Engineering Choices You Have to Defend
by Nicola Onassis
Real-world engineering decisions in AI, compliance, and production systems
Episodes
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How Mitalee Gujar Made Amazon’s Large-Scale Infrastructure Migration Safer with AI
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, hosted by Nicola Onassis, we sit down with Mitalee Gujar, Director of Engineering at Amazon, to explore the challenges of modernizing large-scale infrastructure while protecting critical business operations. Drawing on…
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How Ovais Quraishi Used AI to Build a Healthcare Compliance App in Just 3 Hours
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, hosted by Nicole Onassis, we sit down with Ovais Quraishi, an engineering leader with experience building teams across startups, focusing on infrastructure, reliability, and software quality. Ovais shares how he used...
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How Steve Malko Knows When to Build Software and When to Buy
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Steve Malko, a technology and operations leader with more than 15 years of experience across technology, software development, product management, and consulting. Steve shares how...
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How Anya Gerasimchuk Uses AI to Blur the Line Between UX Design and Engineering
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, hosted by Nicola Onassis, we sit down with Anya Gerasimchuk, a product and UX leader who has built digital products and led global teams. Anya shares how AI is changing the way design teams build software, develop design...
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How John Woodyard Proves Developer Productivity Can Outperform a $20 Million Optimization
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend**, hosted by Nicola Onassis sits down with John Woodyard, an experienced software engineering and DevOps leader with more than 25 years of experience. John shares a lesson from his time working on service frameworks at...
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How Manju Abraham Turns Engineering Transformation Into a Systematic Path to Production
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, hosted by Nicola Onassis sits down with Manju Abraham, a senior engineering executive and former VP of Engineering. Manju shares how she has led large global engineering organizations through complex transformations where...
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How Hari Kishan Defends AI Architecture Over Bigger Models for Better Voice AI
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Hari Kishan, an enterprise technology and AI leader, to discuss why modern AI systems require thoughtful architecture, specialized models, and strong human oversight rather than simply...
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How Bill Boulden Defends Engineering Speed Without Sacrificing Quality
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Bill Boulden, a fractional CTO and longtime startup engineering leader, to discuss why adding more processes after mistakes can sometimes create bigger problems than the original…
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How Mona Chitnis Defended Building Custom AI Models When Foundation Models Weren't Enough
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Mona Chitnis, engineering leader at Boon and former engineering manager at Apple, to discuss one of the most important AI engineering decisions facing modern software teams: knowing when...
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How Hal Eisen Led a High-Stakes PCI Migration Under an Impossible Deadline
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Hal Eisen, engineering leader and technology executive, to discuss one of the most challenging infrastructure decisions of his career: leading a company-wide PCI compliance initiative...
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How Stephen Seidel Transformed Manual Debt Collection Operations with AI, Low-Code Automation, and Better Data Workflows
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Stephen Seidel, technology executive and operational transformation leader, to discuss why modern software platforms fail without standardized data and scalable operational processes....
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How Derek Gallo Defended "Good Enough" Quality to Scale AI Video Production
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Derek Gallo, a technology leader working at the intersection of product delivery, operations, and AI-enabled content production, to discuss why scaling AI isn't always about generating...
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How Chris Dunkel Balanced No-Code Speed, Compliance, and Enterprise Scale Before AI Changed Software Development
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Chris Dunkel, engineering and technology leader, to discuss one of the toughest engineering decisions many teams faced before AI-assisted development became mainstream: whether to build…
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“How Ankur Mattoo Built the AI Foundations That Made Enterprise Machine Learning Scalable”
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Ankur Mattoo, technology leader, architect, and AI practitioner, to discuss why the most successful AI initiatives begin years before generative AI ever reaches production. While helping...
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“How Gautamdev (Gautam) Chowdary Built Healthcare AI That Prioritizes Interoperability, Reliability, and Trust at Scale”
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Gautamdev (Gautam) Chowdary, Co-Founder and CTO of Zynix AI, to discuss one of healthcare AI's most difficult engineering challenges: building intelligent systems that work reliably…
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“How Eban Bisong Transformed Engineers into AI Orchestrators to Eliminate Delivery Bottlenecks”
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Eban Bisong to discuss how AI-native workflows are reshaping software engineering teams and changing what it means to be an engineer. While leading engineering at Part DNA, Eban faced a...
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“How Pavel Spesivtsev Argues That Knowledge Infrastructure Matters More Than AI Models”
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Pavel Spesivtsev, CTO, AI strategist, and agentic engineering practitioner, to explore why many AI-driven software initiatives fail long before coding becomes the problem. After spending...
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"How Paul Baker Stopped Feature Development to Save Engineering Velocity"
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Paul Baker to discuss one of the most difficult decisions an engineering leader can make: stopping feature development in order to rebuild the engineering foundation. While working at...
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“How Alexander Smirnoff Built Practical Enterprise AI Systems by Combining GenAI with Traditional NLP”
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Alex Smirnoff to explore how enterprise AI systems can deliver real business value without replacing the proven infrastructure that already works. At Luminoso, Alex has spent years...
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“How David Phipps Built AI-Powered Retail Systems by Prioritizing UX Over Feature Factories”
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with David Phipps to explore how engineering teams can scale AI-powered retail systems without sacrificing usability, reliability, or operational simplicity. Before joining Generation Tux,...
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"How Matt Lievertz Built Privacy-First AI Coaching Systems by Treating Compliance as a Core Product Strategy"
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Matt Lievertz, VP of Engineering at Cloverleaf, to explore how engineering teams can build AI-powered products that balance personalization, privacy, and enterprise trust. Cloverleaf...
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"How Lavanya Elangovan Reduced Technical Debt by Embedding Security, Compliance, and Infrastructure Upgrades into Healthcare Engineering Workflows"
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Lavanya Elangovan to discuss the hidden engineering decisions required to maintain secure, compliant, and scalable healthcare platforms. Lavanya shares how a planned MongoDB upgrade...
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"How Roy Resh Scaled Retail AI by Moving from Custom Pipelines to Configurable Computer Vision Systems"
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Roy Resh, VP of Engineering at Trax Retail, to explore a pivotal architectural decision that reshaped how large-scale computer vision systems are built and scaled in retail environments....
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"How Keith Deming Scaled Computer Vision by Moving AI from Servers to the Edge"
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Keith Deming, an engineering leader with experience at Postmates, Uber, and PRISM Skylabs, to explore a pivotal architectural decision that transformed how computer vision systems scale…
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"How Sean Graham Reduced Deployment Risk with Small Batch Delivery"
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Sean Graham, VP of Engineering at Idelic, to unpack a critical shift in how engineering teams approach delivery in high-stakes environments. At Idelic, where software directly impacts...
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“How Kevin DiGilio Builds Compliance-First Software for Regulated Industries”
Episode Summary: In this episode of Engineering Choices You Have to Defend, host Nicola Onassis sits down with Kevin DiGilio, President of KMD Technology. Kevin explains how compliance frameworks like ITAR, NIST, and DFARS don’t just guide documentation; they dictate core system architecture.…
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About this show
Real-world engineering decisions in AI, compliance, and production systems
Hosted by
Nicola Onassis
Categories