

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

Oct 10, 2019 • 21min
Hacktoberfest Pt. 2
October means it's time for Hacktoberfest. We're talking with Shannon Crabill about what open source is, how to get involved with Hacktoberfest, and tips & tricks for maintaining open source projects.
Show Notes
Who is Shannon? - 1:17
What is open source? - 4:19
How did you get involved in Hacktoberfest? - 4:55
What is it like to maintain an open source project? - 6:27
Tips && tricks for people wanting to work on maintaining an open source project - 7:35
How to contribute to Hacktoberfest projects? - 8:54
Advice for beginners getting started in open source - 11:51
How do you find projects to contribute to? - 13:09
Hard parts of open source - 14:30
Best parts of open source - 15:38
How to gain confidence to contribute - 16:52
Advice to someone beginning their coding journey - 18:06
For the full show notes, head over to our website!

Oct 7, 2019 • 27min
Hacktoberfest Pt. 1
October means it's time for Hacktoberfest. Hacktoberfest is an awesome event where you can get involved in open source whether it's your first time contributing or you're a seasoned pro.
In this episode we'll discuss what Hacktoberfest is, how you can start contributing to open source, and with our special guests Peter and Jess from Dev, we'll talk about how you can maintain your own open source project.
For full show notes, check out our website.

Sep 30, 2019 • 40min
Design Systems
Design systems are in the world around us from the signs on the side of the highway to the setup of a grocery store and our products are no exception. But what exactly our design systems and how do we build them? In this episode, we'll take a look at the foundations of design systems, the benefits and drawbacks, and the process for creating one from the ground up.
1:23 What are design systems?
2:58 Emma's experience with design systems
3:52 Ali's experience with design systems
4:41 Kelly's experience with design systems
5:00 Do you need a design system and who are design systems for?
7:46 Benefits of design systems
11:11 Drawbacks of design systems and team structure
13:11 How do you measure success?
14:24 Challenges of building a design system
15:34 How to build a design system
18:19 Styling components
19:03 Documentation tools
21:09 Style guides
23:42 Why design systems fail
25:08 Who builds design systems
29:20 Tools for building design systems
32:54 Notable people in design systems
36:54 Wins
For the full show notes and links to the speakers, check out our website!

Sep 23, 2019 • 39min
Teaching Code with Angie Jones
Have you ever wondered what it takes to be an effective teacher in the tech industry? Well wonder no more!
We had the pleasure of chatting with Angie Jones, Senior Developer Advocate at Applitools and Director at Test Automation University about her experience as a teacher. Angie talks to us about her teaching and learning styles and shares some advice for those looking to get into the world of teaching.
In this episode, we discussed how to teach to multiple skill levels, common misconceptions about being a teacher, and much more!
For the full show notes and links to the speakers, check out our website!

Sep 16, 2019 • 1h 6min
What The Heck Is GraphQL?
GraphQL has taken this industry by storm, but what is it exactly? In this special episode of the Ladybug Podcast we’ve invited 14 GraphQL experts from the community to educate us on all things GraphQL!
2:00 - What Is GraphQL? (Erin Fox)
8:21 - Benefits Of GraphQL (Akshar Takle)
11:19 - History Of GraphQL (Brian Douglas)
14:01 - Syntax (Chris Biscardi)
17:01 - Schemas (Kurt Kemple)
20:02 - Variables (Swyx)
24:24 - Fragments (Emma Wedekind)
25:36 - Directives (Jon Wong)
32:10 - Toolkit (Alan Johnson)
38:49 - React Hooks & GraphQL (Shruti Kapoor)
46:13 - GraphQL vs. REST (Chantastic)
49:20 - When NOT To Use GraphQL (Zach Lendon)
54:37 - Useful Tools For Learning/Using GraphQL (Manjula Dube)
1:01:27 - Making GraphQL Development Easier With Hasura (Rajoshi Ghosh)
1:05:06 - Wins!
For the full show notes and links to the speakers, check out our website!

Aug 26, 2019 • 50min
Career Paths in Tech
There are so many different paths your career can follow in the tech industry. There's frontend, backend, or even full-stack development. You could also be a software engineer, quality assurance engineer, UX engineer, manager, developer advocate, or something else entirely!
For full show notes and resources for today's episode, check out the episode page on our website

Aug 19, 2019 • 37min
Ask Kelly about Entrepreneurship
Today we are doing a deep dive about entrepreneurship with our in house business owner, Kelly! Everyone can benefit from thinking entrepreneurially, even people who don’t want to start their own business. We’re going to ask Kelly about all the things that we are curious about and scare us about entrepreneurship.
Check out full show notes and resources for today's episode, check out the episode page on our website

Aug 15, 2019 • 41min
Level Up with CSS - Part 2
In our first part of our CSS episode, we discussed the foundations. In this special bonus episode we'll continue the conversation by covering some more in-depth areas of CSS, like layouts with Grid and Flexbox, animations, media queries, naming conventions, pre-processors, and frameworks.
Read the full shownotes and transcripts on our site: ladybug.dev/css-part-2

Aug 12, 2019 • 36min
Level Up With CSS - Part 1
We all know that Peter Griffin Family Guy gif of him unable to work some blinds. This gif is always associated with the frustrations of CSS. Something changes, then something breaks. Why do people have these issues? How can you improve your CSS skills? What are the key concepts that you need to understand to write clean, maintainable styles?
In this episode, we'll talk all about the nuances of CSS -- what it is, how it works, and how to get better at it.
Read the full shownotes and transcripts at our site: ladybug.dev/css-part-1

Aug 5, 2019 • 41min
Impostor Syndrome
Have you ever been scared to contribute to a conversation or publish a blog post because you were worried you weren’t qualified enough? Wondered how you got to the point you’re at in your career because you feel you don’t belong? Or that you’re a fraud? You’re not alone!
In this episode, we discuss how we have experienced impostor syndrome and our personal strategies for combatting it.
0:36 How have we experienced Impostor Syndrome
Job Interviews (0:48)
Quitting Computer Science & feeling like you stick out (2:04)
Speaking for the first time at a conference (7:19)
Feeling like you’re not qualified to teach something (11:46)
When people say mean things about you (13:11)
Running a company as someone young (16:32)
Getting criticism (17:56)
21:21 Impostor Syndrome as a Business Owner
21:55 Impostor Syndrome pushing us to be better
24:40 Combatting Impostor Syndrome
Tracking your wins
Focusing on your personal journey instead of others’
Being open about it and community w/ others
37:24 WINS
Cecilia who just graduated from the full-stack software engineering boot camp at Georgia Tech and landed her first job as a junior software developer.
Emma - Coding Coach Team is doing incredible things
Lindsey - Survived 106 heat index for her engagement pics!
Kelly - Started her own online store!
Ali - Spoke at CodeLand which was her most difficult talk to date because of how personal it was
Additional Links:
The truth about impostor syndrome
Why I keep an 'Accomplishments / Good Stuff' List
Check out the full shownotes and transcripts on our site!