Coinbase reduces time from idea to production by 90% with Cursor

Coinbase has adopted an agent-first infrastructure, utilizing Cursor to revolutionize their engineering processes by reducing the time from idea to production from 20 days to less than 2 days, representing a 90% reduction. Over 2,400 developers at Coinbase now use Cursor, allowing them to transition from manual coding to defining intent and validating results, with 75% of all pull requests generated by agents, saving developers an average of 7 hours per week. This shift has empowered smaller teams to take on projects that previously required larger groups, as engineers have become adept at managing multiple asynchronous agents. Engineering efforts have moved towards higher-level tasks such as determining what to build and evaluating agent-delivered products, supported by living documents that guide agent execution. The focus on outcomes rather than inputs, such as lines of code, has further improved developer satisfaction and productivity. Coinbase's engineering leadership emphasizes the importance of leading by example and has introduced concepts like agent speedruns to encourage the adoption of agentic workflows across the team, thereby significantly enhancing engineering velocity.