SEEK Bytes

This is a special SEEK Bytes drop – outside the regular Season 3 line-up – because the recent Axios NPM hack is too important to ignore. In this episode of SEEK Bytes the crew sit down with Eldar Marcussen from SEEK’s offensive security team to unpack what actually happened, why supply-chain attacks are so scary, and what you should do today to reduce your risk.

In this episode you’ll learn:
• What a supply-chain attack really is – how a single malicious dependency in a trusted package like Axios can silently run on thousands of machines, and why closed-source software isn’t magically safer.
• What to do if you think you’ve been hit – practical first moves for companies and individuals: rotating keys, rebuilding or containerising machines, reviewing logs, and knowing when to call in your security team.
• How to raise the bar for attackers – simple habits like pinning and ageing dependencies, using tools like Docker and alternative package managers, relying on built-in protection like Windows Defender, and staying alert to sketchy extensions and “too good to be true” downloads.

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SEEK Bytes is back for Season 3 on 22 April, and we’re turning things up a notch with a major focus on AI of course. This season dives into the real world of working in tech today – from AI reshaping how we build and secure systems, to the culture, careers and decisions that make or break modern engineering teams.
Whether you’re a seasoned developer, just starting out in IT, or simply curious about how technology is changing work, Season 3 brings you sharp, honest conversations straight from the engineers, designers and security experts living it every day.

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Thinking about moving from hands-on coding to people leadership – or just wanting more control over your engineering career? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, we sit down with Gladys Lim, an Engineering Manager based in Kuala Lumpar who leads squads in SEEK’s monetisation & insights domain, building products that keep hirers coming back

This episode's special guest: Gladys Lim (SEEK Engineering Manager - based in Kuala Lumpur)

Gladys shares her journey from barcode integrations and games dev to full-stack engineer and, eventually, EM – including what surprised her about loving people leadership, how she navigated a jarring feedback-loop shift, and why management is a different career path, not just a promotion. She gets real about imposter syndrome, being a woman in tech across APAC, hiring for diverse teams, and using empathy, vulnerability and structure to make mentoring actually work.

In this episode you’ll learn:
• What it really means to shift from IC to EM – from instant code feedback to months-long people outcomes, delegating without micromanaging, and redefining success as enabling the team, not being the strongest coder.
• How to navigate imposter syndrome and bias – using facts to reframe negative self-talk, turning comparison into learning, and creating inclusive rituals so quieter and under-represented voices are actually heard.
• How to take charge of your career and mentorship – clarifying your motivations, choosing between IC and leadership paths, saying “no” when the fit or timing is wrong, and designing mentoring relationships that serve your specific growth goals.

If you’re a software engineer, data/IT professional, team lead or aspiring manager wondering whether people leadership is for you – or how to better support the EMs you work with – this episode is packed with honest stories, practical tactics and career advice you can apply today.

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Heard of “clean architecture” but not sure what it looks like in real code? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, Seamus, Will and Adam Kreidels (Head of Engineering, Monetisation & Insights at SEEK) are back for Part 2 of their deep dive – unpacking entities, use cases, gateways, the dependency rule and the famous “onion” diagram in a way any IT pro can apply.

This episode's special guest: Adam Kreitals (SEEK Head of Engineering, Monetisation & Insights)

In this episode, we explore:
• Why “start with the database” slows you down – and how leading with business rules and use cases speeds up delivery.
• How entities, use cases and gateways work together – using price, order and discount examples from SEEK to show clean seams between domain and tech.
• How clean architecture reduces the cost of change – what good separation of concerns looks like in code, and how to spot when frameworks and APIs are leaking into your core domain.

If you’re a software engineer, tech lead, architect, SRE, platform engineer or IT manager who wants code that survives framework swaps, org changes and new requirements – and you liked Part 1 – this Part 2 episode gives you the concrete concepts, terminology and mental models to put clean architecture into practice.

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Ever wondered what a technical product manager actually does – and why every modern tech org seems to want one? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, Will is joined by Leon Belobrov and Alex Stewart-James to unpack how SEEK builds platform products that power everything from candidate apps to internal tooling – and what it means to be a PM for APIs instead of UIs.

This episode's special guests: Leon Belobrov (SEEK Principal Product Manager, Platform) and Alex Stewart-James (SEEK Snr Technical Product Manager)

They break down what makes TPMs a bit of a “unicorn role” – blending deep product thinking with enough technical context to serve engineers as their primary customers – and why internal platforms, APIs and deployment pipelines are becoming just as important as customer-facing apps.
You’ll hear how SEEK uses jobs-to-be-done research with engineers, metrics like time-to-10th PR, and platform reliability/security KPIs to prioritise what gets built – and what gets cut.

In this episode you’ll learn:
• The real difference between a “regular” PM and a TPM – including why serving engineers, focusing on APIs and reusable capabilities, and obsessing over platform reliability changes how you think about product.
• How SEEK discovers what engineers actually need – from interviewing 25+ engineers across the business to mapping their pain points into jobs-to-be-done and opportunity scores, instead of just building what the loudest voice wants.
• Practical advice if you want to move into TPM or work better with platforms – including dogfooding, avoiding over-engineering, and remembering that “you are not your customer” even when you’re an engineer building for engineers.

If you’re a software engineer, platform/DevOps engineer, BA, product manager or IT leader curious about platform teams, internal products and where technical PMs fit into modern tech orgs, this episode gives you a front-row view into how SEEK does it – and how you might shape a similar path.

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