Michael Paulson, aka The Primeagen, is known for his live streams, crazy memes, and unpopular opinions on Twitter. But he is also a software engineer with over a decade of experience in a legacy C++ codebase. Juggling engineering with any other hobby is difficult, so how does he make it work?
The Primeagen, a software engineer at Netflix, is committed to content creation and passionate about encouraging aspiring developers to get out of “tutorial hell” and start building. He wakes up at 5:30 every morning to make time for family, work, and content creation, but even the most dedicated developers hit roadblocks throughout their careers. The Primeagen’s latest challenge is figuring out how to grow his channel and turn content creation into a sustainable full-time role.
In this episode, The Primeagen talks to Robbie and Chuck about his strict policies for working in a large legacy code base, the challenges of being a content creator, and his plans to create a new Frontend Master course.

Key Takeaways

[01:22] - Introduction to The Primeagen.

[05:40] - A whiskey review - Nelson Brother Reserve Bourbon.

[13:35] - How to choose between Git rebase versus Git merge.

[26:11] - How universities are producing equipt programmers.

[36:07] - The Primeagen’s future plans and the challenges associated with growth.

[50:20] - The Primeagen’s hobbies besides coding.

[54:52] - Why The Primeagen moved to South Dakota. 


Quotes
[04:50] - “Programming is not supposed to be difficult because you don’t know what you’re doing. Programming is supposed to be difficult because you're building something hard.” ~ The Primeagen
[23:14] - “The web in the next three years is going to arrive at a crossroad where more than one thing can happen. We can all get a chance to use something that is less traditional. Once those things start happening, it just opens the door for everything to execute. The next big revolution is coming.” ~ The Primeagen
[43:20] - “I'm making a thing that I'm pouring my heart into, I hope people like, and then when people don't watch, oh that hurts.” ~ The Primeagen

Links

The Primeagen YouTube

The Primeagen Twitter

The Primeagen Twitch

The Primeagen Instagram

Rick and Morty

Matt Pocock

Vim

Twitch 

YouTube

TypeScript

Beasts of No Nation

Netflix

Lilyhammer

Nelson Brothers Reserve Bourbon

Green Brier Distillery

Jack Daniel’s 

Blanton’s Bourbon

Buffalo Trace Distillery 

Prettier

Rust

Web Assembly

PHP

Astro

React

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Dreamweaver

NetBeans

jQuery

Frontend Masters

Tailwind

Material UI

Bem

George Carlin

Dave Chappelle

The Chappelle Show

Brian Regan

Trash Dev Twitter

National Geographic

Pzuraq 

StarCraft 

Logitech Lift 

Super Nintendo

Ember

Kinesis Advantage 360

Dvorak Keyboard

Roblox

Fortnite

Apex Legends

Evil Dead 2

Superbowl LVII

Philadelphia Eagles

Kansas City Chiefs

Phoenix Suns

Army of Darkness

Play Station

RxJS

Vita

Wii U

Sagamore Rye Whiskey


Connect with our hosts

Robbie Wagner

Chuck Carpenter

Ship Shape


Subscribe and stay in touch

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Google Podcasts

Whiskey Web and Whatnot


Top-Tier, Full-Stack Software Consultants
This show is brought to you by Ship Shape. Ship Shape’s software consultants solve complex software and app development problems with top-tier coding expertise, superior service, and speed. In a sea of choices, our senior-level development crew rises above the rest by delivering the best solutions for fintech, cybersecurity, and other fast-growing industries. Check us out at shipshape.io.