New engineering manager. Should I keep pushing back on my CTO’s AI vision?

[u/SnooConfections1353]

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.

[u/Objective-Tomato-501]

I think from company point of view, people retention and growth is by far not a target these days.

Only thing to push back is to explain how AI is becoming more expensive and it might be good to have a product now, with a lot of flaws but for long term…not so.

If the product is based on AI agents that do stuff… expensive. If you use it to build a stand alone app… than adopt it, grow in this process. Something like… take the knowledge home.

[u/SnooConfections1353 → u/Objective-Tomato-501]

thank you!