Software Engineering Unlocked

In this episode, I talk to Trisha Gee, who is the Lead of the Java Developer Advocacy Team at JetBrain. She is an expert for Java high-performance systems, and developed software for a variety of industries, such as finance or manufacturing.

We talk about:

- how she got started in tech,

- why it’s harder to read than write code,

- how it is to work at JetBrains,

- her hiring experiences,

- and how she overcame imposter syndrome and started to feel confident with her competences.

In this episode, I talk to Martin Gratzer, CEO, and founder of Topmind. Topmind is a successful boutique dev shop in the heart of Carinthia in Austria. Martin shares with me, how he managed to build a striving development agency far way from Silicon Valey and other tech hot spots.

We talk about:

- why he decided to start his own company, 

- what helped him get started on his entrepreneurial journey,

- how he managed to be successful by focusing on a niche,

- what he advises others that want to freelance or build up the dev shop,

- and behind the scenes info on what it means to develop software as an agency.

In this episode, I talk to Peter Pezaris. Peter is the CEO and co-founder of a start-up called CodeStream. What's interesting about Peter's story is that CodeStream isn't his first startup. CodeStream is one of the many companies Peter built. So, in this interview, we talk about his 25 years-long journey building tech startups and what he has learned along the way.

We talk about:

- how he started his journey as a founder,

- which technology changes he went through throughout the different tech start-ups,

- the tech stack and architecture of the developer collaboration software CodeStream,

- how he was able to build a team that stuck with him through four different startups,

- and his advice for first-time founders.

In this episode, I talk to Troy Hunt, a leading security expert. Troy is a successful Pluralsight author and runs security workshops all around the world. He also is person behind the popular web haveIbeenPwned, which allows everybody to check whether their data has been exposed in a data breach.

In this episode, we talk about:

- how to prevent data breaches,

- what software engineers have to know about the security and software vulnerabilities,

- how to take your career in your own hands and

- how he started to teach security to millions of developers worldwide.

In this episode, I talk to Dan Abramov. Dan is a developer at Facebook, working on the popular JavaScript framework React. Dan is also one of the most well-known person in the whole front-end developer scene and recently started working on his new side-project JustJavaScript.

We talk about:

- how he got a job at Facebook,

- his interview tips for getting into Facebook

- the development mentality and the development practices at Facebook,

- and his new project JustJavaScript that helps intermediate developers to become JavaScript experts.

In this episode, I talk to Courtland Allen, the founder, and chief-indie hacker of the Indie Hacker community. After many years of trial and error, Courtland launched the widely successful indie hacker community and the indie hacker podcast.

We talk about:

- how he managed to build a lively community from the scratch

- his tips for first-time founders

- why he wanted to code as little as possible, and still coded as much as possible

- his four-phase success plan for kick-starting a profitable community-based business.

In this episode, I talk to Laurie Barth, a staff software engineer at Gatsby. Laurie is also a vivid conference speaker, tech blogger, and egghead instructor.

We talk about:

- how she got this awesome position at Gatsby

- her work as an open-source maintainer

- code reviews and making sure to give valuable feedback

- and growing a Twitter following.

In this episode, I talk to Suz Hinton, about her transition from Microsoft to Stripe, mentoring and advancing one’s career and live coding.

We talk about:

- her role and responsibilities at Stripe,

- how to understand what customers and users want,

- why she left Microsoft,

- how she now ensures the job and company culture matches her expectations,

- and how she started mentoring junior developers.

- Finally, Suz tells me all there is to know about live coding.

In this episode, I talk to Charlie Gerard who recently switched from the software consultance ThoughtWorks to the product company  Atlassian. She now works on Jira, the planning and bug tracking software that comprises a codebase of several million lines of code. 

We talk about: 

- her experience working at Atlassian,

- the software engineering practices used at Atlassian,

- how diverse roles on a team help make better products,

- her interview experience to get into this popular developer tool company,

- the difference between working for a product company versus a consultancy, 

- how to become a GoogleDev expert and a Mozilla Tech speaker,

- and of course also about her passion to tinker with brain-controlled interfaces.

In this episode, Allison McMillan, a software engineering manager at Github joins me to talk about

- how she broke into tech from a non-traditional background,

- how she overcame obstacles and problems as a new mother in tech and

- how she builds herself a striving career.

As always, we also talk about software development methodologies such as code reviews and testing at Github. And surely, I pick her brain about remote work and her strategies to stay focused and happy in a remote setting.