What does it take to run engineering at the heart of modern fintech? In this episode of Fintech Layer Cake, Imprint CTO Will Larson unpacks lessons from leading engineering teams at Stripe, Carta, Calm, Uber, and more. Will shares how fintech engineering differs from SaaS, the tradeoffs executives face when joining new companies, and why the art of leadership lies in balancing seemingly incompatible frameworks, moving fast while preserving reliability, innovating while managing legacy systems.

He also dives into the hype and reality of large language models (LLMs). Will explains why today’s “AI engineers” may simply be tomorrow’s product engineers, why prompt-crafting is more artisanal than strategic, and how agentic tools could redefine workflows. From the shifting expectations of tech executives over three decades to what really drives innovation inside scaling companies, this conversation is equal parts practical and forward-looking. For anyone navigating fintech engineering or curious about the future of AI in product development, Will offers a grounded perspective on what matters most.