Matthew Kleiman
Software Engineer & Manager
Pivotal
location_on United States
Member since 4 years
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Matthew Kleiman
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Matt Kleiman is passionate about transforming the way the world builds software. Matt struggled with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and other learning disabilities during his first 8 years in the tech industry. His first two years as a developer at Pivotal Labs NY provided him with such relief from his struggles that he was able to grow in ways he never even imagined. Today Matt is not only a software engineer and consultant, but he is also a manager at Pivotal Labs’ DC office, where he helps others craft their own career journeys.
Matt loves traveling. In 2018 he flew over 100,000 miles in 7 different countries. He and his wife are always looking for cheap flight deals they can turn into great vacations. This year he has put great care into the growth of his mustache, and he fondly refers to his travels as #MustacheOnTheMove. Ask him about the time he flew from DC to Singapore and back in one weekend!
Matt has spoken passionately about Extreme Programming and Lean Product Management for several years, most recently at Agile on the Beach 2019 (https://youtu.be/vw-BbPES_64). In 2017 he won the lightning talk competition at Postgres Vision for a 4 minute talk on the power of bringing Test Driven Development into the open source community (https://youtu.be/9n_B7HLeOnk). You can find Matt's writings on Medium.
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Pair Programming: Better Than Adderall
45 Mins
Talk
Beginner
Elevator Pitch
Extreme programming can transform even the most bureaucratic organizations. Matt Kleiman has spent 2 years enabling the US Military to build lean products. Matt thrives on these agile teams despite having ADHD. In fact, his neurodiversity is an asset in these collaborative, high-stakes environments.
Summary
For years Matt Kleiman’s Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and other learning disabilities deterred his success on traditional software development teams. Working alone, on globally distributed teams, and on amorphous tasks, Matt found himself struggling to meet the expectations of a software engineer. In an endless showdown against distractions, Matt almost gave up on his career.
This is the story of how Pivotal Labs’ Extreme Programming practices not only have the ability to transform bloated, slow-moving enterprise software development teams but also have the power to promote inclusive and neurodiverse groups of software engineers. Matt’s journey to find a workplace that nourishes his strengths has taught him the value of bringing neuroatypical individuals together to form teams that benefit from broad and divergent thinking.
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The Value of Testing in Open Source
10 Mins
Lightning Talk
Beginner
Think of a time when multiple contributors were all working in the same area of code at once. Ever wish there was an easy way to resolve those inevitable merge conflicts? This certainly happened for us while contributing to the pgAdmin 4 open source project. As evangelists from Pivotal, Matt Kleiman and team contributed all of their patches to pgAdmin 4 using test-driven development. Attend his talk to learn the virtues of testing and the story of trying to bring test-driven development to an existing open source community. He will walk through an example of how Pivotal extracted existing, untested code and wrapped them in tests in order to benefit the entire community.
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Pair Programming: Better Than Adderall
45 Mins
Talk
Beginner
Not all programmers are comfortable with coding alone for 10 hours a day. Matt Kleiman spent years programming inefficiently in a cubicle. His Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and other learning disabilities deterred his success on traditional development teams. Seeking out an environment that would nourish his strengths, he found Pivotal Labs. Pivotal's Extreme Programming practices empowered Matt. Attend his talk to learn how pair programming and test-driven development transforms ADD into an asset in the workplace.
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