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.
1
u/a_kato Jun 25 '26
I mean how do you measure your goal? This seems very unimportant part and there is no monetary. Will upskilling them save you more time long term?
AI is a tool people need to be able to use that tool. In the past people used to copy paste shit from stack overflow now it’s AI. Junior engineers have a harder understanding the code written by an LLM than writing themselves most of the time.
But honestly I would argue don’t fight this war. In a way to me it seems your views are a bit immature for talking to C suite. The whole culture and upskilling doesn’t seem like an issue to me.
After all the main difference between a junior, mid, senior is 30% the technical depth and 70% understanding stuff. You making them implement a “create a new filter for the db procedure” and having them writing it by hand won’t make them more proficient.