Where the term comes from Compound Engineering emerged while Kieran Klaassen was building Cora, Every's AI email assistant. It began as a productivity hack and became a systematic approach, now shared as a plugin used by tens of thousands of people. Kieran stresses that it is more than a tool: They think it's just a tool, but it's actually more than a plugin. It's a new way of working — and, as Every's Austin Tedesco adds, a great default organizer even if you've never worked in this field before.