

Ladybug Podcast
Emma Bostian, Kelly Vaughn
Back after a two-year hiatus, engineering leaders Emma Bostian and Kelly Vaughn return for Season 7 of the Ladybug Podcast, giving you a deep dive into all things engineering leadership.
With nearly 1 million total listens, Ladybug Podcast covers tech, career, and code, bringing unique viewpoints from a variety of guests and co-hosts.
Check out our website!
With nearly 1 million total listens, Ladybug Podcast covers tech, career, and code, bringing unique viewpoints from a variety of guests and co-hosts.
Check out our website!
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jan 27, 2020 • 35min
Personal Branding
Every day we see companies market to us with a specific brand voice, and we can recognize the differences from one brand to the next. But what about personal brands? You as a person are a brand - it’s how you portray yourself on the internet and how others perceive you. I’m a brand, Emma’s a brand, Ali’s a brand. We’re all our own unique representations of ourselves. This week we’re discussing what it means to have your own personal brand and everything you need to know about building and managing your brand.
1:43 - What is a personal brand?
8:21 - Why would you want to build a brand?
11:10 - What are the benefits of having a personal brand?
13:29 - Who in tech has done a really good job of branding themselves?
15:29 - How did we build our brands?
18:03 - What platforms can you use to build a brand?
22:55 - The downsides of social media branding.
28:32 - How to build an audience.
32:08 - What we’re excited about in 2020.

Jan 20, 2020 • 44min
Design for Developers
Design for Developers
One of the biggest things that developers struggle with is design. It’s easy to look at an application and know that it looks terrible, but hard to explain why.
This episode we’re joined by Steve Schoger, co-author of the hugely popular Refactoring UI. We’ll learn some design tips and dive into the story behind the book as well as his other projects Hero Patterns and Hero Icons.
Show notes
1:40 - Who are you? Tell us a bit more about your coding/design journey.
10:22 - What is your typical day-to-day?
15:40 - What are Hero Patterns and Hero Icons?
21:25 - What is Refactoring UI?
31:40 - What area of design do you think developers struggle the most with?
34:11 - What are the differences between UX design and visual design?
36:56 - Design tips for developers.
41:40 - Where to find Steve online.
Resources
Refactoring UI
Steve's Twitter
Steve's Portfolio
Steve's YouTube
Adam Wathan's Twitter
Adam Wathan's Portfolio
Tailwind CSS
Hero Patterns
Hero Icons
Refactoring UI Screencasts
Transcript
We provide transcripts for all of our episodes. You can find them here!

Jan 13, 2020 • 1h 7min
20 Tips for Developers in 2020
To kick off our new season and a new year, this week we’ll be discussing 20 tips to start off strong in 2020. From mentorship to debugging to strategizing your learning, we'll give you all the advice you need for starting the year off right!
0:32 - 1. Challenge yourself to do something new.
04:30 - 2. Do a little bit each day.
07:03 - 3. Track your wins.
09:30 - 4. Get comfortable with failure.
12:08 - 5. Don't compare yourself to others.
16:28 - 6. Find a community.
19:24 - 7. People can be assholes, that's on them not you.
21:50 - 8. Find a mentor.
25:05 - 9. Take time to learn keyboard shortcuts.
30:30 - 10. Create your toolbox.
34:45 - 11. Learn how to debug.
38:30 - 12. Figure out how to stay up to date.
40:37 - 13. Overcome shiny object syndrome.
44:14 - 14. Pick one skill at a time to work on and learn it until you feel comfortable.
46:50 - 15. Decide if you want to be vertical or horizontal in knowledge.
50:09 - 16. Identify your learning style.
52:18 - 17. Take breaks.
54:29 - 18. Prioritize your values.
57:48 - 19. Use your powers for good.
59:33 - 20. Don’t forget that working in this field is a massive privilege.
01:02:59 - Shoutouts of the week

Nov 25, 2019 • 49min
Speaking At Conferences
Have you ever watched or attended a conference and been in awe of the speakers? How do they know so much information? How do they prepare a talk? How do they even get the courage to speak in the first place and what is that process like?
In this episode we’ll delve into all things conference talks. This is a very special episode because it’s our last episode this season. We’ve decided to release our podcast in seasons, which gives us more time to plan out our episodes and schedule guests ahead of time. We’ll be taking the month of December off and will be back with brand new episodes in January.
Show Notes
Our speaking experience - 1:31
What can I speak about? - 8:03
What is a CFP? - 11:51
Benefits of speaking - 17:22
Drawback of speaking - 19:53
Speaker fees - 24:19
Preparing your talk - 32:19
Speaking advice - 39:27
How do I get started? - 46:04
For full show notes, visit our website

Nov 18, 2019 • 33min
Web Performance
Today we’re talking about web performance. Did you know that 40% of users abandon sites that take more than 3s to load? Turns out making your sites fast is pretty important! In this episode we’ll talk about what web performance is, why we should care, and we’ll give you tips for optimizing performance and measuring it.
Show Notes
What is web performance? - 1:18
Why should I care about performance? - 3:48
The cost of JavaScript - 6:59
What should I be measuring? - 14:02
Performance tools - 17:46
Performance-improving methods - 19:40
Progressive web apps - 26:49
For full show notes, check out our website.

Nov 11, 2019 • 28min
Debugging 101
How often have you encountered a problem and struggled to figure out where to start? Or maybe you aren’t super familiar with the browser tools available to debug your JavaScript code. So today we’ve brought on a special guest, Rebecca Hill, to help us learn about the world of debugging.
Show Notes
Who are you? - 1:12
How did you learn so much about debugging? - 2:00
Basic debugging steps - 3:12
Is debugging language agnostic? - 6:21
Why don't we teach debugging? - 9:36
Different types of debugging - 13:45
Common debugging mistakes - 17:09
Testing - 19:39
Browser features for debugging - 20:50
Tips for new developers - 22:40
Which browser is best for debugging? - 24:55
Where can you learn more? - 26:08
For full show notes, visit our website

Nov 4, 2019 • 39min
Working Remotely
In recent years, working remotely has become a more popular office perk not only among startups but enterprise businesses as well. Some companies even ONLY work remotely. In this week's episode, we'll discuss our experiences working remotely, the pros and cons from an employer and employee standpoint, and provide some advice on whether or not working remotely is a good fit for you.
Show Notes
What does it mean to work remotely? - 1:36
What is our experience working remotely? - 2:34
Pros & cons - 7:08
What makes a successful remote work experience? - 21:05
Should you work remotely as your first job? - 27:11
Personality traits for a healthy remote work experience - 31:35
Tips for working remotely - 33:31
For full show notes, check out our website.

Oct 28, 2019 • 35min
Shopify & E-Commerce
If you’ve ever seen Kelly’s Twitter account then you’ve probably heard of Shopify, an E-commerce platform that gives you everything you need to sell online. This week we’re talking to JML, CTO at Shopify, and we’re giving you all the details.
Show notes
Who are you and what is your role at Shopify? - 1:05
What does a typical day at Shopify look like? - 1:41
What was your path in tech? - 3:36
What is Shopify & e-commerce in general? - 7:44
What makes Shopify different from competitors? - 12:41
Why should developers pay attention to Shopify? - 13:42
What are your favorite things that have been built by Shopify? - 22:09
How has Shopify's design system, Polaris, changed development? - 24:28
What tech stack do you recommend focusing on for new Shopify developers? - 30:06
What does the day in the life of a Shopify developer look like? - 31:01
For full show notes and transcript, check out our website

Oct 21, 2019 • 32min
All About Technical Portfolios
This week we're talking all things portfolios. What can a portfolio do for you? How can you build one? Do you even need a portfolio to be successful? This week we'll delve into the world of portfolios.
Show Notes
What is a technical portfolio? - 1:16
Do we have portfolios? - 8:13
Why would you want a portfolio? - 8:21
How do you build a portfolio as a backend developer? - 17:06
What can you put in your portfolio? - 18:11
What if I'm bad at design? - 20:26
What should developers focus on when building a portfolio? - 23:15
Fun portfolio examples - 25:24
Wins - 29:18
For full show notes, visit our website.

Oct 14, 2019 • 51min
React, Vue, && Angular, OH MY!
You've probably heard about some of the JavaScript frameworks that dominate the front end ecosystem. And this week's podcast we'll be discussing the pros and cons of JavaScript frameworks, go into detail about React, Vue, and Angular, and discuss tools and resources for how you can get started with these frameworks.
Difference between a library & a framework - 1:04
Do we even need a framework? - 4:37
Pros & cons of using frameworks - 13:25
Popularity of different frameworks - 16:54
React - 25:31
Vue.js - 34:14
Angular - 39:34
Which framework is right for me? - 44:23
Evolution & speed of frontend development - 45:44
Learning these frameworks - 47:31
For the full show notes, check out our website.