ShipTalk: Recent Episodes
By Harness
From the creators of {unscripted}, ShipTalk is the podcast series on the ins, outs, ups, and downs of software delivery. When it comes to talking ship- scripts need not apply. As the software industry moves rapidly, collectively learning from those in the trenches can be invaluable to your learning journey. Packed with experiences from folks who can answer "I wish they told me this before!" ShipTalk is designed to be conversational and always {unscripted}. If you would like to be a guest on ShipTalk, send an e-mail to info@unscripted.io. Hosted by Ravi Lachhman, @ravilach.
In this episode of ShipTalk, host Dewan Ahmed sits down with Adeeb Valiulla, a leader in developer productivity and engineering excellence at Harness, to explore how AI is transforming the very definition of software productivity.
Adeeb shares his journey from building early engineering metrics systems at Sensormatic to leading developer efficiency initiatives for Fortune 500 companies. Together, they unpack how AI is changing what it means to be “productive” — from measuring outcomes instead of outputs, to ensuring governance, trust, and quality at AI scale.
If you’ve ever wondered how frameworks like DORA, SPACE, and Flow adapt in an AI-driven world, or how to separate “AI-powered” hype from truly “AI-driven” value, this conversation is for you.
If you'd like to appear on one of our episodes, connect with Dewan.
Adeeb's Work:
- Comparative Analysis of Engineering Performance and Experience Frameworks: DORA, SPACE, HEART, and Beyond.
- Developer Experience (DevEx) Measurement in the Age of AI.
- Other Adeeb Valiulla publications.
- Metrics That Matter podcast
Connect with Adeeb.
Dewan Ahmed sits down with Fatih Bulut, AI Architect at Microsoft and former IBM Research Master Inventor, to separate hype from reality in AI for software delivery and cybersecurity.
Fatih clarifies AI for security vs security for AI, walks through detection engineering as real software engineering, and explains proactive defense across an attack’s phases. He digs into the hard part of shipping: execution, product alignment, and tight feedback loops with customers. On code generation, he calls out failure modes like plausible but wrong outputs and hard coded shortcuts, and raises open questions about responsibility and auditability when AI writes code.
The pair map AI across the SDLC, from pipeline generation and troubleshooting to vulnerability triage, then explore transformer limits with huge telemetry and why verifiable tasks such as code and math are near term wins. Fatih remains bullish on AI where outputs are testable and where context usage actually works at scale.
Connect with Fatih on LinkedIn.
In this episode of ShipTalk, Chinmay Gaikwad sits down with Aravind Putrevu, Head of Developer Relations at CodeRabbit, and dives into the evolving landscape of AI in software development. Aravind shares insights on the influence of AI tools across the software development lifecycle, from coding and code reviews to automation and security. Aravind highlights the pivotal role of context engineering, the continued importance of human oversight in AI-driven workflows, and how teams can harness diverse AI tools for productivity. The discussion also explores Kubernetes' impact on AI workloads, best practices for developer enablement, and the latest trends in developer communities and learning resources.
In this kickoff episode of ShipTalk Season 4, Dewan sits down with Nathen Harvey, DORA Lead and Developer Advocate at Google Cloud, to explore how DevOps metrics and AI are transforming software delivery.
From his early days in DevOps to leading the DORA initiative, Nathen shares lessons from open-source communities, the role of culture, and how AI is reshaping documentation, incident response, and even coding itself. They also dig into the 2025 DORA Survey, discuss when organizations should start tracking metrics, and what the future holds for engineering leaders.
🎙️ Your voice matters. Take the 2025 DORA survey (closes on July 18, 2025).
🎟️ Visit Harness Booth at DevOpsDays Dallas 2025 — and use the promo code SHIPTALK to take 20% off your ticket.
In this special season 3 finale of ShipTalk, host Dewan Ahmed sits down with Puneet Saraswat, VP of Engineering at Harness, for an inspiring conversation about engineering leadership, system design, and the evolution of software delivery.
What You'll Learn:
Career Journey: Follow Puneet's path from discovering programming in a hot computer lab in North India to building Windows 7 kernel components at Microsoft, then transitioning to Azure's distributed systems, and finally joining Harness as one of their first 15 engineers.
Production Systems at Scale: Get insights into building reliable systems that serve millions of users, including lessons learned from Windows kernel development, Azure's global infrastructure challenges, and the evolution from monolithic to distributed architectures.
AI-Native Software Delivery: Explore how AI is transforming the software development lifecycle beyond just code generation - from automated pipeline debugging to intelligent remediation and best practice recommendations.
Engineering Leadership: Discover strategies for scaling engineering teams, balancing velocity with security and compliance, and transitioning from individual contributor to management roles.
Beyond the Code: Learn about Puneet's passion for indoor climbing 🧗♂️ and how lessons from physical challenges apply to navigating corporate growth and continuous learning.
Key Takeaways:
- Why fundamental computer science concepts matter more than ever in the age of rapid technological change
- How to build "cellular architectures" that prevent regional failures from cascading globally
- The importance of hiring generalists with strong analytical skills and growth mindsets
- Strategies for managing the balance between AI-accelerated development and production reliability
- Practical advice for engineers considering the transition to management
Perfect for software engineers, engineering managers, DevOps professionals, and anyone interested in the intersection of AI and software delivery platforms.
Guest Bio: Puneet Saraswat is VP of Engineering at Harness, where he leads platform engineering and SRE teams. With over 15 years of experience, he previously spent nearly a decade at Microsoft working on Windows kernel development and Azure infrastructure. He holds a degree from IIT Kanpur and is passionate about building scalable systems and developing engineering talent.
In this episode of the ShipTalk podcast, co-host Eric Minick talks with Lukas Gentele, co-founder and CEO of LoftLabs, about revolutionizing Kubernetes infrastructure through virtualization. Lukas shares his entrepreneurial journey starting from age 16 and explains how his company pivoted to create vcluster, a technology that virtualizes Kubernetes control planes similar to how VMs virtualize physical machines. They discuss the inefficiencies of running many small Kubernetes clusters versus optimizing resources with virtual clusters, the impact on developer workflows, and innovative approaches to CI/CD testing environments. Whether you're looking to optimize cloud costs or improve your development experience with Kubernetes, this episode offers practical insights into the future of container orchestration infrastructure.
In this episode, Dewan sits down (virtually) with Kyle Galbraith, co-founder of Depot, to explore his unique journey from motocross videographer to startup founder. Kyle shares how his early experiences in film and programming shaped his approach to solving technical problems, and why he co-founded Depot to tackle the challenge of slow build processes.
Kyle dives into the real impact of inefficient builds on developer productivity, team morale, and business innovation. He explains his leadership philosophy of "radical transparency and brutal honesty," and offers valuable insights on balancing rapid delivery with stability, the importance of documentation, and his vision for the future of developer tools in an AI-driven world.
Whether you're a developer frustrated with slow builds, a technical leader looking to improve team performance, or an aspiring entrepreneur, this conversation offers practical wisdom on building solutions that truly enhance developer experience.
Follow Kyle on X: https://x.com/kylegalbraith
Connect with Kyle on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylegalbraith459/
Kyle's personal blog: https://blog.kylegalbraith.com/
Learn about Depot: https://depot.dev/blog
In this edition of ShipTalk podcast, Ron Gidron, CEO of X Type, discusses the unique challenges of DevOps in platform-based environments like ServiceNow, emphasizing the complexities of managing multiple code bases and environments. He highlights the importance of visibility, governance, and automation in modern software development, sharing insights from his decades of experience in the tech industry. Gidron is particularly optimistic about the potential of AI to transform DevOps, predicting more intelligent, predictive approaches to software lifecycle management that can reduce manual testing and improve development efficiency.
Brendan O’Leary shares his journey from helping GitLab scale to IPO to his current role at Prefect.io, focusing on Pythonic orchestration. He explains why Prefect chose Python and how orchestration tools like Prefect complement CI/CD platforms like GitLab CI/CD and Harness in DevOps workflows.
We discuss the evolution of Developer Relations, its ROI, and tips for building sustainable open-source communities. Brendan also offers advice on balancing a tech career with family life.
In closing, Brendan shares his key lesson learned throughout his career: "write things down", emphasizing its importance for clarity and progress in tech.
For further insights, check out the articles Brendan suggested:
- Measuring Developer Relations
- What I Learned at GitLab That I Don’t Want to Forget
In this episode of ShipTalk, host Dewan Ahmed sits down with Alex Olivier, the CPO and Co-founder of Cerbos, to explore the evolving landscape of DevOps and the critical role of authorization in modern software development. With a wealth of experience designing enterprise solutions, Alex shares his insights on how to balance developer productivity with security, making the case for adopting tools like Cerbos at the right time.
Alex's journey in tech has taken him through esteemed roles at Microsoft, Qubit, and various startups, where he has consistently focused on enhancing the developer experience. His expertise spans core components such as authorization, data management, and security, making him a valuable voice in discussions around modern DevOps practices.
In this episode, you’ll learn about:
- Cerbos and its Mission: Discover what Cerbos is and how it aims to streamline authorization processes, empowering developers to build faster and more securely.
- Balancing Speed and Security: Delve into the challenges teams face when trying to maintain rapid development cycles without compromising security.
- Optimal Timing for Adoption: Alex discusses the right conditions for adopting new tools and technologies, ensuring that organizations make informed decisions that align with their goals.
- Emerging Trends in DevOps: Gain insights into the trends that are shaping the future of DevOps and how organizations can stay ahead of the curve.
- Getting Involved with Cerbos: Learn how listeners can engage with Cerbos and contribute to its mission.
Join us for an enlightening conversation filled with practical advice and expert insights that can help you navigate the complexities of DevOps and authorization.
In this episode of the Ship Talk podcast, host Dewan Ahmed welcomes Vishwa Krishnakumar, co-founder of ZenDuty, to delve into the complexities of software delivery, from managing stress as a startup founder to the nuances of DevOps and SRE practices. Vishwa shares his journey from a young coder to a successful entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of physical and mental well-being in high-pressure environments.
They discuss how ZenDuty emerged from a need to address incident management and the evolution of DevOps practices, highlighting the significance of timing and cultural shifts in successful implementations. The conversation also explores the role of AI and machine learning in DevOps, shedding light on how automation can enhance productivity and reliability without completely replacing human intervention. Tune in for insights on balancing manual efforts with automation, the future of AI in software engineering, and practical tips for maintaining sanity in the demanding world of tech startups.
In this episode of ShipTalk, we are joined with Ken Ahrens, CEO and Founder of Speedscale. Kubernetes is turning 10 this summer and we dig into how the ecosystem has been evolving.
Learn more from Ken as he walks through his journey on:
- Don't forget the fundamentals
- 10 Years into K8s, what is still challenging
- Enthusiasm, a very important skill
Explore the ins and outs of software engineering and organizational culture in the ShipTalk Podcast. In this episode, Dewan Ahmed, a Principal Developer Advocate at Harness, engages in a compelling conversation with Matt Anger, a Senior Staff Engineer at DoorDash.
In this insightful discussion, Matt reflects on his career, from a fresh graduate to his current role as an engineering leader at DoorDash. The conversation covers the evolution of software delivery methodologies, touching on Matt's experiences with Kotlin for performance and ecosystem, scaling platform engineering at his org, and the significance of good engineering culture for creating better software.
Delve into DoorDash's engineering culture, where Matt shares the company's strategies, including embracing mono repos, automated workflows, and centralized developer infrastructure for a seamless onboarding experience.
The dialogue extends to the broader tech landscape, addressing startup challenges. Matt shares practical advice for small engineering teams, emphasizing the importance of leveraging existing platforms like GitHub or Harness and avoiding unnecessary complexity in the early stages.
The conversation takes a personal turn as Dewan and Matt delve into the human and cultural aspects of software delivery. Matt emphasizes the significance of finding good mentors early in one's career, highlighting the impact of mentorship in shaping professional growth. The dialogue also touches on the importance of understanding the underlying layers of technology and maintaining kindness and professionalism in interactions.
As the podcast wraps up, Dewan and Matt extend an invitation to fellow engineering professionals, encouraging them to connect, seek mentorship, and engage in knowledge-sharing. Matt shares insights on how he welcomes individuals to reach out for guidance, underscoring the power of networking in the tech community.
Connect with our host Dewan Ahmed on LinkedIn: Dewan's LinkedIn
Connect with our guest Matt Anger on LinkedIn: Matt's LinkedIn
Welcome to the latest season of ShipTalk! In this episode, we get to talk to Dr. Vlad Ukis, Head of R&D for Siemens Healthineers and author of Establishing SRE Foundations.
We cover several great topics from starting and scaling an SRE function in a healthcare/regulated industry to how to go about renegotiating your SLOs.
- Road to SaaS
- How to renegotiate SLOs
- Changes in SRE practices through the years
In this episode of ShipTalk, Arch Mortgage Insurance Company's Head of Infrastructure and Operations, Scott Lee, discusses his home automation solution, deep dives into the massive gap between remote workers and their managers, and share a story about that one time he lived in an RV for 18 months with his wife and 2 dogs.
Introductions
Just for fun #1 - Automate all the things at home
Main topic - A doctoral discussion on remote working
Just for fun #2 - Scott's life in an RV and how he incorporated home automation
In this episode of ShipTalk, Deutsche Bank's Head of Cloud Engineering , Bijou Ghosh, takes us on a culinary journey to Croatia, discusses cloud native adoption and cultural change in the high stakes world of financial services, and brings us all home for meal time with the Ghosh family.
Introductions
Just for fun #1 - Bijit's favorite travel destination
Main topic - Cloud Native adoption and cultural change in Financial Services
Just for fun #2 - Bijit's favorite hobby
In this episode of ShipTalk, our host Jim Hirschauer interviews many of the speakers from the WTF is SRE conference and discusses the many life lessons they express. This episode is packed with important lessons to help you interact with your co-workers and to succeed in life in general. The crew also has some fun discussing foods for a deserted island.
Introduction
What's your favorite...?
If you could give yourself one...what would it be?
Just for fun ... Deserted island food
In this episode of ShipTalk (The SRE Edition), Red Hat's Chief Mermaid, Hilliary Lipsig, defines a new word that all techies should adopt into their vocabulary. For the main course, Hilliary describes how to use Observability data to do so much more than most companies are doing today. She also shares her favorite hobby which is something I have never heard of before.
Introductions
Just for fun #1 - Hilliary's new word - ooming
Main topic - Using Observability data proactively
Just for fun #2 - Hilliary's favorite hobby
In this episode of ShipTalk (The SRE Edition), Kyle Shelton tells us about his experience using and building developer platforms to enhance the developer experience. He also shares his favorite hobby and cautionary tale about a preventable outage that cost ~$1M ... ouch! Be sure to check out Kyle blog site at https://chaoskyle.com/
Introductions
Just for fun #1 - Kyle's favorite hobby
Main topic - The value of IDPs and some advice on getting started
Just for fun #2 - Kyle's worst IT mess-up
In this episode of ShipTalk (The SRE Edition), Steve McGhee shares tells us about a new open-source project that helps SREs understand which capabilities are required to achieve increasing levels of reliability (the nines). He also shares some interesting stories about misadventures with user files and how Google handled the news that Michael Jackson had passed away.
Introductions
Just for fun #1 - Steve's activities outside of work
Main topic - r9y.dev, what it is, how to use it, how to contribute
Just for fun #2 - Steve's worst IT mess-ups and creating a new unit of measure
Closing
In this episode of ShipTalk (The SRE Edition), Adrian Cockcroft shares his thoughts on "the 5th accelerate metric" - reliability - and the State of DevOps, using error budgets, and how to achieve continuous reliability. He shares some interesting stories about the differences between Netflix and Google, as well as some personal stories to boot.
Introductions
Just for fun #1 - Adrian's favorite hobby
Main topic - State of DevOps reliability metric, error budgets, continuous resiliency
Just for fun #2 - Adrian's best travel destination
Closing
In this episode of ShipTalk (The SRE Edition), Bryan Finster discusses how to ensure reliability and resiliency across the SDLC by making everything part of the pipeline.
- Introductions
- Just for fun #1 - Bryan's favorite hobby
- Main topic - Leaning into delivery pipelines to ensure reliability and resiliency while creating efficiencies.
- Just for fun #2 - Bryan's worst IT mess up
- Closing
In this episode of ShipTalk (The SRE Edition), Matt Schillerstrom shares stories from his time working in reliability at a nuclear power plant and at Target. We've changed up the format of ShipTalk to include some sections that are just for fun...
- Introductions
- Just for fun #1 - 1 truth and 1 lie
- Main topic - The impact of efficiency initiatives and how to avoid/minimize the negative consequences
- Just for fun #2 - Matt's worst IT mess up
- Closing
In this episode of ShipTalk, we are joined by Joni Klippert who is the CEO of StackHawk. Joni has been in leadership roles in the DevOps space for over a decade helping run and launch exciting products in an ever-evolving space.
Joni dove into cloud computing and DevOps and has not stopped growing. In this Master Class, we dive into what it takes to start in a new space from scratch. Navigating lots of grey in product management to scaling and growing firms and teams. Joni touches on being humble, hungry, and learn from her grit and perseverance. An episode not to be missed!
In this episode of ShipTalk we are joined by Santiago Campuzano. Santiago is a Lead DevOps Engineer at GumGum and has seen his fair share of distributed systems. Santiago used to build distributed Java/JEE applications for the financial sector and has gone through the early days of containerization leveraging technologies such as Apache Mesos and Apache Marathon before leveraging Kubernetes.
We go through in the episode describing the time right before containerization became popular to the journey that Santiago and firms have been on ever since. Santiago has also published an excellent blog describing concerns and different points of view when implementing K8s at scale.
Blog:
https://medium.com/gumgum-tech/implementing-kubernetes-the-hidden-part-of-the-iceberg-part-1-76c3e9684d49
In this episode of ShipTalk, we are joined by Chris Riley who is a Senior Developer Advocate at Splunk. Chris's background spans years of professional services and being an advocate. Chris is part of the Observability Panel at {unscripted} 2021 and gives us a background in O11Y, aka Observability.
With any new technology, there is an internal need to advocate for change. Chris also talks about tips and tricks for those bringing in new technology how to advocate for change and to leave their mark on organizations.
In this episode of ShipTalk, we are joined by James Bohrman who is the founder of Cloudspeakers. James had an interesting path to technology. James started his career
as an emergency dispatch technician for a security monitoring firm. From receiving calls about literal house fires to putting out metaphoric fires in production as a Site Reliability Engineer.
Making the initial jump from a dispatcher to a DevOps Engineer then to an SRE, James created a blog detailing what he has learned along the way. The art of storytelling for James was a conduit for building his brand and getting into technology. James a neurodiverse individual chats about how perceived weakness can be used as a strength in the technology world.
In this episode of ShipTalk, we are joined by Donovon Carter who is a DevOps Engineer at Dexcom, a medical device company. Dexcom is one of the firms leading the charge against diabetes with CGM, constant glucose monitoring technology.
Donovon graduated from university with a political science degree, which comes in handy with all of the negotiations that a DevOps organization and engineer have to go through. Supporting the pipeline of innovation and regulatory requirements can be tricky. Donovon walks through how to balance innovation and regulation.
With any forward-thinking organization, wanting new technology is a constant. Donovon also helps balance how you should think about keeping your skills sharp with and without adopting new technology.
In this episode of ShipTalk, we are joined by Jim Shilts who is the founder and organizer of North American DevOps Group or NADOG and is a developer advocate at the cloud-native firm Shipa.
Jim has been working on solving engineering efficiency problems for over 20 years working at firms such as Build Forge and Electric Cloud, pre-dating the inception of Hudson/Jenkins. As Jim walks through his experience and how complexity and bottlenecks have shifted around in the decades gone by and whats in store for the future.
In this episode of ShipTalk, we are joined by Bart Farrell who leads the Data on Kubernetes Community. Bart certainly has not had a traditional path to technology with stops in theology and talent management. Bart has made two leaps, one into tech and one into a more bleeding edge/crypto part of technology, running stateful workloads on Kubernetes.
Not being afraid of change and finding confidence in courage in incremental success is key. As an engineer, you might be looking at working with any new technology or a new paradigm/process. You don't have to give a talk in front of 50,000 people to start learning or even be an expert. Part of the human element is that a community can help you complete your story. Imposter syndrome plagues many in the engineering community, learn that you are not an imposter and more in this episode.
In this episode of ShipTalk, we are joined by Tracy Miranda who is the Executive Director of the Continuous Delivery Foundation which is part of the Linux Foundation. Tracy has been leading open source communities prior to her time at the CDF at Cloudbees and has spent time on the governing board of the Eclipse Foundation.
Tracy chats through her experience creating thriving open source communities and practices from inception to maturity. Open source projects especially at their inception run like a start-up. Learn in this episode how to build a sustainable, robust, and inclusive community and more from Tracy.
In this episode of ShipTalk, we talk to Chris Jowett who is a DevOps Architect at ABC Fitness. Chris has significant system engineering experience and has worked on several operations teams in various organizations. DevOps is the operational focus on development scaling e.g engineering efficiency.
There is no one path for a DevOps engineer, learn from Chris as the evolution in operations teams occur how this translates to DevOps. For example number of services supported vs infrastructure support. Chris talks about modern approaches such as not ever patching a system. This and more on this episode!
In this episode of ShipTalk, we are joined by Tracy Ragan who is the CEO of DeployHub. Tracy is no stranger to open source communities spending time with the Eclipse Foundation and Continuous Delivery Foundation [part of the Linux Foundation]. A software and open source community is more than just a place to get free software, the community aspect is crucial. Especially during the COVID pandemic, the human element is key to furthering the software engineering craft. Tracy talks about her career and community journey and why it is important to find your tribe. At a bonus at the end, a joint perplexity around the rise of YAML.
In this episode of ShipTalk, we are joined by Bob Chen who is a Director of DevOps at ADP. Bob has been practicing and now leading DevOps organizations since the inception of the term DevOps. Bob talks about the art and tact required to scale your team, technology, and to further the craft. The tips and advice can be used across any set of new technology paradigms.
In this episode of ShipTalk, we have a great conversation with David Sudia who is a Senior DevOps Engineer at GoSpotCheck. Prior to being a DevOps Engineer, David was an educator then software engineer for a large eCommerce site. Balancing long and short-term goals, sometimes moving a mountain takes time and sometimes incremental confidence can happen in a sprint. Learn from David in his vast experience how to move the DevOps needle in your organization forward.
In this episode of ShipTalk, we talk to Frank Moley who is a Senior Manager of platform engineering at DataStax. Having the ability to respect multiple points of views and opinions are critical in modern engineering roles. We are sum total of our experiences and opinions are usually formed by tangential thoughts and opinions of others. In this episode learn from Frank as he evolved from software engineering to DevOps/platform engineering leadership. An important lesson to always own your mistakes, is how we all grow.
In this episode of ShipTalk, Nidhi Allipuram who is the AVP of DevOps Platforms at Nationwide Insurance talks about a career journey to DevOps and how the genesis of the DevOps transformation at Nationwide started. In this excellent episode, we chat about empathy and how leaders can empathize. Nidhi has an interesting approach where she mob programs with her teams to keep her skills sharp. As her team's reach expands, calculating ROI for DevOps Teams which can be useful for a team of one or hundreds.
In this episode, we talk to Bob Strecansky who is a Staff SRE at MailChimp. A packed podcast about all things Site Reliability Engineering (SRE). Learn about how to become an SRE, the rise of blameless culture, a clear definition of black-box vs white-box approaches, and much more!