Console

Console Devtools podcast

Interviews with interesting people in the devtools space.

From security to dev focused infrastructure, and from homomorphic encryption to privacy and decentralization, we discuss the technical details around devtools.

Season 4

Other episodes
Serverless databases

with Monica Sarbu

We start with the philosophy behind serverless databases, why developers shouldn't need to think about relational databases, search, and analytics, whether the performance hit of accessing a database over HTTP matters, and how database branching works.

S04 E102023-06-29
Play · 29m 02s
Creating Julia

with Jeff Bezanson

We start with the history of Julia and why it took a while to take off, the key principles behind the language, how it provides the speed of C with the ease of Python, and what it's been like running such a large open-source project. He sheds light on the original motivation for Julia, the process of creating it, and its involvement in AI.

S04 E092023-06-22
Play · 31m 49s
WebAssembly

with Matt Butcher

We discuss the four use cases for WebAssembly, why Wasm’s sandboxed approach is so secure, whether there's any danger retrofitting other use cases onto a language that was originally designed for the web, and how limitations like the lack of full networking support are going to be resolved.

S04 E082023-06-15
Play · 37m 46s
Why engineering sucks

with Eli Schleifer

We discuss why engineering sucks, what developers can learn from how software gets built at Google and Uber, how individual developers can improve their coding experience, and why Git commit messages are useless.

S04 E072023-06-08
Play · 36m 33s
Frontend platforms

with Matt Biilmann

We discuss what it was like deploying code before Netlify, whether there is about to be a fragmentation in the JavaScript ecosystem as React gets more opinionated, where state and data fit into the Jamstack model, and how you might reach developers with a new project today.

S04 E062023-06-01
Play · 33m 09s
Devrel

with Christina Warren

We talk about what constitutes a “typical day” in DevRel (if such a thing exists), how to get started in the field, and the types of skills needed. We also discuss how to measure success in DevRel, the importance of advocating for the user, and where exactly DevRel ends and product begins.

S04 E052023-05-25
Play · 32m 14s
Shell scripting

with Steve Lee

We start with what PowerShell is and why its object-based approach is interesting, then get into what it was like open sourcing a project at Microsoft back in 2016. We discuss the transition to using GitHub and what it's like managing an open source project at scale.

S04 E042023-05-18
Play · 32m 14s
Creating Go

with Russ Cox

We discuss the original motivations for Go, the principles behind the language design, what other projects can learn from how Go manages its open-source community, and what Russ would change about Go if he started again.

S04 E032023-05-11
Play · 36m 42s
Building Tools Devs Love

with Erica Brescia

We discuss what's changed since Erica started her first DevTools company back in the mid-2000s, how to build tools developers love, whether open source is just a marketing strategy, and what she looks for in software investments.

S04 E022023-05-04
Play · 32m 44s
Dev War Stories

with Steven Sinofsky

We discuss what it was like shipping code at Microsoft in the early days, what he learned from Bill Gates, how it applies to software development today, what the big Windows 8 rewrite was like, and why the Copilot AI naysayers are completely wrong.

S04 E012023-04-26
Play · 40m 07s

Season 3

Engineering Leadership

with Meri Williams

We discuss the role of technology leadership, what engineering managers can do to help their teams, how to best go about recruiting engineers, and whether engineering performance can be measured.

S03 E102022-08-11
Play · 33m 11s
WebAssembly

with Connor Hicks

Suborbital

We discuss how WebAssembly works, when you’d use AssemblyScript rather than other languages which compile to WASM, the use cases for deploying WebAssembly on the backend, and how the dev, test, build, deploy, and observability cycle works when creating code in WebAssembly.

S03 E092022-08-04
Play · 30m 33s
VR

with Elena Kokkinara

Inflight VR

We discuss how VR has developed over the last decade, how the body ownership illusion can make you feel like you have an entirely different physical body, whether developers can code in VR environments, and whether AR is in competition with VR.

S03 E082022-07-28
Play · 26m 27s
Containers & Tests

with Sergei Egorov

Atomic Jar

We discuss the challenges of developing container-based applications, how to orchestrate containers for testing, the future of cloud development environments, and whether the Apple M1 chip has come too late.

S03 E072022-07-21
Play · 32m 45s
Data science

with Ines Montani

Explosion

We discuss how ML and NLP work behind the scenes, how developers should think about applied NLP, the common languages and frameworks used to build ML and NLP applications, and the challenges that come with running them at scale.

S03 E062022-07-14
Play · 32m 11s
Security & Software Supply Chain

with Feross Aboukhadijeh

Socket

We discuss the risks of using third party dependencies, how JS and NPM could improve their approach to security, whether trust in open source is eroding, and how to improve the overall security posture of your application.

S03 E052022-07-07
Play · 31m 45s
Privacy Engineering

with Cate Huston

DuckDuckGo

We discuss why developers should care about privacy, what technologies and tools are available for building privacy-driven features, how DuckDuckGo manages performance when doing lookups against tracker lists, and the full stack of privacy tools, from search to the browser to email.

S03 E042022-06-30
Play · 24m 04s
OSS & Investing

with Joseph Jacks

OSS Capital

We discuss why open source is such an important differentiator for all software development; the philosophy behind open source, open core, and building a community around open-source software; whether open source should be the default for all software; and what he looks for in investments.

S03 E032022-06-23
Play · 30m 10s
eBPF

with Liz Rice

Isovalent

We discuss BPF and why it is such a revolutionary approach to developing low level kernel applications, how BPF can be used for observability, networking and security. How developers should think about application security and why all of these technologies are open source.

S03 E022022-06-16
Play · 32m 25s
Dev infrastructure

with Guillermo Rauch

Vercel

We discuss the meaning of “developer experience”, how complexity is managed to help developers get started quickly but still be able to scale multiple systems, the role of monorepos and monolithic application architectures, and how to think about globally deployed serverless databases.

S03 E012022-06-09
Play · 37m 16s

Season 2

Developer experience

with Jean Yang

Akita

We discuss the software heterogeneity problem, why it isn't better to rewrite in rust and how the language wars have actually been won. We also explore how the big fight today is about infrastructure and why microservices are the solution to the ever-growing complexity of software.

S02 E112022-03-17
Play · 33m 51s
Terminal tools

with Michelle Lim & Zach Lloyd

Warp

We discuss the historical significance of physical terminals, terminal emulators, pseudo-terminals and the shell. We also explore why Rust is a better technology choice than Electron for building a new terminal, why GPU acceleration matters, how it works with the macOS Metal APIs, and discuss the challenges garbage collection brings to high performance UIs.

S02 E102022-03-10
Play · 28m 07s
Designing dev products

with Ellen Chisa

Boldstart

We discuss whether that is the right way to think about coding, where no code or low code fits into the modern development stack, how developers should think about open source and the challenges of building dev tools versus getting developers to actually use them.

S02 E092022-03-03
Play · 32m 45s
Web standards & privacy

with Desigan (Dees) Chinniah

Tor / Ex-Mozilla

We discuss the evolution of web tech from websites to complex decentralized applications running on browser APIs, the competitiveness of the browser rendering engine versus the UX layer and how developers think about privacy. Does it live in browser settings, extensions or on the protocol core level?

S02 E082022-02-24
Play · 32m 47s
Dev communities

with Rosie Sherry

Orbit

We discuss why community is not marketing, how devrel and community are different, who owns community and what that might mean with web3 & decentralization, and what essential tools you need for managing communities.

S02 E072022-02-17
Play · 28m 10s
Homomorphic encryption

with Rand Hindi

Zama

We discuss the principles behind encryption, homomorphic encryption, and programmable bootstrapping, how these technologies can ensure user data privacy, what is changing that is making them more relevant to today, and how developers should be thinking about building on new protocols from HTTP to HTTPS to HTTPZ.

S02 E062022-02-10
Play · 28m 28s
Devtools investing

with Ed Sim

Boldstart

We discuss what engineers should think about when working on side projects, when and if they should seek out investors, how to pick the good ones, whether raising money is even needed, and what the role of open source is.

S02 E052022-02-03
Play · 30m 38s
Decentralization

with Brooklyn Zelenka

Fission

We discuss the relevance of blockchain to web3 and decentralized web apps, why developers should avoid managing backend servers, the challenges of doing authentication and identity with local clients, and why web browser APIs are the place to build, not the native operating system.

S02 E042022-01-27
Play · 29m 39s
Observability

with Charity Majors

Honeycomb

We discuss why observability is based around events and not metrics, how developers should think about achieving appropriately observable systems, why Honeycomb implemented their own distributed columnar data store, and how you can delete most of your alerts by implementing service level objectives.

S02 E032022-01-20
Play · 27m 37s
Security

with Thomas Ptacek

Developer, Fly.io

We discuss the state of software security in sectors like energy and healthcare, how software developers should think about supply chain risk, and what they should do about securing their dependencies. We also explore how security threats have changed over the years, and what developers working on open source should do to improve their own security.

S02 E022022-01-13
Play · 32m 13s
Dev infrastructure

with John Graham Cumming

CTO, Cloudflare

We discuss the philosophy behind the idea that the network is a computer, why developers should be able to ignore the low level details of where their code runs, and the challenges of deploying data centers on Mars.

S02 E012022-01-06
Play · 33m 18s

Season 1

How do developers pick tools? (Cue & Leapp)

with David Mytton & Jean Yang

Episode 10 of the Console Devtools Podcast, a devtools discussion with David Mytton (Co-founder, Console) and Jean Yang (CEO, Akita Software). Tools discussed: Cue - Open source data validation language, Leapp - manage cloud access credentials.

S01 E102021-09-09
Play · 14m 44s
Can you rely on autofix? (Tyk & DeepSource)

with David Mytton & Jean Yang

Episode 9 of the Console Devtools Podcast, a devtools discussion with David Mytton (Co-founder, Console) and Jean Yang (CEO, Akita Software). Tools discussed: Tyk - API gateway, Deepsource - automated code reviews

S01 E092021-09-02
Play · 15m 23s
Decentralize your tech stack (Fission & AskGit)

with David Mytton & Jean Yang

Episode 8 of the Console Devtools Podcast, a devtools discussion with David Mytton (Co-founder, Console) and Jean Yang (CEO, Akita Software). Tools discussed: Fission - decentralized app backend for storage and identity, AskGit - query git repos with SQL.

S01 E082021-08-26
Play · 14m 04s
Code search, dev flow & testing (Sourcegraph & Hoppscotch)

with David Mytton & Jean Yang

Episode 7 of the Console Devtools Podcast, a devtools discussion with David Mytton (Co-founder, Console) and Jean Yang (CEO, Akita Software). Tools discussed: Sourcegraph - code search engine, Hoppscotch - test UI for API requests.

S01 E072021-08-19
Play · 15m 09s
Open source vs commercial (Appsmith & Retool)

with David Mytton & Jean Yang

Episode 6 of the Console Devtools Podcast, a devtools discussion with David Mytton (Co-founder, Console) and Jean Yang (CEO, Akita Software). Tools discussed: Appsmith - Open source internal tool UI builder, Retool - Internal tool UI builder.

S01 E062021-08-12
Play · 13m 57s
Security metrics and monitoring (Snyk & Security Scorecard)

with David Mytton & Jean Yang

Episode 5 of the Console Devtools Podcast, a devtools discussion with David Mytton (Co-founder, Console) and Jean Yang (CEO, Akita Software). Tools discussed: Snyk - Dependency security monitoring, Security Scorecard - Security health metrics.

S01 E052021-08-05
Play · 14m 11s
Real-time collaboration and audio (Liveblocks & Livekit)

with David Mytton & Jean Yang

Episode 4 of the Console Devtools Podcast, a devtools discussion with David Mytton (Co-founder, Console) and Jean Yang (CEO, Akita Software). Tools discussed: Liveblocks (real-time collaboration API), Livekit (open source live video and audio API)

S01 E042021-07-29
Play · 15m 59s
CRDT and browser testing (Automerge & Polypane)

with David Mytton & Jean Yang

Episode 3 of the Console Devtools Podcast, a devtools discussion with David Mytton (Co-founder, Console) and Jean Yang (CEO, Akita Software). Tools discussed: Automerge (conflict-free JSON-like data structure), Polypane (browser testing tool)

S01 E032021-07-22
Play · 13m 51s
AI pair programming and screen sharing (GitHub Copilot and Tuple)

with David Mytton & Jean Yang

Episode 3 of the Console Devtools Podcast, a devtools discussion with David Mytton (Co-founder, Console) and Jean Yang (CEO, Akita Software). Tools discussed: GitHub Copilot (AI pair programming) & Tuple (screen sharing for developers)

S01 E022021-07-15
Play · 15m 30s
Build, deploy, release, terminal workspaces (Waypoint & Zellij)

with David Mytton & Jean Yang

Episode 3 of the Console Devtools Podcast, a devtools discussion with David Mytton (Co-founder, Console) and Jean Yang (CEO, Akita Software). Tools discussed: Waypoint (build, deploy, release) & Zellij (terminal workspace)

S01 E012021-07-08
Play · 15m 30s
David Mytton
About the author

David Mytton is Co-founder & CEO of Console. In 2009, he founded and was CEO of Server Density, a SaaS cloud monitoring startup acquired in 2018 by edge compute and cyber security company, StackPath. He is also researching sustainable computing in the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford, and has been a developer for 15+ years.

About Console

Console is the place developers go to find the best tools. Each week, our weekly newsletter picks out the most interesting tools and new releases. We keep track of everything - dev tools, devops, cloud, and APIs - so you don't have to.