
Show Notes
In today's episode, we bring back Teej DeVries, the first guest ever on our podcast! Today we are discussing Teej's new course on Boot.dev on Memory Management. In this talk, we discuss the importance of memory, why Go is a C-programmer minded language, garbage collectors, among other technical topics. We also talk about why understanding the fundamentals in crucial in helping you increase your learning ability, how different it is hiring juniors and seniors and why being curious gives you the advantage over everyone else. Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm Teej's Twitter: https://twitter.com/teej_dv Teej's Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/tjdevries
(00:00) - Introduction
(00:57) - Teej will have a course on Boot.dev!
(01:35) - Why Memory Management is so important
(05:17) - Go is a C-programmer minded language
(07:00) - 25% off on boot.dev!
(07:22) - How far in the curriculum will Teej's course be?
(09:13) - Should you learn Rust or C first?
(12:43) - Dropping out of college
(13:49) - You should know WHY you're doing something
(15:29) - Self motivated learning
(18:52) - Internal Boot.dev tooling for this course
(21:59) - OCamls' garbage collector
(23:55) - Functional language, performance and immutability constraints
(30:24) - Roc programming language
(32:42) - Wasm (WebAssembly) vs Machine Code
(36:07) - C's Standard Library vs Go's Standard Library
(37:01) - Installing dependencies
(41:09) - C as an educational tool
(43:27) - You have to think when using C
(45:42) - Enterprise machines are weaker compared to local machines
(47:43) - Why this course is before the Job Search chapter
(49:44) - Being curious gives you the advantage
(51:16) - Every program uses memory, so we should have at least some level of understanding about it
(54:28) - Just being able to speak like an engineer goes a long way
(57:14) - There are still a ton of jobs that involve embedded systems, not just WebDev
(01:00:13) - Be eager to learn
(01:01:51) - Hiring Seniors vs Hiring Juniors
(01:02:50) - You learn better if you understand fundamentals
(01:04:10) - Analogy to Dota 2
(01:08:54) - Where to find Teej
More from Backend Banter
Today we welcome YK Sugi—engineer, educator, and the mind behind CSS Dojo—for the final episode of season two.
In this episode, we sit down with Quincy Larson, founder of Free Code Camp, to explore his incredible path from high school dropout to influential tech educator. Quincy shares his unconventional journey — from living in his car and working fast food jobs to building one of the most impactful coding education platforms in the world.
Today we welcome Mitchell Hashimoto, co-founder of HashiCorp and creator of Ghostty, a new terminal emulator built in Zig. In this episode, Mitchell shares the story behind Ghostty, how his curiosity about terminals evolved into a full-fledged project, and why Zig became his language of choice.
Today we welcome Malte Ubl, CTO of Vercel, to discuss the evolution of frontend development and the role of AI in shaping modern engineering workflows. Malte dives into V0, Vercel's innovative tool for generating frontend code using AI, and explains how it empowers developers—especially backend engineers—to build full-stack applications. We also explore the concept of verticalization in engineering roles, the challenges of balancing innovation with infrastructure, and how AI is redefining productivity in tech.
Today we welcome Madison Kana—a self-taught dev who defied the traditional path. From dropping out and navigating a world of homeschooling to launching the Code Book Club, Madison transformed her unconventional journey into a thriving community of coders. In this episode, she shares how bypassing the typical education route fueled her passion, the real challenges of learning on your own, and the power of mentorship in building a dynamic tech career. If you’re ready to break the mold and carve your own path in software development. Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm Madison's X: https://x.com/Madisonkanna Website: https://madisonkanna.com/ Learn out loud: learn0utloud.com Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 00:30 - Where did it all start? 01:40 - Dropping out 08:42 - How Madison started learning code 22:00 - Team leading 30:30 - Code Book Club 38:50 - Learn out loud 46:20 - AI talk 54:18 - Book recommendations 56:05 - Outro Like & subscribe for the algo if you enjoyed the video!