The Programming Podcast

The Programming Podcast

Leon Noel and Danny Thompson explain technical problems, industry information, career advice and more on The Programming Podcast! Danny Thompson, Director of Technology @ This Dot Labs Leon Noel, Managing Director @ Resilient Coders & 100Devs

  1. 6 HR AGO

    Is PewDiePie Secretly a Coding Genius?

    Is PewDiePie a better software developer than you? The answer might shock you (and make you rethink your entire career). While many developers get stuck on "ideas," PewDiePie just shipped an impressive, custom-built AI application. SITE https://www.programmingpodcast.com/ 💡 Sponsor: Level Up Financial Planning Changing careers or increasing your income? Get financial clarity with Level Up Financial Planning—helping early and mid-career tech professionals secure their financial future. Visit LevelUpFinancialPlanning.com for a free consultation! https://www.levelupfinancialplanning.com/ Stay in Touch: 📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business? Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com! Danny Thompson https://x.com/DThompsonDev https://www.linkedin.com/in/DThompsonDev www.DThompsonDev.com Leon Noel https://x.com/leonnoel https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonnoel/ https://100devs.org/ 📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business? Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com! On this episode of The Programming Podcast, Danny Thompson and Leon Noel dive into PewDiePie's journey from gamer to engineer, exploring how he built his own AI chat agent from the ground up to protect his privacy from Big Tech. We break down the tech stack he used (custom UI, RAG, distributed agents), the $20,000 hardware cost, and the "pure joy" of building that many senior devs have lost. But the real lesson isn't about PewDiePie—it's about you. We discuss the hard truth: people with a fraction of your talent are lapping you simply because they build in public and create "public proof" of their skills. Are you hiding your best work in private GitHub repos? Danny shares a powerful analogy: If someone offered you $20,000 to get 10 networking conversations in a week, you'd do it. Why aren't you doing it for the $100,000 job you want? We also cover Danny's new free, open-source project, "Commit Your Talk," designed to help developers conquer public speaking, and how to find the "hidden" junior developer jobs that are never posted on LinkedIn. Plus, we answer a question from the community: "As an introvert, how do I learn to network?" 00:00:00 - The Hook: "You're Letting People Lap You" 00:01:11 - Is PewDiePie a Better Developer Than You? 00:02:11 - PewDiePie is "Living The Engineering Dream" 04:47 - Danny's New FREE Project: "Commit Your Talk" 05:32 - Why developers get nervous advocating for themselves 07:38 - Why Toastmasters doesn't always work for devs 08:40 - Leon's "Banky Brunch" for behavioral practice 10:10 - Sponsor: Level Up Financial Planning 11:15 - Back to PewDiePie: The Power of Just SHIPPING 12:22 - The real reason PewDiePie built his own AI app 13:33 - The Big Tech Lie: "Delete" Does Not Mean Delete 15:37 - Inside PewDiePie's Impressive AI Tech Stack (RAG, Agents) 17:18 - The "Pure Joy" of building (and why we lose it) 19:14 - The Hard Truth: People With Half Your Talent Are Lapping You 21:24 - Your private GitHub repo is worthless (The Power of Public Proof) 23:23 - The $20,000 Cost of True AI Privacy 25:21 - The local AI hardware arms race (Nvidia 5090s) 28:46 - Are we in an AI bubble? 31:40 - Why Local Models & SLMs (Small Language Models) are the future 35:24 - "You Don't Need to Cure Cancer With Code, Just Build" 38:45 - The $20k Challenge vs. Your $100k Career (Leon's Mic Drop) 41:46 - How to Find The "Hidden" Junior Dev Jobs (Not on LinkedIn) 44:22 - The problem with "hot topics" vs. "accurate" info 47:25 - Mailbag: "How Do I Network as an Introvert?" 50:30 - Leon's Answer: Networking is about finding a champion 53:35 - Danny's Answer: The "Punch in the Face" Analogy 57:40 - Stop "networking," start "having conversations" 1:01:33 - The Ultimate Networking Cheat Code: A well-placed question 1:03:35 - Wrap-up and Sign-off

    1h 4m

  2. 30 OCT

    "It's a simple JavaScript fix!" (Spoiler: IT WASN'T)

    You know that “it’s a simple fix” task that eats your entire sprint? If you liked this episode or if this saved you a sprint: like, subscribe, and share with your team. Comment your worst “simple fix” story! We’ll feature a few next episode! This episode is about going from “just parse the RSS” to a real system with cron jobs, a database, SSR, caching, pagination, title-matching pain, and a YouTube Data API gotcha where deleted videos still show up and break your counts. We unpack the technical rabbit hole, the product/process mistakes that made it worse, and the practical fixes you can ship today. SITE https://www.programmingpodcast.com/ Stay in Touch: 📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business? Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com! Danny Thompson https://x.com/DThompsonDev https://www.linkedin.com/in/DThompsonDev www.DThompsonDev.com Leon Noel https://x.com/leonnoel https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonnoel/ https://100devs.org/ 📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business? Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com! Highlights - Why YouTube RSS only returns ~15 items, and when to switch to the Data API -The sneaky “deleted video” entries that broke episode matching (and the 4-line filter that fixed it) - Cron + DB to avoid on-request parsing delays, with lazy loading/pagination for perf - Levenshtein vs. AI scraping for cross-platform title matching (and tradeoffs) - SSR for SEO: hydration pitfalls, view-source reality checks, and caching strategy - Process: ticket sizing gone wrong, sprint rituals that would’ve saved weeks, and a fallback plan when APIs fail - Career bit (Huntober): the highest-ROI job-hunt moves—ask directly for referrals and quantify your wins so AI can actually write a good resume What You’ll Learn When RSS is fine—and when you must use YouTube Data API v3 Designing a resilient ingestion path (cron triggers, rate limits, cost control) Secure API key handling and avoiding accidental exposure Concrete heuristics for matching episodes across platforms The “fallback first” mindset when upstream services go down Stack & Tools Mentioned Next.js/SSR, Tailwind/CSS (retro radio UI), cron + DB ingest, YouTube Data API v3, Spotify RSS, Levenshtein distance, AI/LLM parsing workflow, lazy loading/pagination, caching. Chapters 00:00 It’s “simple”… until it isn’t (cold open) 02:00 50 episodes milestone + data-driven intros 03:20 New personal site goals (personas, UX, content routing) 06:04 Rotary-dial content hub idea 07:42 Plan A: “Just use Spotify/YouTube RSS” 08:56 Parsing delays → cron + DB ingest 11:00 Release cadence (Thurs AM CT) & autosync plan 12:07 YouTube RSS ≈ 15 items?! 13:19 Enabling YouTube Data API v3 (the missing step) 14:22 Title matching fails; publish vs. upload date mismatch 16:31 AI scrape workflow vs. deterministic pipelines 17:13 Levenshtein distance for fuzzy matching 18:53 The painful bug: deleted YouTube videos still in API 20:20 Security considerations for API keys 21:08 Retro CSS “radio” UI + Tailwind 23:01 From 2 points to full sprint (scope creep lessons) 24:03 Rate limits, CORS, and API cost control 24:54 SSR for SEO, hydration errors, caching 26:24 Web creativity is back (experimentation talk) 27:29 Sprint Zero / refactor time that saves real sprints 28:24 Resilience: API fallback to RSS 29:18 Perf: lazy loading & pagination 30:01 Tests vs. cowboy deploys (real talk) 31:20 Takeaways: when to keep it simple vs. do it right 36:01 What is Huntober? 37:41 Highest-ROI job hunt move: ask for referrals 39:07 Make AI useful: quantify your work 41:15 Outro

    41 min

  3. 23 OCT

    Why 95% of Enterprise AI Projects FAIL! CEO of Apollo GraphQL, Matt DeBergalis

    AI is writing more code than anyone expected. Some of it is great. A lot of it is just okay. In this episode, Danny Thompson and Leon sit down with Matt DeBergalis, CEO of Apollo GraphQL, to unpack what it will take to move from a gold rush of mediocrity to production-grade agentic experiences that users can trust. Guest Co-Host: Matt DeBergalis https://www.linkedin.com/in/debergalis/ https://www.apollographql.com/ @ApolloGraphQL SITE https://www.programmingpodcast.com/ Stay in Touch: 📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business? Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com! Danny Thompson https://x.com/DThompsonDev https://www.linkedin.com/in/DThompsonDev www.DThompsonDev.com Leon Noel https://x.com/leonnoel https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonnoel/ https://100devs.org/ 📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business? Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com! We dig into the real gap behind AI project failures and it is not the models. Matt explains why agentic development stalls inside enterprises, how microservice sprawl blocks useful AI, and where GraphQL functions as the control plane that unifies data, streaming, and context so agents can actually do work. We cover the early hype around MCP servers, why many of them ship without OAuth, and a concrete checklist for securing costs and credentials before you flip the switch. You will hear where shopping, search, and SEO are headed as prompt boxes replace search boxes. We get into the gravity that pulls models toward stacks with the most public code, what that means for React, Rust, Python, and the long tail, and how developers can future proof their careers by mastering fundamentals like orchestration, context control, and system design instead of chasing every weekly model benchmark. We wrap with a practical path for job seekers. Breadth over tool loyalty. Weekly small projects. Use AI for the first 75 percent, then own the last 25 percent with clear prompts and better workflows. Who this episode is for - Engineering leaders trying to turn AI prototypes into products - Senior and staff engineers learning agent orchestration - Devs curious about MCP, GraphOS, and secure tool calling You will learn - Why 95 percent of agentic projects fail and what capability is missing - How GraphQL unifies fragmented systems for agents, including streaming and precise context selection - A security and cost control checklist for MCP style tool calling - How hiring rubrics are shifting toward communication, systems thinking, and curiosity - A weekly practice plan to build portfolio proof fast Highlights Gold rush of mediocrity and what to do about it From REST to stateful agents and why the old web stack creaks Every search box becomes a prompt box The 75 and 25 rule for productive AI assisted coding Tool breadth over tool loyalty for career advantage Chapters 00:00 Cold open. Why most agentic projects fail 01:00 Theme setup. The gold rush of mediocrity 01:30 Host and guest introductions 03:00 MCP excitement vs reality. From laptop tools to real products 06:15 Security and spend. OAuth gaps, scoped keys, rate limits, audit logs 09:00 Distribution shift. Generative SEO and agentic checkout 13:10 Centralization gravity. Why models favor stacks with more public code 18:00 Foundations. Unifying services with GraphQL and streaming tokens 24:10 Controlling the context window with field selection 26:30 Should developers learn this now 31:30 Fundamentals over benchmarks. MCP, RAG, evals 42:00 Hiring in the agent era. Communication, systems thinking, curiosity 48:00 Prompt quality and the last mile 53:00 Audience question. Tools to explore and a weekly practice plan 59:30 Closing recap and CTA

    1h 2m

  4. 16 OCT

    How GREAT Senior Software Engineers Think! (Steal these 9 TIPS!) Kent C. Dodds

    Senior engineers don’t “wing it.” They use mental models to turn plans into production—faster, safer, and with less drama. Danny Thompson, Leon Noel, and Kent C. Dodds break down the exact models they use: decision docs, second-order thinking, reducing cognitive load, Occam’s Razor, leaky abstractions, feature flags vs. staging, chaos engineering, AI context windows (and rot), MCP, onboarding docs, blind code reviews, and more. If you’re pushing from mid → senior (or trying to sound senior in interviews), steal these. Guest: Kent C. Dodds! https://kentcdodds.com/ https://x.com/kentcdodds @KentCDodds-vids SITE https://www.programmingpodcast.com/ Stay in Touch: 📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business? Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com! Danny Thompson https://x.com/DThompsonDev https://www.linkedin.com/in/DThompsonDev www.DThompsonDev.com Leon Noel https://x.com/leonnoel https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonnoel/ https://100devs.org/ 📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business? Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com! You’ll learn → How to communicate invisible work like a senior (impact vs activity) → Decision documents: making tradeoffs explicit → Second-order thinking to prevent “future bugs” → When to ship fast with flags vs. slow with staging → Designing for onboarding—humans and AI assistants → Using AI without nuking your circle of competence → Local job tactics (Memphis example), recruiters, and “entry-level” framing If this helped, hit 👍 and subscribe. Drop your favorite mental model in the comments Chapters 00:00 Cold open — “When plans break in prod” 00:36 Why mental models matter for seniors 02:45 Define “mental model” (map vs. territory) 05:22 Intros + episode setup 07:05 Decision documents & guiding principles 10:48 Coaching moments: easy vs. right solutions 12:56 Second-order thinking (caching, short links, spam) 15:58 Occam’s Razor in real engineering decisions 18:12 Onboarding for Future-You (and your AI) 20:44 Tests as guardrails for humans + LLMs 22:18 AI context windows, “context rot,” and structure 24:55 Circle of competence in the AI era 27:18 Should juniors use AI? The real risks 30:06 Shipping fast vs. learning deep: when to limit AI 31:55 Interviews are changing: system design vs LeetCode 33:42 Confidence traps: getting gaslit by your prompts 36:00 Too many abstractions → leaky abstractions 38:40 Blind code reviews & cross-team learning 41:20 Google-style anonymous reviews (tradeoffs) 44:00 Feature flags vs. staging (the spicy debate) 46:52 Chaos engineering & safe rollouts in prod 49:10 Pragmatism over dogma: what actually ships 50:58 Kent’s Epic AI cohort & MCP primer 54:20 Listener Q&A: local vs. remote, .NET vs. Node 1:00:45 Ask Danny, Leon, And Kent!

    1h 9m

  5. 10 OCT

    The World's Most Popular Teacher Reveals The Secret to Learning ANYTHING.

    Are you studying for hours but still not retaining anything? 🧠 It's probably not your fault, you've likely been taught to learn all wrong. In this landmark episode, we sit down with the legendary Dr. Barbara Oakley, a Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Oakland University, a globally recognized expert on the science of learning, and the creator of the world's most popular online course, "Learning How to Learn," which has reached millions worldwide. Dr. Oakley shares her incredible journey from flunking math and hating school to becoming a world-renowned expert on the neuroscience of learning. Get ready to have your mind blown as Dr. Oakley debunks the biggest myths about studying, reveals the simple, science-backed secrets to mastering any subject, and explains how to beat procrastination for good. You'll walk away with actionable techniques to unlock your brain's true potential. She is best known for making complex concepts from neuroscience and cognitive psychology accessible to a mass audience, empowering millions to learn more effectively. Her own life story is a testament to her core message: anyone can learn anything. Dr. Oakley is most famous as the co-creator of "Learning How to Learn: Powerful Mental Tools to Help You Master Tough Subjects," one of the most popular massive open online courses (MOOCs) in the world. Hosted on Coursera, the course has enrolled millions of learners from every country, teaching them practical, science-backed strategies for learning. Her work has been featured in major publications like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. She is also the author of several books, including the bestseller "A Mind for Numbers," which serves as a companion to her course. Places you can follow Dr. Barbara Oakley 📚 Dr. Oakley's Book | A Mind for Numbers: https://barbaraoakley.com/books/a-mind-for-numbers/ 🎓 The "Learning How to Learn" Course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn Stay in Touch: 📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business? Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com! Danny Thompson https://x.com/DThompsonDev https://www.linkedin.com/in/DThompsonDev www.DThompsonDev.com Leon Noel https://x.com/leonnoel https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonnoel/ https://100devs.org/ 📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business? Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com! Chapters 0:00 - A Teacher's Powerful Introduction to Dr. Barb Oakley 4:05 - From "I Will Never Learn Mathematics" to Distinguished Professor 5:42 - The Single Most Critical Skill in the Age of AI 8:12 - How Learning a Language Unlocks Your Brain for Math & Science 9:58 - The #1 Mistake We All Make When Learning a Difficult Subject 14:30 - The Unconventional Path to Becoming a Professor 23:11 - The 2 Brain Modes You MUST Understand (Focused vs. Diffuse) 🤯 29:22 - A Modern, Scientific Twist on the Pomodoro Technique 32:38 - WARNING: This Popular Study Method is a Waste of Your Time 34:18 - The Surprising Problem with "Student-Centered" Classrooms 40:12 - Proof That Your Phone is Destroying Your Ability to Focus 45:35 - The Neuroscience of Dyslexia & Autism: Your Brain's Secret Superpower 51:11 - The Emotional Side of Learning: Dealing with Fear, Shame & Procrastination 56:33 - Why Impostor Syndrome is Actually a GOOD Thing 1:07:28 - How to Use Sleep to Supercharge Your Memory 😴 1:15:17 - The Future of Learning: How AI Will Change Everything 1:23:36 - How to Use AI to Learn (Without Cheating Yourself) 1:32:32 - Q&A: The Best Way to Create a Daily Structure for Learning 1:44:52 - Dr. Oakley's Final Inspiring Message

    1h 45m

  6. 3 OCT

    AI That ACTUALLY Ships: JSON, Voice Agents, MCP, and Software Developer Real-World Pitfalls

    What do JSON and conversational AI have in common? They are the glue behind ordering coffee, booking flights, and talking to support. In our tests, about 1 out of 3 replies missed the intent until we enforced structured JSON outputs. In this episode, Danny Thompson and Leon Noel break down how to move from “cool demo” to production systems that route, escalate, and self-audit reliably. SITE https://www.programmingpodcast.com/ 💡 Sponsor: Level Up Financial Planning Changing careers or increasing your income? Get financial clarity with Level Up Financial Planning—helping early and mid-career tech professionals secure their financial future. Visit LevelUpFinancialPlanning.com for a free consultation! https://www.levelupfinancialplanning.com/ Stay in Touch: 📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business? Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com! Danny Thompson https://x.com/DThompsonDev https://www.linkedin.com/in/DThompsonDev www.DThompsonDev.com Leon Noel https://x.com/leonnoel https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonnoel/ https://100devs.org/ 📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business? Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com! What you’ll learn - Why freeform paragraphs fail backends and how JSON fields fix routing - A simple schema pattern: department, sentiment, confidence, reply - Confidence floors that trigger automatic retries before users ever see a response - Context windows: why rules are read every call while context gets dropped - MCP basics and how domain context avoids bad translations and metaphors - Where voice agents work today (predictable conversations) and where they do not - Practical tool choices for text, code, and voice workflows - Real labor impacts, retention insights, and reskill advice - Salary negotiation quick hits: the two lines that matter Chapters 0:00 JSON as the glue + the 1-in-3 miss 0:30 Intro & episode promise 1:10 Quick defs — JSON / NLG / NLU / MCP 3:00 Why structured JSON beats paragraphs 7:36 Confidence scores & auto-retries 9:02 Sponsor 11:34 Prompts for image/video models that actually work 15:01 Context windows & durable rules 16:32 Repo trees, PRDs & dev logs to reduce spin 20:02 MCP in practice, local dialects & domain knowledge 26:03 Voice agents, predictable vs unpredictable conversations 32:43 Voice mode as a research partner & model picks 33:01 Jobs impact, retention stories & reskilling 37:10 Conversational AI 101, coffee shop flow to backend 40:05 Connectors & phone/drive-thru stacks (Agora, 11 Labs) 46:04 Real-world rollouts, employee retention boost 48:13 Call centers & debt collection case study 51:27 Predictable vs messy conversations — where AI fails 53:24 Career CTA, learn JSON, MCP, voice stacks 57:01 Ask Danny And Leon A Question 1:07:10 The Developer's Guide To AI

    1h 12m

  7. 18 SEPT

    The Tech Conference Survival Guide For Software Developers!

    Stop leaving tech conferences with just a free t-shirt and some stickers. It's time to leave with a job offer. 🚀 The difference between a successful conference and a waste of money isn't luck, it's strategy. In this episode, we break down the ultimate conference survival guide for software developers and tech professionals. Learn how to shift from a passive "Tourist Mindset" to a proactive "Architect Mindset" to build real opportunities. SITE https://www.programmingpodcast.com/ 💡 Sponsor: Level Up Financial Planning Changing careers or increasing your income? Get financial clarity with Level Up Financial Planning—helping early and mid-career tech professionals secure their financial future. Visit LevelUpFinancialPlanning.com for a free consultation! https://www.levelupfinancialplanning.com/ Stay in Touch: 📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business? Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com! Danny Thompson https://x.com/DThompsonDev https://www.linkedin.com/in/DThompsonDev www.DThompsonDev.com Leon Noel https://x.com/leonnoel https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonnoel/ https://100devs.org/ 📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business? Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com! We cover everything you need to know to turn your next conference badge into a massive career investment, including: ✅ The pre-conference blueprint: How to research, set measurable goals, and connect with speakers before you even arrive. ✅ On-site execution: Master the art of the three-minute conversation, ask questions that make you memorable, and build genuine connections. ✅ The follow-up formula that actually gets you a response and leads to interviews. ✅ Actionable advice for both extroverts and introverts to network with confidence. Whether you're looking for your first tech job or your tenth, this is the playbook you'll want to reference time and time again. YouTube Chapters 00:00 - Job Offer vs. Free T-Shirt: The Real Difference 01:41 - Turning Online Connections into Real Relationships 03:22 - What is Your "Why"? Defining Your Conference Goal 04:25 - The #1 Mistake: Don't Get Lost in the Hallway Track 05:52 - A Simple Trick to Connect With Any Speaker 07:32 - It's Not Luck, It's Strategy 08:15 - The "Tourist" vs. "Architect" Mindset 09:13 - Sponsor: Level Up Financial Planning 10:18 - The True Cost of Attending a Conference ($2,200?!) 12:27 - The Pre-Conference Blueprint for Job Seekers 13:40 - The Genius "Coffee Chat" Calendar Invite Strategy 15:25 - Champions Are Made in the Pre-Season 17:13 - How to Research Attendees (Not Just Speakers) 18:20 - Mastering the 3-Minute Conversation 20:04 - The Secret Magic of Tech Conferences 22:34 - Setting Measurable Goals for Your Conference 25:22 - How (and When) to Bravely Ask for a Referral 28:26 - The Psychology of Asking for a Favor 30:38 - How to Talk About Yourself Without Being Salesy 33:27 - The Long-Tail Game of Networking 34:26 - A Counterintuitive Tip: Don't Introduce Yourself First 35:22 - Questions That Make You Unforgettable 40:48 - Networking Tips for Introverts 43:51 - Pro Tip: Never Eat Alone 46:36 - The Most Valuable Part of a Conference: The Follow-Up 49:03 - Ask Us Anything: Following Up With a VIP You Met

    59 min

  8. 15 SEPT

    How One Email Nearly Broke the Internet!

    One phishy email to an npm maintainer set off a supply-chain scare that could’ve torched the web—yet the real on-chain damage was… cents. In this episode, we break down how a fake npm 2FA reset (from npmjs.help) led to malicious releases of popular packages like chalk and debug, how the payload hijacked browser crypto flows (monkey-patching window.ethereum, fetch, and XHR), why the blast radius stayed small, and what teams did right (shoutout to Aikido & Vercel).We finish with a rapid “Career Corner” on how to follow up after an interview—with copy-ready lines you can use.SITE https://www.programmingpodcast.com/Stay in Touch:📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business?Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com!Danny Thompsonhttps://x.com/DThompsonDevhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/DThompsonDevwww.DThompsonDev.comLeon Noelhttps://x.com/leonnoelhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/leonnoel/https://100devs.org/📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business?Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com!You’ll learn:- Spotting modern phishing (look-alike TLDs, urgency cues)- What the malware did and why front-end focus limited impact- The minute-by-minute timeline from phish → publish → takedown- Practical defenses: pin versions, lockfiles, audits, password managers, least-privilege tokens- How to write a follow-up email that closesIf this helps, hit 👍 and share with a teammate.Chapters0:00 – The phish that “almost destroyed the internet” (cold open)0:24 – Who clicked: maintainer behind big OSS (chalk, debug)0:44 – Payload in plain English (browser wallet-drainer)1:04 – Actual impact vs. potential blast radius1:20 – Intro + what we’ll cover2:23 – Why this story is everywhere & our plan3:43 – What you’ll know by the end (safety + lessons)4:20 – Act 1: The Email — npmjs.help and urgency tactics6:08 – Phishing 101: quick checks before you click8:25 – Psychology of scams (filtering + anecdotes)12:17 – Act 2: The Payload — monkey-patching fetch/XHR/window.ethereum14:44 – Why front-end focus limited the damage16:41 – How it was caught (Node fetch ReferenceErrors)17:52 – Six–eight hours to fix: containment recap20:04 – Magic links & password managers (practical wins)22:15 – Act 3: The Timeline — 18 packages, what happened when23:39 – Minutes matter: publish → detection → takedown25:12 – Community/GitHub issues light up; npm intervenes26:48 – Root-cause analysis & related accounts28:32 – “System worked” takeaways (+ why that’s good)31:18 – Dev hygiene: pin versions, audits, reduce deps33:10 – Myths debunked (no, every machine wasn’t “fully owned”)35:04 – Shout-outs: Aikido, Vercel, others that responded fast38:22 – Career Corner: following up after interviews (templates)53:22 – Wrap-up & next stepsHelpful links (add your URLs)Aikido write-up / detection notesVercel incident summary + cache purge notesnpm/GitHub advisories for affected packagesPassword manager recommendations / setup guide

    53 min
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About

Leon Noel and Danny Thompson explain technical problems, industry information, career advice and more on The Programming Podcast! Danny Thompson, Director of Technology @ This Dot Labs Leon Noel, Managing Director @ Resilient Coders & 100Devs

Information

  • Creator
    The Programming Podcast
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2025
  • Episodes
    52
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © The Programming Podcast
  • Show Website
    The Programming Podcast

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