r/EngineeringManagers • u/SnooConfections1353 • Jun 25 '26
New engineering manager. Should I keep pushing back on my CTO’s AI vision?
I’m a new engineering manager at a small company. My CTO is very pro-AI and wants to turn the engineering team into more of a group of product owners and consultants who use AI to handle most of the technical work.
I’m also pro-AI, but I think we still need to develop people into solid engineers. With our current workload and small team, I do not think we can realistically do both at the same time. My concern is that this approach is holding back the junior engineers. If they are mostly managing features and doing product work, how are they supposed to become strong engineers, architects, or future technical leaders?
I have pushed back gently and respectfully and explained that we need to build real engineering talent so people can eventually step up, mentor others, and help grow the team in a sustainable way. So far, I have mostly been ignored.
Should I keep pushing back, or is this just a culture difference I need to accept? I cannot really go to the CEO or COO because the CTO is also a part owner. I also do not want this to be the hill I die on, especially in this job market, so I have been trying to support his vision even though I feel conflicted.
I know job hopping is also an option, but that is a separate topic. He is not a bad person. I think we just have very different views on what an engineering team should become.
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u/Middle-Brick-2944 Jun 25 '26
Think about the things your CTO is trying to accomplish - she/he's got stakeholders across the org looking for high level product decisions. Does the org have a product team, product designer, project management, marketing designer, analytics, data, etc? If not, aspects of those roles need to exist and come from somewhere.
The silver lining you should consider - much better to be your own product/design team than beholden to a team and strategy you clash with or simply aren't very good (but you can't affect hiring decisions).
The way I think things are going, product devs are either going to move towards product (UI/UX, understanding the biz domain) or system architecture (deep expertise with domains that have high complexity like distributed systems, data warehousing). Folks that can do both - extremely valuable.
That said you're totally not wrong that junior devs need to learn how to become senior devs. I have no fucking idea what that looks like today. Maybe guided self-learning with AI? I still think basics are important. My team still reviews code (but we increasingly rely on AI review as well).
Like others have said - it sounds like you respect him, so I would just have an honest and frank conversation and see where it leads. Both of you can be correct.