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

David McGimpsey is UK-born and Australian raised. David has been in Information Technology since 1992, when he started working as an IT assistant, crawling around on the floor fixing hardware. Shortly afterward, following a literal stroke; and a stroke of luck; David got the opportunity to travel the world, managing the IT systems of a marketing firm. Today, David is a communication skills trainer, based in Japan, and has just released his first book. In this episode David McGimpsey tells us why you should always ask questions to confirm your understanding. David also discusses the importance of continuing to develop your communication skills and why you shouldn’t rely solely on your education. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e51

Phil Japikse is an international speaker, Microsoft Most Valuable Professional and a passionate member of the developer community. He has been developing software for over 30 years and has been heavily involved in the Agile community since 2005. Phil is also a published author with LinkedIn learning as well as co-author of the book “C# and the .NET 4.6 Framework”. In this episode Phil Japikse tells us why we should seek out situations where we are the least knowledgeable person in the room. Phil also talks about involving the right people when designing and developing software and the importance of being polite and respectful to others. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e50

Duncan Hunter is a Software Architect based in Brisbane Australia. He spends most of his time building enterprise web applications on top of Angular and ASP.NET. Duncan is also a mentor at firebootcamp.com helping developers get up to speed with Angular and frontend best practices. In this episode Duncan tells us why it’s important to find the people you want to be like and how knowing what you’re passionate about makes it easier to say “No” to things that aren’t of interest to you. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e49

Troy lives on the Gold Coast in Australia. He is a Microsoft Regional Director, a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional and a Pluralsight author on web security and other technologies. Troy also travels the world speaking at events and training technology professionals on how to build more secure software. In this episode Troy Hunt tells us why it’s important for us to have an online brand or profile and how you should start if you don’t have one. Troy also talks about independence and why a passion for what you do will make your life a lot happier. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e48

Chuck Wood is a developer, podcaster, speaker and the CEO of Devchat.tv. He’s host of several popular tech podcasts including Javascript Jabber and Ruby Rogues as well as being an independent software consultant with a focus on Ruby, Ruby on Rails, JQuery, Prototype.js and other web technologies. In this episode Chuck Wood talks about working freelance within the I.T. industry and why relationships are key to the success of projects and teams. Chuck also tells us that we need to be true to who we are and what we care about. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e47

Phil Haack works at GitHub bringing the power of social coding to .NET and Windows developers. Prior to GitHub Phil worked at Microsoft as a Senior Program Manager shipping software such as ASP.NET MVC and NuGet. Phil is also a co-author of the ASP.NET MVC series of books as well as a regular speaker at conferences around the world. In this episode Phil Haack tells us why we need to be prepared to have difficult conversations and why this can help your career. Phil also talks about the importance of taking care when writing code and why you should test your code carefully. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e46  

Christian is a Chief Architect of cloud applications at Red Hat and is well known in the community for being an author, frequent blogger, speaker, open-source enthusiast and committer on various open-source projects. Christian has spent time at web-scale companies and now helps companies create and deploy large-scale, resilient, distributed architectures - many of what we now call Microservices. He enjoys mentoring, training and leading teams to be successful with distributed systems concepts, microservices, devops, and cloud-native application design. In this episode Christian Posta tells us why the ability to learn is of higher value than what you know, why you shouldn’t be afraid to introduce new concepts, new technologies or question the way you did things in the past. And why companies recognise that I.T. is their greatest differentiator. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e45

Barbara Carkenord has designed, written and taught hundreds of classes in software design, project management, business analysis, software testing and communications skills. As an early member of the International Institute of Business Analysis, Barbara worked on the development of a worldwide standard for business analysis, the BABOK Guide. Barbara is also an author of several books including “Seven Steps To Mastering Business Analysis”. In this episode Barbara Carkenord tells us why we need to have the integrity to be honest and why this can be challenging when working in software development. Barbara also shares her worst career moment, what she learnt from that experience and why you need to keep challenging yourself to try different things. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e44

Suzanne Robertson is a principal and founder of the Atlantic Systems Guild. She is co-author of Mastering the Requirements Process, a guide for practitioners on finding requirements and writing them so that all stakeholders understand them. Suzanne is also a member of the IEEE and the British Computer Society as well as a regular speaker at conferences and universities. In this episode Suzanne Robertson explains why you should not expect people to tell you what they need from a software system. Suzanne also discusses how software engineering can benefit from disciplines outside of the I.T. and technology field and why you should open your mind to a future of possibilities. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e43

Rex Black is president of RBCS. He is a testing leader, providing consulting, training and expert services. Rex has helped clients, from small start-ups to Fortune 20 global enterprises, apply testing best practice in a wide variety of development lifecycles. Rex is also a prolific author having written fourteen books and dozens of articles over the past 20 years as well as being a past president of both the ISTQB and the ASTQB. In this episode Rex Black tells us why Software Testers are having to become more technically skilled and why the I.T. industry is interesting, inspiring and scary, all at the same time. Rex also talks about his career experiences and the pace of change in technologies, methodologies and expectations. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e42

David J Anderson is the Chairman of Lean Kanban Inc, a management training, events and publishing business which licenses its brand and franchises its events and training classes globally. David began his career as a games developer in the early 1980s and has worked at companies including IBM, Sprint, Motorola and Microsoft. He is also author of several books including the best-selling Kanban - Successful Evolutionary Change for your Technology Business. In this episode David tells us why we need to have Mastery, Autonomy and Purpose, and that you need to be prepared to fire your boss. David also discusses the career decisions you may have to make between being professional & ethical and keeping your job as well as the importance of sociology in the I.T. industry. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e41

Simon Brown is an independent consultant specialising in software architecture. He is author of the book “Software Architecture for Developers” and creator of the C4 software architecture model. Simon is also an award winning speaker, presenting at conferences, meetups and organisations around the world. In this episode Simon Brown tells us why we can’t afford to stop learning and what we need to be doing to ensure that we don’t. Simon also explains why we need to be selective in what we choose to learn about in detail and why anyone can make an impact in the I.T. industry. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e40

Brian P Hogan is a web developer, teacher, book editor and musician. He is also author of several books including, “Exercises For Programmers”. Brian is currently a Technical Editor at Digital Ocean and is also a development editor at the Pragmatic Programmers as well as a panellist on the Ruby Rogues podcast. In this episode Brian tells us why software development is mostly about people and that it’s about solving problems. Brian also talks about making the most of opportunities to engage with smart people, why the answer is always ‘No’ unless you say ‘Yes’, and why just having a backup of your data is not enough. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e39

Scott Allen has more than 25 years of commercial software development experience across a wide range of technologies. He has successfully delivered software products for embedded, Windows and web platforms. Scott is also a Pluralsight course creator, a host on the podcast Herding Code, a published author and a conference speaker. In this episode K. Scott Allen talks about the importance of having your own brand and being able to differentiate yourself from others. Scott also tells us why obstacles can provide great learning experiences and why he believes that cloud technology provides innovation and opportunity. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e38

Ted Neward is an industry professional with over 20 years’ experience. He speaks at conferences all over the world and writes regularly for a variety of publications across the Java, .NET and other ecosystems. He currently resides in the Pacific Northwest with his wife, two sons, dog, four cats, eight laptops, seven tablets, nine phones, and a rather large utility bill. In this episode Ted talks about psychology and philosophy in I.T. and why empathy, sympathy and compassion will help you in your career. Ted also tells us why failures provide great lessons and why he believes technology has become embedded into western society. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e37

In this first episode of 2018 Phil Burgess takes a look back at the first eight months of the IT Career Energizer podcast and talks about how the podcast came about. Phil also looks forward to what you can expect from the podcast in 2018, describing some of the changes and additions planned for the show.

Jay Miller has been a system administrator for the military and in the private sector since 2008. He actively participates in several online communities, learning to develop in different languages such as JavaScript and Python. Jay’s involvement in these communities led him to host the CodeNewbie Saturday discussions and eventually to starting the Productivity In Tech podcast. In this episode Jay talks about finding the one thing that you’re good at and why you should become the subject matter expert of it. Jay tells us why we should be selective when opportunities present themselves and the consequences of making the wrong choice. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e36

Kent C Dodds is a full stack JavaScript engineer at PayPal whom he represents on the TC39, which is the committee that evolves JavaScript. Kent is actively involved in the open source community with over 100 published npm packages and a contributor on many more. He is also an Egghead.io instructor, Frontend Masters instructor and Google Developer Expert. Kent is happily married and the father of four kids. He likes code, cares about craft, design, tools and architecture. In this episode Kent tells us that there’s no shortcut to gaining experience and you should try to learn, build and teach to develop your skills. Kent also talks about why building a social media following can benefit your career and why you should always be kind and considerate to others. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e35

Hans Eckman is an experienced Business Analyst who provides leadership and consulting to rapidly evolving companies. This includes helping in the development of disruptive programmes and products that drive innovation and process improvement. Hans is also an experienced conference speaker having given over 50 presentations in the U.S. and Canada. In this episode Hans tells us why it’s people and processes that determine the success of I.T. projects and why it’s your responsibility to market and to promote your uniqueness and your value. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e34

Heather Downing is a passionate coder and entrepreneur. She is also an international technical speaker and co-host of the YouTube channel “The Hello World Show”. She also likes to encourage those with non-traditional backgrounds to enter the world of software development and is an advocate of women in tech. In this episode Heather talks about how she started her career in I.T. and why you should consider becoming a thought leader in your field, even early on in your career. Heather also discusses the importance of asking for help and the consequences of not doing so as well as why a career in I.T. is great for anyone who likes to be challenged.# To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e33