The Scaling Tech Podcast: Recent Episodes
Arin Sime and David Alfaro
Hosts David Alfaro and Arin Sime, along with their guests, bring you the insights you need to handle all the human and technical aspects of managing a growing software team. Whether your team is 5 engineers or 100 engineers, you’ll find the inspiration and tips to navigate the challenges of complex technical teams. New episodes drop every other Tuesday!
In this live episode 59th of the Scaling Tech Podcast, we welcome Mihir Vora, Senior Distinguished Engineer at Capital One, to explore how DevOps has evolved, from early automation and cloud migrations to the emerging influence of AI on developer productivity. We discuss what it takes to balance safety with speed, why “intent-based engineering” could […]
Continuing our series on emerging tech markets in Colombia, we look at Barranquilla in this episode. In this coastal Caribbean city, we visit the Tech Caribe conference, which brings together top talent and innovators in the region. We cover many aspects of the local tech community with Anuar Harb, the leader of the Tech Caribe […]
In this live episode of the Scaling Tech Podcast, host Arin Sime welcomed Ritavan, author of Data Impact: How Legacy Businesses Save, Leverage, Align, Simplify, Optimize, and Grow. As a seasoned data strategist, Ritavan helps traditional companies cut through the hype and unlock real business value through modern data practices. They explore Ritavan’s SLASOG framework […]
When companies think of Colombia’s tech hubs, Bogotá and Medellín usually top the list. But there’s another city that’s quietly becoming a magnet for BPO, KPO, and tech operations: Cali. In this episode, we sit down with Valery Sanclemente, Investment Manager for Services at Invest Pacific, to explore why Cali and the surrounding Valle del Cauca region […]
What happens when your CI/CD pipeline becomes a bottleneck instead of a boost? How do internal tools empower—or block—engineering teams from shipping confidently? In this live episode of the Scaling Tech Podcast, we sit down with Tom Elliott, founder of Ocuroot and former Engineering Productivity lead at Yext, where he supported over 200 engineers through […]
AI is changing developer interviews—for better and worse. Take-home tests are becoming obsolete. CVs can’t be fully trusted. Even live interviews falter as AI helps candidates craft responses. To stay ahead of these changes, we must decide when to encourage AI in interviews, and when to limit it. It’s time to give live coding interviews […]
Every team has to deal with tech debt, and they take a variety of approaches to how they address it within their team, and how involved product management is in those decisions. How should you allocate time for working on tech debt? Should it be represented on your roadmap? How should you prioritize tech debt […]
Technical debt is a reality we all face in software development. It’s something we all manage, constantly making trade-offs about when and how to best tackle it. Today, we’re diving into the best team practices for addressing tech debt with expert software engineering leader Lou Franco. Lou is a software product development advisor and independent […]
The “build vs. buy” dilemma is a familiar challenge to software engineers, but with the rapid growth of AI and machine learning, it’s become even more nuanced. So, how should you approach this? We’ve got the perfect guest today to help you out! Meet Jean-Louis Quéguiner, Founder and CEO of Gladia. Gladia specializes in building […]
Episode Summary LLMs are bringing so much to the table right now, with the potential to solve complex problems and automate tasks like never before. But getting the most out of these models requires new skills. And today, we’ve got just the expert to help you do that! Meet John Berryman, a true leader in […]
Episode Summary Change is a constant in every organization, but how leaders respond to it can truly define the outcome. Today, we’re joined by Lisa Rogoff, an expert in guiding leaders through times of transition and complexity. Lisa is the founder of Launch Project, a certified executive coach, consultant, and facilitator with over 20 years […]
AI has the potential to amplify our skills, spark our creativity, and help us innovate faster than ever before—if we use it right. In this episode of the Scaling Tech podcast, Arin sits down with Mike Todasco to discuss the use of AI in tech teams. Mike is a visiting fellow at San Diego State […]
One-on-ones are one of the most powerful tools a leader has for driving both team and organizational growth. But without a clear and intentional approach, they can easily become just another meeting on the calendar. That’s why we’re thrilled to welcome Doug Ramirez to the podcast! Doug has a proven structured approach to leading impactful […]
Generative AI is already transforming the way Agile teams operate. How far can it go? Can it take over the role of Scrumaster? In this special live episode of the Scaling Tech Podcast, host Arin Sime welcomes back past guest Sanjiv Augustine for a thought provoking discussion on hoe GenAI is shaping the future of […]
Fake agile is an unsuccessful way of being agile. It often creeps into organizations when teams adopt surface-level agility practices without embracing its core principles. In this episode of the Scaling Tech podcast, we dive deep into what true agility really looks like with our guest, Johanna Rothman. Johanna is known as the “Pragmatic Manager,” […]
Talent shortage is a common challenge in software development. This is where nearshoring comes in—it’s a great way to find skilled people while also saving costs. In this special episode of the Scaling Tech podcast, our host, Arin, explores this topic with three tech experts: Luisa Diaz, Pablo Miller, and Mariana Lopez. Luisa, a seasoned […]
Technology and software development know no borders. As more and more tech companies collaborate with talent from around the globe, navigating these international partnerships has become a critical topic. This week on Scaling Tech, Arin sits down with two industry experts, Val Narodetsky and Alexander Pozdniakov, to explore the ins and outs of managing global […]
Learning is a lifelong journey—successful leaders know this and live by it. They remain open to new knowledge, feedback, and ideas, which keeps their skills fresh and constantly makes them even better leaders. In this episode of Scaling Tech, we are excited to welcome back Allison McMillan, a Fractional VP of Engineering, leadership consultant, team […]
Every software team is different and requires a tailored approach to thrive. It’s essential to discover what works for your specific team to achieve product perfection. This week, we have a rare go-to subject matter expert on our podcast to help you get there! Meet Kent McDonald. Kent is a seasoned freelance product manager and […]
OpenTelemetry is a powerful tool that’s revolutionizing observability. Today, we dive into this emerging open-source standard and explore its growing role in tech. Our special guest is Adriana Villela, a Senior Tech Leader with over 20 years of experience in software development, DevOps, and site reliability engineering (SRE). Adriana is a leader in the OpenTelemetry […]
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a topic that sparks many debates. Everyone is curious about the future of AI, whether it can generate original ideas, and if it will ever replace humans. But the crucial question we should be asking is, how we can best work with AI to augment our own capabilities. We dive into […]
Generative AI has moved beyond being just a buzzword—it’s now the new business norm. But while it holds a big promise to businesses across different industries, the road to adoption is not without challenges. This week, we’re diving into the complexities of generative AI with our expert guest, Sid Rao. Sid is the CEO and […]
Jen is a highly sought-after leadership coach, entrepreneur, brain tumor survivor, mom, podcast host, writer, and founder of Plucky, where she guides CEOs, entrepreneurs, and leaders across various levels to foster healthy dynamics and improve work-life balance for everyone. Jen has empowered professionals at over 200 companies, including industry giants like Google, Facebook, Slack, The […]
Mergers and acquisitions can be either the most exciting or the most daunting time in an engineering leader’s career. But as long as you prepare and take a strategic approach, you will be good to go! Our guest today is Mona Sabet. She is incredibly experienced in M&A transactions for tech companies, and she’ll share […]
There’s no better feeling than leading a high-performing team that consistently exceeds expectations and achieves remarkable results. Sound too good to be true? It doesn’t have to be. Today, Arin welcomes Sarah Milstein. Sarah is a seasoned leader in tech and media, with experience as VP of Engineering at Daily, ConvertKit, and in Engineering Leadership […]
As leaders, it’s our responsibility to unlock our team’s full potential. Or, as our guest nicely puts it, “Life is too short to lead an average team.” So, today, we’re diving into strategies to help you avoid this pitfall in your company and, instead, empower your software engineering team to thrive. Join us for a […]
There’s a fine line between taking ownership and overstepping boundaries. So, how do you know where that line is? This week’s guest, Wes Kao, sheds some light on this topic. Wes is a well-known entrepreneur, speaker, coach, and advisor. She’s the Co-founder of Maven, an ad tech company that raised $25 million from First Round […]
Diversity in tech is essential for driving innovation and solving new, complex problems in new and effective ways. That’s why we need to intentionally create inclusive and diverse environments where our devs can have the space to thrive and bring their unique perspectives to the table. Today, our guest is Ben Parisot. Ben is the […]
There’s an ongoing discussion about the potential of voice technology and whether it’s really as revolutionary as we thought it to be. The answer is yes—it’s a matter of exploring its unique potential, not just copying existing technologies. Tobias Dengel, a technology leader and author of a book about voice technology, joins us today in […]
Agile is more than just a buzzword. It’s an intuitive methodology that offers practical solutions to enterprises by simply breaking a big thing into smaller, more manageable chunks. Today on the Scaling Tech podcast, Arin welcomes David Asch to take a deep dive into agile methods. David is currently the Founder of 10xPrinciples, a consulting […]
David and Arin reflect on the lessons learned from the past nine episodes of the Scaling Tech Podcast in our third season. We recap lessons from all of our guests, covering topics that include mentoring engineering managers, scaling agile, software estimation and predictability, software security and site reliability engineering, engineering team health and offsites, data […]
Forecasting is inherently probabilistic – meaning that we cannot say anything definitively about the future, we can only give the probability that something may happen. This is intrinsic to software development but a hard concept to convey to those who just want to know “when will the work be done?”. In this conversation we speak […]
Scaling technology is one thing, but scaling technical teams is quite another. In this episode, we talk with author Jurgen Appelo about his “unFIX” pattern for scaling agile teams. We talk about the challenges of scaling agile teams, team empowerment, innovation, managers and mentoring. Jurgen is author of multiple books, including “Management 3.0” and most […]
How do you engineer your systems to be highly reliable, especially in a regulated environment like healthcare? Dr Vladyslav Ukis joins us on this episode of the Scaling Tech Podcast to explain the concepts of Site Reliability Engineering, how to choose and manage Service Level Objectives and Error Budgets, and how to combine it with […]
Building a good team is like solving a puzzle, as our guest Allison McMillan describes in this episode of the Scaling Tech Podcast. Allison is an engineering leadership consultant who works as a fractional VP of Engineering, and also consults to companies on Engineering Team Health and highly effective Team Offsites. Allison shares with us […]
What is the future of AI, and how will it affect the way that we conduct work? In this episode we speak with an expert in the field: Vijay Parthasarathy, Head of AI and ML at Zoom. Vijay will draw on his experiences in AI at Zoom, Meta, and Apple, as well as the unique […]
In today’s world, data is no longer the purview of data scientists alone. Data is Everybody’s Business, which is also the title of Professor Barb Wixom’s new book from MIT Press. On Episode 24, we learn how to monetize data via Improving, Wrapping, and Selling. Barb talks with us about acceptable data use, and shares […]
To achieve software resilience, you must design in security, and treat it as part of software quality. In episode 23 of the Scaling Tech Podcast, author and security expert Kelly Shortridge shares with hosts Arin Sime and David Alfaro exactly how to do that.They cover topics such as the philosophy of software resilience, Evaluation and […]
Most of us have a love/hate relationship with software estimation. Estimation is an important skill, but it’s often misused and misunderstood, especially in unhealthy team cultures. When used properly, it can be a powerful tool for team communication and to enable good business decision making. In this episode of the Scaling Tech Podcast, we speak […]
Getting promoted into management can be the most exciting and terrifying moment of a person’s career. On episode 21 of the Scaling Tech Podcast, hosts Arin Sime and David Alfaro speak with Leadership Coach Jen Dary about her work training and mentoring managers, and the particularly difficult aspects of being a first time manager.
David and Arin reflect on the lessons learned from the nine episodes of the Scaling Tech Podcast that made up our second season. These include some of the best advice from our guests on topics like engineering management, remote teams, team culture, leadership, infrastructure management, and hiring and onboarding.
How did you learn to become an engineering manager? If you’re like most people, you were largely self taught. Engineering managers are often promoted from senior engineering roles and they have probably not been taught best practices in managing teams. In this episode of the Scaling Tech Podcast, we talk with engineering leader and author […]
The notion of stable teams is fundamental to a lot of management advice, but unrealistic. Change is constant, and our teams are no exception. Therefore it’s necessary to be more thoughtful and proactive about team change instead of taking a purely reactive stance. Heidi Helfand is the author of “Dynamic Reteaming”, and she shares with […]
It’s one thing to be able to work well in a remote team, but what about leading remote teams? Leading a remote team requires extra attention on team culture, meeting rules, servant leadership, and coaching and mentoring your team. Chris Dyer is the co-author of “Remote Work” and an international keynote speaker, consultant and best […]
What do you do when you’re told “No”? We have all dealt with legacy applications that we want to upgrade or replace. Sometimes upper management does not approve of your modernization plans, and when that happens, what should you do next? David and Arin speak with The CTO Advisor, Keith Townsend, on the latest in […]
It’s not easy to find enough high-quality technical talent, and Latin America and the Caribbean are an increasingly important region to find skilled technical talent. David and Arin have significant experience with Nearshoring themselves in their business AgilityFeat, and in this episode we speak with another industry expert. Kirk Laughlin is the founder and Chief […]
Do we still need to talk about Agile methodologies, or is it just the way we work now? Have we just bought into the hype and lost sight of the most important thing: delivering value? In this episode of the Scaling Tech Podcast, hosts Arin Sime and David Alfaro speak with Bob Payne, SVP for […]
On episode 13 of the Scaling Tech Podcast, hosts Arin and David speak to workplace culture expert and author of "Remote Not Distant", Gustavo Razzetti. They discuss discuss key mindset shifts for remote teams, psychological safety, blameless postmortems, asynch vs synchronous collaboration modes, and more.
Distributed teams are a necessity in modern software development, but it’s not easy! In this episode, Arin and David speak with Johanna Rothman, who is also known as the Pragmatic Manager. She will share best practices on building successful distributed agile teams, as well as the traps to avoid!
Hiring and Retention for tech roles is hard! In this episode, David and Arin speak with Tricia Rhodes, who is the Chief People Officer at SingleStone. We talk about how they moved from in-person work to work-from-home due to the pandemic, and how that has changed their hiring practices for software engineers in their IT […]
David and Arin reflect on the lessons learned from the first nine episodes of the Scaling Tech Podcast. These include some of the best advice from our guests on topics like agile leadership, Scrum and Kanban, automated testing, hiring, and moving from project management to product management.
On episode 9 of the Scaling Tech Podcast, Lyssa Adkins joins us to discuss Agile Coaching and Agile Transformations. Lyssa Adkins is a truly inspirational voice in the Agile community who co-founded the Agile Coaching Institute in 2010 and has been a leader in working committees for ICAgile and the Scrum Alliance. She is author […]
Mariana Lopez joins us to discuss hiring and interviewing for UX roles. She covers the different types of UX roles, and the sorts of questions you can ask to determine if they are a good fit for agile software development teams. Mariana is COO of WebRTC.ventures and a longstanding leader in our teams at AgilityFeat, […]
Noted Extreme Programming (XP) and Agile consultant Bill Wake joins us to discuss agile development techniques. Bill discusses topics around the technical and process aspects of Agile, including Mob or Ensemble Programming, User Stories, Refactoring, the state of Test Driven Development, and the challenges he sees teams face as they adopt extreme programming methods. In […]
Matt Makai joins us to discuss Developer Relations and Developer Evangelists, their roles in tech companies, and how to hire for them. Matt has been at Twilio since 2014, where he currently is the Senior Director of Builder Content, and he leads teams that bring all of their excellent developer content to their users. Matt […]
Professor Ryan Nelson of the UVA McIntire School of Commerce joins us to discuss IT Project Management: Infamous Failures, Classic Mistakes, and Best Practices. Why are only 35% of projects successful? We discuss what he's learned about project management over 30 years of research and case studies.
Dave Haeffner joins us to talk about his path from QA Analyst to Software Developer, and the challenges of reverse engineering legacy software applications to improve quality.
Sanjiv Augustine is the Founder and CEO of LitheSpeed, a world-leading agile training and consulting company; and an executive consultant and trusted advisor on business agility.
Daniel Vacanti is an expert Kanban thought leader, trainer, consultant, and co-host of the "Drunk Agile" podcast. Dan joined David and Arin to discuss Predicability in Kanban. They covered a wide range of topics from why cycle time is really just a measurement of time to feedback, flow metrics in Kanban, and how the most effective teams often combine aspects of Scrum and Kanban.
The inaugural episode of the Scaling Tech Podcast is an introduction to the co-hosts, Arin Sime and David Alfaro. They share the goals they have for this podcast, how they met and built a software development and staffing firm in 2011, and their personal stories. There is no guest on this episode, but it's a great way to get to know the hosts before diving into the rest of our episodes on how to scale your tech team!