Refactoring Podcast Refactoring at Scale Done Right 🏗️ — with Maude Lemaire
10 snips
Jul 11, 2025 Maude Lemaire, Principal Engineer at GitHub and author of "Refactoring at Scale," shares her journey from Rent the Runway to Slack and GitHub. She dives into the art of refactoring at scale, highlighting common pitfalls and the importance of onboarding teams effectively. The conversation touches on the challenges of migrating to cloud systems and the role of communication in successful transitions. Maude also shares humorous anecdotes about data migration efforts, emphasizing the necessity of testing in production for real-world insights.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Maude's Tech Career Pivot
- Maude initially planned a career in genetics but found molecular biology uninteresting and switched to computer science.
- Her coding journey was influenced by her father, a computer science teacher and embedded systems programmer.
Interview That Energized Maude
- Maude felt energized after interviewing at Slack, a rare experience for her.
- She describes the feeling of walking out of an interview with more energy than going in.
Culture and Challenges in Big Tech
- Both GitHub and Slack share engineering love for their products and desire to improve them.
- Each company adapts legacy processes and infrastructure to their growing scale and evolving needs.
