Krishna Sai, CTO at SolarWinds, joins The Tech Trek to talk about one of the biggest shifts happening inside IT and engineering teams: AI is moving people from operators to orchestrators.

The conversation goes beyond faster code and automation. Krishna explains why AI is changing how teams think about systems, governance, validation, observability, and the skills technical leaders will need as work moves from manual execution to higher level oversight.

Key Takeaways

• AI is raising the level of abstraction for IT and engineering teams. The work is shifting from operating systems manually to designing systems that can increasingly run, adapt, and respond on their own.

• AI does not automatically reduce workload. In many teams, it changes the type of work by moving effort from execution into validation, judgment, risk management, and governance.

• Code generation is only one part of the delivery system. Without testing, security review, observability, and strong engineering process, faster code can create more problems faster.

• The best AI outcomes depend on strong foundations. Clean data, connected systems, clear ownership, and resilient architecture matter more as AI becomes part of core workflows.

• Technical professionals will need stronger systems thinking, business context, adaptability, and domain understanding as AI changes the shape of day to day work.

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