Backend Banter

The Tools Are Smarter. Are You? ft. YK Sugi | S02 E12

6.3K views · 1y ago · 1:08:13

Guest: YK Sugi

Today we welcome YK Sugi—engineer, educator, and the mind behind CSS Dojo—for the final episode of season two. We talk about his journey from YouTube dev tutorials to building one of Sourcegraph’s most-used AI tools, and how the role of DevRel has changed (and in some cases, disappeared). YK also breaks down how senior engineers are actually using AI, why fundamentals still matter, and how Agent Chat was born during a company hackathon.

Topics: Starting Out with CSS Dojo · DevRel Burnout and Market Whiplash · Building Agent Chat at Sourcegraph · Claude, Cursor, and AI Tool Comparisons · AI Use: Juniors vs. Seniors · Designing Dev Tools That Think

How to Win at Learning ft. Quincy Larson | S02 E11

4.9K views · 1y ago · 1:13:55

Guest: Quincy Larson

In this episode, we sit down with Quincy Larson, founder of Free Code Camp, to explore his incredible path from high school dropout to influential tech educator. Quincy shares his unconventional journey — from living in his car and working fast food jobs to building one of the most impactful coding education platforms in the world.

Topics: Running a charity · Getting deep into podcasts · Quincy's lifestyle · The Birth of Free Code Camp · What has freecodecamp been working on · Building Skills vs. Chasing Shortcuts

Mitchell Hashimoto: From Terraform to Ghostty | S02 E10

24K views · 1y ago · 1:04:30

Guest: Mitchell Hashimoto

Today we welcome Mitchell Hashimoto, co-founder of HashiCorp and creator of Ghostty, a new terminal emulator built in Zig. In this episode, Mitchell shares the story behind Ghostty, how his curiosity about terminals evolved into a full-fledged project, and why Zig became his language of choice.

Topics: Mitchell’s Journey at HashiCorp · What is Ghostty and Why Build It? · Native Performance and Zig’s Advantage · Why Mitchell Chose Zig Over Rust · Ghostty’s Road to Package Repositories · Future Plans for Ghostty

Vercel’s Big AI Bet. ft. Malte Ubl | S02 E09

2.2K views · 1y ago · 47:59

Guest: Malte Ubl

Today we welcome Malte Ubl, CTO of Vercel, to discuss the evolution of frontend development and the role of AI in shaping modern engineering workflows. Malte dives into V0, Vercel's innovative tool for generating frontend code using AI, and explains how it empowers developers—especially backend engineers—to build full-stack applications.

Topics: What is V0 and Why Did Vercel Build It? · The Technical Challenges Behind V0 · How V0 Leverages Tailwind and TypeScript · AI's Impact on Frontend Development · Verticalization of Engineering Roles · How AI is Changing Development Workflows

Build skills, not degrees. ft. Madison Kanna | S02 E08

10K views · 1y ago · 54:03

Guests: Madison Kanna, Madison Kana

Today we welcome Madison Kana—a self-taught dev who defied the traditional path. From dropping out and navigating a world of homeschooling to launching the Code Book Club, Madison transformed her unconventional journey into a thriving community of coders. In this episode, she shares how bypassing the typical education route fueled her passion, the real challenges of learning on your own, and the power of mentorship in building a dynamic tech career.

Topics: Where did it all start? · Dropping out · How Madison started learning code · Team leading · Code Book Club · Learn out loud

Roll your own auth or you’re ngmi. ft. Dreams of Code | S02 E07

11K views · 1y ago · 1:14:00

This time Elliot from @dreamsofcode joins us to talk about building his own course platform we dive into why he chose to go custom, the tech stack behind his platform, and the philosophy of building vs. buying in software.

Topics: Why Build a Custom Course Platform? · The Challenges of Serving Video Content · The Build vs. Buy Debate · What Was Bought vs. Built? · How AI Is Changing Development · GDPR, Privacy, and Analytics

Programming Music with Sonic Pi feat. Sam Aaron | S02 E06

2.2K views · 1y ago · 1:05:10

Guests: Sonic Pi, Sam Aaron

Today we bring Sam Aaron, the creator of Sonic Pi, a free code-based music creation and performance tool that lets you use simple code to turn your computer into a fully networked live coding music studio! It is also used to engage students in computer science and programming through music creation!

Topics: Sonic Pi Origin Story · Connection To Raspberry Pi · But What Is Sonic Pi? · Is Ruby The Primary Language Used In Sonic Pi? · A Small Sonic Pi Showcase · Collaboration through Git

KRAZAM Unfiltered feat. Ben Burke | S02 E05

6.3K views · 1y ago · 1:06:40

Guest: Ben Burke

Today, we bring a very special guest, one whose face you might recognise, one that appears on your homepages with a sporadic video and seemingly disappears. His name is Benjamin Burke, or simply Ben, he’s the co-creator of @KRAZAM , a channel that consists of sketches that combine grotesque and absurdist humor with technological anxiety, satirizing the tech industry and the modern alienation of the corporate life in general.

Topics: KRAZAM's Origin Story · How Much More Leftover Footage Does KRAZAM have? · Are Both Ben and Shiva Programmers? · Inspiration Behind "The Hustle" · Has Ben Read Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations"? · The Actual Introduction to KRAZAM

Does ADHD really make programming harder? ft. Chris Ferdinandi | S2 E04

8K views · 1y ago · 1:20:13

Guest: Chris Ferdinandi

Lane chats with Chris Ferdinandi—creator of Go Make Things and ADHD for the Win—a frontend dev, educator, and all-around expert in making JavaScript (and learning) simpler. Chris has built a career helping devs cut through the noise, level up their skills, and embrace ADHD-friendly ways to stay focused and productive.

Topics: Why so many devs have ADHD · Quick explanation of ADHD · Is ADHD actually more common now? · ADHD, dopamine, and why we can’t put our phones down · Trying meds for ADHD – what’s it like? · How ADHDftw got started

Stop Worrying About AI feat. Danny Thompson | S2 E03

5K views · 1y ago · 1:09:44

Guest: Danny Thompson

We’re joined by Danny Thompson, currently Director of Technology at This Dot Labs and technical leader and organizer of the Dallas Software Developers Group, where he fosters vibrant local tech ecosystem through workshops, cohorts, and meetups.

Topics: How Danny Got Into Coding · Meetups and Affordable Conferences · Overview of This Dot Labs · Building Apps on Top of Stripe · Businesses Focus on Functionality Over Aesthetics · Danny's Career Progression

Everyone is doing memory management wrong. feat. Ryan Fleury | S2 E02

49K views · 1y ago · 1:11:50

Guest: Ryan Fleury

This week on Backend Banter, we’re joined by Ryan Fleury, a talented game developer currently working with Epic Games on their Rad Debugger project. Ryan shares his journey from building games to creating powerful developer tools, offering insights into arenas, memory management, and the fascinating world of programming from the ground up.

Topics: Ryan Fleury's Path to Game Development · From Engines to Debugging Tools · Arenas Explained: Memory Management Basics · Arenas vs. Garbage Collectors · Real-World Applications of Arenas · Why Pointer Stability Matters

Is Elixir the Future? feat. José Valim | S2 E01

25K views · 1y ago · 1:23:26

Guest: José Valim

We cover the nitty-gritty of the language, ranging from simple topics such as the decision behind not making Elixir be statically typed, into the more complex cross-machine communication. We go over how Elixir's features compare with those of other languages, work habits of today's developers, José's own day-to-day development, and a lot more!

Topics: Embarrassing Stories with Foreign Languages · Who is José Valim? (and Elixir's Popularity) · Does José Use Phoenix a Lot? · Why Isn't Elixir Statically Typed? · External Input vs. Internal Code Logic · Quick Overview of BEAM languages

Season Finale: The Boot.dev Origin Story w/ Allan | 069

5.5K views · 2y ago · 1:14:50

Today, we bring you the final episode of the first season of Backend Banter! It’s a wrap up for now. With 69 episodes behind us, we want to tell you the story of Boot Dev and how far we’ve come from our beginnings, and for that, we bring Allan Lires, the first official employee and the second person to work on our platform!

Topics: Last episode of Season 1 of Backend Banter · Boot.dev Story and what this episode will be about · How and when Allan was hired to work at Boot.dev · Timeline on Boot.dev · Guessing game · The Rebranding Process

Should you trust tech influencers? | 068

8.5K views · 2y ago · 1:12:51

Guest: Chuck Carpenter

Today we welcome Chuck Carpenter aka Charles The 3rd, co-host at Whiskey Web and Whatnot. As two content creators in the tech scene, we discuss if and how celebrity developers and tech influencers are a good thing for the community, how we should be careful when choosing technologies based on influencers’ opinions, why so many people nowadays want to speedrun their whole career and how that could be self-sabotage, and a lot more!

Topics: Does Charles listen to his own podcast episodes? · Are celebrity developers a good thing? · Podcasts are usually centered around a business · We are essentially entertainers · Tech choices being influenced by creators · Why ThePrimeagen stood out from other tech influencers

How to Be Better than 96.487% of Developers | 067

15K views · 2y ago · 58:32

In today’s episode, we bring back Aaron Francis. If you haven’t watched our previous episode with him, he is a software developer, fellow content creator and co-founder of Try Hard Studios. In the past he’s been an accountant at a Big 4 but now he focuses on Laravel, web development and all things business and video.

Topics: Podcast listening going up when having a kid · Podcast about earning the first million · You have to choose the entertainment vs education levels · You have to shape your material to the platforms · Long hour videos vs 2 minute ones · Are the videos in the High Performance SQLite in linear order?