Why Engineers Must Become Multipliers in the AI-Era

It's really great to be here in Amsterdam. I was here about two years ago, where basically one of my first conferences and it's always great to be here, returning back here. So yeah, I'm excited to be giving this talk today. It's a really, really important topic at this time, especially in the AI era, and we're going to be talking all about why engineers must become multipliers in the AI era.

Before we go into more details, a little bit more about me, I have over 30 years of experience, both as an engineer and also an engineering leader. I grew from engineer all the way to senior software engineer, senior software engineer, team lead, engineering manager, head of engineering, VP of engineering, and then CTO. I'm also a fractional CTO and advisor. And also most people know me from writing the engineering leadership newsletter.

My goal is to help as many people as possible to become great engineering leaders. And also, additionally, a lot of ideas from today's talk is going to be regarding to the book that I'm writing. It's called The Multiplier Mindset. It's going to be out sometime around October. And yeah, a lot of things today are going to be also included in the book as well.

OK, let's first start with, you know, the way we build software these days, it's a lot different than we used to build, like, for example, two or three years ago, four years ago, five years ago. Tools are much better. AI engineering is becoming the standard. Obviously, we all heard about loop engineering. That's a hot topic these days. And also we have, like, non-technical people building prototypes with tools like Lavaball, Replit, and a lot of other tools as well. Additionally, we also expect engineers to be working a lot more, basically, owning end-to-end projects instead of just working based on requirements.

It's all about the impact. It's all about, you know, what kind of problems are you solving. It's less about like, OK, this is a task. OK, let's solve this task. Especially in smaller to mid-sized companies, engineers are starting to own end-to-end a lot more. This is what we're seeing. One of the big advantages of me writing the newsletter is that I get to talk with many people across the industry about what's happening in different companies. For example, I recently talked with OpenAI, with Entropic. I get to see how they're building AI native teams and also how their engineers work.

I get to see how they're building AI native teams and also how their engineers work. And I'll be sharing some of the examples in this presentation. So, yeah, in order to understand why engineers must become multipliers in the AI era, we're going to go through six important trends that are happening inside our industry.

The first one is, as I mentioned, we can see a lot more end-to-end ownership from engineers across different companies, especially smaller to mid-sized companies. Engineers are expected to have ideas for the projects, implement them, deliver them, and keep improving them. This trend is becoming more common throughout the industry, emphasizing the importance of the multiplier mindset.

A significant shift is observed where engineering is transforming into engineering leadership, with roles like tech lead becoming crucial. Skills such as giving feedback, delegating, project dissection, stakeholder communication, and project leadership are essential for successful AI engineering. The importance of roles like tech lead staff engineers is increasing, emphasizing the merging of roles and the focus on leadership in engineering.

He's a product leader at OpenAI. He mentioned that engineers need to start owning also what, when, and why, not only the how. So, this is what we see more and more common. And that is where, like, the multiplier mindset becomes really important. Always keep this in mind.

So, we see that a lot of engineering is actually becoming engineering leadership. That means that everyone is kind of working less as an engineer but more like a tech lead. And the tech lead role is becoming, like, really one of the most important roles in our industry. Especially when we are doing AI engineering. You can't do AI engineering well if you don't know how to give feedback, if you don't know how to delegate, if you don't know how to, you know, dissect bigger projects into smaller tasks, if you don't know how to be patient as well.

A lot of the skills that you need are very much related to being a great tech lead. Especially when you're owning projects end-to-end, you need to know how to do stakeholder communication, you need to know how to share progress around the project, how to get the buy-in on the project, how to lead it from start to finish. And also, if you're working with other people, with other engineers in the company as well, you need to make sure that they really understand as well how and what and how we are building things. So, yeah, this is the second very, very important trend.

So, yeah, this is the second very, very important trend. A lot of the roles are becoming actually engineering leadership roles. And, yeah, this is really, really important information as well. Which is, you know, two years ago, the amount of roles, tech lead, staff engineer roles, were kind of like equal to team lead engineering manager roles. And architect, director, and above were a bit less. But the big difference is today. Today, we see a lot more tech lead staff engineers, less architects, because a lot of the roles are merging. The architect role is merging a lot more to the tech lead staff engineer role.

And then also, the team lead engineering manager role is also basically a bit of decreasing. Because a lot of the, for example, Amazon started the trend of increasing the ratio between ICs and managers. And a lot of companies followed this direction. And that's why we also see a lot less team leads and engineering managers than we used to see in the past. We will see how this goes in the future. But the way I think things are going is that we're going to see a lot more staff engineers, a lot more tech leads. And then there's also, like, if you check different roles that are available in our industry, there's more staff engineer roles these days than engineering manager roles. So always keep this in mind, the way things are going.

The next important trend is that one of the things that companies are telling is that when they're searching for engineers, they get a lot of different profiles, a lot of different people. Like, there's no, companies might get like 300, 400, 500 people applying to a certain role, especially the engineering role. And one of the most common things I'm hearing across the industry is that people that are getting hired are either really great generalists, or they are extreme specialists in a certain area. What I mean by really great generalists is someone like a tech lead that can own projects end to end, also have good leadership skills, good communication skills, also being able to work across different technologies, different frameworks, and so on.

And on the other side, we have extreme specialists. For example, Salman Choudhury. He's a Head of Engineering at OpenAI. He mentioned that they recently hired a WebRTC expert, and they hired him exactly for this reason, because he's an extreme specialist. So there's also other ways in terms of how you can be a specialist. You can be really good in performance, for example, with React applications, Angular applications, maybe with Flask, maybe with C Sharp, and so on. Maybe you are known for something that you really have deep knowledge on a really particular topic. That's also my advice as well. People that are a bit in the middle, that don't know exactly where to go, should they be a great generalist, or should they be an extreme specialist? Those people have a bit less of the opportunities these days. So yeah, that's also my advice. Try to figure out which branch you want to go into, and then focus on that. An important note I want to mention as well is that the generalist roles are a lot more competitive, but specialist roles are a lot less available, but they're also a lot less competitive, because, of course, there's a lot less experts in certain areas.

Let's talk about the role of a product engineer becoming a lot more popular. This is what we're seeing across the industry, and especially one of the recent companies, I talked to the company called Portkey, they have 24 engineers and zero product managers. So yeah, it's becoming a lot more common. And also, returning back to the OpenAI case, as I mentioned, they have 30 engineers for one product manager. So a lot more engineers are expected, a lot more to be also owning the product hat as well. One of the things I want to mention, especially with the Portkey example with 24 engineers and zero product managers, is that they are building an infrastructure product. So you need to be highly technical in order to understand what it's all about, right? So that automatically gives a bit of advantage to engineers to be able to wear the product hat as well. But this is what is becoming a lot more popular these days. And if you're not focusing on the product and the business, make sure to do it as soon as possible, because that's going to be more and more expected. What I wanted to mention here as well is that a lot of times you're going to see just the title software engineer, but the expectation is already that you have the understanding of product and business. We see less product engineer roles, because the role is actually emerging. It's actually emerging, and the expectations are becoming more like, okay, tech capabilities, and also product and business understanding. But the title is software engineer. Keep this in mind.

Now let's talk about a really fun thing. And that is, obviously, you've probably seen this meme a couple of times on social media. But there is a lot of reality to this meme these days. We see that requirements for different job ads are actually just increasing. And there's more and more requirements, especially technical. You might see a bunch of different frameworks, a bunch of different technologies, and so on. But the problem is that companies want to get more expertise on certain stacks. But the thing is that they don't really understand that they're looking for a different type of person. They're looking for someone who is not an expert in all of these technologies. They're actually looking for someone that is good at adjusting technology and being able to learn or being able to get every information that they need, if they need to learn it.

So, for example, if you're an expert in Python, you can use AI to be decent like in Java and PHP as well. But a lot of companies don't understand that. They still want to have requirements, be really good in a bunch of different technologies, and so on. But, yeah, it's not the right way to go. Similar example is if you're good in React, you can be decent in Angular as well by using AI or maybe by being resourceful, you talk with other experts across the industry as well. Similar thing with, you know, if you're good at Postgres, SQL, you can be good at MongoDB as well. Similar mindset, you understand the databases, you understand how they work, you have the expertise, you have the experience, and so on. And, yeah, all of the other examples are exactly the same.

The companies are actually looking for someone that is able to learn fast, get everything they need, and provide impact. That is actually the essence of being an engineering multiplayer. And let's talk about the last one, the last trend, but especially not the least one. You know, there's a reason why managers are more desired than ever to become ICs once again. And we mentioned a couple of times in this presentation that AI engineering is basically the standard way to build these days. And, you know, you need certain skills in order to do AI engineering well. A lot of managers have learned these skills across their experience in the role. You need to know how to delegate correctly. You need to know how to dissect bigger projects into smaller tasks. You need to know how to give feedback. And you need to also be clear, give clear explanations as well. And also have patience, continuously refine and improve the output.

Those are all traits that good managers have. And especially if a manager stayed hands-on, they also have good engineering fundamentals. They can be really extremely productive these days with AI engineering. So that is one of the reasons why a lot of managers are very, very desired to become ICs once again. We see a lot of times in the industry that a manager is moving back to being IC these days, especially like a staff engineer. We also see like an architect, staff engineer, engineering manager role being closer and closer together.

But at the same time, we can see like from this image here, that there was a tweet mentioned about being laid off at Meta. But my advice here is it's not a demotion in case something like that happens in one of the companies that you work with. It's not a demotion. Always take it as a challenge and always take it as a way to see how you can provide as much value as possible to the organization and also to the business and also to your team and so on. So the way I see things going is that ICs are going to be having a lot more responsibilities, a lot more ownership these days than they did in the past. And that's what I see happening also in the future as well.

Let's talk about, you know, I really like this slide because it's giving me very nostalgic vibes towards when I started, you know, being a first time engineer. And like 10 years ago, especially when the framework AngularJS, you may be familiar with it. If you've been in the industry for a while, if you knew Angular, you were able to get a job like really, really quickly. But today, in order to be considered a great engineer, there's so many other important things that you need to focus on. And that is like being an engineer multiplied, having good human skills and being good at solving problems. That's actually the core essence of what makes a great engineer. At this time, leadership skills, teamwork, good communication, being a great person to work with, empathy and overall emotional intelligence, pragmatism, being resourceful, being know how to utilize AI tools as well. Of course, business understanding is more important than ever, as I mentioned. And again, having like a deep understanding of a relevant topic as well.

At this time, leadership skills, teamwork, good communication, being a great person to work with, empathy and overall emotional intelligence, pragmatism, being know how to utilize AI tools as well. Of course, business understanding is more important than ever, as I mentioned. And again, having like a deep understanding of a relevant topic as well. And let's define exactly, you know, what engineering multiplier means. The word engineering multiplier is something that resonates with me a lot because it's a combination of engineering and force multiplier. That means that you don't only focus on your individual contribution, but you focus on making everyone around you better, the team, the organization, the business, the overall company. So, yeah, it's not only about, you know, what things you do yourself, but you know, what impact have you delivered. And the impact that moves like the whole organization forward is the most, is the biggest impact that we can see, that we can have as engineers. So, yeah, always think about, you know, not what I'm doing like today, tomorrow in one week, but, you know, how can I make, how can I ensure that I deliver value to the business, to the organization and also, of course, to the users as well. This is also the full formula of being an engineering multiplier, which is exactly what we talked about in a lot of slides before. With good human-related skills, with good problem-solving abilities, you can learn everything that you need in order to provide impact. Always keep this in mind. Yeah, I think it's a really great way to define that, okay, it's not only, you know, AI tools are really great, but, you know, it's not all about that. Human-related skills are more important than ever. It's all about solving problems. That is key. There are also a lot of different archetypes of being an engineering multiplier. We're not going to go into them at this time. They're going to be covered a lot more in the book, but, yeah, team multiplier, cross-team multiplier, systems multiplier and also organizational multiplier as well.

Let's end this presentation with a really, really important message that really resonates with me is that if you make five people around you better by 20%, it's much bigger value than if you just improve your skills by 20%. Consider like if you make 20 people, 30 people, 50 people around you 20% better. That's like the value that's unimaginable. So, being a multiplier is where the real impact is. And to help you with this, yeah, make sure to scan this QR code, and I prepared a lot of different resources that are part of the engineering leadership newsletter that you can get to see in order to understand how to become a great engineering multiplier. So, let me just quickly go through this here. So, this is what you're going to see, and you can see there are a lot of different resources here about human-related skills, being good at solving problems, and additionally, there are 200 plus more resources that you can learn from. And you can also access the early release of the book and additionally get a one month complimentary free subscription to the O'Reilly platform where you can also get access to books like AI engineering and books like data intensive applications, building data intensive applications. So, yeah, I'm returning back to here if someone is going to scan this QR code as well. But yeah, that's it for me today. Thank you for your time.

It's great to be here in Amsterdam once again, and yeah, thank you. I'm going to leave this here so you can... And I think this is a question we're all wondering, so I'm going to promote it. So, how do you see the path for junior developers to become a tech lead in today's way of working, and how can a lead support this? Yeah, that's a really good question that a lot of people are wondering these days. I see a really good combination of senior engineer who has experience building things and junior engineer who is very passionate about AI and AI tools, and they can all learn very well together. It's a really good symbiosis. And yeah, I think you need to stand out in a certain way as a junior engineer, especially I always liked hiring junior engineers that are very passionate about learning, very motivated and driven to get better, have that energy and passion to contribute, asking questions all the time, because that kind of energy is very, very contagious. And if you can demonstrate that to a certain company, they will place a bet on you, and after that you can potentially grow, grow, grow inside a company to eventually become a tech lead, become a more experienced engineer, and so on.

That is one way I see. The other way is building projects and showcasing what you can do, is very important these days. You need to showcase not only, you know, if it's maybe some time ago, if you graduated, you might get a job, but these days it's a lot more important to see that companies know what you can bring to the table. So if you don't have that necessary experience building projects and showcase what you can do, another good way I also recommend is when you're applying to ROSE, is that you also can not only apply with a CV, but also send a project as well. Maybe you did a new version of a website, maybe you did an application of a certain thing that is connected with what the company is doing. So being proactive like that, a similar way of thinking, like if you're a freelancer, how to get work right, you need to send examples.

A theme between what you've said and what Lindsay said earlier is this sense of curiosity and learning, and I think as a tech lead, if you can foster that with your juniors, you're doing them a big favor, and as you highlight, fearlessness. Jump in, make the thing. Exactly. All right, next question we have here, a historical advantage of a separation between product and engineer is a focus on the user problem as opposed to the tech. Yeah. AI easily leads engineers by temperament down a path of increasing features that people don't necessarily need. How do you think about that? Yeah, you know what I mentioned in my presentation is, for example, Portkey, they have like 24 engineers and zero product managers, but the other way is also I've spoken with Entropic, they still have the two pizza team and they have a product manager being part of the team. They also have a designer part of the team as well, so they have like a full-crunch, cross-functional team as we know, and we have all worked with, working, and they also mentioned that they are hiring more product managers as well, so they did a completely different way than some other companies like OpenAI and a lot of other startups and mid-sized companies.

They also have a designer part of the team as well, so they have like a full-crunch, cross-functional team as we know, and we have all worked with, working, and they also mentioned that they are hiring more product managers as well, so they did a completely different way than some other companies like OpenAI and a lot of other startups and mid-sized companies. So, you know, there's not one way to figure things out, there's not one way to do things, you know. If you have more product managers, their work is going to be a lot more focusing on the users and working on projects, and so on. In other cases, you need engineers to be more like that. So yeah, the way I see it is, you know, the understanding of the product, understanding of the customers, understanding of the users, no matter if you're an engineer or a product manager, it's going to be important. It's more and more important. You can't just, you know, be building things. These days is a lot more cheaper than it was before, and knowing what to build is more important than ever, right? Yeah, I think that's a hundred percent. A big part of it is we need to be investing more in the question of how do we figure out what to build, because the time to build, once you know that, is shrinking.

All right, next question I think is also a good one. If nobody is an engineering manager, who is helping you grow past your blind spots? Yeah, that's a really good question, and I think a lot of people are asking, you know, what's actually happening now that we have ICT ratio being increased? The problem I see with this is that, yeah, a lot of the engineers are kind of like, have a lot less one-to-one meetings with the manager, and so there's a lot less growth plans. There's a lot less of, you know, this is what you need to do in order to grow to the next step. So there's a lot bigger expectations of you need to figure out and own your career growth yourself. That's even been true before, but now it's getting to the way that it's in a lot bigger level. So that's my recommendation as well. Don't wait for someone to tell you, you know, this is what you need to do in order to grow. But try to find them being proactive on finding out things that are going to be, you know, valuable to you, and also to the company, organization, to the team, and so on. But like as I mentioned, we're turning back to example with Antropic. They still have a lot of these practices that we all know that companies do. They have like one manager per team with two pizza teams, five trade engineers, and they still do that. So I think some companies are going to stay with this approach. Some companies are going to move the other way around. I don't think there's one way to do it. One way to solve it is the best way. It's all about what kind of culture you have. And on the one side, you expect more from engineers to be very autonomous, self-managed. On the other side, it's more traditional. Yeah, I'll comment, and this is a little self-serving. The company that I work for, we provide coaching, human coaching, and we're seeing a lot of these companies like Antropic and others engaging more outside coaches to come help people learn and grow because they don't have the internal bandwidth to do it.

All right, next question. There are people who refuse to use AI, at least at the agentic level, keeping their mindset as if they were working before in AI. In your opinion, how do you deal with that kind of people in organizations? Yeah, I mentioned this combination of a junior engineer and a senior engineer working really well together, exactly for this reason. A lot of engineers are like this. It's also a good example why managers are very desirous to become ISIS once again, because managers' first instinct is to delegate and find people who are going to do it. And similar with ISIS engineering, you delegate to an agent, right? So that is the mentality shift that you need to make. A lot of engineers are, maybe they have an identity tied to a certain programming language or a certain framework, and they may feel like, okay, I'm really good at it. I'm going to do it myself. AI is not going to do it better than me. So it's all about the mentality shift you need to make and the way I see it is use it to your advantage. Don't stay in old ways. We all need to adjust to what's happening and also to be more productive as well. So yeah, my advice is to keep on learning. One of the great things about our industry is that it's an endless way of learning. There's always new things to learn. So that's my advice as well. If you like what you do, you always keep improving your craft and learn new things.

All right, we have time for one last question. We'll bring this one up. So the old skills, which I think we were talking about, more technical skills, are a lot easier to communicate and prove and show. And some of these newer, softer, more human skills, as they become more important, how do historically technical people track and showcase their impact internally and when talking with potential employers? Yeah, it's a really good question. You know, I've always been a fan of open-ended questions when doing a technical interview or doing a hiring manager interview, right? And I've always valued good communication from an engineer, from an engineering leader, and so on. So it's all about not what you say, but also how you say it, and the way you communicate things, the way you communicate your experience, the way you talk about what you do, what you're good at, how you think about problems. A lot of times, a lot of times it's not about that you have the best solution, it's about how you approach to the trade-offs, and how you approach to talking about a problem, how you approach to, you know, how you think about teamwork in general, how you think about working together with others inside the team, and so on. So yeah, try to be as clear as possible when you are on an interview. And at the same time, give examples of how you helped others, give examples of how you mentored others inside your team, give examples of how you lead the project from start to finish, and ensure that you focus on the business value as well. That is the key. The impact is always going to be very, very important. Yeah, that would be my advice.