[00:00:00] Introduction and Podcast Timing --- [00:00:00] Coté: Well, you know, we don't always like to date our, uh, podcast Whitney, or I don't know if we do. I don't wait as, as far as our [00:00:07] Whitney Lee: podcast, [00:00:08] Coté: as far as like indicating by [00:00:10] our content the time of year and the, the time it is because we report ahead of time. And so, you know, you might be like, wow, I'm sure I'm really glad UFOs have never landed. [00:00:19] Coté: And then we publish [00:00:20] in two weeks and it's just like, you know, they have, and people are like, what are they? Where are these people living? Right. You wanna wanna keep that mystery going. But that said, [00:00:30] so far UFOs haven't landed, so that's good. Or whatever we call them. Uh, but, but also it's, uh, it's summer. I don't know what it is, where people are [00:00:40] listening and uh, you know, here, here in Amsterdam, lovely place. [00:00:44] Coté: It's great when it's summer, but they don't really have air conditioning technology. [00:00:50] Uh, and, and so I, I was, I was, you know, now that I'm saying this out loud, maybe asking you who li who's living in Texas or the wrong person ask, but, but if, if you could think [00:01:00] back maybe to the past, what, what are your, what are your cool tips for keeping cool when it's hot outside? [00:01:07] Coté: Like, do you have some complicated system [00:01:10] of like windows and doors and fan things, or like, what do you, what do you do to to deal with hotness when there's no ac? Summer Heat Solutions from Japan --- [00:01:19] Whitney Lee: So, I just got [00:01:20] home from a trip to Japan. I was in Japan for two weeks and like getting off the airplane, being at in Seattle actually where I was at a layover. [00:01:29] Whitney Lee: I had two [00:01:30] big impressions of being back in the States and one is our beeps are really loud and aggressive when they could be cute little songs. And the sec. [00:01:40] The second one is, damn, it's cold here. Like, we crank up the AC everywhere. It was freezing. Um, so I got used to the less ac, [00:01:50] but, but Japan was hot and some. [00:01:53] Whitney Lee: Things that happen locally in Japan, some of which I bought into and will use at home. One is in [00:02:00] Japan it's totally normal to carry around a sun umbrella. And they, they sell like UV umbrellas all over the place. So you have your portable bit of shade, [00:02:10] which I found very, very helpful. And I got one and I intend to use it. [00:02:13] Whitney Lee: And then the other one is they had, um, so many people had little teeny personal fans that they would just blow. Huh, [00:02:20] blow. Okay. Yeah. Move their, the, the, the air in front of their face around. [00:02:25] Coté: I like that. To keep cool. [00:02:26] Whitney Lee: Yeah. So I think, I mean, I'm, I live in Texas, [00:02:30] but Texas is just blast the ac um, right. I kind of like Japan solutions better. [00:02:35] Whitney Lee: They're a little more elegant. Yeah. [00:02:36] Coté: I, I, I feel, I feel like the Texas solution to it being hot outside is [00:02:40] don't go outside. Like that's [00:02:41] Whitney Lee: exactly [00:02:44] Coté: problem. Problem solved. Guest Introduction: Amy June --- [00:02:48] Whitney Lee: Um, anyway, we should get [00:02:50] down to business and introduce our guests. We have Amy June here with us today. Amy, June. How do you keep cool? [00:02:58] AmyJune Hineline: Well, I do like the [00:03:00] solution of not going outside, but I just recently spent, I just spent like some subsequent vacations in Las Vegas, Reno, [00:03:10] ah, brutal. Albuquerque. And I went to Portland last weekend and it had a heat wave. I live in the northern California Bay area, so I don't typically get a lot of hot weather, so I feel [00:03:20] like I'm dealing with the heat a little bit differently. [00:03:22] AmyJune Hineline: This right now, at this moment in time from having those four really hot adventures and just being thankful. Ah. Um, but [00:03:30] I'm a big fan of the fan, you know, carrying around the fan. I have one in my purse, you know, and I just kind of carry it around. And um, we also do a lot of wet cloths. Oh [00:03:40] yeah. Like right now, I can't have my air conditioning on, but I also can't really have a wet cloth on my neck 'cause it would look kind of silly. [00:03:46] AmyJune Hineline: But I we're, I'm a big fan of the wet cloth. Yeah. In [00:03:49] Whitney Lee: [00:03:50] Japan. First of all, let me clarify that. The Japan fan was a motorized fan, like a small version of a a Yeah. But the second thing is you're talking about a wet cloth around your neck. Mm-hmm. In [00:04:00] Japan, there was, um, a thing that almost looked like, uh, like cheesy nineties headphones, but it was actually meant to be worn around your neck and you freeze it. [00:04:09] Whitney Lee: So [00:04:10] it's like this gel filled thing. You freeze and then you need to wear it around your neck as another way to keep cold. And you keep cooler in Japan, [00:04:16] Coté: huh? I like that. Huh? You [00:04:18] Whitney Lee: got it right over there. [00:04:20] [00:04:20] Coté: Yeah, I like this idea of like a, a cold towel. That, that could be nice. 'cause then you also have the towel. [00:04:25] Coté: Yeah. Freeze [00:04:25] Whitney Lee: that too. For like, [00:04:26] Coté: for like, when you're all sweaty and, and you wanna wipe, wipe your [00:04:30] face like uhhuh. Which, which is good. I grew up with like lots of people carrying around like hand towels all the time. It was, seemed like a wise thing to do and, and around [00:04:40] Austin. Hmm. Well [00:04:42] Whitney Lee: there you go. Amy June's Career Journey --- [00:04:42] Whitney Lee: So Amy, Amy, June. [00:04:43] Whitney Lee: Will you tell us about yourself and who you are and what you do? [00:04:47] AmyJune Hineline: Sure. Um, I'm a little bit older in [00:04:50] life, so I've gone through a couple iterations of lifetimes. Right. You know, um mm-hmm. I identify with that. I grew up in Northern California on a farm. [00:05:00] Cool. Um, so I'm eventually gonna like go back to that. [00:05:04] AmyJune Hineline: That's my life goal is going back to Northern California and having a farm. But my first bout in life, I was a mechanical [00:05:10] engineer, didn't like it. So I worked for a Volkswagen Air cold machine shop. And if, um, like people follow me on the different medias, I Volkswagen chick, and that's where that name comes from, is I [00:05:20] was a Volkswagen mechanic, which was really rad. [00:05:22] AmyJune Hineline: So I've really quit Volkswagens now. Wow. Yeah. Um, and then I'm a hospice nurse by trade, but there was a point in my [00:05:30] life where I came home and we played this game at work called Chocolate or Poop. Where you like look at your sleeve and you're like, is that part of my lunch or was that from like, you [00:05:40] know, so I got home and it was on my skin versus my scrubs, and I'm like, Ooh, you know what? [00:05:47] AmyJune Hineline: I don't wanna play this chocolate versus poop game [00:05:50] anymore. And so there was like, I know, right, there's this like period of my life where I was like doing some like content entry, um, for websites and stuff like that. I'd like to think of [00:06:00] myself as a Luddite by heart, but I was working with Drupal. And for those people that are gonna ask, you know, is Drupal still relevant? [00:06:07] AmyJune Hineline: Yes. We're still around. So I got into, I wanna ask Understanding Drupal and Open Source --- [00:06:09] Whitney Lee: something [00:06:10] more remedial than that, which is, what is Drupal? Okay. [00:06:12] AmyJune Hineline: Oh, so Drupal is PHP based, which you don't have to know. 'cause also people are like, PHP is still around. Um, it's a [00:06:20] content management system for the web. Um, I, I hate to do this. But if people know what WordPress is, it's like WordPress, but completely [00:06:30] better and displaced dynamic content, you know, um, like okay, things like things like the weather.com is on there. [00:06:37] AmyJune Hineline: Most colleges are on Drupal. You know, it's [00:06:40] a building, a website interface for people to build a website. So you put your content in and it pops up a pretty website for you. Nice. So, um, so I got into Drupal, um, very [00:06:50] quickly discovered that coding wasn't for me. That's fine. So I got into the people side. [00:06:54] AmyJune Hineline: Turns out a lot of coders aren't people, people, so I got into the people part, got [00:07:00] into like organizing camps and things like that. Eventually sort of moved to a company which we shall not be named, but they have, um, the [00:07:10] word red in their name. So I worked for them for a little while on open source.com. [00:07:14] AmyJune Hineline: Mm-hmm. And, um, learned a lot about open source and was amazed by it. And so [00:07:20] like just. I could not get enough of the, the idea and the feel of what open source meant. And then things [00:07:30] happened because that company doesn't care about open source that much. So I got picked up by the Linux Foundation and I helped the Linux Foundation keep a portfolio of exams.[00:07:40] [00:07:40] AmyJune Hineline: So that's sort of the, the, the thing. But mostly like, I like punk rock and chickens and goats and lofas and things. So [00:07:50] [00:07:50] Whitney Lee: yeah. Punk rock, chicken, goats, lofa Linux exams. And it sounds like you still, still are a hospice nurse. You said that in present tense. [00:08:00] [00:08:00] AmyJune Hineline: I am because um, what if something happens in tech? [00:08:03] AmyJune Hineline: Like we all have to become Luddites one day. Right. And because there's nothing mm-hmm. Society crashes, there's no more technology. [00:08:10] Um, it's really hard to go back and re-get your nursing certificate. So I've always kept it up to date and I'm glad I did because when, uh, uh, shelter in place [00:08:20] happened. Um, there was a real need for me to go back to work. [00:08:24] AmyJune Hineline: Um, and so that sort of inspired me to work a little bit more often to, um, to help out [00:08:30] my fellow nurses who don't necessarily get breaks, don't necessarily get holidays off. Mm. And my kids are grown and I only work, you know, you know, 40 hours a week or they're working 60 hours [00:08:40] a week. And so I do hospice nursing a few times a year now just to kind of keep up and, uh, really, uh, feel [00:08:50] the important things in life, you know, so it kind of like puts you into like a mindset of like, oh, you know what? [00:08:56] AmyJune Hineline: This thing that's happening in my kitchen isn't so bad. So. [00:09:00] I [00:09:00] Whitney Lee: have about a thousand questions based on everything you just said, but my, my first one is the chocolate or poop game. [00:09:10] Um, how do you actually tell, which is, which? Is it a smelling thing? Oh, you don't, you don't, you change your scrubs, you know, [00:09:18] Whitney Lee: are you sold them up? [00:09:19] Whitney Lee: No. It's [00:09:20] a game where you don't wanna win. You win if you never answer the question. [00:09:23] Coté: Yeah. I, I guess, I guess, I guess in the long term, if you play it long enough, you realize, you know, never want to know the answer. You just, you could lick [00:09:29] Whitney Lee: it. [00:09:30] It exactly. Yeah. Sometimes you cope with bad things by making them funny. [00:09:36] Whitney Lee: I, um, and one of my. Hotel rooms [00:09:40] recently that I couldn't change the room. There was just like a, a cockroach in the room and then, and I was just like, oh, that's my new friend's cookie, uh, for racha [00:09:50] and just make a, make a buddy and just go. And that's okay. This is my week now and it's fine. [00:09:57] Coté: Did your, did your buddy disappear in the morning? [00:09:59] Coté: Like [00:10:00] what? Uh, or did, did you lose him? My. [00:10:01] Whitney Lee: My body stuck around a couple days. At some point they were, uh, laying on their back and then I helped them to the, out the door that way [00:10:10] with a cup and a paper, you know, classic. Yeah. [00:10:14] Coté: Wow. That's, that's, that's, that's a good move. The cup and paper. [00:10:20] [00:10:20] Whitney Lee: Um, I, I guess since this is a tech podcast, maybe we'll start with the tech stuff. Creating Certification Exams --- [00:10:26] Whitney Lee: So you work at Linux Foundation and you work [00:10:30] with exams, and that's how you and I met is because you, um, helped facilitate making the platform Engineering Associates exam. And I helped make the content for that exam, [00:10:40] but I, I thought the exam making process was really interesting. Will you go, let's just talk through it, like what's step one? [00:10:47] Whitney Lee: How do you even know that you wanna make an exam about [00:10:50] something? [00:10:50] AmyJune Hineline: So that's beyond my realm of doing, but I understand what they do is, um, like there's some market research that happens. You know, when we go to Q [00:11:00] Con, when we go to Open Source Summit, when we do our ai, um, conferences, you know, there's a, we have the Lennox Foundation Education team has a booth and people come up and [00:11:10] talk to us. [00:11:10] AmyJune Hineline: They've taken exams before. People who have projects will come up to us and ask us, like, oh, why don't you do content on this? Um, we, [00:11:20] underneath the Linux umbrella is the CNCF, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. So they will come to us often with ideas for projects, for [00:11:30] exams, um, um, until this, uh, platform engineering associate exam, we were doing a lot of projects, like we do an exam on backstage, something real [00:11:40] specific, uh, an exam on Argo, you know? [00:11:42] AmyJune Hineline: Mm-hmm. This was our, was a little bit different, but there was such a like, feel for it and such a need for it. So we make sure that. [00:11:50] We have enough for the associate level exams that I work on. Um, it is associate level. They're minimally qualified candidates, usually in the the field for like six to [00:12:00] 12 months. [00:12:00] AmyJune Hineline: We define that with our subject matter experts, but we really make sure that there's a market for that type of exam too, because we spend a lot of time on it. Because from start to finish, it could take three months. It [00:12:10] could take a year for me to get all of the things in place for it to go general availability. [00:12:13] AmyJune Hineline: So that's the first step, is making sure that it's relevant in our landscape. Are there gonna be enough and people who wanna take the content, is there enough [00:12:20] content out there where they can study for the exam too? Mm-hmm. You know, and then once we do that, it's go ahead [00:12:27] Whitney Lee: and Associates exam is always multiple choice. [00:12:29] Whitney Lee: Is that [00:12:30] correct? [00:12:30] AmyJune Hineline: For, for what I do, we do have some performance based exams that are for associate levels, but the ones I work on are multiple choice exams. Okay. So they're pretty straightforward. Testing a lot [00:12:40] of knowledge base, like making sure people have an understanding versus like a implementation part of it, the performance based or more implementation, and then wear more, you know, seeking knowledge sort of thing.[00:12:50] [00:12:50] AmyJune Hineline: Um, so the Linux [00:12:51] Whitney Lee: Foundation is like, okay, we definitely wanna make a, an exam about, fill in the blank, about this subject, about chocolate versus poop. Um, [00:13:00] Amy, Amy, you're up here. Like now, that's where you come into the picture. Okay. And then what do you do? So I [00:13:07] AmyJune Hineline: come in, I said, I come in as a subject matter expert. [00:13:09] AmyJune Hineline: I [00:13:10] help create a blueprint, which the, you know, general population can see eventually. But we come up with like domains and competencies. We come up with tasks like, [00:13:20] um, how many people like. When I go home and test for poop on my my elbow, how often do I do that? How critical do I do that? So we put out a survey [00:13:30] asking about these tasks and their criticality, and then we come up with that blueprint of those domains and sub-domains, and then that's what we based our content on. [00:13:38] AmyJune Hineline: So we do come up with [00:13:40] like a panel advisory panel for the subject matter experts, you know, who we think is gonna lend the most, um. Expertise, and this is something I'm really proud of [00:13:50] that I've been working on a lot within the education team, is making sure that our SMEs are diversified. Making sure that when we have that advisory panel there's diversity across all the different things, [00:14:00] socioeconomics, geographic, gender or perceived gender. [00:14:03] AmyJune Hineline: Um, all of those things. And so it makes it a little bit more difficult because I'm in one time zone and I have an Australian and [00:14:10] we have to get together. But we do try to make sure that we're, especially something like that platform engineering, um, exam is making sure that we have a really cool representation [00:14:20] of who uses the software. [00:14:21] AmyJune Hineline: Because Whitney, you use the software so much different than Chris who works in a bank, uses the software. So we wanna make sure that we can represent that because when we [00:14:30] then have that blueprint created, we move into like item writing. And again, I open up to more ses, I like do a general like, Hey, who wants to work on these things? [00:14:38] AmyJune Hineline: And I kind of do a little bit of an [00:14:40] interview with people. The Role of Subject Matter Experts --- [00:14:41] Whitney Lee: As an outsider, how do you find your subject matter experts? [00:14:45] AmyJune Hineline: Um, we rely a little bit on the, the, [00:14:50] our stakeholders who came to us with the project. You know, Hey, who do you know in the community? Mm-hmm. But I'll go into, if I know something's coming up, um, I'll just use Drupal because we're never gonna do [00:15:00] Drupal 'cause we're not part of the lf. [00:15:01] AmyJune Hineline: But I'll use that as, same example. I know that I'm gonna be creating a Drupal project, um, or a Drupal exam. In six months. I'll like infiltrate [00:15:10] myself. I'll go to like CubeCon and sit at the Drupal table. I'll like go into Facebook groups. I'll go into the documentation, I'll go into the issue queue and I'll meet people because it's so [00:15:20] much easier. [00:15:21] AmyJune Hineline: For them to say not, to not say no if they don't know me. So I kind of like get my, those feelers out there and I meet people. Mm-hmm. Like, I'll [00:15:30] ask you, Whitney, oh, you do this, do you know anyone who does this? And I'm, and I'm a people person, so I use like those sort of social things to like really kind of get those feelings feelers out, [00:15:40] whether it be like, you know, um, chat based or, or in-person based. [00:15:44] AmyJune Hineline: Um, but then we also do these general, [00:15:48] Whitney Lee: I was gonna say, I think I [00:15:50] became involved if memory serves with, with helping to make the CP and a exam by, uh, answering I think in Slack and the platform [00:16:00] engineering channel on the C ncf F There was like, if you're interested, think it's where I put my head in. I'll [00:16:04] AmyJune Hineline: do that. [00:16:04] AmyJune Hineline: Mm-hmm. And then we'll do like, um, this was a really big one for the CNCF, so they announced it at CubeCon [00:16:10] in Salt Lake City. And the, the table afterward just sort of swarmed with people wanting to help. And then we put out like, you know, a little form that says, Hey, do you wanna help? And we ask a little bit of information.[00:16:20] [00:16:20] AmyJune Hineline: Um. But sometimes, you know, um, I spend a little bit more time seeing who like, makes more commits, you know, who's in there answering forum questions, [00:16:30] who's like, being like a leader in their community to, to ask to that like advisory panel versus like content SMEs, you know? But it is a lot of like social media and like [00:16:40] just the interesting, a lot of word of mouth too. [00:16:43] AmyJune Hineline: Yeah. Mm-hmm. So that's why it's easier for us to make sure that we, we represent a project that is, [00:16:50] um, that has that, uh, level of enthusiasm too. It's really hard to write something when you only have like six mes who are only mildly interested in what they're writing, you know? And that's, that's what make your group [00:17:00] so much fun. [00:17:00] AmyJune Hineline: I loved your group so much 'cause y'all knew each other and there's banter and there's things and y'all worked on it and got done and it was just so much fun. Um, I had fun on my side too. [00:17:10] Yeah. But you know, after we gather all those, go ahead. I. [00:17:14] Whitney Lee: Oh, I was gonna ask what you're about to say. So you have, so you have this subject, you have gathered your subject matter [00:17:20] experts. [00:17:20] Whitney Lee: You have your advisory panel that writes the, the high level, like what this exam is about. Mm-hmm. And now you're ready to write the actual questions. [00:17:28] AmyJune Hineline: Yeah. Is that what's next? Um, there's, there's one [00:17:30] step before that when we like ask people that task list, you know, how is important that you, you know, check your elbow for poop? [00:17:36] AmyJune Hineline: Like, how important is that? Is that something you do every day? Is that something you [00:17:40] do three times a day? Is that something you only do once a month? And that helps weight the exam questions? Because when we create a blueprint, which we then put into our exam building [00:17:50] platform, it determines how many questions we ask about each thing. [00:17:54] AmyJune Hineline: So once the blueprint is made, we kind of wait it, and then we start item writing and then item writing. You know, [00:18:00] it's a, a big, um, fun show of, you know, getting people used to the platform and writing content and, um, I don't know how deep in the weeds you wanted me to go into [00:18:10] that, but, um, once you do item writing, I, [00:18:13] Whitney Lee: I'm interested in checks and balances, like, like Sure. [00:18:17] Whitney Lee: How are you sure that that blueprint is an accurate [00:18:20] representation of the entire community? [00:18:22] AmyJune Hineline: Okay. So after we do that job task analysis where we get those criticality scores, we go back to [00:18:30] that advisory panel, or we go back to the advisory panel plus 10 other SMEs who we feel are, are, are knowledgeable enough to give us input and we make sure that [00:18:40] the blueprint looks good. [00:18:42] AmyJune Hineline: Okay. All right. Remember, this is an associate level exam, so we really make sure that the [00:18:50] people who are approving these items understand that, you know, you might have been a platform engineer for six years, but what did you do that first nine to 12 months? And [00:19:00] then how has it changed since you started? [00:19:02] AmyJune Hineline: And it's okay that we have easy and hard items because we do betas and reviews. And if they're too hard, they kind of, [00:19:10] or if they're too, uh, [00:19:12] Whitney Lee: it, it, it seems like it could be a problem if someone knows too much. Like they don't remember what it's like to be a six to 12 month. [00:19:20] Uh, yeah. For reviewing our content. [00:19:23] Whitney Lee: Yeah. Like you're too much of an expert. You're, you're going this. Yeah. [00:19:27] Coté: Yeah. Like you wouldn't know, just, just get a cup [00:19:30] and a piece of paper to get the roach out. I, I had to teach that to my kids. I don't even think of that. You just do it. [00:19:36] AmyJune Hineline: And, and that's why, that's why it's important that [00:19:40] like when you stepped in, we were doing a lot of group reviews. [00:19:42] AmyJune Hineline: We'd have like eight or you know, six to 10 sneeze on a call and looking at an item and we would talk about it and someone would say, [00:19:50] oh yeah, I've never done that in my 16 years of, or however long platform engineering. But someone will say, yeah, but most people do. So we do have those discussions. 'cause [00:20:00] as much as I say I don't know tech, when I review items, I'll do a, like a pass and then I'll, I'll flag the ones I'm not [00:20:10] sure. [00:20:10] AmyJune Hineline: Or that they seem too hard. And those are the ones I'll take to that group review where we have a wider, a wider, um. A wider discussion about whether or not it's too [00:20:20] hard. But we also run beta tests, which weed out items as well. And we try to like have that beta be just people who we are targeting for that candidate.[00:20:30] [00:20:30] AmyJune Hineline: H how, who writes the questions? Uh, Snee. Okay. The wider sneeze. So it's like when I, when I do that broadcast of who's interested, [00:20:40] we'll refine it for the, for the advisory council, and then I'll do a quick review and like check people's LinkedIn profiles, check 'em against like, um, issue queues or, you know, [00:20:50] um, do like get projects and things like that. [00:20:52] AmyJune Hineline: Make sure that they're, they're experts, like they say they are. And then we open it up to wider people. So we might just have six to nine people on that advisory panel, [00:21:00] but we might have uhhuh 20 to 40 people writing content. Ah, okay. [00:21:05] Whitney Lee: So they, they show that they're interested. You vet them. Mm-hmm. Then [00:21:10] they're qualified to, mm-hmm. [00:21:11] Whitney Lee: To write con, to write questions. And [00:21:13] AmyJune Hineline: it's, so, it's okay that the SMEs have only been working six to nine months too, because they're almost the perfect people. [00:21:20] Because they were just doing it. They're just learning. They're, they know what is the thing. So that's why I like to have that balance of, you know, all the skill sets, all the roles, you know, all the things. [00:21:28] AmyJune Hineline: So [00:21:29] Coté: [00:21:30] what, what do you, what do you think, uh, what are, what are things that the, the, as you say, the SMEs that you want, that they could be do doing more of that you could find them better? Right. [00:21:40] Like, like, like, you know, you, you went through a lot of things, but like, you must, I, I imagine you've noticed a few, or maybe a lot of people you're [00:21:50] like, ah, if you had just done this, I could have found out that you were a person faster to do this. [00:21:55] Coté: So [00:21:55] AmyJune Hineline: I don't have the answer to that. Uh, if I did, we'd be writing a million [00:22:00] exams. Right, right, right. [00:22:02] AmyJune Hineline: But I come from a developer relations background. I work for open source.com. So I know a lot of people, I go to a lot of conferences. I know [00:22:10] people who know people. So a lot of it is word of mouth, right. Or word, mouth to word. [00:22:14] AmyJune Hineline: Uh, word of mouth. Word of mouth. There we go. Sounds weird. Now that is, [00:22:20] yeah. Um, but I don't have that recipe, you know, I think sometimes, um, it's, I'm not gonna use the word [00:22:30] easier because it's reductive, but sometimes it's, uh, the, the process is more streamlined when we have, you know, something like the CNCF making announcements at [00:22:40] a, at CubeCon in front of 12,000 people, you know, that's an easy way to do it. [00:22:45] AmyJune Hineline: But I think most of the time it's just getting people to sign up for that signup form that we have, [00:22:50] being like, Hey, I'm a SME and here's the things that I can contribute. Right, [00:22:54] Coté: right, right. So it's, it's, it's. So there's the word of mouth, [00:23:00] uh mm-hmm. If, if I have that phrase right. But it sounds like a lot of the work is people self-selecting for it, and then you vetting them. [00:23:08] Coté: Mm-hmm. Basically kind of like seeing it [00:23:10] if there applies versus like you're discovering the great, you know, the great writer out there who, who's gonna be, uh, great at this, but just has never gotten around to it. No, but [00:23:19] AmyJune Hineline: I do, I [00:23:20] do that too because I look at like, who's giving talks at like Argo Con. I'm looking at who's giving talks at the AI stuff and, um, not that talking is a, [00:23:30] is the, is the only indicator of how smart people are. [00:23:32] AmyJune Hineline: There's all different ways we can share our knowledge, but I. But I do like read articles, I do link, do LinkedIn. I see what people are [00:23:40] sharing. And so I re I remember and keep track of those things too. So I will reach out to people and they'll be like, okay, weirdo, no, I don't wanna help you. But oh yeah, I [00:23:50] love, I love that project. [00:23:51] AmyJune Hineline: I totally wanna help you give back to open source in a meaningful way because it's also a contribution. You don't get a whole lot of like contribution street [00:24:00] cred for it. But, you know, open source isn't about that. Open source is about, um, some altruistic behavior too, right? Mm-hmm. And so I find SMEs who really wanna work on it, [00:24:10] altruistically and people who are paid to do it too. [00:24:13] AmyJune Hineline: But those altruistic me are the most, um, uh, enthusiastic about it. [00:24:19] Coté: [00:24:20] Sure. Yeah. They, they have, they have their passion. Well, so I, I, I, I don't know specifically, but I imagine in, in the, the nursing area, there's lots of certifications that, that you have to like, [00:24:30] take and be updated on and, you know, in the. [00:24:33] Coté: Even, even using the word engineering. If I remember in Oregon, a programmer can, can't call themselves an engineer, but [00:24:40] like in the engineering world, it's always been like, oh, we should have certification. We should not have certification. Like anyone can call themselves a developer. And like, since you [00:24:50] live in these two worlds that are very different when it comes to certification, like one is like Yes. [00:24:55] Coté: And the other one's like, sure. Like, like what? I don't know. What, [00:25:00] what do you think about the, uh, lack of it being a required thing to be a professional developer or operations person? Like, is [00:25:10] that good, bad, or what, what's your thoughts on that? The Value of Certifications --- [00:25:12] AmyJune Hineline: So, so I come from both sides of that coin. Um, and they're not printed. [00:25:17] AmyJune Hineline: The same one has heads and one has tails. [00:25:20] Um, coming from the idea of those people who did not have the privilege of going to college or university for that selected technology, they're working on, like, I have a [00:25:30] mechanical engineering degree and I work in nursing. You know, so some people don't have that privilege of being able to go back to school when they've maybe made the wrong selection or choice of [00:25:40] careers when they were 18 years old. [00:25:41] AmyJune Hineline: But also some people just don't have the privilege because their socioeconomics or their family composition or geo geographically can't go [00:25:50] to college. So I think like. Certifications have that value. So you don't spend $12,000 at university, but you spend $250 on, [00:26:00] on a certification, or you can get it for free or you can get it for discount. Mm. [00:26:04] AmyJune Hineline: Yeah. That shows that you have that skill level, especially in this really tough job market for the last three [00:26:10] years where there's layoffs all across tech. We have a lot of people switching careers. You know, I do, I do value where people come in and they have like a [00:26:20] job interview and they do like, um, like a tech check or you know, maybe they're paid to work on a project before they're hired on full-time. [00:26:26] AmyJune Hineline: So they can do a tech check that way. But also having that [00:26:30] certification helps people kind of level up and it helps those human resource people that don't know how to ask the right qualifying questions to be like, oh, they have this certain level [00:26:40] of knowledge, but I also believe that you should be able to go and improve that level of knowledge without that, you know, and I shouldn't be saying that from the le LF education point of view, you know, but, [00:26:50] um, I really think that this is. [00:26:52] AmyJune Hineline: Like, I've been in that job market recently, and it is really hard, especially if you're switching careers. Do you need [00:27:00] to go back to school for another two years to get your computer science degree? No. Just take a couple performance based exams, you know, you know, start doing something. And you know, it's sort of [00:27:10] that same value for the, for the people looking for that skillset, I think, [00:27:14] Coté: and, and asking questions. [00:27:16] AmyJune Hineline: Yeah. [00:27:16] Coté: Yeah. And, and, and I mean, I'm also interested in a comparison like, well now [00:27:20] you've got three domains, right? Because, well, I don't know, but I would imagine there's also some certification stuff and mechanical engineering, like, you know, maybe Yeah. Depending on what you're doing. [00:27:30] Like, yeah. And, and so like, I think, I think the, the, well there's two things. [00:27:34] Coté: One, like you raise an interesting point that I haven't thought of in this way, but like a. Something like a [00:27:40] certification can sound like a barrier, but also depending on the pricing, it can actually be a cheap way to get into something versus like mm-hmm. [00:27:48] Coté: You know, even two years of, of, [00:27:50] of school, or let alone four years and then doing stuff. [00:27:52] Coté: So it actually, if it's not insanely expensive, which most of the cer the certifications in the IT world are, are not insanely [00:28:00] expensive. It's, it's a good way to get in now, but then not, but in a contra, uh, contrary way. But like, but then if I think about like, [00:28:10] you know, nursing or medicine, you know, medicine types of big e engineering, like, I think you usually do need that [00:28:20] certification and training. [00:28:21] Coté: And so the. The thing I wonder in my mind is like, when is it a good idea to have like, big time certification versus like, [00:28:30] I, I think I took a series of exams and, and like I, I, I showed that I know what I'm doing versus I've been through the process of showing I know what I'm doing. [00:28:39] Whitney Lee: So maybe it's a [00:28:40] matter of how much damage you can cause by messing it up. [00:28:43] Whitney Lee: Like in nursing, if you don't know what you're doing, someone will literally die. Right. You know, as opposed to, well, I work in hospice, in engineering, [00:28:50] [00:28:50] AmyJune Hineline: I work in hospice. So that's best case scenario. Um, sorry. Um, I have questions, but Yes. But sometimes, like, like when you're, when you're [00:29:00] looking to level up on your career path, sometimes going from that perf that. [00:29:04] AmyJune Hineline: That associate level exam and taking that performance based exam where you can prove your skill set might be [00:29:10] important or might be that Yeah, like qualifier for someone like, you know, human resources being like, Hey, we have these exam coupons, whoever passes the exams and contention for this thing, you know, so that you can [00:29:20] implement. [00:29:20] AmyJune Hineline: But with saying that not everyone tests well too, and we have to remember that, you know, not all of us have fluent, um, or native [00:29:30] English speaking skills and some of these things mm-hmm. That aren't translations can get, you know, um, can be biased towards non-native speakers. Um, so that's something to take into account too, [00:29:40] when we're, we're thinking about who's passing these exams, right. [00:29:44] Whitney Lee: What's a day in the life and top the [00:29:45] AmyJune Hineline: base Oh [00:29:46] Coté: yeah. Life as a Hospice Nurse --- [00:29:47] AmyJune Hineline: Of a hospice nurse, like [00:29:50] a day in the life. Okay, so this is, well I do it now, but I'm, I'm a little bit seasoned and a little bit weathered and a little bit like. You know, been [00:30:00] doing it for a while left and came back during the pandemic. So I have a different point of view about the, you know, all of the things. [00:30:06] AmyJune Hineline: But you know, I work night shift because more people die at night. And [00:30:10] I am uhhuh in it for that. Like, um, I worked in ICU and um, NICU for a while. I did emergency room care, I did geriatrics. [00:30:20] And when I was in, I know some of these, not all of these acronyms people might know, but ICU's, intensive care unit, where we have people coming in with like a [00:30:30] knife wound or a bullet shot, or maybe they've had a real, they fell off a ladder and they're like, head is busted open and you're sitting there and you're pounding on people and they wanna be [00:30:40] alive, their family wants them to be alive, and you know that only 20% of those people are gonna make it. [00:30:44] AmyJune Hineline: But you're doing all these like. Like really severe things to their body. Uhhuh. It [00:30:50] really hurt me. And I remember this isn't the hospice nurse part, I know, but I have to give the context. That's great. I remember just great at the end of each one of those ICU shifts, I would have to like go to a coffee [00:31:00] shop, go to a bookstore before I could go home and be with my kids, because I was just like so bothered by it. [00:31:05] AmyJune Hineline: And so finally during one of my reviews, my, the director of nursing was like, you know what? I think I [00:31:10] have what, what you're gonna be good at. You're gonna work in hospice. And I'm like, Ooh, that's creepy. I don't know. Uh, I worked a hospice shift, Uhhuh, I held someone's hand. They chose that moment. [00:31:20] Time to pass. [00:31:21] AmyJune Hineline: And it was with me holding their hand and I felt like it's just like, wow, what a privilege to move these people into the next [00:31:30] world. It was like, uh, like reverse doula, you know, like reverse midwife Uhhuh. And I never looked back after that. I like quit working at the hospital. We, I lived in Bend, Oregon at the [00:31:40] time and we had the privilege of having a hospice house. [00:31:42] AmyJune Hineline: There was like eight beds of just people like Imma imminent death. Like you didn't really know those people because they were already in there like [00:31:50] without medications, but the family was your patients. So the day in the life starts, you know, going in and checking in and seeing who's around and then seeing if there's some aids [00:32:00] around that you can clean people up and you can make them feel like their best selves and have their family feel like that they're at their best selves. [00:32:05] AmyJune Hineline: When more family flies in, or even like private healthcare, you know, you're [00:32:10] taking the caregiving. You're moving the caregiving from the family or like external caregivers and you're letting them be friends and family again, which is really a [00:32:20] nice feeling. Um, and you're taking over that caregiving role. [00:32:23] AmyJune Hineline: And then me, I personally like, I love being in someone's room with them the whole time. [00:32:30] Sometimes they don't have family with them, or sometimes the family goes home at night. And so I sit with people and then, you know, once they pass. How, how long is this process? It depends. How long [00:32:40] is [00:32:40] Whitney Lee: someone in hospice? [00:32:41] AmyJune Hineline: It depends. Well, I think in our society people should be in, um, palliative care a lot longer than they are. Like where they're, they're, they're [00:32:50] not actively trying to live anymore where people are like kind of getting used to the idea that they're going to be moving on soon. But hospice is generally the last six months. [00:32:59] AmyJune Hineline: But [00:33:00] where I work in the hospice house, it's maybe the last six, three to six days. Oh, okay. So sometimes people would come in [00:33:10] conscious and you'd stop taking the medications. You're just making them comfortable. They slip into sleep. A lot of people slip into sleep, but you know, in hospice isn't always about cancer. [00:33:18] AmyJune Hineline: It isn't always about [00:33:20] Alzheimer's or growing old. Sometimes it is that person that fell off the ladder, um, and it's a little bit more shocking for the family. And so depending on why people are dying, [00:33:30] um, or how they choose to die can affect like the level of care you give them and the level of, um, attention that the family needs. [00:33:38] Whitney Lee: Do you, do you feel [00:33:40] like you're seeing people at their worst or at [00:33:44] AmyJune Hineline: their best? No. Well, a little bit of both. It depends on how prepared they are. Some people are really [00:33:50] scared, and that's why holding hands is an important job. Sometimes people are done, you know, they're just like, I, [00:33:56] Whitney Lee: I actually don't even mean the person dying. [00:33:58] Whitney Lee: I mean, the families too, [00:34:00] like humanity in general. [00:34:01] AmyJune Hineline: That's a hard one too. It really depends on like, um. I would say, like I said, they're all different, but you know, generally like to stereotype if I [00:34:10] can, um, if it's a husband and wife and the wife's been passing away for six months, the husband's ready to let go, but maybe the daughter or the son Uhhuh haven't been with them that long and [00:34:20] are just flying in that last week, it's harder for them to let go. [00:34:23] AmyJune Hineline: Right? Yeah. And then when we have these very chaotic moments where, where imminent death was really fast, sometimes [00:34:30] nobody's ready to let go. Even the patient themselves, you know, so it's like all over the place. Depends on religion, I depends on mindset. I. [00:34:38] Whitney Lee: Because as a wedding [00:34:40] photographer, I really got to know people's families at a like, stressful moment. [00:34:43] Whitney Lee: Mm-hmm. And sometimes the families were like, wonderful and support each other and pull together. And sometimes they were like the [00:34:50] meanest to each other. Yeah. Like, uh, dicks. Right. But it was, yeah, you really get to see the core of who they are really quickly, for better or worse. Yeah. [00:34:59] AmyJune Hineline: But I, like, I [00:35:00] just, I like that feeling like I was very selfish and that's why I moved into hospice. Desensitization to Death and Humor in Hospice Care --- [00:35:03] AmyJune Hineline: I just like that privilege of being with someone when they were moving on, you know? And, but, but [00:35:10] are you desensitized to death? I feel like I'm de desensitized to weddings. No. No. I still use humor and stuff like that. No. Every time someone passes away with me, I, [00:35:20] I feel that, you know, and then. Every time like I have to leave someone 'cause they haven't passed away yet. [00:35:25] AmyJune Hineline: I'm a little like, oh, okay. I don't know who the nurse is coming on. Maybe I should extend [00:35:30] my shift. You know? Um, I like to joke around about it because that helps. Right. But, um, I've always, I think I've always had like a pretty good, um, demeanor when it [00:35:40] comes to, to, because I don't know what's out there. I believed in God at one point in my life. [00:35:44] AmyJune Hineline: Yeah. I don't know if I do now. So it could be like totally wonderful path when we go. I don't know that. Mm-hmm. And I don't wanna like [00:35:50] project that on somebody so it could like, you know what I mean? I like that. Like, who knows? So The Meaning of Life and Shared Human Experiences --- [00:35:55] Whitney Lee: do you feel like, I feel like if I was a hospice [00:36:00] nurse and I saw people die regularly, I kind of would get a sense of like, what's the point of it all? [00:36:08] Whitney Lee: Like, like having [00:36:10] like such, such achievement in your life or doing nothing in your life or pure enjoyments, like it all ends the same. Do you, do you ever get a sense of like, what's the point? [00:36:20] [00:36:20] AmyJune Hineline: Yeah. But all of us have, like, all of us have these things in our lives that we celebrate, but not. Mm-hmm. We don't all celebrate them the same, you [00:36:30] know? [00:36:30] AmyJune Hineline: Um, even the most depressed person lives their life in a way that, that that, that they're used to. You know? So I, I think that, I think that unique [00:36:40] human experience is really important, not just for you, but that shared life experience for everyone around you. Mm-hmm. So that's what I think more of the point is, is like having these shared [00:36:50] life experiences, if I can, if I can inspire Kote to go out there and read to the kids at the library, like, hey. [00:36:56] AmyJune Hineline: Mm-hmm. Or if I can get 'em to like, you know, not walk around [00:37:00] naked around the lake. Like, there's like all of those kind of things. You know, you talk about keeping cool, um, but you know what I mean? So I think like, maybe that's the point, is these unique human experiences [00:37:10] that we have with each other really help us, um, be better people to one another. [00:37:15] AmyJune Hineline: And that's why I love open source. I was a mentor for a long time for the Drupal project, and I'm like, I love [00:37:20] mentoring these people because now they're gonna mentor and they're gonna do this, or they're not gonna do this thing. Right? So is is Drupal on hospice? I hope [00:37:28] Whitney Lee: not.[00:37:30] [00:37:32] Whitney Lee: I'm gonna hold Drupal's hand. Um, uh, so that's interesting. Comparing Hospice Care to Open Source Contributions --- [00:37:39] Whitney Lee: So [00:37:40] tell me about how being a hospice nurse compares to open source. They both are. You, you need a lot of empathy for each. [00:37:48] AmyJune Hineline: Yeah. You do. [00:37:50] Um, because everyone poops. Everyone dies who makes chocolate? And I think open source is that same way [00:38:00] too. Like you don't even know you're using an open source project unless you're a nerd about it. [00:38:03] AmyJune Hineline: You know? I feel like it's like open source has this unique ability to bring [00:38:10] out the best in people. And I think that that life and death can do that too, right? Um. Mm-hmm. And open source can bring out the worst in people. We know that. We've worked with some projects that [00:38:20] keep lingering and you're like, you just gotta go, right? [00:38:22] AmyJune Hineline: Like, here, take some morphine, roll over, just go to sleep. Right? But, um, but I think it, I think that people who work [00:38:30] in hospice, like volunteers and respite workers and caregivers and family members, and then people who work in open source. I [00:38:40] mean, sometimes we don't wanna work on open source and sometimes we don't wanna take care of our families. [00:38:43] AmyJune Hineline: But for the most part, it comes back to that altruistic sense, right? You're doing it because you love what you do, especially people who choose [00:38:50] to work in hospice and choose to work in open source. You love what you do and you do it regardless of you get paid regardless of, you know, an award you might win. [00:38:57] AmyJune Hineline: Or you know, we love sharing our [00:39:00] knowledge, you know, we want people to be able to take care of themselves. We want people to be able to contribute back to open source. So there's some parallels on that, like really sort of ethereal plane, I think, rather than that. [00:39:10] Mm-hmm. Like little nitty gritties. So. [00:39:13] Whitney Lee: I was thinking, I, I've made a pessimistic assessment of what it might be like to be like, oh, do you just think what [00:39:20] the, what is the point? [00:39:21] Whitney Lee: Oh, I can see the flip side of that now, where, where the little moments in your own life, like with your kids or, or doing something special [00:39:30] would maybe feel that much sweeter, understanding the impermanence of it all. [00:39:33] AmyJune Hineline: Mm-hmm. And that's the thing too, right? That's, uh, that's something about open source too, is the impermanence, right? [00:39:39] AmyJune Hineline: You [00:39:40] know? Mm-hmm. Um, all of a sudden, you know, someone like, uh, a big proprietary company will buy something and now no longer a university can use the software. So there's that impermanence [00:39:50] and trying to find a new loved one. Right. Or, you know, I don't know, maybe that's stretching the, the, the metaphor, the metaphors. [00:39:58] Coté: What, what, what do you, what do you [00:40:00] think, you know, uh, you, you, uh, uh, you have, you have a history of, I don't know, being perceptive about people and, and kind of there. Types what, [00:40:10] whatever, however you wanna describe it. Roles and Dynamics in Open Source Communities --- [00:40:11] Coté: But like, when, when you kind of think of the, the categorizing people in the open source world, like what are the, what are kinda like the characters like, like the, the [00:40:20] fun in a good way. [00:40:20] Coté: Like the stock characters that you see repeatedly, [00:40:23] AmyJune Hineline: oh God, I'm gonna get in trouble with this one. Um, good. You, you've got your maintainers, [00:40:30] you've got your maintainers, which are cool. They proved that they're, that they know what they're doing and they're good for the project, but they're maybe less tolerant of [00:40:40] things like, you know, um, they feel shit on a little bit. [00:40:43] AmyJune Hineline: Right. You know, they're always having to do the things and, and people shit on them too. Like, Hey, you're the maintainer. Do this little [00:40:50] typo fix. And they're like, oh, that can be till the next release. And so I think maintainers have this sort of. Edge to 'em, like in the big scheme of things, that they're a little bit [00:41:00] standoffish, right? [00:41:01] AmyJune Hineline: And then you've got your, your, your, your teams, like your accessibility team or your front end team or your documentation team. And they're sort of supporting that. And I feel [00:41:10] like the leadership changes more in those sub-teams in that maintainer thing. I think the maintainers are sort of those cool kids. [00:41:16] AmyJune Hineline: The cool kids mm-hmm. That you can't quite get to the table 'cause they haven't left the [00:41:20] Pac-Man shape, you know, um, Uhhuh, you know what I mean by that? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. But so I feel like they're the, they're the cool kids that everyone wants to be, but also doesn't wanna be, but those subgroups, like, [00:41:30] I feel like they're, they have this ability to, um, change leadership a little bit more often and step down gracefully, which is nice. [00:41:37] AmyJune Hineline: They're willing to learn to be a leader of another [00:41:40] team. You know, I always feel like, like those, those sub-teams are, and not to be reductive of the way I say sub-teams, but every open source project is set up a little bit different. I'm just trying to be generic. [00:41:50] Um, is that. They want to, they want other people to step in and help them. [00:41:56] AmyJune Hineline: They want to try something new so that, that, that rise and [00:42:00] fall on that is a little bit of an easier ladder than when you're a maintainer. And stepping down isn't so graceful because you don't always have someone to help you. And I always try to like tell people when I was [00:42:10] doing mentoring in my different projects, like when I say no, like when I'm not doing the mentoring project anymore, it gives someone else a chance to say yes and step up, you know? [00:42:19] AmyJune Hineline: Mm-hmm. And I think [00:42:20] that that's really important in that like that, that kind of lower leadership team of open source is the ability to let yourself move on and try something else. You know? And I think [00:42:30] that that helps our dynamic, our, our software dynamically learn too, is when I understand a little bit, like I do understand roles and responsibilities and I do make clear distinctions, [00:42:40] but when I understand a little bit more about how the accessibility team works with the front end team, it helps me, I. [00:42:45] AmyJune Hineline: Do this a little bit more and the merge requests are a little bit easier. Right. You know, have you ever gotten a [00:42:50] ticket where they're like, QA this page? Yeah. And you're like, um, sure. But then they cry. That's because [00:43:00] you've told them all the things that are wrong. You know, we don't wanna make developers cry, you know? [00:43:04] AmyJune Hineline: So, but I think when we all have that understanding and then we've got the, like the new kids, right. That are so enthusiastic. I love [00:43:10] those new kids. Yeah. They're like going to all the talks and they're doing all the hallway track and they wanna be invited to the party, but they're having a hard time infiltrating like the Subcool kids. [00:43:18] AmyJune Hineline: Right. And our job as sub cool kids [00:43:20] is to be like, Hey, you are new. I haven't met you before. Why don't you hang out with my friends tonight? You know, and, and those things, those people are really enthusiastic. I love those people because [00:43:30] they don't know anything yet, so they don't know what to do wrong either. [00:43:34] AmyJune Hineline: They're the kind of the best people. You're like, what do you wanna work on? You wanna be a designer? Do you wanna work on documentation? Do you wanna do, you know, [00:43:40] ux, um. And then we've got this surly, surly people who have been in the software for 20 years and like don't have anything nice to say, [00:43:50] you know, but they're super smart, jaded. [00:43:51] AmyJune Hineline: You wanna keep them around Uhhuh, you know, but they're working on the API or something. Right. Transition from Hospice Nurse to Tech Mentor --- [00:43:56] Whitney Lee: So was was Drupal your [00:44:00] gateway, your bridge from hospice nurse to tech? [00:44:03] AmyJune Hineline: Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. I was working on a site, I'm not gonna go into it 'cause it's a, another story, but I was doing like [00:44:10] content entry and I kept asking mm-hmm. [00:44:12] AmyJune Hineline: The developer like, Hey, I did this thing, can you help me do this thing? And they're like, I'll just show you how to do the thing. And I couldn't wrap my head around it. And so I, I, um. [00:44:20] Took kind of one of those bootcamp classes where I learned Uhhuh, how to do like Beginner's Guide to Drupal for six weeks. [00:44:27] AmyJune Hineline: And then at the end of it they're like, oh, well you're not a developer. I'm like, cool, you could've [00:44:30] told me that before spending $6,000, but, but I'm a simple person also. What did they know? Yeah, this is true. But we found a, we found a niche [00:44:40] for me. I was a mentor. Mm-hmm. Because I'd be like, how do you write a patch? [00:44:43] AmyJune Hineline: No, there's no what? I just went to a conference. I just went to Contribution Day and we spent three hours walking around with a thumb drive of [00:44:50] Pure get getting something onto my computer and I still didn't get anything. So the next year I go to Drupal Con again and I would cry and I'm like, this is bullshit. [00:44:57] AmyJune Hineline: This is complete bullshit. Mm-hmm. You're always telling [00:45:00] people anyone can contribute. Well, why can't I? Yeah. Why isn't anyone teaching me how to write a patch? So my very first talk, and this is where I became a public speaker, and that's what I do mostly, [00:45:10] like as far as like my open source contributions, was I went in front of people and I showed them how to write a patch. [00:45:16] AmyJune Hineline: That was it. Okay, nice. And people were like, Uhhuh, people were like, oh, I don't need [00:45:20] a local environment. What I don't need, like this thing on my machine. I'm like, Nope. And this is not cool. But it said if I could do it, literally anyone can do it. [00:45:30] Um, Uhhuh. But yeah, that was my first part with like, they were always saying, everyone can do it. [00:45:34] AmyJune Hineline: And I'm like, no, you can't. I didn't leave like learning a skill. And so I, I, I'm really proud of this. [00:45:40] The contribution days at Drupal sort of shifted into not just code-based contributions, but how can you like, contribute to documentation, how can you contribute to [00:45:50] event planning? All of those things. We really opened up that market for like project managers to get involved or, um, even interns and things like that, you know. [00:45:59] AmyJune Hineline: Um, but [00:46:00] I felt very inspired and so I mentored for. Eight years probably in Japan. Cool. Like doing the core maintainer mentorship for code, even though I didn't know how to code, but I didn't have to. [00:46:10] Right. I, you know, um, we all have our skills, but that's how I, it was that feel good like teaching people something new. [00:46:16] AmyJune Hineline: Right. So I think if I was just a straight coder, I might not have like, [00:46:20] stayed as long or been as excited as I am now. Creating and Vetting Exam Questions --- [00:46:25] Whitney Lee: So to bring it back around, our exam's not quite written. We [00:46:30] have our, we have a bunch of people together making questions. How many questions do they have to make? All the SMEs. Okay. [00:46:36] AmyJune Hineline: So that depends on what we think the volume's gonna be like for a [00:46:40] particular exam. [00:46:40] AmyJune Hineline: Like some of those like, oh, um, the, the volumes for those straight projects. Um, we do a two year, uh, refresher where we look at the [00:46:50] content again. So we try to keep items, um, being a little bit evergreen, but, um, interesting that initial item pool, depending [00:47:00] on. The volumes we expect can, it's typically between 200 and 300 items because the exams itself are 60 questions, but [00:47:10] we have two or three forms out in the wild. [00:47:12] AmyJune Hineline: So we have enough questions to kind of fill in the forms. You know, sometimes we have duplicate questions, so we make sure that they're on different forms. Um, the, the [00:47:20] platform engineering exam though, people were so excited about it. People were, I mean, I had think I had 102 SME sign up, um, and probably like [00:47:30] 50 content authors at some point, and like even more reviewers. [00:47:33] AmyJune Hineline: Um, so we knew that that was gonna be very exciting for people. So we opened that pull up to 500 [00:47:40] items. That way we could have rotate items more often. And because it's not quite a mature thing yet and it's still evolving, we wanted to have room to like pull questions out [00:47:50] and. Pull them in as they become antiquated or leaked. [00:47:54] AmyJune Hineline: Sometimes that's a big problem, is leaking. If someone does a brain dump, then our questions no longer exam [00:48:00] defensible, so we have to rotate items in so we do a little bit more items than what we think the two year refresh will have to bring. [00:48:08] Whitney Lee: And then you [00:48:10] have 500 questions. Mm-hmm. And then what, how do you vet them? [00:48:14] AmyJune Hineline: So, ha that's one of my jobs. Uh, one of [00:48:20] the, my main job is making sure this, that the, that the people part, people feel supported and that I keep encouraging them and keep engagement and like, keep them wanting [00:48:30] to participate in more and more exams. But the second thing that I do, or in conjunction is I review items. [00:48:36] AmyJune Hineline: I go into the platform in the black backend and I review [00:48:40] them. I do, 'cause I come from a documentation background working@opensource.com for years. You know, um, I just want the facts, you know, I don't want any scenario based, I don't want context. So I go in there and I [00:48:50] do edits. I go in there and make sure, I can't always make sure that the content is relevant because I'm not a sme, but I can, like, you know, sometimes we have people who don't [00:49:00] speak native English writing exam questions. [00:49:01] AmyJune Hineline: So I go in there and make sure that they make sense. I make sure. You've heard this before, is there one correct item and three wrong yet Plausible items? You know, [00:49:10] because people can weed out questions if they're not plausible. So I go the in there and do checks and balances. And when I'm doing that, and this is the hard part, is I make sure that, you [00:49:20] know, think about it like, so there's 500 items, say that first domain is, you know, um, I don't even know the words. [00:49:26] AmyJune Hineline: Uh, um, I'll do Drupal again 'cause I know the [00:49:30] words. Uh, updating modules. So we want like eight questions about updating modules. Sometimes you will write the same question as I, not exactly the same, [00:49:40] but similar. So I marked those items as similar and they get put on different exams, you know, for different, you know, so we don't always have to have completely unique [00:49:50] questions because there are different forms. [00:49:53] AmyJune Hineline: Right. [00:49:54] Whitney Lee: I think at a higher, I'm after more of a higher level than the granularity, although I do find this [00:50:00] interesting. But like, um, like con, like you have 500 questions and you have three versions of 60. How do you pair that down? Like how do you make sure, um, I mean [00:50:10] you in the backend surely aren't taking care of all 500 of those questions? [00:50:13] Whitney Lee: No. And not to mention across multiple exams. [00:50:15] AmyJune Hineline: No. So what happens is we have, you know, we have like the three banks of items, [00:50:20] right? Mm-hmm. Or the three banks of forms and, you know, say some of them are overlapping, um, but each exam that gets taken, we, we rotate [00:50:30] pre-test items in there too, to test their quality and then, ah, as an exam, you know, either, you know, the content get leaks, leaks, or the stuff becomes antiquated.[00:50:40] [00:50:40] AmyJune Hineline: We have sta uh, statistics in the background that will alert us if it becomes a bad item. [00:50:46] Whitney Lee: Everyone is that just like it's a bad item if everyone misses it [00:50:50] or maybe if everyone is right or it's a bad item [00:50:51] AmyJune Hineline: if everyone gets it right, or maybe okay. Enough people like say the answer is A, but everyone seems to be answering [00:51:00] C because in the six months since we wrote the item, now C is a plausible answer. [00:51:04] AmyJune Hineline: So we need to go in there and like clone it and make sure that it only has one answer again. [00:51:10] Interesting. Yeah. It's, but we have, we have a psychometrician that does that. A person who looks at the math of the statistics and [00:51:20] the psychology of the people, and they have that like kind of running in the background, you know? [00:51:26] AmyJune Hineline: Yeah. It's, I don't know much of that science, but there is a person who does that. [00:51:30] [00:51:30] Whitney Lee: There's like beta testing by mm-hmm. By qualified test takers, and then there's like cut score. I know as a, a sme, I took the exam. Mm-hmm. Um, [00:51:40] how does, what, why, what's that about? Okay, [00:51:42] AmyJune Hineline: so the beta will. We try to, we try to sort of pay attention to who in the beta is getting [00:51:50] things right. [00:51:50] AmyJune Hineline: We do a screening and we do invite people, but sometimes people will come in, but we, in the beta, there's a opportunity for them to tell us how much [00:52:00] they studied for the test, how long they've been in the industry, how long have they think they're an expert. So sometimes that's where that psychometrician stuff comes in is [00:52:10] their test scores are gonna be a little different than that minimally qualified person. [00:52:15] AmyJune Hineline: Mm-hmm. So we have these beta, beta items that I kind of go through and then, [00:52:20] um, our psychometrician will ask y'all like, why did one person get this right? And why did the other one get it wrong? And we sort of had these discussions. But then you get an assignment where you [00:52:30] take the whole exam, you take all of the beta items, and you have the opportunity to say. [00:52:35] AmyJune Hineline: This, I think there's two answers, or I [00:52:40] think we also do this like criticality scoring. Like people, we haven't talked about it, but when we write the tested question, we say, we think 50% of people will get this. Right. And when you do that [00:52:50] cut score, you do that again. You're like, I'm gonna get this. 75%, 75% of people are gonna get this right. [00:52:55] AmyJune Hineline: But Chris says, 60% of people are gonna get that. Right. So that deviation gets discussed [00:53:00] too, and that's what makes it a harder and easy item. We talked about is it an easy item? Is it a hard item? So the, do you wanna change your mind because the test is weighted, [00:53:08] Whitney Lee: be the SME [00:53:10] when they're taking the test. I don't know what the, the beta side is, but, uh, on my side, I, I say what I think is the right answer. [00:53:18] Whitney Lee: Mm-hmm. And then it tells me whether I'm correct [00:53:20] about it, and then I, then I choose a percentage of what's. How many test takers I think will get it right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, just to be very clear about [00:53:30] what's happening. [00:53:30] AmyJune Hineline: Yeah. That's called standard setting. And then we get together as a group and we look at those items where that, those scores are so deviated. [00:53:37] AmyJune Hineline: Like why did someone say only [00:53:40] 5% would get it right? But the rest of the group says 75 and we discuss it. Right. And all of a sudden people are, so anything like, oh yeah, one of those distractors is so easy, I can eliminate it right away. You [00:53:50] know, Uhhuh, because we want you to do it because you're also testing the content for relevance too. [00:53:55] AmyJune Hineline: But we're also looking at it from the point of view of, you know. Maybe you have [00:54:00] forgotten what it's like to be that minimally qualified candidate so that other person who comes in can help us sort of make that consensus. And from there we get those scores. We decide how many [00:54:10] easy items go on a form, and then we make sure that those forms have the same kind of items across the field. [00:54:15] AmyJune Hineline: 'cause it wouldn't be fair to put all the easy items on one exam and I take it and then you get all the hard ones. Yeah. And so [00:54:20] that's where all that math and reviewing and testing comes in, is creating those really like defensible forms at the end. Really. [00:54:27] Coté: So it's really how do you, how do you organize all [00:54:30] this stuff? [00:54:30] Coté: Like do you, yeah. Do you like, do you like have spreadsheets or sticky notes or is there some software that people make tests have that does all of this? Or like what? So how do you keep track of it all? So we work [00:54:39] AmyJune Hineline: in, [00:54:40] we work in a platform and the platform keeps track of all of it for us. Oh, okay. Um, I can download the stuff and I can tell you that I look at it and I do, but I don't know what it says. [00:54:48] AmyJune Hineline: But we do have a [00:54:50] platform that keeps track of the statistics of the exam item as we go. And that's when we say, when we're doing that refresh, if an item turns red. Then we look at it and make sure, like, why are people [00:55:00] getting it wrong? Maybe there was a typo. Maybe like something wasn't formatted right. [00:55:03] AmyJune Hineline: Maybe like two words, like maybe when I, when I edited the item, I got the word placement wrong. You [00:55:10] know? And like, if we can fix exam item, we, we will, we can. And, [00:55:13] Coté: and so will, will it be like, uh, let's go to question 3 92 and like you bring that up on a screen and there's like, [00:55:20] there's like a a, it has the question and then all the various notes and stuff that y'all have written about it. [00:55:24] Coté: Yeah. [00:55:25] AmyJune Hineline: Yeah. So, um, psycho whatnot, [00:55:27] Coté: the figures, yeah. [00:55:28] AmyJune Hineline: It does keep track of [00:55:30] everything. And that helps when we, when we have to tell people why our exam is still good, that we did all these checks and balances. I have like, in this platform that we use, every person that does a review [00:55:40] manually will write it in there. [00:55:41] AmyJune Hineline: And we have history of all the edits and then we have history of the test taking. We have history of like how many, how it's doing well over time. [00:55:50] And it is pretty Oh, interesting. How [00:55:52] Whitney Lee: you, [00:55:52] AmyJune Hineline: can you go, [00:55:53] Coté: okay. Okay. Do, do you, do you think that, like, is it, is, is doing this kind of stuff standardized enough that like, you [00:56:00] know, after you take a two week vacation and then you have like two weeks on the job, you could just like jump into the SAT offices and be like, we're off to the races, right? [00:56:08] Coté: Or, or does everyone [00:56:10] use different software and they use different techniques and like, it's just all over the map? [00:56:14] AmyJune Hineline: It, it is fairly standardized. [00:56:20] Every kind of, I know that's a cop out, but, but, but, but we can go from like company to company, you know? Um, [00:56:30] um, like a person who does more exam, I don't, I'm not really an exam developer. [00:56:34] AmyJune Hineline: I'm a SME coordinator, you know what I mean? Like everyone else has to work for me. But say we have an exam developer that goes from one [00:56:40] company to another, they need that onboarding period. But it is pretty. If you're doing a right thing, like you're using at least the same [00:56:46] Coté: techniques and thinking like, like everything you're going over is [00:56:50] just theory. [00:56:51] Coté: Yeah. You know, you weren't like, and then I click on this button and I select that dropdown. It's more just like, here's the, the thing that we wanna do. [00:56:56] AmyJune Hineline: Right, right, right. And then, you know, as a, as a person [00:57:00] who's new to this sort of field, um, I take education classes once a month and learn about how people cheat, learn about how, how people like, um, how test taking is [00:57:10] different in India than it is in, you know, Bangladesh, things like that. [00:57:12] AmyJune Hineline: You know? And so there's this education that comes along with it, just like anything. Right. You can't just, you know, um, I. [00:57:20] Uh, learn software once and not, you know, participate in continuing education, you know, but it's a very interesting field to work in, that's for sure. But I'm glad I'm more of a people person [00:57:30] 'cause I love the people. [00:57:31] AmyJune Hineline: It's, [00:57:32] Whitney Lee: it's pretty amazing how you can bring together a, a pack of weirdos from all different walks of life and all different parts of the world and all [00:57:40] different, um, ideas of what good is. And like have them together, produce something that the world can agree is a good [00:57:48] AmyJune Hineline: test. Yeah. And [00:57:49] Whitney Lee: it's [00:57:50] embedable. I have this [00:57:50] AmyJune Hineline: and I have no skin in the game, so it's easier for me to like wrangle y'all, you know what I mean? [00:57:55] AmyJune Hineline: I'm like, okay, we've been talking about this for 12 minutes. Like, is it a good or is it a bad item? Like, are we gonna [00:58:00] feel accept it or we're gonna reject it. We're not gonna talk about the same word for the next five more minutes. You know, throw it out. [00:58:07] Whitney Lee: Yeah, I relate to that. [00:58:10] The Importance of Certification and Exam Defensibility --- [00:58:10] Coté: So, so why, why, um, and why does the Linux Foundation do this? [00:58:15] Coté: Like certification things like if, like if money, I don't, I haven't, I [00:58:20] haven't checked out foundation stuff, but there's like, you know, in a while. But you have the Eclipse Foundation. The Apache Foundation, like, like there'll be other open source foundations and is [00:58:30] it. Is it like part of being an open source foundation that you would do certification for your open source projects and related things or, so I, I don't [00:58:40] know, like what do you think the, I don [00:58:41] AmyJune Hineline: I don't, the reason is, don't have exact, I don't have the exact answer for this, but I know that under the CNCF umbrella, when we have incubating projects, one of the things that helps [00:58:50] them graduate to a full fledged project, like maybe that's money involved or whatever, um, is to have course material or exam content, and that helps them go from that [00:59:00] fledging project to that graduated project. [00:59:02] AmyJune Hineline: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what a graduated project means in the big scheme of things, but I know that those words come out of people's mouths when they talk about it. [00:59:09] Coté: [00:59:10] Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I mean, I, I, I could, I could see like the, uh, you, you know, like, like I think, I think the Linux Foundation has evolved into, I don't [00:59:20] know, like a, like a good neutral ground. [00:59:22] Coté: Like, and, and part of what makes it a good neutral ground is it's big. Yeah. Right. And so like, but we cover a lot of [00:59:27] AmyJune Hineline: umbrellas. Yeah. [00:59:29] Coté: [00:59:30] Exactly. And, and so in, instead of having, there's plenty of, uh, organizations, uh, that you may or may not worked in the past who also do certifications. Mm-hmm. Well, all sorts of other ones. [00:59:39] Coté: [00:59:40] And those all seem fine. But then it's kind of like, well, who, who else is gonna certify about all these open source things? Right. Like, and it's probably one of the more [00:59:50] trustworthy places. [00:59:51] AmyJune Hineline: Yeah. I agree with that. But I feel as I, like, meet more people and connect with more people on social platforms where they're announcing like.[01:00:00] [01:00:00] AmyJune Hineline: What exams they're taking and stuff. I feel like more people are taking more different types of exams from different organizations these days. Um, but I [01:00:10] wonder how they vet those. I don't. I look at some of 'em, I'm like, they're so niche. I don't know if I would choose to get a certification from that company or for that project because [01:00:20] I don't know what is gonna help me within my career path. [01:00:23] AmyJune Hineline: I'm not saying actually the foundation is the only one, but I just, sometimes I, there's so many out there. I don't know how someone who [01:00:30] doesn't know how to choose how they would choose. Yeah. [01:00:34] Whitney Lee: But is, is there some sort of way ha ha, to give credentials to the credentials. [01:00:40] Like mm-hmm. How do you show our exams actually mean something? [01:00:44] Whitney Lee: We've gone through this process as opposed to we're [01:00:46] AmyJune Hineline: certified and we have all the things. And that's why I always talk about exam [01:00:50] defensibility because we are uhhuh certified under different organizations that say, yes, we're qualified to make these exams and we have to follow certain rules, like those refreshes every two [01:01:00] years. [01:01:00] AmyJune Hineline: So we do have all those checks and balances in place to keep those, those, um, uh, like, you know, certifications for the certification people relevant [01:01:10] and, and what [01:01:10] Whitney Lee: are those? I think that would be valuable for the general public to know how So a certification is certified? [01:01:17] AmyJune Hineline: Yeah. So we have a few different [01:01:20] platforms and I don't know, I'm not like, this is a little bit out of my domain, um, but I know we have a TP which sets. [01:01:27] AmyJune Hineline: Qualifications for how you build [01:01:30] exams. Um, and then, uh, ITCC is this Bank of professionals that help you stay on board with like how your exam is defensible. You know, like, because [01:01:40] proctoring, um, mind dumps, um, um, where we share our information with the use of ai, it's really complicated to keep your item [01:01:50] bank secure. [01:01:51] AmyJune Hineline: Um, things like that. So like all these teaching tools are out there. And then like I, as a person who helps with the exam process, I have to keep track of how [01:02:00] I keep track of keeping track just to make sure. So if we're ever audited, I know, right? The forever audit, I can say, no, we never worked in GitLab, we never worked [01:02:10] in Google Docs. [01:02:10] AmyJune Hineline: We always kept it private. You know what I mean? So there's these, there's these certain things that I have to do in documentation to make sure that we continue to be certified to be certifications.[01:02:20] [01:02:23] Whitney Lee: Um, I think we're gonna wrap soon, but I have one last question for you. I'm saving it for the end. Do you, do you [01:02:30] have a question, Cote, before I ask my final question? [01:02:34] Coté: Go ahead. [01:02:34] Whitney Lee: Oh, okay. My last question for you. Personal Reflections on Death and Legacy --- [01:02:37] Whitney Lee: As a hospice person, how do [01:02:40] you hope that you yourself will die? [01:02:45] AmyJune Hineline: Well, I just got married recently, um, Uhhuh in a [01:02:50] relationship where I have no twinge of doubt that, um, I am gonna have another relationship as bold as this one. So I would hope [01:03:00] that I would go first and that he's holding my hand because I don't want to be alone with no one holding my hand when I die. So, um, I [01:03:10] hope, I don't want it to be quick. [01:03:12] AmyJune Hineline: I want it to be like three to five days. That way people can come and visit, say goodbye if they want to. Interesting. I don't wanna be selfish, but at [01:03:20] the same time, so I'm like, I do not know what's gonna happen, but I would prefer to have Chris holding my hand the whole time. That's like the biggest, that's nice. [01:03:27] AmyJune Hineline: Of the, the, the most, like that's [01:03:30] what I hope, like that's the first spontaneous thought I have. That comes to mind when you ask me that question. [01:03:36] Whitney Lee: That's fascinating because you always hear, I hope I'll die [01:03:40] fast and you never hear. I hope I'll die in over three to five days. [01:03:44] AmyJune Hineline: Spring [01:03:45] Whitney Lee: it [01:03:45] AmyJune Hineline: out a little bit. I heard the, I heard the drugs are really good though, you know, so, [01:03:50] um, no, but, uh, but no, I really do because like, I feel like a little bit isolated from my family living where I live because it's so expensive. [01:03:57] AmyJune Hineline: So. Mm-hmm. I think that like, if people [01:04:00] want to say goodbye, it gives them that opportunity to do that, um, um, if they want to. And then it also keeps hospice nurses employed, um mm-hmm. [01:04:10] Always the greater good. [01:04:15] AmyJune Hineline: But I think that, thank you for that. We can have a chance to contemplate that. Three to five days might be a really [01:04:20] nice time to contemplate whatever we need to contemplate or like make, I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. I just don't know. I [01:04:26] Whitney Lee: wouldn't [01:04:27] AmyJune Hineline: want it to be You don't know, but you know, [01:04:28] Whitney Lee: better than most people.[01:04:30] [01:04:30] AmyJune Hineline: I wouldn't want it to be spontaneous in case there's this like, waiting period. Right. So, yeah. That's nice. [01:04:38] Coté: Yeah. Conclusion and Final Thoughts --- [01:04:38] Coté: Well, well this has, this has been [01:04:40] fun. I've got a wide range of topics here. Like, like, uh, all, all, all over the place, which, which is always nice to go over. It's two [01:04:47] Whitney Lee: death cockroaches. Yeah. I say [01:04:50] I'm taking, [01:04:50] Coté: yeah. [01:04:51] Coté: I, I think, I think from now on, uh, I'm, I'm gonna be thinking about the, uh, poop or chocolate conversation. My, this, you know, I, a game. [01:05:00] It's a game. [01:05:00] Coté: Yeah. It's, uh, I, I, I've got, I've got, I, I have three kids of varying levels of, um, pooper chocolate creation.[01:05:10] [01:05:12] Coté: So I think that could work out now. Well, yeah. So, so thanks for being on. Uh, if, if people wanted to like, uh, check out stuff that you have, you, [01:05:20] you have like a homepage on the worldwide web or other accounts where you would send people. [01:05:24] AmyJune Hineline: I think LinkedIn is probably my most favorite account to share with people. [01:05:28] AmyJune Hineline: Um, and I'm [01:05:30] Volkswagen Chick. Um, and, but, um, [01:05:33] Whitney Lee: what if people wanna be an SME? Is there a place to know like what exams are being created? [01:05:38] AmyJune Hineline: Um, not [01:05:40] necessarily what exams are be creating in the long term timeline sort of thing. Mm-hmm. But in the short term mm-hmm. If you wanna get involved with the Linux Foundation, I sent you folks a link where it's like [01:05:50] kind of a generic SME form, um, for people to fill out. [01:05:53] AmyJune Hineline: Um, but I think like on LinkedIn, following the Linux Foundation is a good. Place to [01:06:00] start. Um, you know, because they do have these broadcasts, but, uh, filling in that SMI form. 'cause I think the SMI form is generic enough to ask about what kind of projects you're interested. [01:06:10] And then when I know what projects is in the, in the horizon, I go through that SMI form and I kind of look and see and sift through that, that, and then sometimes I do a blanket call for it [01:06:20] too. [01:06:20] AmyJune Hineline: But that's, that SME form on the Linux Foundation page is probably the best place for people to start. Or, um, connecting with me on LinkedIn. [01:06:28] Whitney Lee: I, I can endorse being a [01:06:30] sme. I found it to be an organized process. I thought you were fun to work with. I thought it was fun to collaborate with other people who are interested in platform engineering across other companies. [01:06:39] Whitney Lee: I thought it was [01:06:40] fun. [01:06:40] Coté: Now, now, now, Whitney, when, when, when you go talk with your, your, uh, your, your non-tech friends, are you like, I'm a sme, and they're like, I have no idea what you're [01:06:50] talking about. [01:06:52] Whitney Lee: No, I don't tell anyone outside of tech. I would, I would never be like, I'm a subject matter expert. Like this is, this is only so I totally roll our eyes. [01:06:59] Whitney Lee: I [01:07:00] mean, [01:07:00] Coté: only, only in the tech, the tech world circle of trust that you, you would. All right. Well, well, speaking of being in the circle of trust, you've listened to [01:07:10] another episode of Software Defined Interviews. We'll put links to those things that we mentioned, uh, at software defined interviews.com/ 1 0 4. [01:07:18] Coté: Uh, and you can link to it [01:07:20] and, uh, yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll have to go check that stuff out too. Well, thanks again for being on, and, uh, with that, we'll see everyone next time. Bye-bye. [01:07:27] Whitney Lee: Thank you. Bye.