Software Defined Interviews

In this episode, Whitney and Coté talk with Viktor Farcic, Developer Advocate at Upbound, about platform engineering, the evolution of DevOps, project managing a content creation engine of one, and the virtues of imperfection. Also, the strategic avoidance of asking for directions, or, really, talking with people in general. Find Viktor in YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/c/devopstoolkit), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/viktorfarcic/), Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/vfarcic.bsky.social), and his website (https://technologyconversations.com). Special Guest: Viktor Farcic.

As if platform engineering and expat'ing in the UK weren't enough, Whintney and Coté discuss the forgotten technology of business cards wih Abby Bangser. Check out Abby in LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/abbybangser/), and Kratix (https://www.kratix.io) the platform engineering project from Syntasso (https://www.syntasso.io). Also, check out the CNCF Platforms White paper (https://tag-app-delivery.cncf.io/whitepapers/platforms/) and Cloud Native Maturity Model (https://maturitymodel.cncf.io). We had video recording problems during this episode, so this is from the backup recording. Pardon any weirdness, especially Coté making nose noises. Special Guest: Abby Bangser.

Whitney is back from KubeCon and shares what she saw. We talk about platform engineering, Salt Lake City's vibe, AI, and observability, among other things. We wrap the episode with tips for maximizing attending conferences. Also, memories of Arby's ads. Whitney's KubeCon talks: Choose Your Own Adventure: The Observability Odyssey (https://youtu.be/R3CFETvCBFU) Panel: Exploring eBPF Use Cases in Cloud-Native Security (https://youtu.be/towNkbPMDjE)

In this episode, Whitney Lee and Coté dive into the insights of Rachel Stephens from RedMonk about the world of being an industry analyst. They discuss experiences from working as an analyst, the balance between qualitative and quantitative analysis, the challenges and misconceptions surrounding open-source business models, and the impact of AI on the analyst profession and beyond. They also discuss the 2024 DORA report, and a few other topics. Check out Rachel's blog at RedMonk (https://redmonk.com/rstephens/). Special Guest: Rachel Stephens.

Whitney and Coté talk with Phil Andrews, field CTO at Cast AI, about cost management and optimization, the nuances of Kubernetes, coin-operated laundromats, and farm life. The conversation touches on the differences between automation and FinOps, how sales and engineering intersect in cloud software, and Phil's unique experiences - from managing a laundromat and a hobby farm to evolving in the tech industry. Check out Phil in LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-andrews-iii/), and his work Cast.ai (https://cast.ai). Special Guest: Phil Andrews.

Whitney and Coté talk with Sidney Miller about tech recruitment. They talk a lot about the process from both sides: people hiring and people looking for jobs. Plus, some thoughts on working at Neiman Marcus. Find Sidney in LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sidney-miller-06324b3/). You can the video of this interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNh5iJ8-2AM) as well if you're into that kind of thing. More details: They explore effective strategies for both the hirer and the job seeker. Key topics include the comprehensive role of tech recruiters, tactics for handling diverse skill sets, inclusion efforts, unbiased interview practices, and the significance of empathy and transparency. They also cover personal strategies for successful job applications, the emotional aspects of career transitions, and networking tips for long-term career growth. Additional insights highlight challenges faced by artists and musicians transitioning into tech roles and the importance of leadership in fostering a positive workplace culture. Special Guest: Sidney Miller.

Whitney Lee's career path has been all over the place, from artist, wedding photographer, waiter, and now world-renowned devrel in the cloud native world. This episode kicks off the reboot of this podcast, Software Defined Interviews. Whitney and I (Coté) have been planning to start a podcast for a year or so now, and it's great to start. We'll be putting out interviews every two weeks with people from our community. I hope you enjoy it, and tell us what you think! Guest suggestions are, of course, welcome. Relevant Material: Whitney mentions the book Rest (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29502354-rest). Whitney's in YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaGYZkSCN3MPwqRpt24KBKA), including links to all of her other YouTube projects, conference talks, etc. Whitney's LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitneylee/). Whitney's wedding photography portfolio (https://www.flickr.com/photos/whitneyleephotography/). The photo framed with a handrail (https://www.flickr.com/photos/whitneyleephotography/8071954250/in/datetaken/). You can check out the unedited, video version (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks_bK94A5uA) of this interview as well. At the end, you hear an AI generated version of two hosts discussing Whitney Lee. It's from Google NotebookML. Here's the AI generated summary: In this inaugural episode of our new podcast, Coté sits down with Whitney Lee to discuss her diverse career path, including her experiences as a waiter, musician, wedding photographer, and now a tech professional in developer advocacy and Kubernetes. They delve into Whitney’s thoughts on the corporate world’s culture of busyness and the bizarre aspects she’s encountered transitioning from hospitality to tech. Whitney shares her approach to efficiently managing interruptions, setting boundaries, and the concept of context-switching in work environments. They also talk about the importance of continually learning and adapting, Whitney’s strategy for tackling new technical concepts, and how she integrates her curiosity into creating educational content. The conversation includes anecdotes from Whitney’s time as a wedding photographer, her initial steps into the tech world, and the significant differences in social dynamics between these fields. Finally, Whitney offers insights about DevRel (Developer Relations), explaining common misconceptions and the real motivations behind effective advocacy. She also touches on her learning habits, the balance of work and creativity, and the importance of rest and mental space for idea generation. Key Topics: Whitney Lee's diverse career path and transitions The culture of busyness in the corporate world Setting boundaries and managing interruptions Effective context-switching and productivity Learning strategies and continual adaptation Whitney's wedding photography business and lessons learned Insights into Developer Relations (DevRel) Local jargon, curiosity-driven learning, and the importance of abstractions in tech Security in tech and why it remains a persistent challenge

We discuss compensation, particularly how people in the IT department ("developers," etc.) are so disconnected from the actual business that compensating them based on business performance is near impossible. Not good if you're an IT person and like money. There's other types of comp. then money, obviously, and those are fine too. In particular, we discuss participation in open source and more recognition. But, still: money is the best.

People in large organizations avoid improving for improving's sake. They're very rarely proactive in transforming. Instead, it seems that management in most large organizations only act, and change, when they fear competition and failure. "Everyone" knows this is a bad strategy, and yet "everyone" does it. Perhaps we should embrace that behavior, or at least be empathetic, and figure out how to work with it. We discuss this problem and things to do in this episode. Also, we find out why Coté always has bad breath. Mood board: (6:30) - The daily, normal fears are going to drive what a business does more than large, one-off crises. If your inventory is on an AS/400, then you're in trouble. A chaos monkey for business, or, training for the unexpected. "When there's not a crisis, every penny is squeezed out of technology." Outsourcing, but the harmful type. Hold your customers close, know your evolving storefront. Now, software is the primary storefront. To improve, you must have an enemy. (20:51) "If you're trying to modernize, do this 'digital transformation,' it has to come from a place of an existential problem." (21:26) To prepare for a major disruption, you have to prepare for a bunch of minor, incremental disruptions. You have to sell [the return] on paying for change. (25:51) If you want to justify paying for continuous delivery, you have to find a problem to solve. (27:41) They're bean counters, so just count the beans for them - just give them some beans and they're happy. (28:58) As technologist, our views on revenue are not considered important or valid. (29:21) Fear and loss are often easier to quantify, e.g., "if the database goes down, the business halts, and we loose millions a minute." Growth potential is harder to quantify and pitch, so we often ask for money based on fear and loss. (29:36) "Even though I think about revenue streams, I've never been taken as seriously when I talk about them, as when I talk about fear." Finding people outside of IT that care about software, like, in "the business." (32:55) The only reason for technical agility, is business agility. (33:44) If you do live through a crisis, try to internalize your failure to prepare so you only learn once from crisis, not again and again. (35:33) The Business needs the fear, and then needs to ask IT to help with some optimistic technology action...cause no one's gonna believe IT.

We discuss outsourcing IT.

Journey Through the Business Bottleneck, part 1. Join Rick and I as we try to find this elusive thing called "The Business." We lay out a theory we've been talking about: while IT has been improving or, at least, can improve, the business side of the house isn't showing up to do anything with CLOUD and AGILE and THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION. Why's this the case? Do toothpaste people have this problem? Outsourcing - that's a treat! And so forth. Hopefully next episode we'll discuss tactics to get people outside of IT interested. Subscribe at https://misaligned.business And, check out Coté's work in progress book on this topic: https://cote.io/bottleneck/

Large organization are desperate to become “tech companies.” They drool at these tech companies ability to grow and change quickly. Despite mastering agile over the past 20 years, IT as a whole is too slow and unreliable. “It’s the culture,” everyone says. Changing culture for a team of 10 people is easy - changing a department of 20,000 developers is another challenge entirely. Based on case studies and interviews over the past five years, this talk describes how large organizations are getting over that challenge. First, the talk covers moving from a project to a product mindset and the associated practices. Second, it covers how DevOps and cloud platforms enable that product mindset. Third, it goes over how leadership and management change to support this new approach. Finally, the talk catalogs tactics, patterns, and organizational structures that large organizations are using to improve how they do software which leads to improving their business. This talk is based on my book Monolithic Transformation (O’Reilly, Feb 2019). You can download the slides if you like, and they pop-up as chapter art if your podcast app supports that.

Chris Aniszczyk is the CTO of the CNCF. We discuss how he got into open source, what it's like to work at Twitter and how he helped start the CNCF. Plus, Chris gives us an overview of the different kinds of CNCF projects and offers advice on how to get started with Kubernetes. Show links: Hatching Twitter (https://www.amazon.com/Hatching-Twitter-Story-Friendship-Betrayal/dp/1591847087) GORILLA.BAS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorillas_video_game) IBM Extreme Blue (https://www.ibm.com/employment/extremeblue/) Eclipse Marketplace (https://marketplace.eclipse.org/) Eclipse Foundation (https://www.eclipse.org/org/workinggroups/explore.php) CNCF Charter (https://github.com/cncf/foundation/blob/master/charter.md) The universal data plane API (https://blog.envoyproxy.io/the-universal-data-plane-api-d15cec7a) Universal Data Plane API Working Group (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y-H-pQ2mmhBPX_U9pP3mMMUbEpZskxBdEbwd5KlivY4/edit#heading=h.hphw9gdcmb90) Contact Chris: @cra (https://twitter.com/cra) LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/caniszczyk/) More Software Defined Talk Subscribe to Software Defined Interviews Podcast (https://www.softwaredefinedinterviews.com/) Subscribe to Software Defined Talk Podcast (https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/) Follow @SoftwareDefTalk on Twitter (https://twitter.com/SoftwareDefTalk) Send your postal address to stickers@softwaredefinedtalk.com (mailto:stickers@softwaredefinedtalk.com) and we will send you free laptop stickers! Join us in Slack (http://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/slack). Special Guest: Chris Aniszczyk.

Matt and Brandon interview Adam Jacob the co-founder of Chef. We discuss Adam's career, what led him to start Chef and Chef's recent decision to open source 100% of its Software. Plus, Adam give us some tips on Dungeons & Dragons and transitioning from being a founder to an executive. Links Goodbye Open Core — Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish (https://medium.com/@adamhjk/goodbye-open-core-good-riddance-to-bad-rubbish-ae3355316494) We need Sustainable Free and Open Source Communities (https://medium.com/sustainable-free-and-open-source-communities/we-need-sustainable-free-and-open-source-communities-edf92723d619) Sustainable Free and Open Source Communities (https://sfosc.org/) Follow Adam at @adamhjk (https://twitter.com/adamhjk) Check out the Software Defined Talk Podcast (https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/) for the latest news in Enterprise Tech. Special Guest: Adam Jacob.

Jeff Meyerson is the host of Software Engineering Daily (https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/). We talk about his career and what led him to start a daily tech podcast for software engineers. We also talk about current trends in cloud computing and Jeff recounts his career as professional poker player. Topics: Darknet Diaries Chartbreakers Episode (https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/27/) Who Is Michael Ovitz? (https://www.audible.com/pd/Who-Is-Michael-Ovitz-Audiobook/B07DJZBDK4) Where to find Jeff Software Engineering Daily (https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/) Jeff Meyerson (https://jeffmeyerson.com/) @the_prion (https://twitter.com/the_prion) Special Guest: Jeff Meyerson.

Version control has changed a lot over the past 15 years: we’ve moved from a centralized to a distributed model at the basic level. But the practices people follow have changed and grown as new methodologies like DevOps and continuous delivery have relied on version control for operational stability and reliability. In this interview, Coté talks with Plastic SCM (https://www.plasticscm.com/)’s Pablo Santos (https://twitter.com/psluaces) to get the low-down and some tips on doing version control better. We also discuss Plastic SCM (https://www.plasticscm.com/) and how their approach to semantic merging (https://www.semanticmerge.com) and mergebot-driven automation addresses version control toil. This episode is sponsored by Plastic SCM (https://www.plasticscm.com/), that is, it’s a paid interview. Special Guest: Pablo Santos.

Brandon interviews Umair Khan about his experience working in AI Ops and Cloud Security. Umair recently joned Scytale (https://www.scytale.io/) and he explains how the SPIFFE open soruce project (https://spiffe.io/) can help secure communication between cloud services. Contact Umiar: LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/khanumair/) @UmairMoheet (https://twitter.com/UmairMoheet) Why I joined Scytale (https://medium.com/@umairmoheet) Special Guest: Umair Khan.

Jake Moilanen started and sold two companies and is now joining the ranks of Venture Capital. We discuss his career, his approach to investing and he explains what it is like to bringup the Linux Kernel on a supercomputer for the first time. Connect with Jake: * @moilanen (https://twitter.com/moilanen) * LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakemoilanen/) Special Guest: Jake Moilanen.

Zane Rockenbaugh specializes in working with early stage startups. Most of the time his clients are boostrapping their new compnay and need someone technical who can help build version 1.0. In this episode, we talk about Zane's career and what it's like to be a "Startup CTO." Most importantly, we talk about his experience of taking raw ideas and turning them into real products. To work with Zane contact him at Liquid Labs (https://liquid-labs.com/) Special Guest: Zane Rockenbaugh.

Coté talks about his job being an "evangelist," a word people no longer seem to use but everyone understands. Brandon interviews Coté about what the job is, what the work's like, and some examples (other than himself) of people who do it well. Call it "developer advocacy," "developer relations," being a "thought leader," or just a straight up hustler - it's a job that most companies in the computer industry have at least one of. Most of the successful software and projects out there get a big boost from key evangalists. Brandon interviews Coté about what the job is, what the work's like, and some examples (other than himself) of people who do it well. As the two discuss, it's a weird job.