The Future of Engineering 🔮 — with James Stanier

<p>Today&#39;s guest is <strong>James</strong> <strong>Stanier</strong>, CTO at Nordhealth, former director at Shopify, an author of several books about engineering management, remote work, and more.</p><p><br></p><p>With James, we talked about what senior engineers will look like in the future, taking from a great article he wrote just recently, and then regarding how engineering management is changing, what&#39;s expected of managers today, and what you need to thrive.</p><p>We also talked about AI adoption in his team, in our personal respective lives, and discussed the state of remote work in 2026.</p><p><br></p><p>(00:00) Episode start</p><p>(01:25) Introduction</p><p>(02:05) Senior engineers in 2035</p><p>(05:11) Sponsor break</p><p>(06:45) Level of abstraction: from compilers to AI</p><p>(10:17) Excited engineers and worried engineers</p><p>(12:44) The bifurcation: vibe coders vs platform engineers</p><p>(16:51) Engineering managing role changes</p><p>(23:21) Managing time with expanding roles</p><p>(28:32) Are hierarchies flattening?</p><p>(36:25) AI adoption in James&#39; team</p><p>(41:27) What&#39;s hard in the AI era</p><p>(44:36) AI as a personal assistant</p><p>(50:05) Remote work in 2026</p><p><br></p><p>-</p><p><br></p><p>Today&#39;s episode is brought to you by Unblocked.</p><p>Unblocked is the context layer for modern engineering teams.</p><p>Get a free three-week trial at getunblocked.com/refactoring</p><p><br></p><p>-</p><p><br></p><p>You can also find this at:</p><p><br></p><p>• 📬 Newsletter: https://refactoring.fm</p><p>• 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Luds9dmzZDoDC8Q7EMbSw</p><p>• 📱 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/refactoring-podcast/id1719137305</p><p><br></p><p>—</p><p>For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, or appearing as a guest, email: luca@refactoring.club</p>