Ben and Ryan catch up with Nenne Adaora “Adora” Nwodo, who recently joined Stack Overflow as a platform engineering manager. From her childhood fascination with computers to her years as a software engineer at Microsoft, Adora shares her evolution as a technologist. She tells Ben and Ryan about her experience interviewing for and accepting a role at Stack Overflow, the projects she’s working on in her new role, her nonprofit work in the edtech space, and how she prioritizes happiness in her career choices.

Eira May

The home team is joined by Kinnaird McQuaid, founder and CTO of NightVision, which offers developer-friendly API and web app security testing. Kinnaird talks about his path from school-age hacker to white-hat security expert, why it’s important to build security practices into the software development lifecycle, how GenAI is changing security testing, and what security teams need to understand about developers’ working lives.

Eira May

Ben and Ryan talk all things mobile app development with Kenny Johnston, Chief Product Officer at Instabug. They explore what’s unique about mobile observability, how AI tools can reduce developer toil, and why user experience matters so much for app quality.

Eira May

Ben talks with Eran Yahav, a former researcher on IBM Watson who’s now the CTO and cofounder of AI coding company Tabnine. Ben and Eran talk about the intersection of software development and AI, the evolution of program synthesis, and Eran’s path from IBM research to startup CTO. They also discuss how to balance the productivity and learning gains of AI coding tools (especially for junior devs) against very real concerns around quality, security, and tech debt.

Eira May

Fabrizio Ferri-Benedetti, who spent many years as a technical writer for Splunk and New Relic, joins Ben and Ryan for a conversation about the evolving role of documentation in software development. They explore how documentation can (and should) be integrated with code, the importance of quality control, and the hurdles to maintaining up-to-date documentation. Plus: Why technical writers shouldn’t be afraid of LLMs.

Eira May

Web2 and Web3 developers don’t always have the kindest view of one another.

Mayukha Vadari

Today’s guest is Jonathan Schneider, co-founder and CEO of Moderne and creator of OpenRewrite, an open-source automated refactoring ecosystem for source code built to help developers eliminate tech debt. He tells Ben and Ryan about the challenges of automatic refactoring, how Java continues to evolve, and what kind of impact tech debt has on software development. Jonathan also describes the transition from open-source project to startup, why clean code is so important, and the role AI plays for developers right now.

Eira May

Founder and entrepreneur Jyoti Bansal tells Ben, Cassidy, and Eira about the developer challenges he aims to solve with his new venture, Harness, an AI-driven software development platform meant to take the pain out of DevOps. Jyoti shares his journey as a founder, his perspective on the venture capital landscape, and his reasons behind his decision to raise debt capital for Harness.

Eira May

On this episode: Al Sweigart is a software developer, developer advocate, and author of ten Python books. He tells Ben and Ryan why he’s such a fan of the language, why it’s a great programming language for beginners, and how it became the default for so many data science and backend AI projects.

Eira May

Ben and Ryan are joined by software developer and listener Patrick Carlile for a conversation about how the job market for software engineers has changed since the dot-com days, navigating boom-and-bust hiring cycles, and the developers finding work at Walmart and In-N-Out. Plus: “Party in the front, business in the back” isn’t just for haircuts anymore.

Eira May

The home team convenes to discuss the XZ backdoor attack, what great software engineers have in common, how GenAI is changing the face of drug development, and the rise of managed service providers for AI.

Eira May

With all the advancements in software development, apps could be much better. Why aren't they?

Isaac Lyman

If you want to innovate new solutions, you can't rely on data about existing solutions.

Chelsea Troy

Do you solve new problems the same way because it's already done? Or do you go with a new approach that offers more benefits?

Daniel Orner

Dynamic programming isn't about design patterns; it's a way of thinking that breaks down a problem into individual components.

Wayne Bishop

Kristina Lustig, formerly our Director of Design, explains why she took a new role as an associate software developer.

Kristina Lustig

Software design patterns are like best practices employed by many experienced software developers. You can use design patterns to make your application scalable and flexible.

Giridhar Talla

If you’re building a new app today, it might be worth taking a closer look at making it cloud-native and using Kubernetes from the jump. The effort to set up Kubernetes is less than you think. Certainly, it’s less than the effort it would take to refactor your app later on to support containerization. 

Max Horstmann

The key to combining privacy and innovation is baking it into the SDLC. Analogous to application security's (AppSec) upstream shift into the development cycle, privacy belongs at the outset of development, not as an afterthought. Here's why.

Cillian Kieran

Many developers are skeptical of using low-code tooling to build software. Buying software instead of building it has advantages, especially when your goal is to iterate faster.

Karl Hughes

While most news about the 3D printing industry focuses on advancement in hardware and materials, software has played a crucial role in the democratization of 3D printing. Companies like Shapeways have delivered software to generate 3D files, prepare and optimize them for printing, and manufacture and distribute.

Matt Boyle

If you're not careful, what starts as an effort to save time and money can quickly mutate into a major headache.

Rahul Varshneya