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(239)

Testing at Scale: What Every Developer Needs to Know with Maurício Aniche

Testing at Scale: What Every Developer Needs to Know with Maurício Aniche

Testing at scale is hard. In this episode, we explore what every developer needs to know about writing tests in large organizations, preventing bottlenecks, and ensuring software quality at scale. Fea...

30 Tammi 202556min

Copilot Will Change How You Work Forever. Here's Why with Femke Cornelissen

Copilot Will Change How You Work Forever. Here's Why with Femke Cornelissen

Connect with Femke: https://www.linkedin.com/in/femcornelissen https://femkecornelissen.com Full episode on YouTube ▶️ https://youtu.be/AXJGKKzObYk Beyond Coding Podcast with ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

22 Tammi 202544min

Why Some Engineers Rise to Leadership - And Others Don’t with Marcel de Vries

Why Some Engineers Rise to Leadership - And Others Don’t with Marcel de Vries

Connect with Marcel: https://marceldevries.me https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcelv https://x.com/marcelv Full episode on YouTube ▶️ https://youtu.be/LmY1Mj5IbB0 Beyond Coding Podcast with ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

15 Tammi 202552min

When to use Kubernetes and Internal Developer Platforms with Mojtaba Imani

When to use Kubernetes and Internal Developer Platforms with Mojtaba Imani

Connect with Mojtaba: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mojtabaimani https://x.com/smojtabaimani Check out Kuberise: https://kuberise.io Full episode on YouTube ▶️ https://youtu.be/SZHcteG52Ek Beyond Codi...

8 Tammi 202549min

App Development with Kotlin Multiplatform with Abdullah Zaiter & Urs Peter

App Development with Kotlin Multiplatform with Abdullah Zaiter & Urs Peter

Connect with Abdullah: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zaitera https://zaitech.dev Connect with Urs: https://www.linkedin.com/in/urs-peter-70a2882 Full episode on YouTube ▶️ https://youtu.be/hwTlKa1_CoE...

1 Tammi 202546min

From Open Source to SaaS Company with Henric Trotzig

From Open Source to SaaS Company with Henric Trotzig

Connect with Henric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/henric-trotzig-047a8b1 https://twitter.com/henrictrotzig More on Happo: https://happo.io https://github.com/happo Full episode on YouTube ▶️ https://...

25 Joulu 202441min

AI in Product with Bandan Jot Singh

AI in Product with Bandan Jot Singh

Connect with Bandan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bandan https://x.com/bandanjot Check out Productify! https://substack.com/@productify Full episode on YouTube ▶️ https://youtu.be/2IHeKib9LEA Beyond ...

20 Joulu 202447min

Web Development with Next.js and Vercel

Web Development with Next.js and Vercel

Connect with Tim Neutkens: https://x.com/timneutkens https://timn.tech Learn about Next.js: https://nextjs.org/learn Full episode on YouTube ▶️ https://youtu.be/cyhylFJwdWc Beyond Coding Podcast wit...

4 Joulu 20241h 6min