If your engineers are threatened by AI tooling, you've got the wrong engineers.
The best startup engineers thrive with it. Not because they're chasing hype — because they already understood something most people are only now figuring out: the code was never the point.
It's always been about solving problems for customers. The code is just how you get there. AI makes that faster. If you care about the destination, that's good news.
The engineers who struggle are the ones attached to writing code — not building solutions. That's fine at a big company with time to spare. It's a liability at a startup where every week matters.
Three things that matter now
Can you actually test this thing? Automated tests let you move fast without everything catching fire.
Can AI tools read the codebase? If your structure is a mess, AI can't help. It'll just hallucinate.
How fast can you ship? Slow deploys kill momentum. And momentum is everything when you're trying to get somewhere.
The bit most teams miss: QA
It sits right in the middle — between CI and CD. And it's the actual job now. Engineers aren't responsible for how the code was written anymore. They're responsible for what ships. That's not a process change. That's culture.
Get those pieces in place with a small team who genuinely care about outcomes — not just ticking off specs — and you'll outpace teams twice your size.
Your job as the founder? Make sure everyone's pointed at the right problem. Because going fast in the wrong direction is worse than going slow.