Podcast
Tech League
Hosted by Toby Sears & Krisztian Fischer · EN
Tech League is a podcast by engineers who've been around long enough to know when something is genuinely useful and when it's just hype. Hosted by Toby Sears and Krisztian Fisher, two senior engineers with decades of experience across startups, scale-ups and enterprise, each episode tackles a real topic: architecture decisions, career growth, the tools everyone's using, and the mistakes nobody talks about.
No sponsored segments. No thought leadership waffle. Just two people who've shipped software, run teams and broken production, telling you what they actually think.
New episodes every week.
https://www.techleaguepodcast.com
14episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
#18 EuroStack
Apr 300:49:57Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Toby and Krisztian dive into EuroStack, an industry-led lobby initiative pushing for European digital sovereignty. Krisztian breaks down what EuroStack is, what it proposes, and why it matters now. They cover the scale of Europe's dependency on non-European tech (260 billion euros per year flowing out), what it actually means to be a "European" company, how public procurement could bootstrap a European tech ecosystem, and why trust in US hyperscalers has finally broken. They also explore the companion site euro-stach.com, a directory of 1620+ European alternatives across 64 categories.https://techleaguepodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdPChapters0:00 Introduction1:30 What is EuroStack and why Krisztian is excited about it4:00 The scale of the problem: 260 billion euros/year leaving Europe7:00 Europe as a fragmented market vs the US and China10:00 The three pillars: Buy European, Sell European, Fund European13:00 How public procurement can generate demand and bootstrap growth17:00 The 1-to-10 ratio: every public euro attracting 10 private20:00 Risk of government focus pulling cloud providers away from innovation24:00 Startup acquisition culture: why European exits go to US companies28:00 Defining "European": jurisdiction, control, supply chain, no extra-EU restrictions33:00 AWS sovereign cloud: smoke and mirrors37:00 Timeline to 2030 and the gradual transition approach40:00 Geopolitical risk: Ukraine, Starlink, and the dependency reality44:00 European openness vs American/Chinese protectionism48:00 Why trust in US tech has finally broken52:00 Opportunities for European engineers and companies55:00 Wrap-upTechnologies and Initiatives MentionedEuroStack initiative: https://eurostack.eu/Solution directory: https://euro-stack.comScaleway - https://www.scaleway.comOVH Cloud - https://www.ovhcloud.com
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#17 Testing in the AI era
Mar 2701:09:03Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Toby and Krisztian welcome their first proper guest: Alan Richardson, a 30-year software veteran and testing specialist known as Evil Tester. They dig into testing in the AI era: how to test AI-generated code, whether TDD still makes sense with AI, why self-healing tests are a red flag, and how AI is opening up security and adversarial testing. Alan makes the case for architecture-first development as the key to getting good test output from AI agents.https://techleaguepodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdPChapters0:00 Introduction and guest intro: Alan Richardson (eviltester.com)2:00 Why testing matters more in the AI code generation era5:30 Architecture-first: good code leads to good tests10:00 Does TDD work with AI? Why it mostly doesn't14:30 Playwright and UI tests: the abstraction problem23:00 Information theory and what testing actually is27:00 Adversarial AI testing: using AI to exploit your own CVEs33:00 Security scanning tools vs penetration testing with AI38:30 Domain expertise still matters43:00 Generalist vs specialist in the AI era47:00 The junior developer pipeline problem51:00 Will AI homogenise software and design?54:00 Wrap-upLinks:Evil Tester https://eviltester.comPlaywright: https://playwright.dev/Agentic EQ: https://agentic-qe.dev/Vite: https://vite.dev/Claude : https://claude.com/Snyk: https://snyk.io/Aikido: https://www.aikido.devHacker One: https://www.hackerone.com/Wiz: https://www.wiz.io/
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#16 Bunny CDN
Mar 2000:34:53Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Toby and Krisztian continue their EU cloud deep dive with a hands-on look at Bunny CDN (bunny.net). Toby used it to launch the new TechLeague podcast website on a static Astro site in under 10 minutes, with Terraform infrastructure, built-in DNS, automatic SSL, and GitHub Actions deployment. They cover the full product offering including CDN, object storage, video streaming with free transcoding, edge scripts, magic containers, and BunnyShield security. They also touch on Tangled.sh, a Helsinki-based distributed git platform built on the AT Protocol that recently raised 3 million euros.https://techleaguepodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdPChapters0:00 Introduction1:21 Building the TechLeague website with Astro and Bunny CDN2:57 Built-in DNS and automatic SSL4:46 Deploying static files: FTP now, S3 compatibility coming5:28 Sign-up experience and free credits6:00 Standard vs Volume network tiers7:00 Company background: Slovenian, EU-based, 120+ PoPs globally8:28 Full product overview: storage, stream, DNS, edge, containers10:18 Video streaming with free transcoding11:00 Pricing: $0.01/GB storage, $0.01/GB egress12:27 Limitations: not a full cloud provider14:30 Magic containers: serverless with anycast IP17:00 BunnyShield: WAF, DDoS protection, rate limiting18:49 BunnyOptimizer: on-the-fly image resizing via URL params19:46 SLA and EU sovereignty22:00 Can it replace CloudFront?23:00 getdeploying.com for comparing CDN providers24:00 Could we host podcast videos on Bunny?26:50 Reflection: EU cloud is better than we thought28:05 Tangled.sh: a distributed EU git platform on the AT Protocol31:14 Wrap-upTechnologies MentionedBunny CDN - https://bunny.net?ref=v8cfwfmh3rAstro - https://astro.buildTerraform - https://www.terraform.ioTangled.sh - https://tangled.shgetdeploying.com - https://getdeploying.comScaleway - https://www.scaleway.comAT Protocol - https://atproto.com
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#15 Agentic Engineering
Mar 1301:01:57Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Toby and Krisztian share their hands-on experiment building a real group management app using Claude Code and agentic engineering. Toby spent roughly a month's worth of hours prompting Claude to build a cross-platform mobile and web app with Expo, a Node/Express API, Postgres on Scaleway, Hanko authentication and Terraform infrastructure — all without looking at the code. They discuss what worked surprisingly well, what fell apart, the token costs, how agentic engineering compares to managing juniors, and what they would do differently next time.https://techleaguepodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdPChapters0:00 Introduction: the experiment1:15 Why Expo for cross-platform mobile and web2:54 The architect document approach5:50 How the initial prompt and brainstorming worked7:45 Not looking at the code9:05 Context7: giving Claude access to latest API docs10:35 First pass results12:46 API and database quality: better than expected14:40 UI issues: the weak spot17:20 The bug list testing session24:23 How sub-agents and parallel work played out26:07 The Claude usage limit dark pattern28:15 What it cost: 247 euros for roughly 100 hours of work31:30 Code quality and lessons from the spec38:48 The testing problem: agents writing tests for their own code45:20 The 80/20 rule: great at the fun stuff, weak on the boring50:30 SaaS disruption: custom software at commodity prices57:25 How to build LLM memory and learning loops1:00:25 Summary and what we would do differentlyTechnologies MentionedClaude Code - https://claude.ai/codeExpo - https://expo.devScaleway - https://www.scaleway.comHanko - https://hanko.ioTerraform - https://www.terraform.ioPlaywright - https://playwright.devContext7 - https://context7.comNode.js - https://nodejs.orgPostgreSQL - https://www.postgresql.org
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#14 EU Cloud Alternatives - Scaleway
Feb 2700:53:45Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Toby and Krisztian kick off an ongoing series exploring the EU cloud and software stack. Following a previous episode on EU digital sovereignty, they have set themselves a challenge: build their side projects entirely on EU-based services. This episode covers hands-on experience with Forgejo for source code management, Scaleway as a cloud provider, and Hanko for authentication. They share honest feedback on what works, what doesn't, and where the gaps are compared to the big American hyperscalers.https://techleaguepodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdPChapters0:00 Introduction and the EU sovereignty challenge1:48 Finding EU alternatives: european-alternatives.eu3:47 Looking for a GitHub replacement5:50 Forgejo: the open-source Gitea fork8:27 What works in Forgejo and what doesn't10:46 Hosting Forgejo on Scaleway13:48 The gap between self-hosting and a managed service15:18 Scaleway overview: regions, services and Terraform support20:35 Scaleway serverless functions and containers25:02 Service-to-service authentication28:34 Deploying Forgejo, databases and runners on Scaleway36:04 Logging, metrics and Cockpit observability40:27 Scaleway regions: Amsterdam, Paris, Warsaw42:25 IAM limitations and enterprise considerations44:14 Hanko: EU-native user authentication48:32 Comparing EU stack total cost vs AWS plus Datadog50:05 What's next: OVH, Hetzner, InfomaniakTechnologies Mentioned- EU alternatives: https://european-alternatives.eu- Codeberg: https://codeberg.org- Forgejo: https://forgejo.org- Scaleway: https://www.scaleway.com/en/- OVHcloud: https://www.ovhcloud.com/en/- UpCloud: https://upcloud.com- Hetzner: https://www.hetzner.com- Elastx: https://elastx.se/en- Hanko: https://www.hanko.io
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#13 OpenClaw
Feb 2000:52:50Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Toby is joined by Xavier (Zavi) for a relaxed conversation about OpenClaw, an open-source project that lets you build a personalised, memory-aware AI assistant running on your own hardware. They share hands-on experiences setting it up with Telegram, Claude and local models, and discuss what makes it feel different from a standard chat interface: persistent memory in markdown files, heartbeat schedules, proactive check-ins, and a soul file that shapes personality over time. The conversation also covers security, prompt injection risks, the skill ecosystem, local model options, and the cultural questions around long-running AI companions.https://techleaguepodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdPChapters0:00 Introduction0:33 What is OpenClaw?1:40 Why does it feel different from a standard AI chat?3:51 Setting it up: first impressions4:45 Practical use cases: standups, workshop manuals, tractor parts7:04 How the heartbeat and memory systems work9:15 Cron jobs, proactive tasks and the soul file12:06 The internals: TypeScript, service daemon, CLI and web UI14:23 Security model: token auth, Tailscale, least-privilege access17:42 Prompt injection risks21:30 The skill ecosystem and supply chain risks28:25 Local model support and failover between providers32:55 Running local models: gaming laptops, Apple Silicon, VRAM38:35 Different bot instances developing different personalities41:45 Long-running AI companions and what they mean for society44:55 Manipulation risk and the corporate AI companion future48:15 Practical advice: what to give it access to, and what not toTechnologies MentionedOpenClaw - https://openclaw.devClaude (Anthropic) - https://www.anthropic.comTelegram - https://telegram.orgOllama - https://ollama.aiTailscale - https://tailscale.com
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#12 DevOps and SecOps
Feb 1301:25:49Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Toby and Krisztian take a deep look at DevOps and SecOps: where the ideas came from, what they were supposed to mean, how they got warped by the industry, and what good looks like in practice. They cover the waterfall origins of ops as a separate team, the shift-left movement, the build-it-you-run-it principle, why DevOps as a job title makes no sense, platform engineering, and how security is going through the same transformation. They also cover common anti-patterns, DORA metrics, how to get buy-in for a transformation, and what it looks like when it works at scale.https://techleaguepodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdPChapters0:00 Introduction0:28 What DevOps was actually supposed to mean1:57 The waterfall origins: why ops and dev were separate5:45 Full stack and the rise of the developer-operator8:40 Why the old model produced poor software quality11:04 The move to agile and SaaS changed everything14:15 DevOps as a term: what went wrong16:08 Platform engineering: the natural next step21:00 Breaking down the dev vs ops cultural divide25:47 Real-world example: 10x performance improvement through shared ownership30:29 Security is going through the same transformation32:49 Shifting security left: from IDE to CI/CD pipeline37:02 Reachability scanning and avoiding false positives40:25 The strangler pattern for security posture improvement43:34 SecOps as enablers, not gatekeepers45:34 Common DevOps anti-patterns53:48 Four-eyes principle done right vs done as Jira ping-pong1:00:00 DORA metrics: how to measure if your DevOps is working1:05:39 Management buy-in: why it matters and why it's hard1:11:43 Real transformation stories1:20:00 Internal platforms and giving teams real autonomyTechnologies MentionedKubernetes - https://kubernetes.ioAWS - https://aws.amazon.comGrafana Cloud - https://grafana.com/products/cloudCheckov - https://www.checkov.ioGitHub Actions - https://github.com/features/actions
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#11 How to build great engineering organizations
Feb 601:21:31Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Toby and Krisztian dive into how to structure and scale engineering organisations effectively. Drawing on years of consulting experience, they cover autonomous teams, domain-driven ownership, reducing cross-team handovers, internal platform teams, Conway's Law, the dangers of gatekeeping in ops and security, why self-service tooling is non-negotiable, and what it looks like when organisations are run like a portfolio of internal startups. A practical guide for engineering leaders and anyone building out an eng org.https://techleaguepodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdPChapters0:00 Introduction1:43 When does an organisation become the bottleneck?3:39 Starting with the problem space: divide and conquer6:22 Autonomous teams and moving away from top-down command8:03 How to detect misalignment: count the handovers9:15 Conway's Law: use it intentionally12:27 Single ownership and full accountability per domain14:32 Internal service teams: when to spin one up17:09 Each department as its own startup19:57 Hero syndrome and knowing what not to build in-house25:13 Self-service tooling: make it so good they choose it28:33 KPIs, review cadences and cost visibility36:24 Common anti-patterns: top-down command, founders who don't let go41:42 Internal tooling teams as natural monopolies45:26 The operations and security gatekeeper trap48:20 Shifting from gatekeeper to enabler53:02 Why developers must own production57:34 How to set cross-divisional standards1:07:09 Good internal platforms embed standards in golden paths1:14:29 Entrepreneurial mindset within organisations1:18:45 Summary and closing thoughtsTechnologies MentionedAWS EKS - https://aws.amazon.com/eksApache Airflow - https://airflow.apache.orgTerraform - https://www.terraform.ioKubernetes - https://kubernetes.io
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#10 EU Digital Sovereignty
Jan 3000:54:45Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Toby and Krisztian dig into EU digital sovereignty: why it matters now more than ever, the legal landscape around the EU Data Act and the EU Cloud Sovereignty Framework, and the very real risk of European economies being dependent on US-controlled cloud infrastructure. They cover the contradictions between US and EU data law, the limitations of US hyperscalers setting up European entities, the current state of European cloud providers, the opportunity for EU tech to leapfrog incumbents, and what engineers can do right now to contribute to a more sovereign European digital stack.https://techleaguepodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdPChapters0:00 Introduction0:49 The cloud landscape: why it's all American2:35 The conflict between US Cloud Act and EU GDPR5:09 How the EU has responded: the Data Act explained9:31 What the EU Cloud Sovereignty Framework actually measures21:02 Are US hyperscaler EU entities really sovereign?27:01 The current state of European cloud providers30:06 The leapfrog opportunity: skipping legacy infrastructure33:03 The geopolitical shift: trust in the US has broken40:30 Europe's quiet power and how it fights back44:24 What this means for the tech industry47:13 The financial sector dependency and existential risk51:03 What does the transition actually look like?53:00 What engineers can do right nowTechnologies MentionedAWS - https://aws.amazon.comMicrosoft Azure - https://azure.microsoft.comGoogle Cloud - https://cloud.google.com
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#9 Mistakes have been made
Jan 2301:07:22Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Toby and Krisztian drop the technical polish and get honest about the biggest mistakes of their careers. From wiping a month of startup data with a single wrong command, to nearly electrocuting himself pulling a chassis from a live rack, to a rounding error in financial software that ended up in front of the CFO — the stories are equal parts hilarious and painful. They also cover bad search-replaces on live Cassandra clusters, taking on management too early, a wrong-direction DD command, and accidentally generating a massive AWS bill. A candid episode about how experience is often just accumulated failure.https://techleaguepodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techleague-podcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techleaguepodcast/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdPChapters0:00 Introduction0:51 The search-replace that corrupted a Cassandra cluster2:20 Migrating a print shop to Linux in the 90s5:45 Data centre migration disaster: wrong rack, 3am8:27 Wiping a month of startup code with DD in the wrong direction10:24 Tape backups and old-school data loss13:16 Descending into a coal mine without the tools18:07 The accidental text that went to the boss20:33 The kill switch that locked out a paying customer25:07 Pushed into management too early28:35 Not surrounding yourself with business people soon enough38:26 The AWS bill that dwarfed the customer contract value41:08 The rounding error that ended up in front of the CFO45:54 The ClickHouse lesson: check managed services first48:25 Nearly electrocuted pulling a live power supply51:30 Airport runway lighting and the buffer overflow1:02:30 Mission command, autonomy and lessons from other industries1:04:45 Summary: own up fast, learn, and keep doing thingsTechnologies MentionedCassandra - https://cassandra.apache.orgAWS - https://aws.amazon.comClickHouse - https://clickhouse.comKubernetes - https://kubernetes.io
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