AI agents increasingly handle more software development tasks, shifting the focus from code generation to context. The current challenge lies in understanding why systems operate as they do, the rationale behind architectural choices, and identifying sources of truth outside the codebase. As teams embrace agentic tools, inconsistencies in context have become a leading cause of software failing to meet production standards.
Unblocked, a startup addressing this context gap, utilizes a context engine that gathers and analyzes organizational knowledge dispersed across source code, pull requests, documentation, chat systems, and production telemetry. By serving as a context engine for both developers and AI agents, Unblocked seeks to enhance AI code quality and review, minimize disruptions, accelerate onboarding, and facilitate safer, more effective agentic workflows.
Dennis Pilarinos, Founder and CEO of Unblocked, previously contributed to the development of Azure at Microsoft, worked at AWS, and co-founded BuddyBuild, a mobile CI platform acquired by Apple. Dennis joins Kevin Ball to explore context engineering, resolving conflicting sources of truth, AI system permissions, shifting bottlenecks in the software development lifecycle, and the evolving role of software engineers in an increasingly agentic landscape.
Full Disclosure: This episode is sponsored by Unblocked.
Kevin Ball, known as KBall, is the vice president of engineering at Mento and an independent coach for engineers and engineering leaders. He co-founded and served as CTO for two companies, founded the San Diego JavaScript meetup, and organizes the AI inaction discussion group through Latent Space.
Please click here to see the transcript of this episode.