In this episode of the Earley AI Podcast, host Seth Earley sits down with Yang Li, a leading figure in AI and software innovation. Yang is the Chief Operating Officer of Cosine, an advanced AI development firm, with deep experience driving startups, scaling organizations, and pioneering advancements in engineering and software development. Yang’s work focuses on leveraging AI to empower the next generation of developers, especially in navigating the increasingly complex landscape of modern and legacy codebases.

Yang and Seth dive into how AI is reshaping the role of software engineers, the evolving challenges of handling massive backlogs and legacy systems, and what creativity and efficiency really look like in an age of AI-powered software development.

Key Takeaways:

• AI’s Impact on Software Engineering: AI is shifting the developer’s role from hands-on coding to more creative, iterative, and strategic work.
• Tackling Legacy Code: Cosine is pioneering new ways for AI to handle outdated and complex codebases (like COBOL and Fortran) that most engineers—and AI models—struggle with.
• Augmenting, Not Replacing, Engineers: AI tools like Cosine’s Genie reduce ramp-up time for engineers, help address daunting backlogs, and act as creative partners rather than outright replacements.
• The Challenge of Benchmarks: Yang explains why public coding benchmarks can be misleading when bringing products to real-world enterprise environments, especially with diverse codebases.
• The Emergence of ‘Vibe Coding’: Idea-to-prototype time is shrinking, allowing non-technical team members to quickly bring their ideas to life using AI assistants.
• Risks & Limits: Over-reliance on AI, standardization versus differentiation, and the need for new evaluation criteria in engineering organizations.
• Future Skills: The importance of risk-taking, adaptability, and prompt engineering as software development evolves, plus insights into how organizations are rethinking career ladders and promotions in an AI-powered world.

Insightful Quote from Yang Li:

"Previously you had to use words and language to describe your idea, you can now show people your idea... The time between you having thought of an idea to actually be able to show people that idea has now reduced almost to zero because of vibe coding."

Tune in to discover what’s next for software engineering in the age of AI, and how to stay ahead in this rapidly changing landscape.

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