Judge's Eye View: What 2 Years of Scoring Nominations Taught Sasibhushan Rao Chanthati, Hirekeyz

Sasibhushan Rao Chanthati, Senior Software Engineer at Hirekeyz and a two time BIG All Star Judge for Information Technology, joins the Winners' Circle to talk about agentic AI, the FinOps boom, small versus large language models, and his own original research into detecting IT burnout with AI.Guest info: Sasibhushan Rao Chanthati, Senior Software Engineer, Hirekeyz.Chapters[00:00] Welcome and congratulations on being a two time BIG All Star Judge[01:02] Sasi's role at Hirekeyz and his previous work at T. Rowe Price[02:55] What drew Sasi to judging IT nominations in the first place[04:41] Task specific agents versus chatbots, the real difference[10:13] Small language models versus large frontier models[13:25] The hybrid model trend engineers are actually using[14:58] Why cheaper AI products often cut corners on security[18:23] Customer support automation and where it is heading[22:08] The biggest shifts Sasi has seen in the last two years[25:12] Why FinOps is becoming mission critical[27:00] The origin story behind Sasi's AI burnout detection research[29:04] The moment that convinced Sasi this was worth building[32:27] Is AI making burnout better or worse[37:39] Closing thoughts and congratulationsKey TakeawaysAfter two years judging IT nominations for BIG, Globee, and Stevie, Sasi has learned that the strongest submissions describe a specific mechanism, what was actually built and how it gets used, rather than leaning on company size or mission statements alone.AI cost management went from a niche concern to a near universal practice in just two years, with FinOps Foundation research showing adoption jump from 31 percent of organizations in 2024 to 98 percent in 2026, as AI spend joins cloud spend as something every technology leader has to actively manage.Sasi's own research into AI driven IT burnout detection, built using vector embeddings and workplace communication analysis, is one of the few systematic attempts to measure a problem the industry has talked about informally for years but rarely tried to quantify.Resources MentionedHirekeyzSasibhushan Rao Chanthati on LinkedInSasi's research on Google ScholarSasi's research on ResearchGateSasi's ORCIDSasi is a two time BIG All Star Judge for Information Technology. See his full judge profile.🔗 Subscribe to the Winners' Circle podcast.