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.
The People Stack Podcast on social media
Episodes
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Episode 221: Wait Your Turn
April 21st, 2021 | 32 mins 39 secs
Have you ever been told that you need to “wait your turn” for a raise or promotion?
As if there’s some invisible queue of people waiting in front of you?
Unfortunately, senior leaders use this “wait your turn” language all too often when someone approaches them about a possible bump up the ladder.
Want to know what it REALLY means? And how to deal with it so that you can FINALLY earn the career upgrade that you truly deserve?
Check out this episode right now!
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Episode 220: Why The Hedonic Treadmill is Sabotaging Your Tech Career
April 19th, 2021 | 29 mins 7 secs
You work hard. You’re intelligent. You have oodles of tech experience.
So why are you stuck in a career where you’re underpaid, underrecognized, and overworked?
After having helped hundreds of tech managers to earn 30+% raises and land their Hell Yes jobs, I can tell you one thing for certain:
If you’re stuck on the hedonic treadmill, you’re NEVER going to create the career you truly deserve.
In this episode, I reveal what the heck the hedonic treadmill is and more importantly:
How to get OFF so you can be the commander of your career and build your dream.
Do not miss this one!
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Episode 219: The real reason you read so much
April 12th, 2021 | 12 mins 11 secs
It’s one of the global laws of wealth: Produce more than you consume.
So why then, do so many people forget it when it comes to their careers?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against reading and learning.
But you learn way more by actually getting out there and testing stuff, than you do reading it in books, or taking more courses. You do it in the day-to-day process of your work, but not your career.
There’s a reason. Wanna hear the truth?
Dive into this episode to find it out.
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Episode 218: Job Hopping Myths
April 7th, 2021 | 25 mins 15 secs
Do you really need to hop from job to job to get a substantial raise as a tech manager?
A lot of the folks we speak with think this is the case.
They’ve job hopped for the past 5, 10, 20+ years hoping that they’d unlock increased salary, increased impact, and increased freedom.
What do they get instead? More of the same!
Mediocre pay, mediocre positions, and mediocre career results.
So - what’s REALLY the key to achieving your dream tech leadership career?
Tune in right now to find out!
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Episode 217: Burnout is invisible. Here’s how you SEE it.
April 5th, 2021 | 26 mins 37 secs
If you’re burnt out, you can’t SEE it.
Maybe you can FEEL it...
But the thing is, we’re so good at coping with stress, we often miss it.
Are you TOO burnt out and you don’t even know it?
And - is it silently killing your tech career?
Do not miss this episode!
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Episode 216: 4 reasons why playing it safe is the worst way to create job security
March 31st, 2021 | 22 mins 32 secs
Staying in your tent because there may be predators outside is a great way to die of starvation.
Allowing immediate, relative comfort to prevent you from taking chances for a better life & better career can cost you a TON!
It can cost you the hundreds of thousands of DOLLARS you’re leaving on the table because you’re uncomfortable negotiating.
It can cost you hundreds of hours of TIME because you’re uncomfortable working less and being more efficient.
It can cost you an immense amount of STRESS because you’re uncomfortable doing anything differently at work, in your career, and in life.
The truth is - playing it safe in your career is causing you loads of discomfort & heartache!
In this episode, I dive into exactly why this is the case - and how to move out of your comfort zone to create a career with massive impact and freedom.
Tune in right now!
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Episode 215: A Crowded Market
March 29th, 2021 | 18 mins 2 secs
Even with a decade of experience, qualified folks are having a hard time getting noticed out there in the job market.
Some take it as a numbers game; they apply to as many opportunities as they can hoping to get a call back, but the call never happens. They get a boilerplate “No” or worse, radio silence.
That’s hard enough to handle when you have a well fitting resume for a well defined role. What’s a person to do though when they, and the roles they’re looking for, are special?
It doesn’t need to be that way. You don’t need cram for interviews and miss out on family, friends and much needed downtime. You don’t need to burn the midnight oil applying to roles en mass.
Listen to this episode now to get on the right track for the right role.
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Episode 214: Tanaka Mutakwa Interview
March 26th, 2021 | 28 mins 17 secs
On this very special episode of The People Stack Podcast, Jen interviewed Tanaka Mutakwa (https://www.linkedin.com/in/trmutakwa/). He is VP of Engineering at Names & Faces based in South Africa. He started a South African-based tech leadership community to inspire and motivate tech leaders to reach their goals through discussion and the sharing of ideas.
We talked about Tanaka’s 4 Areas of Focus of Successful Technical Leadership: People, Product, Process, & Tech Stack.
During out chat, we uncovered how to balance these 4 areas as well as some of the common misconceptions new and experienced tech leaders have about managing people, building great products, dialing in process, and using the tech stack to reach goals.
You’ll want to give this one a listen right now!
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Episode 213: Keystones
March 24th, 2021 | 17 mins 27 secs
Across every org, every family, and every group of friends there is a keystone person holding it all together.
And that ONE keystone person is THE person for their org, their family, AND their group of friends.
For some keystones, their efforts appear tireless, and they’re able to accomplish the impossible.
For others, they’re running on fumes. They’re one battle away from total breakdown.
If that’s you, if you’re the glue, then you know this all too well.
And you also know your coping mechanisms aren’t keeping pace with the load.
Get into this episode now to see the path to more strength!
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Episode 212: Stop fighting one-handed
March 22nd, 2021 | 12 mins 36 secs
In our field we praise logic above all else. We uphold that “thinking it through” is the intelligent choice.
The truth is, relying solely on logic is the WORST way to upgrade your tech career and it’ll leave you underpaid, overworked, and underrecognized.
Here why: Using logic only leaves your best asset unused: Your intuition.
The best choices in our lives have come first from the gut. Afterward we justified with logic. And yet we see time after time folks brushing aside their intuition and leading themselves astray.
You can see the evidence of this throughout your life, both the good and the bad.
So how do you fight with both hands? Use logic AND intuition?
Check out this right now episode to see!
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Episode 211: A Career at rest stays at rest
March 17th, 2021 | 15 mins 5 secs
Turtling isn’t moving.
If everything is a test, if you always feel under assault, then you cease forward motion.
Circled wagons don’t get to Oregon.
These are the thoughts in my head after a recent conversation where the person I was speaking with saw themselves as an underdog in an adversarial system. Work isn’t supposed to be like this. And neither is life.
There is a better way. Start now.
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Episode 210: Build or Buy
March 15th, 2021 | 17 mins 10 secs
We cater to folks who solve complex problems for a living. It stands to reason that once they see their own career, and the life that it comes with as a set of complex problems, that they can solve that, too.
The flaw in that logic is the same flaw that permeates all buy vs build decisions: the amount of time, knowledge and focus it takes to build a custom career that takes in all of the variables, and produces successful results is greatly underestimated.
And frankly when you get a glimpse of the rest of your life, you want it to start right the hell now.
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Episode 209: Ambition Inhibition
March 10th, 2021 | 16 mins 33 secs
A type of bullying I’ve personally experienced is making someone wrong for wanting more out of themselves, their work, and their life. I see this showing up in the folks we talk to as well and it’s time to put a stop to it.
Is Ambition a four-letter word in your world? Are you unable or unwilling to voice that you’re destined for something MORE?
Check out today’s episode because Ambition Inhibition has a long-ranging impact on how far, how fast, and how well you’ll achieve.
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Episode 208: Halfass Coaching
March 8th, 2021 | 11 mins 14 secs
There’s a great deal down at your local big-box gym. For only pennies a day you too can get an hour a month a personal trainer!
These things crop up all over the place and the number of hours they offer, or the price they ask is entirely irrelevant because the gym knows you won’t use it. In fact 63% of gym memberships go entirely unused whether they pay more for a trainer or not!
Most timeshares go unused as well and yet folks shell out for them month after month - even pre-COVID.
So why would you want to apply the same broken system to your career coach?
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Episode 207: More Precious than Gold
March 3rd, 2021 | 12 mins 14 secs
You’ll often hear time and money being equated in business. The fact of the matter is that time is way more valuable than money.
Your time is a finite, non-refundable, non-renewable resource and the kicker is, you don't know how much you had to start with.
And you just made more money listening to this!
So how do you make the best use of your finite time so you can have the money and the life worthy of investing your time in?
It takes a plan, and it takes action.
Find out more in this episode!
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Episode 206: Kicking the Hopeium Addiction
March 1st, 2021 | 17 mins 8 secs
There are at least 2 kinds of optimism in the world.
One shines a light in a dark room, helping you find the door to something better. The other lulls you into complacency, numbing the pain of the dark.
If there are things in your life that are “this sucks but I can deal with it, its temporary” you too may be addicted to Hopeium.
In this episode Rob shakes the false hope of waiting for things to improve and spurs action toward that door to something better.