Podcast Archives - Software Engineering Daily

Flox, Nix, and Reproducible Software Systems with Michael Stahnke

Modern software development is more complex than ever. Teams work across different operating systems, chip architectures, and cloud environments, each with its own dependency quirks and version mismatches. Ensuring that code runs reproducibly across these environments has become a major challenge that’s made even harder by growing concerns around software supply chain security. Nix is a powerful open-source package manager that builds software in controlled, declarative environments where dependencies are explicitly defined and reproducible. Its functional approach has made it a gold standard for reproducible builds, but it can also be difficult to learn and adopt. Flox is a company that builds on top of Nix, with increased supply chain security and abstractions that streamline the developer experience. Michael Stahnke is the VP of Engineering at Flox and formerly worked at companies including Caterpillar, Puppet, and CircleCI. He joins the podcast with Kevin Ball to talk about Flox, building on top of Nix, how reproducibility underpins software security, the concept of “secure by construction, how deterministic environments are reshaping both human and AI-driven development, and much more. Full Disclosure: This episode is sponsored by Flox. Kevin Ball or KBall, is the vice president of engineering at Mento and an independent coach for engineers and engineering leaders. He co-founded and served as CTO for two companies, founded the San Diego JavaScript meetup, and organizes the AI inaction discussion group through Latent Space. Please click here to see the transcript of this episode. Sponsorship inquiries: sponsor@softwareengineeringdaily.com The post Flox, Nix, and Reproducible Software Systems with Michael Stahnke appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.

VS Code and Agentic Development with Kai Maetzel

Visual Studio Code has become one of the most influential tools in modern software development. The open-source code editor has evolved into a platform used by millions of developers around the world, and it has reshaped expectations for what a modern development environment can be through its intuitive UX, rich extension marketplace, and deep integration with today’s tooling landscape. Now, in an era defined by rapid advances in AI-assisted programming, VS Code is at the center of a profound shift in how software is written. Kai Maetzel is the Engineering Manager leading the VS Code team at Microsoft. He joins the show with Kevin Ball to talk about the origins of VS Code, how AI has reshaped the editor’s design philosophy, the rise of agentic programming models, and what the future of development might look like. Kevin Ball or KBall, is the vice president of engineering at Mento and an independent coach for engineers and engineering leaders. He co-founded and served as CTO for two companies, founded the San Diego JavaScript meetup, and organizes the AI inaction discussion group through Latent Space. Please click here to see the transcript of this episode. Sponsorship inquiries: sponsor@softwareengineeringdaily.com The post VS Code and Agentic Development with Kai Maetzel appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.

Blender and Godot in Game Development with Simon Thommes

Blender Studio is the creative arm of the Blender Foundation and it’s dedicated to producing films, games, and other projects that showcase the full potential of Blender. The studio functions as both an art and technology lab and pushes the boundaries of 3D animation through open productions. All of their assets, production files, and workflows are shared publicly, which gives artists and developers valuable resources to learn from and build upon. Most recently, Blender Studio released its second game, DOGWALK, where the playable character is a dog exploring snowy winter woods with a child. The project was built entirely with open-source tools including Blender, the Godot engine, Krita for concept art, Kitsu for project management, and Linux. Simon Thommes is a Lead Technical Artist at Blender Studio and a developer on DOGWALK. He joins the podcast with Joe Nash to talk about Blender Studio, the process behind building DOGWALK, and developing a pipeline between Blender and Godot.

Node.js in 2026 with Rafael Gonzaga

JavaScript has grown far beyond the browser. It now powers millions of backend systems, APIs, and cloud services through Node.js, which is one of the most widely deployed runtimes on the planet. Keeping such a critical piece of infrastructure fast, secure, and stable is a massive engineering challenge, and the work behind it is often invisible. Rafael Gonzaga is a Principal Open Source Engineer at NodeSource and a member of the Node.js Technical Steering Committee. He’s spent years digging into the performance and security layers of Node’s core, helping shape the direction of the runtime itself. Rafael joins the show to talk about the state of Node.js performance, how benchmarking really works, the balance between speed and stability, and what it means to contribute to one of the world’s most important open-source projects. Josh Goldberg is an independent full time open source developer in the TypeScript ecosystem. He works on projects that help developers write better TypeScript more easily, most notably on typescript-eslint: the tooling that enables ESLint and Prettier to run on TypeScript code. Josh regularly contributes to open source projects in the ecosystem such as ESLint and TypeScript. Josh is a Microsoft MVP for developer technologies and the author of the acclaimed Learning TypeScript (O’Reilly), a cherished resource for any developer seeking to learn TypeScript without any prior experience outside of JavaScript. Josh regularly presents talks and workshops at bootcamps, conferences, and meetups to share knowledge on TypeScript, static analysis, open source, and general frontend and web development. Please click here to see the transcript of this episode. Sponsorship inquiries: sponsor@softwareengineeringdaily.com The post Node.js in 2026 with Rafael Gonzaga appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.

Designing Innovative Puzzle Games with Zach Barth

Zachtronics is a legendary independent game studio known for creating intricate, engineering-focused puzzle games that merge logic, creativity, and code. The studio was founded by Zach Barth in 2011, and it has become a cult favorite among programmers and tinkerers alike with titles such as SpaceChem, Infinifactory, TIS-100, and Shenzhen I/O. Most recently, Zachtronics released Kaizen: A Factory Story, in which players take on the role of an American engineer hired by a Japanese manufacturing company in the 1980s to design assembly processes for various products. Zach Barth joins the podcast with Joe Nash to talk about the games he makes.