I just saw _Boyhood_ over the weekend (fantastic movie, btw), and there was a scene in there that sums up my approach to socialization. The main character is talking to his dad about how he kinda has a girlfriend but it's awkward because when they're at school they've got a ton to talk about, but when they're on the phone at home they're completely different.
The dad drops this little bit of thought-technology his way (and apologies for the mangling of the quote):
"Here's what you do, alright? First off, you gotta ask her a lot of questions. Then you have to listen to the answers, alright? Actually be INTERESTED in her, alright? If you can do those things, you'll be LIGHT YEARS ahead of those other guys."
Ask a lot of questions and be interested in the answers - that'll go a really long way. Remember, everyone's got a story and I think everyone (in some way, shape or form) wants to tell it.
Also, practice socializing. This stuff comes really naturally to some folks and really NOT naturally to others. If you're in the latter camp, practice like you'd practice anything else you want to get good at. One of the local user groups I frequent has what it calls 'socialization practice' after each meetup. It's just everyone heading to a pub and hanging out, but it's a pretty good way to get to know people and practice some of these softer skills.
I'm no Don Juan, but I have one tip: Don't ask "what" or "where" questions as these can usually be answered in a single word or sentence. Ask why. "Why did you move to Austin?" "Why did you become a vet?" "What" will give you a fact, "Why" will give you understanding.
This is pretty spot on. My view is that everyone has a cool story. Something they have done, somewhere they have been, something they know or something they are thinking that is really cool. I set a goal for myself to ask the questions that will uncover this one cool thing about them. It is pretty fascinating to see someone's eyes light up when you lead the conversation towards something they really care about. Makes every conversation an adventure.
We are a fast-growing, profitable startup building powerful social media analytics software. Every day our systems process more than 130 million social events and deliver analytics for thousands of paying customers.
We have two open engineering positions:
* Data Engineer (Austin, TX)
We need an engineer who wants nothing more than to wrangle massive amounts of data. Do you love to build on top of open source technologies like Hadoop and Cassandra using hundreds of servers? Do you enjoy working in a polyglot environment with plenty of variety? If you're passionate about building the infrastructure to process, analyze, and store hundreds of millions of events every day, then we want to talk to you.
What you'd be doing:
- Implement stream processing pipelines to handle hundreds of millions of messages and events daily with Java and Ruby
- Use open source tools and data stores to analyze and store billions of data points
- Build workflows to make data accessible to end users
* Apprentice Data Engineer (Austin, TX)
Would you love to do the above but feel like maybe you don't have the necessary experience? Maybe you're a recent grad that wants to work on distributed systems, or maybe you've got a strong programming background but have never had the chance to work on high volume stream processing problems, or maybe you're something completely different. Bottom line: if you're interested in learning how to build the kinds of tools we use to process and analyze data, we'd love to talk to you.
We are a fast-growing, profitable startup building powerful social media analytics software. Every day our systems process more than 130 million social events and deliver analytics for thousands of paying customers.
We have one open engineering position:
* Data Engineer (Austin, TX)
We need an engineer who wants nothing more than to wrangle massive amounts of data. Do you love to build on top of open source technologies like Hadoop and Cassandra using hundreds of servers? Do you enjoy working in a polyglot environment with plenty of variety? If you're passionate about building the infrastructure to process, analyze, and store hundreds of millions of events every day, then we want to talk to you.
Responsibilities:
* Implement stream processing pipelines to handle hundreds of millions of messages and events daily with Java and Ruby
* Use open source tools and data stores to analyze and store billions of data points
* Build workflows to make data accessible to end users
We are a fast-growing, profitable startup building powerful social media analytics software. Every day our systems process more than 130 million social events and deliver analytics for thousands of paying customers.
We have three open engineering positions:
* Data Engineer (Austin, TX)
We need an engineer who wants nothing more than to wrangle massive amounts of data. Do you love to build on top of open source technologies like Hadoop and Cassandra using hundreds of servers? Do you enjoy working in a polyglot environment with plenty of variety? If you're passionate about building the infrastructure to process, analyze, and store hundreds of millions of events every day, then we want to talk to you.
Responsibilities:
* Implement stream processing pipelines to handle hundreds millions of messages and events daily with Java and Ruby
* Use open source tools and data stores to analyze and store billions of data points
* Build workflows to make data accessible to end users
We are a fast-growing, profitable startup building powerful social media analytics software. Every day our systems process more than 130 million social events and deliver analytics for thousands of paying customers.
We have three open engineering positions:
* Data Engineer (Austin, TX)
We need an engineer who wants nothing more than to wrangle massive amounts of data. Do you love to build on top of open source technologies like Hadoop and Cassandra using hundreds of servers? Do you enjoy working in a polyglot environment with plenty of variety? If you're passionate about building the infrastructure to process, analyze, and store hundreds of millions of events every day, then we want to talk to you.
Responsibilities:
* Implement stream processing pipelines to handle hundreds millions of messages and events daily with Java and Ruby
* Use open source tools and data stores to analyze and store billions of data points
* Build workflows to make data accessible to end users
* Full Stack Ruby (& Rails) Engineer (Austin, TX)
We're looking for an experienced Ruby (and Rails) engineer who's passionate about the craft of building software. If you're interested in working with a small team of engineers to build software that not only scales but delivers an amazing user experience, then we'd love to talk to you.
Responsibilities:
* Implement core user-facing functionality in a Ruby on Rails application within a large service oriented architecture
* Design and build backend services and APIs
* Integrate with massive analytics systems and data stores
We are a fast-growing, profitable startup building powerful social media analytics software. Every day our systems process more than 130 million social events and deliver analytics for thousands of paying customers.
We have three open engineering positions:
* Data Engineer (Austin, TX)
We need an engineer who wants nothing more than to wrangle massive amounts of data. Do you love to build on top of open source technologies like Hadoop and Cassandra using hundreds of servers? Do you enjoy working in a polyglot environment with plenty of variety? If you're passionate about building the infrastructure to process, analyze, and store hundreds of millions of events every day, then we want to talk to you.
Responsibilities:
* Implement stream processing pipelines to handle hundreds millions of messages and events daily with Java and Ruby
* Use open source tools and data stores to analyze and store billions of data points
* Build workflows to make data accessible to end users
* Full Stack Ruby (& Rails) Engineer (Austin, TX)
We're looking for an experienced Ruby (and Rails) engineer who's passionate about the craft of building software. If you're interested in working with a small team of engineers to build software that not only scales but delivers an amazing user experience, then we'd love to talk to you.
Responsibilities:
* Implement core user-facing functionality in a Ruby on Rails application within a large service oriented architecture
* Design and build backend services and APIs
* Integrate with massive analytics systems and data stores
* Support Engineer (Austin, TX)
As a Support Engineer you'll work within our engineering team and be responsible for both automating internal processes and building web-based administrative tools to improve how we run our products and help us serve our customers better.
Responsibilities:
* Work with other members of the engineering team to automate and document common administrative and technical tasks
* Coordinate with the customer and engineering teams to gather requirements for improving internal web-based administration tools
* Perform technical administrative tasks to assist the customer success team in fulfilling customer requests
The dad drops this little bit of thought-technology his way (and apologies for the mangling of the quote):
"Here's what you do, alright? First off, you gotta ask her a lot of questions. Then you have to listen to the answers, alright? Actually be INTERESTED in her, alright? If you can do those things, you'll be LIGHT YEARS ahead of those other guys."
Ask a lot of questions and be interested in the answers - that'll go a really long way. Remember, everyone's got a story and I think everyone (in some way, shape or form) wants to tell it.
Also, practice socializing. This stuff comes really naturally to some folks and really NOT naturally to others. If you're in the latter camp, practice like you'd practice anything else you want to get good at. One of the local user groups I frequent has what it calls 'socialization practice' after each meetup. It's just everyone heading to a pub and hanging out, but it's a pretty good way to get to know people and practice some of these softer skills.
Best of luck - you can do it :).