Alle afleveringen
274 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
-
Meta Staff Engineer: What the Best Engineers Do Differently
28 oktober 2026 · 33 min
Meta Staff Engineer Sajal Rustagi reveals what Staff Engineers do that most don't and what the best engineers do differently to reach the top. While foundational behaviors like proactivity and ownership still separate growing engineers from stuck ones, leveling up today requires a completely new set of staff skills built around agents. Lees meer
In this video, we cover:
The behavioral shift from IC4 and IC5 (Senior) to IC6 (Staff Engineer) at Meta
How top engineers treat on-call firefighting as a system-wide ownership opportunity
Why rotating between Engineering Manager (EM) and Staff IC sharpens your business and technical influence
Transitioning from Developer Experience (DX) to Agent Experience (AX) using MCP, Claude, and markdown context
This conversation is for software engineers, senior ICs, and tech leads who want to learn the new staff skills required to multiply their impact and get promoted now.
This episode was recorded at TechLead Conference, a conference for engineering leaders on adopting AI.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - The New Staff Engineer Skills
00:00:44 - 2 Behaviors That Separate Mediocre and Staff Engineers
00:02:16 - How the Best Engineers Build an Ownership Mindset
00:04:26 - What Staff Engineers Do Differently During On-Call
00:06:26 - Senior vs. Staff Engineer: Expanding Your Sphere of Influence
00:09:56 - Why Switching Between Manager and Staff IC Builds Better Engineers
00:14:04 - Why Unblocking Engineers Now Means Unblocking Agents
00:16:41 - Managing Multi-Agent Handoffs Without Losing Control
00:19:02 - Shifting from Developer Experience to Agent Experience
00:21:47 - Why the Empty Engineering Backlog Is Still a Myth
00:25:03 - How to Build Custom Agent Workflows and Reusable Skills
00:28:31 - The #1 New Skill Software Engineers Must Build Today
00:31:10 - How Meta Engineering Culture Compares to StartupsGuest - Sajal Rustagi, Staff Engineer at Meta: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sajalrustagi
#StaffEngineer #SoftwareEngineering #EngineeringL…
-
How Senior Engineers Use Coding Agents On Prod Infrastructure
21 oktober 2026 · 42 min
How do senior engineers use coding agents on prod infrastructure when “make no mistakes” is just a polite request? Kerim Satirli (HashiCorp, an IBM company) explains why prompt rules don’t hold in production, and what he runs instead. Lees meer
In this video, we cover:
How Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Contentful, Datadog, Okta, Cloudflare providers) evolved from open-source PRs to automated agent harnesses
Why AI skills files and “make no mistakes” prompts are only requests, and what replaces them in production pipelines
How AI-generated pull requests are overwhelming open-source maintainers (and why projects like cURL are pushing back)
Personalized “software factories”, spec-driven development (GitHub Spec Kit), and cutting AI documentation noise with BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front)
What open-source Rust clones of Adobe mean for the future of SaaS
For infrastructure engineers, DevOps practitioners, and software architects who want to move past one-shot prompting and run coding agents on production infrastructure without losing control.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Why “Make No Mistakes” Is a Polite Request
00:00:38 - How Open Source Terraform Changed Provisioning
00:01:59 - Why API-First Services Matter Beyond AWS and Azure
00:04:19 - How AI Agents Changed Terraform Provider Updates
00:07:03 - Why “Make No Mistakes” Won’t Stop Your Agent
00:10:31 - Bringing Determinism Back to Agentic Workflows
00:13:07 - How AI Pull Requests Are Overwhelming Open Source
00:15:41 - Why Every Engineer Is Building a Software Factory
00:18:52 - Why AI-Generated Documentation Slows Down Humans
00:23:12 - Using Agents to Filter Noise and Summarize Specs
00:27:02 - Escape Hatches for Automated Terraform Applies
00:29:03 - Where the Joy in Engineering Lives Now
00:31:24 - Spec-Driven Development and the Return of Architecture
00:34:51 - Open-Source Rust Clones, Reverse Engineering, and SaaS
00:38:19 - How to Build Software Products People Actually WantGuest: Kerim Satirli, Senior Developer A…
-
Lead Architect Reveals His Rules for Coding Agents
14 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 15 min
Lead Architect Carlos Kelkboom shares his rules for coding agents and how great engineers architect software with AI. One of the great ones is: he throws away generated code the moment he doesn't understand it. He breaks down why coding agents fail at iterative changes, why his main agent never touches files, and how he scaffolds projects for one-shot execution. Lees meer
In this video, we cover:
Why AI coding agents struggle with iterative changes (SlopCodeBench) and excel at one-shot execution
How to manually scaffold code, types, and folder boundaries before letting sub-agents run
Designing a distributed Markdown and indexed-search graph harness for progressive context disclosure
Using Git worktrees to run parallel coding agents and merge the best implementations
Why dynamic memory and the heap need to disappear in favor of deterministic programming languages
How AI bubbles and solo coding impact junior engineers and team collaboration
This episode is for software engineers, tech leads, and system architects who want to move beyond "vibe coding" and build maintainable, deterministic production software with AI agents.
Connect with Carlos:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlos-k-4016b8225
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Why Carlos Throws Away Working AI Code
00:00:53 - Why Pull Requests and Team Collaboration Are Dying
00:03:50 - The Trap of Starting Projects You Never Finish
00:06:06 - Escaping the Solo AI Developer Bubble
00:11:54 - How to Scaffold Code Before Using AI Agents
00:15:54 - Learning New Programming Languages With AI Agents
00:21:14 - Why We Must Get Rid of the Heap
00:28:32 - Building a Shared Language Across Engineering Teams
00:31:31 - Vibe Coding vs Deep Software Engineering
00:40:12 - Code Is Cheap: Git Worktrees for Parallel Agents
00:41:45 - How Deep to Scaffold Before the Agent Runs
00:45:09 - Democratizing Software, Missing Juniors, and the AI Bubble
00:53:33 - Designing a Graph Harness for AI Agent Context
00:58:18 - Why His Main Agent Never Touches … -
What the Best Engineers Built for Their Coding Agents
7 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 15 min
What happens when coding agents see your entire system: code, services, infrastructure and live traffic, all connected? Most agents are blind to everything outside the repo. Adyen Staff Engineer Mat Jones explains what changed once theirs weren't, and why he calls it somewhat scary. Lees meer
In this video, we cover:
Running five or six coding agents in parallel with git worktrees and Atrium, an internal tool that lets agents coordinate and share memory
Architect: nine connected graphs in Neo4j covering services, code, DNS, data stores and infrastructure
Ingesting 7 million trace spans a second with Kafka and Apache Flink, and what collapsed on the first try
Sentinel: anti-pattern monitoring, with agents that raise the fix as a merge request
MCP vs APIs vs CLI tools, and how to deal with tool bloat
This episode is for software engineers and platform teams who want coding agents to reason about real systems, not just the repo in front of them. You'll leave with a concrete place to start and an honest view of the risks.
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:42 - Running Five Coding Agents in Parallel
00:01:35 - Atrium: How Agents Avoid Stepping on Each Other
00:06:57 - Why Graphs Save Coding Agents Tokens
00:12:25 - What Is Architect? Nine Graphs in One Database
00:16:54 - What Broke at 7 Million Spans a Second
00:20:37 - The Timeline From Proof of Concept to Production
00:27:59 - Tracing Code Changes to Critical Payment Flows
00:30:26 - How to Start: Build Scrappy, Then Earn Buy-In
00:35:07 - Making a Codebase Agent Friendly With Skills and Hooks
00:42:07 - Why You Should Start With a Service Graph
00:44:46 - The Downside of Everyone Seeing Everything
00:48:34 - Sentinel: Agents That Find and Fix Anti-Patterns
00:53:01 - Are We Going Too Fast With AI?
01:01:55 - Two Engineers, Four Months: Why Big Bets Got Cheaper
01:07:11 - MCP vs CLI Tools and the Tool Bloat Problem
Guest: Mat Jones, Staff Engineer at Adyen
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathewwjones#codingagents #s…
-
Why Coding Agents Keep Making Your Codebase Worse
30 september 2026 · 45 min
HumanLayer CEO Dexter Horthy, who coined "context engineering", on why AI agents degrade codebases over time. He breaks down a benchmark that measures AI code quality across features, and how his team ships with agents without drowning in slop. Lees meer
In this video, we cover:
SlopCodeBench, SWE-bench and which coding benchmarks to trust
Token maxing, dark factories and the "Instagram phase" of AI engineering
Why 2-4x productivity beats chasing 100x
Pull requests, design docs and how engineers build taste now
Dex's agentic engineering workflow: one-shots, overnight janitor bots and research-design-plan
For engineers and engineering leaders adopting AI coding agents who want to know what's real and what works in teams at scale.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - The Man Who Coined the Term: Context Engineering
00:00:54 - SlopCodeBench: Proof AI Makes Codebases Worse Over Time
00:05:49 - Background Agents and the Enterprise Friction Problem
00:08:13 - Why You'll Never One-Shot a Big Feature
00:11:18 - Scaling Agentic Engineering to 1,000 Engineers
00:16:19 - Dark Factories, Fake Hype and Token Maxing
00:19:55 - Why 2-4x Faster Beats Chasing 100x
00:21:31 - Should Teams Stop Doing Pull Requests?
00:24:20 - Can Deterministic Tools Replace Code Review?
00:27:37 - How to Build Engineering Taste When AI Writes Code
00:33:05 - Dex's Agentic Workflow: One-Shots and Janitor Bots
00:35:18 - Research, Design, Plan: Shipping Big Features With Agents
00:38:35 - Why Overnight Agents and Heavy Parallelism Backfire
00:40:10 - Subscription Maxing vs Paying Per Token
00:42:40 - Parallelize Like Poker, Not a Slot MachineDex Horthy: https://x.com/dexhorthy
Dex's talks and deep dives: https://aithatworks.bold.video#AgenticEngineering #AICoding #SoftwareEngineering
-
How Amp Ships 50 Times a Day With AI Agents
23 september 2026 · 43 min
Amp ships to production around 50 times a day with AI agents, but the change that makes their team ship faster isn't AI at all. Dario Hamidi, AI engineer at Amp, makes the case that pull requests are holding your team back, and explains what replaces them. Lees meer
In this video, we cover:
Why Amp works without pull requests or feature branches, and how to try it with your own team
Agent permissions, approval fatigue, and building environments where you can trust agents
Orbs: remote agent execution, parallelism, and multiplayer sessions
Short-lived credentials and workload identity federation for cloud agents
Triaging 60+ bug reports a day with agents without frying your brain
For engineers and engineering leads who want to ship faster with AI agents and are ready to question the workflows they've always used.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Is It Time to Kill the Pull Request?
00:00:45 - What Happens If Every PR Gets Auto-Closed Tomorrow
00:05:04 - Pull Requests Were Built for Strangers, Not Teammates
00:07:20 - Does Dropping PRs Hurt Quality at Scale?
00:08:53 - Agent Permissions: Why No Default Makes Everyone Happy
00:12:42 - Don't Juggle Knives: Building Environments You Can Trust
00:14:56 - The Hidden Hard Parts of Cloud Agents
00:16:39 - What's an Orb? Remote Agent Execution Explained
00:19:10 - How to Give Agents Credentials Without Leaking Secrets
00:22:51 - Why Orbs Live Forever (and Multiplayer Orbs)
00:25:49 - The State Management Problem Nobody Talks About
00:29:22 - When Will Everyone Have Remote Dev Environments?
00:32:23 - Orbs That Spawn Orbs: Orchestrating Agents at Scale
00:34:42 - How Dario Triages 60 Bug Reports a Day With Agents
00:39:23 - Avoiding Burnout When Agents Remove the Ceiling#AIAgents #SoftwareEngineering #PullRequests
-
How Top Engineers Still Get Hired When Most Get Ghosted
16 september 2026 · 34 min
How do top engineers still get hired in 2026 when most applicants get ghosted, 120,000 people have been laid off this year, and hiring managers say they can't find talent? A recruiter, a hiring lead, a career coach and an open source engineer explain why your resume is dead on arrival when every CV looks the same, and what actually gets you in the room instead. Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
Why 120,000 tech layoffs and 60,000 open engineering roles exist at the same time
Why only 20% of LinkedIn messages get a reply, and how to write the ones that do
Why one hiring team bans AI tools in interviews and is building an agentic coding session instead
Adaptability and resilience: the two soft skills that keep you in the room
Getting hired through GitHub, referrals and open source when your CV can't stand out
Whether junior engineers still have a path, and which engineering cohort is at risk in 3 to 5 years
Titles vs scope: how to grow when your title never changes
For software engineers, students about to graduate, and anyone in tech who wants to know what recruiters and hiring managers are actually filtering on right now.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro: 1,000 Layoffs a Day
00:00:47 - How Bad Is the Tech Job Market in 2026?
00:02:05 - Why 120K Layoffs and 60K Open Jobs Don't Add Up
00:03:40 - Why AI Tools Are Banned From Interviews
00:06:28 - Hard Skills Get You In, Soft Skills Keep You There
00:09:20 - "I'm a University Dropout": How GitHub Got Me Hired
00:10:18 - CVs Are Too Good Now: Why Referrals Win
00:13:04 - How to Get Your Open Source PR Merged
00:15:02 - Why 80% of Your LinkedIn Messages Get Ghosted
00:16:51 - How Open Source Led to a HashiCorp Job Offer
00:19:15 - Is There Still a Place for Junior Engineers?
00:22:00 - The Engineers Who'll Be Obsolete in 3 to 5 Years
00:24:20 - Should You Contribute to Open Source at All?
00:26:05 - AI Skills Required, Algorithms Still Tested
00:27:54 - Stop Chasing Titles: Scope, Impact and Owning Your Career#softwaree…
-
Why an Ex-Googler Bet Everything on an Open-Source Database
9 september 2026 · 40 min
Jordan Tigani helped create Google BigQuery, then got fired as Chief Product Officer on a Friday morning. He planned to hack on DuckDB to learn Rust. Investors offered to fund it before he'd decided to start a company. That company became MotherDuck Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
The DuckDB Labs partnership: why MotherDuck gave the open-source creators a co-founder share instead of going open-core
From alpha to paid product: 11 founders, 3 to 4 months to alpha, two years to something people would pay for
AI on top of the data warehouse: vibe-coded dashboards (Dives), pipelines (Flights), a context layer (Guides), and why business users catch mistakes analysts miss
Are dashboards dead? Jordan wrote "Big Data Is Dead"; his answer on dashboards is different
Career advice: why you shouldn't want to work on the query optimizer, and the skill Jordan says matters more
For engineers curious about database and infrastructure companies, open-source business models, and how AI is changing who gets to ask questions of data.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:32 - Fired on a Friday: how MotherDuck accidentally started
00:04:50 - Giving DuckDB Labs a co-founder share of the company
00:07:43 - Why most open-source SaaS products are just "managed"
00:09:31 - Why VCs said yes: Snowflake, DuckDB, and BigQuery credibility
00:10:50 - The 11-person founding team that skipped the wrong designs
00:12:20 - Alpha in 4 months, beta in a year, paid in two
00:15:20 - Vibe-coded BI: Dives, Flights, Guides, and an agent harness
00:20:10 - The questions business users ask that analysts never do
00:24:14 - Are dashboards dead in the age of agents?
00:27:57 - Everybody wants to work on the optimizer (don't)
00:31:23 - The engineer superpower most engineers look down on
00:33:20 - Writing: the one skill Jordan would learn (and still hates)
00:36:05 - Does contributing to DuckDB get you hired at MotherDuck?
00:37:20 - Why a database company leaned into the duck#MotherDuck #DuckDB #SoftwareEngi…
-
How the Best Engineers Build a World Model (Google Earth Creator & Niantic Spatial CTO)
2 september 2026 · 37 min
Niantic Spatial CTO Brian McClendon on how the best engineers solve problems most give up on — from a 4D model of the world to shipping research in months. He built Google Earth and ran Google Maps for over a decade, and he's been there, done that. What he's building now is harder, and it's already live for customers. Along the way: who makes it on his team and who doesn't, and the one piece of advice he'd give every engineer using AI. Lees meer
In this video, we cover:
- The 4D model of the world: visual positioning, change detection, and treating a pile of photos like a database
- Gaussian splats and real-to-sim: capturing a room and loading it into Nvidia Isaac to train robots
- Turning a research idea into a production service in six months
- What Google Maps taught him about building for robots instead of humans
- Designing problems AI can self-check, and why token maxing is a waste
For engineers and engineering leaders who want to work on problems that don't have a known answer yet — and who want to know what a CTO who's built the definitive product in his field looks for in the people he hires.
Recorded at the AI4 conference 2026.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Google Earth? Been There, Done That
00:00:46 - Turning a Research Idea Into Production in 6 Months
00:02:37 - How Any Photo Gets Located Within Half a Meter
00:06:37 - The Long-Term Goal: A 4D Model of the World
00:08:37 - Treating a Pile of Photos Like a Database
00:11:58 - What Google Maps Taught Him About Training Robots
00:15:22 - Gaussian Splats Explained in Plain Terms
00:17:42 - The Unsolved Problem: Scale and Semantic Change
00:20:34 - Why Google Earth Is Good Enough
00:22:09 - Who Makes It on His Team and Who Doesn't
00:23:38 - Designing Problems AI Can Self-Check
00:26:03 - The Insights Hidden in the Physical World
00:28:18 - Digital Twins, Cities, and Ready Player One
00:31:35 - Visual Positioning When GPS Gets Spoofed
00:33:24 - Token Maxing Is Bullshit: Advice for EngineersGuest: Brian McClendo…
-
How New Staff Engineers Build Judgment Without Years of Experience
26 augustus 2026 · 50 min
How do new staff engineers build judgment without the years of experience that used to come with the role? Mallika Rao, engineering leader in big tech, explains why the data-structures-and-algorithms foundation everyone was trained on is no longer enough on its own, and where the complexity has actually shifted now that AI writes the implementation. Lees meer
In this video, we cover:
Why "how does AI affect engineers" is the wrong question, and what to ask instead
Rehearsing multiple futures: what judgment looks like in a staff engineer
The case method: building judgment from incident reports and system design history instead of waiting years for it
Cognitive coordination, code review load, and the surprise ask for more meetings at staff level
Tiger teams vs scaled teams, trust as architecture, and building evals from a spreadsheet
Splitting planning from execution so engineers stop falling behind with agents
Taste vs judgment, and how to build both outside of software
If you've just made staff, or you're about to, this conversation gives you a frame for what the level actually demands now and how to grow into it faster than the old apprenticeship allowed.
Recorded at the AI4 conference 2026.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - How AI Is Changing Senior Engineering Careers
00:00:41 - Why "How Does AI Affect Engineers" Is the Wrong Question
00:03:26 - What Judgment Actually Is: Rehearsing Multiple Futures
00:05:24 - Why Data Structures and Algorithms Are No Longer Enough
00:07:22 - Learning Judgment From Incident Reports Like the 2017 S3 Outage
00:11:13 - The New Staff Engineer's Core Challenge: Cognitive Coordination
00:14:48 - What Managers, Universities, and Shakespeare Each Owe You
00:17:55 - Code Review Load, Meeting Notes, and the Surprise Ask for More Meetings
00:23:59 - Trust as Architecture: Why Evals Started as a Spreadsheet
00:27:09 - Tiger Teams vs Big Teams: Product Managers Reviewing Code
00:32:39 - Why Some Engineers Can't Keep Up With Agents
00:35:46…
-
Amazon AI Lead: What Differentiates The Best AI Coding Models
19 augustus 2026 · 42 min
How does Amazon build its agentic AI? Michael Giannangeli, Head of Product for Amazon Nova and Agentic AI, breaks down evals, RL gyms, and model routing. Lees meer
He also explains why the bottleneck in software has shifted away from engineering hours and what takes its place.
In this video, we cover:
The eval lifecycle: building from real failure modes, saturation, and why 100% means delete
RL gyms: training models on real environments like migrations, DevOps, and pen testing
Model routing, cost-per-token trade-offs, and why routing isn't solved
The agent stack of an Amazon product lead: Claude Code, Codex, and Kiro
Autonomous migrations, trust, and how much human-in-the-loop survives
For engineers and product people building with AI agents who want to see how a frontier lab actually closes its feedback loops.
Recorded at the AI4 conference 2026.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:36 - The Agents an Amazon Product Lead Uses Daily
00:03:36 - Why Nobody's Heard of Amazon Nova
00:04:55 - Model Costs and the Routing Problem
00:08:10 - Why Building Good Evals Is So Hard
00:10:05 - When Evals Saturate and Get Deleted
00:12:17 - Turning Real Failure Modes Into Hundreds of Evals
00:15:26 - Improving Models Without Training on Customer Data
00:18:26 - If Everyone Uses Agents, You Need Agents
00:20:22 - The Bottleneck Is No Longer Engineering Hours
00:23:20 - Ship Fast to Validate the Right Thing
00:26:44 - Staying at the Frontier Amid Constant Noise
00:29:37 - Spend 10-20% of Your Time Experimenting
00:32:54 - RL Gyms: How Models Learn From Failure
00:37:09 - Will Migrations Become Fully Autonomous?Guest: Michael Giannangeli - Head of Product, Agentic AI & Amazon Nova at Amazon
#AmazonNova #AgenticAI #AIEngineering
-
Wes Bos: How Developers Stand Out When AI Writes the Code
12 augustus 2026 · 25 min
AI is changing what developers build, but code alone is no longer enough to prove what you can do. Wes Bos explains why engineers need to solve problems beyond syntax, how agent workflows are reshaping software development, and what still requires human thinking. Lees meer
In this conversation:
The limits of generative UI and AI-generated design
Agent loops, harnesses, and cheaper AI models
The rising cost of AI coding and the case for local hardware
Why developer education is shifting from syntax to problem-solving
Personal branding, conferences, newsletters, and AI-generated content
For developers navigating AI-assisted coding, this episode explores the skills and signals that still help you stand out.
This podcast was recorded at JSNation, the key web dev conference.
OUTLINE
00:00:00 - Code Is Not Enough for Developers
00:00:32 - Why Generative UI Still Feels Unfinished
00:04:35 - How Agent Loops Improve AI Coding
00:07:06 - When Agent Workflows Become Standard Tools
00:08:19 - Are Cheaper AI Models Good Enough?
00:10:44 - Can AI Coding Costs Stay Sustainable?
00:12:24 - What Engineers Need To Learn Now
00:14:23 - Why Fundamentals Matter Beyond Syntax
00:15:34 - How Non-Coders Are Building Production Tools
00:16:21 - Why In-Person Conferences Still Matter
00:18:11 - Personal Branding When Code Isn't Enough
00:20:37 - Can Newsletters Beat The Attention Crisis?
00:22:02 - Why AI-Generated Content Feels Insulting
00:24:12 - Use AI To Scaffold, Not Think -
Career Advice Every Software Engineer Needs Right Now
5 augustus 2026 · 55 min
Answering engineer questions on AI pressure, career growth, product thinking and impact. Including the production incident I'm glad happened, and the mindset I refuse to accept when things break. Lees meer
In this video, we cover:
- Whether managers are really demanding more output because of AI
- Balancing fundamentals with AI coding tools and agents early in your career
- Specialist vs generalist and when to lean into each
- Visibility, personal branding and who gets credit for your work
- Product thinking, evaluating impact and what I got wrong about content being king
For software engineers at any level who want honest answers on career strategy in the agent era, from someone doing both engineering and product.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - How to Spot the Next Big Thing
00:03:15 - The Saying I Hate Most
00:04:27 - The Production Mistake I'm Glad I Made
00:07:32 - Are Managers Demanding More Because of AI?
00:13:39 - Learning Fundamentals vs AI Coding Tools
00:19:00 - Will AI Ever Get Good at Distributed Systems?
00:20:51 - Specialist vs Generalist: When to Lean In
00:26:35 - How to Become More Visible in Your Org
00:31:49 - I Was Wrong: Content Isn't King
00:35:03 - Workflows, Priorities and Hiring an Editor
00:37:08 - What Being a Force Multiplier Really Means
00:41:26 - How to Evaluate What's Worth Building
00:45:01 - Product Thinking Without Years of Experience
00:48:13 - Energy Management, Curiosity and Defining Success
00:54:21 - Hair Talk -
DX Expert: What The Best Engineers Solve After The Code Review Bottleneck
29 juli 2026 · 1 uur 22 min
How do you prove AI is shipping more features? Amos Haviv leads the Developer Workflow teams at Booking.com, supporting 4000 engineers operating 8000 repos. Lees meer
Everybody is burning through their AI budget right now and almost nobody can answer what it bought them. Amos can, because his team spent four years building an event system to debug their own SDLC before AI upped the urgency.
In this video, we cover:
Why verification is the bottleneck right now, and where it moves next
Building an event store that separates KTLO from real feature delivery
Why static dashboards create the metric they measure, and the cobra story behind it
Agent cost, model routing, and why Booking ignores token maxing entirely
Running a developer survey with a 92% response rate across 3k+ engineers
Who should own skills and MCPs: a central platform team or the domain experts?
For platform engineers, engineering leaders, and anyone being asked to prove ROI on AI tooling this quarter.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Everyone is burning through their budget
00:00:32 - Verification Is the Bottleneck Every Team Hit
00:03:35 - 4,000 Engineers and 8,000 Repos at Booking.com
00:06:48 - Why Copying Google and OpenAI Will Break You
00:09:21 - Verification Is a Stack of Agents, Not One Review
00:13:27 - Cost Is Becoming a Bottleneck of Its Own
00:17:14 - Was the Internet a Bubble? What That Teaches Us
00:25:32 - What Working With the Frontier Labs Looks Like
00:28:26 - Debugging the SDLC With Four Years of Event Data
00:30:24 - Do Engineers Using AI Actually Ship More Features?
00:37:13 - Where to Start If You Measure Nothing Today
00:45:01 - The Cobra Effect: When a Metric Becomes a Target
00:52:23 - Everyone Is a Builder Now, and Everything Needs Support
01:01:21 - Is AI Turning Every Engineer Into a Manager?
01:03:46 - The Developer Survey With a 92% Response Rate
01:10:09 - Who Owns Skills, MCPs, and the Enterprise Harness
01:17:46 - Great Developer Experience Is High VelocityMentioned in the episo…
-
AWS Veteran: The New Software Development Life Cycle
22 juli 2026 · 1 uur 53 min
"I need to stop using Opus. This doesn't work." That was Heitor Lessa's conclusion after a refactor cost him 200 million tokens, and it forced him to rebuild the entire agent workflow now available for 1400 engineers. Heitor spent 11 years at AWS, built Lambda Powertools to 230 billion API calls a week, and in this episode he walks through the full SDLC workflow on screen, from discovery to merge check. Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
The product loop: discovery, whiteboarding, and the /roadmap command
Spec-driven development with Open Spec and why vanilla setups fail
Three model tiers: SOTA for planning, mid-tier for implementation, cheap models for reviews
Merge checks with adversarial reviewers and attestations that catch agents fabricating test results
The /retro command: using the Socratic method to make your workflow more deterministic
If you're an engineer figuring out how to work with agents at team scale without losing trust in your codebase, this is the workflow to steal. This is also the first Beyond Coding episode with visuals on screen, so let me know what you think of the format.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - The Math Doesn't Add Up
00:00:43 - Amazon Hypergrowth: 11 Years, 8 Different Roles
00:03:29 - Learning From the Trenches as a Technical Account Manager
00:08:38 - Developer Identity and the Birth of Lambda Powertools
00:10:20 - The Hard Parts of Working in Public
00:13:12 - How Powertools Hit 230 Billion API Calls a Week
00:16:42 - Career Advice: Learn Adjacent Roles, Not More Tech
00:19:37 - When Leadership Decisions Don't Make Sense to You
00:23:21 - The Product Loop Starts With Discovery
00:25:22 - From Whiteboard to /roadmap
00:27:37 - Why Humans Plan First and Agents Come Second
00:30:33 - Commands vs Skills Across 32 Different Models
00:33:38 - Adversarial Reviewers on Every Plan
00:36:07 - The Socratic Method, Explained
00:40:29 - Why He Only Takes Paper Notes
00:44:43 - The Five-Line Paper Trick for High-Stakes Meetings
00:48:18 - /new-work: … -
Vercel VP: What Senior Engineers do Differently
15 juli 2026 · 28 min
What senior engineers do differently has less to do with output than most career ladders suggest, and Lindsey Simon, VP of Engineering at Vercel, has watched the distinction sharpen as everyone in the valley becomes a "member of technical staff." From why new grads with hackathon years might out-prepare engineers with six years on the job, to what happens when PR throughput stops being your lever, this is a conversation about what earns seniority now. Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
Why engineering roles are consolidating into "member of technical staff"
How to ask agents first and frame better questions to humans
The scope-of-impact ladder and what the best engineers systematize
Learning how to learn: closing gaps to 100% understanding
Why writing is the skill that scales
If you're wondering whether your years of experience still compound, or you're early-career and tired of the "woe is the juniors" narrative, this one reframes both.
This podcast was recorded at TechLead Conference, a conference for engineering leaders on adopting AI.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00:00 - Impact the Business
00:00:31 - FOMO all the time: The 2006 Google Interview
00:01:52 - Engineering Roles Are Consolidating
00:02:52 - The "Member of Technical Staff" trend in SF
00:03:33 - Interns Demo to the CTO
00:04:33 - How New Grads Out-Prepare Senior Engineers
00:06:10 - Ask Your Agent Before You Ask a Human
00:08:01 - Digging Backwards Into Fundamental Understanding
00:09:22 - "We're All Junior Engineers Again"
00:10:22 - Management Is Not Leadership
00:12:04 - Losing PR Throughput as Your #1 Lever
00:13:11 - Fulfillment Beyond Shipping Features
00:14:32 - Building for Fickle Engineers: Telemetry Beats Opinions
00:16:11 - Watching Users Struggle With Your Product
00:18:12 - Have Expectations for Seniors Actually Changed?
00:19:57 - Claude Says a Month, It Takes Two Hours
00:20:33 - What the Best Engineers Do Differently
00:21:30 - How Vercel React Skill Came to Be
00:22:23 - Why Conference Conversatio… -
Cracked Solo Dev: Why the Fastest Engineers Are Falling Behind
9 juli 2026 · 40 min
The fastest engineers are falling behind, and Kitze was one of them. He built his reputation on raw coding speed, then realized his coding wasn't competing with anyone's coding anymore, it was competing with their setups. Wake-up call for developers: Kitze now runs 140 projects solo with agent loops, and in this episode he breaks down what separates the engineers pulling ahead from the ones getting left behind. Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
Vibe coding vs vibe engineering, and how to get better results from your agents
Police files: Self-correcting loops that end every agent turn with zero errors
Why teams of 10 are collapsing into teams of 2, and who survives
The rude awakening coming for engineers who refuse to adapt
The number one advice to stay on track and fight FOMO
For individual contributors, tech leads, and principal engineers who don't plan on falling behind
This podcast was recorded at React Summit, the biggest React conference worldwide.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:40 - Vibe Coding vs Vibe Engineering: The Real Difference
00:02:16 - Police Files: The Self-Correcting Loop on Every Turn
00:05:23 - Capture Every Frustration as a Rule
00:06:53 - Why Being the Fastest Coder Stopped Mattering
00:09:45 - Problem Solver vs Problem Lover: Pick One
00:10:43 - The Rude Awakening Engineers Don't Want
00:12:05 - Why Teams of 10 Become Teams of 2
00:13:09 - Loop Engineering: The Edge Anyone Can Build
00:16:08 - Why No Agent Orchestrator Works Yet
00:17:07 - Starting a Fresh Codebase: What Kitze Transfers
00:19:14 - No Sidebars: Inventing an Agentic OS
00:21:07 - How Kitze Shipped 300 Changes Across 200 Repos
00:23:40 - We Are Becoming the Bottleneck
00:24:25 - Why Leadership Must Give Engineers Room to Experiment
00:26:16 - The Token Divide: Not Everyone Can Compete
00:27:41 - Learn Now or Lose Access Later
00:29:33 - The Culling: Coasting Is Going Away
00:30:45 - Why LLM Code Reviews Beat Tired Seniors
00:33:21 - Solo Engineers With Agent Swarms vs Team… -
AI Cloud CTO: Why These Engineering Skills Get You Hired No Matter What
1 juli 2026 · 59 min
Danila Shtan runs engineering at Nebius, one of the biggest AI clouds in the world, and he told me exactly which engineers he hires on the spot. There are only hundreds of people on the planet with the skill he wants most, and it is not the one you are grinding on. We get into which engineering skills are actually scarce and well paid today, and which ones are quietly on the way out. Lees meer
In this episode we cover:
The engineering skills in highest demand right now and which ones are on the way out
Why an AI cloud CTO restricts Claude Code inside his own company
Dan's rule for merging any AI-written code into production
Why working with an agent is like managing a junior engineer
The interview question that surfaces top tier engineer qualities
Why he still runs algorithm interviews today
If you are an engineer trying to work out where the value sits now that agents write the easy code, this is a straight answer from the person building the infrastructure underneath all of it.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - AI Agents doing everything is a lie
00:00:44 - What Nebius Actually Does
00:04:31 - The Engineers In Highest Demand Right Now
00:06:58 - Inside the Hiring Process
00:08:12 - The Bootcamp: You Join the Company, Not a Team
00:10:51 - Why You Can't Use AI in Their Interviews
00:16:31 - Why He Banned the Word "Headcount"
00:22:25 - Why a CTO Is Not a Technical Role
00:24:49 - The One Skill Every Manager Needs
00:25:48 - Why Smart People Fail at This
00:28:17 - "The Promise of Agents Is Bullshit"
00:31:39 - How AI Multiplies Your Baseline Skill
00:35:32 - Why an AI Agent Is Just a Junior Engineer
00:36:57 - Why He Won't Let His Team Use Claude Code
00:37:46 - His Rule for Merging AI-Written Code
00:40:28 - The Interview That Predicts Great Engineers
00:42:32 - From T-Shaped to Round-Shaped Engineers
00:44:30 - Is There Still a Path for Juniors?
00:45:28 - Why Hard Skills No Longer Matter
00:47:11 - The Engineers Who Will Become Obsolete
00:50:04 - The Real Reason People St… -
Tech Career Expert: Why Applying to Jobs No Longer Works
24 juni 2026 · 47 min
120,000 tech workers have been laid off in 2026, yet there are 60,000 open roles. Engineers applying are sending out 100 applications for zero replies. Former Reddit, Uber and Disney Plus recruiter Keki Mwaba breaks down why the market broke, why every resume now looks identical, and what gets you hired when yours looks like everyone else's. Lees meer
In this video, we cover:
Why 120,000 layoffs and 60,000 open roles don't add up
Why CVs have become too good and it's no longer enough
How to treat LinkedIn as a platform
Getting into companies like OpenAI and Anthropic
How to reach out to people without seeming fake
If you're a software engineer trying to stand out in the most competitive tech market in years, this is the playbook.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:35 - How bad is the tech job market in 2026?
00:02:38 - 120,000 laid off, 60,000 jobs open: the math is not mathing
00:04:05 - LinkedIn isn't a CV, it's a platform
00:08:30 - The underrated move: comment your way into a job
00:10:48 - Is AI ruining LinkedIn?
00:13:50 - Never feel safe: how to prepare before a layoff
00:15:34 - What layoffs do to the people who stay
00:17:03 - "Did I just automate myself out of a job?"
00:18:48 - Why every resume now looks the same
00:20:11 - Why referrals beat applications
00:22:13 - Do software engineers still have a future?
00:23:32 - The staff engineer who wants to quit for plumbing
00:26:16 - Patrick on his own job security
00:30:21 - 70% of job descriptions now demand AI skills
00:31:34 - Is middle management disappearing?
00:33:53 - The impossible ask: stay current, deliver, and not burn out
00:37:02 - How to get hired at OpenAI or Anthropic
00:39:18 - How to message someone without seeming fake
00:41:42 - Build a portfolio that shows your thinking
00:45:12 - Your personal branding plan for the next few weeksGuest: Keki Mwaba, career and recruitment expert:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/keki-mwaba#techjobs #softwareengineering #careeradvice
-
AI Frontrunners: Why Coding is Solved But Engineering is Not
17 juni 2026 · 52 min
Jeroen Gordijn and Jeroen Dee: two frontrunners who stopped writing code months ago and say software development is already solved. Typing code is no longer necessary, but what matters more now? If you're an engineer that loves coding, you're in a tougher spot than you might realize. Lees meer
In this video, we cover:
- Why writing code is "solved" but engineering isn't
- Spec-driven development and how to get it started in your team
- The "Dark Factory" and why code review is a huge bottleneck
- Model vs harness: what matters more, and why
- The unhealthy side of agentic coding
If you write software for a living and you're trying to work out what your job becomes next, start here.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Coding Is No Longer Necessary
00:00:43 - Why "Software Development Is Already Solved"
00:02:57 - Should You Even Read the AI's Code?
00:05:05 - What Is a "Dark Factory"?
00:06:52 - If You Can Regenerate It, Why Care About Quality?
00:07:49 - Spec-Driven Development Explained
00:11:32 - Adopting Specs Without Starting From Scratch
00:13:23 - Model vs Harness: What Matters More?
00:17:27 - Is Your Harness the New IDE?
00:20:18 - Why Everyone Plateaus (and the Innovation Token)
00:22:50 - Where to Actually Spend Your Time
00:24:57 - The Unhealthy Side: "It's Free Cocaine"
00:28:00 - Is This Sustainable, or Just Subsidized?
00:30:33 - Should You Run Models Locally?
00:34:31 - Looping, Scale, and Automating Review
00:37:53 - What's Left for Engineers to Do?
00:39:13 - If You Love Writing Code, You're in Trouble
00:41:18 - Why Teams Are Getting Smaller
00:43:03 - What an "Agentic Company" Looks Like
00:46:25 - How to Start: Find Your Spark
00:50:13 - The One Habit That Keeps You AheadGuests:
Jeroen Gordijn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeroengordijn
Jeroen Dee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeroendee
#AgenticEngineering #SoftwareEngineering #Agents
-
AI Architect: Why The Best Software Engineers Are Solving Code Review Bottlenecks Now
10 juni 2026 · 40 min
AI generates 10x more code, but your senior engineers still review it by hand and it's burning them out. Even Google admits code review is now the bottleneck nobody knows how to solve. Lees meer
Florian Buetow, AI engineer at Xebia, has been running experiments to eliminate the human from the review loop entirely, and what he found changes where engineers should focus their effort.
In this episode, we cover:
Why "stop doing code reviews" is a serious answer (and what replaces them)
The guardrails that gave the most value: Semgrep rules, architectural unit tests, and stop hooks
Why your harness matters more than the model
How Amazon and Google police AI-generated code with policies
AI burnout, cognitive debt, and "cognitive surrender": what stays your responsibility
Step one for adopting agentic software engineering in your team this week
Whether you're an individual developer drowning in AI-generated PRs or driving AI adoption across a large engineering org, you'll leave with concrete experiments to run.
More from Florian:
https://cracking-ai-engineering.comTimestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:40 - Code Review Is Software Engineering's Biggest Bottleneck
00:01:57 - How Amazon and Big Tech Police AI-Generated Code
00:02:55 - Horizontal vs Vertical Scaling of AI Engineering
00:04:37 - Why "No Code Reviews" Might Be the Answer
00:05:22 - Engineering Environments That Give Agents Feedback
00:06:46 - Why the Harness Matters More Than the Model
00:07:21 - When Spec-Driven Development Failed and TDD Worked
00:10:06 - Stop Hooks, Ralph Loops, and Automated Feedback
00:11:30 - The Guardrails That Gave the Most Value
00:14:00 - Architectural Constraints That Keep AI Code Sane
00:15:07 - What Remains a Human Responsibility
00:17:33 - Why All the Hard Work Moves Upfront Now
00:18:47 - The Incredible Skill Junior Engineers Should Learn
00:20:26 - AI Burnout: Why Engineers Are Exhausted
00:22:42 - Cognitive Surrender: Letting the Agent Take Over
00:23:25 - The Hand Grenade Probl… -
Google AI Lead: The New Rules of Software Engineering
3 juni 2026 · 24 min
Are you ready to adapt to the rapidly evolving rules of software development? Lees meer
In this deep dive, Logan Kilpatrick, Director and Engineer at Google DeepMind, breaks down how AI agents, advanced model-product symbiosis, and tools like Gemini 3.5 Flash are fundamentally shifting the engineering bottleneck. Learn how to maintain your competitive advantage by moving beyond the keyboard to focus on problem-solving, architectural taste, and system understanding.
In this video, we cover:
The changing role of the IDE and the rise of agent managers in code generation.
Overcoming team bottlenecks in code review and CI/CD test execution execution loops.
Why "agent coverage" and context integration are the next big tech stack metrics.
Building a bulletproof software portfolio through permissionless open-source contributions.
The critical difference between outsourcing intelligence versus outsourcing understanding.
This episode is for software engineers, tech leads, and computer science students looking to future-proof their careers and reset their ambitions in the era of autonomous engineering agents.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:40 - Code Review Is Software Engineering's Biggest Bottleneck
00:01:57 - How Amazon and Big Tech Police AI-Generated Code
00:02:55 - Horizontal vs Vertical Scaling of AI Engineering
00:04:37 - Why "No Code Reviews" Might Be the Answer
00:05:22 - Engineering Environments That Give Agents Feedback
00:06:46 - Why the Harness Matters More Than the Model
00:07:21 - When Spec-Driven Development Failed and TDD Worked
00:10:06 - Stop Hooks, Ralph Loops, and Automated Feedback
00:11:30 - The Guardrails That Gave the Most Value
00:14:00 - Architectural Constraints That Keep AI Code Sane
00:15:07 - What Remains a Human Responsibility
00:17:33 - Why All the Hard Work Moves Upfront Now
00:18:47 - The Incredible Skill Junior Engineers Should Learn
00:20:26 - AI Burnout: Why Engineers Are Exhausted
00:22:42 - Cognitive Surrender: Letting the Agent Take… -
Addy Osmani: Top Tier Software Engineers vs. AI Agents. The Mindset You Need
28 mei 2026 · 18 min
As AI agents transform software engineering, how do you leverage them without losing your coding skills or risking production disasters? In this episode, Google Cloud AI Director Addy Osmani breaks down the shift from babysitting basic models to mastering advanced agent harnesses.
Discover how to safely delegate complex technical tasks while maintaining your human engineering identity and setting up secure boundaries for your AI. Lees meerIn this episode, we cover:
Human Identity vs. Machine Identity: How to avoid the trap of "cognitive surrender" and keep your critical thinking sharp.
Stopping the AI "Babysitting" Cycle: How to transition from constant manual oversight to secure agent governance.
Rising Abstractions: Why agent harnesses (like Claude Code and Antigravity) are changing how software is built.
The Verification Bottleneck: Why coding is easy, but verifying that your agent didn't ruin production is the real challenge.
This episode is a must-watch for software engineers and tech leaders looking to integrate AI agents into their workflows safely and effectively. You’ll walk away with actionable frameworks to boost your development velocity without letting your own technical edge rot.
Guest:Addy Osmani is a Director at Google Cloud AI, famous for his work on Google Chrome and focused on AI agents in software engineering.
Timestamps:00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:45 - The Reality of "Babysitting" Your AI Agent Setup
00:01:16 - How to Stop Babysitting and Build Secure AI Agents
00:02:36 - The Dangerous Mistakes of Uncontrolled AI Experiments
00:03:39 - Rising Abstractions: From Code to Agent Harnesses
00:05:18 - Why You Should Delegate Technical Tasks to AI
00:07:05 - How to Choose the Best AI Agent Harness
00:08:31 - How to Manage Your Developer Innovation Budget
00:10:17 - Are We Losing Pair Programming to AI Agents?
00:12:14 - Cognitive Surrender: The Hidden Threat of Generated Code
00:13:40 - The Verification Bottleneck: How to Trust AI Code
00:15:59 -…
-
What World Class Software Engineers Do That You Don't
20 mei 2026 · 33 min
After 250 episodes of Beyond Coding, a pattern shows up again and again: the engineers who thrive aren't the ones chasing the newest tool or the cleanest code. They're the ones who learn fast, keep things simple, and understand the business they're building for. Lees meer
This special pulls the sharpest moments from recent guests into one conversation about what actually makes a great software engineer in 2026.
We cover:
Why learning is the only skill that outlives every tool, language, and platform
How the best architects act more like scouts than cartographers
Why "simple is complicated enough" beats clean code dogma at scale
How to design systems that evolve instead of trying to predict 10 years out
What junior engineers should actually do in the age of AI agents
For software engineers who want to think clearer, build better, and grow into the kind of engineer companies can't replace.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:17 - Why You Should Increase Your Breadth, Not Just Focus
00:02:16 - The Only Skill That Survives Every Tech Cycle
00:04:14 - Buzzwords Are Just Old Ideas in New Clothes
00:05:26 - What Clients Say vs What They Actually Want
00:06:45 - The Bad Architects Are Easier to Spot
00:08:50 - Why Good Engineers Use Boring Technology
00:11:40 - Stop Building for 100x Scale on Day One
00:13:13 - The Dogma of Clean Code Is Hurting You
00:15:15 - Simple Is Complicated Enough at Scale
00:16:28 - Design Only for the Next Order of Magnitude
00:18:19 - How to Talk Tech with Non-Technical Stakeholders
00:19:30 - The $50,000-Per-Hour Container Terminal Lesson
00:22:11 - Architects Are No Longer Cartographers, They're Scouts
00:25:18 - Start with a Question, Not an Answer
00:26:49 - Junior to Senior in the Age of AI Agents
00:27:29 - Don't Be a Fool with a Tool
00:29:43 - From Explicit to Implicit Knowledge Economy
00:30:38 - Use AI to Validate, Not to Generate
#softwareengineering #engineeringcareer #softwarearchitecture
-
What Separates Cracked Software Engineers From Everyone Else
6 mei 2026 · 39 min
Reddit Reacts is back. I'm taking the most controversial takes on software engineering from Reddit and giving you my unfiltered perspective on what's happening, from juniors leveraging AI tools, to the culling of engineers who refuse to adapt, to whether you should take a gap year after a layoff. Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
How to become technically "cracked" and what really separates great engineers
Why juniors learning with AI have an edge over 20-year veterans
The future of writing code by hand (and why fulfillment is shifting)
Vibe coding, security holes, and what happens after 6 months
The brutal reality of layoffs, gap years, and AI-driven hiring
If you're an engineer trying to figure out where this industry is going and how to stay competitive, this one is for you.
Mentioned in the episode:ADP List - free mentorship from senior engineers
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:54 - How to Become Technically Cracked in 2026
00:05:35 - Will Juniors Who Only Code with AI Get Stuck?
00:09:26 - Will Senior Engineers Stop Writing Code By Hand?
00:11:11 - I Vibe Coded for 6 Months and It's a Disaster
00:15:04 - Why Leaders Demand Screen Sharing on Incident Calls
00:17:34 - "I Don't Do Anything and Still Get Promoted"
00:20:33 - Have the Best Engineers Stopped Applying?
00:25:39 - The Future of Software Engineering in the AI Era
00:32:15 - Are Most Programmers Actually Bad?
00:34:58 - Should You Take a Gap Year After a Layoff?
#softwareengineering #aicoding #techcareers
-
DevOps Expert: How Elite Software Engineers Are Using Agents to Get Sh*t Done
29 april 2026 · 47 min
Most engineers are using AI coding tools without understanding what they actually are and it's costing them. Microsoft Certified Trainer Rob Bos has trained thousands of engineers on AI tooling, and he sees the same gaps in fundamentals show up again and again, regardless of seniority. This is what you need to know: Lees meer
What an LLM actually is (and why understanding this changes how you use it)
Why prompt engineering isn't optional
How AI magnifies your existing technical debt instead of fixing it
The 6-month learning curve nobody warns you about
Why your role as an engineer was never about writing code
The environmental cost behind every prompt
Whether you're skeptical of AI tools or already living in agent mode, these are the fundamentals that separate engineers who get real value from those who get burned by the hype.
Connect with Rob:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bosrobReferences:Token tracker: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=RobBos.copilot-token-tracker
Dev survey: https://www.activestate.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/ActiveState-Developer-Survey-2019-Open-Source-Runtime-Pains.pdfTimestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:43 - The #1 Thing Engineers Get Wrong About AI
00:02:09 - How Much LLM Theory Do You Actually Need?
00:03:58 - Why Pair Programming Is Still the Best Way to Learn AI
00:05:26 - Why Rob Skips Tab Completion and Lives in Agent Mode
00:07:03 - The "AI Doesn't Increase Productivity" Debate
00:08:29 - Why Your Real Job Was Never Writing Code
00:09:14 - The 2-Hours-of-Coding Problem No One Talks About
00:11:02 - More Code = More Pressure on Your Review Process
00:12:21 - Why AI Magnifies Existing Technical Debt
00:13:39 - The Customer Who Couldn't Start AI With Developers Yet
00:15:11 - The Future Engineer: Reviewer, Not Writer
00:17:00 - Convincing the AI Skeptic Who Tried It Years Ago
00:19:17 - LLMs Explained Without Visuals (Attention & Semantics)
00:22:41 - Why Prompt Engineering Actually Matters
00:24:20 - …
-
OSS Expert: Why World Class Engineers Get Jobs on Easy Mode
22 april 2026 · 38 min
Most engineers approach open source the wrong way. They write code, open a PR, and wonder why it never gets merged. Bruno Schaatsbergen, Terraform core contributor and ex-HashiCorp engineer, breaks down the real craft behind contributions that actually land, and why AI is quietly breaking the ecosystem we all depend on. Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
Why pull requests get ignored (and the counterintuitive fix)
How AI slop is killing open source from the inside
Using AI agents without losing your identity as an engineer
Why open source beats a tailored resume in today's market
How consistent contributions can reshape your entire career
If you've ever wanted to contribute to open source but didn't know where to start, this episode gives you a clear perspective from someone who's been on both sides.
Connect with Bruno:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bschaatsbergenOUTILNE
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:04 - How Open Source Shaped My Entire Career
00:02:14 - Why I Take Pride in Every PR I Write
00:03:16 - Open Source vs Personal Projects: The Real Difference
00:04:18 - Why Your PRs Get Ignored (And How to Fix It)
00:05:41 - Know Your Audience: The Counterintuitive PR Hack
00:06:35 - Dealing With Imposter Syndrome as a Contributor
00:07:10 - Read Code Like a Writer Reads Books
00:09:31 - My First Contribution (And How It Changed My Career)
00:10:51 - Should You Contribute to Open Source Early in Your Career?
00:12:46 - The Dark Side: When Contributions Become Noise
00:13:44 - Killed With Kindness: The AI Slop Problem
00:16:17 - How Maintainers Are Fighting AI Slop
00:18:02 - How I Actually Use AI Agents in My Workflow
00:19:11 - Don't Outsource Your Thinking to AI
00:20:11 - Who's Liable for AI-Generated Code?
00:21:16 - Earned Rights: Why Trust Matters in Open Source
00:22:52 - How to Approach People at Tech Conferences
00:24:52 - Open Source Is Not a Democracy
00:26:04 - Why Open Source Beats a Tailored Resume
00:27:12 - Never Contribute With the Goal o…
-
Veteran Architect: How To Design And Build Systems That Survive
15 april 2026 · 54 min
What separates software that survives from software nobody wants to touch? Nico Krijnen has spent 30 years building systems, coaching teams, and learning why some projects thrive while others quietly become the legacy code everyone avoids. In this episode, he shares why the real work starts after you ship, what actually turns a system into legacy, and why the knowledge in your team's heads matters more than the code itself. Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
Why production is where the real learning begins
The team composition that consistently delivers results
Peter Naur's Theory Building and why documentation alone falls short
How knowledge leaving your team turns working systems into legacy
Why assuming you're wrong leads to better architecture
Whether you're a senior engineer rethinking how you build or earlier in your career trying to understand what really matters, this episode will change how you think about software that lasts.
Connect with Nico:
https://realworldarchitect.dev
TIMESTAMPS
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:17 - Why He Keeps Choosing Engineering Over Management
00:04:01 - Three Seniors Solved in Three Weeks What Management Couldn't
00:05:14 - The Signals You Miss When You're Not in the Team
00:06:26 - The #1 Skill Behind Every Successful Project
00:08:04 - Why Production Is the Starting Line, Not the Finish
00:10:13 - The Habit Most Teams Skip After Deploying
00:11:28 - Why the Best Teams Mix Designers and Engineers
00:14:36 - Finding the Right People for the Job at Hand
00:17:01 - What Juniors Bring That Seniors Can't
00:20:57 - How to Handle Ideas You Disagree With as a Senior
00:24:21 - A Simple Technique to Surface Everyone's Best Ideas
00:27:09 - What Makes a System Survive Long-Term
00:30:53 - What Actually Makes a System "Legacy"
00:35:01 - The Knowledge That Keeps Software Alive
00:36:06 - Peter Naur's Theory Building: Why Documentation Isn't Enough
00:40:06 - How Knowledge Loss Is Killing Your Codebase
00:42:42 - The Hidden R…
-
Top Microsoft Advisor: "Coding Is Cheap, Software Is Expensive." You're Focused on the Wrong Thing
8 april 2026 · 46 min
Suzanne Daniels is a Top Microsoft Advisor who works with CTOs and engineering leaders across EMEA on developer productivity, GitHub, and AI adoption. Her take: the industry is obsessing over coding speed, but that was only ever level one. The real shift is in who defines the solution, not who writes the code. Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
Why the "55x faster coding" marketing misses the point entirely
The counterintuitive research showing junior engineers adopt AI faster than seniors
"Coding is cheap, software is expensive" and what that means for your career
How the boundary between product and engineering is disappearing
Why most AI coding tools are 80% the same and what to focus on instead
Whether you're early in career and struggling to land a role, or a senior engineer rethinking where your value lies, Suzanne breaks down what actually matters when the coding part becomes cheap.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:15 - Is AI Productivity the Whole Story?
00:03:26 - Why Outcomes Matter More Than Code Output
00:04:13 - The Real Value Was Never in the Coding
00:06:06 - The Product-Engineering Boundary Is Disappearing
00:07:37 - Why Junior Engineers Are Actually in High Demand
00:09:41 - Research Says Juniors Adopt AI Faster Than Seniors
00:11:31 - The Rise of Comb-Shaped Engineers
00:12:32 - The Energy Juniors Bring That Teams Need
00:14:06 - How Seniors Codify Knowledge for Agents and Humans
00:16:35 - Advice for Early Career Engineers Right Now
00:19:04 - Old Principles Getting a New Polish
00:21:13 - Coding Is Cheap, Software Is Expensive
00:22:52 - Will Agentic Development Change Your Programming Language?
00:24:53 - What Even Is an Application in the Agent Era?
00:28:34 - The Authenticity Paradox of AI-Written Content
00:30:12 - Why Your AI Output Needs a Human Value Add
00:32:12 - Is Open Source at Risk Because of AI?
00:35:09 - When Your Favorite Tool Doesn't Follow You to the Next Job
00:36:45 - Most AI Coding Tools Are 80% the Sa…
-
AI Expert: Most Software Engineers Aren't Ready for What's Coming
1 april 2026 · 48 min
The role of the software engineer is shifting from execution to orchestration, and it's happening faster than most of us realize. Dennis Vink, Principal Consultant at Xebia, breaks down how he approaches code modernization with AI, why fundamentals and system design matter more now than ever, and what the engineering role is actually becoming. Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
Why you need to mature your old codebase before you can migrate away from it
How to prove feature parity between legacy and modern systems
Why vibe coding without architecture knowledge gives you zero control
The shift from execution-focused engineering to orchestration
Why Dennis worries about the next generation of engineers
Whether you're sitting on legacy code at work or wondering how your role as an engineer is evolving, this conversation will make you think about where you need to invest your time next.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:51 - Dennis's Early AI Engineering Assignments
00:02:23 - Side Projects: Reviving a 20-Year-Old Game in Rust
00:04:36 - Why Vibe Coding Without Fundamentals Fails
00:05:15 - The Fundamentals You Need for Code Migration
00:06:45 - Proving Feature Parity with Automated Testing
00:08:12 - Writing Tests First as Risk Mitigation
00:10:13 - How Much Should You Care About Code Structure?
00:11:18 - Migrating in Small Pieces of Value
00:12:26 - Will Engineers Still Find Fulfillment in Building?
00:14:01 - How to Actually Start Side Projects (ADHD Brain)
00:15:34 - Why Pivoting Is No Longer Painful
00:16:12 - Prompting as the New Bottleneck
00:17:23 - Parallelizing Work Across Projects
00:19:08 - Why System Design Is the #1 Audience Demand
00:20:19 - AI as a Differentiator for Strong Architects
00:21:11 - Why the New Generation Should Worry
00:23:01 - Are Bootcamps Still Worth It?
00:25:15 - The Shift from Collaboration to Business Understanding
00:27:56 - Infrastructure as a Core Competency Bet
00:30:15 - Deterministic vs Non-Deterministic Code Generation
00:3… -
Veteran CTO: How to Think About Your Software Engineering Career
25 maart 2026 · 1 uur 1 min
Most senior engineers don't realize they're stuck until it's too late. The longer you stay, the more people around you have already decided who you are and what you're for. Ian Miell, CTO at Container Solutions, breaks down why this happens and how understanding the system around you is the first step to growing beyond it. Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
Why staying too long gets you put in a box (and how to escape it)
How your software architecture is shaped by money flows
The 30% rule: why you should feel uncomfortable at work and what it means if you don't
How to pitch to senior leadership and actually get buy-in
Why AI makes distribution the real challenge, not building
If you're a senior engineer trying to grow beyond your current ceiling, this one is worth your time.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:42 - How to Pitch to Senior Leadership and Get Buy-In
00:03:26 - Why You Should Feel Uncomfortable 30% of the Time
00:06:33 - How to Break Through a Seniority Ceiling
00:08:24 - The Burden of Context: Why Being the Go-To Person Traps You
00:10:16 - How Ian Became CTO Without Trying To
00:13:40 - Why a CTO's Job Is Mostly Coaching Now
00:18:20 - Understanding Incentives: The Key to Navigating Any Org
00:23:08 - Startups vs. Large Companies: Completely Different Rules
00:25:00 - Why AI Makes Distribution the Real Problem, Not Building
00:28:16 - The Hidden Maintenance Risk of Vibe-Coded Software
00:30:13 - Security and Compliance: More Nuanced Than Engineers Think
00:36:54 - Where "Architecture Follows the Money" Came From
00:42:36 - The Wrong Number of Customers: A Systems Thinking Story
00:47:23 - Why Engineers Think Individually Instead of Systemically
00:51:53 - How to Start Thinking in Systems
00:57:50 - How to Create Cross-Pollination in Consulting Teams
00:59:39 - What CTOs Actually Look for When Hiring
01:00:34 - Outro
#softwareengineering #systemsthinking #careergrowth
-
Top Tier Architect: Software Engineering Is About Battling Complexity
18 maart 2026 · 52 min
Most architects stop coding... and that's exactly where they lose their edge. Dennis Doomen has been a hands-on coding architect for 30 years, and his take is blunt: if you're not in the code, you can't make good architectural decisions. Period. Lees meer
In this episode, we get into the real causes of codebase rot, why dogmatic pattern-following destroys teams, how Dennis uses AI tools to build open source projects without compromising his standards, and why documentation and decision records might be the most underrated investment a software team can make.
This one is for software engineers and architects who want to stay sharp, stay relevant, and build systems that actually last.
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:05 - Why Dennis Refuses to Stop Coding (After 30 Years)
00:02:54 - The Only Way to Be an Effective Software Architect
00:04:43 - What Happens When Teams Copy Patterns Without Understanding Them
00:06:23 - Software Engineering Is About Battling Complexity
00:08:20 - When to Break Consistency to Reduce Complexity
00:09:24 - The Problem with Overzealous SOLID Principles
00:11:06 - The Future Where We Don't Care About Code Anymore
00:12:07 - How Dennis Built an Open Source Library with GitHub Copilot
00:14:18 - Accepting AI-Generated Code That Doesn't Meet Your Standards
00:16:39 - How to Use AI Without Losing Code Quality
00:17:41 - The Execution Is Accelerating — What Actually Matters Now
00:20:19 - Why Tests Are Your Safety Net in an AI-First World
00:23:44 - Lessons Learned from Letting AI Run Unsupervised
00:26:46 - Should Teams Standardize Which AI Tool They Use?
00:27:32 - Junior Devs and AI: Learning Skills vs. Speed
00:29:21 - How to Stay Curious and Critical in an AI-Assisted Team
00:33:43 - How to Build a Software Engineer from Scratch Today
00:34:38 - Dennis's Emoji-Based Pull Request Review System
00:36:45 - What AI Still Can't Do: Holistic Architectural Thinking
00:38:38 - Why Your Git History Is More Valuable Than You Think
00:40:44 - Deci…
-
Uber Engineering Manager: Why Clarity Beats Seniority
11 maart 2026 · 45 min
Sendil Nellaiyapen, Engineering Manager at Uber, has built systems that scale to millions of users. In this episode he shares what most engineers get wrong about both system design and the move into engineering management Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
Ingredients for designing systems that scale to millions of users
How to know when to compromise on architecture
The trade-offs of going from IC to engineering manager and why the role is harder than it looks
How to handle opinionated engineers, set team guardrails, and build high-performing engineering culture
Whether you're a senior engineer weighing the move into management, or already leading teams and looking to sharpen your system design thinking, this one's for you.
OUTLINE:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:05 - The Ingredients for Building Systems at Scale
00:02:23 - When to Compromise on Your Foundation
00:03:42 - Scaling from 2,000 to 5 Million Users
00:06:37 - Why Clarity Beats Seniority Every Time
00:08:27 - The Danger of Muscle Memory in Engineering
00:10:25 - MVP Mindset: What You Can and Can't Compromise
00:13:22 - How High-Performing Teams Handle Growing Complexity
00:15:04 - Who Owns the Assumptions? Shared Team Responsibility
00:17:04 - Building Open Frameworks Instead of Closed Rules
00:19:53 - Latency Is Overrated (Here's Why)
00:22:52 - Recipes for Disaster: The Biggest System Design Pitfalls
00:24:17 - The Scala Horror Story: When Elegance Kills Velocity
00:26:52 - How to Handle Opinionated Engineers on Your Team
00:29:03 - Setting Guardrails: The Manager's Design Responsibility
00:32:01 - The Hardest Trade-Off Going from IC to Engineering Manager
00:34:35 - Should Great Engineers Stay IC or Go into Management?
00:37:11 - BFS vs DFS Engineers: Which Type Makes a Better Manager?
00:39:05 - The Real Cost of Becoming a Manager (And Why It's Worth It)
00:41:52 - Outro
#systemdesign #engineeringmanager #softwareengineering
-
Lead Software Engineer: Why You Can Write the Code in a Day but Ship in a Month
4 maart 2026 · 40 min
Are you over-engineering for a future that might never come? In this episode, we explore why "future-proofing" often leads to wasted time and sunk costs, and how shifting your mindset from opinions to hypotheses can drastically improve your Developer Experience (DevEx). Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
The trap of complex architecture decisions like Hexagonal Architecture too early
How to identify and remove friction points in the software development lifecycle
The reality of using AI agents in production and who is actually responsible for the code
If you are a software engineer or tech lead tired of the "Sacred Cloud Committee" and slow processes, this deep dive into DevEx is for you.
Connect with Bas de Groot:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bas-de-groot-635013100
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:00 - The Danger of "Future-Proofing" Your Architecture
00:03:18 - Why You Should Use Hypotheses Over Opinions
00:05:32 - "Shift Left Until There's Only Sh*t Left"
00:08:19 - At What Size Do You Need a DevEx Team?
00:11:02 - How to Measure Developer Friction Effectively
00:15:43 - Using Data to Fix Slow CI/CD Pipelines
00:17:26 - Why Surveys Beat DORA Metrics for Context
00:19:52 - The "Sacred Cloud Committee" Blocking Deployments
00:24:51 - How to Get Buy-In for DevEx Initiatives
00:28:56 - The Role of Hands-On Coding in DevEx
00:31:47 - Will AI Agents Fix Bad Processes?
00:34:44 - You Are Still Responsible for AI-Generated Code
#developerexperience #softwarearchitecture #techlead
-
How Senior Software Engineers Balance Speed and Quality (Scale-Up Lessons)
25 februari 2026 · 47 min
The difference between a junior and a senior engineer isn't coding speed, it's knowing when to say "no." Lees meer
"The best code you can write is the code you don't write." In this episode, I sit down with Alessandro Mautone (Senior Software Engineer at Aquablu, ex-WeTransfer) to discuss the reality of engineering at a scale-up: how do you maintain technical excellence when the business demands speed?
We break down why delivering features "fast" pays your salary, but how to negotiate deadlines so you don't drown in technical debt later. If you want to move from writing code to owning product decisions, this conversation is for you.
In this episode, we cover:
- How to push back on features and negotiate deadlines without upsetting stakeholders
- Why chasing "perfect code" can hurt a company in growth mode
- The Generalist vs. Specialist career path: Which one is right for you?
- The potential pitfalls of using AI for unit tests without proper oversight
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:06 - Balancing Technical Excellence With Delivery Speed
00:04:11 - Why Delivering Features Pays Your Salary
00:06:51 - The Importance of Ownership and "Skin in the Game"
00:08:59 - Leaving WeTransfer: When Company Direction Shifts
00:11:49 - The Generalist vs. Specialist Career Path Debate
00:16:46 - How to Attract Top Engineering Talent to Your Team
00:18:50 - Is LeetCode the Right Way to Hire for Scale-Ups?
00:23:16 - Learning to "Say No" is a Sign of Seniority
00:25:17 - Negotiating Scope Without Burning Bridges
00:26:02 - When AI Generates Bad Unit Tests
00:28:14 - Never Compromise on Tests, Even in "Code Red"
00:33:59 - Communicating Technical Concepts to Non-Tech Stakeholders
00:35:35 - The Never-Ending Battle Against Complexity
00:37:26 - When to Build for the Future vs. Ship Now
00:42:30 - A Real-World Example of Refactoring for Simplicity
00:46:48 - The Skill That Will Be Make or Break for Engineers
#SoftwareEngineering #ScaleUp #TechnicalDebt
-
How to Think About Software Engineering (CTO's Perspective)
18 februari 2026 · 47 min
We are at a unique point in history where there is finally an alternative to human coding. If AI can write the code effectively, what is left for the software engineer? Lees meer
In this episode, Joris Conijn (AWS CTO at Xebia) argues that the era of "just coding" is over. We discuss why senior developers are safe (for now), why juniors are at risk of never learning the fundamentals, and how "Shadow AI" is forcing companies to change their security strategies.
Most importantly, we break down the difference between a "Programmer" and a "Software Engineer" with the introduction of agentic tools. If you want to future-proof your career and move from writing lines of code to designing systems, this conversation is for you.
In this episode, we cover:
Why banning AI at work actually increases your security risk
How to use AI to automate the boring parts of the SDLC (requirements & user stories)
The critical difference between "Coding" and "System Architecture"
Why you should check your AI Agents into your Git repository
The 20-year problem: what happens when engineers never learn the fundamentals?
Connect with Joris Conijn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jorisconijn
TIMESTAMPS
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:11 - What Keeps a CTO Excited About Tech?
00:02:58 - Stop Being the "Department of No" in Security
00:05:28 - The Real Risk of Banning AI at Work
00:06:32 - When Developers Hold the Organization Hostage
00:08:14 - The Hidden Dangers of Instant AI Code Fixes
00:09:50 - Will Future Devs Understand Object Oriented Programming?
00:11:36 - Using AI to Accelerate Learning vs Copy-Pasting
00:13:17 - Why Testing Matters More When AI Writes Code
00:16:42 - Automating the Boring Parts of the SDLC
00:19:06 - How to Turn Meeting Transcripts into User Stories
00:21:36 - The Critical Skill of Making Implicit Knowledge Explicit
00:23:10 - Why You Should Stop Obsessing Over Story Points
00:27:46 - The "A-Team" Approach to High-Trust Development
00:29:54 - Running Parallel Workfl…
-
How to Build the Best Platforms for Software Engineers
11 februari 2026 · 44 min
Is your internal developer platform actually improving velocity, or is it a bottleneck? We discuss why platform teams building "cool" abstractions is a red flag, and you should aim to create the best platform for software engineers. Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
Why "Golden Paths" can turn into roadblocks for developers.
The danger of Shadow IT and why it’s a symptom of a failed platform.
How to measure if your platform is saving time.
Connect with Adnan Alshar:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/adnanmalshar92
Connect with Jelmer de Jong:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jelmerdejong-xebia
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:54 - Is DevOps Dead? The Truth About Platform Engineering
00:03:07 - Why Developers Are Drowning in Complexity Today
00:04:37 - Why Having No Platform Is Better Than a Bad Platform
00:07:20 - Treating Software Engineers as Customers of the Platform
00:11:26 - The Exact Moment You Should Start Building a Platform
00:14:18 - Who Should Be on Your First Platform Team?
00:17:33 - Turning Your Angriest Developers Into Platform Evangelists
00:18:57 - Key Metrics: How to Measure Platform Engineering Success
00:21:01 - Why 60% of Companies Don't Measure Platform Success
00:23:35 - Why No Metrics Is the Biggest Red Flag
00:25:23 - The Disconnect Between Executives and AI Readiness
00:31:34 - Integrating AI Tools and Large Language Models Securely
00:34:22 - Shadow IT: The Symptom of a Broken Platform
00:38:03 - How to Scale Without Becoming a Bottleneck
00:41:45 - Don’t Forget the Business Side of Platform Engineering
#PlatformEngineering #DevOps #DeveloperProductivity
-
Career Advice I'd Give Every Software Engineer Right Now
4 februari 2026 · 1 uur 1 min
Engineering hasn't become easier, writing code has just become faster. Time to stop fighting symptoms and start thinking in systems. In this Q&A, I break down the career advice I'd give to any engineer, from mastering architecture to knowing when to quit a high-paying job. Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
How "Systems Thinking" can be applied in practice
The "Golden Handcuffs": Why high salaries keep engineers in toxic jobs
How to transition into leadership without waiting for a title
Timestamps
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:58 - How to innovate in stubborn legacy companies
00:04:49 - The "Golden Handcuffs": Money vs. Mental Health
00:07:27 - Stop solving symptoms: Systems Thinking explained
00:13:10 - Transitioning from Senior Engineer to Solutions Architect
00:15:08 - Communicating technical risks to non-technical bosses
00:17:48 - Proving leadership before you have the title
00:22:25 - My strategy for dealing with Imposter Syndrome
00:26:12 - Creating a "Zettelkasten" to retain technical knowledge
00:29:12 - The mindset that makes me stress-proof at work
00:33:10 - Learning to code with a product/design background
00:38:40 - Working with international remote teams
00:40:35 - Career Pivot: Software Engineering to Cyber Security
00:43:20 - Solopreneur opportunities in the "Education Gold Rush"
00:51:50 - Future Predictions: Vibe Coding vs. Vibe Engineering
#SoftwareEngineering #CareerAdvice #SystemsThinking
-
The Skills That Matter When AI Writes Your Code
28 januari 2026 · 42 min
The software engineering landscape is shifting rapidly. Coding is becoming "cheap" because of tools like Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, Cursor etc. Interviews are evolving to focus on system design over syntax. In this Q&A, I break down exactly which skills matter now, how to negotiate the salary you deserve, and how to deal with difficult personalities on your team. Lees meer
In this episode:
How juniors can leverage AI tools to reach senior-level output
Real-world salary negotiation tactics from my experience
Why coding skills matter less in modern interviews (and what matters more)
Handling "brilliant jerks" and toxic team culture
Whether you are looking for your first job with no experience or you are a mid-level dev trying to break into a Staff Engineer role, this session is packed with actionable career advice.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:06 - Handling Brilliant Jerks: Toxic Culture vs. High Performance
00:04:13 - How Juniors Can Use AI to Outperform Seniors
00:07:10 - The Future of Coding Interviews: System Design and AI
00:11:20 - The Real Difference Between Good and Great Developers
00:13:00 - One Mistake Mid-Level Developers Make That Stalls Growth
00:15:58 - Salary Negotiation Tactics: How I Got Two Raises in One Year
00:23:44 - Questions You Should Ask to Crush Your Tech Interview
00:27:42 - What Actually Moves the Needle: Side Projects vs. Experience
00:31:05 - Don't Wait for a Perfect Portfolio to Start Applying
00:32:25 - Finding Jobs: Why LinkedIn and Meetups Beat Job Boards
00:35:16 - Should Frontend Developers Worry About Learning Backend Skills?
00:37:39 - Do Tech Certifications Actually Help You Get Hired?
00:39:07 - Mastering Soft Skills: Training Budgets vs. Real Experience
#softwareengineering #careeradvice #techinterviews
-
Google & AWS Veteran: How To Become a Top Tier Software Architect
21 januari 2026 · 1 uur 5 min
"Architects shouldn't try to be the smartest people in the room, they should make everybody else smarter." Lees meer
In this episode, Gregor Hohpe (ex-Google & AWS, author of "The Software Architect Elevator") breaks down exactly how to transition from software engineer to architect. He shares the mental models used at Big Tech to handle complexity, visualize systems, and navigate office politics without losing your technical edge.
We cover:
- Why "lowering risk" is the architect's real value proposition
- The "Phantom Sketch Artist" technique to visualize unclear requirements
- How to gain "political capital" to push back on bad decisions
- Why simple architectures are often the hardest to build
If you want to move beyond just writing code and start designing systems that scale, this conversation is for you.
Connect with Gregor:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ghohpe
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:15 - How to Spot Bad Architects vs. Great Amplifiers
00:03:44 - Why Architects Are Actually Risk Managers in Disguise
00:06:13 - The Truth About Complexity and Simplicity at Scale
00:09:55 - How to Resolve Technical Disagreements Without Arguments
00:13:57 - Why You Should Use Pen and Paper for Architecture
00:17:24 - Mastering the Left-Right Brain Ping Pong Technique
00:20:42 - The "Architect Elevator": Connecting Code to Strategy
00:23:06 - The Rubber Duck Test: Are You a Good Architect?
00:25:41 - The "Phantom Sketch Artist" Method for System Design
00:30:37 - Stop Being a Cartographer, Start Being a Scout
00:34:47 - How to Keep Your Technical Skills Sharp as an Architect
00:44:37 - Navigating Office Politics using the "Court Jester" Strategy
00:48:08 - How to Earn and Spend Political Capital Wisely
00:53:17 - Why the "Big Ball of Mud" Might Be a Good Architecture
00:57:08 - How Executives Spot Gaps in Your Technical Logic
01:00:00 - Why Using AI for Architecture is a Dangerous Trap
#SoftwareArchitecture #SystemDesign #SeniorDeveloper
-
Own Your Engineering Career (No One Else Will)
14 januari 2026 · 44 min
Are you waiting for a promotion that never comes? In this episode, we break down why relying on your manager to define your growth is a career-limiting mistake and how you can take full ownership of your professional path. Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
Why hard skills get you hired but won't get you ahead
How to create growth opportunities when your company has no clear path
Using RACI to own decisions and increase your visibility
Connect with Zanina:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/zaninakatira
References:
RACI - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_assignment_matrix
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:51 - Why hard skills get you hired but soft skills make you thrive
00:04:17 - How to connect your code to actual business results
00:06:44 - The art of storytelling for technical professionals
00:09:16 - Balancing execution speed with team collaboration
00:11:57 - The problem with forcing engineers into management roles
00:15:13 - Surviving when technology outgrows your current skillset
00:17:59 - Using the RACI method to clarify ownership and decisions
00:21:23 - What to do when your manager has no answers for your growth
00:24:40 - Why you should value scope of work over job titles
00:28:39 - How to pitch and negotiate impactful projects to leadership
00:33:00 - Expanding your perspective by networking outside your team
00:35:35 - Visualizing your ambition and defining what success looks like
00:39:16 - Overcoming the fear of asking for constructive feedback
#careergrowth #softwareengineering #softskills
-
The AI Skills Software Engineers Need to Learn Now
7 januari 2026 · 44 min
Software engineers often think adding AI is just a simple API call, but moving from a Proof of Concept to a stable production system requires a completely different mindset. Lees meer
Maria Vechtomova breaks down the harsh reality of MLOps, why rigorous evaluation is non-negotiable, and why autonomous agents are riskier than you think.
In this episode, we cover:
The essential MLOps principles every software engineer must learn
How to bridge the gap between a demo and a production-grade solution
Strategies for evaluating agents and detecting model drift
The security risks of customer service agents and prompt injection
Practical tips for using AI tools to boost your own productivity
Connect with Maria:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-vechtomova
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:25 - Why the AI Hype Was Actually Good for Monitoring
00:03:07 - Real-World AI Use Cases That Deliver Actual Value
00:05:16 - MLOps Basics Every Software Engineer Needs to Know
00:08:08 - The Hidden Complexity of Deploying Agents to Production
00:12:02 - Minimum Requirements for Moving from PoC to Production
00:15:41 - Step-by-Step Guide to Evaluating AI Features Before Launch
00:18:08 - How to Handle Data Labeling and Drift Detection
00:21:55 - Why You Likely Need Custom Tools for Monitoring
00:24:56 - Why Engineers Build AI Features They Don't Need
00:26:01 - How Software Engineers Can Learn Data Science Principles
00:31:36 - The Dangerous Security Risks of Autonomous Customer Service Agents
00:34:44 - Why Human-in-the-Loop is Essential for Avoiding Reputational Damage
00:36:18 - Boosting Developer Productivity with Opinionated AI Prompts
00:39:20 - Using Voice Notes and AI to Organize Your Life
#MLOps #SoftwareEngineering #ArtificialIntelligence
-
Why Mediocre Engineers Get Promoted Over Great Ones (CEO Explains)
31 december 2025 · 54 min
Are your technical skills actually holding your career back? In this conversation with Anand Sahay, Global CEO of Xebia, we explore the controversial reality that "mediocre" engineers often climb the corporate ladder faster than technical wizards. And what you need to do to change that trajectory. Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
Why simplicity and business value beat complex code every time
The specific mindset shift required to move from Senior Engineer to Executive
How to maintain technical intuition and manage risk without micromanaging
The hidden arrogance that stops great engineers from becoming great leaders
This discussion is essential for software engineers, architects, and technical managers who want to break through the "tech ceiling" and understand how decisions are really made at the top.
Connect with Anand:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ansahay
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:28 - How to Pitch to Executives (And Not Get Rejected)
00:03:42 - The #1 Trait of Elite Engineering Leaders
00:06:15 - Why AI Answers Destroy Your Credibility
00:10:11 - Why Mediocre Engineers Get Promoted Over Great Ones
00:14:15 - The Truth About the "Individual Contributor" Track
00:16:16 - The Arrogance Trap: Why Devs Fail at Business
00:22:08 - Stop Being a "One Man Army" (Unless You Do This)
00:25:32 - From Developer to CEO: The Uncommon Path
00:29:07 - Why Most Engineering Teams Are Structured Wrong
00:32:17 - How to Spot a Toxic Tech Culture
00:34:44 - Will AI Replace Senior Engineers?
00:38:40 - Maintaining Technical Intuition Without Coding Daily
00:41:53 - When to Approve "Bad" Ideas for Team Morale
00:48:41 - The "Hard Part First" Rule for Innovation
#SoftwareEngineering #TechLeadership #CareerGrowth
-
How to Build Skills That Outlast Any Tool (From Data Analyst to AI Lead)
24 december 2025 · 48 min
Tools change and frameworks die, but your career doesn't have to. Marijn Markus joins the show to explain why "Don't be a fool with a tool" is the single most important piece of advice for modern software engineers and data professionals. Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
The "Meta-Skill" of learning how to learn new technologies
Why real innovation often originates in "dark" industries like crime and warfare
How to future-proof your career against AI agents and automation
Why understanding the business problem is more valuable than writing the code
This conversation is essential for engineers who want to move from memorizing syntax to mastering the skills that actually last.
Connect with Marijn Markus:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marijnmarkus
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:01 - Realizing That Data Science Can Actually Save Lives
00:04:36 - Predicting Refugee Movements With Hamburger Prices
00:07:05 - Why You Should Try Different Roles Early in Your Career
00:12:37 - Learning in Banking to Eventually Help Non-Profits
00:15:38 - Why Certifications Are Compensation for Lack of Experience
00:18:36 - The Single Most Important Skill in the Tech Field
00:21:39 - "If They Understood the Problem, They Wouldn't Hire You"
00:25:48 - Why Innovation Comes From War, Crime, and Adult Industries
00:31:16 - The Danger of AI Agents and Automated Social Engineering
00:35:03 - Focus on Skills That Do Not Have Expiration Dates
00:39:47 - How to Navigate Truth in the Era of Deepfakes
00:41:30 - Don't Be a Fool With a Tool (The Selenium Trap)
00:45:25 - Rising Above the Tools to Become an Expert#SoftwareEngineering #CareerAdvice #Technology
-
Why Coding Skills Won’t Get You To Staff Engineer
17 december 2025 · 57 min
Are you just executing tickets, or are you driving business impact? Lees meer
In this episode, Praveen Murugesan (VP of Engineering at Samsara) breaks down why the best engineers don't just write code and why "coding skills" alone won't get you there.
He explains the critical shift from "software engineer" to "product engineer," why you shouldn't wait for permission to solve problems, and how to de-risk high-stakes projects like a true owner.
In this episode, we cover:
The difference between a "Ticket Taker" and a Product Engineer
Why Product Managers should NOT be doing project management
How to grow to Staff Engineer without managing a large team
The exact interview questions to ask to test a company’s culture
A real story of an engineer telling a VP: "That's not an important problem"
Connect with Praveen Murugesan:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/praveenmurugesan
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:55 - Product Engineer vs. Software Engineer: What’s the Difference?
00:06:20 - Why Product Managers Should Not Do Project Management
00:11:06 - The Danger of "Flying Blind" Without Business Context
00:15:24 - Why Curiosity Is the Ultimate Leverage in the AI Era
00:25:06 - Why the Best Ideas Must Win Regardless of Hierarchy
00:27:43 - The #1 Interview Question to Test for Engineering Ownership
00:32:12 - How to Test a Company’s Culture Before You Join
00:36:04 - Why You Don't Need to Be Senior to Be a Product Engineer
00:40:46 - Managing High-Stakes Projects and De-risking Failure
00:43:56 - What I Learned From Breaking Production at Salesforce
00:48:29 - The Myth About Staff Engineering and Managing Teams
00:51:59 - The Engineer Who Told the VP: "That's Not an Important Problem"
#SoftwareEngineering #StaffEngineer #CareerGrowth
-
Forward Deployed Engineer: The Role Up 800% (And How to Get It)
10 december 2025 · 46 min
Traditional software engineering job listings have dropped by 70%, yet Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) roles have exploded by over 800% this year. We sit down with Mo Fagir, Principal Technical Consultant at ServiceNow, to break down exactly why this shift is happening and how you can pivot your career to ride this AI adoption wave. Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
The massive market shift: Why "pure coding" jobs are declining while FDEs are booming.
The exact technical stack and soft skills required to land these high-paying roles.
How to overcome imposter syndrome and build a portfolio that gets you hired, even as a junior.
Why this isn't just a trend, but the future of how engineering delivers value.
Connect with Mo Fagir:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mo-nour-tarig
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:14 - Why software jobs dropped 70% while FDEs grew over 800%
00:02:55 - Why companies can't implement AI without Forward Deployed Engineers
00:05:36 - Is this career path safe for traditional software engineers?
00:07:54 - The exact technical stack you need to master today
00:10:48 - Moving from engineering scope to product centric thinking
00:16:15 - Can juniors and early career devs get hired as FDEs?
00:19:12 - How to build a portfolio that gets you hired
00:22:17 - Why passion and attitude beat experience in the AI era
00:24:33 - How to train yourself to have a sense of urgency
00:29:05 - Can introverts succeed in client facing engineering roles?
00:32:17 - Lessons learned from interning at NASA and researching AI
00:35:09 - Are we in an AI bubble that will burst soon?
00:40:34 - Does becoming an FDE risk vendor lock-in for your career?
00:43:36 - Final advice for engineers entering the 2025 job market#ForwardDeployedEngineer #FDE #SoftwareCareers
-
AI Won't Replace Software Engineers, But This Might (CEO Perspective)
3 december 2025 · 37 min
If you think your value as a software engineer comes just from writing code, you're already at risk. Lees meer
In this episode, Outsystems CEO Woodson Martin reveals why AI isn't the real threat to your career. Irrelevance is. He explains that writing code is now only 20% of the job, and the engineers who thrive are the ones who master the other "80% that matters."
We cover:
The billions of lines of ungoverned code AI is creating
Why the "Forward Deployed Engineer" model is changing team structures
The 80% of engineering work that AI cannot replace
How to shift from coder to problem solver who drives business revenue
A CEO's advice for building a lasting engineering career
This is a reality check for developers, tech leads, and architects who want to stay relevant as agentic AI reshapes the industry.
Connect with Woodson:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/woodsonmartin
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:56 - How Agentic AI keeps the human in the loop
00:01:55 - Real-world example: Automating the grunt work
00:04:17 - How engineers are using agents internally
00:05:52 - Blending Low-Code and High-Code for complex systems
00:08:28 - Is a Low-Code career a trap for engineers?
00:10:50 - Will AI make software engineering obsolete?
00:12:09 - The 80/20 Rule: Why code is only 20% of your job
00:13:14 - Layoffs vs. the rise of the solo entrepreneur
00:15:18 - Career advice for a volatile tech market
00:17:02 - How to retain top talent and keep them happy
00:20:10 - Why we radically changed our engineering team structure
00:24:33 - The "Forward Deployed Engineer" model explained
00:27:08 - Outsystems vs. OpenAI: The future of platform building
00:31:45 - The tech debt problem no one's talking about
00:34:23 - The one thing that keeps you from becoming irrelevant
#SoftwareEngineering #CareerAdvice #AIAgents
-
How We Get More Done with Fewer Engineers
26 november 2025 · 29 min
What if you could build a multi-million dollar software company where only 10% of your employees are developers? AFAS, a company with hundreds of millions in revenue, does exactly that with a lean team of just 70 engineers. In this episode, Engineering Manager Michiel Overeem pulls back the curtain on their unconventional strategies for achieving massive productivity with a surprisingly small team. Lees meer
In this episode, we cover:
Why standardization is their secret weapon for efficiency.
How they thrive without traditional Scrum ceremonies.
The two distinct types of engineers they hire for success.
The surprising details of their 4-day work week (paid for 5).
This video is for engineering leaders and software developers who want to learn proven, counter-intuitive strategies to build hyper-effective teams and get more done, regardless of team size.
Connect with Michiel:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/movereem
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:22 - The "10% Engineering" Paradox at a €100M+ Company
00:03:20 - How Standardization Allows a Small Team to Do More
00:04:27 - The Two Types of Engineers Every Successful Company Needs
00:06:46 - Why Feeling Responsible is More Powerful Than Being Responsible
00:09:33 - The Secret Sauce of High-Performing Engineering Teams
00:11:52 - A Simple Method to Keep Engineers Connected to Customers
00:14:22 - What We Look For When Hiring New Engineers
00:17:09 - The #1 Red Flag That Will Get You Rejected in an Interview
00:19:33 - Why We Don't Use Scrum (And What We Do Instead)
00:22:51 - The Power of Strong, Decisive Leadership
00:24:13 - How Our 4-Day Work Week Actually Works
00:26:55 - Our Approach to Adopting AI Tools like Copilot
00:28:19 - Final Advice: The Best Way to Grow Your Career
#EngineeringCulture #Productivity #SoftwareDevelopment
-
GitHub Senior Engineer: How The Best Software Engineers Lock In System Design
19 november 2025 · 46 min
System design interviews often focus on theoretical complexity, but how do Senior Engineers at GitHub actually approach scaling? In this episode, Bassem Dghaidi breaks down how to think about system design when real business impact is on the line. Lees meer
We discuss why "simple is complicated enough," the dangers of premature scaling, and why vertical scaling often beats complex distributed systems. If you want to bridge the gap between theory and practice, and understand how to design software that actually serves the business, this conversation is for you.
In this episode, we cover:
- The "Order of Magnitude" rule for scaling systems
- Why GitHub often runs millions of requests on simple architecture
- How to communicate technical constraints to non-technical stakeholders
- Why 90% of Bassem's code is now written by AI agents
Connect with Bassem Dghaidi:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bassemdghaidy
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:48 - Theory vs. Practice in System Design
00:02:06 - The Startup That Almost Failed via Kubernetes
00:03:33 - How GitHub Scales (It's Simpler Than You Think)
00:05:20 - The Underrated Power of Vertical Scaling
00:08:23 - Why Big Tech Interviews for Scale You Don't Need Yet
00:10:39 - Software Evolves, It Isn't Just "Built"
00:11:53 - Only Design for the Next Order of Magnitude
00:15:39 - Stop Building Generic Frameworks
00:18:17 - "Hacking" the System Design Interview
00:21:29 - Translating Tech Problems to Business Risks
00:27:37 - Layoffs & Engineering Efficiency
00:29:41 - Proving Your Impact with Numbers
00:31:00 - Professional Engineering vs. Hobby Coding
00:32:19 - "Simple is Complicated Enough"
00:35:03 - The Rise of AI Coding (The Motorcycle Analogy)
00:37:30 - "90% of My Code is Written by AI Agents"
00:41:04 - How to Become a Great Engineer
#SystemDesign #SoftwareEngineering #GitHub
-
From Backend Engineer to Head of Mobile (Lessons from Uber)
12 november 2025 · 59 min
What does it take to build a career as a mobile engineer when AI is changing everything? Lees meer
Pasha Mazurin shares how he went from Java backend engineer to Head of Mobile, why he only joins mobile-first companies, and how AI-assisted development brought the joy back to his work. This isn't theory, it's real lessons from 15+ years in the field and now learning Android at a senior level.
In this episode, we cover:
AI-assisted mobile development workflow (the four-window tmux setup)
Why mobile-first companies operate completely differently
Hiring for strengths, not lack of weaknesses (lessons from Uber)
Leading as a hands-on engineer who stays in the trenches
Why React Native doesn't feel native and when to go fully native
Whether you're building your mobile engineering career or figuring out how AI changes your workflow, this conversation offers practical perspectives on staying effective and making intentional career choices.
Connect with Pasha:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kovpas
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:13 - Using AI as Your Junior Engineer Teammate
00:02:33 - The Four-Window Tmux Setup for AI-Assisted Development
00:04:29 - Managing Multiple Features with Git Worktrees
00:05:52 - Why AI Makes You a Better Code Reviewer
00:08:07 - Setting Up Markdown Files for AI Context
00:11:54 - Small Teams vs Big Companies: Where Mobile Engineers Thrive
00:16:26 - The Mobile-First Company Filter That Shapes Every Career Move
00:18:31 - Being Nice: The Underrated Career Skill
00:20:29 - Pick Your Battles: When to Disagree and Commit
00:22:52 - Hire for Strengths, Not Lack of Weaknesses
00:25:16 - Is Software Engineering Still a Good Career Choice?
00:28:19 - How I Accidentally Became a Mobile Engineer
00:31:41 - Why I Only Work on Apps That Matter to People
00:35:08 - Joining Uber During the Big Mobile App Rewrite
00:39:12 - Leading Without Rank: Managing as a Hands-On Engineer
00:43:01 - How AI Changed Mobile Development in 12 Months
00:46:09 …