The Main Thread

Brian Ogilvie & Alex Gaiser
  • 5.0 (8)
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY
The Main Thread

Discussions around how to grow your software engineering career from mid-senior to Staff level. Brian Ogilvie and Alex Gaiser interview top engineers and senior leaders from Big Tech and Mid-size companies to get to the bottom of what makes an effective Staff-level engineer.

Episodes

  1. 11/22/2023

    Episode 10: The Journey So Far

    We've reached the end of Season 1! In this final episode, Alex and Brian take some time to reflect on what we've learned so far, what themes tend to keep coming up across episodes, areas we're targeting for personal growth, and finally, what you can expect from Season 2. Thanks for being a part of our first season! We'll be back in 2024 with all new guests, insights, and stories from the Staff Engineer's Journey.  Picks & Plugs Alex: Email vs Capitalism, or Why We Can't Have Nice Things Brian: “Everything You know about latency is wrong” from Brave New Geek Get in touch! Facebook: /themainthread Threads: @themainthread X: @themainthread Transcript Episode 10 Transcript

    33 min

  2. 11/10/2023

    Episode 9: Security Priorities

    Is your platform secure? How do you know? How do you even know all of the machines, networks, software, and data that make up your platform in the first place? We're joined by Amirali Shahinpour, Head of Security Data Platform at Twitch to discuss driving security priorities across your organization.  Amir's Framework for addressing vulns: Prepare (Requires Asset Inventory) Identify (Threat intel: what’s affected?) Analyze (Prioritize: use extra context from Inventory) Communicate Treat (take action) Picks & Plugs Amir: The Art of the Start 2.0, by Guy Kawasaki Alex: The Mythical Man-Month, by Frederick P. Brooks Jr "Git Hidden Gems", by Enrico Campidoglio Brian: "Don’t Ask Forgiveness, Radiate Intent", by Elizabeth Ayer Get in touch! Facebook: /themainthread Threads: @themainthread Twitter: @themainthread Transcript Episode 9 Transcript

    36 min

  3. 10/06/2023

    Episode 8, Part 2: Empathy and Inclusion

    Part 2 of our discussion with Lee McKeeman, Staff Engineer at Google, on empathy and inclusion. Why do companies struggle to prioritize efforts around inclusion and accessibility? And what can we, as technical leaders, do about it? Picks & Plugs Lee: LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/lmckeeman Substack, https://leemckeeman.substack.com Alex: Swamp Thing, by Alan Moore Brian: Build and deploy full stack web sites with SvelteKit and Vercel Get in touch! Facebook: /themainthread Threads: @themainthread Twitter: @themainthread Transcript Episode 8, Part 2 Transcript

    35 min

  4. 09/29/2023

    Episode 8, Part 1: Empathy and Inclusion

    Lee McKeeman is currently a staff engineer at Google, who’s also spent time at Amazon and Meta. Lee is passionate about how we as technical leaders can influence our work environments to be more empathetic and inclusive so that people of varying races, genders, creeds, ages, and neruodiversities, all feel empowered to contribute their best ideas to the work that we do.  Picks & Plugs Lee: LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/lmckeeman Substack, https://leemckeeman.substack.com Get in touch! Facebook: /themainthread Threads: @themainthread Twitter: @themainthread Transcript Episode 8-1 Transcript

    33 min

  5. 09/15/2023

    Episode 7: Community Building

    Think about the roles you play in your community. Social planner, Little League coach, Dungeon Master. Did anyone explicitly give you that authority? Or did you just gravitate towards your interests and put yourself out there? Can we do that at work, too? Are we defined by the title given to us by our companies, or can we put ourselves out there to take on broader roles that align with our strengths? David Cunningham, Sr Engineer with The New York Times, joins us to discuss how to do both. Picks & Plugs David: New York Tech & Beer socials (https://meetup.com/nyctnb) and New York AI User Group tech talks (https://meetup.com/nycaiu) CEO of Meetup David Siegel and Tech Talks coming up in September The 1-Page Marketing Plan Alex: Designing Data-Intensive Applications Thirteen ways of looking at a Turtle -  Scott Wlaschin Functional Design Patterns - Scott Wlaschin Brian: Simple Made Easy, Talk by Rich Hicky (creator of Clojure) Get in touch! Facebook: /themainthread Threads: @themainthread Twitter: @themainthread Transcript Episode 7 Transcript

    36 min

  6. 09/01/2023

    Episode 6: Evaluating New Technologies

    How do you decide whether that shiny new frontend framework or that highly performant, memory-safe backend language is really going to solve your problems? Join our guest Eric Justusson, as we talk about how to leverage quick experiments, tracer bullets, greenfield projects, and hackathons to responsibly evaluate the benefits and costs of onboarding new tech for your team.  Picks & Plugs Eric Hacker News Random engineering idioms: Yak Shaving Bike Shedding Spike Rubber Duck Debugging Cargo Culting Others Alex Design Patterns, Gang of Four Brian Ogilvie Unidragon Puzzles Get in touch! Facebook: /themainthread Threads: @themainthread Twitter: @themainthread Transcript Episode 6 Transcript

    37 min

  7. 08/18/2023

    Episode 5: AI Madness

    Will AI fundamentally change the way we as engineers interact with our work and our world? Or is it mostly hype? We’re joined today by David Ashe-- Senior Software Engineer with American Express--to explore the benefits, risks, practical uses, and downright bizarre results of AI.   Misc Show notes AI has even made some contributions to this Podcast. For instance: All Artwork for this podcast is generated by AI using Midjourney. The captions for this episode were initially generated by AI on Podbean.com, and corrected by yours truly.  Picks & Plugs David HackTheBox.com Alex Staff Engineer, by Will Larson Brian Ogilvie Find a real language tutor at verbling.com Get in touch! Facebook: /themainthread Threads: @themainthread Twitter: @themainthread Transcript Episode 5 Transcript

    39 min

  8. 08/04/2023

    Episode 4: Technical Vision and Strategy

    How do you establish a vision of the future that addresses a specific business need for your company? And how do you turn that vision into a concrete strategy to execute? Our guest Brian Jones is an engineering manager in Central Security at Meta, and he'll share his techniques for building vision and strategy at scale.  Acronym Glossary CISSP: Certified Information Systems Security Professional DAU: Daily Active Users GRC: Governance Risk (Management) & Compliance HSM: Hardware Security Model MSSP: Managed Security Service Provider NFT: Non-Fungible Token OKR: Objectives and Key Results PCI: Payment Card Industry SOC: Systems and Organization Controls TL: Tech Lead  TPM: Technical Program Manager XFN: Cross-functional Team Picks & Plugs BrianJones The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries Radical Candor, by Kim Scott Alex Test Driven Development, Where did it all go wrong The Art of code  Fireship Youtube channel How to Reassess Your Chess, Jeremy Silman Brian Ogilvie Pete Hodgson blog: Creating and sharing Strategic Architectural Initiatives Get in touch! Facebook: /themainthread Threads: @themainthread Twitter: @themainthread Transcript Episode 4 Transcript

    33 min

  9. 07/21/2023

    Episode 3: The Cake Analogy

    This episode is a tasty one. Today’s guest introduced me to an analogy that illustrates beautifully the progressively growing scope and responsibilities of an engineer from Junior to Senior to Staff and beyond. I love this analogy so much that I invited him onto the show to share it with you. So get out your aprons, prep your mixers, and welcome our guest Andrew Preece, as we whip up: "The Cake Analogy." Picks & Plugs Andrew Radical Candor, by Kim Scott Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes are High, by Grenny, Patterson, McMillan, Switzler, and Gregory Linux and the Unix Philosophy, by Mike Gancarz  The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter Alex Grokking Algorithms, by Aditya Bhargava The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald A. Norman A Philosophy of Software Design, by John K. Ousterhout The Pragmatic Programmer, by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt Brian The First Rule of Prioritization: No Snacking (blog) Get in touch! Facebook: /themainthread Threads: @themainthread Twitter: @themainthread Transcript Episode 3 Transcript

    37 min

  10. 07/21/2023

    Episode 2: What is a Staff Engineer Anyway?

    So... what is a Staff Engineer anyway? What even is the job description? In this episode, we’re joined by Abhishek Mistry–Staff Engineering Leader at Hudson River Trading–to discuss exactly that. What is this job ICs aspire to? How is it different from management? How do you influence and lead people when you actually have no real authority? Is it better to go broad or to go deep? How does the Staff Engineer scale their impact and provide, like Tom Brady, tremendous value above replacement? Abhishek has been in the tech industry for many years. He has tons of insight, and he’s genuinely a very fun guy to talk to. Plugs JammText.com: text-to-screen software to use at your next party.  Resources LifeLabsLearning: classes on influential communication The Pragmatic Programmer, by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt JavaScript Jabber Podcast, on Top End Devs Refactoring, by Martin Fowler Functional Programming Simplified, by Alvin Alexander The Staff Engineer’s Path by Tanya Reilly Elasticsearch Documentation Get in touch! Facebook: /themainthread Twitter: @themainthread

    36 min

  11. 06/22/2023

    Episode 1: Welcome!

    On this first episode, Brian Ogilvie and Alex Gaiser discuss where we are in our careers as senior software engineers, what we're looking to learn as we look to grow into Staff+ engineers, and more about the format of the show.  Links: The Pragmatic Programmer, by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt Mode Cloud SQL editor Refactoring, by Martin Fowler Staff Engineer, by Will Larson Get in touch! Facebook: /themainthread Twitter: @themainthread

    29 min
  • 11 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
8 Ratings

About

Discussions around how to grow your software engineering career from mid-senior to Staff level. Brian Ogilvie and Alex Gaiser interview top engineers and senior leaders from Big Tech and Mid-size companies to get to the bottom of what makes an effective Staff-level engineer.

Information

  • Creator
    Brian Ogilvie & Alex Gaiser
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    11
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2023 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    The Main Thread

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