Cillers Developer Experience

Meet Shai Ben Shalom, Senior Software Engineer at Torque (ex-Microsoft)Theme: AI-Assisted Enterprise Coding (and hackathons...) Highlights from the conversation:Your job just changed completely: Developers are becoming "mini-architects" instead of code writers. AI writes the code now, but you need to focus on security, scalability, and system design to make it production-ready.Put everything in Git for smarter AI: Keep all docs and code in one place so AI agents can understand your full project. Shai uses specialized agents for code reviews and testing that know the entire codebase context.Platform engineering makes you unstoppable: Learning the full stack from Kubernetes to databases eliminates dependencies. You can deploy and fix anything without waiting for other teams to help you.The gap isn't technical anymore, it's imagination: APIs and tools are ready - the question is how creative you can get with what problems to solve. From natural language database queries to AI troubleshooting your infrastructure.Enjoy!

Meet Moshik Shir - Principal Program Manager for Startups and Software Development at Microsoft, working across EMEA with 25+ years in tech, covering everything from VoIP pioneers to Azure resilience engineering, in a conversation about AI-Assisted Enterprise Coding.Highlights from the conversation:Context is everything - developers who are good at giving AI detailed, specific information become huge fans of AI coding. Those who give vague prompts end up thinking AI sucks. Context management is a skill you can learn and it makes all the difference.AI agents talking to other AI agents - we're moving from humans using AI to AI agents working together. One agent books your flight while another handles your hotel. This will completely change how companies handle support and knowledge management.Microsoft's winning combo - GitHub Copilot for coding + Microsoft Research (like Perplexity) for starting new projects + Teams Copilot for meeting notes. Using the research tool with Copilot together is especially powerful when kicking off new work.Learn two things, not just one - being super specialized in one area is risky now. Build skills in two domains (like tech + business, or frontend + AI) so you can adapt when AI changes your job.Copilot is everywhere at Microsoft - it works in Excel, Teams, Azure, VS Code - basically everything. People use it for finding old files, prepping for customer meetings, and getting meeting summaries without needing an assistant.Enjoy!

Meet Kieran Llarena - a hacker, startup/community founder, Capital One intern, and co-founder @ Filipino Americans!In this episode, we talked about AI-assisted enterprise coding. Context management is one of the most critical keys to success when working with AI (LLMs) - and in this episode, Kieran shared his experiences and best practices.We dove into his favorite tools and why Kieran loves them. Here are some of the tech we talked about:https://www.warp.dev/https://www.trynia.ai/https://zed.dev/https://www.diabrowser.com/We also discussed why hackathons are unparalleled when it comes to exploring new game-changing technologies!Enjoy!

Meet Balaj Saleem - Software Engineer at Amazon working on AI adoption at IMDb, with experience from both startups and big tech, in a conversation about AI-Assisted Enterprise Coding.Highlights from the conversation:The 80/20 rule for AI coding - spend 80% of time planning and providing context to the LLM, only 20% implementing. The cost of fixing bad code later far outweighs upfront planning.Repository-level markdown files are game-changers - create template files with business context, system assumptions, and coding guidelines that LLMs can reference for every prompt in that codebase.Question-answer sessions before coding - have 15-20 critical questions with the AI to understand the problem fully before writing any code. Often you're not 100% clear on what you want to build.LLMs excel at writing tests - they're incredibly good at test generation for existing code, making this a low-risk, high-value starting point for AI adoption.Enjoy!

Meet Rian Corcino - 7-time hackathon winner and AI Systems Support Specialist at Ayzenberg in a conversation about AI-Assisted Enterprise Coding.Rian shares his experience and insights - some highlights from the conversation:🏆 90% of his professional development came from hackathons - not from school, but from 20 hackathons in one year traveling across the US🎯 His "responsible vibe coding" approach - generates lots of code with Cursor but reads everything and asks for comments to understand how it works🛠️ His AI workflow stack - Claude for architecture planning, Cursor for coding, Warp for command line tasks, and ChatGPT for... therapy sessions⚡ Why AI + hackathons = perfect match - you can now actually build and ship real B2B SaaS products overnight instead of just prototypes📈 His winning strategy - starts with ideation and customer focus, not technology. Adapts presentations based on whether judges are technical or business-focusedEnjoy!

Meet JD Fiscus - Director of Research & Development, creator of the n8n MCP community node with 1 million downloads and host of Nerding I/O Youtube, in a conversation about AI-Assisted Enterprise Coding.JD shares his experience and insights - some highlights from the conversation:🛠️ Why he always returns to Cursor - loves their auto model feature that picks the right model for each task, keeping costs down while maintaining quality🔒 His golden rule: human in the loop always - never ships code where MCP writes directly to database or GitHub without his final approval⚡ Context engineering is everything - limits tools to 40 max, clears context frequently, and tasks out specific problems instead of zero-shot prompting🌐 MCP servers are undervalued - most people just wrap APIs, but resources, prompts, and bidirectional sampling are the real game-changers📊 Speed metrics are misleading - can't measure velocity the same way because you're working completely differently - focus on creativity and ability to pivot insteadEnjoy!

Meet Ventsislav Petrov, Frontend Developer at Knowify.Topic: AI-Assisted Enterprise CodingVentsislav shares his experience and insights - some highlights from the conversation:🤯 He writes 100% AI code now - only does analysis, architecture and orchestration while AI handles all the typing⚡ Got 4000x performance improvement in 12 iterations - turned an 8-hour data analysis into 4 minutes with the same dataset💸 Burns 50 million tokens in a single day - doesn't care about token limits because the ROI on complex problems is massive📚 Spends more time reading documentation than code - because AI writes so much code so fast that humans can't keep up reviewing it all🎭 Hid his AI usage in the beginning - just like "many developers" who weren't admitting they were using AI tools at workEnjoy!

Meet Viktor Farcic, Developer Advocate, Upbound.Topic: AI-Assisted Enterprise Coding. Viktor shares his experiences - that I first found surprising... but when I thought about it... absolutely obvious:💸 He spends $1000/month on AI tools but saves $10,000 - gets the equivalent of 3 extra developers working for him🎯 Why he ditched "cheap" AI subscriptions - they limit context to save tokens, giving him worse code quality🚀 His company has zero spending limits - and it actually costs them less than hiring expense approvers⚡ How AI transformed his daily work - coding became a "chore" so he can focus on design and architecture🔥 Why he's more excited about coding than ever: "I cannot explain how much more fun it is now"

Meet Saoud Rizwan, Founder/CEO at ClineIn this episode we talked about AI Agentic Coding and Enterprise Development, here are some of the talking points:From hackathon reject to world-leading AI coding startup - Cline started as "Cloud Dev" for an Anthropic hackathon just 10 days after Claude 3.5 Sonnet launched, Saoud actually lost but posted it on Reddit, open-sourced it, and things exploded from there.Transparency and control over your code - Unlike other AI coding tools, Cline lets you bring your own API key, see exactly what's happening under the hood, and control where your data goes without any subscription lock-in.Smart exploration beats brute-force context stuffing - Instead of cramming entire codebases into limited context windows, Cline intelligently explores projects like a new developer would, finding only the relevant pieces it needs.Workflow orchestration, not tool wars - Cline complements rather than competes with tools like Cursor, with most developers using them together for different parts of their development process.From implementation to strategy - The biggest shift is that development now splits between understanding requirements (still critical) versus writing code (now automated), letting engineers focus on architecture and vision.Enjoy!

Meet Alfredo de Candia, CTO, Hoken Tech (ex-Google)In this episode we talked about AI Assisted Enterprise Coding, here are some of the talking points: Essential developer knowledge required - While AI coding tools are powerful, you still need basic programming skills to choose the right frameworks, implement security measures, and understand backend requirements. The tools support you but can't create everything from scratch.Key tools and testing approach - Alfredo uses Augment Code (VS Code plugin with full codebase context) and Cline for different purposes, spending ~100 hours testing each new tool on cloned codebases before allowing production use. His evaluation criteria: number of prompts needed and error frequency.Enterprise security considerations - For enterprise environments, proper user management, data protection, authentication systems, and multiple security layers are critical. AI tools can help implement best practices, but developers must understand these requirements to avoid creating vulnerable platforms.Practical workflow integration - AI tools excel at speeding up repetitive coding tasks, creating prototypes quickly for testing ideas, and implementing research papers into working code. The approach is using AI for rapid prototyping, then refining with experienced developers for production-ready enterprise solutions.

Meet Hemant Kumar, Senior Director of Software Development, Oracle.In this episode we discussed:Understanding what customers actually need - Before building anything, you need to know what real problems you're solving for people.AI is changing how we write code fast - Big companies like Microsoft and Google already use AI tools to write 25% of their code. AI isn't just writing code anymore - it's also checking quality and creating tests.Using AI at big companies is different - Large organizations have strict rules about security and compliance that make adopting AI tools more complex than at smaller companies. The decisions they make also have to work for many years.Oracle builds AI into everything - Instead of just adding AI features on top, Oracle weaves AI throughout their entire software.As AI gets better at basic coding, developers need to focus more on big-picture design and how different systems work together.Enjoy!

Meet our guest Leon Lobo, Software Engineering Director, Oracle. Startups offering AI-Assisted Coding tools are the fastest-growing companies ever….We are now taking a deep dive in the podcast to explore how this technology can be used for enterprise environments with large codebases and high requirements for security, compliance, and confidentiality. In this episode we talked about:Enterprise AI testing requires new approaches - Moving from deterministic to probabilistic testing using vector similarity while preventing functional regressions that could crash critical business systems.RAG enables secure AI adoption without training models - Keep customer data secure and stay current with latest AI capabilities by feeding documentation through RAG pipelines instead of model training.Strong architecture becomes critical with AI coding tools - AI boosts productivity for documentation and routine tasks, but enterprise applications still need experienced architects to prevent maintenance nightmares.Oracle uses Cline and other modern AI coding tools - Practical implementation of repository-based development tools combined with guardrail services to catch security vulnerabilities and competitor code.Hackathons evolve toward product-focused collaboration - Product managers can now build AI agents directly while engineers focus more on business problems than technical implementation details.Enjoy!

Meet Monika Lionaite - CEO & Chief Innovator and Founder of Openhack 2020 Austrailia. In this episode, Monika shares insights from her research on hackathon participation benefits. Her findings reveal several inspiring takeaways. What participants experience they develop most in is collaboration, problem-solving, and learning new technologies.Resources provided by Monika: Here is the link to my thesis: Hackathons as a tool for learning in the framework of UNESCO learning citiesHere are the associated articles that cited my thesis (on Google Scholar): lionaite hackathons - Google ScholarThe Journal of Innovation & Knowledge where my thesis was cited: Academic performance indicators for the hackathon learning approach – The case of the blockchain hackathon - ScienceDirectHere is the link to the Youtube Recording where I was speaking on a panel at the World Summit AI 2025 about Intelligent Learning: How AI is Redefining Education: https://youtu.be/5iIASo4UhLo?si=qVetJvQk54gRQumsMy key take away from this panel: Post | Feed | LinkedInA link to my Impact Talk with Startup Grind - where I elaborate more about collaboration in general: https://youtu.be/GiX1G2mw_70?si=GsdoXa7IAwzzDH6y

Meet Dr Mamta Nagaraja.Mamta Nagaraja is a STEM leader who previously served as NASA's Associate Chief Scientist for Exploration and Applied Research. She managed science programs for the International Space Station, Moon missions, and commercial space projects, with special focus on space biomedicine. Mamta also led NASA's science communication efforts, helping share space discoveries with the public. In this episode we talked about:Mamta Nagaraja's 24-year NASA career as a scientist bridging human spaceflight and robotic explorationHer role supporting the NASA Space Apps Challenge as judge, spokesperson and advocateThe global impact of the Space Apps hackathon, which attracted 93,000 participants working on over 10,000 projectsHow space exploration inspires innovation and problem-solving across international boundariesI also had the chance to ask all my inner 10-year old question like: Do you think there is other life forms out there? How big is the universe? Is there multi universes? Enjoy!!

Meet Maximilian Vovk and Simon Van Schuylenbergh. Together with Ian Chow and Dakota Cecil they are the WMPGang, the team that won the Best Use of Science award at the NASA Space Apps Challenge 2024!In this episode we talked about their cutting-edge research in astronomy, their innovative approach to visualizing Earth, comets and potentially hazardous asteroids, the heart-stopping moment when their code broke just one hour before the final presentation, and the shocking revelation that they'd won among 10,000 global submissions - known as the "NO WAY"-moment... In the middle of our podcast, an alarm goes off - there's a gas leak in the building - and my interview guests have to run to safety while the interview continues. We've probably never had this much drama in the podcast before!

Meet Slayde Sequeira who has participated in 30+ hackathons, came 1st place in 3 and in the final round more than 10 times. He is a Computer engineer in his final year of engineering and he is 21 years old. His recent win was S.P.I.T hacks 2025 where over 700 teams competed - that is 2800 individuals - and his team secured the 1st place.In this podcast we talked about his journey from starting tech just three years ago, why in-person hackathons create better networking opportunities than online events, the competitive hackathon scene in tech hubs like Mumbai and Bangalore, and his proven strategies for winning hackathons including reading problem statements carefully and building features beyond the requirements.Slayde also shares valuable life skills gained from hackathons: hands-on coding experience, teamwork, and performing under pressure.Resources from Slayde:Here is where I find hackathons that are in mumbaihttps://devfolio.co/discoverAnd these are some of the other placeshttps://unstop.com/https://hack2skill.com/

Meet Team 42 Heroes - Winner Of NASA SPACE APPS 2024.In this episode I interview three of the members of the winning team: The Leader of the Project, Gabriel Chayb, Project Management and UI/UX: Ana Miziara and AI DEV: Gustavo Teixeira.We talked about how this team from Brazil became the first in South America to win NASA's top technology award. They explained their clever solution for detecting moonquakes and marsquakes, which reached 97% accuracy by turning seismic data into images. The team shared the ups and downs of their intense 48-hour hackathon experience, including nearly missing the deadline when their system crashed with just hours to go. We discussed how their victory has inspired young people in their hometown and their upcoming trip to NASA where they'll meet with space scientists. Their story shows that with good planning, teamwork, and bold thinking, even the most complex problems can be solved.

Meet Monika Lionaite, CEO Chief Innovator & Founder @Openhack 2020 AustraliaIn this episode we talked about her fascinating journey from fire dancing performer to global hackathon expert. Monika shares how her diverse background in photography, gaming, and international leadership shaped her unique approach to designing impactful hackathons. We explore how she launched her company in Australia just one month before the pandemic and turned it into a global digital transformation powerhouse. Monika reveals the key differences between sustainability-focused and prize-money hackathons, and explains her innovative method of involving actual users and stakeholders throughout the development process. Learn how proper hackathon design can help organizations recruit talent, solve complex problems, and create solutions with real-world impact.

Meet Bhavya Soni, AI Code Evaluator at Outlier, 6X Hackathon Participant, 2X Hackathon Winner etcIn this episode we talked about how Bhavya discovered programming after being publicly insulted by his math teacher, which became a pivotal moment in choosing his tech path. We explored his hackathon experiences, including his first police hackathon in Jaipur with five-star accommodations, and the challenges of team dynamics where he often ended up doing most of the work despite initial enthusiasm from teammates. Bhavya emphasized how important it is to find like-minded collaborators with matching dedication levels, and how participating in hackathons has helped him test his limits and develop leadership skills at just 19 years old.

Meet Vladimir Pavlovskii, Senior Software Engineer at Twilio.In this episode we talked about:Vladimir's journey from growing up in Moscow to moving to Tallinn and working at TwilioHow Twilio's annual internal hackathons are structured and what Vladimir has learned from participating in two of themThe value of hackathons for rapidly prototyping ideas that can turn into real product featuresCommon blockers that slow down software development velocity and how to address themVladimir's perspective on the rise of AI-assisted development tools and how he prefers to leverage AI in his work