The One Where We Geek Out on Breaking Barriers with Edith Puclla

Jan 30, 2024

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About our guest:

Edith is a Tech Evangelist at Percona, a company known for its work with open source databases. She used to work as a DevOps engineer, helping IT companies and startups set up and use DevOps. After taking a break for two years, Edith started working with Open Source, which helped her get back into the job market. She has made valuable contributions to the Apache Airflow project during her time with Outreachy and is working on translating the Kubernetes website into Spanish. Edith is also an ambassador for the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, focusing on creating content, and is recognized as a Docker captain. She has taken part in tech programs like Stanford's Code in Place and studied at 42, a coding school in California. Recently, Edith moved to the United Kingdom on a Global Talent Visa, which was a big step forward in her life.

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ADRIANA: Hey, y'all, welcome to Geeking Out, the podcast about all geeky aspects of software delivery, DevOps, Observability, reliability, and everything in between. I'm your host, Adriana Villela, coming to you from Toronto, Canada. Geeking out with me today. I have Edith Puklia. And where are you calling from today?

EDITH: Yeah, I am calling from UK. London, UK.

ADRIANA: Awesome. I've had a few people on the show that have called in from London. I think you're like the third person from London. I had Abby Bangser, who I think it was Abby who introduced. Right? Abby is the ultimate connector of people. So thank you, Abby, for introducing us.

Yes, I had Abby and then Jennifer Riggins, who is a tech journalist. You probably saw a bunch of her pieces on The New Stack. And then you. So you are my three London, UK people. Very exciting.

EDITH: Thank you.

ADRIANA: And we share a South American connection as well, right?

EDITH: Yes. You are from Brazil, right? Peru here.

ADRIANA: Yay. Home of the llamas.

EDITH: We love llamas. We love them.

ADRIANA: Oh, yeah, you have the awesome mug. Yeah. I was telling you earlier before we started recording that llamas and capybaras are like my two favorite animals in the world, so I always get excited when I see either one of them. Cool. Well, let's start with the lightning round questions. Are you ready?

EDITH: Yes.

ADRIANA: Okay. Are you left-handed or right-handed?

EDITH: Right.

ADRIANA: Okay. Do you prefer iPhone or Android?

EDITH: iPhone.

ADRIANA: Okay. Do you prefer to use Mac, Linux or Windows?

EDITH: Linux. I love Linux.

ADRIANA: All right. Hardcore. I love it. What is your favorite programming language?

EDITH: Okay, there are many. Now my favorite right now I can say that it's Rust.

ADRIANA: Very cool, very cool. I hear that it's great. But also very complicated to get into.

EDITH: Yes. I mean, I don't code like a deep programming. I am just starting, just learning, but I was fascinated for what you can do with it.

ADRIANA: Cool. I'm curious as a sidebar, what got you interested in learning Rust?

EDITH: Because how you can easily integrate with other technologies. For example, with Docker I was trying to play, I was able to do fast with Rust. And using Chat, GPT is also a great tool to learn,.

ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Very cool. Okay, next question. Do you prefer Dev or Ops?

EDITH: Hard question here. Yeah, I prefer Ops.

ADRIANA: Okay, cool. Next one. Do you like JSON or YAML better?

EDITH: YAML. I feel that I can read it.

ADRIANA: Yes. Yeah, that's my thing with YAML too. I think it's easier to read. Okay, next one may be controversial spaces or tabs? Which one do you like better?

EDITH: Spaces or tabs? I use spaces.

ADRIANA: All right.

EDITH: Yeah. You?

ADRIANA: Okay. So I used to be a big fan of tabs, but then I started using spaces, especially when working with YAML, because it felt a little bit more organic for me. Yeah. So I used to be very adamant, like, no, it's got to be tabs. But now I'm like, I'm open right now. I'm down for spaces. So, yeah.

EDITH: Okay.

ADRIANA: Also, kudos to you for turning the question back on me.

EDITH: But I am curious about you too. Why you too?

ADRIANA: I love it. Very awesome. Okay, two more questions. Do you prefer to consume content through video or text?

EDITH: Okay. I love videos. I have a hard moment reading a lot of text, but videos is more easy for me to consume for you. I can imagine that too, because you do videos a lot also, right?

ADRIANA: No, it's mostly text for me. It's funny, though. I was talking to my dad yesterday, so my dad does not...he was like, I do not like podcasts. I'm like, but my podcast is on video, too. He's like, it's just boring to see people's heads on video, but he's more of a video guy because he likes the visual stuff. He refuses to do podcasts. And my daughter loves, loves, loves videos. She's always learning things on Instagram or YouTube.

EDITH: And you have a lot of articles.

ADRIANA: Definitely. Like, I prefer writing. I think I've embraced video a little bit more. I used to be very scared of editing video, and I feel like nowadays the tools have made it easier to do video edits so that it looks like I'm not fumbling around. So I feel a lot more comfortable doing video editing compared to, like, ten years ago when it felt impossibly hard.

EDITH: With writing. I feel really hard writing. Long time ago, I was not able to write a single article that take me too long to write. But now I feel I'm more comfortable because I am trying to do constantly.

ADRIANA: Oh, that's awesome.

EDITH: Yay.

ADRIANA: I love to hear stuff like that. Final question. What is your superpower?

EDITH: Patience.

ADRIANA: Patience. I love it.

EDITH: Yeah. You?

ADRIANA: Oh, jeez. My superpower. I think I'm really good at connecting people together. I find myself in situations where I'll have a conversation with someone and then they'll ask me a question. I'm like, I know a person that you can talk to. Yeah.

EDITH: You have a lot of people in your mind.

ADRIANA: Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. At least remember people who should be talking to each other.

EDITH: That's a superpower.

ADRIANA: All right, cool. Well, that was it for the lightning round questions. You survived! Yay.

EDITH: Thank you.

ADRIANA: Okay, so now for the fun stuff. As I mentioned before, we got connected through Abby, and then it turns out we have another connection in common, which is we're both CNCF Ambassadors from the spring 2023 group. So, very exciting. I guess our first year of ambassadorship is coming to a close, and I guess they're renewing applications end of this month. So my question to you is, how has it been this last almost year as a CNCF Ambassador?

EDITH: Almost a year because we started at March. I think the last year. I was here in London, too. Then I go back to Peru. And how I feel this year being CNCF Ambassador, I think it doesn't cost to me too much make things for being Ambassador because I was in the category. If you see there are several categories, right? Run events or you go many, you can choose whatever you want. I choose the part of content creations which I love. So when I inspire it, I just create a video. I just make a flyer or a pdf of anything which I do in my free time. And I love it because editing videos and making that things require a lot of patience.

ADRIANA: Yes. There's your superpower.

EDITH: That's my superpower. And I can do that. I feel really excited. I feel like I'm going to apply again. For the last month, I was not just involving in content creation, I was also involving in organizing events. We are organizing Kubernetes Community Days. Lima, Peru is the first time we are running these events in Peru with other members of the community and also being members of CFP proposals reviewers, for example. I was involved in many other things.

No just content creation. A lot of things to learn. A lot of things that I never did in the past, but I never thought to do it. But I am doing. Wow, this is amazing. It's hard sometimes because it costs to learn, but it's very interesting and I like.

ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. And I have to say, I really enjoyed being a CNCF Ambassador because of the different opportunities that it's opened up, like just making new connections and being given opportunities to review CFPs and being given speaking opportunities that you necessarily wouldn't have had otherwise.

EDITH: Yeah. I feel in the same way, just to tell you that the first trip that I did in my life outside Peru was for CNCF because I won a scholarship. So I didn't speak English, just my name. And I got to Seattle and saw a different experience. Just being in the KubeCon in Seattle, it was just amazing. And things that made me think, wow, there is doors here that I should start open. It's here I should go. I saw a lot of opportunities, and since then I go to that side of CNCF and all those communities my career start to doing that. I think the support for women in tech is also very valuable what we are doing as a community.

ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I do want to go back to your earlier comment on your first trip out of Peru, and you said you didn't know English at the time. How long ago was that?

EDITH: I'm sorry? It was 2018. Yes. I mean, I study English. Yes, I talk basic English, but outside you is different.

ADRIANA: It's different, yeah. It's so true. Because it's the slang, it's the technical terms. It's funny, because I was thinking back...as you mentioned, I'm from Brazil, but I grew up most of...I've been in Canada since I was ten. I've been in Canada for, like, almost 35 years. So I am bilingual. I'm even trilingual.

I speak French, too, but I have to say my Portuguese has degraded in the time that I've been here, even though I speak to my parents in Portuguese, but I lack some of the technical terminology and I even lack some of the slang. So I actually started joining...following people on Instagram for Portuguese language school so that I can up my game to just get back into some of the slang terms and just be a little bit more conversational than I am, because I've lost some of that from not being around that many Portuguese speakers.

EDITH: Yeah, I understand that. I have been here speaking English not too long time, but I already start to forgetting how to write things in Spanish, and I brought it wrong. And my father is always correcting me asterisk.

ADRIANA: I know my dad's always correcting me as well, because sometimes I'll do a translation...what seems to be a direct translation of the English word to Portuguese, and he's like, yeah, that's not the same word. It means something totally different. I'm like, oh, my God, I feel so embarrassed.

EDITH: You are not alone.

ADRIANA: But then I remember something that I've read, like, being able to speak more than one language and making the effort to converse in more than one language is putting yourself out there. It's a sign of bravery, because, holy crap, it is so scary to attempt to communicate it in a language that you're not necessarily familiar with or super comfortable speaking in. Before we met today to record this, I recorded a podcast episode in Portuguese, and it was my second time recording a podcast episode in Portuguese. And I was so scared because I'm like, I don't know technical terminology in Portuguese. And so some of the advice that I got from a few of my Brazilian friends who live here in Toronto, they're like, "Don't worry if you don't know the word. Just use the English word, but give it a bit of a Portuguese accent." Yeah. I mean, like, you know, even though, like, something like that completely scared the shit out of me. At the same time, I'm like, you know what? I'm going to force myself to do this because the more I do it, the more comfortable I will get.

EDITH: Yes. I don't know why we are like that. I mean, we are really afraid. We jump and we start to doing. Then it pass and we said we did it. Yeah. Before that start to feel like the fear, the hands start to with everything, that scary moment. Then you use go, but then you jump to another thing.

EDITH: To start to jump to a ring and another ring. The same motions.

ADRIANA: Exactly. It actually reminds me of, like, I was having this conversation last week with someone where I'm like, oh, my God. When I first learned about cloud and cloud native, I'm like, it's this terrifying, scary thing. So I was like, I don't want to do it. I don't know. I don't think I can do it. And then I did my first thing in the cloud and I'm like, oh, okay. It was okay.

ADRIANA: Yeah, it wasn't scary.

EDITH: You are complete. Nothing happened. It's weird how we can be afraid of things that also involve human beings, like communications, like speaking, we are afraid. I don't know what we are afraid. What is the fear that we feel to be exposed, to see that others look at us and we are trying to embarrass. I think we all are humans and we all have the mistakes.

ADRIANA: Yeah. And I think we judge ourselves a lot more than others judge us. When I'm having a conversation with someone in Portuguese, especially like, with my family in Brazil, and thankfully know Google translate to help me when I'm on WhatsApp, but I'm like, oh, my God, they're going to look at me and they're going to make fun of my grammar, whatever, or use the wrong word. But then I also have to remind myself they have better things to do than to nit-pick on your grammar. They have their own lives. Get over yourself. It's not all about you.

EDITH: Yeah.

ADRIANA: Okay, so I want to switch gears again and talk a little bit about your career, like how you got into...and I know you do a lot of work around Kubernetes and containers. What got you in it?

EDITH: Yeah. Okay. I was in the field of tech for almost ten years. I can say I work it as a DevOps, also as a developer for big companies in Peru. For companies where I started from scratch, things. Was really hard. For example, when DevOps was not big tendency. Right now we are starting from scratch. I started from scratch alone.

Trying to start servers, make all that stuff was really hard, but challenge. And after that I decided to quit my job in 2018, I think...2019. Because of healthy problems, emotional problems, healthy problems, back problems, and with family problems, everything like when you have one and everything start to make a big thing. And I decided to take a moment. I take two years. I never thought it will take me too much, but I took two years. Okay. But these two years was really amazing for me. It was amazing because I give me this time to know me better.

Things that I never did in the past. Because I was always running, running, piecing the car. I don't know how to say the accelerator of the car and trying to gas in that life. But then when everything happened, I just. No plan. Nothing for that future, for the future, just that. Just myself, my thoughts and my body. And thinking what made me happy, what will make me happy for the future.

It's how I invest the time in two years. So not just thinking, but also doing. Because I wanted to improve English, I wanted to improve also my technical skills. And I realized that tech made me happy. It's one of the things also make me happy. Okay. I'm also geek.

ADRIANA: I love it.

EDITH: Yeah. Between several things, tech also made me happy. And I start to improve my skills. I start to learning English, which was really challenged for me. Now I can communicate how I want. I think I need to improve, but it's good for me. So I started to apply for jobs after having an internship in Outreachy. Did you hear about Outreachy?

ADRIANA: Yes, yes. I have heard of Outreachy. For folks who have not heard of Outreachy...

EDITH: Yes. Outreachy is a program, open source program. In three months you can have a mentor. It is also paid. So you learn a lot of things because you put your hands in real open source projects. I put my hands in Apache Airflow, where I start to code. I start to make things that I had never thought to do it. It was really amazing. And I wasn't with Oyo, but they give me a pay.

So it was enough to me to survive and to learn English and improve some soft skills and also technical skills. Then I started to apply a job. I set a goal for me, for myself, to apply for an international company where I can speak English. Have that opportunity to speak English. So applied maybe to 200 jobs in two months. I applied the most I can.

ADRIANA: Wow.

EDITH: Sweden, Germany, USA. I send my CVs a lot. So one of the companies was Percona, and after the process and everything, I was hired by Percona and now I'm working as a technology evangelist in Percona, which is an open source company.

ADRIANA: That's so cool. And I have to say, it so resonated with me when you said that as part of your time of really digging into who you are and what you love, that you decided that you love tech. Because I felt like I went through a similar thing in my career as well. I was working at a bank and I had quit my job at the bank to become a professional full time photographer. And I was like, this is it. I'm done. I don't want to work in tech. I want to do photography.

This is my passion. And I did it for a year, and then I came to this moment in my life where I was like, so it's really hard. And if I really want to make this work, I can probably give it another year or two and probably finally start seeing growth. Because at the time, it was like I wasn't really right then I thought, but do I want to invest this extra time to grow my photography business? What do I actually like doing? Then I realized I had more fun tinkering around, like doing my newsletters and tinkering around with my website, and I was using WordPress and I bought this plugin that wasn't working. And I'm like, let's go into the PHP code to see what's wrong. And I'm like, oh, I think I like that more. So I ended up like. I'm like, you know what? I want to go back to tech.

It took a year of me not being in tech to realize that I actually enjoyed tech. So, anyway, yeah, your story so much resonated with me, and I think it's so awesome and so important to take the time in our careers to figure out what makes us happy because, I don't know, we're at work for most of our lives and it better be something that we enjoy, right?

EDITH: Yeah. And it's different and it's unique history. I can say yours, for example, is totally different than mine, but it's very unique. It has the meaning for you, and that is the good thing, the very important thing that maybe nobody's going to understand. But we are going to understand, right?

ADRIANA: Yeah.

EDITH: We are the only one who understand that special moment. Yes.

ADRIANA: It's so true. Very deep thoughts. I love it. So philosophical. So great. The other thing I wanted to ask you about, because how did you get into doing Kubernetes work?

EDITH: Kubernetes in Peru, we started to hear about Docker, for example, we started to see the whale everywhere. What is the doll? And that was the curiosity, the doll with a terminal. The terminal to Docker and containers and all that stuff. The same, I think happened with Kubernetes. In Peru, we started to listen about Kubernetes as a technology, as a standard things, but just listening. So I started to follow. What is this Kubernetes thing that people talk? And I start to follow people on social media, like Liz Rice, for example. The first person, people that I was following was Kelsey [Hightower].

You interview Kelsey. Kelsey, Liz. That's big people there. So I was really fascinated for the keynote that they did. So I started to investigate about KubeCon, and it's how I got the scholarship to go. And once I go there, I see, wow, Kubernetes is the thing. So I started doing some demos at home with Google Cloud because I had free credits. So I start to play because it's what I want to. I love to do, to play with technology.

Do it, destroy it, create it, destroy it. Mac, Linux, Windows, destroy it again. I don't know. But I found it funny. Funny, yes. Funny. Enjoyable? What is the word? Okay.

ADRIANA: Yeah. Fun.

EDITH: Yes.

ADRIANA: That's awesome. It's so cool. And I especially love what you said about creating and destroying. And I think that's honestly some of the most fun stuff about playing with Kubernetes clusters is like, you do a bunch of stuff, you mess it up. Okay, time to start over again.

EDITH: We are not in production, so you can destroy.

ADRIANA: Right, exactly. Yeah, definitely don't do that with your production cluster. So you mentioned playing around with Google Cloud. Have you played around with any other cloud providers?

EDITH: Yes, I had the opportunity to play with Red Hat, with Amazon, with Google Cloud and Azure. Yeah.

ADRIANA: Cool. And which one's your favorite of the ones you've played with?

EDITH: Google is my favorite. I don't know. I feel like interface, the graphical user interface, was more, for me, easy to do it, easy to create, to understand. For me, I feel that in that time, I feel that Amazon has a lot of things. Maybe that I didn't get too much distracted. But anyway, I use in the same time the three cloud providers.

ADRIANA: Cool. That's awesome. So switching gears a bit, I wanted to talk a little bit about some of your community work.

EDITH: Thank you for that question and community. I started in community participating as all of us just going to the events and see people talking and watch. But then I say, okay, there is another weight because you are in a certain level I can say you advance a little bit in your career and you say, okay, there is people who did a lot for you. They give time, they prepare. So you learn. So let's make it something for that too. And it's the mindset of the community, right? Get back this kind of things. So now we started with creating communities.

I say we because it's not just me, we always work with people in communities and we created communities in the city where I was living. There was where I was living lacks of community techs. There is no much communities in tech. So it's where I wanted to start. I'm going to create communities with many people. So Docker was one of the companies that helped me to make it with sponsoring some events. So we start to create events for per year. For example, we celebrate the anniversary of Docker. Like, the 10th anniversary which was a lot of people going to that event and they are learning about the technology and that is one of the work that we are working until now.

I like of that and I feel proud about that because we are doing something small but maybe could be impactful and give this opportunity to people that don't have the opportunity to make in that city without leaving the city. Yeah, this is one of the things that we are doing and the other is CNCF. I love this. So we had this big opportunity also because CNCF sponsor it. We have all the support of CNCF to make it possible a Kubernetes Community Days in my country in Peru. So we as a team because we are several people working in that we are creating this community for this year, for July. So I hope we can see it and we can repeat it over the year. So this will be impact also and generate more opportunities for people in our country.

ADRIANA: That's amazing. Now how much work goes into putting together a Kubernetes Community Day> But actually before I get you to answer that, maybe it would be helpful to explain to our audience what is a Kubernetes Community Day? What's the purpose of having something like that?

EDITH: Yeah, these are spaces where we give people the opportunity to share about the expertise they have about the Kubernetes and the CNCF ecosystem that exists. So a Kubernetes community days is an event. Could be in person, online or both, two days or one day. We choose that. And where several experts or people who want to share about ecosystem of Kubernetes go and start to talk about that. Could be not just talk, could be workshop, could be several things lightning talks, open forum, things like that. And sometimes it's free, sometimes it requires some payment. It depends on the organization, but it's a big opportunity to join a lot of experts, beginners, enthusiasts, members of communities between all this ecosystem. Kubernetes ecosystem.

ADRIANA: That's amazing. So it's basically like a little mini conference.

EDITH: Yeah.

ADRIANA: It mini though? It sounds like. It sounds like a lot of work.

EDITH: We compare it with KubeCon, could be mini, but to be honest, it's not like to be mini. Not mini like I saw 500 people in some of the Kubernetes Community Days in Europe, I think.

ADRIANA: Holy cow. Damn.

EDITH: We are targeting in Peru for the Kubernetes Community Days in Peru, we are targeting also 500 people. Yeah. Attendees.

ADRIANA: Amazing. That's so cool. And so for organizing Kubernetes Community Day or KCD, what type of support do you get from the CNCF? As a CNCF Ambassador I would imagine that you get a little extra boost of support from the CNCF? So if you could talk a little bit about that?

EDITH: Yeah. What we have is support from members of the CNCF, people who work there. So they help us organize and we have synchronization meetings sometimes to see how is our progress. Also they try to support us the most they can. For example providing us the logos and designer people who can also help us. They also sign a budget for coupons, courses, coupons and some budget. I don't remember the amount of the budget to start the event. That will help us to pay some things and what more? I'm not sure about that but they give the opportunity also to travel to the KubeCon I think.

But maybe I am wrong. I'm not sure about that but I think there is many opportunities. Once you are in the ecosystem and once you are doing things there are many opportunities. Networking is also a big opportunity because in an event you can contact with several people who also are organizing. This is my first time organizing so I don't have precise response how much that will take me because it's the first time that I am running it. Let's see how it goes.

ADRIANA: So does the CNCF provide then the overall funding for running a KCD or do they provide some funding? Do you need sponsorships? How does that work?

EDITH: Yeah, we need a sponsorship. Each team tried to find a sponsorship in the country or outside the country. So with that budget is how they estimate how many attendees we will have and how we are going to assign it. In some cases, this is free and the budget that you need is maybe less, right? It depends, to be honest, of the country and of the city of the country, because the governance community is now is for city. So let's give the opportunity to have more in a country.

ADRIANA: Cool. That's awesome.

EDITH: Did you think to organize an event? Did you think to participate?

ADRIANA: So I'm actually helping to organize an event in Toronto called KubeHuddle, which is like...I think the first KubeHuddle took place in the UK, I want to say a few years ago. And then there was a KubeHuddle in Toronto last year that I attended as a speaker. So then the organizer of KubeHuddle, Marino, he asked me at the end of last one, he's like, "Do you want to help organize the 2024 one? I'm like, okay, yeah." So I am involved in that...because I have so many things on my plate, like, I'm trying to take on what I can without being overwhelmed, but still making sure that I help out. So this is my first experience with that. And KubeHuddle is taking place on May the 7th in Toronto. So this year it's going to be a one-day conference. Last year it was a two-day conference. This year it's a one day single-track conference. So yeah, very exciting. So is KCD Peru? Is it a one-day or two-day conference?

EDITH: One-day conference.

ADRIANA: One day. And is it multiple tracks or is it single track?

EDITH: Multiple. We are thinking multiple.

ADRIANA: Okay, cool. Awesome. Very exciting. I'm super stoked for you. I hope it all goes well. Now we are coming up on time, but before we finish off, do you have any parting words of wisdom for our audience?

EDITH: If I can say something, it's enjoy life.

ADRIANA: I love that. That is perfect.

EDITH: See the sun. Look at that and enjoy it. It's very nice. Sometimes. If you have sun.

ADRIANA: Except on cold days.

EDITH: It's really cold. There is no sun.

ADRIANA: I don't know...What's the temperature like in London today, because here it's a warm -4C.

EDITH: Today there was a sun, but once you put the finger outside, it freezes. But the sun was lining.

ADRIANA: That makes it better. Yesterday it was like -15C in Toronto and I went for a walk and I had to go into different stores to warm up. So I didn't freeze. But yes, I absolutely love your parting words of wisdom. I think we get so caught up in our work lives that we forget to also just take a break, reset, enjoy life. Enjoy the non-work time. Well, this was awesome. Thank you so much, Edith, for geeking out with me today. Y'all don't forget to subscribe and be sure to check the show notes for additional resources and to connect with us and our guests on social media. Until next time...

EDITH: Peace out, and geek out.

ADRIANA: Geeking Out is hosted and produced by me, Adriana Vilella. I also compose and perform the theme music on my trusty clarinet. Geeking Out is also produced by my daughter, Hannah Maxwell, who, incidentally designed all of the cool graphics. Be sure to follow us on all the socials by going to bento.me/geekingout.