Insightful conversations. Less snark.

TikTok sensation Serena (@shenetworks) is back again for another round of “Screaming!” Now she is drumming up her Discord presence and the Cisco cert study group that she and others are forming there. Again, Serena continues to keep things fresh as she discusses the many, best ways, for all of us to learn. Serena gives us some insight into her study group, and the various certifications that they so studiously work over. Serena and Corey rake over the usefulness of certain certifications and practices. Serena talks about her own learning style and her implementation of actual work and some of the obstacles with certs. For Serena, she puts importance of actually learning, and not just regurgitating rote memory.

Conversations about what the cloud is might be an infinitely convoluted one, but some are taking the conversation down paths less traveled. That is certainly the case for AB Periasamy, CEO and Co-Founder of MinIO, an open source provider of high performance, object storage software. AB and Corey talk about the shift from legacy to the cloud and the advent of S3, and how in that transition AB saw an opportunity. That was when he started to build a brand around the new demands for storage. AB saw that building a software storage company early on that was compatible with S3 would “sweep the market” and now they’re sitting on a billion dollar company. Corey and AB take a deeply technical dive, check it out!

Where does the next generation of cloud engineer come from? The current generation walked a path that may not even exist anymore. So, when Natalie Davis, a Software Engineer at Netlify, decided to jump over to tech from another industry, she stood as a stellar example of how to do so! Especially for this next generation. Natalie talks about her bootcamp experiences, and her maneuver from retail into tech. Natalie talks about the ways that tech is addressing the problems at hand in tech. She discusses the various adversities that tech needs to confront when it comes to those problems. Natalie compares the relatively benign nature of tech compared to her background in retail, but importantly so she offers up areas where tech can improve!

“Nobody cares about backups” might ring true in certain circles, and Corey has uttered that line a few times, but there are some who do. Nancy Wang, GM of AWS Backup and AWS Cryo at AWS, does care. A lot. And naturally she had to come on the show and tell Corey about it! Nancy and Corey bat around some back up reasoning. Nancy kindly goes into the nuances of her own work, of which her title actually indicates what she does, and the importance that she sees in back ups. Nancy’s work doesn’t end there—she is also the founder and CEO of Advancing Women in Tech. A 501c non-profit, “Advancing Women” is an education platform designed to help women move into higher positions in their organizations. Check out the conversation for more!

Often on “Screaming” we get folks whose careers in tech don’t follow the typical path. This is certainly the case for Rachel Kelly, Senior Infrastructure Engineer at Fastly, who has pulled a kind of “Benjamin Buttoning” move, and has done a career repatriation. Rachel has gone from managing just the SaaS web app to managing vast groups of servers and data centers worldwide. Rachel talks about her repatriation and gives the why, what, where, and how of her current position. Rachel wanted to tap into some of the more arcane aspects of how the internet works, and at Fastly she gets to be a part of that group. Rachel and Corey bat some AWS considerations across the net and have an enlightening conversation about the multitudes of AWS. From AWS offerings, to nuances of hiring, to some practices that need to be left in the rear view—Rachel and Corey cover the spread!

A continual focus here on “Screaming” is to take time to sing the praises of those folks who aptly deserve them, and that we admire. Oftentimes Corey finds them out in the wilds known as conferences, and then in reflection will have them come on for a proper conversation. This is where Deirdré Straughan, Director of Open Source Community and Engagement at Intel, comes to play. Deirdré has had a storied career in tech that has spanned a few decades now, which in turn has put her into the position to understand the industry to a depth few do. With an extensive background in marketing, but not letting previous definitions limit her, Deirdré’s focus is now on extending “marketing” past its previous ploys. Deirdré expands on what exactly marketing as education means, and she also describes her highly varied background—country by country. She offers up some excellent anecdotes, and ponders on her hardline honesty. Tune in for her invigorating perspectives!

The tech industry is getting long enough in the teeth that now there are some bonafide old fogeys. Nevertheless there, fortunately, are plenty of younger tech folks out there pushing the thought and mentality of the industry forward. Andrew Brown, Co-Founder and Cloud Instructor at ExamPro Training Inc certainly is, but his presence in the community is so much more! Andrew talks about the various internet platforms that he stays active on, and his mission to provide education on the cloud. Importantly so, Andrew does so with an immense amount of generosity. As he puts it, he couldn’t imagine taking money for the courses that he has created. Andrew and Corey discuss at length their thoughts on cloud certifications, the worth of multicloud, and much more!

For this episode we’re changing it up a bit. Corey sits down for a group chat with Shir Tamari, Head of Research at Wiz, and a couple of his esteemed colleagues; Nir Ohfield and Sagi Tzadik. While the structure is a tad different, the content is a frequent subject: security! Shir and his team of specialists at Wiz are making some serious research into cyber security, and in turn are developing some excellent insights. Shir, Nir, and Sagi reveal some of the cutting edge security research that they have been conducting. They’ve honed their research intent down to two primary responsibilities: find risks in cloud environments, and doing community research. Shir and co. break down the various vulnerabilities that their research has revealed, and the methods they’re developing to alleviate these multifarious risks.

Pete Cheslock, Cloud Economist and Duckbill Group alum, sits down with Corey for their annual tradition of re:Invent re:Cap. After 2020’s generally crappy virtual event, and this years arguable awkward “hybrid” event, Pete and Corey have many coals to rake over. Pete and Corey talk about the general weirdness of the 2021 re:Invent amidst a still on going pandemic. One topic of conversation is the relentless insistence of certain companies to do what the customer asks, without even asking if they should. Pete expounds on some of the offerings to come out of re:Invent, and he and Corey try to sift through the chaff for some of the wheat.

Figuring out what the hell is going on in the AWS environment can be a head scratcher, on a good day. But, thanks to the earnest work of folks like Maciej Winnicki, Founder of Cloudash, these itches are, indeed, being scratched. Maciej and Cloudash got put on blast by Corey on Twitter, but for all the right reasons! Maciej goes into the details on Cloudash and how it works as a native desktop app for Mac. Maciej talks about all the areas that Cloudash is covering down from Lambda to CloudFront and others. Corey is a happy customer completely on his own! Listen in as he and Maciej take a deep dive into the technical aspects of Cloudash, and what Maciej has created is something really unique!

The keynote speeches at re:Invent are always a gamble, but fortunately this past year Matt Coulter, Technical Architect at Liberty Mutual, performed amply. While today he doesn’t have 20K people in front of him, Matt still has some great things to say. Matt and Corey talk about what it is like to present in front of such large audiences. Matt also divulges some of the details on what Liberty Mutual has working on in the cloud. Notably so, Matt chimes up on what all he has been worked on in CDK. For Matt a focus on reusable and well built tools in CDK and how they’re solving issues is crucial, as well as taking some architectural bounds at Liberty Mutual. Check out his take on all things CDK!

Miles Ward, CTO at SADA, is back! Miles is perhaps the closest thing Google Cloud has to Corey Quinn. With a wit and sharpness at hand, and an entire backup retinue of trumpets, trombones, and various brass horns, Miles is here to join the conversation about what all is going on at Google Cloud. Miles breaks down SADA and their partnership with Google Cloud. He goes into some details on what GCP has been up to, and talks about the various areas they are capitulating forward. Miles talks about working with Thomas Kurian, who is the only who counts since he follows Corey on Twitter, and the various profundities that GCP has at hand.