AI Coding Agents: How Engineers 10x Their Output

In this episode of Shipping Excellence, Andrew Duncan sits down with Aram Hammoudeh, a Principal AI-Native Engineer at Vertice Labs, to explore how AI coding agents are transforming the way software gets built.

Aram shares what it feels like to go from “grunt developer” to directing a team of AI agents, how tools like Cursor, Copilot, and Claude accelerate delivery, and why the real role of engineers today is shifting toward strategy, architecture, and orchestration.

We cover:

• How AI coding agents give engineers 10x productivity gains
• The difference between GPT-4.0 and GPT-5 in real development work
• Why AI is best thought of as a “junior developer” you can delegate to
• How MCP servers and Linear integrations automate project management
• Guardrails and feedback loops that keep AI-generated code reliable
• The mindset engineers need to thrive in an AI-native world

Whether you’re a technical leader, founder, or engineer in the trenches, this conversation shows what it really looks like to deliver production-ready software with AI agents as part of the team.