
Refactoring Podcast
Weekly interviews with world-class engineering leaders about writing great software and working well with humans.
Latest episodes

13 snips
May 2, 2024 • 57min
Engineering Productivity and Developer Experience 📊 — with Laura Tacho (DX)
Laura Tacho, CTO at DX, discusses measuring engineering productivity, finding value metrics, easing pressure, DevEx framework, empowering DevEx in business, responsibilities ownership, and DevEx integration patterns.

Apr 26, 2024 • 59min
Small Bets for Engineers 💰 — with Daniel Vassallo (Small Bets)
Join Daniel Vassallo, creator of Small Bets community, as he shares insights on career transitions, Small Bets philosophy, and self-employment. Learn about market understanding, lifestyle improvements, time allocation, and criteria for idea selection.

61 snips
Apr 5, 2024 • 1h 6min
How to be Successful as a Manager 🎽 — with Thiago Ghisi
Thiago Ghisi, Director of Engineering at Nubank, discusses what makes managers successful, career development in tech, and transitioning from expert to strategist. Topics include productivity, feedback loops, becoming a technical manager, and the Four Ps model for effective management.

6 snips
Mar 29, 2024 • 56min
It's Rarely About the Tech 👑 — with Andrew Weaver
Andrew Weaver is co-founder and CEO of CTO Academy, an educational product that works with thousands of CTO today. Andrew has over 25+ years of executive-level experience with companies of various size, including enterprises, SME and early-stage companies across multiple sectors.
With Andrew, we discussed gaining the proper skillset to be a good CTO, the imbalances in the tech space, and how to keep up with the current technologies.
Here is what we talked about:
(00:00) Introduction
(03:02) What is CTO Academy and how it works
(07:53) What makes a good CTO
(14:01) The CTO mindset
(20:06) Being a CTO in a remote environment
(23:20) Unleashing the "quiet genius"
(28:11) How AI is changing tech
(36:58) Education & micro-learning
(45:11) Q&A
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You can also find this at:
📬 Newsletter
📺 Youtube
📱 Apple

124 snips
Mar 22, 2024 • 1h 7min
Good Communication for Engineers 💬 — with Wes Kao
Wes Kao discusses managing up and bridging the gap between managers and reports. The 'Bad Things / Good Things' framework, good communication in the remote era, and the transition to remote work at Maven are explored. Sync vs async communication, the importance of over-communicating, and Wes' approach to reading are also highlighted.

Mar 14, 2024 • 1h 2min
How to Build High Performing Engineering Teams 🏗️ — with Maria Gutierrez (Personio, Twitter)
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.

58 snips
Feb 29, 2024 • 1h 6min
How to Improve Developer Productivity 📊 — with Kathryn Koehler (Netflix)
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.

Feb 22, 2024 • 1h 7min
Running a Remote Big Tech — with Farhan Thawar (Shopify)
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.

31 snips
Feb 16, 2024 • 1h
The State of Software Engineering — with Kent Beck
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.

Feb 8, 2024 • 1h 2min
Integrating AI into Products and Teams — with Disheng Qiu (Translated)
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