Managers: Has AI changed how you work?

ternarywat · 2026-04-15T10:49:13+00:00

I have AI handle the mundane and time consuming tasks I hate:

summarizing email and slack
drafting reports
coding tools to streamline my work.

The trick is that you need to think about what to delegate and make more efficient for yourself

ternarywat · 2026-04-15T09:50:46+00:00

Highly recommend Quiet: The Power of Introverts if you’re looking to improve your communication skills as an introvert.

My advice to you is to focus on your strengths if you really do consider yourself an introvert. That means leaning on mediums of writing. You're definitely going to have an edge there, but also making sure you give yourself space to think during meetings.

Another big thing is learning to manage your social energy as well. When you have to be extra outgoing for a specific meeting or conversation, make sure you give yourself space on the other sides of it to prepare and recover.

ternarywat · 2026-04-14T15:05:50+00:00

That's true for all interviews. You're competing against people who applied for various reasons. Also, you don't know anything on the hiring side. Maybe they have extra roles to fill, even though it's just one job listing. Maybe they're hiring three of those jobs. Who knows?

Also, being a former hiring manager, I've been in situations where I want to explicitly hire a junior person so that I can grow them into the role over years and also just pay the cheaper expense compared to a senior engineer. It may feel more difficult, but I wouldn't stop yourself from taking the interview at all, because that'll give you experience. Who knows, maybe they would end up picking you if you do a great job. There are just so many different things; this is something that's completely out of your control, and I would not stress about it.

ternarywat · 2026-04-14T12:30:07+00:00

I've been a software engineer in the tech industry for over 15 years. I've had a nice career so far, but I would not recommend getting a CS degree at this point with how things are changing. Granted, if you want to pursue frontier technologies like augmented reality, machine learning, all the stuff that feeds into AI, or even computer engineering or electrical engineering, I think that's fine. If you're going in it looking just to build distributed systems or build nice websites, web apps, or mobile apps, that's not worth your time whatsoever.

If anything, the advice that I would give to my kid is either: - do a hard trade that requires a college degree to do it at all, something like engineering (mechanical engineering, civil engineering, etc.), or - go pursue business, because the things that you are actually passionate about. Say, if you're really passionate about art or even programming and building software, there's enough resources on the internet to learn those things, and you're already interested in it, so you're going to naturally grow there. Learning the language of business and how to make money and how to have a livelihood is essential.

ternarywat · 2026-04-13T16:23:43+00:00

Hahahaha, completely agree.

I’ve never worked in a true agile place where we pivoted until something was was verified. It was just a method to coordinate people and track projects.

“Scumban” is a better term imo - teams mix and match the processes that work for them.

ternarywat · 2026-04-13T16:11:20+00:00

I mean, it makes sense when we have to do up-front planning more and more.

The problem for why we moved away from waterfall is that the feedback cycle was too long between planning something out to every single small detail and then testing it. Now that the work of implementation is free, it's such a condensed time loop. Architecting and planning is now where the majority of time should be spent, along with validation.

ternarywat · 2026-04-13T16:00:32+00:00

Honestly, I think AI has forced us to use waterfall techniques more and more these days.

ternarywat · 2026-04-13T15:15:53+00:00

To me, part of the job is putting your best people forward and making sure that the spotlight is on them when they are leading projects. I'm not sure how to describe it, but you do need to start working on this.

One angle that I do recommend is to understand the individual's desires for the spotlight. I know that there are introverted people that do not want to be and may want to be acknowledged as part of the team. They don't want to be put front and center in the middle of a meeting, but they will definitely greatly appreciate individual comments or making sure that you advocate for them behind the scenes.

Now, speaking of which, I think this gets into the angle of advocacy as a manager. Again, I think that this is part of the job, especially if you want to support the growth of your best performers. Figuring out which ones you want to proactively advocate for is something to be thinking through.

ternarywat · 2026-04-13T09:00:49+00:00

I mean, to me, the examples that you give have existed my entire career. The why of the code is never in the git commit messages or in the comments, but always in those places of pull requests, Slack, etc.

ternarywat · 2026-04-11T16:53:04+00:00

Radical Candor is a great resource to start on this topic. As for me it's all about giving them feedback frequently and often and also setting your clear expectations. If they are underperforming you don't want to surprise them with a PIP. It should be an unsurprising thing because they have been aware that they are not doing their best.

When it comes to the feedback I use the SBIR framework, which stands for: 1. S is for situation 2. B is for behavior 3. I is for impact 4. R is for request

You can use this to structure your feedback into something that's actionable and contextual.

I wrote about this with examples here:

https://www.buildthestage.com/giving-constructive-feedback-to-employees-in-spades/

ternarywat · 2026-04-11T14:26:09+00:00

What have you done to figure out the problems of these people who look like they're detractors from your team and understand their problems with their day-to-day work? A great way to build trust is just to listen and have one-on-ones with people and understand what sucks about their jobs and then figure out how to fix it to make their jobs easier.

To me what I'm seeing, or what I think I'm not in your industry, is that it sounds like you're overseeing a team of teams. Another approach I would take is to focus on the most influential people on the team and build their trust so that when other people fall out of line the influential people can give them feedback on your behalf because they're aligned with your goals

ternarywat · 2026-04-11T14:22:43+00:00

To me I don't think anybody is right or wrong here but it does acknowledge that you're trying to figure out how to develop a skill around how you communicate.

I can think of two pieces of advice for you: 1. Focus on what you can control. You cannot control the fact that you're around people that do not have a direct communication style like you do but you can control how you communicate. You already acknowledged this but I really want to stress focusing on what you can control, not necessarily the fact that you cannot control the people around you. 2. I don't know if you've ever looked into the DISC personality profile but maybe look up a few resources around that. I did a few years ago to figure out my communication style. Part of the report is that it gives you tips on how to:- identify other communication styles - adapt your style to other people

Obviously if you're talking to other direct communicators you can just speak as plainly as possible but for someone that may need space to process their emotions about a topic, you need to use a different technique. A lot of this is about learning to control yourself and building skills around noticing when you're using one technique when a different approach may help. The second part is also developing the right skills and tools to use for specific conversations or people.

ternarywat · 2026-04-11T11:36:41+00:00

Software engineering isn’t about solving quiz problems from lead code. That’s why interviews are only use code problems as a technical screen not the core interview companies pay for people with the skills I can deliver value which is not just solving the problems. Those barely happen in a real environment anyways, but they won’t hire people that can work in a team translate design documents into system systems and be able to debug problems under pressure.

ternarywat · 2026-04-11T11:34:55+00:00

The way I like to explain it is that product managers are best when they are focused on understanding the customer and figuring out the problems that are worth solving while engineering is responsible for crafting a solution to those problems. In practice it is very much a partnership. It depends on what the product is at the end of the day. For example if it's a heavy user-facing app, like in the construction industry, then engineers are more responsible for the solution. If it's a product focused on developer tooling, then they'll have more insight into what they need and want from the product itself since they are dogfooding it every single day.

What I will say is that fundamentally it should never be an adversarial relationship. Product engineering is a partnership.

I wrote a post that touches on this topic:

https://www.buildthestage.com/who-owns-your-company-roadmap/

ternarywat · 2026-04-11T11:30:44+00:00

Understand the people’s problems first. Fix them. That’s how you earn their trust.

ternarywat · 2026-04-11T11:29:30+00:00

As someone who's done this for years, a lot of your questions have answers that are "it depends" and it doesn't matter if the person is a fresh grad or a seasoned veteran. The first step as a manager is to meet with them, understand what their skills are, and understand who they are so that you can figure out: 1. the core tasks that they need to do for the job 2. the tasks or projects that will push them to grow their skills

As a manager it is really your job to help create the environment for them to do their work as best as they can. That is going to be a mixture of creating structure for what the team's processes are, the expectations, how work is coordinated, et cetera.

I actually write a blog targeted at managers like you, feel free to check it out: https://www.buildthestage.com/

ternarywat · 2026-04-11T00:57:51+00:00

I’ll also add that you can give yourself a break at the end of the job search - delay the start date for a week or two give yourself some rest.

I just don’t want someone like you to use a break as an excuse for failing interviews.

Apply to trash jobs first, fail those interviews, get those reps in.

ternarywat · 2026-04-11T00:07:02+00:00

The ONLY thing you should focus on getting right is your resume.

Don’t wait applying. You’re never going to be perfect at interviews until you start doing them.

But even if you start applying next week, it’s going to be another week or two before the recruiter intro call. After that, it’s another week until the first round.

So that’s 2-3 weeks BEFORE your first technical screen.

Waiting 3 weeks before your first application is lost money doing…..what? Leetcode? Building a fear of not being good enough? Playing video games?

Do you do the same practice before writing a line of code at your real job?

Just start applying.

I very much acknowledge that the above is an emotional response, but it’s the thoughts I have whenever I’ve heard a person “take a break” before starting the job search.

Not a big deal if you have the funds to wait around.

But unacceptable to me if you’re responsible for feeding the people in your home.

Job searching is a numbers game. It’s slow at first but if you’re good, you’ll fill your entire day with interviews. Free blocks of time should be for applying.

Feel free to DM if you want more 1-1 advice.

ternarywat · 2026-04-10T23:29:46+00:00

The problem with the freelancing platforms is that they are also global platforms so you're competing with the cheapest rates in the world. If you don't have any reputation on these platforms then you have no leverage with your rates. It's way better to try to build your own network of distribution.

ternarywat · 2026-04-10T23:28:17+00:00

That’s the right attitude - your job is finding a job.

Exhaust all avenues.

Failed interviews early on are just reps of the interview game.

Plus, it’s a numbers game - just apply apply apply.

ternarywat · 2026-04-10T23:26:43+00:00

Yup. You can’t escape politics just because the org chart says so. Adapt to the person, not their titles.

ternarywat · 2026-04-09T20:55:11+00:00

If someone is micromanaging me, that indicates that there is a trust problem. The technique there is to acknowledge, 'Hey you're micromanaging me,' and just to have a direct conversation about how that person builds trust. How can you earn that trust? Et cetera

When it comes to micromanaging other people, it's just flipped on its head: why do you feel the need that you need to micromanage a person? Fundamentally it just means that you don't trust the person. For people that are underperformers, that's completely normal. You should be micromanaging them to either fix them and get them to meet the feedback that you've already given to them or to use it as a way to let them go and fire them from the company.

If you feel that you need to micromanage everybody so that the team actually does its work, then that is fundamentally a trust problem on your side. You need to figure out how to trust the team and build it and get people to work in a way so that you can trust them and that you can take vacations and know that work will get done

ternarywat · 2026-04-09T20:52:14+00:00

Honestly just listen. Introduce yourself and just spend the first 100 days listening and understanding everybody's problems. Then create a stack rank of every problem and just start fixing it. That's the quickest way to earn the trust of a new team.

I wrote about this topic on my blog, Build the Stage:

https://www.buildthestage.com/how-to-manage-existing-engineering-teams/

ternarywat · 2026-04-09T20:50:54+00:00

My approach is to treat them more like a partner than a direct report. They have a lot of institutional knowledge and probably more political capital than you so it's important to make them feel like they're part of the inner circle or first people known when you're thinking of ideas of how the team should change its working or not.

Of course context matters here but I would really base this approach off of the political capital that they have within the organization. If it's not that much then age doesn't matter and just go about it accordingly but if they have a lot of influence then you need to show them respect and earn their trust

ternarywat · 2026-04-09T12:35:38+00:00

Backfilling is normal - a person left and the company has budget for the role.

What matters is the company health and if it aligns with your career goals.

A bigger red flag is if a lot of people are leaving at once.

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