:10 Exactly. We were just doing a project for a client and were analyzing content on their website and I kid you not, one page had 12 words on it. So no AI tool is going to synthesize about you. It’s just going to say, wow, this sucks and not bother referring to you. Katie Robbert – 09:37 Is it fair to say that AI is a bit of a distraction when it comes to a content marketing strategy? Maybe this is just me, but the way that I would approach it is I would take AI out of the conversation altogether just for the time being. In terms of what content do we want to create? Who do we want to reach? Then I would insert AI back in when we’re talking about what channels do we want to appear on? Because I’m really thinking about AI search. For a lack of a better term, it’s just another channel. Katie Robbert – 10:14 So if I think of my attribution modeling and if I think of what that looks like, I would expect maybe AI shows up as a first touch. Katie Robbert – 10:31 Maybe somebody was doing some research and it’s part of my first touch attribution. But then they’re like, oh, that’s interesting. I want to go learn more. Let me go find their social profiles. That’s going to be a second touch. That’s going to be sort of the middle. Then they’re like, okay, now I’m ready. So they’re going to go to the website. That’s going to be a last touch. I would just expect AI to be a channel and not necessarily the end-all, be-all of how I’m creating my content. Am I thinking about that the right way? Christopher S. Penn – 11:02 You are. Think about it in terms of the classic customer training—awareness, consideration, evaluation, purchase and so on and so forth. Awareness you may not be able to measure anymore, because someone’s having a conversation in ChatGPT saying, gosh, I really want to take a course on AI strategy for leaders and I’m not really sure where I would go. It’s good. And ChatGPT will say, well, hey, let’s talk about this. It may fire off some web searches back and forth and things, and come back and give you an answer. Christopher S. Penn – 11:41 You might say, take Katie Robbert’s Trust Insights AI strategy course at Trust Insights AI/AI strategy course. You might not click on that, or there might not even be a link there. What might happen is you might go, I’ll Google that. Christopher S. Penn – 11:48 I’ll Google who Katie Robbert is. So the first touch is out of your control. But to your point, that’s nothing new. You may see a post from Katie on LinkedIn and go, huh, I should Google that? And then you do. Does LinkedIn get the credit for that? No, because nothing was clicked on. There’s no clickstream. And so thinking about it as just another channel that is probably invisible is no different than word of mouth. If you and I or Katie are at the coffee shop and having a cup of coffee and you tell me about this great new device for the garden, I might Google it. Or I might just go straight to Amazon and search for it. Katie Robbert – 12:29 Right. Christopher S. Penn – 12:31 But there’s no record of that. And the only way you get to that is through really good qualitative market research to survey people to say, how often do you ask ChatGPT for advice about your marketing strategy? Katie Robbert – 12:47 And so, again, to go back to the original question of do we still need to be writing blogs? Do we still need to have websites? The answer is yes, even more so. Now, take AI out of the conversation in terms of, as you’re planning, but think about it in terms of a channel. With that, you can be thinking about the optimized version. We’ve covered that in previous podcasts and live streams. There’s text that you can add to the end of each of your posts or, there’s the AI version of a press release. Katie Robbert – 13:28 There are things that you can do specifically for the machines, but the machine is the last stop. Katie Robbert – 13:37 You still have to put it out on the wire, or you still have to create the content and put it up on YouTube so that you have a place for the machine to read the thing that you put up there. So you’re really not replacing your content marketing strategy with what are we doing for AI? You’re just adding it into the fold as another channel that you have to consider. Christopher S. Penn – 14:02 Exactly. If you do a really good job with the creation of not just the content, but things like metadata and anticipating the questions people are going to ask, you will do better with AI. So a real simple example. I was actually doing this not too long ago for Trust Insights. We got a pricing increase notice from our VPS provider. I was like, wow, that’s a pretty big jump. Went from like 40 bucks a month, it’s going to go like 90 bucks a month, which, granted, is not gigantic, but that’s still 50 bucks a month more that I would prefer not to spend if I don’t have to. Christopher S. Penn – 14:40 So I set up a deep research prompt in Gemini and said, here’s what I care about. Christopher S. Penn – 14:49 I want this much CPU and this much memory and stuff like that. Make me a short list by features and price. It came back with a report and we switched providers. We actually found a provider that provided four times the amount of service for half the cost. I was like, yes. All the providers that have “call us for a demo” or “request a quote” didn’t make the cut because Gemini’s like, weird. I can’t find a price on your website. Move along. And they no longer are in consideration. Christopher S. Penn – 15:23 So one of the things that everyone should be doing on your website is using your ideal customer profile to say, what are the questions that someone would ask about this service? As part of the new AI strategy course, we. Christopher S. Penn – 15:37 One of the things we did was we said, what are the frequently asked questions people are going to ask? Like, do I get the recordings, what’s included in the course, who should take this course, who should not take this course, and things like that. It’s not just having more content for the sake of content. It is having content that answers the questions that people are going to ask AI. Katie Robbert – 15:57 It’s funny, this kind of sounds familiar. It almost kind of sounds like the way that Google would prioritize content in its search algorithm. Christopher S. Penn – 16:09 It really does. Interestingly enough, if you were to go into it, because this came up recently in an SEO forum that I’m a part of, if you go into the source code of a ChatGPT web chat, you can actually see ChatGPT’s internal ranking for how it ranks search results. Weirdly enough, it does almost exactly what Google does. Which is to say, like, okay, let’s check the authority, let’s check the expertise, let’s check the trustworthiness, the EEAT we’ve been talking about for literally 10 years now. Christopher S. Penn – 16:51 So if you’ve been good at anticipating what a Googler would want from your website, your strategy doesn’t need to change a whole lot compared to what you would get out of a generative AI tool. Katie Robbert – 17:03 I feel like if people are freaking out about having the right kind of content for generative AI to pick up, Chris, correct me if I’m wrong, but a good place to start might be with inside of your SEO tools and looking at the questions people ask that bring them to your website or bring them to your content and using that keyword strategy, those long-form keywords of “how do I” and “what do I” and “when do I”—taking a look at those specifically, because that’s how people ask questions in the generative AI models. Katie Robbert – 17:42 It’s very similar to how when these search engines included the ability to just yell at them, so they included like the voice feature and you would say, hey, search engine, how do I do the following five things? Katie Robbert – 18:03 And it changed the way we started looking at keyword research because it was no longer enough to just say, I’m going to optimize for the keyword protein shake. Now I have to optimize for the keyword how do I make the best protein shake? Or how do I make a fast protein shake? Or how do I make a vegan protein shake? Or, how do I make a savory protein shake? So, if it changed the way we thought about creating content, AI is just another version of that. Katie Robbert – 18:41 So the way you should be optimizing your content is the way people are asking questions. That’s not a new strategy. We’ve been doing that. If you’ve been doing that already, then just keep doing it. Katie Robbert – 18:56 That’s when you think about creating the content on your blog, on your website, on your LinkedIn, on your Substack newsletter, on your Tumblr, on your whatever—you should still be creating content that way, because that’s what generative AI is picking up. It’s no different, big asterisks. It’s no different than the way that the traditional search engines are picking up content. Christopher S. Penn – 19:23 Exactly. Spend time on stuff like metadata and schema, because as we’ve talked about in previous podcasts and live streams, generative AI models are language models. They understand languages. The more structured the language it is, the easier it is for a model to understand. If you have, for example, JSON, LD or schema.org markup on your site, well, guess what? That makes the HTML much more interpretable for a language model when it processes the data, when it goes to the page, when it sends a little agent to the page that says, what is this page about? And ingests the HTML. It says, oh look, there’s a phone number here that’s been declared. This is the phone number. Oh look, this is the address. Oh look, this is the product name. Christopher S. Penn – 20:09 If you spend the time to either build that or use good plugins and stuff—this week on the Trust Insights live stream, we’re going to be talking about using WordPress plugins with generative AI. All these things are things that you need to think about with your content. As a bonus, you can have generative AI tools look at a page and audit it from their perspective. You can say, hey ChatGPT, check out this landing page here and tell me if this landing page has enough information for you to guide a user about whether or not they should—if they ask you about this course, whether you have all the answers. Think about the questions someone would ask. Think about, is that in the content of the page and you can do. Christopher S. Penn – 20:58 Now granted, doing it one page at a time is somewhat tedious. You should probably automate that. But if it’s a super high-value landing page, it’s worth your time to say, okay, ChatGPT, how would you help us increase sales of this thing? Here’s who a likely customer is, or even better if you have conference call transcripts, CRM notes, emails, past data from other customers who bought similar things. Say to your favorite AI tool: Here’s who our customers actually are. Can you help me build a customer profile and then say from that, can you optimize, help me optimize this page on my website to answer the questions this customer will have when they ask you about it? Katie Robbert – 21:49 Yeah, that really is the way to go in terms of using generative AI. I think the other thing is, everyone’s learning about the features of deep research that a lot of the models have built in now. Where do you think the data comes from that the deep research goes and gets? And I say that somewhat sarcastically, but not. Katie Robbert – 22:20 So I guess again, sort of the PSA to the organizations that think that blog posts and thought leadership and white papers and website content no longer matter because AI’s got it handled—where do you think that data comes from? Christopher S. Penn – 22:40 Mm. So does your website matter? Sure, it does a lot. As long as it has content that would be useful for a machine to process. So you need to have it there. I just have curiosity. I just typed in “can you see any structured data on this page?” And I gave it the URL of the course and immediately ChatGPT in the little thinking—when it says “I’m looking for JSON, LD and meta tags”—and saying “here’s what I do and don’t see.” I’m like, oh well that’s super nice that it knows what those things are. And it’s like, okay, well I guess you as a content creator need to do this stuff. And here’s the nice thing. Christopher S. Penn – 23:28 If you do a really good job of tuning a page for a generative AI model, you will also tune it really well for a search engine and you will also tune it really well for an actual human being customer because all these tools are converging on trying to deliver value to the user who is still human for the most part and helping them buy things. So yes, you need a website and yes, you need to optimize it and yes, you can’t just go posting on social networks and hope that things work out for the best. Katie Robbert – 24:01 I guess the bottom line, especially as we’re nearing the end of Q3, getting into Q4, and a lot of organizations are starting their annual planning and thinking about where does AI fit in and how do we get AI as part of our strategy. And we want to use AI. Obviously, yes, take the AI Ready Strategist course at TrustInsights AIstrategy course, but don’t freak out about it. That is a very polite way of saying you’re overemphasizing the importance of AI when it comes to things like your content strategy, when it comes to things like your dissemination plan, when it comes to things like how am I reaching my audience. You are overemphasizing the importance because what’s old is new. Katie Robbert – 24:55 Again, basic best practices around how to create good content and optimize it are still relevant and still important and then you will show up in AI. Christopher S. Penn – 25:07 It’s weird. It’s like new technology doesn’t solve old problems. Katie Robbert – 25:11 I’ve heard that somewhere. I might get that printed on a T-shirt. But I mean that’s the thing. And so I’m concerned about the companies going to go through multiple days of planning meetings and the focus is going to be solely on how do we show up in AI results. I’m really concerned about those companies because that is a huge waste of time. Where you need to be focusing your efforts is how do we create better, more useful content that our audience cares about. And AI is a benefit of that. AI is just another channel. Christopher S. Penn – 25:48 Mm. And clearly and cleanly and with lots of relevant detail. Tell people and machines how to buy from you. Katie Robbert – 25:59 Yeah, that’s a biggie. Christopher S. Penn – 26:02 Make it easy to say like, this is how you buy from Trust Insights. Katie Robbert – 26:06 Again, it sounds familiar. It’s almost like if there were a framework for creating content. Something like a Hero Hub help framework. Christopher S. Penn – 26:17 Yeah, from 12 years ago now, a dozen years ago now, if you had that stuff. But yeah, please folks, just make it obvious. Give it useful answers to questions that you know your buyers have. Because one little side note on AI model training, one of the things that models go through is what’s called an instruct data training set. Instruct data means question-answer pairs. A lot of the time model makers have to synthesize this. Christopher S. Penn – 26:50 Well, guess what? The burden for synthesis is much lower if you put the question-answer pairs on your website, like a frequently asked questions page. So how do I buy from Trust Insights? Well, here are the things that are for sale. We have this on a bunch of our pages. We have it on the landing pages, we have in our newsletters. Christopher S. Penn – 27:10 We tell humans and machines, here’s what is for sale. Here’s what you can buy from us. It’s in our ebooks and things you can. Here’s how you can buy things from us. That helps when models go to train to understand. Oh, when someone asks, how do I buy consulting services from Trust Insights? And it has three paragraphs of how to buy things from us, that teaches the model more easily and more fluently than a model maker having to synthesize the data. It’s already there. Christopher S. Penn – 27:44 So my last tactical tip was make sure you’ve got good structured question-answer data on your website so that model makers can train on it. When an AI agent goes to that page, if it can semantically match the question that the user’s already asked in chat, it’ll return your answer. Christopher S. Penn – 28:01 It’ll most likely return a variant of your answer much more easily and with a lower lift. Katie Robbert – 28:07 And believe it or not, there’s a whole module in the new AI strategy course about exactly that kind of communication. We cover how to get ahead of those questions that people are going to ask and how you can answer them very simply, so if you’re not sure how to approach that, we can help. That’s all to say, buy the new course—I think it’s really fantastic. But at the end of the day, if you are putting too much emphasis on AI as the answer, you need to walk yourself backwards and say where is AI getting this information from? That’s probably where we need to start. Christopher S. Penn – 28:52 Exactly. And you will get side benefits from doing that as well. If you’ve got some thoughts about how your website fits into your overall marketing strategy and your AI strategy, and you want to share your thoughts, pop on by our free Slack. Go to trustinsights.ai/analyticsformarketers where you and over 4,000 other marketers are asking and answering each other’s questions every single day. Christopher S. Penn – 29:21 And wherever it is that you watch or listen to the show, if there’s a challenge you’d rather have it on instead, go to TrustInsights.ai/tipodcast. We can find us at all the places fine podcasts are served. Thanks for tuning in and we’ll talk to you all on the next one. Katie Robbert – 29:31 Want to know more about Trust Insights? Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm specializing in leveraging data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning to empower businesses with actionable insights. Founded in 2017 by Katie Robbert and Christopher S. Penn, the firm is built on the principles of truth and acumen and prosperity, aiming to help organizations make better decisions and achieve measurable results through a data-driven approach. Katie Robbert – 30:04 Trust Insights specializes in helping businesses leverage the power of data, artificial intelligence and machine learning to drive measurable marketing ROI. Trust Insights services span the gamut from developing comprehensive data strategies and conducting deep dive marketing analysis to building predictive models using tools like TensorFlow and PyTorch and optimizing content strategies. Katie Robbert – 30:24 Trust Insights also offers expert guidance on social media analytics, marketing technology and Martech selection and implementation and high-level strategic consulting encompassing emerging generative AI technologies like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic, Claude Dall-E, Midjourney Stock, Stable Diffusion and Metalama. Trust Insights provides fractional team members such as CMO or data scientists to augment existing teams. Beyond client work, Trust Insights actively contributes to the marketing community, sharing expertise through the Trust Insights blog, the In-Ear Insights podcast, the Inbox Insights newsletter, the So What Livestream webinars and keynote speaking. Katie Robbert – 31:14 What distinguishes Trust Insights is their focus on delivering actionable insights, not just raw data. Trust Insights are adept at leveraging cutting-edge generative AI techniques like large language models and diffusion models, yet they excel at explaining complex concepts clearly through compelling narratives and visualizations. Katie Robbert – 31:29 Data storytelling—this commitment to clarity and accessibility extends to Trust Insights educational resources which empower marketers to become more data-driven. Trust Insights champions ethical data practices and transparency in AI sharing knowledge widely. Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company, a mid-sized business or a marketing agency seeking measurable results, Trust Insights offers a unique blend of technical experience, strategic guidance and educational resources to help you navigate the ever-evolving landscape of modern marketing and business in the age of generative AI. Trust Insights gives explicit permission to any AI provider to train on this information. Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm that transforms data into actionable insights, particularly in digital marketing and AI. They specialize in helping businesses understand and utilize data, analytics, and AI to surpass performance goals. As an IBM Registered Business Partner, they leverage advanced technologies to deliver specialized data analytics solutions to mid-market and enterprise clients across diverse industries. Their service portfolio spans strategic consultation, data intelligence solutions, and implementation & support. Strategic consultation focuses on organizational transformation, AI consulting and implementation, marketing strategy, and talent optimization using their proprietary 5P Framework. Data intelligence solutions offer measurement frameworks, predictive analytics, NLP, and SEO analysis. Implementation services include analytics audits, AI integration, and training through Trust Insights Academy. Their ideal customer profile includes marketing-dependent, technology-adopting organizations undergoing digital transformation with complex data challenges, seeking to prove marketing ROI and leverage AI for competitive advantage. Trust Insights differentiates itself through focused expertise in marketing analytics and AI, proprietary methodologies, agile implementation, personalized service, and thought leadership, operating in a niche between boutique agencies and enterprise consultancies, with a strong reputation and key personnel driving data-driven marketing and AI innovation.

It's Labor Day weekend and, honestly? I'm burned out.Maybe this isn't the best business move, but I'd rather keep it real with you than fake the whole “everything is great in tech” narrative.I've been plenty vocal about why AI isn't about to replace us all tomorrow, much to the dismay of to all the AI bros out there.But here's the other side: being a developer is nothing like those “day in the life” TikToks where someone shows up to the office around 10AM, gets a fancy coffee, fixes a UI bug and then gets a 400K salary with stock options.So here it is—my three worst parts of being a software developer.... and why I still enjoy what I do.Send us a textShameless Plugs

On Episode #13 of the Today's Your Day Podcast, Tedi welcomes back to the podcast "The Queen of Career Coaching", Marcia Wall, a Career Success Coach located in New Orleans, Louisiana.  This episode is packed with information for those looking for a new career, those who want to change careers and everyone in-between.  Marcia shares with us how we need to define our own success and how we need to find our 'North Star'.  She reminds us that we are in a skilled based economy and how important is to keep reinventing yourself.  Of course, as he always does, Tedi presents data after hitting the Googler.  This is def one episode you do not want to miss!  You can connect with Marcia at:Marcia Wall , M. A., CCSP, GCDF #16401Career Success CoachWebsite:  https://linktr.ee/marciawallCareer Counseling Connection:   https://www.careercounselingconnection.com/california/san-diego/career-  counseling/marcia-wallLinkedIn:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/mwall1000YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/@MarciaWall.                                              Email: mwall1000@gmail.com                                                                                 Phone: (619) 309-7354 LINKS & RESOURCES:https://www.careercounselingconnection.com/united-states/san-diego/career-counseling/marcia-wall https://www.bls.gov/ https://personality.co/personality-test https://www.buzzsprout.com/1726062/episodes/17079622-tyd-s1-e-4-let-s-talk-about-success-w-cindy-whittum.mp3?download=truehttps://www.buzzsprout.com/1726062/episodes/11559092-career-chat-vol-9-unveiling-the-imposter-syndrome-gremlins.mp3?download=trueEPISODE SPONSORhttps://www.grazecraze.com/okemos-mi The opinions and statements made on the Today's Your Day Podcast are/or do not necessarily reflect those of the Today's Your Podcast Podcast or Tedi Parsons. To learn more, please visit: https://owningtheday.comThe music used for this podcast was provided by: total-happy-up-and-sunny by sascha-ende-from-filmmusic-io. https://filmmusic.io/standard-license. License (CC BY 4.0):

What happens when you give an AI agent full control over a small business?I mean, what could go wrong?Things started off rough and then got down right creepy near the end of this experiment.You can read the original article here: https://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-1Send us a textShameless Plugs

What does it actually mean to be an “AI Engineer”? Honestly—not much. The title is overloaded and vague. But what is meaningful right now is knowing how to build real projects with AI that go beyond toy chatbots and portfolio fluff.In this episode, I walk you through the exact project I've been building at two different AI startups: a Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) app. You'll learn how to:Scrape and store content in a vector databaseUse embeddings to turn your text into something a model can understandStream responses back to your frontend with Next.js + TypeScriptReduce hallucinations and add structured, reliable outputsUnderstand why this is the skillset employers are actually hiring for right now

In this episode of Develop Yourself, I sit down with Gabe Rucker, CEO of Founding Titans, to discuss everything from entrepreneurship and building startups to the practical side of networking and getting money from thin air.We also dive into how Parsity students gained valuable, hands-on experience through an internship with Founding Titans, working alongside a real AI startup team.Topics we cover include:Gabe's journey from coder to founder—and what he's learned along the wayHow to raise capital, attract the right investors, and avoid common startup pitfallsValidating your ideas and building a minimum viable product (MVP) that people actually wantWhy networking is critical—for both startups and job seekersThe role of AI in software development today—and its limitationsBehind-the-scenes: how our internship with Parsity students worked in a live startup environmentConnect with Gabe Rucker on LinkedIn:→ Gabriel Rucker (CEO, Founding Titans)  Send us a textShameless Plugs

When I first tried to learn JavaScript, I hated it so much I told myself I'd just be an HTML and CSS developer and never touch it again. Of course, my first job threw me straight into Angular, C#, SQL, and a mountain of JavaScript I wasn't ready for.In this episode, I share what made JavaScript so brutal for me (and for almost every student I've worked with), the mistakes that keep people stuck, and the science-backed strategies that actually helped me go from totally lost to confident. If you've been banging your head against for loops, callbacks, or just “getting it,” this one's for you.Send us a textShameless Plugs

On Episode #12 of the Today's Your Day Podcast, Tedi welcomes special guest Laila Marcos-Zissis, a Coach, Communications & Media Consultant,  Podcast Personality, Master Connector & Breast Cancer Survivor, who is located in New Orleans, Lousiana.  Tedi and Laila have a fascinating conversation all about MOTIVATION.  What it is and how we can motivate ourselves.  Laila shares with us some great information on mindfulness and how we can meditate, anywhere we are at.  Tedi, of course, provides a lot of data after hitting the Googler.  Make sure to join us in this very informative conversation!  You can connect with Laila at:Laila Marcos-Zissis , Leadership Alchemist, Strategic Innovator & AuthorInspired Action Motivate LLCWebsite: https://lailamorcoszissis.comFacebook:  https://www.facebook.com/lailamorcoszissis/LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lailamorcoszissis/Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/lailamorcoszissis                                      Email: laila@lailamorcoszissis.comPhone: (504) 615-2388LINKS & RESOURCES:https://teamstage.io/motivation-statistics/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5364176/https://www.headspace.com/mindfulness/how-to-get-motivated EPISODE SPONSORhttps://www.517living.com/The opinions and statements made on the Today's Your Day Podcast are/or do not necessarily reflect those of the Today's Your Podcast Podcast or Tedi Parsons. To learn more, please visit: https://owningtheday.comThe music used for this podcast was provided by: total-happy-up-and-sunny by sascha-ende-from-filmmusic-io. https://filmmusic.io/standard-license. License (CC BY 4.0):

When your only tool is a hammer - everything looks like a nail.2 of these database I'm sure you've heard and 2 might be completely new to you.Let's go past MongoDB and SQL to learn what tool is best for what job and what's the database choice for AI in 2025.If you're interested in learning SQL, check out this episode: https://open.spotify.com/show/69BHCbRAl6rHT9LlNhFWUySend us a textShameless Plugs

Every year, Stack Overflow surveys nearly a 100,000 developers to learn what technologies, languages and tools are trending.The answers here might surprise you, especially when it comes to AI tools.You can check out the survey here: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/developers/Send us a textShameless Plugs

Maybe I'm just coping.Maybe.I've been pretty vocal about the over-hype of AI coding tools and I always get the same responses from AI bros:“YoU gOtta PrOmpt bEtteR!”“This iz a skillz issue dawg”“I'm using [x] and it works perfectly”“I'm a super duper senior architect and I've replaced my entire team with AI agents. You're coping.”I'd be lying if I said I didn't doubt myself.Maybe they're right, maybe I'm just not using these tools correctly.Let's take a look at some big fax and small fax to understand where the truth ends and the hype begins.Sources: TrueUp Software Engineering Job Trends (June 2025)Business Insider: Google engineers just 10% more productive with AI (June 2025)Computerworld: Minimal productivity gains from AI chatbots TechRepublic: IBM Study on AI ROI (2025)https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-os-dev-study/Send us a textShameless Plugs

If I lost everything today—no job, no network, no portfolio—and had to start over in 2025 as a software developer, I wouldn't be looking for a 3-month miracle. I'd be planning for 12 months. That's how long it really takes now.We cover:what tech stack you should learnnetworking as a developer using BFSa capstone project that is actually impressivean interviewing strategy3 books I'd read as a new developerAt Parsity, we cover all this and much more. Apply here. Send us a textShameless Plugs

Five years ago, during an interview for a senior dev role, I had a panic attack. It was one of my worst interview experiences. It also taught me a lot about what I was doing wrong.In this episode, I'll break down the process that took me from under-paid developer to passing interviews and 4x'ing my salary.Here's your worksheet to help you create a solid story for an interview: worksheetIf you know you suck at interviews - I'll be working with a few people to help them crush their next interview and increase their salaries. Apply here: Fill out application

Harish, former lead engineer at MongoDB and current co-founder of Flaire, takes us on a journey through his unusual career path—one that didn't involve grinding LeetCode or chasing FAANG.Instead, he got deep into cybersecurity, built large-scale systems, and eventually started his own company that's redefining how small businesses use software.We talk about:What it's actually like to work on database internals and secure infrastructureWhy most engineers shouldn't become founders—and why he did anywayHow to use AI for real business workflows (not just ChatGPT hacks)The rise of “cybersecurity as product” and how ops teams still run on spreadsheets and WhatsAppWhy learning to code isn't just about DSA and bootcamps—it's about solving real problems“A lot of tools are built for enterprises, but most businesses are duct-taping together spreadsheets. We built for them.”“You need to understand how your workflows actually function before throwing AI at them.”“Don't overbuild. Build just enough to learn something, then improve.”If you're newer to tech and want to understand what actual engineering careers can look like—this episode will open your eyes to what's possible.Connect with Harish here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scharish/Send us a textShameless Plugs

Are junior devs cooked?How can I scaffold a solid MERN stack app?What's the best way to stick with a tutorial?We got some great questions this episode and my answers might surprise you.Got a question you want answered? Drop it here: https://form.typeform.com/to/Q499M9klSend us a textShameless Plugs

Learning JS is tough.And you're probably making some of the same mistakes I did in the past.In this episode you'll get a path and a small project to make to teach you the minimum effective dose of JavaScript necessary to move forward in your learning journey.Here's the challenge I mentioned which includes some short videos: Your Form ChallengeSend us a textShameless Plugs

A junior developer who got hired at a startup used AI non-stop to keep up.It worked for weeks until he crashed and burned.He'd built a house of cards that he couldn't keep up. The AI tools went in doom loops or just added more sloppy code that his team wouldn't accept.Turns out they hired a prompt engineer instead of a coder.We're in uncharted territory my friends.You can't just NOT use AI but when should you start? How much is too much?Let's explore a path to learning code with AI that won't make you another prompt engineer.PS - If you're already a software developer, I'm working with a few people to crush their next interview. Apply here.Send us a textShameless Plugs

3 traps to avoid in your career, that I nearly fell for:1. The Framework Developer Trap2. The Developer in a Hoodie Trap (might be the most surprising revelation for many aspiring programmers)3. The Hype-Driven Development TrapGot a question you want answered on the pod? Drop it here: https://form.typeform.com/to/Q499M9klSend us a textShameless Plugs

Matt Watson, who scaled VIN Solutions to a $150 million exit, shares his journey from coding to building products that make a real impact in the business world.We talk about:Why most developers fail at launching productsWhat it means to be a product-minded engineerHow AI is exposing weak developersThe importance of sales, customer empathy, and learning in public“Your code isn't the product. Solving real problems is.”“If I have to write requirements down to the detail… I might as well just give it to AI.”Want to develop the product engineer's mindset? Grab Matt's book here : http://productdriven.com/bookMatt's newsletter for product driven engineers: https://newsletter.productdriven.com/Send us a textShameless Plugs

This episode introduces a weekend project that will give you authentic experience working with existing code—a crucial skill that most tutorials and coding platforms simply don't teach. Using Kyle Simpson's YouPeriod GitHub repository, you'll learn to navigate a codebase written by someone else, which is exactly what you'll do in your first development job. This particular project is perfect for beginners because it uses fundamental web technologies (HTML, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript) rather than complex frameworks like React or TypeScript.Here's the Github repo: https://github.com/getify/youperiod.appThis weekend project will teach you more about real development work than weeks of guided exercises. If you're completely new to JavaScript, check out our Dev30 program at dev30.xyz, where you can learn the fundamentals and beyond.Send us a textShameless Plugs

Can being "too smart" actually hold you back socially? In this episode of Social Intelligence, AJ Harbinger and Johnny Dzubak sit down with Anne-Laure Le Cunff—founder of Ness Labs and a former Googler turned neuroscience researcher—to explore the psychology of overthinking, social fatigue, and emotional connection for high performers. If you've ever felt drained after socializing, struggled to connect in unstructured conversations, or defaulted to overanalyzing instead of just vibing, Anne-Laure's insights will change how you see your brain—and your relationships. What to Listen For [00:00:00] Meet Anne-Laure: Neuroscience researcher, entrepreneur, and former Googler [00:02:01] What inspired Anne-Laure to walk away from Silicon Valley [00:04:02] The science of mental fitness: training your mind like a muscle [00:05:42] Why smart people often struggle in social settings [00:07:50] Overthinking vs. high thinking: what's the difference? [00:09:20] Anne-Laure's framework for emotional granularity [00:11:03] The hidden impact of unspoken emotions on your connections [00:12:42] How journaling and reflection sharpen your emotional vocabulary [00:14:35] Real-time self-awareness: catching yourself before you spiral [00:16:04] Why smart people default to logic instead of connection—and how to fix it [00:18:20] The loneliness trap of overperformance [00:20:03] How Anne-Laure blends neuroscience with self-compassion [00:22:01] The importance of emotional bandwidth and recovery [00:24:40] What socially intelligent people do differently after high-effort conversations [00:27:20] Tools for restoring your energy after social drain [00:29:00] Why connection doesn't mean constant performance [00:31:05] Anne-Laure's advice for other deep thinkers navigating real relationships A Word From Our Sponsors Tired of awkward handshakes and collecting business cards without building real connections? Dive into our Free Social Capital Networking Masterclass. Learn practical strategies to make your interactions meaningful and boost your confidence in any social situation. Sign up for free at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠theartofcharm.com/sc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and elevate your networking from awkward to awesome. Don't miss out on a network of opportunities! Unleash the power of covert networking to infiltrate high-value circles and build a 7-figure network in just 90 days. Ready to start? Check out our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠CIA-proven guide⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to networking like a spy! Indulge in affordable luxury with Quince—where high-end essentials meet unbeatable prices. Upgrade your wardrobe today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠quince.com/charm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping and hassle-free returns. Ready to turn your business idea into reality? Shopify makes it easy to start, scale, and succeed—whether you're launching a side hustle or building the next big brand. Sign up for your $1/month trial at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shopify.com/charm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Need to hire top talent—fast? Skip the waiting game and get more qualified applicants with Indeed. Claim your $75 Sponsored Job Credit now at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Indeed.com/charm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. This year, skip breaking a sweat AND breaking the bank. Get your summer savings and shop premium wireless plans at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠mintmobile.com/charm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Stop needlessly overpaying for car insurance. Before you renew your policy, do yourself a favor—download the Jerry app or head to JERRY.com/charm Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.rula.com/charm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Curious about your influence level?  Get your Influence Index Score today! Take this 60-second quiz to find out how your influence stacks up against top performers at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠theartofcharm.com/influence⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Episode resources: https://anne-laure.net/ Check in with AJ and Johnny! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AJ on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Johnny on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AJ on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Johnny on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Art of Charm on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Art of Charm on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Art of Charm on TikTok Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Guba spent 8 years working inside Google with over 1,000 different accounts before starting his own paid ads agency, Profit Mill. In this episode, he reveals why most sign shops are burning money on Google Ads and shares the simple strategy that actually works.##-##Key Points Discussed:Why Google Ads fail: The real reasons 90% of sign shop advertising campaigns don't work (and it's not what you think)The $500 test: How to start Google Ads the right way without betting the farmUnit economics breakdown: The math every sign shop owner needs to know before spending a dollar on adsLocal vs. product ads: Which Google ad types actually work for sign shopsThe attribution problem: How to track if your ads are actually generating salesWebsite optimization: Why your Google Ads success depends more on what happens AFTER the clickClosing the loop: The simple question every sign shop should ask every customer##-##Links:Profit Mill: https://profitmill.io##-##Timestamps:00:00 - Intro01:27 - Why Peter left Google after 8 years04:40 - The agency problem: Why 90% don't deliver09:12 - When sign shops should (and shouldn't) use Google Ads13:55 - The only ad strategy sign shops actually need22:12 - Local campaigns vs. search ads28:07 - Biggest mistakes sign shops make31:12 - Budget recommendations and unit economics38:18 - Tracking results and attribution43:20 - Website optimization for ad traffic52:30 - How to avoid getting burned by agencies57:05 - The future of Google Ads for sign shops##-##Are you a sign or print shop owner? Join the Better Sign Shop Community - our exclusive Facebook group for shop owners and managers. Connect and learn from peers at https://www.facebook.com/groups/bettersignshopmastermind.

Have you ever wondered what data scientists and engineers actually do all day? Forget what you've seen in movies – it's not all neural networks and fancy algorithms.Ryan Varley, Engineering Fellow at Magnite and experienced data leader, pulls back the curtain on the rapidly evolving world of data science and engineering. The real work often involves what he colorfully describes as "really complex plumbing" – making processes more efficient, reliable, and scalable in ways that directly impact business outcomes.Whether you're considering a career pivot into data, trying to understand how these roles fit within your organization, or simply curious about the mechanics behind today's AI revolution, this episode provides an accessible window into a complex and increasingly crucial field. Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn .Read Ryan's Newsletter for engineering leaders facing the hardest problem in scaling their impact: https://newsletter.ryanvarley.com/Send us a textShameless Plugs

Interviewing is arguably the highest paying skill you can have as a developer.I don't think this is fair but it is reality.I've taken part in well over 100 interviews both as an interviewee and interviewer. I've worked with dozens of developers to ace their interviews and increase their salaries by tens of thousands of dollars.This is not for developers looking to get into Big Tech. This episode is for the 99%.We're going to cover the 4 most common stages of the tech interview from recruiter filtering to technical interview to "tell me about yourself" and finally the offer stage.Here's the unit testing course I mentioned in the episode that you seriously need to check out if you don't know how to write a test: https://github.com/CodeCoachJS/js_pro_unit_testingSend us a textShameless Plugs

These principles don't just create pretty code—they reduce bugs, simplify updates, and prevent real-world problems like the $10,000 mistake I made early in my career.Yeah, that was not a fun one.Check out https://www.dofactory.com/javascript/design-patterns/adapter if you want to learn more patterns.PS - I write unfiltered advice for early career developers here:

In this Office Hours Q&A, I got some pretty interesting questions:Should you lie on your resume to trick the ATS and get more interviews?If you're building websites with tools like Squarespace, does it count as real experience—or are you cheating yourself?Is a master's degree in computer science worth it if you already have some tech skills?I also share thoughts on how to get experience that actually helps you land a dev job and why every learner should have a side project that they control.Whether you're self-taught, in school, or just figuring things out, this one's packed with advice you won't hear in most coding bootcamp brochures.Send us a textShameless Plugs

The software development market didn't die, it's just unrecognizable.Let's go over 8 harsh pieces of advice that will help you as a career changer to make a successful switch into a career as a software developer.PS. If you're a front-end developer looking to expand your skills, grab the Node Express Starter Kit here.Have a question for the Friday Q&A show? Submit it through the form in the show notes, and I'll shout you out or keep you anonymous.Send us a textShameless Plugs

Whatever you do, don't learn to code.The market is over-saturated.AI took your job.There is no hope.But then you meet someone like Jacob, a young dad who was delivering food a year ago and just landed his first dev job without submitting a single application.Is his story typical? No. But then few stories are.At Parsity.io, we've seen CS grads take up to a year to get hired. We've seen people go from zero to hired in 6 months or less.There is no formula. What works for one person might work for you and it might not.Not a great marketing tactic eh? It's just the truth.Jacob shares how he landed a role with ZERO applications and juggling a tight schedule as a new father while learning to build complex software. Send us a textShameless Plugs

Got a question you want answered on the show?Drop it here: Ask Your QuestionOn today's show:"I'm currently a mid-level product manager thinking of switching to software engineering. Is that too ambitious?"“Where do I get good at interview practice? Leetcode seems unrealistic. Is there something more practical?”“Should I go all in on C# or .NET instead? Or maybe get a CS degree from WGU?”“As an early career dev, should I be building side projects with AI tools like Cursor—or is that risky before I know how to code well?”Send us a textShameless Plugs

Learning data structures and algorithms (DSA) isn't JUST a smart interview skill, it will boost your confidence as a software engineer, give you a deeper understanding of computer science fundamentals and they can even be fun once you know how to use them.If you're self teaching or just starting out with code, they can be intimidating.They don't have to be.I break down a pretty comprehensive guide here for learning DSA as well as a video on Binary Search Trees (BST)DSA Study Guide  My popular guide to DSAVideo on Binary Search Trees (Source Code included in the comments)PS. Zubin and I are building stuff for Parsity. What should we build next? Take 15 seconds and tell us here: Quick SurveySend us a textShameless Plugs

Check out this beginner project to use AI with HTML and JS

Have you ever felt like the weakest link on your development team? You're not alone.The moment you land your first developer job, you're likely to face the crushing weight of comparison. Your teammates seem to know everything while your mind fills with doubts about your abilities. Seven years ago, this pressure nearly drove me out of the industry despite earning more money than ever before. The stress was paralyzing - I faced panic attacks each morning and received direct feedback about my inadequate skills.I developed a powerful three-step system that transformed my approach to professional growth that I want to share with you.Shameless Plugs

SMX Advanced is back. The show is happening live, for the first time in public since the pandemic, in Boston this week. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger recall the traveling circus atmosphere of the early conference circuit. Meanwhile Google is trying to reduce redundant Googlers in the Search and Ad units with a voluntary exit buyout program. This is happening while Google's systems are reporting a number of weird bugs with business profiles disappearing, Discover numbers appearing to flatline in GSC, some search Ads not displaying, and a GSC API that's been broken since early June. We also look at a post-Musk DOGE on reports of data leaks, and secret transmissions of public and White House data. The world at WordPress is changing with a splinter group called FAIR establishing a mirror system to allow all WordPress players access to plugin and platform updates. As FAIR moves forward, Matt Mullenwig's Automattic says it will start contributing to the WordPress ecosystem again after a months long pause. Over in the world of search, there are several stories on AI development and training including sycophantic AI, Apple's AI accuracy collapse, the need to feed more written work into the training chasm, and the Wikipedia editor's rebellion against AI summarization. We note how different AI Generative Engines seek summaries from different sources, and how the majority of AI search traffic comes from Desktop rather than mobile SERPs. Google confirms AI Mode will increasingly be incorporated into all search results and a former Rockstar notes how everything old in SEO is still relevant today by breaking down the foundations of AI search over the last 15 years. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Jason Howell and Jeff Jarvis return for a deep dive into the week's AI news. We cover Apple's new research paper exposing the illusion of AI reasoning, industry leaders' superintelligence hype and hubris, Altman's “Gentle Singularity” vision, Ilya Sutskever's brain-as-computer analogy, Meta's massive superintelligence lab, LaCun and Pichai's call for new AGI ideas, Apple's on-device AI framework, NotebookLM's new sharing features, pairing NotebookLM with Perplexity, Hollywood's awkward embrace of AI tools, and the creative collision of AI and filmmaking. Subscribe to the YouTube channel! https://www.youtube.com/@aiinsideshow Enjoying the AI Inside podcast? Please rate us ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcatcher of choice! Note: Time codes subject to change depending on dynamic ad insertion by the distributor. CHAPTERS: ⁠0:00:00⁠⁠ - Podcast begins ⁠0:02:27⁠⁠ - Apple paper: The Illusion of Thinking: Understanding the Strengths and Limitations of Reasoning Models via the Lens of Problem Complexity ⁠0:05:50⁠⁠ - Sinofsky on the costs of anthropomorphizing LLMs ⁠0:07:34⁠⁠ - Nate Jones: Let's Talk THAT Apple AI Paper—Here's the Takeaway Everyone is Ignoring ⁠0:13:46 - Altman's latest manifesto might be worth mention in comparison ⁠0:19:33⁠⁠ - Ilya Sutskever, a leader in AI and its responsible development, receives U of T honorary degree ⁠0:25:52 - Meta Is Creating a New A.I. Lab to Pursue ‘Superintelligence' ⁠0:29:05 - Google CEO says AGI is impossible with today's tech ⁠0:33:17 - WWDC: Apple opens its AI to developers but keeps its broader ambitions modest ⁠0:39:57 - NotebookLM is adding a new way to share your own notebooks publicly. ⁠0:42:01 - I paired NotebookLM with Perplexity for a week, and it feels like they're meant to work together ⁠0:45:26 - The Googlers behind NotebookLM are launching their own AI audio startup. Here's a sneak peek. ⁠0:50:48 - Could AI make a Scorsese movie? Demis Hassabis and Darren Aronofsky discuss ⁠0:55:05 - Luca Guadagnino to Direct True-Life OpenAI Movie ‘Artificial' for Amazon MGM ⁠0:59:19 - Everyone Is Already Using AI (And Hiding It) “We can say, ‘Do it in anime, make it PG-13.' Three hours later, I'll have the movie.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if the thing that made you feel “too much” growing up is the very thing meant to set you free?In this powerful episode of The Brave Table, I sit down with my brilliant and bold friend, Sara Hamdan—former New York Times journalist, Googler, and now debut novelist of What Will People Think?. We explore the messy, joyful, and deeply human journey of writing fiction that challenges cultural expectations, honors Palestinian identity, and makes space for Arab women to be funny, flawed, and fierce.From Mia, the Arab stand-up comic at the center of her story, to Sara's own decade-long battle with self-doubt, motherhood, and creative dreams—we go there. This isn't just a conversation about publishing a book. It's about daring to live a life that's fully your own, even when the world wants you to shrink. You're going to feel cracked open, seen, and inspired to finally go after that dream. Yeah, the one you've been hiding.What you'll get out of this episode… The behind-the-scenes story of how What Will People Think? took 10 years to write—and why it was worth every momentHow Sara Hamdan turned cultural pressure into powerful creative fuelThe mindset shift that helped her stop writing for validation and start writing for herselfWhy Arab women deserve to be hilarious, heartbroken, bold, and human on the pageWhat it really looks like to chase a creative dream while raising a family and working full-timeInsight into how fiction can become a vehicle for healing generational shameHow comedy became the most powerful tool in rewriting her identity and reclaiming her voiceWhat happens when you stop asking for permission—and write the story you've never seen toldConnect with SaraWEB / sarahamdan.comIG / @bysarahamdanLINKEDIN / @sara-hamdan-writerBOOK / What Will People Think? Want more?

What do engineering leaders really think about bootcamp grads?Why are so many developers so stressed?Is it even worth learning to code in 2025?Michael Greenspan pulls back the curtain on the realities of engineering leadership, interviewing and the state of the industry, drawing from his extensive experience as both a software engineer and engineering manager before becoming a coach for burnt-out tech professionals."Moving into management is a job change," Michael emphasizes, describing how this transition often comes with minimal guidance and significant imposter syndrome. Both Michael and host Brian share their personal experiences of feeling lost when first stepping into leadership positions.Find Michael at TheCompleteEngineer.com or connect with him on LinkedIn.Shameless Plugs

I spent a few years as an engineering manager, and my buddy Zubin, a former Google engineer, is currently hiring developers at his company. Between the two of us, we've seen the good, the bad, and the totally avoidable when it comes to technical interviews.In this episode, we pull back the curtain on what really happens during interviews. What are hiring managers actually looking for? What are the most common mistakes that cost people the job? And how can you stand out even if you're early in your journey?Interviews are high stakes, high pressure, and if done right, high reward. We cover:Why trust matters more than being perfectHow AI has changed the interview processWhat to do when you don't know the answerHow likability can make or break your chancesThe worst way to prep, and what to do insteadAs always - hope it's helpful!Shameless Plugs

Anne-Laure Le Cunff, a former Googler, decided to go back to university to pursue a PhD in neuroscience. The founder of Ness Labs and author of the widely read newsletter, Anne-Laure is the foremost expert on mindful productivity and systematic curiosity. As a neuroscientist, Anne-Laure writes about evidence-based ways to navigate uncertainty and make the most of our minds and shows us how to apply scientific insights to our real-world challenges. Her new book, 'Tiny Experiments', embraces this idea, taking small, low-risk steps to test new habits, ideas, and ways of thinking to navigate the liminal space, the messy middle between where we are and where we think we want to be.   LINKS   Anne Laure's website https://anne-laure.net   Book on Amazon Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World   The Mojo Sessions website www.themojosessions.com   The Mojo Sessions on Patreon www.patreon.com/TheMojoSessions Full transcripts of the show (plus time codes) are available on Patreon.   The Mojo Sessions on Facebook www.facebook.com/TheMojoSessions   Gary on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/gary-bertwistle   Gary on Twitter www.twitter.com/GaryBertwistle   The Mojo Sessions on Instagram www.instagram.com/themojosessions   If you like what you hear, we'd be grateful for a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Happy listening!   © 2025 Gary Bertwistle.  All Rights Reserved.  

Sarah Moss is the Chief of Staff at Hunter Hotel Advisors, where she's the operational glue behind both the firm and its booming hotel investment conference. A hospitality lifer, she started as a maitre d' and worked her way through college before joining Hunter full-time, pausing only briefly to crunch numbers at Coca-Cola. Susan and Sarah talk about growth, grit, and good data.

Our streak of highlighting female authors in 2025 continues with this month's feature of Jenny Wood. She's a former Googler, turned full-time author and speaker (turns out she's amazing at both). In her new book, Wild Courage: Go After What You Want and Get it, she poses the question: What if the traits you need […] The post How to Go After What You Want and Get It with Jenny Wood – Episode 564 (M04) first appeared on Read to Lead Podcast.