Cisco Expands Engineering Team as AI Transforms Developer Roles

Cisco is growing its engineering team as AI boosts productivity and shifts focus to creativity and agent management.

It's no secret that engineers' roles are evolving and, in certain situations, becoming fewer. Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s president and chief product officer, told Business Insider that the situation is different at Cisco — at least for now. “The company has 27,000 engineers and is hiring more without apology,” he claimed.

They feel more limited than ever because they don't have enough engineers to prosecute all of the ideas they have in-house, Patel said. However, Patel acknowledges that the role of engineers will be redefined by AI breakthroughs. Recently, Cisco and OpenAI collaborated on design testing for their new Codex AI coding helper, which handles repetitive jobs and can write code, repair problems, and run tests.

Patel claimed that Codex would allow companies to pair human software engineers with AI developers. Patel explained that while there may be less focus on coding syntax in the coming years, having a solid grasp of its nuances will still be important. He stated that this particular skill is unlikely to hold much significance over the next five years. Two other skills, which are severely undervalued, will be prioritized, the CPO told BI.

Patel mentioned that one key skill will be the ability to manage and coordinate agent workflows. This will mean overseeing a whole family of agents who interact with each other to ensure that problems are resolved. Likewise, Lori Castillo Martinez, Salesforce’s EVP of talent growth and development, previously told BI that understanding which tasks are better suited for humans versus agents is now more critical than ever. The best managers, in her opinion, can evaluate teams and maximize productivity.