Craft Heads Build Domain-Specific Agents
by Tomer Cohen on December 4, 2025
LinkedIn's transformation to a "full stack builder" model represents a fundamental rethinking of how product teams operate in an AI-accelerated world.
Tomer Cohen believes the pace of change in skills and jobs has outstripped our ability to respond using traditional product development approaches. When examining the skills required for jobs by 2030, LinkedIn data shows they will change by 70%. This reality demands a return to first principles in how products are built.
The traditional product development process has become unnecessarily complex over time. What started as a simple flow—research a problem, spec it, design it, code it, launch it, iterate—has ballooned into countless sub-steps requiring specialized roles. This organizational complexity slows teams down precisely when they need to move faster.
The full stack builder model aims to collapse this complexity by empowering builders to develop experiences end-to-end, combining skills across traditionally distinct domains. It's not about eliminating teamwork but creating smaller, more nimble teams focused on missions rather than functional specialties. Cohen compares these teams to Navy SEALs—cross-trained across multiple areas but specializing in the mission.
For product leaders, this means investing in three critical components: platform, tools, and culture. The platform must be re-architected so AI can reason over it. Custom agents must be built for company-specific contexts—LinkedIn created specialized agents for trust, growth, research, and analysis that incorporate their unique knowledge base. Most importantly, culture must shift to embrace this new way of working.
The most successful adopters have been top performers with an innate desire to improve their craft. This highlights that change management is crucial—it's not enough to provide tools; you must build incentives, motivation, and examples of success. Performance reviews now evaluate AI fluency and cross-functional capabilities.
For individual contributors, this model opens new career possibilities. LinkedIn has created a formal "full stack builder" title with its own career ladder. The company has replaced its APM program with an "associate full stack builder" program that teaches participants to code, design, and PM. This doesn't mean everyone must become a full stack builder—specialization still has its place—but the proportion of specialists needed is decreasing.
The key traits Cohen emphasizes for builders are vision, empathy, communication, creativity, and most importantly, judgment. Everything else is being automated. This approach doesn't just increase iteration speed; it makes organizations more nimble, adaptive, and resilient—better equipped to match the pace of change with an appropriate pace of response.