Refactoring Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

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Refactoring Podcast

Luca Rossi

Business

Frequency: 1 episode/14d. Total Eps: 72

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

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Data updated on 18/09/2026

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Score global : 42%

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Making AI agents work in your team 🤖 — with Dennis Pilarinos

Episode 71

Tuesday, September 15, 2026 • Duration 53:55

Today's guest is Dennis Pilarinos, who is the founder and CEO of Unblocked and a long-time developer tools expert, having founded BodyBuild and having served as a director at Apple, Amazon and Microsoft.

With Dennis, we talked about the latest trends in software development. We discussed why more tokens are not translating into more productivity, how to guarantee code quality with AI and what's the role of context in making your agents succeed. And we also explored how the Unblocked team is doing it, navigating their setup and a few use cases about how their shipping features in production.

(00:00) Episode start

(03:50) Introducing Dennis Pilarinos

(04:40) Token spend is exploding

(09:03) Measuring developer productivity is still unsolved

(12:31) Code review is the new bottleneck

(18:01) Code quality depends on context, not skill alone

(21:07) The content curation trap: why markdown files go stale

(26:40) What sources to plug into your context engine

(33:47) How the Unblocked team ships: risk assessment and auto-merge

(43:29) Releasing faster: skip design partners, ship to everyone

(49:20) Remote agents and the future of context-powered coding

Today's episode is brought to you by Notion.

Learn more about Notion’s Developer Platform today at https://ntn.so/refactoring

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

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Building With Agents Today 🤖 — with Charlie Guo

Episode 69

Friday, August 7, 2026 • Duration 01:00:17

Today's guest is Charlie Guo, developer experience engineer at OpenAI.

With Charlie, we explore the evolution of AI coding tools, how this is affecting team organization, and the future of AI integration in software development. Charlie shared strategies and tricks to leverage AI effectively, and how this is all transforming the workflows that we all know and love.

(00:00) Episode start

(01:20) Introducing Charlie Guo

(02:31) Inside the Codex team

(03:49) Sponsor break

(05:35) The philosophy behind Codex

(09:19) From CLI to desktop app

(12:29) The m.google.com of AI

(17:28) Are MCPs here to stay?

(21:58) Sharing AI workflows across teams

(24:56) Generalists vs specialists: converging roles

(33:22) Deterministic guardrails for coding agents

(39:02) Using Codex as a personal knowledge base

(46:01) Design with the image model first

Today's episode is brought to you by Notion.

Learn more about Notion’s Developer Platform today at https://ntn.so/refactoring

Speed Is the Only Moat 🏎️ — with Anush Elangovan

Episode 68

Friday, July 17, 2026 • Duration 51:48

Today's guest is Anush Elangovan, VP of AI Software at AMD. With Anush, we talked about how he thinks about open source as a key strategic driver in the AI era, and how his team is able to stay super fast while ensuring quality by combining their internal work with their external contributions.And then we got into a rabbit hole about how to get big companies ready for AI, how to think about human capital, and how Anush personally spends his time. And spoiler alert, he is back to doing IC work for up to 40% of his time.(00:00) Episode start(01:31) Introducing Anush Elangovan(01:39) AMD's open-source AI stack(04:08) Sponsor break(05:34) How AI contributions are reshaping open-source maintenance(08:33) From demo to production: the quality gates funnel(11:10) When agents game the system(17:10) Speed as a moat: the open-source flywheel(20:31) Agent-first development: what it really looks like(23:56) AI cleanup: getting legacy code ready for agents(28:24) The excavator analogy(31:08) The new engineers(34:12) VP doing IC work(43:28) Open-weight models, AI as electricity, and what's next-Today's episode is brought to you by Unblocked.Unblocked is the context layer for modern engineering teams.Get a free three-week trial at -

The Rise of Malleable Software 🧩 — with Geoffrey Litt

Episode 67

Friday, July 10, 2026 • Duration 57:07

Today's guest is Geoffrey Litt, Design Engineer at Notion. With Geoffrey, we talked about malleable software, a type of platform that kind of always existed, but is now getting new meaning and opportunity thanks to AI.

And then we talked about how Notion itself changed its place in the ecosystem, with the AI agents first, and now with the new developer platform, where you can ship code directly inside Notion. And finally, we talked about how Notion builds Notion, design as shipping code to production, internal prototyping, feature flags, and more.

(00:00) Episode start

(01:26) Introducing Geoffrey Litt

(01:58) Malleable software

(05:37) Sponsor break

(07:11) The nightmare bycicle analogy

(09:56) Teach users just in time

(14:15) How Notion exposes structure

(17:41) Vibe coding vs platforms

(19:18) Notion's shift from walled garden to developer hub

(20:57) Bringing external coding agents into Notion

(26:43) The accountants analogy: why more productivity creates more jobs

(33:30) Trust and oversight: AI agents

(40:32) How design engineers ship to production daily at Notion

(47:39) Prototyping in code

Today's episode is brought to you by Unblocked.

Unblocked is the context layer for modern engineering teams.

The Power of Stories ✍️ — with Michael "Rands" Lopp

Episode 66

Friday, June 26, 2026 • Duration 43:53

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

Live at LDX3, we discussed his lifelong writing habit, the importance of giving feedback through stories and the leverage of leadership experience in the AI era.

(00:00) Episode start

(00:40) A live chat with Rands at LeadDev

(02:10) How to collect and write great leadership stories

(03:38) Sponsor break

(05:13) Writing as a habit: from journals to 14,000 readers

(08:09) The power of naming things

(10:20) Using stories to give feedback without being directive

(12:40) Introverts, extroverts, and bringing calm to explosive situations

(15:09) Tinkering with AI: joy, interns, and daily delight

(19:18) "I was wrong" why managers should code again

(21:54) Do we still need middle managers in the AI era?

(27:40) The accountants analogy: why more productivity creates more jobs

(36:25) Managing Robots: the book that's coming

Today's episode is brought to you by Unblocked.

Unblocked is the context layer for modern engineering teams.

Get a free three-week trial at https://getunblocked.com/refactoring

Understanding Engineers' Needs 🧬 — with Lara Hogan

Episode 65

Friday, June 12, 2026 • Duration 58:01

Today's guest is Lara Hogan, an author, public speaker and coach for managers and leaders across the whole tech industry. And she's had a long career as VP of engineering at FLY, Kickstarter, Director Etsy and more.

So with Lara we talked about her journey in tech, which started with a philosophy degree. And then, taking from her work as a coach, we talked more about how successful teams are adopting AI and what you can do to make engineers feel safe about it. And finally, we explored the Biceps framework and how you can better understand people's needs at work.

(00:00) Episode start

(01:25) Introduction

(02:59) Why nuanced AI takes matter more than slogans

(04:25) Sponsor break

(08:54) From philosophy major to engineering director

(15:09) Becoming a manager

(18:54) Do humanities give you an edge in the AI era?

(22:04) Teams thriving with AI vs teams struggling

(28:03) Setting clear expectations without creating fear

(35:52) The AHA meetings: sharing learnings, not just wins

(41:40) The BICEPS framework

(47:18) When frustration isn't curiosity

(52:58) Reflect back what you hear

—

Today's episode is brought to you by Unblocked.

Unblocked is the context layer for modern engineering teams.

Get a free three-week trial at getunblocked.com/refactoring

The Future of Engineering 🔮 — with James Stanier

Episode 64

Friday, May 29, 2026 • Duration 58:46

Today's guest is James Stanier, CTO at Nordhealth, former director at Shopify, an author of several books about engineering management, remote work, and more.

With James, we talked about what senior engineers will look like in the future, taking from a great article he wrote just recently, and then regarding how engineering management is changing, what's expected of managers today, and what you need to thrive.

We also talked about AI adoption in his team, in our personal respective lives, and discussed the state of remote work in 2026.

(00:00) Episode start

(01:25) Introduction

(02:05) Senior engineers in 2035

(05:11) Sponsor break

(06:45) Level of abstraction: from compilers to AI

(10:17) Excited engineers and worried engineers

(12:44) The bifurcation: vibe coders vs platform engineers

(16:51) Engineering managing role changes

(23:21) Managing time with expanding roles

(28:32) Are hierarchies flattening?

(36:25) AI adoption in James' team

(41:27) What's hard in the AI era

(44:36) AI as a personal assistant

(50:05) Remote work in 2026

Today's episode is brought to you by Unblocked.

Unblocked is the context layer for modern engineering teams.

The State of Product Development 🔍 — with Doug Peete

Episode 63

Friday, May 15, 2026 • Duration 01:00:37

Today's guest is Doug Peete, Chief Product Officer at Atono, with whom over the last few months we have developed a deep industry report about the state of product development.In this chat we'll go through the main findings of the report, match them to our respective experience and explore ideas about how teams can do better with product development and AI(00:00) Episode start(01:38) Introduction(02:39) Sponsor break(05:38) Frailty of planning process(10:58) Product(13:19) What needs to be done(20:38) Design reviews(26:33) How to improve requirements(27:41) Knowledge across teams(35:07) Capturing the history of a product(39:14) Enabling sharing process(47:17) New metrics in AI era(50:47) AI in product requirements and products specs-Today's episode is brought to you by Unblocked.Unblocked is the context layer for modern engineering teams.Get a free three-week trial at getunblocked.com/refactoring-

You can also find this at:

• 📬 Newsletter: https://refactoring.fm

How to Own Your Career 🦝 — with Jean Hsu and Cate Huston

Episode 62

Friday, May 1, 2026 • Duration 56:30

Today's guests, plural, are Jean Hsu and Cate Huston.They're both extremely experienced engineering leaders and coaches, accomplished authors, and have held leadership roles at companies like Duck.co, Automattic, Medium and more. And are now running a program to help engineers and managers become, in their own words, directly responsible individuals of their careers to navigate these complicated times, to say the least. So with Jean and Cate, we talked about exploring what you want from your career, how to be intentional about it, how to use feedback to assess how you're doing, and how AI is changing and not changing the picture.(01:51) Introduction(03:39) Dealing with adverse conditions(09:45) Sponsor break(10:42) DRI your career and coaching(13:07) Career's approach(18:52) Figuring out your goal: Luca's example(30:48) Coaching for EMs vs coaching for ICs(32:23) Moving forward in your daily job(36:06) Feedbacks and culture of appreciation(41:32) Does AI change how do you think about your career?(45:42) AI pressure and AI passion

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Today’s sponsor is Intent by Augment. Intent is a developer workspace built for orchestrating agents: it starts with the living spec that updates as agents make progress, so every task stays aligned with no manual coordination. Try it for yourself at https://www.augmentcode.com/product/intent

—

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

Refactoring Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

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Refactoring Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

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Apple Podcasts

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