Few companies have mastered making products consumers actually want to use like Toast.

A $30 billion giant in the tech-food business, Toast faced their worst case scenario during the pandemic when the restaurants at the heart of their business were all forced to shut down.

Toast rose like a phoenix to become one of the best success stories of pivoting during the pandemic by making users love using their food delivery systems.

To understand how Toast became one of the great success stories of the last 2 years, we spoke to Brad Pielech, the company’s Director of Engineering.

An amazing conversation that’s informed how we think about product at LinearB, Brad made a flawless case for the importance of UX - and why the alliance between UX and devs at Toast produced a market-beating pivot that took the company from unicorn to brink of collapse and back again. 

Toast is hiring: https://careers.toasttab.com/jobs/search
Brad's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradfordpielech
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What do the teams at Stack Overflow, DataStax and Reprise have in common?

First, they’ve all built amazing organizations powered by amazing developers. 

Second, they’ve managed to build and retain these amazing developers in an ultra-competitive hiring market.

Third, they all took time at our recent INTERACT conference to discuss how they created engineering organizations that are productive, successful and - best of all - happy.

It’s a rare treat to have this many amazing minds on one live panel and we couldn’t be more excited to share their insights, wisdom and advice to the community at large.

Quick note, if you notice a tiny fluctuation in the audio quality for each speaker, it’s because this was recorded live at INTERACT.

Enjoy!

Miss INTERACT? Watch it all on our YouTube channel: https://tinyurl.com/494tpm96

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You ever get the feeling that the way most companies are set up doesn’t really make sense?

That the passion you have for coding and tech gets sucked out when you do it for a business, instead of it being amplified?

Matt K. Parker had that realization… hard.

A third-generation programmer, Matt’s epiphany that there was something wrong with the way the majority of the world sets up its teams and workplaces led him on a journey to explore the way the world’s best companies operate.

After diving into case studies, academic research and leveraging his own professional experience, Matt concluded that the most productive companies all had one thing in common: They were radical.

Radical in how they structure their employees. Radical in how they treat their employees. Radical in how they empower their employees.

Fortunately for us, Matt stopped by Dev Interrupted to share some conclusions from his new book “A Radical Enterprise: Pioneering the Future of High-Performing Organizations.”

One of our favorite recordings to date, this is your ticket if you’re looking for some inspiration on how to increase productivity while decreasing BS.

Matt's book:
A Radical Enterprise: Pioneering the Future of High-Performing Organizations

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If you looked up the term “firing on all cylinders” in the dictionary, I’m fairly confident there would be a picture of Sarvenaz Myslicki next to it.

A next-gen leader who earned the role of VP of Technology at American Express by the age of 30, Savernaz is a published author, an in-demand thought-leader on mentorship and has one of the largest followings on programmer TikTok.

Our favorite thing about Sarvenaz, though, is that all her work is aspirational but radically inclusive. She tailors her message, content and guidance based on wherever someone is in their professional journey – even if they’re just tinkering with code in a junior high classroom.

Sarvenaz joined us and 1700 other engineering leaders for an incredible live conversation at our INTERACT conference about the real trial and errors that have led to her role at Amex, as well as the beliefs, mindset and rituals that have allowed her to become a mentor for developers she’s never met.

We hope you enjoy this discussion as much as we did.

AMEX is hiring: americanexpress.com/techcareers
Sarvenaz's TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sarvenazm
What Sarvenaz is reading: Bury My Heart at Conference Room B: The Unbeatable Impact of Truly Committed Managers

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In so many professions, the reward for exceptional work is a promotion to management. Unfortunately, for developers whose programming gets them singled out for promotion, the skills to manage a team have nothing to do with the work that got them recognized in the first place.

James Stanier, Director of Engineering at Shopify, understands the pitfalls of being promoted from an IC to an engineering manager, and began writing as a way to think through the mistakes he himself was making. 

Today, James is an accomplished author; his first book Become An Effective Software Engineering Manager debuted in 2020, and his second book Effective Remote Work was published earlier this year.   

On this week’s episode of Dev Interrupted, James talks about how developers can prepare themselves for a role in management, or alternatively, why they should avoid a career in management altogether. He also discusses why Shopify loves remote pair programming, how to find your voice as a developer and why writing a book can be a spiritual experience. 

Don't miss your chance to register for INTERACT on April, 7th: https://devinterrupted.com/event/interact/

James is the author of two books:

• Effective Remote Work
• Become An Effective Software Engineering Manager

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The world is shortly going to need another 20 million developers  and with over 1,000 engineering leaders joining us for INTERACT on April 7th, there’s no better time to talk to two people who have captured the minds of millions of developers - and will be featured at INTERACT - Tiffany Janzen and Masha Zvereva.

In addition to their own tech careers, both women have become prominent voices in the dev community, Tiffany is most well-known for her Tiff in Tech Youtube channel and Masha for her company Stereotype Breakers.

Tiff and Masha spend their time connecting, communicating and inspiring the next generation of devs. They’re the ideal experts to dive deep on how Gen Z devs think and what they want.

That’s why we were so happy when they agreed to sit down for an episode of Dev Interrupted to give us some incredible insights on what it’s going to take to recruit, hire and retain the millions of new developers who are joining the workforce. 

If you want to join Tiffany and Masha at INTERACT on April 7th, it’s easy: Just register at https://devinterrupted.com/event/interact/

See you there!

Tiff in Tech

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TiffInTech/featured
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tiffintech/?hl=en
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tiffintech?lang=en

Masha Zvereva, Stereotype Breakers

• Website: https://www.stereotypebreakers.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stereotypebreakers/?hl=en
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/StereotypeBreakers/featured

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Modern problems require modern solutions, right? 

The problem is, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to understand what solutions are required for a given problem and even harder to task a team with finding them. 

That’s why Bob Ritchie, VP of Software at SAIC, thinks the top-down management model is dead. To replace it, Bob is championing a “team of teams” model that provides his developers with far more autonomy - so much, in fact, that they can even self-elect their leaders. 

On this week’s episode of Dev Interrupted, Bob discusses the challenges of software development in an increasingly dynamic environment, why he believes developers should be no further than 4 steps away from their CEO and the historical challenges of connecting results in Silicon Valley to those in the federal government. 

Who would've expected a federal government tech integrator (Science Applications International Corporation), to be on the leading edge of developer autonomy?

Learn more about our INTERACT conference on April, 7th: https://devinterrupted.com/event/interact/

SAIC is hiring: https://jobs.saic.com/
Bob's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bob-ritchie-896a654/
What Bob is reading: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

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For decades Artificial Intelligence has been a focus of best-selling science fiction authors and an antagonist for blockbuster Hollywood movies. But AI is no longer relegated to the realm of science fiction, it inhabits the world around us. From the biggest enterprise companies to plucky startups, businesses everywhere are building and deploying AI at incredible speed. 

In fact, open source allows anyone with a laptop to build impressively good AI models in a day.

But for all the recent advances in AI, what are its limitations? And if you are a developer or business leader, what use cases can AI solve for your company? 

In this week’s episode of Dev Interrupted, Emad Elwany, CTO and Co-founder of Lexion, walks us through the practical realities of AI in today’s world and how its constraints apply to your business. He also discusses the biggest breakthroughs in AI, how to build machine learning models that actually solve a business need and why it’s almost impossible to retrofit AI once it’s already built. 

Whether you are a business leader who is considering implementing AI at their company, a consumer curious about how AI impacts your daily life or a researcher wanting to understand how to better deploy AI outside of the lab - this episode has got something for you!

Learn more about our INTERACT conference on April, 7th: https://devinterrupted.com/event/interact/

Lexion is hiring: https://www.lexion.ai/careers

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Hate interruptions? Ever feel like you’ve lost your ability to focus on coding? 

Katie Wilde, VP of Engineering at Ambassador Labs, knows your pain and she’s on a crusade to help devs everywhere reclaim their focus. 

Spoiler: She's got a message for managers who can’t meet with devs whenever they want: “Don’t like it? Well, suck it up.”

The thing about productivity is, you can’t have it both ways. You can either protect your devs’ ability to focus by providing them meaningful time for creativity or you can call them into meetings all day long for constant feedback - but you can’t have both. 

These concepts don’t have to be at odds with each other, though. On this week’s episode of Dev Interrupted, Katie details exactly what managers can do to foster a harmonious, productive environment between themselves and their devs. She also talks about the importance of “shifting left,” the dangers of doing it too quickly, and why “hiring great people and getting out of their way” may not be a good mantra.

Learn more about our INTERACT conference on April, 7th: https://devinterrupted.com/event/interact/

Ambassador Labs is hiring: https://www.getambassador.io/

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It used to be that in order to make your parents proud you had to go into management. Then along came the self-contained IC career path. Today, this dual-track career path remains the unchallenged standard of companies everywhere.

Or does it?

Peter Bell, the founder and CTO of CTO Connection, wants developers everywhere to know that there are several dev adjacent career paths. From product to dev advocate to sales engineer, Peter has the insights you need if you’ve ever considered switching up your career while utilizing your hard-earned skills as a developer. 

If you're an engineering leader, then Peter’s advice on the importance of building a community at your company is not to be missed. Through his work with CTO Connection, engineering leaders everywhere have found a community to call home - and a resource to leverage. In fact, CTO Connection bills itself as the “Stack Overflow for managers.” 

Peter is a gifted speaker and presenter, you won’t want to miss this episode!

Learn more about our INTERACT conference on April, 7th: https://devinterrupted.com/event/interact/

CTO Connection website: https://www.ctoconnection.com/

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