S12 E28: The AI Throughput Illusion: Why Splurging on Expensive Models Fails to Ship Code and How to Measure Real Engineering Output with Emilie Schario, Co-Founder & Head of Product & Engineering at Kilo Code
Episode Description
Emilie Schario grew up in New Jersey, outside of Newark, and attended college in the state. Currently, she lives in Columbus, Georgia, outside of Atlanta. She mentions she got into technology so she could easily follow her husband's career geographically, and has much success in the industry. Outside of tech, she is married with 3 boys (all 5 and under)... so there is a lot of wrestling in her household. She admits she is often quoted staying she does three things in her life - work, parenting, and if she is lucky, attends CrossFit 3 times a week. In fact, she finds a great sense of community in that world, and brings her kids with her to cheer her on.
A year and a half ago, Emilie's current venture was started, to build the open source orchestrator (or "harness") for AI coding agents. Through some shuffle in the early team, Emilie joined and started in building the fastest AI coding app on the market.
This is the creation story of Kilo.
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Timestamps
1:49 Guest introduction: Emilie Schario's background and career journey
2:51 Overview of Kilo Code as an open source agentic engineering harness
3:14 Differentiating through model freedom and supporting 500 plus AI models
3:58 Kilo Code founding story with Sid Sijbrandij and team history
4:42 Defining the evolving MVP for AI coding tools in a fast-moving market
5:25 The rapid shift from manual prompt engineering to autonomous loops
6:19 Trade-offs and resource allocation: Deprecating the Kilo App Builder
9:09 Modern AI product management: Why multi-year roadmaps no longer work
10:19 Shifting PM responsibilities from tracking engineers to setting context
13:00 The AI throughput illusion: Why expensive models don't equal shipped code
17:00 Measuring true engineering output and productivity in the AI era
21:00 Building resilient engineering cultures around AI coding platforms
23:30 Closing thoughts and where to learn more about Kilo Code
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