Underserved

Our guest Sean Mack spent many sunny surf days at UCSC in the basement computer lab, but it paid off. Sean was at the dawn of the streaming age, helping bring online everything from submarine trips to game shows. Later in his career, he moved to education technology as the mission was more in line with his interests. We talk about enterprise DevOps, balancing security and capability delivery, and...

Noah Pryor realized early on that building GUIs in C was a losing battle, as was fielding support calls at 3 a.m. from drunken phone battery kiosk users. Noah pivoted into Ed Tech and we talk about how he enjoys the journey and the mission. Also discussed: Modern-day web scraping tools, dealing with DMCA requests, and what happens when you Rickroll yourself.   Age of empires:  https://www.ageofemp...

Our guest Jen McComas started out intercepting calls for help from customers and building herself a tech support position. This "build your own" theme continued in her career as Jen invented roles in subsequent technology companies, culminating with becoming a division CTO at IBM. We talk about the changing definition of work and productivity, the importance of curiosity, and how staying in your s...

Out of the mosh pits of Worcester, Jeff Gnatek found his way to a graphic design internship and coding by creating tattoo artist websites. Custom Made (think Etsy on-demand) led him to become the Head of Engineering at Butcher Box, the monthly meat-by-mail company. We talk about ribeyes as a perk, hardcore history, and empathy for fellow managers when you become one.   https://tattoonow.com/ https...

This week's guest Matt Hillery started his career translating between business users and the engineering ivory tower. This skill would come in handy again and again throughout his career as he honed in on content management as a vocation and basis for a company he later sold. We cover lessons learned from start to exit, energy-efficient housing as a hobby, and what to do when a job leaves you.   h...

This week's guest Doug Poirier started out programming on a VIC 20 but found during his career that he liked putting tools in users' hands and driving adoption better than slinging code. What good is technology anyway if you can't get people to embrace it? We talk about the ILOVEYOU virus's siren song, the virtualization of databases, and the hidden value of SharePoint in Office 365.   ILOVEYOU vi...

This week's guest Nausheen Moulana grew up fascinated by the potential of the humble electron. Her parents were wary to send her to the US after hearing some scary stories, but Nausheen made it here in time for grad school. As a MATLAB power-user, Nausheen was thrilled to work at The Mathworks for decades. We talk about when it's time to move on, the importance of financial literacy for software p...

Our guest Lisa Maxwell was encouraged to "go into computers" but initially resisted this advice. She enjoyed playing music so much she ended up with a degree in it, but found that it's hard to make a living that way. Lisa's aptitude for math led her to program for a living, as well as qualifying for MENSA. We talk about instrument petting zoos,  the tryout similarities between orchestras and sport...

JP Beaudry grew up in rural Quebec hacking together cars and studying engineering. After an eye-opening internship in Japan, he came to the US as the DotCom bubble was booming, discovering in the process that timing is everything in careers. We discuss his love/hate relationship with automobiles, changing development velocity, and his experience bringing online learning to the masses at edX.   htt...

This week's guest Vesa Tormanen grew up in Finland, first amazed by the computers running at the government pension fund where his parents worked. He hit university at the perfect time, as fellow Finn Linus Torvalds was creating Linux, a classmate was inventing ssh, and the web browser came of age. We talk about Nokia's history and Apple's future, as well as how his current company Neurala is usin...

Matt Phair did not expect to be a data scientist when he was a butcher in his younger days. But after some school and getting some experience he found technology to be a great vehicle for social mobility. Matt talks to us about Peapod Digital Labs using data science to make the shopping experience better. He also shares some suggestions for folks who aspire to become great data scientists or devel...

This week's guest Brian Haugli is a "recovering CISO" - a veteran manager of big-company Information Security who is re-packaging that skillset for the SMB market. Brian is also the host of CISOlife, a YouTube channel about struggles, tools, and solutions for CISOs. We talk about Brian's early days as a physical security tester, realistic vendor assessment, and the origin of his company SideChanne...

Season Four kicks off with our guest Jeff Krampf. Jeff started on an Apple II back in the day and worked on CU-SeeMe, the Internet's first video conference software - the great grandfather of Zoom. We talk about commercializing open-source, overcoming acquisition indigestion, and how Bose is adding real-time services to their famous speakers.   CU-SeeMe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CU-SeeMe Inte...

In our second Bonus Episode of Season 3, we cover toy collecting with Mason Fitch. Mason's collection features over 450 toys, mostly rare die-cast Shogun warriors, and other Japanese classics. We talk about how a single action figure purchase led to trips to both the West Coast and Japan in pursuit of these childhood mementoes. We also talk about how to truly appreciate the Citizen Kane of anime,...

I was among many folks in Massachusetts who grew up watching Force 5, Star Blazers, and other animated shows from Japan (aka anime). In this bonus episode of Underserved, I talk with Art Sousa, a lifelong friend with a shared nostalgia for these giant fighting robot serials. I then speak with Robert "Swifty" Swift aka Nixon, who takes us much further down the anime rabbit hole to show us how the g...

Our guest for the Season Three finale is a legend in the User Experience community. Dave Platt started developing because of a love of mainframe games. He graduated to becoming an author of books on various Microsoft programming tools before concentrating his efforts on UX. We talk UX process, evangelism, and Dave's mission to help senior citizens better leverage technology to stay connected.   ww...

Bill Scott toured the trades and the military before discovering software consulting as a career. Rather than being yet another Commodore 64 disciple, Bill's introduction to programming is a unique story, one you'll have to hear to believe. We also talk about iOT development/hardware hacking, Extreme Programming, and the push for digital transformation.   Dover Corporation https://www.dovercorpora...

Jeremy Halperin chased a dream of being in a band, bartending to make ends meet. The progression of life led him to computer science. During his ascension from individual contributor to manager to CTO, he realized that his helpdesk and bartending experience were unexpectedly useful. We talk about the drama formula, watching people hose production servers, and the coolest thing Jeremy has ever done...

Our guest Brian King is a veteran of many travels, trials, and tribulations. He has seen the technology industry progress through decades, often seeing the same situations reappear repeatedly. We talk about the difficulty of traveling and job hunting during a pandemic, some underrated European travel spots, and how the Hamilton musical is infecting the minds of parents and kids alike.   Brian on L...

Unlike most PoliSci majors, Jesse McSweeney started out his professional career chasing down rogue insurance agents who were ripping off clients. We talk about how to avoid being scammed, being a Scrum master without previously being a developer, and why it just might be worth it to fly halfway around the world to Bora Bora.    Jesse's company https://www.iqvia.com / Jesse on LinkedIn https://www....

Damien Scott is a recovering hardware guy living in a software world. Similar to previous Underserved guest Ben Szekely, Damien was recruited out of college to work for IBM. We talk about consulting company truths and myths, how to get a bank to sign off on using open source, and how to spot optimization opportunities at your company.   What is Reactive Programming?  https://developers.redhat.com/...

Our guest Paul Krasinski mentored some kids while attending Brown University, and their experience changed his perspective. We talk about playing professional basketball in Europe, the science of tracking audience engagement, and the struggle for companies to engage consumers without being creepy. Paul also discusses his plans to move online relationships into the real world, developing a collabor...

Brandon Kindred's dad redirected his excess energy and curiosity to learning programming with a teach yourself in 24 hours book. The same thing happened in school, where a chance encounter (getting caught programming) led to a spot on the robotics team. We talk about lessons learned from robotics competitions, using AI and ML to improve software testing, and where the soft powder is in Colorado.  ...

Our guest Jed Maczuba grew up reading 2600 - The Hacker Quarterly (as did your humble narrator). His curiosity about phone systems and computer systems led him to become a Mac user and an IBM employee. We talk about the most underrated skill in management, steering management to best leverage technology, the struggle to exceed the industry average for successful projects (as low as 10%!), and how...

Adria Kyne was in Seattle pursuing a Ph. D. in Chinese Archaeology when the Dot Com boom pulled her into the software industry. Search engines were at war and Microsoft was determined to win the battle with a combination of human curation and machine classification.  This led to a 20-year career bringing rigor and truth to search technology and search marketing - an industry often rife with snake...