Luca Rossi interviews Michael Lopp, also known as Rands, Senior Director of Engineering at Apple and author of "Managing Humans". They discuss Rands' long writing career, how it clarified his thoughts and aided professional growth, and his perspective on engineering management, emphasizing people skills over frameworks and the lack of formal training. The conversation also delves into changes in management, organizational structures, and the potential impact of AI on engineering teams, stressing the enduring importance of human intuition, creativity, and the crucial "last 10%" in a world with accelerating AI capabilities.
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'...
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 pr...
Abi Noda, CEO of DX, joins Luca Rossi to discuss the complexities of measuring developer productivity and experience. They explore the common misinterpretations of the Accelerate book's Dora metrics, emphasizing their role as diagnostic outcomes rather than direct targets for improvement. The conversation highlights Developer Experience itself as a crucial input for driving productivity, identifying key factors like focus time and knowledge management. Finally, they analyze the current state of AI in development, contrasting social media hype with real-world impact and potential beyond just coding.
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 extrem...
Luca Rossi interviews Joel Chippindale, a full-time CTO coach, about the role and benefits of coaching in the tech industry. They explore how coaching differs from mentoring, the advantages of both one-on-one and group coaching, and delve into the most common challenges CTOs face, such as feeling isolated, effectively integrating with the executive team, and communicating the value of technical initiatives. Joel shares insights from his work, emphasizing the importance of building trust, understanding business priorities, leveraging individual strengths, and mastering delegation.
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...
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 interv...
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) ...
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 deb...
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)...
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...
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 ...
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 ...
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 Communi...
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, b...
Today's guest is David Heinemeier Hansson ! David is the creator of Rails, co-founder & CTO of Basecamp, a NYT bestselling author, and professional racing driver for 10+ years! In our chat, we explored many of David's strong opinions on software development, including today's excessive complexity in software and infrastructure, the role of AI, and the future of open source. We also talked about his racing and how he approaches learning any topic from scratch. Here is what we talked about: (0...
Today's guest is Henry Poydar ! Henry is CEO and founder at Steady, with more than 25 years of experience in tech leadership roles. With Henry, we talked about continuous coordination, an open source framework he co-created, providing a set of principles and practices for running modern, effective engineering teams. Here is what we talked about: (01:25) Introduction (02:25) Henry's Career (13:23) Create async communication (16:47) Keeping a steady beat (23:02) Define a necessary meeting (26:00) ...
Today's guest is Dana Lawson ! Dana is CTO at Netlify and held leadership roles at incredible companies like GitHub, New Relic, InVision, and more. With Dana, we talked about her journey, starting in the military, becoming a manager and major lessons she has learned. We also talked about how to hire engineers, how to create a diverse and inclusive team, and the impact of AI on engineering. Here is what we talked about: (01:25) Introduction (02:07) Dana's tech journey (08:43) Career's tipping poi...
Today's guest is Irina Stanescu ! Irina is a full-time engineering coach, course instructor, and former manager at Uber and Google. With Irina, we talked about her journey through Silicon Valley, big tech, and high growth startups, balancing IC and management duties, and achieving impact through influence. Here is what we talked about: (01:21) Introduction (02:02) Irina’s first steps (06:10) Joining Google (08:15) From Google to Uber (10:16) Being a young TLM (14:34) The restraints of a TLM (18:...
Today's guest is Greg Foster ! Greg is CTO at Graphite, a tool that helps teams doing better code reviews, and smaller and faster code changes. With Greg, we talked about what good code reviews look like, how AI is changing the development process, and how the Graphite engineering team works. Here is what we talked about: (02:01) Introduction (03:06) What is Graphite? (05:05) Graphite's code reviewing (09:58) Combining different workflows (13:07) Monorepos vs polyrepos (17:28) Conducting code re...
Today's guest is Malte Ubl ! Malte is CTO at Vercel, the frontend cloud provider, and creator and maintainer of Next.js, the most popular React framework. Malte has also been Engineer Director at Google, where he led Google Search for desktop computers. With Malte, we deep dived into how Vercel works as a team, what could developer experience look like, and the future of AI-enabled applications. Here is what we talked about: (01:21) Introduction (02:17) How Vercel works (05:01) Vercel team strat...
Today's guest is Anna Shipman ! Anna is CTO at Kooth, former Technical Director at Financial Times, a Keynote speaker and accomplished author. With Anna, we talked about her journey in tech and how to develop a good technical strategy, drawing from stories and examples from her 20 plus years of engineering experience. Here is what we talked about: (00:54) Introduction (01:20) Anna's journey in Tech (06:36) Going from public to private (09:17) What does Kooth do? (12:53) Technical strategy defini...
Today's guest is Rebecca Murphey . Rebecca is field CTO at Swarmia, former manager at Stripe and Indeed, and the author of Build: Elements of an Effective Software Organization. With Rebecca, we talked about her journey through Indeed, Stripe and Swarmia and the three pillars of her book, business outcomes, developer productivity, and developer experience. Here is what we talked about: (00:58) Introduction (02:15) Rebecca's Journey (08:24) Joining Swarmia (15:02) 1st Pillar: Business outcomes (2...
Today's guest is Rachel Potvin . Rachel is SVP of Engineering at Sanity, ex-VP of Engineering at Github, and previously worked at Google and Ubisoft. She has had an incredible career journey and is a world renowned speaker. With Rachel we talked about her journey across what feels like different generations of companies. We talked about scaling teams, challenges, lessons learned and the great work she's doing at Sanity right now. Here is what we talked about: (01:37) Introduction (02:39) Rachel'...
Today's guest is Denis Yarats . Denis is co-founder & CTO at Perplexity, one of my favorite products and one of the most successful AI startups today. Perplexity was founded less than two years ago and has just raised $250M in venture capital, at a $2B+ evaluation. With Denis, we talked about the state of AI products and his vision of where they're going. Then we talked about Perplexity as a company, how the team is organized, how engineers work, and how they use AI themselves. —— I am sorry...
Today's guest is Aditya Agarwal . Aditya is a legend: he joined Facebook as employee #10 and, years later, joined Dropbox as CTO when there were ~20 engineers. Today, he is partner at South Park Commons, through which he invested in more than 300 companies. Today we talked about early stage Facebook, differences and similarities with Dropbox, engineering teams in hyper growth and the future of engineering management. Here is what we talked about: (02:17) Introduction (03:10) Facebook Employee n ...
Today's guest is Charity Majors , CTO at Honeycomb and one of my absolute favorite writers. I believe I have recommended more articles from her blog than any other author on the newsletter. Today we talked about observability, testing in production, continuous delivery, developer experience and much more. Here is what we talked about: (00:49) Introduction (01:57) What is observability (07:00) Observability in microservices (12:51) From monitoring to observing (16:20) Start observing now (19:36) ...
Today's guest is Laura Tacho , CTO at DX, engineering leadership coach, and speaker. At DX, she works with hundreds of companies on improving their developer experience and engineering productivity. Here is what we talked about: (02:20) Introduction (03:36) Why measure engineering productivity (05:58) Finding the proper framework (13:33) Value metrics to find issues (15:00) Identify and ease the pressure (18:12) Reaching the proper execution (21:16) Measuring in different environments (25:25) Th...
Today's guest is Daniel Vassallo , the creator of the Small Bets community, which counts more than 5 ,000 members and includes engineers, entrepreneurs, and creators of all kinds. Daniel is also a former software engineer at AWS, the author of The Good Parts of AWS and created a successful Twitter course. With Daniel, we will talk about his unconventional journey in tech, the Small Bets philosophy, and advice for engineers about careers, site projects, technology and skills. Here is what we talk...
