The Work Item - Real Talk on Tech's Toughest Career Choices

Despite what your LinkedIn feed might tell you, a career in FAANG is not the only way to grow in tech. Or even get started in tech, for that matter. There are many variables in play that can help you determine what career track to pursue, but none more important than the answer to your own “Why?” That's why today I am talking to Chloe Shih, a product manager and content creator, about her journey to a product manager role, struggles along the way, and the realization that work in Big Tech might not be all that interesting or impactful. You can find Chloe on the following sites: 🎥 YouTube 🐤 Twitter 📸 Instagram 🦹‍♀️ Twitch The podcast was produced by Den Delimarsky. Music by Wataboi from Pixabay. Feedback If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the show and leave a review or a rating, wherever you are getting your podcast. I really appreciate your feedback and am working to make this podcast more useful for you, the listener, with every episode. Ratings and feedback make it so others can easily discover and enjoy the insights you listen to here!

Management, and especially engineering management, is way more than just telling others what to build. Talking to Amro Mousa, an engineering manager at Twitter, it becomes evident that a key ingredient to a good team is empathy. In this episode, I learn from him on what the best way is to lead with empathy in a team, and how one should think about the management track as a potential avenue in their career. You can find Amro on the following sites: 🐤 Twitter The podcast was produced by Den Delimarsky. Music by Wataboi from Pixabay. Feedback If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the show and leave a review or a rating, wherever you are getting your podcast. I really appreciate your feedback and am working to make this podcast more useful for you, the listener, with every episode. Ratings and feedback make it so others can easily discover and enjoy the insights you listen to here!

In the sea of shiny technology objects (I am talking frameworks, tools, libraries, and many others), Dan Shawhas been pretty opinionated - focus on delivering value to the customer first, and tools second. In this episode, I sit down with Dan to learn more about this approach, and how he applied it in his career and work with the Node.js community - after all, he's known as the Godfather of Node.js.You can find Dan on the following sites:🐤 Twitter📝 BlogThe podcast was produced by Den Delimarsky. Music by Wataboi from Pixabay. Feedback If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the show and leave a review or a rating, wherever you are getting your podcast. I really appreciate your feedback and am working to make this podcast more useful for you, the listener, with every episode. Ratings and feedback make it so others can easily discover and enjoy the insights you listen to here!

From the early days - when we are growing up, to when we go to school, we tend to be involved in a lot of activities. From sports, to music, painting, coding classes. But as we grow up, we tend to specialize. One is a product manager, or a Python programmer, or even a doctor.According to my good friend Salman Ansari, this is where we have an opportunity to break out of the typical norms and become a polymath - a person with extensive knowledge in several domains. In this episode, I learn more about Salman's career, as well as his take on how someone can become a polymath.You can find Salman on the following sites:🐤 Twitter📝 Blog📰 NewsletterThe podcast was produced by Den Delimarsky. Music by Wataboi from Pixabay. Feedback If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the show and leave a review or a rating, wherever you are getting your podcast. I really appreciate your feedback and am working to make this podcast more useful for you, the listener, with every episode. Ratings and feedback make it so others can easily discover and enjoy the insights you listen to here!

Last time I chatted with Jack, I had pagesof questions I still wanted to ask - with this episode, I attempt to address that backlog. And the more I talked to Jack, the more I realized that the theme of his entire career is - “be a builder.” As someone who started and worked at many startups, he sure knows first-hand how to do that well and in a way that is sustainable.Today, we talk about his work at Vimeo, what it means to collaborate with others, and how to build a network of folks that are there when you need them most.You can find Jack on the following sites:🐤 Twitter📝 Blog🤵 LinkedIn🎵 SpotifyThe podcast was produced by Den Delimarsky. Music by Wataboi from Pixabay. Feedback If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the show and leave a review or a rating, wherever you are getting your podcast. I really appreciate your feedback and am working to make this podcast more useful for you, the listener, with every episode. Ratings and feedback make it so others can easily discover and enjoy the insights you listen to here!

There is a bit of a chasm between requirements for building open source projects and those that are designed to be closed. Not surprisingly, it also requires a different set of skills altogether if you want to do it right.To learn more about this, I sat down with Jenn Creighton, Senior Staff Open Source Engineer at Apollo GraphQL. Jenn has been building scalable web experiences at companies such as Ralph Lauren, Chartbeat, and ClassPass, and is now leading the work on one of the most interesting and active open projects out there.You can find Jenn on the following sites:🐤 Twitter🎙 Single Threaded PodcastThe podcast was produced by Den Delimarsky. Music by Wataboi from Pixabay. Feedback If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the show and leave a review or a rating, wherever you are getting your podcast. I really appreciate your feedback and am working to make this podcast more useful for you, the listener, with every episode. Ratings and feedback make it so others can easily discover and enjoy the insights you listen to here!

I often hear about folks moving from engineering to product management and back. Others make the transition from marketing and sales to product management. In a first for this show, today I talk to Janine Co, a product manager who recently joined the Microsoft Teams team, who also happened to switch from following a pre-med path to one in product.What things did she consider when making the switch? What did Janine do to build a network from scratch? It's all in this episode.You can find Janine on the following sites:🐤 Twitter📝 BlogThe podcast was produced by Den Delimarsky. Music by Wataboi from Pixabay. Feedback If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the show and leave a review or a rating, wherever you are getting your podcast. I really appreciate your feedback and am working to make this podcast more useful for you, the listener, with every episode. Ratings and feedback make it so others can easily discover and enjoy the insights you listen to here!

There are thousands of blog posts, tutorials, and videos that tell you what engineering careers are about, how you should be thinking about your dream job, and promotion trajectory. In this sea of content, it's often hard to separate the common from the edge case.In this episode, I talk to Laurie Barth, a renowned technologist and Senior Software Engineer at Netflix, about the myths we encounter in our careers, and what we can do to think about growth in a sustainable way.You can find Laurie on the following sites:🐤 Twitter📝 Blog🥚 Egghead.ioThe podcast was produced by Den Delimarsky. Music by Wataboi from Pixabay. Feedback If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the show and leave a review or a rating, wherever you are getting your podcast. I really appreciate your feedback and am working to make this podcast more useful for you, the listener, with every episode. Ratings and feedback make it so others can easily discover and enjoy the insights you listen to here!

What lessons can you take away from a music degree and bring into engineering management? How do engineers work with folks in the newsroom at one of the biggest news organization on the planet?Nicole Tibaldi, Senior Engineering Manager at The New York Times (yes, thatThe New York Times) is here to tell us more about these things, her work, career, and how to foster a culture where your team feels included.You can find Nicole on the following sites:🐤 Twitter📝 BlogThe podcast was produced by Den Delimarsky. Music by Wataboifrom Pixabay. Feedback If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the show and leave a review or a rating, wherever you are getting your podcast. I really appreciate your feedback and am working to make this podcast more useful for you, the listener, with every episode. Ratings and feedback make it so others can easily discover and enjoy the insights you listen to here!

Setting your sights high for a career in engineering management might be an appealing endeavor, but it also means that you will be making a lot of assumptions about future roles without really knowing what those roles are truly about.In this episode, I sit down with Camille Fournier - a veteran CTO, speaker, and entrepreneur, to learn more about ways to map out the path to becoming a CTO (or not).You can find Camille on the following sites:🐤 Twitter📝 Blog📚 Elided BranchesIf you haven't yet, make sure to check out Camille's book - The Manager's Path.The podcast was produced by Den Delimarsky. Music by Wataboi from Pixabay. Feedback If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the show and leave a review or a rating, wherever you are getting your podcast. I really appreciate your feedback and am working to make this podcast more useful for you, the listener, with every episode. Ratings and feedback make it so others can easily discover and enjoy the insights you listen to here!