Sally and Joël join forces to discuss the different ways to interpret the role of a ‘principle’ or ‘staff’ engineer, and the handwaving around what those titles mean in terms of the gradation.

Whilst Joël dives into career progression within the industry, what a staff engineer does and the different archetypes within it, Sally talks about the importance of having principle engineers in the room during AI discussions, and her previous positive experiences working with principle engineers.

—

Joel used the Staff Archetypes page from staffeng.com during this episode’s discussion.

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Joël Quenneville and Sally Hall.

Don't forget you can now watch every episode of The Bike Shed over on YouTube!

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

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Aji is joined by thoughtbot’s own Tess Griffin and Jimmy Thigpen, two members of the recently established AI Ethics Taskforce, to talk about what kind of conversations are going on in the company around AI.

With AI becoming an omnipresent entity in the industry, Tess and Jimmy take a deep dive into how and why the taskforce got started, figuring out what thoughtbot’s stance is around AI in terms of ethics and workflows, and how it relates to their clients.

—

As mentioned in the episode:

Blastoff Rails June 11 - 12, 2026 (past) Albuquerque, New Mexico
Freddy discovers America during the World Cup

Your guests for this episode have been Tess Griffin and Jimmy Thigpen and your host was thoughtbot’s own Aji Slater.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

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Aji and Joël join forces to discuss graph and tree structures, and their connection to the emergent properties, attributes and qualities you can find from a largely connected group of data.

Joël dives into their recent graphs and tree work through a contracting system, whilst Aji looks back at when he previously tried to serialise a graph or tree to a database.

—

Watch Joël’s Blue Ridge Ruby talk here, or Matheus’ Ruby Internal talk from last year here.

There’s still time to secure your place at thoughtbot’s upcoming UK meet ups over the next month.

London Tech Leader Meetup - Tuesday June 23rd
Brighton Tech Leader Meetup - Wednesday June 24th
Brighton Ruby - Thursday June 25th
Evolve - Friday June 26th

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Joël Quenneville and Aji Slater.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Write to our hosts: [email protected]

This has been a thoughtbot podcast. 

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Aji and Sally are back together again, this time to discuss the different apps they use to make their workflows and To Do lists easier and quicker to achieve.

Sally dives into the Notion calendar system which she uses to coordinate her many Google calendars, Aji looks back on using Jira to co-ordinate their international move, before they both reminisce about the benefits of using Alfred as people with ADHD.

—

There’s still time to secure your place at thoughtbot’s upcoming UK meet ups over the next month.

London Tech Leader Meetup - Tuesday June 23rd
Brighton Tech Leader Meetup - Wednesday June 24th
Brighton Ruby - Thursday June 25th
Evolve - Friday June 26th

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Sally Hall and Aji Slater.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Write to our hosts: [email protected]

This has been a thoughtbot podcast. 

Stay up to date by following us on social media - YouTube - LinkedIn - Mastodon - BlueSky

© 2026 thoughtbot, inc.

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Sally and Joël get technical as they lay out their thoughts on blog posts.

Our hosts pick apart what makes a good technical blog post, why consistent terms are more important than you might think when communicating with your audience, and how to improve your own writing to ensure your reader remains engaged.

—

There’s still time to secure your place at thoughtbot’s upcoming UK meet ups over the next month.

London Tech Leader Meetup - Tuesday June 23rd
Brighton Tech Leader Meetup - Wednesday June 24th
Brighton Ruby - Thursday June 25th
Evolve - Friday June 26th

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Joël Quenneville and Sally Hall.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: [email protected]

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.
Stay up to date by following us on social media - YouTube - LinkedIn - Mastodon - BlueSky

© 2026 thoughtbot, inc.

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The Bike Shed celebrates its 500th episode with hosts new and old as they reflect on the show’s history and ask, what’s new in your world?

Our past hosts look back at their time on the show, their favourite moments while hosting, what they took away from producing the Bike Shed, and what they might do today if they were still in the hosting chair.

—

Your hosts for this special episode of The Bike Shed have been Joël Quenneville, Sally Hall and Aji Slater. Joining them have been our returning hosts Derek Prior, Sage Griffin, Stephanie Viccari, Chris Toomey and Stephanie Minn.

Listen back to some of our guest’s highlighted episodes
Bike Shed 14: An Acceptable Level of Hassle with David Heinemeier Hanson
Bike Shed 172: What I Believe About Software
Bike Shed 180: A Citizen of the Internet with John Resig
Bike Shed 302: Observability with Charity Majors
Bike Shed 325: Pranting
Bike Shed 404: Estimation

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: [email protected]

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.
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© 2026 thoughtbot, inc.

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Take a trip through Joël and Aji’s YouTube recommended list as they go over the media that has inspired their work the most over the course of their careers.

Our hosts highlight different creators that feature regularly in their YouTube rotation, the long standing channels that have had the most impact on them, the video essays that inspire their work, as well as a small detour Into the world of history videos.

—

Here’s a handful of Joël and Ali’s personal recommendations:
VSauce - Veritasium - Jet Lag the Game - The Coding Train - Tom Scott - Kings and Generals - Daniel Steiner - Assassin’s Creed: Echoes of History - Jay Foreman / Map Men - Practical Engineering - Hannah Morris - Computerphile

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Joël Quenneville and Aji Slater.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: [email protected]

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.
Stay up to date by following us on social media - YouTube - LinkedIn - Mastodon - BlueSky

© 2026 thoughtbot, inc.

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Our hosts come together to wrap up season 2 and share some of their highlights along the way.

Our trio expand and recap on some key topics covered over the last few months, Sally and Joël provide updates on their work with typescripts and LLMs, and Aji accidentally stumbles into an idea for a new keynote topic.

—

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Joël Quenneville, Sally Hall and Aji Slater.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: [email protected]

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.
Stay up to date by following us on social media - YouTube - LinkedIn - Mastodon - BlueSky

© 2026 thoughtbot, inc.

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Aji and Joël get into a flow as they discuss the different diagrams that help guide their thought processes when working.

Together they compare their go to diagrams and why they find them so useful, the different analysis tools a diagram can offer and the alternative perspective on your work it provides, as well as how using diagrams can help communicate your mental models more effectively with your colleagues.

—

Be sure to check out these resources on diagrams and conditionals for some wider reading on today’s episode - BeautifulMermaid Repo - Visualising RSepc - Structuring Conditionals

You can also find our hosts speaking at various conferences over the next few months - Haggis Ruby - Blue Ridge Ruby

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Joël Quenneville and Aji Slater.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: [email protected]

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.
Stay up to date by following us on social media - YouTube - LinkedIn - Mastodon - BlueSky

© 2026 thoughtbot, inc.

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Joël and Sally cover all the bases as they look at improving their test suite performances times.

Our hosts lay out some spicy takes on various different test suites, comparing the key differences across the different forms of testing, where you might encounter pitfalls in each method, and how to make the most of each test.

—

Interested in exploring different test suites to see if they could improve your projects? Check out these articles on everything our hosts discussed today, as well as Joël’s talk on slow tests.

Avoiding Factory Bot - Why Factories? - Parallelisation in Testing - Joël’s Talk

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Joël Quenneville and Sally Hall.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: [email protected]

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.
Stay up to date by following us on social media - YouTube - LinkedIn - Mastodon - BlueSky

© 2026 thoughtbot, inc.

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Sally and Aji flick through thoughtbot’s guide to best practices in a bid to brush up on their coding habits.

Our hosts discuss key ideas from the guides that stand out to them the most, why they’re considered to be good practice, as well as reviewing the cons of complex writing and the benefits of simple coding.

—

Be sure to check out Sally’s new repo Michel if you’re looking to create an appointment database, and check out the thoughtbot guides for more general coding advice.

If you’ve got some spare time and want to hear Aji’s talk on breaking the enigma code you can watch that here.

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Sally Hall and Aji Slater.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: [email protected]

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.
Stay up to date by following us on social media - YouTube - LinkedIn - Mastodon - BlueSky

© 2026 thoughtbot, inc.

Support The Bike Shed