Why High-Achieving Engineers Still Feel Something's Missing with Ben Fox, Career Coach for Engineers

(Ben Fox at 00:00:00) The funny thing when I've done this, Joel, I've had more than one person tell me, you know what? If I got fired right now, I could actually retire. I just have to change some things and maybe spend a little bit less, but I'd be fine for the rest of my life. Mind-boggling. There's a whole genre of podcasts, financially independent, retire early.

(Ben Fox at 00:00:22) There are people who go for that goal and you have it and you feel like you can't leave? Strange.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:35) I want to start at the top. I got your profile. I read about what you do, and I was like, this person is someone I want to talk about. For people who don't know, can you just explain briefly what it is, how you describe what you do?

(Ben Fox at 00:00:48) I help burnt-out or misaligned software engineering leaders leave toxic situations and get clarity about what they actually want next.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:59) How did you get into that? Were you an engineering leader in a toxic situation and you got yourself out? Like, how did this start?

(Ben Fox at 00:01:05) That could be the ideal. But back in 2019, I got a full-time job at a coding boot camp as a career coach. Hadn't worked specifically in tech with software engineers, had been coaching since 2016, but I loved this group of people. Like, they were go-getters. A lot of them were changing careers.

(Ben Fox at 00:01:31) But I saw that these folks were expert technical problem solvers. I'm not, but I'm an expert emotional problem solver. And together, I just found this symbiotic relationship that worked really well and have been working with this group of people ever since.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:53) So you started this coding boot camp, you're career coaching them, and what are you seeing when you start? Like, right when you first got into this role, what was the first thing that you noticed about these people?

(Ben Fox at 00:02:05) They were going through a very intense program where they were learning. Some of them were coming in with zero coding skills all the way to building MVPs and then getting six-figure jobs as software engineers. So there was a grit and determination that this group had that I found really compelling. And I was also blown away. This was pre-AI chaos where the market for newer folks, which is not really who I focus on anymore. But back then, you could have three months on your resume at a coding boot camp and some other career before it and then have a great role.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:48) Yeah. That's been dwindling quite a bit.

(Ben Fox at 00:02:52) Quite a bit.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:53) So where is the transition point? You're coaching these people moving into these new. Do you coach them after the job? You coach them through the camp and then into the job?

(Ben Fox at 00:03:03) Exactly.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:04) So how did you find out everyone was depressed and that you've got it made story isn't really what it is? Like, how did that come about?

(Ben Fox at 00:03:11) Yeah. That came about a few years later in 2022. I was hired at this startup here in New York City that was focused on people who are further in their career in all different areas of tech and through the network that the company had and people like me helping them figure out next steps. Not always to the C-suite, but more to the VP, director, manager levels, principal levels. And I saw that a lot of these people were pretty miserable doing work that didn't really fit them, working too much, not really having great boundaries.

(Ben Fox at 00:03:57) And that's when the idea first started for me of, oh, as you're moving up the ladder in this engineering chain, responsibilities compound, pressure compounds, and people sometimes lose sight of their boundaries and end up doing work that really doesn't fit them, and then they lose the spark for what they've been doing sometimes for twenty-five years.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:26) Wow. So what would you tell them when you ran across these individuals?

(Ben Fox at 00:04:31) Slow down. Partially because people often think when they're in that situation, I'm in this bad-fit job or toxic environment. I want to find something else. Meanwhile, their energy level's decimated. The amount of time they have in the week, nonexistent.

(Ben Fox at 00:04:54) And for those folks, I have to ask them, how do you imagine that you're going to figure out this amazing next step from this place where you're kind of shot? I say this to a lot of people. If you were in a toxic romantic relationship and you're like, I'm going to find the love of my life before I break up with this person, we'd think that person was kind of crazy because you're just going to repeat the same patterns. It's a two-way street. There are patterns that you have that are making the situation as such in a relationship and in a job.

(Ben Fox at 00:05:33) That's where we need to focus first and ideally have an exit strategy if that's the right play, the right step to take before, okay, I'm just going to apply and talk to everyone I know, and I'll find the dream job. Good luck.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:52) I want to keep talking about the relationship analogy. I like that because you've got to—back to a relationship analogy, I'm thinking back to my twenties now. You have to sort of get out of that web, clean yourself up, have space at least to clean yourself up, and then get yourself ready and then go be in a good spot to start something new. You don't have to do that, but personally, I found that's the most effective way for me.

(Ben Fox at 00:06:18) Precisely.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:20) Yeah. You might get a lot of customers from SpaceX.

(Ben Fox at 00:06:24) There's a lot on the list like that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:27) Our babysitter told us yesterday, she's an aerospace engineer who just graduated, and she's applying for jobs this summer. And she said she talked to SpaceX and they were like, are you comfortable working sixty hours a week and having no life, completely and fully dedicating yourself every ounce of yourself to the company? I was like, well, look, in all fairness, you're trying to reach Mars by 2030. You need people who are like that, but that's also going to create a lot of customers for Ben Fox.

(Ben Fox at 00:06:54) I'm not mad at it. Yeah. I'll take it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:58) Okay. So you're helping these people who seemingly have it made, and where do you come in? Do you start working with them when they're burnt out? Like, how do they find you? They're burnt out and a friend tells them? Like, how does this work?

(Ben Fox at 00:07:09) Definitely referrals. I've been coaching for ten years, so that happens. I post most days on LinkedIn. I've got a growing base there, and I'm reaching out. I'm cold outreaching people who fit the profile of the type of person that I really like to serve.

(Ben Fox at 00:07:28) That's typically how people find me and podcast episodes, which is lovely, because then I really get to share who I am and what I do. I'd say, typically, people find me or want to talk to me in these moments where maybe someone in their life, like their spouse or a colleague that they trust,

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:53) bring something up like,

(Ben Fox at 00:07:55) are you okay? What's going on? The really tough situation that I am sad that it is so prevalent is when people are having health issues start coming up. And it's like, I can't afford to not change things. I've had people go to the hospital for blood clots, panic attacks, you name it.

(Ben Fox at 00:08:22) And those are the people I'm like, we really need to figure something else out immediately because you could die.

(Joel Beasley at 00:08:29) Yeah. When your lead gen is a cardiologist. You've got some—that's true because that happened to me. I was drinking too much Red Bull in my—I was 18, 19, just coding all day, drinking too much Red Bull. I had a panic attack.

(Joel Beasley at 00:08:42) I went to the hospital because I was like, I think I'm dying. And then they interviewed me essentially and asked me about my life, what I was doing. And they're like, oh, you are a workaholic who's drinking stimulants. Like, you need to chill. And so I stopped all caffeine at that moment in my life and I made a lot of more mistakes in my twenties.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:03) But then after having kids, I carved out time to not get burnt out. I got good at not getting burnt out when I had kids because I knew I needed a lot of energy to deal with them and raise them, so I redesigned my life for that. What did I do? So I'll tell you about the day. I just got off the podcast. I'll tell you about the lie I was telling myself, and then I'll tell you about the day.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:30) So I just got off the podcast. I've been telling myself, oh, we're starting this company. We're starting this business. We were having our first child right when this business was getting off the ground, the same couple months. And I talked with my wife one time and I was like, hey, we're going to—I'm going to put everything I have into this business, 110% of myself, and we will come out on top and it'll work and yada yada yada. And then I basically ignored them for two, three years. You know? Like, I was there, but I wasn't there. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:02) Working six, seven days a week, I was at the office. It was ridiculous. And I just kept telling myself, the kids don't—well, I had one at the time. She doesn't have memory of being super young. When her memory kicks on when she's five or six, that'll be fine. So anyways, I'm ignoring them for two or three years. One day I get off the podcast. I call my wife on speaker phone or whatever, and she's over at her parents' house.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:36) And we have two kids at this time. And my daughter, Aria, is probably four or five, and I hear her in the background talking to grandpa. And grandpa goes, when's daddy coming over? It was Thanksgiving or Christmas or something like that, some event that they were having at her parents' house. He goes, when's daddy going to come over? And Aria goes, oh, daddy doesn't do things with us. And, dude, that was my fail-safe.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:54) That—any software platform I had in my brain just triggered. It's like, boop, you reached it. It stops today. I said, I've got to—I go, hold on, Michelle. I'm going to fix this.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:07) I hang up the phone. I go—I buy a truck. I buy a camper and I show up at her parents' house and I go, oh, daddy doesn't work nights and weekends anymore and we have to have something to do because daddy's a very active person. So this is what we're doing now. We're going to go camping.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:26) So we did that every weekend. We went camping in the week. We prepared for it. I hung out with them. We had dinner every night and the relationship with my wife changed drastically. Everything improved and then we ended up living in the camper for a year. We sold the house and then we bought a farm after the year of living in the camper. My relationship since that moment, Aria is 10, so my relationship is just so changed and I fixed it just in time, Ben. I caught it at the last possible second.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:58) And you went all in. You have to. I was like, if I'm—how can I invest all this money into my business and not invest into my family? Yeah. It didn't make sense to me.

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:08) I was like, I was being an idiot. So—

(Ben Fox at 00:12:10) Well, kudos to you for seeing that in the same day because of what your daughter said and being like, end. Abort. We're done.

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:21) Done. We have reached—because I internally I was like, I knew I was pushing it a little bit. And, uh, but that was the moment and I just had to stop. And you got me talking. Why'd you do that?

(Ben Fox at 00:12:34) Well, it's what I do. But one of my former clients, let's call her Kayla, very similar thing happened to her. She was an engineering manager, leader at her company, had been in the field for twenty years, and was convinced she could not leave this environment that was clearly growing more and more toxic day by day. And one of the things that happens to all the clients I work with is they feel like if they leave, they're going to end up broke on the streets. The lizard brain amygdala response gets really strong because our financial security is tied to having a job.

(Ben Fox at 00:13:26) And she realized she could quit and be fine for pretty much the rest of her life, but that didn't change it for her. The moment that changed things for her was when she snapped at her kids. And she was like, I don't recognize this person. I don't want to be this way ever. And very quickly—and I love she has a similar boldness to you.

(Ben Fox at 00:13:51) She told her company, like, I'm going to leave. I would really love some severance and ended up getting it just by talking about it and is now a fractional CTO helping early-stage startups and founders gain traction and volunteering at our children's school and playing piano guitar again. I'm like, you did it. You did it. This is the whole thing.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:18) One of the cool things about being a human is we get to choose how we die. A lot of people don't think about it like that, but I do. And it's like you only have so much time here, and whatever routine that you're currently holding is your active choice for how you would like to die because we can go at any moment. And so it forces you to think about your routine differently. Like, this is the routine that I'm choosing to let kill me to live out my days.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:41) And so when you think of it like that, it makes you—you have to make different decisions.

(Ben Fox at 00:14:47) Totally. I tell most of my clients in my first session with them, life is precious and urgent. Precious seeing your kid learn to ride a bike for the first time or tasting food that just brings you home, and urgent because we have no idea what this timeline of Joel is or Ben is. It could end any moment. So what are you going to do with it?

(Ben Fox at 00:15:15) And if you're actively in a situation that you know makes you miserable when you do have the funds to leave right now, what are you doing? Why are you choosing that? And that's where a lot of the coaching comes in, the psychology behind why people are staying in situations they know are bad for them.

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:39) How do you charge people for this? Because they're at their worst point in their life and you're like, I will help you, but give me money.

(Ben Fox at 00:15:47) Well, I think the proof is in the pudding in that when people have the opportunity to talk to me, they can see I'm just in their corner. I'm fighting for a part of them that has grown dim on the inside, but it's always there. And I'm here to put a spotlight on it and a mirror to it. Like, hey, you're telling me that you're feeling this way, but you're not doing anything about it.

(Ben Fox at 00:16:10) And you've lost sight of the possibility that you could have a work situation that lights you up, where you go to bed on a Sunday being like, what's this week bringing? I'm pumped to give myself and serve in this way. And when people understand that I'm—yes, I have to make a living. I'm not in it for the money. I really love having people find their purpose again.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:39) Yeah. You're like a reviver of souls.

(Ben Fox at 00:16:43) The soul reviver. I like that. There you go.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:45) Yeah. Well, I mean I know what it's like to watch the light dim almost go out and then through very careful interaction, get it back. And I remember moments in my life where my brain says if I don't do this thing, my soul is going to die. And it's like that's—

(Ben Fox at 00:17:08) to

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:08) have that internal thought, you're like I've got to do something now.

(Ben Fox at 00:17:11) What an extreme thought too. My soul is going to die but the money's good.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:18) But that's exactly what the next thought was.

(Ben Fox at 00:17:21) That's the way in which we've been co-opted to think that the more money and benefits and prestige, obviously, that means I've made it and things are great. But that's an external validation thing. It's not internal. And that's the dissonance I have seen all the time with people is like, but everything looks great on paper. Why do I feel this way?

(Ben Fox at 00:17:49) It's because that is what you thought you should do. And in here, you stopped listening.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:54) Dude, the number of older wealthy people I know that will say things like they crushed it, sold their business for $40,000,000, whatever. They're just living it up. From the outside, you're like, damn. They're always like, I should have been a singer. I knew I didn't bet on myself. I was able to do this crazy thing that I didn't think was possible, but it was actually like a consolation prize to the craziest thing that I really could have done that wasn't possible.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:23) And so I saw so much regret. I was like, look, what's the craziest future I could possibly think of and then let's go after that.

(Ben Fox at 00:18:34) Love that. Yeah. So quick sidebar story, and this feeds into why I work this way with people. It was about twenty years ago. So my mom, she is the child of immigrants, loved to act.

(Ben Fox at 00:18:55) She was on all the stages she could be on as a kid through high school. And by the time she was ready for college, her parents were like, you cannot go to college for acting. Absolutely not. Put that dream aside. So she did, and worked a whole other career that she was good at.

(Ben Fox at 00:19:18) It wasn't her passion. And twenty years ago when my parents moved back into New York City from the suburbs where I grew up, my mom started acting again. She was 55. She was in plays. She was in commercials.

(Ben Fox at 00:19:36) She was in a couple short films. And to this day, she's acting and now directing, and it's been this huge source of inspiration for me that, hey, it actually doesn't matter whether you're 25 or 55. You don't have to put to bed this thing that you've wanted. It doesn't have to be the source of all your income and all your time, but the idea that you are gonna give up something that you love, to me, I won't allow the people I work with to deny that for themselves.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:11) And that actually brings me to my next set of questions. A lot of this so far has been geared around people in toxic work environments or getting out. Obviously, that's the emergency room situation. But then there's also it seems like a situation where there's people that are like, their job's cool. They like their job.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:32) They're good at their job. Everyone's respectable and it's a good clean environment, but they feel this pull for something more. Is that another customer base that you have or is it just the urgent care?

(Ben Fox at 00:20:45) It's another customer base for sure. And those folks are a little trickier to admit that they need some help because everything's fine. Like, I could probably do this on my own. I'm like, give it a try. I could help you get there quicker.

(Ben Fox at 00:21:07) And with those folks, the first thing I'm doing with them, and with everyone really, is how can we fine tune the current situation to make it even better where maybe you weren't feeling so much passion, but it's okay? What can we do to have you reinvest in this workplace or the work you've been doing for so many years so it feels even better? Instead of it just being kind of neutral, what if it gave you energy back? At the same time, what is it that you have been putting off that would be a boon to your life that we can start experimenting with right now? Where can we carve out time in your day to day, especially as your work is getting better, where you can start experimenting with this thing that you feel a pull towards, but you're not exactly sure the shape of it?

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:09) So you help people with that. You walk them through the process of that.

(Ben Fox at 00:22:13) A hundred percent.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:14) I've got—I like you. I'm gonna—I've got some people. Yeah. Sorry. I'm like, my brain has—it's different. It works well and this is why I have designed my entire life to be around really great smart people because the same thing happens when I'm around people who I don't like.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:33) I'm like, I'm good. See you.

(Ben Fox at 00:22:35) I like that. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:36) A little bit too direct sometimes. I get along—

(Ben Fox at 00:22:39) In New York.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:40) Okay. There you go. Yeah. I found my home with my Israeli friends because their culture is just so direct. I was like, I love this.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:50) One thing that I've noticed, so ten years, thousand episodes in doing this show. Lots of public speaking to conferences, a lot of Q&A and interacting with people directly that listen to the show or just in the space. Biggest thing I've seen, or I want your thoughts on this: chasing the title. I get one—the most common question I get, I have a quick answer to it too. They're like, how do you become a CTO?

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:15) I wanna become a CTO. CTO, CTO, CTO. And I said, it's so easy. You can do it today. File an LLC, pay $125, give yourself the label CTO.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:24) You're there. You're done. You can do it today. So that's not really what they're asking, right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:30) So you tell me, in your experience, when people are chasing the title, what are they really after?

(Ben Fox at 00:23:35) I don't know that they're always clear on it either. We've been sold this idea, definitely in the US, of there's a corporate ladder. What do you do with ladders? You climb them. You're supposed to get to the top of the ladder.

(Ben Fox at 00:23:52) And what people don't always realize is when you get to that CTO level, especially if you're at a publicly traded company, you are still answering to other people. There's a board that you have to answer to. If you're not a cofounder, you're answering to the CEO often. So I think people feel like there's some clout, there's some mystical place they'll arrive when they get that higher title, but they often disregard the added responsibility, the stress.

(Ben Fox at 00:24:31) And I love that you point it back to them. They're like, well, you can just file an LLC and give yourself that title because it doesn't really matter that much. I think a big part of it is people want the money and benefits and prestige, but they haven't fully thought through, well, would this make my life as it is right now markedly better? Are things how they are with the role I have actually serving what I've got going on, especially if you have kids? If you wanna become CTO, you probably will have a lot less time for the things you love right now.

(Joel Beasley at 00:25:15) A hundred percent. I want to talk about some tactical, practical stuff for these people who feel like there's a pull for something more. So there's a runway excuse that's just financial. Is that right?

(Ben Fox at 00:25:28) It's ethereal for people. I can't leave. I've got the kids' education and the house and paying off some debt. So what I do with those folks, and I do this with most people I work with is, alright, let's take a look. And I built a simple spreadsheet where they input every asset they have, all of their major monthly expenses, and we see how many months or years do you actually have if you were to get fired today. And the funny thing when I've done this, Joel, I've had more than one person tell me, you know what? Especially people who are in two income households. If I got fired right now, I could actually retire. I just have to change some things and maybe spend a little bit less, but I'd be fine for the rest of my life.

(Ben Fox at 00:26:27) Mind boggling. I'm like, you've done it then. There's a whole genre of podcasts of FIRE, financially independent, retire early. There are people who go for that goal and you have it and you feel like you can't leave? Strange.

(Joel Beasley at 00:26:46) I live five minutes from the Dave Ramsey company. Yeah. There you go. They're everywhere in our city.

(Ben Fox at 00:26:55) You're outside of Nashville?

(Joel Beasley at 00:26:56) Yeah. Yeah. Franklin area. Yeah. I'm literally like two miles from Dave Ramsey's place. I see it every time I get on the interstate.

(Ben Fox at 00:27:06) Wow. I'm gonna see it next Tuesday. I'm actually going to Franklin.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:10) Oh, are you really?

(Ben Fox at 00:27:11) From Tuesday to Friday.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:12) What are you doing down here?

(Ben Fox at 00:27:14) I'm part of a mastermind group. It's through this program called Podcast Profit Accelerator run by Dustin Riechmann, learning about how do you use being a podcast guest or host to actually build your business and be able to talk about what you do. I'm part of the mastermind group. We meet twice a year in person. This meeting next week, Tuesday through Friday, is gonna be right by you in Franklin.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:47) Nice. Is that where the guy—the main guy is? Who—what did you say his name was?

(Ben Fox at 00:27:52) Dustin Riechmann. I don't know why—this is not the first time they've chosen Franklin. He's actually based in the Saint Louis area, but they've been there previously. Oh, it's a great spot.

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:06) Yeah. Yeah. Well, welcome to the neighborhood. Thank you. What's the Goldilocks exercise?

(Ben Fox at 00:28:15) Yeah. I like being really direct with people as well and maybe throw them off a little bit. Some of my posts on LinkedIn are about you need to quit. That's gonna be the quickest way to get what you actually want is leaving. It's like the relationship thing.

(Ben Fox at 00:28:35) Leave him. Leave him. He's toxic. Everyone's like, yep. But when it comes to their job, they're like, no, but you need the next job. You need the next person lined up. It's like it's not the same thing, but it's similar when you have financial stability. So what I do with folks is what I call the Goldilocks exercise, and I have them choose three dates that are potential quit dates.

(Ben Fox at 00:29:02) One is too far in advance. Like, man, if I'm here a year from now, I'm gonna be—I'm gonna be dead. I can't do it. Okay. Okay.

(Ben Fox at 00:29:13) It's probably not a year from now. Too soon. It's like, oh, I can't quit in the next two months. I got these payments. I got these things I gotta work on.

(Ben Fox at 00:29:23) I'm at this level. I actually wanna give the company time to deal with the fact that I'm leaving. And then the just right. And this is the scariest one where it's like, if I could leave—it's September now. If I could leave by the end of the year, that would be amazing. I'm like, great.

(Ben Fox at 00:29:42) Tell me the quit date then. Like, 12/31/2026, I will be done with my job. And you can see the relief flood their face. They're lighter.

(Ben Fox at 00:29:56) They're excited, and it's like their brain just gained 20% more space.

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:01) This made me feel good today because I'm getting a lot of really valuable content that I haven't heard before. A lot of times I do these, and it's like, yeah, you get the same thing, but with a slight spin. I have never heard the Goldilocks exercise before. I think that is—that's one of my favorite things.

(Ben Fox at 00:30:19) Thank you. I mean, part of me reaching out to you in particular was seeing that you serve a very similar audience to me, but I didn't see a ton of content. Granted, I haven't looked through the ten years of episodes you have, but what I could see, I was like, I don't think there's anyone quite like me talking about these really important things about people's relationship to their work and career. And I think, especially in this moment of AI dominance, it's becoming even more important where people are just miserable. And I'm like, you could create a company now.

(Ben Fox at 00:31:01) As you said when we were just chatting, something that took you six months can take you six hours.

(Joel Beasley at 00:31:09) Oh, yeah. That was before we hit record, but yeah, we were talking about building—you can build stuff so fast it's ridiculous. Yeah. You've inspired me. I was actually just before this conversation, I was thinking about—so in the past two weeks, what I've done is I've come off WordPress, built my own custom app for the Modern CTO site, put all the episodes in there, transcribed all the episodes in there, and then I'm starting to build this concept in the next week or two of playlists.

(Joel Beasley at 00:31:40) So people could come and they'd be like, where are you at right now? It's like I'm dealing with burnout. Boom. And then there's a playlist of four episodes, put the Ben Fox episode on there, and they can listen through. But other than the episodes, the AI actually is context aware of the transcripts for each episode, and it's pulling out its own summary of information and then citing the episodes.

(Joel Beasley at 00:32:00) So I was trying to figure out over the past two or three weeks, how do I take this massive library of content and actually make it more applicable? Because right now, Ben, you're right. If you go to my site, you see the last 10 episodes, but that's it. That's like—oh, yeah. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:32:16) So we'll—you inspired me. I'll have to do it now and then we'll put you on the dealing with burnout. We'll talk later about what playlist it should be called or something like that.

(Ben Fox at 00:32:27) Thank you.

(Joel Beasley at 00:32:28) This is good. Let's share a couple real stories. Did we already share Mike's story? Have we already talked about that one? No. No. No. Okay. Let's share Mike's story.

(Ben Fox at 00:32:36) I love Mike. He's one of my favorite people I've worked with and we still meet every six weeks or so just to see what's going on. So I found Mike last April and he had quit his job at the New York Times as a principal engineer three weeks prior. Mike had been there for about seven years. He's been an engineer for twenty-five years.

(Ben Fox at 00:33:06) He's a seasoned vet. Dude knows his stuff. And when I met him and we started working together, he had this, what I call the generic job search way of thinking about getting to a next step. Gonna apply to a bunch of jobs that feel right, talk to my network, try to get referrals, update the LinkedIn resume. Boom.

(Ben Fox at 00:33:30) I'm gonna get there. And I told him with caution, this probably won't get you where you actually wanna go. He's like, yeah. I don't even know where I wanna go. Had gotten to a final round interview.

(Ben Fox at 00:33:44) He's like, I don't even know if I want this, if I get it. I'm like, okay. This is where we take a step back and get some clarity about what intrinsically motivates you. Back when you were in college in the lab with a bunch of your buddies and building things, what lit up your face with joy? What was that about?

(Ben Fox at 00:34:06) And what are the threads from the past two really big jobs that you had, IBM and New York Times, where you saw yourself living like that? And what he got clear on was that he's an infrastructure enthusiast. This is a phrase we came up with that he's coined for himself now. He loves building out the infrastructure across the company and having the autonomy and the trust of maybe the CTO or VP of engineering to do that because he's so smart. He's the guy on the ground.

(Ben Fox at 00:34:41) He's the guy you want on the ground doing this. And he realized in the last few years at the New York Times, he wasn't able to do that. He was being blindsided, being told no when he knew things would work better if they just listened to him. We also figured out that he has two young kids. He wanted time to drop them off, pick them up from school.

(Ben Fox at 00:35:11) Summer is where he could be with them and not be like, oh, I have a meeting. I can't pick up my kid from the bus stop. He's like, no. I'm too deep into my career to have that happen. So instead of just, okay, keep on applying and talking to people and hope for a job, let's get clear on the type of places you wanna be at, and let's start talking to people that are from your twenty-five years of experience.

(Ben Fox at 00:35:36) And also learn how to cold outreach people that you're like, I love what this person—I love what Joel is doing. I need to talk to him. And through that process, he ended up talking to a guy he had worked with for a few years, and this guy was a few years into creating his own startup. And it was going pretty well. As the talks progressed, Mike was like, I should create an LLC, make myself CTO.

(Ben Fox at 00:36:06) He did that. And only in the past month and a half did they finalize okay, Mike is the CTO of this company now, and it's a mission he cares about. It's someone that he really likes to work with, and he's got in the agreement that he can be fractional. He can work with other companies if there's no conflict of interest and conflict of time, and he has another client on the side, and he's building this business, and he's being a dad.

(Ben Fox at 00:36:41) He's going to the PTA meetings. He's being a great husband. He's making good money, and it's all because he got clear on what he wanted and had some type of system that I could walk him through to actualize it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:36:56) I love that. The Ben Fox method. Have you designed more stuff like that? Do you have methods? You got the Goldilocks thing. That's amazing. Do you have other things like that?

(Ben Fox at 00:37:06) It's part of a larger framework.

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:08) Okay. He got some stuff.

(Ben Fox at 00:37:09) Oh, yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:10) Yeah. What's a typical engagement look like with you?

(Ben Fox at 00:37:15) Four months. We talk weekly for an hour. That's it. That's simple. Very simple.

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:22) People that want to learn more, where do they go?

(Ben Fox at 00:37:24) BenFoxCoaching.com, or you can find me on LinkedIn.

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:28) Do you have the domain What the Fox?

(Ben Fox at 00:37:32) I don't, but whoever does could probably sell it for me. That's not me.

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:39) That's not you?

(Ben Fox at 00:37:40) No. But, you know, I like the literalness, so that's why I did Ben Fox Coaching. That's so easy to remember. I'm like, that's literally what it is. It's my company. You won't forget.

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:52) You recently posted about senior engineers feeling reduced to LLM prompters. Go.

(Ben Fox at 00:38:01) And that is a quote pulled directly from a client conversation. Someone who's been in the field for ten years, senior engineer, being forced to do work that is way beneath him. The craft of coding completely out the door. And it's creating a malaise where people—and I've talked to multiple people who feel this way—are looking for the exit. They're like, I don't want to do this. I didn't get into engineering so I could talk to different LLMs and have them talk to each other and just make sure they're not messing everything up. I got into it because I actually like building things and solving problems. And the companies that are like, no, just more tokens, keep going. We're going to cut some people because we don't need them. You're shooting yourself in the foot. These people are going to leave. This company is going to be in danger of folding in the next five years. These companies are also not hiring any junior talent. And it's like, who are you going to get to run the show in five, ten years from now? They're not going to be working for you because everyone's heard that it's miserable to just be prompting LLMs.

(Joel Beasley at 00:39:30) I could see that. I could see how people—think about construction workers. I mean, there's some dudes out there that when they were digging those ditches with shovels, they loved the feel and the angle, and they would do it the most efficient way, and it was this craft. Then you invent the excavator and it's just done. You press the button, done. A joystick, done. And that craft of that small act is gone. I get it. That's a real thing.

(Ben Fox at 00:40:02) I mean, I don't know if you've seen this a ton, but I know so many people—this is a slight tangent but related—so many people that want record players or have record players and records. People want the physical item. They want to touch and feel. They want the good sound. They want the craft. And I think when you take that out of someone's working environment, when it was there just a few years ago, they feel like they've signed up for a completely different job. This isn't what I've been doing. And yes, we're in this transitional moment. I don't think AI is going to stop being used by these companies, but I think how it gets used, and how the craft of being an engineer—it's changing. But the companies that can get the most out of their employees because they see that people are having this malaise with just prompting LLMs, those are going to be the companies that have a loyal workforce because they're having people do things that they care about.

(Joel Beasley at 00:41:18) I think it's important to acknowledge that it is different. This craft is changing. And the fun thing for me about it is, you know, I've watched and talked—I interview people at all ages, right, in all experiences. It happens every generation where the people who are programming in the most basic programming languages at the lowest level, bare to the metal, right, then every abstraction layer almost breeds some sort of resentment towards the next generation having it easy. It's a weird thing that happens, but it happens so many stacks in the technology. But I had never really lived through it until this, I've never seen it as a mature adult until this moment right now. Because I'm sure it was happening when I was in my twenties, but I couldn't see it. But it's now happening, and I can see it, and I can say, oh, well, this is so great. Because if you're feeling that way, if you've got this confusion, that's normal, first of all. Second of all, historically, it was coming. And then this is how you can deal with it. This is how you can leverage it. Because now when you're sitting there and you don't have the choice and it's just happening to you, that's real scary. But once you can name it, once you can say, okay, this is what the craft here is changing, and historically, here are my options. I can either choose to fall in love and try to master this newer craft of the agent orchestration and the outcomes with the agents. Or I can make a choice to go find another craft that I like. But at least you know that the drive that you have is towards a craft, and then you get to choose which. You could still go dig a ditch, Ben. You could still go grab a shovel and dig a ditch.

(Ben Fox at 00:43:09) You could. And I—

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:10) If that's what you want.

(Ben Fox at 00:43:12) I have worked with a software engineer that was trying out farming.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:16) There you go.

(Ben Fox at 00:43:17) So, yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:19) Yeah.

(Ben Fox at 00:43:20) One of the things I loved working at the coding boot camp, starting my career with software engineers, working with software engineers, was that it was implicit that the things you're learning now, the JavaScript of it all, the very elemental stuff, is going to change. You're going to have to learn new things. But that's the point. You're getting into this career path because you're an expert problem solver. And if you actually love it, won't you be curious about the new technology? Won't you be curious about—I remember Web3 was becoming really popular, and people were learning Rust and really getting into it. I'm like, you're going to do great because you just care enough about this craft and this field to learn the newness as it's coming up. And maybe you felt threatened for a moment, but you're like, ah, let me learn it. What could I do with it? So when you told me about, you know, building something today that could have taken you six months, I'm like, that's a real engineer to me. That's someone who really cares about it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:30) Look, there's always the people that are nostalgic, but it's always to a certain degree. For example, you wouldn't call me old school if I was like, look, you have to walk across the country to have the meeting. No airplanes, no cars. You got to do it organically, you know. You're like, you're a moron. Buy an airplane ticket. Why would you not use the most advanced technology available to you to achieve the outcome? The only reason why is because you just don't have that view and understanding yet of that it's about achieving the outcome. You get to choose it, and then you get to leverage everything on your path towards that outcome.

(Ben Fox at 00:45:05) Mhmm.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:06) Which, you know, Jordan Peterson helped me with that a lot. I went to one of his talks, and he said—essentially I'm paraphrasing—once your why is big enough, once—right now, this is a bottle of water as an object. But if I have a really strong why, somehow now this bottle orients in its path towards my objective, you know. If I have this money sitting there and I don't have anything, it's just kind of sitting there and I'm just kind of doing things. But if I've got this very specific—I'm going out to achieve this—now that becomes fueled towards helping me achieve this outcome. And so, for me, that mindset I learned from watching him give a live talk here in Nashville, and I was like, I know he's politically charged and people, whatever. I don't care. I just cared about his advice to humans developing, and I was like, that's really good.

(Ben Fox at 00:45:56) Yeah. Solid advice.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:58) What's your goal right now? What are you running towards? What are you choosing to let kill you?

(Ben Fox at 00:46:04) Nothing. No. I'm just under a year and a half back into my own business full time. So it still feels kind of early stages. I'm a solopreneur. I'm doing all of it. And I just want—I think I'm laying the foundation for a business that has some real legs to help a lot of people love what they're doing again. So I've done it a lot for other people, other companies, and to be able to do it for myself—my dad's an entrepreneur. Coming from that type of creative entrepreneurial household is a dream of mine that I feel like I'm actualizing. And entrepreneurship is like, well, everything's amazing. Oh my god. This sucks. What am I doing? So I'm riding those waves essentially right now.

(Joel Beasley at 00:47:02) Welcome to the club, man.

(Ben Fox at 00:47:04) Thank you. It's good to have you. It's great to be here.

(Joel Beasley at 00:47:05) Best way to describe it, Elon Musk is like staring into the abyss and eating glass. So we're here.

(Ben Fox at 00:47:14) We're here eating some glass, and we're all good. It's not so bad. Glass is technically stardust. So it's kind of—there's some positives.

(Joel Beasley at 00:47:19) Don't eat glass after here. Please don't. Oh, man. This is fun. This is good. So you were doing this—you've been doing this for a while, but you were doing it for other companies. It's like a consultant type deal or what?

(Ben Fox at 00:47:36) I became a coach at 25.

(Joel Beasley at 00:47:40) How old are you now?

(Ben Fox at 00:47:41) 36. So I tried to do it on my own for a few years and build a business, but I was really good at the coaching piece and had no idea what I was doing as far as building a business. So around 2018, 2019, my then girlfriend was like, you need a job.

(Joel Beasley at 00:48:01) I was like, oh, no. I'll take a Goldilocks state. I'll get a job.

(Ben Fox at 00:48:07) Yeah. Reverse. Today. Yeah. And that's when I got the job at the first coding boot camp. And I was like, okay, this is great.

(Joel Beasley at 00:48:14) All right. And did that. Then you went to another company where you learned about the meds, and then you decided to go out on your own again.

(Ben Fox at 00:48:20) Yeah. When I left a startup in 2022, I was like, I don't know what's next. I don't have a job lined up. I'm interviewing for one role as a contractor, but it can't just be that. But I left because I was so miserable at that company and was a contractor, a freelancer for two different companies for about two and a half years. And by the end of 2024, I had this kind of revelation on my roof where it's like, wow. There's so many people who are so miserable, and I could really help them. And I don't have to split the profit with these companies or get a fraction of the profit. I could actually rebuild my coaching business. Oh my god. I need to rebuild my coaching business. And then I set some quick dates for myself for those two roles, started telling people I was back in business, and by last June, I was back in entrepreneurship full time.

(Joel Beasley at 00:49:23) Awesome, man. That's great. People that want to reach out to you, they're like, hey, you got two core customer bases. One, toxic place. Help me out. Help me get out of here. Two, I feel the pull to something more with my career. You helped those two people. Where do they go to connect with you?

(Ben Fox at 00:49:43) Yeah. Check me out on BenFoxCoaching.com. If you feel compelled to have a conversation with me, you can just sign up at the top of my website for a free hour-long call or connect with me on LinkedIn. I post about this almost every day, stories with clients, things I'm thinking about, and we could take it from there.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:04) That is amazing. Ben, we did it. We made a podcast. How do you feel?

(Ben Fox at 00:50:08) I feel a little sweaty and pretty happy. Now I feel good. Thank you.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:15) Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or a colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you'd like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email, [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.