What happens when AI stops being a coding assistant and starts becoming part of the engineering team?

In this episode of AI-First Engineering, Jon Robinson, Head of Market Development at TestGrid, talks with Piyush Tiwari, Senior Software Engineering Manager at Wayfair, about how AI agents are changing the way software gets built and what that means for the engineers building it.

Piyush shares how his team has moved beyond traditional AI copilots. Instead of engineers simply using AI to write code, agents can now pick up a user story, work through it end-to-end, and bring an engineer in for review. The engineer's role starts to shift from being the person executing every task to becoming the director working with the agents.

But that shift creates a bigger question: if AI takes over the grunt work, how do the next generation of engineers develop the experience needed to become senior engineers?

Jon and Piyush explore:

• From copilots to agents: How AI has evolved from helping engineers write better code to executing work across the development lifecycle.
• The changing role of engineers: Why system understanding, judgment, and decision-making could become more important than writing code.
• The junior engineer problem: If engineers no longer learn through repetitive work, failures, and production incidents, how do they develop experience?
• AI as a learning partner: How pairing junior engineers with AI agents could create a new way to learn by reviewing and validating AI-generated work.
• What humans still need to own: Why final sign-offs, domain knowledge, edge cases, and understanding business and customer impact remain critical.
• The rise of the techno-functional engineer: Why understanding both technology and the business problem may matter more as AI gets better at execution.
• The economics of AI: Why organizations may need to become more selective about where they use AI as the cost of running increasingly capable models grows.
• Using AI deliberately: Why the next phase may not be about putting AI everywhere, but figuring out where it actually creates value.

AI is evolving quickly, and there is no established playbook for what comes next. As Piyush puts it, we are all learning in real time. The challenge now is figuring out how to embrace AI without losing the skills, judgment, and experience that make great engineers valuable.

Listen to Episode 5 of AI-First Engineering to hear where Piyush thinks software engineering is headed next.

#AI #AIAgents #SoftwareEngineering #EngineeringLeadership #SDLC #AIFirstEngineering #TestGrid

In Episode 4 of AI-First Engineering, Paresh Bhutada, Global Partner Manager from TestGrid sits down with Maneesh Agarwal, Director QA at Forsys, to explore how AI is reshaping Quality Engineering, QA roles, and the way modern teams work.

Maneesh is a quality engineering leader with extensive experience across manual testing, automation, and AI-driven testing. In this conversation, he shares his perspective on how QA professionals can adapt, where AI can take over repetitive work, and why human judgment, customer experience, and business context will remain critical.

The conversation explores:

• Why traditional QA teams may not be here to stay
• What AI should automate first
• Why human judgment and customer experience still matter
• How QA professionals can stay relevant
• What an AI-native Quality Engineering team could look like
• Whether 3 AI-enabled engineers could outperform 10 traditional QA engineers

🎙️ What Happens to QA When AI Joins the Team?

Host: Paresh Bhutada, Global Partner Manager, TestGrid
Guest: Maneesh Agarwal, Director QA, Forsys

Watch the full conversation and join the discussion on the future of Quality Engineering.

#AIFirstEngineering #QualityEngineering #AITesting #AIEngineering #EngineeringLeadership #TestGrid

Links
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github.com/SuneetMalhotra
linkedin.com/in/suneet-m

As AI-powered applications become more conversational and customer-facing, traditional software testing approaches are no longer enough. Engineering teams must now validate systems that generate non-deterministic responses, learn from interactions, and directly influence customer experiences.

In the first episode of AI-First Engineering, Deepanwita Kar, Sr. Director, Partnerships & Alliances at TestGrid, speaks with Chandrashekhar Patil, VP QA at redBus (MakeMyTrip), about the future of AI testing and quality engineering.

Together, they explore:

• Why testing AI systems is fundamentally different from testing traditional software

• The challenges of validating conversational AI and customer-facing AI applications

• How engineering teams can build confidence in AI-driven systems
  
• The role of trust, user experience, and human behavior in AI validation

• Practical advice for introducing AI validation into existing testing strategies

• What quality engineering could look like over the next five years

Whether you're an engineering leader, QA professional, AI practitioner, or technology executive, this episode offers valuable insights into building trustworthy AI-powered software.

Connect with TestGrid

🌐 Website: https://testgrid.io
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/testgridio

In this episode of AI-First Engineering, host Jon Robinson is joined by Peter Thompson to explore the human side of AI-driven engineering.

As AI becomes embedded across the software development lifecycle, engineering leaders face new challenges that go beyond tools and automation. How do you build trust in AI? How do leaders adapt? And what role will human judgment, culture, and collaboration play in the future of engineering?

Together, they discuss:

• Why people are often the biggest challenge in AI transformation
• How engineering leadership must evolve in an AI-first world
• The importance of culture and trust in AI adoption
• What successful AI-driven engineering organizations will look like
• Whether the future belongs to human skills, technical skills, or both

If you're an engineering leader, QA professional, software developer, or anyone navigating AI transformation, this episode offers valuable insights into building AI-first organizations where people and technology work together.

Guest: Peter Thompson
Host: Jon Robinson

AI-First Engineering is a podcast by TestGrid featuring conversations with engineering and technology leaders shaping the future of AI-driven software delivery.