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Software Developers Journey Podcast

#124 Edidiong Asikpo put herself out there

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Edidiong Asikpo 0:00
There was a point where I was too scared to like talk about certain things. I felt I wasn't smart enough. I was like, just been focusing on my laptop like doing what I needed to do. But I learned that it's important to put yourself out there like no matter what you're doing, no matter how small you think it is, that someone will find that thing useful. You must not follow this route. He was not necessarily write articles or share knowledge or do stuff that people do when they're putting themselves out. But I'll just say that it's important to definitely provide or give you a sense an opportunity they wouldn't have had rate. So let's assume I didn't decide to start writing articles. I've given talks on stats, maybe helping people in any way that I could, because I knew that this community was was like a strong influence in my my tech journey, being able to reach out to people. I just felt that it was important for me to give back.

Tim Bourguignon 0:58
Hello, and welcome to developer's journey, the podcast, bringing you the making of stories of successful software developers to help you on your upcoming journey. My name is Tim Bourguignon. And on this episode 124, I receive Edidiong Asikpo. Edidiong is a developer advocate at Hashnode. She is passionate about technical writing, contributing to open source organizations, building developer communities, and inspiring the next generation. Edidiong, Welcome to DevJourney.

Edidiong Asikpo 1:31
Thank you for having me.

Tim Bourguignon 1:33
Edidiong, the show exists to help the listeners understand what your story look like so far, and imagine how to shape their own future. So let's go back to your beginnings, shall we? Where would you place the start of your journey?

Edidiong Asikpo 1:49
Yeah, so um, I would say so I think just like every other child, I grew up wanting to be a lawyer when I was a child. And I think the reason why I was common lawyer was because I was definitely I definitely lacked a view in I don't think I would tell someone not to say like, again. So I just thought that being a lawyer would be like the best of the best well for me, so I went to high school. And the interesting thing about my high school was they gave me an opportunity to try both science and x costs at the same time for like, an academic session, just to have an idea and an understanding of what exactly you really fit in. Because it's one thing to think you would be a great lawyer. And it's another thing to try all those courses and realize that oh, well, maybe you're not as great as you think in terms of law. Right. So, yeah, so in the process, I realized that that law wasn't for me, because I learned that lawyers had to, like really read a lot and like with a lot of stories, a lot of books. And that just wasn't who I am at the time. Like, I mean, I think I basically read to pass my exams. I don't think I ever really looked at education. The kids just said this. So I basically went to pass my exam. So just understanding that I had to read so much in anatomy and lawyer just took me off for Okay, here. No, I'm not doing this. And the good thing was actually loved physics or Okay, here, let me go for physics. So I decided to go into science class, and I wanted to become a petrochemical engineer. But again, as luck would have it, my dad said he would actually want me to study medicine and surgery. And I don't know, like other parts of the world, but in Nigeria, parents wanted your water their children either become lawyers or engineers or medical doctor, you have to be one of them. For them to think you're actually a maybe a serious chill something like that. So I mean, I told him that I don't think I can do that because I don't like blood. I don't like I don't like drugs to say the least I literally can't stand the sense of drug that's how much I hate anything that has to do drugs and he was my boss or no, you need to do this because to give you like, the better opportunities, and I mean, he was paying my my fees, right? Okay, cool. Let's do this. And I have to write exams for medicine. But when the time came for me to go to school, he came again I said, Okay, I think the school is too far. Let's try to go to school as close as so that the condition isn't in which me and I come back to visit. So I have to do for the private schools. And at the time, all the private school have stopped everything about medicine and surgery. So that's where I found computer science right? So it was almost like a mistake was I found computer science. A cool I think I was interested in secondary school. So yeah, I'm actually be able to do this. So I went to study computer science in the university, and it wasn't as easy as we thought it would be. It was really easy in second in high school. But in the university, it was a bit more difficult. I don't know if the lecturers explained it effectively, or I don't know, maybe the ones and zeros were not really making a lot of sense to me. So I was basically just, again, reading to pass my exams. But the turning points for me was when I went for an internship. So in my country, Nigeria, when you can go tech level, everybody is advised to go for an internship in a company, just to give you a sense of what the world would look like when you graduate. Right? So I was lucky to go to an internship in a tech firm, where I learned how to develop mobile applications, right. So I think that that's the point where sec happened for me, not necessarily because I studied computer science, because if I didn't go to that internship, and meet other young people and other people who are really focused on learning, the practical side of sec cannot determine skapat, I probably wouldn't be affected. So I went to the internship. And I was just really excited that I could build, like a minimal use of the smallest features in mobile applications, I just couldn't believe that I could learn to become a mobile developer. And at the time, I really loved the phase one mobile application. So being able to build like, maybe smallest thing as a share button, or like the light bulb, like just the tiniest things just made me so happy that I couldn't believe that I could do that. That's what made me really excited about just the possibilities I could build the things that I used on Facebook for like a really long time, not keeping in mind that I was like a diehard fan of the application, right? So if you want, cool, things became clearer. It was no longer reading just to pass, I really wanted to understand what like tech was about. And I was, like, join a developer community. I think that's also something that helped me really well, because I had access to people that could maybe ask questions like, share my thoughts, like my worries, and knew that I wasn't only, it was not just like, I wasn't the only person who do understand things immediately. Like, we're like, so many people out there, right. And coding takes time for others to understand, for some people is like super easy. So it is really great to have a community of people and find the tech community to be honest, and what what some are really, I would say that the start of my tech journey was going to the internship to study Android development.

Tim Bourguignon 7:32
That makes a lot of sense, do you? Is it a trend for you to need something practical, to, to to play with, to really understand how that could be and then be motivated by it, instead of looking at a theory and being being excited by the theory only?

Edidiong Asikpo 7:51
Yeah, it definitely is. And I think this also applies to coding as well. So it's one thing to be watching a tutorial and listening to the person who's teaching you about a specific technology or Pacific framework, let's say for react, for instance. And another thing to read the documentation, right? But trying it out is definitely what gives you like a clearer picture, better understanding of exactly what you're doing, right? Because you really get this, or Hey, this is what they meant by by this. And it just makes you the excitement that I could I can't do that is really what makes me be injected with excitement that I could build amazing things that people can use, except that I could like, maybe read an article or read a video or have access to people ask questions, and eventually implement those things. That's like the final or final like, exciting point for me being able to build with the things I've learned or instead of just reading extra not doing anything but being able to build off that to turn out that I read

Tim Bourguignon 8:53
the mix it up and you must have a gazillion unfinished projects lying somewhere. Yeah, and the the mobile world is very, very cool for that. I remember when I built my first mobile applications, I mean, I had built some some some dos application and Windows vacation, their websites, etc. and was always a crescendo when you are able to take it out with you in the world. And so being able to, to show my friends a website I did was really cool. Yeah, I'm able to pull up my phone and show people the application I did on my phone. Now this is bonkers. Yes, it is. The day you go for practical. That's, that's really cool. Okay, so you did this internship of very early in this in the studies, and this triggered the rest and how did it? Did it impact the rest of your studies? Did you? Were you waiting just waiting to be able to go back into the field again? Or did it help you study differently, and how to differently?

Edidiong Asikpo 10:01
Yeah, I think I think it's a combination of both. So yeah, fesi definitely made me study differently. Because like I mentioned, I was basically always reading just to pass my exams, right? Because I and I didn't want to fail. I wanted to make my parents proud, right? So, always reading specifies a necessity to know, what do we see it? So before I went for my industrial training lecture, I would literally be explaining a programming language. And I'm like, what, what is the what? What does that mean? Like, I really understand what he was saying. And I literally had to cram like, maybe just crammed he could really work really, really crumble his team, but without actually understanding the reasons behind those things. Right. So in doing that I am, internship definitely improved my way of living, because I've actually been more interested in understanding the reasons behind certain things. And because I really had like the practical knowledge, I could, for some reason, understand your lecture as it be more a bit more. But yes, it definitely took a toll on on like education, or like, on my coding journey, I guess, at some point, because I had to stop for a bit. I just focused on working on my project, like butum, I put some use in it. So at some point, I literally didn't do anything Android related stuff a couple of months in school. But you know, we all still do like one a couple of things in the community, maybe helping out here and there from school. I think that still keeps kept me in the loop. Okay, I know that. I want to pass my my studies. And I also want to be in tech. So maybe we just focus on one thing first. I mean, for people, it's okay, if I can definitely pull off being in school and still like being in tech actively. But there are people like myself who can't do dumb things. We prefer, like focusing on one thing, and being really good at one thing first before going to the next thing, right? So I just said, Okay, I think I need to like focus, right? And as I finish school, I came on, I was like, Okay, I'm not going to do Android anymore. I should just switch to Python. I think I was more interested in the data science or Okay, artificial intelligence and field like the next implementation activities on intelligence like the next robot. So just think about like a lot of really amazing things. And people said that Python would help me if this thing's right. But a couple of months while I was like initially after I left school, and again, at some point Loki hate me, I don't want to depend on anyone. We just try, like actual core web developers like HTML, CSS, JavaScript and react. So looky here, let me just try this out for for a bit. And it turns out I actually liked or enjoyed building things that I could actually see. Right? I mean, we Python is okay, you just do some kind of visualization, which is pretty much which is cool. But with CSS, I could do animations, we could do like, things that were cooler, in a sense. I mean, I could see those in the video, like tricky to fit what I wanted on the website. So I think that that part of Loki, I think was focused on on learning, and just being a front end, front end developer. Right. So another thing another interesting thing that happened to me during that time was I never used to love writing. I never loved reading like I already mentioned, I wasn't the reader I was only reading to like pass exams. So if you send me a text that is really long, I promise there will always be the beginner ready and like I was too lazy to even which is definitely important. Like, my my memory like the way I was thinking the way I was writing. I mean, you could be like, like interviews or meetings and don't ask for like my suggestion sometimes even though I had a suggestion in my brain, I just couldn't type it up because I felt I felt I wouldn't be able to put it in the right words. Or maybe I'm more like smart enough or something. So I literally just keep my opinions to myself right. But then I realized that it was literally affected my career because I feel communication is a really important skill to have as a software software developer, right. So I decided more intentional about improving the way I read my roots right. So I mean, one of the first things I did was I stopped writing short forms. So for instance, if I wanted at the time in order to tell you how are you like literally like hit o w ar e Why will you write and when say those things I will say for how would be a W then for our our our just be like letter R then for you it is literally the letter U so I wasn't the type Oh My brain was lazy. I was listening to Bob, he was just like, okay, like I wasn't once what I was like, making myself that trying to get better and accepted to notice, okay, this is live is what life is. So there's nothing to change. So this was one of the first things it because I realized, why are you rushing? Why are you rushing, you don't have time to respond to the messages like in full words and just chill whenever you're ready to get him I respond, because a lot more would not want to admit it, but writes in his shots forms all the time definitely affects the way you spell certain things because you begin to lose those words, you will also spell them again. And it definitely now affects your writing in general, because it could probably be writing something serious and short form and send it to somebody that does not understand what that means. So it affects you in like in diversities rate. So I said, Okay, I'm going to stop this. And I was like the first step. Then I saw this, quote, a comma, who, like actually, like what you've said the word, but the court said, you only learn how to write by writing. And it just dawned on me that, oh, hey, it's okay to change, like some rights in his software is a good way to maybe start reading and be more, but nothing would change if you'd actually start writing. And that that that made me say, hey, maybe I'll definitely be terrible at first. But if I keep writing, I need to just start to see that I can become a better writer. And I just started improving my writing skills like writing just like sharing knowledge. And you can just see that it definitely improved me as a person communicate, or made me even more maybe known in the community because people were reading my articles and finding, like, insightful information from it, right. So I pretty much went from being a person who couldn't like contribute to like closing conversations, because I was scared that I couldn't write, or share my thoughts in a really good way to being able to share knowledge and develop a community and help a lot of people with my writing. I mean, when people read my article, like, Oh, you went really well. Am I okay? Are you joking? Are you really saying that? So it's really see that? No, like in life, it's when you start doing some testing stuff, in effect, the important part just starts and once you start doing something, it's the chances of you becoming better at that, then is definitely higher than not starting at all. So

Tim Bourguignon 17:30
absolutely. Yeah. I would have one question there. Um, What kept you motivated to go through this mindful process of writing? Because you want to write because I, I assume it wasn't easy everyday?

Edidiong Asikpo 17:46
Yeah, totally. It's easy every day. But what I'll say what kept me was seen improvement. So I could easily see that I was improving my writing skills was improving. And just thinking back to the point where I knew I couldn't write and see what I could do now, just made me believe that if I kept on going, this way, I can like improving my writing skill, I'll definitely reach a point where I'll definitely become better writing. And it's definitely what happened. I mean, so lenez wants to become better. But writing has just opened a lot of a lot of doors for me in my tech career. I mean, sometimes it has also helped as well, writing has poor writing, like next Yeah.

Tim Bourguignon 18:34
And at some point, I like to say that it's the opposite of being a software developer is given. So you need to be to be developer enough. But then it's this the writing or the communication, or the management skills, or the ability to do something else that comes first and becomes more interesting. So that's what I've observed from so many interviews. And one thing I often hear is for Sade, from from junior developers, or upcoming developers as well, but I don't know what I could write about, with what would you answer to that?

Edidiong Asikpo 19:15
So, right, I think it's important to understand that right? And it's not necessarily just to teach somebody it's to teach yourself is writing for your future self. It's documenting what you're learning. So if you're a junior developer, you're okay here. Don't think I know enough to teach somebody else. Just remember that if you've been a junior developer for one month, there's somebody that's been at ripple for like one T, right? And the information they know in that one month can definitely help that person that just joined him one day, right? And you're dealing because your internal developer, you still don't believe gets some things in the way right. And you can feel like you still relate to other developers. So if you're writing You might definitely hit the Tiger Tiger, which is you can definitely understand your article a lot more than senior just because they get where you're coming from they know that okay, we, you are a cookie, I'm looking up to you. And you will explain this in a way that I can understand. And I think it's also important to know that, aside from things I've mentioned, which is you don't just write to teach you write to know what you're learning. So writing could be a process where where you learn something in the process. So if you never knew about, let's see school sugar, for instance, I want to write about, actually learn about it, and then write about it, you don't need to know it. Before you say, oh, here, let me write about course, you could just be a process of you learning about a particular tool. And then the next thing I would say is, no matter the amount of information we have in the internet, which is the lot, the way you explain things may just be what somebody was looking for typing pencil, you understand that thing. So I'll give an example. I'm sure everybody knows about the term. It's like one of the most popular if you're asked to know as a web developer, right. So I was about to write an article on getting started with the dome. Because I mean, when I was starting, okay, this stuff is it's cool. But it's something that can be a bit, like complicated to understand. Right? So um, I think I went through the internet could see that there were like, tons of articles, tons of videos on Okay, we're definitely smarter than I am writing, do I really need to write this article? Like, why am I adding another article to the millions of articles or anywhere in the world, right? And I thought, Okay, well, let me just write it and publish it. And the thing that happened was after I published this article, so many people were so many people who never understood them. Reddit understood it like an ego, like a lot of retweets on on Twitter, I got, like, tons of followers because of that article that I almost didn't publish, because I thought, or maybe I'm not smart enough? Or is there any, like excess information out there? But the thing is, there's this set of people, there's this person, I say, Oh, if only I can see an article that make me understand. So your article might actually be that one thing that someone you see and say, Oh, no, I think this is it is actually it's because if you think about the way when you Google a particular word or technology on like your browser, you open different articles, right? And when she came through those articles, and eventually find the one that you think you'd like, so you see that there's somebody comas came to the same article, not pick the same one. Yeah, picking. So the point of this is, there's room for everybody. There, even if one person reads your article and finds it useful, they're not perfect. Even if it's your future, or need that information. Some they say, Oh, hey, what's an article about it, then? That's absolutely fine. Just go ahead and write it.

Tim Bourguignon 22:42
Absolutely. You thank you for saying this. This is exactly what I think I've had this this behavior so much, when you search for something and you're actually not searching with the right keywords, because you don't know them. So you're searching with what you have best. And suddenly, you you find a blog post on an article or something that describe the thing you wanted to, to reach with those words, because somebody started there as well. And then the realized this is not the right keywords and and guides you in learning the right ones. But you have to, to understand this unknown unknowns at first. And if we all wait to have the right keywords to be able to write that nobody will find anything. So Amen. To all you said. This is so true. Okay, so we were at university, you probably finished university, you focused on writing what happens next?

Edidiong Asikpo 23:38
Yes, so I went to University finished. And when I came out, like I mentioned, I tried to switch to like Python or switch to web and got into writing as well. And so in Nigeria, there's this thing called National Youth Service Corps. So it's basically gives you an opportunity to work with a company again, just like the previous one. But this time you it's actually mandatory, right, you have to do it before you apply for like a role in Nigeria. So I had to go go for that, like three weeks come and then you're assigned to a particular company. So work for that company for a year. So I didn't like the comp, but there luckily for me, I got into a mid tech company called interswitch, check my previous company. And then we like had to go to the interview phase, right, which was the algorithm tests within the CI what often within the company. So one thing I think I forgot to mention was, while I was waiting for the NYC to work, I'm still going to determines comm I was contributing to open source. So I contributed to Wikipedia. And one of the things I did there was improved the API documentation also write example codes for them in Python. So I was doing that and extio Going to NYC. So when I finished the first interview of the algorithm test, I had to meet with the CIO, right. And this is someone who didn't have like prior experience in any work experience. And it's, I feel like getting the first job is always like one of the hardest things sometimes, most of the time to be honest, then after you've gotten the first job, other jobs are easy to get, because people don't necessarily want to interview people that don't have. So I step into from that experience. I mean, there are companies that are really open to teaching and like empowering people to become better software engineers or writers, right. So I and he, so he asked me, What have I been doing so far? And we have so far been contributing to open source organizations. And they asked what, when did you make the last contribution? And luckily, for me extremely contribution that morning before going for the interview, though, they Oh, hey, I made it today. And news like, okay, Johnson told me about it. And I think about API rollback, which was really interested in I was like the most interesting API worked and competitive or IPS for that open source organization. So I explained the process and what I did. And I could just see in his eyes that he was really impressed with what I what I was seeing, right, so one point out here is open source contributions definitely also helped helped me, because most junior developers, the reason why they don't necessarily get opportunities to work in combat, because companies want to see what you've built. And most of the time is personal projects. It's open source contributions, just being able to work on something that you're not fully throughout. Like, he's not a tutorial that I say, okay, he built a calculator, calculator, right. And I say, Oh, he built a calculator wants to see something more practical. And open source organizations give you an opportunity to work on like real, real world, or like real life examples, real world problems, and all of that. So I was like, explain those things to him. And he was impressed you like the interview. And I went to the next stage, and luckily got myself turned into the company. So I completed my NYC company, and we applied for like a full time software engineering role. So enjoy the interview process again, and joined the company as a full time staff of software engineering and Developer Relations team, and interfaces. A great company, like one of the coolest company in Nigeria, so it was definitely like a good ride for me to just know that he like, you may not necessarily know every single thing at first glance, you just need to keep trying and just like putting in effort putting in the work. It's a definitely get better at some point. And I may sit in a suit for a couple of like a year and someone's then eventually, join passionate. And I think the cool thing about hustling was I didn't have to apply for the job. So I'm hustling does this series called shins by a series where they interview different women in tech, right and just like share their story of how they got into tech, what they're currently doing, and things like that. So I was invited to do one of those interviews as well. And the co founder of the company read the interview that he reached out to me on Twitter, I was just talking about how I really loved the interview rate and asked if I'd be willing to like jump on a call, we can just talk about some things on hasnat hasna rate. Okay, cool. Let's Let's do this. And we, like had the call and then I just shared my thoughts on like, some of the things he told me about hash node. And kusina asked if I was open to any opportunities at the moment, and I'm like, Okay, my purchase portunity do you mean job opportunities? Because you have to be surveys before you answer. And he said yes. Oh, yes. So I am I am an honestly at that point, I was definitely looking forward to like doing something else, like leaving the company like my current company at attempters interest which to try out something, something something new, right? So I Sofia cooling me yet I'm definitely interested in the role. And we had a couple of conversations about it and eventually joined hashtag so what what I would say here is there was a point where I was too scared to like talk about certain things I felt I wasn't smart enough. I was like, just been focusing on my laptop like doing what I needed to do. But I learned that it's important to put yourself out there like no matter what you're doing, no matter how small you think it is, that someone will find that thing useful. So it's it's great amazing to see you must not follow this route. He was not necessarily write articles or share knowledge or do stuff that people do when they're putting themselves out but I'll just say that it's it's important to definitely provide or give you an So that's an opportunity, they wouldn't have had rate. So let's assume I didn't decide to start writing articles or expect given talks or stats, maybe helping people in any way that I could, because I knew that this community was what was like a strong influence in my tech journey, being able to reach out to people, I just felt that it was important for me to keep back as well, if people helped me that me also help someone, maybe get better tech, and we understand a particular framework or a particular concept that was really hard for me to try to explain to somebody else. And it just made me get like a job opportunity that I wouldn't have got, if I was just up here and just focus on my own, my coding and all of that. And I think that's important. So as well, it's important to focus on just your code. But I think it's also important to understand that being, like a person coming into is always willing to, like share knowledge when you cannot see and you should, like, just focus on doing that, because definitely give a woman as well. But as much as you can't just try to help like a developer or even just zone in coming in level five information, you have my helper next parts rate. So just add knowledge, even even nobody's listening at some point. So definitely listen,

Tim Bourguignon 31:14
which ways Did you personally pick to help others? Is this this writing articles and giving talks? Or did you try and go to your local communities and help out there? Did you try mentorship or getting interns with you and helping them or apprentices? What What did you try and what worked out for you What didn't

Edidiong Asikpo 31:37
like a couple of things from sustainability in a community developer community from Facebook, and that gave me an opportunity to work with like, a lot of people in my local community, which is a quantum state in Nigeria, so we could bring you like new people never knew anything about tech, just teach them. And also like teach beginners, intermediates, and other people as well. And then it also involves writing articles, right, so then write an article because I knew that even he was chosen. Just even if I was an expert in any particular video, I was just like putting it out there. And I definitely also jumped on like mentoring some people. Because I feel like it's, it's important to have somebody to talk to. So definitely put it out there that because right now I feel like every journey will find things in having a mentor is like a must have like something you must have, I don't think it is. But I also think it's something that's really, really important. So you can definitely be a good, like software engineer without having a mentor. And, but if you do have a mentor, it's actually really amazing as well, because when you're reading a documentation or see an article, it's, it should gives you the knowledge but then it's a bit different from when somebody is explaining it to you. Or by some I don't mean over feature, like just having someone is explaining this particular thing to you. So you understand it because in a video, the speaker is just speaking, he doesn't already understand this before I continue. But if you're talking to somebody, he also wants to ensure that you understand this this even if you don't understand at that point, chances are he or she would want to like maybe find a better way to explain it to you for you to understand. So I definitely jumped on like trying to help people mentor as much as I could. And also working with a couple of developer communities like developer circles on Facebook. She could Africa, women, we'll just trying to see okay, here, can we bring more women into tech? How can we just let them know that this is possible, it wasn't for you to be a woman in tech, it may not necessarily be the part you want to follow because the environment and community doesn't really give you the feeling that Oh, hey, is actually something that we mentioned too. But if and most of the time these women don't even know that these things are possible, even though this opportunities exist. So part of things I did in communities that I was leading was try to also bring in more more women into tech sort of things a combination of, of a lot of things from like mentorships right into building local communities and giving talks as well. It's not compulsory to follow the same path, like doing everything and just focus on one particular thing.

Tim Bourguignon 34:19
That's so cool to do. You mentioned mentoring, this is one of the things I love. And this has been a roller coaster for me in the past years. And I feel it's something that people should should be doing way more than this. And one reasons why people don't do it is in my opinion due to the difficulty of finding a mentor and how do you approach finding a mentor and starting this discussion? So what's what's your trick there? How did you find your mentees? How did you find your mentor? How did you start the discussion?

Edidiong Asikpo 34:53
Yeah, that's a really important thing. I think it's like you said, how you approach the person. I want to be Or how you accept who you choose to be your mentee. Right? So, I think a lot mistakes that people make, I mean, from the different requests that I have gotten of people asking me to be their mentor is they just probably maybe see you in Sudan or him just message this girl Don't try to do any sort of like find it or trying to understand what the brings to the table right. So all explain. So if you want someone to mentor you in like missive react, for instance, you need to show them that you're already doing something to react don't don't just send it to say hello to unliquidated insects, can you mentor me, that's I mean, that's cool. But like, are some that people have, people have like a lot of things to do with their time. And they definitely want to see things that would motivate them to take up this this role as of being your mentor. Because if I decide to mentor you means I'm going to like the time our visits, probably sleeping or watching a movie would not be part of that number allocated to you. So I need to be sure that you're really serious about this. And that. So when you're trying to reach out to a mentor, I think it's important to show them that you're already doing something or you're really interested in this role interested in making the person be your mentor. So it's not just saying this simple, hello, name, to suddenly be my mentor, but it's saying, hello, name, that person is a junior software developer or a sudden learning HTML and CSS two months ago, this is what I've been able to build, I definitely wants to go further in my skills. And I would love you to help me on this disentis all of you to mentor me because I want to improve on this decision that, right, so that gives the person more contact person knows what he or she's getting into if they assess to pick up that role of being your mentor. And I think a good way to identify mentees is and I mean, this is not only good, but what I've noticed is some people just send these messages, right? And that, okay, he sort of respond and if one person responds, cool, but I've noticed that if you say, Oh, hey, can you remind me this? Can you mind me about this later? Or can you send me later you realize that half or like, into like 10, maybe only one person does it and then also you know that this one person is serious, right? Because if they can remember your magic, then neither one of us serious about it at first sounds that it works in worse all the time, all the time, like anytime someone needs you to do something for them, just think about this stuff later. And almost 100%, you realize that they don't remind you I mean, that's good for you as well. Because you get to me might be bad. But I think it definitely lets you cut down to see things that are important and do with your time, because your time is really, really important. I think it's also important to not feel entitled people's time, for just simple, I just feel entitled to your time because you're probably you probably mentored a couple of other people or you're doing this community to feel like if I send you a message, you must respond. But they never said to sit back and think, Okay, this person has a life and this person can decide to respond or not to respond to my message, I think everybody should try to understand that they're not entitled to anybody's time. Like when we are young, we individually understand that it's definitely make the world a better place. I think it

Tim Bourguignon 38:30
will, it does in definitly, I completely agree with what he said. When the analogy I love to to bring where and when I talk about mentoring is dating, and marriage, I wouldn't go to to a potential partner and start talking about marriage, I would go and start building relationship talking about things that we both like and things where, where we can both share in in both directions. And then at some point, we might talk about marriage, or we're having a more serious relationship. And I feel that mentoring is exactly the same. The thing you want to do first is, is build a relationship around the topic you mentioned react or Python, whichever, and start building a relationship around this and ask some technical questions and really see hey, I'm interested in this field are you as well I'm interested in knowing more Are you interested in helping me know more and and devising about this? And slowly but surely you are building a relationship and at some point, you can say well, what we're in is actually a mentoring relationship. Let's let's do this even more. Yeah. And so this analogy I always bring some some smiles on faces, but I love to bring it anyway.

Edidiong Asikpo 39:56
I mean, you're you're absolutely right. That's definitely Really good analogy of how mentorship works, and I think is in the energy of like marriage. Don't just say, hey, I want to marry because like, that's, that's weird.

Edidiong Asikpo 40:11
Yeah, this is the perfect analogy.

Tim Bourguignon 40:14
First Date, hey, we should marry. No. Oh my gosh, this discussion has been so great. And so, so short. What advice would you give to the next generation of developers starting on their journey today?

Edidiong Asikpo 40:32
Yeah, so one, one thing I'd say is, you know, all the opportunities don't take that's like another quote that I love. So for me, anyway, I think here, I'm not good enough. You never know you're not good enough. Let the person that is reviewing telling you that you're not good for that particular or not, I'm not good enough, generally. So always take up all the opportunities that you think would be good enough for your career. If you want to write an article, go for it, you don't know, the answer could be well, let me get your next job. If you want to apply for a talk, but you think you're not smarter, don't just apply. Like you really don't know, if they were just looking for someone like you. So for every opportunity, you don't take, you miss it. But when you take those opportunities, chances are you may either be accepted or not, people accuse you of like a chance of being accepted, sort of completely removing itself completely. And when you don't get accepted from this thing, it gives you an opportunity to learn and become better. So when you're applying for the next one, you could say, Oh, hey, I did this and that for that other company, because you were trying to become good at something. So this is definitely a win win situation, whether you win or you lose, trying to learn from from both of them and become better the next thing you're applying for awesome.

Tim Bourguignon 41:44
And thank you very much for grabbing this opportunity to come on the show and tell you tell us your story. This has been fantastic listening to you. Thank you

Edidiong Asikpo 41:53
very much. Thank you so much for having me. Sounds really great. I think we definitely had like a lot of fun.

Tim Bourguignon 41:58
Just before we close off, where could people reach out to you if they want to talk to you and as if they want to marry you or you to be that mentor.

Edidiong Asikpo 42:13
All social media platforms are definitely active on Twitter, @didicodes and on my blog as well. Which is edidiongasikpo.com and my blog in on Hashnode, by the way, so definitely create a blog or your own domain with passion, yeah.

Tim Bourguignon 42:31
Anything you want to plug in beyond this?

Edidiong Asikpo 42:33
Yeah, it's just reiterate like, why Hashnode is important. So Hashnode is a content creation platform that gives developers the opportunity to create blogs on your own domains and gain organic readership in the process. So most of your personal blogs, a lot of them come to that platform. So it goes to publisher platform like Medium or just get like extra visibility. But they don't understand that. Just visibility that gets in is like good and bad, bad in the sense that everything is going to Medium.com or Dev.to, right. But if you have it on, you're even gaining visibility on your personnel blog. It helps your domain and your articles become better for you. Right, but it gives you a better, like personal branding and all of that. So it has to it could get both. Yeah, a lot of readers who have visibility for our community, and also have full control of your content. Not see your own domain.

Tim Bourguignon 43:30
Yeah, that's that's awesome. Thank you very much. And this has been another episode of developer's journey. We will see each other next week. The next episode is due on November 3rd, 2020, which will be the day of the next presidential election in the United States of America. I'm still not sure if I will publish an episode in that day. I do realize this is a very localized message. But since so many of you are listening from North America, I feel it is important to say it again. If you are a US citizen, the last thing this world needs is a dispute over the result of the election. If you haven't done so yet, please do the world a favor and cast your vote until then. Thank you!