As engineering managers we need to think about how our jobs and tasks will change with the broad scale usage of synthetic text extrusion machines, commonly known as LLMs, for short inaccurately summarized as AI. I will not talk about the ethical implications of using AI, as I think they are not up for debate. There is no fair and ethical usage of AI.
So let’s get back on topic. These tools will not completely disappear, but their capabilities and usage will change. Like with all coding tools. Companies will go bankrupt due to data center cost, new ones will appear. Specialized models will be developed and so on. This means the role of (a lot of) engineers will change a bit. Not only regarding the things they do, but also the priorities and tools (sic!).
Since forever a large part of the work of software engineering has been thinking about architecture and solutions, specifying (maybe not in written form, but you always needed to have a plan, however rudimentary) and reading already existing code. And learning. New languages, new libraries, new tools or just a clever solution for a problem someone else found. Only then you would produce code. But learning and specifying often are done while coding.
The learning while problem solving ensured that engineers stayed up-to-date and progressed in their career. There are concerns that through the use of AI learning will decrease, because people get readymade solutions. That coding agents produce more and more of the same maybe unmaintainable duplicated code.
That’s the challenge we as engineering managers have. We need to make sure that our colleagues have opportunities for learning. That they have time to read the actual code. That they know and understand our systems and their tools.
So if a manager’s focus until now was more on output optimization, their organization already is and increasingly will be a dire place to work at. We need to focus on mentoring and making space for people to learn. Those of us who were already good at this will excell. And engineers will know where these people and places are. More than ever we are responsible for their personal growth and the teams’ culture and wellbeing as the job of an engineering manager is disparate from that of a project manager.
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