We Are All Tech Leads Now

The era of the "coder" is over.

We are witnessing the "TechLead-ification" of the software engineer.

With AI agents handling the implementation details, we are all shifting toward work usually reserved for Staff Engineers and Tech Leads: system design, architecture planning, code reviews, and aligning technical roadmaps.

Initially, I was skeptical. I considered AI to bo just a fun toy. I made silly mistakes. It hallucinated a lot. I told myself what we all told ourselves: "Clearly, this will not replace me."

But the technology evolved faster than my scepticism could hold out. The models improved, the tooling matured, and I finally had to admit: This stuff is good.

I rarely write code the "normal" way anymore. Line by line, function by function. That approach feels increasingly archaic.

Now, I define scope, expected outcomes, and test cases, and then I release the agent to do its thing. It feels less like programming and more like managing a Junior Engineer, one who never sleeps and never complains. One who always tells me I'm absolutely right.

The Great Squeeze

I see my colleagues experiencing a similar shift. The definition of "coding" has fundamentally changed. With our herd of AI agents, we are not just more efficient in writing code. The whole idea of what "coding" means for us is different.

We are entering an era where the "Junior Engineer" is software, not a person.

The Missing Junior

Historically, software engineering advances by abstraction. High-level languages abstracted away assembly; frameworks abstracted away boilerplate. Now, AI agents are abstracting away the implementation itself.

Across the industry, coding agents like Cursor and Claude are reshaping engineering roles by effectively absorbing the tasks traditionally assigned to juniors. With AI handling implementation details, humans are being pushed to become full-stack generalists.

When daily coding is being handled by automatons, the centre of gravity shifts from writing to reviewing. The challenge is no longer syntax; it is ensuring that the AI's output aligns with high-level architecture, security standards, and the product vision.

Successfully managing this "AI workforce" requires experience and intuition that junior engineers simply haven't built yet.

The result is the devastation of entry-level roles.

Big Tech companies reduced hiring of new graduates by 25% in 2024, building on a 50% drop since 2019. The math is brutal: An AI tool costing $20/month that boosts productivity by 30% is far more attractive than hiring a junior developer who requires a salary, benefits, and months of mentorship.

We are moving toward a "hollowed org chart": Senior architects at the top, AI agents handling the grunt work at the bottom, and a missing middle where juniors used to learn the ropes.

With shrinking team sizes and the disappearance of junior roles, the complex scaffolding built to manage large engineering organisations loses its purpose. The meetings, the coordinators, the layers of alignment. They were there to manage human communication friction.

With that friction gone, they now look like an expensive bureaucracy.

The Great Flattening

The "Great Flattening" is the relentless push for efficiency. It is an organisational purge designed to remove management layers, strip away bureaucratic roles, and push former managers back into hands-on contribution.

The scale is dramatic, and the industry is sending a clear signal:

• Intel cut 15,000 positions as the CEO declared that "the best leaders get the most done with the fewest people."
• Amazon eliminated thousands of middle management roles, with CEO Andy Jassy explicitly stating the company needs "fewer people doing some of the jobs being done today."
• Meta gave managers an offer they cannot refuse: transition to individual contributor roles or leave.
• Palantir is effectively cutting management layers entirely in favour of Tech Lead-driven teams.

This is a new dynamic. Even if these companies use AI as a convenient excuse for cost-cutting, the trend is irreversible. Choosing a pure "people management" career path is no longer the safe bet it once was.

With code mostly written by AI agents, implementation is no longer the bottleneck. You simply don't need a massive headcount to deliver features anymore. And with fewer coders, you have shorter communication lines and simpler processes. The complex management layer, originally designed to orchestrate armies of humans, is now redundant.

With a tighter job market, catering to employee "happiness" is no longer the primary metric. We see it everywhere: strict performance reviews, success metrics centred purely on delivery, and unregretted attrition. Return to the office or leave. Hell, they will probably take away the free fruit, too.

The days of the "hands-off" manager are over. The remaining leaders will be expected to manage, architect, code, and review. With fewer managers, spans of control will widen. There is no time for deep personal connections or weekly "therapy sessions".

The ZIRP Anomaly. This shouldn't be surprising. "People Management", as we knew it in tech, was an exception. A temporary anomaly of our industry.

It was a product of the ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy) era, where capital was free and "headcount" was a vanity metric for growth. You will struggle to find any other industry where managers are expected to cater so intensely to the personal needs of their staff. Where every employee has a personal coach, weekly 1:1s, mindfulness sessions, and personalised development plans.

It was beautiful while it lasted, but it’s gone. We are returning to the industrial norm: A few high-level managers focused on strategy, while everyone else, human or agent, gets their hands dirty.

The Rise of the Tech Lead

Squeezed from the top, gnawed from the bottom. Engineering organisations will look vastly different in the next five years.

This shift will give rise to a new archetype: The AI Lead. The herder of agents. A senior, experienced builder who vibe engineers an entire stream of work end-to-end by orchestrating a fleet of AI coding agents with minimal operational and communication overhead.

This role is effectively a merger of the Tech Lead and Staff Engineer. It is deeply technical and product-oriented, requiring strong leadership and execution skills. It focuses on system design, architecture, and alignment between teams.

Just as Tech Leads today break down tasks for human juniors, this new engineer will define scope, set boundaries, and verify output for AI agents. They won't just write code; they will produce software.

As with any industrial revolution, the divide will be sharp. You can continue to compete on syntax and typing speed, or you can learn to conduct the orchestra. The former is a race to the bottom; the latter is the future of our industry.

Return to Craft

The transition will be painful, but for the true builders, it is also liberating. For years, we complained about the meetings, the bureaucracy, and the friction of large organisations.

We wanted to just build.

Well, the bluff has been called. The scaffolding is gone, the organisation charts are shrinking, the net of bureaucracy is being cut relentlessly, and we are left with the raw power of creation in our hands. We are no longer cogs in a feature factory; we are the factory.

We can all now be 10x Engineers.

Time to build.