Ready, Set, Cloud Podcast!

You've probably seen some posts lately about the Believe in Serverless community. If you've been wondering what it is and why there's so much noise around it - great news! This episode is all about the community including what it is, where it's been, what it has to offer, and where it's going. Join Allen and four of the community champions, Ben Pyle, Danielle Heberling, Andres Moreno, and James Eastham, as they talk about this amazing new community. There's never been a better time to join!

Links

• Believe in Serverless community - https://believeinserverless.com
• Ben on Twitter - https://twitter.com/benjamenpyle
• Danielle on Twitter - https://twitter.com/deeheber
• Andres on Twitter - https://twitter.com/andmoredev
• James on Twitter - https://twitter.com/plantpowerjames

There's no question that tech is booming all over the world. But how has it been received in places that have harder access to the internet, like Africa? Join Allen as he talks with Tobenna Nwokike about how technology is transforming Nigeria into something completely new. They discuss the cultural and economic changes brought on by tech, how easy it is to break into the field, the assistance the Nigerian government is providing for those who want to get into it, and much more. The whole world is embracing high-tech, making lives better everywhere it goes.

About Tobenna

Tobenna Nwokike is a software developer with over a decade of experience in the field. As a Senior Cloud Engineer/Consultant at Serverless Guru, he navigates the complex realm of cloud technologies, all while working remotely from Nigeria. Tobenna has a strong passion for uplifting the next generation of tech talent and has mentored over 30 software engineers ensuring they are well equipped for the job market/startup space.

Links

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobenna-nwokike
• Twitter - https://twitter.com/tobeski
• 3MTT - https://3mtt.nitda.gov.ng
  

When was the last time you attended an event? It was probably virtual, right? Why is that? The tech industry has moved more and more virtual the past few years and we're starting to slowly but surely crawl our way back to in-person. In this episode, Raphael Manke and Allen Helton talk about their experiences with getting together in person and how it compares to virtual events. They talk about starting your own AWS user group, the value you get from networking with locals, their favorite stories from meetups, and much more.

About Raphael
Raphael is a full-stack web developer leveraging serverless technologies in his day-to-day business. He helps customers build reliable and scalable solutions with minimal operational overhead. On his cloud journey, he shares his insights as a public speaker and connects other AWS enthusiasts on his local AWS Usergroup in Germany.

Links

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/raphael-manke-a61912114
• AWS User Group Karlsruhe 0 https://www.meetup.com/de-DE/aws-meetup-karlsruhe

Event-driven architectures (EDA) is an intimidating subject for many, but don't confuse complexity with unfamiliarity. While EDA might seem unnecessarily complex, it's a necessary architectural pattern as the world goes more and more distributed. Join James Eastham and Allen Helton as they discuss all things EDA, ranging from what to put in your events to how EDA compares to request/response architectures to observability. Whether you're looking to get into events for the first time or have been practicing for years, the episode is for you.
#### About James
James is a Senior Cloud Architect at Amazon Web Services and content creator. He has over 10 years of experience in software, at all layers of the application stack. He has worked in front-line support, database administration, back-end development and now works with some of the biggest companies in the world architecting systems using AWS technologies.
James also produces content on YouTube, focused on building applications with serverless technologies and event-driven architecture.

Links

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/plantpowerjames
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-eastham
• YouTube -https://www.youtube.com/@serverlessjames
• Believe in Serverless Community - https://believeinserverless.com

Join Johannes and Allen as they talk about the world of modern CI/CD. The duo describes exactly what CI/CD is and is not and how your pipeline might be a bit more involved than you think. Johannes shares what he considers "the best" pipeline in the industry today, describes his experience with Amazon Code Catalyst, and goes into detail about a project he's working on to make pipeline generation a snap. Whether you're looking to get started with CI/CD or you're an experienced veteran, there's a little bit of something for everyone in this episode.

About Johannes

Johannes is a Sr. DevOps Engineer at FICO where he contributes to the FICO® Platform. He is a builder at heart and loves to solve problems in different flavors. He believes in full CI/CD automation and everything required to run the solution being written in code.
Johannes was in the AWS Community Builders program from 2022 to 2023, he founded the AWS User Group Bergstrasse, helped to start the AWS Community DACH Förderverein, and is part of the team that organizes the AWS Community Day in the DACH region. He also writes about his experiences on his personal blog and recently started a YouTube channel to share experiences and best practices related to CI/CD. His mission is to empower developers to start their new projects with a true CI/CD pipeline, enabling rapid value generation through automation.
He enjoys sharing knowledge as a public speaker, but also helping and mentoring engineers who are starting their cloud journey. He believes in true collaboration within the AWS community to make the individuals successful.

Links

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/johannes-koch-353b2158
• Twitter - https://twitter.com/lockhead
• Blog - https://lockhead.info
• YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/@cicdonaws

They say the best way to learn is by doing, but is that always true? Does the way people effectively learn change the further they get into their career? Join Luc and Allen as they discuss continuing education as a developer and what they've experienced over the last decade. The two cover the benefits of side projects and the impact taking them to production has both from a learning perspective and the effectiveness of how it sharpens your skills.

About Luc
Luc is an AWS Serverless Hero and Principal Engineer at PostNL, where he designs and builds enterprise-scale serverless architectures. He is well known for his articles, presentations, videos, and podcasts about AWS. Luc strives to help team members, colleagues, and local and global AWS communities embrace and grow their skill sets so they too can experience the joy, fun, and sheer scale serverless brings to application development.

Links

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/donkersgood
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/donkersgoed
• Blog - https://lucvandonkersgoed.com
• AWS News - https://aws-news.com
• Empowered by Marty Cagan - https://rdyset.click/GDix65
• The Software Engineer’s Guidebook by Gergely Orosz - https://rdyset.click/inkhV2
• Team Topologies by Matthew Skelton - https://rdyset.click/qyGDyv
• Learning Domain Driven Design by Vlad Khononov - https://rdyset.click/iMfBjo
• Architecture Patterns with Python by Bob Gregory and Harry Percival - https://rdyset.click/ambmw2

Join Allen Helton and Jeremiah Dunham as they explore math in the world of computer science. Do developers use it as much as they thought they would or is it abstracted away to a point where we have no idea? What if there was a way to use math to prove the correctness of your code instead of writing unit tests? Guess what? It's possible. Tune into the episode as Allen and Jeremiah talk about the future of testing and exactly how you can (or can't) guarantee your code does what you expect it to.

About Jeremiah

Jeremiah is a Senior Software Development Manager on the AWS IAM Access Analyzer team. In 9+ years at Amazon, he's launched new services and features (AWS Elemental MediaStore and AWS IAM Access Analyzer custom policy checks), helped hundreds of people adopt AWS (including your podcast host!), received 10 patents, and spoken at several conferences, including re:Invent and re:Inforce. He cares deeply about using math to make the world a better place. When he's not thinking about things related to math, you'll probably find him running or enjoying a craft beer.

Links

• LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdunham
• AWS IAM Access Analyzer - https://aws.amazon.com/iam/access-analyzer
• Custom Policy Check Science Blog - https://www.amazon.science/blog/custom-policy-checks-help-democratize-automated-reasoning
• Dafny - https://dafny.org
  

The serverless community loves talking about serverless. Despite the amazing innovations happening all around us, we still talk about cold starts and scalability like they are new. But what if we didn't? What would it take to get to a post-serverless era? What does post-serverless even mean? Join Jeremy Daly and Allen Helton as they discuss what the future holds for serverless and how the game needs to change in order for us to build software faster and better than ever before.

About Jeremy

Jeremy is a senior technology leader with more than 25 years of experience managing the development of complex web and mobile applications for domestic and international businesses. Currently, he is the CEO at Ampt and an AWS Serverless Hero. He writes extensively about serverless on his blog and publishes a weekly newsletter about all things serverless called Off-by-none. Jeremy has a soft spot for helping people solve problems using serverless and frequently works with companies and individuals transitioning away from the traditional “server-full” approach. You can find him chatting about serverless on X, in several forums and Slack groups, and at conferences around the world.

Links

• X - https://twitter.com/jeremy_daly
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremydaly
• Jeremy's blog - https://jeremydaly.com
• Off-by-none - https://offbynone.io
• Ampt - https://getampt.com
  

Have you ever wondered how it works when you tell Alexa to turn off your lights and you're suddenly sitting in darkness? The Internet of Things (IoT) is all around us - from automating smart homes to alerting us when an industrial piece of equipment is malfunctioning. Join Allen and Rohan Desai as they discuss how SmartThings integrates hundreds of devices from different vendors to provide a robust, unified experience for consumers. The duo talk about the serverless nature of IoT and dive into the details of how it all works.

About Rohan

Rohan Desai is a Software Engineering Tech Lead at DoorDash, where he focuses on solving consumer problems at scale. His expertise lies in distributed systems, serverless computing and building Voice User Interfaces in the field of IoT. Prior to DoorDash, he worked at Yahoo and Samsung SmartThings and is also a Senior Member of IEEE. He is passionate about building highly scalable and available systems using serverless. He is also a speaker at conferences like the Samsung Developers Conference.

Links

• LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohan-desai-73073225
• SmartThings - https://www.smartthings.com

If you've been around the serverless community for any length of time, you've undoubtedly heard of Serverless Guru. But do you know what they do? Listen to Sam Lock and Allen discuss the day-in and day-out of being a serverless developer, cover the emerging importance of automating boilerplate code, and of course, dive into generative AI.

About Sam

Sam is a serverless developer for Serverless Guru and an AWS Educator on the Toptal freelance platform. He's passionate about keeping serverless simple and educating others on anything and everything AWS. When he's not surfing Stack Overflow and Google, Sam is busy surfing at his nearest point break, usually south-east England.

Links

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/Serverless_Sam
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/serverless-sam/
• Serverless Guru - https://serverlessguru.com
• Cloud GTO - https://cloudgto.com

What's the difference between developer advocacy, tech evangelism, and solutions architecture? A few years ago, all these job titles would have sounded made up. But in the mad rush we know as "cloud development", each of them have distinct roles and importance. Join Michael "Focus Otter" Liendo and Allen Helton as they dive into what makes developer advocacy unique and relevant. The two discuss "mid-funnel" advocacy, how teams should utilize DA's, and touch on imposter syndrome.

About Michael

Michael is a senior developer advocate for AppSync at AWS. He has a passion for educating others and does so via his blog, videos, and speaking at conferences. Michael focuses on fullstack development and is particularly interested in Micro-SaaS applications. He also goes by Focus Otter, which is his highly recognizable and influential tech brand.

Links

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/focusotter
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/focusotter
• Focus Otter blog - https://blog.focusotter.com
• Hammock-driven development video -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc

Have you ever wondered why querying your data lakes were so slow? Or, if you're like Allen, did you ever wonder what a data lake actually is? Join Cliff Crosland as he explains how the Scanner team has changed data lakes forever by going serverless. This episode is a showcase of some brilliant engineering to solve a problem in a serverless manner.

About Cliff

Cliff is the CEO and co-founder of Scanner.dev, a security data lake product built for scale, speed, and cost efficiency. Prior to founding Scanner, he was a Principal Engineer at Cisco where he led the backend infrastructure team for the Webex People Graph. He was also the engineering lead for the data platform team at Accompany before its acquisition by Cisco. He has a love-hate relationship with Rust, but it’s mostly love these days.

Links

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/CliftonCrosland
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cliftoncrosland
• Scanner - https://scanner.dev
• Blog - Serverless Speed: Rust vs Go, Java, and Python - https://blog.scanner.dev/serverless-speed-rust-vs-go-java-python-in-aws-lambda-functions

Feature flags are much more than on/off switches to hide in-progress features. They separate releases from your deployments. They allow you to slowly roll out features to your user base. They give you access to easy A/B testing. Join Steve and Allen as they talk about the impressive capabilities of AWS AppConfig, a managed service that controls your feature flags and powers many of the AWS services. The two go over the types of feature flags, commonly seen anti-patterns, and how to implement them in your code.

About Steve

Steve is Principal Product Manager for AWS AppConfig, which is a feature flagging service that helps engineers move faster and more safely. His career has covered engineering and product management leadership roles at AWS, Coca-Cola, LivingSocial, and AOL, and has been using dynamic configuration to make things move faster for over a decade. He lives in the Northern Virginia area with his wife, kids, and two dogs.

Links

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevejrice
• AWS AppConfig - https://go.aws/awsappconfig

Are you cloud certified? In this episode of the Ready, Set, Cloud podcast Ro Ndimofor stands his ground on a hard-hitting stance against certifications. Enjoy the classic debate of "practice vs theory" as Ro and Allen discuss alternatives to certifications and if there really is a place for them in your career.

About Ro
Ro is a software developer and an AWS Serverless Hero who loves creating technical content. Be it on his blog or on his current project, EduCloud Academy, Ro is determined to help educate others and push for a stronger serverless community. EduCloud Academy is a Serverless learning platform with a strong focus on “Learning by Doing”.

Links

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosius
• Twitter - https://twitter.com/atehrosius
• Blog - https://phatrabbitapps.com
• EduCloud Academy - https://www.educloud.academy

Java is notorious for slow cold starts in Lambda. But why? What can you do to make them faster? Is it time to ditch Python and make your way to the JVM? Join Vadym and Allen as they talk about Java's journey in serverless and explore some of the optimization techniques developers use to mitigate cold starts like Snap Start, priming, and using GraalVM.

About Vadym

Vadym Kazulkin is Head of Development at ip.labs GmbH, a 100% subsidiary of the FUJIFLM Group, based in Bonn. ip.labs is the world's leading white label e-commerce software imaging company. Vadym has been involved with the Java ecosystem for over twenty years. His focus and interests currently include the design and implementation of highly scalable and available applications, Serverless and AWS Cloud. Vadym is the co-organizer of the Java User Group Bonn meetup and AWS Community Builder in the Serverless category. He's also a frequent speaker at various Meetups and conferences.

Links

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/VKazulkin
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/vadymkazulkin
• Java User Group Bonn - https://www.meetup.com/jug-bonn
• GraalVM - https://www.graalvm.org
  

Have you ever wondered how MidJourney or ChatGPT work? Generative AI has taken the world by storm with millions of adopters using it daily. But how does it work? How does it go from a question you type in a dialog box to a meaningful answer or perfectly drawn image on screen? Join Matt and Allen as they discuss how completion models work, explain the differences between Generative AI and "regular" AI, and dive into the possibilities of the not-too-distant future.

About Matt

Matt is a software developer at Aleios, creator of Orion Tools, maintainer at Quivr, and AWS Community Builder. He loves open-source, serverless, and Generative AI. He also publishes a newsletter, Building with GenAI, where he shares the learnings and news from his projects.

Links

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattzcarey
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-carey-56b958181
• Orion Tools - https://oriontools.ai
• Code Review GPT - https://github.com/mattzcarey/code-review-gpt
• Quivr - https://www.quivr.app

Many people say DevOps is dead with the introduction of serverless. Responsibilities change from infrastructure management to platform engineering. But what happens when you throw generative AI into the mix? How does this shake up what we now know as DevOps and what does it hold for the future? Is DevOps going to die? Omkar and Allen talk about the human aspect of DevOps and debate if this will still be something we're practicing in 5 years.

About Omkar
Omkar Kadam is a Lead DevOps Engineer at Cactus Communications, an AWS Community Builder, and a passionate problem solver with exceptional Solution Architecture skills. With a knack for simplifying complex concepts, Omkar's expertise in AWS/Cloud Computing allows him to deliver innovative and scalable solutions.

In addition to his technical prowess, Omkar has a passion for mentoring others. He has been a mentor for the prestigious UNESCO India Africa Hackathon, an international event aimed at strengthening the bonds between India and African nations and solving real-life problems via technology. Through mentoring, Omkar has helped aspiring developers and technologists reach their full potential.

He's also currently building something cool with Generative AI (checkout buildspace.so & Nights & weekends). And also won an AI Hackathon (organized by AWS Community Builders) for his project AWS Cost Advisor.

Links  

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/omkarokkadam
• Personal Blog - https://medium.com/@omkarokkadam

Serverless services make it incredibly easy to start building. They reduce time to market, improve uptime (generally), and lower overall costs when starting up. But there's an entire world to consider before going serverless that most of us forget about - business operations. Aside from shifting ownership from hardware to software, you also have roles that need reassignment, an organizational culture to shift, and much more. Join Allen and Benjamen as the two dive into the subject and offer lessons learned from personal experiences in their careers.

About Benjamen
Benjamen Pyle is an energetic and resourceful architect in addition to an AWS Community Builder who has over 20 years of professional software development experience including the most recent 10 as a Cloud Architect. His expertise lies in solving complex business problems through the use of expert problem-solving skills, a deep understanding of the problem domain, and technical know-how to bring secure, reliable, and right-sized solutions to his customers.

As a fan and advocate for Serverless and Event-Driven Architectures, he enjoys sharing what he's learned at his blog as well as engaging with the Serverless Community in a variety of ways. He's a strong believer in that no one gets where they'd like to go without the help of others and that software delivery is a team sport.

On a personal side, Benjamen is a husband and a father and views those two titles as the most important in his life. He's also a proud Terrier Dad to 12 paws. When he's not writing, coding or engaging with the community, you can find him caddying for his kid's golf tournaments or enjoying a round with his family.

Links

• 
  https://twitter.com/benjamenpyle
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamenpyle
• Blog - https://binaryheap.com

Anyone who's heard of serverless has heard of cold starts. But have you heard about proactive initialization? This is a newly published service enhancement from the AWS Lambda team that pre-warms execution environments of on-demand functions. This enhancement results in reduced cold start times and costs consumers no extra money to take advantage of. In this short bonus episode, Allen and AJ talk about what you need to know about his exciting optimization. The two cover how it was discovered, why the AWS Lambda team made the change, and what you need to do to get started with it.

About AJ
AJ Stuyvenberg is a Staff Engineer for Serverless APM at Datadog, and has been a member of the Serverless community for 6+ years. He's an AWS Serverless Hero, serverless meetup organizer, open-source author, and frequently blogs about Serverless topics.
Before Datadog, he was a Principal Engineer at Serverless Inc, the company behind the Serverless Framework.
In his spare time, AJ is an avid BASE jumper and enjoys flying his wingsuit in the Alps.

Links

• Twitter -https://twitter.com/astuyve
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-stuyvenberg
• AJ's blog on proactive initialization - https://aaronstuyvenberg.com/posts/understanding-proactive-initialization
• AWS Lambda docs on proactive initialization -https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/lambda-runtime-environment.html#runtimes-lifecycle-ib

In the serverless world, we sometimes take the word "managed" a little too seriously. We often forget that not ALL software responsibilities are taken over by cloud vendors. Oftentimes responsibilities are shared between builders and cloud vendors, like security.

In this episode, Allen and Jason talk about ways to improve your security posture starting today. They dive deep into AWS organizations, talk about how to keep your app teams and security teams friendly with each other, and discuss ways to minimize blast radius.

About Jason
Jason Kao is the Head of Security Research at CloudQuery and passionate about cloud security.  He's worked at large enterprises, starting as an engineer and quickly moving into cybersecurity.  Jason has both defensive and offensive security experience including building cloud security infrastructure and working as a security consultant with a wide range of clients from startups to large enterprises in different industries, including highly-regulated industries.
Jason is an author on multiple security patents and has presented at multiple cloud conferences including the inaugural AWS security conference, AWS re:Inforce.  His cloud security research has been featured in multiple community security newsletters.

Links

• Jason on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaojason
• CloudQuery - https://www.cloudquery.io
• AWS Organizations - https://aws.amazon.com/organizations

People throw around the phrase "app modernization" and "cloud migration" far too often. What do they mean? Are they the same thing? In this episode, Allen sits down with Alex Kearns to navigate the twists and turns of the cloud to find out the answer. The two talk about different strategies of modernization like the strangler pattern and learn how it's transforming the way businesses approach their cloud journeys.

Learn how to dodge the dreaded 'modernization paralysis'. The conversation illuminates the nuances of feature-led modernization, the right way to adapt to the cloud, and how to maximize your cloud potential without affecting your end users.

About Alex

Alex is a Principal Solutions Architect at Ubertas Consulting, AWS Ambassador, and AWS Community Builder specializing in migration and modernization. With over 5 years of experience in architecting and implementing production workloads on AWS for both customers and internal teams, he has plenty of knowledge about core AWS services that enable easier migrations in addition to those that empower customers to make the most of the cloud.

He is passionate about sharing his knowledge with the community through public speaking and blog posts as well as generally just playing about with new tech. Alex is a firm believer in making use of serverless or managed services wherever possible.

Links

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexjameskearns
• Alex's Site - https://www.alexkearns.co.uk/
• Alex's Free AWS Workshops - http://cloud-workshops.com
• AWS 7 R's - https://docs.aws.amazon.com/prescriptive-guidance/latest/application-portfolio-assessment-guide/prioritization-and-migration-strategy.html#migration-r-type

The tech community is not just about networking or acquiring new skills - it's about discovery and mutual growth brought on by impactful interactions.
Often seen as an mysterious black box, Allen and Jonah dive in to clarify some of the confusion around the tech community. First of all, what is it? How do you start on your own journey? And most importantly, how can you participate and contribute?

Listen as the duo explore this diverse landscape, shedding light on how to get started with the community's rich potential. They share personal anecdotes from their own tech journeys, provide guidance on connecting with like-minded tech enthusiasts, and highlight the rewarding experiences that stem from active involvement.

About Jonah

Jonah Andersson is a Cloud Infrastructure/DevOps Engineer based in Sweden. With a strong academic background in Computer Science and System Development, Jonah specializes in .NET technologies and has expertise in Microsoft Azure.

As a Microsoft MVP for Azure and a Microsoft Certified Trainer, Jonah has earned a reputation as a leading cloud computing and development expert. She has authored a book on the fundamentals of Microsoft Azure titled Learning Microsoft Azure (O'Reilly Media).

In addition to her technical work, Jonah is a committed and inclusive community leader in the Nordics. She founded and is leading the Azure User Group Sweden, a thriving tech community focused on Azure technology.

Jonah advocates for gender equality, diversity, and inclusion in the tech industry. She volunteers as a mentor to young women seeking to build careers in tech and is a passionate public speaker on these topics. Jonah is also the co-host of the ExtendWomenInTech Podcast, where she shares inspiration to inspire tech and promote inclusive tech for everyone.

Links

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonahandersson
• Twitter - https://twitter.com/cjkodare
• Personal website - https://jonahandersson.tech
• Learning Microsoft Azure - https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/learning-microsoft-azure/9781098113315
• Blog post on finding the tech community - https://readysetcloud.io/blog/allen.helton/why-community-is-the-best-source-of-growth-for-your-tech-career

Dive into the heart of serverless architecture with the brilliantly unorthodox Dax Raad in this episode of the "Ready, Set, Cloud" podcast. Renowned for his sharp insights and unconventional approach to... everything, Dax brings his perspective to the world of serverless application development. In this conversation, he shares insights on structuring serverless projects, the importance of domain-driven design, and why having the right data boundaries can make all the difference. From his work at SST to his thoughts on the evolution of serverless applications, Dax shares his views of the world of serverless and sheds light on how to build serverless applications the right way.

About Dax

Dax Raad is a creative powerhouse in the serverless space, known for his slightly shocking, highly intelligent tweets that challenge conventional know-how. With a knack for pushing boundaries and sparking thought-provoking conversations, Dax is a force to be reckoned with in the realm of modern application development. His work at SST, a company dedicated to making serverless more accessible and efficient, reflects his coding style and lessons learned from years of programming. Dax also runs a successful podcast and livestream on Twitch, where he educates others on all angles of software development.

Links

• Twitter -https://twitter.com/thdxr
• Twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/thdxr
• Podcast -https://tomorrow.fm
• Website - https://thdxr.com
• SST - https://sst.dev

Join Taylor Jacobsen and Allen Helton as they dive into the AWS Heroes Program. Taylor sheds light on what it means to manage this esteemed group of experts and enthusiasts, sharing how she helps them stay connected and motivated. The conversation uncovers the real essence of being an AWS Hero, revealing that there's no set formula or checklist—it's about individual impact and influence within the AWS community. The two discuss the differences between the Hero program and the Community Builders, and they share a couple of their favorite stories from the program. Stay tuned until the end when Taylor explains the hero nomination process, a thoughtfully designed, internal system driven by the passion of AWS employees.

About Taylor

Taylor Jacobsen is the Program Manager of the AWS Heroes Program, overseeing a diverse and vibrant group of AWS experts from around the world. In her role, she ensures that these heroes are recognized and supported as they share their knowledge and inspire the wider community. Taylor works closely with AWS employees, ensuring that potential heroes are spotted and nominated throughout the year. Her dedication to maintaining the integrity and impact of the program makes her an integral part of the AWS community

Links

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylorjacobsen
• Questions about the heroes? Email awsheroes@amazon.com
• AWS Hero Page - https://aws.amazon.com/developer/community/heroes

Join Alex DeBrie and Allen Helton as they talk about the work that went into writing the famous DynamoDB book. Alex tells us how it all got started, how long it took to write the book, and what was easier and harder than expected about the entire process. The two also talk about imposter syndrome and how to fight back when you feel like your content isn't quite good enough. Stay tuned until the end, when Alex asks for help deciding what book he should write next! About Alex

Alex DeBrie is an AWS Data Hero who wrote The DynamoDB Book, a comprehensive guide to data modeling with Amazon DynamoDB. He has given talks at various AWS events and meetups and is passionate about spreading his love for serverless architectures. Alex has worked with a variety of clients, from product companies to government agencies, and aims to help the next generation of developers learn AWS. Prior to his current work, Alex was a corporate lawyer and currently resides in Omaha, NE with his family.
Links

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/alexbdebrie
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-debrie
• Alex's blog - https://www.alexdebrie.com
• The DynamoDB Book - https://dynamodbbook.com

Episode Summary

Everybody wants to go fast. But should you? In this episode, Allen talks with Boris Tane and Thomas Ankcorn from Baselime about how they build software at breakneck speed while maintaining a sense of responsibility. They discuss some of the best and worst moments of deploying code on a Friday, how they've structured their CI/CD pipelines, and what other companies need to do to be as agile as they are. Join in for this enlightening episode that shows us where to put our energy to build the right thing.

About Boris

Boris is the founder and CEO of Baselime, an observability platform for serverless applications. He graduated with a degree in Physics and Aerospace Engineering and worked on back-end systems and infrastructure at multiple startups. During these years, he was drawn to cloud-native and serverless technologies and always ended up being the guardian of the logging and monitoring systems in the teams he joined.
As founder and CEO of Baselime, he's applying his years of experience to introduce engineering teams to Observability as Code, so they discover bugs before their users do. Boris is active on Twitter and is building a team of talented professionals excited about the future of cloud computing.

About Thomas

Thomas is a Software Engineer at Baselime because he is too stubborn to give up on making open telemetry work well for Serverless. He was introduced to Serverless at NearSt after 3 years in the dark building a data platform using Windows servers at BaeSystems. It wasn't always plain sailing and he still hates DynamoDB for not being as good as MongoDB. When not working, you will find him in a park in south London with his dog.

Links

• Boris on Twitter - https://twitter.com/boristane
• Thomas on Twitter - https://twitter.com/thomasankcorn
• Baselime - https://baselime.io
• Shape Up method - https://www.productplan.com/glossary/shape-up-method

Serverless is taking the world by storm. Despite there being countless blogs, tutorials, and recommended best practices around serverless, there's shockingly little material on observability. Why? It's hard! Join AJ and Allen as they talk about the difficulties of observing a serverless application, dive into the differences between KPIs and infrastructure metrics, what the future holds for observability, and more.

About AJ
AJ Stuyvenberg is the Engineering Lead for Serverless APM at Datadog, and has been a member of the Serverless community for 6+ years. He's an AWS Community Builder, serverless meetup organizer, open source author, and frequently blogs about Serverless topics.
Before Datadog, he was a Principal Engineer at Serverless Inc, the company behind the Serverless Framework.
In his spare time, AJ is an avid BASE jumper and enjoys flying his wingsuit in the Alps.

Links

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/astuyve
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-stuyvenberg
• Blog - https://aaronstuyvenberg.com
• Email: aj@datadoghq.com

Right on the heels of international women's day, we're diving into the current state of diversity in tech and how we're making progress every day. Sure, there's still a long way to go to achieve true equity, equality, and inclusive cultures, but we're celebrating the amazing allies and support systems that are helping us get there.

Kristi and Allen start with the basics and answer the foundational question: why is a diverse workforce so beneficial today? The answer is simple: diverse perspectives, experiences, backgrounds, and knowledge make for better teams and better products! It's been proven time and time again that diverse teams bring in more money, work more cohesively, and are more innovative.

The duo discuss how we can all play a role in building a more diverse and inclusive workforce, and highlight some amazing examples of companies and individuals who are leading the way. So get ready to be inspired and energized to make a difference!

About Kristi

Kristi Perreault is a Principal Software Engineer at Liberty Mutual Insurance, where her focus is serverless-first development and enterprise enablement. She has been working in the tech industry professionally since 2017, holds an M.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering specializing in cloud computing & IoT, and is very passionate about promoting women in technology.

Kristi founded the Serverless Denver user group as part of ServerlessDays, co-organizes CDK Day, and writes extensively about serverless and diversity on her blog. You’ll find her speaking about embracing and scaling serverless first initiatives on dozens of podcasts, webinars, conferences, and meetups both virtually and on stage.

Kristi is an east coast USA native, and can be found outside of work hiking, reading, traveling, enjoying a poke bowl, or cuddling with her two dogs.

Links

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kperreault95

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristi-perreault

Kristi's blog: https://medium.com/@kristiperreault

AWS Portsmouth User Group: https://www.meetup.com/awspug

Women Who Code CONNECT Empower: https://hopin.com/events/connect-2023/registration?code=a2O6lvsE5tMt1wqFyAUqk1guQ

FemTechConf: https://www.femtechconf.com

Python Web Conf: https://2023.pythonwebconf.com

There are about as many "first" approaches to software as there are colors in the rainbow. Front-end first, serverless-first, API-first, test-first, the list goes on and on. Andres Moreno and I cover what it means to be API-first, clarify the definition of serverless-first, and discuss how he managed to build a development process that follows both patterns. Learn about the tooling that helps this highly-optimized team push out high-quality code faster than ever without getting lost in the weeds.

About Andres

Andres is a lead software engineer at Tyler Technologies with over a decade of experience. He's a skilled AWS serverless engineer and has spent time as an AWS Community Builder. Andres writes in-depth technical content on his blog where he shares his insights on CI/CD, cloud security, and JavaScript.

Links

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/andmoredev
• LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/in/andmoredev
• Personal blog - https://www.andmore.dev
• Postman - https://postman.com
• Open API Specification - https://www.openapis.org

Episode Summary

Developer experience is often an afterthought when building APIs. But when you build for developers, DevEx is critical to your success. How fast can you make that time to first call? If you have a high barrier of entry, nobody is going to use it. The easier it is to move quickly, the easier it is to spread the word and drive usage.

Lars and Allen talk about what makes for good and bad developer experiences. They cover real-world examples and what makes them particularly easy (or bad!) to use. Lars dives into the AWS Step Functions DevEx and what he did to finally get rid of that "swivel chair experience."

About Lars

Lars is the Head of Infrastructure at Mathem.se and AWS Community Builder. He regularly takes it upon himself to make developer experience better for everyone with his open source tools like the Step Functions SDK Autocomplete VSCode extension and EventBridge pattern generator CLI. He's also the creator of the Step Functions Workflow Studio sync, which aims to address the big gap in usability with the popular AWS service.

Links

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/lajacobsson
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lars-jacobsson-a9518b23/
• GitHub - https://github.com/ljacobsson
• Step Functions Workflow Studio Sync -https://github.com/ljacobsson/sfn-workflow-studio-sync
• Mathem's GitHub - https://github.com/mhlabs

Episode Summary

Platform engineering is a trending topic in cloud communities these days. Does it replace DevOps? Is it really "the next new thing?"

Before we can answer that, we need to understand what platform engineering is and how it is different from DevOps. Allen talks with Ran Isenberg about the responsibilities his team undertakes at CyberArk, some challenges they went through when starting up, and some of the benefits they gained as a company by going serverless.

About Ran

Ran is a Principal Software Architect at CyberArk and AWS Community Builder based out of Israel. He runs a high-quality serverless blog, Ran The Builder, where he goes into detail on serverless best practices and design. Ran is also a prominent public speaker, regularly talking about serverless and open source contributions.

Links

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/IsenbergRan
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranisenberg
• Ran The Builder Blog - https://ranthebuilder.cloud

Episode Summary

The serverless community is in a heated debate over what constitutes a serverless service. Is it simply abstracting servers away from consumers? Does it include scale to 0? What about cost considerations? All these questions are answered in this talk with Khawaja Shams, co-founder and CEO of Momento. Allen and Khawaja talk shop about the true definition of serverless and how it might evolve in the years to come.

About Khawaja

Khawaja is the co-founder and CEO of Momento, a truly serverless cache. Prior to Momento he ran DynamoDB at AWS and even worked on the Mars Rover! Khawaja is on a mission to spread the true meaning of serverless and bring back the once-powerful definition we all knew and loved.

You can find Khawaja on Twitter and LinkedIn. Or you could summon him if you spin around and say "serverless, serverless, serverless!"

Links

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/ksshams
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kshams/
• Momento - https://gomomento.com
• Blog: I Don't Know What Serverless Is Anymore - https://readysetcloud.io/blog/allen.helton/i-dont-know-what-serverless-is-anymore