Refactoring Podcast Automating Team Processes Gracefully ⚡ — with Antonia Scheidel
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Sep 12, 2025 Antonia Scheidel, Director of Engineering at Duolingo, shares her journey from intern to leader in tech. She discusses the importance of designing effective automated processes to reduce manual tasks and prevent bottlenecks. Antonia highlights strategies for empowering teams to take ownership of their workflows and the emotional dynamics behind automation. They also dive into the complexities of project management tools and the role of clear communication and relationships in fostering successful team collaboration.
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Scaling Pain From Many Experiments
- Antonia ran a retention team at Duolingo that executed hundreds of experiments and struggled to keep Jira aligned with reality.
- She found herself repeatedly asking engineers for status updates and felt frustrated by the gap between tools and the actual work.
Why People Ignore Repetitive Requests
- Repeated reminders failed because engineers resisted doing robotic, copy-paste work that a script could perform.
- Antonia realized she couldn't coerce behavior without explaining why tasks mattered and who benefited.
Sabbatical Revealed Invisible Work
- Preparing for a two-month sabbatical forced Antonia to audit her own invisible work and realize it looked like chores, not development.
- She had been doing post-processing and silent fixes rather than making the process sustainable for the team.