Screaming in the Cloud - Episode 71: Boomeranging Back into Microsoft with Tara Walker

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, cloud economist Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud. using Nagios at scale anymore because monitoring looks like something very different in a modern architecture where you have ephemeral containers spinning up and down, for example. How do you know how up your application is in an environment like that? At scale, it's never a question of whether your site is up, but rather a question of how down is it? LightStep lets you answer that question

Starting point is 00:01:01 effectively. Discover what other companies including Lyft, Twilio, Box, and Jithub have already learned. Visit lightstep.com to learn more. My thanks to them for sponsoring this episode of Screaming in the Cloud. Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. I'm joined this week by Tara Walker, Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft with an emphasis on IoT. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you so much. You are one of those people that I have wanted to get on this show for a long time, because when I first heard about you, you were writing blog posts, among many other things, at AWS. And I wrote up summaries of at least a few of those in my sarcastic newsletter.

Starting point is 00:01:43 And eventually, everything you wrote was well-written. The code made sense to the point where someone who's not great at writing code high could wind up making sense of this. And talking to you on the record about some of this stuff was always near the top of my list and it never worked out. And then one day I got the sad news that you were leaving. And now I encounter you again working at microsoft and i can talk to you first thank you well thank you for coming it is so great to finally get you on the show a year after i tried the first time oh no thank you for having me it's wow it's really flattering that you wanted me on the show so i appreciate it oh yes so you. So you, I misunderstood originally

Starting point is 00:02:25 because I saw the blog post that you put out. They were well-written, they were well-researched, and my default response was, oh, she must be on the blog team. Yeah, turns out not so much. You have a deep background in software engineering, specifically, again, IoT historically, but also you were doing,

Starting point is 00:02:41 are and were doing a fair bit of serverless stuff. I was, yeah. So my role was never like official, you know, a blog person. That just kind of happened, if you will. It's like, oh, you know, we're really swamping our blog team. We would love for, you know, our evangelists, our engineers to come in and, you know, have some bandwidth to write about some releases. So especially being an IoT and serverless SME and working very closely with the engineering teams, it just made sense for me to be able to speak toward what was happening in those spaces.

Starting point is 00:03:14 So, that's what the past looked like. Can you talk a little bit about what you're working on these days? So I'm extremely excited. Like this is, yeah, okay. I gotta tell you. So first I work in commercial software engineering. It is a great group and it's kind of the intersection between the engineering group and some of our big customers that we're doing some of these cool new things you saw here at Build and actually putting it in real life,

Starting point is 00:03:42 kind of putting it the rubber to the road, making sure we're not only solving their problems, but making sure our solutions actually are viable. So it's a great group because we go out, by the way, as I said, I'm focused on IoT. So I get to work with some of the top companies and like some of the companies were actually on the build slide for us.

Starting point is 00:04:03 That's a list keynote. I will not say which ones they are. And some things that we do from our engineering perspective are great. It works wonderful. The customer is happy. But like any other software, there are things where the customer is like, in real life, you forgot this. Or in real life, we would love if it did this. And so we will either build interim solutions to help them get to where they need to go, or work directly with the product group that says, hey, let's kind of rethink this, or, hey, let's tweak this. Or hey, if you guys are working on this, because they can only work so much, we'll fill in the gap and build that SDK or build that whatever it is, do that pull request and get things done. And actually,

Starting point is 00:04:47 believe it or not, my first foray when I was in my other life and the other company, one of the first things I did was work with the product group and they didn't have bandwidth. So I built an SDK for one of the services. So it's kind of like back in my engineering world, I've always been an engineer, but now I'm fully in engineering. I'm not kind of straddling between, oh, write this code. Now go talk about it in the blog. So it's back to my engineering roots, and it's where I love. So it's IUT.

Starting point is 00:05:16 It's robotics. It's getting to what we're talking about on edge. That's my passion. I've always had a bunch of devices I've always been the person to the chagrin of my parents that would tear down my toys and try to rebuild them especially electrical ones so this is I'm back in not only my space but this is a place I'm really passionate about so what I'm really focused on right now will be IoT edge things on the edge implementing things on the edge in interesting projects like with robots and manufacturing that I

Starting point is 00:05:50 cannot talk about, but talk about the customer. But how do I get this robotics data to do what it needs to do in the cloud and actually affect based upon changes to deliver something to customers that is really cool that I can't say what it is, but I'll just say a few of the customers that I've been working with to make sure not only we understand the product is right, but doing things in production are on the field side. So I was excited. I was never that into the whole IoT devices and robotics world for a few reasons. Primarily that when you break things in the real world, it's reasons. Primarily that when you break things in the real

Starting point is 00:06:25 world, it's expensive to replace them. When you break things in code, you just restore to your last save point and try again. And given my proclivity for doing things incredibly wrongly, even the success story means, and now I have a robot that hunts me through the streets, which let's not kid ourselves, I've had that coming to me for a long time. No, no. What's good about IoT now, it's really evolved to where it was before. IoT, when it first came out, wasn't as connected as it is now. It was a bunch of us liking to tinker with things. Oh, GPIO, I can make this relay go and things of that nature. And, but now we're in a space where connected devices are something that's becoming more mainstream. And now that it's more mainstream, you now see that there are nuances to develop a software for, and I don't

Starting point is 00:07:18 want to say the average developer, cause that sounds kind of remiss for any developer. So not, you know, can get into IoT, use their skills, your software skills that you have to now build a device that does things. So you don't have to be an EE. I'm not an EE. My background is, I have a CS degree and I'm getting a CS master. So I'm not, yeah, I'm at Georgia Tech. Don't, I would advise all your listeners, do not work full time at a tech company and go to grad school, especially at someplace like Georgia Tech that actually wants you to be a grad student. So, but yeah, so, you know, so my background is not an EE, it's as a software engineer. making IoT available for any developer. And you can now solve solutions, whether they are complex or simple, by the simple fact that we're democratizing the ability to get into the

Starting point is 00:08:11 internet of things. So I get it. A lot of people say, oh my God, the soldering iron, the everything else, then they're a little bit afraid of diving into it. But IoT now is truly in my mind for everyone. And this, the fact that we now have machine learning that is now also becoming more democratized, that marriage between IoT and ML, it's you can do so much. And so I even with, as you say, you're, you know, the robot hunting you, you can at least hopefully program the robot and read the cloud, push the button, have him stop hunting you, shut down his operations, and protect yourself and save yourself. But IoT now is really for everyone. It's not just for the geeks who like to tinker

Starting point is 00:08:58 with the soldering irons. It's always interesting to talk to people who have interests that lie in different directions than what I spend my time on. Because at that point, every time they open their mouth, I'm learning something. As opposed to winding up in an argument about the best way to structure a web app. And that's why Twitter for Pets is going to be the social media network that takes over the world of pet communication any day now. We're waiting for traction. We're waiting for traction. So changing gears a bit, and let's see if we can have this conversation in a way that doesn't result in angry letters

Starting point is 00:09:29 to either of us. Okay. You worked at Microsoft for give or take 11 years, and then you left and went to AWS for five years. And now for almost a year, you've been back at Microsoft, which first is a fascinating boomerang story. And it means additionally that you left in such a way that you didn't torch one of the many buildings to the ground to the point where at least- Everything was still standing, yes. Or it was the building that had the records in it and no one knew could understand why. But I guess the question I have for you is why did you leave and then why did you come back? Okay. So I did a myriad of different things

Starting point is 00:10:05 at Microsoft the first time and I loved Microsoft the first time, but it was going through a transition, a transition in management and leadership. It was going through a transition in trying to find its direction. It was going through a lot of transition points that people that were really passionate Microsofties were like, no,

Starting point is 00:10:26 let's not go this direction. And one of those for me was our direction in forcing people, and forcing is such a strong wrong, and encouraging people very strongly to only use Microsoft tech. And so I had interest in things like Mono and Linux and building not just for the Windows phone, God bless and rest his soul, but also for iOS and Android, I really was digging Xamarin, which was formerly Xemian and everything else. And that was where I was starting

Starting point is 00:11:06 to really get passionate about. And I, especially around, you know, that was during the time where the world was just opening up to mobile. And I just thought this Xamarin thing was so cool. I can take, you know, instead of me taking, you know, writing all this code in Java and then changing my mind, well, not changing my mind, but then redoing it again all this code in Java and then changing my mind, well not changing my mind, but then redoing it again in Objective-C and then redoing it again, maybe for the Windows phone in C sharp. What if I could actually write something that could be compounded down natively? So for me, Xamarin, and this was way before Microsoft and Xamarin came together, was fascinating. And then we were, you know, doing things like dropping support for

Starting point is 00:11:45 X and A for people who were C sharp developers and not code and everything. But I just thought that was wrong. You, you know, C sharp developers were your bread and butter. And now you're saying they can't build games. So that's when I got into the open source project, a mono game. That was super cool. So I wrote a bunch of tutorials of how you would build, you know, when I kind of just dived in my boss at the time, Bob Familiar, who was fantastic. Hi, Bob, was like, hey, let's just dig into this and figure this out. So, you know, while he was very open to that as a culture during that period of time, it was very much. Why are you doing that? You should not be doing that.

Starting point is 00:12:25 You should be focused solely on, you know, our products, only Microsoft stuff. And I just thought that was really short-sighted. So, you know, culturally, it was very much changing from the Microsoft I joined. And then my management changed and I, you know, lost, you know, a support who understood that looking at these other technologies was important. And I really just wanted to do something different. I wanted to get out in the world where it wasn't all Microsoft. I wasn't, quote unquote, very strongly encouraged.

Starting point is 00:12:56 I won't say forced to only use Microsoft products. And that's when I started to think maybe I actually would leave. And that's kind of how that story came. And I'll be honest with you, I never thought I would come back. Like never, ever thought I would come back. Hey, I hated Microsoft for the longest time. In 2006 was the last time I used Windows in anger. I swore never again. And today, if my current venture were to collapse out from under me, I think Microsoft would be the first company I would call as far as places to work. And I don't know how they did that. I mean, I have to give credit.

Starting point is 00:13:33 You know, I had to watch that transformation from afar. So I have to give Settle a credit. He was actually, in my opinion, really looking at where we used to be as what I call the old Microsoft where we were going during the period of time I was looking to leave and then was like but we're not this company like Microsoft has this is one of the places I have met the most smartest I mean like brilliant genius level people in my life and genius level people that actually can form a sentence and are, you know, are, you know, really amenable to talk. Their first language was not math. Right. And it's amazing. Right. So it really hurt, honestly, to leave. to see him make that transformation, not just back to what Microsoft used to be as far as innovation and Sten Vision, but also to embrace every other technology out there,

Starting point is 00:14:31 whether it's open source, whether it's Linux, whether it's anything, because we want to delight developers and for developers whole purpose in this world, and this is why I like Microsoft's new vision is to really empower you to build and change the world. And that was what the initial mission was. And I feel like we kind of got a little bit away from that for a period of time. And this, when Satala took over, the transformation of him getting back to

Starting point is 00:14:58 that was amazing, even to watch from afar. And so I just happened to see a former colleague that, you know, worked, that didn't leave. And he's just like, I'm telling you, it's amazing. It's a different place. It's the, you know, good management is really important. And he was like, I have the most fantastic manager who, and he was right. Cause I'm actually, we're in the same group and this guy, oh my God, I was like, how great can you you be so he kept trying to convince me to really look back at Microsoft and that was for me just crazy because I was like but that's going back I'm supposed to go forward kind of thing but it was one of the best decisions I think I made given that I have been not only embraced amazingly coming back, but it is truly a new company. I don't feel like I've come back.

Starting point is 00:15:52 I feel like I just joined a new company because it is completely different than what I left, both in tech, both in culture and everything. It's not the same place. And it's wonderful, actually. You are an incredibly well-respected engineer. They don't pass out the principal title like candy at any of the major tech companies out there. So with that in mind, if you don't mind the question, why are you pursuing a master's in computer science?

Starting point is 00:16:21 Okay, so that's a good question. So it's for two reasons. Really, you're going to laugh, but two reasons. First of all, my family is huge on education. I mean, huge, like every less person almost in my family, especially immediate, but even outside of that has multiple degrees. It is completely understood that you are going to get multiple degrees. In fact, my parents tricked me for so many years. I did not know people didn't go to college. Like I thought, you know what I thought? Oh God. I, you know, looking back on it, I was like, you were so deaf, but you know,

Starting point is 00:16:56 I didn't know people didn't go to college. I didn't think that was, I didn't know that was an option because they tricked me. They did trick me anyway. So for you, it was not an option. Right. I didn't know. I didn't know the rest of the world had options out there. But so it was always I kind of I came out of school and, you know, I got some really cool opportunities as far as job wise. And then, you know, just the ball kept rolling. I got a few certs here and there, like I got my CSSP and some other things just to, you know, go for it or whatever. And I was just doing good, progressing and learning in this craft. And my parents still were like, you know, as I've been during this journey, like, but you are going back to school, right?

Starting point is 00:17:39 Like I would get the Thanksgiving dinner. Yeah, we're just waiting for Tara to go back. It's just cool. And so, you know, Georgia Tech is I live in Atlanta. So Georgia Tech is a great engineering school. I was like, OK, well, let me just bite the bullet. I'm not getting any younger. And there was just a great opportunity to go back to Georgia Tech. And what was great about it was this is also when they were offering their online program. And so I went first just as a traditional student, which I'll be honest was kicking my butt because trying to work and travel and everything else. And that's when they had this option that, you know, you can also take this exact same degree and do it virtually. So the streaming classes, the, you take all the same exams and everything else.

Starting point is 00:18:25 And that's when it really opened up to me that I could actually do this because actually going to classes was not, I mean, I was making it, but I was sleeping 0%. So it was always expected for me to go back. I think I've been, I've been forced, but not now, you know, so that was kind of, you know, why I went back. And I think the biggest catalyst for me finally taking the bullet was, believe it or not, I was at Georgia Tech, doing a talk about, you know, I like to go back and try to inspire students. So I was doing a talk about something, some coding, something going on. And one of the professors there, or, you know, I don't want to put that on them. And maybe he's not a professor. But one of the guys that was at the talk, came up to me and just said, Oh,

Starting point is 00:19:12 that was great. You know, asked me what school I went to. He was like, Yeah, you know, because, you know, we don't, people like you, these were his exact words, don't do well, getting grad degrees here at Georgia Tech. So it's probably good you got into your career when you did. And so when he said that to me, it was a great, okay, I got to go back anyway. This is a challenge. Did you just say that I can't graduate from Georgia Tech as a grad school because I don't look what you believe like an engineer should look like or someone who can matriculate at Georgia Tech. And so I am horrible about being challenged and then just going for it. So that was kind of the catalyst. I knew I could stop the conversations at Thanksgiving about when is Tara going back?

Starting point is 00:19:56 And also, you know, this guy challenged me to say, you know, you we don't really have your kind to graduate here with graduate degrees. And that was, it was on. I was like, oh, really? I could show you. So that's, I foolishly took that. But I mean, I'm in it now. And I'm, I'm excited. I'm just taking my time going through it. And I'm sure I'll be glad when it's over. But I'm in it now. Until then, you get to enjoy the journey. I don't know about if joy is the right word. I get to suffer through the journey, but I'm sure everybody keeps saying it'll be worth it. But yeah, you're right. I don't think per se that it'll maybe or maybe not affect my career, but it's a checkbox that I just need to go ahead and get out the way. Which makes an awful lot of sense. Tara, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. If people want to hear more of

Starting point is 00:20:48 your wise words of wisdom, where can they find you? My wise words of wisdom. Oh my. So if you want to chat with me, and I'm really responsive on Twitter, believe it or not. I, you know, it's maybe it comes from my old evangelism days, but you can always follow me at at Tara W on Twitter. Also, while I've been here at Build, we've done a series of IoT. I was a dev in IoT for, dev MC for IoT here.

Starting point is 00:21:16 So I've done a lot of conversations with some of the execs around IoT and some of the sessions of IoT. So you can follow me there also on the windows developer dev collective and they have a section just for me and we're talking about iot and some of the enhancements that have happened with iot the advancements the announcements etc etc so you can also follow me there um i'm also on linkedin i suck at at LinkedIn I think we all do

Starting point is 00:21:46 okay because I've had people fuss at me that they've added me on LinkedIn and I didn't respond I suck at LinkedIn but I will give you my LinkedIn because I have no problem with people reaching me out to this it's Tara E Walker you know of course do the LinkedIn.com

Starting point is 00:22:02 but so I can appreciate it and they would like to add you to their professional network on LinkedIn. I'm sure that'll happen. That's fine. Perfect. Once again, thank you for taking the time out of your day to speak with me. I appreciate it. No, thank you for having me. This has been fantastic. Tara Walker, principal software engineer

Starting point is 00:22:20 with an emphasis on IoT who has boomeranged to Microsoft. I'm Corey Quinn. This is Screaming in the Cloud. This has been this week's episode of Screaming in the Cloud. You can also find more Corey at screaminginthecloud.com or wherever fine snark is sold. This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Screaming in the Cloud - Episode 71: Boomeranging Back into Microsoft with Tara Walker

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