#226 Jonah Anderssons successful jump from the Philippines to Sweden

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Jonah Andersson 0:00
Follow your dreams actually first is like, identify what you want to do in life. And then follow the path or steps to take that to to do the job that you want to do. Like for example, if you want to be a front end developer, then do steps to go to be in that career, or, or also be a back end developer, whatever that you want to do, just follow that. And then find inspiration from a mentor. You don't need to have a mentor right away. But look around, get inspired, get yourself inspired, and never be afraid to ask questions or ask for help when you feel a loss.

Tim Bourguignon 0:48
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. I'm your host team building you on this episode 226. I receive Jonah Anderson. Jonah is a software engineer and IT consultant who has been focusing on Azure and dotnet. She leads the Azure user group in Sweden, and is very active in the community, both as an international speaker as well as a mentor and role model for young women in tech. Jonah, welcome to the journey.

Jonah Andersson 1:25
Hi, Tim. It's great to be here. Thank you. Pleasure to

Tim Bourguignon 1:29
have you today. But before we come to your story, I want to thank the terrific listeners who support the show every month, you are keeping the dev journey lights up. If you would like to join this fine crew and help me spend more time on finding phenomenal guests, then editing audio tracks, please go to our website, Dev journey dot info and click on the Support me on Patreon button. Even the smallest contributions are giant steps toward a sustainable dev journey. journey. Thank you. And now back to today's guest. Jonah, let's jump in there. As you know, the show exists to help the listeners understand what your story look like, and imagine how to shape their own future. So as usual in the show, let's go back to your beginnings. Where would you place the start of your death journey?

Jonah Andersson 2:21
That's a very special and great question. Tim. I would like to start my dev journey or developer journey back when I was younger in the Philippines where I grew up where I was born. So my journey started there as me being the young girl who was the eldest of four children in the family, and my parents or my family were not reached in the Philippines. But then to make the fast forward when I turned when I turned 18, I was studying computer science. And that's where my dev journey started. And that's also the the journey where I became resilient as a person because, well, I was graduating and studying computer science, my mother died of breast cancer. And I was actually a force to be the breadwinner of the family, which means they have to take care of my younger siblings. And my father back then was also not so responsible to take care of us. So right after computer science while I was learning about internet and programming in Visual Basic the first time I went to computers and floppy disks, I was actually forced to get the first job that I had in the Philippines, which is to be a tech support, not as a programmer, but as a tech support because I was have to choose to take care of my family to earn money to send them to school, because it's in the Philippines. It's not free education is not free. They have to take care of my siblings when our father kicked us out of the house. That's another story. But I'm good in good terms of my father now. So yeah, that's my story how my story started in the Philippines. And then after working as a tech support, I sent my siblings to school and their, their their well and finish school. I decided I worked also in different companies like I worked as a travel consultant, not as a programmer. And then I also worked as an SEO consultant as a remote worker as a writer. And then 1011 years ago, I moved to Sweden. And then I decided I want to follow my desires and what I want to do in life, especially with computer science, that's where I actually got the insight of the tech. So I started it sighted. First, I need to study Swedish. So I started Swedish for four months. And after learning Swedish, I could unders, I could, I could understand, read, but I'm unable to, to speak it out. So what I did, I need to challenge myself to learn Swedish and at the same time want to follow my dreams to back to go back working in tech. So I decided to study in college here in Sweden. So I studied agile system development in dotnet, and even Java programming. And that forced me to learn Swedish and get back on track in tech or development at the same time. And seven, eight years ago, I'm I got my first job as an IT consultant and developer. So that's how that's the short version. It's actually long story.

Tim Bourguignon 5:55
And that's a rocky start. Yes, yes. Before we go further, I want to unpack a few things. So you said okay, with 18, you started studying Computer Sciences? What What led you to that, and not something else?

Jonah Andersson 6:06
Oh, that's a good, good question, because that's something I missed. So actually, from the beginning, I was planning to study engineering, like civil engineering, like buildings and architects in the Philippines. The reason why I had that my dream job when I was younger, it's because in the Philippines, it's so common, there's this stereotype that if you're a female, you automatically you're going to study nursing or something office or sales stuff. But I want to be different is that a civil engineering is a job in my country, or in the Philippines at that time. That's not so common for a woman like me, say, I want to be different. So I said, I wanted to be a civil engineering, but then backtrack on time, I asked my parents if they want, they could afford to send me to civil engineering studies, but they couldn't. So what I did in high school, I saw that there was an opportunity to take a scholarship. So without asking my parents, I took this scholarship. And then after a few weeks, I found out that I got into that government scholarship. And when it got that scholarship, I didn't have the option to study Civil Engineering. And the option that I had was to study in a private college, in the closest tech to civil engineering that will allow me to create and think logically, was computer science. So that's, that's why it's gonna be computer science. And since then, I never never regret it. Because even though I delayed the compete after computer science studies, I have to switch to like tech support role. But I, the skills that I learned as a customer service or person helping others with their tech problems, actually helped me in my job as an IT consultant today, because I deal with users I deal with business. So yeah, it meant it was meant to be

Tim Bourguignon 8:09
funny when you look back and see how the dominoes fell out and say, well, actually, there was a logical step. I didn't see it this way. Maybe back then. But now I can see it really as a logical step. This really amazes me. Yes, thank you. You mentioned tech support again. That's that's the second thing I wanted to unpack. You mentioned you you work in tech support. You worked as a travel agent. You mentioned Su and writer. It just strikes me maybe it's it's it's not an accident. coincidence. Coincidence? Thank you. Two of those are tech related tech support and SEO. When was that? Or was it just a lucky coincidence?

Jonah Andersson 8:43
It was just like destiny Can you call it because when I was switching between like finding the right job that will allow me to earn some good money at the same time, this flexibility of working from home so when I worked as a tech support, I actually worked night shift in the Philippines to be able to work in an American time. And I kind of liked the way that I earn good enough money to support my siblings or family. At the same time I have that flexibility to like to work internationally because I'm passionate about meeting new people from different backgrounds from different countries and speaking English. So I really liked that. So it also I really liked that I could use my skills, it might be tech or customer service writing in a way that I can help others I for example, when I worked as an SEO consultant, I am not maybe working with programming, but back then I am helping companies get popular into search engines at that time by writing good content, for example in their products.

Tim Bourguignon 9:50
Okay, okay. You mentioned working in the US timezone so I figured you you spoke English back then already?

Jonah Andersson 9:56
Yes, I did. In the Philippines we speak Tagalog So which is actually a language that's almost similar or has an influence in Spanish? Because for example, it's because Philippines was a colony of Spain for over 300 years. So there are some certain culture language, for example. So when we say how are you is a kumusta? Does like exactly as like Spanish commerce, Commerce Data? Is that we say it. Yeah. But that's the we speak two languages there. And that's the reason why I speak English. Right now I speak English at work. And at the same time, I also speak Swedish. So now I'm multilingual. And I know that there's an advantage of being multilingual.

Tim Bourguignon 10:41
Good job on that, indeed. It's sometimes weird gymnastic. When you speak English with one person and you turn around and then have to answer in Swedish. And here maybe in your your mother tongue something in the background. Your brain does weird connections, but it works out. So that leads us to my next question, what led you to go to Sweden and not an English speaking country?

Jonah Andersson 11:04
That's because I met my husband. That's because, because I didn't actually expect I will be moving to Sweden, but then unexpected things happens and then you just end up here.

Tim Bourguignon 11:17
I have no problem. Moving from France to the US, and then back to Germany. Okay, now it makes sense. Okay. So when you arrived in Sweden, you studied the language and then decided you need some more challenge. So you wouldn't be studying again? Some kind of computer sciences in Swedish. Yeah, that's right. How did your start in the professional life in Sweden then look like?

Jonah Andersson 12:30
Yeah, that's a very good question. It was not easy, especially for me coming from like an Asian background. And you know, in Sweden, I mean, generally in tech, there's not so much female developers everywhere. Even Sweden is considered as the one of the most gender equal countries in Europe, there's still a challenge about getting female developers into the it branch. So my, my journey was a bit tough. Like after I graduated from my studies in Swedish college here, I have to search for a jobs pretty, I didn't get a job right away. For example, when I was searching for a job, after programming school, I had to search for like, over 100 job announcement per day in order to get a job. And sometimes only one or two replies to me, sometimes you don't get a response at all. They have us. I had a small book booklet, that I wrote down the list of the companies that I applied for, and they didn't get that. But to make the long story short, in the end, I got my first job. So while I was studying more, because I said I didn't get a job after I graduated this agile system development in dotnet. So I said, Well, instead of not doing something, I would, I decided to go ahead and study Java development. And then while in the first year of that, that I got a job offer on expectedly. So it had first time in my life, I ended up a course or a study because of a job and that was for the best and for good thing as well. So when you don't expect it, I mean, when you're not looking that the job comes out. I mean

Tim Bourguignon 14:20
if that is something reproducible, I don't know. But he's a very, very lucky lucky incident as well. So you left Java behind for the better for better or worse. I feel better of course. And this job wasn't dotnet I suppose. Yes,

Jonah Andersson 14:35
yes, that net and since then, I've been an IT consultant working with dotnet development and I do feel stuck all the ways since then. That was like my junior developer back then. And then when I was a junior developer, my first IT consultant first few months and that IT consulting company, was great. Like I feel like oh, this is new to me and everything was new, but at the same time after the second year, as As an IT consultant here in Sweden, I had my challenges because because we were talking about my journey, which is a tough road for me as well from the beginning, because I got a supervisor or a team lead or project manager that was older than me, and was micromanaging me. And I was like, the only like, female developer in that company. And I felt like this, I did a lot and like, you know, you you, you do your best and you do your job pretty well, that your own manager micromanage you like I had to CC in every email or everything I need to do. And that actually stressed to me a lot. So that was my first challenge working in the IT industry in Sweden, being like working in a man's dominated company without not understanding your own background or culture, even if I tried to blend in. So to make the long story short, I got burned out from that child got that I had to stop it because I was getting rushes in my face. And it wasn't healthy. So I had to prioritize my health. So I worked in that first consulting job for three years. And that was my first challenge in the IT world.

Tim Bourguignon 16:17
Wow, so So you didn't find a way to to, to, to cure this relationship with the with your micromanaging manager, you burned out and had to leave basically,

Jonah Andersson 16:28
which I tried to SET set to it, but it was like it went beyond because the entire management were maybe either thinking differently, you know what I mean? One example is that for example, aside from this team leader, who was micromanaging me, I tried to talk to the upper management, but the upper management think that there's something wrong with me. And then I was trying to report that this sales manager and other manager there was upset at work. I mean, I have cried at work many times before because because of like disappointment maybe I know that there was one time there was disappointment disappointed because one sales manager were trying to secretly copy my experience like developer experience from my CV to another consultancy, and when I found that about it, I was actually disappointed they have to confront him him that hey, I respect you but this is not correct. What are you doing? And I tried to raise it to the like for example, we have this in Sweden there's what you call a you Noonan where you like a collective thing that you can report stuff if you'd like they are like your workplace is doing not so good stuff. And that didn't help either because they said the company don't have collective after we call it in Swedish. So to make the long story short, I could have made it like complaint and make the bigger but I want a back off and said I need to prioritize my health if this is an Excel toxic place. This means this is not for me. And then to make the long story short, right after I quit the job. I got a job offer the same week. This is the company and this is the company that I'm working on right now my second IT consulting company that I've been working for about two years now. So yes, it turned out good and I said I like this company better than the previous one. So So it turned out okay. And also since I quit that job my rashes went away like entire face like my rashes went away I learned a lot in my IT consulting job I got a good client I developed as a developer and I started sharing knowledge and public speaking and community and I became a Microsoft MVP and I built Asher user group Sweden so I think it was it everything happens for a reason that's why we have those challenges and I know those challenges made me a better person a stronger person and more resilient person as well especially in the in this IT world in it branch.

Tim Bourguignon 19:14
Where are you working a bit more in the open already in this first company? So basically my question is, how did you find this new job or did this new job entirely find you but how did they find you were good there and Aveo Good question

Jonah Andersson 19:26
someone that I went to school with and the first system development course that I went in college here in Sweden to started working there and recommended me so that's why that company contacted me because they knew that there was the new they someone recommended me from from the class. So that's why Okay,

Tim Bourguignon 19:44
how did you approach this new company having this this pretty much negative experience, first experience? Were you defensive? Were you suspicious, did you or did you say okay, let's leave this behind. Let's Give it a shot, have a fair and honest shot. And let's start over. But then how did you manage that? You're not a little bit for No? Good. Yeah,

Jonah Andersson 20:07
good, good, good question about that the I, when they, when I accepted before I accepted a job offer in the second company, I was actually I was having like a coffee with the manager of this existing one. I was she was offering the job to me. But at the same I mean, she's been trying to, like, recruit me even before this things happen. But I laid low, because they have my existing job. But then one time, when I had when we had a conversation, I was just sharing about how it is because I'm pretty open on this. And very vocal, I'm not scared to tell everyone that it didn't work out for me in that company. So I was open, honest. And then I said that I want to move to something better. So they offered me the job, and they knew my history. So they accepted me for who I am. And yeah, I'm pretty transparent and open, as well with that, so I just left it behind and never backfired. That's, that's manager and yeah, so that's, that's it, just move forward, look back. But look back to to recall what I learned from that experience.

Tim Bourguignon 21:22
How was the relationship with your new manager, then it's good.

Jonah Andersson 21:26
She is actually a good leader. So she knows how I've how I work. And she's completely the opposite of the manager that I had before. So she is she knows that I am. I respect her as a leader, but at the same time, also, I'm responsible as the person that there's no need to micromanage me. Uh, so yeah, it's really opposite. Because I think I'm, I say from I'm a Microsoft MVP knew. Now, I know that my company current IT consulting company takes value of me as a person. Because not because I'm an MVP, but because I actually do something, which means I excel in what I do if my client that the client wants to hire me. At the same time, I also share knowledge in my company since a Microsoft certified trainer. So I share knowledge about Azure Microsoft technology to my colleagues, and I also share knowledge outside. So I think they see it, they see my actions in in a good way that helps the organization.

Tim Bourguignon 22:38
Yep, I love as well sign up, but I love your clients want to hire you. This is basically the game mighty consulting companies applying the whole time having employees who are so good that the clients want to hire them, but still trying to retain them. It's a dangerous game. But

Jonah Andersson 22:56
I have something to add to it. Something related to this. If we backtrack, like few minutes ago, or five minutes ago, when we talked about my story, when I started, I had to search for jobs like 100 jobs announcement, and nobody answers for me today after seven, eight years being in the industry, or being a developer, it's the opposite now, it's the company that wants to hire me. And it's me that's not responding. Or saying no. However ironic it is.

Tim Bourguignon 23:28
So you get too many LinkedIn notifications, probably people asking, Hey, are you free to do this? And do that? kind of know what you're feeling?

Jonah Andersson 23:39
I'm sure.

Tim Bourguignon 23:41
I've worked personally also almost almost saying, Oh, at least more than 10 years in consulting. I've been exactly in the same shoes and the same experiences. So I can relate. But the timeline seems to seems to be very short, meaning this whole working in the open as I understood it didn't start at this first company, but mostly the second one. And you mentioned becoming an MVP, creating the user group for the dotnet user group Sweden, becoming a Microsoft certified trainer and traveling at conferences. All this in the span of two years.

Jonah Andersson 24:15
Yes, yes. Yes. My second year as an MVP, and I think many people like many of my contacts or community friends were asking how can how I could handle that because I also have my family and personal life as well. And I'm also writing my my book and I think the answer that I have commonly answered I have is that it's it's because passionate to help I think from the that's my experience like if you notice my life, it all started when I was 18 have to like I was ready not forced but I have to help my family. It it kind of like became my culture inside me that when I help others with what I have, it feels my cup of it's a glass, it feels it feels more. So that's somehow. And my challenge that I have right now personally is finding that balance and learning how to say no, because you know, if you're passionate about something, it's, it's a challenge to say no, or Yes, yes, I want to do that. But do you have time? Can you do that in 40 hours, you have a full time job as well. So that's what I've been learning for the past months. I don't not stress, but so it doesn't feel overwhelming, you know? Yeah. You know, what I mean?

Tim Bourguignon 25:35
I do I do. This is a discussion I very much have with my, with my developers nowadays, is is how do you invest your time, not sell your time, your 40 hours per week, but invest some of it saying, Well, if we were present, I don't know, eight hours a day. So that's eight coins that you have, you can you can sell them, they are all eight of them. Or you can invest some of those maybe one coin a day, and you say, okay, one hour, I'm going to spend on something that is valuable for the company, but valuable for me as well. And so I get money out of this. But also, I fill my cup, as you were you were showing me your glass before saying this fills your cup again, then you fill your cup with this, and you end up with your 40 iron at the end of your 40 hours in the week with the money that those 40 hours are worse, but also a set of experiences that made you grow. And this way, you you help you earn more interest that would say this is insane. It wasn't interesting. And this is a discussion I always have with with the devil because I work with so Okay, where are you? What do you want to pursue? What What's the thing that are interesting to you? Can you find the things that are both interesting to you and the company etc. And it's very important to, at some point, realize how you can use this to to not burn out to refill your batteries and go along. That's that's very, very important that you are saying,

Jonah Andersson 26:49
yes, learning is really important. Like they have two things to share about this. So aside from my like things that other things that I do outside work, I try my best to keep myself updated with knowledge and technologies that helped me excel as developer in the job that I do. So I usually set about at least two to four hours per week to learn some product, new programming languages or new topic, or devote some time for myself to learn something new, like I do Pluralsight and only online tutorials. And then another example that I want to share as well are related to that is that in my client for that has been for almost two years now I've been doing dotnet programming or development for one system. But I felt like I want to do something more. So I actually did, did make steps to to what I wanted to do next because it started to feel like a steel or stagnant and I want to do more Asher development, I want to do more DevOps, like more hands on with modern technologies. So I did small steps to make to get the role. So recently, I got I got a new role in my client job as a DevOps engineer, aside from the development. And that is a good example, as well, that if you really want to do something that you're passionate about, then make steps to go there and do it. But if you know that you're stuck in there, because if you do something that you love, and you're passionate about, or passionate learning, that's when the job doesn't feel like a test or a job, you know, whatever. Yeah, absolutely.

Tim Bourguignon 28:40
And then you will be learning that part of your job that you're doing or something you that is it's obviously something you're investing in. So I want to ask something in the how your consulting company handles the, the ambivalence between factoring. So really paying the bills and having you work more for the clients and build more hours. And at the same time, learn on on your company times you don't want to your consultants are spending all evening learning and growing. So you have to keep a balance in there. How does your company use handles this?

Jonah Andersson 29:14
Yeah, it's interesting, because I have I, it's, you know, the consulting work works. I have a consulting job, I have my client and my client, client, that's where I do the action do the job. So I for my consulting company, actually, I have like some RS because I do training as well. So instead of working 100% to the client, which I used to do for the first year, I felt like I had to do 80% of my client and one day at my consulting company to do competent development and also to teach because I do training internally in the company. So I asked for that devoted time for learning work related of course, But I, Myself is a learner. So I do spend a lot of learning time in my free time as well reading books and doing some mini programming project because I really like to do do the action like coding to understand the cheer ray. So combine those two.

Tim Bourguignon 30:20
Yeah, it's always a very difficult. So this is this is the pattern I've seen work some kind of for one to four days at your clients and one day, inside the company, building your skills and continuing to be on the bleeding edge. I'm not sure if there's another pattern that works a consulting company very much rely on rely on on people being intrinsically motivated, and doing things on the side. So it's always a bit of a difficult relationship with so you don't want to force your your employees to work in the evenings and weekends. So you have to give them some opportunity to train during billable hours. But that's that much, however, is that you don't build. So it's always a hard balance to keep but okay. No, that's, that's fair enough. I want to come back to you to one thing, how did your first talk come to be? I remember mine, it was really two years to two months, not two years, two months into this new consulting company. My boss showed up and said, Well, you know, you have to give a talk, right? We have a conference in in two months. So how about then, and I looked at him scared. I said, word I knew I would have at some point. But but so soon. And I have no idea what I should talk about. And he really showed me on the stage. And and it wasn't the first fix of hard drug abuse. I gave almost 100 talks in the years to come. But this first was really, really, really scary. So how do you do go for you?

Jonah Andersson 31:46
Yeah, that's a good question. So I've been public speaking for the past two years. But believe it or not, my first public speaking was actually in front of students like high school students here in Sweden, that was like about three years, or three years ago, when there was like this big student activities where there were about like 500 students or 400 students in a big like stadium. And then they someone asked me, if I could go up on stage for 20 minutes to share my tech story, how I ended up working as a software developer locally. So I share that and that was my first time in front of the stage. And it was in person. So that was that was unexpected, but I think it went pretty well. Because I love speaking from the heart. And you know, it's a genuine story that you have, then then it went well, the only challenge there was I had to speak in Swedish. And that time I was it was it was a was not so fluent in Swedish at that time. But it went well.

Tim Bourguignon 32:58
I wouldn't have won to give a talk in German three years, in my stay injured. Yes.

Jonah Andersson 33:06
So since since then, I've been I've been like, like, because I also when I was working as a consultant, I mean, first few years as a consultant on the side, I was also teaching programming to kids. So once a week I go out and schools in my city to teach programming like block programming and some JavaScript. So I did that. And that and that's one of the motivations or reasons why I started public speaking more after that first public speaking, because when I was teaching programming, I noticed that my students were all boys. And there were a few girls, and they were not so interested in tech. And I said, I'm a developer. And I know that there's a shortage of female developers are females working in it. So I said, I'm gonna break my scary because I'm very shy. I'm scared of public speaking and speaking this way. So I that made the breaking change. And I slowly stepped up myself to be on stage both virtual for the past two years because of the COVID and in person from time to time, and it's either I share about a technology that I am passionate about, that I'm good at, or I share about my tech story. And that helps actually, because and then that lead to I mean, like solving I mean, breaking the scary the scariness of public speaking, being confident. And at the same time being a role model and being open to share my life story or tech story to others without being scared or shy that people might judge me because I have this like experience in life because I I always believe that the experiences that I have from the Philippines means to suite and how I got to where I am right now is what made me successful as a person. And I know that there are maybe women in tech or young, they're studying programming that might need to hear my story, too just to make baby steps to their success as well whatever path that they do, and I do mentoring, I saw that you in your website that you do mentor mentoring as well. So that's one of the things that I do on the site. So from time to time, I get contacted to do mentoring. So if I have spare time, I also try to mentor both soft skills and tech skills to those that are studying to have an IT career.

Tim Bourguignon 35:42
How does mentoring looks like being being your mentor and working Bing

Jonah Andersson 35:46
Bing Bing, yeah, me as mentoring me the relationship

Tim Bourguignon 35:49
I would say, okay, okay, let me mentor you. How's it gonna look like?

Jonah Andersson 35:54
Yeah, for me, I started mentoring for the past few years as well or past year. So for me meant usually meant it's either I get contacted or I joined or volunteer. But for me mentoring two way so I'm, for example, I'm the senior who is a mentor and I'm, there's a mentee that I'm gonna help. For me, it's a two way relationship. And I think the first step in mentorship is getting to know each other, because it's important. It's like a relationship if you need you to mentor and mentee needs to sink. And when before you get started, there are practical things that needs to be done. For example, what are the goals of mentorship? How long will you have the mentorship, the commitment, because both like the mentor and mentee have their time as well. And also doing a recap, or what they call that, you know, in in Agile development, there's sprint planning, and there is also the Sprint Retrospective after every sprint. So if you have this mentorship timeframe, you have to recall also how they went. Are we gonna do mentoring more or it didn't turn out well is like a recall. But for me in general mentorship is a good way to Inspire, Inspire others because I believe in giving forward if you're inspired someone, I'm sure that person that you have inspired will inspire others as well. In any field tech or non tech.

Tim Bourguignon 37:30
One one specific question about about mentoring, you mentioned being a role models for women, often for younger, younger women starting the career what what should we do? I mean, we see probably first women working together with women, I'm sure men can do something as well for that. What What can we do to help in this regard?

Jonah Andersson 37:50
Yeah, I think it's I think that's a pretty very interesting question. I think for men, I think one way that we can contribute is to like, like inspiring women to work in tech, more like to be in our branch it branch is to kind of like get into like, trying to be what they call emotionally intelligent, in a way to understand this the the women's world as well, like sometimes it's not sometimes for example, when I started working as a programmer, and I'm the only programmer in a group of men, sometimes I feel shot. I mean, when I got when I was pretty Junior Junior back then I was shy to voice out or be myself because I thought that my male programmer colleagues, were going to judge me. And I had this experience one time for example, one example is that when I was applying, applying for one of my for job, mean, job interviews, I was invited to do a probe like a Java programming test. And then when I was in the room to take the test, I was I didn't complete the test not because I wasn't prepared technically, it's because I got intimidated by two male programmers left and right. And it was like doing this Bosi position and was waiting for me and staring when I write my code, so I feel like nervous actually. So for me I think I think what I'm trying my point is that for for men in the tech to be more helpful, so that women that are juniors in IT companies feel welcome like Oh, so this is how it works with the team like it doesn't matter if I'm like new or junior or senior i It's fun to work and collaborate with regardless of gender. I mean, it's like it's it's, I'm out of words right now, but I think it's more like understanding each other and respecting each other. That's the key to do Welcome and inspire others when mentors actually

Tim Bourguignon 40:05
very much Amen to that what what would be the advice you would give on maybe militant apt backtrack a second, you seem very fulfilled by this work in the open that you've been doing and the community work, the talking work, the teaching work, the writing about etcetera, when we the advice for people wanting to go there but but still shying away to what what would you say to them?

Jonah Andersson 40:28
Yes. So that's a good question I have actually like a few advice. First is to, to follow your dreams actually first, like, identify what you want to do in life. And then follow the path or steps to take that to do the job that you want to do. Like, for example, if you want to be a front end developer, then do steps to go to be in that career, or, or also be a back end developer, whatever that you want to do, just follow that. And then find inspiration from a mentor. You don't need to have a mentor right away. But look around, get inspired, get yourself inspired, and never be afraid to ask questions or ask for help when you feel a loss.

Tim Bourguignon 41:24
Very much like that. Inspiration is there. The rest seems to work. Magical. Thank you very much for that. That's really fair, Rocco. So where would be the best place to continue this discussion with you? And find you online? And and Or maybe start a discussion that could you

Jonah Andersson 41:42
Yes, actually pretty open to be contacted on my Twitter. So my Twitter ID is CJ code. And also, I'm on LinkedIn with my name Jonah Anderson. And yeah, that's how they reach me. And then to dos that who wants to learn more about my work? I'm actually currently writing my book, first ever book with a rally. So I have a book called are entitled learning Microsoft Azure. It's the cloud development fundamentals to those that are getting started in cloud development. So feel free to search it out. Or maybe Tim can also add it in the notes.

Tim Bourguignon 42:22
I will absolutely and since it's with O'Reilly, it's already pre published, isn't it? So you're publishing as you go? That's how he does it.

Jonah Andersson 42:29
Yeah, it's so the first 545 chapters are on on on early release right now. So you basically see the graph or row copy of my book is there right?

Tim Bourguignon 42:42
Okay, so see doesn't doesn't matter if it's out or not? You can already get it.

Jonah Andersson 42:47
You can read it. Yeah. Awesome.

Tim Bourguignon 42:49
Anything else you want to add?

Jonah Andersson 42:50
I want to ask also everyone that especially to our listeners wants to like learn more or join a community so feel free to check out with Asher user group Sweden, specially if you're listening from Sweden, feel free to join one of our upcoming with meetups. We do it bi weekly, every Saturday, every time. So feel free to join our community if you want to learn about cloud development in general, and learn from experts.

Tim Bourguignon 43:17
Awesome. Journalists. Thank you very, very much.

Jonah Andersson 43:21
You're welcome. And thank you so much for having me today.

Tim Bourguignon 43:25
It was my pleasure. And this has been another episode of this journey. And we see each other next week. Bye bye. Thanks a lot for tuning in. I hope you have enjoyed this week's episode. If you liked the show, please share rate and review. It helps more listeners discover those stories. You can find the links to all the platforms to show appears on our website, Dev journey dot info, slash subscribe. Creating the show every week takes a lot of time, energy, and of course money. Would you please help me continue bringing out those inspiring stories every week by pledging a small monthly donation, you'll find our patreon link at Dev journey dot info slash Delete. And finally, don't hesitate to reach out and tell me how this week storm is shaping your future. You can find me on Twitter at @timothep ti m o t h e p or per email info at Dev journey dot info. Talk to you soon.