The Programming Podcast

Learn how to become a better software engineer from an Apple veteran with over 12 years of experience building products.

Follow Ray!https://x.com/RayFernando1337https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@RayFernando1337⁩ 
We sit down with an industry expert to break down the realities of Apple engineering and what it takes to succeed at a top-tier firm. This discussion moves beyond standard advice, focusing on the tactical skills required to elevate your career and sustain long-term growth in a competitive field.

We also cover the practical side of building and launching your own personal applications. As the industry shifts toward agentic workflows, we analyze how engineering roles are evolving and what you need to prioritize to stay relevant in this new era of automated tools and development.

Undersold!
https://www.undersold.ai

🤝 Thank You to Our Sponsors!
GitKraken: Stop fighting Git and spend more time building. Get visual Git workflows, PR management, and tools built for modern AI-powered development. Check out exclusive offers at https://www.gitkraken.com/programmingpod

Level Up Financial Planning: Take your financial confidence to the next level with certified financial planner Lucas Casares, specializing in early and mid-career tech professionals. Get a complimentary meeting at https://www.levelupfinancialplanning.com/

🔗 Resources & Links Mentioned
The Developer's Guide to AI: Grab the newly released book by Danny Thompson from here! http://developersguide.ai/

Stay in Touch:
📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business?
Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com!

Danny Thompson
https://x.com/DThompsonDev
https://www.linkedin.com/in/DThompsonDev
www.DThompsonDev.com

Leon Noel
https://x.com/leonnoel
https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonnoel/
https://100devs.org/

📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business?
Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com!

00:00 Meet Ray Fernando: 12 Years at Apple
01:51 How Ray Uses AI Agents to Build Software
05:24 The Real Cost of AI Agent Workflows
07:25 Automating Email with AI
10:52 A Word from Our Sponsors
13:13 Building Reliable AI Agents and Verification Systems
18:31 How to Keep Up with AI as a Software Engineer
21:01 Skill Chaining: Building Better AI Workflows
24:05 CSV vs. JSON and Why AI Constraints Matter
26:32 Claude vs. Codex vs. Gemini: Choosing the Right Model
31:17 Leon's AI Workflow for Shipping Code Faster
35:41 Behind the Scenes of Undersold AI
39:01 When Is an AI Product Ready to Launch?
43:04 Why Danny Walked Away from Two Software Projects
48:40 Fail, Pivot, Grow: Turning Failure into Progress
49:13 From Wedding DJ to Apple Engineer
53:09 How to Build Relationships and Network in Tech
58:19 What It Takes to Succeed as an Engineer at Apple
1:02:56 What Separates Great Engineers from Average Engineers?
1:06:50 Listener Q&A: What AI Portfolio Project Should You Build?
1:10:52 Why Most Developers Build the Wrong Portfolio Projects
1:14:41 Final Thoughts and Outro

Anthropic's IPO is leaked and OpenAI DevDay 2026 just dropped a $500 AI plan, Decisions API, cloud-powered Codex, Dots, and a much bigger vision for AI agents. At the same time, Anthropic is reportedly targeting a massive IPO while the economics of frontier AI are getting harder to ignore.So what actually matters for developers?🤝 Thank You to Our Sponsors!GitKraken: Stop fighting Git and spend more time building. Get visual Git workflows, PR management, and tools built for modern AI-powered development. Check out exclusive offers at https://www.gitkraken.com/programmingpodLevel Up Financial Planning: Take your financial confidence to the next level with certified financial planner Lucas Casares, specializing in early and mid-career tech professionals. Get a complimentary meeting at https://www.levelupfinancialplanning.com/🔗 Resources & Links MentionedUndersold - https://www.undersold.ai/workspaceThe Developer's Guide to AI: Grab the newly released book by Danny Thompson from here! http://developersguide.ai/Stay in Touch:📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business?Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com!Danny Thompsonhttps://x.com/DThompsonDevhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/DThompsonDevwww.DThompsonDev.comLeon Noelhttps://x.com/leonnoelhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/leonnoel/https://100devs.org/📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business?Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com!In this episode of The Programming Podcast, Danny Thompson and Leon Noel break down the biggest AI and developer news of the week from the perspective of people actually using these tools every day.We get into:• Anthropic’s IPO, explosive revenue growth, infrastructure costs, and what the economics of frontier AI could mean for developers• OpenAI DevDay 2026 and the announcements we think actually matter• The new $500 ChatGPT plan and who could realistically justify paying for it• GPT-6.1 Sol and OpenAI’s push toward faster, higher-volume AI workflows• Decisions API vs. Jev and why decision-focused models are becoming interesting• Codex moving into the cloud and why cloud agents could change how developers work• Dots, Grokbot, Muse, and the shift from chatbots to always-on AI assistants• Why open-weight models are taking a larger share of real-world AI usage• Whether Notion, Slack, and traditional SaaS tools should be worried about AI-native workspaces• How Danny and Leon are actually using AI agents in their day-to-day workflows• Real Grokbot use cases for email, research, QA, content, development, and delegation• The difference between asking AI for answers and giving AI ongoing responsibilitiesThe bigger conversation underneath all of this:AI is moving from something you prompt to something you delegate to.And that changes what developers need to learn next.

Ranking the latest AI models from S tier to F tier. We break down when to use each one and which ones to avoid for your workflow.
🤝 Thank You to Our Sponsors!
GitKraken: Stop fighting Git and spend more time building. Get visual Git workflows, PR management, and tools built for modern AI-powered development. Check out exclusive offers at https://www.gitkraken.com/programmingpodLevel Up
Financial Planning: Take your financial confidence to the next level with certified financial planner Lucas Casares, specializing in early and mid-career tech professionals. Get a complimentary meeting at https://www.levelupfinancialplanning.com/
🔗 Resources & Links MentionedThe Developer's Guide to AI: Grab the newly released book by Danny Thompson from here! http://developersguide.ai/
Stay in Touch:📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business?Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com!Danny Thompsonhttps://x.com/DThompsonDevhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/DThompsonDevwww.DThompsonDev.comLeon Noelhttps://x.com/leonnoelhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/leonnoel/https://100devs.org/📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business?Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com!
Danny and I put popular tools to the test to see what actually holds up under pressure. We go through our own specific AI model ranking, debating the merits of each based on real-world application rather than just marketing hype. Since we did not compare notes beforehand, you get our honest, unfiltered thoughts on which systems are worth your time and which ones are currently failing to deliver.
This LLM comparison covers the nuance of daily usage, helping you decide where to invest your focus. We also discuss how to optimize your AI usage to stay efficient without getting distracted by every new release. Whether you are a developer looking for better productivity or just trying to navigate the crowded landscape of tech tools, this breakdown gives you the straight answers you need to make better decisions.
Subscribe for weekly software breakdowns, and let us know in the comments which model you think deserves the top spot.

Stop losing job offers due to poor interview preparation. Learn why a three-minute interview cutoff signals a lack of care.Most candidates assume that getting the interview is the hard part, but showing up unprepared is a fatal error. This breakdown examines a real-world scenario where a recruiter ended a conversation after only three minutes because the applicant couldn't demonstrate basic knowledge about the company. When you neglect to perform 30 seconds of homework, you communicate that the position is just another line on your resume rather than a priority.Proper interview preparation requires more than just rehearsing your own bio. It demands that you frame your value through the lens of what the employer actually needs. By failing to research the organization, you signal to the hiring manager that your interest is surface-level at best. Adjusting your strategy to include this quick research step ensures you stay in the conversation longer and separates you from the crowd.🤝 Thank You to Our Sponsors!GitKraken: Stop fighting Git and spend more time building. Get visual Git workflows, PR management, and tools built for modern AI-powered development. Check out exclusive offers at https://www.gitkraken.com/programmingpodLevel Up Financial Planning: Take your financial confidence to the next level with certified financial planner Lucas Casares, specializing in early and mid-career tech professionals. Get a complimentary meeting at https://www.levelupfinancialplanning.com/🔗 Resources & Links MentionedThe Developer's Guide to AI: Grab the newly released book by Danny Thompson from here! http://developersguide.ai/Commit Your Code Conference (CYC 2026): Join us Sept 2nd-4th at the Capital One Campus in Plano, Texas. Keynote by the CTO of the PGA! https://www.commityourcode.com/Resilient Coders: Free coding boot camp paying you a stipend to learn. Applications open in Boston, Philly, NY, Maine, and Pittsburgh: https://www.resilientcoders.org/Plus, we cover the Friday 3 PM developer log habit, why you should always be interview-ready every six months, and answer a listener question about how to handle recruiters before your first interview round.✅ If you made it to the end, comment: “Better talking points!” so we know who is a real one!https://www.commityourcode.com/Come to CYC!Get The Developers Guide To AI here!http://developersguide.ai/Stay in Touch:📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business?Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com!Danny Thompsonhttps://x.com/DThompsonDevhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/DThompsonDevwww.DThompsonDev.comLeon Noelhttps://x.com/leonnoelhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/leonnoel/https://100devs.org/📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business?Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com!

Is Opus 5 worth the hype? I spent two days testing the 2026 release to see if the performance lives up to expectations.This Opus 5 review provides an honest look at the latest model, moving past marketing claims to examine real-world usability. If you are deciding whether to upgrade or switch workflows, this analysis breaks down the actual capability of the software compared to previous versions.I cover the specific Opus 5 benchmarks I recorded during my testing phase, highlighting where it succeeds and where it falls short. You will see my candid Opus 5 impressions after two days of heavy use, helping you determine if this model fits your specific needs or if you should wait for further updates.Subscribe for weekly software breakdowns, and let me know in the comments if you want to see a head-to-head comparison between Opus 5 and other top-tier models.