In this episode of BragTalks, host Heather VanCura interviews Ed Burns about how to incorporate standards leadership into your technical career journey. Ed shares his experiences and the impact that his participation in standards has had on his career. Listen to hear about how he approached getting involved and how he developed his leadership in this area. Season 7 is about sharing the experiences of technical professionals and building on the interviews from the recently published book 'Developer Career Masterplan'. This episode is a story that links to Chapter 14 of the book.
Biography: Ed Burns is currently Principal Architect on the Java Tooling and Experiences team at Microsoft. In this role, Ed will help make Azure the best place for Enterprise Java. Ed has worked on a wide variety of client and server side web technologies since 1994, including NCSA Mosaic, Netscape 6, Mozilla, the Sun Java Plugin, Jakarta Tomcat and JavaServer Faces, and the Servlet specification. Ed has lead or co-lead the expert groups for Servlet and JavaServer Faces. Ed has published four books with McGraw-Hill: JavaServerFaces: The Complete Reference (2006), Secrets of the Rockstar Programmers: Riding the IT crest (2008) JavaServer Faces 2.0: The Complete Reference (2010) and Hudson Continuous Integration In Practice (2013). To learn more about his books or projects, you can visit his website at <https://ridingthecrest.com/>.
In this episode of BragTalks, host Heather VanCura interviews Patrick Chanezon about participating in standards and open source projects &/or communities. Patrick shares his experiences and the impact this participation in the projects and communities has had on his career. Listen to hear about how he approached getting involved and even some of the mistakes made along the way. Season 7 is about sharing the experiences of technical professionals and building on the interviews from the recently published book 'Developer Career Masterplan'. This episode is a story that links to Chapters 11 and 14 of the book..hope you enjoy our new look and Season 7 of BragTalks!
Biography: Patrick Chanezon manages the Cloud Developer Advocacy team in Developer Relations at Microsoft, helping developers achieve more with AI on Microsoft Cloud. Previously, at Docker Inc., he helped to build Docker, the world’s leading software container platform, for developers and sysadmins. He helped establish open source and standards organizations such as Open Container Initiative, Cloud Native Computing Foundation or Green Software Foundation. Software developer and storyteller, he spent 8 years building platforms at Netscape & Sun, then 19 years evangelizing platforms at Google, VMware & Microsoft. His main professional interest is in building and kickstarting the network effect for these wondrous two-sided markets called Platforms. He has worked on platforms for AI, Cloud, Distributed Systems, Web, Social, Commerce, Ads, and Portals.
In this episode of BragTalks, host Heather VanCura interviews Emily Jiang about mentorship and communities. Emily shares her experiences with mentorship and engaging in communities. Listen to hear about how she approached mentorship and the impact it made in her career. Season 7 is about sharing the experiences of technical professionals and building on the interviews from the recently published book 'Developer Career Masterplan'. This episode is a story that links to Chapter 7 of the book..hope you enjoy our new look and Season 7 of BragTalks!
Bio: Emily Jiang is a Java Champion. She is Liberty Cloud Native Architect and Chief Advocate, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM) in IBM, based at Hursley Lab in the UK. Emily is a MicroProfile and Jakarta EE guru and also a book author ofibm.biz/MicroProfileBook. At IBM, she leads the effort of implementing MicroProfile and Jakarta EE specifications on Open Liberty.She is passionate about MicroProfile and Jakarta EE. She regularly speaks at conferences, such as QCon, Code One, DevNexus, JAX London, Voxxed, Devoxx, EclipseCon, GeeCon, JFokus, etc.Connect with Emily on Twitter and LinkedIn.
In this episode of BragTalks, host Heather VanCura interviews Mary Grygleski about participating in user group communities. Mary shares her vast experiences engaging in communities and some tips for getting involved in user group communities. Listen to hear about how she approached participation and the impact it made in her career. Season 7 is about sharing the experiences of technical professionals and building on the interviews from the recently published book 'Developer Career Masterplan'. This episode is a story that links to Chapter 8 of the book..hope you enjoy our new look and Season 7 of BragTalks!
Biography: Mary is a Java Champion, and an experienced, passionate Developer Advocate. She has serviced companies as an advocate, such as IBM and DataStax in topic areas that include, most recently, GenAI, Streaming systems, Open source, Java, Cloud, and Distributed Messaging systems.. She started as an engineer in Unix/C, then transitioned to Java around 2000 and has never looked back since then. She is an active tech community builder outside of her day job, and currently the President of the Chicago Java Users Group (CJUG), as well as the Chicago Chapter Co-Lead for AICamp.
In this episode of BragTalks, host Heather VanCura interviews Eileen He about continuous learning and developing new skills quickly. Eileen shares her experience learning about machine learning and artificial intelligence. Listen to hear about how she approached learning and applied it in her career. Season 7 is about sharing the experiences of technical professionals and building on the interviews from the recently published book 'Developer Career Masterplan', starting with a story that links to Chapter 1 of the book..hope you enjoy our new look and Season 7 of BragTalks!
Links mentioned in this episode:
StatQuest - a Statistics related YouTube Channel. I used that to complement my learning when I was taking statistics courses. They covered some popular machine learning algorithms, in an approachable, understandable way. Recently they started to cover popular topics like GenerativeAI / transformer models.
https://www.youtube.com/@statquest
3-blue-1-brown - also really good at explaining, visualizing concepts: https://www.youtube.com/@3blue1brown
Stanford Online machine learning courses - there are many of them. Here are a few courses. You can search and find more on YouTube.
Andrew Ng Machine Learning: https://youtu.be/jGwO_UgTS7I?si=Xfnj1Gy-BZ31L8k1
Other courses / professors:
Meta learning: https://youtu.be/bkVCAk9Nsss?si=yYpzRFky7YgL3D77
Reinforcement Learning: https://youtu.be/FgzM3zpZ55o?si=n0ypiPA1byypJo1Z
Machine Learning with Graphs: https://youtu.be/JAB_plj2rbA?si=pua8Aptk1Zh-jYC5
I also recommend Andrew Ng's "Machine Learning Specialization" courses on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/vStJoetOxJg?si=4_mJkN2xoBJjdKIr
Biography: Eileen He is a Software Development Vice President at Oracle. She has a track record of successfully leading diverse projects spanning on-premise software, cloud infrastructure and services, and cutting-edge machine learning systems. Eileen is a passionate advocate for women in tech. She actively volunteers and contributes her time to empowering initiatives like Oracle Women's Leadership, anitab.org/Grace Hopper Conference, and Technovation.org. She holds a master's degree in computer science from Indiana University, Blooming and an MBA from the Wharton School.
Season 6 (episodes 36-40) is hosted by Heather VanCura. These episodes are all about achieving and sharing personal accomplishments. Hear from a range of professionals about how they accomplished their goals of becoming a leader, writing a book, completing marathons around the world or completing challenging mountain summits in Africa. Learn how this benefits your career when you complete these exciting challenges.
In this episode of BragTalks, host Heather VanCura interviews Debasmita Dey about her summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, located in Tanzania. If you don't know it, it is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest single free-standing mountain above sea level in the world: 5,895 m (19,341 ft) above sea level and about 4,900 m (16,100 ft) above its plateau base! Deb graciously agreed to do some 'heavy duty bragging' with Heather to share her experience and how her lessons from it can be applied in our careers. Listen to hear about her amazing journey and her leadership insights. Season 6 is all about sharing stories of personal accomplishments and Deb has an inspiring story to share!
Biography: Debasmita is a technology sales and strategy professional who has managed global projects of cross-functional teams and served customers across Europe, Middle East and India. She leads with empathy and believes in giving back to society and the planet through her volunteering work. Debasmita is also an ardent solo backpacker, a long-distance runner, a high-altitude trekker, and a travel blogger. Connect with her instagram account at 'deydebs' or on her blog .
The name of the travel marketplace through which Deb booked the trek: Much Better Adventures Active Adventure Holidays | Much Better Adventures. The name of the Tanzanian trekking company which operated the trek: Trek2Kili, Tanzania Kilimanjaro Treks & Safari Specialist).
In this episode of BragTalks, host Heather VanCura interviews Arun Gupta about his career journey to Vice President. Heather and Arun have been friends and colleagues for many years, and share many experiences together and separately in their technical careers. Listen to hear about their technical leadership insights. Season 6 is all about sharing stories of personal accomplishments and Arun has an inspiring story to share about his path and experiences.
Bio: Arun Gupta is vice president and general manager of Open Ecosystem Initiatives at Intel Corporation. He is an open source strategist, advocate, and practitioner for over two decades. He has taken companies such as Apple, Amazon, and Sun Microsystems through systemic changes to embrace open source principles, contribute and collaborate effectively.
As an elected chair of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) Governing Board, Arun works with CNCF leadership and member companies to grow cloud native ecosystem. He also participates in the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) and Linux Foundation Governing Boards. He has delivered technical talks in 45+ countries, authored multiple books, and is a Docker Captain, Java Champion, and Java User Group leader. He also founded the Devoxx4Kids chapter in the U.S. and continues to promote technology education among children
In this episode of BragTalks, host Heather VanCura interviews Jennifer Marie Pelfini about her career story and recent book. Heather and Jenn have been friends and colleagues for many years, so this is a fun episode! Season 6 is all about sharing stories of personal accomplishments and Jennifer has an inspiring story to share. She talks about her journey and tips on making bold moves, career transitions and overcoming limiting beliefs, starting her own company and becoming a best selling author. You can order the book, The Impact of One Voice, Volume II as an ebook now on Amazon .
Biography: Jennifer Marie Pelfini was born and raised in northeast Ohio and is the oldest of five children. She has a bachelor of science degree from Eastern Michigan University and a master’s degree in business administration from Arizona State University, WP Carey School of Business. After relocating to California during the height of the dot.com era, she spent the majority of her corporate career in marketing, supporting high-tech companies. When she became pregnant at the age of forty-seven, she took the path of motherhood and became a full-time stay at home mom for three years. After this reset, she transformed how she viewed her life and career. Now she engages with marketing projects and businesses that fuel her passion to make an impact. She hopes to inspire young girls and women in business to be who they desire to be, not who they are told they should be. As a marketing professional, her work focuses on messaging, branding, communications, and strategy. She lives in Reno, Nevada, with her husband, Michael, and daughter, Audriana. Jennifer is active in the local business community and her church diocese. She and her family enjoy all the blessings the Sierra region has to offer. She loves to cook and create, whether she is experimenting with a new dish to share or crafting a story. She enjoys travel and has been to many countries and cities in her corporate and personal life, but now she enjoys travel most when vacationing with her family. You can find Jenn on LinkedIn or her website, Jenn Marie Living
In this episode of BragTalks, host Heather VanCura and her guest and co-author, Bruno Souza, share about their achievement of publishing a book. Bruno shares about the process of writing a book and Heather discusses with him how the book creates a new category in the careers genre combining knowledge and career insights from industry experts in the technical careers space. Season 6 is all about sharing stories of personal accomplishments and Bruno and Heather have an inspiring story to share about becoming published authors. Listen to learn how you can start achieving your dream of writing a book and how we did it. We are excited to share about our book, “Developer Career Masterplan” ! Bruno Souza and I wanted to write a book that shared the stories and knowledge we have gained over the last two decades helping developers grow their careers. You can order as an ebook or in paperback format on Amazon .
Biography:
For more than 20+ years, Bruno Souza helps developers to share their knowledge using presentations and blogs, so they can help their communities, inspire their audiences and grow in their careers. Bruno is a developer and entrepreneur. An international speaker, Bruno has presented worldwide to audiences of all sizes. He is a JavaOne Rockstar Speaker, a The Developer's Conference Rockstar Speaker, a Java Champion and an Oracle Developer Champion. Bruno runs the https://code4.life initiative, where you can get more information about how to improve your career as a software developer.
Heather VanCura is a Vice President at Oracle, leading the Java Community Process (JCP) program and MySQL Community Outreach team. With 20+ years of experience at Oracle and Sun Microsystems, she actively engages with the developer community as an international speaker, event organizer, and mentor. She has visited six continents and over fifty countries meeting developers and helping them to engage in standards-related and open source projects. Heather is passionate about promoting diversity in technology and volunteers with organizations like Women Who Code and IEEE Women in Engineering. Her extensive involvement includes serving on the boards of Dress for Success and FIRST LEGO League NorCal. Heather's dedication to empowering developers and advocating for diversity makes her a respected leader in the industry.
Season 5 (episodes 30-35) is hosted by Heather VanCura. These episodes are all about varying pathways to promotion. Hear from a diverse range of professionals from career coach, executives, developer advocate, voice over actor, and more as they share their unique journey to fulfilling careers.
In this episode of BragTalks, Melissa Kullander shares her achievement of running a marathon on the North Pole (90 degree North) with host Heather VanCura. Melissa talks about how she started a passionate journey to run a marathon on all seven continents, plus the North Pole! Season 6 is all about sharing stories of personal accomplishments and Melissa has an inspiring story to share. Listen to learn how you can start achieving your dreams at any age and apply Melissa's tip for completing a marathon to anything in your life or career. You can't help but be impressed, amazed and inspired by this episode. Also check out her TV interview and her official results from the North Pole,
Biography
Melissa’s passion for running and a love of travel and adventure has been the fuel for her desire to stretch the boundaries of her personal and professional abilities. She simply states she loves to “Work Hard & Play Hard” to live to the fullest. Although she didn’t start running until her late 30’s, this native Arizona girl quickly went from local 5K fun runs to completing 49 marathons all over the world. She completed a Marathon on all 7 continents including, Comrades, the 56-mile Ultra Marathon in South Africa and, of course, Antarctica. She trained for 2 weeks at a running camp in Iten, Kenya, which is the home of many marathon world record holders. Melissa is recognized as an Iridium member of the Marathon Maniacs for completing 4 marathons in 23 days. She was also an Open Team rower with the Bair Island Aquatic Center in the San Francisco Bay area. Now at age 53, after 4 years of delays, Melissa has set her sights on completing her 50th marathon at the North Pole. She will have also achieved the “Grand Slam” (7 continents; & the North Pole).
On the professional side, she is the VP of Finance at Workday overseeing the financial planning & analysis team that is responsible for the decision support for the company’s Product; Technology organization. She has B.S. degree in Finance from Arizona State University and an MBA from “Thunderbird”, the #1 International School of Business in the U.S. Over her career in finance, she has enjoyed working and engaging with people all over the world including managing global teams from places like India, Poland, Malaysia, and the UK. In fact, she has been completely around the world 3 times on 3 separate trips. She credits her ability to work and travel effectively to running and exercising on the road. Any extra time she gets on these trips, you would undoubtedly see her out for a run. When there is a conflict with her “work hard/play hard” motto, Melissa's high energy level and dedication will muscle out a solution. A fond memory of one such situation had her running for 3 hours on the “Dreadmill” in order to keep on track with her training plan.
In this episode of BragTalks, Nichole Scott shares her career path from the technology space to voice over artist with host Heather VanCura. Nicole is a talented voice over professional who worked with Heather for many years at Sun Microsystems and Oracle - listen to the story Nichole shares about how she took a leap and created her journey from working in a traditional role, to the freedom and flexibility of being a successful voice over artist. Season 5 is all about sharing stories of pathways to promotion and Nichole has an inspiring story to share. Listen to learn how to chart your unique path to success and career satisfaction.
Biography
Nichole Scott is an American female voice over artist specializing is eLearning, corporate explainer videos, TV, radio, and online commercials as well as character work for video games and animation. Prior to becoming a voice over artist, Nichole had a 20+ year career in marketing working for Oracle and Sun Microsystems, but had a lingering lifelong passion for voice acting and decided to chart a new path. Nichole utilizes the skills she’s honed throughout her life and approaches each voice over project with perspicacity and determination to bring every script to life.
What people have said about working with Nichole:
“Nichole's performance in recording a voiceover for our project was nothing short of exceptional. Her meticulous attention to detail and skillful execution brought an unparalleled level of professionalism to the final product. With her exceptional vocal range and ability to convey emotions effectively, Nichole added a captivating dimension to the project that resonated with our audience. We are truly grateful for her outstanding contribution, which significantly elevated the overall quality of our work.”
“Big Nichole Scott fan! Entering broken record territory - she delivers sweet reads, reacts quickly, and records cleanly. Really happy we're working together - having a reliable voice over artist is a major stress reliever. Thanks again!”
“Nichole nailed it the first time. Great personality in the read and delivered ahead of deadline! Will use her again. If you need a professional VO she's is one to consider! I know we will use her again!”
“Nichole is very professional and great to work with. Nichole worked with us on product promotion videos for a Saas service. I highly recommend Nichole's services. Thank you again Nichole.”
“I’ve been using Nichole for 4 years now. She’s timely, professional, and talented, and she’s never been short of stellar.”
“We need more people like Nichole! High quality, lightning-fast delivery, and nailed it first try with no revisions required. Thanks, Nichole!”
Linkedin: Nichole Scott - Voice Over Artist - Freelance, voice over artist
Instagram: @nivs333
In this episode of BragTalks, Carmen Delgado shares her career path to the technology space with host Heather VanCura. Carmen is a member of the Java developer community and she shares how her journey from working in a traditional financial role, to a fintech role, to technical developer community management. Season 5 is all about sharing stories of pathways to promotion and Carmen has an inspiring story to share. Listen to learn how to chart your unique path to success and career satisfaction.
Biography
Carmen Delgado joined Eclipse Foundation as Adoptium Community Manager in October 2022 and is responsible for helping the Eclipse Adoptium working group members achieve their goals and objectives and being the bridge between their procedures and Eclipse Foundation processes and Staff. Carmen has a project, operations, and financial management background in SMEs, non-profits, and start-ups from different industries: healthcare, Pharma, Fintech, and Tech. She also volunteers as a group manager and mentor at Step4ward, a mentoring program in Spain for women starting in the tech world.
In this episode of BragTalks, Stefani Boyd shares her journey to becoming CEO with host Heather VanCura. Stefani shares how she created her own journey from a criminal investigator to owning her real estate and mortgage company and being her boss. Season 5 is all about sharing stories of pathways to promotion and Stefani has an inspiring story to share. Listen to learn how to chart your unique path to success and career satisfaction.
Biography
Stefani is a Sacramento local serving those in California and those leaving California with their home mortgage needs. After a successful career in criminal investigations as one of the youngest criminal investigators in Sacramento County, Stefani went on to pursue her dreams of joining the family real estate business. She spent years learning the ins and outs of real estate and lending with her family brokerage. Now, Stefani has both her real estate and mortgage broker licenses and is the CEO of her own corporation. A single teen mom turned success story, Stefani is a proud Air Force mom, has three sons, two granddaughters and her adorable Pomeranian, Lola. Stefani is passionate about grassroots community outreach and enjoys working with her community to find solutions to help people experiencing homelessness in Sacramento. She also loves singing, yoga, painting and traveling.; you can learn more about Stefani on her website.
In this episode of BragTalks, Ix-chel Ruiz shares her pathway to promotion to becoming a developer advocate with host Heather VanCura. Heather has known Ix-chel for many years through mutual participation in the Java developer community. In this episode Ix-chel shares how she created her own journey to achieve her career goals, how attending conferences and ultimately speaking at conferences led to her current role as a developer advocate. Season 5 is all about sharing stories of pathways to promotion and Ix-chel has an inspiring story to share. Listen to learn how to chart your unique path to success and promotions.
Biography: Ix-chel Ruiz has developed software application & tools since 2000. Her research interests include Java, dynamic languages, client-side technologies and testing. Java Champion, CDF Ambassador, hackergarten enthusiast, Open Source advocate, public speaker and mentor.
In this episode of BragTalks, Shari Begun shares her pathway to promotion with host Heather VanCura. Heather met Shari through their Chief core group in 2022 and this is a particularly exciting and engaging session where we learn about Shari's recent promotion and how she achieves her career goals, how the peer coaching and networking support of other women boosted her techniques, and strategies utilized on her pathway to Vice President. Season 5 is all about sharing stories of pathways to promotion and Shari has an inspiring story to share. Listen to learn how to chart your unique path to success and promotions.
Biography: Shari Begun is a global sales executive with a unique ability to identify people’s strengths and build diverse, high-performance teams. In addition to her transparent and authentic leadership style, Shari brings a deep understanding of multi-level, complex sales cycle management processes, builds world-class sales organizations, and drives sustainable profitability growth by building visions and cultivating long-term, profitable client relationships. Shari has been recognized as a ROI-driven sales executive with global experience across multiple countries, leading sales strategies focused on large multinational Tier 1 customers and penetrating new and emerging markets. She increases sales YOY revenue by over 45% and leads teams of over 100, earning multiple honors based on sales contributions. In her current role, she leads a worldwide sales and field applications team focused on Mobile, Compute, Consumer, and IOT markets. Shari resides in Silicon Valley where she enjoys mentoring girls and young women on how to enter and thrive in STEM, sales, and other related fields. She is also one of the founders and a steering committee member for a women’s employee resource group at her organization.
In this first episode of season 5 of BragTalks, Melissa Carson shares about some of her pathways to promotion. This episode is hosted by Heather VanCura. Season 5 is all about sharing stories of pathways to promotion and Melissa is a shining example of how to chart your unique path to success and promotions using examples from some of her clients.
Biography: Having worked in HR for several high-performing organizations for 25+ years, including Accenture and EPAM, Melissa Carson founded her business in 2019, offering people strategy development and alignment, leadership development and coaching, and leadership advisory services. Her clients range from small non-profits to scaling technology companies, all with a common goal of ensuring they have aligned their business and people strategies to drive growth and maximize impact.
She graduated from the College of William and Mary (BA) and Marymount University (MA) and holds the following professional certifications - GPHR; SPHR; SHRM-SCP; AIIR Consulting - Team Effectiveness Survey & Coaching Mindset Index; ICF Certified Coach (ACC); Global Leadership Assessment (GLA360); Hogan Assessment. She has served as an adjunct instructor for Wilmington University's Human Resource Management program and as a board member for the Philadelphia Society of People and Strategy, where she still volunteers. She has also published two guides on leading yourself and your career, which you can find at Amazon. You can find Melissa on LinkedIn or via her website, Canopy Strategies.
Season 4 (episodes 21-29) is hosted by Heather VanCura. We cover all aspects of establishing your health and wellness routines in 2023, from preventing burnout, learning to work smarter, connecting your head with your heart, cycles of life, mindset shifts , building a fitness routine and meditation practice, sustainable product design and healthy diet choices, we cover all the bases to keep you on the road to success in your life and in your career. Hear from career minded men and women how they maintain their health and careers in Season 4. This summer we will kick off Season 5 with stories of pathways to promotion.
In this episode of BragTalks, Belinda Ellsworth shares about some of her systems and practical knowledge used in her career helped her to make healthy lifestyle changes. She shares how she incorporates healthy eating choices into her busy schedule. This episode is hosted by Heather VanCura. Season 4 is all about health and wellness as it relates to your career advancement, and this episode highlights best practices and practical tips Belinda used to successfully transform her health using some of the proven methods from her career, including advanced planning and meal preparation to eat healthier and incorporate movement and exercise into her daily work schedule.
Biography: Belinda Ellsworth has been called “a trailblazer in the industry of sales training and personal development.” She has built three successful businesses over the past 25 years while gaining the prestigious reputation as an international speaker and sales expert. Belinda helps thousands of professionals and entrepreneurs create and execute successful business strategies and systems, while still maintaining the work/life balance in their lives. Belinda's passion led her to start her popular podcast, Work From Your Happy Place, which was picked up by iHeartRadio in 2021. She loves interviewing other successful entrepreneurs and artists on her podcast so that others can learn from their stories. Her Tuesday Tips include solid business practices that will stay with your audience forever while positively impacting their bottom line.
Find our more about Belinda and Work From Your Happy Place.