Ardan Labs Podcast

Gergely Brautigam is a software developer at Weaveworks working with Go & Kubernetes. As he describes it, Gergely knew he wanted to work with computers from the first time his mother brought home a ZX Spectrum. We learn some valuable lessons on facing fears, interview tactics, and learning new skills. Connect with Gergely: https://twitter.com/Skarlso Mentioned in today’s episode: Weaveworks ZX...

Sarah Murphy is a Senior Site Reliability Engineer at WePay. Sarah’s curiosity and willingness to take leaps took her all over the world, from being a journalist in Baghdad to working with top Silicon Valley companies. Tune in to hear stories of early internet gaming, self-funding trips to Iraq, and sword training. Connect with Sarah: https://twitter.com/sarahmaeve1 Want more from Ardan Labs? You...

Miriah Peterson is a data engineer at Weave, a founder of the Forge Foundation, and the founder for the Women Who Go Utah. If you think she’s busy now, just tune in to hear about her childhood. Miriah always kept herself busy with projects and learning new things. We discuss topics like video creation, quantum physics, quantum optics, getting your first software job, learning Go, GraphQL, and much...

In this episode, we pick up where we left off with Steve Hoffman. Last we heard, he had just launched a few successful video games in the mid-90’s. Steve then started a new company focused on interactive TV games. It is during this time where he got a crash course in entrepreneurship. Tune in to hear tips on starting companies, raising venture funds, navigating crises, and more! Connect with Steve...

Steve Hoffman is a CEO, author, angel investor, and above all a creator. Steve currently runs a global startup incubator called Founders Space but his life has taken many turns to reach this place. So many turns that we couldn’t fit it all in one episode! Tune in to hear about a kid who followed his passions and wouldn’t take no for an answer. We hear about programming video games in high school,...

Ronna Steinberg is currently the Chapter Lead for Women Who Go Berlin and Senior Software Engineer for Delivery Hero. In this episode, we hear how many unexpected events led Ronna into tech and even Go. Now she’s helping other women get into the industry and equipping them with the knowledge she wished she had at their age. Connect with Ronna: https://twitter.com/ronnax https://www.linkedin.com/in...

Renee Richards is a Programmer Analyst for Carepoint, Inc. Renee has been a software developer for two years after spending most of her life as a pharmacy technician. We hear about how she made the tough decision to make a career change and the tricks she used to pull it off successfully. It just goes to show it’s never too late to get into tech if you really want to. Connect with Renee: https://t...

Nic Jackson is a Principal Developer Advocate for HashiCorp. He’s also the author of the book Building Microservices with Go and an avid speaker on all things microservices. We learn about his first job in tech performing data collection for an environmental agency and how that sparked his interest in computer science. Nic would go on to work with many cutting-edge technologies but what he realize...

John Reese is a Senior Software Engineer at Yubico. He is also an active contributor to the open source projects Konstraint and Conftest. John’s foray into programming started a bit earlier than most, publishing websites in PHP by 6th grade. We hear stories of cyber mischief, John’s thoughts on the value of a computer science degree, and the importance of culture in a job. Connect with John: https...

Jessica Greene is a Backend Developer with Ecosia, the search engine that plants trees. We talk about film, the science of coffee, and what caused her to pivot her career into tech. Jessica shares insightful feedback on how she approached her career transition, and the importance of having support throughout the process. Connect with Jessica: GitHub Twitter LinkedIn Mentioned in today’s episode: E...

Kris Nóva is a Senior Principal Software Engineer at Twilio Inc. We hear about her incredible journey from a nerdy teen installing Linux on the family computer to becoming an outspoken voice in the tech community. Growing up in Texas with conservative parents, Kris faced many challenges that helped mold her into the person who she is today.  Kris leaves us with a few big lessons today: Advocate fo...

Anthony Starks is an engineer, designer and consultant with a focus on data visualization. But we might also call him an artist. Growing up with a love for photography and computers, Anthony has long been enamored with the idea of melding art and technology. We hear his experience with low-level punch card programming, UNIX, writing the beginning of firewalls, & his more recent passion for dat...

Michael Gasch is a Staff Engineer in the Office of the CTO at VMware. Growing up around his father’s business, the seeds were planted for his love of technology. Michael spent many years pursuing a career in music but technology always found a way back into his life. We explore how Michael made the leap from hardware to software and wrap up by getting his thoughts on the future of cloud and Kubern...

Vanesa Ortiz is a community advocate at Sourcegraph and the founder of the Women Who Go - Berlin chapter. We learn about Vanesa’s incredible journey from freelancing at age 13 to interviewing for a Golang position with zero knowledge of the language (oh yeah, and she got the job). One thing remained constant, Vanesa’s problem solving ability is off the charts. Her natural curiosity and desire to l...

Mat Ryer is a serial entrepreneur and a panelist on the Go Time podcast! He is currently the co-founder at Pace.dev & Firesearch.dev. In this episode, we hear about Mat’s very early experiences with programming at the age of six and how teachers influenced his opinions of higher education. Then Bill digs in to find out how Mat is able to continually identify product opportunities and execute a...

Kris Brandow is a Senior Software Engineer at Wunderkind and a panelist on the GoTime podcast! We learn about Kris’s experience growing up in a technical household and how he had no desire to follow in his parents footsteps. Although he went to college for writing and audio engineering, we uncover that Kris may have accidentally received the ultimate computer science degree. Connect with Kris: Skr...

Guinevere Saenger is a Software Engineer on the Development Lifecycle Team at Github. We hear about the challenges of pursuing a career in music and how, through an unbelievable turn of events, she has since transitioned to a successful career in tech! Although its clear Guinevere put in the work to get where she is today, she is outspoken regarding the lucky breaks she received in tech versus mus...

Bryan Liles is a Principal Engineer at VMware where he is working on the Telco & Edge Cloud BU team building telecom software that runs on Kubernetes.  We examine Bryan’s unique path to success, which he credits to being goal focused and knowing his worth, among other things. He talks candidly about how his encounters with racism and poor leadership led to his frequent job hopping. This leads...

Ana Margarita Medina is a Senior Chaos Engineer at Gremlin. You may know her from one of her many conference talks or maybe just from Twitter! In this episode, Ana shares her journey into tech and why it is OK to take a nonlinear path to the job of your dreams. From running a freelance company at the age of 15 to dropping out of college to enter the workforce, Ana’s experiences have contributed to...

Dave Appleton is a man of many talents (Seriously, he has too many to mention!). We kick off our conversation hearing about Dave’s first experiences with programming in the late '60s using hand punch cards. We discuss his early years as a low-level hardware programmer, working with semiconductors, and how he ended up working with blockchain technologies! Connect with Dave: Dave Appleton on Tw...

John Arundel is software consultant, mentor, and author of the book “For the Love of Go”. We talk about his early fascination with computers, the role his mother played in planting these seeds, and the steps he took in his younger years to follow his passion. We then explore John’s indirect job path, having to settle for work as a technical writer out of college and stumbling into IT and system ad...

Wilken Rivera is a senior software engineer with the Packer team at HashiCorp. In this interview, listeners will get a sense of Wilken’s journey from a dance background to software engineering, his career timeline, and how he earned the privilege to choose where he wanted to work instead of having to take any job he was offered. As the conversation comes to a close, Wilken shares how he learned th...

Carlisia Thompson is a senior OSS engineer at VMware and host of The Podlets podcast. We cover the unique path Carlisia took from her childhood in Brazil to becoming an influential member of the Go community. She shares the story of her path to a graduate CS degree, her thoughts on the value of traditional education, and offers valuable advice for anyone who is looking to get into software enginee...

In this episode, we talk to Andy Walker about his childhood and how he got into programming, his journey in cybersecurity, and some of the soft skills that are so valuable to have in this industry. We kick things off by hearing Andy talk about his early love of computers, his early hacks, and how he fell into more serious programming at college after switching from Biology to a CS major. We talk a...