Navigating from individual AI adoption to team-level transformation while scaling w/ Jakub Oleksy #268

Jakub Oleksy, SVP of Software Engineering @ Github, joins the podcast to discuss how Github is addressing some of the biggest challenges facing the industry when it comes to infrastructure scaling, customer capacity, and using AI to add value to your org’s processes and eng leaders’ decision-making. He shares how scaling looked different at Github six years vs. today, how they navigated the migration to Azure, and what AI transformation looks like individually & at the team level. Jakub also discusses insights for eng leaders when it comes to investing in yourself & your people and making cross-functional decisions. Sinch is the communications infrastructure the AI era runs on.There's a layer of infrastructure behind every text, call, and login code your product sends, and it works exactly like plumbing: nobody thinks about it until it's the reason something broke.Most providers route through 4-6 intermediaries; Sinch connects in 1-2 hops, direct carrier relationships across 600+ connections, handling 900 billion interactions a year across 60+ countries.Routing, compliance, fraud prevention handled automatically rather than manually managed by the business sending the message!Sinch is the reliability layer underneath AI-driven customer communications; the infrastructure that determines whether an AI agent's output actually reaches a real person as a delivered text, connected call, or verified interaction.Check it out here! SHOW NOTES:The current focus @ Github & what scaling looks like (1:21)Signals that previous scaling methods are no longer viable (3:00)Migrating to Azure / impact on the engineering org (5:55)Strategies for orchestrating massive, widespread change across the org (7:28)How to control the scope while scaling / rebuilding (10:16)Ownership dependencies & potential rollback with Github’s service migration process (11:50)Embrace excitement when it comes to prioritization, scaling, & problem solving (14:15)Addressing capacity & configuration challenges earlier on (16:49)Github’s “new norm” for processes / organization (18:23)How to address legitimate vs. illegitimate traffic (21:02)Keeping up with rapidly changing technology / AI advances (21:31)Github’s method for tackling the context layer of its AI toolage (27:14)Where Github is on the AI adoption curve (29:30)Navigating the transition from individual AI adoption to team-level transformation (31:36)An example of team-level AI adoption @ Github (33:39)Jakub’s advice to eng leaders on building infrastructure teams / investing in people (34:36)How platform leaders can improve their cross-functional change making ability (38:39)Reducing complexity for platform teams to improve ability to scale (40:42)An example of a successful transformative moment @ Github (42:34)Rapid fire questions (46:28) This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.