 All right, y'all, welcome to Solid State. I am Tim Banks. Just want to start off by saying that this is a cloud-native computing foundation official stream. And as such, the code of conduct is in full effect here. So please be mindful of that in your comments in the chat. And we will be mindful of that here. Please go ahead and sign on the chat. You can pop on Twitter. You can at me, at al-shifa, or to hop in the chat and ask your questions here. Today, joining us, we've got a friend of mine that I met on Twitter. We've hollered out a couple of times. Man, I've looked up to you for a while, Jerome Hardaway. Jerome Hardaway is a senior software engineer at Microsoft and the executive director of Vetsu Code, having served in the Air Force as security forces and then transitioned to software engineering. He is focused on helping underrepresented members of the veteran community learn and break into tech. He has received numerous awards and honors due to his work, but the most rewarding part of him is easing the point of entries so others have easier path into tech than he did. Jerome, you want to say hi to everybody? Hey, y'all. How y'all doing? Very excited to be here. Like, Tim is one of my favorite people on Twitter because he comes from a military background as well. So that's why we get to vibe on all the jokes that we can't say in public. So it's funny, Jerome and I were talking before. And one of the things we're talking about is that while a lot of people, you know, a lot of people are formed by trauma, military people, and especially are formed by like a very specified form of trauma, like you get jumped in. You get jumped in the military. Like, I know I was in the Marine Corps and the first thing that happens, you arrive in Paris Island in the middle of the night and some drill instructor comes on the bus and yells at you and you know, you pull you off there and then they're yelling at you and you don't sleep for 72 hours and then just, I mean, and then it goes from there, right? You know, and then we have the various traumas associated not just with our entry into service but during the service and stuff like that. So we all in the military have that common trauma bond. So if you've never been in there and you see two folks who are in the military, especially in the same service or especially they're ever in the same unit or something like that, there's instantly a whole set of things they already know they have in common. There's instantly a whole set of things they already know, they already know all the inside jokes already, just established right, we know that. And so you can operate on that level. So it's been fun, you know, interacting with Jerome online, you know, knowing some things that we can talk about, some things that we can read each other about and I really enjoyed that. Jerome, why don't you start us off and tell us about, you know, when you were your little Jerome, you know, getting up, coming up before you got off off into the Air Force? Yeah, so I'm originally from Memphis, Tennessee. I come from a, I'm from Memphis and I have the same part away. I come from like a weird like basketball family. So not penny, not penny, is it? Actual, yeah. Oh man, oh man. So, you know, people is very, and that's the favorite part about being in the tech. A lot of people don't pick up on that. But I came from that and, but because I was always technical and as a kid, I also came from big boxing background. When I started boxing, I was like four or five and never really shied away from it. Absolutely loved it. The silver gloves, metal than that, was on Air Force boxing team, metal than that. Just kept, you know, doing nerd stuff while the whole time I liked theology, mythology, everything that, you know, when you're, you know, in a black area city, it's weird. You know, you're always the weird kid, but I had boxing to lean on and the family name. So no one really wanted to bully me because I was cool by proxy. But, you know, that was me as a kid. And then I ended up going to the military. I actually had a scholarship for Pacific University in Hawaii. And I ended up going to the Air Force because I had a cousin that wanted to go to the Air Force and our parents talked us into going in together so that we could do like some buddy system thing. And that was how I ended up making decision at Air Force. And it was a unique decision, like one of those things. Well, you know what? As a child, as a kid, I was like qualified to make that decision and my parents definitely should like have thought twice about that, but it all worked out in there. So I'm cool with it. I think it is interesting when we talk about, you know, the cats that joined the military like right out of high school, you know, those recruiters are taking you to hearties, you know, when you're 17, you know, they'll come on down and come hang out, you know. And they, you know, talk you up real nice. They give you all the free stuff just to get you signed online. And they are really some of the best salesmen in the world because if you can sell that experience to somebody, like how you can sell anything. If you can sell being a Marine to anyone, you can definitely do it. Like Air Force is easy because they're like, oh yeah, our food is great. And you know, I mean, life is gonna suck, but it's not gonna suck as much as those other guys. So. It suck as a relative, suck as a relative. Yeah, the suck as a relative. So it's like, you know, it's signed me up. I never, I scored an 86 on the ASVAP and the Air Force recruiter got me and they were trying to hurry up and get my cousin in. So they were like, oh, we could just sign you up to be like Security Forces as a cop. And I was like, okay, cool, whatever. And then this neighbor recruiter called because, you know, they report the ASVAP scores. I didn't know that they get the recruiters, your ASVAP scores in this neighborhood call. And she was like, wait, you're going to Air Force to be Security Forces. Just like you could have any job you want. And she laughed and hung up the phone on me. And like, that was like my experience, the Navy. She just laughed and she said, you could have had any job you want. They went click and I was like, oh, what's that about? And like, that's my Navy recruiter experience that in 2004, but Air Force guy was super nice to me. I was already in shape. And so he's like, oh, Drone's going to have a fine job. Oh yeah, you're just going to fly through the Air Force, but you're in shape already. Yeah, that's what it was. I flew through Air Force boot camp because you'd be amazed how many people, and that's where my like focus of the fundamentals kind of comes from. You'd be amazed how many people just don't show up to boot camp in shape, like across the board. Like that's the bare minimum metric that's going to make your life easy. It's just having the ability to pass the physical thing so you can focus on a mental aspect of it. And they just don't do it. And I've never understood that, like even, and that's one thing that's, you know, when it came to coding, when it came to, when it comes to anything, I've really focused on the fundamentals because it's those fundamental things, that core set of skills that always comes back and bites you. And you know, that's even boxing the same way you can tell the people that didn't focus on their, you know, keeping their chin down, punching from their chin, using their jab. And I'm sure the same way you just do, like you can tell the people that really didn't focus on, you know, the fundamentals of guard work to be able to actually, you know, everybody wants to do the, you know, the fancy flying triangle stuff, but you know what, they don't want, they haven't drilled those high percentage moves at arm bar to triangle to leg lock, like combination 3000 times. So it's like, okay, you know, it's cool that you can bounce off the wall and do like a spinning anaconda, like suplex move, but then you just got caught by like a 120 pound, like kid who got you an arm bar because you didn't remember how to get out of it or to see it or forecast for it. Like you just lift yourself up, it's like, congratulations. And so it was a bit of a segue. It's funny you talk about that there, there's a techniques and then there's the fundamentals, right? So you can practice the techniques, right? You can practice how to do an arm bar, you can practice how to do the sweep, you can practice how to do, you know, this takedown, but then there's the fundamentals behind it, right? So when I talk about the fundamentals, like the technique is you grab a collar, you grab a sleeve, you know, you shrimp on your side and you sense your leg and sweep, right? That's the technique, but the fundamental is I need to take away your post on one side. I need to control your upper body, right? And then I need to, yeah, and I need to pull your base on the mind so that I can switch your light in the hips and then I need to move your hips, right? Those are the fundamentals behind that. And so when we relate that into like tech, right? I can learn the syntax, right? And I can just re, you know, I can regurgitate functions that I've memorized, right? But when I learn the why, right? When I learn the, how the things work underneath, then I can rearrange things in a better way, right? So that way, like in jiu-jitsu, if I don't have exact control of your sleeve and I don't have exact control of your collar in the right place, right? But I can get, I can grab a hold of your elbow and I can pull your head down, right? I can still sweep you. And the same as a guy sweep because the fundamentals are there. So if I don't necessarily remember like this one specific code or if I can't use this one thing in this one way, right? But I still remember the fundamentals. I can still move bits around the way I need to move them and under any circumstance, right? And so that's the difference between learning the technique, right? And then learning the fundamentals. And so one of the things that the, I think is very interesting when we talk about how we learn in the military, a lot of cats get by just to learn the techniques. They just recur to say it's stuff they learn, right? Well, those cats will make it to, you know, NCOs. Maybe they'll make it like E45. But the cats that make it beyond that, right? Or the ones that are really the high performers are the ones that learns the why behind it. They learn the strategies. They learn the technologies. They become, you know, masters of their craft and what they're doing. And those are the cats you see when stuff goes sideways, you can't fix all those ones you go to. Yes, yes. And we, I speak that to my troops all the time. I speak out to even civilians, right? No, fundamentals matter. Fundamentals absolutely matter. It's not what you can do. It's the why you did it, right? You have to be able in an interview. All right, you know, especially because, you know, I'm in JavaScript and I'm your friend in Heavy World and I'm like, okay, tell when was the hot, was a new hotness and it's a hotness, right? We're like, yeah, it's the buzz. And I talked to troops. I'm like, all right, you have a small SPA. It doesn't really do anything. So why are you using a utility-based framework that, you know, it's designed, like utility-based frameworks are designed for large web apps. So, you know, they're not, they're used to scale big apps, but you know, you have three pages. So why did you do this when you could showcase your CSS skills more? I'm like, what you're doing, like it's cool that you could do this, but what you've done for me as a senior is you put a question in my head of, do you actually know CSS because you picked something to do all the heavy lifting for you, right? So where is your CSS game at, right? So that, and that's where we, that's where I focus on like educating my troops or educating juniors in general. It's like, you know, be intentional with your education and your, you know, building and learning on fundamentals, because these are the things that, you know, I'm going, these are the ways that people think. These are ways that people that you want to hire think. Because, you know, I'm always in this industry on that side. I'm always trying to see how can I help them, you know, how I can open up their eyes. I'm like, you know, could it be intentional with that process? Because if you're not, what's going to happen is, you know, you're going to have a skill set, but you're not going to have the answers for the why that skill set and things of that nature. So, you know, and this is very fun because we both come from military and combat backgrounds. So we're very much like, you know, pretty much agree on everything all the time. Oh yeah. And you know, we're also weird. Yeah, we're like weird because like we're the military veterans and the roomful civilians that lean left. And we're not the type of veterans that they get to see a lot. It's not pushed by the media. You know, Fox News hasn't ever, has never invited me to, you know, be on their show. They're not going to invite me. I think it's important that like, you know, there are no cultural monoliths, whether whether veterans, whether whether black people and especially among black veterans, right? I think it's really, it's one of those things where, you know, depending on, you know, if you look at who joins the military, right? The most it's people in the South. It's poor people in the South. Yeah, right. And so like black people are very overrepresented, not very overrepresented, but overrepresented in the enlisted ranks, especially junior listed ranks and far underrepresented in the officer ranks. You're absolutely, everything you said is true. 60% of women in the enlisted ranks are black and brown. And that's something that isn't reflected on the officer rank or isn't reflected in the VA's numbers of people that use VA services because we've created this, I don't think we've created it. I think the country has created this idea that if you're like not a six foot one dude with a beer that is white, you don't pass as a veteran. And you see it all the time where women and minorities, they get their veteran status questioned because they don't fit what people think. You know, no one was like, we don't want them to look like Chris Evans. So one of those things. There are so many women that I know of like in Milvet Twitter, right? That they're questioned over and over and over again. And it's beyond stupid, right? Because nine times I attended the folks questioning them are never serving the military themselves. There was, gosh, what is her name? She's a Twitch streamer named Emery, and I can't remember what her name is, but somebody was trying to argue with her saying that she wasn't a real vet and she did the mic drop with her picture because she was a ranger. Yeah, and he was like an ordinary person who liked the 90s or some shit, right? That was hilarious. If that at all, I don't even know this her, but she had with the beret, with her combat arms ribbon, the airborne, I was like, look, man, I don't come for these women, right? I took people that all the time, like the VWC, the most dangerous person in a VWC is a woman. I was like, Erin was EOD. I was like, you don't want attention to detail. Her first job, her main, she was an officer at EOD. She used to be able to disable bombs. I'm like, I don't know how to disable bombs. I'm like, don't ask me for nothing. None of my jobs have any of that haptic feedback. And she told me the story and she was like, well, it was either jump out of planes or learn how to disable bombs. So I was like, I'm not jumping out of planes. So I was like, wait. But you were in the Air Force? She was Army. She was Army. And she was like, no, if I have to choose between jump out of planes or disabling bombs, I'm gonna go over here with a bomb squad. It's like, that is crazy. Cause I would have chose planes. It was very funny. But I do think it's interesting when we're talking about like some of the things, especially like, cause we know as vets that women have to go through just an extraordinary amount of BS in the military, right? Already, right? Is a very masculine kind of toxic masculine kind of thing. Very toxic. A lot of men already underestimate women. And they do that based strictly on physical characteristics, right? And I will admit, like most of the women that I've ever worked with when I was in the Marine Corps, they couldn't lift as much as I could. They couldn't do as many pull-ups as I could. Could I carry a heavier pack? Sure, right? But that said, that didn't mean that they were, weren't still stronger and faster and better than at least half the men I served with. The way I look at it is like how Jim Mattis puts it, like, you know, James Mattis, I shouldn't call him Jim, like I know him. Jim and boy, how you doing? Yeah, Mad Dog is another night. Don't call him that, he's a guy. I never gonna call him that into his face. I'm not having General Mattis come back for me. But, you know, he said, you know, combat and military is a thinking man's game. And we keep trying to put the status on brutality and like brute force. When really it's the people, you know, like look no further than what the type of situations we are in now, you know, last year, two years ago, we had he who must not be named Screamin' about more steam on Navy ships. This year we've had, what, three cyber terrorist attacks, a gas line attack. We had, I think a food organization and like a food company, like pipeline attack. Last year we had, you know, because of fake news and stuff, we had a person try to blow up and take AT&T call center offline in Nashville. So the way that, you know, combat's changed, but because, you know, we're looking for this like alpha male-ness in combat when combat, it's not male or female, it's male fluid, it's dynamic. We are not evolving with that. And I see that in the tech community, tech culture, which has always made me super, I've always been weird about the toxic masculinity in tech because I'm like, where do this bro-ing-ness comes? Like no one's tell, no one's able to point out the historical point in life in tech where everyone became very bro-y and alpha male-y. And, you know, I was like, y'all know we push pixels, right? Right. It's super interesting because you'll see like, I remember, you know, I'm long enough, I remember like pre 2000, pre, you know, y2kpre.com boom, right? And it was a bunch of nerds, really just a bunch of nerds that were rich, right? And so they didn't know how to act, right? They didn't know how to act at all. And so you've got people who are acting the fool, right? But what ended up happening is ended up being like all fret bro-y afterwards. And I don't know what, I don't know where tech bros came from. I don't know where they came from because, and when I, when I look at it, right? Cause I see in tech bros a lot of the same stuff I used to see in, you know, the folks out of the barracks, right? You know what I'm saying? On Friday night, they go out to the club and act the fool, it was the same behavior, right? But at least the people who are out there in the club, out there out in town, who are in the military, right? Those cats had been through something. You know what I'm saying? Back to something, they're cutting loose something. These, most of the tech bros I've ever seen have never had any weight on their very narrow shoulders and their lives. The toxic masculinity in the military is a side effect of brutality in the military. In tech, the toxic masculinity comes from, I don't know. I think, and this is just, this is just my conjecture. And folks out there can, you can say it's true. Say it's not. Please feel free to comment in the tech, whatever. But to me, it's when they try to equate pushing pixels around to war, right? Or like teams say, oh, we're fighting this. We've got to grind it away so we can build this startup. And we've got to work all these hours to push all these pixels. And like, you know, they build these kind of grand, kind of delusions of grandeur around the work they're doing. And I'm not saying it's not hard work. And I'm not saying that they don't work long hours, but it is not actually in the trenches. From someone who actually has been in a trench, that ain't it, brah. Yeah, I tell people right now why it is. Every time I'm in a situation, I'm like, you know, most teams I'm on, I've always been the person that stays calm. Like I've been the person to handle stuff because of my calmness. And they're like, why are you so calm? I'm like, well, we could all be gonna shot it right now. Right. I've been in that life. Like there's absolutely, I never be talking to a manager. He's like, oh, you're so calm. And I was like, well, we could all be having dealer mortar attacks. So like, I've done that. I was like, I was 20 when that was going down. And I was like, I'm in a job where absolutely, where like no one's trying to kill me. Pretty cool. So I'm like, why? I don't know. I don't get it. Cause I'm like, all we do is like, we get paid a lot of money to think hard and then write what we think and make it work. It's like writing a book that has to do things. I'm like, why are we, why are y'all so angry? And like, I don't want to take away from the stress that especially the people who have to do the chopping of water carrying wood have to deal with, right? Because it is a stressful situation that they get put in a lot. But they usually get put in those situations by people above them who don't understand how trivial the work they're doing actually is. And so when they try to make it seem like it is this grand thing of huge import, well, it's only important to people, to their investors, and only marginally so. Cause I don't want to money. It's important to their dreams, but not important. Like I, security forces has a 51% dropout rate. You either injure out, die or quit, right? That's it. Those three ways to get out of security forces or cause they don't, they don't retrain you because security forces is, you know, hard enough to get people to join it. So like those are the three ways. And I was talking to my wife like a week ago and I, cause I just, you know, I'm always researching like the pay ranks and stuff like that. Like I've been at E6 if I had stayed in a military and been around and done on that. I've been making half of what I make right now after 10 years in the military. And did you imagine like, you know, I was certified on M4, M9, M2, 49 Bravo, M2, yeah, M240 Bravo, M249, small arms tech tank. I was like all this stuff, like all these weapons and being put in these crazy situations. Like, you know, oh, let's go and take the doctors into a village and help them, you know, do the medical stuff with the women. Let the women darkest and the female doctors work with the women and hope we don't get ambushed. And I was like making like $28,000 a year. And I was like, I'm like, yo, that is wild compared to like, I'm making like 130 and I'm like to sit at home. And play with my kids, like in dogs. Like, why are we tripping? Like, why are we like, what's going on in the mentality here? I'm like, this is like, you've never been in 112? Like, have you ever been, I was like, have you ever been in a 115 degree heat where the situation is, oh, the water was compromised. So now you gotta make sure that all the insurgents that you've caught, they make, that they're fed and watered correctly and you made the diohydration. Like, I've been in that situation. So don't like, why are y'all angry? I don't get it. And I don't know, the community culture of tech still, the broliness of culture and tech still bothers me. And, you know, like I try to be an equalizer because I feel like people think I'm broly in tech. I'm like, I'm not broly in tech. This is who I am. I'm like, I am like, I am a black person, combat veteran who turned into a technologist. So this is my culture. And I use that privilege of who I am to the shield people who aren't like that when I see those tech bros come in. Like, you know, I don't say a lot of things anymore about, you know, black lives matter and stuff because there are people who are way more qualified and way more understanding like, you know, on how to be anti-racist than me. I amplify them. Now, my job is I get in when, you know, somebody decides they want, you know, to buck because, you know, Kim is a girl and I'm gonna talk, you know, I'm gonna talk to Kim. Like, you know, like I lost my mind. I'm like, oh, we're not gonna do that. I'm gonna, like I tell people, I'm an Avenger. I'm there when you guys, I'm there to avenge. If y'all don't do anything stupid, you won't see me. Like y'all can't have conversations and I gotta get involved and I'll make everybody feel bad. So like that's where, like that's where I leverage being like military and being alpha and all this stuff about combat. And like, because I'm like, this is like, it's used, I use it to, you know, be the equalizer in situations where people may not be able, but people are getting bullied, right? Cause that's our job, right? You know, my job is to stop the bullies, right? And sometimes you gotta remember, remind people that, yo, how you're talking does not match up with your record. So I need you to simmer down, chill. Lower your voice. Yeah. And yeah, you take the shoulders off, go ahead. Like, they're based on your voice. Like, you know, this is Twitter, chill. And it's just, it's a very, you know, it's a very weird like space to spot the end because like, you know, I tell people, you know, people say that it wasn't, this wasn't problems. Like, no, these are always problems. Just people didn't have the leverage to the opportunity to speak up without punishment, you know, 90s, like our parents, my parents at least, had to endure it, like living in a world where you couldn't tell white people they were fucking up without losing a job, right? So like, I understand the privilege that we have. Like, you know, and we've learned that, like being in the military, being in combat. Like there is more, there is more chaos when cast or cultures or races are getting closer to equality, they're getting further from equality. Like the peace that you see in a lot of cultures is usually between everybody is already in a place and they're not getting that opportunity for upward mobility from like whatever is the ruling class. When you see the chaos, that means that the opportunities of the class that wasn't able to, or the class cast, wherever part of country you're at, part of planet you're at, is getting closer to whoever the dominant power is. And like, you learn that, you know, I mean, if you ever seen a country destabilized, you learn, you know, you learn that. Yeah, it's a pattern you see through history over and over and over again. Regardless, you know, you see it in Europe, you see it in the East, you see it. So like, it is just a pattern when people have power and the people who didn't have power or privilege start to gain some, the people who were in power feel threatened and they will start taking measures to prevent that. Yes, and that's what we're trying to do. And it's always like, and I hate to say that because, you know, all this arguing and Twitter fighting and stuff, I see it and I'm like, it's because, you know, I know the social aspect of it, he birthwritten and because, you know, suddenly they're the bad guy and they never thought they were the bad guy. And, you know, when you find out you're the villain of the story, it's hard. So, you know, it's crazy. Like you thought you were the superhero and you turned out to be the Joker, like it's wild. So, you know, and I value people who are doing the work because I know that's essentially taxing. And that's not trying to amplify because I also know that even though I work for veterans, like it's real easy for me to come into the room and, you know, take over this conversation because in the same, I'm sure that you've discovered because of your background, you know, particularly Whiteman they pause, they listen because they know they, you have that reverence of, you know, having started a country and I try not to execute on that a lot because I want to make sure because, you know, it's frankly wrong because part of the thing of being American is, you know, just because I did things for the country doesn't mean my voice should outweigh someone like Kim. So Kim should be able to get the same level of like a power of listening that I do without, with the same reverence without having to do what I did. Like that's why I did what I did, right? I did what I did so Kim can talk to you and tell you what you did wrong and you listen. Not for you to not listen to her and then I have to come and, you know, mansplain what she said, say it with more confidence and, you know, less experience for you to get it. Like it doesn't make sense. So, and that's like my, especially now, like between the vesicles stuff, like I try to stay, I'm trying to focus on products so that way I can help people while like being around if like people in these movements need help and doing a lot of craziness with, you know, I'm looking at cloud and I'm trying to see how can it serve minorities and privileged people in tech and like how to use these tools and these systems. So I, how do I get this? Like how do I be Promethean with it? Like that's been, you know, they call that my leadership style. I went to a school and they're talking about leadership and they were like, oh, your leadership style is Promethean. You're the idea person and you want to be the person that brings fire to the people. And I was like, all right, but how do I be Promethean with like a lot of this stuff? Like how do I, like, you know, AWS with the pay scale stuff and I would pay next and people sometimes can't afford it. So learning how to leverage GitHub actions and Docker, so it's more affordable for people to learn, you know, cloud architecture and sort of with stuff, you know, and, you know, a, you know, infrastructure is code, right? So that's been my, you know, that I've been doing a bunch of stuff like that and trying to not be trying to not be a person that's amplifying people who need to be heard versus a person talking as much as this year while also wanting them, you know, I'm like everybody tell everybody, I'm here if you need me. So I want to talk a little bit like, so what was your, what was your pathway into tech from Air Force Security Forces? And what were some of the, some of the roadblocks and obstacles you had along the way there? Man, I had every roadblock obstacle, but my pathway was pretty saw a commercial about going to a poor public college school. It was like, I'm not going to do that. And then it picked up a book Starbucks, not Starbucks, Barnes and Nobles. I just keep thinking of Starbucks because that's where I was at when I saw the computer section. Went there, got a book on databases, learned SQL, end up working with a partner home of security for a time through SQL, dealing with SQL. And then I moved home and ended up getting a digital marketing admin job. But I was always coding on the side. And then crazy stuff happened in 2014 that just made me launch Betsy Code. And I was helping a family in need, a veteran's family in need, a veteran just died, helping his family in need, who was in need. And I just started, I raised $10,000 over the course of 27 hours, helped that family. And I was ready to go back to sleep. And everybody was like, you can't do that. Like just like that. This is where like no good dig goes unpunished. Like I tell people that Friday I was playing hooky from work. I was in a bed with my girl. I was about to do really adult things. I got the call to help. It's like, okay, I helped. And then people were like, you just can't go back to being a normal person anymore. I was like, this is garbage. I don't appreciate this, like at all. Like, and I've been doing the good fight. Oh, I've been fighting, I've been doing the Betsy Code thing ever since. Because, oh no, somebody got. Yeah, it's my four year old. So, how it is, you know. I'm having one, I'm having a newborn, you know, and then I got three more months. Yeah, get that, get that rest now, man. Shoot. Wow. Wife is jumping up. She gets up like two, three times during the night and she wakes, turns on lights and Netflix and can't go back to sleep. I'm on, I see me, I'm out to drinking coffee and Red Bull since I ate it after that. So that's where my life is. So we're talking about some of the things you've been trying to do to make, you know, the path for folks to learn about, you know, cloud computing and programming, a little bit less expensive. Can you tell me about some of the things that you've done kind of from the ground up with Betsy Code and kind of like some of the programs you've offered and some of the things you've done? Roger that. Well, I built our Jamstack curriculum because it helped, it was, first I want to leverage the technology for VWC because it was essentially a original Lamstack app, which there wasn't been wrong, but everybody was screaming about React and I felt like React wasn't the way to go. Then Gats became, I was like, oh no, Gats gets the way to go for this because SEO components, static sites, et cetera. And then I started doing more serverless stuff because I was seeing, you know, I have been really gifted or really lucky, I guess, in the past five, six years to see the writing on the wall. Serverless, I knew serverless in GraphQL and Microsoft and Azure, AWS, I knew all that stuff was gonna blow up. Five, six years when it first came out because I was like, you know, this just makes so much sense. It's so much more empowering, especially for people like me who are really at that time wanting to focus on knowing one thing. You know, just being okay and knowing all the JavaScript things, knowing Node and Express, you know, or just even knowing, being strong in front end, AWS, S3, all these Azure, they gave me the power to be able to launch full scale apps without being a super backend developer. And I knew it would work for me, it would work for other people. And so that's what we started teaching. Now I'm going through recording process and while also building out the backend for a VWC so that way we can have, you know, people can come and see the stuff all over. I'm also recording a leveraging technology to transition out of the military. Of course, four people who just, who don't may not want to learn how to code, but you still need to learn how to leverage technology to transition out the tech because, you know, military is like what five years behind and the transition experience, like I thought it would get better. And there's like, they have skill bridge, but that's the only thing. And it differs from base to base and like how you can use skill bridge. But the harsh reality is the experience of transitioning out the military is still the same where it's more focused on getting you off their books versus making sure you can have a happy life post service where you can like have a leg up post service. And that's the thing I want to fix because I don't know if you remember, but I remember going to the transition office and the person who was talking about military transition was a person who served 20 years in the military and this was this person's second job or first job out of the military, right? Their first job was the military. This is the second job this person ever had. And I was like, you didn't transition. You just went from, you just changed uniforms. That's it. You just went from, you know, you just put on a collared shirt from a, you know, BDU or ABUs in my time. So I was like, that's still the thing. I'm like, it's been almost 11 years. Like I got out like 20, I got out 2010. So I'm like, that's crazy. And I think, let's say I think it does, especially as people color a disservice getting out of the military because we already have a hard enough time breaking into tech, right? You know, under the best circumstances, like because, you know, even with all things just, you know, just being not, you know, assuming the best intent, people who are still doing referrals and still like refer their buddies, it's still mostly white males referring mostly white males, right? Yes. So to get, yeah. So be able to get out of the military with skills that may be older, but still tangential to what, you know, they're doing in tech to get to an entry level position when you don't have Harvard or you don't have Stanford or you don't have a coding bootcamp on your roles. You don't know how to interview, right? You don't know, you know, you have a general idea of how to dress. You certainly don't know how to talk to people in a tech environment because your language, right, is not, you know, the English that most civilians speak, it is, you know, it is a military patois. You know? It is acronyms and F-bombs. That's what we speak for, for acronyms and F-bombs. Gestures and stuff like that. So you have all those things going in there, plus being a person of color, you had a lot of disadvantages and there's a lot of ways I think we could help. I do know that there are some programs, like one I saw when I actually went to go work for AWS and I was in our new employee training, there was classes of folks with nothing but like vet interns where they had like, I think it's like some like 16 or 40 week program they would go through and they would teach them how to be like network specialists or security specialists or something like that. And then- Yeah. Aren't you tired of that? Like cybersecurity has become a police officer back in the 90s and early 2000s for veterans. Like, oh, you were in the military, new cybersecurity. I'm like, okay, but those aren't the veterans I looked up to. The veterans I looked up to was Stan Lee and, you know, Bob Ross. Right. So I want to be in that room of veterans. So I cannot be, I want to be where, I want to be given the room to grow and become the next Bob Ross. So let me be given the room to grow and become the next Stan Lee. I want to create worlds, right? I want to bring like, so like that's what I, that's, I think that's the thing with Vetsu Code is I want to create, I wanted to create a program in the like minds of Stan Lee and Bob Ross because those are the people that people forget our veterans because they're not the people that you're, they're not the type of veteran that is easy to sell, right? I think even beyond that too, just, just beyond just coding, right? There's a lot of vets that work with power plants. There's a lot of works that work with like, you know, diesel generators and stuff like that. That would be great working for a data center, right? There's a lot of vets that know how to run cable that could work, you know, and do those kinds of things like that where they could be data center texts. There's a lot of vets that would be amazing project managers, right? Because they can coordinate stuff from all over the country, from various countries, from various services, you know, and get it all there at the right time in the right place under some really, really horrendous conditions. There's an FSC called Contracting in the Air Force. That's a whole job. And that's essentially what you just said, program management at scale. They're making sure everybody gets paid and all the supplies are there and all the money and contracts and stuff is done. So, you know, go into a, you know, a foreign country where everybody wants to kick your butt in a place that, you know, know where to live. Like, oh, you know, it's like high school. Yeah, it's like, it's like training specialists. Like I said, recruiters, sales, there's no better take, there's no better take, there's no better take sales than like a recruiter. You have to get it like, those of you that are like A1 liars, like. So, it's beyond just learning how to code, right? But there's so many avenues within tech, right? That we could be getting vets in. That to say that you have to be cyber security or you have to be network security or even just like front and back encoding, there's so many other options. Well, I mean, it's all about, I think, I think my biggest issue with the cyber, excuse me, my biggest issue with cyber security is the growth component. Like what do you do after this? And I think that's one of the things that we as like more senior people need to show. Like, all right, this is how you start, this is how you spread out. Like, this is your goal, is to get in tech doing this thing. Now let's talk about your stretch goals. So in case you want to go left, you go right, let's say, all right, let's say you want to become an engineering manager. What's the management track? Or let's say, you know, you're front end and you want to get into DevOps, right? DevOps is actually a really good path to go from front end or even back end as you're going towards full stack, front end, then DevOps, then back end. That's a really good path. And you like full stack and then you can become an engineering manager or you become a product owner or a staff engineer because, you know, and like, let's talk about these things. Like what is a staff engineer? Oh, a staff engineer. They have like oversight of the technical aspect of the entire, of everything of code. But they don't, they're not doing all the coding but they know all the pieces that work and they know how to get you all the tools and resources you need, right? And they might co-like 20% of the time but most of their, you know, they are a high performer whose performance metrics has changed from the output of code they make to, you know, the collaboration efficiency they make you the junior or you the mid or you the senior, right? That is what a principal, a staff level engineer is, right? So, you know, just being able to share and execute on those things and like teach people that they don't, cause people don't know that stuff and especially you're new in tech. You don't know that. You don't have no idea that there is such a thing as a staff engineer. What's that about? Or, you know, a partner engineer. Like, I was at Microsoft like who or what? Like, oh, that's all right. You're like up here, up here. I was like. Yeah, I was related to the high level engineers like, you know, staff, principles, like that as, as warrant officers, right? You know, cause, you know, I'm going to walk around my hands in my pockets. I'm going to point this up and show you how to do that, right? If you ask me a question, I know the answer, but I'm not, you know, I'm still, I'm still out of the office by, by 1500. Yeah, I'm here, but I'm not here. You don't see anything. You still. You only never see me take a PT test. You never see. That is absolutely every warrant officer that I've ever met. They managed to get score somehow, but don't, don't ever. You know, if we all, they don't know, like those, like they're like, you know, warrant officers are like a weird diminishing subset in the military where they're not officers, but they're not enlisted. They're like in the middle and they're not civilians. Well, like you literally have officer corps, civilian enlisted corps, then you have the civilians and then somewhere in the middle doing our own little thing is warrant officers. Warrant officer doesn't have a commission, but they have a promotion warrant to the officer. But other than that, you still have to salute them, all the kinds of like that, but they, they are below every commissioned officer, but above every enlisted person. And you get to be a warrant officer by being a technical expert, or just being in the army and working in like flying helicopters, something like that. That's like every helicopter pilot. Like that's the only warrant officers I know, all helicopter pilots. Like, is that don't like, I don't even know anyone else. There's mechanics to fly helicopters, but I think it's important to know like, you know, like someone asked like in the military, especially like how do you get to be a warrant officer? Well, you know, it's not easy. Sure, they're all these paths, but you talk about that. And that's one of the things that they do. It's like, if I want to, I know, right? If I'm a Lance Corporal, what is going to take to be a Corporal? I have to get that cutting score, right? And I get that cutting score and I have to do this, this, and this, and this, and this, right? Say, if I want to go to Corporal Sergeant, if I want to get selected for Staff Sergeant, I got to do this, this, and this. I got to, you know, your goals, your, the things you have to accomplish are pretty well laid out as an established thing. And it's not the same in the civilian job market because it varies from company to company. The roles mean different things everywhere. And so you kind of have to be much more fluid in your expectations, right? But I, there comes, and I sometimes I try to teach, like that chaos comes beauty in the civilian sector because you get to leverage, like you get to kind of forge your own path. And I think when it comes to transition with the military from military to civilian, that's the hardest thing they have to deal with. Like this, you know, when to a person in the military going in the civilian workforce, it feels like going to Wild Wild West, where, you know, the rules don't matter and everybody wins, right? So, like you have to, like you said, you have to change your expectations. You have to mitigate a lot of things to be able to understand, you know, like, what's the number one issue that I see with veterans all the time? Networking, talking about themselves. Like, you know, networking gets the biggest, ugh, sound out of people next to like sales, right? Cause they're like, oh, I hate networking. That's the only thing you're doing it from. Like for me, networking is, you know, making friends with people based upon the things I like, while also learning how to make money with that person, like that. That is the people who make money the way I want to make money, but I also like his friends. Like, I don't, you know, people say, and someone pointed out, oh, you're always talking about GitHub and you're at Microsoft, so you're like, no, I've been a fan of GitHub before. I was at Microsoft. I was a GitHub star before I was at Microsoft. I love GitHub, the product. Just like, I love VS Code, the product. You asked me about .NET, and I'm like, ugh, no. Uh, like, that's how I am, right? That is the correct answer, by the way. Yeah, so I'm like, that's who I am. I'm like, no, you said VS Code, I'm a cheer, you say anything, GitHub, I'm a cheer, .NET, no. Now we're here at Microsoft, so I'm like, that's the thing. Like, I say, you know, that's how, that's how you, that's how I network, right? And finding people who also love GitHub things, the next thing you know, you know, it pays off because you're working with these tools and if you're helping you make money, the things you enjoy and you're not feeling like you're doing work because the things you enjoy aren't killing you, right? But that's it, like, that's all. And I try to tell them, like, no, all I'm doing, like, you and me, right? I was like, ugh, let's do, we didn't even, our first conversation, I remember vividly, because we weren't even talking about code. There was somebody on Twitter saying something stupid about firearms and swords. And that was a conversation on how we met. Some dude was like, he could like take out a gunman with a sword and I was like, I don't know what anime you've been watching, but I didn't happen it. What did that mean? While you were doing this, I was setting the plate. I'm like, bro, I hate telling you. A lot of people thought that, but there's a reason why we don't use swords in them. Exactly, like, if swords are more effective, everybody would have a katana. It's a journey real quick. I want to ask you a question that came in the chat, so we have time to make sure you address this. So one of the folks in chat asked, what advice would you give civilians to best help set up vets for success in tech roles? Grace, I think the marketing of veterans where hard workers or chargers and all this other stuff is cool, but you have to still understand like you're still a subculture coming into another subculture, right? So understanding this person may not understand things that or like, you know, there are things about civilian culture I still don't understand. And I've been a civilian culture for like over a decade and I'm still like, y'all are wild. Like, it's just weird. So like, just Grace, like, you know, like we just said networking, you went to college and you know, or you were in like a civilian, you understand the importance of networking. Civilians understand that because, you know, I mean, military don't understand that because we know, you know, just do your job, do your job well, and you know, your supervisor will write an EPR for you and then like your performance report and then you go and, you know, you take this packet and you send it to these special schools and jobs, but your supervisor knows it's their job to like prepare you for the next level. And that's not, you know, the norm in civilian. The norm in civilian is your responsibility to prepare yourself for the next level. Is your responsibility to get the resources and tools you need to be able to, you know, get the step up and get step up in like another level and anything, right? That's not your supervisor's job. What are you talking about? That's insane, right? Like that is how, like that's how crazy, like how crazy separate those worlds are, right? You know, our job, you know, my perform, our, you know, military, our collaborative state is from the gate, the most important thing because you're a no, we come from mentality, you're no better than the weakest person on your team, right? So regardless of how much of a high performer you are, it doesn't matter if the whole team is hurt, right? So there is no, you know, we get that in civilian sector, even if you're on a team, there's going to be winners and there's going to be losers. And that's another thing that you have to, like, you know, asking for, asking for help. Another thing that veterans are really bad at across the board present parties included. We will like, we are horrible asking for help because we come from a culture where needing help is bad. You're the, you know, you're the hero. You're not a damsel in distress. And that's probably supposed to be needing help. So what happens is you come from that culture that, you know, it's toxic because we've already stated and you bring that into the civilian sector where, you know, asking for help might as well, you know, no, I'll jump off this building first. Like I'm never going to ask for help. And that's not healthy. So you have to create an area of breaks and you have to check in. Like one thing I do is, like, you know, it's almost like what I do with my wife, right? Cause she was raised by a Marine, like, oh my God, it's horrible. So she's pregnant. And she's third time, she's always hungry. And she, but she doesn't want to make, put me out my way by saying she's like hungry like 10 PM or 2 AM or something like that. So, but it should be tossing and turning. And I'm like, yo, I'm hungry. I'm going to go down to the kitchen. Do you want me to get you something? And then of course she comes up with this whole menu of ideas. But because I know that from a, this comes from a place of being raised by a Marine who, and Marines don't, they don't know how to ask for help. And like, I don't need you to yell at me right now. Don't say the quiet parts out loud. Like, why are you screaming at me, Jerome? So, all right, people don't know how to say all of us. Military people don't know how to say, I won't say anyone else. Military people don't know how to ask for help. My wife is very self-sufficient. And she, you know, she gets that from her dad where she doesn't like asking for, she doesn't like people and she's a burden on people. So you have to create areas like, you know, you're not a burden on me, right? It's beyond one-on-one. It's like, you know, trying to make sure that this person knows that, hey, yo, I'm looking out for you even though I'm doing my thing. I don't, especially if you're a senior, I feel like too many seniors are too focused. That shift of going from my job is to make the team better to my job's work done. It's so hard for civilians to make because like the civilian workforce, like ideology is so self-centered from, you know, the gate. So that shift of club being the youth that the team wins is how you win. So weird for them. But in the military, that's not it. But also, you know, you have to be okay. Like as a veteran, you have to be okay with not knowing what you're talking about, right? Cause veterans, like veterans, I know how to ask for help. And that's one thing that I'm always, I'll just, I'll quickly like ping someone. I'm like, hey, do you need help on this thing? Or, hey, I know I had a project where I was doing some contracting. And, you know, I was seeing veterans who were talking about doing freelance stuff. And I was like, so I'm going to do this contract. Let me show you what I'm doing. Like I was walking through the tools I use and everything. You know, like, oh, okay. And I'm making sure, you know, this is how I set it up. This is how I set up my payment system and everything. And they were like, wow, I learned so much today. I was like, I knew you didn't know what you were doing. I didn't want to, you know, muck this up. So I just wanted to make sure that I showed you, do it. And that's, you know, that's what you need to do as a leader. You know, look for the quiet parts. I guess it's the best part. Because, you know, people usually don't, people usually don't ask you the question. It's behind the question. So you have to always look for that. Yeah. I would say it's interesting because you do, when we talk about like how we were jumped in, right? You know, you never want to be the person that couldn't do it, right? Yes. That was the worst thing you do. If you could, a person who fell out of a march person who couldn't, you know, who couldn't qualify in the rifle, a person who couldn't qualify with the grenades, you know. Person who couldn't. Oh yeah, they wouldn't rag you. It was like, I don't know. I remember somebody getting a lot of efficiency made fun of. Like, you know, like, you know, you definitely didn't, we definitely didn't want to be the person who couldn't get that gas mask on in time, right? You know, like there were, there were a lot of harsh penalties for being the one who couldn't, right? Yeah. You didn't want to be the person that was about to do PT. Like, that was the thing. Like, oh no, if I, if we get in trouble, I don't want to be my fault. Yeah. And like, and the thing is with the military, it is designed to do that. It is designed to weed out the people that can't. Not to help people can. Yeah. Right. Because life and death is the game, though. You know, that's not, that's not the... And that's the thing, right? If that's not how it's supposed to be in tech. That's not how it is. People trying to make it like that, right? You have this as, oh, you know, knows the grindstone, I had to do this back then. And so we're going to make our... No, you don't have to be like that. Again, this is not life and death. Y'all, like you said at the beginning, we're pushing pixels around, right? And so I think that when we talk about what can help people going forward, right? Is not to gatekeep, right? And certainly not to like punish, but to nurture. Of course. I mean, coming from the front end world, my thing was, why don't we meet people in no linked list when the biggest joke in our industry is how hard is to center a diff? Like this is crazy. Like, what's going on? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, I will never be front end. Front end is stressful, but it's not like, in the world stress was like, oh, well, everybody's going to have an opinion about my work. This is awesome. Like I have 80,000 losses now. Like everyone knows that, knows how to do what you do better. It's very funny. Like, oh, you suck. All right, Jerome. We got about a minute left. Give me your last minute. Give me what you want to pitch, what you want to promote, what you want to say. Roger that. Just follow us on Vets of Code at Twitter, Vets of Code, or follow me at Jerome. And if you're a junior and you're ever looking for help, don't hesitate to like, slide in my DMs. I actually have a 101 with a troop, with a civilian today that I'm going to go over a lot of his work to help them. Because he wants to start my front end master's course and he wants, you know, you need some feedback. So, if you need help, don't hesitate to ask. All right, everybody. Jerome Hardaway, veteran, technologist, and all around good person. Dangerous boxer. And one of these days we're going to grapple. One of these days we're going to grapple. We got to, man. Like, no ghee, I'm ready. I'm ready. All right. I don't know how to do ghee. I've never rolled in ghee. I mean, see these metals back there? I see them. I see them. I mean, I know it has a little bit like. Most of those, most of those are no ghee. Just saying that. Look, I know it's an ass of it. I'm not running around here. My expectations are not, like, we're closer to the ground. Like, you know what? If I can go around without tapping, I'll be happy. All right, y'all. I'm Tim Banks. This has been Solid State. Thank y'all for joining. Please smash that subscribe button. Follow us on Twitter. Just keep coming back. We appreciate y'all. We'll see you later.