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Open-source, complexity & AI coding 🔧 — with Salvatore "Antirez" Sanfilippo

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Content provided by Luca Rossi. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Luca Rossi or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://ppacc.player.fm/legal.

Today's guest is Salvatore Sanfilippo, also known as Antirez!Salvatore is the creator of Redis, an open source data store used by hundreds of thousands of developers across the world. And he's also a writer. He published the popular sci-fi novel called Wohpe, which anticipated a lot of what is happening today with AI.With Salvatore, we talked about open source — what makes a project successful and how to make it successful for its maintainers. Then we discussed how Salvatore uses AI for extremely complex coding, which makes him 5x faster than without AI. And finally, I asked him about his writing work and what is the experience of writing a novel versus a software project.02:55 Introduction06:47 Salvatore's life priorities12:40 Develop an open source project in 2025 18:14 Being a generalist with AI support19:25 Making an open source project sustainable23:54 Complexity of modern front-end development24:58 Big Tech, complexity and open source30:19 Escaping the complexity loop33:40 The rebirth of fullstack through AI34:53 How Salvatore creates code with AI41:16 Does AI increase code productivity?44:14 The importance of the right prompt47:06 Writing tests in the AI era of development50:49 Whope, Salvatore's sci-fi novel53:28 Writing a novel and writing code—This episode is brought to you by https://workos.com—Some show notes:• Salvatore's website: https://antirez.com/• Salvatore's Youtube: / @antirez • Wohpe: / wohpe —You can also find this at:

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

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43 episodes

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Manage episode 477569234 series 3642830
Content provided by Luca Rossi. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Luca Rossi or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://ppacc.player.fm/legal.

Today's guest is Salvatore Sanfilippo, also known as Antirez!Salvatore is the creator of Redis, an open source data store used by hundreds of thousands of developers across the world. And he's also a writer. He published the popular sci-fi novel called Wohpe, which anticipated a lot of what is happening today with AI.With Salvatore, we talked about open source — what makes a project successful and how to make it successful for its maintainers. Then we discussed how Salvatore uses AI for extremely complex coding, which makes him 5x faster than without AI. And finally, I asked him about his writing work and what is the experience of writing a novel versus a software project.02:55 Introduction06:47 Salvatore's life priorities12:40 Develop an open source project in 2025 18:14 Being a generalist with AI support19:25 Making an open source project sustainable23:54 Complexity of modern front-end development24:58 Big Tech, complexity and open source30:19 Escaping the complexity loop33:40 The rebirth of fullstack through AI34:53 How Salvatore creates code with AI41:16 Does AI increase code productivity?44:14 The importance of the right prompt47:06 Writing tests in the AI era of development50:49 Whope, Salvatore's sci-fi novel53:28 Writing a novel and writing code—This episode is brought to you by https://workos.com—Some show notes:• Salvatore's website: https://antirez.com/• Salvatore's Youtube: / @antirez • Wohpe: / wohpe —You can also find this at:

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

  continue reading

43 episodes

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Today's guest is Kevin Smith, who is co-founder of Snipd, one of the world's most popular podcast apps.With Kevin, we talked about his journey in tech, starting from quantitative finance and then running an AI team in a high-growth startup up to actually founding one with Snipd. Then we segued into talking about Snipd itself and what are the technical challenges of working with AI models all the time. And finally, we discussed the future of learning, what are Kevin's favorite podcasts, what makes them good, and how AI enables personalized learning at scale.01:26 Introduction01:45 Kevin's journey in tech04:18 AI giant leaps07:38 Sponsor08:50 Kevin's transition to founder16:30 What is Snipd?18:20 On AI models21:25 Snipd technical challenges29:49 How to improve quality in AI output31:30 AI in team management and dev processes34:19 AI coding enhancements38:05 Learning with modern tools42:50 Personalize learning with AI45:51 Kevin's favourite podcasts47:58 What makes a good podcast good?—This episode is brought to you by Swarmia! The engineering intelligence platform that serves some of the best software companies in the world.You can get 20% off by booking a demo at swarmia.com/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…
 
Today's guest is Dennis Pilarinos , who is founder and CEO of Unblocked. With Dennis, we talked about his journey in tech, which is just incredible, starting from director roles at Microsoft and Amazon, then founding BuddyBuild and later selling it to Apple, and eventually to these days where he founded Unblocked. And later we talked about Unblocked itself, which is one of the few developer AI tools that is specifically not about coding.So we talked about what problem it solves and the hardest tech challenges that the team has to work with.And finally, we discussed the future of DevTools, because Dennis has founded not one, but two companies about it. And this is a time of big transformation, with MCP, AI agents and more.01:48 Introduction02:33 Dennis' journey in tech06:11 Sponsor07:48 Adapting big tech knowledge15:31 Adding context to AI15:29 Managing humans and chaos25:03 AI and hallucination issue27:14 The tipping point of evolution28:33 The future of developer workflow34:25 Increase documentation to increase context33:43 AI: a future without layers36:53 Setting up a new dev team—This episode is brought to you by Swarmia! The engineering intelligence platform that serves some of the best software companies in the world.You can get 20% off by booking a demo at swarmia.com/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…
 
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 Salvatore Sanfilippo , also known as Antirez !Salvatore is the creator of Redis, an open source data store used by hundreds of thousands of developers across the world. And he's also a writer. He published the popular sci-fi novel called Wohpe, which anticipated a lot of what is happening today with AI.With Salvatore, we talked about open source — what makes a project successful and how to make it successful for its maintainers. Then we discussed how Salvatore uses AI for extremely complex coding, which makes him 5x faster than without AI. And finally, I asked him about his writing work and what is the experience of writing a novel versus a software project. 02:55 Introduction 06:47 Salvatore's life priorities 12:40 Develop an open source project in 2025 18:14 Being a generalist with AI support 19:25 Making an open source project sustainable 23:54 Complexity of modern front-end development 24:58 Big Tech, complexity and open source 30:19 Escaping the complexity loop 33:40 The rebirth of fullstack through AI 34:53 How Salvatore creates code with AI 41:16 Does AI increase code productivity? 44:14 The importance of the right prompt 47:06 Writing tests in the AI era of development 50:49 Whope, Salvatore's sci-fi novel 53:28 Writing a novel and writing code—This episode is brought to you by https://workos.com —Some show notes:• Salvatore's website: https://antirez.com/ • Salvatore's Youtube: / @antirez • Wohpe: / wohpe —You can also find this at: 📬 Newsletter: https://refactoring.fm 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Luds9d... 📱 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... —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…
 
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Today's guest is Aviv Ben Josef ! Aviv has more than 20 years of experience in tech. He is an executive coach working with hundreds of engineering teams and leaders. With Aviv, we talked about profitable engineering, what makes engineering valuable, why impact is hard to measure,and what are the cultural and organizational traits that make engineering teams successful. (01:43) Introduction (02:20) Aviv’s journey into tech (05:57) From tech to consulting (08:12) Less coding, more coaching (11:42) Profitable engineering (15:11) What unprofitable engineering looks like (17:33) Other engineering dysfunctions (20:49) Why is engineering still perceived as a cost (27:23) Switch your approach (32:48) Intentional learning (38:29) Meta retros: connecting engineers and product (45:31) Set your goals (48:27) Product engineering in today’s framework (53:28) The AI influence on teamwork — 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 Pat Kua ! Pat is a professional engineering and leadership coach with more than 20 years of experience in tech. He was CTO of N26 and principal consultant at ThoughtWorks. He is an accomplished speaker and writes an awesome newsletter for tech leaders called Level Up. With Pat, we talked about his journey in tech, from Australia to London to Berlin. We talked about the future of engineering management and technical leadership and the ever controversial founder mode. Here is what we talked about: (02:17) Introduction (03:05) Pat's journey in tech (12:17) Engineering management evolution (18:27) Balancing people and tech management (21:55) The paybacks of a good management (25:25) System thinking in people's management (28:39) Finding the balance in hybrid roles (31:52) The foundation skill (37:42) About Paul Graham's essay (45:22) The maker vs multiplier framework (48:15) The evolution of practices in tech — 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 Francesco Dominidiato ! Francesco Dominidiato is CTO at Moneyfarm, one of the largest wealth management companies in Europe, and former CTO at high-growth startups like Casavo and Docebo. During his career he scaled organizations from zero to hundreds of employees, and has incredible experience at all levels: from leading small teams to NASDAQ-listed companies. With Francesco, we talked about career frameworks, how to create a path that creates opportunities for both individual contributors and managers, how to address career development issues, organizational debt and more. Here is what we talked about: (02:09) Introduction (03:07) Francesco's journey in tech (06:57) Today's industry direction (18:17) A path for all careers (23:36) Salary range & defining roles (34:24) The cost of organizational debt (41:10) Evolving the career framework (53:35) Scaling the ladders (57:02) Tricky roles (01:04:21) The path of engineering career — 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…
 
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