Insightful conversations. Less snark.

For today’s episode we’re going to go off the beaten path a bit. We’re joined by Emily Kager, a Senior Android Engineer at Uber, to talk about the seemingly endless ways into tech. Emily found her way to mobile, a space that Corey self admittedly knows little about. Thankfully through content creators like Emily, he is becoming as erudite as the next. Emily’s diverse background and self determination serve as excellent example of how to carve you way into tech, how to do so successfully, and then sharing that with others. Emily discusses her motivations for building out her TikTok as as space to shine the light on the endless ways into tech. Emily and Corey chat about Emily’s own unique way into the field. Emily was adrift for a short period of time after school, where she realized she felt “lukewarm” about a path in medicine. So, she leveled some wisdom and ended up exploring other options. Now she has a masters and is an active member of the tech community!

It is always a good day when you get to chat with any of the fine folks at RedMonk. So, after some polite badgering by Corey, Kelly Fitzpatrick, a Senior Industry Analysts at RedMonk, has joined the “Screaming” line up. At the forefront of today’s conversation, what exactly is an industry analysts, and what is an industry analysis firm. Kelly provides some distinction between what RedMonk does, versus what RedMonk is. Kelly talks about how they work as an industry analysis firm to bring the latest tech trends to what their customers are building, and how they are getting their work out into the wild. Kelly discusses some of the secrets to RedMonk’s success in the face of the shifting tides of the tech world, her unique background and PhD, and more!

A few years ago Corey caught wind of the open source project Sysdig, which at the time attracted his attention. Now it has turned into something “rather interesting” when it comes to observability and security. Anna Belak, Sysdig’s Director of Thought Leadership, is here to expand on all that “interesting” may entail. Anna, who holds a PhD in Materials Engineering, is now the high chancellor of the lords of thought for Sysidig. What this actually means is she works in product and marketing in a way that is “half evangelism and half product strategy.” Anna discusses Sysdig’s product evolution into DevSecOps, security in the container world, the 2022 Cloud-Native Security and Usage Report, and more!

Lynn Langit, CEO of Lynn Langit Consulting, was one of the very first guest on “Screaming,” and now she is back, three hundred plus episodes later! Lynn’s repertoire is an impressive one. She was the first person to achieve AWS Community Hero as well as the equivalent designations at all three of the primary tier-one hyperscale cloud providers. Now as a consultant she is working across the cloud with an intensive focus on bioinformatics, quantum computing, and more. Since the last time Lynn came on the conversation has shifted from “should we be using cloud” to “how should we use it?” Lynn’s research is primarily focused in bioinformatics, and most of that research is centered on cancer. So, “how should we use it” is at the forefront of her work. Since the COVID pandemic Lynn has had a front row to seat to the massive impact it has made on bioinformatics at large. She discusses the changes in the field, the dynamic ways that research and money interact, her rising interest in quantum computing, and how it has shaped her consultancy.

Companies come in many stripes these days, and everybody seems to be a unicorn. But for TheZebra and Sean Corbett, their Senior Software Engineer, this may just be the case. Over the past several years, they have “helped create software and proprietary platforms” that assist teams in their understanding of their own work as an SDET (Software Development Engineer in Test.) Sean and Corey rake over how QA departments are waning in relevance, and their replacement by SDETs. Sean clarifies what exactly an SDET is, its history, and how it has changed over the past few years. Sean reflects on TheZebra and their emphasis on a more collaborative environment that brings engineers and testing into the other teams in an organization.

For the most part “Screaming in the Cloud” is figurative, but Tyler Slove, Senior Manager or Enterprise Cloud & DevOps at United Airlines, it is sometimes literal. For an industry that is effectively a logistics system, the airline industry is now increasingly a tech company. That is the new world into which the industry is heading, and it creates an interesting dynamic. Tyler hashes out what it is like to work in an industry where delays are not inconsequential. As the airline industry shifts from mainframes to the cloud, Tyler discusses the challenges they face there. Tyler talks about the systemic change within the airline industry to essentially become tech companies. Tyler discusses United Airlines migration to AWS, working within larger entities, and more!

A little over a year ago Randall Hunt, VP of Cloud Strategy and Solutions at Caylent, came on the podcast when he was working at Facebook, and boy was it an eventful day! Now Randall and Corey sit down to a conversation on a comparatively much calmer day than the last go around. Randall discusses his transition to Caylent, and how they stood out from the AWS partner crowd. Randall breaks down exactly what Caylent is, down to the etymological origins. Randall expounds on the kind of environment that Caylent is striving for. He offers up some perspectives on balancing management with his engineer brain, his love of their sci-fi vibes, and more!

This is a bit unusual for this episode! Our friends at Redis have asked us to interview Jason Frazier, who does not, nor has ever, worked at Redis. Rather, Jason is the Software Engineering Manager at Ekata, who is striving to be a global leader in online identity verification. Because, as it turns out, we live in the age where anybody can put anything anywhere all over the web! Jason goes into details on Ekata, a Redis customer, and their efforts to reduce fraudulent activity online. He discusses their efforts to make things frictionless for the customer and the balance they need to strike. He also lays out why Ekata has chosen to use Redis in detail. Jason also notes the importance of striking a balance between the consumers willingness for privacy, versus convenience and patience.

Corey caught wind of EFS, or Elastic File System, at his first re:Invent back in 2017. First impressions were not great, but when Wayne Duso, VP of Storage, Edge and Data Governance Services at AWS, reached out with a genuine desire to hear Corey’s two cents—it left an impression. Wayne reflects on Corey’s feedback on EFS in the early days, and how for technologists, input is “one of the most valuable things we can get.” Wayne reflects on the lessons he has learned across the history of EFS, as well as the other earlier services of AWS. Those other services stand as examples and bastions for Wayne to learn from. Wayne's comprehensive view of AWS provides some excellent connective tissue across such a massive entity. Tune in for the conversation!

Ana Visneski, now founder of Merewif, a crisis communications firm, is back for another run with Corey! For this go around Ana, who as the “Chief Chaos Coordinator,” is keeping things interesting as she embarks on this latest venture. Ana has taken the plunge and now, with Duckbill locked in a first client, is on the rise! Ana levels her Coast Guard experience, alongside her previous professional experience, to develop crisis and risk management plans for her customers. From burnout to handling potentially spicy Twitter threads she is honing her work in crisis comms. But her expertise also extends to risk management and mitigation from the seemingly silly, to the serious. Check out her conversation for some well honed insights!

Toward the end of last year Redis Lab’s went through a shift, and became Redis—sans “Labs.” Yiftach Shoolman, Co-Founder & CTO at Redis, has joined the “Screaming” line up to discuss their rebranding. Namely, they wanted to bring the messaging of Redis under one umbrella. Yiftach talks about the rise of Redis from the early days of being primarily a cache to its current state. Yiftach discusses the issues around latency and how Redis is working to shave the milliseconds. He also hashes out some of the nuance of working with both cloud environments and with the cloud vendors. Redis is a partner with AWS, which Yiftach expounds on the services they are providing in the cloud.

It turns out that when it comes to incidents, you can do more than just blowing past them and onto the next one! Laura Maguire, lead of the research program at Jeli.io, is changing the “leave it in your tracks mentality” and focusing on the post-incident investigative work. Laura, who holds a PhD with a research focus Cognitive Systems Engineering, uses her doctoral work that focuses on DevOps teams responsible for critical digital services. Her work brings a suite of insights into how organizations can better function in the post-incident fallout. Laura discusses her history working in high risk, high consequence environments–notbaly extreme mountain sports! She translates those perspectives to help her work with software engineers. Laura translates the potentially life threatening risks of work in alpine and mountain sports into studying the societal risks of DevOps and incidents. She offers up some wisdom on how organizations can better handle incidents. She also discusses Jel.io’s post-incident guide, and their efforts to guide how post-incident investigations can, and should, be carried out.