Geeking Out with Adriana Villela

GenZ are in a unique position in the Age of AI, because they are coming up "AI native"...or are they? Join us for a special LIVE episode of Geeking Out, in which host Adriana Villela speaks with four GenZ-ers to get their perspectives on how AI is disrupting software development, and their future careers. Featuring Divyasha Pahuja, Stella Gu, Amrithaa Logeswaran, and Rachelle De Man. Key Takeaways...

Key Takeaways Using IDEs took some of the mental load out of hand coding because of features like code completion Switching to IDEs from plain text editors was a bit of a mental change for many of us (maybe not as big as AI-assisted coding) AI-assisted coding gives us a similar feel to text editor based coding à la VIM AI-assisted coding is ADHD friendly — you can explain your architecture and the...

Key takeaways: Kids take new tech for granted. For example, carriers used to charge by the minute for calls. Text and web browsing were extra (and extra expensive). Configuring Linux back in the day was 1 part fun, 10 parts pain. Watching things on video allows us to see expressions and hear intonations that you would otherwise miss with text. With text, you would have to imagine that for yourself...

Key Takeaways With many companies scaling back DEI programs, conversations about gender equity are more important than ever. Seeing women in technical and leadership roles encourages others to enter and stay in the field. Men and women alike should use their privilege to advocate for and uplift women There's a difference between supportive and performative males. Performative males want to be "see...

Key takeaways: Diana took the "failure" of being downgraded in her PhD program as a wakeup call. Although being downgraded in her PhD program was a shock for Diana and made her extremely angry, she found the strength to finish her studies, and reinvented herself through a career in tech. Learning from failure is an important part of personal growth. Don't spend your time ruminating on the negative...

Key takeaways: Language models without context are meaningless. How Scott's son went on a smartphone detox by getting an Alcatel flip phone where he could swap SIM cards back and forth from his iPhone to his flip phone. Given enough experience with enough similar programming languages, you're able to transfer skills from one language to another, and even understand/write enough code in an unfamili...

Key Takeaways We all experienced pregnancy differently, and it's okay to not love being pregnant while being in awe of the human being created inside of you Take some time off before you have your baby, because it just gets busy after that Maternity leave varies from country. In Canada, you get 12-18 months. In Spain, you get 4 months, and in the US, you get 6 weeks. If you're lucky, you work at a...

Key takeaways: Humans are delightfully malleable! As a right-handed person being taught sports by a left-handed person, Cortney learned to play many sports left-handed! Devs who shifted into the ops space have a unique perspective because they have done it all - not just the dev work, but also the ops work. QAs bridge the gap for Dev and Ops, because they have had to make everybody communicate wit...

Key takeaways: It's important for junior folks to have a breadth of experience early in their careers to understand what they like and don't like, and to help shape what they want to do in their tech careers. Developers can't work in isolation and not care about the "big picture" of the product or service that they're working on. That's like moving to a new country and not caring about the cultura...

Key takeaways: An open source project can only succeed if it has not only contributors and maintainers, but also users of the project. Your open source project is really as good as the docs are. It can be challenging for companies to commit to and adopt open source projects because they don't know if the project will be long enough. Large organizations or startups looking to scale look for paid su...

Key takeaways: Being laid off "forced" Colleen to upskill, so that she could broaden her skill set and therefore open up more job possibilities The importance of having a good support network - Bart Farrell encouraged Colleen to get into video editing How to put out a great short format video? Be a great storyteller! Even though Colleen didn't find a job as a journalist, she realized that she coul...

Key takeaways: Being able to see things from different perspectives allows you to open your mind to see and solve problems from different angles. It also allows us to reach others better. Life-long learning is a must in tech careers, otherwise we can't improve and evolve. How early recognition and support from Duffie's mom helped him learn to read with dyslexia. Spending time in Hawaii and Califor...

Key takeaways: The secret sauce to a successful podcast is consistency, connection, and continuing to show up. Podcasting work continues long after the recording is done If you keep showing up with that same level of honesty and value, you're not just building an audience, you're building a community. It's important to lead communities with clarity and care, by not just starting conversations, but...

Key takeaways: Coping with ADHD and leveraging it as a superpower The importance of effective communication (and how that got her working on Kubernetes) New contributors can and should call out more senior contributors when they are wrong Increase in the student contributions in open source, specifically Kubernetes The importance of making tech connections with more senior folks, and how that help...

Key takeaways: Job hopping at a young age can help you better understand what you like and what you're good at Doing meaningful and impactful work keeps us engaged and not bored at work and hating our lives Burnout happens more often in tech than we care to admit, and one way to cope with it is by doing an activity that you're not good at Normalizing talking about mental health at work gives other...

Key takeaways: Non-tech concepts translate to a tech world Change is change, and how you navigate it, whether it's in a tech world or in a non-tech world is the same The importance of acknowledging peoples' feelings about change and address their concerns. The importance of explaing why the change is happening in order for others to embrace change more easily The importance of protecting your time...

About Tim Banks: Tim’s tech career spans over 25 years through various sectors. Tim’s initial journey into tech started in avionics in the US Marine Corps and then into various government contracting roles. After moving to the private sector, Tim worked both in large corporate environments and in small startups, honing his skills in systems administration, automation, architecture, and operations...

About our guest: Eromosele David Akhigbe is a Developer Advocate at StepSecurity, where he combines technical expertise with a passion for making technology more accessible and understandable. He’s also an active contributor to the OpenTelemetry community. A proud first-class graduate of Mechanical Engineering from Landmark University and a Decagon-trained software engineer, Eromosele is a strong...

About our guest: Parveen Khan is a Quality Practice Lead at CFC, passionate about ensuring that delivering high-quality products is a shared responsibility. She enjoys working with teams to improve processes, tools, and methodologies that help create better products. Parveen is also an international speaker, sharing her testing experiences to inspire others worldwide. Outside of work, she loves sp...

About our guest: Taylor Dolezal navigates the cloud native universe with a knack for puns and a keen eye for psychology. Living in the heart of LA, he blends tech innovation with mental insights, one punny cloud at a time. Avid reader, thinker, and cloud whisperer. Find our guest on: LinkedIn Bluesky Mastodon Find us on: All of our social channels are on bento.me/geekingout All of Adriana's social...

About our guest: Mariana Carvalho is a writer and career mentor. She was awarded as one of the El Mundo Boston Latino 30 Under 30 in 2022 for her efforts in Diversity and Inclusion in Brazil and Massachusetts and Mentor of the Year by WomenTech Network in 2023. In 2024, she co-authored the book “Women in Technology - How Diversity and Inclusion Will Change the Game in Organizations and Society”. S...

About our guest: Autumn Nash is a Product Manager at Microsoft specializing in Linux Security previously over four years at Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a Software Development Engineer, I currently contribute to the Language and Runtimes team, specializing in the development and release of Amazon Corretto (Java) while actively engaging in the OpenJDK community. Prior to this, Autumn's role as a No...

About our guest: Whitney is a lovable goofball and a CNCF Ambassador who enjoys understanding and using tools in the cloud native landscape. Creative and driven, Whitney recently pivoted from an art-related career to one in tech. You can catch her lightboard streaming show ⚡️ Enlightning on Tanzu. TV, and she also co-hosts the streaming show You Choose! - a 'Choose-Your-Own-Adventure'-style journ...

About our guest: Austin Emmons is an iOS Developer at Embrace Mobile, a company that works on Observability for mobile applications and beyond. Austin has been developing for Apple platforms since the early iOS days. Outside of tech, he enjoys mountain biking, rock climbing, and taking his dog, Nacho, on new adventures. Find our guest on: LinkedIn GitHub Find us on: All of our social channels are...