Beyond Coding

Top Microsoft Advisor: "Coding Is Cheap, Software Is Expensive." You're Focused on the Wrong Thing

Suzanne Daniels is a Top Microsoft Advisor who works with CTOs and engineering leaders across EMEA on developer productivity, GitHub, and AI adoption. Her take: the industry is obsessing over coding speed, but that was only ever level one. The real shift is in who defines the solution, not who writes the code.In this episode, we cover:Why the "55x faster coding" marketing misses the point entirelyThe counterintuitive research showing junior engineers adopt AI faster than seniors"Coding is cheap, software is expensive" and what that means for your careerHow the boundary between product and engineering is disappearingWhy most AI coding tools are 80% the same and what to focus on insteadWhether you're early in career and struggling to land a role, or a senior engineer rethinking where your value lies, Suzanne breaks down what actually matters when the coding part becomes cheap.Timestamps:00:00:00 - Intro00:01:15 - Is AI Productivity the Whole Story?00:03:26 - Why Outcomes Matter More Than Code Output00:04:13 - The Real Value Was Never in the Coding00:06:06 - The Product-Engineering Boundary Is Disappearing00:07:37 - Why Junior Engineers Are Actually in High Demand00:09:41 - Research Says Juniors Adopt AI Faster Than Seniors00:11:31 - The Rise of Comb-Shaped Engineers00:12:32 - The Energy Juniors Bring That Teams Need00:14:06 - How Seniors Codify Knowledge for Agents and Humans00:16:35 - Advice for Early Career Engineers Right Now00:19:04 - Old Principles Getting a New Polish00:21:13 - Coding Is Cheap, Software Is Expensive00:22:52 - Will Agentic Development Change Your Programming Language?00:24:53 - What Even Is an Application in the Agent Era?00:28:34 - The Authenticity Paradox of AI-Written Content00:30:12 - Why Your AI Output Needs a Human Value Add00:32:12 - Is Open Source at Risk Because of AI?00:35:09 - When Your Favorite Tool Doesn't Follow You to the Next Job00:36:45 - Most AI Coding Tools Are 80% the Same00:38:15 - What Engineering Leaders Should Enable Beyond Licensing00:42:58 - Should You Leave If Your Company Won't Let You Experiment?00:45:16 - Platform Engineering as the Foundation for AI AdoptionGuest: Suzanne Danielshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/suzannedaniels#SoftwareEngineering #AICoding #BeyondCoding

AI Expert: Most Software Engineers Aren't Ready for What's Coming

The role of the software engineer is shifting from execution to orchestration, and it's happening faster than most of us realize. Dennis Vink, Principal Consultant at Xebia, breaks down how he approaches code modernization with AI, why fundamentals and system design matter more now than ever, and what the engineering role is actually becoming.In this episode, we cover:Why you need to mature your old codebase before you can migrate away from itHow to prove feature parity between legacy and modern systemsWhy vibe coding without architecture knowledge gives you zero controlThe shift from execution-focused engineering to orchestrationWhy Dennis worries about the next generation of engineersWhether you're sitting on legacy code at work or wondering how your role as an engineer is evolving, this conversation will make you think about where you need to invest your time next.Timestamps:00:00:00 - Intro00:00:51 - Dennis's Early AI Engineering Assignments00:02:23 - Side Projects: Reviving a 20-Year-Old Game in Rust00:04:36 - Why Vibe Coding Without Fundamentals Fails00:05:15 - The Fundamentals You Need for Code Migration00:06:45 - Proving Feature Parity with Automated Testing00:08:12 - Writing Tests First as Risk Mitigation00:10:13 - How Much Should You Care About Code Structure?00:11:18 - Migrating in Small Pieces of Value00:12:26 - Will Engineers Still Find Fulfillment in Building?00:14:01 - How to Actually Start Side Projects (ADHD Brain)00:15:34 - Why Pivoting Is No Longer Painful00:16:12 - Prompting as the New Bottleneck00:17:23 - Parallelizing Work Across Projects00:19:08 - Why System Design Is the #1 Audience Demand00:20:19 - AI as a Differentiator for Strong Architects00:21:11 - Why the New Generation Should Worry00:23:01 - Are Bootcamps Still Worth It?00:25:15 - The Shift from Collaboration to Business Understanding00:27:56 - Infrastructure as a Core Competency Bet00:30:15 - Deterministic vs Non-Deterministic Code Generation00:32:16 - Can This Approach Scale to Million-Line Codebases?00:34:20 - Why a Finger-Snap Migration Would Scare You00:37:01 - Where to Start with Your Own Legacy Codebase00:38:43 - Which Languages Do AI Models Struggle With?00:40:24 - Building Around Hallucination with Scaffolding00:42:30 - Spec-Driven Development as the Future Way of Working00:43:30 - Turning a Non-Technical Colleague into a "Developer" in an Hour00:46:21 - When the House Is on Fire, That's When You Need Real EngineersProjects we discussed:Agent designer - hurozo.com Game project - Zorlore.com (https://github.com/zorlore/)Vibe coded solar system simulation - spacehaste.com #SoftwareEngineering #SystemDesign #AIEngineering

If You've Been At The Same Company 3+ Years, You're Already In A Box

Most senior engineers don't realize they're stuck until it's too late. The longer you stay, the more people around you have already decided who you are and what you're for. Ian Miell, CTO at Container Solutions, breaks down why this happens and how understanding the system around you is the first step to growing beyond it.In this episode, we cover:Why staying too long gets you put in a box (and how to escape it)How your software architecture is shaped by money flowsThe 30% rule: why you should feel uncomfortable at work and what it means if you don'tHow to pitch to senior leadership and actually get buy-inWhy AI makes distribution the real challenge, not buildingIf you're a senior engineer trying to grow beyond your current ceiling, this one is worth your time.Timestamps:00:00:00 - Intro00:00:42 - How to Pitch to Senior Leadership and Get Buy-In00:03:26 - Why You Should Feel Uncomfortable 30% of the Time00:06:33 - How to Break Through a Seniority Ceiling00:08:24 - The Burden of Context: Why Being the Go-To Person Traps You00:10:16 - How Ian Became CTO Without Trying To00:13:40 - Why a CTO's Job Is Mostly Coaching Now00:18:20 - Understanding Incentives: The Key to Navigating Any Org00:23:08 - Startups vs. Large Companies: Completely Different Rules00:25:00 - Why AI Makes Distribution the Real Problem, Not Building00:28:16 - The Hidden Maintenance Risk of Vibe-Coded Software00:30:13 - Security and Compliance: More Nuanced Than Engineers Think00:36:54 - Where "Architecture Follows the Money" Came From00:42:36 - The Wrong Number of Customers: A Systems Thinking Story00:47:23 - Why Engineers Think Individually Instead of Systemically00:51:53 - How to Start Thinking in Systems00:57:50 - How to Create Cross-Pollination in Consulting Teams00:59:39 - What CTOs Actually Look for When Hiring01:00:34 - Outro#softwareengineering #systemsthinking #careergrowth

How to Battle Complexity Before It Kills Your Software (30-Year Veteran's Take)

Most architects stop coding... and that's exactly where they lose their edge. Dennis Doomen has been a hands-on coding architect for 30 years, and his take is blunt: if you're not in the code, you can't make good architectural decisions. Period.In this episode, we get into the real causes of codebase rot, why dogmatic pattern-following destroys teams, how Dennis uses AI tools to build open source projects without compromising his standards, and why documentation and decision records might be the most underrated investment a software team can make.This one is for software engineers and architects who want to stay sharp, stay relevant, and build systems that actually last.00:00:00 - Intro00:01:05 - Why Dennis Refuses to Stop Coding (After 30 Years)00:02:54 - The Only Way to Be an Effective Software Architect00:04:43 - What Happens When Teams Copy Patterns Without Understanding Them00:06:23 - Software Engineering Is About Battling Complexity00:08:20 - When to Break Consistency to Reduce Complexity00:09:24 - The Problem with Overzealous SOLID Principles00:11:06 - The Future Where We Don't Care About Code Anymore00:12:07 - How Dennis Built an Open Source Library with GitHub Copilot00:14:18 - Accepting AI-Generated Code That Doesn't Meet Your Standards00:16:39 - How to Use AI Without Losing Code Quality00:17:41 - The Execution Is Accelerating — What Actually Matters Now00:20:19 - Why Tests Are Your Safety Net in an AI-First World00:23:44 - Lessons Learned from Letting AI Run Unsupervised00:26:46 - Should Teams Standardize Which AI Tool They Use?00:27:32 - Junior Devs and AI: Learning Skills vs. Speed00:29:21 - How to Stay Curious and Critical in an AI-Assisted Team00:33:43 - How to Build a Software Engineer from Scratch Today00:34:38 - Dennis's Emoji-Based Pull Request Review System00:36:45 - What AI Still Can't Do: Holistic Architectural Thinking00:38:38 - Why Your Git History Is More Valuable Than You Think00:40:44 - Decision Records: The Architecture Investment That Pays Off00:43:16 - When Documentation Saved Dennis from a Bad Management Decision00:44:47 - The Tailwind Layoffs and the Open Source Business Model Crisis00:46:27 - Guidelines for Consuming Open Source Responsibly00:49:51 - Why You Should Open Source Your Own ProjectsGuest: Dennis Doomen - Microsoft MVP, open source creator (FluentAssertions and more), and coding architect at Aviva Solutions.#softwaredevelopment #softwarearchitecture #softwareengineering

Uber Engineering Manager on Scaling Systems, Career Trade-offs, and Why Clarity Beats Seniority

Sendil Nellaiyapen, Engineering Manager at Uber, has built systems that scale to millions of users. In this episode he shares what most engineers get wrong about both system design and the move into engineering managementIn this episode, we cover:Ingredients for designing systems that scale to millions of usersHow to know when to compromise on architectureThe trade-offs of going from IC to engineering manager and why the role is harder than it looksHow to handle opinionated engineers, set team guardrails, and build high-performing engineering cultureWhether you're a senior engineer weighing the move into management, or already leading teams and looking to sharpen your system design thinking, this one's for you.OUTLINE:00:00:00 - Intro00:01:05 - The Ingredients for Building Systems at Scale00:02:23 - When to Compromise on Your Foundation00:03:42 - Scaling from 2,000 to 5 Million Users00:06:37 - Why Clarity Beats Seniority Every Time00:08:27 - The Danger of Muscle Memory in Engineering00:10:25 - MVP Mindset: What You Can and Can't Compromise00:13:22 - How High-Performing Teams Handle Growing Complexity00:15:04 - Who Owns the Assumptions? Shared Team Responsibility00:17:04 - Building Open Frameworks Instead of Closed Rules00:19:53 - Latency Is Overrated (Here's Why)00:22:52 - Recipes for Disaster: The Biggest System Design Pitfalls00:24:17 - The Scala Horror Story: When Elegance Kills Velocity00:26:52 - How to Handle Opinionated Engineers on Your Team00:29:03 - Setting Guardrails: The Manager's Design Responsibility00:32:01 - The Hardest Trade-Off Going from IC to Engineering Manager00:34:35 - Should Great Engineers Stay IC or Go into Management?00:37:11 - BFS vs DFS Engineers: Which Type Makes a Better Manager?00:39:05 - The Real Cost of Becoming a Manager (And Why It's Worth It)00:41:52 - Outro#systemdesign #engineeringmanager #softwareengineering