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
Creating a courageous and inclusive environment with Vadeesh
June 28, 2023 11:35 - 27 minutes - 13.3 MBIn the second part of the podcast episode, Shiv Sivaguru is in conversation with Vadeesh Budramane,Founder and CEO of AlgoShack, shares his career journey Shares his thought processes on why a product company to be started He also shares the decision parameters that he considered and that’s common across entrepreneurs Journey to be gratifying to the founders and early employees Celebrating every small milestone from ID issuance, website, logo and creating a sense of moving in the right ...
Multiplexing across Domains with Vadeesh Budramane
June 25, 2023 02:54 - 28 minutes - 13.6 MBIn the first part of the podcast episode, Shiv Sivaguru is in conversation with Vadeesh Budramane, Founder and CEO of AlgoShack, shares his career journey Vadeesh talks about starting in the embedded programming with Time Division Multiplexing and has built and learnt numerous protocols and standards He has also multiplexed his time across different domains such as Automotive, Medical instruments, Healthcare and Telecommunication Vadeesh shares his experience why he started the firm Algo...
Understanding 5 key way of Agility in AI world with Fred George
June 20, 2023 07:24 - 32 minutes - 20.6 MBIn the second part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Fred George,Consulting Developer in Scienta AS and master change agent, shares his career journey Fred shares his experience in creating and nurturing thinking diversity in his London project Ensuring that you create a blameless culture and a wonderful experimentation and that’s what enables innovation to flow and no permission culture He shares about creating change management in behaviors starting w...
Continuously Stay Transparent with Fred George
June 17, 2023 03:08 - 39 minutes - 27.2 MBIn the first part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Fred George, Consulting Developer in Scienta AS and master change agent, shares his career journey Fred is a career IBM developer and speaks about the skills he developed Fred shares his experience in gaining an MBA degree and speaks about how IBM is great in building great people around your Talks about how one needs to imbibe oneself in the talking to executives Shares some of the stories on ensurin...
Agenda Shifter with Karl Scotland
June 06, 2023 05:46 - 30 minutes - 19.6 MBIn the second part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Karl Scotland, Agile Transformation Services Practice Manager at TEKsystems Global Services and a master facilitator, shares his career journey Karl shares his journey of how he became a master facilitator and that started when he was experiencing tremendous resistance with Scrum. (Karl moved to using Kanban and lean concepts :) ) Later when he was designing for larger change, Karl came across using X...
Creating Change Makers with Karl Scotland
June 02, 2023 14:58 - 29 minutes - 21.4 MBIn the first part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Karl Scotland, Agile Transformation Services Practice Manager at TEKsystems Global Services and a master facilitator, shares his career journey Started his education with a passion with music and quickly found that he was enjoying the software part of the music over creative music Karl has held several engineering and management positions in Neural technologies, BBC, Cisco, Yahoo and Rally software Late...
Limit Is What You Set with Vikrant Viniak
May 26, 2023 15:44 - 45 minutes - 32 MBIn this podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Vikrant Viniak, Senior Managing Director of Accenture and a prolific speaker on Technology at the frontier, shares his career journey Started as a mechanical engineer in the areas of supply chain. After taking his management degree in Chicago he chose to become a consultant Shares his reasons for reinventing himself every 3-5 years and starts the root cause for it Talks about personal board of directors creating mentors...
Build Better Software Faster with Dave Farley
May 23, 2023 16:41 - 27 minutes - 20.5 MBIn the second part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Dave Farley, Independent Software Developer and Consultant, Founder and Director of Continuous Delivery Ltd. Dave shares his perspective on the new fads that are constantly coming in and what he’s rooting himself into the basics Critical to focus on Fundamentals - exercise on learning, ensure that you have modular and building blocks, get feedback constantly, separation of concerns Having these basic m...
Creating 10X Teams with Dave Farley
May 19, 2023 16:21 - 32 minutes - 24.1 MBIn the first part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Dave Farley, Independent Software Developer and Consultant, Founder and Director of Continuous Delivery Ltd. Dave started his career as a visual designer even before user experience became center stage He later became a systems engineer in designing large complex software Dave shares his experience in working with stalwarts in ThoughtWorks building software in an agile fashion and the kind of innovatio...
Success through shared goals with Venu Subramania Iyer
May 12, 2023 04:03 - 24 minutes - 20.6 MBIn this episode, Shiv continues his conversation with a colleague in PM Power, Venu Subrmania Iyer. In the previous episode, he asked Venu if testing should always be independent or it can be embedded in the development process itself He shared his answer to that question and more From earlier models of independent testing centers, testing is being shifted left [particularly in Agile approaches], but there is a need for both approaches How he got exposed to Agile approaches, by starting ...
A passion for testing with Venu Subramania Iyer
May 08, 2023 03:03 - 30 minutes - 25.5 MBIn this episode, Shiv is in conversation with a colleague in PM Power, Venu Subrmania Iyer. Venu, who started his career as a systems engineer, shares Starting with hardware, software and testing Born in Kerala and grew up in Alleppey and grew up in Kottayam Studied Electrical Engineering Passion for engineering was inspired by an uncle and it was a difficult journey due to personal situations How he goes about in identifying solutions His passion was in electrical engineering, designi...
Building a platform that performs with Robert Cooke
April 28, 2023 16:20 - 32 minutes - 24.4 MBIn this episode, I continue my conversation with our guest Robert Cooke, founder of 3forge, a provider of data virtualization and visualization technology. In this conversation, Robert shares What was the startup bug that bit him.. The urge to reinvent how software is developed based on experience, after getting a feeling that 90% of the code written is quite similar across teams and organizations and how that can be a base for reuse Solve it once, solve it well, reuse it. His approach t...
A coder at heart with Robert Cooke
April 21, 2023 16:18 - 26 minutes - 20.2 MBIn this episode, our guest is Robert Cooke, founder of 3forge, a provider of data virtualization and visualization technology solutions. In this conversation, Robert shares His origin story of starting with computers when he was a kid in the 80s His liking to build things - in wood or lego Discovering that he could build a lot more without needing a lot more money, with computers Developing Video games, accounting software - helping manage things in college with software solutions His ...
Lasting Impact and Tea Shop Conversations with Sathyanarayanan Vijayaraghavan
April 07, 2023 16:45 - 38 minutes - 26.4 MBIn this podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Sat (Sathyanarayanan) Vijayaraghavan, Founder and CEO at Adept Labz AKA "Ajira.Tech" and CASA Retail AI Sat started dabbling with computers at the age of 11 and started keenly interested in problem solving Sat also shares his interests in computers while also sharing his earlier thoughts of following his fathers business and gently moved towards software technology Joined Cognizant as one of the earlier employees and mo...
Embedded programming to heading Cloud Platforms with Bindu
April 01, 2023 13:07 - 37 minutes - 24.9 MBIn this podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Bindu Sunil, Sector Head and Engineering Director - Cloud Data Platforms and AI in Wipro. Bindu started her carrier in Kirloskar as a design engineer for alternators. She then moved to Tata Elxsi as an embedded developer Bindu shares her experience of building the teams being a techie at heart Learnt the basics of cloud right at the beginning of 2012 Shares her growth story within Wipro cloud Talks about being Clou...
Democratizing education of Space with Pramitha
March 24, 2023 15:27 - 30 minutes - 18.3 MBIn this podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Pramitha Ramaprakash, CEO of Transcend Satellite Technology Pramitha talks about her passion in aerospace and how that shaped her early experiences while working in Wipro She talks about Satellite launching as an extremely cool team sport as there are several field that come together Further she shares what it has taken to launch herself (literally) in the field She talks about her dream to launch 75 Indian student ...
Micro and Macro Goals with Puja Issar
March 18, 2023 07:12 - 52 minutes - 27.4 MBIn the this podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Puja Issar, Managing Director of AnitaB.org India Puja started her career in the investment banking world in United Kingdom dealing with multiple banks and large corporates. She talks about the stresses of the job and the highs that came with it Puja talks about her career in 3 different decades with the first decade in advising large corporates on M&A deals Her second decade she talks about her foray into the world...
Connecting the Dots in the career and life journey with Vaishali James
March 12, 2023 12:30 - 48 minutes - 67.1 MBIn this podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Vaishali James, ex-CMO of OpenTap, Community Director for AnitaB.org and mentor at HopeWorks Foundation Vaishali starts the episode with a very funny interaction of giving a technology solution ahead of its time She shares her tryst with doing an engagement on brand alignment and how simple steps could be taken at different levels to create that viable and clear brand promise to the end customer Vaishali talks about the...
Intersection of social change, technology and data science with Palashi V
March 04, 2023 02:09 - 33 minutes - 17.8 MBIn this episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Palashi V, research scholar with Cornell University Palashi started her career as a software engineer where she played the role of business analysts Her interests in social impact stemmed from Dhirubhai Ambani College where she did her thesis in web tools that empowered women Palashi decided to pivot from software towards the intersection of social impact and technology She shares her learnings in training technology tools for...
Design is like poetry with Jeremy Kriegal
February 26, 2023 12:15 - 35 minutes - 24.1 MBIn this episode, I continue my conversation with Jeremy Kriegel. He talks about How UX can help users stay focused and also providing opportunities to take a break or breather to stay productive Micro level thinking and system level thinking May need local inefficiencies for overall system wide efficiency Analogy of a relay race team member, who needs to wait for the moment to take the baton and run The zappos example of helping customers On the balance between personalization and priv...
Creativity is everybody’s job with Jeremy Kriegel
February 17, 2023 15:23 - 28 minutes - 19.9 MBIn this episode, I am in conversation with Jeremy Kriegel, a UX leader and the host of the Saving UX podcast. Jeremy shares Getting into UX accidentally Started in the mid 90s, Undergrad in CMU, Art and English Studying electronic and time based media and working with robotic sculpture A friend asking for help with creating a website Hiring friends and colleagues to start an agency Getting introduced to HCI and taking a more formal approach to learning UX How his stint with Xerox was...
Continuously Curious with Rohit Salecha
February 10, 2023 15:28 - 21 minutes - 10.3 MBIn the second part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Rohit Salecha, Security Engineering Manager in Disney+Hotstar and book author of GitOps Rohit continues to share the areas that he’s planning to learn in terms of Web3 He shares how he ties complex technologies and the necessity that has driven him to learn it as he’s responsible for security He shares some of the key areas he wants to improve in being a manager for other team members as well as give...
Embrace Code in Everything with Rohit Salecha
February 04, 2023 03:44 - 24 minutes - 14 MBIn the first part of the podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Rohit Salecha, Security Engineering Manager in Disney+Hotstar and book author of GitOps Rohit talks about his passion towards electronics and how he was experimenting in many of the areas. He also shares how he joined the software journey by accident Rohit believes that every engineer out there needs to be exceptional in what they do, but also know how to do basic coding. When he talks about coding he’s ...
Connecting at all levels with Bill Hall
January 27, 2023 16:41 - 32 minutes - 21.7 MBIn this second part of my conversation, Bill Hall, President of Simulation Studios shares Some of his professional failures when he was given large responsibilities at a very young age How sims enable executives to get a feel for the impact of their decisions and learn from that experience The role of software in the simulation exercises he runs A quick walkthrough of how a sim is run Aspects of an organization that need to be built into a simulation Qualities that would help someone b...
Simulation based learning with Bill Hall
January 20, 2023 16:21 - 26 minutes - 19.4 MBIn this conversation, Bill Hall, President of Simulation Studios shares How he used to be part of a band Then deciding to go to college and doing some work for Apple Getting into roles that needed to turnaround organizations Importance of getting people to be behind the turnarounds Getting an inspiration to start simulation studios The importance of unlearning in a turnaround situation, along with relearn and learn new Challenges of changes in an organization across teams, geographies...
Being a Fremen with Steven Aberle
January 14, 2023 01:59 - 34 minutes - 26.1 MBIn this episode, I continue the conversation with Steven Aberle, founder of a company in stealth mode, working on domain aware, large language model based processing for very niche applications. In the previous episode, Steven spoke about his origin story and also how he got into and some of the technical challenges related to a domain aware large language model solution - and his patent in that area. He continues to share about How the same engine can still retain some originality and un...
The potential of Large Language Models with Steven Aberle
January 07, 2023 03:25 - 36 minutes - 27.7 MBHope you had a wonderful start to the new year. This episode is special for multiple reasons. This is one of the few episodes when I had the conversation with a guest in person - and that was also video recorded, with a fireplace in the background, on a cold day! You would be able to watch this conversation as a video on the PM Power youtube channel. This episode was recorded in November, 2022 - much before ChatGPT was made available to the public and the subsequent increased interest. ...
Reflections with PM Power coaches
December 27, 2022 07:26 - 16 minutes - 9.24 MBThis is another year end special episode. As coaches engaged with various organizations and teams, PM Power coaches are always learning, adapting, helping others internalize good practices in work and life situations. We have the personal reflections of some of the coaches at PM Power Consulting on what they have learnt during the year and what they plan to learn in the coming year. As Shiv - Sivaguru - reflected on 2022, these were his thoughts He talks about hybrid working model How ...
A Message from the Co-hosts
December 16, 2022 17:33 - 12 minutes - 6.44 MBThis is a special episode. After a long time, the co-hosts of the show had an opportunity to get together to reflect on what the impact of this podcast has been on our own lives and ways of working. We also talk about what else or more we can do for you, our listeners in the coming year. We hope that this podcast has brought cheer and some inspiration over the last 200+ episodes and thank you for the love and support. Do share your reflections as well with us. You can subscribe to this ...
Supporting usage of technology with Baktha Muralidharan
December 09, 2022 17:02 - 31 minutes - 17.2 MBIn this episode, the conversation continues with Bhaktha Muralidhran, AVP, Unified Communications at Sompo International.. In the first part, he shared: A brief history of some of the computer networking technologies based on his experience Working on some of the emerging standards at that time Exploring roles in sales and marketing support Preferring to work with customers and solve their problems using appropriate technologies I asked him about: how comfortable it was to be working w...
Selecting appropriate technology with Baktha Muralidharan
December 03, 2022 03:47 - 29 minutes - 15.8 MBIn this episode, Bhaktha Muralidhran, AVP, Unified Communications at Sompo International shares: His first job to develop electronics solutions for use in the Indian Navy, for data collection Getting an exposure to software towards the end of his course and liking it After masters, getting a job at Digital and getting an opportunity to work on ethernet that was just becoming more widely adopted Creating an ethernet with existing hardware and infrastructure, in the lab - to connect comput...
Scaling your company with Maha Mahadevan
November 25, 2022 18:30 - 24 minutes - 13.9 MBIn this episode, the conversation continues with Maha Mahadevan, CEO of BOSS Solutions - a company providing technology solutions for ITSM, Help desk and 811 ticket management for the damage prevention industry. Maha talks about How he built and kept the team together and stay motivated How he bridges the gap between developers and actual users How they sharpened the positioning and chose industry segments to operate in How to handle scale and stay current, as the # customers and team si...
Startup, stay focused with Maha Mahadevan
November 17, 2022 18:30 - 24 minutes - 12 MBIn this episode, Shiv is in conversation with Maha Mahadevan, CEO of BOSS Solutions - a company providing technology solutions for ITSM, Help desk and 811 ticket management for the damage prevention industry. Maha shares His origin story of getting into IT after graduating in electrical engineering Getting a call from a friend asking if he would like to start a business Wanting to create IT solutions How he approached a selling role, that was needed for the startup Providing staff augme...
Social aspects of teamwork with Jutta Eckstein
November 14, 2022 08:47 - 30 minutes - 18 MBIn this episode, the conversation continues with Jutta Eckstein, an independent coach, consultant and trainer, based in Germany. In the first part, she shares- Her origin story as a product engineer Transition from an engineer to a coach The importance of listening We continue the conversation with: In her initial explorations with organizations, one pattern she found is The understanding for leaders to introspect and understand their own responsibilities That it is not always only...
Teaching, consulting and coaching with Jutta Eckstein
November 05, 2022 01:40 - 26 minutes - 15.6 MBIn this episode, Jutta Eckstein, an independent coach, consultant and trainer, based in Germany, shares Her origin story of starting as a product engineer, with an interest in software development Started as a trained teacher and when the need for teachers dropped, went on to study product engineering and studying Pascal - and completely falling in love with software development Also getting trained as pollution control commissioner, when she could move from street protests to actually w...
Co-founder chemistry with Scott Ford
October 29, 2022 03:22 - 26 minutes - 14.9 MBIn the previous episode, Scott Ford, the co-founder and CTO of Corgibytes, a company focused on modernizing legacy code, shared His interest in legacy code Patterns he has seen evolve in solution development over the years Using metaphors of archeology and home renovation in the context of understanding and breathing new life into old software And more This is the second part of the conversation with Scott Ford, where he shares The origins of his company corgibytes, with a focus on hel...
Modernizing software with Scott Ford
October 22, 2022 10:16 - 31 minutes - 18.1 MBIn this conversation with Shiv, Scott Ford, the co-founder and CTO of Corgibytes, a company focused on modernizing legacy code, shared How he found his interest in legacy code after about 10 years of working in various roles and organizations Being given bugs to fix, in his early career - and after addressing them well, taking on more responsibilities Deriving joy in fixing code or refactoring more than just writing new features Having a trigger moment while watching a PBS show on home i...
Building to learn with Dorai Thodla
October 15, 2022 17:43 - 28 minutes - 20.1 MBThis is part 2 of a repeat episode of one of my conversations, first published in 2019. Since then, we have crossed 200 episodes and the listenership has also grown. Some of you have been asking how you can know more about some of the topics covered in recent episodes. We felt that there could be related points shared by other guests in earlier episodes, but for new subscribers, it may not be easily discoverable. So, we thought that we would bring you select past episodes from time to tim...
Technopreneurship with Dorai Thodla
October 07, 2022 18:30 - 26 minutes - 16.7 MBThis is a repeat episode of one of my conversations, first published in 2019. Since then, we have crossed 200 episodes and the listenership has also grown. Some of you have been asking how you can know more about some of the topics covered in recent episodes. I felt that there could be related points shared by other guests in earlier episodes, but for new subscribers, it may not be easily discoverable. So, we thought that we would bring you select past episodes from time to time, to discov...
Starting up as a team with Yev Khessin
September 30, 2022 05:38 - 27 minutes - 16.4 MBIn part 2 of my conversation with, Yev Khessin, CTO and founder of DIMO (Digital Infrastructure for Moving Objects) - with a goal to ‘build something disruptive’, continues to share his story and shares his thoughts and experiences related to How he decided to startup DIMO Finding a partner and picking a few use cases in the automotive space that need to be addressed The experience of launching a company as a team - and why that was needed to address a large problem space Getting togeth...
Helping Objects in Motion with Yev Khessin
September 23, 2022 14:13 - 23 minutes - 13.3 MBIn this episode, Yev Khessin, CTO and founder of DIMO (Digital Infrastructure for Moving Objects) - with a goal to ‘build something disruptive’, shares his thoughts and experiences related to Starting to code at a very young age and getting interested in cars Doing computer science in college and working in the automotive space Moving to Michigan and working across various departments - internal toolonigm product planning, handling recalls etc Moving to OnStar - in the connected vehicle...
Following the money with Sam Fonoimoana
September 16, 2022 09:06 - 36 minutes - 19.7 MBIn this episode, Sam Fonoimoana, Founder and CEO of Datajoin – a B2B marketing analytics company, shares his thoughts and experiences related to Growing up in Hawaii and California and studying at BYU Choosing business as a career in joining his Father in law’s export business Getting into MBA to study Finance Starting with a role to plan budgets and review progress with various departments in a publishing company Learning to code, to get various reports to analyze data, as an analyst ...
Building respectful relationships with Ramesh Rajagopal
September 10, 2022 06:54 - 29 minutes - 14.1 MBWe continue our conversation with Ramesh Rajagopal, a coach at PM Power Consulting. In the first part he shared his origin story and also experiences of his childhood and career. In this episode, he continues to share more details about Leveraging his lean manufacturing experience to get into Agile approaches and becoming an Agile evangelist Working in a company wide transformation planning process Being summoned to the office one day,early morning - to be told that his position being ma...
Shop Floor experience with Ramesh Rajagopal
September 03, 2022 01:58 - 36 minutes - 17 MBThis is part 1 of a 2 episode conversation. In this episode, Ramesh Rajagopal, a Coach at PM Power Consulting, shares his experience related to Growing up in Madurai, a major temple town Learning Tamil, though his grandparents were from Karnataka His temple visits, on the way to school as well as on specific occasions Moving to Bangalore and seeing the changes over the decades Passing out as topper in his school for the SSLC grade Choosing to switch colleges to study with his cousin ...
Riding the wave with K Ramkumar
August 27, 2022 12:12 - 30 minutes - 19 MBIn this episode, K Ramkumar, known as Ram or Kram - Director Product Mangement, Salesforce, in conversation with Gayatri shares Starting his passion in software in the way of coding Fortran in his alma matter BITS Pilani. Ram talks about starting in the software development working in small organisation in their ecommerce portals before moving into collaboration software Within the span of 25 years Ramkumar has travessed the depths of collaboration, communication and security using clou...
Lessons in work life harmony
August 19, 2022 17:18 - 30 minutes - 17 MBWe continue our conversation with Sowmya Gopalan and Ramya Gopalan, the first software twins to be featured on this podcast. In the first part they shared their origin story and also experiences of working in cutting edge technologies. We paused with a question on how they pay it forward to nurture young professionals. In this episode, Sowmya and Ramya continue to share How one might feel hesitant to approach colleagues or seniors, when starting on a career Nurturing the quality of givi...
Cutting edge work with Sowmya Gopalan and Ramya Gopalan
August 12, 2022 07:08 - 33 minutes - 18.5 MBFirst, our heartfelt thanks to all you listeners for the love you have shown and for permitting the Software People Stories to be part of your listening time over the last 200 weeks! Your wishes and encouragement is what has kept us going and will continue to do so. Thank you This is a very special episode for the Software People Stories. This is the 200th episode. So, for this occasion, we have 2 guests - Sowmya Gopalan and Ramya Goplan - twin sisters, now working at two of the IT giant...
Innovation, Incubation and starting up with Jani
August 06, 2022 10:18 - 39 minutes - 22.2 MBThis is the second part of the conversation with Janakiraman Srinivasan, known as Jani. In the first part, Jani spoke of his initial years in IT and the long career he had with Wipro. We ended that episode when it was a segue into his entrepreneurial roles. In this episode,Jani continues to share more stories related to The startup bug that led him to be a co-founder of Mindtree Getting an international experience, and the tech boom and startup culture in the silicon valley creating a s...
Learning from new roles with Janakiraman (Jani) Srinivasan
July 29, 2022 14:20 - 27 minutes - 15.3 MBIn this episode, Janakiraman Srinivasan, known as Jani - an IT industry veteran, in conversation with Shiv shares His childhood days in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu His Bachelors from REC Trichy and Masters from IIT Madras and getting into Wipro as a campus recruitee as Employee # 3 His father’s role in getting him good education The experience of being among the first employees in a newly launched company in a truly entrepreneurial environment Setting up an R&D team and activity in Bangalo...
Employee #1 experience
July 24, 2022 03:40 - 44 minutes - 24.2 MBIn this episode, Victor Jayakaran- shares his story and experiences related to: His graduation from the Madras Institute of Technology and post graduation from the Indian Institute of Science Getting a campus placement at ITI and applying for a job with ISRO On his guide NJ Rao’s suggestion, choosing to join a small and growing company, Wipro Joining Wipro in August 1979 and starting work at an IISc lab Being part of the team that decided what systems to go for Working on technology tr...