Top 10 Software Engineering Podcasts for Developers: Learn from the Best

Listening to Podcasts is an underrated way to level up in your software development career. It’s also a great way to rest your eyes after working in front of a screen all day. So, Here are my top recommendations for software engineering podcasts.

Best podcasts for Frontend developers

I’ve been working on the frontend for most of my career and as a result, frontend engineering podcasts are some of my favourites in this list. The podcasts listed here won’t be a shock to anyone, as they’re easily the most popular podcasts in the frontend community. But, just because something is popular, it doesn’t mean it’s not good (unless we’re talking about React 😉).

Syntax.fm

Syntax.fm is easily the most popular podcast in the frontend community. Wes Bos and Scott Tolinski do a great job of covering the latest trends and technologies in the frontend community. They’ve sold quite a lot of frontend courses and are great teachers. So, this podcast is especially great for beginners or intermediate developers who want to level-up on a new technology.

JavaScript Jabber

JavaScript Jabber is a weekly panel discussion podcast featuring a rotating group of experts and guests. The podcast covers a range of topics related to JavaScript, including frameworks, libraries, and tools. Sometimes the debate can get a bit heated, but if you enjoy listening to passionate people defend their stance on modern web development, then you’ll love this podcast.

JS Party

JS Party is another panel discussion show with JavaScript experts. The podcast covers a wider range of topics than the previous podcasts. They also branch out and cover other technologies outside of JavaScript that are related to web development. I really like the game show episodes they do, often featuring other podcast hosts from the frontend community.

Best podcasts for Programmers

The next group of podcasts are a bit more generic and could be interesting to people outside of web development too. Because they cover a lot of different topics, some episodes might not be for you, but they all have a great backlog of programming related content.

SE radio

SE radio is a weekly podcast that covers topics related to software engineering like architecture, design patterns, and programming languages. Each episode has expert guests and that discuss topics relevant to programmers. The quality of the episode will depend a lot on the guest, but I find this podcast really useful to get a quick summary on technologies I haven’t used before.

Programming Throwdown

Programming Throwdown is very similar to SE radio in terms of the format. They also feature guest interviews about different programming topics. While SE radio has more variety in terms of guests, Programming Throwdown covers the topic in a bit more detail. The chapter notes included in this podcast are also helpful to skip parts of a discussion you’re already familiar with.

The Changelog

The Changelog is yet another programming interview podcast (are you getting tired of this yet? I promise this is the last one). It’s from the same people behind JS Party. But instead of focusing on just web development, they cover a wider range of programming topics.

You can also subscribe to the master changelog podcast feed to get all the podcasts from the changelog team.

They have great show notes and chapter links on all their episodes. They also have the best production quality out of all the podcasts in this list (shoutout to their editor 👍).

CodingBlocks.Net

CodingBlocks.Net started out as just a .Net podcast, but overtime they’ve branched out into different technologies and topics. All the hosts have great personalities and seem really fun to hang out with. They focus mostly on backend technologies, but they explain the topics really well, so even someone who mostly does frontend like me can follow along easily.

They also do series of episodes focused around programming books occasionally. So if you want to experience a book club in the form of a podcast, then this is definitely something you should follow.

Best Podcasts for Indie Developers

The next set of podcasts are a great listen if you’re an indie dev or a solo founder. If you work alone, then learning a bit more about the business side of things and related stuff like design can be really helpful. These are my favourite podcasts to do just that.

Coder Radio

Coder Radio by Jupiter Broadcasting is a great podcast if you want to hear about coding from the perspective of two business owners. The hosts do a fantastic job of covering the latest coding news and also sharing what they have been working on.

I really enjoy hearing about how they go about their decision-making process. If you like this podcast, then you can check out the Jupiter Broadcasting’s master feed to subscribe to the rest of their shows too. They cover topics related to Linux, open source and self-hosting.

My Life as a Programmer

My Life as a Programmer might be my favourite podcast out of this list. It’s just the audio version of the YouTube clips that Fredrik Christensen puts out.

In it, he answers coding related questions sent by his audience. They are mostly 5–10 minutes long and straight to the point. He doesn’t preach about any specific tools or technologies, instead you’ll get direct actionable advice from an experienced programmer.

Design Details

if you’re like me who’s interested in getting better at the design side of things, then Design Details is the perfect podcast for you. It’s hosted by really experienced designers who have worked for companies like YouTube and GitHub. It’s also a relatively short podcast.

They cover one big topic in every episode and respond to some feedback and questions. Like most of the podcast hosts featured here, they are also great teachers, which makes it easy for non-designers to follow too.

Best Podcast Players

I hope you find this list of podcasts interesting. Let me know in the comments if you’ve listened to any of them or gave them a try after reading this. As a bonus, here are some of my recommendations for podcast players:

1. Pocket Casts: This is my favourite podcast player. It has lots of customization options and great playback controls. My personal favourite feature is auto-archiving podcast episodes. Since, I subscribe to a lot of podcasts, it can get messy real quick. But, with this, if I don’t listen to an episode within 1 week, it will archive it for me.
2. Podverse: This is another great podcast player. It’s also open source and continuously improving. It has the best podcast playback options that I’ve seen. They have an android, IOS, and web app, so you can listen on multiple devices.
3. Fountain.fm: I’m not too familiar with this app, but it has an interesting concept. It actually rewards you for listening to more content. You can connect your bitcoin wallet and earn some sats while you listen to podcasts.