Scaling DevTools

In this episode, Alex Jung, cofounder and CPO of Unikraft, joins us at Heavybit DevGuild. Alex explains how Unikraft went from an academic unikernel project to a cloud platform for running highly efficient workloads. We talk about why unikernels can make applications faster, cheaper, and more secure, how AI agents are driving demand for sandboxed compute, and why the next wave of software generation may require a much more efficient cloud infrastructure layer.

Links:
• Alex Jung’s LinkedIn
• Alex Jung on X
• Unikraft
• Unikraft on GitHub
• Unikraft open source project 

In this episode, James Arthur, cofounder and CEO of ElectricSQL, joins us at Heavybit DevGuild. James explains why Electric has evolved from Postgres sync into data infrastructure for collaborative multi-agent systems. We talk about Durable Streams, Electric Agents, why agents should be modeled as long-lived data rather than compute, and why the future of agent infrastructure may look more like sync than sandboxes. Links: • James Arthur’s LinkedIn • James Arthur on X • Electric • Electric team • Electric blog 00:00 Intro 00:40 What ElectricSQL is building now 02:00 Electric Agents and Durable Streams 03:20 Why agents are data, not compute 05:30 The shift to collaborative multi-agent systems 07:00 Why sandboxe...

In this episode, Siddhartha Borah, cofounder and CTO of Bracket AI, joins us at Heavybit DevGuild. Siddhartha explains how Bracket is building agents that can learn complex business work — especially in areas like supply chain and operations, where the real context often lives in people’s heads rather than documentation. We talk about teaching agents by doing the work, turning messy human knowledge into reliable workflows, agent-in-the-loop systems, memory, knowledge graphs, and why the last mile of enterprise automation is so hard. Links: • Siddhartha Borah’s LinkedIn • Bracket AI 00:00 Intro 00:30 What Bracket AI is building 01:40 Learning work that was never written do...

In this episode, CL Kao, founder of Recce, joins us at Heavybit DevGuild. CL explains how Recce works as an AI data review agent: helping teams understand how code changes affect downstream data before they merge. We talk about why reviewing data pipelines is different from reviewing code, how GenAI shifts the bottleneck from code generation to code review, and why correctness in data systems often requires collaboration with non-technical stakeholders. We also get into multi-agent workflows, data benchmarks, specs, and what it might mean to “recce” an AI system before it causes problems. Links: • CL Kao’s LinkedIn — TODO • CL Kao on X...

In this episode, Ian Coe, cofounder and CEO of Tonic.ai, joins us at Heavybit DevGuild. Ian explains how Tonic started by helping developers create safe, realistic data for testing and development, and how that has expanded into AI model training, de-identification, and synthetic datasets for reinforcement learning. We talk about structured vs unstructured data, healthcare and financial services use cases, Fabricate, Textual, fine-tuning, RL environments, and why enterprises are becoming more interested in training models on their own data. Links: • Ian Coe’s LinkedIn • Tonic.ai • Tonic Fabricate • Tonic Textual • Tonic blog 00:00 Intro 00:30 What Tonic.ai does 01:30 Synthetic data for software...

In this episode, Stephen Barrett, cofounder and CTO of Milestone, joins us at Heavybit DevGuild. Stephen explains how Milestone helps engineering leaders measure the real impact of GenAI tools across software teams. We talk about software engineering analytics, AI adoption, governance, risk, token maxing, DORA metrics, and why engineering leaders need to understand whether AI-generated code is actually improving outcomes — not just increasing output. Links: • Stephen Barrett’s LinkedIn — TODO • Milestone • Milestone About • Milestone blog 00:00 Intro 00:30 What Milestone does 02:00 Measuring AI’s impact on engineering teams 03:30 Governance, risk, and engineering continuity 05:30 Are engineers still doing engineering? 07:00 Token maxing and why it can go wrong ...

In this episode, Kim Maida joins the podcast to talk about DevRel, AI, developer experience, and measuring what actually matters. We also dive into her developer empowerment flywheel and how Keycard is approaching identity and access for AI agents.

Links:
   •  Kim Maida
   •  Keycard
   •  Kim Maida on LinkedIn
   •  Kim Maida on X

In this episode, Robby Russell joins to talk about how Oh My Zsh went from a tool for a few coworkers to one of the most popular open source developer tools in the world. They cover developer experience, open source maintenance, AI-assisted pull requests, and how AI could reshape software consulting.

Links:
   •  Robby Russell
   •  Oh My Zsh
   •  Maintainable podcast
   •  Ruby on Rails Podcast
   •  Planet Argon

In this episode, Swyx, founder of AI Engineer, joins us live from AI Engineer Europe in London, alongside Louis Knight-Webb. We cover how AI Engineer grew from a single San Francisco conference into a global community, why industry AI work needs better venues for sharing, and what is changing in AI DevTools, code execution, research, PLG, enterprise sales, and human-written content in the age of AI.

Links:
• Swyx's LinkedIn
• Swyx on X
• Louis Knight-Webb's LinkedIn
• Louis Knight-Webb on X
• AI Engineer
• AI Engineer Europe
• AI Engineer YouTube
• AI Engineer on X

In this episode, Dan Moore from FusionAuth breaks down how the company integrated Permify after the acquisition. We talk about customer communication, pricing and packaging, migration planning, internal enablement, and the practical work that turns an acquisition into a successful product integration.

Links:
   •  FusionAuth
   •  Permify
   •  Dan Moore on Bluesky

In this episode, Joel Griffith, founder of browserless, shares how he built browserless from a painful browser automation problem into a profitable, bootstrapped DevTools company. We cover the first customer, content-led growth, selling to developers, and the realities of building a durable software business.

Links:
   • Joel's LinkedIn
    • browserless
   •  Browserless' YouTube
   •  Browserless' blog
   •  Browserless' Linkedin

In this episode, some of Cloudflare's dev team - Sunil Pai, Matt Carey, and Thomas Ankcorn join us from AI Engineers Europe to discuss code mode, radical simplicity and Pi.

Links:
- Cloudflare
- Sunil Pai
- Matt Carey
- Thomas Ankcorn 

In this episode, Maggie Appleton from GitHub Next explains why "single player" AI tools are creating a team alignment crisis. We discuss the shift from solo CLI instances to multiplayer agentic environments, the launch of ACE (Agentic Collaboration Environment), and why the future of software isn't just about writing code faster—it's about using proactive agents to bridge the gap between developers, researchers, and the social fabric of a company.

This was recorded at AI Engineer Europe.

Links:

In this episode, Kyle Galbraith from Depot shares the story behind building Depot CI and why traditional infrastructure is "crumbling" under the weight of AI-generated code. We discuss the shift from human-centric pipelines to agent-augmented workflows, the challenge of managing a 10x increase in code volume, and Kyle’s perspective on the rising tech hubs across Europe.

Links:
- Depot
- Kyle Galbraith 

In this episode, Zack Proser and Nick Nisi from WorkOS share what they’ve learned from building real-world AI tools and running high-impact workshops for AI engineers. We talk about finding "developer balance" by feeding biometric data into LLMs, the evolution of "skills" as a software primitive, and how to build seamless agentic loops that connect Slack, Linear, and Notion to eliminate context switching.

Links:
- WorkOS
- Zack Proser
- Nick Nisi 

In this episode, Karl Hughes from Draft.dev shares what he learned from surveying DevTools marketers about budgets, AI, content, and ROI. We talk about budgets, AI workflows, content strategy, distribution, and why events and human relationships still drive some of the best results in developer marketing.

Links:
   •  Draft.dev
   •  Karl Hughes
   •  Karl's LinkedIn

In the episode Charity Majors, founder and CTO of Honeycomb, talks about what changes when the cost of generating code drops toward zero. She explains why observability becomes the source of truth, why great products still depend on taste, and how fast feedback loops let teams ship faster without breaking everything.

We also get into why engineering teams need to speak in terms of business value, and how Charity thinks about writing, credibility, and building a public voice as a technical founder.

Links:
   •  Honeycomb
   •  Charity's blog
   •  Observability Engineering book

Jakub Czakon (Kuba) was until very recently the CMO of Neptune.ai, which was just acquired by OpenAI for an undisclosed amount.

He also writes Developer Markepear - my favourite DevTools marketing resource.

Links:

Matt Aitken is the cofounder and CEO of Trigger.dev - an AI workflows platform.

Links:
- Trigger.dev
- Matt Aitken
- AIE Europe 

Recorded at AI Engineers Europe, Lawrence Jones is an AI engineer at Incident.io and he shares his experiences building an AI SRE.

Links:
- Incident.io https://incident.io/
- Lawrence Jones https://www.linkedin.com/in/lawrence2jones/ 

Andy is the cofounder of DeepTrace, an AI reliability platform that helps engineering teams investigate incidents and fix problems in production. In this conversation, Andy shares how a team of technical founders learned sales, got their first 10 customers, and approached go-to-market with the same mindset they used for engineering. We discuss outbound volume, messaging, targeting, sales tooling, paid ads, sales calls, pricing, trials, and the thinking behind DeepTrace

Links:

Stefano Verna and Matteo Giaccone from DatoCMS share how their side project in a web agency turned into a €6.5M ARR company with a 13-person remote team. We talk about building sustainable, bootstrapped businesses, instead of the all-or-nothing VC approach, and about their 6-week shipping cycles, prioritizing simplicity, and building trust with customers.

Links:
   •. Dato CMS
   •. Matteo's Linkedin
   •. Stefano's X

Ahmad Sadeddin is the founder and CEO of Corgea. Corgea provides the security tools to find, triage, and fix insecure code.

Ahmad shares:

- Why you don't need to raise much to find PMF - stay lean: you should surprise people with how few people you are.
- What is a small amount to raise? And what team size do you need?
- Pivoting during YC and how Corgea found their first customers and the signs of Product Market Fit
- The journey to Product Market Fit never stops
- How...

David Hsu is the founder of Retool, the low-code platform for building internal tools used by companies like Amazon, Airbnb, and the US Army. David recounts building Retool's first version in weeks with just three components, early outreach failures, shifting to "tomorrow's developers," and LLM use cases.

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

Links:
  •  Retool
  •  David's Linkedin

Louis Knight-Webb is the co-founder of Vibe Kanban, an open-source tool for orchestrating AI coding agents. After years of building for enterprise legacy code, Louis pivoted and saw his new project explode to over 20,000 GitHub stars in just a few months. We talk about the "startup university" of the last five years, why he walked away from 6-figure enterprise deals to find true founder-market fit, and why he thinks most people are wrong about AI-generated pull requests.

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you...

This episode breaks down an article by Jason Cohen, founder of WP Engine and SmartBear, outlining his step-by-step roadmap from idea to product-market fit (PMF) for startups, especially DevTools. His 8 step roadmap provides insights on personal fit, market validation, customer interviews, building an SLC (simple, lovable, complete) MVP, sales focus, retention, prioritization, and founder psychology, drawing from Cohen's unicorn success and pitfalls to avoid.

Links:
   • Jason Cohen
   •  WP Engine
   •  Smart Bear
   •  Jason Cohen's article

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add en...

This episode breaks down Marc Andreessen's 2007 article on why market matters most in startups, plus some great wisdom from Michael Seibel on spotting real PMF through explosive growth and customer pull.

Links:
   •  Marc Andreessen's article
   •  Michael Seibel's post
   •  Product Market Fit collapse

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

This episode is with Christopher Burns, the creator of c15t and founder of consent.io, an open-source, developer-first, ethical provider of privacy infrastructure. Chris explains why most cookie banners are not compliant, and if the EU is going to come after you for it. We talk about how he found product market fit and grew the company, and we also debate London vs SF for startups.

Links:
   •  Chris' Linkedin
   •  c15t
   •  Consent

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterpr...

This is the story of how Amazon Web Services - arguably the most successful developer tool of all time - got started.

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

Adam Frankl has been the first Marketing VP at three dev-facing unicorns. He returns to the podcast, to reveal the things that DevTool startups must get right in the early days, in order to be successful. We also discuss Jack's experience implementing Technical Advisory Boards (TABs) with a new startup, and the hurdles startups face with outreach, sustaining member enthusiasm across calls, and the art of framing the problem correctly. Adam shares ongoing AI experiments to streamline TAB insights and stories that hook developers.
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This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to...

Kyle Cheung, co-founder of Greybeam, shares how his team built a tool that reduces Snowflake costs by 70-95%, without migration, drawing from multiple pivots over two years. The discussion covers their quirky marketing tactics and advice on fundraising as storytelling.

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

Links:
   •  Kyle's Linkedin
   •  Greybeam

In this episode, Matt Klein (Bitdrift, Envoy) reflects on building EC2 in the early days of AWS, the reality behind AWS’s origins, and what Amazon’s customer obsession looks like from the inside. He then dives into creating Envoy at Lyft, the challenges of open source at scale, and spinning Bitdrift out of Lyft to focus on mobile observability. He shares how to meet developers where they are and what it takes to find product market fit.

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you...

Will Stewart is the CEO and co-founder of Northflank, the developer platform. He shares how a teenage gaming side project turned into a self-service developer platform that runs complex workloads on Kubernetes across any cloud. He talks about meeting his co-founder online, fundraising and hiring remotely and why they took years to launch. He offers some interesting insights on dealing with bugs, product vision and changelogs.

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

In Shawn "swyx" Wang's third appearance on the podcast, we talk about his recent interview with Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan about AI in biomedical research, and the goal to understand and eventually eradicate all diseases. We also talk about how DevRel is unbelievable back, the challenges of uphill DevRel, the dynamics of the current AI investment bubble, and the new projects he is working on.

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

Vincent D. Warmerdam from Marimo shares how they grew their YouTube channel for their Python notebook, using regular Shorts to reach thousands of new viewers each week. He talks about the importance of being genuinely excited about what you’re building and how consistent, authentic content can help both founders and creators connect with their audience. He gives practical advice and real-world insights for anyone interested in DevRel or growing a DevTool channel.

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Si...

Rik Haandrikman talks about sales incentives and growth at RevenueCat, and their creative approach to conferences. He explains why their sales team focuses on helping customers evaluate the product in their own way, how aligning incentives shapes company culture and how they make the most out of rare, compelling events.

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

Links:
   •  RevenueCat jobs
   •  Rik's article
   •  Rik's X
   •  RevenueCat's X

The episode features Baseten CEO and cofounder Tuhin, who shares Baseten’s journey from a small team in the pre-GenAI era to scaling rapidly and raising $150M in Series D funding. The discussion delves into building robust inference infrastructure for AI applications, navigating market shifts, and developing tools that prioritize speed, developer experience, and customer feedback loops.

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

Links:
   •  Baseten
   •  Tuhin's Linkedin

In this episode, Angelo Saraceno from Railway shares his experience balancing the technical challenges of building a developer-focused product with the realities of enterprise sales. They discuss how understanding customer needs beyond just features is crucial to growing a startup sustainably. Whether you're a founder or developer, this conversation offers valuable insights into turning good products into successful businesses without losing sight of the bigger picture.

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

Guy Zerega led sales and marketing at Stack Overflow, where he once hired me.
Now he leads sales at Cyborg - they offer end-to-end encrypted inference data.
This is a 101 on what matters in sales; especially to developers.

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

Links:

    • Guy's Linkedin
   • Guy's new startup, Cyborg 

Victor, VP of Marketing at Strapi, walks us through how AI can be used in content creation—what tools work, what to watch out for, and how you can try some of these techniques yourself.

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

Links:

   •  Victor's X
   •  Victor's Linkedin
   •  Strapi
   •  GrowthX
   •  Kapa
   •  Octolens
   •  Semrush