Software Defined Interviews

Deep discussions about technology, enterprise IT, and the like

About the show

Deep discussions about technology, enterprise IT, and the like

Software Defined Interviews on social media

Episodes

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Episode 2: Outsourcing, SIs, and other "others"

    October 31st, 2019  |  58 mins 1 sec

    We discuss outsourcing IT.

  • Misaligned Incentives Episode 1: Who forget to invite "The Business," to this kubernetes PoC?

    September 11th, 2019  |  44 mins 21 secs

    Join Rick and I as we try to find this elusive thing called "The Business." We lay out a theory we've been talking about: while IT has been improving or, at least, can improve, the business side of the house isn't showing up to do anything with CLOUD and AGILE and THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION.

  • Monolithic Transformation

    September 9th, 2019  |  1 hr 32 mins

    The cliche we all recite is that technology isn’t the problem, culture is. Put another way, if the hardware and software are fine and fresh, it must be the meatware that smells. Come hear several de-funking recipes from enterprises whose meat now smells proper.

    Given at Agile Scotland, August 2019.

  • Episode 82: Chris Aniszczyk on starting Open Source Foundations

    July 9th, 2019  |  59 mins 12 secs

    Chris Aniszczyk is the CTO of the CNCF. We discuss how he got into open source, what it's like to work at Twitter and how he helped start the CNCF. Plus, Chris gives us an overview of the different kinds of CNCF projects and offers advice on how to get started with Kubernetes.

  • Episode 81: Adam Jacob on saying Goodbye to OpenCore

    April 8th, 2019  |  1 hr 14 mins

    Matt and Brandon interview Adam Jacob the co-founder of Chef. We discuss Adam's career, what led him to start Chef and Chef's recent decision to open source 100% of its Software. Plus, Adam give us some tips on Dungeons & Dragons and transitioning from being a founder to an executive.

  • Episode 80: Jeff Meyerson on starting the Software Engineering Daily Podcast

    February 11th, 2019  |  1 hr 2 mins

    Jeff Meyerson is the host of Software Engineering Daily. We talk about on his career and what led him to start a daily tech podcast for developers.

  • Episode 79: Version control, DevOps, Code Reviews, Semantic Merging, Spanish Startups, & Plastic SCM

    January 15th, 2019  |  1 hr 10 mins

    Version control has changed a lot over the past 15 years: we’ve moved from a centralized to a distributed model at the basic level. But the practices people follow have changed and grown as new methodologies like DevOps and continuous delivery have relied on version control for operational stability and reliability. In this interview, Coté talks with Plastic SCM’s Pablo Santos to get the low-down and some tips on doing version control better. We also discuss Plastic SCM and how their approach to semantic merging and mergebot-driven automation addresses version control toil.

  • Episode 78: Umair Khan on AI Ops and Cloud Security

    December 24th, 2018  |  56 mins 6 secs

    Brandon interviews Umair Khan about his experience working in AI Ops and in Cloud Security.

  • Episode 77: Jake Moilanen on going from Employee to Entrepreneur to Venture Capitalist

    December 17th, 2018  |  1 hr 10 mins

    Jake Moilanen started and sold two companies and is now joining the ranks of Venture Capital. We discuss his career, his approach to investing and he explains what it is like to bringup the Linux Kernel on a supercomputer for the first time.

  • Episode 76: Zane Rockenbaugh on being the Startup CTO

    November 5th, 2018  |  1 hr 10 mins

    Zane Rockenbaugh specializes in working with early stage startups. He helps founders take their idea and turn it into something real. We talk about his career and what it's like to be a "Startup CTO."

  • Episode 75: Don't call me an "evangelist"

    September 3rd, 2018  |  1 hr 20 mins

    Coté talks about his job being an "evangelist," a word people no longer seem to use but everyone understands. Brandon interviews Coté about what the job is, what the work's like, and some examples (other than himself) of people who do it well.

  • Episode 74: Numbers. How do they work? Rachel Stephens

    August 27th, 2018  |  55 mins 41 secs

    When Coté says he doesn’t know how numbers work, he actually means it. To help out, he talks with Rachel Stephens, from RedMonk, who not only explains ratios, but also finance numbers.

  • Episode 73: Dustin Kirkland on Linux, Cloud Computing and Product Management

    August 20th, 2018  |  1 hr 17 mins

    Dustin Kirkland joins us to discuss Linux, Cloud Computing and making wine. We talk about Dustin’s career journey from entry-level developer to Google Product Manager.

  • Episode 72: Chris Donaldson on Automation

    August 13th, 2018  |  1 hr 4 mins

    How do you implement IT Automation best practices at a large company? What's the best approach to convince stakeholders that IT Automation is worth the effort? In this interview with Acxiom's Chris Donaldson we talk all about the good, the bad and ugly of IT Automation.