DevCast: Recent Episodes
Dev Technology
DevCast, hosted by John Janek, is a show where our team members meet to discuss technology topics and the technical details of implementing IT systems for the federal government. We also have occasional culture discussions on relevant topics or things of interest to our team members.
Dev Technology’s internship program is an outstanding chance for college students to gain specific and practical experience working in a modern information technology organization delivering solutions for our internal and external clients. Join our Chief Technologist John Janek as he speaks with our internship leads Bethany Hsiao and Mariana Ritchie, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition Christi Porter, and our 2024 summer interns. They discuss their internship experiences, the projects they’ve been working on, and their key takeaways from the summer.
Coming off our April 5th Catalytic Think Tank event: Everyone Can Innovate, Chief Technologist John Janek and Associate Controller, Tina Ehlers reflect on the event and continued the conversation on innovation. In this episode, they talk about emerging themes surrounding innovations like how to increase leaderships appetite for innovation, measuring success and failures, building trust and psychological safety within your teams, how to integrate innovation in your own work, and promoting diversity within innovation. As John and Tina share their insights, they share examples from their own projects and at Dev Technology, as well as being part of an innovative organization. They even break down what is innovation and how we think about it from the lens of individuals and a team. Check out the episode to hear more!
Join Chief Technologist John Janek and Technical Director for Digital Identity and Biometrics Niroop Gonchikar as they talk about their attendance at the Consumer Technology Association’s CES Conference in Las Vegas on January 7-8. They share insights on the global conference that brought together over 130,000 innovators, industry, and leaders across the tech landscape. John and Niroop share their thoughts on the new and existing technology showcased at conference that’s moving the field forward in support of productivity, processes, government delivery, and also share why CES is a great show for government innovators to attend. Listen to their conversation as they reflect on the event, their takeaways to be able to better support their Dev teams and clients.
Coming off Veterans Day on November 11, this month we celebrate all veterans and those Dev veterans working in the information technology space. Join us on this episode with special guest host Renata C. Spinks, CEO of CyberSec International and a former servicewoman, talk with Dev Veterans Darryle Stephens, Clement Yang, and Chris Kennedy about their experiences and skills from active duty, their transition from service to the civilian sector, and bringing their unique experiences to the government contracting space.
Join Chief Technologist John Janek and special guest host Lisa Kemes, Senior ServiceNow Architect, talk with Kendall Holbrook, Emma Antonios, Becky Crane, Bethany Hsiao, and Courtney Tyler about their experiences at the 2023 AnitaB.org Grace Hopper Celebration. They have an empowering conversation about women in technology at Dev and in the industry, reflect on our Top Companies for Women in Technology Award, and how we can continue to build a more equitable and inclusive for future technologists.
Join our Chief Technologist John Janek and special guest Marisa Roinestad, Technical Project Manager in the International Revenue Services’ Enterprise Digitalization Office on today’s DevCast episode. Marisa talks about her time as a government employee over the last 23 years, working with partners and subject matter experts for project success, and the IRS’ Scanning as a Service project, digitalizing files for easy processing and secure storage, in an effort for the agency to become a digital first organization.
Coming off of Dev Technology’s first-ever TechFest event hosted on July 19, our Chief Technologist John Janek speaks with our internship leaders Casey Acosta, Bethany Hsiao, Josh Lamke and our 2023 summers interns about their experiences, things they are working on, and their intern run Hackathon project.
Dev Technology’s internship program is an outstanding chance for college students to gain specific and practical experience working in a modern technology organization delivering solutions for our internal and external clients.
Join Chief Technologist John Janek and Technical Director for Biometrics Niroop Gonchikar as they talk about their attendance at the AWS Public Sector Summit held in Washington, DC on June 7-8. They share highlights on the conference from using the cloud and AI/ML, to the major themes of optimization, FinOps, continued modernization tracks, and distributed design systems that was present in the conference programming. They also noted that the more players in this market will lead to better systems, tools, and engagement across the industry.
Join our Chief Technologist John Janek and special guest Colonel Kristin Saling, Director of the Commanding General's Innovation Cell at the US Army's Human Resources command on today's DevCast. We'll be covering tech, data, and a little bit of insight on how we can and should start thinking about leveraging disruptive and emerging technologies in all the areas where we work.
Join John Janek as he talks with Kendall Holbrook, Becky Crane, and Lisa Kemes about their experiences at the 2022 Grace Hopper Celebration. They have an incredible conversation about self-organizing women, empowering conversations and rooms, and using technology to make things better for all.
Dev Technology's internship program is an outstanding chance for college students to gain specific and practical experience working in a modern technology organization delivering solutions for our internal and external clients. Join our Chief Technologist John Janek as he speaks with our internship lead Ariana Snyder and our 2022 summer interns. They discuss their experiences, things they worked on, and their key takeaways from the summer.
Join our Chief Technologist John Janek as he interviews our Unicorns4DTG team about their participation in a recent AWS Public Sector GameDay event. Niroop Gonchikar, John Gilbert, Jay Merrifield, and Jing Wu recount an incredible experience before and during their nine million point game. Listen for great insights on the importance of diverse teams, diverse technical solutioning, and the critical delivery of value at speed and relevancy.
Join John Janek, Kendall Holbrook, Emma Antonios, Tina Ehlers, and Kurtis Miles for a conversation about why your work culture matters, how having a safe place to work is the one thing you absolutely need to look for in a workplace, and how and why Dev Technology provides this. We're also proud to share an announcement for an award we've won every year since its creation and why this award is so meaningful.
May is Mental Health Awareness month, and we're pleased to cap it off with a DevCast Culture podcast discussing individual and team resilience within our tech community. Join Sherri Elliott, John Janek, Emma Antonios, and special guest Damien McCombs for a discussion on mental health and resilience.
At Dev Technology, our internship program is one of the highlights of the year. This year, we're kicking off our incoming internship season with a podcast with our interns from last year. Come join Adam D'Angelo, our internship team leads, and our 2021 interns for a discussion on what our 2021 interns experienced and the type of work they had the opportunity to collaborate on.
Join us on this special DevCast celebrating Black History Month as Sherri Elliott talks with Kyle R. Williams and Kamal Carter about their work through https://www.alongtalk.com/ (A Long Talk) to empower and activate others in the fight against racism.
Collaborating together produces great solutions for government, and in this DevCast John Janek talks with Jeremy Wood (host of "https://www.thegeekwithin.net/ (The Geek Within)"), Jeremiah Akinbohun, and Casey Acosta about the impact of the many opportunities for industry and government collaboration through the https://www.actiac.org/ (American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC)). If you're in GovTech, you won't want to miss this episode!
We wrap up 2021 with a recap of some of our amazing accomplishments this year and tips for women in technology. Dev Technology's CEO, Kendall Holbrook, Vice President of Advanced Technical Solutions, Michelle Scheuerman, and Director and Women in Technology at Dev Chair Becky Crane join Sherri Elliott and John Janek on DevCast Culture to discuss what it’s like being a woman in technology and how Dev Technology supports women in the company.
Joyce Carr Schwab returns to discuss two Agile frameworks Dev Technology uses in our contract delivery for the federal market: Scrum and Kanban. She and John Janek discuss which is best in different situations, and how to focus on delivering value for your clients regardless of framework. Read her accompanying blog post at https://devtechnology.com/2021/12/choosing-the-best-agile-framework-to-do-the-job/
In this episode of DevCast, Sherri Elliott kicks off our DevCast Culture series by embarking on a conversation around ageism in honor of International Day of Older Persons (Oct. 1). Does the speed of technology make ageism worse in our industry? Does youth, or even youthful appearance have a negative cultural connotation in government? Join Sherri, Todd, Christi, John, and Monica for a conversation that spans generations.
Adam D'Angelo and John Janek welcome Joyce Carr Schwab back to discuss topics of interest to Dev Technology and our DevCast listeners. The first discussion comes https://fcw.com/articles/2021/06/06/federal-websites-accessibility-study.aspx (from a study) that found 30% of the federal government domains studied don’t meet standards for accessibility, and Joyce uses her knowledge as a certified 508 trusted tester to help explain why this is a problem. Next, a discussion https://www.nextgov.com/ideas/2021/06/teens-have-hard-time-finding-truth-online/174542/ (about a study) that shows that now more than ever, students need to be prepared to deal with misleading information.
Adam D'Angelo and John Janek welcome special guest Joyce Carr Schwab to talk all things Agile. They spend time discussing lame daily stand-ups and how to improve them, as well as an upcoming special feature series on Agile practices and techniques with Joyce at the helm.
Sherri Elliott returns to DevCast with to discuss the topics of discrimination, micro-aggression, and code switching. Anita Hall, Jeremiah Akinbohun, Monica Evans, Atif Choudary, and Kurtis Miles discuss their experiences with these issues in the workplace.
In recognition of Cybersecurity Awareness month, we decided to speak on the topic of Women of Color in Cybersecurity. Sherri Elliott, Senior Project Manager and Information System Security Officer joins John Janek as a guest host to interview Renata Spinks, Cyber Technology Officer (CTO), Senior Executive Service Member for the United States Marine Corps (USMC) Marine Forces Cyberspace Command. We discussed Ms. Spinks journey thorough IT and Cybersecurity, including her highs and lows, and what she believes needs to happen for women to continue to break through barriers.
Our team decided it was time to shake up everyone’s Zoom fatigue with a hackathon. One of the newest members of Dev Technology’s Technical Development Program took the lead for shaping this event. Jeremiah Akinbohun discuss the benefits of hosting a hackathon, and how it can be of value to more than just your technical team members.
This year, Dev Technology was prepared for a class of six interns as part our Internship Program. But then everything went remote, and we had to adjust. Our Intern Leadership Team was quick to make changes for a successful program. John and Adam bring our Intern Leadership Team and our class of interns on this episode of DevCast to hear directly from them on topics including: Key aspects of the program that enabled a good experience for the interns What it was like to work remotely as a new intern The most valuable aspects of their experience How their education prepared them for their internship How they will apply what their learned to their classes this year
Guests on this episode include: Ariana Snyder, Talent Acquisition Business Partner Gina Blacutt, Human Resources Specialist Casey Acosta, Business Analyst Bethany Hsiao, Project Intern Roshan Mathew, Project Intern Chelsea LeSage, Project Intern Kurtis Miles, IT Support Intern Bianca Cifelli, Business Operations and Business Development Intern Sam Kobayashi, Talent Acquisition and Human Resources Intern
John and Adam continue their discussion about cloud migration, this time focusing on discovery. If you are going to move an entire enterprise to the cloud, there is a lot to figure out. But what exactly does discovery entail? And how can discovery be used to identify quick wins to start migrating systems to the cloud immediately? They also discuss how an integrated procurement component can increase success in federal cloud migrations. Contact John and Adam at devcasters@devtechnology.com with your questions for future episodes. Visit www.devtechnology.com to learn more about Dev Technology.
The current pandemic has shown how important remote-first cloud approaches are for an organization. But tackling a cloud migration can be a daunting task. John and Adam discuss how to develop a strategy by breaking down the migration process to into quick wins so your organization can iterate and learn to achieve a better solution. They also discuss the importance of engaging users into the process and how to approach that task, as well as the importance of taking a “One Team” approach. Contact John and Adam at devcasters@devtechnology.com with your questions for future episodes. Visit www.devtechnology.com to learn more about Dev Technology.
Adam and John are joined by special guest, John Bobosh of IQ solutions. John specializes in using data analytics for improving websites. John Bobosh discusses how data analytics can be used to improve the user experience of website and applications by using data to identify areas for improvement.
John and Adam are joined by special guest, Dr. David Bishop, to talk about agile transformations. Dr. Bishop is the founder of the company Agile Worx and recently published a book titled “Metagility: Managing Agile Development for Competitive Advantage.” Topics discussed in this episode include: How Dr. Bishop developed his research-based approach over 10 years Customizing the agile process to meet the needs of different types of teams working together Key aspects of agile transformations Metrics of agile success – Are you agile enough? How do you measure the success of an agile transformation?
Contact John and Adam at devcasters@devtechnology.com with your questions for future episodes. Visit www.devtechnology.com to learn more about Dev Technology.
John and Adam meet with Josh Powers, Dev Technology’s Technical Director of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Josh discusses the importance of a controlled vocabulary and how the government can make AI/ML a functional part of the customer experience and government service delivery. Contact John and Adam at devcasters@devtechnology.com with your questions for future episodes. Visit www.devtechnology.com to learn more about Dev Technology.
COVID-19 poses many unique challenges to law enforcement agents and officers regarding their safety. Niroop Gonchikar discusses how touchless biometrics could potentially help improve agent and officer safety, and he discusses some of the challenges that still exist with this method of collecting fingerprints. Contact John and Adam at devcasters@devtechnology.com with your questions for future episodes. Visit www.devtechnology.com to learn more about Dev Technology.
Adam and John continue to check in with our teams to see how the initial sudden shift to remote work went, and how the adjustment has been over the past month, and what we can learn from these experiences. Topics discussed include: The mental shift to expecting to see people on video calls, and the fun of having family members—and the occasional cat or parrot—drop into your meeting. Will we ever want to put on pants again? And what will happen when it is time to go back to the office? Adjusting communication strategies to the individual. Social constructs for collisionable communication and the challenges of working that into a remote environment. How the informal environment of video calls creates a different sense of community.
Contact John and Adam at devcasters@devtechnology.com with your questions for future episodes. Visit www.devtechnology.com to learn more about Dev Technology.
John and Adam bring on special guest, Dr. Glenn Platt, to discuss gamification in the workplace, and specifically how to make remote work fun through gamification. Dr. Glenn Platt is the Chair of the Armstrong Interactive Media Studies Program at Miami University in Oxford Ohio, which is a globally ranked award-winning program. Contact John and Adam at devcasters@devtechnology.com with your questions for future episodes. Visit www.devtechnology.com to learn more about Dev Technology.
We are checking in with one of our Project Managers, Terry Sherbondy, to hear about how his team is doing with the move to remote work 100% of the time. Terry’s team is experienced with working remotely, but they still have some challenges to consider for moving forward—like onboarding their summer intern and training users on new features. Terry, John, and Adam discuss How Terry and the team are adjusting to working from home Different tools they are using, such as MS Teams, and how they are taking advantage of some of the features Maintaining open communication with the team and their client The importance of maintaining the team dynamic and ways to accomplish that Preparing for the start of their summer intern including figuring out how to make sure interns have a good learning experience and a positive team engagement in a remote work environment
Contact John and Adam at devcasters@devtechnology.com with your questions for future episodes. Visit www.devtechnology.com to learn more about Dev Technology.
The end of March marks the end of Women’s History Month, and to finish out the month, we are replaying an episode that we recorded last year about the history and future of women in IT. When the first programable digital computer in the United States was being developed in the 1940s, computer programing was largely considered “women’s work.” During the 50s and 60s, the number of coding jobs began exploding. Employers looked for candidates that were logical, good at math, and meticulous. In this respect, gender stereotypes worked in women’s favor. In 1984, 37% of all students graduating with degrees in computer and information sciences were women, but by 2010, only about 17% of students graduating in computer and information sciences were women. In this episode, Michelle Scheuerman and Becky Crane discuss this decline and how we can grow the number of women in IT and why that is important.
Dev Technology moved to 100% remote work on March 16, with many teams starting prior to that date. Adam and John meet to talk about how teams are adjusting, what has been working, and what they wish we had done differently. Topics discussed include Life in general right now, society’s reaction, and supporting local businesses How Adam and John are adjusting to working from home with the entire family Remote work etiquette and why you should turn your camera on Productivity tools that have been working well for us How remote work brings out existing issues--it doesn’t create them Maintaining engagement and the absence of collisionable communication and thinking about ways to add it back in What we wished we did months ago
Contact John and Adam at devcasters@devtechnology.com with your questions for future episodes. Visit www.devtechnology.com to learn more about Dev Technology.
Zach Lawrence, Dev Technology Senior IT System Administrator, joins Adam D’Angelo to talk about a preparing for the AWS Solution Architect Associate Exam as well as some of the unique considerations for development in the cloud environment. Zach and Adam discuss the following. AWS Solution Architect exam prep tips including the importance of understanding the vocabulary, using practice tests to prepare, and the importance of practicing with VPCs The importance of understanding the formal features of AWS for making tradeoff decisions How architecting in the cloud changes the way you think about developing a solution—the underlying infrastructure is essential to leveraging the benefits of the cloud Using different locations for latency tradeoffs The importance of hands on learning Selecting cloud native vs cloud agnostic functionality Security on-prem vs the cloud Avoiding vendor lock-in
Contact John and Adam at devcasters@devtechnology.com with your questions for future episodes. Visit www.devtechnology.com to learn more about Dev Technology.
John Janek and Adam D’Angelo talk with Kurt Lloyd, Dev Technology Principal Engineer, to talk about the intersection of Black History and technology. Contact John and Adam at devcasters@devtechnology.com with your questions for future episodes. Visit www.devtechnology.com to learn more about Dev Technology.
Adam D’Angelo and Niroop Gonchikar get together to talk about the technology that drives face recognition, fingerprint readers, and more. Biometrics is enabling our digital lives in incredible ways, and there’s an important need to not only look at the technology, but its application and the framework around its use. Contact John and Adam at devcasters@devtechnology.com with your questions for future episodes. Visit www.devtechnology.com to learn more about Dev Technology.
Join John Janek and Adam D’Angelo as they welcome special guest Becky Crane to talk about Agile in Government. With years of experience delivering mission critical products to government, Becky shares her observations, thoughts, and insights. Learn about what agile means in govtech on this week’s DevCast. Contact John and Adam at devcasters@devtechnology.com with your questions for future episodes. Visit http://pgl.0dd.myftpupload.com (www.devtechnology.com) to learn more about Dev Technology.
2019 was a pretty phenomenal year for cloud in government. Join John Janek and Adam D’Angelo as they dive into a discussion about AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and what happens to mid-tier providers in a govtech world that is heavily burdened with regulation and compliance. We might even talk about JEDI – but we promise no Sith! Contact John and Adam at devcasters@devtechnology.com with your questions for future episodes. Visit http://pgl.0dd.myftpupload.com (www.devtechnology.com) to learn more about Dev Technology.
Join John Janek and Adam D’Angelo as they dive into digital procurement on this episode of DevCast. What is a Reverse Industry Day? What is a Digital IT Acquisition Professional? What in the world is co-designed procurement? Get those questions answered and hear what they might mean for the govtech community. Contact us at devcasters@devtechnology.com with your questions for future episodes.
Adam D’Angelo and Yemi Oshinnaiye dive into a variety of information technology topics. They discuss the following and more. How culture affects IT innovation What does professional discipline mean for the IT field Regulation of information technology Security and privacy
Referenced in this episode: "Taming Information Technology: Lessons from Studies of System Administrators (Human Technology Interaction Series)" https://www.amazon.com/Taming-Information-Technology-Administrators-Interaction/dp/0195374126 (https://www.amazon.com/Taming-Information-Technology-Administrators-Interaction/dp/0195374126) Learn more about Dev Technology at http://pgl.0dd.myftpupload.com (www.devtechnology.com)
Adam D’Angelo and Yemi Oshinnaiye sample bourbon as they wish Yemi luck in his new position at USCIS and discuss Amazon, Facebook, what happens with your data online, the difference between bourbon and rye, what if everyone knew everything about everyone, are Siri and Alexa spying on you, and are we cyborgs? Learn more about Dev Technology at http://pgl.0dd.myftpupload.com (www.devtechnology.com)
Computer programing was largely considered “women’s work” when the first programable digital computer was being developed in the 1940s. Today, less than 17% of students graduating in computer science and information technology are women. Why is this? What can we do about it? And why is it important? Michelle Scheuerman, Dev Technology Vice President, and Becky Crane, Dev Technology Program Manager talk about the history and future of women in IT, some of their personal experiences, and how we can help encourage women in IT. This episode was inspired by the New York Times article “The Secret History of Women in Coding.” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/magazine/women-coding-computer-programming.html ( https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/magazine/women-coding-computer-programming.html) Learn more about Dev Technology at http://pgl.0dd.myftpupload.com (www.devtechnology.com)
Dev Technology is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Learn what it was like for both employees and founders in the very first years of establishing this small business. We talk about the motivation and inspiration to start a business, the risks involved in starting a business, how employees felt joining a company of less than 5 people, and where things are today.
Dev Technology CTO, Yemi Oshinnaiye and Director of Technology, Adam D’Angelo talk about making the most of your technology investments by wisely choosing how and when to implement new technologies. We also talk about the importance of security in designing a system as well as the broader view of what does security mean to the organization and how should it be addressed.
Sam Hale, Dev Technology Project Manger and SharePoint expert, answers your Microsoft and SharePoint questions. We talk about SharePoint migration, using third party tools, the difference between the Office 365 Government Community Cloud and the commercial version of Office 365, preparing for a move to the cloud, and more. If you have a question for Sam, email devcasters@devtechnology.com
Dev Technology CTO, Yemi Oshinnaiye and Director of Technology, Adam D’Angelo discuss a wide range of topics including the challenges of technology procurement and the importance of user input when designing systems.
Dev Technology CTO, Yemi Oshinnaiye and Director of Technology, Adam D’Angelo answer the question “What is DevOps?” and what it means to be successful in transforming an organization’s approach to technology.
This is Part 2 in our discussion with Kendall Holbrook and Susie Sylvester. Community is one of Dev Technology’s core values. Susie and Kendall discuss the importance of supporting our local communities. For more information on Cornerstones visit https://www.cornerstonesva.org/ (https://www.cornerstonesva.org/)
Co-Founder, Susie Sylvester, and CEO, Kendall Holbrook, discuss the inspiration and vision behind creating and leading a successful small business in the federal contracting space.