Managing 'Incompetent Engineers' Prepares You for the AI Coding Era
GabGarrett · x · 2026-07-26
A user jokingly remarks that the future belongs to anyone who has ever managed a team of completely incompetent engineers. This comment references a longer thread about the misconceptions of software engineering in the age of AI.
The quoted thread points out the flaws in current AI coding takes: letting AI write all code without review will hold you accountable when it breaks; reviewing every line of LLM-generated code is unrealistic and slower than writing it yourself. As for engineers becoming managers of AI agents, it's harder than it sounds because AI coding agents are very different from human coders—they don't "learn" like humans do, they merely adapt to the behavioral changes of the person managing them.
Related event: Engineering Judgment Remains Core in the AI Coding Era(3 posts)→
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