Microsoft & the Next Level of Transformation with Corey Sanders Corey Sanders is the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Solutions who leads strategy and technical sales. Corey has spent the bulk of his 16-year career at Microsoft, beginning as a software developer and serving as a principal program manager lead and head of product for Azure Computer, among other roles. He also served as the Vice President of the Board at the Seattle Community Law Center for eight years. Corey earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Princeton. Join two Coreys as they discuss what Corey’s role is at Microsoft, what it’s like to have a child born during the COVID-19 pandemic, how Teams has helped organizations learn how to work remotely and build entirely new work cultures, how platforms like Teams help people be heard in a way they otherwise might not have been, why low-code is an incredible development and shouldn’t be thought of as something that will replace engineers, how Corey interacts with the Xbox team at Microsoft, how Microsoft is helping customers get to the next level of transformation, and more. Play Episode

Managing Humans with Charity Majors Charity Majors is the cofounder and CTO at Honeycomb.io, makers of an observability platform for engineers and DevOps teams. Before Honeycomb, Charity worked as a production engineering manager at Facebook, an infrastructure tech lead at Parse, and senior systems engineer at Cloudmark, and a systems engineer at shopkick, among other positions. She’s also the co-author of Database Reliability Engineering: Designing and Operating Resilient Database Systems. Join Corey and Charity as they discuss how to manage teams effectively, how humans want autonomy and why managers need to understand that dynamic, how a manager’s job is more like curating a team than actually managing people, why Charity believes companies don’t actually exist but instead are created every day, why managers should be less like King George and more like the articles in the Constitution, why technology companies should focus on letting people do what they love instead of automatically encouraging them to climb the ladder and get into management, and more. Play Episode

Microsoft’s New Edge with Stephanie Stimac Stephanie Stimac is a program manager and design technologist at Microsoft, where she focuses on Microsoft Edge Developer Experiences and The Web We Want initiative. She brings more than 10 years of design experience to the role, having served as an experience and production designer at WE Communications, a graphic designer at Lina Zeineddine, and a graphic and UI designer at Point Inside, among other positions. She’s also lead UX designer for the open source tool webhint. Join Corey and Stephanie as they discuss the evolution of Microsoft Edge and how it’s different from Internet Explorer, how websites should render on all browsers in 2020, what Stephanie focuses on in her role as a program manager at Microsoft, how Stephanie’s career evolved from a graphic designer to front-end web designer, why it’s impossible to learn everything about the web and you should just focus on your niche instead, The Web We Want initiative and Stephanie’s role in it, how Stephanie prepared for her first public speaking opportunity, and more. Play Episode

Making the Cloud More Secure with Mark Nunnikhoven Mark Nunnikhoven is the Vice President of Cloud Research at Trend Micro, a cybersecurity firm. He’s also an AWS Community Hero. Mark brings more than 20 years of IT experience to his current role. Over the years, he’s served as a network security specialist, a principal engineer, and a senior research scientist, among other positions. Join Corey and Mark as they talk about the ever-evolving nature of cybersecurity, what it was like for Mark to work for the Canadian government on nation state-level security stuff for a decade, what’s nice about working on the research side of things vs. the product side, why Mark is focused on cloud cybersecurity today, why the two worst words in the AWS IAM console are “full access,” the struggle of “nerd me” vs. “I’ve-seen-some-things me,” what it’s like to be a “volunteer” for a trillion-dollar company, why Mark participates in the AWS Community Heroes program, how difficult it is to name a company, service, or program, and more. Play Episode

The Serverless Insurance Startup with Adithya Reddy Adithya Reddy is a software developer at Branch Insurance, a serverless insurance startup that sells bundled home and auto insurance products. In this role, he does it all—web, mobile, and backend architecture. After being hired as the company’s first frontend developer, Adithya expanded across the stack. Adithya graduated from Visvesvaraya Technological University with a bachelor of engineering degree in computer science in 2018. Join Corey and Adithya as they discuss what it’s like to build a startup that operates in a heavily regulated industry on serverless architecture, Adithya’s experience as being hired as the first developer at Branch Insurance, how serverless helps remove all sorts of tasks from the average developer’s plate and reduces the barrier of entry, how going serverless locks you into the AWS ecosystem at least for the near term and why that’s not necessarily a bad thing, why the Branch Insurance team uses CloudFormation instead of Terraform, and more. Play Episode

We’re All AV Experts Now with Christina Warren For the last three years, Christina Warren has worked as a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft. Before joining Microsoft, Christina published bylines all over the place, working as a senior writer at Gizmodo and a senior tech correspondent at Mashable. She’s also appeared as a commentator practically everywhere, including ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, CNBC, Fox News, and Fox Business. In her spare time, she co-hosts the Overtired and Rocket: Accelerated Geek Conversation podcasts. Join Corey and Christina as they discuss how a senior cloud advocate does more than say “I’m for the cloud,” the success of Microsoft’s virtual Build event and what it was like to pull it off, how Christina hopes that the current pandemic will improve the perception of virtual conferences moving forward, why Corey thinks the opportunity costs of attending conferences might hurt attendance whenever in-person events start back up, how giving a talk in front of an audience and giving a talk in from of a camera are different skill sets, the different things you need to consider for successful recorded vs. in-person talks, Christina’s tips for using a teleprompter, how everyone has been forced to become an AV experts overnight, and more. Play Episode

No Cloud Unturned with Charles Fitzgerald Charles Fitzgerald is a Seattle-based angel investor with more than three decades of experience in tech who’s the managing director at Platformonomics, a consultancy that helps early-stage tech startups succeed. Prior to this position, Charles worked as a platform consiglieri at VMware and a VP of product management at Mozy. He also did a 19-year stint at Microsoft, where he ended up as general manager of platform strategy, and has served on the board of several tech startups, including buuteeq, Shippable, and Rec Room. Join Corey and Charles as they discuss what Charles worked on during his 19 years at Microsoft, including 16-bit Windows, 32-bit Windows, OLE, ActiveX, and .NET; what Charles invests in these days; how the big cloud players are so big that you’d struggle to catch them if someone gave you $100 billion; the three arguments IBM people made to Charles after he predicted they wouldn’t have a successful cloud transition in 2013; why Charles expects there to be more niche cloud offerings in the future; why no one will challenge the hyperscale cloud providers; how the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the deglobalization trend; and more. Play Episode