The Women in Tech Show: A Technical Podcast

Open Source Software has characteristics that affect how marketing is conducted for it. Kiersten Gaffney, VP of Marketing at Buoyant explained what Open Source Software is and how it can be marketed. We talked about the objectives of a marketing campaign, the role of the open source community and software tutorials. Kiersten also explained metrics of success for open source projects.

Kubernetes is one of the main open source systems used for cloud computing. Janet Kuo, Software Engineer at Google explained various Kubernetes patterns. We talked about stateless, stateful, daemons and batch. Janet also explained the declarative nature of the Kubernetes API and examples of its application.

Migrating legacy applications to modern technologies in the cloud computing space can be done in different stages. Idit Levine, Founder and CEO of Solo described how legacy applications can leverage a Hybrid Architecture when migrating to the cloud. We talked about migrating a monolithic application to other architectures like microservices and serverless. Idit also explained software tools that c...

Communities are an important component of open source software. Karen Chu, Community Manager at Microsoft, talked about communities in the cloud computing space. Karen explained different ways to manage and nurture a community. We talked about marketing, workshops and conferences. Karen is one of the creators of “The Illustratated Children’s Guide to Kubernetes” which we also talked about.

Many technologies that we use today are the product of decades of research. Christine Peterson, Co-founder of the Foresight Institute and CEO at a Stealth company is researching technologies that are of fundamental importance to the human future. One of them is nanotechnology. Christine explained what nanotechnology is and challenges it can tackle in renewable energy, improving health and longevit...

Podcasts are a way to scale mentorship. Through thoughtful conversations, a podcast listener can learn helpful things. Colleen O’Brien, Executive Communications Manager at Microsoft, and Sonia Dara, Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft talked about how they’re scaling mentorship through the Women in Business and Technology podcast. Colleen and Sonia gave an overview of the highlights of running...

When you work at a startup, it can expose you to work on different areas in a short amount of time. Jessica Lachs, Head of Analytics at DoorDash leverages data science to improve the business. We talked about what data science is, and examples of how it is used at DoorDash. Jessica also explained what it involved to launch the business in other cities.

Building robots that can interact with the physical world involves a team of scientists, engineers, academics, and business operators. Sara Wojciechowski, Mechanical Design Engineer at Kindred explains the types of problems that robots can tackle and current limitations. We talked about the components of Mechanical Design and how it’s applied in robotics. Sara explained how ideas are prototyped an...

Behind some of the software products that we use is a team of researchers. Research in the software industry plays an important role in the development of new products. From coming up with ideas to evaluating existing approaches, researchers work with other teams within an organization to provide insights and direction. Beth Toland, Head of Experience Research at Asana, explained the role of resea...

Growth and adoption of software involves gathering metrics, evaluating them, and deciding among different strategies. Katie Guzman, Product Manager Lead at Asana explained different strategies in growth and adoption of software. We talked about metrics that can be used to evaluate this and examples of how Asana leverages that information. Katie also explained software monetization strategies and f...

Getting work experience while studying in school has become more accessible, especially in the software industry. Safia Abdalla, Open Source Maintainer on the nteract project talked about her experience as an independent consultant while she was in college. We also talked about Safia’s contributions to open source software since she was a first year college student. At the end we explored topics a...

Taking an idea into a product involves steps like evaluation, prototyping and commercialization. Maggie Ng, Vice President at Xinova explained the process of developing products. We talked about projects from different industries and the role of intellectual property. Maggie also talked about project trends from around the world.

Product Marketing in technology varies depending on the product and the audience. In some cases it involves deep technical knowledge and understanding how developers work. Karri Alexion-Tiernan, VP of Product Marketing at Skytap, explained what product marketing consists of. We talked about effective ways of engaging with enterprise customers and developers. Karri also talked about modernizing and...

The way we develop software is constantly changing. Throughout the decades we see different processes and practices emerge in how we write software. Laura Butler, Vice President and Technical Fellow at Microsoft talked about her time working on Windows 95 and what it was like to write software in the 90s. We talked about debugging, performance, and becoming a better programmer. Laura also talked a...

Developer relations is a core component of platforms that allow developers to publish applications or games. Grace Francisco, VP of Developer Relations at Roblox, explained what developer relations is and different ways of interacting with creators. Roblox is the world's largest social platform for play. We talked about how to gather feedback from the community and the different stages of the deve...

Small electronic components enable us to have powerful portable devices. Isabel Yang, Chief Technology Officer at Advanced Energy Industries explained what microelectronics is. Isabel has over 20 years of industry experience in semiconductor research. We talked about what transistors are, their characteristics and their role in electronics. Prior to being CTO at Advanced Energy Industries, Isabel...

Advancements in the cloud computing space have democratized how software developers manage their product infrastructure. With this, they can focus more on the core components of their product instead. Risha Mars, Software Engineer at Buoyant and Eliza Weisman, Systems Software Engineer at Buoyant explained various components that improve how an infrastructure is developed and maintained. We discus...

Learning to code opens a lot of opportunities. Even if you decide that you don’t want to code for a living, it helps you understand how software is made and the technical implications of it across different industries. Alex Sejdinaj, Founder of South Bend Code School, explained why she decided to start teaching kids how to code. We talked about the components of an immersive curriculum and the thi...

Technology can be used to improve slow and manual processes. Ritu Vincent, Engineering Manager at Checkr, explained the bottlenecks of the background checks process and how it’s being improved. Ritu explained how a REST API and machine learning are speeding up the process of getting a background check, and reducing the unconscious bias that is present in the traditional workflow of background chec...

Many industries are using technologies to improve their processes and to provide better services to people. Natalie Gray, Co-founder and Lead of Product Design at Cover, explained the bottlenecks in the insurance process and how technology can simplify it. We talked about a mobile-first solution that addresses these problems. Natalie talked about the product design process and how ideas can be eva...

Security threats are everywhere. To tackle these threats we can gather and analyze information about potential attacks. Barbara Kay, Senior Director of Security Product at ExtraHop, explained internal and external threats that systems can be exposed to. We talked about different types of threats and how these can be identified using machine learning. Barbara also explained the product development...

Creating and deploying applications to the cloud has gotten a lot easier. With advancements in containers and networking capabilities organizations can adopt a hybrid cloud approach. Lakshmi Sharma, Director of Product Management and Networking at Google explained what the hybrid cloud and the role of containers in cloud computing. We also talked about Ingress, a tool on Google Cloud that makes co...

Maureen Zappala, former Engineer at NASA explained what it meant to conduct jet propulsion research at the NASA Lewis Research Center, now known as the NASA Glenn Research Center. We talked about the different experiments that could be conducted there. Maureen also explained the ways in which she experienced Impostor Syndrome and what this consists of. We talked about examples of symptoms and stra...

We are surrounded by a lot of devices. These devices can be connected to other devices forming the Internet of Things. Maria Gorlatova, Assistant Professor at Duke University Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering explains what the Internet of Things consists of. Maria also talked about what Edge computing is, and how we can bring intelligence from the cloud to devices that...

Blockchain technology is being used in different industries. NASA is using it to improve their communications systems. The finance industry is exploring it in how they do transactions. Jin Wei-Kocsis, Assistant Professor in Electrical & Computer Engineering at University of Akron explains what blockchain technology is. We talked about the components of blockchain and examples of applications u...