6x founder and Shopify Principal Engineer on AI, Rails, and pairing with Obie Fernandez

In this episode of the Distributed podcast, host Jack Hannah sits down with Obie Fernandez, Principal Engineer at Shopify, 6x founder (including Andela and Hashrocket), and prolific author and musician. Obie reflects on his early role in the Ruby and Rails communities, what led him to shift away from Java, and how he uses and thinks about AI.

Obie goes deep on how he and his team at Shopify uses AI, while touching on what this means for pair programming, mentorship, and the future of software development.

Highlights:

• How Obie made Rails mainstream at ThoughtWorks and beyond
• How Obie and Shopify use AI
• Reflections on pair programming and the future of software development

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) – Opening the conversation with Obie Fernandez

(01:59) – What made Ruby stand out after years of Java

(07:45) – Driving Rails’ adoption at ThoughtWorks and shaking up the status quo

(15:54) – How Shopify thinks about the developer experience

(20:19) – Why every developer should experience pair programming

(25:03) – How Obie uses AI

(27:15) – The future of software development and collaboration

(33:13) – When to stop vibe coding and prioritize quality

(34:04) – Big P vs little p pair programming

References:

Patterns of Application Development Using AI

Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke's now infamous AI memo

Where to connect further:

Connect with Obie Fernandez on Instagram and obiefernandez.com

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Want to hear more? Check out distributed.fm

Connect with Jack Hannah