The Work Item - Real Talk on Tech's Toughest Career Choices

You've probably heard of the many types of PM - project managers, product managers, and even program managers. But did you also know that there is a PMM - product marketing manager? I wasn't quite sure what the responsibilities of one would be, so I reached out to Isaac Levin - Principal Product Marketing Manager at Elastic, and asked him to talk about his work.

Developer Advocacy is a relatively new field, but when it comes to knowing how to navigate it, Brian Douglas' knowledge is second to none. As Director of Developer Advocacy at GitHub, he is at the forefront of a lot of the developer engagement efforts - from understanding the pain points of those that use GitHub, to advocating for new initiatives and programs. I sit down with Brian to learn more a...

Whether you are new in the tech industry or are a veteran developer, chances are that you've used a product that Jeff Atwood worked on. I'm talking about Stack Overflow and Discourse, of course. When it comes to building communities and fostering good conversations, Jeff took an unusual position - steer the conversation towards finding the best in people, argue ideas and not people, and ultimately...

Despite what your LinkedIn feed might tell you, a career in FAANG is not the only way to grow in tech. Or even get started in tech, for that matter. There are many variables in play that can help you determine what career track to pursue, but none more important than the answer to your own “Why?” That's why today I am talking to Chloe Shih, a product manager and content creator, about her journey...

Management, and especially engineering management, is way more than just telling others what to build. Talking to Amro Mousa, an engineering manager at Twitter, it becomes evident that a key ingredient to a good team is empathy. In this episode, I learn from him on what the best way is to lead with empathy in a team, and how one should think about the management track as a potential avenue in thei...

In the sea of shiny technology objects (I am talking frameworks, tools, libraries, and many others), Dan Shaw has been pretty opinionated - focus on delivering value to the customer first, and tools second. In this episode, I sit down with Dan to learn more about this approach, and how he applied it in his career and work with the Node.js community - after all, he's known as the Godfather of Node....

From the early days - when we are growing up, to when we go to school, we tend to be involved in a lot of activities. From sports, to music, painting, coding classes. But as we grow up, we tend to specialize. One is a product manager, or a Python programmer, or even a doctor. According to my good friend Salman Ansari, this is where we have an opportunity to break out of the typical norms and becom...

Last time I chatted with Jack, I had pages of questions I still wanted to ask - with this episode, I attempt to address that backlog. And the more I talked to Jack, the more I realized that the theme of his entire career is - “be a builder.” As someone who started and worked at many startups, he sure knows first-hand how to do that well and in a way that is sustainable. Today, we talk about his wo...

There is a bit of a chasm between requirements for building open source projects and those that are designed to be closed. Not surprisingly, it also requires a different set of skills altogether if you want to do it right. To learn more about this, I sat down with Jenn Creighton, Senior Staff Open Source Engineer at Apollo GraphQL. Jenn has been building scalable web experiences at companies such...

I often hear about folks moving from engineering to product management and back. Others make the transition from marketing and sales to product management. In a first for this show, today I talk to Janine Co, a product manager who recently joined the Microsoft Teams team, who also happened to switch from following a pre-med path to one in product. What things did she consider when making the switc...

There are thousands of blog posts, tutorials, and videos that tell you what engineering careers are about, how you should be thinking about your dream job, and promotion trajectory. In this sea of content, it's often hard to separate the common from the edge case. In this episode, I talk to Laurie Barth, a renowned technologist and Senior Software Engineer at Netflix, about the myths we encounter...

What lessons can you take away from a music degree and bring into engineering management? How do engineers work with folks in the newsroom at one of the biggest news organization on the planet? Nicole Tibaldi, Senior Engineering Manager at The New York Times (yes, that The New York Times) is here to tell us more about these things, her work, career, and how to foster a culture where your team feel...

Setting your sights high for a career in engineering management might be an appealing endeavor, but it also means that you will be making a lot of assumptions about future roles without really knowing what those roles are truly about. In this episode, I sit down with Camille Fournier - a veteran CTO, speaker, and entrepreneur, to learn more about ways to map out the path to becoming a CTO (or not)...

Talking to Chad Fowler, you quickly realize what true leadership means. Chad has extensive experience leading large technical organizations such as LivingSocial and 6Wunderkinder, being a venture partner at BlueYard Capital, and now - helping make the Internet safer as Chief Product Officer at DEVCON. Did I mention that Chad also is a musician? In this episode, I talk to Chad about his work, lesso...

Folks often forget that engineering is inherently a very creative process. Monica Dinculescu found her own niche where she can build impactful things and do it in some of the most unusual ways possible. An excellent engineer, creative thinker, and fellow Eastern European by origin, Monica joins me today to talk about the things she learned as she figured out her career path.

From Pascal, to writing image processing code, if there is one word you absolutely can't use to describe Ben Sandofsky‘s career, it would be “uneventful.” He was one of the first mobile engineers at Twitter, had a stint helping build Periscope, and ultimately ventured into unexplored territory to finish a photo app he always wanted, that later became Halide. In this episode, I sit down with Ben to...

Rebecca Murphey tried a lot of things on her way to becoming an engineering manager at Stripe - from journalism to advertisement, and even learning how to fly. In this episode, I sit down with Rebecca to learn more about her path, what were the important lessons learned in her non-tech career that helped her be an efficient engineering leader, and what aspiring engineering managers can start doing...

There is a certain air of mystery around careers in Human Resources (HR), and David Daniels, who is a veteran HR leader in tech, is here to bring some clarity about the work. David has extensive experience being in HR at Microsoft, Pinterest, and now - Snapchat. He shares his insights about going from education to leadership in some of the most prominent tech companies, fighting against the fixed...

There is no single, well-defined path to becoming a product manager. There are more questions than answers when it comes to figuring out which skills are necessary, what books or blog posts to read, or which courses to take. Dan Olsen, the author of The Lean Product Playbook, former product leader at Intuit, Friendster, Box, and the US Navy (he worked on submarine design) shares with us some insig...

Jack Zerby is not your typical designer. His experience producing music, working at Pentagram and Frog, building startups, pitching to Gary Vee, and now - building tools for creators at Gumroad, puts him square in the middle of a very uncommon career path. In this episode, I chat with Jack to learn more about what motivated him to grow his career, how to break into design, how to make the transiti...

Jess Lee is the co-founder of dev.to - a developer community that emphasizes the importance of a friendly approach to guiding folks through the tumultuous waters of software development. In this episode, we chat about Jess' career, the journey to founding Forem - the open-source platform powering large communities, and her experience building successful distributed teams.

Charlie Kindel is a tech industry veteran who helped bootstrap, grow, and manage teams that built home servers, phones, voice assistants, home automation software, and hopefully soon - space technologies. In this episode, we dive a bit deeper into Charlie's approach to product ideation and design, discuss the importance of having a principled organization, and ask questions about his most recent a...

Paige Bailey is one of the few Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) experts who is able to convey complex technical topics in an easy-to-understand and relatable language. Her Twitter feed is full of AI/ML paper recommendations, open source projects, and insights about the ever-evolving tech space. What was her journey like to a career in a very complex domain? What does it mean...

Mayuko Inoue made a bold step by defying the stereotypical career path of a software engineer, and became a full-time content creator. Her videos on YouTube answer some of the more salient questions that are almost never covered in your typical coding tutorials and overviews. What was behind this career decision and what were the lessons learned? How do you build a healthy community, and develop a...

Our first episode of the year is with the one and only Scott Hanselman. We tried to come up with a catchy title, but the entire episode could be summarized in one word - intentionality. We discuss Scott's foray into TikTok, building your own definition of success, and fostering strong relationships with people around you.