Insightful conversations. Less snark.

Liz Zalman is the co-founder and CEO of strongDM, makers of tools designed to make it easier to manage access to databases, servers, and Kubernetes clusters from one platform. Previously, she was co-founder and CEO of the cross-device profile company Media Armor, which was acquired by Nomi, where she later worked as VP of Insights and Client Services. Before that, Liz was an analytics professional at Dotomi for four-plus years. Join Corey and Liz for a spirited discussion about managing access in the cloud era and how to do it the right way. They touch upon how VPNs are helpful but not enough, why access controls need to be easy and seamless, why many security products end up becoming shelfware, how not even Google has implemented zero trust at scale, how Liz tried to become a tennis pro at age 28, what Liz can control at strongDM and what she can’t control, how companies don’t get sold but do get bought, and more.

Thomas Dullien (Halvar Flake) is the co-founder of optimyze, a company that helps businesses optimize their cloud spend with better code. He started his career by founding a company called zynamics, a research-centric technology company that was acquired by Google in 2011. After the acquisition, he stayed on at Google as a staff engineer for eight years before launching optimyze. Join Corey and Thomas as they discuss why cloud optimization is increasingly important in a SaaS-driven world, why Thomas believes that cloud costs can be reduced by optimizing code, how rewriting code the way Google wants means your app can scale to the sky immediately, the difference between working on Google’s internal infrastructure and GCP, how Google hasn’t traditionally been good at explaining why their products are beneficial, why you should treat a data center as a computer that happens to be the size of the warehouse, Google Project Zero, and more.

Jam Leomi is the lead security engineer at Honeycomb.io. She brings more than a decade worth of tech experience to the role, having previously worked as a security tech lead and infrastructure engineer at Splice, a security operations engineer at GitHub, a DevOps security pirate at CloudPassage, and an internal technology resident at Google, among other positions. Join Corey and Jam as they discuss Jam’s journey from ops to security, how COVID-19 has made people used to remote work even more isolated than before, why Jam hopes that the pandemic enables folks in rural communities to be able to work in tech without moving to the coasts, how Jam began her journey in tech, why Jam ended up at Honeycomb, why an observability company needs a security engineer in the first place, how Jam enjoys taking a “DevOps-y” approach to security, and more.

Christie Brandao is a software engineer at Branch Insurance, a startup that uses serverless infrastructure to sell home and auto insurance more efficiently. Prior to this role, she worked as a developer at the LHT Group. In a previous life, she was also a Twitch.tv Partner and gained over 4 million views and 30,000 followers in that position. She’s also a graduate of App Academy, a full-stack engineering boot camp. Join Corey and Christie as they talk about what it’s like to work for an insurance startup, Christie’s thoughts on whether her four-year degree or boot camp experience better prepared her for her role at Branch, how serverless technology empowers Christie to do her best work while ignoring things like availability and scalability, how Branch was running on AWS credits for two years and why that’s mind-boggling, Christie’s advice for people interested in learning serverless technology, and more.

Courtney Wilburn is the engineering manager of cloud SRE tooling at Elastic. She brings more than 15 years of experience to the role, having previously worked as a lead DevOps engineer at Wirecutter, a developer at O3 World, a programmer analyst at Wharton Business School, and a systems analyst at the University of Pennsylvania, among other positions. Join Corey and Courtney as they talk about how great a service Wirecutter is but why it’s also sorta creepy at the same time; why it’s exciting to work at Elastic; Courtney’s experience being a Black woman in tech and how she’s forged her own path to get to where she is; how Courtney believes that Elastic is walking the walk when it comes to building a warm, inclusive work environment; what Courtney does as the engineering manager for cloud SRE tooling at Elastic; the lackluster logos of AWS products; the joys of building mechanical keyboards; and more.

Jez Humble is a developer advocate at Google and a lecturer at UC Berkeley, where he teaches classes on agile software development and product management. Jez brings more than 20 years of experience to these positions, including stints as vice president at Chef and deputy director of delivery architecture and infrastructure services for the federal government’s General Services Administration. Most recently, he founded DevOps Research and Assessment LLC (DORA), which was acquired by Google. Jez is also the other of several books, including the Jolt Award-winning Continuous Delivery. Join Corey and Jez as they talk about the differences between working for large organizations and nimble startups, the wonderful world of NIST, why Jez believes that Google acquired DORA, the five characteristics that mean you have a cloud according to the NIST, the difference between knowing what you should do vs. actually getting there, how to think about books written about technology, why Silicon Valley is one of the worst places in the world when it comes to the Dunning–Kruger effect, and more.

Ceora Ford is an instructor and learner advocate at egghead.io, a web development screencasting platform. She’s also a technical writer at DigitalOcean and an advisee at BUILT BY GIRLS, an organization that prepares the next generation of female leaders in tech. Join Corey and Ceora as they talk about why Ceora enjoys learning in public, why people who enjoy mastering topics might want to steer clear of AWS, how AWS is so big that even people who work there don’t know much about what’s happening at AWS, what it’s like to give a conference talk on a subject you’re not familiar in, how learning in public also helps other people learn the material at the same time, project-based learning and why Ceora finds it particularly helpful in certain situations, why Ceora believes there’s a misperception about how difficult front-end development is, and more.

Tim Banks is a technical account manager at Mission Cloud, an AWS Premier Consulting Partner. Tim brings more than 20 years of experience to the role, having worked as a technical account manager at AWS, a site reliability engineer at Elastic, a DevOps engineer at ObjectRocket, a senior database administrator at TEKsystems, and a LAMP systems architect at Charles Schwab, among other positions. Prior to launching a career in tech, Tim enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps as a musician before being reassigned to avionics. Join Corey and Tim as they discuss what a technical account manager does, how not all TAMs are the same and why that might be, how small businesses are more able to do the things they think are right compared to large businesses, how tech has come a long way with respect to diversity and inclusion over the last 20 years and how there’s still a long way to go, what the tech industry means for Tim’s legacy, why it’s important to have compassion, how we can iterate our personalities much like our software, the importance of action against racism and bigotry, and more.

Alex is a software developer at Wellcome Collection, a museum in London that explores the history of human health and medicine. Their role primarily focuses on preservation and building systems to store the museum’s digital archive. Alex also helps run the annual PyCon UK conference, with a particular interest in the event’s diversity and inclusion initiatives. Join Corey and Alex as they discuss how Alex built a calculator using DynamoDB, the role Corey played in inspiring Alex to do that, what Corey means when he calls someone a “code terrorist,” the features that are packed into Alex’s calculator, why Corey thinks the Wellcome Collection would be a great acquisition for AWS, why the museum always likes to keep two copies of things, how Glacier Deep Archive is great for long-term storage, the challenges museums face in the 21st century vs. the challenges they faced in the 18th century, what it’s like to digitize Betamax, VHS, and CD-ROMs, how to find items in a vast digital archive, and more.

Jason McKay is the CTO/SVP at Logicworks, a provider of cloud migration and managed cloud services for AWS and Azure customers. After stints in technical support and system administration, he joined Logicworks in 2006 as a senior engineer and moved through the ranks there, ascending to director of engineering and VP of engineering before assuming his current role. Join Corey and Jason as they discuss Jason’s impressive career trajectory, what exactly a managed service provider does, how Logicworks is different than the run-of-the-mill MSP, how Jason believes MSPs should work as the R&D arm of their clients, what to look for in an MSP that you might actually want to work with, how there aren’t really any public cloud-to-public cloud migrations but there are customers running in multiple clouds, how one of Logicworks’ apps that runs on AWS and Azure is architected, how much that extra nine of uptime costs, what a terrible client for Logicworks looks like, and more.

Veliswa Boya is a twice-certified AWS Cloud Engineer and an AWS Community Hero who’s currently working as a cloud migration specialist at a financial services company headquartered in South Africa. She brings more than two decades worth of tech experience to the role, having served as a software developer at a number of different financial services companies over the years. Join Corey and Veliswa as they discuss what being an AWS Community Hero means to Veliswa, what the process of becoming a Community Hero was like, why Veliswa thinks cloud adoption in Africa is on the rise, how being named a Community Hero has enabled Veliswa to meet all kinds of incredible people throughout Africa, what the emergence of the Cape Town region means for developers in Africa, why Veliswa feels more overwhelmed with AWS today than when she started learning it three years ago, Veliswa’s tips for getting familiar with AWS, and more.

Stuart Miniman is a senior analyst, co-host of theCUBE, and general manager of content at SiliconANGLE and theCUBE, an online media company based in Palo Alto, with offices in Massachusetts, too. He’s also a principal research contributor at Wikibon and an advisor at TechReckoning, an independent community of enterprise technology professionals. Prior to these roles, Stuart worked as a technologist in the corporate CTO office at Dell EMC and an account executive at Lucent Technologies. Join Corey and Stu as they discuss theCUBE and what Stu’s role is there, how the company was forced to transition from physical events to online interviews due to COVID-19, what Stu looks for when he books guests, why technology practitioners shouldn’t always be mesmerized by the latest shiny thing, how Stu ended up becoming an analyst in the first place, how lots of companies don’t actually use phrases like “hybrid cloud” and “multi-cloud” to talk about their own infrastructure, the top reason companies run Kubernetes, Stu’s secrets for conducting great interviews, how there’s always more stuff to pay attention to in tech than anyone can keep up with, and more.