Greater Than Code
The Human Side of Technology
About the show
For a long time, tech culture has focused too narrowly on technical skills; this has resulted in a tech community that too often puts companies and code over people. Greater Than Code is a podcast that invites the voices of people who are not heard from enough in tech: women, people of color, trans and/or queer folks, to talk about the human side of software development and technology. Greater Than Code is providing a vital platform for these conversations, and developing new ideas of what it means to be a technologist beyond just the code.
Featuring an ongoing panel of racially and gender diverse tech panelists, the majority of podcast guests so far have been women in tech! We’ve covered topics including imposter syndrome, mental illness, sexuality, unconscious bias and social justice. We also have a major focus on skill sets that tech too often devalues, like team-building, hiring, community organizing, mentorship and empathy. Each episode also includes a transcript.
Greater Than Code on social media
Episodes
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261: Celebrating Computer Science Education with Dave Bock
December 1st, 2021 | 1 hr 14 mins
Dave Bock talks about being invigorated and revitalized by talking, teaching, and volunteering in computer science education. He talks about his preference to use Ruby as a teaching language, pros and cons of teaching remotely, and handling time management and energy to do the work.
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260: Fixing Broken Tech Interviews with Ian Douglas
November 24th, 2021 | 1 hr 4 mins
The way we do tech interviews is broken. Ian Douglas talks about how current company interview processes don’t align with skills that companies actually need. We discuss how the community and companies could actually overhaul the system to work together and collect antipatterns so that we could turn the way we do things around to leave everyone having had a nice experience overall, no matter the outcome.
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259: Continuous Iteration, Continuous Improvement – Always Evolving Over Time with Rin Oliver
November 17th, 2021 | 43 mins 14 secs
Rin Oliver talks about improving developer experience, neurodivergence and the distinction between technical and autistic burnout, mentoring, and how to successfully contribute to open source projects.
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258: Nerd Therapy with Michael Keady
November 10th, 2021 | 1 hr 16 mins
Michael Keady, The Nerd Therapist, runs nerdy programs like Roll for Growth, which uses role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons as a form of group therapy and Minecraft for individual therapy.
In this episode, he talks about gaming in engaging in talk therapy with both adults and children, and how to consume media by curating, engaging in, and explaining it responsibly.
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257: Putting Accessibility Into Action with Dr. Michele A. Williams
November 3rd, 2021 | 59 mins 48 secs
Dr. Michele A. Williams’ mission is to reach outside of the accessibility world and demystify it for able-bodied people. In this episode, she talks about the real work of accessibility needing to come from top down organizational changes, and rethinking our moral obligations and social norms as a culture.
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256: Unbreaking the Web with Chris Ferdinandi
October 27th, 2021 | 1 hr 44 secs
Chris Ferdinandi comes back on the show to talk about how important, but hard it is to maintain privacy on the web. Right now sites are overusing analytics and tracking scripts, and as developers, we have an ethical obligation to be an advocates for our users. In short, frontend development is hard.
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255: Building Global Love Bubbles with Anne Griffin
October 20th, 2021 | 1 hr 19 mins
Anne Griffin joins the show to talk about making people feel they matter on teams by changing company culture, sharing concerns with upper management, and often, having difficult conversations. How do we help people who want to learn to be better people learn to be better people? How do we feel about having designated “work therapists”? How should teams share job responsibilities clearly and fairly?
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254: Transitioning Into Tech with Danielle Thompson
October 13th, 2021 | 51 mins 28 secs
Danielle Thompson talks about entering tech as a former person in the hospitality industry with an anthropology degree, and how doing those things in the past have helped her to better work with people today. We also talk about the streaming revolution, and you can catch Danielle every Wednesday at 7PM Pacific, for Code School QA at twitch.tv/thejonanshow!
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253: Reframing the Value of Open Source with Jen Weber
October 6th, 2021 | 54 mins 25 secs
Jen Weber talks about differences between working on open source vs commercial software products, things you should keep in mind when it comes to pushing major vs minor releases, and ways we as an industry could do open source better as a collective whole.
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252: Designing For Safety with Eva PenzeyMoog
September 29th, 2021 | 1 hr 45 secs
TRIGGER WARNING: Domestic Violence, Abuse, Interpersonal Safety
Eva PenzeyMoog talks about her superpower being her ADHD and ability to hyperfocus before diving into a discussion about her book, “Designing for Safety.” We talk about how technology can be weaponized for harm and that it’s not a matter of might. It’s when. She talks about what engineers, designers, and even product managers need to know when building applications, and that it is our responsibility to prioritize the safety of marginalized people over the comfort of unmarginalized people.
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251: Diplomatic Accessibility Advocacy with Todd Libby
September 22nd, 2021 | 46 mins 41 secs
Todd Libby talks about getting people, companies, and stakeholders to care about accessibility via diplomatic advocacy. He tells us the “Domino’s Pizza Story,” and shares with us the biggest things that typically aren’t accessible and should be on websites.
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250: Employee Resource Groups with Adrian Gillem
September 15th, 2021 | 49 mins 30 secs
Adrian Gillem introduces us to Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and what they do, what their goals are, and how they operate. He gives an example of how his employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, has successfully implemented new policies surrounding transgender healthcare, and talks about how ERGs are only as strong as the management supporting them.
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249: #TechIsHiring + eSports and Software Engineering with Chad Stewart
September 8th, 2021 | 54 mins 46 secs
Chad Stewart talks about starting the #TechIsHiring hashtag on Twitter to use networking for good and amplify others with not as big of reach.
We then pivot to nerding out about gaming! Drawing comparisons and connections between playing fighting games and software development and engineering. Bringing experience from one realm to another.
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248: Developing Team Culture with Andrew Dunkman
September 1st, 2021 | 1 hr 12 mins
Andrew Dunkman talks about setting boundaries both as an employee and a leader. He talks about ways to perform health checks on teams, keeping members happy to avoid things like burnout, and how psychological safety is of the utmost importance in a workplace.
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247: Approaching Learning and Content Creation with Sy Brand
August 25th, 2021 | 54 mins 23 secs
Sy Brand talks about their gift of making complex topics digestible in teaching others to learn how to code through short (and cute!) Twitter and YouTube videos. They talk about how important it is to find something that motivates you when you’re first learning anything, and shares a little bit about their own content creation strategies, especially by seeing code as art.
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246: Digital Democracy and Indigenous Storytelling with Rudo Kemper
August 18th, 2021 | 57 mins 3 secs
Rudo Kemper of Digital Democracy talks about leading the indiginous-requested and indiginous-led open source project, Terrastories, which helps people capture and record oral history so that it is preserved and not lost over time.