Beyond Coding

Patrick Akil

For software engineers ready to level up. Learn from CTOs, principal engineers, and tech leaders about the skills beyond coding: from technical mastery to product thinking and career growth. Created by Patrick Akil

  1. AI Cloud CTO: Which Engineering Skills Are Most In-Demand Right Now

    22 h fa

    AI Cloud CTO: Which Engineering Skills Are Most In-Demand Right Now

    Danila Shtan runs engineering at Nebius, one of the biggest AI clouds in the world, and he told me exactly which engineers he hires on the spot. There are only hundreds of people on the planet with the skill he wants most, and it is not the one you are grinding on. We get into which engineering skills are actually scarce and well paid today, and which ones are quietly on the way out. In this episode we cover: The engineering skills in highest demand right now and which ones are on the way outWhy an AI cloud CTO restricts Claude Code inside his own companyDan's rule for merging any AI-written code into productionWhy working with an agent is like managing a junior engineerThe interview question that surfaces top tier engineer qualitiesWhy he still runs algorithm interviews todayIf you are an engineer trying to work out where the value sits now that agents write the easy code, this is a straight answer from the person building the infrastructure underneath all of it. Timestamps:00:00:00 - AI Agents doing everything is a lie00:00:44 - What Nebius Actually Does00:04:31 - The Engineers In Highest Demand Right Now00:06:58 - Inside the Hiring Process00:08:12 - The Bootcamp: You Join the Company, Not a Team00:10:51 - Why You Can't Use AI in Their Interviews00:16:31 - Why He Banned the Word "Headcount"00:22:25 - Why a CTO Is Not a Technical Role00:24:49 - The One Skill Every Manager Needs00:25:48 - Why Smart People Fail at This00:28:17 - "The Promise of Agents Is Bullshit"00:31:39 - How AI Multiplies Your Baseline Skill00:35:32 - Why an AI Agent Is Just a Junior Engineer00:36:57 - Why He Won't Let His Team Use Claude Code00:37:46 - His Rule for Merging AI-Written Code00:40:28 - The Interview That Predicts Great Engineers00:42:32 - From T-Shaped to Round-Shaped Engineers00:44:30 - Is There Still a Path for Juniors?00:45:28 - Why Hard Skills No Longer Matter00:47:11 - The Engineers Who Will Become Obsolete00:50:04 - The Real Reason People Stay at Banks00:52:26 - Where AI Agents Actually Help00:54:40 - Why He Still Uses Algorithm Interviews00:56:05 - Tech Enthusiasts vs. Real Engineers #AIEngineering #TechCareers #SoftwareEngineering

    59 min
  2. Career Expert: Why Applying to Jobs No Longer Works

    24 giu

    Career Expert: Why Applying to Jobs No Longer Works

    120,000 tech workers have been laid off in 2026, yet there are 60,000 open roles. Engineers applying are sending out 100 applications for zero replies. Former Reddit, Uber and Disney Plus recruiter Keki Mwaba breaks down why the market broke, why every resume now looks identical, and what gets you hired when yours looks like everyone else's. In this video, we cover: Why 120,000 layoffs and 60,000 open roles don't add upWhy CVs have become too good and it's no longer enoughHow to treat LinkedIn as a platformGetting into companies like OpenAI and AnthropicHow to reach out to people without seeming fakeIf you're a software engineer trying to stand out in the most competitive tech market in years, this is the playbook. Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:35 - How bad is the tech job market in 2026? 00:02:38 - 120,000 laid off, 60,000 jobs open: the math is not mathing 00:04:05 - LinkedIn isn't a CV, it's a platform 00:08:30 - The underrated move: comment your way into a job 00:10:48 - Is AI ruining LinkedIn? 00:13:50 - Never feel safe: how to prepare before a layoff 00:15:34 - What layoffs do to the people who stay 00:17:03 - "Did I just automate myself out of a job?" 00:18:48 - Why every resume now looks the same 00:20:11 - Why referrals beat applications 00:22:13 - Do software engineers still have a future? 00:23:32 - The staff engineer who wants to quit for plumbing 00:26:16 - Patrick on his own job security 00:30:21 - 70% of job descriptions now demand AI skills 00:31:34 - Is middle management disappearing? 00:33:53 - The impossible ask: stay current, deliver, and not burn out 00:37:02 - How to get hired at OpenAI or Anthropic 00:39:18 - How to message someone without seeming fake 00:41:42 - Build a portfolio that shows your thinking 00:45:12 - Your personal branding plan for the next few weeks Guest: Keki Mwaba, career and recruitment expert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keki-mwaba #techjobs #softwareengineering #careeradvice

    47 min
  3. Why the Frontrunners Say Coding Is Solved BUT Engineering is Not

    17 giu

    Why the Frontrunners Say Coding Is Solved BUT Engineering is Not

    Jeroen Gordijn and Jeroen Dee: two frontrunners who stopped writing code months ago and say software development is already solved. Typing code is no longer necessary, but what matters more now? If you're an engineer that loves coding, you're in a tougher spot than you might realize. In this video, we cover: - Why writing code is "solved" but engineering isn't - Spec-driven development and how to get it started in your team - The "Dark Factory" and why code review is a huge bottleneck - Model vs harness: what matters more, and why - The unhealthy side of agentic coding If you write software for a living and you're trying to work out what your job becomes next, start here. Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Coding Is No Longer Necessary 00:00:43 - Why "Software Development Is Already Solved" 00:02:57 - Should You Even Read the AI's Code? 00:05:05 - What Is a "Dark Factory"? 00:06:52 - If You Can Regenerate It, Why Care About Quality? 00:07:49 - Spec-Driven Development Explained 00:11:32 - Adopting Specs Without Starting From Scratch 00:13:23 - Model vs Harness: What Matters More? 00:17:27 - Is Your Harness the New IDE? 00:20:18 - Why Everyone Plateaus (and the Innovation Token) 00:22:50 - Where to Actually Spend Your Time 00:24:57 - The Unhealthy Side: "It's Free Cocaine" 00:28:00 - Is This Sustainable, or Just Subsidized? 00:30:33 - Should You Run Models Locally? 00:34:31 - Looping, Scale, and Automating Review 00:37:53 - What's Left for Engineers to Do? 00:39:13 - If You Love Writing Code, You're in Trouble 00:41:18 - Why Teams Are Getting Smaller 00:43:03 - What an "Agentic Company" Looks Like 00:46:25 - How to Start: Find Your Spark 00:50:13 - The One Habit That Keeps You Ahead Guests: Jeroen Gordijn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeroengordijn Jeroen Dee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeroendee #AgenticEngineering #SoftwareEngineering #Agents

    52 min
  4. Why The Best Software Engineers Are Solving Code Review Bottlenecks Now

    10 giu

    Why The Best Software Engineers Are Solving Code Review Bottlenecks Now

    AI generates 10x more code, but your senior engineers still review it by hand and it's burning them out. Even Google admits code review is now the bottleneck nobody knows how to solve. Florian Buetow, AI engineer at Xebia, has been running experiments to eliminate the human from the review loop entirely, and what he found changes where engineers should focus their effort. In this episode, we cover: Why "stop doing code reviews" is a serious answer (and what replaces them)The guardrails that gave the most value: Semgrep rules, architectural unit tests, and stop hooksWhy your harness matters more than the modelHow Amazon and Google police AI-generated code with policiesAI burnout, cognitive debt, and "cognitive surrender": what stays your responsibilityStep one for adopting agentic software engineering in your team this weekWhether you're an individual developer drowning in AI-generated PRs or driving AI adoption across a large engineering org, you'll leave with concrete experiments to run. More from Florian: https://cracking-ai-engineering.com Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:40 - Code Review Is Software Engineering's Biggest Bottleneck 00:01:57 - How Amazon and Big Tech Police AI-Generated Code 00:02:55 - Horizontal vs Vertical Scaling of AI Engineering 00:04:37 - Why "No Code Reviews" Might Be the Answer 00:05:22 - Engineering Environments That Give Agents Feedback 00:06:46 - Why the Harness Matters More Than the Model 00:07:21 - When Spec-Driven Development Failed and TDD Worked 00:10:06 - Stop Hooks, Ralph Loops, and Automated Feedback 00:11:30 - The Guardrails That Gave the Most Value 00:14:00 - Architectural Constraints That Keep AI Code Sane 00:15:07 - What Remains a Human Responsibility 00:17:33 - Why All the Hard Work Moves Upfront Now 00:18:47 - The Incredible Skill Junior Engineers Should Learn 00:20:26 - AI Burnout: Why Engineers Are Exhausted 00:22:42 - Cognitive Surrender: Letting the Agent Take Over 00:23:25 - The Hand Grenade Problem with AI at Work 00:24:08 - Outsourcing Code Review to AI Itself 00:26:39 - Teams That Fully Adopted Spec-Driven Development 00:29:01 - Can You Rebuild Software From Tests Alone? 00:30:27 - How to Experiment and Stay Ahead 00:33:15 - Spying on What Subagents Tell Each Other 00:33:59 - Step One: How to Start with Guardrails 00:36:08 - Data Mining Your Session Logs for Patterns 00:37:00 - Stuck With One Harness? Here's What to Do 00:38:28 - The One Experiment to Run This Week #softwareengineering #aicoding #codereview

    40 min
  5. Google DeepMind Lead: The New Rules of Software Engineering

    3 giu

    Google DeepMind Lead: The New Rules of Software Engineering

    Are you ready to adapt to the rapidly evolving rules of software development? In this deep dive, Logan Kilpatrick, Director and Engineer at Google DeepMind, breaks down how AI agents, advanced model-product symbiosis, and tools like Gemini 3.5 Flash are fundamentally shifting the engineering bottleneck. Learn how to maintain your competitive advantage by moving beyond the keyboard to focus on problem-solving, architectural taste, and system understanding. In this video, we cover: The changing role of the IDE and the rise of agent managers in code generation.Overcoming team bottlenecks in code review and CI/CD test execution execution loops.Why "agent coverage" and context integration are the next big tech stack metrics.Building a bulletproof software portfolio through permissionless open-source contributions.The critical difference between outsourcing intelligence versus outsourcing understanding.This episode is for software engineers, tech leads, and computer science students looking to future-proof their careers and reset their ambitions in the era of autonomous engineering agents. Timestamps:00:00:00 - Intro00:00:40 - Code Review Is Software Engineering's Biggest Bottleneck00:01:57 - How Amazon and Big Tech Police AI-Generated Code00:02:55 - Horizontal vs Vertical Scaling of AI Engineering00:04:37 - Why "No Code Reviews" Might Be the Answer00:05:22 - Engineering Environments That Give Agents Feedback00:06:46 - Why the Harness Matters More Than the Model00:07:21 - When Spec-Driven Development Failed and TDD Worked00:10:06 - Stop Hooks, Ralph Loops, and Automated Feedback00:11:30 - The Guardrails That Gave the Most Value00:14:00 - Architectural Constraints That Keep AI Code Sane00:15:07 - What Remains a Human Responsibility00:17:33 - Why All the Hard Work Moves Upfront Now00:18:47 - The Incredible Skill Junior Engineers Should Learn00:20:26 - AI Burnout: Why Engineers Are Exhausted00:22:42 - Cognitive Surrender: Letting the Agent Take Over00:23:25 - The Hand Grenade Problem with AI at Work00:24:08 - Outsourcing Code Review to AI Itself00:26:39 - Teams That Fully Adopted Spec-Driven Development00:29:01 - Can You Rebuild Software From Tests Alone?00:30:27 - How to Experiment and Stay Ahead00:33:15 - Spying on What Subagents Tell Each Other00:33:59 - Step One: How to Start with Guardrails00:36:08 - Data Mining Your Session Logs for Patterns00:37:00 - Stuck With One Harness? Here's What to Do00:38:28 - The One Experiment to Run This Week #SoftwareEngineering #AIAgents #GoogleDeepMind

    24 min
  6. Addy Osmani: Top Tier Software Engineers vs. AI Agents. The Mindset You Need

    28 mag

    Addy Osmani: Top Tier Software Engineers vs. AI Agents. The Mindset You Need

    As AI agents transform software engineering, how do you leverage them without losing your coding skills or risking production disasters? In this episode, Google Cloud AI Director Addy Osmani breaks down the shift from babysitting basic models to mastering advanced agent harnesses. Discover how to safely delegate complex technical tasks while maintaining your human engineering identity and setting up secure boundaries for your AI. In this episode, we cover: Human Identity vs. Machine Identity: How to avoid the trap of "cognitive surrender" and keep your critical thinking sharp.Stopping the AI "Babysitting" Cycle: How to transition from constant manual oversight to secure agent governance.Rising Abstractions: Why agent harnesses (like Claude Code and Antigravity) are changing how software is built.The Verification Bottleneck: Why coding is easy, but verifying that your agent didn't ruin production is the real challenge.This episode is a must-watch for software engineers and tech leaders looking to integrate AI agents into their workflows safely and effectively. You’ll walk away with actionable frameworks to boost your development velocity without letting your own technical edge rot. Guest:Addy Osmani is a Director at Google Cloud AI, famous for his work on Google Chrome and focused on AI agents in software engineering. Timestamps:00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:45 - The Reality of "Babysitting" Your AI Agent Setup 00:01:16 - How to Stop Babysitting and Build Secure AI Agents 00:02:36 - The Dangerous Mistakes of Uncontrolled AI Experiments 00:03:39 - Rising Abstractions: From Code to Agent Harnesses 00:05:18 - Why You Should Delegate Technical Tasks to AI 00:07:05 - How to Choose the Best AI Agent Harness 00:08:31 - How to Manage Your Developer Innovation Budget 00:10:17 - Are We Losing Pair Programming to AI Agents? 00:12:14 - Cognitive Surrender: The Hidden Threat of Generated Code 00:13:40 - The Verification Bottleneck: How to Trust AI Code 00:15:59 - How to Safely Scale Your Personal AI Bandwidth #AIAgents #SoftwareEngineering #DeveloperProductivity

    18 min
  7. What World Class Software Engineers Do That You Don't

    20 mag

    What World Class Software Engineers Do That You Don't

    After 250 episodes of Beyond Coding, a pattern shows up again and again: the engineers who thrive aren't the ones chasing the newest tool or the cleanest code. They're the ones who learn fast, keep things simple, and understand the business they're building for. This special pulls the sharpest moments from recent guests into one conversation about what actually makes a great software engineer in 2026. We cover: Why learning is the only skill that outlives every tool, language, and platformHow the best architects act more like scouts than cartographersWhy "simple is complicated enough" beats clean code dogma at scaleHow to design systems that evolve instead of trying to predict 10 years outWhat junior engineers should actually do in the age of AI agentsFor software engineers who want to think clearer, build better, and grow into the kind of engineer companies can't replace. Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:17 - Why You Should Increase Your Breadth, Not Just Focus 00:02:16 - The Only Skill That Survives Every Tech Cycle 00:04:14 - Buzzwords Are Just Old Ideas in New Clothes 00:05:26 - What Clients Say vs What They Actually Want 00:06:45 - The Bad Architects Are Easier to Spot 00:08:50 - Why Good Engineers Use Boring Technology 00:11:40 - Stop Building for 100x Scale on Day One 00:13:13 - The Dogma of Clean Code Is Hurting You 00:15:15 - Simple Is Complicated Enough at Scale 00:16:28 - Design Only for the Next Order of Magnitude 00:18:19 - How to Talk Tech with Non-Technical Stakeholders 00:19:30 - The $50,000-Per-Hour Container Terminal Lesson 00:22:11 - Architects Are No Longer Cartographers, They're Scouts 00:25:18 - Start with a Question, Not an Answer 00:26:49 - Junior to Senior in the Age of AI Agents 00:27:29 - Don't Be a Fool with a Tool 00:29:43 - From Explicit to Implicit Knowledge Economy 00:30:38 - Use AI to Validate, Not to Generate #softwareengineering #engineeringcareer #softwarearchitecture

    33 min
  8. What Separates Cracked Software Engineers From Everyone Else

    6 mag

    What Separates Cracked Software Engineers From Everyone Else

    Reddit Reacts is back. I'm taking the most controversial takes on software engineering from Reddit and giving you my unfiltered perspective on what's happening, from juniors leveraging AI tools, to the culling of engineers who refuse to adapt, to whether you should take a gap year after a layoff. In this episode, we cover: How to become technically "cracked" and what really separates great engineersWhy juniors learning with AI have an edge over 20-year veteransThe future of writing code by hand (and why fulfillment is shifting)Vibe coding, security holes, and what happens after 6 monthsThe brutal reality of layoffs, gap years, and AI-driven hiringIf you're an engineer trying to figure out where this industry is going and how to stay competitive, this one is for you. Mentioned in the episode:⁠ADP List⁠ - free mentorship from senior engineers Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:54 - How to Become Technically Cracked in 2026 00:05:35 - Will Juniors Who Only Code with AI Get Stuck? 00:09:26 - Will Senior Engineers Stop Writing Code By Hand? 00:11:11 - I Vibe Coded for 6 Months and It's a Disaster 00:15:04 - Why Leaders Demand Screen Sharing on Incident Calls 00:17:34 - "I Don't Do Anything and Still Get Promoted" 00:20:33 - Have the Best Engineers Stopped Applying? 00:25:39 - The Future of Software Engineering in the AI Era 00:32:15 - Are Most Programmers Actually Bad? 00:34:58 - Should You Take a Gap Year After a Layoff? #softwareengineering #aicoding #techcareers

    39 min
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Descrizione

For software engineers ready to level up. Learn from CTOs, principal engineers, and tech leaders about the skills beyond coding: from technical mastery to product thinking and career growth. Created by Patrick Akil

Informazioni

  • Creatore
    Patrick Akil
  • Anni di attività
    2021 - 2026
  • Puntate
    257
  • Classificazione
    Contenuti espliciti
  • Copyright
    © Patrick Akil
  • Sito web del podcast
    Beyond Coding

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