Refactoring Podcast

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: luca@refactoring.club

The State of Product Development 🔍 — with Doug Peete 15.05.2026 1u

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: luca@refactoring.club

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: luca@refactoring.club

AI Coding meets Code Health 🪄 — with Stuart Caborn 17.04.2026 1u 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: luca@refactoring.club

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: luca@refactoring.club

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: luca@refactoring.club

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: luca@refactoring.club

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: luca@refactoring.club

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: luca@refactoring.club

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: luca@refactoring.club

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: luca@refactoring.club

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: luca@refactoring.club

How to Build Product Development Teams 🛠️ — with Rob Zuber 22.11.2025 1u 9min

Today's guest is Rob Zuber, CTO of CircleCI!With Rob, we talked about software delivery, the impact of AI, and how to build great product engineering teams. And next, we discuss trade-offs between standardization versus flexibility in software organizations, and lessons learned from our respective past mistakes.(00:00) Preview(01:22) Introduction(03:33) Industry Changes and AI's Impact on Development(08:59) The Bell Curve of Metrics and Team Performance(12:09) From Engineering Metrics to Business Outcomes(14:31) Building Effective Small Teams(25:35) Experience vs. Curiosity(37:18) Scaling Challenges and Technology Decisions(49:26) Organizational Standards and Leadership Philosophy—This episode is brought to you by Codacy! Codacy helps developers save time in code reviews, so developers can focus on other things.Start your free trial and get 20% off your first 3 months at codacy.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

From Knowledge to Wisdom 🧠 — with Hywel Carver 07.11.2025 58min

Today's guest is Hywel Carver! Hywel is co-founder and CEO of Skiller Whale, which provides live team coaching for software engineering teams. With Hywel, we got deep into what makes traditional developer training awful, what engineers truly learn and what they should learn. Then we explored how to measure the impact of learning and how AI may possibly change both how learning works and our own skills.(00:00) Preview(01:15) Introduction(02:22) Hywel's journey in tech(06:20) Spreading good learning(07:55) Training as a compliance(09:34) The effectiveness of learning(12:42) Training with an expert(18:02) Knowledge, Skill and Wisdom(24:16) How Skiller Whale works?(30:26) The outcomes(34:53) Finding the proper learning method(40:12) Measuring learning value(46:54) AI, humans and code bases—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 AI Transformation at Intercom 🤖 — with Darragh Curran 24.10.2025 55min

Today's guest is Darragh Curran! Darragh is the CTO of Intercom, which is one of the world's leading customer service products with more than 600 million users.With Darragh, we talked about how AI poses at the same time an existential risk and an incredible opportunity for Intercom, and how this led them to the decision of creating a completely separate product and deflect most team resources to it. Then we discussed how AI is being adopted inside Intercom itself to achieve Darragh's ambitious goal of doubling the team's productivity.And finally, we explored Darragh's own role as CTO and what he believes he needs to get right to make all of this happen. (00:00) Preview(01:31) Introduction(02:19) How Intercom changed with AI(07:02) Intercom and Fin(11:37) AI productivity gains(16:36) Measuring productivity increase(25:06) Experience and AI(31:02) AI in large and legacy systems(32:47) The CTO role in an AI framework(38:56) Good for human = Good for AI(42:03) Improving AI models: Fin's case(45:03) How Fin improved so fast(49:08) One big challenge—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 Psychologically Safe Teams 🛡️ — with Meg Adams 10.10.2025 49min

Today's guest is Meg Adams!Meg is Senior Director of Engineering for the New York Times. With Meg, we talked about her fantastic journey in tech, from management in sales and retail, to learning software development from scratch, to management again, but this time in technology. And then we especially talked about Neuro Leadership, what it is, how you can apply it in practice in your team processes, and how things are different for ICs versus managers, and how you scale all of this to your whole organization.(01:22) Introduction(01:38) Meg's journey in tech(06:03) Managing skills in individual contribution(09:32) What is Neuroleadership?(11:06) Neuroleadership in tech(14:12) The SCARF model(21:18) Applying the SCARF(27:29) Designing good communication(30:42) Psychological safety(35:10) Identifying a threat(38:28) Making SCARF model part of a culture(41:27) A good example: Meg's time at Etsy—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

Navigating AI Development Workflows 🛠 — with Birgitta Böckeler 26.09.2025 50min

Today's guest is Birgitta Böckeler!Birgitta is is a distinguished engineer and global lead for AI-assisted software delivery at ThoughtWorks. Her full-time work is to figure out how engineering teams can make the most out of AI.With Birgitta, we talked about her favorite workflows, how she uses AI in the IDE, in the terminal or in a genetic mode. We discussed AI impact on productivity and what the best teams are getting right, which others are not. And finally, we talked about how AI impacts both junior and senior engineers and how we can get the best out of both skeptics and optimists.(01:27) Introduction(04:58) A day in the work of data(11:04) Large and smalls change sets(15:57) The strength of Cloud Code(18:35) Using AI tools in ThoughtWorks(21:41) Figuring AI productive value(27:24) Getting the most out of AI(30:10) AI assistance in large code bases(32:21) Good for humans = Good for AI(39:10) AI and documentation(41:49) Software engineer role in AI landscape(48:24) Junior engineers and learning—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

Automating Team Processes Gracefully ⚡ — with Antonia Scheidel 12.09.2025 59min

Today's guest is Antonia Scheidel!Antonia is Director of Engineering at Duolingo, where she made the whole career progression, starting as a simple intern 12 years ago. Antonia is an expert at designing good, automated processes for your team. We discuss how to create good automation to avoid people doing glue work, how not to become a bottleneck as a manager, and how to make the team own the process and repair it when needed.(01:25) Introduction(02:02) Antonia's journey into tech(03:34) Antonia's career in Duolingo(06:55) From engineering to management(10:19) Good processing and notes(14:18) Fixing the process and team alignment(18:06) The burden of asking(23:08) Invisible work and visible improvements(27:55) Automation trade-offs(33:14) Responsibilities in estabilished processes(37:24) How to do notifications right(49:09) Automation for the sake of relationships(54:33) The "usual suspects" of management—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

Technical Debt as Crime Scene 🔍 — with Adam Tornhill 29.08.2025 48min

Today's guest is Adam Tornhill! Adam is the author of the popular book Your Code as a Crime Scene, and he's the founder of Code Scene. With Adam, we discussed his unique insights about technical debt and code quality, which come from his study of forensic psychology. We explored how static analysis is not enough to understand code health and why you need to look into version control history to understand hotspots, change distribution and bus factor. And finally, we inevitably talked about AI and how it changes, or maybe does not change, how we should write code.(01:23) Introduction(02:25) Adam's journey into tech(05:58) The crime scene metaphor(08:27) Version control history(10:22) A natural law of software(14:03) Code Red(15:56) Assessing good code health(22:31) Distribution of impact and the bus factor(25:33) Reducing bus factor(29:57) Reassessing knowledge(32:25) The entropy of code bases(34:53) AI in code analysis(39:44) The impact of AI coding(41:58) Preventing technical debt(44:13) The actual developer tool space(46:21) Code data and team ceremonies—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

Diversity, AI, and Junior Engineers 🎨 — with Meri Williams 15.08.2025 52min

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