Software People Stories
302 episodes - English - Latest episode: 12 days ago - ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsStories of what worked and sometimes what did not, in the course of discovering, designing, developing and delivering software based solutions – as shared by practitioners who went through these situations.
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Episodes
Teamwork and mentorship with C Subramanian (CS)
June 28, 2024 10:31 - 31 minutesI continue my conversation with C Subramanian - more affectionately known as CS in his circles, an accomplished banker turned IT professional, with international experience. CS - C Subramanian's story is one of resilience, adaptation, and continuous learning. From his humble beginnings, he sought stability through education and found unexpected opportunities in the banking sector. Despite facing objections, he embraced the chance to join Canara Bank and eventually transitioned into the IT ...
Learning and Growing with C Subramanian - CS
June 23, 2024 07:04 - 29 minutesIn this episode, Shiv is in conversation with C Subramanian, more affectionately known as CS in his circles, an accomplished banker turned IT professional, with international experience. In this first part of the conversation, CS shared his origin story, starting from a modest background with a focus on securing a stable life through education. Despite initial plans for a career in chemistry, a friend's suggestion led him to apply for a job at Canara Bank, where he began his career. Despi...
Successful outsourcing partnerships with Andy Hillard
June 07, 2024 12:04 - 27 minutes - 18 MBIn this episode Shiv continues his conversation with Andy Hillard the CEO of Accelerance. He leads and advocates for the globalization and collaboration of great software teams across the world. In this second part of the conversation, Shiv and Andy discuss the challenges of working with multiple service providers and the importance of building cohesive teams. Andy emphasizes the need for trust, accountability, and common values in creating successful partnerships, regardless of whether yo...
Essentials of outsourcing with Andy Hillard
May 30, 2024 04:41 - 29 minutes - 22.5 MBIn this episode, Shiv is in conversation with Andy Hillard, the CEO of Accelerance. He leads and advocates for the globalization and collaboration of great software teams across the world. The conversation between Shiv and Andy covers Andy's extensive career journey, including his time with the Peace Corps, his experience in finance and marketing, and his transition into software development. Andy discusses the evolution of the outsourcing industry, emphasizing the need for service provi...
Being an architect with Mike Bowers
May 05, 2024 15:08 - 28 minutes - 19.7 MBShiv continues his conversation with Mike Bowers, Chief architect at FairCom. In this conversation, Mike discusses how to identify someone with an aptitude for being a software architect. Here are the key points: Aptitude for a software architect, abstract thinking and Practicality His Experience in extensive coding and understanding of different programming languages, Data structures and algorithms knowledge He also talks about the Qualities of a good software architect: How to iden...
Architecting database engines with Mike Bowers
April 26, 2024 06:23 - 25 minutes - 15.8 MBMy guest today is Mike Bowers, Chief architect at FairCom. We had a very interesting conversation that we decided to publish in two parts. In the first part of the conversation , MIke shares his career path and his perspective on how to approach software development. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the customer's needs and designing systems that are flexible and scalable. He also discusses the importance of data in software development and his experience working with different ...
Architecting solutions for the social sector with Vijayashree Urs
April 18, 2024 17:30 - 46 minutes - 27.9 MBIn this conversation with Ms. Vijayashree CTO - Shikshalokam | Director- Onlineengineer Inc. she talks about her career trajectory and how she approaches technical challenges. Here are the key points: Vijayashree accidentally ended up in computer science after wanting to study electronics engineering. She has a passion for system software design and coding. She transitioned from a services role to a product role to focus more on the technical aspects. She believes in balancing the techni...
Late career options with Shekhar Chandra
April 15, 2024 08:39 - 1 hour - 44.3 MBToday, my guest is Shekhar Chandra - the Global Practice Head at Irs Software Inc. Here are the key themes from the conversation: Shekhar initially disliked sales because he is more of an introvert. However, he was eased into the role by his company and his technical background helped him gain the confidence to sell because he understood the product. Building a brand: Shekhar highlights the importance of building a brand for oneself, especially when venturing into entrepreneurship. Sh...
Staying curious and adaptable with Harpreet Singh
April 05, 2024 15:12 - 43 minutes - 32.7 MBShiv our host is in conversation with Harpreet SIngh, CO-founder and co-CEO of Launchale Inc. Harpreet has been associated with conceiving and launching many innovative products that have become a standard among developer community. In today's conversation he talks about How he started his career in India and then moved to the US. He emphasizes the importance of continuous learning and self-improvement. He mentions his growth mindset and his habit of reading and taking courses to stay...
Corporate, Entrepreneurship and Social impact with Vinaya Mallya
March 30, 2024 02:54 - 43 minutes - 32.7 MBToday, my guest is Vinaya Mallya, is a seasoned IT professional, who has played leadership roles in the corporate sector, then was an entrepreneur building a team and moving on to create solutions to impact the social sector. In this conversation, : Vinaya shares her career path, including experiences in corporate IT, startups, and the social sector. Early Career in IT Vinaya's original plan was to study civil engineering, but her principal encouraged her to switch to computer science du...
No guilt career breaks with Amita Ardha
March 22, 2024 15:49 - 45 minutes - 31.2 MBToday, my guest is Amita Ardha, an enterprise architect who has been focusing on sustainable development solutions. In this conversation; Amita started her career in engineering and transitioned to IT due to her interest in the "why" behind the coding. She realized the importance of understanding the business world and pursued an MBA with a focus on IT and software engineering. She eventually became a certified Enterprise Architect but took a break to focus on personal goals and explo...
The New Indian Woman, Krishna
March 15, 2024 14:10 - 48 minutes - 29.6 MBEvery year, the Software People Stories dedicates the month of March to women guests, to call out their contributions and highlight some women’s perspectives. Today, I am very happy to introduce our guest, Krishna Kumari, who is also a podcaster, hosting the New Indian Woman podcast. In this conversation, Krishna talks about: Her first association with computers during her engineering student days and her first job Reflecting on the novelty and curiosity around computers and software tha...
Travel, Media & Software
March 08, 2024 15:59 - 58 minutes - 44.1 MBHappy Women's Day! This whole month we have all women's special podcast. Today, Malini Gowrishankar , Founder and CEO of F5escapes is in conversation with Chitra sharing her experiences as below - Describes herself as a nerdy 1st bencher with interest in music poetry, screen tested with Doordarshan - Support role resolving backend issues, strong fundamentals in delivering high quality software - the disconnect between developers v/s requirements and realizing business value, software p...
Creating an Authentic Identity
March 02, 2024 07:14 - 29 minutes - 15.4 MBIn second part of this episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Bharath Kumar who is a Marketeer from a Technologist, Head Of Marketing & Cx - Zoho Creator and he’s a Marketing and Content Specialist. Believing the part of Authentic marketing Creating a Product first and playing secondary to product but how do you differentiate the values of Zoho organization along with product features Unlearning and becoming second fiddle to the Product Changing the model to inbound focus...
Panel Discussion on Enterprise Agility
February 24, 2024 03:57 - 44 minutes - 62.2 MBIn this special episode, as part of our book launch "A Practitioner's guide to Enterprise Agility", we had a panel discussion on Enterprise agility. As part of this panel Sivaguru was in conversation with 3 eminent guest from IT industry, Ramkumar Venkatesan, CTO Cashfree payments, Vandana Malaiya, Partner Semcostyle and S Gopalan, MD Global automation Pvt Ltd. Listen to this episode to know what were the views on enterprise agility of our guests . Hope you enjoy the episode!
3 Authors 1 Amazing Book
February 09, 2024 14:03 - 48 minutes - 33.3 MBIn today's special episode we have our authors in conversation with our host Chitra. They share their experiences and thoughts with Chitra about the story behind this book. Here is what Chitra has to say about this podcast. The five tantras of enterprise agility which emerged from real coaching, business and consulting experiences of PM Power Consulting authored by Paramu Kurumathur only meant a sequel was a matter of time. So when co-author and former colleague of mine Sivaguru asked if I...
Documentation Dogma in Software with Prema Dhas Mohunraj
February 03, 2024 09:10 - 22 minutes - 10.6 MBIn the second part of the conversation with my friend Prema Dhas Mohunraj - aka Prem, Automotive Engineer, Product Leader in the Automotive Space, Electrobit(EB), we touched upon his career and reflections, including: Shares his decisions and the outcomes of moving roles, company and location Talks about family and decisions on moving career Prem shares his learnings on being part of a legal case while dealing with a software quality issue Sharing his views on the role definition and sw...
Shortening the Cycle time in Automotive Space with Prema Dhas Mohunraj
January 30, 2024 14:07 - 24 minutes - 11.6 MBIn the first part of conversation with my friend Prema Dhas Mohunraj - aka Prem, Automotive Engineer, Product Leader in the Automotive Space, Electrobit(EB), we touched upon his career and reflections, including: Shortest stint in Robert Bosch for 2 years and talks about today’s trend of people moving out in less than 2 months Been an automotive engineer for the better part of his career and worked in different parts of business with . Premadhas jokes that he was getting only one firm to g...
Analytics and planning with Srinivasan Sundararajan
January 20, 2024 04:49 - 35 minutes - 22.4 MBIn this conversation with my colleague Srinivasan Sundararajan - aka Srini, we touched upon many topics related to personal finance as well as non-financial planning, including: His passion for data and analytics Understanding that behavior matters as much or more than data and how his own approach to analytics has evolved over time The year end being a logical time window to reflect and plan Start your reflection and planning from self Picking the vital few aspects that need to be addr...
Golden Optimals with Mohan Ram
January 17, 2024 03:02 - 32 minutes - 21.7 MBIn this conversation, my colleague Mohan Ram shares how His reflection and planning cycle is not necessarily synchronized with the calendar year His preference to not think too far ahead in the future, but focus on the next 3 months How the thought process is always on in the back of one’s mind How to avoid the analysis paralysis, but move towards action with a golden optimal rule His experience and learnings from two of his bosses The significance of journals and journaling His prefe...
Year end thoughts with Chitra and Gayatri
January 05, 2024 11:49 - 35 minutes - 49 MBAs we approach the end of a calendar year, many of us have the practice of looking back on the year that was, reflecting on the highs and lows of the year - and shape our dreams and aspirations for the coming year. At Software People Stories, we are running a special series of conversations with people on their own approaches as well as practices and stories of how their thinking has changed over the years. Today, it is a conversation between the two co-hosts of the podcast, Chitra and Gay...
Year end thoughts with Kurumathur Param
December 22, 2023 14:15 - 29 minutes - 41.4 MBAs we approach the end of a calendar year, many of us have the practice of looking back on the year that was, reflecting on the highs and lows of the year - and shape our dreams and aspirations for the coming year. At Software People Stories, we are running a special series of conversations with people on their own approaches as well as practices and stories of how their thinking has changed over the years. Today, my guest is Paramu Kurumathur, a colleague and a published serial author. H...
Year end thoughts with Gopalan
December 22, 2023 06:04 - 32 minutes - 44.7 MBAs we approach the end of a calendar year, many of us have the practice of looking back on the year that was, reflecting on the highs and lows of the year - and shape our dreams and aspirations for the coming year. At Software People Stories, we are running a special series of conversations with people on their own approaches as well as practices and stories of how their thinking has changed over the years. Today, I am in conversation with S Gopalan, my colleague from PM Power and an indus...
Year end thoughts with Anantha Natarajan
December 09, 2023 11:45 - 38 minutes - 53.8 MBAs we approach the end of a calendar year, many of us have the practice of looking back on the year that was, reflecting on the highs and lows of the year - and shape our dreams and aspirations for the coming year. At Software People Stories, we are running a special series of conversations with people on their own approaches as well as practices and stories of how their thinking has changed over the years. Today, I am in conversation with Anantha Natarajan, my colleague from PM Power and ...
Creating your great day every day with Bharath Kumar
November 25, 2023 17:53 - 27 minutes - 16.2 MBIn this episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Bharath Kumar who is a Marketeer from a Technologist, Head Of Marketing & Cx - Zoho Creator and he’s a Marketing and Content Specialist. In his career spanning over two decades, he shares very interesting stories – Started his career in Infosys as a software engineer Found that his interests was in organizing events, quizzes and packaging and presenting the ideas were his strengths During his career as a mainframe engineer, Bh...
Collaborate, to simplify problems and solutions with Tom Pierce
November 17, 2023 13:19 - 32 minutes - 20.2 MBIn this episode, I asked Tom Pierce, the president and founder of Integrated Information Systems (I2S) responds to my question on how the ‘integrated’ in his company name is internalized by his clients. He responded to that question and shared many more interesting thoughts in this episode. He shared: How their weekly 5 hour workshops for clients, to get vibrant conversations going How he uses music in some of his interactions His belief in segmentation and appropriate responses, rather t...
Military experience and software development with Tom Pierce
November 11, 2023 03:31 - 26 minutes - 14.6 MBIn this episode, Tom Pierce, the president and founder of Integrated Information Systems (I2S), shares: Many in his family had been in military service In his first assignment, being assigned to the analysis team because he has a background in math and computers Grabbing an opportunity to use a computer that was unused Doing some simulation modeling solutions Leaving the army in good terms and going back to school Working for a defense contractor and then starting his own defense contr...
Secure development with Jeremy Snyder
November 03, 2023 15:54 - 31 minutes - 22.6 MBI continue my conversation with Jeremy Snyder, the founder and CEO of FireTail.io, an end-to-end API security startup. Towards the end of the first part, I asked Jerermy ‘how a developer should think, when using APIS - with so many moving parts - from security and performance aspects’ He answers that and continues to share his story relating to: The extensive experience his co-founder has with API based architectures and implementations How APIs can implement business functions or offer s...
Scaling to the cloud with Jeremy Snyder
October 27, 2023 08:41 - 33 minutes - 25.7 MBIn this conversation, Jeremy Snyder, the founder and CEO of FireTail.io, an end-to-end API security startup, shares his professional journey and perspectives. Specifically, How he got into IT in the late 90s, when technology was coming into businesses Early experience in Linux, VAX and Unix and implementing solutions for a translation agency Being responsible to evaluate, implement and integrate with various systems and thereby increasing the empathy for users and their situations Movin...
Accelerating Business Outcomes with Nanthakumar Arumugam
October 15, 2023 06:50 - 32 minutes - 21 MBIn this episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Nanthakumar Arumugam who is a Technologist, Delivery Lead at ThoughtWorks and he’s a Quality Engineer and Financial Expert. In his career spanning over two decades, he shares very interesting stories – Nantha started his career as an instrumentation engineer within Polyester firm. His interest gravitated towards the PLC programming and that led him to join the software engineering full time Nantha joined Ready Test Go as a Qual...
Don't Choose an Easy Path with Saikat Chakrabarty
October 06, 2023 16:28 - 30 minutes - 21.7 MBIn this episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Saikat Chakrabarty who is a Technologist, Director, Engineering at Mihup and he’s a AI/ML and Computer Vision Enthusiast. In his career spanning over a decade, he has been a Telecom engineer, prompt engineering, Interaction designer and conversational AI. Saikat is working in the pioneering world of building AI tools that map the man machine and the person He’s working in the contact center engineering by understanding the que...
Smart hiring for startups with Prasenjit Sarkar
September 30, 2023 08:54 - 23 minutes - 12.1 MBIn this episode, I continue my conversation with Presenjit Sarkar, who is a Technologist, Innovator, Disruptor - and distinguished engineer with Rubrik inc. In his career spanning over 25 years, he has been a researcher, inventor, startup founder among other key roles he has played. I asked Prasenjit, if an entrepreneur should take outside help in building teams and people.. The answer to that question and a lot more in the second part of the conversation. Today, he talks about: Taking...
Joys and pains of entrepreneurship with Prasenjit Sarkar
September 22, 2023 10:31 - 37 minutes - 21 MBIn this episode, Sivaguru is in conversation with Presenjit Sarkar, who is a Technologist, Innovator, Disruptor - and distinguished engineer with Rubrik inc. In his career spanning over 25 years, he has been a researcher, inventor, startup founder among other key roles he has played. Today, he talks about: His background, growing up years in India Doing his PhD and moving to corporate research, as he is more of a hands on person After about 15 years with IBM, as a successful research s...
Building Confidence and Career with Kamala Srinivasa
September 16, 2023 06:22 - 37 minutes - 22.6 MBIn this episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman has the conversation with Kamala Srinivasan who is a Technologist, Founder & CEO, Upahara, and women in tech influencer. In her career spanning over 25 years, she has been a STEM engineer, fintech developer, women in tech influencer and startup founder among other key roles she has played. Kamala grew up in a home with professors and engineers she recalls how having a clean room with AC blasting made her fascinated with the technology industry Kamala ...
Becoming a consultant with Dan Balcauski
September 09, 2023 08:24 - 25 minutes - 23.1 MBIn this episode, my co-host Gayatri continues her conversation with Dan Balcauski, founder and chief pricing officer at product tranquility, a company that helps high-volume B2B SaaS CEOs define pricing and packaging for new products Gayatri asked him what challenges he faced when he became a consultant Dan shares How he did a solo backpacking around the world and the transformational experiences he got How he had to talk himself away from self-talk that would shoot any ideas for entrepr...
Pricing Software Services with Dan Balcauski
September 02, 2023 05:41 - 21 minutes - 14.6 MBIn this episode, my co-host Gayatri is in conversation with Dan Balcauski, founder and chief pricing officer at product tranquility, a company that helps high-volume B2B SaaS CEOs define pricing and packaging for new products In this conversation he talks about His student days in 1999, the peak dotcom era Got a job in Austin, Texas Getting into engineering manager role, which included envisioning product roadmaps Developing an interest in articulating value of solutions Signing up fo...
Making teaching exciting with Shailaja Venkatasubramanyan
August 24, 2023 07:24 - 26 minutes - 14.8 MBI continue my conversation with Shailaja Venkatasubramanyan. In the first part, she talks about how she got into Information systems and her career spanning education and startup sectors. How she balanced professional and personal demands and challenges. How she never hesitated to get into new areas and was always ready to learn. In this part of the conversation Shai talks about Differences in teaching approaches for young adults and children How she likes to learn when she is interes...
Balancing professional and personal pressures with Shailaja Venkatasubramanyan
August 18, 2023 12:24 - 26 minutes - 14.2 MBI am in conversation with Shailaja Venkatasubramanyan, who is an Associate Professor Emeritus at the School of Information Systems and Technology at San Jose State University. She is also a Fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar and a Master Teacher Award recipient. A special note on this episode: during this conversation Shailaja talks about some very personal moments in her life that some may find disturbing or moving. In this conversation, she talks about: Wanting to do science, but was...
Modeling the celestial objects with Kishore Kumar
August 11, 2023 10:28 - 23 minutes - 11.4 MBThis is a continuation of the conversation with Kishore Kumar. He talks about how he started his youtube channel and trigger for his interest on astronomy after ending his formal professional career He talks about how he prepares , be it scripting, location , photography, tools for animation, java scripts and creativity to produce one episode on his channel. His views on “Time” before and after astronomy in his life. If you want time for something you will find it. His advice or tips on...
Software professional to Youtuber with Kishore Kumar
August 04, 2023 13:43 - 25 minutes - 12 MBKishore Kumar is a software professional turned youtuber. He shares his career journey with Sivaguru Starting career as system engineer later moved to programing on mainframes Moving to the USA and feeling the need of studies did his Masters in computer science . Learning AI way back in 1989 to 1991. How this helped later in his career How his career mirrors the Indian software industry which has changed shapes over years. How things changed from convincing the US for jobs to how later...
Being in the limelight puts a spotlight with Mathan Ramanujam
August 01, 2023 15:14 - 36 minutes - 20.5 MBIn the second part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Mathan Ramanujam, Product Influencer and Hardware Designer and Director at SiMa.ai, shares his career journey Mathan shares on values on why would you work in a startup - Working for today’s salary or invest in tomorrow’s growth He also shares matching personal believes in the firm and extracting learning from failures and failure in itself Talks about each person needs to think of themselves as an I...
Harnessing your curiosity with Mathan Ramanujam
July 29, 2023 04:44 - 31 minutes - 16.5 MBIn the first part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Mathan Ramanujam, Product Influencer and Hardware Designer and Director at SiMa.ai , shares his career journey Mathan started his journey as a hardware engineer at Atlaz Telecom and identified that creating Mathan’s growth can be traced very similar to Moore’s law - shares experiences on how tools, circuitry and semiconductor industry has exponential world and how he has adapted himself System on the c...
Anticipating adverse events with Matt Genovese
July 26, 2023 01:53 - 32 minutes - 16.8 MBMatt Genovese Founder and CEO of Planorama Design continues his conversation with Chitra and shares his thoughts on- Writing effective stories or work behind defining the requirements Working in collaboration with the development team, discussing the challenges of an API Issues working with IOT projects and hardware have synchronous issues and different hardware failures What failures to take care of and what can be ignored Importance of functional verification Along with writing user...
Diving inside the black box with Matt Genovese
July 22, 2023 15:54 - 28 minutes - 17.5 MBMatt Genovese Founder and CEO of Planorama Design shares how he - Started learning programming as a kid on 8-bit computers Founding Planorama Design, software experiments Impact of dinner table conversations around trigonometry, tinkering and electronics projects Need to know “why”, diving inside the black box, having the freedom to take things apart to learn Working at Motorola, from fabrication to production, moving into functional design and verification for SoC for Power PC based RI...
Personal lessons from podcasting with guest host Gopalan
July 18, 2023 10:10 - 26 minutes - 18.9 MBThis is part 2 of the conversation celebrating the milestone of 250 episodes, with our guest host Gopalan. Gopalan was the first guest on the show and agreed to play host and have the hosts as guests! In part 1, he was exploring aspects related to how the hosts prepare for an episode and how different formats worked for the Software People Stories. In this part, he continues to explore his curiosity of how the minds of podcast hosts work, in handling planned and unplanned situations. He ...
Celebrating 250 with guest host Gopalan
July 14, 2023 13:20 - 31 minutes - 21.9 MBThis a very special episode for all us, hosts - and assume, for you, our listener as well. This is the 250th episode of the Software People Stories. About 5 years ago, A desire to learn something new and leverage that learning to pay it forward to the community, led to the launch of this podcast. What started as Software Lifecycle Stories pivoted to Software People Stories and thanks to all your encouragement and love, we are at 250. This episode is a little different from the usual epis...
Try experiments Over Talking with Woody Zuill
July 10, 2023 12:40 - 37 minutes - 22.5 MBIn the second part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Woody Zuill, Expert Coach and co-author of Mob Programming, shares his career journey Balancing the speeches and consulting with consulting engagements Woody shares tips and tricks of being in the speaking networks Woody talks about joy of creating his own businesses - Almost 16 of them is creating Woody shares early experiments on signs and making new things He shares his passion of making his day ...
Leading from With”Out” with Woody Zuill
July 07, 2023 16:03 - 34 minutes - 21.3 MBIn the first part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Woody Zuill, Expert Coach and co-author of Mob Programming, shares his career journey Shares how he joined software development after he created tools to improve his day-to-day life Jokingly Woody mentions how he didn’t have to clean up(unlike doing carpentry) after a hard day at writing code Early experimentation on pair programming and having fun and how he found that explaining ideas, listening each ...
Navigating ambiguity with Mohan Ram
July 04, 2023 07:07 - 31 minutes - 16.9 MBIn the second part of the podcast episode, Shiv Sivaguru continues his conversation with Mohan Ram Mohan talks about The challenges in working with details as well as abstractions The cost of not understanding implicit requirements and the importance of progressive elicitation of requirements How coaching and observations of people who were doing well in these aspects Why crossing the initial hurdle of winning the confidence of your clients / users is extremely critical for the success ...
Attention to details with Mohan Ram
June 30, 2023 06:25 - 28 minutes - 14.1 MBIn the first part of the podcast episode, Shiv Sivaguru is in conversation with Mohan Ram, a senior professional in the IT industry who has played various roles related to networking software development to business line management and now a coach with PM Power Consulting. Mohan shares His growing years in a conservative family in Thanjavur district in Tamil Nadu About how his life was comfortable, not luxurious and how those days and culture had a strong influence on his life Getting in...