Ref.

Individual engineers are speeding ahead with AI while the org as whole isn't going as fast. I'll be talking about how to close that gap. This Thursday at @aiDotEngineer World's Fair!

I'm working on a talk about this for @aiDotEngineer world's fair. This slide probably won't make the cut but I love it so I want to share: We've never hired junior engineers because they ship. Sure the work on relevant projects and get stuff done, but it's never been about the output. We hire junior engineers because they become senior engineers. Their job is to learn. They represent an investment in the future of our team and company. That investment used to feel like picking charmander. Useful to start and slowly and, with a lot of investment, they grow to be a badass. This is what we're all used to and it was a nice system. AI changed that investment math. Now hiring a junior engineer feels like using magikarp. It feels like they add no productivity and actually hurt us by taking time with slop code reviews. The thing is: you never get gyarados unless you invest in magikarp. If you're building an company/eng team with longevity, you need to be adapting your team processes to support a healthy eng org. If you just avoid it and skip hiring junior engineers, you're gonna have a hangover in 12-18 months.

@trq212 dang thariq gets it

a prompt I've been using a lot recently: implement <SPEC> and while you do, keep a running implementation-notes.html file (or markdown) with decisions you had to make weren't in the spec, things you had to change, tradeoffs you had to make or anything else I should know

this is fundamental to how @ref_tools works! although we call this artifact a "ref" you spend time refining your spec, dispatch a team of agents who implement and update progress also some nice perks are its all over mcp so works with whatever agent you use and each ref is a web doc (supporting mixed md and html) and shareable with your team

After 1.5 years solo, @ref_tools has a second person. @suvir_ was my second hire at Figma, and getting to work with him again feels like a gift. Phenomenal engineer, one of the most thoughtful people I know, exactly who you want shaping a company's culture from day one. So glad he's here.

I don't care if everyone knows, I like building landing pages. I just shipped a new one for @ref_tools, check it out: ref.tools There's something about spending the time finding just the right word for how you explain an idea that's really really satisfying. Also I totally ripped off Cursor with the interactive landing page thing. BUT in my defense all the components were stateless so reusing them and with stub data felt waaay easier than being the puppet-master to make a gif or video or something. 🤷

Full update: mailchi.mp/ref/april2026 Maintainer Month Pack: maintainermonth.github.com/partner-pack

We shipped a lot in April: • Agent-tree view with middle-managers • Rich-text plan review (with inline comments) • Slack integration And if you're an opensource maintainer, 2 months free on us as part of GitHub Maintainer Month!

Excited to have @ref_tools founder Matt Dailey speaking at AI in Production on May 6. His talk: "What won't change?" Everyone's worried AI will replace junior engineers. Matt thinks the opposite, and he's bringing the blueprint. May 6, Inngest HQ SF. Link in thread ↓