The Velocity Lab

Who Leads Your AI Transformation?

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Episode Summary

A client asked Dave and Dan a deceptively simple question: "What should we call the job title for the person who leads our AI engineering transformation?" The answer surprised them — it's not a new role. It's a Principal Engineer. In this episode, they break down exactly what that means, why the best candidate hasn't written a line of code in the last six months, and how to interview for it.

Key Topics

  • Why there's no new job title — agentic engineering isn't a sliver of your org, it's the whole thing. The role is Principal or Distinguished Engineer, full stop.
  • The counterintuitive hiring criterion — you want someone who's written code for 10–20 years but hasn't written a line in the last six months. They've already built the trust with AI systems to let go.
  • DHH and Linus flipped — both publicly opposed AI-generated code; now it's in Rails and the Linux kernel. The holdouts have adapted. So should you.
  • Why rewrites almost always fail — Dave and Dan's take on migrations: the first 80% is easy, the last 20% kills the project, and you end up with something just as messy as what you started with.
  • The interview process has changed — don't ask them to write code. Ask them to show you the system they built to build code. "If you built it by coding, you're not a good candidate."
  • Management is in the way — autonomy and agency are what make senior engineers succeed. Micromanagement is the fastest way to lose the person you just hired.

    • Notable Quotes

    • "If you built it by coding, you're not a good candidate."
    • "Your job nowadays is to not just build that system, but to constantly improve that system. You're building, maintaining, and improving a system that's building stuff for you — that is your job."
    • "It's game over guys. You need to adapt if you haven't already."

      • About The Velocity Lab

      Dave O'Dell and Dan McAulay work inside engineering organizations every day helping them ship faster with AI. No hype, no BS — just what's working in the field.

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      The Velocity LabBy Dave O'Dell and Dan McAulay