Open and Async Work | Remote Engineering Culture with Ben Balter

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1. 

   E75 · 1 Sep 2026 · 44 min

   Life Tech Stack | Developer Productivity Beyond Work

   Engineers architect systems for work—but what about life? In this episode, Bethany, Brittany, and Erika reveal their personal tech stacks: the tools, habits, and sometimes deliberately low-tech strategies that power their daily routines, family life, and wellness. Discover how software engineer thinking applies to work-life balance, plus practical productivity systems you can steal for your own life. Links https://www.trustyduck.dev/posts/tech-stack-2025/ https://johnnydecimal.com/ https://github.com/ngerakines/jd https://wisprflow.ai/ https://obsidian.md/ https://www.chezmoi.io/…

2. 

   S1 · E74 · 25 Aug 2026 · 40 min

   Content Creation, Craft, and Code: Inside Dreams of Code with Elliott Minns

   Elliott Minns takes us inside Dreams of Code and his path from software engineer and manager to full-time content creator. He shares how he turns complex technical work into clear stories, balances depth with accessibility for a developer audience, and keeps craft at the center of the creative process. His latest project, a next-gen video editor built in Rust, brings those worlds together through technically ambitious work involving hardware, media encoding, and zero-copy performance. The conversation also explores how ADHD shaped Elliott's career and creative process, what he learned from…

3. 

   S1 · E73 · 18 Aug 2026 · 40 min

   Is Pair Programming Dead? | Code Quality & Engineering Culture Debate

   Summary This week on Overcommitted, Brittany, Bethany, and Erika try out a new format: instead of interviewing a guest, the three of them rate a running list of software engineering topics as overrated or underrated. They start with the fun stuff — dark mode, mechanical keyboards, standing desks, Vim, dotfiles — before moving into practices and process, where the real disagreements show up. Pair programming and code review as a quality gate both get contested, with opinions that have shifted noticeably since AI tools entered the picture. From there the conversation covers stand-ups, sprint…

4. 

   S1 · E72 · 11 Aug 2026 · 36 min

   Starting a Software Engineering Career | Beating Imposter Syndrome in the AI Era with Sreya Sarathy

   Summary What does it look like to start a software engineering career right now, when AI has erased the "grunt work" that used to be how new grads learned? Brittany and Bethany sit down with Sreya Sarathy, a software engineer at Northwestern Mutual and 2025 UW–Madison grad (double major in computer science and data science), who spent her first year out of school running a free virtual panel series that drew 1,500+ registrations across speakers from Apple, Amazon, IBM, Starbucks, Ford, Deloitte, and GitHub.Sreya shares the Stack Overflow moment that broke her imposter syndrome spiral in…

5. 

   S1 · E71 · 4 Aug 2026 · 35 min

   Closed That Tab: Agentic Identity, AI Security Incidents, and Loop Engineering

   This week we're trying something new: Closed That Tab, a segment where each host shares one thing they finally read that was worth the time. Erika brings a post on agentic AI identity and delegation - covering why OAuth isn't quite enough for agents that accumulate permissions across a request lifecycle, and what transaction tokens (an IETF draft proposal) offer as a solution. Bethany covers Simon Willison's breakdown of the OpenAI security incident, where an eval harness escaped its sandbox by chaining zero-day vulnerabilities - and what responsible sandboxing and observability should have…

6. 

   S1 · E69 · 21 Jul 2026 · 36 min

   Building Terminal Graph, a Spatial Development Environment, with Caidan Williams

   Caidan Williams put your terminals, browsers, editors, and AI agents on one infinite canvas. He joins Erika and Brittany to talk about Terminal Graph, the spatial development environment for macOS he built for himself first, and the self-taught path that took him from Minecraft mods at 13 to partner at a Seattle dev studio. We get into the dataflow model that sets Terminal Graph apart, like piping a git diff straight into Claude Code or grepping a dev server's logs into a browser node. Caidan explains Blueprints, his approach to sharing a whole team workflow as a single file, and what it's…

7. 

   E68 · 14 Jul 2026 · 47 min

   What VCs Want from Tech Talent | Engineering Careers with Melanie Nabar

   What do investors actually look for in software engineers and tech founders? Melanie Nabar pulls back the curtain on what VCs see when evaluating engineering talent, sharing insider insights on career growth, technical credibility, and the skills that matter most when funding is on the line. Perfect for engineers ready to level up their career strategy. Links Melanie Nabar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniejordannabar/ Volition Capital: https://www.volitioncapital.com/ Hosts Overcommitted: ⁠ https://overcommitted.dev ⁠Bethany Janos: ⁠ https://www.trustyduck.dev/⁠ ⁠Erika…

8. 

   S1 · E67 · 7 Jul 2026 · 32 min

   Safety-Critical Software | System Reliability for Live Events with Lars Olson

   Summary What happens when a software bug stops a concert—or endangers a performer flying above the stage? System reliability takes on new meaning in live event tech. This week, Brittany and Erika talk with Lars Olson, full stack engineer at TAIT, about building safety-critical systems that power the world's biggest tours and theme parks. Lars shares how React and Rust meet real-world consequences, why error boundaries matter more than you think, and what production safety teaches us about code quality and engineering culture. Links My Hometown Recipes - ⁠ https://myhometownrecipes.com/ ⁠…

9. 

   S1 · E66 · 30 Jun 2026 · 41 min

   Keeping Skills Sharp in the AI Age | Developer Productivity Essentials

   As AI code intelligence tools reshape daily programming work, developer productivity and career growth depend less on speed and more on judgment. In this episode, we explore what skills actually matter when AI writes code—and why engineers need a new mindset about staying sharp. From code quality ownership to learning tactics, discover the practical skills that keep your value rising in an AI-native engineering world. Links: Math books: https://www.bravernewmath.com/ Crystal Bepis: https://crystalbepis.com/ GitHub Copilot App: https://github.com/features/ai/github-app Hosts: Overcommitted:…

10. 

    S1 · E65 · 23 Jun 2026 · 44 min

    Software Engineering in Production With Cameron Etezadi

    What happens when coding becomes nearly free - but everything else in the software delivery process doesn't? Cameron Etezadi, CTO at LaunchDarkly, joins Erika, Brittany, and Bethany to talk about the gap between code that compiles and code that actually works in production. They cover vibe coding pitfalls, the release-observe-iterate loop, how AI is shifting engineers toward frontline manager behaviors, and why speed without control is a liability - not an asset. Cameron also shares how LaunchDarkly changed their intern interview process to reflect the AI era, what EU regulations mean for…