Underserved

Meredith Barnes-Cook started running agile development teams before agile was even "a thing". Her no-nonsense, results-oriented approach to insurance software development led to a successful career at Liberty Mutual and other insurers. We talk about moving from career management to career ownership, getting work done through people not in spite of them, and folding in teams from formerly hostile c...

Season Three kicks off with our guest  Jim   Martin , CTO of Shepley Bulfinch. Famed architect H.H. Richardson gave birth to the company way back in the 1800s with the design of Trinity Church in Boston, and they have remained in practice ever since.  Jim 's job is to make sure technology is an enabler for architects, helping them better design, draw, and deliver solutions to their clients. We tal...

We are back with Part 2 of our BBQ Bonus edition of Underserved! This episode features the tips and tricks that our pitmasters have learned during years of time spent over the smoker. Learn secrets including brining, rub and sauce selection, resting, wrapping, and more. Featured are:   Dave White - Director of Software Engineering at Iron Mountain, weekend  BBQ  warrior https://www.linkedin.com/in...

Just in time for summer - A special 2-part BBQ bonus edition of Underserved! Years back I decided to get good at cooking barbecue and formed a competitive team called Tasty Bytes BBQ. Along the way, we won some contests, cooked some good food, met some great people, and learned a ton. This episode features three friends I have made in the BBQ world. We talk about how they got into BBQ and what the...

Capping off Season Two, Bharathi Balasubramanyam (B, for short) tells us about finding computer science when biology class went awry, serverless frameworks, imposter syndrome, and becoming the queen of working remotely. You won't want to miss B's around-the-world experience with Remote Year, where she traveled to 23 different countries in one year all while keeping the same job! Lifescore Labs - h...

Our guest PK Shiu was building remote development teams long before it was fashionable (or the only way!) to do so. We cover the organizational and people challenges of making remote work, talk a bit about audio production, and about getting kids interested in coding using the Scratch programming language from MIT.   https://emoneyadvisor.com/ https://www.pkshiu.com/ https://scratch.mit.edu/ https...

Our guest Sara Morgan explains how a sick day led to a love of coding and how questions like, "Would you rather plan a party or take a doorknob apart?" can help point you towards a career. Sara also talks about how your network enables more industry portability than your expertise can, and how important attitude and perspective can be in shaping your future. We also talk about applying technology...

Matt Hodges (fellow member of the Commodore Army) applied lots of grit and determination to graduate with a CS degree at a time when 93% were quitting the major. Like our previous guest John Newman, Matt got to view development from a lot of different angles before becoming part of the organization (QA, DBA, Ops, etc). We talk about how being thankful and humble can be a really important part of y...

Khan Klatt has been involved in education technology for the last 7 years, on both the for-profit and non-profit sides of the industry. Khan talks about how some things change and some stay the same between those two worlds, how he got his start in software, the front-end focus in ed tech, and how he applies "otaku" to his hobby of building light displays.   CFC's Mission:  https://www.cfchildren....

Chris Stasonis, VP of Engineering at Lola.com talks about the trajectory of an engineering career, and how to decide at critical junctures - "Stay or leave a company? Stay technical or consider management? How do I become a good (not average) manager?" Chris also (drum roll) keeps chickens and has automated some of the coop life. We talk a bit about the prosumer-ization of flying private airplanes...

If your team grows 4x in a year it can be hard to keep up! Ken Pickering talks about bracing for the influx, living with a Scala architecture, and working in consumer-facing companies.  Hear how boxing competitively provides the necessary stress relief for the software industry (link below to sponsor Ken in this year's Haymakers for Hope charity tournament!) Hopper:  https://www.hopper.com/  (and...

Our guest Ben Szekely talks about pioneering semantic technologies at CSI for over a decade. As an SVP and Head of Field Operations, Ben has been applying graph technology to the human data model and other tough problems. In his spare time, he is also an avid skier (think jumping out of a perfectly good helicopter onto a mountain in Alaska) and kiteboarder. Hear about how the highest kiteboard jum...

Vikas Singhvi went from the ultimate for-profit industry (financial services software) to a running IT for a non-profit. Hear his lessons learned, along with how to level up using online resources, and what DevSecOps is. We talk about continuous compliance and how to reconcile Agile methodologies with regulated industries. We also cover trying to retain culture and traditions from the old country...

Our guest in Episode 015 is John Newman, Senior Software Engineer (Java/Spring/Oracle). After growing up on a steady diet of BBSes, John went from the physical therapy program to the programming program. After his start in Ops he moved to Dev and has been coding ever since. John talks about developing for the fun of it, his early days on the dial-up bulletin board systems in Boston, and how coachi...

In Episode 014 I talk to Tim Callaghan, VP of Technology at Crunchtime. Tim has some great stories from a previous job where they embraced open source, extended it, and competed with it on occasion. His story about attending a presentation that (surprise!) ended up being about his benchmarking code at a worldwide MongoDB conference is a must-listen! We also talk about inspiring the next generation...

We kick off Season Two with Steve Kaufer, CEO of TripAdvisor, Inc. Steve made the long trek across the highway in Needham to talk to me about what initially excited him about computers, what he learned at each stage in TripAdvisor's growth, and what he would go back and tell himself if he had a time machine. We also talk about fencing, the TripAdvisor Charitable Foundation, and the anti-bureaucrac...

It's almost time for the business world to hibernate for a couple of weeks, and Underserved is shipping some yuletide bits to enjoy during the break! We have taken some cuts we did not have room for in our regular episodes and packaged them here. This bonus episode is the end of Season One of Underserved. Season two is coming in early 2020, see you then! Show notes: Buoyancy - Forbes article https...

How many people started their data science career at 16 years old? Then took a sabbatical to play with famous jazz musicians? And subsequently bootstrapped the US presence for a Norwegian data science firm? I know one! His name is Russ Wilcox. On this week's Underserved Russel explains how a Tesla sees the world (and how it can be fooled), how to teach an old AI new tricks, and we discuss the ethi...

Arvind Singh https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaroh/   is a software developer that specializes in security and identity management. He has been a proponent of open source software for over two decades, particularly BSD derivatives of Unix. We talk about how open source is the unsung hero of the Internet, the proliferation of open source licensing models, coming up from the west coast of India to the E...

Brian Adams got into QA by way of customer service, and has developed his testing skills, user empathy, and teamwork to become a top professional. We talk about best practices for performing quality assurance, QA in an agile lifecycle, and making the most out of distributed teams. Brian is also a veteran of multiple marathons (the running kind) so we talk about his rituals and routines.   The comb...

I have known Mark Carbrey for over 20 years, from my first job in the software development industry. One fateful day I asked to audit a class he was teaching and our paths have been intertwined ever since. We have worked together, helped one another with projects, and both learned a lot along the way. Mark has worked leading software development teams and organizations up to the CTO/CIO level, has...

Robert "Swifty" Swift (LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-swift-2094774/ ) A.K.A "Nixon" has been a fixture of the Boston geek community for decades. An engineer turned recruiter by day, in his free time Robert has been to most cons, gaming gatherings, LARPs, and D&D sessions in the 617. Robert serves up his top phone, Skype, and in-person interview tips and then shares his off-the-clock...

Special News Episode - There is a scandal in the Twitch Streaming/Poker world this week. Our guest to help us break down and analyze the news is Mike Breault. You might remember Mike from Episode 007 of Underserved.  We go into deep technical detail on the live-streaming poker cheating scandal at the Stones Gambling Hall involving a man named Mike Postle.  We talk about how the story broke, the In...

This week's guest is my friend of nearly 20 years, Mike Breault. Mike on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelkbreault/  Mike and I became fast friends back at Monster.com  and have worked together, traveled together, and had a lot of fun times ever since. Mike always knew he wanted to be a software developer, starting in 1976 sending emails from his kitchen with his dad. Yes, 1976. We tal...

This week I talk to my wife Tricia and daughter Caroline to get two different perspectives on kids using social media. If you are a parent and don't know what a Finsta is, or what TikTok/VSCO are, or how monitoring SnapChat / social media works, this is the podcast for you! Social media with kids is a catch 22 - if they are not on it they miss out on a lot of their peer socialization, if they are...