“As technology has become more and more pervasive, experience has become more and more important. And if companies don’t think of the experience, then users don’t think of the company." Satyam Kantamneni is the CEO of UXReactor and the author of “User Experience Design”. In this episode, Satyam delves into the power of user experience design to drive business growth and value. Satyam explains why user experience design is paramount for success and reveals the common gaps that prevent companies f...
Apr 01, 2024•50 min•Ep. 169
“If you can outsource it and if it’s not something that makes you different, you should use a service, because you’ll always be asked to do more things than you can build that are differentiated to your organization.” Are you ever frustrated by your software development team getting bogged down doing undifferentiated tasks, leaving less time for innovation? In this episode, Joseph Emison, co-founder and CTO of Branch Insurance and author of “Serverless as a Game Changer,” suggests how serverless...
Mar 25, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 168
“A blind spot is the gap between your intention and your impact. The more you can narrow the gap, the more you’re going to be able to be effective in your role and drive more performance." Marisa Murray is the CEO of Leaderley and the author of “Blind Spots”. In this episode, Marisa delves into blind spots and explains why leaders must uncover them to become truly effective and great. She describes a blind spot as the gap between our intention and impact, and explains how it can be difficult for...
Mar 18, 2024•53 min•Ep. 167
“Kanban is a strategy for optimizing the flow of value to your customers by focusing on three main goals: efficiency, effectiveness, and predictability." Colleen Johnson is the CEO of ProKanban, and in this episode, we delve into the fundamentals of Kanban and how you can use it to optimize your workflow. We start by defining Kanban and exploring its core principles. You’ll learn why work item age is the single most important aspect you should track in Kanban. Colleen then explains the concept o...
Mar 11, 2024•49 min•Ep. 166
“As software engineers, only a fraction of your time is spent coding. A lot of your time is spent thinking. And I’m not seeing LLMs taking that away from us anytime soon, at least, for now." Can AI help you learn to code? Will AI take your developer job? Join me discussing these topics with Leo Porter and Daniel Zingaro, the co-authors of “Learning AI-Assisted Python Programming”. In this episode, we discuss the impact of AI assistants on how we learn and approach programming, particularly for s...
Mar 04, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 165
“The number one result of a good lead is reduced technical debt. Seeing technical debt just melts away and then stops occurring in the future. If you are a good lead, your systems will be stable all the time.” Are you a developer ready to step up and lead? Join us as we explore the world of lead development with Shelley Benhoff, author of “Lead Developer Career Guide”. In this episode, Shelley sheds light on the core responsibilities of a lead developer, clarifying the distinctions between diffe...
Feb 26, 2024•46 min•Ep. 164
“The whole idea of being intentional is instead of being reactive or unintentional and just letting your life come to you, we have this opportunity to choose what we want to do and who we want to become." Are you tired of feeling uninspired and disengaged in your engineering career? If so, this episode is for you! Jeff Perry is back again for a second episode with his latest book, “The Intentional Engineer”. In this episode, Jeff uncovers the keys to building a meaningful, fulfilling career by c...
Feb 19, 2024•52 min•Ep. 163
“The People Playbook: First, be clear about your goals and communicate with massive clarity to your team what you’re trying to accomplish. Second, be brilliant at the basics." Andrew Bartlow is the co-founder of the People Leader Accelerator and the co-author of “Scaling for Success”. In this episode, Andrew discusses the common challenges faced by high-growth organizations and offers strategies for successful scaling. He emphasizes the significance of organizations creating a unique people’s pl...
Feb 12, 2024•1 hr•Ep. 162
“Why are some software developers average and some others great? After a few years, I noticed that creativity is an important aspect of problem-solving and software development.” Wouter Groeneveld is a software engineer, computer science education researcher, and the author of “The Creative Programmer”. In this episode, Wouter dives deep into what makes good engineers truly exceptional: creativity! Wouter describes his definition of creativity and shares the 7 key dimensions of a creative progra...
Feb 05, 2024•53 min•Ep. 161
“If we want to deliver better results, we need to change the system and our way of working." Gil Broza is an Agile leadership expert and the author of the latest book “Deliver Better Results”. In this episode, Gil discusses ways to level up our value delivery system to deliver better results. We first delve into the fundamental concept of systems thinking and cause-effect relationships, which are exemplified by reinforcing and balancing loops. Gil also explains the importance of ways of working,...
Jan 29, 2024•55 min•Ep. 160
“A lot of developers tie their self-worth to their code. Being able to let go of your ego and understanding the feedback is based on the code, and it has nothing to do with anything about me. It’s just the code.” Adrienne Tacke is a software engineer, keynote speaker, and the author of the upcoming book “Looks Good To Me”. In this episode, we discuss code reviews and why it is an essential part of the software development process. Adrienne discusses the importance and benefits of code review, th...
Jan 22, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 159
“Every organization has a mission, a vision, and a set of values. As a leader, your number one task is to live those values and talk about them at every opportunity with your team to create alignment." Today's clip is from Tech Lead Journal episode 115 with Manoj Awasthi, the CTO at JULO and previously the SVP of Engineering at Tokopedia. In this clip, Manoj described the role of a senior engineering leader before then explaining some important aspects of engineering leadership, such as scaling ...
Jan 18, 2024•18 min
“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." Today's clip is from Tech Lead Journal episode 139 with Mauricio Aniche, the author of “Effective Software Testing”. In this clip, Mauricio explained how to become a more effective software developer by using effective and systematic software testing approaches. We discussed several such testing techniq...
Jan 15, 2024•19 min
“The three core dimensions of developer experience are feedback loops, cognitive load, and flow state." Today's clip is from Tech Lead Journal episode 134 with Margaret-Anne (Peggy) Storey and Abi Noda, the coauthors of the ACM paper “DevEx: What Actually Drives Productivity”. In this clip, they shared their view on the well-known SPACE and DORA metrics, and pointed out the danger of misusing and abusing the DORA metrics. Peggy and Abi then explained the three core dimensions of developer experi...
Jan 11, 2024•20 min
“Developer experience is an approach to thinking about engineering excellence and maximizing engineering performance by increasing the capacity and performance of the individuals and the team as a whole." Today's clip is from Tech Lead Journal episode 112 with Abi Noda, the CEO & co-founder of DX. In this clip, Abi shared what developer experience is, why it is becoming an industry trend nowadays, and the different ways of how it is being implemented in the industry. Abi explained why the tr...
Jan 08, 2024•18 min
“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." Today's clip is from Tech Lead Journal episode 125 with Daniel Luebke, a software architect and the co-author of “Patterns for API Design”. In this clip, we discussed some API design patterns and best practices taken from his book. Daniel shared the importance of understanding domain requirements for building APIs and several API and...
Jan 04, 2024•17 min
“A team has to be able to go fast if they have to. But they should always choose to go at a steady pace, most of the time. In the long run, what we emphasize is for each team to find their own space and pace." Balazs Barna is the Head of US Engineering at Wise. In this episode, we delved into his insights on building sustainable engineering from scaling up Wise. Balazs started by touching on the engineering management role and described the traits of good and bad engineering management. We then ...
Jan 01, 2024•49 min•Ep. 158
“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." Today's clip is from Tech Lead Journal episode 122 with Kevlin Henney, a consultant, writer, and speaker on software development and has written and edited several popular books. In this clip, Kevlin brought up some timeless software development concepts developers should learn from the past on cohesion, coupling, and...
Jan 01, 2024•18 min
“Everything in software architecture is a trade-off, and the why is more important than how." Today's clip is from Tech Lead Journal episode 120 with Neal Ford, a Director and software architect at ThoughtWorks. In this clip, we discussed the definition of software architecture and how it relates to software design. Neal then described the two important laws of software architecture related to trade-offs and the why. Neal then explained why software architecture is difficult and discussed the ha...
Jan 01, 2024•17 min
“Platforms harmonize and standardize without restricting. By standardizing, they actually enable and allow people to do more things." Gregor Hohpe is back again for the second episode with his latest book “Platform Strategy”. In this episode, Gregor discussed in-depth about building platforms with a proper platform strategy. He began by describing what a platform is from a few different perspectives, the benefits it brings, and what strategy we should think about when building a platform. Gregor...
Dec 17, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 157
“The five thieves of time are: too much work in progress, conflicting priorities, unplanned work, unknown dependencies, and neglected work." Dominica DeGrandis is the author of “Making Work Visible”. In this episode, we discussed how we can optimize our workflow and reclaim control of our work and time. Dominica unveiled the concept of the five thieves of time that rob us of our productivity, that includes too much work-in-progress (WIP), conflicting priorities, unplanned work, unknown dependenc...
Nov 27, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 156
“Product driven means you understand what your customers’ problems are, but you don’t let yourself get held back by what your customers are saying. You’re not building your product for a customer that you’re already working with. You’re building a product for a customer that you haven’t yet met." Ben Foster is the co-founder of Prodify and the co-author of “Build What Matters”. In this episode, we discussed how product driven and vision-led product management helps organizations deliver key cust...
Nov 20, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 155
“Lean is not about how we organize work, but how we think about it. It’s not a production system; it’s an education system." Catherine Chabiron is a Lean expert and the co-author of “Learning to Scale at Theodo Group”. In this episode, Catherine and Fabrice–the co-founder and CTO of Theodo–shared their lessons learned from implementing Lean at a fast-growing scale-up company. Catherine and Fabrice first started by sharing the “big company disease” challenge and how Theodo started its Lean journe...
Nov 13, 2023•58 min•Ep. 154
“Architecture touches on the software, the business, and the team organization. Modernization updates something that has some outdated thinking, e.g. technologies, ideas, business models." Nick Tune is a principal consultant and the author of “Architecture Modernization”. In this episode, we discussed how organizations can successfully go through an architecture modernization journey. Nick began by defining architecture modernization and discussing the socio-technical aspects involved. He then i...
Oct 30, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 153
“We need to change our ways of working to give importance to the work quality that we deliver, ensure we keep raising our bar, and pass it on to the next generation of developers." Srihari Sridharan is a software architect and the author of “Craft Your Code”. In this episode, we discussed software craftsmanship and how to become better software engineers. Srihari first began by sharing the relationship between software craftsmanship and high-quality code. He described some practices for improvin...
Oct 16, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 152
“Leading change is high stakes, but we don’t spend a great deal of time focusing on conversation and creating space to engage in real conversation." Marsha Acker is the author of “Build Your Model for Leading Change” and the host of “Defining Moments of Leadership” podcast. In this episode, we discussed building our own model for leadership and leading change. Marsha first started by sharing the concept of a model and some of the common challenges for organizations in making changes. Then we dis...
Oct 09, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 151
“A CTO gives the business the technology it needs to drive success by delivering a roadmap to grow and scale at a level and speed where technology never holds up their growth." Alan Williamson is the author of “Think Like a CTO”. In this episode, we discussed in-depth how to become a great CTO. Alan first described what a CTO role is, how the role differs at different company stages, and the attributes of a good CTO. Alan then explained the importance of a CTO coming up with a vision and how we ...
Oct 02, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 150
“A lot of the traditional wisdom said the best teams are the ones that stay stable or the same; you need long-lived stable teams. The fact is, team change is inevitable. So let’s get better at it." Heidi Helfand is the author of “Dynamic Reteaming”. In this episode, we discussed dynamic reteaming concept, or team changes in simple words. Heidi explained how her experience working in various startups and scaleups led to her coming up with the dynamic reteaming idea. She also explained how dynamic...
Sep 18, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 149
“BDD is about helping you collaborate with the different parties involved in software delivery to understand what’s actually required of your system, why you need to deliver it, and then find the best possible way to automate your requirements." John Smart and Jan Molak are the co-authors of “BDD in Action: Second Edition”. In this episode, we discussed in-depth behavior-driven development (BDD) and its essentials. Jan and John first began by introducing what BDD is, the benefits of using BDD, a...
Sep 11, 2023•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 148
“Collaborative modeling is getting the relevant people into a room to solve a problem or get on the same page about what it is you’re solving and getting some directions for that solution." Evelyn and Gien are the co-authors of “Collaborative Software Design: How to Facilitate Domain Modeling Decisions”. In this episode, we discussed collaborative software design and why we need it in software development. Evelyn and Gien started by explaining the Cynefin framework in software development and th...
Sep 04, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 147
