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
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
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
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
Today's guest is Michael Lopp, better known as Rands, who is Senior Director of Engineering at Apple and writer of several popular books about engineering management, including "Managing Humans", which is a personal favorite of mine.
With Rands, we discuss his journey into writing and the impact it had on his personal and professional growth. We reflected on his leadership style and the complexities of modern engineering management.
01:07 Introduction
02:49 Rands first steps in writing
06:06 Sponsor
07:46 Does writing help in managing?
13:05 Michael and Rands
15:29 Managing humans and chaos
19:56 Mentoring fresh managers
21:31 Rands' managing style
28:27 Feedbacks
30:25 Changes in engineering management
33:43 AI: a future without layers
40:10 Testing a thesis
42:40 AI Interation = People Interation
45:07 What is not going to change
48:38 The 10%
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Today's guest is Guillermo Rauch, who is CEO and founder of Vercel.With Guillermo, we talked about his journey in tech, from a small-town in Argentina, to successful open-source developer, to CEO of a billion-dollar company. Then we covered the unique Vercel model, which combines open-source and commercial work. And finally, we discussed the future of AI, engineers, open-source and software engineering at large.01:29 Introduction02:04 What is Vercel?04:40 Vercel's "secret sauce"06:46 Guillermo's journey in tech10:31 Vercel vs Complexity12:07 Helping solo engineers and great teams17:38 The importance of JavaScript20:23 TypeScript and JavaScript22:11 Satisfying both open source and market landscape28:18 For the open-source engineers32:35 The last frameworks36:55 AI current limitations38:59 The best framework for AI43:48 100 milliseconds48:34 Does Guillermo still code?52:10 The founder mode53:59 AI will make us full stack—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
Today's guest is Ori Keren, who is CEO and co-founder of LinearB and has more than 25 years of experience in the industry, especially in developer experience and productivity.
With Ori, we talked about how AI is infiltrating all the stages of the development process, from coding to testing to code reviews. We discussed how AI is already restructuring teams and how engineering leaders can drive adoption by combining culture, small wins and full moon shots.
01:07 Introduction
01:59 Development productivity in 2025
08:29 Code creation process and AI
10:46 Coding and bottlenecks
15:05 Cognitive unload using AI
16:48 The journey of AI adoption
21:50 AI native environment
24:57 How teams are changing
28:35 More AI = More development
30:40 The skeptcisim about coding with AI
33:50 Removing the toil from coding
35:31 AI help outside coding
41:50 How to integrate AI in a company
44:38 Go with the (AI) flow
45:34 Education in prompting
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Today's guest is Abi Noda, the CEO and founder of DX, one of the leading engineering intelligence platforms.With Abi, we talked about measuring developer experience. We started with the early days of Accelerate and why we feel like most people got the book wrong. And then we continued to present days and how research focuses on driving great developer experience. And finally, we couldn't avoid talking about AI and why it seems to be a game changer for entrepreneurs, but not so much for teams yet.01:23 Introduction02:45 Abi's journey in tech08:19 The four key metrics10:41 Metrics' reliability13:41 Diagnostic metrics16:06 A metric analogy18:23 Find productivy metrics drive22:03 What makes a developer experience good?29:44 The importance of comparison31:53 Common issues in developer experience34:55 Are meetings bad?36:16 AI in development process—This episode is brought to you by https://sleuth.io—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
Today's guest is Salvatore Sanfilippo, also known as Antirez!Salvatore is the creator of Redis, an open source data store used by hundreds of thousands of developers across the world. And he's also a writer. He published the popular sci-fi novel called Wohpe, which anticipated a lot of what is happening today with AI.With Salvatore, we talked about open source — what makes a project successful and how to make it successful for its maintainers. Then we discussed how Salvatore uses AI for extremely complex coding, which makes him 5x faster than without AI. And finally, I asked him about his writing work and what is the experience of writing a novel versus a software project.02:55 Introduction06:47 Salvatore's life priorities12:40 Develop an open source project in 2025 18:14 Being a generalist with AI support19:25 Making an open source project sustainable23:54 Complexity of modern front-end development24:58 Big Tech, complexity and open source30:19 Escaping the complexity loop33:40 The rebirth of fullstack through AI34:53 How Salvatore creates code with AI41:16 Does AI increase code productivity?44:14 The importance of the right prompt47:06 Writing tests in the AI era of development50:49 Whope, Salvatore's sci-fi novel53:28 Writing a novel and writing code—This episode is brought to you by https://workos.com—Some show notes:• Salvatore's website: https://antirez.com/• Salvatore's Youtube: / @antirez • Wohpe: / wohpe —You can also find this at:
—For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club
Today's guest is Joel Chippindale!Joel is a full-time CTO Coach and one of the coaches-in-residence in the Refactoring community, where he runs monthly mastermind sessions and other community events.So with Joel, we dived into what coaching is, the difference with mentoring, one-on-one versus group coaching, and what are the top challenges that CTO faces today, based on the work that Joel does with his coaches.02:34 Introduction03:40 Joel's journey in tech05:21 Finding a definition of coaching07:25 Mentoring and coaching roles10:22 One-to-on and group coaching12:53 The "hows" of coaching15:12 Is coaching a widespread practice?18:35 Top CTOs challenges21:43 Right support for right challenges26:08 Advocating for technical work31:53 Commonalities and uniquenesses in CTOs challenges34:20 The platonic ideal of CTO36:49 Choosing what to focus on39:48 How to delegate properly
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Today's guest is Dan Shipper!Dan is the CEO and founder of Every, which is one of the world's most popular publications, writing about AI and our relationship with technology. And Dan is one of my heroes. His newsletter was the first I ever paid for on Substack, and single-handedly inspired me to start Refactoring. But he doesn't know. I will tell him during the interview and you will see what he says. So with Dan, we'll talk about the boundaries blurring between product development and content creation, the role of generalists, entrepreneurs, and how his team builds software with AI. And spoiler alert, AI writes 90% of their code.03:08 Introduction06:42 Every and Dan's journey in tech12:56 From writer to CEO16:20 The importance of delegating18:01 What you want vs what people want21:06 Stick to yourself24:38 Playing the long game27:02 AI and content creation31:05 Approaching the use of AI36:29 Finding new workflows with AI39:03 More an AI generated code40:35 A new skillset for engineers42:44 More on the new engineering role44:45 The next AI assisted leaps
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Today's guest is Marco Trombetti!Marco is the CEO and founder of Translated, one of the largest translation companies in the world, powering translations for the likes of Airbnb, Uber, Skyscanner, and more.Translated is also an AI pioneer. It has developed its own models for more than 20 years and has recently released the most advanced translation LLM in the world.With Marco, we talked about the future of AI, combining AI and human work and the role of regulation. This is also the first interview we ever did in person. But as you will see and hear, I was recovering from a bad cough and had a bit of a low voice, hope you don't mind.(00:03:26) Introduction(00:05:45) The history of Translated(00:09:51) The use of transformers(00:12:47) Lara: the most advanced translation AI(00:17:51) The next step in AI models(00:24:01) The "Lara gap"(00:28:50) The real cost of training Lara(00:32:39) AI impact on human work in translation(00:41:16) Applying the Translated model in other fields(00:45:21) Concerns in AI applications(00:53:51) More on AI regulation(00:56:15) The state of AI startups(00:59:25) Understanding the AI game(01:03:31) AI and regular jobs—This episode is brought to you by https://workos.com—You can also find this at:- 📬 Newsletter: https://refactoring.fm- 📱 YouTube: https://youtu.be/HgKAg1rtQoE—For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club
Today's guest is Adam Wiggins! Adam is the General Manager of Platform at The Browser Company and co-founder of Heroku. With Adam, we talked about innovating user experience in software and AI, we discussed what Local-first software means and we explored the future of developer tools. (02:49) Introduction (04:01) Adam's journey in tech (06:15) The rise of developer experience (10:03) The constant drive of improving UX (12:07) Dia & The Browser Company (14:49) Using AI to improve UX (20:38) Unlocking potentials through UX (25:18) Local-first software (32:34) Data ownership (34:31) Web development and complexity (38:03) AI and the future of development (40:25) The iteration loop — This episode is brought to you by https://workos.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
Today's guest is Martin Fowler! Martin is chief scientist at ThoughtWorks. He is one of the original signatories of the Agile Manifesto and author of several legendary books, among which there is Refactoring, which shares the name with this podcast and this newsletter. With Martin, we talked about the impact of AI on software development, from the development process to how human learning and understanding changes up to the future of software engineering jobs. Then we explored the technical debt metaphor, why it has been so successful, and Martin's own advice on dealing with it. And finally, we talked about the state of Agile, the resistance that still exists today towards many Agile practices and how to measure engineering effectiveness. (03:29) Introduction (05:20) Development cycle with AI (08:36) Less control and reduced learning (13:11) Splitting task between Human and AI (14:48) The skills shift (20:17) Betting on new technologies (27:22) Martin's Refactoring and technical debt (29:24) Accumulating "cruft" (33:14) Dealing with "cruft" (37:24) The financial value of refactoring (42:04) Measuring performances (46:19) Why the "forest" didn't spread (56:11) Make the forest appealing — This episode is brought to you by https://workos.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
Today's guest is Aviv Ben Josef! Aviv has more than 20 years of experience in tech. He is an executive coach working with hundreds of engineering teams and leaders. With Aviv, we talked about profitable engineering, what makes engineering valuable, why impact is hard to measure,and what are the cultural and organizational traits that make engineering teams successful. (01:43) Introduction (02:20) Aviv’s journey into tech (05:57) From tech to consulting (08:12) Less coding, more coaching (11:42) Profitable engineering (15:11) What unprofitable engineering looks like (17:33) Other engineering dysfunctions (20:49) Why is engineering still perceived as a cost (27:23) Switch your approach (32:48) Intentional learning (38:29) Meta retros: connecting engineers and product (45:31) Set your goals (48:27) Product engineering in today’s framework (53:28) The AI influence on teamwork — This episode is brought to you by https://sleuth.io —
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
Today's guest is Pat Kua! Pat is a professional engineering and leadership coach with more than 20 years of experience in tech. He was CTO of N26 and principal consultant at ThoughtWorks. He is an accomplished speaker and writes an awesome newsletter for tech leaders called Level Up. With Pat, we talked about his journey in tech, from Australia to London to Berlin. We talked about the future of engineering management and technical leadership and the ever controversial founder mode. Here is what we talked about: (02:17) Introduction (03:05) Pat's journey in tech (12:17) Engineering management evolution (18:27) Balancing people and tech management (21:55) The paybacks of a good management (25:25) System thinking in people's management (28:39) Finding the balance in hybrid roles (31:52) The foundation skill (37:42) About Paul Graham's essay (45:22) The maker vs multiplier framework (48:15) The evolution of practices in tech — This episode is brought to you by https://sleuth.io — 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
Today's guest is Francesco Dominidiato!
Francesco Dominidiato is CTO at Moneyfarm, one of the largest wealth management companies in Europe, and former CTO at high-growth startups like Casavo and Docebo. During his career he scaled organizations from zero to hundreds of employees, and has incredible experience at all levels: from leading small teams to NASDAQ-listed companies.
With Francesco, we talked about career frameworks, how to create a path that creates opportunities for both individual contributors and managers, how to address career development issues, organizational debt and more.
Here is what we talked about:
(02:09) Introduction
(03:07) Francesco's journey in tech
(06:57) Today's industry direction
(18:17) A path for all careers
(23:36) Salary range & defining roles
(34:24) The cost of organizational debt
(41:10) Evolving the career framework
(53:35) Scaling the ladders
(57:02) Tricky roles
(01:04:21) The path of engineering career
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Today's guest is Stephanie Wong! Stephanie is the Head of Technical Marketing at Google Cloud, where she blends storytelling and technology to inspire developers and build customer growth. She’s an award-winning host, global keynote speaker, and creator of viral tech content. With Stephanie, we talked about her journey from sales to content creation to product management and generative AI. We talked about technical storytelling, how to craft great stories around technical products. And finally we discussed product management for generative AI and the challenges of driving adoption for AI products. Here is what we talked about: (01:58) Introduction (02:52) Stephanie's journey into tech (07:31) Pioneering content creation for tech (10:05) Learning through experience (13:17) How to tell a tech story (16:47) Branding and content creation (23:12) How to improve your storytelling (28:28) Finding the way to grow (34:11) "Get the ball rolling!" (41:40) Content creation and product management (44:20) AI's role in today's tech
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Today's guest is Pramoda Vyasarao! Pramoda is a leadership and communication coach, he has 20+ years of experience in big tech, wrote the book “Beyond Your Limits”, and runs a course called Communication Engineering With Pramoda, we will talk about what good communication looks like, especially for engineers and managers, how it impacted his career and the career of the leaders he helps. Here is what we talked about: (02:05) Introduction (02:51) The Toastmasters Club (07:12) Engineering Communication issues (10:18) Communication through Pramoda's career (13:28) The TALL framework (19:11) Evaluation vs Information (20:44) The TALL framework: Asking (34:19) The GROW model (36:18) The TALL framework: Listening (38:05) The Path to action (46:04) From feelings to facts (50:38) The TALL framework: Leadership (53:51) Get a coach! (55:28) Mentoring vs Coaching (58:39) Beyond your Limits: a look on Pramoda's work Learn more about Pramoda's work:
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Today's guest is Camille Fournier! Camille is an accomplished CTO and executive with 20+ years of experience in tech, and author of the timeless The Manager’s Path, possibly the most influential book ever about engineering management. With Camille we talked about good vs bad management, the controversial new founder mode, career advice for managers and her next book about platform engineering. Here is what we talked about: (02:01) Introduction (03:51) About the founder mode (11:46) Good weed, bad weeds (17:49) Finding "the formula" (21:24) Managing at different levels (28:03) The identity war (32:55) The staples of management (39:53) Having a strong opinion (43:21) Staying valuable (49:53) Keep your skills valuable (55:15) Platform engineering — This episode is brought to you by sleuth.io
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