StaffEng

About StaffEng

Conversations with software engineers who have progressed beyond the career level, into Staff levels and beyond. We discuss the areas of work that set Staff-plus level engineers apart from other individual contributors; things like setting technical direction, mentorship and sponsorship, providing engineering perspective to the org, etc.Hosted by David Noël-Romas (@davidnoelromas) and Alex Kessinger (@voidfiles).

Publisher

David Noël-Romas (@davidnoelromas) and Alex Kessinger (@voidfiles)

Category

technology

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

30 Mar 2021

Latest episode

25 Jul 2026

Latest episodes

4 of 28 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   25 Jul 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Jonathan Wondrusch (Block): Raising Ambition in the Singularity

   Jonathan Wondrusch, Director of Engineering at Block, discusses with hosts Alex and David how advanced AI agents are raising engineering ambition and transforming team coaching.

2. 

   27 Apr 2026

   StaffEng with Karla Burnett: You're all 100x engineers...now what?

   Karla joins Alex and David from Sydney, where she's been building security-conscious AI workflows at Lorikeet--a customer service automation company where writing code by hand has officially become "artisanal." https://www.lorikeetcx.ai/ https://x.com/tetrakazi

3. 

   10 Apr 2026

   A look inside an engineering team @OpenAI with Dylan Vassallo

   Dylan Vassallo is an engineering manager at OpenAI leading the People Innovation Labs team — an eng, product, and design team embedded within the People org, building AI-powered tools for recruiting, HR, internal comms, and the employee experience. In this episode, Dylan talks about what it actually looks like to be an engineering team inside a frontier AI company, how non-engineers are becoming builders, and what the "graduation" process looks like when a prototype needs to become a product...

Inside a recent episode

Jonathan Wondrusch (Block): Raising Ambition in the Singularity

Published 25 Jul 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] Or three months down the road, six months down the road. And I think that that's an important consideration of like, don't just do something that Seems nice to have done and out of the way, but try and figure out if the models improve another step function or two in the coming year, what will this have unlocked? […]

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.8 / 5

26 ratings

Spotify

4.9 / 5

79 ratings

Contact StaffEng

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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