
Tech Lead Journal
Great technical leadership requires more than just great coding skills. It requires a variety of other skills that are not well-defined, and they are not something that we can fully learn in any school or book. Hear from experienced technical leaders sharing their journey and philosophy for building great technical teams and achieving technical excellence. Find out what makes them great and how to apply those lessons to your work and team.
Latest episodes

Sep 15, 2020 • 45min
#6 - Becoming a Tech Influencer Through Storytelling - Stephanie Wong
“The thing about becoming a Tech Influencer is, content is Queen and consistency, quality and value matter. That’s the trifecta of creating content that sticks."
In this episode, I had a fun conversation with Stephanie Wong, a Developer Advocate from Google Cloud. Stephanie is well known for her online developer contents ranging from YouTube videos, podcast and blog posts. She also hosts her own YouTube channel called “Steph You Should Know” where she talks about career, tech and productivity tips. Stephanie shared her story on how she started in technology even without technology education background and what led her to her current role. She also shared great tips on public speaking, storytelling, building a personal brand, and CV writing. She also gave her view on how to empower women to thrive in technology and dealing with imposter syndrome.
Listen out for:
Stephanie’s career journey and how she started in tech - [00:03:31]
What DevRel is - [00:08:29]
How to be a good Tech Influencer - [00:16:04]
Tips on public speaking - [00:21:04]
Importance of storytelling - [00:25:23]
Tips on career advice and personal branding - [00:29:43]
Women in technology and imposter syndrome - [00:33:28]
Interesting DevRel experience - [00:40:29]
Stephanie’s 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:42:18]
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Stephanie Wong’s Bio
Stephanie Wong is a speaker, writer, and architect with a mission to blend storytelling and technology to create remarkable online developer content. She is the creator of the Google Cloud Youtube series Networking End-to-End, Kubeflow 101, and Eyes on Enterprise, and the host of Google’s Next onAir broadcast. Before Google she helped businesses implement cloud technologies at Oracle. Born and raised in San Francisco, Stephanie’s active in her community, supporting women in tech and mentoring students. She hosts her own Youtube Channel called “Steph You Should Know” where you’ll find career, tech, and productivity tips and advice. She’s a former pageant queen, Hip Hop dance gold medalist, and has an unhealthy obsession with dogs.
Follow Stephanie:
Twitter – https://twitter.com/swongful
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/swongful/
Medium – https://medium.com/@swongful
Website – https://www.stephrwong.com/
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/6.

Sep 7, 2020 • 59min
#5 - Infrastructure as Code - Kief Morris
"With Infrastructure as Code, you’re not trying to kind of reverse engineer or understand what ended up somehow onto each system, you’re actually saying, this is how the system is built and because it’s built from that code. So there is no difference."
In this episode, I had an in-depth discussion with Kief Morris, the author of the O’Reilly “Infrastructure as Code” book. We started from what is Infrastructure as Code and why we should implement this important concept for managing our infrastructure, especially in the cloud era. We also discussed Infrastructure as Code principles, patterns, anti-patterns, pipeline, testing, and also recent new tools in this space. Kief also mentioned about his upcoming 2nd edition of the Infrastructure as Code book and what new changes that he is introducing. Do not miss our Pet vs Cattle discussion!
Listen out for:
Kief’s career journey and how he started doing infrastructure as code - [00:03:22]
How Kief got into writing Infrastructure as Code Book - [00:07:24]
What is Infrastructure as Code and why - [00:10:35]
Pet vs Cattle - [00:18:56]
Infrastructure as Code principles & patterns - [00:20:15]
Automation fear - [00:27:06]
Refactoring infrastructure code - [00:30:49]
Infrastructure as Code pipeline & testing - [00:36:17]
Pulumi and CDK - [00:48:29]
Infrastructure as Code anti-pattern example - [00:50:07]
2nd edition of Infrastructure as Code book - [00:51:40]
Infrastructure as Code reverse engineering - [00:53:40]
Kief’s 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:55:02]
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Kief Morris’s Bio
Kief is a Global Director of Cloud Engineering at ThoughtWorks. He enjoys helping organisations adopt cloud age technologies and practices. This usually involves buzzwords like cloud, digital platforms, infrastructure automation, DevOps, and Continuous Delivery. Originally from Tennessee, Kief has been building teams to deliver software as a service in London since the dotcom days. He is the author of “Infrastructure as Code”, published by O’Reilly.
Follow Kief:
Twitter (https://twitter.com/kief/)
LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kiefmorris/)
GitHub (https://github.com/kief/)
Website (http://kief.com/)
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/5.

Aug 31, 2020 • 43min
#4 - Women in Cybersecurity - Neha Malhotra
"With the kind of security breaches and attacks that we are witnessing in this era, it becomes of prior importance that we prioritize security at the top."
In this episode, I am joined by Neha Malhotra who has recently been awarded one of the Top 20 Women in Cybersecurity in Singapore 2020. Neha is deeply passionate about cybersecurity and has an extensive experience in driving initiatives across multiple cybersecurity domains. She is also very active in the cybersecurity community groups and kindly volunteers her time to promote cybersecurity awareness to more people and also to champion for women in cybersecurity and technology.
Listen out for:
How Neha won the Top 20 Women in Cybersecurity in Singapore 2020 - [00:03:03]
Some important security practices for one and all in the current digital world - [00:07:23]
Why Neha is interested in cybersecurity - [00:10:45]
How one can transition into cybersecurity - [00:15:16]
Why Neha is active in doing community contribution and volunteering - [00:21:01]
Neha’s message for women in technology - [00:23:08]
Discussion on security trade-off, social media, and fake news - [00:31:27]
Neha’s 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:37:21]
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Neha Malhotra’s Bio
Neha Malhotra is a passionate information & cyber security enthusiast, and she has recently been recognized as one of the Top 20 Women in Cybersecurity in Singapore.
She works as a Cybersecurity Program Manager and volunteers to serve as a Communications Director on the Exco board of (ISC)²Singapore chapter, & is actively involved with the Singapore community across initiatives driven by Cybersecurity Agency of Singapore, (ISC)², WoSec Singapore, AISP (Association of Information Security Professionals), Division Zero, Cyber Risk Meetups, Google Developers Space. She was on the Judges Panel for The CyberSecurity Awards (TCA) 2019.
Neha holds CISSP, CISM, PMP certifications and is currently researching on cloud, container security, blockchain security and IoT security.
Follow Neha:
LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nehamalhotrapm/)
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/4.

Aug 22, 2020 • 38min
#3 - Agile Essence and Challenging Status Quo - Stanly Lau
“Knowing and understanding are very different things. Unless I practice it along with good guidance, I may not increase my understanding."
There are several Agile misconceptions in the industry lately. It has even come to a point where people are being skeptical and starting to doubt the actual value of Agile methodologies and practices.
In this episode, I had a conversation with Stanly Lau, one of the early leaders of the Agile Singapore community, about these Agile misconceptions and what we can do to bring back Agile to what it was originally intended for. Stanly is an Agile Coach in Odd-e and he enjoys helping others to produce better quality software sustainably. Stanly also shared Odd-e unique culture and how it is challenging the status quo by experimenting for other ways of building and operating a successful company.
Listen out for:
How Stanly initially bumped into Agile - [00:03:41]
Why Stanly decided to join Odd-e and why Odd-e has such a unique culture - [00:09:41]
The origin of Agile, its essence and biggest misconceptions - [00:15:55]
Why Stanly brought thought leaders to Singapore for Agile Conferences and workshops - [00:22:35]
Stanly’s experiment going back to the industry as employee to gain self-awareness, empathy, and thus becoming better coach - [00:25:27]
Stanly’s 3 Tech Lead Wisdoms - [00:32:56]
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Stanly Lau’s Bio
Stanly Lau is an experienced software development coach and trainer at Odd-e. He helps organisations become more agile by adopting better development and people practices through experiments and congruent actions. He is also one of the early leaders of the Agile Singapore community.
Follow Stanly:
Email (stanly@odd-e.com)
LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/stanlylau/)
Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/stanlylau)
Like this episode?
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/3.

Aug 11, 2020 • 40min
#2 - Community Contribution and Mentoring Junior Devs - Michael Cheng
Hear from Singapore's prominent community builder, Michael Cheng, on how to contribute to communities, and learn more about his latest passion for mentoring junior developers.
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“Rather than being passive about it, why don’t I take a proactive approach to try and find people who are like-minded, who share the same ideals and goals and let them come together and just share."
Michael Cheng has been a prominent community builder in Singapore, having created communities such as Engineers.SG, PHP User Group, iOS Dev Scouts, and recently JuniorDev.SG. There are many people who have benefited tremendously from his communities, and importantly, those communities have also helped to accelerate the growth of the tech and startup scenes in Singapore in the last few years.
In this episode, hear from Michael on why he created those communities and what made him started in the beginning, including the challenges he was trying to solve. Michael also shared the impact that his initiatives have brought both to the communities and to him professionally. We also discussed JuniorDev.SG and how some of its programmes have been helping junior developers towards the goal of dropping their “junior” title.
Listen out for:
How Michael started his community contributions and why he started them? - [00:03:40]
Michael’s strategy to ensure that his meetups have good traction - [00:06:35]
Why Michael created Engineers.SG and the impact that it brings to the community - [00:08:00]
How community contributions have impacted Michael’s professional career - [00:20:14]
Why Michael created JuniorDev.SG and how it differs from the other groups he created before - [00:22:49]
JuniorDev.SG activities, e.g. mentoring programme, developer’s gym - [00:27:31]
Michael’s 3 Tech Lead Wisdoms - [00:35:33]
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Follow Michael:
Twitter (@coderkungfu)
Website (https://coderkungfu.com/)
Mentions & Links:
Engineers.SG (https://engineers.sg/)
JuniorDev.SG (https://juniordev.sg/)
The Singapore PHP User Group Meetup (https://www.meetup.com/sgphpug/)
Singapore iOS Dev Scout Meetup (https://www.meetup.com/Singapore-iOS-Dev-Scout-Meetup/)
The Geek Path (https://thegeekpath.com/)
Geek Brunch SG (https://geekbrunch.sg/)
Confreaks (https://confreaks.tv/)
Like this episode?
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/2.

Aug 3, 2020 • 47min
#1 - Startup Tech Leadership - Jerome Poudevigne
"Leading others is leading yourself first. That's a very big work of self awareness, and you should always do that."
Jerome Poudevigne is a serial CTO who has co-founded multiple startups with multiple successful exits. Recently, he has been working at Google Cloud and AWS to help startups grow and make the most of cloud technologies.
In this very first episode of Tech Lead Journal, Jerome shares with us his startup wisdom from his lessons learned; advice for hiring, building culture, pitching, and managing stakeholders. He also shares with us his "Rule of 50%", a practical strategy that you can use to build your startup/product from zero scale to planet scale. Moreover, Jerome shares his interesting anecdotes about cultural differences between different regions based on his experience.
Listen out for:
Jerome's career highlights, lowlights, and his lessons learned - [00:04:03]
How to pitch yourself to (potential) investors, and how to assess good investors - [00:06:49]
Some tips for hiring, especially in a startup, and how you can assess someone's personality and culture fit - [00:09:37]
How to ensure that everyone works towards the same vision of the company - [00:16:37]
"Jerome's Rule of 50%" - how to build your startup from zero scale to planet scale - [00:20:49]
How you should not get distracted by the latest technologies when you're starting up - [00:21:07]
Stakeholders management, and how to explain about technology to non-technical stakeholders - [00:28:42]
Anecdotes about cultural differences between different regions - [00:32:40]
Jerome's 3 Tech Lead Wisdoms - [00:43:56]
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Jerome Poudevigne's Bio
Jerome got his first computer when he was 12 and got into programming games, hacking copy protection schemes, and
putting together electronics during his school years. He decided that computers and software were too much fun, so he
got a CS degree and started doing it professionally, building radar systems and avionics for Airbus.
In the mid-90s, he moved to the Silicon Valley where he got the startup bug, and soon after he co-founded his first
startup, Kermeet, a Web-based event management. After it was acquired, he very soon started another one, acquired too,
and then a third one, that is still growing. In-between co-founding companies, he was an independent software
consultant helping out clients solving tough technical problems and other start-ups to take off the ground.
Since 2017, Jerome has been working at Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services, helping startups make the most of cloud
technologies. When not traveling around Asia to a meet-up, he spends time running his small social enterprise helping
people with autism.
Follow Jerome:
LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jpoudevigne/)
Like this episode?
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/1.

Jul 14, 2020 • 3min
Welcome to Tech Lead Journal with Henry Suryawirawan
"Great technical leadership requires more than just great coding skills. It requires a variety of other skills that are not well-defined."
In this trailer episode, your host Henry Suryawirawan explains why he created this brand new podcast and what you can expect and learn from it.
Like this episode?
Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and submit your feedback.
Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
Pledge your support by becoming a patron.
For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/0.
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