Software Engineering Went From Hacker Culture to...
Beyond Coding24 Heinä 2025

Software Engineering Went From Hacker Culture to...

Pauline Vos (Senior Software Engineer at MongoDB) reveals how software culture evolved from its counterculture, DIY, and anarchist roots to what we see today.


We explore:

The original hacker mindset and why it mattered

How open source was always political

Why 2017-2018 changed everything

Where to still find real hacker culture (hint: hacker camps, FOSDEM)

The difference between building puzzles vs. building APIs


From Anonymous protests to battle snake competitions, from lockpicking to the lost idealism of the early web - discover what software engineering lost and where you can still find it.


"Open source culture goes back to the 70s... quite a few of them see free information, open information, accessible information as a human right." - Pauline


🔗 Connect with Pauline:

https://pauline-vos.nl

https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulinepvos


Full episode on YouTube ▶️

https://youtu.be/0fIoRVlObNo

Beyond Coding Podcast with ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠🎙Patrick Akil⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Powered by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Xebia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!


OUTLINE:

00:00:00 - The Origins of Software Culture

00:02:13 - The Shift to a Profit-Focused Culture

00:03:48 - The Reality of Production and the Need for Guardrails

00:05:32 - Contrasting Modern Startup Goals with Hacker Culture

00:07:16 - The Role of Architects and Pragmatic Design

00:09:46 - The Anti-Capitalist Roots of DIY Culture

00:11:52 - Open Source: Political Roots and Business Models

00:15:28 - The Thriving and Misunderstood PHP Ecosystem

00:21:23 - Why Open Source Lacks User Experience Professionals

00:23:36 - The Decentralized Web and The Fediverse Explained

00:30:12 - The Web's Original Vision vs. Its Current State

00:33:09 - The Impact of AI on How We Use the Internet

00:36:07 - AI-Generated Code: A Goldmine for Hackers

00:40:47 - "Slop Squatting": A New AI-Related Security Threat

00:43:03 - How to Find and Engage with Hacker Culture Today

00:46:20 - Gamifying Software: Battle Snake, CSS Battles, and the Demoscene

00:50:04 - Final Advice and How to Get Involved

Jaksot(238)

What Separates Good Engineers from Great Ones

What Separates Good Engineers from Great Ones

What's the real difference between a good software engineer and a truly great one? It’s more than just coding skill. It's a specific mindset, a disciplined approach to technology, and a deep understan...

22 Loka 202538min

From 6 Engineers to 2: Why Product and Engineering Are Merging

From 6 Engineers to 2: Why Product and Engineering Are Merging

What if the standard 6-person software team is now obsolete? AI tooling isn't just a productivity booster; it's fundamentally blurring the lines between product and engineering, enabling smaller, more...

15 Loka 202549min

How Hackathons Make You a Better Software Engineer

How Hackathons Make You a Better Software Engineer

What if you could turn a weekend project into a core product feature at a major tech company? We sit down with Behrouz Pooladrak, a software engineer and hackathon legend at Booking.com, to uncover ho...

8 Loka 202542min

AI Startup CEO Reveals What Really Kills AI Projects

AI Startup CEO Reveals What Really Kills AI Projects

What if the biggest obstacles to AI innovation aren't what you think? Deeploy CEO Maarten Stolk shares his controversial but effective strategies for building successful AI products and ecosystems, ch...

1 Loka 202544min

The Graph Problem Most Developers Don't Know They Have

The Graph Problem Most Developers Don't Know They Have

As a developer, you're trained to think in rows and tables. But what if that's the exact reason you're missing the most powerful connections in your data? There's a fundamental "Graph Problem" hiding ...

25 Syys 202554min

How Deepfakes are Evolving (And What You NEED to Know)

How Deepfakes are Evolving (And What You NEED to Know)

It takes just three seconds for AI to steal your voice and impersonate you in a way no one can detect. How can you protect yourself, your family, and your finances when seeing and hearing is no longer...

17 Syys 20251h 2min

From Pixels to Tokens: UX Is Not Enough Anymore

From Pixels to Tokens: UX Is Not Enough Anymore

What does it take to build AI features at the scale of Microsoft Copilot? Senior Product Manager Stéphanie Visser reveals the massive shifts in product development, from focusing on pixels to tokens a...

10 Syys 202547min

Stop Hiring Junior Engineers Because of AI?

Stop Hiring Junior Engineers Because of AI?

As AI accelerates development, many companies are halting junior hiring, believing AI tools can replace them. Shahin Shahkarami, Director of Data & AI at Ikea Retail, argues this is a massive mistake ...

3 Syys 202549min