BragTalks

Hosted by Heather VanCura

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Aug 2024

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About the show

The BragTalks podcast is a place to share stories, build confidence and shape your career destiny. This podcast series features speakers from all career stages. Each episode is an opportunity to learn from leaders about their experience in the form of bragging, with a focus on women. The podcast is hosted by Heather VanCura. Subscribe: https://bragtalks.com/subscribe/ Complete the contact form to be featured: https://bragtalks.com/contact/ Website: https://bragtalks.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BragTalks LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bragtalks

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52 recent

August 14, 2024Episode 4522 min

Episode 45: Incorporating Standards Leadership into your Career: Ed Burns

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/>.

July 28, 202440 min

Episode 44: Participate in Standards & Open Source Projects: Patrick Chanezon

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.

July 1, 2024Episode 4317 min

Episode 43: Mentorship and Community: Emily Jiang

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.

March 5, 2024Episode 4223 min

Episode 42: Engaging in User Group Communities: Mary Grygleski

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.

February 23, 2024Episode 4121 min

Episode 41: Artificial Intelligence & Continuous Learning: Eileen He

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-BZ31L8k1Other courses / professors:Meta learning: https://youtu.be/bkVCAk9Nsss?si=yYpzRFky7YgL3D77 Reinforcement Learning: https://youtu.be/FgzM3zpZ55o?si=n0ypiPA1byypJo1ZMachine 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.

February 2, 20240 min

Trailer Season 6: Personal Accomplishments

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.

November 6, 202326 min

Episode 40: Summit Mount Kilimanjaro: Debasmita Dey

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).

October 13, 202336 min

Episode 39: Becoming a Technical Leader: Arun Gupta

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

September 25, 2023Episode 3827 min

Episode 38: Becoming an Author: Jennifer Marie Pelfini

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

September 18, 2023Episode 3728 min

Episode 37: Developer Career Masterplan Book Launch: Heather VanCura & Bruno Souza

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.