John K. Sawers
Co-Host of Greater Than Code
Amongst John’s weaponry are public speaking, doing the rails thing, and talking about feelings in public. His technology talks aren’t about technology and sometimes he has time to meditate. He remembers the sound of dialup.
Soon, John will no longer write much code, having intentionally (yes, intentionally) moved into management. He seems to think that making people better is more satisfying than making computers better. With that in mind he’s also spent a lot of time mentoring bootcamp developers and supervising workshops focused on deep emotional work.
He spends days at Privia Health, nights as co-founder and CTO of Data Simply and all the rest of it at johnksawers.com and emotionalAPI.com.
John K. Sawers has hosted 95 Episodes.
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113: Privilege as Legacy Code with Amr
January 16th, 2019 | 46 mins 11 secs
In this episode, Amr talks about the fact that it’s not just code: people need to own their privilege and use it for good by calling out others, being good allies, and avoiding biases.
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111: Thermodynamics of Emotion with Thomas Perry
January 2nd, 2019 | 1 hr 10 mins
In this episode, Thomas Perry talks about thermodynamics of emotion. Observing animal and human behavior is also discussed, as well as organizational restructuring, Flow and how it moves through systems, and alignment in appetite and emotion.
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110: Human Incident Response with Courtney Eckhardt
December 19th, 2018 | 1 hr 22 secs
In this episode, Courtney Eckhardt talks about incident response: how we talk and interact with people who are affected by crappy things. She also talks about disabilities in the workplace and professional spaces, the tension between accessibility and security, and incident retrospectives and defensiveness as a natural instinct to feedback.
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109: Tech Fashion Part 2 with Jaya Iyer of Svaha
December 12th, 2018 | 53 mins 9 secs
In this episode, Jaya Iyer of Svaha, a company known for their STEAM prints and dresses with pockets, talks about the lack of science and tech-themed clothing (especially for children), how personal of a choice clothing is, and the importance of expressing yourself and shattering stereotypes and social norms.
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108: Tech Fashion Part 1 with Kayte Malik of Dress Code
December 5th, 2018 | 45 mins 40 secs
In this episode, Kayte Malik, of Dress Code, shares the mission of her company: to empower more girls and women to get involved in coding through creation and innovation. Kayte and the panelists discuss confidence, owning your accomplishments, and debunking the myth that code, tech, and STEM are for boys only.
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107: The Ruby Central Opportunity Scholarship Program
November 28th, 2018 | 42 mins 27 secs
This episode was recorded live at RubyConf in Los Angeles. We talked to special guests, Jennifer Tran, Christine Seeman, and Jeremy Schuurmans about the Ruby Central Opportunity Scholarship Program.
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106: Taking Up Space with Laurie Barth
November 21st, 2018 | 58 mins 50 secs
In this episode, Laurie Barth talks about why it’s good to be a timesuck (aka taking up space and demanding the attention that you need from others), refining interviewing and hiring processes, whether learning is a skill or a mindset, and overcoming demoralization and overwhelm.
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105: Code Switching with Maurice Cherry
November 14th, 2018 | 1 hr 7 mins
In this episode, Maurice Cherry talks about the concept of code switching: being different people around different people. He also talks about overcoming feelings of discomfort, trust and both how it’s lost and how it can be re-established, diversity in design, and shifting your mindset from a creator to a chronicler.
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104: Jellyfish Signaling with Sam Livingston-Gray
November 7th, 2018 | 1 hr 3 mins
In this panelist episode, Sam Livingston-Gray talks about driving evolution, fitness landscapes and functions, how humans make decisions, and scaling, optimizing, and thriving as individuals and communities.
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102: Sticky in the Flow with Katrina Owen
October 24th, 2018 | 55 mins 31 secs
In this episode, Katrina Owen talks about organization and systematization, motivation by success, and how her past experience in training for circus is parallel to her career in software development.
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101: A Difficult Conversation with Sonia Gupta
October 17th, 2018 | 53 mins 39 secs
In this episode, Sonia Gupta and the panelists have a candid conversation about white supremacy and standing up for your beliefs, advocating for others while staying in your own lane, intersectionality, and who has to ultimately do the work.
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100: The Business of Documentation with Jaime Slutzky
October 10th, 2018 | 43 mins 47 secs
In this episode, Jaime Slutzky talks about making pieces of technology work together functionally, working for clients and business owners and then handing over processes and documentation, and what your clients need to know about tech stacks.
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099: The Knowledge You Possess with Stephanie Morillo
October 3rd, 2018 | 1 hr 1 min
In this episode, Stephanie Morillo talks about content strategy, technical writing, organizing and optimizing company internal systems, and that you need to give yourself more credit for the things you’ve already accomplished!
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097: The Job of a Manager with Brandon Hays
September 12th, 2018 | 47 mins 54 secs
Brandon Hays talks about mentorship, management, and leadership skills, as well as maintaining relationships with people, climbing the tech ladder, strategizing career growth.
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096: Resilience Engineering with John Allspaw
September 5th, 2018 | 1 hr 9 mins
John Allspaw talks about the intersection of people, technology, and work, variety and complexity, and the importance of generating context-specific questions.
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095: Cleaning House with Heidi Waterhouse
August 29th, 2018 | 1 hr 2 mins
Heidi Waterhouse joins the show to talk about developer relations, life hacks for ADD, and the similarities between housekeeping and code review.