I had a conversation with a fellow tech founder (Running a $Bn+ val Series D robotics company currently) recently on AI assisted coding tools.
We have both been using or integrating AI code support tools since they became available and both writing code (usually Python) for 20+ years.
We both agree that windsurf + claude is our default IDE/Env now on. We also agree that for all future projects we think we can likely cut the number of engineers needed by 1/3rd.
Based on what I’ve been using for the last year professionally (copilot) and on the side, I’m confident I could build faster, better and with less effort with 5 engineers and AI tools as with 10 or 15. Also communication overhead reduces by 3x which prevents slowdowns.
So if I have a HA 5 layer stack application (fe, be, analytics, train/inference, networking/data mgt) with IPCs between them, instead of one senior and two juniors per process for a total of 15 people, I only need the 5 mid-seniors now.
We have both been using or integrating AI code support tools since they became available and both writing code (usually Python) for 20+ years.
We both agree that windsurf + claude is our default IDE/Env now on. We also agree that for all future projects we think we can likely cut the number of engineers needed by 1/3rd.
Based on what I’ve been using for the last year professionally (copilot) and on the side, I’m confident I could build faster, better and with less effort with 5 engineers and AI tools as with 10 or 15. Also communication overhead reduces by 3x which prevents slowdowns.
So if I have a HA 5 layer stack application (fe, be, analytics, train/inference, networking/data mgt) with IPCs between them, instead of one senior and two juniors per process for a total of 15 people, I only need the 5 mid-seniors now.