Episode 64: Chris Jones - CTO of iRobot

Welcome to Episode 64 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast from the leading authority for jobs & careers in the tech industry. For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Chris Jones, the CTO of iRobot. It’s likely that you are familiar with iRobot and the Roomba, which is the product they are best known for. I actually recently made my first Roomba purchase, that being the i7, and I have to admit I had pretty high expectations for this product. Let’s just say all my expectations have been totally exceeded. From the ease of setup and use, to the functionality of setting up floor maps of my home and cleaning schedules, how it recharges itself, and of course, and the fact that it does an amazing job cleaning our floors incredibly well. The experience has been truly mindblowing… I’m serious, it's awesome. Needless to say, I was super excited to interview Chris for our podcast and talk about his career which spans over 20 years in terms of working with robotics and the opportunity to learn more about iRobot, their engineering organization, and how they build these amazing consumer robots. In this episode of our podcast, we cover lots of great topics like: -The details of Chris’ background growing up in Texas, and how he got interested in robotics. -The story of how he moved from academia to industry, and how he joined iRobot. -Everything Chris worked on at iRobot, from military robots to the consumer robots we know today. -The details behind iRobot’s 500-person engineering team, plus some great tips around what to expect during the interview process. -The company’s mission to support STEM education. -The future of robotics in the household. -Plus, a lot more. Ok - quick side note. Today’s episode is sponsored by Pluralsight. It is amazing what machine learning can do. With mounds of data being harvested every day, there’s so much we can learn and create. Pluralsight, the technology learning platform, is using this data for the good of tech professionals everywhere. Their AI helps you see what level your tech skills are at, and recommends opportunities to keep learning. And they’re looking for help to make their algorithms even smarter. If changing the way the world learns technology through the intersection of Design, Product, Data Science and Engineering is right up your alley, apply to work at Pluralsight. Want to work here? Visit pluralsight.com/venturefizz to learn more. Lastly, if you like the show, please remember to subscribe to and review us on iTunes, or your podcast player of choice!