The Backend Engineering Show with Hussein Nasser

Hussein Nasser has been breaking down backend engineering concepts on this show since 2018, and the depth he brings to each topic is genuinely impressive. With over 500 episodes in the catalog, he covers everything from PostgreSQL performance tuning and HTTP/2 internals to operating system page tables and kernel-level memory management. The episodes are audio versions of his popular YouTube content, so if you already watch his videos, this is the same material in a format you can absorb during a commute or workout. What makes Hussein stand out is his ability to take dense infrastructure topics and explain them clearly without dumbing things down. He'll walk through how a database handles connection pooling, then pivot to analyzing a real cloud outage and what went wrong architecturally. Episodes run anywhere from 10 minutes for quick explainers to over an hour for deep technical walkthroughs. Most land in that 25-to-50-minute sweet spot. The show is solo-hosted, which means you get Hussein's unfiltered take on each subject. He has strong opinions about system design tradeoffs and he's not afraid to share them. If you're a backend developer trying to understand what's actually happening under the hood of the systems you build, or you're preparing for system design interviews, this podcast delivers practical knowledge you can use immediately. The 4.9-star rating from listeners backs that up.