Software Misadventures

Josh Wills, former data leader at Slack and angel investor, shares insights on transitioning from management to IC roles, emotional intelligence in engineering management, challenges in Climate Tech, and practicality in engineering. He also discusses his journey into angel investing and criteria for evaluating startup investments.

Known for coining the term “Data Scientist”, DJ is a renowned technologist with a diverse background spanning academia, industry, and government. Having led product teams at companies like RelateIQ and LinkedIn, DJ was appointed by President Obama to be the first U.S. Chief Data Scientist where his efforts led to the establishment of nearly 40 Chief Data Officer roles across the Federal government, new health care programs as well as new criminal justice reforms. We discuss: “Dream in years, plan in months, evaluate in weeks, ship daily” High school misadventures that shaped DJ’s world view Under-hyped opportunities in AI Building with the customer vs. “if you build it, they will come” Do we need more regulations on AI? Much more.   Segments: [0:01:48] Picking locks in high school. [0:07:15] How can we make it easier for others to take a risk on us? [0:11:29] How do you decide whom to take a chance on? [0:14:24] The 70-20-10 framework for choosing what to work on. [0:17:49] "No rules, only guidelines." [0:24:09] Developing personal ethics. [0:30:52] Building with the customer versus "if you build it, they will come." [0:34:51] "Dream in years, plan in months, evaluate in weeks, ship daily." [0:43:56] Ideas should be considered in terms of momentum. [0:46:11] Under-hyped trends in AI? [0:51:53] How does AI need to evolve to operate in fields that require very low margins of error? [0:56:09] Concerning advances that lack sufficient guardrails? [0:58:55] Do we need more regulations on AI? [1:02:48] "Failure is the only option."   Show Notes: DJ Patil on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dpatil/ The card that DJ carried in his notebook: https://twitter.com/DJ44/status/819316928623902720 DJ’s interview series with thought leaders in Data Science: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/data-impact-with-dj-patil/data-science-how-did-we-get-here   Stay in touch: 👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com

Erica is a former VP of Engineering at LinkedIn. Having almost dropped out of college, Erica’s journey in tech is a testament to her perseverance and dedication. In addition to leading engineering teams at LinkedIn, Erica founded WIT (Women In Tech) to empower women within the company as well as the broader tech community. We discuss: How to create incentives for diversity-building work. Building your personal “board of directors”. Balancing mentoring work vs sprint tickets. Structuring a community for long-term success. Much more.   Segments: [0:18:04] building women-in-tech and the importance of leading by example [0:21:17] creating incentives for diversity-building work [0:23:30] examples of building better products with more diverse stakeholders [0:29:48] how to spot red flags during the interview process [0:32:51] do men and women bring different skill sets to the problem or it's all individual based? [0:35:34] building your personal “board of directors” [0:40:21] how to ask people for mentorship if I’m shy? [0:44:21] exploring new projects [0:53:32] how to hold yourself accountable when there’s no structure? [1:03:17] how to structure a community for long-term success [1:10:22] how to balance mentoring work vs sprint tickets [1:14:57] journey to being on the advisory board for SJU   Show Notes: Erica on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericalockheimer/   Stay in touch: 👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com

Explore Mitchell Hashimoto's journey of co-founding HashiCorp and creating key infrastructure tools. Topics include handling trolls, project structuring, decision-making, and unconventional career transitions. From the Apple Store to company challenges, discover Mitchell's impactful lessons and unique perspectives.

After 17 years building SRE teams at Google and serving as the Site Lead for Engineering in Dublin, Dave joined Elastic as the Sr Director of Engineering and later VP of Engineering at Twilio. Following a recent career break, Dave now divides his time between coaching engineering leaders and consulting to help busy teams be more effective. In the heart of our conversation, Dave shares the frameworks and practical tips he's amassed for making the most of the mentorship experience.   Segments: [00:01:45] Growing remote SRE team as the Google Dublin Site Lead [00:19:49] Company Culture vs Company Values [00:23:47] How to find companies that are serious about remote work [00:34:26] Coaching vs Mentoring at Big vs Small companies [00:38:35] How Google does coaching & mentoring [00:41:38] What makes a good 1-1 [00:46:56] Considerations for seeking out a mentor [01:03:27] Getting external mentorship while working at a small company [1:08:20] How to set specific goals for mentorship [1:20:13] The “CIA” Method for career decision making [1:31:08] How to sunset mentorship 1-1s [1:35:20] Venturing into consulting to help busy teams be more effective [1:42:13] How to get started with consulting   Show Notes: Dave on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerrowadat/ Dave’s personal website: https://log.andvari.net/pages/about.html Dave’s coaching website: https://www.strategichopes.co/ Service Level Objectives by Alex Hidalgo: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/implementing-service-level/9781492076803/ The Staff Engineer’s Path by Tanya Reilly: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-staff-engineers/9781098118723/   Stay in touch: 👋 Let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com

Reid Hoffman and David Henke discuss the early days of engineering at LinkedIn, including stabilizing the chaos, re-architecting the release process, and the challenges faced at Yahoo. They also talk about Henke's transition from programmer to manager, the importance of individual contributors, and building a disaster recovery site at LinkedIn.

Before joining CueIn last year as a Founding Data Scientist, Melissa was a Lead Data Scientist at Salesforce working on the Einstein Platform that focused on automating Data Science workflows. In this conversation we dive into Melissa’s unique journey, what to do in the face of increasing job automation and explore the latest developments in practical AI. Segments: [00:02:13] Melissa’s background in computational neuroscience [00:06:08] 7 years at Salesforce vs startup [00:11:31] Joining CueIn [00:19:30] Chatbot observability [00:28:16] Feedback loops [00:33:10] Use LLM to observe.. LLMs? [00:39:06] AI automating jobs [00:43:01] Doing ML in 2017 vs now [00:50:35] Few shot learning, Hugging Face Show Notes: Melissa’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissajanerunfeldt/ Stay in touch: 👋 Let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com

What's it like to open source an internal project at a big tech company like LinkedIn? When should a company open source a project and what are the benefits and challenges that come along with it? If you want to open source an internal project, how should you go about advocating for it? Félix is a Principal Staff Engineer at LinkedIn where he works on the data infrastructure team that builds Venice. Venice is a distributed derived data store which LinkedIn open sourced in the fall of 2022. He joins the show to chat about his experiences leading the open source efforts for Venice, as well as his thoughts on balancing leadership with execution, delegating responsibility and fostering a culture of ownership, and growth within a team. --- Show Notes: Check out Venice: https://github.com/linkedin/venice Félix's linkedin: https://github.com/linkedin/venice --- Stay in Touch: ✉️ Subscribe to our newsletter: https://softwaremisadventures.com 👋 Let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com --- Segments: [0:01:36] Introduction  [0:02:32] Career Choices and Job Satisfaction  [0:08:34] Understanding Venice: LinkedIn's Distributed Derived Data Store  [0:22:37] The Journey of Open-Sourcing Venice  [0:26:36] Understanding the Business Perspective of Open Source Systems  [0:30:28] How and when to advocate for open-sourcing an internal project  [0:39:32] Challenges and Strategies in Open Source Project Maintenance  [0:46:40] Balancing Leadership and Execution in Engineering Roles

Should engineers and product managers “stay in their lanes”? What big company habits should you keep vs unlearn when transitioning to working at a start-up? Could an ayahuasca retreat give you more clarity on your career goals? Ilya and Arnab join the show to share their journey quitting big tech to bootstrap a podcasting startup. Arnab and Ilya are the co-founders of Metacast. Before starting the company, Arnab was a Principal Engineer at AWS while Ilya was a Sr. Product Manager at Google and Principal PM at Amazon before that. While at Amazon, Arnab and Ilya worked together on various projects including AWS Chatbot, which they started from scratch and launched into a successful AWS service.  Show Notes: Sign-up for the podcast app that they’re launching soon: metacast.app Newsletter about their startup journey: https://www.metacastpodcast.com/ Stay in Touch: ✉️ Subscribe to our newsletter: https://softwaremisadventures.com 👋 Let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com Segments: [0:00:00] Starting Metacast [0:05:39] Should engineers and product managers “stay in their lanes”? [0:11:56] How to decide when to explore options vs committing to a decision [0:14:46] Do you have to be a specialist to be successful? [0:18:20] Quitting Amazon & Google [0:33:52] Spiritual retreat [0:47:09] Trying therapy [0:51:33] Orthogonal weaknesses [0:57:31] Big co habits to keep vs unlearn [1:04:32] Metacast Milestones

What's "AI in a Box"? Pete Warden joins the show to share a new project he recently launched that encapulates Language Transcription/Translation and Question Answering capabilities into a wallet-sized board running locally without internet, as well as stories and learnings from building his new company, Useful Sensors, after 7 years of leading the tensorflow mobile project at Google.  Pete is the CEO of Useful Sensors. After founding his own company Jetpac and selling it to Google in 2014, he became a staff research engineer at Google, where he led the TensorFlow Mobile team. Pete is also the author of two well-received books: "Public Data Sources" and "Big Data Glossary" and builder of OpenHeatMap.   Show Notes: AI in a Box crowdfunding: https://www.crowdsupply.com/useful-sensors/ai-in-a-box Pete's blog: https://petewarden.com/ Useful Sensors: https://usefulsensors.com/   Stay in touch: ✉️ Subscribe to our newsletter: https://softwaremisadventures.com 👋 Send feedback or say hi: hello@softwaremisadventures.com   Segments: [0:00:00] Failing and trying again, experiential learning [0:03:13] AI-in-a-box demo [0:07:28] Animatronics? [0:10:12] Privacy and trust [0:12:04] Talk to your appliances [0:15:22] How to fit the LLM into such a small chip? [0:16:50] Quantization [0:20:07] Disposable ML frameworks [0:24:33] Updating model on shipped hardware [0:28:34] LLMs with specialized domain knowledge [0:30:08] Founding Useful Sensors [0:37:07] scaling training vs inference