Episode 61: Keep your database close

We finally come back to the mic to talk about what everyone is talking about: LLMs at work. Urban has stopped handwriting code, Monica is delegating debugging to Claude between meetings, and we both wonder out loud whether our processes, our hiring, and honestly our jobs are quietly being rewritten while we ride the wave. Mentioned Destroying the Machines, with Brian Merchant The engineering management memory crisis Quotable moments [10:00] "How can I trust you if you're not able to commit to the fact that, sorry, I don't know about this." — Monica [18:24] "Who is going to review 20,000 lines of code in a language they're not expert of? Looks good to me territory." — Urban [23:55] "Nobody knows. Remember that they're all making stuff up." — Monica [35:32] "You are all going to become engineering managers... what you're going to have at your disposal is a certain amount of agents that you can spin up and tell them to orchestrate between each other." — Monica Ask questions via our anonymous feedback form You can reach us via email at [email protected]. Where to find Monica on the internet: Website: monicag.me Bluesky: @nirnaeth.bsky.social Mastodon: @[email protected] Github: @nirnaeth Blog: dev.to/nirnaeth Where to find Urban on the internet: Mastodon: @[email protected] Bluesky: @urbanhafner.bsky.social Github: @ujh Blog: urbanhafner.com The intro and outro music is Our Big Adventure by Scott Holmes. It's licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

We finally have the in depth discussion about LLMs, how we use them, and what we think they might evolve into. We also touch on starting to pay more and more for stuff. Ask questions via our anonymous feedback form You can reach us via email at [email protected]. Where to find Monica on the internet: Website: monicag.me Bluesky: @nirnaeth.bsky.social Mastodon: @[email protected] Github: @nirnaeth Blog: dev.to/nirnaeth Where to find Urban on the internet: Mastodon: @[email protected] Bluesky: @urbanhafner.bsky.social Github: @ujh Blog: urbanhafner.com The intro and outro music is Our Big Adventure by Scott Holmes. It's licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

It's side project time! Urban talks about moving a project from Heroku to fly.io and Monica starts volunteering her time to stay motivated. Fountain Pen Companion FPC Github repository [fly.io](fly.io) LiteFS Pgvector Vostel Freetown Christiania Ask questions via our anonymous feedback form You can reach us via email at [email protected]. Where to find Monica on the internet: Website: monicag.me Bluesky: @nirnaeth.bsky.social Mastodon: @[email protected] Github: @nirnaeth Blog: dev.to/nirnaeth Where to find Urban on the internet: Mastodon: @[email protected] Bluesky: @urbanhafner.bsky.social Github: @ujh Blog: urbanhafner.com The intro and outro music is Our Big Adventure by Scott Holmes. It's licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Urban gets his AWS certificate and we discuss certifications in general and what they are good for. Especially in a B2B world. We also talk about project management and how no one seems to be in charge in a lot of places, as well as LLM generated code as yet another level of abstraction. Roles and Responsibilities retro Trillions by Robin Wigglesworth Dreamweaver AI Won't Fix the Fundamental Flaw of Programming Ask questions via our anonymous feedback form You can reach us via email at [email protected]. Where to find Monica on the internet: Website: monicag.me Bluesky: @nirnaeth.bsky.social Mastodon: @[email protected] Github: @nirnaeth Blog: dev.to/nirnaeth Where to find Urban on the internet: Mastodon: @[email protected] Bluesky: @urbanhafner.bsky.social Github: @ujh Blog: urbanhafner.com The intro and outro music is Our Big Adventure by Scott Holmes. It's licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

In this episode we discuss meeting in person, thinking about architecture, and most importantly finding out the WHY for things. Fundamentals of Software Architecture How to think like an architect Architectural Katas Ask questions via our anonymous feedback form You can reach us via email at [email protected]. Where to find Monica on the internet: Website: monicag.me Mastodon: @[email protected] Github: @nirnaeth Blog: dev.to/nirnaeth Where to find Urban on the internet: Mastodon: @[email protected] Github: @ujh Blog: urbanhafner.com The intro and outro music is Our Big Adventure by Scott Holmes. It's licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

In this episode we discuss LLMs, writing blog posts, running retros (in spreadsheets!), Shape Up and other processes. We end by asking YOU (the listener) to get back to us with what process you are using and if it works for you or not. Using a LLM to fight spam Obie Fernandez: Pioneering AI in Ruby on Rails Development Retromat Avoiding Waste retro Shape Up™ Ask questions via our anonymous feedback form You can reach us via email at [email protected]. Where to find Monica on the internet: Website: monicag.me Mastodon: @[email protected] Github: @nirnaeth Blog: dev.to/nirnaeth Where to find Urban on the internet: Mastodon: @[email protected] Github: @ujh Blog: urbanhafner.com The intro and outro music is Our Big Adventure by Scott Holmes. It's licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

In this episode we talk about certifications and how they are somehow similar to hiring, cheating during interviews, and the pitfalls of employee surveys. Goodhart’s law Ask questions via our anonymous feedback form You can reach us via email at [email protected]. Where to find Monica on the internet: Website: monicag.me Mastodon: @[email protected] Github: @nirnaeth Blog: dev.to/nirnaeth Where to find Urban on the internet: Mastodon: @[email protected] Github: @ujh Blog: urbanhafner.com The intro and outro music is Our Big Adventure by Scott Holmes. It's licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

It's been a hot minute since the last episode and a lot has happened. Urban and Monica discuss their new jobs, getting fired, and of course LLMs! https://www.fountainpencompanion.com/blog/10-new-pen-and-ink-suggestion-widget-now-with-ai https://cursor.sh/ Ask questions via our anonymous feedback form You can reach us via email at [email protected]. Where to find Monica on the internet: Website: monicag.me Mastodon: @[email protected] Github: @nirnaeth Blog: dev.to/nirnaeth Where to find Urban on the internet: Mastodon: @[email protected] Github: @ujh Blog: urbanhafner.com The intro and outro music is Our Big Adventure by Scott Holmes. It's licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Urban tells about his new job, and how it's quite different than the previous one. Monica thinks about her future and what kind of job to do next. Martijn Doolaard (renovating in the Italian Alps) Ask questions via our anonymous feedback form You can reach us via email at [email protected]. Where to find Monica on the internet: Website: monicag.me Mastodon: @[email protected] Github: @nirnaeth Blog: dev.to/nirnaeth Where to find Urban on the internet: Mastodon: @[email protected] Github: @ujh Blog: urbanhafner.com The intro and outro music is Our Big Adventure by Scott Holmes. It's licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Urban is just chilling, but Monica is trying to help her team to be less scared about releasing to production and maybe ... maybe go back to being a developer ... at some point. Cypress Ask questions via our anonymous feedback form You can reach us via email at [email protected]. You can follow us on Twitter at @podcast_eb. Where to find Monica on the internet: Website: monicag.me Mastodon: @[email protected] Github: @nirnaeth Blog: dev.to/nirnaeth Where to find Urban on the internet: Mastodon: @[email protected] Github: @ujh Blog: urbanhafner.com The intro and outro music is Our Big Adventure by Scott Holmes. It's licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).