Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers

Héctor Ramón Jiménez, creator of the iced GUI toolkit for Rust, built an Elm-inspired, cross-platform UI library. He talks about why iced exists, the rendering pipeline from elements to pixels, core pieces like winit, wgpu and TinySkia, async tasks for non-blocking UI, headless mode for testing, the test recorder and runtime emulator, and the challenges of mobile support and accessibility.

Dan Lorenc, co-founder and CEO of Chainguard and software supply chain security expert. He explains what Sigstore is for and how it links source to artifacts. Short pieces cover transparency logs, Fulcio, Rekor, and Cosign. Discussion includes CI/CD signing, real-world adoption, machine-learning model signing, and practical steps like centralizing builds and trying Cosign.

Scott Hanselman, Microsoft VP of Developer Community and long-time dev advocate, blogger, and podcaster. He traces AI tools from autocomplete to agentic loops. He warns against vague prompts and shows why fundamentals let you steer models. He covers verification: tests, harnesses, sandboxing, and when to treat models as junior or senior collaborators.

Marc Brooker, VP and Distinguished Engineer at AWS, brings decades of software engineering and AI-assisted development expertise. He explores specification-driven development as an alternative to prompt-by-prompt coding. Short segments cover using specs to drive code and tests, agentic toolsets like Kiro, managing context for AI agents, and how roles shift toward design, validation, and long-term maintainability.

Bryan Cantrill, co-founder and CTO of Oxide Computer and former Joyent CTO famed for DTrace, talks data-center control planes. He recounts hyperscale surprises, firmware and BMC pitfalls, and why public-cloud hardware diverges from commodity gear. He explains what a control plane does, why Joyent struggled with Node.js, and why Oxide chose Rust and Illumos for a vertically integrated rack design.

Jens Gustedt, senior scientist, author of Modern C, and former ISO C co-editor, walks through C developments since C23. Short takes on pointer provenance, bit-precise and checked integer types, type inference and nullptr changes. He outlines a transition header to ease migration, debates like lambdas, and a four-tier approach to program failure.

Subhajit Paul, an ERP implementation leader with 20+ years in electronics manufacturing and supply chain, and an IEEE author. He explains core ERP flows like order-to-cash and procure-to-pay. He recounts real-world rollouts—what succeeds and what fails. He explores practical ML uses such as inventory and anomaly detection, plus emerging generative AI agents and integration challenges.

Yechezkel “Chez” Rabinovich, CTO and co-founder at Groundcover, a Kubernetes observability and migration specialist. He discusses why teams move observability stacks. He walks through discovery of hidden integrations, phased migration strategies, and validation techniques like dual-shipping. He also explains OpenTelemetry’s role and what it does not standardize, plus metrics to track migration health.

Murat Erder, CTO and author focused on architecture and data integration; Eoin Woods, consultant and author specializing in software architecture and green engineering. They discuss Continuous Architecture: making architectural decisions continuously, empowering teams to own decisions, using feedback loops and metrics, balancing upfront design with flexibility, governance that enables teams, and AI’s emerging role in architecture.

Sriram Panyam, a technical fellow with experience at GM, Google, and LinkedIn, dives into the nitty-gritty of system design interviews. He discusses what these interviews entail and who faces them, from juniors to managers. Sriram shares common questions and highlights the importance of handling ambiguity and requirements. He offers a structured approach for candidates, emphasizing time management and clear communication. Personal stories of his own interview experiences add a relatable touch, making this conversation both insightful and practical.