this show is called guidance counselor 2.0, because we had guidance counselors in middle school, high school and college, but now as adults we don't have access to that kind of resource, or we at least we didn't until now. this is the 'soft skills' podcast of the software engineering industry, focused on hiring and job search tips. host taylor desseyn and his guests fill in that guidance counselor role, and give job searchers the advice they need to find their next position.

today's guest is alex c. berk, lead software engineer at shipium. alex has had a traditional computer science education path, but he attributes all of his moves to networking, soft skills, and some grinding. he landed his first role by shaking the ceo's hand the old fashioned way, and was invited for an interview next day. he stayed active around the market - accepted the annoying recruiter cold calls, and landed a position at michelin. late night grinding on leetcode for months to land 7 onsite interviews in Seattle followed, where he then ended up at zulily. networking landed him at uavionix where he helped build a ground-up autonomous drone network, ending in big acquisition. he then went back to his old zulily team now at shipium. continuing to stay active in his network and around the community.

among the topics they'll touch on the importance of networking, how soft skills can beat technical skills, and how "just do things" is real.