“Engineers are becoming sorcerers” | The future of software development with OpenAI’s Sherwin Wu

Sherwin Wu leads engineering for OpenAI’s API platform, where roughly 95% of engineers use Codex, often working with fleets of 10 to 20 parallel AI agents.We discuss:1. What OpenAI did to cut code review times from 10-15 minutes to 2-3 minutes2. How AI is changing the role of managers3. Why the productivity gap between AI power users and everyone else is widening4. Why “models will eat your scaffolding for breakfast”5. Why the next 12 to 24 months are a rare window where engineers can leap ahead before the role fully transforms—Brought to you by:DX—The developer intelligence platform designed by leading researchersSentry—Code breaks, fix it fasterDatadog—Now home to Eppo, the leading experimentation and feature flagging platform—Episode transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/engineers-are-becoming-sorcerers—Archive of all Lenny's Podcast transcripts: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yxi4s2w998p1gvtpu4193/AMdNPR8AOw0lMklwtnC0TrQ?rlkey=j06x0nipoti519e0xgm23zsn9&st=ahz0fj11&dl=0—Where to find Sherwin Wu:• X: https://x.com/sherwinwu• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sherwinwu1—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Sherwin Wu(03:10) AI’s role in coding at OpenAI(06:53) The future of software engineering with AI(12:26) The stress of managing agents(15:07) Codex and code review automation(19:29) The changing role of engineering managers(24:14) The one-person billion-dollar startup(31:40) Management lessons(37:28) Challenges and best practices in AI deployment(43:56) Hot takes on AI and customer feedback(48:57) Building for future AI capabilities(50:16) Where models are headed in the next 18 months(53:35) Business process automation(57:22) OpenAI’s ecosystem and platform strategy(01:00:50) OpenAI’s mission and global impact(01:05:21) Building on OpenAI’s API and tools(01:08:16) Lightning round and f