What Matters Roundup: 5 Favorite Episodes from 2021
The What Matters podcast has come a long way since its launch in October 2020. Hosted by Senior Developer Advocate PJ Hagerty, What Matters offers insights into software development, open source, DevOps, and collaboration and features a diverse set of guests who share their incredible stories, tips, and tricks.
If you haven’t been able to catch every episode — or you’re new to the podcast entirely — we recommend checking out our five favorite episodes from 2021 at the very least.
1. What Matters, Episode 12: Rocky Linux with Jordan Pisaniello
In February, PJ sat down with Jordan Pisaniello, Rocky Linux’s community manager, for a conversation about what it’s like to juggle a full-time job while contributing to an open source project, the Rocky Linux origin story, how Rocky Linux uses Mattermost to engage with its community, the quickest way to get involved with the Rocky Linux project, and more.
2. What Matters, Episode 28: Accessing Accessibility with Adrian Roselli
In our increasingly digital age, accessibility is more important than ever before. In this episode, PJ speaks with Adrian Roselli — an accessibility consultant who’s “like Murdock from the A-Team” — about how being involved with music got Adrian involved with accessibility, how knowing HTML makes it easier to get started with accessibility, tips for creating accessible digital experiences, and helpful accessibility resources, among other things.
3. What Matters, Episode 24: Open Source, Safety, and Maintainer Blues with Penelope Phippen
What kinds of expectations should open source projects have for members of their communities? Can they really expect folks to write code on nights and weekends when they have other things going on in their lives — including full-time jobs?
In this installment of What Matters, PJ checks in with Penelope Phippen — a full-time engineer who maintains rubyfmt and rspec, is involved in Rust, and is also on the Board of Directors at Ruby Central — to answer these questions and explore other issues affecting the open source community.
4. What Matters, Episode 22: Finding Your Path with Bryan Liles
As a Black engineer, Bryan Liles has always felt like a bit of an outsider. When he began his career, he saw how the tech community was not inclusive and decided to be the change he wanted to see by being as inclusive as possible. In this episode, PJ and Bryan talk about why it’s more important to improve your skills than improve your job title, how to build a career in tech, and the importance of empowering others.
5. What Matters, Episode 27: Mattermost v6.0!
In October, we announced the release of Mattermost v6.0, a unified open source platform for developers that brings Channels, Boards, and Playbooks together to support collaboration across the entire software lifecycle. To coincide with the launch, PJ sat down with members of the Mattermost Product Team — Katie Wiersgalla, Ian Tao, Eric Sethna, Chen Lim, and Aaron Rothschild — to talk about everything that’s new in the platform.
Get ready for new episodes of What Matters in 2022!
As we look into the future, PJ has a great slate of guests on tap for new episodes of What Matters coming in 2022 and beyond.
Stay tuned!
