QCon AI New York 2025

Session

AI Native Engineering

December 16–17, 2025 · The New York Academy of Medicine

Wednesday Dec 17 / 11:30AM EST · Hosack Hall, 1st Flr

Speaker

Ian Thomas

Software Engineer @Meta, QCon London 2024 PC Chair, Previously Technology Leader @Genesis Global

Full speaker profile

Abstract

Meta is making a big, public bet on AI - and not just in our products. Teams across the company are building new tools to leverage best-in-class models to enhance productivity, quality and understanding. As part of Horizon Experiences in Reality Labs, we have created a dedicated AI4P (AI For Productivity) programme to help teams effectively navigate the rapidly changing AI enhanced engineering  landscape. Our ambition is to help fulfil the vision of AI Native Engineering and this talk discusses what we’ve tried, what worked, what’s still to be proven and what we’ve discounted (at least for now).

We’ll discuss how we measure effectiveness of tools for our teams, how agentic AI has become part of our day to day coding activities and how standalone agents are working more like early career engineers than dumb machines. We’ll also talk about the leadership strategies employed to help people embrace and grow their understanding of the tools and associated techniques for optimal usage. Finally, we’ll look at how various platform integrations have led to step changes in output quality and engineer satisfaction.

Key Takeways

  • Learn how product teams in Reality labs are leveraging AI tooling to support and enhance the full Software Engineering Lifecycle
  • Understand how Engineering Excellence programmes hold the bar for quality, productivity and operational excellence, and the role that AI plays in raising that bar higher
  • Hear about the strategies and tactics teams are using to create a culture of AI Native Engineering and embrace this new era of software development