Refactoring Podcast

Discussion with Maria Gutierrez on building healthy engineering orgs, balancing speed and quality, remote work impact, transitioning to manager roles, engineering productivity metrics, AI utilization in teams, and career advice for engineers.

Explore how Netflix fosters a unique culture, the challenges of developer productivity, the role of platform teams in software development, the importance of detailed planning, and the intricacies of measuring team productivity using AI and customer-centric metrics.

VP of Engineering at Shopify discusses remote work dynamics, VR meetings, pair programming, AI productivity, and engineering metrics. Emphasizes digital-first culture, unique collaboration, and balancing remote vs IRL. Insights on using VR for work, role of managers, and being an AI Centaur for enhanced productivity.

Kent Beck, original signer of the Agile manifesto, creator of Extreme Programming, and all-round programming legend, discusses the state of software engineering today, including topics such as agile vs power structures, the return of waterfall, extreme programming & TDD, feedback loops, code reviews & stacked diffs, and AI for writing and engineering.

Disheng Qiu is VP of Engineering at Translated, one of the largest translation companies in the world, powering localization for the likes of Airbnb, Uber, Skyscanner, and more. Translated has been working on proprietary AI models and tools for 20+ years. It has an internal research team and develops tools that power the work of tens of thousands of professionals. With Disheng we explored what it means to be an AI-first company. We talked about many things, including: (00:00) Introduction (03:24) What does Translated do? (12:40) Challenges and costs of fine-tuning AI models (30:36) Bringing AI research into products (43:30) The role of AI in enhancing productivity (57:12) The future of AI and human collaboration — You can also find this at: 📬 ⁠Newsletter⁠ 📺 ⁠Youtube⁠ 📱 ⁠Apple⁠

Aadil Maan, Lead Engineering Program Manager at Humane and a big tech veteran, talks about the World Builder Framework, startups vs big tech, hardware vs software, and joining a new team. They discuss the role of technical program management, the importance of a jack of all trades, and the complexity of issue management. They also explore mixing and matching frameworks for customizable solutions and the importance of understanding people and the tech stack.

Lena Reinhard, VP of Engineering at CircleCI, discusses challenges in the tech industry, creating a healthy work environment, and the importance of self-care for leaders in this episode. They also explore generational shifts, recognizing signs of burnout, and investing in a healthy work environment.

Weekly interviews with world-class engineering leaders, available for free to everyone, in video and audio. 🗓️ New episodes drop every Friday. 📬 Subscribe to the newsletter at refactoring.fm to receive the episodes via email. 📺 Check out the full videos on the Youtube channel