Burke Holland: GitHub Copilot Agent - Episode 362

Aug 11, 2025

Burke Holland, Principal Developer Advocate at Microsoft, shares insights from his journey in developer advocacy, including his pivotal shift from developer to evangelist. He delves into the rapid evolution of software development and the transformative impact of AI, particularly GitHub Copilot's various modes. Holland discusses the importance of context and the challenges of AI's unpredictability in coding. Additionally, he emphasizes the need for developers to keep pace with new tools and the critical role they play in managing AI-driven coding processes.

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ANECDOTE

From Dev To Evangelist

Burke switched from a competent .NET developer to a developer evangelist after meeting a Visual Studio evangelist.
He started speaking at conferences and was hired by Telerik.

INSIGHT

Developers Are On The Front Lines

AI is accelerating change for developers more than any other group.
Developers are on the front lines figuring out how AI reshapes tooling and workflows.

ADVICE

Use Agent Mode Iteratively

Use agent mode for multi-step tasks and let the AI take iterative turns.
Delegate large jobs to the GitHub coding agent and review the generated PRs.

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Burke Holland is a Principal Developer Advocate at Microsoft who leads the Developer Tools Advocacy team. He’s done so much in developer tools, like growing VS Code from 6M to 40M+ users. He’s a frequent speaker at conferences like Microsoft Build, Ignite, GitHub Universe, QCon, and VS Code Day, which he helped create. He’s led many product launches for GitHub Copilot, Codespaces, and more. He has a very popular YouTube channel talking about developer tech.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:33] Burke describes his transition from being a good developer to an evangelist, inspired by a Visual Studio evangelist he met.

[6:27] The rapid pace of change in the software development world compared to other industries.

[9:22] AI-driven development and the various modes available in VS Code, including ask mode, edit mode, and agent mode.

[15:41] Burke describes the current moment in AI developer tooling — no one really knows yet what the end product is supposed to be. Everyone agrees AI will help developers, but exactly how is still being figured out.

[16:39] What are the right questions to ask AI?

[17:41] The importance of providing the AI with the right context to ensure accurate and efficient development.

[25:05] AI’s unpredictability makes it difficult to rely on it for consistent development tasks, which is frustrating and foreign to most developers.

[32:18] Burke explains that while local AI models can handle small, scoped tasks like generating a function’s contents, they still fall far short of the performance needed for more complex jobs compared to models like GPT-4 or Claude.

[37:18] Co-Pilot’s competition.

[38:23] Inspiration to people that as long as you are the software architect, you can do anything.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

VS Code Day 2024

Youtube.com/@BurkeHolland/videos

Burkeholland.github.io/resume/

Build.microsoft.com/en-US/speakers/0e476452-35ca-4750-ac78-393c0d8c4cb3

Linkedin.com/in/burkeholland/

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