Software Developers Journey Podcast

How does one become a software developer? Each week, a successful developer tells us their life's story. They describe their path into tech' and share what they learned along the way.

What listeners say about the show

Thank you for a great year of interviews and content! The Dev Journey episode format really resonates with me. I am inspired by the stories of your guests. Each episode leaves me with a sense of possibility and optimism about my future as a programmer. I also appreciate some of the recurring themes: diversity, inclusion, mentoring, work-life balance. Elliot Barlas

Tim brings the best stories out of his guests. I am always surprised how I learned something new, while the guest is talking about a topic I thought does not concern me. This podcast is full of interesting people to learn from! Hristiyan Pehlivanov

You really feel like you’re around a campfire listening Tim and his guests talk about... the people who became developers and their stories. If you love story time, it’s for you! Patrick Leblanc

Episodes List

Season 5️⃣

#230 Melanie Sumner from psychology & Navy to webdev and accessibility - Nov 29, 2022
#229 Bill Boulden from ideas to product as a fractional CTO - Nov 22, 2022
#228 Jennifer Wong was not impressed by the civil engineering pace - Nov 15, 2022
#227 Katerina Trajchevska founded her remote workplace - Nov 08, 2022
#226 Jonah Anderssons successful jump from the Philippines to Sweden - Nov 01, 2022
#225 Max Howell from chemistry to homebrew and tea - Oct 25, 2022
#224 Grant Glidewell from substance abuse counselor to web dev - Oct 18, 2022
#223 Adi Polak continuous learner in the big-data space - Oct 11, 2022
#222 Marcy Sutton photo journalist turned web dev and accessibility expert - Oct 4, 2022
#221 Sergey Gorbunov wanted to tackle hard problems - Sep 27, 2022
#220 Tanya Janca from dev to PenTester to purple security expert - Sep 20, 2022
#219 Stephanie Eckles forces herself to push projects out the door - Sep 13, 2022
#218 Christina Hastenrath came to development via forensics and biotech - Sep 06, 2022
#217 Paul McBride from RAF soldier to self-taught web developer - Aug 30, 2022
#216 Shruti Kapoor wanted a home on the internet - Aug 23, 2022
#215 Michael -Geepaw- Hill is a joyful street-geek - Aug 16, 2022
#214 Michael Chan has an unfair advantage - he is a mule! - Aug 09, 2022
#213 Wynn Netherland is a man of APIs and wrappers - Aug 02, 2022
#212 Erin Fox is an introvert who loves speaking at conferences - Jul 26, 2022
#211 Christos Matskas dreamt of becoming a hacker - Jul 19, 2022
#210 Glaucia Lemos reached her dream of working in tech - Jul 12, 2022
#209 Ingrid Epure is a self defined generalist - Jul 05, 2022
#208 Arpit Mohan is running on builder's high - Jun 28, 2022
#207 Maia Grotepass embraced a world of puzzles - Jun 21, 2022
#206 Carl Alexander has a lifelong hate for coding interviews - Jun 14, 2022
#205 Eve Porcello revolves around teaching - Jun 07, 2022
#204 Scott Ford is a software mender - May 31, 2022
#203 Jess Archer found her people in the Laravel community - May 24, 2022
#202 Swizec Teller wanted to work on silicon valley blockbusters - May 17, 2022
#201 Wajahat Karim finally came to love Android - May 10, 2022
#200 It's a Milestone - May 03, 2022
#199 Carl Franklin is looking beyond what he can do - Apr 26, 2022
#198 Laura González slowly YOLOed her way to success - Apr 19, 2022
#197 Holden Karau wanted to change something in the world - Apr 12, 2022
#196 Aran Khanna wanted a shorter feedback loop - Apr 05, 2022
#195 Dagna Bieda wanted to create the future - Mar 29, 2022
#194 Ségolène Alquier wanted to learn that coding magic - Mar 22, 2022
#193 Nicolas Carlo enabler of human connections - Mar 15, 2022
#192 Julianna Lamb is running headfirst into challenges - Mar 08, 2022
#191 Carly Richmond from individual contributor to MAMAger and back - Mar 01, 2022
#190 Laurie Barth learns and teaches with use-cases instead of jargon - Feb 22, 2022
#189 Rich Haines went from screenplays to technical writing - Feb 15, 2022
#188 Luce Carter was saved by software development - Feb 08, 2022
#187 Michael Levan learned to detect when he is not learning anymore - Feb 01, 2022
#186 Suze Shardlow from marketing and the police to simply creating - Jan 25, 2022
#185 Scott Spence from VBA Analyst to webdev - Jan 18, 2022
#184 Sydney Lai web3 code-switching sociologist - Jan 11, 2022
#183 Karl Hughes from mechanical engineer, dev, tech-writer & CEO - Jan 04, 2022

Season 4️⃣

Season 4 Finale - Dec 28th, 2021
#182 Tom Cools and how he fell in love with Jaba - Dec 21, 2021
#181 Madison Kanna from college dropout to successful self-taught UI-dev - Dec 14, 2021
#180 April Speight in her own lane from design to advocacy - Dec 07, 2021
#179 Adrian Colyer from dev to living under constant jetlag & back - Nov 30, 2021
#178 Aviv Ben-Yosef went through a lifelong experience pressure cooker - Nov 23, 2021
#177 Zachary Powell found out that working in an office isn't too bad - Nov 16, 2021
#176 Sebastien Stormacq was a dev-advocate it existed - Nov 09, 2021
#175 Christina Holland avoided dev by going into biotech and CGI - Nov 02, 2021
#174 Rotem Zifroni is the future founder of a social startup - Oct 26, 2021
#173 Susan Potter from distributed systems to functional verification - Oct 19, 2021
#172 Steve Gordon is the world's most honest interviewee - Oct 12, 2021
#171 Emma Bostian is a software engineer at Spotify & an async mentor - Oct 05, 2021
#170 Kadi Kraman does not want to be anyones boss - Sep 28, 2021
#169 Amarachi Amaechi from accounting to writing about her dev' career - Sep 21, 2021
#168 Shannon Kendall quit acting to follow a new creative dream - Sep 14, 2021
#167 Jenn Creighton went from paralegal to developing for Netflix - Sep 07, 2021
#166 Helen Scott found her itch in technical writing and content creation - Aug 31, 2021
#165 Grace Jansen on bees and reactive systems - Aug 24, 2021
#164 Sandra Ahlgrimm pushed the boundaries - Aug 17, 2021
#163 Layla Porter from horse riding and personal coaching to coding - Aug 08, 2021
#162 Mark Noonan from roadie to accessibility problem solver - Aug 03, 2021
#161 Russ Miles is now a professional chaos monkeys tamer - Jul 27, 2021
#160 Amir Sadoughi built his career on curiosity - Jul 19, 2021
#159 Ryan Hamblin is an experiential learner - Jul 13, 2021
#158 Kara Luton went from ballet and public relations to developer - Jul 06, 2021
#157 Shahid Iqbal from drug design to software development - Jun 29, 2021
#156 Clare Sudbery surfing on her own imposter syndrome - Jun 22, 2021
#155 Sandra Parsick from QA-Engineer to Java-Champion - Jun 15, 2021
#154 Anand Safi is setting people up for success - Jun 08, 2021
#153 Clifford Agius is a developer flying a Boeing 787 for fun - Jun 01, 2021
#152 Shawn Wang from the 'fine I'll do it myself' team - May 25, 2021
#151 Chris Coyier from ceramics to CSS-Tricks and CodePen - May 18, 2021
#150 Ryan Bergman loves terrible code - May 11, 2021
#149 Leticia Portella started with MATHLABianesque Python - May 04, 2021
#148 Bryan Beecham cares about people - Apr 27, 2021
#147 Caitlyn Greffly rationalized her way into development - Apr 20, 2021
#146 Miguel Piedrafita is a 19 years old indie maker - Apr 13, 2021
#145 Darko Meszaros the utilitarian developer - Apr 06, 2021
#144 How to not solve a problem. Experiment: Tales of DevJourney - Mar 30, 2021
#143 Bert Jan Schrijver took his career into his own hands - Mar 23, 2021
#142 Lior Bar Yosef is a network analyst in a world of puzzles - Mar 16, 2021
#141 Freya Holmér a level-designer turned game-developer - Mar 09, 2021
#140 Matt Biilmann discovered the JAMStack - Mar 02, 2021
#139 Mark Rendle is a programmer turned comedian turned programmer - Feb 23, 2021
#138 Kristy-Leigh Minehan almost burned seeking a crypto highscore - Feb 16, 2021
#137 Nadia Zhuk from 0 to crossing the Rubycon - Feb 09, 2021
#136 Dotan Nahum on building your own toolbox - Feb 02, 2021
#135 Emily Robinson making sense of data science for us - Jan 26, 2021
#134 Amiti Uttarwar is a hands-on Bitcoin-core tinkerer - Jan 19, 2021
#133 Dennis Traub failed his way to success - Jan 12, 2021
#132 Evangelina Ferreira challenges you to take every opportunity - Jan 05, 2021

Season 3️⃣

Season 3 Finale - Dec 29, 2020
#131 Wesley Faulkner is a native developer advocate - Dec 22, 2020
#130 Natalia Tepluhina a DBA turned Vue.js-expert at Gitlab - Dec 15, 2020
#129 Jackie Luo is interested in the impact of tech on society - Dec 08, 2020
#128 Paula Gearon was searching for machines that can think - Dec 01, 2020
#127 Emmanuel Bernard fell into open-source - Nov 24, 2020
#126 Ev Haus: animator, programmer, manager - Nov 17, 2020
#125 Alice Goldfuss is digging deeper - Nov 10, 2020
#SP1 US-Election Day Special a story about people - Nov 03, 2020
#124 Edidiong Asikpo put herself out there - Oct 27, 2020
#123 Patrick Leblanc did not want to ruin his passion - Oct 20, 2020
#122 Ines Montani brought linguistic and computers together - Oct 13, 2020
#121 Kathryn Erickson on leadership and asking for help - Oct 06, 2020
#120 Sumana Harihareswara is an open-source software fairy - Sep 29, 2020
#119 Virginia Harrison is following her gaming dream - Sep 22, 2020
#118 Erik Rasmussen connects the dots of his career - Sep 15, 2020
#117 Roopak Venkatakrishnan's career algorithm - Sep 08, 2020
#116 Scott Tolinski from allrounder to allrounder - Sep 01, 2020
#115 Aimee Knight applied the discipline of figure-skating to DevOps - Aug 25, 2020
#114 Jamon Holmgren made his own independent way - Aug 19, 2020
#113 Brendan O'Leary from healthcare to Gitlab - Aug 11, 2020
#112 Dan Moore went from sci-fi to devrel - Aug 04, 2020
#111 Sam Julien from financial adviser to developer advocate - Jul 28, 2020
#110 Jerome Hardaway is the definition of willpower - Jul 21, 2020
#109 Coraline Ada Ehmke lives up to her values - Jul 14, 2020
#108 Cassidy Williams loves developer experience - Jul 07, 2020
#107 Josh Long found his place the world as a dev advocate with Spring - Jun 30, 2020
#106 Kyle Shevlin from pastor to programmer - Jun 23, 2020
#105 Sara Vieira is opinionated per design - Jun 16, 2020
#104 Jason Lengstorf successfully bet on himself for his career - Jun 09, 2020
#103 Carolyn Stransky learning her way from journalist to dev & back - Jun 02, 2020
#102 Jen Luker is a relentless accessibility advocate - May 26, 2020
#101 Jeff Haynie on thinking under pressure, contracting & entrepreneurs - May 19, 2020
#100 Tim Bourguignon is a guest on his own show - May 12, 2020
#99 Anjana Vakil mastered her debilitating curiosity - May 05, 2020
#98 Doug Arcuri is curious & learning, always! - Apr 28, 2020
#97 Joe Drumgoole's life as a great software developer NPC - Apr 21, 2020
#96 Dylan Beattie is THE Rockstar Programmer - Apr 14, 2020
#95 Lara Martin went from biologist to Flutter GDE - Apr 07, 2020
#94 Michael Kennedy almost learned Python in the 90s - Mar 31, 2020
#93 Guilherme Rambo found his joy in coding for Mac/iOS - Mar 24, 2020
#92 Tracy Lee is having fun all the way. - Mar 17, 2020
#91 Harald Reingruber is embarking on a coding tour - Mar 10, 2020
#90 Khaled Souf learned the value of creating value - Mar 03, 2020
#89 Hadelin de Ponteves is as much an entrepreneur as a data scientist - Feb 25, 2020
#88 Lydia Hallie is following her passion - Feb 18, 2020
#87 Denise Gosnell is working at the bleeding edge of data science - Feb 11, 2020
#86 Jamison Dance implores you to be nice to other people - Feb 04, 2020
#85 Shedrack Akintayo went remote first - Jan 28, 2020
#84 Molly Struve had a long winding journey to SRE - Jan 21, 2020
#83 Reuven Lerner made one of the first 100 websites... ever - Jan 14, 2020
#82 Pariss -Athena- Chandler learns jumping in with both feet first - Jan 08, 2020

Season 2️⃣

Season 2 Finale - Dec 31, 2019
#81 Richard Campbell is simply adding value - Dec 24, 2019
#80 Joseph Young, code & music composer and conductor - Dec 17, 2019
#79 Ted Young & Java, a love story? - Dec 10, 2019
#78 Bubunyo Nyavor is the mentor he never had in his career - Dec 03, 2019
#77 Dave Smith swings the individual contributor, manager pendulum - Nov 26, 2019
#76 Wes Bos was born a teacher - Nov 19, 2019
#75 David Hirschfeld had a long, eventful career (sofar) - Nov 12, 2019
#74 Kemdi Ebi is thriving on products - Nov 04, 2019
#73 Kai König about simplicity, aesthetics and learning - Oct 28, 2019
#72 Katrina Owen, one little piece at a time - Oct 22, 2019
#71 Irwin Williams found his perfect career spot - Oct 15, 2019
#70 Jeeva Nadarajah's life of serendipity - Oct 08, 2019
#69 Aisha Blake's DevJourney should be a musical - Oct 01, 2019
#68 Greg Koberger finally built his one dream - Sep 24, 2019
#67 Kapunahele Wong's kindness as a practice - Sep 17, 2019
#66 Rob Kendal is not afraid to try and learn - Sep 10, 2019
#65 Woody Zuill brings people together who should be working together - Sep 03, 2019
#64 Guillermo Rauch learned with communities - Aug 27, 2019
#63 Stephanie Hurlburt encourages us to be social techies - Aug 20, 2019
#62 Llewellyn Falco brought the joy of programming back in his life - Aug 13, 2019
#61 Elissa Shevinsky felt into Security - Aug 06, 2019
#60 Trisha Gee owns her career - Jul 30, 2019
#59 Julie Moronuki a linguist turned Haskell expert - Jul 23, 2019
#58 Robby Russell succeeds being selfless - Jul 16, 2019
#57 Adam Barr roots for more humility in our careers - Jul 09, 2019
#56 Magnus Stahre is not supposed to know it all, and neither are we! - Jul 02, 2019
#55 Yehuda Katz on how framework design influences communities - Jun 25, 2019
#54 David Rael was chosen by the .NET tech stack, not the other way around - Jun 18, 2019
#53 Brian Pontarelli thinks like a customer - Jun 11, 2019
#52 Charity Majors encourages us to go back & forth between roles - Jun 04, 2019
#51 Ben Orenstein advises us not to worry too much - May 28, 2019
#50 Saron Yitbarek of CodeNewbie, praises the power of code & communities - May 21, 2019
#49 Ali Spittel works between development, teaching and communities - May 14, 2019
#48 Shawn Wildermuth encourages us to make decisions no matter what - May 21, 2019
#47 Erik StMartin is comfortable with the struggle - May 07, 2019
#46 Barry Dorrans is a curmudgeon telling us it is OK to be wrong - Apr 23, 2019
#45 April Wensel encourages us to get in touch with our core values - Apr 09, 2019
#44 Jeremy Likness became a developer through the backdoor and loved it - Mar 26, 2019
#43 Pat Kua on being a consultant, tech lead, CTO & helping people grow - Mar 12, 2019
#42 Charlie Gerard is learning by building (MANY) projects on the side - Feb 26, 2019
#41 Simon Harrer on strong opinions loosely held - Feb 12, 2019
#40 Ignacio Anaya on discovering your valuable skills - Jan 29, 2019
#39 Harry Roberts and his journey toward freelancing - Jan 15, 2019
#38 Ryan Latta from one extreme to the next - Jan 01, 2019

Season 1️⃣

Season 1 Finale - Dec 25, 2018
#37 Darren Hoehna, on getting experience no matter what! - Dec 18, 2018
#36 Rob Allen on persuasion instead of authority - Dec 04, 2018
#35 Emily Bache on careers + family + hobbies & making a difference - Nov 20, 2018
#34 Richard Rodger on software dev as a resource allocation problem - Nov 05, 2018
#33 Markus Harrer on being open for new things - Oct 22, 2018
#32 Katharine Jarmul on being driven & focused on what you can do - Oct 09, 2018
#31 Mario Rogic on absorbing and communicating as much as you can - Sep 25, 2018
#30 Adrian Bolboaca on choosing the appropriate tool for the job at hand - Sep 10, 2018
#29 Steven Schwenke on soft skills that one cannot "simply download" - Aug 27, 2018
#28 Arnaud Porterie on constraints for the right things to happen - Aug 13, 2018
#27 Jessica Kerr on public speaking, networking and mentoring - Jul 30, 2018
#26 Anne Cahalan on moving out of Junior-Developerness - Jul 16, 2018
#25 Sia Ghassemi on segways that lead exactly where you needed to be - Jun 08, 2018
#24 Daniel Marbach on failure, remoteness and mentoring - Jun 29, 2017
#23 Laura Savino on languages and public speaking - Jun 14, 2017
#22 Rob Napier on interviewing and asking questions - May 17, 2017
#21 David Tanzer on craftmanship and the need for coaching - May 01, 2017
#20 Ivo Vutov on growing into Microsoft as a student partner - Apr 15, 2017
#19 Manuela Rink on being an iOS developer evangelist at Microsoft - Apr 05, 2017
#18 Kevin Keller on living the digital nomad way of life - Jan 23, 2017
#16 Damien Beaufils on the test pyramide - Jun 14, 2016
#15 Rui Carvalho, Maxime Sanglan & Peter Even on organizing NCrafts Conf - Jun 07, 2016
#13 JB Rainsberger on what it means to truly be agile - Jun 01, 2016
#12 Jens Schauder on open-source software development - May 26, 2016
#11 Nicole Rauch on the coding tour to learn and grow - May 10, 2016
#10 Agata Bres & Adam Nowakowski on taking a break - May 03, 2016
#8 Louise Elliott on dealing with people - Apr 08, 2016
#7 Benjamin Reitzammer on caring, in every sense of the word - Mar 22, 2016
#5 Amitai Schleier on buying your freedom to do what you like - Mar 02, 2016

About the host 👨‍🎤

Software Developer‘s Journey is hosted and produced by Timothée (Tim) Bourguignon, a crazy frenchman living in Germany who dedicated his life to helping others learn & grow. He particularly likes storytelling and crazy ideas. More about him at timbourguignon.fr or on Twitter @Timothep!