This week, Robbie and Chuck talk with Ali Diamond about her journey through tech, cybersecurity, and community building. They sip tequila, swap hot takes on programming languages and developer culture, and dig into the realities of junior engineering paths, DevRel’s evolution, and how passion—not tools—shapes meaningful work.

In this episode:

(00:00) - Intro
(02:39) - Tequila rating & review: Espolon Tequila Blanco
(13:46) - From tequila to other favorite drinks
(16:11) - Hot Take: Why junior engineers should focus on - fundamentals
(18:57) - Hot Take: MacOS or Linux?
(22:25) - Ali’s take on Linux flavors (and her own twist)
(25:22) - Hot Take: Is DevRel really dead?
(27:28) - Software developer vs. software engineer: does it matter?
(31:45) - Hot Take: Rails vs Laravel
(35:14) - The shrinking path for junior developers
(47:34) - Life outside coding: Ali’s passions and projects
(54:34) - Ali’s journey into tech and family background
(57:40) - Plugs & where to find Ali online

Links

Espolon Tequila Blanco: https://www.espolontequila.com/
Minecraft: https://www.minecraft.net/
Java: https://www.java.com/
Lua: https://www.lua.org/
Spindrift: https://drinkspindrift.com/
Costco: https://www.costco.com
All Things Open: https://allthingsopen.org/
The Net Gala: https://x.com/_thenetgala
1942 Tequila: https://www.donjulio.com/our-tequilas/don-julio-1942-tequila
Clase Azul: https://claseazul.com/
Fresca Mixed: https://www.frescamixed.com/
LaCroix: https://www.lacroixwater.com/
Diet Coke: https://www.coca-cola.com/us/en/brands/diet-coke
Monster: https://www.monsterenergy.com/
Celsius: https://www.celsius.com/
Django: https://www.djangoproject.com/
Rails: https://rubyonrails.org/
MacOS: https://www.apple.com/macos/
Linux: https://www.linux.org/
Andriod: https://www.android.com/
iPhone: https://www.apple.com/iphone/
Vim: https://www.vim.org/
VS Code: https://code.visualstudio.com/
Omarchy: https://omarchy.org/
DHH: https://x.com/dhh/
Arch Linux: https://archlinux.org/
Debian: https://www.debian.org/
Ubuntu: https://ubuntu.com/
Kali: https://www.kali.org/
Twitch: https://twitch.tv
CactusCon: https://www.cactuscon.com/
Ep 114: Privacy, Cyber Crime Stories, and Tech with Jack Rhysider: https://whiskey.fm/privacy-cyber-crime-stories-and-tech-with-jack-rhysider
Laravel: https://laravel.com/
PHP: https://www.php.net/
Scala: https://www.scala-lang.org/
Guillermo Rauch: https://x.com/rauchg
Vercel: https://vercel.com/
Taylor Otwell: https://x.com/taylorotwell
Walmart: https://www.walmart.com/
WordPress: https://wordpress.org
React: https://react.dev/
LeetCode: https://leetcode.com/
NPM: https://www.npmjs.com/
Mark Zuckerberg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg
Mad Money: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Money
Bill Gates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates
Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/
Kubernetes: https://kubernetes.io/
YAML: https://yaml.org/
Smiski: https://smiski.com/
Brandon Sanderson: https://www.brandonsanderson.com/
Game of Thrones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_Thrones
Lore Olympus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lore_Olympus
Webtoon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webtoon
Invincible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invincible_(TV_series)
The Boys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_(TV_series)
Burning Man: https://burningman.org/
Coachella: https://www.coachella.com/
Nine Inch Nails: https://www.nin.com/
Go: https://go.dev/
MIT: https://www.mit.edu
Pokemon Go: https://pokemongolive.com/
Stanford University: https://www.stanford.edu/
UC Berkeley: https://www.berkeley.edu/
Harvard University: https://www.harvard.edu/

Connect with Ali

Website: https://ali.dev/
X / Twitter: https://x.com/endingwithali
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/endingwithali
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@hak5

Connect with the hosts

Robbie Wagner: https://x.com/RobbieTheWagner
Chuck Carpenter: https://x.com/CharlesWthe3rd
Adam Argyle: https://x.com/argyleink

Subscribe and stay in touch

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Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1552776603
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WhiskeyWebAndWhatnot

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DevRel, Linux, and the Shrinking Path fo...