Beyond The Build

Send us Fan Mail Be part of the show: https://btb-listener-line.fly.dev/ Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 An OpenAI engineer was arrested for allegedly spying on executive meetings, GitHub is rebuilding its infrastructure to handle the explosion of AI-generated code, and a Nigerian developer has built a GTA-inspired game based on life in Lagos. In this episode of Beyond the Build (Last Week in Tech), we break down the OpenAI spying scandal, why Git...

Send us Fan Mail Be part of the show: https://btb-listener-line.fly.dev/ Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 The US is tightening immigration policies, and Big Tech is feeling the impact. With companies like Microsoft pausing green card sponsorships and proposed changes to OPT for international students, what does this mean for the future of tech jobs in America? In this episode of Beyond the Build, we discuss how immigration restrictions could affect...

Send us Fan Mail Be part of the show: https://btb-listener-line.fly.dev/ Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 In this episode of Beyond the Build, we talk about how personal AI agents are starting to change the way we interact with technology, including research showing that some agents may recommend more expensive options based on what they infer about a user. We also get into the privacy tradeoffs of personal AI, OpenAI Dots vs. Meta Muse, whether Pl...

Send us Fan Mail Be part of the show: https://btb-listener-line.fly.dev/ Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 This week on Beyond the Build, we break down some of the biggest stories in software engineering, cybersecurity, AI, and tech. We discuss Jev, a new decision-focused AI model, the shifting AI talent pipeline between China and the US, AI hacking incidents, Kimi coming to AWS Bedrock, the reported FBI breach, North Korean fake developer inte...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 In this episode of Beyond the Build, we break down Anthropic’s latest AI misuse report and look at how bad actors are already using AI for scams, surveillance, cyber operations, influence campaigns, telecom data scraping, and other real-world attacks. We also discuss the growing AI arms race between companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, and other major labs. AI companies are warning about models becoming...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 In this episode of Beyond The Build, we talk about the growing wave of AI safety warnings coming from researchers at companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind, and whether those concerns should actually change how seriously we think about the risks of increasingly capable AI systems. We also get into the security problems that come with AI agents having access to production secrets, priva...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 AI is changing software security faster than most engineering teams are prepared for. In this episode of Beyond the Build, we break down how AI agents are starting to discover and exploit vulnerabilities, why the window between a CVE being disclosed and actively exploited is shrinking, and what that means for developers, security teams, and companies shipping software today. We also discuss new findi...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 This week on Last Week in Tech, we’re talking about what happens when memory gets expensive and software can’t afford to stay bloated. RAM prices are climbing fast, Android is tightening memory limits, and companies like Cloudflare are squeezing huge amounts of memory out of their systems through better data structures and smarter engineering. The bigger question is whether memory efficiency is becom...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Beyond the Build, we break down some of the biggest AI and software engineering stories from the week, including Anthropic’s explosive revenue growth, Cursor’s new Git hosting platform, Lovable moving away from Next.js, and the growing cost of AI inside companies. We discuss why Anthropic’s reported $65B annualized revenue run rate is impressive but difficult to compare directly with OpenAI, and whether today’s AI valuations are sustainable as inference cos...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Beyond the Build, we break down some of the most interesting stories happening across AI, software engineering, and the broader tech industry. We talk about AI agents moving into the browser, the growing US-China AI divide, why AI search may be weakening the open web, and how prediction markets are blurring the line between investing and gambling. We also get into Shopify replacing Redis with MySQL, what code quality looks like when AI is writing more of th...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 In this episode of Beyond the Build, we break down some of the biggest stories in tech this week, from Microsoft putting limits on internal AI usage to the growing cost of running AI at scale. We also cover the latest AI model releases, OpenAI’s Astra research, a new coding benchmark designed to be harder to game, Jeff Dean’s next move, the risks of pre-IPO investing, and Apple’s potential shift towa...

Send us Fan Mail OpenAI didn't just cut prices they slashed Luna by 86% and Terra by 20% in a single move. That's not a sale. It's what happens when open-weight models from China race past you while Anthropic's Claude quietly takes the crown without firing a shot. Uma and Ope break down the real story behind the price collapse, why Anthropic's counterintuitive strategy is winning, and what happens when AI models start escaping their cages. But the bigger question nobody's asking: if AI access...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we discussed how OpenAI's model escaped its sandbox and hacked Hugging Face, why open-weight models are now 50x cheaper, and what Big Tech's $1.65T indirect AI bet means for the future. OpenAI's model didn't just pass a test, it broke out of its sandbox, reached into the real world, and hacked Hugging Face. Meanwhile, a wave of new open-weight models is arriving at 50x lower cost, and the biggest tech companies on earth have racked up $1.65 trillion in indir...

Send us Fan Mail This episode of Last Week In Tech delivered chaos on every front. A Chinese model nobody expected just flipped the coding leaderboard, and the gap between East and West is now thinner than most engineers want to admit. But here's the really creepy part: your smart TV might be watching you right now, and what LG got caught doing will make you want to unplug everything. Apple is taking OpenAI to court, and the allegations involve former employees, stolen hardware, and a mysteri...

Send us Fan Mail OpenAI just dropped GPT 5.6, and it's already changing the game, but not in the way most developers expected. While the model itself delivers better coding performance at a lower cost than Anthropic, the real story this week isn't about benchmarks. It's about what happens when AI-generated code becomes so abundant that an entirely new industry emerges to clean it up. One company is now charging businesses $10,000 a week to fix what AI produces, and they're not short on client...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Last Week in Tech episode, we discussed: Anthropic just re-released a model the US government told them to pull. OpenAI dropped GPT 5 but only to 20 companies. In this episode, Uma and Ope break down what these staggered launches reveal about government influence over Claude AI releases, and why both hosts believe these restrictions could quietly hand the AI lead to Chinese labs. The conversation then shifts into a much bigger question: if AI coding tools now wri...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 This week on Last Week in Tech: a $100M fintech disaster that tricked millions of Americans, Polymarket's fake gambling website exposed by college influencers, and why China's new open-weight AI model is spooking Silicon Valley. Plus, your smart TV might be selling your IP address without you knowing. What to expect in this episode: Ope and Uma break down the Synapse bankruptcy where $100M vanished...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 Connect with Ope - https://www.linkedin.com/in/osunkoyaope/ Articles AI Agent Hijack: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2026/06/18/autojack-single-page-rce-host-running-ai-agent/ Skills Over MCP: https://aaif.io/blog/skills-over-mcp/ Slow down and Sit With It: https://yaoyue.org/blog/2026-slowdown/ Connect with Uma: Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/umacodes) Tiktok: (https://www.tikt...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 Connect with Ope - https://www.linkedin.com/in/osunkoyaope/ Connect with Uma: Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/umacodes) Tiktok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@umacodes) Twitter: (https://twitter.com/umacodes) LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/umaabu/) Follow us on Social Media Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/beyondthebuildpodcast) TikTok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@beyondthebuildpodcast)

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 Beyond The Basics With Claude Code: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuY2ChJIx48 Google Is Paying SpaceX To Use Its GPU: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48417490 Opus 4.8: https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-opus-4-8 AWS Agentic Football Worldcup: https://aws-experience.com/emea/smb/e/45d3b/aws-agentic-football-cup Connect with Ope - https://www.linkedin.com/in/osunkoyaope/ Connect...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 Articles Learn Harness Engineering https://walkinglabs.github.io/learn-harness-engineering/en/ Meta Engineering Draft: https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/inside-metas-ai-draft-zuckerberg-134000308.html Forward-Deployed Engineer https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/04/anthropic-and-openai-are-both-launching-joint-ventures-for-enterprise-ai-services/ Connect with Ope - https://www...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 Articles AWS Overheating: https://www.itpro.com/infrastructure/aws-outage-explained-may-2026-data-center-overheating OpenAI buying tools: https://medium.com/@krupeshraut/openai-and-anthropic-are-buying-the-tools-every-developer-uses-heres-why-you-should-care-e52006bc4707 Software Engineering May No Longer Be A Lifetime Career: https://www.seangoedecke.com/software-engineering-may-no-longer-be-a-life...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 Connect with Ope - https://www.linkedin.com/in/osunkoyaope/ Connect with Uma: Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/umacodes) Tiktok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@umacodes) Twitter: (https://twitter.com/umacodes) LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/umaabu/) Follow us on Social Media Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/beyondthebuildpodcast) TikTok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@beyondthebuildpodcast)

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we break down one of the wildest stories in tech right now — an AI agent wiping out an entire production database in seconds — and what that says about the systems we’re building. But that’s just the beginning. We also dive into the bigger shift happening across the industry: the decline of junior developer roles, the rise of AI-assisted engineering, and why the way we build software is fundamentally changing. From debugging with AI to companies restructuring...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 Last week in tech, around 20,000 layoffs landed in seven days. Meta announced 8,000 cuts and froze another 6,000 open roles, reorganizing survivors into a new Applied AI Engineering division. Microsoft ran its first voluntary buyout in 51 years, using a Rule of 70 to target longer tenured staff. And Sam Altman, of all people, publicly called the whole trend "AI washing." In this episode of Last Week ...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 AI coding tools are everywhere right now. They’re helping engineers move faster, ship more code, and build things that would’ve taken days in a fraction of the time. But there’s a catch. Recent studies show that around 40 to 46 percent of AI-generated code contains security vulnerabilities. At the same time, 93 percent of companies are still pushing that code into production. Not by accident. On purp...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 Most engineers think onboarding is about learning the codebase. It’s not. In this episode of Beyond the Build, we break down what onboarding actually is and why so many smart engineers struggle in their first 90 days, even when they’re technically strong. We talk about the hidden layer no one teaches you. The part that actually determines whether you succeed or stall. Things like how decisions are ma...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 In this episode of Beyond the Build, we break down one of the most uncomfortable but important parts of being a software engineer: receiving feedback. We get into why feedback hits so hard, especially for high performers, and walk through what it actually looks like to receive it well. Not just smile and nod, but genuinely process it without spiraling, defending yourself, or mentally checking out. We...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 The game has changed, but not in the way most people think. AI has made it easier to build things fast, but it hasn't made the hard parts any easier. In this episode, Uma and Ope break down the new meta for software engineers: what gatekeeping used to look like and why it no longer scales, why a "quick fix" can still turn into a months-long cleanup, and what it actually means to operate a system safe...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 Join the CodeRoom: https://thecoderoom.carrd.co/ You asked, and we came prepared. In this special listener Q&A episode, we answer your most pressing questions about navigating the tech industry. From junior developers worried about being replaced by AI, to self-taught engineers fighting for recognition without a degree, to engineers trying to survive probation at a new company — we go deep on the...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 AI has made writing code faster than ever. But speed isn’t the differentiator anymore. In this episode of Beyond the Build, we talk about engineering taste, what it actually means, why it matters more in an AI-driven world, and how to develop it intentionally. We explore why taste matters more than ever when AI has democratized technical competence, and how it's becoming the ultimate bottleneck in mo...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 In this episode of Beyond the Build, we sit down with a seasoned recruiter to unpack what actually happens behind the scenes of tech hiring. We break down why hiring is really about risk management under uncertainty, why strong candidates still get rejected, and how recruiters and hiring managers evaluate fear, trust, and downside long before they evaluate brilliance. We cover: How hiring funnels act...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 Personal branding isn’t about being an influencer or posting for clout. It’s about controlling how you’re perceived when you’re not in the room. In this episode of *Beyond the Build*, we break down why software engineers already have a brand whether they like it or not, how internal and public branding shape your career, and why visibility quietly creates opportunities long before interviews and pr...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 Writing code is rarely the hardest part of software engineering. As engineers grow, the real challenge shifts to something far less talked about: coordinating people, aligning goals, sharing context, and synchronizing work across teams. In this episode of Beyond the Build, we break down why so many engineering projects stall, drag on for months, or ship the wrong thing entirely. Not because of bad...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 Should you stay or should you leave? In this episode of Beyond the Build, we tackle one of the hardest questions in your career: when should you actually leave your team or company? Most engineers don't think about this until they're already frustrated, burnt out, or realizing they've been building skills that won't transfer anywhere else. By then, it's often too late. We break down the red flags to ...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 Most engineers spend years perfecting their coding skills but completely ignore the one skill that actually determines who gets promoted, who gets their ideas shipped, and who leads projects: **writing**. In this episode, we break down why documentation isn't just "nice to have" - it's the difference between being a code monkey and being an engineering leader. We cover why meetings are the WORST p...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 Think your manager is just there to assign you tasks? Think again. In this episode of Beyond the Build, we dig into one of the most overlooked parts of being a software engineer: what you should actually expect from your manager. A lot of engineers think management is just about task updates, but your manager plays a huge role in your growth, visibility, and long-term success. We break down the expec...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 Everyone says you should “find joy” or “do what you love” but is that realistic advice, or just another modern work myth? In this episode of Beyond the Build, We unpack the tension between fulfillment and functionality at work. Should you expect your job to make you happy, or is that setting yourself up for burnout and disappointment? If you’ve ever wondered whether you should love your job, tolerate...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 In this episode, we unpack the realities of working from home versus working in the office. We share what’s lost when you’re remote, like casual hallway conversations and easy collaboration and how that affects connection and visibility at work. We also explore the upsides of remote life: fewer distractions, no commute, and more control over your time. At the same time, we dive into challenges like b...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 When your teammate is struggling, it's easy to assume they're not trying hard enough. But what if the problem is something else entirely? In this episode of Beyond The Build, we dive deep into one of the most uncomfortable topics in software engineering: how to recognize when a colleague is struggling and what you can actually do to help. We break down what "struggling" really looks like—missing dead...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 In this episode of Beyond the Build, we sit down with Felix Ekwueme, Technical Advisor to the VP of International Sellers at Amazon, to talk about the real drivers of career growth that go way beyond just “doing good work.” We unpack why comfort and growth don’t coexist, the dangers of being the silent high performer, and what it really takes to rise through the ranks—especially as an immigrant or un...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 In this raw and honest episode, we dive deep into the uncomfortable reality of tech layoffs that every software engineer needs to understand. Drawing from our own experiences of surviving cuts while watching teammates get let go, we break down the harsh truths about what really determines who stays and who goes. We explore the critical difference between working in cost centers versus revenue-gener...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 In this episode of Beyond the Build, we sit down with Fola, a Senior Security Engineer whose career has taken him from Nigeria to South Africa and now the United States. We unpack what it means to build a career across countries and cultures. Fola opens up about his journey out of Nigeria, the culture shocks he faced moving to Cape Town, and how he learned to navigate both corporate and social enviro...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 What if the secret to making an impact at work isn’t solving every problem—but knowing which ones to ignore? In this episode of Beyond the Build, we dive into one of the most overlooked but critical parts of being a software engineer: identifying the right problems to solve, at the right time, in the right way. It’s not about doing more work—it’s about doing the work that actually moves the needle. W...

Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 Asking for help might seem like a basic skill, but in software engineering, how you ask can impact everything from your productivity to your team’s trust. In this episode of Beyond the Build, we break down the underrated art of asking for help at work. We talk about: The mental shift engineers need to make when reaching outWho to ask, and whenHow to show you've done your due diligenceCreating team cu...

Send us Fan Mail Product managers wear a lot of hats—but what do they actually do? In this episode of Beyond the Build, we sit down with our first-ever guest: Thien-Y Le, a Senior Product Manager at Microsoft, to get the unfiltered truth about one of tech's most misunderstood roles. Thien-Y walks us through the real work of a PM—from balancing customer demands with business goals to managing relationships with engineers. We dig into what it takes to build a roadmap, why product managers are s...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Beyond the Build, we dive deep into the often-overlooked world of tech networking and collaboration. We share our personal experiences from dozens of conferences and meetups, revealing which events actually moved the needle for our careers and which ones were just free pizza and swag. You'll discover why general networking events are often a waste of time, how to identify the specific meetups that align with your goals, and the art of finding collaborators ...

Send us Fan Mail Every developer faces the same exhausting question: Should I learn this hot new technology everyone’s talking about—or is it just another flash in the pan? In this episode of Beyond the Build, we tackle the tech trend dilemma head-on. Some believe staying on top of the latest frameworks, tools, and AI models is essential to stay relevant in the job market. Others argue it’s all hype—what really matters will stick, and you’ll learn it when you actually need it. We dive into bo...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Beyond the Build, we’re talking about one of the most overlooked parts of software engineering—being a great teammate. Software engineering isn't a solo sport—it's the ultimate team game. But while we spend countless hours perfecting our technical skills, we often overlook the collaboration skills that actually determine our career success. In this episode, we dive deep into what it really means to be someone people want to work with. We explore the charact...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Beyond the Build, we’re diving deep into what it really takes to get promoted as a software engineer. Spoiler alert: it’s not just about writing good code. We break down how to think about promotions through the lens of impact, influence, and ownership, the pillars that often separate engineers who stay stuck from those who move up. You’ll learn what’s typically expected at each level, how to work with your manager (instead of just hoping they notice you), ...