Software Developers Journey

#300 Celebrating a Journey of Connection, Diversity, and Discovery

09 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Three hundred episodes in, and here we stand at the precipice of a momentous pause – a time to reflect on the profound connections and conversations...

#299 John Chan is building on his learning superpower

02 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ever found yourself at the crossroads of passion and profession, wondering if your varied experiences could weave into a successful career tapestry? J...

#298 Denzil Eden experimented toward AI success

26 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever wondered how a symphony of ones and zeros harmonizes with the delicate touch of piano keys? Our latest guest, Denzil Eden, an MIT and Ha...

#297 Brit Myers from Math Major to DevOps & Leadership

19 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Meet Brit Myers, VP of Engineering at System Initiatives, who turned her late start into a celebrated career in software engineering. She swaps storie...

#296 Katherine Lewis from teaching to lifelong learning at LinkedIn

12 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever wondered what it takes to shatter the mold and passionately pursue a career in tech? Katherine Lewis joins us to share her extraordinary...

#295 Elise Carmichael has a challenges-driven career

05 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Embark on a remarkable tech odyssey with Elise Carmichael, whose formative years tinkering with a Commodore 64 paved the way to her influential tenure...

#294 Erik Gross from the Navy to seeing life as a collaborative exercise

27 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When his father cracked open the case of a Vic-20 computer, little did he know he was setting the stage for a lifelong tech odyssey. Fast forward, and...

#293 Joshua Duffney over-pivoted to success

20 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever wondered how a passion for video games might ignite a career in the high-stakes world of tech? Joshua Duffney, Microsoft's cloud ad...

#292 Bryan Clayton rolled up his sleeves to code it himself

13 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Picture this: a high schooler with a lawnmower turns his grass-cutting gig into a landscaping empire, only to sell it all and jump headfirst into the ...

#291 Mark Herschberg from ballroom dancing to managing information flow

06 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Unlock the secrets to thriving in tech leadership with the insights of Mark Herschberg, whose own leap from physics aficionado to influential CTO unve...

#290 Dave Van Beekum brings various talents together to create value

30 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Join the ranks of tech aficionados and entrepreneurial spirits as we unpack the riveting tale of Dave van Beekum, the brain behind Tweeva. Dave's...

#289 Sneha Inguva from feeling like an imposter all the way to Netflix

23 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From the clattering coins of casino games to the complex coding at Netflix, our guest Sneha Inguva has a career narrative that's as unconventiona...

#288 Steven Schkolne found his balance between art, tech and business

16 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Embark on a riveting odyssey with Steven Schkolne, a polymath whose professional course has been as diverse as it is deep. As he shares tales from his...

#287 William Adams is a Silicon Valley legend, a one man coding machine, and an ally

09 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever considered the human story behind the code that powers our daily digital experiences? I had the pleasure of sitting down with William A....

#286 Brian Childress from geospatial data to fractional CTO

02 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever stood at the crossroads of passion and professionalism, wondering if it's too late to change paths? Brian's story is a beacon ...

#284 Valarie Regas from judoka & stay-at-home mum to renowned dev advocate

19 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Get ready for an engrossing episode, as we sit down with the remarkable Valarie Regas. Known for her passion in the tech industry, Valarie’s journey...

#283 Moriel Schottlender from astronomy and physics to architecting Wikipedia

12 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine attending a summer camp at the tender age of six that sparks a lifelong love for software development. That's the journey our esteemed gu...

#282 Chris Simon from electrical engineer to CTO coach

05 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever wondered about the journey of a software developer from the early days of coding to launching successful startups? We delve into this in...

#281 Cecelia Martinez was a journalist and finance expert missing a jolt of excitation

28 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Let's set off on an awe-inspiring journey with our guest, Cecilia Martinez, who, armed with self-awareness and an appetite for growth, has carved...

#280 Aral Balkan tackling the big world with the Small Web

21 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From the moment his father handed him an IBM PC with the simplest of instructions - "Play with it, don't be afraid" - Aral Balkan'...

#279 Sophie Obomighie chooses to do hard things the hard way

14 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Can one's fascination with technology begin with a childhood story of a laptop reward? For our guest Sophie Obomighie, that was indeed the case. ...

#278 Coleen Shane is a bad-cop security-expert with a tinfoil hat

07 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Join us on an enlightening tech odyssey with Coleen Shane, a trans woman who's made her mark in the realm of information security and networking....

#277 Jodie Burchell from dinos to psychology to data science

31 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Who says a childhood dream can't shape your adult career? Dr. Jodie Burchell would undoubtedly argue it can. As a data science advocate at JetBra...

#276 Alexandra Spalato from Actress & pharmacist to business owner & dev

24 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What does it take to transition from a life in pharmacy, business, and PR to becoming a successful software developer and business owner? Alexandra Sp...

#275 Cheuk Ting Ho from playing god to living with communities

17 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when a gaming enthusiast transitions into the world of tech, data science, and community management? That's the intriguing journey w...

#274 Aleksandra Sikora is a serial language learner and open source maintainer

10 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ever wondered how a software developer's journey unfolds? Well, today, we have a story that is sure to inspire. Join us as we explore the life of...

#273 Ori Keren from passionate dev to having an impact with LinearB

03 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From humble beginnings to scaling the corporate ladder, Ori Keren's career in the tech industry is nothing short of inspiring. His passion for so...

#272 Anna Sala Mercade from graphic design to saying yes to development

26 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From graphic design to coding, Anna Sala's foray into software development was anything but conventional. Anna's initial curiosity was spark...

#271 Una Kravets joining bleeding edge design and coding at Google

19 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Una Kravets's journey in the tech world has been nothing short of captivating. From her dedication to creating and enhancing the user interface s...

#270 Tejas Kumar between hemophilia, learning and digging deeper

12 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From facing unexpected challenges in his school days to rising to the occasion as a software developer, Tejas Kumar's journey is nothing short of...

#269 Lilly Chen from high-school dropout to monk and tech-founder

05 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From humble beginnings working on a spreadsheet application to grappling with the rapid transformations in the developer industry, Lilly Chen's j...

#268 Felienne Hermans rethinking how to teach kids to program with Hedy

29 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Stepping into the tech world is one thing, but embracing it with a passion for teaching and enhancing the way technology is learned represents a calli...

#267 Steve Upton from adversarial relationships with devs to QA in high performing teams

22 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the ever-evolving realm of software development and testing, it's rare to encounter someone with as vast and varied an experience as Steve Upt...

#266 Cory O'Daniel from a suit and a tie to one startup after the other

15 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The realm of software development is as vast as it is intricate. For Cory O'Daniel, it's been a journey marked by coding and understanding t...

#265 Mirjam Aulbach accountant, dog trainer, and senior engineer

08 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Unfolding the story of a truly diverse career trajectory, Mirjam Aulbach joins us to share her captivating journey from pursuing an accounting career ...

#264 Nnenna Ndukwe driven by curiosity from a tanning salon to dev advocacy

01 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Nnenna Ndukwe is a seasoned software developer who profoundly understands the essence of community and its value in shaping one's career journey....

#263 Phil Alves maker of product-developer teams

25 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Phil Alves, founder of DevSquad and LiveStats, is a software entrepreneur driven by building impactful solutions. From his humble beginnings, coding a...

#262 Chris Zimmerman and his story of the Sucker Punch game studio

18 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Join us in this enlightening conversation with Chris Zimmerman, the co-founder of Sucker Punch Productions, the powerhouse behind globally successful ...

#261 Chelsea Troy from ~lacking intellectual firepower~ to rocking at Mozilla

11 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Chelsea Troy, an inquisitive software engineer, data scientist, and respected educator, passionately shares her story, from the impactful challenges s...

#260 Sev Huffmann between development at Microsoft and Deaf Culture

04 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sev placed the start of her journey back in China as a child passionate about maths and logic. She then described how she struggled to find her way th...

#259 Larysa Visengeriyeva from mind scripts and biases to MLOps

27 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Larysa placed the start of her journey in the country she was born in, the Soviet Union, with her discovery of those books filled with 0s and 1s that ...

#258 Lisa Crispin on a journey to define what quality means

20 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From a trainee reconversion program in the early 80s, Lisa took us on a fantastic testing journey. From discovering Agile before its time, living thro...

#257 Emmanuel Gaillot componist, psychotherapist, humanist & programmer

13 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Emmanuel placed the start his journey in the 80s in a computer club. He described how he learned GW-BASIC and became hooked. He told about his love fo...

#256 Krisztina Hirth ran away from a boring life

06 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Krisztina placed the start of her journey by writing a few lines of PHP on a website and being hooked. But then we rolled back to hear about her life ...

#255 Tomas Petricek always looking under the covers

30 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Tomas placed the start of his journey in high school, where he was part of a group of friends interested in computers. His interest in "understan...

#254 Marjorie Aubert from nurturing plants to mob programming

23 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Marjorie placed the start of her journey during her work as an agronomist when she wrote her first R lines of code. She explained how her childhood in...

#253 Mathias Verraes from music to languages and models

16 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Mathias placed the start of his journey with both hands on a TRS-80 computer and no other games to play than a compiler and the BASIC language. But fa...

#252 Diana Montalion from a bookstore to systems thinking

09 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Diana placed the start of her journey with her grandmother and maths, and having the feeling that she loved the wrong things. We discussed how she dis...

#251 Aida Manna went in circles between QA and development

02 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Aida wanted to place the start of her journey three years ago when she started being a developer at ThoughtWorks. But then she went back more than a d...

#250 Bobbi Towers learned to distrust eloquent speakers

25 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bobbi placed the start of her journey with the absence of a gaming console and the presence of a family computer instead. She spoke about exploring an...

#249 Claude Jones became the practical leadership guy

18 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Claude placed the start of his journey in the early days of the internet, learning HTML for the sake of Beanie Babies. He then described how this trig...

#248 Limor Mekaiten embraced engineering management and mentoring

11 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Limor placed the start of her journey in her early childhood, doing a lot of maths and playing with computers. As a brilliant student during high scho...

#247 Brandon Campbell-Kearns searched for his identity

04 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Brandon placed the start of his journey with his grandmother in computer expos in the 90s. But before coming to programming, his tale took a long deto...

#246 Bekah Hawrot Weigel found the power of communities

28 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bekah started with a poignant story of how the birth of her 4th child was a traumatic event that threw her into depression, PTSD, and questioning her ...

#245 Matthew McClure wanted to build tools for developers

21 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew placed the start of his journey as a kid, introduced to the world of Nerds by his brother-in-law. Fast forward a few years, Matt spent the bet...

#244 Meshi Yona is a cyber analyst who wanted to try new things

14 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Meshi placed the start her journey after high school when she did her mandatory military service in unit 8200 of the Israeli Defense Forces. She descr...

#243 Nikhil Nandagopal cares deeply about the problems we solve

07 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Nikhil placed the start of his journey in high school, where a teacher managed to light the programming flame in his heart. A few years later, Nikhil ...

#242 Dean Tribble between innovation and reinventing the wheel

28 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dean placed the start of his journey in 6th grade, reading science fiction and dreaming of building robots. From there on, in the late 70s, the virus ...

#241 Danny Preussler a GDE who likes having impact

21 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Danny placed the start of his journey in high school when his astronomy class closed, and he had to take computer science instead. We then talked abou...

#240 Chris Ferdinandi from HR professional to vanillajs-guy

14 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Chris placed the start of his journey during his first career as an HR professional. We first talked about how blogging put software development on hi...

#239 Abhimanyu Saxena from novice CS undergrad to entrepreneur

07 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Abhimanyu placed the start of his dev journey as a math undergrad who had not touched a computer before. We talked about how he enrolled in a CS curri...

#238 Jake Lumetta started and failed many times

31 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Jake placed the start of his journey in middle school, having to learn his way with computers to play video games. From there, we talked about a small...

#237 Laila Bougria is learning, growing and having fun

24 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Laila placed the start of her journey in the hands of her older brothers, who showed a deep interest in seeing her grow and discover her full potentia...

#236 Hannah Olukoye is a GDE and an Engineering manager

17 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hannah placed the start of her journey when her mum brought back a Dell PC from the US. She brushed over her studies and realized that computer scienc...

#235 Jean-Philippe LeBlanc from truck driver to engineering organisations builder

10 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Jean-Philippe pinpointed the start of his journey at age 11 when his mother placed the family computer in his bedroom. JP talked about his childhood, ...

#234 Dustin DeVries aligning career and life phases

03 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dustin placed the start of his journey somewhere between the age of 7 and 18... or 16... with a C64 or a TRS-80. Fast forward a few years, he spoke of...

#233 Oshri Cohen self taught fractional CTO

20 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Oshri placed the start of his journey at the age of 13 when he got his first computer and started being an online vigilante. Fast forward a few years,...

#232 Kevin Trethewey on his extreme programming journey

13 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Kevin started his story in the 80 & the 90s but quickly said, "Coding found me more than I found it." We then discussed his (very early)...

#231 Amy Wallhermfechtel went from hippie, teacher and historian to software engineer

06 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Amy took us on a wild ride, made of embracing crazy adventures by fear of failure. We talked about her time as a hippie in a commune, her time in acad...

#230 Melanie Sumner from psychology and the Navy to webdev and accessibility

29 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Melanie's love for web development started in 1997 (not with Dreamweaver) and followed her to 2022, where she is pushing the state of Accessibili...

#229 Bill Boulden from ideas to product as a fractional CTO

22 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Bill placed the start of their journey at three different places. In their childhood, thanks to a geeky dad. Then right after college when they starte...

#228 Jennifer Wong was not impressed by the civil engineering pace

15 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Jenn first took us back in her studies, discovering FORTRAN and MATLAB and hating every minute of it. Fast forward a few years, she found she was miss...

#227 Katerina Trajchevska founded her remote workplace

08 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Katerina placed the start of her journey in her studies when she found where she belonged. She spoke about her first job and how it set up the rest of...

#226 Jonah Andersson's successful jump from the Philippines to Sweden

01 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Jonah started by telling us about her family and how she juggled her studies and put food on the table for her three siblings. We then discussed how s...

#225 Max Howell from chemistry to homebrew and tea

25 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Max took us back to his childhood, at 6, when he got his first BBC-Micro computer. We spoke about learning BASIC and C++, using manuals and documentat...

#224 Grant Glidewell from substance abuse counselor to web dev

18 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Grant told us about his childhood and how he ended up doing an internship at 12, programming Flash animations. But what could have been a straight lin...

#223 Adi Polak continuous learner in the big-data space

11 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Adi took us on a journey of following learning opportunities. From a machine learning research project in college to learning about distributed system...

#222 Marcy Sutton photo journalist turned web dev and accessibility expert

04 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Marcy told us about her photojournalism studies and how they led her to web development. We soon bifurcated into accessibility and remained there unti...

#221 Sergey Gorbunov wanted to tackle hard problems

27 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Sergey's story started with circumventing the  BIOS passwords his Dad put on their family computer. Fast forward a few years, we dug deep into S...

#220 Tanya Janca from dev to PenTester to purple security expert

20 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Tanja's story started in a computer science family in the 70s, where Tanja fell in love with computers. She spoke about programming in high schoo...

#219 Stephanie Eckles forces herself to push projects out the door

13 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Stephanie's story is one of creativity. She told us how she got into Flash animations and ActionScript in high school. We then talked about WordP...

#218 Christina Hastenrath came to development via forensics and biotech

06 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Christina's story started and ended with observing and understanding why the world works as it does. She first told us about her biology studies,...

#217 Paul McBride from RAF soldier to self-taught web developer

30 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Paul started talking about gaming, creating websites as a kid, and following his dream of becoming a pilot in the RAF. He told us how he transitioned ...

#216 Shruti Kapoor wanted a home on the internet

23 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Shruti's story started with a push from her dad. Little did she know it would trigger such a career. She told us about her studies, moving to Can...

#215 Michael -Geepaw- Hill is a joyful street-geek

16 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Geepaw (Michael Hill) story started like no other, with the tale of his firing. He told us how he began as a computer salesman and got interested in p...

#214 Michael Chan has an unfair advantage - he is a mule!

09 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Michael's story started in a time of crisis, in 2008, when he realized that being a mediocre accountant wouldn't cut it. So he embraced web ...

#213 Wynn Netherland is a man of APIs and wrappers

02 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Wynn took us on a story made of APIs, wrappers, and interfaces. He first told us about his law studies and how HTML and building websites slowly made ...

#212 Erin Fox is an introvert who loves speaking at conferences

26 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Erin took us from tweaking her page on MySpace to her master's in journalism. She then spoke about her jobs and how she was not challenged/stimul...

#211 Christos Matskas dreamt of becoming a hacker

19 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Christos took us on an extended origin story made of movie inspiration, dreams, traveling, and a lot of learning. He told us how following the idea of...

#210 Glaucia Lemos reached her dream of working in tech

12 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Glaucia's story started when she taught computer classes to her co-students in high school. Fast forward a few years during which she graduated f...

#209 Ingrid Epure is a self defined generalist

05 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ingrid took us back to her childhood, discovering video games and a different reality. And then she took us on an adventure led by curiosity. We talke...

#208 Arpit Mohan is running on builder's high

28 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Arpit's story took us from Tamagotchis to Robotics, and then to discovering that Software development is not just for failed hardware engineers. ...

#207 Maia Grotepass embraced a world of puzzles

21 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Maia's story started with a ZX-81 in the 80s, and from there on, she was hooked. We talked about how she followed her curiosity and studied engin...

#206 Carl Alexander has a lifelong hate for coding interviews

14 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Carl took us on a wild ride, starting with discovering he could build on computers very early. We brushed over his Engineering studies and how he almo...

#205 Eve Porcello revolves around teaching

07 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Eve took us through her first career in marketing, and how she slowly joined the "fine, I'll do it myself club." She then spoke about h...

#204 Scott Ford is a software mender

31 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Legacy code, often considered a daunting challenge, holds valuable lessons in its complexity. It carries the weight of decisions made in the past, and...

#203 Jess Archer found her people in the Laravel community

24 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Jess told us about the toys she disassembled (and sometimes failed to reassemble) as a kid. She then spoke about her early dabbling with HTML, discove...

#202 Swizec Teller wanted to work on silicon valley blockbusters

16 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Swiz' told us how he discovered computers at a very early age and how the planets aligned. By the time he enrolled in a CS degree in Slovenia, he...

#201 Wajahat Karim finally came to love Android

09 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Wajahat tells us the moving and emotional story of how his mother, family, and friends shaped the person he became. Wajahat spoke abo...

#200 It's a Milestone

03 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Crazy but true, it's show number 200! I invited Patrick Leblanc to come and ask me all the questions he wanted about the show to celebrate this m...