Why Engineering Managers Are the Most Valuable Hires in AI

Why Engineering Managers Are the Most Valuable Hires in AI(everythingengineer.substack.com)

6 points by mikecarroll 32 days ago | 2 comments

paulcaplan 32 days ago |

Excellent article, and I agree with you wholeheartedly, except on one point (which may be to some extent semantic):

Tech leads are the most valuable hires .

Managers typically are focused on strategy, people issues, and delegating work. The tech lead is the person who’s hands-on and "in the weeds", even when not writing much code themselves.

I’ve spent decades leading small and large projects - fleshing out every detail of the scope, driving the technical direction, brainstorming with my team on the “how”, and ensuring quality of the results.

The adjustment going from leading a team of humans to a team of agents didn't feel significantly different to me than going from one team of humans to a different one - you adjust your style to the team you have. Now, I can never fully “trust” my team of agents but they deliver results quickly and I don’t have to worry about hurting their feelings if I tell them to redo work.

This is why complaints from engineers about AI-generated code often miss the mark to me. It’s never been about whether the code is perfect or written exactly the way I would. To your point, it’s about whether it’s completed on time, meets certain quality standards, and achieves the business objectives.

mikecarroll 32 days ago | |

True -- there are LOTS of engineering managers who would struggle greatly with the move. They are just too far away from the details and haven't been hands-on in long enough... and don't want to be "in the weeds" anymore. (Good luck to them).

But by the same principle inverse argument is that a lot "tech leads" have the opposite problem: there's no point at which they have been out of the weeds.

That's a key skill that managers have to learn to early: what are the things you DON'T have to look at or know to be most effective. If you are reviewing every bug fix, or have to sit in on every single planning session, you will very quickly hit ceiling of your career as a manager.

I think that a great manager who has done the tech lead job and always worked a few levels above it is best positioned to succeed. But completely agree that good tech leads are very well positioned to make this move too.