Acima Development
Mike Challis
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Recent Episodes
Episode 100: Normalization of Deviance
This episode of the Acima Development Podcast centers on "normalization of deviance" — the pattern where small anomalies get repeatedly ignored until they cause catastrophic failures. Mike opens with…
Episode 99: Hands-On Expertise
This Acima Development Podcast episode centers on a NASA root cause analysis document from 2012 that concluded the agency needed to "reestablish the culture of technical excellence based on hands-on…
Episode 98: Standups
This episode of the Acima Development Podcast starts with a discussion about the frustration of U.S. tax filing and uses it as a metaphor for poorly run standup meetings in software development. The…
Episode 97: Database Indexes
The episode of the Acima Development Podcast centers on database performance, using the concept of indexing as its foundation. Mike opens with a story about discovering Google in the early 2000s to…
Episode 96: AI & Code Reviews
This episode explores how AI coding tools are changing the role of code review. The hosts point out that AI can generate large amounts of code quickly and even review it, which shifts the bottleneck…
Episode 95: What Do Data Engineers Do?
This episode explores the role of a data engineering team within a company and how it differs from traditional application development. While app developers focus on performance and real-time…
Episode 94: Staying Cool During Production Issues
Mike opens by framing “production incidents” with a vivid non-software story. As a teenager he smashed bathroom tile with a dead-blow hammer, drove his pinky knuckle into a jagged shard, and had to…
Episode 93: The State of AI
The episode turns into a freewheeling, funny, very human conversation about how AI is showing up in developers’ day-to-day lives, especially for the “I can do it, I just hate it” work. Will talks…
Episode 92: Technical Hobbies
This episode unfolds like a long, curious conversation among people who can’t help but see software everywhere—even when they’re not writing code. Mike opens with a story about large language models:…
Episode 91: Surviving This Job Market
Mike opens with a post-apocalyptic “choose your team” trope to frame today’s job market for junior developers: brutal competition, few openings, and the need to stand out with real, survival-level…
Episode 90: SQL as a Superpower
Mike kicks off with stories from his career to argue that SQL is a “never-goes-away” superpower. He describes early jobs where everything was handcrafted queries and good database design was…
Episode 89: Agentic AI
The episode opens with host David Brady introducing a panel to talk about recent advances in AI, kicking off with “story time” from Mike. Mike describes how massive investment has accelerated…
Episode 88: Balance
On this episode of the Acima Development Podcast, Mike hosts a large panel discussion about balance in engineering and why extremes tend to hurt teams. He opens with a cycling story about staying…
Episode 87: Handling Miscommunication
The episode centers on miscommunication—why it happens so often and how to handle it better, especially in remote work. Mike opens with a story about baking baguettes for his in-laws: he and his wife…
Episode 86: Scary Code
On this episode of the Acima Development podcast, the crew leans into a Halloween “code horror” theme, using real-world stories to explore the scariest things they’ve seen in software. Mike opens…
Episode 85: Leading with Confidence
On this episode of the Acima Development Podcast, VP of Engineering Elishia Williams joins Mike, Dave, Will, and Kyle to talk about her path from curious kid to technology leader—and the lessons…
Episode 84: When Not to Follow Best Practices
The episode opens with Mike sharing two stories that set up a theme: context beats dogma. First, a bike rack bolt snaps seven miles from home with his toddler on board; he “hacks” a fix using a strap…
Episode 83: Outside-Work Programming Projects
In this episode of the Acima Development Podcast, Mike kicks things off with a cycling story that serves as an analogy for problem-solving in software engineering. Planning a long ride to Illinois’s…
Episode 82: ORMs vs SQL
The panel digs into the perennial question: how much SQL should developers know? Kicking off with a war story, Mike recounts a hyper-growth phase where ~20 performance issues were fixed—almost all by…
Episode 81: How Do I Invest Engineering Time?
The episode frames engineering as an investment rather than a cost. Mike opens with a parable: leaders who put capital (or engineers) to work create value; those who “protect” resources without…
Frequently Asked Questions
Acima Development has published 100 episodes since September 2022, covering topics in Business, Education.
Acima Development is currently highly active with new episodes every 2 weeks. Average episode length is 46m.
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