Ep. 121, From 600 Meatballs to Product Management

Eva Moscat caps off Season 10 of Underserved. Eva grew up in a math-intensive family, and a college course requirement introduced her to programming. She found her niche in network development, and as interconnected devices became the norm, her career prospects bloomed. We discuss the importance of mentors/networking, embedded debugging for vendor culpability, and robots obviating the landscaper.   Links UMass Lowell https://www.uml.edu/ Samsara https://www.samsara.com/ Eva on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/emoscat/

Episode #121 of Underserved features Dmitry Grenader. Dmitry left the Soviet Union with his family and landed in Brooklyn. He worked his way up from odd jobs to a master's degree and became a software developer. A mentor saw promise in Dmitry's product management skills and encouraged him to lean in that direction. This has led Dmitry to a decades-long successful career in the Boston software industry. We discuss CES fame, writing a song to lobby for resources, and selling software to low-tech industries.   Links: Boston University Late Entry Accelerated Program (LEAP) - https://www.bu.edu/eng/admissions/graduate/leap/ Lionbridge - https://www.lionbridge.com/ Sermo - https://www.sermo.com/ Vlingo, now part of Nuance - https://www.nuance.com/index.html NetProspex, now part of Dun & Bradstreet - https://www.dnb.com/ Luminoso - https://luminoso.com/ Newmetrix, now part of Oracle - https://www.oracle.com/construction-engineering/construction-intelligence-cloud/#rc30p4 Marc Andressen "The only thing that matters" - https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part4.html Rob Snyder coaches startup on product-market fit - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rsnyder1/ Amwell - https://business.amwell.com/

Episode 120 of Underserved is here! Our guest today is Christine Bird, a fellow UMass alum and veteran of the financial services industry. Christine started her career teaching some of the toughest students and learned to love it. Her foray into technology and QA taught her bug diplomacy, the SDLC, and how to make the skills vs. attitude decision. We discuss front-loading your tech learning, the AHA moment as a QA manager, and her love of being a city dweller.   LINKS Glad.org Sdlc-caat.com Jobcorps.gov https://www.linkedin.com/in/birdchristine/  

In Episode 119 of Underserved, I interview Dustin Humphreys. From the level land in the Texas panhandle comes this pharmacist-turned-technologist. Dustin wore many hats to help bring drug stores online during the DotCom boom. He has since helped multiple drugstore chains advance their online presence and has branched out into other industries as well. We talk about feature obsession being overrated (now ADOPTION obsession - that is cool!) and the pachinko game of being a small company CEO.   LINKS Dustin on LinkedIn Rite Aid Bending the Adoption Curve Dustin has some patents!

In Underserved #118 we interview Andrew Heffernan. Andrew grew up believing he wanted to be an engineer. After dabbling in civil and plastics, he found his way into the tech industry via customer support at Constant Contact. The company thrived and provided Andrew advancement into development, where he discovered that the hardest part of the job could be getting all the humans to work in concert. We discuss working with fellow Underserved guest Erik Dasque, what happens when you 10x your staff, and the double-edged sword of SalesForce.   Links: Andrew on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-w-heffernan/ https://www.litify.com/  https://www.litify.com/careers  

Episode #117 of Underserved features our guest Sree Kancharla. It looked like Sree was on track toward a math PhD and teaching, but a tech career blossomed instead. Sree was involved with many projects ahead of their time, including iterative deployment and Google Glass. We talk about innovating in the digital realm and product vs. service companies.   For more information:  Sailpoint Mandiant Google Sacred Heart – Volunteer Organization T200  - Empowering Women in Technology Irvine Tech - Mentoring in LA

Kurt Iverson is featured in Episode #116 of Underserved. Kurt offered to build a website for a budding comedian in exchange for free show tickets. While not a great monetary deal, the experience and connections ended up paying huge dividends. Kurt parlayed this into development gigs for interactive firms, The Federal Reserve, and Garmin. We talk deploying with Disney, user empathy, and George Brett.   Links: www.survivormitzvah.org – dear Hollywood friends that are on a mission to help Holocaust survivors and all those suffering from the effects of war www.billburr.com – one of my oldest friends in comedy and someone who kills it and inspires me everyday https://omd.uk.com – The band that inspired me to get into music and is the soundtrack of my life and nights https://open.spotify.com/album/2xt8Y4BXkEdVR975Squ2QI - Dink and I wrote a lot of music together and he was a genius with harmony and melody. I will forever miss our musical partnership and friendship. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1EIWwtuB34Fbe5- Check out my friend and Grammy nominee keyboardist for King Fisher, Watermelon Funk  www.alteryx.com – I make data analytics magic happen here.   https://www.discprofile.com/what-is-disc - Learn about yourself in a professional and deeply personal sense. Self awareness is key to growing. Whether it's this program or something else entirely that gives you insight to yourself, do it! www.nngroup.com – Looking to kickstart your career in UX? Get certified through this staple of UX guidance. www.robertkellylive.com – One of my oldest friends in comedy and arguable the funniest! www.stevebyrnelive.com – Another long-time friend from comedy who is killing it and producing his own shows with the likes of Vince Vaughn and Peter Billingsley. Don't miss his new projects! – Check out "That's So Quantum" created by my dear friend, John Combs! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYtePy4SF1E

Dom Scandinaro is our guest for Episode #115 of Underserved. Dom enjoyed building computers with his Dad and taking an entrepreneurial angle with their shared venture. As a young track star, a scholarship offer made his college choice for him. Luckily the CS program at Wheeling was fun and UI-focused, which has led to a career in front-end development, mobile development, and now management as a CTO. We discuss who makes a cameo on Cameo, Luxury Garage Sale, and prototyping with Francisco the Fox.   Links: Black Girls Code: https://www.wearebgc.org/ Cameo for Business: https://biz.cameo.com/ Cameo Kids: https://www.cameo.com/kids Francisco the Fox: https://www.cameo.com/franciscothefox Book Dom on Cameo: https://www.cameo.com/domscand Marathon donation page: I'm running to raise money for prostate cancer which is unfortunately what my father passed away from a couple years back.  https://support.zerocancer.org/site/TR/TeamZERO/TeamZERO?px=1916970&pg=personal&fr_id=3320

Philosophy major Jason "Mac" Macauley found his way into the industry via content moderation. He caught the coding bug when he realized that his love of logic translated well. He aimed to be an "Employee number less than 10" at a startup, cash out, and teach philosophy. After a few years, he came to terms with being a professional software developer and aimed for the next challenge - managing people. We talk about working yourself out of a job, outcome-driven sales approaches, and why golf is not a game of perfect.   Links: My Coaching Firm - https://anotherviewcoaching.com LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmacauley/ Blog - https://jasonmacauley.substack.com Great Dog - https://www.gdrne.com Merrimac CC (Where I shot the 4 under on the back 9) - https://merrimackvalleygolfclub.com/  

Season 10 of Underserved kicks off with our guest, Rob Salvador. Rob's late teens were spent on a computer, but playing multi-table online poker tournaments, not coding. The DOJ shut down online poker, forcing Rob to pivot. His dad's construction company proved fertile ground for learning the  industry's challenges. Rob has parlayed this into a business that optimizes supply chains using AI, lowering costs and raising the success rate of construction projects.   Links Rob on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertjsalvador?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app Rob on X(Twitter): https://x.com/robertjsalvador?s=21&t=EU8jkpKVqqeaaDZlVIusLQ Digibuild: https://digibuild.com/ Poker's Black Friday: https://www.pokernews.com/news/2022/11/full-tilt-poker-cheating-scandal-42534.htm