The New Team: What Product Teams Look Like When Code Is Automated

This article by Andrew Giffen argues that automated code generation fundamentally restructures software team composition. The core framework identifies a 'scarcity shift'—traditional teams organized around code being expensive and slow, but as that constraint disappears, coordination infrastructure like sprint planning, story points, and handoff chains becomes unnecessary overhead. Giffen proposes a Three-Person Model replacing larger squads: a visionary PM with technical fluency, a designer focused on user delight, and a senior architect ensuring system coherence.

The article traces role evolution across the team: senior engineers elevate to architects, junior engineering work compresses, PMs and designers become builders themselves, and junior PMs face pressure to develop deeper customer insight. The central tension is that 'strategy becomes the scarce resource' since without engineering capacity constraints filtering priorities, teams risk feature bloat without disciplined strategic direction.