In this episode I talk with Dan Moore from FusionAuth about authentication solutions, testing strategies, and when to skip tests based on risk and cost factors, then dive into philosophical discussions about experience versus knowledge, objective versus subjective programming practices, and imperative versus declarative coding approaches.

• FusionAuth
• Download FusionAuth
• FusionAuth articles
• Use managed services

In this episode I talk with Gayle Laakmann McDowell, author of Cracking the Coding Interview. We discuss coding interviews as well as the current state of the job market and economy.

• Cracking the Coding Interview
• gayle.com
• Nonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Michael Lubas, founder of Paraxial, a software security product for Ruby on Rails applications. We discuss his background in both development and penetration testing, and his recent creation of GemShop - a deliberately vulnerable Rails 8 e-commerce application designed to teach developers about web security through hands-on experience. Michael explains common attack vectors like credential stuffing, the legal complexities around security research, and why developers are actually very interested in security despite stereotypes. We also cover his experience at Rails World and how Paraxial helps Rails developers get started with security.

• Paraxial.io
• Michael Lubas on LinkedIn
• [email protected]
• Nonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Adam McCrea, founder of Judoscale, an autoscaler for Heroku and other platforms. Adam built Judoscale as a side project in 2016 and ran it part-time for five years before going full-time. We discuss developer marketing challenges, the difficulty of measuring marketing attribution, and building sustainable businesses. We also compare notes on our respective developer tools.

In this episode I discuss abstraction and emergence with Jorge Manrubia from 37signals. We explore how abstractions should hide distracting details while showing essential information, debate whether programming guidelines are subjective or objective, and examine how good explanations distinguish useful abstractions from poor ones. The conversation touches on service objects, domain modeling, and the importance of showing actual code when discussing software design principles.

In this episode I talk with Chris Chilek and John Cunningham of LegiPlex about their AI-enhanced legislative monitoring platform. We discuss how they identified the market opportunity, the technical challenges of processing government data, and their approach to building beyond simple AI prompts.

• LegiPlex

In this episode, I talk with Errol Schmidt from Reinteractive about community involvement and sales strategies. Errol shares how he targets Salesforce by teaching their account executives about Heroku, positioning himself as the go-to expert. We discuss how developers are in sales whether they realize it or not, and the importance of relationship building.

• reinteractive

In this episode, Colleen Schnettler discusses her startup HelloQuery, which allows non-technical people to query databases using natural language. She explains her marketing approach for growing the business, including her LinkedIn outreach system and focus on finding the right niche in the crowded AI space. Colleen also shares insights about her new venture, SaaS Marketing Gym, which helps technical founders develop and implement marketing plans.

In this episode I talk with Dave Farley about how good software engineering prioritizes making code easy to change, since we inevitably need to revise our systems as requirements evolve. Dave also shares stories from building ultra-fast financial trading systems, where his team had to repeatedly rethink their architecture to meet performance demands. We also discuss how key concepts like abstraction and modularity connect to scientific thinking, with both requiring a healthy skepticism toward our own assumptions.

• Modern Software Engineering
• The Software Developers' Guidebook
• Nonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Yegor Denisov-Blanch and Simon Obstbaum about their Stanford research on developer productivity. They share findings about "ghost engineers" (9.5% of developers who do minimal work), discuss challenges in measuring engineering output versus productivity, and explain their data-driven approach to software engineering assessment. The conversation explores how different developers contribute varying value, how life circumstances impact work motivation, and their methodology examining source code and Git metadata. The researchers highlight the importance of quantifying engineering contributions and have collected data from over 50,000 engineers in their ongoing study.