On this Screaming in the Cloud Replay, Corey is joined by Emma Bostian, an Engineering Manager at Spotify in Stockholm. Emma is also an author, co-host of the Ladybug Podcast, and has a strong following on social media. She goes into the details on her podcast and the varied nature of her and her co-hosts, she also discusses her book Decoding the Technical Interview Process, in which she breaks down the seemingly esoteric nature of interviewing for these highly technical jobs—but her focus is on the frontend. She and Corey discuss the general banality of these interviews and the direction they can, and should, go in to improve. Emma also loves to teach, to add even more to her portfolio! She goes into the five w’s of her work with LinkedIn Learning and Frontend Masters. Emma also has some excellent insights into her sizable Twitter presence. Tune in for Emma’s variegated offerings!

Show Highlights

(0:00) Intro

(0:58) The Duckbill Group sponsor read

(1:31) Hosting the Ladybug Podcast and teaching online courses

(3:13) Why Emma wrote Decoding the Technical Interview Process

(7:01) Corey’s qualms with how people interview in tech

(12:03) Why Corey appreciates Emma's guidance on how to interview

(14:50) Bizarre hiring practices that some interviewers use

(18:20) Passion, work/life balance, and seeking out new employees

(19:41) Turning side projects into revenue streams

(22:23) Seeking out sponsors instead of monetizing your audience

(26:06) The Duckbill Group sponsor read

(26:49) Balancing customer service with piracy

(29:35) Letting your online following become your resume

(36:01) Where you can find more from Emma

About Emma Bostian

Emma Bostian is an Engineering Manager at Spotify in Stockholm. She is also a co-host of the Ladybug Podcast, author of Decoding The Technical Interview Process, and an instructor at LinkedIn Learning and Frontend Masters.

Links

• Ladybug Podcast: https://www.ladybug.dev
• LinkedIn Learning: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/instructors/emma-bostian
• Frontend Masters: https://frontendmasters.com/teachers/emma-bostian/
• Decoding the Technical Interview Process: https://technicalinterviews.dev
• Emma's Twitter: https://twitter.com/emmabostian

Original Episode

https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud/changing-the-way-we-interview-with-emma-bostian/

Sponsor

The Duckbill Group: duckbillgroup.com

Corey Quinn welcomes Adam Zimman back to Screaming in the Cloud for a sponsored episode featuring Heroku by Salesforce. As Head of Product Marketing, Adam discusses after years of stagnation following its Salesforce acquisition. Recent investments and a dedicated team signal a renewed focus on developer experience. The duo explores Heroku's impact on modern app development, its role in popularizing the 12-Factor App model, and the decision to retire its free tier. Adam highlights key updates, including Kubernetes replatforming, .NET support, and AI tools for managed inference and agents. He also teases his upcoming book, Progressive Delivery, set for release next year.

Show Highlights

(0:00) Intro

(1:01) Heroku sponsor read

(1:39) How Heroku became resurgent

(5:46) Heroku’s legacy

(9:53) Adam’s thoughts on people’s response to the free tier going away

(10:55) Heroku’s target customer(s)

(13:51) Heroku sponsor read

(14:19) How Heroku saves organizations money and developed over time

(20:08) Heroku’s re:Invent announcements

(24:53) How modern-day developers have reacted to Heroku’s resurgence

(27:47) Where people can learn more about Heroku

About Adam Zimman

Adam Zimman is Technologist and Author currently serving as the Head of Product Marketing at Heroku by SalesForce. Previously, he was a Venture Capital Advisor providing guidance on leadership, platform architecture, product marketing, and GTM strategy. He has over 20 years of experience working in a variety of roles from software engineering to technical sales. He has worked in both enterprise and consumer companies such as VMware, EMC, GitHub, and LaunchDarkly.

Adam is driven by a passion for inclusive leadership and solving problems with technology. He is a co-author of Progressive Delivery: Build the right thing, for the right people, at the right time. His perspective has been shaped by a degree (AB) from Bowdoin College with a dual-focus in Physics and Visual Art, an ongoing adventure as a husband and father, and a childhood career as a fire juggler.

Links

• Heroku’s website: https://www.heroku.com/
• Adam’s Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/azimman.bsky.social
• Adam’s Mastodon: https://hachyderm.io/@az
• Adam’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamzimman/
• Personal site: https://progressivedelivery.com/

Sponsor
Heroku: http://heroku.com/

On this Screaming in the Cloud Replay, Corey is joined by accomplished tech journalist Daisuke Wakabayashi to explore the world of tech reporting. The pair discuss Dai’s 2019 article on AWS while touching on a number of topics, including how AWS evolved from a platform everyone built on top of to one that runs everything built on top of it. Both explore why it’s incredibly difficult to capture all the nuances of the world of open source in a single article, the collaborative nature of writing the news, and how a journalist can tell when they’ve written a story that doesn’t have mistakes. Dai and Corey also unpack why Amazon as a trillion-dollar company should expect more scrutiny, what it was like to try to get people to go on the record talking about AWS, and more.

Show Highlights

(0:00) Intro

(0:29) The Duckbill Group Sponsor read

(1:02) A brief look at Dai’s background as a journalist

(2:00) Dai’s article covering AWS’s business practices

(3:47) Unpacking the discussion around Dai’s article

(6:09) The careful thought and nuance that goes into writing an investigative news article

(8:59) How AWS insiders are responding to Dai’s article

(11:50) The importance of disclosures in journalism

(14:32) AWS’s blog post responding to Dai

(18:41) The Duckbill Group Sponsor read

(19:24) How criticism affects relationships with AWS

(23:36) Corey’s reaction to getting mentioned in Dai’s article and the NYT style guide

(27:18) Why it’s still important for journalists to speak truth to power

(32:22) Where you can find more from Dai

About Dai Wakabayashi
Daisuke Wakabayashi was born in Singapore, lived in Tokyo, and spent the bulk of his childhood in New Jersey. He graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. Daisuke’s journalism career started at Reuters in Tokyo. He also worked for Reuters in Boston and Seattle, covering everything from industrial conglomerates to natural disasters. He returned to Japan with The Wall Street Journal covering technology and then returned to the United States to cover Apple. Wakabayashi joined The New York Times in 2016 and covered Google from the paper’s San Francisco bureau. In 2022, he moved with my family to Seoul to take his current job as an Asia business correspondent for The Times.

Links

• Dai’s 2019 article “Prime Leverage: How Amazon Wields Power in the Technology World”: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/15/technology/amazon-aws-cloud-competition.html
• Twitter: @daiwaka
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dwakabayashi/
• Personal site: https://www.nytimes.com/by/daisuke-wakabayashi
• Company site: nytimes.com

Original Episode

https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud/speaking-truth-to-power-in-tech-with-dai-wakabayashi/

Sponsor

The Duckbill Group: duckbillgroup.com