Refactoring At Scale Done Right With Maude Lemaire
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Today's guest is Maude Lemaire, who is a principal engineer at GitHub and author of the book Refactoring at Scale. With Maude, we talked about:
This episode is brought to you by Swarmia! The engineering intelligence platform that serves some of the best software companies in the world. You can get 20% off by booking a demo at swarmia.com/refactoring! 🎙️ EpisodeYou can watch the full episode on Youtube:  Or listen to it on Spotify, Apple, Overcast, or your podcast app of choice. 🥇 Interview SummaryIf you are a 🔒 paid subscriber 🔒 you will find my own summary of the interview below. It’s the 10-minute, handcrafted takeaways of what we talked about, with timestamps to the relevant video moments, for those who don’t have time to sit through the 1-hour chat. Here is the agenda for today's episode:
Let's dive in 👇 1) 🎓 Maude's Unexpected Journey to Tech (02:17)Maude's path to becoming a principal engineer at GitHub started with a completely different plan. As a high school student with detailed five-year plans, she intended to major in microbiology and pursue genetics research. However, three weeks into her molecular biology class, everything changed. She discovered she loved the algorithmic thinking required in organic chemistry problems — finding the shortest path from one molecule to another.
The twist? Her father was a programmer who worked on embedded systems and assembly code — exactly the type of low-level programming that seemed boring to teenage Maude. She even kept her enrollment in a programming class a secret from him, fearing disappointment if she hated it. But when chemical engineering didn't work out, computer science became her backup plan. Her father proved invaluable during the challenging early days, helping her understand that while classmates had years of coding experience, she'd eventually catch up in the more abstract algorithmic courses. 2) 🏢 From Rent the Runway to Slack's Growth (09:44)Maude's professional journey began with internships at Rent the Runway, where she worked under Camille Fournier's leadership. The combination of fashion and technology appealed to her diverse interests, but the West Coast beckoned when her boyfriend (now husband) was working at Microsoft in Seattle. In true engineer fashion, they decided to both quit their jobs and move to San Francisco — choosing a completely neutral third location to be "fair." At Slack, Maude experienced something special during the interview process:
She joined Slack when it had just over 100 engineers and stayed for nearly eight years, watching it grow to 1,200 engineers through IPO and acquisition by Salesforce. Her team specialized in load testing tooling and performance monitoring, supporting the entire engineering organization with just 3-4 engineers — a masterclass in learning to multiply yourself. 3) 🔄 Transitioning to GitHub as Principal Engineer (15:40)After eight years at Slack, Maude realized she had accomplished the ambitious vision she'd set for her team four years earlier. The realization came during a planning session when she looked back at her original "manifesto" and discovered they had actually achieved what once seemed like a moonshot. Several factors influenced her decision to leave:
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