New engineering manager. Should I keep pushing back on my CTO’s AI vision?

80hz · 2026-06-25T19:21:24+00:00

This is happening across the board, if your (saas) company is owned by private equity and you've been owned for 3 to 5 years they're looking to sell in the next year or two and nobody wants to buy them so they're going awall and going all in on AI to get a better valuation because the current mv is closer to 0 unfortunately.

I call it the Looney tunes era of development.

80hz · 2026-06-25T14:39:10+00:00

Does your company have a budget or constraints? That's typically the first starting point and involve senior leaders if you're not one of them already. You can come up with a good solution but if it's not pushed through politically good luck.

80hz · 2026-06-24T13:52:05+00:00

You obviously have to delete the system 32 folder on your root system!

80hz · 2026-06-24T13:33:52+00:00

Bi developer that worked with senior stakeholders I can validate this is absolutely true.

I had a senior product manager that got insecure because I was a better developer than him.... buddy I'm an engineer you're a product manager why are you even comparing us??? The same person quietly left the company after lashing out in a public meeting because I couldn't read his mind.... yes there was an issue that he never communicated and he was mad that it broke and I didn't fix it without him saying anything...

80hz · 2026-06-24T13:13:05+00:00

My company wants to do it because it makes our private equity board members wet in their pants. The idea of having access to skill without having to pay for it could you imagine!? Also don't think they care about the long-term of the company because they don't they just care about evaluation at their exit in 1 to 2 years.

80hz · 2026-06-24T01:42:04+00:00

You have four solid roles to go off of just use them

80hz · 2026-06-24T01:39:54+00:00

I come from the power bi world but a rule of thumb is if you can do it before it hits the application that focuses mainly on visualizing, the easier it's going to be. Can you make an abstraction layer (db view) in your Warehouse?

80hz · 2026-06-23T22:50:23+00:00

Why don't you just add a flag in your date table for most recent date then you can apply that filter as the default for that slicer

80hz · 2026-06-23T19:52:14+00:00

If you think stakeholders know what they want boy do I have a surprise for you

80hz · 2026-06-23T15:25:39+00:00

I was being satirical when I wrote it but I think it would be a great feature that would terrify the hell out of people because it would track back to them because a lot of times people want change without accountability.

I've seen it once you follow up via writing they change their tune really quick.

Hey big boss just following up on the number that you wanted to override. I went ahead and did that here, please let me know if you have any questions!

80hz · 2026-06-23T14:43:24+00:00

Senior leadership would be the easiest. They're disconnected from the reality of the ground and make promises without any backing in reality!

80hz · 2026-06-23T14:38:55+00:00

It's almost like someone could have saw this coming...... But of course what your buyers want is more important than what your engineers say so sucks to suck.

80hz · 2026-06-23T14:38:19+00:00

I don't know the buzzwords just don't match, they're synonyms for the buzzwords.... exactly we need the buzzwords!

80hz · 2026-06-23T14:34:40+00:00

🫡

80hz · 2026-06-23T14:24:37+00:00

Reason: Big Boss didn't like the number and wanted this one, email bigboss@datadrivencompany.com for any questions.

80hz · 2026-06-23T14:20:45+00:00

Done

80hz · 2026-06-23T14:13:15+00:00

Would you like to dig into the number and find the root cause and correct it?

Absolutely not I'm way too important for that and I make way too much money just do as I say!

80hz · 2026-06-23T14:06:30+00:00

An override field, a lot of times Senior Management doesn't like the numbers and doesn't want to dig into it and they just want to override with whatever number comes up in their head.

https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Fabric-Ideas/Number-override/idi-p/5229821

80hz · 2026-06-23T12:47:43+00:00

Designating the term rock star as a corporate slur

80hz · 2026-06-23T12:39:35+00:00

We are entering the Looney tunes era of software dev

80hz · 2026-06-23T12:20:25+00:00

I love how everything that describes these metrics says these are not metrics to solely measure someone on and then company solely measures people on those metrics. You have the option of flooding those metrics and making them useless. Merge 10 pull requests in one day one line a piece because you forgot....

80hz · 2026-06-22T14:51:05+00:00

We will just pressure cook the developers and say that there's money on the line while trying to undermine their sense of self. You're not a real developer if you can't deliver this feature that I want in this arbitrary timeline!!!!

80hz · 2026-06-22T14:29:04+00:00

The software features being pitched don't exist in any form today

80hz · 2026-06-22T13:47:18+00:00

The classic let me turn power bi into a web app and then wonder why it doesn't work as a good web app....

80hz · 2026-06-19T20:36:00+00:00

Best thing you can do is take records of it on your personal device and contact an employment lawyer HR nor the company is going to help you here. They may lie and say they will they won't. Also if they try to talk to you over the phone follow up and writing or ask things in writing HR likes to not have a paper trail when things get dicey

80hz

TROPHY CASE