Inside JetBrains—the company reshaping how the world writes code

If you don’t write software, you may not know JetBrains.

If you do, you almost certainly use them.

The company sits behind the scenes of modern development—powering the tools used by roughly 15M professional engineers around the world (88 of the Fortune 100) and creators of Kotlin (the official programming language for Android). If you’ve opened IntelliJ, PyCharm, WebStorm, GoLand, or Rider, you’ve used JetBrains.

We sat down with Kris Kang, Head of Product at JetBrains, to explore how the team is using OpenAI models to change how developers build—not to replace what they do, but to raise the ceiling.

“+15M developers use JetBrains—and now we’re bringing OpenAI into that workflow” Kang tells us that. The shift isn’t just about automation; it’s also about empowerment. It’s about protecting a dev’s flow, reducing repetitive work, and letting engineers focus on design, architecture, and judgment—the skills that give you longer leverage with AI.

Internally, JetBrains teams are using:

• ChatGPT
• GPT‑5
• Codex

Externally, JetBrains customers can choose GPT‑5 in Junie, the company’s coding agent, and in AI Assistant (for chat assistance).

Engineers are already delegating real tasks to agents—and seeing them completed. “I assign increasingly difficult tasks to an agent, backed by GPT‑5—and to my surprise, many of the tasks are completed successfully” says Kang.

JetBrains’ benchmark isn’t speed alone—it’s sustained engineering excellence. “It’s not just about generating code—it has to be safe, readable, and maintainable” Kang continues.

JetBrains considers impact through two lenses:

Speed: Less boilerplate, fewer context switches, faster iteration.

Quality: Readable, reviewable, maintainable code—not clever output that breaks in production.

Start where humans feel friction: Documentation. Tests. Reviews. Hand-offs.

Protect deep work: Context switching kills more than typing speed ever will.

Build hybrid—not replacement—workflows: AI drafts. Humans design and review.

Raise the bar on fundamentals: Well-specified intention and strong architecture become a force multiplier.

Run experiments that compound: Efficient iteration beats instant proof.

A future where engineers:

• Design systems
• Guide and guardrail agents
• Review and reason more efficiently
• Ship faster with more confidence

Not less work—better work.