Welcome back to I'm a Software Engineer ~ What Next? The podcast for devs figuring out their next move. Hosted by James Wilson and Matt Sinclair, we talk honestly about what it takes to build a meaningful career in tech.
This week, we're joined by Kate Catlin, Senior Product Manager at GitHub, where she works on Copilot and the future of AI-powered developer experience.
In this episode, we cover:
- How Kate reinvented her career multiple times on the path to GitHub
- What "good product intuition" really means for PMs and engineers
- How AI is reshaping product work and why evals matter for building trustworthy AI features
⏱️ Chapters
- 0:00 Intro: 24 hours since the last episode, and still not moved house
- 0:29 Meet Kate Catlin: from activism to Android, a startup, CircleCI and GitHub
- 1:38 Climate activism, Venture for America, then two boot camps and Ruby in Bali
- 4:17 Fishing in different pools: boot camp grads bring diversity of thought
- 6:46 Did the startup fail? Women Rising, Find My Flock, and "you pick two"
- 9:41 A passionate cover letter to CircleCI, and Matt's 1994 letter to a CEO
- 12:18 From founder to junior PM at CircleCI: "banks to your river"
- 13:55 Good product intuition: what's the question this is the answer to?
- 16:23 What engineers get wrong about PMs: bring the problem, join the user calls
- 19:58 GitHub, a product Matt never swears at: PhDs and day-one beginners alike
- 21:46 Speaking about Copilot: discovered off one demo, then bring the energy
- 23:36 Taylor Swift demos, AI for the first draft only, and jokes as iteration
- 26:07 What are AI evals? CI for your AI outputs, so stop vibe testing
- 28:55 Kate's role today: PM for Copilot's model release lifecycle
- 29:56 AI as a tool for PMs: checking tone, first-draft docs, building demos
- 32:01 Try more than one model, prompting guides, and why vibe coding is vibe debt
- 34:40 AI as a feature: you own the outcome, and don't just throw a chatbot at it
- 36:59 Is the chat interface a fad? Beyond screens, AI in your ear or your watch
- 39:17 Utopia or dystopia? Philosophy of technology, and cooking as utility or art
- 41:34 The future of the product manager: same job, much faster pace
- 44:19 Will anyone still write software? Taste, oversight and Michelangelo's David
- 47:38 Wrap-up: thanks Kate, notes and links to follow
🔗 Links
🗒️ Show Notes
- Venture For America
- Le Wagon Bootcamp
- CircleCI
- GitHub Copilot
- AI evaluations (evals) overview
- Find My Flock (Kate's former startup)
- Joseph Campbell – The Hero's Journey
- Philosophy of Technology
🗣️ Guest
- Kate Catlin — Senior PM, GitHub Copilot: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-catlin/