Today's guest is Michael Lopp, better known as Rands, who is Senior Director of Engineering at Apple and writer of several popular books about engineering management, including "Managing Humans", which is a personal favorite of mine.

With Rands, we discuss his journey into writing and the impact it had on his personal and professional growth. We reflected on his leadership style and the complexities of modern engineering management.

01:07 Introduction

02:49 Rands first steps in writing

06:06 Sponsor

07:46 Does writing help in managing?

13:05 Michael and Rands

15:29 Managing humans and chaos

19:56 Mentoring fresh managers

21:31 Rands' managing style

28:27 Feedbacks

30:25 Changes in engineering management

33:43 AI: a future without layers

40:10 Testing a thesis

42:40 AI Interation = People Interation

45:07 What is not going to change

48:38 The 10%

—

You can also find this at:

• 📬 Newsletter: https://refactoring.fm

• 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Luds9dmzZDoDC8Q7EMbSw

• 📱 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/refactoring-podcast/id1719137305

—

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club

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's journey in tech10:31 Vercel vs Complexity12:07 Helping solo engineers and great teams17:38 The importance of JavaScript20:23 TypeScript and JavaScript22:11 Satisfying both open source and market landscape28:18 For the open-source engineers32:35 The last frameworks36:55 AI current limitations38:59 The best framework for AI43:48 100 milliseconds48:34 Does Guillermo still code?52:10 The founder mode53:59 AI will make us full stack—You can also find this at:• 📬 Newsletter: https://refactoring.fm• 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Luds9dmzZDoDC8Q7EMbSw• 📱 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/refactoring-podcast/id1719137305—For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club

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 productivity in 2025
08:29 Code creation process and AI
10:46 Coding and bottlenecks
15:05 Cognitive unload using AI
16:48 The journey of AI adoption
21:50 AI native environment
24:57 How teams are changing
28:35 More AI = More development
30:40 The skeptcisim about coding with AI
33:50 Removing the toil from coding
35:31 AI help outside coding
41:50 How to integrate AI in a company
44:38 Go with the (AI) flow
45:34 Education in prompting
—
You can also find this at:
• Newsletter: https://refactoring.fm
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Luds9dmzZDoDC8Q7EMbSw
• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/refactoring-podcast/id1719137305
—
For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club

Today's guest is Abi Noda, the CEO and founder of DX, one of the leading engineering intelligence platforms.With Abi, we talked about measuring developer experience. We started with the early days of Accelerate and why we feel like most people got the book wrong. And then we continued to present days and how research focuses on driving great developer experience. And finally, we couldn't avoid talking about AI and why it seems to be a game changer for entrepreneurs, but not so much for teams yet.01:23 Introduction02:45 Abi's journey in tech08:19 The four key metrics10:41 Metrics' reliability13:41 Diagnostic metrics16:06 A metric analogy18:23 Find productivy metrics drive22:03 What makes a developer experience good?29:44 The importance of comparison31:53 Common issues in developer experience34:55 Are meetings bad?36:16 AI in development process—This episode is brought to you by https://sleuth.io—You can also find this at:• 📬 Newsletter: https://refactoring.fm• 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Luds9dmzZDoDC8Q7EMbSw• 📱 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/refactoring-podcast/id1719137305—For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club

Today's guest is Joel Chippindale!Joel is a full-time CTO Coach and one of the coaches-in-residence in the Refactoring community, where he runs monthly mastermind sessions and other community events.So with Joel, we dived into what coaching is, the difference with mentoring, one-on-one versus group coaching, and what are the top challenges that CTO faces today, based on the work that Joel does with his coaches.02:34 Introduction03:40 Joel's journey in tech05:21 Finding a definition of coaching07:25 Mentoring and coaching roles10:22 One-to-on and group coaching12:53 The "hows" of coaching15:12 Is coaching a widespread practice?18:35 Top CTOs challenges21:43 Right support for right challenges26:08 Advocating for technical work31:53 Commonalities and uniquenesses in CTOs challenges34:20 The platonic ideal of CTO36:49 Choosing what to focus on39:48 How to delegate properly

—

This episode is brought to you by https://workos.com

—

You can also find this at:

- 📬 Newsletter: https://refactoring.fm

- 📱 YouTube: https://youtu.be/HgKAg1rtQoE

—

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club

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 creation, the role of generalists, entrepreneurs, and how his team builds software with AI. And spoiler alert, AI writes 90% of their code.03:08 Introduction06:42 Every and Dan's journey in tech12:56 From writer to CEO16:20 The importance of delegating18:01 What you want vs what people want21:06 Stick to yourself24:38 Playing the long game27:02 AI and content creation31:05 Approaching the use of AI36:29 Finding new workflows with AI39:03 More an AI generated code40:35 A new skillset for engineers42:44 More on the new engineering role44:45 The next AI assisted leaps

—

This episode is brought to you by https://workos.com

—

You can also find this at:

- 📬 Newsletter: https://refactoring.fm

- 📱 YouTube: https://youtu.be/HgKAg1rtQoE

—

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club

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 interview we ever did in person. But as you will see and hear, I was recovering from a bad cough and had a bit of a low voice, hope you don't mind.(00:03:26) Introduction(00:05:45) The history of Translated(00:09:51) The use of transformers(00:12:47) Lara: the most advanced translation AI(00:17:51) The next step in AI models(00:24:01) The "Lara gap"(00:28:50) The real cost of training Lara(00:32:39) AI impact on human work in translation(00:41:16) Applying the Translated model in other fields(00:45:21) Concerns in AI applications(00:53:51) More on AI regulation(00:56:15) The state of AI startups(00:59:25) Understanding the AI game(01:03:31) AI and regular jobs—This episode is brought to you by https://workos.com—You can also find this at:- 📬 Newsletter: https://refactoring.fm- 📱 YouTube: https://youtu.be/HgKAg1rtQoE—For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club