Artificial Intelligence has completely transformed software development. What started with autocomplete has evolved into AI coding agents capable of building entire applications from simple prompts. But as organizations adopt these tools, new challenges emerge: cost, security, vendor lock-in, enterprise governance, and the future role of software engineers.

Today's conversation isn't about one product. It's about understanding where software development is heading over the next few years.

Joining me is Emilie Schario, VP of Engineering at Kilo, where she works on agentic engineering and multi-model AI developer tools. We discuss how enterprises should think about AI coding assistants, why relying on a single AI model may not be the future, how engineering teams should prioritize product development, and what both junior and senior developers need to do to stay relevant.

Whether you're a developer, engineering leader, CTO, startup founder, or simply curious about AI transforming software engineering, this episode is packed with practical insights.

Let's get started.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Emily Sherio and Kilo Code 04:13 The Role of Kilo in Developer Productivity 07:52 Choosing the Right AI Models for Development 12:24 Building Features that Matter 16:38 The Importance of Code Review and Feature Management 19:24 The Future of Development and AI Integration 25:59 The Necessity of Learning Coding Principles 30:16 Enhancing Security in Coding Tools

Episode # 194

Today's Guest: Emilie Schario, VP of Engineering, Kilo

She works on agentic engineering and multi-model AI developer tools

Guests Links:

What Listeners Will Learn:

Why AI coding is moving toward multi-model architectures.
The advantages and risks of proprietary AI coding tools.
How organizations can reduce AI infrastructure costs.
Why vendor lock-in is becoming an AI challenge.
The future of developer productivity.
Why code review is becoming more important than writing code.
Product management lessons every startup should know.
When to remove features rather than add more.
Enterprise AI security challenges.
How organizations can adopt AI without compromising security.
Why prompt engineering is becoming a fundamental skill.
Advice for junior developers entering the AI era.
The importance of mentoring the next generation of engineers.

Resources:

Kilo - AI Developer Platform
Prompts for Mere Mortals by Florian Hines