Refactoring Podcast

Today's guest is David Heinemeier Hansson! David is the creator of Rails, co-founder & CTO of Basecamp, a NYT bestselling author, and professional racing driver for 10+ years! In our chat, we explored many of David's strong opinions on software development, including today's excessive complexity in software and infrastructure, the role of AI, and the future of open source. We also talked about his racing and how he approaches learning any topic from scratch. Here is what we talked about: (02:20) Introduction (03:42) Merchants of Complexity (13:19) Innovating the dev experience (21:53) Complexity in small projects (28:14) Incentives hurt open source (32:49) Subscription vs ONCE (35:24) David and AI (47:27) Using AI as training wheels (49:42) The art of learning — This episode is brought to you by sleuth.io — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club

Today's guest is Henry Poydar! Henry is CEO and founder at Steady, with more than 25 years of experience in tech leadership roles. With Henry, we talked about continuous coordination, an open source framework he co-created, providing a set of principles and practices for running modern, effective engineering teams. Here is what we talked about: (01:25) Introduction (02:25) Henry's Career (13:23) Create async communication (16:47) Keeping a steady beat (23:02) Define a necessary meeting (26:00) The proper alignment (30:58) Applying continuous coordination (37:06) Discovering how your team works (38:38) Managing in the AI era (44:27) How remote can improve working (48:20) How AI is affecting team work — This episode is brought to you by sleuth.io — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club

Today's guest is Dana Lawson! Dana is CTO at Netlify and held leadership roles at incredible companies like GitHub, New Relic, InVision, and more. With Dana, we talked about her journey, starting in the military, becoming a manager and major lessons she has learned. We also talked about how to hire engineers, how to create a diverse and inclusive team, and the impact of AI on engineering. Here is what we talked about: (01:25) Introduction (02:07) Dana's tech journey (08:43) Career's tipping points (14:53) Balancing technical and managing skills (19:32) Connecting is key (22:11) Hiring in 2024 (28:04) How AI is affecting hiring (32:54) Pursuing diversity in a team (43:39) Pushing boundaries and growth (45:47) Integrating AI in the workflow — This episode is brought to you by sleuth.io — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠⁠⁠ — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club

Today's guest is Irina Stanescu! Irina is a full-time engineering coach, course instructor, and former manager at Uber and Google. With Irina, we talked about her journey through Silicon Valley, big tech, and high growth startups, balancing IC and management duties, and achieving impact through influence. Here is what we talked about: (01:21) Introduction (02:02) Irina’s first steps (06:10) Joining Google (08:15) From Google to Uber (10:16) Being a young TLM (14:34) The restraints of a TLM (18:14) Uber vs Google (22:01) Impact through influence (28:09) Training your influence skills (35:42) Applying influence in specific roles (38:04) How to be an helpful EM — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠⁠ — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club

Today's guest is Greg Foster! Greg is CTO at Graphite, a tool that helps teams doing better code reviews, and smaller and faster code changes. With Greg, we talked about what good code reviews look like, how AI is changing the development process, and how the Graphite engineering team works. Here is what we talked about: (02:01) Introduction (03:06) What is Graphite? (05:05) Graphite's code reviewing (09:58) Combining different workflows (13:07) Monorepos vs polyrepos (17:28) Conducting code reviews (21:57) The landscape of automated review (25:09) The hidden meaning behind skipping code reviews (27:43) Common mistakes (29:53) Integrating AI in code review (34:36) AI - human balance (38:27) Tech apprenticeship in the AI era (41:14) Graphite's structure (45:15) A dev tool from devs (47:23) Delivery process at Graphite — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠ — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club

Today's guest is Malte Ubl! Malte is CTO at Vercel, the frontend cloud provider, and creator and maintainer of Next.js, the most popular React framework. Malte has also been Engineer Director at Google, where he led Google Search for desktop computers. With Malte, we deep dived into how Vercel works as a team, what could developer experience look like, and the future of AI-enabled applications. Here is what we talked about: (01:21) Introduction (02:17) How Vercel works (05:01) Vercel team strategy (06:29) The journey of a new code (13:45) Do we need engineering managers? (16:59) Necessary and useless roles (22:51) Vercel' developing strategy (33:19) The ideal development process (37:25) Finding and avoiding bottlenecks (40:48) Thoughts on AI shift (47:46) Adapting software to AI interaction (53:01) AI and open source — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠ — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.clubu can also find this at: - 📬 Newsletter: https://refactoring.fm - 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Luds9dmzZDoDC8Q7EMbSw - 📱 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/refactoring-podcast/id1719137305 — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club

Today's guest is Anna Shipman! Anna is CTO at Kooth, former Technical Director at Financial Times, a Keynote speaker and accomplished author. With Anna, we talked about her journey in tech and how to develop a good technical strategy, drawing from stories and examples from her 20 plus years of engineering experience. Here is what we talked about: (00:54) Introduction (01:20) Anna's journey in Tech (06:36) Going from public to private (09:17) What does Kooth do? (12:53) Technical strategy definition (15:01) Applying the strategy (24:53) Improving over time (30:10) The strategy framework (33:38) The pitfalls of setting up a strategy (36:23) Converge team and strategy (41:45) The strategist authority Here are a few articles and resources that were mentioned throughout the interview: A faster FT.com No next next Building Kooth Anna’s website — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠ — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club

Today's guest is Rebecca Murphey. Rebecca is field CTO at Swarmia, former manager at Stripe and Indeed, and the author of Build: Elements of an Effective Software Organization. With Rebecca, we talked about her journey through Indeed, Stripe and Swarmia and the three pillars of her book, business outcomes, developer productivity, and developer experience. Here is what we talked about: (00:58) Introduction (02:15) Rebecca's Journey (08:24) Joining Swarmia (15:02) 1st Pillar: Business outcomes (23:08) Team structure & Company architecture (29:18) Keeping the lights on (33:56) 2nd Pillar: Developer productivity (38:44) Using numbers in the right way (43:25) The best way of working (51:07) 3rd Pillar: Developer experience (56:52) The effects of "Build" on Swarmia — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠

Today's guest is Rachel Potvin. Rachel is SVP of Engineering at Sanity, ex-VP of Engineering at Github, and previously worked at Google and Ubisoft. She has had an incredible career journey and is a world renowned speaker. With Rachel we talked about her journey across what feels like different generations of companies. We talked about scaling teams, challenges, lessons learned and the great work she's doing at Sanity right now. Here is what we talked about: (01:37) Introduction (02:39) Rachel's journey at Google (08:06) From Google to GitHub (14:29) Building healthy engineering culture (18:56) GitHub growth & hiring (21:44) Rachel's career at Sanity (26:21) Being a VP in Big tech (29:36) The road to "Sanity" (28:17) Startup planning (39:22) The fun factor (40:51) Adapting your experience to a new journey (47:13) Startup focus vs Big tech focus (49:13) Top-down strategy is good — For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠

Today's guest is Denis Yarats. Denis is co-founder & CTO at Perplexity, one of my favorite products and one of the most successful AI startups today. Perplexity was founded less than two years ago and has just raised $250M in venture capital, at a $2B+ evaluation. With Denis, we talked about the state of AI products and his vision of where they're going. Then we talked about Perplexity as a company, how the team is organized, how engineers work, and how they use AI themselves. —— I am sorry for the bad audio quality on my side 🙏 the recording picked up the wrong mic and we realized it only during editing 🙏 —— Here is what we talked about: (02:04) Introduction (03:08) The History of Perplexity (09:35) Startup and AI costs (12:14) The proper AI model (14:47) Open vs Proprietary Source (15:51) Is AI evolution saturated? (17:07) How Perplexity uses AI (18:49) Perplexity Engineering team (21:48) Trials, teams and management (28:17) Startup planning (31:53) Team structure (33:33) Developing procedures (37:35) Perplexity's "secret sauce" (40:31) Metrics in Perplexity (44:38) Perplexity's future — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠

Today's guest is Aditya Agarwal. Aditya is a legend: he joined Facebook as employee #10 and, years later, joined Dropbox as CTO when there were ~20 engineers. Today, he is partner at South Park Commons, through which he invested in more than 300 companies. Today we talked about early stage Facebook, differences and similarities with Dropbox, engineering teams in hyper growth and the future of engineering management. Here is what we talked about: (02:17) Introduction (03:10) Facebook Employee n 10 (09:57) The value of being a "generalist" (12:46) Moving fast and breaking things (19:24) From Cove to Dropbox (22:10) Dropbox vs Facebook (25:56) Finding company's culture (29:23) The challenges of hyper growth (34:42) The hyper growth in the next era (39:35) Engineering managers are more technical (42:42) Being a technical CTO (45:33) South Park Commons — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠

Today's guest is Charity Majors, CTO at Honeycomb and one of my absolute favorite writers. I believe I have recommended more articles from her blog than any other author on the newsletter. Today we talked about observability, testing in production, continuous delivery, developer experience and much more. Here is what we talked about: (00:49) Introduction (01:57) What is observability (07:00) Observability in microservices (12:51) From monitoring to observing (16:20) Start observing now (19:36) How to use observability (26:11) Observability costs (31:23) Testing in production (34:09) Continuous delivery (38:24) The greatest productivity offenders (43:04) Caring about the business (46:54) Generative tools add complexity (49:15) Junior engineers leverage — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠

Today's guest is Laura Tacho, CTO at DX, engineering leadership coach, and speaker. At DX, she works with hundreds of companies on improving their developer experience and engineering productivity. Here is what we talked about: (02:20) Introduction (03:36) Why measure engineering productivity (05:58) Finding the proper framework (13:33) Value metrics to find issues (15:00) Identify and ease the pressure (18:12) Reaching the proper execution (21:16) Measuring in different environments (25:25) The DevEx framework (27:58) Empowering DevEx in a business (31:56) Patterns for DevEx integration (41:03) Responsibilities ownership (47:48) The DevEx offenders — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠

Today's guest is Daniel Vassallo, the creator of the Small Bets community, which counts more than 5 ,000 members and includes engineers, entrepreneurs, and creators of all kinds. Daniel is also a former software engineer at AWS, the author of The Good Parts of AWS and created a successful Twitter course. With Daniel, we will talk about his unconventional journey in tech, the Small Bets philosophy, and advice for engineers about careers, site projects, technology and skills. Here is what we talked about: (01:11) Introduction & background (05:21) Small Bets' genesis & philosophy (14:36) Understanding the market (19:36) Taking care of the downsides (24:43) Improving your lifestyle first (29:05) The dangers of labelling yourself (32:10) Allocating your time (37:13) Self-managing your own work (45:34) Transitioning to a self-employed lifestyle (52:21) The selection criteria for your ideas — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠

Today's guest is Thiago Ghisi, Director of Engineering at Nubank. Thiago has had an incredible tech career. Before Nubank, he worked at Apple, Amex and ThoughtWorks. He is also a deep thinker, hosts a podcast and constantly shares great advice on X and LinkedIn. During our chat with Thiago, we talked about what makes managers successful, career expectations and frameworks and how to build a great tech career in 2024. Here is what we talked about: (01:13) Introduction (03:11) What makes people in tech productive (07:57) Beyond the feedback loop (11:24) Becoming a technical manager (18:45) How to be successful as Staff+ Engineer (26:47) From expert to achiever to strategist (34:46) Know your context but don't attach to it (46:00) The Four Ps (56:43) Q&A — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📺 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠