A few days ago I sent an open letter to all Renuo employees. It is a personal message about where I think our profession is heading in the age of LLM-based tools, and what I expect from each of us as a result.

The core of it is simple. AI will bring us more work than it takes away, but it raises the bar: writing good code is no longer enough, it is the foundation. The future belongs to software engineering in the broadest sense, which means understanding what an application truly needs, mastering paradigms, algorithms, data structures, databases, project and client management, and the pragmatism to balance cost, speed, and quality.

I ask everyone to embrace these tools, learn their limits, and know exactly when they are indispensable, when they are merely useful, and when they get in the way. And above all, I insist that none of this can come at the expense of the quality we deliver to our clients.

I am sharing the full letter below, unchanged.

About Renuo and our approach to AI

Dear colleagues,

in the last few months, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably noticed that the landscape of LLM-based tools has improved significantly. It seems like just yesterday that at Renuo we were wondering whether autocomplete via Copilot should be restricted or promoted within the company, and now we have swarms of agents that can create entire applications. Slop ones, but still…

Since 2024, we’ve been wondering how AI will influence the way we work, and whether we’ll still be able to continue in the profession we love. I remember talking to my father-in-law in 2024, telling him that before selling the vineyards, he should teach me the job: the possibility that most of our work could be automated was real, and perhaps Renuo would disappear within a few months.

Two years later, I can say with certainty that, like all technological innovations, this one - the greatest innovation in our field over the past 20 years - will bring us more work than it takes away. If you haven’t read my thoughts on the current situation, you can find an article on the Renuo blog. No one will lose their job “because of” AI: these fantastic tools still can’t go very far without an engineer to guide them effectively.

But a software engineer, in 2026, absolutely must be familiar with these technologies. There’s no way anyone at Renuo doesn’t know how to make the most of these tools. There are certain skills that are indispensable in our profession: some of us are just starting out on this path and will have the opportunity to go deeper into all aspects of Software Engineering at university, but for many others, the only way to stay current is to study. Study! Go back and read the most important books on Software Engineering because they have always been important and will be even more so in the years to come.

If, until now, you could have had a future in this profession because you wrote a lot of good code, that is no longer enough: it is the foundation. it is the beginning, but certainly not the end. The future lies in Software Engineering. It lies in knowing exactly what an application needs, and this goes far beyond writing code: paradigms, algorithms, data structures, and databases. Experience in project management. Pragmatism to achieve the right balance between cost, speed, and quality. Client management, requirements, recognizing when removing something is better than adding it.

I am equally convinced that it is essential for each of us to embrace these new technologies and learn to use them. If nothing else, to understand their limitations.

I expect each of us to know how to manage and use these new tools to the best of our ability. I expect each of us to know exactly when they are indispensable, when they are simply useful or supportive, and when they are an impediment. I expect that following a period of divergence, a period of convergence will follow, where Renuo will succeed in finding the right balance and the right way to integrate these new tools into our well-established processes. This applies not only to developers, but also to designers and Product Owners. Dozens of new tools become available to us every day, and some are truly valuable.

At the same time, let no one think that integrating these tools will lead to a decline in the quality of our work. Let’s be honest: there are definitely two levels of quality! When I work for a client, the level of attention to quality is certainly higher than what I put into my own small personal project. It has always been this way for me in the past, and it still is today. There is a place to experiment, play, explore, and have fun, and another where you put your knowledge into practice 100% and give your best. But here’s the thing: I expect 100% from each of us and the utmost attention to the quality of what we produce for our clients. If our clients don’t receive work of the highest quality, there is no future.

Experiment! Try! Play! Change the way you think and work! By doing this, Claude will not be able to replace you.

Cheers,