Pioneering Change in Tech through Open Source – Tech.Strong.Women. EP 31

Hi, everybody. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Techstrong Women, where we feature amazing women doing amazing things in tech. I'm Jody Ashley, executive producer here at Techstrong, and I'm here with my co-host, Tracy Reagan, creator, and CEO of Deploy Hub.

Before I introduce today's guest, I wanna give you a quick update about what's happening here at Textron. Be sure to register for Textron Con 2024 happening on April 3rd. Speaker submissions are still open, and we always love sponsors.

And if you are in Paris this week attending CubeCon, please stop by our booth. Uh, text Strong will be live streaming interviews from the event all week. And we would love to see you and say hello.

tv for great shows and interviews. Hey, Tracy, what's on your mind today? Well, thinking about being in Paris sounds like a really good thing to talk about, but I'm not, but I do wanna talk about open source and, you know, this is a lead in to our guest today 'cause she is an open source person.

It's like myself, but I know I found this article, um, about, um, new where the growth in developers, uh, is right now. Is that right? Yes, that's correct.

So, according to GitHub, um, Bangladesh and Nigeria are the two biggest year over year, uh, growth in GI GitHub developer accounts. Bangladesh grew by 66%. So think about it in the, I'll give you the, the actual numbers if I can find 'em here.

We're talking about, uh, from September of 2022, there were only 568,000 developer GitHub accounts from Bangladesh. At the end of September, it was 945,000. That's almost, that's a lot.

That's a, that's big growth. 66%. Wow.

Um, Nigeria similar. They've grown by 45%. So it would be really great if GitHub is listening, and it'd be nice to think that somebody from GitHub who can make this happen is listening to our, our show.

But it'd be really great if we had those numbers by pronouns, right? How many, how many women or non-binary people are signing up for GitHub accounts? I'm guessing it would be pretty low.

It would, it would be an interesting insight to see. But the point is, is that for open source development for recruiting, uh, teams, for, for open source, uh, uh, contribution, it is a, it's global now. Uh, you know, when Bangladesh and Nigeria and Pakistan are the top new, new, uh, kind of, uh, development communities, uh, we have gone way beyond the, the, uh, the, this, the, the normal suspects, which is United States and India and China.

The United States has 20 million, uh, developer GitHub accounts, and India has 13 million. So the other countries have a long way to go, but we're, it's great to see that they're starting to jump. And that's what I'm thinking about today.

That's what you're thinking about today. All right, well, thank you Tracy. Alright, well, I'm excited to introduce our guest today, um, Elina Ko.

Yes. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, first of all, thank you for having me.

Um, uh, I, I haven't done conferences for a while, so this is kind of, uh, a similar, um, stress level and excitement. Uh, I'm, I'm enjoying it already. Uh, yes.

My name is Alina Viko. I'm a, I'm a software developer. I, uh, started my career in it quite some time ago.

I worked as a developer for a big product company for a few years, and then I switched to consulting. And I was consulting in, um, what was then, uh, um, very, uh, fresh, uh, growing popular DevOps area, whatever we, uh, meant by that at that time. And that's when I first got seriously involved with open source.

And that was really exciting and it, uh, helped my career a lot. And I guess I'll have time to elaborate on that later. Um, I moved on to a, a startup for a while, and that was very exciting adventure too.

Uh, but much, much, uh, less open source for a while at least. And I'm happy to be back at a product company, um, where I am officially a DevOps engineer, but I think I'm transitioning, transitioning, sorry, slowly into platform engineer and, uh, and, um, open source is, uh, back on. So, uh, yes, that's me.

So what you didn't tell us about yourself, um, is your work with the Jenkins community. I really want you to tell us about that, uh, because it's really, this is a very important topic. We do not have a lot of females that are in the world of open source.

Uh, you and I are both anomalies comes to that, to be honest. So just give us some information about how, how you got into Jenkins, what that, what the roadmap looked like for you to be where you are within the Jenkins community. And then let us know what you've been doing with the Jenkins community in your career.

Yes, of course. That's very important part for of, of my career. And it's just so big I've decided to skip it in the presentation because it's basically like the whole podcast could, could have been about it.

Good. It's, um, I, uh, the first customer I got when I started working as a consultant had an insanely old Jenkins instance. I, I knew of Jenkins before I've seen it.

I've never, I've never been maintaining it, um, the, the, the Jenkins instance on my own. But it was a friendly customer. I was, I was able to, to try things, but it was terrifying.

It was, as I say, very old instance, it was kind of working or not working sometimes on when or when it was working is, uh, we were not sure why it was working. It was, it was a mess. And I was producing, uh, insane amount of screenshots.

Were trying to make it work better, uh, fix things that were not working and maybe try to upgrade it step by step. 'cause the changes in the, in Jenkins were, and I guess are coming pretty fast. So it's screenshot, ference, screenshots, sometimes very long screenshots because it was the old, old, uh, old style jobs that was like a massive, massive, uh, website.

Uh, you know, a lot of things to just manually type. And, uh, at that time, um, my colleagues from the company that was at the time called PMA already had some proof of concept for Jenkins configuration as code approach, uh, that I did introduce at this customer. And it did help, uh, very much.

I felt much better. I didn't have to maintain the, the, the big collection of screenshots anymore. I I wasn't afraid to, to, uh, click a button or remove something.

So already a, a big step forward, but it still wasn't a, a solution that I imagine would work for everyone easily. It required you to restart Jenkins instance. It can take few minutes, maybe more.

Maybe you don't have all the accesses to do that. It was working, it wasn't optimal. So me and my colleagues started, started figuring out if there is a better way to, uh, approach it.

And I was very excited about the idea, even if I wasn't confident enough, uh, that I have skills to, to come up with something like that completely on my own. We're we started working on it. And I really don't know how it happened that Jenkins community learned about it.

Uh, my colleagues probably were in touch with some of them, Mo or Sag Gucci. So we were, we were put in touch, and I had a meeting with, uh, Koska, um, Ole Nikola maybe. And, uh, and I was, I was preparing to meet those, uh, very serious people that created this very serious, uh, product that is so popular.

And I was, of course, a little bit, uh, starstruck and a little bit scared, but we met and, uh, and we started talking about what, what we wanna do. And I remember, and I'm, I'm, I'm always, I always feel kind of silly, but happy when I, when I, uh, uh, when I get reminded of that, or when I remind myself, uh, when I talk to someone about it, Kska started, um, uh, describing the vision he would have for a, a configuration, a code solution for Jenkins that would make sense for him. And, uh, and I came prepared with, uh, with my vision, and I was just listening to him and checking the points I had on my, on my little piece of paper.

And it was like, check, check, check. I, I, I discovered that we are on the same page very much, and that already gave me a lot of confidence that, okay, so maybe, maybe I don't have that much experience, but, you know, something's there. So that was, that was the beginning.

I, um, my colleagues and I from Pragma and, uh, some, some people from gen community, we just, uh, we just started to work on the plugin, started building up the community, started building up the product. And, uh, and that's, that's, uh, yeah, that's how it all began. You know, why I love the story is that, um, first of all, you were very brave.

I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know what I was signing up for. But you, but you did, you did know what you were doing, and you knew more than you realized.

And it, the, the story unfolds. It shows how you found your voice in being able to bring solutions to people who you were starstruck by. Right?

And, you know, we, we, we all, if you're a Jenkins user, you everybody know who's, uh, who, who KK is oftentimes referred as kk. Um, he built, initially built the platform, but he couldn't go alone. He had to have other people, uh, in that process.

And end users are so critical in defining an open source platform. And what you did was you represented that end user community and having the end user community come together with a contributor to community, and you became a contributor in that process. So, yeah.

Sorry, go on. I was gonna say, so are, are you still working with the Jenkins community now? And didn't you have, did you, did you ever, were you ever on the board?

I, I wasn't, that's what I was going to jump jump into it, because it was suggested to me that I, I, I become a candidate to be a, a board member. And I was, again, you know, the impostor syndrome, it tu fluctuates. I'm, I'm on top of the world, and then I'm like, what am I doing here?

So, uh, so I, I was asked if I maybe wanna be a candidate, and I said, yes, you are, maybe, but like, what do I, what do I have to offer? And they said exactly the same thing you said, like, you are the voice of the end user. We have a lot of people that are involved with Jenkins community for quite a while with the product, the security officers, and, you know, a lot of, a lot of different roles.

But, but you are, you're a consultant that works with, uh, customers that use Jenkins. You use Jenkins, you represent, you represent, uh, them, you're their voice. And, uh, and that was, that worked for me because again, like you mentioned, the, the, the, uh, gender misbalance in, in it.

And that's, that's very much a problem, um, uh, in, in some aspects. And I, I would love to see it, um, solved. So women or other, other, um, other genders, people just feel comfortable no matter who they are.

But, uh, I am at the same time worry every time I'm being kind of selected to do something. Am I just a minority token? And, uh, I never got this, um, impression with the Jenkins community.

And even if I was, I was kind of getting there and, and like, maybe is it that, uh, they, they always had the, had an answer that was like, it it, you're not here because you're a woman. You're here because you, you wanted to be part of the community, and we believe you have something to offer. They were, they were very welcoming in, in, in, and supporting in, in that aspect.

Currently, I do not work with Jenkins that much, so I felt it's not fair to people who are much more, uh, active for me to keep the, the, uh, spot on the board. But, uh, because as I said, I was, uh, I was in a startup where, um, as a, it, it's not like open source is not, uh, uh, possible to do open source in a startup. The focus was very much somewhere else.

I wasn't that much involved in the community, but I missed it for a few few reasons. And now I'm in a place where this kind of inter uh, company knowledge sharing and open sourcing products becoming, uh, uh, is seems to be like a, like, basic thing to do. Like, that's the, that's the way we work.

So I hope I can jump back in. So here we are, um, with a story about a person from Sweden, a person from Japan, and a person from Russia who were able to collaborate and build an amazing tool. And I'm sure there were many, many others, but Ole is from Russia, KK is from Japan, and you're from Sweden.

Um, which is why I thought the, I'm, I'm Polish actually, but I live in Sweden, and, uh, I started my Jenkins career in Denmark. So there is, There we go. So open source, you're, every source is global.

Yeah. O open source is a global effort. This is, we are a global community and we democratize technology, open source, democratizes technology in a way that anybody can participate.

Now, I know it's not been that easy for women to break into the open source community when you were really involved. How many other women did you meet in your journey? Um, I think, I don't remember exactly, but I think during the Google summer of Code Project, uh, there were always some projects for a few years that I followed up where, where women were, um, working on these projects where participants, and then I met some of these women later at the Continuous Delivery Foundation events, or the Jenkins World or DevOps world, uh, events.

So, so there were, there were women, but I wouldn't say it was anywhere close to being a gender balanced environment. And, uh, I, I do appreciate it in this one use case where we don't have gender neutral toilets and an IT event during an IT event, it's really, it's really nice to be a woman who goes to a toilet that's not occupied at all, ever. I, but that's, that, at that, at the same time, you know, I'm kind of joking, but at the same time, you can, you can really see this long line to the, to the male toilet and the female toilet is empty, which is, which is convenient, but says something Right.

It's a sign, right. It is a sign when there is not, you know, I went to a rush concert once, and I was hold being my girl, my girlfriend were sitting there, there was no one in line at the women's restroom. And there was a long, long line for the men's restroom at a rush concert.

And we sat there and laughed, and laughed and laughed about the fact that we were, there were so few women at this rush concert. Yeah. And I can tell you, most it, conferences I go to feels like a rush concert.

And there's always a spot in the restroom for women. It's so true. It's an indication.

It really is an indication. So you are, um, you know, you're an amazing person to hear that journey from. Really.

I, I, I so much appreciated. And when I first heard about you, I was like, why are, you know, why is your name not out there in the entire world? Why do we not hear about you more and more often?

Which is why anytime I get a chance, I, I talk about you and I tell people to look you up because women can learn so much. And that's the other thing I wanna ask you. And I want you to, to kind of give us an idea of what, what your career looked like because of your involvement with that Jenkins project.

How did it help you learn, and how did it help your career? Well, it gave me a lot of confidence, and it allowed me to try different things. I, I don't think I would be, uh, where I am and who I am, uh, uh, in like work environment without that experience.

It was, it was a massive change for me. I showed up at the, my first Jenkins contributor summit. Uh, it was a few weeks or months after we started Jenkins configuration as code.

It was a small meeting, I dunno, 20 people in a room right before first I went along to Brussels. I was terrified. All the shops were, uh, restaurants were closed because it was one of those days when they were closed, I really didn't know what to do with myself.

But then here I am in this room and someone says, no, maybe, maybe give us an update. It wasn't a very formal event. So every, everything was kind of like the, we were going with the flow.

So I, I knew why I am there, but I wasn't prepared to do anything specific. And then we were asked to give an update. So Nicole asked, suggested we do it together since we were, we were together working on, on, on this thing, and we just presented it, and it, it just went really, really, uh, well, I would say it was improvised, but we had a good flow.

It's, and, and then that kind of gave us the idea for me and Nicola to, to present at conferences, to together. And I have to say, I don't think I would dare to go and present, present in a, at a big conference on my own at this point. But I had this person next to me who, uh, who was like my, maybe not colleague from the same company, but we worked together a lot, and I felt comfortable with him, and we just had fun.

And, and that was, that was, that was really helpful. So I did get help from him. I did get a lot of support from other members of the, of Jenkins community.

And then we started building up on that. And then at some point I have been, uh, presenting, had been presenting at the DevOps world or Jenkins world. I don't remember the name in San Francisco in front of a lot of people on my own.

And, uh, two years before. I, I don't think I could ever imagine. So, so that, that gave me a lot of confidence.

There is also, In two years time, in two years time, you were, you went from relatively, you know, being obscure. Nobody knew who you were, and you're presenting at DevOps world or Jenkins World, that's an amazing path. But I, I think I, I still don't feel that I'm, I have like some fruits to share, so that's why you are not hearing about me, because I, I'm not ambitious enough for that.

I really, I enjoyed my time as a consultant where I was going to the company and they had, uh, some problem. And all I really cared about is that at the end of the day, these people that I'm helping are happier after I'm done than they were before with, with how their work looks like. So I, I'm like, I'm, I'm, I'm, I don't know.

Uh, I think it's important to share, uh, community is amazing, but I think it's easier for me to find joy and stress a little bit less when, when I have this one person or on, or one team that I'm helping. Yeah, I think that's amazing. 'cause Tracy knows I struggle with that too.

'cause she dragged me kicking and screaming to do this show with her. And I've been doing it for, um, 18 months now, and I'm having a blast doing it with Tracy. And I feel the same way sometimes.

I don't know that I would go do it if Tracy wasn't available. I probably wouldn't do one by myself. But I think that's good.

I mean, I gotta say, I've sat at conferences with some really horrible speakers who thought they were fantastic, and they're up there blathering and you're like, wow, someone needs to give this person some speaking, public speaking coaching. So I think it's, it's okay. It's good.

You know, what you're, what makes you happy, what makes you comfortable, what you know is absorbed by other people in a way that also makes you happy. I, you should be applauded for that. But I appreciate the opportunity because here it's, I'm not, I'm not trying to, uh, be a thought leader that I don't feel like a good person to, to even make an attempt.

But, uh, I, I get to share my experience, uh, in this, uh, in this, uh, conversation. So, so that's, uh, that's, uh, that's a nice opportunity for me. And, um, I, um, thank you for that.

But, uh, I, I really was very happy when you told me you wanna talk about open source because, uh, it kind of re re refreshed my, uh, uh, warm feelings to the, to the topic. I, I kind of got reminded what I did. And, and when I did, uh, um, I wanted to prepare some things for work, but also for that.

And I, I checked my name on YouTube and then it, I got reminded how many of these conferences I did and, uh, and how much stress it was and how much fun it was, and like, how much I really did. And, and it's nice to get reminded every now and then. So, so, So well, and you're not, you know, one thing you're not, and and I will say it 'cause I don't think you will, uh, Jenkins configuration as code changed Jenkins, it changed it in a huge way.

It made it far more accessible. It made it easier. You could, you know, you could version the, the, the pipelines.

It changed it drastically. You said you were not a thought leader, but you have been one in the past and you've demonstrated that ability. So I want you to remember that as well, because you were pushing that configuration as code, um, model for Jenkins.

And you had the checklist and you sat down with, uh, Koska, and you went through that checklist and you guys had a meeting of the minds and say, yeah, this is the direction we need to go. That was an important piece of the, the success of Jenkins. Did you know that today?

I think Mark, wait, had, uh, I think, uh, CloudBees reported that Jenkins manages about 90 million workflows a month. I had no idea. And you helped create that.

I I, 90 million? I'll not, I'll not, uh, you know, try to be too humble. I, I know, I, I, I, there there's a little part of me that, or, or I affected part of it, but I do wanna say that it's a massive effort to run such a, such a big open source project.

I, I have no idea how they did it. And it is, it is very impressive. Um, and the amount of, uh, administration they, they have around it, uh, is, uh, well, I guess it took time.

They didn't start with this, the framework they have now. They were, they were building up. But there is, there is a lot of work, uh, put into maintaining the community, and it's probably sometimes even harder work than maintaining the product itself.

Yes. I, you know, I always say Mark, wait, who is, works for CloudBees and he supports Jenkins is a unsung hero. Um, and I am, you know, I'm gonna make a plug for the Continuous Delivery Foundation.

So Jenkins was an open source project that was under CloudBees for those of you don't, who don't know. And about four years ago, CloudBees and Netflix and a couple of other companies started the Continuous Delivery Foundation. And then those open source projects became underneath those Jenkins, uh, is a costly is still, it costs money to maintain Jenkins.

It is not an inexpensive, uh, open source project that CloudBees has supported for quite some time. And now it gets supported through sponsorships, through the Continuous Delivery Foundation, CD Foundation. However, we need more that this Jenkins needs its end user community to step up and really become members of the CD Foundation as end user members to continue supporting that product.

It can't do it alone, and it can't do it through a nonprofit who's only getting support from a few high, high level companies. It needs its end user community to flourish, just like you we're able to take that product to the next level as an end user, the end user community is still needed. And in some ways, you know, the big banks and these big insurance companies, it, Jenkins is used in so many big companies.

We need those companies to step up and start supporting Jenkins. I, I'm just gonna let it out there that it, Jenkins has some, there is some risks now towards Jenkins if the end user community doesn't continue to support it, not just through code, but through funding it in some way. So, Derek, I said it.

No, I was, I was, uh, but, but that's very important. I I was thinking about that today. How, how, in one way it's such a win to, to, to have, uh, a project like that and be able to use it.

Anyone can just use it. But, uh, but there is also this risk that, well, Jenkins is massive. There is a lot of smaller products that may, may be thriving for a second, but, but then people will get tired, busy with something else.

The fans will run out. Like they, they, this is free to use, but not necessarily free to make. So, so, uh, I, I, I wonder how, what makes those thriving, uh, uh, long living projects to, to last for such a long time.

And, uh, and I also worry whenever I try a new open source project, is it something I can trust is gonna be here in two years or, or, or for whatever, how long I'm I'll, I'll be, I want to use it. So, so that is a challenge. And I was involved in another open source project kind of on the sidelines, and that was a, a fresh product.

And I saw with my own eyes how difficult it is to like, gather people, make, make people aware of whatever's going on, activate them, uh, with even creating issues. That's, uh, that's, uh, uh, insane amount of work. I think Continuous Delivery Foundation is, uh, doing a great job with, with, uh, with their projects.

And actually, I was, uh, watching some presentations about, uh, platform engineering, um, because I wanna become a better platform engineer. And, uh, there was one from P Nielsen from Spotify. She presented it at the Ethical Conference last year.

And she mentioned there that she really believes, I have a quote, so I'm reading, she really believes in the open source ecosystem, because that's how we win as a community. But you do need to have this community and you have to know how to build it, right? And then they donated backstage to Continuous Delivery Foundation, too.

Uh, so it becomes protected through open sourcing so they could co could remain relevant. So it's nice where there is a company behind open source product, and they make it really open source and available for others. And they are, engineers can work on, on, on this open source version because there is a way for both company and, and free users to, to benefit from the same thing.

But I guess it's, it's still, uh, quite a challenge. So I'm always happy to see companies doing that. But, um, yeah, I, uh, personally, if I was to start, uh, uh, my own open source project, I have no idea how to start it.

I'm just so impressed by what these people can do, how they can run the community. Yeah. So I love that statement.

I think you said open source is free to use, but not free to make, and the reason why, uh, the Linux Foundation and, and the, like this, the Continuous Delivery Foundation is important for open source projects. Is it because it allows for open source projects to be supported by a nonprofit, right? As opposed to CloudBees having, it is somebody who's nobody's, who's gonna donate money to CloudBees, right?

The whole idea was to create a platform that's nonprofit, so larger end users can make donations, and it's not, they're donating to a nonprofit. So that's, that is the key with these, not these like the foundations that support these open source communities, because it gives a way to support them and, and keep them alive for as long as we possibly can. Right.

And support it. And relevant Exactly. This, this, uh, the fact that, uh, the PI mentioned is staying relevant.

It's, it's like such an easy way to, to get, uh, uh, potential end users being involved with the product without, without making them pay. So you have a bunch of people that use your product, maybe complain about your product, uh, and, and then you can get better. Exactly.

So That's, yeah. So let's pivot a moment here. What is new in your world?

You say, it sounds like you're doing some other, some other stuff. Let's hear what you're excited about today and what's new. Yeah.

The, the platform engineering, it, it kind of, um, kind of relates to what I mentioned before, how, um, I am an ambitious in on the global scale, but the, how, how much I care about how people feel about the improvements or, or, or what I hope our improvements are. I joined one of my former colleagues at the, uh, ux, which is, which is kind of funny because I now work for the company that makes Windows, but it's not the Windows company. Uh, they make actual Windows and, uh, surprise, surprise, they have a massive IT department and, uh, and developers that create some really crazy, crazy complicated, uh, projects.

Uh, and, uh, the tool stack they have is just like, starting to think about it gives me a headache. Um, and, uh, like I, I'm not up to date. I don't think I could release, uh, the way they release now because it's just like, I didn't learn these specific tools and then I'm behind.

So of course I'll learn those tools, uh, so I can make it better for them to use it. Again, the, the, the, the little I was reading, um, about platform engineering and this presentation from PI was really good. Like the context switching and, um, cognitive load are, uh, are quite an obstacle for developers these days because they were given freedom and the freedom became very, very, very complicated.

And this, this is a challenge that excites me a lot. Like, let's make something, uh, easier, better, more effective. And this context switching, uh, uh, speaks to me a lot.

So I personally love to keep everything in one window. So I'm writing my little command line tool that I work on, uh, now, so developers can just very easily see whatever they need to see. So, you know, like little bits and pieces, but that, that's what excites me.

That's, that's what I'm working on. So I am kind of, um, um, I don't know, like there is a little bit of, uh, soft, soft part, like non-tech, part of that figuring out like, what do you really need? What bothers you?

Then high level solution. And then I get to actually code the solution, which is, which is a nice way. So I don't work all the same, um, don't do the same things the whole day.

There is a lot of variety in work. So are you, are you working in a cloud native environment? And do you have any thoughts on how the, the, uh, the pipelines, the DevOps pipelines are changing to support like microservices and the release process with these independently deployed components?

Yeah, it is a cloud native, uh, in big part, I think at least I started not that long time ago, so I don't really know that the whole thing yet. But yes, it is, it is cloud native. And, uh, just to sidetrack a bit, I remember when I, when I started working for the previous company for the startup, we were using one cloud provider, and I, I got to learn how to do things there.

So maybe I could, uh, create something on my own if I needed. I wasn't, uh, big opposite person, but I knew how to do certain things. And then we migrated to another cloud, and then all my skills were gone because the other cloud had such a different interface.

And I, I think that's, that's a big trouble. So what we are trying to do is we, my team focuses on, uh, in big part on this developer experience and, and platform engineering. We're, we're trying to like abstract all these things behind a very simple intuitive tool.

So, so developers actually don't have to care how the release looks, like, don't have to care how to ma um, manage, uh, Kubernetes, administer Kubernetes or, or, or whatever tools we're having. We want them to have a tool that's as easy as Git to use and, uh, and all the information available basically under their fingertips. And, um, I think there is a lot of GitHub action going on.

There is a lot of GitHubs going on, so there is a lot of moving pieces that if you have them up and running, then you can forget about it because it works. But if you migrate from one platform to another, or if you're a new person who starts working in an environment like that, I imagine it's, uh, it's a pretty steep, uh, time to learn what, what the work, what the process looks like, and, uh, and how to, how to release, how to do this or that. And again, because of the freedom, a lot of developers, uh, a lot of companies give to their developers, the fact that you learn how to do it in one place or in one service doesn't mean it's gonna work the same way for another service.

So there is, um, there is a lot of tricky parts that be, that came as a result of this freedom that I'm enjoying a lot. But yeah, it's, uh, it, It's sort of like, uh, the early days of Jenkins when everything was done through the command, the, the windows and you added screenshots. Yeah, yeah.

And then everyone had their own plugin to do their own little thing. And I remember I was so excited. There's plugin to do this, there's plugin to do that.

There's tra Norris plugging that I don't know what it did. And then, uh, and then you learn, okay, we have no idea what's going on here. So Yeah.

So you're, so you're working for, um, you're working in manufacturing now. Is there discussion about, um, all the security issues and the cybersecurity and supply chain security? Is there a discussion, um, on that and how you can bring that into the, that, uh, that platform engineering?

Uh, there very much is, uh, awareness of the need for the security. I, I am not that much involved in that part. I, I, I think that part scares me because this is the serious responsibility there.

I, uh, but no, like really, I, I didn't really get into security that much, but the supply chain is, I think I've heard the, the expression supply chain from every of my former colleagues working in, uh, that I was working with as consultants. So, so this is very much an issue. The project I'm currently working on is supposed to, um, um, allow developers to easily collect information about, about different stages of software development, uh, uh, of development process.

They are, changes are in and easily access this information even from their, uh, IDE. And that's, for me, that's, that's the, like, the information. But, uh, but the, the startup I worked for before was, was focusing a lot about that and, uh, compliance and, and, uh, and, and things like that.

And then the sbo m uh, um, uh, showed up on my horizon. Now we need to keep the sbo m we need to know all dependencies. So the product that, the little project I'm working on now, this kind of collecting information for, for, uh, all the, all the steps, uh, might change, went through one of my colleagues, uh, immediately came up with the idea, oh, but we may be wanna be able to connect the information from the dependencies so we can have, I'm not an I'm, I know I'm not explaining it well enough.

I'm not doing demo of my project here. Bottom line is the, the, the supply chain or the dependencies. Everyone wants to have them visualized in a nice way.

And SBOs, as far as I can tell, can become massive. So they may be a interesting source of information, but good luck browsing it. So, uh, that it's the topic.

It's definitely there. Yeah. Or original.

Be be careful. Tracy's obsessed with SBOs. Yes.

I was scared when anybody brings that up, up. orus initially was, was was graphing dependencies, and it, all it turns into is a massive hair hairball because there's so many, it's like, what's, it's not a useful graph anymore. Yeah.

So we started figuring out what are the, what's the key things we have to graph? And we started realizing how deep do You go? Yeah.

How deep do you go? And then what do you do? And just lift what does, it doesn't matter anymore.

And all you wanna do really is to be able to search for packages. Yeah. Search for, tell me where log four J is being used.

I don't need, I need a graph of it because the graphs can get really, they look like a hairball. They look like a massive death star. And that's what I used to call them.

They're just massive death stars and there's no, there's no use for a death to look at a map of a death star. And so we started maybe Just scare someone. I like Carib Ball better.

That's what it looks like. It's crazy. And we're like, why is this useful?

It can't be useful. We have to be able to, there is useful information though, like being able to say, here's a logical application and these are the components it uses, and now here's all the component SBOs and aggregate it up to an application level so we can see it all. But that is a whole different topic that I could really dig into.

And I'm sure you could too, Alina, this has been so, uh, amazing. Um, before we drop off though, I want you to, what would you say to a, a young woman who just got out of school or might be in college to encourage her to join an open source project? I, I have a perfect answer for that.

It's, uh, and I have to use a little story for it. It's short. So my brother is working in it.

He's not a software developer, uh, with, uh, a lot of experience, but he wants to grow his skills. So every now and then we come up with some little project, oh, it's time to learn docker, so let's imagine this or that. And then it often dies because how excited can you be about the dummy project that, that like really means nothing or, or is just like created forcefully in your head so you can use Docker or something.

Uh, it's much, and there is so many things you have to learn around it. It's, it's much better. And I, I, I told him to do that.

I told my colleague who was wondering how to improve his web development skill, find an open source that's using technologies you wanna, you wanna learn because you'll have, uh, real tasks, real issues to solve and community of people who can, who can help you with that. And of course, we're all people. We will have better days, worse days.

Not everyone will be always, uh, uh, as nice as, as we want. So, so it, it can be challenging at times. Not every community works the same way, but I think it's worth the risk, worth the risk and worth trying.

It's, it's an amazing opportunity to become part of something and give something back, because I'm sure, like we all use some open source, uh, software. So it's a, it's a nice way to give back, but really, uh, just for, for yourself, you, you get a great opportunity to learn on a real life example and, and get help when you need this help. Exactly.

Sorry. You can really start with just contributing issues or, uh, code reviews or you don't have to, you don't have to create new features or, or solve bugs or whatever. You can start really small.

Just become part of the community and, and see how it goes. Adoption and creating issues is huge, right? Yeah.

Learning the tool and creating issues, even if it's not in your production environment, you're just, you know, you become part of the, the community and it's such an amazing way to learn. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being with us today.

I really appreciate it. Um, what a great conversation, Tracy. I'm glad you, uh, you reached out and grabbed her for us.

What a great conversation, um, for everyone watching. Thank you so much for watching another episode of Techstrong Women. There's a bunch more Tech strong TV to watch, so keep watching today and tune in soon.

We'll have another episode of Techstrong Women. Thanks everybody. Have a great day.

Thank you.