StaffEng podcast

Hosts: Alex Kessinger & David Noël-Ramos Guest: Karynn Ikeda — Former Engineering Manager → AI Enablement Program Manager at Babylist @ktikedaKarynn Ikeda shares the full arc of how Babylist adopted AI across its engineering organization — from a six-week Windsurf pilot on a single team, to company-wide Claude Code adoption and a bold initiative to onboard product managers and designers into the codebase. She discusses leadership buy-in, measuring developer sentiment over raw velocity metrics, the shift toward agent orchestration, and why the return of joy and creative empowerment may be the most important signal of all.Links & ReferencesKarynn Ikeda (@ktikeda)Babylist  babylist.comShopify CEO Tobi Lütke's AI Memo (April 2025)  Original post on XAnthropic Code Review for Claude Code  claude.com/blog/code-reviewClaude Code  code.claude.comDevin (AI coding agent by Cognition)  devin.aiCursor  cursor.comWindsurf windsurf.comLovable (vibe coding tool)  lovable.devV0 (by Vercel)  v0.dev