Category: What I’m Up To

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Career What I’m Up To

Laid off in 2024, part 20: One of the upsides of being laid off (electronics and IoT)

Joey de Villa’s “IoT box” — a clear plastic storage container containing Pimoroni Badger 2040W, Elegoo UNO R3 Super Starter Kit, Rasberry Pi 3 Model B, Adafruit Circuit Playground Express, 2 Raspberry Pi 4 Model Bs, Elecrow 5" HDMI screen, Elegoo 37 sensor module kit, and Raspberry Pi Pico.

One of the upsides of being laid off is that you get a couple extra hours a day — and only a couple, because getting a new job is your new job — to pick up some things that have fallen by the wayside. For me, one of those things was playing around with electronics and IoT (Internet of Things) devices, and I’d been waiting for a chance to pull out my “IoT box,” pictured above.

Clockwise from the top:

I also have a basic electrical/electronics kit:

Joey de Villa’s electronic kit, a plastic container containing soldering iron, digital multimeter, and various electronics tools.

I’ve used it for all sorts of little repairs, including the time I fixed a manufacturing defect in one of our emergency lights.

Fix-It Felix: "I can fix it!"

There are big payoffs to being able to tinker with and fix physical things: it helps build a “can do” mindset that will serve you well, especially during a long post-layoff job search during a time when the jobs market is tough. It’ll take you far in work, life, and play.

I’ll write more about my IoT/electronics projects as I complete them.

Recommended reading/viewing

Additional notes for “Beyond the Circuit: The Everlasting Role of Hardware Skills”

This article features follow-up notes for Computer Coach’s LinkedIn audio event, Beyond the Circuit: The Everlasting Role of Hardware Skills, which took place on Friday, March 8, 2024.

Would you be able to perform this simple household repair?

One of our emergency battery-powered lights had a relatively simple defect that could be fixed with a relatively simple repair. Luckily, I had my soldering iron handy…

ℹ️ Oddly enough, this happened two layoffs ago.

Also in this series…

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Career What I’m Up To

Laid off in 2024, part 19: Why I’m relying on connections and referrals

There are two main reasons why I’m relying on connections and referrals to land my next job:

  1. With one notable exception*, every job I’ve ever had came via a connection or referral, and
  2. Applying “cold” means filling out asinine applications like the one pictured above — and hoping to get noticed among the hundreds of others filling out the same form.

At the very least, they could’ve posed the question in a cool way…

🚨 Content warning: Samuel L. Mother-effing Jackson!

The “years of experience” field for English is probably the result of the application form software or the person who set up the form. They probably wanted a fluent English speaker and entered “English” into the “required skills” section. The software simply asks for years of experience for any required skill.

It should be noted that if your primary language is English, filling out the “years of experience” field for it gives away your age.

✳️ That exception? Auth0, which was later acquired by Okta. I saw the job on LinkedIn and filled out the application form.

In case you haven’t read it, here’s how I landed that job.

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What I’m Up To

My desktop, at the moment

Tap to view at full size.

I was sorting out some of the stuff in my office near the desk when I saw the scene pictured above and thought to myself, “this would tell an interesting story.”

Going counterclockwise from near the top left, the items are:

The keyboard and Storyteller Tactics were prizes I won in the “Tracy’s Treasure Chest” raffle at last Friday’s Spring Tech Fest, a.k.a. Tracy Ingram’s 50th birthday party.

The raffle was unusual in that a winning ticket wasn’t for a specific prize. Instead, a winning ticket would allow you to enter a prize room containing over a hundred items, where you could choose what you won. You could buy multiple tickets, and you could win multiple times.

Proceeds from the raffle are going to girls’ STEM education in local high schools, so Anitra and I bought ten tickets and won three times (she got a Kemove K68 keyboard). I think we did all right!

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What I’m Up To

Laid off in 2024, part 18: Timing is everything

They could’ve asked this two months ago,
but NOOOO…

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Hardware Meetups Tampa Bay What I’m Up To

Join my online chat about hardware skills THIS FRIDAY!

On Friday at 10 a.m. EST, join me and Computer Coach for an online session titled Beyond the Circuit: The Everlasting Role of Hardware Skills! 

Software may be eating the world, but software needs hardware to run! In this talk, I’ll talk about the value of knowing how hardware works, as well as how to get started on building your hardware skills, from basic soldering, to how chips work, to playing around with “Internet of Things” devices like Arduinos and Raspberry Pis. Find out more and register here.

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Career What I’m Up To

Laid off in 2024, part 13: One day, in retrospect, you’ll remember this time as beautiful

Tap to view at full size.

ℹ️ TL;DR: While wandering around the streets of Austin, Texas, I unknowingly stumbled into Twitch/OnlyFans streamer PeachJars’ “Free Advice 4 Charity” table, and hilarity ensued. Scroll down to see the video!

Tuesday evening

“How do you stay optimistic?”

This is what someone who’d attended my talk at Civo Navigate North America 2024 asked me during the social event at the end of the conference’s first day.

“What do you mean?” I asked, because I wasn’t sure what he was referring to.

“At the start of your talk, you mentioned that you were recently laid off. It’s brutal out there right now, but you wouldn’t know it from the way you gave your talk. You look like you were having fun.”

Me, at the start of my talk at Civo Navigate North America 2024.
Photo by Jay Boisseau. Tap to view at full size.

“Maybe I’m wired that way,” I replied. “But it’s also that this isn’t my first layoff. I find that things go better if you have a firm belief that you can make things better.”

“In fact,” I added, “because this isn’t my first rodeo (hey, we were in Texas; I’m supposed to use that metaphor!), I know that inside the rough times, there are a lot of surprising good times baked in.”

Thursday morning

This was the day after the conference. It was morning, and my flight wouldn’t depart until 6:15 p.m. I had a couple of choices:

My hotel — the Moxy Austin.

Option 1: Hunker down in the hotel lobby and continue the job search. After all, it is a brutal job market at the moment, even for people with my experience.

The Moxy’s lobby isn’t so much a hotel lobby as it is a pretty nice hangout space with good free wifi and coffee, lots of tables and power outlets, good music, a bar, and a nice taco restaurant. I could easily get a lot of job search work done there, which some might say would be the smart thing to do with that time.

Mural near my hotel.

Option 2: Leave my bags at the hotel, break a twenty-dollar bill into small change, strap on the accordion, take in the sights, sounds, and people of Austin, and make some people’s days a little odder (and hopefully better).

You’ve probably already guessed what I did.

I met Ryan the busker on Guadalupe Street.
Tap to view at full size.

I met Ryan the busker at Guadalupe and 23rd and put a fiver in his bucket. In exchange, he invited me to play Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’ with him, and as a Florida musician, I am legally required to be able to play Tom Petty. We had fun.

A number of people at the nearby bus stop shot video of us, so you might see it floating around the internet.

Free advice for charity

PeachJars’ “Free Advice” table.
Tap to view at full size.

The breakout moment of my walk was when I passed by a table that was promoting free advice for charity, where the charity was Alveus, an exotic animal sanctuary that provides permanent homes to non-releasable exotic animals.

A cheerful young woman sat at the table, flanked by another holding a sign, and a third running what looked like a streaming camera rig. I confirmed the “streaming” part when I saw that the table had a sign that showed the seated woman’s Twitch URL.

PeachJars, I thought. Cute name. I’ll have to look up that channel later.

Rather than tell you what happened next, let me just show you the segment of her stream where I appeared. And be sure to read the stream of comments in the right column!

Quite possibly the first (and maybe last) time that I have been called a GIGACHAD.

Later, on my flight back to Tampa, I looked up PeachJars online. It turns out that she’s a popular Twitch streamer who also has an OnlyFans account. This may be the only time I’ll ever be in a video with an OnlyFans artist!

😘 My thanks to PeachJars and company for being so kind!

Lunch with new friends

Tap to view the original post on LinkedIn.

I had posted earlier on LinkedIn that I was in Austin for the day and asked if anyone wanted to do lunch. Luckily, Connor Brown, Noah Birrer, and Jacob Colvin answered the call, and we got together at Iron Works Barbecue, where Noah covered my lunch and I enjoyed the conversation so much that I forgot to take a picture.

Find the good times in the bad

I could’ve stayed in the hotel and worked on my job search, and I might be a few hours ahead today. But because I chose to step out onto the streets of Austin — a city that I don’t see every day — I had experiences I wouldn’t have otherwise had, met people I wouldn’t have otherwise met, and my headspace is even readier for the hustle.

I now have a better answer for the person who asked me how I stay optimistic while being laid off. It’s because I set out to find the good times in the bad. If you’re laid off, see if you can do the same.

I’ll close with this quote from Sigmund Freud that I’ve been hearing repeated lately:

“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”

Also in this series…

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Current Events Programming Tampa Bay What I’m Up To

Tampa Devs’ BayHacks 2024 hackathon happens this Saturday!

Tampa Devs are holding the BayHacks 2024 hackathon on the USF campus this Saturday and Sunday, and they’re handing out cash prizes to the winners! If you craft code, design web pages, come up with user interfaces, make graphics, manage projects, or come up with ideas — or any combination of these — this is the event for you!

There’s a FAQ for the event, but you can also read the highlights below.

What’s a hackathon?

A hackathon is a competitive event where people with a technology bent — typically developers, designers, and other tech enthusiasts — form teams that work to build a software prototype (which can also include some hardware) that solves a problem or accomplishes a goal within a limited amount of time (typically ranging from a few hours to a couple of days).

Think of it as a pressure cooker of skill and creativity, where teams of participants brainstorm, code, design, test, and refine their creations in a race against the clock — and other teams! Collaboration and innovation are key, as participants huddle around laptops, sketch pads, and whiteboards, exchanging ideas, troubleshooting, and iterating rapidly to refine their solutions. Mentors and industry experts are often available to provide guidance and feedback, adding another layer of learning and networking to the experience. At the end of the event, teams present their projects to a panel of judges or the entire audience, showcasing their ingenuity, technical prowess, and presentation and problem-solving skills.

To use the words of the organizers, Tampa Devs, “It’s one part party, one part work-your-butt-off overnight battle against the clock and the competition.”

What will participants be building at BayHacks 2024?

This hackathon doesn’t have a theme, so participants can build any kind of software/hardware project they want.

However, they don’t have a lot of time to build. Building time starts at 12 noon on Saturday and stops at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, followed by project presentations, judging, and the awarding of prizes.

Do I have to participate, or can I just be a spectator?

Space is limited, so there isn’t room for spectators. If you attend, you must participate in a project!

Where will BayHacks 2024 take place?

It’ll take place in Discovery Hall, USF Research Park, USF.

Since you mentioned times, what’s the schedule?

Saturday, February 24th

TimeWhat’s happening
10:00 a.m.Participant check-in / networking
10:30 a.m.Opening ceremonies, explanation of format, and other announcements
11:00 a.m.Team formation
11:30 a.m.Pitching proposals
12:00 p.m.The work begins!
5:00 p.m.You don’t have to stop, but you have to exit the venue.

Sunday, February 25th

TimeWhat”s happening
10:00 a.m.Participant check-in
10:30 a.m.The work continues!
2:00 p.m.Teams present their projects
3:00 p.m.Judging and the awarding of prizes
5:00 p.m.End of the event

Did you mention prizes?

Yes, there are prizes. Cash prizes, in fact…

PlaceCash prize amount
1st$750
2nd$500
3rd$250

How are projects judged?

They’ll be judged on the following criteria:

  • Quality and innovative nature of the idea / demo
  • Utility of the idea / demo
  • UI / UX design

Who are the judges?

They’re prominent members of the Tampa Bay tech community held in high esteem. You may recognize one of them:

That’s right, I’m a judge. So impress me!

How do you register for BayHacks 2024?

Register for BayHacks 2024 at the BayHacks 2024 Eventbrite page. It costs $10 to register, but that $10 helps cover the costs of running the hackathon and also gets you the official T-shirt, swag bag, andSpa a single entry into the pre-event raffle for a pair of Tampa Bay Lightning tickets.