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From Squads to Soloists: RIP the Engineering Team

#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!

Watch Recording
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