Tech has no shortage of meetings, but the 1:1 might be the last one where the truth still shows up. This piece is about protecting that space from sliding into performance theatre, noticing the subtle signs when trust is eroding, and creating enough room for the real stuff: fatigue, pride, hard conversations, and the context that makes great work possible. The 1:1 is the smallest unit of culture you still control. Treat it carefully, protect it, and it will quietly pay back in trust, and the kind of momentum you can’t roadmap.

Your AI is only as good as the ticket you hand it. We dig into how vague requirements sabotage both humans and machines, why Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) acceptance criteria act as a clarity multiplier, and how the simple Given-When-Then structure turns fuzzy intent into something AI can reliably execute. If you're leading teams, working with AI agents, or just tired of reviewing PRs that “technically work” but miss the point, this is your guide to writing tickets that actually get the right thing built.

Tilt (formerly Empower Finance) developed a context-aware review bot using Augment Code's context engine to transform code quality and velocity on its fintech platform. By leveraging Augment's deep codebase understanding of architectural patterns and team conventions, which distinguishes it from generic AI tools, the bot provides more consistent feedback and achieves faster review cycles, reducing cycle time by up to 40%. This solution allows engineers to focus on architectural decisions and complex logic, serving as an augmentation, not replacement, for human reviewers.