Sylvain is an entrepreneur and software engineer with twenty years of experience in the tech industry. He is the Head of AI Labs at Rootly. The Rootly AI Labs is a fellow-led community designed to redefine reliability engineering. The Labs develop innovative prototypes, create open-source tools, and produce research that’s shared to advance the standards of operational excellence.

He co-founded Holberton, which trains the next generation of software engineers at scale. Holberton educates thousands of students in over 25 countries, with alumni hired by top tech companies such as Google, LinkedIn, Tesla, Apple, and NASA.

He partnered with technology leaders through his work, including LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, Yahoo! Founder Jerry Yang, Docker founder Solomon Hykes, and Meta VP of Product Management AI Research Stephane Kasriel. But also sports and entertainment leaders like Grammy-Award winner NE-YO,  actress Priyanka Chopra, and New York Jets NFL player Kelvin Beachum.

Before joining Holberton School, he worked at SlideShare as a DevOps Engineer, supporting the infrastructure that served 3 billion slides every month. LinkedIn acquired the company, where he worked as a Senior SRE. He co-founded while42, a non-profit organization that became the largest community of French software engineers, with locations in 40 cities and 3,000 members.

During his free time, he likes to write and travel. He loves challenges; he has won the best API usage prize at TechCrunch Disrupt, explored 25 meters deep Paris Catacombs, and climbed Mount Fuji at 3,776 meters. You can contact him at sylvain@kalache.fr.

 

       

I write about tech, entrepreneurship, and workforce development. You can find some of my stories in these publications:

Podcasting

Sylvain is co-hosting the:

• The Landscape: discusses everything related to the CNCF landscape and beyond. We interview project maintainers, contributors, end-users, and other stakeholders to help you navigate the busy world of cloud-native technologies.
• The Data Defenders Forum: The Data Defenders Forum is a podcast discussing everything related to data compliance and data security. With over 70% of countries having some sort of data privacy and consumer rights legislation and the rate of sanctions going accelerating; the problem is not going away.
• Humans of Reliablity: Behind every reliable software system, there are human beings working hard to keep it online. Get to know them here!

Industry papers

• Airbyte – ETL is dead
• DoKC – Data on Kubernetes 2022 Report
• DoKC – Data on Kubernetes 2021 Report
• IDB – How Do Disruptive Innovators Prepare Today’s Students to Be Tomorrow’s Workforce?: Holberton’s Scalable Education for the Digital Economy
• CFTE – What post-secondary education should look like in the 4th industrial revolution

Talks & interviews

• DevOpsDays Austin – AI-Driven Incident Resolution – Hype or Reality – May 2024
• Rootly AI Labs – The Future of AI-Driven Reliability with Google Cloud, a16z, and Y Combinator – May 2024
• Adventures in DevOps – Incident Vibing: The Self-Healing System – April 2024
• Platform Engineering – Introducing Canyon – an AI for developer self-service – April 2024
• UNESCO – Life-long learning in the 4th industrial revolution – November 2020
• Necker Island – Human Connection for Today’s Digital Natives – March 2020
• FLII X – Tech Education can Transform Lives and Build Economies – February 2020
• ProductHunt – How to access the best tech talent around the world – January 2020
• Holberton – The importance of ethics & diversity in Machine Learning – December 2019
• StartSe – An education for the 4th industrial revolution – November 2019
• Cheddar – Holberton School Expands to Its 9th School and Announces New Curriculum – December 2019
• LinkedIn Live – Networking Your Way – November 2019
• Forbes – Holberton School, L’Ecole Qui Forme Les Ingénieurs Informatiques De Demain – Novembre 2019
• IDB – New societies require a new skills-oriented pedagogy – October 2019
• KBLX – Sterling James interviews Ne-Yo – July 2019
• Cheddar – Singer Ne-Yo Invested in Silicon Valley Coding School, Adds AR/VR Curriculum – June 2019
• DockerCon – Transforming Education for the Next Generation of software Engineers – April 2019
• FrenchTech – Diversity, Impact on Performance & Organizations – October 2018
• Nexus – A Different Model for Developing Software Engineers – August 2018
• ASU GSV  – Show Me the Money: Is Lowering Costs in Higher Education an Economic Imperative? – April 2018
• AFP – Learning computer programming, with no teachers and no tuition – April 2018
• TheNewStack – Training the Next Generation of CloudNative Developers – April 2018
• World Economic Forum – Education for the Fourth Industrial Revolution – January 2018
• TFiR – The school that teaches full stack engineering, for FREE – May 2018
• U.S. Department of Education – Higher Education Innovation Summit – December 2017
• FastCompany – This School Has No Teachers, No Lectures, And No Tuition – July 2017
• Business Rockstars – Sylvain Kalache Co-Founder of Holberton School on Business Rockstars – January 2017
• France 3 – Une délégation d’Auvergne Rhône-Alpes en Californie – June 2016
• French American TV – while42.org, french tech networking – February 2014
• France Consulate in San Francisco – While42, the French Tech Engineers Alumni Network – December 2013