A bit of a PSA... For anyone who relates to this very strongly, some people with extreme difficulty in forming positive habits have executive function disorders such as ADHD. This is a primary symptom and is often viewed as lack of willpower or laziness vs. a treatable condition. Forming habits under treatment is much more effective.

Some developers don't notice this tendency because their default attention (not actual choice) just being drawn to productive activities like coding and liking it as well. But when that doesn't happen and you can't pull out of the procrastination loop, it can be very confusion and unpleasant experience.

I have 23 years of Linux experience and love automating everything. And I mean everything.

Senior DevOps / Linux Administration - Most companies like me for DevOps, but I am useful in other contexts like marketing automation/analytics, hardware, business IT infrastructure, embedded platforms.

Main skillsets: DevOps (ops focus), SRE, sysadmin, linux, network operations, python, server / embedded hardware

devops: * Linux specialist * MySQL & Postgres cluster admin * tools and automation development in Python * Chef / Ansible * Cloud APIs - AWS, some Rackspace Cloud * Infrastructure monitoring (Nagios, Netcool, many others), alerting and incident management

Occasional app developer and full stack web developer (Django, Django/DRF + React/React Native).

About me: My first job at 19 was at BBN in security & network operations, then on to develop and integrate monitoring tools for the global tier 1 NOC. Many years of experience in managing production systems. Sometimes a python developer. Today I run and automate my way out of very part of my job at a small language course company I co-founded.

I also build robots.

Sound quality is king in podcasting! Anyone thinking of doing a solo podcast from home/office would be better steered towards something like the AT2020 for mid range or PR-40 or SM7B for a comparably equal investment compared to the mobile gear mentioned in the article.

It's generally an OK guide, but I would suggest the mic recommendations are incorrect. I'd like to see an AT2020 USB in the mid-range and Heil PR-40 on the higher end. It's cheaper and significantly better sound. I own the H4N for mobile recording, but the quality really doesn't come close to a proper broadcast mic like Shure SM7B or the Heil. You can hear the Heil from a lot of pro podcasters and the SM7B on Marc Maron's WTF and a lot of radio hosts.

It also glosses over the use of mic arms, pop filters in getting pro sound. It's geared towards on-the-go recording and the quality will be nothing like a studio result.

The latter is usually ABS or PLA plastic, both of which are as theoretically safe as any other plastic in your home. PLA is a bioplastic and is actually compostable.

The resins, on the other hand, are pretty nasty and require gloves to work with. The safety data sheets are pretty serious and even mention that they are dangerous to aquatic life.

I actually learned how to code in C and x86 asm mostly from Denthor's tutorials discovered on some local Boston-area. It lead me to GCC (DJGPP), Linux and love for low-level kernel hacking. I went in a different direction career-wise, but what I learned at 13 from those tutorials taught me something fundamental about computing hardware. I made fire. I mean, I made plasma effects by talking directly to the hardware to put it in the mode I wanted, kicking off inline asm to do the twiddly stuff. How fun is that?

I did what's now called DevOps, automating server and code deployment, monitoring, etc. I could do no wrong. Got promoted, ran a team before I could buy a drink. Got treated like a rockstar with every role I chose to take. People needed to scale and I knew how to do it without hiring a room full of network admins. Serious stock options. My compensation felt like it was following Moore's Law.

The startup I worked at failed. My friends, colleagues, former managers, almost entire network all got kicked to the curb around the same time. Recruiters dropped off the face of the earth. There was no one out there to reach out to.

I collected unemployment for a few months.

I ended up taking a basic IT admin job for a drug trial company at about 60% my salary. A friend of mine landed at a small business Windows IT consulting shop with a bonus structure I could kill, so I interviewed there. I ended up as a local field engineer driving around to different small business clients fixing windows desktops and printers, but with an extra hours bonus structure that had me back up to my previous salary in a couple of years.

In short, I went from a Unix/Linux rockstar to Windows network guy. Now I own my own language learning business and I'm back doing part time DevOps consulting (what's old is new again). I bill out at $225/hr because people want to scale again. It's nuts because just a few short years ago there wasn't a company on this earth that would touch me for $30/hr.

How does it relate to now? I just spent the past two weeks consulting at a couple of startups, including directly for a startup accelerator and wow, yeah. It's the same vibe.

I got back on my feet. Most of my friends did too. I had to fix Windows XP desktops for pipe supply companies and law firms for a while. I had to launch my own non-sexy business to really get out of it. Now my tech skill set and interest happened to be popular again, so I'm taking advantage of that and doing some consulting. I don't expect the tech stuff to last, so I prefer to look at my own small language business as my long-term gig. I don't trust this.

My advice... Industries go through ups and downs, so you will experience it at some point. I survived by becoming OK with helping businesses outside of the bubble. I built my own more or less non-tech business on the side that grew to where I can live off of that if I need to. I advise maintaining a good network across several industries. If the tech startups bubble pops, you can write code for industrial robot control panels or billing systems. Network in industries outside your comfort zone. My sister-in-law wrote systems on contract for a hotel. A friend of mine works on enterprise tax software for Mexican companies. If the bubble pops, have a diverse network to reach out to. The front door's going to be jammed with resumes from people like you, all at once.

I recently started working with a small Boston firm building focused on building an outsourced senior DevOps team, available to setup, manage, monitor and respond (take 24x7 pager). We're really hoping to fill that gap between no formal DevOps and a fully funded team of senior DevOps/SRE group.

  Location: Boston
  Remote: Of course!
  Technologies: puppet/chef, jenkins, full AWS stack, scripting and automation, nagios, monitoring
  Email: snoonan@ellpond.com
  Availability: We're shooting for full availability by Jan 1st, but definitely open to engaging earlier.

I'd actually prefer NOT to fly one on a local route, though. Too much of a hassle boarding 400 people for a short flights.

I definitely want to get around to doing work in Udemy, but I do have to say that they're not as big as, say, Youtube. :) For example, if you have a popular video, that gets embedded and linked to a lot. That builds link juice to your Youtube channel page and main site if write your video descriptions right, then suddenly you are ranking in Google search faster than you would normally. Same for a podcast and episode summaries. Having position and your own users in one channel also lets you ratchet up another by launching to those users. Over time, you build up big lists of people who you can re-launch updates or work with to develop new courses and products. Some people also use the leads to do affiliate marketing, but I personally prefer not to.

Anyway, owning your own traffic and lead list gives you the ability and permission to do that, so it's my approach.

btw, I forgot to mention I do have some free iOS apps to drive free users too. That by itself accounts for maybe 20% of my leads. I haven't touched Android yet.

I do everything through my own sites and find customers through via free podcasts, free and promoted youtube videos, etc. Udemy's on my list, but I believe in always owning your own brand, customers and leads.