Shadowing Practice: The hottest programming skill in 2026 - Learn English Speaking with Video

Systems thinking.

That's it.

You can end the video right now.

Every programming era had its own hot skill,

whether you were writing Java in the 90s,

PHP in the 2000s, Ruby in 2010,

and in 2026, aside from token maxing, it's systems thinking.

But what exactly is systems thinking?

It's understanding how each part of a system interacts over time.

Think of it like this.

You work at the Krusty Krab,

you can make a banger Krabby Patty,

but that's only one feature of the Krusty Krab.

How do they scale to a thousand Krabby Patties per hour.

What happens when the fryer breaks?

Or worse, Patrick is your waiter.

Systems thinking has its roots in biology,

and it can be applied to many different fields.

Supply chain management, market dynamics,

traffic, and of course, software engineering.

Nowadays, anytime we hear systems and programming,

we immediately think of system design interview questions.

But that's only a part of it.

Systems thinking and software engineering have an old relationship,

and it's only getting more prominent as time passes.

And I have some charts to back it A16Z published this graph showing software jobs are going up.

I personally hate these graphs.

Not because I'm Mr. Dario,

I was meant to replace you 24 months ago, agentic pilled.

But I hate seeing these graphs because it doesn't clarify what kind of software jobs are going up.

Do you really think the demand for Pascal developers is going up?

Really, bro?

Thankfully, there's always a programmer with some spare time and a banger blog that did the research for me.

This graph shows off the number of job postings by each job title.

Look at the top three.

They all develop carpal tunnel, but also systems.

Look at machine learning engineers.

They use tools like PyTorch, Kafka, Kubernetes.

They use these tools to build stuff like fraud detection algorithms,

which can analyze millions of transactions so your credit card isn't used in Belarus to buy an iPhone.

The fraud detection algorithm is a system.

Similarly, data engineers and backend engineers,

when they're not gluing APIs together, they're building systems.

The ability to think in systems is so hot right now.

Anthropic has a section on their careers page just for infrastructure software engineers.

Even the latest jobs coming out of the GPT wrapper factories.

They're about making the use of LLMs more efficient, which is a system.

Hopefully I've sold you on the importance of systems thinking,

so now you can go learn about it.

Learning systems is harder than anything else in programming,

since you can't just replicate the scale of millions of users.

Except, there is one way.

Playing Factorio.

I'm not even kidding.

Factorio is a game where you learn how to build systems.

For those that are unaware,

the premise of the game is that you crash land on a planet,

you need to build a rocket to escape.

To build that rocket, you need to get resources.

To get those resources, you need to build systems and get really good at building them.

Factorio is the most underrated way to learn about large-scale systems and actually get some experience,

because it teaches you about impact,

bottlenecks, and how to continuously improve a large-scale system.

There's this amazing video by Tony Zhu that goes over the relationship between Factorio and software engineering.

Another unconventional way of learning about systems thinking is by watching Kevin Fang and reading the Cloudflare outage postmortems.

If you want a more conventional method,

you could always read this excellent book called Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows.

Now if you're absolutely insistent on building a project,

you can look up public repositories of massive datasets and use that to stress test your project,

whether it's by benchmarking how quickly you read and write to the database,

or seeing if your front-end code can actually handle that much data.

Fundamentally, systems have always been a part of software engineering,

and it is the strongest skill you can learn right now,

whether you're into back-end, front-end, or even game dev.

Understanding how something as granular as your code fits into the bigger picture will always be valuable.

And hey, at least you have an excuse to get good at Factorio now.

You'll also get more time to play Factorio by using the sponsor of today's video,

Convex, the backend platform that keeps your app in sync.

In modern programming, you're not really just programming anymore.

You're spending half your time coordinating between your frontend,

backend, database, and whatever other shenanigans you have going on.

I'm not judging, but essentially you've been reduced to the dude in front of the orchestra with the pointy stick.

Not anymore though, Convex finally lets you build again.

Instead of gluing services together,

your backend is just TypeScript functions.

You write functions to read and write data,

and Convex handles a database,

APIs, and syncing between everything automatically.

And look at this sync bro, so smooth, so crispy.

And is that real-time updates between two users?

Convex fits right into the TypeScript ecosystem you're already using,

and you can also use it it with a few friendly faces.

No more raw dogging squeal,

no more glue engineering, no more cash invalidation,

and no more shadowboxing with your app to keep it in sync.

You owe it to yourself to go to bigboxsweet.dev slash convex.

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Woordenschat en spreektips bij deze les

Deze spreekles op niveau C1 is gebaseerd op de video “The hottest programming skill in 2026”. Deze woorden komen het vaakst terug: thinking, software, Factorio, build, convex. Deze video bevat 96 zinnen en 909 woorden om na te spreken. Het gesproken deel duurt 4:15. De spreker praat snel, ongeveer 214 woorden per minuut, dus reken op verbonden en ingeslikte klanken. Slechts 79% van de woorden hoort bij de 3.000 meest gebruikte Engelse woorden, dus de woordenschat is pittig.

Belangrijke woorden in deze video

De 15 moeilijkste woorden uit de video, met uitspraak en betekenis:

Woord	Uitspraak	Betekenis
convex bijvoeglijk naamwoord	/ˈkɑn.vɛks/	bol
graph zelfstandig naamwoord	/ɡɹæf/	grafiek
glue zelfstandig naamwoord	/ɡlu/	lijm
algorithm zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈælɡəɹɪðm̩/	algoritme
bottleneck zelfstandig naamwoord		flessenhals
outage zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈaʊ.tɪd͡ʒ/	panne
pointy bijvoeglijk naamwoord	/ˈpɔɪnti/	puntig
repository zelfstandig naamwoord	/ɹɪˈpɒz.ɪ.t(ə.)ɹɪ/	opslagplaats, depot
shenanigans zelfstandig naamwoord	/ʃɪˈnæn.ɪ.ɡənz/	bedrog, valsspelerij
squeal werkwoord	/skwil/	snierken, krijsen
wrapper zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈɹæpɚ/	omslag, verpakking
programmer zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈpɹoʊɡɹæmɚ/	programmeur
benchmark zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈbɛn(t)ʃmɑːk/	ijkpunt, maatstaf
waiter zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈweɪ̯təː/	ober, kelner
underrated bijvoeglijk naamwoord	/ʌn.dɚˈɹeɪ.təd/	ondergewaardeerd

Phrasal verbs die je zult horen

Woord	Uitspraak	Betekenis
look up werkwoord	/ˌlʊk ˈʌp/	opkijken
show off werkwoord		zich aanstellen, pronken met

Grammatica in deze video

De structuren die de spreker het meest gebruikt, met de exacte woorden uit de video:

Structuur	In de video
Present perfect have/has + voltooid deelwoord — iets uit het verleden dat nu nog telt	I've sold · have always been · you've been reduced
Lijdende vorm be + voltooid deelwoord — het gaat om wat er gebeurt, niet om wie het doet	can be applied · was meant · you've been reduced

Uitspraak om op te letten

De spreker gebruikt 17 samentrekkingen en verkorte vormen, zoals you're, I'm, they're. Spreek ze kort uit, zoals je ze hoort.

De “th”-klanken: algorithm /ˈælɡəɹɪðm̩/, anthropic /ænˈθɹɒp.ɪk/
De klanken “sh” en “zh”: detection /dɪˈtɛk.ʃən/, invalidation /ɪnˌvæl.əˈdeɪ.ʃən/, shenanigans /ʃɪˈnæn.ɪ.ɡənz/, benchmark /ˈbɛn(t)ʃmɑːk/
Lange woorden — let op de klemtoon: invalidation /ɪnˌvæl.əˈdeɪ.ʃən/, repository /ɹɪˈpɒz.ɪ.t(ə.)ɹɪ/, shenanigans /ʃɪˈnæn.ɪ.ɡənz/, underrated /ʌn.dɚˈɹeɪ.təd/, ecosystem /ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/

Klanken die Nederlandstaligen lastig vinden:

Stemhebbende eindmedeklinker — /b/, /d/, /g/, /z/, /v/ niet verscherpen: outage /ˈaʊ.tɪd͡ʒ/, shenanigans /ʃɪˈnæn.ɪ.ɡənz/, underrated /ʌn.dɚˈɹeɪ.təd/, analyze /ˈæn.əˌlaɪz/
/æ/ — opener dan de Nederlandse “e”: graph /ɡɹæf/, banger /ˈbæŋ.ə/, algorithm /ˈælɡəɹɪðm̩/, anthropic /ænˈθɹɒp.ɪk/, granular /ˈɡɹæn.jə.lə(ɹ)/
/g/ — een harde plofklank, geen Nederlandse “g”: graph /ɡɹæf/, glue /ɡlu/, algorithm /ˈælɡəɹɪðm̩/, granular /ˈɡɹæn.jə.lə(ɹ)/, shenanigans /ʃɪˈnæn.ɪ.ɡənz/

Zo oefen je met deze video

Luister de hele video één keer zonder te spreken en noteer de woorden die je niet kent.
Begin op 0,75× snelheid, spreek zin voor zin na en ga terug naar normale snelheid zodra het makkelijk gaat.
Neem jezelf op en vergelijk met het origineel; let daarbij op woorden als convex, graph, glue.

Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?

Shadowing is een wetenschappelijk onderbouwde taalleermethode die oorspronkelijk is ontwikkeld voor professionele tolkentraining en gepopulariseerd door polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. De methode is eenvoudig maar krachtig: je luistert naar native Engelse audio en herhaalt het onmiddellijk hardop — als een schaduw die de spreker volgt met slechts 1–2 seconden vertraging. In tegenstelling tot passief luisteren of grammaticadrills, dwingt shadowing je hersenen en mondspieren om echte spraakpatronen tegelijkertijd te verwerken en te reproduceren. Onderzoek toont aan dat het de uitspraaknauwkeurigheid, intonatie, ritme, verbonden spraak, luisterbegrip en spreekvaardigheid aanzienlijk verbetert — waardoor het een van de meest effectieve methoden is voor IELTS Speaking-voorbereiding en echte Engelse communicatie.

Shadowing-techniek: lees de volledige stap-voor-stap-gids →

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