About the event

AI is starting to change far more than individual developer productivity. It’s changing the shape of engineering teams, the skills we hire for, how we measure performance, how organisations are structured and, ultimately, what we need from engineering leaders.

But if we were designing our engineering organisations from scratch today, knowing what we know about AI, what would we do differently?

Join Simon Evans and a small group of senior engineering leaders for an invite-only roundtable exploring what the AI-native engineering organisation could look like, and how leadership needs to evolve alongside it.

Rather than focusing on the latest tools, we’ll look beyond the immediate productivity gains and discuss the bigger organisational questions AI is creating for CTOs, VPs and Engineering Directors.

What we'll discuss:

How does the role of the engineering leader change?

As more implementation becomes automated, where should engineering leaders be spending their time? We’ll explore whether technical judgement, architecture, strategy and organisational design become more valuable, and which leadership skills will matter most in an AI-native environment.

What does the AI-native engineering team look like?

Will teams become smaller? Do traditional Frontend, Backend and Platform boundaries still make sense? Do we need fewer engineers, or simply different skillsets? And what happens to Staff and Principal Engineers as AI takes on more of the implementation work?

We’ll also discuss how the relationship between Product and Engineering could evolve as the way we build software changes.

What would we design differently if we started again?

Imagine you were building a 50-person engineering organisation from scratch today.

How would you approach team structures, hiring profiles, career ladders, management layers, engineering processes, architecture and performance metrics differently from the organisations we’ve spent the last 20 years building?

How do we develop the next generation of engineers?

If AI increasingly handles the entry-level implementation work that helped previous generations develop their engineering fundamentals, what does that mean for junior engineers?

We’ll discuss how organisations can develop future Senior, Staff and Principal Engineers, what progression might look like in an AI-native environment and whether today's engineering career ladders are still fit for purpose.

The big question

Are the engineering organisations we've spent the last 20 years learning how to build designed for a world that no longer exists?

This will be an open, peer-led discussion designed to bring together senior engineering leaders to compare what they're already seeing within their organisations, challenge assumptions about what comes next and share how they're thinking about the future of engineering leadership.

Places are limited to keep the discussion focused and give everyone around the table the opportunity to contribute.

If you're keen to find out more, drop Simon Evans, Senior Director a message.

About the series

These roundtables are run by Simon, who leads our Engineering Leadership practice. Across the year, he brings together engineering leaders from some of the UK and Europe’s most interesting tech-driven businesses to share real experiences, challenges and approaches.

Previous sessions have covered topics including product engineering, scaling teams, and the practical realities of AI adoption.

You can explore highlights and insights from past sessions here:
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