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Middle management have wrestled control back from developers with the scrum/agile garbage. That is soul-sucking insofar as you are working a conveyor belt where

Middle management have wrestled control back from developers with the scrum/agile garbage. That is soul-sucking insofar as you are working a conveyor belt where if anything drops of then you are the problem. SW development has entered the factory automation phase where humans are still doing the "automation". The sooner middle management can replace them with AI the sooner SW developers will be consigned to the dustbin of history. Right now, middle management hates the status quo.

rzl1235 3y ago
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J_Shelby_J 3y ago
Other way around is possible too. With automation a single developer can build a whole business on their own. Which means they don’t need other developers. Which means they don’t need managers to manage other developers. Everyone wins!
- FridgeSeal 3y ago
  That applies to the sole-trader/startup case, but not the established-business-with-dev-team case, which counts for more people.
andyferris 3y ago
I kinda wonder if we can use AI (or other tech) to replace middle management instead?
- catchnear4321 3y ago
  why not both?
- sys_64738 3y ago
  In theory, AI and tech are meant to improve the common good of humanity. I don't know what utility that middle management provides.
bicx 3y ago
As a former middle manager, I would expect my career to disappear if engineers themselves disappeared. Simply implementing features wasn’t the bulk of my job. The bulk was coordinating humans, career development, orchestrating resources, and things like that. AI won’t need any of that. I think the people that will benefit from a mature AI engineering service will mostly just be the C-level. Below them, you might have a much smaller team of AI operators and validators.
- rob74 3y ago
  Today's engineers will be the future "middle managers", trying to translate the "specs" they get from up above into actual specs that the AI can process, and then reviewing the code the AI produces (which always looks perfect but may still contain egregious mistakes). Fun times...

rzl1235 3y ago

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J_Shelby_J 3y ago

Other way around is possible too. With automation a single developer can build a whole business on their own. Which means they don’t need other developers. Which means they don’t need managers to manage other developers. Everyone wins!

FridgeSeal 3y ago
That applies to the sole-trader/startup case, but not the established-business-with-dev-team case, which counts for more people.

andyferris 3y ago

I kinda wonder if we can use AI (or other tech) to replace middle management instead?

catchnear4321 3y ago
why not both?
sys_64738 3y ago
In theory, AI and tech are meant to improve the common good of humanity. I don't know what utility that middle management provides.

bicx 3y ago

As a former middle manager, I would expect my career to disappear if engineers themselves disappeared. Simply implementing features wasn’t the bulk of my job. The bulk was coordinating humans, career development, orchestrating resources, and things like that. AI won’t need any of that. I think the people that will benefit from a mature AI engineering service will mostly just be the C-level. Below them, you might have a much smaller team of AI operators and validators.

rob74 3y ago
Today's engineers will be the future "middle managers", trying to translate the "specs" they get from up above into actual specs that the AI can process, and then reviewing the code the AI produces (which always looks perfect but may still contain egregious mistakes). Fun times...