Tech League

About Tech League

Tech League is a podcast by engineers who've been around long enough to know when something is genuinely useful and when it's just hype. Hosted by Toby Sears and Krisztian Fisher, two senior engineers with decades of experience across startups, scale-ups and enterprise, each episode tackles a real topic: architecture decisions, career growth, the tools everyone's using, and the mistakes nobody talks about. No sponsored segments. No thought leadership waffle. Just two people who've shipped software, run teams and broken production, telling you what they actually think. New episodes every week. https://www.techleaguepodcast.com (https://www.techleaguepodcast.com)

Publisher

Toby Sears & Krisztian Fischer

Category

business · technology

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

12 Nov 2025

Latest episode

3 Apr 2026

Latest episodes

18 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   3 Apr 2026

   #18 EuroStack

   In this episode, Toby and Krisztian dive into EuroStack, an industry-led lobby initiative pushing for European digital sovereignty. Krisztian breaks down what EuroStack is, what it proposes, and why it matters now. They cover the scale of Europe's dependency on non-European tech (260 billion euros per year flowing out), what it actually means to be a "European" company, how public procurement could bootstrap a European tech ecosystem, and why trust in US hyperscalers has finally broken. They also explore the companion site euro-stach.com (https://euro-stack.com), a directory of 1620+ European alternatives across 64 categories. https://techleaguepodcast.com/ (https://techleaguepodcast.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP (https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP) Chapters 0:00 Introduction 1:30 What is EuroStack and why Krisztian is excited about it 4:00 The scale of the problem: 260 billion euros/year leaving Europe 7:00 Europe as a fragmented market vs the US and China 10:00 The three pillars: Buy European, Sell European, Fund European 13:00 How public procurement can generate demand and bootstrap growth 17:00 The 1-to-10 ratio: every public euro attracting 10 private 20:00 Risk of government focus pulling cloud providers away from innovation 24:00 Startup acquisition culture: why European exits go to US companies 28:00 Defining "European": jurisdiction, control, supply chain, no extra-EU restrictions 33:00 AWS sovereign cloud: smoke and mirrors 37:00 Timeline to 2030 and the gradual transition approach 40:00 Geopolitical risk: Ukraine, Starlink, and the dependency reality 44:00 European openness vs American/Chinese protectionism 48:00 Why trust in US tech has finally broken 52:00 Opportunities for European engineers and companies 55:00 Wrap-up Technologies and Initiatives Mentioned EuroStack initiative: https://eurostack.eu/ (https://eurostack.eu/) Solution directory: https://euro-stack.com (https://euro-stack.com) Scaleway - https://www.scaleway.com (https://www.scaleway.com) OVH Cloud - https://www.ovhcloud.com (https://www.ovhcloud.com)

2. 

   27 Mar 2026

   #17 Testing in the AI era

   In this episode, Toby and Krisztian welcome their first proper guest: Alan Richardson, a 30-year software veteran and testing specialist known as Evil Tester. They dig into testing in the AI era: how to test AI-generated code, whether TDD still makes sense with AI, why self-healing tests are a red flag, and how AI is opening up security and adversarial testing. Alan makes the case for architecture-first development as the key to getting good test output from AI agents. https://techleaguepodcast.com/ (https://techleaguepodcast.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP (https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP) Chapters 0:00 Introduction and guest intro: Alan Richardson (eviltester.com (http://eviltester.com)) 2:00 Why testing matters more in the AI code generation era 5:30 Architecture-first: good code leads to good tests 10:00 Does TDD work with AI? Why it mostly doesn't 14:30 Playwright and UI tests: the abstraction problem 23:00 Information theory and what testing actually is 27:00 Adversarial AI testing: using AI to exploit your own CVEs 33:00 Security scanning tools vs penetration testing with AI 38:30 Domain expertise still matters 43:00 Generalist vs specialist in the AI era 47:00 The junior developer pipeline problem 51:00 Will AI homogenise software and design? 54:00 Wrap-up Links: Evil Tester https://eviltester.com (https://eviltester.com) Playwright: https://playwright.dev/ (https://playwright.dev/) Agentic EQ: https://agentic-qe.dev/ (https://agentic-qe.dev/) Vite: https://vite.dev/ (https://vite.dev/) Claude : https://claude.com/ (https://claude.com/) Snyk: https://snyk.io/ (https://snyk.io/) Aikido: https://www.aikido.dev (https://www.aikido.dev) Hacker One: https://www.hackerone.com/ (https://www.hackerone.com/) Wiz: https://www.wiz.io/ (https://www.wiz.io/)

3. 

   20 Mar 2026

   #16 Bunny CDN

   In this episode, Toby and Krisztian continue their EU cloud deep dive with a hands-on look at Bunny CDN (bunny.net). Toby used it to launch the new TechLeague podcast website on a static Astro site in under 10 minutes, with Terraform infrastructure, built-in DNS, automatic SSL, and GitHub Actions deployment. They cover the full product offering including CDN, object storage, video streaming with free transcoding, edge scripts, magic containers, and BunnyShield security. They also touch on Tangled.sh, a Helsinki-based distributed git platform built on the AT Protocol that recently raised 3 million euros. https://techleaguepodcast.com/ (https://techleaguepodcast.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP (https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP) Chapters 0:00 Introduction 1:21 Building the TechLeague website with Astro and Bunny CDN 2:57 Built-in DNS and automatic SSL 4:46 Deploying static files: FTP now, S3 compatibility coming 5:28 Sign-up experience and free credits 6:00 Standard vs Volume network tiers 7:00 Company background: Slovenian, EU-based, 120+ PoPs globally 8:28 Full product overview: storage, stream, DNS, edge, containers 10:18 Video streaming with free transcoding 11:00 Pricing: $0.01/GB storage, $0.01/GB egress 12:27 Limitations: not a full cloud provider 14:30 Magic containers: serverless with anycast IP 17:00 BunnyShield: WAF, DDoS protection, rate limiting 18:49 BunnyOptimizer: on-the-fly image resizing via URL params 19:46 SLA and EU sovereignty 22:00 Can it replace CloudFront? 23:00 getdeploying.com for comparing CDN providers 24:00 Could we host podcast videos on Bunny? 26:50 Reflection: EU cloud is better than we thought 28:05 Tangled.sh: a distributed EU git platform on the AT Protocol 31:14 Wrap-up Technologies Mentioned Bunny CDN - https://bunny.net?ref=v8cfwfmh3r (https://bunny.net?ref=v8cfwfmh3r) Astro - https://astro.build (https://astro.build) Terraform - https://www.terraform.io (https://www.terraform.io) Tangled.sh - https://tangled.sh (https://tangled.sh) getdeploying.com - https://getdeploying.com (https://getdeploying.com) Scaleway - https://www.scaleway.com (https://www.scaleway.com) AT Protocol - https://atproto.com (https://atproto.com)

4. 

   13 Mar 2026

   #15 Agentic Engineering

   In this episode, Toby and Krisztian share their hands-on experiment building a real group management app using Claude Code and agentic engineering. Toby spent roughly a month's worth of hours prompting Claude to build a cross-platform mobile and web app with Expo, a Node/Express API, Postgres on Scaleway, Hanko authentication and Terraform infrastructure — all without looking at the code. They discuss what worked surprisingly well, what fell apart, the token costs, how agentic engineering compares to managing juniors, and what they would do differently next time. https://techleaguepodcast.com/ (https://techleaguepodcast.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP (https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP) Chapters 0:00 Introduction: the experiment 1:15 Why Expo for cross-platform mobile and web 2:54 The architect document approach 5:50 How the initial prompt and brainstorming worked 7:45 Not looking at the code 9:05 Context7: giving Claude access to latest API docs 10:35 First pass results 12:46 API and database quality: better than expected 14:40 UI issues: the weak spot 17:20 The bug list testing session 24:23 How sub-agents and parallel work played out 26:07 The Claude usage limit dark pattern 28:15 What it cost: 247 euros for roughly 100 hours of work 31:30 Code quality and lessons from the spec 38:48 The testing problem: agents writing tests for their own code 45:20 The 80/20 rule: great at the fun stuff, weak on the boring 50:30 SaaS disruption: custom software at commodity prices 57:25 How to build LLM memory and learning loops 1:00:25 Summary and what we would do differently Technologies Mentioned Claude Code - https://claude.ai/code (https://claude.ai/code) Expo - https://expo.dev (https://expo.dev) Scaleway - https://www.scaleway.com (https://www.scaleway.com) Hanko - https://hanko.io (https://hanko.io) Terraform - https://www.terraform.io (https://www.terraform.io) Playwright - https://playwright.dev (https://playwright.dev) Context7 - https://context7.com (https://context7.com) Node.js - https://nodejs.org (https://nodejs.org) PostgreSQL - https://www.postgresql.org (https://www.postgresql.org)

5. 

   27 Feb 2026

   #14 EU Cloud Alternatives - Scaleway

   In this episode, Toby and Krisztian kick off an ongoing series exploring the EU cloud and software stack. Following a previous episode on EU digital sovereignty, they have set themselves a challenge: build their side projects entirely on EU-based services. This episode covers hands-on experience with Forgejo for source code management, Scaleway as a cloud provider, and Hanko for authentication. They share honest feedback on what works, what doesn't, and where the gaps are compared to the big American hyperscalers. https://techleaguepodcast.com/ (https://techleaguepodcast.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP (https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP) Chapters 0:00 Introduction and the EU sovereignty challenge 1:48 Finding EU alternatives: european-alternatives.eu (http://european-alternatives.eu) 3:47 Looking for a GitHub replacement 5:50 Forgejo: the open-source Gitea fork 8:27 What works in Forgejo and what doesn't 10:46 Hosting Forgejo on Scaleway 13:48 The gap between self-hosting and a managed service 15:18 Scaleway overview: regions, services and Terraform support 20:35 Scaleway serverless functions and containers 25:02 Service-to-service authentication 28:34 Deploying Forgejo, databases and runners on Scaleway 36:04 Logging, metrics and Cockpit observability 40:27 Scaleway regions: Amsterdam, Paris, Warsaw 42:25 IAM limitations and enterprise considerations 44:14 Hanko: EU-native user authentication 48:32 Comparing EU stack total cost vs AWS plus Datadog 50:05 What's next: OVH, Hetzner, Infomaniak Technologies Mentioned - EU alternatives: https://european-alternatives.eu (https://european-alternatives.eu) - Codeberg: https://codeberg.org (https://codeberg.org) - Forgejo: https://forgejo.org (https://forgejo.org) - Scaleway: https://www.scaleway.com/en/ (https://www.scaleway.com/en/) - OVHcloud: https://www.ovhcloud.com/en/ (https://www.ovhcloud.com/en/) - UpCloud: https://upcloud.com (https://upcloud.com) - Hetzner: https://www.hetzner.com (https://www.hetzner.com) - Elastx: https://elastx.se/en (https://elastx.se/en) - Hanko: https://www.hanko.io (https://www.hanko.io)

6. 

   20 Feb 2026

   #13 OpenClaw

   In this episode, Toby is joined by Xavier (Zavi) for a relaxed conversation about OpenClaw, an open-source project that lets you build a personalised, memory-aware AI assistant running on your own hardware. They share hands-on experiences setting it up with Telegram, Claude and local models, and discuss what makes it feel different from a standard chat interface: persistent memory in markdown files, heartbeat schedules, proactive check-ins, and a soul file that shapes personality over time. The conversation also covers security, prompt injection risks, the skill ecosystem, local model options, and the cultural questions around long-running AI companions. https://techleaguepodcast.com/ (https://techleaguepodcast.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP (https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP) Chapters 0:00 Introduction 0:33 What is OpenClaw? 1:40 Why does it feel different from a standard AI chat? 3:51 Setting it up: first impressions 4:45 Practical use cases: standups, workshop manuals, tractor parts 7:04 How the heartbeat and memory systems work 9:15 Cron jobs, proactive tasks and the soul file 12:06 The internals: TypeScript, service daemon, CLI and web UI 14:23 Security model: token auth, Tailscale, least-privilege access 17:42 Prompt injection risks 21:30 The skill ecosystem and supply chain risks 28:25 Local model support and failover between providers 32:55 Running local models: gaming laptops, Apple Silicon, VRAM 38:35 Different bot instances developing different personalities 41:45 Long-running AI companions and what they mean for society 44:55 Manipulation risk and the corporate AI companion future 48:15 Practical advice: what to give it access to, and what not to Technologies Mentioned OpenClaw - https://openclaw.dev (https://openclaw.dev) Claude (Anthropic) - https://www.anthropic.com (https://www.anthropic.com) Telegram - https://telegram.org (https://telegram.org) Ollama - https://ollama.ai (https://ollama.ai) Tailscale - https://tailscale.com (https://tailscale.com)

7. 

   13 Feb 2026

   #12 DevOps and SecOps

   In this episode, Toby and Krisztian take a deep look at DevOps and SecOps: where the ideas came from, what they were supposed to mean, how they got warped by the industry, and what good looks like in practice. They cover the waterfall origins of ops as a separate team, the shift-left movement, the build-it-you-run-it principle, why DevOps as a job title makes no sense, platform engineering, and how security is going through the same transformation. They also cover common anti-patterns, DORA metrics, how to get buy-in for a transformation, and what it looks like when it works at scale. https://techleaguepodcast.com/ (https://techleaguepodcast.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP (https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP) Chapters 0:00 Introduction 0:28 What DevOps was actually supposed to mean 1:57 The waterfall origins: why ops and dev were separate 5:45 Full stack and the rise of the developer-operator 8:40 Why the old model produced poor software quality 11:04 The move to agile and SaaS changed everything 14:15 DevOps as a term: what went wrong 16:08 Platform engineering: the natural next step 21:00 Breaking down the dev vs ops cultural divide 25:47 Real-world example: 10x performance improvement through shared ownership 30:29 Security is going through the same transformation 32:49 Shifting security left: from IDE to CI/CD pipeline 37:02 Reachability scanning and avoiding false positives 40:25 The strangler pattern for security posture improvement 43:34 SecOps as enablers, not gatekeepers 45:34 Common DevOps anti-patterns 53:48 Four-eyes principle done right vs done as Jira ping-pong 1:00:00 DORA metrics: how to measure if your DevOps is working 1:05:39 Management buy-in: why it matters and why it's hard 1:11:43 Real transformation stories 1:20:00 Internal platforms and giving teams real autonomy Technologies Mentioned Kubernetes - https://kubernetes.io (https://kubernetes.io) AWS - https://aws.amazon.com (https://aws.amazon.com) Grafana Cloud - https://grafana.com/products/cloud (https://grafana.com/products/cloud) Checkov - https://www.checkov.io (https://www.checkov.io) GitHub Actions - https://github.com/features/actions (https://github.com/features/actions)

8. 

   6 Feb 2026

   #11 How to build great engineering organizations

   In this episode, Toby and Krisztian dive into how to structure and scale engineering organisations effectively. Drawing on years of consulting experience, they cover autonomous teams, domain-driven ownership, reducing cross-team handovers, internal platform teams, Conway's Law, the dangers of gatekeeping in ops and security, why self-service tooling is non-negotiable, and what it looks like when organisations are run like a portfolio of internal startups. A practical guide for engineering leaders and anyone building out an eng org. https://techleaguepodcast.com/ (https://techleaguepodcast.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP (https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP) Chapters 0:00 Introduction 1:43 When does an organisation become the bottleneck? 3:39 Starting with the problem space: divide and conquer 6:22 Autonomous teams and moving away from top-down command 8:03 How to detect misalignment: count the handovers 9:15 Conway's Law: use it intentionally 12:27 Single ownership and full accountability per domain 14:32 Internal service teams: when to spin one up 17:09 Each department as its own startup 19:57 Hero syndrome and knowing what not to build in-house 25:13 Self-service tooling: make it so good they choose it 28:33 KPIs, review cadences and cost visibility 36:24 Common anti-patterns: top-down command, founders who don't let go 41:42 Internal tooling teams as natural monopolies 45:26 The operations and security gatekeeper trap 48:20 Shifting from gatekeeper to enabler 53:02 Why developers must own production 57:34 How to set cross-divisional standards 1:07:09 Good internal platforms embed standards in golden paths 1:14:29 Entrepreneurial mindset within organisations 1:18:45 Summary and closing thoughts Technologies Mentioned AWS EKS - https://aws.amazon.com/eks (https://aws.amazon.com/eks) Apache Airflow - https://airflow.apache.org (https://airflow.apache.org) Terraform - https://www.terraform.io (https://www.terraform.io) Kubernetes - https://kubernetes.io (https://kubernetes.io)

9. 

   30 Jan 2026

   #10 EU Digital Sovereignty

   In this episode, Toby and Krisztian dig into EU digital sovereignty: why it matters now more than ever, the legal landscape around the EU Data Act and the EU Cloud Sovereignty Framework, and the very real risk of European economies being dependent on US-controlled cloud infrastructure. They cover the contradictions between US and EU data law, the limitations of US hyperscalers setting up European entities, the current state of European cloud providers, the opportunity for EU tech to leapfrog incumbents, and what engineers can do right now to contribute to a more sovereign European digital stack. https://techleaguepodcast.com/ (https://techleaguepodcast.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP (https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP) Chapters 0:00 Introduction 0:49 The cloud landscape: why it's all American 2:35 The conflict between US Cloud Act and EU GDPR 5:09 How the EU has responded: the Data Act explained 9:31 What the EU Cloud Sovereignty Framework actually measures 21:02 Are US hyperscaler EU entities really sovereign? 27:01 The current state of European cloud providers 30:06 The leapfrog opportunity: skipping legacy infrastructure 33:03 The geopolitical shift: trust in the US has broken 40:30 Europe's quiet power and how it fights back 44:24 What this means for the tech industry 47:13 The financial sector dependency and existential risk 51:03 What does the transition actually look like? 53:00 What engineers can do right now Technologies Mentioned AWS - https://aws.amazon.com (https://aws.amazon.com) Microsoft Azure - https://azure.microsoft.com (https://azure.microsoft.com) Google Cloud - https://cloud.google.com (https://cloud.google.com)

10. 

    23 Jan 2026

    #9 Mistakes have been made

    In this episode, Toby and Krisztian drop the technical polish and get honest about the biggest mistakes of their careers. From wiping a month of startup data with a single wrong command, to nearly electrocuting himself pulling a chassis from a live rack, to a rounding error in financial software that ended up in front of the CFO — the stories are equal parts hilarious and painful. They also cover bad search-replaces on live Cassandra clusters, taking on management too early, a wrong-direction DD command, and accidentally generating a massive AWS bill. A candid episode about how experience is often just accumulated failure. https://techleaguepodcast.com/ (https://techleaguepodcast.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP (https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP) Chapters 0:00 Introduction 0:51 The search-replace that corrupted a Cassandra cluster 2:20 Migrating a print shop to Linux in the 90s 5:45 Data centre migration disaster: wrong rack, 3am 8:27 Wiping a month of startup code with DD in the wrong direction 10:24 Tape backups and old-school data loss 13:16 Descending into a coal mine without the tools 18:07 The accidental text that went to the boss 20:33 The kill switch that locked out a paying customer 25:07 Pushed into management too early 28:35 Not surrounding yourself with business people soon enough 38:26 The AWS bill that dwarfed the customer contract value 41:08 The rounding error that ended up in front of the CFO 45:54 The ClickHouse lesson: check managed services first 48:25 Nearly electrocuted pulling a live power supply 51:30 Airport runway lighting and the buffer overflow 1:02:30 Mission command, autonomy and lessons from other industries 1:04:45 Summary: own up fast, learn, and keep doing things Technologies Mentioned Cassandra - https://cassandra.apache.org (https://cassandra.apache.org) AWS - https://aws.amazon.com (https://aws.amazon.com) ClickHouse - https://clickhouse.com (https://clickhouse.com) Kubernetes - https://kubernetes.io (https://kubernetes.io)

11. 

    16 Jan 2026

    #8 About Kubernetes

    In this episode, Toby and Krisztian are joined by Xavier Torres, a senior infrastructure and observability engineer, for a practical dive into Kubernetes. They cover what Kubernetes actually is, how pods, services, deployments and ingresses fit together, and what you genuinely need to run it in production. The conversation moves through observability tooling, GitOps with Argo CD, secrets management, service meshes, managed vs self-hosted Kubernetes, autoscaling, and whether Kubernetes is even the right tool for most companies. https://techleaguepodcast.com/ (https://techleaguepodcast.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP (https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP) Chapters 0:00 Introduction and guest welcome 1:19 Kubernetes explained: what it actually is 3:14 Pods, containers and shared namespaces 6:09 Services: the internal networking abstraction 8:02 Ingress controllers: getting traffic in 10:34 Managed Kubernetes vs self-hosted 16:03 Minimum viable observability: logs and metrics 21:41 Dealing with YAML sprawl 25:57 GitOps with Argo CD 36:09 Stateful workloads with Crossplane 40:22 When does Kubernetes become the wrong hammer? 43:02 The YAML complexity trap for developers 45:46 Service meshes: what they solve and what they cost 51:15 How much of your cluster is actually your workloads? 54:00 Alternatives: Cloud Run, Lambda, Docker Compose 1:00:03 Will Kubernetes be abstracted away by cloud providers? 1:05:51 Local development: K3s, Kind and Minikube 1:12:18 Summary: when to use Kubernetes and when not to Technologies Mentioned Kubernetes - https://kubernetes.io (https://kubernetes.io) Argo CD - https://argo-cd.readthedocs.io (https://argo-cd.readthedocs.io) Helm - https://helm.sh (https://helm.sh) Crossplane - https://www.crossplane.io (https://www.crossplane.io) Grafana - https://grafana.com (https://grafana.com) Prometheus - https://prometheus.io (https://prometheus.io) AWS EKS - https://aws.amazon.com/eks (https://aws.amazon.com/eks) Google GKE - https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine (https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine) AWS Karpenter - https://karpenter.sh (https://karpenter.sh) K3s - https://k3s.io (https://k3s.io) Google Cloud Run - https://cloud.google.com/run (https://cloud.google.com/run)

12. 

    9 Jan 2026

    #7 Cloud vs Data Centre

    In this episode, Toby and Krisztian take a hands-on dive into what it actually means to run your own data centre. Drawing on years of real-world experience racking servers, pulling fibre, configuring BGP and managing colocation suites, they walk through physical layout, cooling, power redundancy, network topology, capacity planning and hidden operational costs — then contrast all of this with the cloud. A rare and genuinely technical episode for anyone curious about what happens behind the abstraction layer. https://techleaguepodcast.com/ (https://techleaguepodcast.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP (https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP) Chapters 0:00 Introduction 1:27 Our data centre backgrounds 4:09 What does a data centre actually look like? 6:27 Tiers of availability 7:14 Racks, blades and colocation 13:06 Power redundancy: dual circuits and hot-swappable components 15:55 Network: SFPs, fibre optic and bandwidth design 18:59 BGP, ASN numbers and getting on the internet 24:13 Cooling: cold aisles and hot aisles 28:52 The cost breakdown: hardware, power, space, staffing 33:18 Capacity planning: the static nature of physical infrastructure 37:00 Team size and skills required 40:17 Hardware lifecycle and refresh cycles 44:05 How servers are ordered, received and racked 47:11 Should you run your own data centre? 50:10 Edge cases where on-prem makes sense 53:38 Hybrid cloud and AWS Outposts 57:09 Cloud vs data centre total cost of ownership 1:03:01 Environmental impact: waste heat and green data centres 1:07:24 How data centre skills transfer to the cloud 1:08:30 Summary: use the cloud if you can Technologies Mentioned AWS - https://aws.amazon.com (https://aws.amazon.com) AWS Outposts - https://aws.amazon.com/outposts (https://aws.amazon.com/outposts) Kubernetes - https://kubernetes.io (https://kubernetes.io) Juniper Networks - https://www.juniper.net (https://www.juniper.net)

13. 

    19 Dec 2025

    #6 Technical Communication

    In this episode, Toby and Krisztian dig into technical communication — one of the most underrated yet career-defining skills in engineering. They explore how to tailor your message to different audiences, why the curse of the expert derails so many technical conversations, how good documentation and code naming are themselves forms of communication, why architecture diagrams so often mislead, how to run blameless post-mortems, and why honesty and integrity are the foundations of trust in any technical discussion. https://techleaguepodcast.com/ (https://techleaguepodcast.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP (https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP) Chapters 0:00 Introduction 1:06 What is technical communication? 2:08 Understanding your audience 5:33 The curse of the expert 7:06 How to explain Kubernetes to non-technical people 9:54 Avoiding jargon with business stakeholders 11:35 Written communication: READMEs, comments, documentation 13:54 Using AI to maintain documentation intent 15:12 Architectural Decision Records 17:37 Naming things properly: services, teams and systems 21:41 API documentation 25:56 Empathy in communication 29:34 Improving public speaking 33:57 Drawing out quieter voices in meetings 35:01 Pre-meeting async writing 38:49 Integrity and saying I don't know 43:13 Learning what the business actually does 46:00 Blameless post-mortems and RCAs done right 49:06 Architecture diagrams: right level of abstraction 53:38 Deployment vs logical architecture diagrams 55:00 Executive-first documentation: start wide, go narrow 58:17 Summary: always lead with context and work down into detail

14. 

    12 Dec 2025

    #5 Principal Engineers

    In this episode, Toby and Krisztian take a deep dive into the world of principal engineers. Krisztian, himself a principal engineer, breaks down what the role actually involves: translating business strategy into technical direction, mentoring without micromanaging, building mental models of complex systems, and interpreting between engineering and senior leadership. They explore the difference between principal engineers and architects, the IC versus management career path, what makes a great versus a toxic principal engineer, how to interview for the role, and what aspiring engineers should focus on to get there. https://techleaguepodcast.com/ (https://techleaguepodcast.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP (https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP) Chapters 0:00 Introduction 1:51 Where does principal engineer sit in the career ladder? 3:30 IC versus management track: the fork in the road 6:05 Why the industry created the IC path 7:06 What does a principal engineer actually do day to day? 8:27 Principal engineer versus architect 10:48 Leading by influence, not authority 12:59 Translating business goals into technical direction 16:20 Building a mental model of the whole system 18:20 Communication: 80% of the job 20:47 Teaching and knowledge sharing 22:01 Mentoring versus knowledge sharing 24:57 How to become a principal engineer 31:44 Red flags: arrogance and decision-making from authority 36:33 Avoiding the gatekeeper trap 39:46 The servant leader mindset 42:32 When to insert your authority: tiebreaking and escalation 45:00 Why principal engineers should not own production code 53:14 Skills to develop on the path to principal 56:25 The importance of breadth across industries 59:23 Spotting fake experience in interviews 1:02:00 How principal engineers are interviewed 1:06:39 Summary: what the role is really about

15. 

    5 Dec 2025

    #4 Startup Engineering

    In this episode, Toby and Krisztian tackle the challenges of startup engineering, drawing on experience helping companies scale from nothing to tens of developers. They explore the two main startup archetypes: the bootstrapped zero-to-one prototype phase and the well-funded one-to-many scaling phase. Topics include picking the right tech stack, when to use vibe coding versus proper infrastructure, the danger of over-engineering early, unit economics, multi-account cloud environments, avoiding the trap of rebuilding your data centre in the cloud, and why unblocking other teams is always the highest-value activity. https://techleaguepodcast.com/ (https://techleaguepodcast.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP (https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP) Chapters 0:00 Introduction 0:26 Setting the scene: two types of startup 2:07 Phase one: zero to one, get out the door fast 5:33 Defining MVP and avoiding scope creep 9:57 Zero to one vs one to many: different problems 13:42 Real startup examples: from vibe coding to Kubernetes 15:48 Security, compliance, ISO 27001, GDPR 17:58 Build vs buy 20:00 Practical tech stack for a solo founder MVP 22:56 Scaling with three developers and early funding 24:47 Unit economics: know your cost per user 28:04 Managing technical debt consciously 30:04 Use boring tech and popular languages 33:14 Organisational structure first, then tech 36:16 Standards, contracts and avoiding API chaos 40:41 Multi-account cloud strategy from day one 43:57 The real cost of blocking engineers 47:52 Unblocking other teams is always highest priority 50:03 Data architecture to avoid cross-domain dependencies 54:14 When to use consultants and fractional expertise 56:03 Summary and key takeaways Technologies Mentioned Replit - https://replit.com (https://replit.com) Next.js - https://nextjs.org (https://nextjs.org) Vercel - https://vercel.com (https://vercel.com) Supabase - https://supabase.com (https://supabase.com) GitHub Actions - https://github.com/features/actions (https://github.com/features/actions) AWS EKS - https://aws.amazon.com/eks (https://aws.amazon.com/eks) Kubernetes - https://kubernetes.io (https://kubernetes.io)

16. 

    28 Nov 2025

    #3 About vibe coding

    In this episode, Toby and Krisztian explore vibe coding — building software using AI tools and natural language rather than writing code directly. Krisztian shares hands-on experiments with Replit and Cursor, the hosts discuss the impressive speed of prototyping versus the frustration when things go wrong, and they dig into the hidden security risks of putting powerful development tools in the hands of non-technical users. The conversation also covers AI-assisted cyberattacks, supply chain vulnerabilities, and what the explosion of AI-generated apps means for the software industry. https://techleaguepodcast.com/ (https://techleaguepodcast.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP (https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP) Chapters 0:00 Introduction 0:50 What is vibe coding? 1:47 Krisztian's experiment with Replit 3:54 Building a microservice diagramming tool with AI 6:55 Toby's experience with Lovable 10:09 Cursor vs Replit 14:00 Getting stuck in loops and losing flow state 23:16 The mainframe parallel: computing cycles and AI costs 28:42 Pricing and the race to the bottom 33:27 Why you still need developers in the loop 40:05 Supabase and Lovable integration, vendor lock-in 44:29 Security risks of vibe coding 47:28 AI-assisted cyberattacks and the arms race 59:05 Supply chain attacks and model poisoning 1:01:34 The explosion of AI slop 1:05:08 Prompt engineering and LLM manipulation 1:08:00 Summary and recommendations Technologies Mentioned Replit - https://replit.com (https://replit.com) Cursor - https://www.cursor.com (https://www.cursor.com) Lovable - https://lovable.dev (https://lovable.dev) Supabase - https://supabase.com (https://supabase.com) Claude (Anthropic) - https://www.anthropic.com (https://www.anthropic.com) React - https://react.dev (https://react.dev) TypeScript - https://www.typescriptlang.org (https://www.typescriptlang.org) GitHub Copilot - https://github.com/features/copilot (https://github.com/features/copilot) OpenRouter - https://openrouter.ai (https://openrouter.ai)

17. 

    21 Nov 2025

    #2 Getting into the tech industry in 2025

    In this episode, Toby and Krisztian tackle one of the most common questions in tech: how do you actually get into the industry in 2025? They cover choosing your first programming language, T-shaped career development, what hiring managers look for in juniors, the impact of AI on junior roles, how to navigate introversion in a collaborative industry, the value of changing companies to broaden perspective, and why your reputation starts mattering from day one. A practical and honest guide for anyone starting out or looking to level up. https://techleaguepodcast.com/ (https://techleaguepodcast.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP (https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP) Chapters 0:00 Introduction 1:23 Would you start in tech today? 2:32 Find your motivation first 3:23 How to start learning: courses, books, boot camps 5:57 Pick one language and go deep 8:31 What a junior is actually expected to know 10:21 How AI has changed the junior market 13:54 AI as a tool vs AI as a crutch 17:40 Getting into infrastructure and cloud 21:50 The T-shaped engineer 24:11 What hiring managers look for 31:57 What to do in your first interview 33:17 Communication: the neglected superpower 40:11 How to help juniors grow 44:25 Imposter syndrome and the Dunning-Kruger curve 49:09 Understanding the business from day one 51:30 Managing introversion in a collaborative environment 55:58 Career progression: junior to senior to staff 1:03:49 Individual contributor vs management 1:07:22 When to switch companies 1:12:50 Protecting your reputation from day one 1:15:03 Make yourself redundant, not indispensable 1:22:37 Remote work challenges for juniors Technologies Mentioned Python - https://www.python.org (https://www.python.org) JavaScript - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript) TypeScript - https://www.typescriptlang.org (https://www.typescriptlang.org) Linux - https://www.kernel.org (https://www.kernel.org) Terraform - https://www.terraform.io (https://www.terraform.io) AWS - https://aws.amazon.com (https://aws.amazon.com)

18. 

    12 Nov 2025

    #1 Microservices and monoliths

    In this episode, Toby and Krisztian dig into one of software engineering's most debated topics: monoliths versus microservices. They break down what each architecture actually means, where the industry went wrong by treating microservices as a default, and when a well-structured monolith is the smarter choice. The conversation covers real-world scaling challenges, infrastructure complexity, team organisation, Kubernetes fatigue, and the hidden costs of over-engineering early-stage products. https://techleaguepodcast.com/ (https://techleaguepodcast.com/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/ (https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/) Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP (https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP) Chapters 0:00 Introduction 0:40 What is a monolith? 2:31 What are microservices? 3:50 The case for monoliths 7:46 Scaling problems with monoliths 8:17 Running a monolith like a microservice 14:00 The infrastructure cost of microservices 19:15 Pros and cons of microservices 22:03 Infrastructure as code and service ownership 24:00 Architectural mistakes and migration pain 28:41 Technology diversity: freedom or fragmentation? 33:25 The danger of nano-services 35:21 When should you use a monolith? 39:39 When should you use microservices? 42:44 ECS Fargate vs Kubernetes 43:01 The history of container orchestration 51:06 Is the complexity worth it? 58:13 Conclusions and takeaways 1:01:36 How to build a monolith you can grow out of Technologies Mentioned Docker - https://www.docker.com (https://www.docker.com) Kubernetes - https://kubernetes.io (https://kubernetes.io) Amazon ECS - https://aws.amazon.com/ecs/ (https://aws.amazon.com/ecs/) AWS Fargate - https://aws.amazon.com/fargate/ (https://aws.amazon.com/fargate/) AWS Lambda - https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/ (https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/) Terraform - https://www.terraform.io (https://www.terraform.io) Apache Mesos - https://mesos.apache.org (https://mesos.apache.org) Google Cloud Run - https://cloud.google.com/run (https://cloud.google.com/run) Helm - https://helm.sh (https://helm.sh)

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