Austin Parker in

Austin Parker

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Director of AI Strategy at honeycomb.io
📍 Mechanicville, New York, United States

Austin is the Director of AI Strategy at Honeycomb, where he focuses on the intersection of AI and software observability. He is a co-founder of the OpenTelemetry project, sits on its Governance Committee, and has co-authored two OReilly books on distributed tracing and OpenTelemetry. He studied computer science at the University of Kentucky.

Outside of his professional work, Austin is interested in building sustainable open-source communities and exploring the world. He has previously taught college classes and started his own podcast about DevOps and AI. He is also the organizer of the Deserted Island DevOps conference.

Unique fact: Austin was part of the team that created OpenTelemetry, which is now the second most active project in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), surpassed only by Kubernetes.

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Experience
12 Years
Current Role
Director of AI Strategy
Job Level
Mid-senior
Location
Mechanicville, New York, United States
Personality Overview

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Priorities

Topics Austin cares about

AI & Observability
His current role as Director of AI Strategy at Honeycomb focuses on how AI is changing software observability. He frequently speaks and writes on the topic.
OpenTelemetry
He is a co-founder and Governance Committee member for the OpenTelemetry project, having been involved since its inception. He also co-authored a book on the subject.
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Career

Work history

1-2026
Director of AI Strategy
honeycomb.io
9-2023
Director of Open Source
honeycomb.io
1-2022 - 8-2023
Head of DevRel
Lightstep
9-2019 - 1-2022
Principal Developer Advocate
Lightstep
8-2018 - 9-2019
OSS Engineer
Lightstep
In the press

Media appearances

How AI Agents Use Production Feedback to Improve Code. Featured in Honeycomb – Webinar
See now
How to Resolve the Productivity Paradox in AI‑Assisted Coding. Featured in Honeycomb – Webinar
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Education
2013 - 2015
Bachelor's Degree
University at Albany
2012 - 2013
Computer Science
University of Kentucky
Social presence
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Behavioral profile

DISC profile (public)

DISC behavioral profile

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