Episode 525: How do I save my company of 500 people and my new company is insane with AI

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hey Dave and Jamison, First, I love your show and it has now been part of my Monday evening routine for many years to listen to your podcast while cooking dinner.

   I recently joined a mid-sized software company (500 people) as a senior data engineer. The salary is a significant bump from my previous job and I really like the team on a personal level. Three months after I joined, the company laid off half its employees and announced a strategic pivot away from their previous core business to become an “AI-first company” and develop new products in novel, more profitable sectors. The product that my team had been working on until that point was scrapped and there are no new projects coming from the business side. In subsequent communications, it was revealed why: Management has no concrete ideas for the future strategy, neither on what products to develop nor on which sectors to target. Instead, our team (among others) is now tasked with coming up with new product ideas to “save the company”. I’m a data engineer, not a business development manager, and while I have dealt with high ambiguity from the business side in previous roles, it was never this extreme.

   I was looking forward to working on interesting technical challenges within a great, experienced team, but now I feel like I’m expected to become an “idea guy”, a role that doesn’t really match my personality. My question is: Should I be patient and try to turn this situation into “an opportunity for growth”, or should I start applying elsewhere? I’m a bit worried that the short length of stay at this company will leave a stain on my CV.

   Many thanks to my favorite space lawyers, an anonymous listener.

2. Hi!

   My current job is at a 10k+ large risk-adverse company that currently has nil, none, nada, nichts ai tools available for coding. I of course did the only reasonable thing. I’ve gotten a new job at a middle-sized fintech company that’s going ”AI first”.

   I’m really excited about finally using ai outside hobby projects. I worry however, that my future colleagues will go too quickly ahead while vibecoding, vibearchitecting, vibetesting… leaving a mountain of tech debt behind. A lazy colleague would actually be better than an intellectually lazy colleague in this scenario. (I sincerely hope that I won’t be that coworker)

   Are my worries overblown or sane? Any gotch’as to avoid? Maybe you can give a brief survival guide to the brave new AI world?