Maintainable Podcast
1) Lucas Roesler: The Fast Feedback Loop Advantage
What if maintainability isn’t about rewriting code, but about designing better feedback loops? Lucas Roesler joins Robby to unpack simplicity, observability, and the hard reality of inheriting opaque ...Show More
2) Brittany Ellich: Using AI to Maintain Software, Not Rewrite It
AI isn’t here to save you from your codebase. Brittany Ellich explains how to use it to maintain what already works… without chasing rewrite fantasies or shipping chaos.
3) Kent L Beck: You’re Ignoring Optionality… and Paying for It
Kent Beck and Robby unpack why teams burn optionality faster than they realize and why restoring it isn’t a luxury—it’s the work. They explore reversible vs irreversible decisions, the feature saw, an...Show More
4) Don MacKinnon: Why Simplicity Beats Cleverness in Software Design
In this conversation, Robby speaks with Don MacKinnon, Lead Architect and Engineering Manager at Searchcraft, about reducing unnecessary complexity, choosing the right abstractions, and designing soft...Show More
5) Chris Zetter: Building a Database to Better Understand Maintainability
Software engineer and author Chris Zetter joins Robby to explore how pairing, documentation, and boring technology help teams build software that lasts. They unpack the real meaning of technical debt,...Show More
6) Denis Rechkunov: When Consistency Becomes a Culture
At Elastic, Denis Rechkunov believes code consistency is more than a style guide — it’s a cultural practice. Robby and Denis explore how automation, empathy, and small rituals help teams write code th...Show More
7) Nathan Ladd: Relentless Improvement and the Cost of Neglect
In this conversation, Robby and Nathan Ladd, Principal at Brightworks Digital, explore what makes software sustainable in practice. Nathan argues that perfectly maintained software may be a myth, but ...Show More
8) Taylor Otwell: What 14 Years of Laravel Taught Me About Maintainability
Taylor Otwell looks back on 14 years of building and maintaining Laravel. From four stars on GitHub to a full-fledged ecosystem, he shares what it takes to design software that lasts—and why simple of...Show More
9) Sara Jackson: Why Resilience Is a Team Sport
What happens when you treat resilience as a shared responsibility across your team, not just an infrastructure concern? Sara Jackson unpacks the value of documentation, application-layer chaos experim...Show More
10) Joel Chippindale: Why High-Quality Software Isn’t About Developer Skill Alone
Is high-quality code really just about developer skill? According to CTO coach Joel Chippindale, the key to maintainable software often lies in the conversations you have before writing a single line ...Show More
Joel Chippindale: Why High-Quality Software Isn’t About Developer Skill Alone
56:39 | Jul 1st, 2025