Rémi Mercier - The Stained-Glass Master

On Day 2 of Rails World 2026 in Austin, TX, Jess and Jeremy sit down with Matt Swanson of Arrows and Robby Russell of Planet Argon to reflect on a conference where pencils and rust were on everyone's mind.Thank you to Buzzsprout for providing us the opportunity to record! 🙏(00:00) - Teaser and intro (00:30) - Welcome from Rails World 2026 in Austin (01:32) - Thumbs up, middle, or down: David's keynote (03:01) - Rails is extracted from real businesses, so apply it to your own context (04:36) - What Matt is taking back to Arrows, and what conferences are for now (06:11) - Robby's keynote: the workshop where people and agents build (09:22) - Who's accountable when Claude wrote it? (11:22) - If it's painful, do it more: letting designers ship (13:33) - "The most valuable engineer is not shipping features" (15:22) - Rethinking PRs and verification (16:35) - You don't have to throw out your practices (18:06) - Taking responsibility vs. "just blame the bots" (19:39) - Is it just tech debt, accelerated? (21:07) - The bigger picture: problems way beyond Rails (23:29) - It's not just the speed, it's the scope (24:08) - Grateful for a career that started as a hobby (25:14) - When customers can't keep up with the features (27:17) - Arrows: starting a new product this year (28:57) - Planet Argon: retainers, clients as bottlenecks, and showing it working (31:23) - A vibe-coded MVP that won a client (32:16) - Translating AI into business value (33:45) - WUTS: wonder, unpack, tinker, share (37:37) - Telling Claude (and your team) which patterns not to copy (38:47) - Custom dev tooling is cheap now, and still engineering (40:11) - The squished middle: product thinking vs. verification (41:26) - Losing flow, and finding it again (42:51) - Architects, portfolios, and pride in the finished product (43:39) - Thanks, and thanks to Buzzsprout

Kelsey and Zack Gilbert-Kreiling are a husband-and-wife team from Chicago and the founders of Eventually, an event ticketing and commerce platform built natively for Squarespace. Kelsey shares how a fashion publication, restaurant websites, and a food festival led to her productized agency, Week of the Website, and Zack traces his path from PHP newspaper CMSes and Technori to Foursquare and fractional CTO work. They talk about how Eventually grew from a long-standing request in the Squarespace Circle community, why AI prototypes make great starting points for developers (and why designers feel differently), and how they built it as a Rails 8 + Inertia.js app on Squarespace's commerce and reseller APIs. We also get into scoping the first version with design partners, customers finding them through Claude, Instagram and marketing plans, and how they balance two businesses, two young kids, and a marriage while building together. Plus, how they met on Twitter, when Kelsey showed up to drinks thinking she was interviewing for a job at a hot new startup!Related LinksEventuallyEventually on XZack on XZack's websiteZack on LinkedInWeek of the Website (Kelsey's Squarespace agency)Squarespace CircleDesign OS by Brian Casel (Builder Methods)Inertia.jsBullet TrainTechnori1871SEOSpaceExplore Washington ParkBon Vivant CakesChapters00:53 Introductions01:36 Kelsey's path: fashion publication, a ransomed domain, and restaurant websites06:00 Producing a food festival and starting an agency07:12 Week of the Website and productizing web design13:58 Zack's path: PHP, newspaper CMSes, Technori, Foursquare19:27 Fractional CTO work and rebuilding AI-built apps20:58 How Eventually started: Kelsey's PRD and prototype25:53 The value of prototypes for developers vs. designers35:42 Working together, and how they met on Twitter37:54 The idea: selling event tickets on Squarespace41:16 The bigger opportunity: commerce for event-based businesses44:48 The tech: Rails 8, Inertia.js, and Squarespace's APIs47:04 Scoping the first version with design partners53:56 Customer research and interviews58:35 Growth: customers finding them through Claude, SEO, and Instagram1:03:46 What's next: Squarespace extensions marketplace and styling rebuild1:05:36 Balancing two businesses, two kids, and a marriage1:11:54 Chicago's role in their story1:15:36 Where to find them, and the Squarespace event in New York

After a 6-month hiatus, Jess and Jeremy return on a random Tuesday.

John Nunemaker is a Rails developer, entrepreneur, and indie hacker behind Flipper Cloud, Boxout, and Fireside. He joins us for a wide-ranging conversation about managing a portfolio of products at different stages of growth, how AI has transformed his development workflow, and the unique opportunity (and anxiety) that this moment in tech represents.Related LinksFlipper CloudBoxoutFiresideMomentum (South Bend entrepreneurship hub)John on X / TwitterArticles mentioned:Something Big Is HappeningAI isn't coming for your future. Fear is.75 Years of AI Adoption

Rémi is a former stained-glass master turned freelance Ruby on Rails developer. He writes extensively on software topics on his blog, and he recently wrote a reflection on his return to freelancing this past year. Rémi joins us to share his journey into software development, and the recent transition back to freelancing.Related LinksRémi's WebsiteNewsletterWorkRuby.socialLinkedInReflecting on 2025

In this episode, Jared Norman joins us to talk about his journey from aspiring game developer to founder of Super Good Software, an agency specializing in e-commerce and Solidus. Jared shares the story of how Spree evolved into Solidus, the role his team played in that transition, and what it's like to build a specialized consultancy around open source e-commerce. We also get into branding, business development, the complexities of e-commerce beyond product management, and his podcast Dead Code.Related LinksJared's WebsiteLinkedInDribbbleSuper Good SoftwareSolidusDead Code Podcast

In this episode, John Athayde joins us to chat about how a student of architecture ends up in software, finding the Ruby and Rails community, working at the intersection of design and development, consulting in user experience, and his work on the Rails Guides refresh project.Related LinksWebsiteTwitterBlueskyLinkedInMeticulous (John's consultancy)Sfumato Farm (John's farm)OcufiiKnightsbridge ResearchRails Guides get a faceliftHow They Work Better Together: Lean UX, Agile Development and User-Centered Design

Jeremy and Jess turn the corner on a new year with an unedited one-on-one discussion, reflecting on 2025 and looking ahead at 2026.

In this episode of IndieRails, Jess and Jeremy interviewed Jared Brown, co-founder and CEO of Hubstaff.The conversation began with a serendipitous meeting at XO Ruby, where an early-morning parking deck encounter turned into a deeper discussion about SaaS, engineering, and long-term company building. What started as a casual conference conversation ultimately led to this episode.Jared shared the story of Hubstaff’s journey from a two-founder startup in 2012 to a globally distributed company with more than 130 employees and roughly $33 million in ARR. He reflected on the importance of strong co-founder relationships, early technical decisions, and finding product-market fit in a competitive space.The discussion covered long-term thinking, data-driven decision-making, and the realities of scaling a SaaS business over more than a decade. Jared also spoke candidly about the sacrifices required in the early years, the role of mentorship, leadership transitions, and the self-awareness needed to grow alongside the company.This episode offered practical insights into networking, virality, engineering-led leadership, and what it really takes to build and sustain a successful independent software business over the long haul.Links:Jared's LinkedInHubstaff.com

After more than two years, Ernesto Tagwerker returns to IndieRails to chat about the changing industry landscape and running an agency in the age of AI. Ernesto is the founder of OmbuLabs, makers of FastRuby.io, and maintainers of many open source projects in Ruby and Rails. We talk about upgrading Rails apps with the help of LLMs, their fixed-cost maintenance service Bonsai, new AI-related offerings (from assessments to greenfield buildouts), and championing DX (developer experience).Mentioned in the EpisodeStanford research on dev productivity w/ AI tooling (video)The Automated RoadmapBonsai ServiceA Tech Debt Fighting Champion For DevelopersGet DXPhilly.rbCanopy