Software Is Still a Team Sport
An interview with Kaitlyn Lesse, head of platform engineering at Anthropic.
I found this very interesting. I think software is still a team sport and as a conversational thinker I still believe the best software comes out of a team of people working together, bouncing ideas off each other, learning and building together.
Throughout our conversation with Katelyn, one point she mentioned many times is the following:
Many aspects of software development haven’t changed, and likely don’t need to change, even as AI becomes deeply integrated into engineering teams.
Therefore, that’s exactly the case in the Anthropics team structure. They still use the traditional 2-pizza cross-functional team structure, with 5-8 engineers in the team, an engineering manager leading the team, a PM, and a designer as part of the team.
The reasoning for it is the following: Teams still need enough people to build, operate, and maintain systems over time. Ownership, reliability, and shared knowledge are crucial, regardless of how much AI is involved. The difference is just that AI gives everyone significantly more leverage.