Welcome back to I'm a Software Engineer, What Next? The podcast for devs figuring out their next move. Hosted by James Wilson and Matt Sinclair, we talk honestly about what it takes to build a meaningful career in tech.Part two of the two-parter, and this time it's the company. Last week James told engineers to get AI-pilled. This week he turns to the companies that did the same thing, and why joining one in 2026 might be the riskiest line on an engineer's CV in 2027.In this episode, we cover:- The two extremes to avoid: "we don't need engineers anymore" and "this doesn't work and we're not going to use it"- Always seek counterfactuals: the one question to ask a company, "what was the last thing you did with AI that didn't work?", and what good and bad answers sound like- Why not every software engineer knows how to use AI responsibly, from passwords checked into Git to framework code edited to make a test pass- Taste: knowing what good looks like when the pond of output has become an ocean- Careerminds' survey of 600 HR leaders: nearly a third spent more restaffing than their layoffs saved- Headlines that didn't survive the details: Klarna's AI assistant doing the equivalent work of 700 full-time agents- Forrester's prediction that half of AI-attributed layoffs will be quietly reversed, with jobs returning offshore or at lower wages- Why judgement is coming back, and the case for strong opinions, weakly held- Generalists or specialists? Matt expects more demand for generalists; James says you still have to prove you've gone deep on something- Business model innovation versus genuine technology innovation, and how much of today's "AI" is the first kind- No more chief electricity officers: will "AI-pilled company" still mean anything once the extremes fade?🗒️ Show NotesCareerminds, "AI-led layoffs: What HR leaders wish they knew before making job cuts": https://careerminds.com/blog/cost-of-ai-layoffsForrester, "Predictions 2026: The Workforce Muddles Through Ambient Disruption": https://www.forrester.com/blogs/future-of-work-predictions-2026-whats-coming-for-work-and-the-workforce/Computerworld, "Forrester: Companies regret many AI-related layoffs": https://www.computerworld.com/article/4084372/analysts-companies-will-face-setbacks-after-ai-layoffs.htmlKlarna, "Klarna AI assistant handles two-thirds of customer service chats in its first month": https://www.klarna.com/international/press/klarna-ai-assistant-handles-two-thirds-of-customer-service-chats-in-its-first-month/Bloomberg, "Klarna Turns From AI to Real Person Customer Service": https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-08/klarna-turns-from-ai-to-real-person-customer-serviceFortune on Aaron Levie, "Silicon Valley layoffs are proof that tech CEOs are suffering from 'AI psychosis,' Box CEO says": https://fortune.com/2026/05/29/box-ceo-aaron-levie-ai-psychosis-jobs-layoffs/layoffs.fyi, "Tech layoffs tracker": https://layoffs.fyi/Jeff Bezos on one-way and two-way doors, "2015 Letter to Shareholders": https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/annual/2015-Letter-to-Shareholders.PDFMatt Sinclair, "What We Let Machines Do": https://matthewsinclair.com/blog/0186-what-we-let-machines-doMatt Sinclair, "The Time Cost of How Is Zero": https://matthewsinclair.com/blog/0194-the-time-cost-of-how-is-zeroMatt Sinclair, "The Expanding Pie (and the Cleanup Bill)": https://matthewsinclair.com/blog/0197-the-expanding-pie-and-the-cleanup-bill🎙 HostsMatt: https://matthewsinclair.comMatt: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewsinclair/James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-wilson-92170656/🌐 More from us:https://whatnext.dev/https://quantumfaxmachine.com/

Are AI-pilled engineers the most in-demand people in tech, and also the most exhausted? James and Matt dig into agentic coding, running multiple AI agents, burnout, and what AI-native hiring and interviews now look like for software engineers.

Part one of two.

🎙 Hosts Matt: https://matthewsinclair.com

Matt: linkedin.com/in/matthewsinclair/

James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-wilson-92170656/

🌐 More from us: https://whatnext.dev/

https://quantumfaxmachine.com/

Welcome back to I'm a Software Engineer, What Next? The podcast for devs figuring out their next move. Hosted by James Wilson and Matt Sinclair, we talk honestly about what it takes to build a meaningful career in tech.

Season one is done. Season two kicks off a little differently: shorter, looser episodes with just Matt and James in between the usual guests, each one built around a topic that's on a lot of engineers' minds right now. First up, the line doing the rounds: management is a one-way door. James isn't convinced it's true. Matt turned up with three reasons it was never the door everyone thinks it is.

In this episode, we cover:

• Span of control going from a "big" 7–12 to Facebook's 20, now reportedly aiming at 50, and what that does to the org chart
• The shift from pyramid to hourglass, and why the middle is getting gutted instead of the bottom
• ICs out-earning managers (the reported average salary at Anthropic is $750k; UK junior starting salaries near £240k)
• "The cost of readmission": why agentic coding makes the door back to IC cheaper than it used to be
• The super IC: Matt doing five-to-six people's worth of work solo since September, and the one scaling question he still can't answer
• Why the real risk of agentic coding isn't that you can't code, it's that you can't tell what's good
• The tax bomb nobody's pricing in: gut the highly paid middle and a chunk of government revenue goes with it
• Why Matt is building micro-businesses for his 20 and 21 year old kids instead of sending them job hunting

Show NotesCharity Majors, "Engineering Management: The Pendulum or the Ladder": https://charity.wtf/2019/01/04/engineering-management-the-pendulum-or-the-ladder/Matt on LLM-powered programming as a mech suit: https://matthewsinclair.com/blog/0178-why-llm-powered-programming-is-more-mech-suit-than-artificial-human

HostsMatt: https://matthewsinclair.comJames: linkedin.com/in/james-wilson-92170656

More from us:https://whatnext.dev/https://quantumfaxmachine.com/