Brandon interviews Sargun Kaur , Co-Founder and CEO of Byteboard. They discuss the challenges and frustrations with technical interviews and how Byteboard has redesigned the coding test. Plus, Sargun offers tips for job seekers and shares her experience going from software engineer to startup CEO.

Show Links:


Byteboard


Contact Sargun


LinkedIn
Twitter: @justsargs


SDT news & hype


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Photo Credit Special Guest: Sargun Kaur.

Episode 404: Sargun Kaur on Technical Interviews

Get ready for a weekly dose of all things Enterprise Software and Cloud Computing! Join us as we dive into topics including Kubernetes, DevOps, Serverless, Security and Coding. Plus, we’ll keep you entertained with plenty of off-topic banter and nonsense. Don’t worry if you miss the latest industry conference - we’ve got you covered with recaps of all the latest news from AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).

Technology

Tech News

Podcasting

Gadgets

Software How-To

Business

Investing

Careers

Management & Marketing

Business News

Shopping

News

Management

This week, we discuss ChatGPT-4o, Google I/O Announcements,  the impact of AI on smartphones, and executive shuffling at OpenAI and Amazon. Plus, we share some thoughts on how to plan your wedding.

Watch the YouTube Live Recording of Episode 467

Runner-up Titles


Do what works
Blame the children
I had an alphanumeric pager in 1993
I like carrots


Rundown


A.I. Announcements


Introducing GPT-4o
‎Gemini Apps’ release updates & improvements
Google I/O 2024

Palace Intrigue


Andy Jassy makes AWS leadership announcement
Ilya and OpenAI are going to part ways.
Sam Altman gracefully thanked his OpenAI cofounder who quit. Then another exec quit hours later.



Relevant to your Interests


Leaked memo: Amazon requires cloud events to spend up to 80% of their time talking about generative AI
Should Cisco Have Paid $3.7 Billion for AppDynamics?
Boomi Dismembers The TIBCO Frankenstein
Apple to Power AI Tools With In-House Server Chips This Year
Cyberattack disrupts operations at major US health care network | CNN Business
Did IBM make a $6.4 billion blunder by buying HashiCorp?
How Ahrefs gets a Billion dollar-worth infrastructure with a 90% discount
Was VMware's takeover by Broadcom a terrible mistake?
Apple Will Revamp Siri to Catch Up to Its Chatbot Competitors
DHH: ZIRP driving microservices is quite the take!
Squarespace to go private in $7 billion private-equity deal
Aligning with User Needs with Rod Johnson
Meta will shut down its Teams competitor Workplace next year
Google Cloud accidentally deletes UniSuper’s online account due to ‘unprecedented misconfiguration’
DHH: ZIRP driving microservices is quite the take!


Nonsense


YETI 34 oz French Press - in NL, €125!
Underwater bicycle' propels swimmers forward at superhuman speed
World's Largest Vacuum to Suck Carbon From Atmosphere Turns On for First Time


Conferences


Executive Dinner in Atlanta, May 22nd
MS Build, Seattle May 21-23, Matt will be there
NDC Oslo, Coté speaking, June 12th.
DevOpsDays Amsterdam, June 19-21, 2024, Coté speaking.
DevOpsDays Birmingham, August 19–21, 2024.
SpringOne/VMware Explore US, August 26–29, 2024.
SREday London 2024, September 19th to 20th, Coté speaking. 20% off with the code SRE20DAY.


SDT news & hype


Join us in Slack.
Get a SDT Sticker! Send your postal address to stickers@softwaredefinedtalk.com and we will send you free laptop stickers!
Follow us: Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon,  BlueSky, LinkedIn, TikTok, Threads and YouTube.
Use the code SDT to get $20 off Coté’s book, Digital WTF, so $5 total.
Become a sponsor of Software Defined Talk!


Recommendations


Brandon: Dark Matter
Coté: The Business of Open Source podcast, e.g., episode with Rod Johnson.


Photo Credits


Header


Episode 467: Multimodal

This week, we discuss 451’s Generative A.I. Market Forecast, OpenAI launching a search engine and Apple’s new iPads. Plus, a look back at Microsoft’s acquiring Nokia.

Watch the YouTube Live Recording of Episode 466

Runner-up Titles


Coté is in a Dungeon
Everything’s going to be different
What would Stringer Bell say?
Displacing Google
Great Grammarly
A room full of barking dogs
A little bit of hustle porn.
Over value activity
A whole room with barking dogs


Rundown


Clouded Judgement 5.3.24
OpenAI To Launch Search Engine
Perplexity.AI raises $250 million with $3B valuation
That time when Microsoft bought and killed Nokia phone unit
The 7 biggest announcements from Apple’s iPad event
HashiCorp Co-Founder Reflects 48-Hours After Selling to IBM


Relevant to your Interests


Google paid Apple $20 billion in 2022 to be Safari’s default search engine.
Data Privacy: All the Ways Your Cellphone Carrier Tracks You and How to Stop It
Supercharged Developer Portals
VMware eases changes and deadlines for CSPs
Over 400 million Google accounts have used passkeys, but our passwordless future remains elusive
Wiz deal to acquire Lacework collapses  | CTech
Snowflake releases a flagship generative AI model of its own | TechCrunch
Open sourcing Octo STS
Apple is an edge computing company.
EQT snaps up API and identity management software company WSO2 for more than $600M | TechCrunch
Alternative clouds are booming as companies seek cheaper access to GPUs | TechCrunch
VMware Cloud on AWS - Here Today, Here Tomorrow | Hock Tan, President and CEO Broadcom
Amazon's AWS to double down on Singapore with additional $9 billion cloud investment
How the US Is Destroying Young People’s Future | Scott Galloway | TED
UniSuper and GCP
AWS ‘Disappointed’ It’s No Longer A VMware Cloud On AWS Reseller; Future Of Product In Doubt
Red Hat Rethinks the Linux Distro for the Container Age
Why companies list fake jobs


Nonsense


Justice for cord boxes!!!
Burnout - When does work start feeling pointless? | DW Documentary
North Yorkshire to drop apostrophes from street signs
Wife Surprises Husband With Birthday Party at Costco


Conferences


Executive Dinner in Atlanta, May 22nd - Coté is hosting it with a former Home Depot platform engineer, Tony.
MS Build, Seattle May 21-23, Matt will be there
NDC Oslo, Coté speaking, June 12th.
DevOpsDays Amsterdam, June 19-21, 2024, Coté speaking.
DevOpsDays Birmingham, August 19–21, 2024.
SpringOne/VMware Explore US, August 26–29, 2024.
SREday London 2024, September 19th to 20th, Coté speaking. 20% off with the code SRE20DAY.


SDT news & hype


Join us in Slack.
Get a SDT Sticker! Send your postal address to stickers@softwaredefinedtalk.com and we will send you free laptop stickers!
Follow us: Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon,  BlueSky, LinkedIn, TikTok, Threads and YouTube.
Use the code SDT to get $20 off Coté’s book, Digital WTF, so $5 total.
Become a sponsor of Software Defined Talk!


Recommendations


Brandon: Fallout
Matt: The Comfortable Problem of Mid TV
Coté:


My book is on sale at Leanpub.
Get XP for donating miles with KLM/Flying Blue.
Trade show interview



Photo Credits


Header
Artwork


Episode 466: Great Grammarly

This week, we discuss IBM's intent to acquire HashiCorp, the state of Open Source Businesses, and the (slow) adoption of Continuous Integration. Plus, some thoughts on the end of non-compete agreements.

Watch the YouTube Live Recording of Episode 465

Runner-up Titles


Extra Innings
Later Innings
Customer is always right, except for pricing
Leave the party crying
Put a price on it


Rundown


Hashi


Introducing The Infrastructure Cloud
HashiCorp unveils The Infrastructure Cloud, a unified platform for cloud Infrastructure and Security Lifecycle Management
IBM to Acquire HashiCorp, Inc. Creating a Comprehensive End-to-End Hybrid Cloud Platform
IBM to acquire Hashi for $6.4 billion, seeks software boost
IBM falls as enterprise-spending constraints choke consulting demand
IBM Is Buying HashiCorp. What Comes Next?
The threat to open source comes from within

You should automate your builds and tests - 71% of people do not “use continuous integration to automatically build and test my code changes.”
FTC Announces Rule Banning Noncompetes


Relevant to your Interests


AlmaLinux 9.4 beta: RHEL compatible, but a little different
Building for our AI future
Lacework, last valued at $8.3B, is in talks to sell for just $150M to $300M, say sources
Amazon recently bought a $650 million nuclear-powered data center
Lacework, last valued at $8.3B, is in talks to sell for just $150M to $300M, say sources
Netflix Dealt With the Freeloaders. Its Next Act Will Be Tougher.
Tesla recalls the Cybertruck for faulty accelerator pedals that can get stuck
Do software companies actually have good margins?
Women Who Code: Influential tech network shuts down unexpectedly
The invisible seafaring industry that keeps the internet afloat
Tesla’s Q&A; with investors rips open Musk anguish: ‘Will you please at least appear to make Tesla your top priority?’
The SignalFire State of Talent Report: 2023 tech employee trends
Appeals court rules that cops can physically make you unlock your phone
Improve cost visibility of Amazon EKS with AWS Split Cost Allocation Data | Amazon Web Services
Introducing Our Open Mixed Reality Ecosystem | Meta
US is reviewing risks of China's use of RISC-V chip technology
Google's First Tensor Processing Unit : Origins
UnitedHealth says Change hackers stole health data on 'substantial proportion of people in America' | TechCrunch
Broadcom Tells Partner Negotiating For Charity ‘VMware Is Not For Everybody’
Oracle is moving its world headquarters to Nashville to be closer to health-care industry
Congress Passed a Bill That Could Ban TikTok. Now Comes the Hard Part.
The Coca-Cola Company and Microsoft announce five-year strategic partnership to accelerate cloud and generative AI initiatives - Stories
Atlassian Co-CEO Scott Farquhar Resigns, Leaving Mike Cannon-Brookes as Sole Chief
Thoma Bravo to buy UK-listed Darktrace for £4.3bn
All we have to fear is FUD itself — Oxide and Friends
The walls of Apple’s garden are tumbling down
We're moving continuous integration back to developer machines
Enterprise Browser Island Receives Capital at $3 Billion Value
Kubernetes Market Sizing Windmills
FTC Announces Rule Banning Noncompetes
Amazon cloud unit kills Snowmobile data transfer truck eight years after driving 18-wheeler onstage
The Port State of Platform Engineering in two surveys
Cloud native platforms: To build or to buy?
State of DevSecOps | Datadog
Letter from Edward Norton, Founder of Zeck, Why Zeck
The Man Who Killed Google Search
Alphabet earnings are out — here are the numbers
Alphabet stock surges on earnings beat, dividend announcement
Amazon earnings are out — here are the numbers
Microsoft earnings are out – here are the numbers


Nonsense


Adam Neumann moves to buy back WeWork as it seeks funds to exit bankruptcy
A Mansion, Two Dogs and a Wall: Inside The Conflict Between a Utah Billionaire And His Neighbors
Red Lobster Is Reportedly Heading For Bankruptcy After Losing Millions On Endless Shrimp


Conferences


Executive Dinner in Atlanta, May 22nd
NDC Oslo, Coté speaking, June 12th.
DevOpsDays Amsterdam, June 19-21, 2024, Coté speaking.
DevOpsDays Birmingham, August 19–21, 2024.


SDT news & hype


Join us in Slack.
Get a SDT Sticker! Send your postal address to stickers@softwaredefinedtalk.com and we will send you free laptop stickers!
Follow us: Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon,  BlueSky, LinkedIn, TikTok, Threads and YouTube.
Use the code SDT to get $20 off Coté’s book, Digital WTF, so $5 total.
Become a sponsor of Software Defined Talk!


Recommendations


Brandon:


MarkdownDown
BBEdit's Extract and new feature blindness

Coté: Adam Savage Q&A;


Photo Credits


Header
Artwork


Episode 465: The Big Blue Burger Buffet

Coté interviews Jana Werner, Enterprise Transformation Lead EMEA, from Amazon Web Services (AWS). How can you start small changes to make big changes? That's the premise of Jana Werner's organization transformation card game. Sure, it's not really a "game," but each question is meant to help nudge management and executives a little closer to changing how they operate. Many of the ideas come from Amazon thinking, but many of the are also just the type of common sense that's too often uncommonly practiced.  Coté  interviews her about some of the cards, but, more importantly, the thinking, management philosophy, the life-style behind the cards.

Show Links


Coté mentioned a case study Jana did with Barry O'Reilly about Tesco Bank, here it is. 
Appoint and empower a single threaded leader
Two way door decisions
Dogs not barking.
Weasel words.
If you'd like to hear more from Jana, Coté also interviewed her back in 2020 about her work at Tesco Bank.


Contact Jana Werner


LinkedIn: Jana Werner. 


SDT News & Hype


Join us in Slack.
Get a SDT Sticker! Send your postal address to stickers@softwaredefinedtalk.com and we will send you free laptop stickers!
Follow us: Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon,  BlueSky, LinkedIn, TikTok, Threads and YouTube. 
Use the code SDT to get $20 off Coté’s book, Digital WTF, so $5 total.
Become a sponsor of Software Defined Talk!


The Cards

Here's the text of the all the cards:

Mechanism


How can you remove 40% of the time required by a process within 45 days?
How can you encourage and recognize experimentation with a community of practice?
How can you use Amazon’s wheel of fortune to focus your operations meetings?
How can you dive deep on one recurring problem to create a mechanism?
How can you introduce Bar Raisers into hiring interviews to assess cultural fit/bar raising?
How can you make visible how much of a product’s new functionality is actually used?
How can you create your next prototype as a Minimum Loveable Product?
How can you pick someone unfamiliar with your product to deep dive into the data and customer experience with?
How can you use data to examine a decision that you made 2+ months ago for issues?
How can you define your next business outcome as a Press Release?
How can you visualise the decision-making for a process and eliminate 20% of the steps?
How can you agree [on] the single threaded owner for each decision?
How can you pick an organisational report, understand its purpose and eliminate or simplify it?
How can you introduce recognition for best simplification of the quarter?
How can you accelerate decision making by having more frequent, shorter senior meetings?


Culture


How can you evidence that your next investment or product decision is what the customer really needs?
How can you start leadership meetings with “one thing I learned this week” discussions?
How can you create a feedback ritual at the end of each meeting?
How can you work towards a safe meeting environment to practice "Disagree and Commit as a Principle?
How can you give monthly recognition to the best cultural heck your organization has seen?
How can you publicly discuss one of your “failures” and why the learnings were valuable?
How can you run a culture hackathon, to identity hacks for a more agile culture?
How can you schedule and protect time for retrospectives with learnings published?
How can you dive deep when anecdotes and data conflict for a decision?
How can you for every decisions ask what would need to be true to make the decisions faster?
How can you replace weasel, words with data and customer anecdotes in business cases and reports?
How can you identify a Day 2 behaviour to turn into a Day 1 behaviour with your team?
How can you interview new hires within 2 months on good and bad culture observations?
How can you start your next meeting with a document read?


Organisation


How can you identify one emerging skill your organisation will need and create a learning path for it?
How can you measure, reduce, and share learnings on the Bureaucratic Mass Index of a single team?
How can you identity two-way door decisions und relinquish these to your teams?
How can you stop using silos (“IT”) and instead use names (“Andy”)?
How can you reduce “Keeping the Lights On” time and cost for one team?
[REPEAT?] How can you start your next meeting with a quiet document read?
How can you give your teams carte blanche for fast escalations?
How can you identify one gate-keeper process that can be replaced with a guardrail or an automation?
How can you change a KPI from an absolute achievement to one that shows continual improvement?


Leadership


How can you use the Ladder of Inference to seek disconfirming data for key decisions.
How can you identity “dogs not barking” in your leadership meetings and address these?
How can you focus your next 1:1s on understanding employees' super powers?
How can you create a shared understanding for phrases like “Digital Transformation” and “Agile” through lunch h-and-learn.
How can you define team ambition and pride statements that resonate emotionally and intellectually?
How can you create a press release describing where you imagine your organization to be in 3 years?
How can you go around the room for feedback with the leader speaking last?
How can you ask 10 employees about your organizations' priorities, vision, and their role in these?
How can you define what makes you truly compensative using Wardley Maps or similar?
How can you agree to what would help prioritize speed for your next two-way door decisions?
How can you appoint and empower a single threaded leader for key initiatives?


SDT News & Hype


Join us in Slack.
Get a SDT Sticker! Send your postal address to stickers@softwaredefinedtalk.com and we will send you free laptop stickers!
Follow us: Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon,  BlueSky, LinkedIn, TikTok, Threads and YouTube. 
Use the code SDT to get $20 off Coté’s book, Digital WTF, so $5 total.
Become a sponsor of Software Defined Talk!
Special Guest: Jana Werner.

Episode 464: Jana Werner on The Digital Transformation Card Game

This week, we discuss OpenTofu’s response to Hashicorp, Salesforce potentially acquiring  Informatica and the latest Kubernetes Market Size from IDC. Plus, when will Enterprise A.I. improve the DMV experience?

Watch the YouTube Live Recording of Episode 463

Runner-up Titles


The fun run was fun.
You don’t have to pay for this, just glue it together with a couple of bash scripts.
The Phish are biting
Everything’s cool zone
Words that rhyme with “acquisation”
Maybe AI can find it
The market for products that start with “K”
I like hotdogs
Don’t do the values, just the fun facts


Rundown


An Interview with Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian About Google’s Enterprise AI Strategy
OpenTofu responds to Hashicorp


Our Response to Hashicorp's Cease and Desist Letter | OpenTofu
Matt Asay response Tweet
Adam Jacob take

Salesforce in Advanced Talks to Buy Informatica
451 Research's kubernetes market-sizing ($2.85 billion in 2028)
Exclusive: API startup Noname Security nears $500M deal to sell itself to Akamai


Relevant to your Interests


Introducing Our Next Generation Infrastructure for AI | Meta
ISPs roll out mandatory broadband 'nutrition' labels that show speeds, fees and data allowances
How ZIRP benefited hyperscaler revenue
Platformonomics - Follow the CAPEX: The Clown Car Race Checkered Flag
Splunk vs Cribl Lawsuit of Terms Violating Enterprise License
It's easy to bash tech, but I've started taking robotaxis — and they're awesome
Citi slashes 110 apps: Next up... Data transformation
Microsoft Makes High-Stakes Play in Tech Cold War With Emirati A.I. Deal
Widely-Used PuTTY SSH Client Found Vulnerable to Key Recovery Attack
Meta's Oversight Board probes explicit AI-generated images posted on Instagram and Facebook | TechCrunch
New UK law targets “despicable individuals” who create AI sex deepfakes
Third-party iPhone app store AltStore PAL is now live in Europe
Linux Foundation leads the fight against fauxpen source


Enterprise Nonsense


How to setup your own Database as a Service (DBaaS) for RabbitMQ, MySQL, Postgres, Redis


Listener Feedback


Amazon.com: Sink Soap Dispenser
Grip Case for Nintendo Switch Lite
Andrew Shafer owns an All American Burger?


Conferences


Open Source Summit North America, Seattle April 16-18. Matt’s speaking.
NDC Oslo, Coté speaking, June 12th.
DevOpsDays Amsterdam, June 19-21, 2024, Coté speaking.
DevOpsDays Birmingham, August 19–21, 2024.


SDT news & hype


Join us in Slack.
Get a SDT Sticker! Send your postal address to stickers@softwaredefinedtalk.com and we will send you free laptop stickers!
Follow us: Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon,  BlueSky, LinkedIn, TikTok, Threads and YouTube.
Use the code SDT to get $20 off Coté’s book, Digital WTF, so $5 total.
Become a sponsor of Software Defined Talk!


Recommendations


Brandon:


Discovering the XZ Backdoor with Andres Freund / Oxide
Civil War

Matt:


Ostrich travel pillow
H-E-B Pro-Sleep Mask

Coté: Continuity Camera, kibbeling.


Photo Credits


Header
Artwork


Episode 404: Sargun Kaur on Technical Interviews

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