Software Developers Journey

#102 Jen Luker is a relentless accessibility advocate

26 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Jen took us to the beginning of her STEM journey, with the goal to walk the footsteps of Ayanna Howard, but life wanted otherwise. Nevertheless, she f...

#101 Jeff Haynie on thinking under pressure, contracting and entrepreneurship

19 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Jeff first told us how he went from coding games for fun, to selling software as a teenager, to solving problems on the deck of an aircraft carrier. W...

#100 Tim Bourguignon is a guest on his own show

12 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We first started talking about how I dabbled into the world of computers, mostly through gaming and tinkering. We then talked about my studdies and my...

#99 Anjana Vakil mastered her debilitating curiosity

05 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Anjana started by clarifying what Computational Linguistics is, and the research she did in this field. We then talked about idiomatic programming and...

#98 Doug Arcuri is curious & learning, always!

28 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Doug's first told us how discovering computers triggered his curiosity. He explained how he created Mods for Half-Life and realized his calling t...

#97 Joe Drumgoole's life as a great software developer NPC

21 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Joe fist took us through the first few forming years of his career. From developing UNIX workstations and producing fantastic-but-useless software, to...

#96 Dylan Beattie THE Rockstar Programmer

14 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Dylan first told us about his childhood in Zimbabwe and his first computers. Then we spoke about his further discoveries in the UK. We continued talki...

#95 Lara Martin learned her way from biologist to Flutter GDE

07 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Lara first took us through her start as a biologist... or was it statistician? She then took us through her learning to code on her own, and finding a...

#94 Michael Kennedy almost learned Python in the 90s

31 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Michael started by telling us about his Math studies, and how the coding-tool finally took precedence over it. We talked about his role in a (cool) UX...

#93 Guilherme Rambo found his joy in coding for Mac/iOS

24 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Guilherme first came to coding via Web-Development. But after a while, he lost interest and was almost ready to change career and stop coding. That&ap...

#92 Tracy Lee is having fun all the way

17 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Tracy took us all the way back to the creation of her first startup as a "non-technical founder". She told us about her dabbling with techno...

#91 Harald Reingruber is embarking on a coding tour

10 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Harald first told us how he came to graphics programming: curiosity. We then talked about his first internships and jobs in the healthcare industry. W...

#90 Khaled Souf learned the value of creating value

03 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Khaled surprisingly started by telling us how he loved machines, but not code... until he discovered that he could create value for customers. We then...

#89 Hadelin de Ponteves is a data scientist and an entrepreneur

25 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Hadelin first spoke about his entrepreneurship mindset. This was already in his mind early on, and never left him. We spoke about his interest for mat...

#88 Lydia Hallie is a web dev following her passion

18 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Lydia first took us through her discovery of JavaScript via the theming of Tumblr page. She then told us about how she decided not to go to university...

#87 Denise Gosnell is working at the bleeding edge of data science

11 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Denise's choice for STEM and maths was a no brainer, but the rest of the journey wasn't as clear. There were many forks along the way. Denis...

#86 Jamison Dance implores you to be nice to other people

04 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Jamison quickly took us through his studies, how he zoomed in on computer sciences... not without a few detours beforehand. We talked about his part t...

#85 Shedrack Akintayo a web developer from Nigeria

28 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Shedrack first took us through his discovery of Python coding and his engineering studies. We talked about how his first mentor opened his eyes on the...

#84 Molly Struve, an aerospace engineer trading in SRE

21 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Molly first brushed over her unusual path to dev... via aerospace engineering and options trading. Then we focused on her journey as a Ruby developer ...

#83 Reuven Lerner had his career all planned out?

14 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Reuven took us on a rollercoaster, from his discovery of programming, his first classes and tryouts, to his life changing discovery on the Web while a...

#82 Pariss -Athena- Chandler learns jumping in with both feet first

07 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Pariss started off on a scare, when she learned that her non technical skills might be threatened in the future. She then decided to learn how to code...

Season 2 Finale

31 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This show marks the end of season 2. I make a little retrospective of the year and a few announcements. The next guest interview will be back next wee...

#81 Richard Campbell is simply adding value

24 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Richard took us from the first time he burned his fingers with a soldering iron, all the way to the book "The History of .NET" he is current...

#80 Joseph Young, code & music composer and conductor

17 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Joseph started by taking us all the way back to 3rd grade, when he discovered QuickBasic and the power of computers. We then discussed his musical bac...

#79 Ted Young & Java, a love story?

10 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ted first took us to his very first lines of code, on a TRS-80, his first programs in Applesoft Basic and slowly took us all the way to his first comm...

#78 Bubunyo Nyavor is the mentor he never had

03 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Bubu first took us through his discovery of computers and how he decided to study computer sciences. He quickly veered off and told us about his first...

#77 Dave Smith swings the pendulum

26 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Dave first told us where the idea for the Soft Skills Engineering Podcast first came from. Then he took us back to when he started programming, with t...

#76 Wes Bos was born a teacher

19 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Wes first came in contact with CSS tweaking his MySpace page... and got hooked. He first told us how he scratched his entrepreneurs itch, doing some s...

#75 David Hirschfeld had a long, eventful career (sofar)

12 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

David first told us about his sales background and why he decided to learn the dev stack he was selling himself. He told us about Model Driven Develop...

#74 Kemdi Ebi is thriving on products

05 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Kemdi started by telling us his first experience with Salesforce and how he then realized that he could solve problems this way. Fast forward a few ye...

#73 Kai König about simplicity and aesthetics

29 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Kai started by describing his first steps into HTML, manually scratching his own itch. He then described his troubled studies and how he ended up in a...

#72 Katrina Owen, one little piece at a time

22 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Katrina first told us about her rocky start that had nothing to do with science or programming. She described the detours she took and how she finally...

#How to help me grow DevJourney?

20 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Do you want to help me grow the DevJourney podcast?Vote for "Software Developer's Journey" for the "Discover Pod Awards" unti...

#71 Irwin Williams found his perfect spot

15 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Irwin first spoke about his studies and how he volunteered to write code everyday. He went over the ups and downs and told us how he joined Teleios. W...

#70 Jeeva Nadarajah's life of serendipity

08 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Jeeva took us full circle. She started telling us about her first interest in computer science -because it sounded easy- and then really falling in lo...

#69 Aisha Blake's DevJourney should be a musical

30 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Aisha first walked us through the Musical-Conference she is putting up. Then we scrolled back to the place software entered her life. We then talked a...

#68 Greg Koberger finally built his one dream

24 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Greg first told us about his need for creating things, building things and expressing himself through products. We then talked about his studdies and ...

#67 Kapunahele Wong's kindness as a practice

17 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Kapunahele talked about her going back and forth between technical studies and non-technical activities, between dancing, grammar of the roman languag...

#66 Rob Kendal is not afraid to try

10 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Rob first told us about his first jobs on the hardware side of IT and described how he slowly transitioned into software. Fast forward a few years, he...

#65 Woody Zuill brings people together who should be working together

03 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Woody took us all the way back to the 70s, when he started learning programming as a side activity. He described how he learned to scratch his own itc...

#64 Guillermo Rauch learned with communities

27 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Guillermo first took us through his very early steps in the software world... as a child. He then explained how he discovered he could make a living o...

#63 Stephanie Hurlburt encourages us to be social techies

20 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Stephanie first told us about the detours that led her from math, art and political science to computer science. We then discussed her first jobs and ...

#62 How Llewellyn Falco brought the joy of programming back in his life

13 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Llevellyn took us way back to the point where he discovered his first computer and FORTRAN. We brushed over his studies and drifted toward MobProgramm...

#61 Elissa Shevinsky felt into Security

06 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Elissa first spoke about her political sciences, activism background and then her love for IT. We then discussed getting into Security, Mentoring, peo...

#60 Trisha Gee owns her career

30 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Trisha took us from her first years at school, being an outsider, all the way to taking advantage of it as a developer advocate for JetBrains. During ...

#59 Julie Moronuki a linguist turned Haskell expert

23 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Julie first told us how she met Christopher Allen, the co-author of her Book "Haskell programming from first principles", why learning in ge...

#58 Robby Russell succeeds being selfless

15 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Robby first told us how the selfless scratching of his own itch lead to the success of his tool "Oh my Zsh". We then backtracked to his earl...

#57 Adam Barr roots for more humility

09 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Adam took us through his journey at Microsoft. From the first (failed) interviews, to his long career writing code, helping teams and teaching develop...

#56 Magnus Stahre is not supposed to know it all, and neither are we!

02 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Magnus started by telling us the story of his first steps, tinkering on a Commodore64 devising on what attracted him toward computers in the first pla...

#55 Yehuda Katz on how framework design influences communities

25 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

After brushing over his "false starts" at being a developer, Yehuda slowly took us into a deep, deep dive. We talked about framework design,...

#54 Dave Rael was chosen by the .NET technology stack, not the other way around

18 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Dave's first professional love was for teaching. He developed it while studying physics at university. But as the DotCom boom went by, he jumped ...

#53 Brian Pontarelli thinks like a customer

10 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Brian first told us about his very first Apple E computer and his journey up to college when he learned electrical engineering before switching major ...

#52 Charity Majors encourages us to strive, going back and forth between roles

03 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Charity first took us through the pain of being a CEO and explained us why she chose to focus on tech again after a while. She then explained how she ...

#51 Ben Orenstein advises us not to worry too much

27 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ben Orenstein first talked about being able to create products. We spoke about Ben's early programs and his attempt at studying in college. We th...

#50 Saron Yitbarek, founder of CodeNewbie, celebrates the power of code and communities

21 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Saron took us from the early years of career as a journalist, to her first coding steps. She explained us in details how her bootcamp and apprenticesh...

#49 Ali Spittel works at the crossroads of development, teaching and communities

13 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ali started by telling us how she got into software development, almost by accident, how she became an assistant professor and how she slowly but sure...

#48 Shawn Wildermuth encourages us to make decisions no matter what

06 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Shawn took us through the early days of his career and quicky pivoted toward his first mentor "Ron". He told us how Ron managed to infect hi...

#47 Erik St. Martin is comfortable with the struggle

29 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Together we talked about Erik's first hacking feats and how he got his first job in the IT world. We then brushed over his learnings at Disney an...

#46 Barry Dorrans is a curmudgeon telling us it is OK to be wrong

22 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

"Curmudgeon" (noun): a bad-tempered person, especially an old one.Barry first told us about his very first encounter with a computer... hook...

#45 April Wensel encourages us to get in touch with our core values

08 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

April is the founder of Compassionate Coding, a conscious business that helps technical teams cultivate sustainable, human-­centered software develop...

#44 Jeremy Likness became a developer through the backdoor and loved it

26 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Jeremy Likness is a Cloud Developer Advocate for Azure at Microsoft. Jeremy has spent two decades building enterprise software with a focus on line of...

#43 Patrick Kua on being a consultant, a tech lead, a CTO and helping people grow

12 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Patrick is the CTO of the mobile bank N26, where he is building the engineering group that will change modern retail banking for people like you and m...

#42 Charlie Gerard is learning by building (MANY) projects on the side

26 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Charlie Gerard is a software developer at ThoughtWorks in Sydney. She is passionate about creative coding and building interactive prototypes mixing s...

#41 Simon Harrer on strong opinions loosely held

12 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Simon Harrer is a senior consultant at INNOQ. In his daily business, he fights for simple solutions with domain-driven design, fitting architectur...

#40 Ignacio Anaya on discovering your valuable skills

29 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ignacio Anaya is a Full Stack Developer at the company BloqInc, a Tech Trainer and a Speaker from Argentina. He's Passionate about code, teaching...

#39 Harry Roberts and his journey toward freelancing

15 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Harry Roberts is an award-winning Consultant Performance Engineer from the UK. With a client list ranging from the United Nations to Google, the BBC t...

#38 Ryan Latta from one extreme to the next

01 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ryan Latta has been building software and teams for nearly 10 years now. He currently works as an agile coach and scrum master with a mission of creat...

#37.5 Special Episode on what we learned in 2018

25 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Listen to (almost) all the 2018 guests answer the same question: what is the most important thing you learned in 2018?In order of appearance:Emily Bac...

#37 Darren Hoehna, "That Programming Guy", on getting experience no matter what!

18 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Darren is a software developer, currently working for Microsoft, and the founder of the "That Programming Guy" company through which he does...

#36 Rob Allen on persuasion instead of authority

04 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Rob Allen is a software consultant and developer with many years experience and writes code in PHP, Swift and other interesting languages. He leads Sl...

#35 Emily Bache on maximizing career for family, hobbies and making a difference in the world

20 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Emily is a Technical Agile Coach and a very experienced one. In her career, she has embodied pretty much all the positions our industry has to offer a...

#34 Richard Rodger on software development as a resource allocation problem

04 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Richard Rodger was co-founder and CEO of his previous company, nearForm, where he helped take the company from scratch to an annual turnover of €17 ...

#33 Markus Harrer on being open for new things

21 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Markus Harrer has developped an expertise in software analytics, "software restoration" and clean code. As a freelance trainer and consultan...

#32 Katharine Jarmul on being driven & focused on what you can do

08 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Katharine Jarmul is co-founder of KIProtect, a data security and privacy company for data science workflows in Berlin. She's been using Python si...

#31 Mario Rogic on absorbing and communicating as much as you can

24 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode I talk to Mario Rogic. Mario is a technology aficionado with a particular love for the web. Among many other things, Mario believes te...

#30 Adrian Bolboaca on choosing the appropriate tool for the job at hand

09 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode I talk to Adrian Bolboaca. Adrian is a programmer, trainer and a coach. His passion is helping teams produce high quality software. Ad...

#29 Steven Schwenke on soft skills that one cannot "simply download"

26 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I talk with Steven Schwenke. Steven is a software craftsman, mentor and mentee aus Braunschweig in Germany. Together we discussed CS-...

#28 Arnaud Porterie on putting the right people together in the right context to see the right things happen

12 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode I talked to Arnaud Porterie. Arnaud is VP of Engineering at Vente Privée, a french eCommerce Business. Previously, he managed the ope...

#27 Jessica Kerr on public speaking, networking and the problems of mentoring

29 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Jessica's adventures include public speaking, advocating for functional programming and systems thinking at software conferences around the world...

#26 Anne Cahalan on moving out of Junior-Developerness

15 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I interviewed Anne Cahalan. Anne is an iOS developer at Detroit Labs, where she is constantly delighted by the niftiness of Swift. An...

#25 Sia Ghassemi on segways that lead exactly where you needed to be

05 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I talk to Siavash "Sia" Ghassemi, software achitect and developer. He is a Microsoft Azure and Xamarin expert. We discussed...

#24 Daniel Marbach on failure, remoteness and mentoring

28 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode I talk with Daniel Marbach, software engineer, architect, evangelist, family man, father, public speaker and so much more. We touched ...

#23 Laura Savino on languages and public speaking

13 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The guest this week is Laura Savino. Laura is a freelance iOS developer whose non-tech passions include foreign languages and teaching. We started tal...

#22 Rob Napier on interviewing and asking questions

14 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode I talk to Rob Napier. Rob has been a developer for a few decades and now earns his living developing for iOS. We touched on our respec...

#21 David Tanzer on craftmanship and the need for coaching

30 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode I talk to David Tanzer. David is a Freelancer based in Linz, Austria. We talked about what David does for a living. We touched on the ...

#20 Ivo Vutov on growing into Microsoft as a student partner

14 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode I talk to Ivo Vutov, Consultant Developer for Microsoft in Germany. Ivo shares with us how he started to code, then how he came to wor...

#19 Manuela Rink on being an iOS developer evangelist at Microsoft

04 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode I talk to Manuela Rink about her career path. Manu has taken a few roles over her still short career and ended up mixing two worlds th...

#18 Kevin Keller on living the digital nomad way of life

22 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode I talk to Kevin Keller about his life as a Digital Nomad. Kevin has been living "on the run" sind 2014, spread between Tbili...

#16 Damien Beaufils on the test pyramide

06 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I talked to Damien Beaufils, a french software craftsman working in Paris. Damien shared the experience he made on his current projec...

#15 NCrafts Organizers Rui Carvalho, Maxime Sanglan & Peter Even on organizing a software conference

31 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A special podcast with 3 guests, Rui Carvalho, Peter Even and Maxime Sanglan, the organizers of the NCrafts conference in Paris. In this episode, we d...

#13 JB Rainsberger on what it means to truly be agile

09 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In this interview with J.B. Rainsberger, we drilled down into what it means to truly be agile. We devised on what it means to be agile for corporation...

#12 Jens Schauder on open-source software development

02 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I talk to Jens Schauder about his experience working on Open Source Projects. Jens is (kind of) participating to the JUnit5 Developme...

#11 Nicole Rauch on the coding tour to learn and grow

11 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I talk to Nicole Rauch, who among other things created the Socrates Conference. I wanted to ask her about the Journeyman-Tour she did...

#10 Agata Bres & Adam Nowakowski on taking a break

21 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I talk to former colleagues of mine Agata Bres and Adam Nowakowski, who just came back from a 4 months backpacking trip to South-Amer...

#8 Louise Elliott on dealing with people

26 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A podcast talking to Louise Elliott about dealing with people, both as a team member and as a manager.Here are the links of the show:http://twitter.co...

#7 Benjamin Reitzammer on caring, in every sense of the word

18 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A podcast where we talk about caring, in every sense of the word. Here are the links of the show:http://squeakyvessel.comhttps://twitter.com/benjaminh...

#5 Amitai Schleier on buying your freedom to do what you like

11 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A podcast where we talk - among many other things - about Amitai's Story, about mentoring, teams, seniority, buying your freedom to do what you l...