Preparing for Q-Day

Preparing for Q-Day

Author: softwareengineeringdaily.com June 16, 2026 Duration: 44:02
Most of the cryptography securing the internet today rests on mathematical problems that classical computers cannot solve in any reasonable timeframe. That assumption is now being tested. Recent advances in quantum computing have dramatically compressed timelines, and many in the industry have set a target of full post-quantum security by 2029, meaning a complete migration to algorithms designed to remain secure against quantum attacks. Bas Westerbaan is a cryptography engineer at Cloudflare, where he leads the company’s efforts to migrate to post-quantum cryptography. In this episode, Bas joins Kevin Ball to discuss how quantum computers threaten public key cryptography, what post-quantum algorithms actually are and how they work, the timeline shifts that have made quantum readiness feel so urgent, and what software engineers need to do now to prepare their systems. Kevin Ball or KBall, is the vice president of engineering at Mento and an independent coach for engineers and engineering leaders. He co-founded and served as CTO for two companies, founded the San Diego JavaScript meetup, and organizes the AI inaction discussion group through Latent Space.   Please click here to see the transcript of this episode. Sponsorship inquiries: sponsor@softwareengineeringdaily.com

For anyone curious about how the code running our world actually gets built, Software Engineering Daily offers a clear and consistent look behind the curtain. This isn't about hype cycles or surface-level news; it's a deep, technical conversation with the engineers, architects, and thinkers who are shaping our digital infrastructure. Each episode focuses on a specific technology, practice, or problem, breaking down complex systems into understandable parts. You'll hear detailed discussions on everything from database architectures and programming language design to the organizational challenges of scaling teams and the real-world trade-offs made in production systems. Hosted by softwareengineeringdaily.com, the podcast serves as a reliable source for developers who want to stay informed and inspired, translating the rapid pace of technological change into substantive, lasting knowledge. It’s for professionals who believe that understanding the "how" and "why" is just as important as knowing the "what." By dedicating time to thorough exploration, this podcast provides context that shorter formats simply cannot, making it an essential resource for anyone building the future, one line of code at a time. Tune in to hear unfiltered insights from the people on the front lines, discussing the tools and decisions that define modern software engineering.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 50

Software Engineering Daily
Podcast Episodes
Engineering AI Systems for Autonomy and Resilience with Krishna Sai [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:14
Enterprise IT systems have grown into sprawling, highly distributed environments spanning cloud infrastructure, applications, data platforms, and increasingly AI-driven workloads. Observability tools have made it easier…
Inside China’s Great Firewall with Jackson Sippe [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:40
China's Great Firewall is often spoken about but is rarely understood. It is one of the most sophisticated and opaque censorship systems on the planet, and it shapes how over a billion people interact with the global int…
Optimizing Agent Behavior in Production with Gideon Mendels [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:25
LLM -powered systems continue to move steadily into production, but this process is presenting teams with challenges that traditional software practices don't commonly encounter. Models and agents are non-deterministic s…
Gas Town, Beads, and the Rise of Agentic Development with Steve Yegge [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:10:37
AI-assisted programming has moved far beyond autocomplete. Large language models are now capable of editing entire codebases, coordinating long-running tasks, and collaborating across multiple systems. As these capabilit…
Python 3.14 with Łukasz Langa [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:30
Python 3.14 is here and continues Python’s evolution toward greater performance, scalability, and usability. The new release formally supports free-threaded, no-GIL mode, introduces template string literals, and implemen…
Airbnb’s Open-Source GraphQL Framework with Adam Miskiewicz [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 56:12
Engineering teams often build microservices as their systems grow, but over time this can lead to a fragmented ecosystem with scattered data access patterns, duplicated business logic, and an uneven developer experience.…
OpenAI and Codex with Thibault Sottiaux and Ed Bayes [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:09
AI coding agents are rapidly reshaping how software is built, reviewed, and maintained. As large language model capabilities continue to increase, the bottleneck in software development is shifting away from code generat…
Production-Grade AI Systems with Fred Roma [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:49
Engineering teams around the world are building AI-focused applications or integrating AI features into existing products. The AI development ecosystem is maturing, which is accelerating how quickly these applications ca…