E58: The One Where We Geek Out on Argo Project with Lisa Marie Namphy

Lisa-Marie Namphy eats, breathes, and sleeps tech. Even though she didn't start off in tech (fun fact - she's an English major), as a Bay Area native, her path to tech was inevitable. Catch Lisa's journey, cool facts about the Argo project, what it's like to co-run KubeCrash, her love for end user stories, and more! 📖 Chapters 📖 --------------------------- 00:00 Opening credits 00:26 Guest intro 00:57 KCD Bay Area 04:51 Toronto Tech Week & CNCF Toronto 08:02 Intuit & ArgoCD 14:30 What makes for a successful open source project? 19:21 The importance of contributing to open source docs 20:30 The challenge with companies adopting open source projects 23:09 Showing love to small open source projects 24:11 Lisa's tech journey (it started with Posix certifications!) 26:13 Geeking out on astronomy 28:14 Distributed databases 29:09 Don't forget about the end users! 31:22 Lisa's involvement with KubeCons 34:17 KubeCrash 47:26 Lightning round questions 51:16 Parting words of wisdom 53:06 Peace out and geek out Key takeaways --------------------------- * An open source project can only succeed if it has not only contributors and maintainers, but also users of the project. * Your open source project is really as good as the docs are. * It can be challenging for companies to commit to and adopt open source projects because they don't know if the project will be long enough. * Large organizations or startups looking to scale look for paid support from open source projects that they use, if it ends up becoming a mission-critical part of their development and/or operations. * If there's an open source project you love, show some love to the open source developers by donating to the project, because if they can't pay the bills, they can't maintain the project. * When Lisa was in university, girls weren't encouraged to go into tech, and it resulted in her being an English major, even though she was better at STEM subjects. * End users are just as important as the folks working on open source projects. * Even if you don't get accepted to KubeCon, there are tons of other conferences and meetups, both part of the CNCF and outside of the CNCF, that you can attend, including Kubernetes Community Days (KCDs). * KubeCrash is an online conference that, among other things, prides itself on featuring first-time speakers. * If you want to get into public speaking and want to build up your confidence, panels are a great way to get started. Transcript & show notes: https://open.substack.com/pub/geekingoutpodcast/p/the-one-where-we-geek-out-on-argo?r=27vnzy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web