At JetBrains Research, we bring innovative technology and scientific research to JetBrains products.
The JetBrains Research Podcast is a new initiative, where our researchers interview experts in the field. We plan to publish new episodes about once a month.
Subscribe to get notified about new episodes + find out more about JetBrains Research on our website (https://lp.jetbrains.com/research/software-engineering/) and our blog! (https://blog.jetbrains.com/research/)
Cat Hicks: Brains in Jars, Overproduction Pressure, and the Future of Software Teams | JetBrains Research Podcast
In our fifth episode, we chat with Dr. Cat Hicks, Founder and Chief Scientist of Catharsis Consulting. She is a psychologist and author of The Psychology of Software Teams, published July 2026.
Episode links:
Dr. Hicks' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drcathicks/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/drcathicks/)
Catharsis Consulting: https://catharsisinsight.com/ (https://catharsisinsight.com/)
"No Silver Bullets" paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.05040 (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.05040)
Our previous episodes can be found here: https://jb.gg/rsrch-pdcst (https://jb.gg/rsrch-pdcst)
Find out more about JetBrains Research here: https://jb.gg/rsrch (https://jb.gg/rsrch)
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:46 Meet Dr. Cat Hicks, psychologist for humans in technology
04:15 Why write a book about software teams?
08:49 Building a "third place" between academia and industry
17:10 Why publish research when technology moves so quickly?
27:07 Why study teams instead of individual developers?
31:13 Team culture, developer identity, and AI skill threat
37:55 "More bands, fewer rock stars": The lone-genius myth
43:37 Code-review anxiety and code review as a learning practice
47:27 How AI creates uncertainty about belonging and expertise
53:03 Overproduction pressure: When AI becomes a productivity hammer
55:47 Context engineering and scaling human mental models
58:40 Culture is infrastructure—and invisible work matters
1:01:36 Being a public expert when the answers keep changing
1:07:02 What should we research about AI next?
1:11:14 Take-home message: Your actions matter
26 Jun 2026
Tomas Petricek: Cultures of Programming – the Human Side of Software | JetBrains Research Podcast
Join us as Thomas Petricek, a program and language researcher, discusses the diverse "cultures of programming," highlighting how a humanistic approach can foster better understanding and interaction with software, moving beyond mere automation.
Our previous episodes can be found here: https://jb.gg/rsrch-pdcst (https://jb.gg/rsrch-pdcst)
Find out more about JetBrains Research here: https://jb.gg/rsrch (https://jb.gg/rsrch)
Chapters
00:00:00 Programming Cultures Overview
00:01:41 Thomas's Background 00:03:50 Current Research Focus
00:06:05 Code Poetry Explained
00:09:00 Critical Software Architecture
00:11:51 Cultures of Programming
00:17:27 Mathematical Culture
00:22:39 Hacker Culture
00:25:32 Tacit Hacker Knowledge
00:30:00 Tacit Knowledge Undervalued
00:38:43 Managerial Culture
00:40:20 Engineering Culture
00:44:48 Spec-Driven Development
00:51:48 Humanistic Culture
00:54:40 Programming Field Pluralism
00:56:48 Personal Cultural Sympathies
01:01:21 AI and Future Cultures
01:04:14 Lessons from History
01:06:17 Making Programming Easy
01:09:09 Future Research Directions
01:11:43 Take-Home Message
01:13:20 Advice for JetBrains
Mentions & Links:
Tomas Petricek https://tomasp.net/ (https://tomasp.net/)
"Cultures of Programming" book https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cultures-of-programming/075A2D1DE611EE47807A683147B21691 (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cultures-of-programming/075A2D1DE611EE47807A683147B21691)
Psychology of Programming Interest Group (PPIG) https://www.ppig.org/ (https://www.ppig.org/)
Code Poetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_poetry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_poetry)
Whitespace Programming Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_(programming_language) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_(programming_language))
CompCert https://compcert.org/compcert-C.html (https://compcert.org/compcert-C.html) -Smalltalk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk)
On the Limits of Making Programming Easy https://tomasp.net/academic/papers/limits/ (https://tomasp.net/academic/papers/limits/)
18 May 2026
Alexander Kulikov: Complexity Theory, AI, and How We Teach Computer Science Now
In our newest episode, we chat with Alexander Kulikov, head of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence B.Sc (http://B.Sc). program at Neapolis University Pafos.
Episode links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderskulikov/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderskulikov/)
https://www.coursera.org/specializations/data-structures-algorithms (https://www.coursera.org/specializations/data-structures-algorithms) https://cogniterra.org/course/697/promo (https://cogniterra.org/course/697/promo)
https://compeau.cbd.cmu.edu/online-education-projects/programming-for-lovers/ (https://compeau.cbd.cmu.edu/online-education-projects/programming-for-lovers/)
https://lean-lang.org/ (https://lean-lang.org/) https://www.manim.community/ (https://www.manim.community/)
Our previous episodes can be found here: https://jb.gg/rsrch-pdcst (https://jb.gg/rsrch-pdcst)
Find out more about JetBrains Research here: https://jb.gg/rsrch (https://jb.gg/rsrch)
Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction and STACS Conference
02:00 – AI in Theoretical Computer Science
04:30 – Bachelor Program and Evolving Curriculums
08:30 – Boolean Circuit Synthesis Competitions
12:00 – The "Game of Life" and Modern AI Iterations
16:45 – LLMs Winning IMO Medals 22:00 – Formal Verification and the Lean Language
25:30 – The Chess Analogy: AI Replacing Mathematicians
33:00 – AI Coding Agents and Don Knuth's $2.56 Check
38:30 – Distributed Algorithms and Complexity Theory
41:00 – Large-Scale Online Education and Adding JavaScript
48:45 – The Importance of Algorithmic Thinking
56:00 – Real-World Application: The Google Maps Polygon Problem
1:01:30 – Bioinformatics, SPAdes, and Fundamental vs. Applied Research
1:10:00 – Sabbatical Dreams: P vs. NP and Linear Time Limits
1:18:00 – Creating Mathematical Animations with Python
1:21:30 – AI Interpolation vs. Extrapolation and Joke Generation
1:25:00 – "Birds vs. Frogs": Research Styles in the AI Era
1:30:15 – Surprises, Rapid Changes, and the Future of AI
1:33:30 – Advice for New PhD Students: Follow Your Passion
1:36:30 – Outro and Final Thoughts
6 Mar 2026
Ibragim Badertdinov: From Dentistry to AI, Coding Agents, SWE-rebench | JetBrains Research Podcast
In our second episode, we chat with Ibragim Badertdinov from Nebius about SWE-rebench, coding agents, and his path from dentistry and AI.
Our first episode can be found here (https://youtu.be/W8wFQjKhb7s)
Episode links:
SWE-rebench: https://swe-rebench.com/ (https://swe-rebench.com/)
ConTree: https://contree.dev/ (https://contree.dev/)
Ibragim: https://x.com/ibragim_bad (https://x.com/ibragim_bad)
Also mentioned:
https://huggingface.co/datasets/nebius/SWE-bench-extra (https://huggingface.co/datasets/nebius/SWE-bench-extra)
https://scale.com/leaderboard/swe_bench_pro_public (https://scale.com/leaderboard/swe_bench_pro_public)
https://swe-bench-live.github.io/ (https://swe-bench-live.github.io/)
Find out more about JetBrains Research: https://lp.jetbrains.com/research/software-engineering/ (https://lp.jetbrains.com/research/software-engineering/)
Chapters:
00:00:00 Teaser & Introduction
00:02:41 Ibrahim's Non-Traditional Background: From Dentistry to Tech
00:10:45 The "School 42" Bootcamp Experience
00:13:00 Getting into Machine Learning & Kaggle
00:17:20 The First Internship & Learning from a Great Mentor
00:20:10 Contrasting the Worlds of Medicine and Tech
00:26:56 What Are Coding Agents?
00:33:40 Explaining SWE-bench: How Coding Tasks Are Evaluated
00:37:15 RLVR (Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards)
00:43:10 The Creation of SWE-Rebench
00:50:00 The Main Challenges with Task Quality and Scale
00:55:00 What's New in SWE-Rebench V2 (and Kotlin support)
00:58:42 Will AI Change Code Review?
01:02:00 contree.dev (http://contree.dev): A New Checkpointing & Forking Tool for Agents
01:09:35 The Open-Source Community's Reaction to SWE-Rebench
01:15:20 SWE-Bench Pro vs. SWE-Rebench
01:18:20 Why Nebius Invests in Open-Source Research
01:21:00 Predictions for the Future of AI and Programming
01:26:00 Final Advice for Career Switchers
19 Jan 2026
Anna Kogan: OpenCV, Future of Computer Vision, Open Source vs. Startups | JetBrains Research Podcast
We discuss the legacy of OpenCV, the future of Computer Vision, how AI can transform professional sports through biomechanics, and why real-world technology adoption remains so slow.
Episode links
OpenCV: https://opencv.org/ (https://opencv.org/)
FitWise AI: https://www.thefitwise.com/ (https://www.thefitwise.com/)
Anna Kogan: linkedin: / anna-kogan-44b24673 (https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbFpWRTAzZTRFR1oxVUxCSWpwRTlWemJuZWU4UXxBQ3Jtc0ttNXM0cVZmRzhoWTZlSWg2NFNnSC05R3RSUUw3OElCS2xxMW9JdDQ5Z1M1TVZTajd6WWdQV0kyNkRmOVB1S0tJWFlwZnJtaEZYU2ZVbC1MM1VEdEZSUnBTZEFQX3BkeUxycHhJUVhya01LckJEYkdGYw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fin%2Fanna-kogan-44b24673%2F&v=W8wFQjKhb7s)
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