Tales from Agency Life (with Emily Winck and Jess Burns)

In this MonkCast with the Monks episode, RedMonk analysts Rachel Stephens, Kate Holterhoff, and James Governor discuss the current 'grumpy era' of AI, where developers are questioning the ROI of AI tools and their effectiveness. They check in on AI code assistants, vibe coding, agentic IDEs, AI spec-driven development, and the AI Engineer. Show notes: https://redmonk.com/blog/2025/09/11/ais-grumpy-fun-era/

In this RedMonk conversation, Emily Winck, Staff Engineer at CallRail, and Jess Burns, Engineering Manager at 1Password, join Kate Holterhoff to reflect on their shared experiences working on the engineering team at a digital marketing agency. In addition to trading war stories, they discuss the gender balance in engineering teams, how agency life compares to SaaS companies, the Covid19 pandemic, challenges of remote work, bootcamps, hiring, and the impact of AI on software development. Show notes: https://redmonk.com/blog/2025/09/04/emily-winck-jess-burns/

In this New Builders conversation, Kate Holterhoff speaks with Clare Liguori, Senior Principal Software Engineer at AWS, about Kiro. They discuss Kiro's Vibe and Spec modes, and how these both factor into better coding practices and outcomes for developers. Clare explains the importance of requirements in software development, the collaborative nature of spec-driven development, as well as Kiro's roadmap. This is a RedMonk video, sponsored by Amazon. Show notes: https://redmonk.com/videos/tnb-clare-liguori-kiro-ai-spec-driven-software-development/

In this RedMonk Conversation, James Governor talks with Prashanth Shenoy, VP of Marketing for Broadcom's VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF). They discuss the impact of VMware's integration into Broadcom, including the shift from perpetual licenses to subscriptions, portfolio and ecosystem simplification, and the evolving role of cloud admins, platform engineers, and developers. Shenoy outlines how VCF supports both VM and containerized workloads, integrates Kubernetes services, and enables flexible developer experiences. The conversation also explores VMware's Private AI strategy with NVIDIA, addressing digital sovereignty, GPU virtualization, and performance benchmarks for AI workloads.

In this MonkCast episode, Martin Rojas, UI Architect at PlayOn Sports and ReactATL Organizer, joins Kate Holterhoff to chat about the tech meetup scene, leveraging AI to enhance sports broadcasting, AI Guilds (not Dungeons & Dragons!), Micro frontends, React, and More!Show notes: https://redmonk.com/blog/2025/08/19/martin-rojas/

In this conversation, Rachel Stephens is joined by Bowen Wang, Principal Product Marketing Manager at AWS. They discuss the newly enhanced AWS Free Tier program, which provides new customers with a zero-cost environment to experiment and learn about AWS services. That's right: no surprise billing! Come learn about how new customers can sign up for a zero-cost environment for up to six months and can receive up to $200 in credits upon sign up. For more information visit https://aws.amazon.com/free/ Here's the Corey Quinn post referenced by Bowen: https://www.duckbillgroup.com/blog/aws-finally-fixes-its-free-tier-problem/

In this RedMonk conversation, Jason Torres, Community Evangelist at Torc, chats developer communities with Kate Holterhoff. They discuss the dynamics of attending tech conferences, the role of Torc in the tech community, the current hiring landscape for developers, the globalization of tech hiring, the impact of social media on career growth, and the significance of authenticity in online presence. The discussion also touches on the future of developer advocacy and the challenges faced in the tech industry today. Show notes: https://redmonk.com/blog/2025/08/05/jason-torres/

In this conversation, Rachel Stephens interviews Kat Cosgrove – a prominent figure in the Kubernetes community – to discuss her journey into Kubernetes, the structure of the release team, and the role of corporate contributions in governing the project. They explore the expectations surrounding open source projects, the importance of sustainability, and the challenges faced by maintainers in the ecosystem. Show notes: https://redmonk.com/videos/kat-cosgrove-shipping-kubernetes/

In this RedMonk conversation, Shawn (swyx) Wang discusses the evolving role of the AI Engineer with Kate Holterhoff. They chat about the definition of an AI Engineer, the differences between AI Engineers and traditional software developers, vibe coding, frontend observability, and the AI Engineer World's Fair. Show notes: https://redmonk.com/blog/2025/07/23/shawn-swyx-wang-ai-engineer/

In this RedMonk Conversation, Jeremy Meiss, Director of Developer Relations at OneStream, discusses the current state of DevRel with Kate Holterhoff. They chat about the importance of engaging front-end developers, the role of content and community, and the nuances of influencer marketing. Jeremy shares insights on how to effectively reach and engage developers, the significance of quantifying DevRel efforts, and the evolving landscape of developer engagement in the tech industry. Show notes: https://redmonk.com/blog/2025/07/17/jeremy-meiss/