In this episode of the Elixir Mentor Podcast, I chat with Vasilis Spilka, Head of Software Development at Teacherspace, about building agentic software as a solo developer, the pairing of Ash and LLMs, and what it takes to ship a startup side project alongside a day job.

Vasilis shares his path from Ruby on Rails in 2014 to nearly a decade of Elixir work across fintech, supply chain, and ad tech. We talk through Teacherspace's recent acquisition, the challenges of integrating with legacy Danish education contractors, and the three pivots it took to land on a working product.

We spend a good chunk of the episode on Ash: why its unique DSL and introspection make it unusually strong with LLMs, how Spark lets you build your own DSLs, and why usage rules plus Igniter are a game-changer for library authors. Vasilis walks through his Claude Code workflow, the sculpting approach he uses for prototypes, and where he still won't let the LLM near — system design and API keys.

The conversation also covers Communities, his local-first social platform; the paperclip-style autonomous company idea he's exploring with ash_typescript; whether LLMs actually understand anything; and the unglamorous reality of getting a consumer product off the ground through networking and volunteering. We close with practical tips on prompt phrasing and skill-file tweaks that meaningfully change output quality.

Resources Mentioned:
- Ash Framework: https://ash-hq.org
- Tidewave: https://tidewave.ai
- Igniter: https://hexdocs.pm/igniter
- ash_typescript: https://github.com/ash-project/ash_typescript

Connect with Vasilis:
- X/Twitter: https://x.com/vasspilka
- GitHub: https://github.com/vasspilka

Sponsors:
- BEAMOps: https://beamops.co.uk
- Paraxial.io: https://paraxial.io
- Jido (Elixir AI Collective Discord): https://agentjido.xyz/discord

SUPPORT ELIXIR MENTOR
- Elixir Mentor: https://elixirmentor.com