The Women in Tech Show: A Technical Podcast

When you’re working on a product, an important part of the process is to understand how your customers use it. This helps drive improvements. Avni Patel, CEO and Founder of Poppy explained the role of consumer psychology in analyzing products. Avni also explained the process of launching a tech startup as a solo founder. We talked about how she built and launched the first version without having a background in software development and programming. Avni explained her experience at YC and how she handled rejection the first time she applied.

A data-driven approach is becoming more common across companies from different sectors. These companies have people that are focused on getting insights from data, such as data analysts and data scientists. Hanna Landrus, Data Scientist at Usermind explains the difference between data analyst and data scientist. Hanna has experience in both these roles. She explained the types of problems that she explored as a data analyst and as a data scientist. We also talked about the mathematical concepts present in this area, and the workflow and technologies she uses.

As the amount of data has increased, we have been able to apply other machine learning methods like deep learning. Erika Menezes, Software Engineer at Microsoft explains what deep learning is and the problems it has been able to tackle. We talked about artificial neural networks and how these are the core component in deep learning architectures. Erika also explained how a deep learning project is structured and the different steps in the pipeline.

What does it mean for a machine to be creative? Maya Ackerman, CEO of WaveAI, addresses this question. We talked about the challenges of building systems that have creativity. Maya explained how she began exploring the idea of computational creativity by building a system that makes songwriting accessible to more people. This system, called ALYSIA, plays the role of a creative partner and helps a person write music. We talked about how the system was built using machine learning and the ways in which it is creative.

The workflow of a software developer has evolved a lot throughout the decades. With these advancements we have become more productive and focus on building things that are core to the business that we work on. Simina Pasat, Senior Program Manager at Microsoft, explains what developer productivity consists of. We talked about the developing pipeline for building mobile apps and the components that can be automated. Simina also explained the bottlenecks in developing a mobile app and how to monitor apps and learn from data.

Technology is a broad field that touches many other fields. Camille Eddy, Mechanical Engineer explained different areas in technology that she has worked on. We begin the discussion with machine learning. Camille explained different machine learning systems we interact with, how bias can be present in these systems, and ways to combat it. We then talked about Mechanical Engineering and discussed the process of building a robotic hand. Camille explained the design and prototype process. We also talked about the hardware and software engineering components of this process.

When we open Netflix we get pretty good recommendations for content that we may like. This is one example that shows the data-driven mentality at Netflix. Julie Pitt, Director of Machine Learning Infrastructure at Netflix, explained other ways in which Netflix is using data and machine learning. We talked about using data for creating content, and for changes in the infrastructure. Julie explained how her team is working on improving the workflow of data scientists. We talked about the bottlenecks and the major interface between data scientists and a Machine Learning platform.

Web and mobile applications can become more popular than we had anticipated. If we’re not prepared, our application can have downtime. If we are prepared, it means that our application can scale. Scaling an application comes with numerous challenges. One of those is how we reason about system performance and how that influences architecture changes we make to our system. Kay Ousterhout, Software Engineer at LightStep explains what performance means and why users struggle to reason about it in today’s systems. Kay discussed her work on Apache Spark and how jobs were decomposed to provide clarity about performance to users. We also talked about detecting bottlenecks in a system.

Cybersecurity has been around for several decades. With technological advances also come more advanced attacks. Michele Guel, Distinguished Engineer and IoT Security Strategist at Cisco, has been in cybersecurity 20 years. She explained how the panorama has changed, the different types of attacks, and also what the security threats in IoT are. In this episode we were also joined by Mandy Galante, Cybersecurity Educator at Red Bank Regional High School. Mandy has been teaching cybersecurity since 2002. She explained how teaching cybersecurity has changed, the tools they use, and training competitions that kids can participate in. At the end we talked about Cyberstart, a program to educate young people about security through games and challenges.

Managing a large open source project comes with many challenges. Some are about how code is pushed and running tests, others are about the community of contributors. Paris Pittman, Developer Relations Program Manager at Google explains how mentoring is an engineering problem and not a people problem. We talked about the different ways in which they’re scaling mentoring to thousands of Kubernetes contributors and the role of technology in this process. Paris explained how they gathered data and used that to understand the different types of mentoring that can be provided.

Chaos Engineering introduces failures across a system. This helps us evaluate how are system will perform when a failure occurs. Tammy Bütow, Principal Site Reliability Engineer at Gremlin, explains why Chaos Engineering emerged. We talked about the different types of chaos that can be introduced to a system: DNS related attacks, black hole attacks and database attacks. Tammy highlighted the importance of a Service Level Agreement and went over its components. The discussion continued with topics around what metrics to collect for monitoring, incident management, being on-call and tracking down an issue.

Working as a programmer is more than just writing writing code. Emily Freeman, Developer Advocate at Kickbox guides us through a path to code craftsmanship. We talked about what makes great code, and other human aspects like mentorship and networking. Emily also talked about technical interviews, and types of risks that we can take on a job.

Security tools are essential in helping tackle vulnerabilities in the cloud. Liz Rice, Technology Evangelist at Aqua Security explained the capabilities of security tools, vulnerability reports, and the process of deploying security patches.

Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery allowed new tools and technologies to streamline the process of deploying changes within minutes. Sarah Wells, Technical Director for Operations and Reliability at the Financial Times explained the process of migrating to DevOps and Kubernetes. We talked about identifying good places to start a migration, DevOps and Chaos Engineering.

Available on: iTunes | Android | RSS As public cloud adoption continues to...

Programmers can come from anywhere. Some start coding since they are children. Others learn it even after being in a different industry. Dr. Sue Black, Honorary Professor of Computer Science at University College London, was living in a refuge when she looked to science and technology to turn her life around. Sue explained how her interest in math and in technology lead her to focus on Software Engineering. We also talked about techmums, an organization she founded to empower mothers and their families through technology. Sue also played a fundamental role in the restoration of Bletchley Park, the central site for British code workers during World War II, of which more than half of them were women.

Thanks to Open Source Software, many companies are able to leverage the technologies from each other. This is a the center of cloud computing. Alena Prokharchyk, Principal Software Engineer at Rancher Labs talked about open source projects that she has worked on. We begin the discussion with Apache CloudStack, and then talked about Rancher, a container platform.

In the 1940s, programming was viewed as women’s work. However, as electronic computing matured the proportion of women working in this field declined. Mar Hicks, author of Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing, explained why programming was viewed as women’s work and how the labor conditions in Britain and the perception of computing pushed women out of the field. We talked about the role of programming during World War II and how women were using computers. Mar also explained the impact that forcing women out of the tech field had on Britain’s technological power.

Artificial Intelligence can be used to make music. From coming up with a beat, to creating a melody, artists are beginning to use it. Taryn Southern an Artist and Musician talked about the user experience for creating music with and without artificial intelligence. We talked about existing tools as well as the APIs that are available to create music with AI.

Hospital patients can end up with an infection they didn’t have when they arrive. This leads to complications and sometimes death. Jenna Wiens, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, worked on building a computational model that can learn to prevent infections by determining the risk of getting one. We talked about what data is useful for building this model and the algorithms involved. Jenna also explained different approaches to building a machine learning model for a hospital.

From idea to execution, starting a tech company is a rewarding experience. Wen-Wen Lam, Founder and CEO of NexTravel (YC W15) explains what it took to launch a tech company. We talked about the process of exploring ideas, talking to clients and the execution of building a product. In the early days of NexTravel, a huge player in the market pulled their partnership. This could have meant the end of the company. However, Wen-Wen and her Co-Founder believed in their idea and worked even harder. Wen-Wen explained the process of building the company. We talked about the problem they’re solving in the corporate travel space, finding clients and pricing strategies. We also talked about her experience at YCombinator.

Technologies like Kubernetes and Google Kubernetes Engine make it easier for anyone to manage their applications in the cloud. With decades of experience in managing systems at scale, Google brings that knowledge to the community through its products and open source contributions. Chen Goldberg Director of Engineering at Google Cloud explains the motivation behind Google Kubernetes Engine, also known as GKE. We talked about its capabilities and about what aspects of Google’s Engineering culture are present in it. We also talked about developer productivity, site reliability engineering and open source software.

Containers are being widely adopted as part of an application infrastructure. For existing systems and applications that want to make the switch, they have to migrate part of their infrastructure. Nicole Hubbard, Architect at WP Engine walks us through migrating from virtual machines to containers. We talked about what a VM infrastructure consists of and the reasons why you should consider to use containers instead. Nicole talked about the challenges of the migration and about scaling an infrastructure.

As women enter the technology field they can come across challenges to grow in their careers. Part of these challenges are because there are still not a lot of women in technology so we might encounter biases that affect our development and the tech community. Fortunately, as other women learn from their experiences, they have built support groups and platforms to help other women learn and grow in the tech industry. Seema Gururaj, Founder and CEO of Square Circle, talks about a platform that she built to empower women technologists to become industry influencers. We are also joined by Maya Ackerman, Founder and CEO of WaveAI, and also a computer engineering professor at Santa Clara University. Maya talked about her work in artificial intelligence, and how Seema’s work has helped her in her career. Dima Ghawi, Executive Coach and Founder of a Consulting Company focused on advancing individuals in leadership, also joined us. Dima explained the role of networking in advancing your career and tips to improve in leadership. Dima has two decades of corporate experience at IBM, Intuit, and Merrill Lynch.

As software engineers we are constantly updating our skills and learning about new tools and technologies. Amy Chen, Systems Software Engineer at Heptio explains how she learned to use Kubernetes by building helm charts. We talked about common ways to learn Kubernetes by using the command line interface and later discussed the benefits of learning Kubernetes by building Helm Charts. We also talked about Amy’s side projects which include a YouTube channel called Amy Codes and Ladies Storm Hackathons.

Available on: iTunes | Android | RSS Artificial Intelligence is being used in...

Available on: iTunes | Android | RSS Evelina Gabasova is developing machine learning...

Every 98 seconds a person in the united states is abused. Every 16 hours a woman in the united states is murdered by her romantic partner or ex-partner. Unfortunately sexual abuse and harassment are still very common in the world. Manisha Mohan, a recent graduate from the MIT Media Lab, invented a sticker that can detect sexual assault. The sticker can detect, communicate and prevent sexual assault. Manisha explained the technology behind this sticker and the different prototypes that were considered.

The telecom industry has been around for over a hundred years. From radio, to television to the internet, it is crucial to how we work. Since it has been around for a long time, there are a lot of challenges in how hardware and software products are developed. Heather Kirksey, Linux Foundation VP, joins us to talk about this and explains how deployment of services is accelerated through network services. We talked about Network Function Virtualization, also known as NFV, among other things.

As applications continue to move to the cloud, it is important to have systems that are easy to use and accessible to more people. This is what Bitnami is doing. Bitnami simplifies the process by managing a catalog of ready-to-run server applications, among other things. Ara Pulido, Engineering Manager at Bitnami, explains what ready-to-run applications in the server are and what it takes to design a product that’s easy to use when working on the cloud. We also talked about Kubernetes, and how Bitnami simplifies deployments to clusters with KubeApps, their latest open source project.

Developers are the makers of marvels today. They are the ones that helped make technology and invaluable tool. Abby Kearns Executive Director of Cloud Foundry Foundation explained how they enable developers to be successful, leverage open source tools and be a part of a community. We talked about examples of products that are possible because of open source, collaboration, and the availability of technology.

The company’s culture has an important role in how engineers work. The success of Netflix is in part because of its culture. For example, they give engineers freedom and by doing so, interesting engineering systems have emerged. Dianne Marsh, Director of Engineering at Netflix explained some of the ways in which the culture impacts how products are developed. We talked about developer velocity and how Spinnaker, a multi-cloud continuous delivery platform was built. Dianne also explained the aspect from the Netflix culture that she finds the most useful when running an engineering organization.

Tips and advice for programming interviews. Edaena explains the mistakes she has made at programming interviews and how she changed that. Edaena also talked about how to organize an answer to a problem, and things to consider when applying for a job.

Developer communities play an important role in product development. We learn from each other in developer communities and we help shape the development of the product. Bear Douglas, Developer Advocacy Lead at Slack, explains what a developer advocate is. We talked about her experience as a developer advocate at Facebook, Twitter and Slack. Bear explained how to build and nurture a developer community.

In 2017, sensitive information from 140 million consumers in the United States was stolen as part of the Equifax data breach. We see this happen in different companies for example Yahoo and most recently Uber. Tarah Wheeler, Cybersecurity fellow at New America explains what the Equifax breach was, its impact, and why the breach wasn’t handled correctly. Tarah explained how to set up an effective incident response and incident detection system. We also talked about incident response teams and what they’re in charge of.

Tech conferences are a place where we can learn about the industry trends and projects that people at other companies are working on. We can also go there to speak about our own experiences. In this episode Michelle Noorali, explains how tech conferences are structured and gives tips on talk submissions. We talked about KubeCon, the largest Kubernetes conference in the world. Michelle is co-chair of this conference and she explained the process of creating an interesting agenda and how talk submissions are evaluated. Michelle is also a Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft.

Available on: iTunes | Android | RSS In the United States, when people...

Product demos are the theater of our industry. They engage and inspire the audience, and showcase the capabilities of a product. Erika Ehrli Director of Product Marketing at Microsoft gives an overview of how high profile keynote demos are created. We talked about story telling and the technical components of a demo. Erika also explained how a demo team is structured, what they work on, and the relation between product teams.

Interviews are an essential component to get a job at a tech company. However they can also affect diversity and inclusion efforts from a company due to the biases preconceptions that the people involved have. Aline Lerner, CEO of interviewing.io is making bias-free hiring a reality. Aline explained how bias in hiring can be tackled using technology. We also talked about why resumes are not a great hiring tool, and what she has learned from studying thousands of interviews.

Software development has evolved a lot in the last decades. From shipping software on magnetic tapes to just downloading it with a button, it has transformed the way organizations work. Paula Paul, Technology Principal at ThoughtWorks, explains what it was like to write software on punch cards and her recent work on cloud computing.

Images make websites rich and engaging, they are the biggest asset on a website. Because of this, they can be the main thing that’s affecting web performance. Una Kravets, Senior UI Engineer at DigitalOcean, explains how and why we should optimize images. We talked about several performance improvements, and accessibility on the web. Una is also a co-host on Toolsday, a weekly podcast about tech tools, tips, and tricks on Tuesdays at 2.

What is serverless computing? What types of applications can we build with serverless computing? Manisha Sule, Director of Big Data Analytics at Linux Academy answers these questions. We also talked about big data pipelines, and how the Linux Academy is using them.

Virtual Reality is transforming storytelling and animation. Maureen Fan, CEO and co-founder of Baobab Studios, explains what VR is and its role in film making. We talked about the technical challenges, how the team works, and how she evaluates VR experiences.

CSS is all about how your website looks. From layout to animation, CSS has been used to make immersive web experiences. Rachel Andrew, co-founder of Perch and expert on the CSS working group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), explains how CSS has evolved since the 90s. We talked about the types of layouts in CSS and how mobile affected its evolution.

Brands express themselves through web animation. Some brands can appear playful, while others more serious by using animation effectively. Val Head, Design Evangelist of UX Innovation at Adobe, explains how animation style guidelines can be used to have consistent animation at a company. We also talked about design tools, what she learned from clients as an independent consultant, and how she’s building a community of designers.

Public speaking is not just about getting on stage and giving a tech talk. It’s also about communicating effectively in team meetings. Lara Hogan, VP of Engineering at Kickstarter presents a path to improving public speaking, especially for people in the tech field. We also talked about engineering teams and leadership and her latest book Demystifying Public Speaking.

Saron Yitbarek went from Pre-Med to learning to code, to founding CodeNewbie, the most supportive community of programmers and people learning to code. We talked about the things she did while learning to code, reading other people’s code and why she started a small code reading club. We also talked about methods of learning, code quality, and building a successful tech community.

Storytelling is not just something for the movies or TV. It plays an important role in how we interact with applications and brands through our phones and the web. Rachel Nabors, award winning cartoonist, and web developer, compares storytelling through comics with storytelling on the web. We talked about the different areas of design and web animation. Rachel is a Program Manager at Microsoft and just released her book titled Animation at Work.

What is Data Science? What is the difference between Data Science and Machine Learning? In this episode, Grace Huang, Data Science Manager at Pinterest answers these questions. We talked about complex data sets and building a recommendation system at Pinterest. Grace explained the core algorithms used in a recommendation system and the role of embeddings on this.

We live in a great time to start a company. The resources which were only accessible to big companies are now at our fingertips. Erica Brescia, COO of Bitnami gave advice on how to start a company. We talked about what she learned at YC and the status of the company when it was admitted. Erica explained what Bitnami is building, and pricing strategies. At the end we talked about her role as an investment partner in XFactor Ventures.