The Tools Are Smarter. Are You? ft. YK Sugi | S02 E12

Backend Banter

Today we welcome YK Sugi—engineer, educator, and the mind behind CSS Dojo—for the final episode of season two.

We talk about his journey from YouTube dev tutorials to building one of Sourcegraph’s most-used AI tools, and how the role of DevRel has changed (and in some cases, disappeared). YK also breaks down how senior engineers are actually using AI, why fundamentals still matter, and how Agent Chat was born during a company hackathon.

If you’re curious about AI devtools, the future of DevRel, or just want to hear how a former YouTuber accidentally shipped a flagship feature—this one's for you.

Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev

Listen on your favorite podcast player - https://www.backendbanter.fm

YK’s X: https://x.com/ykdojo

YK's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ykdojo/

Sourcegraph's Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Sourcegraph/featured

Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro and Meeting YK

03:05 - Starting Out with CSS Dojo

05:36 - DevRel Burnout and Market Whiplash

11:40 - Building Agent Chat at Sourcegraph

13:52 - Claude, Cursor, and AI Tool Comparisons

21:52 - AI Use: Juniors vs. Seniors

26:22 - Designing Dev Tools That Think

37:56 - Will AI Consolidate the Tooling Ecosystem?

44:21 - Should Codebases Change for AI?

50:52 - Advice for Learners, DevRels, and Job Seekers

01:07:02 - Outro and Where to find YK's work

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