How BabyList Accelerated AI Adoption in Engineering with Karynn Ikeda
From StaffEng by David Noël-Romas (@davidnoelromas) and Alex Kessinger (@voidfiles)
March 20, 2026 · 50 min · Season 2 · Episode 2
About this episode
Karynn Ikeda discusses Babylist's journey of AI adoption in its engineering organization.
Hosts: Alex Kessinger & David Noël-Ramos Guest: Karynn Ikeda — Former Engineering Manager → AI Enablement Program Manager at Babylist @ktikeda Karynn Ikeda shares the full arc of how Babylist adopted AI across its engineering organization — from a six-week Windsurf pilot on a single team, to company-wide Claude Code adoption and a bold initiative to onboard product managers and designers into the codebase. She discusses leadership buy-in, measuring developer sentiment over raw veloc...
People in this episode
Hosts: Alex Kessinger, David Noël-Romas
Guest: Karynn Ikeda
Topics covered
- AI adoption
- engineering
- leadership
- developer sentiment
- product management
Keywords
- AI
- engineering management
- developer sentiment
- Claude Code
- Windsurf pilot
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Babylist
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