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PODCAST

The Tech Trek

The Tech Trek is a podcast about how founders, operators, and technology leaders build and scale technology companies. Each episode explores the decisions behind building products, teams, and technical organizations, with conversations spanning engineering, AI, data, product, hiring, leadership, and growth. Guests share what they are building, what they are learning, and how they are navigating the challenges that come with turning technology into a successful company.

technology

All Episodes

00:20:50

Jeff Smith - Understanding how the CTO role will...

The Tech Trek ·

2022/05/26

Highlights of my conversation with Jeff: Wanting to join a company to impact individual lives Adjusting to a HIPAA regulated industry Understanding all aspects of data flow Evolving to the strategic impact of the CTO role and shedding some hats (the last one being VP of Engineering) Switching between the different hats (strategic vs technical) Creating an organizational plan to balance the tech stack and career opportunities for growth Meet: Jeff has been working in the technology space

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00:24:22

Nikhil Desai - Employee engagement in the engineering...

The Tech Trek ·

2022/05/19

Highlights of my conversation with Nikhil: It takes a village (people, executives, everyone) for employee engagement to be successful Providing employees with safe spaces Leveraging trends from survey data (NPS style) Empower managers to align with individuals and their teams Allow teams to make decentralized decisions on how they implement certain processes Onboarding is a critical piece and starts before the start date Meet: Nikhil Desai is an experienced software engineer with 15+

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00:26:01

Ray Espinoza - Surveying and assessing the confidence...

The Tech Trek ·

2022/05/12

Highlights of my conversation with Ray: Historically security was done in the shadows Everyone is a partner to the security team Give people a sense of ownership and their part in the security program Drive surveys using tactical questions Do employees have confidence in the security team handling relevant issues If you have an external service, you should be thinking of security Go back and resurvey after incorporating security changes Share the security survey results with everyone

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00:22:06

Dhara Patel - Visibility and ROI of internal...

The Tech Trek ·

2022/05/05

Highlights of my conversation with Dhara: Try to adopt a product mindset for shared services Measure value in a tangible way Focus on developer adoption as a metric Direct impact on development life cycle Celebrating for the team With technical customers, a technical product manager would be helpful Get client stakeholder engagement to understand and drive platform requirements Building awareness around initiatives Meet: Dhara Patel is SVP of Engineering, leading multiple groups

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00:19:29

John Wilson - Establishing an analytics Center of...

The Tech Trek ·

2022/04/28

Highlights of my conversation with John: Establishing an analytics Center of Excellence Using a hub and spoke model as a service provider to the business Hiring analysts with a consultative mindset Consistently delivering solutions to build long term trust Juggling the delivery roadmap to meet business needs Meet: Currently Director for Analytics at Brookdale Senior Living, John is an expert in digital transformation and data strategy. He leads organizations through growth and development

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00:29:13

Joshua White - SRE: Getting involved in business...

The Tech Trek ·

2022/04/21

Highlights of my conversation with Joshua: Educating the organization on the benefits of improved reliability and observability capabilities Setting up an SRE book club The answer isn’t always “do what Google does” Wearing your on-call “pain suit” Getting involved in business discussions earlier Sometimes it's about showing out the team’s abilities (celebrating the wins) SRE has always been a culture shift Asking for the right outcomes and letting things shift SRE is a core business

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00:26:40

Sagar Anand - Different personas have their own...

The Tech Trek ·

2022/04/07

Highlights of my conversation with Sagar: Different personas have their own definition of quality Quality is baked in by shifting the process left The QA team is involved in planning and grooming Developers spend half of the sprint on QA Each pod is a self-sufficient team Meet: Sagar Anand works as a Sr Engineering Manager at Twin Health, leading the Platform team to help reverse chronic metabolic diseases. He takes pride in building customer-centric products while cultivating a positive

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00:21:40

Ken Pickering - Preparing to scale: Being deliberate...

The Tech Trek ·

2022/03/31

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 different technical skill sets Bringing in external expertise and disseminating the knowledge Opening information silos and increasing transparency Meet: Ken Pickering is the VP of Engineering at Starburst Data, where he's looking to help companies make better, faster decisions on more complete data. Before that, he was the CTO of Hopper and made

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00:21:19

Brian Jackson - Determining which technical skills...

The Tech Trek ·

2022/03/24

Highlights from my conversation with Brian: Niche industry but not niche skills Working with other teams to partner where there is a skills gap Realizing which parts of the tech stack you can “let go” to broaden the candidate pool Software engineering foundations go a long way Building an ecosystem around the Windows platform Meet: Brian Jackson is a DevOps advocate currently helping create immersive Star Wars experiences at Lucasfilm. Currently, Brian is the Manager of DevOps

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00:24:28

Kinshuk Mishra - Leading engineering teams in a...

The Tech Trek ·

2022/03/17

Highlights of my conversation with Kinshuk: Bell curve of seniority on the team Monitoring the manager to engineering ratio; targetting 1:5 Promoting people into management roles leads to internal credibility to lead the team Building an engineering program to give back to the organization Many times career frameworks are introduced too late in the hyper-growth phase Cedar’s Distinguished Engineer Program (DEP): https://decode.cedar.com/our-engineering-growth-framework/ Meet: Kinshuk

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00:22:32

Arie Polycarpou - Managing digital analytics and AB...

The Tech Trek ·

2022/03/10

Some of what Arie covers: The rising importance of AB testing Measuring the impact of localization AB testing relationship with product management Archive testing recommendations as a knowledge repository Meet: Arie Polycarpou is the Manager of Digital Analytics and A/B Testing at Total Wine & More. He was raised in the Midwest and attended Indiana University Kelley School of Business with Majors in Marketing and Entrepreneurship, but was always interested in a career in business

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00:20:19

Christian Yang - Building predictable roadmaps

The Tech Trek ·

2022/03/03

Some of what Christian covers: Horizontal service teams enable and collaborate The balancing point between innovation and confidence in roadmaps Timeboxing approach to provide capped flexibility to explore Rotational engineering programs grow cross-functional relationships Integrating the learned knowledge from the rotational engineering program Creating a feedback loop via a service-oriented mindset Using the Focused Innovation pillar Meet: Christian Yang is an engineering manager at

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00:19:31

Dina Bruzek - Building safe spaces to allow people to...

The Tech Trek ·

2022/02/24

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 heard All slack channels are public Create a culture committee to have employees be a part of the solution Break down assumptions that have been made Time and space introduce attribution error Meet: Dina Bruzek has over 31 years of experience in technology with more than 23 years of experience leading teams in the development of market-leading

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00:23:20

Cliff Kim - Data as an indicator & storytelling in...

The Tech Trek ·

2022/02/18

What Cliff covers: Data as an indicator Don’t put process above purpose Data-driven culture Using analytics to frame the story Storytelling in analytics Time for the data plumbing Meet: Cliff Kim brings more than 10 years of experience to his role as Director of Insights and Analytics for Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC), one of the world’s leading musical instrument manufacturers, marketers, and distributors. A digital storyteller, Cliff is dedicated to growing Fender's

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00:26:17

Nilesh Nimkar - Joining a fast-growing NFT startup

The Tech Trek ·

2022/02/10

Some of what Nilesh talks about: Joining a fast-growing NFT startup Managing blockchain at scale More freedom to build Greenfield Factors to consider selecting the tech stack Constantly measuring and sizing Watching the growth and emerging tech in the NFT space Meet: Nilesh Nimkar has 23+ years of experience in FinTech specializing in Blockchain Technologies, Cloud Native Architecture, DevSecOps, and Technology Management at Scale. He currently works as Sr. Director of DevSecOps at

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00:25:18

Guillaume Binet - How to write safer code

The Tech Trek ·

2022/02/03

Some of what Guillaume talks about: Equilibrium between people and process Culture of safety What happens when you don’t know how to test something Balancing innovation and safety Blameless post mortem Avoiding gaps in ownership Meet: Guillaume Binet is the Vice President of Software Infrastructure at Motional, a global leader in driverless technology. Guillaume’s 20-year career in technology spans multiple start-ups and established organizations, including over six years in the

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00:21:15

Swarna Mani - DevOps maturity affects the skill sets...

The Tech Trek ·

2022/01/27

Some of what Swarna talks about: Understanding DevOps maturity prior to starting a new position Defining separation between backend and DevOps teams DevOps maturity impacts the skills you need to hire for Meet: Swarna Mani is the Head of DevOps at Datavant. She formed and led the DevSecOps team at Guidewire. Swarna started her career in telecom software as a developer. Her passion is problem-solving. Her experience as a developer helps her to enable DevOps and approach it with a mindset to

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00:19:36

Brian Hosie - Technical asset development not...

The Tech Trek ·

2022/01/20

Some of what Brian talks about: Developers own the QA process Adding sand in the gears Technical asset development (technical debt) explained as a positive experience TAD is nothing to be ashamed about Service intervals to make sure you have scheduled a “monthly oil change” to address framework/language updates Meet: Brian Hosie has worked for a decade helping small businesses owners to succeed, grow and thrive. He's passionate about building tech that solves real problems for real people

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00:25:41

Jeff Vier - Upscaling the relationship between...

The Tech Trek ·

2022/01/13

Some of what Jeff talks about: Upscaling the relationship between testing and SRE Ensuring the quality of the platform Being error-free is the lowest bar The first mandate is to protect the health of the production environment Moving from quality assurance to quality engineering Meet: Jeff Vier - Technical Operations Leader. Metrics enthusiast. Testing evangelist. If you have any questions for Jeff, please feel free to reach out via: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffvier/ I hope you enjoyed

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00:24:14

Jeff Byrnes - Leaving the startup world for an...

The Tech Trek ·

2022/01/06

Some of what Jeff talks about: Making the decision to move to a larger organization Making decisions when things aren’t greenfield Finding interesting opportunities by uncovering legacy work Managing technical debt within a larger organization Meet: Jeff Byrnes is the SRE Manager at athenahealth. Jeff is a musician turned web dev turned ops/infrastructure engineer turned engineering manager. If you have any questions for Jeff, please feel free to reach out

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