Tom Elliott talks with Dave Rael about performing, speaking, leadership, user experience, and the joys of the human side of software development
Tom Elliott is an Engineer and Team Lead at Yext, provider of the leading Digital Knowledge Management platform. Tom is a lover of side projects, some of which include Edward, a command-line tool for managing local instances of microservices and Speaker Alert, a mobile app for timing speeches. Outside of technical pursuits, Tom is an avid public speaker, and posts far too many puns on social media.
Chapters:
0:32 - Dave introduces the show and Tom Elliott2:26 - What technical speakers can learn from other types of performing6:18 - Preparation for speaking10:14 - Tom's side projects and coding hobby14:34 - How Tom got started in software17:04 - Solving a problem and sharing the solution20:25 - Tom's story of failure - falling short on thinking through user experience26:00 - Learning, doing, and the Pareto Principle27:00 - Mixed-stack environments and tools that work for you30:17 - Tom's book recommendation32:30 - How Tom wound up trying life and work in New York35:29 - How Tom stays current with what he needs to know39:03 - Tom on leadership and management45:50 - Tom's top 3 tips for delivering more value48:10 - Keeping up with Tom
Resources:
Tom on GitHub
Tom's Blog on Medium
Yext
Edward
Toastmasters International
Rob Richardson on Developer On Fire
Sourcetree
Tim Ferriss
Jeff Atwood on Developer On Fire
John Rouda on Developer On Fire
Tricia Broderick on Developer On Fire
The Dunning–Kruger Effect
Tom's book recommendation:
The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win - Gene Kim
Tom's top 3 tips for delivering more value:
Put people first
Prepare for everything you do
If you are good at something, you probably won't realize your'e good at it