Introduction
In the rapidly evolving landscape of customer engagement, few companies have navigated the shift from traditional software engineering to an AI-first approach as swiftly and effectively as Braze. The company’s co-founder and CTO, Jon Hyman, has been at the helm of this transformation, steering the engineering organization through nearly 15 years of growth. What began as a startup focused on customer messaging has now become a leader in the agentic era—where AI agents actively orchestrate personalized experiences. In this article, we explore how Hyman rethought engineering for the agentic age and led his team to embrace an AI-first mindset in just a matter of months.
The Journey from Startup to Scale-Up
15 Years of Engineering Evolution
When Jon Hyman co-founded Braze in 2011, the engineering team was small and focused on building a robust platform for cross-channel messaging. Over the years, the organization expanded from a handful of engineers to hundreds, facing the classic challenges of scaling culture, architecture, and processes. Hyman’s leadership philosophy has always emphasized adaptability. “You can’t be attached to a technology stack or methodology forever,” he often notes. This mindset proved crucial when the industry began shifting toward artificial intelligence as a core component of customer engagement platforms.
The Pivot to AI-First Engineering
Why the Shift Was Necessary
The agentic era demands systems that don’t just react to user behavior but proactively anticipate needs and take action. For Braze, this meant moving beyond rules-based messaging toward intelligent, autonomous agents capable of optimizing campaigns in real time. Hyman recognized that incremental improvements to existing infrastructure wouldn’t suffice. Instead, the engineering team had to fundamentally rethink how they designed, tested, and deployed features. The goal: embed AI into the very fabric of the platform, making it an intuitive part of every engineer’s workflow.
How Braze Transformed in Months
Remarkably, Braze’s transformation to an AI-first organization happened in a compressed timeline. Hyman and his leadership team launched a series of initiatives that rapidly upskilled engineers and reoriented product development. Key steps included:
- Intensive AI training programs for all engineering staff, covering topics from machine learning pipelines to large language model integration.
- Restructuring squads around AI capabilities rather than traditional feature teams, fostering cross-functional collaboration between data scientists and software engineers.
- Creating an internal AI toolkit that abstracted away complexity, allowing engineers to experiment with agents without needing deep expertise in AI research.
- Establishing rapid prototyping sprints where teams built small-scale agentic features and validated them with customers within weeks.
Hyman emphasizes that cultural change was equally important. Engineers were encouraged to “fail fast” and view AI not as a separate discipline but as an integrated part of their daily work. “We didn’t just add an AI team; we made everyone an AI engineer,” he explains.
Key Lessons for Engineering Leaders
Braze’s journey offers several takeaways for CTOs and engineering VPs facing similar disruptions:
- Start with a clear vision: Articulate why AI-first matters for your product and customers. At Braze, the driver was the need for truly personalized, autonomous customer journeys.
- Invest in enablement, not just technology: Providing tools and training ensures the entire organization can contribute to the AI transformation, not just a specialized few.
- Prioritize speed over perfection: The rapid transformation was possible because Braze accepted that early agentic features might be imperfect. Learning from real-world usage accelerated refinement.
- Maintain engineering excellence: Hyman insists that AI doesn’t replace fundamental software engineering principles like reliability, security, and scalability. The AI-first approach must rest on a solid foundation.
The Future of Agentic Engineering
Looking ahead, Hyman sees the agentic era as an ongoing evolution rather than a destination. Braze is already exploring multi-agent systems where different AI agents collaborate to manage complex customer interactions. The engineering team is also investing in explainability and governance to ensure that agent-driven decisions remain transparent and aligned with business goals. For Hyman, the ultimate measure of success is whether the platform can “disappear”—meaning that AI handles the heavy lifting seamlessly, allowing marketers and developers to focus on creativity and strategy.
Conclusion
Jon Hyman’s experience at Braze demonstrates that transforming an engineering organization for the agentic era is both challenging and achievable. By combining a clear strategic vision with aggressive investment in people and tools, Braze went from a traditional software company to an AI-first powerhouse in mere months. As the agentic wave continues to reshape the tech landscape, the lessons from Braze’s CTO will serve as a valuable guide for any leader looking to engineer the future.