What do JSON and conversational AI have in common? They are the glue behind ordering coffee, booking flights, and talking to support. In our tests, about 1 out of 3 replies missed the intent until we enforced structured JSON outputs. In this episode, Danny Thompson and Leon Noel break down how to move from “cool demo” to production systems that route, escalate, and self-audit reliably.

SITE https://www.programmingpodcast.com/

💡 Sponsor: Level Up Financial Planning

Changing careers or increasing your income? Get financial clarity with Level Up Financial Planning—helping early and mid-career tech professionals secure their financial future. Visit LevelUpFinancialPlanning.com for a free consultation!

https://www.levelupfinancialplanning.com/

Stay in Touch:

📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business?

Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com!

Danny Thompson

https://x.com/DThompsonDev

https://www.linkedin.com/in/DThompsonDev

www.DThompsonDev.com

Leon Noel

https://x.com/leonnoel

https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonnoel/

https://100devs.org/

📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business?

Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com!

What you’ll learn

- Why freeform paragraphs fail backends and how JSON fields fix routing

- A simple schema pattern: department, sentiment, confidence, reply

- Confidence floors that trigger automatic retries before users ever see a response

- Context windows: why rules are read every call while context gets dropped

- MCP basics and how domain context avoids bad translations and metaphors

- Where voice agents work today (predictable conversations) and where they do not

- Practical tool choices for text, code, and voice workflows

- Real labor impacts, retention insights, and reskill advice

- Salary negotiation quick hits: the two lines that matter

Chapters

00:00 Cold open: JSON as the glue + the 1-in-3 miss

00:30 Show intro and promise

01:10 Quick definitions: JSON, NLG, NLU, MCP

03:00 Why structured JSON beats paragraphs

07:30 Confidence scores and auto-retries

10:30 Sponsor break

11:30 Prompts for image and video models that actually work

15:00 Context windows and durable rules

20:00 MCP in practice: local dialects and domain knowledge

26:00 Voice agents: predictable vs unpredictable conversations

33:00 Jobs, retention, and reskilling

40:00 Question of the Day: salary wiggle room

46:00 The Developers Guide To AI

Stop leaving tech conferences with just a free t-shirt and some stickers. It's time to leave with a job offer. 🚀

The difference between a successful conference and a waste of money isn't luck, it's strategy. In this episode, we break down the ultimate conference survival guide for software developers and tech professionals. Learn how to shift from a passive "Tourist Mindset" to a proactive "Architect Mindset" to build real opportunities.

SITE https://www.programmingpodcast.com/

💡 Sponsor: Level Up Financial Planning

Changing careers or increasing your income? Get financial clarity with Level Up Financial Planning—helping early and mid-career tech professionals secure their financial future. Visit LevelUpFinancialPlanning.com for a free consultation!

https://www.levelupfinancialplanning.com/

Stay in Touch:

📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business?

Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com!

Danny Thompson

https://x.com/DThompsonDev

https://www.linkedin.com/in/DThompsonDev

www.DThompsonDev.com

Leon Noel

https://x.com/leonnoel

https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonnoel/

https://100devs.org/

📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business?

Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com!

We cover everything you need to know to turn your next conference badge into a massive career investment, including:

✅ The pre-conference blueprint: How to research, set measurable goals, and connect with speakers before you even arrive.

✅ On-site execution: Master the art of the three-minute conversation, ask questions that make you memorable, and build genuine connections.

✅ The follow-up formula that actually gets you a response and leads to interviews.

✅ Actionable advice for both extroverts and introverts to network with confidence.

Whether you're looking for your first tech job or your tenth, this is the playbook you'll want to reference time and time again.

YouTube Chapters

00:00 - Job Offer vs. Free T-Shirt: The Real Difference

01:41 - Turning Online Connections into Real Relationships

03:22 - What is Your "Why"? Defining Your Conference Goal

04:25 - The #1 Mistake: Don't Get Lost in the Hallway Track

05:52 - A Simple Trick to Connect With Any Speaker

07:32 - It's Not Luck, It's Strategy

08:15 - The "Tourist" vs. "Architect" Mindset

09:13 - Sponsor: Level Up Financial Planning

10:18 - The True Cost of Attending a Conference ($2,200?!)

12:27 - The Pre-Conference Blueprint for Job Seekers

13:40 - The Genius "Coffee Chat" Calendar Invite Strategy

15:25 - Champions Are Made in the Pre-Season

17:13 - How to Research Attendees (Not Just Speakers)

18:20 - Mastering the 3-Minute Conversation

20:04 - The Secret Magic of Tech Conferences

22:34 - Setting Measurable Goals for Your Conference

25:22 - How (and When) to Bravely Ask for a Referral

28:26 - The Psychology of Asking for a Favor

30:38 - How to Talk About Yourself Without Being Salesy

33:27 - The Long-Tail Game of Networking

34:26 - A Counterintuitive Tip: Don't Introduce Yourself First

35:22 - Questions That Make You Unforgettable

40:48 - Networking Tips for Introverts

43:51 - Pro Tip: Never Eat Alone

46:36 - The Most Valuable Part of a Conference: The Follow-Up

49:03 - Ask Us Anything: Following Up With a VIP You Met

One phishy email to an npm maintainer set off a supply-chain scare that could’ve torched the web—yet the real on-chain damage was… cents. In this episode, we break down how a fake npm 2FA reset (from npmjs.help) led to malicious releases of popular packages like chalk and debug, how the payload hijacked browser crypto flows (monkey-patching window.ethereum, fetch, and XHR), why the blast radius stayed small, and what teams did right (shoutout to Aikido & Vercel).We finish with a rapid “Career Corner” on how to follow up after an interview—with copy-ready lines you can use.SITE https://www.programmingpodcast.com/Stay in Touch:📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business?Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com!Danny Thompsonhttps://x.com/DThompsonDevhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/DThompsonDevwww.DThompsonDev.comLeon Noelhttps://x.com/leonnoelhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/leonnoel/https://100devs.org/📧 Have ideas or questions for the show? Or are you a business that wants to talk business?Email us at dannyandleonspodcast@gmail.com!You’ll learn:- Spotting modern phishing (look-alike TLDs, urgency cues)- What the malware did and why front-end focus limited impact- The minute-by-minute timeline from phish → publish → takedown- Practical defenses: pin versions, lockfiles, audits, password managers, least-privilege tokens- How to write a follow-up email that closesIf this helps, hit 👍 and share with a teammate.Chapters0:00 – The phish that “almost destroyed the internet” (cold open)0:24 – Who clicked: maintainer behind big OSS (chalk, debug)0:44 – Payload in plain English (browser wallet-drainer)1:04 – Actual impact vs. potential blast radius1:20 – Intro + what we’ll cover2:23 – Why this story is everywhere & our plan3:43 – What you’ll know by the end (safety + lessons)4:20 – Act 1: The Email — npmjs.help and urgency tactics6:08 – Phishing 101: quick checks before you click8:25 – Psychology of scams (filtering + anecdotes)12:17 – Act 2: The Payload — monkey-patching fetch/XHR/window.ethereum14:44 – Why front-end focus limited the damage16:41 – How it was caught (Node fetch ReferenceErrors)17:52 – Six–eight hours to fix: containment recap20:04 – Magic links & password managers (practical wins)22:15 – Act 3: The Timeline — 18 packages, what happened when23:39 – Minutes matter: publish → detection → takedown25:12 – Community/GitHub issues light up; npm intervenes26:48 – Root-cause analysis & related accounts28:32 – “System worked” takeaways (+ why that’s good)31:18 – Dev hygiene: pin versions, audits, reduce deps33:10 – Myths debunked (no, every machine wasn’t “fully owned”)35:04 – Shout-outs: Aikido, Vercel, others that responded fast38:22 – Career Corner: following up after interviews (templates)53:22 – Wrap-up & next stepsHelpful links (add your URLs)Aikido write-up / detection notesVercel incident summary + cache purge notesnpm/GitHub advisories for affected packagesPassword manager recommendations / setup guide