Podcast · 60 episodes
The Peterman Pod
by Ryan Peterman · English
Sharing the transparent career stories of technical people. Hosted by an ex-Staff engineer at Instagram
Latest episodes
Amazon VP: Questions On Corporate Politics But They Get Increasingly Darker | Ethan EvansCorporate politics and “soft skills” for career advancement in a future where technical work may be automated.28 Sep 2026 · 3 h 8 min
OpenAI & Meta Distinguished Eng (IC9): The Psychology Behind Tech Career Peaks | Philip SuPhilip Su (Facebook Distinguished Engineer/IC9; later OpenAI) discusses the “career asymptote” idea: growth slows near terminal levels, promotions change what work feels like, and motivation shifts…21 Sep 2026 · 44 min
Casey Muratori: Surprises In Computer History And Where Bad Code Comes FromCasey Muratori discusses surprises in computer history and uses them to explain two software-engineering ideas: (1) the origin and lasting impact of Donald Knuth’s “premature optimization is the root…14 Sep 2026 · 1 h 58 min
All episodes
Amazon VP: Questions On Corporate Politics But They Get Increasingly Darker | Ethan EvansCorporate politics and “soft skills” for career advancement in a future where technical work may be automated.28 Sep 2026 · 3 h 8 min · 69 chapters
OpenAI & Meta Distinguished Eng (IC9): The Psychology Behind Tech Career Peaks | Philip SuPhilip Su (Facebook Distinguished Engineer/IC9; later OpenAI) discusses the “career asymptote” idea: growth slows near terminal levels, promotions change what work feels like, and motivation shifts…21 Sep 2026 · 44 min · 18 chapters
Casey Muratori: Surprises In Computer History And Where Bad Code Comes FromCasey Muratori discusses surprises in computer history and uses them to explain two software-engineering ideas: (1) the origin and lasting impact of Donald Knuth’s “premature optimization is the root…14 Sep 2026 · 1 h 58 min · 39 chapters
How Anthropic Builds And How Engineering Will Change Soon | Thariq ShihiparHow Anthropic’s CloudCode/CloudTag harnesses LLMs for software engineering, emphasizing higher-level “system building,” verification, automation loops, and artifacts; also discusses computer/browser…7 Sep 2026 · 1 h 11 min · 23 chapters
Creator of Scala: Comparing Languages And How AI Will Impact Them | Martin OderskyMartin Odersky (Scala creator) discusses functional vs imperative programming, why Scala is a synthesis of OO and functional ideas, how languages should evolve under AI code generation, and compares…31 Aug 2026 · 58 min · 26 chapters
Sergey Levine: Current State of Humanoid Robotics, China & Future PredictionsSergey Levine discusses the current state of humanoid robotics, why progress is hard to predict, what “emergent capabilities” look like, and likely deployment timelines (single-digit years).24 Aug 2026 · 58 min · 20 chapters
Creator of TypeScript: 10x Faster Typescript, Why AI Won't Replace SWEs | Anders HejlsbergAnders Hejlsberg (TypeScript and C# creator) discusses TypeScript 7’s native compiler rewrite (claimed 10x faster), why TypeScript targets JavaScript (not machine code), what the rewrite changed…17 Aug 2026 · 1 h 6 min · 24 chapters
Creator of Lean: Handwritten Math Will Change Dramatically | Leonardo de MouraLeonardo de Moura (creator of the Lean proof assistant) explains how Lean works with LLMs to verify proofs and programs, potentially replacing “absence of bugs” testing with machine-checked…10 Aug 2026 · 1 h 8 min · 27 chapters
Creator of Lua: Scripting, Programming Languages, Predictions | Roberto IerusalimschyRoberto Ierusalimschy (creator of Lua) explains Lua’s design for embedding as a “scripting” language alongside C/C++, clarifies scripting vs dynamic languages, and discusses language design…3 Aug 2026 · 1 h 5 min · 19 chapters
Turing Award Winner: Early AI, LLM Predictions, Causality | Judea PearlJudea Pearl (Turing Award winner) discusses how AI progress relates to causality, early AI optimism, limits of LLMs, and his “ladder of causation” (association → intervention → explanation).27 Jul 2026 · 1 h 28 min · 28 chapters
Creator of OCaml: Functional Programming, Formal Verification, Programming Languages | Xavier LeroyXavier Leroy (creator of OCaml) discusses what makes OCaml distinct, compares it to Rust and JavaScript, explains type inference, and argues for formal verification over testing.20 Jul 2026 · 1 h 24 min · 34 chapters
Turing Award Winner: TPU vs GPU vs CPU, Computer Architecture, RISC vs CISC | David PattersonComputer architecture and energy constraints, comparing RISC vs CISC, then CPU vs GPU vs Google TPU for AI/ML.13 Jul 2026 · 59 min · 27 chapters
Turing Award Winner: NSA, Public Key Cryptography, Crypto Wars | Martin HellmanMartin Hellman, Turing Award winner, recounts how public-key cryptography emerged from 1968–1977 IBM/MIT/Stanford work, and how it sparked “crypto wars” with the NSA and later debates over DES key…6 Jul 2026 · 1 h 2 min · 21 chapters
MIT Complexity Theorist: Why You Can Do Better Than “Optimal” On Leetcode & SAT | Ryan WilliamsRyan Williams (MIT, Gödel Prize-winning complexity theorist) explains how “optimal” textbook algorithms can be beaten in practice and in theory, using 3SUM as a case study, then broadens to…29 Jun 2026 · 1 h 13 min · 23 chapters
OpenAI Eng & Dev Tools Founder: How Software Engineering Is Changing | Charlie MarshHow software engineering is changing with faster dev tools, Rust-based performance, and heavy use of LLM agents—plus the resulting risks for code review and open-source contribution dynamics.22 Jun 2026 · 1 h 23 min · 31 chapters
Google DeepMind Pre-Training Lead: How To Land a Job at a Frontier Lab | Vlad FeinbergHow to get hired at frontier AI labs (DeepMind focus), and what “frontier” work really requires across research, infrastructure, and product integration.15 Jun 2026 · 1 h 4 min · 23 chapters
Co-Creator of Haskell: Functional Programming, Thinking in Types, Useless Languages | Simon JonesSimon Peyton Jones (Haskell co-creator) argues that software insecurity stems from “unsafe languages,” and that statically typed, mostly pure functional programming improves safety, maintainability,…8 Jun 2026 · 1 h 28 min · 35 chapters
Turing Award Winner: P vs NP, Zero-Knowledge Proofs, Quantum Computation | Avi WigdersonAvi Wigderson discusses core questions in theoretical computer science: P vs NP as a limit on what humans can know; why NP-complete problems are hard to solve exactly and even hard to approximate;…1 Jun 2026 · 2 h 16 min · 44 chapters
Dropbox’s Former Most Senior Eng: Building Great Systems and Advice for the AI Era | James CowlingJames Cowling (ex-Dropbox most senior engineer; now CTO at Convex) discusses building “great systems” by deeply understanding why they work, what to do when they fail, and how to design for…25 May 2026 · 2 h 2 min · 47 chapters
Creator of C++: Bell Labs, Negative Overhead Abstraction, Mistakes | Bjarne StroustrupBjarne Stroustrup discusses the origin of C++ at Bell Labs and how he designed it to combine low-level hardware access with high-level abstractions, arguing that “more abstraction” can be made…18 May 2026 · 1 h 59 min · 49 chapters
Harvard Professor: CS50, What Matters More Than CS, Lecturing Well | David J MalanDavid J. Malan, Harvard CS50 professor, explains how CS50 evolved into a world-class online course, why “lecturing well” matters, how CS50 uses theatrical “memorable moments,” and how AI affects…11 May 2026 · 1 h 4 min · 27 chapters
PyTorch Eng Director: Promo Hacking, Industry Shifts, Regrets | John Myles WhiteJohn Myles White (ex-Meta/ PyTorch MSL engineering director) discusses Meta/MSL culture shifts, “promo culture” in big tech, how incentives distort engineering decisions, and how layoffs/market…4 May 2026 · 44 min · 18 chapters
Turing Award Winner: Data Abstraction, Dijkstra, Distributed Systems | Barbara LiskovBarbara Liskov discusses the “software crisis” and how modularity became possible through encapsulation, data abstraction, and language support; then connects those ideas to distributed systems,…27 Apr 2026 · 35 min · 15 chapters
Turing Award Winner: Postgres, Disagreeing with Google, Future Problems | Mike StonebrakerMike Stonebraker (Turing Award winner) discusses the origins of Ingres and Postgres, why “one size fits all” databases fail, disagreements with Google’s MapReduce and eventual consistency, and what…20 Apr 2026 · 57 min · 24 chapters