“99% of us aren’t working in big tech. There’s this impression that everybody works in big tech. There’s a huge world of software development out there that almost gets forgotten about in social media." John Crickett is the creator of “Coding Challenges” and a seasoned software engineer with over 30 years of experience. In this episode, John shares his diverse career path, including transitioning between individual contributor roles and management, founding his own business, and his passion...
Jun 10, 2024•52 min•Ep 178•Transcript available on Metacast “Every software gets more complex over time. What we need to do as engineers is to find ways so that we can work with increasing complexity, but not increasing the cost of maintaining the software." Mauricio Aniche returns to the podcast for the second time and discuss with me his latest book, “Simple Object-Oriented Design”. Our discussion explores the intricacies of software design and shares practical strategies to manage software complexity through effective object-oriented design. Maur...
Jun 03, 2024•53 min•Ep 177•Transcript available on Metacast “Always remember that system design interview is not about perfection. It is about trade-offs and being able to communicate them clearly and concisely." Zhiyong Tan is the author of “Acing the System Design Interview”. In this episode, he joins me in demystifying the system design interview process. He shares insights into what to expect, how to tackle common challenges like time management, anxiety, and knowledge gaps, and reveals the core principles that guide successful system design int...
May 27, 2024•48 min•Ep 176•Transcript available on Metacast “All data scientists and analysts should spend more time in the business, outside the data sets, just to see how the actual business works. Because then you have the context, and then you understand the columns you’re seeing in the data." David Asboth, author of “Solve Any Data Analysis Problem” and co-host of the “Half Stack Data Science” podcast, shares practical tips for solving real-world data analysis challenges. He highlights the gap between academic training and industry demands, emp...
May 20, 2024•57 min•Ep 175•Transcript available on Metacast “Raise the bar of the team so that they bring sustainable practices. If your code stinks, no matter how you desire to be agile, you cannot respond to the change." Dr. Venkat Subramaniam is a renowned figure in the software development community, an award-winning author and founder of Agile Developer, Inc. In this episode, Venkat sheds light on the frequently overlooked challenges of software development and provides valuable insights for succeeding in the field. We delve into the misalignme...
May 13, 2024•58 min•Ep 174•Transcript available on Metacast “Three characteristics of an organization that is operating with maximal effectiveness are value, clarity, and flow." Are you feeling the strain of growth? Struggling to maintain alignment and efficiency as your organization scales? In this episode, I sit down with Steve Pereira and Andrew Davis, authors of the groundbreaking new book, “Flow Engineering”. Learn why traditional scaling methods focusing on rigid coordination can actually hinder progress and how flow engineering offers a solut...
May 06, 2024•58 min•Ep 173•Transcript available on Metacast “The quality is connected to the risk, and the risk is connected to the testing. If we don’t keep an eye on quality, our testing and development will drift, because we are no longer building the thing that people care about anymore." Mark Winteringham is a quality engineer and the author of “Testing Web APIs”. In this episode, discover how holistic, risk-based testing strategies can transform your software quality. Mark explains how to prioritize our testing by understanding what users trul...
Apr 29, 2024•58 min•Ep 172•Transcript available on Metacast “Bureaucracy in itself is neither good nor bad. However, it often gets in the way and prevents important things you need to do. A good bureaucracy is lean, learning, and enabling." Mark Schwartz is an Enterprise Strategist at AWS and the author of multiple books from IT Revolution. In this episode, we discuss his two latest books on the topics of bureaucracy and ethics. Mark begins by sharing his perspective on the impact of bureaucracy on digital transformation. He explains the definition ...
Apr 22, 2024•1 hr•Ep 171•Transcript available on Metacast “Soft skills are always going to be those ladders for you to climb in your career, whereas your tech skills can turn into snakes, meaning you’ve got to start again with another skill." Jacqui Read, author of “Communication Patterns,” joins in this episode to discuss why strong communication skills are crucial for developers and technical leaders, often surpassing the importance of merely technical expertise. We delve into four key communication areas: visual communication, multimodal commun...
Apr 08, 2024•59 min•Ep 170•Transcript available on Metacast “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 compan...
Apr 01, 2024•50 min•Ep 169•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Transcript available on Metacast “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 difficul...
Mar 18, 2024•53 min•Ep 167•Transcript available on Metacast “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 conc...
Mar 11, 2024•49 min•Ep 166•Transcript available on Metacast “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 ...
Mar 04, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep 165•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Transcript available on Metacast “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...
Feb 19, 2024•52 min•Ep 163•Transcript available on Metacast “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...
Feb 12, 2024•1 hr•Ep 162•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Transcript available on Metacast “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 wor...
Jan 29, 2024•55 min•Ep 160•Transcript available on Metacast “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•Transcript available on Metacast “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...
Jan 18, 2024•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast “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 testin...
Jan 15, 2024•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast “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 develop...
Jan 11, 2024•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast “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 w...
Jan 08, 2024•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast “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 severa...
Jan 04, 2024•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast “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 ...
Jan 01, 2024•49 min•Ep 158•Transcript available on Metacast “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, coup...
Jan 01, 2024•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast “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 discuss...
Jan 01, 2024•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast “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. G...
Dec 17, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep 157•Transcript available on Metacast “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 depe...
Nov 27, 2023•1 hr•Ep 156•Transcript available on Metacast 
