The Reputation Formula: Turbocharge Your Developer Career | Bruno Souza (EN)

In this engaging talk, Bruno discusses the importance of reputation in a developer's career, particularly in the context of Java and emerging technologies. He emphasizes how reputation affects professional growth and opportunities, stating that influence over others' perceptions can lead to being called for challenging projects. The speaker introduces a reputation formula, V^5 squared divided by MLD, which includes factors such as purpose, trust, and expertise, while also advising participants to reduce negative behaviors like self-centeredness. Through real-world examples, he illustrates the significance of visibility and autonomy and encourages attendees to actively participate in community initiatives and open source projects to build their reputation. Bruno wraps up by offering insights into addressing common career challenges faced by developers.

[music] >> All right. Hello everyone. Yes. Okay, good. You know, uh for some reason this room here everyone likes to sit in the back. You know, maybe because no one likes to come down come down the stairs, right? Because you got here half of the room is is full, right? So, there's a guy right here. I'm going to say hello to him. Hey, hello. I'm Bruno. Igor,

how nice to meet you, Igor. How are you doing, man? Say say to these people that sitting here is not a problem. >> [laughter] >> Right? Okay, actually there's a friend of mine. I was I was chatting with him right now because he's preparing for his talk tomorrow at an event in Brazil called the Developers Conference and his name is Elder Moraes. He's a Java Champion, very

very famous uh on the Quarkus area. Uh he he works for he used to work for Red Hat, now at IBM. And Elder, he sits down on this chair You know, every every every time he comes to a conference he comes in the first row on the chair right in front of the speaker, right? So, you know, to each their own, right? >> You know, that guy

over there sits on the last chair, right? Hello. What's your name? Victor. Okay, so I thought it was Igor, too. It'd be fun to have a Igor Igor, no, Victor. Okay. So guys, um we're going to talk here right now a little bit about reputation. Does anyone join me on the Mentorship Hub? Some people there, so thank you. Thank you for being here, too, right? So, uh

you know, we discuss a little bit about reputation in the Mentorship Hub. Uh one thing that I I I I I I uh uh that I would love to do is because I'm going to show you the reputation formula. And one thing that I love to do is that I have this very cool stickers. Oops. Oh man. I know I'm disaster but not that much. I have

those very cool reputation stickers. Oh man, did I forget in the in the in the mentorship hub? Shoot, that would be terrible if I did that. Oh no. So, that's really bad. I forgot my reputation stickers at the mentorship hub. Shoot, so looks like you're going to have to go get to go get to get it. So, sorry about that. I was going to distribute to everyone,

right? Um but, you know, now now you have to go So, tomorrow I'm I'm I'm easy to find, you know, I'm the guy with the flag. So, if you see me anytime tomorrow, I'm going to walk around with the reputation stickers formula, so I'll give you one, right? So, just come to me and say, "Hey, I was in your talk yesterday. Where's my sticker?" Right? So, I

forgot in the in the hub. I'm sorry about that. But, we're going to talk about reputation, right? And reputation is this crazy thing because reputation is what people believe about you. Right? So, you know, I know Igor now. you know, since I know Igor, I believe something about him, right? You know, I know he sits right in front of the of the audience. That's awesome, right? So,

he's the guy that that likes to be close to the speaker, right? That's something I know about him, you know? And so, that's what that's what happens, right? Reputation, people people believe something about you whether you want or not. So, you can't control what people believe about you, but you can influence. And that's what we're going to talk about here today, right? So, if we can influence

how to you know, how how to that that reputation, right? Now, the issue is, why should we have reputation? You know, because Bruno, I don't want to have reputation. I want to work on cool projects, right? You know, I'm here. I'm in this cool technology event. You know, I'm a Java developer. Who Who here works with Java? Okay, everyone. That's good. So, here here I'm here in

this Java event. Everyone's talking about AI, right? So, I'm here to to learn technology, right? So, why do I need reputation? And a few a few a few months ago, a good friend of mine did the Java champion high school boots, he was on my mentorship hub, and I'm sorry, not mentorship hub, he was in my mentorship group, and he said this phrase here that I that

I loved and I I've been repeating uh since then. He said, "If you position yourself as an expert, you get called to solve the most complex problems. And when you solve the complex problems, you become the experts." We like to think that the other way around. That we learn something, we'd be very good at, we are an expert, and now we get to work on interesting things.

And that's not how it works. The way it works is that if people believe you can do something, they'll put you in a project, and you're going to do it. You know why you're going to do it? Because you're professionals. You're good at what you do. Right? So, Igor, tell me a technology that you don't know, but you'd like to learn. Anything. That's not a tricky question.

Hm? PHP? Do you want to learn PHP? Yeah. For example. PHP. So, Igor wants to learn PHP. Okay, let's use an example, right? So, let's say you want to learn PHP. So, Igor, if your boss comes tomorrow and say, "Igor, you know what? We have this PHP project, and I think you're the best guy to do it." Would you learn it? I would do. Of course. That's

what we're going to do, right? So, you've been doing this your whole career. You know, your whole career, you've been getting things you don't know, you never heard before, right? Or maybe you heard before, you wanted to know, but you hadn't had a had a chance. But when your company needs you, your boss needs you to do it, you just go and learn it. And it takes

you about a week. Am I saying anything crazy? She's like, "Well, not a week, maybe two." That's okay. Not a problem, you know? I was talking to to to one of the organizers of JFocus in January, and and she was telling me that when she she wanted to you know, she was working something else. I don't remember right now what she was working on. She was working

something else. She had like a long career in something else, and then she wanted to become a developer. Right? And then she joined this company that they taught her, you know, "We're going to put you in this Java project, and you have a week to learn." And she learned. And she's been a Java developer for, you know, over a decade now. Because that's what we do. When

someone trusts us enough to put us in the hard problems, we learn what needs to be done, right? So, if you want to work on the very cool technology, if you want to work on the most interesting things that the market has, if you want to work in the most interesting project, if you want to work for the most interesting companies, you got to receive the phone

call. You got to be the person that someone picks. Because if I call you, you get the job. If I call you, you're called inside the inside the company. Right? And how do I call you? Reputation. So, that's what we got to build. If you want to learn any technology, if you want to be an expert in anything, you got to build your reputation. Make sense? So,

um I launched it, the reputation formula, on a keynote here at JCon. So, uh the reputation formula is about career, right? I'm not sure if it works for other things. I know it works for some, but maybe not everything, right? If you want to be have a reputation as a great rock star, um maybe maybe you know, on the on the movies or Hollywood, maybe that So,

that work. But this works for career, for reputation, okay? And it's a formula, right? There are things you need to do, the things you need to increase to increase your reputation, and there are things you need to decrease to increase reputation. So, I launched this formula a few a few a few you know, uh a few months ago here at J Con, and it's very simple formula.

It's this here. V 5 squared divided by MLD. Why are you laughing? It's not simple? Very easy, isn't it? Well, so the first time I showed this formula here on J Con, people told me it was very complicated, right? So, so I've been I've been working on it since then. So, I I thought about well, maybe I can switch the order of the letters, right? So, it

came to his raster uh yeah, it's very hard to read. Okay, so then uh everyone is using AI or those days, right? So, I asked ChatGPT, "Hey how about we do this better than that, right?" And so, here's what we got now. We have reputation. Uh so, reputation is the seven things you need to do to increase to to increase reputation, the three things reputation, right? So,

what what are they? So, let's talk about some of them here. Uh and and I I want to I want to leave enough time enough enough uh time for questions here. So, I'm going to go uh really quick here. The very first thing is purpose. Very hard for you to have a reputation if people don't know why they should trust Because reputation is not for everything. You

know, you might trust me on reputation because I'm the guy that created the reputation formula. So, you might trust me on that, maybe. But, I don't think you should trust me on investments. If I suggest you to invest on anything, don't do it. Cuz I'm not good at that. Right? And so, you know, my wife is the investor. She's a day trader, right? So, she knows what

she's doing. I don't. And that's like this in your life, right? There's things that people are going to trust you, things they're not going to trust you, and that's okay. But, you have to have a clear purpose, a clear message. Right now, I like the P of purpose because it's also P of problem. People think that purpose is uh you know, oh, it's the technology that I

learned. I'm a Java developer. That's my focus, right? No, purpose your focus is not a tool. Java is a tool. And you you can use the reason why developers don't like to have focus is because we have FOMO. We have the fear of missing out. Oh, Bruno, how can I focus on Java? What if Kotlin comes along and I can't learn Kotlin? That's not how it works.

Tools, it's not a focus. You can learn any tool that you want. Focus is P of problem. It's what problem do you solve? So, once people understand what problems do you solve, they think of you when they have that problem. And then you can use any kind of tool that you want to solve the problem because I trust you that you can solve the problem. So, when

you think about your purpose, what is the problem that you solve? And to whom? Who are the people that have that problem? Because if you're not talking to if your reputation with the people that have that problem is very low, they're not going to call you to solve their So, you have to understand what problem do you solve and to whom? Right? And if you do that,

that can really change your career. Because that's the path for you to work in amazing projects, for you to work on on great companies, is the path for you to build your own one company if you want to. Right? So, figure it out what is the problem that you want to solve and who has that problem, to whom you want to solve that problem. And you said

it's a decision. You decide, right? Now, with that we need trust. You know, trust uh for me to trust you, I need to know you. So, trust also involves visibility. It's very hard to have a reputation if no one know who you are. We always have a reputation with our friends. People that work in our team, for example, right? That's okay. It's good enough for some things.

You know, it's good for you to to grow a little bit, right? So, it's good for you to grow in your company. But, for example, I was talking to a developer uh you know, a few days ago and you know, he's he's very, very good. Like he's an open-source developer. He works for a great company, right? You know, he's he's a guy doing what many of us

would love to be doing. But, he's still no one inside his company know who he is. His immediate team knows who he is and trust him. But, he's been stuck in the same position for many, many, many years no one besides his team knows him. So, you have to have to have visibility to the people that you want to call you to work on the most interesting

things. Right? Otherwise, you get stuck. I was talking to a developer here in Germany a few years ago and he was telling me that he was uh he become a senior developer in Java 1.2. Java 1.2 is 1998. So, for almost 30 years, this guy is a senior developer. And he never grew beyond that. no one no one you know, he's just doing what people are telling

him to do. And so, you know, I'm not I don't think it's a bad thing to be a senior developer. It's great, right? But, if you want to grow beyond, you're going to have a reputation. You're going to have people that trust in you, and trust requires visibility. So, you have to be have a to be a little bit visible. Again, visible to whom? To the people

that have the problem that you want to solve. And sometimes, they're technical people. Sometimes, they're the managers. Sometimes, they're the directors. Sometimes, they're the VPs and the C- C-level people. Depends how high you want to do and and how impactful you want to do you you want to be, you you might have to talk to other people, and they have to see Right? Because here's one interesting

thing, especially if you're working for a company. The people that promote you, your boss does not promote you. The people that promote you is the boss of your boss or his boss, two or three levels above you. So, if if if the boss of your boss is not talking about you to his boss, you're not going to get promoted. So, if that's what you want, you have

to have visibility. Right? And then you have to have the trust to whoever it is, right? So, let's talk a few a few more things Um expertise, of course, that's what we want, right? We all want to be experts, right? You know, if you build a reputation, get called to solve problems, then you become an expert. But of course, you need to know enough uh you know,

you don't you don't need to be the most expert, but people around you need to trust that you are capable of doing it. And I think expertise is is many times the only thing that we focus. And that's why I don't think we need to focus a lot because I know you are experts. I know you know what you're Right? Because many of you have many years

of career. I'm just kind of have a understand who you are a little bit Who here has, you know, you're still in the beginning of your career, has from zero to five years of career? Zero to five? A few people, right? It's Okay? So, um you know, that's the beginning of the career. You're learning lots of things. You're learning you're you're building a brain of a developer.

You're building a brain of of a technical person. It takes about 3 years, right, for you to build a brain of a developer, right? So, you know, that's one of the biggest problem of AI is that you got those guys they're just beginning and then they have 3 years to build their brain as a developer and they don't do because they just use AI. They don't think

about anything. So, I don't know what's going to happen, but that's a problem that we have we're going to have to face, right? Us. Even even the guy just starting right now, we're going to have to face this in a few years, right? So, you guys are starting right now, you're still you're still safe, right? Now, a little bit more, right? So, who here has it between

5 and 10 years of Okay. 5 10 years of career, right? That's a that's a good great moment, right? You're senior developers, right? You know, if you're not, you should be. Right, you know, especially when you get towards the 10 years of career, you should be a senior professional. I I'm talking about this because many many people have sometimes 12, 13 years of career and they're not

senior yet, right? So, if you if that's your case, that's a problem, right? We can you know, you you got to fix that, right? Because you should be a senior because you have responsibility. A senior professional is someone that's responsible. That can do things, right? So, that's what happens when you have, you know, 6 7 8 years of career, you do things. You're responsible for things. You

write code and goes to production directly without anyone even looking at it. So, that you're very responsible. So, Beyond that, 10 to 15 years of career. Yeah, awesome, right? You know, I I love I love the beyond 10 years of career, right? Because now you really have everything you need to do anything you want. Seriously, right? So, that's a great moment. So, beyond 15, who is beyond

15? Anything beyond 15, that's awesome, right? You know, because really you have all the expertise that you need to go anywhere. Right? And so, that's what I'm seeing a lot. For example, I was talking to some friends like, you know, because I wrote an email yesterday talking about you know, a conversation I had, you know, we were at the Luminaries Summit on on Monday. And we having

this conversation about, you know, how exciting it is to use AI, right? And so, I wrote an email about that because several people were telling me the same time and I wrote an email about that. So, lots of people are sending me messages, "Oh, yes, that's how I feel, too." right? So, and it's funny it's interesting that people that have over 10, over 15 years of career,

those are the most excited with AI. Many of them are the most skeptical, too, right? But people that are they're using AI right now because they It looks like we can do anything. All the projects we always wanted to do, we can just do it, right? And so, that's very it's very cool to see this, right? So, if you have over 15 years of career, man, that's

awesome, right? And so, you already have the expertise. You know, so let's focus on other things, right? Um Okay. So, I talked a little bit about responsibility, right? Responsibility The more responsibility you have, the more impact you have in the project, Uh you know, you have to uplift Uplift is grow is is helping other people to grow. Right? You know, Marco just walked in here and he

just I just gave a mentorship about open source, right? You know, you could have brought my my uh stickers that I forgot in the mentorship hub cuz you were right there with me, but anyway. So, Marco was giving a talk about open source and open source is uplifting. You know, when you do things open source, there's an event like this like Rishar running this event, you know,

all the volunteers running this event, right? Or user group leaders, right? When you when you help others, you uplift people around you. And you can do this with people from your team, right? It doesn't need to be external, right? You can people from your team, you can uplift them, right? So, the more you are giver, the more you help others, the more reputation you have. Right? And

that's important, right? Because that's what you want. You want people to see you as the guy. Right? As the person I can come and solve the problem. As the responsible, you know, the responsible experts person that if I call you, you solve the Because if I see you like this, I'll call you. And you got to work on interesting things, right? And more than that, you get

to choose where you're going to work at. Because if lots of people are calling you because they trust you and you have a good reputation and they want you to work, you know, they want you because you are the one the right the the product that they are using because you're using open source product and you're the author of that product or you're one of the commuters,

I want you to work for me. Makes sense? Right? And so, let me let me give you a trick here that usually I don't say like this, right? But I'll I'll teach you if you're a speaker, I'll teach a quick trip a quick a quick tip on how to build The moment no one noticed that, but you do because you're right here in the front. The moment

the photographer walks into the room, you pose. You know? You You You just pretend you keep You're talking, right? And then, you know, you look at the You come close to the photographer, you look at him, right? You do something like this. You give him like a couple of seconds for him to take a picture because that could be a most amazing picture you're going to have

of a professional photographer doing this, right? So, quick tip. You know, I don't usually say that, but since we're talking about reputation, I think it has to do. You know, usually when the photographer comes in, I just continue talking, right? You know, you can just walk towards him like this like you're talking with everyone. And you don't even have to People don't even have to notice that

you're doing this. If you're like if if you're like some of these speakers that like to be behind the podium. The moment the photographer comes out, you come out of the podium, right? You know, you can just kind of like here because it has the logo of the event. It's even better, right? Because now they want to promote your your photo on the the website. You know,

just a quick things, man, because that's building your reputation, right? You're building your image. You want people to see you as an expert, as a professional. Right? And so, that means even your adds your your your LinkedIn profile, You know, have you seen like the banner on the LinkedIn profile that doesn't say anything? It's just like a crazy drawing that doesn't mean anything. Or it's a picture

of something that that no one cares about. You know, it's a great place where you take a picture inside the event and show that, you know, you know people. That you go places. Or maybe put a picture on on on something about your problem that you're trying to solve. Make sure that people see you the way you want them to see Right? Because let me tell you

one You are the experts because you do things, right? That's the take action right there. You are people that do things. You take action. You do things. Right? But now, there's a lot of people that don't do anything, but they build their reputation. Right? And then you got those some sometimes you got those people to be hired to the position that you wanted to because they are

visible. Because they show what they're they're doing. They show their work. And you're like, "Oh, man, that's exactly the position I wanted. I've been preparing for this for a long time. Why did they call that guy that that that that doesn't know as much as I do?" So, you know, you don't have to be an internet uh um you know, celebrity or an influencer, none of that.

You just have to think a little bit about your your your image, uh think a little bit about your reputation, so the right people know who you are. Make Right? So, thanks for being part of my talk here for a minute. All right. Okay, so uh I think I'm you know, I talk about taking action. You got to do things. If you don't do things, your reputation

uh uh reduces. And of course, autonomy, right? Autonomy is the capability of doing what you need to what you think needs to be done. Right? So, when you do things that that no one no If your boss does not have to tell you what to do, and you are free to do things. Let me ask one question here. I like to ask this question. So, who here

is here in this event, and to be here you did not have to ask for permission to anyone. You can just say, "I'm I can I'm I just go." Lots of people. That's good, because you have autonomy. Right? You know, lots of people that have to have to come here, they have to request, right? They have to request permission. They have to request budget. They have to,

you know, to do something because or they have to take a vacation, right? Because they they can't just do this at work. But you guys that have autonomy, you can do things. And if you can come to an event to do things, imagine how many things you can do inside your company that you don't have to ask for I see this all the time. People that say,

"Oh, you know, I I I'd love to work on this technology. What I'd love to to work on this." And then, you talk a little bit with them a little bit, and you find out that they have so much autonomy that they could do if they really wanted, but they just think they can't. They're waiting for someone to tell them something. But if you have autonomy, go

do what what's important for you. Go do open source. Right, Marco? Yes. Yes? You know, go do open source, because that's that's that gives you autonomy. Make sense? You going to say something? Yeah, yeah. We always need every contribution we can We always need contribution. That's That's perfectly right. Yes. Okay. So, uh those are the good things, right? Those are the positive things. Now, there's three things

you need to reduce to to build a reputation, right? So, first of all, don't be the I I I person, the me me me person that's, you know, I did this, I did that, blah blah blah, me me me. Don't be that person, right? Oh, you're trying to take pictures? There's a perfect place to take pictures. I'll show you. There's a perfect place to take picture, the

me me me person because no one likes that person to just talk about themselves, right? So, don't be that. A good way to If you are that person, lots of people are, right? We We know. And so, if you are that person, start learning how to ask questions. Ask questions to people. They're going to love you because because, you know, because you're asking questions, right? You know,

so stop being the me me me person, the I I I person. Don't lie. Always say the truth. At least don't Uh I've seen many many careers being completely destroyed by people that that that lied, right? You know, eventually you got to count on a lie. And don't be the negative person, right? Um you know, neg- negative Look, the formula kind of balances out, right? So, you

know, if you don't have a lot of visibility, for example, but you have a lot of expertise and a lot of responsibility, they balance out a little bit, right? So, it's it's uh the formula does that, right? But, I have an interesting example, right? So, you got, for example, Linus Torvalds, right? Linus was very responsible, huge expertise, lots of purpose, uplift everyone. He takes a lot of

action, lots of autonomy. He very trustworthy. He's not an I I person. He doesn't lie. But, he was very difficult to work with. And even him at some point had to say, "You know what, guys? Sorry, I'm wrong." And he he vowed to to change. And I hear he didn't, but that's okay. That's on him, right? You know, so okay, so that's the reputation formula. I'm your

I'm your Java Man. That's a perfect place to take picture. Right? You know? You can take a picture here. You can put online, mark me B R Java Man, and I'll retweet to you. You know, I'll I'll I'll promote you, too. So, then you gain reputation, I gain reputation, we all win. Is that fair? That's a good thing you can do, guys. You can Look, uh last

year at JavaOne there was uh uh poll from Netflix. He talked about how Netflix uses Java. And I took a picture and post online. And that tweet exploded. there's We have, you know, millions of views. And Paul next day, 9:00 in the morning, was post talk, and he started his talk with my tweet on the screen, saying that now I became famous. And all I did was

take a picture and post it. So, you should do the same. Right? This year at uh uh at at JavaOne you know, uh there was a guy from Microsoft and I took a picture and I posted, and that picture exploded, Right? And it's you know, so do the same thing. When you're watching a talk, you find something interesting get what the speaker said, write the post, publish.

It's going to be great for you. It's going to be great for the speaker. Right? Because you know there's one thing that the speaker does not have. You know what it is? A picture of himself talking. So, you can be the one that provides that, right? You know, because those the professional guys came here, took a picture, but that takes days. Your picture can be the one

that I I I'm going to use to promote my talk, right? So, help me out, and I help you. Okay? let me just talk a little bit here about how we use the reputation formula, right? There's three things I like to talk about. One is technology, right? Now, oh, sorry. Can you make it a I can make the pose again. Sure. Of course. Yes, you see? Right?

Yes, the reputation formula, right? Yeah. Okay. That's the first, right? No one ever asked me to repeat that. So, that's Thanks for that, right? >> That's good, right? You know, build a reputation. You know, should I do like this so the flag is like flying? >> All right. Okay, so let's let's apply the reputation formula to a few things, right? First of all, it's technology, right? It's

Java. Many of you raised your hand and said that you work with Java. So, let's think about Java. So, when you choose a technology, whatever it is, you're already building a reputation, right? So, you know, because of course, you chose the technology, so that's a responsibility. You know, you have expertise in that stuff. You know, you There's a little bit of purpose because you chose one to

at least, so you can talk about that, right? You know, gives you autonomy because you know that stuff, so you can do things, right? So, it's already a good thing if you just choose a technology, right? But, we can do better than only Java, right? We can do, for example, community. You know, when you participate in community, you participate in user groups, we do, you know, you

participate on events, for example, like this one Things are interesting here, right? Because events uplift people, right? Events uh give you more visibility, so there's trust, right? So, if you do that, there's other things, right? So, you know, running an event, there's lots of responsibility around uplifting people, shows that you take action, shows that you have trust, right? It's not an IIP person. I mean, if you

are if you're a research you spend the whole year organizing this event here, you're not you're not an IIP So, but we can do even better than that, right? So, thanks I'm glad Marcus is here, right? Because you can do open source, right? Open source also helps you with that. Especially because you already you already chose the technology, you already participate in the community, so you can

do open source, right? So, open source helps with lots of things. It gives lots of responsibility, expertise, lots of purpose, uplift to others, right? Uh helps you take action, gives you a lot of autonomy because you do whatever you want in open source project. I mean, you know, at least you don't have a boss telling you what to do, right? So, you know, you you have an

autonomy. Autonomy does not means you do whatever you want. It means that you do the right things. You choose you know, you choose what you what you do. And a little bit of trust, not necessarily, right? There's many examples of people that participate in open source project that are not visible, so we don't trust them because we don't know who they are, but there's a little bit

of trust. So, I think that the the the the key, the secret of building the best reputation ever is that you choose a technology, participate in community, join you join open source project. Right? And that gives you everything that you can that you need on the reputation front. I mean, you still have you still cannot lie, right? And you still got to be nice to people somehow,

right? But that's on you. Okay? So, that's the thing I to do, right? And And I'm not going to say just to brag or anything like this, right? But because I you know, I want I want you to have some questions here now. But I can tell you that's my secret. that's what I've been doing. I I'm I'm known as the Brazilian Java man. I've been working

with Java since 1995, the alpha true version. You know, I'm the guy that that helped it out to build the Java user groups community. When I started Java user groups community, uh we had 10 user groups participating in the community. There's other exist of course, right? But 10 that participate in the community. Today we have almost 6 700 Java user groups leaders in in the Java user

groups community. You know, I built SouJava, the largest Java user group in Brazil. Uh I was in the board of open source initiative, the organization that defines open source. I'm on the board of the Java community process, right? So, you know, I've been serving in the board of Java community process for over 10 years now on the the the organization that defines the Java standard, right? And

because of those things, because I was able to build my reputation, participate on open source, you know, actually uh uh I was one of the guys that built the Harmony project, right? Uh that actually convinced Sun to open source Java, right? So, and we did this right on Cuz Sun open source Java and Oracle acquired Sun. So, we did it right on time, right? Uh so, because

of all that, you know, I got reputation enough to be recognized with the the the Java uh Lifetime Achievement Award. Right? Thank you. >> [applause] >> Thank you so much. Um there's only about seven people in the world that got this this award. Maybe maybe it's eight or six. I don't know. I think it's about seven. Only seven people that got this award so far, and I

was the first. Right? And it's not uh I just want you to understand that it's not because I'm a great Java developer, because I'm not. You know? Many I mean, many of you are much better Java developers than I am. Right? It's not because I'm the greatest speaker of all time. I'm not. You know, my talks don't get voted the top talk of the event. You know,

because I spend a lot of time answering questions, and people want to meet you and give answers, not answering questions, right? So, uh but still, uh because I was able to build my And nothing that I did is crazy. It's impossible. Right? Those are easy that not necessarily easy, but those are things that you can do. Right? So, build your reputation, and you know, that's the reason

I got called to work on some of the largest projects in the world. Right? One one of my my favorite projects that I did was the income tax application in Brazil that got a Duke's Choice Award later on, the Oscar of the Java technology, right? So, so the income tax application, we had um on the better version, was 7 million people using it. Right? And today, uh

many many more millions of people have used every year that project to submit their tax income the income tax application, right? A submission, right? So, you know, and and a lot of that those are things that you guys can do, uh to help you out I I want to do two things really quick here. I still have about 10 minutes and when I answer questions, right? So,

if you have any questions, you know, uh please raise your hands. Uh to to I'm I'm going to I'm going to try I'm going to try to apply the reputation formula in whatever challenge you have. So, here's what I want you to think about. What is the biggest challenge you're facing right now in your career? something you want to achieve that you don't know how, right? So,

what's the biggest challenge? I want to help you with your biggest challenge. And we're going to apply the reputation formula to do that. The second thing I'm going to do here is I'm going to give you a gift. When I was in in J Focus earlier this year, um I gave a talk about the the growing beyond senior, right? You know, especially if you are uh senior

developer with many years of career, right? You don't know what to do to do the next step. That's a perfect uh uh you know, that's a a training a course that I gave to my mentees uh a few months ago. And so, it was never seen outside of my mentorship group, but I decided to give to my to the attendees at J Focus. I'm going to do

the same thing for you guys here. So, if you go to this site here right now, you're going to have access for free to this training, right? The the grow beyond senior training. It's a it's you know, it's a online training. You're going to have access to that. Uh now, the only thing that the form is going to ask you because there's one thing. This is not

for sale. It's not available anywhere. So, I have to give you access by hands. Right? So, that's what's written on the page right there. It's just saying, you know, I'm going to give you access by hands. So, you're not going to get anything right now. It's not going to you're not going to get an email saying, "Hey, you got it." right? But, when I get back to

the hotel tonight or maybe I will give you access to everyone. So, here's the thing. You have once I give you access, you have 7 days to accept the access. You can You can watch the training anytime you want. There's no limits on time. But you have 7 days to access because otherwise the link expires and then I have to manually remove the this the course from

you and add to you again. I don't want to do this. You don't want me to do this. So, just pay attention your email and make sure that you access that in the next 7 days. Is Right? Okay. And the other thing that's going to happen is that you're going to get an email from me with the training. That means you're going to have all my contacts.

So, if anything I did not answer to you here, you can reply to me and we're going to talk. Okay? So, with that What's your biggest challenge? I'm going to help you here. I have about 10 minutes to help you out with your biggest challenge. Who wants to go first? Go ahead. For how many years? Okay, yeah. Mhm. Cool. Cuz you're cuz you're thinking you're not good

enough architect that that Is that what you're thinking about? Okay. So, do you have other architects in the team? In your company? Okay, cool. So, so here's one thing, guys. About this feeling of expertise. That's a very good way of putting feeling of We never have it. So, accept it. Unfortunately, that's how it works. That's that's a that's a cognitive dissonance that we have in our brains,

right? So, the the reality is that the more you know something, the more you know what you don't know. Right? You know, I love to I love to work with juniors, right? You know, I I go to to to high school technical schools and people learning programming and I work with them, you know, they you know, at so job they use a group many of them and

then they come help out. But, the junior is that guy that knows You know, that's right. You know, I was talking to you I I always played with this friend of mine. He's He's now like a senior developer working for the one of the largest banks in the world, but you know, when I when I'm at him, he would tell me, "Bruno, I just I built an

API using JavaScript." Right? You know, you know those guys, right? Cuz the junior knows everything there is to know because he only knows what he knows. And he's confident that he knows Right? And then, you go beyond junior, you start figuring out that lots of things you don't know. And then you get desperate. Right? Because oh man, I don't know this, I don't know this, I don't

So, you're trying to learn everything. And that's when you get into mid-level developer, right? You're a mid-level because you're desperate trying to learn And then eventually, you you become to senior level. So, what is a senior? A senior is that person that knows what they don't know. Right? They know that a lot of things I think exist, but they don't know any of And they're confident that

if they need, they can learn it. And they live very happy on that space. So, if you are right now a senior professional and you still trying to learn everything, you're desperate, you have the mentality of a of a mid-level. You have to change the mentality because you can't learn everything. That's That's true. Right? So, the only thing you can do is know enough about everything. Right?

You know, just kind of know what the thing exists. So, the time that you need, you can you you can you can go and Okay? So, as an architect, you exacerbate that. Because the architect has to know about everything exists. So, you have like a huge universe of things you have no idea Right? And that makes you feel really Right? So, don't worry. That's your job. Your

job is to know what exists. Right? To be able to discuss with people, to be able to So, so, so what you need to do, you need to know what it is. Know what problem it solves. Know what problem it doesn't solve. Even if you don't know how to use it, you know why you should use it. And so, you can participate on the conversation, you can

participate on the discussions. And if it is something your company's going to use and you need to learn, you go and learn it. So, you have to be comfortable with that situation. I know it's bad. But [snorts] you know what? You're an architect. And I'm I'm a consultant. Right? That means when I join your company, I have about 90 minutes to know everything that exists about your

Otherwise, they're going to kick me out. And so, that's that's how we do it. You know about things. That's the most important thing. You have to know about things. Not necessarily know to know And if you don't feel an expert, that's okay. You're going to have to live with Imposter syndrome, guys, it's very simple for me. Right? Because there's two options. One, you are working on something

you never worked on before and you feel like an imposter. Or two, you're just working on things that you worked on before and you're bored and want to leave. So, you choose which one you want. Right? I kind of prefer the imposter syndrome. I'll live with that. Is that Okay, good. Who else? Let me see how how much time I have. Go Right. And the other people

think they And other people think that you are that you are that you are rude. Is that okay? Right. Yeah, okay. That's that's that's So, so his question is, you know, I'm I'm supposed to ask to repeat the question. I'm not sure if I repeat yours, but hopefully it was enough. But, uh his question is that, you know, how how can I not be negative? If I'm

my coach is very direct, right? So, and I'm I'm very direct. I say what's need to be said, right? Guys, you can be direct, Uh but the problem is that people's people hides behind directness. Right? You know, uh I'm sure you know people like this that Oh, I I'm not I'm not being rude. I'm only saying the And so, because you think that you are the the

truth, that you know everything, they can just point everyone else's mistakes, you're just speaking the truth. So, you can be direct, right? But don't don't be the guy like the the know-it-all. Have a little bit of interest in the other people. Ask questions. Understand their point of view. Right? Because the problem that we have many times that, you know, we are direct because we know the response.

We know the truth, and they don't. And that's what makes us difficult. Right? And I know because I'm like this, too. Right? You know, people people ask me a question, I'M LIKE, "BAH, THAT'S THE ANSWER." RIGHT? IT'S LIKE, you know, I know I'm being direct here. Right? And I know that sometimes I say things that people don't like me to say. But the the difference is, if

you if I ask questions, if I understand who you are, I mean, of course, it's hard to do this here, right? But if I understand who you are, understand what you're coming through, understand the problems that you have, and I'm helping you come to a conclusion, for example, right? I can be very direct because we're working towards something that's that's that's good and common, right? But the

problem is that when people are, you know, they hide behind being direct. You know, they believe I know everything, I'm I'm I'm the truth, and that and that's it. So, I'm I'm a know-it-all. So, just be careful of that. But it's not a problem to be direct, right? And I do understand that sometimes there's a cultural barriers, and we may have to sit down with people and

say, "Look, that's how I work. Do you like that I work that way? Do you feel uncomfortable that I work that way? Would you prefer to me to That's what That's what Linus Torvalds is doing. You know, he is direct. People don't like to work with him. Right? And that hurts. It hurts him, it hurts the project, it hurts people around him. Right? So, you can be

direct without And if people feel if people around you are feeling that you're rude, maybe it's time for you to listen to what they have Okay, one more I think we'll have time for one more question. One here, go ahead. >> [snorts] >> Find more time to do personal Okay, so I I I have the perfect answer for you have all the time in the world. But

you're not going to like it. It's perfect, but you're not going to like it. Right? Here's the way for you to have all the time in the world to do Get someone to pay you to do what you That might sound weird, but that's what autonomy is all about. When you have autonomy, you you do what needs to be done at You know, because because it needs

to be Right? If your personal projects benefits the company, well, then you can just do your personal project in in at work. Right? So, you know, oh Bruno, but no, my personal project is completely different than the company. So, why would you have to think about why? You know, why is she working for that company then? Right? You know, that's why open source helps you out a

lot. You know, because open source allows you to work on what you want to work at. And you you can do that being paid by Right? And I understand that well, my company doesn't do that. So, maybe you need to find another company. Or maybe you should find a way to get your company to show your company the value of what you have. Makes sense? So, I

know it's not I know it's not a a you know, yeah, it's kind of just just use AI. It's no, it's like, you know, get someone that want that really wants what you have to pay you for it and you're going to find all the So, um last thing here, if you did not download this yet, you know, last chance. Uh tomorrow, we going to have the

whole day the If you have not been there, I can tell you we're missing out. The mentorship hub is a chance. So, I'm I'm I'm, you know, poking at Marco here, but he was before this talk here, he was out there talking about open source. How How was it, Marco? You know, lots of people lots of questions about open source? Right, so it's a good opportunity for

you to come talk to open source developers, to to speakers, to Java champions, right? So, there's only tomorrow now. So, I think you should look at the schedule and find one the time and go There's a guy, I'm not sure he's here. There's a guy who was telling me this, "Oh, man, I'm I'm I'm coming here now and I'm not going to leave. It's the best part

of the event." And then he said, "Too bad I didn't come here yesterday." Right? So, I I recommend you go there. But But even if you don't want to go all day there, I will do tomorrow the very first mentorship tomorrow is going to be my grow beyond senior mentorship. So, if that's what that's who you are, you don't have many years of experience, you know, 10,

15 years of experience or more and you still and you're senior developer you want to grow beyond that, I'm going to be discussing that tomorrow, you know, in a small group talking of people, right? So, there's a lot of people in this room. I'm going to do something that is a little bit crazy, but I did this in JFocus and it worked out fine. So, let's see

how it's going to work here. if you have 15 years of career or more, cuz that's the people I work with, right? So, my mentees I have 15 years of career. If you If you have less, you know, if you want to come talk to me, that's okay, too. But uh I mean, to you have 15 more, you know, and you are here because you want to

grow your career. That's the reason why you're here. Um after after this trip cuz I'm going to I'm from here I go to Prague, go to Brno in Czech Republic, go to Vienna, and to Amsterdam. And then I go back to Brazil, right? So, after the next week, after that trip, I'm going to open some space to have conversations. That's the conversation I I usually do with

my customers. But, I'm going to open for you for free. So, what do you need to do? Once we finish here cuz I'm going to finish right after this, once we finish here, I'm going to pack my laptop, I'm going to go outside. And if anyone wants, I have you know, you come talk to me and we're going to schedule a one-on-one meeting, right? Uh I can't

do for everyone, but I know lots of people just going to go to to the party anyway, so that's good, right? So, if you want interested in do in do in doing this, uh we're going to do a one-on-one meeting where I'm going to help you understand the problem that you have, understand your challenge, and and and and build a plan for that. Right? No strings attached.

Uh that's a that's a conversation for you. If you want to do that, 15 years of um I I'm I'm probably the right person to help you out. Okay? So, thanks so much. Thanks for your patience. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] Thanks so much. And I think it's happy hour now, right? So, and actually, I think everyone even left, right? There's no one

even here anymore. So, and I'm happy to answer questions. Oh, she's right here. So, thank you. All right. So, yes. All right. >> [music]