Welcome to our first podcast: Tech Career Talks. In this episode, our guest is Csilla Bessenyei, and she's a DevOps Transformation Consultant with over a decade of experience in the tech industry in companies like Facebook, Equinix, Royal Bank of Canada, and Cisco. In this conversation, Csilla will share her professional journey starting a career as a Network Engineer and transitioning into Automation and DevOps.

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The Agenda:

00:00 Start
‍00:16 Guest Introduction
‍00:35 Where does your passion for tech come from?
‍02:07 Which kind of activities did you do as an entry-level Network Engineer?
‍02:49 What was the journey? What was your evolution as an engineer?
‍05:10 How long does it take to transition as a Network Development Engineer?
‍05:36 What level of Network engineering, have you reached in terms of skills?
‍06:01 CCIE and expert certifications in the industry.
‍07:43 How different is the job as Network Automation Engineer?
‍12:28 Network Automation inside Facebook.
‍13:58 Technical and Human skills inside Big Tech.
‍15:16 Is Python the most used language in automation?
‍16:12 The journey as a woman in tech.
‍17:47 A day in a life of a Platform Engineer.
‍22:32 Advice on how to learn faster with a busy schedule.
‍24:31 Frameworks and productivity hack tips.
‍26:47 What was your biggest challenge as a Tech Engineer?
‍27:57 How do Network, System, Cloud, and DevOps intersect together?
‍33:45 Core concepts of DevOps practices.
‍37:01 How to shift engineering mindset to provide positive business outcomes.
‍39:28 What is the most important lesson you’ve learned over your career?
‍41:25 How to manage mental health and avoid burnout?
‍44:32 Human skills to succeed in the tech industry.
‍48:18 Inspirations, mentors, and idols in the industry.
‍51:03 Common myth as a DevOps Engineer.
‍53:54 Book suggestions for scaling as a tech engineer.
‍57:13 What is one piece of advice you’d give to someone aspiring to become a tech engineer?

Csilla work experience:
• Web Development (in University)
• Network Engineering (5 years)
• Network Automation (3 years)
• SRE (2 years)
• Product Management (6 months)
• Platform Engineering

Csilla personal mission statement:
”I am passionate about transformation. In the past 10 years, I’ve worked in companies with both traditional and cloud-enabled operating models. I witnessed and initiated numerous improvement efforts. I’ve learnt firsthand that keeping up with evolving technology is only one part of the picture. To realise the potential of what technology offers, we may need to let go of comfortable concepts, go back to basics, shift our mindset, re-architect organisations and software at the same time. This should be done in conjunction with improving psychological safety. This is a hard challenge. And this is what drives me. My aspiration is to work with companies to help them find their way to become a technology-enabled learning organisation, so all parts of the business can continuously adapt and thrive in the new landscape.”

References:

Books:
• Phoenix Project: A Novel About It, Devops, And Helping Your Business Win, Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford.
• The Unicorn Project: A Novel about Developers, Digital Disruption, and Thriving in the Age of Data, Gene Kim.
• The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox.
• Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow, Matthew Skelton, and Manuel Pais.
• Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Fowler)), Jez Humble, and David Farley.

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Knowledge/task management:
• https://gettingthingsdone.com/what-is...
‍• https://fortelabs.co/blog/basboverview/

Video:
• Solving for Happiness at ITV - Tom Clark (https://youtu.be/6XXhsSUnHuI)
• Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones (Google Cloud Next '17) - Simon Wardley (https://youtu.be/ek0aWj_rWYs)