Overcommitted | Software Engineering and Programming Insights

Jim Ray works in developer relations at Bluesky, where he helps developers build on the AT Protocol (atproto) and co-hosts the Off Protocol podcast. Brittany and Bethany talk with him about what developers can build on the open social web today and what’s coming next.

Jim explains Spaces, the upcoming permissioned data layer that will let developers build private groups and communities on atproto, and how builders might choose between public and private data. He shares his path from journalism school at UNC through newsrooms, a design agency, and almost a decade of developer relations at Slack before joining Bluesky. The conversation also covers:

why lexicons make atproto easy for AI coding agents to build on
how the independent PLC directory helps keep the protocol “locked open”
how competing blogging apps Leaflet, Offprint, and pckt worked together on the standard.site lexicon for long-form publishing

The episode wraps with AtmosphereConf 2027, which has its call for presentations open now. Then a round of predictions: when Spaces ships, and whether any app in the Atmosphere will ever outgrow Bluesky.

Links
Jim Ray on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jimray.bsky.team
Off protocol: https://atproto.com/off-protocol
PLC Directory: https://web.plc.directory/
Standard.site: https://standard.site/
Leaflet: https://leaflet.pub/
Offprint: https://offprint.app/
Pckt: https://pckt.blog/
Wordpress standard.site plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/atmosphere/
Em-dash from Cloudflare: https://emdashcms.com/
Atmosphereconf 2027: atmosphereconf.org 
Atmosphereconf 2027 CFP: https://atmosphereconf.org/speak
Attie: https://attie.ai/
delve.town: https://delve.town/

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

Can you trust software written without AI? We examine the risks of manual coding versus automated vulnerability exploits.At Rails World 2026, a show of hands revealed that writing material amounts of code by hand is becoming a rarity. We discuss whether that human-written code is actually safer, especially after reviewing the eMudhra certificate authority compromise where private keys were recovered in under a second. Between open-weight models demonstrating Mythos-class exploit skills and the ongoing debate over AI consciousness, the security landscape has shifted significantly.This conversation is for engineers navigating the reality of AI mandates at work and the impact of agents that continue running after you log off. We also cover the practical side of professional development, from Bethany building a holiday gift-list app to Brittany replacing cloud subscriptions with local transcription tools. By analyzing these technical shifts, we aim to help you maintain a grounded perspective on your career trajectory.Subscribe for weekly software engineering breakdowns, and comment on which professional challenge you want us to tackle next.

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

What do you do when the project you prepared for is no longer the priority? In our first Honest Answers segment, Erika and Bethany respond to a listener's question about a last-minute change of plans. They discuss how communication can make a change feel less arbitrary, why context switching leaves unfinished work on your mind, and how stopping notes, handoff documentation, and an AI-assisted morning routine can help you pick work back up. They also cover keeping a record of contributions when projects don't ship, separating your identity from your assigned work, and the loss of autonomy that can come with a reorg. The conversation turns to disagree and commit, the psychological safety it requires, and recognizing when it may be time to find a different team or role. To close, they translate some familiar corporate memos into plain language.

Hosts
Overcommitted: https://overcommitted.dev
Bethany Janos: https://www.trustyduck.dev
Erika Eggemeyer: https://github.com/eggyhead

Show Links
Molly Graham, Work Whiplash: https://mollyg.substack.com/p/work-whiplash
John Cutler, TBM 31/52: Why Does Our Strategy Keep Changing?: https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-3152-why-does-our-strategy-keep
ShiftMag, Do managers shift priorities to make engineers miserable?: https://shiftmag.dev/shifting-priorities-development-business-886/
UW Bothell, Sophie Leroy on attention residue and ready-to-resume plans: https://www.uwb.edu/news/2019/02/12/task-interrupted
Sophie Leroy's faculty page and research publications: https://www.uwb.edu/faculty/sophie-leroy/
Jellyfish, Mitigating Context Switching in Software Development: https://jellyfish.co/library/developer-productivity/context-switching/
Masicampo and Baumeister, Consider it done! Plan making can eliminate the cognitive effects of unfulfilled goals: https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024192
Hello Interview, Handling a project priority change: https://www.hellointerview.com/community/questions/project-priority-change/cmlj4w9bn01yq08adp1vva9ot
David Rock, A sense of autonomy is a primary reward or threat for the brain: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-brain-at-work/200911/a-sense-of-autonomy-is-a-primary-reward-or-threat-for-the-brain
Bordia and colleagues, Uncertainty during organizational change: Is it all about control?: https://doi.org/10.1080/13594320444000128
Glavin and Schieman, Control in the Face of Uncertainty: https://doi.org/10.1177/0190272514546698
NASA, Managing the Trauma of a Terminated Project (PMHut reprint): https://pmhut.com/managing-the-trauma-of-a-terminated-project
Disagree and commit, Concept overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disagree_and_commit
Amazon's leadership principles, Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit: https://www.aboutamazon.com/about-us/leadership-principles

What does Stack Overflow’s 2026 Developer Survey reveal about software engineering, career insights, and engineering culture? The Overcommitted hosts unpack the findings, discuss what they mean for developers, and share the trends they’re watching across the profession.

Links
Developer survey: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2026 
Ed from Polytoken: https://youtu.be/YrmR6EZ5Y1U

Hosts
Overcommitted: ⁠⁠https://overcommitted.dev⁠ 
⁠Bethany Janos: ⁠⁠https://www.trustyduck.dev
Brittany Ellich: ⁠https://brittanyellich.com 
Erika Eggemeyer: ⁠⁠https://github.com/eggyhead

Roxy Rodriguez-Becker taught middle school math, moved into the school library after earning a master's in library and information science, and then taught herself to code while raising three kids. She is now a developer community manager at Torc and the host of the She Ships podcast. In this episode she walks through what that transition actually required: the four AM club, waking up to study until she rushed out the door to a five AM gym session, working through 100Devs, and treating the job search as a numbers game with fifty to sixty outreach messages a week. She is candid about the burnout that followed and what it took to come back from it.The conversation also digs into networking as a skill rather than a personality trait. Roxy describes going to her first conference and barely speaking, then meeting her future colleagues at the second one, and shares tactics that work for socially awkward people. We also talk about the Tube Feed Tracker, the web app she built after watching ICU nurses struggle with feed rate math for her medically complex son. It grew to roughly four thousand users and now includes BMI based rate suggestions and a calorie tracker covering seventy verified formulas. Roxy closes with why career switchers cannot go it alone, and why community matters more than any single course. Plus a tiny internet troll lightning round covering course playback speeds, salmon shirtgate, and conference karaoke.

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

Guest
Roxy Rodriguez-Becker: https://linktr.ee/roxyrodbeck
She Ships on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@roxyrodbeck
Roxy's blog: https://foxyroxy.dev/
Roxy on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/roxyrodbeck.bsky.social
Roxy on X: https://twitter.com/RoxanaCodes
Roxy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roxana-rodriguez-becker

Links
Tube Feed Tracker: https://tubefeedrate.com/
About Tube Feed Tracker: https://tubefeedtracker-about.vercel.app
Torc: https://www.torc.dev/
100Devs: https://100devs.org/
Scrimba, Learn JavaScript: https://scrimba.com/learn-javascript-c0v