Sourabh Satish, CTO and co-founder of Pangea, speaks with SE Radio's Brijesh Ammanath about prompt injection. Sourabh begins with the basic concepts underlying prompt injection and the key risks it introduces. From there, they take a deep dive into the OWASP Top 10 security concerns for LLMs, and Sourabh explains why prompt injection is the top risk in this list. He describes the $10K Prompt Injection challenge that Pangea ran, and explains the key learnings from the challenge. The episode finishes with discussion of specific prompt-injection techniques and the security guardrails used to counter the risk. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.
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SE Radio 691: Kacper Łukawski on Qdrant Vector Database
Kacper Łukawski, a Senior Developer Advocate at Qdrant, speaks with host Gregory M. Kapfhammer about the Qdrant vector database and similarity search engine. After introducing vector databases and the foundational concepts undergirding similarity search, they dive deep into the Rust-based implementation of Qdrant. Along with comparing and contrasting different vector databases, they also explore the best practices for the performance evaluation of systems like Qdrant. Kacper and Gregory also discuss topics such as the steps for using Python to build an AI-powered application that uses Qdrant. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.
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SE Radio 690: Florian Gilcher on Rust for Safety-Critical Systems
Florian Gilcher, co-founder of Ferrous Systems and the Rust Foundation, speaks with host Giovanni Asproni about the application of Rust in mission- and safety-critical systems. The discussion starts with a brief overview of such systems, and an introduction to Rust, emphasizing aspects that make it well-suited for critical environments. Florian and Giovanni then discuss how Rust compares to C and C++ — two widely used languages in this sector. They proceed to outline important factors that companies should consider when assessing whether to move from C or other languages to Rust. The episode also touches on Ferrocene, an open-source Rust toolchain qualified for safety- and mission-critical systems, which was developed and supported by Ferrous Systems. The conversation ends with some reflections on the future of Rust for mission- and safety-critical applications. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.
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SE Radio 689: Amey Desai on the Model Context Protocol
Amey Desai, the Chief Technology Officer at Nexla, speaks with host Sriram Panyam about the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and its role in enabling agentic AI systems. The conversation begins with the fundamental challenge that led to MCP's creation: the proliferation of "spaghetti code" and custom integrations as developers tried to connect LLMs to various data sources and APIs. Before MCP, engineers were writing extensive scaffolding code using frameworks such as LangChain and Haystack, spending more time on integration challenges than solving actual business problems. Desai illustrates this with concrete examples, such as building GitHub analytics to track engineering team performance. Previously, this required custom code for multiple API calls, error handling, and orchestration. With MCP, these operations can be defined as simple tool calls, allowing the LLM to handle sequencing and error management in a structured, reasonable manner. The episode explores emerging patterns in MCP development, including auction bidding patterns for multi-agent coordination and orchestration strategies. Desai shares detailed examples from Nexla's work, including a PDF processing system that intelligently routes documents to appropriate tools based on content type, and a data labeling system that coordinates multiple specialized agents. The conversation also touches on Google's competing A2A (Agent-to-Agent) protocol, which Desai positions as solving horizontal agent coordination versus MCP's vertical tool integration approach. He expresses skepticism about A2A's reliability in production environments, comparing it to peer-to-peer systems where failure rates compound across distributed components. Desai concludes with practical advice for enterprises and engineers, emphasizing the importance of embracing AI experimentation while focusing on governance and security rather than getting paralyzed by concerns about hallucination. He recommends starting with simple, high-value use cases like automated deployment pipelines and gradually building expertise with MCP-based solutions. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.
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SE Radio 688: Daniel Stenberg on Removing Rust from Curl
Daniel Stenberg, Swedish Internet protocol expert and founder and lead developer of the Curl project, speaks with SE Radio host Gavin Henry about removing Rust from Curl. They discuss why Hyper was removed from curl, why the last five percent of making it a success was difficult, what the project gained from the 5-year attempt to tackle bringing Rust into a C project, lessons learned for next time, why user support is critical, and the positive long-lasting impact this attempt had. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.
About Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers
Software Engineering Radio is a podcast targeted at the professional software developer. The goal is to be a lasting educational resource, not a newscast. SE Radio covers all topics software engineering. Episodes are either tutorials on a specific topic, or an interview with a well-known character from the software engineering world. All SE Radio episodes are original content — we do not record conferences or talks given in other venues. SE Radio is brought to you by the IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.
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