The Stack Overflow Podcast

Ryan welcomes Prakash Chandran, CEO of Xano, whose journey spans from Google to innovative startups. They delve into the critical balance between frontend and backend development, highlighting the challenges faced when frontend pushes boundaries that the backend can't handle. Prakash emphasizes the importance of server-side rendering, API preparedness for client integrations, and the complexities of AI-generated UIs. He advocates for starting small with atomic components while maintaining engineer oversight on AI tools, ensuring that teams stay in control of their code.

David Yanacek, Senior Principal Engineer at AWS, shares his extensive expertise in cloud services like SQS and DynamoDB. He debunks the myth that AWS was born from Black Friday, explaining the internal challenges that shaped its services. Discover how he envisions agentic AI, like Kiro, automating tedious DevOps tasks. Yanacek also discusses the evolution of compute with technologies like Lambda and Firecracker, and dives into ensuring reliable traffic management across AWS regions. His insights reveal how innovation is easing developers' operational burdens.

Matt Lyteson, CIO of Technology Platform Transformation at IBM, dives into the intricacies of AI adoption in enterprises. He discusses how IBM integrates AI into workflows to boost productivity and highlights the balance between innovation and risk management, including data privacy concerns. Lyteson also touches on the need for workforce reskilling and shares insights on effective governance, ensuring safe AI deployment. With stories about AI tools like Ask IT, he paints a picture of the future where domain experts collaborate closely with technologists.

Scott Hanselman, VP of Developer Community at Microsoft and host of several tech podcasts, joins Ryan to dive into vibe coding. They explore the importance of human judgment in software development, discussing how AI can assist—but not replace—creative coding. Scott shares insights from a live demo where he coded a Windows ring light app over lunch. The duo emphasizes the differences between prototypes and production-level code, and the necessity of mentoring juniors to cultivate a robust developer community.

Join Vanessa Lee, VP of Product at Shopify, as she dives into the exciting intersection of AI and ecommerce. With a background in robotics, Vanessa shares insights on the development of Sidekick, Shopify's AI assistant that enhances merchant experiences. She discusses the critical role of human oversight in AI and the challenges faced when building these advanced tools. Plus, discover how Shopify aims to deliver personalized user experiences while balancing the needs of both merchants and developers.

Pete Johnson, Field CTO for AI at MongoDB and tech veteran, dives into the evolving landscape of AI and its impact on jobs and productivity. He debunks the myth of AI as a job killer, emphasizing its role as a collaborator with human workers. They discuss crucial decisions for achieving ROI on AI, the importance of embeddings and vector search, and how to overcome the high failure rate in AI projects. Pete also explains how MongoDB's model aligns with modern AI workloads, advocating for curiosity and communication in the evolving tech landscape.

Robert Lester, an Akamai data scientist and AI Pulse blogger, joins the discussion on the rapidly evolving landscape of AI bots. He delves into how these bots differ from traditional crawlers and reveals that AI bot traffic, while still a small percentage, has surged by 400%. Lester emphasizes the importance of understanding bot intent over mere classification, highlights the nuances of bot mitigation based on business models, and identifies commerce as a key target sector, showcasing how emerging agents are reshaping user interactions.

In this engaging discussion, Tom Totenberg, Head of Release Automation at LaunchDarkly, dives into the risky shortcuts often taken in software development. He shares insights from his unique journey from music to tech, revealing common engineering pitfalls like lazy practices and the dangers of AI-generated code that skimp on reviews. Tom emphasizes balancing speed with sustainability, advocating for upfront planning and clear team structures to mitigate technical debt. His wisdom on fostering observability and creating replaceable platforms offers a roadmap for building resilient systems.

Alex "Sandy" Pentland, a renowned MIT and Stanford professor, dives into the interplay between AI and community building. He discusses his book, Shared Wisdom, exploring how technology can assist or hinder community growth. Sandy critiques social media's failure in fostering true connections, and introduces deliberation.io, an AI tool aiming to enhance community discussions. He also addresses the risks and opportunities of generative AI, advocating for human oversight to navigate its challenges while harnessing its potential for societal improvement.

Dan Ciruli, VP and General Manager of Cloud Native at Nutanix, discusses the intersection of legacy systems and modern technologies. He highlights the relevance of virtual machines in enterprise environments and explores how AI can help modernize old codebases. The conversation dives into why VMs should coexist with Kubernetes, the challenges of networking between them, and the organizational biases driving infrastructure decisions. Dan also shares insights on moving workloads back on-premises and the advantages of Nutanix's integrated platform.