Betatalks the podcast

In this episode, we speak with Niels Swimberghe, a Belgian-American software engineer and content creator at Twilio. Of course, we want to know what Twilio is all about, known for, and why people should use it. How do they help developers build stuff with Twilio? Always striving to create the best experience for customers, getting feedback, and sharing as much technical content as possible. We tal...

In this episode, we talk to Clemens Vasters. He works at Microsoft on the Azure product engineering team. Specifically, he is a Principal Architect for Service Bus, Event Hubs, Event Grid and Relay. We dive into these services, what they can do and how they differ. Clemens explains why and when to use events or messages, and what types of scenarios they fit into; from discrete events and event ser...

In this episode, we talk to Sarah Lean. She recently left Microsoft to go work for Octopus Deploy, in some ways a competitor to Microsoft in the area of software deployment. We discuss how you can improve your DevOps and CI/CD pipeline by using integrations from both companies. We also talk about how almost everything boils down to software, from using Azure FarmBeats for your gardening to making...

Our friend in this episode is Jan de Dobbeleer, a Microsoft MVP, GitKraken Ambassador and creator of Oh My Posh.  We talk about how Oh My Posh - the prompt theming engine for PowerShell and beyond - started and became so popular. What are some of the daily challenges he faces? And how did he end up here after being a watchmaker, Android phone hacker and Windows Phone developer? Furthermore, we str...

We talk with April Edwards, Senior Cloud Developer Advocate and DevOps practice lead at Microsoft, about her role and passion, and how great mentors help open doors for you or others. Together we reflect on some misconceptions about Microsoft, especially with regard to open source and the use of cross platform tooling, such as PowerShell. And has she seen a shift in the types of cloud services peo...

We primarily know Tom, a former Microsoft MVP and GitHub star, for his open source work maintaining KEDA, Promitor, Kubernetes Event Grid Bridge and Azure Deprecation. In this episode, we talk about his current job at Microsoft, where he works on Azure Api Management. Next to that, we discuss all his other activities, most of which have to do with scaling applications. We also discuss how a succes...

As a member of the .NET Core CLI and Languages team at Microsoft, we interview her about everything that has to do with Managed Languages. What are the roots and strengths of Visual Basic, C#, and F#? And what do they keep in mind when making adjustments within these languages?  We talk about what’s coming in C# 11 and the thorough planning processes before implementing new features.  Zooming in o...

In this episode, we chat with John Lunn. We talk about his passion for his work and how he's able to be so actively involved and do so much for this community.  But which service would he like to spend more time on? We zoom in on the ever-expanding set of Azure services and the extent to which you need to thoroughly understand most of them. There's always a 'next big thing'.  W...

In this episode, we go into an in-depth exploration of .NET MAUI with none other than Maddy Montaquila. As the release is getting closer, she shares more about .NET MAUI and how the evolution from Xamarin Forms has been. She ignites us with excitement about all the new features her team has been working on and shares how the whole process has been so far. How was it to disconnect from the release...

In this episode, we talk with Thomas Maurer about what keeps him busy on a day-to-day basis. He tells us the two most important aspects of his job as a Senior Cloud Advocate: creating & delivering content and bringing back feedback into the engineering world. He shares with us the way they gather feedback from customers and how they hunt for those gaps. Furthermore, we discuss the importance o...

In this episode, we talk with Brady Gaster. He tells us more about his role at Microsoft as a Principal Program Manager, what does it entail? On what does he and his team spend their time? How are the PM roles divided? And how do they  facilitate the interaction with users or clients? We hear more about what it takes to implement something new and its timelines. He shares with us where "the b...

In this episode, we talk with Suzanne Daniels about Backstage, an open-source platform that originated at Spotify. She tells us more about the origin of Backstage, why it took off, and the reasons why it's open for the community. She shares the new technologies that have impressed her the most lately, her all-time favorite song, and we chat more about the importance of communities. About this...

Our friend of the day is Elio Struyf. He tells us more about Front Matter, a CMS that runs within Visual Studio Code. How was Front Matter born? And what are the future plans? We talk about his extensive experience in development and about being recognized as a Microsoft MVP and SharePoint/Microsoft 365 Top 25 Influencer. Furthermore, how did his online sticker shop Pimp Your Own Device come to be...

In this episode, we talk with Ramon de Rooij. Ramon might be one of the few people that can say that he's worked his entire career in cloud-based IoT. How did he start, what has he done, and what is he doing currently? We dive into Azure Digital Twins. What is this platform all about and what are the possibilities with it? We focus on creating smart homes and especially on security in IoT. A...

In this episode, we talk with Gregor Suttie about how his willingness to help people has culminated in the Festive Tech Calendar. A fun event through December where people from all communities take part in fun and engaging sessions. We dive into what his main focus is as an Azure architect, and how it's like working for a Dutch company while living in Glasgow. Which service has impressed him...

In this episode, we talk with Floor Drees about what it’s like working for K6, an open-source load testing tool and cloud service. How did her role come about? And have they seen an incline in usage and community interaction since Microsoft disabled load testing in Azure DevOps? We dive into her experience as DevRel consultant, helping companies organize, produce and host livestreams and events. H...

Our friend of the day is Jessica Engström. We dive into User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX), the area of expertise she is passionate about, and where she really shines. We talk about bad UI/UX, common mistakes and examples, and the effect it has on users. Causing annoyance – often even rage-quitting – when encountering basic elements that should’ve worked in the first place. We zoom in on...

In this episode, we talk with one of, or maybe even the most active Visual Studio extension developers in the community, Mads Kristensen. Where and how did this start? What does he love about it? We talk about Microsoft using and being present on Github, contributing to open-source projects, and its amazing side effects. About what it's like responding to and prioritizing feature requests, im...

In this episode, we talk with Mike about hybrid solutions regarding work, events, and coding. Why a hybrid way of thinking is essential, why it's important to use coding, infrastructure, and operation expertise, and why he’s called ‘the perfect hybrid solution’. We talk about collaborating with Microsoft partners, helping ISVs bring value to their customers, and about ‘FINO’, a concept he cam...

Our friend of the day is Stacy Cashmore. In this episode, we get to learn about her journey from attending conferences and having panic attacks to gaining confidence and experiencing a conference from the other side as a speaker. They talk about technologies that have impressed them lately, in particular Static Web Apps with its great scalability and price-quality ratio. And we hear more about her...

We talk with Christos Matskas about working with Microsoft Identity. We discuss the challenges surrounding Microsoft Identity, for instance, how do you get into Identity and Access Management running your application in the cloud? And how they’re doing their best to improve the onboarding experience and implementation, which can be rough. While also trying to reach out and inform the developer com...

In this episode, we talk with Jimmy Engström about the time he got wind of Blazor, immediately realized the potential, and adopted it in the beta phase. We dive into the world of Blazor, BLAZM, and writing his book 'Web development with Blazor:   A hands-on guide for .NET developers to build interactive UIs with C#'. And we hear about Coding after work, a code-intensive user group &...

We talk with Karl Ots, a cloud and cybersecurity expert with a broad range of deep Azure expertise. We look back into his journey in tech before Windows Azure, as it was formerly known,  came along.  We dive into Microservices, what it takes to migrate secured systems, and security trends in Azure, like managed identity, automated logging alerts, and confidential computing. We even talk about mixo...

In this episode, we talk with Irina Scurtu, Microsoft MVP for Developer Technologies, Software Architect, CTT+ technical trainer, and Microsoft Certified Trainer. We dive into her passion for teaching and the importance of sharing knowledge. We talk about her sessions about REST API and why she’s so passionate about it. Furthermore, we discuss GRPC and GraphQL, the possibilities with it, and the a...

We talk with Dennis Doomen about the benefits, goals, and drivers behind Fluent Assertions, the very popular .NET assertion library. How did it start and what does it set out to achieve? We talk about C# coding guidelines and writing clean code; the do and don’ts, the pitfalls and challenges, the mindset and attitude. And about test styles, var keywords, Typescript, Event Sourcing, the Gartner Hyp...