Episode notes
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 systems. A conversation about seeing software clearly… before changing it.
Maintainable
by Robby Russell · English · Tech & Science
Do you feel like you're hitting a wall with your existing software projects? Are you curious to hear how other people are navigating this? You're not alone. On the Maintainable Software Podcast, Robby speaks with seasoned practitioners who have overcome the technical and cultural problems often…
More from Maintainable
-
E221 · 14 Apr 2026 · 55 min
Rein Henrichs: The Real Work of Maintenance Happens Before You Touch the Code
Most teams treat maintenance like a coding problem. Rein Henrichs argues the real work starts much earlier… in how teams understand the system in the first place.
-
E220 · 31 Mar 2026 · 55 min
Russ Olsen: The Hidden Cost of Forgetting Why the Code Looks Like That
Russ Olsen joins Robby to talk about maintainability, trade-offs, and why so many teams forget to document what they decided not to do. It’s a conversation about legacy systems, rewrites, developer quality of life, and the stories software teams need to tell each other better.
-
E219 · 17 Mar 2026 · 1 hr 1 min
Joel Oliveira: Predictability Is a Maintainability Feature
Predictability might be the most underrated feature of maintainable software. Joel Oliveira joins Robby to explore how thoughtful patterns, small refactors, and a bit of stubborn persistence can keep systems healthy long after their first release.
-
E217 · 21 Jan 2026 · 1 hr 1 min
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.
-
E216 · 9 Dec 2025 · 50 min
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, and what happens when teams never invest between releases. Kent makes the case for tidying as both an economic and moral responsibility.
-
E215 · 2 Dec 2025 · 51 min
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 software for the long haul.
-
E229 · 6 Oct 2026 · 54 minNew
Matija Šošić: Abstractions Aren’t Going Anywhere
What happens to frameworks when generating code becomes cheap enough that nobody particularly cares about the boilerplate anymore? Matija Šošić joins Robby to talk about boring software, abstraction as a form of restraint, Wasp’s decision to abandon its custom DSL, and why AI may make good abstractions more valuable rather than less.
-
E228 · 29 Sep 2026 · 54 min
José Valim: Designing a Language You Can Maintain for Decades
What changes when the software you’re maintaining is a programming language that thousands of other applications depend on? José Valim joins Robby to trace Elixir from a frustrating Rails concurrency bug to a language designed for long-term evolution, then looks at how AI is changing documentation, dependencies, coding tools, and open-source maintenance.
-
E227 · 8 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 22 min
John Athayde: Maintaining the User Side of Software
The user interface of a long-lived application carries years of technical decisions, design choices, and organizational history. John Athayde joins Robby to explore how teams can untangle that front-end sprawl, and what changes when AI makes it much easier to analyze and rewrite what came before.
-
E226 · 1 Sep 2026 · 54 min
Kristin Isaac: The Customer Doesn’t Care About Your Technical Debt
Customers don’t ask you to pay down technical debt. They notice when the product is slow, unreliable, or keeps breaking in the same damn way. Kristin Isaac joins Robby to explore how engineers can translate invisible maintenance work into customer and business impact… and why that skill may become even more important as AI makes software faster to create than to understand.
Take it with you
The Melo app keeps playing with the screen off, works in the car and on your watch, wakes you to your station, and browses the whole catalogue offline. Free, no ads, no account.
