WhoBuilt

Jarvis Johnson

engineer at Yelp

Software engineer, manager, and YouTube creator discussing his career and creative work.

Key facts

Roles
Yelp, engineer
Google, intern
Previously
By the numbers
YouTube, channel grew to 300,000 or 400,000 subscribers over about a month

Career

  1. Yelpcurrent
    engineer
  2. Googlecurrent
    intern
  3. Yelppast

Timeline 5

Dated events, newest first. Open the sources under any item.

How we verify
Career4Metric1
20195 events
  1. reported 2019-05Metric
    channel grew to 300,000 or 400,000 subscribers over about a month
    channel grew to 300,000 or 400,000 subscribers over about a month
    “having 300 or 400 thousand subscribers—not overnight, but over a month, basically” 25:13
    Unverified2 sources· Talk
  2. reported 2019-05Career
    Jarvis Johnson previously at Patreon
    “I was thinking about potentially doing YouTube more full-time” 28:51
    Unverified1 source· Talk
    +2 more roles on the full timeline
  3. reported 2019-05Career
    Jarvis Johnson is engineer at Yelp
    “I had such good mentorship there that I wanted to come back full-time” 8:10
    Unverified1 source· Talk

Talks 1

1:04:22
Software Engineer Turned Youtuber

Jarvis Johnson describes his path from studying computer science at Georgia Tech to working as an engineer and manager at Google, Yelp, and Patreon, while building a YouTube channel. He explains how financial security, mentorship, and growing confidence shaped his career choices, and how juggling a job with video creation eventually led him to go independent. He draws parallels between software engineering, management, and making videos, including the value of feedback, clear creative direction, and setting up collaborators to succeed. He also discusses creators’ responsibility to their audiences and his hopes for a more supportive, less gatekeeper-driven creator economy.

May 1, 2019· 1 h 4 min 0:00