Sterling Chin stopped thinking of AI as a tool and started treating it like a junior employee. Onboarded it with context, corrected its mistakes, and gave it writing rules.

Forty days later, MARVIN was handling 90% of his workday.

In this episode of Chain of Thought, Sterling (Applied AI Engineer and Senior Developer Advocate at Postman) walks through live demos of MARVIN, his personal AI assistant built on Claude Code. From pulling meeting transcripts and updating Jira tickets to drafting blog posts and managing his calendar, MARVIN runs as a full-time AI chief of staff.

We cover:

How MARVIN bookends Sterling's workday from first login to the end of the day
Personality, sub-agents, and writing rules that make MARVIN an effective co-worker
Automating meeting notes to Jira tickets
Why DIY assistants outperform big tech alternatives
How Sterling onboarded 12+ colleagues at Postman, including non-technical knowledge workers
What the compute crunch means for open source AI

Connect with Sterling:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sterlingchin/
Twitter/X: https://x.com/SilverJaw82
MARVIN Template: https://github.com/SterlingChin/marvin-template

Connect with Chain of Thought host Conor Bronsdon:

🔗 More episodes:⁠⁠ https://chainofthought.show⁠⁠

Timestamps:

(0:00) Intro

(0:28) Meet Sterling Chin and the MARVIN AI Assistant

(9:10) Live Demo: How MARVIN Bookends Your Workday

(16:04) Personality, Sub-Agents, and Writing Rules

(22:00) Automating Meeting Notes to Jira Tickets

(29:30) Why DIY AI Assistants Outperform Big Tech

(40:55) Treat Your AI Like a Junior Employee

(46:41) How to Get Started with MARVIN

(55:36) The Compute Crunch and Open Source Future

Thanks to Galileo — download their free 165-page guide to mastering multi-agent systems at galileo.ai/mastering-multi-agent-systems

I Built an AI Coworker That Runs 90% of My Day

Chain of Thought | AI Agents, Infrastructure & Engineering

I Built an AI Coworker That Runs 90% of My Day