For me, podcasts are a great alternative to listen to music when I exercise, commute, do some chores, or cooking. Over the last few years, I've built up a decent-size list of almost 100 subscribed podcasts but happen to listen regularly to only a few. That's my curated list of podcasts (not just about coding) which I think are very valuable for software developers.

One more thing. I tend to keep this blog highly focused on purely technical content that involves exploring new fields and technical challenges mostly connected to JavaScript and blockchain. I started to consider deviating a little from this trend due to two reasons. There's more to software development than only tackling programming challenges. The other reason was writing a lot of during my working hours at Tooploox (check out Tooploox Blog) and upcoming ebook about tips and tricks for Solidity/Ethereum developers. For a little while, those additional activities suppressed my need for publishing more technical content on this blog.

Software Engineering

Software Engineering Daily - if you have time to listen to only one podcast, that's the one. Jeff Meyerson puts a lot of effort into understanding the tech and interviewing guests to bring listeners closer to one of many topics ranging from cloud, data science, open source, blockchain, and software development. Daily.

JavaScript

JS Party - thanks to the wide variety of co-hosts with different backgrounds it's exciting to listen. Focusing on both news in JavaScript land and technologies. Part of the Changelog network.

JavaScript Jabber - co-hosted by Charles Max Wood, Aimee Knight, and AJ ONeal. The podcast features the wide variety of topics and thoughts on given technology. From time to time episodes have a different format called MJS (My JavaScript Story) where invited engineers share their story about how they got into JavaScript.

Shop Talk Show - Dave Rupert and Chris Coyier discuss front-end, WordPress, small e-commerce, and Q&As. WordPress is not my thing, but I still enjoy listening.

Syntax - Wes Bos and Scott Tolinski talking about frontend stack in a very approachable way. If you are a junior developer listening to Syntax should be high on your priority lists.

Toolsday - beginners-friendly podcast you cannot mistake with anything else thanks to the co-host Una Kravets who sings a song about tool covered in the episode.

Blockchain

Unchained - an unbiased podcast about blockchain and distributed ledger technology hosted by Laura Shin.

The Bad Crypto Podcast - an entertaining podcast about everything ridiculous in cryptocurrencies by Joel Comm and Travis Wright.

Security

Risky Business - weekly security news that goes in-depth covering hacks, breaches and the best practices in InfoSec industry.

Career

Developer Tea - Jonathan Cutrell records quite a different podcast for developers and focuses on psychology, productivity, goal setting, and other topics loosely related to software development. Episodes are 10 to 20 minutes long to fit inside your tea break.

Entreprogrammers Podcast - Josh Earl, John Sonmez, Derick Bailey, and Charles Max Wood meet to talk about their goals, challenges, and businesses. This podcast was my inspiration for getting involved in the mastermind group.

Economy and finance

Planet Money and The Indicator - both NPR productions have this radio show vibe and touch on business, work, and economy often though covering a particular story and interviews.

Freakonomics - Stephen J. Dubner explores the hidden side of non-obvious problems using statistics and economics.

The Investing Podcast - Preston Pysh and Stig Brodersen comment on moves of the most profound billionaires. If listening to what Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos, or Jack Ma have to say is your thing, you will enjoy this podcast.

Optimal Finance Daily - Dan Weinberg saves me a lot of time by reading hand-picked articles on personal development, minimalism, finance, health, and business.

App

To listen to podcasts, I'm using Pocket Casts app which is available on both iOS and Android. I had no problems with it and progress sync works great. Messed up sync was what made me stop using iTunes.

Summary

Even though this is a relatively short list and you could be comfortable listening at x1.5 or x2.0 speed, it might take a lot of time to stay up-to-date with all this content. Be selective and try incorporating learning from podcasts into the activities that don't require your full attention like exercising, commuting, or cooking.

One of my 2017-favorite podcasts that sadly didn't make on this list is Partially Derivative. It's a great show about machine learning, but unfortunately, it has been discontinued.

Feel free to let me know if your favorite podcast didn't make on this list. Maybe I'm missing on something great!

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash.