Insightful conversations. Less snark.

Shelby Spees is a developer advocate at Honeycomb.io. She brings five years of software development experience to the position, having worked as a DevOps engineer at true[X], a site reliability engineer at Grindr, and a software engineer at The Aerospace Corporation. Join Corey and Shelby as they talk about the pros and cons of remote work, why it’s so important to let employees work in whatever way they can be most effective, how everyone thrives in different environments, the downsides of being a superuser on Twitter, how Shelby keeps track of epic Twitter threads, why Corey thinks it’s harder to speak remotely than in a live setting, the pros and cons of the hallway track at conferences, the aspects of virtual events Shelby prefers, and more.

Alfonso Cabrera is the Director of Platform Engineering at Red Ventures, where he helps manage and optimize the company’s extensive AWS footprint. Previously, he worked as a solutions architect at Amazon Web Services, a DevOps engineer at startups in the Charlotte area, and a systems administrator at NTT America, among other positions. For the last five years, he’s also organized DevOpsDays Charlotte. Join Corey and Alfonso as they explore Alfonso’s journey with Red Ventures, what exactly it is that Red Ventures does, the crazy writing culture at AWS and why Alfonso believes it’s better than the PowerPoint approach, the merits of principles-based decision-making, how AWS approaches solutions architecture, what it’s like to have your writing reviewed at AWS, the difference between optimizing for prestige and optimizing for happiness in your career, what it’s like to work on the Red Ventures campus, how cloud-native and serverless guide Red Ventures’ approach today, the importance of not blocking engineers’ workflows, and more.

Richard Seroter is the director of outbound product management at Google Cloud. He brings more than 20 years of experience to the role, having worked as a senior director of technical marketing and developer relations at VMware, vice president of product marketing at Pivotal, Inc., and vice president of product at CenturyLink most recently. He also worked at Amgen, Microsoft, and Accenture. Join Corey and Richard as they talk about what a director of outbound product management does, how it’s hard to find people who are broad and deep across anything in cloud, how many oranges can fit in the state of Utah, how Richard ended up at Google, how Google Cloud has evolved in recent years, why Richard believes the era of Google as an ivory tower is over, how Richard views multi-cloud and why he believes most orgs are multi-cloud, the difference between the kind of relationships companies have with Google and the relationships they have with AWS, and more.

Peter Cooper has more than two decades of experience at the intersection of technology and media. He’s the founder of Cooper Press, a tech publishing outfit for software development professionals that’s the driving force behind JavaScript Weekly, Ruby Inside, Ruby Weekly, DB Weekly, and more. In a previous life, he was a conference chair for O’Reilly Media, a consultant for a web hosting startup and a web engineer and systems administrator. Join Corey and Peter as they talk about what it’s like to grow a newsletter from scratch into something that has tens of thousands of subscribers, how it’s only a matter of time before newsletter subscribership starts to plateau, how Peter balances sponsorship opportunities on his newsletter by giving both the big guys and the small guys a shot, how publishing has always been in Peter’s blood, how The Duckbill Group uses media to essentially make their customer acquisition costs a negative number, Peter’s tips on launching a newsletter, and more.

Divanny Lamas is the CEO at Transposit, a platform that enables DevOps teams to build interactive runbooks. She’s also the managing director at Sutter Hill Ventures, a VC fund that’s funded tech startups since 1962. Prior to these roles, Divanny worked at Splunk for seven years, ending up as head of new product introduction there. She also worked as VP Products and Marketing at Context Relevant and an Associate at Google. Divanny is an alumnus of Harvard and has a degree in government and computer science. Join Corey and Divanny as they discuss the journey that led Divanny to her two current roles, what Sutter Hill Ventures thinks VCs should actually do, how Transposit thinks about data in different categories and what those categories are, how messaging data has been traditionally underleveraged, how Transposit and PagerDuty have different goals, how automation can improve the incident response process, what tasks humans are good at and what tasks humans are bad at, how it’s not feasible for any engineer to be an expert in everything, how DevOps is essentially agile in a sexier label, the rise of the platform team, and more.

Brooke Mitchell is an associate DevOps engineer at Mitel, a telecommunications company that sells VoIP technology. She’s also a certified Amazon Web Services Solutions Architect Associate. Before joining Mitel, Brooke worked as an analyst at T-Mobile, which was her role when this episode was recorded. Join Corey and Brooke as they talk about how Brooke got into the world of cloud through Forrest Brazeal’s cloud resume challenge, what that experience was like, the difference between the “anyone who asks for help is a moron” mindset and more inclusive and welcoming communities, the important role networking plays in advancing your career, the qualities to look for in a mentor, the Lambda learning cliff, how Stack Overflow disabling copy and paste functionality would be the end of the world, and more.

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.