Ask HN: What are some of the best podcasts for developers?

241 points by SlickStef11 ↗ HN
I want to know if other developers listen to podcasts and which ones? I love to listen to podcasts at the gym, but need some new ones related to software engineering.

204 comments

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We haven't recorded one in a while, but I have a podcast called To Be Continuous [1] with Edith Harbaugh from Launchdarkly. It was less about specifics like discussing generics in Go or garbage collection, more about how software gets made (product, startups, coding, devtools, etc). I won't claim it's the best software engineering podcast, but developers have told me they liked it :)

[1] https://www.heavybit.com/library/podcasts/to-be-continuous

Syntax is good. The hosts are enjoyable and humble, and have had many interesting recent guests, including the founders of Node, Deno, and Bun in the last few weeks…

https://syntax.fm/

I'm one of the hosts for Software Engineering Radio.

https://se-radio.net

From the About page:

Software Engineering Radio is a podcast targeted at the professional software developer. The goal is to be a lasting educational resource, not a newscast. Now a weekly show, we talk to experts from throughout the software engineering world about the full range of topics that matter to professional developers.

All of the ChangeLog ones are excellent, and they have specific ones for Javascript and Go (and an excellent ops one called ShipIt): https://changelog.com/podcasts
I have such love and hate relationship with them. They tend to pick interesting topics and invite truly awesome people, but gosh do they both suck as hosts - they often get carried away into their mildly related personal experiences or small talk about nothing
We’re always trying to improve! Do you have any examples of us small talking about nothing? That’d be super helpful to know.
Y’all are one of my favorite podcasts. Loved the vim and neovim episodes. Heroku and Tauri ones too. Keep up the good work.
On top of my head:

- the epbf episode where one of you started talking like back in the old days you treated servers as pets and not as cattle

- the episode about auditing startups where most of the talk you were carried away and even said somethin “let’s continue or we won’t finish” or something

- oh and that Silicon Valley tv show stuff that just keeps popping every other time

It’s like that uncle of mine that I meet every Christmas who is always “back in my days” (I remeber when we…) or “in my old hometown they used to” (here at changelog we…)

but that’s just my personal opinion. Time is scare these days so I’d like to get as much info as possible.

But hey, I’m sure there are millions that adore you, cause in general the guests and topics are great

Thanks, these are good examples! I’m not going to disagree with you on the Silicon Valley references… ;)
On the other hand, some of the drift away just shows we're all people. I'm listening podcasts on 1.5-1.7x speed and digressions are all good to me. Keep up the awesome work you do, guys! Real fan of yours!
I feel rude even saying this because I like the work you guys do and don't want to bum this person out, but I had to stop listening to the ones with Johnny. He seems to just wax poetically so often. I'm sure hes super nice, but it feels like he talks for the majority of the episode instead of letting the guests and other hosts speak. Every time he has a thought you know your in for a 3 minute spiel.

Sorry, Johnny! It's probably just me.

The podcast has grown on me a lot. You and Adam tend to speak with vocal fry, and it comes across as a little bro-y at first.

Really loved the recent episodes with Adam Wiggins.

That's the beauty of the internet, you're bound to find things you don't like that others have the exact opposite experience with. I find them extremely relatable, fun, and knowledgeable.
You replied to a comment about 3 different shows, to which are you referring?

Nonetheless, Changelog has great shows and great hosts and great guests. I listen to _a lot_ of dev related podcasts, and I can assure you, they all have some of the human affects you pointed out.

Changelog definitely rises to the top!

Hi Jerod!

That's not my impression at all about them--I've been listening to three of their shows for 5 years now. The interviews are top notch and there are rarely episodes without any specific focus.
hey gytis, you seem to be brutally honest so i'm curious about your feedback for me

i've been a two time guest on the Changelog (https://changelog.com/person/swyx) and always wondered if i could be doing something better as a guest/speaker. I listen to myself at least 2x every time i'm on and spot a bunch of verbal and factual mistakes but thats only the ones i know about - if you listened to mine (no obligation!) did anything tick you off in particular?

This! Can't recommend them enough. With "Ship it!" being the top notch!
hey since youre here - i've been a two time guest on the Changelog (https://changelog.com/person/swyx) and always wondered if i could be doing something better as a guest/speaker. I listen to myself at least 2x every time i'm on and spot a bunch of verbal and factual mistakes but thats only the ones i know about - if you listened to mine (no obligation!) did anything tick you off in particular?
Only related to software engineering but the Lex Fridman Podcast should be in this thread.
That person's interviewing skills are atrocious and his pithy "love" schtick strains credulity given the way he handles criticism of him.
Yeah, but man does he get some great guests from time to time. Really enjoyed Travis Oliphant and Todd Howard in addition to the ones the parent listed.
His "love schtick" is his best feature.
> That person's interviewing skills are atrocious

I think it's a bit unfair. Overall, I'd say he's a decent interviewer and has interesting guests.

That being said, I find him pretentious, and get a bit tired of some recurring cliches and themes. I'd prefer if he would keep things a bit more "neutral". Also he invites occasionally some crackpots, which would be fine if he'd challenge them more, or invite another guest who can.

How's he handle criticism?
yeah, his questions and comments are quite often naive and cringe. But he has incredible guests, from all sorts of domains, and lets them talk for hours.
Agreed, I really enjoy his interviews with people from the industry (and occasionally other people as well). Donald Knuth, John Carmack, Demis Hassabis, Brendan Eich, Chris Lattner to name a few.
I only recently discovered Lex Fridman's podcast (2 monthes ago), but I've been obsessed! The Fiona Hill episode (#335) was great. The climate change discussion between Bjorn Lomborg and Andrew Revkin (#339) was very educational. Ray Kurzweil (#321) was awesome as well. I wonder how that guy (Lex) has time to work his real job since he seems to put out 2 episodes a week and they're all 2-4 hours in length and he clearly does his homework!
I'm pretty sure this is his job. He talks about creating a startup every now and then, but doesn't look like that's happening anytime soon.
Darknet Diaries. You could say it's more about cyber security, but there wouldn't be cyber security guards (lol) if we didn't make the apps!
This one is one of my absolute favorites. The two part xbox episode is insane.
The two-part xbox episode was my personal favorite, because I remember that scene in my early years but never knew the story behind it.

The North Korea 3-parter is equally good IMO.

I‘m the host of Developer Tea. It’s not for everyone (not a technical podcast), but you may enjoy it!

I also recommend Hidden Brain, SyntaxFM if you are into JS especially, and Soft Skills Daily.

Developer Tea has been a great listen. Thanks for your contributions!
Developer Tea has been my go to wind down podcast after a long day. Thank you!
oh yeah! Developer Tea is my favorite podcast, it is short, so it is enough if I go for a walk (or drink some tea)
I'm open to technical and non technical podcasts. What do you mainly talk about?
Talk Python is great for... Python.

Test and Code is a good (the only?) testing podcast (often with a Python angle).

Seconded. The host conveys a genuine sense of deep understanding of Python from the perspective of users.
> Test and Code is a good (the only?) testing podcast (often with a Python angle).

There is also Code with Jason, the author of which wrote a book on testing with Ruby, and the episodes often get into tests.

"Talk python" and "Real python" are the ones I enjoy listening.
Risky Business: It's a podcast about information security.

Even if you're not directly working on security, listening to this podcast will help you have security in mind in your every day developer work.

I recommend Soft Skills Engineering: https://softskills.audio/

The hosts give advice to real problems sent in by listeners involving non-technical issues in the software engineering workplace, such as dealing with problematic co-workers, how best to develop your skills into seniority, how and when to negotiate a pay raise and how to prepare yourself for moving to another job.

I don't think every episode is extremely useful since a lot of the solutions for workplace related problems can be drilled down to "look for a new job and quit your old one", but the hosts are very charismatic and funny. And when they do give good advice it's always something I've kept in mind which has occassionally helped me in my own job.

I second this one. It's the only podcast on/adjacent to engineering that I regularly listen to (even Syntax.fm I'll dip in and out of). Good community, too.
Gonna give this one a listen. Thanks for the recommendation.
> the hosts are very charismatic and funny

For me, this is what makes the show. I normally don't like "conversational" podcasts, but this is my one exception. There are thousands of resources for this kind of thing that are better if you want information density, but Dave and Jamison's conversations are endlessly entertaining, and they are both extremely witty and charismatic.

+1 for Soft Skills Engineering. The hosts are both knowledgable and humorous.
I'm the host of the Engineering Enablement podcast: https://getdx.com/engineering-enablement-podcast

We interview developers and leaders who work on "platform" teams (e.g. devex, devprod, infrastructure) that focus on making developers happier and more productive. If you're interested in this kind of work, or the subject of developer productivity, I think you'd enjoy checking it out.

A couple recent episodes include an interview with a former Dropbox engineer about how they approached measuring productivity, and a conversation with a couple of engineers from LinkedIn who've built a system for gathering real-time feedback about their internal developer tools.

Direct links if helpful:

- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3NxjyIsuxeDMQtisDqBy7D

- Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-engineering-enable...

This one sounds interesting! I'll give it a listen.

Speaking of Platform teams, I'm one of the co-founders of WunderGraph(https://wundergraph.com/) and we're working on a platform right now for API Integration. Are you open to any guests from a early startup?

Shoot me an email at abinoda@getdx.com, would love to connect.

Right now we're focused on interviewing people in internal-facing roles, but we're exploring doing a series that explores interesting vendors and solutions.

I've learned useful things from all of these: The Stack Overflow Podcast, Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman, Software Engineering Radio, and Coding Blocks.
I listen to coding blocks, but a new listener should know they often take on new topics, from reading a book or something, and can explain things wrong a bit more often than I would expect from an authoritative source. Things that sound plausibly correct. So, you have to be more careful with that one.

That said I like it and recommend it.

coder dot show

current epsiode

Amazon used the stage of AWS re:Invent to toss shade on .Net and reveal its broader ambitions.

Plus, why Pydantic is giving Mike a headache.

Elon Musk on Twitter — Good conversation. Among other things, we resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store. Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so.

.NET open source is 'heavily under-funded' says AWS — "We found that .NET open source is heavily under-funded," said Saikat Banerjee, an AWS software development manager, at a re:Invent session this week.

Pydantic V2 Plan - pydantic — The release of version 2 is an opportunity to rebuild pydantic and correct many things that don't make sense - to make pydantic amazing .

PyO3 user guide — Rust bindings for Python, including tools for creating native Python extension modules. Running and interacting with Python code from a Rust binary is also supported.

FastAPI — FastAPI framework, high performance, easy to learn, fast to code, ready for production

Coinbase Wallet on Twitter — You might have noticed you can't send NFTs on Coinbase Wallet iOS anymore. This is because Apple blocked our last app release until we disabled the feature.

Good Morning America on Twitter — @GStephanopoulos sits down with former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried

‘We kind of lost track’: how Sam Bankman-Fried blurred lines between FTX and Alameda — Exchange’s former CEO says he was close to key decisions at nominally separate trading firm

Why Hasn’t Sam Bankman-Fried Been Arrested Yet?

Mike on Mastodon

asdf — Manage multiple runtime versions with a single CLI tool

On the Metal has been discontinued, but highly recommend giving it a listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/on-the-metal/id1488187....

In the security/cryptography space, Security Cryptography Whatever is pretty great (with tptacek): https://securitycryptographywhatever.buzzsprout.com/.

If working in or adjacent to the Microsoft stack, .NET Rocks (running since 2002!) and RunAs radio are great. Not quite developer media, but the .NET rocks geek out episodes are some of my favorite primers on anywhere.

Linear digressions was very good for when I was dabbling in data science, although they are no longer producing episodes.

I really enjoy Coffee with Butterscotch although it’s focused on comedy and game dev on lighter on software engineering.

LogRocket’s PodRocket podcast is pretty good for web development topics.
Darknet Diaries. Learn how to avoid the bad guys. :)
One of my favorite podcasts. The two part xbox episode is my favorite.
The style of this podcast bothers me. I was expecting it to be more conversational than narrated.
It varies. When he has guests that tells stories it is a lot more conversational.

I appreciate the narration a lot because I would have no idea what is going on otherwise. :)

I really enjoy listening to Coding Blocks, especially when they're discussing popular software engineering books (DDD, Devops Handbook, etc.) which give a great overview of what the core concepts of the book are along with practical applications. They don't take themselves too seriously what with having dad joke sections but still manage to keep things informational and current. They can be pretty long so I recommend breaking listening sessions following their survey sections.
Yup, I’ve been listening to them for a number of years. I appreciate the balance of discussing technical concepts and general banter on developer life.
That's so good, too. I was checking if someone mentions them, or to write comment myself. Very good. Sometimes tangential, but enjoy their every episode.
Personally I occasionally listen to the Complete Developer Podcast: https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/

To me the hosts seem pleasant and the topics relevant, it might not be the most detailed podcast out there, but it sure is a comfy one to listen to.

Also, occasionally The Changelog Podcast is nice to listen to: https://changelog.com/podcast

And the CoRecursive Podcast as well: https://corecursive.com/

The latter two have a greater variety of people to talk to, about all sorts of projects in the industry. One of them had a pretty good interview about SQLite, which was an interesting listen - hearing a bit more about how the project came to be and how it was developed.

You're right, all are good. But in my case Changelog is not only occasional. I think I might be listening to most of the episodes of all series/podcasts they do and every episode of "Ship It!" Is the must for me now!