“Do not start a job search by looking for jobs. Start a job search by understanding at a deeper level who you are, what you value, how you like to work, and what are you solving for." Andre Martin is an organizational psychologist and the author of “Wrong Fit, Right Fit”. In this episode, he shared the importance of finding the right fit company for us in our work. Andre used the analogy of writing with a non-dominant hand to explain working in a wrong fit company. He shared some of the common m...
Aug 28, 2023•52 min•Ep. 146
“Lifestyle engineering is about taking the idea we have within us to create a different reality in our own lives. It’s amazing what’s possible when you get in the driver’s seat and engineer your lifestyle." Zachary White is a career coach for engineering leadership and the host of the Happy Engineer Podcast. In this episode, Zach shared how engineers can become happier in their work and life through the lifestyle engineering approach. He discussed what lifestyle engineering entails, such as debu...
Aug 21, 2023•58 min•Ep. 145
“The goal is not Agile. The goal is not DevOps. The goal is not Cloud. The goal is value, time to value, safety, happiness, and quality." Jonathan Smart and Simon Rohrer are the co-authors of “Sooner Safer Happier”. In this episode, Jon and Simon shared how we can deliver better outcomes in a more humane way of working, by delivering better value sooner, safer, and happier. They shared several principles, patterns, and anti-patterns described in the book, such as focusing on outcomes, the leader...
Aug 14, 2023•49 min•Ep. 144
“Think about delegation as more of a coaching mindset instead of the doer mentality. It’s not about looking at the immediate task at hand, it’s about teaching that to others." Akanksha Gupta is the author of “Think Like a Software Engineering Manager”. In this episode, Akanksha described the role of an engineering manager and the key traits of being a good engineering manager. She gave advice on how one can transition to the EM role and talked about the difference between an engineering manageme...
Jul 31, 2023•51 min•Ep. 143
“To build trust, you need to do the right thing, do the best you can, and show people you care. And when you do that, it builds commitment. Trust and commitment are how teams do best and win the most." Michael Foss is a leadership coach and the founder of CoachFoss LLC. In this episode, we discussed the power of leadership principles and positive leadership. Michael started by sharing the important principle of building trust and creating a shared commitment with the people we work with. He then...
Jul 24, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 142
“You should never do something just because the auditors want you to do it. They should be able to explain the risk and controls in accordance with your risk appetite and tolerance." Clarissa Lucas is an audit and risk management leader and the author of “Beyond Agile Auditing”. In this episode, Clarissa shared a novel approach to internal auditing called auditing with agility. She shared this concept at the DevOps Enterprise Summit 2022, which drew some parallels to the revolutionary birth of t...
Jul 17, 2023•52 min•Ep. 141
“It’s so important to start with a problem and make sure you understand it is a big market. Many tech founding teams end up building a technology that is still in search of a problem." Jothy Rosenberg is a serial entrepreneur who has founded 9 startups with exits of over $100 million. He is the author of an upcoming book “Think Like a Tech Founder: Anecdotes of an Incorrigible Entrepreneur”. In this episode, Jothy shared his valuable lessons learned on founding and managing a startup, such as wh...
Jul 10, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 140
“An effective developer is an effective software tester. As a developer, it’s your responsibility to make sure what you do works. And automated testing is such an easy and cheap way of doing it." Mauricio Aniche is the author of “Effective Software Testing”. In this episode, Mauricio explained how to become a more effective software developer by using effective and systematic software testing approaches. We discussed several such testing techniques, such as testing pyramid, specification-based t...
Jul 03, 2023•55 min•Ep. 139
“Building an application security program is about ensuring security is built into the software development lifecycle and how to respond to vulnerabilities." Derek Fisher is the author of “Application Security Program Handbook”. In this episode, Derek shared about building an application security program and how to implement it in our organization. First, we discussed some security fundamental concepts, such as shift-left, CIA triad, and threat modeling. Derek then outlined how to start an appli...
Jun 26, 2023•50 min•Ep. 138
“It’s not about the tools or processes. Most important is you understand the target outcomes for your customers and establish the right level of shared situational awareness across the teams." Robert Benefield is the author of “Lean DevOps: A Practical Guide to On Demand Service Delivery”. In this episode, Robert shared insights on how we can apply the Lean DevOps mindset for building successful IT delivery organizations. Robert started by sharing what initiated him writing the book and how it d...
Jun 19, 2023•57 min•Ep. 137
“Privacy is about handling data in a way that builds for both compliance and trust, maturity and transparency." Nishant Bhajaria is cybersecurity and data privacy executive and the author of “Data Privacy: A Runbook for Engineers”. In this episode, we discussed the importance of data privacy and privacy engineering. Nishant described his definition of data privacy and why it is becoming a key concern for users, companies, and regulators. He explained why doing data privacy is hard and how compan...
Jun 05, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 136
“Spend some time looking at the system in which you work. Understand how the work is working. Understand how flow is for your organization. And then you can work to optimize that." James Lewis is a Director at ThoughtWorks and a pioneer of microservice architecture. In this episode, we went back memory lane to the time when James first coined and popularized the microservice architecture. James described his definition of a microservice and its important characteristics. He also shared the recen...
May 29, 2023•58 min•Ep. 135
“The three core dimensions of developer experience are feedback loops, cognitive load, and flow state." Margaret-Anne (Peggy) Storey and Abi Noda are the coauthors of the recently published ACM paper “DevEx: What Actually Drives Productivity”. In this episode, we discussed how we can better measure and improve developer productivity using a developer-centric approach. Peggy and Abi first began by explaining the importance of socio-technical factors in software development. They also shared their...
May 22, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 134
“The goal of requirements development is clear and effective communication. Thus, it has to be done in an incremental and iterative fashion." Karl Wiegers is the coauthor of “Software Requirements Essentials” and has previously appeared in our episode #103. In this episode, we discussed 6 essential practices for software requirements out of the 20 core practices specified in his book. Karl also explained the importance of having a clear and effective communication in developing software requirem...
May 15, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 133
“Speak about topics you are passionate about, because if you are passionate about something, you can easily find the story and the motivation that will lead you to success." Oscar Santolalla is the author of “Rock the Tech Stage” and the host of the “Time to Shine” podcast. In this episode, we discussed techniques on how to deliver a successful tech presentation and demo. Oscar broke down the elements of a successful tech presentation, in particular, explaining in-depth the three essential eleme...
May 08, 2023•49 min•Ep. 132
“The notion of transaction, consistency, and ACID compliance are many times tech imposed. It should be the business that makes the decision. We as technologists should not make that decision." Pramod Sadalage is a Director at ThoughtWorks and the co-author of the Jolt Award winning “Refactoring Databases”. In this episode, we discussed data essentials in software architecture. Pramod started by explaining why dealing with data is hard in software architecture and some data related concerns we sh...
May 01, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 131
“Understand the stage of your company and the kind of risks you face at that stage, make decisions that are appropriate, and remind other people about that all the time." Sarah Milstein is the VP of Engineering at Daily and has run remote teams for 25 years. In this episode, Sarah started by sharing some remote work insights we may not have heard before, such as why remote distributed teams often have higher propensity of trust, how remote work could help make difficult conversations easier, and...
Apr 24, 2023•51 min•Ep. 130
“The difference of why some companies are so much more successful at producing high value, high-impact products than others comes to 4 areas of GIST (Goals, Ideas, Steps, Tasks)." Itamar Gilad is a coach and author with over 20 years of experience in product management, strategy, and growth, and was previously a product manager at Google and the head of Gmail’s growth team. In this episode, we discussed all things about product management and how to build high-value products. Itamar first shared...
Apr 17, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 129
“The core of threshold leadership is a set of four pathways of cultivating stillness, embodying intelligence, thinking independently, and maturing consciousness." Nick Chatrath is a leadership and organizational transformation expert and the author of “The Threshold: Leading in the Age of AI”. In this episode, Nick shared the concept of threshold leadership and explained its importance in the wake of recent AI advancements. Nick first shared some impact AI has made in our lives, both the good an...
Apr 10, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 128
“3 core ideas in game thinking: super fan funnel to find the right people, loop design to create the experience people want to stick around for, and concept testing to figure out the user experience." Amy Jo Kim is a game designer, startup coach, author, and co-founder of Game Thinking. In this episode, Amy shared how we can use game thinking to build better and successful products that people want. She first described some top reasons products fail and gave a few tips to avoid product failure b...
Apr 03, 2023•56 min•Ep. 127
“The vertical altitude of the organization leaders sets the ceiling for how effective the organization can be." Ryan Gottfredson is a leadership development researcher and a Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-selling author of “The Elevated Leader”. In this episode, Ryan explained the concept of an elevated leader and why it is important to have elevated leaders in an organization. He described the role of vertical development in elevating leadership and how it differs from the horizontal de...
Mar 27, 2023•57 min•Ep. 126
“A good API doesn’t expose the internal data models or internal logic too much. And the more your clients are not under your control, the less you want to do that." Daniel Luebke is a software architect and the co-author of “Patterns for API Design”. In this episode, we discussed some API design patterns and best practices taken from his book. Daniel first shared the importance of understanding domain requirements for building APIs and several API and message best practices, such as API first de...
Mar 20, 2023•50 min•Ep. 125
“The business technology divide was apparent in many companies. The idea of the value flywheel effect is to join the business and technology goals and create this flywheel effect momentum." David Anderson is the author of “The Value Flywheel Effect” and the co-creator of The Serverless Edge. In this episode, David described the value flywheel effect concept and its four stages: clarity of purpose, challenge & landscape, next best action, and long-term value. David also explained the importan...
Mar 13, 2023•55 min•Ep. 124
“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. What people want in these traumatic moments is somebody to listen to and acknowledge them." Katharine Manning is the President of Blackbird DC and author of “The Empathetic Workplace”. In this episode, we discussed how leaders can deal with traumatic experience in the workplace. Katharine described what she means by workplace trauma and explained the impact of such trauma on employees’ performance and organizations’ producti...
Mar 06, 2023•54 min•Ep. 123
“In a world that runs on software, when we develop and deploy software, we are part of a larger system where our failures are no longer about us, they are also about other people." Kevlin Henney is a consultant, writer, and speaker on software development and has written and edited several popular books. In this episode, Kevlin shared his 3 favorite things every software engineer should know based on the two books he edited: “97 Things Every Programmer Should Know” and “97 Things Every Java Prog...
Feb 27, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 122
“Creativity at work is a type of thinking and a process of developing ourselves and our ability to create and bring novelty to our professional life." Oana Velcu-Laitinen is the author of “How to Develop Your Creative Identity at Work”. In this episode, Dr. Oana shared how we can develop our creative identity at work and in our personal life. She first started by describing the definition of creativity in her book, its relation with intelligence, and explained why creativity is important for mai...
Feb 20, 2023•53 min•Ep. 121
“Everything in software architecture is a trade-off, and the why is more important than how." Neal Ford is a Director and software architect at ThoughtWorks. In this episode, we discussed all things about software architecture covering his three most recent books: “Fundamentals of Software Architecture”, “Software Architecture: The Hard Parts”, and “Building Evolutionary Architectures”. We first discussed the definition of software architecture and how it relates to software design. Neal then de...
Feb 13, 2023•58 min•Ep. 120
“If you have self-organizing teams, your power as a leader is determined by your ability to enable others to grow and take responsibility." Ron Eringa is a leadership developer and the co-author of “The Professional Agile Leader”. In this episode, we discussed insights from his book on how one can become a professional agile leader. Ron started by sharing his view of why agile transformations usually fail and gave advice on how companies should adopt agile in a more effective way. Ron then descr...
Feb 06, 2023•51 min•Ep. 119
“When blame is our focus rather than understanding what happened, people spend as much or more energy avoiding the blame and less time to be productive, creative, and energetic." Diana Larsen is the co-founder of Agile Fluency Project and co-author of the latest book “Lead Without Blame”. In this episode, we discussed insights from her book about building resilient learning teams by moving away from blaming culture. Diana first described the definition of blame and its characteristics, and expla...
Jan 30, 2023•57 min•Ep. 118
“The strength of SRE is in the alignment of operational concerns between the product management, product development, and product operations." Dr. Vladyslav Ukis is the Head of R&D at Siemens Healthineers and author of “Establishing SRE Foundations”. In this episode, Dr. Vlad shared insights on how to establish SRE foundations from scratch based on his firsthand experience at Siemens Healthineers and the concepts described in his book. We started by discussing the basic SRE concept and how i...
Jan 23, 2023•54 min•Ep. 117
