Backend Banter

The Tools Are Smarter. Are You? ft. YK Sugi | S02 E12

31 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 YouTu...

How to Win at Learning ft. Quincy Larson | S02 E11

24 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 tec...

Mitchell Hashimoto: From Terraform to Ghostty | S02 E10

17 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today we welcome Mitchell Hashimoto, co-founder of HashiCorp and creator of Ghostty, a new terminal emulator built in Zig. In this episode, Mitchell s...

Vercel’s Big AI Bet. ft. Malte Ubl | S02 E09

10 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Build skills, not degrees. ft. Madison Kanna | S02 E08

03 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today we welcome Madison Kana—a self-taught dev who defied the traditional path. From dropping out and navigating a world of homeschooling to launch...

Roll your own auth or you’re ngmi. ft. Dreams of Code | S02 E07

24 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This time Elliot from  @dreamsofcode  joins us to talk about building his own course platform we dive into why he chose to go custom, the tech stack...

Programming Music with Sonic Pi feat. Sam Aaron | S02 E06

17 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today we bring Sam Aaron, the creator of Sonic Pi, a free code-based music creation and performance tool that lets you use simple code to turn your co...

KRAZAM Unfiltered feat. Ben Burke | S2 E05

10 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we bring a very special guest, one whose face you might recognise, one that appears on your homepages with a sporadic video and seemingly disap...

Does ADHD really make programming harder? ft. Chris Ferdinandi | S2 E04

03 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with Chris Ferdinandi—creator of Go Make Things and ADHD for the Win—a frontend dev, educator, and all-around expert in making JavaScri...

Why You Need To Stop Worrying About AI feat. Danny Thompson | S2 E03

27 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’re joined by Danny Thompson, currently Director of Technology at This Dot Labs and technical leader and organizer of the Dallas Software Develope...

Everyone is doing memory management wrong. feat. Ryan Fleury | S2 E02

20 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Backend Banter, we’re joined by Ryan Fleury, a talented game developer currently working with Epic Games on their Rad Debugger project....

Is Elixir the Future? feat. José Valim | S2 E01

13 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We're back for Backend Banter Season 2, and we bring a very special guest, José Valim, the creator of the Elixir Programming Language, one of the mos...

#069 - Season Finale: The Boot.dev Origin Story w/ Allan

02 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we bring you the final episode of the first season of Backend Banter! It’s a wrap up for now. With 69 episodes behind us, we want to tell you...

#068 - Should you trust tech influencers? feat. Charles The III

26 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today we welcome Chuck Carpenter aka Charles The 3rd, co-host at Whiskey Web and Whatnot. As two content creators in the tech scene, we discuss if an...

#067 - How to Be Better than 96.487% of Developers

19 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

#066 - CSS Is The Hardest Programming Language

12 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 Chall...

#065 - I Quit Voice Coaching for Typescript feat. Matt Pocock

05 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 hi...

#064 - You’re doing networking wrong feat. Lawrence Lockhart

29 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s episode, we welcome Lawrence Lockhart, a former hospitality manager turned full stack software developer. Apart from his tech job, he’s...

#063 - I was fired for using HTMX

22 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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, a...

#062 - Declaring War Against the Frontend feat. Sam Selikoff

15 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

#061 - Forget SQL, use Typescript feat. Thomas Ballinger

08 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today we bring Thomas Ballinger, a developer at Convex, an open-source backend for application builders. We will be discussing mainly databases, and w...

#060 - Adam Elmore: IndieHacker Extraordinaire

01 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today we bring anothe returning guest, Adam Elmore! An AWS Hero, Teacher and fellow content creator! You might notice today's talk is a bit differ...

#059 - The Internet == AWS? feat. James Q Quick

24 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we bring back James Q Quick. Last time we talked about his best tips to land your first ever job as a developer. Today we talk...

#058 - Stop Making Private Variables feat. BadCop

17 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we bring back BadCop! Since last episode, she joined Boot.dev's team and is now writing courses with us! Today we will be...

#057 - AI Bros Suck.. feat. Ken Wheeler

10 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we welcome Ken Wheeler, a dope programmer, who creates cool projects and just gives them away for free, helping thousands of d...

#056 - Maybe Programmers are Just Bad feat. Casey Muratori

03 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we welcome Casey Muratori, a seasoned programmer who specializes in game engine research and development who is currently work...

#055 - Talking Go with the Go God feat. AnthonyGG

27 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s episode, we bring AnthonyGG, a highly requested guest, a Go developer with over a decade of experience with Golang and a fellow content c...

#054 - CS Programs Should NOT Teach Git feat. ThePrimeagen

20 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we bring back a dear guest and friend of the podcast, ThePrimeagen! Now Ex-Netflix engineer who turned his full focus to content creation surro...

#053 - Go isn’t secure?!? feat. Low Level Learning

13 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we welcome Low Level Learning, a fellow programmer and content creator. With over 500k subscribers and his own course where he...

#052 - AI Generates 90% of My Code

06 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s episode, we welcome Natalie Pistunovich, host of the Go Time podcast, OpenAI Ambassador and Google Developer Expert for Go. She advises c...

#051 - Should you grind leetcode? feat. NeetCode

29 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s episode, we bring fellow developer and tech content creator NeetCode, to talk about his obstacles and observations on his path in becomin...

#050 - Python is Faster than Rust

22 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s episode, we welcome John Crickett, veteran software engineer, having worked at Staff, VP, and C-Suite positions over the years, and now f...

#049 - Is OCaml SaaS Ready?

15 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s episode, we bring Leandro Ostera, a seasoned software engineer, who’s currently leading the OCaml build system team, with the mission o...

#048 - Your command line sucks feat. Bashbunni

08 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we're excited to have Bashbunni join us, a software developer and fellow tech content creator currently rocking it as a DevRel at Charm, wh...

#047 - From Nursing to Programming feat. Trash Puppy

01 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we host Trash Puppy, with her amazing story of how she went from Nursing to becoming a Software Engineer. Today, we talk about her st...

#046 - How I Spent $100,000/mo on CI/CD

25 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we're thrilled to have Tommy Graves, co-founder of RWX, a company focusing on building tools that optimize build and test performance, reli...

#045 - Whiskey, Web, and Wagners

18 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we bring a special "Whiskey, Web and Whatnot" edition to our podcast, where we welcome Travis Wagner and Robbie The Wagner, to talk a...

#044 - Managers should know how to code feat. Thorsten Ball

11 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we bring Thorsten Ball, author of "Writing An Interpreter In Go" and "Writing A Compiler In Go". In this talk, we discuss the diff...

#043 - Nuxt.js is better than Next.js feat. Daniel Roe

04 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we bring Daniel Roe, the Lead Maintainer of Nuxt.js, an open source framework that makes web development intuitive and powerful. Toda...

#042 - Rust is the WORST language to learn first feat. Teej DeVries

26 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we bring back Teej DeVries, the first guest ever on our podcast! Today we are discussing Teej's new course on Boot.dev on Memory M...

#041 - From Roblox to software founder feat. Lewis Menelaws

19 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Lane chats with Lewis Menelaws, a Full-Stack developer and entrepreneur. Today he takes us through his coding journey and insights as...

#040 - The man who wrote the book on DynamoDB feat. Alex DeBrie

12 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Lane talks to Alex DeBrie, author of the DynamoDB book. Today's talk covers various aspects such as DynamoDB's comparison with Amazon...

#039 - Get promoted by being lazy feat. Dax Raad

05 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Lane talks to Dax Raad, a well rounded engineer that is currently a developer for SST, a framework that helps people build Full-Stack...

#038 - I Got Caught Rolling my Own Auth... feat. Dev Agrawal

29 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with Dev Agrawal— content creator & Developer Advocate at Clerk! Tune in as they discuss DevRel, authentication vs. authorization, JW...

#037 - Caddy Chronicles with Matt Holt

23 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with Matt Holt-- a renowned figure in backend engineering and the creator of Caddy, a leading platform for serving sites and apps written i...

#036 - BadCop's Bash Breakdown

15 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with BadCop-- a senior Bash engineer, Twitch streamer and the mastermind behind their online presence. From the origins of 'BadCop' to the ...

#035 - Discussing Roc and functional systems with Richard Fieldman

08 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with Richard Feldman, creator of the Roc programming language, about why he decided to create it. They discuss object oriented programming ...

#034 - Brain Oriented Programming with Philip Winston

01 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with Philip Winston, a software engineer with a storied history who recently published an article titled "Brain Oriented Programming". Tune...

#033 - WebI is not a package manager feat. AJ O'neal

25 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with AJ O'Neal about giving up on Rust, the challenges of using brew from a permissions standpoint, and how, exactly, WebI is not a package...

#032 - React Server Components... in Go? With JLarky

18 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of Backend Banter, Lane chats with JLarky about React server components... in GO. Why would anyone want to do that? Find out here! The...

#031 - Trying (Practically) Every Functional Language and Landing on OCaml with Sabine

11 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with Sabine, one of the primary maintainers of OCaml.org, about how she built web apps in Django on the side, only to land her first progra...

#030 - The Future of Backend JavaScript with a Node.js Maintainer: Matteo Collina

05 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Matteo Collina is a member of the Node.js technical steering committee and has one of the most impressive developer resumes we've ever seen. His 500 N...

#029 - Write Laravel, not PHP (feat. Aaron Francis)

27 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane and Aaron Francis sit down to talk about Laravel and PHP, and why everyone who uses them tends to make a lot of money. There seems to be somethin...

#028 - Learning Go: A Discussion of the Language with the Author, Jon Bodner

20 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

#027 - 2023 vs 2001 Tech Recessions and Distributed Systems with Russ Ross

13 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with his distributed systems professor from when he was a computer science undergraduate, Dr. Russ Ross. They talk about the state of the h...

#026 - Why PubSub Architectures are Still Cool with Byron Ruth and David Gee

06 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Byron Ruth and David Gee from the NATS and the Synadia team join Lane today to chat about distributed systems, and more specifically, PubSub architect...

#025 - Rust Developer Admits to Enjoying Dynamic Types with Sean Walker

30 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane sits down with Sean Walker to talk about Ruby on Rails, dynamic typing, and even a bit of Rust. Sean's been writing Ruby on Rails for years, and ...

#024 - Behind HTMX: Carson Gross on the re-Rise of Hypermedia

23 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This is a podcast about backend development, so I couldn't miss the chance to chat with Carson Cross, the creator of HTMX and author of the book Hyper...

#023 - Has Web Development Regressed? A Conversation with Wes Bos

16 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Has web development gone full circle? Should we really just be writing PHP monoliths? Maybe all go back to WordPress? Wes and Lane break down how web ...

#022 - Job Hunting as a Self-Taught Programmer with Don the Developer

09 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

If you're nervous about searching for programming jobs this episode is for you. Lane sits down with Don the Developer to chat about everything from re...

#021 - TypeScript vs Elixir: An FP Showdown with Theo Browne

02 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Theo Browne is a notorious tech YouTuber and streamer, CEO of Ping.gg, TypeScript advocate and creator of the t3 stack. In this episode Theo sheds som...

#020 - Running SQLite on the Edge with Pekka Enberg

25 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Pekka is the CTO of TursoDB, a cloud database product that helps developers run SQLite on the edge. Lane and Pekka talk about all the tradeoffs involv...

Backend Banter | Official Trailer

19 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The near-cinematic trailer for the backend banter podcast. Featuring The Primeagen, Melkey, TJ Devries, Miriah Peterson, Bill Kennedy, and Brian Morri...

#019 - Full-time vs Freelancing vs Starting a Company with Rob Walling

18 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with Rob Walling. Rob is the author of several books, including the SaaS playbook and Start Small Stay Small. He founded Drip, TinySeed and...

#018 - Data Engineering for Gophers with Miriah Peterson

11 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Miriah Peterson chats with Lane about how great Go tends to be for not only backend application development, but also data engineering roles. Miriah h...

#017 - Writing Go at Multi-Million Dollar Companies with Mat Ryer

04 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with Mat Ryer, a host of the amazing GoTime.fm podcasts sits down with Lane to chat about his experience as a Go developer. Among other thi...

#016 - Is Python even good? A debate with Dr. Michael Green

28 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with Michael Green about Python programming on the backend side of the web stack. They debate Python's efficacy in large production project...

#015 - Forking Rust into Crablang with Travis Wagner

21 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with Travis Wagner, aka TechSavvyTravvy, the man behind the "crablang" fork of Rust. They talk about the issues with the Rust foundation th...

#014 - Building the Best Tools and Tests with The Primeagen

14 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with The Primeagen about unit tests, how to build good cli tooling, Golang, Rust, and a ton of stuff about Prime's history and how he got i...

#013 - Landing your First Coding Job with James Q Quick

07 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with James about all his best tips for landing your first ever job as a developer.Learn back-end development - https://boot.devListen on yo...

#012 - Becoming a Netflix-Level Engineer with Trash Dev

31 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with Trash, a Netflix engineer and code streamer on Twitch. They break down Trash's story: how he got into coding, from being a mainframe d...

#011 - Writing Go and doin' DevOps with Jonathan Hall

24 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with Jonathan Hall, a long time Go developer, host of the cup o' go podcast, and prolific DevOps guy. They discuss what DevOps is, what it ...

#010 - Distributed Web Apps with Kyle Simpson

17 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with Kyle Simpson, principal software engineer at Socket Supply. They talk about a new wrapper around mobile apps that allows developers to...

#009 - Scaling MySQL with Brian Morrison from PlanetScale

10 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane and Brian talk about scaling databases, particularly MySQL, Vitess, and the PlanetScale platform. Brian is a developer educator at PlanetScale, a...

#008 - Accelerating Your Coding Career with Charles Max Wood

03 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane and Charles talk about how you can get ahead in your coding career, and move up more quickly from junior to senior developer. Charles is the foun...

#007 - Switching from .NET to Go with Bill Kennedy

26 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bill Kennedy joins Lane on this episode of Backend Banter to discuss his origin story: why he left .NET and the Microsoft stack years ago to become a ...

#006 - Building a FAANG Career with Melkey (Senior Go Dev @ Twitch)

19 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

I chat with Melkey,  a senior Go developer at Twitch about how he would reverse engineer his successful backend software engineering career at FAANG ...

#005 - Scaling Databases Every Which Way with Glauber Costa

12 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with Glauber Costa, a founder of Turso DB, maintainer of the Linux kernel, and ex-Scylla DB developer. If you're curious how databases scal...

#004 - PHD turned Backend Developer with Simon B

05 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with Simon B,  a PHD in electrical engineering from the UK who has founded startups, worked as a CTO, and publishes educational coding con...

#003 Architecting a Backend that Serves Millions with Adam Elmore

29 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with Adam Elmore, cofounder of StatMuse about how he builds scalable B2C backend infrastructure on AWS. They discuss the pros and cons of s...

#002 - Serverless Architecture and SST with Dax Raad

22 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane chats with Dax Raad, SST framework maintainer about the future of serverless infrastructure. They cut through the hype to figure out how serverle...

#001 - Elegance in OCaml with TJ DeVries

16 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lane and TJ DeVries chat about OCaml and why functional programming can result in more elegant and readable code. TJ is a core maintainer of NeoVim an...