Heavybit Podcasts

On episode 18 of How It's Tested, Eden Ful Goh speaks with Jake Schuenke and Kevin Clark of Phantom about scaling quality assurance in the age of AI. They explain why faster code generation demands better testing, review, and release processes. From AI-assisted triage to real-device testing, they share how their team balances speed with the trust users place in a crypto wallet.

On episode 15 of Third Loop, the Progressive Delivery team discusses why AI makes human judgment more important than ever. Celebrating their book’s birthday, they revisit alignment, autonomy, abundance, and automation through the lens of AI agents. From evaluating models to recognizing good design, they explore what faster software creation still demands of people.

On episode 14 of Third Loop, the Progressive Delivery team sits down with Dr. Cat Hicks, psychologist and author of The Psychology of Software Teams. Cat unpacks the “Brains in Jars” mental model, the belief that engineers are interchangeable pure-cognition units, and explains why organizations that hold it struggle to use AI well. The conversation covers learning debt, overproduction pressure, and what teams should do with the time agents save.

On episode 14 of Data Renegades, CL Kao speaks with Hannes Mühleisen, co-creator of DuckDB, about building databases that people actually want to use. Hannes explains how conversations with frustrated statisticians shaped DuckDB’s architecture and why useful software sometimes requires abandoning your own assumptions. They explore DuckLake, the Quack client-server protocol, and how a focus on human usability is paying off as AI agents begin choosing their own tools.

On episode 6 of Lab Notes, Amir Zohrenejad speaks with James Evans about the surprising finding that reasoning models simulate a society rather than a single brain. They dig into sycophancy and why users trust AI less but perform better when it has a point of view, the Computational Life experiments that evolved self-replicating programs from a primordial soup of code, and James’s argument that diverse novel ideas are about to become the scarcest resource on the planet.

On episode 45 of Open Source Ready, Brian Douglas and John McBride speak with Dotta about Paperclip, an open-source platform for managing teams of AI agents. They explore what happens when agents produce more work than humans can review, why permissions need to extend beyond a separate computer, and how engineering judgment changes when writing code becomes easier.

On episode 13 of Third Loop, the Progressive Delivery team speaks with Jennifer Riggins about why faster code doesn’t automatically mean better software. They explore how AI exposes organizational bottlenecks, why psychological safety matters, and what Spotify’s growing feature set reveals about user value. Jennifer makes the case for smaller experiments, stronger feedback loops, and keeping people at the center of delivery.

On episode 60 of Generationship, Rachel Chalmers speaks with Vasanth Mohan of SambaNova about when faster AI agents actually mean better work. They explore why token consumption and code volume are poor substitutes for business value, how inference latency interrupts productive workflows, and why engineering taste still matters. Sometimes the most valuable thing an engineer can produce is less code.

On episode 44 of Open Source Ready, Brian Douglas and John McBride sit down with Mikyo King to explore why an agent can fail even when its model gets things right. They discuss observing the full agent workflow, using evaluations to uncover unexpected behavior, and testing whether skills actually improve results. Along the way, Mikyo shares how Arize approaches open source collaboration as coding agents reshape the contribution process.

On episode 12 of Third Loop, the Progressive Delivery team speaks with Steph Hippo, Platform Engineering Director at Honeycomb, about what happens when AI accelerates development beyond the pace humans can absorb. They explore safe defaults, evolving code reviews, and the feedback loops that help teams understand what they ship. Steph makes the case for reinvesting saved time in better decisions, software quality, and human connection.