SEEK Bytes

“Tech debt” sounds scary – but what if you reframed it as tech health and made it everyone’s job to keep systems fit, fast and supportable? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, Will, Nick and special guest Troy Mcilvena, Head of Architecture (Online) at SEEK, unpack how SEEK moved from hand-wavy tech debt complaints to a clear, business-aligned tech health model that works from startups through to large enterprises.

This episode's special guest: Troy Mcilvena (SEEK Head of Architecture - Online)

In this episode, we explore:

• Why SEEK talks about tech health instead of tech debt – how binary, subjective “debt” language fails with executives, and how framing work in terms of security, performance, recovery, efficiency, availability and deployability (SPREAD) gets you real buy-in and a bigger slice of your OKRs.

• How SEEK measures and governs tech health at scale – from monthly “wall walks” with CTO/CPO reviewing SPREAD alongside product metrics, to Tech Health’s five pillars (security, fitness for purpose, technical fit, speed & agility, supportability), to criticality and tolerance models that say “this must never go down, this can tolerate a day on paper forms.”

• Practical advice to start your own tech health model – why you should begin with a painful business problem (not a shiny internet framework), anchor everything in revenue, trust and conversion, use SLO experiments (even injecting errors/latency) to find “good enough”, and design ownership, system boundaries and catalogues that make it clear who owns what and when to rewrite vs retire.

If you’re a software engineer, architect, SRE, platform lead or IT manager wondering how to justify “non-feature” work, balance OKRs between “run the business” and “shift the business”, and stop surprise rewrites or outages, this episode is packed with language and tools you can take straight back to your teams.

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A national telco goes dark, OpenAI drops GPT-4 Turbo, and hard drives start randomly deleting terabytes of data – this high-energy Mixed Byte episode of SEEK Bytes is a chaos tour through the realities of modern IT. Will, Seamus and Elliott Millar break down what happened, why it matters, and what every technologist should be thinking about next.

In this episode, we explore:

• Inside the Optus mega-outage – 10+ million customers offline, rail networks and even hospitals impacted, a federal investigation launched, and what it teaches us about incident management, DR and working on systems that underpin critical infrastructure.

• What OpenAI’s Dev Day really means for IT – custom GPTs trained on your proprietary code and docs, models that can infer how microservices connect, help you find system owners and surface inefficiencies, plus GPT-4 Turbo’s huge 128K context window and lower pricing.

• Backup horror stories & the true cost of losing data – from LAN-party hard drives literally burning out and wiping 10–15 years of music and photos, to external drives dying mid-copy and eye-watering $1,000+ data-recovery quotes that only enterprises (or lawyers) can justify.

• Cloud vs physical storage for modern IT teams – why many of us now trust autosynced cloud photo libraries and object storage, when spinning disks and tape still make sense, and how data scale (from personal files to petabytes of 8K video) completely changes your backup strategy.

If you work in software, cloud, data, networking, ops or security, this episode is packed with “that could be us” moments – plus practical takeaways for resilience, AI adoption and not losing the only copy of your life’s work.

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Thinking about your first job in tech or a career switch into IT? SEEK’s software engineering grad program might be your launchpad. In this episode of SEEK Bytes, SEEK engineers sit down with Scott Dann (Graduate Program Manager) and Ben Swart (current grad) to unpack how the program works, who it’s for, and why it’s designed to grow people as much as technical skills.

This episode's special guests: Scott Dann (SEEK Graduate Program Manager) and Ben Swart (SEEK grad)

In this episode, we explore:

• How SEEK’s 13-month grad program actually works – from the one-month Accelerator bootcamp to two six-month rotations grads choose themselves, PitchFest “Shark Tank” team pitches, and a “learn first, deliver naturally” philosophy that takes the pressure off breaking prod on day one.

• Who can apply (and what SEEK really looks for) – why there’s no requirement for a CS degree, how grads have joined from biotech, civil engineering, OT and career-change backgrounds, and why SEEK optimises for passion, teamwork, curiosity, problem-solving and continuous learning over “10x coders.”

• How the program lifts the whole engineering culture – creating mentors and future leaders, rotating grads through teams to spread best practices, building a 50+ person alumni community, boosting diversity, and even inspiring new grad streams in strategy, data, security and architecture.

Whether you’re a student, bootcamp grad, career-switcher or IT leader thinking about talent pipelines, this episode lifts the lid on what a modern, people-first grad program can really do for tech careers – and for the teams around them.

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Which tools are winning the real IDE wars – and does your setup secretly say more about you than your job title? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, Elliot Miller, Seamus Kearney and William Lark unpack the ongoing battle between editors, IDEs and themes across software engineering, cloud, DevOps, data and more.

From VS Code vs IntelliJ/WebStorm vs Notepad++ and Vim to light mode vs dark mode and AI copilots baked into your editor, they explore what actually makes IT work faster, safer and more fun – no matter where you sit in the stack.

In this episode, we explore:

How the original Vim vs Emacs editor wars started – and why those flame wars still shape today’s IDE choices across engineering, DevOps and sysadmin roles

• Why VS Code has surged to the top of Stack Overflow’s surveys, and where heavyweight tools like Visual Studio, IntelliJ, Android Studio and Rider still shine for large codebases, game dev and enterprise apps

• The surprisingly passionate light vs dark mode debate – including accessibility, colour-blindness, multi-window setups with Slack and browsers, and how your theme can genuinely impact comfort and focus

• How AI tools like GitHub Copilot and natural-language “Lego programming” might change IDEs completely, from writing tests for you to a future where you barely see code at all

Whether you’re a software engineer, SRE, cloud engineer, data practitioner or IT generalist, if you live in terminals, dashboards and editors all day, this one will have you rethinking your toolkit – and probably your theme as well.

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Uni degree, masters, or self‑taught from YouTube and side projects – which path actually works? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, engineers Seamus, Will and Rahul share their very different journeys into software development, from traditional computer science and hardware‑heavy degrees to late‑start uni and learning on the job. They dig into what really made the difference: access to information, motivation, structure and the people around them.

They explore why access to MIT‑level content online isn’t enough on its own, how competition and community can push you further, and why perseverance, feedback and good mentors often matter more than the specific pathway you choose.

In this episode, we explore:

• How different routes into tech – formal degrees, masters, bootcamps, online courses and self‑taught projects – shape your skills and confidence

• The role of structure, competition, mentors and face‑to‑face learning in actually finishing what you start and becoming employable

• Practical advice on ongoing learning: choosing resources, building real projects, and crafting a path that fits your life, goals and learning style

If you’re a student, career‑switcher or early‑career developer wondering how to break into software – or keep levelling up once you’re in – this episode is for you.

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Ever feel like your dev day is harder than it needs to be? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, senior engineers Will, Seamus and Reyna unpack developer experience (DevEx) – what it really means, why it’s tied to burnout and retention, and how it shows up everywhere from tools and tests to tickets and team culture.

They break DevEx down into three core dimensions – flow state, cognitive load and feedback loops – then explore how things like empty Jira cards, slow CI, unclear docs, pairing styles and communication norms can either support or destroy your ability to get into the zone and ship.

In this episode, we explore:

• What developer experience actually is, why it matters for productivity, quality and retention, and how it connects directly to developer burnout

• The flow / cognitive load / feedback loop triangle – and how things like empty tickets, missing context and long builds quietly make your job much harder than it needs to be

• Tools and practices that boost DevEx: pairing, Copilot and AI helpers, SKU/Skuba, Braid, Prettier/ESLint, TypeScript, strong architecture and naming that “screams” intent

If you’re a software engineer, tech lead or platform engineer who cares about making everyday dev work smoother, faster and more enjoyable, this episode is for you.

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Wondering what it really takes to lead engineers – not just manage tickets? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, Bridget, Seamus and Elliot sit down with Lester Dong, Head of Selection at SEEK, to talk about the leap from developer to engineering leader and what it means to “build powerful people”. Lester shares how he moved from hands‑on software development into management, how he now looks after 56 engineers across three teams, and why great engineering leadership is about context, scaling yourself, and solving human problems – not just technical ones.

This episode's special guest: Lester Dong (SEEK Head of Engineering - Selection)

In this episode, we explore:

• Engineer vs developer (and why it matters for your career) – moving from “just writing code” to joining the dots between systems, people and business outcomes, building self-awareness, and learning to zoom in to bugs then “helicopter out” to see the bigger picture.

• How to grow from ammo to “barrel” and beyond – Lester’s take on ammunition vs barrels, solving bigger problems to move up, collaborating instead of competing for the one tech-lead slot, and using rotations and context to build a career that outgrows any single team.

• Patterns, microservices & high-performing teams (without the hype) – why design patterns and microservices get overused when people don’t understand the problem, how Seek thinks about monoliths vs microservices, and the practical signals of healthy teams: build pipelines, flaky tests, and change-failure rates under 5%.

If you’re a software engineer, tech lead or aspiring manager who wants to grow beyond code and lead high‑impact teams, this episode is for you.

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Scammy .zip domains, spicy takes on coding interviews, and whether English should “own” programming languages – all in one episode. In this Mixed Bytes instalment of SEEK Bytes, Will, Seamus and Reyna jump between security, hiring and career sustainability in modern software engineering.

They unpack why new .zip and .mov TLDs are a phishing dream, share honest perspectives on take‑home tests and live coding, and dig into what really drives developer burnout – plus how swapping teams, resetting challenge levels and finding meaning in your work can help. They wrap by asking whether it’s okay that most code is written in English, and what non‑English programming languages and comments mean for inclusion and learning.

In this episode, we explore:

• How new .zip and .mov top‑level domains can turn innocent file names into malicious links – and why that’s a huge UX and security problem for everyday users

• The pros and cons of coding exercises in interviews: live vs take‑home, algorithm grills vs domain modelling, and why there’s no perfect, bias‑free way to hire

• Real talk on developer burnout – from never‑ending projects and constant upskilling to lack of recognition – and practical ways to reset through team moves, people leadership and better support

• Whether it’s healthy that most code and docs are in English, and what non‑English languages, comments and symbolic languages mean for accessibility in our industry

If you’re a software engineer or student who cares about security, fair interviews and staying in love with coding long‑term, this episode is for you.

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Write heaps of tests but still not sure you’re testing the right things? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, staff engineer Rahul Ballal joins the crew to dig into what testing is actually for, how it’s evolved from C++ and waterfall days to modern CI/CD, and why your users should never suffer because of your bugs.

From testing pyramids, diamonds and honeycombs to TDD, BDD, black‑box, visual regression and property‑based testing, they unpack how to pick the right tests for your context, focus on the core business logic, and keep your feedback loops fast — whether you’re shipping web apps, data platforms or safety‑critical systems.

In this episode, we explore:

• How testing has changed from armies of manual QA to automation, feature flags, synthetic checks and “testing in production”

• When to lean on unit, integration, end‑to‑end and black‑box tests – and how to aim them at the most important behaviour in your system

• How TDD and BDD really work in practice, and why fast feedback plus confidence to change code are the real superpowers of a great test suite

If you’re a software engineer, tester or tech lead trying to balance speed, safety and sanity in your testing strategy, this episode is for you.

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Seeing GraphQL everywhere at SEEK and wondering what it actually buys you? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, host Seamus Kearney is joined by Nik Skoufis, Reyna Tan and special guest Mark Cheesman to unpack how SEEK uses GraphQL across candidate and hirer systems – from the early “shared free‑for‑all” graph to today’s curated, high‑scale platform. They dig into what GraphQL really is (a query language and graph executor, not “just an API”), how resolvers and data sources work under the hood, and why SEEK leans on GraphQL to power experience APIs for web and mobile instead of hand‑rolling bespoke REST layers.

This episode's special guest: Mark Cheeseman (SEEK Staff Engineer)

In this episode, we explore:

• What GraphQL actually is (beyond “an API”) – a query language and execution engine that turns your request into a graph and traverses it, not just “REST with curly braces” – and why it doesn’t even need HTTP under the hood.

• Why SEEK moved from REST experience APIs to GraphQL – unifying messy mobile and web backends, replacing one-off “backend-for-frontend” services with a flexible query layer so clients can build their own experience APIs on every request.

• Resolvers, data sources & performance at scale – how resolvers map to REST APIs, S3, caches and in-memory data, why SEEK prefers field-level resolvers and data-source caching, and how graph theory and query-complexity limits protect against “select * from everything” type queries.

• Security, rate limiting & degraded behaviour – preventing scraping and abusive queries, using query-level rules on top of IP-based rate limiting, and designing for graceful degradation when upstream services are slow or down instead of treating the site as simply “up or down”.

• Custodianship, observability & culture – why a shared graph needs an owning team, how SEEK uses OpenTelemetry, Datadog and custom metrics to see who’s calling what, find hotspots and retire unused fields, and how pairing and “graph custodians” help other teams onboard safely.

If you’re a frontend, backend or full‑stack engineer trying to decide when GraphQL is worth it – or just want to understand SEEK’s graph stack better – this episode is for you.

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