Hosted by Mike Challis · 🇺🇸 US · EN-US · 101 episodes
Established thought leaders with verified media credentials.
At Acima, we have a large software development team. We wanted to be able to share with the community things we have learned about the development process. We'll share some tech specifics (we do Ruby, Kotlin, Javascript, and Haskell), but also talk a lot about mentoring, communication, hiring, planning, and the other things that make up a lot of the software development process but don't always get talked about enough.
Mike Challis hosts Acima Development, a technology show with 101 episodes published.
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 the Space Shuttle Ch
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 work." Mike opens wit
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 hosts argue that many
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 illustrate how powerfu
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 from writing code to
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 systems, the data team is re
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 manage both the injury
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 about getting wildly inc
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: how something as sim
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 skills. He shares examp
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 foundational, then later role
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 progress and uses a hotel an
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 upright on a narrow stri
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 look at the same “th
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 with a literal horror fr
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 she’s learned along the w
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 to limp back safely—
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 highest natural point
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 database changes, es
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 progress destroy it. The p
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Acima Development is hosted by Mike Challis. The show is categorised under technology (education) and has published 101 episodes.
Acima Development has published 101 episodes.
Acima Development regularly covers technology, education, self improvement. It sits in the technology category, with a education focus.
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Acima Development hasn't explicitly signalled guest openness in recent episodes. That doesn't rule out pitching. your hook just needs to be especially compelling and relevant to their recent content.
Episodes of Acima Development average 52 minutes. a focused format where a clear narrative arc and tight preparation matter most.
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