# The Journey to Code Mastery w/ Marqeta's CTO, Randy Kern | Dev Interrupted Powered by LinearB

> Randy Kern, CTO at Marqeta, reminds us why we fell in love with coding in the first place with his recipe for curiosity and fun.

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The Journey to Code Mastery w/ Marqeta's CTO, Randy Kern

# The Journey to Code Mastery w/ Marqeta's CTO, Randy Kern

By Randy Kern

|

January 17, 2023

![Randy_Kern_Podcast_Card_01f0136030](https://assets.linearb.io/image/upload/c_limit,w_2560/f_auto/q_auto/v1/Randy_Kern_Podcast_Card_01f0136030?_a=BAVMn6ID0)

Randy Kern, CTO at Marqeta, thinks that every engineer should "go deep" - all the way to understanding the transistors if you have to. He implores us never to be satisfied with black boxes, believing that it's not only risky not to understand what your code is really doing, but it's not fun either.

We love this episode because Randy's joy is infectious. He reminds us why we got into software engineering in the first place. If you've been looking for a reminder yourself, this is the episode for you.

### Episode Highlights:

* (2:37) Randy's start in tech
* (8:20) New to a team? Spend a month fixing bugs
* (15:38) Learning as you go
* (23:59) What every engineer should know
* (30:37) It takes bifocals to build software
* (34:02) Tips for managers
* (40:46) Building enterprise teams

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