By Tech Powered Dad | October 8, 2018
Everyone knows that tech careers evolve fast. You’ve got to stay up to date on the latest news and trends, and there are numerous ways to do that including forums, blogs, and Reddit. However, if you are like me, you like to listen to podcasts. Your commute or your morning jog can be a godsend when it comes to catching up on the latest piece of technology, language release, or company acquisitions.
I’ve put together this list of the best tech podcasts with both current and future practitioners in mind, so whether you are a current student, an aspiring career switcher, or an active coder, there should be something here for you. Most of them are pretty general, so if you are a data scientist or a security specialist, I haven’t gone quite that deep down the rabbit hole. Still, I think there are some pretty great options on here that will be useful and interesting.
Here are the categories:
Best Coding Podcasts
These are my choices for the best computer science podcasts. At varying levels of theory and practice, they go into the principles behind various languages, tools, and techniques.
Software Engineering Daily
True to its name, each day Software Engineering Daily offers a different host a chance to cover an engineering topic. The list of companies and problems represented in any given week is impressive with recent contributors including Airbnb, Netflix, Red Hat, and JetBrains, among many, many others.
Subscribe to Software Engineering Daily via RSS
CodeNewbie
Once a week, CodeNewbie shares the story of a person on their coding journey, and how they got to where they are today.
Subscribe to CodeNewbie via RSS
Command Line Heroes
Red Hat puts out this highly compelling storytelling show that makes computer science just plain cool. Recent shows have covered topics such as the rise of containers, the OS wars, and the origins of different programming languages.
Subscribe to Command Line Heroes via RSS
Programming Throwdown
It’s not the most polished podcast on this list, but don’t that fool you. These hosts know their stuff, and they’ve been consistently been putting out an entertaining and educational coding show for years. The best thing about it is that they cover a wide variety of topics in a way that beginners and experienced hands alike can take something away from every episode.
Subscribe to Programming Throwdown via RSS
Best Business Tech Podcasts
Just because you work in tech doesn’t mean you don’t need to know a little something about business. Whether you are in internet marketing, fin tech, or security, there are business implications to the work you do. These podcasts will either help you to think in a more business savvy way or keep you up-to-date on the business news of the day.
Marketplace Tech with Molly Wood
APM’s Marketplace with Ky Rysdall provides an interesting look at the day’s business news as well as in-depth market and news analysis. Molly Wood brings listeners the same, but with a focus on the tech industry.
Subscribe to Marketplace Tech via RSS
Planet Money
There’s probably no better story telling business focused podcast than Planet Money. There’s nothing tech specific about the show (although they do occasionally profile tech companies), but listening them analyze money is guaranteed to have implications into the world of tech. Example: Ever wonder how Apple so closely controls the price of their products? Compare to Planet Money’s episode Why Coke Cost A Nickel For 70 Years
Subscribe to Planet Money via RSS
Freakonomics
The thing that sets Freakonomics apart from most other business and economics podcasts is their hosts’ relentless commitment to approaching business problems in a data driven way. Given that most tech jobs are in some ways being affected by the data driven revolution, we could all use a few more data detectives in our podcast feed. Check out How Do We Know What Really Works in Healthcare?
Subscribe to Freakonomics via RSS
Best Pop Tech Podcasts
I don’t have a better name for this category, but if there can be pop science, I say there can be pop tech. They aren’t as theoretical as my coding list, but they will help you be aware of the trends that are shaping tech, and in an entertaining way.
Reply All
A podcast about the internet… sort of. This show has evolved in interesting and unexpected ways over the last few years. You may learn about a new meme or YouTube scandal, but you are just as likely to learn how the Amazon review system is being scammed or more about internet security. Reply All will literally take their show to the other side of the world (to track down scam tech support phone callers).
Subscribe to Reply All via RSS
TEDTalks Technology
TED talks captivate us. They make us laugh. They make us want to found our own startup. From the TED talks stage, this podcast feed focuses only on the best tech TED talks.
Subscribe to TEDTalks Technology via RSS
Recode Decode
Co-founder of Recode and one of tech’s most prominent journalists, Kara Swisher hosts interviews about the week in tech with influential business leaders and outspoken personalities from media, politics and more.