EP. 02 - Jilles Soeters on AI/ML and Developer Experience

Welcome back to Beyond the Stack! In Episode 02, I sit down with Jilles Soeters, Senior Staff Engineer at Udemy, to talk about his journey from teaching himself HTML as a kid to shaping developer experience at scale.

We cover:

• How AI changes the day-to-day workflow of a software engineer

• The strengths and weaknesses of models like Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Qwen

• Emerging ideas like vibe coding (coined by Andrej Karpathy)

• MCP servers and why they matter for real-world context

• Honest advice for CS students entering a world where LLMs are everywhere

Jilles also shares pivotal career lessons and why staying curious is the real edge for engineers today.

🎧 Listen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/w02bweXk2yw

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-02-jilles-soeters-on-ai-ml-and-developer-experience/id1836825875?i=1000729052881

Connect with Jilles Soeters:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillesme/

Connect with me:

Website – https://yash-verma.com

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/-yv/

#BeyondTheStack #SoftwareEngineering #AI/ML #MCP