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Software Engineering Unlocked

Software Engineering Unlocked

Michaela Greiler

78 episodesEN

Show overview

Software Engineering Unlocked has been publishing since 2019, and across the 5 years since has built a catalogue of 78 episodes, alongside 1 trailer or bonus episode. That works out to roughly 60 hours of audio in total. Releases follow a monthly cadence.

Episodes typically run thirty-five to sixty minutes — most land between 38 min and 52 min — and the run-time is fairly consistent across the catalogue. None of the episodes are flagged explicit by the publisher. It is catalogued as a EN-language Technology show.

The catalogue appears to be on hiatus or wound down — the most recent episode landed 2 years ago, with no new episodes in over a year. The busiest year was 2020, with 25 episodes published. Published by Michaela Greiler.

Episodes
78
Running
2019–2024 · 5y
Median length
45 min
Cadence
Monthly

From the publisher

In this show, I open you the doors to companies and thought leaders around the world. With my guests, I discuss software engineering best practices and pitfalls, and how they strive to build software people love.

Latest Episodes

View all 78 episodes

Ep 77Relationships Ruin Your Code Reviews

Key Insights:Importance of Code Reviews: Code reviews are essential for error detection, understanding new features, adhering to coding standards, and ensuring only reviewed code is deployed.Emotional Impact: Emotional dynamics play a significant role, with 30% of developers reviewing code from less favored colleagues, which can lead to biased judgments and negative feelings.Striving for Objectivity: Despite personal feelings, approximately 76% of developers strive for objectivity to maintain professionalism.Impact of Developer Experience: The experience level of a developer also influences the depth of code reviews and the manner in which feedback is provided.Perceptions Formed: Reviewers' perceptions of code quality can affect their views on the author's skills or character.Strategies to Mitigate Bias: The episode outlines multiple strategies to reduce bias in code reviews, such as involving multiple reviewers, standardizing review criteria, and implementing anonymous reviews.Additional Resources: Read the full paper called "How social interactions can affect Modern Code Review"Visit awesomecodereviews.com to discover Dr. McKayla’s latest article on the top 10 code review techniques and methodologies, including systematic approaches like using checklists and change-impact analysis.Conclusion: The podcast sheds light on both the positive and negative impacts of human factors in code reviews and emphasizes the need for strategies to minimize bias, enhancing both code quality and team dynamics.

May 10, 202415 min

Ep 76Measuring and improving developer experience

Make code reviews your superpower at awesomecodereviews.com!Episode Resources:Paper on improving developer experienceAbi's thoughts on the DX paperAbi Noda's LinkedInAbi's podcast for Engineering Enablement leadersAbout Abi NodaAbi Noda is the CEO and founder of DX, a company that helps measure and improve developer experience.

Jun 23, 202344 min

Ep 75From DevOps to Platform Engineering

Earn additional income by sharing your opinion on userinterviews.com!Episode Resources:What is platform engineering?What is an internal developer platform?What is Dynamic Configuration Management?Salesman tricks for the Platform EngineerPlatform Engineering communityPlatformCon 2023Luca’s LinkedIn and TwitterAbout Luca GalanteLuca is leading product at Humanitec, saw hundreds of DevOps and platform setups, and shares his learnings in his weekly newsletter PlatformWeekly (with 10k subscribers). He is also the core contributor to the Platform Engineering community, with 10k+ meetup members, and 8k+ Slack members.Make code reviews your superpower at awesomecodereviews.com!Other episodes you'll enjoyCan Engineering metrics be ethical?Measure developer productivity using the SPACE frameworkHigh-performing engineering teams through DX

Mar 22, 202348 min

Ep 74From English teacher to dev in 9 month: A self-taught developer journey

Earn additional income by sharing your opinion on userinterviews.com!Episode Resources:Nadia's BookNadia's websiteNadia's TwitterAbout Nadia ZhukNadia is a software engineer at Intercom, and was previously working at Zendesk. Before, Nadia was an English teacher, and journalist, until she decided to learn programming and enter the tech world.Make code reviews your superpower at awesomecodereviews.com! Other episodes you'll enjoyDo code reviews frustrate developers?The Secret To High-Quality CodeVulnerability disclosure with Katie Moussouris

Mar 8, 202344 min

Ep 73Do code reviews frustrate developers?

Earn additional income by sharing your opinion on userinterviews.com!Episode Resources:Alexander's TwitterAlexander's ResearchAwesome Code ReviewsPapers:An exploratory study on confusion in code reviewsEmotions and Perceived Productivity of Software Developers at the WorkplaceRecognizing developers' emotions while programmingGendered Experiences of Software Engineers During the COVID-19 CrisisDeveloper experience research paper About Alexander SerebrenikAlexander is a Full Professor of Social Software Engineering at the Software Engineering and Technology cluster of Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). Alexander’s research goal is to facilitate evolution of software by taking into account social aspects of software development.

Feb 22, 202338 min

Ep 72Fighting software vulnerabilities with software bill of materials

Earn additional income by sharing your opinion on userinterviews.com!Episode Resources:Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s CybersecurityAlpha-Omega ProjectsCybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa)Tools to create SBOM About Barak BrudoBarak Brudo helps organizations secure their software supply chain. He works as a Developer Relations Advocate at Scribe Security.Other episodes you'll enjoyWhat developers should know about securityThe Secret To High-Quality CodeVulnerability disclosure with Katie Moussouris

Feb 8, 202338 min

Ep 71A soul-crushing job search

Earn additional income by sharing your opinion on userinterviews.com!Episode Resources:Heather's TwitterHeather's job search blog postHeather's BlogAbout Heather ReidHeather Reid is a Test Engineer at Glofox. Before that she was the community boss for Ministry of Testing, making sure that the testing community had everything to be successful. Before that, she was a software tester at Exploristics and at Moola.Episode Chapters:00:00 Introduction02:00 What does a test community boss do?06:28 Can we forget our skills?08:00 Attending workshops09:00 4-hour interview experience10:00 Hurtful rejections pile up12:10 Can't ask questions in an interview14:00 A good interview experience19:00 A technical test23:00 Different backgrounds and perspectives26:10 Arguing during an interview30:50 Improving the state of testing 33:50 Adding accessibility 40:00 Career advice for job seekers

Jan 18, 202344 min

Ep 70Entrepreneurship, Career Growth and Testing: Top 5 Episodes of 2022

This episode samples:Alvaro Trigo, who once was a web developer but could quit his day job to work on his open source software Fullpage.js.Daniel Vassallo tells us why he left his cushy job at Amazon to start many small businesses.Dagna Bieda explains how you can fast-track your engineering career and what mindset has to do with professional growth.Mauricio Aniche explains how to write tests that find bugs and what domain-driven testing is.Nuchals Dular shares why the engineering manager position he worked hard toward to wasn’t meant for him.YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/XKKFCmvK7_M

Jan 4, 202357 min

Ep 69Coding practices at MAANG companies versus startups

Make code reviews your superpower at awesomecodereviews.com!About Michael LynchMichael is a software engineer and entrepreneur. He has launched several businesses after leaving Google in 2018. His hardware/software business, called TinyPilot, lets you control any computer remotely and has brought him the most success so far.Episode Resources:Michael's TwitterHow to Do Code Reviews Like a HumanTiny Pilot

Dec 20, 202253 min

Ep 68Can Engineering metrics be ethical?

Book your awesomecodereviews.com workshop!Episode Resources:MultitudesLauren's TwitterDeveloper experience research paperDORA metricsSPACE developer productivity frameworkAbout Lauren PeateLauren is the CEO and founder of Multitudes. Her goal is to empower engineering teams to be high-performing through a people-first way to software performance metrics. Lauren’s worked with tech teams around the world, from Silicon Valley to the Middle East and now New Zealand.

Dec 7, 202253 min

Ep 67Collaborative debugging with Fiberplane

​This episode is sponsored by Fiberplane. Your platform for collaborative debugging notebooks!Episode Resources:Try Fiberplane hereFiberplane websiteFiberplane DocsNP-hard Ventures About Micha Hernandez van LeuffenMicha Hernandez van Leuffen is the founder and CEO of Fiberplane. He previously founded Wercker, a container-native CI/CD platform that was acquired by Oracle. Micha has dedicated his career to improving the workflows of developers. Read the whole episode (Transcript)[If you want, you can help make the transcript better, and improve the podcast’s accessibility via Github. I’m happy to lend a hand to help you get started with pull requests, and open source work.][00:00:00] Michaela: Hello and welcome to the Software Engineering Unlocked Podcast. I'm host, Dr. McKayla, and today I have the pleasure to talk to Micha Hernandez van Leuffen. He is the founder and CEO of Fiberplane. He previously was the founder of Wercker, a container native CI/CD platform that was acquired by Oracle. Micha has dedicated his career to improving the workflow of developers, so he and I have a lot to talk about today.I'm really, really happy that he's here today and he's also sponsoring today's episode. Welcome to the show. I'm happy that you're here, Micha.[00:00:36] Micha: Thank you for having me. Excited to be on the show.[00:00:38] Michaela: Yeah, I'm really, really excited. So, Micha, I wanted to start really from the beginning. So you are the CEO of Fiberplane and you are the founder of Wercker, which you already sold.So, can you tell me a little bit about how you actually started to this entrepreneur journey of yours and what brought you to the developer experience area.[00:01:03] Micha: Yeah, sure thing. So I have a background in computer science and I did my so, I'm originally from Amsterdam, but I did my thesis at USF.And the topic was autonomous resource provision using software containers. This was all before Docker was a thing, you know, the container format that we now know and love. And I sort of got excited by that field of, of so containers and decided to start a company around it. That company was Worker, so container native CI/CD platform.So we helped developers build tests and deploy their applications to the cloud. We went, I would say, so we went through various iterations of the platform. You know, eventually, you know, we started off with Lxc as a container format and then eventually ended up, you know, having to, to platform on Docker.And Kubernetes. But, you know, it was quite a, quite a journey. So that company eventually got acquired by Oracle to bolster their cloud native strategy. And then, you know, spent a couple years in a Bay area as a VP of software development focusing on their cloud native efforts.Tried to do a little bit of open source there as well, and then, you know, move back to Europe. And so sort of started thinking about what's. Did some angel investing. We're still doing some angel investing as well actually in the sort of same arena. So developer tools, infrastructure building blocks for tomorrow.So I run a, a small precede seat fund with to other friends of mine. But then also started, you know, thinking about what to build next. And you know, we can get into that, but sort of from our experience at running work or this sort of large distributed. Sort of fiber plane was, was born.[00:02:26] Michaela: Cool. Yeah. And so how, how was the acquisition for you? I, from the time I'm, you said you were studying at the university, but then did you write out of university, you know, start worker or maybe already while[00:02:40] Micha: you were Yeah. More or less studying? Yeah. Yeah, more or less just out of university. So it was around 20, 20 12, 20 13.And then, you know, expanded the team. Of course we got an office in San Francisco and, and London. And then 2017 we got acquired by Whirlpool. Oh,[00:02:56] Michaela: very cool. Wow. Cool. So, and you were the, you were the founder of that and also probably cto, CEO. At, at the beginning you were one person shop, or was this, or have this idea and I get some funding and I already, you know, have a team when I'm starting out, or was it more bootstrapped way?How, how was that?[00:03:16] Micha: Yeah, yeah. We both gates, both fiber plane and, and, and worker. We got some funding early on. Then eventually got a CTO. For worker was one of the co-founders of, of OpenStack. So also, you know, very early in the, in that sort of, mm-hmm. container and, and cloud infrastructure journey.And then if for fiber plane, Yeah. There, there's no cto. I'm. I'm both CEO and cto, I guess[00:03:38] Michaela: at the same time. Yeah. Cool, cool. Can you tell me a little bit about fiber plane? What is fiber plane? You know, what does, what does it has to do with containers and with developer experience? What, what kind of of a product is it?[00:03:51] Micha: Yeah, sure thing. So, so guess coming back to the worker days, right? So we, we, you know, we're runni

Nov 16, 202243 min

Ep 66Deeply caring for developer experience

[00:00:00] Michaela: Hello, and welcome to the Software Engineering Unlocked Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. McKayla, and today I have the pleasure to talk to Ashley Hansberger. Ashley is Director of Developer experience at Tackle io. But before I start, let me tell you about my latest project. Awesome cos.com. Yeah. All my work on Culture Views has now its own dedicated home at awesomecodereviews.com.You find articles about code review best practices code review checklists, news about the latest research on code reviews and of course workshops and courses I offer around this topic. So please hover over to awesomecodereviews.com and check out my latest work. But now back to Ashley.Ashley is a vivid speaker and proponent of testing, and she loves to share her experience in conferences during blogging, all about testing and engineering productivity.Before she was working at Tackle.io, she was the director of DevOps engineering at Black. So I'm super, super thrilled to pick her brain today and, you know, learn all about her experience. Welcome to the show Ashley.[00:01:08] Ashley: Thank you so much for having me. I'm, I'm so happy to be here. .[00:01:14] Michaela: Yeah. Yeah. I'm really, really happy.So I want to start really at the beginning. I know that you have been a tester at the start of your career. Yes. So how, how come that you're now, you know, the director of developer experience, how did you come into developer advocacy and so on, but what's, what's that[00:01:30] Ashley: path? , I'll try to give the short story, but it might become a long and winding journey, but that's okay.Yeah, I did start as a tester and, you know, went from manual testing and I'm not even gonna say how many years ago, because it feels like ages ago and it was, but that's okay. . So I started as a manual tester and as many companies go, you know, started to learn automation and really found a passion for leading that effort.So I went from tester test lead. Test architect into really becoming a technical product owner. How do I start advocating the voice of what is needed technically to balance against the features needed so that we can think about how do we design and create the frameworks and develop the automation that we need to get the feedback loops in place for our code?That kind of led me down to a path of really thinking about testing and continuous delivery and adopting DevOps principles of like flow and feedback and continuous learning and thinking about DevOps from a culture perspective. And once we had a reorg, I was asked to lead release engineering. Now that became a really interesting experience for me, not knowing a whole lot about release engineering, but being able to lead people and thinking about our infrastructure as code and how do we even test our infrastructure.And guiding a team of DevOps engineers to be able to do just that. As we develop a microservice oriented architecture, how do we create the, the easiest path forward for a team to spin up a service, develop what they need to, and not have to worry about the underlying architecture behind, behind the microservices that they need to create.So my team creates the Pav road at that point. But what I really found I was most passionate about was bringing people together, learning how to work together and really focusing on people and their experiences at work. I was also asked you, as you mentioned, I've been speaking in the industry a lot about testing.But what I really found it was about, at the heart of it, was how do we advocate for these ideas and the ways in which we should deliver software? So I was also asked to start thinking about how do we influence an organization through change for an idea that we wanna implement at, at that point, it was agile and how do we scale that across an organiz?So I got to start thinking about, well, how do we approach change as humans? And, you know, thinking about the, how our bodies and our minds react to change. How do we move through that change, whether it's positive or negative, we, we need to be able to move through it. And I started really getting interested in the psychology of change and how we do that and influence it through other people.But at the end of the day, we also have to be effective. And what makes effective. Psychological safety. And so I really started developing not just the, well, what are the things that we're trying to do as a team, but, but how do we do that? And what are the things that we need? And so I really got into a deep dive of looking at Amy Edmondson's work and psychological safety.How do we apply it and learn about our own teams through those mechanisms and start building the, the underpinnings of having an effective. At the end of the day, what I've decided after a lot of reflection was I'm most interested in our experiences as people in tech, because if we are not having a good experience, how can we truly be our best selves?And if we can't be our best selves, how can we produ

Nov 2, 202244 min

Ep 65Making security easier for developers

Book your awesomecodereview.com workshop!Links:Harshit’s LinkedinThe voice of the modern developerTromozoSubscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google, Deezer, or via RSS.

Aug 24, 202244 min

Ep 64Being an engineering manager wasn't for me

Book your awesomecodereview.com workshop!Links:Nicolas TwitterNicolas’ blog post: about stepping back as an engineering manager to be an individual contributor againThe engineering manager pendulumSubscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google, Deezer, or via RSS.

Jul 28, 202239 min

Ep 63Mentoring as an engineering manager

Today’s episode is sponsored by Mergify, the faster and safer way to merge your code.[00:01 - 06:24] Opening Segment Start saving time by automatizing your pull requests and securing the code merge using Mergify!Sign up for a demo at https://mergify.com/Get to know Jess Roseher reasons for her helping strangers on the Internet[06:25 - 11:59] Bottom-Up Communication Vs. Top-Down ManagementThe challenges of upward communicationHow to balance personal values at workIt’s unique for individual circumstanceManaging the conflict of interest as a manager to upper management[21:00 - 33:33] Level Up Your LearningWhy Jess’ started an online learning programIn search of the best tool for virtual and distance learningThe impact of tools on the quality of learningMentorship and organizational rankEstablishing healthy boundariesResilience in an educational setting[33:34 - 44:46] Let’s Start Speaking The Same LanguageAcing the basics: Why learning the fundamentals is everythingLet’s talk about programming languageHow to improve team communication and having a shared language[44:46 - 49:55] Closing SegmentDr. McKayla talks about her book in progress and her advice to those who would like to write a bookFinal wordsTweetable Quotes“Sometimes changing jobs is easier than making peace with uneasy ethical decisions.” - Jess Rose“Nobody tells you, but you're not going to start managing people and get it right right away.” - Jess Rose“We learn better when we're chill.” - Jess Rose“I think it's really valuable to talk about the culture of the language we use around programming and really the culture of the structures we build because it's not transparent to people.” - Jess RoseConnect with Jess Rose on LinkedIn, Twitter, and her website. Go to Github.com/JessicaRose to check out her 1-1s.Resources MentionedMergify - Sign up for a demo now!freeCodeCampClass CentralWeaving the Web by Tim Berners-LeeThe Intuitive Programmer: Learning How to Learn for Programmers (Barbara Oakley & Zach Caceres)Software Engineering Unlocked Episode with Dr. Cat HicksFelienne HermansDan AbramovLet’s Connect! You can connect with me, Dr. McKayla on Instagram, Twitter and Youtube to look into engineering software, and learn from experienced developers and thought leaders from around the world about how they develop software!LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who wants to know more about the engineering software world. Your ratings and reviews help get the podcast in front of new listeners. _______Transcription[00:00:00] Dr. McKayla Hello, and welcome to the Software Engineering Unlocked podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Mckayla and today I have the pleasure to talk to Jess Rose. Jess is a technology professional and keynote speaker specializing in community building outreach and developing better processes for talented technology. She is passionate about fostering more equal access to technical education, and digital spaces. But before I start, let me tell you about an amazing startup that is sponsoring today's episode Mergify. You know, I'm all about code reviews and pull requests. Having your teammates review your code can be super beneficial, but it also can create a bottleneck and slow down your software development. With Mergify, your team can be way more productive with GitHub. Mergify automates all about merging pull requests, you can specify the merge conditions, and Mergify will take care of the rest. Do you want a specific order for merging the pull requests? Should one PR be prioritized? Or do you need a copy of the PR and another branch for bug fixing? No problem. Mergify can take care of all those situations. By saving time, you and your team can focus on projects that matter. Mergify integrates completely with GitHub and your CI pipeline. They have a startup program that could give your company a 12-month credit up to $21,000 of value. Start saving time, visit Mergify.com to sign up for a demo and get started or just click the link in the show notes. I'm super, super thrilled to have Jess here with me. Jess, welcome to the show.[00:01:38] Jess Rose Oh, gosh. And I'm absolutely delighted to be here when you said hey, do you want to come and talk about teaching and learning? Oh, I'm just going to be insufferable. Thank you so much. [00:01:48] Dr. McKayla I'm really excited because I'm following you on Twitter. And I see that you're creating spaces for people to learn to get better to grow. Right. So there are a couple of things that I want to touch base on today with you. One is the 1-1s that you're offering. So maybe, maybe let's get started with that. Because I see you from time to time you say, you know, I have some time available, why not hop over on a call, and I can help you with some career advice? How's it going? What do you do with people? What kind of people are picking up on that?[00:02:27] Jess Rose So I've been doing this for about, I looked the other day because I do, I do keep records and privacy-preserving records just like, oh, what kinds

Jul 13, 202249 min

Ep 62What hinders your career as a developer? – Mindset.

This episode is sponsored by Tonic.ai – where your data is modeled from your production data to help you tell an identical story in your testing environments. [00:01 - 05:08] Opening Segment Need to generate fake data that looks, acts, and behaves like production data for your test environments? Check out Tonic.ai!Head over to https://www.tonic.ai/ and sign up today for a free two weeks trial sandbox!Dagna talks about experiencing a plateau in her career as a software engineerRealizing the lack of support networksHow this led her to set up her own coaching business[05:09 - 11:26] How Cultural Upbringing Affects Work PerformanceWhat Dagna is doing to help immigrants like her fit into their American workplaceUsing the Hofstede model to understand the cultureCultural differences in the US and other countriesIndividualism and collectivismLong-term orientation and short-term orientation[11:27 - 26:14] Engineering Mindset for SuccessCoaching clients on career advancement and finding fulfillmentThe importance of mindsetCommon limiting beliefs engineers have and overcoming themBeing your own advocate, your work does not speak for itselfCreating a safe space for feedbackThe feedback Dagna received from her superior and how it changed how she was writing codeKnowing when to move onThe state of the US and European job market[26:15 - 29:54] Closing SegmentDagna’s advice: Don’t take code reviews and feedback personallyKnow more about the process Dagna uses to take her clients’ careers to the next level at https://www.themindfuldev.com/podcastFinal wordsTweetable Quotes“How you think is how you act.” - Dagna Bieda“What you really have to do is market yourself. You have to talk about your achievements and accomplishments and not expect everybody in the company to just know what it is that you're doing.” - Dagna Bieda“It's very important to understand how what you're doing fits into the business as a whole, the business that you're working for, and how to communicate about it.” - Dagna BiedaResources Mentionedhttps://www.tonic.ai/ - Sign up now for a two-week free trial!The Culture Map by Erin Meyer - https://erinmeyer.com/books/the-culture-map/Dagna’s WebsiteConnect with Dagna by following her on LinkedIn. Go to theMindfuldev.com and theMindfulDev.com/podcast to learn more about her coaching business.Let’s Connect! You can connect with me, Dr. McKayla on Instagram, Twitter and Youtube to look into engineering software, and learn from experienced developers and thought leaders from around the world about how they develop software!LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who wants to know more about the engineering software world. Your ratings and reviews help get the podcast in front of new listeners. _______Transcription[00:00:00] Dr. McKayla: Hello, and welcome to the Software Engineering Unlocked podcast. I'm your host, Dr. McKayla. And today I have the pleasure to talk to Dagna Bieda. She's a software engineer turned career coach for software engineers. She's been coding for over 10 years and has been a coach or has been coaching for the past two-plus years.[00:00:24] Dr. McKayla: And today I will learn everything around how to get a job, how to be successful as a software engineer, and how to advance your career. But before I start, let me introduce you to an amazing startup that's sponsoring today's episode, Tonic.ai, the fake data company. So what does Tonic.ai do? I'm sure you know how complex and cumbersome it is to create quality test data.[00:00:51] Dr. McKayla: It's a never-ending chore that eats into valuable engineering resources. Random data doesn't do it and production data is neither safe nor legal for developers to use. What if you could mimic your entire production database to create a realistic dataset with zero sensitive data? That sounds amazing, right? [00:01:10] Dr. McKayla: Tonic.ai does exactly that. With Tonic.ai, you can generate fake data that looks, acts, and behaves like production data because it's made from production. Yet, Tonic.ai guarantees privacy so your data sets are safe to share with developers, QA, data scientists, heck, even distributed teams around the world. Visit Tonic.ai to sign up today or click the link in the show notes to get a free two weeks trial sandbox.[00:01:38] Dr. McKayla: Well, Dagna, I'm, I'm so excited to learn everything that, you know, you have been through. in your career as a software engineer and how you actually help software engineers get the most out of their career. So can you tell me a little bit, how did you go about to this shift from, you know, being a software engineer, yourself to being a full-time career coach for software engineers? Why did that happen and how?[00:02:03] Dagna Bieda: Absolutely. And first of all, thanks so much for having me on your show, McKayla. Essentially, you know, in my own career, I have seen some incredible accelerated progression in my own career. When I started programming, I went from a junior engineer to a senior engineer fairly

Jun 29, 202229 min

Ep 61Running a profitable training business for Ruby developers

This episode is sponsored by Tonic.ai – where your data is modeled from your production data to help you tell an identical story in your testing environments.[00:01 - 07:22] Opening Segment Need to generate fake data that looks, acts, and behaves like production data for your test environments? Check out Tonic.ai!Head over to https://www.tonic.ai/ and sign up today for a free two weeks trial sandbox!From full-time employment to consultancyOn why he calls his business the banana stand“There’s always money in the banana stand.”[07:23 - 21:54] Doing His Own Thing and Gaining IndependenceAvdi on the difference between consultancy versus the banana stand modelWriting his e-book and getting into screencastsHow he managed a startup business, consultancy, and being a new father at onceThe reason behind the rebrand: From RubyTapas to Graceful.DevWhy Avdi is done subscribing to the corporate cultureThe unconscious bias in recruitment[21:55 - 31:42] Building on WordPressWhy Avdi chose WordPress as the platform for his businessWhat are the advantages over the other platforms?WordPress plugins: What you need to knowKeeping track of the changes and updates on the platform[31:43 - 41:46] Closing SegmentWhat’s next for AvdiHis advice on delegating and building your email listFinal wordsTweetable Quotes“There's always the risk. There are no guarantees in this industry. There are no guaranteed retirement plans.” - Avdi Grimm“I think a lot of people in software are completely focused on either financial scaling or on like user scaling. The kind of scaling you need to plan for is devolving stuff from yourself, removing yourself as a bottleneck” - Avdi Grimm“Anything that I'm thinking of delegating or automating, always do it manually first, and do it manually for a while first and get a really good idea of what it is that I'm either delegating or automating.” - Avdi GrimmResources Mentionedhttps://www.tonic.ai/ - Sign up now for a two-week free trial!Exceptional Ruby by Avdi Grimm - Get a copy of Avdi’s e-book at https://store.avdi.codes/l/NWtnkWordPressConvertKitLearnDashMemberPressWooCommerceConnect with Avdi on his site and on Graceful.Dev! Follow him on LinkedIn, too!Let’s Connect! You can connect with me, Dr. McKayla on Instagram, Twitter and Youtube to look into engineering software, and learn from experienced developers and thought leaders from around the world about how they develop software!LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who wants to know more about the engineering software world. Your ratings and reviews help get the podcast in front of new listeners. _______Transcription[00:00:00] Dr. McKayla: Hello, and welcome to the Software Engineering Unlocked podcast. I'm your host, Dr. McKayla and today after pleasure to talk to Avdi Grimm. But before I start, let me introduce you to an amazing startup that's sponsoring today's episode, Tonic.ai, the fake data company. So what does Tonic.ai do? I'm sure you know how complex and cumbersome it is to create quality test data.[00:00:27] Dr. McKayla: It's a never-ending chore that eats into valuable engineering resources. Random data doesn't do it and production data is neither safe nor legal for developers to use. What if you could mimic your entire production database to create a realistic dataset with zero sensitive data? That sounds amazing, right? Tonic.ai does exactly that. [00:00:50] Dr. McKayla: With Tonic.ai, you can generate fake data that looks, acts, and behaves like production data because it's made from production. Yet, Tonic.ai guarantees privacy so your data sets are safe to share with developers, QA, data scientists, heck, even distributed teams around the world. Visit Tonic.ai to sign up today or click the link in the show notes to get a free two weeks trial sandbox.[00:01:14] Dr. McKayla: But now back to Avdi. Avdi has been a developer for over 20 years and runs, similar to me, a training and consulting business. The main difference is that he has been doing this already for over 10 years. So I'm super thrilled to pick his brain today around everything business-related. He's also a consulting pair-programmer and the author of several popular Ruby programming books and has several courses on this subject on his website, Graceful.Dev, formerly RubyTapas.com. So I'm super thrilled that he's here with me today. Avdi, welcome to my show. I'm very excited. [00:01:51] Avdi Grimm: Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. [00:01:53] Dr. McKayla: Yeah, I'm super excited. So I've been following your journey on Twitter and so on for quite some time. Very inspirational as well. And I have a lot of questions around how you run your business and why you're running the business and what we can learn from you, right, a seasoned entrepreneur and self-employed person to also maybe get a little bit more independence in our life, right? So this is probably the main goal for myself, for everything that I do is flexibility and independence. So why are you running your own business an

Jun 15, 202241 min

Ep 60What the heck is data-oriented programming?

This episode is sponsored by Tonic.ai - where your data is modeled from your production data to help you tell an identical story in your testing environments.Yehonathan is a software developer, author, and speaker. He has tons of experience in full-stack development using various languages such as Java, Javascript, and Ruby. But his favorite language is Clojure. He bundled all this experience and knowledge into his book Data-Oriented Programming, which is already available for beta-readers on Manning Publications and should be finished this summer.[00:01 – 06:35] Opening Segment Check out my latest project: Awesome Code Reviews!Visit https://www.awesomecodereviews.com/ to find articles about code reviews, best practices, code review checklist, news about the latest research and code reviews, and workshops and courses about this topicWant to read Yehonathan’s book, Data-Oriented Programming?Like and retweet today's episode now and get a chance to win a digital copy!Introducing a simple way to eliminate the complexity of information systemsWhy should we unlearn objects?Relating meditation and object-oriented programming on how we perceive reality and cause accidental complexity[06:36 – 17:52] Data-Oriented Programming DefinedData-oriented programming vs Object-oriented programmingSeparating data representation and data validationThe map is not the territoryData-oriented programming vs Functional programmingUsing generic data structures in data-oriented programming instead of custom typesThe profusion of types creates complexity[17:53 – 23:17] Changing Codebases to Data-Oriented ProgrammingThe four principles of data-oriented programmingMixing data-oriented programming with functional and object-oriented programming is possibleComparing information systems vs data-intensive applications[23:18 – 28:21] Closing SegmentThe story behind Yehonathan’s bookHe shares one of the best experiences in his writing journeyWin a digital copy of Data-Oriented Programming!Final wordsResources Mentioned: Awesome Code Reviews - Visit for helpful information and courses for you to try!Data-Oriented Programming: Reduce Complexity by Rethinking Data - Check out Yehonathan’s book!Visit Yehonathan’s website and follow him on LinkedIn to know more about data-oriented programming. Let’s Connect! You can connect with me, Dr. McKayla on Instagram, Twitter and Youtube to look into engineering software, and learn from experienced developers and thought leaders from around the world about how they develop software!LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who wants to know more about the engineering software world. Your ratings and reviews help get the podcast in front of new listeners.

May 31, 202227 min

Ep 27How I got a job at Spotify - Baby Break

Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google, Deezer, or via RSS.Book your awesomecodereviews.com workshop!Links:Emma's TwitterEmma's Interview BookLadybug PodcastStudy on Effects of Technical Interviews by North Carolina University:Blog postResearch PaperYou can also help make the podcast more accessible, by helping to edit the transcripts. You can find them on GitHub. Edits can be added trough pull requests (preferred), or by sending me an email.

May 4, 202244 min

Ep 59Improving Code Reviews with Github’s Copilot

Paige is the director of Machine learning and machine learning operations, aka MLOps, at GitHub. Before that, she was a principal product manager at Microsoft and also worked on DeepMind and Google Brain. Paige has had over a decade of experience with machine learning and data science as a practitioner. Check out my new project awesomecodereview.com workshop!Links:Retweet and like to win access to GitHub Codespace, including CopilotTiferet’s work, using machine learning to detect security vulnerabilities in source code.VS Code’s Python extension and Jupyter extension.Copilot website (make sure to download the Copilot Nightly extension, to get the latest features!)Applied Machine Learning Scientist – Microsoft job opening here!Github – Use it for your work and tell us how we can improve! Shownotes:[00:01 – 10:53] Opening Segment Check out my latest project: Awesome Code Reviews!Visit https://www.awesomecodereviews.com/ to find articles about code reviews, best practices, code review checklist, news about the latest research and code reviews, and workshops and courses about this topicGet a chance to try out GitHub Codespaces and other extensions like GitHub Copilot!Like and retweet today's episode, and for an additional chance to win, you can also leave a comment about what kind of data science work you're currently doing or what you like to doThe responsibilities of a director of machine learning and machine learning operationsDemystifying the process of reviewing complicated data science code[10:54 – 20:54] A Helpful Collaborator As You Write CodesHow GitHub Copilot becomes your partner and collaborator when writing codesIt is an extension for VS Code and generates source codeLearning from test cases and how code reviewers can perform a better jobAcquiring accurate code snippets through understanding the specific requirementsThe strive for consistent performance across every single kind of language[20:55 – 35:25] Expanding Feature Capabilities for Optimal FunctionalityThe beginning of deep learning techniques applicationThis targets detecting security vulnerabilities through code reviewsIt also provides recommendations for extracting functions from blocks of codeEncouraging consistency in names and stylesTake note: Microsoft is hiring!Striking the balance with deep understanding of data-driven and quantitative approachesData can tell us about users who are already using our tools, but not about those who haven't tried them yetThe key is to remain curious and constantly seek to better understand users[35:26 – 37:52] Closing SegmentPaige’s recommendation for youTry out GitHub for your machine learning projects!Final wordsResources Mentioned: Retweet and Linke this tweet to win access to GitHub codespaces and copilotAwesome Code Reviews - Visit for helpful information and courses for you to try!Applied Machine Learning Scientist - Microsoft job opening here!Github - Use it for your work and tell us how we can improve!Tiferet's work, using machine learning to detect security vulnerabilities in source code.VS Code's Python extension and Jupyter extension.Copilot website (make sure to download the Copilot Nightly extension, to get the latest features!Let’s Connect! You can connect with me, Dr. McKayla on Instagram, Twitter and Youtube to look into engineering software, and learn from experienced developers and thought leaders from around the world about how they develop software!LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who wants to know more about the engineering software world. Your ratings and reviews help get the podcast in front of new listeners.

Apr 13, 202237 min
2021 Michaela Greiler