SELECT*: Your Resource for Innovative Tech & Developer Topics Hosted by HarperDB

by Margo McCabe

The Select* Podcast features guests across a wide range of backgrounds & topics, with the goal of being your resource for software engineering, leadership advice, edge computing, machine learning, inclusion, tech trends, data management, career paths, enterprise tech, & much, much more.

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Podcast episodes

  • Season 3

  • How to Excel in Tech w/ Annyce Davis

    How to Excel in Tech w/ Annyce Davis

    This episode features Annyce Davis, VP of Engineering at Meetup, for a discussion on how to excel in the tech industry, GraphQL, and much more. Questions covered include: Intro: background / journey in tech It looks like you focus a lot on helping folks in the tech industry excel in their careers or transition to where they want to be. What are some of your main tips around this, and some of the biggest mistakes you see people make? You are also a Linkedin Learning instructor, what does that mean? You recently spoke about GraphQL - which continues to gain popularity, what have you learned about implementing GraphQL in production? Tools / technologies / frameworks that you're really excited about right now or that you have on your list to keep an eye on? Annyce is currently the Vice President of Engineering at Meetup. At Meetup, she helps create the future of real community where people show up, do things, and actually talk to each other. Shaping what “mobile-first” means for an established company is both challenging and rewarding. Annyce has specifically been focused on Android applications for the past several years. She's also an Android Google Developer Expert. This means that she spends a lot of time developing videos, blog posts, and conference talks for the Developer Community.

  • Leading an Engineering Team & Conquering Fear w/ Ben Matthews

    Leading an Engineering Team & Conquering Fear w/ Ben Matthews

    This Select* podcast episode features Ben Matthews, Director of Engineering at Stack Overflow, for a discussion on leading an engineering team and the future of software development. ‍ ‍Questions covered include: Background / journey in tech, what are you working on now? ‍ What's it like leading an engineering team at a large company, what are some of the biggest challenges? ‍ How do you blend engineering and product visions to make sure everyone is working towards the same goal? What are some challenges around cross-team functionality in this sense? ‍ Tips for devs wanting to climb the ladder or get to a similar role that you're in? Advice you would give your younger self? ‍ What technology / framework / etc. are you super excited about right now or wanting to dig into? ‍ Predictions for software development over the next few years? ‍ Ben Matthews is a Director of Engineering at Stack Overflow with nearly 20 years of experience in developing technology and building high-performance technical teams. He’s passionate about helping people grow in their roles and empowering people to build great things.

  • The Future of Data w/ Kelsey Hightower

    The Future of Data w/ Kelsey Hightower

    This episode features Kelsey Hightower for a discussion across numerous topics. In this special edition, Kelsey is interviewed by HarperDB's Co-Founder, Stephen Goldberg. Questions covered include: How did it feel to retire from Google this year, what’s next? You have, what some would consider, a non-traditional background when it comes to the software engineering world. How has that shaped your view on the industry? How do you think the industry performs at mentoring/cultivating young engineers, including those from non-CS degree backgrounds? What are your thoughts on where distributed vs. monolithic architecture is going? How is “Edge Computing” impacted by this? There has been a focus in the cloud provider space of bringing on new locations, trying to put infrastructure in hard to reach places. Eventually this will reach a saturation point, where do you think they will invest next? When thinking about building platforms and products, what is your advice on how to make a decision to internalize automation within your product vs. using a framework? What are your opinions on running a stateful application that must have data consistency across its replicas, such as a database, on Kubernetes? It comes with a bunch of problems to solve, like auto scaling, data redundancy and replication. It seems that the community is split on whether or not this is a good idea and how to implement it. What advice would you give yourself 20 years ago? Kelsey Hightower is an American software engineer, developer advocate, and speaker known for his work with Kubernetes, open-source software, and cloud computing.

  • Scaling a Dev Team with a 4-Day Work Week

    Scaling a Dev Team with a 4-Day Work Week

    This episode features Graham Haythornthwaite, VP Of Engineering at Wonde. Questions covered include: Tell us a bit about you, background, journey in tech, what do you work on in your current role? What do you like about leading an engineering team? What prompted your organization to shift to the 4 day work week and what has been the turnout? Pros and cons? Your dev team has recently doubled in size, how do you ensure success when scaling a dev team? Anything to avoid? Graham is VP of Engineering at Wonde where he has helped double the size of the engineering team and successfully transition their practices to embrace a 4 day week. Prior to joining Wonde he created successful software product teams across multiple industries including Unified Communications for Finance and Emergency Services, Energy, Internal IT and EdTech.

  • SDK Development: Everything You Need to Know w/ Ghanshyam

    SDK Development: Everything You Need to Know w/ Ghanshyam

    This episode features Ghanshyam Bhatt, Software Engineering Manager at PayPal, for a discussion on SDK development. Questions covered include: Tell us a bit about you, background, journey in tech What is SDK development; what companies are building SDKs and who are the customers? How is SDK development different from App development? What are some good resources to follow if you're doing SDK development? What other tools / technologies are you excited about at the moment related to mobile app development, Android, and/or iOS? How is UI code changing? Ghanshyam leads the Native Checkout SDK team at PayPal. With over a decade of experience building mobile apps, he has recently been involved in developing mobile SDKs. He is responsible for strategizing and delivering the SDKs by leveraging my mobile experience to compete with various products in the market. He started his career as an Android engineer and evolved his iOS programming skills to advocate for mobile-first experiences to delight users.