What happens when a single engineer’s side project turns into a company-wide AI platform used by every department—engineering, product, marketing, finance, customer support, and sales?
In this episode of the Hangar DX Podcast, Block’s VP of Engineering Angie Jones shares the inside story of how Block deployed AI agents across the entire organization in just eight weeks.
She reveals how an internal tool called Goose—originally built by one engineer—became one of the first-ever MCP clients, exploded as an open-source project, and evolved into a general-purpose agent powering workflows across the company.
We also dig into security and governance, adoption strategies, and practical lessons that every platform team can learn from.
00:00 Introduction to AI Transformation at Block
04:18 Building Goose: The AI Agent
08:50 Adoption Across Departments
11:59 Scaling MCP Servers
13:17 Technical Challenges with MCPs
16:33 Governance and Security of MCPs
17:35 Tool Overload and Centralization Strategies
20:09 Overcoming Cold Start Problems
23:34 Evolving Goose for Different Departments
25:58 Open-Source and Internal Development
28:05 Measuring Success in AI Initiatives
30:02 Recommendations for AI Adoption
33:19 Future Predictions and Initiatives
About Angie Jones
Angie Jones is the Vice President of Engineering, AI Tools & Enablement at Block, Inc.
She is an award-winning teacher and international keynote speaker and holds more than 25 patents for inventions in the areas of virtual worlds, collaboration software, social networking, smarter planet, and software development processes.
About Hangar DX (https://dx.community/)
The Hangar is a community of senior DevOps and senior software engineers focused on developer experience. This is a space where vetted, experienced professionals can exchange ideas, share hard-earned wisdom, troubleshoot issues, and ultimately help each other in their projects and careers
"Measuring developer productivity is fundamental now that we're observing the largest change in software engineering in a decade. I'm happy we have our traditional productivity metrics in a good place so we can better observe the effect of AI."
Moritz Beller is a software engineering researcher at Meta, and in this episode of the Hangar DX podcast, he talks to Ankit Jain, CEO and co-founder of Aviator, about how Meta came up with their foundational metric DAT - Diff Authoring Time, why time is one of the least gameable metrics, how AI-assisted development changes the meaning of “productivity,” and why investments in tooling drive far more value than surface-level optimizations.
00:00 Introduction
01:04 Understanding Developer Insights at Meta
04:42 Defining Diff Authoring Time (DAT)
07:48 Evolution of DAT: From Version 1 to 6
11:17 Telemetry and Data Collection for Productivity
14:01 Challenges in Measuring Software Engineering Productivity
15:56 Impact of AI on Software Development Metrics
17:48 Case Studies: Productivity Gains from Metrics
22:26 Counterintuitive Findings in Productivity Metrics
24:43 The Challenges of Measuring Productivity
30:04 Qualitative Feedback and Developer Insights
33:28 Advice for Engineering Leaders on Data-Driven Practices
35:14 Future of Productivity Measurement in Software Engineering
About Moritz Beller
Moritz is a software engineering researcher at Meta.
In 2024, she began a part-time Master’s of Engineering in Software Engineering at the University of Auckland, researching the impact of AI on the profession itself. His interest lies in creating and empirically evaluating tools that help developers be more productive.
About Hangar DX (https://dx.community/)
The Hangar is a community of senior DevOps and senior software engineers focused on developer experience. This is a space where vetted, experienced professionals can exchange ideas, share hard-earned wisdom, troubleshoot issues, and ultimately help each other in their projects and careers.
We invite developers who work in DX and platform teams at their respective companies or who are interested in developer productivity.
“Many of us became software engineers because we found our identity in building things. Not managing things. Not overseeing things. Building things. With our own hands, our own minds, our own code.
But that identity is being challenged.”
In this episode of the HangarDX podcast, Ankit Jain, co-founder and CEO of Aviator, talks to Annie Vella about the software engineer’s identity crisis, why engineers are so attached to writing code, and how they can prepare for a rapidly evolving future.
00:00 The Identity Crisis in Software Engineering
04:52 Transitioning from Engineering to Management
09:55 The Engineer-Manager Pendulum
14:56 The Evolution of Software Engineering Roles
19:54 AI's Impact on Software Engineering
24:46 Building Trust in AI and Human Collaboration
29:34 Skills for the Future of Software Engineering
34:39 The Future of Software Engineering
About Annie Vella
Annie is a lifelong computer enthusiast with two decades of hands-on engineering and technical leadership experience. Currently a Distinguished Engineer at Westpac New Zealand, she focuses on resilient systems, cross-org opportunities, and quality-first engineering processes.
In 2024, she began a part-time Master’s of Engineering in Software Engineering at the University of Auckland, researching the impact of AI on the profession itself.
About Hangar DX (https://dx.community/)
The Hangar is a community of senior DevOps and senior software engineers focused on developer experience. This is a space where vetted, experienced professionals can exchange ideas, share hard-earned wisdom, troubleshoot issues, and ultimately help each other in their projects and careers.
We invite developers who work in DX and platform teams at their respective companies or who are interested in developer productivity.
“We're seeing the rise of a new persona that uses our products, the autonomous agent. That means we need to design for them, too. Agent Experience (AX) is about creating products that agents can navigate, integrate with, and orchestrate effectively.”
In this episode, Matt Biilmann, CEO and co-founder of Netlify, joins Ankit Jain, founder of Aviator, to unpack the next evolution in software: agent experience.
Matt, known for coining the term Jamstack, shares how AI is transforming the way we build for the web, making almost everyone a web developer. From Agent Experience (AX) to open vs. closed agent ecosystems, he explains how autonomous agents will reshape software development and why he thinks we are just entering the decade of agents.
00:00 Introduction to Developer Experience and AI
03:00 The Evolution of Coding and Development
06:07 The Impact of AI on Software Development
09:59 Understanding Agent Experience (AX)
13:40 The Future of Human and Agent Collaboration
17:50 Open vs. Closed Systems in Development
21:50 Simplicity in Development Frameworks
25:31 The Role of Agents in Web Development
29:34 Predictions for the Future of Development
About Matt Billmann
Matt Billmann is CEO of Netlify, a company he co-founded in 2014. He has been building developer tools, content management systems, and web infrastructure for more than 30 years and is recognized for coining the term “Jamstack.”
About Hangar DX (https://dx.community/)
The Hangar is a community of senior DevOps and senior software engineers focused on developer experience. This is a space where vetted, experienced professionals can exchange ideas, share hard-earned wisdom, troubleshoot issues, and ultimately help each other in their projects and careers.
We invite developers who work in DX and platform teams at their respective companies or who are interested in developer productivity.
"Let’s not worry about how fast somebody can run. Let’s assume that they will be fast if they’re in a rocket."
In this episode of The Hangar DX podcast, Shahab Malik, DevEx UX Researcher at JP Morgan Chase, discusses researching developers' needs and pain points in a 70,000-engineer organization and advocates for an enablement approach to developer productivity metrics.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Developer Experience and UX Research
01:59 The Role of UX Research in Developer Experience
05:21 Methodologies in UX Research
10:08 Understanding Developer Needs and Pain Points
13:59 Metrics and Measuring Developer Productivity
20:52 The Importance of System Metrics vs. Individual Metrics
27:40 Communicating Developer Experience to Leadership
32:43 The Impact of AI on Developer Experience
About Shahab Malik
Shahab Malik is a UX Researcher at JPMorgan Chase, where he focuses on Developer Experience (DevEx) within the firm’s Internal Developer Platform (IDP). With a PhD in cultural anthropology, Shahab brings both qualitative and quantitative methods to studying human behavior in complex technical environments.
About Hangar DX (https://dx.community/)
The Hangar is a community of senior DevOps engineers and senior software engineers focused on enhancing the developer experience. This is a space where vetted, experienced professionals can exchange ideas, share hard-earned wisdom, troubleshoot issues, and help each other in their projects and careers.
We invite developers who work in DX and platform teams at their respective companies or who are interested in developer productivity to join us!
Patrick Debois—widely known as the “Godfather of DevOps” and co-author of The DevOps Handbook—joins Aviator CEO Ankit Jain on The Hangar DX Podcast to explore the parallels between the DevOps movement and today’s AI revolution.
In this conversation, Patrick compares AI adoption to the early chaotic days of DevOps and shares his view on how developer roles are shifting from producers to supervisors of AI-generated code, why code reviews and specs still matter, and what the four key patterns of AI Native Development are.
About Patrick Debois
Patrick Debois is often called the "Godfather of DevOps" for his pioneering role in the movement that reshaped how teams build and ship software. He is the co-author of the DevOps Handbook and principal product engineer at Humans and Code.
Patrick's work focuses on helping engineering teams become more productive with AI tooling, and delivering AI-powered products with engineering rigor and good practices.
About Hangar DX (https://dx.community/)
The Hangar is a community of senior DevOps engineers and senior software engineers focused on enhancing the developer experience. This is a space where vetted, experienced professionals can exchange ideas, share hard-earned wisdom, troubleshoot issues, and help each other in their projects and careers.
We invite developers who work in DX and platform teams at their respective companies or who are interested in developer productivity to join us!
"Metrics will not measure developer productivity and will not solve your engineering organization’s problems", say Adam Berry, Staff Engineer at Netflix.
Adam sits with Ankit Jain, host of The Hangar DX podcast, to discuss one of the most debated topics in engineering: developer productivity metrics.
Adam shares why metrics like the DORA4 were never meant to measure individual productivity, how trust (or lack of it) inside organizations changes the way metrics are used, and why managers often get lost in numbers instead of focusing on narrative and impact.
He explains that metrics are a feedback mechanism, the “metrics industrial complex,” and pitfalls of over-measuring, and how to design metrics from scratch.
00:00 Introduction to Developer Productivity Metrics
01:23 The Origins of Productivity Metrics
07:22 The Obsession with Metrics
10:44 Challenges in Measuring Developer Productivity
12:33 The Metrics Industrial Complex
15:38 The Role of Metrics in Understanding Delivery Performance
19:31 Designing Effective Metrics for Organizations
21:57 Understanding Quality Issues in Engineering
34:32 Measuring Code Quality and Technical Debt
39:02 Prioritizing Engineering Challenges
41:42 Future of Engineering Productivity
About Adam Berry
Adam has worked on developer tools and infrastructure throughout his career, from Eclipse plugins to service and infrastructure work; he now focuses on developer platforms as products to empower engineers and make teams and organizations drastically more effective.
About Hangar DX (https://dx.community/)
The Hangar is a community of senior DevOps engineers and senior software engineers, focused on enhancing the developer experience. This is a space where vetted, experienced professionals can exchange ideas, share hard-earned wisdom, troubleshoot issues, and help each other in their projects and careers.
We invite developers who work in DX and platform teams at their respective companies, or who are interested in developer productivity.
"In the next 10-15 years, I'm either going to be a CTO cleaning up after AI, or maybe there won't be people like me anymore because we're just going to write the specs and generate the whole app from scratch every time"
In this episode of The Hangar DX podcast, Ankit Jain, co-founder and CEO of Aviator, talks to Meri Williams, CTO at @pleo_io , about what the future looks like for engineering managers in the age of AI coding.
Meri also shares why engineering organizations can't thrive without managers, what makes a good engineering manager, how to scale tech and teams when AI writes the code, and how to prevent accruing tech debt while doing it.
00:00 The Changing Landscape of Engineering Management
10:20 Navigating Technical Debt in Software Development
19:52 The Future of Engineering Management
35:58 Adapting to AI in Engineering Management
About Meri Williams
Meri is an experienced CTO and leader of technology organisations. They particularly enjoy helping others to level up as technical leaders and managers of organizations by working as a CTO coach and tech advisor / NED to various companies in this capacity through micro-consultancy ChromeRose.
About Hangar DX (https://dx.community/)
The Hangar is a community of senior DevOps engineers and senior software engineers, focused on enhancing the developer experience. This is a space where vetted, experienced professionals can exchange ideas, share hard-earned wisdom, troubleshoot issues, and help each other in their projects and careers.
We invite developers who work in DX and platform teams at their respective companies, or who are interested in developer productivity.
“What’s your AI strategy’ is the wrong question for engineering leaders. A better one would be: “What are you doing to improve engineering efficiency by 15–20%?”
You don’t have to chase AI just for AI’s sake. Instead, focus on the biggest pain point, on whatever is slowing your teams down. In most orgs, it has nothing to do with needing faster typers.”
In this episode of the HangarDX podcast, Ankit Jain, co-founder and CEO of Aviator, talks to Chris Westerhold, Global Practice Director for Engineering Excellence at Thoughtworks, to discuss how AI is fundamentally transforming the developer experience (DevEx).
Chris talks about how AI is changing the definition of developer, engineering orgs feeling FOMO of not adopting AI tools instead of focusing on workflow pain points, AI tools adding to cognitive overload, how to evaluate the productivity gains of AI tools, and what’s the right approach to AI strategy when it comes to developer experience.
00:00 Introduction to Developer Experience and AI
01:12 The Evolution of Developer Experience
04:30 Navigating Tool Proliferation in Software Development
09:35 Cognitive Load and Complexity in AI-Driven Development
18:04 Finding Focused Solutions Amidst AI Hype
20:58 Metrics and Measuring AI Impact
34:06 Developing an AI Strategy for Engineering Teams
About Chris Westerhold
Chris is a Global Practice Director for Engineering Excellence at Thoughtworks. He has over 15 years of technology experience across startups and large enterprises, with a significant focus on building scalable engineering teams, engineering metrics strategies, developer platforms, platform engineering, and technical product management. He is a vocal advocate for developer experience and is passionate about using data-driven approaches to improve it.
About Hangar DX (https://dx.community/)
The Hangar is a community of senior DevOps and senior software engineers focused on developer experience. This is a space where vetted, experienced professionals can exchange ideas, share hard-earned wisdom, troubleshoot issues, and ultimately help each other in their projects and careers.
We invite developers who work in DX and platform teams at their respective companies, or who are interested in developer productivity.
What Actually Is Platform Engineering?
Platform engineering is everywhere — but is it just DevOps with a new name?
In this candid conversation, Ankit Jain sits down with Vilas Veeraghavan (ex-Walmart, ex-Amazon) and Bryan Finster (platform advocate and continuous delivery expert) to break down the truth behind the hype.
🔍 In this episode:
00:00 What is Platform Engineering
05:53 DevOps is alive and well
11:51 Challenges in Platform Engineering: Adoption vs. Enablement
14:51 Standardization in Platform Engineering: The Golden Path
17:54 Measuring Success in Platform Engineering: ROI and Developer Happiness
21:00 Success and Failure Stories in Platform Engineering
25:01 The Strength of a Good Platform
27:51 Understanding Internal Developer Platforms (IDP)
35:30 The Impact of AI on Platform Engineering
44:18 Future Predictions for Platform Engineering
"Augmenting engineers with AI wherever it makes sense so they can be more productive" is the mission of Daniel Doubrovkine and his Augmented Engineering team at Shopify.
In this episode of the HangarDX podcast, Ankit Jain, co-founder and CEO of Aviator, talks to Daniel about AI’s impact on software engineering and developer productivity.
He shares insights on Shopify’s AI-integrated workflows and strategies to improve the developer experience in what he calls a giant mono repo, the world's largest Ruby on Rails app. Daniel also reflects on his career path from individual contributor to management and back, and the importance of staying hands-on with code in an AI-driven future.
Chapters
00:00 AI in Software Engineering
06:36 Solving Engineering Problems With AI at Shopify
18:46 Prioritization and Planning in Developer Productivity
23:15 From IC to Manager and Back
28:52 The Individual Contributor vs. Manager Dilemma
34:44 AI is Getting Better Fast
37:30 Strategies for Successful AI Adoption in Organizations
Find more episodes at https://www.aviator.co/podcast
Dr. Cat Hicks, a psychologist researching software teams, on what cycle time can and can't measure, why software metrics are hard, and why developers feel their work is invisible.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit podcast.aviator.co
Charity Majors, CTO at Honeycomb, on the importance of creating a culture where shipping code is a regular, expected practice, and how organizations can transition to continuous deployment.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit podcast.aviator.co
Seasoned technologist Tracy Bannon from MITRE discusses the role of software engineering, developer experience and AI in government tech.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit podcast.aviator.co
Titus Winters from Adobe discussed the role of psychological safety and culture as the foundation for high-performing engineering teams.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit podcast.aviator.co
Ryan discusses DevEx organization structure, the unique challenges of mobile development, the evolution of mobile tooling, and practices that enable a successful release cycle.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit podcast.aviator.co
Ankit and Sridhar discuss the evolution of Developer Experience (DevEx) at Slack, challenges faced when experimenting with AI, and its significant role in improving developer workflows.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit podcast.aviator.co
Ricky Huynh, DevEx Product Manager at Walmart, shares insights into the world of Developer Experience, understanding developer needs, user feedback, and the future of developers and product managers.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit podcast.aviator.co
Ankit and Luca discuss the evolving landscape of platform engineering, its relationship with DevOps, and the necessity of Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs) in enhancing developer productivity.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit podcast.aviator.co
Ankit speaks with Adrienne Tacke about the intricacies of code reviews, their importance in developer experience, and how to use metrics effectively without compromising the review process.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit podcast.aviator.co