David Heinemeier Hansson on The Pragmatic Engineer
DHH’s new way of writing code
The agent-first workflow and “super mech suit” metaphor make this a lively update, but most of the underlying case for AI leverage, senior review, and designer-built software recurs across the corpus. Worth hearing for the personal conversion story and current tooling details; otherwise frequent listeners can skip.
>> that's the biggest revelation actually more than even the capacity of the agents is my enjoyment running them. When I was on that leg interview last summer, I was talking about you know what I don't want to be a project manager for agents because I had the mental model of a project manager of humans and I thought like that's not what I enjoy. I don't want to be that far away from the production. I want to be in the mix. I want to have my hands in the code. What I failed to realize at the time was that running a bunch of agents feels less like being a project manager for agents and more like stepping into this super mech suit where suddenly I don't just have two arms. I have 12 and I can now look at seven screens at the same time running five
David Heinemeier Hansson participates extensively, discussing his shift to agent-first development, the importance of taste and craft, and how 37signals organizes small teams around product judgment. He argues that AI especially amplifies senior engineers, expands the range of worthwhile projects, and makes programming more enjoyable while still requiring human judgment and sustainable habits.