Jacqueline Salinas is the Director of Ecosystem & Community Development for the the Continuous Delivery Foundation (CDF). The CDF serves as the vendor-neutral home of many of the fastest-growing projects for continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD). The CDF includes projects such as Jenkins, Tekton and many other CICD mainstays. In this episode Jacqueline talks about her latinx upbringing and how she persevered over many obstacles. We go IN-DEPTH on what the Continuous Delivery Foundation (Cd.foundation) is and its flagship event CDCON (June 23rd and 24th) and why its a MUST ATTEND if you want to better deliver applications with talks from the best in the space! We also talk travel and her ambitious plan to visit 40 countries by 40!
Timeline/Topic
00:00 -- Episode 75 is coming on June 30th with Solomon Hykes
00:28 -- Opener
00:47 -- Introduction to Jacqueline Salinas
00:57 -- Jacqueline's Journey as a Latinx woman in tech
16:16 -- Origins of the Continuous Delivery Foundation (Cd.foundation) / What is it?
20:19 -- CDcon is awesome.. Why you should attend (June 23/24th 2021)
23:43 -- Travel and Jacqueline's favorite places to visit.
27:03 -- What work is Jacqueline most proud of?
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Episode Links
CDF main website - https://cd.foundation
CDF Podcast - https://cd.foundation/podcast/
CDcon - https://events.linuxfoundation.org/cdcon/
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- [Ad Announcer] The 75th episode of The Popcast. Solomon Hykes, June 30th, only on The Popcast. [British Ad Announcer] This episode of the Popcast is brought to you by these sponsors.
- Hello everyone. And welcome to the Popcast. We have Jacqueline Salinas. She's the director of ecosystem and community development for the Continuous Delivery Foundation. Welcome to the Popcast, Jacqueline.
- Thank you so much for hosting me today. It's a pleasure to be here.
- It's a pleasure to have you. Alrighty, so I want to talk to you about your journey. Before we get into the awesome that is CDF, I'm an ambassador. I just, I love it. It's just fantastic, I mean it's so many great people. Markie, Carlos, so many amazing people. You Jacqueline, right, Tara. All right. We'll talk about all these awesome people later but I want to talk about you. Let's talk about your journey. So how did you start in this tech world?
- Well, I have to, you know, I'm not supposed to be here. I always tell people that. I'm, you know, I've got really humble roots. My mom is an immigrant. She cleaned houses to support us while I was growing up. So I come like I said, from really, really humble, humble roots. And I've been super fortunate because I've had incredible women, for whatever reason, whatever they saw in me, they've always just encouraged me and nurtured me and mentored me to just, you know, go after my dreams. And you know, one of the things that I was raised on, was education is super important. Education is the way out of poverty. And so for me, that was one of my biggest passion, was just learning and getting a college education. So when I was about 18 years old maybe, fortunately enough, fortunately not, I was hanging out with a much older dude who introduced me to Tracy Reagan, and Tracy Reagan was super pivotal in my career because I was 18, I had just started at the University of New Mexico. I had no idea what I wanted to be. And she was just like, okay, listen to me, you want to make money? You're gonna go into tech. She's like, I don't care what you do in tech, but I know that you want to get out of poverty. And there's a lot of job security in the tech industry. So, you know, I'm hanging out with Tracy, we're building a relationship. She's, you know, like Steve Taylor too, used to, the poor guy used to have to like, help me with college algebra. This is like how, you know, these folks got so involved and mentored me throughout, throughout my journey. Which is super beautiful because like, again I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them believing in me and for them helping me through this incredible journey. So,
- Let's talk about, I want to double click on this again. It's not like somebody just was like, look, people have to have innate talent for somebody, somebody has got to deliver at the end of the day. So you got to give yourself more credit. Talk to me about that. Like, do you, you just have a, do you have this inert drive? Like, you know, it's like, again, you talk to anybody and say, look, can you do this? And it's like, whatever, but it's like you have to have the innate ability and drive
- It was. I mean, I like one of the things that, you know, growing up, Latinx women with a single mom, you know like, we're not raised like the rest of everybody where they're like, you know, 401ks and all this stuff, right? So in me from a very young age was like I need to be able to give back to my community. And I can't do that unless I'm a professional. Unless I am somebody that is also being able to make money and be, and has a skillset and experience to be able to like invest it back into the community. So for me, it was always like taking care of my family. Taking care of my mom, because I knew that with what she did, she wasn't gonna have a retirement. Like let's, let's be honest. So, so I was super passionate and I it was like my mission to become a professional. And like the fortunate part about New Mexico is they have a lottery scholarship. So if you have the grades, you could go to school and get tuition covered for free by the state. If you stayed in state. Any state school. New Mexico State, Highlands, whatever. So I took advantage of that. And like, I also have to mention another really powerful and influential woman in my life, which I call her my godmother, but she's not my godmother, but she is my fairy godmother because she believed so much in me that she was like, I'm gonna help you get through college. And she had, she gave me monthly stipend while I was in college of $500. And that's what used to cover, like my expenses, part of my rent and then everything else I financed with grants and scholarships. So I walked away from a four year college degree with $5,000 in debt, which is unheard of right now. And this was all because I was hustling. Like I missed out on a ton of fun college parties but oh boy, did I make up after that when I got my first job. Don't get me wrong. I had my fun and I still do. So for me, it was like, I just had to get this done and I was gonna get it done one way or another. And so that was kind of like my college journey. And you know, the other thing too, that I like education
- Are you allowed to say the person's name? I'm sorry to interrupt. Are you allowed to say that?
- Yeah, yeah. Her name is Madeline. She was actually one of my mom's bosses. And I met her when I was probably like 11 or 12 and you know, I love to talk. And so I probably was helping my mom clean and bugging Madeline at the same time. Like, cause one of the things too that she's been also very influential in my passion for traveling. Like she has, she used to have these huge maps and then it had like red pins of all the places that she'd been to. And I think that is one of my early memories of like how I started talking to her, of like how I started bugging her. And so, you know, she knew my mom and she knew my mom's situation. She knew the family situation. You know, we, you know, I was abandoned by my father around 10 years old. And so it was just, you know, my mom and my older sister and I. So yeah, it was just I was determined not to be poor anymore. I was determined to have a college education.
- Can I give a shout out to Madeline here real quick? Madeline, God bless you. That's incredible that, you know, again, I mean, you you know, Jac, I, I know you, like, you're just you're just a firecracker, right? And it's just like the fact that like it's, it's, it's amazing, right? It's and, and shout out to you, Madeline. I mean, that's amazing that, you know you support somebody and support somebody's dream. And she took that ball and just ran with it, right? So, go ahead.
- Yeah, and like I said, I was, you know this was like eight years before I even thought like could apply to college or something like that. So yeah, like, again, going back to these women who were just like, you know I really do believe it takes a village and you know my mom needed that help. I probably, you know, I also refused to be a statistic. I was like, I am not gonna get pregnant. I am not gonna be just somebody else like on welfare. Not because there's anything wrong with that but just because that was, I was just like I already know what it means to be poor. And I want a better future, not only for myself, but like I said, for my family and for my community.
- Incredible.
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- And so again, we take this amazing foundation that again, you, you took you know, and you, again, not being a statistic and we're going to talk, I really want to talk about how, you know, repaying that forward, right? But let's talk about, you know the first journey into tech.
- Yeah. So I, you know, I was passionate and committed to learning how to speak French. So in college I was like I am getting the hell out of New Mexico. And my first ride is, you know, through an exchange program. So I go and I spend a year in France, I become fluent. And, but I was just like, I'm ready to come home. And part of that program required an internship. So I negotiated with the school and I was like, okay, how about I do an internship in the U.S.? And then I don't have to be in France anymore. So I could just go home and like just resume my life in the United States. And it actually came down between Intel and Goldman Sachs. And I was just like, fuck Goldman Sachs. Cause it was just like right after like 2008 and all this stuff had happened, right? And I was also, I'm not, I was like, I it also came down on location. I had to go either to Salt Lake City or to California in Folsom. And I was just like, well, Folsom sounds a whole lot better than being in Salt Lake City. I don't know why I had these preconceived notions.
- You buckled down in school, you wanted to party a little bit. A little bit. I got it. All right.
- So then I go to Intel and I do, my internships get, gets turned into a co-op. And then I get asked to come back and be an intern the next summer. And then by the end of that internship I still had a year left before graduating. And Intel was like, hey, we want you. Well, and they offered me a job a year before I even graduated. So it's, it's crazy, right? Sometimes it's just like things happen in in the craziest way. So that's how I started. I actually started my marketing tech career doing hardware, and I was actually started, I started out as a business sales operation analyst doing basically forecasting for, you know, desktop chips and really other boring stuff. So that's, that's kinda how I started my journey into tech.
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- Okay, and then again, so Intel it's Intel is usually a launching pad to other things. You get exposed to other technology, right? So I guess, did the AWS come in the picture next? Is that where you were?
- Yeah, so I was with Intel for about like four plus years. And then I, I started really doing marketing with a depth sensor called the RealSense, and big shout out to RealSense because, it was, it started out like as an R&D organization, and then it became a profit and loss and just you know, they were, they just also just believed in me. And they were like, hey. Gave me a lot of power at a very young age like being able to manage millions of dollars in a budget. It was kind of a little bit insane, I'm like, really you want to let a 25 year old do this? But I'm like, hey, whatever. So I had a lot of nice dinners on Intel's budget. And then I was just like, okay, I'm bored of this. And I started looking for jobs and I actually got hired with AWS as a developer marketing manager. Cause I had already been doing this like with the Intel RealSense, we had an SDK and, you know developers, that's when really developers started to become my bread and butter. So I get brought on to AWS. We have a re-org, and then they shift me over to a digital marketing role. I'm still with like develop, the developer audience being our target audience, but not, you know I wasn't getting to create like cool programs for developers. Like I get to do for the CD foundation. So I was there for a few years and I had actually a mental breakdown because it just can be so toxic in, in the corporate world. And I had just a manager who was super unhealthy. And so I have a mental breakdown. I go on medical leave for three months and I was just like, something's got to change.
- Gotcha.
- And so, you know, at that time, like Tracy was Tracy Reagan was like super busy, also helping with the CD foundation. And I had heard about it, but like I never really dove into it. And so they were actually going to hire somebody else. There was already an offer out, but it falls through. And so Tracy was like, hey, you have all this marketing experience. Why don't you apply? I was just like, I don't know, like, it's kind of a big leap to go from manager to director. But I was just like, okay, what the hell. I need to get out.
- Yeah.
- And so I interviewed and they offered me the job and you know, it's kind of been a whirlwind ever since.
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- And so for folks, again, I'm not making light of this. I'm just, I just think you, you know, again taking this challenge and being like, look, this is, I'm in a place where I'm, you know, it's toxic and I need to be in a better place, right? And so being in the CD foundation helped from that perspective. Now I want to talk to you about the just the origins of this, of the CD foundation. And, you know, I, I wanna understand why people should join the CDF. So like I know why. I love being an ambassador. I'm an ambassador for the CD foundation, and I think it's great. I've met a lot of great people and all that but I want to understand what is the mission of the CD Foundation?
- Yeah, so our mission at the CD Foundation is to figure out how to help the ecosystem deliver software with security and speed. And that is like a really vague but also you're just like, what, what does that even mean, right? So, you know, we focus on open source pro... We, we're the home of, of what is it now six open source projects now that are tools for developers who, you know are working in the CD and DevOps space. I think it's important. You know, like I honestly like coming from corporate world I never got a lot of exposure to open source but I think the biggest value that you get out of open source is community. And I think that's something that 2020 taught me was and I've always been passionate about community. Don't get me wrong, but I think it, 2020 highlighted how valuable, how important it is for us to be, to be part of a community. I think that, you know, one of the things that drives me at the CD Foundation not only because it's my role, but like I said, I, I am passionate about it, is figuring out how do I create programs that are gonna bring people together. So we've done this in, in a few ways. Like the podcast is one way that we reach out to folks and we bring them thought leadership and educational content that is easily digestible. We have the webcast
- Can we talk about, let's talk about the podcast real quick. So how would somebody listen to this podcast and we'll have by the way, we'll have links in the description, everybody but how would they, is it on like Apple and all that?
- Yeah, so The Pipeline: All Things CD & DevOps is available on a ton of streaming platforms. So Spotify, Apple, what is it? Stitcher. I don't remember. I think I applied to like 10 or 15 places and just made sure it was in there. But you could also, we have a landing page on the CD Foundation, you know, slash podcast. It's got all the instructions. If you're interested in submitting an episode idea and want to schedule your recording. And it also has a player in there from Spotify. So you can also listen to the latest episode there. But yeah, the, The Pipeline really was an experiment that I decided to start. I had actually never, I didn't know anything about being a podcast host. I didn't even know how to edit an audio file. Everything again, I taught myself, and it's been super fun because that's one way that I've also been able to connect with the community on a more personal level and just get to know more people and what they're doing and what they're passionate about. And also just again, bring their expertise and share it with the broader, broader community. So that's been super fun.
- Nice. And then you said there's live stream you're all doing as well.
- Yeah, so we, we have a webcast. We're trying to host that at least once a week and this is also a CDF member and ambassador benefit. So if you're, for example, a premier member you get to schedule two webcast episodes per quarter. And then down the tier, it's like one per quarter. So this is also another opportunity for folks to come and have a stage, have stage time have come and talk about what they're passionate about. Come and talk about, you know, how they're leveraging open source and what their end solutions look like. So, yeah, it's just, just like, again, just another another space for folks to, to share.
- And there's also a conference y'all do. So CDCon right? And that's, what is that in July?
- So yeah. Yeah, so the first one we held it in October of last year.
- I love how I say you all. I'm an ambassador. I'm a member, baby. C'mon, it's like that.
- You too, man.
- We're all fam baby. It's all good. We got it.
- Absolutely. So, yeah, so we pulled it into June so it's happening June 23rd and 24th, 2021. And so, yeah, this is another opportunity for us to bring the community together from all of our projects. We don't necessarily, you know, you to be a speaker you don't necessarily have to be talking about one of our projects, as long as it's along the vein of whether it's open source or whether it's, you know, another hot topic in the CD and DevOps world. So yeah, we also, the CFP just opened yesterday. We are actually doing pretty well. We sold out our diamond tier already. Like I, it's been amazing. Like I'm always super proud of, of what we do together. Like registrations are almost at 500. And like I said, we've only been promoting it for maybe a week and a half. It's free for folks to, to attend. So register early because we're gonna have a lot of great content.
- Me included. I'm going to submit a CFP by next week.
- You better.
- Yes. Steve in Toronto. You and I, again. You ready?
- Let's do it.
- Anyway. Yeah, so that's, that's great. And, and, and again, it's, I'm I feel so privileged being an ambassador of it. And, and again, you think about all the projects that are part of it, like Spinnaker, Tecton, Jenkins.
- We just gained a new one too, Ortelius, which is a, oh my God, a configuration management tool.
- I mean, again, there's so, in the CNCF ecosystem, there's 1500 different projects out there, and I love that we've carved out a specific kind of niche that's very specific to continuous delivery. It's awesome because it's, you know, the, this is they can kind of like baby these projects and make sure that like, people are getting more visibility on it. Like, you know, Spinnakers, a great project. Tecton, great project, you know? Ortelius, another great project I had no idea about, right? So it's, this is great, right? Cool stuff. I love it.
- Yeah, very cool. I think, and I think that's also the fun part of, you know starting with a foundation when it's really young, is also seeing it grow. Because I think that the CNCF has done an amazing job but I think there's a lot of noise and you get a little bit lost in there. So that's, that's been the fun part of of working with the CD foundation and why I'm just like, come to CDF.
- It's like, you know, it's like start, it's almost like start, like starting over from the CNCF perspective, like late in the CD, because you have the ability to kind of like really, you know, baby these projects and it's fun. It's awesome.
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- That's awesome. So I want to kind of switch gears a little bit, and again we talked a bit about travel earlier but I want to talk about this, this travel, which again you got it from, you know, the, the person like kind of your benefactor, so to speak, for college, right? And so you were the young ward, just like Batman and Robin, you know what I'm saying, right? So, so in terms of travel, like, I'm going to say this like what are, like top three favorite countries you visited?
- Yeah, so Indonesia. Love Bali. Cambodia, and, ooh, let's see. Maybe Thailand. I think Thailand and Vietnam are split. I have, I have a soft spot for Southeast Asia.
- Got it.
- Yeah, like I think, right, I counted the other day. I think in total I've only got 18 countries under my belt so far, but yeah. I just, you know, every time I travel, I think I don't know if it's also because like, I'm super relaxed, but it's one of the times that I feel the happiest. I think it's also because there's something magical about being a stranger in a new place, right? Think I've had also some of the most beautiful experiences because they were just the, I guess like, like raw kindness. Like, I don't know, like for folks who have visited Vietnam crossing the street is a challenge in itself. And I have a video of me like, being like, okay, I'm going to try to cross the street now. Cause there's like thousands of motorbikes, right? Just like everywhere. Like, and so I remember being really insecure about crossing the street and this old lady walks halfway, grabs me and walks me over to the other side. Like that doesn't happen anymore. And I was just like, oh my God, thank you so much. Cause I was just paralyzed because I was just like, when do I go? I was just so fearful of getting hit. So I think those are the moments that I appreciate about traveling, is just getting exposed to a new culture, getting exposed to it's people. And I think that's why I love Southeast Asia so much cause people are so kind when they don't have anything.
- Got it. And, and you know, what you, one of the things you said was you wanna see 40 countries by 40. And now that we're obviously in this time of fun and this pandemic that we're in right now, right? It's hard to travel like, do you, if now you have like what's your list of, once this thing ends, like what's the first place you're gonna go?
- So I've been thinking about it. I kind of want to start out in Lisbon, like go to Portugal and then do a road trip through like Portugal, Spain. I was thinking about like driving all the way to Germany. I don't know yet, but it's, I mean, it'll I'll probably take like a month off because I was just like I need to go out. Get me out of this house.
- No doubt.
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- I'm going to ask you the last question and again thank you for being on the Popcast but what work are you most proud of?
- I will have to say that like, I mean, I was really proud, like I remember being super proud of all the stuff I did for RealSense. But I think recently, you know, 2020 as unforgiving and as painful as it has been, I've been very fortunate. It's been very good to me. Like, especially career wise. I'm super proud of The Pipeline. I'm super proud of just all of the programs that the, that we launched in 2020 on behalf of the CDF because they were just so warmly received and supported by the community. And I, I didn't expect that. And I think I'm always shocked by the open source community because you've got just some really key and wonderful players who are always like, oh you need help? Let me know how. And it's so different than working in corporate, because corporate always felt like that collaboration didn't really exist. It's just like, you're being more put against each other to outperform each other instead of work together. Because at the end of the day, you have the same goal, right? If you're a colleague, you have the same goal is to make your employer successful. So I never quite understood that. And that's been super different and refreshing here. But yeah, I'm, I'm super proud of just CDCon as well. Like that, that too was kind of a miracle in a way. Cause I think we tried to pull off the organization in like four months and initially I was just like, fuck, we're not getting enough registrations. We don't have enough sponsors. And then just magically everything came together. So yeah, those are, those are some of the programs that I'm really happy that they're successful and that people, you know, people are benefiting from them.
- Again, you've been a fantastic guest and I love what you're doing with the CD foundation. I'm an ambassador and there's a reason. It's, you know, I think it's a fantastic thing. It's Continuous Delivery Foundation. I want you all to check it out, all the projects that are out there. If you know, you want to be a member, there's details on the website, which we'll have a link in the description. Jacqueline, this has been awesome. We did it all today. We talked travel. I know more about New Mexico now. All I knew from New Mexico is Breaking Bad. You know what I mean? Now, like I know way more than that, right? So it was good.
- It's the land of enchantment. Did you know that?
- Add that to my travel list now.
- It is. It's wonderful, like if you're a hiker. So many cool things like, desert, mountain. If you want to go skiing, snowboarding, we've got it all. But you know, it is a smaller like Santa Fe is a smaller, quieter town. It's more of a retirement city, but it is, it's a good place to, to grow up.
- Episode is sponsored by the chamber of commerce of New Mexico. So we're all good. Thank you for being on the Popcast. I appreciate it Jacqueline.
- Thank you so much POP. I really appreciate it. It's been a pleasure.