Joe Cuevas: Your First Decade as a Software Engineer - Episode 360

Joe Cuevas Jr. is a seasoned software engineer based in San Antonio, Texas, with a strong focus on front-end development and user experience. At Southwest Research Institute, he contributes to innovative engineering solutions that span industries. With a background that blends technical precision and creative problem-solving, Joe brings a thoughtful perspective to the evolving world of software development. His passion for clean design, scalable code, and collaborative innovation makes him a standout voice in today’s tech landscape.

Topics of Discussion:

[1:46] Why Joe fell in love with programming after a single VB.NET class.
[5:00] What guided Joe towards the enterprise side of .NET.

[6:25] Joe’s favorite foundational .NET and ASP.NET Core books.

[9:06] Learning algorithms, concurrency, and testing to make up for no CS degree.

[10:00] Why test automation is essential and doing testing immediately after writing the code.
[12:14] Thoughts on test-driven development vs. testing right after coding.
[14:18] Previewing Microsoft Semantic Kernel in Action, by Daniel Costa.
[15:38] How Joe became a Manning book reviewer, and what he’s learned.
[17:18] Prompt engineering and agent instructions: what’s ready now.
[18:21] Codex and the moment that blew Joe’s mind.
[22:26] How Joe sees software architecture evolving in the future.
[24:09] Large language models vs. older code bases, and where they shine.
[27:57] Dependency injections.

[32:43] Joe’s advice for junior developers and why persistence beats perfection.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Joe Cuevas LinkedIn

ASP.NET Core in Action

ASP.NET Core in Action, Third Edition

Unit Testing Principles, Practice, and Patterns

Unit Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns: Effective testing styles, patterns, and reliable automation for unit testing, mocking, and integration testing with examples in C#

Dependency Injection in .NET

Microsoft Semantic Kernel in Action

Explore — LeetCode

Joe on GitHub

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