How Egnyte's AI Coding Stack is Shortening the Path from Junior to Senior Engineer

At Egnyte, AI isn't replacing coders—it's fast-tracking junior developers into senior roles by turning coding tools into career accelerators. The company's 350+ engineering team uses AI assistants like Cursor and Gemini CLI to navigate legacy Java codebases, but CTO Amrit Jassal emphasizes that human oversight remains non-negotiable.

Junior engineers at Egnyte leverage AI for code discovery, unit testing, and pull request summaries. One typical workflow involves using Cursor to identify where a specific Java class is referenced across the codebase, then cross-referencing the results with Gemini CLI's documentation search. This combination reduces the time spent on codebase navigation by 40-50% according to internal estimates.

Amrit Jassal, CTO, said:

'I would not trust AI to commit to the production code base.'

Despite this caution, AI plays a crucial role in the development lifecycle. Engineers use the tools to generate rapid prototypes for new features, but final implementations always require human validation. This hybrid approach maintains code quality while accelerating learning curves for junior developers.

The CTO clarified the company's philosophy:

'It is really a continuation, it's like any other tool, it's not some magic.'

While AI handles repetitive tasks like test generation, engineers still manage full development lifecycles from requirements to deployment. Senior engineers focus on architecture decisions, while juniors benefit from AI-assisted iteration loops that replace what Jassal calls 'vibe coding' with structured problem-solving.