Using Reflection

Show Notes Topics: Academia, Blogging, Education, Interviewing/Interview Questions, Quantum Cryptography, Sewing Machine Control Software Companies and Organizations Bloomberg University of Waterloo Qubitekk GradientOne Introduction Catherine Holloway spent years on a quantum cryptography Ph.D., toiling on custom quantum telescope hardware and driving around Ontario trying to entangle subatomic particles miles apart. Eventually, she realized that the field, and academia itself, were not the profession she wanted to pursue. Leaving behind years of work without reaping the reward, she pursued a career in software engineering, landing roles as a test engineer in robotics and commercial cryptography, and then a senior engineering role at Bloomberg, where she is now an SRE. Along the way she started an engineering blog and pursued interesting side projects like writing software to create and optimize digital sewing-machine patterns. In this episode we talk to Catherine about quantum cryptography, the

Show Notes Topics: Career Advancement, Code Schools, Computer Science, Education, Internships, Interviewing/Interview Questions, Onboarding, Personal Branding, Recruiting, Recursion, Software Engineering, Web Development Companies and Organizations Thumbtack Braintree Bucknell University Free Code Camp Introduction If you are thinking of going into a career in software engineering in the late 2010s, you have to navigate an abundance of choices and answer a lot of questions. Traditional Computer Science education or code school? Big company, medium or small? Startup on a cloud stack or mature company on an enterprise stack? Should you favor employers based on salary, learning opportunity, perceived caliber of colleagues, or fast growth? How to build up a portfolio? Taylor Milliman has just gone through this process and started his career. In this special two-part episode, we talk to Taylor first just before he starts at Thumbtack as a software engineer, and then get an update from him six months

Show Notes Topics: Alpha Go, Data Engineering, Data Science, Information Systems, Machine Learning, Local Search, Location-Based Apps, Monetization, Natural Language Processing, Objective Functions, Optimization, Podcasting, Self-driving Cars, Sentiment Analysis, Social Apps Companies and Organizations Local Maximum Podcast Web Local Maximum Podcast iTunes Local Maximum Podcast SoundCloud Luminary Media Foursquare New York University - Masters in Information Systems New York University - Stern School of Business StickyMap Yodle Introduction NOTE: This episode was recorded in April 2018. Since then Max has moved on from Foursquare to join Luminary Media as a Machine Learning Engineer. After working for a few years as a software engineer, Max Sklar found himself exposed to and fascinated by more open-ended problems while studying machine learning and data mining in the MS Information Systems program at NYU. He created a location-based app StickyMap so he and friends could put “markers”

Show Notes Topics: Ad Tech, Career Advancement, Career Responsibility, Case Studies, Failure and Learning, Founding/Startups, Managing Engineers, MBA, Product Development, Social Apps, Team Leadership, Virtual Reality Companies and Organizations Datamarx Majikal Steams Truffle Flurry Goldman Sachs Publicis RUN New York University - Stern School of Business Introduction A veteran founder of multiple app-based startups and an experienced engineer, Shashank Singh finds himself embarking on a new chapter as CTO of New York-based startup Datamarx. There he can establish an engineering culture and draw on his engineering experience, startup lessons learned and MBA training in entrepreneurship from NYU Stern. Singh looks back to reflect on what he has learned about building apps, growing a product by delighting and retaining users rather than relying on social hacks, and why social apps are meaningful to us as social animals. And he looks ahead into the future, asking himself about the purpos

Show Notes Topics: Ad Tech, Career Advancement, Cloud Platforms, Code Schools, Computer Science, Distributed Systems, Education, Hadoop, Internships, Interviewing, Open Source, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, Teamwork, Team Leadership Companies Twitter Magnetic Introduction Alex Huras was drawn to the tech mecca of San Francisco from his native Ontario after getting a taste of American tech jobs (and salaries) through college internships as part of the University of Waterloo co-op program. Joining Twitter in 2014 with hopes of a bright future, he has stayed through four remarkably turbulent years. And all along he has kept observing and learning. How do teams maintain enough continuity to continue to deliver value through turnover? How does a company decide what to build? How does it avoid expert-level dependencies on open source projects supported by a short list of experts? How does a new engineer learn to solve problems in a big company with complex technical challenges that have been

Show Notes Topics: Bit Operations, Blogging, Career Advancement, Career Responsibility, Computer Science, Failure and Learning, Interviewing, Learning, Managing Engineers, Mentoring, Sponsoring, Teamwork and Team Leadership, Trust, Web Development, Writing Companies Etsy Introduction For years, Will Gallego believed the way to advance as an engineer was to be better than those around him. In interviews, he focused on stumping candidates with arcane technical questions. As a manager, he still saw himself as an individual contributor, and shipped code without communicating. But then he joined Etsy, and realized that the senior engineers around him were helping themselves most of all by making those around them better. The culture of learning and blameless postmortems spearheaded by then-CTO John Allspaw shaped his thinking, and he began to see his past experience in a new light. Will focused on helping his colleagues succeed and was rewarded with a Staff Engineer role. Then he took it further, working

Show Notes Topics: Ad Tech, Alpha Go, Amazon Web Services, Applied Mathematics, Churn Modeling, Kubernetes, Ethics of AI, Google, Hydrology, Machine Learning, Managing Engineers, Natural Language Processing, Neural Networks, Open Source, Product Development, Prof. Robert Williamson, Real-Time Bidding (RTB), Social Responsibility, Teamwork and Team Leadership, TensorFlow, Trust, UX (User Experience) Design Companies ElementAI mldb.ai Datacratic Idilia Projects: RTBkit Introduction As a boy, Jeremy Barnes learned from his hydrologist father who was collecting data from small devices in remote terrain that small amounts of data can support useful models and make lives better. These themes shaped his career, as he spent the first two decades studying machine learning and creating systems that created value by creating new knowledge. After founding and selling two startups, and learning the power of open source software to “put ideas into the public record” and influence an industry with RTBkit,

Show Notes Topics: Career Advancement, Career Change, Code Schools, Computer Science Education, Learning, Podcasting, Social Responsibility Companies Cogo Labs Madefire Introduction A funny thing happened to Max Mautner after he landed a job as a technical analyst: he noticed his job actually involved writing lots of code. Soon after he realized programming was fun, there was high demand for programmers, and he could get paid more if he could work his way into a position with “engineer” rather than “analyst” in the title. Two jobs later he’d achieved his goal and is now a lead platform engineer at Madefire, creators of an innovative publishing platform combining animation and comic books. As he leveled up Max remained a keen observer of how to improve as an engineer and advance his career. He also noticed many of his friends and colleagues had likewise followed a non-traditional path into engineering, so he started to the podcast “The Accidental Engineer” to “make his friends look good,” and to ins

Show Notes Topics: 8086 CPU, Code Schools, Computer Science, Diversity, IBM PC, International Business, Java, Managing Engineers, Mentoring, Recruiting, Software Engineering, Teamwork and Team Leadership, Trust Companies PureWow IBM Organizations New York On Tech - Home New York On Tech - Host an Intern New York On Tech - Volunteer to Teach or Become a Mentor Introduction His dad an IBM salesman, Tony Jackson grew up in a houseful of gadgets and computers, so taking computers apart, reassembling them, and programming them became second nature to him. Later, enrolled in international business in college, he realized majoring in computer science could lead to a career doing what he loved and “not working a day in his life.” Jackson went on to join IBM himself, spending 9 years coding for Big Blue and partner companies before moving into a variety of engineering and management roles. As a manager, he has focused on sincerity, honesty and mentoring, and Jackson speaks proudly of the relations

Show Notes Topics: Architecture, Automation, Autodesk AutoCAD, Autodesk Revit, Building Information Modeling (BIM), Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, General Structural Analysis (GSA), Hypermesh, Managing Engineers, Rhino, Seismic Engineering, Structural Engineering Companies Arup Introduction Even the word we use to describe very tall buildings, “skyscrapers,” is intended to conjure a kind of mythological wonder. But, like any technology that seems magical when insufficiently understood, skyscrapers are products, the result of design and engineering. What does it take to build a building? How are the many engineering and design disciplines, people, companies and goals reconciled, aligned and coordinated? In this episode we talk to David de Koning, a Senior Structural Engineer at the venerable international design firm Arup, and find out. David also shares interesting insights on the unique business structure and culture at Arup, and discusses the two phases of impact that digital technology

Show Notes Topics: AS-400, Consulting, E.F. Codd, MySql, Open Source, Oracle, PL/PgSQL, PostgreSql, Relational Databases Companies IBM IBM - Rochester Oracle Projects: PosgreSql Introduction As a kid, Corey Huinker had already decided the “token economy” of earning gold stars from from teachers felt pointless, and the only way his parents could coax A’s and Bs from him in high school was to pay him. Later, at his first internship at IBM, he learned two important lessons: staff employment is no guarantee of job security, and contractors can make more money than staff employees for doing the same job. Three years into his career, attracted to the idea of earning an honest wage for honest time spent, he struck out on his own as a software engineering consultant. Along the way he learned that specializing and being better than most people at something is a key to consulting success. Corey chose relational databases and has since made several contributions to PostgreSql. This episode offers a great

Show Notes Topics: Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Power Plan Development, Recruiting, Social Responsibility, Solar and Renewable Energy Companies JobRobin BCI Solar Clean Energy Associates SunPower Sungevity Introduction Brad Jester remembers crying as a kid when his brother left the faucet running. And he always loved to build things. By studying environmental engineering and then working in the solar energy industry, he was able to combine his desire to do environmental good with his passion for engineering creation. Brad has a fascinating story to tell about working in various solar and energy companies in California, and in Shanghai and Hong Kong. We’ll learn what drove him, and also discuss the fascinating, highly dimensional complexity of large-scale energy projects, which consider factors such as geography, climate, weather, politics and regulation spoken and unspoken, real estate, materials, construction, and much more. After more than a decade grappling with this compl

Show Notes Topics: AdTech, Analytics, Founding, Managing Engineers, Open Source, Recruiting, Startups, Teamwork and Team Leadership, Time Series Databases Companies Imply Metamarkets Projects: Druid Introduction What’s it like to work at one of the largest tech companies in the world, Cisco, then be in the first 10 at Metamarkets, a high-growth tech startup? To co-create a successful open source time series database, Druid, and then co- found and become CEO of a Valley-based, venture-backed startup, Imply, that is building and selling a product on top of the open source project? In this episode we’ll find out, as we talk to Imply CEO and co-founder Fangjin Yang. Why is being an engineer first a key to managing product development and to building an engineering team? Why is the data market so complicated, and what is different about Druid? Why should everyone work at both a big and small company? Guest Bio Fangjin Yang is the co-founder and CEO of Imply, makers of an event analytics platform bui

Show Notes Topics: Addiction Mechanics, Embedded Systems, Facebook Games, Founding, Game Development, Gaming, Managing Engineers, Recruiting, Social Responsibility, Startups, Teamwork and Team Leadership Companies interviewing.io CrowdStar Fifth Column Games Tivo Visual Concepts Zynga Introduction In this episode we are joined by Andrew Marsh, for a lively and intense conversation about his 15 years in gaming and why he left the industry to co- found engineering interviewing platform interviewing.io. Andrew wanted to co- found a business that scales by serving its customers needs, which he felt was no longer possible in gaming. Andrew also describes his approach to strategy and management, one that relies on a rigorous but constantly evolving model of his business that in turn supports his insight and intuition. And he argues for the advantages of interviewing.io’s two-sided marketplace solution to the problem of engineering recruiting, because the solution is driven by data and by the empl

Show Notes Topics: DotCom Bubble, C++, Computer Science, EdTech, Founding, Goal- Setting, Machine Learning, Managing Engineers, Mobile Development, Palm, Social Responsibility, Startups, Teamwork and Team Leadership, Trust Companies Placedapp Wireless Generation Exit Educational Assessment DIBELS TPRI Nomic Robert Half Introduction In this episode we are joined by Aaron Boyd for some entertaining nostalgia about what high-flying DotCom consultancies told their clients, and more serious insights about how to manage successful teams and, especially, how to build successful teams by hiring high-performing, high-character team members. After riding the dot-com wave, Aaron joined ed-tech startup Wireless Generation as employee number 7 and left a company with 300 people that would soon very successfully exit to News Corp. He was then a Principal at big-data platform Mortar Data, which exited to Datadog, and engineering lead at Nomic. During this journey, Aaron di

Show Notes Topics: Ego, Hobbies, Home Automation, Guitar, Hardware, Internet of Things, Social Interaction Companies: Keen Home Inc. Amano Magnetic Introduction In this episode we are joined by Vijay Parikh, Lead Engineer at smart home automation startup Keen Home Inc. Vijay shares his unique perspective on the burgeoning new market for smart home devices and other consumer hardware, a perspective based in part on a previous long stint in his career working on parking garage firmware. Yes, parking garages. You’ve almost certainly never thought about it, but parking garages have kiosk computers tracking cars, payments, open parking spaces and more. Vijay breaks it down for us, and explains why he came back to hardware because he believes the cloud is commoditized and cloud plus custom hardware will drive the next wave of innovation. He also shares wisdom and amusing anecdotes from working abroad, playing guitar and building competitive pumpkin launchers (trebuchet). Guest Bio Vijay Parikh is Lea

Show Notes Topics: EdTech, Failure, FinTech, Founding, Game Development, Gaming, Learning, Play Testing, Social Apps, Startups Companies: Nvstr Amplify Electronic Arts Projects: TileWild Introduction In this episode we are joined by Hayden Cacace, Director of Product Engineering at Nvstr, and former gaming startup co-founder. This is a really fun episode in which a unified theory of living, learning, understanding and gaming emerges from Hayden’s active mind and enthusiastic conversation. Hayden talks about software as a holistic understanding of human needs answered by technical creation. He emphasizes the importance of understanding systems for all of us in a world that is increasingly connected and growing in complexity. And he describes how gaming is a journey of commitment and mental discipline into a world combining art and an interactive system of rules, and the relationship of this journey to education and all learning. Where does gaming end and life begin? Guest Bio Hayden Cacace is t

Show Notes Topics: EdTech, Failure, Founding, Learning, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Startups Companies: Brooklyn Robot Foundry Wireless Generation Introduction In this episode we are joined by Jenny Young, Owner of Brooklyn Robot Foundry. Jenny’s story starts in her childhood garage in Ohio, building things with her dad and learning the joys of failing, solving problems and ultimately succeeding in making machines do things in the real world. And Jenny’s story continues in the present day with her running a successful business giving New York City kids that same garage experience – building robots, failing, learning, succeeding. Along the way Jenny got her pilot’s license, became a mechanical engineer, ran one project and then another and then somehow found herself in project management without feeling like it was a choice she had ever made. So she walked away from the office to return to the garage, this time to host classes full of kids becoming “little inventors and creators.” Guest Bio

Show Notes Topics: Data Visualization, Javascript, Machine Learning, Open Data, Open Source, Software Engineering, Social Responsibility, Teamwork, Team Leadership Companies: Plotly Accompany.io Projects: PivotTableJS, React-PivotTableJs Introduction In this episode we are joined by Nicolas Kruchten, Head of Engineering at Accompany.io. Nicolas looks back on his 15 years of working with data to reflect on the social and human aspects of analytics, machine learning and data visualization. He discusses the motivations and impact of some his many civic data projects based on Montreal Open Data. We talk about visualization as metaphor and “UI for your data,” and touch on Nicolas’ successful open source project PivotTable.js, which brought this venerable analytical tool from the desktop to the browser. Nicolas also shares what he has learned about effective communication through his varied experience in roles as a civil and software engineer, data scientist and head of product and head of engineering.

Show Notes Topics: Computer Science, EdTech, Failure, Founding, Learning, Managing Engineers, Mentoring, Recruiting, Security, Software Engineering, Startups, Teaching, Team Leadership, Teamwork, Trust Companies: Handy Amplify Wireless Generation Introduction In this episode we are joined by Kulesh Shanmugasundaram,VP of Engineering at Handy and Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. Kulesh describes an arc from award-winning Ph.D. security research to founding a company based on that research, and on to technical and then senior engineering leadership positions at Amplify Education and Handy. It has been a journey from computer science, a study of the domain of the machine, to software engineering, a “team sport” and social activity of engineers working to understand and then solve human problems. Kulesh observed this split from the start of his graduate research on the famed ILOVEYOU email worm, an attack that was equal parts technical and social. And he