Beyond Coding

What separates software that survives from software nobody wants to touch? Nico Krijnen has spent 30 years building systems, coaching teams, and learning why some projects thrive while others quietly become the legacy code everyone avoids. In this episode, he shares why the real work starts after you ship, what actually turns a system into legacy, and why the knowledge in your team's heads matters more than the code itself.
In this episode, we cover:
Why production is where the real learning begins
The team composition that consistently delivers results
Peter Naur's Theory Building and why documentation alone falls short
How knowledge leaving your team turns working systems into legacy
Why assuming you're wrong leads to better architecture
Whether you're a senior engineer rethinking how you build or earlier in your career trying to understand what really matters, this episode will change how you think about software that lasts.

Connect with Nico:
https://realworldarchitect.dev

TIMESTAMPS
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:17 - Why He Keeps Choosing Engineering Over Management
00:04:01 - Three Seniors Solved in Three Weeks What Management Couldn't
00:05:14 - The Signals You Miss When You're Not in the Team
00:06:26 - The #1 Skill Behind Every Successful Project
00:08:04 - Why Production Is the Starting Line, Not the Finish
00:10:13 - The Habit Most Teams Skip After Deploying
00:11:28 - Why the Best Teams Mix Designers and Engineers
00:14:36 - Finding the Right People for the Job at Hand
00:17:01 - What Juniors Bring That Seniors Can't
00:20:57 - How to Handle Ideas You Disagree With as a Senior
00:24:21 - A Simple Technique to Surface Everyone's Best Ideas
00:27:09 - What Makes a System Survive Long-Term
00:30:53 - What Actually Makes a System "Legacy"
00:35:01 - The Knowledge That Keeps Software Alive
00:36:06 - Peter Naur's Theory Building: Why Documentation Isn't Enough
00:40:06 - How Knowledge Loss Is Killing Your Codebase
00:42:42 - The Hidden Risk of AI Tools for Team Knowledge
00:48:14 - Why You Should Assume Everything You Build Is Wrong
00:51:31 - Make Hard Things Easy to Change

#SoftwareEngineering #SystemDesign #TechPodcast

Suzanne Daniels is a Top Microsoft Advisor who works with CTOs and engineering leaders across EMEA on developer productivity, GitHub, and AI adoption. Her take: the industry is obsessing over coding speed, but that was only ever level one. The real shift is in who defines the solution, not who writes the code.

In this episode, we cover:
Why the "55x faster coding" marketing misses the point entirely
The counterintuitive research showing junior engineers adopt AI faster than seniors
"Coding is cheap, software is expensive" and what that means for your career
How the boundary between product and engineering is disappearing
Why most AI coding tools are 80% the same and what to focus on instead

Whether you're early in career and struggling to land a role, or a senior engineer rethinking where your value lies, Suzanne breaks down what actually matters when the coding part becomes cheap.

Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:15 - Is AI Productivity the Whole Story?
00:03:26 - Why Outcomes Matter More Than Code Output
00:04:13 - The Real Value Was Never in the Coding
00:06:06 - The Product-Engineering Boundary Is Disappearing
00:07:37 - Why Junior Engineers Are Actually in High Demand
00:09:41 - Research Says Juniors Adopt AI Faster Than Seniors
00:11:31 - The Rise of Comb-Shaped Engineers
00:12:32 - The Energy Juniors Bring That Teams Need
00:14:06 - How Seniors Codify Knowledge for Agents and Humans
00:16:35 - Advice for Early Career Engineers Right Now
00:19:04 - Old Principles Getting a New Polish
00:21:13 - Coding Is Cheap, Software Is Expensive
00:22:52 - Will Agentic Development Change Your Programming Language?
00:24:53 - What Even Is an Application in the Agent Era?
00:28:34 - The Authenticity Paradox of AI-Written Content
00:30:12 - Why Your AI Output Needs a Human Value Add
00:32:12 - Is Open Source at Risk Because of AI?
00:35:09 - When Your Favorite Tool Doesn't Follow You to the Next Job
00:36:45 - Most AI Coding Tools Are 80% the Same
00:38:15 - What Engineering Leaders Should Enable Beyond Licensing
00:42:58 - Should You Leave If Your Company Won't Let You Experiment?
00:45:16 - Platform Engineering as the Foundation for AI Adoption

Guest: Suzanne Daniels
https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzannedaniels

#SoftwareEngineering #AICoding #BeyondCoding

The role of the software engineer is shifting from execution to orchestration, and it's happening faster than most of us realize. Dennis Vink, Principal Consultant at Xebia, breaks down how he approaches code modernization with AI, why fundamentals and system design matter more now than ever, and what the engineering role is actually becoming.
In this episode, we cover:
Why you need to mature your old codebase before you can migrate away from it
How to prove feature parity between legacy and modern systems
Why vibe coding without architecture knowledge gives you zero control
The shift from execution-focused engineering to orchestration
Why Dennis worries about the next generation of engineers
Whether you're sitting on legacy code at work or wondering how your role as an engineer is evolving, this conversation will make you think about where you need to invest your time next.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:51 - Dennis's Early AI Engineering Assignments
00:02:23 - Side Projects: Reviving a 20-Year-Old Game in Rust
00:04:36 - Why Vibe Coding Without Fundamentals Fails
00:05:15 - The Fundamentals You Need for Code Migration
00:06:45 - Proving Feature Parity with Automated Testing
00:08:12 - Writing Tests First as Risk Mitigation
00:10:13 - How Much Should You Care About Code Structure?
00:11:18 - Migrating in Small Pieces of Value
00:12:26 - Will Engineers Still Find Fulfillment in Building?
00:14:01 - How to Actually Start Side Projects (ADHD Brain)
00:15:34 - Why Pivoting Is No Longer Painful
00:16:12 - Prompting as the New Bottleneck
00:17:23 - Parallelizing Work Across Projects
00:19:08 - Why System Design Is the #1 Audience Demand
00:20:19 - AI as a Differentiator for Strong Architects
00:21:11 - Why the New Generation Should Worry
00:23:01 - Are Bootcamps Still Worth It?
00:25:15 - The Shift from Collaboration to Business Understanding
00:27:56 - Infrastructure as a Core Competency Bet
00:30:15 - Deterministic vs Non-Deterministic Code Generation
00:32:16 - Can This Approach Scale to Million-Line Codebases?
00:34:20 - Why a Finger-Snap Migration Would Scare You
00:37:01 - Where to Start with Your Own Legacy Codebase
00:38:43 - Which Languages Do AI Models Struggle With?
00:40:24 - Building Around Hallucination with Scaffolding
00:42:30 - Spec-Driven Development as the Future Way of Working
00:43:30 - Turning a Non-Technical Colleague into a "Developer" in an Hour
00:46:21 - When the House Is on Fire, That's When You Need Real Engineers

Projects we discussed:
Agent designer - hurozo.com
Game project - Zorlore.com (https://github.com/zorlore/)
Vibe coded solar system simulation - spacehaste.com
#SoftwareEngineering #SystemDesign #AIEngineering

Most senior engineers don't realize they're stuck until it's too late. The longer you stay, the more people around you have already decided who you are and what you're for. Ian Miell, CTO at Container Solutions, breaks down why this happens and how understanding the system around you is the first step to growing beyond it.
In this episode, we cover:
Why staying too long gets you put in a box (and how to escape it)
How your software architecture is shaped by money flows
The 30% rule: why you should feel uncomfortable at work and what it means if you don't
How to pitch to senior leadership and actually get buy-in
Why AI makes distribution the real challenge, not building
If you're a senior engineer trying to grow beyond your current ceiling, this one is worth your time.

Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:42 - How to Pitch to Senior Leadership and Get Buy-In
00:03:26 - Why You Should Feel Uncomfortable 30% of the Time
00:06:33 - How to Break Through a Seniority Ceiling
00:08:24 - The Burden of Context: Why Being the Go-To Person Traps You
00:10:16 - How Ian Became CTO Without Trying To
00:13:40 - Why a CTO's Job Is Mostly Coaching Now
00:18:20 - Understanding Incentives: The Key to Navigating Any Org
00:23:08 - Startups vs. Large Companies: Completely Different Rules
00:25:00 - Why AI Makes Distribution the Real Problem, Not Building
00:28:16 - The Hidden Maintenance Risk of Vibe-Coded Software
00:30:13 - Security and Compliance: More Nuanced Than Engineers Think
00:36:54 - Where "Architecture Follows the Money" Came From
00:42:36 - The Wrong Number of Customers: A Systems Thinking Story
00:47:23 - Why Engineers Think Individually Instead of Systemically
00:51:53 - How to Start Thinking in Systems
00:57:50 - How to Create Cross-Pollination in Consulting Teams
00:59:39 - What CTOs Actually Look for When Hiring
01:00:34 - Outro

#softwareengineering #systemsthinking #careergrowth

Most architects stop coding... and that's exactly where they lose their edge. Dennis Doomen has been a hands-on coding architect for 30 years, and his take is blunt: if you're not in the code, you can't make good architectural decisions. Period.

In this episode, we get into the real causes of codebase rot, why dogmatic pattern-following destroys teams, how Dennis uses AI tools to build open source projects without compromising his standards, and why documentation and decision records might be the most underrated investment a software team can make.

This one is for software engineers and architects who want to stay sharp, stay relevant, and build systems that actually last.

00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:05 - Why Dennis Refuses to Stop Coding (After 30 Years)
00:02:54 - The Only Way to Be an Effective Software Architect
00:04:43 - What Happens When Teams Copy Patterns Without Understanding Them
00:06:23 - Software Engineering Is About Battling Complexity
00:08:20 - When to Break Consistency to Reduce Complexity
00:09:24 - The Problem with Overzealous SOLID Principles
00:11:06 - The Future Where We Don't Care About Code Anymore
00:12:07 - How Dennis Built an Open Source Library with GitHub Copilot
00:14:18 - Accepting AI-Generated Code That Doesn't Meet Your Standards
00:16:39 - How to Use AI Without Losing Code Quality
00:17:41 - The Execution Is Accelerating — What Actually Matters Now
00:20:19 - Why Tests Are Your Safety Net in an AI-First World
00:23:44 - Lessons Learned from Letting AI Run Unsupervised
00:26:46 - Should Teams Standardize Which AI Tool They Use?
00:27:32 - Junior Devs and AI: Learning Skills vs. Speed
00:29:21 - How to Stay Curious and Critical in an AI-Assisted Team
00:33:43 - How to Build a Software Engineer from Scratch Today
00:34:38 - Dennis's Emoji-Based Pull Request Review System
00:36:45 - What AI Still Can't Do: Holistic Architectural Thinking
00:38:38 - Why Your Git History Is More Valuable Than You Think
00:40:44 - Decision Records: The Architecture Investment That Pays Off
00:43:16 - When Documentation Saved Dennis from a Bad Management Decision
00:44:47 - The Tailwind Layoffs and the Open Source Business Model Crisis
00:46:27 - Guidelines for Consuming Open Source Responsibly
00:49:51 - Why You Should Open Source Your Own Projects

Guest: Dennis Doomen - Microsoft MVP, open source creator (FluentAssertions and more), and coding architect at Aviva Solutions.

#softwaredevelopment #softwarearchitecture #softwareengineering