Tech Lead Journal

Understand the secret behind one of Amazon’s most powerful innovation tools and learn how you can use it to drive clarity, alignment, and better decision-making.

In this episode, Marcelo Calbucci, author of “The PRFAQ Framework,” dives deep into the PRFAQ (Press Release & Frequently Asked Questions) framework, a unique approach that combines narrative storytelling and strategic FAQs to crystallize initiative vision and strategy.

Key topics discussed:

• What the PRFAQ framework is — and why it’s more than just a product management tool
• How PRFAQ brings Amazon’s “working backwards” philosophy to life
• The structure of a PRFAQ: press release, customer FAQs, and internal FAQs
• Why storytelling and precise writing are essential for strategic vision and alignment
• Overcoming resistance: making writing and reading strategic documents part of your culture
• Practical tips for adopting PRFAQ in any organization, large or small
• Common mistakes to avoid when implementing PRFAQ
• The importance of collaborative feedback in the PRFAQ process

Whether you’re launching a startup, building a new product, or transforming internal processes, this episode breaks down how this method can help you avoid common pitfalls and deliver results that matter.

Timestamps:

• (00:00) Trailer & Intro
• (02:10) Career Turning Points
• (03:56) The PRFAQ Framework
• (05:19) PRFAQ is Forward-Looking
• (07:09) Working Backwards & PRFAQ
• (07:58) Why Writing a Book About PRFAQ
• (11:37) PRFAQ: Why Less Adoption Than Other Frameworks?
• (14:40) Writing PRFAQ vs Speed of Execution
• (16:28) The PRFAQ Template
• (19:05) The Six Page of PRFAQ
• (21:24) Precise Writing
• (25:09) The Strict Guidelines of PRFAQ
• (26:40) PRFAQ: Press Release
• (29:56) The Power of Narratives / Storytelling
• (32:03) PRFAQ: Customer FAQ
• (34:15) Jobs-to-Be-Done vs. Personas
• (36:46) PRFAQ: Internal FAQ
• (39:34) How to Come Up with the Internal FAQs
• (40:49) The Level of Details in the FAQs
• (43:20) PRFAQ: Appendix
• (45:27) Advice on Starting PRFAQ
• (46:11) Adapting from the Amazon’s PRFAQ

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Marcelo Calbucci’s Bio
Marcelo Calbucci is an entrepreneur, innovator, and technologist. He’s been building software products for over thirty years, having sold his first software at age fourteen. He has worked at Microsoft (Exchange Server & Bing) and Amazon (People eXperience & Technology), leading software engineering, product, data science, and UX. He is an author of The PRFAQ Framework.

Follow Marcelo Calbucci:

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Discover the secrets to early retirement and financial independence from a tech industry veteran!

In this episode, we dive deep into the inspiring journey of Kristine Howard, who transitioned from a dynamic career in tech to a life of early retirement, reaching financial independence and personal fulfillment along the way.

Key topics discussed:

• Learn why tracking your expenses is the key to financial freedom
• Master the balanced money formula for budgeting success
• Uncover smart investing strategies, including the power of index funds and diversification
• Understand how aligning your career with personal values can lead to greater satisfaction
• Learn the “4% rule” and how it can help determine your retirement readiness
• Gain insights into the emotional journey of transitioning to early retirement
• Hear the unexpected benefits of early retirement, including more time for personal growth
• Discover the three keys to staying healthy in retirement: staying active, engaged, and contributing

Whether you’re just starting your career or dreaming of early retirement, don’t miss out on these valuable lessons for achieving financial independence and living life on your own terms!  

Timestamps:

(02:07) Career Turning Points

(07:01) Getting into Early Retirement

(09:16) Financial Independence vs Early Retirement

(10:13) Can We Reach Financial Independence?

(11:56) The Shares/Equity Lever

(15:43) Working in Startups vs Corporates vs Big Tech

(18:34) The Importance of Financial Tracking

(23:36) Building Automation & Doing Periodic Reviews

(29:17) Focus on the Spending Rather than Income

(30:43) Budgeting

(33:12) Trade CapEx for OpEx

(35:36) Saving & Investing

(38:53) On Diversification

(41:17) The Importance of Emergency Fund

(43:12) How Did it Feel Getting Closer to Retirement?

(48:19) The Feeling of Significant Income Drop

(51:01) Things Anyone Can Do Even Before Retirement

(56:00) 3 Tech Lead Wisdom

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Kristine Howard’s Bio
Kristine Howard is an American-Australian residing in Sydney, Australia. Her extensive career features significant roles within technical teams at prominent companies such as Channel 9, Canva, and AWS. She is married to the Snook, and together they share a passion for global travel and culinary exploration. Kristine also expresses her creativity through knitting and sewing, finding joy in crafting handmade items. Notably, she has shared her expertise and insights at over 100 tech meetups, conferences, and events worldwide.

Follow Kristine:

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Are you tired of cargo cult engineering leadership?

In this episode, David Guttman, author of “The Superstruct Manifesto”, shares his intriguing manifesto on building and leading high-performing engineering teams. We explore:

- Why daily standups are overrated and what to do instead
- How to avoid the trap of the "10x engineer" myth
- Why computer science riddles don't belong in your interviews
- The importance of estimates (hint: it's not about the accuracy!)
- How to treat your developers like adults

If you are an engineering leader or founder looking to build a high-performing engineering team, this episode is for you!

Listen out for:
(03:06) Career Turning Points
(07:10) The Meaning Behind Superstruct
(07:44) The Superstruct Manifesto
(09:30) "We Will Not Inflict Daily Standups on Our Devs"
(16:05) Alternatives to Daily Standups
(18:26) Status Report & Accountability
(25:48) "We Will Not Recruit 10x Developers"
(33:19) "We Will Not Test Devs with Computer Science Riddles"
(38:04) Interview Best Practices
(43:12) "We Will Not Let Devs Start without an Estimate"
(51:11) Improving Our Estimates
(53:55) Estimate vs Fixed Deadline
(56:21) 3 Tech Lead Wisdom

David Guttman's Bio
David Guttman is a developer and consultant obsessed with building repeatable systems for recruiting, onboarding, and managing remote software engineers. Over the course of his 20+ years in software development, David has led engineering teams to ship massive and innovative projects, including the content platform that powers Disney.com and StarWars.com (along with over 170 other sites, across dozens of languages and regions); video ad servers that handle over 10 billion requests per day; and an LMS that TIME magazine listed as one of the Best Inventions of the Year 2020. David is also a leader in the tech community.

As the organizer of the monthly event series js.la, the host of the Junior to Senior podcast, and a champion in the Node.js mentorship initiative, he has helped thousands of developers level up. David is the author of two popular JavaScript books, has over 90 open-source packages on npm, and has given talks at tech events and conferences like JSConf and JSFest.

Is your ML project stuck in POC hell and failing to deliver real value?

In this episode, I sit down with David Tan and Dave Colls, co-authors of the book “Effective Machine Learning Teams” to discuss the complexities of building and deploying ML models, building and managing effective ML teams, and ensuring successful ML projects.

Key topics discussed:
- Learn the key differences between ML engineering and traditional software engineering.
- Why so many ML projects fail to reach production or deliver real business value and how to overcome common challenges.
- Discover the ideal ML team composition and how to apply concepts like team topologies for effective collaboration.
- The importance of product thinking in ML projects and best practices for designing robust, valuable ML products.
- Essential engineering best practices for successful ML projects, including automated testing, continuous delivery, and MLOps practices.

Listen out for:
(02:35) Career Turning Points
(04:54) Writing "Effective Machine Learning Teams"
(08:29) ML Engineering vs Other Types of Engineering
(12:24) ML and LLM
(14:59) Why Many ML Projects Fail
(19:53) ML Success Modes
(23:32) Ideal ML Engineering Team Composition
(31:39) Building the Right ML Product
(39:23) ML Engineering Best Practices
(49:14) MLOps
(52:44) Make Good Easy
(53:56) 3 Tech Lead Wisdom

Tune in to learn how to build and deploy ML products that truly make a difference!

David Tan’s Bio

David Tan is a lead ML engineer with more than six years of experience in practicing Lean engineering in the field of data and AI across various sectors such as real estate, government services and retail. David is passionate about engineering effectiveness and knowledge sharing, and has also spoken at several conferences on how teams can adopt Lean and continuous delivery practices to effectively and responsibly deliver AI-powered products across diverse industries.

Follow David Tan:

“Looking at the development pace of this area, it’s just a question of when generative AI will take over larger parts of software engineering. It’s a leadership responsibility to ensure your organization is ready for AI and you are taking the right path.”

AI is changing EVERYTHING – including the way we build software. Are you READY for it?

In this episode, we dive deep into the impact of AI on the future of work, particularly in the software development space. Join me and André Neubauer as we explore:

* The evolution of AI: From early code generation to today’s advanced Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs).

* The rise of Agentic AI: How AI agents are collaborating to automate complex tasks and reshape software development workflows.

* The impact on organizations: How companies can leverage AI to boost productivity, foster innovation, and navigate the challenges of this new era.

* The future of software teams: Will AI replace developers or empower them? Discover why smaller, leaner, high-performing teams might be the way forward.

* Leadership in the age of AI: Essential strategies for leaders to successfully integrate AI into their organizations and address the concerns of their teams.

Listen out for:

(00:02:11) Career Turning Points

(00:07:56) Giving a Talk on “The Role of AI in Future Workplaces”

(00:10:30) What Drives the AI Advancements

(00:18:54) The Levels of AI Advancement

(00:25:01) AI in Software Engineering

(00:26:53) Concerns on Tech Debt and Issues

(00:31:11) Impact of AI to Organizations

(00:34:34) Smaller and Leaner Teams

(00:37:15) The Rise of Solopreneurship

(00:41:32) Getting People Onboard to AI

(00:44:40) Leadership Measures for Adopting AI

(00:49:34) 3 Tech Lead Wisdom

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André Neubauer’s Bio

For nearly two decades, André Neubauer has shaped Tech & Product and its interface with the business in varied settings, from startups to major corporations. His journey began in software engineering and evolved into technical leadership, a role he’s passionately undertaken for the past 15 years.

As CTO, he’s spearheaded transformative projects and strategies, backed by an academic foundation in informatics and business economics. Always at the forefront of modern leadership practices, he’s transformed companies into tech powerhouses. Beyond his role as CTO, he actively mentors tech leaders and consults businesses, guiding them through their tech challenges.

Follow Andre:

* LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/andreneubauer

* Newsletter – devpg.substack.com

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Our Sponsors

“Evolutionary architecture became a necessity, not because anybody wanted it to be, but because you didn’t have a choice. You have to be able to change your systems to keep up with changing business and consumer expectations, let alone regulatory frameworks.”

In this episode, I have an insightful conversation with Rebecca Parsons, coauthor of Building Evolutionary Architectures and ex-CTO of ThoughtWorks, on the topic of evolutionary architecture. Rebecca shares the definition and principles of evolutionary architecture, as well as some important practices that software engineering teams can adopt to support it. Rebecca also offers her perspective on the impact of AI in software development and evolutionary architecture.

Key takeaways:

- Evolutionary architecture supports guided, incremental change across multiple dimensions.

- Fitness functions are a key tool for implementing evolutionary architecture.

- Some of the important engineering practices for evolutionary architecture include continuous delivery, evolutionary database, contract testing, and choreography over orchestration.

- AI coding assistants can help analyze and understand complex legacy systems, aiding in refactoring and modernization efforts.

- Over-reliance on AI coding assistants may hinder the development of proper abstraction and critical thinking skills, especially in junior developers.

Listen out for:

(00:02:35) Career Turning Points

(00:08:38) Why Adopt Evolutionary Architecture

(00:11:06) Evolutionary vs Rewrite

(00:13:41) Architecture Definition

(00:16:45) Evolutionary Architecture Adoption

(00:20:56) Evolutionary Architecture Definition

(00:22:32) Fitness Function

(00:26:07) Commonly Adopted Fitness Functions

(00:29:33) Principles of Evolutionary Architecture

(00:35:24) Conway’s Law & Postel’s Law

(00:39:40) Practices of Evolutionary Architecture

(00:45:41) The Impact of AI to Evolutionary Architecture

(00:48:44) The AI Worries

(00:52:32) 3 Tech Lead Wisdom

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Rebecca Parsons’ Bio
Dr. Rebecca Parsons is currently independent, having been Thoughtworks CTO and CTO Emerita for over 15 years. She has more years of experience than she’d like to admit in technology and large-scale software development. She recently co-authored the book Building Evolutionary Architectures with Neal Ford and Pat Kua.

Before ThoughtWorks she worked as an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Central Florida, after completing a Director’s Post Doctoral Fellowship at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Her interests include parallel and distributed computation, programming languages, domain specific languages, evolutionary architecture, genetic algorithms, and computational science. Rebecca received a BS in Computer Science and Economics from Bradley University, and both an MS and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Rice University.

Follow Rebecca:

“Leadership is where you have, not necessarily a large organization, but increasing scope and increasing impact, while bringing lots of people along with you.”

In this milestone episode of the podcast, James Stanier returns for the third time to discuss his latest book, “Become a Great Engineering Leader.” We explore the role of an engineering leader and delve deep into the nuances of engineering leadership.

James explains the difference between an engineering leader and an engineering manager through the lens of the three levels of warfare: strategy, operational, and tactical. We then discuss the importance of organizational chart design and some best practices, including Conway’s law and how to avoid politics.

James also talks about the importance of time management, always having a long-term view of your work (long-termism), and the critical role of writing in leadership. We discuss important approaches such as one-way vs. two-way doors and balancing between writing vs. bias for action.

Finally, James explains the importance of strategic thinking, why a strategy is not necessarily a plan, and how an engineering leader can communicate their strategy effectively. He also provides practical tips for upcoming engineering leaders and discusses how we should all navigate a career in technology.  

Listen out for:

(00:02:19) Writing "Become a Great Engineering Leader"

(00:04:21) The Role of Engineering Leader

(00:05:57) Engineering Leader vs Engineering Manager

(00:09:36) Tenure Relevancy

(00:11:30) The Importance of an Org Chart

(00:13:44) Org Chart Best Practices

(00:15:55) Conway's Law

(00:17:16) Avoiding Politics

(00:21:41) Writing Skills & Time Management

(00:26:35) T-Shaped Leadership

(00:28:39) Long-termism

(00:33:02) Leadership is Writing

(00:36:13) Writing vs Bias for Action

(00:38:20) One-Way vs Two-Way Door

(00:41:09) Reading & Seeking Information

(00:44:46) Strategic Thinking

(00:48:05) A Strategy is Not a Plan

(00:52:23) Communicating Your Strategy

(00:55:39) Becoming an Engineering Leader

(01:01:56) 3 Engineering Leader Wisdom

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James Stanier’s Bio
James Stanier is Director of Engineering at Shopify. James holds a Ph.D. in computer science and runs theengineeringmanager.com. He has over a decade of experience with building people and software. He is also the author of Become an Effective Software Manager and Effective Remote Work.

Follow James:

“As an engineer, you don’t have to drop your technical skills, but you need to communicate like an executive. The more you communicate this way, you will have more opportunities and more impact on your job.”

Pramoda Vyasarao is an engineering leader turned coach with two decades of experience at Oracle and Meta, and the author of “Beyond Your Limits”. In this episode, Pramoda shares his insights on the importance of communication for engineers, as well as his inspiring journey of achieving 52 lofty goals in over 20 years and going beyond his limits.

Having joined Toastmasters in 2003 to improve his public speaking, Pramoda believes engineers should focus on developing their communication skills to advance their careers and become better leaders. He discusses his TALL framework for effective communication: talking with structure, asking insightful questions, listening deeply, and leadership development.

Our conversation also delves into key topics from Pramoda’s book, “Beyond Your Limits”. Pramoda discusses the importance of setting goals and finding life’s meaning, sharing his own inspiring journey in his goal-oriented life. He explains the power of thoughts, how our thoughts can influence our feelings and actions significantly, and the three common saboteurs to achieving our goals: time, purpose, and belief.

Tune in to learn practical advice on improving your communication and leadership skills, as well as how to achieve your big goals and realize your true potential.  

Listen out for:

• Career Turning Points - [00:02:13]
• Going Through Layoff - [00:03:42]
• Joining Toastmasters - [00:05:25]
• Tips for Being a Great Speaker - [00:07:34]
• Think Like an Engineer, Talk Like an Executive - [00:09:17]
• Your Communication Gives You More Opportunities - [00:11:45]
• Written Communication Skills - [00:13:41]
• TALL Framework for Communication and Leadership - [00:15:24]
• T = Talking with Structures - [00:19:08]
• L = Listening Deeply - [00:21:59]
• ABC Framework for Leadership - [00:25:19]
• Why Writing “Beyond Your Limits” Book - [00:33:31]
• The Power of Thoughts - [00:37:39]
• Top 3 Saboteurs of Goal Achievement - [00:41:12]
• 7 Step Framework for Goal Achievement - [00:47:56]
• Creating Milestones & Habits - [00:51:01]
• Pramoda’s Biggest Goal Achievement - [00:54:28]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:57:13]

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Pramoda Vyasarao’s Bio
Pramoda Vyasarao, the founder of Changesmith Coaching LLC, has a rich background in computer science and boasts over two decades of experience with tech giants like Oracle and Meta. Beginning his career as an engineer and eventually transitioning into a management role, he recognized the importance of structured leadership development. This realization spurred his journey into leadership coaching. With 17 years of coaching experience, Pramoda has significantly impacted thousands of individuals across 11 countries. He specializes in fostering personal growth for senior leaders through one-on-one coaching and cohort-based courses that focus on communication, leadership, and storytelling. Pramoda is the author of the bestselling book “Beyond Your Limits.”

Follow Pramoda:

“Now more than ever, engineering leaders are being asked to be more transparent with how their work is getting done. Every single thing that an engineering team works on needs to benefit the business.”

Laura Tacho is the CTO of DX and a leading voice in the world of developer experience and productivity. In this episode, we explore the ever important role of aligning developer experience with business goals and discuss the DX Core 4, a new developer productivity framework recently published by DX.

Laura shares how engineering leaders can leverage intuition for data-driven decisions and effectively communicate the impact of engineering initiatives in business language. We discuss the importance of balancing business goals with engineering needs and delve into the process of building a strong business case for improving developer experience.

Discover the new DX Core 4 framework as Laura breaks down its four dimensions, key metrics, and actionable strategies for measuring and enhancing developer productivity. Learn how DX Core 4 complements existing frameworks, such as DORA, SPACE, and DevEx, and why it suggests “diffs per engineer” as a valuable metric to measure. Understand the Developer Experience Index (DXI) and why internal developer platforms and AI play crucial roles in improving developer experience.

Tune in to learn new valuable insights on developer experience and how to measure, communicate, and improve developer productivity effectively.  

Listen out for:

• Career Turning Points - [00:02:13]
• Following Your Intuition - [00:05:36]
• Business Oriented Engineering Leaders - [00:08:06]
• Explaining Tech Debt - [00:12:01]
• Balancing Between Engineering and Business Focus - [00:16:53]
• Building a Case for Improving Developer Experience - [00:21:00]
• DX Core 4 - [00:22:46]
• DX Core 4 vs Others (DORA, SPACE, DevEx) - [00:25:19]
• The DX Core 4 Dimensions - [00:26:49]
• Diffs per Engineer - [00:30:32]
• Impact Dimension - [00:33:27]
• Measuring DX Core 4 - [00:34:59]
• Developer Experience Index (DXI) - [00:38:19]
• Impact of Implementing DX Core 4 - [00:41:54]
• Best Strategy to Improve Developer Experience - [00:44:26]
• Internal Developer Platform & AI - [00:47:52]
• The Importance of Talking to the Developers - [00:51:40]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:54:18]

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Laura Tacho’s Bio
Laura Tacho is CTO at DX, a developer experience company. She’s a technology leader with a successful track record leading engineering and product development teams at companies like CloudBees, Aula Education, and Nova Credit. She’s been building developer tools and working on improving developer productivity for over 10 years, all the way from the heyday of IaaS and PaaS on cloud, through Docker and containers, CI/CD, and now as part of DX. She’s also an executive coach for engineering leaders and an expert in building world-class engineering organisations that consistently deliver outstanding results. Laura has coached CTOs and other engineering leaders from startups to the Fortune 500, and also facilitates a popular course on metrics and engineering team performance.

Follow Laura:

“Input, Output, Outcome, and Impact. It’s an escalating way of where to spend my time as an engineering leader, and more importantly, where my engineering team is spending their time on.”

Balki Kodarapu is the VP of Engineering at Lōvu Health and a seasoned engineering leader with a wealth of experience from startups to large organizations. In this episode, Balki shares his valuable insights on how to build and lead high-performing engineering teams that go beyond just churning out code.

We go deep into his practical framework for driving outcomes and impact, emphasizing why it’s crucial for engineers to understand the ‘why’ behind their work. Balki also shares effective strategies for setting, communicating, and reinforcing engineering values. We also discuss the importance of connecting with your team, practicing gratitude and curiosity, and measuring engineering metrics effectively.

Tune in to gain valuable insights and practical tips for building outcome-oriented engineering teams and becoming a more effective leader.  

Listen out for:

• Career Turning Points - [00:01:55]
• Impact & Outcome Driven Engineering - [00:05:50]
• Helping Engineering Connect to the Outcomes - [00:11:52]
• Balancing Engineers’ Focus Time - [00:16:18]
• Key Engineering Metrics: Releasing with Joy & Confidence - [00:18:46]
• Engineering Metrics Other Org Functions Care About - [00:23:01]
• Setting Engineering Values - [00:30:33]
• How to Create Engineering Values - [00:36:16]
• Communicating Values - [00:40:18]
• Practicing Gratitude & Curiosity - [00:43:59]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:49:49]

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Balki Kodarapu’s Bio
Balki Kodarapu, an all-in engineering leader and entrepreneur at heart. Balki has a proven track record of leading SaaS products from inception to hyper-growth, helping companies achieve 2x to 10x revenue growth, including two successful exits. He loves being a hands-on engineer, director, and VP of Engineering (all at once!), contributing daily, shaping product strategy and building high-performing teams.

Currently, Balki leads engineering at Lōvu Health where his team helps create positive, joyful & healthy experiences for pregnant & postpartum moms every single day.

Follow Balki:

“The OOOps methodology from the science of happy accidents are optionality, opportunism, and optimization.”

Stephen Fishman and Matt McLarty are the authors of “Unbundling the Enterprise: APIs, Optionality, and the Science of Happy Accidents”, a book from IT Revolution. In this episode, we discuss the transformative power of APIs, the importance of optionality in technology and business, and the intriguing science of ‘happy accidents’.

We delve into the “OOOps” of the science of happy accidents, which are optionality through API unbundling, opportunism through value dynamics, and optimization through feedback loops. Stephen and Matt share real-world examples of how companies like Amazon, Google, and Cox Automotive have successfully unbundled their enterprises and leveraged optionality for growth and innovation. Also, hear the story and impact of Jeff Bezos’s legendary API mandate at Amazon, which revolutionized Amazon to become the giant it is now.

Towards the end, we discuss the role of AI in the future of work and how we can use AI along with APIs to embrace more optionality and create more business value.

Listen to the full episode to learn more about how you can apply these concepts to your digital transformation journey and benefit from the power of APIs and optionality.  

Listen out for:

• Career Turning Points - [00:01:51]
• “Unbundling the Enterprise” Book - [00:05:21]
• Amazon API Revolution - [00:08:39]
• What Drove Jeff Bezos’s Mandate - [00:14:10]
• Optionality Through API Unbundling - [00:17:36]
• Happy Accidents - [00:23:59]
• Opportunism Through Value Dynamics - [00:26:59]
• Value Dynamics - [00:30:55]
• Optimization Through Feedback Loops - [00:38:03]
• Embracing AI - [00:45:24]
• 4 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:52:02]

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Stephen Fishman’s Bio
Stephen Fishman (Fish) is the NA Field CTO for Boomi. He is a practicing technologist who brings creativity, rigor, and a human-centric lens to problem-solving. Known as an expert in aligning technology and business strategy, Stephen places a premium on pushing business and technology leaders to embrace iteration and the critical need to collaborate across disciplines. In addition to consulting with large organizations, Stephen is an in-demand speaker and advisor. Stephen has led multidisciplinary teams to deliver amazing results at Salesforce, MuleSoft, Cox Automotive, Sapient, Macy’s, and multiple public sector institutions including the US Federal Reserve and the CDC.

Matt McLarty’s Bio
Matt McLarty is the Chief Technology Officer for Boomi. He works with organizations around the world to help them digitally transform using a composable approach. He is an active member of the global API community, has led global technical teams at Salesforce, IBM, and CA Technologies, and started his career in financial technology. Matt is an internationally known expert on APIs, microservices, and integration. He is co-author of the O’Reilly books Microservice Architecture and Securing Microservice APIs, and co-host of the API Experience podcast.

Follow Stephen:

“Legacy code is a code without tests. If you have code, and it has lots of tests, it’s relatively easy to change. But if you don’t have the tests, you’re really in serious trouble.”

Do you dread working with legacy code?

Michael Feathers, renowned software expert and author of the classic “Working Effectively with Legacy Code,” joins me to discuss the challenges and strategies for working with legacy code, a topic that remains highly relevant even after 20 years!

Michael explains why he defines legacy code as “code without tests,” emphasizing the crucial role of automated tests for code maintainability, rather than simply defining it as an old inherited code. He also provides insights on the psychological challenges of working with legacy code and stresses the importance of approaching it with curiosity and a sense of adventure.

The conversation also explores the evolving world of AI assistant in software development, drawing from Michael’s forthcoming book, “AI-Assisted Programming”. He shares how AI can assist developers in various tasks, such as explaining code, identifying potential issues, generating tests, and exploring new possibilities.

Listen to this episode to explore the intersection of legacy code, AI, and the future of software development!  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:01:24]
• “Working Effectively with Legacy Code” Book - [00:02:05]
• Definition of Legacy Code - [00:04:55]
• The Importance of Automated Tests - [00:06:39]
• Understanding Legacy Code - [00:09:47]
• Mindset for Working with Legacy Code - [00:11:15]
• Rewrite vs Fixing Legacy Code - [00:13:50]
• Microservice for Legacy Code - [00:15:36]
• Approach to Dealing with Legacy Code - [00:17:33]
• Seams - [00:20:03]
• Strangler Fig - [00:21:42]
• Understanding Refactoring - [00:22:48]
• Testing Pyramid - [00:24:28]
• Code Nobody Wants to Touch - [00:26:10]
• AI for Understanding Legacy Code - [00:27:53]
• AI Churning More Legacy Code - [00:30:06]
• “AI Assisted Programming” Book - [00:32:47]
• Prompt Engineering - [00:34:16]
• Doing in Small Steps - [00:35:09]
• Best Use Case for AI - [00:37:29]
• Developer’s Fear of AI - [00:39:16]
• SudoLang - [00:40:59]
• AI as Test Assistant - [00:43:42]
• Context Window - [00:45:19]
• Waywords - [00:47:14]
• Managing AI Sessions - [00:48:53]
• Using Different AI Tools - [00:50:30]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:52:28]

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Michael Feathers’s Bio
Michael Feathers is the Founder and Director of R7K Research & Conveyance, a company specializing in software and organization design. Over the past 20 years he has consulted with hundreds of organizations, supporting them with general software design issues, process change and code revitalization.

A frequent presenter at national and international conferences, Michael is also the author of the book Working Effectively with Legacy Code.

Follow Michael:

“Product marketing’s purpose is to drive product adoption by shaping market perception through strategic marketing activities that align with business goals.”

Are you making the mistake of focusing too much on product and not enough on the market? In this episode, Martina Lauchengo, a partner at Costanoa Ventures and the author of the SVPG book “LOVED: How to Rethink Marketing for Tech Products”, discusses the often-overlooked importance of marketing in the success of tech products.

Martina challenges the traditional notion of “product market fit,” suggesting “market product fit” instead, because a product’s value is determined by the market’s capacity to absorb it. She emphasizes the critical role of go-to-market strategy in informing product development and driving adoption.

We explore the four fundamentals of product marketing outlined in Martina’s book: ambassador, strategist, storyteller, and evangelist. Martina shares real-world examples of how these principles have been applied successfully, highlighting the importance of understanding customer needs, crafting compelling narratives, and enabling authentic evangelism.

Tune in to discover valuable insights into how to rethink marketing for your tech products and achieve greater success.  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:01:52]
• Market in the Product Market Fit Dimensions - [00:04:02]
• Importance of Go-To-Market - [00:07:02]
• Marketing Tech Product - [00:09:16]
• Product Marketing vs Marketing Campaign - [00:12:17]
• Sales-Marketing-Product Roles - [00:15:52]
• How Product Marketing Collaborate - [00:17:20]
• Product Marketing Metrics & Attribution - [00:21:16]
• 4 Fundamentals of Product Marketing - [00:25:33]
• Ambassadorship - [00:28:40]
• How to Get Customer Insights - [00:31:25]
• Human Aspect of Product Marketing - [00:35:47]
• Directing the Product Go-To-Market - [00:39:03]
• Storytelling - [00:41:53]
• Curating Stories - [00:44:50]
• Evangelism - [00:46:52]
• Authentic vs Authoritative - [00:49:26]
• Product Review Channels - [00:52:16]
• Product Support - [00:54:07]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:56:01]

_____

Martina Lauchengco’s Bio
Martina spent 30 years as a marketing and product leader. She started her career working on market-defining software, Microsoft Office and Netscape Navigator. She teaches what she’s learned with SVPG and is a lecturer at UC Berkeley’s graduate school of engineering. As a partner at Costanoa Ventures, she sits on multiple boards and coaches startups. She is the author of LOVED: How to Rethink Marketing Tech Products, a #1 Amazon Best Seller. Martina holds a B.A. in Political Science and M.A. in Organizational Behavior from Stanford University. She’s a native Californian, mother of two, and proud wife to Chris.

Follow Martina:

“We should always learn intentionally. And the best learning is by doing. Extra time used to practice something is always worth it."

Dr. Milan Milanović is a seasoned CTO and the author of the popular “Tech World with Milan” newsletter. In this episode, Milan shares his insights on what it takes to become a great software engineer.

Milan emphasizes that technical skills, while crucial, are just one part of the equation. Soft skills, a product-focused mindset, and a commitment to continuous learning are equally vital for long-term success in the ever-evolving tech industry. He delves into the key attributes that distinguish great engineers, revealing the surprising truth about why we should focus on learning the fundamentals, how to learn new skills and become an expert, delivering high-quality engineering, and practical strategies to boost productivity.  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:02:14]
• Attributes of a Great Software Engineer - [00:05:50]
• Common Lacking Attribute - [00:10:28]
• How to Learn New Skills - [00:12:48]
• How to Become an Expert - [00:16:02]
• 10,000 Hours - [00:22:47]
• Dealing with Imposter Syndrome - [00:24:52]
• Learn Things That Don’t Change - [00:27:50]
• High-Quality Engineering - [00:32:52]
• Becoming a More Productive Engineer - [00:39:28]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:48:53]

_____

Milan Milanović’s Bio
Milan is a CTO with more than 20 years of experience in the industry. His main areas of interest include software architecture, cloud computing solutions, web and mobile solutions, agile methods, and managing software teams to deliver innovative and high-quality products. He is an avid author who helps more than 300.000 engineers and managers to build great careers and products. He also works as a High-Performance & Career Coach.

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“The four common obstacles that are stopping engineers in progressing in their journey are the imposter syndrome, burnout, trouble dealing with other people, and self marketing struggles."

Dagna Bieda is an engineer turned coach and the author of “Brain Refactor”. In this episode, Dagna discusses the common obstacles that prevent engineers from progressing in their careers. She also introduces her latest book, “Brain Refactor,” which offers strategies for overcoming these obstacles and achieving success in tech.

Dagna emphasizes the importance of understanding our “legacy mental code” and how it can impact our career growth. She outlines an algorithm for reprogramming our legacy mental code, discussing practical steps for identifying the root causes, planning the refactors, scripting new responses, and continuously executing improvements.

Towards the end, Dagda dives deeper into handling burnout and dealing with other people and provides practical tips to resolve those common bugs.  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:02:03]
• Dagna’s Career Transition - [00:04:27]
• Our Legacy Codebase - [00:10:08]
• Feedbacks as Debugging Point - [00:13:04]
• Psychological Safety in Receiving Feedback - [00:17:52]
• 3 Common Mental Code Refactoring - [00:20:49]
• The Brain Refactor Algorithm - [00:25:23]
• Script New Responses - [00:33:45]
• Merge Conflicts & Cognitive Dissonance - [00:37:33]
• Common Bug #1: Burnout - [00:42:07]
• Common Bug #2: Dealing with Other People - [00:51:21]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:57:02]

_____

Dagna Bieda’s Bio
Dagna Bieda is an Engineer turned Coach for Engineers and ambitious professionals in tech. With 10+ years of coding experience and coaching since 2019, she’s the tough love, “been in your shoes” kinda Coach. Her clients' backgrounds include a spectrum ranging from ICs to CTOs, from small startups to FAANG+ companies, from 2 to 20+ years of experience, and from self-taught devs through career-changing Bootcamp grads to college grads and PhDs. She helps her clients reach their potential and exciting career opportunities by refactoring their brains.

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“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.

Follow Andrew:

“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.

Follow Thiago:

“A lot of problems that we are facing in code review are due to the interface. We are not actually giving feedback to a person, but we are just filling in text boxes and looking at code."

Dr. Michaela Greiler is a code review advocate and runs the “Awesome Code Reviews” workshops. In this episode, we discuss the importance of making code reviews awesome. We discuss the common challenges of code reviews, emphasizing the need for a balanced approach that considers both the technical and social aspects. Michaela also shares insights on how to assess and improve code review practices within teams, highlighting the code review quadrant of review speed and feedback value.

Our discussion further explores the correlation between code reviews and developer experience, emphasizing the role of psychological safety and a positive feedback culture. Finally, Michaela provides valuable tips on code review tools and techniques, including the use of checklists and strategies for managing context switching.

If you’re looking to enhance your team’s code review process and foster a positive developer experience, listen now and take your code reviews to the next level!  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:01:53]
• Awesome Code Review - [00:05:33]
• Assessing Code Review Practices - [00:11:41]
• Code Review Speed - [00:18:23]
• Code Review & Developer Experience - [00:23:31]
• Improving Code Review Cultural Aspect - [00:29:13]
• Code Review Tools - [00:35:36]
• Code Review Techniques - [00:42:11]
• Context Switching - [00:48:15]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:54:14]

_____

Michaela Greiler’s Bio
For over 15 years, Michaela Greiler has helped software teams build high-quality software in an efficient and effective way. Her mission is to lead teams to unlock their full potential during company workshops and team coaching sessions. She shares her findings through articles on her blog or in scientific journals, in publications such as freecodecamp and at conferences. She also runs a weekly newsletter that more than 2500 people enjoy. In this newsletter, she shares her thoughts on relevant software engineering topics and helps you stay up-to-date. She’s also the host of the software engineering unlocked podcast. Here, she interviews experienced developers, product managers and CTOs about how they build software.

Follow Michaela:

“Coupling is an inherent part of system design, not something that is necessarily good or evil. How we design coupling can take our system either towards complexity or towards modularity."

Vladik Khononov returns to the podcast to discuss his latest book “Balancing Coupling in Software Design”. In this episode, Vlad revisits the essence of coupling, a term often not fully understood, and explores its implications on software complexity and modularity.

Vlad introduces the concept of shared lifecycle and shared knowledge, revealing the hidden dependencies that can undermine even the most well-intentioned designs. He also explains complexity through the lens of the Cynefin framework and delves into the differences between essential and accidental complexity.

One of the episode’s highlights is Vlad’s unique framework for evaluating coupling. He introduces the three dimensions of integration strength, distance, and volatility, providing a practical model for assessing and balancing coupling in software design. He also challenges traditional definitions of modularity, emphasizing the importance of knowledge boundaries.

Whether you’re a seasoned tech lead or an aspiring software engineer, this episode offers invaluable insights into building maintainable and modular software systems. It will leave you with a deeper appreciation for the delicate balance between coupling and complexity.  

Listen out for:

• Writing about Coupling - [00:03:28]
• Coupling - [00:06:09]
• Shared Lifecycle & Knowledge - [00:08:17]
• Cynefin - [00:12:28]
• Essential vs Accidental Complexity - [00:19:00]
• Modularity - [00:22:45]
• Abstraction & Knowledge Boundary - [00:29:04]
• 3 Dimensions of Coupling - [00:36:25]
• Balancing Coupling - [00:58:11]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [01:02:30]

_____

Vladik Khononov’s Bio
Vlad Khononov is a software engineer with extensive industry experience, working for companies large and small in roles ranging from webmaster to chief architect. His core areas of expertise are distributed systems and software design. Vlad consults with companies to make sense of their business domains, untangle monoliths, and tackle complex architectural challenges. Vlad maintains an active media career as a public speaker and author. Prior to Balancing Coupling in Software Design, he authored the best-selling O’Reilly book Learning Domain-Driven Design. He is a sought-after keynote speaker, presenting on topics such as domain-driven design, microservices, and software architecture in general.

Follow Vladik:

“Just because the network is unreliable doesn’t mean a monolith is reliable either. It’s a fallacy to assume that you can build an error free system. You deal with it by accepting that the system overall has a baseline error rate, and that’s a business requirements issue."

Richard Rodger is the author of “The Tao of Microservices”. In this episode, Richard shares a unique philosophical and practical approach to microservices, focusing on core concepts such as messages first, component-based, pattern matching, and transport independence. Our discussion also covers the choice between monoliths and microservices, discussing the challenges of network unreliability and data consistency.  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:01:55]
• The Tao of Microservices - [00:10:12]
• 3 Core Technical Principles - [00:18:22]
• Messages First - [00:27:55]
• Pattern Matching - [00:35:55]
• Monolith vs Microservices - [00:41:18]
• Network Fallacy - [00:45:17]
• Handling Data Consistency - [00:49:30]
• 2 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:55:47]

_____

Richard Rodger’s Bio
Richard Rodger is the author of The Tao of Microservices, a book from Manning focused on the design and management of microservice architectures. His first book Mobile Application Development in the Cloud (Wiley, 2010) is one of the first major works on the intersection of Node.js, Cloud, and Mobile.

Richard Rodger is the founder and CEO of voxgig.com, a professional network and tool suite for speakers and event organizers. Richard was previously a co-founder and COO of nearForm.com, the world’s largest specialist Node.js consultancy delivering next-generation enterprise software, with a focus on Node.js and microservices. Before that, Richard was the CTO of FeedHenry, a mobile application platform provider that was acquired by RedHat in 2014.

Richard holds degrees in Mathematics, Philosophy, and Computer Science.

Follow Richard:

“Where the CTOs usually struggle is holding people accountable. The other things are leadership, strategy, vision, and being an executive. Most of the CTOs are swamped with work from their day-to-day job."

Stephan Schmidt is a CTO coach and the author of “Amazing CTO”. In this episode, we delve into the multifaceted world of the CTO role and discuss what it takes to become a great CTO.

Stephan highlights the common struggles CTOs face and offers practical advice from his book on the different important aspects of the role, such as setting a clear vision and strategy, delegating effectively, having effective one-on-ones, and fostering a culture of ownership and growth. We also touch on the personal side of the role, discussing the importance of self-management, maintaining a healthy work-life balance, handling failures, and overcoming imposter syndrome.

Whether you’re already a CTO or have aspirations for tech leadership, this episode shares practical insights for effectively managing technology teams and driving innovation.  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:01:46]
• The Role of a CTO - [00:03:57]
• The Missing Manual - [00:06:54]
• 140 Bite-Sized Rules - [00:09:22]
• CTO Struggles - [00:10:52]
• Stephan’s Failure Stories - [00:14:43]
• Strategy is for People - [00:18:05]
• Set People Up for Success, Not Failure - [00:19:59]
• One-on-One & Automatic Management - [00:22:59]
• Delegate Everything - [00:27:29]
• How to Delegate Better - [00:30:02]
• Think in 10X - [00:33:17]
• Radical Simplicity - [00:36:15]
• Managing Yourself - [00:40:56]
• Impostor Syndrome and Handling Failures - [00:44:07]
• The Future of a CTO - [00:47:07]
• 2 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:49:46]

_____

Stephan Schmidt’s Bio
Stephan Schmidt launched his tech career as a self-taught coder, mastering the art of programming as a kid in a department store back in 1981 with ambitions of creating video games. His passion for technology led him to university, where he delved into computer science, specializing in distributed systems and artificial intelligence, while also exploring the realms of philosophy. With the dawn of the internet era in Germany during the 1990s, Stephan became a pioneering coder and engineering manager for several startups. His journey in the tech world expanded as he founded a venture capital-funded startup and tackled architecture, processes, and growth challenges in various fast-growing VC-backed companies.

His roles have included engineering manager at ImmoScout24 and CTO of an eBay Inc. subsidiary. Following the successful sale of his wife’s startup, the couple relocated to the seaside, where Stephan embraced his role as a CTO coach, guiding technology leaders through the intricacies of their evolving roles.

Follow Stephan:

“The three change dimensions of the product operating model are changing how you build, changing how you solve problems, and changing how you decide which problems to solve."

Chris Jones, Partner at Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG) and co-author of “TRANSFORMED: Moving to the Product Operating Model,” joins me to discuss how organizations can transform and innovate like top tech companies.

Chris introduces the Product Operating Model (POM), a set of principles for building products that prioritize outcomes over outputs. He contrasts POM with traditional IT and project models, emphasizing the importance of empowering cross-functional teams, fostering trust, and aligning stakeholders around a unified product strategy.

Chris also delves into the three dimensions of POM, highlighting the need for changing how we build, how we solve problems, and how we prioritize problems to solve. Additionally, he explores the crucial role of the CEO, the product leaders, and the product team’s key competencies in driving successful transformations to POM.  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:01:56]
• Moving Into Product Management - [00:05:40]
• Key Theme of “Transformed” - [00:07:13]
• Product Operating Model (POM) - [00:10:39]
• Model, Not a Framework - [00:15:52]
• The Driver’s Seat in POM - [00:19:28]
• Changing How You Build - [00:23:00]
• Importance of Instrumentation & Monitoring - [00:26:37]
• Changing How You Solve Problems - [00:28:27]
• Product Discovery & Experimentation - [00:32:03]
• Empowerment & Trust - [00:36:10]
• Changing How You Decide What Problems to Solve - [00:39:21]
• Unified Product Vision & Strategy - [00:42:56]
• The Role of the CEO & Product Leaders - [00:44:45]
• Product Model Competencies - [00:48:36]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:53:05]

_____

Chris Jones’s Bio
Chris has spent over 30 years building and leading product teams that defined new product categories at startups to F500 software companies including Lookout, Symantec, and Vontu. A holder of multiple patents, he has discovered and developed new products in consumer and enterprise mobile, web, data, and platform services.

Chris has worked directly with over 200 companies ranging from startups to very large enterprise across a wide variety of technologies, business models and industries. Chris has worked directly with leadership and operational teams at these companies to better align their organization, process, tools, and culture with modern product best practices.

Follow Chris:

“Contract testing is a form of testing where you are verifying two systems have the same shared understanding about the expectations."

Lewis Prescott is the coauthor of “Contract Testing in Action”. In this episode, join us to demystify contract testing and its critical role in modern software development. Discover how contract testing ensures reliable software integration, particularly in complex microservice architectures.

Lewis explains the core concepts, the difference between consumer-driven and provider-driven approaches, and how contract testing fits into your testing strategy and CI/CD pipeline. We also touch on the practicalities of implementing contract testing, including tool options like Pact, and how it can also be applied in event-driven architectures.

Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting, this episode offers valuable insights to help you level up your software development approach.  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:01:56]
• Problems Contract Testing is Solving - [00:04:57]
• Contract Testing Use Cases - [00:07:20]
• Contract Testing Components - [00:09:52]
• Shared Understanding of the Expectations - [00:11:42]
• Benefits of Contract Testing - [00:15:02]
• Contract Testing in Testing Pyramid - [00:18:29]
• Contract vs Unit vs Integration Tests - [00:19:37]
• Contract Testing for Public APIs - [00:21:28]
• Types of Contract Testing - [00:22:46]
• CI/CD Workflow with Contract Testing - [00:25:33]
• Provider Workflow - [00:31:55]
• Getting the Buy-In - [00:33:31]
• Owning the Broker - [00:36:00]
• Pact & Other Tooling - [00:37:19]
• Versioning Contracts - [00:39:34]
• Consumer-Driven Contract Testing - [00:42:15]
• Contract Testing for Event-Driven Architecture - [00:46:53]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:49:40]

_____

Lewis Prescott’s Bio
Lewis Prescott is a Test Specialist at IBM. He has 9 years experience in software testing, is a recognized champion of Contract Testing and course author at Test Automation University, as well as an active mentor in the testing community.

Follow Lewis:

“Strong teams embrace conflict. They use it as a tool, and they have their great way of handling disagreements."

Hari Haralambiev is co-founder of SoftSkillsPills.com and author of the leadership newsletter “A Leader’s Tale”. In this episode, we discuss essential elements of team leadership and dynamics. Hari begins by sharing his insights on what makes a great software development team, emphasizing the importance of creating the right environment for collaboration and sustainable results. He introduces the TReE team model, a framework for assessing team dynamics, which stands for Trust, Results, and Evolution.

Our conversation also explores the significance of handling conflicts and disagreements within teams, highlighting the role of leaders in fostering healthy conflict resolution. Hari provides strategies for maintaining team engagement during challenging times, such as layoffs and the pandemic, emphasizing the importance of open communication, focusing on controllable objectives, and the importance of authenticity and vulnerability in leadership.  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:02:09]
• What Makes Software Development Team Great - [00:06:14]
• TReE Team Model - [00:08:40]
• Team Conflicts and Disagreements - [00:15:28]
• The Role of Leaders in Conflicts - [00:25:39]
• Making It Safe to Speak Up - [00:35:16]
• Maintaining Engagement During Tough Times - [00:43:49]
• Maintaining Mental Health for Leaders - [00:51:57]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:55:07]
• Fun Fact About Soft Skills Pills - [00:59:41]

_____

Hari Haralambiev’s Bio
Hari started his 20-year career in the IT industry as a software engineer, led dozens of projects as a manager of software teams, and reached the position of Innovation Director before starting his own company. For the past 10 years, he has focused on helping tech people work better together through team coaching and leadership & soft skills training. Hari is co-founder of SoftSkillsPills.com, the platform for dev teams who care about people, co-host of the popular Bulgarian podcast for IT people Radio Tochka 2, and author of the leadership newsletter/comic A Leader’s Tale.

Follow Hari:

“We have 10 different aspects of quality, and testing is just a subset of activities in the overall quality culture. You need to have a good testing practice, but it’s just a tiny part of quality culture."

Janet Gregory and Selena Delesie are the co-authors of “Assessing Agile Quality Practices Using QPAM”. In this episode, we discuss how to elevate and improve our organization’s quality culture and practices. Janet and Selena begin by explaining what quality culture truly entails, distinguishing it from a narrow focus on testing. They describe the QPAM model, breaking down its 10 quality aspects and 4 dimensions to provide you with a comprehensive model for assessing your quality practices.

Gain insights on why social and sociotechnical aspects of quality are more critical than technical ones, and explore some quality aspects such as feedback loops, development approach, and defect management. Janet and Selena also elaborate on why they consider defect management to be of the lowest priority and provide reasoning for their decision.

Whether you’re a seasoned quality professional or a team leader striving for continuous improvement, this episode contains valuable takeaways to help you build a quality-driven culture that delivers high-quality results. Tune in to learn actionable tips for conducting your own quality assessment and driving quality transformation in your organization.  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:02:10]
• Quality Culture - [00:04:58]
• Quality & Testing - [00:06:42]
• Quality Assessment - [00:08:37]
• 10 Quality Aspects - [00:11:00]
• The Importance of Sociotechnical - [00:13:30]
• QPAM is Not a Maturity Model - [00:16:11]
• 4 Dimensions - [00:19:52]
• Feedback Loops - [00:23:09]
• Explaining Feedback Loops - [00:25:45]
• Development Approach - [00:30:18]
• Defect Management - [00:33:03]
• Understanding the Problem - [00:37:19]
• Conducting a Quality Assessment - [00:40:26]
• Insights from Past Assessments - [00:44:49]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:49:04]

_____

Janet Gregory’s Bio
Janet Gregory is a testing and process consultant with DragonFire Inc. She specializes in showing agile teams how testing activities are necessary to develop good quality products. She works with teams to transition to agile development and has taught agile testing courses worldwide. She contributes articles to publications and enjoys sharing her experiences.

Selena Delesie’s Bio
As a coach, consultant, and trainer, Selena helps leaders and executives shift into healthy leadership, business agility and to engage the strengths and passions of their team to produce a highly creative, productive and vibrant workforce. She is a published author and invited speaker on agility, quality and leadership practices. Selena is co-author, with Janet Gregory, of the books Assessing Agile Quality Practices with QPAM, and A Guide for Facilitating Quality Assessments, as well as a contributing author to other published works.

Follow Janet and Selena:

“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.

Follow Louie:

“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.

Follow Kelsey:

“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.

Follow Tim:

“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.

Follow John:

“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]
• Principle #1: Making Code Small - [00:21:06]
• Arguments Against Smaller Units - [00:23:18]
• Principle #2: Keeping Objects Consistent - [00:26:25]
• Don’t Fight Your Framework - [00:30:03]
• Principle #3: Managing Dependencies - [00:32:05]
• Separate High-Level (What) and Low-Level Code (How) - [00:33:34]
• Principle #4: Designing Good Abstractions - [00:36:31]
• Finding the Balance in Abstraction - [00:38:39]
• Principle #5: Handling External Dependencies and Infrastructure - [00:41:05]
• Principle #6: Achieving Modularisation - [00:45:12]
• Owing to Junior Developers - [00:49:18]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:50:32]

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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.

Follow Mauricio:

“Always remember that system design interview is not about perfection. It is about trade-offs and being able to communicate them clearly and concisely."

Zhiyong Tan is the author of “Acing the System Design Interview”. In this episode, he joins me in demystifying the system design interview process. He shares insights into what to expect, how to tackle common challenges like time management, anxiety, and knowledge gaps, and reveals the core principles that guide successful system design interview.

Zhiyong dives deep into common pitfalls, offering advice on handling tricky topics like requirements gathering, data consistency, scaling problems, and service design. He also provides practical tips on how to learn and grow from system design interview failures, turning setbacks into stepping stones towards success.

Whether you’re a seasoned engineer or just starting your tech career, this episode offers valuable insights and actionable advice to help you ace your next system design interview.  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:01:43]
• System Design Interview - [00:05:03]
• Trade-offs - [00:07:36]
• Managing the Time - [00:09:51]
• Handling What You Don’t Know - [00:13:27]
• Managing Anxiety - [00:15:40]
• System Design Interview Principles - [00:18:32]
• Non-Functional Requirements - [00:21:22]
• Data Consistency - [00:25:11]
• Database Scaling Problem - [00:28:41]
• Distributed Transactions - [00:33:09]
• Functional Requirements & API Design - [00:36:31]
• Failing System Design Interview - [00:38:38]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:42:02]

_____

Zhiyong Tan’s Bio
Zhiyong Tan is the author of Acing the System Design Interview. He is the founder of Tingxie, an app for learning Chinese as a second language. Previously, he was an Engineering Manager and Staff Engineer at PayPal, a senior software engineer at Uber, and a software and data engineer at various startups.

Follow Zhiyong:

“All data scientists and analysts should spend more time in the business, outside the data sets, just to see how the actual business works. Because then you have the context, and then you understand the columns you’re seeing in the data."

David Asboth, author of “Solve Any Data Analysis Problem” and co-host of the “Half Stack Data Science” podcast, shares practical tips for solving real-world data analysis challenges. He highlights the gap between academic training and industry demands, emphasizing the importance of understanding the business problem and maintaining a results-driven approach.

David offers practical insights on data dictionary, data modeling, data cleaning, data lake, and prediction analysis. We also explore AI’s impact on data analysis and the importance of critical thinking when leveraging AI solutions. Tune in to level up your skills and become an indispensable, results-driven data analyst.  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:01:38]
• Half Stack Data Science Podcast - [00:06:33]
• Real-World Data Analysis Gaps - [00:10:46]
• Understanding the Business/Problem - [00:15:36]
• Result-Driven Data Analysis - [00:18:28]
• Feedback Iteration - [00:21:44]
• Data Dictionary - [00:23:48]
• Data Modeling - [00:27:18]
• Data Cleaning - [00:30:43]
• Data Lake - [00:35:05]
• Common Data Analysis Tasks - [00:36:50]
• Prediction Analysis - [00:40:23]
• The Impact of AI on Data Analysis - [00:43:15]
• Importance of Critical Thinking - [00:47:05]
• Common Tasks Solved by AI - [00:50:07]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:53:10]

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David Asboth’s Bio
David is a “data generalist”; currently a freelance data consultant and educator with an MSc. in Data Science and a background in software and web development. With over 6 years experience teaching, he has taught everyone from junior analysts up to C-level executives in industries like banking and management consulting about how to successfully apply data science, machine learning, and AI to their day-to-day roles. He co-hosts the Half Stack Data Science podcast about data science in the real world and is the author of Solve Any Data Analysis Problem, a book about the data skills that aspiring analysts actually need in their jobs, which will be published by Manning in 2024.

Follow David:

“Raise the bar of the team so that they bring sustainable practices. If your code stinks, no matter how you desire to be agile, you cannot respond to the change."

Dr. Venkat Subramaniam is a renowned figure in the software development community, an award-winning author and founder of Agile Developer, Inc. In this episode, Venkat sheds light on the frequently overlooked challenges of software development and provides valuable insights for succeeding in the field. We delve into the misalignment between understanding and practising agile development, the quality gaps that exist between software developers in the industry, the essential technical practices that often get neglected, and the critical role of software architects and technical leaders in steering successful software projects and teams.

If you’re ready for some hard-hitting truths and actionable advice to elevate your software development game, this episode is a must-listen.  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:01:51]
• State of Agile Development - [00:03:36]
• Agile Development Misalignment - [00:07:04]
• The Developers' Gap - [00:15:55]
• Important Technical Practices - [00:26:37]
• The Role of an Architect - [00:36:04]
• The Role of Technical Leaders - [00:44:04]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:51:19]

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Venkat Subramaniam’s Bio
Dr. Venkat Subramaniam is an award-winning author, founder of Agile Developer, Inc., an instructional professor at the University of Houston, and the creator of the dev2next conference.

He has trained and mentored thousands of software developers in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia, and is a regularly-invited speaker at several international conferences. Venkat helps his clients effectively apply and succeed with sustainable agile practices on their software projects.

“Three characteristics of an organization that is operating with maximal effectiveness are value, clarity, and flow."

Are you feeling the strain of growth? Struggling to maintain alignment and efficiency as your organization scales? In this episode, I sit down with Steve Pereira and Andrew Davis, authors of the groundbreaking new book, “Flow Engineering”.

Learn why traditional scaling methods focusing on rigid coordination can actually hinder progress and how flow engineering offers a solution. We delve into the challenges and paradox of scaling, the core principles of flow engineering, its five primary mapping techniques, and the leadership mindset shift required to create a culture of flow engineering.

If you’re looking to overcome misalignment and optimize performance as you scale, this episode is a must-listen!  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:01:33]
• The Problem with Scale - [00:07:12]
• The Dangers of Increasing Coordination - [00:14:49]
• The Paradox of Scale - [00:19:58]
• Flow Engineering - [00:23:34]
• 5 Primary Maps - [00:27:50]
• The Biggest Impact Maps - [00:32:31]
• All Maps are Wrong - [00:38:23]
• 5 Principles of Flow Engineering - [00:40:11]
• Leading Flow Engineering - [00:46:00]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:52:53]

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Steve Pereira’s Bio
Steve Pereira has spent over two decades improving the flow of work across organizations. He’s worked through tech support, IT management, build and release engineering, and as a founding CTO for enterprise SaaS. After shifting to consulting large enterprises on value stream performance improvement, he created Flow Engineering to make value stream mapping simple, quick, and actionable. He serves as lead consultant for Visible Value Stream Consulting, as a board advisor to the Value Stream Management Consortium, Chair of the OASIS Value Stream Management Interoperability technical committee, and co-founder of the Flow Collective to bring flow-focused professionals together.

Andrew Davis’s Bio
Andrew Davis is a Salesforce DevOps specialist who’s passionate about helping teams deliver innovation, build trust, and improve their performance. After studying engineering at Virginia Tech and Johns Hopkins he became a Buddhist monk, teaching and building meditation communities for almost 15 years. Since 2014, he’s focused on the Salesforce platform as a developer, consultant, and architect. He launched Wipro’s Salesforce DevOps practice, and focuses on promoting modern development practices for Salesforce. He is the Chief Product Officer for AutoRABIT, helping people understand the importance of DevOps for scaling Salesforce implementations. He lives in San Diego with his amazing wife and very cuddly dog.

Follow Steve and Andrew:

“The quality is connected to the risk, and the risk is connected to the testing. If we don’t keep an eye on quality, our testing and development will drift, because we are no longer building the thing that people care about anymore."

Mark Winteringham is a quality engineer and the author of “Testing Web APIs”. In this episode, discover how holistic, risk-based testing strategies can transform your software quality. Mark explains how to prioritize our testing by understanding what users truly value and translating that into different risk-based testing strategies, such as testing API design, exploratory testing, automated testing, and acceptance test-driven design (ATDD). Mark also reveals the testing Venn diagram as our testing strategic roadmap. Finally, get a glimpse of Mark’s upcoming book “AI-Assisted Testing” and learn how AI will evolve the roles of testers and developers.  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:01:24]
• Writing “Testing Web APIs” - [00:05:17]
• Holistic Testing Strategy - [00:07:48]
• Start With Understanding the Problem - [00:11:02]
• Testing Venn Diagram Model - [00:14:11]
• Risk-Based Testing - [00:18:22]
• Defining Quality & Quality Attributes - [00:22:29]
• Testing API Design - [00:26:41]
• Exploratory Testing - [00:32:08]
• Automated Testing - [00:36:18]
• Acceptance Test-Driven Design (ATDD) - [00:41:54]
• “AI-Assisted Testing” Book - [00:45:51]
• Evolution of Developer and Tester Roles - [00:48:46]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:53:51]

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Mark Winteringham’s Bio
Mark Winteringham is a quality engineer, course director, and author of “AI Assisted Testing” and “Testing Web APIs”, with over 10 years of experience providing testing expertise on award-winning projects across a wide range of technology sectors. He is an advocate for modern risk-based testing practices, holistic based Automation strategies, Behaviour Driven Development and Exploratory testing techniques.

Follow Mark:

“Bureaucracy in itself is neither good nor bad. However, it often gets in the way and prevents important things you need to do. A good bureaucracy is lean, learning, and enabling."

Mark Schwartz is an Enterprise Strategist at AWS and the author of multiple books from IT Revolution. In this episode, we discuss his two latest books on the topics of bureaucracy and ethics. Mark begins by sharing his perspective on the impact of bureaucracy on digital transformation. He explains the definition of bureaucracy and why it tends to have a negative connotation. Mark describes the characteristics of a good bureaucracy and how leaders can play an important role in managing bureaucracy.

Next, Mark shares his reasons for writing about ethics in his latest book, why it is becoming more relevant in the digital world, and how leaders can make better ethical decisions in the current fast-paced business world.  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:01:22]
• State of Digital Transformation - [00:04:33]
• Bureaucracy - [00:08:31]
• Bureaucracy and Process Improvement - [00:13:14]
• IT as the Biggest Bureaucrats - [00:15:30]
• Bureaucracy Creates Business Value - [00:18:09]
• Characteristics of Good Bureaucracy - [00:20:40]
• Leaders' Roles Towards Bureaucracy - [00:26:05]
• Writing About Ethics - [00:34:10]
• How to Make Ethical Decisions - [00:41:12]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:54:21]

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Mark Schwartz’s Bio
Mark Schwartz is an iconoclastic CIO and a playful crafter of ideas, an inveterate purveyor of lucubratory prose. He has been an IT leader in organizations small and large, public, private, and nonprofit. As an Enterprise Strategist for Amazon Web Services, he uses his CIO experience to bring strategies to enterprises or enterprises to strategies, and bring both to the cloud. As the CIO of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, he provoked the federal government into adopting Agile and DevOps practices.

Mark speaks frequently on innovation, bureaucratic implications of DevOps, and using Agile processes in low-trust environments. With a BS in computer science from Yale, a master’s in philosophy from Yale, and an MBA from Wharton, Mark is either an expert on the business value of IT or else he just thinks about it a lot.

Follow Mark:

“Soft skills are always going to be those ladders for you to climb in your career, whereas your tech skills can turn into snakes, meaning you’ve got to start again with another skill."

Jacqui Read, author of “Communication Patterns,” joins in this episode to discuss why strong communication skills are crucial for developers and technical leaders, often surpassing the importance of merely technical expertise. We delve into four key communication areas: visual communication, multimodal communication, communicating knowledge, and communicating remotely. During the discussion, Jacqui suggests several practical patterns you can immediately implement to level up your communication skills, such as knowing your audience, the big picture comes first, and perspective-driven documentation.  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:01:40]
• Architecture Kata - [00:03:17]
• Writing Communication Patterns - [00:05:03]
• Importance of Soft Skills - [00:07:33]
• Visual Communication - [00:09:24]
• Visual Communication Essentials - [00:12:12]
• Visual Narrative - [00:17:46]
• Multimodal Communication - [00:21:09]
• Verbal & Non-Verbal Communication - [00:26:29]
• Encoding & Decoding - [00:29:58]
• Communicating Knowledge - [00:32:22]
• Tips for Capturing Knowledge - [00:40:14]
• Get Feedback Early & Just-in-Time - [00:43:05]
• Communicating Remotely - [00:48:59]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:54:23]

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Jacqui Read’s Bio
Jacqui Read is an internationally-recognised solution and enterprise architect, and author of Communication Patterns: A Guide for Developers and Architects. She teaches public and private workshops and speaks at international conferences on topics such as architecture practices, technical communication, and systems design. Jacqui specialises in untangling and extracting value from data and knowledge, helping businesses to determine direction in complex environments.

Her professional interests include collaborative modelling, knowledge management, Domain-Driven Design, sociotechnical architecture, and modernising enterprise architecture practices. Outside of work she enjoys gardening and strumming her ukulele while singing at the same time.

Follow Jacqui:

“As technology has become more and more pervasive, experience has become more and more important. And if companies don’t think of the experience, then users don’t think of the company."

Satyam Kantamneni is the CEO of UXReactor and the author of “User Experience Design”. In this episode, Satyam delves into the power of user experience design to drive business growth and value. Satyam explains why user experience design is paramount for success and reveals the common gaps that prevent companies from truly becoming user-centric. He dissects the concept of Experience Value Chain, illustrating the levels of UX (user experience), PX (product experience), and XT (experience transformation).

Satyam provides insights into how experience-driven organizations establish strong business moats and unlock incredible business values. He defines the concept of experience debt, urging organizations to prioritize a relentless pursuit of magical user experiences. Satyam also shares the PragmaticUX playbook and mindsets, providing a roadmap for organizations seeking to embark on the transformative journey towards XT.  

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:01:13]
• State of UX and Design - [00:02:35]
• The Gap for Being User-Centered - [00:04:51]
• Experience Value Chain - [00:09:09]
• Moving Beyond Just UI - [00:12:30]
• Trinity of Collaboration - [00:15:30]
• 3 Levels of Experience - [00:18:58]
• Experience Debt - [00:21:40]
• Experience Transformation (XT) - [00:24:16]
• XT & Business Moat - [00:28:04]
• PragmaticUX Playbook - [00:30:58]
• PragmaticUX Mindsets - [00:34:14]
• Organization’s Empathy - [00:40:14]
• Getting User’s Feedback - [00:43:24]
• Tips to Get Started - [00:45:04]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:47:10]

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Satyam Kantamneni’s Bio
Satyam is the Chief Experience Officer at UXReactor. In less than 7 years, UXReactor has become the fastest growing specialized experience design firm in the US, with a team of 50+ employees spread over three continents. Through UXReactor, Satyam demonstrated that UX can and should drive enterprise-wide innovation and business outcomes. UXReactor has enabled its clients-partners to generate hundreds of millions in additional revenue from user-centered innovation. Satyam is passionate about user-centered innovation, and he authored a book titled User Experience Playbook: A Practical to Fuel Business Growth.

Follow Satyam: