Refactoring Podcast

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: luca@refactoring.club

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

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

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

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 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