PODCAST · technology
Retro Time // A Software Podcast
by Derek Seibert & Jeremy Miller
The Retro Time Podcast is all about retrospectives. Join your hosts, Derek Seibert and Jeremy Miller, as they talk about software — from product design to software development to the soft skills you need to make it in the industry. Using their long careers to kick off the conversation, they’ll drop a few nuggets of wisdom each episode… 96.7% guaranteed.
Episodes
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In the Dark: The Infinite Usability Test
The real horror? It’s not the prototype that’s broken… It’s her process. Today, we’re trading our usual interviews for a Halloween story straight out of every designer’s worst nightmare: The Infinite Usability Test. Meet Evelyn—a mid-level UX researcher running a morning of user tests that won’t...
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In the Dark: The Stakeholder from Hell
What happens when your stakeholder is actually a demon from the darkest depths of UX hell? Listen for a wild ride through Silicon Valley’s dark side in our special Halloween episode. We’re trading our usual insights for incantations as we follow the misadventures of Sarah, Mike, and Emily, a UX...
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78. A Thin Line: The Rough Reality of Enterprise Software
No one likes one-play toilet paper. Yet it’s everywhere. It’s in just about every public or institutional toilet across the world. This begs the question, if no one likes one-play toilet paper, why is it everywhere? Well, I think it’s simple. The people who pay for the toilet paper aren’t the…
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In the Dark: The Tale of the Cursed Prototype
What happens when the quest for the perfect design goes too far? Today, we’re stepping away from our usual interviews and discussions to bring you a special Halloween treat. This is the story of Ethan. A talented UX designer so committed to creating the perfect prototype that he becomes consumed…
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In the Dark: A Cautionary Tale of UX Dark Patterns
Sit right back and you’ll hear a tale. A tale of a woman who isn’t quite careful about what she does with her personal information while browsing the internet. Do you think you’re safe online? Do you pay close attention to the websites you visit? Unscrupulous UX designers might use some dirty...
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77. Sink or Swim: How to Survive Being Overleveled
Lots of folks have ended up in the position of being at a higher level than they maybe should be. This sounds like a blessing, but it could quickly turn into a curse when you decide to move to a new job where you may be viewed as less experienced than other people at your level. Overlevelling can...
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76. Ctrl+Alt+Del Your Existential Dread: A Phoenix Will Rise Out of ChatGPT’s Ashes
AI isn’t coming. AI is here. There are two types of people in this world. Those who are chomping at the bit to embrace AI tools like ChatGPT, and those who are terrified the end is nigh. Let’s face it, AI is pretty incredible. But it’s also kind of dumb right now. We’re not quite to the point of...
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From the Archives: Peak Software $#!% with Gojko Adzic
Most software teams don’t realize the power they have over our everyday lives. With the proliferation of smart technology and connected networks, when product teams miss seemingly little software bugs, the consequences can be astounding. Where does the software industry start to draw the line...
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75. What Is the Network Effect?
You may have never heard of “The Network Effect” but you most certainly have experienced it. If you’ve used social media, watched TV, or subscribed to a streaming service like Spotify, or Netflix, you’ve been a part of the network effect. Even if you didn’t realize it. The Network Effect is when…
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74. Bursting the Multiverse Bubble or Stop It With the Status Quo Already!
Every once in a while, a great team will fall into an alternate universe. One where things don’t go according to plan. Where things could have gone right if only someone made a different decision. It might look a lot like the universe you’re used to, but it just doesn’t feel quite right. The...
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73. Who Do Software Teams Serve?
Who the software teams serve is a great question and often gets conflicting answers, depending on who you ask. This week, Derek and Jeremy discuss this question and dive into some deeper questions about why the software team exists in the first place. What is the point of “the product”? Why do we...
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72. When Important Decisions Become Ancient History
Making decisions is hard. What’s harder is documenting those decisions. What’s often impossible is trying to figure out why a decision was made years before you joined the team. And all too often that decision lingers for a very, very, very long time. This week Derek and Jeremy discuss decisions,...
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71. A Couple of Miracle Workers
When things go wrong at work, there’s usually someone to swoop in and save the day. But what about the folks who work hard to ensure nothing ever goes wrong? Sometimes they may get some recognition eventually, but usually, these are the ones who fly under the radar. We usually don’t know their...
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70. The Endless Drive for the Perfect Program
What does it mean to build perfect software? Is perfect software, or perfect anything for that matter, even attainable? Or is it a utopian dream? If perfection is nearly impossible, what options do we have? You’ve probably heard the old adage “Don’t let perfect get in the way of the good enough,”...
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Seasons Greetings: The Story of Barry Christmas
Join Barry on the holiday adventure of a lifetime, a journey through space, time, and a kooky winter wonderland. Your hearts will be warmed by the colorful characters Morty the Head Elf, Emma and Mr. Weatherspoon (those goofs will laugh at anything), and most of all Barry, a man who learns all...
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69. Don’t Stop Networking After You Land the Job
I know a lot of people dread networking. The idea of going to some silly event after work is the last thing they want to do. But networking is more than just showing up to a bar, slapping on a nametag, and shuffling around for 45 minutes before you go home. Lots of people look at networking as a...
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From the Archive: A Brief History of the Agile Manifesto with Uncle Bob Martin
In early 2001, seventeen software consultants got together to discuss a different way to build software. At the end of the meeting, what emerged was “The Agile Manifesto”: A short, simple statement that highlights the value of people and flexibility over processes and planning. • Individuals and...
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68. Agile Bull$#!% With Jesper Boeg
The odds are pretty good, that at some point, probably recently, you’ve thought to yourself “why is my organization so full of bullshit?” You have probably run into a few of the items that Jesper Boeg has recently been talking about on LinkedIn. Things like every team should standardize, or…
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67. Teach the Geek To Speak With Neil Thompson
Being good at your craft doesn’t mean you’ll be good at other things. Just because you’re a great developer, designer, or product manager doesn’t mean you’ll be good at presenting complex and technical ideas to an audience. The fact is, public speaking is a skill just like any other. You only get...
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From the Archives: Tom Greever, Author of Articulating Design Decisions
Many times, the hardest part of our jobs is not finding the right solution. Too often, the hardest part of our job is selling the right solution to our stakeholders. In Tom Greever’s book, Articulating Design Decisions, he discusses how to do just that and provides some solid tactics on how to…
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In the Dark: A Purgatory of Incompetence
Wilcox Mudhoney was a particular type of gentleman. In most areas of his life, he knew just enough to sound like he knew far more than he really did. His whole being existed in a purgatory of incompetence. Wilcox wasn’t known for excellence. In fact, he wasn’t known for much other than making a...
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66. Don’t Wait Until You Quit To Document
What do we do when someone on our team quits? Do we know exactly what they were doing? Do we know where they left off? How easy would it be for you to pick up where they left off and continue the work? It’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day rhythm of whatever it is we do for a living. Inevitably...
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65. A Figma of Your Imagination
Lots of designers were shook this past week to hear Adobe acquired Figma for a whopping $20,000,000,000. That’s $20 Billion. With a B. Last week, Jeremy wrote a quick post on LinkedIn that got a decent amount of traction. The post was about how designers shouldn’t focus on the tools. A designer’s...
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In the Dark: The Frightful Tale of Lost Lenny
Get hyped for Halloween with a special scary software story. Ronald works the night shift at TurboTekSystems. Most nights are dull and boring, but one night something unexpected happens that will change Ronald’s life forever. Tune in to this week’s episode to find out if Ronald can help find the...
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64. Formin’ Stormin’ Normin’ Performin’ Mournin’ Dawlin’
Have you ever joined a new team and thought about how hard it was at first? No one seemed to know what they were doing and everything seemed like a mess. Eventually, I bet your team started to get into a groove and start knocking out whatever it was they were working on. Sadly, everything comes…
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63. How to Influence Change or The Three Joys of Work
Moving from one team to another can be hard. You and your team were in a groove and you liked the way you worked. You liked your process. You liked your standards. You liked your file structure. You end up on a new team and everything they do is different. You think the way they do things could…
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After Hours: The Spotify Model
If you’ve been building software for a couple of years, the chances are good you’ve heard of “The Spotify Model” made up of Tribes, Squads, Chapters, and Guilds. If you’ve been building software for a couple of years, the chances are good your organization leader read a blog post about it and...
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62. Indicator of Quality vs Measure of Quality
As a member of a software team, you’ve likely heard something like this before: “Oh you don’t have X% code coverage?!” or “You don’t have an up-to-date persona?!” or “You haven’t done [INSERT INDUSTRY THING DU JOUR HERE]?!” The trouble here isn’t the question. The trouble is the implied…
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RetroByte: What Is UX Design? Why Does It Matter?
The UX profession has a problem. The state of UX maturity at a lot of companies is very very bad. In 2022, half of the UX professionals surveyed by Nielsen Norman Group said their company was at a three out of six on the NN/g’s Usability Maturity Model. There are a lot of reasons for this, one of...
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61. We Hope for the Best, but We Plan for the Worst
News of all the recent software layoffs has given us flashbacks to 2020. This recent news has caused us both to contemplate what life after software might be like. Would we have it in us to find another tech job? Or would we get out of the software game completely? If you have been affected by…
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RetroByte: Solving Problems
As software teams, we’re no strangers to problems. They may never be as big as Derek’s problem with empty packs of basketball cards, but they can still be major headaches for us and our team. Luckily, Derek has some tips on how to solve problems when they arise. Even though he still isn’t sure...
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RetroByte: The One Where Derek Comes To Visit
It’s been quite some time since an episode of The Retro Time Podcast was recorded live and in person. This week, The Millers and the Seiberts hung out together in Mainstrasse Village. Derek and Jeremy didn’t let the opportunity go to waste. If you’ve never seen Jeremy’s closet office, here is a...
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60. It’s Not the Size of the Team, It’s How You Use It
If you’ve ever had the opportunity of working for both a large and small organization throughout your career, you may have been shocked by how different the two teams operate. While this isn’t true for all organizations, generally speaking, smaller teams tend to be able to hire faster, make...
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59. Looking Backward To Move Forward
If you’ve listened to the last episode, Should I stay or should I go? and decided it’s time to just go on and git, then you may be joining a new team. If all goes according to plan you’re better off now than you were before. But what happens when you leave your old role to take on a new one only…
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58. Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Every once in a while you might get to a point in your career where you need to ask yourself: “Should I stay or should I go?” Sometimes the answer to that question is an easy one. Sometimes the answer is obvious. But sometimes the answer is not so clear. Sometimes it takes looking at it the...
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57. Conquering CSS with Ryan Boddy
For some reason, CSS has been a polarizing topic as of late. Front End Developers either seem to embrace CSS or run for the hills. Why do so many Front End Developers find CSS so difficult to wrap their heads around? This week, Derek and Jeremy talk with Ryan Boddy, author of the new book,...
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56. Don’t Treat Your Users Like Lab Rats
No one likes to feel like they’re being used. When we build software and don’t validate it until we push everything to production, there’s a good chance our users will feel like they are part of an experiment. In this episode, we discuss the many opportunities to validate along the way and how…
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55. Software Team, Tear Down This Wall!
—– Thanks for listening! We hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you liked what you heard, be sure to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please leave a comment and a five-star review. It helps us out a ton. If you haven’t already, sign up for our...
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RetroByte: Derek Reviews SZNZ: Spring, and It’s Still No Pinkerton
This week, Derek listens to Weezer’s newest EP SZNZ: Spring and reviews it in real-time. Spoiler alert: It’s still no Pinkerton. Topics: • 08:42 – Opening Night • 12:43 – Angels on Vacation • 17:26 – A Little Bit of Love • 21:41 – Garden of Eden • 29:39 – The Sound of Drums • 30:38 – All this…
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54. An Ugly Design Career with Trevor Alexander
If you’re not in the top 5% of bee catchers in the forest, you had better be using honey. Wait… software. As software engineers and designers we often default to the same, traditional method when job hunting. We often feel that our careers can only ever be as good as our portfolio or resume. So…
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53. Great Scott!!! An interview with Doc Norton
This week international speaker, author, consultant, prolific tweeter, and general badass, Doc Norton joins the show to talk about his ideas on everything from team culture to how he really feels about best practices. Doc shares some valuable insights about software best practices, his philosophy...
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Review Jam: 6327853585, that’s who this is for
Like what you’re hearing? You’re in luck. There are more five-star review tunes to listen to. Really really like what you’re hearing? You could have a song of your own written by the one and only Derek Seibert. All you need to do is follow these simple steps: • Write a five-star review on Apple...
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52. Culture Crusaders
You’ve likely been there. Leadership announces a new “transformation” team is coming in to help change the way we work. It could be digital transformation, agile transformation, cultural transformation, it doesn’t matter. What leadership thinks they’re saying and what the teams hear them saying...
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51. Володимир Путін гігантський хуй. Слава Україні! or How to Get Over Learning Anxiety
Learning a new thing can often be overwhelming. It’s easy to look at all the things you don’t know and assume you’ll never be able to learn half of it, let alone master all of it. This week, Derek and Jeremy offer some tips on how to get over this anxiety of learning something new along with some...
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50. Lessons From a Tech Lead with Tyler Hawkins
The logical career progression for many software engineers or UX designers is to work their way up to the team lead, sometimes followed by a manager role. Think of a team lead like management light. Some of the responsibilities without the title, pay, or HR headaches. Since new team leads are…
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49. Playing the Long Game or How To Join a New Team
If you have a job right now, then at some point you’ve joined a new team. If you’ve been at that job for a while, you may have forgotten how stressful and overwhelming joining a new team can be. Joining a new team can be a lot to handle. So this week, Derek and Jeremy review some tips and tricks…
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48. The Freelance Hustle with Danielle Meadows-Stinnett
We’ve been talking a lot about burnout recently. Everyone knows about The Great Resignation. Unless you are lucky enough to have a trust fund or rich parents, you’ll have to find something else to do. Perhaps freelancing is a great way to get out of your company’s toxic culture and work for...
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47. The Mother Flippin’ Sci-Fi Guys
We’ve been talking about some heavy topics recently. In the spirit of self-care and taking some “us time,” we decided to take a break from knuckleheads and talk about something near and dear to both of our hearts, science fiction technology. We play science fiction draft and pick our favorite...
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46. Frustration Desperation
Software is a complex business. There are tons of moving parts, competing visions, and conflicting personalities. In the software business, it’s easy for things to go wrong. It’s even easier for us to get frustrated, disappointed, and disillusioned with the whole process. When we get frustrated…
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45. The Mindful Developer with Dagna Bieda
It’s a new year. We’re leaving 2021 in the dust, and we’re looking forward to 2022. We’re setting some personal goals, some career goals, and we’re trying to figure out how to balance life and work to avoid burnout. To kick the new year off right we’ve invited Dagna Bieda, from The Mindful Dev…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
The Retro Time Podcast is all about retrospectives. Join your hosts, Derek Seibert and Jeremy Miller, as they talk about software — from product design to software development to the soft skills you need to make it in the industry. Using their long careers to kick off the conversation, they’ll drop a few nuggets of wisdom each episode… 96.7% guaranteed.
HOSTED BY
Derek Seibert & Jeremy Miller
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Retro Time // A Software Podcast have?
Retro Time // A Software Podcast currently has 108 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Retro Time // A Software Podcast about?
The Retro Time Podcast is all about retrospectives. Join your hosts, Derek Seibert and Jeremy Miller, as they talk about software — from product design to software development to the soft skills you need to make it in the industry. Using their long careers to kick off the conversation, they’ll drop...
How often does Retro Time // A Software Podcast release new episodes?
Retro Time // A Software Podcast publishes regularly with 108 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Retro Time // A Software Podcast?
You can listen to Retro Time // A Software Podcast on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Retro Time // A Software Podcast?
Retro Time // A Software Podcast is created and hosted by Derek Seibert & Jeremy Miller.
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