Refactoring Podcast

Diversity, AI, and Junior Engineers 🎨 — with Meri Williams

Today's guest is Meri Williams, who is the CTO of Pleo and the host of LeadDev conferences for more than 10 years. With Meri, we started by talking about diversity, why it is such a controversial topic, why diverse teams make for stronger teams, and what are the mistakes engineering leaders should avoid. Then we took from her experience with Lead Dev to explore what makes for a good talk, and what Meri looks for when she selects the best ones.And finally, we explored how AI is going to change how we develop engineers and grow junior co-workers.(01:19) Introduction(02:04) Meri's journey into tech(07:29) Conferences, meetups and LeadDev(10:14) Recurring issues in engineering leadership(12:21) Why diversity matters(15:04) A proper diverse environment(22:52) How to create a truly memorable talk(26:25) LeadDev and conferences(28:53) Speaking on stage(30:50) Speaking as a benefit for your career(33:59) Junior engineers in the age of AI(39:37) Is AI a turning point?(44:44) Seniors engineers and AI(46:31) Guiding junior engineers—This episode is brought to you by Augment Code! Augment Code is the only AI engineering platform built for real engineering teams.Learn more at augmentcode.com!—You 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

Thinking in Bets for Engineers 🎲— with Annie Duke

Today's guest is Annie Duke, who is a former world-class professional poker player and one of the world's top experts on decision-making.She's a bestseller author and coach of many tech founders and teams.With Annie we talked about her journey from studying decision science to becoming a top poker player and back to decision-making. We explored how to make good decisions under uncertainty, alone and in a team. And we particularly focused on quitting decisions, what maked for a good versus a bad quit and why we are so bad at recognizing those.00:01:31 Introduction00:03:45 From poker to decision-making00:08:30 Sponsor00:10:07 Poker and the definition of "resulting"00:16:42 Feedback loops and decision-making00:21:59 Successful but not hungry00:26:14 A good decision-making process00:35:24 Qualifying the market00:38:17 Team decision-making00:47:46 Quitting00:52:43 Make quitting easier01:08:43 Kill criteria—This episode is brought to you by Unblocked! Unblocked brings all the context about your codebase together, so your team gets expert-level answers, no matter where they’re working.Learn more at getunblocked.com!—You 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

Refactoring at Scale Done Right 🏗️ — with Maude Lemaire

Today's guest is Maude Lemaire, who is a principal engineer at GitHub and author of the book, "Refactoring at Scale."With Maude, we talked about her journey in tech, from Rent the Runway to joining Slack and leading its performance engineering team to joining GitHub as a principal engineer. And then we discussed what it means to do refactoring at scale, how to do it right, how to bring people on board, and what are the biggest mistakes you should avoid.00:01:06 Introduction00:02:05 Maude's journey in tech00:08:23 Sponsor00:09:34 Rent a Runway00:12:56 Joining Slack00:15:54 Approaching GitHub00:22:04 Changing company00:26:00 Onboarding in a big tech00:33:02 From data center to cloud00:38:22 A team for a purpose00:49:07 The biggest mistakes in large scale refactoring00:54:34 One big mistake00:57:58 Testing in production01:03:16 Test production: Big tech vs startup—This episode is brought to you by Swarmia! The engineering intelligence platform that serves some of the best software companies in the world.You can get 20% off by booking a demo at swarmia.com/refactoring!—You 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

Building AI-Powered Podcast Learning 🎧 — with Kevin Smith

Today's guest is Kevin Smith, who is co-founder of Snipd, one of the world's most popular podcast apps.With Kevin, we talked about his journey in tech, starting from quantitative finance and then running an AI team in a high-growth startup up to actually founding one with Snipd. Then we segued into talking about Snipd itself and what are the technical challenges of working with AI models all the time. And finally, we discussed the future of learning, what are Kevin's favorite podcasts, what makes them good, and how AI enables personalized learning at scale.01:26 Introduction01:45 Kevin's journey in tech04:18 AI giant leaps07:38 Sponsor08:50 Kevin's transition to founder16:30 What is Snipd?18:20 On AI models21:25 Snipd technical challenges29:49 How to improve quality in AI output31:30 AI in team management and dev processes34:19 AI coding enhancements38:05 Learning with modern tools42:50 Personalize learning with AI45:51 Kevin's favourite podcasts47:58 What makes a good podcast good?—This episode is brought to you by Swarmia! The engineering intelligence platform that serves some of the best software companies in the world.You can get 20% off by booking a demo at swarmia.com/refactoring!—You 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

The Future of Dev Tools 🔧 — with Dennis Pilarinos

Today's guest is Dennis Pilarinos, who is founder and CEO of Unblocked. With Dennis, we talked about his journey in tech, which is just incredible, starting from director roles at Microsoft and Amazon, then founding BuddyBuild and later selling it to Apple, and eventually to these days where he founded Unblocked. And later we talked about Unblocked itself, which is one of the few developer AI tools that is specifically not about coding.So we talked about what problem it solves and the hardest tech challenges that the team has to work with.And finally, we discussed the future of DevTools, because Dennis has founded not one, but two companies about it. And this is a time of big transformation, with MCP, AI agents and more.01:48 Introduction02:33 Dennis' journey in tech06:11 Sponsor07:48 Adapting big tech knowledge15:31 Adding context to AI15:29 Managing humans and chaos25:03 AI and hallucination issue27:14 The tipping point of evolution28:33 The future of developer workflow34:25 Increase documentation to increase context33:43 AI: a future without layers36:53 Setting up a new dev team—This episode is brought to you by Swarmia! The engineering intelligence platform that serves some of the best software companies in the world.You can get 20% off by booking a demo at swarmia.com/refactoring!—You 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