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Replacing Engineering Managers with AI Agents

engineeringcalm.com

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Re: Replacing Engineering Managers with AI Agents

#71

Post by dools »

0xcafefood wrote: post #57
dools wrote: post #35

I ran a team of 26 people who worked together to produce software according to a set of procedures. There were clear instructions about accountability, moving stuck tasks, when/how work should be moved from one person to another, how the work was tested and so on. There was a role called Scheduling Assistant which was fulfilled by a person with no engineering experience, their only role was to ensure compliance with…

What planet were you on where 26 people could be in completely different timezones?

Workers in different locations

Locations in different timezones

Re: Replacing Engineering Managers with AI Agents

#72

Post by JohnFen »

theendisney wrote: post #25

I see a video about muli-agent development, i didnt understand much of it but it was funny to see the agents had what use to be human job titles. To get rid of managers you would need to delegate tasks it is bad at. Seems doable enough. Fine tuning for empaty and social qualities also seems doable if you can certify, validate and gurantee it. Human managers are useful to keep business logic dumb and stupid, AI would…

> it was funny to see the agents had what use to be human job titles.

In the real world, "computer" used to be a human job title.

Re: Replacing Engineering Managers with AI Agents

#73

Post by JohnFen »

encoderer wrote: post #32

Fact is, a lot of the actual ground-work of management is pushed down to the corps of front line managers and senior managers above them. So for example when a VP concludes a reorg is necessary and Directors have to figure out who goes where, the front line managers are the ones figuring out how to actually take on the new responsibilities, hand off the old ones, and keep the systems running. The things mentioned in…

> The things mentioned in the article like stand ups aren’t even orchestrated by managers in a lot of companies

They shouldn't be orchestrated by managers in any company. Same with handling the backlog. That managers get involved in these things is one of the ways that agile has gone so wrong.

Re: Replacing Engineering Managers with AI Agents

#74

Post by TeMPOraL »

goodroot wrote: post #33
Madmallard wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

probably because AI is awful at coding anything complex but the social and communication skills these companies value so hard are actually easily done by AI. The social elite are far more replaceable by text. What a world we live in.

> but the social and communication skills these companies value so hard are actually easily done by AI Can you expand this premise? It invalidates not just managers, but therapy, virtually any social function.

> It invalidates not just managers, but therapy, virtually any social function.

It doesn't, because it can't replace authenticity. That is, unless you never realize you're talking with an AI.

But if the human connection doesn't matter for you in a given context, then yes, GPT-4 can already compete with therapy, as well as with many social functions.

Re: Replacing Engineering Managers with AI Agents

#75

Post by throwaway914 »

JohnFen wrote: post #68
throwaway914 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It occurs to me that things will stay the same, or even get better. This thing will produce better liars. We're used to lying to our managers to get the support we want, and now we'll have an easier time with EMAI. Further, if you want less stress you'll pretend to have a deficiency and get lighter work allocated. In 2.0 they'll catch on and implement performance improvement plans that lead to separation. If I try to…

> We're used to lying to our managers to get the support we want Wait, we are??

The support we want vs the support we need.

Some supervisors are good at determining what resources you need, most are not.

Re: Replacing Engineering Managers with AI Agents

#76

Post by stavros »

sarchertech wrote: post #15

"Morning Stand-up Meetings: Instead of traditional stand-ups, engineers log into their systems and provide a brief update by sending a short voice message. EMAI processes these updates, analyzing voice tones for stress or uncertainty, ensuring it can provide resources or assistance if an engineer faces challenges. Task Allocation: Using real-time data on each engineer's strengths, past performance, learning curve, an…

When are you going to quit? When your manager starts using ChatGPT to summarize your review? When they start using it to automatically flag your async standup messages for signs of frustration? When they use it to prioritize tasks?

It's going to be a very slow burn (if you aren't just replaced with an AI), and no point will seem worth quitting over, until you're managed by the AI.

Re: Replacing Engineering Managers with AI Agents

#77

Post by TeMPOraL »

rand846633 wrote: post #13
goodroot wrote: post #10

This article presents a very strange take. > It might sound dystopian, but setting emotions aside and viewing it purely from a business perspective, the idea of replacing engineering managers with AI offers potential efficiencies. A manager is there precisely to optimize for business objectives. They are not your paid friend, therapist or life coach. The "AI" sea change that obsoletes the manager will first replace t…

> A manager is there precisely to optimize for business objects. They are not your paid friend, therapist or life coach. A office therapist could actually be precisely what is needed to effectively optimize and alight people for business objectives!

Like anyone would trust an office therapist. The office therapist works for your bosses, not you; talking to them, you're exposing yourself to risk while being in a disadvantaged position (the usual employee vs. employer power imbalance). Even if they're 100% committed to doctor-patient confidentiality, all it takes is for a HR person to surprise them with a pointed question, and read the answer from the therapist's reaction.

Re: Replacing Engineering Managers with AI Agents

#78

Post by Terr_ »

snerbles wrote: post #42
Terr_ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saving folks a search: https://marshallbrain.com/manna TLDR: Fiction about dystopic-vs-utopic outcomes from AI-management.

The author's "utopic" notion of having an AI between your brain and spine ready to intercept neural impulses and hijack your body the instant you step out of line is about as horrifying as the "dystopic" scenario at the start of the story.

That seems a little "no true Scotsman", since every "utopia" can be twisted to hell if a few key elements get corrupted.

Re: Replacing Engineering Managers with AI Agents

#79

Post by michaelmrose »

This may be the single most dysfunctional idea ever posted to this site. Shall we go over it point by point?

> Morning stand up meetings:

Meetings are synchronous time for human beings to interact with each other because we don't know what they are going to share. Replicating this with a machine that is going to asynchronously process all inputs including direct input on your tickets and direct work makes absolutely no sense.

> analyzing voice tones for stress or uncertainty

This is a creepy way to manage as a person. Applied by a machine it is HAL9000 levels of creepy it just trains people to talk like robots to the robot so that HAL doesn't bother or use it as a data point counting towards them getting later terminated.

> Conflict Resolution: Using its vast knowledge base and understanding of human psychology...

Humans are incredibly bad at psychology and its literally mostly snake oil and impossible to replicate nonsense.

> Training & Upgradation: EMAI monitors the latest tech trends. If a new tool or technology emerges in the market, it identifies which team members would benefit most from training and automatically schedules online courses or tutorials for them.

In what universe would this result in a better result than just asking people what they would like to learn

> End-of-Day Reports: Every team member receives a personalized report detailing their accomplishments, areas of improvement, and resources for further learning. These reports aren't just data-driven and include motivational feedback designed to boost morale and foster continuous learning.

Motivation is motivational because it demonstrates that your work is important enough that manager bob took the time out of his schedule to praise it particularly. Automating it and having a computer do it makes it worse than useless. It's telling your people that they are so worthless that having a fake robot generate fake praise is all they are worth. It's like taking the much memed pizza party to "boost moral" and taking it to the next level by delivering pictures of pizzas instead of pies.

> EMAI also manages to keep stakeholders informed, and it can negotiate with them to find the best solution given their inputs and the business context.

If your interests are represented by a URL which you can babble at chatGPT you aren't a stakeholder.

Re: Replacing Engineering Managers with AI Agents

#80

Post by satisfice »

It’s utterly irresponsible. The “efficiencies” are beside the point, apart from being purely theoretical.

There is no such thing as an AI manager. It’s just an automated todo list. But when I have a problem I need to talk with someone in charge. Machines are not in charge. Somebody owns the machine.

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