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The Cynical Developer

The Cynical Developer

Cynical Developer 336 Episodes Oct 19, 2026

A UK based Technology and Software Developer Podcast that helps you to improve your development knowledge and career, through explaining the latest and greatest in development technology and providing you with what you need to succeed as a developer.

Episodes

AI Doesn’t Remove Technical Debt - It Accelerates It
AI Doesn’t Remove Technical Debt - It Accelerates It Oct 19, 2026 00:06:36 The hope is that AI will finally help us clear technical debt. We argue it’s closer to the opposite - the fastest debt-generator we’ve ever built - and look at the new, harder-to-pay kind of debt nobody understood in the first place.Written by James Studdart. Voiced using an AI model of his voice.
AI Doesn’t Care About Your Tech Stack
AI Doesn’t Care About Your Tech Stack Oct 12, 2026 00:05:41 Developers love a stack argument. We look at how AI quietly makes much of it irrelevant - by collapsing the cost of working in something unfamiliar - and what genuinely still matters underneath the framework wars.Written by James Studdart. Voiced using an AI model of his voice.
Why Most Companies Are Using AI Completely Wrong
Why Most Companies Are Using AI Completely Wrong Oct 5, 2026 00:06:02 Most companies are doing something with AI — and measuring the wrong thing. We look at the adoption trap, why activity keeps getting mistaken for outcomes, and why AI just runs a broken process faster.Written by James Studdart. Voiced using an AI model of his voice.
The Future Developer Is Closer to a Product Engineer
The Future Developer Is Closer to a Product Engineer Sep 28, 2026 00:05:52 As building gets cheap, the bottleneck moves from “how” to “what”. We look at the rise of the product-minded engineer - someone who understands the customer, the business and the outcome, and happens to be able to build.Written by James Studdart. Voiced using an AI model of his voice.
Why AI Is Making Good Engineers More Valuable
Why AI Is Making Good Engineers More Valuable Sep 21, 2026 00:06:21 A fear runs under a lot of AI conversations: that experienced engineers are worth less now the machine can write code. We argue it’s close to the opposite - AI raises the floor on output but raises the ceiling on judgement far more.Written by James Studdart. Voiced using an AI model of his voice.
The Junior Developer Crisis Nobody Is Talking About
The Junior Developer Crisis Nobody Is Talking About Sep 14, 2026 00:06:09 If AI writes the boilerplate, tests and CRUD screens juniors used to learn on, how does anyone become senior? We look at the apprenticeship we’ve quietly automated away - and the slow, deferred bill that comes with it.Written by James Studdart. Voiced using an AI model of his voice.
The End of Coding Interviews As We Know Them
The End of Coding Interviews As We Know Them Sep 7, 2026 00:05:52 The whiteboard puzzle always tested the one mode the job never uses - alone, from memory, no help. We look at why AI finally makes that impossible to ignore, why hiring clings to it anyway, and what’s worth measuring instead.Written by James Studdart. Voiced using an AI model of his voice.
Prompt Engineering Is Dead - Long Live Specification Engineering
Prompt Engineering Is Dead - Long Live Specification Engineering Aug 31, 2026 00:06:11 We argue prompt engineering is already on its way out - and what’s replacing it is one of the oldest skills in software. When generating code gets cheap, deciding precisely what to build becomes the whole game.Written by James Studdart. Voiced using an AI model of his voice.
AI Is Creating Two Kinds of Developers
AI Is Creating Two Kinds of Developers Aug 24, 2026 00:05:52 A quiet split is forming in software teams - not junior versus senior, but developers who’ve learned to work with AI and those who’ve decided not to. We look at what the divide really is, why it compounds, and why plenty of brilliant people are on the wrong side of it.Written by James Studdart. Voiced using an AI model of his voice.
Why Your Team Doesn’t Own Anything
Why Your Team Doesn’t Own Anything Aug 17, 2026 00:05:38 We dig into the gap between responsibility and ownership - why so many teams are accountable for outcomes they were never given the authority to control, and how “you own this” quietly becomes “you hold the pager”.Written by James Studdart. Voiced using an AI model of his voice.
Remote Work Didn’t Kill Productivity - Bad Management Did
Remote Work Didn’t Kill Productivity - Bad Management Did Aug 10, 2026 00:05:47 We take on the tidy story that remote work killed productivity. It didn’t - it removed the things that were hiding weak management. We look at the presence trap, what genuinely broke, and why the easy diagnosis pointed at the wrong people.Written by James Studdart. Voiced using an AI model of his voice.
The Real Cost of Context Switching
The Real Cost of Context Switching Aug 3, 2026 00:05:30 We look at a cost that never shows up on any report: the wreckage an interruption leaves behind. Not the thirty-second question, but the twenty-minute rebuild, and why unpredictability, not volume, is what really destroys deep work.Written by James Studdart. Voiced using an AI model of his voice.

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