66. From Idea to Beta
Philippe Vanderstigel has launched several start-ups, but not all of them have been successful. Then, one summer, he landed on an idea for a budgeting app which his users loved. Suddenly, he had a new problem: how to maintain an app that people continued to use. Erin Allard talks with Philippe about his years of experience founding companies, and the lessons he learned along the way about how to turn your idea into a functional beta.
65. Scaling Tech for Teachers
Panorama Education is a platform that helps educators use data to support student’s needs, and helps communities build great schools. Rather than a one-size-fits-all SaaS model, Panorama tailors its offerings to match the level of digital architecture which a school district has in-place. Ben Small, a software engineer, and Mitch Peabody, an engineering manager, join Sandy Lai in conversation to discuss how they achieve their goals of improving student success.
64. From Internship to Job Placement
Year Up is an organization which unites highly motivated young adults with companies that have job opportunities available. It does so by offering a year-long course for qualified students: six months of training followed by a six month internship placement. Luis Alvarez is a recent graduate who was placed onto Heroku's Branding and Content team. Charlie Gleason interviews him about his experience going through the Year Up program and how he was able to land a contract at Salesforce.
63. Streaming Music to Livestreamers
Over the past few years, the popularity of livestreaming has taken off immensely. All over the world, viewers tune in to services like Twitch to watch people do everything from play video games to knitting to programming. Often, these streams are accompanied by music; but due to licensing issues, streamers can't play any song they want, or else they'll be hit by fees. Pretzel Rocks aims to fix that. By making it easier to access licensed music, viewers and streamers can enjoy the same tunes simultaneously. Julián Duque discusses the technical and legal challenges of the platform with Nate Beck, the service's founder and principal architect.
62. Crowdsourcing Code Translation
Many online platforms rely on crowdsourced content, and Interview Cake is no different. Their goal is to teach users how to succeed in program interviews. To do so, they make their help resources available in over ten programming languages. They were able to accomplish this feat by hiring experts in each language to translate the content into various languages. Parker Phinney, creator of Interview Cake, shares with us how they managed this team and ensured that the work was correct.
23 years of Ruby
Big show! Matz, creator of the Ruby programming language, joined the show to discuss where he began as a programmer, the origins of Ruby, its history and future, Ruby 3.0, concurrency and parallelism, Streem, Erlang, Elixir, and more.
61. The Difference Engine
Every year, thousands of adults hopeful for a career change dedicate themselves to joining coding bootcamps, in the hopes of gaining a job in tech. But knowing how to program is only part of the equation. All too often, individuals from underrepresented backgrounds don't get the same opportunities as their peers. The Difference Engine wants to change that. Kimberly Lowe-Williams, its founder and Executive Director, is joined with Rachel Marro, one of The Difference Engine's recent graduates, to talk about how the non-profit prepares people for interviews and launch their careers in tech.
60. From Engineer to Entrepreneur
Ben Orenstein had been working as a programmer for 15 years before he started his first software company. While he knew he had the technical skills to build the application he wanted to sell, his challenge was in establishing the business around it. On this episode, he'll provide advice for other developers interested in quitting their jobs and starting their own companies.
59. All About the Cloud
When we talk about "the cloud," there's more than just the Internet: there's public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, and even multi-cloud. As with any architectural decision, each of these distinct locations require careful consideration when you're building an application. Giorgio Regni is the co-founder and CTO of Scality, and he's going to demystify the different types of clouds, and explain why you might choose one over the other.
58. Capturing and Analyzing Energy Usage Metrics
We're all familiar with using data and analytics to monitor the performance of our applications, but Kevala is applying those software fundamentals in new industries. Kevala tracking energy grids in cities and neighborhoods, to map the ways that power is produced, distributed, and consumed. The technology has the potential to decarbonize the energy grid, or at least, offer lower energy prices for distributors and consumers. Kevala's engineering lead, Emmanuel Levijarvi, and one if its software engineers, Teddy Ward, talk about how Kevala works and the tools they rely on to reliably predict energy utilization.