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Breaking the Internet is a podcast about tech for tech - but we’re not like other girls. Serena (@shenetworks) and Ali (@endingwithali) take to the mic to talk about the industry, trends, history and more.
Oh my god. Hello? Okay. I don't okay. Hi, everyone.
Ali:Welcome back or welcome. Excuse me. Welcome to the breaking the Internet podcast. For those that are new here or everyone's gonna oh my god. Okay.
Ali:Restart. Yeah. It's a horrible intro. Everyone, welcome to the first episode of the breaking the internet podcast. I'm Ali at ending with Ali everyone.
Ali:Sorry. I've had too much coffee today and not enough sleep. No. I'm gonna try one more time.
Serena:We have to set this off right. I feel like this is what people should expect. Right? Yeah. We're not here for perfection.
Serena:Like, we're here to say things.
Ali:I'm running on, like, 3 hours of sleep and and a lot of anxiety right now. And if the viewer I don't know if we're gonna keep this in or not, but the for the people who are listening or watching at home, I have had a week. A week. But let's try this again. Hi.
Ali:Welcome to the first episode of the Breaking the Internet podcast. Mhmm. I'm Ali. I'm ending with Ali on everything, including Minecraft, and we also have with me
Serena:SheNetworks. Yes. I am, Serena DePensy, but most people know me for my content creation under SheNetworks. And, yeah, we're here to to talk about tech, really, and, I am excited.
Ali:Yeah. So I feel like when people start something new, they always do that first episode where they're like, so this is gonna be about x, y, z, blah blah blah blah. No. Not here. Really quick rundown.
Ali:This is a podcast for people who are in the industry already. If you're not in the industry and you wanna listen, that's fine too. But we're gonna talk about stuff that's going on in the industry. We're gonna give you our thoughts, our opinions. We're bringing some life back into tech.
Ali:We're bringing personality, I guess, our personality, and we're gonna talk about whatever we want because that's the situation. Serena literally reached out to me, and she was like, do you wanna do a podcast with me? And I was like, yes. Thank you so much for asking me. That's the nicest thing anyone's ever done.
Ali:So this this is it. That's the TLDR that you get, and we'll see how it goes. Right.
Serena:Yeah. I think the the reason that I asked you to do it with me is, 1, I like your personality and feel like you were just going to kill it. And number 2, I feel like we would be aligned on the vision of what we want with this. And it is not just the typical, like we're going to interview people and that might happen. I mean, we're not taking it off the table, but we're really just talking about lifestyle in the industry and how it's changing and big events that are happening or unfolding and, and just kind of having those conversations where it's not incredibly technical deep dives, but talking about, like, the people side of working in tech.
Serena:Yeah. I'm I'm excited. I think it's gonna be great.
Ali:Absolutely. I'm I'm excited to do this. This is something I've been wanting to do for a while and also as, like, a secret. We're also doing this because we wanna hold it ourselves both accountable to make more content on a regular basis.
Serena:Yes. Exactly. Which is great, though, because I feel like I already have so many ideas to to Yeah. Go for, and I love that. My background, just for people who are listening in case they are new to this podcast or us, you know, maybe they're listening to it a while from now or whatever.
Serena:But my background is network engineering, but recently, a couple years ago, I switched to cybersecurity. I do a lot of offensive network, security. And Ali has a little bit of a different background, so I thought it'd be kind of like a nice blend for that as well. Yeah.
Ali:I, I am a, full time software engineer. I did developer relations for 5 years. I've had a short stint as a founder. But, yeah, I come from the developer and coding aspect of the tech industry. So we're really, like I feel like we're spanning everything at this point between the 2 of us, and I'm also a content creator.
Ali:I live stream on Twitch. I also do cybersecurity on the side. It's like people are like, oh, Ally's works in cybersecurity. Like, she's a hacker. And I'm like, no.
Ali:I'm hacker adjacent. I just don't know what I'm doing. Yeah. Please don't look at me. Like, cybersecurity is my hobby.
Ali:I do ThreatWire. I report the news.
Serena:It's it's funny when people they'll be like, oh, you're in cybersecurity. But then, like, some people outside of tech just, like, assume everyone's a software developer. So I have, like, the opposite where everyone just assumes I'm a software developer. I'm like that's not it. I don't know if you remember, I had this tweet that popped off and it went viral and it was really not it was like very overwhelming.
Serena:I had like men going and like finding my GitHub page and being like you she's definitely a diversity hire because look like her GitHub page, which one they found the one that's associated with my content. Like I just post like code related to my content and also like I am I'm not a software developer. I do a lot of like Python scripts and stuff. A lot of it's just like automation stuff to help me at work on test to make things more efficient. But I was like, y'all, like, I don't work on software.
Serena:Like, that's not what I do. And so that's just the funny, like, opposite ends of the spectrum where, like, some people it's like everybody is cybersecurity or, like, everyone's a developer.
Ali:I feel like this is, like, a really great way to jump into our first topic and especially talking about the DE and I situation and kind of where it's going. Because I was looking up as you were talking the new the email, and this is, this is an old thing. I I actually didn't read the whole thing. I only really skimmed it. But Alexander Wang, not the designer Oh.
Ali:But the founder of Scale AI, posted this tweet that was, like, we're formalized. So it says, today, we formalize an important hirings policy at Scale. We hire for MEI, merit, excellence, and intelligence. This is the email we shared with, with our Scale AI team. Excellence, and intelligence.
Ali:This is the email we shared with, with our Scale AI team. Blah blah blah. That's why it's time to codify a hiring principle that I consider crucial to our success. Scale is a meritocracy, and we must always remain 1. And the vibes that the replies all said is like it got really mixed results.
Ali:But all of the comments that I'm just looking at right now are all just good job, bro. And it's all men. And it's all men. I know. I don't wanna start the podcast off being like, we hate men.
Serena:No. Yeah. No. Yeah. I think what my problem is because I whenever you're, like, critical of, like, this whole, like, meritocracy concept, people are like, well, what's wrong with meritocracy?
Serena:Like, why can't it be meritocracy? And I was like, because the thing that you're actually describing is not that, you know what I mean? And I was like, it's never been that in the field because one there's nepotism, which maybe is a small fraction 2, aside from nepotism, there's like so many other areas to aside from like just hardcore technical work that are required and necessary to be the best. Right? And I feel like a lot of these conversations don't include things like soft skills or, you know, just like emotional intelligence or things like that.
Serena:It's like, oh, we're going to purely look at the technical portions, which is great, but you are going to be sacrificing potentially in other areas. And not only that, like back to like the whole meritocracy thing. Most of the jobs that I've gotten have been from like networking and connecting with other people. And I think that's how a lot of people in the industry kind of work. Right?
Serena:Where it's like, oh, we're gonna
Ali:Yeah.
Serena:Find someone who works another company. And having, like, an employee referral has a lot of weight on it because it's like, okay, this person already is basically vouching for this other person that if I wanna spend 40 hours a week with this person, then, you know, they're good. Because that's a big thing too. It's like you are spending so much time with these people that you're working with that you really need, like, a well rounded person. And I feel like a lot of that stuff doesn't always get into isn't accounted for when we're talking about, like, a meritocracy or just basically saying that that has ever existed because it just it hasn't ever existed.
Ali:I mean, also right now more than ever, it's like people are fighting for their lives to get jobs in general intact. A lot. And, I mean, the the one of the lines from this thing, from this manifesto, I've been using the word manifesto a little bit. Manifesto. That stuck out is there is a mistaken belief that meritocracy somehow conflicts with diversity.
Ali:I strongly disagree. No group has a monopoly on excellence, but let's just be real. I would love Alex I would love Alexander Wang to come out and tell me how many of his employees have been hired through referrals. Yeah. I think that is, like, a very I think companies should, like, start being, like, okay.
Ali:We're hiring for excellence, but also this is how many people that have been hired from referrals. Right. If you're gonna if you're gonna publish this, come with numbers. Yeah. Come with numbers.
Ali:Let's talk about it. Because if you're hiring for the best, I bet not every referral is gonna be the best.
Serena:Right.
Ali:You probably those are people who probably got along well with the people that were being Existing. Referred in.
Serena:Yeah. Or, you know, again, like, a lot of referrals are, like, people I've met at college, people who are in my social circle. And if you don't have diversity in that, you're not gonna have diversity in your workforce. I think that's kind of, like, an important important note, but like you said, like everyone right now is just like the whole job market, which is really the theme of this episode is, is like a dumpster fire. And I, I think there's like a lot of interesting complexities associated with the current market.
Serena:But before I wanna get to that, I wanted to make one note, and it's like, what is with these startup founders basically writing these manifestos, like, all the time? Who was it? Was it the rubies on Ruby on Rails guy?
Ali:DHH.
Serena:Yeah. Where he, you know, made this whole thing about politics and and this stuff. And I was, like, y'all are really, like, I I I it's weird when you mix, like, these influencer founders, and they're just, like, pushing stuff out there and publishing things that, like, nobody asked for.
Ali:So so this is okay. So I'll explain to you the situation.
Serena:Okay.
Ali:So, basically, as a way of getting and this is we're we're tapping into the DevRel era Okay. As a way of getting customers, basically. And here's a little tactic. If you're a startup founder, you pick a problem and you go balls to the wall on it. Like, you just like you are like, this is my whole personality.
Ali:This is my identity, and I'm going to go on every podcast. I'm going to go on every stage. I'm going to talk about this thing. Let everyone know that they're doing it wrong, or this is the best way to do it. Or like, sorry, I keep pushing up my glasses.
Ali:I they're they're cute, but they just, I need to get them adjusted.
Serena:Mine are like that too. So I get you.
Ali:But like, essentially like a way, a way of selling a product and getting new users, especially in like in the SaaS space, is to have these manifestos that they points of just like I'm going to take I'm going to drill this in and make this my entire personality. So people know that when they wanna solve that issue, they come to me. Yeah. And that is that is now the marketing tactic. Like, the days of selling to selling to companies through business meetings and conferences and just I mean, I don't even know how they did it back then.
Ali:Going to events and just meeting people is kind of dead. It's now all about networking online and social media and leadership. Thought leadership. Thought. Thank you.
Ali:Thought leadership. It's the thought leadership of it all is how you get customers. And you see so many founders try to do that. And there are people who do focus specifically on helping founders grow to become influencers in a way and become these thought leaders so that then they can sell their product. And I can I know there's, like, a couple of YouTubers that focus on that?
Ali:A couple of the consultants that focus on that, like, helping them make content, come up with content ideas, running the content mill, so
Serena:that they can That marketing is now geared toward a person instead of the product or, like, the thing that they're trying to solve. Okay. What does this, like, culture war stuff have to do with, like, your product? You know what I mean? Like or or, you know, what issue is virtually trying to be solved here, essentially?
Ali:Virtue signaling for VCs?
Serena:I guess. It's just bizarre to me. Right? Like, I I think like, it's bizarre to me in a way to position yourself as, like, for me, I try to be like the face of me, but, like, a lot of these people are like the face of their company. Right?
Serena:And, like, that's their their driving force. It it seems like they're spending a lot of time on things that is not meaningful, if that makes sense.
Ali:It works in the beginning. I'll I'll put it out there. It really does work in the beginning as a really great way to to market because how do you get customers? You have to kind of go do the marketing yourself, whether that's on your Twitter, doing blog posts on your on your, social media, going on podcasts, going giving conference talks. Like, that's that's how you get customers.
Ali:But at some point, what ends up happening is that the CEO becomes too intertwined with the branding of the company that the company can no longer stand on its own 2 feet. Mhmm. And I've seen this with other companies where the CEO basically, instead of letting the company kind of announce things and and congratulate employees, it's the CEO who's sharing all the news about the company. And, you know, at that point, the company, I think is what, like a series c company. Mhmm.
Ali:And they're still using the CEO as a mouthpiece, which is fine. But at that point, you have like a social media team and you have people who are trying to like grow your social presence. And if you're not stepping down and becoming your own individual entity again, if you as a CEO want to leave, which I know the CEO did not leave, but they stepped down as CEO, like they're too conflated with the branding. And at some point, CEOs need to like know when to to to step down and stop doing that. And it is super effective in the beginning.
Ali:It's very effective. But I'll say this. It's not necessarily the playbook for every company and for who the company is selling for. Yeah. The traditional route is totally a reasonable way to, like, depending on your markets.
Ali:If your market is other startups, not necessarily fortune 100, like, I should say this. If your market is like fortune 100 or military or like suits essentially being a thought leader in the industry. Like this is not gonna be helpful for selling to your target market. Yeah. But if your target market is not that then hell yeah, go ahead.
Ali:Like conflate yourself in a way, but like, if you're selling to suits and obviously suits do want to see trendy, cool new things. They think it's awesome to have new cutting edge technology, but you kind of have to know how to balance these things. And I might be totally wrong. Like, you know, this is just my observations and my I kind of get I'm not a business major in any way. I'm not a marketing major in any way.
Ali:I I don't know what I did to get to where I am today, but I do pull a lot of my entrepreneurial thoughts and kind of selling points from my family because I do come from a line of entrepreneurs and engineers. So I kind of get those selling points, and it feels almost like knowing these sort of things feels like a cheat code.
Serena:Mhmm. All this kinda reminded me. Have you seen the documentary about gosh. It was like that trivia app.
Ali:No. I didn't see it. HQ something something?
Serena:Yeah. Was it Yeah. I was I HQ
Ali:it was literally called HQ.
Serena:Okay. So I was watching that documentary a while ago, like, probably when it first came out, and a a big portion of it focused on the founders and how the founders would be jealous about not being, like, the face of the brand because they had hired this one guy to be the host of this trivia app. And he became kind of associated with the app, obviously. And I think that rubbed the founders the wrong way a little bit too because it's like part of this, like, I built this, you know, almost maybe to them feels like someone else is getting credit for their work and like their genius. And they're like, oh, this thing's so popular.
Serena:And it wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for me while simultaneously kind of discrediting the work that host did to also make it really popular as well.
Ali:It's, okay. And this this I feel like this is a whole topic for another
Serena:Right. Yeah.
Ali:Podcast story is founders for like, can we just write this down founders for the sake of being founders? Because I have a lot of thoughts and opinions.
Serena:Oh, that would be great.
Ali:A lot of thoughts and opinions of founders for the sake of being founders and how that's changed the market and how that's affected the field. And I have I have I could talk about this for hours.
Serena:Oh, yeah. I could
Ali:Hours. I mean, the the question is should we get into it, or should we pause the convo and get back? Because I will Yeah. I can I can
Serena:Alright? Let's let's table this discussion.
Ali:We're gonna table this discussion. And if you want to hear us talk about this more because I have so many thoughts and opinions, and I know that if we talk you see, I wanna make sure that we answer it because you you put a We an an FM, an Ask FM out, and I wanna know what was put in there.
Serena:Oh.
Ali:Yeah. And and I don't want people to be like, Ali's stopping the conversation because, like, there's so much to talk about this. Mhmm. But I have so many thoughts and opinions about this, and I just I I I could talk about this forever because I have so many viewpoints on this. Sorry.
Ali:Yeah.
Serena:Let's do that.
Ali:I lost my train of thought.
Serena:Yeah. Let's do another episode just on that because I think we could really
Ali:Yes. If people that's what I wanted to say. If if people want us to talk about this and they have questions about our opinions, they should let us know. Like, DM us or tweet at us, or we're gonna have a Twitter. I have to finish fixing the name because for some reason, elongated muskrat is not letting me change the handle.
Ali:So once I get the handle Yeah. Fixed, like, I'll I'll tweet on the the account and we can both retweet it and blah blah blah, whatever people can reply. Are 0 day exploits and supply chain attacks keeping you up at night? You're not alone, and there's a solution that might help, ThreatLocker.
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Ali:One standout feature is ring fencing, which prevents applications from becoming weaponized by restricting how they interact with each other. This ensures that even if a threat tries to exploit an application, it can't affect other parts of your system. Their US based support team is here to help you every step of the way from getting started to keeping things running smoothly. By using ThreatLocker, you can protect your organization from ransomware and ensure that your trusted applications remain secure and efficient. Companies like JetBlue already rely on ThreatLocker to keep their data safe and their operations running smoothly.
Ali:If you want to learn more about how ThreatLocker can safeguard your organization and ensure compliance, check out threatlocker.com. That's threatlocker.com.
Serena:Great. So the the topic that we're really diving into is the job market. We're gonna answer the f m questions at the end. But let's just kind of talk about tech layoffs because that for last year and this year has been such the topic of tech layoffs. Is tech still a good industry, to be in?
Serena:Is there still opportunities there? And why are all these layoffs happening? I do have a TechCrunch. I guess it's their layoff tracker on their website. They have been tracking, tech layoffs, US companies that cut jobs in 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Serena:So they have just kind of like a a clear list here of companies that have. Now I wanna preface this with saying that tech layoffs happen every single year, and a lot of large companies also do layoffs every single year. So Yeah. They are there's constant layoffs. The difference though is the size of these layoffs and the amount of companies that are participating in them.
Serena:So like you know if you're laying off 1% of your workforce, that's still 99% of jobs of people who haven't lost their jobs. Right? So when it comes to, like, do I think tech is still a good career field to get into? I would say, like, absolutely, yes. Because even at 10%, it's like, well, 90% of people at those companies, like, still have kept their jobs.
Serena:Right?
Ali:How do you feel about that? Okay. So I I have feelings. I have opinions. I have thoughts, but in, like, the thoughtty kind of way.
Ali:Okay. So I don't did you watch my last YouTube video? Not the or the second of last YouTube video. I published 2 YouTube videos last week, and I'm like, I am unstoppable. I god.
Serena:I've been on I was on vacation all last week in the woods. So Oh,
Ali:Oh, so lucky. Okay. So for those who haven't seen my YouTube video, which please go watch it because, you know, whatever. Give me them them views. Give me your eyeballs.
Ali:So I will tell you my hypothesis that no one is really talking about, and I'm gonna TLDR this. But if you're watching this video and you haven't seen my video, pause, go watch it, come back, and then we continue the conversation. Thank you. We'll still be here. Don't worry.
Ali:But you have to come finish this video too. So what's the situation here? Is so, obviously, there's a lot of companies that are doing these layoffs. Why? But also why is it really difficult to get a job?
Ali:I mean, one of the reasons companies are not hiring as much is this whole ZERP thing. 0 interest, something something. I don't know. I still don't remember what it means. Right.
Ali:But, basically, like, the money isn't as free flowing as it used to be. And I think we can see that now in the, VC hype cycle and the VC hype cycle that's occurred, but we can get to that later. But what I think is one of the reasons, and I think that no one's really talked about why I don't think it's a good time to get into tech, is that the the number of new hires that are entering the market right now is insane. And so I have this theory that I talk about in this video that essentially the people that are entering the new hire market right now, mostly most of the people who are entering the new hire market, and I don't want to people to think I'm discrediting, like, late stage boot camp or later older age boot camp grads, older age, college grads or whatever. But, specifically, generally, when the people, like, I don't know the numbers to this, but you could say a large majority of of the new workforce, the junior workforce is people that are graduating education of some sort.
Ali:Mhmm. And when those people the people that are graduating education now are the 8 like, they're gonna be 22, 23, 24. And if you go back and I'm I'm summarizing this again, if you go back to when they were first born, the years were 2,000, 2,000, 1, 2,002. Everything that has happened between now and then, how many major US financial crises crises cry side? There have been house, y2k starting off, y2k, the new album by I Spice.
Ali:Go listen to it. But also Y2K happened. Housing market crashed. There was the financial the 2008 financial crisis. Just so many global financial issues that a lot of these people who were born in the early 2000, their parents probably lost their jobs, lost their homes, lost their livelihoods, lost a lot of money during these times.
Ali:So when those kids, the most impressionable years of their lives under 10, they saw their parents just suffer. So then when they were around 12, 13, 14, they saw Facebook blowing up, Instagram blowing up. They saw Snapchat blowing up, Google blowing up huge companies. Microsoft getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, trading more on these things. And their parents, the 8 years now, 2012, 2013, 2014, the parents are kinda, like, looking around and saying, like, wow.
Ali:There's money in there. There's a lot of money in there. And then when they're 16, 17, 18, the year is, like, 2016, 2017, 2018, these kids are now being asked, so what do you wanna do for college? Like, what do you wanna study, Wani? What do you wanna do for work?
Ali:And the kids are looking around. They're like, I don't know. Silicon Valley comes out. They see the ridiculousness that is living, and I use that same word. They see the ridiculous that is that is a start up.
Ali:They're seeing more opportunities for people trying to get them to enter tech boot camp grads, all these crazy stories. And then they go to college because in the US, you're basically expected to do lower school, middle school, high school, college. They go to college, they study engineering. They come out as engineers. We're seeing more and more engineers graduate every year.
Ali:Comp sci, some sort of tech related job. They graduate. And then what year is it? 2022, 2023, 2024. Major layoffs are happening.
Ali:The job market is more competitive than ever. Junior jobs are not able to get hired. No one wants to hire juniors anymore. So it's not necessarily that there is a talent shortage because everyone's like, oh, yeah. There's just not enough talent.
Ali:There's not enough talent. No. And especially in cybersecurity, it's it's just that no one wants to hire juniors. There's too many juniors.
Serena:Yeah. I think, like, a lot of times when we're talking about the talent shortage, it is more of the not entry level, but, like, actually Skilled. We need yeah. We need skilled. We need people with experience because a lot of these companies that one of the problems is they don't want to train someone up because they're like, if I train someone, the second that they're done and you've invested all this money, they're leaving and getting a higher pay increase.
Serena:Because a lot of times the pay increase from your first job, let's say like you graduated college and in my experience graduated college, got a pretty decent job. I was a network engineer at Cisco, right, working in TAC. But my pay was very mid tier. I had friends that were going to these big four companies and they were getting like 6 figures. They were getting like 80, 90, a 100.
Serena:And this is in 2,000. Like I graduated in 2018. So before COVID. And so I did my time there and mind you, I learned a ton. And then after that though, my pay increase to the next job was like dollar increases for every job move.
Serena:A lot of companies, bigger companies like Cisco, they have these graduate programs and things like that because they can kinda support that. Startups and companies that run so lean, they wanna have so lean. They don't have the resources.
Ali:And it's not that I don't wanna say
Serena:it's not that they couldn't, like they have the money, they could, but they don't have the resources or don't see the value in training someone up who's eventually going to probably just leave for a higher pay. And so I think that's kind of it too. Like, people don't want to take the chance on those on the person leaving.
Ali:I I it's so crazy because, like, when you said, like, what your peers are making, my peers are making, like, graduating college and were making, like, 200 k. I knew people who graduated college with half a mil as it as their first paycheck.
Serena:Well, let's put this in a little bit of a I mean, that's crazy. But
Ali:Crazy. Crazy.
Serena:I grew up in Akron, Ohio, and it is the Rust Belt. There's not a lot of industry there anymore. Full disclosure, I'll say that my first job out of college, I was making around $65,000 And when my grandma found out that I was making $65,000 she like bragged to all of her friends that she thought it was crazy that I got a job right out of college and at the age of, like, 22 was making 65,000, which, like, in context to tech, like, you're an engineer at a a big, like, a fortune 100 company, like, $65,000 is not a lot, really.
Ali:Oh, yeah.
Serena:Especially because I had student loans. So I was like, I have to, like, live on my own now because I had to move to a completely different state. I had student loans. I had a lot of expenses. So in Ohio, when we're I'm talking about my peers, it is people that are usually coming from like these kind of industry deserts where more top job prospects, if you were to stay in Ohio, Ohio, and Ohio is like Sherwin Williams.
Serena:I think US Bank was like a pretty big one. DeBold and Yeah. I'm trying to think, like, there's there's not a lot.
Ali:Right? Yeah. But I I think it's more I I mean, I was just saying that because I just think it's crazy
Serena:that Yeah.
Ali:My 2 year olds were getting paid that much money. But also you see a lot of people who are graduating from tech now expecting those huge paychecks. But now more than ever, companies are trying to run more and more lean, and I feel like we're seeing even entry level and senior level roles at companies that even the most hype like, super hyped up companies are well, I guess, depends on the industry because of the hype cycle, so they have more cash to hire better talent. But, like, you're seeing companies that have raised good amount of money and have well standing products still offering I don't wanna say undercutting pay, but kind of I wanna say normalizing salary so that it's not as drastically extreme. Mhmm.
Ali:I don't know. It's just
Serena:Another note on that, what you mentioned because it made me think, about something else is when I see these conversations about tech layoffs, especially on places like Reddit forums, I noticed there is a lot of hostility towards people who work in tech. And valid because I think there's a lot of people coming seeing from both sides of the both sides of the issue is that like they see these people a lot of times how they view Silicon Valley and younger kids, which is a pretty decent sized portion of the tech industry, but it is not representative of tech jobs overall. Right?
Ali:Yeah. And they people conflate the, like, again, the Silicon Valley of it all. Yeah. Seeing those, like, I'm a PM and I'm doing my job in a hot tub or, like, I were they they everyone thinks that every tech job is the Google experience. You go into the office, you have 3 to 5 meals a day.
Ali:You just kinda sit around and do little to no work when in reality, outside of the Silicon Valley Zeitgeist is like, at my company, it is technically a tech enabled company. It it requires engineering, and it is a focused company. We're in the IT department. We don't have any of those, like, luscious perks that these other companies get.
Serena:Sales. What? I said those perks go to sales.
Ali:Like Yeah. Like, they go to sales. Like, not every company is and I feel like a lot of people are gonna listen to this and be like, yeah. Like, I really don't. I I if anything, now more than ever, companies are starting to cut back on those perks because they realize that the talent pool is so big that they don't need to sell engineers on this beautiful, lavish lifestyle and take care of them anymore because and and this is my same philosophy about, like, hiring at Google and hiring at big company because the their talent pool is so big that if you don't like their perks, if you don't like what they give you, if you're if you fail your interview, who cares?
Ali:There's another 5 people who can take your place in interview and still and be happy with what you get. So they don't really they don't really need to Right. Worry. Yeah. And so they can pull those perks.
Ali:Like, they can pull all of that and the the lifestyles that we need. And we're seeing that reduction in, and I wanna say we're almost seeing like the MBA of vacation of it all. Like, it's it's kind of a running joke that if when you go to, like, the big four consulting firms and you're like, how do I save more money? They're like, take this stuff away. Stop doing this, save more money, cut more people, layoffs, layoffs, cut people, take this away, take this away.
Ali:Like every tech company is doing this now at this point. There's the basic expectations of what, as an engineer you get, which is still very nice compared to what other jobs get. Companies are still giving so much that we don't necessarily what's the word I'm looking for? We're entitled to. Yeah.
Ali:I don't wanna say entitled to, but companies are still doing a lot for us as engineers and give us so many perks. But at the same time, it's like these are the base requirements. And I'll say this. I feel like a lot of people who are entering the job market now are expecting these lavish lifestyles that they saw in the early in in the late 20 tens and not getting in and are kind of disappointed.
Serena:Yeah. Well, and to that point, I think there's a thing happening though, where, again, like, how every like, people outside of tech is like, oh, everyone in tech is a software developer, which is like, no. Like, not true. There's a ton of jobs in tech that are not So many jobs. Developing.
Serena:But also it's like, okay, so I watch this show, 90 Day Fiance, a lot. And one of the things that always is kind of a little humorous to me is when people from another country, like this woman, I forget what country she came from, but like she went to Las Vegas and saw the Las Vegas sign and was like, oh, like, you know, because if you look at America from just like media and you are seeing some of like the more best attractions as far and I'm not talking like political, but kind of just like physical attractions, like Don't meet your heroes. Yeah. So essentially, yeah, basically that. You're like, oh, this is not actually what I saw.
Serena:From the outside looking in, it looks great. But then once you're there and I had that same experience going to Mount Rushmore, where I was like, oh, I'm gonna go to Mount Rushmore. And then I got there, and I was like, oh, wait. This looks like way smaller than it actually ever looked in pictures. And you're just like, oh, okay.
Serena:And so something just doesn't live up to the expectations because I think so many people have this idea of those day in the life with me, like software developer. And they're like, oh, I go in early or I do like a Pilates class and then I like go eat lunch. And then I do Pilates class. Right. Yeah.
Serena:I'm like, I want that. I've never listen. I've worked in tech for 10 years. Never had a job like that. Alright.
Serena:So just putting that out there. That is such the minority of people.
Ali:It's like the 1% of the 1%.
Serena:Right. Yeah. Exactly. Basically that. We should rebel.
Serena:Well and what I'm kind of my original point was, like, I see a lot of this hostility of, like, people, like, seeing these tech layoffs and being, like, good. It's time that they
Ali:humble them.
Serena:Yeah. Essentially. Okay. I, again, I'm like, I'm letting people feel the feelings because sure. I've worked in retail.
Serena:I worked at Best Buy for a few years. I worked at Apple for a few years. I have been the lowest rung on the totem pole. And the more money that I have made, I would say the better quality of job that I've had. You know, cause when you're making minimum wage and your manager is like, oh, if you've got time to lean, you got time to clean.
Serena:But you're like making $8 an hour. But when I am in a salary position and I'm getting my jobs up, I don't have a manager over me. They're not micromanaging. But, I'm, yeah, I'm having like the best quality of work while I make the most. And so people look at this disparity, which is vast.
Serena:It's a huge disparity. And people are really struggling. And so it's like you see I'm working my ass off. I'm struggling to get by. And then you see someone like, oh, come day in the life of me, like, let's do Pilates.
Serena:And then put on that, like, you're like, oh, and she's making, like, $300,000 a year. I can see why they would feel that way.
Ali:Yeah. The animosity of it all.
Serena:Yeah. And so there is kind of resentment towards it, which I I I still like I said, I can see where it's coming from, but it is that kind of situation where that's such a small percentage, like such a small percentage of tech jobs.
Ali:In the eat the rich Olympics Mhmm. Where do people who work in tech lie? Like like, we know first we're eating the billionaires. Yeah. Then we're going after the influencers.
Ali:I We're going like billionaires, millionaires, tech founders being sold secondary so little too early.
Serena:Yeah. Crypto scammers. See, when Influencers. When I think of, like, the eat the rich, when I think about that, I think of it in terms of ownership. So we're talking about, like, Jeff Bezos, for example.
Serena:He's a billionaire. Everyone knows he's a billionaire. And he owns Amazon, a majority of Amazon. And at the end of the day, like, we're seeing Amazon workers, especially, like, that's always been kind of a a topic, right, of, like, how are Amazon workers being treated? How are the drivers being treated?
Serena:How are the warehouse workers being treated? Are they not allowed to take bathroom breaks when they need to? Right? And they're basically producing income for this company and they're only seeing like a really really small fraction of it while also having no ownership in the company. Right?
Serena:Yeah. So when I think of like Etheridge, like, sure, billionaires, by way of that, those billionaires are people who own a ton of assets. I feel like it's like there's this subreddit called, high income earners, like, no not rich yet, and it just talks about, like, you know, if you make I'm looking at it. 2 let's say $200,000 a year. Right?
Serena:I guess that's like the new 100,000. $200,000 a year. Okay. You have a high paying job, but you have 0 assets. And the problem, as we're seeing now, with having a high, high income job and no assets is that you can lose that income overnight.
Serena:You can lose it overnight.
Ali:Just wait until wait until your first medical crisis. I just pulled it up. It's called HENRY Finance. I kind of love the name. That's amazing.
Ali:Okay. I I wanna know. I'm, like, feral to know. Mhmm. What do people say in the the link?
Ali:The link,
Serena:Oh, alright. You wanna go for the questions?
Ali:Yes. I do. I really do. I do. I do.
Ali:I do. I do.
Serena:So there's some interesting ones in here not related to the question that I asked, and I am unsure if it's one person submitting all of these questions or if different people are submitting these questions and which one of those is scarier. But I'll I'll ignore that for right now. One of the interesting questions that I have related to this. Okay. So hi.
Serena:What would you recommend to someone who wants to switch roles into CyroSec from a Cisco collaboration background? Thank you. Getting out of collaboration is kind of difficult. Collaborations like phone, IP phones usually
Ali:I've never heard of this before.
Serena:Alright. Well, let's just say, like, it's not just IP phones, but we'll talk about, like, people who are managing IP phones at, like, a big corporation. Twilio? What was that? Twilio?
Serena:Not Twilio.
Ali:I I'm just trying to make a joke.
Serena:Oh, okay. Yeah. I don't That was really funny, Ali. Yeah.
Ali:I get it. Thank you.
Serena:Okay. I would say that you basically I don't wanna say you have to start from scratch, but, like, collaboration, there is some overlap, but it's kind of so specific. It's hard to break out of collaboration once you're in it. And I would say, like, just do what everyone else has to do. So you can get into cybersecurity and it's like really familiarize yourself with cybersecurity, put yourself in those circles, go to meetups, groups, and a lot of self study.
Serena:You have to for getting a job in the field, even when you're switching, it can be really tricky especially right now because of all the layoffs and all the hiring and things like that. What advice would you have for a software engineer looking to transition over to application security engineering? Maybe you can answer that.
Ali:Oh, okay. That's like such an interesting question because I am a software engineer and people like think I work in, as I said, people think I work in cybersecurity. I feel like the first thing and and feel free to correct me. I feel like a really good thing is to do CTFs to kind of get used to the tools and kind of build a resume showing that you know how to navigate applications and web apps. And that kind of way you wanna do, like, web app focused ETFs.
Ali:My honest answer is you go to Tibbs live streams and ask Tibbs questions. Yeah. Genuinely. Because Tibbs has been doing AppSec for 12 years now Mhmm. And literally does, like, q and a's about getting jobs, and Tibbs is very established in the field.
Ali:I mean, one of the things I think that has helped Tibbs a lot and I think, you know, I'm not saying copy what Tibbs did, but Tibbs created a tool that is very well respected in the app set community called auto recon. And I think that was like that's a huge help. And I I think he wrote it all in Python, but, like
Serena:Yeah. Just contributing to open source projects in general. There are so many projects on GitHub. If you already know how to code, you can help contribute to these projects, start your own projects, and I think that would be really beneficial.
Ali:Oh my god. Like, what if you did what if you did your own, like, AppSec tests for open source projects? You don't have to submit it to the actual team that runs the open source project, but you can write your own write up and, like, publish it online. Ask for feedback from AppSec people and just, like, start tagging your favorite people on, like, Twitter and just be like, hey. I wrote this write up about AppSec about this open source project.
Ali:I would love to know what people think if I'm right, if I'm wrong. Mhmm. Ask a mentor and see what they say. I think that's, like, a really cool idea.
Serena:Yeah. The next question that I have, which I actually think is really interesting, how has your public image helped you with your career? Do you recommend others to be media friendly like yourself? Any challenges to worry about? It is very complicated.
Serena:I will say that having a media presence is very attractive to some companies and very unattractive to other companies, right? Depending on what their risk tolerance is in their social media policies. I know there's definitely companies that I probably couldn't work at because of my social media presence. And so I don't want to say that's not something I considered when I was making content and kind of like growing. My main concern has always been my driving force is to be authentic to myself, whether it's not necessarily popular or maybe it is kind of like a little risky from like a brand perspective and being kind of just like outspoken in, in issues that I believe in.
Serena:And so I definitely think that there is, there is negative that comes with it too. I've had people email my companies that I worked at, like my HR department, like demanding I'd be fired, trying to get me fired. That is, like, something that I don't wanna say everyone has to deal with, but at some point, it is a potential.
Ali:Yeah. I mean, so I have gotten my last four jobs through social media. Mhmm. And it is extremely helpful. But as Serena said, at some companies will wanna take advantage of that.
Ali:And they want you to be posting about them and the and that was one of the reasons I left DevRel. Like, I want I don't want to feel like I'm beholden to any company to, like, publish about them and talk about them and advertise them in the way that I just don't feel comfortable doing because I don't want you to it's not representative of me and what I do. But at some point, once I left DevRel, I said no more. I don't want anybody knowing what company I work for, and I'm going to keep that private because I don't want it to be a risk. It it becomes a risk.
Ali:People do try to try to get you fired for what you say. And I, you know, I I technically have 2 employers because I also do work for Hak 5. But, like, Hak 5 is a social media company first. Like, they were first a social media company, so they understand the risks of being a a personality. But w I say I say w two job and, like, side hustle.
Ali:W two job just straight up doesn't get that. And so I have no interest in anyone ever knowing where I work, but I do use it to help find jobs. Like, it it gives you a sense of legitimacy, and people recognize and understand you and your skill. And, like, when I got the job that I I'm at right now, literally, my manager my manager went to me and was like, I've watched your Twitch streams. I've watched your Twitch streams before, and you're gonna be fine.
Ali:Like, I know you're gonna get this job. It's gonna be in the back.
Serena:Yeah. It can give you some legitimacy in, like, a reputation. They have a lot more information to go on for the hiring process than just, like, cold resume and then interview. Right? It's limited versus if they followed you for a while.
Serena:They kinda already know your vibe. Yeah.
Ali:I know this was a for the viewers, we have I have a heart out, but, if people enjoyed this, please like, comment, subscribe. Find us on social media. We're probably gonna publish this everywhere we can publish this. Mhmm. We're gonna be publishing episodes every 2 weeks.
Ali:2 weeks. Every 2 weeks is the cadence that we're gonna try and lock in. But, yeah, if people enjoyed this episode, we would really love the feedback. Let us know in comments or wherever this you're seeing this because I think it would be really cool to continue to do this. And, obviously, we're gonna continue to do this regardless of what you say.
Ali:Thank you so much for watching the first episode of Breaking the Internet podcast.
Serena:Yes. Thanks for joining us.
Ali:Thank you so much for joining.
Serena:Peace out, y'all. Bye. Peace out, girl scouts.