The AI-Era Engineering Organisation

All writing on this theme

• Is Anybody Actually Reading This?
  October 2026: AI makes polished tickets, replies and pull requests cheap, so they no longer prove understanding. A test for which delivery practices still create it.
• Building Career Ladders for AI-Era Engineering Teams
  June 2026: Career ladders reward production seniority, but AI agents now produce. What a new ladder must measure, and why entry-level roles need redesign, not removal.
• The AI-Era Engineering Org in Practice
  May 2026: The AI-era engineering team needs an operating model, not a new org chart. This post shows where AI executes, where humans judge, and what each role now does.
• The Permission to Try
  May 2026: AI has cut the cost of writing code, not maintaining it. This post argues for exploring more before committing, as judging what to keep is the bottleneck.
• AI Is Not an Engineering Strategy
  March 2026: Boards hear AI will write 90% of code and cut engineering headcount. Why code is not engineering, and what AI amplifies and what it cannot touch.
• The Expertise Discount
  November 2025: Firms spend billions on AI while discounting senior engineers. This post argues the 'Junior + AI = Senior' bet is bubble behaviour and will correct.
• Task Decomposition for AI Collaboration: The Art of Prompt-Ready Work Boundaries
  September 2025: Vague AI requests give poor results. How to break user stories into bounded, prompt-ready work units with clear inputs, outputs and standards.
• The Future Engineering Org Chart: How AI Changes Team Structure
  August 2025: Teams code faster with AI but ship at the same speed. This post argues org structure is the constraint, and sets out new roles, team shapes and a roadmap.
• Leading Without Authority: The Senior Engineer's Paradox
  August 2025: Seniority is judgement, systems thinking and influence, not years or titles. How senior engineers lead without authority, and why AI cannot replace that.
• Mentoring Developers When AI Writes Half Their Code
  August 2025: AI-assisted juniors look productive but get promoted beyond their ability. Why career timelines still matter, and how to mentor when AI writes half the code.
• The Hidden Cost of Cheap AI: Why Your Organisation's Strategy is Creating a Skills Crisis
  July 2025: A junior engineer plus AI looks cheaper than a senior, but hidden costs and skills gaps reverse that. This post argues for AI spend that builds capability.
• Brushes and Algorithms: What the Miniature Painting Community Teaches Us About AI in Creative Work
  July 2025: What the miniature painting community's row over AI at Golden Demon teaches engineering leaders about skill growth, authenticity and drawing lines on AI.
• The Great Wait: How AI Expectations Are Freezing the Software Engineering Job Market
  July 2025: Firms are freezing engineering hiring while waiting for AI to replace engineers. This post argues that is a strategic error, and what to do instead.
• Documentation as Decision History: Creating Better Paper Trails for Teams and AI
  July 2025: Treat decisions like code changes and write them as pull requests. It stops repeated debates, keeps context and gives AI assistants the history they lack.
• Too Many Ideas, Not Enough Systems: Building Your External Brain
  July 2025: How engineering leaders can capture, triage and act on a constant stream of ideas, using RICE, the Eisenhower Matrix and AI tools, without losing the best.
• Better Communications for Software Engineering: The Foundation of Process and AI Success
  June 2025: AI amplifies the communication habits a team already has. Why clear written communication comes first, with frameworks for requirements, feedback and AI use.
• Hiring Engineers in 2025: Testing AI Collaboration, Not AI Avoidance
  June 2025: Coding interviews that ban AI test the wrong skills. Assess how candidates work with AI, critique its output and judge when not to use it.