Will Larry

495: Free Code Camp with Quincy Larson

October 5th, 2023  |  Season 11  |  56 mins 49 secs

Quincy Larson is the founder of freeCodeCamp.org, which helps people learn to code for free by creating thousands of videos, articles, and interactive coding lessons–all freely available to the public. Quincy shares his journey from transitioning from teaching into software development, how freeCodeCamp was born out of his desire to make educational systems more efficient through coding, and discusses the early challenges of bootstrapping the platform, and how it has now grown into a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Quincy and hosts Victoria and Will, discuss the platform's technical architecture, especially their global server distribution and decision to rely on volunteer-led translation efforts rather than machines to ensure both the quality and human touch of their educational content. He also talks about the state of free and low-cost degree programs, the student loan crisis, and the ongoing debate between traditional computer science degrees and coding bootcamps.

493: Mobile Development at thoughtbot with Stephen Hanson

September 21st, 2023  |  Season 11  |  34 mins 30 secs

Co-host Will Larry interviews Stephen Hanson, the Director of Mobile Development at thoughtbot. The two explore the complexities of mobile app development, focusing on the advantages and disadvantages of React Native and Flutter.

Stephen, who initially started as a full-stack web developer specializing in Enterprise Java, discusses React Native's cost-effectiveness and the convenience of having a unified codebase for iOS and Android platforms. However, he notes that Flutter might be a more suitable choice for high-performance needs. Both hosts emphasize the nuances of the mobile ecosystem, covering topics like in-app purchases, push notifications, and the strict guidelines set by app stores like Apple's. They agree that a comprehensive understanding of these aspects is crucial for an entire development team, including designers and project managers.

Additionally, Stephen shares that the driving force behind his career is the opportunity to create apps that enhance people's lives. Stephen wraps up the discussion by detailing thoughtbot's goals of improving mobile development practices within the company and the broader developer community.

492: Backstop.it and Varo Bank with Rishi Malik

September 14th, 2023  |  Season 11  |  40 mins 17 secs

Victoria and Will interview Rishi Malik, the Founder of Backstop.it and VP of Engineering at Varo Bank. They talk about Rishi's recent adventure at DEF CON, the renowned annual security conference that he's attended for six years, and describes how it has transformed from a mere learning experience into a thrilling competition for him and his team. The conference = their playground for tackling an array of security challenges and brain-teasing puzzles, with a primary focus on cloud security competitions.

The trio cover the significance of community in such events and how problem-solving through interaction adds value. Rishi shares his background, tracing his path from firmware development through various tech companies to his current roles in security and engineering management.

The vital topic of security in the fintech and banking sector highlights the initial concerns people had when online banking emerged. Rishi navigates through the technical intricacies of security measures, liability protection, and the regulatory framework that safeguards online banking for consumers. He also highlights the evolving landscape, where technological advancements and convenience have bolstered consumer confidence in online banking.

Rishi shares his unique approach to leadership and decision-making, and pearls of wisdom for budding engineers starting their careers. His advice revolves around nurturing curiosity and relentlessly seeking to understand the "why" behind systems and processes.

491: Compt.io with Amy Spurling

September 7th, 2023  |  Season 11  |  42 mins 46 secs

Amy Spurling is the Founder and CEO of Compt, helping companies build and scale flexible perks, stipends that delight teams. She explains how Compt's approach to benefits aligns with an employee's life stages, and shares insights from data that revealed the vast diversity of vendors utilized by employees.

Amy talks about fundraising for Compt, highlighting the gender investment gap and the difficulties faced by female founders. She also shares her personal experiences as a lesbian founder and emphasizes the importance of a diverse workforce. She outlines Compt's mission to provide equitable compensation and foster a broader perspective within companies, the economic miss of not investing in female-founded companies, and the complexities of transitioning into different roles within a startup.

490: Datadog with Sean O'Connor

August 31st, 2023  |  Season 11  |  45 mins 55 secs

Sean O'Connor is the Director of Engineering at Datadog. Datadog is the essential monitoring and security platform for cloud applications.

Sean discusses his transition from an individual contributor to management and shares why he chose Datadog, emphasizing the appeal of high-scale problems and the real business nature of the company. They delve into the importance of performance management and observability and cover the cultural and technical challenges Sean faces in managing a diverse, geographically spread team, and discuss the transition at Datadog from a decentralized model to more centralized platforms, the corresponding changes in both technical strategies and people management, and what excites him about Datadog's future, including the integration of security offerings into developers' daily experiences, and the evolution of Kubernetes and internal build and release tooling.

488: Women Who Code with Alaina Percival

August 17th, 2023  |  Season 11  |  38 mins 40 secs

Alaina Percival is the Co-Founder and CEO of Women Who Code, with a mission to empower diverse women to excel in technology careers.

This discussion offers a detailed look into the women in tech movement, the importance of community, and the drive to create a more equitable industry. It serves as a reflection on both the strides made in fostering diversity and the work still needed to create a truly inclusive technology field.

486: Blox with Simon Ritchie

August 3rd, 2023  |  Season 11  |  46 mins

Simon Ritchie, the founder and CEO of Blox, discusses his background and journey leading up to starting the company. He began his career in finance but discovered his passion for technology and finance systems. He worked at Anaplan, a successful finance planning and analysis software company, but saw the limitations of rigid systems when COVID-19 hit. He realized there was a need for a more flexible and accessible financial modeling and planning tool, especially for small businesses and charities.

Blox aims to fill this gap by providing a powerful yet easy-to-use modeling, calculation, and planning engine that sits between spreadsheets and complex enterprise software. The company is about a year old, has raised venture funding, and launched a free tier of its product. They prioritize building a compelling product, iterating quickly, and engaging with users to understand their needs.

484: Ruby On Rails: The Podcast with Brittany Martin

July 20th, 2023  |  Season 11  |  50 mins 30 secs

Brittany Martin is an Engineering Manager at Shogun, where she manages a team of Ruby and React engineers and is the Co-host of The Ruby on Rails Podcast.

Victoria and Will talk to Brittany about the multitude of stuff she's interested in, including Roller Derby, and gives the story of how she found herself co-hosting the show. She says knowing what your brand is and what listeners should expect from listening to you is super important, and she gives her opinion on what it means to be in the Ruby on Rails Community.

483: Honeycomb.io with Charity Majors

July 13th, 2023  |  Season 11  |  40 mins 46 secs

Charity Majors is Co-Founder and CTO of Honeycomb, which provides full-stack observability that enables engineers to deeply understand and debug production software together.

Victoria talks to Charity about observability, her technical background and decision to start Honeycomb.io, thoughts about the whole ops SRE profession, and things that surprised her along her journey of building a company around observability as a concept.

478: Senga with Agnes Malatinszky

June 8th, 2023  |  Season 11  |  22 mins

Agnes Malatinszky is the Founder of Senga, which takes care of back-office administrative needs for freelancers, contractors, and solopreneurs.

Victoria and Will interview Agnes about the thoughtbot Incubator program and what led Agnes to choose to apply, what the demands on her time were like, how it worked, and how she feels now that she's at the end of the program.

477: 20th Anniversary Episode

June 1st, 2023  |  Season 11  |  52 mins 35 secs

Chad joins cohosts Victoria and Will to talk about thoughtbot's 20th birthday! 🤖🎉

In this episode, you'll find the 411 on the thoughtbot mascot, "Ralph," taking the company fully remote, and our company values and how we believe products should be designed and built!

476: OpenSauced with Brian Douglas

May 25th, 2023  |  Season 11  |  41 mins 23 secs

Brian Douglas is the CEO of OpenSauced which helps enterprises discover the best engineers in Open Source.

Victoria and Will talk to Brian about meeting as many developers as possible, setting goals, and keeping himself accountable, and what makes a successful open source project.

469: Harpoon with Dominic Holt

April 6th, 2023  |  Season 11  |  46 mins 26 secs

Dominic Holt is CEO of harpoon, a drag-and-drop Kubernetes tool for deploying any software in seconds.

Victoria talks to Dominic about commoditizing DevOps as a capability, coming up with the idea for drag and drop just thinking through how he could do these things in a visual and intuitive way, and using Kubernetes as a base for Harpoon.

467: Healthie with Cavan Klinsky

March 23rd, 2023  |  Season 11  |  25 mins 48 secs

Cavan Klinsky is Co-Founder and CTO of Healthie, a scheduling engagement and EMR platform used by healthtech organizations who seek to build long-term relationships with their clients.

Will talks to Cavan about providing an underlying infrastructure that other digital healthcare companies use to be able to focus on patient care and not reinventing the technology wheel by providing a scheduling platform, an electronic medical record, and a patient engagement solution–all available via API, via an API-first design as well as through fully branded interfaces. Healthie lets companies get to market faster, scale with less headaches, and provides effective patient care much cheaper than if they tried to build everything themselves.

464: IVP with Zack Willis and Eric Liaw

March 2nd, 2023  |  Season 11  |  38 mins 19 secs

Eric Liaw and Zack Willis are part of IVP, a leading venture firm with a 43-year history of partnering with entrepreneurs who are undaunted on the path to innovation.

Will talks to Eric and Zack about what has made IVP so long-lasting in the Venture Capital industry, how they help companies' portfolios, and the accomplishments they are most proud of.

463: EmergeOne with Aarish Shah

February 23rd, 2023  |  Season 11  |  31 mins 45 secs

Aarish Shah is the Founder of EmergeOne and Projected.ai and host of Off Balance and Nothing Ventured Podcast.

Will talks to Aarish about having the venture capitalist money idea and having that "aha!" moment that it could work, what drives him and having a purpose of helping others, and using his podcast to teach lessons that he's learned along the way.