Is This Sustainable?

A principal engineer reflects on how AI has fundamentally reshaped his role over three years, making it faster to build working prototypes but creating new bottlenecks in organizational alignment and coordination across teams. While AI tools have eliminated lengthy proposal processes and enabled quicker demos, the shift has inadvertently increased the burden of coordinating between multiple teams now capable of building competing solutions, and has created an unequal advantage favoring engineers who effectively adopt AI tools over those who don't.