E06: How I Work: My Solo Dev Setup, Time Management, and Running two Companies

How I Work: My Solo Dev Setup, Time Management, and Running two Companies

A solo episode answering a question I keep getting asked: how do I get through it all?

I walk through my full setup - the dedicated remote Mac that acts as my "local" environment, Droid as my coding harness, Paseo for exploratory work, Cloop for mature codebases, MUXI as my assistant running through Claude Desktop over MCP - plus why I self-host almost everything, and it has nothing to do with saving money.

Then the harder part: how I manage time. My job stopped being doing the work and became deciding which bucket the work goes in. I make 20-30 decisions a day and almost all of them are classifications - rails or agents, automated or human, or time to kill the process entirely. Anything I've done more than a few times gets automated into one of three buckets. Most of my time goes into thinking rather than typing, stripping products back to first principles and deciding what not to build.

I also cover why most of my automations are deliberately gated behind human approval, why I read every line the agents produce, how Automaze actually runs without me, where leads really come from after 15 years of open source, and why I embed myself as the FDE with every new client before handing off.

All of it exists to protect the context in my head. Everything else is scaffolding.

00:00 Welcome and Envapor
00:50 Why My Workflow
02:16 Cloud Local Setup
04:03 Coding Tools Stack
07:26 Personal Productivity Apps
08:51 Self-Hosting Philosophy
09:46 Multi-Agent Workflow
10:35 Time Management Decisions
11:54 Automation Buckets
14:40 Research and Judgment
17:25 Email and Gated AI
19:45 Running Automaze VarOps
20:58 Inbound Leads Flywheel
22:08 FDE Founder Onboarding
25:16 Wrap Up and Newsletter

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Creators and Guests

Host

Ran Aroussi

Building software and AI for companies that can't afford to guess | Automaze •VarOps

What is Old School / New Tech?

Old school thinking meets new tech — an unfiltered podcast, hosted by Ran Aroussi and a co-host you won’t see coming.

​Live every episode. No production lag, no editing. Business, AI, tech, startup ideas, and whatever's worth talking about — through the lens of someone who's been building production systems for 35+ years

SPEAKER_00: So, hi and welcome
to Old School New Tech.

Today's another solo episode.

After last week, I was building
a software utility live in kind

of a code with me, work with me
type of stream.

It ended up being very useful,
to be honest.

We're using it heavily at
Automaze.

And yeah, it's it's been a
success, I would say.

It's called Invapor, and it's a
small utility that allows you to

not worry about committing your
secrets and environment files

and not only not worry about it,
but actually proactively doing

that so that it can be used
instead of.example files and

other template files and so on
and so forth.

And today I want to talk about
something that I keep being

asked by different people, and
it's how I work.

So today I'm gonna kind of share
a little bit about my workflows,

my setup, all that type of
stuff.

So I should probably start by
saying that six months ago-ish,

maybe a little bit more, I
shipped a book.

The book is called Production
Grade Agentic AI, and it's a

book for engineers who want to
deploy systems to production

environments.

And it's a 660-page book, it's a
big one.

I have another book coming up in
a few weeks, and uh I also run

Automase, which is a CTO as a
service software agency.

We have almost 30 people working
there, and I've got an advisory

kind of climbing out of stealth.

It's called VarOps, and more
about that and the new book in a

few weeks.

And people keep asking how I get
through it all, and I guess

that's a fair question.

So, what I'm gonna do today is
I'm gonna try to share as much

as I can about my setup, the
system, and kind of the decision

I keep making 40 times a day,
and that everything else kind of

hangs on.

So I'll start with the technical
setup because I guess that's a

lot of you are mostly interested
in that.

So there's a huge debate and
whether or not to run your

coding environment locally or on
a cloud environment, and I can

see the merit for both.

And I'm I think that I probably
figure out kind of a way in

between, which is my local
environment, is the cloud.

I have a dedicated machine
that's accessible to me and me

alone from anywhere.

And it's for me, it's what both
trying to be, right?

So I like to work on an
environment that I fully

configure it, that I can run
different experiments on that

when I do coding in a more
exploratory fashion.

So not I'm not in maintenance
mode or I'm not in a fully

mature product where it's just
hey, let's add this feature or

fix this bug.

But well, I'm when I'm still
trying to figure things out, I

like to work locally, but I
still want the ability to work

remotely, if that makes sense.

So what I've done is I have
another mech set up on in my

home office, and it has my
harness of choice, which is

Droid by Factory AI, and it runs
all the models.

Obviously, I have Claud Desktop
installed there, and I also have

Claud Desktop installed locally
on my laptop, but more on that

in a second.

So I'm using Droid as my go-to
harness.

I'm using a modified version of
which is a really cool tool that

it's what I think most IDEs will
end up being.

It's a sort of a hybrid between
let's say it's it's your own

local cursor style environment
for ad hoc coding, and it

supports a billion different
coding harnesses and also Droid,

and it allows me to also code
for my mobile machine.

So I can be on my mobile device
and I can do my coding from

there, especially for
long-running sessions where

there's not a lot of
interactivity.

So that's what I use for the, as
I mentioned, the exploratory

part of the coding work.

For when the product is more
either mature or is kind of

cooked enough.

So I'm more in the let's add a
new feature, let's fix

something, that type of stage.

I'm using Cloop, which is an
internal Devon style environment

that we've developed internally
and will be shipping out for

everyone else sometimes in the
next few months.

I use for kind of when I want to
automatically ship new features,

brainstorm new features.

We built into that brainstorming
module, which is great.

We have a feature called
Ladybug, which automatically

hunts down production bugs.

It's part of the code, sort of
like Sentry, and it

automatically goes through all
the pipeline of discovery,

fixing, and a PR.

And uh yeah, so I the human is
always in the loop on the PR

level.

So that that's kind of my coding
setup uh for my I also use VS

Code, but these days it's mostly
used as my word processor, let's

kind of note taker, if you will.

I found that it's very helpful
for me at least to use it,

especially when I was writing my
book and the one that's coming

up soon.

It's a very convenient
environment for me, at least as

a coder, uh, to both work on
ASCII doc files and do the

actual coding necessary for the
book.

But I hardly ever use it as a
proper code editor these days.

For my own assistant, I know
that many are using a

combination of or either
CloudDot or uh OpenClump, sorry,

or Hermes.

I'm actually using Maxi,
obviously.

It's a system that I've
developed and I know all the ins

and outs of it, and I can add
new features as I need them.

I'm using Maxi, but I'm using
Cloud Desktop actually as the

client for Maxi.

So it's connected via MCP and
Cloud Desktop is the interface I

use to communicate with Maxi.

The cool thing about being able
to use Maxi from Cloud Desktop

is that I do use Cloud a lot.

It is my go-to brainstorming
partner and helps me kind of

flesh out ideas for other stuff.

I like to keep it simple.

I use reminders, Apple reminders
as my to-do list.

I use Apple Notes for Quick
Notes.

I use Superhuman for email, just
switch over back to them.

I use them like a few years ago
and I switched back about three

months ago and it's been going
great.

My servers, my hosting partners,
I'm using Cloudflare, Hetzner,

and DigitalOcean as kind of my
main stack.

And obviously for client work,
we use whatever fits the client,

but for my own projects, that's
what I like to use.

Everything that I need to know,
what's going on in the company?

I have AI automations for that.

I'm getting the morning
briefings, everything that's

happening and waiting on me in
Slack, my emails, kind of preps

for the meetings.

It's doing the triage for my
emails, of writing the drafts.

So everything is runs on Moxie,
and I get the briefing with some

action items.

For any sort of client
communication, I'm using I'm

using Slack Connect.

So that's what we're using for
internal communication within

the company, the team at
Automase Loves Discord.

So that's where we hang.

But for any sort of client
communication, we are on Slack.

I also self-host almost
everything that I can self-host

myself.

Not necessarily to kind of, hey,
let's save some money.

I have I'm spending tens of
thousands of dollars in tokens.

So obviously, it's not a matter
of trying to save$20,$30 a month

on various.

It's more about data ownership
and being able to hack around

the processes.

So even if I don't hack around
the code, I want to be able to

kind of access the database
directly if I need to and get

access to the role, to the raw
data.

So it's more about data
ownership and data governance

rather than saving a few bucks.

So yeah, I'm I'm more than happy
to pay for any software that I'm

using.

Just let me self-host it.

So so that's that's kind of my
my setup.

I have multiple agents running
in any given moment.

So I have the mega coding agent
that's running on Cloop, that's

kind of doing ongoing work and
maintenance and whatever needs

happening.

And uh locally I'm mostly have a
screen with Claude Desktop and

Paseo for kind of coding.

They're all funnel into the same
harness.

So they're all using Droid at
the end of the day for the

actual coding.

So my sessions are consistent
across everything.

Whether I started a coding
session from MUSI or from Paseo

directly from Droid or from
Clue, it's all available for me

in the same environment and
they're sharing the same

sessions.

So that's a setup that I've
built for myself in terms of

coding.

In terms of uh, let's say,
segment number two, how I manage

my time.

So my job used to be doing the
work, and now it's more about

deciding which bucket the work
goes in.

And I remember a great thing
that Jeff Bezos from Amazon said

that he gets paid to make a
small number of high-quality

decisions.

So, not that I compare myself to
Jeff Bezos and the operation

that he gets to manage, but that
that's kind of the inspiration

for what I'm trying to achieve.

I'm trying to make a small
number of high-quality decisions

and spend the rest of my time
doing things that I actually

enjoy doing, which for me is
building stuff, kind of

experimenting.

I build a lot of stuff that
would never see the light of day

just because I find it
interesting.

I make 20, 30 decisions every
day, and almost all of them are

classifications.

We have two tracks.

I have the Rails, and I have
Asian, I have bespoke general, I

have a decision of whether
something goes to a human,

whether something becomes
automated somewhere in the

middle, or whether it's a
process that it's time to kill.

So the disciplines that I'm
trying to follow is that first

off, anything that I've done
more than a few times and I have

a process for it gets automated.

Automated doesn't necessarily
mean AI, doesn't necessarily

mean kills or agents or anything
like that.

If it's fully deterministic and
I know the inputs, I know the

outputs, there's no AI uh
involved.

It's just simple automation.

If it's more fuzzy and I need
judgment, that I'm going to

deploy an agent to sort that
out.

And a lot of the stuff that is
automated is somewhere in

between.

So most of the steps are follow
workflow.

It's a very deterministic flow,
but there's a fuzzy part like

write the actual email.

That's going to be a fuzzy part,
or you know, make a decision

here.

So that's going to be AI.

But everything before or after
that step doesn't necessarily

need AI.

And yeah, I find that this
combination works best for me.

So if something is done more
than a few times, it gets

automated to one of these three
buckets fully AI, hybrid, or

just a simple automation
workflow.

So most of my time basically
goes into thinking, not typing.

So yeah, I go on calls, I talk
to clients, I sync with my team,

but it's not as often as you
might imagine.

Most of my time do go into
thinking.

I spend a lot of time thinking
about and actually minimizing

the code base, which will result
in a smaller maintenance

surface.

So this is something that I
spend a lot of my thinking on.

I guess you can call it kind of
first principles.

What is the product?

So even products that are have
been live for a while and are

being used by lots of people, I
still like to ask everyone now

and then, kind of, what is it?

And let's strip it down to the
bare kind of core minimum.

So if I would go and ask what is
a coding agent, yeah, all those

Kanban and workflows, these are
secondary to having a system

that can actually code, right?

So I'm I'm trying to strip down
to the essentials and then add

uh features back up that both
reduces the complexity of the

code banks, makes the code a lot
easier to maintain for ourselves

and agents.

And uh yeah, so basically I I
decide a lot of what not to

build, a lot of what not to do.

I will spend hours, sometimes
even days, rarely weeks, but

that that we known to happen on
brainstorming and specing.

I use, as I mentioned, I use
Claude AI for that before even

one line gets written.

So just use it for doing
research.

I find that by the way, Claude
with especially when you use it

as in a consortium with GPT and
perplexity is great for that.

But for the actual hypothesizing
and thinking process, I like to

use Claude AI, not necessarily
because it's smarter than GPT,

GPT, especially the soul, is
amazing.

I like its personality better,
if if you can say that about AI.

It's I just I find it easier to
talk to, but I do bring up GPT

every now and then during those
brainstorming sessions in order

to ask, hey, what do you think
about that?

And what what feedback do you
have for Claude?

I feed it back to Claude,
Claude's feed it back to GPT,

and I do like the fact that I'm
the human in the middle because

it's very fuzzy.

This is not something that I
would like to automate, that I

enjoy thinking about these types
of things and kind of solving

the puzzle.

So I don't see myself automating
that part anytime soon.

I also think that's my judgment
is what makes our products work.

And yeah, that's something that
comes with decades of

experience, I guess.

I mentioned perplexity,
perplexity is a great research

body.

It's just I feel that it's a lot
more up-to-date and it goes out

to different sources.

So yeah, that's that's what I
use it for mainly.

I read the code for everything
that is being produced by

agents, I read and I comment a
lot about the code.

The generation, code generation
is cheap, judgment still is

expensive, and I think that at
the end of the day, what I bring

to the table is not the fact
that I can type Python or

TypeScript or whatever better or
faster than someone else.

I think that what I bring to the
table is my judgment and my

ability to foresee problems in
the code base and in production

environments before we actually
get there.

So that's how I spend my time
and how I manage my time.

I meant to try to have a funnel.

I don't have my email open.

I open it twice a day, once
after my morning briefing that I

receive, and once at the end of
the day, I have a short VIP list

of people that will get reply
almost immediately.

And it's mostly not based on
importance.

So if you're not that please
don't feel offended, it's mostly

about I don't want to cause any
sort of a delay.

So if an accountant needs
something for me that is urgent,

they're gonna contact me from a
specific email address rather

than just uh a common or an
ongoing bookkeeping question.

So I will answer some questions
faster, some emails faster than

what I would reply to others.

So yeah.

Regarding of how I use
automations, uh, I mentioned

that I I like being the human in
the middle.

And yeah, so most of my
automations are actually gated,

meaning there is a human
approval needed at some stage,

and it's on purpose.

It's not because the automations
are not great, it's not because

you know, it's it's not because
I think that AI is not mature

enough.

Obviously, I'm all in, so that's
definitely not the reason.

It's because every client that
we have and that we serve is is

essentially an edge case.

No client is alike.

Yeah, processes can be almost
identical between clients, but

every client is its own edge
case.

So it's not caution, it's just
being accurate about the domain

that I work in.

So that that dialogue whether an
automation is fully automated or

gated by human, it's it's not a
technical settings.

It's well, it is a technical
setting, but it's due to uh

judgment about how we want to
work.

I want to make sure that AI
saves me the dirty work.

I don't want it to replace me
for communication, especially

not with business partners and
clients.

So that in regards to how the
automations are running.

In terms of how I run automase,
I mostly don't.

I have two amazing partners that
runs the agency, uh Anton and

Alex.

And we've met almost six, seven
years ago now.

And yeah, the fact that I'm a
lean founder doesn't mean that I

run solo.

They manage the team, they
manage the pipeline that builds

everything.

Most of what I do in Automase is
make sure that we get customers,

we retain customers.

I'm kind of the main driving
force in writing the PRDs and

deciding how products should be
built.

And that's where I leave it in
the trusty hands of the team to

actually do the work, and I jump
back in towards the last 10% of

the work.

I'm gonna go more into how I run
VarOps, which is a new

adventure, which is kind of uh a
sibling to Automase, only in a

different type of field.

It's also a service-based
approach.

Where do leads come from?

So the leads, I'm honest, it's
99% inbound.

And the reason is that you know
I have lots of open source code

that is available.

People use it, figure out who
wrote it, they reach out.

I have this podcast, I have a
newsletter, I have the book,

soon to be books.

By the way, all of that is not
was not created as a lead gen

strategy.

It's just accumulated over time,
very organically, over a very,

very long time.

Trust me, I didn't think 15
years ago when I released the

software that I'm gonna use it
in 15 years' time to lend

clients.

So the yeah, the bad news is
that it's not like a method that

you can replicate in the next
quarter.

This is just this is part of who
I am and how I work, and the

fact that I'm willing kind of to
to give to the community.

Community tends to pay to pay
itself back.

So that's essentially in terms
of how I run everything.

I want to touch about something
that's been gaining a lot of

popularity lately, and this is
the FDE.

There's a lot of talk about FDE
nowadays.

And an FD essentially is a
customer-facing software

engineer that's embedded
directly inside the client's

team or environment.

Now, specifically with Automase,
that's what we've always done.

We've kind of been assimilated
into other teams, other

environments.

We've always done that.

And what I like to do
specifically is be the FD for

every new client that we onboard
and be part of the decision

making, if not the decision
maker, for every new process

that we implement.

Now there's two reasons for
that.

And by the way, some people say,
hey, this don't you aren't you

worried that makes you look like
a smaller company?

And we're not a huge company
anyway, whereas I mentioned we

are closing in on 30 people.

But I don't think it does make
us look smaller because the

founder is being deployed into
the integration work or anything

like that.

I don't think that's a problem.

I think it's a decision and it
was done by design.

And the reason why I'm involved
in the initial phases of client

onboarding, specing their
product and working with their

team.

And before I hand it over to my
amazing team to kind of take

over, is that I cannot
confidently talk about something

that I didn't experience
firsthand, nor I can I improve

or fine-tune processes that I do
not understand.

So that's the goal.

Again, small number of
high-quality decisions, going

back to Jeff Bezos, and there's
no high-quality anything without

understanding first.

So that's essentially how I
work.

I like to be at the start of
when we start working with a new

client.

Then my team takes over, and
then I'm jumping whenever

there's a fork in the road over
thinking about new

implementation or new features
for their product, stuff like

that.

Most love the fact that, you
know, they have me in the room

right there with them, kind of
brainstorming and figuring

things out.

And I think that that's the
founder's role, especially for

smaller companies.

I think that's the founder's
role and responsibility to

deploy themselves onto their
clients' offices, etc., and

workflows in order to understand
the problem that they are trying

to solve.

Kind of getting close to and
gaining lived experiences from

that relationship.

So that's what I have to say
about that.

So yeah, I mean, the machine,
the list, the pipeline,

everything that I've kind of
discussed in today's podcast

about how I run things, all of
it exists to protect the context

that I have in my head, so I can
classify things accordingly all

day long.

And that's that's my job now.

That's everything else is is
scaffolding.

So this is what I do, this is
how I spend my time.

And I don't know if it's a
blueprint or anything like that

that you can take away, but uh a
lot of people ask, so I decided

to answer.

So that's it for today.

I'll try to summarize this thing
in some sort of a PDF and send

it to the newsletter if you're
not on it.

You can just join by hopping
over to rusi.com.

It's arou-si.com.

It's exactly like my last name.

What a surprise.

And uh yeah, that's it for
today.

I'll see you all next time.

Thank you for spending this time
with me.