AI acceleration only landed because our codebase was ready for it
For my team, the rise of AI assistance coincided perfectly with our codebase having been wrangled into an admirable state. Most denormalized data structures had been untangled and properly normalized. The same was true of many inherited architectural missteps.
My architects and developers, who began skeptical, quickly learned when and how AI could act as a genuine accelerator. I was learning to incorporate it into my non-coding work as well, moving faster through the mundane.
Those high-velocity conditions didn’t last long, but the experience shaped us. My cofounders and I embraced our path forward in software development. It reinforced that our obsession with business analysis and solid architecture was more valuable than ever.
I’ll always be proud of what we built, but as it winks out of existence, the lasting value is how it prepared me.
Jessie Grenfell
Jessie has spent 20+ years architecting and delivering software for organizations where complexity is the norm — financial services, insurance, nonprofits, and regulated industries where getting it wrong isn't an option. She specializes in the hard problems: unique operational workflows, cross-system integrations, and the kind of compliance requirements (HIPAA, CCPA, SOC 2) that most developers treat as someone else's job.
At Codality, she leads every principal engagement from discovery through delivery — because she's seen what happens when that thread gets cut.