The Nameless Site

Jenkins World 2017 Interview

So back in august I spend a couple weeks in San Francisco to visit the Sauce Labs HQ and a bunch of the teammates I hadn't seen in a while. We figured we could squeeze in another week by offering to hang out at the booth at Jenkins World.

A couple weeks before the actual event, I was approached by our marketing department. They were contacted by DevOps.com to have some people volunteer for a couple interview slots. When asked other than slightly freaking out, I was totally on board.

Fast forward to the actual day. I'm totally wired. Grabbed a couple doughnuts. Some fruit. Whatever I could do to keep myself distracted between busy times at the booth.

Time comes. I have no idea what to expect. The only real instructions I got was don't look at the camera. One of my teammates took the awesome picture below while I was doing the interview. It actually was nerve wracking but a lot of fun. The interviewer was really good at leading the discussion while leaving me oppertunities to talk, and yet specific enough questions I wouldn't just keep rambling.

Nevre racking but it went so well. I can't wait to see the final result. #JenkinsWorld @saucelabs pic.twitter.com/gjzUNf8RWo

— Gavin Mogan (@halkeye) August 30, 2017

After the interview, I was a little fried, but was so much fun. We figured it'd take a while to get edited and published, but no, it was up by the next day. I had a lot of trouble listening to my own voice, so I hadn't really checked it out, but I was still excited (though so worried I just rambled over and over agian), so I posted it to twitter.

Whoa interview is already up. I still can't bring myself to listen to my own voice, but everyone says its well done https://t.co/Jv5ZciX72y

— Gavin Mogan (@halkeye) August 31, 2017

I have to say the feedback I got was actually super positive. I really wasn't expecting any at all. I was just excited.

It's more than well done. It's really really amazing and awesome good advice too! 🎉🎉🎉

— Nikhita Raghunath (@TheNikhita) August 31, 2017

It's more than well done. It's really really amazing and awesome good advice too! 🎉🎉🎉

— Nikhita Raghunath (@TheNikhita) August 31, 2017

I eventually did listen to it. I still hate the sound of my own voice (don't we all) but I think it went really well.

I did eventually post it to LinkedIn (which I've never posted to before). It was fun watching it spread. The stats they provide is interesting, but not exactly useful. I could easily see how many people "saw" it, how many people liked it. The different job titles, the different companies.

The most interesting thing to me was one of my friends informed me that it had started to get passed around at one of my past jobs.

So thats my experience. I've come a long way from not being able to talk to people in public, to now where I've done meetups, recorded interviews, and hopefully soon conferences. If i had to share one tidbit with people, it would be:

"No matter how experienced you are, it'll be nerve wracking, but so rewording so you should try anyways. You don't need to be experienced."

(I really don't know how to start blog posts without the word "so". I'll figure this out one day.)