Roman Nikolaev is Head of Technology at Cambri, a Nordic research tech company whose AI-first platform helps global brands like Nestlé and Coca-Cola test product concepts before launch. He's also the author of High Impact Engineering, a Substack newsletter on practical, field-tested guidance for engineering leaders. Roman has been building and scaling software teams for over 20 years — and Cambri started working with AI and ML well before the ChatGPT moment made it mainstream.

In this conversation, we discuss:

1. Why 65% AI tooling adoption only produced 10% more PR throughput — and what the GetDx data actually tells us
2. The "building on a swamp" problem: why applying AI on top of a broken development process gives you almost no upside
3. Whether the software engineering profession is going away — and the car mechanic analogy that reframes the question
4. How Cambry is running semi-automated agent workflows right now, with agents picking up tickets, asking questions, and raising PRs
5. MCP servers worth paying attention to: Figma, Chrome/Chromium, and what Roman would actually build with them
6. Why every engineer is now effectively a manager — and the two constraints that stop anyone from being a one-person company

Roman's Details:
High Impact Engineering newsletter - https://highimpactengineering.substack.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roman-nikolaev-43465019/