About the show
We explore the intersection of Tech Leadership & Dream careers. We do this by creating inspiring podcasts - including interviews with amazing individuals in the tech leadership space.
Dr. Jen Bunk earned her Ph.D. in I/O Psychology (a.k.a. The Science of Work). She is a retired Associate Professor and an accomplished speaker & researcher. As the CEO of the People Stack, she’s used her decades of experience to coach hundreds of tech leaders to create their dream careers - and the dream lives that go with them.
Rob Allen (Jen’s husband) is a 20+ year software industry veteran who moved from IC to Leadership in 2010, where the focus has always been on helping the technical folks who worked for him live their best lives. In 2019, he broadened that to the tech community as a whole by joining Jen full-time at The People Stack as her Co-CEO.
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Episodes
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Episode 62: Manager of Developer Experience Ainsley Robertson talks about building her amazing role, nearly doubling Clio's gender diversity, career paths for individual contributors and more
December 2nd, 2018 | 50 mins 56 secs
Ainsley Robertson, the Manager of Developer Experience at Clio.com, talks about building her amazing role from her strengths, nearly doubling Clio's gender diversity when growing their engineering team, building and protecting non-manager career paths for individual contributors and more
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Episode 61: Founder, Coach and Speaker Jocelyn Miller talks about having impact, expanding boundaries, rightsizing process, saying F'it when overcoming fear and more
November 18th, 2018 | 57 mins 57 secs
Founder, Coach and Speaker Jocelyn Miller talks about her time at Amazon and Google, what those experiences taught her about having impact, changing from engineering to product, expanding her boundaries, rightsizing process, and when to say "fuck it" while overcoming fear (like when starting your own badass company).
See more about Jocelyn at her website: https://www.jocelynmariemiller.com
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Episode 60: CEO and Co-Founder Andrea Goulet talks about Menders and Makers, Org Smells, Conway's law and how it impacts your tech debt and more
November 4th, 2018 | 50 mins 42 secs
CEO and Co-Founder Andrea Goulet of the tech-debt fixing company, https://corgibytes.com stops by the People Stack to talk about building a community of Menders (https://www.legacycode.rocks/), knowing when and when your org needs Menders vs Makers, the Org Smells that show dysfunction in your org, how Conway's law impacts your tech debt and more.
The book Andrea refers to in this episode is "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable" by Patrick M. Lencioni. Here is an Amazon link to it: https://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Lencioni-ebook/dp/B006960LQW
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Episode 59: Founder, Speaker and Startup Advisor April Wensel talks the definition of compassion and how to bring it to your code, your team, and your life
October 21st, 2018 | 49 mins 43 secs
April Wensel, the founder of Compassionate Coding (https://compassionatecoding.com), stops by the People Stack to talk about what compassion is as well as how to bring it to your code, your team, and your life. April discusses her journey and where she is now, how Compassionate Coding helps organizations bring more humanity to their work and more.
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Episode 58: Founder, Author, and Communication Expert Steph Holloway talks about the Ping, the Flip, 4 styles of communication, tipping points when you mix those styles and more
October 7th, 2018 | 48 mins 48 secs
Founder, Author, and Communication Expert Steph Holloway stops by the People Stack to talk about her concept the emotional Ping, how she identified the fourth style of communication, what happens when you have groups of different styles together tipping points when you mix those styles, the technique she calls the "flip" which can get your communication back on track.
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Episode 57: Marketing Strategy Expert Wes Kao talks about all of the places where marketing matters that you're not thinking of, and ducks
September 23rd, 2018 | 43 mins 34 secs
Marketing strategy expert Wes Kao stops by the People Stack to talk about the myriad ways in which failing to market your ideas, work, and value effectively prevent you from being heard. She also covers the importance of psychological safety in communication, making difficult conversations easier and more.
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Episode 56: QA Director Joe Yuska talks about Quality Control and Assurance, the role of QA in your org, counting fish, office politics and more
September 9th, 2018 | 48 mins 47 secs
politics, qa, qa leadership, quality assurance, technical leadership
QA Director Joe Yuska stops by the People Stack to talk about the difference between Quality Control and Quality Assurance, the role QA plays in your org, how the best QA engineer he's worked with used to count fish for a living, dealing office politics in addition to US Politics and more
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Episode 55: Business of Software Conference CEO Mark Littlewood talks about curating a conference for tech leaders, what he's learned from a decade of BoS, who buys software and more
August 26th, 2018 | 48 mins 47 secs
business, culture, leadership, people, software, tech
Business of Software Conference CEO Mark Littlewood talks about curating a conference for tech leaders, what he's learned from a decade of BoS, who buys software and more
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Episode 54: Conrad Holloman talks about his leadership learnings from the US Army, helping former military personnel get into tech, coaching startups and more
August 12th, 2018 | 46 mins 58 secs
additive leadership, leadership, military, operation code, tech stars
Conrad Holloman talks about his leadership learnings from the US Army, helping former military personnel get into tech through Operation Code (https://operationcode.org), coaching startups with the accelerator Tech Stars (https://techstars.com), the different kinds of diversity, where diversity is needed, the additive model of leadership, and a lot more
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Episode 53: CEO and Founder Russ Ruffino talks about motivation, recruitment, pay, selection for the best candidates, mindset and much more
July 30th, 2018 | 52 mins 6 secs
coaching, tech management, technical leadership
CEO and Founder Russ Ruffino of Clients on Demand (https://www.clientsondemand.com) stops by the People Stack to talk about the top 4 things that help you advance faster, motivation, recruitment, pay, selection for the best candidates, mindset, the power of really care about your people and much more.
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Episode 52: Coach and Podcaster Jen Bunk goes on vacation
July 15th, 2018 | 50 secs
Coach and Podcaster Jen Bunk leaves the People Stack to go on vacation for 2 weeks, which means no new episode today. You don't want to miss the next episode, publishing on July 29th 2018, when Jen interviews her business mentor. See you then!
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Episode 51: Author, Coach, and Interviewer Bill Fox talks about contributing to the greater good, the things he's learned interviewing tech leaders, putting together his book and more
July 1st, 2018 | 41 mins 47 secs
Author, Coach, and Interviewer Bill Fox stops by the People Stack to talk about what transformed his life and lead him to push beyond servant leadership into Stage 4 leadership, the challenges that caused him to focus on documenting the themes among the leaders he's talked with, learning to fly, gaining perspective and much more
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Episode 50: IO Psychologist Marc Prine talks about validating your hiring assumptions, Psychological assessments at work, being "not that kind of Psychologist" and more
June 17th, 2018 | 46 mins 34 secs
IO Psychologist Marc Prine stops by the People Stack to talk about validating your hiring and performance assumptions, Psychological assessments, Job Analysis, how culture is created, being "not that kind of Psychologist" and more!
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Episode 49: Gong Ke Gouldstone talks about owning your career, creating trust, gardening and more
June 3rd, 2018 | 46 mins 18 secs
entrepreneurship, gardening, geeks, leadership, management, negotiation, tech
Entrepreneur, Product & Technology Leader Gong Ke Gouldstone stops by the People Stack to talk about the similarities between leadership and negotiation, what it means to own your tech career, how she creates vision, trust, and support on her teams and how she developed her leadership skills.
Check out Gong Ke's latest adventure: http://www.yardpanel.com/
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Episode 48: Leadership Coach Anthony Fasano talks people skills, transformation, getting things done and more of Jen's favorites
May 20th, 2018 | 45 mins 4 secs
Leadership Coach Anthony Fasano (https://engineertomanager.com/) stops by the People Stack to talk about the importance of setting clear expectations, communication, people skills and the danger of being action-oriented.
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Episode 47: Brennan McEachran and Jessica Weisz from SoapBox talk about managing up, managing down, treating your humans like humans, being the best leader you can and more
May 6th, 2018 | 53 mins 55 secs
hacks, management, people management, rituals, tech leadership, tools
Brennan McEachran and Jessica Weisz from SoapBox (https://soapboxhq.com/) stop by the People Stack to talk about their leadership rituals, the transition from individual contributor to management, and from solo founder to CEO, getting your people to not hide their mistakes, and treating your humans like humans.