The Tech Debt Burndown Podcast

S3E9: Testing Policy Debt

Chris and Nick talk about how organizational growth introduces process inefficiencies and inter-departmental friction, which can be diagnosed and addressed using value stream mapping. They emphasize that automating systems successfully relies on...

S3E8: Georg Schleiermacher

Chris and Nick speak with Georg Schleiermacher, former CTO of Hyperloop Spain and veteran of MTU Aero Engines, to explore technical debt in the aviation sector. Georg explains that because aero engines remain in service for up to 50 years with frozen...

S3E7: Overambitious AI Intern

Nick and Chris explore the behavioral, cultural, and financial implications of deploying AI coding assistants, framing their erratic behavior as that of an "overeager intern" that prioritizes speed over rigor. Sharing recent engineering experiences...

S3E6: AI Tech Debt

Nick and Chris talk about the security, data privacy, and operational challenges of enterprise AI adoption, highlighting how executive pressure driven by “Fortune front page FOMO” often leads to hasty deployments. Drawing from a presentation by ARM’s...

S3E5: Cloud versus On Prem

Chris and Nick dive into the widespread misunderstandings and economic realities of choosing between cloud and on-premises infrastructure. They discuss how cloud service providers have driven organizations to perform “lift-and-shift” migrations that...

S3E4: Sarah Wells

Sarah Wells joins Nick and Chris to talk about the lessons learned from her decade at the Financial Times, and their journey to implementing microservices. The same lessons that informed her book, 'Enabling Microservices Success'. We touch on whether...

S3E3: Matthew Skelton

Team Topologies co-author Matthew Skelton joins Chris and Nick to discuss the relationship between tech debt and cognitive load. Matthew explains that every organization has a finite "cognitive load budget," and technical debt acts as a constant drain...

S3E2: AI Coding Assistants

Chris and Nick chat about how AI Coding Assistants have suddenly become very good, maybe even good enough to write 'load bearing' code. So the constraints the existed around producing code have potentially disappeared; but other constraints live on,...

S3E1: Ralph Wiggum

After a long hiatus, the Tech Debt Burndown podcast has returned for its third season. Chris Swan and Nick Selby kick off the season with a discussion of what Chris has called Tech Debt as a Service: how we’ve entered the slopper scene, and how we are...

S2E4-Gene Spafford

S2E3-Jamie Dobson

S2E2 Andy Ellis

S2E1 Krzysztof "Chris" Daniel

Krzysztof - Chris - Daniel talks to Nick and Chris about Wardley Mapping and better corporate strategies.

S1 E12 - Yosef Lehrman on the Executive Order

In the Season 1 Finale, Yosef Lehrman talks to Nick and Chris about the Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity.

S1E11- Allan Friedman and SBOMs

Allan Friedman of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has long been one of the world's leading proponents of Software Bill of Materials, or SBOM. With the President's Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s...

S1 E10 - Eoin Woods on Identifying Tech Debt

Eoin Woods has developed quite a bit of software, and created and dealt with quite a lot of technical debt. He is CTO at Endava, and co-author of two software architecture books. On the Tech Debt Burndown he joins Chris and Nick to talk about his role...

Episode 9 - Observability With Charity Majors

Charity Majors joins Nick and Chris to discuss the difference between observability and metrics, some great insights into good debt (like college loans) versus bad debt (like charging stuff we want on a credit card), and thoughts on efficiency.

Episode 9a: Memorial Day/Spring Bank Holiday Weekend

With the US closed for Memorial Day weekend, and the UK closed for Spring Bank Holiday, we're firing up the grills, and pausing to reflect. In the next few episodes, we'll discuss toil and build times with Charity Majors, Tech Debt burndown strategies...

Episode 8: The Six Ways with Olivier Jacques

On this episode, Chris and Nick are joined by Olivier Jacques, DevOps transformation principal at DXC Technology, who discusses his article, Six Strategies to Set Time Aside to Improve. The six approaches capture some very insightful observations into...

Episode 7-Kenn and Bill