Code and Connor

This week on Code x Connor, we’re joined by Andrew Boyagi of Atlassian to discuss why AI is accelerating software development without necessarily accelerating business outcomes, the organizational bottlenecks holding enterprises back, and what it actually takes to build an AI-ready company. Andrew is Atlassian’s Customer CTO and Head of DevOps Evangelism, where he helps some of the world’s largest organizations optimize their developer experience and productivity. Atlassian is a recognized leader in software development, work management, and enterprise service management software, enabling enterprises to connect their business and technology teams with an AI-powered system of work that unlocks productivity at scale. In this episode, we discuss: → Why developers saving hours with AI are still losing time to organizational friction → The true bottleneck in software delivery → The four flows of enterprise productivity: purpose, workflow, knowledge, and intelligence → Why successful AI adoption requires organizational change, not just better tooling → The evolution of team structures across engineering and business functions → The growing importance of enterprise knowledge graphs and contextual AI systems → How companies can break down information silos and remove context boundaries → Why documentation quality has become a critical competitive advantage in the AI era → Jira as an orchestration layer in an AI-native world → How AI is changing the relationship between developers and the business Be sure to follow this channel for insights and perspective from industry leaders, and schedule a meeting with us through www.codestrap.com to learn more about our offering. Atlassian Website: https://www.atlassian.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/atlassian/ Guest: https://au.linkedin.com/in/andrewboyagi/ Codestrap Dorian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorian-smiley-97a72a14/ Connor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connordeeks/ Codestrap (X): https://x.com/Codestrap_ai CodeStrap (LI): https://www.linkedin.com/company/codestrap

This week on Code x Connor, we’re joined by Umesh Unnikrishnan of Snowflake to discuss the evolution from vibe coding to agentic engineering, how AI is reshaping developer workflows, and why trusted data platforms are becoming the control plane for the agentic enterprise. Umesh is the Head of Developer Experiences at Snowflake, where he's focused on building and scaling Cortex Code, Snowflake’s data-native AI coding agent, helping builders go from idea to production faster. Prior to Snowflake, he held leadership positions at Google, Microsoft, and Pinterest making complex data and AI systems intuitive for developers. He has also been an investor and operator in high-growth startups. Snowflake is powering the shift to the agentic enterprise, where AI doesn’t just generate insights, but takes action on trusted data. With tools like Snowflake Intelligence for business users and Cortex Code for builders, Snowflake serves as the control plane for enterprises bringing data, AI, and governance together in a single platform. In this episode, we discuss: → The shift from vibe coding prototypes to production-ready agentic engineering → How Cortex Code helps developers build and manage complex data pipelines faster → Why governance, auditability, and security matter for enterprise AI systems → The growing importance of context engineering and AI-native developer workflows → How Snowflake is positioning itself as the control plane for the agentic enterprise → Why APIs, markdown documentation, and command-line tooling are critical for AI agents → The rise of agent-first developer experience and AI-native software design → Why enterprises are rethinking token usage, ROI, and AI infrastructure costs → How AI is accelerating migrations from legacy systems like Oracle and SQL Server → Why the future of software development requires broader “full stack builder” skill sets → The role of monorepos, platform engineering, and scalable developer systems in the AI era Be sure to follow us to get the latest information, and schedule a meeting with us through www.codestrap.com! Snowflake Website: https://www.snowflake.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/snowflake-computing Guest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/umeshunni/ Codestrap Dorian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorian-smiley-97a72a14/ Connor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connordeeks/ Ben: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminrogojan/ CodeStrap (X): https://x.com/Codestrap_ai CodeStrap (LI): https://www.linkedin.com/company/codestrap

This week on Code x Connor, we’re joined by Brian Fornelli of Conagra Brands to discuss operationalizing AI in large enterprises, why companies are overcomplicating adoption, and where generative AI actually delivers value. Brian is a Senior Director of Data Solutions and Engineering at Conagra Brands, where he focuses on building production-grade machine learning systems and scalable software solutions that improve operational decision-making. With over 15 years of experience spanning applied machine learning, engineering, and enterprise systems, his work centers on deploying practical AI solutions that drive measurable outcomes in complex operational environments. In this episode, we discuss: → Why cross-functional teams outperform traditional enterprise org structures for AI → The risks of deploying probabilistic AI into real-world operations → Why most enterprise problems don’t need advanced AI → The importance of observability, governance, and traceability in AI systems → How enterprises balance platforms like Palantir, Databricks, and Snowflake → Why AI-generated software may matter more than AI-powered operations → The coming pricing, supply, and GPU challenges facing enterprise AI → Why organizations need better ways to measure AI ROI and productivity → The risks of unbounded “vibe coded” enterprise applications → Why deterministic systems and traditional ML still matter alongside LLMs Be sure to follow us to get the latest information, and schedule a meeting with us through www.codestrap.com! Conagra Website: https://www.conagrabrands.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/conagra-brands/ Guest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-fornelli/ Codestrap Dorian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorian-smiley-97a72a14/ Connor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connordeeks/ CodeStrap (X): https://x.com/Codestrap_ai CodeStrap (LI): https://www.linkedin.com/company/codestrap

This week on Code x Connor, we’re joined by Jarek Sobanski of Swiss Re to discuss managing complexity at scale, how Foundry enables a data-connected enterprise, and where AI is actually driving business impact. Jarek leads Data Platforms Architecture at Swiss Re—a Global Fortune 500 company and the world’s largest reinsurer—guiding a team that designs and scales enterprise data and AI ecosystems. With expertise in AI, analytics, distributed computing, and four years working hands-on with Palantir Foundry and AIP, he focuses on turning complex data landscapes into practical business solutions. In this episode, we discuss: → Swiss Re’s journey scaling Foundry across thousands of users and hundreds of applications→ Why data governance is essential for scaling enterprise AI platforms→ How business teams can build their own apps and AI workflows→ The role of IT centers of excellence and “tiger teams” in early platform adoption→ Why most enterprise AI value comes from unstructured data like contracts and claims→ The shift from traditional NLP programs to modern large language models→ How organizations should rethink processes in an AI-enabled world→ The limitations of current AI systems—and why human expertise still matters Be sure to follow us to get the latest information, and schedule a meeting with us through www.codestrap.com! Swiss Re Website: https://www.swissre.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/swiss-re/ Guest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jareksobanski/ CodeStrap Dorian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorian-smiley-97a72a14/ Connor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connordeeks/ CodeStrap (X): https://x.com/Codestrap_ai CodeStrap (LI): https://www.linkedin.com/company/codestrap

Codestrap’s Dorian Smiley, Benjamin Rogojan, and Przemyslaw Nowak discuss the key issues and considerations fueling the debate between tradcoding and tokenmaxxing. Be sure to follow us to get our latest updates and learn about our technology and approach. Schedule a meeting with us through www.codestrap.com to see what we can do for your business. Featuring: Dorian Smiley, Founder & CTO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorian-smiley-97a72a14/ Benjamin Rogojan, Founding Partner & Fractional Head of Data: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminrogojan/ Przemyslaw Nowak, Founding Partner & Principal Engineer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nowakprzemek/ Codestrap: CodeStrap (X): https://x.com/Codestrap_ai CodeStrap (LI): https://www.linkedin.com/company/codestrap

CodeStrap's "Code and Connor" Episode 25 features our friend Jack Smith from ElevenLabs. Jack leads global channel partnerships and strategic alliances at ElevenLabs. Previously, he was the Employee Experience and Consumer Bank Operations tech strategy lead at JPMorgan Chase, overseeing emerging technology initiatives and leading engagement with the tech ecosystem. This episode focuses on: → Solving the fiction of existing software including the GUI, with ElevenLabs → Evolution of voice-first AI agents and the complexity of a system built on language → Will voice become the primary interface for AI agents? → ElevenLabs’ Agents platform and the competitive landscape → ElevenLabs focus on DevEx in their platforms and recent enhancements → Research teams inside ElevenLabs four walls → From pilot to production and the scaling challenges → Natural language interface wrapping the global API economy → What does the ‘voice of technology’ become in five years? Be sure to follow us to get the latest information, and schedule a meeting with us through www.codestrap.com! ElevenLabs Website: elevenlabs.io LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/elevenlabsio/ Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackanthonysmith/ CodeStrap Dorian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorian-smiley-97a72a14/ Connor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connordeeks/ CodeStrap (X): https://x.com/Codestrap_ai CodeStrap (LI): https://www.linkedin.com/company/codestrap

CodeStrap's "Code and Connor" Episode 23 features our friend Francisco Ferreira, Founder and CEO of Datalinks, a company that is laser-focused on bringing human understanding to the core of the data and AI value chains. Prior to founding Datalinks, Francisco spent 9 years at Palantir. At Palantir, he architected and created the product and infrastructure group for Skywise, the world’s biggest aviation platform, growing it from 3 airlines to 100+. He went on to create the Developer Relations groups and co-led Channel partners. Before Palantir, he had a multi-year stint at eBay. This episode focuses on: → Francisco’s journey from Palantir to DataLinks → Large scale integrations and how to do them successfully → Why a clean ontology matters and how to build reusable components → What Datalinks is working on, including AI-generated ontologies → Enhanced search/retrieval across complex data relationships → The AI Bubble → AI model benchmarks and the pressures to align to them → Frontier models, open-source, small language models Be sure to follow us to get the latest information, and schedule a meeting with us through www.codestrap.com! Datalinks Website: https://datalinks.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/datasetlinks Francisco: https://www.linkedin.com/in/franciscomsferreira/ CodeStrap Dorian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorian-smiley-97a72a14/ Connor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connordeeks/ CodeStrap (X): https://x.com/CodeStrap411 CodeStrap (LI): https://www.linkedin.com/company/codestrap

CodeStrap's "Code and Connor" Episode 21 features friend Bill Salak, CTO and CTO of Brainly. At Brainly, he’s helped scale one of the world’s largest AI-powered learning platforms, serving 15 million learners daily. Bill has over two decades of leadership driving transformative technology at Age of Learning, AOL, HBO, ETS, Hasbro, NBC-Universal, and even the U.S. Army. Our 21st episode focuses on, the state of AI and its current limitations, AI in education, the state of education in the U.S. K-12 and above, how can we use AI to improve student outcomes in light of the recent findings , how is AI impacting students negatively and positively, the AI impact on young children specifically around learning, and the state of edtech Brainly Website: https://brainly.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/brainly-com/ Bill: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billsalak/ CodeStrap Dorian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorian-smiley-97a72a14/ Connor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connordeeks/ CodeStrap (X): https://x.com/CodeStrap411 CodeStrap (LI): https://www.linkedin.com/company/codestrap

CodeStrap's "Code and Connor" Episode 19 features our friend August Chen, Co-Founder and CEO of Hazel. Hazel is an AI-powered procurement platform that helps federal, state, and local partners compress procurement cycles from months to minutes and save millions on what they purchase. Hazel launched out of Y Combinator in 2024 and is backed by the investors behind Palantir and Anduril. Before founding Hazel, August led mission-critical deployments at Palantir, including working with Connor and Dorian at their former employer. Our 19th episode examines government inefficiency through the lens of procurement, and why competitive pricing often breaks down in the public sector. We explore emerging tech approaches for fixing these gaps, including large-scale processing of unstructured data, LLM-driven solutions, and the broader willingness—or cultural resistance—within government to adopt new capabilities. The conversation also covers the expanding startup ecosystem focused on public-sector innovation, the rise of AI and data-center infrastructure, and why some tech CEOs are now (laughably) urging the government to help underwrite AI investment. Hazel Website: https://www.hazelai.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hazel-ai/ Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/hazel-2 August: https://www.linkedin.com/in/augustschen/ CodeStrap Dorian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorian-smiley-97a72a14/ Connor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connordeeks/ CodeStrap (X): https://x.com/CodeStrap411 CodeStrap (LI): https://www.linkedin.com/company/codestrap

CodeStrap's "Code and Connor" Episode 17 comes to you live from FuturOps in Dallas, TX on October 23, 2025. This episode features live interviews with Fred Abood, Lead Solutions Architect, at Databricks and Nicholas Lee, CEO, at Fujitsu Intelligence. Connor’s presentation covers IIntelligence Augmentation, overcoming LLM’s 3 limitations, we introduced CodeStrap’s Larry - AI-assisted programming that scales, AI as an amplifier, Engineering as Ontology and the the Natural Language Interface for the Web Our interview with Fred at Databrick covered the Databricks platform, their culture, history, developer community, partnership with Palantir Technologies, AI Coding, rivalry with Snowflake, and more! Our interview with Nicholas at Fujitsu Intelligence covered their partnership with Palantir Technologies, everything they've accomplished with Foundry and AIP, and other ML & AI capabilities and offerings. Databricks Website: https://www.databricks.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/databricks/ Fred: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fredabood/ Fujitsu Intelligence Website: https://global.fujitsu/en-global LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fujitsu/ Nicholas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholasjlee/ CodeStrap Dorian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorian-smiley-97a72a14/ Connor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connordeeks/ CodeStrap (X): https://x.com/CodeStrap411 CodeStrap (LI): https://www.linkedin.com/company/codestrap Be sure to follow us to get the latest information, and schedule a meeting with us through www.codestrap.com! 2025 DORA Report: https://dora.dev/research/2025/dora-report/

CodeStrap's "Code and Connor" Episode 15 features our friend Zoë Nengite. Zoë is a Forward Deployed Engineer at Palantir and has spent the last few years supporting the developer community, composed of the independent builders in their platforms. On this episode we discuss, how Palantir is attracting developers to the platform (including FREE developer tier licenses), current state of the developer community and ideas to improve it, DevCon and other community-led events (i.e., FuturOps), the American Tech Fellowship, user adoption in enterprises of Foundry and AIP and the Palantir product roadmap and insights into MMDP, Marketplace, and AI FDE. Palantir Website: https://www.palantir.com/ Free Dev Tier: https://www.palantir.com/developers/ American Tech Fellowship: https://www.palantir.com/american-tech-fellowship/ Multi-modal Data Plane: https://www.palantir.com/interoperability/ Zoe: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zoe-nengite/ CodeStrap Dorian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorian-smiley-97a72a14/ Connor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connordeeks/ CodeStrap (X): https://x.com/CodeStrap411 CodeStrap (LI): https://www.linkedin.com/company/codestrap Attending the Inaugural Palantir Customer Conference? We are: https://rangrdata.com/futurops/

CodeStrap's "Code and Connor" Episode 13 features our friends at Foxtrot Services: co-CEOs Christine Williams and Nicole Sanders and CTO Martin Seebach. Foxtrot Services are field-proven Palantir Foundry & AIP engineers with 40+ secure, large-scale deployments under their belt and growing. On this episode we discuss how AI procurement is driven and owned by the business, AI adoption hinging on governance, security, observability and trust, ontology as a product, and the explosion of AI coding tools and the risks associated with them and the blindness to security. Foxtrot Services Website: https://www.foxtrot-services.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/foxtrot-services/ Christine: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-susanne-williams/ Nicole: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-sanders-975bba1/ Martin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinseebach/ CodeStrap Dorian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorian-smiley-97a72a14/ Connor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connordeeks/ CodeStrap (X): https://x.com/CodeStrap411 CodeStrap (LI): https://www.linkedin.com/company/codestrap Attending the Inaugural Palantir Customer Conference? We are: https://rangrdata.com/futurops/

CodeStrap's "Code and Connor" Episode 11 features our friend Pat Mack, Founder and CEO of PVM, Inc. After retiring from his position as a Naval Officer, Pat launched PVM in 2010 and for more than a decade, PVM has partnered with Palantir on government deployments across the public sector. On this episode we discuss the AI bubble, failed pilots and the structural issues plaguing enterprises from getting value from AI. We also unpack AI in the public sector and the West’s requirement to have an asymmetric advantage through AI, the promise/lie of AGI and Palantir’s integration capability being it’s competitive advantage. PVM Website: https://www.pvmit.com/ PVM (LI): https://www.linkedin.com/company/pvminc/ Pat: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamack/ CodeStrap Dorian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorian-smiley-97a72a14/ Connor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connordeeks/ CodeStrap (X): https://x.com/CodeStrap411 CodeStrap (LI): https://www.linkedin.com/company/codestrap Articles/Clips Discussed https://hbr.org/2025/08/beware-the-ai-experimentation-trap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo62d_EErFM https://fortune.com/2025/08/18/mit-report-95-percent-generative-ai-pilots-at-companies-failing-cfo/ https://mlq.ai/media/quarterly_decks/v0.1_State_of_AI_in_Business_2025_Report.pdf Attending the Inaugural Palantir Customer Conference? We are: https://rangrdata.com/futurops/