Cisco Engineer Tasked With Rewriting 98% of Legacy Code in 24 Months
Cisco's Jeetu Patel gave 27-year-old engineer Padmanabhan Krishnamurthy unlimited AI tokens and a two-person team for the refactoring effort.
Cisco President and Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel has assigned 27-year-old engineer Padmanabhan Krishnamurthy the task of rewriting 98% of the company's legacy code within 24 months, according to Fortune.
Krishnamurthy aims to prove the technical feasibility of the overhaul within 4 weeks using AI coding tools. Patel has given him effectively unlimited AI token usage for the refactoring work, and the plan calls for attempting the large-scale code change with a team of only two people.
According to the report, the project traces back to a conversation between Krishnamurthy and Patel at the company's San Francisco office, where the engineer proposed rewriting the legacy code with a two-person team using AI coding tools. Before this, Krishnamurthy had been doing non-strategic work at Cisco.
Krishnamurthy co-founded the real-time translation startup EzDubs in 2023. Cisco acquired the company in 2025, and Krishnamurthy joined the technology company at that point.
Patel said the company will actively look for young talent willing to challenge existing practices.
Quick answers
What did Cisco assign Padmanabhan Krishnamurthy to do?
He was tasked with rewriting 98% of Cisco's legacy code within 24 months, using a two-person team and AI coding tools.
How long does Krishnamurthy have to prove the approach works?
He aims to prove technical feasibility within 4 weeks, according to Fortune.
What is EzDubs?
A real-time translation startup Krishnamurthy co-founded in 2023; Cisco acquired it in 2025.