Software Defined Interviews
Deep discussions about technology, enterprise IT, and the like
Episodes
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Episode 96: Learning, teaching, tech certifications, and napkin culture in Singapore, with Mumshad Mannambeth
March 22nd, 2025 | 1 hr 1 min
In this video, Coté and Whitney talk about tech education and learning with Mumshad Mannambeth. There's talk about certifications, but also how teaching online works and what it's like when it scales up to millions of people. Plus, Coté tries to figure out how to get access to more napkins.
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Episode 95: Success in Tech, Content Creation, & Corporate Influence, with Hazel Weakly
March 6th, 2025 | 1 hr 3 mins
In this episode, Whitney and Coté talk with Hazel Weakly about the unexpected success of content, the influence of corporate interests in open source, her experiences transitioning as a trans woman in tech, and the importance of emotional vulnerability in the tech industry.
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Episode 94: Adding more condiments to the 7 layer networking burrito, with Marino Wijay
February 20th, 2025 | 1 hr 5 mins
Why do we keep adding new layers and frameworks instead of just fixing the ones we have? They also talk about the challenges of platform engineering, the importance of empathy in tech, the difficulties of integrating multiple layers in tech stacks, the essential role of effective communication and prioritization, and EmpathyOps.
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Episode 93: 10x People, AI Trends, and Career Management, with Richard Seroter
February 6th, 2025 | 59 mins 23 secs
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Episode 92: What went wrong with PaaS, and many other topics with Brian Gracely
January 23rd, 2025 | 1 hr 16 mins
In this episode of Software Defined Interviews, Coté and Whitney host Brian Gracely, co-host of the Cloudcast podcast and head of portfolio strategy at Red Hat.
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Episode 91: Learning to learn, with Sasha Czarkowski
January 9th, 2025 | 1 hr 4 mins
What’s it really like to do all that DevOps-y transformation at companies? That’s what we talk about this week with Sasha Czarkowski…mostly.
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Episode 90: Community management, event nightmares, and domestic Tupperware diplomacy, with Katie Greenley
December 26th, 2024 | 58 mins 28 secs
Katie Greenley shares her experiences managing events and community programs like the CNCF Ambassadors.
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Episode 89: How platform engineering is different than DevOps, plus, narwhal teeth and spider digestion, with Viktor Farcic
December 11th, 2024 | 1 hr 11 mins
In this episode, Whitney and Coté talk with Viktor Farcic, Developer Advocate at Upbound, about platform engineering, the evolution of DevOps, project managing a content creation engine of one, and the virtues of imperfection. Also, the strategic avoidance of asking for directions, or, really, talking with people in general.
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Episode 88: Platform Engineering and UK Digital People, with Abby Bangser
November 28th, 2024 | 1 hr 19 mins
Sure, we talk about platform engineering, but more importantly, business cards.
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Episode 87: Platform Engineering, AI, and Community - Whitney's KubeCon NA 2024 Adventures
November 25th, 2024 | 48 mins 6 secs
Whitney is back from KubeCon and shares what she saw. Topics include: platform engineering, AI integration with Kubernetes, and community engagement.
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Episode 86: Open Source Money Ethics, How Analysts use AI, What Even is an Industry Analyst, and Advanced Chicken Nugget Diplomacy, with Rachel Stephens
November 13th, 2024 | 1 hr 10 mins
In this episode, Whitney Lee and Coté dive into the insights of Rachel Stephens from RedMonk about the world of being an industry analyst.
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Episode 85: Kubernetes Cost Controls and Washing Horse Blankets, with Phil Andrews
October 31st, 2024 | 53 mins 33 secs
Whitney and talk with Phil Andrews, field CTO at Cast AI, cost management and optimization, the nuances of Kubernetes, coin-operated laundromats, and farm life.
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Episode 84: Tech recruiting from both sides of the table, with Sidney Miller
October 19th, 2024 | 1 hr 6 mins
Whitney and Coté talk with Sidney Miller about tech recruitment. They talk a lot about the process from both sides: people hiring and people looking for jobs. Plus, some thoughts on working at Neiman Marcus.
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Episode 83: Whitney Lee
October 2nd, 2024 | 1 hr 26 mins
Whitney Lee's career path has been all over the place, from artist, wedding photographer, waiter, and now world-renowned devrel in the cloud native world.
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Misaligned Incentives Episode 4: You get what you pay for - compensating tech staff is often done poorly
July 17th, 2020 | 50 mins 57 secs
We discuss compensation, particularly how people in the IT department ("developers," etc.) are so disconnected from the actual business that compensating them based on business performance is near impossible. Not good if you're an IT person and like money.
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Episode 3: Improvement requires fear, or, digital transformation by crisis and fear
July 6th, 2020 | 38 mins 38 secs
People in large organizations avoid improving for improving's sake. They're very rarely proactive in transforming. Instead, it seems that management in most large organizations only act, and change, when they fear competition and failure. "Everyone" knows this is a bad strategy, and yet "everyone" does it. Perhaps we should embrace that behavior, or at least be empathetic, and figure out how to work with it.