Episodes
#36 - Diving Into Open Source Engineering, with Jenn Creighton
June 13, 2021
There is a bit of a chasm between requirements for building open source projects and those that are designed to be closed. Not surprisingly, it also requires a different set of skills altogether if you want to do it right. To learn more about this, I sat down with Jenn Creighton, Senior Staff Open Source Engineer at Apollo GraphQL. Jenn has been building scalable web experiences at companies such as Ralph Lauren, Chartbeat, and ClassPass, and is now leading the work on one of the most interesting and active open projects out there.
#35 - From Pre-Med To Product Management, with Janine Co
June 6, 2021
I often hear about folks moving from engineering to product management and back. Others make the transition from marketing and sales to product management. In a first for this show, today I talk to Janine Co, a product manager who recently joined the Microsoft Teams team, who also happened to switch from following a pre-med path to one in product. What things did she consider when making the switch? What did Janine do to build a network from scratch? It's all in this episode.
#34 - Busting Career Myths with Laurie Barth
May 23, 2021
There are thousands of blog posts, tutorials, and videos that tell you what engineering careers are about, how you should be thinking about your dream job, and promotion trajectory. In this sea of content, it's often hard to separate the common from the edge case. In this episode, I talk to Laurie Barth, a renowned technologist and Senior Software Engineer at Netflix.
#33 - Engineering In A News Organization And Beyond, with Nicole Tibaldi
May 16, 2021
What lessons can you take away from a music degree and bring into engineering management? How do engineers work with folks in the newsroom at one of the biggest news organization on the planet? Nicole Tibaldi, Senior Engineering Manager at The New York Times (yes, _that_ The New York Times) is here to tell us more about these things, her work, career, and how to foster a culture where your team feels included.
#32 - Camille Fournier on Engineering Management Paths
May 9, 2021
Setting your sights high for a career in engineering management might be an appealing endeavor, but it also means that you will be making a lot of assumptions about future roles without really knowing what those roles are truly about. In this episode, I sit down with Camille Fournier - a veteran CTO, speaker, and entrepreneur, to learn more about ways to map out the path to becoming a CTO (or not).
#31 - Lessons In Leadership, with Chad Fowler, VP of Technology at DEVCON
April 25, 2021
Talking to Chad Fowler, you quickly realize what true leadership means. Chad has extensive experience leading large technical organizations such as LivingSocial and 6Wunderkinder, being a venture partner at BlueYard Capital, and now - helping make the Internet safer as Chief Product Officer at DEVCON. Did I mention that Chad also is a musician? In this episode, I talk to Chad about his work, lessons learned from music and travel and how those apply to life and career, and what is the approach to consider for one to carve out a path towards an executive role.
#30 - Creativity in Code and Beyond, with Monica Dinculescu, Engineer Extraordinaire
April 18, 2021
Folks often forget that engineering is inherently a very creative process. Monica Dinculescu found her own niche where she can build impactful things and do it in some of the most unusual ways possible. An excellent engineer, creative thinker, and fellow Eastern European by origin, Monica joins me today to talk about the things she learned as she figured out her career path.
#29 - Building Things You Love, with Ben Sandofsky, Head of Development for Halide
April 11, 2021
From Pascal, to writing image processing code, if there is one word you absolutely can’t use to describe Ben Sandofsky’s career, it would be “uneventful.” He was one of the first mobile engineers at Twitter, had a stint helping build Periscope, and ultimately ventured into unexplored territory to finish a photo app he always wanted, that later became Halide. In this episode, I sit down with Ben to get a better understanding of the decisions he made in his career, and what were the critical turning points that made him start his own studio - Lux.
#28 - The Art of Engineering Management, with Rebecca Murphey, EM at Stripe
March 31, 2021
Rebecca Murphey tried a lot of things on her way to becoming an engineering manager at Stripe - from journalism to advertisement, and even learning how to fly. In this episode, I sit down with Rebecca to learn more about her path, what were the important lessons learned in her non-tech career that helped her be an efficient engineering leader, and what aspiring engineering managers can start doing today to figure out if this career track is for them.
#27 - How to Build a Career in Human Resources, with David Daniels
March 20, 2021
There is a certain air of mystery around careers in Human Resources (HR), and David Daniels, who is a veteran HR leader in tech, is here to bring some clarity about the work. David has extensive experience being in HR at Microsoft, Pinterest, and now - Snapchat. He shares his insights about going from education to leadership in some of the most prominent tech companies, fighting against the fixed mindset, and uncommon recommendations for folks wanting to get started with their careers.