We Hired Someone to Automate Their Own Job

We hired an AI Content Marketing person. The job description basically said: "Try to make this role obsolete."

That sounds insane. Let me explain why it's the smartest hiring decision we've made this year.

The thesis

In the age of AI, the best hires are people who actively try to automate their own work. Not people who protect their territory. Not people who do things the slow way because "that's how it's always been done." People who look at their daily tasks and think: "How much of this can I eliminate so I can focus on the part that actually requires a human brain?"

That's exactly what we asked this person to do. Come in, look at our entire content operation — blog posts, social media, email sequences, ad copy, documentation — and figure out how much of it can be automated with AI. Then automate it.

What happened

Within the first month, they'd automated roughly 60% of the production workflow. First drafts of blog posts, social media calendars, email nurture sequences, ad copy variations — all generated by AI with structured prompts and templates they built. What used to take the team 20 hours a week takes 4.

But here's the thing nobody talks about: the remaining 40% became exponentially more valuable.

The strategy decisions — what to write, who to write for, what angle to take — can't be automated. The editorial judgment — this draft is good but this section is generic, this example isn't specific enough, this tone is off — can't be automated. The original thinking — identifying a contrarian take, spotting a market trend before competitors, knowing what resonates with our specific audience — definitely can't be automated.

By automating the mechanical parts, the person we hired freed themselves to focus entirely on the parts that are uniquely human and high-leverage. They didn't make themselves less valuable. They made themselves more valuable by concentrating their time on the 40% that moves the needle.

Why most companies get this backwards

Most companies hire AI cautiously. They buy tools but tell people to "use them carefully." They add AI to existing workflows without changing the workflows. They treat AI as a supplement, not a restructuring.

And most employees are incentivized to protect their territory. If you can automate 60% of someone's job, that person is terrified — because in most companies, "we automated your job" is followed by "so we don't need you anymore."

We flipped that. At Surface Labs, automating your own work is rewarded, not punished. If you can do 5x the output in the same hours because you built automations that handle the repetitive parts, you're not expendable — you're the most valuable person in the room.

The signal we're looking for in every hire: do they see automation as leverage or as a threat?

The broader principle

We're an AI company. If our own team isn't using AI to 10x themselves, we have no business selling it to others.

Every person at Surface Labs is expected to actively look for ways to automate their own workflows. Not because we want to eliminate roles — because we want every role to be focused on the 20% of work that actually requires human judgment, creativity, and strategic thinking.

The person who can automate 80% of their job and then absolutely crush the remaining 20% is the most dangerous hire in any market. They produce more output, they iterate faster, they adapt to new tools instantly, and they compound improvements over time.

We didn't hire someone to automate themselves out of a job. We hired someone to automate themselves into a better one.

Would you take a job where the goal is to automate yourself? Why or why not?