This week we take an in-depth look at USAID’s localization report. While in certain countries the agency has already significantly surpassed its localization target, in others it is struggling to get close to it. We discuss why that might be and contemplate how USAID can get closer to channeling 25% of its eligible dollars to local levels by 2025.

On the topic of USAID, we also dive into the findings of an investigation by the USAID Office of Inspector General that show the agency did not consistently use the proper mechanisms to oversee awards to the United Nations, the World Bank, and other multilateral agencies.

We also explore how Humanity United is working to refine its approach to participatory grantmaking by aiming to provide money in a way that is more aligned with the priorities of grassroots organizations.

To discuss these stories, and others, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sits down with David Ainsworth and Elissa Miolene for the latest episode of our weekly podcast series. 

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This Week in Global Dev: #62: The uneven localization landscape, and an investigation at USAID

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.
In this podcast Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods spoke to Olalekan Elesin about how generative AI tools can elevate the developer experience by enabling engineers to be more creative and productive.  He stresses the need to manage expectations, develop prompt engineering skills, and maintain a focus on security and customer privacy when leveraging these tools in an enterprise setting.

Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3ZTSxrw

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InfoQ Podcast

Transcript

Leveraging AI Platforms to Improve Developer Experience – From Personal Hackathon to AI at Scale

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.
In this podcast Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods spoke to Austin Vance, about the importance of intentional onboarding and culture-building, as well as his company's unique approach to compensation and the role of managers in retaining top talent.

Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3Bvsk9n

Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies:
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Upcoming Events:

QCon London (April 7-9, 2025)
Discover new ideas and insights from senior practitioners driving change and innovation in software development.
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Actionable insights on today’s critical dev priorities.
devsummit.infoq.com/conference/boston2025

InfoQ Dev Summit Munich (Save the date - October 2025)

QCon San Francisco 2025 (17-21, 2025)
Get practical inspiration and best practices on emerging software trends directly from senior software developers at early adopter companies.
https://qconsf.com/ 

InfoQ Dev Summit New York (Save the date - December 2025)


The InfoQ Podcasts: 
Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts:

- The InfoQ Podcast https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/ 
- Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture 
- Generally AI: https://www.infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast/ 

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Intentional Culture and Continuous Compensation: An Interview with Austin Vance

As we kickstart 2025, we speak to Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar about the trends he believes will shape global development this coming year. We examine how significant shifts, including reduced government funding in traditionally generous countries and the evolving role of philanthropy, will impact the sector.

We also revisit our exclusive interview with USAID chief Samantha Power and highlight key takeaways from the agency's latest report on localization.

What does the incoming Trump administration mean for The World Bank? What can we expect from Davos? 

To dig into these topics and others Senior Reporter Adva Saldinger sits down with Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar and Global Development Reporter Elissa Miolene to dissect for the latest episode of our weekly podcast series, with a look ahead to the World Economic Forum.

Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters:
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This Week in Global Dev: #80: What are the key global development trends to watch in 2025?

This week we were closely following the lawsuits filed against the Trump administration for freezing U.S. foreign assistance. One of the lawsuits targets Elon Musk, stating that the billionaire has decimated the U.S. Agency for International Development without the authority to do so. However, the government appears to be determined to fight back against those who are ready to challenge its decisions. 

We also look back at the Munich Security Conference, where we were media partners. From conversations on food security to the attendance of U.S. Vice President JD Vance, we discuss the key takeaways from the event. 

For the latest episode of our podcast series, Devex Business Editor David Ainsworth sits down with Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar, and Devex Managing Editor Anna Gawel, to dig into these stories and more. 

Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters:
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This Week in Global Dev: #85: In legal limbo: Inside the lawsuits against Trump's aid freeze

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.
In this podcast, Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke with Trisha Gee about the challenges and importance of addressing flaky tests, their impact on developer productivity and morale, best practices for testing, and broader concepts of measuring and improving developer productivity.

Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4iiUC6a

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Essential insights on critical software development priorities.
https://devsummit.infoq.com/conference/munich2025

QCon San Francisco 2025 (November 17-21, 2025)
Get practical inspiration and best practices on emerging software trends directly from senior software developers at early adopter companies.
https://qconsf.com/ 

QCon AI NYC 2025 (December 16-17, 2025)
https://ai.qconferences.com/

The InfoQ Podcasts: 
Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts:

- The InfoQ Podcast https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/ 
- Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture 
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Taming Flaky Tests: Trisha Gee on Developer Productivity and Testing Best Practices

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.
In this podcast, Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods spoke to Erin Doyle about her journey as a generalist engineer, her passion for web accessibility, the importance of empathy and psychological safety in engineering teams, and her commitment to building better developer experiences by fostering collaboration, continuous learning, and vulnerability among technical professionals.

Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4jHqL8I

Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies:
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Upcoming Events:

InfoQ Dev Summit Boston (June 9-10, 2025)
Actionable insights on today’s critical dev priorities.
devsummit.infoq.com/conference/boston2025

InfoQ Dev Summit Munich (October 15-16, 2025)
Essential insights on critical software development priorities.
https://devsummit.infoq.com/conference/munich2025

QCon San Francisco 2025 (November 17-21, 2025)
Get practical inspiration and best practices on emerging software trends directly from senior software developers at early adopter companies.
https://qconsf.com/ 

QCon AI New York 2025 (December 16-17, 2025)
https://ai.qconferences.com/

The InfoQ Podcasts: 
Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts:

- The InfoQ Podcast https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/ 
- Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture 
- Generally AI: https://www.infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast/ 

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Building Empathy and Accessibility: Fostering Better Engineering Cultures and Developer Experiences

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.
This is the Engineering Culture Trends Report for 2025. Featuring the InfoQ editorial team and special guest Charity Majors, they discuss how AI is transforming software development with dramatic productivity gains alongside quality concerns, emphasize the continued importance of team collaboration, observability, engineering metrics, and mentorship of junior engineers in creating high-performing software teams.

Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/42F8TWt

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Actionable insights on today’s critical dev priorities.
devsummit.infoq.com/conference/boston2025

InfoQ Dev Summit Munich (October 15-16, 2025)
Essential insights on critical software development priorities.
https://devsummit.infoq.com/conference/munich2025

QCon San Francisco 2025 (November 17-21, 2025)
Get practical inspiration and best practices on emerging software trends directly from senior software developers at early adopter companies.
https://qconsf.com/ 

QCon AI New York 2025 (December 16-17, 2025)
https://ai.qconferences.com/

The InfoQ Podcasts: 
Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts:

- The InfoQ Podcast https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/ 
- Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture 
- Generally AI: https://www.infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast/ 

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InfoQ Culture & Methods Trends in 2025

Platform Engineering  auttaa kehittäjiä lentämään, parantaen DevExiä itsepalvelutyökaluin.

Platform Engineering-Kehittäjät lentoon (DevEx)

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.
In this podcast, Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Jon Kern and Anita Zbieg about how AI amplifies both delivery efficiency and weaknesses in development teams, the importance of fundamental collaboration practices, and maintaining holistic system thinking.

Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4nORJNh

Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies:
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Upcoming Events:

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Get practical inspiration and best practices on emerging software trends directly from senior software developers at early adopter companies.
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https://ai.qconferences.com/

QCon London 2026 (March 16-19, 2026)
https://qconlondon.com/

The InfoQ Podcasts: 
Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts:

- The InfoQ Podcast https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/ 
- Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture 
- Generally AI: https://www.infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast/ 

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Write for InfoQ: Learn and share the changes and innovations in professional software development.
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AI Amplifies Team Strengths and Weaknesses in Software Development

Software engineers, architects and team leads have found inspiration to build better, high performing teams by listening to the weekly InfoQ Podcast. We have achieved that by interviewing some of the top CTOs, engineers and technology directors from companies like Uber, Netflix and more. Over 500,000 downloads in the last 3 years.

We're the world’s leading independent news organization covering global development.

We’re a real word engineering studio—AI-generated audio, powered by content from real-world experts.

New tracks tagged #DevEx