The Tech Trek
Episodes
Improve your engineering quality through documentation with Jordan Stone
25 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We’re very excited to welcome our special guest for today’s episode, Jordan Stone, the VP of Engineering at Paytient, a company on a mission to ma...
Raj Madan - How to build empowered teams
23 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Raj: Allowing teams to make decisions at the lowest possible level Empowerment is coupled with responsibility ...
Clarence Chio - Being a cofounder and an engineering leader at the same time
18 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Clarence: Moving from a lead IC role to a co-founder Leading through influence Giving up the building hat Re...
Clay Alvord - Organizing and managing the work to get done
16 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Clay: What does a full stack DevOps Developer do Managing SW engineers as a non-SW engineer Engaging your empl...
Ana Lebron - SRE is an engineering function with a strategic business focus
11 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Ana: The intersection of SRE/business Complex systems always fail Reliability is a feature of the system SLA...
Moitree Rahman - Building a cross-functional analytics team
09 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Moitree: Building an analytics team to support the company's digital transformation initiatives The skill ...
Laku Adedoyin - Communicating the “why of engineering work”
04 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Laku: Aligning work to the broader company goals Engineers like to work on things that actually get used CTO s...
Cindy Chu - Growing your engineering team with diversity in mind
28 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Cindy: Starting as the only female engineering hire in a startup Bring up diversity hiring plans before you are ...
Alonzo Benavides - Growing an engineering team at a (crypto-focused) information services company
26 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Alonzo: Drivers for leaving a large public company for a startup Moving into the blockchain information space ...
Jeff Gabriel - Balancing research and coding in the research (machine learning) space
21 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Jeff: An idea can come from a one-off problem or a long-term strategic issue to tackle Relationship between rese...
Fabian Frank - Planning for and hiring the right mix of technical talent
19 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Fabian: Hiring the best talent vs a specific seniority level Hiring “scrappy” technologists Allowing your s...
Dehron Hite-Benson - Spirit vs letter of the law in Agile
14 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Dehron: Be an advocate for your engineers Typing methodology changes to values People want scrum to drive auto...
Jose Asuncion - Growing your team from startup stage to publicly-traded company
07 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Jose: Being promoted into a role too quickly Continuing education to grow and enhance leadership skills It's i...
Amin Lakhani - Should you elevate your best engineer to be a manager?
30 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Amin: Attributes of a strong engineer Technical excellence doesn’t always mean being the best coder Impactin...
Leon Fayer - Navigating engineering career and leadership growth
23 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Leon: Is moving into management the right next step for an employee Create opportunities for an employee to gain...
Neil Bhay - Evolving from smaller to larger engineering teams
16 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Neil: Stakeholder’s level of technical sophistication impacts the level of planning Importance of the relation...
Round Table 1 - Focusing on hiring while retaining your talent
09 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Topics we covered: Retaining Top Talent Understanding your employees before it's too late Safe Spaces Are more Engineering Managers better? H...
Felix Sargent - How to deal with “code smell” ie technical debt
02 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Felix: Technical debt is a warning sign Liability in the code is not the same as technical debt Dealing with “...
Jeff Smith - Understanding how the CTO role will evolve as the team scales and grows
26 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Jeff: Wanting to join a company to impact individual lives Adjusting to a HIPAA regulated industry Understandi...
Nikhil Desai - Employee engagement in the engineering space
19 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Nikhil: It takes a village (people, executives, everyone) for employee engagement to be successful Providing emp...
Ray Espinoza - Surveying and assessing the confidence in your security team
12 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Ray: Historically security was done in the shadows Everyone is a partner to the security team Give people a se...
Dhara Patel - Visibility and ROI of internal platforms/shared services
05 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Dhara: Try to adopt a product mindset for shared services Measure value in a tangible way Focus on developer a...
John Wilson - Establishing an analytics Center of Excellence
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with John: Establishing an analytics Center of Excellence Using a hub and spoke model as a service provider to the bu...
Joshua White - SRE: Getting involved in business discussions earlier
21 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Joshua: Educating the organization on the benefits of improved reliability and observability capabilities Settin...
Sagar Anand - Different personas have their own definition of quality within the software development process
07 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Sagar: Different personas have their own definition of quality Quality is baked in by shifting the process left ...
Ken Pickering - Preparing to scale: Being deliberate about who and what you are
31 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights from my chat with Ken: Being deliberate about who and what you are Doubling a team and the change in how a team operates Incorporating ...
Brian Jackson - Determining which technical skills you can be more flexible filtering on
24 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights from my conversation with Brian: Niche industry but not niche skills Working with other teams to partner where there is a skills gap R...
Kinshuk Mishra - Leading engineering teams in a strategic way while your startup is on a hyper-growth trajectory
17 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Highlights of my conversation with Kinshuk: Bell curve of seniority on the team Monitoring the manager to engineering ratio; targetting 1:5 Promo...
Arie Polycarpou - Managing digital analytics and AB testing at a major consumer facing business
10 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Some of what Arie covers: The rising importance of AB testing Measuring the impact of localization AB testing relationship with product managemen...
Christian Yang - Building predictable roadmaps
03 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Some of what Christian covers: Horizontal service teams enable and collaborate The balancing point between innovation and confidence in roadmaps ...
Dina Bruzek - Building safe spaces to allow people to be heard
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Some of what Dina talks about: Finding a way to connect with your team in a way you haven’t before Building safe spaces to allow people to be hea...
Cliff Kim - Data as an indicator & storytelling in analytics
18 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What Cliff covers: Data as an indicator Don’t put process above purpose Data-driven culture Using analytics to frame the story Storytelling...
Nilesh Nimkar - Joining a fast-growing NFT startup
10 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Some of what Nilesh talks about: Joining a fast-growing NFT startup Managing blockchain at scale More freedom to build Greenfield Factors to cons...
Guillaume Binet - How to write safer code
03 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Some of what Guillaume talks about: Equilibrium between people and process Culture of safety What happens when you don’t know how to test somet...
Swarna Mani - DevOps maturity affects the skill sets you need to hire for
27 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Some of what Swarna talks about: Understanding DevOps maturity prior to starting a new position Defining separation between backend and DevOps team...
Brian Hosie - Technical asset development not technical debt
20 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Some of what Brian talks about: Developers own the QA process Adding sand in the gears Technical asset development (technical debt) explained as ...
Jeff Vier - Upscaling the relationship between testing and SRE
13 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Some of what Jeff talks about: Upscaling the relationship between testing and SRE Ensuring the quality of the platform Being error-free is the lo...
Jeff Byrnes - Leaving the startup world for an enterprise organization
06 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Some of what Jeff talks about: Making the decision to move to a larger organization Making decisions when things aren’t greenfield Finding inte...
Ali Hosseinkhani - Moving from Scrum to Kanban; Factoring remote into the hiring process
16 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Some of what Ali talks about: Handling the hiring process to overcome the challenges of hiring remote Adjusting the software development process to...
Chad Sanderson - The growth of the data platform product manager role
09 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Chad dives into everything data platform product management including: Why does your org need a data product manager Origin of where the role comes...
Juan Pablo Buriticá - People grow linearly; organizations grow exponentially
02 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Some of what Juan Pablo talks about: Lean into potential An early-stage startup can take risks to let people grow into roles Hiring someone with ...
Trenton Huey - Managing and executing within a highly matrixed environment
19 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Gap analysis to forecast data pipeline needs Work backward from the end-user point of view Every system has to have some human inv...
Aniket Soneji - Focus your team's activities on work that can't be outsourced via third-party services
11 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Optimize resource allocation by examining maturing applications Find ways to offload activities to 3rd party services to help scale ...
Brent Goldman - Treating engineering management as a type of engineering
04 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Some of what Brent talks about: Engineering management is made up of complex systems Provide your team with a playbook and make sure the playbook i...
Gil Feig - Integrations have expanded opportunities for end users and software companies
28 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Gil talks about the impact that prebuilt integrations have on an organization and how these integrations have expanded opportunities ...
Kirby Frugia - Developer autonomy to drive process improvement
21 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What we talk about on this episode: “Ship Wow, Ship Now” mantra Developer autonomy to drive process improvement Using your “I intend to” ...
Chris White - When do you start a formal product organization?
14 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Define when you should look to formalize the product role Look for a bottleneck in the decision-making process Creating an opportu...
Hamed Ahmadi - Scaling engineering teams within Life Sciences Industry
07 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Overcoming the perceptions of the healthcare and life sciences industry Mission-driven aspects of the industry is a massive draw fro...
Bill Press - Product velocity and delivering with quality
30 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Product velocity and delivering with quality Strategic technical debt - making the trade-off of customer acquisition vs robust code ...
Daniel Hood - Talk about process changes and explain the reasons behind them
23 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Talk about process changes and explain the reasons behind them Going through acquisition and staying agile Looking to managers as ...
Rashu Garg - Bringing innovation to the business and measuring its impact
16 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Balancing innovation with what is needed Managing stakeholder expectations and “excitement” Technology and business stakeholde...
Mike Ganz: Focusing on solving the right problem, not the most difficult
09 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Focusing on solving the right problem, not the most difficult Define the “north” star Seeing the most impactful project Posi...
Thor Clark - Never a perfect process, but the right process for the stage you are at
02 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Never a perfect process, but the right process for the stage you are at Making an investment into a more efficient process The tim...
Kishore Aradhya - Connecting technology and business strategy
26 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Don’t be too technology-focused without identifying the customer value it should provide The “connecting tissue” isn’t alway...
Mark DiAntonio - Team behavior and measuring impact
19 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Team behavior and measuring impact Looking at a 3 sprint rolling average to gauge velocity Keeping the workplace fun by focusing o...
Andy Owens - Hiring and scaling your analytics team
12 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Look at a job’s deliverables to find the right hire The new data analyst needs to understanding core CS concepts Don’t let the...
Barr Moses - Good data pipeline, “bad data” problem
05 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Good data pipeline, “bad data” problem Investing in data observability - it will cost you one way or the other Being proactive...
Johnathan Hunt - Implementing Security Sooner (especially in DevOps)
29 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Ramifications of waiting to implement security Consider alignment before jumping to tools Look within your current team to see if ...
Anwar Reddick - Build vs buy in the security industry
22 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Build vs buy in the security industry Focusing on speed to get value out of tooling Avoiding tools that tie you into a rigid struc...
Noah Beddome - Aligning the security roadmap to business objectives
15 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Aligning the security roadmap to business objectives Preparing for the initial requirements assessment Making sure you under...
Josh Scherbenski - Building and improving data quality through more testing
08 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Building and improving data quality through more testing Dividing work among geographically remote teams Quality decline as a symp...
Jason Wilcox - Engineers and the business value they generate
01 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Importance of having context around the greater pieces of what the business is doing Staying engaged in the business vision post-onb...
Brian Pivar - Transforming the data capabilities at Kraft Heinz
24 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Key takeaways: Bringing modern tech thinking to a legacy company Moving away from a FAANG to a non-tech company Ability to move the needle Buil...
Liran Eisenberg - Scaling your data engineering team
10 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Top takeaways: Challenges around scaling data engineering teams Pros and cons of keeping job descriptions vague Waiting to make the “right” h...
Anil Beniwal: Preparing to scale your engineering team
03 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: What to think about when you are looking to scale your engineering team Healthy tech debt to support fast growth 3 categories...
Anthony Girolamo: A good process should solve an acute problem
01 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: 1-way vs 2-way doors Making a transition from a FAANG to a startup A good process should solve an acute problem Meet:  ...
Nate Loomis: High-performing teams and getting to Teal!
27 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Very important to define stretch goals Leveraging eNPS - employee net promoter score Using employee net promoter score withi...
Mike Brittain - The looming retention problem: returning to the office
20 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Top 3 takeaways: The looming retention problem - returning to the office Balancing team distribution via fewer time zones Adjusting salary bands ...
Dan Simon - Decisions as a bridge between ideation and execution
13 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Decisions as a bridge between ideation and execution RACI decision-making Decisions can’t be made absent of context; Provi...
Chris Ieva - Military veterans are a hidden talent pipeline
06 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: - Adjusting to the differences in structure between private industry and the military - Valuing the importance of resource alloca...
Romit Jadhwani - How to grow an agile data and analytics team
29 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: How to grow an agile data and analytics team Solving data discovery challenges to speed up productivity Agility vs velocity Provi...
Brian Berger - Re-aligning technical operations teams to company needs
22 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Challenges in getting deep expertise in many areas Moving from a project focus to deeper subject matter expertise Moving towards ...
Chris Ieva - Connecting consumer experiences to the product
15 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you can take away from this episode: Connecting consumer experiences to the product Using alternative data-rich sources of information to incr...
Mitch Trale - Growing an efficient, effective, and content distributed team
08 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What we cover: Improving asynchronous communication Understanding where decisions are being made Establishing repeatable actions and rituals Leadershi...
Jonathan Jaffe: Growing and building your security capabilities
01 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Growing and building your security capabilities Prioritizing the first cybersecurity hire Security tools and automation rather th...
Teresa Martyny - Building resiliency into systems
25 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Building resiliency into systems Failing and non-failing validations If failure happens, what’s the fallback plan? Creating SLA...
Hyung Lee and Chi Ho - Extensibility of the Salesforce platform
19 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: The extensibility of the Salesforce platform Growth and evolution of the platform Pushing Salesforce to do something that it shou...
Zak Allen - Building trust and transparency in the team
09 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Building trust and transparency in the team Adjusting the structure of the 1-1 meeting for Zooms Replicating the ideation process...
Kendra Rozett McCormick - The power of being underestimated as a female leader in technology
04 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: The power of being underestimated Being one of few females as an IT Director in the Massachusetts technology public sector Early ...
Carlis Ragland - The widening scope of IT Service Management
25 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: The widening scope of IT Service Management Does ITSM need their own Service Management Officer? ITSM buy-in and the why behind i...
Krishna Ramaswamy - Finding the right skill set mix in growing your analytics team
16 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Finding the right skill set mix in growing your analytics team Interviewing tip: Trying to understand how a candidate’s problem...
Kevin Recio - Proactive vs reactive problem management
10 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Proactive vs reactive problem management Managing the multiple touchpoints involved in a service incident Balancing needs vs the ...
David Ting - Work fast and iterate very quickly
02 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Work fast and iterate very quickly Try to think with a clear mind - communicate through writing over talking Shorten time to idea...
Nana Somuah - Upskilling the data analyst role
28 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Upskilling the data analyst role Medical knowledge is doubling every 73 days; pushing the technical envelope to cope with the inc...
Aidan Anderson - Deeper partnership between platform and security engineering teams
26 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Deeper partnership between platform and security engineering teams Security by design Focusing on a handful of problems that real...
Martin Corso - Delivering analytics in a hypergrowth industry
25 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Delivering analytics in a hypergrowth industry Simplifying and pinpointing the direct analytic needs Meet: Martin Corso is the Di...
Scott Persinger - Team health as a barometer for team velocity
22 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Team health as a good barometer for team velocity Tech debt is inevitable; keeping it at a sustainable rate Balancing team size M...
Murali Bhogavalli - The Data Product Manager as the Quarterback for the data team
21 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Reasons why you should hire a data product manager Data product manager roadmaps are typically longer Being data-informed rather ...
Eiwe Lingefors - Focus on cybersecurity earlier in the software engineers process
19 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Benefits of incorporating security earlier in the process Balancing between business and security goals Avoid looking for the “...
Nathan Wan - Managing your team with empathy in mind
18 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Leading with empathy in managing your team Making sure to allocate time to prioritize learning Meet: Nathan Wan is the Director o...
George London - From a non-traditional degree program into data and machine learning
15 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Moving from a non-traditional degree program into data and machine learning Stubbornness as a superpower (sticking to a problem i...
Ben Garvey - Team velocity measured by the number of merges
14 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Looking at the number of merges to evaluate team velocity Reducing wait times during code reviews Software is getting cheaper to ...
Myles Guanzon - Performance management of remote teams
12 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Using stand-downs to check-in at the end of the day Clarifying expectations and establishing a clear technical ladder Doubling do...
David Kaplan - Focusing on predictability rather than velocity
11 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Focusing on predictability rather than velocity How the code base’s complexity can affect estimation Balancing the effect of te...
David Relyea - Growing your career in data science
08 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Inversion of talent vs seniority Hiring is not all about the hard skills Focusing on employees motivations for the long term bene...
Ryan Weeks - Growing security awareness and maturity
07 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Growing security awareness and maturity Starting with a security framework in mind Cybersecurity is an accessible field (moving p...
Liliya Frye - Moving towards Automated Continuous Testing
06 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Challenges in moving to CI/CD What is continuous testing? The new skills required for people in testing Meet: Liliya Frye is a Te...
Andy Lu - moving your career forward by staying curious
05 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Being curious, staying curious Servant leadership style Pushing for opportunities to grow Meet: I am an experienced technologist ...
George Bezerra: Moving the business forward with data science
04 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Evaluating where data science and machine learning can be applied Complimenting human decision making with algorithms Being aware...
George Bezerra: Modernizing a legacy data infrastructure and culture
30 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What you’ll learn: Modernizing a legacy data infrastructure and culture Pushing people out of their comfort zone Quick wins while building the long ...