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 in-person jobs as opposed to starting off remote, how learning with purpose is essential if you want to make progress and advice for people starting out!

Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev

Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Code Connector: https://codeconnector.io

Lawrence's X/Twitter: https://x.com/LawrenceDCodes

Lawrence's TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawrencedlockhart

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:44 When did Lawrence start to be more involved in the online tech communities?

02:23 How did Lawrence meet James Q Quick

04:42 Transition from a Blue Collar job into Tech

10:59 6 months is not the standard anymore to get in the industry

13:44 The Timeline Discussion

15:56 Kelsey Hightower

18:09 Has Lawrence worked as a dev in non-tech companies and where he works now

23:33 It's IMPORTANT to go for local market and in-person jobs first

24:27 How networking actually works

28:46 Learning with a purpose

36:43 You shouldn't be trying to minmax your career path

39:43 Advice to people that are unsure in their skills

43:51 How to approach interviews

49:31 You have to practice interviewing

54:48 Learn the thing or get out

58:33 Disagree and commit

01:01:45 Where to find Lawrence

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 able to train your junior devs and much more!

Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev

Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Spiro's X/Twitter: https://x.com/spirodonfl

Spiro's Website: https://spirofloropoulos.com/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:35 Why are we having this conversation

01:33 How was HTMX involved in this?

03:38 Spiro's background

05:58 Why are we focusing so much on developer experience?

13:38 The Tech Industry as a whole is headed down the wrong path

16:17 Abstractions teaching you about the underlying technology rather than hiding it

18:47 What are the long-term consequences of unresolved technical debt?

26:46 There's things you can't blame frameworks for

28:27 We have to slow down

30:46 What happened after the introduction of HTMX into the project?

40:26 Hiring juniors is great, but you should have the resources to train them

47:00 The Technical Debt

50:32 The more complex the feature became, the bigger the struggle with HTMX

53:42 The reasons why Spiro was let go

57:10 Instead of Agile we should treat our programmers like adults

57:31 HTMX was instant and testing ability was better

01:01:21 Is Spiro looking for work?

01:02:00 Where to find Spiro

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: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Frontend First: https://frontendfirst.fm/

Sam's X/Twitter: https://x.com/samselikoff

Sam's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/samselikoff

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:51 Who is Sam Selikoff

02:12 Abstractions - Should you go a level deeper?

06:37 What was Sam's talk about

10:51 What is JavaScript doing differently?

19:10 Do you want the frameworks to push more features out of the box for backend work?

24:04 Strong opinions on a library level

30:29 Shipping more standardized interfaces

37:06 The frontend should be driving everything in the backend

39:12 Your types should flow from the database to the frontend, but not the product decisions

46:53 React Server Components

58:49 Where to find Sam

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 Convex - what it is and why should you use it?

03:16 What are query planners?

06:32 SQL is a very high level language

07:43 The primary differentiator of Convex

10:49 Who are Convex's biggest competitors?

14:20 How do you build the infrastructure

17:11 What type of database is Convex?

19:18 Why is Convex written in Rust?

23:35 Cheap abstractions

25:47 Productivity suffering from compile times

29:47 The different approaches for a backend developer to build scalable systems

32:28 Backend for Frontend

37:21 You want to be close to your data

42:13 Are there plans to support other languages at Convex?

47:06 Does the schema update the autocompletion in the editor

48:31 Naming and behavior of the queries with Convex

51:06 Why sqlc is great

52:28 Why TypeScript is a great "shortcut" for Convex

59:34 Where to find Thomas

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 different, as we don't cover too much technical details but we do cover a lot of other interesting topics that permeate our everyday lives, such as kids and family time, religion and purpose in life...

But don't worry, we also share some hot takes on indie hackers, business models of education platforms and finally content creation and how it can help you propel your career!

Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev

Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Adam's Twitter: https://x.com/adamdotdev

Adam's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@adamdotdev

ProAWS: https://www.proaws.dev/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:42 Terminal Coffee

06:42 Kids' books

09:00 How serious is the Terminal Coffee business

12:51 Indie Hackers

19:11 Books

23:42 The March of Time

25:56 Commitment to the lessons

27:21 The problem with course platforms

28:31 ProAWS

35:45 The education industry isn't as cutthroat as it seems

39:13 What's Adams plan of attack with the courses?

40:00 How does streaming affect Adam?

44:05 Who is Adam's audience?

44:44 Podcasting

47:34 Who is TomorrowFM targeted at?

49:14 Burnout in podcasts

52:01 Growing up religious

57:34 Would you say that you've distanced yourself from religion for epistemological or cultural reasons?

01:03:00 Throwing the religious labels out

01:13:03 Where to find Adam

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 about James' new startup and how he manages all his new tech adventures with being a parent and also provides some helpful insight as to why having an audience and personal connections in the industry is beneficial - but not strictly necessary to succeed.

We also talk about AWS, abstraction and the current (healing) state of layoffs, so don't lose hope if you're demotivated in your job search.

Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev

Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Deals for Devs: https://www.dealsfordevs.com/

James' Website: https://www.jamesqquick.com/

James' Twitter: https://x.com/jamesqquick

James' Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@JamesQQuick

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:55 On being a parent

04:28 Idiocracy

05:47 Deals for Devs

10:09 Comparison with Dixie Direct

12:22 How do you quantify the really high quality deals

15:57 The challenge with a two-sided marketplace

22:28 Doing stuff manually is actually pretty good

25:38 Having a personal connection helps A LOT

29:12 Zeta

34:05 The Web is being modeled on AWS

36:38 You shouldn't be learning one JavaScript framework

38:30 Know how to answer a question if you don't know the technology

41:43 When you learn to code, how much layers of abstraction you should go?

43:45 Should passion be required for a job in tech?

49:02 The state of layoffs

52:29 The ease of finding a job after a layoff when you're highly talented

55:58 Do you need an audience to find a job easily?

58:40 Developers of the world - Interviews in person

01:02:12 Where to find James

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 discussing the approaches to writing good educational material, Bash (of course, duh), working outside cloud solutions, SSH, NAS systems, workflows with different editors and cultural shifts in different areas of programming. Enjoy!

Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev

Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

BadCop's Twitter: https://x.com/badcop_

BadCop's Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/badcop_

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:58 BadCop Joined the Boot.dev Team!

01:15 Writing courses is harder than it looks

03:45 Lane's approach to writing courses

05:21 What's the hardest part of writing a course for BadCop?

09:01 On writing Bash

13:19 How useful is it to know how to work outside the cloud solutions?

17:28 SSHing into the home network

20:49 What is a NAS?

23:26 Using VTuber Software off the shelf

25:55 When did BadCop start using NeoVim?

29:41 IRC talk

33:20 Cultural shift in the programming space

38:05 Getter and Setter functions

42:35 People are overusing the idea of encapsulation

48:41 Dependency Inversion Principle

51:11 The VTuber Project

52:58 Where to find BadCop

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 developers worldwide, a based beatmaker and just in general a cool person.

In this episode, we talk about AI, React, OCaml, why stressing over specific frameworks is not worth it, advice for new developers, HTMX, SPA's and a LOT of other stuff, so stay tuned!

Ken's X/Twitter: https://x.com/ken_wheeler

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction

00:25 Do you hate AI?

02:10 How diffusion works

17:47 First impressions with writing Go

18:29 Where's the line between Backend Development and DevOps

24:11 Does anyone version their REST?

24:57 urql

25:38 Offloading the data work to the other side

29:55 Wordpress is 80% of the websites

31:15 HTMX

33:12 Single Page Apps

34:02 Is React still your go-to

36:38 Is it hard to switch from React to Vue?

39:37 Picking a first language to learn

40:43 OCaml

43:12 HEX and raw Binary Data

44:42 Bluetooth powered crossbow

52:20 What got Ken into doing talks

58:45 Where to find Ken