#492 Building Human-First Products in the Age of AI: Eric Müller on Security, Trust, and Leadership

In this episode of The CTO Show with Mehmet, we sit down with Eric Müller, Product Engineering Associate Director at Work & Co, to unpack the evolving intersection of AI adoption, digital security, and empathetic leadership. With a career that spans cybersecurity, product architecture, and agency collaboration, Eric shares how to lead engineering teams through complexity without losing the human touch—especially in today’s AI-driven landscape. Whether you’re a founder, CTO, product leader, or advisor, this conversation is packed with practical insights and leadership wisdom 💡 What You’ll Learn • Why AI should augment, not replace, your dev team • The real risks of trusting LLM output blindly (including “slopjacking”) • How to balance speed and security in fast-paced product teams • The overlooked power of psychological safety in engineering culture • Why technical debt is just business debt—and how to manage it • Practical ways to communicate security to non-technical leaders • How to spot and mentor emerging engineering leaders ⸻ 🔑 Key Takeaways • AI is not a silver bullet. Use it to accelerate boilerplate and QA, but keep human oversight for anything mission-critical. • Security must start early. You can’t patch it in the final sprint—bake it into your culture from day one. • Empathy wins. In client work and internal leadership, understanding before advising changes everything. • Trust your inner voice. As a leader, self-trust is a vital compass—don’t let indecision erode confidence. 👤 About Eric Müller Eric Müller, is an Associate Director focusing on Product Engineering and Digital Security at Work & Co, part of Accenture Song, where leads engineering teams and supported automated processes to deliver high-quality digital products for the past decade. With over 20 years of experience in engineering and security, Eric has worked across various industries including banking, social media, B2B, retail, fashion, and online gaming. His extensive background includes significant roles at Wells Fargo Bank, Charles Schwab, Razorfish, and Mekanism, where he delivered award-winning projects for clients such as Microsoft, Business Wire, Anza, and Vibrant Planet. Eric fosters empathetic leadership and transparent communication to build resilient, high-performing tech teams. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericmullersf/ https://work.co/  Episode Highlights 00:00 – Intro & Eric’s journey from Gen X hacker to engineering leader 04:00 – AI adoption: Hype vs. Doomerism, and where the real value lies 07:00 – Finding the sweet spot for GenAI in engineering 10:00 – The tension between speed, usability, and secure code 12:30 – LLM risks: hallucinations, outdated data, slopjacking 15:30 – Explaining AI risk & security to non-technical executives 18:00 – Making clients feel heard: the “make them writer” mindset 22:00 – Coaching engineering teams through compromises and deadlines 29:00 – Psychological safety and what leaders get wrong 33:00 – Leading in a hybrid world: Slack, trust, and async culture 38:00 – Spotting and mentoring the next generation of leaders 41:00 – Why mentorship vs management books 44:00 – Final advice: Trust yourself, and trust your team