Software Defined Interviews

Bryan Ross is a Field CTO at GitLab, a role he describes as straddling sales, customer success, and solution architecture - or, as one of his customers renamed it, chief therapy officer, which he has since turned into a Substack. Whitney and Coté talk with him about what the job actually looks like: getting catapulted into an account by the sales team, asking a lot of questions, and finding out about four minutes in that the tech p...

W. Edwards Deming was a physicist, statistician, and quality theorist who taught post-war Japanese manufacturers what eventually became the Toyota Production System - and, decades later, DevOps. John Willis, one of the founders of the DevOps movement and the author of a book on Deming, walks Whitney and Coté through that lineage: Deming's system of profound knowledge (theory of knowledge, variation, psychology, and systems thinking...

Whitney and Coté talk with Emily Long, CEO and co-founder of Edera, about building a hardened container runtime that secures infrastructure foundations instead of chasing detect-and-respond alerts. Emily describes how Edera lets teams swap in a new container runtime without re-platforming or adopting yet another zero-trust migration, and why the "zero days as the new hotness" landscape makes that kind of structural change worth doi...

Whitney and Coté discuss with Josh Berkus (Red Hat, Kubernetes contributor) how liberal and fine arts degrees (philosophy, photography, sculpture, pottery) apply to tech careers. Berkus details how early hardware experience influenced his database performance work, noting hardware's renewed relevance with AI and multi-arch computing. The conversation covers Sun Microsystems’ 1990s internet role, internal politics, and its MyS...

Spotting talent, getting innovation adoption and driving use, open source, AI, and developing taste - those are the major topics Coté and Andrew discussed this week at the live reading. Also, a framework for creating the perfect burger. This was recorded at cfgmgmtcamp 2026, in Ghent, Belgium. Thanks to the staff for making it happen!

You can watch the video recording of this episode as well, if you're into that kind of thing.

If...

Coté and Whitney talk with Nathen Harvey, who leads the DORA research program at Google Cloud. They talk about what 15 years of DevOps and delivery data actually says about AI. The answer feels something like "it makes you even better at what you're already good at." High-performing teams get better, while struggling teams just move faster into bottlenecks. They talk about AI-assisted software development, why throughput is rising ...

In this episode, Whitney and Coté talk with Lian, a "cloud-native human" with a 15-year career in tech. Lian discusses her transition from tech to performance art, her experiences in amateur musical theater, stand-up comedy, and improv theater. She talks about platform engineering, the importance of community building in tech, and balancing professional life with personal projects. They also cover her unique improv workshops for en...

The Octopus Organization is a great collection of organization anti-patterns. This week, one of the co-authors, Jana Werner talks with Whitney and Coté about those patterns and her own experiences. They go over topics like reading habits, the role of business books, decision making, ownership, curiosity in organizations. practical steps to avoid common corporate anti-patterns, the importance of clear communication and leadership pr...

Whitney and Coté chat with Jason Hand. They discuss the challenges and rewards of organizing conferences, the impact of the pandemic on in-person events, and the nuances of developer relations.

Jason shares his experiences with AI Tools Lab, vibe coding, and personal projects such as developing his own tools to replace commercial SaaS products. They also talk about devrel differences at large vs. mid-sized companies, and how to m...

Whitney and Coté talk with Andrew Clay Shafer, co-founder of Puppet and principal at an advisory firm, about the nuances of DevOps transformation, open source dynamics, and running his burger restaurant, All American Burger. They talk about the challenges of integrating social and technical systems, managing metrics and KPIs, and the evolving ecosystem of open source software. Also, they go over Andrew's experience in running a fas...

We talk with Russell Davies this episode. He has done many things, above all else made lots of interesting content and messed around with producing content. Advertising, blogging and the World Wide Web of the 2000's, interesting conferences (call exactly that: interesting), books, and of late, he's been mastering the short video format. I am a big fan of Flora and his ("he's"?) recent podcast, WIP. Here is a fantastic episode.

All...

In this episode, Whitney and Coté speak with Saad Ansari, a product manager at Databricks, about his journey from working at Microsoft to co-founding a startup focused on creating sensors for monitoring cow behavior. They go over the challenges and rewards of transitioning from large corporations to startups and back, the differences in company scales, and the various lessons learned along the way. Saad shares some stories about de...

In this episode, Whitney and Coté talk about the integration of AI into daily life with Hannah Foxwell, organizer of AI for the Rest of Us, among many other doings. They talk about stuff like practical applications of AI in daily tasks like finding recipes and tech support to the complexities of adopting AI in professional settings. Hannah also talks about building AI communities and conferences in general. Also, you hear about the...

In this episode, Whitney and Coté talk with Rachel Chalmers. Rachel shares her experiences as an analyst, her approach to VC investing, and a little on life as a industry analyst. The conversation also touches on the evolving landscape of venture capital, the importance of psychological safety in teams, and innovative methods for engaging with early-stage startups. Also, lots of horse-talk.

You can also watch the video recording, ...

In this episode, Whitney and Coté chat with Mary Thengvall, exploring the development and significance of Developer Relations (devrel) over the years. They discuss the transition from tech "evangelism" to the modern devrel roles, the challenges and successes in community building, the importance of internal support for devrel teams, and the impact of AI on content creation. Mary also shares insights from her book, The Business Valu...

In this episode, Whitney and Coté talk with James Eastham about developing social skills through reading, the importance of deep work in productivity, and the mental challenges of ultrarunning. They also discuss strategies for reducing screen time in an age of Internet addiction, how thumbnails in YouTube videos influence viewer engagement, and the evolving landscape of short-form video content.

Watch the video, if you prefer that...