Hit Send

This morning during coffee and chaos, I read Jason Begg's Post Take the shot

He wrote about how he sent a couple DMs and cold emails. It totally changed his life and career. Pretty cool.

I also have a story about this.

Over the last few years, I had been interviewing for developer roles, or any role that would allow me to work from home. I was working full time in the ER before and during the pandemic. Raising a family of 5 as the sole provider and trying to make a career transition into tech. I was doing interviews during my lunch break, and phone calls on my drive or walk home from work.

After a brutal interview sprint with a large commerce company, getting a NO after the final round because I was under-qualified.

I got a DM from the wonderful Kelly Vaughn asking if I wanted to interview at the new company she was starting, about 3 days after the rejection.

I was so burnt out from interviews and working in the ER during the pandemic. I wrote this HUGE long draft reply on my phone on why I couldn't take the interview. Then as a parent something happened, I closed Twitter and moved on. I never hit send.

A couple days later, I opened my laptop on my lunch break and saw I never replied to Kelly! A true blessing in disguise. Thanks Twitter for not allowing Mobile and Desktop drafts to SYNC!

I replied! SURE!

Then in a whirlwind of like 36 hours, I had interviews. More importantly, an offer letter for more than double my hospital salary.

It took me a while to calm down. Five years of working full time in the hospital. Late nights coding and networking. All the emotions—I worked so hard. My first full-time shot.

Landing my second role was similar. I announced in a public tweet that I was looking for my next role, and because I built up enough connections from sharing podcast clips and sharing what I was learning.

The one and only Dave Rupert from Paravel Inc and ShopTalk Show fame reached out and wanted to know if I would be down to interview for the top secret project they were working on.

A little background: Shop Talk Show was one of the first coding/web podcasts I discovered when I started learning to code in 2017. Yes, I started on episode 1 like a mad man. They are now at 700+ episodes. But I remember the exact place I was at work as a hospital janitor when the terms they were using started making sense. CSS and JavaScript terms, some weird WordPress edge cases.

Anyway, say yes to things, send that DM or email. Accept those LinkedIn connections even if you know it's going to be a sloppy outreach DM coming your way. You never know where those messages will bring you.

Send that DM.