Discover how AMP, a leader in AI-powered recycling solutions, optimized their software development process with Augment Code. By leveraging Augment’s low-latency completions and multi-language support, AMP’s senior developers reduced keystrokes and enhanced their focus on complex robotics tasks.

‍

The Challenge

AMP, a leading provider of AI-powered sortation at scale for waste and recycling, needed to manage a complex codebase for their advanced recycling facilities. 

The team worked with various languages, including low-level C and C++ for embedded systems, and Rust, Python, and JavaScript for higher-level applications. This diverse environment required a consistent approach across many frameworks and libraries while minimizing errors and speeding up development.

Carter Schultz, a Robotics Architect at AMP, explains, “We spend a lot of time managing the details between everything… it’s all call and response or pub-sub, and we handle a lot of the connective tissue.”

Traditional software development practices made it challenging to maintain consistent code quality and speed across such a varied tech stack. The team often found themselves bogged down by mundane tasks, like writing repetitive boilerplate code, navigating complex interdependencies, and managing various protocols and schemas between different systems.

Why Augment?

Carter highlights several reasons why Augment stood out amongst its competitors:

• Low Latency and Seamless Integration: Augment's code suggestions are almost instant and fit naturally into existing workflows. "I was blown away by the latency. I did not realize before trying Augment how much low latency mattered... It let me flow without getting in the way."

• Short, Context-Aware Completions: Augment provides concise suggestions that fit the context of the entire codebase, avoiding frustrations with longer, less accurate completions. “Coming from the previous tool we used, I was keenly aware when it didn’t have context. Augment, from day one, automatically picked up context from files dispersed throughout a huge repository."

• Support for Polyglot Codebases: Augment understands and suggests code across multiple languages, which was crucial for AMP’s developers who switch between Rust, Python, and C++. “I work from C through C++, Python, Rust, and JavaScript… having an AI assistant that understands the syntax of each language has been extremely valuable.”

• Enhanced Developer Experience: The user-friendly features, like a Git diff style interface for complex refactors, allowed developers to see their changes clearly and intuitively, improving the overall coding experience. "I was excited when I saw the beautiful Git diff style interface in VS Code for complex refactors... from day one, it felt polished and ready to go."

The Results

With Augment, AMP streamlined their workflow, letting developers focus on higher-level problem-solving rather than routine tasks. Augment’s low-latency suggestions, context-aware completions, and multi-language support helped the team accelerate development and improve code quality.

"We are ending up with better-commented, more descriptive code... it's a beautiful synergy that works so well.”

‍

Key Benefits

• Reduced Time for Routine Tasks: Augment’s context-aware suggestions have dramatically cut down the time spent on repetitive and boilerplate coding. “It’s taken that general software plumbing and simplified it, saving us time on mundane tasks and letting us focus on real engineering problems.”

• Improved Code Consistency Across Languages: The tool's deep codebase awareness enabled consistency across languages and frameworks. “It pulled obvious context from other languages and completed the code in the target language… that context awareness was very exciting.”

• Higher Developer Satisfaction: Augment’s intuitive completions and reduced friction in coding workflows boosted developer morale.“It sparks joy… the process of writing code is more enjoyable and pleasurable."

‍

About AMP

‍

AMP is applying AI-powered sortation at scale to modernize the world's recycling infrastructure and maximize the value in waste. AMP gives waste and recycling leaders the power to harness AI to reduce labor costs, increase resource recovery, and deliver more reliable operations. The company’s AI platform has identified 150 billion items and guided the sortation of 2.4 million tons of recyclables. With three full-scale facilities and more than 400 AI systems deployed across North America, Asia, and Europe, AMP’s technology offers a transformational solution to waste sortation and changes the fundamental economics of recycling.

‍

Industry: Robotics, Waste Management, Recycling, AI 

Location: Colorado, USA

Team Size: 150 

Languages, Frameworks, Libraries: C, C++, Python, Rust, JavaScript

IDE: VS Code