#34 Meetup | Jan 22, 2026
From Squads to Soloists: RIP the Engineering Team

From 8-person squads to micro-teams of one.
Meet your new team: Sam (Coding), Jen (Review), and Pat (Stories). They are AI agents. They don't need lunch breaks.
In 2026, the engineer is a "Soloist" who ships the whole thing. But what happens to the leadership structures we’ve spent decades building?
We are putting the new org chart on the table:
🤖 The Agent Economy: If your team is mostly non-human, what is left for the Engineering Manager to manage?
👥 The Soloist Reality: Is the "100x Engineer" feasible in enterprise, or just a startup fantasy?
💻 The Missing Rungs: If AI writes the boilerplate, how do we train the next generation of Staff Engineers?
Our speakers:
🧠 Yoav Shmaria - VP R&D, SaaS Platform @ Similarweb
🧠 Sara Maldon – Head of AI Automation & Transformation @ Make
🧠 Petr Kubelka – Engineering Manager @ Mews
10-minute lightning talks followed by a panel discussion and legendary networking!