all right welcome welcome what's poppin
now today we have a special guest we
have John Kim Vega he actually also has
a YouTube channel it's called Sol
encoded so you guys should check that
out he has a lot of good insights now
the reason why I have him today is
because he has a very special case he
did not come from CS background he I
don't even have a cs3
no I he does not but where do you work I
work at Capital One Capital One as a
software engineer software engineer yeah
yeah I just got senior two so that's
that's really nice yeah damn yeah I have
never gone seen here but yeah so as you
can see it's very possible to get a
software engineering job without a
degree so we're gonna be talking about
that
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all right so before we start I just want
to ask like a few questions
yeah you know just to determine what
kind of engineer you are so first
question Mac or PC both yeah you can't
choose both I I have both and I use both
at work do you use Mac because they do
you mean that oh [ __ ]
I thought would be the opposite I think
I'm going to use Mac personally and then
PC at work no capital one's pretty
Hickman Holy One I work for stupid oh
they gave me Windows yeah yeah okay so
what about home you use Windows I use
both but windows for gaming or you know
God everything else okay development
yeah I mean it makes sense Windows
pretty interesting spaces or tabs tabs
okay what's your favorite IDE I like I
like a lot I like Adam right now Adam
yeah that's good that's good do you use
like any special plugins or like yeah
tons like I try to not go too crazy
River right yeah I don't want to get too
cluttered yeah there's like one we're
liking like it's like a number that pops
up I don't have all the languages or
favorite language I like JavaScript
right now not in Wed yeah people like to
hate it so did I love JavaScript let me
know Jess my jam and also Google with
the v8 engine yeah it's amazing it's
pretty cool alright so I guess now we're
just gonna go over more like a personal
question just to get to know you better
so as a kid I mean I'm guessing maybe
you didn't know much of my engineering
and stuff like that but did you have any
affinity to building things yeah I I
mean Lego was my thing for a while but I
actually just really like video games
that was like my thing like I I hated
studying I hate just like games
I like making stuff in video games and
yeah my dad was an engineer so I kind of
had that like drilled in me like making
stuff and I got two important questions
okay first question which games did you
play Super Smash that was like my thing
wait Milly wait for all dude actually
yeah no seriously what was your captured
I played a sheep oh [ __ ] man yeah I Pig
Martin okay and she is usually like she
could have an advantage against Mars
really I'm gonna get that like into it
too I mean I played I played a lot like
did you ever go to competition
no I mean my parents remember me did you
know how to use like weight - yeah you -
yeah a little bit early not actually and
then like okay what about this second
brush so you work for Capital One now
you like to enjoy your job like yeah I
love my job
okay actually my bosses are really good
Capital One is really good perks so a
lot of people don't understand less is
more East Coast company right they're
huge they I'm like I see crazy campuses
it's not a boring or a bank
the reason yeah the reason why I ask is
because you love video games right yeah
it sounds whirring like do you ever
think about you know moving into game
development ah so the thing is I have a
few friends who are in games and then
their number one tip is to not get into
games if you like video yeah that's
right here yeah like when you work for
gaming it's actually dreams you yeah and
video game programming is probably one
of the hardest yeah to do and
time-consuming to do yeah like i zoom in
just to make it a little guys know that
yeah that makes sense
so maybe no plans to go to gaming now
and the money's in like apps to be
honest the money's in like web and cool
cool so what about on your free time
like what do you do it now today is like
I have a bit of a newborn so really yeah
I am you look so young dog but I'm
married so oh wow yeah
it's that's takes opal a lot of time I
like to make youtube videos but I
actually like really to enjoy
programming okay and I'm like kind of
lucky that I get to do that for a living
Janet all right so I guess before we
start um I should have one question so
what did you do in college first of all
so I actually just studied economics in
accounting yeah so what did you want to
do before college like did you want to
be an economist it's not even what it's
called no no actually my dad's an
engineer and he's always pushed me to be
an engineer but I was pretty bad school
rebel yeah I got it my god okay so you
did economics and then what you end up
with did you do internships or anything
I didn't I feel like the zero internship
so I should have brushed watching videos
man hey you are
I was probably like playing Starcraft
personally probably less good names make
sense make sense but yeah um so that's
the thing so you did economics and then
you didn't do any internships and then
did you find a job right after you
graduated no actually I didn't so it was
like 2010 right after the financial
crisis so it was really tough the market
was pretty tough so okay so I ended up
going back to school for this program
it's like this is in Santa Clara it's
like I want to say like eight months
program where you get all the classes
for accounting essentially just look for
this not use it okay yeah and then you
got accounting job yeah and then I got
my accounting job so I had like
interviews and like my like the weak
force Bible pretty good I mean I have a
lot of friends who I ended up working at
a small Korean firm it was terrible nice
okay cool so then when did you start
knowing about coding or knew before but
he just didn't get into it so was
actually during that time my friends and
I we kind of got together we're just
tinkering I it was like my roommate and
another friend who came just got back he
was like studying was unemployed at the
time we just started tinkering and I
actually started doing art instead okay
so you guys were making an app and you
were doing that inside part cast yeah
yeah I did like design I made like you
know like circles and squares and then
you started wanting to code is that how
it actually came out of necessary oh
yeah cuz they found jobs as engineers
essentially and I went back to San Jose
and then I was like I have all these art
skills no I still want to make like apps
so that's when I started yeah if you
don't mind me asking what was the app
about this is video games we made this a
hamster it's actually really
embarrassing Oh puppy I'll fight though
was it like a cute game or was it like a
it was a cute game yeah yeah so when
it's okay what was your first
development job and how'd you get that
actually my first development actual job
would be this current one than all that
yeah but I knew a CEO in Korea who had a
small app companies I mean I did some
stuff with it right and I call that my
intuition it's a connections connection
connections are created we're at the
grind and read hustle you know that's
all that man so yeah Indiana I just want
to talk about how important connections
are because yes I talk about internships
and all of that but in the end the
reason why I got these internship was
because of connections and that
connection for me is you Waterloo you
know because they're known to produce
like high quality engineers and then
that's why they hire us so in the end
connections are really important I hate
the word networking but I do think
that's one of the most valuable skill
you can have all right great mmm and
sometimes noggin lie it's about luck if
you happen to know someone for example I
happen to know my brother and he
happened to be you know he paved the way
for me so yeah so how did you even get
those capital ones so you got a few
internships like with the Korean CEO
yeah yeah and yeah what else was on your
resume so I I liked self-study on and
off for like three years
I tried like iOS and Java but I ended up
going to a bouquet that's actually so
that was probably the biggest like boost
but the bootcamp itself doesn't really
help you in terms of boosting your
resume
actually I said sometimes it's
considered a negative like there's like
people looking for like new but--can
operations right but I did a lot of
projects and hacked
when I was at the bouquet okay so um
what was that bootcamp called it's
called deaf boot camp okay and how much
how much it cost so the total was like
13,000 I believe maybe 15,000 I I forget
exactly but this is pretty hefty it was
a decent amount luckily I had yeah I
guess like how did you choose your boot
camp because now there are so many yeah
and some people think some of them are
scam some of it or not sure how like why
this one so it kind of goes back to
connections um I did a someone during my
whole time in like investigating about
programming
I started podcast where I like
interviewed software engineers and there
was this one guy who I interview he went
to hack react and he was telling me
about his experience and and he was
actually an accountant to going to a
hacker engineer so he gave me a lot of
information and he told me like the ones
that are good right now I would say cuz
my boo can no longer exist but I was a
hack reactor and App Academy is probably
the best there's a few other good ones
but you gotta watch that right so on
your resume basically you had a few
internships and then the boot camp right
yeah and then that's when you applied to
Capital One yeah pretty much
so actually I didn't I never applied I
met someone there yeah so again like all
my interviews I ever got after my boot
camp um was because I met people I
reached out got it okay so did you
interview for them or did you just get
the job they have a pretty like strange
interview process like any fortune 500
I've got it but the initial like
interview like I didn't have to go
through a parser which my I don't think
my resume would have went through
because I don't have Waterloo or like
because I went to water dude yeah I
guess that's one thing I want to mention
too like a lot of people ask me like oh
is it important to hit yes yes degree
and stuff like that and I say like for
the skills maybe not you know for the
actual work experience maybe not but the
reason is because they have soul
applicants that the only way they can go
through all the applicants is by
filtering people out and like for them
yes they know that they might filter out
really talented people if you know
sometimes they don't have a CS degree
but they're still very talented but it's
just you know the opportunity cost of
going through all of them it's just too
high yeah you know so it's like I
understand that it's shitty but it's
just a limitation we don't have enough
resources to go through all of them so
your way to standing out is to have
these stupid keywords like I believe
yeah sure
but yeah it sucks but I think that's why
trying to get a connection or like a
referral you know it's really important
yeah referrals are like super important
um I found work like a month after my
boot camp and that's on the very fast
side most of my friends they took 16
years six months ago Wow
so that's something they leave at at
boot camps I see you know ninety nine
ninety five percent right you know
success rate but maybe a year later
so I Capital one we just started did you
work with people who had CS degrees are
they like you who didn't have sales
degrees so a good mix of both yeah um
and surprisingly I would say the people
who went to boot camps were in a sense
like more like driven okay yeah it's
kind of interesting right that is yeah
like I felt that a lot of my other jobs
too because you feel like you need to
prove yourself exactly no impostor
syndrome
exactly so can you talk more but
imposter syndrome like did you have it I
did for a little bit I think how long
maybe like three months okay like I
always say it takes like three months to
get used to write on expenses maybe it
was like a job like a new job thing but
it was like totally different for me
new job big company career switch all
the stuffs so like like what were you
most afraid of that you thought you
didn't know to finish simply asking dumb
questions okay you know cuz I you don't
know what I don't know that's true so
it's like I don't like I had a questions
about JIRA right stupid [ __ ] like that
yeah you're asking about dumb questions
it's interesting because a lot of people
say like oh don't be afraid to ask
questions there's no such thing as
questions yeah maybe that's true like
maybe fourscore something that but when
your reputation is on the line when your
job is on the line when you have you
know people looking at you working with
you sometimes their judgment can lead to
like future becomes oh right over here
and maybe internships not that bad can
you believe anyways but yeah when it's a
full-time job it's a lot harder I was
lucky that I did lot of internship so I
asked all the stupid questions there so
if I were you do an internship make sure
to ask a stupid question then not only
your full-time yeah for example I asked
what else was in the terminal you know
it's to look at your files then yeah
stuff like that
and then the guy just looked at me like
dude what the [ __ ] are you you know but
here's the thing like you know you don't
know you know so you don't know what you
don't know right exactly so yeah so it
is kind of a tricky thing especially at
full time so I don't I'm not gonna say
oh you should just ask the question you
know but yeah cool
so what about do you have any like tips
and tricks to stand out I mean like
first of all I guess some people would
probably even look down on you because
you came from buti'm yeah how do you
prove to them that like no I'm good [ __ ]
so there's there's a few ways and
everyone has like different opinions
what I did was I won a bunch of I just
want a bunch of hackathons
yeah can we talk about that hackathon
like what was it so let's say so I won
one of the sponsor prizes from
TechCrunch Disrupt
that's like probably the largest
hackathon and then there was a few other
ones one at Facebook called chyme hack
that was really fun that was my first
pretty big names yeah yeah and there was
a small one of where it was like hack
against finalists was like some all
right yeah that was like okay so can you
tell me about one like I guess the best
one the one that you want or like the
one that you felt like you did the most
work or that you learned the most can
you talk about that hackathon sure um
actually the Facebook one was the number
like probably the like changing moment
because I was the first one that I won
and it was literally right after I
learned about like restful services we
just built a cruddy crud up at the face
break it
and we want based on that like that
really changed my mind that like I
thought hackathons were for these like
nerdy that are super like you know but
it's not yeah it's not gonna like most
of the times when I go to hackathons
they're all like phonies yeah no I don't
want to hate that because they just spit
out like all these technologies that
they don't know how to use just to just
like sound smarts not imposter syndrome
man yeah yeah so okay so you made a crit
up like what what did it do like so that
one basically the whole theme was to
report like sexual abuse oh so we made a
app where basically people who are like
consultants and like people who have
like skills to help people who you know
got traumatized like they could connect
on one side and like they could be on
their messenger or whatever and then the
other like people who actually needed
help they could go in and it was like
kind of connecting them anonymously it
was yeah that's actually really cool cuz
like I like to tell people a lot about
making apps you know like it's not about
the latest technology it's not about how
good your technology is especially
because I kind of I'm leaving on the
product side now I care about you know
does your product add value to a
person's life yeah building a simple
REST API by having tremendous value to
it for example you know the app that you
made is a lot more important than using
all the fancy technology no that's true
and then most of the judges they don't
care exactly you know they just want to
know they just want a good presentation
and that good picture you know so yeah
that's it
cool so what about like the interview
for a Capital One how did you prepare
for that so you know stand there
cracking the coding interviews I went to
like meetups where they did interview
preps I talked to so my you know other
bootcamp grabs we kind of got together
and like asking silly questions like
lots of and lots of hacker implemented
some things on them so when you actually
did the interview did you feel prepared
because of the cracking decoding
interview stuff yeah definitely cracking
like oh that bug is probably the Holy
Grail is like programming every quiz
so what's the percentage of like
technical questions and like
non-technical questions and you think
those matter so for Capital One they
made me do take home so I created a
react app where like I listed like bunch
of bank checks right transaction and
then they had like four people interview
me so there was two like three technical
interviews so they asked me like a lot
of technical questions I did some
whiteboarding and then we had one
behavior questions cool nice okay so a
lot of those traditional cool yeah
traditional like I'm not sure exactly
the percentage but it's a little
autocoding
okay cool all right so active personal
life um yeah how old's your kid now yeah
my kids fight three months he just had
his hundredth babe huh man it's crazy if
they're going like this are you gonna is
it it he or she is a he are you gonna
make some a program yeah yeah actually
Bobby you know who knows what they're
gonna do up to you so okay
parenting we're gonna change it to a
parenting channel yeah so question how
like I always thought that parents
always try to raise their kids in ways
that they've never been raised before
you know because they kind of want to
either one that vicariously through
their kids or two after kids live the
life it couldn't have do you think
that's true are you gonna do that I
don't know I had a really good childhood
so I love my parents I still like we're
kind of lucky a sense where I know a lot
of people don't like speak to their
parents often yes I grew up and have
their own family but we talk like every
day so I want to try to encourage them
to do us like kind of raise them
similarly but there's different things
like they're really strict on school and
I I'm not a school guy so I want that I
just want him to be passionate about
something yeah I don't care what it is
yeah I guess that makes sense cuz like
for my parents I think the reason why
they were probably stricter on school
was because they don't want me to end up
like them where they don't have like
good jobs and stuff like that so they
want me to just be decently well fit to
live like and then for me imagine if I
had a kid in my mind what I would do is
like oh I have a decent living it's okay
if they fail at school hmm
because I want them to live the life I
can have
which is you know to express your
artistic freedom you know to do more art
classes because I didn't do that much
sure you know and there were a lot of
sports I want to do but we just didn't
have the money to do it so I think if I
had a kid I would be like yo man I can't
do that I think he would be like you'll
[ __ ] my parents yeah I don't want to do
anything yeah why are you pushing me
this good school I know don't but yeah
you're gonna find yourself yeah find
yourself dude go through YouTube there's
no travel yeah go challenge travel no I
just yeah yeah cool nice so I guess so
yeah thank you so so much for coming in
and yeah things are very valuable yeah
you want you know plug your channel yeah
yeah I got it yeah so my name is John as
I mentioned you guys can check me out at
Sol encode a like for everything like
Instagram and YouTube I do a lot of like
programming related like you know
lecture type videos and a little bit of
like vlogging type videos so come check
me out I think that's about it and thank
you for watching see you guys next time
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