Every developer has a distinct approach to coding, making it challenging to decipher others’ codebases, even with established best practices and documentation. To address this issue, Dennis Pilarinos created Unblocked—an AI-driven assistant designed to answer contextual inquiries about specific lines of code.
Pilarinos is an experienced professional in developer tools, having held leadership roles at major tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon, where he worked on Azure and AWS. He also founded Buddybuild, a continuous integration platform acquired by Apple in 2018, and spent two years working on Xcode Cloud at Apple.
Pilarinos notes that obtaining relevant information as a developer can be painfully tedious. He believes that the growing number of AI programming tools will exacerbate existing challenges, stating, "We wanted to use all the data, code, and tribal knowledge of conversations to present developers with easy answers."
Unblocked seamlessly integrates with various development environments and tools such as Slack, Jira, Confluence, Google Drive, and Notion. The platform collates intelligence from a company’s codebase to help developers quickly find answers to questions like "Where do we define user metrics in our system?" It also enables users to identify who last modified a particular module, facilitating swift communication for insights.
The tool provides admin controls that are straightforward for system administrators to implement, with plans to integrate with additional platforms, such as Cursor and Lovable, to enhance code explainability. Moreover, Unblocked is developing proactive tools like Autonomous CI Triage, which assists developers in testing their code across various scenarios.
Currently, Unblocked serves customers including Drata, AppDirect, Big Cartel, and TravelPerk. Reports suggest that engineers at Drata have saved between one to two hours weekly by utilising Unblocked.
Recently, Unblocked secured $20 million in Series A funding from B Capital and Radical Ventures, bringing their total funding to $30 million. Investors include Amplify Partners, First Round Capital, and XYZ Capital. Rob Toews from Radical Ventures emphasised the importance of products like Unblocked as AI-generated code becomes more prevalent. He predicts that as much software will be written by AI in the future, understanding the rationale behind code—when, why, and how it was created—will become increasingly crucial.
Toews draws parallels with AI-powered tools like Glean, which help enterprises manage large data sets, suggesting that Unblocked will enhance developers’ comprehension of their increasingly complex codebases. As the tech landscape evolves, tools like Unblocked could play a vital role in streamlining workflows and enabling developers to navigate their coding challenges effectively.
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