Learn Management Skills

In the good old days, a junior dev would be "just coding" for maybe 5 years, and then would be offered a promotion to become a manager. There are some great books (like The Manager's Path by Camille Fournier) that reflect on this decision point between two paths: individual contributor vs. manager.

It's all different now. You are a manager today. You manage agents.

My startup, MyNextProject.dev, has 7 services, a few kilolines of code each. All but one are TypeScript codebases. And (I even gave a talk about it recently), I don't really know TypeScript.

Yes, I know enough programming to understand what the agents give me; I can detect bullshit and push back. But no, I don't read every single line of code. And, with very few very rare exceptions, I don't write code anymore.

So, what do I do, actually, if I don't code?

1. I set the direction
2. I guide agents
3. I review what agents deliver
4. I unblock them

This is not coding. It's management.

Well, now, will I ever hire a junior dev for my startup if I can just onboard more agents?

Yes! And I did hire amazing interns. I can manage a bunch of agents -- but Jeff Bezos's "two-pizza rule" applies perfectly here: when it gets to be more than a handful, my context gets overloaded. So the only way to scale is to manage human developers who, in turn, will manage agents.

You are a manager. And your new textbook is The Goal. Goldratt, not only Stroustrup.