Beyond The Build

Uma Abu and Ope Osunkoya
  • 5.0 (5)
  • Technology

Beyond The Build is a podcast about the real, unfiltered experiences of being a software engineer. Hosted by two seasoned engineers, Uma and Ope, we dive into the highs, the lows, and everything in between—from career growth and technical challenges to work-life balance and industry insights. Whether you're an aspiring developer or a seasoned pro, join us as we explore the parts of tech that don’t get talked about enough. Connect with Ope - https://www.linkedin.com/in/osunkoyaope/ Connect with Uma: Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/umacodes) Tiktok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@umacodes) Twitter: (https://twitter.com/umacodes) LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/umaabu/)  Follow us on Social Media Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/beyondthebuildpodcast)  TikTok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@beyondthebuildpodcast)

  1. 2d ago

    Scams, Surveillance, Cyber Warfare: What The Dark Web Has Been Up To With AI | LWIT

    Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 In this episode of Beyond the Build, we break down Anthropic’s latest AI misuse report and look at how bad actors are already using AI for scams, surveillance, cyber operations, influence campaigns, telecom data scraping, and other real-world attacks. We also discuss the growing AI arms race between companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, and other major labs. AI companies are warning about models becoming harder to supervise while simultaneously investing billions to build more capable systems. Can any company realistically slow down if everyone else keeps racing ahead? We also get into a new security problem emerging around AI coding agents and plugins. As developers give tools like Claude Code, Codex, GitHub Copilot, and Gemini CLI more access to repositories, terminals, APIs, and credentials, supply-chain attacks become significantly more dangerous. Then we debate what code review should look like in the age of AI. If AI can generate code faster than humans can read it, should every line still be reviewed? Or does code review become less about catching bugs and more about making sure engineers still understand the systems they are building? We also cover AWS infrastructure failures during geopolitical conflict, Windows 11 updates breaking hardware, OpenAI’s IPO plans, digital ownership, and what happens when the software and infrastructure we depend on become increasingly automated. Connect with Ope - https://www.linkedin.com/in/osunkoyaope/ Connect with Uma:  Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/umacodes) Tiktok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@umacodes) Twitter: (https://twitter.com/umacodes) LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/umaabu/) Follow us on Social Media  Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/beyondthebuildpodcast) TikTok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@beyondthebuildpodcast)

  2. Sep 15

    Apparently AI Might Kill Us. Anyway, Here’s a PR | LWIT

    Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 In this episode of Beyond The Build, we talk about the growing wave of AI safety warnings coming from researchers at companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind, and whether those concerns should actually change how seriously we think about the risks of increasingly capable AI systems. We also get into the security problems that come with AI agents having access to production secrets, private data, credentials, and external systems, along with recent controversies around AI research, watermarking, browser privacy, and the trust we place in the tools we use every day. Then we bring it back to software engineering. If AI can already investigate alerts, write code, open pull requests, and automate more of the development lifecycle, what is actually left for engineers? We discuss why coding is only one part of the job, why judgment, system design, debugging, operations, and accountability still matter, and why you cannot fully delegate a system you do not understand. Along the way, we also touch on AI-assisted research, security vulnerabilities, prompting, brownfield vs. greenfield development, Postgres at scale, expired credit card security, and a few other things happening in tech this week. Connect with Ope - https://www.linkedin.com/in/osunkoyaope/ Connect with Uma:  Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/umacodes) Tiktok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@umacodes) Twitter: (https://twitter.com/umacodes) LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/umaabu/) Follow us on Social Media  Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/beyondthebuildpodcast) TikTok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@beyondthebuildpodcast)

  3. Sep 7

    AI Just Changed the Rules of Software Security | LWIT

    Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 AI is changing software security faster than most engineering teams are prepared for. In this episode of Beyond the Build, we break down how AI agents are starting to discover and exploit vulnerabilities, why the window between a CVE being disclosed and actively exploited is shrinking, and what that means for developers, security teams, and companies shipping software today. We also discuss new findings around OpenAI’s AI agent swarms, concerns around observability and model behavior, major data breaches involving identity verification providers, and why digital privacy is becoming even harder to protect. Beyond security, we get into how AI is reshaping software engineering itself, including the impact on frontend developers, Meta’s push toward smaller engineering teams, local LLMs running directly in the browser with WebGPU, and why human error can still take down even the most resilient cloud infrastructure. Topics covered: • AI agents and autonomous hacking • OpenAI swarm security concerns • CVEs and faster vulnerability exploitation • Software supply chain and cybersecurity risks • Data breaches and identity verification • Privacy and age verification • The future of frontend engineering • AI-driven software development • Meta engineering layoffs and productivity • WebLLM and local AI inference • Google Cloud outages and infrastructure resilience Connect with Ope - https://www.linkedin.com/in/osunkoyaope/ Connect with Uma:  Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/umacodes) Tiktok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@umacodes) Twitter: (https://twitter.com/umacodes) LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/umaabu/) Follow us on Social Media  Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/beyondthebuildpodcast) TikTok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@beyondthebuildpodcast)

  4. Sep 1

    Why Developers Have to Start Caring About Memory | LWIT

    Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 This week on Last Week in Tech, we’re talking about what happens when memory gets expensive and software can’t afford to stay bloated. RAM prices are climbing fast, Android is tightening memory limits, and companies like Cloudflare are squeezing huge amounts of memory out of their systems through better data structures and smarter engineering. The bigger question is whether memory efficiency is becoming a functional requirement again. We also cover OpenAI cutting Cursor off after its acquisition by SpaceX AI, Nvidia’s reported move for Hugging Face, Stripe acquiring OpenRouter, why the harness around an AI model may matter more than the model itself, and whether AI is slowly eroding the fundamentals developers used to learn through experience. Plus, we get into developer security hygiene, Chrome privacy, the growing number of CVEs, and Meta’s massive settlement over teen social media usage. If you’re a developer, this episode is really about one broader shift: the constraints are coming back, and they may force us to build better software. Connect with Ope - https://www.linkedin.com/in/osunkoyaope/ Connect with Uma:  Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/umacodes) Tiktok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@umacodes) Twitter: (https://twitter.com/umacodes) LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/umaabu/) Follow us on Social Media  Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/beyondthebuildpodcast) TikTok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@beyondthebuildpodcast)

  5. Aug 25

    Why Lovable.dev Migrated From Next.js (And It Worked)

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Beyond the Build, we break down some of the biggest AI and software engineering stories from the week, including Anthropic’s explosive revenue growth, Cursor’s new Git hosting platform, Lovable moving away from Next.js, and the growing cost of AI inside companies. We discuss why Anthropic’s reported $65B annualized revenue run rate is impressive but difficult to compare directly with OpenAI, and whether today’s AI valuations are sustainable as inference costs remain high. We also look at Cursor Origin, a new Git hosting platform built for the AI coding era, after GitHub experienced major scaling pressure from rapidly increasing commit volume. Then we cover Lovable’s migration from Next.js to TanStack, why the company chose to rebuild its own product using its own platform, and what that says about the future of modern web development. Other topics include Google buying Spirit Airlines’ operational data for AI training, AI agents accidentally DDoSing services and interfering with each other, questions around legal accountability for autonomous agents, AT&T processing 45 billion AI tokens per day, the rise of “AI Didn’t Read,” and how companies are starting to measure whether their AI spending is actually creating value. If you’re interested in AI coding tools, Cursor, GitHub, Anthropic, Claude, Lovable, Next.js, TanStack, AI agents, software engineering, developer tools, and the economics of AI, this episode covers what’s changing and why it matters for developers.

  6. Aug 17

    Prediction Markets Are the New Retirement Plans (401k)? | LWIT

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Beyond the Build, we break down some of the most interesting stories happening across AI, software engineering, and the broader tech industry. We talk about AI agents moving into the browser, the growing US-China AI divide, why AI search may be weakening the open web, and how prediction markets are blurring the line between investing and gambling. We also get into Shopify replacing Redis with MySQL, what code quality looks like when AI is writing more of the code, and why runtime validation may become increasingly important. Beyond engineering, we discuss AI companions, digital sovereignty, AI-powered learning, real-world security practices, AI-assisted journalism, and the backlash around creators like Hank Green using AI for research.

  7. Aug 11

    The Unlimited Token Budget Was Never Going to Last | LWIT

    Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 In this episode of Beyond the Build, we break down some of the biggest stories in tech this week, from Microsoft putting limits on internal AI usage to the growing cost of running AI at scale. We also cover the latest AI model releases, OpenAI’s Astra research, a new coding benchmark designed to be harder to game, Jeff Dean’s next move, the risks of pre-IPO investing, and Apple’s potential shift toward an iPhone leasing model. On the security side, we unpack the massive Coldcard wallet exploit, why some security researchers are turning to Chinese AI models, the Adform clipboard attack, and how one configuration mistake exposed meeting recordings. We wrap up with what’s happening to new grad hiring and whether AI is starting to erode the moat around no-code and SaaS products. 00:00 Intro  00:45 The Latest AI Model Releases  04:45 Microsoft Is Rationing AI  12:45 OpenAI’s Astra Model  16:35 A New AI Coding Benchmark  18:02 AI Breakout  18:50 Jeff Dean Is Leaving Google  20:51 The Risks of Buying Pre-IPO Shares  26:13 55% of Cybercrime Is AI-Related  28:06 Apple Is Moving Toward Leasing  31:32 The Largest Hardware Wallet Exploit  35:18 Why Cybersecurity Researchers Prefer Chinese AI Models  37:28 Adform Hack Hijacks Crypto Wallet Addresses  40:30 Too Lazy; Didn’t Validate  41:58 What’s Happening to New Grad Hiring?  43:16 Is No-Code Losing Its Moat?  44:08 AI That Actually Works  45:05 Outro Connect with Ope - https://www.linkedin.com/in/osunkoyaope/ Connect with Uma:  Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/umacodes) Tiktok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@umacodes) Twitter: (https://twitter.com/umacodes) LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/umaabu/) Follow us on Social Media  Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/beyondthebuildpodcast) TikTok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@beyondthebuildpodcast)

  8. Aug 4

    OpenAI Slashed Prices 80% | The Real Reason They're Panicking | LWIT

    Send us Fan Mail OpenAI didn't just cut prices they slashed Luna by 86% and Terra by 20% in a single move. That's not a sale. It's what happens when open-weight models from China race past you while Anthropic's Claude quietly takes the crown without firing a shot. Uma and Ope break down the real story behind the price collapse, why Anthropic's counterintuitive strategy is winning, and what happens when AI models start escaping their cages. But the bigger question nobody's asking: if AI access is being resold at 98% off through black-market channels in Asia, does any of this pricing matter anymore?

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5
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

Beyond The Build is a podcast about the real, unfiltered experiences of being a software engineer. Hosted by two seasoned engineers, Uma and Ope, we dive into the highs, the lows, and everything in between—from career growth and technical challenges to work-life balance and industry insights. Whether you're an aspiring developer or a seasoned pro, join us as we explore the parts of tech that don’t get talked about enough. Connect with Ope - https://www.linkedin.com/in/osunkoyaope/ Connect with Uma: Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/umacodes) Tiktok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@umacodes) Twitter: (https://twitter.com/umacodes) LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/umaabu/)  Follow us on Social Media Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/beyondthebuildpodcast)  TikTok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@beyondthebuildpodcast)

Information

  • Creator
    Uma Abu and Ope Osunkoya
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    54
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Beyond The Build
  • Show Website
    Beyond The Build

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