...and browsing HN these days feels more like cringing than informing oneself. This is a LinkedIn-level "insight", upvoted presumably because it's about "AI"?
Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding
81–90 of 223 posts
Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding
#82I was already in a management position when this started. But I also have 20 years of development experience. So for me it has been a super power. I do feel bad for all the devs trying to break into the industry right now though, it must be hard. I’ve basically stopped hiring devs for my company. I haven’t fired anyone but I have no plans to expand the team, even as our workload increases as the companies keep growin…
> I’ve basically stopped hiring devs for my company So you were just hiring devs to tell them what to do? I honestly like having the self organizing and problem solving that comes from hiring good people, and that I could trust people without dictating. Companies always benefited from that from what I saw. I guess this is why I never liked shops that outsourced to external contractors, and why I don't like "agentic"…
I run/own the companies. I have a curated list of ideas and features that I would like to implement that I know can make our products the best in the industry. I don’t need a senior developer to spitball ideas for me. As much as I cringe at the term, I play the role of the “visionary” here, not my developers. I have instead put the excess money towards hiring top producers in my sales and support teams.
Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it is like management, it’s like the most low effort version of management. You just blindly tell it what to do without any regard for its motivations or morale. If it does something wrong, you just delete it and slightly rephrase your instructions and have it try again.
Yes, it's management with little concern for human factors because you can abuse or and even fire your reports and summon new ones of equal competence at will.
Isn't that just regular management?
Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding
#84The words "management" and "leadership" are used to convey many kinds of meaning, so I think it is important to elaborate carefully what we mean when we say that "working with LLMs is more like ".
For me, one of the most important aspects of leadership is having a long-term vision, and being able to communicate it. In other words, it answers the question of WHAT.
One of the most important aspects of management is being able to organize resources to materialize that vision. In other words, it answers the questions of WHO and WHEN.
We still need to answer the question of HOW -- which require the expertise -- architecture and implementation.
All of these elements are necessary when doing anything -- even by myself -- but become even more important when using many external resources to do it -- be it a team of people or a team of LLMs.
Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding
#85The word is "management", not "leadership". This comes across as a LinkedIn post filled with vague notions and weak writing. The conclusion also completely contradicts a previous point, which is that managing an LLM is not like managing a human. So the skills are, in contradiction to that LLM-ism of a conclusion, new. The author isn't using their people management skills, they're using new LLM-management skills. They…
If it is like management, it’s like the most low effort version of management. You just blindly tell it what to do without any regard for its motivations or morale. If it does something wrong, you just delete it and slightly rephrase your instructions and have it try again.
> You just blindly tell it what to do without any regard for its motivations or morale
You're holding it wrong. Claude, like all direct reports, is a better worker when he has clear motivations and high morale.
Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding
#86My Eng lead has no coding experience, 25 years of management experience, yet has driven 3 separate projects into technical bankruptcy to date. He just accepts anything that Claude says as truth. He vibecoded over 60,000 lines of code in 3 weeks, but couldn’t get it to do what he want and made a project overrun for 3 extra months. When the pissed off stakeholders called a meeting to ask what was going on he didn’t sho…
Future president in the making.
I don't think we should expect such unreasonable standards from future presidents.
Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Leadership is a mutual influence process that happens outside formal authority. It’s not a corporate title or rung on a ladder. If one is a leader, that’s a status informally conveyed by the leader’s voluntary followers.
Yep a leader is simply someone people follow. That’s it. That’s all it is. All the books, leadership courses, etc. are lipstick on that pig. I suppose it can happen, but I’ve never seen someone who is a terrible leader educate themselves into being a great one. It’s pretty close to a natural skill you can build on and develop. The term has been usurped by the usual suspects, but the definition is still the same on th…
I think at some level that "following" bit requires a certain sacrifice or loss of autonomy that people don't strictly have to suffer. And good leaders tend to be able to get people to accept that willingly without needing to invoke authority. An LLM is making no sacrifice, they don't value autonomy so there is no leadership.
Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding
#88[flagged]
Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding
#89I was already in a management position when this started. But I also have 20 years of development experience. So for me it has been a super power. I do feel bad for all the devs trying to break into the industry right now though, it must be hard. I’ve basically stopped hiring devs for my company. I haven’t fired anyone but I have no plans to expand the team, even as our workload increases as the companies keep growin…
This might need controversial but there were too many devs to begin with. I'm young and know people who are getting jobs, it's just that they actually enjoy programming.
Re: Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding
#90Not for me. My head is in exactly the same place as coding - deep technical connection to the mental model of what is being built.
I feel like I'm the crazy one these days for using LLMs as tools. I don't write code anymore, but I still do the same level of engineering . I get fantastic results with minimal slop, and I feel it's because I still use my goddamn brain and engineering skills. The way I use LLMs seems to be most analagous to the way vibecoder's LLMs use subagents. They exist to solve a bounded task or to write specific code in suppor…
Well if you're crazy we're crazy together. This is how I've been using the LLMs myself and it gives great results.