Speaker 1: 0:00

What I have is grit, determination and this mindset that, okay, what coding showed me was that I can learn new things. I can learn hard things if I just put my head down and really just grind. And I hadn't used this part of my brain and my skill set in years. It was probably either high school or college the last time I was really like oh, like I feel this, this new sense of challenge.

Speaker 2: 0:31

Hey everyone, this is Mike Roberts, creator of the Apprenticeship Playbook, and you're tuned in to the Skills First podcast. In today's world, skills First hiring is revolutionizing the job market and on this show I sit down with trailblazers who are rethinking hiring practices and embracing experiential learning, as well as the people impacted. Follow along as we dive into tips, innovative ideas and proven strategies to help you navigate and thrive in the evolving landscape of modern apprenticeships. When you're ready, if you could tell me who you are and what is it that you do.

Speaker 1: 1:07

My name is William Kevin Roxton and I am a software developer, software engineer, and it took a long time to be able to make and say that phrase on the long journey. I'm an apprentice here at Creating Coding Careers and, Mike, again I just want to say a shout out, man, Thank you for the confidence to be able to say give me an opportunity to be here, so I love it.

Speaker 2: 1:28

Awesome. I appreciate you taking advantage of the opportunity, seizing it and just take it off. So where do you live right now?

Speaker 1: 1:36

So I'm in Orange County, california. I lived in Irvine for years just moved down to Lake Forest, and it's me, my wife and three kiddos, and they keep me busy between a 12-year-old, a 10-year-old and a 18-month-old. Yeah, we made that move during the pandemic.

Speaker 2: 1:54

I think a lot of other people did too, but it's true, nice. So what is it that you were doing before you made this transition to shift into tech? What is it that you were doing?

Speaker 1: 2:05

before you made this transition to shift into tech? Yeah, so for me, I was in ministry full-time. I was a pastor of online engagement and community next steps in connecting people. That new title happened right in the middle of the pandemic because we had to transition and pivot. Then we built community online. I was responsible for building up the teams and making sure folks were connected and still seen in the midst of all the craziness that was going on. But I was a pastor for seven years before I transitioned into tech.

Speaker 2: 2:30

Nice, and so much of that is needed when we have times like this where there's just so much chaos going on. So much respect for that work. Appreciate it. What was one of the biggest challenges that you faced in your journey to becoming a software engineer? What was one of the biggest challenges that you faced in your journey to becoming a software engineer?

Speaker 1: 2:46

Oh, easily it was that I had no idea what I was doing, there was no previous experience, there's no background in tech. I was good with computers, I could figure things out, but in regards to coding and HTML and CSS and JavaScript, all this stuff was foreign. So the hardest part for me was every single term was new. It wasn't like there was one part of it besides from that. Keyboard strokes and everything else I was okay with. But outside of that it was having to overcome the learning curve of not just learning the terminology but also putting it into practice. It's a big learning curve and you've got to be committed to stick it through.

Speaker 2: 3:22

Yeah for sure, and yeah, kudos to go. I'm always in admiration of people that go from zero to 60 versus the people that are like I dabbled in it for six months and then gave up and then tried again for a little while, Like for people that just get after it and I'm going to make this work Like. I know it's a, like you said, it's a massive amount of work to just load all that in your brain and make any of it make any sense.

Speaker 1: 3:46

Mike, what you're describing sounds like wisdom to me. If I could do it in hindsight, I would definitely try to quit some stuff at first before just dying to get it first. But I am one of those dudes that like if I'm in, I'm committed, let's go. I think the scariest part for me was like I thought I was really good as a pastor, I was really good at my job. And part for me was like I thought I was really good as a pastor, I was really good at my job, and so for me to walk away from something that I felt confident in, something that I knew how to do, something that I felt like I excelled in, that was the scariest part.

Speaker 1: 4:14

To start over and be like actually I'm going to walk into this place and I'm going to look like hot garbage and have to start from square one and be okay with going through that transition and being okay with people asking a ton of questions and not knowing things the first and second times and having to do more research and spending more time than other people might have to do. But the only way I made that was because my wife and I had a plan and I think during the pandemic, a lot of things like shifted and became clear. And there's something about having a third kid looking at you like, oh, you're going to want to go to college too. Huh, All right, let's see. I'll be going to make everything work out in balance and, yeah, we're like, I think, long-term in regards to where we want to go as a family.

Speaker 1: 4:57

This was the right move and the right call in the time, and the season was now. And then I know, for me personally, the vocation of a pastor is just it's how I'm built. So it doesn't matter where I am and where I'm where. My kind of like my nine to five or my job is how I'm built and how I'm designed will always be. That's the vocation, yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:12

And the good thing is, I don't make you work on Sundays, that's the evenings right, that's true. Still fit in Some of that work. I know not to the same level for sure, but like some of that work, you gotta still fit in Some of that work. I know not to the same level for sure, but like some of that work.

Speaker 1: 5:28

So how did you hear about? How did you hear about this program? Okay, so I have to take this time to have to shout out. And Lou, my wife, made the connection, but it was Cameron Klosche. She is the reason why I actually with apprenticeshipio, why I reached out to the program. She told me about it. Hey, I just I knew there's different routes in regards to getting started. You might want to hit up Mike, you might want to try to see what's going on over there. And I reached out, but I wasn't as persistent as I was the second time around and that time I was like you know what? Let me really see.

Speaker 2: 5:54

And when I tell you that she gets the kudos because she has like me, been like a warrior in this space in terms of pushing up against the status quo. Let's create some opportunities in a variety of different ways in this sort of early career software engineer space.

Speaker 2: 6:17

I met her through Dev Bootcamp, so that was one of the programs that came to San Diego and I think she was with Dev Bootcamp or there's some tangential connection there. That's when we met way, way back. And so how did you? It was a through apprenticeship IO that you met cam, or did you know her from somewhere else?

Speaker 1: 6:34

No, again, my wife is an overall boss, right? So, Samantha Broxton, I love you. Thank you, babe. She's in everything, doing everything. So she had the connection already you need to talk to Cam. And I was like, all right, let's do it. And so we had a 15, 20 minute conversation and it was enough for me to be like, okay, it was impactful. I'm like, all right, I need to make the transition.

Speaker 2: 6:54

So yeah, nice, all right. So shout out to Cam, because she just built a brand new career for somebody that like oh man. Exactly Passive ship. Let's shift gears a little bit and talk a little bit about. Now that you've made that transition and you're all in, how do you think Coding has made an impact on you, both professionally and personally?

Speaker 1: 7:14

So I know professionally, I've found like this new wind. I think the thing about being in a career that you're used to and you've got some experiences, is that some things because you've done it for so long, you have some experiences that are part of like autopilot to it, that you just know what to do and what to navigate and how to deal with certain situations. I have none of that now. What I have is grit, determination and this mindset that, okay, what coding showed me was that I can learn new things. I can learn hard things. If I just put my head down and really just grind and I hadn't used this part of my brain and my skillset in years, like it was probably either high school or college the last time I was really like, oh, I feel this new sense of challenge, and so that's what it's done for me.

Speaker 1: 8:02

I think professionally, that was actually more personally. I think professionally it's allowed me to network with some really cool people and talk to folks that are eclectic and have backgrounds that aren't just in tech, that didn't just get their CS degree and graduate from there, that actually like, oh, like they're musicians like me, are there, they've got other things that they're passionate about and they're they see this as another way to be impactful and creative. For me, I was trained to do full stack in the program that we went through with creating coding careers, but by my bread and butter, what I love, what I'll spend hours doing, is front end stuff, so that's what I really love and enjoy the most. I'll play with CSS for hours and make tweaks and changes and adjustments and research and look yeah, I don't play with CSS the same kind of way.

Speaker 2: 8:51

I wrestle with it for hours, but that's a different story.

Speaker 2: 8:55

One thing I want to pull out a little bit that you mentioned at the beginning is that that idea and concept of almost like surprising your own self with your capacity to learn after you've just been in that space of comfort and I think that's the big fear that a lot of people have is you're stepping out into something that, like you don't know and you're like the back of your brain is I don't know, and you're like the back of your brain is I don't know if I can.

Speaker 2: 9:14

I don't know if I can learn fast enough, I don't know if I can, if I'm too old to learn, if I can get there again, and so one of the interesting parallels that I found that has surprised me because, even though, like I drill this in other people, oh, you could do this is I picked up drumming over the course of the pandemic, and to to see having zero ability to play the drums, having there's a little capacity to like keep a beat now, is just like really reinforce that same sort of spirit that, like you, can be a lifelong learner. Hey, mike, talking to myself, you can be a lifelong learner in something that is non-technical, that is not a software engineering thing, and man has that resonated. Hit me hard that yo. Learning to play the drums must be like what it feels like for people to learn how to code, where you're just like wait, what's my left hand supposed to do this, while my foot is doing this thing Correct and you?

Speaker 1: 10:10

sounded horrible. Oh, yeah, yeah, there's no coordination, there's no, there's no background, and so, like I think, people, you have to be comfortable, you have to think enough of yourself to know that you've got the confidence to do it and also be humble enough to know that you're trash at the moment and that's okay, and that's okay. Yeah, the objective is not to stay there. The objective is to put in into work and the time and through that repetition, like there's no shortcuts. I'm sorry, like I've tried. I've looked as a new person coming in with no background in coding. I really there's gotta be a short or a better way to know. It's just time and repetition. And time and commitment and repetition and breaking down for a second and walking away and coming back and looking at the game and putting the cycle on repeat. That's it. And over time it'd be like, oh, like I'm building things that I had no idea how to build a year ago.

Speaker 2: 11:08

And as humans, I feel like we very quickly forget how much pain we had to endure to get to where we got good in anything that we do we like, because you did it so long ago sometimes that it's just oh man, like that's right, it was really hard to learn. Insert whatever thing is that you're good at today.

Speaker 1: 11:29

So I thought that, oh, we had two kids, we've gone through this parenting thing before we got to know how to do this third one. Whoa, when I tell you, going from man to zone defense is wild. To this cat is different. These pandemic babies are not normal. So this has.

Speaker 1: 11:46

This kid has superhuman strength, he's really smart, he's into all type of stuff and what it challenged me is all at the same time while like realizing, like, oh, there's things that I'm actually better at now, that I can handle now and as an older parent that I had no capacity with. I've got wisdom now, but I had a whole bunch of like strength and stamina back then. So these late nights and him crying is killing me as compared to what was going on before. But I also watched this little kid that went from barely being able to like sit up and then hold his head up to start crawling around, and now he's walking and pulling things and I'm like, oh no, like I watched them struggle with each one of those steps and now, once he's got it, he's killing those steps and add onto his skill sets, like the process didn't change, as humans were still doing that same thing with different skills and tools that we pick up along the way.

Speaker 2: 12:34

Absolutely so I'm going to ask you this Now that you've grown so much, what do you look forward to professionally? What's the next sort of milestone or thing that you're reaching towards these days?

Speaker 1: 12:48

There's a couple of different things. I think the main thing for me is I'm really looking forward to this convergence of passions and skill sets like the things that I am really good at with the soft skills and what I take from there and being able to sit and do a mobbing sessions and make sure that we're all on the same page and then, long-term, being able to get the corresponding compensation for all of that work and commitment putting together. I know this is the long game that I am playing, and I'm playing it because of my kids. I'm playing it because I know what it's like to have parents Like for me.

Speaker 1: 13:23

My father was a carpenter and a minister of music and my mother was a teacher and so because of that, I had access to tips and stuff with music for my dad and with education and how to study and things for my mom, and now my kids have a mother who's in digital product management and a father who is working as a software engineer and who has a background in pastoral things, and they'll have access to all of that knowledge because we're in these spaces now and I think that, for me, was the biggest thing was like being able to say, hey for my kids. They're going to be able to walk into roads and have conversations that I couldn't have at their age, because they're already exposed to it man, you're just dropping so many little nuggets, so many, so much gold in them.

Speaker 2: 14:08

Hills, man, I like it, I like it. So tell me what's the last new thing that you learned, because we've talked a lot about lifelong learning. What's the last new thing that you picked up?

Speaker 1: 14:19

it's definitely has to be service. Now, that's been the focus the last two or three months. I know that platform is absolutely like it's bonkers, what it can do, the depth and the breadth of what it provides for its partners and its clients, and for me, it's been diving into that in my current capacity, working as a teaching assistant with ServiceNow, with their SkillBridge NextGen program, which has been a complete I don't know considered an honor for me to be able to serve our service men and women who are transitioning out of the military into tech, and veterans and their spouses that are doing the same, and so it's been a deep dive into ServiceNow platforms and putting my head down and trying to put in this work for getting the certification for the CSA to be a certified service administrator for ServiceNow, and then there's a bunch of other searches that come after that, and so that's where my focus has been and will continue to be for the next few months.

Speaker 2: 15:20

Nice and I got to give it to you. Everything I heard so far is that you're crushing it over there at ServiceNow and I got to give it to you. Everything I heard so far is that you're crushing it over there at ServiceNow and shout out to ServiceNow Great partners, huge supporters of the apprenticeship patterns. Yeah, absolutely All right. Last question, most important Okay, what's your favorite snack?

Speaker 1: 15:37

Okay, so I'm a movie guy so I can live off of like butter, popcorn and raisinets and then like an old school favorite snack that is not wife approved at all because she's all organic and green lemming. But if you were to sneak me a pack of honey roasted peanuts, we might be best friends first of all, how is honey roasted peanuts like on the band list?

Speaker 2: 16:01

what's the negative uh substance in that it's called yeah, tons.

Speaker 1: 16:05

It's basically. It's honey roasted peanuts that's coming and it's like peanuts out of all the movies is doing. Is that really what I want to eat?

Speaker 2: 16:13

I should be eating almonds or everything, but yeah, no, that's all right, that's all fair enough, but it is a great snack, so I will definitely see if I can sneak you a little. Can I appreciate you, man? Thanks Will I appreciate you coming on the program.

Speaker 1: 16:28

Mike, it's been a pleasure.

Speaker 2: 16:35

Thank you. You've been listening to Skills First, the Apprenticeship Playbook Podcast. By the way, if this is valuable to you, don't be lame. Share the game. This is how we know you love it. If you're a company thinking about changing how you hire, please share it so we know this type of stuff is what you want.