Episodes

Michael Zanatta - Michael is the author of the Leanpub book Modern IT Automation with PowerShell: Modern Automation with PowerShell. In this interview, Michael talks about his background and career, the nature and importance of the work systems administrators do, his book, and at the end, they talk a little bit about his experience putting self-published books together in highly collaborative self-publishing projects.

Simon Brown is the author of the Leanpub book Software Architecture for Developers: Technical leadership and the balance with agility. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Simon about his background and career, software architecture and the C4 model for visualising software architecture, and how he turned his book into a bestseller.

Daniel Vacanti - Daniel is the author of the Leanpub book Flow Metrics for Scrum Teams: Because story points were never a part of Scrum anyway. In this interview, Daniel talks about his background, Kanban, flow and productivity, doing less to do more, and at the end, they talk a little bit about his experience as a self-published author, and in particular, about how anger can inspire writing.

Frank Delporte - Frank is the author of the Leanpub book Getting started with Java on the Raspberry Pi. In this interview, Frank talks about his professional background, his first experiences with electronics and computers, how access to documentation and technology has changed over the decades, how video editing technology has changed, his book, and at the end, about his experience as a self-published author.

Sarah Lean - Sarah is the author of the Leanpub book Developer Relations for Beginners: What to Know and How to Get Started. In this interview, Sarah talks about her background and career, learning how to interact with customers, doing big job interviews, her book and the nature developer relations, and at the end, they talk a little bit about her experience as a content creator, and building a successful YouTube channel.

Special Guest: Ben Fox - Ben is the founder of Shepherd, a unique book discovery site popular with readers and authors alike. In this interview, Ben talks about his background and career as a serial entrepreneur, his early love of books, traveling and being an early digital nomad, found Shepherd and helping authors and readers discover each other, some of the dark sides of recommendation systems and how to humanize them, and at the end, they talk about the book publishing industry generally.

Jonathan Kohl - Jonathan is the author of the Leanpub book Tap Into Mobile Application Design. In this interview, Jonathan talks about his background, how he got into Computer Science, how publishing his first book changed his career, ethics in app development, his latest book, and his experience writing and self-publishing.

Peter Cook - Peter is the author of the Leanpub book D3 Start to Finish: Learn how to make a custom data visualisation using D3.js. In this interview, Peter talks about his background and career, the appeal of work in data visualization and D3, his book, and at the end, they talk a little bit about his experience as a self-published author.

Philip Riecks - Philip is co-author of the Leanpub book Stratospheric: From Zero to Production with Spring Boot and AWS and co-author of the [Stratospheric course](https://leanpub. In this interview, Philip talks about his education and professional background, going freelance, using the Pomodoro technique in his daily creative work, his book and in-progress course, and what it’s like to create content and self-publish with people you’ve never met in person.

Josh Justice - Josh is the author of the Leanpub book Outside-In React Development: A TDD Primer. In this interview, Josh talks about his background and career, the importance of inclusivity in programming, what it’s like developing software and services for a megachurch organization, how to talk in teams about difficulty tech decisions, deciding to quit Twitter, and his book.

Phillip Compeau - Phillip is the author of the Leanpub book Biological Modeling: A Short Tour. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Phillip about his background, how he got interested in math and biology, Computer Science and Computational Biology, his book, and at the end, they talk a little bit about his experience as a self-published author.

Daniel Knott - Daniel is the author of the Leanpub book Hands-On Mobile App Testing: A Guide For Software Testers And Anyone Involved In The Mobile App Business. In this interview, Daniel talks about his background, how he got into software testing, and the challenges unique to testing apps on a variety of mobile devices with numerous sensors and uses.

Simone Cuomo - Simone is the author of the Leanpub book Beyond coding: A guide for aspiring Developers and junior developers to learn anything there is to know to successfully start their career in tech. In this interview, Simone talks about how he got started in career in tech, imposter syndrome, setting specific career goals, the importance of being honest with others and yourself about what you do and do not know, his book, and his approach to writing

Matthias Noback - Matthias is the author of the Leanpub book Recipes for Decoupling. In this interview, Matthias talks about what he’s been up to since he last appeared on the podcast over eight years ago, changes related to widespread use of the PHP programming language in that time, how the pandemic affected his consulting work and meetups, legacy code, his books, and at the end, they talk a little bit about his experience as a writer.

Claire is the author of the Leanpub book Getting Started with Data Journalism - Second Edition. In this interview, Claire talks about her background and career, data journalism broadly and the details of how it has evolved over time, the importance of mobile, her book, and at the end, they talk a little bit about her experience writing a book.

Eric is the author of the Leanpub book Kafka Up and Running for Network DevOps: Set Your Network Data in Motion. In this interview, Eric talks about his background and career, setting up networks in the early 2000s, being a part of the early days of the rise of Amazon AWS, his books, and the challenges and rewards of writing and publishing as a content creator.

Daniel Godoy - Daniel is the author of the Leanpub book Deep Learning with PyTorch Step-by-Step: A Beginner's Guide. In this interview, Daniel talks about his background and his varied career, economics, machine learning and self-driving cars, his book, and at the end, they talk a little bit about his experience as a self-published author.

Ed Barnard - Ed is the author of the Leanpub book From Capone to Cray: Where Computers Really Came From. In this interview, Ed talks about his background and career, learning important lessons for software development by climbing a mountain, Elizebeth Friedman and prohibition-era codebreaking, the origins of the NSA, his book, and at the end, they talk a little bit about his experience as a self-published author.

Giles Turnbull - Giles is the author of the Leanpub book The agile comms handbook: How to clearly, creatively work in the open. In this interview, Giles talks about his background and career, being the first internet correspondent for the Press Association around the time of the dotcom boom, playing a role in the development of the important GOV.UK project, and the importance of open communication in organizations.

Nicola Lindgren - Nicola is the author of the Leanpub book Starting Your Software Testing Career. In this interview, Nicola talks about her background and how she got into a career in software testing, moving to Sweden, how software testing is analogous to a job interview, the importance of meetups and mentors, different types of software testing, her book, and at the end, about her experience writing and self-publishing a book.

Matt Provost - Matt is the author of the Leanpub book Rust From the Ground Up: Real World CLI Programming in Rust. In this interview, Matt talks about his background, how he started his career in tech, moving to new countries, working for Weta Digital on the tech side for the production of Avatar and other movies, his book, and at the end, they talk a little bit about his experience as a self-published author.

Jared Knowles - Jared is co-author of the book Education Data Done Right: Lessons from the Trenches of Applied Data Science. In this interview, Jared talks about his background and career, his early interest in education policy, founding Civilytics, writing a Ph.D. and working full time in the public sector simultaneously, early warning systems for student outcomes and recent changes in education technology and practices, standardized testing, and books.

Pablo Bermejo - Pablo is the author of the Leanpub book Building Software Platforms: A guide to SaaS transition with AWS. In this interview, Pablo talks about his background and career, how he first became interested in programming, about hiring and remote work, "build patterns" and "buy patterns", his book, and at the end, they talk a little bit about his experience as a self-published author.

Special Guest: Emily Crookston - Emily is a ghostwriter and book content specialist who works under the brand The Pocket PhD. In this interview, Emily talks about her background, getting a Ph.D in philosophy and the tough choice to leave academia, starting her own business, how to price your services, adapting to the pandemic, ghostwriting, creating content on LinkedIn, and about the importance of experimenting with your writing practices and habits.

Dmitry Vostokov - Dmitry is the author of Encyclopedia of Crash Dump Analysis Patterns: Detecting Abnormal Software Structure and Behavior in Computer Memory. In this interview, Dmitry talks about his first experiences with programming in the Soviet Union, studying and working during the country's transition to democracy, moving to Ireland, his book, and at the end, they talk about his experience as an author.

Janet Gregory - Janet is the co-author of the Leanpub book Agile Testing Condensed. In this interview, Janet talks about her background, travelling and living in other countries, starting a second career in programming, software testing and consulting, her book, and at the end, they talk a little bit about her experience as both a traditionally-published and a self-published author.

Special Guest: Carol J. Michel - Carol is a speaker and podcaster and author of award-winning self-published gardening books. In this interview, Carol talks about her background and career, how she got into gardening, blogging and self-publishing, and her recent popular post on How to Market Your Book Without Social Media.

Lisa Crispin - Lisa is co-author of the Leanpub book Agile Testing Condensed. In this interview, Lisa talks about her background, donkeys, the importance of psychological safety for developing high-quality software, her books, conventional publishing and self-publishing, arranging translations of a self-published book into multiple languages, and at the end, they talk a little bit about her experience as a self-published author.

Lena is the author of the Leanpub book Would Heu-Risk it? Tools, traps and weapons for Software Testing. In this interview, Lena talks about her background, her career, switching to a focus on software testing and the particular nature of the challenge testing presents, shifting a team to fully remote work during the pandemic, her book, and at the end, they talk a little bit about her experience as a self-published author.

Ajdin Imsirovic - Ajdin is the author of the Leanpub book A Better Way To Learn JavaScript: Save Yourself From 1000 Hours of Trial and Error Experiences! In this interview, Ajdin talks about his background, learning English in part from listening to music, his approach to writing, and the pros and cons of conventional publishing and self-publishing.