Deel's COO on the AI Agent Writing Its Own Code

Dan Westgarth has spent 7 years helping build Deel from a contractor invoicing tool into one of the most valuable HR and payroll platforms in the world, and he did it after cutting his teeth as an early operator at Revolut. As COO, he sits across nearly every function the AI conversation touches: finance, sales, engineering, and the sheer operational load of running a company at global scale.In this conversation, Dan gets specific on AI and Ops. He walks through the internal tool that takes a bug ticket, writes the fix, and opens its own pull request for an engineer to review. He talks through what he actually looks for when hiring, and the future of SaaS isn't dead, but there is about to be a lot more competition.We traverse through a funny detour into Dan's own weekend coding habit (his laptop did not enjoy….), a rundown of which AI tool he reaches for and when, and an answer to "what would you build this weekend”Listen for a leading operator's view of AI adoption at scaleCHAPTERS00:00 Cold open, the AI agent that writes its own code00:46 Show intro, Deel's sponsorship, and what's ahead02:03 Sponsor break, Deel02:30 What Deel actually does03:14 Rapid AI hot takes, finance roles, human oversight, hardware, sports, and the World Cup09:29 Why Deel keeps winning after seven years10:00 How the product evolved from contractor invoicing to a full HR platform11:28 What Dan looks for when hiring13:06 Leaving Revolut for Deel14:17 Sponsor break, Deel14:57 The YC Winter 2019 connection15:49 Setting targets and building momentum16:43 Where AI helps the sales team, and where it can't19:20 Should AI handle your email21:03 AI meeting assistants, pros and cons22:53 What makes an A+ engineer in 202623:37 Inside DCA, Deel's self-writing code agent25:55 Breaking into new international markets28:34 B2C versus B2B expansion30:16 The cost of not using a platform like Deel33:01 What keeps Dan up at night about AI agents33:29 Akai, and scaling operations without growing headcount36:15 Dan's own weekend coding experiment37:26 Rapid fire, is the SaaS apocalypse real39:48 The physical Deel Card and crypto payroll42:23 What is a stablecoin43:02 Which AI tools Dan actually reaches for44:51 If Dan built one AI project this weekend46:45 Closing thoughts and where to find Dan47:08 Deel's new Arsenal FC sponsorship48:41 Georgie's weekly AI newsletter