Software Misadventures

A show about not just the technologies, but the people and stories behind them. In every episode, Ronak and Guang sit down with engineers, founders, and investors to chat about their paths, lessons they’ve learned and of course, the misadventures along the way.

Would you like to be on the show or have a suggestion for a guest we should bring on the show? Email us at hello@softwaremisadventures.com.

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Recent Episodes

Kelsey Hightower - On retiring as Distinguished Engineer from Google at 42 - Part 2 - #22

In this second part of the conversation, we focus on Kelsey’s retirement - the financial planning that enabled him to retire at 42, how he got started advising startups and his perspectives on compensation, turning down a substantial offer from Microsoft and meeting Satya Nadella in person. And, of course, plans for the future.

Aug 3, 2023 1 min read Career, Leadership

Kelsey Hightower - On retiring as Distinguished Engineer from Google at 42 - Part 2 - #22

Kelsey Hightower - On retiring as Distinguished Engineer from Google at 42 - Part 1 - #21

In this first part of the conversation, we delve into pivotal moments in Kelsey’s career journey ranging from buying his first car by working at mcdonald’s after school, to starting his own computer store that turned into a music studio after 6pm, to hacking on python infrastructure with the core developers. Through these stories, we learned a ton about how Kelsey thinks about acquiring new skills - getting paid for it, breaking into the world of open source, navigating corporate politics, building trust within a team, and much more.

Jul 24, 2023 2 min read Career, Leadership

Kelsey Hightower - On retiring as Distinguished Engineer from Google at 42 - Part 1 - #21

Julie Amundson - Career breaks, job search amidst hiring freezes, positioning yourself and much more - #20

Julie Amundson is a Sr Staff Software Engineer at Google working on Machine Learning Infrastructure. Prior to Google, she was the Director of Machine Learning Infrastructure at Netflix. Julie decided to take a career break last year when she was affected by mass layoffs. In this conversation, we talk to her about what it was like to find a job during hiring freezes, what it was like to position herself in this market, whether the interviewers cared about the career break she took and how the career break changed her perspective towards work and life.

Jun 26, 2023 1 min read Leadership, Career, Interviews

Julie Amundson - Career breaks, job search amidst hiring freezes, positioning yourself and much more - #20

Chris Pruett - On deciding to leave LinkedIn and co-founding Jam, values based decision making and compassionate leadership - #19

Chris Pruett is the CTO and Co-founder of Jam. Jam is a new way to share and listen to bite-sized audio. Prior to Jam, Chris spent 9+ years at LinkedIn growing from an engineering manager to VP of Engineering. During his tenure at LinkedIn, he worked on almost all aspects of the app and towards the end, led an org of 500+ engineers working on Feed, Messaging, Identity and Search. In this episode, we discuss how he made the decision to leave his leadership position at LinkedIn and co-found Jam. We also spoke about his time at LinkedIn and how he developed the practice to make value based decisions both in professional and personal life.

Jun 2, 2022 2 min read Leadership, Startups, Entrepreneurship

Chris Pruett - On deciding to leave LinkedIn and co-founding Jam, values based decision making and compassionate leadership - #19

Software Misadventures Update and Plans for 2022

Short episode about reflections on the past year and plans for 2022.

Mar 24, 2022 1 min read

Software Misadventures Update and Plans for 2022

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