Nerd Journey: Career Advice for the Technology Professional
John White | Nick Korte
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The Uniqueness of Tech: 100Devs, Coffee Chats, and the Hallway Track with Julia Furst Morgado (1/2)
What would you do with a free pass to a tech conference? Julia Furst Morgado had to decide whether to attend KubeCon without ever having been to a tech conference. After deciding to attend, she came back from the conference with a new perspective and a job offer. While this looks easy on the surface, there’s much more to the story. In episode 311 we’re joined by global technologist Julia Furst Morgado. We’re going to explore Julia’s early career in law, the shift to marketing, and how that ultimately led her to the tech industry. Julia will tell us her reasons for attending a boot camp and how informational coffee chats and “hallway track” networking at tech conferences were instrumental in building her professional network. If you’ve heard the phrase “learning in public” but have never done it yourself, get ready for some inspiration from Julia’s story and tips on how you can get started helping the greater technical community. Original Recording Date: 12-19-2024 Topics – Meet Julia Furst Morgado, Life before Tech, Learn in Public, Pursuing a Boot Camp and Building a Professional Network, Tech Conferences and the Hallway Track, Details on 100Devs 2:37 – Meet Julia Furst Morgado Julia Furst Morgado is a global technologist at Veeam. Julia’s role is as a community-facing technical evangelist. She is heavily involved in the technical community and shares feedback with product managers to improve future product functionalities. When new product releases happen, Julia also gives presentations, hosts webinars, and writes blogs to educate the technical community. Though not directly part of her job, Julia organizes a number of events that benefit the greater technical community. Would Julia’s role be classified as technical marketing? A more appropriate classification would be developer advocacy or developer relations. Julia works within the Office of the CTO, but many times these roles can sit within a marketing organization or even inside a sales organization (which ultimately depends on the company). 4:35 – Life before Tech How did Julia get interested in technology in the first place? Julia transitioned into the technology field about 2 years ago and has achieved a great deal in a short time. Julia is from Brazil and was born in Sao Palo and went to law school there. Julia had a sister studying law, and not knowing what she wanted to do after high school, Julia pursued law as well. Julia later moved to the US after getting a student visa and studied business at the University of California at Berkeley. She went on to work in marketing as a marketing manager at an MSP (managed service provider). Before working for the MSP, Julia never would have considered a transition into technology. Working with the engineers at the MSP taught Julia quite a bit. As the only marketing person at the MSP, she had to do a number of things. “It sparked that want to be more technical. And during the pandemic I got laid off, and I did a coding boot camp. And that’s how I transitioned into tech.” – Julia Furst Morgado, on working for an MSP as the spark that got her interested in tech What did Julia not like about law? Julia describes the law field as a different world. People wear jeans and t-shirts at technology conferences, but you won’t find that in the legal field. People wear suits and are very formal just like we see on Netflix and other television shows. “I worked at an office that was very toxic, and I just decided that’s not what I want. And to begin with, I wasn’t even sure…that I liked law.” – Julia Furst Morgado, on pursuing a career in law Julia then moved to the US to study business, feeling it would open up a number of possibilities for her. What specifically drew Julia to marketing? Julia is a very creative person and recently heard from someone she might have giftedness. During her business studies in school, the marketing classes challenged Julia to find alternative ways to solve problems, and she really liked that aspect. Julia pursued a job in marketing right after finishing her business studies. After starting the marketing role at the MSP, Julia worked with software engineers, IT support, and people in DevOps focused roles. Julia was tasked with rebuilding the MSP’s website, creating white papers, and writing corporate blogs. She also worked with SEO (search engine optimization) and analytics. All of this ended up being relatable experience for what Julia does now as a global technologist. “I had to be in contact with engineers to make sure what I was writing was correct…. Because I’m so curious I would always go to them and ask more questions and research on Google and go down the rabbit hole on something…. My job was…write that blog post. Don’t learn about that technology. Just write the blog post. But I did indeed….” – Julia Furst Morgado, on spending extra time to learn technology even when she was a marketer The extra time Julia spent learning was not wasted. It provided her with a background of knowledge. Learning at a deeper level prevented the content Julia was creating from being superficial. 11:16 – Learn in Public Julia’s job as a marketer was heavily focused on writing and creating content. We’ve advocated on the show for people to blog about the things they are learning. It sounded like Julia was able to do that as a job. When Julia started the boot camp, she learned the term “learn in public” or “learning in public.” She cites a blog post that details the idea. “Whatever you’re learning…share it with others because it builds credibility. One, you’re teaching others. You learn it even better. So I applied this concept, and I would share it on social media. I created a blog, and I also created not one, not two, not three, but four YouTube channels because I speak four languages and wanted to do one YouTube in each language.” – Julia Furst Morgado Julia stresses the importance of being consistent in creating content and sharing it. “I started creating a lot of content, since the beginning, without being afraid of showing…my weaknesses. I think this is important…. Everyone should write or do a live stream or YouTube. It doesn’t necessarily have to be written content. There are other alternatives.” – Julia Furst Morgado People are fearful of showing that they are not an expert in a specific topic area. Regardless of your level of expertise, the content you create can help others who are learning and are not at the same level as you. John references Show Your Work by Austin Kleon. Many times people want to learn from someone who has not mastered a topic but someone who is documenting the journey of gaining expertise over time (starting from novice, for example, to competence and beyond). Documenting the journey can give someone an authentic voice because you are writing for an audience, even if that audience is only you. Perhaps you can also find a community of others from which to learn along the way. Did Julia like to write when part of her job as a marketer was writing blogs for the MSP? She did not like it. The content was marketing and very salesy. Julia did not feel it was authentic. “Nowadays I write a different type of content…more authentic – what I think about the tool, the challenges I’m facing…. Now I write the real deal, the real thing.” – Julia Furst Morgado Julia likes to write about the things she’s passionate about, and it allows her to be more authentic. People may not know what their authentic voice is or the way in which they prefer to write until they are in the midst of the writing process. This is an indirect reference to the phrase “writing is thinking” from Episode 156 with guest Josh Duffney. “You can only find out by doing it. People get stuck in that planning phase, and they never execute. And I’ve been there…. We will only find our voice. We will only find the topics that we want to create content or to write about if we start.” – Julia Furst Morgado, on creating content Julia wants to start a podcast and right now is in the planning phase for it. Julia encourages people to start creating some kind of content, even if it isn’t perfect. When Julia began writing blogs and sharing her content, was there a pressure to keep doing it because it was done “in public?” Julia feels like there is pressure once you start sharing content on social media, especially if people find it valuable. When someone re-shares something you wrote or sends you a message telling you it is helpful, it can make you feel like you should do more. Julia encourages us to be consistent with our content. If you are releasing something once per week and for some reason miss a week, people may decide to place their attention elsewhere. The consistency in creating content needs to be something that is sustainable for you. You don’t need a blog post every day. Julia suggests starting off with a target of once per month. How did Julia’s skills in digital marketing shape the way she approached sharing content on social media? Julia writes with her audience in mind. Her intention is to solve a problem for the audience. She always includes a call to action (or CTA) at the end. This may encourage people to comment, like the content, or attend an event for example. Julia structures her post in a way that people will want to read it. Writing in a single block isn’t as easy on the eyes. People might not read your post based solely on this format choice. Blog posts should start with a “hook” to get the reader’s attention. You should follow this same guidance for social media posts. On LinkedIn, for example, only a couple of sentences show up with a link for people to “read more.” Will your first 2 sentences be powerful enough to make people want to know more? 20:56 – Pursuing a Boot Camp and Building a Professi
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