Episodi
-
This special Season 3 finale of SEEK Bytes – a podcast for engineers by engineers – dives into one of the biggest AI engineering shifts of the moment: spec-driven development with GitHub Spec Kit. If you’ve been wondering how teams are using AI for more than just code completion, this episode unpacks a workflow designed to help engineers plan better, reduce drift and build higher-quality software faster.
From constitutions and user stories to self-healing analysis and the crossover with TDD, this is a fascinating look at how AI can turn messy feature work into a much more structured engineering process.
In this episode you’ll learn:
• What spec-driven development actually is – and how Spec Kit turns a feature idea into specs, plans, tasks and implementation steps instead of jumping straight into code.
• Why the “constitution” matters so much – how one shared set of project rules, dependencies and engineering standards can shape every AI-generated change that follows.
• Why this matters beyond engineering teams – how clearer upfront specs can reduce misunderstandings, cut rework and help product, design and engineering stay aligned before expensive mistakes get baked in.
🔔 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode -
What happens when you give 100 high school students four days, real SEEK mentors and a crash course in how tech actually works? In this episode of SEEK Bytes – we're joined by special guests Asha Ioculari and Leon Belobrov and go behind the scenes of Camp SEEK, SEEK’s immersive program designed to open the doors of tech to girls and non-binary students and show them there’s far more to this industry than just writing code.
From design thinking and user research to pitching in front of 200+ people and senior SEEK leaders, this is a brilliant look at how SEEK is building confidence, broadening horizons and helping shape a more inclusive future for tech.
This episode's special guests: Asha Ioculari (SEEK Senior Product Manager) & Leon Belobrov (SEEK Principal Product Manager)
In this episode you’ll learn:
• What Camp SEEK actually is – a free, four-day immersive program where students experience the real world of tech through design sprints, hackathon-style teamwork and hands-on problem solving.
• Why it matters so much – how Camp SEEK is helping tackle underrepresentation in tech by building confidence early, widening access and showing students they absolutely belong in this space.
• How SEEK brings the experience to life – from the double diamond process and the “designer, developer, dreamer” model to daily retros, volunteer mentors and a final pitch that gives students a real taste of working in tech.
🔔 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode -
Episodi mancanti?
-
Ever shipped a UI that “works” but still feels clunky, janky or confusing to users? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, Elliott and Will chat with lead engineer Eddy Nguyen about Bleeds – a simple but powerful way to design every UI state your users actually experience, not just the happy path.
This episode's special guest: Eddy Nguyen (SEEK Lead Engineer)
Eddy breaks down how Bleeds (Blank, Loading, Error, Expected, Disabled, Static) went from a team guideline to a shared language across engineers, designers and product. They dig into skeletons, loading spinners, empty states, static rendering and optimistic updates, and show how a clear pattern for states can make your interfaces feel modern, forgiving and fast.
In this episode, we explore:
• What Bleeds is and how Blank, Loading, Error, Expected, Disabled and Static states map to real user journeys
• How a shared UI‑state language helps engineers, designers and product collaborate and keep experiences consistent across apps
• Practical tips for implementing Bleeds in React/GraphQL‑style front ends with skeletons, helpful errors, static rendering and fewer “mystery” states
If you’re a frontend or full‑stack engineer, designer or product person who wants your UI to feel polished in every state, this episode is for you.
🔔 Follow SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode -
AI might look simple on the surface — just send a prompt, get a response — but behind the scenes, there’s a whole platform challenge to solve. In this episode of SEEK Bytes – we’re joined by Thet Ko, Senior Staff Engineer in SEEK’s AI Platform Services team, to unpack how SEEK is building an AI Gateway to centralise AI calls, improve governance and make it easier for teams to build with AI without reinventing the foundations every time.
From cost visibility and PII protection to guardrails, resilience and shared memory across agents, this episode lifts the lid on the platform work that makes enterprise AI actually usable at scale.
This episode's special guest: Thet Ko (Senior Staff Engineer)
In this episode you’ll learn:
• Why an AI Gateway matters – how centralising AI usage helps teams get better governance, clearer cost visibility and shared protection against risks like PII leakage and prompt injection.
• What platform teams need to solve for AI at scale – from giving agents the right tools and memory to helping teams focus on the use case while the platform handles the foundations.
• Why reliability and economics matter more than the hype – including model outages, fallback across regions, evaluation with golden datasets and LangFuse, and the reality that AI only scales if the value outweighs the cost.
🔔 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode -
AI is moving fast — but are we building it responsibly? In this episode of SEEK Bytes – we sit down with Sreyna Rath, CEO and co-founder of jaimee.ai, who arrived in Australia as a refugee and is now running her own AI company with the aim to create something truly transformative for women. Elliott sits down with Reyna to unpack her journey and the real-world risks of AI bias, why safety can’t be bolted on at the end, and what developers can do to build tools that are fairer, safer and more human from day one.
From biased hiring systems to sexualised image outputs and AI companions designed for vulnerable users, this conversation is a powerful reminder that AI doesn’t just reflect technology — it reflects us.
This episode's special guest: Sreyna Rath (CEO and co-founder of Jamie.ai)
In this episode you’ll learn:
• Why responsible AI starts long before launch – and why fairness, safety and your most vulnerable users need to be considered right at the start, not patched in after the damage is done.
• How bias shows up in the real world – from hiring algorithms that penalised women to image tools that sexualised women, showing how bad data and blind spots can turn into harmful outcomes at scale.
• What everyday tech teams can do about it – including compassionate design, testing for bad outcomes, using AI to review AI, and treating AI as a sceptical collaborator instead of an unquestioned decision-maker.
🔔 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode -
Still throwing one prompt at an AI agent and hoping for the best? In this episode of SEEK Bytes – we unpack PERL: Plan, Execute, Review and Learn — a smarter way to work with AI that helps teams get better outputs, catch mistakes earlier and turn trial-and-error into a repeatable workflow. This is the episode for anyone curious about how AI tools are really being used inside modern tech teams — not just to generate answers, but to plan better, work faster and learn as a team.
In this episode you’ll learn:
• Why one-shot prompting is holding people back – and how separating planning from execution can lead to better results, fewer misses and more confidence in what your AI tools are doing.
• How “review and learn” takes AI from personal hack to team advantage – by spotting what went wrong, improving the next run and feeding those lessons back into shared skills, rules and documentation.
• The hidden traps of advanced AI workflows – from runaway token usage and looping behaviour to context compaction and hallucinations, plus why mastering these tools is becoming a real skill in tech.
🔔 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode -
What happens when a designer with almost no coding experience picks up an AI tool and starts building a working product prototype – and then a staff engineer has to make sense of it all? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, Elliott Millar, Seamus, Arnav and Staff Engineer Helen Giapitzakis dive into “vibe coding”: using AI agents, context and prompts to build software by feel instead of by hand.
This episode's special guest: Helen Giapitzakis (SEEK Staff Engineer)
In this episode, we explore:
• How a SEEK designer used AI to go from idea to clickable prototype, put it in front of real users, and only pulled in engineers when things started to wobble
• Why “vibe coding” changes who can build software – and what that means for engineers, from assisted coding and context engineering to owning standards, readability and long-lived code
• The surprising ways LLMs misunderstand intent and rules (especially negatives like “never use any”), and how teams can use positive, shared guidelines and repo-level “AI rulebooks” to steer them
Whether you’re in software engineering, UX, product, data, mobile, platform or IT leadership, this episode will get you thinking differently about who codes, how AI fits into real teams, and what “good” code even means in an AI-first world.
👍 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode -
Drowning in new AI tools and wondering which ones actually help you ship better software? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, Elliott, Seamus and Will react to the latest wave of AI‑powered dev tools, from coding assistants and test generators to agents that promise to refactor your whole codebase while you sleep.
They dig into what these tools are really good at (speeding up boilerplate, exploring APIs, generating tests), where they fall over (context, architecture, edge‑cases), and how they’re already changing code review, onboarding and day‑to‑day developer experience at SEEK.
In this episode, we explore:
• Which new AI tools are genuinely useful for everyday coding – and which ones are more hype than help
• How AI is reshaping pairing, code review, debugging and tests, and where human judgment still absolutely has to stay in the loop
• Practical ways to experiment with AI tools on your team without burning trust, wrecking your codebase or slowing everyone down
If you’re a software engineer, tech lead or engineering manager trying to make sense of the exploding AI tool ecosystem, this episode is for you.
🔔 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode -
What if you could spin up a whole AI workforce on your own machine – planners, “engineers”, researchers and content creators – and run it all from a simple chat window? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, we explore OpenClaw, the agent platform that lets you act like the CEO while AI agents do the grunt work in the background.
In this episode you’ll learn:
• How OpenClaw turns AI into a digital team – using one “front-of-house” bot as your main interface, then spinning up specialised agents behind the scenes to research, draft content, update tickets and even prepare changes for real systems.
• What it really costs to run this at home – from beefy GPUs and Mac minis to cloud API bills that can quietly blow past a few hundred dollars a month, plus why some “cheap and easy” YouTube setups gloss over the real price tag.
• The security & scam risks you need to know about – including AI “app” stores where around 1 in 5 skills are malicious, how the wrong plugin can leak your data or crypto, and why doing your homework before you plug AI into your systems is non-negotiable.
Drop a comment if you’ve tried building your own AI stack (or are tempted to), and hit Subscribe for more real-world AI, security and engineering stories from the SEEK Bytes team.
🔔 Follow SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode -
Imagine updating a trusted monorepo tool… and the next time you open your terminal it asks for your password, then tries to shut your machine down. In this episode of SEEK Bytes, Will, Seamus and SEEK Staff Engineer Trevor Kilvington unpack the NX supply chain attacks – how they unfolded, why they were so scary, and what every IT team can learn from them.
This episode's special guest: Trevor Kilvington (SEEK Staff Engineer)
In this episode, we explore:
• How a popular open-source tool ended up shipping malicious code to developers’ laptops and CI pipelines – and how SEEK engineers helped spot it first
• Why attackers leaned on AI prompts and worm-like behaviour to hunt for secrets and quietly spread through NPM packages
• The uncomfortable question of whether keeping everything “always up to date” is still the safest choice – and what this means for CI/CD ownership and developer responsibilities
Whether you’re in software engineering, DevOps, SRE, security, platform or IT leadership, this episode will change how you think about package updates, build pipelines and the tools you trust every day.
👍 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode -
This episode of SEEK Bytes steps away from code to celebrate one of SEEK’s most loved traditions: Hackathon. Will is joined by Kat, Andy and Glenn to lift the lid on how a twice-yearly, three-day event brings together people from every corner of SEEK to dream up bold ideas – many of which end up on real roadmaps and in front of real customers.
In this episode you’ll learn:
This episode of SEEK Bytes – a podcast for engineers by engineers – steps away from code to celebrate one of SEEK’s most loved traditions: Hackathon. Will is joined by Kat, Andy and Glenn to lift the lid on how a twice-yearly, three-day event brings together people from every corner of SEEK to dream up bold ideas – many of which end up on real roadmaps and in front of real customers.
This episode's special guests: Glenn Wilson (Snr Business Analyst / former Community Engagement Lead), Kat Vassallo (Tecnology Community Engagement & Innovation Manager), Andy Maxey (EVP & Community Impact Lead)
In this episode you’ll learn:
• How SEEK hackathons actually work – three days off BAU, 40+ teams hacking across APAC, big themes (from space operas to dinosaurs), t-shirts as badges of honour and a Shark Tank-style final where the ELT judges every idea.
• Why hack is core to SEEK’s culture and EVP – how grassroots volunteers, wild costumes, candy bars and chaos create a safe space for experimentation, help people work with teams they’d never normally meet, and generate ideas that influence products, processes and even board-level conversations.
• How any company can start their own hackathon – practical tips on beginning with a half-day or single-department event, proving value before going company-wide, getting leadership buy-in, and using hackathons to build skills, networks and long-term innovation habits.
🔔 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode -
An OpenAI-backed coding agent. 12 elite competitive programmers flown to Tokyo. A 10-hour marathon solving an NP-hard puzzle in front of a live stream. And a very sleep-deprived human still manages to beat the AI at its own game. In this episode of SEEK Bytes, Elliott Millar, Will, Seamus and Arnav break down the World Tour Finals heuristic contest where a human edged out a custom AI built just for competitive coding.
In this episode, we explore:
• How the competition was set up so both humans and a custom OpenAI agent had to race the same brutally hard optimisation problem under tight time limits
• The surprisingly simple strategy a sleep-deprived engineer used to out-score a specialised AI model
• What we can learn from how the AI iterated, refactored and “thought” about code during the contest
• Why the story might change when you put the human’s winning code back into the AI – and what that says about humans + AI working together
Whether you’re in software engineering, data, SRE, platforms, security or any IT role wondering how far AI coding tools can really go – and where humans still have the edge – this episode is a fast-paced, deeply nerdy look at the future of competitive problem solving and day-to-day development with AI in the loop.
👍 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode -
This is a special SEEK Bytes drop – outside the regular Season 3 line-up – because the recent Axios NPM hack is too important to ignore. In this episode of SEEK Bytes the crew sit down with Eldar Marcussen from SEEK’s offensive security team to unpack what actually happened, why supply-chain attacks are so scary, and what you should do today to reduce your risk.
In this episode you’ll learn:
• What a supply-chain attack really is – how a single malicious dependency in a trusted package like Axios can silently run on thousands of machines, and why closed-source software isn’t magically safer.
• What to do if you think you’ve been hit – practical first moves for companies and individuals: rotating keys, rebuilding or containerising machines, reviewing logs, and knowing when to call in your security team.
• How to raise the bar for attackers – simple habits like pinning and ageing dependencies, using tools like Docker and alternative package managers, relying on built-in protection like Windows Defender, and staying alert to sketchy extensions and “too good to be true” downloads.
🔔 Follow so you don’t miss future special drops like this – plus our regular Season 3 episodes every week. -
SEEK Bytes is back for Season 3 on 22 April, and we’re turning things up a notch with a major focus on AI of course. This season dives into the real world of working in tech today – from AI reshaping how we build and secure systems, to the culture, careers and decisions that make or break modern engineering teams.
Whether you’re a seasoned developer, just starting out in IT, or simply curious about how technology is changing work, Season 3 brings you sharp, honest conversations straight from the engineers, designers and security experts living it every day.
👍 Hit Follow so you don't miss a new episode and don't forget to check out past episodes if you haven't already. -
Thinking about moving from hands-on coding to people leadership – or just wanting more control over your engineering career? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, we sit down with Gladys Lim, an Engineering Manager based in Kuala Lumpar who leads squads in SEEK’s monetisation & insights domain, building products that keep hirers coming back
This episode's special guest: Gladys Lim (SEEK Engineering Manager - based in Kuala Lumpur)
Gladys shares her journey from barcode integrations and games dev to full-stack engineer and, eventually, EM – including what surprised her about loving people leadership, how she navigated a jarring feedback-loop shift, and why management is a different career path, not just a promotion. She gets real about imposter syndrome, being a woman in tech across APAC, hiring for diverse teams, and using empathy, vulnerability and structure to make mentoring actually work.
In this episode you’ll learn:
• What it really means to shift from IC to EM – from instant code feedback to months-long people outcomes, delegating without micromanaging, and redefining success as enabling the team, not being the strongest coder.
• How to navigate imposter syndrome and bias – using facts to reframe negative self-talk, turning comparison into learning, and creating inclusive rituals so quieter and under-represented voices are actually heard.
• How to take charge of your career and mentorship – clarifying your motivations, choosing between IC and leadership paths, saying “no” when the fit or timing is wrong, and designing mentoring relationships that serve your specific growth goals.
If you’re a software engineer, data/IT professional, team lead or aspiring manager wondering whether people leadership is for you – or how to better support the EMs you work with – this episode is packed with honest stories, practical tactics and career advice you can apply today.
👍 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode -
Heard of “clean architecture” but not sure what it looks like in real code? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, Seamus, Will and Adam Kreidels (Head of Engineering, Monetisation & Insights at SEEK) are back for Part 2 of their deep dive – unpacking entities, use cases, gateways, the dependency rule and the famous “onion” diagram in a way any IT pro can apply.
This episode's special guest: Adam Kreitals (SEEK Head of Engineering, Monetisation & Insights)
In this episode, we explore:
• Why “start with the database” slows you down – and how leading with business rules and use cases speeds up delivery.
• How entities, use cases and gateways work together – using price, order and discount examples from SEEK to show clean seams between domain and tech.
• How clean architecture reduces the cost of change – what good separation of concerns looks like in code, and how to spot when frameworks and APIs are leaking into your core domain.
If you’re a software engineer, tech lead, architect, SRE, platform engineer or IT manager who wants code that survives framework swaps, org changes and new requirements – and you liked Part 1 – this Part 2 episode gives you the concrete concepts, terminology and mental models to put clean architecture into practice.
👍 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode -
Ever wondered what a technical product manager actually does – and why every modern tech org seems to want one? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, Will is joined by Leon Belobrov and Alex Stewart-James to unpack how SEEK builds platform products that power everything from candidate apps to internal tooling – and what it means to be a PM for APIs instead of UIs.
This episode's special guests: Leon Belobrov (SEEK Principal Product Manager, Platform) and Alex Stewart-James (SEEK Snr Technical Product Manager)
They break down what makes TPMs a bit of a “unicorn role” – blending deep product thinking with enough technical context to serve engineers as their primary customers – and why internal platforms, APIs and deployment pipelines are becoming just as important as customer-facing apps.
You’ll hear how SEEK uses jobs-to-be-done research with engineers, metrics like time-to-10th PR, and platform reliability/security KPIs to prioritise what gets built – and what gets cut.
In this episode you’ll learn:
• The real difference between a “regular” PM and a TPM – including why serving engineers, focusing on APIs and reusable capabilities, and obsessing over platform reliability changes how you think about product.
• How SEEK discovers what engineers actually need – from interviewing 25+ engineers across the business to mapping their pain points into jobs-to-be-done and opportunity scores, instead of just building what the loudest voice wants.
• Practical advice if you want to move into TPM or work better with platforms – including dogfooding, avoiding over-engineering, and remembering that “you are not your customer” even when you’re an engineer building for engineers.
If you’re a software engineer, platform/DevOps engineer, BA, product manager or IT leader curious about platform teams, internal products and where technical PMs fit into modern tech orgs, this episode gives you a front-row view into how SEEK does it – and how you might shape a similar path.
👍 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode -
What happens when a 15-year-old hacker quietly discovers a single bug that touches over half of the Fortune 500, chains it into a Slack takeover, and walks away with $50K in bug bounties – only for the original vendor to refuse to pay? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, we break down Daniel’s Zendesk exploit, the ethics of disclosure, and what “white hat” really means in practice.
We unpack how a “basic” support inbox ([email protected]), misconfigured SSO and email spoofing turned into a way to join internal tickets, steal Slack access and read sensitive conversations – all via a third-party tool many enterprises barely think about. We also dig into how bug bounty programs work, why Zendesk’s scope call sparked controversy, and how SEEK runs security exercises to stay ahead of attackers.
In this episode you’ll learn:
• How the exploit actually worked end-to-end – from Zendesk ticket IDs and CC’ing yourself onto “internal” threads, to chaining Apple/Google OAuth and Slack login for access to private workspaces.
• Why the bug bounty outcome was so controversial – how email-spoofing being “out of scope” left Daniel unpaid by Zendesk, and what this means for incentivising white-hat behaviour vs pushing hackers towards greyer choices.
• Practical security takeaways for engineers – the real risk of “weakest link” third-party tools, why internal channels are goldmines for social engineers, and how separation of concerns and well-designed bounties can protect both your systems and your customers.
Whether you’re in software engineering, security, cloud, support, architecture or IT leadership, this episode is a gripping case study in modern attack chains, bug bounty programs and why “it’s just email” or “it’s just a ticketing tool” is never the whole story.
👍 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode -
What if your next big career move in tech wasn’t into management or staff engineering – but into technical product management? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, Will continues the conversation with Leon Belobrov and Alex Stewart-James in Part 2 of our deep dive into technical PMs, platform teams and how engineers can shape the roadmap (and their careers).
This episode's special guests: Leon Belobrov (SEEK Principal Product Manager, Platform) and Alex Stewart-James (SEEK Snr Technical Product Manager)
They share how interviewing dozens of SEEK engineers surfaced honest feedback, surprisingly clear asks, and a long list of “we just built it ourselves” tools that should really be platform products – plus why removing features and legacy tools can be just as valuable as shipping new ones. You’ll also hear what it takes to move from senior engineer or BA into a TPM role, and why this space is still early enough to shape if you jump in now.
In this episode, we explore:
• How engineers can influence the technical roadmap – from being a “demanding customer” to joining product discussions, speaking the language of metrics, and tying tech work to business outcomes.
• When to invest in platform teams (and how to get buy-in) – spotting the point where every squad is solving the same non-differentiating problems, and making the case for centralising capabilities like security and infra.
• How to grow into a technical product manager – mapping your existing skills, building a portfolio of real communication and customer-empathy stories, and becoming a true platform evangelist who can win funding and adoption
If you’re a software engineer, SRE, BA, platform/DevOps engineer, product manager or IT leader curious about owning internal platforms, shaping developer experience or shifting into technical product roles, this Part 2 conversation is packed with practical advice, career angles and real-world stories you can apply right now.
If you’re a software engineer, SRE, BA, platform/DevOps engineer, product manager or IT leader curious about owning internal platforms, shaping developer experience or shifting into technical product roles, this Part 2 conversation is packed with practical advice, career angles and real-world stories you can apply right now.
👍 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode -
Ever wondered what a technical product manager actually does – and why every modern tech org seems to want one? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, Will is joined by Leon Belobrov and Alex Stewart-James to unpack how SEEK builds platform products that power everything from candidate apps to internal tooling – and what it means to be a PM for APIs instead of UIs.
This episode's special guests: Leon Belobrov (SEEK Principal Product Manager, Platform) and Alex Stewart-James (SEEK Snr Technical Product Manager)
In this episode, we explore:
• What platform engineering and technical PMs actually are – internal platforms as products for engineers, boosting delivery velocity and reducing cognitive load across infra, CI/CD, observability and security, plus why platform PMs are a “unicorn” blend of product skills and deep technical understanding.
• Technical PM vs “regular” PM – shared foundations (customer value, business outcomes, strategy alignment, success metrics) and key differences when your “UI” is APIs, pipelines and DevDocs rather than screens – including jobs-to-be-done research with engineers and metrics like uptime, security posture and time-to-10th PR.
• Designing platforms engineers actually want to use – jobs-to-be-done studies across SEEK, turning 25+ “jobs” into prioritised opportunity scores, tackling notorious pain points like scattered documentation and fragmented health monitoring, and avoiding traps like over-building for a single vocal team or assuming “I’m an engineer, so I know what they need”.
• DevOps, cognitive load and minimum viable platforms – how platform thinking evolved alongside DevOps, shifting security and observability “left” without dumping everything on product teams, and finding the balance between sensible defaults, transparency and not turning platform teams into bottlenecks.
• Careers and skills for aspiring technical PMs – why you don’t need to be the strongest coder in the room, how to lean on engineering partners while bringing customer/strategy thinking, and the unique advantage of having your “customers” (engineers) sitting right next to you for fast feedback and constant dogfooding.
If you’re a software engineer, SRE, platform/DevOps engineer, BA, product manager or IT leader curious about platform teams, internal products and where technical PMs fit into modern tech orgs, this episode gives you a front-row view into how SEEK does it – and how you might shape a similar path.
👍 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode - Mostra di più
