SM

Shaun McGirr

Things Shaun Says on Podcasts

Works in data science and writes about what actually counts as production software, defining it as a function of how many people besides the original author can fix and iterate on it. Draws on experience from enterprise data teams to talk through how AI-assisted vibe coding pushes teams toward that reckoning faster than before. Co-hosts the Half Stack Data Science podcast with David Asboth, a show about the practical realities of data science work inside businesses.

Where to Find Them

Shaun McGirr hosts Half Stack Data Science . They have also been a guest on AI Today Podcast .

Recently: “S05E03 - How will we learn things?” on Half Stack Data Science (July 2026); “S05E02 - Magical Glue Person” on Half Stack Data Science (May 2026); “S05E01 - Will GenAI kill software?” on Half Stack Data Science (March 2026); “S04E05 - 2025 in review” on Half Stack Data Science (January 2026); “S04E04 - Better survey design with AI - with Kirsten Hill” on Half Stack Data Science (June 2025); “S04E02 - Programming with AI - with Simon Willison” on Half Stack Data Science (March 2025).

What They Said

“…I've always thought of production as a function of how many other people than the creator can fix and iterate the product.” — Shaun McGirr, Half Stack Data Science

The episode was about who ends up maintaining software that non-engineers generate, and McGirr reached for a definition of production that has nothing to do with uptime or polish. He backed it with an old rule from Cox Automotive: ship something in your personal namespace and you wear the pager for it yourself. He went on to say that vibe coding gets teams to that wall faster and with more force.

Half Stack Data Science · 2026-05-04 Permalink → Listen →
Half Stack Data Science Around 29:39 into the episode
Shaun McGirr

files to some developers and said, can you make that? And the developers are like, no.

David Asboth

It's the same. Yeah. And

Shaun McGirr

I think it's, you know, what is production, actually? And I've always thought of production as a function of how many other people than the creator can fix and iterate the product. And the ideal state of that is a large number. Like, you know, if it's a risky bit of software creating a lot of value, we want a large number of people other than its original creator to be able to fix it and to be able to run it. So remember, we had that rule at Cox Automotive that if you ship something to someone in your personal namespace, so dev underscore Sean, you wear the pager for that…

David Asboth

Yeah.

Shaun McGirr

Right? And that's quite a jump. And I think vibe coding just gets us to that brick wall faster and with more force. Part of the force behind us is the potential value of if we can solve that. I think on the front-end side of things, like I think that's a very solvable problem. Like I've had people…

David Asboth

Yeah. And

Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode

Collections They Appear In