

What the Dev?
SD Times
What the Dev? is a podcast by the SD Times editorial team. We cover the biggest and newest topics in software development.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Aug 12, 2025 • 14min
321: Bridging the gap between AI tools and Kubernetes with kagent (with solo.io's Idit Levine)
In this episode originally published on Get With IT, Dave interviews Idit Levine, founder and CEO of solo.io, about kagent, a framework for running agents in Kubernetes. They discuss:Why kagent was createdWhat led solo.io to open source the project and donate it to the CNCFDifficulties with deploying AI agents in large organizations

Aug 5, 2025 • 15min
320: Creating a culture for AI experimentation (with LaunchDarkly's Jenn Wei)
Jenn Wei, Senior Vice President of Product at LaunchDarkly, dives into the vital role of nurturing a culture for AI experimentation. She emphasizes the shift from merely building features to managing dynamic learning systems. Jenn discusses balancing speed and control in AI deployments, and the evolving mindset around 'failing fast.' She highlights leadership's crucial role in cultivating innovation and shares practical strategies, like weekly demos and hackathons, to enhance engagement in AI initiatives.

Jul 29, 2025 • 16min
319: Rules and guardrails for AI coding assistants (with Continue's Brian Douglas)
In this episode, Dave interviews Brian Douglas, head of developer experience at Continue, about the importance of rules for AI tools.They discuss: How to implement rules for AI assistantsUsing rules to replace lengthy promptsPreventing technical debt when using AI-generated code

Jul 22, 2025 • 15min
318: How developer advocacy fuels product growth (with DigitalOcean's Wade Wegner)
In this episode, Jenna interviews Wade Wegner, chief ecosystem and growth officer at DigitalOcean, about the importance of developer advocacy.They discuss:The relationship among developer advocacy, developer relations, and technology evangelismEffective strategies for engaging with developersMetrics to track to know that advocacy is contributing to product growth

Jul 15, 2025 • 10min
317: Using HOPrS to verify that images and videos are real and unedited (with OpenOrigins' Manny Ahmed)
In this episode, Jenna interviews Dr. Manny Ahmed, co-founder and CEO of OpenOrigins, the company behind Human-Oriented Proof System (HOPrS), which can be used to determine if an image or video has been altered or is AI-generated.They discuss:How it works and how it differs from other tools that try to do thisHow it can be used to address concerns around AI-generated contentIts recent acceptance into the Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust Lab

Jul 8, 2025 • 13min
316: The benefits of specialized language models (with OpenText's Justin Cantrall)
In this episode, Dave interviews Justin Cantrall, AI engineer and architect at OpenText, about specialized language models.They discuss:The difference between specialized language models and large language modelsThe benefits and disadvantages of choosing specialized language modelsOpen weight models

Jul 1, 2025 • 22min
315: Gray work in software development (with Quickbase's Maya Palfreyman)
In this episode, Jenna interviews Maya Palfreyman, product marketing director at Quickbase, who leads the company's research on gray work.They discuss:What gray work is and what sort of tasks qualify How it affects software developersThe impact of unaccounted gray work in planning cycles

Jun 24, 2025 • 13min
314: The search revolution: Dense vs. sparse vectors (with Jack Pertschuk from Pinecone)
In this episode, Dave interviews Jack Pertschuk, principal engineer for Algorithms and Platform at Pinecone. They discuss:What semantic search is and where it falls shortThe difference between sparse and dense vectorsHow search technology powers AI

Jun 17, 2025 • 14min
313: Identity and auth in the age of agentic AI (with Stytch's Julianna Lamb)
In this episode, Jenna interviews Julianna Lamb, co-founder and CTO of Stytch, about MCP and how it handles authorization. They discuss:Where MCP gets it right and where more work is neededIssues with traditional auth in agentic workflowsDesigning auth flows for agents vs humans

Jun 10, 2025 • 10min
312: The downsides of vibe coding (with AutonomyAI's Tammuz Dubnov)
In this episode, Jenna Barron interviews Tammuz Dubnov, founder and CTO of AutonomyAI, a company that makes AI agents for software development. They discuss:What vibe coding isThe risks associated with itWhere it can be used and where it should be avoided


