Explore every episode of the podcast Tech Lead Journal
Dive into the complete episode list for Tech Lead Journal. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.
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Title
Pub. Date
Duration
#191 - State of Developer Experience 2024: Uncovering the Disconnect - Andrew Boyagi
16 Sep 2024
00:54:48
“One key highlight of the report is that there’s a massive disconnect between engineering leaders and engineers about developer experience."
Andrew Boyagi is a DevOps Evangelist at Atlassian. In this episode, Andrew shares the key findings of the State of Developer Experience Report 2024, including the disconnect between engineering leaders and engineers, the impact of AI on developer experience, and the importance of measuring and improving developer productivity.
Andrew shares practical advice on how to improve developer experience in our organization, emphasizing the importance of communication, continuous improvement, and transparency. We also delve into the role of internal platforms in enhancing developer experience and the importance of engineering culture.
If you’re interested in learning more about developer experience and looking for ways to improve developer productivity, this episode is for you!
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:01:37]
State of Developer Experience Report - [00:04:05]
Developer Experience (DevEx) - [00:05:32]
DevEx Across Companies & Teams - [00:06:25]
Report Key Highlights - [00:09:20]
AI Impact to DevEx - [00:12:41]
How Developers Spend Their Time - [00:15:13]
How to Improve DevEx - [00:18:21]
What to Ask Developers About DevEx - [00:21:31]
Impact of DevEx on Deveopers' Retention & Attraction - [00:24:22]
The Danger of Traditional DevEx Measurement - [00:26:50]
Importance of Engineering Culture - [00:31:15]
DevEx Frameworks - [00:34:24]
Platform Engineering - [00:37:02]
Platform Buy vs Build - [00:39:29]
Self Service & Reducing Wait Time - [00:42:03]
AI for Improving Documentation - [00:44:50]
Feedback Loop for Improving DevEx - [00:47:29]
Atlassian DevEx Journey - [00:49:01]
Importance of Transparency - [00:50:28]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:52:01]
_____
Andrew Boyagi’s Bio Andrew is a DevOps Evangelist at Atlassian with more than 20 years of experience in software delivery and service management in enterprise organizations. He provides a practical perspective on how teams and organizations can maximize the benefits of DevOps based on real-life experience.
Before joining Atlassian, Andrew was an Executive Manager at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, where he established and matured a platform engineering function that supported 7,000 engineers. Andrew holds an MBA from Southern Cross University.
Enjoy an exceptional developer experience with JetBrains. Whatever programming language and technology you use, JetBrains IDEs provide the tools you need to go beyond simple code editing and excel as a developer. Check out FREE coding software options and special offers on jetbrains.com/store/#discounts. Make it happen. With code.
Manning Publications is a premier publisher of technical books on computer and software development topics for both experienced developers and new learners alike. Manning prides itself on being independently owned and operated, and for paving the way for innovative initiatives, such as early access book content and protection-free PDF formats that are now industry standard. Get a 40% discount for Tech Lead Journal listeners by using the code techlead24 for all products in all formats.
Like this episode? Show notes & transcript: techleadjournal.dev/episodes/191. Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Buy me a coffee or become a patron.
#190 - The Staff+ Engineer’s Journey: Unlocking the Secrets of Staff+ Impact - Thiago Ghisi
09 Sep 2024
01:02:56
“The three core expectations of a Staff+ engineer are having a high blast radius impact, able to do multi-scale planning & influence, and having high ownership & autonomy level.”
What does it take to become a Staff+ engineer? Thiago Ghisi, an experienced engineering leader and a Director of Engineering at Nubank, reveals the secrets in this episode. We discuss the path to becoming a Staff+ engineer and explore the attributes that set successful Staff+ engineers apart.
Thiago emphasizes that technical skills alone are not enough and outlines the three core expectations and three key behaviors for Staff+ engineers to demonstrate. Our conversation concludes with a discussion of the importance of finding role models and learning from their behaviors and approaches rather than following checklists.
If you’re an aspiring Staff+ engineer or simply interested in career growth in tech, don’t miss this episode! Tune in now to unlock the secrets to Staff+ success.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:02:11]
Definition of a Staff+ Engineer - [00:04:24]
The Different Level & Scope of Responsibilities - [00:09:43]
What You Got Here Won’t Get You There - [00:18:54]
High Blast Radius Impact - [00:23:34]
Multi-Scale Planning & Influence - [00:27:23]
Stakeholder Management - [00:31:06]
Ownership & Autonomy Level - [00:35:52]
Behaviors & Patterns - [00:43:51]
Role Models Over Checklists - [00:51:53]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:55:56]
_____
Thiago Ghisi’s Bio Thiago Ghisi is the Director of Engineering for the Mobile Platform team at Nubank. He has nearly 20 years of experience in the software industry, having worked at companies like Apple, ThoughtWorks, and Amex. Ghisi has worn multiple hats - from Programmer to Project Manager to Quality Engineer, back to Engineering, and finally, Engineering Management, where he has been leading cross-functional teams in the Mobile FinTech space for the past eight years. He also hosts a podcast called “Engineering Advice You Didn’t Ask For” and writes extensively about Career & Leadership in Tech on LinkedIn & Twitter.
Enjoy an exceptional developer experience with JetBrains. Whatever programming language and technology you use, JetBrains IDEs provide the tools you need to go beyond simple code editing and excel as a developer. Check out FREE coding software options and special offers on jetbrains.com/store/#discounts. Make it happen. With code.
Manning Publications is a premier publisher of technical books on computer and software development topics for both experienced developers and new learners alike. Manning prides itself on being independently owned and operated, and for paving the way for innovative initiatives, such as early access book content and protection-free PDF formats that are now industry standard. Get a 40% discount for Tech Lead Journal listeners by using the code techlead24 for all products in all formats.
Like this episode? Show notes & transcript: techleadjournal.dev/episodes/190. Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Buy me a coffee or become a patron.
#181 - Engineer Your Career and Your Life: Timeless Career Advice and the Power of Small Bets - Louie Bacaj
01 Jul 2024
01:02:51
“Engineers make this mistake of thinking that if they just do the work, they’re going to be rewarded. But it’s just not how it happens. Be heads down, add the value, do great work, but don’t forget to make the noise."
Louie Bacaj is a software engineer and engineering leader who turned entrepreneur. In this episode, Louie shares his unique career journey and valuable insights for aspiring tech professionals and aspiring entrepreneurs.
Louie reveals the secrets behind his rapid career progression, sharing the key differences between working in a big corporate versus a nimble startup, and the challenges and rewards of wearing multiple hats. He offers practical advice on self-upskilling, embracing more senior management roles, and excelling at people management. He also shares timeless career advice for engineers at all stages of their journey.
Louie then opens up about his entrepreneurial journey, emphasizing the importance of taking small bets and learning from the small wins, and embracing freedom and independence by building your own business. Plus, discover why strong writing skills are a secret weapon for success at any stage of your career.
This episode is packed with actionable tips and inspiration for anyone navigating the tech industry – whether you’re a seasoned engineer or an aspiring entrepreneur.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:02:14]
Big Corporate vs. Startup - [00:03:36]
Wearing Multiple Hats - [00:06:02]
Self-Upskilling Rapidly - [00:08:18]
Louie’s Rapid Career Progression - [00:10:56]
Getting Comfortable with More Senior Roles - [00:16:00]
Tips on People Management - [00:21:55]
Timeless Career Advice for Engineers - [00:25:41]
Going Into Entrepreneurship - [00:31:24]
Sense of Freedom & Independence - [00:38:59]
Small Bets - [00:45:10]
Learning from Small Wins - [00:49:12]
The Importance of Writing Skills - [00:54:24]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:59:18]
_____
Louie Bacaj’s Bio Louie Bacaj is a Software Engineer and Engineering Leader who turned Entrepreneur. Over the last decade, he has helped build multiple engineering teams and systems that scaled to millions of users. But he decided to leave that career behind for entrepreneurship.
Since quitting, he has realized that building an audience is an asset to entrepreneurship. It’s a great way to help people and to have them help him. But as an awkward engineer, he had no idea where to start. So he started writing and Tweeting his story. And everything he has learned so far.
Since starting this entrepreneurial journey in September 2021, he has built multiple SaaS apps with his brother. He created two courses that have sold over 1500 times. And he has grown a sizeable audience.
Enjoy an exceptional developer experience with JetBrains. Whatever programming language and technology you use, JetBrains IDEs provide the tools you need to go beyond simple code editing and excel as a developer. Check out FREE coding software options and special offers on jetbrains.com/store/#discounts. Make it happen. With code.
Manning Publications is a premier publisher of technical books on computer and software development topics for both experienced developers and new learners alike. Manning prides itself on being independently owned and operated, and for paving the way for innovative initiatives, such as early access book content and protection-free PDF formats that are now industry standard. Get a 40% discount for Tech Lead Journal listeners by using the code techlead24 for all products in all formats.
Like this episode? Show notes & transcript: techleadjournal.dev/episodes/181. Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Buy me a coffee or become a patron.
#103 - Software Development Pearls - Karl Wiegers
05 Sep 2022
00:59:42
“A way to boost productivity is to create high-quality software from the outset, so that teams can spend less time on rework, both during development and after the release."
Karl Wiegers is the author of “Software Development Pearls” and the Principal Consultant at Process Impact. In this episode, Karl shared some lessons he has learned over the past five decades of his career. We first discussed software requirement, its role for communication, and the importance of defining the right requirements. Karl then touched on the reasons we can’t optimize all desirable quality attributes and instead advised how we should define the quality attribute requirements. Next, Karl shared some project management pearls, related to work planning and dealing with estimates. Towards the end, Karl explained the relation between quality and productivity, using pain as a driver for improvement, and his ultimate pearl of wisdom.
Karl Wiegers’s Bio
Karl Wiegers is Principal Consultant with Process Impact, a software development consulting and training company. He has a PhD in organic chemistry. Karl is the author of 13 books, including Software Development Pearls, Software Requirements, The Thoughtless Design of Everyday Things, Successful Business Analysis Consulting, and a forensic mystery novel titled The Reconstruction. You can reach him at ProcessImpact.com or KarlWiegers.com, where you can hear more than 50 songs he has recorded just for fun, including 18 originals that he wrote.
DevTernity 2022 (devternity.com) is the top international software development conference with an emphasis on coding, architecture, and tech leadership skills. The lineup is truly stellar and features many legends of software development like Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin, Kent Beck, Scott Hanselman, Venkat Subramaniam, Kevlin Henney, and many others! The conference takes place online, and we have the 10% discount code for you: AWSM_TLJ.
Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
Like this episode? Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and submit your feedback.
Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
Pledge your support by becoming a patron.
For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/103.
#102 - Building Inspired & Empowered Product Teams - Marty Cagan
29 Aug 2022
00:50:45
“Instead of being given a roadmap of features, an empowered team is given a problem to solve and they get to figure out the best way to solve that problem."
Marty Cagan is the founder of the Silicon Valley Product Group and the author of “Inspired” and “Empowered”. In this episode, we discussed how companies ought to build great products by learning from the best product companies. Marty explained the importance of building the right product and shared the two inconvenient truths about building products. Marty then elaborated on the traits a good product team has and how to create an empowered product team by ensuring ownership and alignment and by having clear product vision, strategy, and focus. Towards the end, Marty shared the importance of coaching and nurturing people, how to hire better, and how to structure product team topologies.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:48]
Writing Inspired & Empowered - [00:11:38]
Building the Right Product - [00:16:23]
Two Inconvenient Truths - [00:17:45]
Traits of Good Product Teams - [00:22:06]
Engineering Involvement - [00:24:53]
Empowered - [00:26:44]
Ownership & Alignment - [00:28:41]
Product Vision & Strategy - [00:33:00]
Focus - [00:35:39]
Coaching & Nurturing People - [00:39:40]
Hiring - [00:41:56]
How to Structure Teams - [00:43:49]
4 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:46:55]
_____
Marty Cagan’s Bio
Before founding the Silicon Valley Product Group to pursue his interests in helping others create successful products through his writing, speaking, advising and coaching, Marty Cagan served as an executive responsible for defining and building products for some of the most successful companies in the world, including HP Labs, Netscape Communications, and eBay. Marty is also the author of the books INSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love and EMPOWERED: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products.
DevTernity 2022 (devternity.com) is the top international software development conference with an emphasis on coding, architecture, and tech leadership skills. The lineup is truly stellar and features many legends of software development like Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin, Kent Beck, Scott Hanselman, Venkat Subramaniam, Kevlin Henney, and many others! The conference takes place online, and we have the 10% discount code for you: AWSM_TLJ.
Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
Like this episode? Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and submit your feedback.
Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
Pledge your support by becoming a patron.
For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/102.
#101 - My Engineering Leadership Story & 100 Episodes Reflection - Henry Suryawirawan
22 Aug 2022
01:04:55
“As a servant leader, your number one job is to serve the people around you. You succeed together with your people, and that’s why serving them first would give you the best opportunity to succeed together."
Henry Suryawirawan is the host of your beloved podcast. In this episode, hosted by Jerome Poudevigne, we uncovered lessons from Henry’s career journey and from running the Tech Lead Journal podcast. Henry shared his career turning points that included multiple transitions between individual contributor (IC) and management, being part of retrenchment, working in a failed startup, and his decision to leave Google and join a scaleup. Henry then shared how he prepared and grew himself into his current leadership position by being a problem solver, exercising the servant leadership mindset, building culture intentionally, and a few tips on doing remote work effectively. In the second half of the conversation, Henry shared why and how he first started the Tech Lead Journal podcast, as well as sharing moments and lessons he learned from releasing 100 episodes in the last 2 years.
Henry Suryawirawan’s Bio
Henry Suryawirawan is an experienced engineering leader and an avid personal growth learner. He is the host of Tech Lead Journal, a podcast about technical leadership and excellence.
DevTernity 2022 (devternity.com) is the top international software development conference with an emphasis on coding, architecture, and tech leadership skills. The lineup is truly stellar and features many legends of software development like Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin, Kent Beck, Scott Hanselman, Venkat Subramaniam, Kevlin Henney, and many others! The conference takes place online, and we have the 10% discount code for you: AWSM_TLJ.
Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
Like this episode? Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and submit your feedback.
Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
Pledge your support by becoming a patron.
For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/101.
#100 - Modern Software Engineering - Dave Farley
08 Aug 2022
01:02:20
🎙️ CELEBRATE the 100th EPISODE by submitting your story/message at techleadjournal.dev/celebrate-100 🎉
“Engineering discipline is the most effective, efficient way of doing high-quality work. If our software development practices do not allow us to build better software faster, we should really change them because they are not engineering."
Dave Farley is the co-author of the Jolt award-winning book “Continuous Delivery” and runs the popular “Continuous Delivery” YouTube channel on software engineering topics. In this episode, we discussed Dave’s latest book, “Modern Software Engineering”. Dave started by explaining his view on modern software engineering and why it emphasizes on practices for building better software faster. Dave described the foundations of the software engineering discipline and explained the core competencies we need to succeed by becoming experts at both learning and managing complexity. Dave also explained the importance of understanding technology fundamentals, improving software readability, and handling software complexity by managing concurrency and coupling. Towards the end, Dave shared some other tools in the modern software engineering toolkit that include Continuous Delivery.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:08:01]
Modern Software Engineering - [00:12:19]
Better Software Faster - [00:14:58]
Software Engineering - [00:17:22]
Expert at Learning - [00:20:37]
Why Agile Not Enough - [00:26:34]
Expert at Managing Complexity - [00:31:49]
Importance of Fundamentals & Readability - [00:36:01]
Concurrency & Coupling - [00:43:57]
Other Modern Software Engineering Tools - [00:51:29]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:57:42]
_____
Dave Farley’s Bio
Dave Farley, founder and consultant for Continuous Delivery Ltd., has been a programmer, software engineer, and systems architect since the early days of modern computing. With Jez Humble, Farley coauthored the best-seller Continuous Delivery. As Head of Software Development for the LMAX, he built one of the world’s fastest financial exchanges. One of the earliest adopters of agile techniques employing iterative development, continuous integration, and high levels of automated testing, he also coauthored the Reactive Manifesto.
DevTernity 2022 (devternity.com) is the top international software development conference with an emphasis on coding, architecture, and tech leadership skills. The lineup is truly stellar and features many legends of software development like Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin, Kent Beck, Scott Hanselman, Venkat Subramaniam, Kevlin Henney, and many others! The conference takes place online, and we have the 10% discount code for you: AWSM_TLJ.
Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
Like this episode? Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and submit your feedback.
Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
Pledge your support by becoming a patron.
For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/100.
#99 - Better Software With Acceptance Test-Driven Development - Kenneth Pugh
01 Aug 2022
00:50:17
🎙️ CELEBRATE the 100th EPISODE by submitting your story/message at techleadjournal.dev/celebrate-100 🎉
“Acceptance test is any test that a system must pass in order to be accepted. If you can’t ship a system without passing a test, then it is an acceptance test."
Kenneth Pugh is an acclaimed author and thought leader in acceptance-test driven development (ATDD) and behavior-driven development (BDD). His works include the 2006 Jolt award winner “Prefactoring” followed by “Lean-Agile Acceptance Test-Driven Development”. In this episode, Ken explained in-depth the concept of acceptance tests and ATDD. He first described what an acceptance test is, why it is beneficial to deliver better software, and why we should invest our effort to automate it. Ken also touched on a few other important concepts, such as the testing triad, test pyramid, user acceptance test, and table-driven specifications. Towards the end, Ken shared some advice on how we can start implementing ATDD.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:06:16]
Acceptance Test - [00:09:30]
Acceptance Test Benefits - [00:13:39]
When to Write Acceptance Test - [00:16:18]
The Triad - [00:20:55]
Is Doing ATDD Expensive? - [00:26:31]
Acceptance Test & Test Pyramid - [00:28:56]
UAT & Reporting - [00:33:22]
Automating Acceptance Test - [00:36:21]
Table-Driven vs Text Format - [00:39:09]
ATDD - [00:42:46]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:44:49]
_____
Kenneth Pugh’s Bio
Ken Pugh helps companies develop software effectively by applying lean-agile principles and practices. He concentrates on delivering business value quickly by removing waste and delays in value streams; building in quality with Acceptance Test-Driven Development / Behaviour Driven Development; creating a collaborative environment; and evaluating return-on-investment. He has written several software development books including the 2006 Jolt Award winner Prefactoring: Extreme Abstraction, Extreme Separation, Extreme Readability and his latest: Lean-Agile Acceptance Test-Driven Development: Better Software Through Collaboration. He is the co-creator of the SAFe® Agile Software Engineering course.
Follow Ken:
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenpugh/
Twitter – @kpugh
Website – https://kenpugh.com/
ATDD/BDD – https://atdd-bdd.com
Our Sponsors
DevTernity 2022 (devternity.com) is the top international software development conference with an emphasis on coding, architecture, and tech leadership skills. The lineup is truly stellar and features many legends of software development like Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin, Kent Beck, Scott Hanselman, Venkat Subramaniam, Kevlin Henney, and many others! The conference takes place online, and we have the 10% discount code for you: AWSM_TLJ.
Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
Like this episode? Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and submit your feedback.
Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
Pledge your support by becoming a patron.
For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/99.
#98 - Professional Agile Leadership With Empiricism, Catalytic Leadership, and Self-Management for Agility - Kurt Bittner
25 Jul 2022
00:50:52
“Empiricism is at the heart of agility. The fundamental foundation of agility starts with some assertion about value. Every sprint or iteration is really an experiment about value."
Kurt Bittner is the author and editor of many books on agile product development, including co-authoring the recent “Professional Agile Leader” book. In this episode, we started our conversation discussing the common misconception of Agile in the modern day and Kurt emphasized that empiricism should be at the heart of agility, especially for solving complex problems. Kurt then explained the importance of aligning company’s direction and goals using outcomes instead of using activities or outputs. In the latter half of the episode, we discussed the concept of a self-managing team, what characteristics and attributes it has, and the important role of catalytic leadership in such teams. Kurt also explained how to measure the self-management spectrum of a team by measuring decision latency and shared some advice on how to reduce decision-making dependencies in organizations.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:06:08]
Empiricism in Agility - [00:09:35]
Going in the Right Direction - [00:16:17]
Agile for Complex Problems - [00:22:18]
Self-Managing Team - [00:26:26]
Leadership vs Management - [00:32:40]
Decision Latency and Dependencies - [00:35:18]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:47:50]
_____
Kurt Bittner’s Bio
Kurt Bittner has been delivering working products in short, feedback-driven cycles for nearly 40 years, and has helped many organizations do the same. He is the author or editor of many books on agile product development, including Mastering Professional Scrum, The Zombie Scrum Survival Guide, The Nexus Framework for Scaling Scrum, The Professional Scrum Team, and Professional Agile Leadership, as well as The Guide to Evidence-Based Management, and The Nexus Guide.
Blog – https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog?uid=330
The Professional Agile Leader Website – https://theprofessionalagileleader.com
Our Sponsors
DevTernity 2022 (devternity.com) is the top international software development conference with an emphasis on coding, architecture, and tech leadership skills. The lineup is truly stellar and features many legends of software development like Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin, Kent Beck, Scott Hanselman, Venkat Subramaniam, Kevlin Henney, and many others! The conference takes place online, and we have the 10% discount code for you: AWSM_TLJ.
Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. It is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
Like this episode? Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and submit your feedback.
Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
Pledge your support by becoming a patron.
For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/98.
#97 - Personal Kanban & Collaboration Equation - Jim Benson
18 Jul 2022
00:56:36
“A highly functional team defines the right environment and has what they need to be the best professionals they can be. And that always includes agency and psychological safety."
Jim Benson is the co-author of “Personal Kanban” and is currently working on his upcoming book “The Collaboration Equation”. In this episode, we started by discussing Personal Kanban, how it differs from a to-do list, and its two main rules, i.e. visualizing our work and limiting our work-in-progress. Jim also shared practical tips on managing our personal backlog, doing prioritization, and limiting our work in progress. In the latter half of our conversation, we discussed Jim’s new book, “The Collaboration Equation”, starting with the discussion about the common collaboration challenges and why professionalism and psychological safety are prerequisites to building high-performing teams. Jim also explained the concept of collaborative leadership and gave practical tips on how we can measure effective collaboration.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:06:42]
Current State of Productivity - [00:08:17]
Obeya - [00:10:12]
Rules of Personal Kanban - [00:12:44]
Kanban vs Todo List - [00:14:46]
Managing Backlog - [00:17:07]
Limiting Work in Progress - [00:24:26]
Collaboration Equation - [00:27:36]
Professionalism - [00:31:06]
Psychological Safety - [00:33:21]
Collaborative Leadership - [00:36:39]
Collaborative Process - [00:41:04]
Measuring Collaboration - [00:46:09]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:51:09]
_____
Jim Benson’s Bio
Jim Benson is the CEO of Modus Cooperandi, and co-founder of Modus Institute. A pioneer in applying Lean and Kanban methodologies to knowledge work, Jim is the creator of Personal Kanban and Lean Coffee, and co-author of Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life, winner of the prestigious Shingo Research and Publication Award. His other books include Why Plans Fail, Why Limit WIP, and Beyond Agile. His upcoming book The Collaboration Equation will be out in Summer 2022.
Follow Jim:
Twitter – @ourfounder
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimbenson
Modus Cooperandi – https://moduscooperandi.com/
Modus Institute – https://modusinstitute.com/
Our Sponsors
DevTernity 2022 (devternity.com) is the top international software development conference with an emphasis on coding, architecture, and tech leadership skills. The lineup is truly stellar and features many legends of software development like Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin, Kent Beck, Scott Hanselman, Venkat Subramaniam, Kevlin Henney, and many others! The conference takes place online, and we have the 10% discount code for you: AWSM_TLJ.
Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. It is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
Like this episode? Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and submit your feedback.
Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
Pledge your support by becoming a patron.
For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/97.
#96 - Practical Guide to Implementing SRE and SLOs - Alex Hidalgo
11 Jul 2022
01:01:49
“Reliability is the most important thing. Your users define your reliability, so make sure you’re measuring the right thing. And 100% is out of the question, so pick the right target."
Alex Hidalgo is the Principal Reliability Advocate at Nobl9 and author of “Implementing Service Level Objectives”. In this episode, we discussed the practical guide on how to implement SRE and SLOs. Alex started by explaining the basic concept of service reliability and service truths. He then explained the concept of reliability stack, that includes the famous SRE concepts: SLI, SLO, and error budgets. Alex then shared his insights on how we can define a service reliability target, why a higher reliability target is expensive, and the risk of a service of being too reliable. Towards the end, Alex shared his tips on how we can build an SRE culture and how we can use the error budget as a communication tool within the organization.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:07:19]
Understanding SRE & SLO - [00:14:17]
Service & Reliability - [00:17:30]
Service Truths - [00:21:06]
Reliability Stack - [00:23:45]
Defining Reliability Target - [00:27:11]
Higher Reliability is Expensive - [00:29:27]
SLI - [00:34:26]
Measuring Correctness - [00:37:30]
Critical User Journey - [00:41:49]
Being Too Reliable - [00:47:18]
Communicating with Error Budget - [00:51:02]
Building SRE Culture - [00:54:13]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:57:57]
_____
Alex Hidalgo’s Bio
Alex Hidalgo is the Principal Reliability Advocate at Nobl9 and author of “Implementing Service Level Objectives”. During his career he has developed a deep love for sustainable operations, proper observability, and using SLO data to drive discussions and make decisions. Alex’s previous jobs have included IT support, network security, restaurant work, t-shirt design, and hosting game shows at bars. When not sharing his passion for technology with others, you can find him scuba diving or watching college basketball. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner Jen and a rescue dog named Taco. Alex has a BA in philosophy from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Follow Alex:
Twitter – @ahidalgosre
Nobl9 – https://www.nobl9.com/
Website – https://www.alex-hidalgo.com/
Our Sponsors
DevTernity 2022 (devternity.com) is the top international software development conference with an emphasis on coding, architecture, and tech leadership skills. The lineup is truly stellar and features many legends of software development like Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin, Kent Beck, Scott Hanselman, Venkat Subramaniam, Kevlin Henney, and many others! The conference takes place online, and we have the 10% discount code for you: AWSM_TLJ.
Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. It is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/96.
#95 - Top Career Lessons from an Engineering Career Coach - Jeff Perry
04 Jul 2022
00:49:10
“You are your greatest asset in your career and in your life. Invest in you personally in all areas of life in order to live your best life."
Jeff Perry is an engineering coach, the founder of More Than Engineering and the co-host of the Engineering Career Coach podcast. In this episode, Jeff shared the important role of a coach or mentor in our engineering career. We first discussed Jeff’s engineering career clarity checklist and why it is truly important to find the clarity in our career journey. Jeff then shared the role of an engineering career coach, how a coach can help us navigate our career, and the difference between a coach and a mentor. Throughout our discussion, we also touched on a few other topics, such as the Great Resignation, making intentional career transitions, transitioning to a leadership role, and the power of accountability.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:06:59]
More Than Engineering - [00:10:54]
Engineering Career Clarity Checklist - [00:12:58]
Finding the “Why” - [00:15:12]
Genius Zone - [00:17:38]
International Career Transition - [00:20:23]
Great Resignation - [00:22:45]
Engineering Career Coach - [00:25:32]
Power of Accountability - [00:28:45]
Transitioning to Leadership Role - [00:32:13]
Letting Go - [00:35:37]
Leadership Attributes - [00:39:32]
Engineering Career Coach Poadcast - [00:42:41]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:44:30]
_____
Jeff Perry’s Bio
As a software, mechanical, and manufacturing engineering leaders, Jeff has designed and built many products and processes. Now he builds people. Most of his work now revolves around leadership and career coaching for engineering and technical professionals, including:
Finding increased career fulfillment and making intentional career transitions
Getting clarity and exploring new career possibilities
Leadership and personal development for tech leaders
Engineering Career Coach Podcast – https://engineeringmanagementinstitute.org/the-podcast/
More Than Engineering - https://morethan-engineering.com/
Engineering Career Accelerator - https://www.engineeringcareeraccelerator.com/
Our Sponsors
DevTernity 2022 (devternity.com) is the top international software development conference with an emphasis on coding, architecture, and tech leadership skills. The lineup is truly stellar and features many legends of software development like Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin, Kent Beck, Scott Hanselman, Venkat Subramaniam, Kevlin Henney, and many others! The conference takes place online, and we have the 10% discount code for you: AWSM_TLJ.
Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. It is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/95.
#94 - Engineering Manager Essentials - Patrick Kua
27 Jun 2022
00:54:50
“An engineering manager should make sure that the team has a good balance of delivering things that the business needs with enough capacity to do it sustainably over time."
Patrick Kua is a seasoned technology leader with a passion to accelerate the growth and success of tech organisations and technical leaders. In this episode, we discussed Pat’s latest course, Engineering Manager Essentials, which covers all the building blocks required to be an effective Engineering Manager (EM). We first discussed what an EM role is, how it differs from a tech lead role, and the common manager vs IC career track. Pat shared his view on why being an EM is not a promotion and what are some of the success criteria to be a good EM. Towards the end, Pat shared some anti-patterns that EM should avoid to become successful.
Listen out for:
Pat’s Latest - [00:07:30]
Engineering Manager Essentials - [00:09:25]
The Role of Engineering Manager - [00:11:21]
Difference With Tech Lead - [00:14:19]
Manager and IC Paths - [00:16:28]
EM Is Not a Promotion - [00:21:02]
EM Success Criteria - [00:28:08]
Multiplier Instead of Maker - [00:30:48]
Course Structure - [00:33:21]
Interviewing EM - [00:37:20]
Antipattern 1: Continuing as a Maker - [00:39:58]
Antipattern 2: Assuming Everyone Knows What You Do - [00:43:01]
Antipattern 3: Optimizing Parts Instead of The Whole - [00:48:34]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:51:30]
_____
Patrick Kua’s Bio
Patrick Kua is a seasoned technology leader with 20+ years of experience having done a wide variety of roles including being a developer, tech lead, consultant, CTO and more. His current mission is accelerating the growth of technical leaders through coaching, mentoring and training.
EM Essentials Course – https://www.patkua.com/em-essentials/
Tech Lead Academy – https://techlead.academy/
Level Up Newsletter – https://levelup.patkua.com/
Our Sponsors
DevTernity 2022 (devternity.com) is the top international software development conference with an emphasis on coding, architecture, and tech leadership skills. The lineup is truly stellar and features many legends of software development like Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin, Kent Beck, Scott Hanselman, Venkat Subramaniam, Kevlin Henney, and many others! The conference takes place online, and we have the 10% discount code for you: AWSM_TLJ.
Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. It is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
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Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
Pledge your support by becoming a patron.
For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/94.
#180 - Becoming a Distinguished Engineer, Public Speaking, and Early Retirement - Kelsey Hightower
24 Jun 2024
01:00:30
“Learn the difference between activities and impact. Sometimes we spend our career trying to get really great at activities. Always ask yourself, what is the impact of the work I’m doing?”
From Google Distinguished Engineer to early retirement, Kelsey Hightower has a career journey filled with lessons for tech professionals at every stage. In this episode, Kelsey reflects on his journey, revealing why he decided to retire early, and offering valuable insights and lessons learned.
Discover the importance of an entrepreneurial mindset, differentiating between activity and impact, and building a strong personal brand. Kelsey reveals his top strategies for becoming a confident public speaker and shares his thoughts on staying engaged and planning your career path. Plus, we touch on the impact of AI on software developers’ careers.
Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from one of the industry’s most respected figures and gain a unique perspective on achieving career success and fulfillment.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:01:35]
Entrepreneurial Mindset - [00:04:15]
Taking Risks in Our Role - [00:07:50]
Activity vs Impact - [00:11:45]
Thinking in Bigger Impact - [00:16:04]
Impact of AI - [00:24:52]
Getting Good at Public Speaking - [00:31:23]
Building a Personal Brand - [00:38:05]
Retiring Early - [00:44:04]
Getting Engaged in Our Career - [00:50:49]
Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:57:48]
_____
Kelsey Hightower’s Bio Kelsey has worn every hat possible throughout his career in tech and enjoys leadership roles focused on making things happen and shipping software. Prior to his retirement, he was a Distinguished Engineer at Google, where he worked on Google Cloud Platform. He is a strong open source advocate with a focus on building great software as well as great communities around them. He is also an accomplished author and keynote speaker with a knack for demystifying complex topics, doing live demos and enabling others to succeed. When he is not writing code, you can catch him giving technical workshops covering everything from programming to system administration.
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Manning Publications is a premier publisher of technical books on computer and software development topics for both experienced developers and new learners alike. Manning prides itself on being independently owned and operated, and for paving the way for innovative initiatives, such as early access book content and protection-free PDF formats that are now industry standard. Get a 40% discount for Tech Lead Journal listeners by using the code techlead24 for all products in all formats.
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#93 - Maximum Value Maximum Speed Software - Dave Thomas
20 Jun 2022
00:57:43
“We want to write as little software as possible, and we want it to have as much value as possible. If you actually focus on that, it means you have to be close to your customer."
Dave Thomas is the founder & chairman of Bedarra Corp, creator of IBM Smalltalk, VisualAge for Java, Eclipse, Kx Analyst workbench and Skills Matter YOW! Australia conferences. In this episode, Dave shared about his personal research, 42D, on ideas we can use to develop high-value software rapidly. He started by describing the current developer’s productivity challenges and touched on the idea that big is not better, relating to the size of the team and code base, and how development tools are becoming more complicated and complex. We then discussed the importance of developers understanding domain knowledge, leveraging tools such as decision tables and spreadsheets, and how the choice of programming language actually matters. Towards the end, Dave shared about using a data-centric approach to deal with legacy systems and his perspective on query as the future of programming.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:06:17]
42D - [00:15:26]
Developer Productivity Challenge - [00:16:37]
Maximum Value, Maximum Speed - [00:19:53]
Big is Not Better - [00:21:24]
Tools Getting More Complex - [00:26:43]
Importance of Domain Knowledge - [00:31:02]
Decision Tables and Spreadsheets - [00:39:10]
Importance of Programming Languages - [00:41:55]
Data-Centric Approach with Legacy - [00:47:02]
Future Programming is Query - [00:50:51]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:54:31]
_____
Dave Thomas’s Bio
Dave Thomas is the founder and chairman of the YOW! Australia and Lambda Jam conferences, and is a GOTO Conference Fellow. He served as the Chief Scientists of KX Systems and the Managing Director of Object Mentor. Dave also co-founded Object Technology International, becoming CEO of IBM OTI Labs after its sale to IBM. Nowadays, Dave is the Chairman of Bedarra Corp, a company he co-founded that created the Ivy visual analytics workbench.
Dave is recognized as an ACM Distinguished Engineer for his contributions to Object Technology, which includes IBM VisualAge and Eclipse IDEs, Smalltalk, and Java virtual machines.
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
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Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
Pledge your support by becoming a patron.
For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/93.
#92 - Agile and Holistic Testing - Janet Gregory & Lisa Crispin
13 Jun 2022
01:01:16
“Testing is an activity that happens throughout. It is not a phase that happens at the end. Start thinking about the risks at the very beginning, and how we are going to mitigate those with testing."
Janet Gregory and Lisa Crispin are the co-authors of several books on Agile Testing and the co-founders of Agile Testing Fellowship. In this episode, Janet and Lisa shared the agile testing concept and mindset with an emphasis on the whole team approach, which was then followed by an explanation of the holistic testing concept with a complete walkthrough how we can use the approach in our product development cycle, including how Continuous Delivery fits into holistic testing. Janet and Lisa also described some important concepts in agile testing, such as the agile testing quadrants (to help classify our tests) and the power of three (aka the Three Amigos). Towards the end, Janet and Lisa also shared their perspective on exploratory testing and testing in production.
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/92.
#91 - Lean Software Development Principles and Mindset - Mary & Tom Poppendieck
06 Jun 2022
00:58:39
"Pull, don’t push. Don’t tell people what to do. Tell them what results you want and let them figure out how best to achieve the outcome that’s needed."
Mary & Tom Poppendieck are the co-authors of several books related to Agile and Lean, including their award-winning book “Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit” published in 2003. In this episode, Mary & Tom shared about lean software development, its principles and mindset, and the concept of a pull system. Mary & Tom then pointed out the problems of having proxies in software development and how it is much better to manage by the outcomes by having the people directly figuring out the best way to achieve those outcomes. Later on, Mary & Tom talked about the concept of flow, why it is important to optimize flow, and how to optimize flow by analyzing the value stream map and minimizing approval process.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:26]
Lean Software Development - [00:18:50]
Pull, Don’t Push - [00:23:34]
Proxies - [00:31:00]
Managing by Outcome - [00:37:10]
Optimizing Flow - [00:41:18]
Value Stream Map & Approvals - [00:47:00]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:55:05]
_____
Mary Poppendieck’s Bio
Mary wrote the now-classic book “Lean Software Development: an Agile Toolkit”, proposing an approach which focuses on customers, respects software engineers, concentrates on learning, and leverages flow. Mary is a popular writer and speaker. Sequels of her first book include “Implementing Lean Software Development: from Concept to Cash”, “Leading Lean Software Development: Results are Not the Point” and “The Lean Mindset: Ask the Right Questions”.
Tom Poppendieck’s Bio
Tom has over three decades of experience in computing, including several years of work with object technology. Tom holds a PhD in Physics and has taught physics for ten years. He is the coauthor of four books: “Lean Software Development” (2003), “Implementing Lean Software Development” (2006), “Leading Lean Software Development” (2009) and “Lean Mindset” (2013).
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
Like this episode? Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and submit your feedback.
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Pledge your support by becoming a patron.
For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/91.
#90 - Clean Craftsmanship - Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob)
30 May 2022
01:01:03
“The simplest way to describe craftsmanship is pride of workmanship. It is the mindset that you are working on something important and you are going to do it well."
Robert C. Martin (aka Uncle Bob) is the co-founder of cleancoders.com, an acclaimed speaker at conferences worldwide, and prolific author of multiple best-selling books. In this episode, Uncle Bob shared some insights from his latest book, “Clean Craftsmanship”. He first started by sharing the current major challenge of the software development industry, i.e. as a young discipline, it suffers from the state of perpetual inexperience amid exponential acceleration of demand for programmers, which drove Uncle Bob writing the book to help define disciplines, standards and ethics for software craftsmanship. He then touched on the five key disciplines of clean craftsmanship, specifically focusing on test-driven development and refactoring. Towards the latter half, Uncle Bob described a few essential standards and ethics of clean craftsmanship, such as never ship s**t, always be ready, do no harm, and estimate honestly.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:07:29]
Clean Craftsmanship - [00:10:54]
Programmer as a Profession - [00:15:31]
Craftsmanship - [00:18:46]
Disciplines - [00:22:45]
Disciplines: Test-Driven Development - [00:28:50]
Disciplines: Refactoring - [00:34:32]
Code Coverage - [00:39:02]
Standard: Never Ship S**t - [00:42:35]
Standard: Always Be Ready - [00:47:16]
Ethics: Do No Harm - [00:50:01]
Ethics: Estimate Honestly - [00:53:56]
2 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:57:50]
_____
Robert C. Martin’s Bio
Robert Martin (Uncle Bob) has been a programmer since 1970. He is the co-founder of the online video training company cleancoders.com and founder of Uncle Bob Consulting LLC. He served as Master Craftsman at 8th Light inc and is an acclaimed speaker at conferences worldwide. He is a profilic writer and has published hundreds of articles, papers, blogs, and best-selling books including: “The Clean Coder”, “Clean Code”, “Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices”, and “Clean Architecture”. He also served as the Editor-in-chief of the C++ Report and as the first chairman of the Agile Alliance.
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
Like this episode? Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and submit your feedback.
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Pledge your support by becoming a patron.
For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/90.
#89 - Code That Fits in Your Head - Mark Seemann
23 May 2022
00:54:46
“The goal of software is often to sustain an organization. An organization invests in software in order to achieve some goal and hopefully to sustain itself in helping it achieve that goal."
Mark Seemann is an acclaimed author, international speaker, and a highly experienced developer. In this episode, Mark shared some insights from his latest book, “Code That Fits in Your Head”, on how to write sustainable software and manage software complexity. Mark first started by sharing why he wrote this book and explained why software development is hard. He also pointed out the difference between software engineering and other physical engineering disciplines, especially on the set of constraints. Mark then explained the importance of writing sustainable software and shared the perspective that code is a liability instead of an asset. Towards the end, Mark shared about the Rule of 7 as a guideline to manage code complexity and a few practices we can use to build sustainable software, such as checklist, vertical slice, x-driven development, and command query separation.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:06:26]
Code That Fits in Your Head - [00:07:49]
Software Development is Hard - [00:10:55]
Software Engineering vs Physical Engineering - [00:15:01]
Sustainable Software - [00:17:58]
Code is a Liability - [00:19:55]
Rule of 7 - [00:22:43]
Checklist - [00:31:23]
Vertical Slice - [00:35:52]
X-Driven Development - [00:39:47]
Command Query Separation - [00:45:07]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:49:38]
_____
Mark Seemann’s Bio
Mark Seemann is a bad economist who’s found a second career as a programmer, and he has worked as a web and enterprise developer since the late 1990s. As a young man, Mark wanted to become a rockstar, but unfortunately had neither the talent nor the looks – later, however, he became a Certified Rockstar Developer. He has also written a Jolt Award-winning book about Dependency Injection, given more than a 100 international conference talks, and authored video courses for both Pluralsight and Clean Coders. He has regularly published blog posts since 2006. He lives in Copenhagen with his wife and two children.
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
Like this episode? Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and submit your feedback.
Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
Pledge your support by becoming a patron.
For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/89.
#88 - Observability Engineering - Liz Fong-Jones
16 May 2022
00:46:58
“Observability is a technique for ensuring that you can understand novel problems in your system. Can you understand what’s happening in your system and why, without having to push a new code by slicing and dicing existing telemetry signals that are coming out of your system?"
Liz Fong-Jones is the co-author of the “Observability Engineering” book and a Principal Developer Advocate for SRE and Observability at Honeycomb. In this episode, Liz shared in-depth about observability and why it is becoming an important practice in the industry nowadays. Liz started by explaining the fundamentals of observability and how it differs from traditional monitoring. She explained some important concepts, such as the core analysis loop, cardinality and dimensionality, and doing debugging from a first principle. Later, Liz shared the current state of observability and how we can improve our observability by doing observability driven development and improving our practices based on the proposed observability maturity model found in the book.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:44]
Observability - [00:06:30]
Pillars of Observability - [00:09:57]
Monitoring and SLO - [00:12:28]
Core Analysis Loop - [00:15:06]
Cardinality and Dimensionality - [00:18:41]
Debugging from First Principle - [00:21:20]
Current State of Observability - [00:26:49]
Implementing Observability - [00:30:20]
Observability Driven Development - [00:36:53]
Having Developers On-Call - [00:39:06]
Observability Maturity Model - [00:41:59]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:44:10]
_____
Liz Fong-Jones’s Bio
Liz is a developer advocate, labor and ethics organizer, and Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) with 17+ years of experience. She is an advocate at Honeycomb for the SRE and Observability communities, and previously was an SRE working on products ranging from the Google Cloud Load Balancer to Google Flights. She lives in Vancouver, BC with her wife Elly, partners, and a Samoyed/Golden Retriever mix, and in Sydney, NSW. She plays classical piano, leads an EVE Online alliance, and advocates for transgender rights.
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
Like this episode? Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and submit your feedback.
Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
Pledge your support by becoming a patron.
For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/88.
#87 - Learning to Program With Exercism and Building Employee Culture With Kaido - Jeremy Walker
09 May 2022
00:54:26
“You don’t know what you don’t know. So when you’re learning something, it’s very hard to identify your own knowledge gaps, especially if you’re a programmer and you’re moving from one language to another."
Jeremy Walker is the co-founder of Exercism and Kaido. In this episode, Jeremy first shared about Exercism, a not-for-profit online platform for learning different programming languages. He explained the importance of programming in the idiomatic way, the role of mentorship when learning new languages, and shared his experiences running Exercism as one of the largest open source program, such as how to get consensus and how to run remote distributed teams. Later, Jeremy then talked about Kaido, an employee culture platform for building happier, healthier, and better connected teams. He shared how companies could strive to do more to build company culture before then shared some practical tips on how we can improve our personal wellbeing.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:08]
Exercism - [00:08:24]
Programming in Idiomatic Way - [00:11:34]
Mentorship When Learning Languages - [00:13:52]
Inclusiveness & Equality - [00:17:04]
Running Large Open Source - [00:21:19]
Getting Consensus - [00:27:11]
Running Remote Distributed Teams - [00:30:42]
Kaido for Wellbeing and Culture - [00:37:00]
Tips on Personal Wellbeing - [00:43:40]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:49:13]
_____
Jeremy Walker’s Bio
Jeremy Walker is the co-founder of Exercism and Kaido. He is a software developer and entrepreneur who has been building tech businesses and not-for-profits for over 15 years. He is passionate about building great places to work and creating opportunity through education. In his space time he boulders and gets geeky about coffee.
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/87.
#86 - Adaptive Systems with Wardley Mapping, Domain-Driven Design, and Team Topologies - Susanne Kaiser
02 May 2022
00:50:12
“We need to consider our system that we built as sociotechnical systems. The system is more than the sum of its parts. It’s a product of their interactions. We need to focus on improving the performance of the whole, instead of separate parts of the system."
Susanne Kaiser is the author of the upcoming book “Adaptive Systems with Domain-Driven Design, Wardley Mapping, and Team Topologies: Architecture for Flow”. In this episode, Susanne explained how she connected the dots between 3 different methodologies–Wardley Mapping, Domain-Driven Design, and Team Topologies–to design and build adaptive systems for a fast flow of change and why it is important for any organization to have adaptive systems. Susanne went in depth to explain about the Wardley Mapping strategic framework, its five sections, and how they support designing and evolving effective business strategies based on situational awareness and movement following a strategy cycle. She then explained how to translate from a Wardley map into Domain-Driven Design, how DDD helps in applying the Wardley Mapping doctrine principles, before then explaining how Team Topologies helps to create effective team boundaries and optimize team’s cognitive load. Towards the end, Susanne shared from her experience how we can apply this process in our organizations, as well as in legacy systems.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:07:00]
DDD, Wardley Mapping & Team Topologies - [00:09:56]
Adaptive System - [00:15:57]
Wardley Mapping - [00:19:53]
Doctrine Principles - [00:28:09]
Domain-Driven Design and Team Topologies - [00:31:16]
How to Apply in an Organization - [00:38:49]
How to Apply to Legacy - [00:41:30]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:47:04]
_____
Susanne Kaiser’s Bio
Susanne Kaiser is an independent tech consultant from Hamburg, Germany, supporting organizations with building socio-technical systems. She is passionate about connecting the dots between Wardley Mapping, Domain-Driven Design, and Team Topologies as a holistic approach to design and build adaptive systems for a fast flow of change. Susanne was previously working as a startup CTO and has a background in computer sciences and experience in software development and software architecture since 2002. She is the author of the book “Adaptive Systems with Domain-Driven Design, Wardley Mapping, and Team Topologies: Architecture for Flow” (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Vernon), 2022).
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
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#85 - Agile Recruiting: Hiring in a Complex and Uncertain World - Jens Olberding
18 Apr 2022
00:46:52
“Today, employees want more autonomy, e.g. work-life balance and working from home, and at the same time, they want more social inclusion to get as many authentic insights into the company and the new job as possible."
Jens Olberding is the author of “Agile Recruiting” and an expert in agile HR management. In this episode, we opened our conversation discussing the great resignation trend and its underlying reasons. Jens then shared the concept of agile recruiting and explained how it is very much relevant to the latest changes in the current job landscape. He emphasized that recruiting should not only put focus just on the hiring departments’ needs but also equally on the candidates to understand better what they truly want from their career. Jens also shared a few recruiting best practices, such as getting the recruiting teams’ involvements in the recruitment process, building cross-functional teams, and the SuSiBOL interview technique that he shared towards the end to help in assessing candidates’ behaviors and competencies better.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:06:00]
The Great Resignation - [00:07:33]
Agile Recruiting - [00:11:10]
What the Candidate Wants - [00:14:12]
Recruiting Team Involvement - [00:15:55]
Hire for Talent, Train for Skills - [00:18:50]
Cross-Functional Team - [00:20:24]
Assessing Potentials - [00:22:52]
Communication Among Equals - [00:24:23]
Preselection - [00:26:22]
Diversity of Experience - [00:30:51]
SuSiBOL Technique - [00:34:21]
Onboarding - [00:39:14]
Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:42:48]
_____
Jens Olberding’s Bio
Jens Olberding is an expert in agile HR management and recruiting. He is a qualified organisational psychologist and has a Master’s degree in Human Resource Management. He is also a lecturer for diagnostics and recruitment and teaches methods for competence-based recruiting processes. His focus is on supporting agile transformations and the development of agile HR organisations in medium-sized companies. As a coach for leadership and transformation, he accompanies teams, leaders and organisations on their way to more agility.
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/85.
#84 - Tech Consulting and Upskilling Others Through Livestreams - Laurențiu Spilcă
11 Apr 2022
00:51:00
“The route of becoming a technical leader is helping others up-skill and grow. Once you learn that helping others grow is your objective, then you become a leader."
Laurențiu Spilcă is a development lead and trainer at Endava. He is an author of multiple books and a frequent coding livestreamer on YouTube. In this episode, Laurențiu shared his experience as a developer consultant and provided his view on dealing with the expectation for a consultant or tech lead to know about everything in technology. Laurențiu then shared the importance of soft skills and why it is important for every developer to improve them, in particular when doing code reviews and technical interviews. Laurențiu also shared advice on how to deal with toxic culture when consulting and the importance of not having emotional attachments to the projects. Towards the end, Laurențiu shared about his YouTube channel and coding livestream sessions, along with the reasons he started them. He also gave practical tips on how we can produce and structure our content based on his vast experience publishing books, courses, and livestreams.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:59]
Developer Consultant Role - [00:09:06]
Knowing About Everything - [00:12:17]
The Case for Upgrading Tech Stack - [00:17:33]
Importance of Soft Skills - [00:21:58]
Improving Soft Skills - [00:24:40]
Tips on Code Review - [00:29:26]
Outsider Treatment - [00:31:01]
Project Attachment - [00:35:35]
Starting YouTube Channel - [00:37:00]
Coding Livestream - [00:40:24]
Tips for Producing Content - [00:42:35]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:46:13]
_____
Laurențiu Spilcă’s Bio
Laurentiu Spilca is a dedicated development lead and trainer at Endava, where he leads and consults on multiple projects from various locations in Europe, Asia, and the U.S. Laurentiu believes it’s essential to not only deliver high-quality software but to also share knowledge and help others to up-skill, which has driven him to design and teach courses related to Java technologies and deliver presentations and workshops. He is the author of Spring Security in Action and Spring Quickly.
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/84.
#179 - Bottlenecks of Scaleups - Tim Cochran & Kennedy Collins
17 Jun 2024
00:51:29
“As a startup, as a scaleup, you often get one chance. If the first impression is something that’s slow, doesn’t work, is down entirely, people will move on and go find some other way to solve that problem."
Tim Cochran and Kennedy Collins are the co-authors of the “Bottlenecks of Scaleups” series published on Martin Fowler’s website. In this episode, we explore several key challenges faced by scaleups, such as product-engineering friction, service disruptions, accumulation of tech debt, and onboarding. Tim and Kennedy share their experiences and provide actionable advice on fostering collaboration, creating unified roadmaps, ensuring system reliability, and managing technical debt. They also emphasize the importance of efficient onboarding and developer experience in navigating the complexities of scaling up a startup.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:02:02]
Definition of a Scaleup - [00:05:29]
Bottleneck #1: Friction Between Product and Engineering - [00:08:24]
Healthy Product-Engineering Tension - [00:13:36]
Unified Product-Engineering Roadmap - [00:18:54]
Bottleneck #2: Service Disruptions - [00:22:16]
Cross Functional Attributes - [00:27:09]
Bottleneck #3: Accumulation of Tech Debt - [00:32:39]
Systems Ownership - [00:38:37]
Bottleneck #4: Onboarding - [00:41:01]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:46:35]
_____
Tim Cochran’s Bio Tim Cochran is a Principal in Amazon’s Software Builder Experience (ASBX) group. He was previously a Technical Director at Thoughtworks.
Tim has over 20 years of experience working with both scaleups and enterprises. He advises on technology strategy and making the right technology investments to enable digital transformation goals. He is a vocal advocate for the developer experience and passionate about using data-driven approaches to improve it.
Kennedy Collins' Bio At Thoughtworks, he leads product and design for the Central Market of North America. A product manager by trade and a designer by training, he’s most interested in creating (and helping others create) useful and valuable things — be it software or organizational structures.
He’s also a bit of a nerd about strategy, human behavior, health and fitness, productivity, writing, coffee, cocktails, board games, and the history of product management.
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Manning Publications is a premier publisher of technical books on computer and software development topics for both experienced developers and new learners alike. Manning prides itself on being independently owned and operated, and for paving the way for innovative initiatives, such as early access book content and protection-free PDF formats that are now industry standard. Get a 40% discount for Tech Lead Journal listeners by using the code techlead24 for all products in all formats.
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#83 - Effective Remote Work - James Stanier
04 Apr 2022
00:58:36
“Treating everyone as remote is to keep everyone in mind as having the same level, same equality, the same access to information in communication exchanges between people."
James Stanier is the author of “Effective Remote Work” and Director of Engineering at Shopify. In this episode, James shared insights from his latest book and began by sharing why remote work is here to stay and the basic setup for remote work. He then talked about the importance of managing our time and energy and establishing team norms for successful remote work. James then explained about the concept of treating everyone as remote, which led to the discussion about producing more artifacts and balancing between synchronous and asynchronous working style. We also extended the discussion on how one can become a more effective manager in the remote setup, including how to manage up and allocating time for team bonding and fun activities. Towards the end, James shared how we can self-assess our remote working practices by using the 12 questions in his book, and how remote is the path to equality and can become a great leveler for everyone.
Listen out for:
Writing “Effective Remote Work” - [00:06:53]
Remote is Here to Stay - [00:08:36]
Basic Remote Setup - [00:11:45]
Managing Yourself - [00:14:38]
Effects of Being Unobserved - [00:17:19]
Treat Everyone as Remote - [00:19:59]
Producing More Artifacts - [00:22:13]
Types of Artifacts - [00:25:18]
Sync vs Async - [00:30:01]
Effective Remote Manager - [00:36:55]
Managing Up - [00:39:43]
Allocating Fun Time - [00:42:27]
Remote Work Self-Assessment - [00:44:44]
Remote: The Great Leveler - [00:47:36]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:53:29]
_____
James Stanier’s Bio
James Stanier is Director of Engineering at Shopify, a fully remote technology company. His latest book, Effective Remote Work, is being published by The Pragmatic Bookshelf in April 2022. His previous book, Become an Effective Software Engineering Manager, was published in 2020.
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/83.
#82 - Engineering Leadership Lessons From Scaling Up Bukalapak - Mohammed Alabsi
28 Mar 2022
00:36:56
“There’s a substantial difference between building software and then building software for production and then building software for scale."
Mohammed Alabsi is a seasoned technology leader, an angel investor, and a venture fellow at Insignia Ventures. Mohammed worked at Amazon for 10 years, before moving to Southeast Asia and helped scale up Bukalapak towards its IPO. In this episode, Mohammed started by sharing his lessons learned from his time at Amazon, working on EC2, advertising business, and B2B e-commerce. Mohammed then shared his journey at Bukalapak and described the challenges that he had to tackle during the scale-up stage, such as setting up engineering processes and governance, growing high-performing engineering teams rapidly, and building alignment across those multiple teams. He also gave great tips for leaders on the importance of managing up and keeping the leadership and stakeholders in the loop. Towards the end, Mohammed shared about his current role as a tech investor and advisor and gave some great advice on common mistakes startup should avoid, as well as advice for tech leaders in the early stage startups.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:31]
Lessons from Amazon and AWS - [00:08:42]
Common Scale-up Challenges - [00:11:12]
Growing the Team Fast - [00:14:58]
Process and Governance - [00:18:37]
Teams and Alignment - [00:23:26]
Managing Up - [00:25:46]
Tech Investing and Advisory - [00:28:41]
Startup Mistakes to Avoid - [00:30:03]
Advice for Leaders - [00:33:01]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:33:59]
_____
Mohammed Alabsi’s Bio
Mohammed Alabsi is a seasoned technology leader with experience in the US, Asia and the Middle East. Mohammed’s career began with Maktoob.com where he helped build two businesses that were acquired by Yahoo! and Amazon. During his 10 years tenure at Amazon, Mohammed built AWS services powering the infrastructure of millions of tech companies worldwide. He was also a founding member of two of Amazon’s major businesses, in Advertising and Amazon B2B e-commerce. Inspired by Southeast Asia’s pace of technology innovation, he joined Bukalapak as an SVP of engineering. At Bukalapak he led a team of 800 technical staff, launched numerous products, and helped gear the business towards IPO. Mohammed is active in the startup scene, advising and investing in startups across ASEAN and the US. He is also a venture fellow at Insignia Ventures.
Follow Mohammed:
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/alabsi/
Our Sponsor
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
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#81 - Architecture Is Context—Making the Right Architecture Decisions - Eltjo Poort
21 Mar 2022
00:52:44
“Architecture is context. You can only make the right trade-offs between alternatives if you know the context drivers."
Eltjo Poort is the architecture practice lead at CGI Netherlands with over 30 years of experience in the software industry. In this episode, Eltjo started by explaining the importance of architecture context and business drivers that can help an architect understand the different trade-offs and options in order to make the right architecture decisions. Eltjo shared the architect’s main responsibilities and how architects should avoid writing big and long architecture documents by understanding the different goals of an architecture document. Eltjo also shared his great insights on how we should deal with technical debt, “move slow and fix things”, and put a more balanced effort towards working on enablers in order to maintain sustainable pace in delivering great software. Towards the end, Eltjo shared a few anti-patterns that architects should avoid based on his article “Waterfall Wasteland and Agile Outback”.
Waterfall Wasteland and Agile Outback - [00:40:26]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:44:46]
_____
Eltjo Poort’s Bio
Eltjo R. Poort leads the architecture practice at CGI in The Netherlands. In his 30-year career in the software industry, he has fulfilled many engineering and project management roles. In the 1990s, he oversaw the implementation of the first SMS text messaging systems in the United States. In the last decade, he produced various publications on improving architecting practices, including his PhD thesis in 2012. Eltjo is best known for his work on Risk- and Cost-Driven Architecture, a set of principles and practices for agile architecting, for which he received the Linda Northrop Software Architecture Award in 2016. His digital architecture blog can be found at eltjopoort.nl. Eltjo is also a member of IFIP Working Group 2.11 on Software Architecture. In his spare time, Eltjo plays the violin in Symfonieorkest Nijmegen.
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
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#80 - Personal Agility System - Peter Stevens and Maria Matarelli
14 Mar 2022
00:59:45
“Focus on what really matters. If everything matters, then nothing matters. Make sure that what you do is aligned with what really matters."
Peter Stevens and Maria Matarelli are the co-founders of the Personal Agility Institute and the authors of the “Personal Agility”. In this episode, Peter and Maria shared what Personal Agility System is and how we can apply this framework in our daily lives. They highlighted how many people face typical challenges that hinder them from truly getting what they want by using the “life is an ocean” metaphor. Both of them then gave a complete walkthrough of the 6 powerful questions in Personal Agility System, especially highlighting the key question to find “what really matters”. Peter and Maria then shared how this framework is not just applicable to individual, but also to leadership and organizational agility, and how it can help create alignment and trust within an organization.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:55]
How Personal Agility Started - [00:10:10]
Personal Agility System -[00:16:43]
Life is the Ocean - [00:18:55]
6 Powerful Questions - [00:22:26]
What Really Matters - [00:31:45]
Applying PAS to Leadership and Organizational Agility- [00:37:06]
Alignment - [00:41:04]
Alignment Trust - [00:44:59]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:52:19]
_____
Peter and Maria’s Bio
Peter Stevens is an Executive, Coach, Author, Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Trainer (CST), and Founder or co-Founder of the Scrum Ambassadors, AgileExecutives.org, and the World Agility Forum. Peter serves as Chief Agility Officer for a Swiss digital health start-up. Peter also wrote Ten Agile Contracts: Getting Beyond Fixed-Price, Fixed Scope and Extreme Manufacturing.
Maria Matarelli is an Executive Coach, Consultant to the Fortune 100, Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) and an international best selling author. Maria and her team consult businesses to reach breakthrough results by applying Agile methodologies. Maria is the founder and CEO of Formula Ink and co-founder of the Agile Marketing Academy.
Together, Peter and Maria founded the Personal Agility Institute with the mission of helping people and organizations align what they do with what really matters to become who they want to be and achieve what they want to achieve.
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
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#79 - Domain-Driven Design With Functional Programming - Scott Wlaschin
07 Mar 2022
00:44:38
“It is good to improve your processes to make them faster and more efficient. But sometimes what’s even more important is doing the right thing in the first place."
Scott Wlaschin is the author of “Domain Modeling Made Functional” and the popular F# site fsharpforfunandprofit.com. In this episode, Scott began by sharing his view of the need for developers today to become more polyglot developers and learn multiple programming languages. Scott then shared about functional programming (FP) fundamentals and how FP differs with object-oriented programming, as well as cases when one is better suited than the other. Scott then explained how we can use FP when implementing Domain-Driven Design (DDD), including how to model some of the DDD tactical designs and transaction boundary. He also shared why F# is his favorite and go-to programming language. Towards the end, Scott touched on important advice about effectiveness vs efficiency, and what leaders need to be aware of regarding doing the right thing.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:06:16]
Polyglot Developer - [00:11:01]
Functional Programming - [00:14:59]
Case for OOP - [00:19:56]
DDD and FP - [00:21:02]
Modeling Tactical Design in FP - [00:24:10]
Modeling Transaction - [00:28:49]
F# - [00:32:22]
Effective Instead of Efficient - [00:34:43]
Advice on Valuing Effectiveness - [00:38:31]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:40:30]
_____
Scott Wlaschin’s Bio
Scott Wlaschin is a developer, architect and author. He is the writer behind the popular F# site fsharpforfunandprofit.com, and the book ‘Domain Modeling Made Functional’ published by Pragmatic Bookshelf. Known for his non-academic approach to functional programming, Scott is a popular speaker and has given talks at NDC, F# Exchange, DDD Europe, and other conferences around the world.
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
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#78 - Alignment: Overcoming Internal Sabotage and Digital Product Failure - Jonathon Hensley
28 Feb 2022
00:46:59
“Oftentimes it’s not about what’s being said. It’s the fact that there’s not a shared understanding of what’s being said. It’s important that organizations proactively think about how they build a common language and manage that."
Jonathon Hensley is the co-founder and CEO of EMERGE, a digital product consulting firm, and the author of “Alignment: Overcoming internal sabotage and digital product failure”. In this episode, Jonathon shared the main motivation for him writing “Alignment”, which is to understand why digital products and services fail so commonly. He shared the concept of alignment, how it aligns with our biological need, and why it is so important for leaders to get right in order to deliver successful great products and services. Jonathon then explained the danger of when organization is at war with itself and what are the common reasons that cause internal misalignments. Jonathon shared how leaders can work towards creating alignment, and why it is important to move away from monolithic product thinking and move more towards platform thinking. Finally, Jonathon also shared some team alignment recipes that can transform one team to become a high-performing product team.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:58]
Silicon Valley - [00:08:19]
“Alignment” Book - [00:10:06]
Why Digital Products Fail - [00:12:17]
Importance of Alignment - [00:17:28]
Internal Misalignment - [00:20:49]
Alignment and Biology - [00:25:15]
Common Misalignment Reasons - [00:28:39]
Leaders Role in Alignment - [00:33:46]
Platform Thinking - [00:38:41]
Team Alignment - [00:41:06]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:44:04]
_____
Jonathon Hensley’s Bio
Jonathon Hensley is the co-founder and CEO of Emerge, a digital product consulting firm that works with companies to improve operational agility and customer experience. For more than two decades, Jonathon has helped startups, Fortune 100 brands, and technology leaders transform their businesses by turning strategy, user needs and new technologies into valuable digital products and services. His work focuses on alignment, helping leaders define the value they want to create in a succinct and tangible way; where to focus, why, and what it will take to achieve that outcome. Jonathon writes and speaks about his experiences and insights from his career, and regularly hosts in-depth interviews with business leaders and industry insiders.
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/78.
#77 - Transformational Leadership: A Guide for the Soulful and Practical Leaders - Jardena London
21 Feb 2022
00:52:36
“We want to create organizations that can surprise us and do things beyond what we’ve designed them to do, rather than a machine, which only operates in the box that you’ve designed."
Jardena London is a business transformation consultant and the author of “Cultivating Transformations”. In this episode, Jardena shared insights from her book on transformational leadership and how one can become a better leader. Jardena shared the 3 different transformational leadership lenses: the “Me”, “We”, and “System” lenses and we covered several important concepts, such as self-mastery, authenticity, psychological safety, resonance and dissonance, and systems thinking. Towards the end, Jardena shared how organizations should avoid becoming machines and instead create thriving human living systems, and thus become soulful organizations.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:06:10]
Communication Between Tech and Business - [00:08:20]
Becoming a Better Leader - [00:11:00]
Transformational Leadership - [00:13:41]
Transformation and Getting Fired - [00:15:44]
Resonance and Dissonance - [00:17:36]
The “Me” Lens - [00:20:56]
Self-Mastery - [00:22:24]
Authenticity - [00:25:01]
Resiliency and Recovery - [00:28:26]
The “We” Lens - [00:31:50]
Psychological Safety - [00:32:58]
Getting Buy-In - [00:35:56]
Understanding People’s Pain - [00:37:50]
The “System” Lens: Thriving System - [00:42:57]
Systems Thinking - [00:46:08]
Soulful Organization - [00:47:36]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:49:44]
_____
Jardena London’s Bio
Jardena is a business transformation consultant, author, keynote speaker and a certified facilitator of Dare to Lead; Brene Brown’s groundbreaking training program for organizations based on creating courageous workplaces. Jardena is also the Founder of Souls@Work.org that is focusing on leading a movement to create workplaces that nourish our souls and exude positive energy. Her recent book, “Cultivating Transformations: A Leader’s Guide to Connecting the Soulful and the Practical” has been described as “the book you buy and carry around with you everywhere.”
Jardena’s mission is to help organizations create soulful, productive and fun workplace environments that support organizational and cultural change together with improving financial results. Jardena has also served as co-founder and CEO of Rosetta Technology Group since 1997.
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/77.
“Interactions with domain experts play a key role in implementing software. You have to make sure that you understand the problem you’re solving. You cannot provide a software solution without understanding the problem first."
Vladik Khononov is the author of “Learning Domain-Driven Design”. In this episode, we discussed in-depth about Domain-Driven Design (DDD) and Vlad started by sharing why understanding business domain is crucial in software engineering and how DDD can help build the shared understanding between domain experts and software engineers. Vlad then explained the two important designs in DDD, i.e. the strategic and tactical designs, and how they relate to each other. For each design, Vlad touched on some important patterns, such as bounded context, context map, subdomain, aggregate, entity, and value object. Towards the end, Vlad gave great tips on applying DDD to brownfield projects and how those projects can benefit the most from some of the DDD practices.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:06:05]
Importance of Understanding Business Domain - [00:10:42]
How Domain-Driven Design Helps - [00:16:12]
DDD Strategic Design - [00:20:21]
Subdomain - [00:26:51]
DDD Tactical Design - [00:32:44]
Aggregate Pattern - [00:34:36]
Entity Pattern - [00:40:43]
Implementing DDD for Legacy System - [00:43:24]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:46:52]
_____
Vladik Khononov’s Bio
Vlad (Vladik) Khononov is a software engineer with over 20 years of industry experience, during which he has worked for companies large and small in roles ranging from webmaster to chief architect. Vlad maintains an active media career as an author, public speaker, and blogger. He travels the world consulting and talking about domain-driven design, microservices, and software architecture in general. Vladik lives in Northern Israel with his wife and an almost-reasonable number of cats.
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/76.
#75 - Domain Storytelling: Building Domain-Driven Software Collaboratively - Stefan Hofer
07 Feb 2022
00:48:03
“It’s great if developers have understanding about the domain, because then they can propose better solutions, that’s not necessarily the same solution that the users have in mind, which are often limited by what they know."
Stefan Hofer is the co-author of Domain Storytelling–a collaborative, visual and agile way to build domain-driven software. In this episode, Stefan shared the story of how he came up with Domain Storytelling and explained how this technique can help us understand business domain better and bridge the misunderstandings between software developers and domain experts. Stefan walked us through how the modeling works, including the notations and other pictorial aspects of it, and emphasized the importance of the collaborative aspect of Domain Storytelling. Stefan then explained how Domain Storytelling differs from other similar modeling techniques, such as Event Storming, and gave practical tips on how to run a successful online collaborative workshop.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:51]
How Domain Storytelling Started - [00:07:01]
Misunderstandings are Common Problems - [00:09:52]
Importance of Understanding Domain - [00:12:08]
Domain Storytelling - [00:13:46]
The DDD Angle- [00:19:01]
When Domain Expert is Unavailable - [00:20:34]
Domain Storytelling Tools - [00:22:59]
Pictographic Language - [00:25:51]
Translating into Software - [00:30:23]
Difference with Event Storming - [00:33:24]
Online Collaborative Workshop - [00:38:00]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:43:13]
_____
Stefan Hofer’s Bio
Stefan Hofer is bad at drawing. However, he thinks he can build up domain knowledge by drawing domain stories. Stefan studied software engineering in Austria and earned a PhD in computer science. Since 2005, he has been working for WPS – Workplace Solutions in Hamburg, Germany. His job there is to help teams develop software that does the right job the right way. He maintains domainstorytelling.org.
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/75.
#74 - Rapid Web Apps Development With Anvil & Importance of Product Documentation - Meredydd Luff
31 Jan 2022
00:45:42
“Documentation is content marketing. If your docs don’t summarize what your product is actually about, you’re going to have a rough time getting anybody interested."
Meredydd Luff is the founder of Anvil, the platform for building web apps with nothing but Python. In this episode, Meredydd shared his story starting Anvil and his point of view on the latest Low-Code & No-Code movement and whether it would affect the demand for developers. He touched on the importance of domain experts having the ability to develop software and how tools like Anvil could play a part in supporting them to translate their ideas better. In the second half of the episode, we discussed the importance of product documentation and how it also plays a major part in content marketing. Meredydd shared his tips and best practices for documentation, including how to create thriving online Q&A product forums.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:17]
Anvil Story - [00:09:16]
Low Code / No Code - [00:12:26]
Domain Knowledge Coder - [00:18:08]
Demand for Developers - [00:22:37]
Importance of Product Documentation - [00:25:42]
Documentation is Content Marketing - [00:29:16]
Online Q&A Forums - [00:33:18]
Developer Advocates - [00:36:55]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:39:43]
_____
Meredydd Luff’s Bio
Meredydd Luff is the founder of Anvil (https://anvil.works), the platform for building and deploying apps on the web with nothing but Python. He’s particularly interested in expanding access to code, and has a PhD in building usable programming systems.
Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals.
Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/74.
#178 - Leveling Up Through Coding Challenges, Real-World Projects, and Personal Brand - John Crickett
10 Jun 2024
00:52:28
“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 for coding challenges.
John explains the benefits of building real-world applications over algorithm-based ones, emphasizing the importance of learning by doing. John also shares practical tips on time management for continuous learning and debunks the myth that most software engineers work in big tech.
We also explore the role of personal branding in today’s competitive job market. John provides tips on building a personal brand and leveraging social media to stay ahead in your tech career.
Finally, John shares his perspective on the impact of AI on software engineering and how we can leverage AI in our day-to-day tasks.
Whether you’re an aspiring developer or a seasoned professional, this episode provides practical advice and inspiration to help you level up in your tech career.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:01:51]
John’s Multiple Roles Transition - [00:03:51]
IC-Management Transition - [00:06:44]
Importance of a Vision - [00:09:39]
Lifestyle Business - [00:11:55]
Coding Challenges - [00:13:30]
Building Real-World Projects - [00:16:37]
CodingChallenges.fyi - [00:18:39]
Learning the Non-Functional Aspects - [00:21:17]
Allocating Time to Learn - [00:24:04]
Working for Non-Big Tech Companies - [00:27:15]
Relevant Skills for Non-Big Tech - [00:30:39]
AI Impact on Software Engineering Role - [00:34:44]
AI for Coding Challenges - [00:38:21]
Building Personal Brand - [00:39:54]
How to Build Personal Brand - [00:44:28]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:49:25]
_____
John Crickett’s Bio John Crickett is a software engineer and sometimes a manager of software engineers. He has worked as both a senior individual contributor (Staff+) and a senior manager (VP Engineering, Head of Software Development).
John writes about software engineering daily on LinkedIn and Twitter. He’s the founder of the popular “Coding Challenges” newsletter. Each week, John offers practical coding challenges to help software engineers enhance their skills through building real-world applications.
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“Because we ship stuff now almost immediately into public facing clients, almost as soon as we’re writing a line of code, we need to be thinking about how we make sure that it’s a secure line of code and it will be deployed and operated securely as well."
Eoin Woods is the co-author of “Continuous Architecture in Practice” and the CTO at Endava. In this last of a three-part series of “Continuous Architecture” episodes, Eoin shared the remaining two important quality attributes covered in the book, i.e. security and resilience. Eoin explained why we should treat security as a critical quality attribute, the changes in the security landscape that make security becomes more challenging, the threat modeling concept, how to do continuous threat modeling, and his 10 secure by design principles. Eoin then shared about resilience as a quality attribute, how we should differentiate resilience from high availability, some common resilience techniques that we can implement in our system, and the importance of embracing failure mindset.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:42]
Software Architecture - [00:09:43]
Quality Attributes: Security - [00:12:19]
Security Landscape Changes - [00:14:08]
Availability as Security Objective - [00:18:59]
Threat Modeling - [00:20:51]
Continuous Threat Modeling - [00:23:59]
Secure by Design - [00:26:56]
Quality Attribute: Resilience - [00:31:14]
Resilience and High Availability - [00:33:38]
Resilience Techniques - [00:35:36]
Allowing for Failures - [00:40:18]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:41:23]
_____
Eoin Woods’s Bio
Eoin is CTO at Endava, based in London. In previous professional lives, he has developed databases, created security software and designed way too many systems to move money around. Outside his day job, he is a regular conference speaker. He is interested in software architecture, software security and DevOps, and has co-authored a couple of books on software architecture.
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#72 - Managing SRE Toils Using AIOps and NoOps - Amrith Raj
17 Jan 2022
00:52:13
“It is important to eliminate toil. If you don’t eliminate toil, you won’t have time to fix problems strategically, because strategic initiatives take precedence."
Amrith Raj is a Senior Solutions Architect at Dynatrace. In this episode, Amrith walked us through the evolution and current state of IT Operations (ITOps). He described how the ITOps role has developed over time and becoming increasingly more challenging with the increased level of infrastructure abstraction and complexity, especially in the current era of cloud and Platform-as-a-Service. In order to manage such high amount of complexity, Amrith shared the importance of having good culture and practices and touched on some important Google SRE concepts, such as toil and automation. Amrith then shared some recent ITOps advancement, i.e. NoOps and AIOps, and how we can leverage on them to improve the way we solve problems. Also, make sure you do not miss Amrith’s pro tips on how we can become a better SRE and how to use Function-as-a-Service effectively.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:29]
Managing Cloud Capacity - [00:07:51]
IT Ops - [00:11:09]
Cloud & Abstraction - [00:16:01]
Culture & Toil - [00:18:54]
NoOps - [00:28:29]
AIOps - [00:31:20]
Tips on AWS Lambda - [00:44:16]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:48:12]
_____
Amrith Raj’s Bio
Amrith Raj is a Senior Solutions Architect at Dynatrace, supporting the transformation journey of their highly diversified customers through automated and intelligent observability. He has authored an e-book on Cloud Capacity and has published papers related to Cloud, Data Centres and IT Infrastructure. He and members of the Cloud use cases group published a whitepaper called Moving to Cloud when Cloud Computing was too new to be adopted by companies. He has held multiple roles which involved responsibilities around leadership, engineering and operations, modernisation, cloud architecture, automation, migration and building fault-tolerant cloud infrastructure. Based in Melbourne, he is passionate about how technology can be used to transform human lives.
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#71 - Strategic Monoliths and Microservices - Vaughn Vernon
10 Jan 2022
00:57:13
“Strategy is what earns. Use the strategic and innovative drivers to help us determine what our architecture needs to be. Architecture has to have a purpose."
Vaughn Vernon is a leading expert in Domain-Driven Design (DDD) and he recently co-authored his new book “Strategic Monoliths and Microservices”. In this episode, Vaughn shared his story and rationale for writing his new book and why he thinks it is important to include the executives as the readers of the book. He emphasized the importance of focusing on strategic innovative aspects of software development and for driving those innovations using purposeful architectures. Vaughn then shared his insightful perspective on Conway’s Law and why he compares it with the law of gravity. We then discussed two important architectural aspects covered in the book, which are events first architecture and embracing latency, and why they are actually natural to how people communicate and get things done in real life. Towards the end, Vaughn summed up his book and left an important piece of advice that he wanted to convey regarding monoliths vs microservices and why software should require more balance and demand a better strategy.
Listen out for:
“Strategic Monoliths and Microservices” Book - [00:06:32]
Who Should Read the Book - [00:12:31]
Strategic Learning and Experimentation - [00:16:48]
Purposeful Architecture - [00:22:04]
Conway’s Law - [00:27:24]
Events First Architecture - [00:33:48]
Embrace Latency - [00:38:54]
Monoliths vs Microservices - [00:47:30]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:52:16]
_____
Vaughn Vernon’s Bio
Vaughn Vernon is an entrepreneur, software developer, and architect with more than 35 years of experience in a broad range of business domains. Vaughn is a leading expert in Domain-Driven Design and reactive software development, and a champion of simplicity. Vaughn is the founder and chief architect of the VLINGO/PLATFORM, and he consults and trains around Domain-Driven Design, reactive software development, as well as EventStorming and Event-Driven Architecture, helping teams and organizations realize the potential of business-driven and reactive systems as they transform their businesses from technology-driven legacy web implementation approaches. Vaughn is the author of four best-selling books, as well as the curator and editor of his own Vaughn Vernon Signature Series, all published by Addison-Wesley.
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#70 - Continuous Architecture (Part 2) - Principles, Scalability, and Performance - Pierre Pureur
27 Dec 2021
00:44:39
“Delay design decisions until it’s necessary. Architecture is an art, not a science. Don’t architect for things you don’t know. Your design decisions should always be built on facts, not guesses."
Pierre Pureur is the co-author of “Continuous Architecture in Practice” and an acclaimed software architect. In this second of a three-part series of “Continuous Architecture” episodes, Pierre shared his own perspectives on the 6 key principles of continuous architecture. We then discussed in-depth the two important quality attributes, which are the scalability and performance. For each quality attribute, Pierre described the attribute definition, why it is an important architectural concern, and some of the common tactics used to improve the attribute in the modern system architecture.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:34]
Architect Products, Not Projects- [00:07:31]
Focus on Quality Attributes - [00:11:25]
Delay Design Decisions Until Necessary - [00:13:41]
Power of Small - [00:15:58]
Architect for Build, Test, Deploy, and Operate - [00:17:40]
Conway’s Law - [00:19:53]
Essential Activities - [00:23:18]
Quality Attribute: Scalability - [00:26:00]
Scalability on The Cloud - [00:28:59]
Scalability Tactic: Sharding - [00:31:01]
Scalability Tactic: Asynchronous Communication - [00:32:58]
Quality Attribute: Performance - [00:35:06]
Measuring Performance - [00:37:23]
Performance Tactics - [00:39:23]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:41:15]
_____
Pierre Pureur’s Bio
Pierre Pureur is an experienced software architect, with extensive innovation and application development background, vast exposure to the financial services industry, broad consulting experience and comprehensive technology infrastructure knowledge. His past roles include serving as Chief Enterprise Architect for a major financial services company, leading large architecture teams, managing large-scale concurrent application development projects and directing innovation initiatives, as well as developing strategies and business plans. He is coauthor of the book Continuous Architecture: Sustainable Architecture in an Agile and Cloud-Centric World (2015) and has published many articles and presented at multiple software architecture conferences on this topic.
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#69 - The Relevance of Project Management in Tech Today - Jana Axline
20 Dec 2021
00:44:11
“Successful project managers have a bias for action. They’re out there pushing the project forward all the time and doing all the things that need to be done to make the project successful."
Jana Axline is the founder and Managing Director of Project Genetics, with over 20 years of experience in leadership, project, and portfolio management. In this episode, we discussed in-depth about the important role of project management. Jana explained how project management is still much relevant in the current era of agile and “project to product” movement within the tech industry. She outlined the important skill set required to become an effective project manager, how a project manager can earn much respect from the team, and pointed out some of the common project management anti-patterns we should avoid. She also gave her practical advice on how to do effective status report and project escalation. Towards the end, Jana gave her insightful perspectives based on her vast experience of why IT projects tend to have a high failure rate.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:06:05]
Relevance of Project Management - [00:07:30]
Project to Product Movement - [00:12:26]
Skills of an Effective Project Manager - [00:14:41]
Purpose vs Checklist - [00:18:23]
Leaders vs Coordinator - [00:19:29]
Earning the Respect - [00:21:20]
Project Management Anti-Patterns - [00:23:26]
Status Report - [00:26:54]
Escalation - [00:29:36]
Project Management Tools - [00:32:32]
Tips for Project Management Career - [00:35:08]
Tech Projects Failure - [00:37:59]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:40:31]
_____
Jana Axline’s Bio
Jana Axline is the founder and the Managing Director of Project Genetics. A focused leader and project manager, her expertise stems from more than 20 years of experience in leadership and almost ten years in project and portfolio management in many industries such as Health Insurance, Healthcare, Financial Services, Mining, Retail, Government, FMCG and Supply Chain Management. Jana was also the past president of the Project Management Institute Mile High Chapter. She speaks internationally on project management, employee engagement and leadership. She is an active PMP, ACP, Scrum Master, and Scaled Agilist and holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Colorado.
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#68 - 2021 Accelerate State of DevOps Report - Nathen Harvey
13 Dec 2021
00:47:55
“Many organizations think in order to be safe, they have to be slow. But the data shows us that the best performers are getting both. And in fact, as speed increases, so too does stability."
Nathen Harvey is the co-author of 2021 Accelerate State of DevOps Report and a Developer Advocate at Google. In this episode, we discussed in-depth the latest release of the State of DevOps Report. Nathen started by describing what the report is all about, how it got started, and explained the five key metrics suggested by the report to measure the software delivery and operational performance. Nathen then explained how the report categorizes different performers based on their performance against the key metrics and how the elite performers outperform the others in terms of speed, stability, and reliability. Next, we dived into several new key findings that came out of the 2021 report that relate to documentation, secure software supply chain, and burnout. Towards the end, Nathen gave great tips on how we can use the findings from the reports to get started and improve our software delivery and operational performance, that ultimately will improve our organizational performance.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:28]
State of DevOps Report - [00:09:32]
The Five Key Metrics - [00:13:55]
Speed, Safety, and Reliability - [00:19:58]
Performers Categories - [00:23:26]
2021 New Key Findings - [00:28:01]
New Finding: Documentation - [00:30:44]
New Finding: Secure Software Supply Chain - [00:34:58]
New Finding: Burnout - [00:37:22]
How to Start Improving - [00:39:36]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:43:55]
_____
Nathen Harvey’s Bio
Nathen Harvey, Developer Relations Engineer at Google, has built a career on helping teams realize their potential while aligning technology to business outcomes. Nathen has had the privilege of working with some of the best teams and open source communities, helping them apply the principles and practices of DevOps and SRE. He is part of the Google Cloud DORA research team and a co-author of the 2021 Accelerate State of DevOps Report. Nathen was an editor for 97 Things Every Cloud Engineer Should Know, published by O’Reilly in 2020.
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#67 - Continuous Architecture (Part 1) - Principles and Essential Activities - Murat Erder
06 Dec 2021
00:42:37
“As an architect, your main focus is to influence what’s running in production and to make sure you make the right decisions, so that you have a sustainable product."
Murat Erder is the co-author of “Continuous Architecture in Practice” and the CTO of People and Procurement at Deutsche Bank. In this first of a three-part series of “Continuous Architecture” episodes, Murat started by explaining what software architecture is and then explained in-depth the six principles of continuous architecture mindset. Murat continued by outlining the four essential activities of architecture that involve architectural decisions, technical debt, quality attributes, and feedback loops. Towards the end, we discussed the importance of data as an architectural concern. We touched on a few recent key data technology trends that impact and drive software architecture, including the importance of the data model as a prerequisite for successful software architecture.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:28]
Software Architecture - [00:09:12]
Six Principles of Continuous Architecture - [00:12:42]
Focus on Quality Attributes - [00:17:56]
Essential Activities - [00:19:16]
Architectural Decisions - [00:21:55]
Understand Technical Debt - [00:24:53]
Data as an Architectural Concern - [00:29:33]
Data Technology Trends - [00:32:10]
Importance of Data Model - [00:37:20]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:39:46]
_____
Murat Erder’s Bio
Murat Erder is the CTO for People and Procurement at Deutsche Bank. His 25+ years of experience in the software industry range from software vendors, management consultancies, and large international banks, in which he worked as a developer, software architect, and management consultant. Murat’s main area of expertise is in data, integration, and architecture/CTO. Murat is the co-author of two books on software architecture, “Continuous Architecture: Sustainable Architecture in an Agile and Cloud-Centric World” and “Continuous Architecture in Practice: Software Architecture in the Age of Agility and DevOps”, and he has presented on this topic in several conferences, include SEI Saturn, O’Reilly Software Architecture and GOTO London.
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#66 - Time and Temporal Modeling in Event Sourcing - Tomasz Jaskula
29 Nov 2021
00:40:15
“Time is important for business. We have to model it explicitly. Temporal modeling means that we use time-based artifacts as first modeling citizens."
Tomasz Jaskula is the CTO and co-founder of Luteceo and an experienced software developer and architect. In this episode, we started off discussing how Domain-Driven Design (DDD) influenced Tomasz’s view on software development approach and its relation with functional programming. Tomasz then explained in depth about the time concept in business applications and temporal modeling, in particular, bi-temporal modeling. He mentioned the different concepts of time in temporal modeling, explaining them using an example for easier illustration. We then extended our discussion further to Event Sourcing, understanding the key concept, its relation to temporal modeling, when we should decide to use Event Sourcing in our application, and some available tools that can help us implement Event Sourcing.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:04:58]
DDD and Bounded Context - [00:08:56]
DDD and Functional Programming - [00:13:24]
Temporal Modeling - [00:14:47]
3 Different Types of Time - [00:21:13]
Event Sourcing - [00:25:42]
When to Use Event Sourcing - [00:28:13]
Event Sourcing Tools - [00:34:02]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:36:10]
_____
Tomasz’s Bio
Tomasz Jaskuła is CTO and co-founder of Luteceo, a software consulting company in Paris. Tomasz has more than 20 years of professional experience as a developer and software architect, and worked for many companies in the e-commerce, industry, insurance, and financial fields. He has mainly focused on creating software that delivers true business value, aligns with strategic business initiatives, and provides solutions with clearly identifiable competitive advantages. Tomasz is also a main contributor to the OSS project XOOM for the .NET platform. In his free time, Tomasz perfects his guitar playing and spends time with his family. He recently wrote a book with Vaughn Vernon titled “Strategic Monoliths and Microservices” published by Addison-Wesley.
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#65 - Developing Your Leadership Agility Fitness in a VUCA World - Nick Horney
22 Nov 2021
00:50:31
“The best leaders are those that get things done through other people."
Nick Horney is the author of “VUCA Masters” and founder of Agility Consulting. In this episode, Nick shared his innovations in leadership agility that include AGILE Model® and Leadership Agility Fitness, which are the cornerstones for becoming inspiring leaders in the current VUCA world, i.e. the VUCA Masters. Nick also shared how we can extend his leadership agility concepts to improve organizational behavior, culture, and mindset in order to reach organizational agility. Towards the end, Nick shared some inspiring leadership lessons from his 23 years of experience serving the US Navy Special Operations, describing the true characteristic and hallmark of the best leaders.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:48]
AGILE Model® - [00:08:04]
VUCA - [00:13:20]
Leadership Agility Fitness - [00:19:46]
Leadership Self-Agility Assessment - [00:24:14]
VUCA Masters - [00:29:30]
Leadership Agility and Agile - [00:32:10]
Organizational Behavior - [00:34:26]
Leadership Lessons From the Military - [00:40:35]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:43:55]
_____
Nick Horney’s Bio
Dr. Nicholas Horney founded Agility Consulting in 2001 and has been recognized for innovations in organizational and leadership agility, including The AGILE Model®, VUCA Masters™, Leadership Agility Fitness™, After Action Agility™ and Talent Portfolio Agility™. His coaching, leadership agility and organizational agility management consulting experience spans over 30 years and includes the start-up and management of the Coopers & Lybrand (now Price Waterhouse Coopers) Change Management Practice. Representative clients include Turner Broadcasting, Coca-Cola, Navy SEALs, Lenovo, CIA, ARAMARK, and REI.
Dr. Horney has written four books. The most recent is VUCA Masters: Developing Leadership Agility Fitness for the New World of Work (2021).
Nick retired from the U.S. Navy (Special Operations) at the rank of Captain and has applied that experience to his work with high performance team agility. He serves as a coach for The Honor Foundation focusing on the successful transition of Navy SEALs to the business world.
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#64 - Principles for Designing Successful Web APIs - James Higginbotham
15 Nov 2021
00:52:30
“API design centers on effective communication, not just between developers, but also communication that combines product thinking, business, and technology all in one."
James Higginbotham is the author of “Principles of Web API Design” and an executive API consultant. In this episode, James explained why it is extremely important to design APIs properly and shared the five key important principles of API design taken from his book. James also recommended the API Design-First approach–a rapid & lightweight outcome-based API design process–to design and deliver APIs successfully, including the ADDR process and establishing API boundaries (in relation to DDD). Towards the end, James shared some recommendation for API testing strategies and also some anti-patterns that we should avoid.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:00]
Principles of Web API Design Book - [00:06:46]
Importance of Designing API Properly - [00:08:17]
Principle 1: API Should Never be Designed in Isolation - [00:13:13]
Principle 2: Outcome-Based Focus - [00:15:10]
Principle 3: Design Elements That Matches the Needs - [00:17:44]
Principle 4: API Documentation as UI for Developers - [00:22:53]
Principle 5: APIs are Forever - [00:27:52]
API Design First Approach - [00:31:43]
ADDR Process - [00:34:43]
API Boundaries and DDD - [00:38:56]
Testing APIs - [00:43:51]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:47:44]
_____
James Higginbotham’s Bio
James Higginbotham is a software developer and architect with over 25 years of experience in developing and deploying apps and APIs. He guides enterprises through their digital transformation journey, ensuring alignment between business and technology through product-based thinking to deliver a great customer experience. James engages with teams and organizations to help them align their business, product, and technology strategies into a more composable and modular enterprise platform. James also delivers workshops that help cross-functional teams to apply an API design-first approach using his ADDR process. His work experience includes banking, commercial insurance, hospitality, and the airline industry where he helped a startup airline off the ground – literally.
API Developer Weekly newsletter – https://apideveloperweekly.com/
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“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.
Mauricio delves into the six key principles of a simple object-oriented design: making code small, keeping objects consistent, managing dependencies, designing good abstractions, handling external dependencies, and achieving modularisation.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking to deepen their understanding of object-oriented design and maintaining simplicity in their codebase!
Listen out for:
Simple Object-Oriented Design Book - [00:03:19]
No Perfect Code Design - [00:04:51]
Managing Complexity - [00:06:37]
Object-Oriented Design - [00:08:24]
Design as an Everyday Activity - [00:09:43]
Effective Iterative Design - [00:12:31]
Refactoring - [00:14:31]
6 Principles of a Simple Object-Oriented Design - [00:16:40]
Mauricio Aniche’s Bio Dr. Maurício Aniche’s life mission is to help software engineers to become better and more productive. Maurício is a Tech Lead at Adyen, where he heads the Tech Academy team and leads different engineering enablement initiatives. He is the author of the “Effective Software Testing: A Developer’s Guide” and “Simple Object-Oriented Design” published by Manning.
Maurício previously held a position as an assistant professor of software engineering at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, where his teaching efforts in software testing gave him the Computer Science Teacher of the Year 2021 award and the TU Delft Education Fellowship, a prestigious fellowship given to innovative lecturers.
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Manning Publications is a premier publisher of technical books on computer and software development topics for both experienced developers and new learners alike. Manning prides itself on being independently owned and operated, and for paving the way for innovative initiatives, such as early access book content and protection-free PDF formats that are now industry standard. Get a 45% discount for Tech Lead Journal listeners by using the code techlead45 for all products in all formats.
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#63 - Being an Effective Generalist & Building Good Developer Experience - Deepu K Sasidharan
08 Nov 2021
00:44:59
“If you’re a generalist, and if you’re good at multiple things, then you have a lot of options. You have a lot of career paths to choose from."
Deepu K Sasidharan is a polyglot developer and a Senior Developer Advocate for DevOps at Okta. In this episode, Deepu shared why he consciously becomes a polyglot and generalist developer. He emphasized the importance of knowing more than one thing in the current rapidly changing tech industry. He gave practical tips for new engineers to start out and shared his technique to learn new stuffs, including languages, by building personal indexes. We then discussed the current interview practices trend and why he thinks it needs to change, especially to make it more inclusive and less biased. Towards the end, Deepu shared about developer experience, a topic that he is highly passionate about, on why it is becoming more important and some tips for building a good developer experience.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:21]
Being a Polyglot Developer - [00:08:25]
Should We Become Polyglot Developers? - [00:12:05]
Tips for New Engineers - [00:15:14]
Learning a New Language - [00:18:29]
Building Index for Learning - [00:22:16]
Broken Interview Practices - [00:25:27]
Importance of Developer Experience - [00:28:50]
Building a Good Developer Experience - [00:32:55]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:37:33]
_____
Deepu K Sasidharan’s Bio
Deepu is a polyglot developer and OSS aficionado. He mainly works with Java, JS, Rust, and Golang. He co-leads JHipster and created the JDL Studio and KDash. He’s a Senior Developer Advocate for DevOps at Okta. He is also an international speaker and published author. Deepu is an enthusiast of cloud & container technology, and he is passionate about developer experience and user experience.
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#62 - You're Never Coding Alone, How to Be a Good Team Coder - Fernando Doglio
01 Nov 2021
00:47:41
“Coding well with others or being a team player is at the heart of everything we do as developers. Unless you’re coding yourself for a piece of software that only you are going to use, you’re not a solo developer."
Fernando Doglio is the author of “Skills of a Software Developer”. In this episode, Fernando shared some insights from his book on how to be a successful software developer. He highlighted that software development is a mostly a team effort and shared tips on how we can work well within a team, including not to fall into the trap of over-engineering and early optimization. He then shared some practical tips on technical interviews and what we should avoid writing in our resume. Towards the end, Fernando gave his tips to aspiring authors who want to write a technical book and cleared some misconceptions and mental blocks that may stop a lot of them from writing.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:34]
Skills of a Software Developer - [00:09:05]
Everyone Can Be a Successful Developer - [00:11:34]
Tips to Work Well in a Team - [00:14:47]
Avoiding Overengineering - [00:16:35]
Focus on Working Code First, Then Optimize It - [00:20:30]
Writing Readable Code - [00:24:46]
Tips on Technical Interviews - [00:28:26]
Tips for Writing Technical Books - [00:34:07]
3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:40:56]
_____
Fernando Doglio’s Bio
Fernando Doglio is a Data Engineering Manager at Accenture and has over 18 years of experience in the software industry, from web development to big data. Fernando loves to tinker and learn, and has written several technical blogs and books such as Node.js and React. His latest book, “Skills of a Software Developer”, is currently available through the Manning Early Access Program, and he’s open to talk about the industry, possible projects, or any help regarding choice of tech-stack.
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#61 - The Programmer's Brain and the Importance of Cognition - Felienne Hermans
25 Oct 2021
00:53:48
“Understanding what makes code readable from a cognitive perspective will help you design better. There are so many areas of programming where knowing something about knowing is just going to make you happier and more effective."
Felienne Hermans is the author of “The Programmer’s Brain” and an Associate Professor at Leiden University. She is also the creator of the Hedy programming language, the co-founder of Joy of Coding conference, and a host at Software Engineering Radio podcast. In this episode, Felienne explained why programming is one of the most demanding cognitive activities and described the three different cognitive processes involved. We discussed why code reading is hard and how to get better at it, the connection between programming and spoken languages, naming things and why it is so important to get it right, and how to avoid having bugs in our thinking.
Listen out for:
Career Journey - [00:05:09]
Kids Learning Programming - [00:06:15]
Writing “The Programmer’s Brain” - [00:08:58]
Programming as a Demanding Cognitive Ability - [00:11:19]
Code Reading is So Hard- [00:16:23]
3 Cognitive Processes - [00:19:32]
How to Improve Code Reading Skills - [00:22:09]
Power of Chunking - [00:25:07]
Learning Programming and Spoken Language - [00:27:35]
Bugs in Thinking - [00:31:02]
Naming Things is Hard - [00:34:32]
Code with Bad Names Has More Bugs - [00:37:36]
Mental Models - [00:41:31]
Other Cognitive Aspects - [00:42:45]
Impact of Interruptions - [00:44:37]
2 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:46:46]
_____
Felienne Hermans’s Bio
Felienne Hermans is an Associate Professor at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science at Leiden University, where she heads the PERL research group, focused on programming education. She also teaches prospective computer science teachers at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Felienne is the creator of the Hedy programming language, and was one of the founders of the Joy of Coding conference. Since 2016, she has been a host at Software Engineering Radio, one of the most popular software engineering podcasts on the web. Felienne is also the author of “The Programmer’s Brain” a book that helps programmers understand how their brains work and how to use it more effectively.
In 2021, Felienne was awarded the Dutch Prize for ICT research. Felienne is a member the board of I&I, the Dutch association of high-school computer science teachers, and of TC39, the committee that designs JavaScript.
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