Tech Lead Journal

“You should never do something just because the auditors want you to do it. They should be able to explain the risk and controls in accordance with your risk appetite and tolerance." Clarissa Lucas is an audit and risk management leader and the author of “Beyond Agile Auditing”. In this episode, Clarissa shared a novel approach to internal auditing called auditing with agility. She shared this concept at the DevOps Enterprise Summit 2022, which drew some parallels to the revolutionary birth of the DevOps movement. Clarissa explained the three core components of auditing with agility, which are value-driven auditing, integrated auditing 2.0, and adaptable auditing.   Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:04:27] Purpose of Internal Audit - [00:08:38] Challenges with Traditional Auditing - [00:11:01] How Auditing with Agility Started - [00:16:48] Parallels with the Birth of DevOps - [00:22:02] Segregation of Duty - [00:25:04] Auditing with Agility & Value-Driven Auditing - [00:30:21] Integrated Auditing 2.0 - [00:33:52] Adaptable Auditing - [00:41:33] Extending to External Auditing - [00:45:32] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:47:26] _____ Clarissa Lucas’s BioClarissa Lucas is an experienced audit and risk management leader with over 15 years of experience. As a thought leader on Auditing with Agility, she has written articles on the topic published by both the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) and IT Revolution press, as well as her first book, Beyond Agile Auditing: Three Core Components to Revolutionize Your Internal Audit Practices. Clarissa has spoken at a number of IIA, ISACA, and IT Revolution conferences, as well as local IIA chapter events and various podcasts, on this topic. Clarissa is a Certified Internal Auditor, Certified Information Systems Auditor and a Certified Investments and Derivatives Auditor. Follow Clarissa: Website – clarissalucas.com LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/clarissalucas _____ Our Sponsors Are you looking for a new cool swag? Tech Lead Journal now offers you some swags that you can purchase online. These swags are printed on-demand based on your preference, and will be delivered safely to you all over the world where shipping is available. Check out all the cool swags available by visiting techleadjournal.dev/shop. And don't forget to brag yourself once you receive any of those swags. Like this episode? Show notes & transcript: techleadjournal.dev/episodes/141 Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Buy me a coffee or become a patron.

“It’s so important to start with a problem and make sure you understand it is a big market. Many tech founding teams end up building a technology that is still in search of a problem." Jothy Rosenberg is a serial entrepreneur who has founded 9 startups with exits of over $100 million. He is the author of an upcoming book “Think Like a Tech Founder: Anecdotes of an Incorrigible Entrepreneur”. In this episode, Jothy shared his valuable lessons learned on founding and managing a startup, such as why and when you should decide to startup, valuable advice for founders (including letting go founders who don’t work out), dealing with failures, being the CEO of your own startup, and traits of a bad CEO we should avoid. Towards the end, Jothy shared inspiring message about his story overcoming physical disability that resulted in a foundation “Who Says I Can’t”, and described his formula why people with physical disability so often overachieve.   Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:04:48] Jumping into Startup - [00:12:34] When to Start a Startup - [00:16:36] Definition of Founders - [00:19:01] Advice for Founders - [00:21:44] Letting Founders Go - [00:24:20] Dealing with Failure - [00:26:47] Lessons from Big Companies - [00:30:20] Being a Startup CEO - [00:34:16] Bad CEOs - [00:38:18] Who Says I Can’t Foundation - [00:44:31] Who Says I Can’t Formula - [00:49:10] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:54:00] _____ Jothy Rosenberg’s BioJothy Rosenberg has been an entrepreneur since 1988, and has founded and run nine technology startups—two of which had exits of over $100 million. He was the general manager of Borland’s Developer Division from 1992-1997, where he led Borland’s Languages division, including Delphi, C++Builder, and JBuilder. He has a PhD in computer science, and has authored two technical books, a business book, memoir, and childrens book. Jothy is the creator of the series Who Says I Can’t on YouTube, and established and runs the The Who Says I Can’t Foundation. Follow Jothy: LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/jothy Who Says I Can’t – whosaysicant.org Dover Microsystems – dovermicrosystems.com Email – jothy@dovermicrosystems.com _____ Our Sponsors Are you looking for a new cool swag? Tech Lead Journal now offers you some swags that you can purchase online. These swags are printed on-demand based on your preference, and will be delivered safely to you all over the world where shipping is available. Check out all the cool swags available by visiting techleadjournal.dev/shop. And don't forget to brag yourself once you receive any of those swags. Like this episode? Show notes & transcript: techleadjournal.dev/episodes/140 Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Buy me a coffee or become a patron.

“An effective developer is an effective software tester. As a developer, it’s your responsibility to make sure what you do works. And automated testing is such an easy and cheap way of doing it." Mauricio Aniche is the author of “Effective Software Testing”. In this episode, Mauricio explained how to become a more effective software developer by using effective and systematic software testing approaches. We discussed several such testing techniques, such as testing pyramid, specification-based testing, boundary testing, structural testing, mutation testing, and property testing. Mauricio also shared his interesting view about test-driven development (TDD) and suggested the one area we can do to improve our test maintainability.   Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:03:43] Winning Teacher of the Year - [00:06:07] An Effective Developer is an Effective Tester - [00:09:33] Reasons for Writing Automated Tests - [00:10:43] Systematic Tester - [00:13:45] Testing Pyramid - [00:17:50] Unit vs Integration Test - [00:20:25] Specification-Based Testing - [00:22:55] Behavior-Driven Design - [00:25:34] Boundary Testing - [00:27:01] Structural Testing & Code Coverage - [00:30:16] Mutation Testing - [00:35:31] Property Testing - [00:38:45] Test-Driven Development - [00:42:00] Test Maintainability - [00:46:03] Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests - [00:48:07] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:49:24] _____ Mauricio Aniche’s BioDr. Maurício Aniche’s life mission is to help software engineers to become better and more productive. Maurício is a Tech Lead at Adyen, where he heads the Tech Academy team and leads different engineering enablement initiatives. Maurício is also an assistant professor of software engineering at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. His teaching efforts in software testing gave him the Computer Science Teacher of the Year 2021 award and the TU Delft Education Fellowship, a prestigious fellowship given to innovative lecturers. He is the author of the “Effective Software Testing: A Developer’s Guide”, published by Manning in 2022. He’s currently working on a new book entitled “Simple Object-Oriented Design” which should be on the market soon. Follow Mauricio: LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/mauricioaniche Twitter – @mauricioaniche Website – effective-software-testing.com Newsletter – effectivesoftwaretesting.substack.com _____ Our Sponsors Are you looking for a new cool swag? Tech Lead Journal now offers you some swags that you can purchase online. These swags are printed on-demand based on your preference, and will be delivered safely to you all over the world where shipping is available. Check out all the cool swags available by visiting techleadjournal.dev/shop. And don't forget to brag yourself once you receive any of those swags. Like this episode? Show notes & transcript: techleadjournal.dev/episodes/139 Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Buy me a coffee or become a patron.

“Building an application security program is about ensuring security is built into the software development lifecycle and how to respond to vulnerabilities." Derek Fisher is the author of “Application Security Program Handbook”. In this episode, Derek shared about building an application security program and how to implement it in our organization. First, we discussed some security fundamental concepts, such as shift-left, CIA triad, and threat modeling. Derek then outlined how to start an application security program and measure the program’s success. Derek also touched on the security program maturity model and gave his tips on how to build and hire application security teams. Towards the end, Derek also gave his insights on how to address zero-day vulnerabilities when it becomes prominent.   Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:03:51] Building Application Security Program - [00:06:56] Shifting Left - [00:11:58] CIA Triad - [00:16:30] Threat Modeling - [00:19:04] Threat Classification - [00:22:49] Starting Application Security Program - [00:27:04] Security Program Maturity Model - [00:32:45] Building Security Teams - [00:35:27] Measuring the Program’s Success - [00:40:19] Zero Day Vulnerabilities - [00:42:48] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:44:59] _____ Derek Fisher’s BioDerek is an award winning author of a children’s book series in cybersecurity as well as the author of “The Application Security Handbook.” He is a university instructor at Temple University where he teaches software development security to undergraduate and graduate students. He is a speaker on topics in the cybersecurity space and has led teams, large and small, at organizations in the healthcare and financial industries. He has built and matured information security teams as well as implemented organizational information security strategies to reduce the organizations risk. His focus has been to raise the security awareness of the engineering organization while maintaining a practice of secure code development, delivery, and operations. Follow Derek Fisher: LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/derek-fisher-sec-arch YouTube – @securelybuilt5967 Website – securelybuilt.com _____ Our Sponsors Are you looking for a new cool swag? Tech Lead Journal now offers you some swags that you can purchase online. These swags are printed on-demand based on your preference, and will be delivered safely to you all over the world where shipping is available. Check out all the cool swags available by visiting techleadjournal.dev/shop. And don't forget to brag yourself once you receive any of those swags. Like this episode? Show notes & transcript: techleadjournal.dev/episodes/138 Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Buy me a coffee or become a patron.

“It’s not about the tools or processes. Most important is you understand the target outcomes for your customers and establish the right level of shared situational awareness across the teams." Robert Benefield is the author of “Lean DevOps: A Practical Guide to On Demand Service Delivery”. In this episode, Robert shared insights on how we can apply the Lean DevOps mindset for building successful IT delivery organizations. Robert started by sharing what initiated him writing the book and how it differs from the other available DevOps books. Robert described the concept of on-demand service delivery and important concepts, such as knowing the target outcomes, building situational awareness, and making effective and timely decisions based on the OODA loop. Robert also shared a few practices and techniques he outlined in the book, such as mission command, workflow board, queue master, service engineering lead, value stream mapping, and Einheit.  Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:03:58] Writing a DevOps Book - [00:14:14] On Demand Service Delivery - [00:18:58] Mission Command - [00:21:42] OODA Loop - [00:26:56] Building Situational Awareness - [00:33:16] Workflow Management - [00:39:43] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:49:41] _____ Robert Benefield’s BioRobert Benefield is an experienced technical leader who has decades of experience delivering robust on-demand services to solve hard problems in demanding ecosystems including banking and securities trading, medical and pharmaceutical, energy, telecom, government, and Internet services. His continual eagerness to learn and work with others to make a difference has taken him from building computers and writing code in the early days of the Internet at Silicon Valley startups to the executive suite in large multinational companies. He shares his unique experience in the hopes that others can continue to build on it without having to collect quite as many scars along the way. Follow Robert: LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/robert-benefield-25482 Website – leandevops.com Twitter – @leandevops _____ Our Sponsors Are you looking for a new cool swag? Tech Lead Journal now offers you some swags that you can purchase online. These swags are printed on-demand based on your preference, and will be delivered safely to you all over the world where shipping is available. Check out all the cool swags available by visiting techleadjournal.dev/shop. And don't forget to brag yourself once you receive any of those swags. Like this episode? Show notes & transcript: techleadjournal.dev/episodes/137 Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Buy me a coffee or become a patron.

“Privacy is about handling data in a way that builds for both compliance and trust, maturity and transparency." Nishant Bhajaria is cybersecurity and data privacy executive and the author of “Data Privacy: A Runbook for Engineers”. In this episode, we discussed the importance of data privacy and privacy engineering. Nishant described his definition of data privacy and why it is becoming a key concern for users, companies, and regulators. He explained why doing data privacy is hard and how companies can build a privacy-first culture. Nishant also covered other data privacy topics, including data classification, data sharing, data consent, and data privacy applied to machine learning.   Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:03:29] Writing “Data Privacy” Book - [00:05:45] Building a Course - [00:10:04] Data Privacy Definition - [00:13:43] Data Privacy Concerns - [00:16:03] Data Privacy Regulations - [00:22:07] Data Privacy is Hard - [00:26:23] Privacy & Security - [00:31:22] Privacy-First Culture - [00:35:23] Data for Machine Learning - [00:39:23] Data Privacy Tooling - [00:42:45] Data Sharing - [00:45:45] Data Consent - [00:49:27] Data Classification - [00:52:10] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:55:46] _____ Nishant Bhajaria’s BioNishant Bhajaria is an executive in the cybersecurity and data privacy industry. Having started out as an engineer with a second act as a product manager, he pivoted to data protection before it became a high-visibility topic. Besides building and leading teams at Nike, Netflix, Google and Uber, Nishant has also authored the recently released Data Privacy: A Runbook for Engineers - a deep dive into strategies on effectively identifying, communicating and addressing privacy risks using technical strategies. He also teaches courses on LinkedIn Learning on cybersecurity, career development and building inclusive teams. Follow Nishant: LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/nishantjb LinkedIn Courses – https://www.linkedin.com/learning/instructors/nishant-bhajaria _____ Our Sponsors Are you looking for a new cool swag? Tech Lead Journal now offers you some swags that you can purchase online. These swags are printed on-demand based on your preference, and will be delivered safely to you all over the world where shipping is available. Check out all the cool swags available by visiting techleadjournal.dev/shop. And don't forget to brag yourself once you receive any of those swags. Like this episode? Show notes & transcript: techleadjournal.dev/episodes/136 Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Buy me a coffee or become a patron.

“Spend some time looking at the system in which you work. Understand how the work is working. Understand how flow is for your organization. And then you can work to optimize that." James Lewis is a Director at ThoughtWorks and a pioneer of microservice architecture. In this episode, we went back memory lane to the time when James first coined and popularized the microservice architecture. James described his definition of a microservice and its important characteristics. He also shared the recent microservice evolution, including the swing between microservice and monolith. In the second half, James shared his insights from complexity science related to different scaling patterns. Particularly, he explained how different hierarchy types can affect an organization’s growth rate. Towards the end, James gave some tips on how organization can detect signs of suboptimal growth and what we can do to maintain organizational agility.   Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:03:48] Coining Microservices - [00:07:25] Definition of Microservices - [00:14:13] Microservices Swing - [00:18:42] Scaling Law and Complexity Science - [00:24:05] Complex and Adaptive System - [00:40:01] Examining Sublinear Growth - [00:43:47] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:51:19] _____ James Lewis’s BioJames is a Software Architect and Director at Thoughtworks based in the UK. He’s proud to have been a part of Thoughtworks’ journey for fourteen years and it’s ongoing mission of delivering technical excellence for its clients and in amplifying positive social change for an equitable future. As a member of the Thoughtworks Technical Advisory Board, the group that creates the Technology Radar, he contributes to industry adoption of open source and other tools, techniques, platforms and languages. He is an internationally recognised expert on software architecture and design and on its intersection with organisational design and lean product development. After defining what was the newly emerging Microservices architectural style back in 2014, James’ primary consulting focus these days is helping organisations with technology strategy, distributed systems design and adoption of SOA. Follow James Lewis: Twitter – @boicy LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/james-lewis-microservices/ Email – james.lewis@thoughtworks.com _____ Our Sponsors Are you looking for a new cool swag? Tech Lead Journal now offers you some swags that you can purchase online. These swags are printed on-demand based on your preference, and will be delivered safely to you all over the world where shipping is available. Check out all the cool swags available by visiting techleadjournal.dev/shop. And don't forget to brag yourself once you receive any of those swags. Like this episode? Show notes & transcript: techleadjournal.dev/episodes/135 Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Buy me a coffee or become a patron.

“The three core dimensions of developer experience are feedback loops, cognitive load, and flow state." Margaret-Anne (Peggy) Storey and Abi Noda are the coauthors of the recently published ACM paper “DevEx: What Actually Drives Productivity”. In this episode, we discussed how we can better measure and improve developer productivity using a developer-centric approach. Peggy and Abi first began by explaining the importance of socio-technical factors in software development. They also shared their view on the well-known SPACE and DORA metrics, and pointed out the danger of misusing and abusing the DORA metrics. Peggy and Abi then explained the three core dimensions of developer experience from their latest paper, which are feedback loops, cognitive load, and flow state. Towards the end, Peggy and Abi shared tips on how we can start measuring developer experience, including how to conduct developer surveys properly.   Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:04:09] First Developer Experience Paper - [00:06:19] Socio-Technical Factors - [00:07:37] SPACE & DORA Metrics - [00:13:35] Misuse and Abuse of DORA Metrics - [00:18:52] New Developer Experience Paper - [00:22:29] Developer Experience - [00:24:55] 3 Core Dimensions - [00:28:11] Optimizing Feedback Loops - [00:32:44] Cognitive Load - [00:37:06] Flow State - [00:40:32] Importance of Culture - [00:46:25] Measuring Developer Experience - [00:50:27] Conducting Survey - [00:54:29] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [01:00:10] _____ Margaret-Anne Storey’s BioMargaret-Anne (Peggy) Storey is a professor of computer science at the University of Victoria and holds a Canada Research Chair in human and social aspects of software engineering. Her research focuses on improving processes, tools, communication, and collaboration in software engineering. She serves as chief scientist at DX and consults with Microsoft to improve developer productivity. Abi Noda’s BioAbi Noda is the founder and CEO at DX, where he leads the company’s strategic direction and R&D efforts. His work focuses on developing measurement methods to help organizations improve developer experience and productivity. Before joining DX, Noda held engineering leadership roles at various companies and founded Pull Panda, which was acquired by GitHub in 2019. For more information, visit his website at abinoda.com. Follow Margaret: LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/margaret-anne-storey-8419462 Twitter – @margaretstorey Follow Abi: LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/abinoda Twitter – @abinoda Newsletter – newsletter.abinoda.com _____ Our Sponsors Are you looking for a new cool swag? Tech Lead Journal now offers you some swags that you can purchase online. These swags are printed on-demand based on your preference, and will be delivered safely to you all over the world where shipping is available. Check out all the cool swags available by visiting techleadjournal.dev/shop. And don't forget to brag yourself once you receive any of those swags. Like this episode? Show notes & transcript: techleadjournal.dev/episodes/134. Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Buy me a coffee or become a patron.

“The goal of requirements development is clear and effective communication. Thus, it has to be done in an incremental and iterative fashion." Karl Wiegers is the coauthor of “Software Requirements Essentials” and has previously appeared in our episode #103. In this episode, we discussed 6 essential practices for software requirements out of the 20 core practices specified in his book. Karl also explained the importance of having a clear and effective communication in developing software requirements, his view on doing software requirements for Agile teams, and the importance of having good software requirements for becoming an effective software development team and for avoiding unnecessary rework.   Listen out for: What Karl is Up To Lately - [00:04:08] Writing “Software Requirements Essentials” - [00:05:20] Software Requirements - [00:10:19] Clear & Effective Communication - [00:13:20] Importance of Requirement Details - [00:16:19] Practice #1 - Understand the Problem Before Converging on a Solution - [00:22:05] Practice #3 - Define the Solution’s Boundaries - [00:26:26] Requirements Elicitation vs Requirements Gathering - [00:30:47] Practice #6 - Understand What Users Need to Do With the Solution - [00:33:01] Software Requirements in Agile - [00:37:06] Requirements & Effective Software Development - [00:40:59] Rework - [00:44:39] Practice #19 - Establish and Manage Requirement Baselines - [00:46:20] Practice #13 - Prioritize the Requirements - [00:49:17] Practice #20 - Manage Changes to Requirements Effectively - [00:52:22] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:55:54] _____ Karl Wiegers’s BioKarl Wiegers is Principal Consultant with Process Impact. He has a PhD in organic chemistry. Karl is the author of 14 books, including Software Requirements Essentials (with Candase Hokanson), Software Requirements (with Joy Beatty), Software Development Pearls, The Thoughtless Design of Everyday Things, Successful Business Analysis Consulting, and a forensic mystery novel titled The Reconstruction. Karl has delivered more than 650 training courses, webinars, and conference presentations worldwide. You can reach him at ProcessImpact.com or KarlWiegers.com, where you can also hear more than 50 songs he has recorded just for fun, including 18 originals that he wrote. Follow Karl: LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/karlwiegers Website – karlwiegers.com Software Requirements Essentials – softwarereqs.com Process Impact – processimpact.com Medium – karlwiegers.medium.com _____ Our Sponsors Are you looking for a new cool swag? Tech Lead Journal now offers you some swags that you can purchase online. These swags are printed on-demand based on your preference, and will be delivered safely to you all over the world where shipping is available. Check out all the cool swags available by visiting techleadjournal.dev/shop. And don't forget to brag yourself once you receive any of those swags. Like this episode? Show notes & transcript: techleadjournal.dev/episodes/133. Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Buy me a coffee or become a patron.

“Speak about topics you are passionate about, because if you are passionate about something, you can easily find the story and the motivation that will lead you to success." Oscar Santolalla is the author of “Rock the Tech Stage” and the host of the “Time to Shine” podcast. In this episode, we discussed techniques on how to deliver a successful tech presentation and demo. Oscar broke down the elements of a successful tech presentation, in particular, explaining in-depth the three essential elements of passion, storytelling, and interaction. Oscar also shared some practical tips on how to deliver a killer product demo, some presentation slides hacks, and insights on how we can use our voice more effectively when delivering talks.   Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:03:47] Writing Public Demo and Public Speaking Books - [00:08:40] Elements of a Successful Public Speaking - [00:12:52] Passion - [00:23:10] Storytelling - [00:25:20] Delivering Product Demos - [00:28:55] Presentation Slides - [00:34:56] Importance of Voice - [00:38:31] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:42:09] _____ Oscar Santolalla’s BioAfter a decade and a half in the technology arena, Oscar embarked on a mission to help people in technology companies present better, inspire others, and sell more. He is author of “Rock the Tech Stage” (Apress, 2020) and “Create and Deliver a Killer Product Demo” (Apress, 2018). Oscar helps professionals in the technology industry rediscover the power of sharing their best ideas onstage. Since 2014, Oscar hosts Time to Shine, the pioneer podcast show in public speaking. He works as a Senior Sales Engineer at Ubisecure, in which he hosts the podcast “Let’s Talk About Digital Identity” and leads the company’s product training program. He has also contributed as speaking coach in several TEDx events. Oscar lives in Helsinki, Finland. Follow Oscar: LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/oscarsantolalla Twitter – @osantolalla Website – rockthetechstage.com Rock the Tech Stage On Demand – rockthetechstage.com/ondemand (25% off with code: techleadjournal) _____ Our Sponsors Are you looking for a new cool swag? Tech Lead Journal now offers you some swags that you can purchase online. These swags are printed on-demand based on your preference, and will be delivered safely to you all over the world where shipping is available. Check out all the cool swags available by visiting techleadjournal.dev/shop. And don't forget to brag yourself once you receive any of those swags. Like this episode? Show notes & transcript: techleadjournal.dev/episodes/132 Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Buy me a coffee or become a patron.