Stay Ahead of the Curve
Latest AI news, expert analysis, bold opinions, and key trends — delivered to your inbox.
Spotify’s Top Engineers Have Stopped Writing Code — AI Is Doing It
3 min read Spotify says some of its best developers haven’t written code since December, relying instead on an internal AI system powered by Claude Code to generate, fix, and deploy features. The company credits AI with accelerating product development and shipping dozens of updates in 2025 — signaling a major shift in how software engineering work is done. February 13, 2026 11:35
At Spotify, some of the company’s best developers haven’t written a single line of code in months.
Not because they stopped building.
But because AI is doing most of the typing.
During its earnings call, Spotify revealed that engineers are now using an internal AI system called “Honk,” powered in part by Claude Code, to generate, fix, and deploy code — sometimes directly from Slack on their phones.
Yes, from their commute.
An engineer can message AI to fix a bug or add a feature, receive an updated build, and push it to production — all before getting to the office.
What’s Happening
Spotify says this AI-driven workflow helped ship over 50 new features in 2025 alone, including AI-powered playlists and new audiobook tools.
The shift isn’t just about speed. It’s about redefining what “engineering” means.
Developers are becoming:
-
Reviewers
-
Architects
-
Decision-makers
AI is becoming the executor.
Why This Matters
If top engineers aren’t writing code anymore, we may have crossed a tipping point.
The skill is no longer “how fast can you code?”
It’s “how well can you direct AI?”
And if this model scales, it could:
-
Shrink traditional dev timelines
-
Change hiring criteria
-
Redefine entry-level engineering roles
The Bigger Insight
Spotify also hinted at something deeper: data advantage.
While AI models can commoditize general knowledge, Spotify believes music taste, listening behavior, and cultural nuance are harder to replicate. That proprietary dataset becomes the moat.
AI writes the code.
Data wins the game.
AI Agents