Annie Vella

Annie Vella is a Distinguished Engineer at Westpac NZ, software engineering leader, and University of Auckland Master’s researcher studying the impact of AI coding assistants on software engineering work, developer experience, productivity, and the future of engineering craft.

AI Engineering Must Preserve Craft as Work Shifts to Verification

At AI Engineer Melbourne, Jeremy Howard, Annie Vella and Mic Neale each argued against treating AI adoption as an automatic productivity upgrade. Howard warned that coding tools can simulate autonomy and flow while eroding mastery; Vella presented research showing engineers feel more productive even as parts of developer experience deteriorate; and Neale made the case for pooling idle edge devices as an alternative to defaulting all inference to centralized, metered infrastructure.

AI EngineerJun 4, 202619 min read