Presenters

Source

🚀 Stop Adopting AI, Start Transforming How You Work: Lessons from Coinbase 💡

The hype around AI is everywhere. But are we truly harnessing its power, or just slapping fancy tools onto existing, inefficient workflows? Chintan, Senior Director of Engineering at Coinbase, delivered a powerful message at a recent tech conference: it’s not about adopting AI, it’s about changing how you work to unlock its potential. Drawing on his experience building Coinbase Wallet and Base, and spurred by the impending impact of Proof of Work 2025, Chintan argues that velocity is the ultimate moat, and achieving it requires a fundamental shift in mindset and processes.

🎯 The Problem: Legacy Systems & The “Excuse” Trap 🚧

Let’s be honest, many organizations face significant hurdles when it comes to AI adoption. Legacy codebases, complex stakeholder management, and painfully slow CI pipelines (Chintan cited one example taking a whopping 40 minutes to fail) are all too common. But Chintan doesn’t see these as insurmountable obstacles – he sees them as excuses. His message is clear: “adapt or die.” In today’s rapidly evolving tech landscape, velocity is king.

🛠️ Coinbase’s Velocity-Focused Transformation: A Data-Driven Success Story 🌐

Coinbase isn’t just talking about AI; they’re doing it. And their approach is refreshingly practical and data-driven. They’ve focused on accelerating workflows and achieving tangible results, moving beyond simply using tools like Cloud and Cursor. Here’s a glimpse of their impressive progress:

  • Agent Coordination is Key: Coinbase is prioritizing agent coordination and ambient agents for all engineers.
  • Mind-Blowing Speed Improvements:
    • Ticket to PR: Reduced from a staggering 8 days to just 12 minutes!
    • Code Merge: Shrunk from 168 hours to a mere 16 hours.
    • Ticket to Production: Dramatically reduced from 8 days to just 1.7 days (for both Android & iOS).
  • AI-Powered Contributions: A remarkable 20% of their commits now originate from ambient agents.
  • Rapid Feedback Loops: They built a custom mobile app to capture live customer feedback and automatically generate bug fixes, slashing the process from days/weeks to a lightning-fast 10 minutes.

✨ Key Shifts & Strategies for AI Success 👨‍💻

So, how did Coinbase achieve these incredible results? Chintan outlined several crucial shifts:

  • Ditch Adoption Metrics: Stop obsessing over AI usage numbers and lines of code. These metrics can be misleading and incentivize superficial adoption. Instead, track token usage as a general proxy for experimentation.
  • Sell Relief, Not Tools: Focus on demonstrating the tangible benefits of AI – how it alleviates pain points and makes engineers’ lives easier.
  • Show, Don’t Tell: Mandating AI usage is a recipe for resistance. Instead, create “holy moments” – compelling demonstrations of AI’s power that inspire organic adoption.
  • Embrace “Super Builders”: Create dedicated roles for engineers whose sole responsibility is to accelerate team velocity and build new AI-powered tools and workflows. Coinbase has seen a 50x faster velocity with this approach.
  • Context is King: Consolidate all relevant context in a central location (Coinbase uses Linear) to make it readily accessible to AI agents. This is crucial for effective agent performance.
  • Break Down Bureaucracy: Ruthlessly eliminate unnecessary meetings, approvals, and coordination overhead. These bottlenecks can negate the benefits of AI.
  • Celebrate “Slop”: Accept that implementing AI will initially disrupt existing systems and create new challenges. Embrace the chaos as part of the learning process.

📡 Future Focus: A Human-AI Partnership 🤖

Chintan believes that foundational models will continue to improve, but the real opportunity lies in adapting the game of work itself. he envisions a future where developers focus on solving complex, strategic problems, while AI agents handle routine tasks. This leads to parallel roadmaps for human and agent work, creating a powerful synergy.

Technologies & Tools Mentioned:

  • Coinbase Wallet
  • Base App
  • Proof of Work
  • Qualcomm
  • Uber
  • Cloud
  • Cursor
  • Linear
  • Slack
  • DataDog MCPS
  • GitHub
  • Anthropic

Ultimately, Chintan’s message is a call to action: AI isn’t a tool to be adopted; it’s a catalyst for a fundamental cultural shift. It’s a move towards a system where humans and AI agents work together, unlocking unprecedented velocity and transforming the way we build software. Are you ready to embrace the change? 🚀

Appendix