If AI makes your engineers 3x more productive, do you need 3x fewer of them?

If AI makes your engineers 3x more productive, do you need 3x fewer of them?
I don't think so - and there's a 150-year-old economic pattern that says why.
Jevons Paradox: make something more efficient, and people often don't use less of it. They use more, because efficiency unlocks uses that weren't affordable before.

I think the same thing is about to happen with hiring and skills, and most companies are reading it backwards.

The instinct right now: AI makes each engineer more productive, so we'll need fewer of them. That's the same logic that said coal-efficient engines would burn less coal. They didn't - cheaper energy just got used for more things.

There's a cleaner precedent too. ATMs were supposed to wipe out bank tellers. Instead, they reduced the number of tellers needed per branch, but cheaper transactions made more branches viable. Banks opened more of them, and tellers shifted towards sales and advice. The role moved up a level.

Winning here looks like upskilling fastest into whatever the "teller" role becomes: judgment, oversight, taste - the parts nothing else can absorb yet. Everyone's watching headcount. The demand curve is what's about to move.