SE Radio 673: Abhinav Kimothi on Retrieval-Augmented Generation

SE Radio 673: Abhinav Kimothi on Retrieval-Augmented Generation

Author: team@se-radio.net (SE-Radio Team) June 18, 2025 Duration: 55:55
Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers
TechnologyEducation

In this episode of Software Engineering Radio, Abhinav Kimothi sits down with host Priyanka Raghavan to explore retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), drawing insights from Abhinav's book, A Simple Guide to Retrieval-Augmented Generation.

The conversation begins with an introduction to key concepts, including large language models (LLMs), context windows, RAG, hallucinations, and real-world use cases. They then delve into the essential components and design considerations for building a RAG-enabled system, covering topics such as retrievers, prompt augmentation, indexing pipelines, retrieval strategies, and the generation process.

The discussion also touches on critical aspects like data chunking and the distinctions between open-source and pre-trained models. The episode concludes with a forward-looking perspective on the future of RAG and its evolving role in the industry.

Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.


For developers who build the world's most critical systems, Software Engineering Radio offers deep, substantive conversations that move beyond the hype cycle. This isn't about quick tips or news flashes; it's a dedicated audio library for career engineers seeking to solidify their foundational knowledge and explore advanced concepts. Each episode is crafted as an enduring resource, featuring either a comprehensive tutorial breaking down a specific technology or methodology, or a detailed interview with a leading practitioner shaping the field. You'll hear focused discussions on everything from low-level systems architecture and programming language design to team dynamics and project management, all through the lens of professional software creation. The content is exclusively produced for this podcast, ensuring thoughtful, in-depth analysis you won't find simply repackaged from conference talks. If your work demands a rigorous understanding of the craft, this is the podcast for you.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

Official website RSS
spotifydeezer
Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers
Podcast Episodes
SE Radio 626: Ipek Ozkaya on Gen AI for Software Architecture [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:33
Ipek Ozkaya, Principal Researcher and Technical Director of the Engineering Intelligent Software Systems group at the Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon, discusses generative AI for Software Architecture wit…
SE Radio 624: Marcelo Trylesinski on FastAPI [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:04
Marcelo Trylesinski, a senior software engineer at Pydantic and a maintainer of open-source Python tools including Starlette and Uvicorn, joins host Gregory M. Kapfhammer to talk about FastAPI. Their conversation focuses…
SE Radio 623: Michael J. Freedman on TimescaleDB [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:05:43
Michael J. Freedman, the Robert E. Kahn Professor in the Computer Science Department at Princeton University, as well as the co-founder and CTO of Timescale, spoke with SE Radio host Gavin Henry about TimescaleDB. They r…
SE Radio 622: Wolf Vollprecht on Python Tooling in Rust [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:10
Wolf Vollprecht, the CEO and founder of Prefix.dev, speaks with host Gregory M. Kapfhammer about how to implement Python tools, such as package managers, in the Rust programming language. They discuss the challenges asso…
SE Radio 621: Xe Iaso on Fly.io [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:33
Xe Iaso of Fly.io discusses their hosting platform with host Jeremy Jung. They cover building globally distributed applications with Anycast, using Wireguard to encrypt inter-service communication, writing custom code to…
SE Radio 619: James Strong on Kubernetes Networking [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:55
Infrastructure engineer and Kubernetes ingress-Nginx maintainer James Strong joins host Robert Blumen to discuss the Kubernetes networking layer. The discussion draws on content from Strong's book on the topic and covers…
SE Radio 618: Andreas Møller on No-Code Platforms [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:53
Andreas Møller, founder of Toddle, a no-code tool for building scalable performant web applications, speaks with SE Radio's Brijesh Ammanath about no-code platforms. They discuss the role of developers in a no-code ecosy…

«1...678910