Developer Takes, From Code to Connections

Zach:
Well, Zach Stepek here again with another episode of DevPulse’s new show, Expanding the Stack, and…

Carl:
I think DevPulse is also new. I think this is just the first show.

Zach:
Well, I mean, DevPulse is new, but it’s kind of a rebranding of the Dev Chats, right? So the Woo Dev Chats will continue with Mike and Marcel doing what they’ve been doing alongside us. They’re going to keep that going. But you and I, Carl, we are exploring new frontiers.

Carl:
Yes.

Zach:
We are going to be Expanding the Stack, and so for those of you who are regular listeners to the show, Carl and my backgrounds both extend far beyond where we currently work. I was a ColdFusion developer. I was a Flash developer. I was a Flex developer. I was an instructor in the Adobe community, certified in six technologies, taught everywhere from IBM to MTV. Carl, you’ve got a similarly broad background from where you started to where you are now.

And you’ve expanded your background beyond WordPress just in the last few years again, with the product that you’re working on and some of the other things that you’re doing. So we have a broad background and designs on doing more than just what we’ve been doing as well. So we wanted to start this show to give people a way to learn what’s just beyond what’s in their purview now, right? Give them a way to see beyond where they see currently.

We’ll talk about technologies that are WordPress-adjacent, like Laravel and other PHP frameworks, and possibly some JavaScript and front-end frameworks—all of the fun stuff that is WordPress-adjacent and WooCommerce-adjacent. But I mean, Carl, this was really your idea.

Carl:
Yeah, so exactly. That’s like my little brain baby. I think about what I do when I go to a WordCamp. You’ve both seen me at WordCamps, and I love just chatting with people. Me and Tessa, we did an interview last week too, and we were talking about how just talking with developers—there’s something about it, just our vocabulary, just the way we interact—it’s like you feel like part of a tribe.

Tessa:
It’s like a safe space, right?

Carl:
Yeah, it’s a safe space. But there’s so much more to the developer experience than just coding. Coding is important, obviously, but the idea of Expanding the Stack is also just expanding your views, your experiences. What is it like to start a business? Do it publicly?

We talked about this when I was with Tessa—we talked a lot about passion. Some programmers do it for passion, some do it for more mercenary reasons. Exactly—for the money.

We’re in video now too, so we can do all the gestures, and you can see my morning Pepsi habits and all that. But that was the idea for the show, and I’m really excited. We have a lot of guest ideas for talking with people, and Tessa is a great example of that because she kind of has, I’d say, one toe left in WordPress, but she does developer relations. She works with developers all the time.

She’s trying to—I’ll let you introduce yourself—but I was just talking about what we talked about last week, which is you’re trying to get back into coding. I’ll let you introduce yourself, but basically, yeah, you’re talking with so many developers right now, it’s so exciting. You should talk about that too.

But just having these conversations is the idea of the show—about tech stacks, but also just the developer…

Zach:
…experience.

Carl:
These days. We lose track of that a lot.

Zach:
Well, and that’s a really good segue into talking about our guest today, since we didn’t do that yet. I know we all want to just jump right in—we’re all friends—but let’s make sure we do it in order.

So, Tessa, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, about Built for Devs, and what it means to be a developer go-to-market strategist?

Tessa:
By the way, I’m working on that title. What is my title? If I put Software Engineer, people are like, “Does she do marketing?” If I put Marketing, then the software engineers are like, “She’s not cool, so I don’t want to talk to her.”

So I’m working with that. But honestly—Tessa Kriesel here. To kind of do the stack, I guess, sort of parallel to Zach—I started in open-source PHP, which was beautiful. I wanted to build a Guitar Hero community, so I started in Joomla. I don’t know if anyone’s touched Joomla, but back when it was barely Joomla and getting ported over from Mambo.

So, really old days—and I sound super old when I talk about this—but Joomla, then sort of WordPress, Drupal, that whole stack there.

I got into product pretty early on, which was interesting. I got to work with over a hundred different content management systems in all different languages that I had to integrate into. Perfect first real job, because I learned a ton.

From there, I was able to expand into a lot of agency roles—building a lot of WordPress sites, building a lot of websites and agency work. It all sort of just varied, mostly in the PHP technology stack.

Then I ended up leaving what I would say is my last software engineering official sort of Engineering Manager role at General Mills. Obviously, a big, huge enterprise Fortune company there, but I got to do open-source projects, so that was incredible.

I was still working on a lot of PHP. I did get my hands in a little bit of Java, a little bit of C++, and just a little bit of some of that stuff because, obviously, that’s very enterprise-heavy. But I was mostly working in the front end.

Then I ended up leaving what I would say is my last Software Engineering official sort of Engineering Manager role at General Mills. Obviously, a big, huge enterprise Fortune company there, but I got to do open-source projects, so that was incredible.

I was still working on a lot of PHP. I did get my hands in a little bit of Java, a little bit of C++, and just a little bit of some of that stuff because, obviously, that’s very enterprise-heavy. But I was mostly working in the front end and not in the side of the world.

Once I shifted into DevRel—wow—I have been in databases, I’ve been in WordPress, I’ve been in FinTech, I’ve been in DevOps, I’ve been in security.

Let’s see, what else? Social media, although both social media platforms—Twitter being news, Snapchat being camera technology—they don’t call themselves social media platforms.

So I guess I was in news and media and in camera technology, which was actually really cool because I got to do augmented reality, which was a whole thing. It introduced me to mobile development, which is something I hadn’t been exposed to before.

But what Carl alluded to is that once I shifted into DevRel, it was very much a “Whoa—she’s technical, she gets it, she understands business. Let’s do these different types of things.” And so I was no longer writing as much code as I probably would have enjoyed, but I was still winning and achieving and doing amazing, awesome things with growing communities of developers. And so I didn’t care so much.

But now, Built for Devs—I launched that almost a year ago now. I get to celebrate here pretty soon on the domain registration. February, I think, is when I started.

And now—I know, right? I’m excited!—now, I’m doing DevRel for a variety of different types of clients and companies. I have robotics, ML Ops—oh my gosh, I have a client right now that’s so freaking cool.

It’s like—I don’t even know how to explain it—it’s like a “Screw you, cloud. You are not always the answer. There are other ways to host.” It’s very much a secure, on-prem, edge-type of case where it’s like, “Why are we sending all of our data to the cloud?”

Which, I’ve always been like, “Why Kubernetes for everything?”

So, long story short, I get exposed to so much technology, and I love it. I love it. But I need to get my hands back into some actual code, because I opened up the terminal—it’s probably been a month now—and none of the muscle memory was there.

I was like, “I don’t even know what to do here.”

Then I realized I didn’t even have an SSH key installed.

So, long story short—beautiful business. I’ve been able to help a lot of different companies and spend time with so many developers.

Which—to add one little sliver onto that, and then I’ll digress on my intro (which is very long at this point)—is that I have been bringing together a community.

So, Built for Devs is very much a DevRel service agency—or an agency when you think about it—providing DevRel services to companies.

But a major part of that is that I have a 5,500-developer network that I’ve grown over all of those different ecosystems, different community building, etc.

And so I am taking that community—you two fall into that network—and starting to nurture that network and bring them into what is called the Built for Devs Hub.

So it’s a developer hub. Its bread and butter is events, and so I have been pulling together a lot of different events.

And then, on top of it, I started hosting a 99 Dev Problems livestream show, which Carl was on. Definitely go look for the episode—we had a lot of fun.

Zach, I’d love to have you on there in the future.

And yeah, I’m realizing that, hey, I can make money just hanging out with developers, because when I have the network and the clients have the needs, I connect the two together, and it’s just this beautiful world for everybody involved.

So, last thing I’ll say—developers, more than any time ever in the history of my career, are yearning for time with other developers.

So, this type of stuff—these podcasts, these livestreams, these virtual events, any developer-curated conferences (I want to emphasize developer-curated)—I’m not going to a conference that’s put on by a company or for a for-profit type of scenario.

I will go if a developer is curating it.

And I think 2025 is going to be a very stellar year for bringing developers together in that very authentic way.

So, I digress. Thank you for having me on the show. I’m excited to chat.

Zach:
Of course.

Carl:
Yeah, I mean, there’s so much to pick from just your intro.

We talked a lot about developer events. I think there’s a lot to that, right? We were talking about LoopConf—there was Loop Conference. WordPress space there was really great.

But there is something—

Even this show is a bit of an idea of that—it’s just like, we yearn to be talking to each other, talking shop, or…

Tessa:
Comparing notes.

Carl:
Just having these kinds of conversations, where you can be nerdy and feel safe being nerdy.

I was telling Tessa—I don’t know if it was during the show or pre-show—but my parents never really understood what I did.

It’s only once I started doing public speaking that they were like, “Oh, Carl’s a public speaker.”

And they were like, “Oh, okay, okay. That makes sense to me.”

Zach:
“This is something we can explain.”

Tessa:
I told my parents, “I make friends with developers.”

And they were like, “Wait, you do what?”

And I was like, “Okay, software engineers—people who build computer stuff on the internet. I just make friends with them.”

And they were like, “What?”

Because—how else do you explain it?

Carl:
Yeah, it’s really hard. You can find little quips.

“I hack people for a living” or something like that.

But it’s hard to explain what you do.

Zach:
“I help family members repair their printers.”

That’s what I do.

Tessa:
Oh yeah, totally.

Carl:
Oh my God.

I mean, if you’re like—okay, I’m showing my age—but if you’re mid-forties and you were a techie your whole life, you were definitely the family (and extended family) and the neighbors’ tech support person.

Tessa:
Did your parents have businesses?

Because I became their tech support person for all their customers too.

My dad would be like, “Just bring your laptop. My daughter will fix whatever virus you have on there. It’ll be fine.”

And I didn’t mind, because honestly, I loved it.

I was in high school, and I was like, “Yeah, I broke into pretty much every computer I possibly could.”

I was like, “How do I brute force through this?”

Carl:
Oh my God. I got so tired of it.

Tessa:
It does get old.

Carl:
Early 2000s, I was like, “I’m so done with this.”

“We just got a new computer. Can you come—?”

I’d have my binder—okay, I am in Canada, anyway, nobody’s going to come and get me—but my binder full of all the pirated stuff.

I had a whole setup in college. I was bringing bootleg videos and stuff into dorms and everything. So yeah, I was a little pirate.

But yeah, “Can you come install Office? I need Office. Can you come install Office for me?”

I would just come with CD binders—for the youngins, we had binders this thick, as big as my head, full of CDs, because installing Office was like five CDs.

Zach:
What’s a CD?

Carl:
Carl? What’s a CD?

Tessa:
A CD-ROM.

Carl:
It was five CDs to install Microsoft Office. It was crazy.

Zach:
Well, I had the developer edition of Office at one point because I had a subscription with Microsoft where they gave me all their dev tools.

And so I had the developer version of Office.

Tessa:
Ooooh.

Zach:
No, they gave it to me.

Yes, they gave it to me.

Tessa:
Who’s gifted now? Ooh, you were way cooler than us. We had to steal it.

Carl:
Yeah, I’d steal it.

I mean, I had access to it at my job, but I would just make copies of it.

I had all legit CD keys. I had all the OEM CD keys, so that was great.

Tessa:
I don’t know how I got the original versions, but I had them too.

And I’m thinking back, and I’m like, Wait—how did I get those Office CDs?

The pretty ones that looked like there was a certificate printed on the CD-ROM. It was very gold-labeled.

Zach:
They were very shiny.

Tessa:
Yes, yes. Foil! Yes, yes. They looked like Pokémon cards.

Carl:
Oh yeah, like foil.

Foil—it’s like trading cards.

It was like a foil trading card! It’s great.

But yeah, you were basically your family’s tech support and your neighbor’s tech support, and it’s like—

Tessa:
I eventually told my dad when I was an actual adult, I was like,

“If you don’t switch to Mac, I’m done being your tech support in two years.”

I literally gave him a timeline.

So he found a networking person locally.

I was like, “I don’t do Windows anymore,” because it changed, right?

XP was where it was at.

And then when it shifted into—I don’t even keep track anymore—whatever was after Vista and whatever else…

And when I could no longer brute force into it, I was like, “I’m out. I don’t want to touch Windows anymore.”

Zach:
When it became NT and there was actual security.

Carl:
Yeah.

Tessa:
Exactly.

Zach:
Windows. Windows 2000 era.

Carl:
I was a hardcore nerd.

I was like, “Windows 2000 for my desktop.”

I had the server version, basically Windows Server 2000 for my desktop.

Because it just ran better. It was just better.

But yeah.

Oh my God.

Zach:
Yeah, I remember running IIS and hosting websites and all of that fun stuff back then.

Carl:
Yeah, I had the whole routing stuff.

We were talking about that—I had the machine with…

Back then, the routers that come free with your modem cost like a thousand bucks.

So I just had a machine and a Nortel router and just hacked it all together.

But yeah, this is what we’re talking about.

This is why we need dev events.

This is why we need dev events—so we can just nerd out about this.

Tessa:
Yes! So we can nerd out.

Carl:
It’s missing from the experience.

And it’s just like—what devs are going through—the job market and all that stuff—it’s just all really hard.

And it can feel really difficult, right?

I’m sure you talk to way more devs than I do right now, but it feels difficult to talk about it with your peers because they don’t really understand what’s happening or what to do.

Because for them, it’s magic.

You’re just magicians.

You’re typing away at your keyboard, and they don’t really know how your work gets done or what happens with your work.

Tessa:
I think developers right now are—okay, so here’s my hypothesis on where developers are at…

I fully agree—the job market is really bad right now.

And this is the first time it’s been hard again since, what I would say is probably—

I don’t know, guys, you tell me—but I think 2015, 2016?

Things kind of started to fire up, at least in big tech.

And now we’re sort of seeing the downside of that fire up.

And I don’t think it’s necessarily COVID.

2020, I think, was when the flame got lit, right?

And what I mean by sort of fire up is that it was like an over-hiring spree.

It was, “Look at all this money! Tech is so big! Let’s just—”

And I think that now we’re seeing…

Anyone who is a developer who’s been a developer for the last five to six years—sort of mid-level career—they’re like,

“Holy crap, why is it so hard to get a job now?”

Because most of their career, it hasn’t been that way.

But I think the other piece of it to add into that is all of us—as citizens and humans—whether you’re in Canada, whether you’re in the US, whether you’re in Mexico, whether you’re in Europe…

The world is weird right now.

And very untrusting.

We’re all sort of questioning everything that we’re finding out.

Why are these things getting unveiled?

What’s happening in our election?

All the sort of politics and things right after COVID and everything.

So I think, more than anything, humans right now are like,

“I want the life that I want to live. And I also want the people that I can trust.”

So I think that we are in this space of not only the job market being difficult, but also,

“I need a tribe.”

We’re realizing that we cannot be isolated in our homes.

And we need trust.

And we need people.

And so I think, more than anything, it’s a culmination of multiple things coming into play.

But that’s totally just my hypothesis.

Carl:
Yeah, I mean, I get that feeling too.

Zach:
Yeah. I mean, I’m feeling that right now, right? I’m on the job market because I was unexpectedly laid off by my former employer.

And it does feel hard out there.

There are hundreds of people applying for every open role. Hundreds of people.

And every time they say that there’s a shortage of devs, I look at the current job market and ask, Why?

Because—sure—there may be more open roles than there are people.

But if that’s true, if that is absolutely true, then why is it that every role has four, five hundred people applying for it?

Tessa:
People are mass applying to jobs, which—we can have a whole conversation about this—I don’t think is the way to go.

I think you should apply to the ten jobs you absolutely want, invest heavily into the research, into understanding the company, into understanding the human involved.

Authentic outreach.

Going directly to the hiring manager when they’re listed on LinkedIn, instead of just submitting a hundred applications.

Because honestly, coming from the hiring manager side—I’ve been there—I’ve gotten the hundred applications and been like,

“Holy mother of Jesus, how do I get through this?”

It’s impossible.

So I think it’s like—

Carl:
Hiring is hard.

Tessa:
It is. Yeah, I agree.

And sometimes you just spray and pray, right?

Because you’re like, “Gosh, I haven’t gotten anything, so this is the route.”

But yeah, I personally think that less applications and more thought and time invested into a single application is a better path.

Zach:
Yeah, I agree.

And that’s kind of where my focus is right now—building some very specific resumes, cover letters, applying for the job I’m applying for.

Not just spray and pray.

Tessa:
Something you really want to do.

Zach:
And so, in the meantime, while I’m waiting for the right role—if there is one—I’m going to settle back into the role that I’m most comfortable in, and that’s being me.

And that means that I’m doing consulting work again.

And I really want to continue to help people succeed in whatever it is they’re trying to pursue.

And being that I have that weird title of unicorn—where I can do front-end, back-end, and design—I’m in a position where I can help a business that has an idea, form that idea into a series of requirements, take those requirements and turn them into design, take that design and attach it to a series of user stories, and take those user stories and get a dev team to build it all, right?

And then lead that dev team.

And so that’s basically what I’ve been doing for the last 18 months—helping customers with my former employer do exactly that.

And I really want to continue focusing on architecture and the overseer role—being the person who is bringing all these disparate ideas together into a cohesive whole.

And so that’s really where I want to focus.

I also really enjoy sales—which is weird for a developer.

Tessa:
Me too, by the way.

Zach:
And so I want whatever—

Tessa:
Under certain circumstances.

Zach:
Yeah!

And I want whatever role I’m in to have some kind of technical sales support aspect to it.

Maybe I’m not the primary salesperson—even in my own business over time—but sitting in that technical sales support role and being able to advise is a position that I really enjoy being in as well.

But yeah, the market is hard, and it’s a very difficult place to be right now.

And when you don’t have a lot of runway because you weren’t given any, you just kind of have to find your way.

And this is not the first time I’ve been in this position—it certainly won’t be the last.

But it’s hard.

And so, if you’re out there and you’re looking for a job right now, and you are listening to this podcast, I want you to know that you are not alone.

You’re not alone in feeling like you’ve thrown as many darts as you can at the wall, and none of them are sticking.

You’re not alone in feeling like maybe you should just skill up a little bit more, and then you’ll get a role.

That’s generally not the problem, by the way.

A lot of times you will hear that’s the problem from hiring managers or other people, and that’s really not it.

The thing that I would encourage people who are currently on the job market to do is:

Rather than focus on hard skills, focusing on the things like your technical knowledge…

Focus in on your soft skills.

Talk to people. A lot.

Get better at talking to people.

Carl:
Somebody a long time ago did a meme for me, because I used to say that all the time.

It was a Beastie Boys one—it was:

“Soft skills to pay the bills.”

Basically.

Zach:
Absolutely.

Carl:
Absolutely.

Because I’ve been a proponent of soft skills for—what—15 years or something?

We actually talked about it a bit in your podcast, Tessa.

Tessa:
You did.

Carl:
Because I used to be—I would do so well in interviews, and they’d be like,

“Okay, we just have this little formality—you just have to pass a programming exam.”

And then I’d be like, “Oh, I’ll see you never,” basically.

Tessa:
Yep.

Carl:
So I had soft skills in spades.

Which is always funny, because everybody says I’m so smart, but around programming—

Basically, I would fail those tests every single time.

The first job I ended up getting was the one that didn’t ask me to do a test, basically.

But soft skills get you a long way.

Because I’ve done hiring.

Tessa’s done hiring.

Zach, you’ve probably done hiring.

The problem, if you’ve never done hiring, isn’t so much the candidates—it’s that you’re trying to figure out:

“Is this person good for the company? To work with?”

Tessa:
Culturally good.

Carl:
It’s so hard to figure that out from talking to someone.

Or from a piece of paper.

Or an application.

Zach:
And now that we rely so heavily on these automated AI tools for candidate review—

The human element of it is the most important part.

And if you’re hiring for a role—

Don’t hire for the technical skill required to do the role first.

That’s an important piece.

Hire for cultural fit.

Hire for somebody you want to work with.

Carl:
Or what they could be.

Zach:
What your team needs.

Carl:
Because the soft skills will tell you that way more than the hard skills. Absolutely.

Tessa:
I will say there’s definitely a mix here though, because there have been—I mean, obviously, you want developers with soft skills 100%—but also, sometimes it’s nice to have those developers that want to sit in a closet and be left alone.

And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with those developers—oh yeah, absolutely.

But there are some that just—they are powerhouses.

They will sit and dev, but you also need to have a team dynamic.

If your team objectively has to go speak to clients, do you have someone on that team that can speak to clients?

Do you have more than one person on that team?

So that’s soft skills too.

You still need to create what I think is a well-rounded team.

And can those people with the soft skills help the developers who would prefer to stay in the closet improve some of those soft skills?

Right?

So I fully agree.

Carl:
Yeah, because the problem with the closet one is that he doesn’t even talk to you.

Tessa:
No, he doesn’t.

He’s just like, “Give me my specs and let me code. Just leave me alone.”

Carl:
And so that can be a problem too.

Tessa:
For sure.

Carl:
But the idea is that if I get to talk with you or interact with you…

That’s why the networking and these events—

We’re looping back again to the events—because it’s so important.

Because when you get to talk to someone informally, you just get a feel for them way more.

And then you can be like, “Oh, okay, I could see myself maybe working with this person.”

Or, “I really enjoyed my interaction.”

So you can get a bit further, and then you cut through the noise.

But that’s really hard if you’re an introverted developer right now.

You’re like, “Oh my God, I have to go talk to strangers at an event.”

And it’s like—

Tessa:
But if they’re a dev, they love to talk to their peers.

So it’s just giving them that out and having them see that.

Carl:
Yeah, but that’s it.

But it can be scary even inside those events.

It can be.

Tessa:
Especially if you don’t know somebody to start.

Carl:
If you don’t know anyone—

Zach’s really good at that.

I’m really good at that.

You’re really good at that.

Intro-ing people.

I just intro, and then I do my ADHD thing where I’m like—

Tessa:
“Bye.”

Carl:
And then I leave.

And then they talk for hours.

And it’s great.

And I’ve done my job.

But that will get you a bit more somewhere, right?

It’s not guaranteed, but it helps you.

Tessa:
It feels like we need a matchmaking service—

Introvert, meet your developer extrovert.

You’re connected.

Honestly, I question whether or not I’m really extroverted, but that’s a whole other thing.

So it’s like, find your person that can go intro you, that can make you feel welcome.

If I’m ever at an event, I will be your person.

I’m just saying that out loud.

Come and find me, even if you don’t know me.

Carl:
Yeah, I do that a lot too.

Tessa:
Show me a picture of your dog, and we’re good.

Carl:
The number of times people are like, “Do you know this person?”

I’m like, “Of course.”

And I’m like, “Here, I’ll find them for you.”

And then—

Zach also—

We joked that me and Zach together, we know basically 100% of the people in WordPress.

Those connections help for jobs and things like that.

Or even consulting—it’s super helpful.

Tessa, you’re on your own now too.

These discussions can be long.

I started a conversation at Portland, and it’s still ongoing.

And I don’t know if it’s going to lead somewhere.

But at least we had a good conversation.

And the person I talked to there was like,

“I’m so excited I got to talk with you.”

So just the fact that—

And they were a CTO.

And they were just excited.

Just getting that gets you a bit further.

Because it’s just so hard to cut through a hundred applications.

There’s just no way.

Zach:
Well, if you remember, I started an agency back in 2017.

And that agency started because of a conversation with someone that Tessa, you also know very well.

Someone who has said some very nice things about you.

I’m just going to read this, and we can let you try and guess who it is until I say it.

But—

“What I love most about Tessa:

She is passionate.

She cares about developers.

She cares about community.

She cares about justice.

She even helps others learn to care.”

And so—Chris Lema.

He approached me at WordCamp in Philadelphia.

And he had just started a new job.

And he said—

“We’re going to build this managed WooCommerce hosting platform.”

Which was unheard of at that time.

Nobody was trying to host Woo well.

And the people who were in hosting at that point had no clue how to host it well.

There wasn’t a lot of knowledge in that domain, right?

Tessa:
No one was chasing down the vertical to niche into it like they could and should have been.

Zach:
Yeah.

And so Chris approached me.

He said,

“Everybody tells me that you are the person that I need to talk to about scaling WooCommerce.”

I mean, that’s a powerful statement about the true power of a network.

You’re absolutely right again! Here’s the full continuation and completion of your transcript with only spelling and punctuation corrected while keeping everything intact:

Tessa:
I agree.

Zach:
Public speaking, talking at WordCamps, being in that community, being active in the WordPress and WooCommerce communities—

That created this environment, I guess, where Chris Lema—who I knew a bit—was able to approach me at WordCamp.

And it was in the vendor area at WordCamp US, and Mike Sanchez—who was at WP Engine at the time—introduced me to him.

And we just had this conversation.

And that led to me starting my agency—with a customer right out of the gate.

And so we did work with Liquid Web.

We created the Managed WooCommerce platform.

Chris and his team—we acted in an advisory capacity as they were building everything out.

And we even helped build a little plugin for custom order tables in WooCommerce back in 2007.

Well before this High-Performance Order Storage (HPOS) thing was even a reality.

But that’s what this is all about—

Those hallway chats.

You are at an event, you are talking with people—

And I mean, that agency is still running to this day.

And it started from that one conversation.

It’s amazing to see how those kinds of things happen.

So that’s the power of the network.

And if you’re willing to put yourself out there and just get to know people,

The more people you get to know, the more opportunity will knock at your door.

Tessa:
I so agree with that.

I mean, that’s how I met all of you, right?

Carl—I met you through a job that was through WordPress.

Zach—you and I met through the community.

And it was just networking—just getting to know folks and meeting them.

And now, there have been multiple opportunities, and we’re like—

I feel like I can confidently say this—

I’m dear friends with both of you.

We don’t get to see each other as much as I’d like,

But I know that I can hit you up, and it’s immediately like—

“What do you need? I’m here.”

Which is so beautiful.

Carl:
And I do that for a lot of people too.

It’s just—yeah, it’s crazy.

Because I think we talked a bit about it—

I never know.

I always say,

“You trade one uncertainty for another.”

When you’re a consultant, you’re like—

“I don’t know where my money is coming from next month.”

I never know.

It sucks.

Tessa:
It’s scary.

Carl:
When you have a job,

You never know if you’re going to be laid off.

There’s always an insecurity to it.

And it’s just scary.

I wouldn’t even know where to start to look for a job.

I would just network, and hopefully something would happen.

But it’s really scary.

That’s why we’re—I think we’re talking a lot about it.

Because it’s just uncomfortable.

The spray and pray is uncomfortable.

It’s hard and expensive to network now.

Traveling is expensive.

Going to these events is expensive.

It can take months for any lead to amount to anything.

Tessa:
Absolutely.

Carl:
Especially if you’re trying to do enterprise.

Because work moves slowly.

It works slowly, right?

You’re trying to—you basically—your default—

Tessa:
Six-month sales cycle.

Carl:
Yeah, exactly.

Zach:
Oh, I’m at the end of a three-and-a-half-year sales cycle with a local business that I’ve wanted to do work with forever.

So, I mean—it just takes time and diligence.

You check in occasionally.

You see if they’re ready.

And you try to stay top of mind.

But it’s really about managing that relationship with the person you want to do work with.

And I know that sounds really business-y—

“Managing a relationship with a person.”

Yes, it is a business thing.

However—if you apply that to every aspect of your life,

And you are intentional about managing your relationships—

Especially as somebody who—

Carl, Tessa—I know you two spoke about that.

Carl:
I mean, I’m writing more about it.

I’m still writing my year-in-review.

I even applied to WordCamp EU with a Neurodivergence talk.

So we’ll see if they pick it.

But I’m very passionate about that right now.

Tessa:
So—not to derail this, but Carl—

This literally just blew up my life this week.

Carl:
Okay, please derail!

This is the whole point of the show.

Tangents galore.

Tessa:
I love it.

---

Zach:
We are running out of time,

But Tessa—this has been amazing.

We will have to have you back.

Tessa:
I would love to come back.

It’s been so lovely chatting with the two of you.

This has been awesome.

Zach:
Yeah, this was great.

Tessa:
I’d love to come back.

Would love to bring the two of you into the Built for Devs Hub.

Absolutely.

And anyone else who wants to come in—it’s very open.

I’d love to help developers host events on their own too.

So if you’re feeling it and you want to bring devs together,

Reach out to me.

Thank you so much for having me.

It was amazing being here.

Zach:
Yeah.

Thanks for joining us,

And thanks for being our first guest on this new podcast.

Tessa:
I feel so special.

Zach:
Before you go,

Where can we find you?

Tessa:
Ooh, yeah, good question.

I am pretty much everywhere.

If you Google Tessa Kriesel, you’ll find me.

tessakriesel.com

I’m @TessaK22 on the socials.

And Built for Devs is my website for my business.

builtfor.dev

Zach:
Awesome.

Well, thank you, Tessa.

It’s been great having you here.

Tessa:
Sweet, thank you!

Zach:
Thank you.

Tessa:
Bye, friends!