Brady Gaster is a Principal PM Architect at GitHub, where he works on Apps, Agents, MIDI, and most notably, Squad — an open-source framework for orchestrating AI agent teams with GitHub Copilot. A longtime contributor to the .NET ecosystem, Brady previously served as Principal Program Manager on the .NET and Visual Studio team, leading work on SignalR, Orleans, microservices, and HTTP APIs.

He is the co-creator of Squad, which allows developers to define a team of specialized AI agents that collaborate on real engineering work.

When he's not building developer tools, Brady enjoys making music in his basement with synthesizers and guitars, and spending time with his two sons.

Website / Blog: https://bradygaster.com/
GitHub: https://github.com/bradygaster
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradygaster/
Twitter/X: @bradygaster

Previous Appearances on the Azure & DevOps Podcast:
Episode 102 — Brady Gaster on SignalR and More
Episode 221 — Brady Gaster: Orleans
Episode 295 — Brady Gaster: .NET Cloud Native
Episode 331 — Brady Gaster: Upgrading .NET apps

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https://clearmeasure.com/developers/forums/

Matthew Renze is an AI researcher, consultant, and author, and the founder of Renze Consulting, where he has trained over 500,000 software developers and IT professionals worldwide. He has delivered over 200 keynotes, presentations, and workshops on every continent — including Antarctica — for clients ranging from tech startups to Fortune 500 companies. A nine-time Microsoft MVP in AI, Matthew is also the president of the Renze AI Research Institute, where he studies how self-reflecting large language model agents improve problem-solving performance, trustworthiness, and value alignment. Most recently he was accepted into the Doctor of Engineering program at Johns Hopkins University, and he featured as an interview subject in the 2026 documentary "AI Everywhere."

Website: https://matthewrenze.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewrenze/
Twitter/X: @matthewrenze
GitHub: https://github.com/matthewrenze (via profile links)

Our OpenClaw agent ("Bob") - Bob's website: https://bobrenze.com/
- Bob's blog: https://blog.bobrenze.com/
- Bob's book: https://a.co/d/014kieQI
- Agent ranking site: https://agentfolio.io/

Stage 1 - Communicating in steps with an AI assistant
- ChatGPT - https://chatgpt.com/
- Claude Chat - https://claude.ai/

Stage 2 - Collaborating on tasks with an AI agent
- GitHub Copilot - https://github.com/features/copilot
- Claude Code - https://claude.com/product/claude-code
- OpenAI Codex - https://openai.com/codex/

Stage 3 - Supervising processes with an agentic workflow
- LangChain / LangGraph - https://www.langchain.com/langgraph
- Microsoft Agent Workflows - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/agent-framework/workflows/

Stage 4 - Managing a project with an autonomous agent
- OpenClaw: https://openclaw.ai/
- Hermes: https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/

Stage 5 - Leading a mission with an autonomous agency
- PaperClip AI: https://paperclip.ing/

Fireworks AI: https://fireworks.ai/

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Previous Appearances on the Azure & DevOps Podcast:

Episode 44 — Matthew Renze on Data Science for Developers https://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/matthew-renze-on-data-science-for-developers-episode-44

Episode 220 — Matthew Renze: Developing Your AI Strategy https://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/matthew-renze-developing-your-ai-strategy-episode-220

Episode 249 — Matthew Renze: AI Ethics https://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/ai-ethics-with-matthew-renze-episode-249

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Tamir Dresher is a Principal Engineer at Microsoft Threat Protection, where he focuses on scaling AI agent systems and distributed architectures, bringing over 15 years of experience building large-scale distributed systems. He is the co-creator of Squad, an open-source multi-agent runtime for GitHub Copilot that orchestrates AI teams directly inside your repository. Tamir is the author of "Rx.NET in Action" (Manning) and "Hands-On Full-Stack Web Development with ASP.NET Core" (Packt), and has been a lecturer in Software Engineering at the Ruppin Academic Center since 2013. A prominent figure in the Israeli and international developer communities, he is a Microsoft MVP alumnus who speaks frequently at global conferences and writes actively on his blog at tamirdresher.com.

Website / Blog - https://www.tamirdresher.com/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamirdresher/
GitHub: https - //github.com/tamirdresher
Twitter/X - @tamir_dresher
Blog Post - https://www.tamirdresher.com/blog/2026/05/24/squad-watch-extensions-customer-success
Github - https://github.com/bradygaster/squad

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Chris Woodruff, or as his friends call him, Woody, is a software architect of over 25 years. Woody loves software engineering, especially allowing applications and services to communicate across networks and through Web APIs. He has received Microsoft MVP awards in SQL, Data and C# in the past, along with multiple years of being awarded the AWS Community Builder Award. He's a current board member of the .NET Foundation Woody lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he explores the many breweries in West Michigan and travels with his family. Woody is also a long-time bourbon fan and loves hunting for whiskey bottles.

Website - https://woodruff.dev/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriswoodruff/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/cwoodruff
Simplicity-First Website - https://simplicity-first.dev/

Previous Appearances on the Azure & DevOps Podcast:

Episode 262 - Chris "Woody" Woodruff: Network Programming https://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/chris-woody-woodruff-network-programming-episode-262

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Jonathan Tower — known to friends and colleagues simply as "J." — is the founding partner of Trailhead Technology Partners, a custom software consulting firm with employees across the U.S., Europe, and South America. A 12-time Microsoft MVP for .NET and a Telerik Developer Expert, J. brings nearly 25 years of industry experience spanning roles from senior architect to director of development. He was recently elected to the .NET Foundation Board of Directors for the 2026–2027 term and is the driving force behind Beer City Code, Western Michigan's largest professional software conference. J. is also a LinkedIn Learning course author and an active speaker at software conferences around the world; including being a speaker at the most recent .NET Conf.

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jtower/
Website - https://www.jtower.com/
Trailhead Technology Website - https://trailheadtechnology.com/
Trailhead Technology Events - https://trailheadtechnology.com/events
Trailhead Technology Blogs - https://trailheadtechnology.com/blog
Beer City Code- https://beercitycode.com/

Previous Appearances on the Azure & DevOps Podcast:

Episode 371 - Software Leadership with Jonathan "J." Tower https://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/software-leadership-with-jonathan-j-tower-episode-371
Episode 263 - J. Tower: Modernization Strangler Fig Pattern https://azuredevopspodcast.clear-measure.com/j-tower-modernization-strangler-fig-pattern-episode-263

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Ryan Riley is a Senior Lead Software Engineer at Quorum Software in Houston, TX, with deep expertise in functional programming, software architecture, and web API design across the .NET ecosystem. He is a Microsoft Visual F# MVP and longtime open-source contributor, best known for his work on projects such as Frank, WebApiContrib, and the Open Web Interface for .NET (OWIN) specification. Ryan leads the Community for F# virtual user group and is an active blogger, having recently published a thought-provoking piece in March 2026 examining AI-assisted spec-driven development and its relationship to Agile and historical software practices. He brings a thoughtful, systems-level perspective to software engineering leadership, mentoring, and team-building that spans front-end UX through back-end distributed applications.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanriley/
GitHub: https://github.com/panesofglass
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/panesofglass

Previous Appearances on the Azure & DevOps Podcast:

Ryan Riley: Leading a Software Engineering Team - Episode 316 (September 23, 2024)

The Power of 10 Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_10:_Rules_for_Developing_Safety-Critical_CodeDevelopment Process using AI

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Today I've have Gaurav Seth with us — he's a product executive at Microsoft working on fundamentally redefining how software gets built and scaled. He's been bringing agentic AI into every stage of the develop‑deploy‑operate cycle, both for Microsoft's internal engineering teams and for developers building on the platform. He's hands-on building AI agents into GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio, working on evaluation systems that improve model quality, and shaping core platforms that power Azure, Microsoft 365, Windows, Xbox, and LinkedIn.

Right now, he's focused on some of the hardest problems in the industry — what it looks like to move from manual to AI-driven development, how to measure and improve agent performance at scale, how to make massive codebases understandable to LLMs, and what the future of developer workflows looks like in an agent-first world. Before this, he helped lead some major shifts — from Edge's move to Chromium, to scaling TypeScript into one of the most widely used languages in the world, to evolving Visual Studio's business model and growing .NET in a crowded market. He operates end-to-end — from product strategy and engineering to go-to-market, partnerships, and enterprise adoption — and has a unique ability to connect deep technical innovation with real-world impact.

Mentioned in this Episode

LinkedIn
X / Twitter
.NET Blog (author page)
Foundry Local: Onyx w/ Ollama
VSCode Agent Pane

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