Supper Club × How To Get Your First Dev Job With Stuart Bloxham

Welcome to Syntax, the podcast with the tastiest web development treats out there. We've got a good one for you today.

This is someone who just messaged me on Instagram, Stuart Blocksum, and he said, hey. I just got a job, and I owe part of it to syntax, which is incredibly flattering, and it's kind of cool story. We'll we'll talk about that. But What I'm really interested here, and even if you're not looking for a job, I'm just curious, like, what does the job landscape look like? And a question we get all the time is like, at what point do I know that I'm I'm ready to apply for a job? And what types of jobs. How many do I need to apply for? There's all these questions.

And like the the landscape of getting a job is just is changing, especially the last 6 months or so. It's Not like there's not all these companies clamoring to pay 400 k to someone who went through a boot camp for In 2 weeks, you know, it's it's totally different. So, when Stewart said he just landed his 1st gig, after some Crazy life decisions, which I'm excited to talk about. I thought, like, oh, we got we got to have them on the podcast because this is super interesting. It's going to answer a lot of questions, both for people who are interested as well as like I know developers all the time have people come to them and say, Hey, I want to do what you do. Like, I love computers. I love technology. I love figuring out problems. I would like to become a developer.

What do I do? You know? And, we can talk about that all day long, but I'm sure Stewart has some some firsthand experience. So welcome. Thanks so much for coming on. Hi, Wace. Hi, Scott. Alright. So let's start, Stewart. Like, what was your background, before you decided coding? And and, like, how did you decide,

I wanna be a a web developer. How did you get into this position in the 1st place? Yeah. Okay. So it's quite a long story, but I'll try and keep it as short as possible.

I worked in a family business, which was in betting shops.

And, my he was working for my My my dad, and he sold the business, and I had to move on to to find something else. So I decided that Probably the the quickest way to sort of make money to an extent was to get into sales because you can kind of just get Straight in, and and then the ropes as you go. So I I was doing sales for about 3 years, and I said I was gonna keep this short, but I basically, we went on holiday. We went to we went to Thailand, and it was The best holiday ever, and it was beautiful. Like, the weather was unreal.

And we flew back, and The weather England always rains, but this weather was just continuous rain for 2, 3 weeks.

And I was working and slogging away, and a a moment just struck me. I was like, alright. That's I'm not I can't be doing this. I need to be able to Find a job that I can do anywhere in the world so I can go back to Thailand.

A little bit, what's the word? You know? A bit bit optimistic, but I, I decided to have a look at what I could do, discovered coding, and, Yeah. I mean, that's that's kind of where it started. I I I found I Googled, basically, ways to sort of make a living online, And coding was the first thing that struck me.

Kind of just got involved with with watching videos, doing some Basic HTML and CSS, and it just went from there. And, I mean, at that time, when I was doing a state agency, which was The sales job, I, I I wanted a way of learning while I was working. And, obviously, being an estate agent, You do a lot of driving, so that's where I discovered, like, syntax, basically.

So that was a good 5 years ago.

So, yeah, long time listener of the show, and, can't still listening. Just it's that's what kind of got me involved. I just I was just able to carry on learning from from listening to the show and Kind of just take in as much information as possible wherever possible, even if I was working. So yeah. That's I I love hearing that because

Sometimes I feel that way. It's like I don't have time to specifically dedicate myself to sitting down and learning a skill, but There are ways that you can be passively learning things. And sometimes I even find myself, like, catching myself scrolling TikTok too long, And I realized like, oh, man, you know what? Like, if I'm doing this for half an hour, maybe it's better to be researching and watching a YouTube video or something. Like, I can't go Build something or or learn a new piece of tech right now, but I can sort of passively feed myself information about it. So It gets and I remember when I was first getting into it as well. It's like I was just trying to figure out, like I remember, like, reading articles on my phone when I had, like, minutes waiting for the bus or something like that and just squeezing it in here and there. And obviously, our podcast is a interesting way to do that. Definitely.

Kind of an aside thing. I also love having Brits on the podcast because I look I get to learn about new fun words like bedding shop, Which I, I just looked up, which is like a place where you you place bets on sports and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's quite big in in the UK, the betting shops Seem.

Yeah. Oh, I like that. To give everyone, like, a bit of a context, for where you are in life, I don't know if you you mind sharing, Like, how old you are, and, I think you told me you have a a baby in a house. Yeah.

So I'm 35.

We've got a 2 year old, and, we bought the house 2 years ago. So when we had When we bought the house, we had the baby and yeah. I I mean, I was at the time, when we bought the house and had the baby, I was working Again, it's kind of going back to the story, but it's I was working in construction when we bought the house, and the reason I took the construction job was so that I could buy myself more time to learn coding.

So I got out of sales because it was it just took up all my time, and then I Did construction, which was useful because we bought a house that needed renovating.

So, I learned a lot, and I I put it into practice, but It was hard. I'm not gonna lie. It was really hard. I've the construction job, it ended up I got promoted within the company, And the just the time that was taken up, I was we were getting jobs in West London.

So from where I am, that can take 2 and a half to 3 hours in the morning, and evening. So I was driving five 6 hours a day.

And, yeah, I I just couldn't fit in the coding. It was it was too much. I was leaving at 5 o'clock in the morning, and then I was coming back at at 8 o'clock. Not every day, but I'd say 3 to 4 days a week, I was doing that. So

pretty brutal. Yeah. Oh, nothing like a a soul crushing commute and having a baby

To really kick your ass out of gear. And I decided to pull up our old flooring as well in our house.

Yeah. Right. So Okay. That's a personal project on top of that. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And it's something that I had to commit to because I had already pulled the fuel box up. So Yeah. It's,

I've been looking at a a a pulling out ripping out the carpet in 1 room, and I keep looking at it as that step. Like, well, once I rip out the carpet, I'm committed to finishing this project. So I have I was just, like, waiting to do that. Yeah. It's a can of worms. Can of worms. Yeah. I was gonna say that, like, when I when I had my first child, You know, I suddenly, a lot of the things in my career didn't make sense.

Was there, like, a moment at that like, when the child was born where you're all of a sudden, like, dang. I need to, I need to think about some things here. Yeah. Definitely. I mean,

I it was It was a crossroads for me, really, because I was doing quite well in construction. I got on really well with the boss, and, It was I I was earning quite good money as well. So if I went into web development, I knew that I'd have Start at a lower salary.

And, obviously, with the mortgage, with the baby, all of that, I thought that's gonna be quite risky. But At the end of the day, I looked at the long term benefit of doing it, and I just felt that It's just something I need to commit to. I spoke to my other half, Hayley, and, she knew how much I wanted to do it and how much much I had already committed to it before, you know, before everything. So it it was a tricky Tricky situation, but having the baby was kind of yeah. I'd say, like, Just going back to what you say, like, it was kind of the turning point. It did make me realize I need to sort my life out. I need to get a career going and Have something that I'm I'm I'm happy doing

rather than slogging away. Mhmm. Yeah. It could do that.

Yeah. I quit my my job the week of my my child's birth because it was just like, oh, shoot. I'm not doing the right things here. I gotta

Can I switch it up? Yeah. Yeah. I I quit when my daughter was 1, I think.

It was yeah. When she just turned 1. So, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's,

it's hard. It was a hard time, but it's good. It was good. So you ended up getting a job. That's what you said. You you are starting on Monday, which is 4 or 5 days from now, which is is awesome.

So congratulations on that. Do you wanna tell the story about the the interview? What was that like? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it it was quite a smooth process, actually.

Easier than others that I had gone through.

The the the initial call was with the in house recruiter.

She was really nice.

She sort of passed on as much information as was required of me to to know before going to the interview.

And then the initial chat with the the hiring manager, was about just getting to know me, about how I learn, what I'm interested in, and and I had been learning Next. Js and react. And but this job doesn't involve any react. So, it was A question from him to say, you know, is this right for you? Obviously, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, I Just wanna get into the industry, but I know I said to him in in the conversation, I said, although I really enjoy working with Next. Js, I kind of know the importance of getting the foundations of learning JavaScript, and The rest of it, getting those under my belt is more important than carrying on with the framework that I've kind of just loosely started learning. So The next step to that interview process was, it was kind of a technical, but it wasn't a technical.

It was they They basically had some I had to prepare 3 things. So the first thing was to, show them how I organize my day, how I organize projects, and, just how how I structure everything.

So I just had, Trello. I use Trello quite often. So I use that to show them where I do things, and then I use Notion for my note taking. So I showed them that. And then They wanted me to show 2 examples of, where I've come across a problem and overcome them.

And, yeah, I basically showed them one example was a CSS example, which was basically A website that I built had, like, a before and after section, and I wanted to add a, an image slider to show the before and after, over cropping over the top of each other.

So I said in the interview, obviously, I I rather than pulling in a plug in or whatever, I decided to code it myself.

So I went through the code on that using, like, CSS clip path and Bits and pieces, so that was really good. I he was happy with that. And then the JavaScript one, it was But I probably a little bit too complex to sort of talk too much about, but I it was basically interacting with an API, an e commerce API and how I iterated over a load of metadata to show Different, data to the users.

So it was kinda just showing the complexity behind that. When you said there was, like, some aspects. Like, what what were the the like, was it just inside of the like, what were these problem solving aspects you did, or did they have you write any code for them

in real time because I've encountered that a a number of times. Yeah. No. That's the weird thing about this this actual interview. He he said to me, even after the 1st interview, he said, there isn't a real technical interview, which really threw me.

He said because I've looked into your code, and I have all my code, obviously, on GitHub and everything.

And he said Nice. Yeah. I can see that you can code. I can see that, you know, the quality of your work.

So he kinda I think there's an element of trust there that I haven't just forked someone else's projects or, or something like that. But, yeah, it was pretty relaxed, and, obviously, it was a really nice surprise.

I have had Quite a few technicals, and they're not fun.

Yeah. As I know you. Yeah. Maybe one thing's Yeah. Were were some of the other interviews

A little bit more, like, whiteboarding. Like, what were some of the really tricky ones that

you kinda went back and Home and goes, ugh. One tricky one was which it was actually a take home exercise. It was, so I had to It was a CRO developer job, which was which is, basically, like AB testing, that sort of thing.

And Okay. Yeah. So the the test was I had to inject code into, an Amazon product page. And on the mobile view, I had to show a call to action that popped up when the buy now button was off The screen or on the screen, and that call to action had to Oh, that's you you you update the quantity, and it had Had to update the quantity on the actual product when you added it to the basket.

So, basically, I mean, it was done using MutationObserver, which I hadn't ever used before, never worked with before. And, so I had to learn all of that and a load of other stuff.

Really tough. I I he said work on it for 3, 4 hours, which I thought was quite a long time for for a technical, but I Did it it took me longer than that because this was for a mid level role, but I was a junior developer. So, I it naturally took me longer.

And, yeah, I did it, sent it over, and, yeah, they would they they were happy with it, but I it was down to me and 1 other guy, and it me having no experience.

They got the job Because they had worked in the industry before doing AB testing, so it was really tricky.

It it's frustrating out there for people looking for jobs because you you you know, you think the companies are hiring all sorts of people, but it it's often like, You know, you get whittled down, and only 1 person can often get a job doing something. And even if 10 people apply for it, you know, 9 people didn't get it.

And it it's hard to take that that loss, but it it's, always good to, you know, keep on persevering And and pushing through, did you did you feel prepared going into this interview, or did you feel like it this role, the one that you got, not not this past one you're talking about, But the one that you got, did you feel prepared going into the into the interview, or did you feel, like, a little concerned that you were out of your depths? I'd say I was Prepared, really.

I mean, I because I quit my job in October, I've just dedicated all of my time to learning and, just taking in as much information as I can.

And because this interview process was, just, I suppose a bit easier, more conversational.

I was a bit more comfortable because I feel like I've ingested quite a lot of information over this time. And I with the technical interviews that I have done, bar 1 or 2, I had done pretty well, and that was the feedback when I got the feedback.

So Mhmm.

I I am confident in my skills. I've put a lot into learning JavaScript, and, it I would've been more than happy to do the test If he if he sent it if he sent 1, but he just didn't. So Mhmm.

Let's let's talk about, like like, what did you Learn. And I know you said you went to a boot camp for 9 weeks, but you're primarily self taught. Is that true?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So The background of that is basically I wanted to quit my job, but where I was so busy, I Didn't have the I didn't have the time to learn, but I also had to pick things up again. I I went back to coding after taking it was about a year break, And I went back, and I've forgotten so much so much information just writing a function and simple things that I was okay at before, and it really hit me hard. And I thought, oh, I'm gonna have to go through the whole process again, and I've got less time. So, that's where I decided to go for a boot camp so that they can condense everything. And you You have to turn up from 8 AM till 5 PM, and you're given the tasks to do for the day, and you're working with colleagues, you're speaking to the TAs. So, yeah, that that was kind of the main idea of that was so that I could get back into it and really pick things up quickly.

And Being that it was a full time boot camp, I had to quit my job.

So I saw it as kind of a bit of a push for me. I thought if I signed up to this, it's gonna help me get into the industry, but, also, it's gonna push me to work hard to To stick with the decision rather than where I've changed jobs in the past, to try and get into the industry myself, I kinda you get distracted by, you know, like, work situations, and you can fall off the rails. So Yeah. Have you kept in touch with anyone else that has

Done the boot camp because what we're seeing right now, at least from afar, is a lot of boot camps are either changing their business model entirely or Shutting down because the I think the gravy days of we need more developers is is sort of constricted now that budget Budgets are are cut and whatnot. Mhmm.

Have you kept in touch with anyone? Do you know how how they are doing? A lot of people ask me, like, is it still worth doing a boot camp? Obviously, it panned out for you, but I think there's a lot more work on your end than just going to a boot camp. Yeah. Personally, I I mean,

I have kept in touch with some people, but the people that I have kept in touch with are the ones that have Managed to get a get a job.

The, this I can see because I've I've as the boot camp finished, Everyone sent out their social media links and everything like that. So I've seen that there's a fair chunk of the People on the course that haven't got a new job, in web development, but some people are looking to get into Other things and just for personal development and things like that. But, I and also as well, I where I Finished the course. I was just networking, trying to contact people and see, you know, if I could get any help or just get any sort of, advice and things like that.

Some of the people I spoke to had done my course before in previous years, and They weren't too optimistic about sort of how how the result went, and they they they had to put a lot of the work in themselves.

Just just in, like, the job hunt, keeping it up and Anyone listening, this is not necessarily a question for you, but this is Just having talked to you for half an hour now, people always ask about, like, soft skills as a developer. And I can already Get a sense from you that you're you're proactive.

You're willing to take on new stuff. Like you sent me an Instagram and I was like, hey, want to come on the show? A lot of people would be like, oh, No. Like, it's kind of scary, you know, like and you it's not that like it's I think the personality type of being willing to Take on construction and try real estate and, be organized and and show that you okay. I use Trello to to organize this type of stuff. I think, like, that type of stuff is really going to go a long way.

Of course, you know how to code and you're probably good at this type of stuff, but I think those skills are also really important.

Do you agree with that? Yeah. I do.

I mean, I asked The feedback in interviews so all my interviews nearly, but, one of 1 of the fit bits of feedback or a few rather. A few bits of the feedback was that, like, I did have good soft skills, and that's something that you kind of It's harder to train someone with the soft skills and than it is to train someone to code. Like, they say anyone can code, Which I believe is true, but the soft skills is a little bit harder to to train someone up on if they're a junior developer. So, Yeah. That was a bit of feedback. I think it's really important that you you ask for feedback

from your interviews. You know, a lot of people, they they They submit their resume, and they either get a call and they show up and they do the tech stuff, whatever.

They talk it out. They present their case. End of the day, that's it. But, Like, there's really nothing that beats the personal aspect of showing that you care about what you do and and asking for feedback.

Yeah. Sure. It you still didn't get the job, so, you know, what's it gonna be if you you care or not to them? But Still, showing that you care is is really important, and it's an important thing in this this job hunt. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. It's,

It's the amount of time that you dedicate to the interview process as well. Like I say, with the the AB testing role that I interviewed for. Mhmm. I mean, I I did I the the the first stage, even before having the conversation, was a technical.

We add a take home document. Then the next stage was talk to the HR person.

The next stage was, talk to the line manager. Then another technical interview, which is a take home.

And then the last stage was, talk through the technical technical interview that I'd done at home And go through the technicalities of it. So that whole I mean, the 2 technicals that I did took me Nearly a day and a half, so, you know, it's quite a lot of investment.

And, luckily, they they did come back to me, but, I did have to chase the feedback on a couple just because I wanted to know. Wow. Yeah. That that's a ton of time. And how did you know

When you were able to start applying for jobs, that's that's a question we get through our potluck at least once a month is, like, at what point, Like, how do I know when I'm ready to start applying for jobs, and and which one should I be applying for? Yeah.

I think for me, it was once I had My portfolio. I once I built a portfolio and I had 2 or 3 projects I think I started applying when I had 3 projects on my portfolio, and I just built on that as the process went on. But One thing which I suppose is worth pointing out is when I finished my interviews, so, like, the technical interviews, Even if they're just a small technical challenge, they're usually quite unique. So I would take those home sort of thing, and I would Build them again, and I'll put them on my portfolio, just doing that. So I'd have my main portfolio, and then I'll have mini projects at the bottom Just to add to it. And that was kind of once I had that going, that's when I was happy to start sending my workout and Sending CV with with my portfolio. And is it block c web services dotco.uk?

Is that the one that people can kinda take a look at? There's a people always like to see I've got 2. So that that's like my freelance one,

and I've also got Okay. Stuart Blockson Dot Tech, Which is my portfolio, like, my Gotcha. Portfolio. Yeah.

No. I I just wanna say, like, I think it would be really fun If we did some sort of video, Scott and I, where we we get, like, an interview challenge And, like, we have to take it home and do it or, like, me and Scott try to go through an interview or something like that? I think it'd be kind of fun to I would love to do that. Some content out of it, see how we Fair up. As we were having this conversation, Wes, it's, like, put me into a space where I'm I'm thinking about

the interviews that I've had and the technical challenges that I've done and just, like, all of the different variety there, there there's a lot of interesting aspects, of things there that, Like, the the creative aspect of somebody asking you to do that Amazon one, I think that was, like, really a pretty interesting little nugget there. I've never heard of that type of specific Example. So it it just sparked all of these feelings in my brain. It's like, what have I been given to do as a take a home but also on the spot interview and, like, Would have been the good and bad interviews that I've done personally.

I I was wondering, Stuart, about your your learning choices. You know, a lot of times when people decide to learn something new, especially Especially in this world, they like, the web development world, the first thing they do is, like, I have no idea where to start. Right? Like, I don't even know I want to know what to know. Like, I don't even know how to figure that out. So, like, what was that, like, initial step For you, did you go into Google and say how to become web developer? Or, like, what was it that you you started with to be able to even know what you needed to know? Yeah. I I Pretty much went straight on Google or YouTube. I I think it might have been YouTube just to sort of get a feel of how

How it's done, just the one whole process of building website, just to get an idea.

And then, yeah, just Just googling googling, going on forums just to sort of see how other people do it, and then I would sort of give that a go. There was quite a lot of Trial and error, to be honest. There were some platforms that like, learning platforms that you get in, like, free trial sort of thing that I I did those, and most of them didn't work out. I had my own way of learning, which I figured out as the process went on, which I mean, I'd I'd just let you know what that is. It's it I I would watch a tutorial, and then I would go away and build A project using the same technologies, but not with different styling and everything to that initial project that I I did on the course.

So that's that was kind of how I learned, like, just building stuff, which advice I took from from your show.

Just build stuff. Like, it just kind of ring it was ringing in my ears that you just have to build stuff. So, I did You do fall off it. Sometimes you kind of forget that, and you get into sort of tutorial hell, which was pretty Pretty bad, really, because you kind of go into a rabbit hole of just doing back to back courses. And then when you get around to doing something, you because you haven't done it yourself. You you kind of look at it and go, well, I I just learned all this, but you can't I can't actually code it. So

Really frustrating situation to be in. Really, really frustrating. So Yeah. People ask me that a lot. They say, like, if I take your course, will I be ready for a job? And and The answer is no.

You take a course to learn tech.

You take a course to understand how these things work together.

But in order for you to really, truly understand it and to be able to build stuff, you got to like, I love seeing this people. Someone must be on Instagram today. They said, like, I took your course And I built X, Y, and Z off of it. This this app we're using right now, Riverside, the guy built it after He took my note course, and I I love seeing that because it's like you have to actually do the work. You actually have to Go ahead and build many, many things over and over again before you're going to get comfortable with it.

And then, unfortunately, it's not something where you can just Build one thing and you're a genius. It's literally everything in life is like that, but coding is no different. Yeah. And to to add to that as well is, I think it's quite important if you if you you know, your your main goal is to apply for jobs,

make sure you finish the projects.

Don't sort of go through a project and go, right. I've kind of learned that now. I'm gonna move on to something else. Try and finish it and then get it on your portfolio. That's something that I Failed it a few times. I kind of learned something, and I was halfway through a project.

And I'd think, well, I've I'm I'm good enough on that aspect. I wanna learn something else now, and I've tried fast forward everything.

But then it wouldn't really reflect on my CV. So, For instance, the the interview I just got a job for, he mentioned that the last 2 projects that I did were The projects that stood out for him, he said that's why he called me in for the interview. With those 2 projects, I, I learned Everything I learned from that was built up over a long period of time, and I kind of just chucked it all in together towards the, Like, the timing of the interview. So if I had done those, maybe not as I was really focusing on the style being really good, And I probably should have done more projects just to get them out the door rather than try and make them perfect.

I feel like that probably I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I kind of that's a trait that I have. And If I kinda just got it out there, I think I probably could've speeded sped up the process a bit. But yeah. I mean, you you it was a pretty fast speed run, so I, You know,

speed run new career is that was, yeah. I don't know how much you could've sped it up, but it's it's it is pretty impressive that you were able to to go from where you're at to even getting a job in in that chart of amount of time in general. So, congratulations there. Like, so when you did your the interview that you got here, when you completed the interview, did you leave that interview having the feeling like You were going to get the job, or was it still, who knows? I'll wait and see. Like, because, you know, sometimes you can walk out of an interview and be like, I got it. No no question about it. They were they were loving what I was, telling them and everything.

So what was the vibes like coming out of there? Yeah. I to be honest, I It was the best I'd felt coming out of an interview.

I mean, it was weird because, obviously, there wasn't a tech like, a We're a real technical stage, but there were some technical questions, and I was able to answer them pretty efficiently.

I mean, that's One of the reasons, I think, in my message to you guys about the one of the questions that was asked of me was, what am I most excited about that's new coming to CSS.

And the first thing I could think of was, container queries, which you've spoke about on the show Plenty of times.

And, you know, it's something that's always I could I the these questions were coming out, and I was Answering them quite efficiently.

Not just that one, but there were others that I kind of just was able to Comfortably answer.

And I think that just came over time and experience of previous interviews.

Just just getting the practice in of speaking about coding because I can't I'm sure a lot of people are the same, but I can't speak to my girlfriend about coding. She just fall asleep.

Yeah. There's no one I can really talk to about it. So when you're having interviews, you're just getting practice to have those conversations, and, I think I just got better and better. And listening to your podcast is like I I feel like that helped

with the dialogue and how to how to speak about concepts and things. So It's it's the best way to get a job is to listen to this podcast. I'll tell you that.

Certified.

Certified.

It's true, though. Like, I have never been very good at Spitting out my thoughts in 2 words. But this podcast and doing tutorials certainly have helped a lot, especially when you're trying to Talk to talk about technical concepts. It's it's one thing to, like, get a sentence out elegantly, and it's another thing to be able to, recall technical concepts and be able to talk about them and look them up really quickly as we're going through them.

Another question I have is, do you like coding? And that's because we get a sometimes you see people who are like, If you don't love coding, if you don't if you don't aren't doing side projects, evenings, weekends, absolutely all day long. It's not a cut out for you.

And, like, I don't I don't necessarily know. I know some plumbers who love plumbing, and I know some plumbers who are stoked. They go to plumbing conferences.

They look at all the new tech. Anything new they look at, like, reviews of the on plumbing, YouTube, things like that.

And I am certainly in that camp in web development. I freaking love it. I I every day I wake up and said it Learn more about web development. Do more web development. But I don't know if that is actually true for everybody who wants to get in this industry. So, like, Do you do you like coding? I love it. Yeah. I think it's great.

It's I I don't I wouldn't say I Follow the industry as well as I probably could or you do. But I think What I what I enjoy about the coding is just building stuff and overcoming problems and getting to the end.

That's that's my buzz, really. Just getting getting projects completed and well, not even projects. Just, like, things that you get stuck on, like complex, complex bits of code that you have to work out.

I've just enjoyed trying to figure it out, and it's obviously being a beginner.

There's a lot to learn, so, there's always stumbling blocks. And I'm always having to go off and learn something and come back. Speaking of love, was it love at first sight? Did you, like,

Know immediately that it was something that you were gonna latch onto, or did it take some time? I don't know. I think it probably did take a little bit of time.

I've always been into sort of designing and stuff like that. When I worked for my dad in the betting shops, it's, I used to do the posters for the the shopfront. So I used to design the post we had electric screens out the front, so they would roll through different posters. And I used to design them Everything's safe. Oh, come.

I knew I had a, an enjoyment of that sort of thing. Just creating and Building stuff that that's that can be put on show.

So I had a gut feeling that this was gonna be the right thing for me. That that's that's for sure. Beautiful.

Okay. Obviously, you know, having a job and doing a boot camp, having a child, having a family, it's like, How do you find the time, and how did you find the time

to make it all work? Yeah. It was it wasn't easy to find the time, But I made it work just by sort of having an agreement with my girlfriend.

She understood that I Needed to do this, and I had to have that conversation every now and then. It was hard because, obviously, when the baby's screaming and You're really under a lot of pressure.

It it wasn't Mhmm. That I kind of had times blocked out. So I would say, like, if like, I so decoding at between 6 and 8 in the evening, while you put the baby to bed.

And then the next day, I'll do that. And we kind of swapped roles here and there so that we because, obviously, the baby has a schedule.

So I would kind of fit into that, but I my other half would be caring for the baby while I would be able to work On some occasions, but, I mean, the the the key sort of time I was learning is or I'm learning is in the evenings, like, when She goes to bed.

I she goes down at 8. She luckily, now she sleeps through the night, so I can work. I work quite till quite late. So I used to Get up early in the morning before work and code in the evening as well, but, my daughter gets up at, like, 5 o'clock in the morning every day. So I can't get up early to code, so I code later on in the evenings.

And then when she naps, she doesn't nap in her cot, So she naps in the car. And what we do is we drive, we drive to the shops like a a supermarket, And my girlfriend will go in, do some shopping, just kill an hour, hour and a half, and I would sit in the car and code on My laptop. I would take my laptop with me and tether it to my phone instead of the Internet.

Yeah. That's what I still do. I'll be doing it Through the weekend. Oh, that's amazing. So would you say that, like, your your biggest

tips or points there would be, 1, communication,

2, like, compromising that time, and then, like, 3, finding any spare time you can it in. It's amazing. Like, Sometimes I think, I only have half an hour now. There's nothing you can really do for half an hour. Can't even install known modules in half an hour.

Yeah. Yeah. I I yeah. It it that is exactly it. It's communication.

But like you say, I mean, I I find half hour Half an hour just isn't really enough time to take in a lot of information. So if I do find myself with half hour half an hour, I would I'd read through some bits. I would listen to podcasts, and I would, I'd make use of the time. I what I I got myself into little bit of a rut where if I wasn't looking and reading about coding, I would I I I feel like I was wasting my time. Like, say if We had the TV on, and we were watching some program, which is sort of just midweek TV.

I would hate it, and I would have to get my laptop out, and I would work. My girlfriend would understand.

But the problem with that was that where I was Especially at first, where I was coding first thing in the morning before work, then I was working, then I was getting home. And when while we had the TV on, I would code, and then I would code after my girlfriend goes to bed. So, literally, it's like a full slug of just Working, and I hit burnout. I didn't know what burnout was until it happened to me twice.

You just get I just got very depressed and Questioned

questioned a lot of what I was doing. So And how do you how do you get through that that burnout? That's always a question because, like, yeah, like Like, hustle, hustle, hustle. Go, go, go. But before you know it, you're gonna start hating the stuff that you're doing because it's making you feel so awful. Yeah. No. Now Now I can feel it coming. So,

even though I've got this job, I want to carry on learning just so that I can hit the ground running.

And I felt it actually today. I felt just exhausted. I just felt I wasn't there able to concentrate properly.

So I took myself away, and I I can tell I can notice when I get that That burnout feeling. So I take myself away. I'll take the day off tomorrow, just focus on some bits around the house. I find doing other tasks Mhmm.

Let your mind wander as well. So if you're cleaning or doing work on the house, your mind wanders elsewhere away from what you're usually focusing on, and I find that that is really, really good. Like, I do a lot of running as well. So that Yeah. Take the rest of the week off. Sorry to Steal your your last free week of,

freedom before you start your job next week.

We gotta get this kid those kind of bed, Scott.

Alright. Let's get into some supper club questions. What computer mouse and keyboard are you using? Okay. So it's an MX Master,

mouse and a Logitech keyboard. I don't know which one.

MX Keys.

Oh, yeah. MX Keys.

Oh, yeah. What about, your your text editor theme and font?

I don't know what theme I've got. I've used the s code.

I've got some plug ins on there for, like, the icons, but It's just that, yeah, I've got a dark theme, but no typography or anything like that. But I've got some, plug ins for, like, icons and things like that. That's it. Mhmm.

So once you once you get bored of the the work itself, You'll start to, really dive into tweaking your editor nonstop until that becomes boring in itself.

Tom White.

Yeah.

A lot of the other questions we usually ask on supper club is is kind of what this whole thing was about. It's like, how do you stay up to date? If you were to start coding from scratch, what would you learn? Like, You sort of you sort of answered all those, but maybe we'll end it off with just like, if you have any advice for people who are sort of thinking the same thing, they're Driving home, sitting in traffic right now from their job. They're listening to syntax. Maybe I will make that jump into being a web developer.

Do you have any advice for them? Yeah. I mean,

I think just stick at it. The amount of times I've said I'm gonna quit, I mean, my girlfriend doesn't even listen to me anymore. Just like every time I say it, she's she doesn't even acknowledge me. So, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just just Stick to it as long as you, you know, you you you can.

But, yeah, stick to it. It it will come eventually. You just have to work very hard. Yeah. That's good. Is your new job,

remote or in the office? Fully remote.

Sorry.

Aw. Pretty sweet.

Yeah.

Right on. That's great. Yeah. That that's actually 1 question. I don't know if did you add that, Scott? It just got onto the end of this list. I did add that. Yeah. That question. But I I don't think I added it independently. I think we had that conversation, and then I was like, oh, I should add this to the list. Oh. So I I can't take full I would love to take full credit for that, but I don't know if I can. I'll give it to you. We'll start out. I think we should start asking that one. That's good. I did it. It was me.

Right on.

Alright. So we'll wrap things up with a sick pick and a shameless plug. What do you got for us today? Okay. I've got a bit of a weird one.

It's a bad. It's actually a fish. It's a, it's a it's called a flower horn.

You you might wanna look it up, but I've got one. His name's Kevin.

Oh, yeah. Look at this guy.

Woah.

Big brain fish. Yeah. Yeah. Look at the big brain on Brian. Flower horn. Oh, that's awesome. And

How big is it? Are they like a fun fish to have? Yeah. They they're very aggressive,

but they're very aggressive. Like, they they'll attack any other fish, And they like, I clean the tank, and it'll bite me. It draw draws blood. Really? Yeah.

I was gonna say, like, what is aggressive for a fish? Because, like, For me, a fish is gonna have to be a piranha before I'm classifying it as aggressive, unless it is just towards other fish. Yeah. Well you.

The thing is piranhas are quite nervous, actually. If you go near a piranha tank, they they just wanna hide. Whereas this guy, he, They wanna eat you.

Oh, and what what do you feed a flowerhorn?

I just buy, like, it's it's a, like, a cichlid pellet that I just drop in there. I have fed Oh, I fed him, like, prawns and things like that, but

I don't like it because it can make them sick. So I I don't see the point in. Oh, okay. You're not, like, you're not putting, like, a deer leg or a a a rabbit in there or something like that. No? No. No. No.

I always think, like, like, a like, from the Flintstones, you know, you put a, like, a piece of bobcat in there, and it Cleans the bone. Comes out of the bone. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Barp. Oh, that's a good sick pick. I like that. What about shameless plugs?

Okay. Well, I suppose just my stuartblockson.tech website. Just my portfolio.

Just, maybe in the future if,

just keep an eye on that, and I'll put Put some more projects on there. Well, well, thank you so much for taking the time. I know it's late over there in the UK, and, sharing It's a bit of a a different interview that we do, but I thought it was kinda cool to get a look into what does the hiring process and learning look like these days. So thank you so much. Yeah. No worries. Thanks, Stewart. Peace. Hey. Peace.

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