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Beyond Coding

Beyond Coding

Patrick Akil 252 Episodes Aug 19, 2026

For software engineers ready to level up. Learn from CTOs, principal engineers, and tech leaders about the skills beyond coding: from technical mastery to product thinking and career growth. Created by Patrick Akil.

Episodes

How Amazon Turns Real Failures Into Better AI Models
How Amazon Turns Real Failures Into Better AI Models Aug 19, 2026 00:41:53 How does Amazon build its agentic AI? Michael Giannangeli, Head of Product for Amazon Nova and Agentic AI, breaks down evals, RL gyms, and model routing. He also explains why the bottleneck in software has shifted away from engineering hours and what takes its place.In this video, we cover:The eval lifecycle: building from real failure modes, saturation, and why 100% means deleteRL gyms: training
Wes Bos: How Developers Stand Out When AI Writes the Code
Wes Bos: How Developers Stand Out When AI Writes the Code Aug 12, 2026 00:24:57 AI is changing what developers build, but code alone is no longer enough to prove what you can do. Wes Bos explains why engineers need to solve problems beyond syntax, how agent workflows are reshaping software development, and what still requires human thinking.In this conversation:The limits of generative UI and AI-generated designAgent loops, harnesses, and cheaper AI modelsThe rising cost of A
Career Advice Every Software Engineer Needs Right Now
Career Advice Every Software Engineer Needs Right Now Aug 5, 2026 00:55:17 Answering engineer questions on AI pressure, career growth, product thinking and impact. Including the production incident I'm glad happened, and the mindset I refuse to accept when things break.In this video, we cover:- Whether managers are really demanding more output because of AI- Balancing fundamentals with AI coding tools and agents early in your career- Specialist vs generalist and when to
DX Expert: What The Best Engineers Solve After The Code Review Bottleneck
DX Expert: What The Best Engineers Solve After The Code Review Bottleneck Jul 29, 2026 01:22:08 How do you prove AI is shipping more features? Amos Haviv leads the Developer Workflow teams at Booking.com, supporting 4000 engineers operating 8000 repos.Everybody is burning through their AI budget right now and almost nobody can answer what it bought them. Amos can, because his team spent four years building an event system to debug their own SDLC before AI upped the urgency.In this video, we
AWS Veteran: The New Software Development Life Cycle
AWS Veteran: The New Software Development Life Cycle Jul 22, 2026 01:53:17 "I need to stop using Opus. This doesn't work." That was Heitor Lessa's conclusion after a refactor cost him 200 million tokens, and it forced him to rebuild the entire agent workflow now available for 1400 engineers. Heitor spent 11 years at AWS, built Lambda Powertools to 230 billion API calls a week, and in this episode he walks through the full SDLC workflow on screen, from d
Vercel VP: What Senior Engineers do Differently
Vercel VP: What Senior Engineers do Differently Jul 15, 2026 00:28:15 What senior engineers do differently has less to do with output than most career ladders suggest, and Lindsey Simon, VP of Engineering at Vercel, has watched the distinction sharpen as everyone in the valley becomes a "member of technical staff." From why new grads with hackathon years might out-prepare engineers with six years on the job, to what happens when PR throughput stops being y
Cracked Solo Dev: Why the Fastest Engineers Are Falling Behind
Cracked Solo Dev: Why the Fastest Engineers Are Falling Behind Jul 9, 2026 00:40:05 The fastest engineers are falling behind, and Kitze was one of them. He built his reputation on raw coding speed, then realized his coding wasn't competing with anyone's coding anymore, it was competing with their setups. Wake-up call for developers: Kitze now runs 140 projects solo with agent loops, and in this episode he breaks down what separates the engineers pulling ahead from the one
AI Cloud CTO: Why These Engineering Skills Get You Hired No Matter What
AI Cloud CTO: Why These Engineering Skills Get You Hired No Matter What Jul 1, 2026 00:58:44 Danila Shtan runs engineering at Nebius, one of the biggest AI clouds in the world, and he told me exactly which engineers he hires on the spot. There are only hundreds of people on the planet with the skill he wants most, and it is not the one you are grinding on. We get into which engineering skills are actually scarce and well paid today, and which ones are quietly on the way out.In this episod
Tech Career Expert: Why Applying to Jobs No Longer Works
Tech Career Expert: Why Applying to Jobs No Longer Works Jun 24, 2026 00:46:39 120,000 tech workers have been laid off in 2026, yet there are 60,000 open roles. Engineers applying are sending out 100 applications for zero replies. Former Reddit, Uber and Disney Plus recruiter Keki Mwaba breaks down why the market broke, why every resume now looks identical, and what gets you hired when yours looks like everyone else's.In this video, we cover:Why 120,000 layoffs and 60,000 op
AI Frontrunners: Why Coding is Solved But Engineering is Not
AI Frontrunners: Why Coding is Solved But Engineering is Not Jun 17, 2026 00:51:46 Jeroen Gordijn and Jeroen Dee: two frontrunners who stopped writing code months ago and say software development is already solved. Typing code is no longer necessary, but what matters more now? If you're an engineer that loves coding, you're in a tougher spot than you might realize.In this video, we cover:- Why writing code is "solved" but engineering isn't- Spec-driven development and how to get
AI Architect: Why The Best Software Engineers Are Solving Code Review Bottlenecks Now
AI Architect: Why The Best Software Engineers Are Solving Code Review Bottlenecks Now Jun 10, 2026 00:40:29 AI generates 10x more code, but your senior engineers still review it by hand and it's burning them out. Even Google admits code review is now the bottleneck nobody knows how to solve.Florian Buetow, AI engineer at Xebia, has been running experiments to eliminate the human from the review loop entirely, and what he found changes where engineers should focus their effort.In this episode, we cover:W
Google AI Lead: The New Rules of Software Engineering
Google AI Lead: The New Rules of Software Engineering Jun 3, 2026 00:23:45 Are you ready to adapt to the rapidly evolving rules of software development? In this deep dive, Logan Kilpatrick, Director and Engineer at Google DeepMind, breaks down how AI agents, advanced model-product symbiosis, and tools like Gemini 3.5 Flash are fundamentally shifting the engineering bottleneck. Learn how to maintain your competitive advantage by moving beyond the keyboard to focus on prob

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