Wu: AI will enable engineering managers to manage far more than 6-8 engineers
Sherwin Wu · OpenAI’s head of platform engineering on the next 12-24 months of AI | Sherwin Wu · Feb 12, 2026 · at 22:08
Sherwin Wu, Head of Platform Engineering at OpenAI, predicts how AI context and research tools will increase engineering management span of control.
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“My sense is I think managers will be able to manage much larger teams in this world. Kind of like how, you know, like software engineers are managing 20 to 30 codexes. My sense of these tools will allow managers, people manage to be higher leverage and will allow them to manage, you know, teams of, Way more than the current best practice of, I think it's like six to eight, right? For software engineering.”
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