Maintainable

Updated: 01 Jul 2025 • 214 episodes
maintainable.fm

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 associated with software development. Our guests will share stories in each episode and outline tangible, real-world approaches to software challenges. In turn, you'll uncover new ways of thinking about how to improve your software project's maintainability.

Show episodes

CTO coach Joel Chippindale joins Robby to share what he's learned over two decades of building and leading software teams. Joel argues that maintainability has less to do with “clean code” and more to do with how teams communicate, prioritize, and make progress visible. Drawing on his time at Unmade and his current coa

56 min
00:00
56:39
No file found

Melanie Sumner: Why Continuous Accessibility Is a Strategic Advantage Melanie Sumner, Product Accessibility Lead for Design Systems at HashiCorp, joins Robby to talk about what it takes to scale accessibility across legacy products—and how aligning design and engineering processes creates lasting change. Melanie shares

49 min
00:00
49:30
No file found

In this episode of Maintainable, Robby speaks with Joe Masilotti, an independent consultant who helps Rails teams ship mobile apps using Hotwire Native. Joe shares his perspective on what makes software maintainable—especially for consultants who need to onboard quickly. He explains why setup scripts often add unnecess

55 min
00:00
55:42
No file found

Freedom Dumlao (CTO at Vestmark) joins Robby to explore what it means to maintain software at scale—and why teams sometimes need to unlearn the hype. With two decades of experience supporting financial systems, Freedom shares how his team manages a Java monolith that oversees $1.6 trillion in assets. But what’s most su

63 min
00:00
01:03:19
No file found

Mercedes Bernard, Staff Software Engineer at Kit, joins Robby to talk about what it really means to write code that lasts—and who it should be written for. In this episode of Maintainable, Mercedes shares a thoughtful and practical perspective on working with legacy codebases, managing technical debt, and creating a te

49 min
00:00
49:27
No file found

Evan Phoenix (@evanphx), CEO of Miren, joins Robby to explore the subtle but powerful difference between writing code that works and writing code that explains itself. They discuss the role of clarity in maintainable systems, why splitting a monolith can backfire, and what developers can learn from artists and tradespe

69 min
00:00
01:09:13
No file found