Engineering Matters is celebrating its fifth anniversary this week. Podcast founders Bernadette Ballantyne and Jon Young, along with the rest of the Engineering Matters team, tell the story of the show’s creation and rapid growth, and share a behind-the-scenes look at how some of our favourite and most popular episodes have been put together.

Engineering Matters launched at a time when few had heard of podcasts. We were soon seeing thousands of listeners for each episode. Today, every episode is downloaded by over 40,000 people, and many have achieved double those download rates. Our success has been recognised by the publishing industry, with the show winning ‘Best Technology Podcast’ three years in a row; a ‘Podcasting Hero’ award for our sound engineer, Ross MacPherson; and a special award for our unique commercial model.

The entire run of the show—218 episodes so far—can be listened to without adverts, with every episode available for free. Our partnered episodes, supported by leading engineering firms, are produced with the same editorial standards as our independent episodes. We’ll be doing more over the coming year to promote innovation in the engineering sector, as we launch the first Engineering Matters awards.

Hosts

Bernadette Ballantyne, co-founder, Engineering Matters

Jon Young, co-founder, series supervisor, Engineering Matters

Contributors

Ross MacPherson, sound engineer, Engineering Matters

Alex Conacher, producer, Engineering Matters

Johnnie Dowling, producer, Engineering Matters

Will North, producer, Engineering Matters.