Dev Interrupted

Latest Episodes:

Realistic Product Roadmaps and Other Lies | Best Egg’s Johnny Ray Austin Jul 02, 2024

Show notes

When we first saw the talk titled “Space Aliens Are Among Us, Your Product Roadmap is Realistic and Other Lies you Believe,” we knew we had to sit down with Best Egg’s Johnny Ray Austin at LeadingEng SF last year.
Johnny joined our host Conor Bronsdon to discuss how engineering leaders can navigate unrealistic expectations and pressures, drawing from his experiences and relating product roadmaps to the less-than-tangible UFO disclosure we’ve seen in recent years. The conversation explores the pressures engineering leaders face, how to align product roadmaps realistically, and how to manage ambiguity within teams.

By aligning engineering goals with business objectives and building a transparent, high-performing engineering culture, you can give your teams the context they need to drive focus and concentration toward the right outcomes.

Episode Highlights:

1:36 Where Johnny came up with the talk title "Space Aliens Are Among Us"
4:15 Advice for engineering leaders struggling with roadmap realism
6:44 Cutting through the noise to find the metrics that matter
11:41 How do teams know if they're moving fast in the right direction?
14:58 How do you handle teams that are getting the wrong input?
20:32 Lies we tell ourselves that we need to get past
28:32 What it’s like to create a new unit inside a company
33:53 Identifying and dealing with ambiguity on your teams
40:45 Johnny’s Thoughts on AI

Show Notes

OFFERS

Start Free Trial: Get started with LinearB's AI productivity platform for free.
Book a Demo: Learn how you can ship faster, improve DevEx, and lead with confidence in the AI era.

LEARN ABOUT LINEARB

AI Code Reviews: Automate reviews to catch bugs, security risks, and performance issues before they hit production.
AI & Productivity Insights: Go beyond DORA with AI-powered recommendations and dashboards to measure and improve performance.
AI-Powered Workflow Automations: Use AI-generated PR descriptions, smart routing, and other automations to reduce developer toil.
MCP Server: Interact with your engineering data using natural language to build custom reports and get answers on the fly.

Labs: Everything You Need to Know About Software Engineering Intelligence (SEI) Jun 25, 2024

Show notes

Engineering leaders have long used value stream management and CI/CD tools to improve software delivery practices. However, an increasing demand for cost and efficiency is leading to the adoption of new technologies. Enterprises are quickly adopting tools that combine deeper levels of visibility into the SDLC with net-new workflow automations, leading to a better developer experience and increased output.

This week's labs episode takes an in-depth look at Software Engineering Intelligence (SEI) Platforms and how engineering teams are using this new technology to gain a competitive advantage. LinearB’s COO and Co-founder Dan Lines along with co-host Conor Bronsdon cover the evolution of SEI, its core capabilities, and how these tools are being used to drive predictability, resource investment strategy and an improved developer experience.

Join our journey into the data insights and workflow automations that are driving the next wave of continuous improvement. Gartner estimates that the adoption of SEI platforms will increase to 50% of engineering teams by 2027 – whether you're a VP, manager, or developer, find out why adopting an SEI Platform is crucial to your future success.

Episode Highlights:

2:39 Digging into the data to find optimizations
4:02 What is Software Engineering Intelligence (SEI)?
9:08 What is profitable engineering and why should it be top of mind?
14:56 How can SEI help a VPE or CTO?
20:43 How does SEI relate to value stream management?
25:05 The role of automation in continuous improvement
29:36 How do SEI platforms help improve GenAI code orchestration?
31:45 What makes a great SEI platform?
34:19 What's next for SEI?

Show Notes:

OFFERS

Start Free Trial: Get started with LinearB's AI productivity platform for free.
Book a Demo: Learn how you can ship faster, improve DevEx, and lead with confidence in the AI era.

LEARN ABOUT LINEARB

AI Code Reviews: Automate reviews to catch bugs, security risks, and performance issues before they hit production.
AI & Productivity Insights: Go beyond DORA with AI-powered recommendations and dashboards to measure and improve performance.
AI-Powered Workflow Automations: Use AI-generated PR descriptions, smart routing, and other automations to reduce developer toil.
MCP Server: Interact with your engineering data using natural language to build custom reports and get answers on the fly.

Data Science & AI: Getting Buy-In and Demonstrating ROI | PagerDuty’s Sanghamitra Goswami Jun 18, 2024

Show notes

In this episode of Dev Interrupted, Conor Bronsdon is joined by Sanghamitra Goswami, Senior Director of Data Science and Machine Learning at PagerDuty. Sanghamitra shares her expertise in AI and data science, including how engineering teams can effectively leverage both within their organizations. She also explores the history and significance of LLMs, strategies for measuring success and ROI, and the importance of foundational data work. The conversation ends with a discussion about practical applications of AI at PagerDuty, including features designed to reduce noise and improve incident resolution.
Episode Highlights:
00:56 Why are LLMs important for engineering teams to understand?
03:17 How should engineering leaders think about using AI in their products?
07:57 What sort of plan should engineering leaders have to get buy in for AI?
13:22 Are there ways to show ROI on an investment in AI?
15:08 How should we communicate with customers about AI in our products?
18:53 How can companies find a good use case for AI in their product?
Show Notes:

OFFERS

Start Free Trial: Get started with LinearB's AI productivity platform for free.
Book a Demo: Learn how you can ship faster, improve DevEx, and lead with confidence in the AI era.

LEARN ABOUT LINEARB

AI Code Reviews: Automate reviews to catch bugs, security risks, and performance issues before they hit production.
AI & Productivity Insights: Go beyond DORA with AI-powered recommendations and dashboards to measure and improve performance.
AI-Powered Workflow Automations: Use AI-generated PR descriptions, smart routing, and other automations to reduce developer toil.
MCP Server: Interact with your engineering data using natural language to build custom reports and get answers on the fly.

The Power of Micro Frontends & Breaking Down Monoliths | Thayse Onofrio Jun 04, 2024

Show notes

This week, guest host Ben Lloyd Pearson chats with Thayse Onofrio, Software Engineer at Clutch and ex Thoughtworks. Thayse discusses how micro frontends allow individual application components to be operated and deployed independently, helping teams avoid the complexities of a monolithic architecture. They cover the technicalities, challenges, and advantages of implementing micro frontends, including the importance of module federation and proper coordination among developer teams. Learn about the future of frontend development, the cultural impacts, and the best practices from Thayse’s experience.
Episode highlights:
01:02 What is a micro frontend?
04:08 Building from scratch vs. out-of-the-box solutions
10:30 What’s the process for moving to a more micro frontend based approach?
15:46 What changes do you need to use a micro frontend framework?
17:28 What does a team using micro frontends benefit from once it's all set up?
Show Notes:

Thayse Onofrio | Twitter
Thayse Onofrio | Substack
Thayse Onofrio | LinkedIn
Thayse Onofrio | LeadDev
Software Engineering Intelligence: Exposed & In Action

OFFERS

Start Free Trial: Get started with LinearB's AI productivity platform for free.
Book a Demo: Learn how you can ship faster, improve DevEx, and lead with confidence in the AI era.

LEARN ABOUT LINEARB

AI Code Reviews: Automate reviews to catch bugs, security risks, and performance issues before they hit production.
AI & Productivity Insights: Go beyond DORA with AI-powered recommendations and dashboards to measure and improve performance.
AI-Powered Workflow Automations: Use AI-generated PR descriptions, smart routing, and other automations to reduce developer toil.
MCP Server: Interact with your engineering data using natural language to build custom reports and get answers on the fly.

Deliver Better Results: How to Unlock Your Organization's Potential | Gil Broza May 28, 2024

Show notes

Dan Lines is joined by Gil Broza, author of 'Deliver Better Results,' to discuss how you and your organization can achieve better results by focusing on processes. Gil shares his 20-year journey in the Agile field, focusing on product development, system thinking, prioritizing people, and mindful mindset adjustments.

The conversation covers the book’s target audience, the concept of the value delivery systems, and the roadmap for holistic improvement beyond traditional Agile methodologies. Gil also highlights common pitfalls leaders encounter, such as treating people as resources and the importance of a unified organizational mindset.

As a thank you to our listeners, we’re giving away the first chapter of ‘Deliver Better Results’ for free, check it out here.
Episode Highlights:
00:58 What led Gil to write ‘Deliver Better Results’, and who should be reading it?
06:20 Is there a certain size of team that would benefit from this book?
12:08 How can leaders identify the current state of their team?
17:01 How can engineering and product work better together?
20:49 What do leaders get wrong about people?
34:14 How can managers avoid finding someone to blame?
40:10 How can you avoid falling back to old habits after you make changes?
Show Notes:

OFFERS

Start Free Trial: Get started with LinearB's AI productivity platform for free.
Book a Demo: Learn how you can ship faster, improve DevEx, and lead with confidence in the AI era.

LEARN ABOUT LINEARB

AI Code Reviews: Automate reviews to catch bugs, security risks, and performance issues before they hit production.
AI & Productivity Insights: Go beyond DORA with AI-powered recommendations and dashboards to measure and improve performance.
AI-Powered Workflow Automations: Use AI-generated PR descriptions, smart routing, and other automations to reduce developer toil.
MCP Server: Interact with your engineering data using natural language to build custom reports and get answers on the fly.

How to Increase Adoption of Internal Developer Tooling | Bloomberg’s Luis Vega May 21, 2024

Show notes

This week, guest host Ben Lloyd Pearson sits down with Bloomberg’s Engineering Manager Luis Vega. Luis discusses the initial challenges of enhancing developer engagement with internal tooling. He outlines his approach to building internal applications that are as intuitive and engaging as Bloomberg's client-facing solutions, and how applying UX design principles and branding for tools dramatically increased adoption.
Vega also reflects on transitioning from a hands-on developer to a managerial role, emphasizing the importance of understanding team dynamics and fostering a culture of support and innovation within Bloomberg.
Episode Highlights:
01:14 What is Bloomberg?
02:52 How do you get developers to embrace internal tooling?
06:58 Giving applications mascots
12:28 Helping developers be more productive with internal tooling
18:31 What was the biggest challenge to tackle when developing internal tooling?
25:41 Luis' journey into development
32:07 What's next for Bloomberg's internal tools?
Show Notes:

How to Drive Developer Productivity and Profitability with SEI
Bloomberg
Luis Alejandro Vega on LinkedIn
Luis Alejandro Vega (@luisalejovega) / X
AleAlejandro on YouTube

OFFERS

Start Free Trial: Get started with LinearB's AI productivity platform for free.
Book a Demo: Learn how you can ship faster, improve DevEx, and lead with confidence in the AI era.

LEARN ABOUT LINEARB

AI Code Reviews: Automate reviews to catch bugs, security risks, and performance issues before they hit production.
AI & Productivity Insights: Go beyond DORA with AI-powered recommendations and dashboards to measure and improve performance.
AI-Powered Workflow Automations: Use AI-generated PR descriptions, smart routing, and other automations to reduce developer toil.
MCP Server: Interact with your engineering data using natural language to build custom reports and get answers on the fly.

Labs: Setting Engineering Goals and Reporting to Stakeholders May 14, 2024

Show notes

In our first Labs episode of the year, LinearB COO and Co-founder Dan Lines is joined by CTO Yishai Beeri to explore how elite engineering organizations set and report on their engineering goals.

Modern engineering leaders face a dual mandate of achieving operational excellence while aligning their work with business priorities. To achieve this, you need to deliver software predictably—projects need to be delivered on time, within scope, and as promised so the rest of the business can drive ROI. Dan and Yishai highlight goal-setting methodologies to achieve predictable delivery and key metrics to focus on, ranging from planning accuracy and capacity accuracy to cycle time.

Along with goal setting, we cover how to effectively report on your goals and progress to business stakeholders. Plus, you can download LinearB’s CTO Board Deck Template to leverage in your next board meeting.

Episode Highlights:
01:24 Key terms to know when setting goals
02:17 Engineering leaders’ dual mandate: operational excellence and business alignment
08:18 How can engineering leaders set goals to achieve both sides of this mandate?
11:37 Why engineering organizations need to deliver predictably
19:37 How to set goals around resource allocation
27:30 Reporting on your goals to business stakeholders
32:56 The LinearB CTO Board Deck Template
Show Notes:

OFFERS

Start Free Trial: Get started with LinearB's AI productivity platform for free.
Book a Demo: Learn how you can ship faster, improve DevEx, and lead with confidence in the AI era.

LEARN ABOUT LINEARB

AI Code Reviews: Automate reviews to catch bugs, security risks, and performance issues before they hit production.
AI & Productivity Insights: Go beyond DORA with AI-powered recommendations and dashboards to measure and improve performance.
AI-Powered Workflow Automations: Use AI-generated PR descriptions, smart routing, and other automations to reduce developer toil.
MCP Server: Interact with your engineering data using natural language to build custom reports and get answers on the fly.

Why You Need to Take Risks as an Engineering Leader | GitHub’s VPE Neha Batra Apr 30, 2024

Show notes

This week, I sat down with Neha Batra, VP of Engineering for Core Productivity at GitHub. Our conversation is about the value of taking calculated risks in engineering leadership, using a “risk budget," and how you can leverage your social capital to take risks that help your career.

Neha also shares her insights on senior engineering leaders' challenges when aligning business needs with talent and product execution. She discusses her framework for strengthening company alignment and engineering efficiency using established communication paths.

Episode Highlights:
00:26 Frameworks that strengthen company alignment
03:11 How should you channel frustration into creation?
05:58 Conceptualizing your risk budget
12:53 Strategies for building communication pathways
16:04 Conducting AMA's with your team
21:47 How do you get team members to take accountability?
25:27 How do you gather signals from your team?
29:13 Mistakes leaders make you can learn from
36:32 Building curiosity into mundane experiences like dating
Show Notes:

OFFERS

Start Free Trial: Get started with LinearB's AI productivity platform for free.
Book a Demo: Learn how you can ship faster, improve DevEx, and lead with confidence in the AI era.

LEARN ABOUT LINEARB

AI Code Reviews: Automate reviews to catch bugs, security risks, and performance issues before they hit production.
AI & Productivity Insights: Go beyond DORA with AI-powered recommendations and dashboards to measure and improve performance.
AI-Powered Workflow Automations: Use AI-generated PR descriptions, smart routing, and other automations to reduce developer toil.
MCP Server: Interact with your engineering data using natural language to build custom reports and get answers on the fly.

Unlocking Employee Engagement and Innovation | ADP’s Chuck Lafferty Apr 23, 2024

Show notes

In the last few years, disengagement at work has become a massive issue. We learned from Dr. Andre Martin’s episode that 53% of managers are burnt out and 1 in 3 employees leave their jobs in the first 90 days.

This week, we sat down with Chuck Lafferty, VP of CRM at ADP, to discuss ADP’s approach to employee engagement and innovation. Chuck dives into building trust within teams, innovative techniques like ‘Survey Roulette’ to incorporate user feedback into development, and the critical role of understanding and caring for individuals.

When employees feel valued, heard, and engaged in meaningful work, you see improved productivity and increased job satisfaction. The episode concludes with actionable steps to improve employee engagement through personalized interactions and empathetic leadership.

Episode Highlights:

01:51 How does Chuck define employee engagement?
04:06 Can you measure employee engagement?
12:05 How can managers engage individual developers?
17:16 Survey Roulette and how it helps engage engineering teams.
22:31 Winning in the workplace
23:45 The importance of separating the problem from the person
25:30 How can you improve employee engagement?

Show Notes:

OFFERS

Start Free Trial: Get started with LinearB's AI productivity platform for free.
Book a Demo: Learn how you can ship faster, improve DevEx, and lead with confidence in the AI era.

LEARN ABOUT LINEARB

AI Code Reviews: Automate reviews to catch bugs, security risks, and performance issues before they hit production.
AI & Productivity Insights: Go beyond DORA with AI-powered recommendations and dashboards to measure and improve performance.
AI-Powered Workflow Automations: Use AI-generated PR descriptions, smart routing, and other automations to reduce developer toil.
MCP Server: Interact with your engineering data using natural language to build custom reports and get answers on the fly.

Automated ≠ Autonomous: Developer Productivity and AI | MongoDB’s Tara Hernandez Apr 16, 2024

Show notes

This week, our host Dan Lines sits down with Tara Hernandez, VP of Developer Productivity at MongoDB. Together, they explore the nuances of developer productivity and the impact of AI in engineering environments.

Tara emphasizes that achieving developer productivity requires a focus on outcomes, reduced noise for developers, and a healthy balance between technology, processes, and communication. She also touches on the strategic framework of the 'three horizons' for conceptualizing your investment breakdown across different projects and how to maintain focused on meaningful development work.
Episode Highlights:
01:43 How should you think about developer productivity?
09:09 Three pillars to improve developer productivity
16:07 Automated does not equal autonomous
24:46 Making the golden path the easy path for developers
27:51 What’s exciting in developer productivity and AI?
29:57 The three horizons
38:34 Developer performance vs productivity data
40:23 What is the right way to think about goal setting for noise reduction?
Show Notes:

OFFERS

Start Free Trial: Get started with LinearB's AI productivity platform for free.
Book a Demo: Learn how you can ship faster, improve DevEx, and lead with confidence in the AI era.

LEARN ABOUT LINEARB

AI Code Reviews: Automate reviews to catch bugs, security risks, and performance issues before they hit production.
AI & Productivity Insights: Go beyond DORA with AI-powered recommendations and dashboards to measure and improve performance.
AI-Powered Workflow Automations: Use AI-generated PR descriptions, smart routing, and other automations to reduce developer toil.
MCP Server: Interact with your engineering data using natural language to build custom reports and get answers on the fly.

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