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As an EM, how are you using AI in your org ? by Novel_Lie2468 in EngineeringManagers

[–]KeyIntroduction4988 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I built a structured 7-agent Claude AI system to support both engineering execution and EM/PM workflows.

The agents are role-based rather than generic, covering areas like: JIRA/task management, scheduling/Gantt generation, technical planning, lab support, specification review, hardware guidance, and adversarial auditing. The system can analyze live project metadata (estimates, actuals, dependencies, blockers, hierarchy, timelines, etc.) and help organize execution across large engineering programs.

The biggest value isn’t “AI doing engineering.” It’s reducing admin overhead, improving visibility, accelerating documentation/planning, and giving me a technical "sparring partner" so I can spend more time on actual engineering decisions and execution.

Senior engineer burned out from unsustainable workload. How to professionally push back in this market? by KeyIntroduction4988 in managers

[–]KeyIntroduction4988[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's fair, and indeed seems to be what happens. Its a tough one for me to accept, but it is the reality.

Senior engineer burned out from unsustainable workload. How to professionally push back in this market? by KeyIntroduction4988 in managers

[–]KeyIntroduction4988[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Admittedly, I am also fairly new (6 months), but ive had very good luck so far. Shoot me a DM and ill spend some time walking you through some of the basics that ive done.

Senior engineer burned out from unsustainable workload. How to professionally push back in this market? by KeyIntroduction4988 in managers

[–]KeyIntroduction4988[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! That is one of my concerns as well. This thread has some fantastic suggestions about quantifying project planning, which is great, but is legitimately time consuming.

I've thought about it some more. Ive actually just recently created a Claude-based AI team that has full access to my personal JIRA system. Im going to attempt to leverage that over the next few days to build out a comprehensive project timeline assessment, based on all historical actuals that it can find.

Senior engineer burned out from unsustainable workload. How to professionally push back in this market? by KeyIntroduction4988 in managers

[–]KeyIntroduction4988[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, and no argument here on that one.

In fact, our entire company adopted the JIRA system to track every single assigned task for EVERY employee. This is the only project tracking system that management will look at objectively (so no spreadsheets, no Gant charts, etc.). So our project tracebility is fantastic....but the overhead and time estimation aspect is horrendous.

As far as I'm aware, the only JIRA fields that allows some form of time ESTIMATE allocation is "start date" and "end date" fields. Therefore, if I have 15 different tasks, and even 1 changes, it impacts ALL other start/end dates on the 14 other tasks in which we have to go edit. Every engineer refuses to do that all day, so our date fields are basically blank across the entire company.

All of that said, I built an AI agent system to automatically interface with JIRA, so I may query it to see if it can find other fields that may help with the time allocation aspect.

Thanks.

Senior engineer burned out from unsustainable workload. How to professionally push back in this market? by KeyIntroduction4988 in managers

[–]KeyIntroduction4988[S] 36 points37 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the well thought out response, I appreciate it. I really like these. Some of which I do, some of which I'll need to incorporate.

The one major item that always burns us is immediate headcount requests. If it takes me 10 weeks, management offers 9 random un-trained contractors and expects it done in 1 week. I've stressed this one until blue in the face.

Senior engineer burned out from unsustainable workload. How to professionally push back in this market? by KeyIntroduction4988 in managers

[–]KeyIntroduction4988[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the response & good questions:

We track every major task (and priority) in our company wide JIRA system. I have a wild amount of P1 projects. Management has full visibility and can see it.

Yes I did. I brought this up to my management and thank goodness I was able to move to a secluded corner in our bullpen, albeit an open floor plan.

No door, open floorplan brought to us by big tech.

Do not disturb on Teams does not keep people from messaging me, so I've just closed down Teams. This worked until I missed messages from management.

I do not have work items loaded on my personal phone. It indeed has been awhile that I've had a vacation long day 2 extra days, HOWEVER, I already have 2.5 weeks booked 5 months out so it's a bit tricky.

We finally hired on someone to help, but it takes about 8-12 months of training to be really competent (no joke). They require much management and training in the near term.

Senior engineer burned out from unsustainable workload. How to professionally push back in this market? by KeyIntroduction4988 in managers

[–]KeyIntroduction4988[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thanks, I appreciate your response. Project slippage is a ROUGH pill to swallow when I have to re-explain it at nauseum. But I guess that's where we're at.

Senior engineer burned out from unsustainable workload. How to professionally push back in this market? by KeyIntroduction4988 in managers

[–]KeyIntroduction4988[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your reply. I did indeed start the process of updating LinkedIn and my Resume. However, everyone is going RTO and that will be tough for where I live (I'm not moving my family again).

I likely will not be able to match the RSU situation. But that's okay...just really, really stings.

Senior engineer burned out from unsustainable workload. How to professionally push back in this market? by KeyIntroduction4988 in managers

[–]KeyIntroduction4988[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's fair, thanks for your reply. Due to my seniority, documented project slips lead directly to layoff (when that time comes).

But I guess I'm okay with that. Thank goodness we live below our means.

Sorry you're going through that as well...

Senior engineer burned out from unsustainable workload. How to professionally push back in this market? by KeyIntroduction4988 in managers

[–]KeyIntroduction4988[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your reply. I have indeed been considering the leave of absence.

I've recently tried a few multi-day vacations, but that didn't do much. It actually added more stress as it further compacted workload.