

Confluent Developer ft. Tim Berglund, Adi Polak & Viktor Gamov
Confluent
Hi, we’re Tim Berglund, Adi Polak, and Viktor Gamov and we’re excited to bring you the Confluent Developer podcast (formerly “Streaming Audio.”) Our hand-crafted weekly episodes feature in-depth interviews with our community of software developers (actual human beings - not AI) talking about some of the most interesting challenges they’ve faced in their careers. We aim to explore the conditions that gave rise to each person’s technical hurdles, as well as how their experiences transformed their understanding and approach to building systems. Whether you’re a seasoned open source data streaming engineer, or just someone who’s interested in learning more about Apache Kafka®, Apache Flink® and real-time data, we hope you’ll appreciate the stories, the discussion, and our effort to bring you a high-quality show worth your time.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Feb 2, 2026 • 30min
From “This May Never Work” to WarpStream with Richie Artoul | Ep. 17
Tim Berglund talks to Richie Artoul (WarpStream/Confluent) about his career in data infrastructure. Richie’s first job: working at Howie’s Game Shack, a walk‑in LAN gaming cafe. His challenge: working at Datadog on a new log storage system.SEASON 2 Hosted by Tim Berglund, Adi Polak and Viktor Gamov Produced and Edited by Noelle Gallagher, Peter Furia and Nurie Mohamed Music by Coastal Kites Artwork by Phil Vo 🎧 Subscribe to Confluent Developer wherever you listen to podcasts. ▶️ Subscribe on YouTube, and hit the 🔔 to catch new episodes. 👍 If you enjoyed this, please leave us a rating. 🎧 Confluent also has a podcast for tech leaders: "Life Is But A Stream" hosted by our friend, Joseph Morais.

Jan 26, 2026 • 30min
Inside $3M GPU Racks: Powering Modern AI with Bryan Oliver | Ep. 16
Adi Polak talks to Bryan Oliver (Thoughtworks) about his career in platform engineering and large-scale AI infrastructure. Bryan’s first job: building pools and teaching swimming lessons. His challenge: running large-scale GPU data centers while keeping AI workloads predictable and reliable.SEASON 2 Hosted by Tim Berglund, Adi Polak and Viktor Gamov Produced and Edited by Noelle Gallagher, Peter Furia and Nurie Mohamed Music by Coastal Kites Artwork by Phil Vo 🎧 Subscribe to Confluent Developer wherever you listen to podcasts. ▶️ Subscribe on YouTube, and hit the 🔔 to catch new episodes. 👍 If you enjoyed this, please leave us a rating. 🎧 Confluent also has a podcast for tech leaders: "Life Is But A Stream" hosted by our friend, Joseph Morais.

Jan 19, 2026 • 35min
Hacking Kafka Streams with Sophie Blee‑Goldman | Ep. 15
Tim Berglund talks to Sophie Blee-Goldman (Responsive) about her career in container orchestration and Kafka Streams. Sophie’s first job: interning at Google. Her challenge: helping a hyper-growth customer whose Kafka Streams app was about to hit partition-based scalability limits.SEASON 2 Hosted by Tim Berglund, Adi Polak and Viktor Gamov Produced and Edited by Noelle Gallagher, Peter Furia and Nurie Mohamed Music by Coastal Kites Artwork by Phil Vo 🎧 Subscribe to Confluent Developer wherever you listen to podcasts. ▶️ Subscribe on YouTube, and hit the 🔔 to catch new episodes. 👍 If you enjoyed this, please leave us a rating. 🎧 Confluent also has a podcast for tech leaders: "Life Is But A Stream" hosted by our friend, Joseph Morais.

Jan 12, 2026 • 21min
Turning Chaos into Push-Button Provisioning with Dhiraj Suri| Ep. 14
Viktor Gamov talks to Dhiraj Suri (Confluent) about his career in systems engineering and stream governance. Dhiraj’s first job: software developer at NetApp. His challenge: working at Splunk to stitch together disparate systems into an event-driven provisioning platform.SEASON 2 Hosted by Tim Berglund, Adi Polak and Viktor Gamov Produced and Edited by Noelle Gallagher, Peter Furia and Nurie Mohamed Music by Coastal Kites Artwork by Phil Vo 🎧 Subscribe to Confluent Developer wherever you listen to podcasts. ▶️ Subscribe on YouTube, and hit the 🔔 to catch new episodes. 👍 If you enjoyed this, please leave us a rating. 🎧 Confluent also has a podcast for tech leaders: "Life Is But A Stream" hosted by our friend, Joseph Morais.

Jan 5, 2026 • 16min
The Late Night Hack That Changed Daniel Hinojosa's Career | Ep. 13
Tim Berglund talks to Daniel Hinojosa (an independent consultant) about his career in software development, data engineering, and event-driven architecture. Daniel’s first job: Sears credit card telemarketing. His challenge: working at a company with internal bad blood and being called at 11 p.m. to pull off a late night “security research” hack on Windows and Lotus Notes systems.SEASON 2 Hosted by Tim Berglund, Adi Polak and Viktor Gamov Produced and Edited by Noelle Gallagher, Peter Furia and Nurie Mohamed Music by Coastal Kites Artwork by Phil Vo 🎧 Subscribe to Confluent Developer wherever you listen to podcasts. ▶️ Subscribe on YouTube, and hit the 🔔 to catch new episodes. 👍 If you enjoyed this, please leave us a rating. 🎧 Confluent also has a podcast for tech leaders: "Life Is But A Stream" hosted by our friend, Joseph Morais.

Dec 15, 2025 • 19min
From Early Startups to Product Leadership with Mike Agnich | Ep. 12
Tim Berglund talks to Mike Agnich (Confluent) about his career in product leadership and startups. Mike’s first job: refereeing youth basketball. His challenge: leading product across connectors, governance, stream processing, and partnerships at Confluent.SEASON 2 Hosted by Tim Berglund, Adi Polak and Viktor Gamov Produced and Edited by Noelle Gallagher, Peter Furia and Nurie Mohamed Music by Coastal Kites Artwork by Phil Vo 🎧 Subscribe to Confluent Developer wherever you listen to podcasts. ▶️ Subscribe on YouTube, and hit the 🔔 to catch new episodes. 👍 If you enjoyed this, please leave us a rating. 🎧 Confluent also has a podcast for tech leaders: "Life Is But A Stream" hosted by our friend, Joseph Morais.

Dec 8, 2025 • 22min
Adventures in Data Infrastructure with Gwen Shapira | Ep. 11
Adi Polak talks to Gwen Shapira (Nile) about her career in databases and data infrastructure. Gwen’s first job: a side hustle fixing computers. Her challenge: figuring out why a production report at HP slowed down dramatically after daylight saving time.SEASON 2 Hosted by Tim Berglund, Adi Polak and Viktor Gamov Produced and Edited by Noelle Gallagher, Peter Furia and Nurie Mohamed Music by Coastal Kites Artwork by Phil Vo 🎧 Subscribe to Confluent Developer wherever you listen to podcasts. ▶️ Subscribe on YouTube, and hit the 🔔 to catch new episodes. 👍 If you enjoyed this, please leave us a rating. 🎧 Confluent also has a podcast for tech leaders: "Life Is But A Stream" hosted by our friend, Joseph Morais.

Dec 1, 2025 • 26min
Decreasing Java Build Times with Pratik Patel | Ep. 10
Tim Berglund talks to Pratik Patel (Azul Systems) about his career in developer relations and Java. Pratik’s first job: computer lab assistant at UNC Chapel Hill. His challenge: working at a large enterprise with manual, slow build processes and transforming them through automation.SEASON 2 Hosted by Tim Berglund, Adi Polak and Viktor Gamov Produced and Edited by Noelle Gallagher, Peter Furia and Nurie Mohamed Music by Coastal Kites Artwork by Phil Vo 🎧 Subscribe to Confluent Developer wherever you listen to podcasts. ▶️ Subscribe on YouTube, and hit the 🔔 to catch new episodes. 👍 If you enjoyed this, please leave us a rating. 🎧 Confluent also has a podcast for tech leaders: "Life Is But A Stream" hosted by our friend, Joseph Morais.

Nov 17, 2025 • 37min
Reimagining Stream Processing with Matthias J. Sax | Ep. 9
Matthias J. Sax, a senior software engineer at Confluent and stream processing expert, shares his intriguing career journey from an electrician trainee at BMW to a key figure in Kafka Streams. He discusses the technical challenges in API design and backward compatibility while building Kafka Streams as a library tailored for microservices. Matthias also dives into his PhD work on stream processing, the inspiration from Java Streams, and lessons learned from deprecations. Lastly, he offers valuable advice on deepening expertise in the field.

Nov 10, 2025 • 28min
How Time Kills All Deals in Pre-Sales with Rachel Pedreschi | Ep. 8
Listen: https://confluent.buzzsprout.com | In this episode, Tim Berglund talks to his guest, Rachel Pedreschi (DeltaStream), about her career in pre-sales engineering. Her first job: rectory office assistant at her local parish. Her challenge/theme: working at early-stage startups to bridge sales, marketing, and engineering to reach product-market fit.Check out Tim and Rachel's previous podcast, Keyboard and Quill: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLihIrF0tCXdeJxpAJgbOsY48B9lD_w24v&si=5NjdA-Rss9Rsmyy1SEASON 2 Hosted by Tim Berglund, Adi Polak and Viktor Gamov Produced and Edited by Noelle Gallagher, Peter Furia and Nurie Mohamed Music by Coastal Kites Artwork by Phil Vo 🎧 Subscribe to Confluent Developer wherever you listen to podcasts. ▶️ Subscribe on YouTube, and hit the 🔔 to catch new episodes. 👍 If you enjoyed this, please leave us a rating. 🎧 Confluent also has a podcast for tech leaders: "Life Is But A Stream" hosted by our friend, Joseph Morais.


