Refactoring Podcast The Future of Dev Tools 🔧 — with Dennis Pilarinos
Jun 13, 2025
Dennis Pilarinos, founder and CEO of Unblocked, shares his impressive journey through tech, from roles at Microsoft and Amazon to creating BuddyBuild. He dives into how Unblocked tackles challenges in the development ecosystem without focusing on coding. Dennis discusses the importance of context in using AI effectively, the challenges of AI hallucinations, and the future of developer workflows. He reveals how evolving AI technologies can revolutionize productivity while highlighting the cultural lessons learned from big tech.
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Dennis Pilarinos' Tech Journey
- Dennis Pilarinos started his career at Microsoft working on the .NET Framework and played a key role in the early days of cloud with Azure.
- He later founded BuddyBuild to simplify mobile app development, which Apple acquired after three years.
Big Tech Strengths Complement
- Different tech giants excel at distinct things: Microsoft in software processes, Amazon in culture and leadership, and Apple in user experience.
- Combining these strengths can lead to a powerful organizational culture and product development approach.
Unblocked Solves Context Bottleneck
- Unblocked focuses on solving developer context gathering, not coding automation or generation.
- It connects scattered tribal knowledge to speed up understanding, making small code changes faster and less painful.