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The spotless repo tells me almost nothing now. Everyone's codebase…

The spotless repo tells me almost nothing now. Everyone's codebase looks the same. Everyone can build an API. AI made sure of that. So I had to ask myself: when I hire my first engineer, what am I actually assessing? I was walking around my garden, coffee in hand, turning this over. Then it came back to a conversation with my mentor. He snapped it into focus. The old question was "can they build it?" The new question is "can they think, decide, and direct AI?" That adjustment needs to happen now. Not when you're already mid-hire and have got it wrong. What I'd actually want to see from an engineer today: Can you identify the problem clearly? Can you articulate it? Can you make good decisions under uncertainty? Can you collaborate effectively with AI agents? Most people aren't building anymore. They're getting AI to build for them. That's not a criticism. That's the reality. So when someone hands me a clean repo they didn't really write, I'm not impressed or unimpressed. I'm just uninterested in the repo entirely. The conversation about how they got there tells me everything. Six years in, VP of Engineering at my own startup. Given the choice, I'd hire the engineer who can explain every decision in a commit over the one with the spotless repo they can't account for. -- Repost it to your network and follow for more. James Goddard, Co-founder & VP of Engineering Powered by Agent Craft