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.

We have an active Slack community that members can join by pledging as little as $1 per month via Patreon.

Greater Than Code on social media

Episodes

  • 229: Union Organization with Melissa McEwen

    April 7th, 2021  |  53 mins 30 secs

    Melissa McEwen talks about how she helped unionize Glitch, common misconceptions when it comes to the idea of unions, Melissa’s previous experience with working with unions, positive skills union organizers should have, evaluating human performance, and tips for those who are interested in how to go about organizing such an endeavor.

  • 228: Career Snarkiness – Words Hold Weight with Corey Quinn

    March 31st, 2021  |  1 hr 8 mins

    Corey Quinn talks about his job of keeping up with AWS and the personal evolution of Corey Quinn, the person: speaking truth to power (kindly, but snarkily), making and delivering jokes, recognizing your own failure modes, and approaching & handling D&I as a business owner.

  • 227: Doing DevRel Right with Jonan Scheffler

    March 24th, 2021  |  1 hr 12 mins

    Jonan Scheffler talks about launching the new Developer Relations team for his company, New Relic. He talks about how DevRel is changing, the correct role of DevRel, and engaging with communities and networks via DevRel by using platforms like Twitch, YouTube, Discord, TikTok, Twitter, etc.

  • 226: Incarceration and Technology with Kurt Kemple

    March 17th, 2021  |  1 hr 21 mins

    Make no assumptions! Kurt Kemple talks about the intersection of incarceration and technology: we need to destigmatize formerly incarcerated folx, hire the formerly incarcerated, and provide stability to those coming out of incarceration.

  • 225: Uncovering and Breaking Patterns with Tim Banks

    March 10th, 2021  |  1 hr 3 mins

    Tim Banks talks about uncovering patterns and making the covert overt, taking care of people as whole people, doing the right thing, and changing mindsets by using privilege to speak to power.

  • 224: Better Allies with Karen Catlin

    March 3rd, 2021  |  1 hr 9 mins

    Karen Catlin talks about being a better ally and everyday actions to create inclusive workplaces, why it’s important to venture beyond homogenous networks, and ways we can help mitigate gender disparity in the tech industry.

  • 223: Emotions, Achievement, Joy, and Goals with David MacIver

    February 24th, 2021  |  45 mins 4 secs

    David MacIver talks about being confused, daily writing, learning to be better at emotions, and achievement and joy as aspirational goals.

  • 222: Evaluating Human Performance with Elyse Robinson

    February 17th, 2021  |  50 mins 40 secs

    Elyse Robinson talks about being fearless and moving to and living in Mexico, navigating broken interview processes, and evaluating human performance.

  • 221: Cultivating Strength and Change with Wesley Faulkner

    February 10th, 2021  |  53 mins 5 secs

    Wesley Faulkner talks about the idea that as a society, we should be sharing responsibility based on strengths and delegating “weakness”. We should be operating as a string quartet! He also talks about how mission statements usually represent false values that are especially harmful to marginalized people and groups and attempting to talk truth to power and enact change.

  • 220: Safety Science and Failure As An Opportunity For Growth with Josh Thompson

    February 3rd, 2021  |  1 hr 11 mins

    Josh Thompson talks about safety science and the art of rock climbing, transferring knowledge from experts to non-experts, and seeing failure as an opportunity for teams to learn.

  • 219: How Are You Doing? with Mando Escamilla

    January 27th, 2021  |  1 hr 7 mins

    Mando Escamilla and the rest of the panelists talk about dealing with life over the past few years, finding anchors to deal with feeling lost and unmoored, being okay with being less productive, and practicing gratitude for the communities you do have.

  • 218: Building Bridges with Isa Herico-Velasco

    January 20th, 2021  |  44 mins 35 secs

    In this episode, Isa Herico-Velasco talks about community learning and cultivating leadership pipelines through organizations such as RailsBridge and Bridge Foundry, the intersection of music and technology, and working with monolith codebases in her work life at The Internet Archive.

  • 217: Robots As "Social Entities" with Laura Major

    January 13th, 2021  |  50 mins 40 secs

    In this episode, Laura Major, co-author of 'What to Expect When You’re Expecting Robots: The Future of Human-Robot Collaboration' with our previous episode’s Julie Shah, explores the human/robot partnership and how we are attempting to make our world robot compatible. She also talks about the idea of robots as “social entities” and how media affects the way people view robots.

  • 216: Robot and Human Collaboration with Julie Shah

    January 6th, 2021  |  1 hr 4 mins

    In this episode, Julie Shah talks about robotics and working in Artificial Intelligence, structuring and optimizing the world for machines, AI, and robots, understanding output and building calibrated trust, and Julie and Laura Major’s book: ‘What To Expect When You're Expecting Robots: The Future of Human-Robot Collaboration’.

  • 215: Gathering Data in Machine Learning with Abeba Birhane

    December 30th, 2020  |  1 hr 1 min

    In this episode, Abeba Birhane talks about why predicting how people behave and act via machine learning is ethically flawed, and how examining its models and data makes us inherently bias as a human race.

  • 214: The Righteous Mind with Rylan Bowers

    December 23rd, 2020  |  1 hr 5 mins

    In this episode, Rylan Bowers talks about the book, “The Righteous Mind” by Jonathan Haidt, and with the panel, discusses making rational choices, increasing group-level cohesion, morality, and bridging the gap politically between democrats and conservatives.