On episode 87 of o11ycast, Ken Rimple and Jessica Kerr sit down with Lada Kesseler to explore how experienced engineers can work effectively with AI coding assistants. They discuss why AI feels like a fast, noisy black box, and how patterns like semantic zooming, feedback loops, testing, and observability can help developers stay in control. This episode is a deep dive into using AI without sacrificing clarity, quality, or trust.

In episode 86 of o11ycast, Ken Rimple and Jessica Kerr sit down with Amarilis Campos from Nubank. They explore how Brazil’s largest digital bank uses observability to build resilience and autonomy at scale. Amarilis shares how Nubank’s culture of “acting like owners, not renters” and its journey from metrics and logs to tracing with Honeycomb helped the company grow to over 100 million customers.

In episode 85 of o11ycast, Dr. Cat Hicks unpacks AI’s impact on software teams from a psychological and social-science perspective. Along with Ken, Jess, and Austin, she explores how AI magnifies long-standing tensions between solitary and collaborative models of development, and how fears about AI often reflect deeper issues like undervaluing collaboration or having unrealistic productivity expectations. The discussion also explores empathy, theory of mind, and pluralistic ignorance, highlighting why developers may prepare more for AI than for each other.