Explore every episode of the podcast Lunch with Tech Leaders

In this engaging episode of Lunch with Tech Leaders, host Travis Walker introduces a new interview format with guest Stephen Ritchie, a seasoned tech professional and principal engineering software delivery coach. Stephen takes us through his extensive background in software engineering and project management, sharing valuable insights and personal anecdotes. Throughout the episode, listeners will learn about effective strategies for software delivery, coaching, and enhancing team productivity. This episode is a must-listen for tech enthusiasts looking to refine their skills in leadership and project execution.

Dive into another chapter of our Agile series in "Unlock the Secrets of Agile Programming," where hosts Adam Oberhausen, Lance Carlson, and Tom Kowalski discuss the core of Agile programming practices. This episode touches on Test-Driven Development, the art of refactoring, the power of simple design, and the collaborative force of pair programming, with insights inspired by Agile luminaries like Ron Jeffries and Robert Martin. Learn how these practices not only refine code but also bolster team dynamics and project outcomes. Listen in for an enlightening conversation on mastering Agile programming to keep your development process flexible, efficient, and ahead of the curve.

While the technical aspects of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) often take center stage, the human element is just as crucial. In this episode, we delve into the organizational and cultural nuances of adopting IaC. How do you train teams that are new to this paradigm? What challenges might they face during the onboarding process? And most importantly, how can companies create a culture that not only embraces but thrives on infrastructure automation?

Explore the roots of Agile, its evolution, and its profound impact on the software development industry. Travel back in time with experts Adam Oberhausen, Lance Carlson, and Tom Kowalski to understand the evolution of software development from the 1930s and 40s to the pivotal moment in 2001 when the Agile Manifesto was born.

In this continuation of his Serverless series, Jason Brown teams up with experts Preston Frazier and Tom Kowalski to unravel the deeper layers of analysis and visualization in AWS serverless logging. Dive in as they cover CloudWatch logs, shed light on potential pitfalls tied to CloudFormation stacks, and discuss how they approach Personal Identifiable Information (PII) in healthcare. Plus, tune in for insights on the latest AWS policy shifts around Lambda invocations and tools like Glue and Athena in shaping structured log analysis.

In this episode, Lance Carlson leads the dive into the transformative role of AI in programming joined by experts Henrik Kniberg and Adam Oberhausen. They discuss how tools like GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT can shape code readability, the importance of context, and the emergence of "prompt engineering.” Listen in as they cover the potential of AI to contribute to open-source, the need for understanding the "why" behind functions, the dangers of blindly following AI advice, and the exciting prospect of making programming more inclusive for non-programmers.

In this episode host Adam Oberhausen continues his series on Estimates & Productivity with tech experts Tom Kowalski & Nicole Anderson. What is "developer viscosity" - and is it really just about coding speed? How do distractions, in any setting, impact our work? And with paired programming showing potential, what hurdles still stand in the way? Join in as we explore these questions and more, emphasizing the need for continuous learning in the rapidly evolving tech space.

On Episode 58 of "Lunch with Tech Leaders," host Derek DeJonghe dives deep into the world of senior engineering with tech experts Tom Kowalski and Vagish Vela. Together, they unravel what it truly means to be a "senior" engineer, examining the blurred lines between job titles, skills, and capabilities. What is the impact of company culture on career progression and should titles be based on tenure or true qualifications? Tune in to hear their thoughts!

In this week’s episode host Adam Oberhausen challenges us to rethink our approach to estimating engineering projects. Joined by experts Tom Kowalski and Nicole Anderson, they unpack burning questions like why do backward engineering estimates often fail? And how do we set realistic expectations when it comes to creating estimates for yourself and your team? Nicole offers insights from her experience in product management, emphasizing transparency and constant stakeholder communication. Dive into this discussion and learn about the art, science, and guesswork behind project estimation.

Are you ready to expand the way you think about software development?

Then buckle up because episode 56 on Observation-Driven Design is live!

Adam Oberhausen and Lance Carlson chat with Tom Kowalski as he takes us on a high-level overview of this methodology. Tune in and learn about the ongoing efforts to formalize this emerging paradigm.

In this episode, Jason Brown dives into the topic of event-driven serverless architecture with a panel of technology experts including Tom Kowalski, Preston Frazier, & David Meiser. The conversation kicks off with a brief overview of what event-driven architecture is and how it contrasts with traditional systems. They emphasize the asynchronous nature of event-driven models and highlight the efficiency of handling data and actions based on specific events. The discussion also touches on how Amazon's services like s3 integrate seamlessly into this architectural style. The conversation then delves deep into the healthcare sector, explaining how it naturally aligns with event-driven architecture. By the end, listeners gain insights into how this architecture optimizes data handling in healthcare and the potential for other industries.

Explore the fascinating world of Infrastructure as Code! This week’s episode focused on a detailed comparison and contrast of various IaC tools, breaking down their functionalities, ease of use, compatibility, and community support. Experts Ray Welker, Tom Francis, and Tom Kowalski share real-world experiences, providing invaluable insights into selecting the most suitable tools for various project needs.

Whether you are a seasoned developer, an IT manager, or just curious about the future of infrastructure management, this episode will equip you with the knowledge and understanding of the IaC landscape and its tools. Don't miss this engaging exploration of a topic that continues to shape the future of technology.

In this episode, we delve into the innovative "Shape Up" methodology, a brainchild of Ryan Singer from the renowned software firm 37 signals, now known as Basecamp. We explore the genesis of Shape Up, its departure from traditional Agile and Scrum practices, and how it addresses many of Agile's pitfalls.

Get inspired to submit your first tech talk by listening to public speaking experts Derek DeJonghe, Ell Marquez, Amit Rahti & Tom Kowalski. Hear valuable advice for supporting & mentoring the less confident speakers and conquer your fears of public speaking!

Jamie Begin, Founder & CEO of RightBrain Networks, discusses how AI can handle specific tasks, making them more efficient and accessible, but also raises concerns about the potential overreliance on AI tools among early-career professionals. Charles Fry, Founder & CEO of CODE Éxitos, and Gerry Miller, Founder & CEO of Cloudticity, share their insights on the evolving role of engineers and the need to focus on more innovative and valuable aspects of their work.

Tech leaders share their experiences, discussing the transition from manual infrastructure management to code-driven provisioning and the benefits it brings, including version control, increased visibility, and collaboration. Discover the role of IaC in enabling DevOps practices, ensuring compliance, and automating testing for reliable system delivery.

Industry experts explore the impact of insecure configurations and share best practices to mitigate security vulnerabilities. The conversation covers implementing the principle of least privilege, securely handling secrets and credentials, leveraging lambda layers for third-party libraries, and maintaining a stable and secure environment through consistent CI/CD practices.

In this episode, we dive into the debate between Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) and Functional Programming (FP). Experts from the community discuss their experiences with both paradigms and explore the benefits and limitations of each approach. They shed light on side effects, purity, immutability in functional programming, and the encapsulation and message passing in OOP.

The Great Lakes Tech Leaders community discusses the challenges of achieving observability in serverless architectures compared to traditional ones, the role of logging, monitoring, and distributed tracing, and the limitations and benefits of tools like AWS X-Ray. Listen to gain insights into how to achieve observability in serverless environments and explore the nuances of serverless monitoring.

Explore the benefits of using self-hosted runners on Kubernetes for deployment pipelines, such as private subnet communication, self-scaling, and self-destruction. Experts share their experiences migrating from CodePipeline and AWS CDK to GitHub actions and how it has improved their deployment processes.

This week, the community engages in a discussion about AWS spending, emphasizing the significance of cost control and optimization through strategies like leveraging native tools and making informed instance selections. Experts highlight best practices such as rightsizing instances, implementing automation for resource management, monitoring costs using AWS Cost Explorer, and regularly reviewing reserved instances to maximize savings.

Read the accompanying blog post here - http://1707980.hs-sites.com/lunch-with-tech-leaders-the-blog/strategies-for-effective-cost-savings-and-optimization-in-aws

This week, Great Lakes Tech Leaders' community experts discuss the open-source application AutoGPT, which uses the ChatGPT large language model to create recursive AI agents capable of autonomously solving goals and completing complex tasks. While it garnered attention and excitement, the tool currently faces limitations in its ability to stay on track and fulfill goals effectively. Listen to learn more about topics such as managing memory in large language models, token limitations, and strategies like embeddings and summarization to address context window constraints.

Unlock the secrets to a robust SRE culture as the Great Lakes Tech Leaders delve into the essence of building reliability. This week's hosts Kyle Robertson, Site Reliability Engineer at GitHub, Jordan DeBeer, Customer Engineer at Google, and Tom Kowalski, Software and Data Consultant, discuss how embracing failure, fostering ownership, and treating reliability as a top priority can revolutionize organizations.

The Great Lakes Tech Leaders discuss serverless data stores in this episode, exploring their definitions, advantages, and real-world use cases. They highlight the cost-effectiveness, scalability, and flexibility of serverless data stores like DynamoDB and emphasize the importance of considering team expertise and workload patterns when choosing between serverless and traditional relational databases.

This week, we have Sanjay Padhi, Ph.D., former Head of AWS Research, as our guest. Sanjay shares some exciting stuff about using AI in personalized medicine and how it can improve diagnoses by integrating clinical and genomic data. We also discuss the challenges of data privacy, fairness, and ethics in AI.

Join us for the latest episode, where we dive into the fascinating world of AI and game development with Nathan Hanish, Lead Developer at Stardock. In this episode, we explore the incorporation of AI into game design, specifically focusing on the use of AI in creating civilizations in games like Gal Civ. We discuss emerging technologies for 3D and animated 2D, the impact of generative AI on game design, and the potential of AI to accelerate content creation and facilitate collaboration.

This week, we discuss the growing debate surrounding the regulation of AI. Our experts will delve into recent developments, including the proposed AI Bill of Rights from the White House and policy recommendations. We will also explore concerns about the potential dangers of AI and the need for regulatory measures to prevent bias and ensure accountability.

Discover the best serverless computing option for your next project. Find out how Lambda handles event-driven processing and low to moderate compute workloads while Fargate runs containerized workloads at scale, such as web applications, batch processing, and machine learning with specialized hardware or GPU resources. Learn about the unique advantages of each service and which one is ideal for your use case.

Knowing how to identify burnout in yourself and others is particularly important during this work-from-home era. Tech industry managers discuss some indicators to look out for, strategies for maintaining a healthy work-life balance, managing stress, and finding joy in the midst of the hustle.

Experts from the Great Lakes Tech Leaders community discuss the latest innovations in sustainability and how technology can help reduce carbon emissions, promote renewable energy, and create a more sustainable future for all.

Great Lakes Tech Leaders Adam and Tom dive into the world of AI technologies and how they're currently impacting various business sectors, and process optimizations, especially when it comes to automation.

In this week's episode, the Great Lakes Tech Leaders community explores serverless computing architecture, its evolution over the years, benefits, challenges, and optimization techniques for building and maintaining large-scale serverless applications.

The technology industry's hiring and retention practices have entirely evolved since the introduction of remote work. In this week's episode, industry leaders examine the pros and cons of remote work and discuss their best practices for onboarding remotely, how they maintain company culture without an office, and what they expect for the future of remote work in engineering.