Refactoring Podcast

Epizode

• 
  Building Tools for Defenders 🛡 — with Rahul Raina 18.09.2026 1h

  Today's guest is Rahul Raina, co-founder of TRM Labs, which is a YC-backed company that works on solutions and products for security, fighting criminal networks, AI attackers, and more. With Rahul, we had a great chat that covered a lot of ground, starting with the tough reality of cyber defense today, and why attackers by default always have the upper hand when AI and technology improves. And then we moved to a deep dive into how the TRM team works and how they rebuild their whole product development workflow for AI, including reshuffling all the technical roles, compressing the developer process steps, and creating dedicated artifacts for human reviews.(00:00) Episode start(03:50) Introducing Rahul Raina(04:08) Why AI widens the gap between attackers and defenders(08:54) The asymmetry: attackers don't play by the rules(17:09) Inner loop vs outer loop: where the real bottleneck is(20:54) Redesigning the shipping framework around jobs, not roles(24:18) How to transition people: go slow before you go fast(34:24) What to hire for: problem solving, agency, humble craft(42:14) How builders review work: human-readable artifacts, not code(46:59) The harness interviews you: AI asks questions humans wouldn't(57:20) Build tools for understanding, not just for producing code-Today's episode is brought to you by Notion.Learn more about Notion’s Developer Platform today at https://ntn.so/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: [email protected]
• 
  Making AI agents work in your team 🤖 — with Dennis Pilarinos 15.09.2026 53min

  Today's guest is Dennis Pilarinos, who is the founder and CEO of Unblocked and a long-time developer tools expert, having founded BodyBuild and having served as a director at Apple, Amazon and Microsoft. With Dennis, we talked about the latest trends in software development. We discussed why more tokens are not translating into more productivity, how to guarantee code quality with AI and what's the role of context in making your agents succeed. And we also explored how the Unblocked team is doing it, navigating their setup and a few use cases about how their shipping features in production.(00:00) Episode start(03:50) Introducing Dennis Pilarinos(04:40) Token spend is exploding(09:03) Measuring developer productivity is still unsolved(12:31) Code review is the new bottleneck(18:01) Code quality depends on context, not skill alone(21:07) The content curation trap: why markdown files go stale(26:40) What sources to plug into your context engine(33:47) How the Unblocked team ships: risk assessment and auto-merge(43:29) Releasing faster: skip design partners, ship to everyone(49:20) Remote agents and the future of context-powered coding-Today's episode is brought to you by Notion.Learn more about Notion’s Developer Platform today at https://ntn.so/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: [email protected]
• 
  Burnout is a System Issue 🪫 — with Dominika Rogala 21.08.2026 1h 2min

  Today's guest is Dominika Rogala, former VP of Engineering and now advisor for CTOs and tech leaders. With Dominika, we talked about burnout in engineering teams, on which she did a lot of research. She started from the various dimensions of burnout, which spoiler alert is different from simply being tired, and then we looked at the problem from a systemic angle, so how can you improve your team and processes to avoid people to burnout. And finally, we also talked about AI and how to make it a net positive for your team resources, without also incontrollably inflating expectations(00:00) Episode start(03:50) Introducing Dominika Rogala(04:26) The four dimensions of burnout(07:06) Exhaustion vs being tired(11:19) How to spot burnout in yourself(13:43) The identity gap(27:53) Burnout as a systemic problem(17:28) The job demands-resources model(36:19) Early warning signs: cynicism and quality drops(43:08) What individuals can do inside a broken system(49:42) AI as both a resource and a new demandShow notes.• LeadDev talk recording: https://leaddev.com/management/four-dimensions-of-burnout-an-anti-burnout-framework-for-the-ai-era • Self-check, anti-burnout worksheet, reading list, and a micro-regulation toolkit: goodjob.coffee/ldx3• Dominika's LinkedIn profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominikarogala/ -Today's episode is brought to you by Notion.Learn more about Notion’s Developer Platform today at https://ntn.so/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: [email protected]
• 
  Building With Agents Today 🤖 — with Charlie Guo 07.08.2026 1h

  Today's guest is Charlie Guo, developer experience engineer at OpenAI. With Charlie, we explore the evolution of AI coding tools, how this is affecting team organization, and the future of AI integration in software development. Charlie shared strategies and tricks to leverage AI effectively, and how this is all transforming the workflows that we all know and love.(00:00) Episode start(01:20) Introducing Charlie Guo(02:31) Inside the Codex team(03:49) Sponsor break(05:35) The philosophy behind Codex(09:19) From CLI to desktop app(12:29) The m.google.com of AI(17:28) Are MCPs here to stay?(21:58) Sharing AI workflows across teams(24:56) Generalists vs specialists: converging roles(33:22) Deterministic guardrails for coding agents(39:02) Using Codex as a personal knowledge base(46:01) Design with the image model first-Today's episode is brought to you by Notion.Learn more about Notion’s Developer Platform today at https://ntn.so/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: [email protected]
• 
  Speed Is the Only Moat 🏎️ — with Anush Elangovan 17.07.2026 51min

  Today's guest is Anush Elangovan, VP of AI Software at AMD. With Anush, we talked about how he thinks about open source as a key strategic driver in the AI era, and how his team is able to stay super fast while ensuring quality by combining their internal work with their external contributions.And then we got into a rabbit hole about how to get big companies ready for AI, how to think about human capital, and how Anush personally spends his time. And spoiler alert, he is back to doing IC work for up to 40% of his time.(00:00) Episode start(01:31) Introducing Anush Elangovan(01:39) AMD's open-source AI stack(04:08) Sponsor break(05:34) How AI contributions are reshaping open-source maintenance(08:33) From demo to production: the quality gates funnel(11:10) When agents game the system(17:10) Speed as a moat: the open-source flywheel(20:31) Agent-first development: what it really looks like(23:56) AI cleanup: getting legacy code ready for agents(28:24) The excavator analogy(31:08) The new engineers(34:12) VP doing IC work(43:28) Open-weight models, AI as electricity, and what's next-Today's episode is brought to you by Unblocked.Unblocked is the context layer for modern engineering teams.Get a free three-week trial at https://getunblocked.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: [email protected]
• 
  The Rise of Malleable Software 🧩 — with Geoffrey Litt 10.07.2026 57min

  Today's guest is Geoffrey Litt, Design Engineer at Notion. With Geoffrey, we talked about malleable software, a type of platform that kind of always existed, but is now getting new meaning and opportunity thanks to AI.And then we talked about how Notion itself changed its place in the ecosystem, with the AI agents first, and now with the new developer platform, where you can ship code directly inside Notion. And finally, we talked about how Notion builds Notion, design as shipping code to production, internal prototyping, feature flags, and more.(00:00) Episode start(01:26) Introducing Geoffrey Litt(01:58) Malleable software(05:37) Sponsor break(07:11) The nightmare bycicle analogy(09:56) Teach users just in time(14:15) How Notion exposes structure(17:41) Vibe coding vs platforms(19:18) Notion's shift from walled garden to developer hub(20:57) Bringing external coding agents into Notion(26:43) The accountants analogy: why more productivity creates more jobs(33:30) Trust and oversight: AI agents(40:32) How design engineers ship to production daily at Notion(47:39) Prototyping in code-Today's episode is brought to you by Unblocked.Unblocked is the context layer for modern engineering teams.Get a free three-week trial at https://getunblocked.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: [email protected]
• 
  The Power of Stories ✍️ — with Michael "Rands" Lopp 26.06.2026 43min

  Today's guest is Michael Lopp, better known as Rands, who is writer of several popular books about engineering management, including "Managing Humans", which is a personal favorite of mine.Live at LDX3, we discussed his lifelong writing habit, the importance of giving feedback through stories and the leverage of leadership experience in the AI era.(00:00) Episode start(00:40) A live chat with Rands at LeadDev(02:10) How to collect and write great leadership stories(03:38) Sponsor break(05:13) Writing as a habit: from journals to 14,000 readers(08:09) The power of naming things(10:20) Using stories to give feedback without being directive(12:40) Introverts, extroverts, and bringing calm to explosive situations(15:09) Tinkering with AI: joy, interns, and daily delight(19:18) "I was wrong" why managers should code again(21:54) Do we still need middle managers in the AI era?(27:40) The accountants analogy: why more productivity creates more jobs(36:25) Managing Robots: the book that's coming-Today's episode is brought to you by Unblocked.Unblocked is the context layer for modern engineering teams.Get a free three-week trial at https://getunblocked.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: [email protected]
• 
  Understanding Engineers' Needs 🧬 — with Lara Hogan 12.06.2026 58min

  Today's guest is Lara Hogan, an author, public speaker and coach for managers and leaders across the whole tech industry. And she's had a long career as VP of engineering at FLY, Kickstarter, Director Etsy and more. So with Lara we talked about her journey in tech, which started with a philosophy degree. And then, taking from her work as a coach, we talked more about how successful teams are adopting AI and what you can do to make engineers feel safe about it. And finally, we explored the Biceps framework and how you can better understand people's needs at work.(00:00) Episode start(01:25) Introduction(02:59) Why nuanced AI takes matter more than slogans(04:25) Sponsor break(08:54) From philosophy major to engineering director(15:09) Becoming a manager(18:54) Do humanities give you an edge in the AI era?(22:04) Teams thriving with AI vs teams struggling(28:03) Setting clear expectations without creating fear(35:52) The AHA meetings: sharing learnings, not just wins(41:40) The BICEPS framework(47:18) When frustration isn't curiosity(52:58) Reflect back what you hear—Today's episode is brought to you by Unblocked.Unblocked is the context layer for modern engineering teams.Get a free three-week trial at getunblocked.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: [email protected]
• 
  The Future of Engineering 🔮 — with James Stanier 29.05.2026 58min

  Today's guest is James Stanier, CTO at Nordhealth, former director at Shopify, an author of several books about engineering management, remote work, and more.With James, we talked about what senior engineers will look like in the future, taking from a great article he wrote just recently, and then regarding how engineering management is changing, what's expected of managers today, and what you need to thrive.We also talked about AI adoption in his team, in our personal respective lives, and discussed the state of remote work in 2026.(00:00) Episode start(01:25) Introduction(02:05) Senior engineers in 2035(05:11) Sponsor break(06:45) Level of abstraction: from compilers to AI(10:17) Excited engineers and worried engineers(12:44) The bifurcation: vibe coders vs platform engineers(16:51) Engineering managing role changes(23:21) Managing time with expanding roles(28:32) Are hierarchies flattening?(36:25) AI adoption in James' team(41:27) What's hard in the AI era(44:36) AI as a personal assistant(50:05) Remote work in 2026-Today's episode is brought to you by Unblocked.Unblocked is the context layer for modern engineering teams.Get a free three-week trial at getunblocked.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: [email protected]
• 
  The State of Product Development 🔍 — with Doug Peete 15.05.2026 1h

  Today's guest is Doug Peete, Chief Product Officer at Atono, with whom over the last few months we have developed a deep industry report about the state of product development.In this chat we'll go through the main findings of the report, match them to our respective experience and explore ideas about how teams can do better with product development and AI(00:00) Episode start(01:38) Introduction(02:39) Sponsor break(05:38) Frailty of planning process(10:58) Product(13:19) What needs to be done(20:38) Design reviews(26:33) How to improve requirements(27:41) Knowledge across teams(35:07) Capturing the history of a product(39:14) Enabling sharing process(47:17) New metrics in AI era(50:47) AI in product requirements and products specs-Today's episode is brought to you by Unblocked.Unblocked is the context layer for modern engineering teams.Get a free three-week trial at getunblocked.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: [email protected]
• 
  How to Own Your Career 🦝 — with Jean Hsu and Cate Huston 01.05.2026 56min

  Today's guests, plural, are Jean Hsu and Cate Huston.They're both extremely experienced engineering leaders and coaches, accomplished authors, and have held leadership roles at companies like Duck.co, Automattic, Medium and more. And are now running a program to help engineers and managers become, in their own words, directly responsible individuals of their careers to navigate these complicated times, to say the least. So with Jean and Cate, we talked about exploring what you want from your career, how to be intentional about it, how to use feedback to assess how you're doing, and how AI is changing and not changing the picture.(01:51) Introduction(03:39) Dealing with adverse conditions(09:45) Sponsor break(10:42) DRI your career and coaching(13:07) Career's approach(18:52) Figuring out your goal: Luca's example(30:48) Coaching for EMs vs coaching for ICs(32:23) Moving forward in your daily job(36:06) Feedbacks and culture of appreciation(41:32) Does AI change how do you think about your career?(45:42) AI pressure and AI passion—Today’s sponsor is Intent by Augment. Intent is a developer workspace built for orchestrating agents: it starts with the living spec that updates as agents make progress, so every task stays aligned with no manual coordination. Try it for yourself at https://www.augmentcode.com/product/intent—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: [email protected]
• 
  AI Coding meets Code Health 🪄 — with Stuart Caborn 17.04.2026 1h 5min

  Today's guest is Stuart Caborn, distinguished engineer at loveholidays, which is an online travel agency with millions of customers around the world.I'm talking with Stuart because his team is doing AI coding for real.They operate an extremely complex product and technology, with each engineer deploying to production more than 80 times a month, with more than 60% of production code being written with AI, all while maintaining an absolutely elite change failure rate under 1%, and with perfect code health.So, let's see how they pull this off.(01:29) Introduction(02:30) What it loveholidays?(06:04) Sponsor break(07:00) loveholidays' AI approach(10:16) Code quality(13:36) Making quality visible(14:52) AI, MCP and top use cases(22:19) Code health and engineers' happiness(29:35) How was AI implemented at loveholidays(37:01) Experimenting with AI and skills(42:30) How to spread AI into an org(47:31) Guardrails in dev process(56:40) Other process changes—Today’s sponsor is Intent by Augment. Intent is a developer workspace built for orchestrating agents: it starts with the living spec that updates as agents make progress, so every task stays aligned with no manual coordination. Try it for yourself at https://www.augmentcode.com/product/intent—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: [email protected]
• 
  Every Engineer Is a Manager Now 🤖 — with Chris Lattner 03.04.2026 58min

  Today’s guest is Chris Lattner, one of the most important engineers for modern computing. Chris invented key compiler infrastructure tech like LLVM and MLIR, but he’s also the inventor of the Swift language, a key contributor in bringing Google TPUs to market, and a lot more. Today he’s the founder and CEO of Modular, where he’s reinventing AI infrastructure to make software portable across GPUs and platforms.So with Chris, we talked about his vision for AI and computing. We talked about how Modular’s mission makes us closer to a future where AI is open and portable. And we talked about open source, how AI is both empowering and straining contributors, how it’s changing intellectual property, and what workflows we need to change as engineers.And finally, we discussed how AI is changing software craftsmanship, how he’s bullish about junior engineers, and a lot more.(00:00) Preview(02:11) Introduction(04:05) What is Modular?(06:13) Sponsor break(07:10) From CPU to GPU landscape(10:46) Objective-C Swift analogy(15:37) What is Modular for Chris?(17:37) The love for building(20:21) Chris' view on AI future(23:48) AI and open source(29:34) Figuring out new workflows(31:22) On licenses and copyright(33:42) High quality software(35:21) Coding faster with AI(41:27) The landscape of junior engineers(48:22) AI amplifies the good and the bad(52:21) Modular ceremonies(55:26) Tech debt—Today’s sponsor is Intent by Augment. Intent is a developer workspace built for orchestrating agents: it starts with the living spec that updates as agents make progress, so every task stays aligned with no manual coordination. Try it for yourself at https://www.augmentcode.com/product/intent—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: [email protected]
• 
  What Comes After the IDE 🖥 — with Amelia Wattenberger 20.03.2026 51min

  Today's guest is Amelia Wattenberger, former principal research engineer at GitHub and now partner at Sutter Hill Ventures.But she's also a product lead at Augment Code, where she developed Intent, a developer workspace for orchestrating AI coding agents and delivering complex work. So this is a fascinating chat into the future and the present of software development with someone who has clearly been at the very frontier of this for many years.(00:00) Preview(01:11) Introduction(03:26) What is "Intent"?(09:56) Splitting agents for best performance(12:32) Spec and subtasks(17:46) Decision and generation(22:15) Features, opinion and abstractions(25:37) The note system(27:41) Attitude is reflected in approach(35:21) Engineers in the new era of crafting(37:14) Managing skills applied to an agent environment(39:46) Orchestrating agents(45:50) The future of deep specialists—Today’s sponsor is Intent by Augment. Intent is a developer workspace built for orchestrating agents: it starts with the living spec that updates as agents make progress, so every task stays aligned with no manual coordination. Try it for yourself at https://www.augmentcode.com/product/intent—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: [email protected]
• 
  Leading Beyond the Framework 🧭 — with Richard Hughes-Jones 06.03.2026 51min

  Today's guest is Richard Hughes-Jones, a professional executive coach with more than 20 years of experience. With Richard, we talked about how to coach tech leaders through uncertainty and everything that's going on with AI, how to navigate it, how we should think about our role, and what it means to step outside of the framework.We also explored how to leverage AI for coaching, how to blend human and AI advice to get the best of both worlds.(00:00) Preview(01:08) Introduction(02:26) Richard's journey into coaching(04:23) Sponsor break(05:19) Coaching without engineering background(07:27) Most common challenges(11:39) Helping people in uncertainty(19:10) Good for the team Vs Good for the business(22:13) Are frameworks limiting?(27:10) Creating a personal framework(31:49) Am I trying to be the hero?(34:35) Usual questions(39:07) AI and coachingLink to article mentioned in the interview: https://richardhughesjones.substack.com/p/052-special-edition-what-i-learned—Today’s sponsor is Intent by Augment. Intent is a developer workspace built for orchestrating agents: it starts with the living spec that updates as agents make progress, so every task stays aligned with no manual coordination. Try it for yourself at https://www.augmentcode.com/product/intent—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: [email protected]
• 
  How to Master Behavioral Interviews 🎤 — with Austen McDonald 20.02.2026 55min

  Today's guest is Austen McDonald, former hiring committee chair at Meta, and author of the book, "Mastering Behavioral Interviews." Austen, in his career, conducted more than 1,000 interviews and coached more than 200 engineers, and is here today to tell us everything about why behavioral interviews are more important than ever and how to run them right, as a candidate and as a recruiter.(00:00) Preview(01:02) Introduction(01:37) Austen' interest in behavioral interviews(06:25) Sponsor break(07:31) Behavioral interviews as a senior or a junior engineer(09:55) The question behind a question: signal areas(13:09) Fails in behavioral interviews(16:38) Decode, select, deliver(17:15) The eight areas(19:02) How company culture reflects in hiring(21:59) Assessing company's culture as a candidate(23:49) The big three questions(29:26) Preparing for the big three questions(37:37) Deliver a story(40:28) Good preparation process(43:15) Do not lie(46:14) Recruiter side: biases(51:42) Candidate experience with AI: value questions—Today’s sponsor is Intent by Augment. Intent is a developer workspace built for orchestrating agents: it starts with the living spec that updates as agents make progress, so every task stays aligned with no manual coordination. Try it for yourself at https://www.augmentcode.com/product/intent—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: [email protected]
• 
  Building Apps with Your Voice 🎤— with Paige Bailey 06.02.2026 40min

  Today's guest is Paige Bailey, Developer Relations Lead at Google DeepMind. And before that, Principal Product Manager at GitHub, where she launched Copilot and several other AI products.With Paige, we went through a quick demo of how to build and deploy a fully functioning application just with your voice, one that includes accessing your camera, manipulating pictures, and having AI doing a live interview with you to fill out your profile. So this is a bit different episode than usual, so I encourage you to check out the full video, where Paige shares her screen and goes through all the steps.And we also talked about what's coming about AI, how engineers should think about their work, and how the Google DeepMind team is changing with all roles, basically converging to one. So let's dive right into the action.(00:00) Preview(01:32) Introduction(02:12) The best era for software engineers(05:36) Navigating AI tools(06:22) AI Studio Build demo(13:53) Choosing the right AI model(17:34) Prompts and intuition(19:13) Antigravity demo(23:43) Delegating and working with AI(26:00) AI at team level(28:38) Changes in product development teams(30:45) Next stages in working with AI(37:54) Rethink software engineering—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: [email protected]
• 
  How Todoist is Built ✅ — with Gonçalo Silva 23.01.2026 52min

  Today's guest is Gonçalo Silva, CTO of Doist, the company behind Todoist and Twist.This interview is an incredible behind the scenes about one of the most peculiar companies in tech.Because Doist is bootstrapped, profitable, has no office and has about 100 employees that are spread across about 40 countries. Yet, or maybe for this reason, they created one of the world's most beloved productivity tools, used by more than 25 million users and they're up against billion-dollar companies with hundreds of millions of funding.So how do they pull this off? Let's find out.(00:00) Preview(01:15) Introduction(04:26) What does Doist looks like?(06:48) The perfect number of people(09:44) Remote and async-first(15:59) Asynchronous threats(18:34) Todoist engineering teams(21:06) Continuity or chaos(28:18) A team for every platform(29:21) Product management(31:37) Product development process(34:03) Merging top-down strategies and bottom-up feedbacks(38:16) AI in product engineering(46:34) Team level AI practices—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: [email protected]
• 
  Career Sabbaticals and Self Discovery 🔍 — with Thiago Ghisi 09.01.2026 56min

  Today's guest is Thiago Ghisi!Thiago is former director of engineering at Nubank and with a long and successful tech career in companies like ThoughtWorks, Apple and more. But right now, he's on a sabbatical and he's been for more than six months.So get ready for an incredible chat where we talked about your identity as an engineering leader, psychology, Claude Code and more.(00:00) Preview(01:01) Introduction(03:25) Quitting the job(10:32) Planning during a sabbatical(14:03) Detaching from your work identity(20:31) Measuring progress(26:03) Finding yourself: Claude Code and second brain(33:34) The biggest revelations(45:22) Thiago's next chapter—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: [email protected]
• 
  The State of AI Adoption 📊 — with Matt McClernan 05.12.2025 56min

  Today's guest is Matt McClernan, CEO of Augment Code!With Matt, we went through the findings of our own research that we developed together with Augment, surveying more than 400 engineering teams about how they're using AI.And we went through many topics, from the differences between personal and team adoption, challenges, how documentation looks like a secret weapon, how to manage context in AI coding, and much more. And then we talked about the future, how the UX of AI coding is changing with IDEs, CLI tools and agents, and what the future might bring.(00:00) Preview(01:26) Introduction(02:16) Personal vs Team AI Adoption(09:25) The journey of AI adoption(13:06) The role of documentation(18:13) AI and Context: the Augment secret sauce(25:44) Helping AI with context(28:17) Quality control in AI coding(36:30) Companies and AI in the near future(45:54) The state of UX in writing code(51:54) The scope of Augment—This episode is brought to you by Snyk! Join a live session with Vandana Verma Sehgal, OWASP Leader and Staff Developer Advocate at Snyk, on Thursday, December 11, at 11am ETRegister at https://go.snyk.io/12-11-owasp-top-10-isc2.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=so-sp&utm_campaign=dm_im-refactoring_wbn_251211_owasp-top-10&utm_term=refactoring&utm_content=ad&ref=plug.dev—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: [email protected]