3 min. read
An interview with Jakub about AI transformation, the craft of leadership, and why the scariest change became the most generative.
Jakub, you’ve been at OLX since April 2019. You’ve moved from Senior Engineer to Director of Engineering. What’s the biggest transformation you’ve witnessed?
The shift to AI-native engineering.
Two years ago, we were piloting AI assistants for a handful of engineers. Today, Cursor is core infrastructure for hundreds of us. The question has completely shifted from “should we use this?” to “how do we redesign teams around it?”
That’s a fundamental transformation. Not just in tools, but in how we think about the work itself.
How did you adapt to that?
I treated it as a craft problem rather than a tooling problem. That meant getting hands-on, breaking things in public, and updating my mental model faster than my title comfortably allowed. You can’t lead engineering transformation from a distance. You have to be in it, testing assumptions, making mistakes where people can see them.
It’s uncomfortable. But that’s how you learn fast enough to matter.
You’ve had several opportunities to leave in six years. What kept you here?
Honestly? Ambiguity. OLX hands you problems that don’t have textbook solutions – marketplace consolidations, category strategy, now AI org design – and gives you enough rope to solve them or not. That’s rare. Once you’ve had it, the alternatives start feeling smaller, even when the comp conversation gets interesting.
What would you tell someone who’s feeling anxious about our next phase of growth?
Stop waiting for the roadmap to clarify. It won’t. And the people who do best in transformations are the ones who treat ambiguity as material to shape, not weather to wait out. Pick a piece of the problem nobody owns yet and start cutting.
That’s a powerful frame. Where does that come from?
Experience, mostly. And realizing that waiting for clarity is a trap. In fast-moving environments, the people who succeed aren’t the ones with the best plans. They’re the ones who move fastest with incomplete information and course-correct as they go. Ambiguity isn’t the obstacle. It’s the environment where you can actually make a difference.
Looking back, which change felt scary at the time but turned out to be your biggest opportunity?
The GenAI wave.
Eighteen months ago, I was genuinely anxious that my craft as an engineering leader – team design, technical decision making, productivity measurement, the whole DORA/SPACE stack – was about to be obsoleted by tools that wrote code on their own. I thought: if AI can do the work, what’s the point of learning how to lead it?
What actually happened?
The opposite.
Leaders who go deep on this become more valuable, not less. Because someone has to define what “good” looks like when the inputs change this fast. The scariest thing turned out to be the most generative.
What’s your biggest learning from seven years at OLX?
That the problems worth solving don’t come with instructions. If they did, they wouldn’t need you. They’d be solved already.
The work that matters is always in ambiguity. The skill is learning to be comfortable there – or at least, learning to move forward anyway.
And that OLX gives you the space to do that. Not every company does.
Jakub’s story is part of our “Built for Change” series, celebrating colleagues who’ve chosen growth over comfort. If you’re someone who thrives on transformation rather than stability, explore our open positions. Your first chapter at OLX could start here.
