Episode · Backend Banter
#064 - You’re doing networking wrong feat. Lawrence Lockhart
29 Jul 2024 · 1 hr 4 min
Episode · Backend Banter
29 Jul 2024 · 1 hr 4 min
In today’s episode, we welcome Lawrence Lockhart, a former hospitality manager turned full stack software developer. Apart from his tech job, he’s also a developer advocate, a teaching assistant at a coding bootcamp and a tech meetup leader, so you know he spends a lot of his time helping others build and transfer their existing skills into tech, being a powerful voice in the tech space for upcoming developers. Today we talk briefly about how he managed to switch from hospitality to tech, and how that wasn’t as easy as a lot of people online make it out to be, the importance of local and…
by Boot.dev · English · Tech & Science
The only podcast dedicated to backend development, technologies, and careers. Lane Wagner, the founder of Boot.dev, interviews successful backend engineers to get their takes on various trends, technologies, and career tips for new backend developers. Golang, Python, JavaScript, and Rust are the…
19 Aug 2024 · 59 min
In today’s episode, we bring back Aaron Francis. If you haven’t watched our previous episode with him, he is a software developer, fellow content creator and co-founder of Try Hard Studios. In the past he’s been an accountant at a Big 4 but now he focuses on Laravel, web development and all things business and video. This episode will step away from the usual tech focused content and we’ll talk a bit more about the business side of things, how you have to balance entertainment and education when creating courses, Aaron’s High Performance SQLite course, building a personal brand through the…
E67 · 12 Aug 2024 · 55 min
In today’s episode, we bring Adam Argyle, a CSS Dev Rel at Google, content creator, co-host at CSS Podcast, Bad At CSS Podcast and host of GUI Challenges. He’s also the creator of a bunch of tools and utilities for the front-end. We’re going to touch on a lot of hot topics, regarding the difficulty and power of CSS, how programmers most of the time underestimate and dismiss it as something trivial when in reality it’s one of the hardest things to master in the programming world. We also go over AI, the barriers between designers and developers and a bunch of other topics. Learn back-end…
E66 · 5 Aug 2024 · 56 min
In today’s episode, we welcome Matt Pocock, an educator, content creator and engineer who used to be a voice coach. Now, he teaches Typescript on his YouTube channel and is building Total Typescript, the most comprehensive TypeScript course available out there. We talk about his transition from a completely unrelated field into tech, the importance of great communication, TypeScript’s future, AI tooling and job hunts! A lot more else is covered in this video, so get cozy and tune in into this gem of an episode! Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev Listen on your favorite podcast…
22 Jul 2024 · 1 hr 3 min
In today’s episode, we bring Spiro Floropoulos, a senior developer and architect with over 20 years of experience. This episode is an unusual one, as Spiro recently got laid off due to a bizarre chain of events that involved HTMX, overworking, and technical debt. But we’ll learn from this story, as we want to shed some light on how situations that Spiro described could be avoided, namely how the tech industry is obsessing over developer experience and why that’s detrimental, why abstractions should be teaching you the technology as opposed to just doing the work for you, why you should be…
E63 · 15 Jul 2024 · 59 min
In today’s episode, we go to war with Sam Selikoff, co-host of the Frontend First podcast, and specialist on everything Frontend related. We have an amazing conversation where we discuss Sam’s journey, as he also did some backend work in the past, we talk about abstractions, what JavaScript is doing differently from other languages and frameworks, why the frontend should be driving the backend and not the other way around, and finish it off with a discussion about RSCs (React Server Components). Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev Listen on your favorite podcast player:…
E62 · 8 Jul 2024 · 1 hr
Today we bring Thomas Ballinger, a developer at Convex, an open-source backend for application builders. We will be discussing mainly databases, and why at Convex they use Rust and Typescript. We'll also talk about systems scalability, infrastructure and go over different practices regarding abstractions Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm Convex: https://www.convex.dev/ Thomas' X/Twitter: https://x.com/ballingt Thomas' Website: https://ballingt.com/ Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 00:33 Thomas' background 02:29…
S2 · E12 · 31 Mar 2025 · 1 hr 8 min
Today we welcome YK Sugi—engineer, educator, and the mind behind CSS Dojo—for the final episode of season two. We talk about his journey from YouTube dev tutorials to building one of Sourcegraph’s most-used AI tools, and how the role of DevRel has changed (and in some cases, disappeared). YK also breaks down how senior engineers are actually using AI, why fundamentals still matter, and how Agent Chat was born during a company hackathon. If you’re curious about AI devtools, the future of DevRel, or just want to hear how a former YouTuber accidentally shipped a flagship feature—this one's for…
24 Mar 2025 · 1 hr 14 min
In this episode, we sit down with Quincy Larson, founder of Free Code Camp, to explore his incredible path from high school dropout to influential tech educator. Quincy shares his unconventional journey — from living in his car and working fast food jobs to building one of the most impactful coding education platforms in the world. We discuss the power of self-learning, the evolution of coding education, and the philosophy behind building meaningful skills. Quincy also dives into his productivity habits, structured routines, and why he prioritizes lifelong learning over traditional memories.…
17 Mar 2025 · 1 hr 4 min
Today we welcome Mitchell Hashimoto, co-founder of HashiCorp and creator of Ghostty, a new terminal emulator built in Zig. In this episode, Mitchell shares the story behind Ghostty, how his curiosity about terminals evolved into a full-fledged project, and why Zig became his language of choice. We also dive into Ghostty’s unique features, the role of libghostty, and why Mitchell believes native-feeling apps are essential for developer experience. Plus, we explore his insights on computer science education, dynamic linking, and what really matters when learning to code. If you’re into…
S2 · E9 · 10 Mar 2025 · 48 min
Today we welcome Malte Ubl, CTO of Vercel, to discuss the evolution of frontend development and the role of AI in shaping modern engineering workflows. Malte dives into V0, Vercel's innovative tool for generating frontend code using AI, and explains how it empowers developers—especially backend engineers—to build full-stack applications. We also explore the concept of verticalization in engineering roles, the challenges of balancing innovation with infrastructure, and how AI is redefining productivity in tech. Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev Listen on your favorite podcast…