Overcommitted | Software Engineering and Tech Careers Insights

Brittany shares her journey building Collective Social - a Goodreads-style app for all kinds of media built entirely on the AT Protocol - and how it led her to create OpenSocial, a service that lets any app on the decentralized web share group functionality like book clubs. The episode covers the challenges of representing groups when the protocol has no native concept of group identity, using conference talk deadlines as motivation to ship side projects, and rating real-world systems on how well they'd work in a decentralized context. Erika also shares her experience building an interpreter in Go.

Show links:
Brittany Ellich: https://brittanyellich.com
Collective Social: https://collectivesocial.app
OpenSocial: https://opensocial.community
Collective Social on GitHub: https://github.com/collectivesocial
"Representing groups in ATProto" blog post (Brittany's site)
AtmosphereConf speaker profile: https://news.atmosphereconf.org/3mfpjx5luuc2m
GitHub Blog - Build a Personal Organization Command Center with GitHub Copilot CLI: https://github.blog/ai-and-ml/github-copilot/build-a-personal-organization-command-center-with-github-copilot-cli/
"The art of saying yes" blog post: https://brittanyellich.com/say-yes-do-all-the-things/
"Living in the inflection point" blog post: https://brittanyellich.com/living-in-the-inflection-point/
Nick Gerakines episode (EP19 - AT Proto, MCP, and Open Source): https://overcommitted.dev/ep-19-at-proto-mcp-and-open-source-with-nick-gerakines
PDX ATProto talk: https://youtu.be/xFdak3HbDmM?si=rZoPfyYYoP2awADJ&t=2302
AtmosphereConf talk: https://youtu.be/GVOywon3X-Q?si=yzKLfFNF8bzNT9-e
The ATProto Store: https://atstore.fyi
pdsls.dev: https://pdsls.dev
Atmosphere Community: https://atmosphere.community
npmx.dev: https://npmx.dev
Tangled: https://tangled.io
This is for Everyone by Tim Berners-Lee: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/222376492-this-is-for-everyone

Topics: AT Protocol, Decentralized Social Media, Side Projects, Open Source, Software Engineering

Summary
In this episode, Erika talks with Salma Alam-Naylor about software engineering craft, programming best practices, and why the long game beats shortcuts. As AI coding tools proliferate and everyone chases speed, Salma digs into deliberate practice, sustainable career strategies, and building genuine expertise that compounds over time. Perfect for engineers feeling burnout from the hype cycle.

Links
Salma’s website: https://whitep4nth3r.com/

2021 Jamstack Jammies (Community Creator Award) https://2021.jamstackconf.com/jammies/

Fat bear week website: https://explore.org/fat-bear-week

Hell.com wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell.com

Hosts
Overcommitted: https://overcommitted.dev
Erika (Eggyhead): https://github.com/eggyhead

Tech careers don't need to mean grinding LeetCode. In episode 57, John Crickett — 30+ year engineer, Coding Challenges creator (90K+ subscribers) — makes the case that programmer productivity skyrockets when you build real tools instead. We dig into why your own Redis, Git, or shell beats practice problems, how Coding Challenges went from $17 domain to viral sensation (1,500 signups in one weekend), and what it means to level up through systems programming.

Links

Coding Challenges (Newsletter): https://codingchallenges.substack.com/
Coding Challenges Website: https://codingchallenges.fyi
From The Challenges - Git: https://codingchallenges.substack.com/p/from-the-challenges-git
Will AI Kill Coding?: https://codingchallenges.substack.com/p/will-ai-kill-coding
Using AI To Solve A Coding Challenge: https://codingchallenges.substack.com/p/using-ai-to-solve-a-coding-challenge
Tech Lead Journal #178 — John Crickett: https://techleadjournal.dev/episodes/178/
Confessions of a Data Guy — What Makes Great Engineers: https://www.confessionsofadataguy.com/decades-in-software-engineering-what-actually-makes-great-engineers-john-crickett/
Coding Chats Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/59GU7gzyK2RdIDVkhNS2nt
John Crickett on GitHub: https://github.com/johncrickett
John Crickett on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/johncrickett
John Crickett on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/johncrickett.bsky.social
John Crickett on X: https://x.com/johncrickett

Hosts
Overcommitted: https://overcommitted.dev
Bethany: https://trustyduck.dev
Brittany Ellich: ⁠https://brittanyellich.com

⁠Erika: ⁠https://github.com/eggyhead

Summary
Career growth through mentorship and work-life balance with Dave Schwantes, Senior Software Engineer at GitHub. Brittany and Dave explore why running toward meaningful work beats running from burnout, how mentorship became his primary form of engineering leverage, and what career happiness actually looks like across different life stages. From Instacart and Couchsurfing to building in-house bootcamps, Dave shares how sustainable engineering culture beats individual productivity hacks—and his take on how AI tools reshape what engineers really need to master.

Links
Dave's personal site: https://dinosaurseateverybody.com
Don't Break Prod (bite-sized career advice): https://dontbreakprod.com
Grave Danger (Dave's spooky ska band) on Bandcamp: https://gravedangerskath.bandcamp.com
Dave on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/dorkrawk.bsky.social
Dave on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidschwantes
Dave on GitHub: https://github.com/dorkrawk
Web Dev Challenge Episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2sEoZG8EIw
The Engineer Manager Pendulum article: https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum/

Host
Overcommitted: https://overcommitted.dev
Brittany Ellich: https://brittanyellich.com

Summary
Sabrina Goldfarb rejected the tech career playbook. No CS degree, bootcamp instead, teaching before big platforms. Now an engineer on GitHub's Copilot team and instructor at Frontend Masters, she shares how methodical planning, patience, and trust in the process led to career growth most thought impossible. If you're considering a non-traditional path in software engineering, this episode proves there's more than one way to build a meaningful tech career.

Links
Frontend Masters: Practical Prompt Engineering: https://frontendmasters.com/courses/prompt-engineering/
Sabrina Goldfarb on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/sabrinagoldfarb

Hosts
Overcommitted: https://overcommitted.dev
Bethany Janos: https://github.com/bethanyj28
Erika (Eggyhead): https://github.com/eggyhead