How to eat an elephant
Advice from Fernando Pombeiro
Hi, Dimos here.
I hope you had a great time over the holidays and of course, Happy New Year to you all 🥳
Today we have Fernando Pombeiro, a senior developer and co-founder of Codices. I was lucky to work with Fern early in my career. A team of three back then, we built a live gameshow tool that was able to handle hundreds of thousands of concurrent players. Quite the elephant task.
Read time: 4 minutes
Fernando Pombeiro
Cornwall, UK
Joined Amazon.com in 2006 after leaving the US military
Worked for a startup in LA making millions with Facebook games, before Facebook changed their algorithms
Spent a few years as a contractor before co-founding Codices, a startup helping creators host live gameshows
So Fern, what's your backstory?
I served in the US military and did the two big wars of my lifetime, Iraq and Afghanistan. Then in 2006, I joined Amazon.com which was hiring extensively from the military. It was a brutal lifestyle, as tough as everyone says, but that’s where I learned that data was everything, and picked up SQL and PHP for the first time.
Then for a few years, I bounced from startup to startup mostly doing data stuff and in each new startup, I picked up something new from JavaScript to Golang to Python.
Do you have any advice for junior developers?
Focus on one thing at a time, just as you would eat an elephant one bite at a time. Don't feel pressured to know everything and don't get sucked up into the latest trends. Technologies come and go, so focus on learning one fundamental thing well and build on that foundation. That would be my advice.
How do you find work as a contractor?
You have to spend a few years grinding and applying through platforms like LinkedIn which is zero fun. But, that's just the reality. As you progress in your career it gets a lot easier and you’ll be able to get work through your network. Most of my work has come down to people I know from previous jobs.
You should also have a decent GitHub showing some activity, and although many recommend contributing to open-source projects, I am not sure if it helps. I don't know anyone who actually looks.
What do you look for in developers?
I've never fired anyone for making a mistake in code, or for bad syntax. But I’ve had to fire people for not being able to work with others, for being arrogant or dismissive, or not able to take feedback.
Tech skills are a lot less important than humility, and a willingness to learn.
What do you look for in an interview?
When I present a problem, especially an impossible problem—something that can’t be done in 40 minutes, I’m looking for your thought process and your approach to problem-solving. The temptation to solve everything will be there, and you might feel overwhelmed. But, I am looking for the ability to say: “I'll deal with it later. I'll iterate”.
So if I present you with an elephant, let's just take it one small bite at a time.
What’s the biggest misconception about programming?
Most people assume that it's not collaborative, that it's headphones in, heads down, and typing away all day. The truth is programming is far more social and collaborative than most people think. I communicate with people all day, and it's not just because I'm a senior person. Even junior devs are working with people. In the tech world, human interaction is essential.
If you could retire tomorrow, what would you do?
I would go to Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and freaking Angola and, you know, all the places that I've wanted to see. Not like Tenerife, everyone goes to Tenerife. Everyone goes to Paris, everyone's been to Rome. But I want to go to the out-of-the-way places that no one's been.
All done! If you enjoyed this, I’d love to know!
Until next Tuesday,
Dimos
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