The Peterman Pod
by Ryan Peterman
Latest episode
Microsoft Distinguished Eng: Why And How To Port Your Entire…
Microsoft Distinguished Eng: Why And How To Port Your Entire…
About this podcast
Sharing the transparent career stories of technical people. Hosted by an ex-Staff engineer at Instagram
Episodes
The newest 50 of 74 episodes
- Microsoft Distinguished Eng: Why And How To Port Your Entire Codebase to Rust | Stephen Toub · 1 h 21 min · Episode 73Stephen Toub is a Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft who single-handledly rewrote the GitHub Copilot runtime (400,000-line codebase) in Rust. We talked about why/how he did it…
- Brian Kernighan: Inside Bell Labs, The Best Programmer, Why C Won · 1 h 28 min · Episode 72Brian Kernighan is a former Bell Labs member of technical staff, co-author of the original C book, and the one who popularized “Hello World.” We talked about what Bell Labs was…
- The Story Behind Creating DNS | Paul Mockapetris · 54 min · Episode 71This interview is with Paul Mockapetris, the creator of the internet's Domain Name System (DNS). I talked to him about the story behind building it and certain design choices he…
- Scott Aaronson: The Mathocalypse, Will Intelligence Matter Anymore? · 1 h 1 min · Episode 70Scott Aaronson is one of the world's leading quantum computing researchers and spent two years at OpenAI working on AI safety. We talked about why he thinks the singularity has…
- Neetcode: Google vs Amazon, Programming Interviews, Quitting Big Tech · 35 minNeetcode is the most well-known coding interview prep creator with over 1M+ subs on YouTube. I interviewed him about the latest on coding interviews, his career at Amazon vs…
- Amazon VP: Questions On Corporate Politics But They Get Increasingly Darker | Ethan Evans · 3 h 7 minIn this episode, I asked Ethan Evans (ex-Amazon VP) questions about common situations in corporate politics but they get increasingly darker. • My ergonomic keyboard project I…
- OpenAI & Meta Distinguished Eng (IC9): The Psychology Behind Tech Career Peaks | Philip Su · 44 minPhilip Su grew quickly to a Distinguished Engineer at Facebook and OpenAI. We talked about the psychology behind peaking in a tech career and the pressure at the highest levels…
- Casey Muratori: Surprises In Computer History And Where Bad Code Comes From · 1 h 57 minCasey Muratori is a video game developer and programming creator also known for his talks about the history of software and computing. We talked about surprising parts he found…
- How Anthropic Builds And How Engineering Will Change Soon | Thariq Shihipar · 1 h 10 minThariq Shihipar is an engineer on Anthropic’s Claude Code team I asked him how Anthropic makes the most out of the models for engineering and how the industry will change soon…
- Creator of Scala: Comparing Languages And How AI Will Impact Them | Martin Odersky · 58 minMartin Odersky is the creator of Scala and I interviewed him to compare different languages designs (Rust vs Zig vs Python vs Scala) and how AI will impact programming languages…
- Sergey Levine: Current State of Humanoid Robotics, China & Future Predictions · 58 minSergey Levine is one of the world's top robotics researchers and co-founder of Physical Intelligence. We talked about where humanoid robotics is today, thoughts on the Chinese…
- Creator of TypeScript: 10x Faster Typescript, Why AI Won't Replace SWEs | Anders Hejlsberg · 1 h 5 minAnders Hejlsberg is the creator of TypeScript and C#, and I asked him about how the TypeScript compiler got 10x faster through a rewrite in Go and his thoughts on how AI has…
- Creator of Lean: Handwritten Math Will Change Dramatically | Leonardo de Moura · 1 h 8 minLeonardo de Moura is the creator of Lean and the Z3 theorem prover. I talked with him about how Lean works and why LLMs plus Lean will fundamentally change how we write software…
- Creator of Lua: Scripting, Programming Languages, Predictions | Roberto Ierusalimschy · 1 h 5 minRoberto Ierusalimschy is the creator of the Lua programming language. I interviewed him about Lua's unique strengths, programming language design and predictions for how AI will…
- Turing Award Winner: Early AI, LLM Predictions, Causality | Judea Pearl · 1 h 27 minJudea Pearl is a Turing Award winner and a pioneer in artificial intelligence and causal reasoning. We talked about how he got into science, his major breakthroughs and his…
- Creator of OCaml: Functional Programming, Formal Verification, Programming Languages | Xavier Leroy · 1 h 24 minXavier Leroy (creator of OCaml) is an expert in compilers, formal verification of software and functional programming. This interview should be an approachable resource if you're…
- Turing Award Winner: TPU vs GPU vs CPU, Computer Architecture, RISC vs CISC | David Patterson · 59 minDavid Patterson is a Turing Award winner famous for his contributions to computer architecture. I interviewed him about his past work, thoughts on GPU/TPUs and career advice from…
- Turing Award Winner: NSA, Public Key Cryptography, Crypto Wars | Martin Hellman · 1 h 1 minMartin Hellman is a Turing Award winner who helped to invent public-key cryptography against the NSA's wishes. I interviewed him all about his work and why it broke the law at…
- MIT Complexity Theorist: Why You Can Do Better Than “Optimal” On Leetcode & SAT | Ryan Williams · 1 h 12 minRyan Williams is a professor at MIT and the winner of the Gödel Prize in theoretical computer science. I interviewed him all about his work starting by asking him a popular…
- OpenAI Eng & Dev Tools Founder: How Software Engineering Is Changing | Charlie Marsh · 1 h 22 minCharlie Marsh is the founder of Astral, the Python devtool startup that was acquired by OpenAI. I inteviewed him about how software engineering is changing and learnings from…
- Google DeepMind Pre-Training Lead: How To Land a Job at a Frontier Lab | Vlad Feinberg · 1 h 4 minVlad Feinberg is Google DeepMind’s pre-training area lead and I asked him all about how to land a job at a frontier lab like Google DeepMind, Anthropic or OpenAI. • My ergonomic…
- Co-Creator of Haskell: Functional Programming, Thinking in Types, Useless Languages | Simon Jones · 1 h 27 minSimon Peyton Jones is the co-creator of Haskell (pure functional programming language) and I interviewed him about functional programming, why it matters, and his thoughts on…
- Turing Award Winner: P vs NP, Zero-Knowledge Proofs, Quantum Computation | Avi Wigderson · 2 h 15 minAvi Wigderson is the only person in history to have won both a Turing Award (computer science) and Abel Prize (math). I interviewed him all about his field. • My ergonomic…
- Dropbox’s Former Most Senior Eng: Building Great Systems and Advice for the AI Era | James Cowling · 2 h 1 minJames Cowling is the CTO at Convex and was previously the most senior engineer at Dropbox. We discussed technical details of his past projects, simplicity vs complexity, and…
- Creator of C++: Bell Labs, Negative Overhead Abstraction, Mistakes | Bjarne Stroustrup · 1 h 59 minBjarne Stroustrup is the creator of the C++ programming language and a former researcher at Bell Labs. We talked about what Bell Labs was like, programming language design, and…
- Harvard Professor: CS50, What Matters More Than CS, Lecturing Well | David J Malan · 1 h 3 minDavid Malan is a Harvard professor known for turning CS50 into a popular online computer science course. We discussed the story behind CS50, how to lecture well, and how AI is…
- PyTorch Eng Director: Promo Hacking, Industry Shifts, Regrets | John Myles White · 44 minJohn Myles White recently left his role as a director of engineering at Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) so we spoke freely about promo culture, how big tech has changed, and…
- Turing Award Winner: Data Abstraction, Dijkstra, Distributed Systems | Barbara Liskov · 35 minBarbara Liskov is a Turing Award winner known for her work in programming languages and distributed systems. We discussed the major problems she solved in her career, stories…
- Turing Award Winner: Postgres, Disagreeing with Google, Future Problems | Mike Stonebraker · 57 minMike Stonebraker is a Turing Award winner famous for his contributions to fundamental database technologies. We discussed the story behind building Postgres, where he disagrees…
- AWS Distinguished Eng: Learning From 3000 Incidents And How Engineering Is Changing | Marc Brooker · 1 h 11 minIn this episode, I talked to Marc Brooker, a distinguished engineer at AWS who started there as a new grad and rose through the ranks. We discussed technical learnings from…
- Ex-Head of Eng at Instagram: Career Regrets and Learnings | James Everingham · 59 minThis is James Everingham, former head of engineering at Instagram and a veteran of the tech world with experience at Netscape. We talked about his unconventional start in the…
- Retired Amazon VP: How Corporate Politics Work And How To Win | Ethan Evans · 2 h 50 minEthan Evans is a former VP at Amazon has seen pretty much every possible type of corporate politics. Now that he's retired, he could share everything he'd seen including stories…
- The Co-Creator of Kubernetes On Convincing Google, Building It, and Scaling for LLMs · 1 h 7 minThis is a conversation with Brendan Burns, co-creator of Kubernetes and current technical fellow at Microsoft working on Azure. We discussed what it was like building it at…
- Meta Hiring Lead On Behind The Scenes of Senior+ Eng Hiring · 1 h 42 minAusten McDonald is a former hiring committee member at Meta, where he led mobile hiring and conducted hundreds of interviews. In this episode, we talked about what happens behind…
- OpenAI Codex Tech Lead On How His Career Grew And How He Uses Codex | Michael Bolin · 1 h 20 minThis is Michael Bolin, the tech lead for the open source Codex repository and a former distinguished engineer at Meta. We talked about his career path, how OpenAI engineers use…
- Distinguished Eng On Stack Ranking, Competing with Bezos, Regrets | Bryan Cantrill · 1 h 21 minBryan Cantrill was a distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems and has now founded his own company called Oxide Computer Company. We discussed his career experiences through…
- Turing Award Winner On Thinking Clearly, Paxos vs Raft, Working With Dijkstra | Leslie Lamport · 1 h 10 minI interviewed Leslie Lamport, a Turing Award winner known for his contributions to distributed systems and the inventor of the Paxos algorithm. We walked through the major…
- Retired Netflix Engineering Director On Regrets, Video Engineering, Hiring Stories · 1 h 19 minDavid Ronca joined Netflix in 2007 and grew to an engineering director there. Later he joined Meta as a Director and transitioned to a Principal engineer working on video…
- Meta Distinguished Eng (IC9) On Influencing Engs, Failures, and Learnings · 41 minThis is Adam Ernst, a Distinguished Engineer at Meta (IC9) who’s built iOS infrastructure that has impacted the entire company. We talked about how his career grew, a major…
- Instagram Principal Eng (IC8) On Building IG Stories, 1 Promo Per Half, Small Teams · 1 h 35 minRyan Olson grew from mid-level engineer (IC4) to a principal engineer (IC8) at Instagram through a series of famous projects. The most notable was when he was the lead iOS…
- Honest Big Tech Layoff Story After 25 Year Career · 50 minIn this episode, I talked to "Asian Dad Energy" an anonymous big techie who was laid off after 25 years in the industry. We discussed his layoffs experience, his early career in…
- Ex-Citadel Quant and AI Researcher On Breaking In, Tech vs Finance Careers · 58 minIn this episode, I talked to Nimit Sohoni, a Stanford PhD and AI Researcher at Cartesia who previously worked as a quant at Citadel. We discussed the differences between AI…
- Meta Senior Staff (IC7) Eng's Honest Demotion Story · 50 minIn this episode, I talked to Igor, a senior staff engineer who has worked at Meta, Google, and Cruise. We discussed his experience of wanting a demotion at Meta and the…
- Airbnb Staff Eng on How To Not Get Stuck at Senior and Untold Rules of Calibrations · 1 h 1 minLaurent Charignon was a Staff engineer at Stripe, Airbnb, and Instagram with some experience in management as well. We discussed the unspoken rules you learn as a manager, how he…
- New Grad to Principal Engineer (IC8) at Meta (Career Story) · 56 minAdrien Friggeri went from a new grad to a principal engineer (IC8) at Meta. He is the original TL who started Bento if you’re familiar with that infra at the company. He got to…
- Anthropic Eng Leader And Ex-Senior Director at Meta On Microsoft vs Facebook, Career Learnings · 30 minFiona Fung currently supports the Claude Code team at Anthropic and was previously a Senior Director at Meta. She grew quickly through the ranks at Microsoft and Meta before…
- Best Software Engineering Career Advice of 2025 · 16 minHi all, it's been such a fun project for me this year launching this podcast and trying my best to make the content as helpful as possibleAppreciate everyone who has taken the…
- Frontline Manager at Meta to Senior Director at Snapchat in 3 Years (Career Story) · 42 minRong Yan went from a frontline manager at Meta to a Senior Director at Snapchat in 3 years. I interviewed him to ask what led to that rocketship career trajectory in management…
- Boris Cherny (Creator of Claude Code) On How His Career Grew · 1 h 24 minBoris Cherny is the Creator of Claude Code but few people know his full career story. I interviewed him about everything he learned growing at Meta and for insights from his time…
- Instagram Senior Staff Eng (IC7) On 3 Promos Through Redefining Expectations (Career Story) · 53 minMarius Schulz grew to a Senior Staff Engineer (IC7) at Instagram by redefining expectations three times (once for each promotion). We talked through each promotion and how he did…
