Insightful conversations. Less snark.

Periodically Corey speaks with people from various aspects of “Devreloper.” Today’s guest Priyanka Vergadia, Staff Developer Advocate at Google Cloud, provides her own functional definition of where the role starts and stops. More so, Priyanka has written a highly successfully, visually stimulating book! Priyanka offers up a lot of her definitions about the various modes of “Devrelopment,” and the different styles each brings forward. Priyanaka started her own take on DevRel by creating videos, and how it has evolved into ways to connect through visual mediums. More so, she has written a book, Visualizing Google Cloud: 101 Illustrated References for Cloud Engineers and Architects, which is not like most technical books! It's a visually driven guide that anyone can connect to! Check out the conversation for Priyanka's creative take on visuals, relaying information, and more!

Corey has been talking to Amy Tobey, Senior Principal Engineer at Equinix, for quite some time! And now they’ve finally sat down for a round of “Screaming.” Amy does an awful lot, but we want to get some structure behind the many, many obstacles that Amy tackles as a senior engineer. Amy breaks down what she does at Equinix, who has multiple data centers all over the world, as well as other products. Amy works on Equinix Metal, and does pretty much everything when it comes to keeping it functioning. But Amy’s contribution doesn’t stop there. For Amy there is a lot of space for improvement in the reliability space that can be at the cultural level. She offers up some excellent insight into ways to make that happen, keeping the grumpiness out of sysadmin, and more!

“What if CloudWatch’s web page didn’t suck?” is the question Corey pondered on until he came across Cloudash, which solved it for him. Today’s guest is Tomasz Łakomy, Head of React at Cloudash. Corey and Tomasz begin by discussing the challenges of monitoring and troubleshooting serverless applications, and how Cloudash was created with these in mind. Cloudash is a monitoring and troubleshooting tool for serverless applications. Corey and Tomasz discuss Tomasz’s “day job” at Stedi and how the work culture there nurtures many successful “side gigs,” such as Cloudash, by employees. They go on to talk about the merits and challenges of cloud provider certifications, using different types of code with CDK, and public speaking at tech events! They conclude the conversation by touching on the overlap between engineering and marketing.

Once upon a time Docker came out and changed the industry forever, but in the before times we had to manage computer systems ourselves! Now things have changed, and one of the biggest voices in that change is Michael DeHaan, creator of Cobbler and Ansible. The current and coming generation of work in tech is to stand on the backs of many giants, of which Michael is one. Michael reflects on the bad old days when server was king, and how Cobbler revolutionized how the provisioning of bare metal systems worked. As Michael tells it, it was basically a way to “glue” everything together. But, of course, it is more complicated than that. Michael didn’t stop there, soon afterward he created Ansible. Ansible was a way to help alleviate some of the stickiness of config management, and deal with scale. If you want to learn more about them both, tune in for that and Michael’s many other offerings! Michael reflects on the bad old pre-cloud days when server was king, and how Cobbler revolutionized how the provisioning of bare metal systems worked. As Michael tells it, it was basically a way to “glue” everything together. But, of course, it is more complicated than that. Michael didn’t stop there, soon afterward he created Ansible. Ansible was a way to help alleviate some of the stickiness of config management, and deal with scale. If you want to learn more about them both, tune in for that and Michael’s many other offerings!

Tailscale and its CEO, Avery Pennarun, join Corey today for some extremely exciting news! They have just raised $100 million in a Series B, a significant accomplishment. Given the super ease of use, and general wizardry that makes Tailscale work, this is excellent news for all of us! Corey has been using Tailscale for a while, and it has been transformative for how he uses these kinds of tools. He can’t stop raving about how useful it is, but it is hard to explain to folks. Avery clears any confusion and provides a thorough understanding of what it is, and how it works. Avery discusses how Tailscale connects your devices, provides a high level of visibility within your network, and how your whole team is able to utilize it. Avery goes into detail on Tailscale’s offerings, breaks down some of the technical aspects of how it works, and more!

Corey often has cloud security issues forced up on him, but he isn’t necessarily in the trenches. Today’s guest Yoav Alon, CTO at Orca Security, has been doing the security grunt work for quite some time. Yoav and Orca are now at the forefront of cloud security and his encompassing perspectives go far to cover the cloud security spread. Yoav talks about Orca’s three principles of security that help alleviate “friction” i.e. in-fighting with your peers. He also reflects on some of their security research in AWS and how in one particular discovery they leapt to the front of the pack. Yoav talks about how “data is king” and the security needs it demands, he reflects on AWS’s quick reaction to security problems, offers some takes on Azure, and more!

RedMonk has been a long time friend of the show and we’re always happy to have their folks on for a round of “Screaming!” Kate Holterhoff is a newly minted analyst, and RedMonk’s most recent hire. One of the interesting things about RedMonk is the many directions they go in seemingly all at once, and Kate joining the team is adding a path. Kate talks about her academic background and her PhD and her post-doc work. She is also a recently published author. So, why did she make the jump to frontend engineering? Kate offers some solid reasons behind her transition after developing an interest in the digital humanities. Kate provides some excellent insight on balancing these seemingly separate spheres of work that, in actuality, can overlap.

When you look at all the colossal blunders that pop up along the way in tech, oftentimes the adverse reaction is to “I’ll build my own database.” Oftentimes the result is not stellar. For Venkat Venkataramani, CEO of Rockset, the result was quite the opposite. Rockset has been a soaring success for Venkat and his team. Rockset is a real-time analytics platform built for the cloud. Venkat talks about what real-time analytics really means, and the speed and scale that is needed in a data analytics platform to meet that. Venkat discusses how Rockset is tackling the incredible complexity of providing real time data to their customers. Venkat offers some anecdotes about Rockset meeting their customers’ needs, the value real time data brings to a business, and breaks down the technical aspects of working in real time!

Couchbase is a database company first, there's no doubt about it, and Chris Harris, VP of Global Field Engineering, is here to tell us how they’re staying the course. In the wishy washy week to week changing in what companies constitutionally are, Couchbase is sticking with their original intent. Chris discusses the spawning of the database industry, and the many types of databases that are out there. He discusses how Couchbase took a step back and asked, why is everything rooted in the noSQL or SQL conversation? Why not just build a database. Chris’s focus on a particular problem across his career has led to one steeped in database knowledge. The end result is an insightful and wide ranging take on the database needs of the technology world.

Senior Solutions Engineer is the job title of today’s guest Tom Totenberg, who comes to us from LaunchDarkly. Despite what at first glance might be a guise for “sales engineer,” and thus lead to booing and hissing, that isn’t strictly the case. Tom is here to shine some light on those distinctions, and how he strives to develop an attitude of building relationships instead of only cold numbers. Tom discusses his “aspirational” approach to his job and how to infuse that into sales culture. He also talks about what drew him to LaunchDarkly, and what exactly it is they do there. For him, it is the “last mile” of what they call feature management and getting your software out the door. Tom talks about the delightful former “Screaming” guest Heidi Waterhouse, the transference and learning of skills across your career, cultivating an environment that aspires, and more!

Casey Lee is the CTO at Gaggle, which actually is saving lives. While loads of companies make the claim, in this case it rings rather true. Gaggle sells software to school districts that use the software to help protect their students by looking for indicators of bullying, self-harm, and a litany of other challenges facing young people in today’s world. Casey expands on the 6 million and growing students that they and their software is working to protect. Corey and Casey also share about their serendipitous encounter at re:Invent. Form helping Gaggle save on their AWS bills, they then dive into Casey’s area of expertise: containers. And at the end of all, they land on “quinntainers” and the 18th way to run containers on AWS.

Scott Piper, now a Principle Engineer at Block, and firmly established as the independent AWS security researcher, is becoming a regular fixture on the show. Now having taken a corporate gig, at the news of which Corey was a little let down, Scott is able to quell his concerns. Scott is still as public and prolific as ever. Scott holds true to his security research, and as he tells it his public presence is something companies can learn to value instead of sweat. Corey frequently mines Scott’s Twitter for his weekly security newsletter, an excellent source for the latest in security. Scott offers kind works on the newsletter, IMSDv2, and some request for areas for AWS to improve their security game!