Community, code, and caution: Guido Jansen on building with Spryker and AI

In this episode of Couch Confidentials, I sit down with Guido Jansen, Spryker’s Global Business & Technology Evangelist and someone with one of the longest job titles I’ve ever introduced on the podcast. Guido’s path is unusual: a background in applied cognitive psychology, years building the Magento community, and now leading community and customer success efforts at Spryker. We talk about what it means to build ecosystems that last, and how feedback loops from hackathons and developer meetups feed into Spryker’s product direction. Guido also shares his experiments with n8n, vibe coding, and MCP integrations and what happens when you proudly demo something your audience isn’t ready for. The conversation ties back to themes I’ve been writing about in the Contextual CDPs and Agentic AI in Martech series: how much trust can you place in AI, what guardrails are needed, and why adoption lags behind the hype. Guido warns about the risks of workflows that work “95% of the time,” and reflects on what the rise of AI means for junior developers entering the field. If you’re curious about where automation meets community, and how enterprise clients balance innovation with risk, this episode offers a grounded perspective. 👥 Connect with us on LinkedIn: Guido: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gxjansen/ Matthew: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewniederberger/ 📲 Follow Martech Therapy on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/martechtherapy/ Substack: https://martechtherapy.substack.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/martechtherapy.bsky.social