Embedded

Chris Svec returns to the show to discuss the messy, non-linear realities of engineering management and onboarding new college graduates. We explore why companies should bother hiring fresh grads in the first place, how to prevent junior developers from going dark when they get stuck, and why admitting ignorance publicly is an absolute workplace superpower. Along the way, we dive into managing genius firmware engineering hires, battling technical debt and software entropy, and why your development team shouldn't communicate solely through pull request comments.Chris Svec is the Director of Embedded Software Engineering at Insulet. If you're looking for an experienced leadership or management thought partner to help scale your development team, Chris Svec offers private coaching and consulting. You can reach him directly at the email given in the show (or hit the contact link and we’ll forward your message along).Recommended Books for Engineering Managers & Tech LeadsThe Manager's Path by Camille Fournier – A guide for navigating tech leadership and managing engineering teams.Resilient Management by Lara Hogan – A book dedicated to the human side of engineering management.Software Architecture & Embedded Systems ResourcesA Philosophy of Software Design by John Ousterhout – A high-level philosophical perspective on software engineering and architecture.The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas – A classic text on software development best practices.Joel on Software by Joel Spolsky – Insights on software development methodologies and managing tech teams.Making Embedded Systems by Elecia White – A comprehensive guide to firmware design patterns and embedded architecture.Embedded for Everyone by Nathan Jones – A curated repository of accessible embedded system learning resources.Educational Programming GamesShenzhen I.O. by Zachtronics – An interactive puzzle game for learning assembly programming.Typer Shark! Deluxe – A classic game to improve typing speed and precision for developers.Mentions and Episode ContextEmbedded.fm blog post: Resilience is a Skill and Embedded Skills Tree The "Meow Meow Beans" episode from the TV show Community (season 5, episode 8), see a snippet.All Systems Red by Martha Wells – The sci-fi novel featured in today's closing quoteIf you want to dive into Svec’s previous appearances on the podcast, be sure to check out:78: Happy Cows (His very first appearance, discussing empathy in software development)250: Yolo Snarf (All about version control, gitflow, and D&D)297: Mice to Do My Bidding (Focusing on attentional focus and workflow psychological tricks)402: We Are a Lazy Species (Software schedule estimation alongside Philip Johnston)436: 20 GOTO 10 (Discussing modern kids' programming languages and the longevity of the Joel Test)Transcript 

Dr. Tom Williams spoke with us about robots, ethics, teaching, and books. Then we talked about mines, umpires, water, and more books.Tom is the author of Degrees of Freedom: On Robotics and Social Justice (free at MIT Press: Degrees of Freedom: On Robotics and Social Justice!). As part of the discussion, we talked about some other books and media:Nonfiction:Sex, Race, and Robots: How to Be Human in the Age of AI by Ayanna Howard (Embedded episodes 367: Data of Our Lives and 207: I Love My Robot Monkey Head)Embodied AI Safety: Reimagining safety engineering for artificial intelligence in physical systems by Philip Koopman (related Embedded episode 514: Just Turn Off All the Computers) Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence by Kate CrawfordWaki Kamino’s research on robot umpires: Beyond Accuracy: Rethinking the Value of AI in Decision-Making Through Baseball’s Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) System (or see the summary in the Cornell Chronicle: AI on deck: assessing impact of MLB’s new ball-strike system)Fiction:A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chalmers Platform Decay (The Murderbot Diaries Book 8) by Martha Wells (Embedded episode 432: Robot Bechdel Test) Death of the Author by Nnedi OkoraforThe Good Place TV show was mentioned a few times as an introduction to ethics for people who prefer their education crammed with amusement.Critical Role web seriesThere was a discussion about water use in AI. Tom recommends Why is Everyone So Wrong About AI Water Use?? while Elecia unsurprisingly mispronounces synecdoche. Tom is a computer science professor at the Colorado School of Mines where he runs the Mines Interactive Robotics Research Lab (MIRROR lab). See also Tom’s page on mines.edu.The final quote is from an essay written by Karel Capek and translated to English in in The Man Who Coined the Word “Robot” Defends Himself - IEEE Spectrum.Transcript