DevRel, Linux, and the Shrinking Path for Junior Developers w/ Ali Diamond

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 Website: https://whiskey.fm Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/whiskey-web-and-whatnot/id1552776603 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/19jiuHAqzeKnkleQUpZxDf Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1552776603 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WhiskeyWebAndWhatnot Whiskey Web and Whatnot MerchEnjoying the podcast and want us to make more? Help support us by picking up some of our fresh merch at https://whiskey.fund.