Research-Driven Engineering Leadership | Lizzie Matusov | Substack

Using research to answer big questions in AI and engineering productivity. Click to read Research-Driven Engineering Leadership, by Lizzie Matusov, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.

rdel.substack.com

Research-Driven Engineering Leadership | Lizzie Matusov | Substack · 1 day ago

SOFTWARE AND DATA ENGINEERING

RDEL #165: Can AI review agents take humans out of code review?

Humans and agents caught different bugs: together they found 82.1%, compared with about half for humans and 71.9% for the best agent alone.

OPUS 5HUMAN REVIEWER

Research-Driven Engineering Leadership | Lizzie Matusov | Substack · Oct 06, 2026

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

RDEL #164: What does it take to keep an LLM judge trustworthy in production?

Netflix's LLM judges evaluated hundreds of thousands of explanations a week, and weekly human review still caught gaps the metrics missed.

NETFLIXLIZZIE

Research-Driven Engineering Leadership | Lizzie Matusov | Substack · Sep 29, 2026

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

RDEL #163: How do AI coding assistants change the shape of engineering work over time?

Perceived productivity held at 84% for six months, while the share of engineers reporting a worse developer experience nearly doubled from 14% to 27%.

PARTICIPANTSLIZZIE

Research-Driven Engineering Leadership | Lizzie Matusov | Substack · Sep 22, 2026

EMPLOYMENT AND CAREERS

RDEL #162: What makes a great co-worker in an AI-native workplace?

Across 1,534 knowledge workers, technical skill ranked 2nd of 75 qualities for an AI co-worker and 20th for a human one, while accountability stayed firmly with humans.

OREGON STATEMICROSOFTUC DAVIS

Research-Driven Engineering Leadership | Lizzie Matusov | Substack · Sep 15, 2026

LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

RDEL #161: What decides which tasks product managers are willing to delegate to GenAI?

Identity and accountability shaped which tasks 885 product managers were willing to hand to GenAI

MICROSOFT