Salary delta, time-to-productivity, retention risk, integration tax. We argue upskilling wins below 200 employees because the AI work is 70% domain and 30% LLM; external hire wins above 500 because the platform demands specialist depth. Plus: how to spot the 'AI engineer' who is actually a fine-tuning specialist when what you need is a systems engineer.
This piece is being expanded into a full long-form article in the coming weeks. We publish each insight once the engagement it draws from has settled enough that we can name the trade-offs honestly — not while a pattern is still proving itself in production.
Field notes ship when the engagement they came from has stopped surprising us, not before.
Want the long-form version when it lands? Or want to skip ahead and talk through the same questions for your own company?