AI agents are increasingly handling software development tasks, shifting the focus from code generation to context. The current challenge lies in understanding why systems operate in certain ways, how architectural decisions are made, and identifying external sources of truth. As teams utilize agentic tools, inconsistencies in context have become a key reason for software not meeting production standards.
Unblocked is a startup addressing this context gap. Their context engine consolidates organizational knowledge from source code, pull requests, documentation, chats, and production telemetry. By serving as a context engine for developers and AI agents, Unblocked strives to enhance AI code quality and review, reduce interruptions, expedite onboarding, and ensure safer, more effective agentic processes.
Dennis Pilarinos, the Founder and CEO of Unblocked, previously contributed to Azure at Microsoft, worked at AWS, and co-founded BuddyBuild, a mobile CI platform acquired by Apple. In a discussion with Kevin Ball, Dennis explores context engineering, reconciling conflicting sources of truth, AI system permissions, evolving software development bottlenecks, and the role of software engineers in an increasingly agentic environment.
Full Disclosure: This episode is sponsored by Unblocked.
Kevin Ball, or KBall, is Mento’s vice president of engineering and an independent coach for engineers and leaders, having co-founded two companies and founded the San Diego JavaScript meetup. He organizes an AI discussion group through Latent Space.
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