Salesforce Developer Podcast

Rishabh Poddar is the CTO and co-founder of SuperTokens, an open source user authentication service. Rishabh has always been fascinated with computers and began coding when he was 12 years old. Programming came easily to him, and he loved doing it, so he went to school for computer science and made it his career.

In this episode, we have a conversation about creating SuperTokens and how they work compared to other authentication techniques. Rishabh shares how to prevent impersonation, the architecture of SuperTokens, tips for JavaScript developers, and more.

Show Highlights:

• Rishabh's earliest memory with a computer.
• Why he created an operating system from scratch.
• What got Rishabh interested in authentication.
• What a rotating refresh token is.
• What SuperTokens core strength is.
• How passwordless authentication works.
• What cross origin resource sharing (CORS) is.
• What the SuperTokens business model us.

Links:

• Rishabh on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rishpoddar
• Rishabh on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rishabh-poddar-b64b73129/
• Rishabh on Github: https://github.com/rishabhpoddar

Rob Katz is the VP of Product Management for our Office of Ethical and Humane Use of Technology here at Salesforce. He got into product management as he was getting ready to finish up his MBA and came to work for big companies like Amazon and Alexa.

In this episode, Rob and I are talking all about ethics. We discuss Ethics by Design, data ethics when it comes to building applications, and even more. Tune in to get a deeper understanding of the ethics of technology.

Show Highlights:

• Rob’s winding career journey.
• What he worked on at Alexa as the dedicated privacy project manager.
• What he does in his current role at The Office of Ethical and Humane Use of Technology.
• The lifecycle of Ethics by Design.
• Examples of well-intended designs that ended up having unintended consequences.
• What developers should think about in regards to ethics when building a new application.
• What consequence scanning workshops are.

Links:

• Rob on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertskatz/
• How to Run a Consequence Scanning Workshop - https://medium.com/salesforce-ux/how-to-run-a-consequence-scanning-workshop-4b14792ea987
• What is Ethics by Design? https://www.salesforce.com/blog/what-is-ethics-by-design/
• Responsible Marketing / Responsible Personalization - https://www.salesforce.com/blog/responsible-marketing-principles/
• New Research Reveals 4 Ways Businesses Can Maximize Trust & Savings with Personalization - https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/salesforce-ethical-data-management-report/
• Data Ethics in our Help & Training Documentation - https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.c360a_ethics.htm&type=5

Kathy Baxter is the Principal Architect for Ethical AI Practice here at Salesforce. Ethics and AI is a complex topic but Kathy is truly an expert. She started researching it in 2016 when she first learned how toxicity and bias can end up creeping into AI.

Today, Kathy is joining us to talk all about Ethical AI. In our conversation, we also discuss how technical products can use ethics and AI. Join us to learn all about this interesting facet of our industry.

Show Highlights:

• How Kathy got into this line of work.
• What an AI-first company is.
• How toxicity can creep into chatbots.
• Why ethical AI is so important in a company like Salesforce.
• Unique things Salesforce uses AI for.
• AI considerations developers should think about from the beginning of the development of an application.
• Where AI can’t replace human intuition.

Links:

• Kathy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/baxterkb
• Kathy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathykbaxter/
• Kathy on Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@baxterkb
• Responsible Creation of AI Trailhead: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/responsible-creation-of-artificial-intelligence
• Building Ethical and Inclusive Products Trailmix: sfdc.co/EthicalandInclusiveProducts
• Salesforce Trusted AI Site & Resources: salesforceairesearch.com/trusted-ai
• AI Ethics Maturity Model: sfdc.co/EAIMM

Lisa White is a Software Engineer over at TaskRay. Over the years, Lisa has tried out a variety of careers and had to make many career decisions. Throughout her experiences, she learned JavaScript and eventually found her way to TaskRay.

In this episode, I sit down with Lisa to talk about her journey. She tells us the story of how she got into software engineering, learned JavaScript, and developed her career from there. She also gives some great advice for those who are junior developers looking to get into this field.

Show Highlights:

• How Lisa got exposed to tech and Salesforce.
• Why her career shift felt like an identity shift.
• Her experience with Hack Reactor.
• How she morphed her JavaScript and React skills into Apex and LWC.
• Advice for junior developers.
• What made her want to talk about Javascript and date time at Dreamforce.
• Why third party data libraries are so helpful.
• Tips for those who want to get onstage at Dreamforce.

Links:

• Lisa on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lmbel
• Lisa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitelisab/
• Lisa on Github: https://github.com/whitelisab
• Lisa's website: https://www.whitelisab.com/

On this episode, we are pleased to welcome Jessica Murphy to the show. We talk about Jessica’s journey into discovering development with Salesforce and the influence others have had on those experiences, as well as sharing those experiences with Salesforce Saturdays. She is a co-conspirator of Salesforce Saturdays in Phoenix since 2015 with two other women with the goal of helping other developers find success.

Salesforce Saturdays occur around the country in various coffee shops and sometimes office locations, as a casual environment to educate and empower people. Their success stories are amazing, as some people have attended Salesforce Saturdays and then gone on to accomplish their goals. They also encourage people to give back. For example, they had an attendee come back to hire others at a Salesforce Saturday when he was looking for employees. There are always new people who want to learn Salesforce, so it is an exciting environment, and all are welcome. Just come – you don’t need any special qualifications! The door is open for you to join a Salesforce Saturday near you.

Show highlights

• Jessica’s journey to becoming a woman in technology
• The profound influence education has had on her life and the confidence it has given her
• Introduction to Trailhead and how it ties into your commitment to making yourself better
• The opportunities presented through Salesforce that have had an amazing impact on Jessica
• People learn things different ways, so there are various hurdles to learning Salesforce
• The evolution, impact and growth of Trailhead and all the options available that it is supporting
• Ways you can participate in Salesforce Saturday. Your help is valuable! Everyone is a leader in this group setting and we support each other

Resources

• Jessica Murphy on LinkedIn
• Jessica on Twitter
• Salesforce Saturday website
• Salesforce Saturday on LinkedIn

The many shout outs for this episode

• Sheena Smith
• Rachel Watson
• Paula Nelson
• Bonny Hinners
• Steph Herrera
• Shonnah Hughes
• Nadina Lisbon
• Tami Lau
• Brian Kwong
• Jen W. Lee
• Chris Duarte
• David Liu

Today, we’ve got a guest host! I’m partnering with my partner in crime, Mike Gerholdt, as he’s taking over the host seat and interviewing our good friend and colleague, Domenique Buxton.

Domenique is the VP Executive Creative Director for Trailblazers and Trailhead. She has also played a major part in the development of Salesforce characters, something that has built connection and meaning within the Salesforce community.

Throughout Mike’s conversation with Domenique, they discuss the history of the Salesforce characters, including how they came to be, why they were created, and more!

Show Highlights:

• The origin story of Salesforce characters.
• Why they created the characters the way they did.
• How the characters have evolved over the years.
• How the characters got connected with a deeper purpose.
• Where community feedback has been crucial in the development of Salesforce characters.
• Some of Domenique’s special memories from events.
• The teamwork that brought the characters to light.

Links:

• SaaSy breaking it down
• Domenique: @LittleIglooo
• Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns
• Gillian: @GillianKBruce
• Mike: @MikeGerholdt

David Schach is joining us again! We started our conversation on being a trusted advisor last week and are finishing it off today in part two.

David is a Salesforce Application Architect over at Spot On. He consults on all things Salesforce and has a wide range of experience with it. Therefore, he has some great tips and tricks to share. Tune in to learn more of them along with how to become a trusted advisor.

Show Highlights:

• What the basic database theory is.
• David’s favorite tools he’s pulled off GitHub.
• Why “prettifying” code is so helpful.
• Why negative testing is so important.
• The difference between being dependable and being trusted.

Links:

• David on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dschach
• David on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidschach/
• David on GitHub: https://github.com/dschach

David Schach is the Salesforce Application Architect over at Spot On. As a Salesforce consultant, David has practically seen it all. He has dealt with a variety of situations over the years that have equipped him to understand Salesforce at a unique depth.

In this episode and next week’s, David is sharing his best practices and tips. He’s also going to tell us some of his favorite “war stories” from his years of Salesforce consulting. Tune in to learn from his incredible wisdom.

Show Highlights:

• David’s history in computing and even going to med school.
• How he got into data loading and model metrics.
• How he started down the architecture path from there.
• How influential open source has been for both of us.
• A few of David’s implementation horror stories.

Links:

• David on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dschach
• David on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidschach/
• David on Github: https://github.com/dschach

Angela Mahoney is the Executive Director of RAD Women. She also helped found this organization and has played a major part in its growth. Angela is currently assisting with a cool project of teaching Salesforce at a university in Mexico.

In this episode, Angela and I dive into the history behind RAD Women. She shares how it was formed and what they’re doing today. Finally, we discuss the origin of the tech conference Forcelandia.

Show Highlights:

• More about the Salesforce project Angela’s helping out with in Mexico.
• How she got involved with technology at Salesforce.
• Why she wanted to get involved in the Salesforce community.
• The origin story and mission statement of RAD Women.
• What has contributed to RAD Women’s regional growth.
• Why Angela wanted to create a community conference.
• How Forcelandia is distinct from other community events.
• What Angela does outside of RAD Women.

Links:

• Angela on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelamahoneymba/
• Angela on Twitter: https://twitter.com/icloudsf
• Rad Women: http://radwomen.org/
• Forcelandia: http://forcelandia.com/
• Josh's keynote, The Pool at Nowhere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkXefNpFbOA

Shoby Abdi is the Director of Architect Success here at Salesforce. He started his career as an intern at Lions Consulting Group. It was there that he first heard about Salesforce and got involved with it.

In this episode, Shoby and I talk all about the B2C and B2B Solution Architect program including the enablement that goes along with it. We also discuss the certifications that Shoby helped create.

Show Highlights:

• More on Shoby’s career background.
• How he got into architecture.
• The difference between a solution architect and a technical architect.
• All about Shoby’s current role.
• What the enablement with Solution Architect looks like.
• Challenges the multi-cloud strategy presents.
• What it takes to build a certification.
• The major differences between B2C and B2B.

Links:

• Shoby on Twitter: http://twitter.com/shobyabdi
• Shoby on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/shobyabdi
• B2B Solution Architecture on Github: github.com/b2bsolutionarchitectprogram
• B2B Workshops: https://trailheadacademy.salesforce.com/classes/arc801-Design-and-implement-b2b-multi-cloud-solutions