I.t. Career Energizer: Phil Burgess Chats With Robert C Martin, John Sonmez, David Rael And Other Successful It Professionals

GUEST BIO: Annyce Davis is a software developer and an Android Google Developer Expert which means she spends a lot of time developing videos, blog posts and conference talks.  She has also created several courses for Caster, O’Reilly and LinkedIn Learning.  Annyce is currently the software lead for mobile development at Off Grid Electric, a social impact startup. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Annyce Davis.  She has already had a varied career. Annyce spent 7 years working at the Washington Post setting up their online content offering and user re-engagement initiatives. During that time, she used Python, Hive and several other tools to get the job done. She was part of the team that created PostTV Android. Today, she is an Android Google Developer Expert working for the social impact start-up Off Grid Electric. Annyce has also created numerous courses, a teacher and public speaker. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(1.03) – So Annyce, can you expand on that brief introduction and tell us a little bit

GUEST BIO: Chris is the author of the award-winning Wahl Network Blog and host of the Datanauts podcast. Chris focuses on creating content that revolves around virtualization, automation, infrastructure and evangelizing products and services that benefit the technology community.  He is also co-author of “Networking for VMware Administrators”, has published hundreds of articles and a conference speaker. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: The guest on today’s show is Chris Wahl who has been working in the IT  industry for over two decades.  He is the host of the Datanauts podcast and the author of the Wahl Network Blog, both of which have won awards. His focus is on using his experience to give others the expertise they need to create the data centres of the future. Chris specializes in workflow automation and building operational excellence and the successful adoption and integration of new technology. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(1.07) – So Chris, can you expand on that brief introduction and tell us a little bit more about yoursel

GUEST BIO: Denise is a web design and development industry veteran and author of the book The CSS Detective Guide which is about troubleshooting CSS code.  Denise is also founder & CEO of The Creative Dose, helping individuals to unleash their creativity by banishing their inner critic and hacking their creative brains, as well as being a regular speaker at conferences around the world. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Today, Phil’s guest is Denise Jacobs.  She has been working in the IT industry since 1996. Over that time, she has been a developer, designer, writer, speaker and mentor. Right now, her focus is on teaching, in particular helping others to recognize and overcome self-doubt. A positive step that frees developers and programmers to be more creative and excel at what they do. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(1.08) – So Denise, can you expand on that brief introduction and tell us a little bit more about yourself? Denise explained that she started web design when the web was really young in 1996. She worked for Microsof

GUEST BIO: Joe Birch is an Android Engineer, working as part of the Android team at Buffer.  He is passionate about coding and loves creating robust, polished and exciting projects for mobile, the web, TV, wearables and whatever the latest thing is.  Joe is also a keen writer and public speaker, enabling him to share his learnings and experiences with others. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Joe Birch. Currently, he is working as a Senior Android Engineer at Buffer. He also spends a lot of time at Caster.IO sharing his knowledge as an Android Instructor. Joe has also worked as a content manager for Eroski and as a freelance photographer. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(1.02) – So Joe, can you expand on that summary and tell us a little bit more about yourself? Joe explained that he is also a Google Developer expert for Android and that he loves playing with anything technology related. Phil noted that Joe’s current role provides him with a nice balance. In that role he is able to continue to develop hi

GUEST BIO: Randall Hunt is a Senior Technical Evangelist and Software Engineer at Amazon Web Services.  Randall spends most of his time building demos and writing about new services and launches on the AWS News Blog. Python is his favourite programming language but he can sometimes be found in the dark realm of C++. Prior to working at AWS, Randall launched rockets at NASA and SpaceX but he found his programming passion at MongoDB. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Randall Hunt. He started his career working as a physicist for NASA and SpaceX. He is now working at Amazon Web Services. His favourite programming language is Python, but he also works with C++. Over the years, he has worked in several different verticals, so he has a lot of business and technical experience. Randall helps developers to maximize their productivity in the cloud, especially at conferences and similar events. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(1.16) – So Randall, can you expand on that summary and tell us a little bit more about y

GUEST BIO: Eric Lippert is a programmer who builds tools for other programmers.  He’s worked on Visual Basic, JavaScript and C# at Microsoft, designed code analyzers at Coverity, and is now working on a variety of programming language design problems at Facebook. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Eric Lippert. His career has been a long and varied one. He was a Principal Developer at Microsoft and a member of the C# language design team. Eric was also involved in the design and implementation of VBScript, JScript, Windows Script Host and Visual Studio Tools for Office. Over the years, Eric has published and edited numerous programming books and is now working at Facebook. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (01.00)­­­ – Phil asks Eric to expand on his brief introduction. Eric said that he studied computer science and maths at the University of Waterloo. There they run a co-operative education system where you study for 4 months and work for 4. He was an intern at Wacom and Microsoft. When he left Microsoft he w

GUEST BIO: Stefan Tilkov is a co-founder and principal consultant at INNOQ, a technology consulting company with offices in Germany and Switzerland. He has been involved in the design of large-scale, distributed systems for more than two decades, using a variety of technologies and tools. He has authored numerous articles and a book and is a frequent speaker at conferences around the world. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Stefan Tilkov who is a co-founder of, and the principal consultant, at INNOQ, a leading technology consulting company. Stefan and his team design large-scale distributed systems. Over the years, he has worked with numerous programming languages including C++ and CORBA over J2EE/Java EE and Web Services to REST and Ruby on Rail and several others. He is also a published writer who frequently speaks at conferences across the world. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(1.00) – So Stefan, you can I ask you to expand on that brief summary and tell us a little bit about yourself? Stefan said th

GUEST BIO: Kelsey Hightower has worn every hat possible throughout his career in tech, and enjoys leadership roles focused on making things happen and shipping software. Kelsey is a strong open source advocate focused on building simple tools that make people smile as well as an occasional conference speaker. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: In this episode Phil speaks to Kelsey Hightower, who is known in the industry as an innovator who makes things happen. He strongly believes in the power of the community, so works on bringing people and motivating them to produce products that truly work. He is currently working on the GoogleCloud project and is a popular technical workshop speaker and teacher, who believes in and advocates the use of Open Source products. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­ (00.59) – So Kelsey, you can I ask you to expand on that brief summary and tell us a little bit about yourself? Kelsey explains that he has been in tech for about 14 years with various companies including Puppet Labs and Chrome OS. He is currentl

KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(1.02) – So Tim, can I ask you to expand on some of those things and tell us a little bit about yourself? Since Tim was a boy he has had a fascination with all things tech. This is part of the reason he is now a generalist with a deep understanding of everything from the hardware to the software. Over the past couple of years, he has focused on the public cloud, in particular Microsoft Azure. (1.50) – Phil asks Tim for a unique IT career tip. Tim explains that developing the ability to organize your thoughts and present them clearly is very important. Public speaking ensures that you learn and practice those critical skills. (3.06) –Tim is asked to share his worst career moment by Phil. Fortunately, Tim’s worst IT career moment has a silver lining. Tim has always been a teacher as well as an IT professional. So, when he was in the running for an IT directorship in a local private High School he focused on securing that role. But, the school changed its mind and decided not to go in that dire

GUEST BIO: Simona Cotin is a Developer Advocate for Microsoft and an Angular enthusiast.  She is passionate about knowledge sharing and has mentored at workshops for Women Who Code and NgGirls, and is also co-organiser of the JavaScript London meetup. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Today, Phil is speaking to Simona Cotin a Developer Advocate for Microsoft. She is a passionate mentor in the NgGirls, codebar and Women Who Code workshops. Over the years, she has hacked all kinds of projects in Delphi, C/C++, C#, Java, Python, PHP, JavaScript, Lisp and is still learning new languages. She has a passion for working with Angular. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(1.00) – So Simona, can I ask you to expand on that brief summary and tell us a little bit about yourself? Simona explained that her job at Microsoft was to make sure that they build “great developer experiences in the cloud for web developers.” She is also passionate about teaching, so is a regular mentor at several workshops. One of which, codebar she recommends everyone checks o

GUEST BIO: In this episode Phil talks to Wes Bos. Wes is a Fullstack web developer and designer who spends most of his time working with JavaScript, CSS3 and HTML5.  Wes is also a lead instructor at HackerYou, an instructor for Ladies Learning Code and a regular conference speaker on everything from Front End Dev to ServerSide JavaScript. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­ (1.00) – Phil asked Wes to tell the audience a bit more about himself? Wes says he has been a Fullstack web developer for about 10 years now. He spends most of his time writing JavaScript. Mostly React on the frontend and Node.js on the backend. He also builds web development courses and has been running his own podcast for about a year now, which is regularly in the iTunes top 40.  (1.53) – Phil asks Wes for a unique IT career tip. Wes starts by saying that for his whole career he has been teaching people how to learn code. Over the years, he has noticed that most people become frustrated with their rate of progress. They want to know what the secret code

GUEST BIO: Jon Skeet is a Staff Software Engineer at Google, working from the London office on the Google Cloud Client Libraries for .NET. He's probably better known for his contributions on Stack Overflow and his book, C# in Depth. Jon is married to Holly Webb, a prolific children's author, and they have three children together. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: In this episode Phil interviews Jon Skeet who is a senior software engineer for Google. He is the author behind C# in Depth, a book that made him something of a C# legend. Jon is also a well-known Stack Overflow contributor who has a reputation for providing descriptive answers that solve the toughest challenges. Some go as far as calling him “the Chuck Norris of programming”. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­ (1.00) – So Jon, can you expand on that summary and tell us a little bit more about yourself? In response, Jon explains that he is a big fan of working from home. So, he does not spend very much time at Google’s London headquarters. Instead he works out of a high tech, ai

GUEST BIO: Justin is co-founder of Test Double, an agency of highly skilled developers on a mission to fix what’s broken in software.  As well as running Test Double, Justin is also an occasional conference speaker. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Today, Phil is talking to Justin Searls who is the co-founder of Test Double. An agency that embeds their developers into businesses to deliver the software they really need. Their approach includes refactoring legacy code, where appropriate, and mentoring the clients they work with. Justin is also an occasional public speaker. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­ (0.41) – Phil asked Justin to share a bit more information about himself. Justin responded by saying that he is a lifetime consultant, so has worked on many different projects. As a result, he deeply understands how software teams fail. This, in part, inspired him to start Test Double. He realized that he needed to hire developers who were passionate, positive. People who were happy to act as teachers and mentors while fixing company’

Today, Phil chats with James Shore. James teaches, writes and consults on Agile development processes. He is a recipient of the Agile Alliance’s Gordon Pask Award for Contributions to Agile Practice, co-creator of the Agile Fluency Model, and co-author of “The Art of Agile Development”. James has also been named as one of “the most influential people in Agile” by InfoQ. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(0.31) – Phil started by asking James to tell everyone a bit more about himself. James explained that he started his I.T. career as a programmer. In 1999, he was introduced to what was known as Extreme Programming (XP), which is the most prominent of the Agile software development methodologies. At first, James was not convinced, but when he tried it, he was hooked. So much so, that he decided he could not work any other way. At the time, he could not find anybody else working the XP way, so he decided to teach the method himself. That is how he became an Agile consultant. (2.45) – Phil and James discuss the fact that Agile i

GUEST BIO: Michael Kennedy is known best for being a Python expert. He is a Python Software Foundation fellow. His two podcasts Talk Python to Me and Python Bytes are well regarded, as are his developer training courses. Michael has been working in the developer field for more than 20 years and has spoken at numerous conferences including NDC and DevWeek. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: In this episode, Phil interviews Python Specialist Michael Kennedy. He is the host of Python Bytes and Talk Python to Me. Michael is also the founder of Talk Python training and a fellow of the Python Software Foundation. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­ (0.59) – Phil asked Michael to tell the audience a bit more about himself? In response, Michael explained that when he started his work life he focused on the science sector. While working on his maths PhD, he discovered programming. He said, “It just really connected with me”. That was 20 years ago, yet every day he feels a little bit more excited than he was the day before. With IT you are always le

In this episode Phil’s guest is Kevin L Jackson, who is a senior information technologist specializing in information technology solutions that meet critical business and mission operational requirements.  Kevin is founder and CEO of Gov Cloud Network. He is also a published author and a regular speaker.  Over the years, he has worked with many different companies including IBM, JPMorgan Chase &Co, and the SENTEL Corporation. He also enjoyed a 15-year US Navy career as a pilot and aeronautical engineer. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(0.52) – Phil asks Kevin to tell everyone a little more about himself. Kevin explains that his IT career began while he was serving in the Navy. For 10 years he was a carrier pilot but, later, he trained as an aerospace engineer. In that role he worked on Low Earth Orbit Systems, which are used to deliver vital information to the Navy and Marine Corps. His work as an aeronautical engineer gradually led him into the IT sector. This was before the modern internet existed. Instead he worked

In this episode, Phil talks to Michael Bolton, a consulting software tester and testing teacher who helps people to solve testing problems that they didn’t realize they could solve. Michael is also the co-author of Rapid Software Testing, a methodology and mindset for testing software expertly and credibly in uncertain conditions and under extreme time pressure. Michael has more than 25 years of experience testing, developing, managing and writing about software. And for almost 20 years he has led DevelopSense, a Toronto-based testing and development consultancy. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­(2.00) – Phil asks Michael to tell everyone a bit more about himself. Michael explains that he is – “in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction with the state of software, in the state of testing.” But that he knew this was not necessarily a bad thing because a state of dissatisfaction leads to a desire to change things for the better. Software testers need to help people to identify the problems that represent risks to their businesse

  EPISODE DESCRIPTION: In this episode, Phil talks to software developer Kent Beck, director of Three Rivers Institute (TRI) and author of multiple programming books. Kent shares his thoughts on how he looks at software development, the value of community and the untapped potential of engineering talent that exists in different areas of the world. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­ (1.39) - Phil opens by asking Kent to expand on the introduction and tell everyone a bit more about himself. Kent explains that for the last 7 years he has been working at Facebook. His main focus, while there, was on the engineering culture. During those 7 years, he did a lot of writing, coaching and educating. As well as studying the culture as a whole. (2.18) - Phil asks Kent to share a unique career tip. Kent says: “It's easy to treat software development as a production process where there's some functionality and the more quickly you can produce it, the better you are and I think that that's it's an understandable mistake but a fairly large

In today’s episode Phil chats with Spencer Schneidenbach. Spencer is a software engineer and Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, specialising in ASP.NET, C#, JavaScript and Angular JS. Spencer is passionate about software engineering, sharing his knowledge within the community and is a regular speaker at conferences and user groups. Spencer tells us why it’s important to be able to experiment and why we should not undervalue the value of networking. Spencer also shares his worst career moment as well as some of his career highlights and talks about a few of the things that excite him about the future of the industry. KEY TAKEAWAYS: [1.23] Phil asks Spencer to expand on the opening introduction. Spencer says that his interests lie in software engineering and architecture, and community involvement. He is currently a chief architect for a company called Ryvit who build integration software for the accounting and construction industries. [2.02] Phil asks Spencer for a unique career tip. Spencer talks about his

In today’s episode, Phil chats with Andy Hunt. Andy is a programmer turned consultant, author and publisher. He’s authored a dozen books including the best-selling “The Pragmatic Programmer,” and was one of the 17 authors of the Agile Manifesto and founders of the Agile Alliance. He also co-founded the pragmatic bookshelf, publishing award-winning and critically acclaimed books for software developers. Andy shares his story about why he chose I.T as his career and reveals his best and worst experiences in the I.T world. Listen to his career tips and advice. There is a lot to learn from Andy that will help you to become the best that you can be. KEY TAKEAWAYS: [1:21] Phil asks Andy to expand upon the brief introduction provided. Andy shares the story of how he had a real interest in radio electronics at that time. He says that he was very interested in early computers with the S100 BUS and CPM. He recalls that he loved how programming lets you go in and create your own world which, for Andy, is still the most