Shows / The Unfiltered Engineer
The Unfiltered Engineer
Everything out there feels AI-generated — the advice, the posts, the career tips, half the internet. This show is the opposite.
The Unfiltered Engineer is honest conversations with experienced software engineers, for engineers trying to navigate this industry right now. Real people with real mileage — decades at big companies, leaps into startups, pivots into AI, climbs into leadership — talking about how this career actually works.
Every episode asks what engineers are actually wondering: How…
Episodes
- The Unfiltered Engineer
Ep 12: Interviewing in 2026 (Senior and Staff) feat. Amruta Akut
Amruta Akut started preparing for interviews in late May. By mid-July she had multiple offers. She says she practiced fewer than five system designs. One…
- The Unfiltered Engineer
Ep 11: Cloud Native Observability at Hyperscale feat. Monalisha Singh
For ten minutes, Mona’s team couldn’t see what was happening in a whole region. The component that sends out the health data had gone down itself, because it…
- The Unfiltered Engineer
Bonus: Is a Conference Worth It? (LDX3 and WeAreDevelopers)
Bonus: Is a Conference Worth It? (LDX3 and WeAreDevelopers) A stranger at a bus stop asked me if three days at a conference would be worth taking time off…
- The Unfiltered Engineer
Ep 10: Permission to Be New (Reflection)
I said I’d trust myself more. A weak promise, honestly. Then I went to a conference talk on loop engineering and inference engineering. I understood the terms…
- The Unfiltered Engineer
Ep 9: Think How It Breaks feat. Rajakumaran Gowthaman
A developer asks how to make it work. QA asks how it breaks. Rajakumaran Gowthaman has spent his career on the second question, from QA and test automation at…
- The Unfiltered Engineer
Ep 8: Sketch Before You Code feat. Joy (Johanna Mesa Ramos)
In episode eight, I sit down with Joy, a senior software engineer, tech lead, digital artist, lifter, and professional anime binger. She finds joy in figuring…
- The Unfiltered Engineer
Ep 7: Ask Why, Not Just What feat. Kshitij Saxena
In episode six, I sit down with Kshitij Saxena, a Senior Product Engineer at epilot in Munich. Before that, he spent nearly four years at NewStore, growing…
- The Unfiltered Engineer
Ep 6: Influence without Authority feat. Sumit Mudliar
In episode six, I sit down with Sumit Mudliar, who leads Customer Success at iceDQ, a role built entirely on influence rather than authority. Before that, he…
- The Unfiltered Engineer
Ep 5: What I Didn't Say on Tape (Solo Reflection)
In this episode, I share insights from revisiting past podcast episodes, highlighting surprises, disagreements, and personal growth. This episode explores how…
- The Unfiltered Engineer
Ep 4: LinkedIn, Minus the Cringe feat. Dan Johnson
In episode four, I sit down with Dan Johnson, whose career started in a small mountain town in Vermont, where instead of doing homework, he built websites to…
- The Unfiltered Engineer
Ep 3: Measure What Matters feat. Nobel Xavier
In episode three, I sit down with Nobel Xavier, Nobel is Director of Engineering at Indeed, where he leads Auth Identity & Profiles experience for Glassdoor-…
- The Unfiltered Engineer
Ep 2: Your Brain Is Lying to You feat. Kate Astrid
It took Kate Astrid eight months to ask what "entity" meant at her job. Not because she didn't know how to ask. Because she was afraid of being misunderstood…
- The Unfiltered Engineer
Ep 1: Can AI Take This? feat. Eduardo Aparicio Cardenes
Not advice. Not a script. Just engineers talking honestly about how this career goes. In episode one, I sit down with Eduardo Aparicio Cardenes — the first…
- The Unfiltered Engineer
Trailer: The Unfiltered Engineer
Everything out there feels AI-generated — the advice, the tips, half the internet. This show is the opposite. I'm Vishakha, a frontend engineer ten years in…