Diverse Software Engineers Podcast

Are you where you are meant to be right now? How can you tell if you are not? If you ever wonder about that, you are in good company. Fatima is asking these questions, and I had made major academic and career changes in university as a result of these questions. Listen in as we discuss, and inadvertently reveal an intimate personal story I had buried for over 15 years.

What does it take to be hired by Microsoft as a software engineer? My guest and Simon Fraser University alumni Issac Qiao has started an exciting chapter of his career there, and he dishes out all the time and effort he went through to get it, as well as how you can get there.

Ever dreamed of having superpowers? In all my 15+ years experience as a software engineer, I have witnessed such powers. They are called event modeling / event sourcing! How do you acquire such powers and profit from it? In the season 1 finale, let the creator of event modeling, Adam Dymitruk, tell you how!

This concludes season 1, and it was a blast. Season 2 will begin in the fall (stay tuned for exact dates) with new and exciting guests!

Live far away from the office? Have an accent? These are some examples of how you can be unfairly rejected from a position. Have you been rejected because of these things? I suspect I had, and I can imagine that is true for many of you. Bias are pervasive and sometimes even well meaning managers, such as myself, who have worked as a software engineer manager for years, have committed in the past.

In this episode I confess to some of these biases and expose how some questions fester biases. Then Fatima and I will show you ways to overcome them, so you can obtain fulfilling positions and careers.

How many days in the past 30 days do you feel lethargic? You wake up with a list of things to complete, and end up doing none of it? Or you dread waking up, and wish the day is magically over? Perhaps yesterday at times you feel great, but it lasts only a few hours at most, and soon you have that sinking or nagging feeling that something is just ... off. It has happened to many of us, me included, in my 15+ years as software engineer, manager, and architect.

This episode’s guest, Karthik Viswanathan, is taking an extended break from work. He is living through this right now, so he is perfectly positioned to identify burnout, look for ways to reduce likelihood of burnout happening to you, and what to do when you feel burnt out.