Issue 98: 🎉 9,000 subscribers

Apr 02, 2026

Happy Thursday 👋 and a warm welcome to Tech Talks Weekly #98!

I’m kicking off this issue with a very exiciting update:

Tech Talks Weekly has just exceeded 9,000 subscribers 🎉 🎉

This is an incredible number and when I started Tech Talks Weekly, I’d never think it’d grow this much! Especially since I’ve spent $0 on marketing and have never actively promoted this project. Every single one of you has come here organically, mostly from word of mouth.

I’m incredibly grateful you are here and wanted to thank you for your continuous support 🙏 Your support, whether it’s just opening an email, clicking, liking, or sharing it with a friend means a lot and motivates me to keep going.

I also really appreciate that in a world where “AI is everything” and where we’re constantly bombarded with low-quality, short-form content, there is still a sizeable audience who genuinely values long-form high-quality content like conference talks.

Let’s keep it up and thank you!

Now let’s jump right into the issue, but before we start, make sure to check out a recent special edition:

🏆 100 Most Watched Software Engineering Talks Of 2025

Tech Talks Weekly

Mar 11

Read full story

🏆 Featured this week

Here are our top recommendations this week. Watch now or bookmark!

“Chip Huyen: Building when it feels like there’s nothing left to build - The Pragmatic Summit” from The Pragmatic Summit 2026
Conference ⸱ +10k views ⸱ Mar 29, 2026 ⸱ 00h 20m 49s
tldw: If AI can replicate nearly any product quickly and cheaply, what’s the point of building anything at all? Chip Huyen, the author of two excellent books Designing Machine Learning Systems (Manning) and AI Engineering (O’Reilly), confronts this question: sharing how “competitive moats” are shifting from how to build to what to build, why code review norms break down when AI generates large chunks of code and what it means for mentorship and human agency. In this talk, you’ll learn where real value lies when execution becomes cheap. I highly recommend it!
“Failure As a Means to Build Resilient Software Systems: A Conversation with Lorin Hochstein” from InfoQ
Podcast ⸱ Mar 31, 2026 ⸱ 0 days 00:51:42
tldl: Automated fault injection can introduce basic robustness, but it cannot replicate the understanding that comes from mitigating real-world failures. Lorin Hochstein, co-author of Chaos Engineering and Staff Software Engineer at Airbnb, explores how adding more reliability can ironically lead to complexity that creates new failures and why we still haven’t learned to make systems resilient to unknown failure modes.
“The Past, Present and Future of Programming Languages by Kevlin Henney - Voxxed Days CERN ‘26” from Voxxed Days CERN 2026
Conference ⸱ <100 views ⸱ Mar 30, 2026 ⸱ 00h 51m 51s
tldw: Each programming language embeds a philosophy of how to think about code. Kevlin Henney, the author of two legendary books: 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know and Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture, takes us on a tour of their past, present and future. We’ll learn why mainstream languages are still embracing ideas that are decades old and how current trends from FOSS to LLMs will shape what comes next.
“JavaScript in 2026 by Christian Woerz” from Voxxed Days Zurich 2026
Conference ⸱ +100 views ⸱ Apr 01, 2026 ⸱ 00h 43m 09s
tldw: We often reach for solutions from old Stack Overflow posts or ask Claude, only to fall back on patterns that have been around forever. Christian Wörz, who is recognized as Microsoft MVP, explores the modern ECMAScript features you’re probably not taking advantage of yet and replaces everyday outdated techniques with the cleaner, more powerful tools the language now offers.
“Production-Ready GenAI with Open Models for Java Teams” from JavaOne 2026
Conference ⸱ +4k views ⸱ Mar 28, 2026 ⸱ 00h 50m 28s
tldw: Brian Benz, who is a Principal Cloud Advocate at Microsoft and Java Champion, shows how Java teams can select, integrate and operate LLMs using LangChain4j and vector search, covering everything from benchmarking and JVM memory footprints to RAG quality metrics and rollback strategies.
“Scaling Uber with Thuan Pham (Uber’s first CTO)” from The Pragmatic Engineer
Podcast ⸱ Apr 01, 2026 ⸱ 0 days 01:39:35
tldl: When Thuan Pham joined Uber as its first CTO, there were 40 engineers, 30,000 rides per day and the system crashed multiple times a week. He goes deep into how they rebuilt Uber from a monolith to microservices, launched in China in just five months, and shares how he sees AI changing software engineering.
“How to (Re)start Your Java Journey in 2026” from JavaOne 2026
Conference ⸱ +10k views ⸱ Mar 30, 2026 ⸱ 00h 43m 29s
tldw: Whether you’re new to Java, returning after a break or looking to modernize your approach, Richard Fichtner (Java Champion) helps you navigate the Java ecosystem of 2026 with confidence. Drawing on practical experience, he highlights the tools, frameworks and practices that make the greatest impact in day-to-day development.
“High-Speed Crypto Trading: JVM Techniques Behind Bitvavo’s µs Revolution - Oleg Lobanov, Marcos Maia” from Voxxed Days CERN 2026
Conference ⸱ +400 views ⸱ Mar 30, 2026 ⸱ 00h 48m 47s
tldw: Achieving single-digit microsecond latencies in crypto trading isn’t just ambitious: it’s transformative. Oleg Lobanov and Marcos Maia, Staff Engineers at Bitvavo (Europe’s largest crypto exchange), walk through the advanced JVM optimizations behind their rebuilt core architecture: minimized garbage collection, object pooling, reliable UDP and high-performance ring buffers that made it all possible.
“A Deep Dive Into Advanced TypeScript - A Live Coding Expedition by Christian Wörz” from Voxxed Days CERN 2026
Conference ⸱ +300 views ⸱ Mar 30, 2026 ⸱ 00h 44m 28s
tldw: Christian Wörz (Microsoft MVP) takes us again in this Tech Talks Weekly issue on a hands-on live coding expedition, this time with TypeScript. Explore often overlooked yet powerful features like recursive types, type permutations and a CSS validator written entirely in TypeScript, each brought to life through real-world examples.
“Be more productive with IntelliJ IDEA - Marit van Dijk” from Voxxed Days CERN 2026
Conference ⸱ +200 views ⸱ Mar 30, 2026 ⸱ 00h 43m 41s
tldw: IntelliJ is designed to keep us in the flow with its powerful editor, refactorings, navigation and smart features for reading and writing code. Marit van Dijk, Developer Advocate at JetBrains, Java Champion and co-author of an excellent book called 97 Things Every Java Programmer Should Know, shows how the IDE supports the entire workflow so we can be a happier and more productive developers.
“Database Connection Pool Sizing - Demystified! by Jasmin Fluri” from Voxxed Days Zurich 2026
Conference ⸱ +600 views ⸱ Apr 01, 2026 ⸱ 00h 38m 46s
tldw: Do you think a bigger connection pool means better performance? Jasmin Fluri (Oracle ACE Pro) explains why oversized pools actually harm throughput. Using mathematical principles like Kingman’s law, she shows how adding more connections can increase waiting times and equips us with practical formulas to size our pools optimally.
“Why CodeRabbit gave away a million dollars to open source maintainers”
Podcast ⸱ Apr 01, 2026 ⸱ 00h 12m 23s
tldl: CodeRabbit made a bold commitment: a million dollars in cash for open source maintainers, not just free product access. Erik Thorelli, DevRel lead at CodeRabbit, explains what 100,000 open source projects using AI code review reveal about how developers actually work and what maintainers really need to keep critical projects alive.