Ken Stott, Field CTO of API platform Hasura, tells Ryan about the data doom loop: the concept that organizations are spending lots of money on data systems without seeing improvements in data quality or efficiency.

Eira May

APIs have steadily become the backbone of AI systems, connecting data and tools seamlessly. Discover how they can drive scalable and secure training for AI models and intelligence automation.

Susi O'Neill

Sagar Batchu, CEO and cofounder of API tooling company Speakeasy, talks with Ryan about the evolving API landscape, AI integration, the role of human technologists in an increasingly automated environment, and what people building APIs right now should keep in mind.

Eira May

Ben and Ryan chat with Babak Behzad, senior engineering manager at Verkada, about running a pipeline that vectorizes 25,000 images per second into a custom-built vector database. They discuss whether the speed is due to technical brains or brawn, the benefits of processing on device vs. off, and the importance of privacy when using image recognition on frames from a video camera.

Ryan Donovan

Ben and Ryan talk with Geoffrey (Jef) Huck, a software developer turned public speaking coach, about the importance of soft skills in the tech industry—in particular, speaking and communication skills. Their conversation touches on how Huck’s experiences with anxiety shaped his efforts to become a better communicator, practical techniques for dispelling anxiety and connecting with the audience, and the MVP approach to public speaking.

Eira May

Ryan talks with Sterling Chin, a senior developer advocate at Postman, about the intersection of APIs and AI. They cover the emergence of AI APIs, the importance of quality APIs for AI integrations, and the evolving role of GraphQL in this new landscape. Sterling explains how some organizations are shifting toward an API-first development approach and talks about the future of data access in the agentic era, where APIs will play a crucial role in AI interactions.

Eira May

In this episode, Ben and Ryan sit down with Inbal Shani, Chief Product Officer and Head of R&D at Twilio. They talk about how Twilio is incorporating AI into its offerings, the enormous importance of data quality in achieving high-quality responses from AI, the challenges of integrating cutting-edge AI technology into legacy systems, and how companies are turning to AI to improve developer productivity and customer engagement.

Eira May

Happy New Year! In this episode, Ryan talks with Jetify founder and CEO Daniel Loreto, a former engineering lead at Google and Twitter, about what AI applications have in common with Google Search. They also discuss the challenges inherent in developing AI systems, why a data-driven approach to AI development is important, the implications of non-determinism, and the future of test automation.

Eira May

During the holidays, we’re releasing some highlights from a year full of conversations with developers and technologists. Enjoy! We’ll see you in 2025.

Eira May

Mark Doble, CEO of Alexi, an AI-powered litigation platform, joins Ben to talk about GenAI’s transformative effect on the legal world. Their conversation touches on the importance of ensuring accurate results and eliminating hallucinations when AI tools are used for legal work, how lawyers (like the rest of us) can adapt to GenAI, and what Alexi’s tech stack looks like.

Eira May

The complex relationship of give-and-take in the knowledge journey is untangled in the results from the latest Stack Overflow Knows survey.

Erin Yepis

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

Wondering how to go about creating an LLM that understands your custom data? Start here.

Cameron R. Wolfe, PhD

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

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

Ben and Ryan are joined by Matt Zeiler, founder and CEO of Clarifai, an AI workflow orchestration platform. They talk about how the transformer architecture supplanted convolutional neural networks in AI applications, the infrastructure required for AI implementation, the implications of regulating AI, and the value of synthetic data.

Eira May

Or Lenchner, CEO of Bright Data, joins Ben and Ryan for a deep-dive conversation about the evolving landscape of web data. They talk through the challenges involved in data collection, the role of synthetic data in training large AI models, and how public data access is becoming more restrictive. Or also shares his thoughts on the importance of transparency in data practices, the likely future of data regulation, and the philosophical implications of more people using AI to innovate and solve problems.

Eira May

Will prompt engineering replace the coder’s art or will software engineers who understand code still have a place in future software lifecycles?

Ryan Donovan

Today’s guest is Logan Kilpatrick, a senior product manager at Google, who tells Ben about his journey from software engineering to machine learning to product management, all with an emphasis on reducing developer friction. They talk through the challenges of non-determinism in AI models and how Google is addressing these issues with a new feature: Grounding with Google Search. Plus, what working at the Apple Store taught Logan about product management.

Eira May

Tom Occhino, now Chief Product Officer at Vercel, tells Ben about how he contributed to the development of React at Facebook and the contentious decision to make React open-source. They also talk about what community feedback has been like on Next.js 15, Vercel’s GenAI web development tool, and how Vercel is rethinking IDEs.

Eira May

Here's a (brief) summary of language model finetuning, the various approaches that exist, their purposes, and what we know about how they work.

Cameron R. Wolfe, PhD

Ben welcomes Ricky Robinett, VP of Developer Relations and Community at Cloudflare, and his eight-year-old daughter Fay for a chat about how AI tools are helping new developers get started and how to encourage your kids to try coding.

Eira May