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“It Sounds a Little Dystopian, But Also Kind of Amazing”: Conversations on Long Term AI Agents and "Winning" Product Hunt with Ellie Zubrowski
Ellie Zubrowski doesn’t walk a traditional path. In the three years since graduating from a university program in Business Administration, she biked across the U.S., studied Kung Fu in China, learned Mandarin just for fun, and completed the #100DaysOfCode challenge after deciding she wanted a career switch. That same sense of curiosity and willingness to jump into the unknown now fuels her work as a Developer Advocate at Pieces, where she leads product launches, mentors job seekers, and helps developers learn how to best leverage Pieces’ Long-Term Memory Agent. Her journey into tech was guided not just by a want to learn how to code and break into the industry, but by a fascination with the structure of language itself. > “There are so many parallels between human languages and programming languages,” she says. “That realization really made me fall in love with software.” > We spoke with Ellie about launching a #1 Product Hunt release, her predictions for AI agents, and why conferences don’t have to break your budget. Launching LTM-2 to the Top of Product Hunt Recently, Ellie led the launch of Pieces’ Long-Term Memory Agent (LTM-2), which took the top spot on Product Hunt—a major win for the team and their community. > “I’m super competitive,” she admits. “So I really wanted us to win.” The launch was fully organic—no paid promotions, just coordinated team efforts, a well-prepared content pipeline, and an ambassador program that brought in authentic engagement across X, Discord, and Reddit. She documented their entire strategy in this blog post, and credits the success not just to good planning but to a passionate developer community that believed in the product. Following a successful performance at Product Hunt, Ellie is committed to keeping Pieces’ user community engaged and contributing to its technological ecosystem. > “Although I’m still fairly new to DevRel (coming up on a year at Pieces!), I think success comes down to a few things: developer adoption and retention, user feedback, community engagement, and maintaining communication with engineering.” Why AI Agents Are the Next Big Thing Ellie sees a major shift on the horizon: AI that doesn’t wait for a prompt. > “The biggest trend of 2025 seems to be AI agents,” she explains, “or AI that acts proactively instead of reactively.” Until now, most of us have had to tell AI exactly what to do—whether that’s drafting emails, debugging code, or generating images. But Ellie imagines a near future where AI tools act more like intelligent teammates than assistants—running locally, deeply personalized, and working in the background to handle the repetitive stuff. > “Imagine something that knows how you work and quietly handles your busy work while you focus on the creative parts,” she says. “It sounds a little dystopian, but also kind of amazing.” Whether we hit that level of autonomy in 2025 or (likely) have to wait until 2026, she believes the move toward agentic AI is inevitable—and it’s changing how developers think about productivity, ownership, and trust. You can read more of Ellie’s 2025 LLM predictions here! The Secret to Free Conferences (and Winning the GitHub Claw Machine) Ellie will be the first to tell you: attending a tech conference can be a total game-changer. “Attending my first tech conference completely changed my career trajectory,” she says. “It honestly changed my life.” And the best part? You might not even need to pay for a ticket. > “Most conferences offer scholarship tickets,” Ellie explains. “And if you’re active in dev communities, there are always giveaways. You just have to know where to look.” In her early days of job hunting, Ellie made it to multiple conferences for free (minus travel and lodging)—which she recommends to anyone trying to break into tech. Also, she lives for conference swag. One of her all-time favorite moments? Winning a GitHub Octocat from the claw machine at RenderATL. > “She’s one of my prized possessions,” Ellie laughs. Proof here. 🐙 Her advice: if you’re even a little curious about going to a conference—go. Show up. Say hi to someone new. You never know what connection might shape your next step. Ellie’s Journeys Away from her Desk Earlier this year, Ellie took a break from product launches and developer events to visit China for Chinese New Year with her boyfriend’s family—and turned the trip into a mix of sightseeing, food adventures, and a personal mission: document every cat she met. (You can follow the full feline thread here 🐱) The trip took them through Beijing, Nanjing, Taiyuan, Yuci, Zhùmǎdiàn, and Yangzhou, where they explored palaces, museums, and even soaked in a hot spring once reserved for emperors. > “Fancy, right?” Ellie jokes. But the real highlight? The food. > “China has some of the best food in the world,” she says. “And lucky for me, my boyfriend’s dad is an amazing cook—every meal felt like a five-star experience.” What’s Next? With a YouTube series on the way, thousands of developers reached through her workshops, and an eye on the next generation of AI tooling, Ellie Zubrowski is loving her experience as a developer advocate. Follow @elliezub on X to stay in the loop on her work, travels, tech experiments, and the occasional Octocat sighting. She’s building in public, cheering on other devs, and always down to share what she’s learning along the way. Learn more about Pieces, the long-term LLM agent....
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