Building for the Next Billion

Epi 5: Mbithe Nzomo, Software Developer at Andela and Head of Django Girls Nairobi

In this episode, Justin is joined by Mbithe Nzomo, software developer at Andela and the head of Django Girls Nairobi. She is currently on her first trip to the USA to speak at a variety of tech conferences around the nation. She may only be 4' 10" but what she lacks in height, she makes up for in coding ability. She leads Nairobi’s division of Django girls which is a global organization that helps aspiring female developers get into software engineering. Her biggest passion is being the female role model she never had in technology, and works to inspire young girls every day. Her specialty is Python and is a huge proponent of the flask microframework and blogs frequently about it on scotch.io, but she’ll get into the nitty gritty of that later in the episode.

Epi 4: Scott Haug, VP of Software Engineering at Glowforge

In this episode, Justin is joined by Scott Haug, VP of Software Engineering at Glowforge. Glowforge is a Seattle based 3D laser printing startup that broke a crowdfunding record in 2015 after generating $27.9 million in sales during a 30 day period, so clearly people are excited about it. Prior to Glowforge, Scott worked for Myspace, was with Sparkbuy during their 2011 acquisition by Google, and now builds the software for the extremely precise Glowforge machine. The Glowforge works with a variety of materials, even food, but just don't put vinyl in there unless you're trying to produce chlorine gas. Tune in to hear about the Seattle tech ecosystem, how his awesome machine works, and how half of Glowforge was trapped in an elevator for an extended period of time, but lived to tell about it!

Epi 3: Chris Woodford, Head of Engineering at Gobble

In this episode, Justin is joined by Chris Woodford, Head of Engineering at Gobble. Gobble provides meal kits that allow their customers to create great dinners in only 10 minutes with one pan. Chris has been with the company since the very early days, and used to spend his days writing software, and his night’s responding to customer service inquiries. He attributes much of his success at the company to the fact that he’s experienced to many different aspects of it. They have also been collecting a multitude of data on consumer eating habits, and Chris explains the internal tools he and his team have built in order to turn that data into action for the company. He also was in a hard core metal band named Titan, which may or may not be getting back together for a reunion tour, gotta tune in to find out!

Epi 2: Wade Foster, CEO and Co-Founder of Zapier

In this episode, Justin is joined by Wade Foster, Co-Founder and CEO of Zapier. Zapier is a web automation app that allows you to build Zaps that automate parts of your business or life. Basically, a Zap is a blueprint for a task you want to do over and over and it functions for example like this: when I get a new thing in A, do this other thing in B. So there is a trigger and then an action. Zapier is also 100% remote and they’ve been that way from day 1 so distributed teams is a big topic in this episode. Wade also wrote the book on remote work, and offers great insight into the best practices surrounding that. They also just started offering a “delocation” package as a way to attract top tier talent that may want to take their talents outside of the Bay Area.

Epi 1: Jon Chan, Developer at Stack Overflow and Founder of Bento

In this episode, Justin is joined by Jon Chan, a developer on the Q&A team at Stack Overflow. Stack Overflow is the world’s largest website for developers, and they function as a question and answer resource for professional and enthusiast programmers. They also release an annual Developer Survey each year that reveals the hottest trends in the industry. According to the survey results, 53.3% of respondents say that remote options are their top priority and 90% consider themselves at least partially self-taught. Justin and Jon discuss those data points and how both are influencing software development. Jon is quite nomadic himself, and so he gives some actionable advice about how to sustain effective remote work. He also may or may not have used his coding skills to make his top 8 a top 16 on MySpace back in the day, tune in to find out!