I’m an avid podcast listener. Listening to podcasts is, to me, both a way to make my workouts and commutes more interesting and a way to keep learning new things. Granted, podcasts are a very ineffective teaching format, and they are by no means comparable to proper study. Still, with ~2 hours of listening on an average day at x1.3 play speed, I find listening to podcasts useful and interesting.

I listen regularly to all of the podcasts listed in this page, so I recommend them all. I don’t like them all the same, and you might have a very different opinion. This is not an expert review or authoritative ranking. I’m generally interested in performance-oriented code, infrastructure systems, database internals, etc. This led to my mix of subscriptions.

My listening routine is as follows: once my playlist ends, I go over all the podcasts, pick up to a few episodes from each (or none, if none are interesting), and create a new playlist for the next couple of months. I don’t listen to all episodes in any podcast. I interleave non-technical podcasts in my playlist to lighten it up a bit. There are obviously numerous non-technical podcasts that are very interesting, and my “guilty pleasure” is music.

I tried to listen to conference talks (via youtube, sound only) or academic papers (text to speech) for deeper technical content. Didn’t work for me. I do read books regularly, in paper format. Visiting the library is a treat, but it takes me a few months to complete a book. I’m ok with that and am not interested in audiobooks. This is my reading list, if you’re interested - erangi.github.io/reading.

Below is my list, divided into categories. I’ll be happy to get recommendations for other podcasts covering these topics via my linkedin post or the discussions page.

Databases and data systems

• The Data Stack Show - Data engineering, tools, practices.
• The Analytics Engineering Podcast - Ditto
• Materialized View Podcast - Ditto. The podcast is new so not a lot of content, but I love the newsletter.
• ביצת הדאטה - Ditto. Interviewers are very disruptive but funny (Hebrew)
• Data Engineering Podcast - Seems like a central podcast in the field. A bit dry, hardly deep-dives into tech, but lots of content.
• The GeekNarrator - Interviews about various database-related topics, pretty deep dives
• Tech on the rocks - Various data and systems topics, with interesting guests.
• DataNation - Various database and data management tools and concepts
• Monday Morning Data Chat - Interviews about various data and database related topics
• Drill to Detail - Interviews about BI, analytics, and big data
• Hardware-Conscious Data Processing - Recording of an in-person academic course. The video format is better, but it’s available as a podcast too. I only listed to it, and not all lectures were suitable for audio-only format. However, the lecturer is very good and the audio quality is excellent.

Generic but data-heavy

• Yet Another Infra Deep Dive - Deep dives into infra topics. I wish the “yet another” part were true - not enough such deep dives…
• Developer Voices - Interviews with devs about their projects. Many are data-related and go deep, hence of interest (to me). Kris Jenkins, the host, is one of my favorits.
• Software Huddle - Interviews about various topics, many data related, goes into the details.
• Orchestrate all the Things - Interviews about data-related systems.
• Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast - Covers various AI-related topics, including data and systems.
• Vector Podcast - Covers various AI-related topics, including data and systems.
• The Infra Pod - Interviews about data and infrastructures. Interesting guests and topics, well done.

High performance, Low-level, hardware

• Signals and Threads - Deep discussions about technical issues that Jane Street (HFT firm) deals with. Very interesting.
• Big Compute - Narrated coverage of supercomputing topics. Not too deep but well created and pretty interesting.
• Utilizing Tech - Each season deep dives into a certain topic. I was mostly interested in the CXL season.
• The TechArena - Interviews covering cloud infra, systems, and some hardware.
• Hard Reset - Educational interviews covering different aspects of hardware development (Hebrew)
• @HPCpodcast - Discussions and interviews covering different aspects of the HPC world.
• SemiWiki - Interviews with guests about the semiconductor industry. Pretty short and high-level.
• Not Your Father’s Data Center - Interviews about datacenter-related topics. Not my thing in general, but some are interesting.

C++

• CppCast - The central C++ community podcast.
• C++ Club - Discussions and commentary about latest events and additions to C++.
• Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs - Chaos with sprinkles of information, I like interviews with interesting guests the most.
• Two’s Complement - Two hosts talk about various topics, interest depends on topic.
• TLB Hit - Deep technical discussions, unfortunately seems to be EOL.

Research

• Disseminate - Interviews with researchers about specific research projects they’ve done. Most episodes are about systems research, which is (of course) the most interesting.
• ACM ByteCast - Interviews with researchers, mostly about their careers.
• Computer Architecture Podcast - Interviews with researchers in the computer architecture field.
• Microsoft Research Podcast - Interviews with MS researchers. Was much more interesting before it became AI-only.

Music

• Hit Parade - A show discussing the history of popular music and the stories behind chart-topping hits. Fun stuff.
• 1001 Album Complaints - A few musicians reviewing albums from Robert Dimery list. We have different tastes, and they often lack the cultural context, but they are professional musicians, and they have an interesting angle.
• 1001 Album Club - Another group of musicians going over Dimery’s list. Most episodes aren’t long (about 30 or so). They don’t go very deep into the analysis, but they have a more positive angle, and at least in the episodes I’ve listened to, they sound like fans of the albums.
• Discord and rhyme - Another group of musicians or music nerds reviewing albums they like. Episodes are sometimes long (almost two hours). Since they pick the albums and not get them from some list, the hosts are passionate and knowledgeable.
• Strong Song - A professional musician analyzes one song at a time. The analysis goes pretty deep, as far as I can tell - way deeper than what a non-musician like me can understand. But the shows are very interesting and enlightning. The best ones are they generic episodes, when he talks about the foundations of the music.
• Song Exploder - Each episode discusses the story behind a single song, as told by the creating artist.
• Professor of Rock - Fairly short and energetic reviews and stories behind bands and songs. Lots of great 80s and 90s stuff.
• A history of rock music in 500 songs - deep dives into the origins of well known songs. A bit short of energy.
• Dig Me Out: 90s Rock - discussions and reviews about my favorite decade in music.
• The 500 - A show covering the rolling stone magazine’s top 500 albums list, one album on each episode. Started strong but the host seems to have gotten tired of it, they hardly talk about the albums themselves, and they don’t play any music.
• This Little Light - Flea, red hot chili pepper’s bassists, interviews other musicians about their career.
• האזנה מודרכת - Each episode tells the story behind a single song and puts it in context (Hebrew)
• שיר אחד One Song - Similar to Song Exploder, covering Israeli songs and artists (Hebrew)
• כאן 88 הסכתים - Series of deep-dive episodes about major artists (Hebrew)
• ספיישל 88 - Each episode discusses and plays the music of an album or artist (Hebrew)
• פודקאסט על מוזיקה וטכנולוגיה - נדב רביד ודוד פרידמן מארחים אנשים מתעשיית המוזיקה, איפשהו בין ההפקה ליצירה ולטכנולוגיה. הפודקאסט מספק הצצה לתוך התעשייה עצמה ולאיך שהדברים עובדים, וזה תמיד מעניין.

Stories and long interviews

• CoRecursive: Coding Stories - Stories about software developers that made a difference. Very well told.
• Software misadventures - Talks with engineers about their careers. Very interesting guests, the hosts are great.
• Lex Fridman Podcast - Interviews with top-notch guests. Most episodes are now way too long IMO (I don’t even consider episodes over 2.5 hours), but plenty to choose from. I stay away from political episodes, guests are too manipulative and Fridman is too passive.
• Dwarkesh Podcast - Similar to Lex Fridman, this podcast also features top-notch guests from various fields, mostly science. The host sometimes jumps from subject to subject in a way that sounds awkward to me, but the episodes are much tighter than Fridman’s, and Dwarkesh is much more humble.
• Darknet Diaries - Stories about hackers, cyber crimes, etc. Very well told.
• Behind The Tech - MS CTO interviews researchers, devs, and leaders that had an impactful career.
• צרים על ציפורים - רן רגב מראיין מומחים בתחום הציפורים והצפרות, חלקם חוקרים בעלי שם וחלקם חובבים. הלב של הפודקאסט הוא כמובן האהבה לציפורים, שהיא אכן חיה נפלאה.

Software in general

• Software Unscripted - Interviews, mostly about programming languages topics. Deep dives, the host is great.
• Software Engineering Daily - A very wide range of topics. Most aren’t interesting to me, but there’s plenty to choose from.
• Software Engineering Radio - Ditto.
• Hanselminutes - Ditto.
• .NET Rocks! - Ditto. Mostly MS-related topics, but the geek outs are very interesting.
• The Changelog - Ditto. Deeper dives and multiple sub-channels.
• The InfoQ Podcast - Ditto.
• עושים תוכנה Osim Tochna - Ditto (Hebrew)
• מפתחים מחוץ לקופסה - Ditto (Hebrew)
• Open Source Startup Podcast - Interviews with founders of companies developing open-source software, many are data-related.

Storage

• Storage Developer Conference - Recorded talks from SNIA’s conference. Mostly high quality and very technical.
• Grey Beards on Storage - Interviews about storage systems and products. Pretty technical.
• StorageReview - Interviews about storage systems and products. Pretty technical.
• Storage Unpacked Podcast - Interviews about storage systems and products. Pretty technical.
• The French Storage Podcast - Interviews and reviews of various storage-related topics. Not very exciting but guests are good.

General systems

• Screaming in the Cloud - Diverse topics with some relation to the cloud. Sometimes data-related.
• PurePerformance - Interviews about performance-related topics
• Microarch club - “The art, science, and history of processor design”

Staging area

The following are on my list but I didn’t listen to them yet so don’t have an opinion:

Other recommendations

• I listen to podcasts using the Podcast Addict app (also paying to support the app developer). Didn’t try many others, but I’m happy with it.
• If you want to get an RSS feed of a certain YouTube playlist, you can use rsshub.app. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to play the youtube videos in podcastaddict. If you find a way to do it, please let me know.
• I don’t subscribe to newsletters in general, but there are two I highly recommend -
  • Easyperf by Denis Bakhvalov, which covers performance topics.
  • Materialized Views by Chris Riccomini, which covers software infra and data systems.