Underserved

Jun 18 2024 130 ep. 38 mins 25
Underserved Podcast artwork

Underserved is the podcast for the rest of the technology industry. No startup or gadget worship, just real stories, lessons, and interesting topics from real people in the technology industry. Special emphasis on software development culture and history.

  Technology  Society & Culture
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Ep. 122, From River Hawks to Robots

Jun 18 2024 35 mins  
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

Ep. 121, From 600 Meatballs to Product Management

Jun 03 2024 46 mins  
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 Bost

Ep. 120, Why Can't I Learn To Do That Myself?

May 27 2024 39 mins  
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 tec

Ep. 119 Digital Leaders, Place Your Bets

May 20 2024 44 mins  
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 obsessio

Ep. 118, AI Is Like Salt

May 13 2024 38 mins  
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 w

Ep. 117, CIO Steering Digital Innovation

May 06 2024 38 mins  
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: Sail

Ep. 116, No Laughing Matter

Apr 29 2024 39 mins  
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,

Ep. 115, Fight for Simplicity

Apr 22 2024 39 mins  
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 m

Ep. 114, Unicorn Cavalry

Apr 15 2024 41 mins  
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

Ep. 113, Continuation Bet

Apr 08 2024 38 mins  
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