DO repeat yourself! (Interview)

The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source

Prolific software blogger, Sean Goedecke, joins us to discuss why he believes software engineers need to be involved in the politics of their organization, how to avoid worry driven development, what is “good taste” in software engineering, where agentic coding will take our industry, why getting the main thing right is so important, and how to get your blog to the top of Hacker News.

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Sponsors:

• Tiger Data – Postgres for Developers, devices, and agents The data platform trusted by hundreds of thousands from IoT to Web3 to AI and more.
• Depot – 10x faster builds? Yes please. Build faster. Waste less time. Accelerate Docker image builds, and GitHub Actions workflows. Easily integrate with your existing CI provider and dev workflows to save hours of build time.
• Augment Code – Developer AI that uses deep understanding of your large codebase and how you build software to deliver personalized code suggestions and insights. Augment provides relevant, contextualized code right in your IDE or Slack. It transforms scattered knowledge into code or answers, eliminating time spent searching docs or interrupting teammates.
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Featuring:

• Sean Goedecke – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
• Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
• Jerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

Show Notes:

• Is it worrying that 95% of AI enterprise projects fail?
• How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer
• Avoiding worry driven development
• What is “good taste” in software engineering?
• Mistakes I see engineers making in their code reviews
• Situational Awareness: the decade ahead

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Kapitel

1. Welcome to The Changelog (00:00:00)

2. Sponsor: Tiger Data (00:01:14)

https://www.tigerdata.com

3. Start the show! (00:02:57)

4. Sean's blogging story (00:03:55)

5. Having something to say (00:05:47)

6. Do repeat yourself! (00:10:01)

7. Let's get political (in our orgs) (00:12:04)

8. Confidence: how? (00:13:42)

9. How to influence company politics (00:16:22)

10. Sponsor: Depot (00:23:18)

https://depot.dev

11. Emotional Intelligence (00:26:07)

12. What is good taste (00:30:12)

13. Agents rock the foundations (00:34:10)

14. Same stuff, different pile (00:39:27)

15. The value of code review (00:40:39)

16. Spec-driven change (00:43:30)

17. Tools change the game (00:45:05)

18. Sponsor: Augment Code (00:47:46)

https://www.augmentcode.com

19. Sponsor: NordLayer (00:49:16)

https://nordlayer.com/thechangelog

20. Mistakes engineers make in code review (00:50:55)

21. Outsized influence (00:55:07)

22. Getting the main thing right (00:58:21)

23. The TikTok intern (01:05:01)

24. A high stakes game (01:07:10)

25. How to top Hacker News (01:09:00)

26. Jerod fluffs you up ;) (01:13:47)

27. Everyone's a critic (01:15:16)

28. Wrapping up (01:17:35)

29. Closing thoughts (join ++!) (01:18:06)

https://changelog.com/++