The Rabbit Hole: The Definitive Developer's Podcast

In today’s episode, we get together with our third host William Jeffries, who has been traveling the globe for the past few months, to discuss the pros and cons of living the lifestyle of a digital nomad. We hear from William about the challenges of working in different time zones and how daylight savings time in the US affected his capacity to co-host The Rabbit Hole podcast. William breaks down the difference between being a fast or a slow digital nomad and shares some of the logistical challenges he faced, like finding fast reliable internet in India and building a social network abroad. Later we discuss the tax and visa challenges inherent to the digital nomad lifestyle and how the US tax code differs from the rest of the world. Join us today as we dive into the digital nomad lifestyle and find out our hosts’ dream digital nomad travel destinations!

In today’s episode, we get together with William Jeffries to ask all our most pressing questions relating to GitOps. Tuning in you’ll hear why GitOps uses a pull-based system instead of a push-based system and how GitOps can facilitate better security practices through an improved threat model. William explains when and how to apply GitOps to your project and why he is so excited about the work being done by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. For all this and much more, tune in today as we get to the bottom of what GitOps means for the future of development!

On a whole, the pandemic has made us, as a society, more anxious about a lot of things, including working in offices with other people where our risk of being exposed to the coronavirus is heightened. Although there are a lot of great tools which have been developed to try to make home offices mirror actual offices, there are various benefits which come from working in the same space as other people which cannot be replicated online. Nevertheless, working from home, at least some of the time, may continue to be part of our reality well into the future.

In today’s episode, we welcome back content creation aficionado, Stephanie Morillo. Stephanie is a technical program manager at Microsoft and specializes in content strategy. She is the author of the acclaimed book The Developer's Guide to Content Creation. In our conversation we discuss the contents of her blog post 7 Common Content Marketing Mistakes Developers Make and How to Avoid Them. We cover relatable mistakes like not dedicating enough time to the editing process and not adding detailed descriptions to multimedia content. Stephanie shares constructive feedback and tips for how to avoid these mistakes and how to take your developer content to the next level! For all this and much more, tune in today!

There is a lot going down in the world right now. Whether it is because of the pandemic or not we can’t say but people are leaving their jobs in record numbers. However, there is a hidden opportunity lurking in this crisis, both for people to get new jobs and for companies to get new employees. So in today’s episode, we’ll be talking about tuning up your hiring process! We want everyone to have the best hiring process, so we consider how to interview in ways that are appropriate for the skills you're looking for and how to evaluate candidates in a way that is respectful of their time and abilities. We try to come up with a model for interviewing that feels equitable, considering evaluating practices such as iterating on your interview process, whiteboarding, querying algorithm knowledge, take-home tests, and more. We also speak about the kindest ways of judging whether candidates will fit in with and even add to company culture. Join us and get up to speed with our take on hiring best practices today!

What is your ritual for starting the day? Are you starting out by choosing a deliberate practice that can help skyrocket your productivity?  Welcome back to another episode of The Rabbit Hole, co-hosting today with me, Michael Nuñez, is Dave Anderson. Today we are giving you developer-friendly reminders! Things that you can do with your life that will take five minutes that you should be doing, every now and then. So stay tuned as we share some friendly reminders to help you get through your day! 

Many developers harbor dreams of creating content, whether it’s writing a blog, broadcasting on a YouTube channel, or posting on Instagram. In today’s episode, we get together with the esteemed Stephanie Morillo for advice and inspiration. Stephanie works as a technical program manager at Microsoft, but she is also a content strategist by trade who currently specializes in Developer Content Strategy. She is also the author of the book The Developer's Guide to Content Creation. We talk with Stephanie about all sorts of content-related topics, from how to migrate your blog posts to choosing the right platform when you’re starting out. Stephanie offers plenty of wisdom and practical tips to address common issues like ‘scope creep’ and struggling with priorities. One salient point is her observation that many people have a tendency to overthink their blog posts and that the best way to combat this is to get some distance from your writing and to approach it again as an editor when you have some perspective. It was great having Stephanie on the show and we’re inspired to apply everything we’ve learned from her! For all this and more, join us today!

All developers will understand the difficulty that comes along with deciding whether to build or to buy. In today’s episode, we discuss why it’s so important to think about this decision before you make it; there are so many factors to take into consideration and you don’t want to act hastily. Co-hosts Michael and Dave discuss the pros and cons of building and buying, tiers that exist within the build or buy spectrum, and something that they would never build. They share a question that you should always ask yourself before diving in, and some red flags to look out for. If you’re in the market to buy, this episode is also full of examples of great places you can do so! 

In today’s episode, our hosts cover the elusive concept of QWAN: Quality Without A Name. Hear how they first came across the term in The Art of Agile Development: Pragmatic Guide to Agile Software Development and their subsequent quest to disseminate its meaning. Michael and Dave do an impressive pull of a C2 Wiki article that breaks down QWAN’s four attributes: Usability, Readability, Configurability, and Profoundness. Tuning in you’ll gain insight into how each of these attributes presents. Learn which apps succeed at achieving the attributes of QWAN, from Instagram’s usability to ESLint’s Profoundness. You may be surprised! Join us today for a taste of just how deep the Rabbit Hole of QWAN can go!

In today’s episode, we complete the ultimate showdown between product and developer! In this round, it will be the developers who are on the defensive as Dave and Michael account for their faux pas as developers. Rob O'Brien returns to the show with plenty of ammunition. Our conversation starts with a friendly exploration of the type of faux pas a developer might generally commit, as we repeatedly return to the importance of a team-based mindset and why developers need to be invested in user outcomes. We explore how a developer’s role goes beyond completing their delegated tasks and some handy tips for working with designers. The crew also outlines the many benefits of building rapport with your co-worker including having more resilience when things get stressful and having a more cohesive team working environment. Tuning in you’ll hear a thrilling, action-packed discussion on the merits and flaws of developers and how to make your team a badass trifecta of efficiency!