In this episode, we chat with Francesco Ciulla about embracing his beginner experience and learning in public through content on Twitter and YouTube.
https://twitter.com/FrancescoCiull4
https://www.youtube.com/c/FrancescoCiulla
Episode 93 of this developing story.
Now, every now and then I come across someone on Twitter, who I've never met and I'm not even sure why they show up in my feed, but you could tell there's, they've got quite a bit of falling into doing some really awesome stuff. And usually it comes through like as of recent, it's been like Twitter spaces.
So if I see someone hosting, consistent Twitter spaces and drawing a crap. Uh, I'm usually intrigued, like, what is their background and how do they become a developer? Now, one of those folks who recently came across my feed is Francesco. Francesco is a developer advocate@daily.dev another product that also came through my feed that I'm just in love with.
And so I reached out to Francesco to have him on the podcast to what about his story? He's got a quite interesting one, especially his transition into tech from a volleyball coach at a university. So I hope you enjoyed this conversation.
I've been, um, volleyball coach for about 20 or so I come from the sports score. Yeah. Okay. So maybe a sentence. So I don't have a depth of the kind of, uh, I was not used as for so long, let's say, but five years ago I stepped into tech. For real for y'all. I mean, like a full-time even as a student, I I'll go do this as degree.
Nobody cares about that. And, um, and the first job you had, it has been, um, a full stack engineer for the European space agency. So let's say not, uh, not a junior position, but, uh, let's say something that kind of interesting. We can see, uh, what can the project. And then fast forward to June of 2020, I started working from home.
I was before that I was, I did a commute of 100 kilometers per day, three hours by car, of course. And that was my life for about three years who served on the condemning commercials and 20, I don't know if you know that about in Italy. I am from Rome, Italy, by the way we have that kinda locked down in the beginning.
We have been one of them.
so, yeah, so now, and now everything is fine, but, um, I sit in my house for, I'd say three months, something like that. So in a real it down pretty bad looks dark and it goes to the beginning. I mean, now we are more used to that, but in the beginning it was outside a bit scared, scared. So, yeah. So as. Basically, I had a lot of free time I can say and dedicated this time, my tool, social media, I just want to point out that two years ago I had basically zero online presence.
So I built the old, these scandals following the audience or whatever they call it this or whatever you want. But they're not just that. I feel like a different part of some, not to be honest. So yes, that's the intro. And then we can step into more interesting stuff. I usually start with the question of who are you and how did you get there?
How'd you get here? Um, so I'm curious, uh, since you already mentioned, uh, of your background and you have a CS degree and, but actually I'm really more curious about the content creation side of things. Like, do you have a YouTube channel, uh, which is extremely beginner friendly, like, cause you you're learning stuff as you're sharing it.
So like what got you to start sharing in that. Nice by the way, shameless, shameless plug, get to the, I hit the 6,000 subscribers, but so let's celebrate, right? Yes. Um, okay. So what's, the duration is a very good question by the way. Um, I always, I always been a teacher in my life. I've taught, uh, Martha physics and shamans three in school.
Also sometimes in your, I want to balance our teachers math and the physical. And, uh, and I've also been valuable because short 20 or so basically I've been a teacher for my life from basically, we were like talking about school all day long ago when I was a shy. And so I asking BME. So when I start to being a full stack, Okay.
I was happy. I'd be strange sitting in a chair for eight hours being like six hours in a gym. So basically I was going to the toilet, like every 15 minutes. So people thought that they had some problem because I needed to do some work basically. Um, but I really wasn't missing this part to have a teaching sharing, but I was not as social presence, social person.
At some point that said, okay, maybe this isn't, this is now my life. I'm going to be able to share anymore to be harnessed. When I started to be on Twitter, starting to have a lot of friends, making some real connections. This was about two years ago. I started to see them this Shanda's chance to become a teacher again and maybe in a different way.
BB. So on the stand of what the content creation is, I think to be honest, I've been never published enough to go live my life. So until the new in content creation, we can say content creation from these like YouTube and articles. So, yes. So when I started to shoot I really felt so good that because, uh, I, I felt that I got.
But it was very, very super, super shy. It's I was a shyness because I was used to talk with people in person for all my life. For me, it was really the problem of the camera and also the English. I mean, my English is better now, but to show that I released three years ago. So, yes, basically, this is my, this is my, this is how I started being a content creator.
And now I'm so happy also to help someone else to start getting, to becoming a content creator. I have also our community of content creators. If someone wants to all the blacks to join the show, IDs, collaborations, and other stuff. Yeah. And I'm intrigued by that too as well. Cause I, I, I feel like there's a lot of YouTubers and folks who are creating Twitter content and have courses who, um, connect and, uh, I'm just slowly sort of catching up and, and finding more of you guys and, uh, and connecting with you.
So like, I, I invite you to these spaces so I can learn more about your backgrounds and more about your goals, um, in the future. Uh, yeah, I, I, I am super impressed with the, your trajectory into like content creation, uh, like intro into becoming a developer is like a, it's definitely a cat's on the people need to jump over, but the folks who like also turn around and teach others, uh, I'm always really impressed with, cause I love teaching and sharing ideas and like finding the aha moment with the students.
Folks who read my blog posts. And, uh, it sounds like your fit right in home. Uh, as a developer in, uh, in developer relations. Yeah, of course. And then we can also talk about the medical relations. I really love these, uh, when I do we, I quit my job though. I bought one a year ago. So this job of doesn't fix these stay anymore.
And to be honest, the, the eight was to relax for a while because they have the, like the kind of stressful years working every possible. How are every possible, the Christmas story? Uh, so it was a very, a very stressful job. I can say a good job, but it was successful one. So maybe it was to relax. These are the, this didn't happen.
Because that goes to the day I quit the job before another company. So I was working as a freelancer for a while, but there was really looking for a developer rendition, uh, uh, uh, jumping into the bedroom foundation. So they went over to advocate, position, familiar with what you're familiar with the role by then, like, how'd you discover the role knocks freely?
I discovered. And some of these are all about two years ago when a generic Twitter. I just can't remember the exact time when I seen that for the first time and said, okay, so what is that? Maybe some learning, some developer layer or something like that. So I really didn't know what was that, but I've noticed that that was a, would there have been the perfect fit for me because.
When I was, I w I w I've been a content creator while working for time for European space agency. But basically it was like Neo in metrics. Say it to like two lives denied what was me creating, holding on secret and private repositories, and then the content creation part. So it was not sustainable to be honest.
So I really needed a job when I can. Share content working. Now, when I'm on Twitter also now in this space, I can sit at I'm working. I'm not asking to be working now, but you get what I mean. So can create why that creates content. And I interact with other people, basically it's as if I were. Working. And now, you know, you'd be love this because it's way, way easier to increase your social presence.
It looks so not just that, but also to create connections with people, if you do a job like that. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I'm right there with you. This is why I do these spaces. Mostly weekly. Um, sometimes they do twice a week, but, uh, I just, uh, I love that for people like yourself, like we've never met. So I love that you're amenable to come meet me, live in front of an audience on Twitter and, um, share your story about too as well.
Awesome. And, uh, I did want to ask a bit about the content we create. So, uh, we did chat, uh, I'm curious, your, your Devereaux role, like what that looks like for you. Like what is the day-to-day. Uh, cause I, I S I see what it's on YouTube, but I'm curious how that plays into your day jobs. Uh, so yeah, I was something working on in October and really launched this.
But the way, this is a really good timing for asking me this question, because I live at Tony, I'll be faster. I own October, 2020 20. I started making interviews on my YouTube channel and the city policies has been a one on one of them, for example, and this basically I made one, a hundred interviews in one, a hundred days.
So every day I was posting. AP sold without the front person. This gave me a, really, a huge booster in content creation festival. Like China, China, we should never source. I practice my English, which was really bad. It's still bad, but it was worse. And then the possum used to connect with them more with more people.
And, uh, one, one of them, it was a numeral, the crime. Which he's the founder CEO of the little debride. It was exactly one year ago. And then after 10 months he offered me this role as a developer. I look at, so this connection, I think I created that was just an interview. It was not our plan or strategy. I was just connecting them with people.
So this interview. Bruce MI to the role that I'm currently having. So this is a big ground. So this is to show the power of having other know how they, one, a hundred photo words. This is way, way more available. Of course. And the, yeah, this is the, the ground. And in that role, we are the love the team. Once we do all those things together, also out of just the job.
And my main role is to create engagement. To be honest, it's, it's very easy to be an because it's a free product. People can just download it. I don't have to push on the pro version marketing stuff. So my job is very, really easy. I like to create content for them. We do live streams. We do a lot, a lot of giveaways on south staff.
So we sponsor people. We starting to create some huge events monthly. So we do a lots of stuff for there to be honest, it's you never get the board. So, and he's also very well organized. I like this theme of what I work now. And I did point out, so I was doing a project, uh, trying to do some live stream video, and magically ran into this repo, which would have, uh, I don't think it was actually even the source code.
It was the organization. And I was like, what is this? And, uh, when I figured out what it was, I installed it like in my Chrome browser right away. Cause I'm like, Your job is really easy, but I also want to point out that you haven't explained what it is yet, but let me give it a crack at it. Um, which is every day there's articles, that developments, right.
Uh, and you just get a list of articles that you could read, and it can be ranked by popularity and uploading. And I love it because there's hash node, there's dev.to there's all these different places to find this content. And I can just find it right here. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The idea, the only if a developer is a, it's nice to listen to this story, because this has been born by just three people and they've been chubby habit, just a one developer.
One here at house to eat. So it's a lot of the code has been developed by the, just the one person. So it's a, it's a in this project, which has many successful projects, it was bored by the, the needing of the personal. So the, what you see the like, uh, having this kind of feeds a field started. If this was because the developer, he wanted this for himself.
So you, when you have this problem, when you try to solve for yourselves, you have a lot of things in your mind to develop that. So this was like us, let's say a very successful site project. We can call it as well. So I wanted to ask about the web three journey, um, and what sparked that and how that's going.
And I've been weeding for for some months. So we can say I started in the middle Shane back into university, but I have, I was not when I was working for the post, not ending related to blockchain and other stuff, just full stack development I'm in some levels. So basically at some point I decided that I wanted to learn how things work because, uh, I liked math.
I like to understand how things were. I don't like to just the, just do something without knowing how does. So I started learning from the best ex I'm. There is no secret that the only second secret I'm doing is that I committed for a challenge. And this insight come from the sports awards. I hate failing challenges.
So basically I can meet the title. I will share one piece of web related content every day for 100 days tomorrow to be the 53.
The, so I might've been and I'm busy and I'm shooting every day, what I learn, but that's literally just me reading about a topic of the, like maybe I missed out a thread or. And the busy day, I'm collecting all these kinds of tips, uh, in a cupboard of posts. So something very, very easy. I've also done a very long, uh, livestream about crypto zombies, which is today.
Tutorial. It's like, like a frequent count, but thinking on, uh, on the live stream on Christmas Eve, about seven hours of like three times, and now I'm putting these kinds of videos back on YouTube from my Twitch account. So yes, I'm learning a lot. I made the live stream today with Patrick Collins at the noise from know him.
You made the not familiar. Yeah, he has done a 16, 16 Howard's video on code camp, but YouTube channel about blockchain and other stuff. So I've been talking about blockchain with him, for the bus one how today already. So it's, uh, it's interesting. Yeah. And so I guess with your experience as far, do you feel like that?
So I mostly do front end web technologies. I do a little bit of backend if I need to. Uh, do you think it's well, is it worth investing time into, as a developer in 2020? As usual and as a single developer, the answer is, it depends.
Okay. If you are very young and you don't know what to do, you want to be a developer, you want to step into the course. I highly recommend it. Check it out. If you are. If you have a family, you have three kids and one dog, and you are thinking about quitting your job to starting with three. I don't suggest to that.
So let's say something in the middle. So what, for example, I'm also doing a lot of stuff where you can say, so how. Can you do that? If you want for him, by the way, the answer is yes, it's worth, in my opinion, for me, it's, uh, it's worth, I I'm really enjoying this because I'm doing this. Maybe someone can not trust this, but they don't care somewhat thinking.
So maybe you're doing this just to get some traction. If it's the opposite, I'm doing these. Because I really liked that even if I don't care, even if I lose followers, because someone could not be interesting to that. But if you do what really like you can't be wrong. So I base this on my thoughts. I, I was a bit scared, like, because I had like, let's say a huge or bigger Docker Docker road, DevOps, thumb base, let's say, oh dear sir.
But, uh, I didn't care about that because I really would not want it to. I understand that will this thing work. And it could do not like keep shooting, just stoking the rope stuff while learning web three stuff during nights, because otherwise it's always been the same problem that I had with European space agency that you have to split myself.
I don't want to script myself. I want to share the content. So I stopped at this slowly with this, now that the dream, that, by the way, this is going to come through on March because I have a when I connect the Docker with the web reward. And instead of working on these about business, the dream, when you're connect to your old goal, let's see your Nisha with the.
So, yes. And what is highly suggest is not, don't give up everything you built until now. If you had, I don't know, are you a juice that some people are following you because you are relaxed developer, don't stop shutting up the bottom, integrate that with some, some of the new stuff. That's the, and I suggest dedicated.
A fixed amount of time, because we know when the new, maybe you would like to stop everything we are doing dedicate to maybe four, six hours per day on these new stuff. And I've seen these, even if I've done one day
but that was Christmas Eve, a dedicated dislike, a holiday to that, but usually the best thing to do. So they get like, 14 minutes per day. And you learn way more without, let's say, uh, damaging your project, got into doing that every single day. So this is what I'm doing now. Yeah, I think that's great. Like being able to time box, like, I, I have never had like a company that said, Hey Friday is your day.
Your. Um, but I, a little career hack I've done is like every Friday I just make it my open source day. Uh, and I don't really, I don't have the conversation with my manager about it. I just sort of just do it. Um, and I've done that. What I've been doing is I've been live streaming, everything. I try out, uh, as of lately my side project, that thing that I've always tried out, it's become the thing that I must do every stream.
So I don't really get the test out meetings anymore. Uh, but I did spend a. Building an empty dashboard in web three using react and next. And I thought it was, it was a really enlightening experience. Uh, because one, I was, I'm definitely a beginner when it comes to web three kind of understanding that, but I was leveling up pretty quickly cause I had some experience already.
And then I found that really quickly, there were some real like edge cases when it comes to the point where I really want to build some caching strategies with Miriam. Um, because at the moment it's all. It's all in a lot of the tooling is it's all in. You're in, you're in web three and that's it. Um, but I like mixing it up a bit.
Yeah. You have a comment for Jessica. Yeah, but no, I just want to say something to them. Maybe he had gone to like, see this. I don't like that. The now I don't know. Everybody's an expert now. Maybe I'm wondering it's just an article and they claim themselves as an expert. I don't suggest they use this strategy.
I am very way more, let's say humble approach. Humble, because that's the truth. So if you are new. For me, there is no problem in seeing the time menu, because each new client you assessed as an expert, and then you are not, that's the best way to build our reputation. So it's better to say, okay, I'm learning through.
I can show what I know, but really as a student, as some, because we are all learning. And I think there are a lot, a lot of people like 90% of the people. Maybe they will block, they would like to get an expert, but they are not, you can't, uh, you can fake, I mean, you, you can try, but I don't suggest to do that.
So I just say at some, because some people there is this problem that some people. Uh, the, the mess, the number of followers with your knowledge. I don't know why. Maybe see. Okay. Oh, over at Chesca seven, almost 70,000 so far. It's probably, he knows everything. That's absolutely not true. Especially if we, if it comes with a new topic.
So don't just, . I liked some more. Sometimes people say a foreign country school because, uh, if you want to learn a good trade, I'm shooting some stuff about, I'm not an expert. I'm still learning. I do this on a daily basis. So if you are interested into learning my mind, learning with me with my thought, it would be a good idea to follow me.
Or maybe because I'm finding, I don't know are way, way more expert than me. I mean a couple of years, so this will change it for sure. This retreat. I had the same approach when I started the learning dog or five years ago. So in some years probably I know a couple of things. Yeah. And I think you, and I appreciate you stopping and interjecting that too as well, because that is not the, it's not the only secret of Deborah, but it's actually a really good secret towards approaching a deferral career.
Is. Being okay. To be a beginner, uh, and also showcasing yourself as a beginner because what I found out did I used to do some, um, and teach at bootcamps, uh, early in my career is that the best content for beginners is actually taught by beginners. And which is counterintuitive to what most people think when you go to like college or university.
But if like your web read content, it's approachable to me because I'm only a few steps behind you. So like I've done the one thing built the one. But you're, you're doing a little bit more than what I've done so far. So I'm going to consume all your beginner content as you're learning, and I'll be able to understand that.
And like, we don't, you don't, uh, your content from what I've seen the little bit I've seen, like, you don't go into like this weirdness of like, trying to explain over, explain anything that doesn't need to explain at that time. Like you're introducing stuff as it's being introduced to you. If that makes sense.
Yeah. And there's a, uh, other known about, uh, if you define yourself as a beginner, if you really are, it also gives you the freedom of there. But I share some attitudes about, I can say I'm showing this because I've read these articles, these editable, official documentation Australia also share the source that they use to study everyday.
So I don't have like all my girls. I can show this because I'm not reading enough. It's just a long process. I don't think about the very single day. Okay. I share one. I think every single day, but I'm not thinking I'm not super focused on that single day. I'm more, let's say focused on the longer process.
So like in mounts, maybe, I don't know, something I'll create participates on some events. So I'm not as focused on what I do that single day, but when I do what I came up here, like months, probably also years. So probably now I have the ice. Now I see that I am the brights on project approach to tell you that it's ugly to, it's not, absolutely not that like that, that was trying to learn the sound thing dreaming over one another with all the JavaScript frame or so now I think at got the least, and now I know how to learn something new in tech.
This can be darker or with. Or whatever. Alright, so that concludes our conversation with Francesco. Uh, I do encourage you. If you were encouraged by this conversation, please reach out to Francesco on Twitter. I'll have his, um, linked to his Twitter and the show notes. So definitely click through, uh, give him a follow.
Uh, tell him thank you for, for sharing his story. And, uh, also if you're in the blockchain web three and he wants some intro, so beginner stuff sort of learn as he's learning, uh, definitely check out his YouTube channel as well. Also have that in the shutdown. And, and as always, if you want to share your story, hit me up on Twitter, twitter.com/
Uh, I'm always looking for new folks to chat with any folks that are up and coming. Uh, I even appreciate DMS. Uh, if you just want to let me know. Sibling, you're excited about, uh, and check out open sauce, hot, open sauce. I pizzas, many project, um, would love for you to take a look at it. All right. Peace.
Y'all .