Shows / Developer Tea
Developer Tea
Developer Tea exists to help driven developers connect to their ultimate purpose and excel at their work so that they can positively impact the people they influence. With over 17 million downloads to date, Developer Tea is a short podcast hosted by Jonathan Cutrell, engineering leader with over 15 years of industry experience. We hope you'll take the topics from this podcast and continue the conversation, either online or in person with your peers. Email: developertea@gmail.com
Episodes
- Developer Tea
Three Default Thinking Modes That Can Screw Up Your Planning and Vision
Your brain is constantly trying to simplify the world. It takes a snapshot of what it sees, builds a picture that makes sense, and then works from that…
- Developer Tea
Signs You May Have a Regressive Mindset
Keeping up has always been part of the job for software engineers, and with AI it's harder than ever. In this episode, I talk about two signals that you, your…
- Developer Tea
How History Can Inform a Dynamic Understanding of Technological Revolutions Mirroring this Moment In Software Engineering
You're tired of hearing that you need to pick up AI, so today I'm not going to add to that pile. Instead, we'll look back at two moments in history that look a…
- Developer Tea
Fundamentals Will Help You Survive the Constant Acceleration of Software Engineering
Fundamentals get talked about constantly, but rarely defined. In this episode I dig into what a fundamental actually is — the building blocks, heuristics, and…
- Developer Tea
You Don't Learn Helplessness - You Learn Control
In 1967, a study on shock avoidance gave us "learned helplessness," and for nearly fifty years that was the prevailing explanation for why people give up. Then…
- Developer Tea
Why Reducing Complexity Is A Sign of Seniority
As you grow as an engineer, something counterintuitive happens: the systems you build get simpler, not more complex. In this episode, I explore why senior…
- Developer Tea
A Pragmatic Definition for Accountability
Accountability is a word you'll hear in your performance reviews, from your manager, and increasingly as you step into leadership. It's also one of the most…
- Developer Tea
Using Substition to Make Decisions Simpler
There's a cognitive trick our brains play whenever we face a hard question or a difficult decision: we quietly swap the hard thing for something easier to…
- Developer Tea
Your Single Most Important Tool for Managing the Uneven Downsides of Risk
The skills you build and the tools you master matter, but they aren't your most important asset when things go wrong — and something eventually will. In this…
- Developer Tea
Why Can't You Go Faster With AI? Focus on the Friction to Find Out
If you are a manager, a lead engineer, or anyone growing into more responsibility, this throwback episode is built for you. We keep hearing the same question…
- Developer Tea
Software Engineering Principles That Still Hold Up in an Agentic World - Old Lessons Made New
The skills problem isn't going anywhere — it's just wearing new clothes. In this episode, I unpack how the lessons we learned decades ago (limiting work in…
- Developer Tea
Principles Oriented Thinking as a Durable Skill in an AI First World
The skills that survive every industry shakeup aren't the ones you can Google — they're softer, harder to name, and far more durable. In this episode, Jonathan…
- Developer Tea
What the Science Actually Says About Effective Feedback
A lot of what we've been talking about lately is durable skills — the abilities that last regardless of how our tools and tech environment change. In today's…
- Developer Tea
Rebuilding Your Mental Models In the Midst Of an AI Tech Revolution
Right now, the questions we have about our careers feel existential. We keep coming back to the same theme: how do you prepare for an industry that's changing…
- Developer Tea
Practice Isn't Enough for Senior Engineers - Adaptation Is a Key Skill in an AI-First Industry
If you're a software engineer right now, you likely feel like your world is changing overnight. We are writing half or less the amount of code that we wrote…
- Developer Tea
Senior Skills to Maintain Employment Through the AI Wave
If you've heard that your job in the agentic coding era is to "become a manager of agents," you may have noticed something doesn't quite fit. Most of us never…
- Developer Tea
You're Wrong All the Time, But All You Need Are Better Explanations
What happens when you discover that a book that fundamentally changed how you think is built on a shaky foundation? In today's episode, I share my own struggle…
- Developer Tea
AI-Proofing Your Skillset - High-Meaning, High-Specifity Vocabulary is the Path to Growth
Why I'm Not "Picking a Fight" on AI: A listener asked if I'm intentionally stoking a flame war by treating agentic coding as a foregone conclusion. The honest…
- Developer Tea
Building Real Skills During the AI Boom - No, Not That Kind of Skill
The Coding-Is-My-Value Trap: For years, we've treated the ability to write code as the flagship skill of software engineering. It's concrete, it's teachable…
- Developer Tea
Chaos Doesn't Have to Win - Maintaining Order in the Midst of AI Change
If you're an engineering leader right now, everything around you feels like it's changing at once — new tools, new processes, new expectations. It's tempting…
- Developer Tea
Mourning the Loss of Coding, Senior Tooling Mindset, and Shaping Your Environment
Your tool set isn't just a collection of utilities — it's the environment you live in every day, and it's shaping you whether you realize it or not. In today's…
- Developer Tea
Useful Illusions and Exploiting Heuristics
When Good Thinking Becomes Overthinking: Discover why the pursuit of perfect analysis often undermines good decision-making. Loading every caveat, every…
- Developer Tea
Decision Making is Your New Core Skill, So it's Critical to Avoid These Two Traps of Collaborative Decision-Making
The Bottleneck Is Moving: Borrowing from traditional manufacturing theory, the coding step used to define your team's total throughput. AI tooling hasn't…
- Developer Tea
What's Brewing, Edition 1 - What Jonathan is Learning, Using, and Thinking
The Power of Physical Checklists: Inspired by aviation, Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto, and Daniel Kahneman's Noise, I've been experimenting with…
- Developer Tea
From Software Engineer to Agent Manager - How Work is Changing in A New Software Development Paradigm
If you're a software engineer right now, you likely feel like your world is changing overnight. We are writing half or less the amount of code that we wrote…
- Developer Tea
AI Moves the Bottleneck - Are You Ready for What That Means For Your Career?
AI is bringing massive changes to our industry, but it's not just about how fast you can write code or use agentic flows. In this episode, I explore how AI is…
- Developer Tea
Listener Question - Abdul Asks About How to Balance Career Strategy Between Money, Meaning, and Skill Transitions
Today, we are tackling the natural tension between the desire to make more money—getting a raise, finding financial stability—and the desire to have…
- Developer Tea
AI-Era Employability and Job Security for Software Engineers - Mental Models for Finding a Competitive Advantage Without Selling Out
I've been delaying this episode for a long time because the topic is genuinely difficult and, for many of us, scary. AI is threatening not just to our…
- Developer Tea
Why Getting Paid Stole Your Drive and How to Get Into the Flow Again (Career Growth Accelerator)
Do you remember the early days of your career? You likely spent hours coding late into the night, fueled not by a paycheck, but by the sheer joy of building…
- Developer Tea
The Meta-Habit of High Performers: How Outer Loops Unlock Growth (Career Growth Accelerator)
🎧 Episode Notes: The Meta-Habit of High Performers: How Outer Loops Unlock Growth In today's episode, we are discussing one of the most common habits I see in…
- Developer Tea
Career Growth Accelerator - Promotion Roadblocks and Knocking it Out of the Park During Performance Review Season
It is review season, and you might be finding yourself confused: you received high ratings and "exceeded expectations," yet the promotion you expected didn't…
- Developer Tea
Career Growth Roadmap - De-risking Your Career By Understanding Your Vulnerabilities
In this episode, we explore how to de-risk your career roadmap by identifying the hidden vulnerabilities that hold your decision-making hostage. 🎧 Episode…
- Developer Tea
Career Growth Accelerator - Assessing Yourself - Using a Nine-Block to Map Your Skill, Potential, and Energy Investment
🎧 Episode Notes: Using a Nine-Block for Skill, Potential, and Energy Investment Most career assessments try to paint a static picture of what you can do well…
- Developer Tea
Career Growth Accelerator: Going from Autopilot to Purpose
This episode marks the 11th anniversary of the show, and I want to celebrate by continuing our Career Growth Accelerator series. Today, we’re moving beyond the…
- Developer Tea
Announcing - Career Growth Accelerator, Episode Zero - Getting Out of Your Own Way
This episode kicks off the Career Growth Accelerator series, focused on the specific hurdles faced by mid-to-senior level engineers, managers, and leaders who…
- Developer Tea
Announcing: The Career Growth Accelerator Series
Are you a mid-to-senior level engineer or leader who has hit a career roadblock or found yourself stagnated? I'm launching the new Career Growth Accelerator…
- Developer Tea
Problem Definition As A Path for Career Growth
When you hit a career roadblock, the methods that worked for you before often stop working. Today, I’m diving into why that happens, and why the first and most…
- Developer Tea
You Know The Hard Thing You Need to Do Next - Here's Why It's Worth Doing Now
We often look for ways to reduce the load on our brains, seeking shortcuts and optimizations to get ahead. Sometimes this works, reinforcing the belief that we…
- Developer Tea
Career Fundamentals - Avoid Career Traps by Focusing on Primary Paths of Improvement
If you're looking to accelerate your career growth, this episode gives you what may feel like hard truths about the path forward. So many engineers fall into…
- Developer Tea
Getting to Senior - Taking Ownership Without Leading Projects
If you're an engineer looking to move into a senior role, you have likely heard that you need to demonstrate "ownership". Unfortunately, this crucial term is…
- Developer Tea
Part Two - Bryan McCann, CTO of You.com, on AI, Engineering, Art, and Everything In Between
Hey everyone, welcome to today's episode of Developer Tea. This is the second part of my interview with Bryan McCann, the CTO at you.com. If you haven't…
- Developer Tea
Part One - Bryan McCann, CTO of You.com, on AI, Engineering, Art, and Everything In Between
Hey everyone and welcome to today's episode of Developer Tea. It's been quite a while since I've had a guest on the show. Today, I'm joined by Bryan McCann…
- Developer Tea
Going to War with Burnout - Less Hours Isn't Your Only Option
I'm tackling a massive challenge today: burnout. While the standard advice usually involves working less, I want to show you a practical dimension of burnout…
- Developer Tea
The Good and Bad of Choosing Measurements - Traps and Opportunities of Measuring What Matters
In this episode, I dive into the management mantra that "what is measured is managed" and explain why this simple assertion often leads to a complex trap. We…
- Developer Tea
Engage in Deliberate Practice to Level Up Your Engineering Leadership Skills
I want to dive into the concept of Deliberate Practice, which sets the greatest apart in fields ranging from sports to writing to engineering. I’ll explain why…
- Developer Tea
Shift Your Locus of Control to Take Charge of Your Engineering Career
This episode explores the concept of Locus of Control and why developing a more internal locus of control is beneficial for your career and life. You'll learn…
- Developer Tea
Resumé Driven Development - Your Career is In Your Hands
In this episode we'll discuss why "Résumé Driven Development" is a powerful mental model for building a thriving career. Instead of seeing your résumé as just…
- Developer Tea
Forced and Unforced Errors
In this episode, we introduce a simple yet powerful mental model from the world of sports: forced vs. unforced errors. By understanding this concept, you can…
- Developer Tea
View Your Productivity Through the Lens of Values and Priorities
In this episode, we introduce two fundamental thought experiments to help you uncover your true priorities and core values. By exploring scenarios of scarcity…
- Developer Tea
This One Skill Signifies Seniority For Software Engineers
This episode explains what is arguably the best career advice you'll hear this week: the one skill that signifies seniority in software engineers is the…
- Developer Tea
Backup Plans and Risk Reward Curves
This episode focuses on the critical importance of having a backup plan, not just for technical redundancies but especially for situations involving human…
- Developer Tea
Second Order Consequences and Forcing Functions
Todays episode delves into understanding and leveraging second and third-order consequences – the ripple effects that occur after an initial action – and…
- Developer Tea
Don't Try to Solve Hyperobject Problems Once
This episode delves into the philosophical concept of hyperobjects – problems so vast and complex they lack clear boundaries and cannot be "solved" once and…
- Developer Tea
Behavior Change 101: Trigger, Incentive, and Ability
This episode delves into a powerful model for encouraging behaviour change, applicable to both managing others and self-improvement, by focusing on three…
- Developer Tea
Goal of the Goal - Using Goals As A Prioritization Clarifying Tool
This episode delves into the crucial role of well-positioned goals in a developer's career. It asserts that goals provide clarity, perspective, and purpose…
- Developer Tea
Your Capacity for Growth Is Dependent on This Factor - Cognitive Load Theory
Today we explore Cognitive Load Theory. This concept can profoundly influence how you structure your workday, manage teams, and approach learning in your…
- Developer Tea
Investigating Your Invisible Systems
This episode focuses again on the fundamental principle that your systems are perfectly designed for the outcomes you are experiencing, regardless of whether…
- Developer Tea
Perfection Is Fragile, and You Should Avoid It
This episode discusses why perfection is a dangerous and fragile goal, explaining how striving for 100% leads to unsustainable outlier states. It highlights…
- Developer Tea
Your System is Perfectly Designed for Your Current Outcomes
This episode introduces the potentially controversial principle that your system is perfectly designed for its current outcomes, urging listeners to embrace…
- Developer Tea
Using LLMs To Expand Your Working Vocabulary
This episode explores the fundamental mindset of building your vocabulary, extending beyond literal words to conceptual understanding and mental models, and…